Page 55 of Rival Hearts

Alex was still pumping into me, and the pressure built inside me again, even after the intense orgasm; his movements were becoming more frantic. He growled, grabbed my hips, and held me against him, slamming into me hard and fast, and he cried out.

The sound of his pleasure sent me over the edge, and I cried out again, a strangled moan. An orgasm exploded inside me.

Alex gritted his teeth, grunted, hands on my hips as he hammered into me. His strokes shortened, and he picked up his pace yet again, and I knew he was close.

I clenched my walls around him, and he cried out, his cock throbbing. He buried himself inside me, his cock pulsing, his hips still jerking as he emptied himself into the condom.

We were both breathing hard, and neither of us spoke. We were both trying to recover.

Alex pulled out, and I straightened, my legs like jelly.

I turned to look at him. His gaze slid over my face. His lips were parted, jaw slack, satiated, and he looked at me like he was trying to commit this moment to memory.

He lifted his hand and brushed my hair out of my face, stroking his fingers through it, before he took my chin gently between his thumb and forefinger and kissed me. The kiss was sensual, careful, nothing like what I’d expected from him in the aftermath of wild, forbidden sex in his office.

“I should go,” I whispered. I hated breaking the spell, but reality was starting to set in and a little voice screamed at the back of my mind.

Where could we possibly go from here?

He was still Alexander Blackwood, CEO of a mega yacht company I was trying to rally against and Gabe’s best friend. And I was still Charlotte Reynolds, leader of an activist campaign, and Gabe’s little sister.

“I wish you didn’t,” he said. “If you leave here…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. If I left here, none of this would have been real.

I pulled away from him and looked for my clothes strewn across his office floor.

“You should come to see me next week,” Alex said, finding his boxers and pulling them on.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We can’t do this again, Alex.”

“I didn’t mean for sex.” I couldn’t decipher his tone. “I mean, so you can see how we do things and maybe even give me some pointers.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because maybe I’m not doing everything the way I should. And maybe… I want to…” His words faded again.

“You want to?” Hope flickered in my chest. Maybe he wanted to see me again?

Alex cleared his throat. “I just want to do the right thing.”

The little flicker of hope died out again.

“I’ll have my brother come with us so we can look at designs, too.”

Right. We weren’t going to be alone. And why would we? We weren’t together. We weren’t supposed to be. This was how it was meant to go down—me learning about the company and the Blackwood brothers willing to yield.

This was a win, right?

When I was dressed, we made a date and time, and I left the office. My body hummed in the aftermath of our sex, and I wished I could go home with him, cuddle, do something other than discuss business.

But this was the right thing to do. If I could get Alex to change his ways, maybe other companies would follow. The whole point of the campaign was to raise awareness, and it was working.

Was he doing it because I’d slept with him? The thought came with a pang.

No, that wasn’t what this was. I shook off the thought, but the lines were starting to blur. He was the enemy. But if he was trying to make amends, trying to do something different, did that put us on the same side?

And if it did, did that mean we could be together?

It wasn’t right of me to go there. I was getting too involved, too distracted. I wasn’t focusing on the right things. I wasn’t here for personal gain—that would make me just like them. I was here to make a difference, and if Alex Blackwood wanted to work with me to bring about a change, that was a good thing.