Page 49 of Fighting Gravity

“We talked through all our issues today. I needed that. And he finally agreed to step down as CEO and let me take the title.”

She leaned over to squeeze his thigh. “I’m glad, on both counts. You earned the CEO role. And family is important.” She understood, because hers was still broken.

Rosie still had no idea why her sister had been skulking around her office, why she’d spent her birthday dinner stubbornly silent, or even why she’d started doing drugs in the first place. Forget astrophysics or California building codes. Her sister was the biggest mystery of all.

Inside, they made their way together to the second floor of the ancient municipal building. Rosie even let herself hold Tate’s hand in the elevator. He swept aside her loose hair and kissed her neck in response. She breathed a not-safe-for-work sigh as the doors opened. Tate’s answering chuckle was laden with desire.

She approached the counter, where a young woman sat at a computer, fingers flying as she typed what had to be more than one hundred words per minute.

“Hi, Rosie.”

“Hi, Lily. Tate and I are here for our permit review with Chris.”

Tate looked at her questioningly.

She shrugged as Lily got on the phone. “I chose to hold a pre-application appointment. If you treat the city as part of your team rather than a last stop, it’s easier to get projects built.”

The gratitude in his eyes went straight to her gut. At their sides, his fingers brushed hers. Was it the suit, the love in his eyes, or the fact that she hadn’t felt his body flush with hers for a few weeks that had her aching?

“Chris’ll be out in a sec,” Lily chirped. “Have a seat if you want.”

They chose adjacent chairs that were worn and hard. They were silent for a few minutes while they waited. Then Tate leaned over. “Can I take you out after this meeting? We’re all dressed up with nowhere to go.” He dropped his voice. “I need more time with you. There’s never enough.”

Rosie kept her gaze on Lily’s reception desk. “What do you have in mind?”

He didn’t hesitate. “The Saloon. I’m going to buy you three beers and see if you’ll let me kiss you up against the building again.”

Rosie giggled and chanced a look at his face. His dancing eyes nearly did her in. She was ready to climb in his lap and kiss him as wantonly as Elle wanted her to.

“The kiss outside The Saloon will forever stand as the best kiss of my life,” he told her.

“Will it?” she teased. “What about the jet?” That kiss had ended in sex. Mind-bending, neutron-star-exploding sex.

He groaned. “Despite the happy ending, the beginning of that evening was a nightmare. No, The Saloon wins. What do you say to beer, darts, and trying to top that kiss?”

Chris popped out then, a disheveled man with Crocs and too-loose jeans. One side of his glasses was taped.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” Rosie whispered, standing. She tried not to laugh at his grumble.

After their lengthy yet productive page-turn meeting with Chris, they both left smiling. Rosie’s team had very few errors to fix on the drawings before the city would stamp its approval and Tate’s hotel would break ground.

“Thank you,” he said when they were back in the elevator. He drew her against him, running his hand through her hair, a soothing sensation that had Rosie melting into him. “I was totally thrown when Elle said we needed a hotel, but you handled the process so beautifully.”

“This project is one of my favorites so far. I can’t wait to walk through it.”

Rosie knew it wasn’t just the space aspect of Hotel Astra that made the project so rewarding. It wasn’t that her team had met an impossible deadline or that they’d incorporated a quote from Carl Sagan. She’d designed the project in part with her lifelong best friend. And Hotel Astra had brought her to Tate.

“I can’t wait, either.” His lips brushed against the pulse on her neck. “And I can’t wait to have you naked and screaming in one of the rooms.”

Rosie laughed as if his bold statement hadn’t flooded heat through her core. She leaned in until their lips were touching. “Yes to drinks and darts. And yes to kissing you up against that dirty old bar.”

His lips crashed into hers. The tangle of their tongues was brief, but her body blazed.

“What about staying the weekend with me?”

How could she say no to a man who could burn her to the ground while making her feel so safe? The bloom in her belly released, a knot loosening.

“Fine. Yes to the weekend, too.”

---