In Name Only

Seven

For the second day in a row, Jonas struggled to maintain his composure at work. It was for an entirely different reason today than it had been yesterday. But still. His wife swirled at the center of it and he wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Last night had been legendary. Off the charts. Far more explosive than he would have ever guessed—and he’d spent a lot of time contemplating exactly how hot things with Viv could be.

She’d surpassed everything he’d ever experienced. Even here in his somewhat sterile office that had all the hallmarks of a CEO who ran a billion-dollar global company, his loins tightened the second he let his thoughts stray. She’d made him thoroughly question what he knew about how it could be between a man and a woman. How it could be between Jonas and Viv, more importantly, because he had a feeling they weren’t done.

How could they be done? He’d barely peeled back the first layer of possibilities, and he was nothing if not ravenous to get started on the second and third layers. Hot Viv. Sensual Viv. The list could be endless.

Instead of drooling like an idiot over the woman he’d married, Jonas squared his shoulders and pushed the erotic images from his mind. The merger with Park was still just a nebulous concept and no one had signed anything. This was the deal of the century, and Jonas had to get it done before anyone thought twice about marriage alliances. Sun Park’s grandfather could still pull the plug if he’d had his heart set on a much more intimate merger. Thus far, Jonas had done little but meet with Legal on it.

Four hours later, he had sketched out a proposed hierarchy for the business entities, worked through the human resources tangle of potential duplicate positions and then run the numbers on whether the Kim Building could support the influx of new people. His grandfather would be coming by soon to take a tour and this was exactly the data Jonas needed at his fingertips. Data that would solidify his place as the rightful CEO of Kim Electronics, with or without an impulse of the heart on his résumé.

So that was still a sore spot apparently. Jonas tried to shrug it off and prepare for his grandfather’s arrival, but wasn’t at all surprised that Jung-Su showed up twenty minutes early. Probably a deliberate move to see if Jonas was prepared.

He was nothing if not ready, willing and able to prove that he was the right choice. He’d been preparing to be his grandfather’s successor since college.

He strolled to the reception area, where his admin had made Grandfather comfortable. Technically Jung-Su was the boss of everyone in this building, but he hadn’t visited America in several years. Jonas held the helm here and he appreciated that Grandfather didn’t throw his weight around. They had professional, mutual respect for each other, which Jonas had to believe would ultimately hold sway.

Jung-Su glanced up as Jonas came forward, his weathered face breaking into a polite smile. Grandfather stood and they shook hands.

“Please follow me,” Jonas said, and indicated the direction. “I’d like to show you the executive offices.”

Jung-Su nodded and inclined his head, but instead of following Jonas, he drew abreast and walked in lockstep toward the elevator. Over the weekend, they’d done a lot of sitting down and Jonas hadn’t noticed how much his grandfather had shrunk. Jonas had always been taller and more slender to his grandfather’s stocky build, but more so now, and it was a visual cue that his grandfather had aged. As much as Jonas had focused on getting his grandfather comfortable with passing the mantel, he’d given little thought to the idea that becoming the next CEO of the global company meant his mentorship with Jung-Su would be over.

“Tell me,” Grandfather said as they reached the elevator. “How is your lovely wife?”

“She’s...” A vixen in disguise. Not the kind of information his grandfather was looking for with the innocuous question. “Great. Her shop is constantly busy.”

And Viv had ducked out early to take him on the ride of his life last night. For the first time, he wondered if she’d planned the evening to end as it had or if it had been as spontaneous on her part as it had been on his. Maybe she’d been thinking about getting naked since the weekend of torture, too. If so, he liked that she’d been similarly affected.

They rode two floors up to the executive level. As they exited, Jonas and Jung-Su nodded to the various employees going about the business of electronics in a beehive of activity.

“You’ve mentioned your wife’s business frequently,” his grandfather commented just outside the boardroom where Jonas conducted the majority of his virtual meetings. “Doesn’t she have other interests?”

The disapproval in his grandfather’s voice was faint. “You don’t understand. Her bakery is much more than just a business. It’s an extension of her.”

Cupcakes had been a mechanism to fit in among her older, more accomplished sisters, as she’d told him on numerous occasions. But it had morphed from there into a business that she could be proud of. Hell, it was a venture he was proud of.

“Anyone can pull a package of cupcake mix off the shelf at the grocery store,” Jonas continued, infusing as much sincerity into his speech as he could. His grandfather had no call to be throwing shade at his wife’s profession. “That’s easy. Viv spends hours in her kitchen doing something special to hers that customers can’t get enough of.”

“It seems as if you are smitten by her cupcakes, as well,” Grandfather commented with a tinge of amusement.

Jonas forced a return smile that hopefully didn’t look as pained as he suspected it did. Smitten. He wasn’t smitten with Viv and it rankled that he’d managed to convince his grandfather that he was. Cupcakes, on the other hand—no pretending needed there. “Of course I am. That’s what first drew me to her.”

Like it was yesterday, he recalled how many times he’d found excuses to drop by Cupcaked to get a glimpse of Viv in those first few weeks after meeting her. Often she was in the back but if she saw him, she popped out for a quick hi, ready with a smile no matter what she had going on in the kitchen. That alone had kept him coming back. There was always someone in the office with a birthday or anniversary, and cupcakes always made an occasion more festive.

“Ah, yes, I recall that conversation at dinner where she mentioned you pretended to go there for her cupcakes but were really there to see her.”

“It was both,” he corrected easily since it was true. He could own that he liked Viv. They were friends.

Who’d seen each other naked.

Before he could stop it, images of Viv spilled through his mind.

The rush of heat to his body smacked him, sizzling across his skin so fast he had little chance of reeling it back. But he had to. This was the most inappropriate time to be thinking about his wife wearing that see-through yellow lacy concoction strictly for his benefit.

“Pardon me for a moment,” Jonas croaked, and ducked into the executive washroom to get himself under control. Or as close to it as he could with an enormous erection that showed no signed of abating.

And while he stood in front of the mirror concentrating on his breathing and doing absolutely nothing constructive, he pulled out his phone to set a reminder to drop by the jewelry store on the way home. Viv had expressly asked for jewels as compensation for the favor she was doing him. She needed something pretty and ridiculously expensive.

Thinking of her draped in jewelry he’d bought wasn’t helping.

After the longest five minutes of his life, Jonas finally got the tenting mostly under control. No one had noticed. Or at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. His staff didn’t walk around with their eyes on his crotch.

The biggest hit was to Jonas’s psyche. How had he let Viv get under his skin like that? It was unacceptable. If nothing else, he needed to maintain his professionalism during this period when his grandfather’s support meant everything. There were other contenders for Jung-Su’s job, such as vice presidents who lived in Korea and had worked alongside the CEO for thirty years. Some of Mr. Park’s staff could rise to the top as worthy heads of a global company, and those under the Park umbrella arguably had more experience running the factories that would come into play with the merger.

Jonas had to reel it back with Viv. Way back. There was no excuse for falling prey to baser urges and he definitely didn’t want to find out what happened next if he kept going down this path. That was one absolute he trusted—the less he let a woman get tangled up in his emotions, the better.

Resolute, Jonas returned to find his grandfather in deep discussion with Jonas’s chief financial officer, a man without whom Kim Electronics would suffer in the American market.

Perfect. This was an opportunity to guide the discussion to Jonas’s accomplishments as well as those of his staff, who were a reflection of his ability to run the Americas branch. Back on track, Jonas smiled at the two men and jumped into the conversation as if he hadn’t just had a minor freak-out over an incontrollable urge to drive straight home and bury himself in his wife.

That wasn’t happening. Boundaries needed to happen. Jonas didn’t have the luxury of letting his wife dig further under his skin. But when he got home later that night, it was to an empty house, and boundaries didn’t seem like such a fun plan.

More disappointed than he had a right to be, Jonas prowled around the enormous condo to be sure Viv hadn’t tucked herself away in a corner to read or watch TV. Nada. He glanced at his watch. It was well after seven. She must have gotten caught up at the shop. Totally her right to work late. They didn’t answer to each other.

For a half second, he contemplated walking the four blocks to Cupcaked. Strictly so he could give Viv her gift, of course. But that smacked of eagerness to see her that he had no intention of admitting to. So instead, he flopped on the couch and scrolled through his never-ending inbox on his phone, desperate for something to take his mind off the resounding silence in the condo. Wow, was it quiet. Why had he never noticed that before? The high ceilings and exposed beams usually created an echo that reminded him of a museum, but he’d have to be making noise for that echo to happen.

Viv had made a lot of noise last night, but he hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to whether the sounds of her gasps and sighs had filled the cavernous part of the loft. And now he was back to thinking about his wife, her gorgeous body and why she wasn’t currently naked in his lap.

He scowled. They’d done zero to establish how their relationship would progress after last night. They should have. He should have. Probably the smartest thing would have been to establish that last night was a onetime thing. He couldn’t keep having meltdowns at work or moon around over whether Viv planned to hang out with him at night.

He should find something else to do. Like... He glanced around the condo, suddenly at a loss. Prior to getting married, what had he done on a random Tuesday when he was bored?

Nothing. Because he was rarely bored. Usually he had work and other stuff to occupy him. Friends. Of course the answer was to ping his friends. But Warren didn’t respond to his text message and Hendrix was in New York on a business trip.

Viv’s key rattled in the lock. Finally. He vaulted off the couch to greet her, totally not okay with how his pulse quickened at the prospect of seeing her and completely unsure how to stop it.

As she came through the door, her smile widened as she spied Jonas standing in the hall, arms crossed, hip casually cocked out against the wall.

“Hi,” she said, halting just short of invading his space. “Were you waiting for me?”

No sprang to his lips before he thought better of it. Well, he couldn’t really deny that, now, could he? If he’d stayed sprawled on the couch and given her a casual “what’s up?” as she strolled through the door, he might have had a leg to stand on. Too late.

“Yeah,” he admitted, and held up the shiny blue foil bag clutched in his fingers. “I have something for you.”

Her eyes widened as she held out her hand to accept the bag. The most delicious smell wafted between them, a vanilla and Viv combo that made him think of frosting and sex and about a million other things that shouldn’t go together but did—like marriage and friendship.

Why couldn’t he greet his wife at the door if he felt like it? It wasn’t a crime. It didn’t mean anything.

The anticipation that graced her smile shouldn’t have pleased him so much. But he couldn’t deny that it whacked him inside in a wholly different way than the sultry smile she’d laid on him last night, right before she informed him that she had on yellow lingerie under her clothes.

Which was not up for a repeat tonight. Boundaries should be the first order of business. Viv had sucked him down a rabbit hole that he didn’t like. Well, he liked it. It just didn’t sit well with how unbelievably tempting she was. If she could tempt him into letting go of his professionalism, what other barriers could she knock down? The risk was not worth it.

But then she opened the box, and her startled gasp put heat in places that he should be able to control a hell of lot better.

“Jonas, this is too much,” she protested with a laugh and held out the box like she expected him to take it back or something.

“Not hardly. It’s exactly right.” Before she got ideas in her head about refusing the gift that had taken him thirty minutes to pick out, he plucked the diamond necklace from its velvet housing and undid the clasp so he could draw it around her neck. “Hush, and turn around.”

She did and that put him entirely too close to her sweet flesh. That curve where her shoulder flared out called to him. Except it was covered by her dress. That was a shame.

Dragging her hair out of the way, she waited for him to position the chain. He let the catch of the necklace go and the ten-carat diamond dropped to rest against her chest, just above the swell of her breasts. Which were also covered, but he knew precisely where they began.

His lips ached to taste that swell again. Among other things. Palms flat across her back, he smoothed the chain into place, but that was really just an excuse to touch her.

“If you’re sure,” she murmured, and she relaxed, letting her body sink backward until it met his and heat flared between them.

“Oh, I’m sure.” She’d meant about the diamond. Probably. But his mouth had already hit the bare spot she’d revealed when she’d swept her long brown hair aside and the taste of Viv exploded under his tongue.

Groaning, he let his hands skim down her waist until he found purchase and pulled until their bodies nested together tighter than spoons in a drawer. The soft flesh of her rear cradled the iron shaft in his pants, thickening his erection to the point of pain. He needed a repeat of last night. Now.

He licked the hollow of her collarbone, loving the texture under his tongue. More Viv needed. Her answering gasp encouraged him to keep going.

Gathering handfuls of her dress, he yanked it from between them and bunched it at her waist, pressing harder into the heat of her backside the moment he bared it. His clothes and a pair of thin panties lay between him and paradise, and he wanted all that extraneous fabric gone.

She arched against him as his fingers cruised along the hem of her drenched underwear and he took that as agreement, stripping them off in one motion. Then he nudged her legs wider, opening her sex, and indulged them both by running a fingertip down the length of her crease. Her hands flew out and smacked the wall and she used it to brace as she ground her pelvis into his.

Fire tore through his center and he needed to be inside her with an uncontrollable urge, but the condoms were clear across the cavernous living area in his bedside table. He couldn’t wait. Viv cried out his name as he plunged one then two fingers into her center, groaning at the slick, damp heat that greeted him. She was so wet, so perfect.

As he fingered her, she shuddered, circling her hips in a frenzied, friction-induced madness that pushed him to the brink. Her hot channel squeezed his fingers and that was nearly all she wrote. Did she have a clue how much he wanted to yank his zipper down, impale her and empty himself? Every muscle in his body fought him and his will crumbled away rapidly. Reaching between them, he eased open his belt.

But then she came apart in his arms, huffing out little noises that drove him insane as she climaxed. His own release roared to the forefront and all it would take was one tiny push to put him over the edge. Hell, he might not even need a push. Shutting his eyes against the strain, he drew out her release with long strokes that made her whimper.

She collapsed in his arms as she finished and he held her upright, murmuring nonsense to her as she caught her breath.

“Let me take you to bed,” he said, and she nodded, but it was more of a nuzzle as she turned her cheek into his.

To hell with boundaries.

He hustled her to his room, shed his clothes and hers without ripping anything this time—because he was in control—and finally she was naked. Sultry smile in place, she crawled onto the bed and rolled into a provocative position that begged him to get between her legs immediately and hammer after his own release. But despite being positive the only thing he could possibly do next was get inside her as fast as humanly possible, he paused, struck immobile all at once.

That was his wife decked out on the bed.

The sight bled through him, warming up places inside dangerously fast. Places that weren’t what he’d call normal erogenous zones. And that’s when he realized his gaze was on her smile. Not her body.

What was wrong with him? A naked woman was on display for his viewing pleasure. He forced his gaze to her breasts, gratified when the pert tips pebbled under his watchfulness. That was more like it. This was about sex and how good two people could make each other feel.

With a growl, he knelt on the bed and kissed his way up her thigh. He could absolutely keep his hands off her if he wanted to. He had total control over his desires, his emotions. There was nothing this woman could do to drive him to the point of desperation, not in bed and certainly not out of it. To prove it, he pushed her thighs open and buried his face between them.

She parted for him easily, her throaty cry washing over him as he plunged his tongue into her slickness. That wet heat was his. He’d done that to her and he lapped at it, groaning as her musky scent flooded his senses. The ache in his groin intensified into something so strong it was otherworldly. He needed to feel her tight, slick walls close around him, to watch her face as it happened. He needed it, but denied himself because she didn’t own his pleasure. He owned hers.

Her hips rolled and bucked. He shoved his mouth deeper into her center as she silently sought more, and he gave it to her. Over and over he worked his lips and tongue against her swollen flesh until she bowed up with a release that tensed her whole body. And then she collapsed against the mattress, spilling breathy, satisfied sighs all over him. Only then did he permit his own needs to surge to the surface.

Fingering on a condom that he’d retrieved from the drawer, he settled over her and indulged his intense desire to kiss her. She eagerly took his tongue, sucking it into her hot mouth, and he groaned as he transferred her own taste back to her. Their hips came together, legs tangling, and before he could fully register her intent, she gathered him up in her tight fist and guided him into the paradise at her core.

A strong urge to fill her swelled. But he held on by the scrabbly edge of his fingertips, refusing to slam into her as he ached to do. Slowly, so slowly that he nearly came apart, he pushed. Her slickness accepted him easily, wringing the most amazing bliss from a place he scarcely recognized. The deeper he sank, the better it felt.

Her gaze captured his and he fell into her depths. She filled him, not the other way around. How was that physically possible? He couldn’t fathom it, but neither could he deny it. Or halt the rush of Viviana through his veins as she streamed straight to his heart in a kill shot that flooded all four chambers at once.

And then there was nothing but her and the unbelievable feel of her skin against his, her desire soaking through his pores in an overwhelming deluge. He meant to hold back, determined to prove something that escaped him as she changed the angle. Somehow that allowed him to go deeper, push harder. Her cries spurred him on, and unbelievably, she took it higher, sucking him under into a maelstrom of sensation and heightened pleasure.

When her hips began pistoning in countermeasure to his, it nearly tore him in two. Delirious with the need to come, he grabbed one of her legs and pushed at the knee, opening her wider so he had plenty of room to finger her at the source of her pleasure. Two circular strokes and she climaxed, squeezing him so tight that it tripped the wire on his own release.

Bright pinpoints of light streamed behind his eyes as he came so hard that he would have easily believed he’d crossed over into an alternate dimension. In this new dimension, he could let all the things crowding through his chest spill out of his mouth. But those things shouldn’t exist in any universe.

If he didn’t acknowledge them, they didn’t exist. Then he wouldn’t be breaking his word.

As his vision cleared and his muscles relaxed, rendering him boneless, he collapsed to the mattress, rolling Viv into his arms.

The heavy diamond swung down from the chain he’d latched around her neck, whacking him on the shoulder. He fingered it back into place silently, weighing out whether he could actually speak or if that spectacular orgasm had in fact stolen his voice.

“I get the sense you’ve been saving up,” Viv commented huskily, her lips moving against his chest, where her face had landed after he’d nestled her close. Probably he shouldn’t have done that, but he liked coming down from a post-lovemaking high with her in his arms.

“It’s been a while,” he allowed. “I mean, other than last night, obviously.”

Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Both times were amazing. I could get used to this.”

He could, too. That was enough to get the panic really rolling. “We should probably talk about that.”

To soften the blow, he threaded some of her pretty, silky hair through his fingers. That felt so nice, he kept going, running all the way down her head to her neck and back again.

“Mmm,” she purred, pressing into his fingers, which were somehow massaging her with little strokes that she clearly liked. “I’m listening.”

“We’re still friends, right?” Pathetic. That hadn’t been what he’d intended to say at all, but now that it was out there...it was exactly what he wanted to know. He wanted to hear her say that having an amazing encounter that he’d felt to his soul hadn’t really affected her all that much. Then he could keep lying to himself about it and have zero qualms.

“Sure.”

She kissed his chest right above his nipple and then flicked her tongue across the flat disk. Flames erupted under his skin, fanning outward to engulf his whole body, including his brain, because he suddenly couldn’t recall what he’d been so convinced he needed to establish.

Then she slung a leg over his, nestling her thigh against the semi-erection that grew a lot less semi much faster than he would have credited, considering how empty he’d have sworn he was already.

“Geez, Viv.” He bit back the curse word that had sprung to his lips. “You’re insatiable.”

Not that he was complaining. Though he should be saying something that sounded a lot like “Let’s dial it back about one hundred and eighty degrees.”

“You make me that way,” she said throatily. “I’ve been celibate for like a billion years and that was totally okay, but all of a sudden, you kiss me and I can’t think. I just want to be naked with you 24/7.”

“Yeah?” he growled. That pretty much mirrored his thoughts perfectly. “That can be arranged.”

No. No, it could not.

He had a merger to manage. Reins to pick up from his grandfather. What was he talking about, letting Viv coerce him into a day-and-night screw fest? That sounded like a recipe for disaster, especially given how strong his reactions to her were. They needed to cool it off.

“We can’t.” She sighed. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork and Josie requested the rest of the week off so she can study for final exams. As nice as this is, we should probably back off for a while. Don’t you think?”

“Absolutely not.” Wrong answer. Open your mouth and take it back. “We’re doing fine winging it. Aren’t we? There’s no pressure. If you come home from work hot and needy and want to strip down in the foyer to let me take care of you, I’m perfectly fine with that.”

In fact, he’d gladly etch that date on his planner with a diamond drill bit. Mental note: buy Viv more jewelry and more racy lingerie. If he really tried, he could space out the gifts, one a night for oh, at least two weeks.

She arched a brow. “Really? This isn’t feeling a little too real?”

His mood deflated. And now he was caught in a trap of his own making. He couldn’t lie to Viv, but neither could he admit that it had been feeling too real since the ceremony. The same one he’d tried to sell to Warren and Hendrix as a fake wedding when Warren had clued in immediately that there was nothing fake about any of this.

This was what he got for not nodding his head the second the words back off came out of her mouth.

“See, the thing is,” he began and would have sworn he’d been about to say that being friends with no benefits worked better for him. But that’s not what happened. “I need this to be real. I don’t have to pretend that I’m hot for you, because I am. We don’t have to sell that we’re burning up the sheets when we have dinner with your family on Friday. Why not keep going? The reasons we started this are still true. Unless I’ve dissatisfied you in some way?”

“Oh, God. No!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Not in the slightest. You’re the hottest lover I’ve ever had, bar none.”

That pleased him enormously. “Then stop talking about easing off. We can be casual about it. Sometimes you sleep in my bed. Sometimes you don’t. No rules. We’re just friends who’re having really great sex.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

She shrugged like she could take it or leave it, which raked across his spine with a sharpness that he didn’t like. She obviously wasn’t feeling any of the same things he was. She’d been a half second from calling it quits. Would have if he hadn’t stopped her.

“Great.” And somehow he’d managed to appease his sense of honor while agreeing to continue sleeping with his wife in what was shaping up to be the hottest affair he’d ever had.

It was madness. And he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.