could have smacked him. Trying to play like I'd had zero effect on him when his c**k was still as hard as stone underneath me. Fortunately, I wasn't that easily deterred. "Yes. Now you give me your phone number." He only hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling out his cell phone and unlocking the screen. He handed it to me. "Text yourself." I shivered. How could a person make something so innocent sound so naughty? Because he was experienced, that was how. Because he knew things that I didn't. Because he was The Professor. ***
Chapter 1 1
ONE
DYLAN
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Weston, my business partner,
exclaimed from the front passenger seat of my service car as we
pulled away from the curb.
Restraining myself from directing the driver-a habit of mine,
surely not useful now when I'd been out of New York City for so long
-I looked behind me out the rear window at the two figures we'd left
behind. Donovan Kincaid, another one of my partners at Reach, Inc.
along with Weston King, was chasing down a girl who worked in the
office-Sabrina Lind.
I had only just met Sabrina this evening. The woman was
pleasant, smart, straightforward. Had a good head on her shoulders.
Weston and I had dined with her and her younger sister and had just
been finishing up when Donovan had come in, all blustering and
noble and knightly.
"Donovan called himself her boyfriend," Weston said
incredulously, recalling the scene we'd just left. "Was I the only one
who heard that? I can't be that drunk."
It had been an out-of-character declaration for the usually tightlipped and brooding Donovan, but I'd seen this side of him before,
many years in the past. The last time he had given a woman his
heart.
If anyone asked me, he was wasting his time with this one.
Sabrina had said several things over dinner that suggested she was
no longer entertained by the circus that surrounded romantic notions.
"I heard it," the young woman sitting next to me answered.
Now this one-Audrey, the younger sister whom I'd volunteered
to see home-a man would have a much easier time trying to woo
her. She'd made that clear over dinner as well.
Too bad she was that kind of girl. The kind of girl who wanted a
man to love her before she lifted her skirt. Otherwise...
I turned my head slightly, imperceptibly, and slid my eyes down
her form, pausing on the sweet curve of her breasts, watching her
chest rise and fall with her breath. My gaze had traveled this journey
several times this evening, but now I was lucky enough to have the
added view of her legs, which had been hidden under the table
before. They were long and toned, a little curve in just the right
place.
"I heard it," she said again, "and it was so romantic."
The swoon in her voice made me chuckle. God, she was young.
Younger than whatever ridiculous young age she actually was. Who
the hell even believed in romance anymore?
"I don't understand," Weston muttered, combing his hand through
his hair. "I'm Donovan's best friend. I knew he was sleeping with her,
but I didn't know he was her boyfriend. I didn't know he was into her.
I was supposed to be into Sabrina. When did this happen? Where
have I been?"
Oh. That was right. Weston King believed in love and
relationships.
He turned his head to look at both of us in the backseat. "I'm
seriously asking here."
I glanced at Audrey. Her expression said that she had been in the
know, but her lips were sealed.
That left me to console my partner. "You've probably been too
distracted with that Dyson pussy you've been banging," I was
definitely still intoxicated. I didn't normally use such crass language
in front of a lady. Especially such a young lady.
"Hey," Weston said, pointing a stern finger in my direction.
"Elizabeth is not just some pussy I've been banging. I'm going to
marry her."
Never mind that their engagement was part of a business ruse.
Despite the fact that it counted for nothing, Weston seemed to have
grown fond of the girl-even as he bemoaned the loss of Sabrina.
It was exhausting."You're exhausting," I told him.
"I'm exhausting?" He seemed baffled by the idea that he would
exhaust anyone.
"The entire lot of you. More exhausting than the flight across the
pond. All of you are intelligent creatures normally. I wouldn't have
gotten into business with partners who gave in to the whims and
fancies of human nature. It takes a clear head, your feet on the
ground, your priorities straight, to be as successful as we have been
with our company.
"But now the lot of you have gone and eaten some fruit from the
tree of temptation. Drank the potion number nine. Watched one too
many Netflix Christmas specials, because you've suddenly all
descended into the ridiculous camp of men who fall in love with
women."
"Wait," Weston halted me. "I never said I was in love with
Elizabeth Dyson. I only said I was going to marry her."
"You spent the entire dinner pining after her. Pining, Weston King.
Surely pining is a sign of love." I turned to the audience member that
I knew would be on my side.
"Yes, indeed," Audrey nodded, with a bob of her head that was
somehow both girlish and sexy as hell. "Pining is Love 101. If a girl
came to me and said the guy had told her he was pining after her?
That's like popping the question." "Exactly like," I said straight-faced. I was being sarcastic, of
course, but the girl did make me want to smile.
Among other things.
I stretched my arm across the back of the seat bench, casually,
making myself comfortable. Not making a move. No, not that.
"I am not in love with Eliza-"
"And on top of your pining..." I said, speaking loudly over
Weston. His denial, which he was surely about to deliver in full, was
infuriating and, frankly, patronizing, and I refused to listen to more
than a second of it. "We have Donovan, who declares a relationship
with a woman on a public street, for crying out loud, in front of his
partners. I thought for sure that man, of all of you, had reason." He
must have forgotten how miserable he'd been the last time he'd
given his heart, albeit ten years ago.
Soon enough, he'd remember.
"And then we have Nate," I continued. A man of varied sexual
pleasures and interests, Nathan Sinclair had been another fly I'd
never expected to drop. "When I'd had drinks with the man last night,
he was talking about one particular woman like she hung the moon.
Soon it will just be me and Cade."
I leaned closer toward Audrey, since she probably didn't know
anything about our fifth partner who headed the Tokyo office. "No
one will ever love Cade, even if he goes pansy on us. That's a man
that even a mother wouldn't love. He's one of my best friends. I
ought to know."
Weston harrumphed from the front seat, completely indignant,
but I noted a hint of optimism, as though he hoped I were right about
his future, and that he'd be leaving the bachelor life for good.
He really had gone bananas over that Dyson girl. Poor sucker.
I stole another glance at Audrey, curious at how badly I'd
offended her with my speech, love-cheerleader that she was.
But when I turned in her direction, I hadn't expected that she'd
already be staring at me.
Chapter 1 1
20/07/2024
Chapter 2 2
20/07/2024
Chapter 3 3
20/07/2024
Chapter 4 4
20/07/2024
Chapter 5 5
20/07/2024
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