by JC Harroway
He laughs, a genuine head-thrown-back bellow that vibrates into my bones. It’s short. Not long enough for me to fully appreciate the way pleasure transforms his handsome features, but enough to skyrocket my body temperature when he looks at me with a new layer of heat. ‘What shall we do with each other, then, Mia Abbott, as you seem determined to stick around, despite my obvious shortcomings?’
A hundred filthy replies pop into my head. I let him have the forthright and unconventional one he probably expects least. ‘Why don’t we get this...the sex...over and done with and move on to the job?’
Touché, Mr Straight-Talking...
I must imagine the flicker of excitement I see in his eyes, the one that turns my pulse into a roar of drumbeats, because it’s gone in a fraction of a second and his stare hardens, any trace of humour gone. ‘You don’t imagine I’m relationship material, do you?’
His arrogance shouldn’t astound me quite so much. If not for his extreme hotness, his obvious emotional unavailability and the desire to see him as undone as our chemistry renders me, I’d cut my losses and leave him to his floundering business and his boring night out at the theatre.
‘You don’t imagine I’ll fall for your tepid charm offensive, do you? I’ve never had a relationship and I’m not looking for one now.’ I shrug. ‘I’m practical. And as blunt as you. You’re single, I’m single. Neither one of us is interested in anything beyond sex. Let’s get it out of the way and then I can do my job and move on and you can go back to...’ I wave my finger in his general direction ‘...whatever this is.’
He’s silent for so long, I’m aware of every muted noise outside the car. The angry blare of a horn, the squeal of breaks, the electronic beep of a pedestrian crossing. Kit’s stare scours me like I’m under a giant microscope, and he’s cataloguing my nooks and crannies and the freakish antennae sprouting from my head.
But then his tongue swipes his bottom lip and I almost feel it between my legs. From the look in his eyes alone I’m achy and damp.
‘I bet you didn’t negotiate this into your contract with Reid and Drake.’ A small lip-curl hints at what must be a devastating full-blown smile I’ll probably never see. ‘Wednesday,’ he adds with a bitter twist to his mouth, his serious, intense stare pinning me to the leather upholstery.
‘What?’
‘If you’re still interested, I’ll fuck you Wednesday,’ he says. Like it’s a meeting he’s slotted into his busy schedule, before the gym and after a conference call.
Today is Monday.
My body can’t decide on an emotion, shunting between excitement, outrage and rampant curiosity. ‘Why Wednesday?’ A control thing? Just because he can pick and choose? Well, fuck that.
A defiant trickle of fire winds its way between the exposed bumps of my vertebrae—I’ll tell him Wednesday doesn’t work for me, but could I pencil him in for Friday? But my body betrays me, clamouring for the dark, all-consuming sex I’m guessing he delivers; desperate to have done with the distracting deluge of arousal every time I’m in his presence; determined to show him whatever he can dish, I can take.
‘Because that’s the way I want it.’ He leans closer, his navy stare tracing my parted lips and leaving the ghost of a kiss there. ‘You should know, I’ll be in control. I’ll call the shots. If that’s not your thing...’ Another cocky shrug that fans my body temperature off the scale. He thinks he has tomboy Mia all figured out.
‘You should know that’s dangerous talk in this day and age. Women are in charge of their own sexuality, Mr Faulkner.’ I’m aware I’m the one who brought up sex, and, despite his commanding promise and my rebuttal, my internal muscles clench at the idea of Kit controlling my pleasure. No one’s ever bossed me around in the bedroom before, and if I’d been asked prior to meeting the sinfully sexy Kit I’d have sworn on the life of my brother’s soon-to-be adopted child I’d tell him he could stick his sexual dominance up his tight, toned English backside.
But his offer comes laced with the hint of danger that whooshes the blood through my head in a rush. And I’m confident I can take him. I wonder how many times he’s used the I’ll call the shots line. I wonder if anyone ever turns the charmer down. I wonder if he used it on the late Mrs Faulkner, a woman whose legacy appears far-reaching, as if Kit literally drags it behind him like Marley’s chains.
That we’re negotiating sex like a cold, unemotional transaction isn’t romantic. But I don’t need romance. He’s started a chain reaction inside me, luring me towards the recklessness I crave.
Testing where his head is at, I say, ‘Or perhaps you’re trying to tame the wild girl, eh?’
Perhaps now would be a good time to tell him of my rebellious teens, my reputation as a wildcard...
Kit smiles but it’s feline. ‘You and your command of your sexuality brought this up, Ms Abbott. Just because I like things a certain way doesn’t mean I don’t respect your choices and your right to say no. I’m fully into mutual consent while we explore our mutual pleasure.’ His eyes dip to my mouth. ‘You can take it or leave it, Mia.’ His lips caress the phrase mutual pleasure like they’re already on my skin, my nipples, my clit.
I press my thighs together, stymieing the burn. My head screams one thing while my hormones stage an intervention.
But he’s also given me a bargaining chip. With a rush of exhaled air, I make my decision. I will take it, because Kit Faulkner turns me on more than anyone I’ve ever met. But more so, because I’m up to the challenge. Any challenge. Especially one where the boundaries are so clearly demarcated and the taste of victory already lingers on my tongue.
Kit wears the casual-sex-only vibe like some men wear overpowering cologne. He’s safe. I can concede to a few of his sexual demands without risk, but I have a stipulation of my own.
I shrug, while my blood pounds through my belly. ‘It’s all good—whatever your kink. But I have a condition too.’ My breathing accelerates, a chemical cocktail flooding my bloodstream.
He leans in, waiting, his lips parted and his midnight eyes dancing between mine.
I swallow, ensuring my voice will be clear and controlled when it emerges because the parts of me affected by the hormonal maelstrom inside jerk and jitter like chattering teeth. ‘You can call the shots sexually, but I want full creative direction over my work—no negotiations. No wasting my time or trying to influence the process, and no interfering.’
I wait, breath held in my throat while I stare him down.
Some sort of battle rages inside him—his nostrils flare, his eye actually twitches and his chest rises and falls, telling me he’s used to controlling every aspect of his life, including work. And now I’m burning with curiosity about his dead wife. What happened to her? Has it made Kit the way he is? It would destroy this fiercely controlled man to have such a momentous part of his life turned upside down.
Breath stutters back into my chest in a rush. In that moment I want to reach out to him, to kiss him, more than I want the oxygen that breath delivers to my gasping lungs. He’s the last thing I should want—his privileged, conventional lifestyle, his naturally demanding nature, his disregard for social pleasantries are warning bells rattling my skull.
But he’s safe.
The fact he’s still deeply and desolately in love with his wife is stamped all over him from the creases in the corners of his eyes to the tension he carries around his beautiful mouth and the control he seems desperate to exert on all areas of his life.
My scalp prickles as I wait. I fight the urge to climb into his lap and finish this now, today. Monday. Just to show him life, free will, is about choices. But losing his wife would have already taught him that harsh lesson and perhaps I simply want to watch him shed the battle-scarred armour, even for a few uninhibited seconds.
Wednesday might as well be next year. He’s ramped up my hormones tenfold by making me wait and now my anticipation is stretch
ed taut.
We’re still staring, still breathing in unison, still flooding the space with a pheromone mix more potent than the spirits stocked in the car’s minibar.
I lick my parched lips. His eyes dance over the trail of my tongue.
I’m frozen, but every nerve in my body urges me to take the leap.
At the last second, his pupils dilate and we lunge in unison.
With a small growl his hands slide into my hair and he cups my face and pulls me onto his kiss. I meet him halfway, my hands gripping his shoulders as wave after wave of relief pounds through me.
He’s changed his mind.
We’ll dump the boring play, go back to his place and I can start work afresh tomorrow with this...inconvenient distraction nicely tucked away.
Done and dusted. Kit Faulkner put in his place. Back to being Mia.
His kiss is bold, open-eyed, almost defiant, but my body responds—muscles softening and heart rate accelerating, forcing heated blood around my arteries, delivering the hormones that allow me to ignore all the reasons fucking my kind-of boss isn’t a good idea.
Firm lips direct my mouth open. His tongue surges inside—sublime, possessive, unapologetic. As good as I’d guessed. I clasp his wrists, clinging on for dear life as I meet his stare, even though my corneas are on fire and my mind screams at me to close my eyes. To block out the carnal, almost cruel intensity in his eyes. As if kissing me today, a Monday, is a dare and he hates every second.
To compensate I kiss him like it’s my last second on earth, my mouth a frantic slide on his, my tongue a match for the duel of his, and then I suck on his bottom lip.
He pulls away, his stare savage, breath gusting across my face, and then drags my whole body into his lap, his fingers digging in and a hoarse grunt leaving his throat.
My blood surges, delivering the endorphins to every cell in my body. Perhaps we won’t make it back to his place. Perhaps we’ll finish this right here in the back of his fancy car before we make it to the Shaftesbury.
I straddle his lap and rise up over him to slant my mouth back over his. I was right about the hair. It’s silky and long enough to twist between my fingers. But I don’t get to enjoy it for long because he grips my wrists and directs them behind my back with firm, insistent pressure that tells me he’s a man of his word. He wants to control this... Well, he can try.
I continue to plunder his mouth as he traps both my hands in one of his, and then his other hand is at my breast, kneading and tweaking and making me moan loudly enough to alert our driver, who sits behind the privacy screen, of what is afoot.
Kit pulls on my wrists, breaking the contact between our frenzied mouths. His stare is almost black with desire, a wildness dancing there that steals my breath and banishes any residual hesitation I have for wanting him.
I do.
Desperately.
Now.
He dips his head and his mouth covers my breast, through the fabric of the silk dress that probably cost him more than my flight around the world.
He’s not gentle. His lips clamp my nipple, pulling and tugging while his tongue flicks at the nub. I cry out, the sensation burrowing deep into my belly, sending pulses of fire between my legs.
I knew the second I walked into his office things would be good between us. Just like I intuited his emotional unavailability. Kit oozes distance from every pore. Emotionally, we’re as distant as the countries we come from. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need the trappings.
His free hand skims my thigh as he leans back on the seat, holding me prisoner a short distance away from his mouth, which I want back on me. My breast, my lips, anywhere that helps to slake the burning need he’s unleashed so effortlessly.
‘Is this what you want?’ The bulge at the front of his trousers tells me he wants it too, despite the harshness of his tone. Despite his stupid Wednesday rule.
‘Yes.’ I’ve never been more turned on in my life. Perhaps it’s the dress and the glamour of Kit’s London and limo. Perhaps it’s a comedown from the elevated adrenaline I’ve suffered since my plane touched down in this foreign city, a place I’m tied to through family, both biological and real. Perhaps it’s just Kit, as sexy as sin in his tux—impersonal, unreachable, the ultimate in temptation.
With an impatient grunt, he slides his fingers between my legs. His hooded eyes command my stare, which wants to hide from his brooding, detached perusal. But a pulse hammers in his neck, he’s steel between my legs and his chest works hard, I suspect to stave off a similar light-headedness to that currently rendering me incoherent.
‘Fuck. No underwear?’ He probes my slickness, this time with a gentleness I’d have denied he was capable of two minutes ago.
I shake my head, too turned on for speech. In seconds he’s primed my clit with his thumb and stretched two fingers inside me so I’m hallucinating stars.
His languid stare latches to mine. A small smile tugs the corner of his sinful mouth. Mocking me? Daring me? But I’m past caring.
His eyes flick to the wet patch his mouth left on the dress. ‘Don’t move your hands.’ His command is bitten out, grating on my instincts to defy. But we’ve made a deal and I don’t want him to stop what he’s doing between my legs, so I concede, crossing my wrists in the small of my back and gripping his thighs with mine for balance in the moving vehicle.
He scoops the strap from my shoulder, exposing my breast, and then resumes his hold on my wrists, as if he doesn’t trust me to listen. His mouth covers me, skin to skin this time, but all the while accompanied by his searing eye contact, the high I feel worth my compliance to his need for control.
I whimper. The dual assault is so good I’m seconds from coming and he grins up at me like he knows he’s the one to take me there. I plan payback while I ride his hand.
When his teeth scrape my nipple, short grunts of encouragement rumbling up from his chest, I implode. My body jerks forward, crushing him back into the seat, and he releases my wrists to press his palm between my shoulder blades and hold me in place while he wrings the last drops of pleasure from my weakened body.
Wow.
I pant against his shoulder, my hands still clasped in his behind my back. If I turn my head I could kiss his neck, which smells divine—masculine, clean, spicy. I keep still while he slowly releases my hands and slips the strap of my dress up into place. Then he gently slides me from his lap without comment and straightens his own clothing, smoothing his immaculate trousers over his thighs as he glances away to look out of the tinted windows.
When I’m certain about the quality of my voice, I say, ‘What about you?’ Has he changed his mind? Does he enjoy blue balls? He’s still sporting a healthy erection, shifting in the seat as if to get comfortable.
Good luck with that...
I lift my chin, feigning cool indifference at Kit’s dismissal, willing my pulse to settle and the flush of my skin to fade. I wait for confirmation or denial. Encouragement or rejection.
He pins me in place with the stare he rounds on me—hot, full of promise and a hint of regret.
‘Wednesday.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Kit
I CHECK MY watch and then rap at the blue door behind which I hope to find Mia. There’s a light on inside, so someone is up. I roll on the balls of my feet. It’s Wednesday and all I’ve had to chase away the darkness for the last thirty hours is the memory of Mia’s sublime bold surrender in the car. A jarring juxtaposition as fascinating as the woman herself...
She fought this thing between us at every step just as fiercely as I did, for her own reasons, even as she took what she wanted from my kiss, from riding my hand between her legs. I couldn’t give her more then. But I’m here now, if she still wants the same thing.
My shoulders tense, long seconds ticking in my head, as powerless to the attraction as I was the first time she walked into
my office. More so, because now I know she’ll not only play by the rules, but she had the wherewithal to secure a few of her own conditions.
Either way, I’ve had a brief taste of spectacular, and now I’m ravenous.
I couldn’t take her home Monday, but I sure as shit went home and used my insomnia to scour the internet for every mention of Mia Abbott. She is good at her job. Her social-media accounts, where she posts anything from adventure-travel-type vlogs and corporate promo films to the early and quirky short films she made at uni, have a couple of million followers. She’s won a handful of New Zealand short-film awards and, just like the woman herself, her style is unconventional, innovative and fresh. Reid and Drake did well to recruit someone of Mia’s calibre. I could argue that this way, me fucking her, we’re all getting what we want—me, Mia and the Faulkner Group. But right now I don’t give a shit about the family business—otherwise I’d leave her alone. Walk away, no harm done.
My stomach tenses. She’s not home...
Perhaps she’ll answer and tell me to piss off—she’d have every right. My back muscles join my shoulders and my gut, a sickening wrestle for control of my strung-out body, while I wait on the doorstep in the cold.
When I withdrew from her in the car on Monday, my head was all over the place. Meeting Mia on the eve of what should have been my fourth wedding anniversary left me floundering like a stunned mullet, and I handled it badly. I exhale through pursed lips, squinting through a tiny slit in the drawn curtains as my impatience reaches boiling point.
I knock again, the sinking feeling in my gut as foreign as standing on a doorstep to ask someone out. Fuck. What am I doing?
‘Coming.’ A deep, muffled voice from somewhere inside.
That’s not Mia. The last time I saw her at the play, her throaty laugh, her clear excitement for the venue, her wide stare made what could have been an exercise in torture tolerable.