Falling for Fate (26 page)

Her chest heaved with each breath, and he was close enough to touch her, but he resisted. Barely. He braced his arms on either side of her head.

“Fate? You with me?”

She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. When she opened hers and looked into his, he lost his breath. Her eyes were this deep shade of green gray. Like ocean water. No wonder he always had trouble breathing around her.

The colors swirled, and deep within them was a hint of vulnerability that drove him to his breaking point. He wasn’t the kind of man to make promises he couldn’t keep. And this woman deserved a hell of a lot more than he could give. But he could give her a weekend of being worshipped with everything he had. He could give her the release they both craved so badly. Again and again until they couldn’t move. They both needed to get this out of their system so they could focus on their respective careers. Surely she realized this. She was as intelligent as she was gorgeous.

“Why did you send me these?” she whispered. She held up a fisted hand. Inside were the black, lace crotchless panties he’d had delivered to her.

God, he was dying to see them on her. And off her.

“I want you to wear them for me. This weekend. Please.”

He could see the trepidation in her gaze. He wanted nothing more than to kiss it away. But that wasn’t fair. Kisses were promises he couldn’t keep. Kisses said, “I love you.” Crotchless panties said, “I’d love to fuck you.”

He was trying to keep this already messy situation as clean as possible. He watched as half a dozen emotions crossed her face. Confusion. Hurt. Excitement. Anticipation. Fear. And something he couldn’t identify by name but understood because he felt it himself. Every time he looked at her. Need, maybe.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, she placed a hand on his chest and pressed gently. Taking the hint, he stepped out of her space.

“Maybe.” Her forehead creased as she appraised him.

“Is that a step up from you’ll think about it?”

At that, she smiled. His chest constricted at the sight. Unexpected warmth flooded him.

“Perhaps.” She shook her head and glanced up at him from under her thick, dark lashes. “But if you send me any more shit like this at work, I’ll make you wear them.”

He shrugged. “You say that like it’s a viable threat. Who’s to say I wouldn’t like that? Maybe that’s why I bought them.”

She arched a brow.

He gave up the façade and smirked at her. “You’re picturing it, aren’t you?”

Busted. She grinned so wide that he couldn’t breathe. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the ocean pitched and rolled in a soothing rhythm he loved.

He was going to make love to her in the ocean. He knew it as sure as he knew his own name. Now, he just had to convince her.

Leaning forward into her space, he gave in to the urge to touch her. His hands encircled her waist and pulled her close enough that their faces nearly grazed against one another’s.

“Come this weekend,” he rasped. “I promise you won’t regret it. And I have a strict rule about not making promises I can’t keep.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I don’t think it’s—”

“Don’t think. Remember that night, Fate? Don’t think. Just do what you want to. Give in.”

“Dean.” His name fell from her lips with a sweet softness that left him aching.

“I wasn’t done, Fate.
We
weren’t done. We both know there’s more. We owe to ourselves to finish what we started. Can you really walk out this door right now?”

Her eyes burned into his, but she didn’t answer.

“Tell me you can walk away and I swear I’ll leave you alone.” He swallowed, hoping like hell she didn’t do it. Knowing he wasn’t capable of leaving her alone. Not at this point. Not before he was finished.

“If the answer is yes, I’ll meet you here. After work. After everyone else leaves. If the answer is no—”

“Fate—”

“If the answer is no, I won’t. And you have to stop this. No more sending me dirty gifts or chasing me into empty parking garages. None of it. Promise me.”

He shook his head. “I just told you. I don’t make promises unless I know I can keep them. Come to the beach house this weekend. Let’s get this out of our system so we can get back to our lives. Then and only then can I promise to leave you be.”

She bit her lip as if she were trying to kill him. “Just the weekend,” she whispered. “Promise that’s all you want?”

He nodded. “Promise.” Thankfully, this was one he could keep. The steady pressure of excitement was building inside him. “So you’ll come then?”

She took a deep breath. He stood completely still and watched her mouth. Waiting for it to form the word yes.

“Maybe,” was all she said before she turned and exited his office.

“I
think I’m going out of town this weekend.”

Gwen peered at her over the open refrigerator door. “You
think
you are?”

Fate pulled her legs up onto the couch and curled them underneath her. “Yeah, there’s this…
thing
I told Dean I’d go to with him.”

After pulling out a cup of yogurt and clanking silverware around in her search for a spoon, Gwen joined her in their living room. “Does this
thing
involve him screwing you senseless?”

Gwen never was one to sugarcoat a situation as Fate was learning.

“Perhaps,” she answered, the heat of her embarrassment spreading across her cheeks.

At least I hope it does.

“Ah.” Gwen ate a spoonful of yogurt. “And you’re sure you want to do this—with him, I mean?”

Was she sure? “Yeah. I think I am.”

Nope. Not at all sure.

Her roommate shrugged. “Maybe this will be good for both of you. Give you both some closure so you can resume your regularly scheduled lives. And give the rest of us a break from having to watch you eye-fuck each other to death during meetings.”

“We do not eye-fuck each other in meetings!”

Gwen snorted. “Um, yeah you do. And when you’re not looking at each other like you’re thinking about climbing on the conference table together, the tension is still there. I’m going to start bringing an extra pair of panties to work soon. So, really, you’re doing everyone a favor.”

Fate had no idea if any of what her roommate had said was true. But she’d caught his eye a few times during budget meetings the past few days. And yeah, there’d been something gleaming hot in them. It had caused her to squirm in her seat more than once. But surely it wasn’t that noticeable. Was it?

“Do you think other people have noticed?” she asked quietly.

Gwen paused to swallow her last bite of yogurt before setting the small plastic cup down on the coffee table. “If they have eyes, probably. But I know the deal between you two, so maybe it’s just more obvious to me.”

Whew, that was a relief. “You think so?”

Her friend grinned and pulled a face. “No. Not really. You’d have to be blind and deaf and incapable of feeling not to notice. Sorry, babe.”

Fate rolled her eyes, but she could feel the stress settling over her. When they were together, it seemed so…right. Inevitable, even. But when they were apart and she actually
thought
about it, about the logistics of it…she wondered if she’d lost her damned mind.

Her phone buzzed from inside her purse on the breakfast bar.

Lord. Just my luck, it will be him.

After walking over to retrieve her phone, she saw that it wasn’t Dean calling. It was a number she knew she should’ve blocked long ago.

Trevor. It was the third time this week.

She silenced his call, ignoring it and fighting back the tsunami of painful memories that flooded her mind. The reminder of the four years she’d wasted was enough to make her mind up about her weekend with Dean.

“I’m definitely going out of town this weekend,” she told her roommate.

Gwen turned her eyes away from a rerun of the The Bachelor. “Never doubted it for a second.”

F
riday was the longest damned day of his life. Dean snapped at Keaton twice, ignored his dad’s emails completely, and didn’t have a fucking clue what James Tenor was blabbering on about in the meeting he was currently suffering through.

“Dean? You have somewhere you need to be?”

His father’s glare was hard and hammering into him.

Dean shifted in his seat. “No, sir.” He returned his attention to Mr. Tenor. “My apologies. Please continue.”

Fuck.
He wanted to kick his own ass. He could not keep letting himself forget what the main goal was. Right now, that included learning everything he could from James Tenor and showing his father that he could do this job, was worthy of this job.

If Fate came to his office, great. They’d have a sex-filled weekend. If she didn’t, he was damn sure going to figure out a way to fuck her out of his system with the first willing participant.

He almost laughed out loud at himself. If it were that easy, he would’ve done it by now.

Thankfully, the meeting ended and Mr. Tenor offered to meet with Dean a few more times to review some of the highlights before his retirement was official. He was extremely grateful for this offer since he knew he’d have his head on straight starting first thing Monday morning. There’d be no more unfinished business with Fate Buchanan, nothing left to prove, and not a single centimeter of her body left to explore. Then and only then would his brain regain the ability to function properly. He could hardly wait.