Hard Limit(2)
If nothing else, I’d enjoy punishing her when this was all said and done.
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks earlier
I slid my cold palms up and down the sides of my dress. I’d dressed up to make a good impression. I knew it was foolish. Especially since this wouldn’t exactly be a first impression.
“Coffee?”
Blake walked up to where I stood and held out a steaming cup. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a white collared shirt that made his skin glow. His skin was tanned from our time at the beach house, the place where we went to escape the city life and recharge. Today, like all the others, Blake took my breath away. He could have stepped out of a catalogue, but there was more to the man than his breathtaking good looks. His entire presence had a way of throwing me off balance. Sometimes—when I wasn’t swooning over his perfection—I wondered if I did that to him too.
“Thank you,” I murmured. Our hands grazed each other when I took the cup, and I let the heat seep into my fingers.
“Call me crazy, but you look nervous.” He sipped his own coffee and cocked his head.
I stared into the creamy liquid, let the rich aroma fill my nose, and tried to imagine what the next half hour would bring. Being here with Blake by my side should have been a small—a great—comfort, but it wasn’t. “I can’t help it.”
He chuckled softly. “You have absolutely no reason to be. You realize that, right?”
Easy for him to say. Across the room, a tall young man was speaking with some of the other investors. I was now on a first-name basis with many of them, but I couldn’t get past the fact that they were the makers and breakers of dreams. They were men, more or less, like Blake. Some were self-made, and others had done well in their professional careers and had taken on angel investing as a hobby, dabbling with fresh new ideas.
The young man’s jaw was tight, his motions jerky under a tense smile and wide eyes, like he’d consumed all of the coffee in Boston this morning.
“That was me a few months ago,” I said. “It’s terrifying, and you’ll never know what that feels like. Plus I probably have post-traumatic stress disorder from all the shit you put me through in this room. Twice.”
Blake’s amused expression lacked all the remorse I was trying to elicit from him. Only months ago we’d come face to face in this very room, a meeting that set off an unexpected series of events—our life together as we knew it.
“I can see you’re really broken up about that,” I added, trying to sound annoyed as I blew a puff of steam off my coffee.
“I was a jerk. I admit it.”
“A complete asshole,” I corrected.
A cocky grin curved his lips. “Fine, but you couldn’t get me to take a single second of it back, because now I have you.”
His green-eyed gaze locked to mine as he stood in front of me, his stance wide and casual. He had me all right. As my anxiety slowly melted, I fought the impulse to kiss the smirk off his face in front of all these men in suits. The man drove me wild, in more ways than one.
“What do you think? Any regrets?” he asked.
His eyes darkened as if he could read my thoughts, the amused, cocky man replaced by the lover who held my heart in his hands. I drew in a breath of air through my nose, waiting for the touch that often followed that look. A simple reassuring touch that held in it all the love we shared for each other.
He trailed his fingertips lightly along my jaw, lowering his face to the side of mine. The soft kiss brushed against my cheek could have been mistaken for a quiet exchange between colleagues and filled the air between us with his scent. My breath caught, trapping his essence in my lungs. I wanted to be immersed in it, bathed in that uniquely masculine aroma.
He retreated, returning to his casual stance in front me. His coffee cup occupied his beautiful lips once more when I wanted them against me again. God, the sensual torture I’d endured at the mercy of those lips.
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. There were no words. No regrets. He was right. All the ups and downs, however painful, had been worth it. We’d made mistakes. We’d hurt each other, but somehow we’d come through it stronger. He knew my heart, and I knew his. I couldn’t speak for the future, but I couldn’t imagine it beside anyone but Blake.
“Still nervous?” he murmured.
I opened my eyes to find his amused smile returned, new warmth in his eyes.
“No,” I admitted, too aware of our lack of privacy and conflicted by the sudden shift in the air between us. I tried to ignore the way my heart swelled against the walls of my chest, that nameless reminder of how desperately I loved him. I was a slave to this man and the body that repeatedly shattered my ability to comprehend life beyond our bedroom. I wished now that we were alone, that I could be free to touch him. I ached to touch him.