My jaw dropped. “You can’t change Jean Luc’s menu! He’s a temperamental French chef. He will cut you. In case you’ve forgotten, all the pointy knives are kept in his kitchen, and he’s an expert at wielding them,” I cautioned him sternly.
“I pay him an obscene amount of money to leave his ego in the parking lot. Trust me, gorgeous, if you want a chocolate soufflé, then a chocolate soufflé you shall have. Especially if it gets me through your front door tonight,” he vowed, already pulling his cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket.
“No!” I growled, reaching out to snatch the slender iPhone from his grip. “I need a night off. A Luka-free evening, darn it!” I yelled, waving his phone around as I ranted. “I need to think. I need to ruminate. For crying out loud, I’m a woman.”
“I can testify to that,” Luka averred with a wink at me.
“What I mean is I need to call my best friend and talk about you behind your back! Ashlyn needs to help me make sense out of all this,” I explained, flapping his phone at him. Damn it. The man was wearing me down and I needed reinforcements!
“Okay,” Luka assented calmly. My surprise must have shown on my face because then he laughed. “I don’t like it,” he clarified, “But I get it. You need to vent to somebody and in this case—and this case only— that somebody can’t be me.”
“I swear, you’re like a unicorn-man,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.
“Pardon? A unicorn?”
Luka’s insulted yelp made me snicker. “Yep. A unicorn.”
“I am not a damn unicorn. Maybe a dragon. Dragons can breathe fire. They’re cool. Unlike a damned pansy-ass unicorn. A stupid unicorn can’t do the impressive shit dragons can.”
“You’re a man that actually wants a relationship, complete with strings that tie us together for life? Believe me, Luka, in my world, you are the very rare, but much coveted unicorn complete with a nice, enormous horn. I’m completely standing by my unicorn assessment.”
“While I’m thrilled you’re a fan of my horn, I’m gonna have to insist you compare me to a dragon when we’re in mixed company. They’re as rare as unicorns, and they mate for life. Don’t you watch Game of Thrones?” he grumbled.
I snorted because I had both watched and read the books. As far as I was concerned, George R.R. Martin was a demigod. “As a matter of fact, I have.” I nodded. “But I don’t recall that being mentioned anywhere. In the books OR on the show.”
“It’s in the sub-text. Read between the lines,” he demanded grouchily. “Besides, dragons are a lot more badass than fuckin’ unicorns, and if I’m gonna be some mythological creature, it’s gonna be something that kicks ass,” he argued grumpily, shooting me a scathing glare.
“You realize this is an absurd conversation to be having, right?” I teased, my lips twitching as I tried not to smile.
“You started it,” he announced grumpily. “I was just trying to convey that I understood why you might need a night to yourself. Tomorrow, things will change for both of us.”
I refused to get into that debate again with him. Just for the moment, I was gonna let it go and focus on the fact that he wasn’t going to go on a crusade to win my heart tonight. It was the small victories in life I lived for. “Okay,” I said, patting his chest. “Thank you for the orgasm, but I need to get some work done before my boss comes chargin’ in here to fire me for sexual misconduct in the workplace. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, Luka. I expect to see you at dawn with bells on.”
“It’s cute that you think you can throw me out of here,” Luka joked, standing firm when I pushed at his chest again. “But since I think you’re adorable, I’ll let you win. This time,” he emphasized.
“Gee, thanks,” I clipped, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from rising to the bait.
“Until sunrise, hummingbird,” he murmured, bending his head to brush his lips against mine in a heart-achingly chaste kiss.
“Until sunrise,” I repeated, my eyelids fluttering as his soft lips skimmed mine again.
I bit my lip as he took a step back, his dark eyes plainly hesitant. It was obvious he was fighting the urge to stay and take up residence in my office. Lucky for me, something in my eyes must have conveyed my need for space to Luka, and he turned, his long legs carrying him toward my office door. Our eyes met briefly as I held my breath and I watched as he reached down to twist the latch on the doorknob and unlock the door. “You’ve got until sunrise, Michelle, and not a second longer,” he reiterated firmly as he swung the door open. “If I were you, I’d use that time wisely, babe, because tomorrow morning, your time as a single woman is officially up.”
His words held a promise that would have caused a less poised woman to tremble in trepidation, but my poker face was impeccable. Despite my pounding heart and sweaty palms, I was totally able to project an air of casual nonchalance and stare back at him without giving him even a tiny inkling of my internal panic. I was good like that. I had game. “Toodle-oo, Luka.” I dismissed him with a bright smile and an airy wag of my fingers.
Digging my nails into my palms, I watched him tip his head toward me before pivoting on the heels of his black leather Italian loafers (because yes, I was a woman who knew her shoes) and strolling out my office door. Somehow, I managed to wait ten whole seconds before collapsing back into my rolling office chair, a breathless heap of weak limbs and jumbled nerves.
It was obvious the man who’d just left my office was on a mission to win my heart.
And for the first time ever, I almost hoped he emerged victorious.
Chapter Six
Michelle
Kicking off my cute black wedges as soon as I arrived home that night, I was determined to achieve three objectives as quick as humanly possible.
Ditch my bra and don the softest tee shirt and comfiest pair of yoga pants I owned. After all, a girl needed to be comfortably clothed to cope with chaos when it crept into her world and threatened to drive her insane. Sure, the disruption to my sanity had come in the form of the sexiest man I’d ever seen, but still … he’d created flippin’ pandemonium in my previously well-ordered life. The bastard.
Locate and inhale the emergency pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream I kept on hand for particularly stressful days. Since my body had been in a constant state of arousal since Luka left me this morning, I’d say stressful was a mild word for what I’d been feeling. Frazzled was a much better description for my current state of mind. Christ, the guy had made me a junkie for his body after one stinkin’ orgasm. His dick had been a live wire and when I’d wrapped my hand around it, my entire body had short-circuited, my mind fried by the connection to his cock. This was not a fact that boded well for my future.
And last, but certainly not least, I needed to call Ashlyn, my unofficial sister from another mister. Because if there was anybody on earth who could help me sort through the tangled mess of emotions I was experiencing, it was her. Ash had a way of cutting through all the bullshit and exposing what was truly important in life. It was the Mayson blood in her, I think. She was from a family full of straight shooters. Right now, I needed their special brand of blunt honesty in my life.
I made quick work of accomplishing my first two goals, changing out of my work clothes and snatching my trusty tub of ice cream out of the freezer in record time. Yanking open my silverware drawer to retrieve a spoon, I looked around the kitchen for where I’d dropped my cell phone. I spotted it in front of the microwave as I peeled back the cellophane on my ice cream and dipped my spoon into the creamy goodness of my makeshift supper. Not exactly Maybelle’s haute cuisine, but I wouldn’t starve. Walking with the silver spoon still jammed between my lips, I snagged my phone with my free hand and headed toward the living room.
With my ice cream in one hand and my phone in the other, I sank into the corner of the overstuffed bluish grey sofa. When I’d found it at a flea market three years ago, I’d fallen in love with the overfilled pillows and hi
gh back. The only thing I hadn’t loved was the burnt orange color it had previously been before I’d had the piece reupholstered to a hue much more my speed—a color the upholstery people had called blue heather. The fabric’s new tint was similar to that of a cloud’s color right before a rain storm; it was a grey-blue color that filled me with a sense of peace and tranquility, two things I desperately needed in my life. I adored it.
Putting my carton of ice cream down on one of the coasters I kept on the nearby little side table, I reached behind me for the soft quilt I kept on the back of the couch and pulled it over my lap. A few clicks to television remote later I had Grey’s Anatomy playing softly, providing a low hum of background noise that relaxed me. I picked up my phone next and quickly shuffled through my contacts, finding Ashlyn’s number at the top of the list and clicking the green phone icon button with the pad of my thumb. It only took a couple of heartbeats for her chipper voice to greet me with a “Hey, heifer, I was just getting ready to call you and get the lowdown on your day. Any word from Luka since he stole you away this weekend? Please tell me you have something juicy to share. Distract me before I decide doing twenty-to-life for stabbing Dillon the Dick with the dental drill is a small price to pay for the satisfaction of watching him writhe in pain.”
“I take it work isn’t going any better?” I asked with a choked laugh. My bestie really could be quite bloodthirsty when ticked off.
“He told me my skirt was too short today and my ass was falling out, Chells. The darn skirt hung past my knees! He suggested I wear slacks to the office from now on. Slacks!! Who says shit like that? I’ve got fabulous legs and an ass that has actually made grown men weep. I worked hard to get a body like this. I’ll be damned if I hide it!”
“Hell yeah, you did. I should know. You made me sweat right alongside you in that freakin’ gym. We did not torture ourselves doing all those flippin’ lunges and squats to cover our asses and legs up like we’ve got something to be ashamed of,” I cheered her on, loyal to a fault. The truth was, if Ash ever did decide to drill that hole in Dillon’s head, I’d dutifully show up to help her bury the body. We might not be biologically related, but she was a sister in every way that mattered. Right down to my soul. I’d die for her and I knew she felt the exact same way.
“Preach that shit,” Ashlyn agreed. “Anyway, you need to distract me from my homicidal rage. Did you feel any Luka love today?” she teased.
“More than you know,” I muttered, feeling my cheeks heat up at the memory of having his fingers inside me. “He sort of showed up at my office this morning.”
“Oh, really,” she drawled. “Do tell.”
I picked some invisible lint off the throw as I considered how best to relay the events of my morning. It didn’t take long to decide to just dive off the side of the pool into the deep end. The shock of the water might be cold, but in the long run, it’d be easier. “He showed up at my office this morning, then announced to my boss and co-workers that he was there to buy a house. For us.”
“What?” Ashlynn shrieked in my ear.
“It gets worse.”
“Worse?
Her squeal almost made me smile. Almost. “Yeah. Then, when I dragged him into my office to have it out and inform him of what a lunatic he was, I kinda let him get me off instead.”
“You let him make you cum? Right there in your office?”
“Uh huh,” I mumbled, squeezing my eyes shut as Ash’s hysterical laughter rang in my ears.
“Fingers or mouth?”
Yeah, my bestie had absolutely no boundaries. None, whatsoever. “Fingers,” I answer because lying would be pointless. She’d see right through me.
“Not as good as being eaten could have been, but still, I can think of a whole lot worse things than getting that kind of early morning wake-up call. Especially one that ends in an orgasm, you lucky bitch,” she crowed. “My baby is growing up, rounding third base without even a phone call to her BFF to build confidence first! I’m so proud. My baby is a big girl!”
“Why do I love you so much again?” I asked, grabbing my ice cream off the table beside me and shoving my spoon into the now-melted deliciousness before cramming it in my mouth.
“Because you know I won’t sugarcoat shit for you and I’ll always tell you what I think, straight-up and without fail.”
Shit, she was right. That was why I loved her so much. “This can’t happen, Ashlyn.”
“What?’ she chirped. “Orgasms at the office. Oh, please. They happen more often than you think.”
“Not that!” I shook my head and sighed. “Me and Luka. We can’t happen.”
“Why the hell not?” she barked. “From what you told me, he sounds like a great guy. I did some checking, too, after you called me this weekend. Turns out, he’s not the player I was led to believe he was, either. I think he’s been on a couple of dates since he hit town, but mostly, all the talk has been just that. Talk. Your man seems to be what every woman in this town is looking for and they all want a piece. Thing is, based on my intel, nobody’s getting a bite. Nobody but you, that is,” she cackled. “I gotta know, babe. How does that fine man taste?”
Laughing, I bit my lip as I thought about Luka’s kiss. “Like sin and sex all got rolled into one blissful flavor,” I shared, unwilling to alter the truth.
“God, I need to find a man,” Ashlyn whined. “All I get to do is ogle a man that’s already taken—one I want to strangle half the time, but enough about that. Explain to me why you can’t have something with Luka.”
“You know my history, Ash. My parents. My baggage. Failure is in my blood when it comes to relationships and I’d rather not have Luka at all than have to watch him leave me later.”
“Okay, hold up. That’s just crazy talk. Your mother failed at marriage…”
“And my grandmother,” I interjected.
“Fine, and your granny. That doesn’t mean you will. If anything, you’ll be better equipped to spot the normal bumps in the road that relationships come with and navigate around them. You are not your mom or grandmother, and Luka is not the father who deserted you!”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, frowning as I dipped my spoon in my ice cream again and shoved it between my lips.
“I do. Put the ice cream down and listen to me, heifer!” my best friend demanded sternly.
“How do you know I have ice cream?” I asked, cautiously looking around the room to see if she’d installed a video camera when I wasn’t looking. I put nothing past my bestie.
“One, you always eat Chunky Monkey when you have a freak-out and you’ve driven yourself to the center of Freak The Fuck Out City. And two, I can hear the stupid spoon clanging against your teeth. Now, step away from the empty calories and listen to me.”
Rolling my eyes, I tossed my spoon back in the half-empty container of Ben & Jerry’s and put it aside. “I’m listening.”
“Girl, you gotta let go of your past. I know it sucked, watching the destruction of your parents’ marriage and seeing your mother become a different person after your daddy walked out. That would fuck with anybody. But you are letting your past dictate your future, and that is just a shit plan. Let me ask you something. Does it hurt, Chells?
“Does what hurt?”
“Thinking of your life without Luka in it. Now that you know him, can you imagine not having him there?”
“No, and that fact alone scares me to death! I’ve never felt like I needed a man in order to be complete, but now that I’ve experienced having Luka in my life… everything is different. It feels like he somehow wheedled his way inside me, and he’s under my skin. What the hell is that?”
“That’s the BOOM, bi-otch. Haven’t you been paying attention to my family all these years? How many times do you need to witness it to recognize it?”
Closing my eyes as I heard Ashlyn’s soft answer, I nearly groaned. I’d known what she was going to say, but actually hearing it and knowing it was true took me a moment. “Yeah, I kn
ow, but when you were talking up the BOOM all these years, you forgot to mention how fucking terrifying it is to feel it.”
“Fear builds character.”
I could almost see her shrugging off my accusation. “Well, now I’m terrified what the emptiness will feel like if I do actually manage the impossible and succeed in chasing Luka away. Before he waltzed into my life, I never really minded that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. It had always been there, and I didn’t know anything different. When something is your normal, strange as it is, you figure it’s all you’re supposed to have. Luka stomped his way into my life and changed all that, the big bully. The stubborn fool has bulldozed his way into my life and made it past my defenses. He’s given me a glimpse of what it might be like to be truly frickin’ whole, and I hate that I love that feeling.”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that’s how you know, chickadee.”
“Know what?”
“That this thing—whatever it ends up being between the two of you—it’s real. I swear, that man is doing what I previously thought was impossible. He’s making you feel the BOOM.”
“You sound so sure of that that it scares me,” I whispered, balling my fingers into the quilt spread out over me.
“A thousand freakin’ percent, lollipop. I think Luka Templeton just might be your future.”
“He’s going so freaking fast, though, Ash. Like warp speed fast.”
“Some men do, Chells. It’s different, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
“But to buy us a house?” I cried, flopping my head back to stare at the ceiling. “A house.”
“Nobody said you had to live in it with him immediately. Just make sure you love it in case you do decide it’s the real thing.”
Dammit, I hated when she was too reasonable to argue with. “Remind me never to call you for comfort again,” I griped.
“Screw you. My brain is already picking out china patterns and wedding dress designers for you. I’d like one of us to be married before we’re forty,” she teased me mercilessly.
Happily Ever Alpha: Until Sunrise (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 10
