I’m not sure my dad ever knew just how long we’d been together before he saw us together at the company picnic that August. He took it surprisingly well. I think maybe that had a lot to do with the fact that I was due to be shipped off to New Haven in a week. Maybe he thought it hadn’t progressed far enough to put that opportunity in danger. If he’d known about the plans we’d made, he might have done more than refuse to shake Grant’s hand when it was offered.
What would he think if he could see me now?
I laughed and my dancing companion drew me closer to him, grinding his hips against mine. I wrapped my arms around his oddly shaped skull, everything about him feeling off in some sort of way. He was too short. His jaw was too narrow. His shoulders not quite broad enough. He was good looking, I supposed. He just wasn’t the man who’d been on my mind so often lately.
I turned again, moving with my back to him. He slid his hands over my hips, pulling me back so that his body was pressed to mine. I closed my eyes to let the music wash over me, but what washed over me was another memory.
“I’ve never known anyone like you.”
I smiled as I ran my finger over his lower lip. “I haven’t spent a lot of time with people like you, either.”
“You haven’t spent a lot of time with anyone outside of your dad and your nannies.”
I groaned. “One nanny. And she was kind of the housekeeper, too.”
“My point exactly.”
“I can never tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” He bent low and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. “I just don’t know what to do with you. You are not what I expected when they first told me who you were.”
“What were you expecting?”
“A spoiled brat who always got what she wanted.”
“Talk about clichés.”
“I know. I’m ashamed of myself.”
I reached up and kissed him lightly. “I’ll forgive you, if…”
“If what?”
I shrugged, pretending to think long and hard about my next words. He looked so worried, those blue eyes full of more emotion than I think I’d ever seen in them. It surprised me every time he looked at me like that, like I mattered to him. Up until that point, I’d only been a burden to my dad, a classmate, a friend. But I’d never really mattered to anyone the way he made me feel I mattered to him.
I was done teasing him. I ran my hand slowly over his jaw, loving the feel of his five o’clock shadow against my palm.
“If you’ll keep looking at me like that.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Like what?”
“Like…” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say that I thought he was falling in love with me because that would give away the fact that I was falling for him. We’d been together only a month, but it felt like a lifetime already. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. I knew when September came we’d have to part. I had school. He had…I didn’t know what he was going to do in the fall. He’d told me that college wasn’t his thing. And construction wasn’t something he wanted to do forever. But we never really talked about what he wanted to do. It didn’t seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter except being here, together.
He didn’t need an answer. He kissed me in that way he had—that teasing thing he did where he brushed his lips against mine and then captured them, sometimes nibbling on my bottom lip for a moment, sometimes taking everything, exploring places inside of me I’d not known existed before him. This time it was the latter, his hand on my hips tugging me closer to him on the narrow couch, his body pressed hard against mine until there was no mistaking that he knew exactly what it was I’d been talking about.
Why was he on my mind so much lately? It’d been seven years. Long enough to let go.
The thing was, I was pretty sure I’d seen him a couple of weeks ago. He was walking down the street, just as casual as could be, a ghost from the past. I was on my way to a project site, screaming at the car in front of me because it cut me off just as traffic started to move for the first time in five minutes. And there he was, talking into a cell phone as he rushed across the street with a group of other pedestrians.
“Can’t be,” I had muttered to myself. It had to have been my imagination. I even convinced myself it was.
But now?
I moved away from my dance partner, much to his annoyance, and walked back over to the bar. The bartender set another shot glass of that lovely tawny liquid in front of me without a request. I’d been there long enough, drank enough, that he knew what I wanted. I picked it up and stared at the prism of colors it created in the dim light. Beautiful. I hadn’t stopped to appreciate beauty in a long time.
“I would have thought wine would be more your speed. A nice merlot, maybe.”
The glass began to shake in my hand, the liquid slopping over the edge in small drops. I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want to see his face. But I knew his voice.
“Aren’t you going to say hello, Addison?” he asked, his familiar voice low and filled with amusement.
“I’d rather not.”
“Why? Haven’t you missed me?”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? I had missed him. More than I wanted to admit.
I set the drink down slowly. Carefully.
And then I turned and slapped him as hard as I could, right across that wide, perfect jaw.
Grant.
It hadn’t been my imagination.
Chapter 4
He grabbed my wrist as I pulled back to hit him again. I lifted my other hand, but he grabbed that one, too, anticipating my next blow. There was a brief flash of anger in his eyes, but it quickly disappeared.
“I guess I deserved that.”
“You deserve a lot more than that.”
Something else moved through his eyes then, something I couldn’t quite grasp before this blankness fell into place. A mask. Something I couldn’t read.
He was hiding his thoughts and emotions from me. He’d never done that before. Was it stupid that I felt betrayed by that?
“Let me go, Grant,” I said, tugging at his grip even as I twisted my body away from him.
He squeezed my wrists, held fast to them even as the bartender walked over.
“Problem?” the bartender asked in that voice that made it clear he already knew there was a problem and that it better not impact his business in any way.
“No problem,” Grant said.
And then he yanked me away from the bar and pulled me toward the back.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to talk and I’d rather do it in private.”
“Why?”
“Because that bartender looked like he was ready to call the cops.”
“Good.”
I pulled at my hands, felt my wrist pop a little. His grip was like steel around my slender wrists. I would bruise, I was pretty sure. But I kept tugging even as he kicked open the men’s room door and shoved me inside.
“You have a lot of nerve,” I said, rubbing my freed wrists, surprised by how little redness there was on my pale flesh.
“And you were acting like a goddamn fool out there. Do you make a habit out of dancing with men you don’t know?”
“What makes you think I didn’t know that guy?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do I look like an idiot?”
I gave him a look that suggested I would need evidence to the contrary. His eyes narrowed as he came toward me. I backed away, slamming the small of my back against the counter where two sinks were shoved into a tiny alcove along the back wall.
“Are you going to slap me again?”
I shrugged, shifting slightly as he kept coming. He didn’t touch me, but he had me trapped just by the sheer size of his body.
“Maybe I should.”
“I could think of something better to do.”
“Oh? I thought you brought me in here to talk.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.”
He ran the back of his fingers against the length of my jaw, caressing that space just below the bone that was so intensely sensitive. I blushed.
“You remember my touch.”
I brushed his hand away. “I remember a man who taught me what it meant to be loved. I don’t remember you.”
“I’m still that man.”
“No.” I looked up at him, my heart breaking even as the words formed on my tongue. “You’re the man who left me sitting in that diner for five hours. You’re the man who left without so much as a note, a message, a few words on voice mail. You’re the man who broke my heart.”
I thought for a minute that I saw pain flash through his eyes. But it disappeared quickly.
His hand was back on my jaw, his palm cupping the curve like it was made to fit right there. He lifted my chin and kissed me the way he once did, with the lightest brush of his lips on mine before he captured them, before the hunger behind the gesture took control. I couldn’t help but open to him, couldn’t help the way my body responded to him. It was instinct.
I’d dreamt of this kiss. I’d imagined it coming back to me over and over again. To have it back now, to taste him and realize that there was so much about him that was still the same, played tricks on my mind.
To be honest, I’d never gotten over him. I’d tried to date, tried to move on. But there had never been anyone but Grant.
He slid his fingers back, burying them in my hair as he tugged me closer. I rested my hand against his chest, tears coming to my eyes as I not only opened to him, but I responded. My tongue couldn’t help but explore places that were once so familiar to me. I could feel his heart pounding under his shirt. He was in a suit. The Grant I once knew would never have been caught dead in a suit. He wore T-shirts and jeans. He told me that he would probably curl up and die if he had to spend the rest of his life in a suit and tie, locked behind some desk somewhere. But here he was, wearing a suit. And—fuck me!—he looked really good in it.
I wrapped my hand around the tie, tugged at it until it fell open. And then I reached for the buttons on that perfectly starched shirt, tugging at them until one popped off and the others simply parted.
There was a smile on his perfect lips as he lifted me and set me on the edge of the counter.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered against my mouth as he slid his hands under the edges of my skirt and caught his fingers in the waistband of my panties. They pulled away with almost no effort, sliding down my thighs like they were meant to be puddled on the floor rather than attached to my body. Then he dropped to his knees in one of the most vulnerable positions a masculine man could ever adopt, and pressed his lips to my bare knees.
“You’re not fair,” I murmured as his lips slid over my knee and up along my inner thigh.
“How’s that?”
“I hate you,” I said. “But, God, that feels so good!”
He laughed a little as his mouth moved slowly up my leg, the vibration of his humor sending the most delicious shivers through my body. I found myself wondering if I would have let him do this if I hadn’t had a full bottle of Jack Daniels to myself. My head was spinning. I knew some of that was the alcohol. But not all of it.
My skirt was proving to be an obstacle. I tugged at it to move it out of his way, but the weight of my body sitting on it was making it impossible to truly get it out of the way. He had a solution for that. He simply pulled me off the counter and positioned me against the wall. One leg over his shoulder and…he was a man who knew exactly what he was doing. He was talented in his ability to make a woman lose her mind. I wanted to scream as he did this impressive thing against my clit, rolling it around with the tip of his tongue and then catching it between his teeth, things that made me want to scream.
What was I doing? Where had he learned to do that? What…damn, I couldn’t even put a full thought together.
I lifted my skirt around my waist and buried my fingers in his hair, tugging him closer when he touched a place that was particularly good. And then I lay back and closed my eyes, transported to a beautiful, clean place as the pleasure of what he was doing washed over me. I bit my lip hard, trying to keep all sound locked up inside. But it was getting so hard to contain it all.
And then it was just easier to explode.
I cried out as that familiar tightness began to grow deep in my belly. An orgasm like none I’d ever had before started to build. But then the lovely pressure on my clit stopped as he dropped a kiss on my inner thigh and regained his feet, his teeth tugging at my hardened nipples where they were pressed up against my bra and the fine material of my blouse.
“Don’t stop,” I said, my fingers pushing against his skull, trying to get him back down to where the party had been getting off to a great start.
“Don’t worry, baby, I’m not done with you.”
He lifted me, his hands on my bare ass all the contact I needed for that growing orgasm to remember where it’d been. And then I felt him against me, felt him working the front of his slacks. I reached down to help, undoing the belt and sliding my hand inside, making him gasp as my fingers wrapped around his shaft. He pulled my hand away, a war going on in his eyes as he looked at me. I saw desire there, need that was so deep it threatened to take my breath away. And I saw more—a sadness I didn’t really understand, and a hint of the emotion he once never had a reason to hide from me.
It all disappeared as he closed his eyes and sighed, as he pressed himself against me and my body slowly opened, allowing him inside.
I was lost. I wrapped my legs around him and just floated with the pleasure of it all. I remembered it being good. I remembered the first time, how I’d thought it would hurt, how I’d been prepared for a certain amount of humiliation. But it wasn’t like that with Grant. He was so gentle, so aware of every movement, every moan that slipped from my lips. It had been almost magical. And every time after that, always perfect. This was no different.
We were fucking in a men’s room in some anonymous bar, but it was like all those precious memories from before that were the only thing that got me through the heartbreak of losing him.
I wrapped my legs tighter against him and moaned as the first waves of orgasm washed over me.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered, wrapping my hands in his shirt. “Don’t ever stop.”
He made a funny noise in the back of his throat, but he didn’t stop. He thrust harder, deeper inside of me, moving almost roughly as one orgasm turned into another. I clung to him, pulling at his shirt so hard that it was really a testament to the manufacturer that it didn’t rip apart in my grip.
When he finally reached his pinnacle, I was nothing more than jelly in his grip. I kept my eyes closed, not anxious to go back to reality. But wasn’t that inevitable? Wasn’t reality all there really was?
Just, not right then. I needed more time.
Chapter 5
I had a pretty intense headache when I woke the next morning. Not a surprise, really. But it was still with me as I sat behind my desk, trying to weed through the e-mails in my inbox, most of which were from suppliers wondering when they were going to get paid and clients who wanted to know how many more delays they’d have to expect.
My assistant, Angela, walked into the room and set a handful of pink slips on the edge of my desk. Phone calls that had come in in just the twenty minutes we’d been open for business.
I glanced through them, a part of me hoping one would have Grant’s name and number on it. He’d wanted to talk last night as I straightened my skirt and made a beeline for the door. I hadn’t wanted to talk. I didn’t want to face the reality of what I’d done, or discuss a heartbreak that was seven years old. What was the point in bringing up the past? There was nothing we could do to change it. I just…it would probably be better if he just went back to wherever it was he disappeared to all those years ago.
I was glad there was no slip of paper with his name and number
on it.
Really. I was.
“So, tonight,” Angela said slowly.
I looked up. “Tonight?”
“Yeah. Remember? You agreed to go on a double date with Kevin and me?”
I turned my attention back to my computer so she wouldn’t see the expression on my face. Double date. Just what I needed right now.
“He’s asked his brother to come along. If he’s anything like Kevin, you’ll love him!”
“Where are we doing this again?”
“Firefly. It’s downtown, off Sherman.”
I glanced at her, at the excitement on her face, and realized it was the least I could do. If she knew what was about to happen…it was the least I could do.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said, forcing a bright smile. “I’ll see you then.”
She looked thrilled. And I felt like a heel.
Angela became my personal assistant the day I first walked into this office, two weeks after graduating from Yale. She was patient and kind and everything a good personal assistant should be. We were basically the same age, and we spent much time together going over contracts, architecture sketches, and the huge amount of paperwork that went with running this business. We shared meals and gossip and did all the things I hadn’t done with another female before, because I had never been close to another woman, neither in nor out of the office. I liked to think of her as my friend. It only seemed fair to warn her that I’d be walking away from this sinking ship very soon. Likely by the end of the week. But if I did, she might let the information slip—by accident, I’m sure—and it could compromise the sale. If I were pressed, I would say she was the first person in my life I’d trust. But I couldn’t trust her with this.
“Your day is pretty clear,” she said. “Are you going out to the project sites?”
I nodded. “I probably won’t be in the office most of the day.”
“Okay.” She paused at the door and smiled back at me. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I finished going over e-mails and phone calls, returning a few, before I wandered over to the small bathroom at the back of my office and grabbed the jeans I kept there for trips to the construction sites. We have foremen who often came to us with reports from the sites, but I liked to go out there. I liked to see firsthand what was going on. And I liked to witness the progress firsthand.
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