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  My fingertips were tingling and the paint was calling to me. The canvas was springing to life right before my very eyes and my body was buzzing with excitement. It had been years since I had been able to focus on nothing but my art. Years since I had taken any sort of time for myself and cared about my well-being.

  But this vacation was giving me a chance to do just that. To do nothing but paint, create, imagine, and rest.

  I had no idea how I was going to repay Preston for his kindness, but I was determined to come up with something.

  Eleven

  Preston

  Planning how I was going to get Delilah back out to dinner quickly turned into trying to figure out how I wasn’t going to fucking fire people while she was gone. Things were going to shit at work. The new design for the company logo was botched the first time we sent it over. Someone in the fucking graphic design department didn’t send the logo mockup in the right format. So when the sign company opened it up, the fucking colors had been inverted. The company ended up with this bullshit sign ten days later that had to be sent back and redone.

  It took everything I had not to fire that man on the spot.

  Then, the accounting department went up in flames. No one wanted to recognize Delilah, but once she was gone they felt her absence. Numbers were calculated wrong and totals were off. Bank accounts for the company were unbalanced and our international compatriots were flailing without accurate numbers regarding their budgets. It was a fucking mess, and I was seething with anger. Was the company made up of complete morons? My first few days here had been wonderful! Or maybe they had just been wonderful because my eyes had been hooked on Delilah’s tits.

  Either way, it was batshit crazy.

  I had another meeting with the investors to make sure they were solidifying their investments for the rest of the year. I had no idea why the hell this company did quarterly investment meetings, but I was going to change that. At most, companies who operated on this level did bi-annual meetings. Once to contribute money, then again to see how their money was growing and going to be returned to them tenfold. But four fucking times a year? With each meeting handling a new amount of money? That was insane.

  Maybe Bernard Hathaway did that shit because he had a secret weapon in Delilah, but it was exhausting. And my company wasn’t going to run that way.

  I got a lot of kickback in that meeting. The investors enjoyed meeting as much as they did because they got to keep their hands in things. I figured out many things in that meeting. Things that made me appreciate Delilah even more. Not only was she keeping up with their accounts and cutting them checks when necessary, she was also sending them a monthly newsletter. Charts and pie graphs and potential growth rates. The fucking works. She sent them a monthly email with a PDF file of all this shit, and not once had she ever steered them wrong. She was accurate down to the dollar with how much money the investors would earn.

  It was amazing, how good she was with numbers.

  But a two-hour investor meeting turned into an entire fucking afternoon. And by the time it was done, I was ready for a drink. I was maintaining my good behavior with everyone and trying to control my temper, but I had to bring down the banhammer when it was necessary. I had a running watchlist of people I would keep my eye on until Delilah was back, and then I would consider their layoffs at a later date. Right now, there were two things on my mind.

  Keeping the investors happy and tasting Delilah’s pussy.

  In fact, every night when I closed my eyes, I saw her. Her color-changing eyes and her thick thighs. The beautiful dip in her waist and how my fingertips fell perfectly within it. I could feel the soft skin of her breasts underneath my teeth as I marked her body. Pulling bruises and welts up onto her skin so she could remember me in the morning. I thought about how perfectly her walls throbbed around my cock. How eager her body was to pull me deeper when she came on my cock. I woke up smelling the ghostly phantom of her scent in my bedroom.

  It was almost too much to bear sometimes.

  I had to get out for awhile. After a particularly long day at work, I called up a couple of my buddies and told them the drinks were on me. I needed some time to clear my head. I needed to get this woman off my mind. She was pervading my thoughts when I dropped my walls at night, and I didn’t like it.

  I was supposed to be in control.

  “Preston! Holy shit, dude. You look like hell,” Bryan said.

  “Hey there, Bryan. Colin.”

  “Don’t ‘Colin’ me. What’s up with you? We were supposed to get drinks after your first day at this new fucking company, then you ditched us. What gives?” Colin asked.

  Bryan Peachland and Colin Hasselbeck were a couple of guys I befriended during my Harvard Business School days. Bryan was an instructional technology nerd and Colin started his own fucking publishing company. The man always had his nose stuck in a damn manuscript with a red pen in his hand, ready to obliterate the author on their story or their grammar.

  “I don’t see a manuscript tonight, Colin,” I said. “You gonna get drunk with us?”

  “Yeah, especially since it’s on you,” Colin said. “I’ll consider it your apology for ditching us a few weeks ago.”

  “You know how it goes with a new company,” I said.

  “The least you could’ve done is called us if you were gonna have a late first night,” Bryan said.

  “Hey. The drinks and the food are on me. Come on. Quit bitching and let’s get inside,” I said.

  The guys and I ventured inside one of the premier bars in Philadelphia. They had a kitchen with finger foods, but they specialized in alcohol and women. Cages were dangling from the ceiling by chains that had luscious women dancing in them. The waitresses were clad in leather and lace. And there were plenty of women you could conspicuously rent out for an hour or for a night. There were rooms someone could use in the back of the bar, or someone could leave an address if anyone had any intention of taking the girls somewhere.

  It was the place to be for the businessmen of Philadelphia. But for some reason, I wasn’t as excited to be here as I usually was.

  “So! How many people have you fired, man?” Bryan asked.

  “No one as of yet,” I said.

  “Wait. Preston Walker hasn’t fired anyone yet?” Colin asked.

  “Did you stroke out? Have you been abducted? Who are you and what have you done with Preston?” Bryan asked.

  “Okay, assholes. I get your point. I haven’t fired anyone yet because there hasn’t been a reason to. There are some things I’m watching people for, but nothing that has threatened to destroy the company. Yet,” I said.

  “Ah, so the layoffs are coming. What are all the fuck ups you’ve got in your view?” Colin asked.

  “Some idiot in the graphics design department fucked up sending over the design for the new sign. So we had to return the sign and reorder it. I did it myself, because what the fuck else am I doing with my life? The investors at this company meet four times a fucking year.”

  “Four times?” Bryan asked. “To what? Have their own personal circle jerk?”

  “No clue, but when I told them we were only going to be meeting twice a year, it took a two-hour meeting and made it a damn afternoon,” I said.

  “Ah, so you’re working with a bunch of oldies. Got it,” Colin said, grinning. “That’s some shit, though. Do they at least toss up some decent money?”

  “Not as much as they could, so they’ll be seeing that in the projects. This company’s bottom line has been floating their projects as much as fifteen percent across the board for the last seven years. I don’t know how the fuck they’ve been turning a damn profit.”

  “I don’t fucking know either! And where the hell are our drinks?” I asked.

  The three of us ordered some drinks and told the waitress to keep them coming. I had chips and vegetables with dip ordered for the table, then the floodgates opened. The moment women in the bar saw how much money I was spending on the table, th
ey wasted no time in coming up to me. A couple had shining red hair and fiery eyes that would’ve got my cock pumping any day of the week. One had raven black hair and porcelain skin with beautiful hazel eyes. One had a rack on her that made Colin salivate, another looked like she had the hots for Bryan, and yet another still approached me and sat down on my lap.

  But even though I ordered a couple of girls for my friends, I didn’t indulge myself.

  Every time a woman came up to me, I found myself comparing her to Delilah. Whether the woman had a different eye color than hers or a different hairstyle than hers. Whether the woman’s curves weren’t as luxurious and supple as Delilah’s or whether their lips weren’t as pillowy. With every woman that approached me in the bar, there was something about them that wasn’t quite up to par with Delilah.

  Bryan and Colin were off enjoying their hour with their women while I sipped on my martini. I had no interest in being with any of these women. The dancing women in their cages didn’t catch my eye and no woman that sat on my lap tugged at my cock. I had multiple opportunities to bust out my wallet, give a woman my card, and have her legs wrapped around me for the night. I had every chance to take one of these curvy beauties home, cover her in my cum, and send her off with a nice little gift the next morning.

  But I didn’t want to.

  Every time I thought about it, my mind barreled back to Delilah.

  I wondered how she was enjoying her retreat. Was she painting a lot? Did she enjoy the art products I had delivered to her cabin? I wanted to know if she was using the hot tub on the porch. If she was truly relaxing and making the most of her retreat. I knew I could call her. I had the number to the resort. I knew if I really wanted to, I could send her an email and she would respond.

  Maybe that was what I needed to do. Send her an email just to see how she was doing. Maybe that would get her out of my fucking thoughts.

  Delilah struck me as the kind of woman that would never fully be able to disconnect from anything. She could lose herself in something and enjoy anything, but when work called she was always there. I could relate to that in so many ways, and it made me smile.

  It was another thing we had in common.

  “Apology fucking accepted, dude,” Bryan said. “Holy hell.”

  “Have a good time?” I asked.

  “Shit, yes,” he said.

  “Where’s Colin?” I asked.

  “Finishing up, I think. He’s schmoozing the woman right now. Getting her a drink and shit,” he said.

  “Probably trying to get her number and shit,” I said.

  “How was your woman?” he asked.

  “What woman?”

  “Come on. We know you got yourself one as well. There were, what, five women that approached you while we were still sitting here? Who’d you land on?” he asked.

  “None of them,” I said.

  “Got the digits,” Colin said.

  “All seven of them?” I asked.

  “You’re a dick. And yes, I got all seven of them. And an address. And a name that isn’t ‘Crystal Harlot’,” Colin said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude. Preston didn’t fucking get any,” Bryan said.

  “Who the fuck cares? Maybe he got some last night and isn’t feeling it tonight,” Colin said.

  “That would be the only decent explanation,” Bryan said.

  “Another one is that I’m so fucking stressed with work that I’d fuck these women so hard I’d hurt them,” I said.

  “Oh, shit. Well, go wank one off in the bathroom then get yourself some,” Colin said.

  “I’m good. Really. Just gotta get through this next week,” I said.

  “What’s so special about this next week?” Bryan asked.

  “My fucking secretary-slash-investor’s-accountant-slash-everything-else is on a retreat and I’m realizing just how much she does around that fucking place,” I said.

  “Is she hot?” Bryan asked.

  “She got big tits?” Colin asked

  “Is she intelligent and good at what she does? Yes,” I said.

  The guys were looking at me from across the table like I’d grown a third damn eye.

  “You okay?” Bryan asked.

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be okay?” I asked.

  “You’re just…not yourself,” Colin said.

  “Define ‘myself’,” I said.

  “You’re not…horny,” Bryan said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Come on, Preston. You know what we mean. We come out to places like this and we drink. We snack around and we hit on women. We might order ourselves a nice little side in a private room before you get drunk and buy the entire room a fucking shot. You almost always leave with one of these fantastic women on your arm and court them around for a couple of weeks. Showing them off to the press and shit. You fuck her brains out, you treat her right, then you send her back. It’s what you do. You’ve done that shit every time you’ve broken in a new company,” Colin said.

  “It’s tradition, man,” Bryan said.

  “Look, if I have to get my dick wet so you guys’ll shut up, then I’m going,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Bryan said.

  “About damn time Preston fucking Walker showed up,” Colin said.

  I threw back the rest of my martini and got up from the booth. I scanned the crowd for one of those spicy redheads. I spotted her across the room, with her deep brown eyes and her luscious red locks. I beckoned for her with my fingertip and she slid from her chair, interrupting the conversation she was having with some poor, pimply startup bastard.

  “Mr. Walker,” she said.

  “What is your name, beautiful?” I asked.

  “Roxie,” she said.

  “Well, Miss Roxie. Are you free for the next couple of hours?” I asked.

  “That depends,” she said.

  I slid out my wallet and opened it up, showing her the two thousand dollars I was carrying on my person.

  “Would you like your regular room?” Roxie asked.

  “Yes, but I have just one condition,” I said.

  “Anything,” she said.

  I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her close, allowing her lips to hover over mine.

  She didn’t smell like Delilah. Her musk wasn’t as innocent.

  “For the next two hours, the time is yours,” I said.

  “You mean ‘ours’,” she said as her tongue licked my lips.

  I saw the guys clapping in the booth as my eyes darted over towards them.

  “No. I mean yours. If you want to have sex, I’ll give it to you. If you want to pleasure yourself, I’ll watch and cheer you on. But if you’re tired, rest. If you’re hungry, go eat. If you want to talk, I’ll be there to talk. All I ask is that you escort me to my regular room and do whatever it is you want for the next two hours.”

  I could see the confusion wafting over the woman’s face. Her eyes were dancing in between mine, trying to get a read on what I was doing. I had no intention of sleeping with this woman. She did nothing for me.

  But I wasn’t willing to deal with Bryan and Colin’s bullshit tonight. Hell, I wasn’t even willing to deal with my own.

  I still didn’t know why the fuck my cock didn’t want this woman.

  “Food and talking sounds…nice,” Roxie said.

  “Then lead the way,” I said.

  Twelve

  Delilah

  My paintings were drying all around me as I slathered some onto another canvas. The inspiration simply kept coming. Between the breathtaking views, the several hours of rest, and the very relaxing hot tub, I was open to the world around me. Open to its inspirational moments, it’s greatest fears, and it’s happiest of joys. Even a simple bird call in the distance triggered the unfolding of life within my mind’s eye. Sometimes they were sketches, left to be brought to life on my laptop at a later date. Sometimes they were fully-fledged paintings, dripping with desire and rolling with color. Sometimes it was a shaded
geometric pattern, meant to be hung in any direction someone’s heart desired.

  But at the beginning of my second week of vacation, the inspiration stopped.

  I didn’t know what happened, but I felt like I was getting sick. I was sleeping more, my coffee wasn’t working to wake me up, and breakfast was making me nauseated. I tried to get myself feeling better. I tried resting a bit more and taking it easy. I took a dip in the hot tub, I had some tea on the balcony, I tried to focus on my artwork. But still, I felt off. Like something wasn’t right. I felt barren. Useless and unseen once again…like I had been before I left for this retreat in the first place.

  Until an unexpected moment occurred.

  My phone rang out with a sound I was very familiar with. It was the ringtone I set to my work email, and it filled the loft area with its noise. I groaned into my tea as I closed my eyes, grabbing my phone and readying myself for my early return. Something had probably happened and Preston had probably cut my time here short. He was probably already asking me for help on some numbers or needing help navigating some investor meeting gone wrong.

  My heart slammed in my chest when I saw I had an email from Preston, but relief flooded my veins when it had absolutely nothing to do with work.

  Miss Kent,

  I hope your vacation is going well. I wanted to relay to you that the paperwork from the investor’s meeting is underneath your door, as you requested. And don’t worry. No one has lost their job. Yet.

  P. Walker

  I sat there and read the email over and over again, and every time it struck me as odder than the last. Preston Walker was not the kind of man that did anything without a reason. And yet, this email seemed completely pointless. Letting me know I had work waiting for me when I got back? I knew that. Telling me no one had been fired? Okay. Nice, I guess. Was he looking for another date? I had already fulfilled that bet. But if he was fishing for something like that, Preston was the kind of man that would just say something.