Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(102)

Tristan grinned, flashing white teeth at me. He checked his watch with a raised brow, very obviously flashing my own Rolex at me. I looked down at my bare wrist and cursed. He was an entire table’s length away from me.

“How did you do that from over there?” I asked him.

He pointed at the lawyers that were currently haggling with his agent. “I believe it’s your contract that stipulates that I’m not allowed to talk about things like that. Trade secrets and all. Your lawyers would probably have to make a revision if I told you. Do you really have that kind of time?” He tapped my watch for emphasis.

I laughed. It was hard not to. He was an obnoxious son of a bitch, but an endlessly entertaining one. “We’ll have to revise it anyway, if you’re planning to give yourself a fifty thousand dollar watch as a bonus.”

He reached his hand across the table, the watch appearing in his palm in a blur. I reached to take it from him, and he had it on my wrist with the same blurring speed. I shook my head at him. Crafty bastard.

“Congratulations on the engagement. The news is everywhere. How did you get her to agree? I would have sworn Bianca had more sense.”

I glared at him, but it was half-hearted at best. Just the mention of my upcoming nuptials only made me want to grin like a fool. “I begged her so pathetically that she finally just took pity on me,” I told him.

“That was nice of her. She could do way better. No offense.”

I just laughed, because he said no offense while so blatantly trying to offend. “None taken. Eventually she just found that she’d rather be able to keep track of the man who was stalking her so relentlessly. I promised her that she could put a bell on me.”

Tristan shook his head. “Poor girl. She never had a chance. You probably courted her with your hostile takeover approach.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even do hostile takeovers. Stick to magic tricks, Tristan. Your knowledge of the business world is embarrassing.” I had found him to be uncannily proficient on the business end of his work, but this was just how we were. It was nice to be able to take shots at someone who was as insensitive as I was when it came to being insulted.

Tristan grinned. “Sure thing, Boss. Are you inviting me to dinner? If I’m gonna sign this paper for you, I expect you to at least cook me dinner. And I want to see your fiancée again.”

“Why the hell not? Sure, come to dinner, if you can restrain yourself from stealing the silverware.” I pulled out my phone. “Let me call Bianca. We’ll invite the guys.”

Bianca answered promptly. “Hey,” she said, a smile in her voice. “How’s work going?” That smile in her voice made me smile, and that voice made me hard between one breath and the next. Just one word from her, uttered in that steady timbre of hers, affected me more than any other woman had in my life. Images of all of the ways that I’d had her, all of the ways that I planned to f*ck her mindless, flashed through my mind, distracting me like nothing else could. God, I wanted her. Just the thought of her was more erotic to me than actual sex had ever been with other women. I’d felt it from the start with her, and I was only falling deeper with time.

“It could be going better, but at least it’s almost done,” I told her, having to concentrate to do so. I made myself stop thinking about being inside of her for one innocent phone conversation, but it was a struggle. My cock twitched restlessly, and I was thankful that it was hidden under the conference table just then. “My lawyers and Tristan’s agent are making some revisions, but that shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes or so, and then we’ll be done, thank God. Tristan is trying to bankrupt the casino for some two-bit magic tricks.” I looked at Tristan, smiling as I said it.

He flipped me off.

“Tell Tristan I said hi,” she said.

“Bianca says hello,” I told Tristan, not liking his name on her lips, but tamping my outrageous jealousy down. That jealousy would become a problem for us if I didn’t control it. I understood that. My need for us to work helped me to try to keep it to myself when I knew that it was unreasonable.

“I’ll be heading over there when I finish,” I told her. “Are you about done?” It didn’t really matter to me if she was. I was impatient to see her, and I’d go and wait for her if necessary. I hoped that she wasn’t getting tired of my company, because we’d only been apart for a few hours and already I was ravenous for the sight of her.

I was picturing how I would take her in that little house when she answered. “Yeah. That should be perfect.”

I thought it would be perfect to f*ck her one last time in that house, even if she was done packing. I would bury myself inside of her wherever I happened to find her. Maybe I would bend her over the kitchen counter, or take her on the dining room table. I shook myself. She’d put a spell on me, and I wouldn’t be free of it any time soon. Or ever, I thought with a grin. Mrs. Cavendish had such a lovely ring to it.

“Tristan is coming over for dinner tonight. As if I’m not paying him enough to make rabbits disappear, now I have to make him dinner.”

“I have a new trick where I can make pretty boy CEOs disappear,” Tristan told me.

Bianca laughed into my ear. I loved that laugh.

“Will you let the guys know that they’re invited, as well?” I asked, smiling.