His Every Touch (Den of Sin)

by Blue, Mel

  And wasn’t that the million-dollar question?

  She could no longer hold it against Lucian if he didn’t yell at her. She wasn’t his paralegal. Yeah, still an employee, but she’d taken away the direct imbalance of power. No one could say he was a hypocrite for fucking her. Morgan was her boss and Lucian did not micromanage.

  What was her excuse now? What kept her from making him hers?

  The bathroom door flew open and a wail from a woman followed the slam. Courtney blinked, surprised at the loud intrusion. Took her another moment to let the sight of the wild, red curls to sink in—Tess. Courtney’s stomach dropped somewhere near her feet. Clearly, trying to dodge the inevitable, messy life she had ahead of her had put an innocent bystander in Lucian’s warpath.

  “What did he demand?” she asked with a defeated sigh.

  Tess’ tear-streaked face went white, probably from relief. “How did you do it? For a year?”

  “I imagined all the ways I could torture him. It was quite therapeutic.”

  The woman stepped forward and collapsed against Courtney. Shocked, she patted the woman’s shoulder at a loss for what else to do.

  “I don’t even know where the stapler is and he’s demanding a thousand things. All right now.”

  Sounded about right. It had taken her a full day to realize the first thing he asked for was the most important. The rest could wait, oh he’d still bitch, but giving him that first item appeased him.

  “I came to respect him,” she said, her throat feeling thick. “He’s funny when he wants to be. He never asks you to do more than he ever would do himself. Underneath all those demands and highhanded ways, he’s a good man.”

  And I already fucking miss him.

  Courtney kept patting the woman’s shoulder as another wave of sobbing commenced.

  Tess whined, “I can’t go back.”

  Tess had to go back, because Courtney couldn’t work under him anymore. She owed him. He’d lose his rep and eventually his own resolve if he kept fucking his paralegal. And she needed to have that wall where her job, her future wasn’t dependent on the man she was screwing. She needed that hard won independence.

  “I’ll talk to him,” she heard herself say.

  He was back from New Orleans already. She wanted to…yell at him for not even calling to bitch her out about the email. She’d broken them by putting a hard line in the sand. She hadn’t even given him the chance to rectify his lapse. She’d just cut him off. How could she have known it would hurt as much on her end too?

  “Would you talk to him?” Tess’s question was muffled. Tess still had the goal of smothering herself in Courtney’s shoulder.

  “He could only fire me.” And then I could kiss him without an ounce of guilt.

  Decided, she reached toward the sink and pulled down some paper towels and then pushed them into the woman’s hand. She noted Tess didn’t try to talk her out of confronting Lucian despite the possible consequences. After this she’d put in on the pool. By the end of today Tess would beg to go back to calendaring and there would be another sacrifice as his paralegal. Lucian needed someone with a solid moral code, compassion and a steel spine. It couldn’t be her. Not if they were going to go forward.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Courtney reassured the woman and left the bathroom.

  She didn’t make eye contact with anyone as she maneuvered around the cubicles, down the long corridor, but a buzz of energy followed her wake. Her steps slowed for a second.

  What must they think of her? Almost every paralegal in the building had barely survived a month of hazing under Lucian’s rule. She’d survived the longest out of them all. A question to ponder later, because he was going to be without one by the end of the day if he kept this up.

  Not bothering to knock, she barged into Lucian’s office. He stood next to his desk flipping through a stack of papers.

  Lucian didn’t even look up. “Did she run crying to you?”

  The words drew her up short. How had he known it was her? “You need to go easy on Tess. Not everyone is a glutton for punishment.”

  “You were.”

  “What I wanted from you outweighed your pissy attitude.”

  He picked up the papers and moved them to the bookshelf behind his desk. Next was his cup of pens. “So you got what you wanted and moved on?”

  Why wasn’t he looking at her? And why in the fuck was he being so damn calm? “No, but I had to. You have a shit poker face when it comes to me.”

  Lucian continued to move things from his desk to the bookshelf until only his laptop and printer sat on the other end. “And you have a great poker face when it comes to me.”

  “I can’t…” she started and had to stop when the emotions she’d pushed down rose up her throat and squeezed. Misery of missing him and lust at seeing him again mixed into a volatile cocktail the longer she tried to swallow it.

  He strutted past her. His gaze not even sliding in her direction as he did. She heard the click of the lock and her heartbeat jumped. “Lucian?”

  “I’ll ask again. Did you get what you wanted?”

  She turned to him and caught him shrugging out of his suit jacket before he put it on his coat rack next to the door. His full attention turned to her as he rolled up his shirt’s sleeves.

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  Courtney said, “I’ve been bored all morning with Morgan. She says yes and thank you. I think I’m suffering from Stockholm syndrome.”

  He smirked. “And what was the damning offense my paralegal ran to you with?”

  “Coincidence. We saw each other in the bathroom after you made her cry.”

  He tilted his head back and squinted. “She can’t find our client’s check stubs.”

  Out of habit, Courtney took a step forward. His hand closed over her arm. “You’re not my paralegal anymore. You made sure of it.”

  She’d worked days, many, many days at the library, and went to school during those nights. She had taken all the shit he shoveled in her direction. Maybe not with grace but she’d taken it. “Don’t throw that in my face,” her voice came out sharp. “This was the best decision for the both of us.”

  His gaze narrowed. “An email?”

  Okay. She deserved that hit. None of it mattered. “Stop being a super-dick to your new paralegal. I’ll train her in my spare time. Well, maybe not Tess. She can’t cut it. But the next person you pick, her, I’ll train. She won’t quit and she won’t kill you.”

  He raised a brow. “And what do I get?”

  She gasped. “Quid pro quo, really?”

  He took a step forward that forced her to take one back. And then again until her butt hit the edge of his desk. He leaned down and she could only smell him.

  “With you I’m not an attorney,” Lucian said. “I don’t give a fuck about a conflict of interest, fraternization, anything but you. I’m a man.”

  Before she could form an argument he had his hands around her waist and was pushing her onto his cleared desktop. She narrowed her eyes right back at him but then his mouth was on hers. This was why she’d transferred. Not because lust ruled her, because he ruled her. She fisted her hands in his shirt and tugged him closer. Her skirt kept them on their best behavior, but his mouth didn’t care. It worked over hers until he ate her moans. He nipped and licked into her mouth until she softened against him.

  “Lucian,” she breathed.

  His hands went to the top button of her blouse. “Yes?”

  He plucked that one open and the next until his hands abraded her skin. She sighed. “Touch me.”

  “Sweetheart, that was my intention.”

  Her head fell back when he closed his hands over her breasts. Her bra stood in the way, but only for a second. He reached around her and unclasped it.

  They were at work. This would end in disaster. Since the first time they had sex she’d been the voice of reason but that resolve seemed to have left her as he reached beneath the loosened bra and scraped his
thumbs over her nipples.

  “Touch me,” she begged this time.

  He did, bringing his mouth down harder on hers. She was lost with no urge to be found.

  But…

  But they needed to work some shit out. She groaned and pulled back. His lids were low and heavy. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “We can’t, Lucian. We shouldn’t.”

  He smiled that sexy smile of his. “My name is on the door. Who is going to argue with me?”

  “Me.”

  He chuckled. “’Cause you’re stubborn.”

  “And you’re not?”

  He let his fingers wander up to her shoulders and within seconds he had her jacket, shirt and bra off. Lucian stepped back. Her gaze went down to the hard length tenting his slacks. The fact she didn’t jump him then and there proved his last statement as true.

  Lucian put his hands down on either side of her hips. “What do you need? I’m telling you now I’m not giving you up. That’s off the table. You can work for Morgan if you need it. But you, I’m not letting go. You’re all that I’ve had and you’re all that I’ve needed for a long while. Fuck ethics if it means I can’t be with you.”

  Could she live with that? Had her previous demands been too much? She met his gaze and could see that they had. It was one thing to demand he hold back what he really felt any time he was near her. Another to ask him to just compromise. “I work for Morgan. You get to look at me with longing at work. We go home together. Yours or mine, depending on the day.”

  “I see.”

  She raised her brow. “What’s your counter-offer?”

  “You become paralegal manager—”

  “Only after a year?” she said aghast. That was the kind of thing offered to someone fucking their boss.

  “Working for me is like dog years. Every month you survive adds up to three hundred and sixty-five days. I’ve run you through the paces. You know what it means to start from the ground up. You run me.”

  She huffed at his announcement. “I don’t run you.”

  He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger and bent down. “You. Run. Me. With a look or a sharp word, you had me. Everything I threw at you and you didn’t buckle. Own it, Courtney, or walk away now. Give up the dream of being a battle-ax in ten years, or own it.”

  She started to shake at the conviction in his words. He believed in her. Something she never had and thought she hadn’t needed anymore. “There’s still so much—”

  “You forget you spent a decade as a legal law librarian. Those years count or I wouldn’t have hired you. Stop making excuses. I’m breaking my rules for you. Meet me halfway.”

  She lost her breath for a moment. “I rotate between all the junior partners for the next year. Then I take on being paralegal manager.”

  Something like fire lit in his gaze. He knew he had won. “We do everything.”

  His cocky statement deserved a smile and she gave him one. “’Everything’ needs a definition.”

  He balled his hands on her skirt and pulled it up to her waist. He stepped in between her legs. His body slammed into hers. “We start with the toys you haven’t yet played with. We work up to a couple. Then we go from there. Let’s be the one thing, the first thing in our lives we don’t have to question.”

  His hands started to roam, beginning with her bared neck. She sucked in a shuddering breath when he drew small circles along the thready pulse in her throat. “You drive a hard bargain,” she said.

  Courtney put her hand to his heart. His rapid heartbeat matched hers.

  He pressed his lips to her ear. “It’s yours. It’s been yours for a long while. Take it.”

  His heart was the one thing he had yet to offer her. And she couldn’t say no. There was no point in asking when he’d taken hers. He’d heard her moan his name and he’d taken it for his.

  With a sigh, she turned her head so their mouths crash together. She moaned, “Lucian.”

  “Are we clear?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He pulled back and there was no question where his attention had focused—all on her. She had no delusions the road ahead would be smooth. It wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. But they would face those odds with each other. That was more than fine with her.

  She said again, just in case he didn’t believe her, “Yes, we’re clear. Now touch me, Lucian.”

  BIO

  Melissa Blue’s writing career started on a typewriter one month after her son was born. This would have been an idyllic situation for a writer if it had been 1985, not 2004. Eventually she upgraded to a computer. She’s still typing away on the same computer, making imaginary people fall in love.

  Where to find me online:

  My Blog

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  Newsletter

  Other Titles by Melissa Blue

  Under His Kilt, Under The Kilt

  Jocelyn Pearson is determined to spend her last month as a twenty-something doing everything she’s too busy or scared to try. Her imagination runs wild and then fixates on Ian Baird. He’ll be working at the Langston Museum for a short stint as a consulting curator. He’s Scottish. He believes sex is fun to be had. He’s the perfect choice for a fling. She only has to get him break his rule about sleeping with co-workers. Seducing a man was on her bucket list…

  Ian is no one’s fool and knows exactly what Jocelyn wants—him. If she didn’t work for the Langston Museum, he’d be more than happy to oblige any and every fantasy she desired, but she’s the curator. She’s sweet, inexperienced and well liked by everyone including the museum owner and director. Ian can’t risk losing such an important contact for his consulting business. Not even when everything within in him craves a taste of her.

  When Jocelyn sets her sights on him, there’s no way Ian can deny her. They agree their affair will end in thirty days. No emotions, no entanglements, just sex. The closer the end date looms, they start to question if it’s possible to walk away. They’ll either have to come to terms of what they’ve become or stick to their original agreement.

  Her Insatiable Scot, Under The Kilt

  Keri Pearson is currently between jobs, so there’s nothing to lose when her cousin promises her a glowing recommendation from a top expert in their field in exchange for a small favor. All she has to do is lie about who she is and pretend to be married to a charming Scot for three hours. Her sexy-as-hell pretend husband makes it too easy to play the part of newlyweds. The last thing she should do is trust him or the genuineness of his lust or adoration, but his touch ignites an unexpected desire.

  Tristan Baird turned his back on his past with plenty of regrets, but when his brother blackmails him, Tristan can’t say no. Given his brother saved his neck, an afternoon doing what he does best doesn’t seem like too much to ask. And it’s for a good cause. Doing the job right guarantees his brother and new wife will have the home of their dreams. But his stunning accomplice complicates the job. She is everything he always wanted and couldn’t have. The kind of woman who is too smart to ever trust a former conman.

  The three-hour commitment stretches into five sexually charged days as they fight the explosive connection. As each day passes, Keri must remind herself what is true and what is false, but the lines are blurring. Tristan can only hope his past doesn’t come back to ruin their future.

  Kilted For Pleasure, Under The Kilt

  Callan Baird used to laugh more than he frowned, but that was before his wife died. Now his life is duty, debts and a general apathy for anything else. And then Victoria Burke burst into his life. She’s everything he wants to corrupt.

  Victoria has two choices: agree to a grouchy, sexy Scotsman’s extortion or call her boss to explain why she can’t do her job. Since she’s spent the last three years rebuilding her career as antique appraiser, and this one commission could make or break it, the decision is a no-brainer. Except everything about Callan is c
omplicated.

  He sees no problem turning their work relationship into a sexual one. She refuses to break her boss’ no-fraternization rule. He’s the one thing she wants and the one thing she can’t have. He’s had his one great love, and doesn’t want a replacement. His heart doesn’t agree, because she’s everything he desires.

  Callan will have to let go of his past if he wants Victoria to be in his future.

  Forbidden Rendezvous, Den of Sin

  When the Beaudelaire Hotel turns into a Den of Sin for the New Year’s weekend, any and every fantasy can become a reality…

  Seraphina Gibson orchestrates fantasies, but this year she’ll create one of her own. It’s against the rules for an employee to participate in the weekend-long sex-capade but she’s willing to risk it for Luke Moreland. The man’s a mystery, but in a sea of CEOs and Fortune 500 billionaires, he stands out. His past and connection to her boss is clouded in intrigue, but she knows what he wants, and she plans to star in one of his voyeuristic trysts.

  Born with a silver spoon Luke Moreland is used to getting everything he desires. Being next in line of his family’s winery leaves him very little time to take advantage of his riches. For a weekend, out of every year, he gets to feel the thrill of the chase. Not even in his sexual fantasies does he like to lose control, but then Seraphina walks into his playroom. He doesn’t know the truth of her past, but he knows the risk she’s taken to be with him. That doesn’t matter. He’s going to spend the next two days with her in his bed and keep her secret.

  When reality crashes into their fantasy, will they survive?

  KILTED FOR PLEASURE EXCERPT

  Victoria pushed back her shoulders, grasped the X-shaped knocker and pounded the metal against the red door. Curses echoed on the other side. She pulled out a smile that would, unfortunately, bring out the dimple in her left cheek, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe the welcoming but professional lift of her lips would soothe whatever temper that brewed on the other side of the wood.