CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Juliana
What was wrong with me? He was Mr. Heigh-di-Ho. Made of a bunch of fluff and filler and completely worthless inside.
At least, that was what I tried to tell myself.
But the farther I walked through the factory, the harder it was to believe that was true.
His employees loved him. I could tell from the way they greeted him, the pleased glint in their eyes, the genuine smiles. They also loved their jobs. They loved the company. They loved the products.
And Mr. Heigh-di-Ho? He’d agreed with me without an argument, without me hardly having to lift a finger. He told me that he thought we should do something to contribute to the health of America’s youth.
It was almost enough to make me think I’d been wrong about those cakes.
Almost.
On the flip side, little things happened that cast doubt on everything. When I took off my jacket, I noticed his eyes were on my cleavage. When we got outside, I caught him staring at my ass. It made me wonder if he was capitulating simply to tell me what I wanted to hear so that I would sleep with him again.
But why me?
That was the question that kept ringing in my head. This man could have any woman he wanted. Hell, he could buy any woman he wanted… and he still wanted me. I couldn’t help but be flattered by how evident that fact was.
Why would he go through so much trouble for… me?
Maybe he really did feel something for me?
Maybe there really was something special between us?
Or maybe I was just naïve and stupid?
Gah. The questions were driving me mad.
I needed to focus. I needed to fortify my willpower and harden my discipline. It didn’t matter how much I wanted him. I could at least try to put those feelings aside to focus on my work.
But could he?
Apparently, he was a horndog all the time. And in a large way, I was flattered by how much he appeared to want me. I wanted him too. Craved him even. With every look he gave me, I was perilously close to capitulating and jumping into his arms. Dangerously close.
But… I had to keep my distance. Be the sensible adult.
I frowned as the scenery blurred outside the car’s window. It was simply better that I look anywhere but at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand coming down on my shoulder.
I swallowed hard and continued to look out the window. “Nothing. I just know how big corporations are. They always choose the easy way over the right way. It won’t be easy to make changes.”
In the window’s reflection, I saw him studying me, and in the dying light of the afternoon, his face took on a sexy, shadowed look, his stubble more pronounced on his strong jaw. “What? You don’t believe me?”
I could’ve lied, but I didn’t have the energy. “I don’t. I don’t think you’re the devil, Zach. But I know you have pressures on your head that make doing the right thing difficult.”
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
I nodded. “And hope.”
“Yeah. Hey.” He reached over to the seats opposite us and lifted the lid on a small box. “Hungry?”
I was. I’d been too nervous to eat any of the delicious morsels I’d had the caterer provide, and none of them were vegan, so I hadn’t had anything but a banana for breakfast. Now, it was nearing dinnertime. But as he poked through the box, I began to get worried. “Um. It depends.”
“On?” There was a glint in his eye.
He knew exactly what it depended on.
He lifted out a sleeve of snack cakes. Not Heigh-di-Hos, but ones I’d never seen before. They were big, white puffs of coconut-covered sinfulness.
“This is a new product R&D is testing,” he said, opening the package. I detected the strong scent of coconut. Mmm. My mouth began to salivate. “Coco Crazies.”
He might as well have been holding a live rattlesnake. The too-sugary smell was enough to bring back that gag reflex I’d had on the stage at the open forum. “What… are they?”
He lifted a giant circular cake out of the sleeve and held it in his palm, offering it to me. “Coconut marshmallow frosting with a raspberry center.”
I stared at the thing, hypnotized. It probably contained all of my sugar allowance for the week. One bite and all my vitals would go completely whackadoodle.
“Have you tried it yet?” I asked, trying to stop my nostrils from inhaling the intoxicating scent.
He shook his head, and as he did, a shock of dark hair fell rakishly into his green eyes. “Want to, together?”
There were a lot of things I wanted to do, together with Zach Vaughn, right then. And actually, eating a stupid snack cake was probably the most inconsequential of all of them.
Why was I making a big deal of this?
Clarity flooded in. Because once you start certain things, cowslut, you don’t know the meaning of the word stop.
But that wasn’t true. Back then, maybe I’d lacked the confidence, but I hadn’t tested myself recently. I was stronger now. I worked out like a fiend even on the days I didn’t want to. I now had discipline in spades. One stupid snack cake couldn’t break that wall of willpower down, surely.
I plucked the package from his hand and read the label. “Oh, my god. First ingredient is enriched bleached wheat flour. Killer.”
He snatched the package away from me. “Do you always read the labels on your food? You are some fun date.”
“This isn’t a date. This is a business meeting, where I was just in the middle of telling you how grossly unhealthy your products are.”
“Really?”
He took the cake, and with great flourish, lifted the sugary treat to his lips and took an enormous bite. His face turned rapturous.
I was instantly jealous. Not of him for getting to taste it. But of the snack cake, for clearly being adored by his lips, his mouth, his magical tongue…
“Fuck, this is good,” he said with a full mouth. “I feel sorry that your taste buds will never experience the true, orgasmic joy of enriched bleached wheat flour.”
Him saying “fuck” and “orgasmic” in practically the same sentence was like a grenade going off on my libido. I pressed my thighs together, trying to quell the longing to have him lick me the way he was licking the raspberry from the middle of that damn cake.
I looked away. “Don’t. I’ll be fine.”
He held it out to me. “One bite?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He waved it under my nose. I pressed my lips together. But oh god, even the smell was rapturous.
“Just one taste?”
I could smell the raspberry now. I loved raspberry anything. Add in cream and coconut… Lord, help me. Plus, it didn’t help that he was so close, and I also wanted to taste him. It was just a buffet of temptation all lined up in front of me.
I turned to meet him face-to-face. “I’ll take a bite if you’ll eat a stalk of celery when we get back.”
He blanched, and I almost laughed out loud. “A whole stalk for one bite?” He looked violated.
I crossed my arms over my chest but couldn’t stop the smile from playing on my lips. “Yep.”
He waved the deliciousness under my nose again, but I resisted taking a chomp of it. Proud of my willpower, I held steadfast.
He pouted. The billion-dollar man actually pouted. “Deal.” He looked like he’d just agreed to sell the devil his soul.
I smiled. Maybe we could find some common ground.
Feeling his eyes on me, I leaned in, stuck out my tongue, licking the sweet cream. Then I took the tiniest of nibbles, just scraping some of it into my mouth with my top teeth. “Happy?” I said before the taste fully registered.
Once it did, I was transported to heaven.
It was orgasmic. The bitter-sweet zing of the raspberry jam, the smooth sugary sweetness of the cream, and the fluffiness of the white cake all melded together in something that was beyond even my best memories. I let out a little moan as it slid down my throat.
“Good?”
Lie. I needed to lie. I needed to tell him how horrible it was, how offended my taste buds were, but I could tell by the way he was smiling at me that he knew the truth.
“Maybe.”
“Want another bite?”
I lifted a brow and ignored my taste buds, which were screaming bloody murder for a bite. “Will you eat a stalk of celery and a brussels sprout?”
He honestly gagged a little. “Anything but brussels sprouts.”
I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth as the snack cake continued to hover just inches from my mouth. “How about I make you a green smoothie?”
He frowned. “Is it as horrible as it sounds?”
I smiled. I loved this little boy side of him. He was so adorable. “It’s actually very sweet and satisfying. You can just about get your daily intake of veggies in one yummy drink. Willing to try?”
His pupils dilated. “Will you eat the rest of this snack cake… off of me?”
Zachary Vaughn covered in that coconut yumminess?
Yes, please.
I longed to taste the combination. Did I dare? If I went down that sexual rabbit hole again, would I ever find my way out?
Leaning forward, I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into the sweet cake. This was my test. If I could take this one bigger bite and not become cowslut again, maybe I could trust myself to do a little more.
His nostrils flared as I began chewing the bite. Remembering what I told my clients, I chewed until it was completely dissolved. I could do this, and in a way, I was grateful for having been pushed to prove to myself that I wasn’t the same girl I was before.
He watched me as I savored the treat, and I thought he got off watching me enjoying something his company made. Something I’d previously been so against. When I was done, I licked the last of the sweet sugar off my lips, picking a sliver of coconut off my skirt and eating it too.
He dropped the uneaten portion of the cake back into the box before turning to me, licking the frosting off his thumb. My stomach twisted as he took his time cleaning his fingers, and I wanted to dive on him, do the job for him.
His gaze focused intently on my lips, he hooked a finger toward me.
“What?”
He pointed to his chin. “You have something… there.” I blushed and wiped at it, but he just kept shaking his head. “I’ll get it for you.”
As he leaned toward me, my heart began to pound even as my breath caught in my lungs. His eyes were the greenest I’d ever seen them, and I was mesmerized by their intensity.
He dipped a hand under my chin and rubbed at the corner of my mouth with the pad of his thumb. His forearm pressed into my breast, and the nipple hardened at once. Every single cell in my body started to bend toward him.
“Better?” I asked, barely able to say the word.
He shook his head. “Nothing will ever be better without this…” He wrapped his hand around my waist and pulled me into him. He used his thumb to tip my head up until my eyes were level with his. Then he lowered his mouth to where his thumb had been and pressed a soft, lingering kiss there.
My lips parted as instantly as if he’d turned a key in a lock, and he covered my mouth, his tongue slipping between my lips to tangle with mine.
He pulled back, but only long enough to whisper against my lips, “Everything’s better now.”
He kissed me again. Not hard, heavy, and demanding, but slow and languorously, as if we had forever to do nothing but this. His hands slipped up my shoulders, tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck, just holding me in place as we tasted the sugar on each other’s tongues.
Even if it was just high fructose corn syrup, I didn’t think there ever was a kiss so sweet.
All I was aware of was the beating of his heart, the firm, slick heat of his lips, his warm tongue melding with mine. Heat rushed through my blood as I slipped my hands into his hair. He groaned against me, pulling me tighter.
He cupped my face in his warm hands and pulled his mouth from mine. “What do you want?”
I thought he wanted me to say that I wanted him. But from the way my heart was beating, that was a given. “More of those Coco Crazies,” I joked with a soft laugh.
He held my hand, running his thumb along my palm, his voice low and tender. “I have a whole stash of them at my apartment.” He looked out the window. “It’s in Hell’s Kitchen.”
I grinned like a little kid. “See… I knew you were from Hell.”
He grinned back, looking as goofy as I was sure I did. “There is only one condition, if you truly want more of my devilish snacks.”
“And that is?”
“Like I said before, you’ll have to eat it off me.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, checking to see if he was joking.
He wasn’t.
His apartment wasn’t anything like I expected. I thought it’d be top-of-the-line digs in a prime location overlooking Central Park, just like where he’d grown up. Instead, his building was a small, nondescript brownstone. The lobby was cramped and didn’t even have a doorman. Homes here, even small ones, probably cost millions of dollars, but I’d expected Zachary Vaughn wouldn’t settle for less than the best.
I glanced at him as a small, cramped elevator creaked open.
He bowed with a flourish and motioned for me to go first. I wasn’t sure it was safe, but I did anyway. I laughed when I stepped inside.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just expected you’d live in a giant mansion with servants and footmen or something.”
He hitched a shoulder, then poked the button for floor six, the top floor. “If it makes you feel any better, I do live in the penthouse.”
That sounded more like him. “Of course you do.”
“In case you were wondering, I moved to this side of Central Park because my mother never comes here. Living this far, I thought I’d be safe from her wrath.”
I smiled, both sad and filled with understanding at the same time.
The elevator creaked and groaned and struggled to make it up even those few floors. But when the doors opened, I saw just what had attracted him to this property. The lobby opened to a set of double glass doors. When he twisted the key and opened them, we walked into a wide, open area with high ceilings, a loft, and skylights.
My mouth dropped.
“Passable?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I told him, meaning every word.
He made a pfft sound and waved me away. “You haven’t even seen the best part.”
We walked between the center island of an expansive kitchen that featured a two-story stone fireplace. Then he opened French doors to a bright rooftop patio covered in ivy. I peered over a wrought iron railing and gasped at the sweeping views of the George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River.
I’d lived around here nearly all my life and had never seen the city like this. “Wow.”
“This is a legacy property,” he explained. “I basically staked it out, waiting for the couple who owned it to put it up. I had to sell my heart and soul to get in here, then I gutted it entirely.”
We were surrounded on two sides by windows of other buildings, and standing above the rest of the city, but for some reason, it felt private. He came up behind me, and I felt the heat of his body against mine.
He laid a hand on my forearm and lightly trailed it up to my elbow. As he gazed down into my eyes, my skin sizzled everywhere he’d touched, and I lost all capacity to breathe. “Now, what was that you were saying about wanting me?”
I turned in his arms and pretended to think. “Oh, that?” I mimicked his pfft sound. “That was so long ago.”
He planted his fists on his hips and ran his tongue over his top teeth. “Oh, yeah? That’s too bad.”
He paused for a moment, just a moment, then reached out, pulling me flush against him. I relished the feel of him, his strength, his heat as he whispered in my ear, “Now let’s see how we can get creative with those snack cakes.”