My mouth tingled and my tongue felt like it was disconnected from my face.
That was our first kiss. After all that tension, we’d never kissed, and I thought the chance passed a long time ago. And yet here we were, grown up, and still he could drive me absolutely insane.
I hated him, and god, I wanted him. I left before I could go back up there and do something I’d regret.
11
Bret
I spent that night cleaning up what was left of the glass in the carpet and came into the office early the next morning. Jude wasn’t around yet, and I didn’t want her to be a part of this conversation—she’d struggled enough with what happened the day before.
That kiss ran through my mind, over and over, as I sat at the conference table in the center of the main room and opened my laptop. Her lips tasted like honey and heaven, and after all that time, after so many years, she lived up to every single expectation. There was a part of me that worried I rushed things, that maybe I should have waited, but as soon as she mentioned her virginity, I couldn’t help myself. It drove me wild, thinking about her writhing on my thick cock, and when she tilted her chin toward me, I had to have more.
It’d been everything I wanted, and so much more. She was a grown woman now, with a woman’s body and a woman’s taste, and although so much had happened since we were last together, I felt like I was the same guy I used to be. Even if I made a mistake, I hoped I could make up for it somehow—and taste those lips again.
I opened the Zoom app and set up a meeting. A few minutes later, Lady Fluke joined, and her face appeared on my screen. She was sitting in her office in London, and it was midafternoon based on the way light filtered in through the large glass window. She wore her hair in a prim bun, her makeup simple and modest, her blouse buttoned up to her throat. She scowled at me like I ruined her afternoon.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said.
“Well, you didn’t give me much choice now, did you?” Her frown deepened and I couldn’t blame her for being annoyed. I sent her an email this morning inviting her to meet, and said that something important and dangerous went down. I called it urgent, which wasn’t far from the truth. “So tell me what happened,” she said.
I gave her a quick rundown of the story: Jude’s interview, the brick through the window, and the chain incident. “He’s getting more aggressive,” I said.
“It’s all intimidating,” she said. “He doesn’t have a damned thing. Did you contact that lawyer I recommended?”
I nodded and tapped at my phone. “We signed paperwork two days ago. We’re waiting to see if Zeke sends anything over.”
“He won’t,” she said. “He was like this when we were married. All bark, no bite.”
I pursed my lips and tried to keep myself calm. Maybe that brick hadn’t hit anyone, but smashing a window like that was a huge deal. Whoever threw it must’ve had one hell of an arm to reach the second floor like that.
“I understand you think he’s harmless,” I said. “But from my perspective, he’s already done damage. That woman, Lisa, who knows if she’ll still come work here. And she might go tell the story about how a brick got thrown through the window of the Fluke Company’s new office building.”
Lady Fluke frowned deeply at that. If anything would get her to act, it was bad press. “How much do you know about that woman?” she asked, which was the wrong question, of course. She should’ve been more concerned with our safety—but that wasn’t how she functioned.
“Not much,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter. Even if she still comes to work here, and keeps her mouth shut about the brick incident, what else is going to happen? Zeke’s not going to stop there. This is just the beginning. How can we hire a staff when there’s a constant threat of danger lurking over everything?”
Lady Fluke’s eyebrow knit as she shook her head. “Then don’t hire a staff. Do what you need to do to make this go away.”
“I can’t run a company without employees,” I said, clenching my jaw. “And by the way, we bake cookies. It’s insane that organized crime is anywhere near involved with this.”
“I’m well aware,” she said, and clucked her tongue. “This is my fault, of course. I was a silly and impulsive girl. I never should’ve married that monster.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I want to go to the police. They can help. We could get a restraining order and maybe—”
“No,” Lady Fluke said firmly. “Absolutely no police.”