He shook his head, and nodded to the bulge in his jeans. “Hell no.”
He wanted me as much as I wanted him. But did he like me too? Or was I just the girl who was hot for him and so, why not? A part of me knew better. A part of me knew I should pull back the reins. But there was a bigger part of me in that moment that didn’t care. Because my body had no questions and no qualms. Inside all I felt was the weight of five pent-up years of missing him. My mind was a jumble, a mixed-up mess of hurt and want, but I didn’t know how to sort out the crazy rush of thoughts, and frankly, I didn’t want to. I was burning for him, so I let my body lead me on.
I touched his soft, thick hair that I’d missed running my hands through, then traced the back of his neck in a way that made him groan. Bryan’s hands drifted lower, down to my waist, and I didn’t stop him. I wanted his hands everywhere. All over me. He shifted me over, pulling me on top of him so I could feel how hard he was through his jeans. I straddled him on the couch, my knees on either side of his hips, our clothes still all the way on, my flowy skirt spread across his thighs.
I began to move my hips barely, subtly, with my bikini underwear and his jeans forming a layered barricade between our bodies. I closed my eyes again, kissing him, grinding against him, feeling like I was in high school again, where having clothes on doesn’t stop you from getting off. His hands slipped underneath my top and made their way to my br**sts, and the way he touched me with such tenderness and such desire made me gasp.
My lips fell away from him and I buried my face in the crook of his neck. The temperature in me soared as I pulled his taut chest to me, thrilling at the feel of his body rubbing against mine. His hands dipped under my skirt, touching the back of my thighs in a way that made me race even more. He hadn’t even gotten into my panties and I was already so close.
“It’s not going to take me long,” I told him.
“Nothing would make me happier than to make you come,” he said, and then managed to slide a hand between my legs. The slightest touch was all I needed. I moved my hips as his fingers hit just the right spot. I pressed myself against his hand, moving up and down, as I moaned in the lowest voice possible in his ear. “Bryan, it feels so good.”
“Kat, you have no idea…”
He layered kisses on my neck as I kept up the rhythm I needed. He gripped my waist firmly, keeping my body close, making sure I would make it all the way. Then I bit my lip as the intensity tore through me. There was no just about, no almost, no close but no cigar. I pressed my mouth to his shoulder to muffle my sounds, then collapsed onto his chest. We remained quiet for a moment, only the sounds of machines far away flickering in the background.
“That was so unbelievably sexy,” he said.
“Really?”
“If I kept a diary, which I don’t I assure you, this would go down as one of the hottest moments ever.”
“I can still feel it. Like in my whole body. I can feel it all over. How good it was with you.” I was vulnerable and I didn’t care. I was in the afterglow and the flush made me say things to him that I would have kept secret if I hadn’t just come in his office. I trailed my hand across his chest and looked in his eyes. “Let me touch you.”
Before he could answer, Delaney’s voice boomed through the buzzer. “Hi, Bryan. Just a reminder you have your board call in ten minutes to go over the final Wilco papers. The notes are in your email.”
Bryan cursed under his breath. “Thanks, Delaney,” he said in a perfectly professional voice. He could easily switch gears. When she hung up, he looked at me, and the longing had been stripped from his eyes. He was a man ready to conduct business. “I have to do this.”
I heard the echo of I have to go and I felt myself hardening. I put my shell back on as I adjusted my skirt and smoothed away the just-been-screwed look in my hair, thinking the saying was appropos for many reasons. I was nothing more than a quickie in the office to him. That was it. That was all. I took some small solace in the fact that we hadn’t gone that far. Fine, he’d seen me as turned on as I’d ever been my whole life over, but at least we’d done nothing more than kids in high school do. That’s all we’d ever be. Teenagers bumbling through adulthood, not knowing what to do or say. But what he didn’t say spoke volumes. He didn’t say he liked me. He didn’t say he was sorry for breaking my heart. He didn’t ask me to have dinner. He simply said, “I need to focus on this call.”
“Of course.” I downshifted to my crisp and business-like tone. I could toe to toe with him in this department. He pulled on his tee-shirt, then his dress shirt.
“But let’s take the train back to New York. The four o’clock, okay?”
“Sure.” I gathered my bag and my books. “I’ll just be —” I said and waved in the general direction outside his office.
He settled into his desk chair, but his eyes were already on the computer screen and the email with the Wilco notes. He sighed heavily and dropped his forehead into his hand. “Fuck,” he said in a low voice, and I suspected he wasn’t going to have a very good phone call with the board.
Served him right with the way he was blowing me off. At least I’d had an orgasm, and he hadn’t. Small victory, but I’d take it.
I grabbed my iced tea, left his office, and said goodbye to Delaney. Then I called a cab as soon as I left the factory. There was a two-thirty train back to New York that had my name written all over it.
Chapter Ten
The music drowned out my day and my night. Jill and her castmates had grabbed guitars and jumped on stage at the bar post-show to jam out an impromptu version of Les Mis’ popular song One Day More. The show itself was amazing; the producers wanted to mix things up so they fast-forwarded the story to modern-day France and added guitars and drums to the orchestra of the off-Broadway production.
Now, we were at a nearby club in Soho, celebrating opening night of the month-long run. Imagine One Day More performed as a power ballad. Because, yes, Jill could handle a guitar too. She jammed hard on her Stratocaster and the amps howled out chords. The guy who played Marius, a young actor named Reeve, whipped the audience into a frenzy as he led the song. When he reached the chorus, he thrust the mic towards the crowd and they responded with the words they’d either known for years or learned when the Hugh Jackman movie became a hit.
My brother Nate was with me, but he was at the bar refilling our drinks. I raised an arm and sang along, the music smashing through my body, and echoing across the whole lot of us jammed together in front of the tiny stage. Reeve was a certified babe. He was tall and lanky, wore hipster jeans, and a tee-shirt with a vest. He had the requisite long hair that fell in his eyes while he sang. I’d met him once during rehearsals, and had asked Jill if she’d be into him because he seemed her type. He was straight, quite rare for a musical theater man. But Jill had reminded me of the old adage about not getting involved with people you work with. Good advice, indeed.