New York Billionaires Series

Not in a brief or tender way. Not really like it’s our first kiss, either. He presses his lips to mine with strength and warmth, as businesslike as he does everything.

Maybe it’s from the surprise, or from the long months without any physical contact from a man. Maybe it’s the stress of the day.

But I kiss him back.

He groans into my mouth, hands sliding around my waist. My body tightens, narrows, all sensations emanating from the spots where we touch. My back hits the wall.

I reach up to twine my arms around his neck, one of my hands finding its way into his thick hair.

I’m touching St. Clair.

His hands tighten around my hips, and it’s like he’s thinking the same thing I am, because he lifts his lips from mine. “Myers,” he murmurs.

My whisper is breathless. “This made you think of work?”

“You only call me Myers when we’re talking about work.”

I regret my words, because he lifts his head, a furrow in between his brows. “I can assure you, I wasn’t thinking about work. At all.”

“Neither was I,” I say.

His lips curve and he reaches out to run a tendril of my hair between his fingers. He watches it for a moment before he tucks it behind my ear.

“Well,” he says, stepping back from me. In the darkness, his eyes glitter. “Let’s go home before we do something we regret.”

It’s a good thing I never knew how Cecilia Myers tasted.

If I had, I wouldn’t have gotten a lick of work done with her outside my office every day, in demure clothes and pony-tails and lips a man could devour.

The muscle strain in my arms makes me groan. I’ve loaded the weights too much today, and I know it, but the burn is good. It’s necessary. It’s accomplishment and achievement and if I’m not accomplishing and achieving, I’ll lose momentum.

The thought makes me pause mid-bicep curl. Momentum was my grandfather’s word. He used it relentlessly, describing everything from investments and exercise to studying. I sound like him.

Being in his house so often probably isn’t helping. Walking around and daring myself to open drawers, to throw things away, to come to some fucking decision about the place. Right now it’s a relic.

One I’d showed to Myers.

She’d dared me to with her accusation yesterday, thinking I was out sleeping with someone at night. Christ, I wish I was. I doubt I would’ve responded as strongly if that was the case.

But since my last foray into dating ended, a month prior to marrying Myers, I haven’t slept with anybody.

I put the weights down with an exhale. I’d abused the gym instead. Worked more than ever. Taken every single meeting thrown my way, anything to get me away from Cecilia’s questions and challenging eyes and the damnable tight leggings she wears around the apartment.

I’m attracted to my assistant-turned-wife.

It’s a complication I can’t afford, but judging from the taste of her kiss and the feel of her body against mine, it’s one I’m going to repeat. Hell, it’s the reason I’m working out in my home gym mid-morning.

It’s the time she uses it.

I’d started noticing changes a week prior. The lighter weights in the rack were moved. Not much, but by an inch here and there. And when I fired up the treadmill, the incline wasn’t at my usual setting.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

Now I’ve stayed an hour longer than usual, and all for the chance to see her again. Not that I have a clue what I’ll do when she’s here. Ogle her in her workout tights, probably. I’m losing it.

I lift the hem of my T-shirt and use it to wipe the sweat off my forehead.

The door swings open and I hear a small intake of breath. I drop the hem of my T-shirt but it’s too late, because Cecilia’s eyes are locked on my chest.

She’s seen the scar.

Well. If what my body burns for happens, she’d see the scar, anyway. Perhaps it was only a matter of when. But she’ll have questions.

She always has questions.

“Hi,” she says, a hand still on the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not interrupting. Come in.”

She gives me a tentative smile. The memory is in her eyes, the same thing I’m thinking of. Kissing her in the hallway last night.

She walks to the treadmill and yes, she’s wearing her workout tights. The look of her ass in them makes my jaw clench.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“Yes.” I force my attention back to the weights. Grab one and lie down on the bench, ready for tricep lifts.

The air in the gym feels as weighted as the steel plate I’m holding, thick with possibility. Had she been lying awake last night too? Thinking about the two doors and a hallway that separated us?

I can only stand it for so long. I look over at her running on the treadmill, and I catch her watching me lift. Her cheeks color and her gaze darts down, landing on my chest. I have to divert her before she asks me about the scar.

There are a lot of things I want to do with Cecilia Myers before discussing the car accident.

“Have you heard from your friend?” I ask. “About yesterday?”

She nods, walking quickly on the treadmill. “Nadine’s over the moon. I don’t think she can really believe she sold as many paintings as she did, or how many journalists were there. I mean, neither can I!”

“Thank you for that. I know you pulled some strings.”

I shrug, which is a hard thing to do when you have a twenty-pound weight above your head. Making the calls had been painless, save some idle chitchat it had forced me to engage in.

Not much work at all, I think, watching the smile on her face.

Her voice lowers. “Thanks for last night as well.”

I close my eyes against the tide of need rising inside me. She’d looked up at me with too much knowing, standing there in the hallway outside my grandfather’s office. I’d had to kiss her to get away from it.

But now I can’t get away from the memory.

“Anything to prove a point,” I say.