The First Taste(60)

“And then we had a second night. Now we’ll have a third.”

“I don’t know, Andrew . . .”

I remove bobby pins and an elastic band from her hair. It falls around her shoulders in waves, a nice change from her normally pin-straight style. I touch the corner of her red mouth, smearing the tiniest bit of lipstick onto my thumb. “I like you put together,” I say gruffly. “So I can undo you.”

She bites into her bottom lip, drawing my eyes to her mouth. “Undo me?” she asks. “Or just do me?”

I nearly growl. “Right here in the stairwell?” I crook my finger into the waistband of her skirt and pull her even closer. “Because I should warn you. I’m a man on edge. I have been ever since the hotel.”

I watch her delicate throat as she swallows, as redness creeps up from under her collar. “Then you shouldn’t have left me there all alone.”

“No. I shouldn’t have.” I mean it even more now that I know what she’d been through earlier that night. “I don’t want him near you.”

“Who?” she asks breathlessly.

“Reggie.”

Her lips part as she pulls back a little. “Reggie?”

“How’d he take it when you said no to getting back together?”

She frowns and looks away. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s personal.”

“Too bad. I want personal right now. What was his reaction?”

Her shoulders slouch a little, and I slip my hand under her hair, to her neck, to comfort her. “He didn’t like it,” she says. “He isn’t good with rejection. He promises this time will be different.”

Different? I open my mouth to tell her it won’t be, but she cuts me off.

“It won’t be. I know that. He just won’t hear me.”

“Maybe it’d clear out his ears if I kicked his ass.”

She laughs softly. “Where’d you come from? A mob movie?”

I grin. “That’s how we handle things in my part of Jersey.”

She looks hard at me a few seconds, absentmindedly rubbing her collarbone, turning her skin pink. “Maybe I should skip dinner.”

“It’s five on a Friday,” I say. “What could you possibly have to do that’s so important?”

“It’s . . . not about work.”

I know right away what she means, since it’s the first place my mind went when Sadie mentioned inviting Amelia. “Bell,” I say. I sigh up at the ceiling. “I admit, it’s weird. But you and I aren’t dating. So it wouldn’t be like I’m introducing you to her as a . . . it’s not like you’re—”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not trying to be anyone’s mommy.”

I look down my nose at her, my interest piqued hearing that once-familiar word. I haven’t referred to anyone as mommy since Shana left. “Don’t underestimate mommies and daddies,” I say. “That stuff about the birds and the bees has to come from somewhere.”

She touches the hem of my t-shirt. I nearly shudder when her knuckles graze my stomach. “Speaking of roleplaying, I thought you were kidding about dressing up as a garbage man.”

I check my clothing again. “This is what I work in.”

“Oh.” She looks me up and down, her eyes twinkling. She’s giving me shit and enjoying it. “Good thing I find it sexy.”

“Yeah?” I ask. “That was risky, sending me that photo in the bath. I almost came back to the hotel room for you.”

She purses her lips. “I wouldn’t have let you in.”

“No?”

She presses her body to mine, rises onto the balls of her feet, and kisses me on the mouth. The way her soft lips mush into mine makes my dick come alive. I’ve wanted this sweet taste, these red lips, since I stepped into this building. And before that. Since I left her and her sexy dress in that hotel room. I go to wrap my arms around her waist, but she pulls away. She gives me the cigarette before glancing at my crotch. “Better do something about that, handyman,” she says and walks around me to return to the office. “We have a whole meal to get through.”





EIGHTEEN


AMELIA



Andrew’s daughter holds his hand as we walk to the restaurant, but she won’t stop turning around and looking at me. It’s as if she suspects something. But how could she at her age? She wears a miniature pink backpack, which is funny because miniature backpacks are all the rage right now.

To my left, Sadie fills me in on the latest feature she secured some client on some website. Bell is a beautiful little girl, a spitting image of her dark, mysterious father. She seems well behaved, but in my experience, most kids are until they aren’t.

“Turn left at the corner,” Sadie tells Andrew. “It’s the place with the red-and-white checkered tables out front. They have a kid’s menu.” She turns back to me. “Anyway, what do you think? Is it time to make a play?”

“For who?” I ask.

“Jo Keller—of What Jo Wore? The breakout fashion blogger I’ve been watching for months?”

Hot, new, promising up-and-comers are my thing. It’s partly how I made a name for myself in the industry—carefully researching clients in order to create my dream roster and then ruthlessly going after them, no matter if they were looking for representation or not. But my gut reaction isn’t excitement. Taking on a new client means presentations, lunches, dinners and drinks, numbers, negotiation. It costs money. And time—which is another way of saying money. Considering my business is currently up in the air, I don’t know that I can afford to bring on anyone new. At least when I was starting out, I had enough energy to make up for lack of money. Since I missed winning the award last week and confessed my hesitations about avec to Andrew, my focus has been waning. And the more it wanes, the harder I have to work to keep up.