Hero

  She looked like a model.

  I had every suspicion she was a model.

  She gave me a cool smile as she approached my desk. “Darcy Hale for Caine Carraway.”

  “Of course.” I gave her a strained smile and felt my gut tighten unpleasantly. “One moment.” After I called through to Caine I relayed to her that he would be just a few moments.

  “That’s fine.” She shrugged elegantly. “I was just passing by and thought I’d pop in, so I would have understood if he couldn’t see me.” She gave me a sly smile. “Looks like I made an impression, however.”

  I wanted to yank on her ponytail like a five-year-old. “And you met Mr. Carraway …?”

  “On Friday at an art gala. My father is president of an investment company that sits proudly under the Carraway Holdings banner.” She smiled and this time it was surprisingly wolfish. “We had quite the meeting of minds.”

  And what the hell did that mean?

  Caine came out of his office to welcome Darcy inside with a gentlemanly suaveness I did not like. I looked away, catching sight of him gazing in my direction a few moments before he closed the door behind him and Darcy.

  I fumed at my computer screen.

  Hadn’t he said before he left for that damn gala that we were exclusive?

  What the hell was going on? And what exactly did he get up to with that feline woman who was barely even a woman? She looked about eighteen!

  To my relief Darcy left the building only ten minutes later. I was not relieved, however, by the fact that she looked far too pleased with herself for my liking when she did so. She’d only turned the corner at the top of the corridor, disappearing from my sight, when Caine called me into his office.

  Somehow I managed to remain perfectly serene. “Yes?” I asked, stopping in the doorway.

  Caine’s face instantly clouded over. “For God’s sake come into the office.”

  I wanted to snap something back at him but decided he didn’t deserve any kind of passion from me if he was messing around with Blondie behind my back. I took a few steps into his office.

  “Shut the door and come here.”

  I did as he said, but for some reason this made him even madder.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he snapped.

  I frowned. “Nothing is wrong with me.”

  “Bullshit.” He stood up abruptly, rounding his desk. I braced as he came toward me. “You’ve been cold with me all morning.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all.”

  He leaned into me and hissed, “More bullshit.”

  “Stop saying bullshit,” I growled.

  Light flared in his eyes. “There she is.”

  “What? You’re trying to goad me into reacting to you now? Are you bored?”

  “I’m pissed.” He curled his arm around my waist and hauled me up against him, ignoring my attempts to pull away. “You’re acting strange and I want to know why.”

  I ceased my struggling and looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m fine.”

  His lips pressed together as he gazed at me for a few seconds. His gaze was searching, as though he could find whatever answers he needed if he just looked hard enough. “I would say it was about Darcy Hale, but you were acting distant before she even got here.”

  “She did say you two had, and I quote, a meeting of minds on Friday.” I cocked my head to the side. “That must have been some meeting for her to drag her skinny ass all the way up here to see you.”

  Caine stopped scowling to smirk in a really arrogant way that annoyed me enough to restart my attempts to get out of his arms. He easily fought my struggles and won. “I gave her my time because of who her father is. I can’t outright insult her. But trust me, her skinny ass does nothing for me. Neither does her narcissism. Anyway”—his hands slid down my back to my less than skinny ass—“I’m far too distracted getting my fill of you.”

  Are you sure about that? That wasn’t quite so clear on Sunday morning.

  My doubt must have registered on my face, because Caine pressed a kiss to my jaw before brushing his mouth across my ear. “In fact, I’m in the mood for a little appetizer.” He pressed lazy, sweet kisses down my throat and then up again until he reached my other ear. “I want you naked right now and I want my mouth on you.” He leaned back to read my face. His eyes were ablaze with hunger. “Do you want my mouth on you?”

  I so, so wanted his mouth on me.

  “We can’t. I got my period yesterday.”

  To my surprise Caine let his disappointment show. He squeezed my waist. “That’s a shame. But I guess we’ll have something to look forward to in …?”

  “The end of the week.” I tried to extricate myself from his embrace, but Caine wasn’t having it.

  He stopped me, giving me a gentle shake. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you? I don’t like this.” His voice had lowered dangerously.

  What? Was I supposed to be afraid? “Seriously? Mr. Distant doesn’t like distance?”

  His arms instantly dropped and he stepped back. “Are you playing games with me?”

  “No.” I sighed and threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I came in this morning, took one look at you, and decided it would do me a world of good to put a little bit of distance between us because …”

  He frowned, edging closer again. “Because?”

  “Because …” Just say it. Be honest. Or at least somewhat honest. “I don’t know where I am with you. You can’t have it both ways, Caine. You can’t be distant with me, sneak out because sex got a little intense, ignore me, and then get pissed at me when I react in turn.”

  He looked away. “This is just sex, Lexie,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I know that.” Boy, did I know that. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t react the way we want to, be who we are … I feel like you’re constantly pushing and pulling because you’re uncomfortable with how things go down between us sometimes.” I stepped toward him tentatively. “I just want you to be you. No pressure. And I’ll be me. I feel like you’re trying so hard to prove that this is just sex that it’s making this even more complicated. I want to uncomplicate it.”

  “How?”

  I gave a huff of resigned laughter. “For whatever reason I like you, Caine. I’d quite like it when we’re not having sex if we could be friends. No expectations, I promise.” Just hope.

  He raised his eyebrows, looking adorably confused. “Friends?”

  “Mmm.” I smirked. “You know … friends.”

  “With benefits?”

  “Exactly.”

  After a few seconds of silence, Caine finally gave me a hesitant nod. “Friends.”

  I smiled. “I should warn you, though, that I’m a smart-ass to my friends.”

  “Oh, well, then I guess we’ve been friends since you first walked through my door.” As he rounded his desk to his chair, he threw me a grin that sent my heart racing off in a gallop.

  My whole being lit up at Caine’s sudden transformation. Before, he’d been on edge because of my mood, but now he was relaxed in a way I rarely saw from him.

  Yes. No expectations … but God, I had a lot of hope.

  CHAPTER 17

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  I heard the whisper of Caine’s movement against my pillow as he turned his head to look at me. “My what?” he said, bemused.

  After a few days of no sex and some major anticipation, I’d given Caine the all-clear for resumption of the fun stuff that Thursday morning. He’d appeared at my apartment a few hours after work and we’d gone at each other as though we hadn’t had each other in years.

  Relaxed, I lay beside him on my bed, my arms flung above my head in postcoital satisfaction, and decided it was time to ease him into the whole getting-to-know-each-other thing. “What’s your favorite color?” I repeated.

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  I looked at him and saw his mouth was curled up
at the corners in amusement. I liked this side of him, this playful, boyish side that peeked out at me sometimes. “Purple. Now yours?”

  “I don’t have a favorite color.”

  I frowned. “Everyone has a favorite color.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You must at least have a color that you’re partial to more than other colors.”

  He grunted. “Wouldn’t that be the same thing as having a favorite color?”

  I stopped and resaid it in my head. I giggled at the realization he was right.

  Caine gave a huff of laughter, but I wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook. I rolled to my side to face him, resting my head in my hand. “Okay, let your mind go blank.”

  His gaze moved over my naked chest. “Can’t do that, I’m afraid.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Try.”

  “Okay.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Now what?”

  “What is the first color that comes to mind?”

  “Yellow,” Caine blurted out, and then immediately scowled for some unknown reason.

  “Yellow?” I grinned. “That’s definitely a surprising color, but we’ll go with it. Your favorite color is yellow. What’s your favorite movie? And don’t say you don’t have one, because I’ve seen your DVD collection.”

  Caine raised an eyebrow. “Has someone been snooping?”

  “No.”

  If anything his eyebrows rose to greater heights.

  “Fine,” I huffed. “I snooped in your DVD cabinet.”

  To my surprise and gratitude he didn’t say anything else about that. Instead he said, “Seven Samurai.”

  I attempted to mask my shock that he’d offered the answer so easily. “What’s it about?”

  I watched, fascinated, as Caine moved onto his side so we were facing each other. There was interest and light in his eyes. “It’s this Japanese movie made in the fifties and it’s about these seven down-on-their luck samurai who are hired by this poor farming village to defend them against marauders. The battles scenes are some of the best in cinematic history—for its time it just … It’s fantastic. It’s real, though—it’s got grit and heart. It’s a great movie.”

  I brushed my fingers along his forearm. “Do you have it?”

  “I do.”

  “Maybe we can watch it sometime.”

  Caine’s gaze roamed over my face. “I think you’ll like it.”

  I took that as a yes to us watching the movie together and hid a smile. “Favorite band?”

  “You didn’t tell me what your favorite movie was.”

  “That’s easy. Gone With the Wind. Although I could slap Scarlett silly for most of the movie. I mean, who would ever choose Ashley over Rhett?”

  Sensing I wanted an actual answer, Caine shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “No one, that’s who. Ashley is this Byronic limp noodle and Rhett is dark and challenging and all man. There’s no competition. Scarlett was a nincompoop.”

  Caine’s lips twitched. “A nincompoop?”

  “Yes! It would be like me choosing to have Dean in this bed instead of you.”

  His amusement fled. “Who’s Dean?”

  I choked on a laugh. “Dean. Your main receptionist. You know, the guy that sits at that big glass desk and directs people where to go.”

  “Oh, that Dean.” Caine appeared adorably confused. “I thought he was gay.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Ashley wasn’t gay,” Caine argued. “He was a gentleman.”

  “Whatever he was, he was boring and spineless.” I flopped over onto my back. “Women are attracted to men who can take charge of a situation.”

  “Not all women.”

  I glanced up at him. “Speaking from experience there, are you?”

  He sighed. “I’ve been known to intimidate some women.”

  “You? Intimidating?” I teased. “No.”

  Caine laughed and reached for me, sliding one arm across my belly so he could pull me into him. “And some women need to learn to be more intimidated by me.”

  I giggled, wrapping my arms around him as he rolled so he was braced over me. “It’s not going to happen.”

  He nodded, contemplating me. “I’m getting that.”

  “I think you like it.”

  Instead of answering in the affirmative, Caine brushed his thumbs across my cheekbones. “Favorite band?”

  I smiled, glad he was so cool with sharing, even if it was just trivial stuff. “The Killers.”

  “Nice choice.”

  I warmed under his approval. “You?”

  “Led Zeppelin.”

  I trailed my fingertips over his muscular back in a lazy, familiar way that felt altogether much too good. “Favorite city outside of Boston?”

  “Sydney. You?”

  “Prague.”

  Caine stilled under my touch. “A very nice choice.”

  “I really want to visit Budapest, though. All the places I visited were with Benito, and none of them were the one place I wanted to see.”

  “I’ve been to Budapest.” He bent his head to sweetly brush his lips against mine. “You’d love it.”

  I loved this. I loved that he was no longer fighting to keep who he was from me. Right now we were two friends getting to know each other. While we were naked.

  “Why do you like my apartment?” I suddenly blurted out.

  Caine studied me a moment, seeming to drink in every aspect of my face. “Because it’s got charm. There’s no flash—it’s got a timeless, simple beauty about it. A lot like its owner.”

  His compliment seeped into me, warming through to the very tips of my fingers. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I whispered.

  Caine smiled. “You think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See. No flash. Just beauty.”

  I narrowed my eyes in thought. “You secretly like my tank tops and short shorts, don’t you?”

  He grinned in answer before swallowing my laughter in a deep, drugging kiss.

  My greatest issue with our relationship was coming to terms with the fact that even if Caine allowed me those small moments of intimacy, he had no intention of changing his mind about what we were doing together. I’d developed a bad habit of building my hopes up only for Caine to remind me that this was still a friends-with-benefits situation.

  Only a day after we’d spent the morning laughing and talking and playing, I was brought back down to earth with a bump. I’d felt close to him in those moments, but the next day everything was back to the way it had been before. I didn’t blame Caine. He didn’t know I kept changing the rules in my head. I was frustrated, however, by my lack of progress and I needed to regroup, to find another way to get through to him, and so far I’d come up with nothing.

  We made no plans to meet that weekend and I considered dropping in on Effie for her unique perspective until a phone call with Rachel that Friday afternoon.

  Caine was out to lunch and I was at my desk, nibbling at a salad. I hadn’t exactly had the best appetite these last few days.

  “Lexie, come on,” Rachel huffed in her annoyance. I’d just told her about my failed attempt at getting closer to Caine. “Maybe it’s time to call it quits on this guy before you get hurt.”

  I ignored that. “I’ve been trying to come up with a new tactic, but I realized something this morning. No more tactics. Maybe honesty would work best.”

  “No way.” I could sense her rolling her eyes. “Unless you want things to definitely end between you … and I’m not exactly averse to that anymore.”

  “You need to make up your mind. Do you find me screwing my boss sexy or stupid? Choose one.” She kept flitting between the two, which was not good when it came to needing advice.

  “Right now it’s stupid. I think it’s ti—Maisy, Ted is not a toy!” She cursed, and I heard the phone drop. A minute later she was back with a breathless “Sorry
about that.”

  “Who is Ted and do I want to know what the devil child was doing to him?”

  “You know I’m going to start taking your comments about my kid seriously one of these days.”

  “I wish you would.”

  Rachel snorted. “Ted is our puppy.”

  My eyes widened in horror. “You gave the kid a puppy?”

  “He loves her. It’s so adorable.”

  I was one hundred percent sure that poor puppy did not love Maisy. I was certain that poor puppy was terrified of Maisy. “What was she doing to him? And be careful what you say, because I am not afraid to call Animal Protection on your ass.”

  “Oh, stop it. She was just cuddling him a little too hard. I was there. I’m keeping an eye on her. Don’t you trust me?”

  Um … “I’ve seen what you’ve let that kid do to your husband.”

  “But that’s just Jeff. I would never let Maisy hurt an animal. Not that she would mean to … She’s just overly exuberant. I’ve got my eye on Ted, though. Don’t you worr—hey, you changed the subject,” Rachel snapped. “Ditch the loser boss.”

  My silence made her sigh heavily.

  “Rach—”

  “Okay, whatever, but at least promise me you’ll keep Saturday night free, because I have an extra ticket to the Red Sox game and these tickets are fucking awesome. Jeff got them from work. Get this, field box forty-three, row four, behind home freaking plate.”

  I chewed my bottom lip in thought. Those were great seats, but there was every chance Caine would be at that game. He couldn’t make it to every one, but he did try and with Saturday’s game set against the Yankees, there was a more than huge chance he would be there.

  “I didn’t hear the ‘hell yeah’ I was expecting. Come on,” Rachel pleaded. “We haven’t hung out in ages and yeah, Jeff will be there, but we’ve got a babysitter, so Maisy won’t be.”

  That did sweeten the idea a little more.

  And even if Caine was there he would be up on EMC level and no way would he spot me in a crowd of thousands.