Wild Love: Chapter 30

Rosie,

Decided to pull Cora out of school for today and head back to the city. She’s good this morning, just seems extremely sensitive. Figured a change of scenery might do her some good. Her mom is ready for visitors now, and we’re going to spend the weekend together. I hope you’re okay to hold down the office until next week. Might not make it back until Tuesday.

—Ford

Good morning, Mr. Grant,

Thank you for the heads-up. Of course, I’m more than happy to hold down the fort here.

I hope you all have a fun weekend together.

All my best,

Rosalie Belmont

Business Manager at Rose Hill Records

Rosie,

To clarify, Cora and I are going to spend the weekend together. Not her mom and me. We’re going to visit her mom, and then Cora and I are going to the zoo. Do some things like that. Maybe go up the Calgary Tower. Check on her house.

If you need anything, you can call. Anytime.

—Ford

Good morning, Mr. Grant,

No need to explain. You are welcome to spend your weekend with whomever you’d like.

Say hi to Cora from me.

All my best,

Rosalie Belmont

Business Manager at Rose Hill Records

Rosie,

We’re safe at our hotel in the city. Cora says hi back.

Is everything okay?

Your emails are very formal. Blink twice if you’ve been possessed? Or kidnapped?

I’d feel better if you just insulted me.

What are you planning to do this weekend?

—Ford

Mr. Grant,

Thank you for the update. My emails are merely professional. And I have nothing but good things to say about you as my boss.

As your business manager, I think it’s worth mentioning that keeping your company signature for work-related emails is best.

If anything requires your attention, I will inform you.

All my best,

Rosalie Belmont

Business Manager at Rose Hill Records

Rosie,

This isn’t work-related, and you know it.

—Ford

Mr. Grant,

It would be easier for me if you could behave as though it were.

See you next week.

All my best,

Rosalie Belmont

Business Manager at Rose Hill Records

I’m not sure how I’ll feel when I walk into the office on Tuesday morning.

I’ve spent the weekend getting to know Cora better. Getting to know her mom, Marilyn, better. Sharing experiences with the daughter I never expected and realizing I can’t quite imagine my life without her.

She’s fucking cool. Really cool. I would still think that even if we weren’t related.

I’ve also spent the weekend worrying about Rosie. A pit hollowed itself out in my stomach when I walked away from her bunkhouse last Thursday night, and I haven’t been able to shake that sick feeling all weekend. I should have gone after her.

I let her walk away too damn easy.

No matter how much fun Cora and I had. No matter how much I overate at Peter’s Drive-In. No matter how exhausted I was from walking, biking, and waking up early to swim. I couldn’t shake that sick feeling.

Like I went out, but may have left the stove on.

Like I just got to the airport, but may have left my passport at home.

I feel like I went to the city with Cora and left something incredibly important behind.

A piece of myself.

I only managed to get any sleep with my hand wrapped around the key at the end of my chain.

She told me I was one of the good ones, but that doesn’t count for much when I feel so damn awful.

So, when I walk in through the open sliding barn doors, I expect to feel relief. I plan to lay it all out in an organized and logical fashion when the right moment presents itself. To tell Rosie there’s nothing complicated about the two of us if she doesn’t want there to be. That I don’t care about the mess. There’s no one I’d rather be messy with.

But when I walk in to see Scotty leaned up against Rosie’s desk, laughing his way through some dumb story about his weekend, all logic flies out the window. She’s wearing a dark purple pencil skirt with a matching blazer and a pair of nude stilettos, like this is the damn city or something.

Never have I seen her dressed so formally for work since she started here with me.

Never has a pencil skirt looked so good on a woman.

I turn my eyes on my desk, breezing into the space and doing my damndest to avoid staring at her. From my periphery, I see Rosie shift over to peek at me, around the painter guy. He doesn’t bother acknowledging my presence, or he’s so busy staring at her that he hasn’t noticed me.

I have no doubt she feels the animosity rolling off me. She’s always been especially attuned to my moods—she’s always been one to call me out on them too.

There’s been no tiptoeing where Rosie Belmont is concerned, and I decide I’m done tiptoeing too.

I sit woodenly against the edge of my desk facing them, cross my arms, and clear my throat.

When Derek Scott finally turns, he shoots me a predictably dopey smile. “Morning⁠—”

I match it and cut him off with, “Derek, your work here is done. You can leave.”

“What?” In his defense, he sounds genuinely shocked.

“You have five minutes to pack up your things and get out of my office.”

“Dude. Man. I was just taking a quick coffee break. I’m getting back to it right away.”

I pin him with my coolest glare. I’m well aware I’m being a dick, but right now I don’t care. I’ll paint the place myself so long as it stops him from ogling her. “Derek. Dude. Man. You’re fired. Get out.”

Behind him, Rosie leans back and crosses her arms. It does nothing but accentuate the swells of her breasts. Even the way her tongue pokes at the inside of her cheek in annoyance distracts me.

The guy mumbles something about being almost done, but I don’t drop Rosie’s stare from across the room when I address him. “That’s fine. I’ll pay you for the entire thing. Just leave.”

He scoffs and keeps mumbling to himself as he packs up his paint and ladder and whatever else he left lying around. Rosie and I face off like we’re having a staring competition while he does. She looks like she’s going to kill me, and I hope she tries.

I hope she gets right up in my face and gives me a piece of her mind.

“Later, Rosie,” he says as he takes one last long look at her before stepping through the wide-open doors.

“See you around, Scotty.” She doesn’t drop my gaze when she says it, and I see him cast a curious glance my way.

Then he leaves. Fucking finally.

And we face off.

“Welcome back,” is how Rosie breaks the silence. She stands and smooths her hands down over the front of her pencil skirt. In the next moment, she’s moving across the office, heading straight for the doors. With a tug, she slides one side closed. “You’re in fine form this morning,” she adds before closing the other as well. “Real charming, boss. Charging in here like a feral dog, pissing all over the place.”

“Why are you closing the doors?”

She strides toward me, looking tall and powerful and royally pissed off. “So that I can tell you what a raging dick head you are without risking anyone overhearing me.”

My head quirks. “Oh, okay. Are we keeping things work-related now? Or is there a chance this rant you’re about to go on is personal?”

She steps closer, the pointed toe of her shoe almost butting against my leather boot. “Don’t pull that shit with me, Ford. You forget how well I know you. You fired a capable painter because you’re acting like a jealous little boy. You can’t behave that way in a town this size. It’s a bad look. Just get this tantrum out of the way so we can get back to work.”

I say nothing, so she sighs, hands on her hips, chin dropped like she’s as tired as I am. “I thought we turned over a new leaf.” Her eyes flit, only for a moment, to the chain around my neck before she licks her lips and adds, “I’m busy. And so are you.”

I stand and glare down my nose at her with a dark chuckle. All she does is tip her head up. Doesn’t give me an inch.

“You might have turned over a new leaf in a matter of days, but I’ve been watching this one grow for years. I don’t think I’ll be turning it over at all.”

She rolls her eyes. “Ford⁠—”

My hands dart out, land on her waist, and tug her against me. “Don’t Ford me, Rosalie.”

“Oh, we’re back to Rosalie. That’s at least a step in the right direction. Maybe that means you’re over wanting to fuck me and we can⁠—”

I press a finger to her mouth, startling her into silence.

And then I speak very, very clearly.

“I’m never going to get over wanting to fuck you. And something tells me you won’t care what I call you when I do.”

Her eyes widen like she’s about to say something, and I press my finger down harder. Watching the flesh of her lips give way beneath it.

“You told me nothing would change.” She nods along. “Except everything changed. You changed. I changed. We changed.”

She stops nodding—stops breathing.

“Because I spent all weekend tortured over you.” I spit the words out in frustration. “I was supposed to be having a great time, but all I could think about was you. I’ve been obsessed with you for years, and I don’t even know if I fully realized it. I’ve heard about you through the grapevine—looked you up online. I’ve gone a decade without laying eyes on you, satisfied that you were doing what you wanted to be doing. But it never felt like this weekend did.”

She smirks now, challenge flaring in her eyes. “Good. I hope you were miserable,” she says against my digit. “I know I was.”

My hand shifts and I grip her chin. “Stop playing that game with me. We’re not kids anymore.”

“What game?”

“The one where we pretend to hate each other.”

She tips her chin up defiantly. “You do hate me. That’s our safe place. You have to hate me. It’s easier that way.”

I shake my head, molars grinding. “I definitely don’t hate you, Rosie. Not even close. But I can fuck you like I do if that’s what you need.”

Her chest rises and falls, eyes ablaze. Gaze searching. The moment is fraught, like the seconds before a race starts.

Finally, her brow quirks. “Do you need a formal invitation or something?”

And those are the words that have every obstacle between us evaporating on the spot.

I flip her around roughly and step in close behind her as I bend her body at the hips. Her hands slap loudly in the quiet office as her palms hit the flat surface of my desk.

“Stay like that, Rosie. Claws where I can see them.”

She gives the computer screen on my desk a nudge to make room for her spread fingers and it goes crashing to the floor.

I laugh. “Brat.”

Then I’m gripping the hem of her tight-as-hell pencil skirt, tugging it up over her smooth thighs. Shoving higher so it’s bunched around her waist. Her black thong outlines the globes of her ass.

I grip them hard. I know she can take it.

“This ass has been haunting me, Rosalie. That formal enough for you?”

All I get is a flip of hair and a flash of a flushed cheek as she glares at me from over her shoulder. “Fuck you, Ford.”

I smirk. The one I know does nothing but piss her off. “You’re about to be, Rosie.”

I yank her panties down to her thighs and kick her feet apart so she’s spread for me. I pause, taking her in. The black underwear stretched between her legs. The way her stilettos accentuate her calves. The glare she’s still giving me from over her shoulder.

Her brow arches. “Do you need me to explain to you what to do next?”

I work on my belt with one hand, using the other to rub up over the column of her spine beneath her shirt and jacket, forcing her down onto her elbows. My hand continues its perusal, across her shoulder, a tight squeeze at her throat, before I hook two fingers into her mouth.

I shove my jeans down, working on my boxers as I lean over her body and whisper in her ear, “No, I think I prefer you with your ass up and your mouth stuffed.”

Her lips close around my fingers and her teeth bare down in warning. My dick comes free, and I don’t waste any time lining us up and running the tip over her to test how wet she is.

I groan at the contact, then growl against her neck, “This pussy is fucking soaked. Just like I knew it’d be.”

Her hips shimmy and I hear her muffled, “I hate you,” from around my fingers.

I don’t take it personally. It’s always been like this between us. We say one thing and mean another. So I answer, “I hate you too.”

She’s already hot, worked up, and pulsing beneath me, but now she widens her stance and arches her back, urging me on.

I push the head of my cock into her, and we both groan. I pull back out and her chin tips forward on a desperate whimper.

“More.”

“You’re awfully eager for my cock, considering how much you hate me. Aren’t you, Rosie?”

I press my lips down on my tongue as I swipe myself through her wetness again, waiting for her to retaliate for that comment.

And she does.

She bites down hard on my fingers, but I don’t remove them. I dig the fingers of my other hand into her hip and thrust forward, impaling her on my full length.

“Oh god,” she moans, and I watch her fingers curl against the desk.

“Should I stop?” I grit out, trying to get myself under control.

“Mmm,” she hums around my fingers. Her bite transforms into a firm suck.

My breathing goes ragged when I look down and see myself inside her. When I feel her clenching around me. “So fucking tight.”

I want to touch her. Feel her.

I remove my fingers from her mouth with a wet popping sound and press between her shoulder blades, pushing her lower as I lift her hips.

My eyes follow the motion as I draw out and slide myself back in.

“Ford,” she murmurs, and her eyes flutter shut from where she’s laid out flush against the desktop.

“Should I stop?”

“Don’t you dare.”

I thrust again, hand roaming. Her back. Her hair. My fingers link with hers.

I grip her ass, I pull her hair, I fuck her like I hate her even though I don’t.

“Is this what you needed, Rosie? Someone to fill this tight little cunt? Fuck all the fight right out of you?” My words come out choppy, breathless, as I pound into her. The desk scrapes the floors as we push it forward. “You going to settle down once I make you come on my cock?”

Her ass shakes with the force of my thrusts, and she chuckles. “You going to stop following me around like a sad puppy once you finish flopping around back there?”

I slap her ass and watch a handprint bloom on her pale skin. The hint of a tan line from last summer just beside my mark. She moans and rolls her forehead against the desk. I grunt on a forward thrust, getting off on the way she squirms. Loving the way she bites back. “That was mean, Rosie. And no. You’re stuck with me. Give me all that bitchy attitude. It just makes me love you more.”

The words slip out before I can stop them. They hang between us, heavy—an elephant in the room. I slow my motions as silence descends between us.

She finally lifts her head and looks back at me over her shoulder. Eyes glazed, cheeks glowing. I expect her to hear my words and run away. To move us back into familiar territory. Put us back on even footing.

But her voice comes out hushed when she says, “Okay, now I want you to flip me over and fuck me like you love me.”