The only issue I have is that I can still taste her on my tongue. I can hear her sighs, moans, and the way she screams when she comes. That I can feel her body under mine, my dick in her mouth, and the sting of her nails as they scored my back.
But, sure, we’ll just not talk about it.
“If you think you can do it,” I say, trying to pretend I wasn’t thinking how hard it would be to not be with her. No pun intended.
“I can.” She lets out a deep breath through her nose. “Umm, do you think, you should…” Her eyes move down my bare chest and to the shorts that are hanging low on my hips.
“What?” I push.
Tessa tucks her hair behind her ear. “Maybe it would be better for our meeting if you know, you had some pants on.”
I lean against the counter. “I wasn’t expecting my publicist so early.”
“Yes, and I wasn’t expecting to be in yesterday’s clothes, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt.”
I’m being an asshole. I’m just so mad at myself. At her. At the fucking universe for dropping her in my lap and yanking her away.
There’s no way we can sleep together again. Not if she’s working for me. I’m a lot of things, but someone who sleeps with co-worker or those here to fix my entire crumbling business is not one.
So, that’s that.
I push off, ready to eat crow, and also put her at ease. She didn’t know who I was and the last thing I want is to have to find a new PR team. “You’re right. My office is down the hall, the third door on the left. If you want to wait for me there, we can go over everything. Or you can go back to your place, shower, do whatever you need to do, and meet me here in two hours?”
“Can it wait? Brynn said it was urgent.”
I give her a reassuring smile. “It can wait a little. Go home and do what you have to do.”
She pushes her purse up on her shoulder. “Thank-you, Killian. For everything.”
I watch her walk out the door, and I head into the shower, washing away the remnants of the night.
Tessa comes back an hour and a half later.
In that time, what went from pretty shitty has escalated to out of control.
“Okay, so as of right now, the concern is that your trainer has sort of gone missing and you’re losing sales in rapid succession?” Tessa asks as she follows me into my office.
“Basically, but none of it makes sense.”
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?”
I grip the back of my neck and motion for her to sit on the cognac-colored leather couch that is against the floor to ceiling windows, overlooking the ranch.
This room is my favorite in the house. It’s masculine and the only one I actually gave a shit about and decorated myself.
I had all the wall space created into a library. It’s warm wood tones with a rolling ladder flanking my massive desk that was my grandfather’s. My kid said it was too manly the one time she came here, and she added a plush rug to “soften” it. Whatever that means.
“The beginning?”
She nods. “I want to help, but Brynlee didn’t have any information, just that it was urgent and I needed to drop everything and come here.”
Right. The beginning. “Six years ago, I hired one of the most renowned horse trainers in the industry. It was a big win for me since I was able to persuade him to leave a training facility that was producing some of the top racehorses in the country. It brought me some enemies, mainly one.”
Tessa writes a few things down before looking up. “I’m guessing the owner of the farm or ranch you were able to persuade him to leave?”
“Yes, and some owners of the horses he was working with.”
She shifts. “Why would the owners care?”
