It’s difficult to believe that life goes on after a night like I had with Skylar, but whenever something great happens, reality comes knocking.

Thursday morning, I’m in my office bright and early for a meeting, and the last thing I want to do now is focus on work. I haven’t slept much. Having mind-blowing sex late in the day and lying awake thinking about it until late in the night will do that to you. I can’t concentrate on work, either. She’s in my mind and all over my body. I can still feel her on my cock, her walls clamping down. I can still hear the sound of us fucking.

I took a shower before I came into work, but I swear I can smell her perfume in my nostrils and the scent of her sex on my skin.

“Are you with us?” Nick asks.

I’m sitting at a boardroom table with two writers and four designers, and we’re talking about getting a woman involved in the game. Oh, the symbolism.

“Yeah,” I say. “I was just brainstorming.”

Yeah, brainstorming Skylar’s body and how good sex was with her.

“Right,” Nick says and points at my plotter. “Continue, Harry.”

I try my best to focus on him. He’s on the short side, with spiky hair and skin that never matured past puberty pimples. He looks like he’s afraid of the real world, but he’s a hell of a plotter, and a lot of the story progression in my games is thanks to him.

He’s saying something about plot points, but I don’t really pay attention to him. My mind jumps back to Skylar, naked on her desk, her breasts large and firm, her nipples dark. When they’re tight, I want to suck on them.

And her pussy. God. I have slept with a handful of women in my life, but her pussy is divine. It’s not like what I’ve had before. Maybe it’s because I could never have her. What is it they say about forbidden fruit? All I know is that I want it all again. I want her again. I’ve always wanted her, and it wasn’t just a one-night stand kind of thing for me. She’s not the type of woman you hit and run. She’s the kind you go all the way with. It’s one thing Paul does seem to understand.

God, the thought of my brother makes my stomach tighten. I know what we did wasn’t exactly right, no matter how good it was. I still want to do it again. I feel guilty, but not nearly enough to get me to stop doing it. If the chance arises to repeat what happened between us last night, I will take it again without thinking twice.

“You’re very distracted today, Parker,” Nick says, and I glance up at him. Oh, I missed more of the conversation. Great.

“I’m sorry, guys,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

“Working long hours?” Nick asks, practically handing me a way out.

“Very long hours,” I say, although I didn’t time how long Skylar and were at it. “It’s this game. The concept of bringing in a woman. It’s keeping me up.” I swallow. I’m just grabbing at whatever comes to mind right now. I haven’t been thinking about the game much at all.

“Do you have other ideas you want to incorporate?” Harry asks. “Because you need to tell me if you do so I can make it work.”

I shake my head. “Nothing for the moment. I’m trying to see the bigger picture, now that this game has taken off the way it did. When I came up with the idea, I didn’t think ahead, and I want to avoid that this time.”

I’m surprised at what I can think up when I’m on the spot.

Nick nods. Harry looks impressed, and the others take their cues from their team leaders.

“You’re doing a great job, though,” I say to all of them. “I’m excited about what we’re going to make happen with this next chapter.”

They mumble their agreements. We’re not done discussing everything, and the men launch into the next set of ideas. I try to pay attention this time. I am at work, after all, and I’m the boss. I started this company, and it would do me good to see it through. I can’t let a woman distract me from all of this.

Not even if the woman is Skylar, although it’s very tempting.

Hell, she’s so tempting I think I will let her distract me from all of this. I want to. I want her beneath me, screaming my name as she comes for me, again and again.

No, I scold myself. I can’t be thinking like this about my brother’s wife. Or ex-wife. Or not his wife at all. I don’t exactly know where they stand. Skylar told me that their marriage was voided, but I don’t know what she’s going to do about it. I can tell she’s not very happy with Paul, but I can’t tell if she wants to leave him. All I know is that right now, there’s a giant loophole, and somehow, I managed to slip my cock right through it while the hole was gaping wide open.

I know this won’t last forever. She will make a choice, and I’ll have to fall in line with that. Right now, though, I won’t think about it. I won’t think about Paul, either, because I know that I won’t feel guilty about what I’m doing. The only thing I feel guilty about at the moment is not feeling guilty that I’m fucking his wife at all.

The meeting finally adjourns, and I feel fuzzy. It’s a lot to take in when I have so much on my mind, with so little sleep. I walk to my office, feeling like a nap at my desk, when my phone rings. When I pull it out of my pocket, Skylar’s name flashes on caller ID, and I smile. I close myself in my office before I answer.

“Hey, beautiful,” I say.

“Parker,” she says, and she doesn’t sound very happy. In fact, she sounds a little like when she’s pissed off at me about being drunk or picking fights with Paul.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Skylar takes a deep breath. Even if she’ll say yes, now, I know that she’ll be lying.

“Can we meet for lunch?” she asks, instead of telling me yes or no. “I would like to have a chat with you.”

“It sounds ominous,” I say.

I know what she wants to talk about. I guess I should have seen this coming, after I saw her coming. I can’t really blame her for wanting to talk about this. I’m quite happy carrying on like we are now, without talking about it, but she’s a woman, and women always want to talk about their emotions.

Besides, this isn’t just straightforward.

“It’s just a chat, Parker.”

I try not to sigh. I usually like it when she says my name, but today, it reminds me of when I’m in trouble. I don’t want this to be how we are, after we shared a night like last night.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll go to lunch with you.”

We end the call, and I groan. I have a feeling my fantasy is about to come to an end.

I arrive at Blu Jam Café, and Skylar is already waiting for me. She waves from a table in the middle of the floor. I point toward her when a waiter comes to seat me and make my way through the tables. The café is light and modern, with white walls, wooden floors, and brown and black furniture. When I reach Skylar, she gets up and hugs me, but it’s stiff and awkward.

She looks beautiful. She’s wearing a red blouse and black pants. Her hair is loose, and she’s wearing jewelry. This isn’t her usual bakery outfit. I wonder if she dressed up just for me.

“You look great,” I say, sitting down.

“Thank you,” she says and smiles at me, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Great, we’re back to that.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask after we order coffee.

Skylar sighs. “Cutting straight to the point, huh?” she asks.

“I’m not a fan of small talk when there are bigger things to discuss,” I say.

She nods and looks around us at the other diners. “I’m so used to being the person that serves people. It feels a little strange being on the receiving end.”

I frown at her. I thought I just told her that I don’t want to make small talk. I don’t have to say it to her. She sighs.

“I want to talk about last night,” she says. When she looks up at me, her eyes are a deep, intense blue. “We shouldn’t have done it.”

I shake my head. It’s not what I want to hear. “I don’t regret it,” I say. “I’ll do it again.”

Her cheeks color. Is she blushing? Despite the blush, she shakes her head.

“You know it was wrong. What about Paul? I may not love him, Parker, but that doesn’t make this right. We shouldn’t have—”

“Wait,” I say, interrupting her sentence. “You don’t love Paul?”

She pales a little, and I can see her mind working, backpedaling to figure out what she’d said.

“I mean to say, we might not be married right now,” she says, but it’s too late. The words are already out there.

“You’re with him, but you don’t love him?” I ask again.

She takes a deep breath. I look at her lips. They’re kissable, plump, and I want to kiss her right now. The thought alone gets me hard, and I shift in my seat, uncomfortable at the angle in my pants.

“I’m trying to say to you that we won’t do this again,” she says. “We can’t do this. It’s wrong.”

“But it was good,” I say.

She swallows hard, and I know that she agrees with me. I slide my foot across the floor until I touch hers. She glances up at me. Her lips are slightly parted, and I don’t read reluctance. I read lust.

“Parker,” she says in a soft voice.

“I want you,” I say. We’re not talking loud enough for everyone else to hear us, but my heart races anyway because we’re in public together, and I’m confessing my emotions to her. Some of them, anyway.

“You know I want you. Badly. Again, and again.”

The more I speak, the more she blushes and her lips curl into a smile. She shakes her head, but she’s losing the battle. Her foot is still pressed against mine, and she slides it up my ankle a bit. She’s telling me that we shouldn’t fuck, but she’s already thinking about it again.

And so am I. I want to take her with me right now, find a room somewhere, anywhere quiet, and fuck her until she cries out again.

“You know we can’t do this,” she says in a breathy voice.

“You’re resolve isn’t very good,” I say.

She closes a little, her face serious, and she moves her foot away from me.

“Don’t do this to me,” she says. “You know this is wrong. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

I’ve lost her. I don’t want that. I reach across the table and take her hand. The moment our skin makes contact, my body hums with desire. I’m willing to bet hers does, too.

“Does this feel wrong to you?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer me. That is its own answer. I lift her knuckles and lean forward to brush my lips against them, and she breathes in with a shudder. I know she feels it, too.

I just know it.