Never Forgotten: Second Chances (3 page)

"I usually do."

"Except when you don't."

"Certainty is overrated. It leads people to make dangerous assumptions." That made her smile. Uncertainty defined their relationship, was its watchword, and that suited two busy executives. Thom didn't even own a home and was always on the move. As well as investing in Diamond Software, Thom managed investments around the world, flitting, at a moment's notice to Germany or France, or even Montana. The relationship evolved rather spontaneously. He made a point of being in town for Diamond's monthly board meetings, and one night she'd invited him to come by for a drink. She liked his company, enjoying the difference between Thom and the men she usually encountered. He was interesting—an attractive novelty. Despite the twenty years difference in their ages, there was a sexual attraction they were both willing to pursue. Quickly his coming to see her after meetings became something of a ritual interrupted only when Thom or she had other business that couldn't be put aside for the evening. For them both, the business was important. The sex was casual. A bonus for them both.

He came into the room moving with his customary grace. His kisses were delicate, touching her lips like a flower, even when they were insistent. He didn't command attention through force but delicacy. He was delicious, and his presence almost fragile yet he wasn't at all frail. He touched her arms, and she moved against him, her breasts against his chest as he ran his hands down her back. She tingled with delight.

She led him into the living room, and he spotted the open bottle of wine from the table and picked it up, glancing at the label and wrinkling his nose. "I should've brought something decent. I knew money was a problem, but I didn't realize things were this bad."

"Don't pretend to be quite such a wine snob. I rather like this one. It tastes good, and I can buy it at the supermarket on my way home from the office." She wanted to say more, but his attention had moved on. The moment was gone.

"What was going on in the meeting?" he asked, sitting, pouring two glasses of the deep red wine into her crystal stemware. He picked one up and held it up to the light, swirling it for a moment. "It has decent legs," then smiling at her, his eyes caressing her bare legs, "though not as nice as yours." He sipped it, inhaling air through his mouth and screwing up his face.

"I'm so glad you like it," she teased, sitting beside him, up against him, then taking her glass and sipping her own, relishing the bite of the tannin in her mouth. She knew what Thom objected to was that very crudity. Things with a bite were untamed, not delicate. Thom could be stubborn and intractable at times, but never crude.

He looked at her, weighing his words. "The meeting today. Before we leave the day behind, I need to go back to that. I wasn't sure why you dropped such a bombshell. You didn't give me any warning about this money crunch."

"I shouldn't have gotten caught out like that, and I feel stupid. I knew things were changing, but I hadn't checked the revenue for the last month, and I hadn't realized how fast the ground was moving. Yesterday, when I was reviewing Lenora's proposal, I ran the numbers so we could get a jump on things. I knew we'd have to shuffle some things, but let the bad news sneak up on me." She shrugged. "The meeting was already scheduled, so I decided we needed to talk it through, and it was easier to present it to everyone at once." She sipped her wine again. "But once you decided you wouldn't entertain the notion of putting in more money the discussion was over."

"You didn't give me compelling reasons to agree to anything. No concrete financial plan, mere speculation about payback."

"Thom, you know damn well that anything we came up with would be speculation. Why pretend otherwise?"

"Because that's how it's done."

"Not by me. I don't like doing business based on pretense or wasting time, for that matter. The question was, to my mind, a rather simple one. Are you willing to take the gamble that Craig has come up with a winner or not? You weren't." It was that simple in her mind. She wasn't even angry with him for staying out. She didn't confuse their personal relationship with business decisions. But he seemed to feel the need to defend his position.

"I have people, investors that I report to. They expect analysis, projections..."

She laughed at that. "Hell Thom, they believe whatever you tell them. Besides, you could afford to bankroll this yourself if you believed in it."

He puffed up slightly, proud that she said that about him. He considered it high praise. "You know I'm not comfortable with high tech stuff and less so with software. I'd never invested in it before you convinced me to put a small stake in Diamond."

"I know. And you've enjoyed it."

"But as I said, I've got so much on my plate, so many attractive things that I know something about... oil leases, a wildcatter in Borneo."

"Things that keep you in your comfort zone."

He sighed. "You understand."

"Which is not the same as approving."

"Yes." He blinked, glanced around. "You wish I were more of a risk taker, and I admit I've missed out on some big gains, but I've also held onto my money when others were in a panic. Why should mess with a successful strategy?"

"Maybe just so you know you are alive. Didn't you just tell me how overrated certainty is?"

He found that funny. "That wasn't with respect to money. I don't enjoy the gambler's adrenaline rush. It makes me nauseous. I'll put my intuition and ability to judge investments up against anyone's but this is too fluid. I wasn't lying about my situation. Even if you had the money in hand now, I'd be considering selling my shares. The money I've tied up in Diamond would be very useful elsewhere right now."

"Then how about helping me get past this one last hurdle? Then we won't be in a rush to find a buyer, and you'll get a better price."

His smile was knowing. "Is that how you see this situation? It's a hurdle? And the last one?"

"Yes. It's simple. An infusion of cash lets us have a good launch, one that touches all the bases. Then money starts coming in."

"Aha."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Let's say you have a successful launch. Your program is doing well, and out of the blue a competitor launches their product—like Striker did in the existing market. What then? Of course, you'll need more cash to defend against it, to improve marketing or add features, and most likely both. Or say distributors are a problem, stalling, and the cash flow isn't enough to grow the company and repay debt. What do you do? You scramble again. You confront the next crisis. No, Megan, this isn't the last hurdle before reaching some mythic stability. Business is the ebb and flow of crises and you better be ready to constantly be juggling such things."

She tried to laugh off his negativity. "What's wrong with that?"

He smiled and refilled their glasses. "Nothing at all. For a large company that can rob cash from one product to support another, it's a just a day at the office. But you don't have that luxury. That's why I can't let you get away with telling me, or any investor, you need funding to get past this hurdle, and all will be well. Anyone investing now will have to invest more later on to protect that initial investment. That's business too. That's what you're asking me to do now, to cough up the next round of funding to protect what I've already put in."

"I suppose so."

"Megan, I'm tired of this software business. It makes no sense to me. But be careful. To convince an investor to put in the money you want, they'll want a bigger piece of the pie. My hunch is you'll wind up losing control of your company quite soon."

"So you won't help me achieve my dream."

"Would a friend help you live out a fantasy in a cave when he knew you could do so much more in the real world?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think you should sell out too. Walk away from this nonsense. I could find a buyer for a package of your shares and mine in a heartbeat. They'd have majority control and a new product. Then we'd take your money and do something really profitable."

"You want me to work with you?"

"Not work." He reached over to stroke her face. "But I want you with me, and I want you very much."

Suddenly the business conversation had drawn to a close. There was nothing more to say once Thom had made a business decision. His intractability infuriated her, but he had good qualities, and his delicate and loving touch was one. Simply by stroking her cheek he made her feel adored. She wasn't foolish enough to think he actually adored her, but he lusted after her in his way, and he was good to be with. That made him the best thing in her life at the moment.

She barely felt it as he slipped her robe down her shoulders, but when his hand caressed her bare breast, when his fingers teased her nipples hard, she began melting. Her tough-minded businesswoman personae slipped off with the robe, in fact, she'd shed much of it in the shower earlier, leaving her vulnerable to his seduction, wanting it. Thom was a beautiful seducer, who made the transition from business partner into lover a smooth and effortless one. No way did she intend to interrupt the delightful game. If Thom wanted to close the discussion by shifting her attention from the problems of business to the joys of the flesh, she had no interest in stopping him.

As her robe found its way to a puddle on the floor, he pushed her back on the soft couch and moved over her, kissing her. Then his soft, moist lips danced down her neck and breasts, over the flesh of her rounded stomach, making her body sparkle as he kissed it and tasted her with a delicate flick of his tongue. His intrusion between her thighs made her gasp as his kiss on her pussy released tension she hadn't known was there. The sigh became a moan as he pressed his face into her cunt, his tongue exploring her. Her bare feet rested on his back, and his hands held her thighs as he ate her pussy, injecting an urgency into his delicacy that aroused her. He tasted her juices and then spread them, separating her pussy lips, letting his hands begin to work their way into her as his mouth found her clitoris and teased it out of hiding. He licked it, and her body screamed for him to rub her hard. She was so close. But he was a tormentor more than a plunderer. She endured his touches, feeling the exquisite way they built her arousal, her desire to come, her need to explode. His long fingers stroked inside her, seeming to home in on those elusive places of sexual excitement, and then she came, arching her back, pressing her cunt into his face. He licked and probed her as she came, giving her a long ride up and then down the chaotic roller coaster of emotion.

When she lay limp under him, Thom stood and carefully undressed in front of her. She watched him, knowing that her eyes on him added to his excitement, that he wanted her to see when he bared his hard prick. She licked her lips, slowly, returning his teasing, as she saw it emerge, thin, and long, and, she knew from experience, a tool he knew how to use well. She wanted to feel it inside her.

When he was naked, he stood in front of her. She knew he was deciding how he wanted to take her. He calculated such things, sometimes choosing to talk it through as if she weren't there, other times, like now, turning over the possibilities in his head silently. She never knew his criteria or what calculus he used, but she knew this moment was one he enjoyed, and so did she. She kept her eyes fixed on him as he rolled a condom carefully over his hard shaft, and then stroked it with his other hand stroking her inner thigh, letting her know he was going to fuck her.

Finally he moved far too slowly between her legs, kneeling there with his shaft protruding over her belly. She reached for him, putting her hand on his cock and feeling the heat of his desire through the condom. He moved closer. "Put it in your cunt." She'd never had a man take her as smoothly as Thom did. He moved with liquid grace, his cock splaying open her pussy lips then filling her sheath, feeling as if it belonged there. When his hip touched hers, he withdrew again slowly, let out a soft breath and penetrated her again. She wrapped her legs around his lean body in a welcome and carnal embrace that let her press his body into hers, pulling his cock deeper inside her. He paused and kissed her, then he began to fuck her, his motions rocking the couch over the hardwood floor, making the feet squeak with his thrusts. Her head hung back over the padded arm of the couch as he fucked her, and she let herself focus entirely on the wonderful sensations his hard cock aroused in her. Everything with Thom was lovely and elegant, and sometimes too much so. Now it was beautiful. She put her arms on his shoulders, reminding herself to resist the powerful urge to dig her nails into him, as even that much violence could disturb his passion, break the mood of gentle and suave lovemaking. Instead, she clung to him, acutely aware of him, his breathing, the tension that preceded his thrusts into her, and then the growing stiffness in his body just before he came, ejaculating inside her, filling the condom he would then carefully dispose of, for Thom was a careful man. If that irritated her at times, she knew it was a way of being considerate, and she wondered why she didn't appreciate it more.

Later, they would finish the wine with any talk of the day's business events relegated, by common consent, into the past. He would talk of a trip he wanted to take to Venice, hinting she should go too, but never quite asking her, not inviting, explaining the wonders of the marvelous museums there and the joys of luxurious feather beds in the finest of the old hotels. "It's fucking in the middle of history, and I always wonder what famous people might have sported in those same beds over the years."

She listened and savored her wine, feeling pleased if never quite sated. Then, when he had rested some, they would go to her bed and he would mount her again, giving her some pleasure, some delightful distraction from the things she knew she needed to deal with, and then, spent, they would fall asleep in her expensive silk sheets.

* * * *

In the darkness of her bedroom, Megan felt someone moving. She struggled to open her eyes, finding them thick with the grime of sleep. After a moment, she saw a man walk toward the bed where she lay naked with Thom. "It's you," she said. The man, also naked, sat on the edge of her side of the bed and looked down at her then reached down to brush her hair back from her eyes. "Why do you do this, Sal? Why come to me in my sleep."