“After our conversation about sending uninvited people to my house, I don’t think we’re on speaking terms.” She spun, leaving her back to them.
“Corey.” Sean’s wife, Erin, stood across the room, warm skin and dark hair, as beautiful as ever. Although her usual smile was replaced with something that looked more…assessing? The slant of her almond eyes had him on edge.
“Thanks for inviting me,” he replied, and she nodded somewhat coolly.
“Should the two of us maybe—talk?” Sean suggested.
“About?” Corey asked.
“Me,” Taran called from across the room. “Can’t you see no one wants us dating?”
He supposed that should have been clear, but Corey hadn’t seen that coming. What was the problem with them dating? Apart from the fact that they weren’t. It was clear they were friends with Taran, but he couldn’t understand why these people would have an issue with them together.
“Are you going to tell them, or am I? Because I don’t care, and you seem to have issues.” Taran turned her green eyes back on him.
“What?” Corey asked. What issues did he have?
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “We are not dating. We are not ever going to be dating. I overheard him and Clayton talking yesterday, and I tried to bribe him into getting me an interview with Clayton.”
Dead silence was the only response to her statement. Sean, Mike, and Erin looked from Taran, who had returned to the creamy sauce she was eating, to Corey, who was glaring at her because she didn’t need to make it sound like she was disgusted with dating him.
“Let me get this straight,” Sean finally snapped. Corey didn’t need to turn to know Sean was glaring at him. “Without consulting me in any way, shape, or form, you let a reporter bribe you into something—something which just so happens to be an interview with one of your closest friends and my client?”
“Not to mention we haven’t heard from Beth, Marc, or Clayton.” It took Corey a second to remember the guy’s name, although he’d just heard Taran call him Mike.
“They don’t know,” Corey said through gritted teeth. “The little piss ant didn’t go blabbing her mouth to them, just you.”
Corey instantly regretted the name-calling because everyone but the piss ant herself was now glaring at him.
Taran chuckled.
“The three of us have a date with my office,” Sean demanded to Corey and Mike before turning his eyes on Taran, steadfastly ignoring them. “You and I will talk later.”
As he walked out of the room, Corey heard Taran call, “I already told you we aren’t on speaking terms—asshat!”
Corey didn’t want to smile, but he couldn’t help it.
“You think she’s funny?” Sean demanded, slamming the office door behind them. “Because I don’t find this at all funny, Matthews. If this only affected you, I’d say ‘well, he did it to himself,’ but you’re letting her write about Clayton?”
The smile fell from Corey’s face, and his jaw clenched. “She blackmailed me, but I’m the one getting a lecture right now?” He’d been trying to protect Clayton, and somehow this had all gotten turned around on him. He was pretty sure he could blame the green-eyed devil in Converses. This was exactly why he hated reporters; they always turned things around so shit got crazy.
“I’ll get to her next, but you—you know better than this. You’re normally the one I have no issue with—zero! So why is it I’m sitting here watching you smile like a dog in heat, while I heard from a reporter that you got wasted, gave her your keys, and let her bribe you into a story?”
Corey opened his mouth and closed it again. He stared at his agent. There was an explanation. He knew there was, but at the moment, he had no idea why he hadn’t called them last night to do immediate damage control. But this was exactly what he paid them to do.
“Let’s start this conversation over.” Corey stared down his agent. “It’s your job to handle my shit. So stop bitching and start handling it. You have tons more difficult clients than me, and I doubt you ever stood there lecturing any of them before the problem was solved.” Corey stood up, towering over the six-foot man. “I think this has very little to do with me and everything to do with that pint-sized pound of trouble out in your kitchen.”
Sean simply crossed his arms over his chest and glanced past Corey to Mike. The guy had been a partner in Sean’s agency for over a year but Corey had never really dealt with him, and he wasn’t sure why this asshole was even in the room.
“Got something to say, or are you just here to be nosey?” he asked Mike.
“I handle damage control. You don’t normally deal with me because you don’t usually create issues.” Mike crossed his arms and frowned. “However, now we have an issue.”
“And the idea of you dating Taran, well, you’re a terrible match,” Sean added.
“Why?” Corey asked. He knew it was a terrible idea, but it galled the hell out of him that they thought he wasn’t good enough for their friend. His circle of trust was tight, and until this moment, he thought Sean was on the inside. “You know what? I don’t want to know. You’re fired. Both of you.” He didn’t wait for a response. He simply opened the door and left the office.
He walked back to the kitchen and straight up to the woman who’d caused the last twenty-four hours of crazy in his life. She looked at him in confusion, like she couldn’t imagine what he needed from her. He hadn’t even realized why he was coming to her until he stood in front of her. But he was fuming, and he needed a physical outlet.
Taran sat on the counter, her legs criss crossed in front of her, and yet he still had to lean down to be at her level. And lean down he did, grabbing the back of her neck and feeling the brush of soft hair on his hand as he pulled her to him. She put up no fight. In fact, she grabbed his shoulders and held on just as their lips met.
It might have been Corey’s idea, but he wasn’t prepared for the punch of lust he felt as soon as his mouth touched hers. Her lips were soft and tasted like southern deliciousness, something warm and creamy. He wanted a deeper taste. It took almost no coaxing to get her to open to his conquering tongue. From there, he dominated her mouth. She felt soft and pliant under his hands. Her legs fell from their crisscross to alongside him, and she molded herself to him, letting him have his way with her body, her tongue.
For a moment, he forgot he was standing in his newly fired agent’s kitchen and let his pounding desire and frustration with the little creature in his arms lead the way. His body burned with a deep pulsing need he’d never in his life felt as Taran moaned against his mouth and twisted her fingers in his hair. Someone cleared their throat, and he remembered exactly where he was. He took one more moment of enjoyment before he forced himself to end what he’d started.
When he finally pulled away, he blinked at the woman sitting on the counter below him, her green eyes throwing sparks of passion back in return. He had no idea why he had just kissed her or why she’d kissed him back so thoroughly. He wasn’t sure what to say or what he wanted from here. No, that was a lie. The burn in his gut told him exactly what his body wanted. But he didn’t know whether he was willing to act on it. He wasn’t sure of anything other than that in twenty-four hours, this tiny woman had turned his life upside down.