Thrill Seeker (Sinful in Seattle Book 1)

by Taryn Quinn

  “Which one?”

  Her huge blue eyes gave me an incredulous glare. “Max, of course.”

  I sighed. “Well, there are four of them.”

  “Yeah, but Max is the only one that comes in on the reg. Seriously, girl. What the hell happened last night?”

  “I need to talk to Angel first.”

  “Oh, you’ll be talking to him. Max lit into him already.”

  My heart sank. “What?”

  “I couldn’t hear what he’d said, but we’ve been buzzing about it all day.”

  What the hell? Why would he come to talk to my boss?

  “Georgia!” I spun around at Angel’s voice. He stood in the doorway to his office. “A word please.”

  “Oh, man. You never get the voice. Ever.” Chelsea gripped her sweater. “You are going to tell me everything.”

  Oh hell no. Not everything. “I’ll be back.”

  “Good luck.”

  I smoothed a hand down my dress and straightened my sweater. I was going to lock my purse in my locker but Angel was still holding the doorknob on the inside of his office.

  Not good.

  He dragged me in for a bear hug and I squeaked. “Angel.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I patted his back awkwardly. We were a family here at Bellamy’s and Angel had hugged me plenty of times, but not like this. His caramel scent hit me. Mr. Sweet Tooth as we called him. Always a caramel in his mouth or in his coffee. “You heard?”

  He let me go. “Yes. Max Chapel came in here and ripped me a new asshole.”

  I winced. “Really?”

  “He demanded to know why the women weren’t escorted to their cars at the end of the night. Dammit, George, you know better.”

  Wow. He must be really worried to bring out my rarely used nickname. “How many times have I walked to my car without incident?”

  “Yeah, well it stops today. You could have been seriously hurt.”

  “I know.” I held up my hands. “I know, Angel. I was lucky he just wanted my purse. Mr. Chapel happened to hear me scream and came running.”

  “Did you file a police report?”

  Good God, no. I had not been thinking about the cops at the time. In fact, I’d been performing a misdemeanor all on my own.

  Kill me.

  “It was late and I was shaken up. I just wanted to go home.” Not really a lie. Sort of. I had been shaken up. And then I’d lost my panties.

  In fact, I still didn’t have them. Had I left them there on the cement? I tipped my head back. Oh, God.

  “I can’t believe you came to work.”

  “I woke up too late to find someone to cover for me.”

  He shook his head. “You are a wonder, George.”

  “We’ve had this conversation. I’m not a George.”

  Angel curled his arm around my neck and dragged me back in for a half hug. “I’m just glad you’re okay. We’re going to have an afternoon meeting about this. I wish I hadn’t had to hear it from Max freaking Chapel, but I want my people safe.”

  “I was coming in to talk to you at the very least.”

  “We can handle things today. Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

  Now that I was out of the house, the idea of spending all day doing nothing was just too much. Not that I didn’t have tons of errands to do. Oh, man. DMV too. Could this get any worse? “I’m here. Let me see how it goes.”

  He sighed. “You’re as bad as I am.”

  “Worse.”

  He snorted. “True that.” His celadon eyes bore into mine. “You go home if you need to.”

  “I promise I will. I’m a little sore—” I broke off as his face leached of color. “I’m fine. He just knocked me down.” Stop talking. My boss was going to have a stroke. “Look, if it gets too bad I’ll take off. Promise.”

  “Good.” He bussed my cheek, his perpetual stubble scraping my skin. Angel was an athletic guy with shoulders for days and a jawline that made women weep.

  Well, except me. We’d grown up together in the restaurant. Angel had taken over for his father, Edgar—even if his father didn’t quite know what the word retired meant. We worked well together, but there’d never been a romantic moment between us.

  We knew too many of each other’s dirty secrets. Like I knew that Angel was still in love with his high school girlfriend even though he’d been twice married—and neither of his wives had been Emma Wesley.

  He knew that I was married to my job. And that I had the hots for Max but would never act on it.

  At least that had been my stance until yesterday.

  What a freaking clusterfuck.

  “Do not overdo it today, kiddo.”

  “You can’t call me kiddo. You’re the same age as me, dammit.”

  “Get out of my office, George.”

  “Ugh, stop with the George.” I laughed and he knew I would be all right. The worry trapped in the cute crinkles beside his eyes had eased.

  We would be fine.

  I wound my way around the rest of the staff that was coming in for the lunch rush. With Chapel Enterprises across from us, and the handful of local businesses on the same block, we did a brisk lunch business.

  This was what I needed.

  To be useful.

  To be able to put Max into my rearview.

  For the next three hours, the lunch rush—and the regulars who loved me—made the day fly by. If my gaze strayed to the door one too many times, I quickly corrected myself.

  Max was a busy man. He’d already been in to tell Angel about the incident. We were having a staff meeting about it between the lunch and dinner crush.

  I was the one who had pushed him away.

  I shouldn’t be the one looking for him.

  Ugh. Beyond insanity. I bounced between tables on the patio and back into the main dining area. Small talk, inquiries about families, polite chitchat—that was my specialty.

  It fueled another hour before Angel hooked an arm through mine and scooted me to the back. “That’s enough. I see the bruises under your eyes and the stiffness in your shoulders. Time to go.”

  “Well, thank you, Angel. Just what I wanted to hear—that I look like crap.”

  “You do.”

  “Excellent.”

  Angel’s light green eyes twinkled. “It’s not the exhaustion that shows, it’s your missing sparkle. Go home. Get some rest. Find your sparkle.”

  “I do not sparkle.”

  “Oh, but you do.” He laughed. “Right now, you have fire for eyeballs.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Yes, but I’m the ass who owns this joint. Out. Time to go.”

  I sighed. Namely because he was right. Not about the sparkle—what the hell did that mean? But I was crashing. Hard.

  I patted my pocket for my phone and groaned. No phone. At least if I got out now then I could stop at the phone store and handle that crappy task before the rest of the world got out of work.

  “All right. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Of course you will. Now go.”

  I curled my fingers around his wide wrist—well, as much as I could. Angel was a big guy and the closet-sized office only made him seem bigger. “Thanks.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, yeah.”

  I went up on my toes and brushed a kiss over his cheek. “You’re a good guy, Angel.”

  “Don’t let that get around.”

  I laughed because it was what we both needed. I moved back out into the bar area and waved to Dean as he tied his apron around his hips and ducked under the end access point.

  Chelsea flew across the room to me. “Where the heck were you? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Angel just dragged me into his office to tell me to go home.”

  “Oh.” She tucked a hank of strawberry blond curls over her ear. “Huh. Well, that explains a little of what just happened.”

  “I’m tired and have a headache brewing. Can we skip the p
art where I ask all the scintillating questions and just get the story?”

  Chelsea dragged me into an impulsive hug. “Sorry. Max was here. But he just rushed out.”

  “He was?” My heart skipped a beat. I wasn’t sure I was ready to see Max. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I had the wherewithal to handle Max right now. I was already shaky and nothing made sense. He needed to go back into his client slot and... Well, I was still thinking about other slots that had nothing to do with the restaurant and all about how he fit inside me.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “He went to the back of the restaurant looking for you then stormed out. You don’t think he’s still mad about your attack? He was really steamed when he came in here this morning.”

  “I can’t think about that. I’m so done with that parking garage and last night. My friggin’ brain is going to explode. In fact, I’m going home now.” My hands shook enough that I tucked them into the pockets of my cardigan. Chelsea didn’t know the shakes were from what we’d done in the parking garage, not my mugging.

  “Good. You need to go home.”

  “I need to go get a new phone. My purse had everything in it.”

  “Oh, man.”

  “Yeah. I could just scream with how many hours I spent on the phone last night canceling cards. Now, the stupid phone store. Just ugh.”

  She twisted her watch. “If you go now, you’ll miss the nine-to-fivers.”

  “Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”

  “We’ve got this. We’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  My shoulders sagged. “Thanks.”

  I walked to the back of the restaurant and sighed at the two bags of trash from the bar that were sitting on the end. “Dean—” I broke off because he had three suited guys in front of him. “Never mind,” I muttered. I grabbed my purse from my locker and picked them up. It was just as easy to go out the alleyway to the parking garage.

  I ducked out the emergency door and punched in a code to deactivate the alarm. When I heard the beep after me, I hustled to the dumpster and swung the bags in.

  The sun was blinding and the swallows that constantly looked for our leftover bread were squawking. “Sorry guys. Nothing on me today.”

  I lifted my arm to block the glaring sun. One more thing to buy—sunglasses. I turned away from the birds and screamed.

  A man stood in the middle of the alley, all broad shoulders in a business suit. The same shoulders that spent way too many hours in my fantasies.

  He was in silhouette because of the sun, but I definitely knew that impeccable style of hair and regal bearing.

  I slapped my hand over my rampaging heart. “Jesus, Max. What are you doing?”

  “I came to check on you.” His Italian shoes crunched on the gravel-strewn alleyway.

  No one was out there with us and my heart was still roaring between my ears. “Then why did you leave?”

  “Because I saw you were otherwise engaged.”

  I frowned. “When?”

  He moved forward. His speed made me stumble back against the brick building. He slapped his hand on the wall above my head. “When you were in Bellamy’s office.” His dark eyes gleamed so close to my face. He leaned down. “It seemed that I wasn’t really necessary. He had it under control.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t be so fucking naive.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “What the hell does that mean? I was with my boss.”

  “I don’t have a single person on my payroll who kisses me.”

  I drove my hands into his chest to push him back, but he didn’t budge. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I saw the way he was looking at you.”

  “You’re delusional. Angel and I grew up together, for God’s sake. We started at the restaurant together at seventeen. He’s practically my brother.”

  “Not from how I saw it.”

  “Were you peeping in the door like a freaking creeper? What the hell, Max? Not to mention if I was banging my boss, what business is it of yours?”

  “It is my business when I had my cock buried so deep inside you couldn’t stop crying out my name less than twelve hours ago.” He tugged me away from the wall and spun me around and kicked out my feet.

  My breath caught and my belly quivered. “Max,” I whispered.

  Memories of last night and the new explosion of excitement ramped up my heart rate. My panties were instantly soaked. He jerked me back against his hard length as he scraped his short nails up from my knee to my outer thigh. No hose, no stockings, nothing but a scrap of cotton to stop him.

  And that wasn’t going to stop him.

  I wasn’t going to stop him.

  My clit throbbed in time with my heartbeat. The zipper of his pants and the clink of his buckle made me breathe faster.

  “Do you remember this? Is your heart jackhammering like it was last night?”

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

  He shoved his fingers down into my panties. “I had this last night. And I want it again.”

  It was only supposed to be one night. Just a reckless moment. Last night was rough, but there’d been finesse to his touch. Control and a smoothness that was missing today.

  Missing from the equation of what we were.

  But I didn’t miss it.

  I liked this Max.

  And in the darker recesses of myself, I realized that I liked that I could ramp up a man like him. What did that say about me?

  He tucked two fingers into me and lifted me onto my toes. “Wet. For me. Not for him.”

  “No.”

  “Wet for me.”

  I dragged in a shaky breath. “Wet for you. For this.”

  He thrummed over my clit with two fingers slick from me. He dragged my hand up the wall and pressed my palm to the rough brick and flattened his over mine. So big. So much bigger than me in so many ways.

  The thrill of it fired through my bloodstream. Asphalt heated through the only part of my shoe that was still connected with the ground. I was on my tiptoes and my dress was hiked up.

  I didn’t know what he was going to do.

  Anyone could come outside. Hell, not could—would. People sneaked out here for breaks all the time. They would catch us.

  Catch me.

  My thighs quaked. My breath stalled. I didn’t care.

  I just wanted this feeling. I wanted this drug.

  I wanted Max.

  He stopped circling my clit and pressed down on it instead. His fingers not inside me, and not out either. Just there. Intent and awareness ramping me up—teasing me.

  Fucking Max.

  His lips brushed my ear. “Me inside you. This is what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Yes,” I growled.

  “What do you want?”

  I wanted his fingers—no, I wanted his cock. I wanted him to fill me up again. I still hadn’t recovered from the first time and I wanted it again. Now.

  All of him, right now.

  He opened his fingers so they were on either side of my clit, squeezing it ever so gently then releasing—again and again. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  “What part of me?”

  I rolled my hips along the opened placket of his pants. I could feel him. The tight boxers he wore that kept the line of his suit and made me insane to touch. I remembered his spectacular girth from last night. I wanted my hand around him again.

  I reached back and palmed his balls, resting the inside of my wrist along his rigid shaft. “You know which part.”

  6

  Max

  I needed to hear her say it.

  More than I could ever remember needing anything in my life. That she wanted my cock inside her. To know it was me she needed.

  Fuck.

  I couldn’t lie to myself here in this alleyway with the most exasperatingly beautiful woman I’d ever known. I needed that hit of Georgia again. I’d jacked off in t
he goddamn shower like a teenager this morning. The memory of her curves, the feel of my dick gliding inside of her, the rain pounding around us as I drilled into her like some mindless sex addict—but right then, it just didn’t matter. She was as necessary as oxygen.

  Sex wasn’t exactly at the top of my list with my workload, but I wasn’t a monk either. I had outlets when I needed them. The fact that I’d ignored this side of me for so long had to be a factor.

  No, asshole. It’s her.

  Georgia.

  “Say it,” I growled. I needed to know some of this madness was hers too.

  “Fill me up, Max.” Her voice was thready as I squeezed around her clit. Slick and plump to the touch, the bundle of nerves only needed a few more strokes and she’d flood my hand. That silky heat that I’d drank down like a man dying of thirst last night.

  Her salted tangerine taste infused my senses.

  My throat ached for it and my cock wanted to be covered in it. For fuck’s sake, I wanted to watch her lick it off my cock.

  The wild pictures in my head—the film that was running on a constant loop—was going to kill me. This wasn’t me. Gray silk sheets and a warm, willing woman was my preference. Yes, I was a little dominant in bed, but nothing like this.

  Here in public. Anyone could chance upon us. But that was the thrill of it. That thrill that we were mutually feeding. Was that all we were?

  I wasn’t sure I cared to look too deeply into that.

  I slipped my fingers out of her and she whimpered. I dug into my inside pocket for my wallet and for the condom that I’d replaced. Had I known this was going to happen again?

  It had been on repeat in my head so much I’d wanted it and hoped for it. I flipped out the condom and tucked my wallet away again. The fact that I’d inadvertently stashed two in my wallet was either prophetic or pathetic.

  I flipped up the skirt of her sundress, and the wild pattern of purple flowers and green stalks over cream glowed against her tanned skin. Her rounded ass and the white panties made me groan.

  White cotton.

  The incongruous innocence to what I was doing with her tore at me. Not enough to stop. No, all I could think about was pulling them aside enough to watch my cock slide inside her.

  Jesus.