ABBY
I WAKE TO the muffled sound of conversation in a bed that is not my own but smells like my favorite fantasy. Prying open an eye, I scan the surroundings I missed when we stumbled in the night before, mouths fused, hands everywhere… desperate for more of what we had at Hank’s office.
The decor is modern and clean, expensive and spare, with an occasional splash of color setting off what is primarily life in grayscale. The ceilings are high and the windows encompass an entire wall.
Warm, satisfied heat pulses through my system, and I bring my fingertips to my tender lips. They feel good, like all the other sensitive parts of me.
Pulling the tangled sheet to my chest, I climb out of bed and pad barefoot to the door, where I peek out.
Hank is at the front door, wearing only a pair of pajama pants that look as soft as the sheet I’m wrapped in. He hands a few bills over to a delivery guy in exchange for a tray of coffees and a paper bag that has my mouth watering in caffeine-and-carby expectation.
When the door closes, I walk out the rest of the way.
“One of those for me?”
He turns and again I’m struck by the way he looks at me. The smile that says all the things I want to hear.
“Absolutely. How about you give me my sheet and I give you a coffee. Fair?”
I laugh, letting the zillion-count cover droop just a bit. Hank’s eyes darken and his nostrils flare.
“Christ, you’re so fucking sexy.”
My laughter fades and I swallow. “You make me feel that way.”
“I’ve had you in my bed all night and I still can’t believe you’re really here.”
I cross to where he’s standing and push up on my toes to kiss the corner of his mouth, the swell of his bottom lip. The bare, warm skin of that kiss-level spot just below his throat. Even all these years later, it still makes him do that throaty groaning thing I love.
Hank has dated starlets and supermodels but somehow he makes me feel like the most alluring woman in the world.
“I can’t get enough of you,” I murmur as he brings his arms around me, holding our breakfast out at a careful angle from my body.
His nose is in my hair, his lips dragging in a teasing dotted line from my temple to my ear to my mouth. Our kiss is languid and warm, an unhurried exploration of each other’s taste, of soft pulls and gentle bites. Of the slow stroke of his tongue against mine.
Heat pools in my center, melting my knees and turning me breathless. Needy. Wet.
“Maybe I’m not so hungry after all.”
The coffees and pastry bag hit the floor as Hank’s arms close fully around me, dragging me in hard against him.
He straightens and my feet leave the floor. Seconds later, we’re back in his room, gentle and sweet left in the hall with our breakfast. I’m on the bed and Hank is crawling over me, each kiss like a hot claim.
His hand finds the sheet that’s somehow remained caught between us and he rips it aside, leaving me bare beneath him. Cool air meets my breasts, but only long enough for Hank’s eyes to burn over them. He lowers his head and takes one taut nipple into the heated cavern of his mouth, sucking and licking at the tip as he covers the other with a firm, kneading grasp.
“Yes,” I hiss, arching into the sensation, my legs shifting, squeezing restlessly together as each flick of his tongue and pinch of his fingers causes me to clench with need.
Kneeing my legs apart, he shifts lower, trailing those deep-suction kisses across the bottoms of my breasts and the lines of my ribs. He grips my hips, squeezes and then moves down to my thighs, where he slides his hand beneath. Another caress and squeeze, and then he’s parting my legs to kneel between.
Hot eyes take their fill of me, and he groans again, shouldering between my thighs and pressing at my knees until I’m completely open to him, spotlit by the warm morning sun. I’ve never been so exposed to a man. I’ve never been so turned on.
Lowering his head to my spread sex, he licks once and my hands fly to his hair, fingers threading through the dark strands.
Another slow pass that runs the length of me, and I’m crying out Hank’s name.
A deep, satisfied rumble against my sex is his answer, and then he’s kissing my slick folds, sucking gently and then less gently. Nibbling at the swollen flesh before giving me his tongue again. The flat of it in a hard, slow press, the pointed tip in a tight circle around that throbbing, aching spot, and the firm, sinking thrust, in and out, again and again.
He brings his thumb against me, using it to cover me in my own slickness as I clench and seize, thrashing against the sheet.
“Hank… oooh… Hank…” I’m so close. “Like that…” Need accumulates like a weight, heavy and hot, deep in my center. “Please…” Just a little more. “Don’t—don’t stop…”
He doesn’t. And when he gives me that deep growl, I rock my hips into his kiss and come so hard I see stars.
And then Hank’s hands are beneath my hips, gripping me tight as he pulls me down the bed, so I’m aligned beneath his groin.
One tug and the drawstring on his sleep pants is undone. He’s got them off and my God, he has the most beautiful body.
I reach between us and curve my hand over his straining shaft, stroking it as he reaches for a condom from the bedside stand.
He groans, tearing the wrapper open.
His shaft is thick and hot within my grip. Silky smooth.
“Your hands are driving me insane. I need to get inside you, baby.”
Baby. I love the way it rolls off his tongue.
With the condom on, he positions the broad head at my opening. He made me come less than five minutes ago, but already I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t have him inside me.
Breathing hard, he meets my eyes and pushes in. He only gives me the first inch, but already I can feel the stretch of my body, the tender muscles unaccustomed to this kind of use.
“You okay?” he asks, his restraint evident in every line of his face.
I nod. “Please, Hank, more.”
His hands fist against the bed at either side of me. “I can be gentle.”
Of that I have no doubt. This man could do anything if he thought it was what I needed. But now, what I want is something different. Cupping the side of his strong jaw, I brush my thumb across his lips.
“I don’t want gentle. Not this time.”
His nostrils flare and the cords along his neck stand out in starker relief.
“What do you want?” he asks, starting to move but only to the barest, maddeningly teasing degree. Just enough to hint at what’s to come, to make me wild for it.
My knees spread wider and I raise my hips in a plea for more. “I want you inside me. All the way.”
Every inch.
“All the way.”
Another shallow thrust, and then—oh God—he sinks deep, filling me to the hilt.
My breath rushes out around his name.
“Like that, beautiful?”
I’m nodding fast, overwhelmed by the way he fills me so completely. To the point I don’t think I can take any more, but then he gives it to me anyway and it’s even better.
He’s thrusting deep, each stroke pushing me closer to that place no one else has been able to take me so quickly. I want to watch his face, study his eyes, his mouth. But I’m so sensitive, so close. So overwhelmed by how good he feels inside me that my eyes drift closed and I lose myself to the sensation.
To the hoarse words washing warm against my ear as he moves over me.
“You feel so fucking good…”
“Abby…”
“Dreamed of this…”
“Baby…”
“Need to feel you come for me…”
It’s that last one that pushes me over the edge, that has everything inside me seizing tight and then falling apart in wave after wave of blissful pleasure.
Somehow Hank’s hands have found their way to mine. Our fingers are threaded together above my head and all I can think is that it’s going to kill me when I lose him again.
So I’m going to make the very most of every minute we have together until then.
HANK
“I STILL CAN’T believe you did this,” Abby says, snug within my arms as we sway beneath the glittering lights of the Wyse Hotel Grand Ballroom. “I can’t believe the look on my mom’s face. Have you ever seen her blush like that?”
I glance over my shoulder to our table where Abby’s Mom and Helen are eating up Jack’s unrelenting flirting. I know this is going to cost me my manhood, but it’s sweet. The girls are delighted, and yeah, Abby’s mom has a blush going, all right. I can only imagine what the guy is saying over there.
Turning back to Abby, whose hair is pinned back with a pair of gold barrettes I found in Prague for Christmas, I shrug.
“I wanted to surround myself with the most beautiful women I could find. I figured getting your mom to agree was the first step to getting you to come too. Helen was a bonus. It was a selfish, calculated move, so I probably don’t deserve those moony eyes you’re giving me.”
She laughs, and the sound of it is so pretty, I find myself jealously scanning the dance floor around us, wondering who heard it. If they’re as caught up in the sound as I am.
Her soft hand finds my jaw and brings my gaze back to hers.
“It’s the sweetest thing you could have done, and I love it. Thank you.”
The song ends and I drop a kiss at her temple, knowing full well it’s going to show up on the internet in about twenty-seven seconds. The press is eating up our “second-chance romance” and can’t get enough of Abby. She’s a little less enamored of them and the fact that I had to hire some muscle to make sure the press didn’t get too close. I’d still like to see her move into a building with better security—hell, I’d like to see her in my apartment—but she put her foot down the minute I mentioned it and hasn’t budged in two weeks. Not even when I offered to move Helen too. For now, this works.
We make our way back to our table and Abby immediately starts leaning on Jack, wanting to know what he’s saying to her impressionable mother.
I haven’t had a night at one of these events in years that didn’t feel like work, that I didn’t dread coming to, or see as an immense waste of time when I could have easily written a check and been done with the whole thing… but tonight I’m having fun. Tonight I’m surrounded by the people I’m myself with and it feels good.
“How about another drink, ladies?” I ask, running my thumb along the sexy line of Abby’s spine.
She turns, offering the smile that’s just for me. The one I’m greedy for and possessive of and makes me want to forget her drink order altogether and tug her into some quiet space for the sole purpose of getting my mouth on her again.
Instead, I head over to the bar, nodding to a few familiar faces along the way. I give the bartender my order and ask if he’s got the score for the game. Slayers are in the lead by two, but before he can give me any more information on Chicago’s newest hockey team, Nate is cutting purposefully through the crowd.
Shit.
I don’t want to get caught up in work stuff tonight, but that’s the only thing Nate’s capable of thinking about. And honestly, the same would have been said of me up to two months ago.
“Having a nice evening, Nate?” I ask, trying to remember if he brought a date but coming up blank.
“Spectacular. I just heard from Michelle Dawson.”
He’s got my attention now. Michelle is one of SpaceWalk’s top execs and we’ve been working closely with her for the last year. But since the deal went south, it’s been radio silence.
“What’s she want? If it’s a job, she’s got it.” What I wouldn’t give to get that brain on my team. And after the way Walker screwed us, yeah, I wouldn’t mind sticking it to him… just a little.
Nate laughs, shifting his jaw to the side. “Don’t even think about trying to recruit her. She says the deal’s not dead.”
“What?”
He shrugs, but it’s clear from the gleam in his eyes that Nate is jacked.
And I’m not completely unaffected either. I wanted this deal with SpaceWalk. We worked our asses off to make it happen. And yeah, there was a part of me that wasn’t entirely broken up when I realized we wouldn’t be moving down to Florida after all, but now…
I catch Abby’s eye when I look back to our table. She’s having fun, laughing with Jack and Helen about something that has her beet red and fanning her face. I’m grateful for the time I wouldn’t have had with her if the deal had gone through as planned. Now that we’re together, I have the feeling we can make anything work.
Clapping Nate’s shoulder, I gather up the drinks. “Stay on top of it.”
“Absolutely, sir.”