Eden

Michael had sent me home to rest, but I had done anything but.

All night I had tossed and turned, my mind spinning, my body on fire with thoughts of him.

Seeing him had been a surprise. If I was honest, I could acknowledge that I’d been hiding from him, something I’d thought was justified. I hadn’t known how he would react, didn’t know how I would, so I’d thought it best to stay away.

But staying away had done nothing to banish thoughts of Michael. I’d replayed those moments in the boiler room, both the hotel and the actual pub, over and over again. Had thought of little else.

I had no idea what was happening between us, couldn’t say for sure that anything was happening between us and didn’t have the nerve to seek him out.

But then, last night, when Michael, in his own particular way, had expressed something like care toward me, it changed me. I hadn’t seen that side of him, and I found that I appreciated it, liked it.

Liked him.

Even after what we had shared, it was nearly impossible to imagine, but it occurred to me that maybe, just possibly, Michael was more than the cantankerous, annoying jerk he pretended to be.

Oh, he was all those things, but he was more, and I’d gotten glimpses of that, glimpses that pulled me in even more.

As I dressed the next morning, I told myself I needed to stop this. Needed to keep my wits about me.

Michael might have different sides, but those didn’t erase the years of experience I had with him, and it would be foolish of me to pretend they did.

It would be hard, nearly impossible, especially given how much I wanted him, but I would keep my distance, make sure that I didn’t fall into his bed again, at least not until I had a better idea of what I was dealing with.

I wasn’t foreclosing anything with Michael, but I couldn’t let myself get sucked in by emotion, wouldn’t allow my body to overrule my mind. That admonishment firmly in mind, I drove to work, happy, confident in the decision I had made.

Most mornings, I parked in the very back of the employee lot, an area that was usually deserted. Today, though, I noticed several trucks around the loading dock. I watched them curiously, nodded at the deliverymen as I walked inside.

The replacement kitchen equipment had arrived the day before, and I hadn’t scheduled anything for today. Perhaps Gerald would have an idea of what was going on.

I went inside quickly and found Gerald in our office. He stood in the center of the room, something I might have found odd if I wasn’t used to it by now. He was dressed crisply as usual, but his expression practically screamed his displeasure.

“Is everything okay, Gerald? Did you have a delivery scheduled for today?” I asked.

“I did not,” he replied stiffly. “It seems that was Mr. Murphy’s doing.”

“Really? Did he say what it was?” I asked, wondering what it could be.

Gerald’s already frowning face dropped farther, his disgust palpable. “It seems Mr. Murphy finds some of our equipment unsuitable. He said the housekeeping carts were, and I quote, ‘shit.’ He ordered replacements for all of them.”

“He did!” I exclaimed, excitement starting to brew.

“Yes. Can you believe that?” he replied, almost sputtering with anger.

“I can’t, but the staff is going to be so excited! Those other carts really were unwieldy,” I said.

Gerald looked wounded, and I moved in to soothe his feelings, belatedly remembering that Gerald had handpicked those carts long before I had come to the hotel. I plastered on a smile. “The others were perfectly fine, but there are newer, more modern ones that will be easier for the staff to maneuver, and if they can move quickly, that leaves more space to give our guests the best possible experience,” I said, going back to the thing Gerald preached above all others.

That seemed to placate him some, which was the best that I could do. I had told him we needed new carts for a couple of years now, but he’d always insisted the expense was unnecessary. I was glad to have them, but even more, I was excited Michael had acted so decisively about something that would be so beneficial for the staff.

“And that’s not all,” Gerald said, his voice heading off the dreamy thoughts I was about to fall into. That was a good thing. What Michael had done was considerate, but it didn’t qualify him for sainthood or even make him a good guy, so I needed to keep some perspective.

When I looked at Gerald again, he wore an expression of shock and horror so extreme, it threatened laughter.

“There,” he said, nodding toward the closed door of the suite across the hall.

“What?” I asked, following his gaze.

“According to him, you informed him we need additional housekeepers and a maintenance man, so he’s sent over applicants,” Gerald said, sniffing over the word “applicants.”

I was far too excited to pay him any attention, though.

The carts were one thing. I took Michael at his word when he’d said he was going to deliver it, so that meant he’d had firsthand experience trying to move those things.

But sending over new staff… That was something I had mentioned offhand when I was borderline exhausted, and less than twelve hours later, he’d made it happen.

If he’d done all this for me, it would have been the most romantic gesture anyone had ever done for me. But I couldn’t allow myself to think it. Michael’s interest was his hotel and seeing that it was the best it could possibly be. It had nothing to do with me, and I would not, could not, let myself forget that.

“Would you like to sit in on interviews?” I asked Gerald.

He shook his head. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure you’ll take care of it. I’ll go do the rounds.”

“Okay. But this is good, Gerald. Remember how we used to talk about how we’d manage things if we had the resources?” I said, recalling some of Gerald’s and my conversations about that topic.

He nodded stiffly, grudgingly, but I overlooked that and smiled.

“This is our chance,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm but stopping myself before I did, not sure of how Gerald would respond.

He didn’t at first, but then pressed his lips into a thin line. “You’re right as always, Eden,” he said. “I’ll get to those rounds now.”

I watched him as he left, certain that there was more to Gerald’s reaction.

I’d have to talk to him, see what was going on. I knew that change was tough for Gerald, but this was a good thing. Yes, Michael was overbearing, but it seemed he had the staff’s best interest at heart, and as soon as I got Gerald to accept that, I knew he’d be happy about the state of the hotel.

Until then, I had new staff to interview. Then I needed to find Michael.

* * *

Eden

Four hours and five new employees later, I ventured out of the executive suite, headed directly for Michael’s office, my excitement propelling me.

I didn’t even slow down long enough to get lunch.

I’d do that later, but the need to see Michael even outweighed hunger.

When I reached his door, I stood still, the nerves I almost always had when I knew I was going to see him present, but this time was different. I was excited, anxious to see him.

“Get a grip, Eden,” I mumbled to myself.

A fraction of a second later, the door swung open, and I looked up in surprise to meet Michael’s eyes.

“Are you outside of my door talking to yourself, Eden?” he asked.

“I—um—I…” I looked at him, smiled. “Guilty as charged,” I said.

“Come in,” he said, turning to walk to his desk.

His broad shoulders filled out his suit jacket and I remembered what it was like to wrap my arms around them, hold them as he pushed himself inside me.

Then tried to remind myself that this was not the time or the place to think such things.

“Eden!” Michael snapped impatiently.

“What? I’m sorry,” I said, focusing on Michael who had turned and stood staring at me.

“You haven’t had lunch. Should I order you something?” he said.

“No, that won’t be nec—”

The grumble of my stomach cut me off, and Michael gave me a knowing smirk and then picked up the phone.

“Add an additional plate to my lunch order,” he said. Then he hung up the phone.

“You didn’t say thank you,” I said.

“No, I didn’t. Is that your way of distracting me?” he asked, his expression almost a smile.

It had been, and to my surprise, Michael hadn’t gone for it.

“Maybe,” I said, smiling at him.

“Yeah. Nice try,” he said. “You shouldn’t go so long without eating. You’ve been in the conference room since you arrived.”

“Keeping tabs on me, Mr. Murphy?” I asked.

“You’re in my hotel. Of course I am,” he said.

There had been a time when him saying something like that would have set me off, but this time I smiled, feeling cared for in a way I seldom did, and walked to sit at the conference table where Michael had taken a seat.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?” he asked.

“For the new equipment, the new staff,” I responded.

“It’s my hotel. The staff and the equipment are going to make it run better. So why would you thank me for that?” he asked, his expression one that seemed to suggest he thought I was being ridiculous. It was one I was quite familiar with.

“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the polite thing to do,” I said, my voice sounding peevish.

When Michael smiled, I thought I would sink into the floor. “I took the bait didn’t I?”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” he said.

Then he laughed, the expression so different, so welcome.

We went quiet for a moment, the silence almost but not quite awkward.

There shouldn’t have been anything awkward about it.

After the things this man had done to me, something as commonplace as a joke shouldn’t have left me flustered. But it did.

Michael did.

That in and of itself wasn’t unusual, and in fact was something I should have expected. If nothing else, Michael had always been able to keep me on my toes. But there was something about this, a new level of intimacy that had never been there before, one I was still trying to feel my way through.

“Come in,” Michael called when a soft knock on the door broke the silence.

“I have your lunch, Mr. Murphy,” Henry, the kitchen manager said. Then he looked at me and nodded. “Eden.”

“Hey, Henry,” I replied, feeling even more awkward now.

Henry’s expression hadn’t told me anything, but I knew that meant nothing. In our line of work, we ran into pretty much anything and not allowing a response to show was a tool of the trade.

But maybe Henry wasn’t reacting because there was nothing to react to. Michael and I met all the time.

This was no different.

I told myself that but knew it was an utter lie.

This was different, and as Henry deposited the plates on the conference table, it occurred to me why.

This wasn’t owner and assistant general manager having a meeting over lunch. It wasn’t even sometimes-adversaries taking a break from hostilities for a meal.

This was a date.

If Henry hadn’t been in the room, I might have cursed.

At no point had I contemplated a date with Michael being on the afternoon agenda, and I hadn’t slept nearly enough to be ready for it.

I glanced at Michael, who looked back at me, his expression stony.

Whether I had contemplated it or not, here it was, and it didn’t look like Michael had any interest in throwing me a lifeline.

“I’ll drop by later this afternoon, see how that new equipment is working out,” I said as Henry left.

It was a pathetic and wholly ineffective attempt to make this something other than what it clearly was.

“Sure thing,” he replied and then he was gone.

When he left, I was in the bizarre position of being both relieved and more nervous.

“You don’t want people getting the wrong idea, huh?” Michael said.

“What makes you think that?” I replied, managing to hold his gaze through a feat of sheer will.

Michael smirked. “Eden, you’re a terrible bullshitter. Your face tells everything you’re thinking. You’re worried old Henry there will figure out that you’re banging me,” he said.

The slight crudeness of his words was a complete contrast with the way he folded the napkin across his legs, but then, what was Michael if not a study in contrasts?

“First off, I’m not ‘banging’ you,” I said.

“You’re technically correct. You aren’t at this exact moment,” he said.

The tenor of his voice gave me hope that that might soon change, hope that I, with a great deal of effort, ignored.

“You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you, Mr. Murphy?” I said, mimicking his motion with the napkin, though I couldn’t quite pull it off.

Then I watched, mesmerized as he sliced a Brussels sprout in half with practiced, precise movements.

“Did they teach you that at boarding school or something?” I asked.

“Teach me what?” Michael responded.

He looked at me after he’d taken a bite of the vegetable, reminding me I’d spoken with my mouth full and that I hadn’t even bothered to slice my own.

The irony was not lost on me. I’d had an image of Michael, a crude man in a nice suit, and here he was, giving me a silent lesson on table manners.

I smiled, then shrugged, deciding to let it drop. “Nothing. I was just saying you probably went to a fancy school or something,” I said.

Michael laughed heartily and then ate another Brussels sprout. “A boarding school? One that taught table manners?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Right. Probably paid for with old money, right? Only the best of the best for the Murphys?”

I shrugged. “Well…”

“Well what?” he asked, his amusement clear.

“I mean, you own a hotel. I think Sean owns that pub. You’re not hurting or anything. Forget I said anything,” I said, hating how presumptuous I sounded.

“I own a hotel now, but the closest I or any of my brothers have ever gotten to boarding school is juvenile detention,” he said.

It wasn’t surprising, especially given all the rumors, but that didn’t fit with what I saw of him.

“You don’t buy it?” he said.

“I mean…you put your napkin across your lap,” I said, feeling so unbelievably lame. Michael just laughed, his response putting me at ease. “You can thank Patrick for that,” he said.

“How so?” I asked.

“He looks tough but he’s Miss fuckin’ Manners. He made us learn all that crap,” Michael said.

“Really?” I asked, furrowing my brows as I tried to process this new piece of information, one that gave me welcome insight into Michael.

“Yeah, he said it might come in handy one day. That we couldn’t just rely on—” He cut off before he finished and shoved the last of his Brussels sprouts into his mouth.

I was burning with curiosity about what he’d been about to say, but I didn’t want to push him, ruin this moment too soon. Instead I looked at his plate.

“You ate all your vegetables first,” I said.

He laughed again, the tension that had looked to be on the verge of taking hold receding.

“Old habit,” he said.

I lifted a brow in question.

“Another thing to thank Patrick for. He also insisted that we get proper nutrition, which meant eating vegetables. For a while, I just made Sean eat mine, but then Patrick caught on. He’d watch to make sure I ate them, so I just forced them down to get them out of the way,” he said.

I laughed, trying to imagine a younger, probably brooding Michael eating his broccoli at his older brother’s behest.

“So Patrick took care of you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

He went quiet then, and though I was still burning with questions, I didn’t ask more.

“What about you?” Michael said a moment later.

“What about me?” I responded.

“Who taught you how to lay your napkin across your lap?”

I laughed, looked at him.

“No one. My mother was a free spirit. She didn’t care about that kind of stuff,” I said.

“How did you end up here?” he asked.

“Happenstance, really. I always loved hotels when I was a kid, though the ones we stayed in were nothing like M.,” I said.

“You moved from place to place?” he asked.

“Yeah. Like I said, my mother was a free spirit,” I replied.

Michael’s expression darkened and I shook my head quickly. “It’s nothing like that. She was a wonderful mother and lived life to the fullest. She told me the world was too big to be planted in one place, so we went on a bunch of adventures.”

“What happened?” The tone of Michael’s voice told me that he heard the wistfulness I still felt when I thought of her.

“She passed away when I was twenty. I loved our life, but I wanted to put down roots, and I found a place to do that in this hotel,” I said.

“That’s why you stuck around for so long when this place was in the shitter, right?”

“I don’t know if I’d say it was in the shitter, but that’s semantics. Yeah, I loved this place, and even when it was more budget friendly, it was nice to give people a good experience even if they couldn’t afford top dollar,” I said.

“Huh,” he said, his expression telling me he was pondering something. “We should give away some suites sometimes.”

I brightened, excited at the prospect. “That would be awesome! Most people can’t really afford this place, so it would be a nice treat,” I said.

“I’ll talk to Patrick about it,” Michael responded.

His eyes darkened, and he pushed his plate aside, then neatly folded his napkin, laid it on the conference table.

“Eden—”

The tinny static from my walkie-talkie cut him off.

“Eden, where are you?” Gerald said, his voice like a bucket of ice water.

Or in Michael’s case, logs on the fire.

I stood and fumbled in my pocket, looking for the walkie-talkie.

Michael stood too and walked the few feet that separated us.

“This fucking guy…” he mumbled as he pulled the walkie-talkie from my pocket.

“Wait!” I said. “I need to—”

I cut off and started laughing as Michael turned the walkie-talkie off and took out the battery for good measure.

When he looked at me, he shook his head. “I should fire that asshole. Making you laugh was not what I had in mind,” he said.

I locked eyes with him, my laughter gone, need, uncertainty, taking its place.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

Michael lifted one corner of his mouth, walked closer. Stopped when there was less than an inch between us. “You must have some idea,” he whispered, his face impassive but his voice practically caressing me.

I met his eyes. Gave him a smile of my own, one that I hoped showed how much I wanted him, needed him in this moment.

“I do,” I said.

“So what did you have in mind?” Michael asked. His usually serious exterior had given way to playfulness, playfulness that I also felt.

“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Murphy,” I said, lifting my hand to cup his hardness. “Let me surprise you,” I said.

“I don’t like surprises, Eden,” he responded.

I smiled, doing my best impersonation of the cocky expression he now wore.

“You might like this one,” I said, my stomach fluttering, my sex starting to clench.

I leaned forward, pressed my lips against his neck, feeling his heartbeat under my lips, smiling when he hardened against my hand.

“Maybe,” he said grudgingly.

I chuckled, kissed his neck again, feeling so very naughty in the best possible way. I wasn’t the kind of woman to do things like this, but when I was with Michael, I felt different, free to be wanton.

It didn’t matter that I was wearing my serviceable loafers and work uniform. That I was still the same old Eden I’d always been. When I touched Michael like this, when he looked at me like he was now, I felt precious, treasured.

Now, I wanted to make him feel what I did. Or at least try to.

I boldly squeezed his cock with my hand.

He looked at me, lifted a brow, and then nodded slightly. I could see that he was allowing me to set the tone.

And so I would.

I moved my hands up, and unbuckled his pants, moving slow, calmly, like I was in complete control, though I was nervous, so turned on, I was jittery, wanting Michael with an intensity that took my breath away.

It was funny because we both knew where this was headed, but I didn’t want to give him the advantage, as I knew he wouldn’t want to give it to me. So we would continue on in this little battle, and I was determined to win this round.

I unfastened his pants, lowered them and his underwear enough to reveal his stiff shaft.

I reached for him boldly, sighing at his warm, heavy weight in my palm.

When I heard his sharp intake of breath, I looked up to meet his eyes.

He kept his expression disinterested, which was impressive, given how his cock throbbed in my hand, precum leaking from his tip profusely.

Though he was keeping his cool, I could see that I was pushing him, see that he was on the edge.

He growled when I released him, but then smiled when, without pause I lowered myself to my knees.

When I looked up at him, I saw that this position pleased him.

I liked it too, something that surprised me. So much of Michael’s and my relationship was a battle, but being like this in front of him, yet still in control, was powerfully arousing, made me feel treasured.

But instead of examining the feelings Michael so easily managed to stir, I braced myself, putting one hand on either of his thighs.

Then I leaned forward, breathed deep, taking in his masculine scent. I nudged the tip of his cock with my lips, then placed gentle kisses against his cockhead, then down, brushing my lips against his shaft.

“Eden,” Michael said, his voice thick, grumbling.

Gruff as always, but I was firmly in control, something I reminded him of when I didn’t increase my pace.

Instead I kept my motions leisurely, softly kissing his shaft, moving up, then down, teasing him from root to shaft and back up again.

I moved even slower when he thrust his hips up, his demand clear. I laughed softly, feeling more powerful, more beautiful and desired than I ever had before. It seemed almost unfathomable that I was in this position, that Michael wanted me and that I was enjoying this so much.

But I was and I would continue to.

“Eden,” Michael said again, thrusting his hips again, sending his cock against my lips.

I looked into his eyes, saw the burning fire there and decided to take mercy on him. I opened my mouth and took him inside.

His thickness and length filled my mouth, but I took as much of him as I could, worked him as deep as I could without gagging. I sealed my lips and worked my jaw hard, swirling my tongue against his shaft. He throbbed in my mouth and I sucked harder, moaning at the taste and feel of him.

“Eden, I’m gonna come,” he said, his voice thick, tense as he tried to pull away.

I clamped around him tighter, the insistent throb of his cock in my mouth telling me how close to the edge he was. I wanted to push him over, so I took him as deep as I could and tightened my hands around the base of his cock and began pumping him.

“Eden!” he said, breathing out hard as he spilled his seed down my throat.

I continued to tease him with my tongue until he softened and pulled his cock from my mouth. Then, in a smooth motion, he pulled me to my feet and kissed me until I was breathless.