17
Downtown Los Angeles is a ghost town at night. During the day, it’s a bustling metropolis with people walking through the canyons of glass and steel. Once the sun sets, though, it’s like all the pedestrians are afraid of vampires, and they mostly just vanish. (Not the cars, though. Cars are omnipresent in Los Angeles, no matter where you go.)
We stood out on the almost-deserted street. I looked in both directions, but the towing people had apparently worked their evil magic.
“Oh no, your car!” I cried out, scanning past the rush of traffic to the empty curbs.
“Quit worrying about it. I have a question to ask you.”
“But – ”
“Lily. Focus,” he said, and touched his fingers to my chin so that I had to look at him.
I suppose I should have been worried about Stanley seeing Connor make such an intimate gesture, but the warmth of his touch – and the memory of what he had done to me earlier – made me go all limp inside. I stared into his crystal blue eyes.
“Did you mean what you said earlier about this being the best night of your life?” he asked.
Oh God.
Lie, Lily – he’s just looking to inflate his ego – LIE, dammit –
“Yes,” I whispered.
He leaned forward and kissed me.
I flinched for a split second – Stanley’s going to see! I’m going to get fired! – and then I thought, Screw it. This is probably the last time I’m going to see this guy.
I want to savor every last second.
So I kissed him back.
It was soft, sweet… and romantic. The whole world fell away, leaving only the two of us.
He pulled away first. As I gradually opened my eyes again, I became aware of a shape moving off to my side. A car pulling up to the curb beside us.
“Come with me,” Connor said.
“What?” I asked, still dreamy from the kiss.
“You said this was the best night of your life. So let’s keep it going. Maybe even make it the best weekend of your life. Come with me.”
Two different emotions wrestled inside me: panic… and elation.
“I… I can’t… what are you talking about?!” I asked, confused. My head was spinning.
He took both my hands in his, his skin warm against mine.
“Come with me,” he repeated, more urgently this time.
“But – the reports – ”
“Are crap. A fake test Klaus didn’t pass anyway. Forget them. Come with me.”
This is crazy! I wanted to protest, but I was slowly drowning in his sparkling blue eyes.
“The office – I left everything on – ”
“Who cares? Leave it and come with me.”
I couldn’t.
I was already going to be fired for unbecoming conduct, or whatever you call it when you have wild sex on the boardroom floor.
If I didn’t get those reports to Klaus, I might as well leave a letter of resignation on his desk.
I had to finish those reports.
Those reports on a fake account…
…for a boss who belittled and hated me, and went out of his way to make me miserable…
…while the most gorgeous man I’d ever been with was pleading with me to join him.
To do what he asked, I’d have to risk throwing away my job.
A job I hated, true, but the only one I had.
And for what?
To be blissfully, incredibly happy –
For what, another hour?
Another night?
Maybe another two?
“Take a chance,” Connor whispered. “Be that woman I made love to just now. Come with me.”
I shivered when he said ‘made love.’ I thought of us up there in the boardroom, his lips on mine, his body inside me.
The pleasure he had given me.
The amazing connection we had shared.
I could feel that again…
…or I could give it up and be miserable tonight and the rest of the weekend, lose my job anyway, and wonder what I’d missed out on for the rest of my life.
“Screw it,” I breathed. “Let’s go.”
Connor burst into an enormous grin.
He turned to the car by the curb and opened the rear door.
I had thought it was a taxi, or – actually, no, I hadn’t been thinking about it at all. I’d been too wrapped up in kissing Connor, and then in worrying about whether I should go with him or not.
So when I saw a black Bentley – apparently some sort of limo, since it was shorter than a stretch, but longer than a regular sedan – I was a little bit thrown, to say the least.
I looked over at Connor. He seemed incredibly pleased with himself as he opened the back door for me.
“What the hell is this?” I asked in shock.
“Just get in.”
This guy wasn’t just some mid-level executive at a consulting firm. Mid-level executives didn’t normally tool around in Bentley limos.
Who is he?
A stranger. A man I hardly knew.
I could feel the fear rise in me… but then I remembered his touch up in the penthouse. The way he had kissed me.
And the fear dissolved.
Who is he, though?
I didn’t know… but more than anything, I wanted to find out.
And I wanted what we’d shared up in the penthouse.
Again and again, as much as I could get, in whatever time we had left.
I stepped into the car, Connor got in after me, and he closed the door behind us.