Chapter 28
“Holy shit,” Jack breathed when I pushed open my front door.
I’d never allowed anyone except Viv, Hailey, and two serious boyfriends, into my inner sanctum, and I hadn’t thought to forewarn him.
I dropped my keys into the bowl on the metal console table. “I value color,” I stated.
He toed his sneakers off and touched the walls. “So you had the idea to live inside a rainbow?”
“Why not?” I led the way through the magenta hallway to the living room at the back. The walls were white, but the purple U-shaped couch and rainbow-splattered canvas made it feel warm.
“This is not what I expected your apartment to look like,” he admitted, examining a picture of me and Viv in a turquoise frame.
Goosebumps prickled at my neck. “You thought about my apartment?”
His attention shifted to a picture of Hailey and me on her wedding day. She’d let me choose the shell-pink bridesmaid dress that pulled me in at the waist and hid my love handles. “Kinda. I mean I did offer to come help you paint your bedroom.”
“You’re off the hook for decorating, remember?” I continued through to the kitchen. “I believe the exact words you used were, ‘fucking forget about me painting your bedroom now.’”
He padded behind me on socked feet. “Can you blame me?”
“No,” I admitted.
The kitchen backsplash sparkled deep blue under the skylight as I straightened the toaster and kettle. “So be honest. Given our interactions, did you think the place would be cauldrons and spiders?”
He leaned against the sparkling white countertop. “The opposite. I expected a lot of beige. Or white. Sterile.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, opening the fridge and wishing my nipples wouldn’t harden. “Tequila, wine, or beer?”
“A beer,” he answered, watching me pop the top off and hand it to him. “And you can’t blame me. It’s not as if you turn up to work looking like a My Little Pony.”
I poured myself a large glass of rosé. “Wouldn’t be professional, would it?”
I shoved the bottle back into the fridge and motioned for him to follow me up to the roof deck via a narrow set of stairs at the back of the hall.
“Color isn’t professional?” he asked.
I unlocked the door and basked in the sun hitting my face as we stepped outside. The East River shimmered in front of us, and the traffic on the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges provided a subtle background of white noise. “Not in real estate in Manhattan. Like you said, would you take an agent seriously if they showed up looking like a My Little Pony?”
He joined me at the small patio table I’d found on Craigslist for ten dollars and spray-painted orange. “That doesn’t mean you need to dress duller than a funeral director.”
I spat the wine in my mouth back into the glass. “Is that what I look like?”
He pulled a leg up to rest on the opposite knee. “Don’t you get bored of wearing black and white and cream? I’m a guy, and even I try to change it up with my socks.”
Today’s pair were thin red, white, and blue stripes. How patriotic. “I’ve noticed, and yeah, I hate it, but it’s a uniform now. Armor even. Against all the bullshit we deal with every day.”
“We do deal with a lot.” He put the bottle to his lips. “You think it’s worth it?”
I looked at the imposing concrete skyline over the river, where every second, people’s dreams were coming true. “I do.”
“Even if we don’t have a social life or relationships or the ability to walk into a room and not guess the square footage?” He took another swig of beer.
“Some things are more important to me, I guess.”
He pulled the label from the beer bottle. “Please feel free to elaborate. You do owe me after trying to obliterate me professionally.”
Telling Jack Shane my dreams, and sometimes fears, didn’t seem like a smart idea. But this full day had been bizarre, and I did owe him. I’d played hooky and invited a man I hadn’t even kissed back to my apartment. My own version of Girls Gone Wild. “You won’t laugh if I tell you?”
He stopped tugging at the label. “I promise. Unless it’s hilarious, in which case I reserve the right to laugh.”
“Ever since I was a kid,” I began, “I’ve dreamed of owning a brownstone on the West Side. And I don’t mean dreamed like I wrote in a diary or prayed. Every decision from that point forward has been about getting me to the point we’re at now. If something didn’t align with my goal, I didn’t do it.”
He continued peeling the label back. “So you never had fun?”
I thought about it. “That’s the thing. To me, working is fun. My sister used to go out and play with the kids in the street, and she’d beg me to come. All summer. But I wanted to read, so I’d hide up a tree in the back garden with my books.”
“A tree?” The label came off in swift motion, and he smiled.
“A way of escaping the house,” I explained.
He rolled the beer label between his fingers until it became a little ball. “Because you hated your mom?”
A jolt of electricity hit me. “How did you know that?”
“Because anytime someone, including myself, mentions their mother, you look like a kid’s kicked you in the shin and you’re trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
Dampness pooled in my eyes, and I pointed to his now empty beer. “You want another?”
He shook his head, sensing my aversion tactic. “So what happened? She didn’t support your dream of living in the city? Hated your boyfriend?”
I steadied my breath and told him what I’d never said out loud to Denzel. “She put me and my sister into foster care when I was five and Hailey was seven.”
“She put you in foster care? Why?—”
“My dad died the year before, and I guess we were a constant reminder. Then her disgusting, sweaty boyfriend came along, and she decided she couldn’t handle us anymore. We’d be better off somewhere else,” I spewed out, hands flat on the table to keep myself steady. “I still remember the sweater she wore when she took us outside to the social worker. It smelled of cigarettes and vanilla.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.” He rubbed his fingers over my knuckles.
“Yeah, having good recall is a bitch sometimes.”
“So you went into foster care?”
I nodded. “They kept us together at least. Although my foster mother was a fucking troll and in it for the check. She found this scrapbook I’d made about the brownstone I wanted and told me I’d never get it. That I’d never be anything.”
“And all this is your way of proving her wrong?” he guessed.
I swirled the last block of ice in my glass. “Her and my mom, I suppose. If it’s so easy to give me away, then that must mean I’m worthless, right? But if I become a success, then I’m valuable.”
He gripped my hand. “Scarlett Munroe, I don’t think anyone could put a price tag on you.”
“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better,” I told him. God, his skin feels good.
His green eyes didn’t waver. “Do you think I’m lying?”
“I don’t know. Apart from living in Boston, attending Columbia, having a niece, and being my adversary, I don’t know that much about you,” I admitted. A Google search hadn’t told me much more than that.
“What do you want to know? C’mon. Quickfire round, five questions,” he offered, slapping my knee.
“So I needed to go deep, and you get questioned like a dating show contestant?” I said.
He winked. “I’ll go as deep as you want.”
ZING!“All right. Why did you move to New York?”
“To make more money.”
“Why?”
He flinched. “My dad died five years ago, and then my brother and sister-in-law a year later.”
So the bride had died as well. And I thought my life was a sob story. It would be bad taste to push for gory details. Jack’s shoulders sank. Distraction needed. “Why is David’s business so important to you?”
“My brother and sister-in-law didn’t have life insurance. He’d stopped paying it two months before because they were struggling. And my dad didn’t have a big pension. It’s my way of being able to look after my mom and niece—make sure they have everything they need. Mom’s health isn’t great, and Francesca’s already planning on going to Harvard. They didn’t get a chance to set up a college fund for her.”
Gorgeous and a beating heart underneath all that cockiness. Jesus, take the wheel. I needed to pull myself out of the quicksand. “Did you sabotage the magazines for the open house?”
He didn’t blink. “No.”
“Pffft… come on. Admit it. You wanted me to fail because you wanted me off the project.”
“Trust me, that’s the last thing I wanted.”
The noise from the bridge blurred in my ears. “Why?”
His chest heaved through the thin fabric of his polo shirt. “Because being around you is like standing in a lightning storm. I never know when I’m gonna get hit, but I know when I do it, will be like nothing else.”
I stopped breathing for a second, my ribcage almost exploding.
He took advantage of my stunned expression and shuffled his chair a little closer, his breath against my lips. “My turn. Five questions.”
Trying not to melt onto the patio like an ice cream cone proved more challenging as the seconds ticked by, but I nodded.
“Why did you break up with your ex?”
“He tried to pressure me into having kids.”
“You don’t want kids?”
My fingers itched to grab his chin and close the distance between us. “We had this conversation, remember?”
His pupils dilated. “I remember.”
At least my doubling down didn’t send him running out the door.
“Do you enjoy working with me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like me?”
His mouth hovered so close I could smell the faint tang of beer on his breath. “Yes.”
This shouldn’t be happening. I couldn’t put anyone else first. What happened with Denzel had proved that. Any romantic entanglement right now would squeeze the air from my body like an anaconda.
He had to go. Now. Hanging in mid-air must have fried my brain. Or maybe it was the wind chill. Vertigo even. I’d lost control of my faculties, and we needed to go our separate ways so I could regain them.
Jack Shane belonged in two places: The Crystal and the erotic fantasies that made me pull out a vibrator at 4 a.m.
Not in my apartment. On my patio. Looking at me like a diabetic ogling a Hershey’s bar.
He turned my hand over and circled my palm with his finger. “You’re thinking I need to go, aren’t you?”
The tickling felt delicious. “How did you know that?”
His finger changed direction. “Because I know how your brain works. You’re panicking that we’re going to do something, and it’ll turn messy and blow up your career.”
I strained my palm toward his finger when it stopped moving. If he could make me come apart with one finger, imagine what he could do with ten. “Okay, so you read my mind. Satisfied?”
A lock of hair drifted over my face from the light breeze, and when he tucked it back behind my ear, I’d never felt more naked. “Nowhere near, Munroe,” he murmured, the words bridging the gap between us and fondling between my legs.
I let out an aroused sigh. His knee squeezed its way between mine, pointing in the direction that I wanted him to go. “How do you propose we fix that?”
“By doing what makes you happy instead of what you think you should do. Try feeling instead of focusing on the worst-case scenario.” His green eyes ran over my face. Pleading with me to agree. To give in.
“I don’t think I can.” The metal chair screeched on the stone when I pushed myself away from his knee and stood up.
Jack’s quick steps sounded behind me as I ran downstairs and into the tiny hall. “You didn’t think you could climb to the top of a building, and guess what? You did.”
“That’s different,” I yelled, frustrated at the stuck deadbolt and my palm that still tingled.
His voice brushed my ear like silk on bare skin. “Scarlett.”
My body turned of its own accord, and now he’d pinned me to the front door. His fingers were tying a knot in my T-shirt above the ass, pulling me closer.
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have to. This man knew before I’d turned around that we were both counting the seconds till we connected.
Our lips were two jigsaw pieces, slotting together with the lightest pressure. His free hand moved to cup the back of my head while his tongue explored my mouth. Probing and hot. Claiming me as his own.
My hand slipped under his polo shirt, skimming the hardness of his stomach, all the way up to his chest.
Out in the hallway, a dog barked as Jack’s lips trailed butterfly kisses along my cheek and down to my jaw. I ignored my instinct to investigate who’d chosen to break the no-pets policy. Fuck the dog.
He sucked on my earlobe, and I almost came undone. “Is this okay?”
Keep sucking. “It’s fan-fucking-tastic,” I growled so deep I didn’t recognize my voice.
Its fierceness encouraged him to bite my bottom lip before his tongue delved back inside my mouth. His rough hands lifted me at the ass, and I looped my arms around his neck to hold the position. I felt the stiffening of his erection against my stomach, and heightening desperation filled the space between my legs.
Our breathing grew jagged, flitting between moans and low growls. The kiss was even more intimate than fucking.
“Bedroom,” I whimpered.
His hands gripped me at the waist as he carried me to the bedroom a few feet away, our mouths never breaking contact. I felt sure if they did, I would die. What had made me fight this?
In one deft movement, he’d dropped me at the bottom of the bed and pulled my jeans down. I mentally thanked Viv for drilling into me that a woman should always wear a matching bra and panty set. “You never know when you’ll fancy a bit of D,” she’d claimed in the store.
His polo shirt and pants joined my clothes on the carpet, and my soaked panties met the bulge between his husky thighs. The hard lines of his stomach were a stark contrast to the soft ripples of my hourglass figure. Now I wished I’d eaten a lot more protein and not stuffed my face with carbs.
Then his fingers hooked my pink lace panties to one side, and all thoughts of Viv and my insecurities went out the window. “You need to hurry up and touch me,” I begged.
Taking position between my legs, he tutted. “Patience, Munroe.”
His head bent and, light as a feather, his tongue licked my folds, pushing them away to reveal my clit.
My head snapped back. “Jesus.”
“It’s Jack actually,” he rumbled between my thighs. The apple scent of his shampoo drifted up to my nostrils as he plunged his tongue inside me, and I knew I’d never look at a fruit bowl the same way again.
The usual briskness and Gordon Gecko vibes were a world away from the man taking his time to explore and tickle the back of my knee.
In all my fantasies, he’d pushed me against a wall and taken me rougher than a caveman. But this was a thousand times better because this wasn’t about sex. We had a connection so cavernous it scared the shit out of me. I would have given up food and water if it meant I could relive this.
He began a steady rhythm as his tongue flickered over my clit, and I couldn’t stop my hips from rising to meet his mouth. Oh God, would I suffocate him? That couldn’t be good. I commanded my body to stop. It told me to go to hell.
My hands knotted in his grey hair as he used his middle finger to rub my clit in small circles. Then two fingers slipped inside me, and my world turned on its axis. My body coiled around his fingers as he pushed deeper, my pussy so wet I could hear the slippery sound every time he pulled them out.
Reading my body like Braille, he knew when to speed up and slow down. Taking me to the edge, only to stop and let me cool down before resuming his teasing.
“Get your dick inside me now,” I commanded after teetering on the edge of an orgasm he kept denying.
He languidly ran his tongue up my stomach, stopping to lick a circle around each nipple. “Eager, are we?”
“Very.” I pushed myself up onto my elbows.
He wiped his brow. “Condom?”
“Top drawer.” I pointed, catching a quick peek of his rock-hard ass when he leaned over to the bedside cabinet. My eyes almost fell out of my skull when he yanked his boxers down. Why did I fight this?
Every other man I’d been with had nothing on this guy. There were no shaking fingers or fumbling apologies. Denzel’s body was lean with almost no body fat. All elbows and knees, like sleeping with a rib. Jack had just the right amount of cushion.
He ripped the packet open with his teeth then rolled on the condom, his eyes feasting on my naked body.
I soaked up the admiration, feeling sexier than a Victoria’s Secret model as he pressed his weight on top of me and molded his body to mine. With Denzel, I’d always insisted on lights off and under covers. Now I felt happy to bathe in the sunlight pouring through the window.
Our lips met, and I moved my hands to his hips, desperate to pull him in. But he took his time, slipping inside inch by inch before our bodies synced and we built to a climax.
His skin became slick with sweat as he pounded harder, and my eyes rolled back in my head as he pushed me closer to exploding. He whispered in my ear, and I was so far gone I couldn’t decipher the words, but I knew they were making me hornier.
After one last thrust, we exploded at the same time, and I screamed while he grunted into my neck. My body turned to dust, swirling through the air. I hadn’t existed until that moment.
As we caught our breath, Jack’s weight didn’t feel oppressive. I didn’t yearn to break free.
He dropped a kiss on my collarbone. “Good?”
I shivered. “Outstanding.”