First Comes Love - Ashlee Price Page 0,52

real, those three words, than anything I’ve ever said to any other girlfriend or lover, words uttered just to meet milestones, expectations.

Harley is, being with her is… different.

A knock on the door has us sprawling apart.

“Fuck,” I mutter, clambering into my pants.

More knocks follow.

“Mr. Storm?” Madeline’s officious voice drawls. “Are you in there?”

“Yes, Madeline!” I say, in my most normal voice. “Just finishing up the final cut. Can’t be disturbed. Will be out in five.”

“Well.” I can almost hear the gears grinding in her head. She knows. “It is pretty urgent.”

“Five minutes,” I snap, and then, thank fuck, hear the angry clack of her heels against the floor as she leaves.

“I could’ve been ready in like two, maybe,” Harley says, grinning lopsidedly.

I take one look at her and bust out laughing. “What… Why?”

Somehow, she’s gotten her bra looped around her head, her blouse bunched up at her stomach.

“I panicked.” Her smile is helpless and adorable and makes me want to kiss her. “I just… can you help me?”

I chuckle as I go over there to help undo her bra. “Don’t know how much help I’ll be. Women’s clothing isn’t exactly my expertise.”

“Nah, women’s pleasure is.” She winks at me, and this time I can’t help it: I do kiss her.

The just-a-second kiss extends into a drawn-out lip-lock, then a series of them. Then my hands are re-finding her breasts and she’s pulling away, half-moaning but also saying, “Greyson.”

“Shit.” I rip myself away. “Sorry.”

She adjusts her clothes and smooths her hair. “Do I look OK?”

One look and again all of me is clenching to hold in what I want to do to her.

“OK isn’t the word, but you look presentable, which is the important part, I guess.”

“You guess?” she teases.

I say nothing, because anything more and my cock is going to get even harder.

“It’s time to go,” I say coolly.

“Read my mind,” she returns easily.

We leave the room separately. I don’t look back.

The rest of the day is a dull blur, brightened only by my glimpses of her and the cold hard knowledge that this is how things have to be.

Chapter 24

Harley

“OK, Anchovy, I know you aren’t crazy about the long grass, but I promise, there are no snakes here. This is Toronto, not Alabama.”

Anchovy responds by flopping on his belly and not moving. I give his avocado-print leash a little tug to no avail.

“You goon,” I grumble. “C’mon, I need this. Hannah’s on a date with the Most Handsome Man Alive, and I’m tired of hopping every time my phone goes off.”

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the text I was expecting actually came through. The text from Greyson, that is.

Instead, I’ve run across the room and snatched up my phone for such important notifications as:

a) A pleasant memory of Anchovy frolicking in the sand two years ago

b) Some misplaced, misspelled spam for Viagraa

c) A Nigerian prince offering me $1,000,000,000,000 if I would only give him my bank account information, seven Google Play cards and my grandmother’s address.

It’s stupid. I know how this can go. Greyson is my boss. Nothing can happen.

And yet, so much has happened already.

Part of me was sure that our exotic, crazy-hot affair was linked to the exotic place we were in, that it’d fizzle out once we got back here. But the hot sex and sweet night we had on the rooftop, the wild sex and chemistry we felt in the office—I feel more attracted to him now, if anything.

Ugh! Why is it the one man I want is the one I can’t have?

I’m about to sit down in frustration when I notice that Anchovy is pulling on the leash, apparently now finally ready to get going on our field romp.

“About time,” I mutter.

I’m glad for a distraction, and Anchovy is probably the cutest distraction alive: the way he bounds down the pathway happily, stopping every so often to scrutinize an odd-shaped rock or a tasty-looking ant. He’s so distracting that I only realize on the third ring that the ringing is actually coming from my phone. I get out my phone just in time to see the call end. The call from Greyson.

“Shit.”

Next second, though, he’s calling again.

“Ooh, two calls in a row, is this an emergency?” I joke, picking up.

“Depends on your definition of emergency.”

“What’s yours?”

“I want to see you. Now, if you can.”

“What—I’m supposed to drop everything and come to you? You gave me quite the brush-off today, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Is office sex your definition of a brush-off?” he