Public Relations (23 page)

Pressing her thighs together in the elevator now, she swore she could feel him inside her hours later. They’d had sex again in the car outside of Sid’s apartment when Peter dropped her off. Thank goodness for reclining seats, tinted windows, and early winter sunsets. When she’d rung Sid’s bell he hadn’t been home, so she’d used her key and fallen into an exhausted sleep on his sofa.

“Aren’t you taking this roommate lie a little too far, Georgie?”
Sid had asked when he’d flicked on the light and found her there.

She’d blinked open her eyes and seen him standing with a guy who had shoulders like a linebacker. Come to think of it, she might’ve recognized him from American football. A cab at three a.m. wasn’t any easier to catch in Sid’s part of town than it was at rush hour on a Monday morning anywhere else in greater New York City, so she’d called a car service and arrived back at her place at quarter past four in the morning.

Though her sleep schedule was decidedly upside down, she exited the elevator and entered Peter’s foyer with a jaunt to her step. One more key, another juggle of the coffee and folders, and she was inside his apartment. Intending to surprise him in bed, she tiptoed toward the master suite. As she passed the kitchen, the scent of burned toast and the bitter earthiness of espresso tickled her nostrils. She poked her head inside and found Carl studying his laptop screen, a frown on his face.

“Hullo,” she said.

He flicked a glance at her, and his eyes widened.

Oh bugger.

She bet she had a stupid “I’ve been fucked silly” look on her face. Carefully wiping all trace of the smile from her lips, she asked, “Where’s Peter?”

“Shower,” Carl said, staring at her over his spectacles.

Georgia blinked back at him, realizing quite suddenly, the man was actually good-looking. When she got past his geek-chic armor plating, she might even be able to classify him as sexy. Well, if that little puzzle wasn’t a slap on the ass to wake her up. He’d never be as sexy as Peter, at least in her book, but he’d make some woman quite happy indeed.

“You going to come in or just stare?”

Georgia shook off contemplation. Folders deposited on the table, coffees safely out of the cardboard holder, she cleared her throat. “How are you this morning?”

“Just going over some new spots for your boys in the advertising department.” He didn’t look up from his laptop this time.

“Oh! That’s right.”

She’d completely forgotten that Peter had suggested they inject some cash into the paper with high-profile, full-color ads for a few of his subsidiaries. Essentially, the scheme allowed his cash to do double duty as he moved it from one operating expense to another.

She sat and leaned to the side to peer at Carl’s computer. “May I see them?”

Carl scowled at her and shifted his laptop away.

My, somebody is a grumbly Gus this morning
. Fortunately, Peter chose that moment to walk into the room. Already in a dress shirt and tie, his silver cuff links winking against the backdrop of his dark trousers, he looked good enough to eat. It might’ve been a cliché, but truly, her stomach wobbled at the idea of peeling off those clothes and licking whipped cream from the deep gutter she knew ran from just below his pecs through the middle of his abs, to the trail of hair that disappeared into even happier places.

Peter stopped short and stared at her as the gears in his head seemed to go out of sync. Carl cleared his throat. She had that stupid look on her face again, didn’t she? Sitting back a little too quickly, she elbowed a coffee and sent it spraying across the table.

Carl jerked to a standing position, brushing at the wool of his trousers as if they’d caught on fire. “Damn it all, Georgia!”

She stared at Carl, horrified. She’d never been clumsy. Ever. Years of ballet had made sure she wouldn’t trip over a gown in front of the queen. Yet, one weekend with Peter had her playing the ugly duckling and flinging coffee willy-nilly.

Peter strolled to the paper-towel dispenser and drew off a wad. He wet the paper at the sink and pressed the sodden mass into Carl’s hands.

“Use this to mop yourself up. I’ll call someone to get you another pair.” Peter didn’t so much as glance Georgia’s way as he spoke. When he turned, he avoided her gaze altogether and cleared his throat. “Carl and I have a meeting this morning. Emma’s back from vacation, so she’ll be taking notes.”

Georgia’s breath froze. One minute she pulled in oxygen. The next her lungs had turned to solid, useless lumps. Somehow she managed to croak out, “All right.”

Needing to hold out hope, she waited for Peter to face her and acknowledge her in some way. Her fingers clutched the dripping table’s edge. Heedless of the coffee staining her winter-white dress, she studied his profile as he stared out the window and into the distance. He opened his mouth as if to say something. Her heart tripped. He gave a slight shake of his head and turned away.

At the door, he paused. “You’re free to go back to fact-checking.”

No…

No. No. No!

She stared at the empty doorway long after he’d disappeared.

“You shouldn’t have slept with him,” Carl said.

Georgia snapped her head around, surprised to feel tears welling in her eyes. She wasn’t a six-year-old schoolgirl, and she didn’t cry just because men were lying bastards. Hell, she’d known that since the first time she’d walked in on her father with his mistress, and she’d only been eight at the time.

“He needed more time,” Carl explained.

A headache began somewhere behind her sinuses. “What do you mean?”

“He won’t commit if he sleeps with someone too quickly. And he
always
sleeps with them too quickly.” Carl patted at his trousers with the towels, then gave up and tossed them in the trash. “It’s his release valve. Once the sex is out of the way, he doesn’t feel much, I think. Or he won’t let himself feel much.”

“What?” she asked stupidly.

He finally met her gaze. “He let you get too close. You’re history.”

Up and out of the chair faster than the laws of physics allowed, she practically flew down the hall to Peter’s bedroom. Rational thought gave way to the angry
tip tap
of her heels.

“And tell the Loefflers I won’t be able to make dinner on Tuesday.” Peter stepped out of his dressing room, shouldering into his suit jacket, his valet trailing behind him with a lint brush. He stopped short as Georgia stormed up to him.

“Leave us.” She didn’t so much as glance at Miles.

Jaw bunched, Peter straightened his cuffs with angry jerks. “I’ll be right there,” he said in response to his butler’s questioning glance.

The door closed with a soft
snick
behind the man, and Peter turned away to look in the mirror as he straightened his already perfect tie.

“If this is about the paper, don’t worry. I liked your proposal, and I’m working on some things. As long as the employees hold up their end of the bargain, the business should be salvaged.” He faced her. “You might even get a promotion.”

For the second time since she’d known the man, she slapped him. Or would have, if he hadn’t caught her raised wrist in a biting grip.

In the brief seconds she stared at his face, she wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her predicament. She’d walked straight into this man’s trap. She, who’d known,
absolutely known
, who and what he was.

Was this how all his affairs with his mistresses ended? With him carving the relationship into an ice sculpture approximation of what it once had been? Freezing the women out not by degrees, but with a flash blast of liquid-nitrogen proportions? Well, she’d be damned if she’d be one of those women.

She tugged her wrist, intending to leave. When he wouldn’t release her, she jerked harder. Relentless, he stared her down, until she had no choice but to spin around and break his hold with an elbow to his ribs.

His breath rushed out with his
ooph
, but he captured her with an arm around her waist and lifted her off the floor. Back to him, she struggled in earnest, but for every move he had a countermove that ground their bodies together. Heat flooded her sex, pooling to swell her sensitive tissues to painful tightness. Her nipples hardened, and she swore she felt her heartbeat at every erotic pulse point.

“Let me go.”

He spun her and dropped her onto the bed, where she bounced onto her back. He followed her, bearing her down to the mattress. The kiss he tried to press against her lips, she met with her teeth, biting him so hard he jerked his head back and touched his free hand to his mouth. When his fingers came away, there was blood, not only on his digits but in his gaze.

“It’s like that, is it?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

Chest heaving, Georgia met his eyes. “I thought you didn’t come back for seconds?”

He pressed his erection against her thigh. “This is dessert.”

Reaching between them, he unzipped his trousers with one hand and pushed her coffee-stained dress high with the other. Overheated flesh seared her belly. She squirmed. He claimed her wrists, drawing them over her head and forcing her to lengthen her torso. When this had stopped being an argument and started being a game, she couldn’t say. She knew he wouldn’t really damage her, but she wanted to fight him. All the hurt and anger he’d created this morning demanded release.

“You want it?” She spat the question, then ground out, “Earn it.”

With a practiced lift of her knee, she grazed his groin before he rolled away and released her wrists. She launched herself at him, grabbed his hair, and pulled his mouth to hers in a punishing kiss before pushing him away. Though she stood and made for the door, she knew she wouldn’t get far.

One moment the room was right side up, the next she gazed at the world topsy-turvy over the back of the reading chair by the empty slate hearth. He pushed her dress up again, exposing her bottom, and she kicked out. A hard slap on each cheek forced her to forget her legs and rear up. He pressed her down again and moved in behind her so his cock lay against her stinging ass.

Taking a fistful of her hair, he lifted her head with a gentle tug and bent to peer in her eyes. “Want me to fuck you?”

She gulped and nodded, arousal sending her too far around the bend to afford a return ticket. He released her hair with a little push to her head. The sound of a condom wrapper ripping said he at least had the presence of mind not to break his rules. She wondered briefly what it’d take to make him shuck sanity long enough to forgo that detail.

No gentle lover today, he breached her in one long push that hit every sensitive point from her labia to her cervix. He filled her, stretching her so completely she worried he’d split her world and leave her reeling in empty space. Each full-seated thrust jarred her belly against the edge of the chair, artificially creating pressure that he’d used the heel of his hand to encourage the first time they’d fucked at his parents’.

That coming together had been so sweet she’d originally thought of it as lovemaking. She had to think of it as fucking now, or her heart would rear its ugly little head and demand she make something of their time together that he’d never intended. Carl had said Peter used sex to create distance, and in this moment she knew how. With each punishing reentry into her body, she retreated further from emotion and closer to the precipice of physical release.

“Harder!” she demanded.

He complied, using her hips as a point of balance and rearing back to fully withdraw and enter her again. He didn’t bother to touch her clit. He didn’t have to. The jarring force of his penetration vibrated to her core, doing the work his fingers might’ve done. As her orgasm barreled toward her, she arched and absorbed its force. Took its energy within her and sent it hurtling outward once more. By the time the stardust faded and her universe coalesced, Peter was zipping up. Georgia stood. The room tilted as she tugged her dress down. Ankles wobbling, she turned to leave.

“Good-bye, Georgia,” he said.

Her hand spasmed around the doorknob. She swallowed hard and nodded once as she opened the door.

“Coward,” she muttered, though whether to him or herself she didn’t know.

He pressed the door shut with his palm and loomed over her. “Did you just call me a coward?”

She shrugged, too unbalanced to reply.

“You don’t know me,” he said, but for the first time since they’d met, he sounded unsure.

“I know enough.” She didn’t face him. Couldn’t.

God, what a mess.

“Just because I told you—”

“Let me go, Peter. We’re through.” She attempted to open the door, but he pressed it closed again.

“You’re through? With me?” The scoff in his voice rang loud and clear.

This time she did face him and his disbelieving smirk. Oh, how she longed to rip that mask from his face. To hurt him just a little in exchange for the hurt he’d given her.

“Yes, Peter.
I’m
through. With
you
. I don’t have relationships with scared little boys.”

She might not have lifted a finger, but the heat that spread across his cheeks said her verbal slap registered harder than a crack of her palm. As if weighted, his hand slid down the door, releasing the pressure that kept it closed. When it opened to her touch, she stepped through and didn’t look back. She made it all the way to her apartment before the tears began. Once they did, they wouldn’t stop.

Chapter Sixteen

Peter stared at the open doorway Georgia had walked through. Numbness invaded his fingertips, turning his hands into deadweights at his sides. Absently, he lifted his heavy palm and rubbed at his chest. Then he was walking down the hall.

Shock mingled with regret, creating a murky cocktail that filled his stomach with the same leaden heaviness that existed in his limbs. When he entered the kitchen, he looked around at the sterile space and thought perhaps he’d been dumped into someone else’s life. Was this all he really had to show for his efforts? A multimillion-dollar condo and a warehouse full of modern art?

“You could go after her,” Carl suggested.