by Nicole Snow
Absolute torture, considering the last twenty-four hours.
Before, my worries were packed away neatly in this house with my neurotic parents and their egos. Now, I have a bigger, handsome, bearded concern at the office, and he isn't going away.
The world won't quit reminding me, either. Maybe I need to just hide in my room, order pizza, and talk it through with Tay.
Really, though, I have a bad feeling none of those things will make me feel better. I wish I could run. Leave it all behind. Have someone else pick up the scattered, screwed up, complicated pieces of my flagging life.
Call me weak. Tell me to stop letting life use me as a foam roller for its twisted kinks. Obviously, I can't just pack up, flee, and hope I'm able to cash out enough money from my trust fund before dad blocks my distributions.
I won't actually do it, of course. I'm too stubborn to give in without a fight.
I'm not failing Grant, or myself by letting this dumb crush chase me off a perfectly boring, but good job. Not when I'm out to prove my father wrong, and show him I understand his cutthroat business world perfectly well.
So well, in fact, I want no part of it.
But God, I wish it weren't so complicated. Deep down, that trip to Dubai doesn't sound half bad.
“Holy Hannah, you're joking, right? Your boss? Your 'yes, Ms. Corbin, I want a hundred memos and a coffee in my hand by noon today' boss? Holy shit.” Tay never fails to be eloquent with words. “What are the odds? It's like you're living a bad comedy.”
“Well, I'm not laughing.” We're on the phone. I half regret spilling the big secret, even though it makes me feel better to have someone else in on my agony. “Seriously, Tay, what do I do? Dad will kill me if I don't follow through on this. He already thinks I'm a ginormous screw up to the tenth degree. I'd tell him where to stuff it if I didn't need the family trust to do anything I really want to once I'm done with Neolithic. I want to go back to the charity, be there on the ground, make sure the pipes I promised are getting built and people's lives are getting better. I want a chance to help them, damn it, and I wish everything would stop screwing it up.”
“Oh, and just leave New York again without even a kiss goodbye? I don't think Mr. Bearded Axe will appreciate that.” She pauses to burst a bubble with the gum I hear her chewing. “Hell, lady, neither will I. You don't walk away from a man like that when the universe dumps him in your lap.”
“It's Bastard Axe. That's what the tattoo I told you about said, anyway.” I sigh. “What do you want me to do here? It's not like we can just pick up where we started in Maine without making it a hundred times worse.”
“Lay low. Let him come to you. If he wants it bad enough, he'll make it happen, everybody else can get fucked.”
“You're not helping, Taylor. Remember how I want to find a way to make this a boring office job without a million complications? No excitement. No drama. No tears.”
“You worry too much, Bekah. I basically had to push you into his arms just to turn in your V-card. We went up to Maine for fun, remember? I know you wanted to get it in up there so you could deal with the BS back here, but nobody ever said 'no fun, ever' when you're back in New York City. He's your boss. He's not God.”
“Uh, he's the first man I slept with. You said it yourself before the trip to Maine – keep it casual. Going after a man who probably wants as little to do with me as I do him doesn't sound like a fling. I did the casual thing once, fine. But I can't have a relationship with dad's fucking business partner. I'm not cut out for long-term playmates anyway.”
Tay laughs. I don't have to ponder hard to see her eyes rolling, especially when she's had a queen's lineup of boyfriends, casuals, part-time doms, and everything in between. We're polar opposites, despite being besties, and she thinks I'm being silly. “Nobody said marry him. An office fling could be pretty hot. Why don't you just reach behind you, pull the stick out, stop worrying so much, and enjoy?”
Like it's that easy. For her, maybe.
Me? I don't swing that way. I'm the girl with a hundred different obligations dangling over her head like a piano on a rope, ready to crush her if she steps in the wrong place.
Being a Corbin sucks, and our wealth comes with strings. Often, it's a curse, rather than a blessing.
“Hello? Bekah?”
“I'm here,” I say, wondering how long I've frozen, digesting bitter thoughts. “Help me, Tay. Grant agreed he'd keep our contact minimal. I'm hoping he'll keep his promise, but it's a small firm. We'll see each other. We're going to bump shoulders in the hallways or the break rooms sooner or later. We'll sit at the same table again, all eyes glued to him as he sets the direction for his company. What then?”
God, I can see it now. It's not hard remembering how hot he looked in his full suit.
I thought he had a knack for making me wet in jeans and an Oxford shirt, enjoying the Maine shore. But when he's in his natural element, commanding billions on the line? It's masculine poetry. Man art. Like watching a lion dominating his Savannah turf.
“Stop worrying. Seriously, girl, you'll give yourself an early grave. Remember what we used to sing in choir, que sera, sera? Even the Greeks knew there's a time to just roll with it and let it happen. You're not gonna blow this. I won't let you.”
“Romans, Tay. It's Latin. I don't think anyone ever had to worry about their office crush back when it was in vogue, either.”
“You know I never paid attention to that crap,” she says, blowing another bubble with a loud pop! “Give him a chance, or don't. These things always sort themselves out. You'll find your way back to sleeping in tents and arguing with engineers in the jungle if you're meant to. Bekah Corbin never fails a test, thank fuck, or I'd be a lot worse with nobody to get the answers from at the academy. No crush, no Grant, no stupid parents can screw this up.”
Yeah, just me, I think to myself, but at least she's made me smile.
I hope she's right. We say a few more words and then hang up. I'm alone, it's late, and I haven't even showered.
Suds and hot water always help. Grant creeps into my thoughts the whole time I'm under the steaming shower head. I try like hell to zone out and wash away the bad day, but psychic dirt doesn't come off so easily.
He's here. His memory. I think about our first morning together, when we woke up late and sore. He said there was no sense taking turns in the shower. His strong hands lifted me up, and carried me in with him over his shoulder.
Inside the stall with its gold framed tile, behind the heavy glass, he took me hard and slow. Hands on the wall for me, moscato. Words I don't think I'd forget if I tried.
God, and the sex...it's branded in my memory. Every sensation.
Him rolling on the condom, fist in my hair, mounting me from behind. Each stroke pushing our hips deeper into a delicious collision. Our slick flesh slapping together, echoing through the spa-like bathroom the whole time as his thrusts come rougher, faster, persistently deeper.
“Fuck!” I'm flushed when I snap out of it. I've let the shower warm my neck for too long. It's starting to sting. I must've cranked it up a few notches too high when I climbed in.
I was also a million miles away when I put one hand on the wall and wedged the other between my legs, greedy fingers searching for my clit.
Betrayed by my own body and mind. Jesus. Frustrated is far too mild to describe what I'm feeling just now.
There's no easy cure for this insanity. None, which doesn't involve stepping out in a fury, blow drying my hair, and passing the hell out in a tense, hot mess. Or finishing what I've started.
Clenching my teeth, I put my hand back where it belongs.
It's horrible how a man this forbidden controls my pussy from a distance.
It's disaster when I close my eyes, forget our little agreement, flatten myself against the cool wall, and remember while I push my fingers deep into my aching chasm.
It's tragic – yes, fucking tragic – when I know I'll see him this week. Maybe as soon as tomo
rrow. It's inevitable we'll lock eyes, and he'll just know I did this. He'll know I'm so weak, shameless, and conflicted I couldn't stop myself from getting off to our sex, wishing so goddamned bad in the heat of it we could do it again.
“Bastard!” No, Bastard Axe.
I cry out when I come, refusing to say his name. My pussy throbs, aches, overheats as it clenches my hand, a sorry replacement for his pierced cock. Then I stumble backwards and catch myself against the bench, a wobbly-kneed mess, knowing I'll need a few minutes under the crisp shower to wash away my shattered willpower.
Maybe Tay's right. I should stop worrying, and let it happen.
Whatever the hell it means.
But later, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I stare down into the blackness, seeing the full disaster looming. There are no good options. Just several bad ones, each with consequences tainting every part of my life.
If I blow the Neolithic internship and lose my trust, I think I'll recover.
If I tell Ethan to go to hell if he doesn't let up, and it ruins his deal with dad, then I'll probably lose it again. But my father won't stay mad forever.
If I give up, give in, and get too close to Grant Shaw for a second time...Jesus, there's no coming back.
It won't be a misstep. It'll be my end.
He'll blow everything to hell and back, starting with my heart.
5
Barely Touched (Grant)
Week one down.
First week with my balls on fire so long I break out in a cold sweat every time I watch her through the glass.
First week I've become a distracted, gawking mess.
First week racing home after playing clumsy catch up on the merger late into the night, then ripping off my clothes, and fucking my own fist furiously underneath an ice cold shower.
First week I get how Hayds and Luke felt when their women started to chew through their souls. Both my brothers fell to a love bug obsession I swore I'd never understand. So fucking much for that.
One week over. Roughly fifteen weeks, maybe more, to go.
I can't go on like this. Not sipping coffee in front of the one-way glass, pretending I'm overlooking my vast empire. It should remind me what's at stake if I can't swallow this need to have her under me again.
Reality is, it doesn't do a damned thing. Everything I've built with my own bare hands and a good head on my shoulders falls to pieces when I'm able to stare at her, knowing I can't touch.
There are reasons I'm becoming a raving loon when I see Ms. Strictly Off-Limits. Seventeen billion reasons, to be precise. That's what's on the starting line as soon as the merger with Corbin's group is final.
Still, my screwed up brain wants to put all seventeen billion chips on the table for one more kiss.
I don't know what's wrong with me. I've considered hitting the clubs for fresh skirt, leaving the merger to my managers and going away to a nice tropical island. Maybe even talking to a damned shrink. But the devil's in the details when machines as big as Neolithic and Corbin Financial move their gears. Besides looking like a reckless idiot, I'd seem unreliable and crazy to my own team if I pulled up stakes in the thick of this company growing like never before.
Bekah's one of the crew now. I watch her laughing with my boys at the water cooler, handing off printouts to them throughout the day, always with a grin on their faces that's a little too broad. She chews her bright purple bubblegum, popping it with her finger when she thinks no one's looking.
It turns the heads of several boys a few desks down when they have just the right angle to see. Secretly, maybe I want to rip a few of those heads off. Each and every time they see her as more than just a co-worker.
Hiring too many bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids from the best colleges in the country means too damned many are still single. Sniffing around her too close for my liking, when they tell their buddies they're going to ask her to drinks after work.
Yeah, I may have had Nina keep an eye on the gossip, and report back to me. So the fuck what?
It's Corbin's daughter, I tell her. I can't have the young hotheads here getting into her pants, screwing with her heart, sending her home to VIP daddy in tears.
She doesn't need to know the real reason.
Sure, I may have lied through my teeth. I've been doing a lot of that lately. Mostly to myself.
I'm at my desk on Monday evening, legs reminding me I went too hard on a fitful late run, picking over the latest details from legal with my silver pen.
I'm learning fast I can't just work her out of my system, or bleach her from my brain with too much exercise. Every time I glue my eyes to billionaire legalese for more than five minutes, the words blur. They become words like Bekah, fuck her, now, right before my screaming eyes.
Crazy. What's even more insane is what I decide to do when the office begins closing up Monday night.
I stand up from my desk, walk over to the window, and stare down at my obsession. She's one of the last to leave. As much as she loathes it here, she has a work ethic. Nina hasn't ever had it this easy with Bekah lightening her load. She's wearing a long blue summer dress today. It's classier than she usually dresses, and I want to know why.
If it's for one of the boys from trade or I.T., I'll strangle the sorry bastard with my bare hands.
I wait for her to grab her phone, her purse, and make her way to the elevator. Then I count to sixty before I follow, giving her a full minute's head start.
Those quiet walks in the Maine woods watching nature pay off. I'm as sneaky as I am patient. She won't see me coming.
My guts knot up driving behind her, my car strategically positioned out of sight. There's a sense of imminent risk or reward in my system, like waiting for a hand of poker.
Tonight, something goes. It'll either be the ocean blue number clinging to her skin, or my fucking mind.
She walks into a local wine bar, and she isn't alone. There's a man. A total stranger I've seen for all of ten minutes, and I already want him dead.
Who he is, and what he's done to land a date with what's mine isn't the big mystery.
No. It's why Bekah looks bored out of her skull when she's sitting across the table from him, drinking her wine way too fast for a date that isn't bombing. When she isn't glazing over, there's a nervous tick in her lips, and not because she likes what she sees across from her. I swear, her face isn't much different with this stranger than it is at work.
Hell, maybe it's more tense than ever.
I watch for another five minutes, plotting my move. A couple people do double-takes when I make my way across the street and into the restaurant, where I hit the bar for a quick glass of wine. Some of them are probably wondering where they've seen my face before, the Bastard Axe of Wall Street, plastered on the tabloid racks.
These days, my publicity is less about my sales antics, and more about business. I play it cool with the media, especially when there's as big a fish as Corbin on the line. Especially when I'm after my business partner's daughter.
It's too damned loud in the restaurant to hear what they're saying without getting close. I take the stool closest to their table, where I sip my moscato – what else? – and wait to see if she notices.
“Surely, you've seen the news, cheri. So many sides to their war. So much opportunity. My grandfather never dreamed of the contracts we'd have abroad, even during the worst of Algeria. It's simply breathtaking how well Fabius is doing. There's money in war, and in the aftermath. And I'm eager to share the wealth, whatever way I can.”
What the hell? I didn't expect money and politics, much less what sounds like dirty business.
“Then why don't you use it to broker peace? If you have deals with so many different sides, like you say, then you should have a leg up getting them to the table instead of selling them more to kill each other.” Perhaps I misjudged. The grim expression souring Bekah's face tells me she isn't interested in what he's offering. “If I had billions to spare, I'd make the world better. I wouldn't was
te it making more on war.”
“War isn't the only thing Fabius does, cheri. Why don't you find out for yourself? You don't have to do everything your father insists. Why waste your time with this dead end internship? Self-initiative would do you good. Come to Europe. I'll send you anywhere you'd like, wherever we have offices. Paris? Rome? Both are exceptionally romantic in the late summer. I know the best they have to offer, and I can show you.” Mystery Asshole slurs his thick French accent. He's blasted, already had one too many, and it isn't helping his case.
“Ethan, I told you, I didn't come here to talk about that. I came because I want us to have an understanding without screwing up family business.” She pauses, as if considering her next words very carefully. Her hand goes to her face, wiping sweat from her brow. “How do I put this?”
“Tell me we're moving too fast?” he says hopefully. Then the overgrown weasel puts his dirty paws on my woman, and I fucking lose it.
“Bekah!” I call her name, more angrily than I'd like, stepping quickly toward the table. She turns, blinks in disbelief, and totally forgets about the idiot next to her when she finds me standing behind her. “Damn, it's really you! Such a small world.”
“Grant? What the hell are you doing here?” she whispers.
I lean in, ignoring the dirty look from the Frenchman glaring over her shoulder. “Saving you. Now, play along.”
She turns, a nervous smile on her face. “Ethan, this is my boss, Grant Shaw. Mr. Shaw, Ethan Fabius, business associate and friend of the family.”
Not date. Thank God.
I smile, extend my hand, and receive the limpest, clammiest handshake I've ever had in my life. “Charmed,” he says in his smooth accent. “I'd intended to pay you a visit soon anyway, Mr. Shaw. After the merger, we'll both be working more closely.”
