Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(34)

And then he moves to my cheek, swiping it with his thumb, rough velvet on hot silk. There might have been a crumb there. Really, I don’t care.

His chest rises and falls, seemingly in unison with mine. His expression is so serious. I remember it from that summer—it was the way he looked when he cared about getting something right.

I feel this rush of frustration. I want us to be different. Free of our factions and fraught history.

He slides his thumb across my lower lip. The urge to take it into my mouth is nearly unbearable. I would suck it so hard. I would reach down and touch his cock and suck the hell out of his thumb.

“Look at you.” He reaches to my hair, brushes a possibly real or maybe imaginary crumb off, then slides a strand through his fingers. He watches his progress through lowered lashes. He says, “You look beautiful with cheesy puffs on you.”

I swallow with difficulty. “Thank you.”

Again he slides my hair through his fingers, watching intently, as though he’s really into making sure the crumbs are gone. The lightest sheen of whisker stubble glints on his cheeks.

He tucks another strand behind my ear. Then he brushes some more back.

I’m catatonic with lust.

And confusion.

What is Max doing?

He tucks my hair again, this time grazing the shell of my ear. The bright swipe of his touch ripples over my body. It arrows down between my legs.

My breath hitches.

I want him to press himself right into me and make me come. Coming like that is not a thing with me, but right now, it would be.

I want him so badly, I might burst into flames.

He draws his mouth close to my ear, right there where he tucked away the hair. His breath is warm velvet on my ear.

I close my eyes.

My entire skeletal system is turning into jelly at this point. I imagine gripping his shoulders, pulling him to me.

“That,” he whispers, “is your non-galpal face.”

My eyes fly open. “Oh my god!” I push him away. “You are so full of shit.”

He just watches me, amused.

“You think you’re all that.”

He lowers his voice to a hard rumble. “You’ll bring the cheesy puffs next time.”

I snort. “Definitely not.” I grab my cart and leave, fling open the door and almost bump into Parker.

I step back.

Parker Westbrook, his brainiac business partner, a budding sax player back at the Shiz.

Parker still has his same chubby cheeks and nerdy glasses and generally disheveled bearing—the pile of folders and magazines he’s carrying looks like it’s about to explode.

“Parker!” I say, then I remember he was another rich kid who was unkind to me. “Hi,” I add, in a more morose tone.

“Mia…” He looks me up and down. “Nice threads.”

I do a little shimmy, hips wiggling, while I circle my finger, then point it right at him. “You can’t touch this.” Just a little alpha-signaling-reverse-chasing combo courtesy of Max’s pathetic book.

“Good to see some people haven’t changed,” he says, walking in.

“Back atcha,” I say.

“Vicious campaign mockups,” he says to Max. “Fucking golden.”

Vicious campaign. I snort and look back at Max. He just smiles his cool superior smile.

I get out of there and ride the elevator down.





11




Be playful and outrageous.

~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room





* * *



Max

I should bar Meow Squad from the building. It’s what I should do. A smarter man would do that. A smarter man would’ve done it the first day.

“So…not to point out the obvious,” Parker says, “but that was Mia Corelli. In your office. In a cat suit.”

“I know. She’s been delivering sandwiches.”

“And?”

“There’s no and. She engineered getting in here somehow. God knows how or why. Apparently Meredith left instructions for the front desk to let her through before she flitted off to her yoga retreat. I’ve got an email out to her, but it’s a yoga retreat. In Costa Rica.” I shrug. “I know it was Mia, though—she was so clearly unsurprised to be walking into my office that first day.”

Parker has this strange look on his face. He never liked her, never wanted to be around her. “Really.”

It’s outrageous, of course. The idea that Mia would seek me out, thinking she’d just bring it—to me—a man who controls a billion-dollar empire, along with all of the messaging and mindshare that spreads out from that, and she’s a lunch-cart girl, and she decides it’s a good time to bring it…it’s classic Mia.

“Yes, and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that she finds all of this impressive.”

Parker frowns. “That’s what she said?”

“Impressive.”

Parker snorts. You had to be a student at the Shiz to comprehend the cut of that word. Impressive meant style over substance. Flash over soul. It meant you were pandering to the audience as opposed to being a serious artist. Impressive suggested that you cared only about looking good to people.