CHAPTER TWELVE
Sutton
“Distance is good,” I mutter to myself as I pull on my camisole. “Space is good.” Then slip on my flimsy sleep shorts. “Not looking at him or studying his hands or smelling his cologne is even better.”
Because that was hard enough tonight.
I glance up to see my reflection in the floor-length mirror opposite my bed. My dark brown hair is piled on top of my head in a messy bun and my face is newly scrubbed of my makeup. “You sound crazy, Sutt.” Batshit crazy to be exact.
But the arrogant, sexy man is under my skin, and it doesn’t appear he’ll be leaving any time soon.
The solution? Some more wine—definitely—and getting lost in a million more reports until my brain is so tired, I have no option other than to fall asleep without a thought of one Callahan Sharpe. Hopefully.
I open my bedroom door and head out to do just that, my thoughts on how I need to book a mani-pedi at the resort’s spa on my next free time to check out the facilities, when I look up. “Fuck.”
And that one, startled word is met with the quirk of a lone eyebrow of one Callahan Sharpe.
He is sitting in a chair that’s facing my bedroom door in the common area of the villa, legs spread casually, elbow on one of its arms with a glass of what I can presume is whiskey in his hand.
He still has his dark slacks on from earlier and his dress shirt is now open another button at the neck.
But it’s the look on his face that owns my attention. Intense. A little dangerous. Focused.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in? Callahan—”
“I own the resort.” He holds the key card up in his other hand, stare unwavering. “I have access to any room I want.”
I should be unnerved by the comment . . . but dare I say I’m a little turned on by it? Or maybe it’s just him in general that turns me on. Regardless, he’s here in my villa, dominating the decent-sized space with his presence when I’m trying desperately not to be affected by him.
“And you chose to use that all-access power to come to my room.”
His shrug reeks of arrogance. “I wanted to see you again.”
“Why?”
His eyes flicker down to my breasts beneath my tank top, take in my nipples pressed against the white, flimsy fabric, and then come back up to meet mine. “Because I’m a masochist.”
“Clearly,” I say nonchalantly and move toward my glass of wine on the counter. A drink is in order, for certain. “But you’ve already made your case with all of the things you did and didn’t say tonight.”
He takes a sip himself, his gaze moving to the glass in his hand. “And what exactly did I say?” Amber eyes meet mine and challenge.
“You know what? Never mind.” I take a step back and give a soft chuckle knowing this is dangerous territory. Apparently, everything is when it comes to him. “Let’s ignore the meeting tonight. What happened between us the other night. Just everything. I think we’ll be better off for it if we do.”
“You’re a hard one to ignore, Collins.” His eyes all but fuck me.
“It’s Sutton.”
“Whatever you say, Collins.” He gives a ghost of a crooked smile.
“Just one question though. How many times have you replayed that night in your mind? Did you slide your hand between your thighs when you did? Did you pretend it was me?” He shifts in his chair to adjust the hardening bulge between his thighs.
A glance is all I’ll give him, even though the simple thought has my own body reacting.
“You didn’t want me to know you were Johnnie. Him. That says enough for me to know how and what you thought of me.”
“How and what I thought of you?” He gives a subtle nod. “We met at a club. We had rather incredible sex afterwards. Sex we both wanted. I wasn’t aware there were whispered promises for more that I wasn’t fulfilling.”
I open my mouth to speak and then hesitate because everything he’s saying is true. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have to be courteous. And honestly? I’m edging for a fight, for something, for anything to abate the sexual tension vibrating around us.
“You could have called so that we walked into this partnership on solid footing. You holding all the cards like I was some game to you was a dick move.”
“The fact that you couldn’t remember who you slept with isn’t my problem.”
“Excuse me?” I stumble over the words in disbelief.
“For the record, I’m better than my brothers.”
Jesus. The fact that I didn’t know it was him is eating at him. Good. At least something about this whole situation bugs him.
“Calling would have been a mistake,” he continues when I don’t speak.
“And why’s that?”
“Because you would have ended up beneath me—or on top, I’m not picky—and I believe that would have been worse than me not calling.”
I swear to God my nipples harden at his words. Words I don’t want to be a slave to but that my body is nonetheless. “I’m not a plaything, Callahan. Especially not yours.”
He emits a soft chuckle. “Oh, I’m aware.”
“You weren’t going to tell me you were Johnnie, were you?” He angles his head and stares, surprising me when he gives the subtlest of nods in response. “That says everything I need to know.”
“Maybe I was trying to do the right thing,” he murmurs.
“I have a feeling you don’t think much about right or wrong most times, so why start now?” My words are out of my mouth before I even realize my thoughts have been voiced. They’re a taunt to him. A challenge.
And I just opened the door for him to take it. For him to prove that right or wrong, if he wants me, he’ll pursue me.
Isn’t him sitting here in my villa proof of that?
I told myself I couldn’t do this. That if Callahan was Johnnie, I’d have to keep my libido and desire on lockdown.
But now that I’m standing here in the lion’s den, every bone in my body wants what I’ve told myself I can’t have.
“There you go making assumptions again,” he says.
I take a step closer. “I know you like to play with power. That’s not an assumption.”
“No?”
“Like I said, you had three days to pick up your phone and call me. To have us start out on a professional footing. You didn’t. That says you wanted me on edge, not knowing. You wanted a toy you could bat around when you felt the need to play.”
He moves for the first time, setting down his drink and rising from his chair.
“I was going to forget you.” He undoes one cuff on his shirt and folds the sleeve up his forearm.
“I was going to let this play out so that you’d never know.
” And then the other cuff, my eyes transfixed on his fingers.
“I thought I’d be able to resist you.” He looks up and takes a step toward me.
“But fucking hell, Sutton, I realized that would be an impossible feat when I saw you sitting at that table at dinner tonight.”
He takes another step so that he’s within a foot of me. Our eyes hold for a beat as he leans in and for a second, I think he’s going to kiss me.
Every part of my body vibrates with a need I don’t understand. I whisper, “I can’t do this, Callahan.”
His lips quirk. “I like hearing my name on your lips.”
“Good. Great.” I stumble over those two seemingly easy words and force myself to focus on the matter at hand, standing my ground, instead of remembering the way his lips tasted. “You’ll hear it a lot. When we work together.”
I take a step back, my ass hitting the table behind me, and I grip the edge of the table to prevent me from touching him.
He takes one step forward and reaches out to play with a piece of loose hair that has fallen out of my bun.
I steel myself for the whisper of touch but it still makes my breath hitch.
“I can’t sleep with my boss. With you.”
“We wouldn’t exactly be sleeping, Sutton.”
“Then I can’t fuck my boss. Is that better?”
He groans, the sound of it rumbling through the room. “Do you know how much it turns me on when you talk like that?”
When he dips down and brushes his lips over mine, I don’t resist. Can’t. Isn’t this what I’ve been thinking about since that morning? Kissing him again? Tasting him again?
His tongue delves between my lips. He tastes like the whiskey he was just drinking and the man I’ve been craving.
My hands tense on the edge of the granite as he shifts the angle of the kiss and tries to coax more from me.
It feels so good it hurts in all the best ways possible. And just as I’m about to sink farther into the kiss, into him, my mind has a moment of clarity amid my body’s betrayal of it.
“I can’t.” I move my head to the side and sit my butt on the table, scooting it back to gain some space. “I’m sorry. I promised myself this wouldn’t happen. That I couldn’t let it happen.”
He scrubs a hand over his jaw, his amber eyes firing with desire.
“Why not?” He runs one finger over the top of my thigh, his voice a low tenor.
“It’s hard to resist something when you want it so badly.
” This time he places both hands on the tops of my thighs and rubs his thumbs beneath my shorts.
They rub back and forth so they just brush over the seam between my thighs.
A soft moan falls from my lips in reflex.
He watches me with every movement of his fingertips, and I fight to keep a stoic expression, but my pussy clenches at his touch, the ache it causes is so damn sweet.
“And we both know you want it badly. You want me badly.”
“Arrogant fuck,” I mutter as I steel myself for another pass of his thumbs.
“Yes. Please.” He chuckles.
“Callahan. I can’t.”
“For a woman who doesn’t want this, why are you pushing that sweet cunt of yours into my hand?” he taunts before leaning in and taking my bottom lip between his teeth and tugging ever so gently.
“I think this is the very definition of sexual harassment,” I murmur as his thumb actually slides between my sex this time, finding the wetness of arousal there, before running back up and circling over my clit.
My body disobeys. It’s ruled by his touch and not by the rationale in my head that seems to get foggier and foggier with each passing second.