Bargaining with the Bride (10 page)

He needed her. Needed to give her everything. Needed—

"I'm coming." She screamed the words into his ear, but he didn't care. Instead, he tucked his hand beneath her chin and brought her lips to his. He wanted to taste them as she came. To feel her—

Her pussy clenched around his aching cock, working him so hard that he felt like he might break from the intensity, and their kiss mirrored every move. When they pushed and pulled, so did their lips, their tongue, the whole of their bodies.

It felt as though they could go on like that forever, losing themselves in each other and the coil of energy strengthening and exploding and fissioning out to every extremity.

And when the final waves of her climax began, he followed her into that sweet abyss, thrusting and pulling and kissing until he was utterly and completely spent.

After that, he wasn’t sure what to do or how long they’d lie there on top of each other.

There was only one thing he knew for sure. Now that he’d gotten into bed with Rachael Ford, he had no plan of getting out any time soon

T
he second Rachael's
eyelids blinked open, she felt as if a weight had been dropped into the pit of her stomach.

Last night...

But, no. It could have been a dream, right? Like the weird pre-wedding dreams that involved her making every shrimp cocktail by hand or having to go down the aisle naked.

But last night she'd been more than a little naked. And so had Garret. And it had most definitely not been a dream.

She rolled over, but found the space beside her empty. He was gone. Probably already off to work, jotting down her REM cycles for his next study.

Which was fine. That's what she'd agreed to. Being studied and tested. Hell, she'd even have been okay with a little prodding, but this...

She pulled a pillow from beside her and shoved it on top of her face. Maybe if she squeezed hard enough, she wouldn't have to deal with the ramifications of what they'd done.

And, as far as she could tell, the consequences were limitless. What would they do about work? And what if he didn't want to do it again?

And why did his not wanting to do it again seem like a fate worse than death?

She hucked the pillow across the room and was surprised when it hit a now-indignant-looking Tesla. Apparently the pug had taken a liking to the chair in the corner of the room.

Which, she supposed, was fitting. Why not have an audience for her personal suffering?

"I'm an idiot." She said the words to the dog slowly, but when he simply panted at her in response, she leaned her head back against the headboard and sighed.

There was only one thing to do now. If Garret was at work, which he most definitely was, she'd just have to spend the day devising a new set of rules. Some stipulations for their, um, additional experiments.

If he wanted to continue them.

God, let him want to continue them...

She picked his shirt off the floor and buttoned into loosely before trotting down the steps two at a time. After some coffee, it was going to be go time—

"Ah!" She must have leapt two feet in the air, but Garret didn't seem to notice.

Hell, he didn't even turn around. He just kept flipping whatever it was he had on the stove, shaking his head all the while.

"You know, I could understand your surprise the first time, but don't you think a second time is a bit much?" He shot her a grin just as Tesla swept by her leg.

The bristles of her fur almost made her want to jump again, but she steadied herself. One step at a time.

"What are doing here?" She asked.

"I live here."

"No. You don't. But that aside, I meant what are you doing here right now? You should be in the office."

"There are certain benefits to being the boss." He sat an plate with a warm bagel in front of her and she glanced from it to him before reaching a reluctant hand out for the cream cheese.

"Okay. I'll bite." She smeared the spread on the bagel, and then met his gaze again. "What's your plan?"

"I wanted to have a meeting with you. To make sure you were okay."

She worried her bottom lip. He was going to tell her it couldn't happen again. She could just tell. It was something about the way he spoke. Like he was in a meeting with a very important but very moody client.

"I'm fine." She crunched into her breakfast, and then watched as Tesla circled her feet for crumbs like a pudgy vulture.

"Good."

"How are you?" she countered.

He smiled. "I'm quite well."

"Good, good." She nodded, and then swallowed hard.

It would have been such a help if he would only freaking sit down. If he'd just, she didn't know, act normal for once. He'd been so normal at dinner and when they'd gone shopping, but whenever they were alone, it was like something flipped in him. Like he was all steely business.

Or, at least, that how it had been every time except last night.

Then he'd been hard and soft all at once. Compassionate and passionate. And so strong...

"I think there's a matter that we need to discuss." As if he'd read her mind, he finally took a seat across from her.

Okay, that was something. Common ground.

She cleared her throat, "I assume you're referring to our copulation." She'd said it in her best scientific voice, but he broke out into laughter.

"Exactly." He nodded.

"Look, uh, I understand if you'd rather not. I could see where it might mess up your statistics and stuff and I know there's a lot going on with me and—"

"That's not at all what I was going to say," he was so sincere when he spoke that it made her heart beat a little faster.

"You...weren't?"

"No. I was going to say that last night was the best night of my life. Of course, I'm your boss and I want you to know that if you'd rather not continue, I would understand."

She couldn't be hearing him right. This was straight-laced cut-to-the-chase Garret telling her that he wanted to fuck her five ways from Sunday? And, okay, it might have been a little more shocking if he'd phrased it that way, but she knew what he meant.

"What does this mean for your experiment?"

"I see no reason why we can't continue."

"And what about work?"

"What about it? I wanted to have sex with you before, I see no reason for my action to change now that I have."

She nearly choked on her coffee, "You what?"

"Come on, don't tell me you didn't know."

"That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"And Natalie never said anything about it?"

"Who listens to Natalie?" She spluttered, trying to find that last part of her mind that might be able to think straight. "So, had you been planning this for a long time? Like, did you do this whole thing to get close to me?"

"No, that would be insane."

"Says the man who moved into my house without telling me. And just left in the middle of a make-out session. And—"

"I get the point. But no, that's not why I did this. I did this because you're my friend and valued employee. The fact that I did nothing about how much I wanted to pull your tight skirts up to your waist had to do with your relationship status, not anything else."

Her thighs ached at the thought of his touched her. Bending her over her desk in the office. Or over his and fucking her while they both stared out his huge, glass wall, panting and trying their hardest not to scream.

Suddenly, she was all too aware of the heat spreading through her cheeks. She swallowed hard.

"Okay." God, it sounded dumb. So dumb that she wanted to run somewhere and hide.

"I should mention that now that you're single, I don't feel inclined to remain so restrained."

"No?" Was it her or was the air getting thinner in the room? Harder to breathe?

"And I should also mention that I know you're attracted to me."

"Presumptuous."

"Not after the way you screamed my name last night." He grinned, and something dark and sinful glinted in his eyes. Something that made her heart beat that much faster.

"You don't know—"

"Oh, but I do. I notice everything about you. When you walk away from me, you shake your hips just the slightest bit more. Like you want me to watch you walk away—"

"I do not—"

"And when you have coffee with me in the morning, you bend over my shoulder to put the coffee in front of me. I can feel your breasts brush against me. Smell your perfume."

"Aren't you reading too much into it?" She asked, trying her best to make sure he didn't note the tremor in her voice.

"No. And you know that." He crunched into a piece of toast. "The good news is, it didn't go unnoticed. I swear, every time you put my coffee in front of me I wanted to pull you into my lap."

"Garret, I—" He head was spinning. Where was this coming from? What could she—

"This is me putting my cards out on the table," he shrugged. "Now it's your turn."

She blushed, imagining trying to explain the way she thought about him. And, the more she thought it through, she had.

Even before their plan had been a seed of a thought in her mind, it had been Garret she'd thought of when she was alone. And when he walked into the office, a powerful suit framing those broad shoulders of his...

But she could tell him that. She didn't have the nerve.

She'd simply have to show him.

She stood from the table, and then slowly unfastened each of the buttons on his discarded shirt. When it finally fell to the floor and she was naked in front of him, she smiled.

He stared at her like she was the beautiful thing he'd every seen.

"Come upstairs. I'll show you what's been on my mind."

A
fterward
, Garret lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling while trying to calculate the odds of his good fortune. They were limitless, and with Rachael next to him, he felt beyond unstoppable.

Not only would she help him score this account with Matchware, but she'd bring some much needed, long-lost fun to his life.

Being a fake husband in exchange hardly seemed like a fair bargain anymore.

"I guess I can't wear white to the wedding now that you've defiled me." She rolled over and grinned and it took all of the energy he had left not to pin her down and bury himself inside her all over again.

She was just so beautiful with the light catching strands of her golden hair as she moved. Stunning.

And his.

"Why not? We're faking everything else."

"Good point." She laid her head on his chest, and for a while they lay in silence, each thinking their own private thoughts.

"Are you going back to work today?" she asked.

For what felt like the first time in his life, he felt unsure of the answer. He wanted to lay here all day. Talking to Rachael, learning about her, and then falling into her again and again until they fell asleep together.

But he couldn't do that.

He had numbers to configure and experiments to develop. A board meeting with brooks. A staff meeting with Natalie. A company to run.

And still, with Rachael right here, none of that seemed to matter.

"Stay," she whispered it so softly that he wasn't sure he'd heard her at first.

"I can't. You have things to do for the wedding, anyway. Isn't that why you took the week off?"

"I took the week off to have sex with you."

"I think not."

"Well, I modified my reasons. I'm a grown-up. I can do what I want."

"I'll be home tonight." Every second he stared into those deep eyes of hers, he hated himself more for saying it.

He should get someone to fill in for him. Just for the week. Just...

But lying to himself wouldn't help. He had to go, and the longer he stayed, the deeper the guilt would go.

Without another word, he shuffled from the bed and pulled on his clothes.

"Check my reports, okay?" she asked.

"You got it."

"And if your assistant sends me any more surveys, I'm going to strangle both of you in your sleep."

"Noted. Though, I should point out that was your part of the deal. If you didn't want to follow through, I could always—"

She threw a pillow at his head and he ducked. "Okay, okay. No more surveys."

R
achael's phone
clanged beside her head, muffled by her pillow.

She must have fallen asleep with the damn thing in her hand again, texting frantic instructions of Natalie to make sure everything was still in order by the time she returned from her vacation.

Normally, it wouldn't have bothered her, the constant attention to the company. But now, with Garret lying beside her every night for the past two weeks, every time it rang she had the distinct urge to chuck the thing at the wall and watch it splinter into a million pieces.

Not because she was drawn to it. That was a problem, sure. But it was more the way Garret looked at it when she got a new message from the office. In an instant, he would shift—go from playing with Tesla to sitting bolt upright, his brow furrowed like they were already mid-business meeting.

She pushed the thought aside and shifted beneath the sheets just as the last strains of her ringer sounded.

Tonight was the rehearsal dinner, and if she was going to face her mother for a full hour, she was going to need all the rest she could possibly get.

She closed her eyes and shoved the pillow over her face, blocking out the rays from the early morning sun, but then the ringer sounded again, so loud this time that she shot upright and sent the pillow flying across the room.

She reached for the damn thing and clicked the “answer” button before checking the caller ID.

Big mistake.

"Hello?" She said on a yawn.

"Rachael? Do you mean to tell me you're still in bed at this hour?" Her mother sounded like someone had just insinuated cream and eggshell were the same color. Positively scandalized.

"No," she bit back a second yawn and said, "but...I'm not near a clock. What time is it?"

"Eight thirty in the morning."

She rolled her eyes, "Right."

"That aside, we have a problem."

"We do?" She stepped from the bed, only half listening. But when she turned, her heart dropped into her stomach.

Garret was gone.

He was supposed to be here. Had agreed to take the day before the wedding off in order to help her with the rest of the plans.

All week, she'd been looking forward to today. Had hoped that they could spend all morning wrapped up in the blankets, not thinking about work or her family or anything. Just each other...

But she was getting ahead of herself. Maybe he was downstairs. Maybe—

"Rachael," Her mother's sharp tone cut into her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"What are we going to do about this?"

She searched for a way to pretend she'd been listening, but came up empty. "About what?" Even as she asked the question, she winced.

"Honestly, sometimes I don't know where you girls came from. About your dress. It's...a disaster. To put it lightly." She sniffed.

"Did something happen to it?" She gripped the phone a little harder. Partially from concern, and partially because she really should have known better than to think her mother would be harmless in her involvement with the dress.

"The lace—did you
want
it with so much lace? Is this how my money was spent?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"It looks like an enormous doily. Honestly, wouldn't a nice satin be more flattering? I think you ought to come down here and straighten them out."

She held her hand over the receiver, and then let out a long sigh. "It's supposed to look that way, mother. Thank you for your help, but I have to go."

She could sense her mother rearing up to argue, so she rushed to end the call.

After tossing her cell onto the bed behind her, she scurried downstairs, only to find Tesla napping lazily on the windowsill.

"Where's Garret?" she asked the dog, but he only looked at her with lazy eyes then turned his attention back to the front yard.

"Great,” she murmured, and then moved onto the front steps.

His car was gone.

Which, of course, meant he could only be in one place.

E
ven as she
pulled into her normal parking space, she knew she had no reason to be at the office. Nobody was expecting her. Natalie had been handling everything as smoothly as ever. Hell, she couldn't even claim she'd forgotten something in her desk.

As far as the wedding details...she could make something up. A question about the cake or the flower arrangements or something. But what sort of fake bride consulted her fake groom about their fake wedding the day of the rehearsal dinner?

Still, that didn't stop her from wanting to see him and find out what he was up to. She could come up with something stupid along the way, surely. All that mattered was that she could see him. After she'd made her way up the elevator and through the lobby, she headed toward her office, partially from force of habit and partly because the place soothed her.

There, she'd have a little more time to come up with an excuse. There, she could—

She stepped through the threshold of her door and stopped short.

Her normally pristine desk had one red folder sitting atop it. Even from this distance, she could spy the big, black letters printed across the front

"Confidential."

What girl could pass up a good mystery?

She closed the door behind her, and then sat in her chair, running her fingers over the cover of the folder before opening it.

This could be the break through she and Garret had been working toward. It could all be right here...

She flipped the cover open to find a thick packet of papers held together by a paper clip. The first page was plain enough, but just reading it made her stomach do a back flip.

She read the words over again, making sure it wasn't some bizarro misunderstanding.

C
ASE STUDY 22
-BE7Z

S
ubjects
: Garret Adams (Herby Subject #45G7-0) & Rachael Ford (Hereby Subject #78-BH72)

L
ogically
, there was no reason to be surprised. This had been the deal, hadn't it? She'd filled out all the forms, knowing that they'd be processed and entered into the system.

Still, there was something about seeing their names, put together so coldly and scientifically. Like it was all just some experiment.

Which, in truth, it was.

She flipped past the first few pages. They were all the regular bullshit forms, filled with her own commentary and test results. In fact, it looked standard in nearly everyway.

Except for one thing—this packet had a "Section Two"

She flipped through the pages to find more details, but the more she read, the dryer her throat became. On every page was some new chart or statistic. On the last was a pie chart

"
S
exual positions
by preference"

T
here it was
. Everything they'd done together in the past two weeks. All the numbers crunched and laid out in color-coded slivers.

He had done this himself? Or worse, had he given all this information to someone else to look over?

She checked for a name, but instead found a bunch of coding numbers. There was no way of telling who'd seen the thing and who hadn't.

Perfect.

What was next? Was he about to hook her to some monitors and measure her refractory period or something?

She took the file and slid it into her bottom drawer, then locked it for good measure. The last thing she needed was one of the secretaries to come in looking for a stapler and instead find some steamy bar graphs.

Between her parents' visit and what she'd just read, her dignity had already taken enough of a beating.

The only question was what to do now. She'd see him tonight. It was the rehearsal dinner, after all. She couldn't very well spend all night beside him, pretending she didn't feel hurt and violated.

Like every time he'd slept with her, he couldn't wait to roll over and record the results of their coupling.

Still, what did she have any
right
to say?

"I can't believe you did exactly what you told me you would do? I can't believe you went through with your end of the bargain?"

Sure, sex hadn't been part of it, but if he had access to that sort of data and it could help the company...

She wanted to bang her head against the wall until it cracked down the middle.

There was no right answer here. No way out.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to leave, wait until he got home, and pretend she'd never seen the file to begin with. They didn't need to worry about all this right now; not with the wedding tomorrow.

Yes, that was the right thing to do.

She would just go home and by Sunday, her biggest concerns would be dealt with.

She took a deep breath and strode past the rows of cubicles on her way back to the elevator. Luckily, most everyone was still in a mid-morning meeting, so nobody was around to spot her.

Yep, the place was totally silent save for the giggling of the secretaries in the break room.

As she walked past, though, she caught a snatch of conversation and froze in her tracks.

"I always suspected with their late nights and their early mornings that something was happening, but it has never been so clear before." One of the girls was whispering.

"Stop it, Millie. Garret isn't Brooks. He'd never sleep with an employee without it actually meaning something."

"Yeah, maybe that explains it. She's hardly here for a year and she's promoted three times? The only people I know who work the ladder that quickly are usually working something else."

She should leave. It couldn’t possibly help to listen to the rest of this petty gossip. And that's
exactly
what it was. Petty gossip. It didn't mean anything at all.

So why couldn't she move?

"Some women are just
like
that. They cheat and steal and use their bodies to get what they want. It's a shame for all of us—it makes us all look like sluts." The voice which apparently belonged to Millie
tsk
ed.

A new voice chimed in. "I've been trying to get details out of Natalie for
weeks.
Even after the memo went out, she hasn’t changed her tune."

"That much I believe." Millie laughed.

"What can you expect? The sluts stick together. It's in their code or something." Another woman hissed.

Anger roiled in Rachael's stomach. That was
enough.

It was one thing to talk about her and Garret. They could call her whatever they wanted and disregard all the work she did to get to her place in the company.

But Natalie?

She deserved better than that.

Squaring her shoulders, Rachael stepped around the corner and walked into the break room, trying her best to remain as casual as possible.

"Good morning, ladies." She grinned like they'd all just shouted compliments at her, and then beamed even wider when she spotted the shocked discomfort on their faces.

"How's the coffee today?" she asked, ignoring the pointed silence as she picked up the carafe.

She poured a cup, fixed it, and then took a sip. She could practically hear the gears in their mind whirring, questioning how much she'd heard or if she'd heard anything at all.

"It's a little bitter, I think," she said casually, then poured it down the drain and left her mug in the sink. "Would one of you mind getting that for me? Thanks so much." And with that, she strode from the room, all too aware of their eyes on her retreating back.

It was the perfect exit. So smooth and suave and classy.

Or, at least, it would have been if she hadn’t run straight into Garret’s huge, muscular chest on her way out of the kitchen

He caught her wrist, then released it, his dark eyes widening as he took her in. “Rachael. You were supposed to be—“

“I am. I had a question for you, but it can wait.”

“I have time,” he smiled at her and her stomach twisted.

Wasn’t it bad enough that she had to worry about the contents of that stupid folder? Now he had to look so…so
happy
to see her in front of all these snide bitches?

“I really have to be going. I’ve got to get to the florist and—“

“I’ll help.”

“No.” She knew her words were rushed. Too rushed. His brows knit together in confusion, but before he spoke again, she hurried to beat him to the chase.

“Look, I know you agreed to help and everything, but I think I need some time today to prepare for the wedding and, you know, my family. I’ll see you tonight.”

She wondered for a second if he’d bend down to kiss her here in the office, but before she had a chance to find out, she turned on her heel and bolted for the elevator.

What she’d said had been partially true. She needed time alone to think.

But even alone in the elevator, the only thing she could think about was whether this bargain had been the worst idea she’d ever had.

A
ll through dinner
, Rachael barely looked him in the eye. Even during her mother's passive-aggressive musings about why Garret's family hadn't seen fit to attend the wedding. Even when she'd made mention of how she always thought Rachael would end up with "that nice boy from the international debate team." Even when she'd mentioned Lance.

And that was nothing compared to the cold shoulder she'd given him during the ceremony itself. She'd been beyond frosty, and when he'd asked her about it, she'd simply said there was a lot on her mind.

Right.

After she'd left the office, he'd had an inclination something was wrong, but he thought her ignoring her texts and calls might have been a symptom of exactly how much she had to do.

Now, though?

Now there was no doubt in his mind.

Something was wrong here.

Eliza cut off her mother's speech with a clinking of her champagne flute, and even that didn't bring a smile to Rachael's face.

"Okay, everybody. Those were some great toasts, am I right?" Eliza grinned from the dozing elderly woman at the far end of the table to her passive-looking father.