She tied the belt around her waist, securing the jacket around her petite body. “I thought we established this was meaningless fun? Let’s keep it that way. You made it clear you don’t want anything more. Neither do I.”
“But we both want to do it again.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, a confession of agreement. She slid her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she looked at me.
“And again. So, am I free to text you?”
She considered it while pressing her lips together tightly. Even when she was deep in thought, she looked provocative. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to work with her every day, to stare at her beautiful features and do nothing about it. “Yes. But that’s the only thing I want to hear from you.”
“Trust me, I’m not going to ask about work.” Our pending collaboration was the last thing on my mind.
“And strict professionalism when we’re working together.”
I smiled. “Agreed.”
She turned to the elevator and hit the button so the doors would happen.
Before she could step inside, I grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her toward me. I wanted to feel those plumps lips against my mouth one more time. I wanted to feel her breath fill my lungs. I wanted to feel the way she trembled slightly when she was the recipient of my passion.
She kissed me back the instant she felt me. Her fingertips moved up my chest until she reached my shoulders. She gave me her tongue when I didn’t give her mine. She sucked my bottom lip and matched my aggression. She’d just been trying to leave, but now she got me fired up the same way she had when she first arrived.
She was the first one to break away.
I knew I wouldn’t have.
“Goodnight, Thorn.” She pushed her hand against my chest as she turned away.
I almost snatched her again. “Goodnight, Autumn.”
She stepped into the elevator and leaned against the back wall as she waited for the doors to close. Her eyes were on me, her look as intense as mine. If she didn’t have such restraint, she’d walk back in here and ride my dick again. I’d never been with a woman who got so wet for me. She kept up an act of indifference, but there was no denying how much she wanted me. Her pussy betrayed her in the most obvious way possible.
The doors finally began to close.
My arms rested by my sides as I watched them come together. My eyes remained focused on hers until she was finally gone from my sight.
When the elevator descended, I suddenly felt the emptiness of my penthouse. I wished I were walking back to my bed to find her sleeping underneath my sheets. She’d be there for me when I woke up in the morning.
And I could fuck her before I went to work.
13
Vincent
“It’s nice to see you back at work.” I stepped inside my son’s office, seeing him returned to normalcy in his navy blue suit. He no longer wore the sorrow that had tainted his features from the moment he heard Titan had been shot. That fear had finally passed, and like after a long winter, the color was finally returning to his cheeks.
“It’s nice to be here, partially.”
I sat in the chair facing his desk and stared at my son, a man who looked so similar to me it was unsettling. Sometimes I thought of him as a boy, but when he was just as tall as I was and built like a mountain, I couldn’t view him as anything other than a man. “I’m guessing Titan is behind this?”
“She pushed me out the front door.”
I chuckled. “She’s right, though. Life goes on.”
“I still worry about her. I check on her a few times a day. But she’s always doing well.”
“There’s nothing you can help her with at this point,” I said. “Now she needs to wait to heal. Unfortunately, that takes time. When you’ve been shot in the chest, the wound doesn’t just disappear overnight.”
“I know. I’m looking forward to her being well again. Even though the doctors say she’ll be fine, I won’t drop my guard until it’s officially over.”
“Understandable.”
Diesel sat back in the leather chair and looked at me. A moment of silence passed between us, a quiet conversation that lacked words. We’d spent so many years apart that it was still strange that we were back together. It was the nicest feeling in the world to just sit with my son…to be welcome in his presence. “Jax told me he stopped by.”
“Yeah, we had lunch.”
“He said you were very forgiving.”
Diesel broke eye contact, probably because he knew he was much harsher with me than he was with Jax. “He’s my brother. It’s hard for me to stay angry with my brother. I knew he was stuck in a difficult position. He either lost his father or lost his brothers. In either scenario, he lost.”
I nodded. “I’m glad you see it that way.”
“I would try to spend more time with him, but right now, everything is so hectic.”
“It is,” I said in agreement.
“I really don’t know anything about him anymore. All I know is stuff I read in the headlines, but there’s no way to know if any of that is true.”
There were a lot of things going on in Jax’s life, things he wasn’t ready to share yet in light of Titan’s shooting. It would have to wait until a better time. “He’s not much different. Still the same little shit he’s always been.”
Diesel chuckled, showing his handsome smile he inherited from me. “You’re probably right. How are things with Brett?”
“Better. I’ve been meaning to ask him to do something. I’ve just been busy…” I thought about my lunch meeting with Scarlet Blackwood. She was surprisingly easy to talk to for a woman who existed in a world where only appearances mattered. She was understanding, attentive,
