“Sure thing, Boss,” she says.
I walk a few feet down the hall and lean against the wall before I answer.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she replies, her voice low. “How are you?”
“I miss you.” I sound like such a pussy. “When can I see you?”
Shit, it’s getting worse.
“I miss you, too. Um, can we talk?”
“Sure.” I glance at my watch. “I’m wrapping up a meeting, but I—”
“I’m in your building,” she cuts in. “I only have a few minutes. Can I come up?”
My heart races and slows. That built-in barometer that has navigated me through more than one difficult deal tells me a storm is brewing. The winds are shifting. I hear it in her quiet voice, a calm before the storm.
“Yeah,” I say after a pause. “Come on.”
I’m waiting by the elevator when she arrives. She looks young and pretty and my heart lurches at the sight of her. Even with her hair pulled back in a loose braid and wearing a simple patterned top, ripped-at-the-knee dark skinny jeans, and leather flip flops, she exudes power. She’s a woman who built herself from the inside out. The clothes are interchangeable and her weight may fluctuate, but her strength is constant. She could stand here naked and be just as compelling.
I’d actually prefer her that way.
With a furtive glance at the conference room, where my team is pretending not to watch me fraternizing with the managing partner of our rival firm, I drag Banner by the hand into my office. As soon as we’re inside, I pin her to the door. If my brain is sending a slow down signal, my hands aren’t getting the message. Urgency marks every touch, my hand clasping her neck, freeing her hair, gripping her waist, squeezing her ass, sliding into her blouse to knead her breast. Her silky skin, the clean scent, the sweetness of her mouth, the deepest part, down her throat . . . it all makes me desperate in a way I’ve never been desperate before. In a way I hate. Like I know this won’t last and I can’t keep her.
She reciprocates, straining up on her toes, chaining herself to me with arms around my neck. She grips my jaw, holds me still to have her way with my mouth. Carte blanche kisses, free rein fondling, a no-holds-barred embrace with nothing off limits.
“Ban,” I whisper against her neck, my hand rhythmically rubbing her pussy through the thick denim. “Tell me we have time because I will fuck you up against this door right now.”
She sighs, her fingers tightening in my hair, and kisses me slowly, thoroughly, until she pulls away to press her cheek to mine. Even as her hips rock into my touch, she shakes her head.
“No.”
“No, we don’t have time? Or just no?”
Her head dips lower so all I see is dark hair and slumped shoulders.
“Just no.”
The rejection cools the south-bound blood traveling to my dick and reduces my racing heart to a weighted thud in my chest.
“How’s Zo?” I keep my voice even, though everything under the surface is disrupted. I’m disturbed. I know this is about him, that somehow she’s telling me no because of him.
“Let’s sit down.” She doesn’t wait for me but sits on the sleek leather couch in my office.
I sit beside her but lift her onto my lap, ignoring her protest.
“Jared, I’m too heavy,” she says breathlessly, squirming.
“You’re not.” I link my fingers at her stomach and pull her back into my chest. “I held you like this on the island. Remember?”
I’m not just reminding her that she sat on my lap but that we took quantum leaps in the Caribbean. The things we entrusted to each other. The things I gave her and she gave me that we’d never shared with anyone before. That counts. Whatever is happening with Zo, however he is drawing her back to him, those days and nights I had with her count. They mattered, and I need her to remember that. She stills, relaxes into me, snuggles into me, and nods, her soft hair brushing my chin.
“That feels like another world,” she says, caressing my fingers at her waist. “Like it was so long ago.”
The only thing left of that serene time is our tans. The languid pace and liquid passion, flowing any way we chose, is restricted by whatever she is working up the nerve to tell me.