Captivating the CEO

by Sara Daniel

  Terrified, he pulled back. “We should eat.”

  “Good idea.” The wattage of her smile slipped. Obviously, she preferred to keep kissing, too.

  He didn’t want to stop with a kiss either. He wanted to strip away her sexy leggings and concealing tunics and touch her sweet body while she stroked those wonderful fingers over every aching muscle. Despite the temptation, having sex on a linen table cloth on the marble floor of his office amidst china dishes and crystal goblets exceeded all bounds of practicality, responsibility, and advisability.

  Shifting her off his lap, he stood, using the excuse of retrieving the Perrier bottle to put space between them. Not surprisingly, the tent in his pants caught her eye. He didn’t attempt to hide it or pretend she didn’t turn him on. Of course, he wanted her, but after explaining why he practiced restraint throughout his entire life, it would do her good to see his control in action.

  But she didn’t try to tackle him into reconsidering, as he perversely hoped, instead turning to uncover the serving dishes of pasta and warm, buttered bread.

  “I hope you love Italian food, too, and didn’t order this simply to make me happy,” she said.

  “I like to make you happy.”

  His phone rang and he glanced at it. Her smile disappeared. “If you do, then you won’t answer that.”

  He resented the unfair request. “I have to, and you know it. This call is the reason I needed to stay in the office all evening.” Requiring access to his computer, he headed for the desk. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll try not to be too long.”

  Her skeptical gaze followed him, but any reassurance he offered would be a flat-out lie. If he rushed the intricacies of the deal, a critical, overlooked detail would create havoc later. He’d given Willow his undivided attention for an unprecedented length of time, but not long enough. Despite quantifying everything else in his life, he didn’t have a number to aim for to satisfy his quota of time in her presence. He always wanted more.

  As he began the negotiations, she bit into a ravioli. Her expression radiated bliss. How much more enjoyment would she have if it came from his fork to her mouth?

  “Is that the conclusion you came to?” the Downing executive asked.

  Shoot. The topic of conversation, let alone the conclusion, eluded him. To concentrate on the task he needed to accomplish, he turned his desk chair away from her.

  Only shortsighted thinking promised he could have it all. A trade-off existed between the present and the future. His efforts centered on the big-picture future.

  ***

  Waiting for the doctor to return from viewing her echocardiogram on Friday, Willow tried to be philosophical, rather than disappointed about her picnic with Colin. When he engaged with her, he made a lovely date. She regretted not holding his attention throughout. For his sake, she hoped he’d one day meet someone capable of keeping him in the moment. After all, she wanted to relax and loosen him up, not make him fall in love with her.

  Dr. Marshall knocked, then reentered the room, not offering his usual, reassuring smile.

  “Nothing to spin as good news?” She willed her voice not to tremble, wishing for a comforting hand to hold onto. One phone call, and her mother would have been at her side, like she had for every appointment and hospital stay throughout Willow’s childhood. But her mom and dad enjoyed their well-deserved retirement and didn’t need to be bothered with routine checkups.

  “We can schedule the surgery instead of dashing to the hospital to admit you,” Dr. Marshall said. “That’s about the best news I have.”

  Not routine after all, and not a prognosis to jump up and down over. No longer having the energy to jump at all should have been a strong clue her appointment wouldn’t be an ordinary one.

  “Your pumping function has shown a significant decrease over the last couple of months to the point where it’s a serious concern. Your oxygen saturations are in the low eighties, and you feel the effects with even mild exertion. So, we need to schedule something within a week.”

  Tears clouded her eyes. Less than a week. The evidence in her blue lips and fingernails served as a daily reminder of the inevitable need for another heart surgery, but the suddenness still caught her off guard. She wanted more time for everything, especially to spend with Colin.

  “How soon will your parents be able to get here?” Dr. Marshall had followed her case and advised her and her parents since her original diagnosis as an infant, making his worried expression personal as well as professional.

  “Within a couple of days. Actually, a few hours. If I tell them everything you just said, they’ll be on the next flight. And my brother lives in town.” Her throat ached, not for her own future, but for the misery she put everyone around her through.

  “Good. Tell them everything, Willow. Let’s plan on the surgery for first thing Wednesday morning. I’ve already spoken with the surgeon and I’m forwarding your test results to him. We’ll admit you the night before to get the prep work going.”

  With barely four days to squeeze in a lifetime of things she still wanted to do, she didn’t have time to cry and throw a pity party.

  Her phone rang as she walked out of the office. Louise. She stared at the screen, knowing what Colin’s secretary wanted. Giving massages didn’t fit on Willow’s bucket list right then, but putting her hands on Colin any way she could get them there, did.

  “Can you come this afternoon?” Louise asked.

  “I’m on my way right now.” Not bothering to stop at home for her customary bag of supplies, she took the L to his office.

  Louise raised her eyebrows when Willow stepped off the elevator. “You got here fast.”

  Too fast. Her heart raced, matched by ragged, shallow breathing. Her body begged for a rest break, but the hours were too precious to sleep away. “I happened to be in the neighborhood. Are you attending your son’s basketball games?”

  “I haven’t missed one. I can’t tell you how happy my family is. I’d been working up my nerve to hand in my resignation letter. Now, as long as I keep leaving the office before six, I plan to stay here.”

  “Good.” She ignored the little pings of light invading her vision, another clue she needed to sit down and rest. “If you do decide to quit, make sure you tell Colin what you told me. He needs to see someone put their present situation first.”

  “I will. You can go in. He’s on the phone, but I can create a rumor about intermittent technical difficulties with our communication devices.”

  Willow snickered, a bit of her equilibrium restored. “I like the way you think.”

  Inside Colin’s office, she closed the door behind her and stared at his strong, serious face. After a moment, he lifted his eyes, meeting hers.

  Screw the massage. She needed to experience life to the fullest and have no regrets. And she would regret not having sex with this man.

  With a twist of the deadbolt, she secured their privacy, then marched to his desk and killed his phone connection.

  “Hey, who do you think you are? I was in the middle of a call.” His voice vibrated with outrage.

  Normally, she wasn’t capable of such blatant rudeness, but the doctor’s visit had triggered a reckless, selfish binge she had no intention of explaining. “I don’t care.”

  He could have his extensive, boring future of phone calls, as long as he spared her a few minutes right then. Still gasping from exertion, anticipation, and nerves, she shoved his keyboard across the desk. “I want you right now.”

  “And I’m not going to tell you I don’t want you because that would be a lie.” His angry expression shifted, replaced by sexual heat.

  Despite her live-in-the-moment philosophy, her sex life tended to evolve organically. Not this time. His absolute honesty sealed her decision. Assuming the role of seductress was another bucket list item every woman ought to try at least once before she died. She hitched up the flowing skirt she’d worn to make it easy to attach the lead wires to the skin of her thighs during the EKG
and echocardiogram and straddled his lap.

  “Willow.” The single word began in a tone of warning and ended with supplication.

  Better. If he wanted her half as much as the evidence he’d displayed during their abbreviated picnic date the other night, he needed to take her now and not expect a second chance. Covering his lips with hers, she let desire, fear, and desperation roll together to convey her urgency. Sliding her fingers over his forehead, eyes, nose, and chin, she memorized his imprint for her subconscious mind to enjoy when the anesthesia took her under in a few days.

  His hands splayed across her back, giving the illusion of protection. But he couldn’t protect her. No one but the most skilled surgeon offered any hope. No outside danger threatened her. No, disease attacked from the inside. Her defective parts didn’t have simple replacements. Her doctors patched her up with their cutting-edge technology and watched over her until she needed another repair job, then sent her under the knife again.

  Pushing the thoughts aside, she kissed Colin harder, positioning her pelvis against his crotch. He pulsed through his clothing, shooting stark need and pleasure to her nerve endings.

  “Willow,” he said again, his voice huskier than usual, yearning in every breath. “Are you sure you want to do this here?”

  “I want you, Colin. I don’t care where. I want you now.”

  Chapter Four

  His eyes dilated. “No one’s ever…you ignite me.”

  For the first time, she lowered her gaze. She should correct him, yet her efforts to be remembered but never missed left her hollow.

  “You make me lose my control.” He scraped his fingers through her hair and over her back, underscoring his words.

  “Good. I don’t want your control.” She unknotted his tie and tossed it aside, then unbuttoned his shirt, running her hands over the warm skin of his perfect chest.

  He kneaded her breasts through her clothes. “Where are the buttons or zipper to take your dress off?”

  “We don’t need it off.” No need to correct his assumption of a dress, rather than a blouse and skirt combination, and risk the questions her naked chest introduced. Intent on satisfying both their needs, she worked his belt buckle, then pants button and zipper. With a quick and dirty connection, he’d categorize her as an easy lay, and not a special woman in his life. “Push my underwear to the side. I’m ready for you.”

  Not waiting for him to take action, she explored the thin band of hair disappearing inside his briefs. Shifting his clothing, she freed him and stroked his length.

  “Oh, Willow,” he groaned.

  She grazed her lips over the pulse hammering at the side of his neck. His heart might beat as hard as hers, but she doubted his vision darkened around the edges. Determined not to pass out before experiencing the pleasure of his body, she filled her lungs with deep breaths.

  He grasped her hips and drew her toward him.

  Oh yes. Desperate to slam down over him, she tilted the head of his shaft to position him at her opening.

  “Condom,” he said. “Do you have one?”

  “No. We don’t need one. I’m clean.”

  “I have every reason to believe I am, too, but you still need to protect yourself. No matter how much you want to live in the now, your future is important.”

  His worries about her health, as sweet as they were, underscored his cluelessness over the real concerns she faced. With trembling hands she caressed his set jaw. After falling hard and fast, she fell a little deeper with every passing moment, but the end of their time together rapidly approached.

  Bestowing an intense kiss on her lips, he lifted her and set her on the edge of the desk. “I have condoms in the bathroom. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  She nodded, gripping the edge of the desk for balance, needing a moment to catch her breath as much as she needed him. “As long as you don’t change your mind.”

  He shot a fierce, possessive look over his shoulder, pinning her with his bright blue eyes. “I won’t. You’re mine.”

  For his sake, she should change her mind and leave before his words became more than an expression of physical need. But she wouldn’t. She needed him to be hers, more.

  Colin ran through his office with the condoms, desire pounding through him. Instead of trying to relieve his stress, Willow vibrated with her own tension and made demands, perhaps driven by their unfinished date two days ago. The important details and signings of the merger now taken care of, he was eager to oblige.

  She stared at him with parted, bluish lips and glazed eyes, the rise and fall of her chest highlighting her unfulfilled lust. After setting the box of condoms next to her on the desk, he slid his hands up her billowing skirt, skimming over her smooth calves and thighs and cresting her rounded buttocks before easing her panties down her legs. Gliding over her satin skin, he reveled in the sharp intake of her breath at each touch. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  “Where?”

  “Inside me.”

  “Like this?” He caressed the length of her thighs again, pressing both thumbs into her slick, hot opening.

  Wiggling against him, she arched her back and hips. “Yes. More.”

  Ready to meet the demand, he surged deeper. Her welcoming moans and gyrations sent him spiraling toward the edge of control. He released her to roll a condom on his throbbing erection then sank onto the desk chair, grasping her hips and pulling her down on top of him.

  Pinning him with her beautiful hazel gaze, she clutched his shoulders and stayed raised above him, then slid down, taking all of him, enveloping him in a wondrous embrace.

  Everything about her, from her body, to her touch, to her smile, screamed perfection. And the complete opposite of what he needed in his life. Damn it.

  He thrust.

  “Yes. Hard and fast.” Her nails raked his chest. “Take me like you’ll never see me again.”

  His heart stuttered at the thought, and he pumped with more desperation than finesse. “I will see you again, but I’ll give you what you want now.”

  “I love a good compromise.” Her breathless voice carried little more than a whisper. Lifting her hips and lowering them, she complemented his thrusts, the rhythm too fast for him to have any hope of prolonging her pleasure.

  He hurtled toward mind-numbing ecstasy, and in a final effort to bring her with him, stroked her clit. Her detonation sent his orgasm into the stratosphere. Seeking her lips to swallow his shouts, he convulsed.

  He hugged her until the tremors stopped vibrating through them, then he opened his eyes. Their crazy, explosive chemistry filled him with both awe and terror. His future plans didn’t include a contingency for anyone to join him. Willow changed everything.

  If someone attempted to turn his life upside down, panic overwhelmed him until the threat disappeared. The amazing physical connection with her unsettled him, but he kept panic at bay by reveling in the relaxing afterglow. He held everything important in his arms. Willow captivated him.

  Shifting her weight, she rose off him and picked up her underwear from the floor. The loss of her body heat gave way to a chill, then, as she stepped into her panties, an uncomfortable vulnerability.

  Brushing her lips over his, she caressed his earlobe. “If that doesn’t convert you to becoming a live-in-the-moment person, I don’t know what will.”

  Expecting a more personal revelation, he blinked. Their physical intimacy stripped him to his soul, while her teasing, easy-going personality once again masked hers.

  “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.” Shouldering her purse, she waltzed out the door.

  The chill and vulnerability congealed in his chest in a cloud of panic. If this equaled living in the moment, he wanted no part of it. He needed to count on Willow for his future.

  ***

  By five o’clock on Monday afternoon, Willow had all the administrative details of her life in order. Or so she thought, until she checked her on-line checking account and discovered a
new deposit from Colin’s company, referencing a massage on Friday.

  Well, of course he didn’t tell Louise the truth of her visit. Even if he engaged in small talk with his employees, admitting she’d come to his office and jumped him, crossed a line of TMI.

  To get the money transferred out of her account for a massage she hadn’t given would take more than twenty-four hours. Giving him the massage right then would settle the matter. After a weekend crammed with activities including her parents’ arrival Saturday afternoon, her family acquiesced to her wishes for an evening alone. Why not spend at least part of it with him? Despite her plan not to see him again, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  Decision made, she took the train across town to his building. As she entered the lobby, Louise exited the elevator and waved.

  “Is anyone in Colin’s office with him?”

  “No, he’s alone, on a call.”

  “Of course.” Willow stepped into the empty elevator, but hesitated, needing to say more, however much she hated to bring it up. “After today, he’ll need to find a new massage therapist. If you call my usual number, I have a message set up directing you to a colleague I recommend.”

  Louise’s eyes widened in concern. “Any reason?”

  “I’m taking a medical leave of absence. No big deal.” Heck yes, it’s a freaking big deal. But just for her, not for her clients and acquaintances.

  “I hope everything goes well.”

  “Thanks.” Before the other woman commented further, she pushed the elevator button. “Have a great night with your family.”

  The doors closed, taking her to Colin on the top floor, and she entered his office without resting at Louise’s desk. Voices jabbered from the phone. Spotting her, his eyes lit up. Then he frowned, proof he wanted to see her even if he refused to admit it.

  “I owe you a massage.” Her voice sounded tinny and far away, reminding her why she paced her daily activities. Rushing to get everything in she wanted and needed to do before the next afternoon, she teetered on the edge of passing out. Filling her lungs with air, she leaned her hand against the closed door in search of balance.