“Oh boy,” Taylor muttered into her water glass. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Nope.” Daisy grinned. “The thing is, Nick told you no sex for a month, and you actually agreed. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never let a single other person call the shots. I just find it…interesting. That’s all.”
Taylor sat back in her chair as her friend’s words sank in. “Oh God.”
“Here we go,” Brit muttered.
“Oh my God,” Taylor repeated, the words more heartfelt this time. “You’re right.”
Daisy nodded. “I often am.”
“That bastardly little hypocrite.”
“I don’t think that’s an adjective, hon.”
Taylor ignored this as she waved her chopsticks at her friend. “I sat there and listened to his lecture about how I always get what I want, and I need to learn patience, and be taught a lesson or whatever. But in me not getting my way, he’s getting his! He’s getting exactly what he wants.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he’s really getting what he wants,” Brit said. “I’ve seen him lately. He’s got blue balls worst of all.”
“Well, then, let’s give him what he does want, shall we?”
Brit grinned. “Ooh. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking…” Taylor wiped her mouth with her napkin, then folded both hands on the table. “That we need to figure out which shoes are going to work best with this trench coat plan.”
Chapter 18
Over the past couple of weeks Nick had gotten so accustomed to surprise visits from the Oxford guys or Taylor on his slow days at the hotel that he found himself a little disappointed when at three on a rainy afternoon there was nobody familiar sitting at the bar.
And not only that—there was nobody at all.
Nick normally frowned at bartenders who used their cellphone on the job, but after thirty straight minutes of not seeing a single patron, he followed the lead of the lone cocktail waitress working alongside him and pulled out his iPhone.
He’d recently updated his writing process for exactly this reason, switching his writing program to one that was mobile friendly and allowed him to access his work in progress, even without his laptop.
Typing on the phone was slow going, but it beat doing nothing at all.
Leaning against the bar, Nick was just getting up some good momentum on a fight scene where his hero hadn’t yet figured out that his opponent was an android when Colette said his name.
He turned to see the cocktail waitress nodding to direct his attention toward the entrance.
Nick glanced up and did a double take when he saw Taylor approaching. His body began thrumming at the sight of her the way it always did lately. Hell, lately? Always.
No doubt about it—he’d wanted this woman from the second he’d seen her. Most men did. But it was different now, because he knew her.
Or at least he was getting there.
And alluring didn’t even begin to cover Taylor Carr’s relentless appeal.
“Hey,” he said, frowning a little as she marched toward him with a determined look on her face. It was unlike her to be out of the office before six. “Everything okay?”
She rested both elbows on the bar but didn’t take a seat, her gaze intense as it locked on his. “Do you have a second to talk?”
Nick was already sliding his phone back in his pocket. “Sure. What’s up?”
She cut her eyes sideways toward Colette and lowered her voice. “Maybe not here?”
The cocktail waitress was the only other person in the room, and her attention was already back on her phone. He doubted she cared one way or the other about whatever Taylor had to say, but he shrugged. “Sure. Colette, can you take the bar for a few? I’ll be right back.”
“Not sure I’ll be able to keep up with the rush,” she said, not bothering to glance up. “But I’ll do my best.”
He smiled his thanks to the redhead as he ducked out from under the bar.
Nick nodded toward a side door that led to restrooms and a small employee break room. Taylor preceded him in the direction he’d indicated. Her trench coat didn’t give him much of a view of her ass, so he satisfied himself with the trimness of her waist and the long, shapely bare calves that led down to sexy red heels.
“What’s up?” he asked as they stepped into the deserted hallway.
Taylor gave him a slow smile over her shoulder and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the women’s room.
“Taylor, what are you—”
“Anyone in here?” she called, pushing the door open.
Nobody answered, but she ducked down to check beneath the doors of the two stalls, just in case, before turning and locking the door to the bathroom.
“What the—”
Taylor’s hands went to his shoulders. With surprise on her side, she was able to knock him back a step until his back hit the bathroom door.
“Ladies’ room is cleaner,” she said with a little smile before stepping closer and running a hand down the front of his shirt.
He set his palm over her hand, slowing its downward motion. Being this close to her was torturous enough without the damned woman touching him.
“What are you up to, Carr?” he asked with narrowed eyes.
“Well.” Her other hand lifted to trace the line of the bow tie he always wore to work. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Always dangerous.”
“Right?” She smiled up at him. “Anyway, I was thinking that you were right about me being a little too close to getting what I want. But then my girls pointed out that us waiting a month simply because you snap your fingers…well, that’s just doing what you want, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea what I want,” he growled as her fingernail caressed his jaw.
She laughed. “The girls said that too.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Which girls? Brit? Daisy? I’m going to strangle both of them.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, moving even closer, her spicy perfume making him crazy. “I think you’re going to thank them for what’s about to happen.”
He meant to laugh, meant to tell her that he wasn’t going to sleep with her before the month was up, until she had really moved on from Bradley. And that when he slept with her, it wasn’t going to be in the women’s restroom at his workplace.
But the only sound that came out was a strangled growl as her firm breasts pressed against his chest, her free hand continuing its teasing stroke along his jaw.
“Here’s what I’m proposing,” she whispered, tugging his head down so her lips could flirt with his ear. “You don’t want to have sex with me for another couple of weeks. I don’t want to wait.”
At the moment Nick was thinking that the one-month pause before they hooked up was the dumbest idea he’d ever had, but instinct told him that giving in to her was exactly what this complex woman didn’t need.
They’d started a battle of wills, and damn it, he was going to win, even if he died trying. And with her soft body pressed against his, he was pretty sure he would die.
Her teeth nipped at his earlobe, and his erection surged. His arm came around her, his palm against her back. “Taylor—”
He meant to get back in control of the situation, but her next words stilled him.