by C. L. Parker
“Status report on Rockford … Matthews, go.”
God, why did he have to start with me? My going first meant Cassidy could do a one-up, but I didn’t have a choice. “It looks really good. I’ve actually been spending quite a bit of time with him lately,” I lied.
Cassidy swiveled to face me, one brow lifted. “Really? Wow … What have the two of you been up to?”
I shifted in my chair, caught off guard. I was never caught off guard. Though I’d rarely ever had to use it, I’d found a joke and a smile was always a good cover. “You know what they say: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“So you went to Vegas? Is that why you look so tired?”
Bitch.
She left me no choice; I had to make her look dumb. “Uh, no. It was just a figure of speech.” I glanced around at the rest of the room, laughing as I shook my head and pointed at her.
I dropped the smile when she said, “Oh. I see. Then what did you do?”
The ever-present challenge was there in her eyes. Jesus, I didn’t know if I wanted to throw her down on the table and choke the living daylights out of her or fuck her to death. Either way, I was seeing a tombstone with her name on it.
Sitting forward, I got serious. “The last time I checked, we were in competition with each other. It would be stupid for me to show you my hand.”
She slid her glasses to the tip of her nose and leaned over, making a huge show of examining my hands. “They look pretty empty to me.”
“That’s because all of my tricks are up my sleeves.” I winked, and then the room erupted into laughter.
Cassidy laughed as well, but I didn’t think her chuckle was sincere. “I’d think you’d want to brag if that were the case.”
“Bragging wouldn’t be very sportsmanlike.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I insist.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her at a staff meeting.
“So do I,” Wade said.
Dammit. “Well, I can’t tell you everything, but I can say we had lunch today.”
Cassidy perked up again. “Today today?”
I nodded, suddenly wary of my answer, but having said it out loud, I couldn’t go back on it.
“Huh. He must have really been hungry, seeing as how he had lunch with me today, too.” She sat forward and looked directly at me, her brow cocked in challenge. “The Hole, La Jolla. Denver had two lobsters and a steak cooked medium well. Hard to imagine he’d still be hungry after that. Unless he has a tapeworm, in which case we should seriously urge him to seek medical attention. What do you think, Shaw? Should we send an ambulance over to his house?”
She picked up her cellphone from the table, prepared to do just that. Christ, talk about dramatic.
Suddenly feeling the weight of every pair of eyes in the room, I pulled at my collar. “No. I misspoke. We didn’t actually eat. I guess it was more like drinks. I just didn’t want Wade to know I’d had a drink while on the clock.”
Wade chuckled. “Don’t worry about me, Matthews. Whatever it takes to get the job done, son.”
Bam! Points for me. I smirked at Cassidy.
She smirked back and then reclined in the chair again, with a finger tapping her chin and her eyes on the ceiling. “Hmm … See, Denver and I spent a good part of the day together down by the beach, discussing a strategy for his future, and then we had a late lunch, so I’m confused about the timing.”
Well, that explained the touch of sun on her nose. I tensed, wishing like hell I could take back everything I’d just said. But the problem with lies was that it took more lies to cover the first one. “Oh, yeah. He told me. It was after that.”
“Ah. I see. Well, isn’t that convenient?”
Our eyes locked and stayed that way, even while Wade congratulated both of us and insisted that we continue to push until we had the golden goose. After that, he said whatever it was he said and concluded the meeting. Everyone else must have been eager to leave, since they cleared out of the office like cockroaches scattering for cover when the lights were turned on, but Cassidy and I still had unfinished business, and we both knew it. The energy arcing between us was palpable, different from our encounter in her office yesterday morning and every bit the same as in that alley the other night. A pattern was emerging, muddy but becoming clearer. I’d never thought of competition as an aphrodisiac, but I couldn’t deny the raw, carnal urge to topple this woman and show her who the dominant being between us was.
In more ways than one, she’d been a naughty girl. And I was about to make her be even more naughty.
Standing, I walked over to the door to close and lock it. “You went behind my back and got a private meeting with Rockford.” The light switch was the next to go.
If it hadn’t been for the city lights streaming in through the window behind her, I wouldn’t have been able to see her silhouette, half-shrouded in darkness, as she stood and set that damn chin of hers. “And you lied about having a private meeting with Rockford.”
Funny that she made no comment about or questioned what I was doing, though I knew damn well she’d heard the lock click.
“I didn’t want Wade to think we weren’t coming through for him.” I stalked toward her, keeping to the shadows and using the lack of light to my advantage.
“No, you wanted him to think you were coming through for him.” Her voice was shaky, however much she tried to cover it. Not knowing where I was must have sucked for her. Cassidy Whalen operated best with information at her fingertips. She was flying blind now.
“Maybe, but you didn’t have to call me out like that in front of the whole damn room.”
Her head snapped in the direction of my voice, sound the only sense she could cling to. I watched as she swallowed, the lump slowly pushing up and then down her elegant throat. “Of course I did. You didn’t really expect me to play nice, did you? All those other women might roll over so you can mount and fuck them, but not me.”
“Oh, yeah? I can’t fuck you?” I was close, and she knew it. Really close.
“No.”
Bullshit. She gasped when I lowered the zipper of her skirt and pushed it over her hips to pool at her feet. And then my arms were around her waist and her back was at my chest. She didn’t even try to fight; I knew she wouldn’t. Not even when I slipped my hand inside her panties.
Christ, she was so wet for me. A sound that I wasn’t even conscious of making found its way out of my chest, like a predator’s warning to any others that might be lurking in the shadows. She was claimed. My prey. My meal.
Cassidy purred in response, and my fingers were positively soaked.
“Are you sure? Because it certainly feels like I can.”
Her muscles tensed, prepared to spring into action if only to prove me wrong.
“Don’t move.”
She could’ve at any time. I wasn’t holding her prisoner, and I would never take a woman against her will.
Hesitation caused her muscles to tense and relax. Even further still when my hand started a slow rocking motion inside her panties. My palm massaged her clit while my fingers teased her opening. Slowly. Oh, so slowly. Tense and relax.
I understood Cassidy better than she thought. Logically, she knew she should stop me, but she wanted this. She needed it. It was a part of her natural instinct I ventured to guess she’d never explored.
Instinct was a curious thing. A person could disguise it, but they could never really escape it. Everything always swung back around to instinct.
And logic was overrated.
Cassidy shifted, her stance widening and her hips moving to work in tandem with my manipulations. And then her hands were on mine. But they were eager. Too eager. Slow and steady was the pace I preferred at the moment, and she would have her release only when I was ready for her to. It seemed Miss Whalen needed a distraction.
“Unbutton your blouse.”
She hesitated, so I did as well. “Do it or I’ll stop.”
>
The dim light of the world outside the windows allowed me to see her shaking hands as they rose to do as I said. There was that instinct again. Cassidy had to follow directions. It was ingrained in the very fiber of her being.
And because she was being a good little girl, my stroking resumed. Only this time, the excruciatingly torturous hard-on in my pants got in on the action as I dipped at the knee and ground against her ass. God, that ridiculously sexy ass.
Silence. There was nothing but silence as we both worked on our tasks. No, not silence. Our breaths were audible. The rustling of our clothes was audible. My grunt, her barely decipherable moan was audible. But the rest of the world stood still.
Cassidy was done with her blouse. “Open it,” I said. She did, but then she attempted to lean forward to push it off her shoulders, making an assumption I hadn’t given her permission to make. Tightening my hold around her waist, I stopped her. “I didn’t say to take it off.”
I could sense her frustration, but I didn’t give a damn. The lesson I was teaching was all about what it felt like when the tables were turned and her opponent wasn’t playing fair. She’d made me feel exposed at the meeting, and I was doing the same thing to her now. Cassidy needed to be broken, to flounder and know what it was like to be at the mercy of an adversary. Only I was lenient enough not to do it in front of a room full of her co-workers. So regardless of how much I wanted to cup her breasts or swing her around to take their hardened peaks into my mouth, I wouldn’t.
Presented with no other choice, Cassidy leaned into me, her head lolling to the side on my shoulder and her arms falling to cling to my hips. Her neck was exposed, and I was granted a fantastic view of her silk-covered breasts, the creamy flesh beckoning me to sample. She was beautiful. Every inch of her body was pristine, as if her skin had been airbrushed to hide flaws that simply did not exist.
Through the valley of her chest, I was given another view: my hand moving beneath the silky sheath of her dainty panties. Forward and back, synchronized to perfection with the rise and fall of her chest. She moved against my hand, giving up her quest to take control and simply riding it out. Her head rolled on my shoulder, her back arching to push her hips toward my hand on the down stroke and then toward my crotch on the up. Closer and closer she brought the tips of my fingers to her opening. She wanted them inside her, but she wasn’t calling the shots.
The grip on my hips tightened and she became bolder, moving against me and positioning her neck at my lips, as if begging me to do what we both knew I wanted to do. Not yet.
Cassidy threw caution aside, her mouth turning toward mine and one hand abandoning its post on my hip to find purchase at the nape of my neck. She pulled me to her, taking the kiss I had not offered, and I granted her that one reprieve. Her lips were plump and pliant, parting to accept my tongue, but I gave her only a brief taste before pulling back to suckle the meaty morsel on the bottom. Jesus, she had fantastic lips.
I couldn’t allow myself to get carried away. I had a point to prove, after all. So I denied her further access and stayed just out of reach. Her breaths were hot but sweet on my lips as she struggled to climb the apex of the pleasure I was bringing her. Again and again she lifted her mouth to mine, disappointed when each attempt was met with failure. I couldn’t help my internal smirk at her plight, but again, at least it wasn’t in front of a room full of her co-workers.
Finally, she gave up and turned her head to the side again, offering the graceful slope of her neck for my viewing pleasure. An agonizing groan trickled from her lips and the juicy little nugget beneath my palm became engorged even as her soft folds grew impossibly slicker. Oh, that was exactly what I’d been waiting for.
Her rocking became short bursts that quickened and intensified the sensation she was receiving courtesy of my hand. The grip on my hip tightened as she struggled to find purchase, and a desperate whimper turned into a throaty moan that was building in passion.
Right there.
My mouth latched onto her skin, teeth scraping the sweet spot between her neck and shoulder. And then I pinched her nipple through her bra and plunged two fingers inside her at the same time.
Cassidy went stiff, paralyzed by the orgasm rocketing through her body as I massaged the rough patch of flesh inside her and coaxed it further. Clamped lips muffled that throaty moan, and the arch of her back pushed her ass so close to my crotch that I thought my cock might actually punch through the zipper to enter her.
She was lucky. My intention had been to bring her to the edge of the cliff and then to leave her dangling there without letting her come. But damned if I could help myself. Knowing I’d done that for her was like a surge of power shooting straight to my ego and my cock, and I couldn’t deny myself the resulting high.
But there was still the issue of the kraken inside my pants, which was hyperanxious for release.
Pulling my hand from her panties, I turned her to face me. A feat that wasn’t difficult in the least, thanks to the natural muscle relaxer I’d just bestowed upon her. “Let’s see if you can give as good as you get,” I said.
Cassidy’s eyes widened in surprise when I pushed down on her shoulders and sent her to her knees. Working my belt loose and then my pants, I pulled my cock free and gave her a wink.
“You don’t expect me to—” she started, but I cut off her blah, blah, blah when I brazenly put the head of my dick to her lips and pushed forward to effectively shut her up.
God, it was just like my shower. The relief at the silence, the visual of her lips wrapped around my cock, the warm and wet suction—it was perfection. And towering over her like that with my cock shoved in her mouth was every bit as empowering as making her succumb to the pleasure she’d received only by my generosity.
The corners of her mouth stretched to accommodate my presence, and damn right that was an added ego boost. It wasn’t that I was unusually long, but I knew my girth was impressive. Which is exactly why Cassidy slapped at my abdomen when I slowly pushed all the way in to test her limits. If she could have, I knew she would’ve bitten me. Luckily for me, my cock filled her mouth and then some, nixing any freedom of movement.
She wasn’t happy about my forcefulness, or so I gathered from the digging of her nails into the backs of my thighs. And that was through my slacks. But then again, I hadn’t been happy about her smart mouth making me look stupid at the meeting either, so we were even.
I did grant her some freedom of movement, though. Mostly because as much as I wanted to fuck her mouth, I wanted her to suck my cock even more. And boy, did she ever. To my surprise, Cassidy didn’t fight me there. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say she was even determined to do a good job. Like she thought she’d somehow have me eating out of the palm of her hand if she did. Maybe, but that remained to be seen. Judging by the wicked glint in her eyes when she assumed control, I’d say she’d found herself another challenge. I could see nothing but reward in my future, so I let her have at it.
Only there was something I had to do first. The glasses were history. And then reaching behind her, I popped the contraption that had been holding her hair atop her head and watched as it spilled free. A now untamed mane of thick, ginger waves cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, and I was well pleased. Looking down at Cassidy on her knees before me with her suffocating blouse hanging open, her perfectly ironed pencil skirt crumpled on the floor, her every-strand-in-place hairdo now a mess, and my cock making a dirty girl of her prim and proper mouth, I felt like the king of the world.
And the blow job was pretty awesome, too. It was hard to believe that someone who worked so damn hard at being a stuffy bitch could suddenly morph into a sultry vixen, but this was the second time I’d seen it from Cassidy Whalen. There was definitely more to her than met the eye; however, I wasn’t about to let myself fall into that trap.
With my hand at the back of her head, I guided her until she found the pace and stroke of her mouth that felt damn good to me. And then she was on he
r own, needing no further guidance. Quick learner, that one, and I was happy about it. Just like every woman’s body had to be learned for personalized pleasure, so did a man’s. Cassidy was good to go, even under the pressure of impending lockjaw.
Cupping my balls, she stroked them with the perfect amount of pressure, though I was acutely aware that if she wanted to be a bitch, nothing good could come of my current position. I let that thought go, though, because her hands were soft and her mouth was wet, and her tongue was doing this unbelievable thing to the head of my cock.
My head fell back and I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to thrust and grind. When the pressure began to build, for a split second, I considered coming in her mouth. But I stopped myself; I wasn’t done teaching her a lesson yet. A lesson that wasn’t going to be taught if she kept sucking me like she was, so I pulled out of her mouth.
Cassidy looked up at me, those big, green orbs confused and screaming her need for direction.
“Stand up,” I told her.
As she did so, I pulled out the chair she normally sat in during meetings and sat my naked ass in it. And then I angled it toward her.
“Unless you want to lose another pair of panties, I suggest you get them off your body. Get rid of the rest of it, too. Except for the shoes. Leave those on.”
It was another power play. If she wanted me, she’d have to prove it by undressing herself. And she did, quickly hooking her thumbs under the band at her hips and pushing them down her legs. The blouse and bra were the next to go, while I stroked my cock and watched. She stood there in those goddamn shoes, naked and self-aware, with her arms crossed over her abdomen, waiting for me to make my next move. I stalled, letting the weight of self-consciousness take its toll as I studied her. So fucking sexy.
Cassidy’s figure wasn’t perfect, but it came damn close. She could’ve been a mermaid out of water and shed of fin. It was amazing what could be found when layers of ice and stone were chiseled away. Harsh city lights played across her flesh, the casts of shadows overcoming the peachy hues and making her skin look porcelain. Her breasts were full, her waist slender, her hips generous, and her legs long. And at the most southern point of her body, a thin strip of soft, orange curls parted the V and led my eyes to the hidden cove of promise.