Tempting Him by Isabel Lucero
9
Don’t askme why I’m parked outside Three Sheets at a quarter to nine. I have no fucking clue. Well, that may be a tiny lie. The clue is a tall, muscular, attractive man that I want to pretend irritates me with his incessant flirting. The man who doesn’t really know how to listen or obey rules, but who ignites a spark, regardless of how small it is, in my gut, that tells me I’m not as bothered by his persistence as I act like I am.
As I’m debating with myself about whether I should just reverse out of here and leave it alone or stay and see what happens, a light knock on my window gets my attention.
In black jeans and a T-shirt to match—and one that squeezes his biceps, highlighting how in shape he is—Jay bends down and flashes me a bright smile.
I roll my eyes as I roll the window down. “Don’t start.”
“Whatcha doin’ here, boss?”
“How’d you even know this was my car?”
He chuckles. “Not many Teslas around here. Plus, I recognized it from work.”
I glance past him. “Where’s Linda or Joel?”
Jay leans into the car, arms braced in the window frame. “I didn’t invite anybody. Was hoping a certain brooding, bossy, boring man would show up.”
“Funny.”
“And here you are. I knew I’d get you to come.”
“First of all, you didn’t get me to come.” He opens his mouth like he’s about to have some smart remark, but I hold my hand up. “I came because I wanted to, and I’m not staying.”
“No?” he questions.
“No. Get in the car.”
“No drinks?” He faux pouts.
“I have drinks at my place.”
His perfect white teeth flash between his lips as he smiles before jogging toward his vehicle and pulling something from the back. When he gets to my car, he tosses a backpack in the back.
“Wishful thinking.”
I shake my head. “Don’t be smug.”
“Never.”
* * *
“So,”Jay muses, dropping his bag on the couch before he sits next to it. “Aleksander Drakos. CEO and CMO of MGD Advertising. You’ve been in charge for a few years now. Sorry to hear about your parents.”
I pour some liquor into a couple of highball glasses before pulling a Coke out of the fridge to add to Jay’s. “I see you’ve done some research.”
“Just a little.”
“Hmm. What would I find if I Googled you?” I ask, handing him a drink.
“Jayden Brooks, best wide receiver to ever grace South River University’s football team, and the winner of a couple national wrestling championships. That’s probably it.”
“Best ever, huh?”
He grins. “I like to think so.” After a pause, he says, “I may have found out your age.”
“Yeah? And you’re still here?” I question, sitting on the couch opposite him.
“Forty-one isn’t that old.”
“How old are you?”
He chuckles. “I’ll be twenty-three soon.”
“Makes me feel ancient,” I say with a grin before taking a sip.
“Younger than my parents,” he offers in an attempt to make me feel better.
“Bringing your parents up doesn’t help.”
Jay laughs again. “Sorry. So, did you always want to do this, or did it fall into your lap?”
“I guess you could say it was expected of me. I didn’t really have a chance to find anything else that brought me interest. I got into some trouble as a kid. Typical teenage shit. I was rebellious, got in some fights, and hated authority. My dad got sick of having to bail me out of trouble and really put his foot down. We moved and he started bringing me to work and teaching me everything I needed to know. Just so happened that I fell in love with it.” I take another sip of the bourbon before continuing. “Their deaths happened a lot sooner than expected, so being in charge came quicker than I thought it would, but I was prepared nonetheless.”
He nods, probably unsure where to go with the conversation after I mentioned their deaths. Death makes people uncomfortable. They don’t know how to treat you when they know you’ve been affected by it. They assume you’ll turn into an emotional mess.
“I don’t struggle with the fact that they died,” I tell him. “It was an accident, plain and simple. It could’ve happened to anybody and there was nothing that would've been able to prevent it. Bad weather created conditions where people couldn’t see and the roads were slippery. They weren’t the only ones who died that day.”
Jay watches me with a strange look, and I can tell he wants to question me about something. He opens his mouth, closes it, then takes a drink before asking something else. “You don’t have any siblings?”
“No.”
“So, who will you pass the company to when you no longer want to run it? If your parents created it, I imagine they wanted it to stay a family business.”
I shift, gulping down the rest of the drink before standing up to refill it. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? They’ll never know who runs it.”
He spins around, his eyes full of shock as he studies me. I stare back at him as I pour the liquor, and he must see something in my gaze that tells him not to question it any further. And he’d be right. I’m never in the mood to have the discussion me and my parents had way too many times.
Jay stands up and walks over to me, taking my glass and swallowing down two shots’ worth of bourbon. “Let’s get drunk and fuck.”
I pour more into the glass and drink it down. “I like that plan.”
He rounds the small bar and starts undoing my tie. “I wonder if I can get you on your knees for me.”
“Probably not.”
His tongue dances across his bottom lip as he smiles. He starts unbuttoning my shirt. “I wonder if I can get you to bend over for me.” His eyes flicker up, amusement flashing in them.
“Definitely not.”
He slides his hands into my shirt, pushing it off my shoulders. “But I’d make you feel so good.”
“Your ass feels good enough.”
“Good enough? Now you’re just trying to offend me.”
My lips twitch. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No? Want to make it up to me by sucking my dick?”
“Funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” he says, unbuttoning his pants. “I didn’t get to feel your mouth at all last time. No kiss. No blowjob. That doesn’t seem fair considering the abuse you inflicted on my throat.”
“You seemed to enjoy it.”
“Oh, I did,” he says with a grin, kicking off his shoes before pushing his jeans down.
“I don’t kiss,” I tell him. “You should know that now.”
He looks slightly disappointed and a little curious, but shrugs. “Okay. Sucking dick isn’t kissing.”
After removing his shirt, he stands before me in only a pair of white boxer-briefs that do nothing to hide the monster that’s trying to escape its cage.
“I think your original plan was to get drunk and fuck.”
He swipes a bottle off the bar and takes a swig, staring at me the entire time. “Your turn.”
I swallow a mouthful before replacing the bottle. “Let me show you a little bit about controlled fun,” I say, walking away.
