Coin Operated

by Ginny Glass

  Eli fished his keys from the pocket of his suit pants and had just disengaged the locks on his car when a voice echoed across the garage. He turned to find the blurry outline of a woman rushing up the last few stairs to his level. He should have put on his glasses hours ago, knew that the headache nagging at the back of his eyes was partly the strain of work and partly the fault of his own forgetfulness.

  She started from the stairwell. “Eli.”

  The woman was winded and bent double, stopping to catch her breath as he neared her. He bent slightly himself to see past the thick fall of richly tarnished dark copper hair that he’d know anywhere. He didn’t need to step close to see her, but the compulsion was there—the same force that drove him to take sneaky little eyefuls of her all day long. Damn it.

  “Bea, I thought you left hours ago.”

  He put out a hand and urged her to straighten, lingering just a scant second too long on the smooth contour of her arm. He took a hungry survey of her. She was wearing a demure skirt and a white blouse that ruffled sensibly up to her throat, but just the sight of the loose ends of her hair sweeping the crisp white linen of her collar made him hotter than hanging moss in midsummer. He had to stop this.

  “I stayed to close the books on that tech account we got in last week,” she explained. “Sorry if I startled you. You forgot to sign these.”

  She held out a sheaf of papers and he leafed through them, trying to block out the rough unevenness of her winded breathing and the sticky-skin images the sound sent roaring through his head.

  “What are these?”

  “Proposed budget for Bows and Eros.”

  That dark auburn hair spread over his thighs.

  That lower lip caught between her teeth to stifle silken moans.

  Every button on that prim blouse hanging by single threads as he tore down the placket.

  Beatrix London had been his partner for two years now. She traveled with him on every contract job, was a shark with the numbers when it came to bid presentations. She planned their trips, meals, meetings and entertainment, managed to do it all and make it look easy. She was sharp, skilled, attentive, dedicated, dependable and sexy as hell. Though she came to work dressed in a myriad of variations on the same conservative theme she sported currently, Eli found himself strangely, maddeningly enticed by what he didn’t see when it came to Bea.

  The slight almond-shaped tilt to her big brown eyes, the way her plush mouth curved up just at one corner when she was starting to smile, the taut length of calf that delineated so nicely when she bent into a file cabinet—these were all torturous enough without his imagination endlessly filling in the blanks that sensible clothes left in his head.

  The answer to his problems was parting ways with Bea, but every time he got the stones up to do it, his conscience and his libido ganged up on him. The result was her current state of very secure employment and his current state of daily discomfort.

  “Come with me. I’ll sign these now,” he said, walking back toward the car.

  She followed obediently, and he tried his best to ignore the click of her high heels on the concrete. Heels, endless pairs in endless colors that boosted her on spiked little stilettos, were her only concession to fashion. The only hint that under her demure exterior might lie a woman who could match all the dark fleshy daydreams that brewed in his head. Today at their meeting, when he’d looked over to see her eyes closed, her breathing rapid—when he’d skimmed her knee and those long legs had slid apart—every person in the room had fallen away except Bea.

  He made quick work of signing, approving the work without looking through her figures. He had to get away, out onto the freeway, drive circles around the city and let the wind blow away the thoughts percolating at her nearness.

  She gathered the papers and snapped them square against the roof of the car. She smiled as she stepped back. “Thanks. I can drop these at Express Delivery first thing tomorrow morning.”

  He nodded silently, closing his eyes. She was so close that he could smell her perfume.

  “Something wrong?”

  Except the scary kinky fantasies I’m having about you, no. “I’m just tired.” And sexually frustrated. He opened his eyes to find her still standing beside him. “Christ, Bea, what is it now?”

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Her tone was, as always, professional and complaisant. It grated at him. It took too much effort not to blurt out exactly what he wanted her to do for him. Self-censoring took strength he didn’t have right now.

  Eli actually bit his tongue, sharply, before replying. “Yeah, I have some laundry, want to do that?”

  His shortness didn’t seem to bother her. She squinted slightly before her eyes softened. “I’m headed to the Laundromat in my building tonight. I have a few things to wash. Your duffel in there?”

  His anger dissolved into the damp air, replaced by surprise and a little rush of embarrassment. Bea nudged past him and opened the car door herself, snagging the duffel bag that he used for dirty laundry. “Bea, you don’t have to…”

  She turned from the car and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

  “What?”

  She was an inch from him. His stomach twisted. He got a nearly instant erection.

  “Sick, are you getting a cold, or the flu, do you have a headache?”

  Sex in a parking garage, out where anyone could see? He was considering it. Strongly. “Yeah, my head hurts like a sonofabitch, why?”

  “Because you’re cranky. You feel a little hot.”

  Woman, you have no idea.

  “Where are your glasses?” Her hand was still on his forehead. Her brow scrunched with concern.

  A wave of tenderness suddenly suffused him as he reached up and took her arm, gently pushing it down from his face. He kept hold of her, and the difference in their sizes didn’t get past him. His fingers made a neat circle around the slender curve of her wrist. “They’re back at the office. Stop mothering me.”

  “Stop being cranky. Take an ibuprofen. Go to bed.”

  “I can’t. I have laundry.”

  She jostled the duffel bag. “No, I have laundry.” Her slow smile was too aware of their nearness.

  Eli dropped her wrist. “Have a good night, Bea.” Turn away from her, get in the car.

  “You, too, Mr. Elliot,” she teased him, and the formality actually made him smile slightly. “See you in the morning.”

  Bea stepped back, hefting the bag in both hands. Eli got into the car quickly, shut the door and fastened his seatbelt to help quell the urge to run after her as she turned to click on those damned heels back toward the stairs.

  Two days and we’ll be done with this account. Two days and no more business trips, no more hotel rooms. No more awkward pauses outside before we go in at night. No more lying awake thinking about her tangled in the sheets.

  Being near her lately had been hard. He had managed in the past to keep their relationship professional, to keep his interest in her under wraps. He’d done a poor job—as the months had rolled past, he relied more and more on seeing her. His good moods hinged on stealing scant personal moments outside the long hours they spent over spreadsheets and marketing strategies. It would have been easy to test the waters, to see if she returned his interest, but it wasn’t just that he wanted Bea that was disconcerting, it was how he wanted her.

  He sat in the car without starting it, staring hard into the rearview mirror for a long moment. Reflected in the glass was a long expanse of low blank concrete wall. He could perfectly fabricate Bea’s lithe legs, the long-fingered hands that would splay against the rough surface. He could replicate in detail her face, the high cheekbones, soft lips. The rest he could only guess at.

  He imagined her cheek pressed against the concrete. Her hair dampening in the soft rain just starting up, a fine and steady mist adding a cloaking sheen to his windshield. He lost clear sight of the garage level as water collect
ed on the glass. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. He spread his hands over the steering wheel, flexing his fingers, just how his hands would cover hers on the cold wall.

  “Keep your hands flat. Don’t move them.”

  The sound of his own voice, low and forceful, startled him, but his cock hardened at the thought of her compliance, of sliding his hands over her. He would skim rough fingers up the insides of her thighs to hike her skirt. The skin there was smooth, a rich and trembling slide that would offer no hindrances to his authoritative touch.

  Bea would try hard to be still, but she would writhe before he was through. Her skin would be a scalding contrast to the wet chill in the air, and the darkness on the rooftop would cloak them just enough. Just enough so that he could coax her into letting him do all sorts of scorching things to her. Just enough so that the barest worry of being discovered would still linger in her huge brown eyes as he knelt and canted her hips back toward him.

  He wanted her close to collapse before he thumbed open the carmine silk of her most secret flesh and put his lips to her. He’d pull her back against his mouth and make her struggle to keep her hands flat to the wall.

  Christ. He shifted in his seat and snaked a hand down to the ache between his legs. Before he could think of propriety—or, hell, anything but Bea—he lowered his zipper and freed himself. The windows pinged with rain as the storm took hold outside. She would taste like salt and wet, hot worry and that certain special slick lavender warmth that drove him fucking crazy every day. He couldn’t think around that smell. It assaulted him whenever she was near.

  He licked his suddenly dry lips and wrapped a hand around his cock. He was stiff and overly sensitive and he nearly hissed at the touch of his own fingers. In the chilled interior of the car, he could pretend that the heat of his hand mimicked the difference between the weather outside and the escalating degrees of Bea’s skin. He’d leave no inch of her untouched.

  The rain outside got serious and the rooftop was deserted, his car the only occupant of the vast expanse of now streaming concrete. He settled back, widening his legs, jerking a slow rhythm that quickly increased as the fantasy laced fingers into his brain and made a fist.

  She would pant into the cold night air, her breath making little puffs of condensation furl into the dark. They would both be drenched as the dreary sky opened up, plastering their remaining clothes to needy skin. He would peel every layer off with maddening slowness.

  First his jacket, then her shoes. A set of demands would follow—words he needed to hear from her, and then he’d keep going. The words changed so often in his fevered fantasies that he could scarcely conjure specifics.

  Even so, he somehow knew how all-consuming it would feel to bark the orders, knew how satisfying her submission would be. Next, her stockings—thigh highs with the lacy tops. Then, his tie. He’d want her to repeat whatever mantra he’d assigned her—his name, her needs, some pretty string of obscene abandon. Maybe a number of times, each act of compliance with its own reward.

  Tell me you want my mouth on you.

  You are not to come until I say.

  Don’t ever leave me…

  The last thought jolted him and he faltered before pushing it aside, refocusing. His cock was hot in his hand. He sped up, feverish and desperate for release. His balls drew up tight. God, if just thinking about her got him off this quick…

  At the end, when he had her bare, he would bury his cock inside her, push her higher and higher. The ever-increasing urgency of her breaths would lend visibility to the heat he forced out of her.

  How he would love to make her beg, scream, keep her skating close to release until he’d worked her enough to sate his frustrations from these past years. He would drive into her until his gut unknotted and his eyes rolled back and he brought her with him into the yawning, slashed-velvet glory of what they would be, climaxing together.

  He arched in his seat, his pace arrhythmic and brutal. The seatbelt cut into him. He welcomed the small pain, taking lungful after lungful of air to try to keep his buzzing head clear and focused on the fantasy. He was so close.

  His mind fragmented at the violent pace his fingers set and he lost the battle to stay with imaginary Bea. All he could manage were a final few coarse, obscene visuals of screwing her senseless before his breath caught on the first pulse of an orgasm.

  “Bea, yes,” he growled, slamming the heel of his free hand against the steering wheel, moaning at the waves that spread fire up his twitching length. Thunder rippled, but he couldn’t be sure if the rolling snarl was in his head or rumbling outside with the storm. Long powerful pulses spasmed every inch of him from the base of his spine to the tip of his cock. Endless moments passed before he collapsed back against the seat, eyes closed, fighting for a normal cadence of breath.

  As his breathing returned to normal, he expected the hunger that had been gnawing holes in him all day to subside. He was wrong. Left in the wake of his appeasement at the woefully intangible altar of fantasy Beatrix was only emptiness, hollowness, a ghost of something lacking.

  He flipped down the visor and snatched a handful of tissues from the holder. He cleaned up hastily, tossed the crumpled wad to the floor of the car and righted his clothes. Anger returned and frustration filled the hollow in his chest. He started the car and the wipers.

  Eli took a steadying breath, pushing sudden confusion aside, clamping down on the self-berating he was wont to give himself for indulging in such rough, dominant thoughts. Bea deserved sweetness and romance, not a deviant who wondered what she’d look like strapped to his bed.

  Eli had always been drawn to the rougher side of sex. He loved the exchange of power that could be so delicious between consenting adults. He’d never really lived out the fantasy, only tried it once with a former girlfriend. A few smacks during foreplay had amped him up and she’d seemed game to try more. First some light bondage, with pretty spectacular results. Next, a little role-play. The day he’d brought home the short leather riding crop—that was the day she’d left him. Eli had made the mistake of bringing it out after he’d blindfolded her. What had been a fun little kink was suddenly chaos. Ugly words like pervert, sadist, rapist had cut deep.

  He’d never felt that low—he’d been sent reeling. The Internet was a wealth of information on his particular brand of impulse. With the ex-girlfriend, he hadn’t known about safe words. He had known afterward that he’d mishandled her trust. He’d been terrified to try with any other woman.

  This time wasn’t just a kink. He could feel it deep down. He’d never known the need to wring every ounce of capitulation from a woman, to orchestrate her surrender and give back tenfold in the reward of endless, mindless, rocket-hot pleasure.

  Until Bea.

  He reversed the small car out of the parking space in a wide, quick arch that sent water spraying wildly. Guiding the car down the twisting inclines of the garage to street level, he lowered the window on the passenger’s side. He pulled out to the nearly empty street, the rushing sting of rain-laden wind a blessing that helped turn his mind from her as he drove back home.

  Making her way back down the enclosed stairs toward the small offices they occupied in the downtown building, Bea had to stop and sit on one of the rough concrete steps to collect herself. She plunked the duffel bag on the step beside her, winded, nearly breathless. She was not immune to the company of the man who cosigned her business checks. Elijah, with his unreadable face, his broad shoulders and the long, lean length of his legs—she ached so acutely for him that she was afraid she couldn’t keep up this veneer of professional politesse for too much longer.

  She needed to get back to the office, gather her things, go back to her apartment, but first, a few minutes to stew over her ever-increasing sexual frustration regarding her broody partner.

  She pushed her hair back from her flushed face, the humidity in the stairwell a match to the wet heat that always suffused her, bloomed in her when Eli was
near. Damn. No man should have that effect: the ability, with one look down the bridge of a Romanesque nose, to twist a sterling-demure woman into an internal cesspool of tarnished fantasies. Still, he did it daily. Every sideways slide of his rich blue eyes, every quirk of his full, expressive mouth, even the swift flashes of smiles she would catch in his moments of amusement, they hooked tethers into all her hot spots and pulled in slow, torturous, twelve-hour-day stretches that ended in some seriously sleepless nights.

  Bea took a few more steadying breaths. She tucked the paperwork Eli had signed into the duffel bag to shield it from the weather and grabbed for the stair railing and the bag. She exited the heavy metal door into the crisper cool of the Georgia night, her mind wandering.

  She had come to work with Eli just out of community college, as an intern at the firm he had worked for. He had been leaner then, hungrier, a shark of an advertising exec with his eye on the top of the corporate ladder. But two years after she’d started at Carnegie & Whitmore, something had happened. Something had changed him.

  Eli had explained to her that he’d gotten tired of working for someone else, of making higher-ups money. He worked his ass off and saw little return for his efforts. He’d been passed over for every promotion he’d hoped for.

  He had offered Bea a partnership in a risky proposition—leave their stable, nine-to-five jobs to start an ad agency on their own. He’d cashed out his 401(k) from Carnegie and she’d taken a loan from her fretting parents. Together they had built a professional excellence that had garnered them a steady clientele and a good reputation among the business elite in Atlanta.

  Lately Bea had yearned to step over, rather than toe, the line set between them. Today at the meeting he’d been distracted, and Bea could only guess at what. If it was anything like her own brand of distraction, business partner be damned. She’d give up her job just to change all the hot promises she read in the heated depths of his eyes into half as many kisses, half as many whispered enticements. Hell, she wanted just one chance to see if Elijah Elliot’s prowess extended beyond the boardroom.