Chapter 30
30
Natalie
U nsurprisingly, I sleep like shit.
I alternate between replaying the events in the spa and the moment outside my door, between fantasizing about touching Preston and telling myself to chill the fuck out and not get attached.
I get to work exhausted and looking it, which makes me feel even more vulnerable. I brace myself for the possibility that Preston running away last night was the end of the story.
So I’m not surprised at all when he stalks into the meeting room, sits down across from me without making eye contact, and gets straight down to business.
“I did the fifty-things brainstorming list last night,” he says briskly.
Was it before or after you did that thing with your tongue, where you flicked and circled my nipple?
Before or after I said, Preston Hott, are you talking dirty to me? And you smiled and said, I guess I am .
Preston Hott, it turns out, is fun .
There are lots of fun men in the world. A million of them. A billion, maybe. But this one?
He didn’t know he was fun, and that makes it so, so much better.
Because he’s fun just for me.
Heat flares all over my body, remembering.
Except now he’s not. Now he’s all buttoned-up business again.
“I couldn’t sleep?—”
My eyes flick to his face, but he’s said it without any particular emphasis or significance, and he’s not looking at me.
“—and I kept thinking about Bouncy Town?—”
Then he does look at me, for a split second, and I think maybe he’s going to acknowledge the dirty joke, acknowledge what happened…
But he turns away again and goes on: “—and I came up with a lot of good stuff, but my best idea is: I think we should add Nerf blaster tag. I kept thinking about the kids playing laser tag—but Nerf is less expensive. And less messy and less painful than paintball.”
Trust Preston to still be thinking about practical considerations. It makes me smile a little. “I don’t know,” I say slowly. “Both laser tag and paintball track when you make a hit. Nerf blasters would have to work on the honor system.”
“I thought of that,” he says. “We’d have to test if it would work. We could get some of the Hotts and Wilders together again and run a test this weekend. I was thinking we could use flags, like in football, but you’d have three of them, and each time you get hit you pull one, so people can see how many chances you have left.” He lifts his chin. “I was also thinking—the will doesn’t say we can only run each activity in one slot. We could have Nerf tag every night at seven thirty. There are a lot of other things we could run two or three times in a week. We wouldn’t have to come up with that many more ideas, and we could get to work right away on prepping for the festival.”
“Ooh,” I say. “That could work. I like it.”
The corners of his mouth tug up, and he casts me a pleased sideways glance that’s almost shy. This big, competent, powerful guy who wants to get the answer right on the quiz. I want to throw my arms around him.
I want to push him down on the table.
I sigh and do neither.
We spend the rest of the meeting divvying up tasks, placing rush orders for materials online, and talking about the logistics for the festival itself—volunteers, setup and cleanup, and spreading the word. The festival has its own marketing, but we’ll need to advertise our booth through social media to make sure we get enough participants to make the activities fun.
We have to get those five stars.
By the time we’re done, I’m caught up in the excitement, and I’ve almost—but not completely—forgotten how confused I am about the gap between what I want and what I can have from Preston.
“Well,” Preston says. “Thank you. That was extremely productive.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Good work.”
“You, too.” He doesn’t look at me, just stands and gathers his things. It’s like we’ve reset back a week and a half, lost all the progress we made. It’s like we never opened up to each other, played with each other, touched each other.
It’s like he never made me fall apart in his arms and then held me, and my chest aches, reminding me that I’m in deeper than I want to be.
But that’s my own fault, for sure. It’s not like there was ever a reason to believe Preston would be interested in more than a little fun with me.
I’m staring down at the table, so I hear rather than see the door open. Then close again.
I heave a sigh.
Then I hear another, more unexpected, sound—a snick . I look up and find that Preston’s still on this side of the door, locking it. His eyes meet mine and hold.
Hang on. What…?
Now he’s drawing all the blinds on the meeting room windows, still watching me. His gaze hungry, predatory.
My spine goes hot and liquid.
He stalks toward me. Turns me in my swivel chair. Plants both hands on the table, on either side of me. Lowers his mouth to mine.
The sound I let out—small, broken—is equal parts raw lust and relief. He makes a matching sound, a rough, dark grunt, and kisses me deeper, like he’s trying to swallow me. Then he’s kneeling at my feet, drawing me to the edge of the chair.
“Very convenient choice of clothes,” he growls, gripping my calves. Sliding his hands up, up, over my thighs, under my loose skirt. I never wear skirts, but something made me put this one on this morning, some tiny hopeful single brain cell that pictured this very thing. He buries his face against the thin fabric of my lacy panties and breathes. Nips, the perfect small bite of pain on my tender flesh.
I moan, and he reaches a hand up to cover my mouth. “Shhh,” he says, hot air teasing through the lace, against my clit. “You have to be very, very quiet, or I’ll stop.”
“Don’t stop. Please,” I whisper, raking my teeth against his palm and drawing a hiss out of him.
“Not a sound, then.”
I obediently press my lips together under the seal of his big, warm hand, and he goes back to work between my legs. Sliding my panties aside, licking his finger before pressing it to my already swollen clit. And ohhh . He knows what he’s doing, starting light, watching my face closely until he gets the reaction he wants and then dialing in, right there, perfect pressure, testing all the possibilities: a featherlight up-and-down stroke; an almost-painful flick; a soft, spiraling circle, until he gets that just right, too, and I whimper, so turned on my hips are rocking in the chair.
He stops. “I said not a sound.”
I clamp my lips together.
“Are you going to be a good girl?”
I nod wildly.
He licks his finger again, and I throw my head back against the seat and arch my back, sounds fighting their way up my throat, but I won’t, I won’t, because oh, God, I don’t want him to stop—not what he’s doing now, perfect circles, perfect size, perfect pressure, and then, like that’s not enough, he takes the hand off my mouth so he can ease two fingers into my core, thick, curled, skillful, and I’m arching, shattering, mouth open in a silent scream, coming in thick glorious spasms against his touch, around his fingers.