The girl at the front desk was packing her bag to leave for the day and looked up at her with a weary grin. “Hello ma’am. We are just closing for the day. Can we make an appointment for you to come in tomorrow?”
“I need to speak with Jaxon.”
The girl looked at her like she had grown five heads. “Mr. Stewart has been in meetings all day, ma’am. I can make you an appointment, or his assistant, Tamara, can reach out to you tomorrow about—”
“I need to speak to him, now,” she said with more force than she wanted. “Where is he?”
“As I said, he is…in meetings,” the woman said slowly as if she was speaking to someone part of a remedial learning program.
Bevin turned and looked around the office. Several offices in the back of the building were open. But one door looked chief office like and was closed. She’d give it a try.
“Ma’am, ma’am! You can’t go back there!”
“Okay Dan, I’m excited about this new project. With the Marketing location the team’s been working on the last few weeks complete, now is the perfect time to jump into something else.” Jax sat back in his large leather seat on a conference call with a few of his site managers. He needed to focus on work fullforce so he wouldn’t think about her. He had managed to avoid her for the last week, though it had been torture on his mind and his body.
He tried to ignore the commotion on the other side of his office door, and continued talking to the two men on the other line about the upcoming project they would be starting the following week. He knew his people would take care of whatever the problem was taking place in the hallway and wouldn’t bother him unless they needed him.
“Make sure to get the client the quote on the project and an estimated time of completion and I’ll schedule a time to come in and talk to them about our plans. The projected budget looks good. I think we will be able to get them into the space they need at a reasonable rate.” He glanced at the door when it opened quickly. The reason for his recent dreams and nightmares walked in and stared at him.
“Knock, Knock,” she said quietly, emotion shined brightly in her eyes. He could could also see the uncertainty, frustration, exhaustion, loneliness, apologies, questions. He recognized it well. It was everything he had been feeling for her the minute he saw her.
“I am sorry, Jaxon. I told her you are on a conference call. She insisted on speaking with you, right now! Ma’am, you really need to make an appointment.” His frantic receptionist tried to shoo Bevin from his office.
But their gazes locked and he couldn’t look away from her and her eyes were glued on his face. He held up his hand signaling for his receptionist to hold on.
A slow smile crept across Bevin’s face.
“Hey, Dan and Frank, let me call you guys back in a little bit. Something just came up here that needs my attention.” The guys agreed to a later meeting and he hit the button on the phone to disconnect the line.
“It’s okay, Cara. Ms. Thomas doesn’t need a meeting. She can come in.” Bevin stepped further into his office and Cara exited, shutting the door behind her.
They continued staring at each other, not speaking a word for a few seconds. It seemed more like an eternity. He looked her over from head to toe, missing everything about her. She looked beautiful as usual, dressed to kill in her professional attire, and all he could think was he needed her.
“Hey,” she finally spoke. The tone of her voice tore him up inside and he wanted to go to her. To hold her and kiss her and tell her she belonged with him. One nagging thing lingered between them. She turned down his proposal. He closed his eyes to shut out the thought. When he opened his eyes again, he saw her staring with concern in her eyes.
Chapter 32
“What can I do for you, Ms. Thomas? I hope the building is up to your expectation.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of his cold tone. She saw the hurt in his eyes and the wall he put up in defense. She understood it. Hell, she invented that wall. The same cool, professional bullshit she had played with him, when they first met, he volleyed right back in her direction. She could just kick herself for starting their relationship off that way. What she had thought was the best course of action for dealing with her feelings for him, now backstabbed her heart.
She walked closer to his desk. He watched every guarded step from behind his desk. She was well aware his hooded glance studying her legs as she approached. “May I sit?” she asked, her tone low.
He looked at the chairs across from him and then at her. “By all means. Please, have a seat.”
She sat and crossed her legs. His eyes followed the movement and she saw them darken. He cleared his throat and looked her in the eyes. “How can I help you?”
“Jaxon,” she stared at him, “please, stop acting that way. You know I’ve been trying to reach you. I’ve tried to call you, email you and text you. You aren’t returning any of my contacts. If you’ve read any of those things, you know I’ve been trying to get you to have a conversation with me. We need to talk.”
“I’ve been busy, okay? New projects are starting every day.” Jaxon clicked on his laptop.
“I just want to know when you might have the time to fit me into your busy schedule. I really want to talk to you about—”
“What, Ms Thomas? Talk about what? What is left to say?” he cut her off.
“I have plenty to say. You left before I had a chance to even speak the night of the cocktail party.” The frustration was clear in her tone. She didn’t want to give him the upper hand, but he was being unreasonable to think their last conversation was how things would end.
“You made your intention quite clear. I respect that. We should just move on. Call it a day. Chalk it up to a good time spent between two adults.” He shrugged.
“Shut up!” She exploded. “Stop talking about it like it was a short business deal turned bad.” She stood up and leaned over his desk, aware the front of her suit probably gave a healthy view of her assets beneath. “It is more than just that between us, Jaxon, and you know it. Damn it. You proposed. You took me by surprise. Can a girl get a minute to think? To breathe? To talk it out? To…I don’t know.” She slammed her hand on his desk.
He took that time to stand. “Think about what, Bevin? I know how I feel about you. I know I love you. I know I want to get to know everything about you and eventually, I could see that in the long term, I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He is talking in the present. He still loves me.
He continued. “Would we have to work on it? Hell, yes. What marriage is there, you don’t have to work on? I’m willing to do that with you. At least I wanted to…” His voice trailed off and he fell back into his seat. “I respect your decision. I get it.”
“No, you don’t get it, or you would stop talking and listen to me,” she cut in.
He raised a brow at her, but she trudged forward. She had to. This beautiful man got under her skin and into her heart when she least expected it. Her boss advised her to take a chance and she wanted to do that with him. “Jaxon, I don’t know what you did to me that first time we met outside my bedroom window, but I’ve been falling for you ever since.” She slowly walked around his desk. “The unknown with you scares the shit out of me, I’ll admit it, but I want to work on it with you.” She stood next to him and turned his body in his chair so he could face her. She stood between his legs and leaned forward so they were face to face, bracing her hands on the arms of his chair.
“What are you saying, Bevin?”
“I’m saying, I think I’m falling for you, Jaxon. I wasn’t expecting it, but I am. Your marriage proposal just took me by surprise. I am thinking about it, all of it. I just needed time…” She shook her head, waiting for him to say something. “I don’t know if the proposal is still on the table but…Jaxon, please say something.”
“It’s only off the table if you want it off the table.”
“Can we get out of this office? I’
ve missed you. I need some alone time with you. We should talk about everything that has happened over the last few weeks and figure this whole thing out.”
He stood from his desk. “Sure, let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 33
She waited for him to gather his belongings before she allowed him to lead her to the parking lot. By the time he got her to his car, she was giggling like a schoolgirl. His wit and quick comebacks for every lame thing she said made her laugh. He made her feel comfortable with him and he did it with such ease. “You are crazy, Jaxon.”
“I’m crazy about you.” Her face warmed at his affectionate words. “Hey, don’t shy away from me, Bevin. Look, I’m not pressuring you into anything and maybe my words were too soon and abrupt, but I meant it. I will give you all the time you need to think about us. And I want to answer any questions you have to make you feel sure.”
“It’s not that. I don’t feel pressured. I…I don’t know what the hesitation is. It is a big step, you have to admit.”
“Tell me what makes you question me. Everything I’m saying, I mean it all, Bevin. I need you in my life.”
She stepped from him, trying to find the right words to say to not push him away. “I appreciate what you are saying. I respect it. I won’t even lie, I have wanted this moment; thought about it even.”
She could only hear him suck in a breath as he waited for her to continue. She was sure her breath was caught somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. The breeze picked up and she could hear the rain begin to pelt the parking garage above them.
“I want to hear everything you have to say, but we need to get you somewhere less damp.” He shrugged off his jacket and threw it around her shoulders. She welcomed the added warmth.
“No, I need to get this out here now, or I may lose my nerve.” The quaking of her voice betrayed her confidence.
“I told you, you don’t have to answer tonight.”
“I know that. But, I need to explain, at least, my delay in answer.”
“Okay I can respect that.”
“Can we sit?”
Jaxon shook his head ‘yes’ and unlocked his vehicle. Opening his passenger side door to a black SUV, she raised a brow. “Is this new?”
“Company vehicle. I don’t drive it often.”
She slid into the comfortable, luxury vehicle and looked in the back. “It looks spacious. Why are the back seats down?”
“I was hauling some material earlier today for the jobsite. I had the ride so I used it to my advantage. Are you cold? Should I turn on the heat?”
“No, No. It’s just the rain making it a bit windy. It’s comfortable in here.”
Instead of turning on the heat, he turned on the radio and sounds of soft rock music filled the car. She chuckled as the sound of Foreigner singing I Want to Know What Love Is filled her ears.
“What’s funny?” he asked, sitting back in his seat.
“The song is very appropriate, don’t you think?”
He listened as the chorus to the song crooned on and a smirk crossed his face. “I didn’t plan that.”
“Yeah, right. I’m sure you planned it all out. You have it playing through Bluetooth from your phone, don’t you?” She laughed
“I promise you, if I wanted to impress you, this is not the song I’d use. But this is a good song for sure. You gotta love old school soft rock.”
She didn’t respond to the small talk, but instead sat watching the rain fall and listened to the music play. She needed the thudding heartbeat in her chest to have a rest. She didn’t know where this night would take them. She hadn’t quite thought it all out when she went rushing into his office. She wished everything was cut and dry with them. She knew what he wanted. He made it very clear. If only she could just go with the desire in her heart and stop letting her head get in the way.
“Bevin, I need you to talk to me. It’s just you and me here. I need to know what you are thinking in that pretty head of yours. You opened up to me a little bit in the office, but… You should know you can talk to me about anything. What is concerning you about us?”
She sat back listening to the rain outside of the vehicle as Bon Jovi sang about loving someone always. “Okay. I think my concern is… We were moving in the right direction. Our relationship was new, exciting… and everything I said I wouldn’t do. You know I don’t date someone I work with. I don’t mix the two…”
“Business and pleasure?”
“No. It’s against what I do. For this very reason.”
“What reason?”
“Jaxon, I was falling for you. Head over heels for you, and in such a little bit of time, you stole my heart with little to no effort. Then you bailed, with little to no warning.”
“I didn’t bail, Bevin. I was all in.”
“This isn’t a game of poker, Jaxon. Explain to me what happened with Gregory. Did you know what his plan was for Werries Media? Is that why you came to my window that day? Is that why you didn’t want me to go to Austin?”
He shook his head and looked out of the window. “I knew Gregory wanted Werries, but I didn’t know what lengths he would go. I just found out what he did to my father and tried to do to Robert. I wasn’t aware of any of that. I just knew something about him was way off. I told Gregory I would help him with the introductions to the company since I was doing the building project, but any dealings with the company would have to be done the right way.”
“Gregory doesn’t seem like the type that does anything the right way,” she interjected.
“This is true, but I thought if I could work behind the scenes and control the situation, I could keep you safe from whatever he had planned.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she asked.
“Ugh, he made so many threats about you and the company and telling you I was a fraud. That, on top of the pressure of the project completion, I didn’t want to hurt any chances I had with you, more than they already were. Lame excuses I know, but it’s all I got.”
“So, you really did come to my house that first day because you wanted to meet me?”
“Yes. You’ve intrigued me from day one, Bevin. I just wanted to see why.”
“I like that,” she smiled.
“You do?” he asked and she nodded. “Should we start over?”
“I don’t want to start over.” She shook her head.
He let out a long sigh. “I messed us up that bad?”
She reached over and took his hand, rubbing a thumb over the top part. She looked up into his eyes. The dark blue shown with concern and worry. She didn’t like she was the reason for the look on his face. He needed to know her feelings for him. “You didn’t mess us up, Jax. We just don’t have to start over.”
“You need to know everything I’ve said, I mean. I don’t want to stop showing you what you mean to me, Bevin—”
She put a finger to his lips, cutting off his words. “Let’s pick up where we left off, Jaxon, before I left town. I’m needing all of you right now.” She let her eyes linger over his body and back up again.
“Should we go back to my place?” he smirked.
She looked over her shoulder into the back seat of the spacious SUV, then back at him and raised a brow. “Why wait?”
“You want to make love in the back of my work vehicle?” he asked.
“What’s wrong, Jaxon, you’re not up for mixing a little business with pleasure?”
She watched as a smile moved across his features. “After you, Miss Thomas.”
She climbed from the front of the SUV as a breeze from the rain hit her body. At that moment, she wasn’t sure if the invigorating feeling tingling her body was from the temperature or from anticipation of him touching her again. She opened the back door of the vehicle climbing into the open space and waited for him to join her. He joined her in the back of the SUV. Settling in, he looked down at her before lowering his head to her ear. One of his hands crept around her waist, moving around her to th
e small of her back pressing her into his heat. “Are you sure about this, baby?”
“I don’t want to wait until we drive back to your place or mine, Jaxon. We have been apart long enough. I need you right now.” She planted a soft kiss between the corner of his lips and his cheek before he turned his head to meet her lips full on. The dormant desire within her wanting and waiting for him, started to slowly churn. He pressed her closer and there was no mistaken how hard he was for her. He captured her lips again; this time deeper, working between her lips with his tongue. She met his kiss urgently, wanting them. “Jaxon, please touch me.” Her body needed him. Hell, she needed him; every touch, every kiss, more than anything at this minute, she wanted to feel him. He obliged by continuing kisses up her jaw and to her ear. He found her breasts with his hands through her shirt and his palm worked at the globe causing her nipple to pucker against his hand. “Yes, Jaxon, just like that,” she whispered into his ear. “Please, baby. Don’t stop.” Her tone begged, but she didn’t care. She would spontaneously combust if he didn’t take her right here and now. It had been a month since she saw him. It felt like an eternity since she felt the weight of him pressing her back against something. The resistance as he spread her open. Her wetness swallowing him whole. She needed it now. Here, in the back of an SUV. She hadn’t remembered the last time she’d been so carefree, but she needed it with him.
“I wouldn’t think of stopping now, beautiful.” His hand disappeared between their bodies and he found her wet and ready for him. He rubbed at her causing her eyes to flutter shut.
“Yes, Jax. Just like that.” She wasn’t able to manage more words as his mouth worked at her nipples and his fingers played against her clit. Her climax, that had laid dormant awaiting his touch, was building rapidly in her. Jaxon found her opening and slid two fingers slowly into her. She gasped, her eyes opening. She looked down at him. He met her gaze over her taut nipple.
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