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Breaking All Her Rules
Maisey Yates
Buttoned-up financial consultant Grace Song lives life by her own strict rules. Spontaneity leads to chaos. Always play it safe. So when she shares a Manhattan cab with a handsome stranger and they accidentally swap cell phones, her first instinct is to track him down and put things right. Stay on track. Stick with the plan.But when beyond-gorgeous Zack Camden answers the door draped only in a towel, Grace is suddenly inspired to ditch her rules for a day…and a night. Indulging in one delicious encounter with a perfect stranger is just the break she needs. But one turns into two, then three mind-blowing nights–and soon Grace is in danger of breaking the biggest rule of them all–never fall in love….
Buttoned-up financial consultant Grace Song lives life by her own strict rules. Spontaneity leads to chaos. Always play it safe. So when she shares a Manhattan cab with a handsome stranger and they accidentally swap cell phones, her first instinct is to track him down and put things right. Stay on track. Stick with the plan.
But when beyond-gorgeous Zach Camden opens the door wearing only a pair of jeans, Grace is suddenly inspired to ditch her rules for a day…and a night. Indulging in one delicious encounter with a perfect stranger is just the break she needs. But one turns into two, then three mind-blowing nights—and soon Grace is in danger of breaking the biggest rule of them all—never fall in love….
To my parents, who taught me that being myself was the most important thing. Thank you for always supporting me.
Dear Reader,
Sometimes the expectations of other people can become more important than what we want. It’s the thing that makes us hide our reading material on the train or order a garden salad when what we really, really want is French fries. (If you really wanted the garden salad, it’s cool. I don’t judge you.)
The heroine of Breaking All Her Rules, Grace, is paralyzed by the expectations of others. Now, Grace has a secret inner Cosmo girl, but she would definitely rather hide it in her bedside drawer—where she keeps all secret, intimate things—than let anyone know that she has a bit of a wild side waiting to be explored.
Then she meets Zack. He’s all wrong for her. A rough, unsophisticated cowboy has no place in her urban New York lifestyle. But the attraction burns hot and fast between them, and Grace decides to give in. He’s a stranger, and no one will ever know. Once can’t hurt, can it?
Of course once isn’t enough, and in the end, Grace is going to have to decide if she’s brave enough to live life on her own terms, or if she’ll spend the rest of her life making herself unhappy to please the people around her.
I hope you enjoy Grace and Zack’s journey.
Maisey
Breaking All Her Rules
Maisey Yates
Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women
Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon
www.millsandboon.co.uk/Cosmo (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/Cosmo)
Contents
Chapter One (#u8f0fcdb5-8e7b-5d4b-b5ec-d1fede9d6ec2)
Chapter Two (#uce0c28f6-aa3c-5652-9a5e-56c434f7fd34)
Chapter Three (#ufeac2ced-4ef4-5fb6-a101-b54f40f23869)
Chapter Four (#u1c7223ef-fd63-5471-b4d7-a7912ce4e815)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Grace Song tightened her hold on her bag and swore internally as another cab passed her, a passenger in the back.
The bag was heavy, and she was running late after her disastrous lunch meeting. She did not need this right now. Not with her boss breathing down her neck like he had been. Not with the client from hell leering at her boobs and making comments about what she could do with his financials ifyouknowwhatImean.
And then had come the wholly unsubtle: If you want the account, you might want to make this lunch date end in dessert.
If he wasn’t such a valuable potential account she would have kneed him so hard his balls would have gone back up inside his body. Okay, she wouldn’t have done that. Because her default position was to freeze up. Because in her mind, inaction was often better than making the wrong move.
Somehow, she’d managed a curt, cold response and extricated herself.
And now she was going to be late for her next appointment because apparently, there were no cabs. She leaned toward the road and signaled again, a little more vigorously. She was just getting irritated now. And she knew if she let herself get too irritated she would get blotchy. And she didn’t want to meet a client while blotchy.
Her bag was heavy. It had her laptop, her tablet, her phone and a legal pad, because even though she had about a million electronic devices to help her organize things, she still needed to write things down physically most of the time.
She liked notebooks and shiny electronics. Everyone had their quirks. And she no longer had anyone in her life, taking up space in the apartment, telling her she had too many pens and things. So there was that.
She could have as many pens as she wanted. And framed pen-and-ink drawings of flowers and other frilly things. Independence was hers.
A cab, sadly, was not.
Another bright yellow car whizzed by and she resisted the urge to flip them her middle finger. She was flipping the world the bird on the inside, it was something she would never do on the outside. All vulgarities would be kept to herself.
Apparently, there was still someone who told her what to do. The calm, steady voice of her father, still in her head guiding her actions even though she hadn’t lived at home in twelve years.
She lifted her hand again when she saw another cab approach, and groaned when she saw the silhouette of someone in the back. Then the cab crossed a lane, cutting through traffic like a demolition-derby driver, before stopping at the sidewalk in front of her.
The driver lowered the window on the passenger side. “Where are you going?”
“The Stanton Building.”
He looked over his shoulder at the man in the back. “That’s out of your way.”
“I don’t care.”
The voice from the backseat was deep and masculine, kind of rough. And if Grace was in to that sort of thing she might have been intrigued. But she didn’t have time to be in to that kind of thing. She was in to career advancement.
So exciting.
And getting a cab. She was seriously in to getting a cab even if she had to share it.
She opened the passenger door and got inside, dragging her giant bag with her and closing the door, running her hand over her hair to make sure it was still in place.
“Thank you,” she said, barely looking over at her companion. She leaned forward and started digging through the aforementioned giant bag. Her phone was in the top inner pocket, where she always put it. She hadn’t checked her email for ten minutes and she was feeling a little twitchy.
It felt all weird in her hand. Too hard and square. Plus, it was just plain black. Not at all to her taste. Since her pretty Kate Spade case had bit the dust in a freak trip-and-fling-the-phone-across-the-room incident a couple of days ago, she hadn’t had the time to go and replace it.
She unlocked the phone and punched the email icon, then waited while it connected to the server...and waited...and oh, gosh. Could it be any slower? They were in the middle of Manhattan for heaven’s sake. There should not be a black data hole right now.
“Busy?”
She looked to her left, her eyes landing on a denim-clad thigh was was...well, it was muscley. That much was evident even with the jeans. Then she looked up, and saw his hat. Skipped right over his face and to the white cowboy hat on his head.
And then she looked at his face. Blue eyes, dark brows, a square jaw dusted with some rough-looking stubble. Very interesting lips. Again, if she was in to that sort of thing.
“Yes,” she said, looking back down at her phone.
“I’m sharing a cab with you. You might look at me for more than two seconds.”
She bristled, looking over at him again. “Aren’t you supposed to be naked in Times Square.”
“I’m not that kind of cowboy.”
“Which kind are you?”
“The real kind.”
“Oh. Well. Please don’t tell me you have cows in the trunk.”
“Nope.”
“Great. Well.” She looked back down at her phone, her pulse doing a strange, fluttery thing at the base of her throat.
“My name is Zack,” he said. “Zack Camden. Are introductions not the thing in the big city?”
She rolled her eyes and put her hands flat on the seat, her phone still under her palm. “Grace Song.”
He stuck his hand out and she shifted, releasing her hold on the phone and moving to shake his hand. His fingers were rough, his skin hot. She felt a zip of lightning shoot through her, zipping straight to her stomach, making her feel all tight and weird.
Then he pulled away and she wondered, for one, heart-stopping moment, if he’d felt it, too. Then he reached into his pocket and took out his phone. Black, and unadorned, like hers. But hers wasn’t caseless by choice. His screen was probably getting all scratched up in his pocket. That...denim and his muscles. It was probably being crushed in there. Poor shiny iDevice.
“Sorry,” he said. “Normally I’d consider this rude but it’s work-related so...”
“What did you think my phone usage was—unicorn-related?” she asked, curling her lip.
“Funny,” he said, hitting the accept button. “Yep. Uh-huh. Landed about an hour ago. Going to the hotel. Nope. Nope. Not going. Nope. Hotel. ’Bye.” He hung up, then set the phone on the seat between them.
“Business, huh?”
“Yep.”
“What sort of business?” she asked, completely unsure as to why she was bothering to play his little let’s-be-friends game.
“The business kind,” he said. “The kind you don’t wanna do, but have to because...business.”
She blinked. “I don’t understand not wanting to do business.”
He looked her over, his dark gaze assessing. “I bet you don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“You look like a business type.”
She smoothed her plum pencil skirt and charcoal-grey jacket. She did not look businessy. She looked classy, feminine and well put-together. Though, she’d basically just confessed to being a workaholic, so maybe she should cut him some slack. Or not.
“And what does a business type look like?” she asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. He looked her over again and his gaze lingered, very obviously, on said breasts.
“It’s not a look so much. You seem kinda stiff. Although, also you just admitted you were a business type.”
“Fair enough.”
“What sort of business do you do?” he asked.
“I’m a financial advisor.” She wished she could take it back as soon as she’d said it. Because he hadn’t told her, so why was she telling him? Because deep down, she really was trained with manners, good graces and all kinds of things that didn’t exactly scream “ice-cold business bitch.” She was working on that. Mainly because if something about her demeanor screamed that a little louder she might not be fending off clients at lunch meetings.
The jerk.
“Very interesting. So you help people manage money?”
“People. Gigantic corporations. It’s not like I’m helping random citizens balance their checkbooks.” Oh, there was ice-cold bitch! Something about Zack the Cowboy seemed to bring it out. Along with an unhealthy bit of churning in her stomach.
“So if someone had investments, et cetera.”
“Got investments?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“You don’t seem like the type.”
“No,” he said, leaning in slightly, whiskey-colored eyes clashing with hers, making it hard for her to breathe, “I’m the type who would have cows in the trunk of a cab in the middle of Manhattan.”
“You have to admit,” she said, her throat tightening, making it impossible for her to speak, “you’re a little out of place.”
“I feel perfectly comfortable. You’re the one who seems uncomfortable with me. What does that mean, do you think?” he asked, the side of his mouth quirking upward into one extremely cocky smile.
“I don’t know. I suppose the fox is never uncomfortable in the henhouse?”
His grin broadened. “Are you saying I’m a...predator? Among chickens?”
“Just trying a little animal analogy for your benefit, pardner. We’re New Yorkers, even if we are chickens, you come into our henhouse and we’ll mess you up.”
He laughed and she felt an answering smile tugging at her lips. “See? Isn’t this more fun than work email?”
Yes. Dammit.
“I live for work emails.”
“Well, I can’t compete with that.”
Dear Lord, was he flirting with her? She didn’t have a lot of experience with non-sketchy flirting. Most of it came in the form of overbearing, threatening comments that had a greasy film coating the words. It always made her feel violent. Of course, her response was typically just to sit there with her hands tightly folded.
This was different. She wanted to respond to this, rather than punch him in the face. Which was stupid. They were just sharing a cab to her office. And after that she wouldn’t ever see him again. Much less make good on any of the flirting.
Which was just as well, because hadn’t she just been celebrating her freedom from male tyranny in her personal life?
Yes...yes, she had.
Though, a little male tyranny in bed might be nice....
No. No, no, no. Maybe other women did that sort of thing, but she did not. She wasn’t a one-night-stand girl. She wasn’t a sex-for-the-sake-of-sex sort of girl.
She didn’t have time for that kind of stuff, plus, the idea of kissing a stranger, much less getting naked with him, was just a big fat no-go for her. That was for other types of people. Frivolous, irresponsible people. Like her sister, for example, who had left morals, common sense, clothing and all else by the wayside. And Grace had seen where that led.
There would be none of that.
She looked back at Zack and a sizzle of electricity skipped over her skin, making her feel tingly. And...it was a lot like her skin crawling. Just with heat instead of disgust.
Was she really, honestly thinking about sex in connection with a stranger in a cab? There was something wrong with her. Long work hours and a lack of sleep, or something.
It had been six months since Mark moved out, and she honestly hadn’t missed him—or his body—much. The split had been as gentle and amicable as the entirety of the relationship.
They’d sort of drifted into a relationship, then back out. And the best thing about drifting out of the relationship was that she hadn’t felt obligated to help him move out. Unlike when she’d been trying to impress him.
Lifting giant boxes with her spindly T. rex arms was pretty low on her list of things to do.
As was sex with a stranger. Lower. Lower than box-lifting. Which was low.
“No, nor should you expect to,” she said. “We’ve only just met, while I’ve had a deep, involved relationship with my work inbox since 2005.”
“That’s longer than a lot of things.”
“Longer than most marriages.”
“Hell yeah. Less painful, too.”
“Well, that all depends.”
“On?” he asked.
“On which client I’m dealing with. And who one is married to.”
“Fair point. How close are we to your office?”
“Five minutes,” she said.
“Give me some financial advice.”
She arched a brow. “For free?”
“We’ll trade. I’ll give you a quick taste of my services, too.”
“Oh...please tell me you aren’t really a stripper going to a theme party.”
His dark brows shot up. “I think I’m flattered that you consider it a possibility.”
“Don’t be. I’ve been in the company of male strippers.” At a bachelorette party she’d basically fled. She’d spent the evening in the bathroom tapping out desperate emails on her phone. And she’d later been called a prude. But whatever. She could not handle random naked guys shaking it in her face. “Some of them are pretty...worse for wear.”
“Well, you are a surprise. Now where’s my consultation.”
“Pay off your mortgage before retirement. Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Your turn.”
He reached into shirt pocket and took out a pen and a little note card. She arched her brow and watched as he started scratching the pen over the surface, keeping it turned away from her so she couldn’t see.
His teeth closed over his lower lip, the expression of concentration sending a shock of lightning straight through her. And for just one moment she allowed herself to think, with uninhibited enthusiasm, that he was one fine specimen of a man.
Not the kind of man she would ever go for. He wasn’t clean-cut and clad in a suit. He didn’t have glasses and a reedy frame, which seemed to be her type, if two lovers was an indication of type.
He was as far from that type as you could get. He had those untrendy jeans—blue Wranglers—a plain button-up shirt and he was built like a house. Broad and hard-looking. Like his muscles had muscles.
Also, he had that rough-looking ghost of a beard on his face. Like he was just too darn manly to shave or something.
“Here you go,” he said, hanging her the card, his fingers brushing hers, a spark passing from his body to hers. He smiled, like he’d felt it, too, and it made the blood in her veins turn to warm honey.
Oh...
She looked down at the card and an unexpected laugh broke through her lips. He’d drawn a fox. All sketchy lines, in black ink, sitting in the middle of a street, tall buildings behind him.
“This is your professional offering?” she asked, arching a brow.
“Ouch. I didn’t know you were an art critic.”
“Maybe I missed my calling.”
“Maybe. Though, I think most critics have a little bit of a meaner look about them.”
“I don’t look mean?” she asked, forcing her eyebrows together, feeling her forehead crinkle. She was risking fine lines for this guy, what the eff was wrong with her?
He held out his hand and planted his thumb between her brows, smoothing out her forehead. “Not so mean.”
She should be annoyed that he’d touched her. He didn’t know her. What right did he have to touch her?
“I...”
His gaze dropped to her mouth and all the words got completely sucked out of her head. Every word she knew in English and Mandarin. And the little bit of high school Spanish she remembered, too.
All with his eyes. Those were some very powerful eyes.
And he started leaning in. Oh...no. What was she going to do? This man that she didn’t even know was about to press his mouth to hers, and she wanted him to. Oh...oh...shoot.
The cab pulled up to the curb and stopped.
“My stop,” she said, jerking back from him, her hand searching for the door handle. She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty. “Just...keep the change. I...yeah.” She started to get out.
“Wait,” he said.
She turned, his absolutely perfect face stopping her in her tracks for a moment. “What?”
“Your phone.”
She reached in and grabbed the phone off the seat. “Thanks. See you...well, I won’t see you.”
She closed the door and headed toward her office building, her hands shaking. Her whole body shaking. She’d just been saved by a timely stop.
Saved from making a huge mistake.
She curled her hands around her phone, the picture of the fox pressed up against it. Yes, it would have been a mistake.
And she didn’t have time to linger on it. She had work to do.
Chapter Two
Grace whipped her phone out as soon as she hit the elevator. She swiped the slider and the phone opened, without asking for a code.
Weird.
The email icon at the bottom showed two hundred unread messages. Just the sight made her insides recoil in horror. “What the...”
She scrolled through the icons and saw...an app containing sex facts, and one containing information about beer.
What. The. Hell.
Then she opened the mail client. Mostly, it was junk. A couple of read messages with the subject line Urgent from someone named Marsha Colbert.
This was not her phone. It was Zack Camden’s phone. “Argh!” she said to the elevator, her frustration echoing back at her as it came to a stop. The doors slid open and she pasted a smile on and slipped the phone back in her bag.
“Hi, Grace.”
Carol, her boss’s PA, greeted her brightly. “Hi, Carol,” Grace answered, doing her best to keep smiling.
Always appear unruffled. Always.
That was her motto. She never, ever wanted to appear like she was drowning, even if she was paddling like hell beneath the water to keep her head from going under.
You didn’t get anywhere in life by complaining. You didn’t get anywhere cutting corners. If you worked harder, better than everyone else, that would win in the end. It always did. She lived by that, always. And she would live it now.
“Doug was looking for you,” Carol said.
Grace forced her smile wider. “Wonderful, I just have a client...”
“He said it was urgent,” Carol said, looking apologetic.
Oh, frick. Carol was only apologetic if Doug was breathing fire.
Double argh.
She walked down the hall and toward her boss’s office, a feeling of impending doom crowding her heart, shoving up against her breastbone. Suddenly, she would give a hell of a lot to be back down in that cab with Zack Camden. And not just so she could check her email.
They sometimes called the walk to Doug’s office The Green Mile. And for good reason. And it wasn’t because the shiny tile was green.
She lifted her hand and knocked. “Come in,” she heard him say through the heavy oak.
She pushed the door open and smiled, even wider than she had coming in. “Hi, Doug.”
“Grace, have a seat.”
Shoot. A seat. He wanted her to sit? Oh, she was screwed. She obeyed, sitting in the chair in front of his desk. It didn’t escape her notice that there was a box of tissues within her reach. Not his reach—hers.
For emotional breakdowns after he screamed at people, she imagined. Or worse, if he didn’t scream at all, but set about condescending to them until they melted into watery shame.
Luckily, she had tear ducts of steel.
She took a deep breath. Ice bitch, take me away.
She would not care. She wouldnot care.
“Look, Grace...” Doug leaned back in his chair, his tie riding up. His tie was too short. He looked like he got dressed in the dark. You’d think that one of the more high-powered businessmen in the city would know how to properly dress. But no. Obviously, not. “I had a call from a client just a little bit ago.”
She gritted her teeth. “Right.”
“He complained about your conduct.”
Her mind shot back to the lunch meeting she’d had an hour ago. Yeah, there was no question he was the one who’d filed the complaint.
“What about my conduct?” Grace asked. “Specifically.”
“He said you’re quite rude and abrupt. Very cold.”
Bastard. Bastard jerk-face bastard. She would never say any of that out loud, but it was the truth. Of course she was cold, she hadn’t agreed to let him bang her.
“I...apologize that it was perceived that way....”
Doug held his hand up. “It’s not perception when it’s a client, Grace. It’s fact. If a client is alienated, all that matters is their truth.”
Grace felt her eyes go wide completely of their own accord. She worked to keep the rest of her face frozen, her hands clasped firmly in her lap. “Of course,” she said, her lips barely moving.
“And since you were late meeting the client who was in your office...”
Because of the other client. And the taxi debacle.
Grace bit the inside of her cheek.
“I have moved her to another consultant. Consider this a warning. I like you, Grace.” Grace snorted internally. As if liking had anything to do with anything in this office. She hated Doug. If her keeping the job was about liking him, she’d have lit his desk on fire and said adios sometime back when he’d had her play the elf at the company Christmas party for Secret Santa because she was “so cute and petite.”
He continued. “I’d hate to let you go. You’re a sweet girl.”
She was going to blow a blood vessel in her eye. But she wouldn’t say anything. She couldn’t. The inaction all but reached in and paralyzed her, freezing her. Because if she opened her mouth she could lose this job, this great job she’d worked so hard at. It could be a mistake. A failure. And she couldn’t afford either.
“Thank you, Doug,” she said, her words coming out quiet, measured. If only because she was choking on her rage. She stood. “I guess I better go organize a new client. Since I probably have two less—” she forced out the most tortured laugh in the history of mankind “—than I did before I walked in here.”
“Great job, Grace. Use this to get motivated.”
“Ha! Yes. Yeah.” She gave him a thumbs-up, since raising her preferred fingers in his direction would likely be grounds for termination. “Go Team Grace! Population me. I’m gonna...my office.” She pointed broadly and went back out into the hallway.
What good was perfection doing her now? Getting reamed by her boss for daring to stand up to some self-important doorknob was not...it was not the way things were supposed to go. She’d worked too hard. Had done her best to please everyone and...and...ugh.
Her heart was thundering hard, and she reached into her purse, fumbling for her phone, to check her email. Except then she pulled it out and there were two hundred unread messages and none of them were hers.
She needed a paper bag to breathe into, stat.
No, more than that, she needed her office. And her damn phone.
She opened the door and shut it, then threw ice bitch out the window and did a full-flail scurry to her desk, jiggling her mouse at high speed to wake her computer up before typing her log-in as quickly as possible.
She clicked into her mail client and read the two—only two—emails she’d gotten since she’d last checked, fired off two speedy replies and then breathed a sigh of relief when it was back at zero.
And now, she needed to get her phone back.
She typed in the web address she used with her tracking app and clicked on Grace’s iPhone. The little circle went around for a while before loading a map. And there it was. She zoomed in, and frowned.
It looked like her phone was at the Mandarin Oriental. Which was several shades fancier than she’d given the man in the Stetson credit for.
But whatever, if her phone was there, she was going to be there, too. She had no more appointments, thanks to Doug.
So she was on a mission to retrieve her phone.
Chapter Three
Zack stepped out of the shower and ran a towel over his chest, then down lower, before wrapping it around his hips and walking out into the living area of the hotel room.
He thought it was a little bit stupid that the studio was putting him up in a place like this, considering he was trying to raise money for a charity. But if everything went well, the proceeds would go above and beyond his hotel-room bill.
“The bar tab is another story,” he said out loud.
No. He didn’t drink like that anymore. Rock bottom had been a few years back.
Still, he eyed the minibar with no small amount of interest. Then his thoughts shot back to his shared cab ride.
Grace Song.
Hell, he hadn’t flirted like that in more than a decade. It had been...well, it had been great. She’d been so damn pretty. So uptight. And he’d wanted to uncoil all that glossy black hair and see just how long it was. How it would feel sifting through his fingers.
That was a Grade-A fantasy considering he’d been too burned out to have one in the past six years. Mainly he’d just let porn supply the visual while his right hand took it from there.
Which was kind of empty and hollow, really. But hey, he had to get off sometimes, and he genuinely lacked the energy to do it another way.
Though tonight, he could easily imagine which image he might...
He cleared his throat. Slightly creepy. That was slightly creepy. But if no one knew...
He pressed his hand against the front of his towel, against his hardening member. Who the hell cared if it was creepy?
His phone rang, the sharp sound making him jump as pulled his hand away from his dick like a guilty thirteen-year-old.
He walked over the phone and swore. If it was Marsha again he was going to growl at her. Because he’d left his phone sitting in the other room on the bed for a reason. He didn’t want to deal with people until he absolutely had to.
He didn’t want to go “take in a show” or have sushi, or get a manicure or whatever the hell else Marsha might think he needed to do to fully enjoy his time in New York. He would deal with that crap when he had to. Tonight, all he wanted to do was stay in his room, order dinner in and jack off. It didn’t seem like a major ask.
He picked up the handset.
“Hello,” he said, growling already.
“Yes, Mr. Camden. There’s a visitor here for you. Grace Song. She’d like permission to come up.”
It was as if all of his penis’s hopes and dreams had come true.
Down, boy, she’s not here for that.
Well, why the hell else would she be here? Unless she was looking for Fox in the City Part Deux after she’d discovered his identity.
Maybe she’d used Google to find him. Though, he had no idea why she would. He was some random guy she’d shared a cab with, who’d done a rather terrible sketch on a card for her.
“Yeah,” Zack said. “Send her up.” He paused.
He looked down at where his hand still gripped the towel. Well, that would have to be taken care of.
He dropped it and left a pool of snow-white terry cloth on the floor before going back into his bedroom and opening up his suitcase.
He ought to get his suit out. If it was wrinkled Marsha would probably have his ass on a platter. Apparently “hobo chic” as she had once called it, was not a thing.
He tugged out a pair of jeans and shrugged them on, pulling them up and stuffing all relevant parts down in there carefully before doing the zipper with even more care. He did not need a zipper incident.
That would be the ultimate irony. He finally got his penis to sit up and pay attention. If he immediately mortally wounded it with a zipper he would just have to tell life to go screw itself.
He heard a light knock on the door and he went out into the living area. He walked to the door and opened it. It really was her. All five-foot-nothing of her. Dark hair still pulled back in that little bun pinned primly at the nape of her neck. Her cheeks a pale pink, a streak of blush paint over porcelain skin. Her almond-shaped eyes were deep brown, nearly black, framed with lush dark lashes.
She was perfection. And he hadn’t even gotten to her figure, which, though petite, packed the kind of punch that...well, that had made him lust again.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.
She looked him over, from his face down to his bare chest, to his jeans, which were barely hanging onto his hips, and the color in her cheeks deepened.
“Your phone,” she said, holding a delicate hand out.
“What?”
“This is your phone,” she said.
“Come in.” She looked to the left, then the right. “What, are you afraid entering my hotel room is felony or something?”
“I don’t know you,” she said.
“We shared a cab.”
“An act I don’t even commit with the closest of acquaintances. I guess I don’t have to worry about you kidnapping me and making a pair of underwear out of my hair.”
“That is completely disgusting. Also, something Pato might do.”
“Pato?”
“He’s a...modern artist.”
She raised her brows. “Okay.”
“Coming in?”
“Sure,” she said, stepping grandly over the threshold. “Now where is my phone?”
“It’s on my bed. I haven’t touched it since I got out of the cab. I’m not in the mood to deal with...well, anything. And I can order fried chicken and pornography from the comfort of my own bed so...”
“Charming.”
“I’m not trying to be,” he said. Except he sort of wished he could be. So that he could...seduce her, maybe. But he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to seduce a woman.
Like schmoozing at gallery openings, maybe?
Well, that he could do. For very short periods of time. Because Marsha had threatened to get a shock collar for him if he didn’t learn to mind his manners.
“Clearly. Phone?”
“On my bed.” He started walking back toward the bedroom, then stopped. “How did you know where I was staying?”
“I tracked my phone.”
“Damn, you can do that with these?”
“It’s an app. It’s really simple. I can...show you or...or not. I have to...I don’t have anywhere to be.”
“Why is that?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Because my boss the...jerk...relieved me of the only client I had left in the day after tearing me a new one because of a client complaining about me. Never mind said client was only complaining because I did not flutter my lashes at him when he made it clear he wanted to get into my pencil skirt.”
“What?”
“The client I was meeting with, right before I got in the cab. He made a pass at me, I politely rebuffed him. He called my boss because I am, apparently, cold and unfriendly. My boss doesn’t care about my side of things. He only cares that I pissed off a client and I am now being punished for not offering a side of sex with my financial advice.”
“He can’t do that,” Zack said. “Your boss.”
“Sure he can, because it’s the client’s word against mine. Because all he has to know is that I dissatisfied a client and the what and why don’t matter.”
“Did you tell him that the guy was being a douche?”
She bit her lip. “Not as such.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no.”
“Well, why the hell not?”
“Because!” she said. “It’s hard to be a woman in this business. And people treat you like...like you’re there for them, and if you dare complain you’re humorless and mean. And if you call them on their crap you’re shrill. And if you say someone hit on you and it creeped you out they say you’re imagining things, and making mountains out of molehills and I’ve watched, for the past eight years, people being driven out of the more high-profile offices, because it gets to be too much. So I just figured if I worked harder, if I did the right things, I would be rewarded for it, but now I’m in trouble because some guy...I just...it’s not supposed to be like this.”
“No. It’s not,” he said. And all this made him feel like an ass because he’d been about to...thinking about her. And she’d been objectified enough today.
Naturally, he couldn’t just have a simple fantasy. No. That would have been too damn kind of life. Life just didn’t do kind for him.
Kind of a funny thought, up in a suite that overlooked Central Park, but hey, there were more important things in life than a room with a view.
He’d rather go back to living poor, on a ranch in Pine Ridge Falls, with the people he loved most, than be here alone. But that was another lifetime. Another man. He wasn’t even going to think about it.
“Then why is it?” she asked.
“Hell if I know. Life never seems to be the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “All you can do is enjoy the little things. Which is why I was thinking porn and chicken.”
“I have no little things I enjoy,” she said. “I enjoy nothing. And I think I hate everything.” She was breathing hard, her eyes wide.
“Everything?”
“I don’t even have a life. I don’t even think I have any friends left. I work at this job, and I go back to my apartment and order takeout and I watch DVR’d TV shows. I don’t date I don’t...I don’t...” Her eyes clashed with his, a hard sock of heat hitting his gut.
“What else?” he asked.
She looked away. “If I don’t date I think it’s pretty obvious what else I’m not doing.”
Oh, yes, he was well familiar with that problem. He hadn’t gotten laid in so long he was afraid his long uprooted virginity was starting to grow back. If such a thing was possible. He hadn’t seen sex since his twenties, and sitting where he was at thirty-five that seemed damn sad.
He’d had a lot more than getting some on his mind, though, but now...now it seemed like maybe he needed to do something about it. Maybe it was time to let another person touch him. Not a handshake or anything, but hands on naked skin. On skin that was normally covered by clothes.
He hadn’t been tempted to connect in so long. He’d been avoiding it. He’d been too raw. But everything had scarred over now. Had come out tougher than he’d started. It would never heal, but he wasn’t vulnerable anymore. He doubted he possessed the ability to be hurt at this point, to feel loss.
He’d maxed out that garbage a while ago.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. Affected. “Obvious.”
“I guess maybe not because some people just...I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. You officially know more of my baggage than my best friend, who I haven’t talked to in four months because I’m an unhappy, terrible workaholic, and she’s just as bad.”
“Well, you’re in my hotel room, I’m half-dressed.... It seems logical really.”
“My phone?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah.” That was why she was here. Her phone. The one on his bed. He’d completely forgotten. It hadn’t seemed to matter.
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes wide. “I kind of forgot. About my phone. Which I never do, because I’m addicted to using my phone. How sad is that? I am addicted to my phone. To keeping plugged into my office when I’m not there. Sometimes I get so caught up in work email during dinner that I forget to pay attention to the show on my DVR. So I record shows, because I’m too busy to watch them when they come on, then I put them on and I ignore them! I am a mess.”
“You really are.”
“I need to relax.”
“I agree.”
“Do you know what I need?” she asked, her small breasts rising and falling with the sharp pitch of her breathing.
“What?” he asked, his stomach tightening.
“I just need to relax.”
“I agree.”
“I need...” Her eyes had dropped back down to his chest. “I need to...make a decision instead of just flying under the radar. I think I need to cut loose.” Her eyes met his again. “Got any ideas?”
“I do. But I’m a stranger and I’m pretty sure none of the ideas I have are appropriate for strangers.”
“We shared a cab,” she said, a desperate light in her dark gaze now.
“Well, then, I guess that changes things. Kiss me.”
Chapter Four
Grace thought she might pass out. All of the blood drained out of her head and pooled in her feet, her lips cold, her brain fuzzy.
Her skin was chilled, but inside she was burning up.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She’d led the conversation here, that was undeniable. She’d been baiting him. Baiting this sexy stranger so that she could see just what he might do. So that she could...what, exactly, she didn’t know.
Well, now it had culminated in a request—no, a demand—for a kiss.
His eyes were burning, golden fire, and she could feel it streaking through her.
She didn’t kiss strangers. Ever.
Especially not shirtless strangers in hotel rooms that were probably more than her month’s rent for one night. Especially not big rough, cowboy-type strangers. Who drew foxes and swore and took her phone and freely confessed to the desire to order porn.
Neither of her exes would have ever admitted to such male crassness.
Likely they engaged in it, but they never would have confessed it.
Though, maybe Zack wouldn’t have confessed if she wasn’t a stranger. Maybe he was feeling freer, too.
Maybe this would be good for both of them.
Sliding down the slippery slope, Grace?
She wanted to punch inner Grace in her smug perfect face. Except, inner Grace had a point. Inner Grace was thinking of Hannah. Of the bad sister. The one who had gone off the rails, into parties and drugs and now, to the point where no one had a clue where she was.
Hannah, the daughter who made her mother cry, and her father sit in a dark room and just stare ahead sadly, at nothing.
The daughter Grace had spent her teenage and adult years trying to make up for.
But no one has to know about this. No one would ever know.
She was fighting against this strange, icy feeling inside of her. The one that had kept her mouth frozen shut and her words carefully chosen while her boss had effectively ripped her a new one. The one that always checked with her parents before she made major decisions, to ensure that her decisions were good ones.
The one that kept her head down and worked hard, her entire life a big demonstration of just how good she was so that no one would ever question it.
And after that showdown in her boss’s office, she was tired of that. Tired of trying to be the Grace everyone else wanted to see. The problem was she didn’t know how to be anything else.
But no one was here to question this. Zack was a stranger. He didn’t know anyone at work. He didn’t know her parents. He didn’t know her.
This room was out of time, this man out of context with everything else in her life.
Why not? Why not do this. Why not take this.
No one will ever know....
“One kiss,” she said. And even as she said it, she knew it wouldn’t stop at that.
But she was tired of being frozen in indecision. Tired of being scared to act.
So now she was acting. Just for now. Just for her.
“Sure,” he said, arching a brow and moving toward her.
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her up against him, pinning her arms, his chest hard and hot against her wrists. “If you want to stop at one,” he said, his breath fanning across her cheek.
He smelled good. Like skin and soap. No cologne or any other artificial scent. Just man. And she’d never really appreciated the smell of a man before.
“Well, we haven’t even gotten to the one yet. You’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”
“Am I still the fox in this scenario? Are the chickens in the same henhouse?”
“I don’t know. Shut up and kiss me.”
He did. His lips were hard on hers, taking, not asking. And there was nothing about that she should find hot. She wasn’t in to being taken. She wasn’t in to brute strength and big hands. Traditionally speaking. Right now his brute strength and big hands were really doing something for her.
Like, lots of somethings.
He curved his arms around her, his palms flat on her back, pulling her in, his large frame enveloping her. He curled blunt fingers onto her skin, her mouth rough on hers, his tongue delving deep.
She arched into him, and his hand slid downward, down the dip in her spine, curving over her butt. She should be...shocked. At the very least she should be shocked. She shouldn’t be aroused. She shouldn’t want to push her hips back so that his grasp on her was even firmer. So that he was holding her harder.
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