Because You Need Me (Falling for You, Book Two) (2 page)

His eyes clouded over, his jaw tightening until the angle looked sharp enough to cut. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. It must be pretty nice to hone in on everyone else’s shit so you don’t have to deal with your own.”

“Hi! I’m Brianna!” Our waitress had impeccable timing, squealing every syllable of her name. “What can I get you two to drink?”

“Whiskey, neat.” Xander growled, crossing his arms.

I glared right back, angry that he’d turned my suspicion back on me. Even pissed as hell, I noticed the way his biceps rippled. I longed for him to pick me up, hold me down, and take me.

“Since we’re drinking hard liquor at 1pm, I’ll do a vodka tonic with lime,” I bit off, lasering holes in his frustratingly beautiful skull.

She passed us the menus, her bubbly energy grating on my nerves. “I'll give you two a moment to look over the menu and I'll be back to see what yummy dishes you chose.”

I granted her a tight grin before I turned back to Xander, counting down the seconds until I could give him a piece of my mind.

“And let me just recommend our crab cakes. And our salads are to die for!” She giggled like a schoolgirl. Her eyes were focused on some far off place as she tapped her pencil against her chin. It was a place of culinary delights, where all her picks slowly rotated on glittering Lazy Susans. Every mouthwatering detail had to be shared with the couple that was clearly mid-argument from the awkward way we half listened, waiting for her to go away.

She sighed, her eyes readjusting as she turned her attention back to us. “Anyway, I'll leave you to it!”

I leaned in when she skipped away, my voice a hiss that I struggled to keep low and for his ears only. “I don't know who you think you are-”

“Get over here.”

I frowned, sure I'd misheard him. “Excuse me?”

He didn't answer immediately. He took a long swallow of water, then lowered the glass back to the table. He fixed his gaze on me, a gaze that demanded obedience...and made me throb between my thighs.

“Get up and come sit beside me.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I pulled at my blouse, the temperature shooting from something bearable to I've Gotta Take Off All My Clothes. I wasn't sure what was more disturbing, that I was turned on by the way he’d just told me what to do, or the fact that I listened.

I rose to my feet and shuffled to his side of the table, squeezing into the booth beside him. The anger that had whipped inside me like a tornado was a gentle breeze as I breathed in the scent that was all Xander. It was understated and overpowering. He had my full attention and desire flowed through me like an electric current.

Our knees touched and I hitched a breath that I tried to cover with a sniff. Considering I was burning up, it was far from a cold. The only illness I had was an inexplicable desire to be close to a man that could shatter me.
Would
shatter me. But this close, knees touching, eyes searching, lips yearning, I decided that I didn't care.

His eyes darkened with something besides anger. “It started that night at the Red Door Club. I had a plan. To fuck.”

I almost drew blood when my teeth sank into my bottom lip. I never knew the F word could be so sexy, or that mere touching of knees could be foreplay. My pulse quickened. My nipples pebbled beneath my shirt as I leaned in closer, silently surrendering to him.

His lips curved at one side, a smirk that told me he knew what he was doing to me. “And I will fuck you. But ever since I started to get to know you and let you know me, I've realized I want more. I want all of you, Penny.”

His fingertips danced across my knee and I trembled, saying a silent prayer.
Please don't do what I think you're going to do.
The lust in me embraced the naughtiness and prayed for the exact opposite.
Touch me, Xander.

His fingertips skimmed my inner thigh and I finally eked out, “Are you-”

“Going to finger you in this restaurant?” He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear just as he brushed the seam of my core through my panties. He let out a moan of approval as he pressed against the fabric, feeling my wetness. “Absolutely.”

He slipped his fingers inside my panties and I squeezed my eyes shut, struggling to keep the moans from pouring out my lips.

He paused and they flew back open. I shook my head effusively, but my words were a hushed whisper. “Please don't stop.”

He shook his head too, his dark locks sweeping back and forth until he scooped a hand through the mahogany strands. His eyes glowed with molten desire. “I want you to look at me,” His deep voice rippled through me. “And I want to look at you.”

I held my eyes open, every nerve, both erotic and cerebral, was turned on with breathtaking clarity as he buried his finger inside me. The pleasure whipped through me like something wild and untamed. I rocked against his strokes, my eyes locked on him like he was the only thing keeping me from losing it altogether. Our moans were in our gaze, the pitch building as he increased speed and I saw that this was more to him than fingering. He was touching me, possessing my body in a way that I'd never experienced...and I was touching him too. Without words, I was telling him to take my body; to take my heart. Begging him not to break it. He was telling me to trust him against all odds. To trust that he'd give me what I needed, and what we both desired. He was promising something that wouldn't wilt in a month.

I came and I had to let go, my eyes fluttering, my lips clamped together as my orgasm tore through me. The sounds I made were far from sexy, a panting, mewling that I tried to stifle against the crook of his neck.

My lips trembled into a smile, my body still shaking as I opened my eyes, just in time to see our waitress skipping back to our table.

I yanked my skirt down.

“A little late for modesty, don't you think?” he chuckled.

I elbowed him, hurling him a dirty look. He shrugged his shoulders innocently, sipping his drink. I never knew it was possible to want to strangle, screw, and cuddle someone simultaneously.

“So!” our waitress chirped brightly. “What can I get you guys to eat?”

Xander and I exchanged a look and I nearly came again when he brought the finger that had been inside me to his bottom lip. He stroked it across his skin, then followed the path of his finger with his tongue. When he was done teasing me, he ordered the salmon and I sputtered out one of the salads.

He didn't even wait until she was done jotting down my order before he pulled me closer and gave me a deep kiss that rocketed me back to cloud nine. I could taste myself on his lips.

“I already know what I want for dessert,” he said softly, his eyes darkening with passion.

After our waitress shuffled away, her cheeks as red as mine, I dropped my hand to his crotch, gripping his solid erection. I was on this ride with him and I wouldn't think about the end. I wouldn't think about all the ways it could go wrong. I was going to throw my hands up and scream for dear life until I didn't have any air left in my lungs.

“Me too.”

“M
r. Wade?”

I blinked, sitting back in my chair like I was listening. “Yes?”

Rachel Maddox, the head of accounts at Wade Enterprises, glanced to my right. Sight unseen, I knew Caitlyn was glaring at me. Rachel knew Caitlyn was the only one on staff that held any real sway with me. She could give me lip and get away with it.

I was a million miles away, and they all knew it. I was somewhere hot and tropical. Penny was stretched out on the sand beside me, her cute little nose buried in a book while my hungry eyes unabashedly savored the way her body filled out an itsy bitsy-

Rachel cleared her throat in a grating way that yanked my attention back to the task at hand. I was stuck in a meeting that I was longing to end so I didn’t have to discreetly text Penny.

I gave Rachel my full attention and ire. Suddenly, she was speechless. “Yes?”

Rachel was one of the strongest closers on my team. To be honest, when I met her, I roped her in with many of the young, attractive, women that cycled through my company’s doors, falsely believing all it took to succeed was an Ivy League education and a pretty face. Towering over male and female staff at 6’2, with pale blonde hair and a rail thin frame accentuated by pastels that she often paired with black slacks, I would have bet on Wade Enterprises chewing her up and spitting her out.

I would have been wrong.

Rachel backed up her charm with a ferocious ability to relate to everyone from a mom and pop operation to a deluded CEO used to being told he was right when he was often incorrect. She worked her way from junior executive to the head of her department with a legion of junior executives at her beck and call.

But distracted or no, there was one person at the head of the table. I didn’t have to utter a syllable nor pull my lips into a scowl before she shrunk in her stilettos and her words stumbled from her mouth.

“I’m sorry Mr. Wade, it’s just that Carson Mechanics is a big score for us and the CEO seems onboard with our vision, but he’s done everything but come right out and say that he wants a face to face with you.” She dropped her electric blue eyes to safe territory, wiping her sweaty palms on the front of her pants. “He claims he’s a big fan of your story-”

“If I held every client’s hand, I would never get anything done,” I said coolly. I knew the type. The CEO at Carson Mechanics was squirrelly and non-comital. It was her job to take away every option but Wade Enterprises, and not because I agreed to some lunch where I stroked his ego. She needed to show him that he was lucky that we were sparing our time and resources. To be frank, he was lucky we were considering taking them on as a client at all. He needed us a hell of a lot more than we needed him. “If you can’t close-”

“I never said that,” she cut in quickly. She raised her chin, the defiant set of her jaw reminding me of the woman I took a chance on years ago. She was the youngest executive on staff, but I had seen a fire in her. It roared back to life as she gathered her paperwork with precise, crisp movements that told me she’d take no prisoners. “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Wade.”

She marched from the room like a woman on a mission and I smiled to myself, a smile that froze in place when I glanced over at Caitlyn.

I knew my assistant had an extensive catalogue of frowns, from the, ‘Today I’m Already up to Here, so no BS’ to ‘You Drive Me Crazy, Xander-but I Wouldn’t Have it Any Other Way’. Today, she’d had it.

“You were not only rude to Rachel by day dreaming your way through her presentation, but you had the nerve to talk about how busy you are-”

“I am busy.” I adjusted my tie and slid back from the table like I had places to go and people to see. It was my way of closing the subject, but I knew it would take more than those three words and a chair screech to make Caitlyn back down.

“That’s just the thing, Xander, you’re not busy.” Her fierce gaze locked me in my seat. Rushing off to my next meeting or to the safety of my office was not an option. “You’ve been postponing appointments and meetings, canceling entire days-”

“I’m fully aware of what I’m doing,” I assured her. I knew it was a lie. We knew it was a lie. Even now, I was only half listening to her. The rest of my mind was already trying to figure out when I’d get to see Penny again.

It hadn’t even been a week since she’d roared into existence, and now I could barely remember what it was like before Penny. Had there been a life without her warm eyes filled with skepticism, suspicion, and hope? A life without her touch; something precious that wasn’t freely given, whether it was a kiss, a smile, or our knees brushing? A life without the consuming need to possess her body?

I remembered the way she bit her lip when I sank my fingers inside her, the way she shuddered when she came. The memory of it was enough to make my cock pulse. I was completely enraptured by her. The way she fought the me she thought I was-that I thought I was-was the most confounding and exhilarating things I’d ever experienced. She wasn’t the first woman to try and get past the playboy exterior, but she was the first that made me want to be more. One night with her, one month with her, wouldn’t scratch this itch.

I turned my attention back to Caitlyn, ignoring the angry lines that were focused on me. I wanted to bite off a warning, but the desire to snap at Caitlyn was fleeting. I knew that this wasn’t just business to her.

“It’s okay if you’re worried about me, you know,” I winked, knowing she’d deny it.

“You’re a grown man and more than capable of making your own decisions.” She dusted her hands with a sour look that told me she was attempting to wash her hands of the situation, but her voice wasn’t quite as steady as it would have been if she could care less. “I...I just know how important your career is to you, Xander.” She ejected from her seat and buttoned her blazer. She strode toward the door, holding it open expectantly. “I know what my job description isn't, but I also know that you didn't hire me because I look cute in a pencil skirt and would blow smoke up your ass.” She gave me the same hard-as-nails look that she gave my father when he thought she was going to bend to his will, because that's what everyone did. “I know this has to do with the young woman that came to the office a few days ago.” I opened my mouth to defend Penny, but Caitlyn wasn't taking any objections. “I wasn't always an old lady, you know. I remember what young love feels like.”

The L word was the equivalent of nails raking across a chalkboard. It stabbed a hole through my fantasy; the beach we walked on hand and hand blurred, replaced with sand that felt like hot coals. It set fire to any joy or happiness that filled me when I thought of Penny. I remembered all too well how powerful that word was. How it made me weak. How it left me powerless.

I locked my jaw, struggling to find the authority that usually came to me easily. “Love? I barely know this woman.”

Caitlyn wasn't buying what I was selling. “Uh huh.” She gathered the documents, her fingers flying as she organized each piece, barely looking at the folder tabs. She moved with the effortless confidence of someone that knew exactly what she was doing. “I don't know this woman either, but I do know you. Women come and women go, and you carry on. Something tells me that if this women fell into the latter category and you never saw her again, you wouldn't just go about business as usual.”