Close Contact (Clarke Brothers Book 3) Read online

  “It just… happened?” I weakly defended, not even a little surprised when Addison and Andre both hit me with a “nigga please” look.

  “So you slipped and fell in her pussy?” Dre dug in. “It just happened. You sound like a cheating husband on a soap opera.”

  “I’m disappointed in you, D,” Addison added. “You’re supposed to be vibrating higher than just happened ass.”

  “I’m human,” I argued, to both of them.

  I would’ve had to be super human to not accept the invitation Kima had levied.

  Now, more than ever, I was convinced the universe had been drawing us together – how else to explain the cascading events of that night?

  “What does this mean for our business arrangement?” Andre asked, paired with a heavy sigh. “She was already barely on board with this whole thing, and now you’re bringing a relationship into it?”

  “Nobody said anything about a relationship,” I countered, although… I wouldn’t have been opposed. The fact was though, that Kima had all but physically thrown me out of her apartment at damn near midnight, insisting that she wasn’t down with any sleepovers.

  Despite what we’d already done.

  Our only correspondence since then?

  Setting up a redo of our meeting, at Tigress this time, now that the kitchen renovations were wrapped up.

  “Wow. Wow,” Addison repeated, still wearing the goofy ass grin he’d picked up since I first revealed this thing with Kima. “You’ve changed. Aiden Clarke having casual sex? I don’t even know you right now, bruh,” he teased.

  “I also didn’t say it was casual.”

  Conflicting information, yes, I understood that. But if I was telling the truth, it was going to be the whole truth, and that was that it hadn’t felt casual at all.

  Not to me.

  I couldn’t speak for Kima, but I’d felt… connected. In a way I hadn’t experienced in a long ass time.

  “Either way,” Andre said, shaking his head. “It’s paramount that whatever y’all are doing doesn’t end up resulting in bad blood. D, I know you aren’t one to leave women feeling the need to bust windows and shit anyway, but seriously… in this case, this woman is our business partner now. We can’t have her feeling like she got fucked over – anymore than she already does.”

  I huffed. “Thanks to you, yeah. You’re the one who ran up on her at first with the legalese, had her wondering if she could even trust us.”

  “I was just making sure everything was out in the open,” Dre argued. “Not my fault if she didn’t like it – I bet she knew exactly what she was getting into though, unlike with the other motherfucker who helped her get into this position in the first place.”

  “That may be so, but you’re still an asshole,” I told him – and he couldn’t argue with that, cause he knew. “But if it eases your mind, please rest assured that if anybody walks away from this with their feelings hurt, it’ll be me, not her.”

  Addison laughed. “You didn’t do it right then. If you had, you wouldn’t be able to keep her off you.”

  “Oh, because Samara wasn’t dodging your ass like she owed you money before she finally, grudgingly gave in to your shit?” I chided Addison. And when Dre laughed, I had to remind him of his circumstances too. “You don’t need to be laughing, when you had to let Drew rip you up in a review and then literally whoop your ass for months before she even let you catch a whiff of her pussy.”

  Andre put a hand to his chest. “Damn, why am I catching stray bullets cause of baby bro’s mouth?”

  “Cause you’re both getting on my damn nerves now,” I said, shrugging. “I’ve got work to do – both of you get the fuck out of my kitchen.”

  “I think we hurt his feelings Addi,” Dre laughed, further getting under my skin.

  Addison joined in. “Yeah, he’s dropped all his little zen shit, hasn’t he?”

  “I swear, I—”

  “We’re leaving, we’re leaving,” they insisted, both still much more amused than I was about this conversation as they made their way out, granting me the solace I’d asked for to really think this thing out.

  That must not have done it right comment was really not hitting me in the right place.

  Not because I was feeling insecure about the sex – there was no faking the reactions, physiological or otherwise, I’d brought out of Kima.

  The intimacy was on point.

  What I was much less confident about, was whether I’d done something to offend her – whether I’d messed up any chance of something serious with her by accepting that sex-focused invitation.

  I just wasn’t sure.

  But really, the fact that she’d kicked me out mid-afterglow should’ve been answer enough to that question.

  She was definitely not knocking down doors to get to me.

  Not that I would’ve expected such from a woman like Kima anyway, but damn… were we really just going to pretend the shit hadn’t happened?

  I shook my head, pulling the menu planning sheet back in front of me and picking up my pen. I had all night to ponder what had transpired between Kima and I, but I’d much rather do that shit at home.

  I needed to finish my work.

  “Knock knock,” I called through the open doorway of Kima’s office, and waited to be invited in.

  She looked up from whatever she was busy with, her slanted eyes going wide when she saw me standing there. “Oh. Chef Clarke. You’re… early.”

  Chef Clarke?

  “Aiight,” I drawled, stepping in and closing the door behind me, even though we were the only ones there. “I think I see what you’re doing – the Chef Clarke thing is a way to put a wall between us, right?”

  “There already is a wall between us, Chef,” she insisted, using my “title” like it was some kind of jab. “A necessary one, at that. I’m just trying to reinforce it.”

  “Why?”

  Her face scrunched into a frown. “Uhhh… because you’re my boss.”

  “I’m not your boss,” I corrected her. “Neither is Dre, or Addison. We’re partners.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So you say now. But you took controlling interest for a reason.”

  “That was Andre’s insistence, and yeah, we do it that way to protect ourselves, because there are people who will take an opportunity like this and use our resources like a bottomless piggybank, and whatever else.”

  “I get that,” she insisted. “But you know who isn’t protected? Me.”

  “You’re protected in the contract.”

  Kima let out an exasperated huff. “The contract? Please? What, exactly, would I do if you and your brothers decided not to honor that, and just took over? Sue you? With what resources? You could bury me, and there wouldn’t be shit I could do about it.”

  “You could trust us not to take advantage of you.”

  “Because that’s worked out so well for me before?”

  I lifted my eyebrows, looking her right in the face when I said, “I’d say it worked out very much in your favor the other night at your apartment.”

  Her eyes went wide, her gaze dropping to her computer. “That was… something else. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about right now.”

  “It has everything to do with it to me,” I countered, finally walking up to the desk. “Because I’m not in the business of working with people who feel like they can’t trust me, when I haven’t done anything to deserve that. And I’m especially not in the business of sleeping with them.”

  Kima’s eyes shot back to me. “Sleeping implies on ongoing arrangement, which is not what we have.”

  “Why the hell not?” I propped my hands on the desk, leaning over it. “As many times as you came on my face, you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

  She swallowed, hard, but didn’t back away from the intensity of my gaze. “It’s not about whether or not I enjoyed it, it’s about… my character. And sleeping with my boss is definitely outside of it.”

&nb
sp; “I’m not your boss,” I reminded her again. “And what’s the difference between then and now? What changed?”

  “That goddamn yoga class,” she muttered, probably louder than intended.

  I frowned. “Yoga class? Ahhh. You must’ve been down to the Heights to see Astrid.”

  Her head snapped up. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Cause I know things,” I answered with a grin. “Such as… that Ascension yoga class doesn’t only work for women.”

  “How? Half the class is freaking kegels!”

  “Which women don’t have a monopoly on, thank you,” I informed her, chuckling. “Anybody with a pelvic floor can do a kegel. I’m doing it right now, since you wanna talk about it.”

  Before she could help herself, her gaze fell to my groin, and I made my dick jump, since she was looking.

  “Oh my God, we are supposed to be cooking,” she snapped, hurriedly pushing away from her desk to stand. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”

  “It was what I came for, yes, but now I’m not so sure it’s why I’m here.”

  Crossing her arms, she pinned me with a scowl. “And why, pray tell, do you think you’re here?”

  “For whatever you’d like me to be here for. Really.”

  “We know what you’re here for, Aiden. To watch me cook, and judge, and correct, and change everything that makes this place mine – just like the meetings I’ve already had with your brothers.”

  “That’s not fair. Or true.”

  She sucked her teeth. “Fine. Tigress is still mine, except your brothers were able to identify and highlight all the ways I couldn’t even fucking see to make it better, and more… everything. And I’m probably supposed to be grateful for that, but instead it just makes me feel worthless, and mad, and scared, and now you’re here to do the same thing, only this time with the thing that matters most. The food. So… we might as well just get it the fuck over with.”

  “Get it the fuck over with implies you don’t want to do this.”

  “Of course I don’t!”

  I shrugged, stepping around the desk to get right in her face and look her in the eyes. “Then… that’s not why I’m here.”

  Kima – impressively – blinked back tears as she rolled her eyes, her soft, pretty lips twisted into a pout before she spoke. “So what, you’re granting wishes now or something?”

  “You granted mine. The least I could do is return the favor, right?”

  A little of the anger left her expression as she lifted an eyebrow. “What exactly are you offering?”

  “Whatever it is you want.”

  She stared me right in the face, obviously thinking it over before she finally replied, “… I wanna watch you cum.”

  Instantly, my lips spread into a smirk. “You just wanna watch, or… participate?” I asked, stepping away from her to go back to the other side of the desk to take a seat in one of the new office chairs, including her own, that we’d had to insist on getting for her.

  We’d had to convince her that her comfort wasn’t frivolous.

  She came around too but took a seat on the edge of the desktop. “I’ll watch for now.”

  For now.

  I didn’t ask her to clarify that, but all the possibilities of what that could mean already had my dick hard. On the desk, Kima shifted when I pulled it free from my pants and boxers. Her hands went to the hardwood on either side of her, gripping it as I spit into my hand and started the process of doing what she’d asked.

  Kima watched, completely enthralled, as I rubbed the head of my penis against the fleshy inside of my palm, in tight, controlled circles, instead of immediately going into a stroking motion. I slid my hand up, pressing my thumb against the base of my head, where it connected to the shaft.

  I held it, squeezed, then moved on from the palm thing to a firm stroke while I kept the head in that same tight hold.

  I didn’t have to close my eyes, didn’t have to visualize a damn thing with Kima in front of me, her attention locked on what I was doing to myself.

  Surely, she hadn’t intended the simple wrap dress she was wearing to look as sexy as it did. But that hint of cleavage, the way it hugged her curves… it reminded me that I knew exactly what was underneath it.

  How she smelled.

  How she felt.

  How she tasted.

  Kima on that desk, looking like she might pounce on me at any moment, was all the visual stimulation I needed.

  When I got close… I did a few kegels, knowing that it would be even better in a few more minutes, if I just held off.

  Suddenly, Kima stood, her chest heaving as she stepped in front of me. She didn’t say anything though, just kept watching as I jacked myself off.

  Harder.

  Tighter.

  Faster.

  Until I was letting out all the little signs and sounds that I was close, again.

  Kima reached under her dress, touching herself, and… fuck.

  I could smell the arousal coming off her.

  She looked so fucking sexy standing there in front of me, mouth open as she frantically moved her hand between her legs, and then…

  She climbed into my lap.

  Pushed my hands aside.

  Pulled the seat of her panties aside.

  Sank onto me.

  Fuuuck.

  She felt just as good as she had that night at her place – maybe better. Her mouth came down to mine, her hands fisting and wrinkling my shirt at the shoulders as she started to ride me.

  My hands went to her ass, squeezing her velvet-soft flesh as I stopped myself from cumming right then.

  I’d been almost there when she sank onto me, but I couldn’t let it be over already, not this soon.

  So I forced the urge back, and focused on the taste of her mouth as she moaned against my lips. I made quick work of loosening the ties holding her dress together, pushing it off her and onto the floor to give myself access to all her.

  Every gorgeous inch.

  Instead of bothering to remove it, I pushed her breasts up out of the lacy cups of her bra, breaking away from her mouth long enough to give her nipples my attention. They were just as sweet as the rest of her against my tongue, eliciting the loudest of whimpers as I tugged them between my teeth.

  As I licked.

  As I sucked.

  As I dropped my hands to her hips, keeping her body tight against mine on the down stroke as I matched her rhythm, making her squirm against me.

  Drip all over me.

  No.

  This shit was not casual for me at all.

  The intensity of bliss written all over her face said that for her, this moment and the one we shared the other night were necessities of our connection, not simple perks. I slipped a hand between us, pressing a thumb to her clit just like what I’d done to myself, and not even ten seconds later, she came completely undone.

  The contractions of her pussy pole-vaulted me right over the edge with her.

  We couldn’t have been quiet about that shit if we wanted to.

  If anybody else had been in the restaurant, they probably would’ve thought we were killing each other – hell, I was halfway concerned we might’ve scared anybody passing by.

  Either way, it was abundantly clear, at least to me… this chemistry between us was no fluke… no matter how much Kima might want it to be.

  3

  Kima

  At some point, I was going to have to get my shit together.

  Cause this whole… lack of self-control?

  It was how I’d gotten into the position I was in to start with.

  This was absolutely crazy.

  I was absolutely crazy.

  Despite the fact that I knew better, despite the fact that there was no possibility of this not blowing up in my face…

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Aiden.

  The whole thing was just so…

  Nuts.

  If the memories weren’t so vivid, I w
ouldn’t even believe it was real life.

  That first time, in my place. And then… shit, watching him jack himself off in the middle of the day, in my damn office.

  It was too much.

  Really, and truly, this whole thing was too fucking much, and not at all what I should be focused on right now.

  I had much more pressing concerns.

  Like the fact that Tigress was supposed to reopen in a week, and the important meeting between Aiden and I still hadn’t actually happened. Sure, it wasn’t a requirement – all plans had still been moving forward, and neither Andre or Addison had alluded to any inappropriate behavior on my part, but… still.

  It was time – past time – to shut everything else out, and focus on my business.

  Like I had been before Aiden showed up at my door anyway.

  It was late.

  Well past any sane person’s “normal” business hours, and even further past the sort of bedtime it would be wise to employ during the week. Usually, I’d be in my bed sawing logs with the best of them, but it was just my luck that on a night when I could really use the rest, an intense storm decided tonight was the night to wage war against my windows.

  It was so loud and insistent that even my white noise playlist couldn’t seem to mask the sound. And even if it could, I wouldn’t front – it was a little too reminiscent of the deadly hurricanes my family had been trying to escape by moving here all those years ago in the first place for me to sleep.

  In fact… it was more unsettling than I would’ve cared to admit to anyone else, driving me to check the weather radar from my phone.

  Apparently, it had no plans to be over soon.

  According to the app, it would be raging all night, with only brief pockets of peace in between.

  Shit.

  Instead of tossing and turning, I pulled myself out of bed, and fixed a cup of tea. Since I was up anyway, I decided to try to get a few things done, opening my laptop to check the inbox I’d closed out of at the end of my workday in an effort to create some kind of boundary.

  The first thing my eyes landed on once the page loaded was an email from Aiden.