Page 46 of The Beat Match

His fingers dug into her scalp, pressed her face closer to his erection. The ache between her thighs flared into a bonfire. She was anchored against the couch, awkward, her hot breath brushing his fly. She wriggled to get some kind of friction between her legs, a bit of relief.

He groaned. “Fuck, Annie. Fuck.”

His fingers jammed harder into her hair. His hips bucked. Then he jumped to his feet, sending her flying. Her shoulder smacked the coffee table as she hit the floor.

“Shit, Annie. You okay?”

He knelt down and tried to help her up. The effort involved her knee hitting the table again and both of them twisting uncomfortably. By the time they stood, he was panting. She bit her lip, and he stared at her mouth. A feral quality in his aqua eyes made them look more raging sea than calm waters, but he turned abruptly and adjusted himself in his pants.

“You were dreaming about me,” she blurted. Whatever his relationship status, she couldn’t ignore this. Wouldn’t. That moment of abandon, however subconscious, proved she wasn’t alone in her feelings.

“No, I wasn’t.” Still with his back to her.

“You said my name.”

“You must have heard wrong.”

She swallowed a growl. Going along with his denial would be the easy path. The expected Annie path. She was done with easy. “Interesting theory, but I specifically remember hearing you say, Annie. Oh, fuck, Annie, as you tried to hump my cheek. So I’d say you’re the one who’s having memory gaps.”

He swore, dropped his head forward. His turmoil was potent. She wanted to help, not hurt. She wanted answers more.

She pressed her hand to his straining back muscles, felt them tense then release. “I’m not sure what’s going on with Rosanna, how serious things are, but I know you’ve lied to me a couple times. Told me you were seeing her, then I’d see pictures of her out on her own those nights.” Stalker alert, but she was past the point of caring. “I think you’re trying to keep your distance from me.”

Her hand rose with his deep inhale, but it didn’t lower. He was holding his breath and his words. The guy was whip-smart when heading Aldrich Pharma, a genius who could schmooze a pack of wolves. With her, these days, he was all broody silence.

She’d have to be the brave one. The honest one. The one willing to put it all on the line and possibly lose. She hoped she wasn’t about to lose. “I’m taking a major plank-walk here, but…I think about you all the time. It started before I knew you were the one who kissed me, and it obviously skyrocketed after that. And the angsty scrapbooking? My recent efforts have been out of jealousy. Seeing you with Rosanna has been crazy hard. And I can’t even believe I’m saying this stuff out loud, but I’m tired of pretending I don’t have feelings for you. Real feelings. Not just lusty thoughts, which are totally there, too.”

Seriously? Lusty thoughts? She needed a cure for her foot-in-mouth syndrome. “What I’m saying is this is scary and confusing for me, but also kind of exciting. We know each other so well, all the good and bad, and our love of music is special. We could rock a stage together, which isn’t the point here. I know we fight like cats and dogs, or in our case rabbit-squirrels and mutant jaguar-squirrels, but if you give this—give us—a chance, I think we could be epic.”

His back was still turned. She tried to catch her erratic breath, kind of wished she could shove that deluge back into her mouth as she waited and waited, wobbly on her unsteady legs, her heart beating in her throat. He remained mute. Deathly still. Like he’d fallen asleep on his feet. Had she misread him? A dream was only a dream, after all. Not real. He wasn’t facing her, claiming her, telling her Rosanna had been a distraction to keep him from what he truly wanted.

His silence should be answer enough, but she was tired of hoping. One hard punch was better than a thousand slaps. “Tell me you want Rosanna, not me, and I won’t bring it up again. We’ll get back to our normal, whatever that is. Tell me you haven’t spent your nights reliving our kiss, and I’ll find a way to let this go.”

She pressed her hand to his back again, tried to feel his heartbeat through the tense muscles, learn his truth. He leaned into her touch, just a millimeter. Enough that hope gave her a little leap of joy, then he turned and grabbed her wrist.

“I’m not dating Rosanna.” His eyes were wicked hard. She flinched. “It was a request on behalf of her father to secure our business merger, which no one can know about. She’s still dating on her own, and I’m free to do what I want with whoever I want. And I…” He locked eyes with her, didn’t blink. “I don’t want you, Anthea. Not like that. That kiss was the adrenaline of performing. This morning’s dream meant nothing. I’m a guy and guys get hard in the morning, especially when a woman’s lying on his lap. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t feel the same and I need to get to work.”

She stood motionless as he snatched his tie from the couch and scraped his hand through his messy hair. He glanced around, like he had more he should take with him, the slightest bow to his posture. There was glue on his navy slacks, sparkles on his ear. His cheek was creased from her couch, and it still had that green smudge. He was disheveled and lovely and he would never be hers.

He looked at a photo of Leo on her wall, then at her. Something—regret?—flickered across his face. Then it was gone. Another emotion she’d obviously misread. He turned and stalked out, his new scrapbook left behind, splayed on her floor next to her splintered heart.

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14

“If you’re thinking about jumping, word to the wise: the glass is shatterproof.” Duncan moved into Weston’s line of vision and raised a stack of folders. “The revised Alera files. Numbers aren’t ideal, but they’re better. Today’s meeting should go smoothly.”

Weston nodded distractedly, keeping his focus on the steel skyline. A dense fog wove through the jutting skyscrapers. Humidity clung to the windows. “We still have to find more funding, which means the team needs to improve clinical trials. And I spoke with marketing. There are issues with the Seprivan launch.”

Duncan replied, saying something about the competitor undermining their push to market, but Weston’s mind was as murky as the view. He’d felt physically ill since scrapbooking at Annie’s last week. A persistent nausea that had his body aching. He’d been too fatigued to use his home gym. He walked through his days half asleep, while barely sleeping at night. His mind felt like a sieve at work.

He kept remembering Annie’s voice, hopeful yet tentative, as she’d spilled her heart to him. I think about you all the time. I’m tired of pretending I don’t have feelings for you.

Her devastation at his harsh rejection.

“I’m going on a limb here,” Duncan said, breaking through Weston’s morose thoughts, “but you seem a tad distracted. Is everything okay?”

Weston slipped his hands into his pants pockets. The Italian wool felt scratchy. “Not really, no.”