“Me too,” she murmured, quiet for a second. “So did you hear anything… interesting from Jackson yesterday?”
It was my turn to be silent. I stared at my screen, watching the seconds on our conversation tick by as I wavered about telling her the truth. While I decided to, my lips betrayed my intentions. “No,” I lied. I hated doing it but something told me that Lara didn’t need to know about Jackson’s on-again fling with Audra. I knew firsthand that it was possible to hurt over someone you didn’t love. As loathsome as I found Jackson, it still pained me to think about the person he had once been. As kids, he’d always been the dutiful big brother. He’d defended me, taken the blame for countless broken vases and scratched tables. Even as adults, I had genuinely good memories of surfing and boating with Jackson. They were all from before he’d become someone else. And though he’d been that person since the first day he met Lara, I figured she deserved the illusion that he hadn’t.
So I went with the lie. “I’m sorry I came up empty.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t,” she said. “Though I’m kind of amazed with myself for never having thought about it before last night. I was hoping to talk to you about it in person. Should I head over to Brooklyn after lunch with Sloane? I can’t think of any other place where we’d have any real privacy.”
I got up and reached for my shirt. “Actually, I was about to head into the city for work. And I know a good place for us to talk that’ll be a nice change of scenery.”
Her voice came back with a hint of mischief. “Oh… but I was kind of hoping for a place where we’d have access to a bed.”
I grinned. “Don’t worry. We will.”
~
The conference room at the Monarch was located on the thirty-fourth floor of the fifty-story hotel, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson River. I arrived to see Lara already there, standing at the edge of the room, her trench coat draped over her shoulders as she gazed out at the view. I stood quietly at the doorway for a moment, just to take in the sight of her perfection. Her long hair cascaded down to the middle of her back, ending just above the point where that narrow waist flared into the hips I dreamed about running my hand along every night. It felt like ages since the last time I’d been able to really feel her body – to savor every inch of it without rush. It had probably been less than two weeks since the night she’d been in my apartment, in my bed, but it felt like an eternity as I soaked her in.
Christ. As she gazed out the window in a rare moment of peace, I realized it was actually possible for me to find her even more beautiful.
“Lara.”
She spun around when I spoke her name, breaking into a big smile as she caught the look on my face. I had to have looked floored as I took her in from the front. Perfectly wrapped around each dip and curve of her body was a long dress the color of sand. I walked in a haze toward her as she shed her coat and draped it over a chair. Coming in, I’d been anxious to hear about what had happened last night with Dane. Now, finally alone in a room with my arms circling Lara’s waist, I could hardly remember who the fuck he was.
“Hello.” There was a sexy, teasing lilt in Lara’s voice as she slid my hands back to the front of her body, pushing them up from her stomach to the underside of her breasts, somehow contained by the strapless top of her dress. I groaned, my fingertips straining for more. I smirked as she gave a mischievous little laugh.
“Right. Remember when we first met and I said you were good at torturing guys?”
“Mm.” She pushed my hands up another inch, biting her lip when my cock jumped between us. “Maybe.”
I grinned. “You can’t come here looking like this and expect me not to rip your clothes off within the first five minutes.”
“That’s why I’m holding your hands where they are,” she murmured, her eyelids heavy with arousal as I teased the curve of her breasts. “We have business to discuss.”
“It’ll have to wait.” Curling my fingers into the cotton, I tugged gently, watching the top of her dress stretch down slowly, exposing her inch by inch till the stretchy fabric clung desperately to her just tight nipples. I grinned at the hot arousal blooming in her cheeks. And with one more yank, she sprung free, standing topless for all of a second before I shoved the rest of her dress down into a puddle around her heeled feet. “Keep those on,” I muttered as I stepped back to take her in. My eyes were unblinking as I watched her walk slowly backward toward the long glass table, her slight tan lines accentuating the parts of her body I’d been fantasizing about the whole drive over.
“How about a compromise?” Lara smirked as I gravitated toward her. In white lace boy shorts, she seated herself at the end of the table, tapping her foot on the chair before her. “I mean who says we can’t have a professional meeting without our clothes on?”
Grinning through my torture, I took the seat, savoring the half-second that Lara kept her legs apart before crossing them daintily. “Fine.” My eyes raked across her luscious thighs as I stroked my hard-on over my slacks. “First order of business.” I took the pen from my pocket and handed it to her. “Put your hair up.”
“Excuse me?”
“Be professional. I don’t want it covering your body.”
Her mouth twisted into a crooked grin that made me want to bite her lips. “Since when were your this bossy?”
“Since you came into the conference room I built and tried to keep me from putting my hands all over you,” I said as she wound her hair into a knot at the top of her head, securing it with my silver pen. I wet my lips as a few kittenish strands fell down the sides of her face. My gaze slid from them down to her perfect, naked breasts. “Much better. Now tell me what you heard from Dane last night.”
She tilted her head as she gazed at me. “Jackson has another phone that he does all his shady business on.”
“Probably should’ve guessed that,” I said, though I was too distracted to feel the anger I would’ve had I not been entranced by Lara’s naked body elevated before me.
“Mm-hm.” She dangled one of her shoes off her toes till it fell to the ground. “It’s obviously a secret from me, but not from his boys.” Gingerly, she rubbed my cock with the arch of her foot. “So I need you to find a way to get to it. I’m sure it’s not in service anymore but I know he showed Dane the video of Gabrielle on it, so I’m sure he would bring it out in front of you. If you ever got to the topic of that kind of thing.”
“So, what, ask to see the video?”
“Yes.”
In the back of my head, I found the idea revolting. But the front of my mind had other thoughts, all of them about Lara’s naked body and the various positions I wanted to see it in.