Page 30 of Healing Conviction
She was about to tailspin into a babbling spiral again, so he decided to get to the point. They’d been dancing around each other since the day he woke up. It was time for them to face the music.
“Nora?”
“—get me all flustered and I don’t—”
“Nora.”
“What?”
“Do you like me?”
Her mouth hung open again and this time, the vision of sliding his cock in between those plump lips made him readjust his position on the bed. She immediately darted her gaze to his hardening dick and swallowed before answering.
“You can’taskthings like that. What if I were to just straight up ask, ‘Hey Drake, do you like me?’”
“I’d say yes.”
“Dude!You just freakin’sayhow you feel. How in the whole wide world do you do that?”
“If I want to say something, I do. If I want to do something, I do that, too. Life’s too short to hold back. I had to lose a year to realize that, but it’s my motto now.”
She huffed a relenting chuckle. “You don’t say much, but when you do, you sure make it count, don’t you, handsome?”
With one more look at the empty space on the bed, she shook her head and plopped onto the mattress beside him. After a moment of getting comfortable on her side, she removed her glasses and set them on the bedside table. A tense silence settled over them.
He turned to face her back and fought the urge to pull her in tight. Her black hair fell over the pillow, revealing the piercings in her ears she’d kept covered at the restaurant. Without thinking, he reached out, tracing around every metal hoop and stud along the shell, and reveled in sparking a full-body shiver. She was denying it for some reason, but her body sensed the electricity between them just as much as his did. When he finished the trail, he slipped his hand underneath his head.
“You didn’t hate that,” he stated, already knowing.
“No.” Her voice was cautious, like she was steeling herself for the conversation. “It’s more about… breath. I don’t, um, like lips or hot breath, near my ears.” She rolled over and smiled while she traced his ear. “I liked this, though. No one’s ever done that before.”
“No one’s ever done that before.”
So, what the fuck has someone done to you, Pix?
His chest burst with the need to ask more questions, but her eyes closed and her breaths grew even with sleep almost instantly. He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling.
She hadn’t answered whether she likedhim, but she liked the way he touched her. That would have to be enough for now.
CHAPTERELEVEN
“This is our opportunity, Gail. I would do it myself, butyou’rethe CEO. We need to take it.”
Do we though?
Gail Haynesworth had been asking herself questions like that a lot lately. Her life had always been about swift decision-making and absolutes. She’d fought for every single minuscule scrap of power and independence that had jettisoned her through the proverbial glass ceiling to the top of her field. Starting a company that aided people across the globe had been nothing but a pipe dream in her business school days. Never in her worst nightmares did she imagine how painful shattered expectations are to walk on.
And where am I even going?
“I’m sorry Stefan, I’m not sure that going after these people is the right move. With what happened at the last party, we need to lie low for a while. If things go wrong when we find them, there’ll be no saving face.”
Stefan Ricker, the chief operating officer for Charitable Technologies International, stood before her desk, his thick, salt-and-pepper hair slicked back and his suit crisply dry cleaned, expertly tailored on his tall, thin body. He oozed arrogance and privilege, with not even a hint of remorse for screwing their whole company over three years ago.
And why would he feel guilty? He wasn’t the one suffering the consequences. This was all his fault, butshewas the one having to clean his mess. And once she went down for it, he’d swoop right in and take her place to fix it right up.
She should’ve fired him when she first realized he was gunning for her job. He’d been eager—maybe too eager—and had begged for the chance to work for one of the best nonprofit companies in the world. She’d hired him, despite her own reservations, and before she knew it, he was taking board members out to golf, divining better relationships with a single beer than she’d ever hoped to create among the good ol’ boys.
She’d sat on her suspicions for too long, though, and before she could act on them, the company was no longer complying with its nonprofit status and was suddenly involved in a lawsuit that never should’ve seen the inside of a courtroom. If she’d been paying closer attention, she would’ve realized the whole thing had been contrived.