Читать книгу In Name Only - Kat Cantrell - Страница 14
ОглавлениеAfter the weekend of torture, Jonas went to work on Monday with renewed determination to get his grandfather moving on the Park Industries merger. The sooner the ink was dry on that deal, the better. Then Jonas could get over his irritation that his marriage to Viv was what had tipped the scales toward his grandfather’s decision to retire.
Grandfather recognized Jonas’s accomplishments with Kim Electronics. Deep down, he knew that. But it rankled that the conversation about naming Jonas as the next CEO had come about after Grandfather had met Viv.
Didn’t matter. The subject had come up. That was enough. And Jonas intended to make sure the subject didn’t get dropped, because if he was forced to stay married to Viv, he should get something out of it. An Academy Award wouldn’t be out of line after the stellar performance he’d turned in at his parents’ house. How he’d acted like he’d been sleeping all night while lying next to his wife was still a mystery to him and he was the one who’d pulled it off.
Her scent still haunted him at odd moments. Like now. This conference call he’d supposedly been participating in had gotten maybe a quarter of his attention. Which was not a good way to prove he deserved the position of CEO.
But it was a perfect way to indulge in the memory of the sweet way she’d curled up next to him, her even breathing oddly arousing and lulling at the same time. He’d expected it to be weird the next morning, like maybe they wouldn’t look each other in the eye, but Viv had awoken refreshed and beautiful, as if she’d gotten a great night’s sleep. He pretended the same and they settled into an easy camaraderie around his parents that hadn’t raised a single brow.
At least that part was over. Viv’s mom and dad had invited them for dinner on Friday and he was plenty nervous about that experience. It would probably be fine. As long as he didn’t have to act like he couldn’t keep his hands off Viv. Or act like he didn’t want to touch her. Actually, he’d lost track of what he was supposed to be doing. Hence the reason he hated lying. The truth was so much easier.
But when he got home that evening after a long day that had included a two-hour debrief with Legal regarding the merger proposal, Viv was sitting on the couch with two glasses of wine. She smiled at him and he felt entirely incapable of faking anything. Especially if it came down to pretending he didn’t want to be with her.
His answering smile broadened hers and that set off all sorts of fireworks inside that should have been a big fat warning to back off, but he was tired and there was absolutely nothing wrong with having a glass of wine with his friend Viv after work. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
“Are we celebrating something?” he asked as he hung his work bag on the hook near the refrigerator.
“Yes, that I can in fact open a bottle of wine all by myself.” She laughed with that little peal he’d never noticed before he’d married her, but seemed to be a common occurrence lately. Or had she always laughed like that and he’d been too stuck in his own head to notice how warm it was?
“Was that in question?” He took the long-stemmed glass from her outstretched fingers and eased onto the couch next to her. Instantly, that turned into a big mistake as her scent wrapped around him. It slammed through his gut and his arm jerked, nearly spilling the wine.
For God’s sake. This ridiculousness had to stop, especially before Friday or the second family trial by fire would end in a blaze.
“I’m just not talented in the cork-pulling arena,” she answered casually as if she hadn’t noticed his idiocy. “My skills start and end with baking.”
Yes. Baking. They could talk about cupcakes while he got back on track. “Speaking of which, I wasn’t expecting you home. Doesn’t the shop stay open until seven on Mondays?”
She smiled. “You’ve been memorizing my work schedule? That’s sweet. Josie is closing up for me. I wanted to be here when you got home.”
“You did? Why?”
Because I couldn’t stay away, Jonas. You’re so much more interesting to me than cupcakes, Jonas. I want to strip you naked and have my wicked way with you, Jonas.
There came her gorgeous laugh again. He couldn’t hear it enough, especially when he was in the middle of being such a doofus. If she was laughing, that was a good thing. Otherwise, he’d owe her an apology. Not that she could read his thoughts, thank God.
“I wanted to see you. We’re still friends, right?”
Oh, yeah. “Right.”
“Also, I wasn’t kidding when I said my sisters are going to have an eagle eye on our relationship this Friday.” Viv sipped her wine, her gaze on his over the rim. “We’re still a little jumpy around each other. I’m not sure why, but sharing a bed didn’t seem to help.”
Huge mystery there. Maybe because his awareness level had shot up into the stratosphere since he’d woken up with a woman whom he hadn’t touched one single time. Or it could be because he’d been kicking himself over his regret ever since. He shouldn’t regret not touching her. It was the right move.
“No, it didn’t help,” he muttered. “That wasn’t ever going to be the result of sleeping together platonically.”
She nodded sagely. “Yes, I realized that sometime between then and now. Don’t worry. I have a new plan.”
“I wasn’t worried. What is it?”
“We’re trying too hard. We need to dial it back and spend time as friends. We were comfortable around each other then. It can totally be that way again.”
That sounded really great to him. And also like there was a catch he couldn’t quite see. Cautiously he eyed her. “What, like I take you to lunch and we just talk about stuff?”
“Sure.” She shrugged and reached out to lace her fingers through his free hand. “See, we can hold hands and it doesn’t mean anything. I’m just hanging out with my friend Jonas, whom I like. Hey, Jonas, guess what?”
He had to grin. This was not the worst plan he’d ever heard. In fact, it was pretty great. He’d missed their easy camaraderie and the lack of pretension. Never had she made him feel like he should be anything other than himself when they hung out. “Hey, Viv. What?”
“I made reservations at this new restaurant in Cary that sounds fab. It’s Thai.”
“That’s my favorite.” Which she well knew. It was hers, too. He took the first deep breath in what seemed like hours. They were friends. He could dang well act like one and stop nosing around Viv like a hormonal teenager.
“Drink your wine and then we’ll go. My treat.”
“No way. You opened the bottle of wine. The least I can do is spring for dinner.”
“Well, it was a major accomplishment,” she allowed, and clinked her glass to his as he held out the stemware. “I’m thrilled to have it recognized as such.”
And the evening only got better from there. Jonas drove Viv to the restaurant and they chattered all the way about everything and nothing, which he’d have called a major accomplishment, too, since he managed to concentrate on the conversation and not on the expanse of Viv’s bare leg mere inches from his hand resting on the gearshift. The food was good and the service exceptional.
As they walked in the door of the condo later, Jonas paused and helped Viv take off her jacket, then turned to hang it up for her in the foyer coat closet.
“I have to say,” he called over his shoulder as he slid the hanger into place. “Dinner was a great idea.”
He shut the door and Viv was still standing there in the foyer with a small smile.
“It’s the best date I’ve been on in a long time,” she said. “And seems like the plan worked. Neither of us is acting weird or jumpy.”
“True.” He’d relaxed a while back and didn’t miss the edginess that had plagued him since the wedding ceremony. He and Viv were friends and that was never going to change. That was the whole reason he’d come up with this idea in the first place. “We may not set off the fire alarms when we visit with your family on Friday, but we can certainly pull off the fact that we like each other, which is not something all married couples can say.”
That was fine with him. Better that way anyway. His reaction to the pull between him and Viv was ridiculous. So unlike him. He had little experience with something so strong that it dug under his skin, and he’d handled it badly.
Fortunately, he hadn’t done anything irreversible that would have ruined their friendship. Though there’d been more than a handful of moments in that bed at his parents’ that he’d been really afraid it was going to go the other way.
But then she stepped a little closer to him in the foyer, waltzing into his space without hesitation. The foyer was just a small area at the entrance of the condo with a coat closet and nothing more to recommend it. So there was little else to take his attention off the woman who’d suddenly filled it with her presence.
“We’ve been friends a long time,” she said, and it was such a strange, unnecessary comment, but he nodded anyway because something had shifted in the atmosphere.
He couldn’t put his finger on it. The relaxed, easy vibe from the restaurant had morphed into something else—a quickened sense of anticipation that he couldn’t explain, but didn’t hate. As if this really was a date and they’d moved on to the second part of the evening’s activities.
“We’ve done a lot of firsts in the last little while,” she continued, also unnecessarily because he was well aware that he’d shifted the dynamic of their relationship by marrying her.
“Yeah. Tonight went a long way toward getting us back to normal. To being friends without all the weirdness that sprang up when I kissed you.”
That was probably the dumbest thing he could have said. He’d thrown that down between them and it was like opening the electrical panel of a television, where all the live components were exposed, and all it would take was one wrong move to fry the delicate circuitry.
Better to keep the thing covered.
But it was too late. Her gaze landed square on his mouth as if she was reliving the kiss, too. Not the nice and unexpectedly sweet kiss at the wedding ceremony. But the hot, tongue-on-tongue kiss outside her bedroom when they’d been practicing being a couple. The necessity of that practice had waned since his family had bought the marriage hook, line and sinker. Sure, they still had to get through her family, but he wasn’t worried about it, racy lingerie gifts aside.
Now the only reason to ever kiss Viv again would be because he couldn’t stop himself.
Which was the worst reason he could think of. And keep thinking about, over and over again.
“I don’t think it was weirdness, Jonas,” she murmured.
Instantly, he wished there was still some circumstance that required her to call him Mr. Kim. Why that was such a turn-on remained a mystery to him. But really, everything about Viv was a turn-on. Her laugh. Her cupcakes. The way her hair lay so shiny and soft against her shoulders.
“Trust me, it was weird,” he muttered. “I gave myself entirely too many inappropriate thoughts with that kiss.”
And that was the danger of being lulled back into a false sense of security with the sociable, uneventful dinner. He’d fallen into friendship mode, where he could say anything on his mind without consequence.
The admission that had just come out of his mouth was going to have consequences.
Her smile went from zero to sixty in less than a second and all at once, he wasn’t sure the consequences were going to be anything close to what he’d envisioned. She waltzed even closer and reached up to adjust his tie in a provocative move that shouldn’t have been as affecting as it was.
The tie hadn’t needed adjusting. The knot was precisely where he’d placed it hours ago when he’d gotten dressed for work. It slid down a few centimeters and then a few more as she loosened it.
Loosened it. As if she intended to take it off.
But she stopped short of committing, which was good. Really...good. He swallowed as she speared him with her contemplative gaze, her hands still at his collar in an intimate touch. She was so close he could pull her into his arms if he wanted to.
He wanted to. Always.
Dinner hadn’t changed that.
“The thing is, Jonas,” she said. “I’ve had some thoughts, too. And if yours are the same as mine, I’m trying to figure out why they’re inappropriate.”
She flattened her hands on his lapels. The pressure sang through him and it would feel even better if he didn’t have a whole suit jacket and two shirts between her palms and his skin.
The direction of this conversation floored him. And if she kept it up, the floor was exactly where they were going to end up.
“What are you saying, Viv?” he asked hoarsely, scrambling to understand. “That you lie awake at night and think about that kiss, aching to do it again?”
She nodded and something so powerful swept through his body that he could hardly breathe. This was the opposite of what should be happening. She should be backing off and citing her inability to focus on a man and her career at the same time. She was too busy, too involved in her business to date. This was the absolute he’d banked on for long agonizing hours, the thing that was keeping him from indulging in the forbidden draw between them.
Because if he gave in, he’d have no control over what happened next. That certainty had already been proven with what little they’d experimented so far. More would be catastrophic.
And so, so fantastically amazing.
“After tonight, I’m convinced we’re missing an opportunity here,” she said, her voice dripping with something sensual that he’d never have expected from his sunny friend Viviana Dawson. Kim.
Viv wasn’t his friend. She was his wife. He’d been ignoring that fact for an entire day, but it roared back to the forefront with an implication he couldn’t ignore. Except he didn’t know what it meant to him, not really. Not just a means to an end, though it was an inescapable fact that she’d married him as a favor.
And he wanted to exploit that favor to get her naked and under him? It was improper, ridiculous. So very illicit that his body tightened with thick anticipation.
“What opportunity is that?” he murmured, letting his gaze flick over her face, searching for some sign that the answer about to come out of her mouth was not a green light to get naked.
Because he’d have a very difficult time saying no. In fact, he couldn’t quite remember why he should say no. He shouldn’t say no. If nothing else, taking this next step meant he wasn’t lying to anyone about their marriage.
Her limpid brown eyes locked on to his. “We’re both too busy to date. And even if we weren’t, I have a feeling that ‘oh, by the way, I’m married’ isn’t a great pickup line. You said it yourself. We spark. If our friendship can take a kiss, maybe it can take more. We should find out.”
More. He liked the word more a lot. Especially if her dictionary defined it as lots and lots of sex while maintaining their friendship. If things got too intense, he could back off with no harm, no foul. It was like the absolute best of all worlds.
Unless that wasn’t what she meant.
Clarification would be in order, just to be sure they were speaking the same language. “More?”
“Come on, Jonas.” She laughed a little breathlessly and it trilled through him. “Are you going to make me spell it out?”
“Yes, I absolutely am,” he growled, because the whole concept of Viv talking dirty to him was doing things to his insides that he was enjoying the hell out of. If he’d known dinner was this kind of date, he’d have skipped dessert. “I want to be crystal clear about what’s on the table here.”
Instead of suggesting things Jonas could do to her—all of which he’d immediately commit to memory so he didn’t miss a single one—she watched him as she hooked the neckline of her dress and pulled it to the side. A flash of yellow seared his vision as his entire body tensed in recognition.
“I’m wearing my sister’s gift,” she murmured, and that admission was as much of a turn-on as any dirty talk. Maybe more so because he’d been fantasizing about that scrap of yellow lace for a million years.
“I bet it looks amazing on you.”
“Only one way to find out,” she shot back and curled her fingers around his lapels to yank him forward.
He met her mouth in a searing kiss without hesitation. All of his reservations melted in an instant as he sank into her, shaping her lips with his as he consumed her heat, letting it spread deep inside.
Why had he resisted this? Viv didn’t want anything from him, didn’t expect an emotional outpouring or even anything permanent. This was all going to end at some point and thus didn’t count. No chance for romantic nonsense. No declarations of love would ever be forthcoming—on either side. Jonas’s sense of honor would be intact, as would his sworn vow to Warren and Hendrix.
Instead of two friends pretending to be a married couple having sex, they were going to be married friends who were having sex. Living the truth appealed to him enormously. Desire swept through him as he got great handfuls of Viv’s skin under his palms and everything but his wife drained from his mind.
* * *
Viv would have sworn on a truckload of Bibles that the kiss outside her bedroom last week had been the hottest one she’d ever participate in.
She’d have been wrong.
That kiss had been startling in its perfection. Unexpected in its heat. It had gotten her motor humming pretty fast. She’d been angling for another one just like that. Thank God she hadn’t gotten her wish.
This kiss exploded in her core like a cannon. Desire crackled through the air as Jonas backed her up against the wall, crowding her against it with his hard body, demanding that her every curve conform to him. Her flesh rapidly obeyed. She nearly wept with the glory of Jonas pressed against her exactly as she’d fantasized hundreds of times.
He angled her jaw with his strong fingers until he got her situated the way he apparently wanted and then plunged in with the wickedest of caresses. His tongue slicked across hers so sensuously that she moaned against it, would have sagged if he hadn’t had her pinned to the wall.
His hands nipped at her waist, skimmed upward and hooked both sides of the neckline. The fabric tore at the seams as he separated it from her shoulders, and she gasped.
“I need to see you,” he murmured fiercely. “I’ll buy you two to make up for this one.”
And with that, the dress came apart in his hands. He peeled it from between them, following the line of the reveal with his hot mouth, laving at her exposed flesh until he caught the silk strap of the yellow teddy in his teeth, scraping the sensitive hollow of her shoulder.
The sensation shot through her center with tight, heated pulls. Oh, my. His fingers tangled in the strap, binding his palm to her shoulder as he explored the skin beneath the yellow lace with his tongue, dipping and diving into the holes of the pattern. Then his lips closed around her nipple through the fabric and her whole body jerked. Hot, wet heat dampened the scrap between her legs. The awareness that Jonas had drenched her panties so quickly only excited her more.
What had happened to the kind, generous man she’d been so intent on seducing? He’d become a hungry, untamed creature who wanted to devour her. She loved every second. His tongue flicked out to tease her nipple, wetting the lace, and it was wickedly effective. Moans poured from her throat as her head thunked back against the wall.
All at once, he sank to his knees and trailed his lips across the gap between the top and the bottom of her sexy lingerie set, murmuring her full name. Viviana. The sound of it rang in her ears as he worshipped her stomach with his mouth, and it was poetry.
Her thighs pressed together, seeking relief from the ache his touch had created, and she arched into his lips, his hands, crying out as his fingers worked under the hem of her soaked panties. The gorgeous man she’d married glanced up at her from his supine position, his gaze so wickedly hot that she experienced a small quake at that alone, but then he slid one finger along her crease, teasing her core until she opened wider, begging him to fill her.
He did. Oh, how he did, one quick motion, then back out again. The exquisite friction burned through her core a second time and she cried out.
“Please, Jonas” dripped from her mouth with little gasping sighs and she whimpered as she pleaded with him for whatever he planned to give her next.
She didn’t know she could be this wanton, that the man she’d married could drive her to neediness so easily. It was so hot that she felt the gathering of her release before she was ready for the exquisite torture to end. No way to hold back. She crested the peak and came with hard ripples against Jonas’s fingers. The orgasm drained her of everything but him.
Falling apart at his hands was better than what she’d dreamed of, hoped for, imagined—and then some. And it still wasn’t over.
He nipped at her lace-covered sex and swept her up in his arms, still quaking, to carry her to his bedroom. Blindly, she tried to clear her senses long enough to gain some semblance of control. Why, she wasn’t sure, but being wound up in Jonas’s arms wearing nothing but wet lace while he was still fully dressed felt a lot like she’d surrendered more than she’d intended to.
But he wasn’t finished with the revelations.
He laid her out on the comforter and watched her as he stripped out of his suit jacket and tie. She shivered long and hard as he began unbuttoning his shirt, but she didn’t dare blink for fear of missing the greatest show on earth—the sight of her husband shedding his clothes. For her. Because she’d finally gotten him to see reason.
They were friends. What better foundation was there to get naked with someone than because you liked each other? It was sheer brilliance, if she did say so herself. The fact that she’d been racking her brain over how to best get to this place when the answer had been staring her in the face for a year? She’d rather not dwell on that.
Good thing she had plenty else to occupy her mind. That beautiful torso of his came into sight, still covered by a white undershirt that clung to his biceps and lean waist, and she wanted to touch him so badly her fingers tingled. But then his hands moved to his belt and she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her lungs rattled with the need to expand. Slowly, the belt loosened and he pulled it from the loops. After an eternity, it dropped to the floor, followed shortly by the pants, and then came the pièce de résistance. Jonas stripped off his undershirt and worked off his boxers in the most spectacular reveal of all. Better than Christmas, her birthday and flipping the sign in Cupcaked’s window to Open for the first time.
Her husband’s body was gorgeous, long, lean. Vibrating with need that hungrily sniffed out hers as he crawled onto the bed and onto her, easily knocking her back to the mattress, covering her body with his.
And then she wasn’t so coherent after that. His arms encircled her as easily as his dominant presence did. His kiss claimed her lips irrevocably, imprinting them with his particular brand of possession, the likes of which she’d never known. Never understood could exist.
The sensuous haze he dropped her into was delicious and she soaked it in, content to let him take his time as he explored her body with his hands more thoroughly than she’d have imagined possible when she still wore the yellow lace. She was so lost in him that it took her a minute to remember that she could indulge herself, too, if she wished.
Viv flattened her palms to his chest, memorizing the peaks and valleys of his body, reveling in the heat under her fingertips. She slid downward to cup his buttocks, shifting to align their hips because the ache at her core had only been awakened, not sated, and he had precisely what she needed.
He groaned deep in his throat as she circled against his thick, gorgeous erection, grinding her hips for maximum impact. The answering tilt of his hips enflamed her. As did the quickening of his breath.
“I need to be inside you,” he murmured. “Before I lose my mind.”
Rolling with her in his arms, he reached one hand out to sling open the bedside table and extracted a box of condoms with ruthless precision. In seconds, he’d sheathed himself and rolled back into place against her.
His thumb slid into the indentation in her chin, levering her head up to lock his hot-eyed gaze onto her as he notched himself at her entrance.
The tip of his shaft tormented her, sensitizing everything it touched as he paused in the worst sort of tease.
“Jonas,” she gasped.
“Right here, sweetheart. Tell me what you want.”
“Everything.” And she couldn’t take it back, no matter how much of a mistake it was to admit that she wasn’t the kind of woman who could be in the midst of such passion and hold back.
Except she wasn’t entirely sure he meant for her to as he gripped her hip with his strong fingers, lifted and pushed in with a groan, spreading her wide as he filled her. The luscious solid length of him stretched her tight, and before she could question it, one tear slipped from the corner of her eye. It was a testament to the perfection of how he felt moving inside her, how wholly encompassing the sensations were that washed over her as Jonas made love to her.
And she was ten kinds of a fool if she thought she could keep pretending this was practice for her next relationship.
“Amazing. Beautiful. Mine.” Words rained down on her from Jonas’s mouth as he increased the tempo. “I can’t believe how this feels...you’re so wet, so silky. I can’t stop. Can’t hold back.”
For a woman who had never incited much more than mild interest in a man, to be treated to this kind of evidence that she was more than he could take—it was everything. “Give it all to me.”
Unbelievably, there was more and he gave it to her, driving her to a soaring crescendo that made her feel more alive than anything in her memory. No longer was this bed a proving ground to show she could be with a man and not pour all of herself into him. He demanded her participation, wrung every drop of her essence out of her body.
She gladly surrendered it. Jonas was it for her, the man she’d married, the man she’d wanted for so very long.
As they both roared toward a climax, she had half a second to capture his face in her palms and kiss him with all the passion she could muster before they both shattered. She swallowed his groan and took the shudders of his body, absorbing them into hers even as she rippled through her own release. Everything was so much bigger, stronger, crisper than she’d have ever imagined and his mouth under hers curved into a blissful smile that her soul echoed.
And as he nestled her into his arms for a few badly needed moments of recovery time, she bit her lip against the wash of emotions that threatened to spill out all over their friendship.
She’d told him their relationship could take this. Now she had to stick to her promise. How in the world she was going to keep him from figuring out that she was in love with him?
