Undisclosed Desires(7)

He collapsed against her back, and Grace felt the edge of the table bite into her belly. But even with that small discomfort, the weight of him and his warmth along her body delighted her. So when he pulled himself out of her and sat back, she almost groaned with disappointment.

Grace sat up also, pushing her dress over her thighs to hide her bare butt, and pulled up her panties. She pushed at the hair sticking to her damp forehead and tried to regain her breath. Grace forced away all rational thought. She just couldn’t bear to…She started to stand but her legs were still shaky, and she wondered whether they would hold her up let alone allow her to walk out the door. But before she could test the issue, Antonio stood and kicked off his pants.

He grabbed Grace from behind and pulled her to her feet. “We have more kissing to do,” he said as he strode into the bedroom, dragging her behind him.

“Oh really,” she said with a smile. Once they were beside the bed, he pushed her down crosswise along the foot.

“Yes.” His answering smirk was saucy. “You have no idea how many parts of you I intend to kiss before this night is over.”

Grace definitely wanted to find out.

But by the next morning, doubts assailed her as she lay beside his snoring form. Omigod, she thought. She’d had sex with Antonio. What did that mean? He seemed to be into the sex. However, he’d also had a lot to drink. Had he been too drunk to even know it was her? But then could he really perform like that if he’d been all that drunk?

Her climaxes—the first and second of her life—qualified as leg-melting, intense and all-consuming. Draining, actually. Obviously, Antonio had come too, but the more she thought about it, the more doubtful it seemed to her that this interlude had been anything special for him. So, Grace had slid out from under him, praying her movements wouldn’t awaken him. Once she rose from the bed, there had been the job of finding her clothes and dressing. She managed to get out the door with enough clothes on to prevent arrest if she was stopped while driving home.

The next day, Sunday, Grace’s nerves hovered on the edge of fractured. Each time the cell phone rang, she leaped to examine its face. But Antonio didn’t call. He didn’t email. He didn’t contact her in any way. By Monday morning she’d been a wreck, certain she’d not only made a fool of herself by falling into bed—and onto the coffee table before that—with him, but she’d destroyed their friendship and lost the only real contact she could have with him.

When he’d arrived at the office, Antonio had knocked on her closed office door, opened it and stuck his head around the corner.

“Hey, bud,” he’d said, nothing in his expression betraying any recollection of their interlude. “Are we on for lunch today?”

“Yeah,” she’d said after a moment of confusion. “Sure. Meet you at the elevators at noon.”

“Great,” he said, slapping the doorframe. “I always need to eat a lot to get rid of a hangover and I’m still dealing with a doozy from Saturday.”

“You did seem to be drunker than I’ve ever seen you,” she offered tentatively.

“I can’t remember a thing after the third beer, but I’m assuming you got me home,” he said with an easy smile. “Thanks. I hope I didn’t cause you any problems.”

“No problems.” Intense relief swept through her. Antonio didn’t remember anything about her being a fool. Their friendship wasn’t over.

Not until later did she think about the real implications of his lack of memory. She really must be a lousy fuck just as Brad had said. Having sex with her was totally forgettable.





Chapter Three




A male bar patron snickered into his glass of beer as Brad made his accusation. Antonio bristled and opened his mouth to respond. Grace suspected this would not be pretty, so she interrupted with a hand to his arm. “No scenes, please,” she whispered to her friend. “Nice seeing you, Brad, and whatever your name is,” Grace said to her ex and his girl. “Congrats on your engagement.” She tugged Antonio over to a table in the corner.

“You should have let me pummel him,” Antonio grumbled as he sat down.

“He’s not important enough to pummel.” Grace plopped down onto the chair. “Just forget him.”

“I bet the douchebag came here deliberately, hoping to find you so he could throw his engagement in your face.” Antonio scowled. “He knows Finnegan’s is our place.”

The words “our place” tickled her. Grace and Antonio had a “place” of their own, almost as if they were a couple.