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“Yeah, of course,” I said, gently tugging his lip from his teeth. “I’ll help you clean up so we can hit the sack.” The housekeeper would be here bright and early, but Daniel wouldn’t be able to sleep with dishes in the sink.
Daniel wiped down the counters while I loaded the dishwasher and pretended I didn’t feel him staring at me. “What?” I asked in resignation, starting up the wash cycle and hitching a hip against the island.
Daniel tossed the dishtowel over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me about your love of storms?” He pressed into my front, my lower back biting into the marble. Damn Cole for making this into something bigger than it needed to be.
I relaxed as he placed kisses along my neck. “Don’t listen to everything Cole says.”
“I kind of have to, because you don’t tell me much.”
I grabbed the sides of his head and kissed him as a distraction, sending my tongue as deep into his mouth as possible.
“Whoa, slow down.” He pushed me back by my shoulders. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”
“How about sex right here?” I hopped onto the island.
“We eat here,” he said, mouth downturned.
“Okay,” I whispered, fingers deftly unlatching his belt buckle. “How about the floor?”
“We walk on it. With ourshoes.”
I dropped my head to his shoulder, defeated, erection dwindling.
“How about we go up to bed? I promise I’ll make it worthwhile.” He pulled me off the island and led me by the hand upstairs and into our bedroom.
“Where are you going?” I asked, snatching his wrist as he moved toward the master bathroom.
“To grab a towel.”
“How about we make a mess tonight?” With a hand in his hair, I nibbled seductively at his chin.
“All over my Egyptian cotton?”
“Right.” I let him go, cursing Cole for reigniting old memories. Old passions. Old parts of me. For forcing me to relive cum-streaked handprints on walls, and nights of howling my pleasure into a thunderstorm while being fucked on my hands and knees as my tears scattered the earth alongside the rain. For forcing me to replay all the dirty, wicked things done to me at his hands, and forcing me to pretend they were being done to me tonight to survive making the sweet, neat, predictable kind of love with my husband.
The kind I didn’t mind twenty-four hours ago.
Cole
THE COLD GLOOMINESSfrom outside streamed into my office windows, its shadow staining the monitor I’d been staring at for the last half hour. Leftover nasty weather from last night’s icy downpour. The bustling city streets were slicked with it, the puddles slowly icing over.
Not allowing the dismal weather to dictate my moods had always been a challenge. I tended to be more introspective on gray days, and overall bad company for anyone needing me to do more than justbe.On rainy days, I gave myself permission to miss Jasper to the full extent of my capabilities.
An old cinema reel of flashes ticked through my mind’s eye. Jasper’s defined Cupid’s bow, its rim a darker pink than the bed of his lips.
Instant replays swarmed me of his warm, timid smiles, now replaced with frown lines. The deep rumble of his enticing laughter, which now seemed elusive. Not even the incessant sound of my clicking pen could drown out the playback on his smoky voice, and how breathless it became whenever I handled him roughly.
I could almost feel the memory of his silky hair being abused by my unforgiving fingers. I could almost ignore the shadowy image in the corner of my mind invading those recollections, there to remind me that now Jasper was his.
Daniel.
Outside the glass double doors of my office, Leland circled his desk carrying a small stack of folders tucked under his arm. “Still haven’t heard back?” he asked, entering and making himself comfortable in the chair across from me.
“No,” I said, tossing my pen aside, watching it roll and crash into a paperweight. “I left a message a couple hours ago. Calling back now would make me seem too eager.”
“Didn’t you say he had like twenty jobs? He’ll get back to you. By the way,” he said, plopping a magazine onto my desk, “his friend Sofia is hot. Think she’s single?”
“You’re a womanizer, Leland. Stay away from her. The last thing I need is Jasper upset because you broke his best friend’s heart—or her vagina.”
