“First of all, you were completely ignoring me to open up your new office in Seattle or whatever other hipster town you’re leaving me for. Secondly, I’m allowed to hit on whomever I like.”
“I am not leaving you, Alexa. I’ll just be out of town for a while.”
“An entire year,” she clarified.
“I don’t know why that’s a problem for you. I’m sure that extra from Sons of Anarchy will keep you busy.”
“Why are you so bothered by him? You were busy so I flirted with a cute guy. It’s been known to happen before.”
He ran an agitated hand through his sandy blond hair. “Because we were supposed to hang out tonight, and instead you chose to gamble for over an hour and were just about to go home with some dude.”
“Okay, I’m sorry for that,” she allowed, trying to calm him down. “Let’s go back to my house now. It’s not a big deal, Carter.”
She took a few steps toward the exit, but he remained rooted to the spot, his expression still uncharacteristically dark and moody.
“Are you going to pout all night?” she prodded. “Or are we going to salvage this evening and actually spend some time together before you leave?”
He stalked toward her, his blue eyes flashing with anger as he grasped her arm. “You’re not the one giving orders here, Alexa.”
A shiver of awareness danced across her skin, sending up a wave of goose bumps in its wake.
Carter suddenly pulled her toward the back of the casino. They passed a startled concierge as he led her into a remote stairwell with a big staff-only sign on the front, but as a contractor for Elysium’s security system he had access to all areas of the casino.
The concrete stairwell was cold and quiet, but they were in a standoff, eyes clashing in anger, confusion and denied lust. She didn’t know exactly how she’d gotten so angry so fast, but she was plenty pissed off at his attitude and the fact that he’d dragged her across the casino like she was his property. She wasn’t the one who was leaving town for some bullshit extension office that could be handled remotely or by his countless executives who would love to relocate to San Francisco. In the course of several hours the life she loved was in danger of becoming extinct and he was upset because she was flirting with some guy? He needed to check himself.
“You have no reason to be pissed right now,” she bit off.
His eyes widened in incredulity. “I don’t have a reason to be pissed off? You’re supposed to be fixing your reputation and you can’t even do it for one fucking night.”
She bristled at the censure. “You’re not my boyfriend or my dad, and I’m allowed to flirt with guys. If you’re not going to be my fiancé, then my reputation is none of your business either.”
“Why are we even here in the first place? You talk a good game of being sad that I’m leaving, but you can’t even spare a couple hours off from flirting and gambling to hang out with me. You know I hate crowds and casinos.”
“If you didn’t want to gamble, you should have spoken up and we’d have gone home. I’m not a damned mind reader.”
Her blood was raging now and she shivered. Something was different here. The tension that always simmered below the surface was so second nature it was easy to ignore, but now it was reaching a boiling point. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to shake the living daylights out of him or rip his clothes off.
Carter pulled her into his arms and her breath caught. “I’ll speak up then.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CARTER’S LIPS MET hers and the world suddenly felt like the glass flower exhibit, upside-down and chaotic. His lips were firm and confident as he threaded strong fingers through her hair and held her tightly against his solid body. The body of her friend, whom she’d lusted after for years. She’d denied herself for such a long time, only imagining what it would be like with him, but those daydreams were incredibly vivid now.
She moaned against his mouth as he took the kiss deeper, opening her up and invading her with gentle but insistent explorations. It was methodical and thorough, just like the man himself. Carter was the most intelligent and inventive person she knew and she wanted him to apply all of those skills to her while they were both naked and in her bed. Or his bed. She wasn’t picky.
His strong, steady hands drifted down her back and gripped her ass just tightly enough to let her know he meant business and drew her hard against his erection so that she was cradling him right where she wanted him. He was big, and she rocked her hips against him, wanting to feel the length of his cock against her wet heat. She arched into him, needing to be closer and feed the feverish ache between her legs, but he only gave her a fraction of what she wanted, his hands stilling her hips when she wanted nothing more than to ride him to her own release.
One of his hands caressed up her side, the rough calluses dragging against the silky fabric of her blouse as he cupped her breast in his hand. He drew a blunt thumb lightly over her beaded nipple, and she groaned in pleasure as liquid heat poured through her like the first sip of rich hot chocolate on a cold day.
His lips crashed onto hers again as they fought for dominance in the kiss, tasting each other, their tongues invading and retrenching, teasing and commanding.
She found his chest under his shirt and stroked along his abdomen, the fact that she’d done this to another man just moments ago not lost on her. Carter felt perfect under her fingers, taut and smooth and hot.
“Mine better be the last chest you touch tonight,” he growled, lifting her into his arms.
The new height put them face-to-face. The hard length of his erection finally pressed against her core and she closed her eyes against the onslaught of desire that stormed through her insides.
“You’d better make it worth my while then,” she told him, nipping at his bottom lip.
Their lips locked again, the heat rising between them like a bubbling geyser. He pulled her shirt over her head, leaving her exposed in a red silk bra. In response she scored his thick hair with her fingers and guided him to her peaked nipple, which he drew into his mouth without hesitation. Bolts of desire roared to her clit and her hips rolled against his erection, creating a maelstrom of sensation. Just a few more seconds and she could come just from some innocent dry humping like a teenager in the back seat of a car.
“Carter,” she whispered against his lips.
Tracing a thumb over the corner of her mouth, he coaxed her to let him go deeper, explore and taste all there was to discover.
“Touch me,” he murmured against her lips.
“Are you telling me what to do?” she asked, drawing back with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Now stop being so damned contrary and do it.”
“Oh, this so is not how we’re doing this,” Alexa declared, waving her pointer finger as she attempted to climb out of his hold. Orgasm be damned, she wasn’t his servant.
He let her go, but then crowded her underneath the stairwell until she was flat against the wall. Anticipation danced up her spine.
“Hey!” she snapped, pushing at his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“You think this is going to be like our friendship, where I look the other way when you try to boss me around, but Alexa, what we’re about to do isn’t friendship.”
None too gently, he spread her legs apart with his knee, pinning them there until she squirmed.
“Now touch me.”
She obliged immediately, her soft fingers gliding up his abdomen.
“Someone’s been working out,” she purred, scraping her nails over his dark nipples.
“I’ve looked like this for years.”
“I know, but this is the first time I get to touch,” she explained, grinning as her fingers brushed down his sides. “I liked your old body, too, you know. I’d take your brain in whatever package it came in.”
A we
ird look passed across Carter’s face for an instant before he grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms to the wall. “Stay.”
Then he knelt in front of her, pushed her skirt up to her waist and revealed the smallest scrap of a black lace thong.
He licked up the inside of her thigh, spreading her legs wider as he went. He threw one of her legs over his shoulder and pushed the thin piece of underwear out of his way. But then he stilled for a moment, and she thought she might die from want.
“Do it,” she commanded, clutching at his hair.
Smiling at her bossiness, he obeyed, setting his lips to her. His tongue found its way into her, leaving no inch untouched. He explored her vagina as thoroughly as if he were going to make a damn map of it afterward. She didn’t give a shit what he did as long as he kept it up. The long strokes of his tongue, the teasing brush of his thumb—he was a man on a mission, and her desired destination was pleasure.
“Carter,” she rasped, trying to catch her breath. “I want you inside me.”
Her skin was on fire, as hot as a car hood on a Vegas desert summer afternoon, unrelenting and merciless. His fingers replaced his tongue and he pumped inside her, the slick channel offering no resistance, only friction and anticipation. She squirmed underneath his ministrations, unable to control herself as his thumb and tongue worked in tandem to drive her in-fucking-sane.
“Not until I say,” he told her, biting down gently on her engorged nub as he added another finger. He pistoned furiously, his tongue laving the spot he’d bitten, soothing the bolt of electricity he’d delivered to her core.
She’d had sex before, even been ordered around, but it was different with Carter. Everything he was doing was better, more considered. His shoulders were wide, keeping her legs pinned to the wall when she would have tried to take control of the situation. The brush of his thumb on her clit was practiced and precise, the angle calculated just right to touch her where she needed to be touched the most.
The rush of pleasure hit her hard, shoving her off the edge of the cliff with wild abandon.
Her cry of climax rent the still air of the stairwell. Carter soothed her gently, tonguing her lightly until she stopped shuddering and regained some measure of normalcy.
“That was really great work, Carter,” she joked, giving his shoulder a friendly pat to try to make it normal when she felt anything but. She had no idea what this meant for them, but it was too late to stop now. He’d knocked down the door and she didn’t have the tools to put it back up at the moment.
His blue eyes turning smoky, he rose and pulled her into him. She fought for the kiss this time, aggressively sucking his tongue into her mouth and running her hand over his straining erection. She wanted more of him, wanted the heavy weight pulsing under her hand inside her.
Unzipping his pants slowly, her eyes met Carter’s. It was officially the last gasp of their friendship, because there was no going back now.
She hesitated for just a split second, enjoying her new view but also to tamp down the terror that edged her buzz that Carter would want more than she could give if they went through with this. Adding sex to their friendship was basically putting them into relationship zone, which generally included those messy emotions she liked to keep in check.
She pushed the worry aside because she was sure Carter didn’t want anything serious, either. He was even leaving town, so they were safe. Switching their positions, she pushed him back against the wall and ran her hands over his chest.
She met his eyes as her hands moved lower and lower, and his flared as she came to his kelly-green boxer briefs. The color delighted her since she knew it was his favorite. She pulled them down and let his cock spring free.
Grinning at him and what she’d revealed, she murmured, “I just didn’t know what I was missing, did I?”
He kissed her hard, letting their desire rage out of control.
Her heart beating rapid-fire, she tore away from the kiss and nipped and licked her way down his chest and abdomen and finally ran her tongue up the length of his impressive cock. Thick, long and gorgeous, she wrapped her hands around him, feeling his hardness and heat as he throbbed against her hand in time to her own pulse.
Breaking eye contact, she leaned down and took the tip of him into her mouth, loving his growl of pleasure. She fell in, taking his length, tasting, sucking, caressing until his muscles tensed. Increasing the pressure, she slid up, almost letting him slide out of her mouth before taking him all the way in again. She loved the feel of him on her tongue, his skin, his musky smell. Her core squeezed in pleasure as the first salty drops of come greeted her tongue.
His big hands ran through her hair, pulling just a little. The time for slow was over; she was too turned on for finesse and she handled him easily, alternating between hard and soft pressure, fast and slow speed until his whole body froze against her.
“Alexa, stop, I’m there,” he growled, his voice raspy and strained.
She didn’t listen, sucking harder until he came apart in her mouth. It was the least a best friend could do. The pressure of his fingers on her skull intensified and she swallowed him down, licking around the tip to finish.
Lifting her head, she met his eyes, seeing a fierceness she’d never witnessed before in them.
Just then the door creaked open and her heart stopped. In an instant, Carter had himself zipped and her pushed behind him so the two uniformed Elysium employees didn’t see her face.
The two men exchanged greetings with Carter and her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. Christ, she’d had sex in weird places before, but never this public and never with Carter.
Once the two men had reached the second floor, Carter helped put on her shirt. He watched her, his deep blue gaze intent and focused on her face as he straightened out the hem of her camisole. They were both breathing hard.
“You okay?” he asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
She nodded and the moment of awkward silence seemed to stretch out for minutes instead of the actual seconds it was.
“Well, that’s a first for our friendship,” she tried, giving a forced laugh.
He shook his head at her lame attempt at humor. “My place or yours?”
The question jolted her back to reality. Sleeping with Carter would be the biggest mistake of her life if she lost him afterward. Her love life track record wasn’t exactly filled with functional long-term relationships. For Christ’s sake, her nickname in Vegas was literally the Disposal, because that’s where all her men ended up, thrown away and emotionally mangled beyond recognition.
She also had serious doubts about whether or not she could be in a real relationship. Her parents’ deaths had turned the entire trajectory of her life around. One minute she’d been a carefree sixteen-year-old, and the next she was the girl who everybody pitied because her parents died. It had taken her years to feel like Alexa again and not just a pity case. It made her extremely hesitant to enter into a relationship where not only would she have to deal with someone leaving her again, but that it would be Carter. He was her last link to what she would always think of as the happiest time of her life.
He took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t chicken out now.”
“Sleeping together would hurt our friendship,” she entreated, catching his gaze.
He drew her back into his arms and heat again, and it felt natural and right. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “I don’t like the way you fold your clothes in rolls. It would drive me nuts to be in a relationship with you.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t know your excuses could get any lamer. We’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe I could wear a wig or something.”
She felt his chest rumble against her as he chuckled. “What?”
“You know, like I�
�ll wear a wig and sneak into your house and have my way with you and then we’ll pretend I was a girl named Marci and never speak of it again. Then we’ll return to our regularly scheduled friendship.”
He nudged her chin up so she could see him. “Is this something you do with guys?”
“Yeah, it’s called role-playing and it happens, Carter.”
“Jesus, Alexa, you’re fucking killing me.” He took her mouth again, quick and rough.
Taking a deep breath, the familiar scent of his clean cologne hit her like a brick wall of need.
Then her phone rang. Pulling it out of her bag, she saw that it was Carter’s mom. The woman who’d, for all intents and purposes, filled in for her own mother after she died. Carter’s mom had been the one to buy Alexa the dress she’d worn for the funeral, the one who, along with her uncle, had held her hand during the service as the priest droned on and on about people he only barely knew. For an instant, Alexa thought about not answering, but it was the second call she’d missed from her today and she felt ashamed.
Carter saw who was calling and blew out an annoyed breath.
By the time the conversation was over and Carter’s mom had reminded her to bring her famous brownies to Sunday dinner, Alexa realized what a mistake she’d been about to make. Carter and his family were her family. If she and Carter didn’t work out—and all signs pointed to her not making an actual adult relationship work—she wouldn’t just be losing him.
She stepped out of his arms and out from under the stairwell.
Meeting his eyes, reading the disappointment already there, she said it anyway. “I’m sorry, Carter, but we can’t do this.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ALEXA WOKE UP with a pounding headache, knowing she’d totally fucked up. She grabbed at her phone on the pillow beside her, cringing at the eleven missed calls and ten urgent text messages from her uncle.
After her parents died, Uncle John had raised her with unconditional love and support and all she ever wanted was to make him proud. She’d been an okay student, but as soon as Uncle John told her she’d only have the casinos one day if she applied herself, she’d gotten her shit together and graduated at the top of her business class in college. He’d given her a purpose at a time in her life where she’d felt rudderless, and it was absolutely killing her that she was basically crapping all over the opportunities he’d given her.
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