The Moment It All Began - Preview

Chapter One

Blue Jay McAllister white-knuckled the box she was holding. 
You can do this because you are a badass and take no crap from anyone.
Watching the numbers on the elevator panel as it descended was something she’d done hundreds of times in the eight years she’d worked for Cavanagh Sale, a fashion house that had nurtured her career and given her plans for a future the naive country girl she’d once been would never have believed possible.
All that had come crashing down today.
Be strong, Blue.
The doors slowly opened and she stepped out, exhaling. There was just a short walk now, and she was out of here. Done with this place and the lying, backstabbing people who worked in it.
“Blue!”
Lowering the shoulders that had risen to her ears, Blue turned to see a man running toward her. Tall, gorgeous, and as trustworthy as a snake oil salesman, but that was something she hadn’t realized until about twenty minutes ago.
“Wait, Blue.”
She didn’t. Gripping the box with everything she’d cleaned out of her desk, she struck out for the door.
“I said wait.” Fingers wrapped around her arm, stopping her. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sebastian Cavanagh’s dark brows drew into an angry line, his handsome face no longer wearing its habitual genial expression. The man whom everyone loved and who had been trying to get her into bed for the past year. She’d never succumbed to his charms like others because she was a professional, goddamn it, and sleeping with a Cavanagh of Cavanagh Sales had always seemed like a really bad idea. 
“Leaving.” Blue added nothing to that. She just jerked her arm free and backed up a step.
“Look, there is no need for this behavior—”
“No need,” Blue gritted out. “The protege you made me train because, and I quote, ‘you are the best designer we have, Blue, and I want my cousin to learn from the best,’ just stole one of my drawings and pitched it to Shannon, my boss, as her own. Said boss then told me to get over myself. It’s no big deal as this kind of thing happens all the time.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. They were what had drawn her to him. Blue, the color of a bright cloudless day in her hometown of Lyntacky, Colorado. 
The stab of longing she felt for her home then nearly dropped her to her knees. She fought the need. Keep it together. You’re the tough McAllister, remember.
“And the worst part of all this is that you knew. Shannon told me you said I’d be unhappy, but I’d roll with it ‘because Blue is a professional.’”
“Look. I know what Layla did was wrong—”
“When did you know she had stolen my drawings, Sebastian?”
He didn’t want to answer her because his eyes moved just an inch, to the right.
“How long?”
“I saw her talking to the clients with Shannon, and when she came out, I asked her what was going on,” he conceded. “She showed me her drawings, but I knew they were yours.”
That had to be over a week ago, Blue realized. The betrayal hit hard.
“Let’s go upstairs and work this through. You are our best designer, and we can settle this. I know you’re halfway through the designs for the catalogu, and—”
“So you’ll tell everyone those are my designs that she stole, and your cousin will be reprimanded, if not fired?”
“There is no need for that. She knows she was wrong, but Layla is family—”
“And I’m what?”
“Important,” he gritted out.
“But not family.” Blue snorted. “Clearly there is no loyalty to me, a staff member who has poured her heart and soul into designing your lines for years?”
His eyes moved left and right. “Keep your voice down.”
She laughed then, right in his face. “You want me to swallow this entire thing and just deal with it, don’t you, Sebastian?”
“These things happen, Blue. We don’t want to lose you, so come with me back to the office, and we’ll get Layla in there, too, and we can talk this entire thing through.”
He wore a deep gray suit, tailored to his muscled body, and a white shirt, with a blue tie that matched his eyes. The man was hot, there was no getting around that, and he knew it, but something had always stopped her from getting close to him. As it turned out, that was the right move. 
“They don’t happen to me, and I can’t work for people who don’t have my back. If Layla gets away with this, she’ll keep doing it.”
He snorted. “Your country girl roots are showing, Blue Jay. This is the big city. Things run differently here.”
Blue really hated people laughing at her, which had started on her first day of school when her mother had made her wear a smock dress in some curtain material she had left over. 
“Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee, and we’ll talk about it,” Sebastian said in the gentle voice that had calmed nervous clients before. 
It didn’t calm her.
“Let me explain my feelings, Sebastian. I will never work for Cavanagh West again. I would rather be unemployed. I’m leaving, and if you come at me in any way, I will talk, loudly, to anyone who will listen about what low-life scumbags the upper management at Cavanagh Sale are.”
And that hurt the most because for years she’d ignored the murmurings as jealousy or someone trying to rake up trouble for Cavanagh Sale. When the truth had slapped her in the face, she could no longer do that.
He leaned into her. “Be very careful, Blue. We have a lot of money and power behind us and could destroy your reputation. I want those designs you have already drawn, and you are going to give them to me.”
The calm veneer tore away, and Sebastian Cavanagh became a man she’d never seen before. His blue eyes filled with ice, and anger sharpened every line of his face. She realized then that there was no point in continuing this conversation because she would never win. The Cavanagh family had all the power.
“Goodbye, Sebastian.” Blue took a step back and then walked around him and out the door. Stepping into the cool New York air, she wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.
The city didn’t pause to acknowledge her situation. People streamed past in every direction—heels clicking, coffee cups clutched, voices raised into phones mid-argument or mid-joke. Taxis blared. Somewhere, someone laughed too loudly.
Just another workday in New York City, Blue thought, forcing the swell of hysteria back down. She fell into the current moving left, clutching her box of possessions to her chest like a shield, and let the city carry her forward.
What was she meant to do now? Did I do the right thing? But even as the question crossed her mind, she knew she did. Blue was raised in a family that, while odd, was loyal and knew the difference between right and wrong, which they’d instilled in their four children.
If she’d stayed at Cavanagh Sale, it would not have been the same, and she would have resented everyone involved in stealing those designs from her. No, her time there had been tainted. It was over.
Looking at the shop window to her right, she saw her reflection. A woman who fit into the New York vibe. The power-casual style, blending professional polish with personal flair, her boss called it. She always praised Blue for her clothing choices. 
Blue walked and let the thoughts come and go. She loved this city as much as she loved the small town she’d been born and raised in. Here she was anonymous and no longer one of the crazy Lyntacky McAllisters. Here she’d grown up out of the shadow of her siblings and parents.
What am I going to do now?
Looking down at her Christian Louboutins which had been a purchase after her last bonus, she wondered if she’d have to sell them now. There was a huge market for secondhand clothing and shoes these days.
“For pity’s sake, Blue, calm the fuck down,” she muttered as anxiety slid its ugly tendrils into her veins.
She was nobody’s fool and knew that finding work in the fashion industry would not be easy if Cavanagh West made things difficult for her. Sebastian hadn’t been lying when he’d said he could destroy her reputation. He could, and it would only take a few phone calls. The industry respected them, and she was nobody in comparison.
A wave of tiredness had her moving to a bench on the sidewalk and dropping onto it, still clutching her box. Panic slithered through her. It wasn’t too late to go back in order to—no, that wasn’t who she was. She couldn’t work with people she didn’t trust.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there thinking, but her cheeks were icy, and her nose had started running from the cold. Thoughts tumbled through her head as she tried to come up with a plan.
Blue was good at planning and always having a direction to travel in. Right then, she was clueless. Her plan had been to stay with Cavanagh West and climb to the top—as far as they let her go, that was. 
She saw a black Escalade pull up alongside her. Looking into the driver’s seat, she saw a man alone in a dark suit and sunglasses. Her immediate thought was a chauffeur or security. The car moved forward a few feet and then stopped.
Blue watched the rear doors to see who got out. She loved celebrity spotting, and this car had tinted windows and a driver, so her guess was that whoever sat inside was someone important, like a politician or celebrity. 
A black-clad leg appeared, a polished black leather shoe on its foot over a deep gray sock. Then the body followed. Tall, Blue thought. His back was to her, and she saw broad shoulders in a black suit jacket. The suit perfectly complemented his long, lean frame. His dark hair ruffled in the breeze. She watched him lean back into the limo and take out a leather briefcase. He slung the strap over his shoulder.
As she wondered what he looked like, he turned. Their eyes caught and held, and Blue felt the breath lock in her chest. What the hell was he doing here? Further to that, why was he in that limousine dressed like that?
Sin, she thought. The man looked like sin. Sexy as hell, and a little dangerous. Then he smiled at her, and Blue felt an answering smile tug at her own lips. Jay Haddon had gone to the same elementary school as Blue back in Lyntacky. He was a few years older and friends with her brothers, but she knew him.
“Hey, Blue. Who’d have thought I’d run into you today.” Jay moved to where she stood and looked down at her. His eyes ran over her face and then moved to the box she was still clutching. 
“Hi, Jay.”
“You all good there, Blue?” 
She’d known this man most of her life, and they’d run into each other on and off over the years when their trips home had coincided, but he’d never been what she’d call a close friend. They just grew up in the same crazy town alongside each other.
“You look a little pale. What’s going on, Blue?”
Lyntacky had plenty of hot guys per capita, and she’d never thought Jay Haddon one of them, but looking up that long suit-clad body to the handsome face above, she knew that opinion had now changed.
The man was smoking hot in that suit. In Lyntacky, he was always scruffy and unkempt, but not today, she thought, looking at the smooth-shaven jaw.
“Nothing,” Blue said, realizing she was staring. “How are you, Jay?”
His blue eyes told her he wasn’t buying her words that nothing was wrong. Not blue like Sebastian’s eyes. No—these were more deep-ocean blue. He also had ridiculously long eyelashes, which she was instantly jealous of. Hers were fake. How had she not noticed them before?
“Why were you in that limousine, Jay?” 
“Catching a ride.” He shrugged.
“In a limousine? Now tell me the truth.”
His smile was crooked.
“Why are you sitting there clutching a box full of—” He leaned in to look inside it. “—desk contents.”
Before she could stop him, he’d pulled out the pen holder that had pens, pencils, and other crap in it that her sister, Birdie, had made for her. It was an old can that she’s stuck pictures all over and then handwritten the words “to my big sister for her twelfth birthday.” She’d carried it with her everywhere.
“Nice. Did Birdie make that for you?”
Blue nodded, taking the pen holder from him and putting it back in the box.
“I figured it wouldn’t be Lynx or Finch.”
“No, my brothers were not into making my gifts,” she agreed.
“What’s going on, Blue? You look panicky.”
“I’m not panicky,” she said, sounding exactly that.
His gaze went over her shoulder, and she turned, hoping Sebastian hadn’t found her. But what she saw was one of New York’s finest hotels that she’d never stayed in. Who knew I’d walked that far.
“It’s cold out here. Come inside and have a drink with me,” Jay said.
“Are you staying here?”
He nodded.
“Are you rich, Jay?”
“That’s a rude question, Blue.” His mouth twitched again.
“You sell real estate at home in Lyntacky, but there is no way that income would allow you to stay here.” Blue pointed at the hotel.
“Come inside and have a drink with me, and I might tell you what I’ve been up to.”
“I don’t think so. I need to get home.”
“You work at one of the fashion houses, don’t you? How come you’re not there at 2:00 p.m. on a Monday?” Jay asked. 
“None of your business.”
“Come on, Blue, we’re friends who come from a crazy little town that loves square dancing. Have a drink with me.”
She was clearly silent for too long, because he wrestled the box out of her hands. 
“If you want this back, you have to come inside and find me.”
“Jay, give that back. That’s theft!” He ignored her and kept walking, those long legs taking him away from her. 
She watched him walk through the glass circular door and then disappear.
“Well, hell,” Blue muttered.

Chapter Two

Jay ordered some drinks and food at the bar because his meeting had run longer than he’d thought it would, and his stomach was rumbling. He found a seat that faced the door, placing the box he’d taken from Blue Jay McAllister under the small table. 
Something was off with her, he just didn’t know what. Digging through his memory as he looked around the interior of the hotel bar, checking for anyone he might recognize, he couldn’t remember hearing any gossip about her lately. 
Blue Jay was one of the McAllisters from Lyntacky. Birdie, her sister, who had married a Duke, the family he was closest to, had told him she was a designer for some high-end fashion house in New York and was climbing up the ranks because she was good at her job. 
The woman he’d seen when he stepped out of that car had looked pale and beaten. Something he’d never thought to associate with the fiery women Jay knew. She’d always seemed fierce to him. Strong willed, and rarely vulnerable.
Shooting another look at the door, he didn’t see her. She’d come for that box because it had Birdie’s homemade pencil holder, and the fact that, years after it was given to her, Blue still had it told him it was important.
McAllisters were an odd lot, and he couldn’t imagine their school life had run smoothly. Both parents were hippies, and the four kids had been raised as recycling ninjas who could name an herb and its healing properties at a glance. 
He remembered them being picked on a few times, but like the Dukes, of which there were five, they had always protected their own. 
Jay saw her then. She stood in the doorway, eyes moving around the bar, searching for him.
Tall, blond and curvy with a face that could stop traffic, Blue Jay McAllister had always been someone you took a second look at. Not just because of her looks, even though those were special. There was an energy about her that hit you when she was close. Looking at the woman in the doorway, he thought that energy had depleted today. 
He and Blue had never been tight friends, but they’d lived in the same small town, so they’d hung out together plenty. He associated her with Lyntacky, so it had been a surprise seeing her.
Her makeup, which you’d expect working in a fashion house or being a New Yorker, was expertly applied. Those long eyelashes weren’t hers, but they did special things for her jade green eyes.
They locked on his, and there was no smile as she headed his way. Chin raised, shoulders back, her lovely body stalked toward him.
She wore a sage-green pair of loose trousers, a fitted white-collared shirt, matching sage waistcoat, and a long black overcoat. Low black heels clicked softly against the floor. She was sleek. Sophisticated. And undeniably hot as hell.
No one watching the woman closing the distance would ever imagine the hemp-wearing kid he’d once gone to school with. 
“Give me my box back, Jay,” she said when she reached his table.
“Sit, Blue. I’ve ordered some food and drinks. We’re friends, remember. I don’t see many Lyntacks”—the name they called themselves—“out in the wild.”
Jay kept his words even because he knew from experience that Blue fired up easily. She had grown up, but he was sure the girl who had beaten the crap out of Henry Lewis for teasing her sister about the odd-colored cookies she’d been eating for lunch was still in there somewhere.
“I don’t want to sit.” She wore her small leather bag across her body and folded her arms over that to glare at him.
“Here are your drinks,” the server said, arriving with his order.
“Move, Blue,” Jay said. 
She did, shuffling a few feet to the right, but she didn’t sit.
Stubborn woman.
“What’s that?” Blue said, pointing at the large bowl of alcohol he’d ordered for her. 
“Island Dream,” Jay said. 
“How do you know I wanted an Island Dream?” she demanded, glaring at it. “You’ve got a beer.”
“Do you want my beer, Blue?” Jay said, holding it out.
She then let out a loud sigh that came from her toes and dropped into the seat across from him. Taking the cocktail, she took a long slurp on the straw.
“It’s alcoholic,” he drawled as she continued to drink.
“Why were you in that limousine, Jay?”
“I can’t tell you.” 
“Can’t or won’t?” she asked, taking another drink. 
“Can’t.” Jay did work for the government, which was something he couldn’t discuss, and had worked in Washington for a while. Now he just did the occasional contract when they offered him enough money he couldn’t refuse, which was why he was in New York at the moment.
“I remember you were really good at working things out. Computers and numbers were your thing,” she said, now eating the pineapple that had been in the cocktail. 
He nodded but didn’t add anything. 
The server returned with a plate of beef sliders and seasoned wedges. He ordered another round of drinks, seeing as she was inhaling hers.
“How did you know I wanted food?” Blue studied the platter.
“I didn’t.” Jay picked up a slider and took a bite. “I did.”
“You wouldn’t have eaten all this,” she protested.
“So would.”
They ate in silence, and he felt her relax. Like him, Blue Jay McAllister was clearly hungry.
“Tell me what’s going on with you, Blue. Because that box signaled to me you had packed up your desk and left your job. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.”
She crunched on a wedge and swallowed. “Do you ever sometimes think you’re the anomaly, Jay? Like you were raised in Lyntacky, where honesty and integrity were important, but that is missing in other people.”
“Constantly.”
“Don’t get me wrong, some people are great, but then you get those assholes that really throw you a curveball.”
“You have a good curveball, from memory, Blue,” Jay said, smiling.
“I do.” She drank some more. “I miss being in Lyntacky sometimes, like a toothache, and then other times, I wonder how I lived there.”
“With age I’ve realized, I want to be there more. Before, when I was younger, I needed to know there was more out in the world for me,” Jay said. “But now I just want to go home when I’m done.”
“Now Sawyer and Birdie have Sadie, I’m constantly wondering if I’m missing out on watching her grow up,” Blue said.
“Yeah, I feel like that with all the Duke offspring,” Jay agreed.
Blue looked down at her drink and then back at him. “Do you have family in Lyntacky, Jay?”
He shook his head. Family wasn’t something he ever talked about. Even the Dukes hadn’t known what went on at his house. Asher Dans had, but he’d kept Jay’s secrets.
“I’m sorry. That must be hard.” 
She meant it. He saw that in her lovely eyes.
“I have plenty of people there I call family. After all, I am the honorary sixth Duke, which is an honor many covet but only I have.” Jay took a drink to ease the tightness in his chest.
“If I were going to be an honorary member of any family but mine, it would be theirs,” Blue conceded. “They’re just the right amount of good and badassery.”
He nodded. “Tell me what happened today, Blue. I’m good for it.”
“No offence, Jay, but I know nothing about you.”
“Fair point. But the Dukes know me, and you know if I was a bad person, I wouldn’t be the honorary sixth Duke.”
Her sigh was pitiful and made his chest ache because Blue had never been that. 
“They stole from me, Jay.”
“Who?”
She told him her story then as they ate and drank. 
Life was funny like that sometimes. You had small moments in time with people you never shared time or secrets with again. This moment was his with Blue Jay McAllister.
“And so, what? You just walked out of a job you loved and had been in for eight years?”
She glared at him, eyes narrowed and maybe a little hazy now, as she was at the bottom of her second Island Dream, which he knew had a lot of alcohol in it.                                   “I respect myself more than staying someplace where they think it’s okay for someone to steal my designs and take the accolades. I work hard at what I do.” She slapped a hand on her chest. 
“Sure, I get that, but maybe if you’d stayed and dealt—”
“I will never win this, Jay. Layla is a cousin of the people who own the business. They have no loyalty to me.”
“So what now? Are you going to sue them?”
“No.”
“You can’t just let them get away with this, Blue.”
“I can’t speak out against them because this is a small industry for all that it’s huge,” she said. “If I want to work again, then I can’t afford to be blacklisted.”
“Need someone to have a chat with them for you?”
Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “I’ve never thought of you as mean, but right then you sounded and looked just like Sawyer Duke.”
“Well, he is a hero of mine, so thanks for the compliment.”
She smiled then, and it was sweet and sad. The woman was cute, he realized, and disturbing. Funny how he’d never thought of her that way before.
They ate, they drank, and Blue Jay McAllister would need to be stuffed into a cab soon and sent home, as she was definitely on the tipsy side. But then Jay wasn’t a lot better, as he’d moved on to whisky. 
He never drank much. Being raised by a mother who drank constantly soured things for you. But right then, seated with this woman who he thought he knew well but didn’t—not really—he found himself doing just that.
“You’re a lot hotter than I thought you were,” she said suddenly. Her eyes then did a slow survey over his face and moved down his chest.
“Women get really angry if men do that,” he drawled, trying to stomp down the sudden burst of heat that surged through him at her look.
This is Blue Jay McAllister of the hippie McAllisters. You don’t lust after her.
“Consider it payback, then.” She put her hand on her chin and studied him. 
Some powerful people in his time had studied Jay, but right then, he felt a need to squirm in his seat. Partly because of the fact that he was suddenly hard.
Must be the alcohol.
“I’ve always looked the same,” he said manfully, trying not to check out the cleavage her current position afforded him.
“No. You’re usually messy.”
“So because I’m put together in a suit, I’m suddenly easier on the eyes?”
The smile that curved her lips was slow and sexy. “I like well-put-together people. After all, I am—was—in the fashion industry.”
Hell, she was hot, and Jay had a feeling this could go south really fast, but he didn’t want to stop it. 
“Is that suit tailor-made to fit your body?” 
The words weren’t exactly purred, but it was close. Her eyes surveyed him again.
Blue Jay McAllister was flirting with him, and he should have an issue with that, but Jay found he didn’t.
When his phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket, happy for the distraction, and answered.
“Haddon.” He listened to what was said and then cut the call after saying, “I’ll get that to you at once, sir.”
“Trouble?” She was slurping on her fourth cocktail.
“No. I just need to head up to my room and get something.”
“Does your room have a view of Central Park?”
He nodded. “You want to come and take a look while I do what I need to? Then I can put you in a cab.” Bad move, Jay. Bad, bad, bad. Don’t take her up to your room.
She frowned. “I’m not drunk.”
He studied her. She wasn’t, but she was definitely a little tipsy. “Okay. Let’s go.”
He grabbed her box from under the table, and they walked to the elevator. He jabbed the button for the top floor.
She was standing close enough that their bodies brushed, which was not helping his awareness of this woman. Then there was her soft scent that seemed to slide up his nostrils. Sexy.
“Wow. You must have lots of money, or whoever you’re working with does. The top floor in this place would cost half a year’s salary,” Blue said.
“Lucky for me, I don’t have to pay then.”
When they reached his room, he swiped, and they entered.
“Oh my god!” she squealed and ran to the floor-to-ceiling windows that were the first thing you saw when you walked into the lounge. 
Jay had long since lost the excitement for staying in the places he did. They were just beds until he had finished what he needed to do.
He threw his jacket on a chair, left her, and went to his laptop, glad for the distance he was putting between them. He turned it on, and then found the document he needed and forwarded it to the high-ranking military official who had called him. Jay then shut it down.
“This view is amazing, Jay.”
“I know.” He joined her, admiring the long line of her back and curves of her ass way more than he should as he did so. She’d kicked off her killer heels, and they lay beside where she stood.
“You can see so much from up here. If I lived in this suite, I’d stand right here for hours.”
“You get used to it.”
He stood beside her, studying the scenery below them. 
From this height, Central Park didn’t feel like a park so much as a living canvas dropped into the middle of Manhattan. The trees had long canopies that stretch for miles. 
“In the fall, this view would be spectacular,” she said. 
Jay wasn’t good with descriptive words. He dealt in facts and had failed dismally at creative writing in school. Clearly, Blue hadn’t.
“Look at those paths. They wind like ribbons in and out of the trees. You can see the occasional flash of silver from the ponds catching the light between branches.”
Jay studied the park as she spoke, seeing it for the first time through someone else’s eyes. It had always just been there, large and busy, but Blue’s description was making him see it differently.  
Jay watched the tiny figures move below—runners, dog walkers, and tourists. They looked like ants from here. Beyond the trees, the city surrounded the park, tall buildings lining its edges.
“It’s a magical view, Jay,” she whispered.
“I don’t really take the time to study it.”
She turned her body to look up at him. Blue was tall, but he was taller.
“You’ve got a lot of secrets, haven’t you, Jay? Want to share, seeing as I’ve told you some of mine?”
They stared at each other for long seconds, and he felt the air change between them. He should step back. Should take her down the stairs and put her in a cab. 
“Jay,” she whispered. “Why do I suddenly want to kiss you?”

Chapter Three

“Hell if I know, but I feel the same.” 
Somewhere between drink three and four, Blue had suddenly become hyperaware of Jay Haddon. Hot sexy guy in a suit.
One of his hands, big and warm, went to her cheek, cupping it. The heat slid through her. 
“Blue,” he whispered, lowering his head. 
“Jay,” she added, linking their names like the kids in school used to.
Then his lips were on hers, and she forgot to breathe.
The kiss was soft yet demanding, which made no sense. He explored her mouth with his, and Blue let him. Right there, with Central Park and thousands of people below, she was being kissed by Jay Haddon. 
“I’m sure this is wrong,” he whispered against her lips when they came up for air.
She leaned in and pressed her mouth to his once more, eager for more of this man, when before today, she’d never considered him anything but a kid she’d grown up with. 
One of his hands went to the edge of her waistcoat, just above the waistband of her trousers, and slid underneath. Just a few fingers, but Blue shuddered at the sensation of his skin on hers.
When was the last time someone made her feel like this? She couldn’t remember.
“I want you way more than I should about now, Blue Jay McAllister.” He spoke the words into her neck, moving his lips to kiss her. 
“Same,” she whispered.
He lifted his head and looked at her. “Are we doing this?”
She didn’t hesitate and nodded.
His eyes closed briefly, and then he slid that hand up and over her ribcage. Blue tugged his shirt free from his trousers and did the same.
His moan was more of a growl and made heat pool between her legs. 
The tips of his fingers reached her bra and danced along the underside of her breasts, making her shudder.
“Blue, if you keep making those noises, this will be over before it starts.” The words were a rasp.
She slid her hand across the hard, flat plane of his stomach, and this time he shuddered.
“Who knew Jay Haddon was sexy?”
He kissed her. Harder this time, his tongue tangling with hers. When one stopped, the other started. It was rough and thorough, and she wanted more—much more.
Jay got her waistcoat open and pushed it off her body. His eyes then moved down, taking in the silk cups of her beige bra, which pushed her breasts higher. “Damn, you’re hot, woman.”
Before Blue could answer, he’d lowered his head and licked the curve of her breast. Her hands went to his shoulders, gripping the muscles as if her life depended on it. 
He kissed, licked, and destroyed her, and then he took off her bra and continued. She was liquid heat. Every inch of her was aware of him and what he was doing to her. 
Blue’d had lovers. She’d enjoyed them, but this was so much more. So much so that when it was done, she would be terrified. But not now—now Jay’s sensations consumed her.
He undid the button and lowered the zipper of her pants, and they fell to the ground.
“I love loose clothing,” he said with a dirty laugh that hiked her passion higher.
“I’m naked and you’re...” The words died in her throat as he dropped to his haunches and placed his lips on her left thigh. Just below her panties. 
“Jay,” she whispered, the sound coming out tortured. 
He licked up her thigh and skimmed across the wisp of silk to the other thigh. She couldn’t stop the delicious shudder that ran through her.
Heat, desire—it all coursed through her body. And when she felt his breath there, between her thighs, she nearly imploded.
“Open your legs wider, Blue.”
Looking down at him, his dark, wavy hair, sultry green eyes, and wicked smile, she knew that right then, she’d do whatever he wanted her to. 
When she widened her stance, he gripped her thighs and kissed her through the silk. 
“Oh, God.” Blue couldn’t hold back the words or the sigh.
One of his fingers slid under the edge and stroked along her folds, probing but not sinking inside her wet heat. Her hands went to his hair and tugged. He growled.
He slid her panties aside, and then he was there. His breath skimmed over her as he gave her the most intimate kiss of all, and Blue felt the tension inside her climb to an unbearable level. 
“Now, Jay,” she demanded.
He ignored her and continued teasing, his fingers stroking as his tongue found the hard bud between her thighs and licked. 
When he took pity on her and pushed two fingers inside, she shuddered and then came harder and faster than she ever had in her life. Ecstasy crashed over her in waves and left her destroyed. 
Jay climbed to his feet and leaned in to kiss her softly. She tasted herself on him. 
“You okay?”
Opening her eyes as he pulled back, Blue thought he looked a little smug. She wasn’t having that. “Peachy.”
Blue opened the buttons of his shirt and set about torturing him as he had her. She licked and kissed his nipples, which made him tense up. One of his hands went into her hair, gripping her as she had him. 
She made her way to his waistband and then opened his trousers and pushed them down his thighs. She slid one hand to his erection and cradled it, running her fingers up and down it through his briefs.
“Fuck.”
The words were low and guttural, but Blue wasn’t done with him yet. Fair was fair. She eased his briefs down his thighs and then bent and licked the soft crown before taking him fully inside her mouth.
“Double fuck,” he whispered. He cupped her head, digging his fingers into her scalp as she slid her mouth up and down his length, the tension between them climbing higher.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he hissed, easing her up his body. 
She watched as he kicked off his shoes and pushed down his pants and shorts. Then he gripped her around the waist and boosted her up his body. 
“Who knew Blue Jay McAllister, one of the hippie McAllisters, would do it for me,” he whispered against her lips before kissing her.
He invaded her mouth, and she wanted him to invade other parts of her. 
Blue landed on the bed with a hard body on top of her settled between the cradle of her open thighs.
“Condom,” she whispered, and he stilled.
“Fuck.”
“You don’t have one?”
He shook his head. 
“I’m clean and on the pill,” she said, desperate to feel him inside her.
“Are you sure?” He looked down at her. “I’m clean too.”
“Yes.” Blue bucked her hips into him. “Now, Jay.”
“Patience, Blue,” he whispered, kissing one of her breasts.
“I’m not a patient person,” she gritted out.
His laugh was strained. And then she felt him there, pressing against her entrance. The first delicious thrust had him entering her, and then he was sheathed deep inside. 
“So good,” he whispered. “First time fast. Second slower.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist as he drove into her again and again. Her body ached for a second release, and then it was happening, hitting her hard as she again scaled that summit of pleasure.
He followed with a deep moan, pumping into her. He then fell onto the bed beside her.
Her heart thumped hard inside her chest in time with his. Their harsh breathing filled the room.
Blue lay there, sated, eyes closed, and felt exhaustion roll over her in waves. 
“You okay?” he whispered in her ear.
She managed to pat his thigh, but had no words, and then she was out.

Blue woke to darkness, and the weak light outside the large windows. Jay had somehow maneuvered her under the covers, and her head was on a pillow. Turning, she found him sleeping beside her, his eyes closed, breathing soft and even, his large body naked under that sheet.
She’d just slept with Jay Haddon. Someone from her hometown, and someone she would run into again and again there. The thought was terrifying. What they’d done had been wrong on so many levels. She’d had too much to drink, and then with what had happened at her work, she’d clearly lost her head. Blue never lost her head.
Panic slithered its icy tendrils through her. 
“Blue?” His eyes opened, and he looked at her.
“We shouldn’t have done that, Jay” were the first words out of her mouth. 
“Very likely, but we did.” He rolled and pushed himself upright. “You want some coffee or anything else?”
 “No. I need to go,” Blue said, getting out of bed. “I have to go.”
“Okay, if that’s what you need to do.”
“How can you be so calm about this?” The words came out as a shriek. She was out of bed and glaring at him now. 
“And we’re consenting adults,” he replied.
“I need to go.”
“You said that.”
“Stop it!”
“What?”
“Being calm and rational when I’m falling apart.”
He gave her a gentle smile, and she wanted to slap it from his face.
“This doesn’t need to be more than it is,” he assured her. “Or it can be.”
“You live in Lyntacky most of the time, and I live here, Jay. My life is a mess, and I don’t want a partner. So, no, there can be no more than this.”
He nodded, his eyes steady on her face, and she felt exposed, like he could read every thought she wasn’t sharing with him.
“I’m leaving,” Blue muttered. She then moved around the room, gathering up her clothes. “After I use the bathroom.”
“Have at it.” He yawned then.
“You can just go back to sleep.”
“I will after I’ve called the front desk to get you a cab.”
“I can call my own damn cab,” Blue muttered.
“Not sure why I’m suddenly the enemy, but there is the Blue I remember,” he said in a voice that was harder than it had been. “And I’m going to call you a cab, Blue, whether you want it or not.”
“Whatever.”
She was being an ungrateful bitch, but fear made Blue ornery—everyone close to her knew it. After taking care of business, she washed her face and removed yesterday’s makeup. Then, after running Jay’s brush through her hair, she was ready to leave.
He was waiting for her, dressed in a pair of boxer shorts, which exposed every inch of that hard, muscled body. 
Damn, the man was fine.
“Sorry for being a bitch, and thank you for… for—”
“The cocktails, food, and the really good sex?” 
“That,” she said. Blue then leaned in and kissed his cheek. 
He turned, and their lips met and clung. 
Damn.
“So I’ll see you around, Blue Jay McAllister.”
She managed a nod and let herself out of his room. Blue then climbed into the elevator and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do with her life now.