Burn Me Once / Boardroom Sins

‘Thank you, Grayson.’

The man I met outside nods. ‘I’ll be out front.’

I turn to face Mr. Heynes, but he’s already disappearing back down the hallway we walked together.

‘My bodyguard,’ Ethan says, with a grin that is instantly disarming.

Usually I’d have something pithy to say in response to that, but I’m blindsided. Blindsided by the fact that I’m staring at the man I had the best sex of my life with—whom I thought I’d never see again. I thank the fashion gods that I chose to wear my favourite black jersey dress today, teamed with sky-high Louboutins and a chunky gold necklace. It’s an outfit that always leaves me feeling confident.

I haven’t said anything in a really long time, and his smile has turned into a frown. A little line has dug its way between his thick brows.

I look away quickly, needing to gather my wits—urgently. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s my place,’ he says simply, as though that explains everything.

I expel a sigh of frustration. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘I know.’ He moves towards me and the vibrations that are affecting me on a cellular level intensify sharply. My stomach swoops.

Great.

‘How did you get my number?’

He doesn’t look the slightest bit ashamed. ‘I looked on the internet for art advisors with long red hair and hypnotic eyes. You were right there.’

I cross my arms over my chest, tapping my fingers at my elbows disapprovingly.

‘You have an excellent reputation, Alicia.’

I arch a brow, ignoring the way his praise makes something pleasant spread through me. ‘Why am I here?’

He stops right in front of me, so close that I can see all the flecks of black in his ocean-green eyes. ‘I have a proposition for you. Two, actually.’

‘A proposition?’

‘Two.’ He nods towards the garden, and for the first time I see a little table has been set up there. ‘Have lunch with me.’

Swoop. Swoop. I’m on a rollercoaster of emotions. I tighten my seatbelt mentally, donning my best hyper-professional voice. ‘There’s really no need...’

His eyes pierce me all the way to my core. ‘Lunch.’

He speaks so authoritatively his strength and dominant confidence slam into me, and I am completely powerless to resist his request.

I shouldn’t stay. I know that. I should go. No, I should run. Because I’m looking at him, and what I really want to do is collapse against him, against his strong chest, press my ear to his heart and listen to its shudderingly wonderful rasp. What I really want to do is strip his clothes off his rock star body and touch him all over.

But I can’t. I don’t. That would be madness.

What was so natural and easy that night is now just out of my reach. We are not a couple. We are not even friends. We are strangers who fucked. Once.

No, not once, my memory hastens to correct me. We fucked the hell out of each other. But it was just one night. One glorious night.

I don’t even realise I’m chewing on my lower lip until he reaches down and smudges his finger across it, pushing my hand away. Heat sears me and my eyes lock to his. I feel the earth shift beneath our feet. Does he as well?

‘Lunch?’

I realise I haven’t answered. Slowly, I nod my head—so slowly that it’s as though I’ve been drugged. And I kind of have been. He is a drug. And exposure is fast turning me into an addict.

‘Okay.’ I sound pissed off, and I am. I have dealt with my desire for him and I have boxed away what we were that night. Now I am looking at him again, and possibilities I dare not explore are twisting and turning inside me.

I have to be strong.

I can manage this.

I can control it.

It is a balmy day. The low cloud cover has layered humidity over the city and I’m pleased to see that he hasn’t organised anything hot to eat. The table has some kind of yam salad on it, with what looks like feta cheese and herbs, and another salad. Kale?

And in the middle, so beautiful and attention-grabbing: a single peach.

‘I remember what you like,’ he says with a wink, and my blood boils. It’s intentionally ambiguous, but I imagine he’s not talking about the peach. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a peach without remembering the way Ethan Ash went down on me.

Against my will, my eyes run down his body, landing on his crotch. I’m not imagining the way he’s straining against his pants, and I’m glad. Immediately glad.

If I’m going to be wading through sensual heat then he’d better damned well be doing the same.

‘Good to know.’

His smile is droll as he pulls the chair out for me. As I sit his hands brush my shoulders and my stomach lurches.

He pours us a couple of glasses of sparkling mineral water and I watch him. I watch everything about him. The way his thick hair flops forward over his brow a little, the way his fingers are firm and commanding as they wrap around the bottle. The way he is strong and confident and sexy even while undertaking such a mundane task. The way his eyelashes, long and thick, clump together.

It was like this with Jeremy, I remind myself. Desire made me dumb. It made me incapable of feeling anything else.

He looks up and smiles—a smile which drops slightly when he sees the look on my face. I imagine I look a little bit the way a wolf might stare at a lamb. I am hungry; he is my meal.

Or is it the other way around? Beneath the table he kicks out his legs and his foot brushes against my ankle. I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not, and it hardly matters. The effect is the same. The heat of the sun rampages through my system.

‘So...’ I say, desperate to regain some control of the situation. ‘Why don’t we cut to the chase?’

His eyes narrow, regarding me thoughtfully. As if he’s trying to read my mood. ‘I had fun the other night.’

I swallow, but it’s no good. The beauty of that night burns me with its heat. ‘Me too.’ It’s a raspy, cautiously given admission.

‘I want to do it again.’

Alarm bells are screeching through me. Again? ‘Why?’

His laugh is soft and he leans forward, his eyes hooked to mine. ‘Seriously? You want a reminder?’

Heat flames my cheeks. ‘It was a one-night-stand, Ethan. By definition, we’re done.’

He nods thoughtfully. ‘And that’s what you want?’

‘Get out of my house, you little whore!’

The way she spun around, her face puce, her hair black.

‘Did you think you could bring her here and I wouldn’t know? Jesus, Jeremy. Did you think I didn’t smell her on the sheets? Our children will be home in ten minutes! Get her out of my house!’

I feel like I’m going to vomit. The horror of that lazy afternoon, of being woken up by my fiancé’s wife, by the realisation that I’d bought his story hook, line and sink-me-sinker, tears through me. I’d looked at Jeremy and seen all my dreams, and he was actually a walking nightmare.

How easy it had been to believe his lies!

‘I’m staying with my brother’s family while my place is being renovated.’

It had been his family! His kids’ drawings all over the fridge. His wife’s photo on the landing. How foolish I was.

I told myself I’d never be so stupid again. That I would never be so caught up in a man that I forgot common sense and rational thought.

I don’t want a relationship.

I don’t even want sex.

It was only Ethan too-good-to-resist Ash that made me forget that.

For one night.

‘Yeah.’ I nod, but it’s weak with uncertainty. ‘Look, Ethan...’ I sigh almost apologetically and a small part of my brain wonders how often Ethan Ash gets rejected. ‘I’m not looking for a relationship. The other night was great, but it was just sex. Really, really good sex...’

He nods, a droll expression on his face. ‘That’s why this is perfect.’

‘Why? What?’

‘I don’t want a relationship either.’

He sips his drink, keeping his eyes latched to mine the whole time. He replaces it on the table without breaking eye contact.

‘I just want to fuck you.’

A lightning bolt of anticipation flashes down my spine. It is so tempting. And, hell, I want what he says he wants. I want to rip my clothes off and beg him to take me right there, on the manicured lawn and beneath the sultry grey sky.

But can we do that? Can we really just fuck without getting our emotions, all of ourselves, involved? I don’t know if I have what it takes for that.

‘It’s too complicated.’ I hear the prim rejection, and somewhere a part of me is glad that I have at least a degree of common sense.

‘There’s nothing complicated about what we feel,’ he contradicts.

I shake my head. ‘I can’t get involved.’

‘Why not?’ His eyes narrow speculatively and he’s tense suddenly. ‘Are you with someone else?’

My heart turns over at the very idea. I shake my head, but the memories of my affair are too strong inside me. Being cast as ‘the other woman’ without my knowledge and without my consent. It is a wound I will probably always carry. It doesn’t matter to Jeremy’s wife that I had no fucking clue he was married. That he was a dad. I slept with her husband. I got engaged to the father of her children.

I broke up a family.

Guilt colours my cheeks and I feel the warning sting of tears out of nowhere. I push them back.

‘Look...’ He sighs again. ‘I don’t know if you heard about it—I mean, it was all over the news at the time. I broke up with my girlfriend a few months back.’

His eyes show torment when they meet mine: a torment that is matched by my swirling gut.

I tilt my head to the side, trying to remember. My Poldark knowledge is exceptional, so too my knowledge of Westeros family trees, but real-world drama...?

‘It was completely messed up.’ He shakes his head, as if dismissing tormenting thoughts of his own. ‘The night I met you I’d just found out she got engaged.’

‘And you were pissed?’ I murmur.

It’s not a question, but he answers anyway. ‘That’s an understatement. I wanted to tear the world apart.’

Something strange shifts inside me. ‘How long were you together?’

He is quiet, and my experience with Jeremy reminds me that this is a sign of secrecy. That he’s hiding something from me.

‘Forget it,’ I say sharply. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting in the middle of it.’

‘She’s engaged to someone else,’ he says throatily, and I hear the emotional rawness in the words. ‘There is no middle.’

‘But you’re still in love with her?’

The question catches him off-guard. It’s as if he realises the inappropriateness of talking to me, the woman he’s most recently-fucked, about the woman he loves.

‘Hell, no. Right now I think hate would be a better word to describe what I feel for her.’

I discount that. I know that pain. I’ve felt it. ‘You can love at the same time as you hate.’

‘Speaking from experience?’ he prompts.

‘Yes.’ It’s both an admission and a warning. I’m shutting the conversation down.

He seems to understand that. ‘Not with Sienna. Not after this.’

Sienna?

‘Sienna Di Giorgio?’

Now I remember. It was in the papers at the time, and on news websites, and people were gossiping about it. It was a big deal to people who cared about that kind of thing—which was almost everyone.

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘Nah.’

Jealousy curdles inside me. ‘Maybe that’s what you need? To get some closure?’

He laughs. ‘Talking to Sienna isn’t going to give me “closure”.’ And he stands up, his manner completely animalistic, wild, untamed, as he prowls to my side of the table. ‘I want to fuck you.’

I startle at the bald-faced honesty of the statement.

‘Rebound sex?’ I prompt, some sense of self-preservation forcing me to face up to what he wants before this goes any further.

His eyes glint and I feel the determination of his heartbreak. I recognise it.

‘Something like that.’

And I want to agree. To acquiesce. To give him all of myself.

But is there danger here? Am I being foolish?

‘Just sex?’

‘Just sex.’ He nods, reaching for me and pulling me to stand.

We are body to body...so close. I hesitate and he strikes, moving even closer, speaking low and throaty.

‘I...’

He brings his mouth to my ear.

‘Want...’

He sucks my lobe between his teeth and then bites down on it. I pull in a breath.

‘To...’

His fingers find the bottom of my dress and push it up my thighs until it’s at my hips.

‘Fuck...’

His hands curl around my ass and thrust me forward, holding me tight to his arousal. He grinds his hips and I groan as I remember how good he feels inside me.

‘You.’

He hasn’t even said the last word before my fingers are searching for the buckle of his belt and pushing it open. I want that too.

His ex. My ex. They cease to exist.

There is no one in my mind but Ethan Ash as I push at his jeans until they’re open and then reach in and wrap my fingers around his cock.

‘Shit...’ he groans.

‘This is crazy.’

‘No,’ he grunts. ‘This is a proposition. You. Me. Sex. It’s easy.’

He rubs his cheek against mine, his stubble coarse, and then he kisses me—hard, achingly, his tongue punishing mine, as though our four days apart were my fault. It is crazy and it is reckless and I know I might regret it, but I will regret stopping even more.

He pulls me as we kiss, in through the doors, but we’ve barely made it inside before we tumble to the hardwood floors, a tangle of clothes and hormones, of need and lust. He pushes me onto my back and I’m shaking as he slides a condom in place. I’m pushing at his jeans and he’s sliding out of them, and all the while I’m chasing his mouth, not wanting our kiss to end.

He doesn’t remove my underwear—who has time for that? He pushes the flimsy lace aside and thrusts into me hard and fast, with all the desperation in the world, as though he knows how ready I am for him. And I am. So ready, so wet, so hungry. I cry out at his possession and arch my back, inviting him to touch me.

He doesn’t need the invitation.

His hands are under my dress and he finds my breasts, rolling my nipples as he drives into me, and I am moving higher and higher above the earth with every touch, morphing out of this very plain of existence. I am all his...all this...all need.

It is a primal coming together. There is nothing slow or seductive about it. But I have never been more aroused. Even as I come I feel another orgasm building immediately afterwards, intense and powerful. I dig my nails into his hips, feeling his warm, smooth flesh and wanting to mark it with my possession of him.

I wrap my legs around his waist and he drops his hands to my ass, curving his hands beneath me and kneading my flesh until I groan into his mouth.

I am incapable of thought. I am incapable of anything but feeling. And I feel him everywhere. Each thrust drives him deeper into my body until I am existing purely for this. All for him.

And I’m just sensible enough to be afraid of that.

* * *

‘You said two propositions?’

Our breathing is returning to normal. His body is a weight on me that I crave.

‘Right.’

He grins slowly, sensually. My stomach flops.

‘Do I take it that means you accept the first?’

I pull a face. ‘I’m thinking about it.’

He nods thoughtfully. ‘Might you need more convincing?’

My body trembles. ‘I might.’

I don’t. I want to sleep with him again and again—which should in and of itself warn me off.

Ethan shifts a little; my body responds instantly.

‘I have a designer for the interior. But I want your artistic input. I want you to wave your magic wand over this place. Think you can do that? For me?’

The way he says that should warn me, but I am not afraid. We have been honest—we have immunised ourselves against emotional fallout. Flirting with him is fine because we both know what we want.

And what’s at stake if we don’t.

‘You’re asking me to work for you?’

He nods. ‘Yes. What d’you say?’

I say yes, don’t I?

‘Why don’t you show me the place while I make up my mind?’

* * *

‘I guess this will be a kind of entertaining area.’ He gestures around the large open space on the top floor of the townhouse. It’s huge. Cavernous, even. I instantly see it as it could be. Neutral décor. Cream walls, polished floorboards and a single feature wall of a dark, earthy grey colour. Modern lighting, like round floor lamps and curved wall lamps, and perhaps a shag pile rug in the middle.

And contemporary art. Abstract without being corporate.

There’s a Hirst I know Christie’s has coming up for auction and mentally I picture it on the wall. I can’t recall the exact dimensions off the top of my head, so I reach into my bag and pull out my iPad mini.

‘What about something like this?’ I load up the painting and hold the iPad closer to him. Not too close. Not so close that I can breathe him in or risk touching him.

What happened downstairs is still playing on the edges of my mind, and I don’t know if I should run and hide or pretend it’s business as usual. I’ve opted for the latter, but every movement he makes reminds me passionately of what we’ve done. What I want.

I struggle to make sense of it.

‘I love it.’

He smiles as he meets my eyes. He’s so straightforward and simple...it’s hard to believe he feels anything like my inner-turmoil.

Why am I complicating things? We’re two adults who want to have a no-strings-attached sex-fest. What danger is there in that?

I quickly spin away from him, not wanting him to see even a hint of my thought processes on my face.

The business with Jeremy scared me. For life, possibly. Well, Eliza says it fucked me up good, and I’ve always kind of agreed with her.

I fell in love with him hard and fast. And I thought it was mutual. I believed everything he told me. Six months into our relationship I should have seen the signs. The way he would often not answer my calls. The way he’d have weird explanations for what he’d been doing, and the way he’d change plans at a moment’s notice. The way we once went to a restaurant and a couple came over to speak to him and the woman kept looking at me with obvious confusion.

And then, yes... The way his wife walked in on us in flagrante.

God, what an idiot I’d been.

So? Was I being an idiot now?

‘How come you have such a huge place when you don’t even live in the States?’

His shrug is non-committal, as though we’re talking about a studio apartment rather than two brownstones joined at the seams.

‘I like it here. And there are times when I do American tours and it would make sense to have a bit of a home away from home. You know? Plus, it’s a good investment.’

I nod thoughtfully. ‘Do you get sick of the travelling?’

‘I try not to do too much of it.’

‘But you tour...?’

‘Yeah, I tour.’ His smile is so sexy. ‘But I get my agent to build in weeks of time when I get back home. To sleep in my own bed.’

To see Sienna?

I push the other woman aside. She’s engaged. They broke up months ago. This isn’t like Jeremy and Fiona.

‘I’d hate it,’ I say thoughtfully.

Moving carefully, I step over a large gap in the floorboards into the other side of the room and towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the garden. Our lunch is still down there. My poor fork stabbed into a slice of yam, indignantly waiting to be wielded.

‘Yeah?’

‘Oh, yeah. I’m such a homebody.’

‘I wouldn’t have guessed that.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

He comes to stand beside me and I’m aware of all the things I don’t want to be.

‘I can’t get involved with you,’ I say, without meeting his eyes.

‘Can’t? Or don’t want to?’

It’s a distinction I hadn’t even realised I’d made. I side-step it deliberately. ‘I think you’re trouble.’ Now I force myself to look his way. ‘And I’m not into that.’

He studies me without speaking. Then...

‘But you used to be?’

I’m startled, blinking away my surprise. How can he tell?

I twist my lips to the side and shrug, just a little. ‘Trouble used to be into me.’ It’s a subtle correction. ‘I’ve learned to spot it.’

He doesn’t say anything. We stare down at the garden—it really is very beautiful. My body is still tingling from the way we came together. We are dynamite and flame. On our own, innocuous enough. But together...?

We have no hope.

‘And yet the idea of sleeping with you holds definite appeal.’ I run my eyes across his handsome face, over his lips that drive me wild.

‘Sleeping isn’t part of the equation.’ He winks and, heaven help me, my body—all of it—groans.

‘Right.’ I smile. ‘And, you know, I wonder if we shouldn’t just...have fun together.’

He expels a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God for that.’

But I’m still not convinced this is a good idea. I’m still terrified of everything that could go wrong.

‘How would this work? I mean, I really...it really has to be just sex. No strings.’

‘Yeah...’ He grins, scanning my face. ‘We can do that.’

‘But what if we can’t? What if one of us wants more?’

He arches a brow. ‘We won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

He shrugs. ‘If it makes you feel any better, we’ll put some ground rules in place.’

‘Ground rules?’ I nod slowly. It’s a good idea, but I can’t resist teasing him. ‘You’re disappointingly conservative for a rock star, aren’t you, Mr Ash?’

‘I’m afraid I might be,’ he says, with a wink that makes my tummy roll and my body vibrate.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing about him is disappointing.

‘Would you find the conversation more acceptable if I do this?’

And he kisses my neck, sending shoots of awareness through me. I nod, but coherent thought is becoming difficult. It’s worse when he drops his hand beneath my skirt and finds my heated core, sliding his fingers deep inside me. I throb around him, groaning at the sweetness of the invasion.

‘You were saying...’ I whimper as pleasure builds, need intensifies.

‘Ground rules...’ The words are throaty.

‘Right.’

I tilt my head back until it connects with the glass of the window. I am lost to pleasure once more. How can he do this to me? I read a Cosmo article years ago about the number of calories a woman burns when she comes. Was it sixty? A hundred? I’m going to need to up my carb intake while I’m fucking Ethan, that’s for sure.

‘What do you want from me?’ he asks, his lips brushing the words into my mouth.

I shiver; it’s so sensual.

‘Fun,’ I grunt back as pleasure intensifies and thickens around me. ‘Just fun.’

‘No flowers? No sleepovers? No expectations beyond satisfaction?’ he teases. ‘Nothing serious?’

‘God, no. Fun.’ I dig my fingers into his hips. ‘Fuck, Ethan, I’m...’

He withdraws and my eyes fly open, finding his. Outrage trembles inside me, but only for a moment—because then he’s crouching on his haunches and his mouth is against me, his tongue demanding that my pleasure continues.

‘Oh, God...’ My fingers dig into his shoulders now and all my weight is against the window.

Please, don’t let it break.

But would I even care? What a blissful way to go.

‘What else?’ he asks my clit, so that I can’t help but laugh.

It’s quickly subdued by a keening cry of need. He’s so good at this. So good at everything.