ELEMENTAL LOVE: A Second Chance Single Dad Romance Page 12

  I ran up the stairs, my heels clicking on the iron steps, and at the top, the door to the office was already open. Stepping inside, I saw Alexander, standing with his back to me, his hands on his hips. In his tight dress pants, I couldn’t help but look at his ass. And boy, did he have a gorgeous ass. When he heard me come in, he turned around, the frown on his face making his expression even darker than the clouds outside.

  “Hey,” he said. “There’s coffee ready. I just made it.”

  He looked too worn out for a sarcastic comment about how he’d finally managed to work out how to do something for himself, so I bit my tongue. I poured myself a cup and sat down at the desk opposite him and we got to work.

  Chapter 20

  ________

  ALEX

  “That’s not going to work.”

  She peered over the large floor plans and scored through the sketch I’d made. I wasn’t too happy about it, but I let her speak. “You can’t have the bed there, because it’s going to be looking directly at the toilet.”

  “There’s a door. You wouldn’t see anything.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s all about what the eye wants to see and what it doesn’t.”

  “It’s a little too Feng-shui for me,” I said, wryly, but it was clearly the worst thing I could have said because the look she gave me could have stripped the paint from the walls. I only blinked, stifling a smile.

  “Nobody’s forcing you to accept my designs,” she spat, “but you’re paying enough for them, so I suggest you take my advice. I know what I’m doing.”

  I conceded. She certainly did know what she was doing. She’d come up with a whole theme for Skyline: we’d gone back to the roaring twenties, the glorious, exciting age before the crash. A time of exponential growth, where the money in New York City was being used to build the largest skyscrapers the world had ever seen. Into her designs, Rachel had seamlessly incorporated this feeling of luxury and wealth.

  I was looking forward to seeing the whole place come together, but the fucking dimwits who’d knocked down the wrong walls had put a real wrench in the works. If we were ever going to stay on schedule, then we had to act fast.

  Rachel and I were clashing over the designs, and over the next three hours, we’d battled it out, literally going back to the drawing board. She was stubbornly insisting on certain things, and I was determined to have them a different way. In the end, the truth was that she didn’t have the final say and I reminded her of it.

  As I did so, she shoved all the papers away with an almighty push and stood up, some of it scattering onto the floor. Frustrated, I stood up, too, breathed in deeply and glared at her. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Goddammit!” she shouted, then put her hands over her face. She brushed back her hair and exhaled, her hands on top of her head. I couldn’t help but stare at her slim, tanned arms, and when she’d lifted them up, she’d pulled up her shirt and exposed her equally tanned stomach.

  “I need water,” I said.

  “I need something stronger,” Rachel muttered. She walked to the window and looked out. “What time is it?”

  Looking at my watch, I answered her. “Seven.”

  “It’s so dark. This storm needs to break. It’s sweltering.”

  “It sure is.” I loosened my tie and undid the top buttons of my shirt.

  Before I could stop her, Rachel unbuttoned her shirt and tossed it onto a chair, leaving her wearing only a silk camisole. Underneath it, I could see the outline of her lace bra and saw it was white in color as well. Against her tanned skin, the white of the cami stood out starkly, and I had to busy myself with picking up the papers that fell to the floor when she’d shoved them off the desk in her frustration.

  But when I stood up again, of course, she was still there. The room was hot and muggy, and it suddenly felt as though every atom in the air was charged with the same electricity currently flashing away in the clouds thousands of feet above our heads. I could feel it, and when Rachel turned and looked at me for a second, I knew she could feel it, too. The sexual tension between us was palpable.

  “Scotch?” I offered.

  She perked up. “You have some?”

  “Always.”

  The cabinet at the far side of the room held what I was looking for. Opening the drawer, I only saw piles of papers at first, but I shoved them away to reveal a wooden box underneath. I slid it out of the drawer and opened it. Nestled among some straw was an unopened bottle of thirty-year-old Glenfiddich.

  “I’d been saving this for when we opened the lounge,” I said, unscrewing the cap, “but I think we both need it now.”

  Rachel took two glasses from the cabinet and, into each, dropped a single cube of ice, exactly how this was meant to be enjoyed. I sloshed a generous helping of the amber liquid into each glass, then picked up mine and tapped it against hers. “Cheers,” I muttered, before taking a hearty sip.

  Dear God, that stuff was fine. It ran down my throat like the sweetest caramel and scorched with the heat of a log burning on a fire in the Scottish Highlands. It was delicious and just what I needed.

  Looking at Rachel, I could see she was savoring her drink, too, sipping it and closing her eyes with appreciation. “God, I needed that,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you were a scotch drinker,” I said.

  “I’ve spent the last five years drinking very good Spanish wine and Andalusian rum,” she said. “But this is a welcome change.”

  I took another sip and stood next to her in front of the window. The clouds were drawing menacingly closer, and the sky was pitch black. Sweat was running down my back, and I ran my hand over the stubble of my cheek. “Damn, this weather’s crazy,” I said.

  “We need rain. That’s it. We need the storm to break.”

  “Right.” I finished my drink. “Let’s get back to it.”

  We worked for the next hour until my eyes were sore from peering over the same tiny boxes that were to become hotel bedrooms, the same carpet patterns.

  “I can’t go over this anymore tonight,” I said. “I don’t even think I like Art Deco anymore. I’m pretty sick of looking at it.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “Of course you are,” she said, gathering up the papers.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means that I don’t want to be here either, stuck in this god-forsaken furnace with you. But here we are. The least you could do is install some air-conditioning.”

  “Well, thanks for the tip. Go home, and then tomorrow, come back with a fresh head and a change of attitude, and we can start all over again.”

  “Are you shitting me?” she asked, incredulous. “There’s nothing wrong with my attitude. If there was then I would have told you to wait until Monday. But you just assume that it’s okay for me to work on a Sunday, don’t you?”

  I looked at her, her emerald eyes flashing angrily at me.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “You’re the problem,” she hissed. “You’re as stubborn as a damn Albanian mountain goat. God! You seem to think that nobody else has a life around here. You think you’re the only one with places to be? I dropped all my other projects for you. I got dressed in horse gear to take your son riding on the weekend, for Christ’s sake. And then, having to sit here all afternoon while you piss all over my designs, and now—“

  I kissed her, hard and fast, unable to stop myself any longer. I pulled away for a second, looking into her startled eyes.

  “For God’s sake, woman. Will you just shut up?”

  Then I grabbed her again, and I pushed her back against the exposed brick wall, kissing her deeply, my tongue inside her mouth. She was hot and damp from the stifling heat and she made me so mad, so frustratingly angry, that I grabbed her hands and held them over her head, just as I’d imagined a few nights ago.

  When I pulled away from her for another second, we both caught our breaths, panting heavily, and just stared at each other as if trying to make sen
se of it all. Her breasts were against my chest, but she wasn’t fighting me. She wasn’t screaming at me to let her go.

  I knew it. She wanted me. And, by God, did I want her.

  Dropping her arms, I held her waist, and she wrapped her arms around my neck. Her fingers scraped at the back of my head, clinging onto me, pushing me against her lips so hard, as though trying to devour me. And I was devouring her in return, sucking on her tongue, where the delicious taste of scotch still lingered.

  My hands went underneath her silken camisole and moved to her breasts. I pinched her nipples through their lacy constraints and groaned as she gasped. Then I kissed her neck, opening my mouth to suck on her skin, to softly bite into it.

  She pulled at the buttons on my shirt, one at a time, until she tired of the laborious task and simply tore it open in crazed lust. Her fingers were against my chest, the shirt wide open, my tie still around my neck.

  I hiked up her skirt, feeling the lace around the top of her thigh-high stockings. Her skin was so soft, the heat between her legs on my fingers, and I yanked down her panties while she obliged me by unzipping the fly of my pants, pulling it down and releasing my now, rock hard cock.

  “Oh God, yes,” she gasped, holding my face now, and grabbing my bottom lip between her teeth before pushing her tongue into my mouth once more.

  I grabbed her thighs and lifted her off her feet, holding her against the wall, and I didn’t care that it wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in. I didn’t need to move over to the desk or to even slide down onto the floor. I was damn well having her, right this second.

  With a single thrust, I was inside her, ramming into her hard and fast, knowing that it was the only way to relieve the days and weeks of frustration. Goddammit, I’d been working with her, being simultaneously turned on and irritated by her, day after day, and my frustration had simply reached a peak where there was nowhere else to go but to take it out on her.

  She must have been feeling exactly the same way about me, because she cried out, moaning loudly, holding my face while she gritted her teeth and pressed her lips to mine. “Harder. Fuck me harder,” she growled, bucking her hips, as her soaking hot wetness slid back and forth over my cock like the tightest, wettest cave I’d ever been inside of.

  Her thighs were wrapped around my waist, and I heard a tear as the slit of her skirt tore open from the force with which I held her to the wall with my hips. I heard one clunk after another as her heeled shoes fell to the floor, and my hands searched for the bottom of her camisole. I lifted it over her head and tore off her bra, and then I held her arms over her head once more and as I did so, I sucked on her nipples with desperate force, still pistoning in and out of her with as much speed as I could muster.

  I released her hands so I could cup her beautiful breasts. I felt a sharp pain as her fingernails scraped down my back, but it only spurred me on, as with gritted teeth we fucked with desperation against the wall until I held her still, plunged my tongue into her mouth and gave one, long, loud grunt down her throat as I came inside her, forcing weeks of lust and white-hot anger into her depths.

  After I came, I held her there, trying to catch my breath, my lips pressed against her shoulder. She was soaking wet, trickles of hot sweat running between her breasts, and I lowered my head and licked it up, tasting her saltiness, the result of our workout.

  I slid out of her, putting my cock back inside my pants, and then we dressed, neither of us saying a word. I’d lost the buttons on my shirt, but it didn’t matter.

  Behind me, she pulled the camisole over her head, not even bothering to put on her bra, which was torn anyway, grabbed her shirt off the chair and pulled her skirt back down. She then picked up her purse, slid her feet into her shoes and ran out of the building before I could gather my wits and stop her.

  Just then, an almighty flash of lightning filled the room and a crack of thunder followed almost immediately. The heavens opened and a torrent of rain came rushing down onto every surface it could find. I walked over to the window and looked down onto the street just in time to see her leap into the Jeep and then roar off. I wanted to go after her, but I didn’t.

  Instead, I stayed at the office, pouring myself another whiskey, the scent of her still on my body, and my cock still twitching at the memory of her.

  Chapter 21

  ________

  RACHEL

  What the hell was I thinking?

  All I wanted to do was slam my foot on the accelerator and burn rubber all the way back to the house, but of course, I was stuck in the middle of New York City at a traffic light that seemed to stubbornly refuse to change back to green.

  The rain was coming down so fast that the windshield wipers couldn’t even keep up. Still waiting at a light, I sat back in the plush leather chair and looked up at the rain.

  “Oh, now you’re coming down in buckets!” I yelled. “Where were you a half hour ago? It’s your fault I did something so stupid!”

  The atmosphere in that room had been so charged that, just like the weather outside, something had to break. Alex must have felt it, too. I was sure of it. I could feel the tension between us building, and when he grabbed me and kissed me, I wasn’t that surprised, to be honest. I think he mistook my reaction for shock, but that wasn’t the case. It was more the feeling of sheer exhilaration I’d felt when he claimed my mouth, like the lightning in the sky outside had been conducted through my whole body.

  I wanted him. I craved him. I despised him, of course, that hadn’t changed, but I’d needed him inside me. I’d practically torn his shirt off in sheer desperation to feel his skin beneath my fingers. His chest was smooth and hard with only the slightest thin line of dark hair going down to his pants and I swear to God I’d have kissed every single follicle, given half the chance. He was like the most decadent dessert I’d ever eaten, but one I knew was laced with cyanide, and I’d been dumb enough to give in.

  But one taste of him was enough for me to know I’d stepped into quicksand.

  Shit!

  I slammed my hand on the horn and honked at a woman who walked in front of my car after the lights had just turned green. She looked at me as though I’d punched her in the face, but she was holding me up, dammit, and I wanted to get home, back to the safety of my own room.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d do once I got back, though. I had to return the car and walk all the way back to my Dad’s apartment, and for the first time ever, I hoped that he wasn’t home. Although, in weather like this, I doubted he’d be outside.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I cursed once more before forcing myself to calm down. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that had made me so mad about the whole thing, but if I was brutally honest with myself, I realized that it was because, while I wanted Alex, I didn’t want him to know I wanted him.

  The guy was so arrogant, so damned in love with himself. I was annoyed that I’d given in to him so easily, putting up no resistance whatsoever and practically begging him not to stop.

  But boy, was it good. There was a delicious ache deep inside me, the ache that comes from being given a good fucking for the first time in a long time. And he was so good. He knew what he was doing. He had me desperately trying to catch my breath as he had me against the wall, fucking the breath out of me. I was sorry when it was all over. I wanted him to carry on. And the way he kissed me? God, I was surprised I didn’t pass out.

  Once he was done, though, it was all over. Of course. That was just like him. Takes what he wants without any regard for my needs. So, not only was I soaking wet from my having to dart from the building to the car in the pouring rain, I was stuck in traffic, feeling utterly humiliated, and, to top it all off, I was now sexually frustrated, too.

  I’d wanted him to carry on. I hadn’t wanted him to stop when I was so close to climaxing. I never, ever orgasmed with Mathias simply from having him inside me. It took a lot of instructions, a lot of patience, and a lot of repeated tongue action from my ex-boyfriend t
o bring me to that point. If only Alex had managed to control himself for a minute longer, we might both have gotten what we wanted.

  “Oh, but noooo!” I shouted out into the car, barely able to hear my own voice over the rain hammering on metal. “No, that’s just too difficult, isn’t it, Mister Maitland! Take what you damn-well want from a woman, but give her nothing in return!”

  I held my hand over my chest, feeling my nipples still tingling from where his teeth had tugged at my skin just a few moments ago. I couldn’t tell what part of my body had rubbed up against his cologne, but I could smell him on me. I caught the spice of his scent in the air, and when I chased after it, it disappeared, only to hit me again several moments later.

  Finally, I reached the back road to the house, and this was where I let the car fly. It was reckless and stupid, but there was no sign of anyone else on the road, and I could see ahead of me for at least a mile. I didn’t want there to be any chance that he was following me back to the house, or even, God forbid, that he’d managed to get home before me.

  But there was no sign of his car as I came up the drive and dropped off the Jeep. I knocked on the door and practically flung the keys at Alastair before scooting back to the apartment. Thankfully, Dad was nowhere to be seen.

  It was only after I got out of the shower, though, and into a pair of pajamas, that I wondered where he was. I was hoping he hadn’t been caught in the storm or worse, struck by lightning. So, I called his cell.

  “I’m over at the house,” he said. “There was a leak in Beau Maitland’s kitchen, and I had to come over and attend to it.”

  “Ah, right,” I said. “Everything okay otherwise?”

  “Of course. And with you?”

  I told him, as breezily as I could, that I’d had to go into town to fix something with the project, and I was thankful that he didn’t ask me any questions. “What time will you be back?” I asked. “Have you eaten?”