Page 9 of Maneater
FOUR
ROWAN
The first time I met Josie, I was enamored.
The second time, I was annoyed.
This is the twenty-second time I’ve bumped into her. Each time I left feeling slightly different, but this is the first time I’m leaving with blue balls.
Never in my life have I regretted my job or the way I’ve pushed every personal want and desire aside to continue to climb the ladder, but there is a first time for everything. Because right now, my phone is sounding off with the ringtone for the line my assistant is only to use if and when there is an emergency. Sutton is probably pacing her apartment right now, sending every curse she can think of my way for not answering immediately, but I can’t find it in me to care.
An extra minute in this woman’s presence isn’t going to impact whatever the issue is. So instead of answering, I reach over to the desk and grab Josie’s panties that I threw there earlier. I have to send Dante a bottle of something really nice for letting me use his office as I kneel before her, stretching them for her to step back into.
I’ve never been on my knees for a woman, but my fucking god, the way she looks down at me like she knows she could own me if sheasked nicely makes my already hard cock throb. She lifts a leg, placing it into the underwear before repeating the move with her second, and slowly, gently, reverently, I slide the fabric up her legs, making sure to graze my thumb along her pussy as I do.
Yeah. Still wet.
Fuck this job.
I make sure the black lace thong is situated perfectly on her hips before tugging the hem of her dress back down, all the while ignoring my phone and standing. Then I pull her into my arms, taking in her sweet, floral perfume. I’ve smelled it a dozen times when I’ve interrupted one of her many dates with colleagues and acquaintances, the scent of it haunting me each time.
Just like the woman now in my arms.
“Your number,” I murmur, pressing my lips to her neck, her pulse thrumming against my skin. I haven’t ever felt such a pull to a woman like this, this undeniable need to touch her, to taste her. Considering that no woman has interested me enough to make me put my work aside for even a moment, this feels monumental.
Despite myself, I want more of her. It feels like an idiotic move to let this go. I like the way she pushes my buttons and the way I can push hers back without her getting offended. I like the way that she’s clearly attracted to me yet doesn’t throw herself at me like some women I encounter do.
The truth is, I could get any woman I wanted, but I never jump at the offers. That would be far too simple. Instead, I want the one who incites a violently possessive need in me each time I see her sitting across from some other man I know is an ass.
“Give me your number. We’ll finish this another time. We’ll have a real dinner and drinks.”
And then I’ll take you home to a real bed and fuck you until you’re out of my system.
“No,” she whispers, a bit of a tease in the word before she steps back. The room is dim, but I can see a smile playing on her lips as my phone continues to ring shrilly. Each one is a reminder that normally,I’d push whoever I’m with aside to answer it, but for the first time since I started working at Daydream Resorts, someone else holds the priority.
“No?” I ask, confused. Her smile widens as she takes another step back, her hands moving to her clothes to straighten the skin-tight dress I would do just about anything to be able to tear off of her.
There’s something so magnetic about her, something that pulls me so when I saw her sitting across from Stephen Jones months ago, I knew I needed to talk to her. Josie is nothing like the women who fawn and faint around me, batting their lashes and pouting their lips. Instead, she challenges everything I say and practically begs me to argue with her, instantly knowing how to press my buttons in ways I shouldn’t like, but I do all the same.
“If you want me bad enough…a big, powerful man like you…you’ll find me.”
The words, like everything about her, are so unexpected, they stop me in my tracks. “Find you?”
She’s fluffing her hair as she reaches for the bag I didn’t realize had slid to the floor when we entered, a playful smile on her lips. That’s when it hits me: she’s really going to leave without giving me her number.
She shrugs before responding. “Yeah. If you want me, find me.”
“I don’t chase women,” I say, my mind muddled with the incessant fuckingringingand the way she’s staring at me and the throbbing of my cock that should be deflating, but my god, she’s still in the room. I can still feel the ghost of her on my fingers, still hear her breathy moans in my ears.
“Well, then, thank you for the orgasm, Rowan.” That smile has gone wide as she reaches for the doorknob.
Despite my better thinking, I stand quickly, reaching her and pinning her to the wall beside the door before she can leave. That smile is still playing on her pink lips, and it takes everything in me not to kiss her again.
“You’re really not going to give me your number?”
“You’re really not going to put in the effort to find me?” she counters in a whisper.
“I’m a busy man, Josie. I don’t have time for games.”
