And so I kissed him instead.
He grabbed my hips and pulled me into him, growling against my mouth as he kissed me back with a furious need. I bit at his lips, demanding entry, and his tongue teased at my own. My breath caught in my throat as his hand began tracing a line along my abdomen up to my breasts, ghosting lightly over the sheer fabric of my cheap department store lingerie. My nipples hardened and I felt a flush spread over my chest, my skin burning with the need to touch his.
I could feel his hard cock pressed against my thigh as he ground into me, and my own hands slipped down across the powerful muscles of his back to grip the perfectly formed globes of his ass and pull him closer. He groaned, squeezing my breast with one hand as his other slid around to my back, playing with the clasp of my bra, pulling just hard enough to almost snap it loose.
I was wet with desire, and I reached up to tangle one hand in his hair and kiss him harder, as my other hand slipped under his waistband, closing around and stroking the thick length of his cock—God, it was perfect, and he was moaning now and I wanted to suck him, to lick around the head and take him all the way down my throat until he forgot every word in the English language except my name, rocking his hips gently against my mouth as his fist tightened in my hair, as my deft fingers teased across his balls, as my cunt clenched in anticipation, as—
Police sirens went off in my head and I pulled away with a gasp, stumbling backwards out of his reach and hopefully out of reach of the sexy force-field he exuded. Asher’s eyes were locked on mine, hazy with lust as he reached down to unbuckle his belt. I felt my knees, and my resolve, weakening beneath me.
I had to stop this.
What we had just done was a mistake. A fun, sexy mistake, but not one that I could let continue. Because it was obvious he’d been playing me all along. This wasn’t about business at all, or investing in my company, or seeing me as anything other than his next temporary plaything, a plaything that I’d just mindlessly and idiotically offered myself up as.
God, sometimes I hate being a responsible adult.
“Stop.”
Asher froze, mid belt-fumble, his brow creased in puzzlement. It looked adorable, and he was rumpled and disheveled and God but I still wanted to jump his bones. “Kate—”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, and I was proud of how steady my voice sounded. Calm and cool, like I was actually in a business meeting, and hadn’t just been making out half-naked with my former potential investor. Like you do. “But I’m not going to make you millions. This meeting is over. We can’t do business.”
Asher looked like a kid who had been told that the Tooth Fairy was going on vacation and wouldn’t be making any house calls. “But—”
“We’re obviously not a good fit. I’ll find someone else. Thank you for your time.”
I pushed him out the door, and he stumbled, wrong-footed, looking confused. It was a cute look on him. He’d probably do it even more if I grabbed his hand, pulled him back in and onto the bed, leapt astride him and—
Whoa, Katie. Hold your horses and your hormones. Business first, remember? And Mr. Asher Young has conclusively proven that he is not interested in doing with you that which does not involve your ladyparts.
“Bye now. Try not to trip on your assumptions on the way out!”
“But I thought we were—”
I slammed the door shut, locked it, and put in my iPod’s earphones, turning the volume up to the max as I loaded my favorite comfort track, the complete audiobook collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, including the little-known spoof ‘How Watson Learned the Trick.’ Then I climbed into bed. Alone. And tried not to think about the fact that I’d just screwed up what was probably the most important meeting of my life.
Sometimes, when life gets complicated and stressful, it helps to concentrate on something comparatively soothing and simple, like violent murder.
NINE
Two days later, I was vacuuming my apartment for the seventh time—any dirt particles that remained were too small to be seen by any but the most powerful microscope, and there was a very real possibility that the continued suction was going to start pulling up the crappy carpet itself, but these were small considerations in light of the fact that compulsive cleaning let me avoid thinking about such niggling little questions like: where do I go from here? Do I even have any options left? Am I doomed to a life of unprofessionalism, hot make-outs with guys whose pictures can be found by the word ‘unsuitable’ in the dictionary, and business failure?
In other words, the apartment had never looked so clean. I was half-expecting Martha Stewart to show up and have a seizure out of sheer joy.
I picked a piece of non-existent lint off the couch and grabbed the furniture polish for the coffee table, which was already gleaming like King Midas had stopped by earlier. My treacherous eyes lingered on the cell phone I’d left lying on the table, and my even more treacherous mind thought: you could call Asher. You could ask for one more business meeting. He really did seem to get it towards the end of that discussion, and if this meeting just happens to end with you banging him on his desk, then…
No, no, NO. Calling Asher was a terrible idea, even without following it up with the terrible idea chaser of actually having sex with him. Even if he really had been starting to get where I was coming from, and he wasn’t just in this for the booty, he wasn’t going to change his whole business model just for me. Asher took small companies and made them into big companies that made millions, and then billions. He didn’t throw out small change to people who wanted to make a little high-end boutique, no matter how good they were at making out.