AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Get up there and fix it then. Later.” She cuddled closer. “So…wanna spoon?”
He didn’t even cringe. She made him happy. Hell, she made him want to pretend he was a utensil with her. “Roll over. I get the back.”
She waggled her brows. “It’s all yours.”
Chuckling, he smacked her ass as she turned over. “I’ll remind you of that some other time.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll remember,” she teased.
He kissed her bare shoulder and settled in for sleep. Tonight, maybe he’d actually get some. “Me too.”
His cell went off way too early. Or he was way late, depending. Monday morning meant rising early. No dillydallying in bed.
Cory cocked open an eye and peered at Victoria’s alarm clock. It faced the wall and, he discovered, wasn’t plugged in. No wonder she was late so often.
He snatched his phone off the nightstand so it didn’t wake her and strode into the connected bathroom. It was the printer. Due to a scheduling problem, if he didn’t get the final page proofs to them today, he likely wouldn’t get his preferred street date. Unless he wanted to change his four-color options or his quantities, neither of which he was prepared to do.
His next phone call was to the graphic designer who produced the magazine. She could get the photos in the layout that morning, but only if he got them to her within the next ninety minutes. Oh, and he might as well sign over his checkbook, because she intended to bleed him dry.
Cursing under his breath, he agreed and hung up.
Dammit. He and Vic hadn’t gone over Friday’s photos yet, and she’d told him last night she had a full slate of clients to see today. They’d moved their regular Monday magazine to Tuesday this week, due to an issue that had arisen with a sunroom. Or playroom. Something like that. He knew the shots would be amazing, but it would still take some time to cull the best ones.
He walked back into the bedroom and sighed affectionately as he glanced at the bed. Vic was naked and sprawled on her belly, dead to the world. The chances he could get her up and dressed before he had to be at the graphic designer’s were slim to none.
Moving quickly, he left her a vague note on the nightstand. After her roller coaster of emotions the night before, she needed to rest, not to come chasing after him. He skipped a shower and put his tuxedo back on. He’d just have to wear his Sunday best to work and endure all the stares.
A grin curled his mouth as he kissed the back of her head. It had been so worth it. They’d have many more nights just like that if he had his way.
And he would.
His grin widened as he pressed another kiss into the small of her back. He could be very persuasive when he wanted to be.
He caught himself humming as he hurried out to his car. He’d set his sights on making Victoria his for real, and he wouldn’t back down until she truly belonged to him. Now all he had to do was determine the most expeditious way to get the job done.
…
Vicky woke to an empty, cold bed. She should’ve been surprised, but she wasn’t. Some part of her had expected him to take off. After all, he was the master evader, slipping free of any potential entanglements before he got too knotted up, and she’d made a huge mistake.
She’d told him the truth.
She hadn’t realized what she’d said in the shower until late at night, when she’d been enfolded in his arms and the moonlight had sketched the planes of his face for her as if she didn’t have them memorized. She’d studied the bow of his lips, the angles of his cheekbones and jaw, the fringe of his eyelashes. Though she’d told herself she was just enjoying the typical postcoital glow, she’d known better.
He would leave, because she didn’t know how to make him stay.
More than likely she was just one more complication to him. One more way to pass the time until he could extricate himself and move on.
But she wouldn’t. Much as she hated to admit it—even to herself—he owned her body and soul. Probably she’d leased him the first slice of her heart back at her ninth-grade dance, when she’d first seen him dancing with her sister.
It might’ve become one of those sweeping movie moments if anything had happened between them after that. He hadn’t crossed the room to find out who Vicky was. She hadn’t made some big play for him, determined to pry him from her sister’s disinterested clutches.
They’d gone their se
parate ways, occasionally crossing paths. He’d been the first one to question why she’d “thrown away” her fine mind on design. She hadn’t bothered to explain to him why she’d felt called to her profession, but he’d finally figured it out all on his own.
Over the years, they’d developed an uneasy, sometimes combative quasi-friendship born from shared acquaintances and proximity. Neither had made a move on the other, and maybe there were good reasons for that.
He wouldn’t ever love her the way she needed him to. All in, nothing held back. He was married to his work, and somehow along the way she’d fallen for him too deeply to be smart. She couldn’t just content herself with his credit cards and his fancy parties and pretend that great sex and laughter were enough. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than all of Cory Santangelo, even the parts he was afraid to give her. Especially those.
