See what happens when my body steps ups and insists on doing the talking?
I cringed the minute those words popped out of my mouth – I meant them, sure, but what was he going to think of me now? Would he figure he could just go ahead and jump me the second we were alone? Would I even mind that one tiny bit?
My spoilsport brain insisted on reminding me that this darkly strange and gorgeous guy was my boss, and that I needed to nail that idea firmly to the front of every thought I had about him. My body disagreed in a major way, and I was helpless to decide between them.
How did he manage to do this to me? I shivered, and not only from the cold.
He saw the tremble of nerves and cold run through me. “It is a bit chilly out here, isn’t it? My apologies, I hadn’t noticed.”
I sniffed, and hunched my shoulders together. “Yeah, well, you planned to go hiking this morning, and I didn’t – silly me, I thought I’d be sitting in a nice warm conference room right about now, so I dressed for my ‘sexy and mysterious businesswoman’ role, okay? Then once it dawned on me that you were gone, I was way too flustered and worried to think to put on a sweater or anything before I hustled out the door.”
I glanced down at my outfit, and while it was borderline tasteful for formal business wear, it only just stayed within that line. I know a lot of girls my size think their curves are something to hide, but to my way of thinking one of the few pluses to being big is the impressive breasts it gives you, so why not put them on display? My skirt was doing a flattering job of cloaking my oversize ass, but my low-cut silk blouse showed off my cleavage loud and proud – and as a result, I now felt like a big round popsicle, with goose bumps popping up all over me.
Man, having goose bumps on your breasts is weird and embarrassing …
“I am truly sorry, Ashley. Here, let’s get you warmed up.”
He stepped around behind me, and before I realized what was up, he wrapped his arms around me.
Warmth surged through me. I felt it from the top of my head down to my toes and every place in between, as I stood pinned between his body and the railing. His arms held me in place from the front, his powerful chest and rock-hard abs pressed against my back, and nestling within his embrace made me want to purr like a kitten.
I was aroused, sure – sharing his body’s warmth, breathing in his musky masculine scent, feeling those strong muscles crowding against my curves, it all was way more than any girl could take and not be horny as hell – but it was so much more than that.
The comfort of his arms holding me close and safe, being sheltered by the strength of his towering body, hearing him murmur without words and then fall into a faint, tuneless humming, sharing a bond with him that I hadn’t felt with a man since, well, never … I just wanted to stay in this moment, leaning against this man I’d known for only a few days and letting the world slide by, time and people and events, because who needed any of that?
I closed my eyes. I felt his breath stirring the hair on top of my head as he loomed over me. I barely knew him, but I knew I wanted him no matter how impossible and weird and unattainable he was.
How had I gotten in so deep, so fast with this guy? Wasn’t I smarter than this?
My eyes popped open when I heard his voice in my left ear.
“How far above the water do you think we are?”
He’d dropped his head down next to mine, and I turned to see those spooky blue-violet eyes staring into mine from only a few inches away.
“Well? I’d like to have your estimate, Ashley, if only to see if you and Wikipedia are in agreement on this matter.”
How had this subject come up? Did I want to know?
“Um – a couple hundred feet, maybe?”
Personally, I would have been willing to take Wikipedia’s word for it if they claimed it was a couple of light-years down to the water surging below us, way too far below us …
Crazy Boy leaned forward and craned his head past me to peer down at the water. With his arms still wrapped around me, holding me between his body and the railing, that meant I was herded just a bit closer to the edge too. My stomach lurched just a bit and for perhaps the first time in my life, I was glad I’d skipped breakfast.
“You’re safe with me, Ashley – surely you understand that much?”
I did, I knew I was safe in his sheltering arms – but where was he going with this?
“I understand that, big guy – I’m just not sure my stomach understands. Would you take it personally if I dry heaved a bit?”
My, Ashley, how romantic of you. Would I ever stop blundering into saying stupid things around this guy?
But thank the big girl gods, he wasn’t a bit fazed by my queasiness. “I admire your courage, standing here and facing down your fear – and as it happens, your estimate of how much height there is to fear is very much in the ballpark. We are suspended approximately 245 feet above the water below. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“I’d find it more fascinating from a little further back, Mr. Killane.”
“Ashley, have we not established that you are in fact perfectly safe in my company? So why not dare just a quick look down?”
Fine, asshole, whatever.
His arms tightened around me as I leaned forward a microscopic amount and looked down at just how much air was between us and the icy currents of the bay.
A tern skimmed by beneath us. A fishing boat churned past, surrounded by a cloud of screeching seagulls. A buoy bobbed atop the swells. Hundreds of tiny wavelets formed and broke apart again, as threads of foam skirled and danced across the water.
Once you got up the nerve to really look at it, the view was hypnotic …
“Did you know that a human body falling from this bridge takes four seconds to hit the water?”
My heart skipped a beat, thought about it, and then skipped again.
Stay cool, Ashley, stay cool – he doesn’t mean it, he’s not serious about … well, he’s not serious, he’s just messing with your head again.
I prayed that was true.
And yet I still felt perfectly safe in his arms – how the hell was that possible?
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I let it out again as he took a slight step back from the railing.
“Did I alarm you? I apologize, that was certainly not my intent – it’s just that what I find even more fascinating than the tremendous gulf of air and light beneath our feet is the courage of the people who choose to step out into that vast space, to take flight and soar down into the embrace of those frigid waters so far below us.”
As long as this remains a purely theoretical discussion, Ashley, you can handle it. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy a bracing chat about suicide while standing atop a seriously tall bridge?
So say something, you idiot. Keep him talking.
“Um, I’m not seeing how courage is involved, Mr. K. I mean, isn’t jumping the coward’s way out?”
“Not at all.” He said just that and nothing more for a minute, then two minutes, then three. He stared past me at the water, I chewed my lip and prayed I was handling this the right way, and the morning crowds of walkers and joggers streamed past us, unaware and uncaring.
I waited.
He looked down at the railing, and then back out to the water. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, dreaming, absorbed.
“To launch one’s body beyond the earth, beyond everything stable and certain, to leap into the unknown – that takes true courage. Staying here with the rest of us simply means caving in to the forces that would hold you down, dominate you, make you into a shivering shadow of what you might have been if you’d dared to come here and be real. Don’t you think so?”
He looked down at me, one eyebrow raised and waiting for an answer – waiting with the calm manner of someone who might have just asked if I thought it would rain tomorrow.
“Do you know what I think, Mr. Killane?”
“I am waiting with rapt attention to hear what
you think, Ashley.”
“I think that every last person who ever jumped off this bridge realized they’d made a horrible mistake while they still had 244 feet left to fall, okay?
“I don’t think they took flight, or launched themselves, or whatever bullshit romantic thing you want to call it – I think they just fell like rocks, screaming while they watched that water get closer and closer. And that’s just what I think – would you like to hear what I know for an absolute certainty?”
“Tell me.”
“I know that you are scaring the hell out of me, and you need to stop it right now.”
His forehead furrowed as he turned and stared down at me.
“Ashley, you realize this is no more than a hypothetical chat, correct? You do understand that I have no intention of flinging myself off this bridge today or any other day, don’t you?”
“I understand you seem to have given this a whole lot of thought for someone who has no intention of doing it.” I shivered in spite of myself, and his arms drew tighter around me.
“Ashley, believe me when I say that this is no more than a fascinating psychological exercise for me – an exploration, if you will, of that dark territory one enters when making a choice that cannot be unmade. Don’t you think the most important point we can hope to reach in our lives is the point beyond which there is no return?”
I relaxed a bit, but only a bit – maybe about a micron of relaxation, no more.
“I’ll agree to that if it makes you happy, and in fact I’ll stand here and talk gloomy philosophy with you all day long, boss, but only on one condition – you have to promise not to make any intellectual points by hurdling this railing and plummeting to your doom. Okay?”
“I hereby promise to my current personal assistant, one Ms. Ashley Daniels, that I will not under any circumstances whatsoever throw myself off the Golden Gate Bridge, or in any other way use said bridge as a theater in which to stage the spectacular final scene of my existence.”
I wanted to let it go at that, but I had to be sure.
“Pinky swear?”
I wormed my right arm out from under his and brandished my little finger in front of his face. He nodded with the solemnity of a judge, raised his left arm, and entwined his little finger with mine.
There, that sealed it – not even a batshit crazy billionaire would break a pinky swear.
I sighed, pulled my right arm back into the toastiness of his embrace, and allowed myself to relax for real this time.
Well, sort of.
With his arms wrapped around me again, Mr. Killane dropped his head down next to mine. When he spoke, the warmth of his breath tickled my ear.
“Your concern for me is touching, but entirely unnecessary in this instance – I would never chance becoming part of that dreadful two percent.”
“Excuse me?”
“During those four fateful seconds as someone plunges toward the waters below, their falling body gains speed with each passing instant, until it strikes the surface of the bay at approximately seventy-five miles per hour. That swift passage unsurprisingly produces a fatality rate of ninety-eight percent, with the vast majority of those deaths resulting from impact trauma – shattered spines, fractured skulls, splintered ribs puncturing internal organs, that sort of thing.”
“Um, yeah.”
“Although I must confess a certain fascination with those who instead succumb to drowning, drawing in lungfuls of icy water as they sink away from the light like drifting dolls and then vanish into darkness – I like to think they find a certain cold purity in the depths, don’t you?”
“I think they probably find the depths full of kelp, fish poop, and old beer cans – but what was that ‘dreadful two percent’ thing you were going on about?”
Keep him talking, keep it light where you can, and get him off this bridge sooner instead of later – you can trust his promise, but you can’t trust your nerves to stand much more of his patented craziness.
Of course, I was the one who was irresistibly drawn to the entrancing, gorgeous, deeply weird guy, so I was probably as nuts as he was …
“But surely kindergarten mathematics teaches us that a fatality rate of ninety-eight percent necessitates a survival rate of two percent? I would never take the slightest risk of survival. Waking to find oneself broken and helpless in a hospital bed, at the mercy of doctors and relatives, without even what little control one had before the attempt?
“I can’t imagine a more horrifying fate – rest assured, my Ashley, I would never hazard the leap in the first place without the absolute certainty that I would not become part of the doomed two percent. Anything less than one hundred percent mortality is simply not acceptable – at least outside the confines of our current and entirely theoretical discussion.”
I dared a glance out of the corner of my eye. His face was distant and dark as he stared down at the water, and then – then he brightened in an instant, and nuzzled my neck for a single sweet, thrilling moment before smiling and continuing on in a sunny, mild voice that was utterly different from the way he’d spoken only seconds before.
“Ashley, your patience is remarkable. I’ve learned that if my temper tantrums don’t drive away a personal assistant, what usually does it is making them listen to my morbid observations about fate, the nature of reality, and other such existential claptrap. I can’t imagine where you find the resources to deal with all my competing personalities, but wherever you draw your strength from, rest assured I am deeply grateful for it.”
“Well, I figure you must have some secret magical ability to make me like you against my will – oh, and it’s also never the tiniest bit boring in your vicinity, I’ll give you that.”
“Might I hope that I also have a magical power that will make you leap into my bed?”
“Don’t push it, big guy. And while you’re being mildly rational for two seconds, can I get one more promise out of you?”
“I promise with all my heart to treat you to the most amazing sex you will ever experience.”
“Nice try, but actually I need you to promise that if you ever again find yourself in a tall place like this and in a mood like the one you were in a minute ago, you’ll call me – deal?”
Something dark flickered through his eyes for an instant. I might have imagined it, though, because then his face lit up in a wolfish smile that let me know I was in serious trouble.
“So in addition to the one free promise I’ve already given you this morning, I am now expected to tender another one? Ashley, do you truly think I became whatever it is that I am today by casually handing out free promises to any and all who ask for them?”
“So I have to give you something in exchange for a perfectly reasonable promise? You won’t do it just to be a nice guy, or to convince me you might be more or less sane?”
“Yes, no, and no. I did not amass those 58.6 billion dollars of mine by being nice or sane – instead, I did it by exercising superior negotiation skills. So if you wish to draw another promise out of me today, you’ll have to decide just how badly you want it. What are you willing to give up in exchange for this promise, Ashley?”
“Meaning there’s something you want from me, and you’re willing to use my concern for your welfare as leverage to help you get it?”
“When it comes to what I want, I am utterly without shame.”
“Look, if you think I’m going to trade sex for a lousy little promise to make a phone call, you are six kinds of crazy.”
He sighed like a drama queen, and then grinned like a fiend.
“How sad for us both – I must say, I’ve never met a woman so determined to avoid what she wants. So, if you’re insisting on withholding sex from me for just a little bit longer, how about dinner instead? Tonight?”
“Just dinner? As in a sit-down meal at a nice, normal restaurant? What’s the catch?”
“My, aren’t you the suspicious one? But yes, a conventional meal at a conventional restaurant of my ch
oosing – do we have a deal?”
“Let’s hear that promise first.”
There was that strange dark flicker in his eyes again … but he did promise.
“I promise that in exchange for the pleasure of her company at dinner, I will make a phone call to Ms. Ashley Daniels the next time I find myself in a high place while entertaining dark thoughts of a sudden descent to a much lower place.”
“Then I would be pleased to accompany you to dinner tonight, Mr. Devon Killane.”
“Excellent – I look forward to a night of stimulating conversation about why you refuse to have sex with me.”
8. Rocking the Evening
A few hours after we walked off the bridge arm in arm, just like a real couple – as opposed to whatever we actually were, which I hadn’t even begun to figure out yet – Mr. Killane concluded the Radford Systems deal in the hotel’s main conference room, signing the official documents to the accompaniment of polite applause from the gathered business faithful.
In the hallway outside the conference room, he informed me that the Radford acquisition had tacked another 200 million dollars or so onto his net worth; he delivered this news with the same mild pleasure you or I might express at finding a quarter on the sidewalk.
I’d hoped for some alone time to get my head ready for dinner, seeing as how dinner with Devon Killane promised to be an exercise in weirdness more than an actual meal, but no such luck. Instead, the boss decided that I should be displayed to the restaurant’s other patrons in a dress worthy of what he called my ‘delectable figure,’ and he insisted on squiring me to the private establishment of San Francisco’s leading fashion designer.
There I was measured, poked, and prodded from every angle. Fabric was stitched, seams altered, the hemline raised and the neckline lowered, and at the end of it all I turned slowly in front of a mirror, staring at the reflection of a me who was somehow wearing an extremely flattering crimson cocktail dress. It hugged my curves without strangling them, made my rear look intriguing rather than enormous, and while it didn’t quite aggressively thrust my breasts at the general public, it made damn sure they would be the center of attention.
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 10
