“You should’ve seen me the first time I did anything on my own at work. Ask Barrett. I made a fool of myself.” Molly grinned. “You’re not me, though. So, just relax. This is what you do.”
I moved to stand up and Molly waved me off.
“I can see myself out. We’ve been coming here for years, Barrett. I told you to stop playing host after the second visit.”
I sank back in the lounge chair and sighed. “Point maybe taken. Get home safe.”
SJ waited until Molly left to fall back on the couch she was sitting on. Rubbing the palms of her hands into her eyes, she laughed. “I felt so inadequate in that meeting. Everyone on your team is brilliant. I didn’t care that I felt like the village idiot at the party, though, because that was so exciting. I think I love marketing.”
I was in my mid-forties, which was too young to get a hard-on over someone saying they loved marketing. It was tempting, though. I loved my job and hearing Sugar enjoy it was exhilarating. “You weren’t the village idiot. Like you said, everyone on my team is brilliant.You’reon my team, Sugar.”
She rolled her head to the side and looked at me. Her eyes were bright with happiness and excitement. “I have a million ideas running through my brain. This issomuch better than reading about the company. No offense, it’s great and impressive, butthisis where the fun is.”
Getting up, I stretched my back and looked around my back yard. I always had the idea meetings at my house, because I could control the setting. There were no distractions there. Maybe there were when Sam was younger, but she’d moved out with her mom when we’d divorced. It was hard to imagine that Sugar had played in this very backyard at some point of her life.
I shook my head and threw that thought away. Sugar wasn’t a girl. She was a grown woman and if she wasn’t Sam’s best friend, there’d be nothing wrong with our hooking up.
“I guess I should go. You probably have things to do.”
I smiled at her. “Not at all. Stay as long as you want. I was thinking of ordering some dinner in and watching a movie. You’re more than welcome to join me. Matter of fact, I’d really like it.”
She chewed on her bottom lip and then stood up. “Okay. I need to go home and get changed first, though. This is not a movie-watching dress.”
I knew it was a bad idea, but it didn’t stop me from speaking. “I have some clothes you could change into.”
Nodding her head, she tugged at the end of her hair. “That would be great. I didn’t really want to go home. Long story.”
I took her hand and pulled her upstairs and into my bedroom. It took every ounce of my willpower not to look at her, standing in front of my bed, and beg her to forget that she had ever known me before. I ached to see more of her, to touch her. I wanted to hear the moans she made and drink them in.
I grabbed one of my t-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts. “I think these will do. They’ll be too big for you, but I won’t judge your fashion sense tonight.”
She took them and instantly pulled my shirt to her nose. “You smell so good.”
I grunted. I had to get out of there. “I’ll be in the living room.”
The sound of her zipper moving down her back stopped me before I could reach the door. I told myself to keep moving, not to stop and freak her out with how badly I wanted her. I just had to get out of the bedroom.
Then, I heard her dress hitting the hardwood floor. It was like my body snapped. One moment, I was a foot from the door, the next, I was standing in front of Sugar, taking in the black lace of her bra as it held her breasts the way I wanted to. Her tiny panties matched and the thigh-highs she wore attached to a garter belt pushed me over the edge.
I gripped Sugar’s face and took her mouth in a heated kiss. I devoured her, biting and sucking her tongue and lips until her broken cry struck me like an anvil. I stumbled away from her and held up my hands when she approached me.
“Fuck. Sorry. I’m sorry, Sugar.”
She pushed my hands out of the way and molded her beautiful body to mine. “I want it.”
I swore. “Sugar, I don’t want to push you into anything. You said you didn’t want this.”
She pulled my shirt out of my pants and ran her hands under the material to stroke them over my stomach. “We both know I lied. I don’t want to think about that right now. I can’t. I just want this. I want you. I just watched you run that meeting like some kind of sexy god and you keep flexing your chest and I just want to be selfish right now.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.” I hissed as her nails raked over my chest. “Sugar.”
“I don’t regret sleeping with you. I feel guilty for it because Ishouldcare. Ishouldbe a better person. But I never regretted sleeping with you. I made the rule to stay away in some desperate attempt to be a better friend, after the fact, but I just…can’t. I need you, Barrett, and if you don’t take your shirt off, I think I’m going to die.”
I ripped the shirt over my head and scooped her into my arms. “I fucking tried.”
She locked her legs behind my back and gripped my face as she kissed me deeply. “I did, too. It has to count for something. I just need to feel you in me right now. I tried, Barrett. I tried to stay away. From all of you.”
I growled when I thought of the shitshow from that morning. “I saw you stay away from Holden.”