Love, Technically (8 page)

She pulled back and smiled down at him. “Sark, I want you.”

He returned the smile and started to stand, holding her against him, but she placed a hand on his chest. “Where are you going?”

“The bedroom?”

“No. Right here,” she said, pushing him back onto the couch and grinding into him again. “The bedroom’s too far.”

He glanced at the roughly ten feet to the bedroom door. Yep. Too far. He turned his body so he was lying horizontal on the couch, taking her with him to cover him like the sexiest blanket he’d ever had.

“Kiss me,” she gasped, and he hurried to comply. Her mahogany hair fell around them like a curtain, blocking out everything else in the apartment except their lips. They continued kissing and undulating their bodies against each other until he needed more. They both needed more.

Her hands pushed under his T-shirt to circle soft fingers around his nipples, but it only served to call his attention to his overly heated body temperature. “I want this off,” he muttered. Michelle sat back as he tugged the shirt over his head. While he took care of the top, she planted tiny, hot kisses on his abdomen, heading lower. He pulled her back to his bare chest.

The feel of her full, bare breasts against his naked chest nearly burned him alive. His tongue lavished attention on the prettiest pink nipples he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing. She kept running her hands over the muscles in his abdomen. Who knew mountain biking had such unexpected perks? He vowed to visit a gym or do a gazillion sit-ups daily if Michelle liked the defined lines of his six-pack this much. His hands cupped her ass, and he let a finger dip into the elastic band of her silk panties.

Her hips ground against his erection, and his vision blurred. The feel of her body against his was better than flying down a mountain on his bike, wind whipping past.

“I love your body,” she murmured against his skin. “So strong.” Her palms skated across his pecs, down to his abs. He hissed in a breath.

“Love yours too,” he managed.

It seemed they’d barely started kissing and touching when an invasive knock interrupted. The pizza.

He carefully lifted her off him. She stood and ran to the bedroom holding one arm across her chest and one hand clutching at the dress around her hips.

Thank goodness I still have my pants on.
He stalked to the door, slipped a fifty out of his wallet, opened the door wide enough to grab the pizza, shoved the overly large bill at the startled delivery guy, then slammed the door. He tossed the hot cardboard box onto the high counter of the kitchen. “Michelle,” he called. “He’s gone.”

“In here,” she called back.

“With the pizza?”

“Definitely.”

He did the mental math. Pizza + bed + naked woman =
Genius!
With the pizza box in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other, he burst through the bedroom doorway to find Michelle curled under the sheets on his bed. A bed that hadn’t been slept in for two weeks, and hopefully wouldn’t be tonight. Her dress lay in a crumpled pile on the floor next to the bed.

They greeted each other with warm smiles. “Put the pizza box down,” she invited. “And take off your pants.”

He stared at her for a minute, not sure he’d heard correctly.

“It’s only fair,” she said. “I’m in underwear. You should be also.”

He liked her thinking. He set the pizza box on the foot of the bed, not caring about grease stains on the comforter, and stepped out of his pants, well aware his erection was straining out of his boxer briefs. Hurriedly, he sat on the bed, tucking the covers around his hips. She leaned over to reach for the pizza, and he stared as her round delicious breasts peeked out of the sheet she’d wrapped around her torso.

Her gaze met his. “Hungry?”

For her? Hell yes. He nodded.

She deliberately misunderstood him, and handed him a slice of pizza on a folded paper towel. The cheese burned his tongue, but he kept chewing. Bite and chew, bite and chew, until his slice was gone.

“Are you finished yet?” he asked hoarsely.

She tossed her half-eaten slice onto the nightstand. “Yes.” They came together in the center of the bed. His glasses got tossed to the side, and his foot kicked the pizza box off the bed where it landed with a wet
thud
on the carpet. Their bodies entwined tightly, and they lay back in the center of the mattress.

He fell on her, kissing her ravenously. His hands roamed all over her body, and she returned the favor.

“You feel so good,” she said.

“I want to make you feel good.”

“It’s working. It’s
so
working.”

Her head fell back, and he kissed his way up the column of her neck. “Touch me,” she begged.

“I am.”

“Here.” She grabbed his hand and firmly placed it between her thighs over the fabric of her panties.

Heaven. He closed his eyes as his fingertips slid beneath the fabric and explored her damp folds. She felt like silk against his finger with no hair acting as a barrier. Her cries and little gasps increased to the speed of his finger. She was already damp, but he wanted her more than ready. God knew he was.

“Sark. I can’t wait any more.”

He regretfully pulled his finger back. He loved touching her, but if he wanted to last more than a minute, he needed to get inside her. Like now.

She knelt on the mattress next to him and shimmied out of the scrap of black lace. He took advantage of the moment to lift his butt off the bed and get his lower half bare also.

She smiled at him and he had a
holy shit, is this happening?
moment. Yep, just as he’d thought. Michelle was bare. Down there. As in no hair, like the
Playboy
models. It was totally erotic.
Hold it together, Sark
. He sucked in a breath. “Let me look at you,” he said softly when she made a move to lie on him again. “Don’t hide. You’re gorgeous.” He stroked a finger down her bare skin. “I wasn’t expecting that. I…”

“I did it when I moved to Chicago. I thought most women in the city go Brazilian.” He wasn’t sure about the accuracy of her stats, but he thanked his lucky stars she thought so.

“C’mere.”

“Hang on. Condom?” she questioned with a blush.

He rolled to the nightstand, glad she had the presence of mind to think about protection, and took care of business. Then he welcomed her body back on his. Their lips found each other as though they’d been doing this forever. Her warm smile heated him as she maneuvered her hips until he was exactly where he wanted to be, where nearly every guy from the age of 15 onward wanted to be 80 percent of his day.

He moaned, releasing a breath as the tip of his erection penetrated the tightest, wettest, hottest place he could imagine. He pulled her down for a kiss and closed his eyes, giving himself up to the intensity of the feeling. They moved together in a sinuous flow until they were both panting, losing the slow rhythm to something altogether more furious and needy. He managed to fight his orgasm until he felt Michelle rippling around him. He came inside her with a groan, squeezing his eyes against the pleasure.

Clinging to each other, they came down from the high, with breaths coming in gasps. He held her tightly, stroking a hand through her silky hair as she laid a cheek to his chest, listening to his heartbeat hammer, then slow.

It was one of those perfect moments. He knew he’d remember lying with Michelle after making love to her for a long, long time. His jet-lagged exhaustion was forgotten, as was his stress about LightWave’s board of directors. The only thing that mattered now was here in bed with him.

Chapter Seven

She couldn’t believe what she’d done last night. It was like a scene straight out of
Sex and the City
, emphasis on the sex. Who would have thought a computer geek would be that good in bed? He’d been so considerate, had made her feel every inch the temptress as he’d worshipped her body.

She remembered the look in his eyes as he’d covered her nipples with his lips. Yeah,
worship
was the right word. She released a shocked giggle, and then glanced around the train, hoping no one had caught her laughing alone like a madwoman. That was the nice thing about the city: you could be alone in the crowd. People tended not to make eye contact. If she’d giggled for no reason back home, she’d be surrounded by curious friends asking what the joke was.

She rode the train two more stops, trying not to yawn. She’d finally rolled out of Sark’s bed around midnight and he’d driven her home so she could be showered and in fresh clothes for work. When she ran into Casey or anyone on the marketing team, she didn’t want to be caught in the same clothes as yesterday. That was a surefire way to look unprofessional, not to mention Sydney was gunning for the more senior job. She couldn’t afford to be late.

It had been silly of her not to pack a bag and spend the night at Sark’s, but she’d established a somewhat dubious jinx system in her mind.

If she’d packed her bag in preparation for a sleepover, things might have gone poorly. By treating the date as a normal one with no outward expectation for sex and a sleepover, she’d thwarted bad-date juju. It had all worked out, other than the exhaustion setting in and the late-night ride back to her place.

The one thing keeping her awake was the knowledge that she’d see Sark later. He’d said he had a pretty hectic schedule, but they’d made a firm plan to meet in the lobby at six to go out for dinner. She couldn’t wait.

…

“You lack vision.” Sark stood at the whiteboard, squinting into the dusty rainbow light of a projector and facing off against the board.

“Noah.” Ted murmured a warning from his seat near Sark’s right.

“We don’t lack vision,” protested one member. “If your idea could work, it would be revolutionary. We don’t see it working without millions, if not billions, of dollars and resources thrown at it.”

He disagreed, and thought his presentation had laid out the development steps clearly, but obviously he was wrong. Wrong about his message sinking in. He was totally right about the product development cycle. He’d created LightWave’s core technology in three days. Sure it had taken six more months of development and testing to get it to a marketable iteration, but it had been worth it in the end. Unfortunately, the board seemed to want the company to rest on its laurels and go in a safe direction. Safe meant the quarterly earnings reports would continue lining their pockets. Innovative and bold meant risk.

He looked around at the men and women sitting at the long conference table. Most were older than him. Okay, all of them were older, with mortgage payments and children, and some even had grandchildren. He’d chosen them to be on the board for their business acumen, something he’d been lacking when he’d founded LightWave. Maybe he should listen to them.

But he hadn’t been this excited about a project since the beginning of LightWave three and a half years ago. All he’d be doing was siphoning off a piece of current LightWave code to adjust the power source for wireless devices to utilize touch and solar.

A cell phone or wireless device user would power his or her device with every touch, every step. It would have a global impact on communications and energy consumption. People across the world would have access to information, and information was power. It leveled the playing field.

Imagine if he could make it work. It was simple.

There were some minor details of certain technologies and materials not being available yet, but they could work around that. His engineers were pumped and ready to tackle the challenge. He thought of the long, sleepless nights they’d spend coding, and grinned. He’d had his share of long nights lately, but they’d been spent replying to e-mail or editing PowerPoint presentations. Coding again would be awesome.

Then he remembered Michelle and frowned. A big project would mean less time with her. The thought of her seared him with the one ray of sunshine in an otherwise stormy meeting.

He returned to his seat feeling defeated and let Ted take over the conversation. As the COO turned the subject to more neutral territory, Sark stared at the tabletop and fiddled with his pen. He wondered what she was up to and if her day was going better than his. He remembered he was CEO. He didn’t have to sit here if he didn’t want to.

“I need to leave.” He realized the discussion in the meeting had ceased and everyone was looking at him. He’d spoken aloud. “Excuse me.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “I have to use the restroom.”

He found it easier to breathe once he’d escaped the stifling conference room, and headed to Michelle’s desk, keeping his eyes on the ground. One of the problems of an open office environment was that everyone could see everyone else. As the CEO, he tended to garner attention, so he couldn’t surreptitiously wander to the marketing department and kiss Michelle like he wanted. He could pretend to be checking in with the department, though. Casey was his employee. Why shouldn’t he go have a chat with her?

Because he’d look like a fool. He could ask intelligent engineering questions with no advance prep, but he was swimming in unchartered waters in the marketing department. He couldn’t even fake good questions and responses for Casey. She’d be onto him right away, and he’d possibly embarrass Michelle.

Wait a second, that new girl, Cindy, Sydney? The board member’s daughter. The employee giving Michelle a hard time? He could go check on her. It was his civic duty, right? He’d promised her father to ease her way into the corporate world. Yep, that’s what he’d do.

…

“Guess who was just here?” Sydney giggled.

“Santa Claus,” Michelle said, sliding back into her seat. She’d been out on a coffee run for the team, and she wrapped her fingers around her cup hoping some warmth would seep in. She was starting to gain a better understanding of why Chicago was known as the Windy City. She eyed Sydney’s shearling coat with some jealousy and wondered if Sydney would mind if she borrowed it on the next coffee run. Food runs were definitely deemed below Sydney’s pay grade, though she was happy to toss a few dollars at Michelle and request a skim latte.

“Ha ha. It’s only November. Noah Frellish stopped by to see me.”

“To see you?” She placed her cup down with a
thud
and some coffee sloshed out onto her notepad. “Are you sure? Why would he do that? Are you sure it wasn’t to see Casey?” She didn’t know why Sydney’s triumph bothered her. It wasn’t as if the CEO would be making the decision as to who got which job. From what she knew, Noah Frellish wasn’t that kind of hands-on CEO. Exhibit A, the note he’d written when she’d lost her call center job. She got a half-assed scrawled note he hadn’t even had the courtesy to finish, and Sydney got an in-person visit. Okay, now she was a little pissed.

“Whoa, girl. Slow down on the twenty questions. He said he came by to meet me and see how our team’s first few weeks were going now that Victoria’s on maternity leave. And I was right. He is cuter in person. I’m going to make a move.”

“Good luck.” She turned back to her computer monitor and tried to block Sydney’s prattling about how she’d spend Noah Frellish’s money until she got around to asking if Michelle would join her tonight in her quest to seek out the elusive CEO.

“Oh, that’s right, you’ll be meeting your man.” Sydney folded the compact and dropped it into her bag. “Just as well, I guess. It would be awkward to bring another girl on a date, but I was hoping it would make conversation flow better. He made me a little uncomfortable. It’s like he speaks in computer code, when he bothers to speak at all.”

“Sorry, I’ve got plans,” Michelle said, not at all sorry to miss a night stalking the poor, unsuspecting CEO, and pulled out her own purse, a Kate Spade knockoff she’d found at an El stop vendor last week. The only person who could probably tell it was a fake was Sydney, and she’d been polite enough not to say anything.

“Well, I’m going to meet my date,” she said, grabbing her bags and preparing to leave.

Sydney waved. “Have fun. I’m off to go find the nerd.”

…

“Michelle.”

She turned outside of LightWave’s entrance at the sound of Sark’s voice calling her name and pulled her coat tightly around her. Fall was quickly turning into a memory and winter was knocking. Hard.

She grinned and felt instantly warmer at the sight of Sark waiting for her outside the building. She ran over to him on her heels and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

He kept his hands on her hips and pulled her a little closer. “How was your day?”

“My day’s better now I’m with you.”

He bent his head to meet hers, and she forgot they were in a public spot with coworkers passing by. The frigid wind whipped around them, but she was locked tightly in his arms and barely felt it. The world reduced to his lips on hers and his tongue gently sliding in to tease hers. She leaned into him, standing on her tiptoes, then her hands clutched at his shoulders and she deepened the kiss.

“Sark,” she gasped, pulling away for a microsecond, “we—”

“We should,” he finished, apparently knowing she was not as comfortable with the PDA.

She stopped fighting it and let him cocoon her in his larger frame. Her hand slipped to the nape of his neck and threaded through his silky hair as their lips locked again.

“Whoa,” he said, and pulled back for a second. “My glasses are literally steaming.” She grinned at him as he yanked them off and shoved them in his coat pocket. She wished it wasn’t so cold so they wouldn’t be in bulky coats. His muscular body was masked by the layers of clothing. Still, her legs were weak with desire at the memory of his strong frame.

Once his glasses were safely out of sight, their lips glued back together as though magnetized. Their bodies sought more and more contact, and they became lost in the kiss.

Until a shrill voice pulled them out again. “Michelle?”

Sydney stood about two feet away with her mouth parted. The surprise on her face turned to nasty anger. “You bitch.” Sydney spun on one stiletto boot heel and practically ran back into the building.

“Shit, what the hell was that about?” Sark asked and pulled her tighter to his body and stared at the lobby where Sydney had disappeared.

She clung to his torso as her own chest pounded from confusion. All her arousal fled and the wind turned sharp, slapping at her instead of caressing. “I have absolutely no idea. I don’t understand the world Sydney lives in most of the time.” She realized her hands were shaking from the impact of being called a bitch for the first time in her life. And she’d thought “Mickey Mouse” hurt.

They both watched the entrance for another minute, until he tugged at her hand. “Let’s go grab dinner. I’m starving.” She let him pull her away from the scene, refusing to let Sydney ruin her night with Sark.

They had an amazing evening together that ended the same way the previous night had, in Sark’s bed. Only this time, she’d packed a bag and stayed the night, then took the El into work with him. He kissed her in the elevator and wished her good luck dealing with Sydney.

She got to her desk and Casey was waiting for her, along with an unfamiliar woman who wore a somber expression similar to Casey’s. “Good morning,” Michelle said hesitantly.

Both women responded in kind and stood. “Why don’t we speak in private?” Casey said gently, and escorted her to one of several private conference rooms used for meeting space.

“What’s going on?”

“Have a seat, Michelle.” Casey waited until she was in a chair before speaking again. “First, this is Susan from human resources. She’s here as a witness to this conversation.”

Her stomach started roiling. What kind of conversation needed HR witnesses?

“I received a disturbing call from Sydney last night,” Casey said.

“Oh?”

“She made some impressive accusations that you were…involved with Noah Frellish.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never met the CEO in my life.”

Casey’s color was heightened. “Michelle,” she said gently, “Sydney claimed you were kissing Noah outside the entrance of the building around six in the evening.”

Michelle couldn’t speak. Her brain spun.

“Now, there’s nothing wrong with you dating Noah,” Casey continued. “There are no company policies against it, and personally, as a fan of Noah’s, I think he could use a little fun and love in his life.” Casey smiled as the HR woman coughed into her fist. “But anyway, it puts me in a bad situation. You and Sydney are both trying for the coordinator job. If I give it to you, and your relationship with Noah goes public, people will accuse me of playing favorites.”

Casey held up a hand as Michelle tried to again deny any relationship with Noah Frellish. “I know, you’re about to point out that Sydney’s father is on the board and as such, I could be accused of playing favorites on that side also.”

That wasn’t at all what she had been about to say, but come to think of it, it was a valid point.

“The problem is that on paper Sydney is more qualified for the job. She has a degree from a prestigious university and a variety of relevant internships that give her marketing experience. I can’t give you the coordinator position without getting a lot of pushback from my vice president and the board.”

Michelle stared at her feet, feeling tears welling up in her chest and eyes.

“But you’re the harder worker.” Casey’s words had her looking up in surprise. “You’re willing to do any task and your attention to detail is outstanding. I’m in a bind, Michelle.”

“I…” She broke off, not knowing what to say. “I was kissing my boyfriend. Sark.” Tears burned her eyes as a horrible thought occurred to her. “Noah Frellish is…Sark?”

More horrible thoughts entered her mind. Well, not exactly horrible…more like enlightening. One of the earliest
employees
, he’d said. The fact that everyone in the building seemed to know him. The overseas trips. The chauffeur.