by Piper Rayne
“I can’t be your co-worker.” The words leave my lips in a rush before I can think better of it and I realize how true they are now that I’ve spoken them out loud.
She leans toward me like she has to tell me a secret. “Hate to break it to you, but you don’t have much choice on that one.”
“What I mean is that I think about you naked every time I see you. I imagine having sex with you everywhere in my apartment, on every surface. The whole reason for bringing you here was so that wouldn’t happen. Fuck. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve royally screwed this up.”
Our dinner arrives and she unwraps her silverware calmly. At first glance, I didn’t think my words affected her, but then I notice the flush in her cheeks. Her tongue slides out and she licks her bottom lip, right before biting down on it and inhaling a deep breath. Maybe I haven’t screwed this up… yet.
“You know how attracted I am to you, right?” I ask.
She side glances me.
“I’m sorry for being an ass these past few weeks, but I do want you. Don’t question that. If we didn’t work together—”
“Yeah, yeah, we’d already be dating. Heard that line already.” She bites into her taco and chews aggressively. “Let’s just stop the whole back and forth thing and remain co-workers who are friends.”
“We could, but I’ll never survive.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m just going to enjoy my tacos once again. Do we get to go to Scrumptuals again too?”
Her sarcastic tone says I haven’t lost this round yet. She’s pushing me on purpose.
“Blanca?”
She wipes her face and places her napkin on her lap. “So tell me? How do you see this working?” she asks. “Because I can’t figure out what you want.”
“What working?” I take a bite of my taco, which is delicious.
“This pull between business and pleasure and the fact that you don’t mix them.”
I wipe my mouth and look to her to decipher her meaning. “I don’t.”
She huffs. “Do you want to talk articles?”
I shake my head. “Blanca?”
She leans forward. “Ethan,” she whispers, a small grin on her face.
“Check please.” I raise my hand and Blanca laughs, our gazes never leaving one another’s.
I’m probably a moron for allowing my dick to win this war. We both worked too hard for this job.
She slides off of her stool, putting her purse crosswise over her chest so the strap indents right between her tits. Yeah, like her article pointed out so well, co-workers fuck all the time and nothing bad happens, right?
Chapter Fourteen
Blanca
I’ve never been a forward girl. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But I just practically put my hand on a guy’s crotch and said let’s go back to your place. But truth is, I never do this. Not that I’m against a woman taking what she wants when she wants, but having three older brothers made me nervous of word getting back to them.
This time it won’t get back. Because my protective brothers don’t know anyone in Cliffton Heights.
Ethan’s hand slides into mine when we step out of Las Tacos, clenching to signal for us to start walking together.
There’s no conversation during the walk to his apartment, but there’s a stirring between us, a silent bomb that ticks the seconds as if we can’t reach his place fast enough before it explodes.
He releases my hand to slide his into his pocket, retrieving a set of keys. When he opens up the building’s door, I walk through the double doors first, him behind me.
“Up the stairs. Third floor,” he says to my back.
I step first but he matches me step for step and when I reach the top floor, he instructs me again, “To the right. Three-twenty-one.”
I turn and his footsteps sound behind mine.
My heart beats fast and my stomach turns as I wait for him to open his apartment door.
A warning flashes in my head once he’s unlocked his door. I’m asking for disaster. He’s my co-worker. A job I’ve been wanting forever and I’m chancing it for what might be just one-night?
But he pushes the door open and holds his hand out, a flirty grin on his lips, his right dimple on display. He doesn’t seem like a one-night kind of guy. He could be my one and only right? Now I know I’m talking myself into this since I’m not sure how I feel about soul mates.
I accept his hand and step over the threshold into his space, unsure what I just signed up for—one night of good times or something more?
He shuts the door behind me and steps forward, pressing my back to the wall, his hand warm on my neck. “Are you positive, Blanca?” His tongue slides out and tastes my lips like he knows my answer.
Who am I kidding? I know my answer.
“Yes,” I whisper and his head dips.
I wait to see stars or to feel dizzy before his lips reach mine. A guy who makes you clench your thighs because he puts everything into his kiss. But there’s no explosion because he draws back and his thumb traces my bottom lip.
“I need the job,” he whispers.
“Me too.”
“Are we crazy?” His thumb continues to slowly run along my lip and his gaze dips to watch his movements before bouncing back up to my eyes. “I’d do about anything to kiss you right now.”
“Except lose your job.” I place my hand on his wrist, but his thumb still doesn’t stop.
He nods.
“I shouldn’t have come onto you so strong.” This close I can see his unique hazel eyes, brownish with a hint of green and sparkles of gold.
His thumb stops. “Please don’t think that. I love the fact that you’re so forward. All I can think about right now is picking you up and tossing you on my bed, if only for a moment to see how perfect it’d feel to have you there. To strip off your dress and see your body. To know if it’s how I imagined it. Christ, the idea of the warmth of your skin on mine… but…”
A deep sense of loss claws at my insides. “Ethan,” I interrupt his thoughts. “What if this thing never goes away? I can’t work if us sleeping together screws it up and I can’t work if I’m always thinking about us sleeping together. It’s a lose-lose battle.”
I hope I’m not coming off like some needy girl. I do want him, and I understand the repercussions of what we’re doing.
He stares at me, long and hard. “I guess it’s settled.” His hand runs along my neck until he sinks his fingers into my dark hair. My eyes drift closed, and he steps forward, pressing into me. “Walk over the cliff with me?”
I pop my eyes open and he’s right there, as though he’s been waiting for me and he didn’t almost cut this off a minute ago.
“I think it’s more like jumping, but…”
“Blanca.” Will my name always fall of his tongue as though he’s tortured? “Time to stop talking.”
And then it happens.
His mouth lands on mine, hard like he’s taking this moment before he doesn’t have the option not to. The low groan from his throat only spurs another round of tension between my thighs.
The kiss is everything I expected. Starbursts fill my vision from behind my closed eyelids and everything in my body says I made the right decision because this will be a night I’ll never forget.
His hands are magical and scarily talented as they run along my body, never breaking our kiss. “You’re so damn beautiful,” he says between kisses. “And a great kisser.”
All I have time to do is smile before his lips come down on mine again, his hot wet tongue sliding into my mouth. He kisses like he banters. A little bit of flirting and teasing with a heavy dose of swagger that some might misinterpret as arrogance. Most of all, he kisses like he has us under control. That I shouldn’t worry because he knows the terrain and will get us where we need to go safely.
I allow my jumbled thoughts to drift away as quickly as he’s gotten my blouse to fall to the floor. My hands search out his hot stomach. Sliding up his b
utton-down shirt, my fingers search his warm rippled abdomen while his finger slides under my bra strap, lowering it off my shoulder.
His eyes trace the movement and he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
The pressure builds and spreads through my limbs watching him admire my body. I help him by sliding my arm out and he works on the other side. The quiet rush of passion surrounds us as he takes his time to commit me to memory.
Once I’m free of the other strap, he steps closer again, his body perfectly molding to mine. Without effort, he undoes my bra and it drops and catches between us as his lips take mine.
“You have too many clothes on,” I tell him between kisses.
He freezes, draws back, and puts his arms out. My bra falls to the floor and his gaze fixates on my bare breasts, a scorching heat in his eyes. “I’m all yours.”
I lick my bottom lip, stepping forward to reach him again.
He puts up his finger to stop me when I’m only a couple of inches away. “First, you strip for me?”
“I’m already topless.”
His eyes travel down to my jeans.
I smile as my fingers linger on the button of my jeans. “What do you say, Mr. Ryland?”
“Please, with sugar on top?”
I laugh and flick open the button of my jeans, turning around to face the door.
“I feel like I should be sitting down for this.” His voice is low and husky.
I peek over my shoulder to see him unbuttoning his pants.
“I thought that was my job.” I pout and his dimple makes an appearance, boosting my ego.
Hooking my fingers into the waist of my jeans, I shimmy them down my legs. As I continue to study his reaction, his dimple disappears and his jaw tenses when I step out of my pants.
“Happy?”
“I see one more thing that has to go.” He nods toward my underwear.
I approach him wearing only my panties. My fingers finding the buttons on his shirt and I make quick work of them. Soon our stomachs are touching, and it feels divine to feel the heat from his skin seep into me.
“You’ll have to do some of the work,” I say.
He brushes the loose strands of my hair from my face while I get his jeans unfastened and pooled at his feet in seconds.
“You’re a little too skilled at undressing a guy.”
I laugh and feel his hard length pressing to my stomach as I rise on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. “Aren’t you going to show me your place?”
He grips my ass and hoists me up with his strong hands. “There’s only one room you need to see right now.”
He wiggles his way out of his jeans and turns toward the hallway. I can’t see anything of his apartment because he anchors his mouth to mine without a breath or intake of air until we’re in a space that smells just like him. Lowering me down to my feet, his hands slide under my panties to cup my ass cheek and he presses our bodies together, his lips traveling along my jaw and neck.
I haven’t had a ton of partners but none of them have ever kissed and explored my body with such passion before. You’d think he’s a virgin and I’m his first partner from the way he appears to be hanging on by a thread. His lips are never more than a millimeter away from me and his hands are in search of any inch of my body he’s yet to touch.
We fall onto the mattress, which is Ethan’s most uncoordinated move tonight. He fixes that by rolling over me with the suaveness of a man who knows how to seduce a woman.
His thigh separates my legs just as his lips find mine again. Our tongues are more frantic as he situates himself between my thighs and grinds his hard length against my core.
“Ethan,” I say in between a pant and a beg, my thighs clenching around him, wanting to trap him there forever.
His finger runs down the length of my face. “I know.” He thrusts again and my hand reaches between us, palming him over the cotton of his boxer briefs as a way to stop the torture.
He raises his hips and props himself up on his elbows, staring down at me, granting me permission to run the show. Sliding my hand off his package, he groans but I push under the elastic band of his boxer briefs and he’s hot and heavy in my hand.
“Jesus… Blanca.” Those gold flecks in his eyes light up. “That feels so good.”
Turning to his side, I mimic his movement so we’re facing one another, and he watches intently while I glide my hand up and down his hard length. Callused fingers sneak under the elastic of my panties, delving into my wetness.
Another exhilarating groan rips out of him. “So wet.” His lips press to mine, and I drown in the kiss we’re starting to perfect.
He plays me like I’m an instrument, like he’s practiced for decades and my hips buck off the mattress. I grip him harder and pump a little faster while he thrusts into my hand. Just as I get a good rhythm down, his hand clamps down on my wrist. “I think we’re going to have to call it on that one.”
“You don’t like?”
“On the contrary, I like it too much.”
I giggle but his hand leaves me, and he reaches into his nightstand.
Rolling back over, he kneels in front of me and his fingers dig into each side of my panties, dragging them down my body. He seems to revel in revealing the last part of me to him. Never have I felt more comfortable being naked in front of someone. The heat from his gaze sears my skin.
I return the favor and pull down his boxer briefs. He manages to get them the rest of the way off and drops them behind him.
My mouth waters watching him roll the condom down his length.
“I beat off to this exact scenario the first night we met.”
“You mean last night?” I ask, making fun of the short time we’ve known each other.
His laugh is deep and rumbling. “Yeah. I guess I have no willpower around you.”
He rests his weight on his elbows and situates himself between my legs.
“That’s okay, me either.”
“Good. Because I don’t see that changing.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and spread my knees to make room for him. “Me either.”
With a cocky smirk, he pushes into me, inch by inch until I’m completely filled. It’s then that I’m certain I’m in real trouble because nothing has ever felt this right.
Chapter Fifteen
Ethan
I bury my length deep inside her and she clenches around it.
“Ethan,” she says as though it takes all her energy to speak.
I get what she means. I have no idea how to explain the feeling that just took over my body. This isn’t just a one-time fuck to get each other out of our systems. At least for me, I can’t deny what’s happening.
I lower my body and lock her head between my forearms, pulling out of her warmth and slowly sliding back in. Her neck cranes back and I take the opportunity to scatter kisses along her jaw.
She’s not loud, but she’s not quiet either. Every time I shift or explore her body, her moans are scattered like breadcrumbs on an unfamiliar path so that I remember exactly what she likes. I slide my hand up her leg, bringing her ankle up to rest on my shoulder, and a long strangled groan escapes her as I thrust deeper.
“You feel amazing,” I say, unable to hold back my thoughts. She could ask me anything right now and I’d be honest because this isn’t just sex. Just like that night on the train, this feels different, as cliché as that sounds. And I’m a writer—I hate clichés.
“You too.” Her fingernails dig into my shoulder blades and I hammer into her a little harder this time.
For the next ten minutes we vary our positions, all with me on top. When we’re both on the brink of ecstasy, I release her legs. She wraps them around my middle, her heels digging into my back.
Brushing away the loose strands of chestnut from her sweaty hairline, I smile down at her right before I capture her lips. She wraps her arms around my neck, anchoring me to her like I’m a life vest.
I’m not goin
g anywhere. If I get anything out of what’s happened tonight, it’s that work or not, Blanca Mancini is going to be in my life. I’ll have to figure it out on my own.
A shudder runs through her and if I’m reading her body correctly, she’s about to plunge into ecstasy. The last place I want to be is up in my head about the do’s and don’ts of dating a co-worker. I want to commit this to memory.
Our tongues slide together, our hands clench and our bodies tense with the pressure of our impending orgasms. She falls first, her thighs clenching around my middle, her grip firmer and stronger, making sure I go nowhere.
After she whispers incoherent words in my ear, I do the same and lose all control, rutting into her on a groan and holding myself there.
“You’re everything,” I whisper. “The whole package. Beautiful, funny, sarcastic…” My compliments fall away as my brain grows fuzzy and all I can think of is how great it feels to come inside of her.
Our tense muscles slowly relax, and I roll over beside her.
“I’ll be right back.” Sliding out of the bed, I head to the bathroom, dispose of my condom in the trash, and wash my hands. “Do you need anything?” I ask while I make my way back to the bed.
She climbs out of bed, grabbing my shirt from off the floor, throwing it over herself. “I can do it.”
Of course she can because Blanca might be the most independent woman I’ve ever dated. I just hope the fact she took my shirt is a sign that she’s going to come back to bed because I’m going to want her again in about ten minutes.
Sadly, a few minutes later, she leaves the bathroom and sits down at the foot of the bed.
This is exactly why you shouldn’t sleep with someone unless you’re both on the same page. I’m guessing we’re not.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, using any excuse to keep her here.
She looks at me over her shoulder, her gaze pensive. “Where do we go from here?”
“Well, I thought we’d eat.”
Her face grows serious. I knew this about her. I knew she wasn’t going to let us explore this without there being some type of classification afterward. Blanca isn’t like any other woman I’ve dated. But that’s what’s scary about her. She calls me out on my bullshit.
