Always Will: A Bad Boy Romance Read online

  “Sure,” Scott says. “Anything in particular you want?”

  “Not really.” I need to find out what Selene likes to eat, but since I’m flying blind I’ll let Scott order something. “Just no sushi. I like to pick that out myself. And make it for two.”

  Scott’s brow furrows, like he’s confused, but he just nods. “Okay.”

  I have a couple long conference calls that take up my afternoon. I get off the phone and glance at the time. Five-fifteen. I send Selene an instant message. I need to see you in my office.

  It takes almost a full minute for her to reply. She can’t have left yet, can she? I don’t think she usually leaves until well after six, at the earliest.

  Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.

  I drum my fingers against my desk while I wait for her. My door is open, but she knocks a couple times as she stands in the doorway.

  “You needed to see me?”

  “Have a seat.” I gesture to the chair across my desk. “But leave the door open.”

  She gives me a wry smile and sits down, crossing her legs. She looks beautiful in a black-and-gray wrap dress and dark red heels.

  “How was your day?” I ask.

  “Fine,” she says, her voice hesitant. “Yours?”

  “Full,” I say, leaning back in my seat. “Brad disappeared off the map, and my lawyers needed a few more signatures from him. So that’s going to be interesting. I liked what the dev team had to say earlier, though.”

  “Yeah, they’ve made progress faster than we were anticipating,” she says. “They’re hitting a few snags with the new device, but it sounds like they’ll be ready for more in depth testing soon. That’s great news.”

  “That is great,” I say.

  Scott pokes his head in, holding a takeout bag. “Your dinner.”

  “Perfect,” I say. “I’ll take it. You can head home if you’re done for the day.”

  Selene starts to stand up. “I guess I’ll leave you to your dinner.”

  “No,” I say as I take the bags. “It’s for both of us. Thanks, Scott. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Scott leaves, closing the door behind him, and Selene stares at me.

  “Will you get the door?” I ask. “I believe we agreed it’s supposed to remain open.”

  She narrows her eyes at me, and gets up to open the door—but only a few inches. “What are you doing?” she asks as she sits back down.

  I move my laptop to the side and take out the boxes. Two orders of some sort of stir fry chicken and vegetable dish, and it smells fantastic.

  “I’m getting out our dinner,” I say. “I admit, I’m not sure what this is. Scott ordered, but it smells good. What do you think?”

  “I think you are not going to trick me into dating you,” she says.

  “Who said anything about a trick?” I ask. “This isn’t a date. This is two colleagues sharing a meal together, which we agreed is acceptable.” I push one of the boxes toward her and hold out a plastic fork.

  She takes it and scoots the box to her side of the desk. “You’re pushing it, Ronan.”

  “I’d like to push all this shit off the desk and lay you down on top of it,” I say.

  “We said no more flirting,” she says, pointing the fork at me.

  “We said no more flirting in front of your coworkers,” I say. “We’re alone.”

  She rolls her eyes. “A technicality. Besides, who flirts like that? You have no appreciation for subtlety.”

  “I understand subtlety very well. I’m just choosing not to use it,” I say. “Tell me how I should flirt with you.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “That’s not fair,” I say. “You won’t go out with me. The least you can do is let me tease you a little.”

  “Is that what this is?” she asks. “Teasing?”

  “This is whatever you want it to be, Selene,” I say. “You’re in the driver’s seat. What do you think about that?”

  “I think that I’m in a relationship with someone else, and you’re my boss.”

  “You haven’t broken up with Aaron yet?” I ask.

  “Aidan.”

  “Whatever.”

  She takes a bite, and I wonder if she’s avoiding my question. “No. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

  “I hope you have a good time.”

  “No, you don’t,” she says.

  I shrug. “Why not? I have no problem with you having a pleasant evening.”

  “He’s cooking me dinner at his place.” She meets my eyes and there’s a distinct note of challenge in her voice.

  The thought of her being in that guy’s house pisses me the hell off, but that fire in her eyes is such a turn on. It’s making me hard as fuck. “You’re threatening me,” I say.

  “How is that a threat?”

  “You want to make me jealous. So you’re dangling the possibility that you’ll be sleeping with someone other than me tomorrow night.”

  “I do not want to make you jealous,” she says. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s only ridiculous because you’re still lying to yourself.”

  She puts down her fork. “And what lie is that?”

  “That you don’t want me as much as I want you.”

  “Did you bring me in here to push boundaries, or do we have a legitimate reason to be having dinner together in your office?”

  “Both.”

  She shakes her head, but she doesn’t get up.

  Dinner is good. I grab us a couple bottled waters from my mini-fridge and steer the conversation back to work topics. Selene relaxes, and we discuss some of the issues the sales team has been having. She has a lot of good ideas, and I’m impressed with how much she knows about the other departments.

  We talk for a long time after we finish eating. I’m not sure what time it is, but I don’t want to call attention to the fact that it’s late by checking. Selene vents about how difficult it was to work with Brad over the last year, and I talk about my decision making process in buying VI. She asks a lot of questions, and I can tell she’s trying to figure me out—understand my motivations.

  Her passion for her work shows. It’s clear to me that Brad was underutilizing her talents. She knows this business intimately, and she cares about what she’s doing. That’s a rare thing in an employee.

  As much as I want to fuck Selene until she screams my name, I also know I’m walking a very fine line with her. She’s not just a random piece of ass. She’s so much more, and as I talk to her I feel a twinge of something I haven’t felt in many years: Fear. It’s such an unfamiliar sensation, but the novelty makes it intriguing. I’ve jumped out of airplanes hundreds of times and never once have I been afraid. It isn’t that I don’t understand the risks. It’s that risks don’t scare me. If it’s my time to go, there’s nothing I can do to stop it, so I might as well live hard while I’m here. I realize I’m not normal in that respect—and I wasn’t always this way—but I have my reasons.

  Why do I feel this foreign emotion when I look at this woman? What is it about her that scares me? I’m insanely attracted to her—more than I’ve felt for anyone in a very long time. Is that all it is? The fact that I’m willing to swear off other women just so I’m available for her, and so she stays available to me?

  I’m not sure. I’m putting on a good front, like I have her all figured out, but the truth is, she’s bringing something out in me I thought I buried a long time ago. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  Selene picks up her phone and her eyebrows lift. “It’s after eight.”

  “Is it really?” I grab my phone and check the time. She’s right. We’ve been talking for almost three hours. I knew time was passing, but I had no idea it was that long.

  “Sorry,” she says. “You probably had things to do tonight, and here I am talking your ear off.”

  “Not at all,” I say. “This is why I invited you in here.”

  She smiles as she gets up. “An
d I thought you were just trying to get past my rules.”

  I stand and walk toward the door with her. “Oh, I am. And I will. You can be sure of that.”

  She stops at the door, her hand on the knob. I love how she’s tall enough to look me right in the eyes.

  “No, you won’t, Ronan. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  A flash of anger runs through me. Mistake? The words Fuck you, then are on the tip of my tongue, but I stop. I know in an instant that if I lash out at her now, we won’t recover. Ever.

  I step closer, invading her personal space. She stands her ground, holding my gaze. The hit of anger makes me want to be aggressive. I reach out and put my hand in her hair, running my fingers through the dark silky strands. I grab it at the base of her neck, just hard enough that I have her in my control.

  “It won’t be a mistake the second time.”

  Her eyes widen and her lips part. I’m so close to kissing her. If she so much as touches her tongue to her lips, I won’t be able to resist.

  But now isn’t the time. I let go of her hair and brush it back behind her shoulder.

  “Thanks for joining me for dinner,” I say and step away.

  She takes a deep breath, and her breasts strain against her dress. “Goodnight, Ronan.” She leaves and shuts the door behind her.

  I rub my hands up and down my face. Fuck, I’m so hard my dick aches. I wanted to drag her across my office by her hair and bend her over the side of my desk. She has no idea how much self-control it took to let her walk away.

  I head straight for the private bathroom, glad it has a shower. I need to get off, now, or I’m going to go nuts. Jacking off isn’t going to do much more than take the edge off, but right now the edge is fucking sharp. My Selene fantasies are going to have to do, until I can get my hands on the real thing.

  9: Selene

  I walk away from Ronan’s office, my heart racing. That bastard made my pussy so wet, I was literally clenching my thighs. I should have told him not to touch me, but holy shit, that was a turn-on. I can barely think straight.

  I’m so grateful it’s late and no one else is in the office. My face must be beet red. I head back to my office to grab my things. I need to get out of here. Now.

  I walk over to the other side of our floor to take a different elevator. He could be leaving too, and I cannot risk being in an enclosed space with him right now. I was half a second away from biting his lower lip. God, his mouth is perfect, and it isn’t helping that I’ve tasted it before. He was so close I could feel his body heat, and he stared at me with such an intense look in his eyes.

  The elevator takes forever, and I look over my shoulder a few times, wondering if he’s going to follow me. I hate that there’s a part of me—a bigger part than I would like to admit—that wants him to. I’m still breathing too hard. I glance behind me again and get a whiff of him. Why the hell do I still smell him? I grab a section of my hair and bring it up to my nose. That’s where it’s coming from. It’s faint, but distinctly Ronan.

  Damn him, he should not smell so good.

  I take the elevator down, and head out to my car. I know exactly what my problem is. I’m horny as fuck—and I hate that word. It sounds so juvenile, but damn it, I want to get laid. It’s been a very long time and that is the only reason Ronan had that effect on me.

  It is not because he’s the sexiest motherfucking man I have ever met, and it is definitely not because I loved it when he got aggressive with me.

  There’s no traffic, so I get home in about fifteen minutes. I go inside and change out of my work clothes, putting on my too-short yoga pants and a t-shirt. And new panties, because yes, my thong is no longer wearable. Downstairs, I pour myself a glass of wine and sit down on the couch. My heart rate returned to normal on the drive home, but I still have an uncomfortable pressure between my legs. I take a sip of the Cabernet. Hopefully the wine will help me calm down.

  I grab my phone and bring up Kylie’s number. I really need to talk to her.

  “What’s up?” she says when she answers.

  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Uh oh,” she says. “Do you need me to come over?”

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “But do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  “Yeah, of course,” she says. “What’s going on? Did something happen with Aidan?”

  I hear my brother say something in the background, and I hope I didn’t interrupt them. I know they’re still newlyweds and everything, but ew.

  “No, it’s not about Aidan. Not really.” I take a deep breath. “You know how I told you my company has a new owner and things are weird at work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there’s something else I didn’t tell you. My new boss is a guy named Ronan Maddox. I worked with him about five years ago, but he moved to San Francisco.”

  “Okay…”

  I put my hand on my forehead. “So I kind of slept with him on his last night here, before he moved.”

  “Wait,” Kylie says. “You hooked up with this Ronan guy five years ago, and now he owns your company?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck, Selene, that’s awkward,” she says. “Is it weird?”

  “Kind of?” I say. “He fluctuates between being completely professional, and hard-core hitting on me.”

  “Your boss is hitting on you?” she asks. “That’s not good.”

  I sink back against the couch cushions. “I know.”

  “Selene,” she says, her voice serious. “You aren’t actually thinking about letting something happen with him, are you?”

  “No, I…” I let out a breath. Damn it, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. I called Kylie because I know she’ll talk me out of it, but now I’m not so sure I want her to. “I’ve been very clear with him that there is no way. I even set out ground rules and he agreed to them.”

  “Good for you,” she says. “You have to set boundaries with this guy, especially if he’s asshole enough to hit on you at work.”

  “I know,” I say. That is bad, isn’t it? “Ky, the man literally told me he wants to fuck me on top of his desk. Can you imagine?”

  “Holy shit,” she says with a laugh. “You need to steer clear of him, do you hear me? A man like that is everything you do not need in your life. You need a good guy, not another bad boy, remember?”

  “You’re right.” I take another deep breath. “And besides, I’m seeing Aidan on Friday at his place. He’s going to cook me dinner.”

  “See? There you go,” Kylie says. “Aidan to the rescue.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Stop it, Selene,” she says.

  “Stop what? What am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to find a reason that something might work with Ronan,” she says. “I can hear it in your voice.”

  I hear Braxton in the background. “Tell her to stay the fuck away from him, and if he messes with her I’ll break his face.”

  I laugh. If you look up the word overprotective in the dictionary, there’s a picture of my brother.

  “I’m not trying to find a reason,” I say. Keep telling yourself that, Selene, and maybe it will start to be true. “He’s just throwing me off.”

  Kylie lowers her voice, like she doesn’t want Braxton to hear. “He was that good, huh?”

  “God, Ky, the sex was off the charts,” I say. “There’s a reason I remember it so well.”

  “What happened after you slept with him?”

  I wince. “He blew me off.”

  “Fuck him, then,” Kylie says, emphatic. “No, not literally. Don’t fuck him. God, Selene—you’re dating someone else, and Ronan is your boss. Those are two very good reasons to get him out of your head. Add in the fact that you’ve been there, done that, got the shitty t-shirt. I don’t care how magical his cock is. That is not what you need.”

  “I know,” I say. “You’re right. You’re completely right.”

  “Is your vibrator
broken or something?” she asks. “It sounds like you need to use it.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you, Miss Squeamish about getting herself off,” I say with a laugh.

  “Don’t mess with me, babe, or I’ll start telling you why I haven’t needed a vibrator since … oh I don’t know, since your brother started fucking me last year.”

  Braxton laughs in the background.

  “Somehow, I’m going to make you pay for that remark,” I say. “Hanging up now.”

  I hit End and toss my phone on the couch next to me, then take another big drink of wine. I need the rest of the bottle to get the image of Kylie and my brother out of my head.

  ***

  On the drive to Aidan’s house Friday after work, I’m so tense my neck hurts. I shouldn’t be this nervous for a date, especially since it’s a guy I’ve been seeing for a while. It’s not the good kind of nervous, either—the kind where you’re so excited to see him, you have butterflies. My stomach is in knots, and I’m filled with a sense of dread.

  Ronan was all business today, as if nothing happened last night. Although, technically, nothing did happen. Other than he made me question every boundary I’ve ever set at work. I was relieved that he didn’t try to touch me or get in my personal space again. As stressed as I am about this date with Aidan, I don’t think I could have handled it.

  I park outside Aidan’s building and he buzzes me in. His condo is on the fourth floor in a nice, modern building a bit north of downtown. He meets me at the door and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “It’s good to see you,” he says. “I feel like I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  I tuck my hair behind my ear. I changed out of my work clothes, but decided not to dress up or dress sexy. I put on a light blue sweater and jeans, with wedge-heel sandals. Aidan is dressed casually—for him, anyway. He could have gone to work in the shirt and slacks he’s wearing.

  He goes back into the kitchen and pours me a glass of wine.

  “Thanks,” I say when he hands it to me.

  “Dinner will be a few more minutes,” he says. “I can get out some cheese if you’d like.”