7. Grant
7
GRANT
Grant
E lise backed away too soon. The first touch of her soft lips against mine made my dick harder. Being so close to her warm, soft body already served as a preliminary turn-on.
But this kiss?
It was unexpected. Too soft. Far too short. And dammit, I couldn’t tear my gaze from her mouth. It glistened, shiny from touching mine. When the tip of her tongue peeked out and traced the seam, I resisted the growl that wanted to rip up from my chest.
Damn.
I blinked, schooling myself from staring at her with pure, uninhibited lust shining in my eyes. Already, I slanted closer toward her, desperate and hopeful that she’d do it again.
Elise kissed me. She’d rocked me to the core, waking me up and catalyzing this lust that surged through me like a forceful tidal wave. I’d never be able to go back to the before, the time before I knew how delicate and insistent those plump lips could taste, any moment of my life before I had firsthand knowledge of how sweet and addictive it was to press my mouth to hers and earn a slight little mewl in response. I’d never be able to return to the ignorance of wondering what it’d be like to kiss my assistant, the woman?—
Shit. My assistant. Nothing changed about her employment. Samantha was doing her damnedest to remind us that Elise worked for me, that it was such an odd and swift change for Elise to suddenly be my fiancée.
It was all fake. Or it was supposed to be.
But that kiss…
It blew me away and had me eager for so much more, all I could never have because she was my assistant.
I maintained a straight face for the rest of the time at the restaurant. Smiling and paying attention to the conversations was harder now because I couldn’t wipe my mind from the experience of kissing the sassy blonde who made my life easier. She’d turned me upside down with that simple kiss, and I felt off-kilter as I waited to leave for my room.
The sooner I could get in there and have privacy…
I shifted the semi erection in my pants as I stood, looking forward to the chance to vent all this desire that wouldn’t go anywhere. A nice warm shower and my hand would take care of this tension. I could stoop to lying that Elise was my fiancée. I could be grateful that she spared me from that awkward inquisition by kissing me—and I knew that was why she’d done it. But I refused to blur any more lines and act on this lust she spurred in me from one kiss.
Was it wrong to look forward to jerking off when she’d be in the next room? Maybe.
But it sure as hell couldn’t be that much worse than conning Vince Newman that I was engaged.
After we said our goodbyes, we left the first floor of the resort and headed upstairs. On the way, a clerk at the front desk reception hustled up to us.
“Mr. Bowen?” She ran faster, smiling that diplomatic smile that all proper staff had when they understood the assignment of placating customers. “Mr. Bowen.” She acknowledged Elise with a nod. “Ms. Macintosh.”
“Yes?” I faced her, glad for a reprieve from the mantra of shock and desire that swarmed me after Elise’s kiss.
“I’m afraid that room 1207 is unavailable for the night.”
Elise’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience,” the hotel employee stressed with a rueful frown. She didn’t lay it on too thickly for it to be forced and patronizing, but it was sincere. “The maintenance workers faced a larger issue than they expected. A pipe burst.”
“A pipe burst?” Elise repeated, incredulous and dismayed.
“What?” I asked, just as surprised.
“I’m afraid so. The floor was flooded, and it’s going to take at least another twenty-four hours to clean it.”
“But—” Elise lifted her troubled blue gaze to me and shook her head. “But I need that room. It’s my room.”
“Is there a problem?” Vince asked as he passed us by. His brows lifted as he glanced between us and the apologetic clerk. “Is something wrong?”
“I regret to inform you that?—”
Elise hurried to grab my hand and giggled quickly. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”
I latched on to her and swung her more into a hug, bringing her to stand before me so we’d look like a cuddly couple. We couldn’t let anyone know we had two rooms. It wouldn’t make sense not to sleep together. “We were just…”
“Just…” Elise cut in when no ideas came to me, “Just asking about a couples’ massage for tomorrow.”
“Ah.” Vince smiled. “I think you register for those back at the spa.”
I saluted him. “Thanks.”
He smiled and walked away, headed to the elevators.
Elise wrestled out of my hold as I released her. “Then you have another room available for me, right?” she asked the clerk before giving me a worried look.
“I’m afraid not.” The clerk sighed.
“But…” Elise shook her head, sending her hair tumbling over her shoulder. “But…”
“We’ll figure it out.” I spotted more of the wedding party coming through the lobby and I didn’t want to compromise our lies.
I took Elise’s hand and led her along the hallway so quickly that she had to jog to keep up with my stride.
“Grant, slow down.” She tugged her hand free as we approached another bank of elevators.
I did, wincing at her expression of dread. “I wondered why they had all your bags and purchases sent to my room before I left for dinner.”
“What are we going to do?” She didn’t wail it, but I shushed her, nonetheless.
As we turned down another hallway, passing Reese and her fiancé, Elise and I hurried to slap our hands together and force a fake smile. Once we were out of sight, she pulled her hand free again.
“We’ll have to share my room.”
She deadpanned at me. “This was supposed to be fake between us,” she hissed.
“What about that kiss?”
In any other circumstances, I could’ve enjoyed rendering her speechless. She opened and closed her mouth, momentarily lost for a reply.
“Um. I thought we’d be more convincing if we acted like a couple.” She flicked her finger between us as her cheeks turned pink.
“Did you get sunburned already?” She was so pale, fair skinned with those blonde curls that always smelled so good, like vanilla and strawberries. I’d seen her without glasses before, but seldomly. Watching her all night without her glasses made her look less scholarly, which I adored. Seeing her in that sexy floral dress, her legs and feet bare… She looked like an entirely different Elise from what I saw day in and out at the office.
Careful, man. She’s off-limits.
She swatted me. “Don’t take advantage of my embarrassment. I kissed you because your ex kept badgering us for answers that we didn’t rehearse beforehand and I didn’t want to blow my cover and make us look like liars.” She narrowed her eyes. “It was just a kiss. Don’t read into it more than you should.”
Ouch. I’d remember that kiss for the rest of my damn life. “Right,” I lied. “It was nothing.”
“I didn’t say it was nothing ,” she retorted.
“Fine, then I said it was nothing.”
She gaped at me, at a loss for words again. She yanked on my arm to stop me after we stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. “Are you saying I’m a bad kisser?”
God no. I shook my head, then shrugged. All I could think about was kissing her again. And again. “You told me not to read into it.”
“Well, yeah. But—” She furrowed her brow and slumped against the elevator wall. “Grant, I cannot share a room with my boss. My boss whom I just kissed.”
“You said the kiss wasn’t anything important,” I reminded her as the car lifted.
“I didn’t say—Argh! Stop arguing for just a minute. Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
I pinned her with a sober stare. “My bed.”
She slitted her eyes. “With you?”
“I’ll take the couch.”
The elevator stopped and let us out. “You can’t fit on the damn couch,” she sassed. “You’re six foot, seven, you tall freak of nature.”
I furrowed my brow and glanced at her. “You know how tall I am?”
She clamped her mouth shut. “That’s beside the point. I’ll take the couch, you take the b—whoa!”
I took her hand and pulled her against my side as Ginny walked down the hall.
“Oh, look at you two lovebirds,” she cooed as she headed down the corridor.
Keeping Elise plastered to my side, I unlocked the door to my—our—room and let her enter first.
The moment the door closed behind us, the tension steamed and lifted, filling the room. I was instantly awkward again, at a loss for how to act around her now.
We were in a room. Alone. This was no different from thousands of scenarios in the office over the last six years. I’d been in the office with her when it was just the two of us many times and never suffered this awareness of sharing a small space. But now, post-kiss, I didn’t know how to look at her. I settled for not looking at her at all, avoiding the draw I couldn’t deny I had for her.
In my peripheral vision, I noticed her glancing at the couch at the same moment I did.
Nope. “I called it,” I said as we both ran for it.
I beat her, jumping over the coffee table positioned in front of it. The second I plopped down on the cushions, she skidded to a stop. Both of her knees knocked into mine. Her wavy blonde tresses swung forward with the halt, and she brushed it all back to glare at me.
“I called it,” I repeated.
She huffed out a breath. “Fine.”
What wasn’t fine was that she was in my room. All this tension coiled up within me was bottling faster and faster. I couldn’t relieve myself now.
“Mind if I…?” She jerked her thumb toward the bathroom, also getting onboard with avoiding eye contact with me.
“No, no.” I’d take any breather that I could. Just being near her was too tempting. “Go ahead. Help yourself.”
I stayed put on the sofa, appreciating that she’d left the room to shower or whatever she did to get ready for bed. Without her sweet scent hitting my nose, the sound of her sexy voice driving me wild…
“Fuck,” I whispered as I lowered my head into my hands. How was I going to survive this? If I didn’t focus on something else, my mind would go right back to that kiss. Every short second of her lips smashed against mine was perfection.
I wasn’t a prude. I’d kissed many women, slept with several too. I wasn’t a womanizer, but I was nowhere near celibate.
But I’ve never kissed her . It shouldn’t be so different. Elise was just a woman. Short, sassy, smart, and?—
I groaned at the list of praises that grew in my head. I knew Elise was great. She had yet to fail to impress me at work. This farce of an engagement wasn’t typical, but I hadn’t been prepared for how much and how quickly she’d wow me.
Stop thinking about it. About her.
As I got my phone out to distract myself, I tried my best to ignore the running water and imagining her under it, slippery and bare.
I exhaled a hard breath through my nose, scrolling faster on my phone, frantic for something else to concentrate on.
Ending up on the text thread with her didn’t help. I dragged my thumb over the screen until I saw the last picture she’d sent me.
Elise: I am in bed.
Grant: Is that a comforter decorated in flying unicorn dachshunds?
Between our texts was the photo of her sexy legs beneath that ridiculous blanket. Her slender feet were bare, exposed with most of her calves. The hot pink on her toenails snagged my attention all over again, and I was taken back to the experience of fantasizing about slipping under the covers with her. Of exploring.
I dropped my phone as if it burned. This was pointless. Ever since I got it in my head to ask her to be my fake fiancée for this weekend, she seemed less like an assistant and more like…
A woman I want. For six years, I’d dealt with the simmering awareness of her. Now? It was a lost cause to keep my thoughts out of the gutter. I spent a long time last night looking at this picture. It wasn’t racy. We never sexted. But it was her, in an intimate setting like atop a bed.
I dragged my gaze to the bed I insisted on her taking tonight.
If a picture of her in a bed got me excited, how the hell would I handle seeing her in one in person?
I dropped my head back on the couch and closed my eyes.
Focus. On anything else. I imagined the numbers and spreadsheets of all the projections I had mapped out after the Newman acquisition. It helped a bit, relaxing me to the point where I fell asleep.
At the sound of the bathroom door opening, I jerked awake. I needed a moment to orient myself and recall where I was.
Oh, yeah. How could I forget? I was here , with Elise.
She froze like a deer caught in the headlights as we made eye contact. In nothing but a towel, she tugged the corner of her lower lip between her teeth. “Sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean to wake?—”
Her towel slipped, showing a more liberal expanse of the top of her breasts as she hurried to catch a hairbrush she’d gotten out of her suitcase on the floor.
Fuck. Me.
Accidentally seeing that much skin woke something else up on me.
“No. It’s all right.” I shot to my feet, praying she couldn’t see my erection under my pants taking form.
I hurried past her into the bathroom.
I was far from all right. But maybe a very cold shower could put my head on right again.
We had to share a room, but not the bed. We had to pretend we were a couple, but it was not real.
Just pretend, remember? I winced at the reminder that wouldn’t stick.
This weekend would be doomed if I couldn’t shake off this desire for my assistant.