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“No, we don’t,” Jack agrees, his eyes narrowing on my upper lip. “What do you say we forget about Ryan and Eric and work and go grab a drink somewhere fun? Preferably somewhere with a rooftop bar and a killer view?”
“Sounds great,” I say. “Except for the Eric part. I have nothing to wear except my suit.”
Jacks makes a scoffing sound. “Easily remedied. We go to your place first, then we go out.”
My brows lift. “You’re willing to come all the way to Queens for me?”
“I’d go a lot farther than Queens, baby,” he says, leaning in to press a slow, lingering kiss to my lips. “Can you say the same about Vin Diesel? I think not.”
My heart starts beating faster again, but lust isn’t the only thing pumping through my bloodstream. There’s something sweeter mingled in with the physical longing, something that makes me feel warm from head to toe, even though I’m not wearing a stitch of clothing and Jack’s office is always cooler than the rest of the floor.
“Then let’s get going,” I murmur against his lips. “There’s a great Indian place on my block called Masala. Best naan in the five boroughs, and the owner’s daughter plays ukulele on Tuesday nights.”
Jack pulls away with an arched brow. “Ukulele? And this is a selling point?”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” I say, reaching for my shirt. “She’s gifted, and she takes requests.”
“Oh, well, that’s a different story,” Jack says, sarcasm thick in his voice.
I smile. “I’m going to ask forMotherby Danzig.”
He snorts in laughter, making me feel unreasonably proud of myself. I love making him lose control, this man who is usually the master of himself and all he surveys.
“Or maybe some death metal,” I add. “Death metal and ukulele are brilliant together.”
“I noticed you had a strange record collection.” He steps into his pants. “I’ll have to take a closer look while you’re showering. See just how deep the weirdness runs.”
“To the bone, baby,” I say, my heart skipping a beat when he laughs and reaches over to affectionately slap my bottom.
“I believe it.” He reaches past me for his phone, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he moves. “I’m calling a car. I’m too hungry to take the subway.”
“Perfect,” I say, that warm-from-inside feeling flooding through me all over again.
Itisperfect. All of it. From the explosive sex to the sweet forehead kiss to sharing another meal with Jack and everything in between.
If I’m not careful, I’m going to get in way over my head. I shouldn’t be fraternizing with one of the CEOs of the firm I’m writing about, especially not when I’m already related to the other CEO. And I certainly shouldn’t be starting to fall for him, or daydreaming about this becoming something more than naked fun between two old friends.
Eventually, I’ll have to make some tough decisions about this story, and I don’t want my judgment to be clouded by complicated feelings, especially when those feelings aren’t reciprocated.
Jack is a man of the world. He probably has loads of experience keeping sex and emotion separate. Yes, he cares about me as a friend and his partner’s sister, but that’s all this is.
Friendship and orgasms…
Right?
I glance over at Jack, who is giving our address to the car service, and he winks, his lips stretching into a smile that’s so much more open than the old Jack smile I used to know. Open and so warm I want to wrap it around me and snuggle up with a good book. Preferably a romance novel, something I’ve been avoiding in recent, lonely years, but which suddenly sounds like fun.
Great, now I’m having snuggle-reading fantasies about Jack to go with all the sex ones.
I’m definitely headed for trouble, but at the moment I can’t bring myself to care. Life is a lot more complicated outside my solo-writer, shower-optional lair, but it’s also a hell of a lot more fun.
And that’s what we have—fun.
From the car ride to Queens, to the quickie in the shower as I get changed, to our long, leisurely, laugh-filled dinner accompanied by the musical stylings of Riya and her Rockin’ Ukulele, the evening is pure goodness. It’s so good I don’t want it to end, but after he walks me back to my place, I let Jack call a car anyway. No matter how much I would like to invite him to stay over, I have to maintain some boundaries. If I don’t, I’ll have even farther to fall when this is over and Jack and I go back to the way we were.
Too late. Things are never going back the way they were,a voice in my head whispers as I kiss Jack goodbye and he slides into the waiting town car.
But it’s not the usual voice of doom. It’s a voice I don’t recognize, but it’s telling the truth. I can feel it in my bones, in my blood, in the warm hum of happiness that follows me up the elevator, down the hall, and sees me tucked into bed with a smile on my face.
