by Erika Wilde
“What are you going to do if the sale goes through?”
“I honestly don’t know.” She sighed, and when she met his gaze there was no denying the distress in the depth of her dark brown eyes. “Start sending out résumés, no doubt. I hate to see all the hard work from this campaign be for nothing, especially when we’re starting to see an increase in ratings. We’ve even got big-name advertisers finally sitting up and taking notice of WTLK, and Virginia is just going to sell us off to the highest bidder, just to make a few bucks.”
She ate another bite of her hot dog and took a long drink of her soda. “I hate to even consider unemployment right now, but a part of me knows it’s inevitable, one way or another. At least I’ll have the success of our campaign to put on my résumé. And I’ve been thinking…if I can’t find a comparable position here in Chicago, then I might see what’s available somewhere else, like Indianapolis.”
Ian nearly choked on the portion of hotdog he’d been swallowing. Indiana? She was considering moving hundreds of miles away and starting over in a different state? His belly cramped with a slow-building panic, along with the urge to blurt out his feelings for her, which he knew she wasn’t ready to hear. “I’m sure if anything happens to WTLK you won’t have a hard time finding something here in Chicago.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” she said with an indulgent smile, “but as I’ve learned in life, there are no guarantees, and no matter how much I might not like the thought of relocating, I have to keep an open mind and consider all my options.”
Ian stared at Kerri, seeing that strength and determination that made her the independent woman she was. No matter what, she would make it on her own. She’d proved that many times, and at the moment he was feeling helpless and fearful of ultimately losing her. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about her decision to leave, if that’s what it came down to. He could only hope that what they had together counted for something and made her rethink her plans when the time came for her to reevaluate her life and goals.
“Enough about my woes,” Kerri said lightly, and wiped her mouth, then her fingers on a paper napkin. “I heard some very interesting news I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” he asked, fairly certain he knew what she wanted to discuss. “And what did you hear?”
“I stopped by the shelter this morning, and Tori told me that you interviewed her yesterday for a job, and hired her.”
“I did.” He shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of his actions and the choice he’d made. “I needed a receptionist for the office, and I automatically thought of Tori. I know she was nervous about getting a job because she didn’t have any experience, and I thought this would be a good start for her. She’ll be answering the phone and doing light administrative tasks. I know she’ll do great once she gets the hang of it.”
Kerri nodded in agreement. “And not only did you start her off on quite a high pay scale with full benefits, way above the norm for a receptionist,” she pointed out needlessly, “she also mentioned that you gave her a substantial advance for her to find a decent apartment for her and Janet, with enough money left over to buy furnishings.”
He stretched his arm along the back of her chair and rubbed his thumb along the bare nape of her neck. “It’s not a big deal, Kerri.”
“Maybe not to you, but it is to her,” she said, sounding very pleased that he’d thought of Tori for the employment opportunity. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy and confident.”
Kerri’s gaze softened with adoration, and though he loved seeing that affection directed solely at him, gaining her approval hadn’t been the reason why he’d hired Tori at his investment firm. His reasons went much, much deeper than that, to his own struggle to find a place where he fit in. He remembered how the Winslows had offered him such unconditional acceptance at a time in his life when he’d needed it the most. He liked to think he’d returned the favor in helping Tori.
She glanced out to the field, where the teams were still warming up before the game started. On the lower levels, people were finding their seats and buying refreshments from the vendors strolling through the stands.
After a few silent moments passed, she turned back to him and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about hiring Tori?”
“I was going to.” He grinned lazily. “If you haven’t noticed, this is really the first stretch of time we’ve had alone since we arrived.” And honestly, he hadn’t been sure how Kerri would take the news, considering her staunch views on being an independent woman. Obviously, he’d done well with Tori, and she approved.
Unexpectedly, she leaned across the plastic armrest and placed a warm, lingering kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He tilted his head. “For what?”
Her fingers touched his jaw reverently. “For giving Tori the chance she needed to build her self-esteem. For giving her the opportunity to prove that she can make it on her own and support herself and doesn’t need her abusive husband to take care of her.”
“Everybody needs someone to believe in them, Kerri.” He spoke from his own personal experience, and knew beneath that stubborn, headstrong facade of Kerri’s she needed someone who supported her emotionally, too—whether she realized it or not. “I see so much potential with Tori, and I know she’s going to fit in well at the firm. I don’t know if this makes sense, but I just wanted to do something for someone else, in much the same way the Winslows helped me when I was starting out.”
“I understand,” she said, her gaze and tender expression backing up her simple but powerful words. “You’re very lucky to have the Winslows in your life.”
He heard the wistful catch in her voice, and wondered if she’d heard it, too, or if she didn’t even realize what she longed for. “Yeah, I am.” He made a split-second decision, one that would yet again shift the dynamics of their relationship. “You know, I’m having Sunday lunch with the Winslows tomorrow afternoon, and I know they’d enjoy meeting you—”
She was shaking her head in denial before he even finished. “Ian…I don’t know.” Insecurities infused her voice. “I mean, you and Audrey and the Winslows…”
He understood her concern but wouldn’t accept it as an excuse. “Audrey is gone, Kerri,” he said gently but firmly. “There’s nothing I or anyone else can do to change that. You’re here and now for me, and I know that the Winslows are wondering who the sassy mystery woman is that I’m debating with on the air every night.” He followed that up with a persuasive grin.
Still, she hesitated, her concern and uncertainty evident in the absent way she chewed on her thumbnail and her unwillingness to give him a verbal commitment to the very personal date.
“Last weekend you shared a part of your life with me,” he said. “Now, it’s my turn to share with you.”
That request seemed to penetrate her defenses, and she released a pent-up breath. “You make it very difficult for me to argue with you, Mr. Carlisle.”
He chuckled. “I take it that means yes?”
“Yes, that means yes.” She pinched him playfully in his side, letting him know that the choice was truly her own, not instigated by guilt or a sense of fairness she felt she might owe him.
Grabbing her wrist, he brought her hand to his mouth, pressing his lips to her fingertips. “You know, we never did nail down the specifics of our wager on the game.”
Her lashes fell half-mast and her mouth curved into a beguiling smile. “Since your focus seems to be on making a lot of home runs, the team with the highest score wins, obviously. And since a home run in terms of sex is going all the way, let’s say the winner calls the shots later—any way they want it.”
“You’re on,” he murmured, welcoming the heat of anticipation that flowed through his veins and settled in southern regions. No matter how he analyzed the bet, whether he claimed personal victory with his team or lost the wager, he’d still come out a winner.
* * *
/> “I demand a rematch,” Kerri grumbled, not for the first time since the game ended with a six to seven score in the Cubs’ favor. “I swear Corey Seager slid into home base before the catcher touched him with the ball. That umpire had to have been blind not to have seen that he was safe!”
“Don’t be a poor loser, Kerri,” he said consolingly, having listened to her complain the entire drive to her place about the injustice of her team losing. That third and final out for the Dodgers at the top of the tenth inning had cost them the game. The Cubs had triumphed by one run, and that’s all Ian needed to win the bet. Despite her fun-loving quibbles and claims that his team cheated, they’d both concurred it had been a close, exciting game.
“The ump called the play an out,” he said, “and I happen to agree.”
“Of course you would.” They headed up the walkway leading to her apartment, and she dug her keys out of her purse. “And you don’t have to look so smug about the fact that the ump is biased toward your team.”
He chuckled at her outlandish accusation, one of many he’d had to endure the past hour. “It’s my right as the winner to be anything I want. And just as soon as we get inside your apartment I get to call the shots, any way I want.” He was already hard and aching with wanting her, and anxious to get them both naked.
She sent him a look of mock surrender. “Then I guess I have no choice but to accept defeat and be a slave to your every desire.”
He grinned wickedly. “Nope, no choice at all.”
Unlocking the door, she entered, and he trailed behind, closing and securing the bolt behind them. It was warm inside her apartment after being unoccupied all day. She tossed her purse and keys onto the couch and walked over to an air-conditioning unit protruding from the wall. She turned the knob to high and a gust of cool air blasted her midsection. Catching his reflection in the brass-framed mirror mounted over the unit, she sighed in relief, unbuttoned the sheer blouse she wore over her tank top and let it fall to the floor.
A tempting smile teased her mouth as she inched her denim skirt high on her thighs to cool off, then pulled the stretchy material of her tank top to just beneath her breasts so the cold air hit her belly. Her nipples puckered into tight peaks, and he could see their dusky rose outline through the thin fabric.
She closed her eyes, and with loose tendrils of hair wisping around her face and her lips parted enticingly, she tipped her head back in a pose straight from a centerfold magazine. “Aah, that…feels…so good.”
His blood heated, gripping him with a need so strong he knew this first time after a week apart would be a wild, frenzied joining. And while he was enjoying her provocative show, this seduction was supposed to be his by virtue of winning their wager, and he meant to make sure she knew that.
Tearing off his own shirt, he tossed it aside and came up behind her. Grasping her wrists, he lifted her hands and placed her flattened palms on the wall in front of them, forcing her to lean into the air conditioner and arch her back so that her bottom was on a perfect level with his hips and the bulge straining behind the fly of his jeans.
The position also left her no choice but to watch their images in the mirror, and his eyes burned and glittered like chips of green coal when they met hers. “Keep your hands on the wall…at all times,” he ordered in a low, raspy tone.
Nuzzling the side of her neck with soft, suctioning kisses, he skimmed his hands down her raised arms to the hem of her tank top, which he pushed up around her chest so that her full breasts were bared. Then, he bunched her skirt up around her waist and shoved her panties down. The wispy scrap of pink silk caught and tangled around her knees and he left them there.
A moan slipped from her throat and she shifted restlessly against him as the now frigid air blew across her nipples, intimately kissed the damp curls between her thighs and chilled her exposed flesh.
He aligned the front of his body along the back of hers and moved his mouth up to her ear. Holding her hips in his hands, he slowly gyrated his hard length against her sweetly curved, naked bottom. “I’ve wanted you all week,” he murmured hotly, eagerly, sharing one of his most illicit fantasies with her. “Every night when we talked on the air, I’d get off the phone and close my eyes and continue listening to your voice. I’d pretend you were in bed with me, that it was your hands on my aroused body, your tongue replacing the stroke of my thumb over the rigid tip of my cock, your tight body replacing my fist…”
Her breathing deepened, and she dampened her lips with her tongue. “Ian…”
He ignored her silent plea and unbuckled his belt, then unzipped the front placket of his jeans, finally releasing his burgeoning erection, which pulsed and throbbed despite the direct gust of cold air on his body. “Tell me you did the same thing when you got home at night,” he coaxed in her ear. “Did you take me to bed with you, Kerri?”
Her entire body shuddered, and her hands curled into fists against the wall. “Yes,” she whispered.
He feathered his fingers over her stiff nipples, then plucked the distended tips, the play of his hands a burning contrast against her icy flesh. “Did you feel my mouth on your breasts, my teeth tugging on your nipples, and the stroke of my tongue between your thighs?”
“Yes.” She nearly wept.
Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he withdrew one of the condoms he’d stashed there, dropped his billfold to the floor and sheathed his pulsing sex. In less than a minute he was back. “Tell me, Kerri…did your fingers slip deep inside your body like I longed to do every night? As I’m aching to do right this very instant?” His touch coasted down her quivering belly and dipped low, finding her wet and ready and drenched with passion.
Her knees buckled and he caught her around the waist, holding her tight against him. “Yes,” she admitted on a strangled groan, and widened her stance and tilted her hips, seeking to be filled.
Accepting her invitation and unable to wait any longer, he drove into her, plunging deep and to the hilt. She sucked in a breath, and he exhaled hard as his hips pumped instinctively until the rhythm of his penetrating strokes matched the frantic beat of his heart. Capturing one breast in his hand, he slipped the other between her thighs to finesse the swollen nub of flesh there. He turned his head and opened his mouth against her neck, and was overcome with the primitive urge to brand her. Finding the tender skin between shoulder and the nape of her neck, he bit, sharp enough to make her gasp and rear back, and hard enough to leave his mark on her.
And that’s all it took for that wildness to ignite and flare out of control along with an essential hunger that spiraled from the depth of his soul. The muscles in his back and buttocks flexed with each powerful, upward thrust. He heard Kerri’s panting breath and looked in the mirror and witnessed the glaze of desire in her eyes. Saw the flush of ecstasy transforming her expression as searing pleasure crested. Felt the internal contractions sweep through her and clutch at him as she climaxed and cried his name as the force of her release ripped through her. He followed right behind with his own fierce, explosive orgasm that left him completely wasted.
Seconds later he was still holding her, their bodies still joined, their skin damp with perspiration where he pressed against her from behind, despite the cool air blowing steadily from the air conditioner. “How about a cool shower?” he suggested.
“Umm, that sounds good,” she said, though she seemed content to remain right where she was.
He met her gaze in the mirror and grinned sinfully. “Just be warned, this was just the beginning, and I’m not done with you.”
She reached back and touched her fingertips to his jaw, a drowsy, seductive smile making an appearance. “I certainly hope not,” she murmured. “You’ve got a whole week to make up for.”
* * *
Tying off the belt of her cotton robe, and grateful for the few minutes reprieve Ian had given her after their shower, Kerri rubbed condensation from her bathroom mirror until she could see her reflection. Eyes a soft shade of brown star
ed back at her. Her skin was pink from the glow of delicious, satisfying sex and from the cool shower she’d shared with Ian that had rapidly turned into a hot, steamy, erotic romp.
She felt sensually pampered and completely aware of erogenous zones she’d never known existed. It was a wondrous feeling, one she never wanted to end. Reaching into a drawer for a comb to run through her freshly washed hair, she caught sight of the faint crescent shape of Ian’s teeth marks on her neck and shivered in remembrance. The man was an incredibly physical, earthy lover, and even though they’d already had sex twice, she was already anticipating what Ian had in store for the rest of the night. She was game for anything, knowing she’d enjoy the encounter just as much as he.
She ran the comb through the damp strands of her hair, wondering what she was going to do once their time together was over and this constant craving she had for him didn’t go away. Her need for him was beginning to overwhelm and frighten her, which she didn’t need with all the other upheaval being dumped on her with the station and possible unemployment.
Not wanting to think about the possibility of leaving Ian, and determined to enjoy whatever time they spent together now, she headed back into her bedroom and found him over by the bookcase in the corner, the towel he’d dried off with knotted low on his hips. She winced when she realized he was perusing the section with her collection of sexual manuals and volumes on every kind of erotic, sensual topic imaginable.
Her heart thumped self-consciously in her chest, and she forced her feet to move forward while scrambling for an excuse for all those manuals other than the truth—that she’d never experienced really good sex, had never truly known what she’d been missing, until he’d introduced her to the various sensual pleasures of making love. She’d learned more from him during their sexy debates and being with him than any textbook ever could have taught her.
He glanced toward her with an open book in his hand, a slow smile unfurling. “Quite a library you have here.”