“What time is it?” She smoothed her hands down his arms, fighting a yawn. He’d kept her up late last night, and she wasn’t quite alert yet.
“Sometime after nine.” He thumbed her nipple even as he leaned in to kiss her again.
She should have been back in Vegas already. Her phone was probably blowing up, and she’d missed her meetings, and her tight timeline was going to be shortened by another crucial day she didn’t have and . . . she didn’t care. Asher’s mouth covered hers and when he pressed between her thighs, she opened for him and didn’t think twice about phones or her father’s wedding.
It was well over an hour later by the time they’d made love again and Greer had showered. She was still yawning as she wrapped a towel around her hair. “I don’t suppose you have a charter plane on call, do you, Asher?” she called out from the bathroom, rubbing a hand on the mirror to see her reflection. “I really should head back soon. I’ve got a million things to do.”
Even as she said the words, she hated them. For a brief, shining moment, she didn’t want to go back to Vegas. Heck, she didn’t even want to return to her own cozy apartment here in the city. She wanted to crawl right back into bed with Asher. It didn’t even matter if they had sex again (though she was certainly game for it if they did). She just wanted to spend time with him, and to touch him and have him touch her back. To feel like someone in a relationship instead of a woman whose normally quiet life seemed to be coming apart at the seams.
Greer pulled the towel off her hair and stared at her reflection. She wore no makeup, and her face was a little raw around the corners of her mouth from kissing—and stubble burn. Her hair was a tangled, wet mess, and her eyes were red from lack of sleep. But she knew that Asher found her sexy. Strange and impossible, but would he be trying so hard if he didn’t?
She realized that she hadn’t heard his response to her question about the charter plane, and wrapped the towel tighter around her body and peeked out of the bathroom. “Ash?”
He had his laptop in bed, amidst the tangle of covers, and was typing furiously. An intense frown of concentration marred his face.
“Ash?” she asked again.
He looked up at her. “What? Sorry. It’s just . . .” he rubbed a hand down his face and groaned. “More work shit. My new CEO has no balls. He wants to schedule another meeting with the department heads in EMEA.”
“EMEA?”
“Europe, Middle East, and Africa. It’s not necessary but he’s emailing me wanting to make sure I’m on board with things.” His head went back as if he was staring up at the ceiling, but his eyes were closed. It was the posture of someone completely defeated. “I’m going to have to be here for another day. Maybe two.”
“Oh.” She was disappointed, of course, but she understood. Sometimes business called, and he had a billion-dollar multinational corporation. “Of course. Don’t worry about the charter plane thing. I’ll just fly coach. Or something.”
“Wait, what? You’re leaving?” He leaped from the bed, and she saw he was still as naked as when she’d left him. Her cheeks pinked at his naked body approaching her, and Asher put his arms around Greer and nuzzled her neck. “I don’t want you to go.”
She chuckled. “I don’t want to go, either, but I’ve really and truly got a ton of work to do.”
Asher didn’t release her. He slid his hands down her back and cupped her ass. “What kind of work?”
“Well, I have a lot of meetings—”
His face lit up. “I have this thing called a phone and a laptop. You’re free to borrow them . . . and stay in my bed.”
Greer rolled her eyes . . . but the idea wasn’t a bad one. There were a lot of meetings and fiddly things to be done, but she had her notes in her email and her email was on her phone, and her laptop was in her bag. She could work remotely and just catch up on things tomorrow. Theoretically. There wasn’t a way for anyone to catch up at this rate, but the lure of staying in New York—and in his bed—was awfully tempting. “I’m not sure . . .”
“Stay,” he insisted, his hands moving over her skin. “I’ll take you into my office and show you around the digs. We can go have lunch together. And then we can come back here and I can have you for dessert.”
“That is the worst line,” she teased.
“Ah, but is it effective?”
It seemed it was, because she decided to stay.
***
The rest of the day was busy, but wonderful. He made her breakfast as she ironed her sad, wrinkled blouse and slacks and put them back on. At least she lived in the same city, and not too far from his apartment. They could run over and grab her a change of clothing before heading into his office. After breakfast, they cabbed out to her apartment, changed clothing, and then headed downtown. Greer typed emails and texted responses frantically with every spare moment, but she didn’t regret her decision to stay, no matter how much Bunni and Tiffi were freaking out because Greer wasn’t there to answer questions about fittings and test-makeup in person.
At Asher’s office—OutSource Everything—things were quiet but busy. He led her into a conference room next to his office and brought her a laptop so she could work while he attended a meeting. After the meeting was done, they regrouped to head to lunch, and Greer found herself giggling into her soup and sandwich as Asher told her a frustrating anecdote from the meeting itself. It seemed that Asher had been running things for so long that he didn’t know how to pass control off to his new CEO—something she pointed out to him. The man kept going back to Asher because Asher had never given him full control and constantly stepped in to handle situations. He didn’t like hearing it, but he didn’t disagree with her, either.