The Schemer

by Avery Flynn

  And, for once, she had to scramble to mark all her cards before Mary drew the next number. Tyler Jacobson would pay for this.

  Chapter Twelve

  Everly wasn’t any more settled a few hours later when she pulled her car into the spot at the back of the garage. She turned off the engine, and Tyler unbuckled but didn’t move from the passenger seat. There wasn’t another person in the garage.

  He leaned over, pivoting in his seat to look around her to the cement wall on the other side of her door, the move bringing him in closer. “You’re a little near the wall there.”

  “Yeah,” she said, shooting him what she hoped was a cool glare, considering how hot she’d grown sitting next to him on the drive home. “My neighbor’s a real ass who talked me into flipping for the better parking spot and left me this P.O.S. parallel parking job.”

  He shrugged and settled back against the leather seat, not the least bit regretful. “Sounds fair to me.”

  “Of course it does; you won the coin toss.”

  “Now, don’t be a sore loser,” he teased as he got out and walked around to her side.

  “It’s not too late for me to run you over,” she grumbled as she looked up, way up, at him.

  He held out his hand. “Come on, we have a truce tonight.”

  “Says who?” she asked as she ignored his hand—because that way lay danger—and got out.

  “Said Bernie when he was egging us on to kiss.”

  Tyler didn’t move, which left her standing, thankfully, but trapped between the open car door and his six-foot-two-inch frame. They were close, too close. She could smell the fresh, clean scent of his soap and see the five o’clock shadow on his jaw. All that rough would feel so good against my inner thighs. The mental image that accompanied that thought came fast, hard, and unbidden, leaving her body tingling with anticipation. As if that wasn’t enough, she made the mistake of looking the devil directly in the eyes. The bright almost aqua color of his irises had turned to a deep ocean blue and desire had dilated his pupils. Standing this close to him in the parking lot where they’d had their first kiss that had left her hot and needy for days, it tripped something inside her so that what she knew was a very bad idea started to seem like the best one ever. Really it made a kind of twisted sense. There was no way he could be as good as the fantasy, men so rarely were, so all she had to do was demonstrate that fact and poof! The itch would be scratched and everything would go back to normal.

  “That man is a menace,” she said, hoping he could hear her because the words were barely audible to her over the thunder of her pulse.

  His hot gaze dipped to her mouth. “Doesn’t make him wrong.”

  No. It didn’t. So she didn’t think, she acted—kissing him the way she’d been wanting to do all night. It wasn’t nice and soft. It was hot and demanding, and she gave him everything she had and he returned it, teasing and tempting her until there wasn’t anything in the world but them. Everything that had been building between them exploded in a wave of desire that obliterated her better judgment. She wanted—needed—to touch him everywhere, to strip him naked, taste him, feel him, ride him until she could rid herself of this overpowering craving for him.

  Ending the kiss with a hard shove to his chest, she sent him stumbling away a few steps until he was even with the back end of the car, and then she reached behind her to close the car’s passenger door without ever taking her eyes off him. He was fucking magnificent with his broad shoulders and heaving muscular chest stretching the limits of the lightweight sweater he was wearing. His blue eyes had a wild look to them, telling of just how close to the edge he was. If she had to bet, she’d guess his toes were dangling over the cliff just like hers were. Her gaze traveled downward, pausing at the visible bulge in his jeans—impressive enough to make her mouth water. That she wanted to see so badly her core clenched. Of all the men in Harbor City, it had to be him who did this to her. And they said the fates had no sense of humor.

  Stalking forward, she closed the distance between them, desperate to feel his skin beneath her fingers, his tongue everywhere. “You drive me nuts.”

  “Really,” he said, not backing down an inch as his Waterbury accent came out in his passion, wiping away the veneer of Harbor City elite that he clung to so fucking hard. “Never woulda guessed.”

  She stopped in front of him, just out of reach, and, instead of touching him, she grabbed the hem of her pink tunic sweater and yanked it over her head and dropped it on Helga’s trunk. “I should try to be less subtle.”

  Faster than she thought possible, his hands were on her hips, lifting her up and setting her down on the BMW’s small trunk. His mouth was on the column of her throat, then on the upper swell of her breasts before traveling back up to claim her mouth. His fingers slid in between her legs, cupping her through the denim of her jeans, adding enough pressure to make her beg for more. And she did, pulling her mouth away from his to do so.

  “Is that what you want, sugar?” he asked, his voice a growl against her skin. “You want me to touch you there?”

  She rocked her hips forward against him, fighting to find relief for the need building up inside her.

  “Tell me.”

  Decision made, the words flew from her lips sure and true. “I want you to strip off my jeans and fuck me right here.”

  She didn’t have to ask twice. He had her jeans hanging from one ankle on the next breath.

  “Fuckin’ A,” he groaned. “Pink.”

  Momentarily thrown out of the moment, she glanced down at her panties, one of the few pairs she owned. “They came with the bra.”

  “Just soft girlie pink underneath it all, aren’t ya?” He traced a finger across the top band and then glided it down the middle, damp with her desire. “So wet already for me. Maybe I should slow down.” He teased the tip of his finger over her. “Take my time. Make you beg some more. You sound so hot when you do.”

  She curled her fingers around his wrist. “You do and you’ll live to regret it.”

  “Impatient, sugar?” He had the balls to grin down at her.

  She should have run over him when she had the chance. She knew a challenge when it was issued. Slowly, she released his wrist, but instead of letting her hand fall back to grip the trunk, she brought it to the strip of silk between her legs, pulling it to one side. The hungry look on his face as he watched her slide one finger over her swollen flesh was almost better than an orgasm. Almost.

  “Oh, I can be patient.” She let her finger circle her engorged clit. “But don’t get mad if I get there without you.”

  Letting out a low curse, he grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and yanked out a condom. “You better fucking not. I’ve spent too much time thinking about you squeezing my dick while you came for that.”

  “Then I don’t need these.” She hooked a thumb in the waistband of her panties, ready to rid herself of the barrier.

  “Don’t you dare,” he said, his voice rough and demanding. “I’m gonna fuck you in those pink panties until you come all over me and beg me for seconds.”

  “You seem awfully cocky for a man with his jeans still on.”

  “It’s not ego,” he said, undoing his jeans and shoving them down along with his boxers, “if it’s true.”

  Tyler was a sexy man—beautiful to look at on most days—but with the wild look in his eyes as he rolled the condom over his hard, thick cock, he was the kind of man a woman didn’t forget. Ever. Not that she got to look all she wanted. The second he had the condom secured, he spread her legs wide and looped a finger around the center of her panties, tugging them to the side.

  “Later, I’m gonna take my time with you.” He glided the tip of his cock over her sensitive clit, dragging it across her folds, letting her know just how slow he planned to go. “But when you asked so prettily for me to fuck you, how could I deny you?”

  It was a good thing his question was rhetorical because he chose that moment to sink into her, filling her in on
e fluid motion that left her breathless. It felt good—he felt good, right. She hooked her legs around his hips, the weight of the jeans hanging off one ankle dragging that leg down a bit. It was a minor annoyance she forgot about as soon as he began to move, plunging in and out of her. The back of his knuckle holding her panties aside rubbed against her clit. Already the tension built inside her, strengthened by the weeks of fighting as foreplay that had primed her for this moment. For him. Her hard nipples strained against the fabric.

  He leaned down, pulling one bra cup down and lashing her nipple with his tongue before sucking it into his mouth. Her back arched as sensation flooded her. It was almost too much, the pleasure of his mouth on her breast, his cock buried inside her, and the pressure against her clit, but he didn’t stop, gave her no quarter. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling it tight as she moaned and surrendered to it all. She was already climbing higher and higher when he released her breast and stood tall, changing the angle so he hit the bundle of nerves inside her with each thrust.

  “So close, please,” she mewled, the building sensations too strong to care she was following his prediction and begging again.

  His pace increased, the strain of holding back clear in his body’s tightness. “Yeah, sugar, what do you need to get there? Tell me.”

  “My clit.”

  He brought his knuckle more firmly against it. “What about it?”

  “More.” It wasn’t a direction, but it was all she could offer as she climbed higher and higher.

  “Is this what you want?” He circled his knuckle around the sensitive spot before bringing the pad of his thumb against her and pressing in a varying rhythm. “Or that.”

  The vibrations started in her thighs as she met each of his thrusts, her palms flat on the car’s trunk. “All of it.”

  And he gave it to her, taking her closer and closer until there was only Tyler and the pleasure he gave, the kind she didn’t realize she’d been missing, the kind she could get used to. The vibrations built until there was nowhere else they could go and exploded in an orgasm that had her calling out her appreciation. She wasn’t alone. Her orgasm had just begun to abate when he thrust inside her with more force, once, twice, three times and then orgasmed as he drove into her.

  Eyes closed, legs still wrapped around his waist, their bodies still connected as their heavy breathing bounced off the concrete walls of the parking garage, Everly slowly came back to herself. Her jeans were way more off than on, her shirt was underneath her nearly naked ass, her panties were off-kilter, and one boob hung free from her bra. Tyler meanwhile still had his clothes on, only his jeans and underwear had been shoved down. Just as soon as her brain returned from its trip to Lustopia, the realization that she’d just fucked her landlord and quasi-nemesis on the trunk of her car practically in public view—well, at least the view of any of her handful of neighbors who might wander down—hit with the force of a Mack truck sliding on a sheet of ice and slamming into a wall made out of marshmallows.

  Hair tousled and a lazy smile on his face, Tyler pulled back. While she scrambled to get her clothes on, he got rid of the condom and pulled his jeans back up.

  “I’d offer to flip you for whose apartment we spend the night in, but mine’s closer and I want to get you fully naked and take my time,” he said, all traces of an accent washed away, replaced by that almost-but-not-quite Harbor City accent.

  No matter how good that sounded—maybe because it sounded so damn good—she couldn’t do that. This was just to get him out of her system because Nunni’s warnings about men like Tyler were screaming in her head. He ran his hands through his hair, and the black strands settled back into place. Despite the satisfied set to his shoulders, he looked like the kind of man he wanted to be—one of the Harbor City elite. It was just that he’d gotten his rocks off with a woman who’d never fit into that crowd even if she wanted to get rid of every trace of Riverside that clung to her.

  “I gotta go,” she said, her voice muffled by her tunic as she pulled it over her head.

  He flinched. “But I thought—”

  “Look, we’re both adults; it was just a good time.” She was already walking toward the door to the stairwell, clutching her car keys hard enough that they dug into her palm. “Scratching an itch. That’s all. It was what it was, and it can’t happen again.”

  He caught up to her but didn’t try to stop her. “Why not?”

  “Because.” She couldn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes. She knew what happened when a Riverside girl fell for a boy with blinders on to be part of the rich Harbor City set. This had disaster written all over it for her heart.

  “That’s all the explanation I get?” he asked, his voice loud enough that the question echoed in the stillness of the garage.

  Her gut twisted. “Good night, Tyler.”

  His silence followed her to the door and up the stairs, but he didn’t. And that was for the best. Life wasn’t like the movies. No one knew that more than her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sitting at his desk, Tyler stared out at the other high-rises from the window of his corner office in one of Harbor City’s most exclusive business towers. He shared the eightieth floor with two other companies, a high-end independent realtor and an attorney whose boutique firm’s client roster was long with bold names. He could afford the entire floor, but he didn’t need it, and not all lessons from his childhood were negative—like the one extolling the virtues of waste not, want not.

  With the exception of his assistant, Jason, Tyler was usually alone in the office, preferring to meet clients on their territory in order to get a better sense of who they were and what motivated them. Today, however, was the exception. It wasn’t a client lounging on his leather couch with his size-sixteen work boots on the glass coffee table, it was one of the few men who could get away with it—his best friend since his family had moved in next door to the wild Hartigan clan, Frankie Hartigan.

  Frankie was in the middle of a story about the firehouse groupie he’d met up with at the Barnaby Pub, a neighborhood dive and local hangout for firefighters and cops alike, when a notification popped up on Tyler’s laptop screen letting him know that he had less than two weeks to put the finishing touches on the hotel proposal or risk losing out to the other sharks circling the Italian. Too bad he hadn’t been able to spend more than twenty minutes focusing on it today instead of the woman who’d fucked him dumb and then strutted away like it hadn’t been the best sex of their lives. He let out a groan and hit snooze on the reminder with a little more force than normal.

  “Why are you so damn growly?” Frankie asked, dropping his feet to the ground with a thunk and leaning forward, propping his elbows on his knees.

  Whether it was the Irish in Frankie, the fact that he’d grown up in a hive of neighborhood talk, or the fact that firefighters gossiped like old women on wine and paint night, the fact was the giant ginger could smell good dirt from five miles away.

  “Because I finally got an in with Alberto Ferranti, and I need to get my presentation together but my concentration has been for shit.”

  “And who is Albert Ferranti?”

  “Alberto,” he corrected gruffly.

  Frankie rolled his eyes. “I heard ya the first time; I’m just busting chops, man.”

  Fuck, he knew that. Anyone else and the name swap would have been accidental, but with Frankie and his near photographic memory, it was just another attempt—just like his outrageous story of banging the firehouse groupie in Barnaby’s bathroom—to get Tyler to loosen up and relax. They didn’t have a touchy-feely friendship, thank God, but it was a real one, and friends helped where and how they could. Going over to the Hartigans’ house where nine people shared three bathrooms had been chaos, but of the good kind, not the simmering ugly at his house next door.

  “Shit, I’m sorry.” He rammed his fingers through his hair. “I’m a little on edge, that’s all.”

  “Really? I never woulda guessed.” He c
huckled, the sound deep and booming. “What you need is a guys’ night. Come on home. We’ll go out to Barnaby’s, have a few beers, and make nice with the ladies.”

  The beer sounded good, but the mention of ladies only made him think of the one woman he couldn’t get out of his head. “No time.”

  “There’s always time to get laid,” Frankie said, ever the man for subtlety. “And that’s exactly what you need. Trust me. I’m related to Ford, and if there’s one thing that actually gets the stick out of my baby brother’s cop ass, it’s finding heaven between a pair of long, smooth legs.”

  “Trust me, that’s not my problem.” No. It was the fact that he’d found it and lost it without a clue as to why.

  Frankie leaned farther forward. “Details, man.”

  Shit. Why in the hell had he said that? “None of your business.”

  “She blew you off, didn’t she?” Frankie relaxed back against the couch, a smug look on his face. “Damn, she did.” He laughed, one giant hand slapping his knee. “You have got to tell me this woman’s name because I’m already in love with her.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. “You don’t know her.”

  “It’s true,” he said with a shrug. “But there are a few women in the Harbor City metro area whom I’ve yet to charm the panties off.”

  Now that was about as close to the truth as it got. One of these days, though, that fact was going to kick Frankie right in the teeth. “You need professional help.”

  “That’s what the department said when I told them there was no way I was taking time off just because I had a shit-ton of leave accrued.”