25. A Double Black Diamond
25
A Double Black Diamond
ANDREW
From: Victor Lynch
To: All employees
Sent: December 26, 10:38 am
Subject: Holiday party
Happy holidays. Don’t forget our company party on the 31st is an excellent (and mandatory) opportunity to let our hair down (figuratively, as the employee handbook’s grooming standards still apply) and celebrate the end of a successful year.
Sincerely,
Victor Lynch, Chief Financial Officer
I blew at a strand of Carly’s hair that tickled my nose.
“How about we never leave?” I proposed, refusing to acknowledge the sunlight glinting golden in her hair or the housekeepers’ voices in the hall outside our suite. I clung to the pretense of darkness. It’d been dark when she’d woken me with her hand on my dick.
She lifted her head from my chest. Her cheeks were pink, and she breathed like she’d been running sprints. She’d made that screen-door squeak sound twice. I was still inside her, and I needed to deal with the condom, but I really, really didn’t want to change a thing. Ever.
“Never leave Spain?” she asked.
“I mean, never leave this bed.”
“Like a John and Yoko thing?”
“A what? Is that a K-Drama?”
“Oh, my god.” She winced. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.” Gracefully, she lifted off me and settled at my side. I kept my arm around her so she wouldn’t go too far.
“What about food? Exercise? Your job?” She leaned back. The fact that she didn’t bring up her job poked at my heart, which was still tender after she hadn’t responded to my confession about my feelings last night.
Stroking her back, I made my voice light. “You see, in the today-times, we have this fantastic thing called the internet. It comes to this device I have”—I glanced at the bedside table, but of course I’d left my phone in my room—“and it allows me to make phone calls, email my colleagues, and get almost anything I need, including food, with a click of a button.”
“My generation made the internet what it is. So, screw you,” she said mildly.
“Ah, speaking of screwing—” I kissed her, long and slow and ravenous. She tasted like me from the amazing blowjob she’d given me when we’d woken up. Remembering how she looked with her lips around me, I started to harden again. “I’m not in my twenties anymore, but I think I could go again in a few. Who needs a run when sex is such great cardio?”
“I think my trainer would point out that I’ve got muscles that aren’t in my pelvic floor.”
“Go for a ride on my face, and we’ll give your inner thighs a workout too.”
Her expression went surprisingly tender, considering my crude comment. “Are you for real?”
“About the face-sitting? Yes, please. It’ll help with the refractory period.” Just thinking about her pussy sent a tingle down my spine.
“No. I mean…are we really doing this? You and me?”
“Yeah.” My heart galloped behind my breastbone, and I nuzzled her neck so she wouldn’t see my dopey expression of love, which she clearly wasn’t ready for. Though if we had a few more days in Spain like yesterday morning in the park, or another couple of nights like last night, when she’d talked about her mother, when she’d finally opened up and let me see past her picture-perfect facade, she might let me adore her.
After the scare she’d given me last night, when I thought she was crying over fucking Brad in the bathroom, I felt like I did at the top of the ski hill, all potential energy and adrenaline, my heart racing at the thought of careening down. Would this thing end in an exhilarating swoosh of my skis at the bottom of the hill, or in a face-first tumble? I’d always been so afraid of the crash that I’d broken things off before it could happen. Stayed on the intermediate runs, then taken the lift down, so to speak.
But now, I was at the top of a double black diamond, the wind whipping my face. The reward was so great I was ready to risk it all. I was acting more like my thrill-seeking brother than like the cautious second son of Jasper Jones.
I retreated, kissing down to her shoulder. “Your body is breathtaking. I think you should seriously consider the stay-here-all-day plan. Let me remind you of the benefits…” I ran my tongue over the top of her breast. It was still pink from that torture device of a bra, but the swelling was gone.
“Stop, stop,” she said, laughing. “If you do that, we really will stay in bed all day, and I haven’t taken you to my favorite tapas place yet.”
“I’d rather eat you.” I swirled my tongue around her nipple.
She put her hands on my cheeks and lifted my head so I stared into her sparkling eyes. “Tapas. Sangria. And those fish croquettes you like.”
My stomach rumbled. I groaned. “Fine. You sold me with the croquetas. Do they have the potato ones too?”
“Of course. And fried brie with raspberry sauce. Plus, all the olives you can eat. We’ll talk about what this is.”
“Oh?” I forgot about my growling stomach. Talking had to be good, right? At least we weren’t going to shove it under the rug like Monterey. “Let’s talk now.”
She propped her head on her hand, then tugged the covers up under her chin. “I heard you last night. I appreciate that you have feelings, but I’m not sure how I feel yet.”
I wished I could take back my reckless words. “Yesterday you agreed this was real. Forget what I said last night. We’ll take it as slow as you need. But let’s give it a chance.”
“Now is the time for me to focus on my career,” she said. “Not a relationship. I made that mistake before, and, well, here I am. At his next wedding with no business to speak of.”
“Helen Choi has your number.”
“Sure. And maybe she’ll call. But I can’t wait for a long shot. I need to work as hard as I can to grow my business. Hustle. There’s no room in my life for anything else. I think you need more than I can give you.”
“No, I’m…” I stopped. I had to convince her I wasn’t needy. I could be low maintenance. I’d give her the space she needed. And time. “Let’s not decide right now. Let’s see how it goes when we get back home. Maybe Helen will call you, and your business will be set forever. You can have success and a relationship.”
She squinted one eye. “You know that’s not how it works, right? When I’m successful, I’m busy. Even on weekends.”
I knew it all too well. Fifteen minutes a day with my dad.
But those had been fifteen excellent minutes. In fifteen minutes, Carly and I could do something truly transcendent.
“I’ll take it. I’d rather be with you when you’re busy than with anyone else.” Sitting up, I held out a hand. “Come on. We can shower together.”
She bit her lip. “If I take a quick shower, I can run back to the hotel to get my coat while you’re getting ready.”
I flopped back onto the bed. “I forgot about your coat. I’ll shower fast and get it for you.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
I couldn’t send her back to that hotel. What if she ran into Brad? She’d been pale at the reception when she’d come out of the bathroom with Hayley. And silent after she’d spoken with Mother. I’d protect her from another run-in with any of them.
“Course not. Now, stop trying to sex me up so I can get dressed and we can have tapas.”
Laughing, she shoved a pillow at me, and I wrestled her back down, and it was a while before I got that shower.
I was a lucky guy.
I floated into the wedding hotel on the memory of morning sex with Carly, but that’s when my luck ran out.
My post-orgasmic bubble of happiness popped when I heard Brad’s booming voice. Wearing a bathrobe and slippers, he stood at the front desk in the lobby, arguing with the clerk.
“Ginger. Ale.” His voice was don’t-you-understand-English? loud. “And saltines. To my room. Stat.”
The clerk said something in a quiet, soothing voice, but Brad interrupted her. “Do you have any idea how much cash I’ve dropped at this hotel this week? Fucking?—”
Trying my best to be invisible, I skirted along the back of the lobby to the coat check. Bad luck trailed me.
“Jones!”
I felt my shoulders hunch before I turned toward him, pulling my lips into a fake smile. “Winner. What are you doing down here? You should be upstairs with your bride.” God knew if I were ever lucky enough to marry Carly, I’d spend the next week between her thighs.
He chuckled. “My bride isn’t feeling a hundred percent. Women, y’know?”
“Uh.”
He took a few steps toward me, but his voice still carried. “So you’re sleeping with Carly.”
Remembering our morning in bed, the small bit of headway I’d made against her resistance, I puffed out my chest. “We’re together.” I refused to think about the day after tomorrow when we’d fly home and her hustle would push me aside.
He snorted. “Today, at least.”
Fucking mind reader. No wonder he’d been so successful moving office square footage in San Francisco. But I was a Jones, and unlike him, I was wearing clothes. I planted my hands on my hips and sneered at his bathrobe. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, unfortunately spreading the lapels and exposing more of his mat of gray chest hair. “She’s newly divorced. You’re a rebound.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. How the fuck had I not thought of that? Although she’d been divorced for a year, I was probably her first dip into the dating pool. Everyone knew what happened with rebound relationships. No wonder she’d tried to push me away.
From the smug expression on his face, Brad saw he’d won the match. “Thought so. Good luck with that, junior.”
Uncurling my fingers from the fists they’d made, I shook out my hands. I wouldn’t fight Brad Winner the day after his wedding. Smirking, he turned on his terrycloth slipper and strode toward the elevators.
I trudged toward the coat check. Maybe that’s what Carly had been trying to tell me. She wasn’t sure she could have genuine feelings for the first guy she’d dated after the end of a long marriage. I needed to do what I’d promised and take things slow, rein in my out-of-control feelings.
And protect my heart.