Saving the CEO (49th Floor #1)(5)

And there she was, shoving her chest up shamelessly, trying to make it  easier for him to access her cleavage with that wicked, wonderful  tongue. When the next button popped off and a hand pushed inside her  shirt, taking the place of his mouth, she dropped her head back. It was  too much work to hold it upright. And when the hand pressed aside the  cup of her bra and went straight for her already taut nipple, rolling it  between thumb and forefinger, she broke a rule of her own, cursing  despite herself. "Oh, shit."

He laughed, a low, self-satisfied, almost mocking laugh that made her  want to punch him. But she feared doing so would make him stop, and  right now the most important thing was to make sure that he never, ever  stopped.

"We should stop," he whispered, removing his hand from her shirt.

"Shit." Once more for good measure-why the hell not? See, once she started, it was all potty mouth all the time.

He took a step back, into the streetlight, and revealed himself to  be … completely unaffected. While she, panting and sweaty and breathless,  felt like little pieces of her were scattered about the dirty snow at  their feet … he was as cool and unruffled as ever. She had heard him groan  at one point, hadn't she? Or-please no-maybe that had actually been  her?

He narrowed his eyes at her with a look she could not decode. Voices  made their way into her consciousness, and she looked around,  disoriented. Had he stopped because someone was coming? Or because she  was a disappointment?

"Should I apologize?" he asked, no inflection in his tone. The question  was followed by the jingle of the seasonal bells Edward tied to the  restaurant's door.

She shook her head no, not trusting her voice. If she spoke, she might do something as humiliating as beg him to kiss her again.

Sara and Camille-she could make out the voices now-approached,  chattering and laughing. Her eyes darted around, searching for an  escape, which was ridiculous because it wasn't like they were doing  anything wrong. She looked down at herself. He reached out and closed  her coat, tucking one lapel over the other.

The chattering stopped as the women halted and took in the scene.  "Cassie?" said Camille, with her signature upspeak. "What are you  doing?"

"We were just, ah, talking about scotch," she said. "Are you two going  to the subway? I'll walk with you." She formed her lips into a smile.  "Have a good evening, Mr. Winter."

He did not smile back, merely said, in that completely neutral tone that  gave no hint as to what was inside his mind, "I'll see you tomorrow,  Cassie."

She didn't know that he knew her name. The way he said it-crap. She had  to get away. "Shall we?" she said to the girls, her voice just a little  too chipper. They followed, having the sense to at least wait until they  were out of earshot before unleashing their interrogation. When they  were half a block away, Cassie risked a glance back over her shoulder.

He was gone.





Chapter Three

Though it just about killed her, Cassie waited until ten the next  morning to call Danny, who had never been a morning glory, even in the  brief period when she'd been sleeping with him, and they'd both had to  get up at five so he could sneak out her bedroom window and down the  fire escape before school. Not that her mother ever would have noticed.  Heck, her mother would have sympathized-a high school boyfriend was how  she'd gotten knocked up with Cassie in the first place.                       
       
           



       

"I get it now," she said, not bothering with a greeting when he finally answered after eight hundred million rings.

"Cassie? What time is it? Huh?"

"Sex. I get it now."

"What?" Suddenly he wasn't groggy any more, and she laughed, picturing him sitting bolt upright in bed. "You had sex?"

"No! I made out with a guy. Outside, against a wall. Ack-it sounds so juvenile."

"Oh my God. Who was this guy?"

"That rich guy from the restaurant."

"You made out with Ebenezer Scrooge?"

She kind of relished being the one with news for once. Usually these  calls were about Danny relating his latest exploits. "Actually it turns  out his name is Jack Winter."

"Jack Winter of Winter Enterprises?"

"Um, I guess so?"

"He's worth, like, a billion dollars, Cass! He's always on those annual  Canadian Business roundups of the richest people. He's like the  thirty-fifth richest Canadian or something. But no one really knows  because it's a private company."

Danny had majored in business, and given that he wasn't on the eight  hundred million year plan like Cassie, he had spent several years  working in marketing. He knew about stuff like who was the thirty-fifth  richest Canadian.

"What does Winter Enterprises do?" Please don't let it be something like killing puppies.

"Real estate development. Commercial buildings at first, resort properties now mostly."

"That's okay, right?"

"What do you mean okay? Are you going to invest? Have his babies? Do you need a background check to make out with him?"

"No! Stop asking me questions. I just made out with him once. It's done."

"Yeah, but you get sex now. The man singlehandedly makes you quote-unquote get sex, and that's it? You're throwing him over?"

"I was exaggerating. It was just that he was … "

"What are you trying to say? That he was better than Mark? Wait." There  was a theatrical pause. Cassie knew what was coming, but she let him  have his fun. "Are you trying to say he was better than I was?"

"I'm saying I get what all the fuss is about now." Sex used to seem to  Cassie like just another complication. Going to school, working more  than full time, the odd social event-it was more than enough. Why waste  time fumbling around awkwardly with strangers when she could produce  reliable, efficient results with her trusty Hitachi Magic Wand?

"Welcome to the human race, my friend. I'm just a little miffed that I  couldn't have been the agent of this wonderful revelation." Danny was  forever trying to push her at guys. He'd been advocating casual sex for  years, and for years Cassie had ignored him, going home alone when he  caught the eye of some handsome stranger at a bar on their nights out.  "What did he smell like?"

What did he smell like? Danny was such a weirdo. "Um, scotch?"

"Scotch isn't a smell; it's a taste.

"It is too a smell. He smelled peaty."

"Like a bog?"

"Like scotch! Peat and … lemon?" She surprised herself with that last bit.  It was true, though she hadn't been able to put her finger on the lemon  part until she'd been pressed.

"So he's like a lemon tree growing in a bog."

She burst out laughing.

"Cassie, wait-you know how it works, right?"

"Yes, I know how it works, Danny!"

"I don't mean how it works works, I mean condoms and stuff." He paused. "And heartbreak."

"I'm not an idiot. Use condoms. Don't get your heart broken. That about cover it?"

"It's just that you can be so innocent in some ways, Cass."

"Gah! It's not happening again anyway," she reminded him. "At least not with him."

"But he's opened the floodgates, hasn't he?"

"Mmmm."

"Well, good. And remember, he's not the only man in the world. He may be  the only thirty-fifth-richest-person-in-Canada man in the world, but a  girl can be too picky. The point is, the floodgates are open. Yay!"

Yes, Jack Winter had opened the floodgates. Opened them, ripped them  right off the hinges, and splintered them into a million tiny pieces.

 …

The next night Jack hardly spoke to Cassie. Thursday marked the  beginning of the weekend in some ways, and the bar was much more  crowded. He sat on the end stool as had become his new habit, tucked  against the wall, but instead of a long stretch of empty stools between  him and Miss Alana of the Ants, he was hemmed in by a trio of  intoxicated lawyer types out for ladies' night. Try as he might to work  his way through another month of invoices, he couldn't make his brain  perform the necessary steps. So he gave up and turned his attention to  the Wexler pitch. How he was going to get through it without Carl was  another unanswered question, but at least the work was something he  excelled at-figuring out how to get people to do what he wanted them to.                       
       
           



       

Something rubbed against his arm. Stifling a weary sigh, he raised his  eyebrows at his neighbor, a tall blonde in a skin-tight pinstriped skirt  suit who had been "accidentally" brushing against him and  "accidentally" dropping things all evening. He deployed one of his  signature looks. It was designed to convey a certain amount of  frostiness, but not so much that could be called impolite. The problem  was that Miss Droppy Pinstripes was not responding to his look.