“Oh, look at that service,” Heidi said, winking at the other girl.
“Not every day you get champagne from the boss,” Julia said. She took a glass herself.
“Thanks,” the other girl said. She exchanged her empty glass with one from the tray.
A waiter immediately snaked over and removed the tray from my hands.
“Are y’all enjoying the party?” I asked.
“It’s nice,” Julia said.
“Your sister sure likes to dance,” Heidi said.
The brunette girl’s lips thinned, and she stared down into her champagne.
Okay, different tactic.
“Well, I’m glad you could make it. Who is your friend?” I asked pointedly, turning my attention to the brunette.
She glanced up from her champagne. Her eyes were wide open and as vivid green as I had ever seen. Her mouth opened slightly, and that vision was more intoxicating than my whiskey.
“Heidi,” she groaned, “what did you do to my face?”
“This is…Em,” Heidi said over Em’s widened eyes of disapproval.
I wasn’t sure what that was all about. She seemed particularly affronted that I was asking about her. I was sure I’d never seen her before. I definitely would have remembered.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Jensen,” I said, trying to smooth over her concerns.
“Uh-huh,” Em murmured. She took a long sip of her champagne, as if she were looking for liquid courage.
I couldn’t get a read on her. I didn’t know if she was actually uncomfortable around me or if she was just nervous. But she seemed like she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to be acting right now.
“Head of Wright Construction, Em,” Heidi said, nudging her with her hip.
Em shot her a withering stare. “I know who he is.”
“I promise, whatever you’ve heard is a lie,” I said with a laugh.
“I didn’t say I’d heard anything bad,” she countered. She downed the rest of the champagne in one quick drink and then winced. “Seriously…what is it with you Wright brothers?”
“Excuse me?” I asked with a furrowed brow.
“Ignore her,” Heidi said. “She’s an old friend, and she just needs another glass of champagne.” Heidi leaned over and hissed in Em’s ear, but I could still hear her say, “Give. Him. A. Chance.”
Em sighed, as if resigning herself to the task. But, when she turned back to face me, she did have a half-smile on her face. It seemed a little forced, like she wasn’t used to smiling for strangers.
“I’m just…” She held up her champagne glass and motioned to the bar.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said.
We weren’t that far from the bar, but even that short distance, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of her. And she seemed to be looking everywhere but at me. She chanced one look at me, and a blush crept into her cheeks. So, she wasn’t completely unaffected by me.
I’d said that I wanted a challenge after all. She was gorgeous and probably had guys hitting on her all the time, but I hadn’t expected her not to even give me the time of day. Something about that only made me want to try harder.
Why is she so closed off?
She retrieved another glass of champagne, but I stopped her before letting her walk back to her friends. I was not relinquishing this opportunity.
“I noticed you at the ceremony,” I said, my voice low and gravelly.
Her eyes widened as she looked up at me. And, fuck, that face. Those intense green eyes and bright red lips. The way her dark hair tumbled over her features, as if it were used to being unruly and was having trouble with staying tamed. Just like her. Something in her expression, in those sharp cheekbones and angled jawline, said she was wild and reckless. No amount of makeup and pretty clothes could remove the girl underneath.
“Yes. That was…” She trailed off. Her eyes darted to my mouth, as if she were distracted. Then, she sighed this short breathy thing that went straight to my dick. “I noticed.”
“Are you in town, visiting?” I prompted.
She slowly shook her head and then glanced away from me, as if she needed a breather. “Look, whatever this is, it’s not going to work.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And what do you think this is?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“I’m just talking to you,” I said.
“I’m not fooled by that notion, Jensen.”
The way she dragged out my name was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard. I was going to have to make her say it over and over again.
But I was so distracted by the way her mouth moved around the syllables of my name, I hadn’t processed what she had said. She wasn’t fooled by me. I wasn’t trying to fool her. I thought my intentions were perfectly clear now that we were standing together. So very close together.
I wasn’t even sure she realized that she had drawn closer toward me, the longer we talked. But, as I stared down at her, we were mere inches apart. I could feel the heat of her body, and it was turning my brain fuzzy.
Why didn’t she want this? Her body was saying something else entirely. I could think of only one explanation.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
She stepped back from me, as if my question were insulting. “I don’t need a reason to say no to you.”
She tried to brush past me, but I reached out and grabbed her hand. She didn’t need a reason. Of course not. But her refusal made no sense with the way her body was responding to me.
“I know you don’t need a reason. But it feels like you have one,” I said, instinctively pulling her toward to me.
“Yes, I have a reason. And, when you figure it out, you’ll no longer be interested in me.”
“I highly doubt that,” I said with blustering confidence.
“I swore off the Wright family a long time ago. So, you’ll have better luck somewhere else.”
She extracted her hand from mine, gave me one last sad smile, and then retreated back to Heidi and Julia. Both girls were frantically waving their hands, trying to figure out what had happened. And that was exactly what I wanted to know.
Chapter 6
Jensen
I had just struck out.
Majorly struck out.
I was sure that I’d had girls who weren’t interested in me before but certainly not any like this.
I couldn’t remember having this sort of visceral reaction to anyone in a long-ass time. But even women I had been mildly interested in were eager to get to know me.
Biblically.
Yet Em seemed unfazed. She wanted me. I could tell that from looking into her bright green eyes. She definitely wanted me. Still, she’d held back. And I had no idea why.
What could she know about the Wright family that would cause this reaction?
Sure, we had more baggage than most families, but nothing that made sense in this situation. Well…okay, that was a lie. There were plenty of reasons for her to stay away from me. My reputation with women, for one. And my ex-wife, for another. But she couldn’t have known anything else beyond that.
Her reaction flabbergasted me.
She didn’t seem the type to play hard to get either. She had actually walked away and not looked back.
Mostly, I wasn’t used to getting rejected.
Actually, I couldn’t think of a time when I had been rejected. Not that it mattered. First time for everything. But it only made me want her more. I wanted to go back over there, pull her aside, and kiss the breath out of her. I wished that I knew where it had all gone wrong.
Seriously, what the fuck?
With an unfamiliar feeling of rejection, I retreated back to where I’d stashed my whiskey. I poured myself another glass as I contemplated my next move.
She obviously knew me, but I didn’t know how. Nothing popped into my head. I had no clue how I could know her. And, now, I wanted to get to know her. It was an interesting woma
n who could turn me down…no matter how egotistical that made me. Just a healthy dose of self-confidence.
Morgan stumbled over to me a few minutes later as I was contemplating the dilemma.
“Fuck!” she said. “Gimme that.”
She took my glass of whiskey and downed it like a shot. I glared at her and poured another glass. I was going to need that.
“Trouble with Landon?” I asked, passing her a glass.
“With Miranda, of course.” She eagerly grabbed for the glass and took a large gulp.
“What happened this time?”
“Get this,” she said with a shake of her head. She glanced back over to where she had abandoned Landon. “Miranda was pissed because Landon’s ex-girlfriend is here!”
“Why would she care if his ex was here? He’s married to her, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well, that’s Miranda.” Morgan shrugged.
“Yes, it is,” I grumbled. I took another sip of my drink. “She drives me batshit crazy. I don’t know why they’re together.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I nodded, but my eyes had locked back on Em, who was laughing at something Heidi or Julia had said. They each grabbed her hand and practically dragged her out to the dance floor. She shook her head, but they gave her pleading looks and started dancing to the hip-hop music that Sutton had requested for the night. It was as if she thought we were in a club or something, not a wedding.
Heidi was dancing all over Em while Em just stood there. She was saying something to Heidi and Julia, but they ignored her. And, after a few minutes, Em relaxed, and they were all dancing like they were having the time of their lives. Or they had just had an exorbitant amount of alcohol. Either way, I loved watching her move.
Once she got into it, it was intoxicating. The way her hips slid from side to side. The way she tilted her head back and laughed unabashedly with her friends. The way she lifted her arms over her head and sank low and then came back up to her full height. The way she tossed her hair and swung her hips in mouthwatering circles. It was hypnotic.
I stood there for two dances before she finally dared to glance over at me. Her eyes lit up when she saw that I was watching, and then she blushed furiously. She turned away from my look, but a minute later, she was back to staring at me. She was giving me a come-hither look, and it was killing me not to go over there and move with her on the dance floor. I wanted to oblige that look, but I didn’t want to be turned away again either. I was dying for her to ask. Not just with her body, but also with her eyes and her smile and her mouth.
She turned back to her friends, but her eyes kept coming back to mine. Over and over again. It was as if we were the only two people in the room. Everything else tumbled away, and she was dancing just for me.
Yes, I was watching.
Yes, she wanted me to.
She wet her lips and then did a little dance next to her friends. My dick pulsed as I thought about all the things I could do with those hips and all the promises I would keep with those lips. I had to straighten myself out, because thinking about fucking her while watching her dance was making my dick respond all too temptingly. I adjusted my pants and then finished my whiskey. She slanted her eyes back to mine and then discreetly tilted her head to the left.
I sighed.
Finally. Let’s play ball.
She spoke hurriedly to her friends on the dance floor and then pointed toward the restroom. They said something back to her, but I could see the secret smiles on their faces. They knew where she was going and what she was doing.
Em meandered away from the dance floor. She glanced over her shoulder only once to see if I was following, and I was. When she realized I had interpreted her gesture, she smiled and then tried to smother it. We meandered into the darkness, past the restroom, far enough away from the crowds.
When she turned back to face me, her cheeks were pink from dancing and being here in this moment. “You were watching me.”
“Is that a crime?” I asked.
“Suppose not. Why were you watching me?”
“Because you’re the most beautiful girl in the room, and I like the way you move.”
“Jensen, this could never happen.”
“You mentioned that,” I said, sliding another step toward her.
Her back pressed up against the exposed brick wall.
“Do you know who I am?” she pleaded.
“Em. And that’s all I need to know.”
I trailed a loose lock of her dark hair between my fingers. Her eyes were open and raw, showing me all the thoughts roaming through her head. She wanted me. I wasn’t wrong in that regard. She might have rebuffed me, but she hadn’t been able to walk away.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Her hand ran down the front of my suit, and I leaned into her.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You tell me to go away yet ask me to come here. What exactly do you want?”
Even though she wanted me, her head was warring with her body. Tension and desire mingled in the space between us. I could move in and take her lips with my own. I wanted to. But I didn’t want to take. I wanted her to offer. Like she had offered to come back here with me.
“I don’t know. This is a bad idea,” she whispered.
“Seems like a good idea to me.”
She released a breath. “I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Me, too,” I said, taking a step closer.
“And, now, I really want to kiss you.”
I chuckled. I liked her blunt honesty a lot more when it was directed toward me positively rather than negatively.
She practically glowed at my laugh, and her eyes darted down to my lips. “But we can’t.”
“Can’t?”
She shook her head a miniscule amount and then tugged me a little closer. “Nope.”
“You want to kiss me,” I said, stepping into her personal space and glancing down at her lips. “But you can’t. Or won’t?”
“Oh, I will,” she breathed. “But I shouldn’t.”
Then, she dragged me against her, and her lips landed on mine with a tenacity that was enthralling. Our lips touched, and the world ceased.
I ran my hands around her waist and pulled her flush against my body. My tongue licked along her lips, begging for entrance. She opened up to me at once, and our tongues met as we flat-out made out in the back of the building.
And she was a fucking amazing kisser. I could do this all day. Even though my dick was telling me to move faster, my brain was saying that this was incredible. Her body against mine. Her lips on mine. Her heartbeat ratcheting up to meet mine in tempo.
It was a life-shifting kiss. One of those that came only once in a lifetime. The kind that you didn’t want to mean more. You wanted it to be a lust-induced kiss in the dark, but you couldn’t even fool yourself. This one was everything.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there, kissing. It could have been hours or days. My brain could not function beyond that moment.
But, eventually, she was pulling away, stepping back, shaking her head. And I had no idea what any of those motions meant.
Hadn’t she just had the same kiss I had?
She touched her lips. They were swollen and red. “Jensen…I…we…”
“Em,” I whispered, reaching out for her.
But she slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the night. I tried to follow after her, but one minute, she was there, and the next minute, she was gone.
My own fucking Cinderella. Great.
Chapter 7
Jensen
My head pounded the next morning as my phone blared on the nightstand. I grabbed it and pressed Accept without looking at who it was. Fuck, how much had I had to drink last night?
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Wright,” my receptionist Margaret said. “I hope this is a good time. I got the paperwork in that you need to look over, and you told me to contact you as soon as it arrived.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said as I tried to crawl out of bed.
Work. Of course, it’s work.
I listened for a few minutes more as Margaret continued to discuss the paperwork.
I stumbled into the bathroom and downed a pair of Tylenol. I appreciated Margaret’s enthusiasm for the merger, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the logistics of the paperwork until I got rid of this headache.
“Do you need me to come into the office today to go over this with you, sir?” she asked.
“No, thank you, Margaret. I’ll look at it in my home office and get back with you about it on Monday.”
She hesitated on the other line. “I think they’re going to want an answer today, sir.”
“They’ve kept me on the line for five days about this. And I’ll have to fly there to finish off the negotiations with Tarman. We have another day to wait. Plus, if I can lower their offer, we’ll all have bigger bonuses this Christmas.”
“Make them wait all you like then, sir.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” I said.
I hung up and then looked at myself in the mirror. I’d had way too much to drink last night. With a wince, I hopped into a scalding hot shower to try not to think about Em any longer. I’d tortured myself enough with it last night. Patrick, Austin, Morgan, and I had finished another bottle of whiskey while I was thinking.
By the time I completed my daily routine, I felt like a new man. Still a fucking confused man, but more like myself at least.
I checked the time as I changed into a pair of jeans and a button-up. It was still early. The alarm I had set for this morning hadn’t even gone off yet. I could probably still get in at least an hour of work before I needed to meet everyone for church—Sunday morning tradition for as long as I could remember.
With the added time on my schedule, my office beckoned. I walked into the first-floor office and took a seat at my mahogany desk. The sun was just rising through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the swimming pool that was closed for the season. I booted up my iMac and drowned myself in legalese that I would have to go over again with my lawyer. My eyes felt like sandpaper, and my throat was raw from all the alcohol and the sleepless night.
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