No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  Oh. “Sorry?”

  He made a growling sound deep in his throat that went straight to my clit. “No, you’re not.”

  I grinned. “No, I’m not.” The image of a strained Gage trying to hide his hard-on under his desk made me want to giggle. “Uh, you do know that your desk is clear glass, right? Everyone can probably see you anyways.”

  His eyes widened in shock. Clearly, he hadn’t thought of that.

  With the dexterity of a Cirque de Soleil artist, he lifted my legs off his lap, pulled me so that I was lying on the couch, my hair flowing over the armrest, and twisted around until he was prone on top of me. His knees held him up, one on either side of my leg over my skirt, effectively pinning me down. I was at his mercy—and so far he’d shown me little.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  MADDIE

  He lowered his head to mine, kissing me sweetly at first. His lips were soft against mine, but when they parted a little, I could taste the rich wine we’d had. When I whimpered a little, needing more, he deepened the kiss until I felt like I’d drunk the whole bottle myself.

  My arms went around him, my hands almost clawing at his back through his shirt. Kissing Gage was quickly becoming my favorite pastime. His mouth slanted over mine, drawing out the deepest, darkest response from me. He dragged desire out of me that I didn’t know I had in me. My hands went to his head, his silky hair between my fingers and his jaw clenching under the heels of my hands.

  “Gage, I need you.”

  “Oh god, I need you too.”

  I looked in his eyes and saw him struggling to reconcile the pressure of his passion with his need for control. I kissed him tenderly then nipped his bottom lip to surprise him. He moaned, his pupils dilating with arousal.

  “Let go for me,” I begged him. “I want all of you, not just the parts that you think are appropriate or safe. I want you to let go of all that self-restraint and give me everything. You want everything from me? Well then, you have to give it up too.”

  He looked thoughtful, even a little frightened at the idea of losing his grip on the reins. “You want my best and my worst,” he mused.

  For better or worse, in sickness and in health… I couldn’t ignore the familiar words that his own triggered in my head. Even the fleeting idea of commitment like that should have scared me, but there, in his arms, the fire spitting behind us, I felt safer than I had since my Gotcha Day.

  “Well, maybe not your worst,” I warned him. “You can be a bit of an, uh…”

  “Asshole?”

  “I was going to say know-it-all, but that works too.”

  He slowly licked up the side of my neck like I was an ice cream cone, making me hitch a breath in my straining lungs. “Are you sure you want my best?” he whispered.

  “I want you—the real you, the scary, ugly you. Not the CEO or the optimized iteration.” I couldn’t help scoffing at the jargon he sometimes dictated.

  “I’m trying to communicate plainly with you here, so strip all that crap away and gimme, gimme, gimme. I’m not saying I have to be on top or anything.” My face heated at his raised eyebrow. Maybe his words of confidence and trust had seeped into me. “Or that I want to be in charge, but I want to be on the same level.”

  Slowly he nodded. “That seems… fair.”

  Despite my bold words, I was trembling with nerves as well as lust. I’d never asked so much of him before. And if I were being honest, I was a little afraid of getting it. But I was putting myself out there, climbing that pole and leaping. The least he could do was jump as well.

  “Forget ‘fair’, Gage. You’re measuring, analyzing again. Just feel me.”

  His hands roamed over me, his gaze following closely behind. His knuckles nudged the curves at the bottom of my breasts and pressed gently to feel the bumps of my ribcage. He tugged my blouse out of the waistband of my skirt so he could slide his hands across my warm, tingling skin.

  “Ahhhh!” A gasp escaped me as I reminded myself to let go as well.

  With surprising grace, he rolled me to the floor in front of the fireplace and undid the buttons on my blouse. I pulled it off while he took off his own shirt, and my hands went to the fastening on my skirt. Gage bent over to slide my skirt down my legs. He tossed it on the couch while he slowly undid his pants.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his hands paused at his waist.

  My answer was to wriggle out of my bra and panties and lie there, letting the heat from both his gaze and the fire lick my naked body.

  With a pained grunt, he shoved his jeans and briefs down and kicked them off. He stood above me, his erection in his hand. He was strong, lithe, and all man. Idly he stroked himself, watching me watch him. Inside I was loosening, lengthening in anticipation of him, my body reacting in pure, primal ways.

  I stretched out my arms and spread my legs, beckoning him. “No games, no expectations. Just us.”

  His hand moved over his cock as he bit his lower lip. “What about—”

  “Just us. I trust you, Gage.” Did he have any idea what that meant to me? It was not something I doled out lightly.

  He knelt before me, his shaft bobbing between us. Despite being on display for him, his gaze was completely focused on my face. The crown of my head was hot from the fire, but the way he looked at me made me shiver.

  With a tentative touch, he tested my readiness. The second he touched me I wanted to yelp and moan. But I forced myself to be still and quiet, to let him feel me. He bent over me, the hot, hard tip of his cock nudging at my entrance. He offered each of my nipples a soft, wet kiss then rested his ear on my left breast.

  “I can hear your heart,” he said quietly, his head rising and falling with each breath I took.

  “I’m impressed you slowed down long enough to listen.”

  He lifted his head to look at me. Other than a faint line across his forehead, his face was smooth, washed clean of worry or fierce ambition. “Jesus, Maddie. You will be the death of me.”

  “No.” I smiled. “I will be the life of you. I promise. But I have health insurance through work, just in case. Now fuck me.”

  He let out a sharp laugh then sighed, averting his eyes. “No, Madeline. I’m not going to fuck you.”

  I stilled in shock and shame. Oh god. This is why I shouldn’t commit. It was too risky, too easy to look foolish and vulnerable and oh my god why did I—

  “I want to make love to you,” he said, interrupting my inner tailspin.

  My heart stretched like an overinflated balloon, threatening to pop.

  A cracked noise burst from my throat as I reached for him. With determined deliberation, he lined himself up at my entrance before cocking an eyebrow at me. I nodded, swallowing hard. My hips tilted in anticipation.

  He entered me slowly—too slowly—getting about halfway inside when I groaned. Already I felt full, my whole body swollen with my need for him. Then he stopped.

  “Please, Gage. I need all of you,” I repeated.

  His forehead, neck and chest were getting damp from heat and the strain of subduing his desire for domination.

  “Meet me in the middle,” he demanded in a hoarse voice.

  So I ran my hands over the muscles of his shoulders and back, down to the flexing perfection of his ass. Clutching him and with my legs wound around his thighs, I enveloped him. We both exhaled as he bottomed out inside me. I’d never felt so close to anyone, had never even wanted to. It was intimate, genuine and terrifying.

  “God, Madeline. You take my breath away.” He rested his forehead on mine. His breath was hot on my face, caressing my lips like a ghostly kiss.

  I felt the same way. Then again, he was lying on top of me and probably outweighed me by at least sixty pounds.

  We began rocking together slowly, instinctively knowing to work together as a team. Maybe we were finally mastering effective interpersonal communication. Every stroke he made, I rose to meet. Every time my lips met his skin, we branded each other.

  “Fuck
, you feel amazing,” he grunted harshly as he slid home inside me.

  “I know, I know!” A familiar tension was building in me, making me want to cling to him so it didn’t slip away. He kissed me, his tongue darting into my mouth with every drive of his hard body against mine. It still wasn’t enough.

  He thrust again and again, making my head tilt back in dizzy rapture. “Oh my god, I feel like you’re touching my heart from the inside!”

  “Madeline, I’m so close,” he ground out in warning. The lines around his mouth and eyes tightened.

  I ran my hands up and down his back, memorizing the line of his spine. “It’s okay. Let go. I’m there too,” I panted. My climax was bubbling deep within me, promising to burst up and flood me.

  Then it did, spilling forth and drowning me with pleasure. “Gage, oh so good!”

  He arched back a little, the tanned line of his neck taut. A harsh shout burst from his mouth. When he looked down at me, it was with a shocked expression. He’d truly lost control with me.

  “Take me, Maddie. Take it all.” His blue eyes were wide and wild. He tried to hold the rest of his body straight and strong, but his hips jerked against me helplessly, as though disconnected from his brain.

  Watching him ride out the orgasm that I gave him was the hottest, heaviest thing I’d ever seen.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed, collapsing on me. He burrowed his burning face into my neck, his body trembling as he tried to regain control of his senses.

  I fondled the smooth dark hair at the back of his head, my own body still pulsing as it tried to keep him inside. It took me a moment of feeling his weight on me to recognize all the emotions competing for attention in me—I’d spent so many years trying to push them down.

  I felt sated, relieved, happy, shy, and safe. Mostly I was proud—but for him. I was so happy that he could feel the joy of being spontaneous, of letting go of his expectations and fears and just living in the moment, in me. My eyes burned and watered at the wave of emotion that came over me. Gage had really given himself to me, and it was the most valuable gift he could ever bestow.

  With a reluctant groan, he rolled off me but still pulled me with him so we were lying on our sides facing each other. The heat of the fire was probably singing my hair, but I didn’t care. He trailed his hand over the curve of my shoulder, the dip of my waist and the swell of my hip, with rapt focus and reverence.

  “Yours,” I whispered.

  “All mine?”

  I pressed my hand to his heart, feeling it beat under his hot skin. “All mine.” Then I gathered my courage to do what I had to do. “Gage?”

  “Hmmm?” He was completely distracted by my skin in the firelight.

  “I quit.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  GAGE

  “You what?” I snatched my hand back as though sparks from the fireplace had ignited her skin.

  “I quit. My job,” she added.

  That’s what I thought she’d said. I’d lost swimmers, not brain cells. What was she talking about?

  I examined her closely. She’d rolled onto her belly, her chin resting on her crossed arms. A dreamy smile masked her face and her eyes closed against the glow of the fire, which needed stoking.

  “Madeline, what are you talking about?”

  For someone without that much experience with men, she sure knew how to kill the mood. Then again, that could explain her lack of experience.

  She turned her head, resting the side of it on her forearms to look at me. “Do you want me?”

  My gaze swept over her pink ear, the bright hair swept around her neck like a scarf, the valley of her spine sweeping down to the creamy hills of her ass. With her arms raised, the sides of her luscious tits bubbled out from beneath her body.

  Oh, right. She’d asked me a question. “Of course I fucking want you.” There. That was pretty effective communication, right?

  Her smile was like a shooting star. “Do you want me to be your, uh, girlfriend?” She glanced at the fire, trying to hide her shyness and the glow in her cheeks.

  At times I forgot how much younger she was than me. This was not one of those times. “Yes, Maddie. I’m all in. God help me, you’re mine.”

  “Then I have to stop working for you.” A divot appeared between her arched eyebrows as she frowned.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t be your girlfriend and your assistant, Gage. It’s exactly why I didn’t want to share a suite with you in the mountains. Everybody will think that I slept my way into my job.”

  Was she crazy? “But you started months ago. They know we weren’t together then.” Didn’t they?

  She pushed herself up onto her knees, placing her palms on her thighs. I tried not to look at the shadowy crease at her center. Clearly, I was unsuccessful; with a huff, she reached for her clothes.

  “Focus, Gage. I know you’re good at that.”

  I sat up as she threw my jeans at me. She had no idea how hard it was for a man to focus while watching a gorgeous woman put on a bra. “We’re not sharing a suite now. The next retreat we go on, I’ll get you a room at the other end of the hotel.” Like hell, I would—book another retreat, that was.

  “I can’t do both jobs at once, not well anyway. I’m trying to commit here, but I recognize my limitations. Remember, Susan said I needed to keep my personal life and my job separate.” She looked down at the panties she’d discarded earlier then shrugged casually as she pulled on her skirt without them.

  “So, compartmentalize!” I shouted, trying not to stumble as I shoved one leg at a time into my jeans. Apparently, we were both going commando.

  “Compartmentalize?”

  “That’s what I do! It works—mostly.” Well, except for the painful hard-ons I got at the office. I ignored her knowing smirk. “Shit, Maddie, you can’t quit. I need you.”

  In just her bra and skirt, she stepped into my shadow and put her hand on my cheek. “I need you too.” Dropping her hand, she wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek to my bare chest.

  “But work—”

  “If I don’t quit, Susan will fire me,” she reminded me. “We’re not great at being on the down low.”

  I took a halting step back, propping my hands on my hips. “You know, some women would love to have a man like me worship at their fucking feet.”

  She sighed. “That’s not the point, Gage.”

  “I won’t let her fire you. Executive veto. I’m the boss, remember?”

  “Which would just prove her point!” She found her blouse on the floor and turned away to put it on. She was replacing her armor as she spoke. “This isn’t easy for me either, you know.”

  “I hate quitters,” I couldn’t help saying. “You’re not a quitter.”

  She froze, her head bent and her fingers on her buttons. After a few seconds of silence, she finished doing them up and pivoted to face me. “Yes, I am, Gage. I know that about myself, but I’m trying to change. You make me want to try, want to stick to something.”

  “So stick to me!”

  “I want to. As your girlfriend.” Her chin was stubbornly set, but there was doubt in her eyes.

  “But—”

  “Would you rather keep me as your lover or your assistant? Because I can’t be both; you have to pick.”

  Even in the flickering light from the fire, I could see the hurt and disappointed expression on her face as she handed me my shirt. I tossed it aside, glaring at her. Ah, shit. No man should have to be in this situation. I scrubbed my face with my hands, my stomach in knots.

  “I said I was all in. That meant everything.” I gave her all of myself. I let go for her, and now she wanted to let go of me?

  “I’m sorry. I want you too. I just can’t do both. It’s too hard.”

  Her shoulders sagged, and she looked pitiful—but determined. For once, she’d made a decision. If it wasn’t the wrong decision, I would have been proud. Instead, although it wasn’t my fault, it was going to be
my problem.

  For a wealthy, successful man, this was like Sophie’s Choice—the horrible choice between an amazing woman in your arms and a fantastic employee in your office. Fuck. I bet Bill Gates never had this problem. Wait a second, didn’t he marry somebody who worked for him?

  “Gage?”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t fair.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Life isn’t fair. Believe me, I know.”

  “Argh!” I couldn’t decide! I took a few deep breaths, frowning. “Maddie, the lamb chops need to come out of the oven.”

  “Is that code or something?” She looked puzzled.

  “No, dinner! It’s probably overcooked by now.”

  “Oh!” She hustled out of the room, leaving me to my existential crisis. I heard a clunk and a curse come from the kitchen, and when she returned her face was red.

  “I guess the question, Gage, is whether you want me for me.”

  Her simple words and sober expression took me straight to our car ride back from the retreat. Then she told me she wanted to be wanted for her, just her—the way she hadn’t been wanted by her mother. I felt sick.

  Of course, I wanted her for her, what was I thinking? Assistants could be hired; girlfriends couldn’t. Well, okay, they could, but no man really wanted that kind of girlfriend. I had to let her make her own decisions. If she wanted to be with me, how could I say no?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  GAGE

  “Where’s Maddie?”

  I looked up from where I was staring at my desk. She was right—you could totally see my crotch through the tempered glass top.

  “She’s at lunch,” I told Bobbie.

  “Why so glum, chum?”

  My sister stepped inside and slowly sat down on the leather couch in the corner. So many memories of Madeline on that couch… And now, she’d given her two-week notice.

  My fingers combed through my hair, and I tried to tug the despondence out of my head. It didn’t work. The wrong woman was still sitting on that couch, and Maddie was probably out doing job interviews during her lunch hour.