Sweet Rivalry

by K. Bromberg

  So I need to think about winning the bid. Then he’ll be gone. The distraction over.

  But as I look at him…

  …his fingers…

  …I’m not sure if winning in the end…

  …They play with the thick end of his beard…

  …is going to rid me of that crush I have on him…

  Finger it. Slowly.

  …or will this time with him…

  Methodically.

  …slowly stoke its forgotten fire back to life?

  Sexily.

  And I can’t help but wonder if that’s how he touches a woman. With that much finesse.

  “Harper?”

  I’ll blame it on the beard. But I know it’s so much more than that.

  Sexual chemistry like this is impossible to ignore. Hard not to satisfy. And definitely hasn’t gone away in the thirteen years since I’d seen him last. That want feels stronger, if that’s even possible.

  After, Harper. Reward sex after you win. Remember?

  “Huh? What?” Pulling my gaze from his fingers, I look up to find a question in his eyes, and I’m immediately embarrassed. I swear to God he knows what I’m thinking and that in itself is mortifying.

  Of course he knows. He’s the one who had to bring up beard burn earlier just to make sure I knew that he’d heard me.

  Seconds pass with our eyes searching each other’s before he finally lets me off the hook, allows the sly smile to ghost over his lips despite the knowing look in his eyes, and then speaks. “You were answering my question.”

  My synapses misfire. They’re stuck on my thoughts of him and his beard and wondering about his fingers and not on the here and now. And I need them to be on the here and now. “I’m sorry. I was distracted by my figures.”

  “Your figures?” His chuckle tells me he’s not buying my lie and the amusement in his eyes sparks my need to explain how my gaze can be on him but my mind on my numbers.

  “Yeah. My figures. I was contemplating if I needed to change them in case you came over here and copied them while I was gone.” There. Take that.

  But he’s not offended in the least. His laugh is back and grating on my nerves as it sounds off around me. “You really think I’d steal your numbers? That that’s the only way I could beat you?” This time it’s him giving me a look of disbelieving shock, as if I’m crazy. But when I don’t smile at him in return, his smile fades slowly. “Really? You think I’d stoop that low? I’m not that desperate,” he says with a shake of his head and a quirk of a smile. “Yet.”

  “You will be,” I quip, feeling a bit more on steadier ground now that we are engaged in the bantering we are most comfortable with.

  He laughs again but the sudden sincerity in his smile and softening in his eyes as he stares at me takes me by surprise. “It’s been a long time, Harper.”

  My mind is whiplashed from the change of pace and I hate that just when I feel like I’ve gotten my wits about me, he says something to knock them askew again. But even with a sudden about-face in the conversation, his words cause a smile to slide onto my lips and that little flutter in my belly to come to life. “It has.”

  “It’s good to see you again.” He pauses and nods. The look on his face is unreadable. “You look good. The same but different.”

  “So do you.”

  “I’m still the same guy. You’re just seeing me through different eyes.”

  I bite back my immediate dismissal of his words and wonder what he means by them. Have I changed that much? And if I have, how would he know it in the hours since we’ve reacquainted? “Perhaps.” It’s the only way I know how to answer.

  His stare is unwavering as he gauges if my words are true. “Why the change in hair color?”

  “Do you like it?” The question is out without thought and I hate that it appears I care if he likes the change.

  “Yes.” He nods. “But I liked you as a brunette too.”

  “Sometimes change is good. Sometimes it’s even needed.”

  He studies me. “True.” He draws the single word out as if he’s trying to figure out what I mean so I say something quick to prevent him from drawing his own conclusions.

  “Why the beard?” Crap. That wasn’t obvious or anything. First thing off the top of my head and it’s that. Lovely.

  He shrugs nonchalantly, which is in direct contradiction to the knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Do you like it?”

  Dear God, he’s really going to ask me that after he knows damn well I do after he caught me staring?

  I stutter over an answer. Can’t find one other than a quick nod with a tight smile as once again he’s left me rattled by being nothing but himself. Feeling this way in my early twenties was one thing, but I’m a grown woman, confident in my professional abilities and in my sexuality. I should not be rattled by anyone.

  Least of all him.

  But I am.

  “I should get back to work.” I make the excuse knowing damn well I don’t want to talk about his beard anymore––or stare at it or think about it and its oh-so-good-burn––and least of all with him. “Was there something you needed?”

  “Nope. Not. A. Thing.” His voice is slow and certain and yet he doesn’t move. Doesn’t look away. Just stares with questions in his eyes I can’t quite read and am not sure I really want to.

  “Then stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop staring at me. Can’t you look somewhere else?”

  When he smiles this time, I notice the hair around his mouth bends with its curve upward, and it takes all I have to look up to his eyes. “We sit five feet across from each other, Harp. You’re in my line of sight. Besides…” He shrugs. “You’re far from a hardship to look at.”

  My mind stumbles over his comment. It freezes. Then refires. Did he just say what I think he said?

  “First off, Ryd, you’re standing and not sitting, so the solution to this little problem is that you can walk anywhere else in the room and stare just as easily. There’s a window over there and a whole city below. Why don’t you try that? I’m sure that’s more satisfying, more inspiring than looking at me. And another thing, don’t call me Harp,” I add for good measure before looking back down to make incoherent notes on my pad of paper, unsure why I’m mad at him all of a sudden other than the fact that he keeps flustering me and I’m not easily flustered.

  And it’s driving me crazy.

  “Still hostile, I see.”

  “Still an asshole, I see,” I mutter but know he can hear it.

  “You’re right. My apologies.”

  My eyes flash back to his, stare and search for the sarcasm there and see nothing but candor. The sarcasm would have been easier to deal with. “You know what? Quit being like that.”

  “Like what?” His face is a mask of innocence.

  “Like. That.”

  “A little more help would be appreciated. How about an adjective or two? You know, a descriptive word?”

  “Nice. There’s an adjective for you.”

  “You say nice like it’s a bad thing,” he muses with a lift of one eyebrow, and the singular action only serves to infuriate me further.

  “It is when it’s coming from you.”

  “I’ll remember that. I’ll be sure to be an asshole from now on then. Just to you, though.”

  “You do that,” I say with a flippant nod and my every nerve irritated and turned on by him simultaneously.

  “So that’s how you’re going to be, huh?” He raises his eyebrows.

  “Were you expecting anything different?”

  Our eyes hold across the office space. They war over who’s going to take the next step in this sweet rivalry of a dance we’re slowly remembering the steps to.

  “Never.” His grin is fast and the gleam in his eyes tells me he’s more than ready.

  Needing to break that magnetic hold he seems to have on me, I glance toward the window––to the daylight outside. “Time to get
to work,” I mutter and when he doesn’t respond, I glance back to him to see if he heard me. And his eyes are still on mine but his hands are starting to roll up the cuff of one of his shirtsleeves. “Better roll them up really high. It’s about to get real hot for you with me back in town.”

  “I can take the heat just fine, Denton.” His laugh is loud and pulls on my own smile to widen. “Thank you for your concern but it’s not needed. I happen to be working double duty today. Superhero and badass estimator all in one.”

  “Oh, please.” I roll my eyes as his fingers turn up his cuff. “As if.”

  “I’m dead serious. As a matter of fact, I happened to have the buttons of my sleeve pulled right off when I caught a damsel in distress earlier today. She debuttoned it when I saved her from a certain fall to her death.”

  “A fall to her death?” I laugh. Damn him for making me want to keep talking.

  “It was perilous. Dirt and high heels are a treacherous combination. It says so right here in my superhero manual. There’s a whole chapter on it. ‘Damsels in Heels’ I think is its title.”

  “I’m not a damsel, I don’t need…” My voice fades off when my eyes flash down to where his fingers are folding back the cuff on his right arm. Because holy shit, I see ink.

  A lot of colorful ink.

  For the love of God, he has tattoos.

  And not just a simple, one-off tattoo, but rather ink from his wrist on up to his flexing forearm and beyond where I can’t see.

  How did I not notice the shadow of ink beneath his dress shirt?

  And when in the hell did preppy-boy Ryder Rodgers transform into that mythical guy who hits every single one of my buttons?

  For a moment, I’m rendered incoherent. It’s like I know him but know nothing about him…and now with this new discovery, he just became ten times hotter. Superficial? Yes. My reality? Definitely. And then of course I realize I was midsentence and can’t even remember the comeback that was on my tongue.

  Shit. That’s twice in a single conversation he’s done that to me.

  But there were tattoos. I’m ink-struck. Can you blame me?

  “You don’t need what?” he prompts as his hands falter on his shirt cuff and bring me back to the present.

  My gaze slowly lifts to meet the humor swimming in his. He’s caught me looking. First at his beard and now at his tattoos. So much for being inconspicuous and acting unaffected.

  I open my mouth and then close it, not sure how to respond because I sure as hell am not a damsel in distress but I’m definitely acting like the helpless heroine right now.

  The door to the office sounds off and voices follow, alerting us some of the others are back from lunch.

  I straighten my shoulders and stiffen my spine. “I am not a damsel,” I repeat with a little less conviction than before. “I don’t need to be saved, by you or anyone else.”

  “So I’ve learned.” He starts to walk toward his desk and then stops and looks back at me. “A princess may not need to be saved, but she sure as shit needs to take a ride on that unicorn she’s found every once in a while. He’ll remind her she needs to live instead of staying locked up tight in that tower of hers.”

  And with that, he turns his back to me again and walks out of the room while I’m left staring after him, pretending to the others like there’s nothing between Ryder and me, all the while wondering what in the hell he meant by it.

  Chapter Seven

  Harper

  “From the information we’ve been given, most of us are assuming it’s some type of government facility. FBI headquarters. West Coast operations hub. Definitely something to do with the government and quite possibly Homeland Security.”

  “Hence the need for the secrecy,” my boss concludes in that resonating tone of his.

  “It’s only a theory.” I walk toward the window of the extended-stay room in the hotel we’ve all been placed in and watch the people on the street below hustling to wherever they are going. It hits me how much I miss my home. Well, my home, but no longer my city.

  “No, it makes complete sense. There were rumors late last year that the land had been acquired for the Department of Defense.” He pauses as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Tell me you’ll win this job, Harper.”

  I nod my head knowing he can’t me see through the line but hate that for the first time in what feels like forever, I’m not one hundred percent certain when I give him my answer. Ryder’s affected me when I can’t let him affect me. “That’s the plan.”

  “You’re a woman who’s made some huge promises, and I’m counting on you to deliver on them.”

  I close my eyes for a moment and cringe at the deal I made with him. My assurance I could get him this project in turn for the job. A Hail Mary on my part to get my feet back in the water again.

  “I’ll deliver, Wade. No worries there.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  But when I hang up a few minutes later, I feel no more at ease with my promise than the first time I said it.

  And it’s because of Ryder. All of it.

  Because I want him and can’t have him. Sleeping with the enemy is not an option this time around, but the memory of his kiss way back when is enough to make me want more.

  Because he looks so very different but is so much the same. A good guy who now has a bit of an edge to him, with that sexy beard and those mysterious tattoos.

  Because he’s irritating and knows just how to get under my skin and regardless of how hard I tell myself to shut him out, it almost seems like an open invitation to let him in.

  How did Hot-Suit-Guy in the lobby and a promise of possible reward sex for getting the job turn into Hot-Suit-Guy being Ryder and oh-how-do-I-want-to-sleep-with-him but after everything in New York, sleeping with anyone who is affiliated with my work is off limits?

  A deal breaker.

  And now I’m tired and irritated with a long-ass day of work in front of me—across from him no less—because all I did was toss and turn all night. And the few times sleep did come, I dreamt of him. And not just any dreams, but ones where he was unbuttoning that shirt of his and then pulling it off.

  Toned. Tanned. Etched in ink.

  Of course those were my dreams—not reality—but that doesn’t mean I didn’t lie in bed this morning wondering if his chest is as delectable as my subconscious has created it to be.

  And then there is that damn beard of his. If my dreams were any indication, it sure as hell felt like heaven between my thighs.

  The problem is, now I want to know if it feels just as good in real life.

  “And that’s why you need to work from here for a bit,” I mumble to myself as I force the thoughts from my mind right along with the memory of the incredible orgasm that ripped me from my dreams to find my fingers between my thighs earlier this morning.

  There are definitely worse ways to wake up than from a powerful orgasm but the problem is now I’m obsessing over Ryder and how it would feel if my fingers were replaced by his hardened dick.

  I shake my head and laugh at my lunacy. There’s definitely no way I can head in to the office just yet. All it will take is one glance his way to bring my dreams to the forefront of my mind. To recall how his hands had parted my thighs before his mouth and beard lowered its way to taste and tempt and taunt me into oblivion. No doubt I’d be so distracted by the memory that I’d purposely make every one of my calculations equal sixty-nine or something.

  Subtle. Real subtle.

  God, things were much easier when the irritation factor outweighed the sexual attraction factor when it came to him. So I’ll work from here for a while before I head in.

  Let the dream fade. The image I made in my head dissipate. The feel of his touch lessen.

  Focus on being irritated with him. That’s safe. That’s productive.

  And time to get to it.

  I look out across the square where Century Development sits opposite my hotel and then to my makeshift project
plot map I’ve made on the wall of my hotel room. The one I started working on last night when I couldn’t sleep. Color coordinated notes litter the diagram in clusters––one grouping for each building: pink for things I need to remember, blue for questions I need to ask myself, and yellow for information that links one building to the next.

  I’m missing something in my calculations—I know and can feel it—but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is yet. Some tiny detail that will set my numbers apart from everyone else and land me the job.

  And I need to use this distraction-free space to find it.

  Just as I step forward to reread my notes, the dull throb in my temples I’ve been ignoring all morning begins to pound stronger. My body’s subtle reminder that it’s been way too long since I’ve had a caffeine fix is demanding attention.

  I’ll go get coffee first.

  And then I’ll come back here with a clearer mind, the buzz of caffeine, and work for a bit.

  Distraction free.

  Chapter Eight

  Harper

  I never do well with spontaneity.

  Case in point: I’m currently lost in this maze of a mall trying to get back from the Starbucks that took me way too long to find, and all I want to do is get to work.

  Somehow I got turned around, had a mild panic attack when I came out the opposite side of the coffee house, spent way too long trying to get my bearings, and then when I finally did, couldn’t find the elevator.

  But I know where I’m going now. Up five floors to the sixth and then across the parking garage to my hotel. And with coffee in my system, the elevator door in front of me, and my headache subsided, my mind is already working through mental bullet points about what I can do to strengthen my proposal and trim some dollars.

  Details I neglected to consider yesterday because I was distracted by a certain someone. A someone I am determined today to ignore.

  My brain is a Ryder-free zone. Or so I told myself over and over as I waited in line for my coffee. And I repeat the mantra again as I step into the elevator car when it arrives on the second floor.