“I have to listen to you and Dax go at it tonight while I’m sleeping alone. I’m happy for you, I really am, but I want to be happy too. Come on, think about it. The four of us could go out together all the time. How awesome would it be if Denise and I ended up together? I would be your brother-in-law.”
Yes, that did sound like a dream come true. Charlie was already my brother, already my family, and I was actually closer to him than my own sister. It might bring Denise and me closer together. “You’re only focusing on the good, not the bad. If I don’t handle this right, we might lose Kat as a friend. Do you want that?”
His eyes became clouded with irritation. “Of course I don’t. But Jesus Christ, it’s time to move on. Get it done within three days, or I’ll tell her myself.”
It would be way worse coming from him than me. At least with me, she could cry and not be embarrassed about it. At least she could show her full heart without having to contain it. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you said that last time.” He turned back to the kitchen and finished cleaning, giving me the cold shoulder.
Dax came back inside and walked to the sink. “You guys hash it out?” He washed his hands and patted them dry before he turned around to look at us.
“You could say that.” Charlie grabbed his phone and headed to the hallway. “I told Carson to grow some balls.” He was gone from our sight, and his bedroom door shut a moment later.
After Dax watched him walk away, he turned back to me. “Kat?”
I nodded.
“I understand. If I couldn’t be with you, I’d be losing my mind too.” He left the kitchen and moved closer to me, his arms circling my waist and bringing me in close. “Ready for bed?”
“Yes. And I’m not ready to go to sleep…”
“Me neither.”
We went to my bedroom and shut the door behind us. I liked to go to sleep the second we were done with sex, so I did my nighttime routine before, like washing off my makeup and brushing my teeth. I know I didn’t look as good, but he didn’t seem to care. He seemed to want me just the same.
When I came back to bed, I took off my clothes and my panties and crawled into bed beside him, the sheets covering his waist but all his chiseled masculinity visible in the dark bedroom.
Once my back was to the mattress, he was on top of me, between my legs, his weight pressing me into the sheets.
My hands dug into his hair and cradled his face close to mine. “I was going to be on top.”
“You can be on top next time.” He positioned himself and entered, stretching me wide and making me moan. When he was balls deep, he released a masculine sigh, like it was so good to feel me like this. He paused for a moment as he looked at me, our bodies together, our souls wrapped into one.
My arms and legs wrapped around him, and I breathed against his mouth, loving how wonderful it felt to have this man so close to my heart. We hadn’t said those special words to each other since the first time, but I liked it that way. I liked knowing how he felt about me in the silent moments, when he went out of his way to do something for me and I didn’t have to ask, when he looked at me like I was the most special thing in the world. I knew how he felt without his having to say it, and that was better than the actual words.
And he knew how I felt about him, because it was obvious in everything that I did.
3
Carson
My phone rang on my desk in my cubicle at work.
I answered while keeping my eyes focused on the last words I was writing on my laptop. “Boss bitch.”
Vince chuckled. “I want to talk to you in my office.”
“Be there in a sec.” I hung up and spun around in my chair before I got to my feet and walked to the other side of the room.
Charlie intercepted me on the way. “Got plans tonight?” He turned around in his chair so he could face me, wearing a brown jacket with a black shirt underneath.
“Not with you.”
“Not with Dax either, right?”
“Well, I always have plans with him. He’s just my last appointment of the night.” I waggled my eyebrows.
He couldn’t suppress the smile my words caused.
“I’m going to Kat’s later. Don’t expect a happy ending.”
“I’m not. I just want some progress.” He turned around in his chair again and went back to his laptop.
I walked across the floor and entered my boss’s office. “Boss bitch is here. What can I do for you?”
Vince was a laid-back guy who knew how to take a joke. As long as you did your work right and submitted it on time, he couldn’t care less about your professional decorum. He was a great boss. “I’ve got something for you. I know you’re already juggling a couple things, but I thought this would be a good fit.” He set a folder at the edge of his desk, and that motherfucker was thick. It was stuffed with pages and pages.
“As long as it’s not the Lifestyle section, I’m good.” No offense to anyone who was interested in gardening tips, but I didn’t care about stuff like that. I grabbed the folder and took a seat so I could open it and take a look. “The pharmaceutical business.” I nodded slightly. “They’re more corrupt than the mob.”
“Definitely. They’re cutting opioids with dangerous levels of fentanyl, which is causing more people to either overdose or get sick, and then they end up in the hospital. Not only that, but the cost of insulin just increased by three hundred percent. And you know who benefited from that?”
“Oh, I know exactly who. The CEO.” These criminals were amateurs, thinking they could continue shady money moves and nobody would notice. In this day and age, people noticed everything. With the internet, there was no way to be secretive about anything anymore.
He gave me a look of approval. “Bring them down, boss bitch.”
“Oh, I will.” I stood up and flipped my hair before I strutted out of his office. “There’s definitely going to be some death threats.”
“But they won’t be able to shake you down.”
I turned around when I reached his door. “No, honey. I’ll be the one making the death threats.”
Kat and I sat in her apartment and ate the burritos I’d picked up on the way from the office. We sat at the dining table and had a couple of beers since our usual choice of wine wouldn’t pair with our Mexican food.
She seemed to be in mostly good spirits, but there was definitely a sadness to her eyes that never went away, even when she laughed. “I’m really glad you and Dax worked it out. I know what he did was shady, but I get it. I have a lot of rich clients who are super paranoid and private. They don’t want anyone to know they’re rich, and they only socialize with other rich people because they know they won’t care that they’re loaded.”
It was water under the bridge at this point. I forgave him and moved on. He and I were from different worlds, but when we were together, that didn’t really matter. “It’s fine. I’ve let it go. I know he’s more than that.”
“Good. So, now that you’re officially dating a billionaire, what’s it like?”