Marcus has a new guest, a tough choice, and an overdue conversation.
“Fuck,” Chloe said, taking the words right out of my mouth.
I almost missed hearing it, being in shock myself, but she so rarely swore that I couldn’t help but notice.
“Shakespeare himself couldn’t have said it better,” Psalter said with a note of amusement.
We all remained silent for the next few moments while my brain tried its best to catch up. I took in the oxygen tank and the attached mask… the fact that he was bound so tightly in gear that was clearly meant for kinky sex.
Trust Astrid to add her own little twist.
“He flew all the way from Norway like this, didn’t he?” I finally asked.
“Yes,” Psalter said. He gestured to one of his men. “Royal here is an Army veteran who served as a field medic. It’s not a comprehensive medical examination, but he’s quite sure that Roger is alive and well… just heavily sedated. It will likely be several more hours before he wakes up.”
I finally tore my eyes off my ‘gift’ to look at Royal. “Any guess as to how long?”
“No, sir,” Royal drawled in a deep southern accent. “All signs point to him being knocked by something strong. If I had to guess, he still has at least four hours to sleep it off.”
“What would knock someone out for that long?”
“There are a few drugs out there,” Psalter said. “Probably Prolonine. Prolo isn’t something used in hospitals. It’s a black-market transfer sedative. I’ll let your imagination fill in the details of its primary function.”
Of course the crazy bitch would have drugs designed and used by traffickers.
“Okay,” I said, pulling out my phone. I dialed Emiko, and she picked up on the second ring. “Good afternoon, sir.” Her voice was soft and pleasant, something that probably came as naturally as breathing, honed over years of practice.
“Afternoon, Emiko. You remember that apartment project you did with Helen just before I returned from Europe?”
“I do.”
“Are any of those rooms ready? I have another guest.”
“I’ve had the contractor fit them with the same standard precautions for noise cancellation, and the windows have been replaced with reinforced glass. None of them are RF-secure, and the doors are all operational from both sides.”
“How quickly can we get those changes made?”
“I can have the locks altered within the hour. RF-shielding will take significantly longer… twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“Go ahead and get as much done as you can, please. Schedule the rest.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, seemingly unfazed by the fact that I’d asked her to prepare a prison. One day, I would have to sit down and find out a little more about her.
She continued, “Shall I stock the apartment with amenities? Linens… toilet paper?”
“Yes, please.”
“And how long before our guest arrives?”
I asked Psalter.
“We can have him there within two hours.”
“Two hours,” I told Emiko.
“Of course, sir.”
“Thank you, Emiko.”
I hung up and turned back to Psalter. “Okay. Do whatever you need to do.”
“We’ll fly him in. I assume we can use the roof access?”
“Yeah. Use the outside elevator.”
I glanced at Chloe. “Could you get one of your guys to meet them on the roof in two hours?”
“Yep,” Chloe said, already texting.
I looked back down in the crate. “Does he have a phone with him?”
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one.”
“Astrid probably has it. Still, though, when you get him to his room, get all that shit off him and make sure he doesn’t have something he can communicate with. There won’t be a Faraday cage installed in his apartment for another day or two, so be thorough.”
“Consider it done,” Psalter said.
His men went into action, grabbing the lid and sliding it back into place. One picked up a hammer and started beating nails back in place.
“How do you think Astrid was able to find him?” I said, watching them. “You couldn’t.”
I inwardly winced as soon as I said it. I hadn’t meant it to come out as some kind of accusation—Psalter had been an invaluable part of my team, and I was grateful for his work.
Luckily, he didn’t seem insulted. “February of eighty-six… I saw an eight-year-old win a fishing contest. Hundreds of anglers with combined centuries of experience, and not one of them came close to catching anything close to the monster this young man had. It was uncanny.”
His voice dropped lower, stare becoming glassy as he watched his men secure the crate. “The moral of the story is that no matter how good you are or what kind of bait you use, sometimes the proverbial eight-year-old gets the fish.”
“That's your way of saying she just got lucky?”
He leveled a stern gaze at me. “Astrid Håkansson is a woman of extreme wealth and influence, with a killer’s instinct. A little bit of luck goes a long way when you have the right tools.”
I watched as the men finished securing the crate, trying to decide how best to handle Astrid. I had no idea she would be this much of a complication after we parted ways.
“You fish?” I asked.
“No,” he said, over the sound of them fastening ratchet straps around the crates. “I was working.”
I glanced from the crate to Henry. “Not the kid…”
He met my gaze and laughed as if I’d just asked the most absurd thing ever. “Heavens no! I’m not a monster!”
“Right… sorry.”
He turned his attention back to his men. A heartbeat passed, then he said, “It was the boy’s father.”
*****
Wednesday, October 9th, 4:10 pm
Tara brought an arm up to block my jab and immediately dropped a foot between my feet, closing the distance between us.
In my time learning to fight, I’d realized that with shorter opponents like Tara, distance was my friend. I had longer arms and legs, and if I was on top of my game, I could prevent anyone with a shorter reach from getting close enough to connect a blow. Distance was my friend.
As soon as she stepped in close, I tried to regain my advantage. I backed away instead of bullying her until she backed out of my space. Those few precious moments spent regaining my distance gave her the time she needed to get her shoulder under my arm, grab my wrist in some kind of funky lock I was still trying to learn, and drop to a knee as she rolled me over her back and shoulders.
The crack of my body hitting the mat resounded throughout the gym, and my head reeled.
But not enough for me to lose my grip on Tara’s arm.
My free hand hooked around her neck, and I twisted, flipping her onto her back so that we were in each other’s faces, our bodies splayed in opposite directions on the floor. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get on top of her, but she flipped herself onto her front before I could quite get there. She had just started to get on her hands and knees by the time I jumped on her back.
Now on top of her, I wrapped my arm around her neck and curled a leg around her thigh, trying to force her prone again.
And then my world was rocked as she somehow flipped me over her head, once more landing on my back.
Next thing I knew, Tara was on top of me, straddling my chest as she bared her teeth at me in triumph. My arms were pinned to my sides by her legs as she leaned forward and placed one forearm on the ground just above my head. My face level with her sports bra, I had to look up to meet her gaze. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she grinned down at me, damp ponytail dangling beside her.
Our faces were enticingly close.
“Give up?” she asked.
I could have kept going, but this session had already served its purpose. After discovering Roger VanCamp had been handily delivered to me, I felt a mixture of elation and frustration.
It was almost impossible not to feel some level of happiness at seeing my enemy delivered to me in a nice package, trussed up in a gimp suit. Unfortunately, the fact that it was Astrid who had delivered VanCamp to me on a silver platter sort of spoiled the mood. The last thing I wanted to do was owe her anything, and she’d already messaged me, asking how I’d liked her gift.
I’d needed to expend some energy and had considered looking for Jessica to give her a hard time, but ran into Tara and remembered that I’d gone two days without a workout, so I decided to do this instead.
“Think so,” I panted, tapping the mat.
“Pity,” she said offhandedly, effortlessly popping to her feet. “Rather liked that position.”
She offered me a hand. “You did good, mate. Seemed a bit more murdery than usual.”
I grabbed her hand and let her haul me up, noting how easy it seemed for her. At around six feet and some change, with a decent amount of muscle, I wasn’t exactly light, but Tara was deceptively strong.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“No,” she said. “You weren’t overthinking like you normally do. That’s good. Whatever got you in that mindset, you could use more of it.”
“It’s been a long day, and I’m on edge. It felt good to get some of the aggression out.”
“Sparring’s one good way to get it out,” she said, picking up a water bottle, tilting it back, and squirting generously into her open mouth. I stared.
Any red-blooded, straight male would have.
Then she stepped in close, maintaining just enough distance to stay on the right side of what was socially acceptable. She glanced toward the door and then back at me, handing me the water bottle.
I took a long sip from the bottle between gulps of oxygen, squirting it in the same way, then handed it back to her. “Thanks.”
“No worries.”
She stared at me, fingering the water bottle idly. I met her gaze for a long moment as we stood in the quiet gym… alone.
Eventually, she cast her gaze to the floor and grinned, looking a little shy.
I turned and walked to a rack holding fresh towels. Picking one up, I patted away the excess sweat, staring at her reflection in the mirror that ran along the nearest wall. Her head was still bowed, but her eyes were tracking me.
“Is there something you want to say, Tara?”
“You’ve never hit on me.”
I hadn’t expected that.
I turned around to face her. “You’re kidding.”
She snorted. “No.”
“There’s a really good reason for that.”
“Not your type, then?”
I looked her up and down.
Not her type? Christ, I wanted her from the first time she stepped onto the mat. Her abs looked like they’d been sculpted, her legs were strong enough to pin me down… eyes that obliterated intelligence and left nothing but primordial desire. Tara was a contradiction that fucking worked—ripped and formidable while also effortlessly, aggressively female. Her graceful cupid’s-bow lips and perfect Greek nose… the entire package drove me wild.
As if that wasn’t enough, there were all the other things. The dry wit… her easy manner—she was one of the coolest girls I’d ever met, and everyone wanted to either be her friend or fuck her. Most of the time, both.
She was exactly my type. She was everyone’s type. I was willing to bet that she was the kind of woman to wreck you in the bedroom right before you bring her home to meet your mom. This woman was on par with those throughout history whom men had committed atrocities for.
And now, she was just standing there, asking me why I had never hit on her, and if she were my type. What was my fucking life?
“Eh,” I said with a lopsided grin, shrugging one shoulder. “You’re alright, I guess.”
Tara snorted and grinned. “Cheeky bugger.”
“Seriously, though,” I said. “You said it the first day—you’re not interested in men.”
Her blue/gray eyes simmered. That seemed like her default—some women had resting bitch face. Tara had a resting smolder.
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Did… something change?”
I was confident that I already knew the answer to that question.
Erin. She’d been toying with Tara since the moment the trainer had arrived, while making it clear that no one touched her without me being invited.
When I met Tara, and she confided that she was a staunch lesbian, I thought that would be the end of Erin’s little game.
And then I saw how much Tara wanted my little assistant. After a month of traveling together, catching all the little glimpses Tara threw at Erin… all the flirting, I started to think that Erin just might pull it off. She would bring me an untouchable goddess and lay her at my feet like a proud cat with a fresh kill for its owner.
Was it possible that Tara would sacrifice her sexuality for Erin?
Possibly, but maybe it wasn’t a complete sacrifice after all.
Tara had always been warm to me, but that wasn’t anything special; she was friendly with everyone. Over the past couple of weeks, though, something had shifted. Nothing dramatic. Just… the workouts felt more charged. Some of our contact lingered a little longer.
Subtle enough that I could’ve ignored it and admired her from a distance like almost everyone else.
But now she was asking questions like this.
I waited for an answer that took a ridiculously long time.
“Maybe,” she finally said.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped toward her. Carefully. I didn’t want to cause her any alarm.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Tara swallowed, searching for words.
“I’ve been talking to Erin.”
“I know,” I said.
“Figures…”
“You can just say it, Tara. I’m pretty sure I already know what it is.”
“I want her.”
“You can’t have her. She’s mine.” There was no heat in my words—just a fact.
“She said as much.”
I had to hand it to her… Tara had ‘pretty privilege’ coming out of her ass. She probably got everything she wanted thanks to her looks, talent, and confidence.
And if she didn’t get it, she could probably just beat up whoever had it and take it anyway.
I had a feeling that she’d never come across a situation quite like this. I could tell she was out of her element.
The way she maintained eye contact and kept her stance did her credit.
“Would you be willing to share her?”
“I do all the time.”
“Only if you get to have fun, too, right?”
“That’s a crude way of saying it.”
“It’s true, though,” she said. “Look, I’m not stupid, mate. I knew what Erin’s been doing. Figured it out a couple of weeks after starting.”
I wasn’t going to disrespect her intelligence by asking her what she meant. We both knew.
So I waited for her to continue.
And it took a while.
“I’ve…” she chewed on her lip, unable to finish the sentence.
“You don’t have to,” I said.
She eyed me. “You’d let me, then? With Erin?”
“No.”
I got nothing but a blank stare.
“I’m just saying, you don’t have to do any of this. I can tell Erin to back off, and we can stop this little game.”
Her eyes flickered; it wasn’t quite panic. “No. I don’t want that.”
“And I don’t want you to do anything you’re not interested in doing.”
“But I can’t have her without… you.” Her voice had a note of challenge in it—make it make sense, Marcus.
“We don’t always get everything we want, Tara.”
This time, Tara took a step forward, her gaze dropping from mine. She stared at my chest. “What if… I don’t completely hate the idea?”
I snorted. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
Her eyes flickered back up to mine. “I’ve never… you know.”
Fuck… she was a virgin!? She’d never been with a man!? At all?
Despite feeling my painfully erect cock pulse, part of me wanted to pull the plug on this whole thing immediately. I wanted to tell her just to have fun with Erin. The idea of being her first… male—it was heavy.
But I didn’t. For one thing, it would take Erin a long time to forgive me if I did.
And I didn’t want to.
I fucking wanted this woman. Erin and I both did.
And if I couldn’t have her, then she couldn’t have Erin.
“Never?”
Tara shook her head. “Never found a bloke I liked enough.”
She took another step toward me, stopping just out of reach. “I think I could see it with you, though.”
She was giving me permission.
And God… I wanted to take it.
But I liked Tara. I didn’t want to risk things becoming awkward.
“I’m not interested in being a chore, Tara. The only way this would ever happen is if you were at least interested.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.
“I’m not asking you to suddenly be wildly attracted to men, but if you’re genuinely interested in trying…”
She studied me for a long moment, then said, “Yeah. I—”
“Oh!” came a new voice. “Am I interrupting!?”
As if speaking her name so many times had summoned her like some kind of succubus, Erin entered the gym, stopping halfway through the door to stare at us, her beautiful, dark eyes wide as they bounced back and forth between us.
For a brief moment, Tara looked like a startled bird about to take flight. Then she composed herself. “Nope! Just finishing up a li’l afternoon sparing match!”
“Really?” Erin said, her demeanor melting into something much more feline… as if she’d just caught two mice with nowhere to run. “It looks like I interrupted something.”
“Tara and I were just talking.”
I decided I’d let Tara leave. She needed some space to process the possibility of taking cock for the first time in her twenty-six years of lesbian life. I wasn’t letting her get away unscathed, though. “It was about you.”
Erin grinned her Cheshire grin and put her hand to her chest, taking a couple of steps into the room. “Moi!? Whatever could you have to say about me?”
“Tara,” I asked, “would you excuse us? Erin and I have a few things to discuss.”
My trainer glanced at me, then back at Erin. She looked hesitant to leave, seeing as we were clearly about to have a conversation that very much involved her. At the same time, I could still sense that nervousness within her.
“No problem,” she finally said, grabbing a towel from the rack. “Think I’ll hit the showers.”
She slowed next to Erin, giving her a meaningful look. Then she glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Talk to you later?”
“Count on it,” I said.
And then she disappeared out the door.
Erin’s gaze followed the trainer out into the hall, and she poked her head outside, continuing to give the other woman a long appreciative stare. Then she turned around and leaned against the door until it clicked shut. The look of pure hunger in her eyes threatened to vaporize me on the spot.
I started to say, “She asked me—”
Erin snarled and launched herself at me, leaping into my arms and wrapping her slender legs around my waist. She threatened to bruise my lips with the ferocity of her kiss. Her tongue swiped at my tonsils, and she was practically purring.
After what felt like an eternity of making out, she pulled back, her fingers curled around fistfuls of my hair as she stared at me, grinning with a feral look in her eyes. “Please tell me it’s happening. I’m going to go fucking insane if I have to wait much longer.”
Wrapping my arms tight around her waist, I pulled her more firmly against me, rubbing my aching cock against the furnace between her thighs. She growled low, grinding back against me.
“She said she wanted to try.”
“Yesssss,” Erin hissed, squirming in my grasp. “When?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t know! You fucking interrupted us!”
She looked mock-offended and used her grip on my hair to shake my head back and forth. “I didn’t know you were fucking seducing her! Send me a goddamned text next time!”
Grabbing a fistful of her silver hair, I pulled her head back to me and made out with her some more.
“God,” she breathed between kisses. “I’m going to climb you both like fucking trees.”
She bit down on my bottom lip, tugged, and let go with a growl. “Just try and stop me.”
I grabbed a handful of her tiny ass. “Like I’d even want to.”
That continued for a while, our makeout session accompanied by a healthy amount of dry humping. Her hands wouldn’t stop running over my shoulders, arms, and back in my hair, where she grabbed more fistfuls to keep my lips from escaping hers.
And then her phone buzzed.
She growled in frustration and reluctantly pulled away. “I have to get this.”
“No,” I said, leaning in and running my lips up the side of her neck. “I’m your boss. Don’t you dare fucking stop.”
“Ugh… Marcus… I have to. It might be… Sachiko.”
My libido suddenly took a plunge in proverbial ice water as I remembered the whole Tanaka situation.
“Fuck,” I muttered, letting my little hellcat slip from my grasp.
She quickly pulled out her phone. “Yeah. It’s Sachiko.”
Sighing, I dropped onto the bench and waited while my assistant spent the next few minutes pacing around the gym, giving me half a conversation to eavesdrop on. Between the “yeah’s,” the “mmhmm’s,” and the clipped affirmatives, I gathered that Erin wouldn’t be sticking around. The lawyers had follow-ups, and Vikram apparently needed backup.
Once she hung up the phone, she looked at me, the longing in her eyes reflecting how I felt.
I held up my fingers, index and thumb roughly a quarter inch apart. “I’m about this close to finding a replacement, firing you, and then chaining you to my bed.”
“Oh, fuck,” Erin groaned. “You can’t say things like that when I have to leave.”
“I miss you.”
She gave me a pleased little smile. “I miss you too.”
“Friday,” I said.
“Friday?”
“Our date. I’m staking a claim on Friday.”
Erin glanced at her phone. “I’ll need to check with—”
“Nope,” I said. “Friday.”
She smiled, but for a second, her defenses dropped, and her exhaustion bled through. I wanted to tell her to ignore Vikram and get some sleep, but at the same time, if she was cutting our little tryst short, it had to be for a damn good reason.
I sighed and dragged myself to my feet. “I’m sorry I did this to all of you.”
“No,” Erin said. “This is a good idea. It’s just…”
“A lot.” I nodded. “I know.”
I wrapped an arm around her small waist and pulled her tight against me. “As soon as we can, we’re getting away from all this for a while.”
“Mmm,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist and hugging me tight. “Can’t wait.”
Erin and I had always been affectionate with each other, but here, in this moment… it felt more. It was probably because we hadn’t seen as much of each other over the last week or two. I guess, when it came to Erin, absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
“They’re getting a car out front. Walk with me? I want to hear all about Astrid. And I heard there was a package that security had removed? Did someone try to blow us up?”
“Oh god,” I said, and arm-in-arm, we left the gym and made our way to the lobby. On the way, I filled Erin in on everything—Astrid’s use of Natalie to get close to me, the package delivered to my apartment, visiting Natalie after, and of course, meeting with Psalter to discover what the package really contained.
By the time I finished my story, Erin and I were on the ground floor. John was with us, assigned to escort Erin to the office where Tanaka’s army of nerds, along with Vikram, awaited her presence.
Erin was blown away. “Roger VanCamp is…”
“Probably Ryo’s neighbor by now,” I confirmed. “They’re supposed to notify me when he’s awake.”
“Oh my god. What are you going to do?”
I felt the stress begin to seep back into my shoulders. “Damn, Erin… I don’t know! Astrid gave me an ultimatum, and I can’t ignore it.”
“You don’t think it was just an offhand comment? Maybe she was teasing you.” Erin said.
“I doubt Astrid does much of anything off-hand. She knows what she’s doing. If I return him, she’s gone. If I keep him, she assumes that we’re at least okay enough for her to stick around.”
“And possibly get involved in VistaVision?”
I nodded. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“You can’t let her anywhere near this deal, Marcus.”
“I know…”
Wincing at how loud I’d said that, I glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. Then, in a lower voice, “I know that, but what do you think she’s going to do if I turn down a much better offer from her?”
“You said she knows why you’re doing it. It’s an attempt at peace. Makes sense to me why you’d turn it down.”
“I’d be willing to bet dollars to pocket lint that won’t satisfy Astrid. She’s just going to start sniffing around, looking for a way to get what she wants. That’s the last thing we need.”
“We’re fooling Tanaka and his people. There’s no reason to think Astrid will be able to find anything.”
“You want to bet all our futures on that, Erin?”
Erin glanced out to see her car sitting outside the door. “I’ve got to go. What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t want to let Roger go. At least, not without talking to him first.” I held up my phone. “But Astrid is waiting for my answer.”
My assistant sighed and glanced out the window. “Okay… but there’s one other person you should consult.”
I nodded. “I know.”
And she was right.
There was no way I could make this decision without talking to Helen.
*****
Twenty minutes later, I tried ringing Helen again but got no response. According to—well, everyone—she was still at VistaVision headquarters with Chandler, going through Emmanuel’s list of concerns. She’d even mentioned that they would be getting Chinese food, which probably meant she’d be at it till late.
Usually, she didn’t take this long to get back to me.
Not that I could blame her. She had a lot of responsibility right now, and she wore her burdens much differently than Erin. While my assistant was all sunshine and mischief, even when she was stressed, Helen could go full The Devil Wears Prada—focused and relentless. I couldn’t begrudge her a little tunnel vision.
I pulled up Astrid’s most recent message, sent ten minutes ago—I’m getting tired of being ignored, Marcus.
Sighing, I tried Chandler but got the same answer—none.
Damn it… I needed to tell Astrid something.
Of course, she knew what she was doing. She knew that I would want to talk to Roger, and she’d drugged the man enough to ensure he wouldn’t wake before she demanded an answer from me.
I’d asked Psalter about shooting him up with adrenaline… something to wake him up faster, but apparently that was risky. He assured me that it was best to let the drug run its course.
I hated to admit it, but the woman was clever.
And I needed to make a call.
Should I give Roger back to that fucking harpy and risk never seeing him again? Or should I keep him, possibly get some good information and a little catharsis, but risk dealing with the wild card that was Astrid Håkansson?
Decisions, decisions…
My phone buzzed again—another message from Astrid.
Marcus, I don’t want to deal with Hiro. Having his son try to kill me makes doing business very awkward, but I’ll do what I must.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” I groaned. “Fuck. You. Bitch!”
I dialed her.
She picked up before the first ring even finished. “Marcus!”
“Hey, Astrid!”
“I’m glad you called!”
“I’m sure you did.”
There was a pause on the line.
“Well?”
“Well?” I repeated.
“Did you like my present?”
I hesitated. Could Roger really know all that much that I didn’t already know? I mean, I had a pretty reasonable suspicion that Hiro and Amber had worked with Roger to have me kidnapped.
But what if I was wrong?
“Marcus?” Astrid asked.
“I loved your present. Thank you.”
I could practically hear her vulpine smile. “Then you’re going to keep it!?”
“Yep,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, good! We should get together soon! I’d love to talk more with you about VistaVision. I have some good ideas of how we might resolve this feud with Hiro while still leaving you with a respectable amount of VistaVision.”
“I’m…”
“I could come to you, if you like,” Astrid said.
“Erin’s out. I’ll check with her to see what my day looks like.”
“Wonderful! I can’t wait!” Her voice dropped into a husk. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
Wanna bet?
“Talk to you tomorrow,” I said and hung up.
I sighed, hoping that I didn’t come to regret that decision.
My stomach interrupted those thoughts by announcing it was empty, which reminded me that Helen and Chandler would be eating Chinese food soon. I also needed food.
And a good fuck—Erin had left me wanting.
So, I left my study and made my way to the kitchen to see what I could find, mulling over everything as I made my way from my study to the kitchen.
Sure enough, the kitchen had just about everything I could have wanted—several containers of leftovers inside one of the multiple fridges and more snacks to choose from than I had any right to. I had just narrowed it down to either some braised short rib or some deviled quail eggs when I heard a startled noise behind me. I pulled my head out of the fridge and turned around to see Camille just shutting the door behind her, already getting over the surprise of finding me in here.
“Monsieur Upton!” She said with a pleasant smile. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“Yeah. It’s a little early for dinner, but I was looking for something to snack on.”
“I wish you had called me, sir. I would have prepared something for you.”
“No need,” I said, leaning against the fridge. “I needed the distraction.”
She glanced at the fridge and then back at me, her face a neutral mask. “A distraction? I hope everything is alright.”
“Yeah. Just… a lot on my mind.”
Camille looked me up and down, one corner of her lips curling upward as the look in her eyes grew… predatory was the only word I could think of.
“The house seems a little emptier than usual. Perhaps you could use some company?”
The word ‘company’ was dripping with implication.
“I…”
I’d said it before, and I’ll say it again—Camille was a fine-looking woman. A touch broader in the shoulders and hips than most of the others… thicker, with a just a little more padding. Of course, that meant everything was thicker. The woman’s ass looked amazing in tight pants, and she always managed to show off a generous amount of creamy cleavage in those low-cut blouses.
She’d offered things before.
Even though she was engaged.
According to her, though, that didn’t matter. According to her, William was the kind of man who didn’t mind his fiancée having an occasional dalliance outside the relationship.
I took in her big, storm-gray eyes… soft skin—those lips, ever so slightly bee-stung.
Thanks to Tara and Erin, I was still highly aroused.
And she did say that William was okay with it.
Fuck… was I really thinking about doing this?
“I… don’t know if that’s a good idea, Camille.”
She didn’t respond.
Instead, she approached me until her large, pillowy breasts brushed against my chest. She reached up and ran a hand across my cheek. It was surprisingly soft for a professional chef.
Her eyes were huge, framed by soft brown hair that hung loose around her lovely, heart-shaped face.
She raised herself to her toes, her plush lips drifting over mine. I let them meet in one of the softest kisses I’d ever exchanged. They did little more than brush each other… and then backed off so we could look each other in the eyes.
“I think it is a wonderful idea,” she murmured.
My eyes bounced from her beautiful eyes, to her lips, to her bountiful cleavage. Rational thought was slipping away.
Helen and Erin were gone. None of the others were available.
I could go get Bobbi.
But while she obeyed, she wasn’t this… warm, welcoming, and inviting.
There was Jess, but Emiko had told me that I shouldn’t have that kind of sexual relationship with my ex.
Camille was here. Now. She wanted this, and she was uncomplicated.
No… there was complication. She was engaged.
But he didn’t even care.
“I am going back to my apartment,” Camille said. “I think… I might slip into something a bit more comfortable. If you are still looking for a distraction, you know where to find me, sir.”
Her index finger circled my chin before running across my lips. Then she pressed it to her own lovely mouth and kissed it. She offered me another sultry smile and then turned around to leave.
Leaving me with nothing but a different kind of hunger.
And the capacity to make some potentially bad choices.