Liz Talley - His Forever Girl

“Right.” He pulled her atop him, sighing as she allowed her legs to fall to either side of his hips. With her breasts plumped against his chest and her smiling eyes studying him, he almost believed he could fall in love with a woman in less than twenty-four hours.

Lifting his hips, he teased her with his stirring erection. “Ah, Tess, you might kill me tonight.”

“Then we’ll die happy.” She lowered her mouth to his, dropping tiny kisses against his lips. “I don’t want morning to come. Let me have these hours.”

He cupped her ass and moved her against him. He wanted to be inside her again. But not yet. Not until he tasted every inch of her. Not until he made her shudder and arch against him. Not until she screamed his name, grabbed the sheets and lost every ounce of sanity she possessed.

He might be a geeky engineer, but he was a determined geeky engineer who prided himself on his attention to detail...and he was about to get it so right with Tess.

Flipping her, he pulled himself back, staring at her in the faint light before dropping his head and tugging her nipple into his mouth. He glanced up as she sighed and closed her eyes. Minutes later after making her writhe beneath him, he slid down her soft belly. “Your appetizer was good, baby.”

Her only response was a moan. Graham ducked his head and rained kisses around her belly button. “But I’m hungry for dessert.”

“Oh, sweet—” Tess arched against him as he slid lower.

“You taste so good,” he murmured, his hands lifting her hips.

Tess’s hands slid to his hair, fisting in the depths. “Graham.”

He sighed as he lowered his head and dropped kisses along her hip bone. “I’m so glad I walked into that bar and saw you. It’s like getting the sweetest of gifts, Tess.”

“Oh, Graham,” she begged, wiggling her hips. “Please—”

And so he gave her what she wanted.

* * *

BY THE TIME Tess slid from her bed, she’d managed a good hour or two of sleep and that was it. She’d be toast for her meeting, but she had no regrets.

All night, she and Graham had laughed, dreamed and made love on those new sheets, and it had been the most wonderful night of her life.

Seriously.

She’d had lovers—ever since she’d let Justin Hogue go all the way with her the night of her senior prom—but she’d never had one like Graham. She couldn’t believe how good they’d been together. Everything he did felt ten times more incredible than with any other guy. Tess had hit the jackpot with the unlikeliest of guys, and it felt a little surreal...and maybe a little scary. Sex had never been so mind-blowing before.

She glanced at the suit folded on the funky polka-dot chair that matched her apple-green duvet and smiled. Buttoned-up, wing-tip boy. Who’d have thought?

Joy bubbled inside her as she walked naked into the bathroom and turned the knobs in the shower. Waiting for the water to heat, she glanced back and found Graham still asleep, sprawled on his stomach, the sheet barely covering his splendid backside.

She stepped into the marbled shower stall and sighed as the hot water coursed down her body. Minutes later she felt two arms slip around her.

“Got room for me?” he murmured in her ear, causing goose bumps to shiver down her length.

She turned, wrapping her arms around his neck and grinning at him as he brought her body against his. “Always.”

“You’ll change your tune when I use all your hot water.”

“I have a tankless hot water heater. I don’t run out.” She rocked her hips against his.

“Oh, my naughty Tess. We could have some fun in here, huh?”

Wiggling her eyebrows, Tess turned and handed him the loofah. “Do my back?”

“As long as I can also do your front.”

Tess sighed and the shower that normally took her ten minutes stretched into twenty-five.

Finally, wrapped in a fluffy robe, Tess stood cradling a steaming mug of coffee in her kitchen. Graham walked in, towel tucked around his waist.

“When do you leave?” she asked, pulling a carton of eggs from the depths of her mostly empty fridge. If she had some onion and spinach, she could make an omelet. But, alas, only a few cartons of yogurt and a pint of creamer.

“As soon as I take a cab back to my car.”

“Don’t bother with a cab. Since I have a meeting with a client today, I’m not taking my bike. I can drop you off.”

He smiled and something in her chest grew warm. “Damn, I thought I would ride on your handle bars, but I guess since I have to wear my suit...”

“Handle bars? I totally have a basket you could sit in,” she joked.

“Hope it’s still there.”

“The suit or the car?” she said, grabbing a pan from the dish rack.

“Both,” he said, sliding his arms around her and dropping a kiss on her ear. “Is it going to sound totally crazy to say this was the best night I’ve had in forever?”

She leaned back into him. “No. I feel like we’ve known each other for longer than a day. It’s strange, but I’m loving it.”

“Yeah, I’m loving it, too. This feels right. I can’t wait to come back to New Orleans. I can’t wait to take you out in that black dress and then bring you back here and take it off.”

Tess set the eggs and pan on the stove and turned in his arms, lifting on her toes so she could kiss him. “I can’t wait for you to come back, either.”

Kissing her thoroughly, Graham smiled at her, his blue eyes full with something deeper than she expected. “I’m going to get the job, and then we’re going to celebrate. This is a fate thing. I can feel it in my bones.”

“You think so?” Tess searched his eyes, afraid they were going too fast. After all, though she knew every inch of his body, she didn’t know much else about him. There was no room for talk of something serious, right? Just because they’d fit together so well, just because he’d made her heart gallop, her body sing and her soul shine brighter, didn’t mean they were moving toward the L word.

No. Tess couldn’t allow herself to go over the cliff after one night with a man. That was movie crap. Not real life.

But when she looked at Graham, she could almost believe in love at first sight.

“I know so,” he said, kissing her again, taking away any doubts she had about a guy walking into a bar and tying a girl up in ribbons of fate.

Tess pulled herself away and jogged to the bar between the kitchen and living area. Picking up her phone, she handed it to him. “Here. Put your info into my phone. Where’s yours? I’ll put in mine.”

They tapped the info into each other’s phones. He handed Tess her phone and she set it on the bar and directed him to the table. “I’m not the greatest of chefs but I can manage eggs and toast. Then I have to run. I need to go by my office before my meeting at nine o’clock.”

“That’s fine. I need to get going, too. I’m stopping by Emily’s school and I need to hit Houston before rush hour. And you never told me where you work. Is it—”

The harsh shriek of the teakettle going off interrupted him. Tess turned around and snatched it off the burner, accidently touching the hot kettle to her wrist.

“Ow!” She set the kettle on another burner and ran some cold water over her arm. Total klutz...or maybe she was nervous about talking about taking whatever this was to another level...or maybe she was scared it was all too good to be true.

“Let me get ice,” he said, scrambling to the freezer.

Thirty minutes and two pieces of burnt toast later, Tess stood outside her apartment dressed in her best go-to-meeting business dress that happened to match the deep pink burn on her wrist. Graham wore his suit, tie stuffed in pocket, shirt open at the neck. His tousled dark hair made him look exactly what he was—a businessman who’d gotten lucky...and not much sleep.

To Tess he looked terrific.

They kissed, a slow, sweet kiss laden with goodbye and tinged with possibility.

“I’ll call you soon,” he said.

“Good,” she said, running a hand along his jaw. “I’ll be waiting.”

CHAPTER FOUR

A month later

FRANK ULLO SHOVED the lab report from his oncologist’s office into the top drawer and spun his chair toward the bulletin boards. Pinned up were various sketches of Mardi Gras floats dated from 1967 to present. Elaborate plans cobbled together into breathtaking beauty. His life’s work sprawled across a wall—a reminder of what he’d built and sustained...and what he was about to hand over to the man sitting on the other side of his desk.

Doubt fluttered in his gut before he centered himself. He had to keep emotion out of this decision. Had to remember what he did now was for the best...even if it was a bit chickenshit of him.

Then he touched the photo on his desk as he often did. A tap for luck. In the silver frame smiled three dark-headed teenaged boys and a fierce little girl who snarled at the camera. Frank cherished this particular picture of his other life’s work: his children. Each boy stared back at him, intelligent, smirking with their father’s Italian temperament. Their chins jutted out with their mother’s Irish stubbornness.

And centered in the middle was Therese, his Tess.

His hellion with dark blond hair and eyes blazing a path to the heart. A difficult child, Tess challenged everyone around her as much as she blessed them with her warmth. The girl never took no for an answer and wrapped her older brothers around her proverbial pinky. Tess was never a princess...more like a bruiser in soccer cleats with a crooked hair bow and bandages on her knees. Tess—his sunshine girl with an unceasing passion for all she did.

And he felt very, very sure she would hate his guts for what he was about to do.

He tapped the photo again, making sure it faced him. Then picking up the phone, he dialed Billie. “Hey, ring Therese. I need to talk to her.”

Billie gave him her usual monotone. “Whatever you want, Boss.”

Frank pressed his hands against the ink blotter and looked across his desk at Graham Naquin, the man he’d hired to become the next chief executive officer of Frank Ullo Float Builders. “This ain’t gonna be easy. My vice president of operations don’t know about this.”

Graham folded his hands across his stomach and squared his chin. He was maybe too handsome for this job, too slick and together. Doubt nickered at Frank, but he squashed it.

“It’s never easy for employees to accept change,” Graham said. “My coming on board will take some adjustment but I’m determined this will work. I’m a good fit.”

“You are. But this employee’s a little different because she’s my daughter.”

Mr. Spit and Polish actually grew green around the gills. “Your daughter—who is the VP of Operations—doesn’t know you’re hiring me to run the company? Don’t you think you should have told her before you hired me?”

Frank didn’t like to be questioned, but Graham wasn’t altogether wrong in his comment. “Yeah, but I got my reasons. She ain’t ready to run a company. I’m not saying she’s deadweight or anything. She’s good at her job, but she don’t have the head for making tough decisions. And let’s face it, we still live in a man’s world.”

Graham’s eyes widened and he got kinda choky-looking. Briefly Frank wondered, yet again, if he’d missed the boat on the whole equality thing.

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with this situation, Frank. You should have been up front about her earlier. I’d rather not start the job with animosity in the workplace. Transparency is always best in business dealings.”