“My name is Amanda.”
“Thank you so much, Amanda. You have been a huge help,” I said softly as I followed her through the vast office space of Beautify NY. My nerves ran rampant. I felt like my heart was trying to beat out of my chest, but it all faded the moment I heard the sexy Australian accent that brought me to my knees. My eyes flickered through the room furiously for her. It was my breath that caught when I found her. Standing by a desk in the far corner of the office, phone to her ear, talking and laughing, she looked relaxed, happy, and like absolute perfection. Dressed in a charcoal knee-length skirt with a crisp white skirt and black heels, she had her hair swept to the side, showing her deliciously biteable neck that I had kissed, sucked, and nibbled on so many times. She looked breathtakingly beautiful.
“New York is beautiful but I miss Los Angeles. Yes I have. I spoke with him last night. What? Since when have you been on Team Tate? Why are you letting me go home early? Yeah I will. I’ll call him tonight. Yes I am eating. You sound like Tate.”
My eyes never left Sav as she paced the area near her desk. She was smiling, and I could hear the happiness in her voice as she spoke to Simon. I couldn’t help but drink her in.
“Okay, I miss you too.” She laughed softly. “I am not saying that. You wouldn’t dare. Don’t you dare tell Tate that! Fine… I miss you too, handsome, best guy in the world who is going to be the most awesome poppa. I cannot believe I said that. I will talk to you tonight. I love you too.”
Sav smiled at the phone in her hands and pushed a lose piece of hair behind her ear. It was taking every bit of restraint not to rush to her. I slipped into the empty boardroom and stepped away from the glass wall separating the boardroom and the main office space.
The door pushed open and there she stood. “You wanted to see me.”
My breath caught deep in my chest as her green eyes grew wide at the sight of me. She stood before me like a statue, no words being said, and her mouth was opening and closing as if she was trying to find the right thing to say.
“Tate!” Savannah’s hand flew to her mouth as she choked out a gasp.
I was completely breathless at the sight of her. Our eyes never faltered as I crossed the empty boardroom two steps at a time to stand before her, needing to break the distance between our bodies. The scent of her perfume made my senses come alive, and my body reacted like a switch had been turned on. With a strong hand, I cupped her face. My fingertips ran over her cheek and traced the outline of her jaw as my thumb swept over her lips. She shivered against me and her eyes closed under my touch.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed out, opening her big green eyes to look at me with questioning hesitation.
“You left something in Los Angeles,” I replied, taking a step closer so our bodies were flush against each other and our hearts beating as one.
“What?”
“This.”
I covered her mouth with mine and instantly she collapsed against my chest. My arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close and holding her protectively. The sigh that escaped Sav’s mouth against mine set my body on fire. My tongue traced her plump bottom lip before thrusting in and sweeping through her mouth. I wanted to own her. I wanted to taste her.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I sighed against her lips as I felt her fingertips slide though my hair. Pulling my bottom lip between her teeth in the way she knew I craved sent a shot of heat through my crotch. Grinding myself against her, I didn’t show any inhibitions. Our tongues danced with each other, swimming together, trying so hard to get even closer while our bodies tried desperately to break any distance between us. My hands cupped her perfect ass and lifted her onto the mahogany desk that was in the middle of the boardroom. I pushed open her legs with my knee and stepped between her thighs. The heat radiating from her was incredible.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she hummed against my lips and instantly I felt myself go hard. I needed to bury myself so far in her that I saw stars in my eyes. I ground my cock into her thigh, showing my delight to be back with her, and she smiled into the kiss.
I kissed her hard, fast, and with every ounce of passion I had, desperate to meet her hunger with every kiss. My hand dropped to the small of her back and I slid her body as close to mine as possible. Her hips bucked and her body crushed into mine with fevered intensity, up and down, hard and soft, wanting and needing. I wanted nothing more than to rip her skirt from her body and fuck her right here.
She groaned at the contact of my clear arousal to her heated body. “Tate,” she gasped as she pulled away, her breathing heavy and her eyes hooded with heat.
“I needed to give you that.” I leaned my forehead against hers, my eyes never leaving her. Our breathing was broken, but we were breathing together and that’s all that mattered to me.
Sav jumped off the table and, with shaky steps, moved towards the glass wall of the boardroom, closing the blinds before spinning back towards me. “What do you want to do?”
Her eyes burned into mine as she sauntered towards me. Her eyes were like a pit of hot coals, simmering, wanting, and burning for what she knew I could give her. This was the look I craved. It was the look of a thousand unspoken words that told me she was mine and I was hers. It was the one look that destroyed me in so many amazing ways. It was as if the moment she met me, she’d taken everything that I was, put it in a blender and created a new me, a better me. I had lived by the promise to myself that I would never change for anyone, but for Savannah I would do everything in my power to change the world if I knew it would make her happy.
As I licked my lips, a thousand thoughts rushed through my head. “I thought Tanzi warned you about asking me questions like that.”
Sav dropped her mouth to mine before she spoke. “And I thought you’d know by now that I kinda like breaking the rules.” I knew she could feel my hardness. A smirk swirled over her lips. My hand gripped her ass and pushed her hard against me.
“How are my two most favorite people doing?” I ran my hands down her sides, wishing we were skin to skin, and rested my palm on her stomach. The look that took over her face almost destroyed me. Her heavy eyes closed under my touch, and the lips I had just attacked with mine turned up into the most beautiful smile she had ever given me.
“We have never been happier,” she breathed out, and in that moment, everything was perfect.
My arms surrounded her and pulled her close to my body. Having her in my arms had never felt better. All of my anxiety and questioning on the flight on the way over had disappeared. All thoughts of Lucas were gone. Standing in the silence of the boardroom, we listened to only the sound of our breathing, enjoying the moments where no words were needed.
“Miss Rae, I have a Blake Ryan at reception who is returning with your jacket.”
Words I wish I’d never heard shattered the silence.
Just hearing his name almost set me off. Sav’s body tensed in my arms.
Blake fucking Ryan strikes again.
“Thanks Amanda, he can leave it at the desk.” Sav said into the intercom that was on the desk beside us.
“Blake? Really? Do you have something to tell me, Savannah?” I hissed, asking the one question I never wanted to ask.
“Blake is in town and I had lunch with him today. Before you go off the Richter scale, let me explain. He has met a girl and he is in New York with her. He saw on Facebook that I was in the city so he contacted me. Beautify is doing a feature and he is a part of it.”
“So you are in New York City and he just happens to arrive in New York City and makes contact with you via Facebook? Why are you even friends with him?”
“He must have added me when we first met.” Her eyes narrowed in on me. “And by the way, I came to New York City and he was already in New York City. I have been here on my own and it was actually nic
e to catch up with someone familiar.”
“Yeah, you two are real familiar,” I sneered and regretted it immediately. My hand shot out to grab hers but I was too late. The damage had already been done.
“You are such an arsehole, Tate.” She ripped herself away from my body and straightened her skirt and shirt. “A real fucking piece of work.”
The excitement in her stunning green eyes from seeing me quickly disappeared and was replaced by fire and rage. I knew the look all too well.
Sav stormed towards the door, grabbed hold of the handle, and stopped. She dropped her head before turning towards me. “Tate, seriously, when will you stop doing this?” She sighed loudly, turned on her heel, and disappeared from the boardroom.
Blake Ryan would always be the thorn in my side, and every time he climbed out of his little hole, the thorn would dig a little deeper into my flesh. Why I even thought about him pissed me off. I had no right to be jealous of anything that had happened between him and Savannah—she hadn’t been mine then.
But it was almost like he was a constant reminder of what I didn’t want to become. He didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, and he was willing to hurt those closest to him for a meaningless screw—and that’s what he did with Sarah. The one thing that pissed me off the most about Blake wasn’t the fact that he’d screwed my ex-girlfriend or that I’d treated him like a brother and he had decided to shit all over that with one move. It was that I knew if he were in trouble I’d be there in a millisecond. He’d ripped my heart out, stomped on it, and laughed in my face, but I knew that if I ever got the call, if he ever reached out to me, I’d be by his side without question. So here’s a giant fuck you to those who think I don’t have a heart.
Standing in the loneliness of the boardroom, I watched her closely through the glass wall. Savannah was pissed and kept her eyes from mine. The sound of her slamming things down on her desk with a look of feisty annoyance plastered on her face swum through the office. She ripped open the top drawer of her desk and grabbed her handbag before raising her eyes, knowing I would be watching. Her eyes narrowed in at me. With one look she could either set me on a wave of ecstasy or throw me to hell, and now, as she glared at me, she was throwing me to fiery depths of hell. I manned up and walked out towards her, knowing I had to bite my tongue before I said something else. I was pissed about Blake—Sav knew how much I despised him.
“So I hear that I’m being sent home because my arsehole of a boyfriend has decided to turn up. The boyfriend that also doesn’t know when to think before he speaks.”
I moved towards her. “Sav, look, I’m—”But she shook her head in warning and raised her hand.
“Tate, I don’t want to hear it.”
She took off through the office, not speaking to me or anyone in her path. Following closely, I felt my frustrations bubbling deep inside me. This was not how our reunion was supposed to turn out. We should be laughing and joking with each other. Right now I should be saying and doing inappropriate things to her. We shouldn’t have this silence that was engulfing us.
She stormed through the office, only stopping briefly at the reception desk to speak to the cute girl who had helped me earlier. She looked between Sav and me and dropped her head. She didn’t have to be a brainiac to pick up on the tension.
The sounds and fiasco of New York City consumed me as soon as we exited the building. Here we were, walking down one of the busiest streets in the world with hundreds of people surrounding us, but the silence between us was strangling me. I could sense the familiar feeling of panic rising within me as we walked down Fifth Avenue. Our bodies weren’t touching, we weren’t talking, and we weren’t being us.
“Why don’t you trust me?” Sav’s voice asked quietly against the echo of New York City.
“I do trust you.”
Savannah stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and turned towards me. People stepped around us, muttering under their breath for us to move, but I didn’t give a fuck about them. My only concern was for my girlfriend, who was now looking completely defeated and crushed because of my stupid mouth.
“Well what is it, Tate? You’ve got to stop doing this. I can’t stick around, waiting for you to decide to believe that I am with you and only you. You need to decide whether you trust me or not. I have another person to think of now.” My eyes followed her hands as she cradled her stomach protectively. Our baby.
Taking a step forward, I broke the distance between us. I couldn’t let her have one single thought of doing this alone. I would not let those thoughts flicker through her mind. “Savannah! Just stop.”
“No, Tate, you listen to me. I am going to my hotel room. I am going to have a hot bath, eat chocolate, and sulk. You can follow me if you like, but I am pissed off so don’t expect me speak to you until I relax.”
“You don’t think I’m a little pissed off too?” I hissed. “You know I can’t stand Blake but you still had lunch with him. Maybe I should call up one of my past conquests and have lunch.”
Her wide eyes fired at me and a stand-off began. Our stubbornness matched each other’s. I gritted my teeth, begging myself not to say anything else. Savannah spun on her heel and stormed down the street. Watching her retreating figure, I groaned in frustration and took off after her. Her heels clicked on the sidewalk, and she was barely in arm’s reach of me. I couldn’t help but sneak glances at her. Her lips were pursed and her eyes narrowed in front of her, looking everywhere but at me while she tightly clutched her bag.
“Stop looking at me. I am still pissed.” She fired a look at me, and I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth curving. Taking a chance, I grabbed her hand as we walked in silence on the streets of New York City. She fought me but I clasped it tightly in mine. Finally she relaxed and entwined her fingers through mine. The rest of the walk was in silence. I didn’t dare speak. Jesus, I was lucky enough that she kept holding my hand. I knew this wasn’t the last of this argument. Fucking Blake Ryan!
I followed Savannah into her hotel room, desperate to break the distance between us. She dropped my hand the moment we got into the elevator and stood against the far wall. I watched her closely but she didn’t give me an inch. She did everything she could to distract herself from looking at me. She twirled her fingers around her hair, latched herself to her phone, and watched her shoes like they were the most exciting things she had ever seen.
As I stood in the doorway of Sav’s hotel room, my eyes flew around the vast space, trying to take everything. Beautify had really gone all out on this place. This was the kind of place that would have made the perfect bachelor pad. The polished floorboards complimented the coffee- walls, and the floor-to-ceiling windows provided a view of Manhattan that lasted for miles. A solitary bed could be seen through the door of one of the rooms to the side. I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift to where I hoped I would have Sav on her back with me deep inside of her for most of my trip here. Jesus, it felt like a long time since I’d been between Sav’s thighs.
I took off my suit jacket and placed it over the back of the couch, loosening my tie as I stared at Sav across the room.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I winced in shock as Sav’s handbag flew across the room and hit me square in the chest, the breath rushing from my lungs on impact. If I’d thought her anger towards me had been cooling, I was bitterly mistaken. She had an arm on her like a Major League pitcher. She raged through the apartment, her heels annoyingly hitting the floorboards with heated aggression, and stood by a closed door at the other end of the hotel room with her hands on her hips.
“Don’t ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ me Tate. You fly to New York, stroll into my office in that suit you know I am a sucker for, kiss me to the point of almost giving me a fucking orgasm, and then accuse me of God only knows with Blake! You frustrate me! Why do you have to be an arsehole?” Savannah grasped at her heels, pulling
them from her feet and flinging them in my direction, missing me by barely an inch. They landed with a thud on the couch behind me. Her eyes softened momentarily before they narrowed in again.
“So you hang out with Blake and I’m the asshole? How does that work, Savannah?” Scoffing, I rolled my eyes in her direction.
“I didn’t hang out with him.”
“Um, you went out to lunch, which is hanging out to me.”
“Well your idea of hanging out is delusional.”
“Fuck this, Savannah. I fly across the country to see you and find out that you are hanging out with Blake. This is complete bullshit.” My pulse was frantically beating. I didn’t wait for her to speak, and I had no time to hear excuses. Hanging out was hanging out. The thought of calling Chelsea to make a point definitely flashed through my mind. How would Savannah like that? I knew Chelsea lived in New York most of the year, and I had seen the inside of her bedroom more times than none. Christ, this was a joke. Forcefully grabbing the handle, I tore open the door but stopped the moment Savannah spoke.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to find someone to ‘hang out’ with.” I raised my hands and quoted the words before grabbing the room key from the table by the door and furiously walking out of the room and through the hotel, into the brightness of New York City.
I had no clue where I was going. My eyes scanned the streets around me. Alcohol—I needed scotch and fast. Hastily walking down the streets of Manhattan, I hailed a cab and gave directions to Red Velvet New York. If I couldn’t be with my girlfriend, then I’d be with my second love.
I opened the double doors and walked through the almost empty bar. Pulling out a stool, I waited to order a scotch on the rocks. My thoughts were running a mile a minute.
“What can I get you, handsome?” a husky voice asked from in front of me. My eyes left their gaze on the wooden bar top and scanned up. Her nametag said her name was Alexis. She was wearing a shirt that left little to the imagination, the familiar logo of Red Velvet on full display.