Putting It to the Test Read online

  Opting for a table in the corner, they sat down with their meals.

  “Speaking of your boyfriend…” Bev said. “He’s been the talk of the shop lately. Everyone’s noticed his turnaround since the infamous blowup in the conference room. People are actually beginning to like him.”

  Carly rolled the paper off her sub and spread it out like a plate, ripping open her bag of chips and dumping them out next to her sandwich. “They should. He’s a great guy.”

  Bev snorted. “It’s still weird hearing you say that. You hated him for so long.”

  “I was wrong about him. We all were. Peel back the facade, and there was a pretty nice guy underneath. He just needed a little prodding.”

  “He needed to be threatened with losing his job, you mean.”

  Carly huffed. “Must you be so cynical?” She popped a chip in her mouth. “I mean, yes, he made some mistakes when it came to getting along. Although all he needed was some help understanding how much better working can be when he pops out of that lab once in a while and lends a hand.”

  “Did you know he spent his entire afternoon yesterday in Fred’s cube, helping him smooth out that animation for the Codding Bank site? It’s actually pretty cool. Fred’s been raving about it ever since.”

  “Yeah, Matt’s doing a good job. Even Mr. Hall has commented about the difference in him. He’s made quite the turnaround.”

  “Which means you’ve kept up your end of the bargain. So what has he done for you lately other than vastly improve your sex life?”

  Carly frowned, not liking the sarcasm in Bev’s tone. “He’s done plenty,” she snipped.

  Bev held up a hand. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just wondering if Hall has said anything to you about your performance. I recall your deal with Matt was to help each other out.”

  “And he has.” Though she had to think for a moment to come up with an example. “He’s been making a big point to let Mr. Hall and Andy McGee know that I’ve done a lot of the design work. And he’s shown me plenty of tricks along the way.” She sipped her soda through a straw and set the large paper cup down. “He’s worked very hard.”

  “Carly, I’m not saying he hasn’t. It’s just that I’m hearing a lot of buzz about Matt and not much about you. I worry how you might feel when he walks off with the management job.”

  “That hasn’t been decided.”

  “But what’s going to happen between you two when it is? I know you, Carly. You’ve got hearts in your eyes when it comes to him and you’ve conveniently forgotten that you two are competing for the same promotion. You’ve been spending a ton of time working with him, encouraging him to get to know the other designers, introducing him to the projects people are working on, insinuating him into the mix. You’ve done a great job helping him out.” Bev gently clasped Carly’s hand. “I just don’t want you hurt when all your hard work gets him promoted over you.”

  “He hasn’t gotten the job.”

  “But how would you feel if he did?”

  Carly toyed with her paper napkin and pondered the question. “We agreed it would be a fair game. If he got promoted, I’d have no choice but to be happy for him.”

  “And in the end you’d be satisfied Matt did everything he could to help you as much as you’ve helped him?”

  “Of course. We’ve been working together very well. I’m sure if there’s more he could do for me, he would. There just hasn’t been as much opportunity, that’s all.”

  Bev shrugged and took a big bite out of the corner of her sandwich, giving Carly a moment to decide whether or not there was more she’d like to add to her defense.

  Carly came up empty. What she’d said was true. Matt’s problems on the job had been a lot easier to tackle than hers. She was charged with doing more to impress the client, and on a team project like Singles Inc. it was hard to express which one of them had done what. But as she’d said, on more than one occasion Matt had given her credit in front of the boss, making sure he’d played up her part in the design efforts.

  “I’m only remembering that time after you read his survey—you’d walked away convinced he was a self-serving, egomaniacal jerk.” Carly opened her mouth to object, but Bev cut her off. “I know you think you’ve seen a better side of him and I’m not saying he’s not a good guy. I’m only wondering if you’ve considered the thought that he might be…” Bev shrugged rather than finishing the sentence.

  Carly angrily filled in the blank. “He might be using me to get the job?”

  “Weeks ago you would have been right here with me.”

  “Weeks ago I didn’t know him the way I know him now.”

  “So all those survey answers were just a lie? What, was he in a bad mood that day or something?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never discussed it.”

  Bev took an extended breath and gave Carly a look she didn’t appreciate. It was a look that said she was being played the fool and was too infatuated to notice.

  “We’ve never had to discuss it,” she clarified. “I’ve got better instincts than that.”

  “Well, if I were you, I’d be asking him to explain all those answers. The man you’ve been describing lately doesn’t sound anything like the guy who filled out those survey questions.”

  “Survey, schmurvey. That was ages ago. It’s history.”

  “It was supposed to be a glimpse inside his personality, and if you recall, you hadn’t liked what you’d seen.”

  “The man I know isn’t the same man who filled out the survey.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  And she was. A woman didn’t spend practically every night with a man in the most intimate way possible without learning something about him. Around her, he was kind and caring, generous and tender. He’d helped her with her house and even put up with her cat. He had clothes at her house, she had clothes at his condo. That wasn’t the type of thing a man did with a woman he was just using to get a job.

  Yet, still, she didn’t like the seed of doubt Bev had planted. Truth be told, Carly had completely forgotten about the survey. And, yes, maybe Matt was benefiting more from their pact than she was. And sure, she hadn’t been immune to the office speculation that Matt would be the man heading up Mr. Hall’s new design team.

  She stared at her lunch, her interest in the sandwich dwindling by the minute.

  “So if Matt does get that job, you won’t feel cheated?” Bev asked. “You spent a lot of time upset that Hall kept passing you over for him. You could really just smile and say your congratulations to Matt if Hall does it again?”

  Carly shrugged. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Not at this point in the game. You’ve already brought him up to speed on what he needed to do to land it. I’m only worried about how you’d take it if it happened.”

  Waving off the thread of doubt and suspicion Bev had fed her, Carly stiffened her spine and jutted her chin. “I’ll feel he deserved it.”

  Bev looked surprised and impressed. “Then he’s more special to you than I realized.” She smiled, but it seemed more forced than genuine. “I’m happy for you. And who knows? You could be the one walking away with the job. That’s highly possible, too.” Then she took a sip of her soda and winked. “Then you can worry how he’s going to take it.”

  15

  “THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. I can’t believe you don’t sit out here more often.”

  Matt and Carly relaxed on the third-story balcony of his waterfront condominium in southern Marin, watching the sun settle over the hills to the west. The night sky was a bright shade of pink, turning deeper and more radiant as each minute passed.

  Inside the double French doors was the master suite, where soft ballads wafted through the air from his bedroom stereo. Matt hadn’t expected them to end up out here. The main living area was downstairs on the second floor over the two-car tandem garage that made up the ground level. This third floor only housed his master
bedroom and a second room he used for storage.

  After their dinner, he’d come up here to change, Carly following him for what he’d expected would be the typical nightcap of great sex that had become their regular habit. But one look at the bright pink sky and they’d found themselves on the balcony he never used, relaxing casually while they watched a rare beautiful sunset unhampered by the typical evening fog.

  He took a swig of his beer. “Usually when I’m up here I’m either sleeping, showering or…busy.” He shot her a wink.

  She sank low in the cushy upholstered chair they’d stolen from his bedroom and lazily watched the sunset. “I think it’s good I don’t have a view like this. I’d get lost in the beauty of it and never get anything done.”

  Matt looked toward the hills and the view he’d paid handsomely for, realizing that, aside from the day he’d first toured the condo and noticed the stunning skyline, he rarely, if ever, took the time to sit and enjoy it. That was, of course, before Carly. She had a way of stopping at every turn and making him see the obvious in front of him. Sunsets, kids playing in the park, a bright orange field of poppies—it was always something with her. She had a different way of looking at the world, and over these last few weeks, Matt had been enjoying seeing it through her eyes.

  It was a positive vision, filled with hope and wonder. Where he’d spent a lifetime living in cynicism, being angry at most things and not caring to treasure the rest, Carly spent hers looking for the beauty in everything she crossed.

  Including him.

  He found her optimism contagious, her happiness a drug that soothed and warmed the tension from the day, and the more time he spent around her, the more he craved that dose of sunshine.

  In front of them, the sky darkened to deep purple and then to smoky gray, when finally Carly clutched her arms and shivered, the warm evening turning chilly in typical San Francisco Bay fashion. Pulling from his chair, he held out a hand.

  “Let’s go in. Looks like the show’s over.”

  Her bright eyes darkened to something seductive. “I need warming up.”

  They stepped inside and he closed the doors behind him, and within seconds they’d shed their clothes and landed under the covers of his oversize bed. Her skin was gooseflesh, her nipples puckered from cold, and he spooned her against him to bring heat back through her veins.

  Her hair felt like satin against his chest, her body folding into his with that perfect fit that felt made just for him. Smothering his hands over her until she warmed in his embrace, he soaked in her very essence, trying to remember a time when he was this at peace with his heart and his life. Only back in the early days before his parents’ divorce, back before his father dismissed him and his mother grew bitter, had he known this kind of inner tranquility. It felt good but only vaguely familiar, comforting and unsettling all at once, and as he held her close he tried to reconcile the mix of emotions that had begun rattling his sense of security. He’d been feeling it for days, not sure what to do with it or where to place it in the tidy world he’d built for himself.

  She turned in his arms and pressed a cold nose against his chest. “I had an idea.”

  Carly had a lot of ideas. Sometimes he wondered if she spent half her day thinking up new things to do with him in bed.

  Not that he was complaining.

  “What have you come up with this time?”

  She looked up at him, clearly put off. “Well. If my ideas are growing old with you, I can always call it a night.” He caught her playful smile just before she rolled over and began fluffing her pillow.

  He rolled her back. “Nothing about you is ever going to get old with me.” Then he closed his mouth over hers.

  She sank back against the pillow, and he slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her hips against a fast-growing erection. Almost nightly sex and still he hadn’t begun to whet his appetite for this woman, his body feeling almost abandoned when it wasn’t enveloped in hers. It was a strange phenomenon for a man who used to bore easily and tended to get itchy when people got too close. With Carly, his only itch was a constant need for her, and as he began kissing a path down her neck, he considered the many ways he might scratch it.

  “I want to hear your idea,” he muttered against her shoulder.

  She whispered something about vibrators and that cozy chair they’d left out on the balcony, and while intrigued, Matt wasn’t in the mood to leave the bed and go fetch it. In fact, at the moment he was overcome with a need to simply hold her in his arms and sink between her legs. Tonight the notoriety of wild and kinky sex had a cheapness to it he couldn’t put into words, and while he enjoyed their common fetish, he felt a sudden urge to get right inside her where they were. To take her straight and close, where he could slip into her gaze and watch her blossom beneath him.

  Rolling her onto her back, he moved over her, nudging her thighs apart and resting his hips between them. He cupped her face in his hands and studied the pleasured look of anticipation in her eyes, then spoke through a series of kisses.

  “I like that idea,” he said, nudging his cock against her slick core. “But tonight I think I’d like this better.” Then he slid inside, her eyes lolling shut as his thick shaft filled her.

  He closed his mouth over hers, shoving his tongue far inside, and when he did, something seemed to snap deep within him.

  Nestling his body into hers, a driving need began to build, a need to consume, to dig in and grab hold of some piece of her he could hang on to. Suddenly sex didn’t feel like enough. Simply pleasuring her felt too slight for the ache in his chest, and he clasped one hand against her ass, arching her into him to drive this desire deeper.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  As he moved over her, caressing his hands over her hot flesh, stroking his cock through her core, sucking and tasting every spot his mouth could reach, a growing hunger formed in his chest. A hunger so deep and tragic he didn’t know how to feed it. It swelled with every stroke, with every press of his lips to hers, and he quickened the pace, thrusting harder and deeper, hoping speed and force might quench the thirst.

  Her breath came out in pants, her eyes growing delighted as he tightened his grip on her and tried to pull her closer. He felt like a speeding train, gaining momentum yet spinning out of control with no way to stop the force.

  He felt an aching need for release, for some sort of finality, but with every stroke the yearning only grew.

  Sweat broke out on his skin and he raised himself, bracing against the mattress to drive harder, deeper and faster. Carly’s face flushed, her expression a mix of pain and bliss. Grunts escaped her chest with every hard thrust, and in a sudden breath of panic he asked, “Am I hurting you?”

  She shook her head and gripped her hands around his wrists. “Don’t stop,” she panted. “Go, go.”

  He lost the air in his lungs, pleasure swelling between his legs but the thirsty void in his chest only grew with every thrust. He wanted to come fast and hard, thinking only a searing release might stop the torment, and the faster he moved, the higher he crested.

  Her fingers dug into his wrists, need seared in her eyes, a sharp cry spilling from her throat each time he slapped deep against her. And every time he feared he was humping too hard, she simply cried out, “Harder.”

  His legs trembled, his muscles burned. Underneath him Carly arched and curved, trying to greet the force thrust by thrust. His cock ached to the point of pain, the strain nearly splitting him apart, and just as he began to fear the fierce climax edging to the surface, she threw her head back and cried out in searing release.

  He instantly followed, their bodies jerking and buckling as he spilled himself inside her. The waves were cresting hard and fast, crashing against him one right after the other until there was nothing left of him to give. The climax split so quickly it hurt, her hot body clamping tight around him as she reached to his chest and dug her fingers in the flesh. Friction mounted, more waves trickled through him, finally slowing
and easing until he collapsed next to her. Scooping her tightly in his arms, he pressed his face against her chest and squeezed his eyes shut to the sensation.

  “Oh, wow,” she gasped. “That was incredible.”

  But Matt couldn’t answer. Something inside him had broken open, something frightening and foreign yet comforting and warm. And as he held her damp body in his arms and clutched her like he couldn’t let go, he understood what had happened.

  He’d fallen desperately in love.

  ADAM STOOD IN Matt’s new office and whistled. “Wow, these are some upscale digs.”

  Matt couldn’t argue. Sitting in the center of a mahogany U-shaped desk ensemble, the large leather executive chair cushy at his back, he felt a bit like a king.

  Even given the size of his desk, there was still space in the office for a mahogany conference table and four upholstered chairs, a matching couch and two club chairs. One entire wall provided a view of Lakeford Park, and after watching Carly ogle it, he’d acknowledged not every manager in this business got treated so well.

  Heck, at Web Tactics managers only got a slightly bigger cubicle and a modest pay increase. But Hall knew how to retain the people he wanted and had never dismissed the appeal of money and perks. For two years Matt had been staring at these empty offices wishing one of them would be his, and finally it had happened.

  Now if he could only be happy about it.

  “This is amazing,” Carly said, then she lowered her voice. “I think this is nicer than Frank’s office. The furniture is newer, for sure.”

  Though she was putting up a good front, Matt could see that something in her eyes had changed. There was a hardening to her stance, a protectiveness, as if she’d put up a shield of defense expecting things between them to change.

  He definitely wanted things between them to change, but not in the way she expected.

  For over a week Matt had been planning a special evening for the two of them where he would profess his love for her and talk about their futures, but before he could arrange it, Hall had announced his promotion and turned his world on end. Every day and night the man had been at his side, making plans and barking orders, filling every instant with meetings and arrangements. Matt expected that things would be hectic for the moment, but what he hadn’t expected was the feeling that somehow he and Carly were being pulled apart, and he feared that even a profession of love wouldn’t put things back together.