Private Pleasures (19 page)

He shrugged again and turned his attention back to his plate. "It wasn't that hard. I picked up a couple of cookbooks and watched some cooking shows on PBS. Dad mostly liked meat and potatoes so that's kind of my strong suit," he said, gesturing at the dishes in front of him.

Wendy reached out and covered his hand with hers. "I'm not talking about the cooking, and you know it."

He looked up. "Life happens," he said, his gray stare hard and impenetrable, daring her to feel sorry for him. He casually pulled his hand away. "You deal with it."

She turned her attention back to her food but couldn't keep herself from sneaking glances across the table at him.

"What?" he asked after several moments.

Wendy swallowed the bite of steak she was chewing. "I don't know why it's just dawning on me, but even though we've been naked together a lot, I don't really know that much about you."

He looked at her across the table, his gray eyes carefully blank. "You've been up front about what you wanted all along, and it wasn't a lot of sitting around getting to know each other."

Wendy felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "I know. It's just, up until recently I had this idea of you in my head. And I'm realizing that a lot of it was completely wrong."

Drew leaned back in his chair and picked up his glass of wine. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

Her brain was flooded with a thousand different things. How she'd never realized how funny he was, the kind of sarcastic dry wit she loved. Or how considerate he could be, doing things like cooking her this meal.

But mostly, she was surprised that despite what she'd thought of him for the last five years, Drew Walker would someday make a great partner for one very lucky woman.

There was no way she was going there tonight, so she shrugged and said, "Like, how you grew up. I knew you didn't come from privilege—the press loves to play that up."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the scrapper, I think one reporter called me."

"But I had no idea about your mom leaving, or your Dad abusing you—"

He held up a hand to cut her off. "It wasn't like that. My dad was just old school. And with my mom out of the picture, he knew he'd have to work double time to keep me in line. Maybe he overcompensated a little."

Wendy didn't say anything, but imagining him as a quiet, intense little boy who lived in fear of his father’s fists made her feel like a boulder had taken the place of the steak in her stomach.

"What happened to your mom?" she asked.

"Don't know," he said curtly.

"Do you want to know?"

"No," he said and abruptly cleared their plates.

"I'm sorry," she said, following him to the sink. "I don't mean to bring up stuff that upsets you."

"It doesn't upset me," he said, but the tension in his broad shoulders as he rinsed the plates said otherwise. He loaded the dishes in dishwasher, and as he straightened, he caught her in his arms and took her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss. "It's that I don't want to waste one second of this weekend with you thinking or talking about someone who doesn't even matter." He kissed her again, more softly this time. "Now we can spend the rest of the night talking about my non-existent mommy issues or we can go soak in the hot tub while you let me do all kinds of dirty things to you."

She laughed and wound her arms around his neck, letting it go as he led her to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the deck. She helped him pull off the cover of the hot tub and followed his lead as he stripped off his clothes.

But even as she shivered as much from anticipation as from the chilly fall air and let him guide her into the steaming water, she couldn't help but feel a pinch of something that felt an awful lot like regret.

There were a lot of things she didn't know about Drew. And she was slowly realizing that a very big part of her wanted to discover every single one.

###

The next morning Drew walked back into the bedroom, his chest going tight at the vision that greeted him. He'd been to the Sistine Chapel, the Temples at Ankor Wat, and seen almost all of the natural wonders of the world, but he'd never seen anything as beautiful as Wendy Carmichael naked and asleep in his bed. He'd left her there nearly two hours ago, and it was no wonder she was still asleep. He'd kept her up late, gorging himself in her as though that could chase away the dread that dogged him every time he thought about leaving her.

Still it hadn't been enough, and when he'd woken up this morning next to her it had taken all of his will power to tear himself away from her. He'd gone out for a run, hoping that would take the edge off. The cold shower that followed had dulled the edge a little more.

But now, looking at her, his cock sprang to full, furious attention. Since he'd left, she'd kicked the covers off. The way she slept on her stomach gave him a mouthwatering view of long legs topped by one of the most perfect asses he'd ever seen. And the way one leg was cocked gave him just the barest hint of her pussy lips, luscious dark pink, peaking from between her legs.

Even as he told himself she was exhausted, that he should leave her alone and let her rest, he was naked before the thought was complete. Leaning over her, he pressed his open mouth against the back of her calf, licking and kissing his way up the backs of her legs. He knew the exact moment she woke up, stiffening a little at before she sighed and stretched underneath him.

"Good morning," she said as he gave her a soft, sucking kiss on the back of her thigh. The sound of her voice, low and husky with sleep, washed over him like a caress.

"Morning," he murmured as he slid his mouth up over the curve of her ass and delivered a little nip.

She gave a little squeal and started to turn over, but he held her still with a hand to the hollow of her back. "Hold still," he said. "I"m still working my way up."

He skimmed his hands up her back, following with his mouth and tongue. He teased her with soft sucks and nips, teased himself as his cock brushed against the silky skin of her thighs, the lush curve of her ass.

By the time he worked his way up to the nape of her neck, he was hard enough to drive nails and he could smell the arousal emanating from her skin. He grabbed a condom from his stash in the drawer and quickly slid it on. Urging her to her knees, he guided his cock to the wet heat of her pussy. Stroking himself against her, he bathed himself in her moisture, slipping and sliding against her clit until she was panting and fisting her hands in the sheets.

He curved his hand around her hip, loving the stark contrast of his tan skin against her creamy paleness. Though it bordered on torture, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of his cock sinking into her, watching the way her body stretched to accommodate him, feeling the tight heat envelope him as he slid all the way in. Then out, slowly, deliberately, his cock shiny with her juice as he pulled out.

He thrust again, and she arched her back, rocking back to meet him, urging him harder, faster. His body was more than willing to oblige. He'd fucked her half a dozen times in the last twelve hours, and still he was as eager to go as a teenager losing his virginity.

And she was right there with him, moaning and urging him on as her body tightened around him. He loved that she was wild, that he could make her wild. That there was a wild cat under that professional façade. A woman who craved a hard, lusty, headboard banging fuck from a man half crazed with lust.

Drew held her hips in his hands, his fingers digging into the soft flesh but she didn't seem to mind, her body tightening around him with every hard thrust.

The bedroom echoed with the sound of skin on skin, the heavy thump of the bed slamming into the walls, their own harsh cries.

He could feel his balls pulling tight, his muscles contracting as his orgasm loomed. Determined to take her with him, he slid one palm around to cover her sex, stroking his middle finger over the swollen bud of her clit. With a sharp cry she jerked against him, her inner muscles squeezing his dick, milking him to a climax so fierce he swore he saw stars. They both collapsed to the mattress and Drew rolled to the side just shy of crushing her. As their heartbeats slowed to a gallop, Wendy snuggled against his side and pressed a soft kiss to his neck.

"Mm, now that's a wake up call," she murmured. "If I had known that was waiting for me I would have let you sleep over a long time ago."

He thought of how good it had felt to wake up next to her—even without the sex—and couldn't quite keep the bitterness in check at all the mornings they'd missed. "You made the rules. Your loss."

But as he pulled away and swung his legs over he side of the bed, there was a heaviness in his gut that told him when all was said and done between them, he was going to be the one to lose. Big time

###

From the moment Wendy woke up, she couldn't remember a more perfect day. After she'd recovered from the orgasm rocking her body, Drew had made an amazing breakfast using his cooking prowess to make eggs benedict

"This is one of my favorites!" Wendy said around blissed out bites of perfectly poached eggs and tangy hollandaise.

"I know."

"How?" She couldn't remember having a discussion about her favorite egg dishes with him.

"We did that brunch thing at Pebble Beach—you were there with Alan. You were disappointed that the eggs weren't cooked right. And the fact that it was one of your favorites made it worse."

Now that he mentioned it Wendy remembered exactly what he was talking about. Funny, even though Alan had been sitting right next to her, in her memory he was some vague, blurry presence at her side. Drew, however, she remembered in vivid, high def detail, right down to the moss green shirt he'd been wearing. "I remember now," she said cocking an eyebrow at him. "You told me to stop being so high maintenance and eat my damn eggs." She took another slow, deliberate bite.

"And you gave me that glare that turns weaker men to stone and wouldn't eat another bite." He grinned and gave her a kiss on the tip of her nose.

"I couldn't give you the satisfaction of winning." She grinned back and tried not to put too much weight in the fact that he'd remembered one of her favorite dishes and made the effort to cook it for her.

Then they burned off breakfast with a hike that offered breathtaking views of the lake and the mountains that seemed to stretch on forever.  She couldn't help but notice that while she was sucking wind so hard they could probably hear her in San Francisco, Drew had barely broken a sweat. By the time they were headed back to his house she was pleasantly worn out, her stomach rumbling, in need of refueling after the strenuous hike.

As she trailed Drew up to the front door, she found herself admiring the way his long sleeve t-shirt clung to the muscles of his back and shoulders, the hard curve of his ass against his cargo pants. Her body quickened with a hunger that had nothing to do with her stomach.

Drew unlocked the door and ushered her inside. As though he read her thoughts, he pulled her in for a kiss. "How about we go shower off before we get lunch?"

"Sounds perfect," Wendy said, the image of Drew's naked, soap slick body against hers already making her wet.

Drew cupped her ass in his hands and lifted her off the floor. Wendy wrapped her legs around his waist as they started down the hall, giggling as he stopped to pin her against the wall and grind himself against her.

"What's that?" Drew asked, a little breathless at the muffled sound coming from her pocket.

Wendy tuned in, her body stiffening in dread as she heard the familiar sounds of “The Imperial March” theme from
Star Wars
coming from her phone.

"Crap," she whispered. "It's Pierce Cooper."

"Ooh, the big dog." Drew cocked an eyebrow and released his grip, recognizing the name of the  senior partner. The one who had a very well known reputation for being such an unforgiving hardass legend had it that he'd driven more than one associate to check into the psych ward.

"Yep," Wendy said, all traces of arousal disappearing in the wake of anxiety. It was unheard of for Cooper to offer up praise or good news. The fact that he was calling her directly—on a weekend no less—meant she needed to brace herself for an ass reaming of epic proportions.

She closed her eyes and thumbed the accept button. She barely got out the first syllable of "hello" before Cooper launched his attack.

"Do you know how close you came to losing our client over two billion dollars in licensing revenue?"

Wendy winced, her chest growing tight as he disdainfully read the sentence in question, which, because of two transposed words, completely changed the language of the contract, and would have indeed cost their client billions had they actually signed it.

Her throat was tight, her eyes burning with tears. That she could feel Drew's hard stare only made it worse. It was one thing to have the crap verbally beaten out of her over a stupid, rookie mistake. It was another to have someone witness it.

"I apologize Mr Cooper," Wendy said. "I have no excuse for my carelessness."  But she did have an explanation, and he was standing right next to her. Too many late nights with Drew combined with an already punishing work schedule meant that she was even more sleep-deprived than usual and not as sharp as she needed to be. "I'll go over the contract with a fine-toothed comb and have the revised version out in few hours so they have plenty of time to review it before the meeting on Monday."

"You know, you've built up quite a reputation at Chapman Cooper," he said icily. "There are  a lot of people who think you have potential to do very well."

"Thank you sir."

"Your review is coming up soon, as I'm sure you're well aware."

"Of course, sir."

"Lack of attention to detail like this will not go unnoticed."

"Of course sir," she managed to choke out. Her body had gone ice cold as everything she had worked so hard for threatened to slip from her grasp.

She hung up and stuffed her phone back in her pocket, not wanting to look at Drew.  She knew exactly what she'd see on his face. Pity, for getting screamed at like the peon she was. And worse, that all too familiar disappointment that she had to take time out of their weekend to work. That no matter how badly he wanted her to, she couldn't blow off Cooper and the work that needed to be done.