Office Affair (25 page)

With Sienna he’d formulated a long, involved plan in an effort to win her back, and then he’d been forced to change the plan to suit the circumstances that had greeted him on the island. He had no plan with Melissa. Had no time to prepare one. No time to look at his options and pick the best path of attack. He just knew that whatever happened from this moment on he could not lose her. He loved her too damned much to live without her.

Ben sprinted through his door, raced down the corridor and took a right, heading straight for Preston’s office. The exact place Melissa was headed, letter in hand.

He reached her a step away from Preston’s receptionist, wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and without a word of explanation to anyone, hauled her up and carried her into the corridor.

Melissa’s yelp of surprise had people sticking their heads out of their doors all the way down the passage.

Ben didn’t give a damn.

He set Melissa on her feet, flipped her around to face him and backed her against the wall, trapping her with his body, giving her no space to escape.

“Are you out of your mind?” he fumed. “What the hell are you thinking?”

Surprisingly, Melissa didn’t try to escape. She didn’t squirm or wriggle her way out of the prison he’d made by placing an arm on the wall on either side of her head. She didn’t even ask him to release her and let her walk off with some dignity.

“I’m thinking I’m about to start living my life, and I can’t wait. Although…” she looked first at his one arm and then at his other, “…it’s pretty difficult to start anything from this position.”

“So you’re leaving? Just walking away without a backward glance?”

“Of course not. I’ll give the company at least a month’s notice. I’ll stay longer if they need help training someone to take over my position. I might be excited about my new life, but I’m not going to shirk my responsibilities.”

“From me,” Ben growled. “I mean, you’re just walking away from me without a backward glance?”

She scowled at him. “Hardly, Cowley. You have me trapped here. I can’t go anywhere.”

“You don’t fucking get it, do you, Sparks?” Out of sheer frustration, Ben thwacked the wall with his hand. Hard. So hard his palm stung. “I
love
you. I am so goddamned, madly in love with you, I can’t see straight.” Ben’s voice resonated through the offices, echoed in his own ears. “You’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I imagine before I fall asleep. I dream about you. Every single night. I live to see you, at the office, at home, anywhere. I just need to see your face. Hold your body. Touch your skin. I need you, Mel. More than I need air. You can’t walk away from me. You can’t love someone else.”

He gulped in a breath and almost choked on the emotion clogging his throat, so when he spoke again his voice was scratchy, and much, much softer. “I screwed up. I made you choose. And I’m sorry. So desperately, pathetically sorry for that. But I can’t let you go. I can’t let him have you, because you’re mine. You were made for me, like I was made for you. We’re two peas in a pod, sweetness. We’re the same, you and I. We’re meant to be together.”

Melissa gaped at him, her mouth open, her hazel eyes enormous.

“Don’t leave me, Mel.” Now his voice was a rough whisper. The sheer intensity of his emotions sapped the strength to speak any louder. “Please, don’t leave me because I so callously confused you with someone from my past. So stupidly got you mixed up in my head. I know who you are. I know you. And God help me, I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone ever again. Please, just don’t leave. Don’t choose Will, even if I put you into a position to do just that.” He ran out of breath. Ran out of steam. “Please, don’t walk away from me.”

For long, long, long seconds, silence permeated the corridor, interspersed only by Ben’s harsh breathing. The people who had popped their faces out of their doors now stood in suspended silence, listening, waiting. Even Melissa seemed frozen. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Ben’s energy deserted him. His eyes closed in defeat, and his arms dropped to his sides. He couldn’t keep her here, couldn’t trap her in a relationship she didn’t want. What kind of an idiot was he, thinking he could?

“I’m quitting my job, Cowley,” Melissa said, forcing Ben to open his eyes and look at her. “That’s all. I’m leaving work. Changing my lifestyle. I’m not walking away from you. I’m not choosing someone else. That choice was never an option for me. It was one you made up inside that thick head of yours.” She clunked him on his forehead with her knuckles as if to prove her point. “I love you too. I’m stupidly in love with you. Wholly and completely in love with you. It just took me a while to realize it.”

It was Ben’s turn to gape. Ben’s turn to stare at her with enormous eyes, while his heart sat in his throat.

“Oh, come on. You didn’t honestly think that after everything you and I have been through together, I could up and fall in love with another man, did you?”

“I didn’t think at all, Mel. That was my whole problem. I just acted on instinct, assuming you’d respond the same way Sienna did.”

Melissa bristled. She snarled and got in Ben’s face, speaking in a voice so low and so gruff, there was no way anyone else could hear her. “Okay, now you listen up, and you listen good. I’m not her. I’m not Sienna. I don’t look like her, I don’t think like her, and I am tired of hearing you refer to her all the time. If you and I are going to work, if we’re going to stand a chance, you have to give her up. You have to forget about Sienna, because I refuse to spend the rest of my life competing with her for your affections.”

Ben shook his head and gave a helpless laugh. “Sweetness, I gave her up the first time I held you in my arms. Whatever I once felt for her slipped into the past. What I never let go of were the mistakes I made with her. They haunted me, enough that I made the same mistakes with you. The difference is, I’m not letting those mistakes go unacknowledged. I’m not letting them ruin us. I can’t give you up. I can live without Sienna. I can’t live without you.”

“Oh, Cowley.” Melissa sighed. “The only mistake you made was thinking I might be dumb enough to want to choose someone else. Everything else you did, you did to make me happy. I understand that. And I forgive you. Just swear that you’ll never, ever put me in that position again.”

“I swear that from now on I’ll only ever put you in a position you want to be in, Mel. But you’ll never have the chance to choose again, because I don’t believe I can ever share you again. Not with anyone.”

“I’m okay with that,” Mel whispered.

“You are?”

She nodded. “I am.”

And then she smiled. The very smile that lit up his office. Now it lit up his life. He smiled back, and his heart filled with an intense joy the likes of which he hadn’t felt for a very long time. No, correction, the likes of which he’d never felt before.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” a voice called down the passage. “Just kiss her already.”

“Yeah.” Another voice. “Stop buggering around and do it.”

A chorus of “Kiss her!” followed that.

Ben grinned at her. “What do you say, sweetness? You wanna kiss me in front of the entire staff of Preston Elks?”

Melissa grinned right back at him. “There is nothing I’d like more.”

And right there, in the corridor of Preston Elks, they kissed. On the mouth, with tongue, for everyone to see.

About the Author

Apart from her family and friends, Jess Dee loves two things: romance and food. Is it any wonder she specializes in dee-liciously sexy romance? Jess loves hearing from readers. You can email her at
[email protected]
or find her at
www.jessdee.com
.

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Adolescent fantasies can grow into very adult realities.

Island Idyll

© 2011 Jess Dee

Bandicoot Cove, Book 4

Sienna James has come to Bandicoot Cove to mourn the end of her eight-year relationship with Ben Cowley. The last person she expects to meet is the star of every one of her high school fantasies.

Joshua Lye is not only as appealing as he was in high school, he reveals she was the main feature in his adolescent wet dreams. As kids they never got it together. But they’re adults now, and there’s nothing keeping them apart.

When Ben arrives at the resort determined to win Sienna back, finding another man in her bed kind of throws a spanner in the works. But he isn’t deterred. Rather than admit defeat, he comes up with an alternative plan: Let Sienna sleep with both men—at the same time. Then she can make an informed decision as to which man she wants.

Sienna shouldn’t want to go through with this shockingly sexy plan, but she does. Desperately. Except after the sexual storm passes, she could have it all…or be left holding an empty heart.

Warning: Contains a suggestion beyond risqué, a solution beyond orgasmic, and two men who know how to play dirty. Really,
really
dirty.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Island Idyll:

“My room is just down there.” She pointed, her voice breathless.

Ah. A beachside bungalow. Figured. Kylie would have saved the best for her best friends. His own suite was situated in the staff quarters. Nothing to sneeze at, but a million miles away from here. “Condoms are in my room,” he told her, wondering why the fuck he didn’t carry one around in his pocket at all times.

New rule. From this second on always carry a condom. Always. No question.

Her lips curved into a sexy grin. “I have some.”

He faltered midstep. “You do?”

“There’s a box in the bathroom. Compliments of the hotel.”

“So, they’re not yours?”

She shook her head.

Unquestionable relief stole through him. They weren’t hers. Which meant she hadn’t come here with the intention of having sex.

“I didn’t think to bring any,” she confessed. Her lips twitched as she looked on ahead, steering him towards her bungalow. “I don’t usually use condoms with my vibrator.”

Josh tripped. Over his own feet. Fuck, she hadn’t even blushed when she’d said that.

Sienna turned to steady him. “You okay?”

Christ, the way her eyes danced, mischief painted all over her delectable face, her freckles standing out… “You said that on purpose,” he accused. “Just to get a reaction out of me.”

Why on earth had he ever thought her eyes were the color of a summer sky? Right now they looked black. Her pupils were enormous, dark spheres rimmed with navy.

“Did I get a reaction?” she asked with the tiniest hint of a smirk.

Jesus, what happened to the naïve kid he’d known in school? “Did you want one?”

She shrugged sweetly. “Only if it promises more satisfaction than my vibrator.”

Enough.

He couldn’t take another second of her teasing. Of her subtle scent that drifted through his nose with hints of cinnamon. Of her creamy white skin, so silky, just begging to be touched. He couldn’t take one more second.

With more speed than he knew he possessed, he backed her up against the trunk of a palm tree, stepped in close—so close she’d have no doubt of the satisfaction his response could provide—and slanted his mouth over hers.

The little minx was ready for him, her lips soft, warm, welcoming and…parted.

Holy fuck!
She’d parted her lips for him, inviting his tongue in, leaving the hot, sweet cavern of her mouth open to his exploration.