8
Jude
I sat down to the pile of papers on my desk, wishing they would disappear. Weekly reports were a bitch and I knew it would take me forever to do them. I’d gotten started right after breakfast and it was now mid-way through lunch hour and I still wasn’t finished.
The door of my office remained closed to keep out distractions, but the distractions were all in my head. I pressed my knuckles to my chin, swearing I could still smell Henley on them. Keeping my hand on her thighs without touching her had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
It had been two days and we still had no answer. It was driving me mad, but didn’t seem to be bothering Maverick at all. He was casually in and out of business meetings, doing his part. Meanwhile, I was avoiding everyone because of my pissy mood. Usually I could bury my thoughts inside a woman, but now, I didn’t want just any woman. I only wanted Henley.
We both knew her actually saying ‘yes’ was a gamble because she was so serious about her career. Any self-respecting woman would be skeptical about such a proposition, but I hoped she would still come around.
We’d had to keep things as casual as possible at dinner so we wouldn’t overwhelm her, and that had been so hard that I’d almost exploded. I’d been sporting the same damned hard-on ever since.
She’d known what she was doing, showing up in that dress trying to tempt us while still looking so damned innocent. If she said yes, I vowed to be the first to claim her. On the other hand, if she said no, she’d have no idea what she was missing.
Maverick and I had barely seen each other since that night. The rest of dinner had gone by, tense with our desire. It had been hard for us to keep from taking her right there on that dinner table, but we had managed. We finished the dinner, walked her to the valet park, and watched her drive away.
Maverick and I had driven in separate cars, and though we lived in the same house, we rarely saw each other; the place was big enough for us to have our space from each other. Besides, being together would only fuel our frustration and we would end up plotting ways to get her attention—and Henley wouldn’t like that at all.
I pushed the papers off, finally done with them as I paged my assistant to take them to filing. Everything looked good, besides the possible pit if that investment went wrong. I’d told Maverick to stop fussing about it anyway, and he had finally laid off it.
I poured an early-afternoon scotch, as I always did. If someone ever told me to stop drinking, I would be even more annoyed with each hour of the day. I shucked off my suit jacket and rolled up my sleeves, showing the intricate lines of my dark tattoos. Everything had a meaning, but I honestly hadn’t cared the day I’d gone to get them. That had been during a time when I’d been sure nothing would come out of my life. Back then, I couldn’t have fathomed the money and respect I’d earned from every investment corporation in the world.
Even thoughts of my success couldn’t preoccupy my thoughts for long though, for Henley just popped into my mind yet again. I kept thinking about the way her dress had hugged the swells of her breasts, making them spill over the top, looking creamy as ever, begging to be licked, sucked, and bitten.
It was all a fantasy in my head until I checked my phone for the first time, seeing that Maverick had texted me a while ago with the news that Henley had actually agreed to our arrangement.
I was so fucking ecstatic, I smiled as I looked through my boring emails rather than wearing my usual sneer of disdain. I hadn’t felt so excitement about something in a long time.
My office door abruptly swung open. Startled, I glanced up, only to find Maverick strolling in wearing his gray suit, smiling smugly.
I leaned back in my chair. “You can’t knock?”
He flipped me off as he sat across from my desk. “Whatever. You can’t answer texts anymore?” He briefly waved his phone in front of me.
“What is this, junior high? Sorry for ignoring you.” I rolled my eyes, and then we both laughed, our excitement palpable.
“Right. Well, Henley agreed. Time to make our next move,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I saw that. Maybe we shouldn’t do the usual.” We usually started everything off in a hotel, nothing too personal. But Henley was different.
Maverick’s eyes drifted past me in thought. “Yeah. Maybe dinner at the house. Invite her that way,” he suggested.
“That’s perfect. We could lay everything out for her. You know, make sure she knows all the details.”
“I’ll have it set up,” Maverick said and started clicking on his phone, fussing with that calendar of his where he kept everything scheduled. But for once, it didn’t annoy me.
Nothing annoyed me because I knew that I would be seeing Henley again soon.