Page 43 of With Wine Comes War

“Ok, time to get to it, so get out, I gotta get to work.”

Amelia said, “Well, have fun at lunch with Alex in the penthouse.” She rolled her eyes and nodded at Harrison.

“I’ll just go talk to Amelia out here.” Harrison said as he pointed to the reception area. I’m sure he was going to grill her on why Alex was in my penthouse.

“Good. Bye.” I raised my voice as I waved them out the door.

All I had were phone conferences this morning before lunch, they usually end early. Harrison might actually have a point about making Alex see that she doesn’t want me to be with anyone else. Amelia might also be right that we’re already a bit fucked up and that might just be throwing gasoline on the fire. Jesus, what am I doing? Maybe I just need to let her go. If she comes back it was meant to be and ifshe doesn’t I can just move on. This is not helping at all. We need less of this drama, not more.

Once back at her desk, Amelia sent a call from Grant Johnson through.

“Good morning, Grant.”

“I don’t know what you did, but she’s coming back to the office and taking over the project.” Thank God she called him.

“I was just honest with her and told her you and Matt needed help.” I said as I got all the papers on the desk in order for the rest of the day.

“Well, it worked, and I know she’s going to put 100% into it.”

I chuckled. “She actually told me she was all in.” That’s great news. I’m glad she made that call.

***

“Did you go to the gym today?” I asked as I put my arm around her shoulder getting into the elevator as we left for lunch. I realized I did it without thinking but noticed she didn’t pull away this time so I didn’t flinch and just let it seem normal.

“I did and I took your advice and soaked in the hot tub after. It really did the trick. I’m a lot less sore than I was this morning.”

Damn, wish I had been there.

“Good, glad you finally listened to me.” I glanced down at her with a smirk on my face as she rolled her eyes. That annoyed the shit out of me.

“What’s with the eye rolling?” Ugh, and the irritation in my voice?

“Sorry, it’s an allergic reaction to arrogance.” Sarcasm at its finest, great. Guess I should’ve seen that coming. Sounds like she’s feeling better though.

“You know what the cure for it is?” She crossed her arms and gave me that‘whatever’look. I might be about to cross a line here.

“I can only imagine. What is it?” She muttered while rolling her eyes as exaggeratedly as she could.

“You over my knee and my hand connecting with that bare ass of yours.” Her laughter was usually music to my ears but this sounded like something else.

“You think that’s punishment? Do you know what I put myself through at training? I welcome a spanking. That would be like a relaxing massage.” She continued to laugh and I couldn’t help but laugh at that point.

“I don’t want to punish you, but I do enjoy smacking your ass.” I didn’t think about that damn training that left bruises all over her. The last thing I wanted to do was contribute to that– even jokingly and I didn’t know if we were really past her trauma yet.

She smiled back and licked her lips before professing, “Maybe we can do that later.” Oh shit how do I get out of the meetings for the rest of the day? And what the hell happened to her today that turned this Alex on?

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” The look in her eyes was smoldering.

“Holding me to something could be fun while you do that.” What the fuck? I was supposed to be the one controlling this conversation. This is definitely new territory for me. But that seems like a ticking time bomb or just crazy hot sex.

When the elevator opened, I grabbed her wrist and hurried up and got us in the car.

“Look, I’m going to play your fucked up head game, or whatever this is, until you’re ready to tell me what’s really going on.” I had both hands on the wheel staring out of the windshield.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Bullshit. Something is definitely going on.

“You don’t get to make up any rules either.” I could see her out of the corner of my eye sitting sideways staring at me like she was daring me to do something.

---