The Romance Plan: Cupids: Book 5

by Lila Monroe

  Liam reaches for me, and just like that, it’s on. We’re all over each other, our mouths fused together as our clothes come off in a frenzied tangle. My dress gets flung over the bookcase. Liam almost trips over a chair. We shove a stack of files off the desk in our mad dash for the closest available flat surface, papers raining down across the carpet like so much accounting-related confetti. It’s not the most graceful foreplay of my life, certainly.

  But it’s definitely the hottest.

  Liam yanks the cups of my bra down without bothering to unclasp it, his mouth fused to one nipple while he catches the other with his fingers. I moan, my head dropping back in pleasure while I sift my hands through his thick, dark hair. I can feel how hard he is already, his cock pressing against my stomach, and when I reach down to stroke him through his boxers he growls, low and dangerous, in my ear.

  “Take these off,” I gasp, plucking at the thick elastic waistband. “I want—I need—”

  “Need what?” Liam asks, teasing even as the thrust of his hips against my palm gives his desperation away. He shucks the boxers as I slip out of my panties. I hear the ragged sound of our breathing and the crinkle of a condom wrapper and then he’s burying himself inside me in one smooth, hard stroke. I gasp at the hot, delicious stretch of it, the feeling of Liam filling me all the way up.

  “Need you,” I tell him, our gazes locked as he starts to move.

  I’m wound so tight I know it’s not going to take me long like this—how long and how impatiently I’ve been waiting, how wet I already am between my legs. Liam reaches down between us to rub at my clit, drawing expert circles with his thumb, and my entire body lights up. “Please,” I say, or maybe I only think it. I feel like I’ll never get enough.

  Liam surprises me then by collecting both my wrists and pinning them up over my head against the cool wood of the desk, holding them tight as he thrusts against and again. “You like that?” he asks, low and commanding, but I can’t make the words to answer him because I’m already coming, wave after wave of it radiating out from the center of my body. I feel like the heat of it could light up the skyline. I feel like the force of it could power Manhattan for days.

  Liam comes himself moment later—his whole body tensing and relaxing, his expression as open and vulnerable as I’ve ever seen it. I wrap my arms and legs around him, hanging on tight.

  Once it’s over we stay where we are for a moment, draped languidly over the desk as our breathing returns to normal. “So,” Liam murmurs. “I guess Verity is the best for a reason.”

  And all I can do is laugh.

  16

  Liam

  I wake up the next morning in the best mood I can remember since…

  Well, ever, actually.

  I wave a hello to the doorman in the lobby of my building, smile at the woman walking her annoying, yappy dog on the sidewalk, and tip the barista at my coffee shop 200%. “Somebody had a good night,” she teases, raising her pierced eyebrow, and while normally I’d bristle at that kind of overfamiliar presumption, today I can’t help but grin back at her over the espresso machine.

  “I guess you could say that,” I admit, and raise my cup in a salute before strolling out the door.

  My mentor Aisling is in town this week, overseeing a hostile takeover at a law firm downtown. It’s a bloodbath, apparently, but she manages to get away long enough to meet me for lunch at a restaurant near the office.

  “How’s it going?” I ask, once we’ve ordered—well, once I’ve ordered, at least. In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never actually seen Aisling eat anything. I have a sneaking suspicion that she survives solely on air and the thrill of corporate cost cutting.

  “Oh, it’s fantastic,” she says excitedly. She takes a sip of her seltzer, which doesn’t have so much as a lime slice floating in it. “We’re going to be able to increase redundancies by nearly fifty percent.”

  Normally that’s the kind of talk that would really get me going, honestly, but today I can’t help but think about the inconvenient fact that those redundancies are actual people, with families and mortgages and lives. “How many layoffs?” I ask, bracing myself without entirely meaning to.

  “Two hundred,” she reports gleefully.

  I nod, swallowing down a vague wave of nausea. God, what is going on with me? “That’s… a lot.”

  “It is!” Aisling agrees, full of cheer. She folds her pale, skinny hands on top of her empty plate. “But I don’t mean to sit here bragging. What about you?” she asks. “How’s it all going at Sterling?”

  “You know, I have to say, I’m enjoying my work there more than I thought I would,” I confess. As the words come out of my mouth I realize they’re true, and I don’t just mean everything that’s been going on with Eliza. “The people who work there really care about what they do. And about each other.”

  “Uh-oh.” Aisling looks at me skeptically. “You’re not getting soft on me, are you?”

  “What? No, of course not.” I nod my thanks at the waiter as he delivers my club sandwich. “I’m more than capable of doing what needs to be done, if it should come to that. I’m just wondering if possibly there’s a way to preserve the bottom line without making cuts that are unnecessarily drastic.”

  Aisling shakes her head, openly dismayed. “You are getting soft,” she accuses.

  “It’s not like that,” I insist. “I just—”

  “I’ve seen it before,” she says, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms. “And I understand. It’s why I was skeptical about you taking this job on to begin with, remember? It’s your late father’s company. It would make sense for there to be… feelings involved.” She says feelings like perhaps the word is synonymous with cockroaches or Gonorrhea. “But just remember: all those people you say you like so much? You’re doing them all a disservice if you let your head get clouded with feelings. Someone needs to take charge and make the hard choices. Otherwise, the whole company will go down.”

  I nod, squaring my shoulders. Aisling may not exactly be the warm and fuzzy type—in fact, the warm and fuzzy type is usually the first type she fires—but she’s my mentor for a reason. She’s steered me on the right path over the years, and I know she’s looking out for me now. “You’re right,” I tell her. “I know you’re right.”

  Aisling smiles. “I know I am, too.”

  I’m planning on heading back to the office once we say our goodbyes, but instead, I find myself taking a detour through the park, just walking to clear my mind. My upbeat mood from earlier has burned off like so much morning fog, and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. After all, fog keeps a person from seeing clearly, right? And clarity is the name of the game.

  At least, it always has been in the past, before…

  Before Eliza.

  I stroll past sunbathing co-eds, elderly couples, and children making the most of the last days of summer with a noisy romp through the splash pad. I try to lose myself in the city life unfolding all around me, but the truth is I can’t stop thinking about what Aisling said. Something about spending time with Eliza lately has made me feel like a different kind of man—a better one, maybe, and I can’t deny that I want him to stick around for a while.

  But what happens if that new man can’t get the job done?

  I should be wooing financiers and figuring out the next round of layoffs at Sterling, not daydreaming about exploring the city—and more—with a woman I hardly know, no matter how incredible she is. I’m a C-level executive, for Pete’s sake, not some lovesick schoolboy.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket just as I’m emerging from the leafy green park. It’s a text from Eliza, almost as if she could tell I was thinking about her.

  Verity just sent me her newest pages, she’s written. Some real spicy stuff involved Thad and Leona on the hood of an Aston Martin car. Any interest in helping me make sure it tracks?

  I smile, I can’t help it. Renting a classic sports car could be expensive, I tell her. N
ot sure it’s in the budget for this quarter.

  True, Eliza concedes. Not to mention the potential cleanup.

  How about dinner instead?

  I could be convinced.

  I want to do things right this time, so I text Jase for help planning a proper New York City night out. He’s able to get us a last-minute reservation at a trendy little Italian place in Brooklyn—a real throwback that somehow manages not to be kitschy, with heaping plates of freshly-made pasta and a small, carefully curated wine list.

  “This place is so cute,” Eliza exclaims when we walk in the door, and I know, the extra planning was worth it. We’re shown to a tiny corner booth, a candle flickering on the wooden table between us, and start with a round of cocktails and some delicious breads and olives to snack on.

  “I’d like to propose a toast,” Eliza announces, raising her glass. She looks luminous in the amber light, in a blue dress with skinny straps and a temptingly low neckline. Her hair is long and loose over her shoulders. “Antigravity chamber aside—and we’ll work on that—Verity’s new pages are… really good.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Is that so?”

  Eliza nods. “I think you might even enjoy them,” she says.

  “I’ll…be sure to give them a read.” I say tactfully.

  “Somehow I doubt that.” She smiles. “But you can take my word for it. The important thing, for your purposes, is this: We’re going to make your deadline.”

  All at once I sit up a little taller. “Really?” I check again. “Like, the actual deadline. That we talked about?”

  Eliza laughs out loud. “That’s dirty talk for you, isn’t it?” she teases, popping an olive into her mouth. “Making the print deadline.”

  “Maybe,” I admit.

  She taps a finger against her chin in an exaggerated pantomime of thinking. “I wonder what else I can say to really turn you on.” She smiles, discreetly running one foot over the back of my calf under the table. “Spreadsheets, maybe? Merger. Bottom line.”

  I laugh, self-conscious. “Am I really that bad?”

  “It’s working, isn’t it?” Eliza retorts playfully.

  It’s not so much her words as the sight of her lips closing around a morsel of bread that’s working, but the effect can’t be denied.

  “I mean…” I reach for her knee under the table “It’s not not working.”

  “Good,” Eliza says, looking pleased. Then, trailing her fingertip along the underside of my wrist, she whispers, “Corporate buyout,” and I can’t help but laugh.

  The waiter appears with our pasta before I can reply, which is probably for the best. The food is delicious, but I can barely concentrate on anything but the woman in front of me, her voice and her collarbones and her skin in the candlelight, how badly I want to lean against the table and press my mouth against hers. By the time the waiter appears to ask if we’d like dessert it’s all I can do to string a full sentence together.

  “We’ll take one of everything on the menu,” I tell him, eyes still on Eliza. “To go.”

  It feels like the car ride back to my place takes forever, the city lights winking in the distance as we cruise across the bridge. Eliza’s fingertips are playing havoc on the inside of my thigh, and I’m just about wondering what counts as public indecency by the time we finally reach my building. We’ve barely made it through the door of my apartment before I’m yanking the dress down off her shoulders, freeing her breasts and ducking my head to lick and suck at her taut nipples. I boost her up into my arms, striding quickly in the direction of the bedroom.

  “Wait a sec,” Eliza says breathlessly, even as she’s grinding herself against me, running her fingers through my hair. “This is my first time at your place. Aren’t you going to give me the tour?”

  I look around, dazed and distracted, almost as if I’m seeing it myself for the first time. “Living room,” I tell her as we pass through it. “Dining room. Hallway.” I toss her onto the mattress without bothering to turn the light on. “Bed.”

  “Gorgeous,” Eliza teases. She stretches her arms luxuriously up over her head, her breasts drawing up high and tight. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass your compliments along to the management company.”

  Eliza laughs. “You are something else,” she tells me. She sit up again long enough to slip all the way out of her dress before helping me with the buttons on my shirt, reaching down to undo my belt with nimble fingers. “Get on the bed,” she says softly.

  I swallow hard. “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  She reaches back and twists her long blonde hair into a messy knot before ducking her head and taking me into her mouth, licking and sucking and stroking until it’s all I can do not to lose it completely.

  Damn, this woman is incredible.

  I shut my eyes and open them again to take in the view, my hips arching up off the bed as I watch her until it’s all nearly too much. “Come up here,” I groan finally, reaching for her shoulders and hauling her up on top of me, then rolling us in one smooth, fluid motion. Eliza opens her hips underneath me as I reach down to line us up, both of us moaning aloud as I sink deep inside her.

  “You’re amazing,” I tell her, even as we work together to find a rhythm. “You’re perfect, Eliza. I want you so much.”

  “You can have me,” she whispers, head dropping back against the pillows. “I’m all yours.”

  I’m learning exactly how to take her to the brink: The right combination of thrusts, and strokes, and touches to make her body tighten around me, make her moan against my mouth. When she comes, it’s with a cry and a whimper, and I follow her almost immediately, sparks exploding behind my eyes as I thrust one last time. I want to do this forever, I think dazedly, our limbs tangled together and my mouth fused to her neck. I want to do this with her forever.

  And damnit, I’ve never felt like this before.

  17

  Eliza

  The sun is streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Liam’s bedroom when I blink awake the next morning. My whole body feels loose and relaxed, and the tiniest bit achy in the way that follows a night of incredible sex. Liam is still asleep beside me, one arm slung up over his head, and I let myself stare at him for a moment, my gaze raking hungrily up and down his body. He’s hot, clearly, all disciplined muscles and smooth, tan skin. But even more than his many, many physical attributes, I’m struck by how peaceful he looks like this: his breathing deep and even, his eyelashes casting tiny shadows over his cheeks. It feels like I’m getting a glimpse at a secret version of him, one hardly anyone gets to see.

  Eventually, I slip out of the covers and tiptoe over to the master bathroom, which is larger than my entire apartment and luxurious as a suite at the Plaza. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little jewel box of a studio apartment, but there’s nothing wrong with availing oneself of the finer things in life every once in a while. I take a long, hot shower, turning my face up into the spray from the rain showerhead and taking advantage of the many body sprayers. Once I’m finished, I wrap myself in a fluffy white robe and head on out into the massive kitchen to make some coffee.

  I meant what I said as Liam hauled me off into the bedroom last night—his apartment is gorgeous, with carefully selected furniture and expensive-looking modern art on the walls. The light is incredible, and the tall, wide windows offer a breathtaking view of the skyline of my favorite city on earth. But the more I look around this place, the more it occurs to me that something is missing here. There are no personal touches anywhere—no family photos, no well-thumbed paperbacks on the bookshelves.

  No soul.

  Liam doesn’t seem to miss it—and it sure is efficient, what with the gym in the basement and the 24 hour concierge service, his dry cleaning waiting, freshly laundered just inside his door. But it kind of makes me feel sad for him. It’s an incredible place to live, no question. But I don’t know that I’d call it a home.

/>   In any case, I’m not about to look a gift kitchen in the mouth. “Hello, Le Creuset,” I murmur, hitting the start button on the coffeemaker and setting out the ingredients for my grandma’s famous chocolate-chip pancakes. I tune the sound system to a low-key jazz station and lose myself in the simple pleasure of making breakfast in an extremely fancy kitchen.

  Is it terrible to say, I could get used to this: the mind-blowing sex, and the high-end appliances?

  I’m just drizzling a ladleful of batter into a hot buttered pan when Liam pads down the hall in all his deliciously half-naked glory, dressed only in black boxer briefs and a smile. “Morning,” he says sleepily, rubbing a hand over his face.

  “Morning yourself,” I say with a grin. It’s the most disheveled I’ve ever seen him, his eyes heavy-lidded and his hair temptingly mussed, and I can’t act like it’s not appealing. I reach out and rub my thumb over his bristly jaw, then drag it gently down across his lips. His mouth opens slightly, his teeth catching the pad of my thumb in a way that makes me shiver.

  Liam curls a hand around my waist and pulls me close for a kiss, his body still warm from sleep. I wrap my arms around his neck, rocking my hips against him without entirely meaning to do it. Liam groans low and quiet in my ear. “Can I ask you something?” I murmur even as he’s trailing kisses down my neck and into the collar of my robe. “What are we doing here, exactly?”

  Liam straightens up at that—not tense, but curious. “What do you want to be doing?” he asks, looking at me seriously. The question isn’t a tease or a trick, I realize, gazing back at him. He sincerely wants to know.

  “I don’t know,” I confess honestly, shrugging inside his arms. “But whatever it is…I want to keep doing it.”

  Liam smiles at that, his eyes dark and the tiniest bit dangerous. “I think that can be arranged,” he says. He reaches for the sash on my fluffy white bathrobe, his gaze locked on mine as he tugs it open and pulls me against him one more time.