Valeria’s mention of duct tape kept me up at night with fantasies about Mr. Grayson. Tied to a chair, scowling at me, nostrils flared as I rode him. It was exactly the image I was trying not to think about, but after the cheeseburger incident, I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The night had barely begun when the phone rang. That stupid flutter in my stomach kicked in at the number.
“Good evening, Mr. Grayson,” I said.
“There is water all over the bathroom floor,” he said in a low, clearly aggravated tone.
Water? Floor?
“Did you hear me, Emma?”
I blinked, trying to get my brain to function. “I . . . Is there a leak?”
“I don’t know, but why don’t you get up here with someone from maintenance.” The ire in his tone was very noticeable, probably due to my delayed response.
“Yes, right, sorry, sir.” Since when did I become a bumbling idiot in front of him? It was probably the surprise of something actually wrong versus some perceived slight. I picked up the phone and called for maintenance to meet me up in his room, and then waited for Caleb to return from his Starbucks run.
From thirty feet away, Caleb could tell I’d received a call. “What is it today?” he asked as he held out a fresh latte.
“Thanks,” I said as I took it from him. “A possible actual issue.”
“Yeah? Good luck.”
I took a quick sip of my latte before setting it down. “I’ll be back.”
By the time I made it up to the fourteenth floor, Joe, the maintenance supervisor, was heading down the hall from the service elevator.
“Hey, Emma,” he said with a smile.
“Hi.”
“What do we have?”
I blew out a breath before reaching out and knocking on his door. “We’ll see.”
The door swung open, and I almost stumbled from the impact of seeing him. Every time it got harder, not easier. Power and strength exuded from him with almost palpable force.
Unfortunately, so did his sexuality.
“About time,” he grumbled.
He held the door as Joe and I walked through, Joe heading straight for the bathroom. I followed behind, my eyes going wide at the water covering the bathroom floor.
“Whoa.” I stepped back to let Joe find the source and returned to facing Mr. Grayson.
“Exactly,” he ground out. It was a different level of annoyance than I was used to. He was genuinely irked.
“I apologize for this inconvenience.”
“Can’t this hotel do anything right?” he asked as he removed his cuff links, and we heard the sounds of the maintenance man, clinking away in the bathroom.
“Once again, I apologize—” I began, but was cut off.
“Enough with your damn apologies. Over two fucking weeks of them, and they don’t fix a fucking thing,” he sneered. “If my company was run the way this hotel is, I wouldn’t have a job. Fucking incompetent idiots.”
“Please, sir, your language is inappropriate. I am trying to rectify the situation.” I’d had about enough of his mouth. The language he used was inappropriate in my mind, given that I’d been bending over backwards to make him happy and that the issue was truly a fluke. The problem was that nothing seemed to make him happy—with the exception of berating me.
“There shouldn’t be a situation,” he nearly shouted, glaring at me as he yanked the tie from around his neck.
I stood my ground, facing him, my spine straightening. “I agree, but unfortunately there is. For the inconvenience, we would like to upgrade your room.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry . . . no?” The vein on my forehead started to throb, and my ever-present smile faltered. He was going to drive me to homicide at this rate. Maybe that duct tape idea wasn’t so bad.
“Are you deaf as well, Emma?” He walked toward me and stopped just short of my body, invading my personal space, and leaned in close, his hand resting on the wall beside my head. I could smell him at that distance, and the bastard smelled divine. “You’ve moved me already, and besides the leak in the bathroom, I quite enjoy this room.” His gaze moved up and down my body and his tongue peeked out to lick his lips. “You will just have to find another way to compensate me.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks as my hands fidgeted with the hem of my jacket. We were inches apart, and all I wanted to do was lean forward and press my lips to his. The heat rolling off him lit up every nerve in my body.
I had to be misinterpreting him. I had to be. The strange quickening of my pulse when I saw him, the butterflies. It was just another overreaction from my body, finding what it wanted to hear and see and turning it into something seductive.
“At your service, Mr. Grayson,” I squeaked out, flustered.
I was close enough that I could have sworn I heard him groan, which almost made me groan in return from the rush of heat that moved through me.
He pushed off the wall and resumed unbuttoning his shirt. “Get out of here.”
It was the second night he’d dismissed me the same way. An electric pulse seemed to circulate between us, then suddenly, he became cold and calculated.
“Hot, demanding bastard,” I grumbled as I walked down the hall, cursing his name as I fanned my face.
My steps slowed as I got to the elevator and my heartbeat regulated. I hated what he was doing to me, the doubts he was instilling. Each encounter with him was destroying everything I thought I knew and wanted.
Dealing with Mr. Grayson had pushed me to the point of losing sleep, which was something I definitely needed. Between his anger and his sexual presence, I was at my wit’s end.
His stay was extended another week and I desperately wanted him to just leave, to let me get back to normal. I was tired of dealing with him, tired of being berated, and tired of lust-filled dreams about him.
“Hey, are you all right?” James asked.
“Hmm? Oh, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You just seem . . . out there.”
I tried to give him a smile, but a strange heaviness in my chest stopped it. “Yeah, I’m just tired.”
There seemed to be an invisible wall between us, but that didn’t stop James. Maybe he didn’t feel it the way I did. It was almost like my personal space barrier had popped back to life with him.
He rubbed his hand up and down my arm as he leaned down to catch my eyes. “You’ve got tomorrow off. Get some rest.”
I heaved a sigh. “I’ve got class at nine.”
“Well, that sucks. Okay, then go home and crash, then relax tomorrow night. You work day on Saturday, so rest up. It’ll be busy with the race.”
“Crap, I forgot about that.”
“It’s during the day,” he pointed out. “Take the subway, and you’ll be fine. I know you don’t like doing it at night, but the sun will still be up when you leave.”
I nodded. “That’s true.” Taking the subway that day wouldn’t be bad at all.
“How’s Grayson treating you?” he asked after a minute of silence.
“Grayson? Same as always, but it’s fine.”
“I don’t like that he’s always calling on you,” James said, his normal smile gone, replaced with something I couldn’t place, but if the tightness of his jaw was any indication, it was nothing good.
“He does it when I’m not here as well,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but not every night.”
“What?” I blinked up at him. Every night I was on, there was a call from him.
“There are complaints, but nothing like when you’re working.”
I shrugged and tried to play it off, but it left me curious. Did he just like picking on me? “Maybe I’m just his favorite punching bag.”
His lips formed a thin line. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it.”
My brow furrowed and I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“Well, I’m out of here. Have fun tonight,” he said with a wave as he headed toward the door.
“Hey, James?” I said, stopping him. He turned and smiled at me, and for the first time ever, my body gave no response. “Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
I stared after him as a lone tear slipped down my cheek. There was such a weight in my heart, a weight that hadn’t been there a few weeks prior. He’d done nothing wrong, yet I no longer felt connected to him. What was happening to me?
My lunch break was spent in the lobby Starbucks, downing a quick latte and a sandwich as I read up on my business economics and statistics. I was actually absorbing it and getting my mind thinking about my next project when I was rudely interrupted.
“I didn’t realize they taught such high-level academia to hotel supervisors,” a familiar, snide voice said, pulling me from my zone and speeding up my pulse. “I didn’t think one had to have more than a high-school education, based on my experience these past weeks, and someone with a high-school education would not be able to understand that subject.”
I sighed, getting my bearings in place before I lit into him. “If you must know, Mr. Grayson, I am finishing up my MBA in just a few short weeks. No, this is not standard reading for a lowly hotel clerk. I work here so I can eat and have a place to live. A full course load combined with forty hours plus of work every week. Not to mention all the homework, and I still somehow manage to cook, clean, and maintain over a three-point-five grade average.”
I sat back, folded my arms, and pursed my lips at him. He looked . . . surprised.
“Well done, Emma. I knew you were somewhat more intelligent than the others, but that is beyond my expectations,” he said with his trademark frown.
That only irritated me more. Was he making fun of me? The blood vessel in my temple began to pulse as I glared at him.
“Excuse me?” He was lucky I didn’t bite him at that point.
Pulling out the chair on the other side of the table, he inserted himself into my personal space. I hated the way my skin heated when his knee brushed mine. It was so contradictory to how my mind felt about him.
“What I’m trying to say, Emma, is what you have accomplished is quite impressive.”
“You’ve already managed to insult me, Mr. Grayson, by implying that you thought I was intelligent, but only slightly.”
He blinked at me. “I’ve upset you. Interesting.”
“Of course you’ve upset me. I’ve worked very hard to get through this program and still have a place to lay my head. I don’t have copious amounts of money to throw at an upscale hotel to live there for weeks on end. One night in your room is almost a month’s rent to me.”
“I didn’t say you don’t work hard, Emma. I know you do, I make sure of it. I just . . .” he trailed off, his hand flying in agitation.
And hitting my latte.
The cup bounced on the table, popping the lid off and creating a latte explosion.
All over my book.
All over my clothes.
“Shit!” I jumped up from my chair and picked my book up from the lake of latte that was swallowing it up.
“Fuck,” he cursed before he turned to grab some napkins.
I yanked them from his hand and began patting down the pages. “Great. Just fucking great,” I muttered. The book cost me over one hundred dollars used.
“Don’t worry, Emma, I’ll get it. Go get yourself cleaned up,” Andrea, the barista, called from behind the counter.
“Thanks!” I replied before giving her a strained smile as I ran out.
“Emma,” I heard him call out as I stormed across the lobby, my book still dripping latte. “Will you let me apologize to you?”
“No.” My heels clacked loud on the tile floor as I raced away from him.
“Why not?”
I whirled on him. “Do you really want to know that, Mr. Grayson? Hmm? Because I can assure you I have more than enough ammo to throw at you.”
I spun back around and headed through a door that led to one of the employee corridors, walking at as swift a pace as I could manage. The stress washed over me, swallowing me up. Still, I could hear his footsteps behind me.
“Emma, will you just stop. Please.”
“Go away!” I cried out. Tears stung at my eyes—the last thing I wanted him to see. Couldn’t he just leave me alone? Why did he have to keep picking on me?
He grabbed my arm, and sparks ignited my skin as he pulled me back. My foot slipped at the sudden shift of my weight, and I crashed into his chest. The book dropped to the ground, and his arms wrapped around me as the momentum caused us to spin into the wall. The breath flew from my lungs as my back slammed into the concrete blocks with him crashing into me.
Once we’d stopped, he pulled away from me and the tears started to spill from my eyes, flowing down my cheeks. My chest constricted to keep from sobbing, but it was no use. Panic filled his features: his eyes widened and his mouth opened.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” I asked. He’d been torturing me in more ways than one since he walked in. Changing everything I thought I wanted.
“Please, don’t cry,” he begged. His hands cupped my face, his thumbs brushing away my tears.
“What did I do to you?” I asked, really needing to know the answer. “Why do you keep doing this to me?”
“I like you,” he answered, just as plain as anything, and I could see the truth in his eyes. My sobbing reduced to just tears streaming down my face, and I stared up at him like he was mental. “I’ve gone about it in a very juvenile way, I admit.”
“How so?”
The corner of his mouth ticked up. “Don’t little boys pick on the girl they like?”
I gawked up at him. “You’re an adult, you know. If you like someone, you don’t beat them down and make them feel inferior. It’s called wooing. I have a dictionary, you can look it up.”
He smirked down at me, wiping the remainder of my tears away, and I couldn’t help but lean into his touch. It was so much more than I could ever have anticipated. Such a small gesture, and yet my every cell lit up and begged for more. More of his hands on me, his lips. More of all of him. Maybe it had been so long since I’d had anyone touch me like that, or it was the attraction I had for him, I wasn’t sure.
“I need to go change,” I said, forcing myself to pull away from his warmth.
He nodded and stepped back, releasing me. “Let me pay for the replacement of your book.”
I glanced up at the powerhouse that had rocked the hotel for weeks, into his beautifully different eyes. There was no malice, no anger, none of the emotions I was used to with him.
“Okay,” I said, not knowing how else to respond.
“Have a good night, Emma,” he said in a low voice.
My heart thumped hard in my chest. “You, too, Mr. Grayson.”