CHAPTER TEN
Locke
“What is up with you?” Laura asked me the moment I stepped into the back of the Audi A8, heading for headquarters.
I’d been paging through my phone, responding to emails about a thousand big and little UnCaged Fitness fires. I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been acting moody all week.”
“No, I haven’t.”
That was the truth. It was more like the past two weeks. Ever since the night in the gym with Emma. That time, she’d left me wanting more, which was probably fair turnabout considering how I’d left her in the apartment.
I’d seen her since then, but I always made sure we were never alone together. I did my best not to look directly at her, since every time I did, I thought of her taste. Her scent. The feel of her skin under my fingers. The sounds she made as I worshipped her with my tongue.
It was all a lesson in insanity, considering how I held the hands of most of my properties. But Emma? My largest investment, the one I should have been paying closest attention to?
I couldn’t.
Well, not obviously, at least.
We’d hired a new trainer, an older drill sergeant named Rinaldo who was one of the best and had been training athletes for over forty years. Sometimes, I’d go to the locker room overlooking the gym and watch her through the one-way glass. She looked so calm, so focused. I’d see Rinaldo putting his hands on her muscles as she strained in her workout bra and gym shorts, wishing I could have that luxury. She was so gorgeous, her sculpted parts moving as she pushed weights or worked the machines. I watched her, knowing I had to forget how much I wanted her.
But that only made me think of her more. I could still taste her, feel her body quivering under my hands.
I squared my jaw as we pulled to the front of the building that morning for the official press conference. As expected, news vans from all the major outlets were parked outside, and various reporters were milling about with equipment. They’d all be assembling for hours. I’d be expected to deliver news about my latest acquisition, and how she was going to perform for UnCaged, when all I could think about Emma was the way she’d performed for me, coming on my mouth, her pussy hot and trembling as I delved my tongue deep inside her.
And I certainly couldn’t tell the press about that.
“Well, buck up and get ready to be your charming self. You’re on in thirty minutes.” Laura checked her phone and sighed. “Uh-oh. Thar she blows.”
I leaned over, grabbed my bottle of water, and downed half of it. “What?”
“Our little tomboy is having another makeup meltdown. Adlar just texted me that she’s having trouble with the curling iron or something.”
That piqued my interest. “Why would he even attempt using anything hot around her? That’s suicide.”
“Tell me about it.” She sighed. “And Victoria’s having a hard time getting her to agree on anything that she wants to do.”
I frowned. Victoria was the image consultant we’d hired, a stiff, silver-haired woman straight from New York City who wore nothing but black and spoke with a pseudo-British accent. She was used to fixing up women who wanted to dress to the nines, who welcomed all that glitz and glamour. Adlar too. They’d done our other Like a Girl spokespersons, but none of them had been a tomboy down to their marrow. They didn’t understand that Emma James wasn’t that kind of woman. She needed to be eased into these changes. How hard was it to see that and go easy on her?
The driver opened the door for us, and I slid out. “Where is she?”
“We set him up in my office.” She checked her phone again. “And we’re having issues with the mics in the conference room.”
“Go deal with those. I’ll talk to Miss James,” I said, half-loathing the idea, half-relishing it. As I hurried to her office on the third floor, I adjusted my tie. I rarely wore them, which was why it suddenly felt like it was choking me.
When I got inside the expansive room, Adlar was standing with his hands on his hips, frowning at Emma. He grabbed me the moment he saw me. “Tell her. Tell her I can’t do my job unless she lets me.”
“He wanted to give me a blowout!” Emma snapped. “That sounds painful. Or dirty.”
Adlar sighed. “I assure you, it is neither!”
I stared at her reflection. Dark hair down upon her shoulders in messy waves, she was pouting at the mirror. I could see why. Adlar must have mistaken her for one of his Hollywood starlets, because her eyes were rimmed in kohl and makeup was caked on her skin, covering that smattering of cute freckles.
She looked hot, yes. But she didn’t look like Emma, the gorgeous Emma I’d tongue-fucked in the gym two weeks ago. I whirled her chair around toward me and said to Adlar, “It’s fine. I’ll take it from here.”
Adlar mumbled something that must have been a German curse, threw up his hands, and left. I stooped down to eye level and studied her. “Are you always going to give Adlar heart palpitations?”
Her expression turned even more mulish. “I—”
“He’s very good at his job,” I continued, leaning against the makeup station. “Top models and movie stars sit in his chair.”
She snarled, her upper lip curling in disgust. “Look at me! I look like a raccoon with a hangover! And he doesn’t know what’s good for him,” she said, crossing her arms under the plastic apron. “If he did, he’d keep that stuff away from me.”
“Clearly.”
She let out a big sigh. “And Victoria looks at me like I’ve sinned against her bible, Vogue. God forbid.” She sighed again. “She wants me to wear dresses. My legs don’t do dresses.”
I begged to differ. Her legs did a number of things very, very well, and I could just imagine how well they’d do a dress.
Before I could say another word, she deflated in front of me, tears brimming in her kohl shaded eyes. “What’s wrong with the way I look? Why can’t I just be myself? Isn’t that good enough?”
My heart squeezed hard in my chest as I watched this confident woman come undone.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Emma,” I told her. “Not by a long shot. But you know that you were happy with the work Adlar did for the ad campaign. Maybe this is a bit too much, but I think Adlar wants to push you out of your comfort zone. Maybe you should give it a chance?”
She pressed her lips together. I could see the doubt in her eyes.
I looked around Laura’s office. My sister had a thing for the sun, so it was all a golden yellow, with sun symbols everywhere. I found a package of makeup remover wipes and plucked a few out of the box. Lifting them gently to Emma’s face, I washed the makeup away, revealing those cute freckles. All the while, she watched me, not saying a word, her breathing short and shallow.
It felt, in a way, almost more intimate than that night at the gym.
I smiled when I saw the real Emma come through. Natural, beautiful.
“There you are,” I said, turning her back to the mirror.
She looked at herself, then tilted her head, and her nose wrinkled. “Well, you could’ve left a little on.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “You are a hard woman to please.”
She was still looking at her reflection, and I could tell she wasn’t happy with the woman she saw there. Her eyes trailed to the edge of Laura’s desk, where Adlar had put his tools. Standing from the chair, she reached down and picked up a tube of lipstick, then held it to her lips. In the mirror, her eyes met mine. “I kind of want to put this on. Is that bad?”
I shook my head. “How could it be?”
She blinked, and I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I’m a race car driver. Not a runway model.”
“Come here.” I put a hand on her shoulder and turned her to me. Then I touched the dark hair falling into her face. “You’re a beautiful woman, Emma, no matter what you do. And if you want to put that on, then that’s the right decision. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
She contemplated the lipstick in her hand for a moment. “It’s not?”
I nodded. “Life isn’t just either-or, Emma. You can be a race car driver and wear lipstick. It doesn’t change a damn thing.”
The tip of her nose turned pink. “It doesn’t?”
“No.”
Her eyes searched mine, and they lit from within. She turned to the mirror and swept the pink gloss over her lips. Pressing her lips together, she took a deep breath. “Okay?”
“Gorgeous,” I said, wondering what other sides of her I had yet to see. What hidden sides of myself she would be able to unravel in return. Already, she’d proven to me one surprising thing about myself: Maybe I did want to spend more than one night with a woman. Laugh with a woman. Maybe someday even trust a woman.
I wasn’t sure if my past would allow me that freedom, but one thing I did know… I still hadn’t gotten my fill of Emma James yet.
And I wasn’t sure I ever would.
Still, it was wrong. I was her sponsor. She wasn’t here as my personal plaything. And as she’d proven to me just now, she was a real human being. Whatever emotions I had for her, I needed to put them to bed, right now.
“Do you think Adlar would come back in, maybe fix me back up but with less…” she chewed on her lip and eyed all the pots and brushes in front of her, “stuff?”
I smiled. “I’m sure he will.”
And he did.
I watched as Emma’s beauty was magnified and softened in a way that was totally her but more refined. “I’m sorry, Emma,” Adlar said. “I was only hoping to experiment. To show you all the ways we could play with your beauty.”
I blew out a relieved breath when she took his hand in hers. “Maybe another day when I don’t have to stand in front of so many people?”
Adlar lifted her hand to his lips. “Of course.”
She looked happy and relaxed when she faced me again. “I think I’m ready.”
She pulled off the apron. She was wearing a red, flowered dress, very demure and feminine. It hugged her body so nicely that if I hadn’t just resolved to man up and move beyond this, I would’ve had a hard time not reaching out and pulling her to me.
Fuck that. I wanted to pull her to me anyway, to lift that dress up and sink inside her tight body. I couldn’t tear my eyes off it, the way the v-neck pointed the way to her cleavage, like I needed the help. “I like that dress.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and sucked her bottom lip in. “Yeah? You know, it’s not terrible. It’s comfortable. I don’t usually do—”
“Yeah. But you can pull them off.”
She looked down at herself in wonder. “You think?”
I definitely thought. But if my eyes were hands, I already would’ve gotten myself into major trouble. I tore my gaze from her and nodded. “Yeah.” I swallowed. “You know, about that night in the gym…”
She waved it away. “It’s no big deal. I’ve forgotten it.”
She’d… forgotten it? Not exactly the reaction I was looking for. I’d hoped she thought it was an unforgettable, world-rocking experience. But what was I expecting? She raced cars for a living. She had ice water flowing through her veins, as her brother had said, and if racing fast cars hadn’t rocked her, did I really think I could?
I recalled her trembling at all the right times, fragile, and I thought she’d been under my spell, but maybe that was an act. I only wished I had that kind of control. “You did?”
She nodded lightly, and as I searched her face and those glossy pink lips, I couldn’t help wondering what it’d be like to taste the shiny gloss of them. In fact, hidden in the reaches of my pants, my cock urged me to. It wanted to get things moving in the definite direction where it could be of use.
I left the room before it could get me in any more trouble.