The Charmer (Harbor City 2)
When she finally opened her eyes again, the raw, smoldering heat in his gaze caught her unaware. “Fuck. That was something to see,” he said on a shaky breath, gently pulling her skirt back down and lifting her off the ottoman.
“I can stand,” she said, almost believing it as the world around her slowly came back into focus. Thankfully, he didn’t believe her and lifted her up into his strong arms.
“I know you can,” he said, nuzzling her hair. “But I’ve got you.”
He carried her over to the blue chair and lowered her into it. Then, he took a few steps back, fisting and relaxing his hands as if whatever it was he wanted to do with them, he couldn’t anymore. She racked her brain trying to come up with some weird kinky shit she’d say no to, but after that orgasm, she came up blank. Whatever it was, she couldn’t imagine Hudson wouldn’t be able to make it feel good.
“You’re not totally wrong,” he said, taking another few steps away from her and closer to her apartment’s front door. “Making Tyler jealous isn’t a bad plan. But it won’t work until we can show Tyler the Felicia he needs to see. That look on your face, the one you have right now, with your lips swollen from kisses and your cheeks pink from a wake-up-the-neighbors orgasm? That’s the Felicia he has to see if he’s going to buy that we’re a couple, and realize what a complete clueless douche he’s been about you for all these years. Although, how he’s managed to miss it up until now, I have no idea.”
It took a second, but the ice-cold splash of realization finally hit her like a two-by-four to the right temple. The humiliated burn on her cheeks was matched only by the angry burn searing her insides. “So that was to prove a point?”
“Consider it your second lesson in seduction,” he said, his tone light but a thin thread of bittersweet ran through it. “It’s all about making people feel good.”
Even she had to admit he’d accomplished that—for all of about forty-two seconds before reminding her of exactly where they stood with each other and why he was even in her apartment at all tonight. What had just happened hadn’t been real. Like everything else about Hudson, it was all about the show. Embarrassed that she’d ever forgotten that, she bolted out of the chair, ready to shove him out the door if that’s what it took to make him go before the lump growing in her throat choked off her words.
She glared at him as she marched toward him. “You’re such an ass.”
“True, but no one will believe you.” He stopped in front of the front door. “Everyone knows that I’m the charming Carlyle; the ass is my brother.”
Man, when people got it wrong, they really got it wrong. “How do you ever manage to pull that off?”
His hand froze almost to her deadbolt, and his jaw tensed. It lasted just long enough for a nugget of guilt to form in her stomach before he flipped open the deadbolts and turned to her with his signature—if, she was beginning to believe, false—roguish grin.
“Let’s tackle your Tyler problem first,” he answered. “And then, maybe, I’ll let you in on my secret.” He opened the door and was halfway out when he stopped and turned back toward her. “See you soon.”
An exaggerated wink and he was gone, pulling the door shut behind himself, leaving her to stare at it, wondering when she’d lost control of her normally tightly restrained life and, for the first time, whether it would be worth it if she got the man she’d always wanted in the end.
Chapter Eight
The company cafeteria at Carlyle Enterprises was on the sixth floor of Carlyle Tower and, like the rest of the building, it had a modern, sleek design and was run with ruthless efficiency by a benevolent dictator determined to make it something extraordinary. Although Sawyer ran the rest of the corporation, the sixth floor belonged to Mrs.—first name unknown—Esposito. Short, round, and just shy of seventy, she ran a kitchen that fed the hundreds of Carlyle employees with an iron spoon. Until Hudson had met Felicia, Mrs. Esposito had been his hardest case. It had taken him a whole week to win her over.
It was at least half an hour since the last of the lunch rush had gone back to their offices when he strolled up to the nearly deserted cafeteria counter. Mrs. Esposito stood behind it in her pristine white apron and trademark black long-sleeve shirt and pants. The digital menu above her head announced today’s special was manicotti, steamed carrots, and a baguette, plus an oatmeal raisin cookie.
“You again.” She looked him up and down, the early afternoon sunlight pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making her gray hair gleam like steel under her hairnet. “You’re still too skinny. I’m putting extra cookies on your plate, but no touching them until your steamed carrots are gone.”
“No time for lunch today, Mrs. Esposito,” he said, giving the cookies inside the glass display case a hard look. “I’ll take the cookies, though.”
“A shocking development,” she said, reaching for a pair of tongs with one hand as she opened the display case with the other. “I’ll alert the media.”
He watched her slip two cookies into a paper sleeve branded with the Carlyle Enterprise logo. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were sweet on me.”
Up went one penciled-in, jet-black eyebrow as she held on to the cookies. “How goes the plan to reunite Sawyer with his former best friend?”
What the—?
How he managed to not let his jaw drop to the floor he wasn’t sure. He shouldn’t be shocked. The woman was more plugged into the goings on at Carlyle Tower—and the people who worked inside it—than just about anyone else.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” he asked.
“The winning Lotto numbers. Other than that?” She pulled a face and shrugged her shoulders. “No. Plus your mother came in for a non-fat, soy milk latte Friday morning.”
And there was the answer to that question. Mom and Mrs. Esposito must have been doing a little complimentary intelligence gathering. The secrets those two could crack if they ever teamed up on a professional basis would be astounding—and as scary as shit. He snagged the bag of cookies from her, took one out, and broke it in half—handing one part to her. She accepted it as her due and poured two small glasses of milk, pushing one across the counter to him.
He dunked his cookie and took a bite. “So, you spent the weekend wondering how much progress I’d made in two short days?”
“It was something to do while I scrubbed my shower grout,” she said before taking a bite of the cookie.
“I know Sawyer has a cleaning crew over to your apartment once a week,” he said, not liking the idea of her working in slippery conditions. He and Sawyer had already all but ensured that her work in the Carlyle Tower cafeteria was supervisory only. “You don’t have to do that.”