by Regina Cole
Nate just nodded, and hit the door.
The receptionist’s chilly glare followed Nate out toward the bank of elevators in the hallway, and he resisted the urge to send her a polite hat tip on the way out.
Burt had been telling the truth—he’d known the bastard long enough to smell out a lie.
But if Allison’s ex wasn’t behind the lost clients, who was?
Nate’s fist connected softly with the closed elevator doors.
If they didn’t get this shit figured out soon, he’d let something slip that he wasn’t supposed to. Like the way he really felt about Allison.
Head-over-heels in love with her.
* * *
“Are you sure you can’t give me any more, Paul?” Allison leaned back in her office chair, turning to look out the window behind her. The day was gray, not unusual for this close to Christmas, but she wished there had been some winter sunshine to ease the anxiety in her chest. “You know this is a worthy cause.”
Paul Taylor, owner of about seven car dealerships in the Dallas area, grunted a little. Static and car horns hissed in the background. He must be in traffic. “I hear what you’re saying, and I understand, but you’re killing me here. Are you sure you can’t get by with the amount we already discussed?”
Twirling the pen between her fingers, Allison leaned forward. The phone in her hand creaked a little as she adjusted her grip on it. “You and I know that you need this deduction. We’re here at the end of the calendar year, are you sure you’ve done enough to get your write offs? I’m offering you an incredible out, and we both know it.”
His sigh of defeat normally would have had her raising her arms in victory, but not today. “All right, fine. Another two thousand but that’s it. Seriously, that’s all I can do for you.”
She smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “You won’t regret it. This is really going to be a fabulous help to the Childhood Diabetes Research Center. Your generosity is incredibly appreciated.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Paul ended the call.
Allison put down the handset and laced her fingers together, stretching towards the ceiling. She’d been putting in some really long hours over the past few weeks, hoping by sheer dint of will and determination she could get her business over this mysterious slump. Everyone always been happy with her work before, and the idea that she might have done a bad job and chased away some great clients really chafed her. So, she had been moving forward in the only way she knew how—balls to the wall, take no prisoners, above and beyond her call.
It still wasn’t enough. Her guts were in knots.
A soft knock on the door drew her attention. “Yes?”
Deb poked her head, her normally grayish brown hair sporting a much darker, younger looking dye job. “I’m ducking out to meet Marsha Bevanstone for coffee. She wants to discuss the Valentine’s Day charity festival.”
“Great. Do you need anything from me?” Allison gripped her pen tighter. She had been personally handling that Valentine’s Day event for several years, but Deb had really been stepping up her game lately. Allison felt confident that her assistant could handle this one, but the loss of control was difficult to deal with at the moment. She knew she hadn't been lax with either of the lost clients’ accounts—heck, she hadn't even had the chance to show Oliver what she could do—but she had forced herself to trust Deb. After all, it wasn’t Deb’s fault that Allison had somehow dropped the ball and lost two major clients.
“No, I’ve got it under control. Just wanted to keep you in the loop. Oh, and tell Mr. York I said hello. I think you two look cute together.”
“No,” Allison said automatically. “You know I’m not getting involved with anyone again.”
“You say that, but…”
“No. Not happening. And Nate knows it.”
Deb winked, waved, and the door closed behind her.
Well, shit. Nate had been coming around the office a lot lately. It seemed that Deb had noticed a shift in their relationship.
Work. Think about work, not about the fact that you’re fucking your best friend.
Allison turned to her laptop, staring at the open spreadsheets. With Paul’s reluctant additional contribution, she had managed to double the total she had promised to the Childhood Diabetes folks. It was good, but was it good enough to overcome whatever mysterious disease was taking her business down to its knees?
She stood and paced in front of the windows. Nate had promised her that he would be nice to Burt, but she still wasn’t sure how that meeting was going to go. Part of her hoped that Nate would discover that Burt really was behind the lost clients. At least then she would know that it was no fault of hers that her business had started falling apart. An ex-husband’s grudge would be a lot easier to swallow than the fact that she wasn't doing a good job. But try as she might, she couldn’t picture Burt actually ruining her business in cold blood. Sure, he could get pissed off and do bad things. But after the heat of the moment? He’d apologize and come crawling on his belly for forgiveness. He’d done it again and again.
He was a businessman, true, and she had seen him do unscrupulous things during their years together. But not being in the business himself, he would have no clear benefits to poaching her clients for someone else. Revenge, especially a methodical plan? No, that wasn’t Burt’s style.
The soft click of an opening door made her turn around, and the sight of a tall, broadly muscled body standing silhouetted in the doorway made her pulse jump.
“Hi,” he said as he shut the door behind him with a click. “Sorry I didn’t knock.”
Allison shook her head. “You never have to knock.”
She watched as he shed his jacket, laying it over the back of the couch that still held fond, sexy memories for her. They had made great use of that couch for the past couple of weeks. And her desk. And Nate’s kitchen table. And her large jetted hot tub. There were actually more surfaces in both their homes that had seen some skin on skin action than hadn’t.
What could she say? Sex was a really good avoidance tool.
“How did it go?”
“Fine. He was polite, I presumed he would be.” Nate came over to her and took her hands, looking her in the eyes as he said, “He didn’t do it.”
Her heart sank, just a little. “He didn’t?”
Nate shook his head. “No. He didn’t even know you had lost the accounts. He was stunned, he wasn’t faking.”
Allison’s chin fell, and she stared down at the toes of Nate’s boots. “I thought—I hoped it was him. I don't know what to do now.”
“Hey, look at me.”
She tried, but she couldn't raise her eyes from the floor.
His finger tucked beneath her chin, and he forced her to look into his eyes.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“How?”
She really wanted to know. She felt lost, confused. The worst part of this whole mystery was not knowing who her enemy was. She was a fighter; she always had been. But how could she fight when the enemy could very well be herself?
“We’ll figure this out, and will do it together.” His hand cupped her cheek, and then he kissed her.
Her eyelids slid closed, and she gripped his hands hard as he kissed her softly. It was a sweet kiss, a lover's kiss, one meant to comfort and keep her calm.
She had tried to avoid this. The strong feelings that surged in her chest every time Nate pulled her into his arms. But it was becoming more and more difficult to pretend that things were simple between them. He was more than Nate, her best friend, the man who turned her on more than any other. He was someone that she couldn't do without, someone that knew her inside and out and cared for each tiny part of her.
And she needed him. For his body, for his mind, for everything that he was. Somehow, despite her independence, she’d come to be really fucking reliant on him. It had come on gradually, but there it was.
No, she didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to understa
nd that what was growing between them wasn’t something she could just ignore. Sooner or later, they would have to decide who and what they were to one another. She wasn’t ready for that conversation, wasn’t sure that she would ever be ready for it.
Feeling this way about him carried risks. And risks with her heart were off the table. Or, at least they had been. How could she manage it, when every other time she had tried, she’d failed miserably?
He didn’t let her wonder for long, because he opened his mouth against hers, and his tongue found its way into her mouth. His broad, strong hands swept down her back to her ass, where he lifted her against his body.
His groan of pleasure rocked her to her core, sending bolts of passion straight from her brain down to her lower belly, the desire curling and twisting inside her, making her body alight with pleasure.
Nate, her brain whispered. Nate, her heart answered.
Nate.
He was all she wanted, and whether or not he was hers forever, he was hers right now. It was enough. It had to be.
14
He’d really intended to comfort her when he pulled her into his arms. He really, really had. But then her soft breasts had pressed against his chest, her belly against his groin, her scent in his nostrils, and he was gone. Lost in the sweetness of Allison, yet again.
It was a pleasure he’d just come to know, and one that he wouldn’t leave easily.
Kissing her, touching her, his brain taunted him with fevered images of their times together. Of her beautiful naked body over him, beneath him, on her knees in front of him. Allison in a million different positions, her eyes lit up with passion as he drove into her, again and again.
His cock hardened against her, and she moaned into his mouth.
Her office phone rang, and they jumped apart like horny, guilty teenagers.
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing his hat as she rounded the desk. “I didn’t—sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize for that,” she said, winking, as she answered the phone. “Allison Kurtz.”
She fell silent, then, listening to the voice on the other end. Nate walked over to her bookshelf, lining up the spines of several nonfiction books.
“What do you mean, left?”
Allison’s voice had a sharp note in it. Nate turned around, his shoulders prickling with warning.
“The general email box? Goddammit. Why the hell does this keep happening?”
Oh, no.
Allison slumped against the bank of windows behind her, one hand on her forehead, the other still holding the office phone handset to her ear. Her eyes were closed, her posture defeated, as she nodded soundlessly to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“Right. No, no, I get it. Not your fault. Well, I’ll look at it and try to figure out why the fuck my business is suddenly up and abandoning me.”
Allison said a few more things, but Nate wasn’t tracking them. He was gripping the bookshelf with one hand, flexing and releasing a fist with the other.
It wasn’t Burt. But the signs were there—someone was fucking with Kurtz and Company. Who the hell could it be? Allison had examined her business rivals, and Nate had grilled Burt himself. What the fuck could they do now?
He had to stop this. He couldn’t take seeing her this way—so bewildered and upset and unable to do anything about it.
The click of the phone in the cradle brought his gaze to her, but the sight of the shine in her eyes was what did him in.
“I lost another one,” she whispered, standing tall and proud and not bending, despite the disappointment and confusion that was so clearly coursing through her. “Sandringham Investments. Deb got the email notification on her phone while she was out with another client.”
“Do you have any more appointments today?”
She sniffed. “No, but I need to try to see if I can meet up with the director, find out why—”
“Come with me,” he said, grabbing her hand. Stopping by the coat rack by the door, he grabbed her jacket and helped her into it.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere else. You’ve been killing yourself over this situation for weeks now, and you need a break. Come on.”
He hustled her out of the office building, down into the parking deck where they climbed into his F-150. Once the engine was rumbling and they were buckled in, he nosed the pickup toward home.
There was only one way he knew of to get her out of that frame of mind, and he was determined to help her. If this was the only way? He didn’t mind.
At his house, he cut the engine right in front of the porch. Rounding the truck, he opened the door for her.
“I should have stayed at work for damage control,” she said, her shoes making taps on his wooden front steps.
“You’re just taking a lunch break. I promise I’ll get you back there for the afternoon. For now,” he said, opening the front door and letting her pass in front of him, “you let me take care of everything.”
She kicked off her shoes by his front door, padding barefoot into his house like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He liked that. Loved her in his space, acting like she belonged there.
She did. If Allison Kurtz belonged anywhere in this world, it was right beside him.
She collapsed on his couch, staring at the wall, not saying a word. He went into the kitchen and got two mugs down from the cabinet. One of them had been a gift from Allison about six Christmases ago.
“Save a horse—ride a cowboy.” There was a cartoon cowgirl on the side with long, fluttering lashes and plump pink lips. It was silly, the kind of thing you find at a hokey truck stop off the interstate. But she’d thought of him, so he’d kept the thing, and used it often. Usually, while wishing Allison had taken the sentiment to heart.
When the kettle he’d put on the stove started whistling, he poured hot water over the powdered hot cocoa mix in each mug. A brief stir later, and he brought them out to the living room.
“Careful, it’s hot,” he cautioned her as she took the cowboy mug.
She smiled a little as she noticed what her drink was in. “You kept this?”
He shrugged. “I keep everything you give me.”
Her gaze darted over his shoulder, toward his closed bedroom door. He knew what she was thinking, remembering.
God. He took a sip of his cocoa, the hot chocolate almost burning his tongue. What could he say that didn’t sound like a line? How could he tell her what was going on inside him, what had been going on for as long as he could remember, without it adding to her already stressed out situation?
“I do. Keep everything. The cards, the photos, the silly gifts, everything.”
She turned her head to look at him, and he realized he’d spoken aloud. But now that the words were out, the tenseness in his chest was easing, his posture was relaxing, and he found himself setting his mug down on the gnarled wood of the knotty pine coffee table and leaning forward to grab her free hand.
This was selfish. It was lunacy. She wasn’t ready to hear what was in his heart.
But he’d started, and the words were coming like a train barreling down a tunnel.
Inescapable.
“Allison, I—”
* * *
“What do you mean?”
She hadn’t planned to interrupt him, but the look on his face was too serious, too deep, too—well, everything.
The feelings in her heart were just becoming clear to her, but they still scared the shit out of her. She was afraid that she knew what he was going to say, even more afraid that she didn’t.
He gripped her hand tighter, the connection between them making her heartbeat loud in her own ears.
“I mean, since the moment I met you, our friendship has been special to me. More than special. I—Shit, Ally.”
He dropped her hand and stood, walking a few paces away as if the distance was necessary to help him collect his thoughts. She was grateful for it. The proximity between them, an
d not just the physical, made it hard for her to think. To plan. To understand everything that was happening in her life, and the effect Nate had on it.
Shit. Was her distraction with Nate part of what was robbing her of her own business?
Allison groaned and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples, which had just begun to throb. She’d let herself forget about the latest client disaster, lured in by the feeling of Nate helping ease her burden. But the problem wasn’t going away. And now? It offered a much-needed distraction.
“Nate, you’re incredibly special to me, too. But I’m not ready to do this right now.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He’d turned to face her now, his arms at his sides, his broad shoulders blocking out the light that was spilling into the room from the kitchen. She’d not bothered to turn on the lamp when she’d stumbled in there, so his face was difficult to see in the backlit conditions.
He stood there, silent, just listening. She sighed.
“There’s a lot going on for me, right now. You know Christmas is huge in my business. I do still have some projects running, and I really should be focusing on them right now. So, I think you should take me back to work. We can talk about all this” —she gestured to the air between them— “later.”
He walked toward her then. If he’d been a different man, his large frame standing beside her while she was seated would have felt looming or threatening. But this was Nate. Her cowboy. So, he sank down on the arm of the couch beside her, reached for her hand, and said only one word.
“When?”
Allison sighed, the warmth of his hand sinking into her, making it hard to breathe, to think clearly.
Her body was very clear on what it wanted, and it wanted Nate to take her to bed right fucking now. Her brain was halfway on board with that plan, knowing that the relief a screaming orgasm could give her right now was much better than trying to figure out the mess her business had become. But the part of her heart that wanted to make real, final sense of the relationship, and the part of her heart that was pants-pissing terrified to even consider the idea of a relationship, won out with a compromise.
