CHAPTER TEN
Harper
THE RETURN TO consciousness is slow. In fact, if it wasn’t for the cold glass pressed against my naked butt, I’d stay happily comatose for the next century or so. Unless, you know, Vik has plans for a repeat. I could probably, maybe bestir myself for another epic orgasm.
I bury my face in his neck and zone out for a blissful moment. He mutters something creatively obscene, and then he lifts me off his fantastic dick, cradling me against his chest. My back hits the mattress, but I hang on tighter to my man pillow. As awesome as the Bellagio’s four-hundred-count sheets are, Vik’s chest is better.
“Should I go? Or can I have ten more minutes?” The mattress dips as Vik follows me down. Not that I’m giving the man much choice—I’m attached tighter than a monkey to a banana.
“Can’t,” I mumble. “Need some time to recuperate, ’kay?”
He chuckles, a dirty sound that rumbles through my cheek (because I’m still pressed against him) and then down lower. I’m humming and thrumming all over, but particularly in my lady parts. Who knew I could come so hard? Checking the time is low down on my priority list, but I have a sneaking suspicion the man didn’t even need the full nine minutes to make fireworks go off in my body.
“Can I recuperate with you?” He rolls us over smoothly, tucking a pillow beneath my cheek. My back’s pressed against his front, his arm wrapped around my waist. I spare half a second to wonder where our clothes and the used condom went and then decide I don’t care.
“Be my guest,” I wriggle backward, getting comfortable. He groans, and things start getting interesting. Too bad for him that he wore me out with his super dick. My last conscious thought is that booty calls rock.
* * *
Vik slips away sometime between giving me an epic orgasm and sunrise. Not only does he feed Bing on his way out, but he draws me a note on the pet food receipt—a stick man with an enormous penis waving goodbye. So when he texts me later that morning, I answer. And then he replies, and somehow we fall into a routine of texting.
And it’s not just sexy talk, although that part’s great. Two mornings after our magnificent bang fest, I ask him what he’s working on. I’m up to my eyeballs in client folders, juggling numbers, and I need a break. He takes so long to answer that I decide I’ve scared him off. Maybe dicks and the activities of said dicks are the only acceptable topics of conversation in the Vik-verse, but it seems weird to me. And then he responds. With a picture. A dozen blackbirds fly free from the tip of a black feather that’s all thick, dark lines and shadows. “Take flight, my brother” is sketched beneath the flying birds, and then a pair of dates. I can just see the edges of Vik’s rough, beat-up fingers in the shot. It’s freaking amazing, but it’s also sad and wild and those birds... Vik’s birds are going places, and both the journey and the destination seem like they’d be worthwhile.
ME: Who did you lose?
VIK: Ink’s for one of my brothers. We like to think Bingo’s just riding on ahead scouting. Gonna catch up with him someday.
Sometimes you have to let people go. We both know this. And sometimes...maybe sometimes they’re not gone—just riding up ahead and out of sight, and someday you’ll turn the corner and catch up. I like the thought of that.
He wants to know what my day looks like, so I send him a selfie of me making crazed eyeballs over an enormous stack of file folders. He offers to swing by my office and help me clear off that desk; I counter by telling him that you have to have an appointment to get anywhere near my...desk.
He likes that.
After that, we just keep texting. Weeks pass like this and in the meantime, I pack up my suite at the Bellagio and move into my newly leased condo—getting Bing back forced me find something quick.
I know Vik and I are just friends with benefits, but apparently one of the unexpected benefits is having someone to talk to. With. Because Vik listens and he asks questions and...
Yeah. I don’t know what I’m thinking, either.
We had wild, crazy, onetime, up-against-a-window sex, and I liked that. Okay. I freaking loved it, but I’m currently pretending that we absolutely didn’t do something so publicly dirty. Or that I kind of want to do it again with my new friend. In fact, thinking about the awesome sex I had two weeks ago with Vik is what makes me late for work this morning. I’ve never mastered the fine art of jilling in the shower. Balancing and rubbing on all that tile in my new place isn’t my strong point, so when the urge to rub one out gets too strong to ignore, I head back to bed.
I slide between the sheets, shove my fingers between my legs and start up a go-to fantasy in my head. I’m backstage at a concert, and the band’s just coming offstage. They’re all big and sweaty, adrenaline and power rolling off them because they know they’ve got an entire crowd at their feet and they fucking love it. But then the lead singer spots me waiting by the side of the stage and he beckons me over. We don’t make it to the green room. He just yanks up my skirt and tears open his jeans, and then he’s slamming into me and we’re perfect together. The rest of the band is watching or walking on, and I know other crew members and groupies can see us. But the singer’s mine.
I look up and realize it’s no singer. It’s Vik pounding into me hard, his eyes watching mine as he gives me what I want. And I’m right there, teetering on the brink of a motherfucking huge orgasm, my thighs and my butt tensing as I ride my fingers straight toward the almighty finish line. Faster and faster, my fingers rubbing and circling right where I need him the most, and then what seems like the entire motorcycle club suddenly surrounds us, a band of brothers dedicated to lending a helping hand, and I come so hard that I see stars.
So I’m more than a little out of breath after finishing my ménage à moi. My new condo is also farther from my office than before, and I’m still getting used to traffic. It’s a one-bedroom tucked into a new high-rise. The walls are white, the carpet’s white, even the appliances are a gleaming stainless steel. I feel like I’ve landed inside an igloo or some chic pied-à-terre in Antarctica—and I like it. It’s a fresh start while I figure out who I am now.
Which is late. Very, very, inexcusably late. So late that I have to sprint from the parking garage to the elevator. Eighteen floors are barely enough to suck in some air and check my buttons and seams in the elevator mirrors. No woman wants to walk into her office with her skirt tucked into her panties.
Even if it is a really good skirt. My Dolce & Gabbana skirt hugs my butt and hips before flaring out over my knees. They make skirts in crazy prints like pineapples, fish and cabbage roses, but this one is a perfectly sensible, entirely professional black. The little black bow at the throat of my Kate Spade blouse is as much fun as I had when I got dressed today. Who’s going to trust his bankroll to a woman wearing pineapples on her skirt?
I inhale, exhale. Today’s going to be a great day. I’ve got this. The door dings open softly as I finish my affirmation. I love our office, and not just because it has the kind of steel-and-chrome good looks that star in architectural porn. Money has a smell. On a good day when the market’s playing out how we predicted, we practically print that shit here. On a bad day, the senior partners scream at their junior mini-mes and head downtown to drown their woes. Being able to hold your alcohol is a requirement for scoring a corner office and a seat with the big boys, as is an advanced degree in bullshitting and spotting a market trend and riding that big boy straight into the money.
Finance is still very much a boy’s world. Like a handful of women, I’ve muscled my way in and I’m allowed to stay as long as I bring in the green, but despite the ubiquitous presence of both a boys’ and a girls’ bathroom, finance is a male sandbox. It’s just that possessing a vagina instead of a dick is no longer an automatic bar to entry.
Margie intercepts me as soon as I step off the elevator. My usually calm assistant looks flustered. “Your eight o’clock is here.”
Rewind.
I had an eight o’clock?
Margie makes an apologetic face. “He called and scheduled last minute, so he wasn’t on your calendar. He needs to go over his dad’s finances and heard you were the best.”
He’s right but even I need some prep time.
“Give me five minutes and then show him in,” I say. “Hit him with coffee and doughnuts or something. A nice bran muffin, courtesy of the house.”
No matter how much money they have, people always like free food, and Margie’s a goddess at smoothing ruffled feathers. If the newest client on the block is upset by starting at 8:06, she’ll fix it. I grab the folder Margie holds out to me. Usually, Margie would enter the client’s information into our system, but since he’s a last-minute appointment, she hasn’t had the chance.
I park at my desk and start flipping through the papers. Jeez. The client’s reason for arriving in my office before eight in the morning is painfully clear. The father has some kind of military pension, an annuity, significant gambling winnings and a less lucrative penchant for day-trading. Oh, and a trailer in a park about a hundred miles outside Vegas—not exactly waterfront property.
Margie buzzes, our signal that I should come collect my new clients. Brain working overtime, I head out.
And stop short.
Margie doesn’t notice I’m flustered because her own cheeks are pink. Vik has that effect on women.
“Mr. Ash Ilin and Mr. Serge Ilin,” Margie says as if she’s announcing the King and Queen of England. I practically hear trumpets and a twenty-one-gun salute.
Instead of a crown, Vik carries a cup of coffee. I wonder if the man has ever worn a suit. Bet if he got married, he’d hit the church in jeans and leather. Beside him, an older, more wrinkled and weather-beaten version clutches an enormous stack of doughnuts wrapped in a napkin.
“Thanks, darling.” Vik gives Margie a big smile and she beams back like they’ve been best friends since the second grade. His gaze shifts to me.
Shoot.
That one-night fuck buddy thing we had? I don’t think it’s over. Completely inappropriate, not-safe-for-work heat stabs through me. And it’s a total waste because whatever brought Vik here, it’s not me. He’s not jonesing for a repeat of our booty call, and whatever he wants from me, it’s not a relationship. The man’s a man whore, candy of the best kind, and I am officially on a diet.
Starting now.
Maybe I didn’t make our onetime status clear. Maybe all the screaming and oh-God-more-now-please confused him. But he’s super-cute with his dad.
“What are you doing here?”
“Financial things,” he says cheerfully, and tips his head at the old guy by his side. “This is my dad.”
Introductions are made, and I can’t help but notice that Vik’s father checks me out very, very carefully. Not in a creepy way, but as if he’s interested in more than my financial planning skills. He beams at me when he shakes my hand, declaring that he’s thrilled to finally meet me.
Finally?
I turn back to Vik. “I’m still confused as to why you’re here.”
Vik winks. “I’m your eight o’clock.”
When I said he needed an appointment to get into my...office, I was only playing.
Mostly.
The only thing worse than having a secret crush on a badass biker is having that same biker show up at your office on a Monday morning. Just in time...wait for it...for all the senior partners to walk past on their way to their weekly meeting. The suit parade slows to take inventory. Our clients come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and there’s no dress code. Honestly, the only thing that matters is the size of your bank account and your willingness to let us play with it. But even so, Vik sticks out.
Polite surprise is etched across their sober faces. And while I know some of them cut up on their downtime, once they’re in the office, it’s game time. Our minimum requirement for doing business is usually a cool million—and Vik’s dad has a trailer and a military pension. Unless said trailer is parked on top of a massive oil well or perhaps a diamond mine, I’m not sure how I can help—but I want to.
Vik rocks back on his heels—heels in well-worn leather motorcycle boots—and nods agreeably at the parade. He looks every inch the badass biker (except for the little old man accessory that he clearly cares about) and I can feel disapproval from my coworkers and bosses. Or maybe I’m just projecting.
“Let’s go into my office and hash this out.” I lead the way, pretending I can’t feel Vik’s gaze checking out my butt.
My office isn’t a corner office—not yet—but it’s nice. I’ve got a big black power desk and a pair of expensive black leather sofas. And since I like a little color, I’ve got a matching set of modern art prints I scored in a half-price sale at West Elm. Most important, however, I have a window. The view mostly consists of pigeons taking craps on the ledge, but it’s mine, and unless I get promoted, I’ll give it up over my cold, dead body.
Vik settles his dad—Mr. Ilin—in a chair and hands him the cup of coffee. Ilin Senior takes an enormous slurp of coffee and beams at me. “Awesome doughnuts.”
“You’re welcome.” And he truly is.
“So.” I sit down behind my desk. Texting is so much easier than this face-to-face stuff.
Vik flashes me a smile. “I really am here to sort out my old man’s finances.”
“I have it handled.” Vik’s dad sounds downright grumpy, so I don’t think it’s the first time they’ve had this conversation.
“Bullshit,” Vik sums up. “You couldn’t pay your rent because you’d stashed the cash underneath your couch. What wasn’t there was tucked into coffee cans. None of it was in the fucking bank where it belonged, so you wrote a check that bounced.”
He has a point.
“Okay. Since you’re a last-minute addition to my schedule, I haven’t had a chance to review your portfolio yet, so let’s see if I can get a sense of what your assets are.”
The old guy pats his crotch. “Keep my assets right here.”
Ooo-kay.
Vik clearly inherited his sense of humor from his dad.