The CEO's Dilemma ; Undeniable Passion Read online

  She overruled his mind. His sense of right.

  Roman gripped Aisha to him, pressing his aching hardness into her.

  “Oh!” she gasped into his mouth, a hot sound of delight. Sharp nails clenched into the flesh of his butt through the two layers of clothing.

  She seemed to want him just as much as he wanted her.

  But he couldn’t. They couldn’t.

  Slowly, Roman pulled back.

  “We shouldn’t,” he said, his breath unsteady. “I shouldn’t.”

  But that was his other voice talking, some long holdout of a conversation he’d had with himself days ago when he’d first thought of having her the way he wanted. Now all the ideas of “shouldn’t” were like ruins under his feet. Antiquated. Irrelevant.

  “Why not?” Her lips were soft and swollen, well-kissed. “We’re not hurting anyone.”

  Maybe not anyone. Just his rational mind and any chances for him to be fair where the Sykes Prize was concerned.

  “You know why not,” he said, trying to hold on to his reason. He couldn’t quite get his breathing under control, but he tried. He also couldn’t stop touching her, his hands trailing down her back and under the oversize shirt.

  Her skin was so warm, so soft.

  “I want you,” she said, putting a hand over his aching hardness, gently squeezing. The firmer pressure from the narrow gold rings on her fingers made him groan. “You want me, too. That’s all that matters here.”

  His flesh throbbed under the light touch of her hand. Roman wanted her, too. God, he wanted her so very, very much.

  “Aisha—” he began.

  She fell to her knees in front of him and, like a river’s powerful current, swept the rest of his words away.

  Her tongue was soft on him, a light and fluttering touch. Her hands rested on his thighs, her fingers lightly tugging down his pants to his knees while her mouth played havoc with his senses. He groaned her name. Gasped it as she brought him the sweetest pleasure of his life, stroking and kissing him until all he could do was fight to breathe.

  The pleasure rolled through him, hot and rhythmic, with every slide of her mouth, every caress of her fingers. She was relentless and he couldn’t stop her. Nor did he want to. Then it all came to a head too soon, a lightning strike at the base of his spine and lower, his hips moving and her hands encouraging him, until he exploded in the wet heat of her mouth, gasping her name.

  Roman sagged back against the countertop. His body slackened with the aftershocks of his completion that shuddered through him, all of his flesh tingling and aware. So alive.

  It had never been like this before. Effortless and complete; his senses swimming in the pleasure but also feeling finally awake, like he’d just had a shot of caffeine directly to a vein.

  Still gasping from the incomparable pleasure she’d just given him, he dragged Aisha to her feet and kissed her. Deep and long and hard, groaning at the taste of him on her lips, at the way she moved sensuously against him, nipples hard and scoring his chest, her fingers sinking into his heaving sides.

  “You’re incredible,” he gasped into her mouth between kisses, hungry and grateful.

  “I think that’s my line,” she laughed breathlessly.

  Roman reversed their positions, grumbling an apology when the cupboard behind her rattled from the force of him slamming her against it.

  “No,” she moaned. “More. I like it,” she gasped. “I like you like this.”

  And that was all it took to sweep away any lingering hesitation from him. He dragged down her pants, slid a hand between her thighs.

  “You’re so wet,” he growled.

  “Just for you.”

  Fingers against the swell of her womanly flesh, he circled lightly. She gasped into his mouth, her hips already moving, demanding more. “Please. Please!”

  “You don’t have to beg me,” he groaned. “Anything you want. Anything.” Then he stopped giving her words and instead gave her body what it demanded.

  Sighing with pleasure, he plunged his fingers deep and rubbed her, shifting his movements until he found the perfect rhythm to make her scream.

  “Roman!” She tore her mouth away from his. “Oh! Right there... Oh!”

  “Like this?” He moved his fingers slickly inside her. “Do you like it like this?”

  “I love it! Please. Don’t stop! Don’t!”

  But the only way he would stop was if he dropped dead in that moment.

  This was pleasure. This was sharing. Why had he denied her this? Why had he denied himself? Aisha in the throes of her pleasure was beautiful. Her head thrown back, her thighs wide and tensed. His name gasped from her parted lips and her eyelashes fluttering wildly.

  “You feel so good,” he moaned into her throat just as she screamed his name one last time.

  He felt her clench powerfully around his fingers. Her long thighs quivered. Her nails gouged into his back through his shirt. Aisha chanted his name as her internal muscles rippled around his fingers and the button of her pleasure swelled even more under the swift and sure movements of his thumb.

  Roman only stopped when she weakly shoved at his hand, whimpering that the sensations were too much. Sighing, he pulled his fingers from her intimate place and then, as she watched, licked them dry.

  Aisha whimpered again and bit her already raw-looking bottom lip. “You’re a very wicked man,” she said breathlessly. “And I can’t wait to get you in a bed.”

  * * *

  “That isn’t what I had in mind when I brought us here,” Roman said, although he wouldn’t change a thing about what had just happened between them.

  With his green tea and Aisha’s coffee, they sat on the couch after they’d showered again. Feet bare, warm mugs in hand, their heads rested on opposite ends of the thickly cushioned sofa, their legs slotted neatly together. It was cozy, even more intimate in a way that the sex hadn’t been.

  “I’m glad it happened anyway.” Smiling gently at him, Aisha sipped her coffee. “So why did you bring me here? Do you know?”

  Nearly half an hour after his orgasm, his body was still loose but oddly energized. He wanted more of her. It had taken a surprising amount of willpower not to invite her into the bedroom for a long day lingering in their mutual pleasure. He still wasn’t sure if that was a strength or a weakness.

  “Other than to dry off so we don’t catch pneumonia on the long and wet drive back into the city? I don’t know what I wanted to do here,” he said honestly.

  They probably would have dried off in the sun with the windows open and the summer breeze buffeting them from both sides of the truck. But some part of him had wanted the day to linger.

  “Well, I for one am glad to not be sun-drying in a truck while this much better option existed,” she murmured between sips of her coffee. “Having my clothes dry on me is not a good look. So, thank you.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Roman said then fought a flush of heat in his cheeks at his choice of words.

  Aisha’s grin was all kinds of dirty. “That was my intention. I’m very happy my efforts paid off.”

  A reluctant laugh burst out of him. Funny and unpredictable, she was a woman who crackled with energy and fire that often caught him off guard. He loved it and couldn’t get enough. In the beginning, he remembered his mother had been like that, too.

  “What made you frown just now?” Aisha poked him with her toe.

  “Nothing important.”

  “I doubt that. Tell me. I promise not to take out an article in the paper and advertise how the notoriously closed-off CEO actually spilled some of his inner thoughts to me.”

  “Closed off? That’s not me at all.” Was it?

  “Are you making a joke?” Aisha laughed because obviously she found his comment to be funny. Then she waved a hand in his direction. “Never mind, gorgeous
. Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind or not?”

  He wanted to repeat his earlier dismissive comment. There was nothing on his mind that he wanted to share. “My father would probably approve of the closed-off man you think I am.”

  “But not you?”

  He shrugged. “No. It’s not something I want to be. A closed fist shuts out the world, the good things as well as the bad.”

  “Very true.” She nodded. “And there are a lot of good things out there to let in.”

  “That sounds like something my mother would say.” Although she hadn’t been able to interact enough with the world to allow the good things to come in and sweep away the bad. It was as if she’d been convinced she’d had to give up the life she’d led to be with his father. Even now, after years of seeing his parents together, and two years after her death, he still didn’t have a good enough answer as to why she’d let her husband change her. “She was the one who taught me about yoga when I was a kid.”

  “Nice. So not only is she responsible for creating your beautiful exterior self, but she’s also the reason for your whole hot yoga CEO vibe.”

  He laughed. “I guess you could say that.”

  They’d spent so much of his childhood and his later years doing yoga together and then, when he’d started his string of yoga studios and the annual retreats in different parts of the world, she’d supported him wholeheartedly. She’d even attended some of them with him when she’d been able to drag herself away from the emotional abyss that being unhappily tethered to his father had left her in. She’d supported his interest in yoga, his need to have something separate from his father. But she’d also never let him forget his birthright and the leadership role he would eventually be handed at Sykes Global, whether or not he decided to accept it. Roman said as much to Aisha.

  “So you weren’t being honest with me before,” she said with a teasing grin.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you said you weren’t always a CEO. You’ve always been a CEO. Growing up knowing Sykes Global was going to be yours, even when you turned your back on it in your twenties to churn out trendy yoga studios all over the country.”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.” Something about that didn’t quite sit right with him. The idea he’d been born with everything he had now and hadn’t had to earn it.

  “No, no. Don’t look like that. I mean you were born to lead and you’re doing it now. From what the papers are saying, you’re doing it very well behind that big desk.”

  She was reading up about him? The idea of it blew a warm breeze all the way through Roman’s soul. He bared more of it to Aisha.

  “That makes me happy to hear.” In such a short time, he’d come to enjoy his new role as head of his father’s company. “Reluctant or not, I’m doing my best to make sure the board doesn’t regret my father’s decision to turn over the reins of Sykes Global to me. The company does a lot of good work and has a tremendous impact on the world overall.”

  Aisha’s cheeks creased in a sympathetic smile. “Even though it sounds like the company wasn’t exactly your mother’s favorite thing, I think she’d be proud of you for stepping up like that.”

  “I hope so.” He inhaled the steam from his recently refilled green tea, remembering suddenly all the times he and his mother had sat in this very room, drinking tea and just talking. “Damn, I miss her.”

  His words echoed in silence for a moment.

  “What do you miss, exactly?” Aisha asked.

  And Roman told her. All about the person his mother was and the legacy she’d left him. In turn, Aisha told him about her family. Her stubborn brother who got married a year before to the type of woman he never expected. Her sister’s upcoming new art gallery and her own plans for the future.

  “My family gave me a lot,” she said. “They gave me every advantage a young Black girl growing up in this country could have, but I want to do more. I want to do amazing things and make them proud of me. I want them to know their investment in me hasn’t been wasted.”

  “I’m sure they already know that,” Roman said. “I mean, look at all you’ve already done on your own.”

  “I can be better,” she replied with a determined look.

  Aisha, he was beginning to realize more and more, was an incredible woman. He felt lucky to know her.

  Roman tumbled deeper into his own thoughts, falling silent. Aisha was quiet, too.

  They sat in the silence of the room while the sun spilled through the windows. Aisha’s body was stretched out and relaxed on the sofa.

  Yes, Roman remembered what it was like to make love to her with his fingers, and he wanted to do more than that. To touch her and make her shudder and gasp his name. But this moment was enough, the two of them simply sharing space and marinating in the quiet of a Saturday afternoon far away from the things that complicated who they were to each other.

  In the end, they didn’t leave the cabin until late. Hours of talking on the couch with refilled cups of tea and coffee. A friendly game of Scrabble and then Aisha’s initial thoughts on the Sykes Prize redesign.

  It was a perfect day, almost too perfect. Even with his body still heavy and content from the various pleasures they shared, Roman couldn’t help but wonder when this thing between them would come to an end.

  Something this good always had an expiration date.

  Chapter 13

  After the perfect day she and Roman had had at the river and then later in the cabin, it felt only natural for her to invite him to Dev’s official gallery opening a week later. Aisha didn’t have any real excuse to offer him the invitation. She just wanted to see him again. When he immediately said yes during one of their evening phone calls, she was surprised.

  “Yes?” she asked, her hand clenched nervously in her lap. Next to her on the couch, Eloise meowed and stared at the phone with wide yellow eyes, like she was asking Roman the same question.

  “Yes,” he said into the phone, his voice soft with gentle laughter. “I’d love to be your plus one.”

  So he showed up at her house to pick her up on Saturday evening, seven thirty on the dot. Nervous and excited, she shot up off the couch where she’d been chatting on WhatsApp with one of her girlfriends from college.

  “Gotta go, Jeanie,” she said in a rush of breath while butterflies attacked her stomach. “I’ll tell you how it goes.”

  Jeanie wished her luck and shooed her off the line.

  Then Aisha tucked the phone in her handbag and went to the door. “Hi,” she said as she opened the door. “You’re right on time.”

  Aisha swallowed hard at the sight of him.

  From foot to crown, Roman looked like temptation in the flesh. Matte-black Italian leather shoes. Tailored dark slacks that showed off his lean lower body. A button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his muscled and veined forearms. A button left undone at the throat gave a hint of the muscled flesh she’d felt pressed against her during their passion-filled Saturday afternoon. He was freshly shaved and wore a scent with hints of leather, oranges and dark liquor.

  “See something you like?” he teased with a smile tugging at his firm lips.

  “You know I do,” Aisha said, her voice rough in appreciation.

  He didn’t look unimpressed himself. Her sister had said “cocktail casual” was the dress code. She wasn’t trying to get everyone to dig up old prom dresses or turn out like they were about to attend the Met Gala. So Aisha had thrown on a dress she’d had forever but never worn. Knee-length. Pale yellow with cap sleeves that drooped over her shoulders like fall leaves and sparkled a little in the right light. The dress hugged her curves without telling all her secrets. Plus, it had pockets.

  “Good to know I’m not the only one,” he said then lifted a hand. He stopped the movement with his fingers just inches from her waist. “May I?”
/>   “Yes. Please.”

  He completed the movement, sliding his big hand around her waist and tugging her over the threshold and into his arms. His entire body was hard and warm. “You look beautiful. Tonight and every time I’ve ever seen you.”

  “So you mean, I just look regular tonight?” She pursed her lips, palms braced against his hard chest. His heart beat hard and steady beneath her touch.

  “You, young lady, couldn’t be regular even if you tried.”

  Despite the tripping of her heart, that surprised a laugh out of her. “Why thank you, Hot Yoga Daddy.”

  She felt him shiver. In the deep pool of his eyes, she saw her own desire reflected there. His gaze dropped to her lips and she knew he was going to kiss her. She held herself steady, hands braced, heart racing, and waited to be kissed. But he only brushed his mouth against her jaw, right below her ear.

  “We should go,” he said. “Otherwise I’d try my damnedest to convince you to stay here with me all night.”

  Aisha shivered, her legs growing weak, her panties wet. That didn’t sound so bad. But then she found her senses.

  If she missed the gallery’s grand opening, Devyn would kill her and then cry.

  “Okay.” The breath shivered from her lungs.

  Reaching behind her, she grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door closed. The lock clicked and she tucked her little purse more firmly under her arm. “Let’s go.”

  Roman’s green truck sat in the driveway, gleaming under the security lights. Seeing it reminded her of the day they’d spent on the water and then in the cabin. Of the way he’d tasted and the delight he’d taken in bringing her to the edge of pleasure and beyond. That day, the conversation had flowed between them like sweet, dark wine.

  He opened the door for her and, after making sure she was safely inside, firmly closed her into the cool interior. Once he got in and started the engine, he took a long and appreciative look at the sculpted French roll she’d had done earlier that day. Then he leaned across her to wind up the manual window halfway.