Home > Night After Night (Seductive Nights #1)(37)

Night After Night (Seductive Nights #1)(37)
Author: Lauren Blakely

If he stayed within typing distance of either device, he’d surely keep up this volley with her. Because she was as irresistible to him as she’d been that very first night. With his head down the whole way, he headed to a bench outside Central Park and settled onto it, trying his best to dive into the fine print on a licensing deal that the actor Liam Connor needed wrapped up before he opened a new restaurant in New York in a few weeks. Clay didn’t usually do restaurant deals, but Liam was a long-time client and had asked him to look over the terms with the other co-owner. Clay shoved his hand through his hair as he studied the fine print, but soon the words were levitating on the page, terms like indemnify that he knew backwards and forwards, but now it was a slow, cruel tease because he couldn’t focus on a damn thing.

She weaved in front of him like a damn mirage. Tantalizing and teasing him. Whenever he opened or closed his eyes, she was there. Beautiful and beckoning, she lured him in. He could picture her, he could feel the trace of her, touch the outline of her. She’d left her mark on him and he wanted her day after day, night after night.

He swore loudly and looked up. No one noticed his cursing. No one cared. It was New York and the city spun on its own axis. So he sat and stared at the lunchtime crowds, at a harried doctor rushing by in her scrubs, at a guy in a suit, tugging at his tie while tapping out a message on his phone, at a pair of women in sharp jeans and sweaters, each balancing a cardboard tray of lattes in their hands. A bus trudged by on Fifth Avenue, pulling up to the stop and letting off several passengers, who looked equally hurried as they raced to their destinations. Somehow, the chaos of the city soothed the tangled knots in his chest for the moment, and calmed his mind. He took a deep fueling breath, and returned once more to the contract.

A half-hour later, he’d found the one clause that concerned him most, so when he met Liam for lunch he told him about the points he wanted to iron out.

“That’s why I keep you around, man,” the actor said, flashing his trademark smile that made women swoon and patrons pay top dollar to see his face in lights. “You’re going to come see in The Usual Suspects, right?”

“As if I’d miss it,” Clay said, and mentally marked the date on his calendar to see the stage adaptation of the hit film.

They spent the rest of the meal talking about Liam’s upcoming work, the movies they’d both loved and loathed, and sports, always sports.

When lunch ended, Clay simply hoped he could keep harnessing that focus and use it to stay on track in his business. He didn’t need a repeat of that year with Sabrina. When he returned to his office, refreshed – mostly – from the few hours away from electronic tethers, he clicked on his phone and found another message from the woman who was never far from his mind.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: April 18, 2:23 PM

subject: On that subject…

So unbelievably much…In every single way.

And all his control unraveled in a second, as his skin heated up, and his heart beat faster, pounding against his chest with the aching want to have her in his arms again. Resistance was futile, so he banged out a reply, saved it in his drafts, and told himself he’d see if he still felt the same way that night. When the work day ended he went to the gym to pound the punching bag until his shoulders were as sore as they’d ever been.

On the way home, he pulled out his phone, opened his drafts and made a decision.

Chapter Seventeen

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date:April 18, 5:23 PM

subject:Which brings us back to…

So why then? Why did you leave?

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

date: April 18, 8:48 PM

subject: Truth

I was afraid.