“You’re drunk. You don’t mean it.” I laugh, but it’s thin and false. The air around us seems to thicken, and my eyes are riveted to that luscious, sweet, hot mouth of hers.
“You know I do. And I know you want me, too. I’ve seen the way you watch me.”
Oh, do I ever, but I can’t encourage her. “We work together, so it hasn’t crossed my mind.”
Her face transforms with a dangerously knowing smile, and she leans toward me. Her pretty dark-red lips part, and her tongue darts out to lick them. The sight of the glistening pink flesh does things to my dick.
“Hasn’t it?” she murmurs.
I want to kiss her. So badly. But I know better. And in the morning, she’ll regret this. So I shake my head. “No.”
“You are a liar,” she whispers and then without warning presses her lips to mine.
I’m not prepared for this full-frontal assault, and when her tongue slides over my top lip, I can’t hold back the groan that her honeypot of a mouth elicits. She tastes so good, and I want to drown in her sweetness.
She shifts in my lap so she’s straddling me, and my hands go into autopilot and cup her voluptuous ass to draw her heat closer to mine.
I sink my teeth into her plump bottom lip and suck it into my mouth. With a whimper that makes my dick jump, her hands glide up my shoulders to cup the back of my neck.
She whimpers again, and the sound triggers a frenzy in me. My mind shouts, “more” over and over until I don’t remember my own name.
I cup her breast and knead it until her nipple furls tightly against my palm. Her hips writhe against my thighs, and I break our kiss, panting to catch my breath. “I want to suck your nipples.” I drag my lips down her creamy neck, and the way she smells is making me crazy.
“Yes, they’re aching so badly. I want you to,” she pants in my ear, and I lower my head and bite her nipple through the fabric of her dress. Her head falls back, and I suck hard, desperate to get as much of her in my mouth as possible.
Fuck this dress she’s wearing, I want to taste her. I lift up off the chair and turn us so she’s seated and kneel in front of her.
I shove her dress up, push her panties to the side, and almost expire on the spot. “Your pussy smells so fucking good.”
“Oh, wait until you taste it,” she sighs, and her hands slip in my hair.
I dip my tongue and take a slow, greedy lick before I bury my face in between her thighs and start to eat her in earnest. God, I’m drunk on her after just few licks, and I want to make her come so badly. I want to see the look on her face when she falls apart with my name on her lips.
But before I can make that happen, the light on the porch comes on. I jump up and back away from her. Remi is standing in the window, arms crossed over his chest, watching me with a look of stern disapproval on his face before he turns and heads back into the house.
Shit. That is the last fucking thing I need.
“Who’s there?” Dina asks as she comes to stand next to me, tugging her dress down.
“It was just Remi. He’s gone,” I tell her. But I don’t sit. What the hell was I thinking?
“Whew,” she says as she sits back down and grabs my hand. Her lips, still glistening from our kiss, tip up at the corners. “Now, where were we?”
“Stopping, Dina. You’re drunk. You should just go to bed.”
“Only if you come with me.”
I laugh and shake my head, but my heart is racing. I want to go with her, but I know why Remi was looking at me like that. I know better than to let the lines of work and pleasure get blurred again. “Just be grateful I know you deserve better than what I have to offer. Otherwise, you'd be in real trouble.”
“I don’t want better than what you have to offer. I want you to kiss me again.”
I laugh and pull her to her feet. “You’re crazy.”
She scoffs. "So you’re telling me that kiss didn’t fry your circuits?”
"I've had better,” I lie again.
She laughs and shakes her head. “Maybe it’s for the best. It would be terrible to fall for you.” She stands toe-to-toe with me and gazes up into my eyes, all humor gone from her expression. “I want my fairy tale next or nothing at all. No regrets on the amazing head, but it will never happen again. So Merry Christmas. I’m gonna go to bed now.” Then she turns on her pretty little heel and walks away.
I sit in the chair she just vacated, and it’s still warm from our bodies. So I get up. I don’t want to remember how good that felt. Drunk or not, I don’t trust myself not to seek her out again tonight. And that would be asking for all sorts of trouble.
Romance, love, relationships—they are my axis of evil. I haven’t dated since that debacle ten years ago. And as a rule, I don’t fuck women I work with or socialize with. Dina more than checks both of those boxes.
Regan inviting her to spend Christmas Eve with us is a big deal. They’re more than just casual friends, she thinks of Dina as family. And over the course of a year of seeing her at our weekly family Friday night dinners, I do too.
Even if those things weren’t true, I don’t have time for a relationship. I’ve lost ground I need to make up and I need to focus.
Damn if I don’t hate to do it though, because I like Dina Lu. A lot. She looks me straight in the eye, she doesn’t pretend or play coy. And after a lifetime of secrets and false faces, she’s a breath of fresh air.
But I’ve got too much to figure out and can’t consign myself to the same spiral of hell I’ve watched all my friends and family go through when love caught up with them.
We blurred a line tonight that needs redrawing right away. I’ve been served well by being unapologetically self-centered, ambitious, and unavailable. She wants a fairy tale, and I’m not anything close to Prince Charming.
All I can give her is the one thing we both need.
Distance.
This job in Paris will do that. And until then, I’ll stay away from her.
The sooner I get out of Rivers Wilde, the better for both of us.
2
Hunting Her Daredevil
Dina
Three Months Later
Go get your man, D. Call me when you get home
The text from my best friend, Beth pops up on my phone, and the hand I have poised to swipe more mascara starts to tremble.
There have been ninety-one sunsets since Christmas Eve, but the intensity of the nervous anticipation that swells in my chest makes it feel like I’m back on that porch with Tyson.
I’d had too much to drink, but I wasn’t really drunk. The contentious conversation with my soon to be ex-husband rubbed salt in a raw wound, and I just really needed some comfort.
I didn’t expect those tears. But it felt so good to lean on Tyson. And to have him willingly take some of the weight for me.
I’d been crushing on him from the minute I walked smack dab into him on my first day of work. But I didn’t ever expect that we’d be friends. Tyson was as precise and uncompromising as the crisp, snow-white dress shirts with monogrammed gold cufflinks he wore every single day. He wore these immaculately knotted ties that were always the same color as his expensive suits, and he never smiled. Not at anyone. He was a task master, known for impatience, intensity, and success. We never spoke, and as far as I knew, he’d never even glanced in my direction.