Morgan and I are having dinner with my mom and dad. When I called Mom to tell her that Morgan came up with a great idea for the business, she suggested a dinner meeting. I checked with Morgan to see if she was free, and she was, so we’re meeting at my parents’ favorite restaurant—Alinea.

I take a cab from my place. When I arrive, I’m the first one there. The hostess seats me, and I give the drink order—beer for me and a bottle of red for the table—to our waitress, who I’m ninety percent sure I’ve hooked up with before. When you sleep with as many women as I do, it’s hard to keep track. But she looks familiar, and the way she keeps looking at me tells me that we’ve quite likely bumped uglies in the past.

“Hey.” Morgan slips into the seat beside me, putting her clutch on the table.

I turn my eyes to look at her, and—

Holy fuck.

She’s wearing a black lace dress. Her lips are red, hair down and poker straight, falling past her shoulders.

She looks fucking gorgeous.

It’s going to be hard not to get hard tonight.

“Hey. You look nice.” Hot. Fuckable.

“Oh. Thanks. You, too.”

I’m wearing a dark red shirt, which is oddly the same color as her lips, and black pants.

“I was worried I was going to be the last one here. Traffic was a nightmare.”

“You drove?”

“Took a cab.” She smiles.

“What do you want to drink? I ordered a bottle of red for the table, but I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”

“I’m not a red-wine drinker. Gives me the worst hangovers.”

I wave our waitress over. She approaches the table wearing a smile that dips when she sees Morgan sitting beside me, but Morgan doesn’t seem to notice.

“What can I get you?” she asks Morgan.

“I’ll have a vodka, soda, and lime, please.”

Our waitress swivels on her heel and disappears off. But it’s not her I’m looking at or thinking about. It’s the woman sitting next to me.

The woman I work with.

The woman I want to fuck more than I’ve ever wanted to fuck anyone before.

“Did you mention anything about my idea to your parents?”

I shake my head. “I thought you’d want to tell them.”

She smiles at me, her eyes warming, and I get the feeling again, like I’ve won something really important.

Our waitress appears with my beer, the red wine, and Morgan’s drink.

“Thanks,” Morgan says as the drink is put in front of her.

Her attention is back on me, but my eyes never left her.

We’re staring at one another, and I feel like I should say something.

“Your lips match my shirt.”

Really, Cross? That’s the best you could come up with?

For fuck’s sake.

She laughs softly. “So they do. At least, if I get lipstick on you, it won’t show.” Then, she realizes what she said. “Not that I plan on getting my lipstick on you. I just meant…” Her face is bright red now, and I’m as amused as I am turned on. “Oh Christ. You know what I meant.” She picks up her drink and takes a big gulp.

I chuckle.

Actually, I don’t know what she meant, but I’m not going to push her on it.

Even though I am enjoying seeing her squirm.

She puts her drink down but doesn’t look at me.

I move a little closer, and in a lowered voice, I say, “If you did get lipstick on me, I wouldn’t mind.”

Her eyes whip to mine, but she doesn’t look offended. She looks…interested, and there’s a definite hint of desire in there, too. And, right now, it’s hard to remember why I can’t kiss the hell out of her.

Her breathing has gone shallow, like my own.

It feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of this place along with everything else.

Nothing exists to me right now, except for her.

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. My eyes are pulled to it.

I want to kiss her.

And I know she definitely wants me to.

I lift my eyes back to hers. “Before, when I said you looked nice, what I was actually thinking is that you looked gorgeous.”

Her breath catches.

Fuck it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to kiss her.

“Darling!” The sound of my mother’s voice pierces right through the moment.

Morgan’s eyes widen with shock, and she moves away from me.

My heart is hammering in my chest.

“Mom, Dad,” I say, rising to kiss my mom’s cheek. I get a pat on the back in greeting from my dad.

Morgan stands, too. Her cheeks are flushed. “Hi, Mrs. Cross, Mr. Cross,” Morgan greets them. I notice that her voice sounds as shaky as I feel.

“It’s Frank and Nancy. How many times do I have to tell you?” my mom good-naturedly chides her. Then, she leans over and kisses Morgan’s cheek.

My parents take the seats across from us. My dad pulls out my mom’s chair for her and waits while she sits, like he always does.

“Sorry we’re late,” my mom says to us.

“You’re not late,” I tell her.

But I wish they had been. Then, I might have—no, I would have kissed Morgan. And I don’t know whether to be pissed or relieved that I didn’t get to kiss her. Because kissing Morgan would be a bad idea.

Not the kissing part. That would be amazing; I have no doubt about that. It’s the after that would be bad. The awkwardness of the fact that we work together. We run the company together. I can’t kiss her, and I definitely can’t fuck her.

So, it’s good that we were interrupted.

Our waitress appears again and asks for my parents’ drink orders. My mom tells her that she’s going to stick with the wine I already ordered. My dad orders a whiskey sour.

The whole time she’s at the table, taking their orders, she’s making sex eyes at me. But I’m more concerned with the fact that Morgan hasn’t looked at me. Not once.

And it’s pissing me off.

I want to know what she’s thinking.

Is she relieved that we didn’t kiss? Or does she wish we had?

And I’ve turned into a thirteen-year-old girl.

Even still, I nudge her knee with mine, forcing her to look at me.

She lifts those gorgeous eyes to mine. They’re expressionless. In complete contrast to how she was looking at me a few minutes ago.

I have an odd urge to see that desire in her eyes again.

“You okay?” I whisper to her.

She nods and then turns back to the table, opening one of the menus our waitress just brought.

Okay then. I’m guessing she’s relieved we didn’t kiss.

And if that doesn’t just piss me right off.

“So, Morgan,” my dad says, “Wilder tells us you’ve come up with a business idea.”

“Frank, let’s order our food before we talk business,” my mom says.

I chuckle and pick up my own menu, trying to decide on what I want to eat, but it’s hard to focus when I’m so distracted by Morgan sitting next to me. The scent of her perfume. The way she brushes her hair back with her hand as she leans forward to read the menu. Her finger running down the list of dishes. The way she nibbles her lip in thought.

I want to nibble that lip. No, I want to bite that lip.

I want to kiss that mouth and suck on her tongue and make her moan. And—

Stop.

I’m getting a hard-on, and I really don’t want an erection while I’m sitting with my parents.

We all decide on food and place our orders with our waitress, who indecently drops a small piece of paper into my lap as she passes me by.

I look up at her, and she smiles and winks at me.

Yeah, not happening.

When I turn back, I see Morgan staring at me with barely concealed disgust in her eyes. She immediately looks away. I glance at my mom and dad to see if they saw, but they’re too busy talking to realize that the waitress dropped me a note.

I want to tell Morgan that I have no intention of reading the note, which I’m guessing has her digits on it or a message like, Meet me in the restroom in five minutes.

This isn’t the first time a waitress has dropped me a note.

But I can’t say a damn thing to Morgan in front of my parents.

Even if I could say something, what would I say?

I’m not going to fuck the waitress because I want to fuck you.

Yeah, not likely.

But I don’t want her to think that I will call the waitress after we’re finished here. So, I pick the note up and tear it up into small pieces over the table.

“What’s that you’re tearing up?” my mom asks.

“Just a receipt,” I tell her. Then, I drop the small pieces of paper into the glass candleholder that has a tea light candle burning in it, letting the pieces of paper burn up.

“Wilder!” my mom chastises. “You’ll start a fire.” She starts wafting her hands over the candle.

“That won’t start a fire.” My dad chuckles. “But you will, fanning it like that.”

I chuckle as my mom pulls her hands back.

I look at Morgan. She doesn’t look back at me, but I know she knows that I’m staring at her. And what she does do is smile.

And fuck if that smile doesn’t make me feel good.

My dad picks up his drink and has a sip. “So, the food has been ordered. Now, I’m really interested in hearing this idea of yours, Morgan. It’s the reason we’re here.”

Morgan smiles at my dad. “Okay.”

She glances at me, and I give her a look of encouragement, which seems to brighten her eyes. She looks back to my parents and starts talking. She tells them everything she told me with the same level of enthusiasm that has me burning for her again.

I can’t take my eyes off her as she talks. I’m enthralled.

I’ve never been this hot for a woman before. And I know I’m in trouble because I’ve realized that it’s not only this woman’s face and body that turns me on. It’s her mind, too. She’s smart as fuck. The way she lights up when she talks about work turns me on in a way no other woman ever has.

I might want to stick my tongue in her mouth and slide my cock up inside her pussy, but I want to talk to Morgan more. I want to know her.

She finishes talking, and my mom and dad are staring at her—smiles on their faces, exactly like I was wearing when Morgan first told me her idea.

“I knew you were smart, Morgan. That’s why we wanted you to come work for us,” my mom says. “But this…after being with us for only a short time.” She looks at my dad, as if needing his help with words.

“We’ve talked about this in the past, wanting to break into this part of the market, but we could never make the figures work. But, if you’re telling us that you have a way to make this work without losing product quality…” My dad leans back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the table. “Brilliant, Morgan. Really brilliant.”

With Morgan bringing this great thing to the table, I was expecting to experience some level of jealousy on my part, purely because my mom and dad had brought her in and given her half of my job. And, now, she’s living up to their high expectations, and so far, I’ve done fuck all, except for lust after her.

But I don’t feel jealous. I actually feel…proud. Like Morgan’s somehow mine to be proud of.

But she’s not yours, assface. She’s your business partner and nothing more.

Morgan looks at me, the praise lighting up her eyes.

And I’ve never wanted to kiss her more than I do right now.

I shove the thought away. “I told you they’d love it,” I say to her.

Her smile softens on me.

My heart starts to thud in my chest.

Then, she looks away.

A moment later, our waitress turns up with our food, putting plates in front of us.

When the waitress is gone, my dad picks his knife and fork up. “I want you both on this.” He points his knife at me and then Morgan.

I glance at Morgan to see how she feels about this. She’s smiling, so I take that as a good thing.

“I want the both of you to draw up a proposal for this, pros and cons, and send them to me by Monday at the latest.”

I meet Morgan’s twinkling eyes.

“Sure thing,” we both say at the same time.

I grin, and she smiles at me.

Dragging my eyes from her, I pick up my knife and fork.

And I won’t deny that I’m thrilled at the prospect of having to work closely with Morgan on this over the next few days—maybe even the weekend, if I’m lucky.

What the hell? I’m actually wishing to miss out on my weekend fucks, so I can spend time working with Morgan.

Can the real Wilder Cross please stand up?

The only thing I can think is that my cock is in definite lust with her. That, or she’s done some kind of voodoo to him.

That’s the only explanation I have right now as to why I’ve turned into a Morgan-obsessed idiot.