Close to You (20 page)

She pursed her lips as though she was
thinking about it when, really, on the inside she was doing
cartwheels. Then she nodded again. “Okay, with one
condition.”

“
What?”

“
How do you feel about
sharing desserts in bed?” Struggling not to smile like a loon, she
held out the box she’d brought from the café.

She barely had time to feel exultant
before his lips came down on hers, hard and possessive.

He pulled back. Lifting her into his
arms, he carried her to the bedroom, tossed her on the bed, and
dropped down on top of her.

“
Hey!” She laughed, holding
the box out to the side. “You’ll crush the pastries.”

“
The only thing I want
right now is you.” His left hand speared through her hair, tilting
her head back. He stared into her eyes, his thumb rubbing the nape
of her neck. “I love you, Eve.”

Her heart jumped in her chest. “So I
take it you’re okay with cookies in bed.”

“
I think I can live with
it.” He kissed her again.

Her chest expanded with love, so much
she felt like she was going to burst. “I love you, Treat,” she
murmured against his mouth.

“
I have just one problem,”
he whispered back.

“
What?”

“
Why the hell are you
wearing all these clothes?”

Laughing, she pushed him up and
quickly took off her jacket and shirt.

Whistling, he reached out to trace the
lacy edge of the white bra Olivia had brought for her. He ran a
hand down her throat and over her chest. He covered her heart with
his palm. “You weren’t taking chances.”

“
Wait till you see what’s
under my pants.”

He contemplated her hips and legs.
“Will I regret taking so long to uncover them?”

“
Definitely.”

But he didn’t rush. Instead, he kissed
her again, his fingers pinching her nipples through her bra, until
she was heated all the way down to her bones. She pushed at his
clothes, managing to get rid of his shirt before he distracted her
by nipping her neck with his teeth.

She arched, offering him everything.
“Please.”

He knew what she was asking. He
unzipped her pants and pushed them down. And froze.

Panting, she looked at him. His
attention was riveted by the garter belt that framed her naked
crotch.

“
You don’t have panties
on,” he said simply, running a finger over the thigh highs Olivia
had guaranteed Treat would love.

“
No.”

“
I may have swallowed my
tongue,” he said as he got out of his jeans.

“
That seems unlikely since
you can still talk.”

“
It would definitely be
unfortunate if I had, because then I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
He leaned down and licked deep into her.

Moaning, she clutched his
hair, her legs falling further apart. “Now I’ve swallowed
my
tongue.”

He slid up her body and kissed her
mouth. Reaching for the bedside table, he shook his head. “Your
tongue seems fine too,” he said as he sheathed himself with a
condom and thrust into her.

Eve sighed. “Treat?”

“
Yes?”

“
Love me.”

“
I do,” he said solemnly.
And then he showed her just how much.

Epilogue

He looked good enough to eat, and she
was ravenous.

Eve wanted to tousle his neatly tied
back hair. She wanted to pull his shirt out from his jeans and run
her hands all over his skin. She wanted to nibble at him until he
crushed her to him and engulfed her.

She sighed and wiped the
counter.

Treat must have felt her eyes on him,
because he looked up from his usual table and grinned, that sexy
half-tilt of his lips that made her heart pound.

“
I don’t know what’s
worse,” Allison said, setting down a platter of fresh muffins in
front of her. “How you drooled over Treat before you got together
with him, or how your mind’s in the gutter all the time
now.”

Eve grinned. “You’re just
jealous.”

“
Ain’t that the truth?”
Allison eyed Treat. “You know, if you want to slip in the back with
him, I’ll cover for you.”

“
Allison!” Actually, it
wasn’t a bad idea.

Her barista harrumphed as she pushed
the tray into the glass case. “As if you haven’t thought of
it.”

Since Allison had the bar covered, Eve
went to tidy a table on her way back to check on cookies in the
oven. On her way to the kitchen, an arm snaked around her waist and
tugged her back.

Smiling, she melted into her fiancé’s
embrace.

Treat nuzzled the side of her neck.
“You’re cruel, prancing back and forth in front of me like I don’t
know what you have on under that dress,” he breathed into her ear.
“I think you and Olivia are in cahoots.”

The raspy need in his voice made her
shiver. Her nipples tightened painfully. “I don’t know what you
mean.”

“
Baby, you don’t want to be
taunting me now.”

She could feel him behind her, hard
and getting harder by the second. “You’re insatiable. Didn’t you
get enough this morning?”

He tightened his arm around her. “I’ll
never get enough of you.”

She turned around and pressed a quick,
hard kiss to his mouth. “I love you so much.”

“
I love you,
too.”

She didn’t think she’d ever get tired
of hearing him say that. The words sounded so fervent and full of
meaning coming from him.

And he said them often. Morning, noon,
and night. She moved in with him right after Daniela’s event. He
wanted to marry her right away, but they decided to wait until the
fall—when both their workloads tapered off.

She couldn’t wait till he saw the
lingerie Olivia gave her for their wedding night. Good thing he had
a strong heart.

Margaret had also given them a wedding
gift: two weeks in Tuscany, where she and Grant were currently
traveling. Eve reserved judgment on her future mother-in-law, but
she had to admit the woman was trying hard to make
amends.

Treat pulled her closer. His hand
rested on the small of her back, his fingers tracing the seam of
her panties over her dress. “You sure you can’t take a break? We
can go into the kitchen.”

She laughed and pushed him back. “We
used all the condoms we had stashed in there the last
time.”

“
Damn.” He kissed her, one
of the slow drugging kisses she especially liked. They made her
feel like she was his favorite dessert. “Maybe we can
improvise.”

She flushed. He was a
master at improvisation. And she
was
wearing a dress...

His hand tangled in her hair, tugging
her head back. “When you look at me like that, I can’t control
myself.” He rubbed his groin against her.

“
Careful.” She grinned up
into his eyes. “Any closer to me and we’ll be arrested for public
indecency.”

“
I live to be close to
you.”

She sighed. Life couldn’t get
sweeter.

More Laurel Heights Books
by Kate

From
Perfect for You
(Laurel Heights
#1)...

Graphic designer looking
for hot sex.

Freya Godwin shook her head and
crossed out the sentence. Too blatant. That may be what she was
looking for, but maybe she should be a touch more subtle. She
didn't want every freak in San Francisco to respond to her
ad.

Doodling faceless lovers entwined in
different passionate embraces, she thought about what she really
wanted. Finally she scribbled:

Female web designer
seeking inspiration in order to complete a very important project.
Bring your muse to share.

Lame. Accurate, sure, but it sounded
desperate.

Who was she kidding? She was totally
desperate.

Her office door slammed open.
Flinching, she looked up to find Charles scowling in the
threshold.

Hell. She quickly flipped the notebook
shut. If he knew she was spending her valuable time working on a
personal ad instead of the Sin City redesign, he'd blow a
gasket.

"What the hell is this?" He waved
sheets of paper in the air.

Maybe he'd blow a gasket anyway. "I
can't see the pages with you flapping them around like
that."

He strode into her office and slammed
them on her desk. "Here."

Freya glanced down and mentally
winced. The design was even more white bread than she remembered.
She didn't need Charles to tell her that Sin City wasn't shelling
out the big bucks for white bread—they were paying for buttery
French pastry.

"Well? What the hell is this
crap?"

It was the last throes of a web
designer who hadn't felt an iota of creativity in over a year. But
she just shrugged. "They're some initial ideas I had. They're not
the final mock ups to show the client."

"Damn right, they aren't. If they saw
this"—he stabbed a blunt finger at the printouts—"they'd run out of
the building in horror. This is crap."

"Tell me what you really think,
Charles."

Ignoring her, he braced his hands on
the desk and leaned forward. "Do you understand what a coup it was
for them to choose Evolve to redesign their website and revamp
their branding?"

Yeah, she did. Evolve was well
regarded in San Francisco's competitive web design field, but to
call Sin City hiring Evolve a coup was understating matters. It was
unheard of for a huge corporate entity like Sin City to go outside
the biggie web design firms to a boutique shop like
Evolve.

And Sin City was huge. They were
Amazon and Facebook combined but for all things sexual. Store,
blogs, chats, reviews, live video feeds—you name it. They even had
their own publishing branch that put out several magazines in
addition to a line of erotica for women. Compared to Sin City, the
Playboy empire looked like a business run out of someone's
garage. 

"They didn't just choose Evolve,
Freya." Charles's blue eyes burned with the zeal he was renowned
for among his colleagues. His employees called it The Mania. "They
chose you."

Because of the site she'd designed for
a local sex toy shop two years ago. Back before her creative juices
had dried up. "I understand, Charles."

"I'm not sure you do. If you screw
this up, you're out of here."

Her mouth fell open. It took a couple
tries before she could get any words out. "You can't fire me for
one bombed design."

"I'm the boss. I can do whatever the
hell I want. Especially if one of my employees blows the biggest
opportunity this company has ever had." His eyes sparked with
dollar signs. "This is our opportunity to play with the big boys.
Maybe even go public. I won't let anyone screw it up."

"But—"

"And your work over the past year
hasn't been up to your usual standards. I know Marcus bailed you
out of the Accordiana job," he said bluntly.

She cut off her protest. She couldn't
deny it—Marcus hadn't just helped her out with the design, he'd
taken the crap she'd come up with and turned it into
gold.

"If you can't perform, I can't afford
to keep you. Just because you're Evangeline's best friend doesn't
mean I'm going to make allowances for you."

"I can't lose my job." Her stomach
lurched at the thought.

"Then I suggest you produce a design
they fall in love with." He snapped his suit coat straight and
turned to leave. At the door he looked over his shoulder. "I mean
it, Freya. Fuck this up and you're out of here."

She winced as the door slammed shut.
She couldn't afford to lose her job. It wasn't that she cared about
herself—if she lost her paycheck she'd figure something out. But
she wouldn't be able to support her sister Anna through college,
and that wasn't acceptable. She'd vowed after the fallout from her
parents' accident that Anna would never have to compromise her
dreams like she'd had to. 

That meant she had to produce a
kick-ass design.

In the pit of her stomach she felt a
spasm of worry. She'd been off her game—she'd never felt such an
utter lack of creativity.

She grabbed the notebook and opened it
to her ad. She crossed it out and wrote

Artist in trouble.
HELP.

And from
Return to You
(Laurel
Heights #3)...

"You want me to
what
?"

Everett Parker would have smiled if he
were that kind of man. But he wasn't, so he patiently watched and
waited. He was excellent at waiting, and even better at getting
what he wanted.