FOUR
LUKE TURNED THE PHONE OVER in his hand, glancing at his watch to see if time had magically jumped ahead a couple of hours. It hadn’t. How fucking pathetic was it that he couldn’t go half a day without talking to her? She’d kissed him, told him she loved him, and crawled out of his bed that morning – but not before she’d tilted his world completely off its axis. He prided himself on never losing control, and she’d taken his.
It wasn’t just the orgasms, although he really wanted to know where the hell she’d learned how to do that. Or maybe not. Picturing Claire practicing her technique on someone else was not going to help his sanity. He’d never cared enough to be jealous before, but in his mind he was going to tell himself he was the only man she’d ever played sex goddess for, and fuck, what a goddess she was. He didn’t think he’d ever come so hard and definitely not twice within minutes. Even Gretchen hadn’t managed that, and she was practically a sex-acrobat.
He didn’t love Gretchen. He loved Claire, and apparently that gave her the power to tell him what to do. She said hold on, and he had, simply because he couldn’t risk disappointing her. Instead, she’d taken him to a place he’d never been before. Now she was off God-knew-where doing God-knew-what, and he was sitting in his office on a Saturday, getting absolutely nothing done because he couldn’t stop thinking of her. He felt like a fucking chick.
He woke his computer and stared at the Ashton Court spreadsheets on the screen, but instead of lining up and giving him a picture of the job and where it was going, the numbers swam in front of his face. Apparently work wasn’t going to happen, and if he spent any longer screwing around with stuff that should come easily and wasn’t, he’d end up well and truly pissed.
Pushing back from his huge clear glass desk, he grabbed the phone and headed to the closet off his private washroom. He grabbed his gym bag and started downstairs to try to work off some of his frustration and keep himself too busy to give in and call Claire.
Twenty minutes on the treadmill later, with the sweat sticking his T-shirt to his body, he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to work. Feeling a little like an addict, he picked up his phone and typed.
What are you doing?
He hit send before he had a chance to think too much about what he was doing. Moments later his phone dinged with a new message and the relief was a palpable thing.
Trying to get some perspective.
He grinned, perversely grateful that he wasn’t the only one struggling. Touching the phone icon beside her name, he waited two rings before she picked up.
“How’s that working for you?” he asked, hoping he was right and the separation was as hard on her as it was him.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and he laughed, irrationally glad simply to hear the sound of her voice on the other end of the line. “What are you doing, Masters? Taking a break from world domination?”
“Funny. I’m trying to figure out how long I have to wait before I can get you to come home to me. You know, so I don’t look like a desperate chick,” he said, swiping sweat from his forehead with a towel.
“Now who’s the funny one?” she asked, but he could practically hear the smile in her voice. He pictured her holding the phone to her ear, her gorgeous green eyes gazing into the distance as she pushed the hair out of her face the way she did when she was thinking. “I can’t come…there.”
He heard the pause and knew she’d been about to say home and stopped herself. He wondered how long it would take to fix all the damage he’d done. God, what a bastard he’d been.
“I’m in the middle of something, but you could come to me if you want.”
“Where are you?” he asked, already stripping off his sweat soaked T-shirt and heading for the shower, hoping it was someplace close.
“Over on Chestnut. I’m looking at properties I’m interested in flipping and trying figure out if I can afford to start a new project. I could use another set of eyes.”
He wanted in. The feeling was instant. It was the same surge he got when he found a business deal he knew would make him a boat load of money, one that was a perfect fit. Flipping a house with Claire would be a way to get her closer and for them to spend more time together. Once she started, she’d be there all the time. At least if he was a partner, he’d have some say in how many hours she put in, and he could work beside her for at least part of them.
He spent so much time behind a desk. It had felt good to work by her side on the Chestnut Street job. But when he’d tried to hire guys to help her fix the vandalism, she’d been so mad, accusing him of trying to take over and of burning through her profits with the added labor costs, even though he’d never intended for her to pay for any of it. She’d been ready to walk away. That was the very last thing he wanted to happen.
“Forget I asked,” she said, anger clear in her voice. “It’s not like I was asking you to buy a house with me.”
“Wait.” It took him a moment to realize she’d assume his silence was because he was afraid to get involved when the opposite was true. He wanted to be more than involved. He wanted a full partnership, but there was no way she’d agree to it if he pissed her off so badly she hung up on him. “Wait, Claire. That’s not what I was thinking.”
“Then what the fuck were you thinking? Jesus, Masters. The last time we talked about this you literally fell on your ass trying to get away from me. It’s probably better if we just let it go. I’ll come back to your place tonight if you want, or we could go out to eat or something.” She sounded resigned, and he knew he was losing her. He’d just got her back, and she was looking for a way out again.
“Just a minute, damn it. I don’t want out. I want in. I was trying to figure out how to ask you to let me in on the project without you getting pissed and biting my head off. We don’t have the best track record with that.” He let the silence stretch between them. He was more than willing to own up to all the crap stuff he’d done, but he still wasn’t sure why he’d been wrong to try to help fix her property when the vandals trashed it. He knew he was arrogant and assuming, but he’d just been trying to help, and she’d flipped out on him.
“Okay,” she finally said, and he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Okay?”
“You can be part of it if you want. We have to do a contract for the money.”
“Hell yes, we do,” he said, grinning. “No way am I going to let you take advantage of my good nature.”
“There’s really not much good about you, and it certainly isn’t your nature.”
