Suite 269 (11 page)

H
e's late
. It was probably the eleventy-hundredth time I checked my watch. We'd been drinking and talking for an hour. I sat there and moped with Mandy and Leslie with their fruity martinis and Frank and Thomas with their shots of Tequila. Frank with his hands on my shoulders, pecking kisses on my cheek, telling me I looked incredibly beautiful to him.
Men are all idiots
. Especially
taken
ones.

Then James and Evan walked in. He'd changed out of his suit into a pair of faded jeans and a fitted t-shirt. He was one of those men that didn’t walk—he sauntered. Confidence and power followed him. He was captivating and alluring. And I needed to remember he was one of my bosses and forget he’d given me the most heated kissed I’d ever had in my life.

Stop. Don’t think about it
.

Everything beneath my waist ignored my pleas and started throbbing immediately. I couldn’t blame my girl parts—they’d been underappreciated for so long.

The minute he made it to our table, Mandy blurted out, "God, you're gorgeous. How do you not want to touch yourself all the time?"

"That's exactly what I think about most women!" Evan barked, sliding into the seat next to Mandy, completely undressing her with his pervy eyes. "And my God, are you beautiful. What are you drinking?"

"Watermelon martini," she smiled, eye-undressing him right back. I fanned myself and wiggled uncomfortably in my seat. It was as if someone turned on the mating season episode on the Discovery channel.

Evan snapped his fingers in Thomas's face. "Thomas! Thomas? Here's some cash," he threw a hundred dollar bill down in front of him. "Go get another round. Be gone man. Be gone!"

"Evan Peterson! Do you think you can charm me into bed with your smooth talking, your good looks, and free martinis?” Mandy teased, flipping her hair behind her.

“Definitely,” he smirked.

“Then you sir, are in for the night of your life."

"Marry me?" Evan laughed, hanging his hand over the back of her chair. Ew, what a creep.

Everyone seated at the table did a collective eye roll. Funniest synchronization I’d ever seen.

"Hey," James said quietly, sitting down next to me. "Sorry we got here so late. Evan is more of a girl than any girl I have ever met." He slid close to me and the warmth radiating off his body sent a shiver across my shoulders. “Took him an hour to get his hair
perfect
.”

On my other side, Frank moved closer to me as well—which was all sorts of awkward, since I’m friends with the girl he is dating and he’d been acting like a horndog since we all arrived. “Do you need another drink, Lex?”

“Nope. I’m good thanks,” I clipped. Then his knee bumped into my knee, which made me move closer to James, and
that
made me almost burst into flames. Flashes of being the main character in a ménage à trois man-sandwich between the two of them zipped through my brain. I might have even exhaled one of those breathy porno gasp-moans. Okay, there was no might about it—I did it. It was all breathy and raspy and every person at the table turned their heads to look at me.

I waved to all of them.

“Now
that
looks like a yummy man-sandwich,” Mandy teased from her seat with a wink.

I know, right?
Thank God, I hadn’t drunk enough to say it aloud. But I sure was thinking it.

“Hey, Holt? She needs to loosen up and find someone who will teach her how to forget her cheating ass of an ex. Someone with a way bigger dick then Trager the Mailroom guy,” Mandy drunkenly yelled across the table. I loaded my mouth full of tortilla chips and salsa from the table so I didn’t have to say anything. But in my head, I was plotting one thousand and one ways to kill my best friend without getting caught. He laughed as if she didn’t just say the most humiliating thing ever, thank God.

“Are you mad at me?” His voice was husky and low, and extremely close to my ear.

I almost choked on the chips.
Dying by chips, that’s so something I would do
. I sighed and leaned closer to him so no one else would hear. “I’m more upset about your father never giving me,
the lowly fact checker
, a chance to speak.”

I felt his hand move to lean on the edge of my chair. The motion brought his thumb to my knee and I felt him touch me lightly. “The magazine is dying. We’re thinking of pulling it.” He crunched on a chip, and how in all that is good and holy did he make it look so sensual? It’s a chip. Annnnd, I think his thumb was making circles on my skin. Yep, there was inappropriate but very much wanted under the table knee touching action going down.

“I love the magazine. I loved your mother’s goals for it. It was snarky and fun and edgy. I’d hate to see it fail,” I said.

The thumb circling stopped and he reached for more chips. Some salsa got on his finger and he licked it off.
I wanted to be a chip. I wanted to be his fingers. What was wrong with me?

“My mother would have wanted us to fight more for it,” he said.

“Yeah. She would have. And she also would have listened to ideas from lowly fact checkers,” I smirked and crossed my arms over my chest.

“You knew my mother?” he asked, leaning in even closer.

“We used to have lunch every Friday before she became sick,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders—it’s not something that someone like him would have known about. I was never on his radar and he was never on mine.

The way his eyes darted up to mine—the intense gaze he gave me spread a fire over my face and down my neck.
You’re so hot… Can I put my vagina on your face, just for a little bit?
Ordering seltzer water for the rest of the night sounded like a good plan to keep my mouth safe from spewing the wrong things.

“You two should just kiss. You look like you desperately want to…” Mandy started yelling.

“Boss!” I hissed at her across the table. “Mind your own vagina and deal with Pervy Pants Peterson over there.”

I rubbed my hands down my face and looked back up at Jameson. “I’m so sorry; she should come with a WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.” I swiped another chip into the salsa jar and shoved it in my mouth.
I’m eating so much my hand is going to get stuck in the jar of salsa and I'm just going leave it in there
.
This is who I am now. I'm tired of fighting it
.

He shifted toward me; both his hands leaned heavily on the edge of my chair with both his thumbs touching the bare skin of my knees. His eyes were staring at my lips and all I wanted was for him to slide those hot hands up my legs and spread my thighs wide. Pin me down with his knees and do
stuff
.

I felt a sharp poke in my back and whirled my head around to see what was going on behind me. Frank nudged me and pointed a finger to the door.

Night ruined. Sophia had just walked in with a bunch of others suits from the office, including Kevin.
Ugh. This bar just got trashy
. Frank rubbed my arm and whispered in my ear, “Come on, let me get you out of here. I’ll drop you off at home, beautiful.”

“Yeah. I guess so. Let me just use the restroom and we can go,” I answered with a sigh.

Mandy looked up from Evan's gaze. "What, you're leaving? Really? Now?"

I nodded my head toward the door and stood up. “Yeah. Going to hit the restroom
alone
and then go. I don’t feel up to
that
tonight.” I slid my purse off the table without looking at anyone and walked to the back of the crowded bar where the bathrooms were. I didn’t really need to go. I just needed a minute—maybe splash some water on my face or something. It was humiliating enough to be cheated on right before your wedding—seeing them together and her smug look of triumph wasn’t something I wanted to give her power over. So I pressed cold water on the back of my neck for five minutes to gain enough sense to go back out there and deal with whatever they would try to mortify me with.

As soon as I exited the bathroom, a large, warm body had me pressed into the wall. Jameson’s face dipped into the curve of my neck and his hot breath wrecked havoc against my ear. "You're going home with someone else?" his voice was nothing but a deep, hungry growl.

“It’s Frank. I’m not going
home
with him. He’s just going to drop….”

“There’s no way I’m letting you leave with him,” he growled, again. What’s with all the growling?

“Fuck you. Fuck you and him and her. I can leave this bar with anybody I want to. What if I want to be just like the rest of you and not care where my vagina wakes up for once? I want to not care and just have fun, just do something wild, like he said I never did, the reasons he screwed someone else behind my back.”
Well, there went some more verbal vomit I was always trying to filter
.

“Is that what you want? Tell me want you want,” he demanded, leaning his body way too inappropriately close for a boss to be.

I tried to lift my arms to push him off me, but the minute my hands touched his chest they had a mind of their own, gripping onto his shirt and pulling him closer. “What is it
you
want?” I asked him back.

“You, I just want you.” His face brushed against mine, his cheek to mine, and his hands fell heavily to my waist. Fingers dug into my skirt, pressing into my hips and holding me tighter against the wall.

“Tell me what you need, Lex.”

More unfiltered babble started pouring out of the giant, gaping hole in my face. “This morning I walked into the fucking lounge where your ex was dry humping mine after he spent the night on the phone trying to tell me how sorry he was,
again
. How we should still get married, because he still loves me.” It was so stupid to still be harping about. So stupid. I didn’t want to be faced with it anymore and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I slid my sweaty palms down my skirt then back to his shirt and just looked at him. He was so close and he was so handsome, I just couldn’t hold back. “And you know what? That kiss between us, Jameson? That KISS? It had me asking myself who the hell Trager was. I'm being a total emotion whore with you, telling you everything. And, God, James, that kiss?"

"Confession time," he breathed, trembling. Oh, my good God, the man was trembling.

"Yeah, what's that?" I whispered, hands gripping firmer, wetting my lips with my tongue.

"I'm glad Trager didn't know what he had," he whispered, brushing his nose against mine.

"I'm glad, too."

"Life is chock full of surprises, isn't it?" His lips brushed over the corner of mine. They weren’t touching me—no they were breathing me in, hovering over me, driving me so absolutely insane I had to squeeze my thighs together.

"What are you thinking about now?" I asked. I wanted to know. I had to know.

“You, I find myself always thinking about you.” His lips gently touched down in the corner of mine and my knees weakened. “Did you really care when you saw them together this morning?”

“No,” I sighed without hesitation.

“So what have you decided to do? I find that singles ad on your desk. I haven’t seen anything about a cancelled wedding.”

“It’s five days before my so called wedding. I decided I'm still having it.”

He pressed me up against the wall harder. “I won't let you marry him.”

“Oh, he won't be there. I've decided since I still have to pay for everything, the party will go on and I'm renaming it a
The Dress was Perfect, but the Groom Wasn’t
party. Then I'm leaving him here and going on my honeymoon all by myself.”

“You’re amazing,” he whispered. Then he tugged me back into the crowded bar and sat me on a bar stool, cupping my face in his hands. “I'm going to your party. I'm going to dance with you. Then, Lex, I'm coming on that honeymoon with you. How long was it for and where?”

“Three weeks, in Jamaica,” I said stunned.

“Three weeks. Three weeks we will lock each other in that honeymoon suite and we play out every one of your fantasies. No rules. Anything you want to try, we try. No feeling ashamed or insecure. Then we come back here and pretend nothing happened. You want to experiment and find yourself. I want to fuck you like I've never wanted to fuck anyone before.”

“Y…you want to be with m…me?” I stammered.

“There isn't one person in this world right now that I want more than you.” He slid in between my thighs and lifted my face to his. “Lex, I’ve been walking around with your panties in my pocket since you tossed them at me. Just the scent of them makes me hard. Tell me your fantasies.”

“F…fantasies?”

“Yeah, like we talked about on the plane. Ever walk down the street, watch people and wonder what they do when they’re alone or with their significant others. What are their preferences, what do they like, get off on, what are their fantasies?” His fingers slid slowly down my cheeks and neck, then slid around and twisted into my hair. He tugged back on the strands, pulling my face up closer to his and a rush of heat shot through the center of my body. “Everyone has fantasies. When someone is inside you, you’re thinking of something, most people never tell though—just like you said. Maybe they’re too embarrassed by it, maybe they think whatever it is people will think it’s wrong, maybe they even think it’s wrong, it’s so hard to be yourself, so hard to understand the thoughts and emotions that are going on inside your mind at those moments of pleasure.” He moved in closer and nipped at the bottom of my chin. “Imagine being with someone that never looks differently at you when you tell them your secrets, imagine feeling so comfortable with someone that you can be true to yourself and your demons. The sex must be mind-blowing. So tell me, Lex, what’s your fantasy?”

“Right now, climbing onto your lap and feeling your tongue in my mouth.” I covered my hands over my face and groaned—mortified about what I’d said.

He peeled my fingers off my face and threaded his fingers in mine. “I want that too.”

“How long have you been thinking of this?” I asked.