Chapter 13
AJ
There were a quite a few important things I needed to get from the little house in Silver Lake that I’d shared with Caspar as recently as last week.
There was my laptop. My passport and Social Security card.
There were all my shampoos and comfy pajamas, and the rest of my entire wardrobe, too.
Realistically, those items were my priority.
But at this particular moment, all I wanted was my vibrator.
It didn’t even have to be the good one for God’s sake. I’d settle for any at this particular moment, because holy hell was it impossible to stop thinking about Adam this morning.
Flopping onto my back in my lumpy AirBnB bed, I stared at the ceiling, hitting snooze once again so I could just take a little longer to reflect on the next-level craziness that was last night.
I slept with my boss.
The words repeated in my head as I relived flashes of it all.
The chiseled sections of Adam’s six-pack.
The warm lashing of his tongue across my nipple and his greedy hands squeezing all over my body.
I could actually feel every ounce of pent-up lust and desire in his touch and just thinking about it again this morning stole my breath away. Yeah, that… really happened, I thought, a fresh wave of awe hitting me as I relived his smooth lips. His rough tongue.
That fucking kiss.
I mean what the hell was that?
It had been such a shock of intimacy in the middle of our dirty, sweaty filth-fest, and not only had I let it happen, I’d… enjoyed it. So much so that it was exactly what sent me over the edge and made me come—as promised—harder than I’d ever come in my life.
It was a bit troubling how good it felt.
At the same time, I refused to let myself overanalyze it.
We did what we did last night to get it out of our systems. To squash the sexual tension and carry on with our lives, I reminded myself while staring at my reflection in the mirror and trying to brush my teeth like it was any other morning.
You’re just gonna fake it till you make it, baby.
That was the name of the game for this particular Friday, and it was the mantra I repeated in my head as I drove to work, peppering in the occasional “you’re fine” and “relax,” and just for good measure, a “you can work through any level of awkwardness”—just in case our little sexperiment did not in fact fix anything between us.
It actually worked enough to ease my nerves as I got into the office and said good morning to everyone in a passably normal way. I did, of course, stealthily scan the floor for Adam and wonder where he was, if he was in yet and what the hell it was going to be like when I saw him today.
But I didn’t have to wonder long, because just as I got to my desk, Liza came over, eyes playfully narrowed at me as I rounded my desk.
“K-Beauty?” she asked just as my heart leapt briefly into my throat.
Because emerging from an office behind her was Adam in a sharp grey suit, his smirking eyes already locked on mine as he strode toward his office.
I forcibly tore my eyes off of him, returning them to Liza as I set my purse on my desk. “What?”
“Are you doing that new skincare routine Deb’s been going on about? You’re literally glowing,” she said just as Adam passed my desk—stroking his bottom lip and wearing the biggest shit-eating grin of his life.
Bastard.
I suppressed my overwhelming need to shake my head as I heard him settling into his chair in his office, because I knew he was still listening to every word of my conversation with Liza. Even with a wall between us, his smugness was so palpable that I struggled for a second to think of my answer.
“Umm, yes, actually. That’s exactly what it is,” I said, assuming it’d be fastest in terms of getting me out of the conversation. But it wasn’t.
“Girl, I need this in my life,” Liza said. “I mean you’ve always had good skin but I’ve never seen it glow like this. What are you using? What’s the name?”
Umm.
Boss Dick?
“I… don’t remember off the top of my head, but once I get home I’ll be sure to take a picture of it for you,” I said to a pouting Liza. And then we talked for another minute but as soon as she left, I peered my narrowed eyes into Adam’s office and shook my head.
His gaze was focused on his laptop, but he was still wearing the remnants of that smile. Asshole, I snorted to myself as I turned back to face the front.
Well. I already want to smack the smug look off his face again.
So maybe that’s a good sign, I thought as I shook my head through my first few emails of the day, because I already had a fair amount of messages to give to Adam, but that required going into his office and facing his annoying hotness and smugness—and in the very room where we’d had crazy, sweaty, admittedly mind-blowing sex twelve hours ago.
Yeah, except don’t think about that right now, I reminded myself. Or ever, since you are literally never allowed to look at his dick again let alone touch it. My fingers clicked away as I typed another sentence. Or taste it.
God.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, trying to force the image out of my head just as I heard a new email chime in—from Knox’s team.
Dammit. Knox news was always urgent, but just as I decided to put it off for another ten minutes, a reminder popped up on my screen about his meeting in ten minutes with the boss himself, Don Engelman.
Which meant I couldn’t put off facing Adam for much longer.
Not that you should. You got your big O out of your system and Adam has always been hot.
You just know what his dick feels like now.
But other than that, nothing has actually changed, so pull up your big girl panties and get in there, I told myself, letting myself fire off one more email before sucking in a deep breath and getting up to just get it over with.
Grabbing my notepad, I skimmed it as I headed into Adam’s office, but upon looking up, I saw the only thing at his desk was his jacket draped on his chair.
Which meant he was sitting over on the couch.
Dammit.
I braced myself for the manspread before turning my head to the right but it did little to prepare me because Lord.
The full length of his height and muscle was on display with the way he sat half-reclined on that damned couch, a report in one hand and his other arm draped over the back of the couch, pulling his sleeve tight around his shoulder and bicep, and forcing my eyes there before they fell instinctively down to his muscled thighs and package.
Fuckin’ manspread, I thought before I finally looked up to find his eyes already on me, sparkling at me with sheer entertainment.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice smooth and sexy as ever, but tinged with enough humor that I narrowed my eyes in a wordless, mostly playful fuck you.
“Morning,” I returned, the weird energy in the air making my lips wiggle with the need to laugh or smirk or something. But I refrained. “Got a rundown,” I said with deliberate flatness. Adam smiled.
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
And so I rattled everything off my notepad, starting with Knox.
“His team emailed just now, and it looks like Knox wants one more meeting before he makes his decision. He says he’s interested in coming to LA, seeing the office since he still has time before the start of Spring Training, so if next Thursday at 9AM works for you, I’ll go ahead and confirm that.”
“Confirm it.”
“Great,” I nodded, jotting it down before confirming his availability for several video calls with clients today, and then getting into the itinerary Holland sent for her visit in a few weeks.
But all throughout, I felt a smile twitching at my lips, because while Adam and I spoke with utmost professionalism as we ran through the schedule, every time we looked at each other, there was laughter dancing in our eyes—enough that by my last note, I finally broke.
“Alright—am I really going to have to deal with you looking this pleased with yourself all day?” I asked. He grinned.
“Most likely, yeah. I mean I have to agree with Liza. You’re glowing.”
“And you’re taking all the credit for that, I assume?”
He feigned a frown. “Should I not?”
“Honestly, I think I just slept really well thanks to the intense workout I got from all that riding.”
“If that’s a dig at the amount of work I did last night, I’ll have you know that I was being nice by letting you have the top. But for the record, that’s usually my spot and in case you’re curious, I do my best work there.”
Just like that, I had a vivid image of the muscles in Adam’s long, hard torso rippling as he hovered over me. But I played it off.
“If you’re trying to entice me for round two, I’m good.”
“Sure?”
“Mm-hm. I got the full gist of what fucking Adam Maxwell is about, and I’m not all that curious about the rest,” I lied so confidently he looked legit annoyed for a second.
“I could make that pussy come a thousand ways with just my tongue, AJ.”
“I highly doubt that,” I said as I remembered the wet heat of his tongue on my tits and imagined it between my legs. As if he could see into my head, Adam cocked an eyebrow.
“Wanna bet?” he asked, flashing me that sexy, boyish grin that was such an unfair weapon I didn’t even have to fake rolling my eyes.
“Look, as happy as I am that we’re back to placing stupid bets, I think we should probably take this moment to just dungeon what happened last night. From here on out, no talking about the sex we had, even if it was… decent.”
“Judging by the claw marks on my back, it was better than decent,” Adam said with such an unbothered smile I felt my pride flare up.
“Fine,” I said coolly, soaking in his smug expression as I decided to play his game.
“It was the best sex I ever had, Adam,” I admitted, letting him have two seconds of triumph before I went on.
“I was so wet I could feel my pussy dripping down my thighs when I was in the elevator last night,” I said, enjoying the flash of surprise in Adam’s blue eyes.
“And when I got home, I fucked myself with my fingers while thinking about how hard your cock was inside me. And then I did it again this morning while thinking about the sounds you made when you came.” Eyebrow arched, I cocked my head at him.
“Happy now?” I asked with a little smile that curled wider as I watched the lust darken Adam’s eyes as he stared back in silence for a second.
And when he spoke again, his voice was tight.
“Yes,” he said, adjusting his dick and making me smirk.
See? Two can play that game, I thought wickedly as I put on a cheery voice.
“Great. Well, anyway, you have a meeting with Engelman in the conference room. It starts in two minutes, so I’d suggest you do your best to will down your dick,” I said with a placid smile, peering briefly down at Adam’s hard-on snaked down the leg of his pants and reveling in his utter silence before waltzing out of his office.
But not before I caught the little laugh of disbelief he breathed out like he’d been socked in the chest.
It filled me with a twisted sense of satisfaction, which was actually a pretty familiar feeling when it came to Adam.
Well, how about that? We’re officially back, I thought with delight as I returned to my seat at my desk.
We weren’t back to normal, per se.
But whatever this was, I could handle it.