Chapter 25
25
Natalie
“ W here are we going?” Preston demands as we step out of the elevator together the next day and head for the exit.
All I told him was that he should meet me in the hallway outside our rooms and that he should wear “comfy clothes.” When he frowned at that, I said, Oh, Jesus, Preston. Just…not a linen suit. You could wear what you wore to the party.
And so he is. Running shoes, his cutoff sweats, and a soft-looking gray T-shirt that hugs every glorious inch of his shoulders, biceps, and pecs in a way that makes me wish I’d steeled myself harder against the first glimpse of him.
“I can’t tell you where we’re going until we get to the car,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows. “You’re afraid that if you tell me I won’t go.”
“Well, yeah.”
“I keep my word,” he says, scowling. “I said I’d go.” He sighs. “I know I need to do this. My lack of fun is even a liability at work right now. My boss told me ‘you get it done, but you don’t make friends doing it.’ She said I should go out for drinks or sit around the office eating takeout.”
“This situation is way worse than I thought if you think eating takeout at the office constitutes having fun. This definitely requires an intervention.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “And you’re the woman for the job.”
“I’m absolutely the woman for the job.”
“Plus,” he says, “the company I’m trying to acquire for my client has in its mission statement the words dedicated to the pursuit of fun .”
“And they picked you to work on that acquisition,” I tease. “As one would.”
“It just turned out that way,” he admits.
We’ve reached my car, which he eyes suspiciously. “We should take mine.”
Okay, I can’t blame him for thinking that. My car is an eighteen-year-old Honda Fit inaptly named Blaze. His rental is probably a Lamborghini or something.
But we’re taking my car on this outing because…
Well, because despite what he says, when he finds out where we’re going, he might be tempted to flee, and I want him completely under my control.
Sort of the way he’d be if I was on my knees with his cock in my mouth, his hip bones under my thumbs.
I did not just think that.
It’s going to be a long afternoon.
As soon as we pull away from the curb, he says, “Tell me where we’re going.”
I accelerate a little so he won’t be able to fling open the door and roll to the curb.
“I’m not going to make a run for it,” he says dryly.
“You might.”
“You’re scaring me.”
I swallow. “Let me give you some context.”
“Context is good,” he rumbles.
“Since ‘fun’ isn’t a thing in your current life, I thought we should probably tap your inner kid. You know, try to get you back in the head space you were in the last time you really had fun.”
“We’re going to run around the woods yelling our heads off and stabbing each other with sticks?”
“Not quite, but…” I wind my way onto the highway. “It’s a trick I learned when I was doing activities planning for the nursing home. If you can get people thinking like kids, they act younger. I thought that might work for you.”
“You’re saying I’m a crusty old man.”
He crosses his arms, and I can feel him glaring at me from the passenger seat, but I know him well enough by now to tell he’s not really upset. “In disposition only,” I say. “I’ve seen you shirtless.”
That shuts both of us up. I’m remembering him in the hot springs, and he’s—well, I don’t know what he’s thinking. Possibly that he regrets that kiss more with every passing hour.
“We’re going to Bouncy Town,” I say finally to end the silence and rid my brain of images of water droplets on a six-pack I will never get to lick.
“Bouncy—what?”
I swear he puts his hand on the door handle. Reflexively, I hit the lock button on my own door handle.
“Natalie,” he says sternly. “You know what that sounds like? You and I are going to…Bouncy Town?”
I snort. “Preston Hott. Did you make a sex joke?”
“Absolutely not.” His voice is dry and deadpan. “And if you think you heard one, you have a dirty mind.”
That makes me laugh, and when I sneak a look at him, he’s definitely smiling.
Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that his shower turned on right when my vibrator turned off.
“Well,” I say, mock-primly, “I don’t know where your mind is, but Bouncy Town is a party venue with trampolines and a foam pit and a climbing wall—and a bunch of other stuff. I figured we’d find something there that will activate your fun engine.”
“My— fun engine? ” Both his eyebrows go up, and I think he’s not quite smirking.
It’s a pretty good look on him.
“Not like that ,” I say.
“Suuuuure.”
“Just…keep an open mind.”
“Bouncy Town…” he mutters, but he doesn’t make a run for it, and I figure that’s probably good enough for now.