by Eva Luxe
“Mmm?”
“It’s almost seven. Do you still want to go out? We have reservations.”
I breathed out. “No, let’s stay in. Tonight anyway. Is that okay with you? We can just get a pizza or something.”
“Hmmm…” He made an exaggerated “thinking about it” face. “Wear clothes I hate to wait an hour to eat overpriced food, or sit in bed and eat pizza naked with the most gorgeous woman in California? I just can’t decide…”
I laughed. “You’re such an idiot. Hand me my phone.”
I called the pizza place and snuggled against him while we waited for it to be delivered. When it came, he answered the door and paid for it (because he’d been planning to pay for dinner at the restaurant, after all), and I grabbed us another couple of beers. Then we spread out on my bed with a couple of napkins and ate right over the box.
“How do you like it at Monroe?” I asked him. We hadn’t gotten a lot of time together, and we had been too busy sneaking in quick makeout sessions to talk a lot. But he was smart and interesting, and dammit, I didn’t just lust after him. I liked him. “Is my dad a slave driver?”
He hesitated, obviously buying time by taking a huge bite of pizza. “He works us hard, but that’s everyone, not just me. I don’t know, he’s hard to figure out sometimes.”
“Is he?” I had never really thought about that. I knew he had a reputation as a tough boss, but he was just my dad as far as I was concerned. “Like how?”
He shrugged. “I can never tell if he likes what I’m doing. I mean, I know objectively that I’m doing good work, that my numbers are right, and that my projects are creative and solid. But he never says anything about them, doesn’t even really read the files and run-downs I give him. It’s almost like he thinks he hired me for something else, and he’s taken by surprise when I insist on actually doing the development job. I mean,” he shook his head and laughed self-consciously, “I know that can’t be it, but I don’t know how to read him.”
“Weird,” I said, “since you practically grew up here.”
“That’s what I thought too, but I was a kid. I guess I didn’t really know him all that well. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll figure it out.”
“So, what would you be doing if you weren’t working for Monroe?” I asked. “You must have had some other choices, right?”
He looked up with his mouth half full of pizza. “Yeah, a few. I’m not sure I should tell you, though.”
I stilled. He wasn’t going to hold my dad against me, was he? “Why not?” I asked
“Because I might not get invited to any more of your parents’ parties!”
I laughed. “You were offered a job at Cartwright! Probably a good idea not to tell my dad that!”
“I’m sure he already knows.” Adam shook his head. “He knows pretty much everything.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Everything?”
Adam met my eyes. “Almost everything.”
Chapter 8 – Adam
“Hello, Adam.”
My fingers tightened over the keyboard, but I flexed them and didn’t look up. If Bianca thought she could put me off my game by lounging in my doorway like she was on display in a pastry case, she had another thing coming.
Besides, I’d spent the weekend with Chrissy Monroe. Bianca’s cold beauty and calculated poses had absolutely no appeal when compared to Chrissy’s natural heat and vivacity. As far as their basic character went, they might both be gorgeous, but they were complete opposites, and I knew which one I preferred.
“Hello, Bianca.” I didn’t look up. “What do you want?”
She batted her eyelashes innocently. I snorted. I’d learned the hard way that that “who, me?” look brought nothing but trouble.
“I want a few pictures, for the website,” she said smoothly. “And maybe a short interview. You know, rising star at Monroe, parents lock up your daughters, the usual. For the newsletter.”
I’d glanced up sharply at the “lock up your daughters” comment, but after watching her for a moment I decided it was just patter—just her way of trying to get to me. Besides, I was no danger to anyone’s daughter.
Thank God that Chrissy and I had our first sex on a Friday, because it took me most of the weekend to recover. After pizza and beer in her bed, we went at it again—I just couldn’t keep my hands off that luscious body. I felt like I was seventeen again, hard all the time, unable to get enough, needing her again almost as soon as we were done.
I wanted to stay the night Friday, and God knew she’d exhausted me enough that it was hard to get up and leave. But Chrissy was such a free spirit, I didn’t want to seem like I was making demands she wasn’t ready for. And, yeah, I didn’t want to seem needy. I had a feeling Chrissy would run fast from someone who was clingy.
Funny that she was a science major. Not because she didn’t seem smart—sometimes she seemed too damn smart for my own good. But she had such an easy, open way, and she was just so gorgeous—I could see her being a model, of course, but also a reporter or a young media executive. But maybe she’d learned the hard way that animals were a lot less stress-inducing than people.
I have no doubt that growing up as Gary Monroe’s kid would teach someone that lesson. Look at Jack—he’d gone into a career that would take him a world away from his family. If my own experiences with Gary were any standard, those two had spent their childhoods wondering if they had Dad’s approval or not—or if he even noticed they were there.
Chrissy texted me around eleven Saturday to ask if I wanted to go for a swim in the Monroes’ pool. Since I’d slept like the dead, I was wide awake and ready to go again. Which we did. In the pool. But her parents were due back by dinner time, so our afternoon was cut short. I could tell she felt bad, but she didn’t have to explain it to me…the last thing I wanted was for Daddy to walk in on us, yell at Chrissy, and fire me. Which I had no doubt would happen.
“Fine.” I saved my spreadsheet. “What do you want me to do?”
“Smile pretty,” she crooned, and snapped my picture. I must have been scowling, because she sighed and said, “Come on, Adam, just smile. You know, look like you’re happy to work here.”
I was until you walked in.
I did my best to give her a natural smile, and she snapped four or five shots. She took a moment to flip through them, then smirked up at me. “Ooh, that one’s for my personal collection.”
I refused to react, just stared at her stoically. I knew what she was referring to—a couple years ago we’d spent an evening playing with the camera, taking a few memorable action shots so we could relive it all again later. I honestly hadn’t thought about that in years—after we broke up, I didn’t lie around reliving our greatest sexual hits.
“Are you done?” I said curtly. “I have work to do.”
“Oh, right.” She sniggered. “Your…work.”
I had no idea what that was about, but I wouldn’t put it past Bianca to say something just to bait me. I had once thought it was funny, but that was before I knew that she wasn’t trying to be cute. She was really that obnoxious.
“By the way,” she flounced around and spoke to me over her shoulder, “Gary wants to see you.”
“Fine.” I wasn’t going to let her see me jump up like some lap dog, but I wished to hell she’d get out of my office.
She pouted a little and finally left. I waited a good ten minutes to make sure she wasn’t coming back, and that she’d get bored if she were lying in wait somewhere. Then I cleared my screen and walked down the hall to Gary’s office.
“You wanted to see me?”
He looked up from his desk and waited—probably for the “sir” I refused to add. I didn’t have anything else to say, though, so I just leaned against the jamb with an inquiring look on my face.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I have a project I’d like you to take over. Come in.”
I sat in the chair across from his desk.
“We just acquired a property. It
looks residential, but it’s actually commercial, and I’d like you to manage it.”
He handed me a folder with an inch of paper in it. I opened it, and saw that most of them were photographs of a grand-looking historical mansion on the other side of town.
“Does it need developing?” I asked, looking up from the paperwork. “I mean, what are you hoping to do with it?”
“Just managing,” Gary said. “I’m hoping to rent it out for film shoots, get a foot in the door with the studios. It’s a valuable connection to a whole new set of clientele. I need you to go check it out, no later than this week.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. It wouldn’t take up that much of my time, and Elaine would probably do most of the paperwork for me. “I’ll get out there in a day or two. It might have to be after hours. Where do I get the keys?”
“Bianca has them. Tell her I said she needs to make you a copy and one for the office.”
I delivered the message to Bianca. “Let me know how it is,” she said. “I want to do a spread there so that the right people see it. I’m thinking celebrity weddings, so when you inspect it, keep that in mind. Service space, reception area, the usual.”
“Sure,” I said, then returned to my office. I wasn’t going to stand around chatting with her, but I could respect that she had a job to do. And if the mansion really did look like these photos, celebrity weddings were actually a great idea.
I had just re-opened my spreadsheet when I had an inspiration. I dug my phone out of my pocket and texted Chrissy.
What are you doing tomorrow night?
*****
I went out to inspect a job site, making sure to mention to Gary that I’d head from there to the new property so he didn’t expect me back at the office. Gary was enough of a control freak that if I weren’t at my desk at 4:59, he’d call my cell to ask why.
I left the site, stopped to get a couple of bottles of wine and some food, and drove across town to the mansion. It felt like it took forever to get there, but finally I was able to park in the carriage drive along the side of the house.
The first thing I did was check the outdoor security. If we were going to have celebrity weddings here, security would need to be top notch. But also, Chrissy was meeting me here in a few minutes, and I needed to know if her dad would see her arrival on security tapes.
There were cameras, but they weren’t connected to a service, so they were basically waiting to be activated. In other words, Chrissy’s father would never know she was here.
I grabbed the food and wine from the car and brought it into the kitchen, which was where the side entrance opened into. I set everything down on a counter and then looked around. I probably just had time for a walk-through before Chrissy arrived.
About twenty minutes later, I’d barely even seen all the rooms, but I had to hurry down to meet Chrissy. If first impressions were anything to go by, Bianca was right about this property. It was going to be more of an asset for us than I had expected.
I flung open the kitchen door, and there she was. God, she was stunning. She wore a short pink sundress with high sandals, showing off her long, tan legs, and some kind of chunky necklace and earrings. They just made her neck look slender and smooth.
She was looking me up and down too, and smiled. “I never get over seeing you in a suit and tie. I feel like we’re playing grown-ups sometimes.”
“You look amazing,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Come on in. I can’t wait to show you this place!”
“So, what exactly is it again?”
“It’s going to be a venue,” I said, and explained the plans that Gary and Bianca had outlined. “Film locations, weddings, charity balls—oh, crap, you have to see the ballroom!”
She laughed in delight. “There’s a ballroom?”
I dragged her in there and hit the lights. A half dozen chandeliers lit up over the polished wood floor. The edges of the room held cocktail tables, which at the moment were shoved and stacked against the walls, but I could picture with flowers and those glowy light things that you saw in gardens sometimes. The far end held one long, carved bar, and there were ancillary bars pushed against the walls.
“Ohhhhh!” Chrissy breathed. I led her out to the dance floor, and suddenly, stupidly, I wished I could dance, that I could waltz her around like we were in Beauty and the Beast or something.
I started to pull her into my arms anyway, and all I could think of to do was that middle-school rocking back and forth thing, but she said, “Hang on.”
She pulled the purse off from across her body and took her phone out, pushed some buttons, and set it down on the floor.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s not very loud.”
The song from that movie, Ghost, came on, and she came into my arms. She laid her head on my chest and my arms wrapped around her back. And we really did sway back and forth. For a magical three minutes or so, we just held each other and rocked in time to the music, beneath the crystal chandeliers.
The song ended and we stood there leaning on each other for a few moments. We fit perfectly together. Then the beat picked up and I stepped away from her, intending to suggest that we explore another room, but she gave me wicked look, grabbed up her phone, and ran away from me, toward the long bar at the other end of the room.
I followed at a leisurely pace. Her impulsiveness was amusing, but the sheer joy in life behind it was exciting. Chrissy climbed on the bar.
“Hey, what are you—”
But the notes of “Cherry Pie” blared out of her phone, and she started to dance.
How had I forgotten that when we were kids she’d taken years of dance classes, and she was a cheerleader. Right now the rocking beat of the song was back up to Chrissy’s rockin’ moves, all along the bar that was her only stage. I suddenly wanted to really be there, where a hundred men wanted her, but she only danced for me.
The song ended, and she sat down at the edge of the bar, a little sweaty and out of breath. “I haven’t really danced like that in ages!” she said. “What did you think?”
“I think you’re the hottest woman on the fucking planet,” I said.
She leaned toward me. “Do you?”
“Yeah.”
She leaned back across the bar and flipped her skirt up. She was wearing lacy black panties, and when she spread her legs wider I could see they were crotchless. She gave me an “I dare you” kind of look, so what could I do? I bent over, pushed her skirt back, and bit the inside of her thigh.
She yelped and laughed. I smiled against her skin and started kissing my way up to her center. I parted her lips with my fingers and flicked my tongue against her, just lightly. She gasped and pushed against me, but I continued to tease her for a few minutes—she wasn’t the only one who had moves.
“Dammit, Adam,” she panted. “Stop teasing me!”
I laughed and plunged my tongue inside her pussy. She cried out and thrust her pelvis, then I licked up the center and swirled my tongue around her clit. I pushed two fingers into her dripping wet pussy and curved them so they were pressing against her g-spot.
“God, Adam!” she screamed. “Fuck!”
I sucked her clit and finger fucked her harder, pushing a third finger into her. She clenched my hair and ground into my face, and came on my fingers and tongue. She was so wet it dripped down my hand when I pulled it back.
Her hands slid out of my hair and dropped limply to her side. I pressed gentle kisses against her thighs and mound and waited for her to get her breath back. After a few minutes, I pulled her up by one of her hands.
“Want to see more, or are you hungry?”
“You want me to move?”
“Yeah.”
She exhaled and slid off the bar. Her knees buckled, but I caught her. I was so damn hard—watching Chrissy come was the most erotic, exciting thing I’d ever done. But I was going to make this evening all about her, so I tried to control myself.
“You brought food?”
“Yeah. An
d wine.”
“Wow, what a man!” Her teasing tone told me she was recovering from her orgasm. “Let’s look around some more. What else is there?”
“Ah, well…there’s a music room, back out that way. Want to see it?”
“Sure!”
The music room was smaller, of course, but it was a pretty good size in itself. A grand piano, a full-sized harp, and a few other instruments were covered in white cloth and pushed back against the walls. This would be a great place for elite, high dollar concerts, or even smaller, more intimate weddings.
“Is that a drum set over there?” she asked, nodding to one white-covered lump in the corner.
“Let’s see.” I untied the covering and worked it off. It was a drum set, a really nice full kit that must have cost someone a couple thousand dollars. I found the sticks and sat on the stool. I hadn’t played in years, since my college classes had gotten hard and basically taken over my life, but I hadn’t forgotten everything.
I tapped out a few simple sequences, then moved on to some more complex arrangements. Yeah, it definitely came back.
“You’re good!” Chrissy shouted over the noise. “Can you keep it up?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I suppose.”
“Okay,” she said. “Don’t stop. Don’t even miss a beat.”
“Um…okay…”
She came around to my side of the kit, ducked under my arm, and knelt in front of me. Spreading my knees, she scooted between them and started to undo my belt. I almost did miss a beat when I realized what she had planned, but she’d dared me, so I had to at least give it a good try. She unbuttoned and unzipped my work slacks and opened up the front as far as it would go.
“Black underwear?” She looked up at me. I just nodded; I was still trying not to miss a beat on the drums. I think I kept playing the same sequence over and over. She pulled the front of my briefs out, and my cock sprung out. It felt great; it’d been trying to get out ever since I saw her.
She wrapped a hand around the base, and then lowered her mouth over the rest of it. She mmmm’d a little—sounding like she loved nothing better than having a cock in her mouth. The vibration of it hummed through me.
