Chapter Five
BRAD
The bar where I was meeting Zach for drinks was crowded and loud, but he managed to secure a table in the back where we might actually just be able to hear one another talk. I crossed the crowded floor, sliding into a booth across from Zach, who already had a scotch waiting for me on a paper napkin.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.” Zach’s dark eyes swept mine, narrowing slightly. “You didn’t get much sleep?”
I shook my head. Zach knew me too damn well. There was no point trying to hide the fact from him that I’d spent the night before, once I was back in my own bed where I should’ve been all along, tossing and turning.
“Nah, too much on my mind.”
Zach took a quick pull of his scotch, keeping his eyes on mine. “Care to share with the class?”
I knocked back half of my scotch, holding the tumbler up to the waitress to indicate that I wanted another one and then drained the rest.
Zach’s eyebrows shot up. “What the fuck did you do, Woods?”
Sighing, I set the empty tumbler down on the wooden table and shoved my hands through my hair. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean?” Zach asked, eyes narrowing again. He gulped down his own scotch. “Did something go wrong with the development meeting this morning?”
“The what? Oh. No. That was fine.” I’d been distracted at our usual Saturday morning new product development meeting, but I’d gone through the motions anyway. I nodded thanks to the waitress who delivered my next scotch and spun the tumbler between my hands. “It’s not work.”
“Wait,” Zach said incredulously, his eyes widening. “It’s a woman who has your panties in a bunch?”
“They’re not in a fucking bunch,” I muttered, but for once, it wasn’t true. Jordan was on my mind like she’d crawled into it and lived there. Her soft little gasps and moans rang clear as a bell in my head, causing my cock to be on permanent standby like I was a fucking teenager again.
Zach laughed, throwing his head back as the sound rumbled from his chest. “I beg to differ. Who is she? Her pussy must be made of gold to have you looking the way you do.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I snapped, then I realized my mistake. He had been goading me. “I don’t look like anything.”
“Au contraire, my friend. I can’t decide whether you look like you’ve been to heaven or hell.”
“What?” What the fuck was he talking about? I’d checked the mirror that morning. Except for the dark circles under my eyes, I looked exactly like I always did.
Zach’s head tilted as he surveyed me. “You forget how long I’ve known you. Tension. Relief. Triumph. Take your pick, it’s all there.”
“How about euphoria, followed closely by bone-crushing guilt?” I asked him, taking a long sip of my scotch.
“Bone-crushing guilt? Since when? You’ve bagged more pussy than most of us could ever dream of, and you’re still going strong. I’ve never known you to be a guy who looks back to think about it. Not since—”
“Let’s not go there,” I cut him off. She was the last person I wanted to think about. Anastasia, my ex-wife and Nicole’s mother, was never a fun topic. Twenty-one years after the divorce, just thinking about how everything had gone down still set my teeth on edge.
“Okay, so why now? Why guilt over this girl? Who is she?”
A low groan escaped from my lips as I let my head fall back against the soft padding of the booth. “Jordan.”
Zach went stock still, then started to slow clap before holding one of his hands out for a high-five. “Well played, sir. Well fucking played. She’s hot, that one. You’ve always been lucky, but she takes the cake.”
I didn’t high five him, and eventually, he let his hand drop. “She’s not just hot. She’s beautiful. Doesn’t make me feel any less like shit.”
“Why? She didn’t take care of you properly?”
Oh, she took care of me, all right. “That’s definitely not the issue.”
“What is, then?” Zach asked, a confused expression crossing his features.
“Well, there’s the fact that she’s Nicole’s best friend, and my secretary,” I gritted out, annoyed by his attitude suddenly.
“You’re not the first man to fuck your secretary, Woods. You won’t be the last, either. As for Nicole, who cares that she’s Jordan’s friend? They’re grown-ups now. She’s a consenting adult, presumably. She did give her consent, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you seriously even asking me that?”
Zach’s lips twitched into a grin. “No, I wasn’t seriously asking you, but you did help me to prove my point. She wanted to fuck you, too. If you want to be with this girl, be with her. Do you like her?”
Mulling the question over in my mind, I nursed my scotch. It’d been a long time since I’d actually had to ask myself that question. It was usually just a physical need that I felt for women. Once that was out of the way, I had no desire for anything more. With Jordan though, it didn’t feel like that. “I’m attracted to her, yeah.”
“Obviously, any man would give up testicle to fuck that, but is that all there is to it?”
I really had known Zach for too fucking long. “No, that’s not all there is to it. It goes beyond sexual attraction. I love how smart and competent she is. She’s got a great sense of humor. But Zach? Don’t ever talk about Jordan and ‘fucking’ in the same sentence again.”
Zach pursed his lips, trying to hold back a smile. He failed. “I think that’s your answer. What’s the problem? You’re clearly into this girl. She must be at least a little bit into you if it’s got you rattled. So where’s the harm? Just go with the flow. You can always hide whatever it is from Nicole for the time being.”
“The problem and the harm is that she’s not just my daughter’s friend, she’s her best friend.” I groaned, still not sure how it’d happened that I’d gotten myself into this situation.
Zach shrugged. “Don’t worry about Nicole so much. She’s a big girl.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I pointed out. “You’re not fucking your daughter’s best friend.”
He flashed me a devilish, predatory smile. “I wish I was, especially if she looked like that.”
Lifting my scotch to my lips, I drained the tumbler again and tapped it twice on the table. “Jesus. Stop. I gotta go.”
“Already?” Zach raised his half full tumbler to me. “You got here, like, twenty minutes ago.”
I glanced at my watch. “It’s been almost an hour. I’ve got a few calls to make.”
He shot me a shit-eating grin. “Pussy-whipped, that’s what you are. Can’t go more than an hour without talking to your woman?”
“Shut the fuck up.” He wasn’t wrong about the fact that the call I wanted to make was to Jordan, though. I wanted to check up on her. Reaching for my wallet, I pulled out a couple of bills and dropped them on the table. “Talk to you later.”
I was already turning and walking away by the time Zach called out. “Later.”
Anxious to speak to Jordan, I hardly waited until I was in the car, connected to my hands-free to pull up her number and punch down on it with my thumb. Her melodic voice chirped over the speaker a few rings later. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”
Her flirty tone brought a smile to my lips. It wasn’t one that I minded reciprocating, not since I couldn’t hear a single note of regret.
“Now you can stop wondering. How’re you feeling, gorgeous?”
“How many times are you still going to ask me that?” She giggled, but she sounded delighted that I cared. Normally, I didn’t care, but this girl had me twisted up and acting different.
“As many times as it takes for me to convince myself that you’re okay,” I admitted, surprising myself with my honesty. I wasn’t just feeding her lines.
Jordan’s voice softened. “I’m okay, really. I promise. I mean I’m a little sore… but I like it. It reminds of you and of having you inside of me.”
Christ, if she kept purring like that, I was going straight back over there and fucking her so good that she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. I was sure I could convince her boss to give her the time off, I thought sarcastically. Already hardening, I was about to swing the car around when my hard-on took a solid nosedive.
“Jay, who’re you talking to?” Nicole’s voice called out in the background.
“Shit, Nicole just walked in the door,” Jordan whispered.
“Did she hear what you just said?” I asked her, praying that the answer was no.
Jordan paused for a second. “I don’t think so, but I should probably get off the phone just in case.”
“Sure. Call me back later?”
“Will do,” she singsonged and clicked off the line.
I thought about her and that tight, hot pussy all the way back to my place. Maybe Zach was right. We could hide fucking around from Nicole for now. It might even be a lot of fun to sneak around.