by Ivy Smoak
"How about after the cake tasting tonight?" Zach asked.
"Yeah, I already have plans tomorrow. Come on, let's do it tonight, it'll be so much fun. We promise not to embarrass you," Tavon said.
I laughed. "I guess that could work." I glanced down at the time. It was a little early, but I was already hungry. "I'm going to take an early lunch. And I promise to ask him." Tonight would be the best time to do it this week. Even though I was free tomorrow night since Melissa and Tyler weren't talking to me, James still had plans with his friends. And I'm sure he wasn't going to cancel on them to hang out with a bunch of interns that were obsessed with him. I bit the inside of my lip to prevent myself from laughing. I was an intern that was obsessed with him too. He didn't seem to mind my obsession at all.
Sierra clapped her hands as I walked toward James' office. She probably thought I was out of earshot.
I wove my way through the different departments. Tonight I thought I'd play up the student/professor role playing idea I had come up with. If anything could get James to cave, it was whispering Professor Hunter seductively in his ear. That dynamic between us never got old. It reminded both of us about when we first started our relationship. And no matter what anyone else said, I loved how we met. I could relive our first time together in his office over and over again. I absentmindedly licked my lips. Sex seemed to be the only thing on my mind recently.
The blinds on James' office windows were open, so he saw me approaching before I even knocked. He immediately smiled and waved his hand, gesturing for me to come in. I walked in and closed the door behind me.
"Sounds good," James said into his desk phone. "Reach those numbers and then we can discuss it." He smiled at me as he listened to whatever was being said on the other end of the line. He stood up, eager for the phone call to be over. "Thanks. You too." He immediately hung up the phone and grabbed my waist, pulling me close to him. "I was just thinking about you."
"I'm always thinking about you." I stood on my tiptoes, drawing my face toward his. James' lips were immediately on mine as his palm pressed against the small of my back. The past few days had been filled with the sexiest make out sessions imaginable. Apparently we were both addicted to sex, because not taking it further than a kiss always took all my restraint. I laced my fingers behind his neck, making the heat between us almost palpable.
He groaned and grabbed my thigh, lifting it around his waist.
I laughed and pulled back, but he kept my thigh in his hand.
"You're killing me," he whispered. "I need you."
"I need you too." I looked up into his eyes and ran my hand down the side of his face. "It's just going to make our wedding night that much better, you know."
He smiled and kissed my forehead. "There's no way you can wait until then."
"There's no way you can wait until then," I said and poked the center of his chest.
"You're right. I can't." He grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me hard. When he pulled back, I was completely breathless. He released my thigh and smoothed my skirt back into place. "And neither can you, baby."
I pressed my lips together and shrugged. "Are you hungry?"
His eyes gravitated down my body. "Starving."
I laughed. "For lunch, James." I sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
"In that case...I guess I could eat." He grabbed our sandwiches out of the small fridge and sat down beside me.
"So, the other marketing interns want to go out for drinks tonight. And they were hoping my fiancé could come too." I smiled at him as I slowly unwrapped my turkey sandwich.
"Should we meet up with them after the cake tasting?" He took a huge bite of his sandwich.
"You actually want to go?"
He shrugged as he finished chewing. "If that's what you want to do. You keep saying you want to bond with them. Wasn't that why you didn't want them to know we were together in the first place?"
"For some reason I thought you were going to say no."
"When do I ever say no to you?"
I smiled at him. "You usually don't say no. You just do whatever you want regardless. Or else I wouldn't even be eating lunch with you right now. I'd have a different internship."
"Fair enough. But I think it'll be fun. I should know all my employees better. It will be good for me too."
"Are you sure?"
James laughed. "If you don't want to, we don't have to."
"No, it's not that." It's just that Zach jumped to conclusions because of the bruises on my face and Sierra has a crush on you. "I don't want to force you to do things you don't want to."
James leaned forward and kissed me again. "All I ever want to do is hang out with you. And I'm excited to meet your new friends."
"Just to give you a heads up, I'm pretty sure Sierra is going to try to steal you away."
"I love how jealous you get."
"I'm not jealous."
He smiled back at me. "And maybe after drinks we can go home and reevaluate this whole no sex before the wedding thing?"
"You're incorrigible, James Hunter."
"Is it working?"
I shook my head, but we both knew he was wearing me down.
Chapter 18
Thursday
I took another bite of the dark chocolate mousse cake.
"Is that one your favorite?" James asked as he took a bite too.
"I don't know, they're all amazing."
After the pastry chef had reprimanded us for waiting until a week before the wedding to pick a cake, he had laid out an assortment of the most delicious cakes I had ever tasted. It was good we had skipped dinner because I apparently didn't have any self control around wedding cakes.
"You know what this one reminds me of?" James asked.
I nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. Even though it's not lava cake, it tastes like that chocolate cake from your country club."
"Our country club."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"It kind of takes me back to our first date. Our first real date I mean. Not just when I seduced you in my office." He took another bite of the cake.
I smiled up at him. "I seduced you."
He laughed and shook his head.
"You pretended that I was your wife on that date. Do you remember?"
"I remember." He was looking at me in the most loving way.
"Did you ever think we'd be here right now?"
"At that moment?" He ran his hand through his hair. "I think I was just terrified by my own reaction to you."
I knew he was referring to his addiction problem. I looked down at the cake.
"I wasn't really in a good place when we met, Penny."
"I know, I just meant..."
"You saved me."
He had never said that to me before. I swallowed hard. I felt tears welling in my eyes.
"Suddenly the only thing I wanted in life was to see you smile." He reached out and took my hand. "So yeah, I thought we'd eventually be here. This is everything I've always wanted. We certainly had our ups and downs getting here, though." He smiled at me.
"You mean, you certainly enjoyed pushing me away?"
"I'm not going to ever push you away again." He ran his thumb along the palm of my hand.
"I know."
He pulled me into his chest and put his hand on the side of my face. "You're quite sentimental tonight."
I breathed in his heavenly scent. "Sometimes I think about when you said you wanted to go to Vegas and..."
"This is what I want too."
"Are you sure? You said you didn't want a big wedding and I..."
"Penny. The first time I got married, I wasn't in love. I didn't have a say in any of the plans. I wasn't excited to walk down the aisle. And before I met you, I never thought I'd get married again." He ran his fingers through my hair. "No one's ever loved me like you love me. This is what planning a wedding is supposed to be like. I liked looking at venues, picking flowers, being excluded from hel
ping you pick out a dress..."
I laughed.
"I've had fun doing all of it. This is going to be our wedding. And I'm so excited to marry you. I thought I didn't want this back then, but I want it now. I want to see you walk down the aisle toward me. I want our friends and family to clap when we have our first kiss. And I want to have a first dance. I want all of it with you."
"I think we should choose this one then," I said and looked down at the chocolate cake. "I'm still going to try all the others though. This place is amazing."
James laughed and released me from his embrace. "There is one last thing to do here."
"What's that?"
He picked up a piece of cake in his hand and lifted it toward me.
"Don't you dare, James."
Before I had even completed the sentence, he smashed the cake against my face. He laughed as I wiped it off my nose.
"Oh, I'm going to get you." I picked up a piece of cake and chased after him.
***
James opened the door for me. As soon as we were both inside, he put his arm across my shoulders.
"They're over there," I said, nodding toward where Sierra was waving her hand in the air. They were sitting at a table and there were two empty seats. "I'll sit next to her."
James laughed. "You're so cute."
We walked together toward my fellow interns.
"Hey, guys," I said. I was about to sit down next to Sierra, but she tapped on the chair. "You can sit here, Mr. Hunter. It's so great that you could join us."
James squeezed my shoulder. "Thanks." He smiled at me and sat down next to her. "But please, you can all call me James."
Sierra beamed.
I internally rolled my eyes and sat down between James and Zach.
"Hi, Penny," Zach said. He was the only one that seemed to realize I had said anything. "You have some icing in your hair, I think." He pointed to the left side of his head.
I wiped above my right ear.
Zach laughed. "No, not mirrored. It's on your left."
I wiped above my left ear.
"You got it." He took a swig of his beer.
James put his arm back around my shoulders. "How are you guys liking the internship?" he asked.
"It's awesome," Tavon said. "Anderson is letting us go through your current marketing strategies to see if we have any ideas."
"And do you have any?" James asked.
Tavon cleared his throat. "Well, we just started..."
"I'm just kidding," James said. "We don't have to talk about work. Did any of you grow up in the city?"
"Yeah, I did," Zach said. "I went to NYCU like Penny, but we didn't have any classes together. You went to Harvard, right?"
"Yes."
"Did you get a masters there too?" Tavon asked.
"No, I just went to undergrad. I started laying the groundwork for Blive Tech while I was still in school, so I jumped right into that instead of going for my masters."
"And you were one of the youngest millionaires ever right?" Tavon asked.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"That's freaking awesome. What made you sell Blive Tech when it was going so well?
"A number of different things. Mainly I just wanted a new challenge."
"And that's why you started teaching?" asked Sierra.
James smiled down at me. "Yes. I taught in New York for a little bit and then transferred to the University of New Castle. I really enjoyed it."
"It's a shame you had to stop."
"Not really. I got everything I wanted from it."
"What, a girlfriend?" Zach asked.
Zach, what the hell?
James laughed. "No. I loved teaching. It was a nice change of pace. But I missed running a business. Well, yeah, and I guess I got an amazing girlfriend out of it."
"Weren't you still married when you moved to Delaware?" Zach asked.
Is he purposely trying to torture me?
James cleared his throat. "I had filed for divorce before moving."
"I was reading about your first wife too," Sierra said. "It's so sad what happened. Were you really childhood sweethearts?"
James looked uncomfortable. "No. It's a long story. Did you guys want refills?"
"That would be great," Tavon said.
"I'll be right back." James squeezed my shoulder and walked toward the bar.
"Oh my God, he's even sexier in normal clothes," Sierra said as soon as James had walked away. "I've never seen him in jeans before."
"What is wrong with you guys?" I said.
Zach laughed. "We're just trying to get to know him."
"No, I agree with Penny," Tavon said. "You guys are being embarrassing. Sierra, stop flirting with him."
"I'm not flirting with him," she said and crossed her arms.
"Penny?" Tavon was looking at me for help.
"You kind of are."
"I'm so sorry. I'll stop." Her face had turned slightly red.
"It's okay," I said.
"And Zach, why are you attacking him?" Tavon asked.
Zach shrugged. "Just trying to figure him out." He was looking at me. "Gauging his reactions to different things."
"Zach, I asked you to drop it..." my voice trailed off when James came back over. He had a beer in his hand and a waiter was following him with a tray of drinks.
"I opened up a tab for the table," James said as he sat down. He immediately draped his arm back around my shoulders.
"Thanks, man," Tavon said. "So what made you get into tech in the first place?"
"Honestly, it was forced on me."
Everyone laughed. I looked up at James. I had never asked him that question and I was curious about the rest of his answer.
"I liked reading in my free time. And my parents hated that. They put a computer in my room and kept giving me games to play on it until I finally got interested."
"You do realize that's the opposite problem all our parents had with us, right?" Sierra asked.
James laughed. "I think they knew there was an opportunity for advancement there. Whereas being an author wasn't something they wanted for me. My older sister was already interested in literature. And they were right. The opportunities in this field are endless."
"So you originally wanted to be an author?" Sierra asked.
James shrugged. "No. I don't know. I was young. I didn't really know what I wanted to be."
I bit my lip. He was never allowed to dream about what he wanted to be. His parents had decided that for him early on.
"Did you play any sports growing up?" Tavon asked.
"Some. Never for very long. I always went back to tech."
"So, were you like a nerd in school?" Sierra asked. "I can't picture that at all."
"I'm still a nerd," James said.
"You are definitely not nerdy looking, " replied Sierra.
James laughed awkwardly and turned away from her. "What about you, Tavon? Did you play sports?"
"Soccer. Second team all-conference my last two years in high school."
"My little brother was good at soccer too. I used to love going to his games," James said.
I took a sip of the beer that the waiter had handed me. I knew that Rob had played soccer growing up. He liked to brag about how awesome he was.
"You like beer?" Zach asked me.
I turned toward him. "I'm used to hanging out with the guys."
He smiled. "I pegged you for only drinking girly drinks."
"You pegged me wrong."
"And what about you, Zach?" James asked, cutting our conversation short. "Any sports growing up?"
"I ran track."
"Do you still run a lot?"
"Almost every day through Central Park before or after work."
"I like running through Central Park too. I always try to get Penny to come with me, but I haven't convinced her yet."
Sometimes James ran with Mason. They always made everything a competition. Whenever James came back completely worn out, I k
new he had been racing Mason through Central Park. Bee and I always joked that they complained about us on their runs. But I had a feeling that they just talked about real estate. Or mergers and acquisitions or something super boring. Bee and I went to yoga classes together at least once a week and we never complained about James and Mason. We were happy. There wasn't anything to complain about.
"You should try it sometime," Zach said, pulling me out of my own thoughts.
James pulled me a little closer to him.
I laughed. "Running? Oh, no. I do not like running." As far as I was concerned, James gave me plenty of cardio exercise. Although, I'd never pass down a walk through Central Park with James' hand in mine. "I'll stick to yoga," I said.
"You do yoga?"
"A few times a week, yeah."
James cleared his throat.
"I played volleyball in high school," Sierra said.
"So did I," I said. "What position did you play?"
"Outside hitter," Sierra said and turned her attention back to James. "James have you ever played before?"
"Just in gym class," he replied. "And I guess some beach volleyball, but that's pretty different."
"Beach volleyball is the best. Where have you played?"
James shrugged. "It's been awhile. The last time I played was probably spring break my senior year of college."
"That's not that long ago," Sierra said.
"For you guys, maybe." James laughed. "I'm turning 30 next month."
"Thirty isn't so bad. Isn't that the new 20 or something like that?" Tavon asked.
"It sure doesn't feel like it."
I smiled up at him. Was he upset about turning 30? He hadn't mentioned it to me. But it was definitely a milestone. Everything that was going on was a lot of change for him too. I needed to plan something really special for his birthday. Meggings weren't going to cut it.
"At least you got the whole hot young wife thing going on," Zach said.
I laughed awkwardly.
James set his beer down on the table. "Penny, do you want to dance?" He stood up before I had even answered.
"That sounds great." I grabbed his hand and let him escort me onto the small dance floor. There were only a few people dancing.
"Zach seems to like you quite a bit," he said and pulled me in close, despite the fact that it wasn't a slow song.
