by Cathryn Fox
She curled her lips into a seductive grin. “Yes. A problem.” Her gaze dropped to his crotch.
“I like your shorts.”
His brows knitted together in confusion. “Thanks.”
“Now take them off.”
Chapter 4
“Sweet Jesus, Laura,” he murmured, scrubbing his hand over his chin. The heavenly smell of her arousal lingered on his flesh and made him throb.
With a seductive gleam in her eyes, she stood up and slipped her fingers inside the band.
“Holy shit! What are you doing to me?” Sexual need made his voice husky.
Her smile stretched wickedly. “Of course, if you’d rather I didn’t…” Her throaty purr resonated through his body. Lord almighty, if she stopped, he was certain he’d die from longing.
He rushed to get the words out. “No, no. I’d rather you did.” He pulled her close and she melted all over him. Her body fit so perfectly against his. He brushed her hair from her flushed face and noted the provocative thinning of her sensuous lips.
A quick, sharp breath caught in his throat as her hand connected with his cock.
Anxious to feel her touch, he gripped the sides of his shorts and practically ripped them off. They fell to the floor and he kicked them across the room.
Panting as though he’d just run a marathon, he stood before her, his cock armed and primed like a space shuttle ready for liftoff.
She reached out and sheathed him with her palms. He immediately thickened and pulsed with desire. The feel of her warm, delicate fingers closing over his dick drove every sane thought from him. He kept his mouth clamped shut for fear of babbling like an idiot.
She idly stroked the wet tip of his arousal, then feathered her fingertips over his flesh, as though considering the texture, thickness, and length.
“I was wrong.”
“You were?” Fuck! Was she having second thoughts?
“I never should have called it Little Jay,” she murmured. Her voice grew raspy with desire.
The room began spinning on its axis. He gyrated his hips, trying to push his cock deeper into her palms. But she wouldn’t let him. She pulled back slightly and watched his cock oscillate as it clamored for attention. Her slow seduction nearly undid him. His low groan gave way to a deep, throaty growl.
She leaned into him. Her thick lashes fluttered against his flesh as she began kissing a path down his throat, his chest, and lower until they were face to face, or rather, mouth to cock. Pure raw desire seared his insides.
“It’s quite large.”
He blew out a shaky breath. He was in agony. Total fucking agony. His juices dripped from the tip and pearled on his plump head.
Laura brushed her fingers over his slit and drizzled the liquid over his swollen sex. Heat flamed through him and he knew if she wrapped her sweet, plump lips around him, it would take every ounce of control he possessed not to explode on impact.
She made a sexy noise and shifted. “It’s magnificent, really,” she admitted honestly, touching him with obvious pleasure.
Christ, she was so amazing. She was everything. So wild and untamed, with a passion that matched his own. A surge of warmth flooded his veins and produced an unfamiliar fullness in his heart.
Sheathing him in her hand, she opened her mouth and brushed her pretty pink tongue over her bottom lip. “Mmmmmm.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
Her soft moan nearly took him over the edge. Blood pounded through his cock and he felt it grow another inch. He needed to touch her, to taste her. Again and again. He reached out, stroked her breast, and pinched her hard nipple. She gasped and arched into him. Her uninhibited response brought him to new heights of arousal.
She looked up at him and lifted one perfect eyebrow. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were dark, heavy-lidded, and full of lust.
“Do you mind?”
Her warm breath fanned his engorged dick. She didn’t wait for an invitation. Before he had a chance to respond, her tongue snaked out and licked a path down the length of him. He became lost in the sensation as his cock absorbed the warmth of her mouth.
His legs went weak and he nearly faltered backward. He cupped her cheeks, his hands following the movement of her head as she closed her mouth around him and sank his erection to the back of her throat.
Reaching underneath him, she sifted through the tangle of dark hair and then grasped his heavy sac. Gently cupping his balls, she gave a gentle squeeze. The erotic, silky sweep of her long chestnut curls over his thighs sent him teetering on the edge.
He threw his head back and growled. “Jesus,” he cried out, and knew that was all he could take. Sweat trickled down his forehead as a tremor ripped through him.
He gave a lusty groan and fought to hang on. He wanted to take her to bed, to make love to her properly. Slowly, passionately, all night long, but he knew he was well past the point of no return.
The tantalizing brush of her tongue as she laved the soft fold underneath his bulbous head may have brought him to his peak, but it was her soft mewling sound of pleasure that tipped him over. He tangled his fingers through her hair when he felt the pressure of an approaching orgasm.
“I’m going to come, sweetheart.” He tugged her head to urge her back, but she refused to budge. She kept her mouth wrapped around him and sucked long and hard. His breath came in a ragged burst and his whole body stilled with the blinding pleasure.
Muscles straining, he shouted his release. His orgasm was so powerful and intense, his vision went fuzzy around the edges. It took a moment for him to recapture his breath and regain his bearings.
He looked down and smiled at the amazing woman kneeling before him and felt something blossoming inside him. Lacing his fingers through hers, he pulled her to his body, to his mouth.
He’d had no idea that becoming physical with her would be so moving. Laura stirred feelings in him he hadn’t even known existed. In all honesty, he was unprepared for the onslaught of emotions. Somehow, during their intimate encounter, she had awakened something in him, something needy, hungry.
What the hell was going on?
Wasn’t he just another “Cold-Hearted Cutler”? A man who thought only with his dick and was incapable of feelings or emotional connections with women?
She murmured deep in her throat, bringing his attention back to her. He touched her cheek. “Baby, you’re amazing.” He didn’t even try to keep the longing from coloring his voice.
She snuggled into him and licked the moisture from her lips. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He smiled and gathered her tighter in his arms. Neither said a word for a long time. They both just stood there, holding each other, listening to the soft tick of the clock in the background. Jay finally broke the comfortable silence enveloping them.
“I guess the serum failed.”
“Appears that way.”
He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “You know what that means?”
She tipped her chin to look at him and nibbled her lower lip. “Our careers are in jeopardy.”
“Maybe.” A spark lit his eyes. “Or we can work our butts off tomorrow, figure out where we went wrong, and then try this again tomorrow evening.”
“And if the serum fails again?”
He chuckled softly. “Then we can work our butts off in an entirely different way.”
She returned his smile. “You know I’d do anything in the pursuit of science, but we won’t be able to work until tomorrow evening. Thanks to our ever-insightful director, we have to fulfill our monthly three B’s. Bonding, ball game, and barbecue.”
“By bonding outside the workplace, we accept happiness and harmony into our lives,” they both chanted in unison.
Jay rolled his eyes. “Someone needs to tell that man we left the sixties behind us, where they belong.”
“Don’t let his desire for employee bonding and love for sixties décor fool you, Jay. The man is a pit bull and not to be underestimated.”
He arched one brow and nodded his head in agreement. “I know, but maybe we could skip it and tell him we’ve already done our bonding for the month.”
Laura crinkled her nose and stabbed his chest with her index finger. “I don’t think this is the kind of bonding he’s looking for.”
Jay chuckled and anchored her hips to his. “Yeah, I guess this isn’t quite the kind of employee connection he’s aiming for.”
“This,” Laura said, her gaze flitting over their discarded clothes, “would get our asses canned.” A smile lingered on her perfect, sensuous lips.
His thoughts scattered as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Aching to taste her sweetness and find solace in her heat once again, he lowered his head and captured her lips in a slow, simmering kiss. She opened for him, welcoming him with all the passion inside her. The velvet stroke of her tongue against his made his head ring.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Laura broke the kiss and eased away from the circle of his arms.
He furrowed his brow. “What is it?” he asked, cupping her elbow to drag her back.
“Ringing.”
He drew a labored breath. “You hear it, too?”
She grinned. “In your pants.”
“There’s ringing in my pants?”
Her low chuckle filled him with warmth. “Your cell phone. It’s ringing.”
He blinked his mind into focus. “Right.” He looked around the dimly lit room. “Where in the hell are my pants?”
He followed the ringing sound until he found his jeans. He fished his phone from the pocket and hastily pressed it against his ear.
“What?” He didn’t even try to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
He heard a man clear his throat. “That you, Jay?” a deep male voice asked.
Jay gave an impatient sigh. “Yeah, who’s this?” he countered, pissed at the unwelcome interruption.
“It’s Gerard, from Lab Security.”
That got Jay’s attention. He starched his spine and centered his thoughts. Lab Security calling at this time of night couldn’t be a good thing. He glanced up to see Laura watching him, her expression concerned. He mouthed the words, Lab Security.
Gerard cleared his throat again and continued. “There’s a problem down at your lab.”
Jay felt his face tighten warily. “What’s up?”
“It’s been broken into.”
Shit. Jay mumbled curses under his breath and began tugging on his pants.
“I’ll contact Laura,” Gerard said.
“That’s okay, I’ll let Laura know.” With that he hung up the phone and looked into Laura’s questioning eyes.
“You’ll let me know what?” she asked, closing the distance between them.
A sick knot tightened his stomach. His shook his head with worry. “The lab’s been broken into.”
He watched the color drain from her face.
“Our research,” she mumbled, her voice merely a strangled whisper.
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. “That’s likely what they were after. Come on, we’d better get down there right away and see if anything is missing.”
Laura squeezed her way between the two burly officers blocking her entrance to the lab.
One grabbed her by the arm and mumbled through a face full of donut and hot coffee. “Excuse me, miss, you can’t go in there.”
She opened her mouth, about to tell Detective Jelly Donut exactly where she was going and exactly where he could go, but Jay cut her off and wrapped his arms around her waist in a protective manner.
“This is Laura Manning and I’m Jay Cutler. It’s our lab,” he assured the officer, with a flash of his security identification card.
The officer let go of her arm, cleared a path, and waved his hand. “Oh, then by all means, come in. We’ve been waiting for you two. We need you to go through your files to find out what’s missing.”
The strong smell of ammonia assaulted her senses as Laura pushed her way past him. The sight before her left her shocked. Splaying her hand flat against her chest, she glanced at the smashed filing cabinet and gasped. The locks had been picked and files were strewn everywhere. The compilation of months of research could be lost, or even worse, stolen.
Their latest experiment was top secret for a reason. They knew if corporate-funded Ad-Tech got hold of the idea, they’d rush to produce the drug first and claim the glory, leaving Laura and Jay high and dry.
Broken vials and test tubes crunched beneath her feet as she stepped farther into the room. She carefully tried to sidestep the puddles of spilled serums.
She bent down and sorted through the tangled mess of wet papers. If the thieves had been looking for the files that recorded the chemical components in the suppressant, they’d come to the wrong place. Fortunately, those files were at her apartment. Safe and secure, under lock and key.
Jay crouched down beside her. He raked his fingers through his tousled hair and shook his head in disgust. “What a disaster.” He kept his voice soft, but his anger was evident.
She shot him a sidelong glance. Tiny lines creased the corners of his blue eyes while tension lines bracketed his mouth.
“Do you think it was random?” She was anxious to hear his take on the situation.
Doubt etched his features. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he ground his back teeth together.
He must have suspected it was Ad-Tech as well. She opened her mouth to ask, but he cut off her unspoken question with an answer. Sometimes it really surprised her that he could read her so well.
“I have no doubt it was someone from Ad-Tech. This is just like something those sneaky sons of bitches would do.” Gone was the tenderness she’d seen earlier in his gaze. Frustration and anger had moved in to take its place.
He glanced at her and raised his brow. “Laura—”
She already knew his question and quickly addressed his worries. “The files are safe.”
He exhaled his breath of relief. “What would I do without you?”
“You might want to have a look over here,” the detective’s voice boomed from the other side of the small room. They both twisted around to see him standing next to the opened refrigerator. He rubbed his protruding stomach and peered inside as though searching for more jelly donuts.
Jay climbed to his feet and pulled Laura up along with him.
“This lock has also been broken. Does anything in here appear to be tampered with?” the detective asked.
Laura crossed the room, leaned forward, and examined the vials. She began a slow massage of her temples. Until she did a thorough analysis of the compounds in each and every test tube, she couldn’t be certain.
“I’m not sure. It’s going to take me some time to figure it out. I’ll have to run some tests.”
The detective handed her his card. “When you’re done, you can reach me at this number.”
Laura glanced at the card. Detective Jelly Donut, a.k.a. Detective Doyle. She slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. A sound at the door drew her attention. She turned to see Erin, her assistant, standing there, her dark brown eyes wide in surprise.
“Laura, what happened? Gerard called and told me to get down here right away.” Erin rushed across the room to give Laura a comforting hug.
After a quick embrace, Erin pulled back and perused the length of her. Her gaze darted from Laura to Jay and back to Laura again. “Are you two okay? You look a little flushed.”
Oh boy. She might be flushed, but it had nothing to do with the break-in. “Jay and I are fine. We weren’t here when it happened,” Laura assured her. She waved her hand through the air. “I just can’t say the same for the lab.”
Erin’s nutmeg-colored ponytail bounced as she glanced around. “What can I do to help?”
“I have to test the chemical components in these vials to determine whether they’ve been tampered with. You could help me with that.”
“I’m on it.” Erin saluted her, her
ponytail wagging like a puppy-dog tail.
Jay came up behind Laura and brushed his hand over her arm. Goose bumps pebbled her skin. With a tip of his head he gestured toward the metal cage near the window that housed their two lab rats.
“At least Bonnie and Clyde weren’t hurt.” His voice caressed her flesh while his touch evoked delicious, sinful thoughts. An involuntary shudder trickled down her spine.
Laura nodded and glanced at her two favorite rats. “Now, if only our experiment had been to teach them to speak. Then they could confirm our suspicions on who did this.”
Jay chuckled and brushed a curl from her forehead. His gentle touch seeped into her skin and warmed her all over. She twisted sideways so Erin wouldn’t see her reaction to his nearness. The last thing she wanted was for her lab assistant to figure out what was going on. She didn’t want her love life to be the topic of conversation around the water cooler tomorrow morning.
Jay pointed at the stack of papers still sitting on the floor. “I’ll go through those files and try to see what’s missing while you two work here.”
She stared at his scrumptious retreating backside for a long, thoughtful moment. Memories of their earlier intimate encounter blazed through her mind like a firestorm. She recalled the way she’d lost herself in his arms, the way he’d brought her to heights of passion using his fingers, his mouth, and his tongue. And the way she did things to his body. Wonderful, delicious things. Things she wanted to do again and again…
Her toes curled beneath her as warmth gravitated to the apex of her thighs. The sound of Erin shuffling beside her pulled her back. She shook some clarity into her head, stomped down her desires, and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
Laura grabbed a plastic clip from her desk and pinned her hair up, returning to her professional mode.
Erin leaned forward on her stool. “Um…what was that all about?”
“What?” Laura dipped a syringe into the first vial, squeezed a few drops into a test tube, and pressed it into Erin’s hand. “Take this to the analysis lab, please.”
Erin gripped the tube, but ignored her request and turned the discussion back to a topic Laura had no intentions of pursuing.