I tipped my head back and reality started to seep back into my thoughts. I was back to square one as far as Verity, Inc. was concerned. Maybe I’d go for a run tomorrow morning and try to come up with some new ideas.
“What are you thinking about?” Sofia asked as she reappeared in the doorway.
“You.” I stood and headed to the sink to get a drink. “And work.”
“Well, me, I know. Tell me about work, James.”
I took out a glass and let the tap run ice-cold before I filled it. “I want to buy a company and the owner of it doesn’t want to sell.” That was the crux of it.
She took a long gulp of her water and I watched her throat as she swallowed. Fuck, everything this girl did was sexy. “He doesn’t want to sell or he doesn’t want to sell to you?”
“He doesn’t want to sell to me.”
She tilted her head. “So you can’t just pretend to be someone else?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
She moved around the kitchen island toward me.
“Then make it simple,” she said, holding up a condom and placing it on the counter in front of us. She trailed her fingertips around my waist, took my glass from my hand and set it on the draining board. Apparently, she was ready for more.
“Even if I was to set up a Cayman company or disguise in some way where the money was coming from, the owner is old fashioned. He wants to know who he’s doing business with. He wants to negotiate face to face—not with some faceless corporation.”
She pressed a kiss against my chest. “Then set up your Cayman company and send someone in on your behalf. Get them to pretend to be the buyer.”
My cock was responding to her lips and my brain started whirring at her idea. “I don’t think it would work,” I said. “You can tell a lawyer is a lawyer or an accountant is an accountant a mile away. And the other people in my life who are capable of conducting negotiations against a man like Goode are too busy with their own businesses.”
“Really?” she asked, as she took my cock in her fist. “There’s no one in your office other than a lawyer or an accountant who’s capable of negotiating to buy a business?”
She scooped up the condom, tore it open and, expertly rolled it onto my hard cock.
What was she saying? My mind was starting to cloud over with lust, but was she suggesting she pose as the buyer for Verity?
She turned around and leaned over the marble counter. All at once, her arse was the only thing I could focus on. “What do you have to lose?” she said.
I trailed my fingers between her legs, feeling for her arousal. I wasn’t disappointed. She was dripping with anticipation and need. I nudged at her entrance, coating the crown of my cock with her wetness.
Slow and steady, I pushed into her, relishing the pressure, the drag, the complete fucking perfection of it. She started to tremble under my hands as I drove deeper and I hooked my arm under her, steadying her just as her knees buckled.
“Breathe,” I whispered in her ear.
I pulled out just as slowly and then pushed in harder this time, getting as deep and as far as I could go. The curve of her back was so inviting, I wanted to lick long, soft strokes down its length. Her round, firm arse felt like it was made for my hands. “Sofia,” I whispered, calling for the woman surrounding me. “Sofia.”
“It’s too . . .” Sofia’s body began to shudder, her legs began to shake, and she slumped forward onto the counter as she tightened around me. “I’m sorry,” she said.
She had no reason to apologize.
Gently, I moved and turned her around so she was facing me. “Don’t ever apologize to me for coming. Don’t apologize to anyone.” There was that twinge of jealousy in my gut.
I mentally brushed it aside.
“I know you like to torture me a little more . . .” She lowered her gaze like she was embarrassed.
I lifted her chin so she was looking at me. “I enjoy drawing it out and making you wait, and I enjoy feeling you not being able to control your orgasm even when I’ve only been inside you a few seconds.” It was . . . beguiling how much she wanted to please me. It felt so out of character. Like this was an unseen, private side to herself that she didn’t show very often.
“Yeah, you do good work, Andr—”
Before she could finish what she was saying, I grabbed one of her legs and pulled it up over my hip and thrust into her again. “The next time, I’ll see it in your face before you lose control.”
I pulled her onto my straining cock, sinking with relief as she, once again, surrounded me. It felt like this was how it was meant to be. We fit so perfectly. It felt like this was exactly right.
Bending my knees, I thrust up into her again and again and again. She had one arm behind her, the other on my chest. I was overcome by the thought that I didn’t want this to be the last time I fucked this woman. But if she didn’t turn up at the bar again, what would I do? Be forced into a situation I didn’t want to address. At the moment I was teetering on the edge of my hard and fast rule about the separation of work from anything personal. So far, being James meant I was still playing by the rules. But did it really matter what she called me? This didn’t feel like pretending.
She moaned and slid her hand up to my shoulder, then curled her fingers around my neck as she arched back, thrusting her perfect breasts toward my greedy mouth. I bent and grazed my teeth over her nipple, and she screamed in surprise. “We both know how to use our teeth, Sofia.” I grinned up at her, then took her breast in my mouth, sucking and flicking one nipple and then the other.
My climax growled awake and I stilled for a second. I was ready to fuck her as hard and as deep as I’d ever been. I shifted us so she was over the counter and then braced my hands either side of her hips. “Are you ready?”
“For anything.”
I nodded and thrust into her. Over and over, trying to ignore the sway of her breasts as our bodies slammed together mercilessly. I held onto her hips, making sure I could go as deep as possible, to that part of her that she kept hidden, that I wanted to fuck into the light. Again and again and again, until I saw that look of wonder in her eyes, until I felt that stillness in my body, until I could allow myself to let go that final time, thrusting every ounce of me into her.
Twenty-One
Andrew
I’d thought about nothing all weekend other than the feel of Sofia’s pussy when she came and whether or not she could pull off the acquisition of Verity, Inc.
Would it work?
Could I trust her?
Would Goode be taken in by her?
The questions went around and around in my head like a carousel, but still I didn’t have an answer. It seemed ludicrous that I’d send in Sofia, who I’d barely known a month, to negotiate the most important deal of my career—no, my life. From what I’d seen of her, she was capable, clever, and confident. But that didn’t mean she could negotiate against Bob Goode. And it very definitely meant that I shouldn’t be sleeping with her.
For years I’d been fastidious in separating my work and social lives. At the moment, my relationship with Sofia out of the office existed in some weird no-man’s-land between the office and home; as much as I knew I should keep things professional, there was something about her that made me want to show up at Noble Rot and be James for as long as she’d have me.