This was so much more than physical, she realized as his talented fingers and mouth brought her closer to the edge. She needed to be touched and pushed. Longed to step outside of her role as a caregiver. Wanted to be taken care of. Have someone else make decisions while she just took for once.
And take, she did. She took everything he had to give as he slid a second finger inside and rubbed his thumb over her most sensitive part, making her turn her head away from his kiss to gulp air. He was gasping for breath too, as her body trembled at his firm, rhythmic touch. Bringing her pleasure turned him on, and that thought was almost enough to transport her to the place she sought.
“Yes, Claire,” he said, increasing speed. “I need to feel you break apart. I want to take you there.”
She moaned.
“Yeah,” he said. “Share this with me.”
Her heart hammered so hard it hurt, as her excitement built like a volcano. He made it sound like her pleasure was a gift to him. God, could he be any hotter?
“Mmmm,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re close.”
Damn right. So close she couldn’t breathe. She dug her nails into his shoulders and held on for dear life as he pushed his fingers farther inside at the same pounding rhythm, his hot breath swirling around her ear.
And there it was. Like her own private fireworks show, waves of ecstasy washed through her, making her see those proverbial stars behind her eyelids. She felt like she was screaming, but couldn’t tell because of the intensity of her orgasm. It was like her whole body was screaming. Holy shit. She’d never felt like this. And it went on and on as he continued stroking her relentlessly until the waves finally subsided and she went limp in his arms.
What on earth? Maybe her reaction resulted from finally being free, or maybe because it had been so long since she’d been intimate with someone, but most likely, she acknowledged to herself with a nervous twinge, it was this particular man.
As he slowly slipped his fingers from her body, her muscles contracted around him as if trying to hold him there, and she wished she could. She needed more of him. As much as he’d give her.
…
Will had never had this kind of reaction to a woman before and it unnerved him. It took everything in him not to shuck his pants and shove himself deep inside Claire right there, in the limo, which was not how he had intended this to play out. “My God, what you do to me, Claire.”
And then she did something completely unexpected. With lust-darkened eyes, she gave him a pointed stare and motioned him closer. Without hesitation, he complied.
“I want you, Will,” she said, slipping first out of her shirt and bra, then her skirt, reclining against the leather in nothing but lavender lace panties. “Now,” she said, leaning forward to undo his pants. She parted her legs and pulled him even closer.
Heart hammering, he knelt on the floor between her feet, hips between her knees, and once his zipper was down, she lifted his shirt and ran her warm hands over his abdomen. She leaned forward to kiss a trail from his sternum to his navel, then shoved his jeans and boxers down, freeing him.
An involuntary groan escaped his throat as he ran his fingers over the lavender scrap of lace barely covering her, feeling dampness through the sheer material. And right as he slipped his fingers under the elastic to remove this final barrier, his phone rang.
Fucking “Smooth Operator” played from his phone in the door pocket. He should have turned it off.
She groaned and leaned back against the seat, legs on either side of him, lavender-clad heaven still within his reach. “Just take his call and get rid of him,” she groaned.
“Dammit!” He had to take the call or his brother would probably send Chance out to find him. “Hold on a fucking minute,” he shouted into the phone before putting it on hold. He’d talk to him, but not with his pants down. He slid his clothes back in place but stayed unzipped to save that time when he got back to Claire. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Don’t move.”
She grinned and ran her fingers over herself. “Even to do this?”
“Especially to do that.” Fuck, she was hot. He’d kill Michael for this.
Taking a deep breath and not looking at Claire, he plopped his ass in the seat on the opposite side of the limo facing her. When he went to push the “resume call” button, he noticed a text from Jim: 5 mil.
Clarify, Will texted back.
$5,000,000 wired into Claire Maddox’s account yesterday. Source unknown.
He looked over at Claire. Her hair was fanned across the back of the seat and she looked completely relaxed with her legs just far apart enough for his hips to fit between her knees.
Five million dollars was a shit-ton of money. Surely there was a valid explanation other than that she was on the take. There was no way she was the spy. No way in hell. He’d ask her about it and clear it up after he spoke with his asshole brother.
He pushed the button. “Okay. What’s on fucking fire, Mikey?”
“Obviously your pants. Chance tells me you’re out with the Maddox woman.”
He shot a look across at Claire and she smiled. “Yeah. Don’t start.” He needed to be careful with what he said so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea—or so she wouldn’t know what was actually being said if Michael came unhinged over his dating a sort-of employee.
“I thought she was our prime suspect?”
Will kept his voice calm and conversational. “Not anymore.”
“Do you have evidence to clear her?”
“Not yet.” He tried to make it seem like a friendly conversation from his side.
Michael’s voice rose even louder. “So you’re fucking someone who might be fucking us over?”
Will turned so his head was between the phone and Claire. “Not yet, but I hope to be soon.” A quick glance at Claire revealed she had pulled her knees together and was sitting upright. He pressed the phone tighter against his ear to muffle the sound in case she could hear, which he knew was impossible over the road noise and soft music playing. “Please keep your voice down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Will! I gave you one simple task.” Will fumbled with the volume button on the side of the phone, but didn’t find it before his brother shouted, “I told you to find out who the spy was. I didn’t tell you to fuck her.” Will hung up on his brother, but it was too late. From the opposite side of the limo, Claire was shaking, staring at him like he’d sprouted a third eye.
She didn’t say anything for what felt like an eternity. This was bad. Real bad. Like drop-and-cover bad.
“Smooth Operator” started up on his phone again. He ignored it.
He held his palms up and used the most soothing tone he could conjure. “Claire…”
“Don’t.” It didn’t even sound like her voice. It was distant and threatening. “Don’t say a word.” She snatched her bra from the floor and put it on.
“Please let me explain.”
Michael’s ringtone finally shut up and she grabbed her shirt from the seat next to her and struggled to turn it right side out, still trembling. “Some things defy explanation. They defy reason.” She wrapped the shirt around her and tied the bow with a hard jerk. “Or logic.”
His gut burned like he’d swallowed a bottle of Drano. “I’m sorry.”
“Some things also defy forgiveness, Will.” She picked up her skirt and wrestled it over her legs, snapping it closed with a pop. “Tell the driver to pull over and let me out.”
“No.” He couldn’t. Not until he explained.
“I’ll press kidnapping charges. Don’t think I won’t. Let me out.”
Fuck. “Please. Give me five minutes. If after that you want out, we’ll pull over.”
“How could you possibly expect me to trust you to make good on your word after what I just heard?”
“Because what you heard isn’t what it sounds like.” Only, it sort of was, he realized grimly. “Because it’s important that you not leave thinking the wrong thing. Because what
you think and feel matter to me.” He slumped into his seat as the truth hit him. “Because you matter to me.”
They stared at each other as “Smooth Operator” struck up again, followed immediately by “Kung Fu Fighting.”
“You have five minutes. Then you’re going to let me out.” She put on her glasses and glanced at her watch. “Go.”
Chapter Nine
Will turned his phone off and threw it on the seat behind him as he moved over to Claire’s side.
“No way. Stay as far away from me as possible.” She pointed to the corner opposite her.
He moved to where she indicated. “It’s not what you think.” He pushed the button to talk to Jacob. “Please drive directly to Miss Maddox’s apartment.”
“Yes, sir.”
She stared at him, unblinking. He looked almost helpless slumped in the seat across from her. Almost. She knew better. She’d heard his brother.
It all made sense now. She never could quite wrap her head around why a man like Will Anderson would want to spend time with her. Well, now she knew. He wanted to pump her for information. Literally. A wave of nausea tumbled through her.
“To think I almost…” She couldn’t look at him. “That I let you…” In her peripheral vision, she saw him squirm and she thought about what he was doing to her when Michael had called and interrupted them. Thank heavens he called. “My God. I was about to…” Her sentence fell off into a sob. How could she have been so stupid?
“Claire. Please listen.”
Her shock had shifted to anger—pure and sharp and deep—clawing its way up from her gut and ripping straight through her heart on its way to the surface. She’d been mad at Eric for his selfishness, confused and hurt when she found her mother’s letter, and sad when her grandparents had died, but she’d never been betrayed and used—and at this moment, the only thing she was sure of was that she would never let it happen again. Never.
“You were going to sleep with me to find out if I was a spy? What kind of spy?”
“Someone is poaching clients using inside information.”
A cold chill ran down her spine. He suspected her of spying on his company. “You were on a recon mission, huh? Just a job, wasn’t it, Will?”
He had a stricken look on his face. “No!”
“Why on earth did you and your brother suspect I was a spy?”
“Because you fit the description given by clients. You started work right when the cases began. You have access to the information. You understand the value of antiquities. And you have five-fucking-million dollars in your bank account as of yesterday.”
Well, if she thought she was mad before, she had to redefine it now. Will had just raised the bar for furious. “Stop the car.”
“Hell, no.”
“How do you know about the money?”
His eyes shifted to his lap before they met hers. “I overheard you talking to Heather on the phone about being rich and leaving the country. About not liking people snooping.”
She thought back over that conversation and saw how in light of the other coincidental things, that could have been misconstrued, but… “I never specified the amount. How do you know how much?” Then she remembered the guy who’d asked Heather about her. And Will knew where she lived even though she had not put it in her Anderson file. Angry prickles shifted up her neck. “You had me investigated. You’ve got some super-spy thing going on, don’t you?”
From the look on his face, she knew she’d hit it on the nose. What she really wanted to do was hit his nose. “What else did you find out about me? That I eat ice cream right out of the container and dance naked in my living room?”
“You do?”
“No! I was making that up.” Sort of. Actually, she was kind of trying to come off her anger a bit since she could almost see how he would suspect her. It still gave him no excuse to sleep with her if he thought she was stealing from his business. Something was still off.
“You said you’d give me five minutes to explain. So far, I haven’t gotten to do much other than defend myself. Please hear me out,” he said, hands clenched in his lap.
She leaned back and crossed everything she could cross, making herself as closed off as possible. “Five minutes.”
He grabbed his knees and leaned forward. “I came into town at Michael’s request. He had evidence that there was a spy working at the auction house.”
She glanced unseeingly at her watch. “Four minutes left.”
He frowned. “At first, you looked like a good candidate, but then I came to your office—”
“To get evidence and information out of me.”
“No! To get my coat back. But you were cute and funny—and hot. And you have a great ass.”
“You’re pushing your luck. Three minutes.”
“Bullshit. I have not used two minutes.”
She smirked and recrossed her legs. “So you decided you wanted to bang me and find out if I was the spy.”
“Yes…I mean no. I mean, I wanted to get to know you—”
“Bang me and find out if I was the spy.”
“Date you. I knew you weren’t a spy the minute I touched you.”
“So your fingers and lips are spy detectors? You should hire out, Mr. Anderson.”
He ran his hands over his hair. She suspected he’d have pulled his hair if it were long enough. “You said you’d hear me out.”
“Two minutes.”
“You are unbelievable!” he said, scooting to the edge of the seat.
“And you used me, Will. You never cared about me. You saw a way to get information, and being military-trained, you selected the most effective weapon in your arsenal, your body. And I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. Well-played.”
He slid off the seat and scrambled toward her, then stopped on his knees just short of her. Her heart hammered in her chest as the smell of him filled her nose. Her heart and mind may have been furious with him, but her body was still gunning for a joyride.
He took a deep breath. “Listen to me. From the moment I touched you in your office, I knew you were incapable of doing something underhanded like divert deals.”
“How on earth could you know that by touching me?”
“I’ve spent years of my life relying on instinct to keep me alive. I can tell a lot about a person simply from watching them and even more from talking to them. But when I touch you, there is nothing false. No layers. If you were hiding something, you wouldn’t be like that. Hell, you certainly wouldn’t be walking on the edge by going out with me.”
He almost fell over onto her as the limo swerved and pulled to a stop.
“We’re here, Mr. Anderson,” Jacob’s voice called through the speaker.
“Thank you.”
She gathered her purse and scooted to the edge of the seat to launch. Will put his hand on hers. “Please, Claire. I never thought you were the spy.”
She ached seeing him on the floor of the limo on his knees like that. “Michael does.”
“No, he doesn’t. That’s why he’s frustrated and mad at me. We have no clue who it is.”
Jacob opened the door.
She started to exit the car and Will tightened his hold on her hand. “Don’t. Nothing I said or did was a lie. You know it. We have something. You feel it, too.”
She did feel it. She was falling for this man and it was killing her. She had to end this now before she was in so deep she’d never climb out. She pulled her hand away and stepped out of the car. “I’ll be in the office in the morning to get my things. Consider this my resignation.” She spun on her heel and headed up the sidewalk, hating how dramatic that had sounded. She couldn’t go back to the office, though, knowing they thought she was a thief.
She heard his footfalls on the sidewalk behind her. Why hadn’t he just stayed in the car? This sucked so bad she couldn’t stand it, and prolonging the inevitable was making it worse. She was done.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to a sto
p right outside her doors. “Look at me. Really look at me.”
She raised her eyes to his and her heart pinched at the absolute sadness in his expression.
He released her. “I understand why you’re mad. You have every right to be. I’d be mad, too. God knows I’ve been screwed over by someone, and I know exactly how you feel: betrayed and used, and it makes me sick that of all people, I’m the one who made you feel that way.”
She had to look away. It was like slowly ripping a scab off a wound to see the pain in his eyes.
With his fingertips, he gently turned her face back to his. “I did not use you, Claire. The only calculation behind touching you was to bring you pleasure. I spent time with you because for the first time in almost a year, I wanted to be with someone. I still want to be with you, but if you can’t, I understand. I’ve been where you are, and it’s a shitty kind of hell.”
He looked away with a defeated shrug. “In retrospect, I should have told you about the investigation, but honestly, it was a nonissue as far as you and I were concerned, and I expected to find out who it was and end the matter altogether. I didn’t want to muddy up our two weeks.”
She really didn’t know what to say. Her mind kept flipping from images of them together, to the horrible sinking feeling of hearing Michael yell about investigating her on the phone, to Will’s explanation just now. She was afraid if she said anything, it would open the floodgates. She needed to rip the rest of the scab off quickly. “Good-bye, Will.”
She barely heard his quiet response. “Good night.”
Determined not to stand and watch him leave, she walked away first, not looking back as the doorman held the brass and glass door and it closed with a whoosh behind her. It wasn’t until she had shut and locked her apartment door that she allowed herself to break down.
…
Will didn’t know how long he stood outside Claire’s building. It wasn’t until Jacob cleared his throat that he realized he was standing anywhere at all. He had been lost in his own selfish, inner temper tantrum, railing at life, fate, and himself.
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