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 t
hat 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.
I slid my jeans on and slipped out of the dress I’d been wearing. My office door opened as I pulled a light T-shirt over my head.
“Going to the sites?”
“In a few minutes.”
“Probably the last time you’ll have to do it.”
I crossed the room again, my boots in hand. “What does that mean?”
My dad was lounging in one of the straight-back chairs I kept situated to the side of my desk, his eyes weary as he watched me.
“We have three solid offers.”
“Three?”
“That’s pretty good considering we’re less than a week from needing to declare bankruptcy.”
“What are you going to do?”
My dad shrugged. I noticed for the first time that his eyes had dark, heavy circles under them. And he seemed a little thinner than he usually was. His suit jacket seemed to hang on him.
This whole thing was hard on him. I knew it, in my heart. But seeing the evidence made me feel somewhat bad for the negative thoughts I’d been having about him since the company began having trouble.
“I’m going to hear them all out and choose the best one.”
“Any clue which that might be right now?”
“No.” He sat up, leaning forward as he stared at his hands. “But this has to happen this week, Addie. I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“With the money these companies are offering, we could start over. We could start a new company.”
I walked around the desk and lay a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk about it when all this is said and done, okay?”
“This really isn’t the way I had planned on going out,” he said.
“I know.” I bent and kissed the top of his head. “It’ll be okay, Daddy.”
He slid his arm around my thighs and pulled me close for a second in an awkward hug.
“You’re a good kid, Addie. You deserve so much more than this.”
I ran my hand over his head. “It’ll be okay,” I repeated, because, really, it was the only thing I knew to say.
Chapter 6
“Hey, Addison,” one of the construction workers said as he helped me down from the cab of my truck. “Didn’t expect to see you until later in the week.”
“I wanted to see how we’re progressing.”
He stepped back, my hand lost in his much larger one. He was watching me with a little weariness in his watery green eyes. His name was Billy. He was in his late fifties, but he could work circles around any of the twenty-year-olds who often populated these sites with him. And those twenty-year-olds learned a lot from him, when they were smart enough to shut up and listen.
He'd taught Grant all he knew about drywall.
“Slowly,” he said. “The lumberyard refused to deliver that load of two-by-fours yesterday.”
“I know. I called them and got it worked out.”
“They say the company’s been slow about paying their bill for months.”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Billy.”
But he was worried. I could see it in the way he studied me with his permanent squint. Forty years out in the Texas sun had left its mark on Billy’s face—that squint being the least of it. Last year he had a mole removed from his jaw that turned out to be cancerous. The doctor told him to quit his job and take something inside. He refused. Construction was all he knew and he was loyal. He wasn’t about
to leave us high and dry.
If he only knew.
He walked with me to the foundation of an apartment building that had just been dug two weeks ago. Already they’d set the plumbing and begun to frame the structure. It was one of our most massive projects. It was an apartment building that would be forty stories when it was completed. That was fairly massive for this part of the country where apartment buildings were three stories high and office buildings were usually less than twenty.
Too bad I wouldn’t be here to see it finished.
“How’s the new foreman doing?”
Billy shrugged. “He’s a foreman.”
I smiled. “Yes, I suppose he is.”
“We’re on schedule. The kid running the water pump is keeping up. Those are the only things I ask when starting a new project.”
I touched his arm lightly. “I’m glad, then.”
I spoke to the foreman for a few minutes and watched the men go about their business for a while. They didn’t like when I just stood there and watched them work, but they couldn’t say anything. The last man to say something to me about it found himself on the unemployment line that afternoon. I’d do just about anything for good employees, but I didn’t suffer fools lightly.
I was about to climb back into my truck, wondering if I would keep it when I no longer needed it. Maybe I’d sell it and get myself a sports car. Maybe I’d sell everything and leave the state. I’d heard Florida’s pretty nice year-round. Or Montana. I’ve always liked the idea of living somewhere where it snows once in a while.
“Addison!”
I turned and watched as Billy ran toward me.
“I forgot to ask earlier,” he said, not even slightly winded. “Did Grant ever catch up to you?”
The sound of Grant’s name on his lips was such a surprise that I had to grip the open door of my truck. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.
“Grant?”
“Yeah. He came by here a couple of days ago, asking about you.”
“Did he?”
“Dressed in a suit and everything. Said he’d had some luck in California.”
I nodded, feeling like I should say something, but at a loss.
LUCI (The Naughty Ones Book 2) Page 85
