Cash
It’s just another day.
Beth is sitting at the reception counter, the white marble under my shoes is as flawless and shiny as it was when I left work on Friday, and people come and go without a break in their weekday hustle.
It’s business as usual for the thirty-eighth floor of Mont Center.
Except my wife is missing—the company’s goddamn chairperson—and you’d think that would be reason enough to hang a sign, to set off an alarm warning of the black cloud hovering.
“Good morning, Beth,” I say more out of habit than an actual desire to acknowledge the day.
“Good morning, Mr. Montgomery.” She doesn’t miss a step in her greeting, but there’s a hitch in her voice, a barely discernible strain on her young face, a reminder that not all is right at MontBlake. Somehow, I find it comforting.
I still don’t want to be here, don’t want to see people, don’t want to face the questions in their eyes. Especially the voiceless speculations.
Those are the worst.
Disappearing into my office, I shut the door behind me and let out a long breath. It’s true that this is the last place I want to be, but it’s the only one where seeing Jules is possible. The irony of that is a twist in my gut. As I wander toward my workspace, I shed my jacket and drape it over the back of a chair. I’ve just settled behind the desk when my cell vibrates from my pants pocket. I reach for it and find the number of the private investigator I hired flashing on the screen.
“Please tell me you’ve got a lead,” I say, hoping like hell he found something—anything—since I spoke with him yesterday. I loathe the desperation in my voice, but there’s no hiding it. No reining it in.
I need answers.
I need Monica found.
I need to move past this once and for all.
I fucking need Jules like I need air.
“My source told me the police don’t have jack shit,” he says as I pace an agitated path in front of the windows. “Your wife hasn’t used her credit cards, and the only people who’ve reported seeing her are nut jobs.”
“So we’re still at square one.”
“Not exactly.” He pauses, and I hear the tapping of keys. “I heard back from my tech guy. He tracked the photo back to Lydia Hirsch. And get this—financial records indicate that your wife paid a sizable amount to Hirsch about three months ago.”
Drumming silence follows his words, pounding in my ears, throbbing behind my eyelids. I turn a half circle in my office. “Did you make any progress on the video surveillance in my building?”
“Still nothing. There’s been no sign of your wife’s lover coming or going from the penthouse. We’re looking into possible video tampering now.”
“Send me everything you have on Lydia Hirsch,” I tell him.
More tapping of a keyboard sounds. “It’s not a lot, but I’ll send you what I have.”
“All right. Let me know as soon as you have more.” I end the call and drop back into my chair, spinning the possibilities in my head. The angles. The facts.
Monica paid the woman she wanted me to hire a very large sum of money, and now Lydia is dead. Was she blackmailing my wife? The idea sends my heart to the bottom of my gut.
I’m in a daze when a quick knock on the door alerts me of Jules’ arrival. Shaking the conversation with the PI from my mind, I call for her to come in. She edges the door open while clutching two cardboard cups in her hands. I know one is tea with too much sugar and not enough cream, and the other is for me.
Just another day.
Until our eyes meet.
The explosion between us is powerful enough to stall her momentum across the office for two seconds, a hiccup in her stride. It’s fierce enough to eviscerate my mind, tighten my pants, and send a tremble through me.
We’ve had heat from the moment we met—unbearable and suffocating in its reality—but this is levels above the sexual tension that shadows us no matter where we go. This is the kind of nuclear blast that can only happen after two people have carnal knowledge of each other.
“Good morning,” she says, voice catching as she sets my coffee down with an unsteady hand.
“Morning.” I clear my suddenly dry throat. “Thank you,” I say, nodding toward the coffee.
Silence follows, shifting the air from hot and needy to cool and cautious. I hate how uncomfortable it is. Needing a distraction, I sip my coffee as Jules settles into the chair across from me and lets her workbag slide off her shoulder. She crosses her legs, brushes her hair back, and I’m drawn to the way her black dress empathizes her cleavage.
Giving myself a mental kick, I drag my gaze to her face, but she doesn’t quite meet my eyes, and that stings. I don’t like this strained rift between us. This vibe of shame.
There is not a goddamn thing that’s shameful when it comes to Jules.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m trying to be,” she says, lifting her chin, and my heart skips a beat at the vulnerability in her expression. “Are we crazy for trying to continue as if nothing happened?”
“Probably, but I’d rather try than not see you.”
“Me too.” She lets a beat pass. “I got a visit from Detective Riley yesterday after you left. I told him you were with me over the weekend.”
“I’m sorry I got you caught up in this.”
“Knowing it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Hesitation lines her face. “Have you heard anything from the authorities yet?”
“No.”
Questions swim in her brown eyes.
She needs answers.
She needs Monica found.
She needs to move past this.
I want to believe she needs to be with me like she needs air.
“I’m here for you if you need to talk,” she says finally.
The things I want from her are downright indecent and have nothing to do with talking. I exhale the tension in my lungs and lean forward, folding my hands atop the desk.
“I don’t want to talk about my wife, Jules.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Don’t be sorry. I just think we have enough to deal with already.”
Like the festering attraction between us that isn’t about to go away even if Seattle dries up and becomes a desert-like wasteland. But Jules wants to put on the brakes, and I respect her decision. I even understand it. Doesn’t mean I like it. Doesn’t mean I can even fight this yearning much longer.
“Maybe this will be easier if we lay down some rules,” I say.
A smile teases the corners of her entirely too-kissable lips. “Rules are good. I mean, they worked so well before, right?”
Christ, I love her sarcastic mouth. “At least when we fail we do it spectacularly well.”
Cheeks flaming, she dips her head, and all of that blond and wavy hair spills over her shoulders. She pulls her tablet from her bag, and with a swipe of her finger, she’s back to business.
“You’ve got a meeting with the budget committee at ten, then a conference call with the construction foreman in OKC after lunch.”
Settling back in my chair, I force this feral need rushing through my veins to simmer the fuck down.
Work.
Business as usual.
Just another day.
And on any other day, I’d already be immersed in the task, mind clear and focused to the exclusion of everything else. But that’s not happening now.
Today I’m overcome by Jules. I imagine going home to her after a long day of work, sharing dinner and conversation before getting her naked underneath me. In this alternate reality, she’s wearing a ring. My ring.
Maybe she’s even carrying my child.
This could be our future…if fate will let us have it.
Jules’ attention is still on the tablet in her hands, and I admire her ability to remain focused on work. If I had my way, we’d be using my desk for other purposes.
“Is there anything else you need me to add to the schedule today?”
“No, I think that covers it.”
We finish going over the usual business stuff before I escort her to the door. Just a few more seconds before I’ll be able to say I made it through our first morning briefing after knowing what it’s like to get inside her, to know how warm and snug her body gloves my cock.
The throbbing ache in my groin is too intense, the low buzz in my ears too distracting, the remembered taste of her on my tongue too intoxicating. As she reaches for the door handle, something in my gut twists, and I plant my hand on the door to keep it shut.
Hell.
I’m playing with fire, but she’s so goddamn close that the flyaway wisps of her blond hair tease my chin. Her vanilla perfume tantalizes my nose. The warmth of her skin screams for my hands to claim and own. I close my eyes and drag in a fortifying breath.
It doesn’t work.
Because keeping her at arms-length is an impossible feat.
“Have lunch with me today.”
“I can’t,” she says with a breathless sigh. “I’m meeting Les.” Her back brushes my front, and the control I’ve clung to since she entered my office slips. I wind an arm around her waist, hand reaching and fingers twitching to bury themselves between her legs. I’m unraveling with every shallow breath. My hips tilt forward until my erection presses against the top of her perfect ass.
She’s so damn petite, her body swallowed up in the circle of my arms. I tilt her face toward mine, and our eyes fix on each other before lowering to lips that were made to meet. I close the distance and press my mouth against hers, nipping until she finally gives in.
Until she opens with a jittery sigh and invites my tongue to stake its claim. A moan strangles from her throat, and as I draw the front of her skirt up and slip my fingers underneath the edge of her panties, she braces herself against the door, palms flat on the wood.
We passed the land of stopping this about thirty seconds ago.
I push two fingers into her silky, wet heat and coax a deep shudder of pleasure from her bones. That first detonation vibrates on my tongue as it thrashes against hers. Jesus, I’m harder than concrete. Despite spending the weekend in her bed and having intimate knowledge of what it feels like to touch and taste every part of her, kissing her now is as exhilarating as if it were the first time.
Maybe because I spent weeks fighting this, and now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t have any fight left. Or maybe because I have her up against the wall with my fingers inside her sex, reminding me of how incredible it felt to bury my cock inside the nirvana between her legs.
As I slip one strap of her dress off her shoulder, caressing the feminine curve of her neck, I reach for her bullseye. “God, I need to hear you come.”
She spreads her legs, giving me better access, and my fingers jackhammer between her thighs. With a groan tinged in surrender, she moves to the cadence of my hand, hips tilting forward as she pushes her clit against my palm. I silence her whimpering cries with my mouth, but it’s not enough, and the whole floor is going to hear her if I don’t do something about it.
As much as I want to hear her scream my name to all of Seattle—to the entire fucking state of Washington—I can’t let that happen. Not here. Especially not now.
“Shhh.” I press my free hand over her mouth to smother that blessed sound, and I quiet my own groan of pleasure into the crook of her shoulder, because she’s moving against my cock just right.
She moans again, and I lift my head to find her brown eyes, huge and wide, watching me watch her come apart in my arms. That vulnerable, helpless look of hers slams into my chest, further stealing my breath.
“Fuck, Jules. I’ve never seen anything sexier in my goddamn life.” Another wave hits her, and she whines behind my palm, climax cresting while she pleads with her eyes, though I’m unsure if she’s pleading for me to stop or to keep going.
I don’t stop, because I’m a greedy bastard, and I know she’s not done yet—the tension in her body is never ending.
“So wet. So fucking turned on.” I flick my thumb over her clit until she falls into another shuddering orgasm.
Our eyes meet again. We’re locked in an alternate reality, nothing existing but the warmth of her pussy—like exquisite silk enclosing my fingers—and her moans a smothered vibration under my palm. The intensity in her gaze winds around my heart and constricts until I can’t breathe.
And I don’t want to breathe. Not if it means popping this addictive bubble. I want to live in this space with her forever, suspended in the timelessness of our connection. But time is a bitch like that—when it does stop it only gives you a hint of what you crave most in the world.
As she starts to descend, the back of her head falls against my shoulder, and I bring our foreheads together.
“I want inside you so bad. I’m dying here.”
“We shouldn’t do this.” Refusing to meet my eyes, she swallows hard.
“I don’t care about ‘shouldn’ts’ anymore, Jules. I only know what I need, and I need you.”
“We already decided this wasn’t…a good idea.”
That’s an understatement, but I simply don’t give a fuck.
“I’m not asking to be with you just to let you go. I’m asking to be with you today, tomorrow, and every day after that. No matter what it takes, I’m willing to fight for us. Are you?”
She searches my face for the longest moments of my life, the wheels in her head spinning through the million reasons why we should walk away, at least for now. But she has a tell—a little thing she does when she knows she’s lost the fight once again.
She tugs on my arm, nods her assent, defenses in tatters. “My heart’s been fighting for you since the moment we met.”
I know the feeling.
“Let me stay with you tonight, Jules.”
“Okay.”
Elation.
Guilt.
They both simmer in my soul, battling for dominance. I have no doubt the shame will boil over before the night arrives, but there’s no way I can turn back now—I wouldn’t know how to if I tried.