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And he did, gloriously, his head bowing back into the mattress as he screamed.
When my orgasm hit, I vaguely noted the hot scent of it in my nose, the wet heat spilling over my hand, and the tortured groan leaving his throat and entering mine, but I was gasping so hard that black spots painted the edges of my vision. Almost like I was still wearing my damn mask. A happy, humming noise swelled in my brain, and it took several seconds for me to realize that the sound wasn’t coming from inside me but from merrymakers singing in the hall and possibly from cheering on the street far below us.
The old year was over. A new one had begun.
I stared down at Reagan Wellbridge as I fought to catch my breath. His eyes were blown wide with shock, the aquamarine clear and warm as the Caribbean. His hair was a damp, tangled mess, and his fingertips still bit into my back and shoulders where he gripped me. “Oh.” His words came out on a shuddering breath. “Oh, fuck.”
I’m not done with him yet, I decided immediately. Not yet. I’d already breached the rules of propriety and professionalism to have this one night, and while the year might have ended, technically, the night was far from over, which meant…
Which meant nothing, damn it. Having a full-on argument with myself was a new low, especially when I knew the truth, regardless of my base desires.
This shouldn’t have happened.
I didn’t say the words out loud—I wasn’t that much of an asshole—but Reagan seemed to read them on my face. His eyelids closed for a beat, shutting the aquamarine away from view, and when he opened them again, their warmth was gone. He threw me a bright, careless grin. “One and done, eh? Dude, I get it. This was fun, but… eesh.” He nudged me off him and scrambled to sit at the edge of the bed, so all I could see was his muscular back. “Jesus. Brantleigh’s dad. Fuck me,” he murmured with a forced chuckle.
What the actual fuck?
“It’s weird because of my son?”
“Among other things.” Reagan didn’t turn to face me but reached down to pluck his boxer briefs from the pile of discarded clothing on the floor. His voice was low but firm. “So, as far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”
It should not have made me so irrationally angry to hear him echo my own thoughts, but something about his dismissive tone got under my skin, and I found myself saying, “Like hell it didn’t. My cum is still all over you. It happened, Reagan. This. Happened.”
For fuck’s sake, Thatcher, why not just flat-out ask for a sexual harassment suit?
“Nope. Sorry to break it to you, but there are some things in life you don’t control, and you don’t get to have a tantrum about them.” Reagan wiped his abs with a corner of the sheet, then stood and slid his underwear over his perfect pale ass… an ass I still ached to get my hands on. “I recall nothing. Therefore, nothing happened.”
Jesus Christ, he was provoking. I opened my mouth to argue with him (obviously, there were things in life I couldn’t control, or else we wouldn’t fucking be in this predicament) or possibly kiss him into submission (because apparently, I wasn’t done being stupid on any level), but my phone chose that moment to ring. Very few people had this number: Brantleigh and his mother, my driver, and my most trusted lieutenants at Pennington Industries. None of them would be calling after midnight on New Year’s Eve for anything less than a grave emergency.
“Don’t move,” I growled, reaching for my phone and accepting the call. Regardless of who was on the line, Reagan and I needed to get a few things settled. “What?” I barked into the phone.
January’s voice came over the line, and I could tell right away she wasn’t happy at having her night interrupted. “Thatcher, we have a problem. Nova Davidson crashed her car into a tree after leaving a New Year’s Eve party?—”
“Who? One of our employees?” I demanded.
“No. Sorry. I forgot you don’t follow pop culture.” January took a breath. “Nova Davidson is an up-and-coming musician with a large social media following,” she explained. “Paparazzi videotaped her crash and subsequent arrest for driving under the influence a couple of hours ago, and it’s already gone viral.” She hesitated. “In it, she’s wearing an Elustre T-shirt.”
“How?” Elustre was a brand-new fabric conceived by PennCo Fiber, one of Pennington Industries’ subsidiaries. After years of research and development, the PennCo Fiber team had found a way to manufacture a soft, durable material entirely of recycled plant material, with a true four-way stretch that made it unique among the sustainable fabrics currently on the market.
Compared to the other Pennington Industries’ subsidiaries, PennCo Fiber was relatively small. More of a plodding workhorse than a powerhouse of innovation. But I’d sat in on enough meetings to know Elustre had the potential to change all of that. Once it was released to the public, it would quickly become a household name, much the way spandex had decades before. Five years from now, everyone’s workout gear would be made of Elustre.
But for now, the entire concept was a secret known only to PennCo and our partners. So how the hell had a celebrity gotten hold of it?
“I don’t know yet,” January admitted. “Layla’s going to pull together the PennCo team and get working on crisis response. I just wanted to make sure you heard about it before you see it on social media or the news.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible when it’s not public yet, thus not recognizable in a photo,” I said, trying not to be distracted by the way Reagan buttoned his tuxedo shirt while the dim light picked out golden glints in his hair.
She sighed. “Because somehow, it has a giant slogan on the front that says ‘Elustre: Sponsor of Your New Year’s Resolutions’ along with our brand logo. And the entire world has seen it, Thatcher. Which means that now, instead of associating Elustre with working out and crushing your goals, people will associate it with seriously poor choices. It’s a public relations nightmare.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, running a hand over my jaw and missing the rasp of my beard. “Fuck. Explain to me how this happened.”
Reagan finished pulling on his tuxedo pants and narrowed his eyes at me in concern. I turned away.
“I think you should be in Layla’s meeting, Thatcher,” January advised. “You’ll need to take an active leadership role in the company’s response.”
“Agreed,” I muttered. “I’ll be there.”
After ending the call, I turned back to Reagan, but he held up a hand before I could speak. “Look, I have no idea what’s going on, but you’ve got shit to do, so?—”
