Casual Affair

She didn’t get a chance to respond. Because she was moaning, silently screaming her release, and clenching around him. He covered her mouth with his hand as she came, bucking against him, thrashing like an absolute wild cat. It was the most beautiful sight in the world, watching her writhe on his dick like that, getting off on their dirty fucking.

But what really did it for him was what she moaned next.

“Oh, Zane…baby…”

One word.

That one little word was all it took for the veins in his neck to bulge, fighting the urge to roar at the top of his lungs as he filled the condom to the max. Hell, he could have filled three condoms with as much as he came.

“Bloody.” Thrust. “Fucking.” Thrust. “Hell.” One final thrust and they were both done, completely spent.

She may have let slip that endearment in the throes of passion, not totally aware of what she was saying.

But she’d said it.

And she never had before.

She’d always guarded her words around him, kept her real emotions under lock and key. But in that one brief moment, she had been completely free, unencumbered by rules of employment or emotional self-preservation. She’d let loose what was in her heart, and it had spoken volumes. The word held intimacy, affection, possession. All things he craved with her.

“Whoa,” she said between labored breaths, her voice shaky.

He squeezed her tighter. “Yeah. Whoa.”

He wrapped himself around her and just held her there in the frenzied aftermath, both still struggling to catch their breath. The air in the room was thick with intense emotion. Whatever change had just occurred between them was palpable. He felt it, and knew she could, too.

He also knew that neither one of them was going to address it.

Chapter Sixteen

Three days later, Bea was still thinking about their closet sex.

And their shower sex.

And dammit, just sex.

Sex with Zane Price.

But she was thinking about all the other times she’d spent with him, too. The paintballing, the paddle boating, the bar games, the ice cream, the soccer game, and the hours they had spent working together at the store.

The problem was that she couldn’t reconcile the three categories of him she had experienced.

One side of him was a controlling ballbuster she sometimes got so frustrated with she wanted to smack him. Another side starred the playful, witty Zane who was able to make her laugh at the drop of a hat and acted like the happiest man alive. His third side was the sex god version. The one where he was all kinds of smoking hot and could make her feel things that left her quivering in desperation for him.

He had become a constant fixture in her head.

But today she had to focus on something other than him.

Thanks to the contract with Envision Tech, Paxton Designs had been getting bombarded with consultations, and she and Felicity were doing everything they could to keep up. Because of their hectic schedule, they’d decided to hold a group presentation for several of the potential clients, in order to pitch to them and answer questions all at once.

The presentation had to blow all of the clients away. So Paxton Designs had pulled out all the stops. They would be using new software today that allowed them to offer a virtual portfolio of their work to clients. It provided a 3D tour of all their various projects, giving the clients the best imagery of each location. Every house they’d decorated, every office space they’d refurbished, were all available for viewing in the virtual tour.

She and Felicity had been integrating the software at client meetings for weeks, introducing it little by little and familiarizing themselves with the program. But today was the first day they would be using all the applications for a big-scale presentation. It was an innovative program, meaning a costly one, but one they were sure would impress future clients. True, they could have paid off their father’s loan over nine months ago without that expense—something that had initially eaten at her—but it was a sound business investment, and that was how she had to look at it.

When she walked into the Paxton Designs office that morning, she saw the very last thing she wanted to see—Felicity in an utter panic, pacing the showroom floor, taking short, jerky steps. When she heard the door open she looked up at Bea with eyes the size of flying saucers.