He plunged his free hand in my hair as I unbuttoned his shirt, hoping to save us time once we got to our place. When the elevator dinged at the fifth floor, I let go of him, but he wasn’t having any of that. He lifted me up, carrying me out of the elevator and down the hallway.
Shrieking with excited laughter, I attempted to fit my key in the lock—not easy to do while someone is kissing you and smashing you against his erection.
Finally, I got the key in the hole, noticing for the first time how suggestive that act was. Luckily, Ian was a lot bigger than a key. A lot bigger.
Inside, he pushed me up against the wall, pinning my hands back the way he had in the laser tag arena. Our mouths crashed against each other, and I ground my hips against his hard bulge, knowing I was going to taste it tonight. Hoping I was going to feel it pounding inside me tonight.
“Are you ready to scream my name?” Ian said, his voice rough with need. “Though maybe I should make you give me my reward first—after all, I would’ve won if the game hadn’t stopped.”
Mmm ... I felt a sudden tremor of excitement at the thought of him making me go first. In the year or two before we got married, we’d experimented with some kinkier kinds of play, including him giving me sexy orders in the bedroom. But it’d been ages since we’d done anything like that, and right now, I’d be thrilled with any kind of sex. His lips on my throat felt so incredible—that always got me so hot. And when his hips pushed against me ... wait a minute, what’d he just say? “What makes you think you would’ve won?”
“I could’ve taken you out at any point after I grabbed you.”
“And you might have if you hadn’t been so busy feeling me up.”
“What can I say, everyone needs a hobby,” he said, wedging his hand between our bodies, finding my nipple and demonstrating how good he was at his hobby. He tugged on one nipple then the other, making my eyes close in pleasure. It had been so damn long.
Deftly, he undid the buttons on my blouse and slid his hand under the waistband of my skirt. My hips were making circles now, pressing against his fingers as I leaned against the wall, my legs wrapped around him.
His touch moved lower, teasing me, tickling me, slipping under my panties ... kneading, rubbing, and pressing. Directly on my bladder.
“Oof ... put me down a sec, hon,” I said, wincing.
“Good idea,” he said, carrying me down the hall toward the bedroom. “I know the perfect place.”
“No, stop ... I’ve got to use the bathroom.”
He rolled his eyes as I slid my legs down his body. “All right, I’ll get us some wine.”
“Meet you in the bedroom in two minutes,” I said, making a run for it. I used the bathroom as fast as humanly possible and did a quick makeup and hair check. Fortunately, my mascara was still on my lashes, not my cheeks. And my long light brown hair still had a hint of wave from the curling iron I’d employed nearly eighteen hours ago. Not bad for a woman who’d worked all day, rolled around in a fake alley, and made out in a real cab.
Tossing my blouse and skirt in the general direction of the hamper, I debated about hunting up some lingerie, but my black lace bra and panties would have to do. I thought about keeping my heels on—Ian always liked that, and I enjoyed being a few inches closer to his six-foot height. But truthfully, after trotting around in that real-life video game earlier, my feet were a little sore.
Hmm ... maybe I should’ve made the bet be that if I won, Ian would have to rub my feet. No, an orgasm was better. I could pay someone to rub my feet, whereas paying someone to give me an orgasm would probably not go over very well. With a grin, I headed out to pounce on my sexy hubby.
Our king-size bed was empty. Maybe he was getting us a snack? But I wasn’t hungry, at least not for food. In fact, the only thing I wanted in my mouth right now was decidedly not an item from the refrigerator. “Hon?”
Hearing his voice in the kitchen, I headed that way. He was at the counter, his back to me, two glasses and a corked bottle of wine on the counter. God, his ass looked so good in those dress slacks. How often did I get to see him from this angle? Not very often considering how rarely I saw him when he wasn’t sleeping or sitting at his computer.
I wrapped my hands around his waist, making him jump. I squeezed him tight, and then rubbed my hand down his pelvis, reaching for his ... his ... uh-oh. His no-longer-hard cock.
“I told you, it has to be on website tonight.” There was a pause and I retracted my hand. He was on the phone. With work. My heart sank. “I know the official opening is Friday, but we’ve been running ads for months, and you said you’d have this done by today.”
I tried to rationalize this. It might be a quick phone call. It might be just one phone call. It could happen. Ian turned and smiled apologetically at me. “One second,” he mouthed. With the phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, he opened the bottle of wine and poured us some.
Taking mine into the living room, I sat down at my laptop. If he was going to, I may as well check in with work, too. My colleagues knew I had a thing with Ian tonight, but that hadn’t stopped them from sending me a total of fourteen new messages.
Quickly, I scanned through them one by one. Unimportant. Redundant. Unimportant. Important. Important. Very important. Damn, were they trying to take me off the Garcia case? I’d been working on that for months. I’d billed more hours on it than any other lawyer at our firm. No way they were yanking me from that case. I was the hardest working person they had.
Furious, I kept reading. Oh. It was because they needed me to help out on Arnold’s new case. Like I should be punished because Arnold was absent the day they taught law in law school?
Grimly, I settled in to sort this out. An hour and a half later, after putting out several fires, I climbed into an empty bed. Ian was still working in the den when I told him good-night and got an incomprehensible mumble in return.
I fell asleep alone. As I had every other night this week.
Chapter 3
IN THE MORNING, it was a different story.
“Shit!” Ian cried out, knocking the backup alarm clock off his nightstand as a shrill beeping filled the room.
“Shhh. It’s my alarm. Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it?” he said blearily.
“Four-thirty. What time did you come to bed?”
“Two-thirty.”
“Go back to sleep, hon.”
He closed his eyes, and I got ready as quietly as I could. Usually, he didn’t wake up when my alarm went off. His internal clock must be all screwed up from the long nights he’d been putting in.
A little after five, I was dressed and ready to go. At the last minute, I decided I’d better check to make sure his alarm was still set.
Using my phone as a flashlight, I tip-toed over to his side of the bed. His phone was locked, so I couldn’t tell if that alarm was still enabled. And I couldn’t find the backup manual alarm, the one he’d taken a swipe at before.
Waving my phone like a lantern, I panned it along the floor. Nothing. I moved the pale blue light across Ian’s body, sucking in my breath when I saw the way his bare chest looked ripped and toned and completely lickable even in the dim light. God, if we didn't have sex soon, I was going to explode.
Finally, I spotted the battery-powered clock. He must’ve scooped it up and tossed it in the middle of the huge bed, an area I referred to as no-man’s land. As I leaned over, the heat from his body was so tempting. I wished I could just climb back into bed. Snuggle next to him. And maybe think of a creative way to wake him up.
But I shouldn’t. I couldn’t. I—“Hey!”
Strong hands grabbed me and pulled me down. Shrieking, I landed hard on top of my handsome and nearly naked husband. How long had he been awake? Or maybe he was seducing me in his sleep. He certainly didn't have much time for it when he was awake.
Laughing, I tried to get my arms under me. “You’ll mess up my clothes.”
“So?” he grumbled,
his voice sexy with sleep.
“I have to go to work.”
“You owe me a blow job.”
“You owe me something, too. You were going to get a happy ending last night, but you didn’t have time.”
“I have time now,” Ian said, grabbing my hand and pushing it toward his erection. “See? I got it all ready for you. To save you time.”
I grinned. “Only you could make morning wood seem like a considerate act. You should be the lawyer.”
“How about I just do the lawyer,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss.
I couldn’t help it, I kissed him back. He was so hot and sexy, even with morning breath. I moaned as his stubble brushed across my cheek, probably smearing my makeup. God, I wished I could stay in bed with him. But I couldn’t.
Reluctantly, I pushed myself off him. “I’ve got to go ... I should’ve left ten minutes ago.”
He made a half-hearted attempt to keep hold of me. “Why do you have to get up so early?”
“Why do you have to stay up so late?” I countered. “You know I’ve got to keep my billing hours up. Early morning is my most productive time.” He knew how badly I wanted to make partner. “It’s my chance to stay on top of things.”
“I’ve got something you can stay on top of,” he said, writhing underneath me.
Damn, it was tempting, but instead I sat up, perching on the side of the bed. “I wish I could. I wish we could spend more time together.”
He put his large palm over my own. “I know. Me too.”
“Well, at least we’ll get to spend the day together next Saturday.” It was the only silver lining I could think of.
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Wait, what?”
“Ian! It’s Lori and Dan’s third anniversary. We promised to keep that date free months ago.”
“Shit,” he said, sitting up in bed. “That’s next Saturday?”
“How could you forget that? They’re going to kill us if we can’t both make it.” I paused, irritation giving way to suspicion as I felt the bed shaking. Ian was laughing. That bastard.
“Very funny,” I said, pulling my hand out of his.
“It was a little funny,” he said. “At least for this early in the morning. Anyway, I wouldn’t forget about Saturday. Lori would cut off my balls and Dan would feed them to rabid wolves.”
“They’re our best friends,” I said, still not quite forgiving him. Lori had been planning this day forever. She and Dan hadn’t had a real wedding. They’d started dating a year before we had, and then they’d had a hasty ceremony at the courthouse when they’d found out Lori was pregnant. Later, she’d lost the baby. It’d been a horrible time, but they’d gotten through it. Together. They were one of the strongest couples I knew. I wished that Ian and my marriage worked half as well as theirs seemed to.
“Do we really have to spend the day on a boat?”
“It’s a brunch cruise around the city. It’ll be fun. And then there’s the renewal ceremony in the afternoon ... ”
“I read the invitation,” Ian said.
“I think it sounds beautiful. Do you think we’ll ever do anything like that? To celebrate our marriage?”
“Sure, when we go on our honeymoon.” He said this like it was a fully-formed plan, and not something we’d been discussing in an abstract way for over a year and a half. “Just think ... a whole week basking in the Caribbean sun. Spreading lotion all over each other’s barely clad bodies,” he said, his hand running across my back.
I stood up. If he started touching me again, I’d never get to work. “It’s going to be hard to spend the week on the beach when we’re touring the capital cities of Europe.”
“Beaches. Margaritas. Warm sun and hot sweaty bodies,” he said, standing up, too.
“Cathedrals. Museums. Cool gelato and hot Italian accents.”
“Maybe we’ll have to go back to the laser tag arena and play for who gets their dream destination. And speaking of laser tag,” he said, giving me a quick kiss before heading to the bathroom, “we’ll settle our bet tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing my coat and hurrying toward the door.
As I left the apartment, I wondered if either of us believed that.
Chapter 4
“AND THAT WAS a week ago. A week! What kind of red-blooded American male can’t find time for a blowjob in a week?”
Beer sloshed as I noisily set my glass down in front of me. “A week!” I said again for emphasis, and because there were possibly a few people at the back of the restaurant who hadn’t heard me the first few times.
But what did I care? It wasn’t like I knew anyone here at ... at ... where was I again? The sign over the bar said ‘Parody.’ Stupid name for a restaurant slash bar. Maybe they’d been going for ‘Paradise’ and hadn’t used spellcheck?
Somewhat to my amazement, I’d actually gotten out of work at a decent hour tonight, quarter after six. That was almost unheard of. Rather than head home to an empty apartment, I’d taken a walk, which was also pretty unheard of. I so rarely got out of work before dark that it usually made more sense to take a cab.
When I’d passed this place, it’d seemed familiar. Once inside, the honey-blond wood of the bar and the old-fashioned movie posters jogged my memory. Ian and I had come here a few times when we first started dating. So I’d sat down at the bar for a drink.
That was three drinks ago. Luckily, there weren’t many people drinking at this time of the evening, because I was monopolizing the bartender, a tall young woman with a sympathetic ear and a penchant for sarcasm and snarkiness. I liked that in a bartender.
“Is this too much information?” I said, the thought occurring to me a bit belatedly.
“No such thing,” she said, leaning her skinny elbows on the bar across from me. “This is why I bartend. So I can hear about people’s love lives. Or lack thereof.”
I’d never spoken to a female bartender before. I wondered if all of them had a pierced nose or if it was just her. “How long have you worked here?”
“A few weeks. This is a temp gig for me. I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she said.
A waiter came up, holding a notebook. “Lady at table thirteen wants a Tokyo Tea,” he said, squinting at his pad. “I’ve never even heard of one.”
“Soda, gin, melon liqueur, O.J., rum, sour mix, triple sec, and vodka,” she rattled off to the waiter’s amazement. “But I’m a quick study,” she said, winking at me as she started to fix the drink.
Absentmindedly, I watched her mix, pour, and stir like a pro. Normally, I wouldn’t be sharing my problems with a stranger, but I couldn’t talk with Lori, she was knee deep in preparations for Saturday. And I couldn’t talk about this with Ian since he was the problem. Well ... maybe that wasn’t entirely fair. Work was the problem. His work and mine.
“Have you ever seen a more perfect Tokyo Tea?” the bartender asked, showing a glass of neon green liquid to me. The only part of the cocktail that wasn’t the color of toxic waste was the cherry at the top.
“Never,” I said, quite truthfully.
“I’m gonna go see what the customer thinks,” she said, placing the drink on a tray and heading off. Blinking, I watched her go. My eyes weren’t the only ones following her. In addition to the neon green drink, she herself was wearing a red miniskirt and purple cowboy boots. Purple! She was an interesting character, but a good listener. And once she was back behind the bar, I couldn’t help spilling my troubles as easily as I spilled the glass of beer I kept gesturing with.
“We’re like roommates. Roommates with completely different schedules. He comes to bed after I’m asleep, and I have to leave for work before he even wakes up. Most days, the total extent of our quality time is me waking up at three a.m. to tell him to stop snoring.”
She chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
“It’s pretty bad. We’ve only been married for a year and a half. Our friends, they’ve been married twice that long and they st
ill behave like newlyweds. They’re always all over each other. If I didn’t love them so much, I’d hate them. They really have it figured out.”
“Maybe.”
“They do. They’re having this big thing on Saturday, we’re all going out on a boat and they’re renewing their vows ... they’ve worked so hard on this. They love each other so much.”
“Sounds like it, but it’s not always easy to know what’s going on in people’s lives. Unless they come and sit at your bar and start drinking.” She gave me a wink and went to take an order from a customer at the other end of the bar.
Morosely, I stared at my beer. What was I even doing here, drinking alone in the early evening? I was becoming a stereotype. Bored, sex-starved wife starts hitting the bottle. Or hitting the tap. Or tapping the bottle. Something like that.
A movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention. A big shape sat down on the barstool next to me. I closed my eyes for a moment, wishing with all my might that it was Ian. I knew it wasn’t, he was at work. And he didn’t know where I was. But in my fantasy version, he’d found me using some obscure app on my phone that broadcast my location. And he’d lean over, and whisper in my ear “I need you. Right now. Right here.”
I opened my eyes and looked to my left. Not Ian. Definitely not Ian. Damn.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“You’re about three drinks too late, but thanks anyway.”
“Ah, there’s always room for one more. You don’t have to drive anywhere, do you?” It was an educated guess on his part. Most people around this neighborhood walked or took public transportation.
“This is my last drink.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. He wasn’t bad looking. Black suit. Blond hair. Glasses that made him look both smart and cute. But he wasn’t my type. My type was men who never stopped working. Or men who never stopped working who were in love with women who rarely stopped working.
“How about I buy you dinner instead?”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m married.”
Tempting: A Cinderella Billionaire Story Page 23