The Way You Tempt Me, page 16
“You’re the bomb,” she said, flipping through the PowerPoint presentation he’d pulled up on his phone. “This is huge, X. I’m surprised you don’t want to run it.”
“I don’t need to. Besides, it was a group effort. I couldn’t have done it without Drew and Bishop.”
“And so modest,” she teased.
“Not really. I like spreading the wealth, empowering others to take the reins.”
“Signs of a leader. I think you’re more like your father than you realize.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Even when X was running around, breaking every rule he could, the respect he had for his father was always evident. “It is.” She paused, thinking of how she could say this without giving too much away. “If you could do anything in this company, besides sports, what would it be?”
He tilted his head to the ceiling, a slight frown on his face. Finally he looked at her. “I don’t know if it’s just one thing. I love having my hand in different things, helping others develop ideas. I like having the flexibility to present ideas to colleagues and let them run with it. And I also enjoy representing clients.”
As he talked, her conversation with Jax replayed in her mind. The older man’s reasons for bringing her to the agency made perfect sense. X’s ideas, his willingness to think “big picture” for the agency, to step aside and let others lead, were all perfect qualities for someone who would eventually step in as head of the company. The only problem was, he’d yet to think that far ahead.
“So you’d never give up your youth clients?”
“No. If I can help someone avoid making the same mistakes I did, I’m definitely going to do it.”
Every time he revealed a piece of himself, her heart cracked open a little more. Because what she felt for him in that moment was more than lust, more than the need to be with him physically. And she could make every excuse for how he made her feel, but she already knew she wouldn’t be okay when this ended. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be in love soon.
“Okay.” Her voice came out breathy and shaky. She gripped her throat.
“Are you trying to deter me from the matter at hand?” he asked, a wicked gleam on those full lips of his. She wanted to kiss him. No, she wanted to take his clothes off and lick him all over.
“Oh, please.” She let out a weak laugh. A strained whimper was more like it. Because she was in deep shit if every conversation between them about work ended with her imagining him naked and on top of her—or beneath her.
“You just want sports all to yourself.” He winked and placed a quick kiss on her lips.
“I already won the job. I’m just biding my time for the big reveal.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He set a fortune cookie on her lap and cracked one open. “Hm...”
She eyed him, tempted to ask what it read. He knew she hated those things and had refused to eat them. And she made it a point never to read the stupid sayings inside ever since they were teenagers when she’d let a fortune propel her to ask Jacob Pierce to a dance, only to have him laugh in her face in front of her entire class. Xavier had tried to get her to read several since then, telling her that she needed not to blame the cookies for Jacob’s ignorance. Little did X know, she’d relented one other time, when she’d been struggling with a big decision and the message in the cookie said: I can’t give you any answers. I’m just a cookie.
Unable to resist, she asked, “What does it say?”
“Open yours.”
Grumbling a curse, she popped hers open. Rolling her eyes, she showed the paper to him. The blank paper. “See, this is why I hate these things.” He laughed. “Useless. I guess I have no fortune.”
Still chuckling, he said, “That’s not true. I can read your fortune based on my message.”
Curious, she asked, “What did yours say?”
He held it up and pretended to read, “You will get lucky tonight.”
Laughing, she snatched it from him and read it aloud. “‘Your relationships will improve with time in bed. ’” She laughed, tossing it back to him and watching the tiny piece of paper float in the air before it landed on his arm. “You’re silly.” She wiped happy tears from her cheeks. “It doesn’t say that.”
“Actually, I think it does.” He pulled her onto his lap, and placed wet kisses down her neck to her shoulder. “Which means we only have one thing left to decide.”
She caressed his face and kissed him soundly. “And what would that be?”
“Your place or mine.”
* * *
“This feels so good.” Zara relaxed against Xavier’s chest, the hot bathwater sloshing around them. “Thanks for this.”
They’d decided on his place after dinner and had barely made it in the door before he stripped her naked and made love to her on the floor of his living room.
He rubbed his hands over her stomach, traced her belly button with his fingers. “I can definitely get used to this.” He brushed his lips over her ear, down her neck. “You feel good. I want you,” he grumbled against her ear, before he nipped the sensitive skin. She gasped. “Right now.”
Xavier pressed his erection against her core and she purred. A second later, he was inside her, guiding her movements as they made slow, sweet love. There were no words, no frantic touches. Everything about it was perfect: the way they fit together, the way they moved together, and the way they came together, with eyes closed and lips fused together.
As unexpected as this thing between them was, he found himself wanting to dive right in. He wanted to know everything about her, even the parts she’d been afraid to tell anyone else. He wanted to consume her thoughts. He needed her to ache for him. Because now he knew that he wanted to devote his time to her. Now he knew that he would never be able to live without this.
After the last tremble shot through him, he relaxed against the tub and washed her body, spending a little extra time with his fingers against her clit until another orgasm thundered through her.
She entwined her fingers through his, leaning against him. “This is nice.” She tilted her head up and he circled her nose with his. She grinned. “Being with you.”
He placed a chaste kiss on her lips. “Very.”
Zara had requested they keep what was happening between them private, but he wanted to take her out on a proper date—reserve a private booth at some swanky restaurant, feed her good food, make her laugh, and share a decadent dessert with her.
“What are you doing next weekend?” he asked.
“I have to go to Detroit. Rissa is dress shopping and Christian’s having a birthday party for his wife.”
“That’s good.”
“Why?”
“Just wondering if you’d let me take you out.”
“On a date?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a moment, and he wondered if this was the point when she told him that could never happen. But she surprised him when she said, “That sounds nice. Where would we go?”
“I can’t reveal my secrets,” he told her.
“Well, you know Detroit is a nice city. Plenty to do.” She looked at him, nibbling on her lip.
He brushed his thumb over it, releasing it from her teeth. “Is that your way of asking me to come to Detroit with you?”
“If you want to come, I wouldn’t mind.”
With narrowed eyes, he asked, “As your ‘plus one’?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t come to parties with me before. I just told you not to expect to be my plus one.”
“You do realize people will see us together.” He rubbed his thumb over her nipple. “And I already can’t keep my hands off of you.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to refrain until we’re alone in my hotel room.”
He thought about it for a minute. Could he go to Detroit and pretend she wasn’t with him when everything about them together screamed that she was?
“I’ll have to check my calendar,” he told her, chuckling when she pouted. “But I’m sure I can make up a good excuse to be in Detroit the same weekend you are.” Other than just wanting to be near you.
“Good.” She kissed him.
“I like what Christian is doing with the youth.” He’d been following the retired baseball player’s mentoring program since he’d started it and could appreciate his devotion to the cause.
“He’s doing great work. I’m proud of him.”
There was a time when no one would have been surprised if Christian and Zara ended up together. The two were thick as thieves, often spotted out at several events. The notoriously private athlete had deliberately avoided the press and shunned questions about his personal life, so the speculation was mostly an errant blog post here or there, even after he married his first wife. But now that he was happily married to AJ, the world had moved on from the popular player’s love life.
“It’s a good program,” he said. “We donated to the scholarship fund.”
“You did? Thank you. He works so hard.”
“He’s always seemed very serious.” Although he wouldn’t consider Christian a friend, they’d had several interactions over the years. Zara had even brought him to the holiday party one year.
“He is. So intense, always brooding. But I’m glad he has AJ. She loosens him up. I remember when Zeke met him, he...” She trailed off as she often did when speaking about her brother. “Anyway, they liked each other a lot. I was actually with Christian when I got the news. About Zeke.”
He waited, hoping she’d continue.
“I’m glad he was there. I literally passed out, and he caught me.”
Xavier couldn’t help but feel jealous that Christian had been there for her, that the other man comforted her. I should’ve been with her.
“It took forty-five days for me to cry after my brother died.”
Xavier hated to hear the pain in her voice. He kissed her shoulder. “That’s understandable. You were probably numb.”
She entwined her fingers with his. “I couldn’t believe it. He had so much life ahead of him, so many things to accomplish.”
Zeke was not only a talented ballplayer, but he was smart. He’d placed just as much emphasis on his education as he did on the game. Xavier remembered Zeke beating him at HORSE one time—leaving him flat on his back and out of breath—to go inside and study for a final. When he’d entered the NBA Draft, after he graduated with honors, his dream squad had picked him up in the first round. X was proud of Zeke for doing both, being an amazing athlete and a scholar.
“I couldn’t look at the car,” she admitted, her voice trembling.
News of the three-car accident in Los Angeles reached the nation in a matter of minutes. And Xavier and Skye had watched in horror as the picture of Zeke flashed across the screen. “I’m sorry, baby.” He buried his face in her neck and held her tighter against him, hoping to give her some of his strength. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She was crying, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it by even wiping the tears he knew were falling from her eyes. It was hard to know what to say in these instances. “Thoughts and prayers” always seemed to fall short. So he chose to sit there, offering comfort in the way he held her, the way he listened.
“We’d spent a day together the week before the accident.” She sniffed. “It was a family day. Mom and Rissa came over and we barbecued, played cards, and just chilled with each other. We laughed so much all day. But I got a call from a client and had to take it. On their way out, I gave him a hug. But I...” Her voice broke and so did his heart. “I didn’t tell him I loved him.”
“He knew you did.”
“I wish I had said it. I was distracted when they left my house, and I didn’t say it.”
“Zara, I knew Zeke. I’ve been around you all for a long time. He knew.”
“Mom said the same thing.”
“Because it’s true. And he loved you, too.”
“I loved him so much. He was the best brother I could have ever had. I miss him.”
“I do, too. I know if he was still here, he would be in Atlanta every chance he got. And would threaten to kick my ass if he knew you were here with me like this.”
She laughed. “You’re so right.”
“He didn’t play about you and Rissa.”
“You’d think he was the oldest, not the youngest. Always telling me what to do. So bossy.”
“Like someone else I know,” he teased.
She pinched his arm. “Stop. I’m not bossy.”
“Whatever you say.”
Zara had made sport of telling people what to do. They’d argued about it a lot as kids because she always had to make up the rules and be in charge of everything—whether it was fort placement or who would be “it” in tag or hide-and-seek.
“But I think he might not be so upset about this. He loved you, told me time and again how he thought you were one of the good ones.”
Xavier smiled sadly. “That means a lot to me. I wish we’d been able to spend more time kickin’ it.”
“Those other guys I messed around with... yeah, he didn’t like any of them. I remember he went crazy when my ex stole my watch.”
Xavier had heard the story from Skye years ago. Keith Borders was a pro-football player for Arizona and had been forced to retire when he was arrested. “Shit, I definitely understand that. I ran into him not too long after that, and Duke had to stop me from knocking him out.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t happy with him. Especially since you met him at one of my parties.” He’d introduced them during his twenty-fifth birthday party. And he hated that he had done that, every day since then.
“You know it’s not your fault. I’ve introduced you to crazy women before.”
“Yes, you have! I’ll never forget Freaky Farrah.”
She laughed. “I still feel bad about that.”
“You should.”
When they’d first moved to Atlanta, his parents threw a big party during summer break. Zara had brought along her college roommate, Farrah. The anthropology major had expressed interest in him, and back then, he made it a point to get around and had often used his celebrity to ensnare women. This time, it backfired big-time on him. Especially when Farrah brought him bones for presents, popped up at his campus apartment with skulls and other weird shit. When he’d let her down easy, she’d flipped out and camped outside his place for days with a sign begging him to call her. She’d even harassed his friends. Ultimately he ended up getting a PPO against her.
“I still can’t go to the Museum of Natural History without thinking of her,” he said, enjoying her soft giggles. “There have been parties there and I cringe whenever I see one of those bird fossils.”
“Oh, my God! I’m sorry for that.”
“Not your fault.”
They sat in silence, wrapped in each other. “I’ve never shared how I felt about Zeke with anyone.”
“I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to talk about it with me.” He gripped her chin, tilting her gaze up to his. “You know you can always talk to me, Zara.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Never doubt that.”
“I won’t. Thanks, X.”
Chapter 15
“Well, if it isn’t Ghost.” Duke dapped Xavier when he approached the high-top table. The sports bar they frequented was packed, full of men and women watching the NBA Finals.
“Shut the hell up, man,” X grumbled, bumping elbows with Garrett, before he sat down. “What’s up, bruh?”
“Shit.” Garrett tipped his chin, gesturing to the waitress who’d been hovering near the table, watching them. “Get this man a Modelo and a shot of Patrón.”
It didn’t take long for her to return with his drink. She also slipped him her number on the cocktail napkin, which he promptly balled up and stuffed inside an empty glass.
“What was that?” Duke glanced back at the young woman as she sauntered away. “She was fine as hell.”
“Leave it alone.” X took his shot and chased it with the beer. Garrett eyed him quietly. “Stop looking at me.”
“I’m curious,” Garrett said. “Duke is right. You’ve been absent lately. You even missed the fight.”
Xavier hadn’t missed the heavyweight championship fight. He’d watched it with Zara at his place. As far as he was concerned, beer, nachos, and Zara in one of his shirts—and nothing else—was better than hanging with a bunch of fellas. Even if it was Garrett’s fight party.
“I’m sure y’all got it in without me,” X murmured.
“And you missed Chef Battle.”
That night, he’d whisked Zara away for a mini staycation and couples massage. “You won.” He shrugged. “I was happy for you.”
“Where you been, bruh?” Garrett asked.
“Better yet, who you been with?” Duke added, slamming his empty beer bottle on the table. “As in, who you been creepin’ with? Because you damn sure aren’t missing a fight that we’ve been waiting on for months for anything other than some ass.”
“I caught the fight, man.” He gulped his beer. “With Zara,” he added under his breath.
“Whoa!” Duke leaned back in his seat, shaking his head rapidly. “I didn’t expect that shit.”
“Wait, so you’ve been hanging with Zara?” Garrett said. “Sports agent Zara?”
“Good friend Zara?” Duke motioned for the waitress.
“Yeah.” X scratched the back of his neck. “We’ve been working on something for my father.”
“Is that all it was?” Garrett smirked. “Because you’ve been acting crazy around her since Topgolf.”
Duke laughed. “That whole donut thing was hilarious.”
“Exactly. Shocked the hell out of me.”
Xavier glared at his boys as they ticked off all the weird incidences since Zara had moved to town. Duke even blurted out something about L.A. I’m going to beat Bishop down.
“Then there was that game night at her place.” Duke howled.
His friends gave each other a fist bump. “That’s right,” Garrett said. “The messy hair.”
