Crossing the Line Read online

  Slowly, we begin to smile at each other until that turns into laughter.

  “Isn’t this sort of unreal?” I ask. “Us being together this way?”

  Hercules nods, and I kiss him. “It is, PG,” he says as if my kiss took his breath away.

  “What next?” I boldly ask.

  Hercules rolls over onto his back but puts a hand between my legs to stroke my inner thigh. His touch makes me drip with wetness. I never knew my inner thigh was such a hot spot. The sizzling sensations are making me hornier.

  “I don’t know,” he finally says.

  Something in his tone doesn’t sit right with me. I almost want to pull away from his touch… almost.

  “So, this is just sex between us, right?” That question alone puts a note of pain in my chest.

  His breathing remains even, and he doesn’t slow the tempo at which he’s stroking my thigh. “Am I out of your system yet?”

  “No,” I whisper. I wish he was. That would make the conclusion of our one-night stand easier to move on from. “Am I out of yours?”

  Staring at the phallic-looking light fixture above his bed, he says, “You’ve never been out of my system.”

  His words spread through my heart like a fan as I ponder his claim. It sounds so unlikely. I’m sure he’s overstating his feelings about me because of the sexual intimacy we’ve been sharing.

  I abruptly lie on my side and circle his nipple with my finger. When he tenses from my stimulation, I’m caught off guard. I think he likes what I’m doing.

  “I still can’t believe you liked me in high school,” I say.

  He sucks air between his teeth. “Well, believe it because I did,” he whispers and then clears his throat. “I had a massive crush on you.”

  His nipple has gotten extra hard. Moisture pools into my mouth. I want to feel the firmness against my tongue. “But I was a massive nerd. And nobody liked me.”

  Hercules curls his strong hand around my fingers. “PG?”

  I lift my eyebrows questioningly.

  “You gotta stop,” he says breathlessly. “Or else.”

  Smiling proudly that I made him horny without really trying, I say, “Or else what?”

  I sigh as his fingers slide up and down my slit before drawing circles against my clit. Then, Hercules slides down my body until a warm, steamy, and silken sensation laps my clit.

  “Oh Herc…” I cry as the rest of his name gets trapped in my throat.

  It’s time for round three.

  We haven’t checked the time, but it’s late. Hercules and I glisten with sweat. That last round of sex was amazing. Hercules made me come until his cock got hard and ready to plunge into my wetness.

  And now, the side of my face is where it loves to be, lying on his chest as I listen to his heartbeat. Hercules has the physique many men would kill for. And right now, it’s all mine.

  We’ve been talking about a lot for who knows how long. He wanted to know more about Boyles and why I chose him if he was so awful. The answer was easy. Boyles misrepresented himself when I first met him. The truth was, Boyles and I didn’t stay together long. It only took about six months for us to figure out that we weren’t compatible.

  We’ve been silent for several seconds. I think Hercules is no longer curious about Boyles.

  “You know what happened between your cousin and my brother?” he asks.

  My heart takes a nosedive as I recall the tragic Lord-Grove love story. Why would Hercules mention those two at this moment? I’m certain he’s trying to send me a message. Perhaps he’s indirectly letting me know that he and I are on the same road that will lead to a similar tragic ending. When I raise my head to see his face, Hercules is watching me intently, waiting for my answer.

  “Why did you ask me about them?” I finally say. My frown is so severe that it feels as if the skin on my forehead will detach from my hairline.

  He appears taken aback by my mood.

  “You don’t have to mention Treasure and Orion to put emotional distance between us, Hercules. I never pictured us going past… you know, this,” I lie.

  He rubs the side of his face. “Look, PG. I’m not putting emotional distance between us. But we both know how complicated it would be for us to start something serious.”

  I feel sick to my stomach because he’s so very right. “I know,” I whisper.

  “But I like you very much.”

  I exhale vigorously through my nose. “I like you too,” I admit in a tight voice. I already know where this discussion is going. And I shouldn’t stop it, even if I could.

  Hercules touches his forehead like it hurts. “There’s something I should tell you.” He looks worried, and that makes me worried too. He’s watching me with eyes that are speaking, but I have no idea with they’re saying. That’s why I focus on his parted lips, waiting for the first words to leave his mouth.

  “Hercules!” a man bellows in a gruff voice.

  Hercules and I quickly turn our widened eyes toward the hallway. Fortunately, the penthouse is large. Whoever just entered isn’t close to Hercules’s bedroom yet. I don’t want to imagine the fallout from a Grove and Lord getting caught in bed together. He and I already know how that will end.

  “Are you home?” the man calls.

  The shock passes, and Hercules scrambles to his feet. I’m not so panicked that I miss the pure perfection of his nude body. As I’ve already accepted, I’m extremely sexually attracted to Hercules. I’ve never lusted after a man in this way. That’s probably why I feel a deep sense of loss, knowing that the intruder’s presence has brought our night, and the likelihood that we will make love again, to a grinding halt.

  “Achilles? Wait,” Hercules calls, hopping into a pair of pajama pants that he snatched out of the nightstand.

  “What’s going…?” Achilles says and then goes deathly quiet.

  I hear Hercules pounding the marble floor of the hallway.

  “Whose red dress is that?”

  Now I panic. “Oh no,” I whisper repeatedly. My dress and shoes are still in Hercules’s den.

  I can’t be seen by Achilles Lord. I’m certain he can recognize me if he sees me. And if he sees me in Hercules’s bed, he’ll tell Max, who would scold me to no end. I like the fragile peace treaty that exists between my brother and me right now. It can be easily broken. And something like this would blow our fragile alliance to smithereens. When Max and I battle it out, our squabbles can be spirited.

  “You have company?” Achilles blares as his voice and footfalls get closer.

  “That’s none of your business,” Hercules retorts.

  I can’t let Achilles catch me. So I roll out of bed and look around the room for somewhere to hide. I spot an alcove, and not knowing where it leads, I pad across the floor and go wherever the warm, dim lighting leads.

  “Are you finally warming up to Lauren?” Achilles asks.

  My heart feels as if it has turned to stone, but I keep shuffling on the tip of my toes past a bathroom that resembles one found in a five-star hotel.

  “You’re letting yourself into my place now?” Hercules asks. His voice sounds farther away than Achilles’s.

  “I always let myself in.”

  I make it out of the hallway that’s connected to Hercules’s room. I have no idea where I’m going as I pad down a corridor with white marble floors. I can’t believe this is happening to me. If Lauren is only Hercules’s cousin, why does Achilles wonder if my dress belongs to her? Did Hercules mislead me?

  Naked as a jaybird and praying I don’t eventually run into Achilles, I pass a familiar room and then step back. It’s the den, and it’s empty.

  My heart accelerates as I rush in, and quickly collect my dress and shoes. I know my way out from this room. I tune out Hercules giving his brother the business for invading his privacy. Achilles asks Hercules why is he being so cagey about having company.

  “Who the hell is she, then?” Achilles asks as if he’s entitled to know who Hercule
s is screwing.

  A sour taste pours into my mouth as I note that Achilles is behaving a lot like Max would. My nerves are poking me like sharp knives when I make it to the private elevator and smash the down button. I’m shaking like a leaf. Nothing happens as I keep stabbing at it. Finally, it dings, and the doors slide open.

  “What did you just do?” Achilles’s voice is getting closer, and so are his footfalls.

  “Achilles, wait,” I hear Hercules say before the doors finish closing and the elevator drops.

  I’m moving steadily to the lobby. There’s no time to breathe a sigh of relief. I hurriedly put on my dress, shoes…

  Damn it. I forgot my cocktail purse.

  A Night Over

  PAISLEY GROVE

  The next morning, I’m sitting in my office. The lights are still off because my head needs a moment to make peace with being awake. My elbows are on top of my desk, my shoulders curled forward, and my face buried in my palms.

  What a night. It feels too surreal to be true. Fortunately, I don’t need a key to access my parents’ luxury penthouse, which is where I’ve been living for two years too long. My fingerprint granted me entrance at 2:11 a.m. when I made it home.

  Walking into his brother’s apartment without calling first at that hour in the morning took real gonads and a lot of entitlement. Yes, indeed—Achilles reminds me of Max.

  I didn’t fall asleep until three in the morning, maybe later. I was so worried about my purse being at Hercules’s. My cellphone was in it. I planned to wake up at around six, swallow my pride, and then head over to Hercules’s place to retrieve it. However, this morning, my purse was delivered to me with a note.

  Thank you, PG.

  That was all he said. Talk about an anticlimactic ending to a lovely one-night stand. At first his insensitive note made me fume. But then I thought it through. Maybe Hercules’s distant words of gratitude were what I needed to hear. We let our passions get away from us last night. The fact that we both scampered to hide our sex-adventure from Achilles says a lot.

  Recalling my harrowing escape, I blurt a laugh. Heck, I probably would have told Hercules I loved him or something if we’d kept going. We probably would have made love through the wee hours of the morning until the sun came up. I had no plans to leave anytime soon. I’m certain Hercules wasn’t close to kicking me out of his bed either. We were comfortable together.

  And I’ll never admit this to anyone, not even him, but I feel that in his bed and in his presence is where I belong for the rest of my life. That’s silly, though. Because he’s a Lord.

  Heaviness descends on my shoulders as I consider telling my parents something like, “Oh, and Hercules Lord is my date for Thanksgiving dinner.” My parents would blow a gasket. Whenever they speak of the Lords, they do so in negative terms.

  “Look at her,” my mom once said while reading an announcement on her cellphone. “Priscilla Lord is always social climbing. What does she do all day besides plan elaborate parties for herself?” Priscilla Lord is Hercules’s mother.

  And our family is in constant litigation with them. We both own software-development companies. GIT or Grove Industrial Tech, our company, is a lot more successful than Lord Technical Innovations—LTI—which is their company.

  But why did Achilles question Hercules about Lauren? What was that about?

  I’ll call Lake as soon as I settle in for the day. Maybe she’ll be able to elaborate on why the relationship between Hercules and Lauren is so “complicated.”

  Suddenly, the stress of escaping Hercules’s apartment seizes me again, and I laugh. I barely made it out without being seen.

  “What’s so funny?”

  That stern and lifeless voice makes me jump. I take my hands away from my face to glower at my tall, dark, and strikingly handsome older brother, Max, who’s standing in front of my desk. Max inherited most of our supermodel mother’s most impressive features—even though he mainly resembles our dad. Without trying very hard, he always looks so put together. Whenever we’re together and women are around, they flirt shamelessly. He’s been passed hotel room keys, naked photos, phone numbers, and on several occasions, mailed packages containing skimpy panties. His response to all the extreme measures women go to just to get his attention is simply to have no reaction at all. I’ve been asked many times, by interested parties, if he’s gay. I can unequivocally say that he isn’t. Max has very distinctive taste in women. Even though he always looks impeccable, he’s not attracted to the same quality in the opposite sex. The only girlfriend he ever introduced me to had blonde dreadlocks and her favorite outfit was part of an endless collection of paint-stained, faded coveralls, which she wore with scuffed-up combat boots. She was an artist named Kiera, who talked while she chewed and never minded her posture. I liked her a lot.

  At the moment, I’m staring at my brother because he hasn’t said anything yet. He’s just grimacing me as if he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.

  “And by the way. Could you knock, please?” I snap, remembering how Achilles just let himself into Hercules’s private space too. It seems both of our brothers have an issue with respecting boundaries.

  Max’s eyebrows remain pinched. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I fling myself back against my seat. “Nothing. What do you want?”

  Max sighs sharply. I think he’s decided to leave well enough alone. “I’m double-booked this morning. I need you to sit in on an important hearing for me. But I’m not sure you’re up to it.”

  I shrug indifferently, even though a pinch of anxiety races through me. For so many years, I’ve done exactly what he’s told me to do, no questions asked, in the name of family solidarity. Those days are over, and we both know it, but still, when he says jump, something inside me wants to ask how high.

  “Your call,” I say, opening my laptop. “Plus, I have a day.”

  My full day features a lot of work, including correspondence with Lake about the signage for the company’s annual Endow the World with Technology benefit, along with plenty of questions about Hercules and Lauren.

  Max drops a manila folder on top of my desk. “I need you to appear at an arbitration hearing on behalf of the company.”

  I frown. Arbitration? “Is it a legal matter?”

  “It’s arbitration, so yes.”

  I check the time on the top right-hand side of my computer screen as I roll my eyes at his smart-aleck reply. “I’m already late getting things revved up this morning. Where’s Leo?”

  Leo is our uncle, our dad’s youngest brother, who is co-CEO alongside Max.

  “In Palo Alto. Just do it, Pais. All you have to do is sit and be quiet. Let the lawyer do all the talking.”

  I tilt my head, trying to get a read on Max. It’s just so weird that he’s asking me to attend an arbitration hearing. It’s such a huge responsibility and totally out of my wheelhouse.

  “What’s this hearing about?” I flip open the folder, frowning as I read the first document, which is Max’s welcoming speech for an up upcoming benefit. I throw my hands up in confusion. “This is your speech.”

  “Don’t you need it?” he asks.

  “Yeah, but what does this have to do with the hearing?”

  He turns his back on me, heading for the hallway. “Nothing. And don’t say anything to the arbitrator. Allen will do all the talking.”

  I shoot to my feet. “Who’s Allen?”

  “The lawyer who’s going to do all the talking.” That’s the last thing he says before he’s gone.

  Now that I’m alone again, I sigh and plop back down in my chair. “Whatever…Max.”

  Make an appearance, do no talking—I can do that.

  After checking my email and sitting with Ru, my executive assistant, to go over our action items for the day, I’m finally able to make that call to Lake.

  She picks up before the second ring. “Paisley, I was just about to call you. Like seriously, I was just about to tap your name in my con
tacts list. There’s something I bet you don’t know.”

  Her tone is alarming, causing me to sit up straighter. I wonder if she already knows that I left the party with Hercules—and that he may have lied to me about his association with Lauren. “What’s going on?” I try to sound innocent.

  “Have you read this morning’s Top Rag Mag alert?”

  Top Rag Mag is the gossipiest of gossip blogs on the planet. As a public relations director, I’m aware that they exist, but as a mature human being, I hardly ever read anything they publish, at least for purposes of personal consumption. Sometimes, I’m forced to read the tripe they write because of my job. Also, my cousin Treasure is often a subject of interest to them. I’m always curious to know what they’d written about her. She spent six years as a cast member on a reality show about young heiresses of New York. During that time, Top Rag Mag wrote about who she supposedly dated, broke up with, or was just outright banging. Most of the guys they said she was involved with weren’t even her type. However, the magazine never caught wind of her relationship with Orion Lord, which I believe, serves as a referendum on their ability to accurately snoop out the truth.

  “I don’t believe anything Top Rag Mag reports,” I say with a cynical eye roll. “But…” I’m on the verge of changing the subject. I want to get to the crux of I why I called her, especially since I only gave myself twenty minutes to make it to Midtown for Max’s arbitration hearing.

  “Well, you should read it,” Lake says with a chuckle. “At least this particular alert. Because it’s about you.”

  My jaw drops. “Me?” Why me?

  Surprise, Surprise

  PAISLEY GROVE

  Lake texted me the alert. I’m transfixed by a video clip of Hercules and me kissing on the corner of Fifty-Seventh and Seventh. Whoever filmed us did a great job of capturing the blistering passion between us. We were going at it as if no one existed but him and me. I close my eyes to relive how light my head felt, the rapid beats of my heart and the way his mouth tasted faintly of champagne and spearmint. I release a shivering breath. Just reliving the moment was getting me all hot and bothered. Gosh, he’s such masterful kisser. It’s as if our mouths were made for each other.