I unclench my teeth, trying to loosen up. “Just work stuff,” I lie.
“Congrats on the Vitale account.” She smiles at me.
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you,” I tell her honestly. “Leon mentioned that he wanted to make plans again for this summer.”
She chuckles, a proud smile on her face. “Yeah. Courtney and I have been chatting. I guess Leon’s been talking about last weekend for days. It looks like we made a good impression.”
It was easy to make a good impression with Brielle by my side. She sees people where I see opportunities. She balances me. My chest feels too tight suddenly. Equal parts of me split straight down the middle. The part that wants to push her away, save myself the trouble of what someone like her can bring to my life. But another part of me wants to bring her to every client meeting, watch as she charms them all until they’re putty in her hands. Push. Pull. Push. Pull. The tug in my chest leans her way when I look over and see her rosy cheeks, her bottom lip pulled into her mouth, captured by her teeth.
I plate our dinners, setting them down at the table, Brielle already waiting to dig in.
“So, what’s in store for this weekend?” I ask.
Brielle isn’t listening though. She has a weird look on her face as she examines the meal I made.
“Is there a problem?”
“Hmm. No. Of course not. I appreciate you always making dinner. But, um, what is this?”
“It’s a tofu stir-fry.”
Her eyes round, and she prods the pieces of tofu with her fork.
“Have you never had tofu before?”
“I have not,” she answers. “You know, I had a late lunch today. I’m not super hungry.”
“Just try it, Bri,” I say, trying out her nickname. She looks up at me, her sapphire eyes trained on mine. I’m not sure I like the nickname, to be honest. To me, she’s Brielle. The way it feels in my mouth, rolling along my tongue, is far better than the quick and harsh “Bri.”
She breaks the eye contact, looking back down at her plate. I stab into my stir-fry and lean over, lifting my fork to her lips. She gives me a weary look before she opens her mouth for me to slide my fork past her lips. My dick twitches. She seals her mouth around my fork, and I drag it out past her lips.
“Mhmm,” she moans loudly. “Oh, wow. That’s really good.”
She takes another bite, savoring the spices and flavor of the dish, her lips wrapped around the tines of the fork as she pulls it from her mouth slowly.
My gaze bounces to her eyes, finding them watching me watch her. The energy in the room shifts, electricity crackling in the air around us. Her eyes on me hold me captive as she does it again.
She likes my eyes on her, likes the way I look at her.
“Damian,” she says, her voice holding a warning. I’m not sure if it’s for me or her, but it sets me straight.
Brielle is my employee. It wouldn’t be fair to her to make a move, not when she may not think she has the power to reject me. We aren’t here to actually get closer. This is part of the deal we made, nothing more. I need to remember that, even when she turns those pretty blue eyes on me—especially then.
“This weekend,” I say, getting us back on level ground. “What’s the plan? Are we… together? Have you told your sister anything about us?”
“It’s Friday to Sunday. I haven’t seen a lot of these people for the last ten years, so I’m not worried about them calling me out on a new relationship. Evelyn is a different story. I wasn’t sure how to explain it… us… so I just avoided it. I’ll talk to her in person when we get there. Overall, I guess I was kind of hoping it would be like the cabin, you know.”
“What part of the cabin stay?” I ask slowly.
“Hand holding, leaning on each other, that kind of thing,” she answers, a pink blush creeping across her cheeks.
So not her writhing beneath me while we dry hump in bed? That’s a shame.
“I can do that,” I say, keeping my other thoughts to myself. “Get me your travel details, and I’ll set something up.”
“Sure. But if you can’t find any flights out at the last minute, I totally get it.”
She has no idea what money can do. Getting onto a flight is the least of my concerns, not when I know that I’m going to be spending two nights in bed with a woman I can’t touch and a cock that wants nothing more than to introduce himself to her.
