Coin Operated

by Ginny Glass

  Bea knew that there was something dark in Elijah—something that called to a near-constant hunger in her. Her fantasies involving him weren’t sweet; they weren’t soft-focus walks in the park, they weren’t wine and roses. They were high contrast and filled with his demands and her supplications.

  She waited at the intersection to cross, huddled under the slight awning the streetlamp created. In the endless seconds, her mind constructed whole worlds involving him, around what had to be the lingering smell of his cologne. She was so engrossed that she almost missed the walk sign as it changed. Something would have to give soon, or else the a/c bills in their little corner office were going to spike dangerously.

  The sky rumbled as she trotted across the shining pavement. She barely reached the other side before the rain began to fall in earnest.

  Chapter Three

  He hadn’t bought her out but she made him pay daily. Somehow, over the past month it had become routine for Bea to do his laundry, and it was driving him up a wall. With their newest project to focus on, Eli had thought she’d be easy to reassign to her neat little box in his head—the one marked “don’t touch.”

  It hadn’t been that easy.

  She sorted all the colors, she put softener in the rinse, and she somehow folded perfect creases into his slacks. But the worst thing—she’d told him that she was using her own brand of detergent on his clothes. The smell that had driven him crazy for years wasn’t her perfume, it was her detergent. Now every regular stitch of clothing he wore was permeated with it. It was a good damned thing he kept up with his own bed linen, because sleeping all wrapped up in Bea’s scent would have driven him straight over the edge. As it was, it set him so close that he was jittery.

  He sat in his office, his fingers drumming on his desk, debating the true intelligence of what he was planning. It was just a test, he kept telling himself, just a test to see if there was even a scant chance that he and Bea could…

  “Hey, frowny.”

  She walked into his office and instead of the guilt that he had come to expect at the sight of her, he felt a rush of secret power. She wore a skirt. He could have his hands between her legs in seconds. He wanted her mouth under his. He was planning on having it.

  The thought made his stomach knot—half in gleeful anticipation and half in nervous alarm. If he went through with it and she wasn’t willing, it would be disastrous. Not only for the legal complications, but for the personal ones as well. He could lose his business.

  He could lose her.

  He didn’t just want Bea. He didn’t know what to call the warm halo that suffused his heart when he thought of her.

  “Here’s that market research you wanted from yesterday.”

  He nodded. She stopped in front of his desk, canted a hip out, and raised one eyebrow over those devastating brown eyes. She carried a stack of file folders in her arms. “Eli?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you okay?” Her file folders swayed and she tilted with them. Her blouse tightened against the curve of her waist.

  Eli stopped himself from gnawing at his thumbnail and nodded dumbly. Idiot. Idiot Savant. Idiot Royale.

  She regained control over the tower of files and slid them onto his desk. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” He knew his smile was tight—his face felt tight, and all the inner bravado and swagger he had felt when she’d come in dissipated. He was a coward.

  “The package came from Bows and Eros today.”

  Eli hadn’t even noticed the padded envelope tucked under her arm. Their newest account, Bows and Eros. The presentation he had nearly screwed up daydreaming about a hot, sloppy blow job from the woman standing in front of him.

  “I don’t need to see it.”

  Bows and Eros was a sexessories company and were keen on capturing more of a women’s market. Currently, their biggest sellers were X-rated videos to a male demographic. They’d a new CEO hired on, a woman, and she’d been the one to seek out Ad Vantage to put a softer spin on B & E’s currently sleaze-edged image.

  Bea shook a bottle out of the envelope and shuffled the packaging aside. “Their newest product. We’re supposed to be centering the print campaign around this.”

  The bottle was hourglass shaped through the base, with a sinuous top that curved gently to end in a pointed stopper. The glass graduated from a deep ruby red at the bottom to a mellow, shimmering gold at the stopper’s tip. Bea rolled the bottle in her hand to scrutinize the gilt lettering on the front.

  Eli pictured those same pretty hands rolling hotly up and down the length of his hard cock. He stared at her mouth, lust jacking up his bravado and his irritation.

  “Completion.” She smirked.

  Eli snatched the bottle from her. He couldn’t take this.

  “Hey! I wasn’t done with that.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’re awfully testy.”

  You want a test? There will be a test. One where I test how my hand feels spanking your ass while you moan for me.

  Eli put the bottle on his desk with a solid thunk. “It’s past three. I think we should just start working on this damned campaign and not get distracted by…by…”

  “By the product we’re promoting?” She leaned forward and swiped the bottle back. She twirled it and held it up so that the light filtering in from the window scattered colored patterns across her face.

  He stared. God, those eyes. Those lips. Those legs. Some people had legs that were made for the sole purpose of reaching the ground. Not Bea. Her legs were a strong argument for worshipping false idols. They would wrap twice around his neck.

  “Lighten up, we’re both adults here. Tell me this doesn’t sound great to you—”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “You read it?”

  “I don’t have to. B & E wants that marketing plan tomorrow, let’s get serious.”

  “Completion—the ultimate pleasure, the ultimate power.” Her voice was dramatically sensuous, her laughter teasing.

  She thought this was a joke? Eli stood, coming around his desk as she kept reading.

  “The fiery sensation of passion in a silky, slippery new formula…”

  “Bea, stop.”

  “The ultimate in hot, mutually exciting sensation—the ultimate way to take your lover to new heights.” She drew out the word “ultimate” and when she finished reading, her eyes twinkled.

  Eli crossed the room, closed the door to his office and wrenched the lock. The click of the latch was sharp and seemed almost amplified. Turning, he caught her fleeting expression—shock? Her eyes were trained on the door behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  He closed the distance between them and lifted her against him.

  She braced her hands on his biceps, alarm registering in her eyes as she tore her gaze away from the door. “Eli, what are you doing?”

  Eli turned without explanation and walked her back to his desk. She didn’t say anything the whole way, just flexed her fingers into the sleeves of his shirt and let him steer her. His knuckles grazed the desk’s edge. Her eyes were huge, and he could just about fucking drown in them. He leaned in, tipping his head so that when he spoke, the movement of his lips had their mouths brushing, ever so slightly.

  “You always call me Eli, Bea.”

  Her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue grazed the edges of her front teeth. He let go of her and gripped the desk behind her.

  Her voice, carried on a warm wash of rushed breath, was shaky. “I know that.”

  “Let’s try ‘Mr. Elliot’ instead. Just for fun.”

  Confusion crossed her face. “Mr. Elliot?”

  “Good. Remember that. Kiss me.” It wasn’t a request, not the way he felt, without brakes, gaining speed, crowding in on her. A low buzz thrummed through his head at the color that crept up from her throat to stain her high cheekbones.

  “Eli,” she said, pressing against his chest. He let go
of the desk, wrapping his fingers around her wrists.

  He trapped her arms, closing the space between them. He didn’t care how hard he was forcing her into the desk. That the backs of her thighs hit just at the edge of the heavy oak was sign enough she was just made to be bent over it.

  He nudged at her ear with the bridge of his nose, his head spinning. “Do you need me to repeat that?”

  She shook her head. He could feel the heat of her skin as it flushed, her cheek warming against his. He couldn’t get air; he needed Bea’s mouth on his or he would die. He had never before in his life been as turned on, or as terrified. There was no going back.

  In a painfully slow motion, she tilted her face. He cupped her chin with unsteady fingers and divided her lips with an aggressive thrust of his tongue. A muffled sound whimpered into his mouth. She jerked at his hold. The bottle slipped from her hand and rolled across the carpet. She tugged against his fingers at the same time that her lips parted and her hips tilted into his.

  Eli was a goner.

  He had her, tasting of coffee—slippery, deliciously dark warmth that startled him and made him instantly greedy. He reined himself in, gentled, focused on her response. Within seconds she kissed him back aggressively, going lax against his grip. Eli took the hot, dueling heat of her tongue when she responded to the repeated invasion of his. He nipped at her, drawing back to scrape along the tender interior of her lower lip. He closed his teeth against her, just enough to warn her that he could bite if he wanted.

  Bea followed, sealing their mouths again. This time when she pulled at his hold he let her go. She slid her hands up his chest, pressing close. Her body and his aligned to deny any space even for air between them.

  Her hands were hot through the crisply starched linen of his shirt as she brought them up to lock behind his neck. His own hands found her waist again and he thrilled at the taut hitches of her ribcage, drank in every breathy moan that her newly labored breathing gave him tastes of. He turned them so that he could lean back against the desk’s edge himself, because if he didn’t, his knees might just buckle.

  The friction of his clothes against the swollen arc of his cock made him ache. Eli yanked their lower bodies together, so that she could feel just how hard he was. She fit perfectly against him and he sucked again at her lower lip, drawing on it over and over, avoiding her quick darts in, her attempts to take over the kiss. He braced his thumbs where her jaw met the delicate shells of her ears and held her as he teased and licked.

  As she responded, Eli retreated. He whispered low inducements against her mouth each time he pulled away, and she lifted her lips to him pleadingly at each word. When he angled out of reach on his next withdrawal, she whimpered. He tightened his fingers at her jaw.

  “Tell me you want me, Bea,” he growled.

  “I want you.”

  There was no hesitation. She wanted him. She wanted him.

  He was dangerously close to the edge of his tether, and it was agonizing, denying her. But as he pressed his mouth softly over hers one more time, he knew he had to stop. Harsh, hardcore cravings were mixing in with the taste of her, pushing him to see how close to fantasy they could get.

  The contact of their lips drew silken little noises from her that he swallowed. He grinned against her mouth in triumph. She fisted her hands low on his shirt, her knuckles grazing his belt, and then her fingers skimmed the clasp. He had his answer in her response and now, just as suddenly as he had kissed her, he stopped.

  He couldn’t get his breath. He nearly growled in frustration. She undid his belt.

  He stilled her hands. “No.”

  She looked at him, confusion clouding in with the lust already apparent on her face.

  “You think I don’t know what you’re begging for every time you look at me with those big brown eyes?”

  She shook her head, her voice tremulous. She swayed against him. “What am I begging for, Eli?”

  “Someone to take control. Someone to teach you new ways to scream.”

  If it was possible, her eyes got wider. She slid a hand into the waistband of his dress slacks. He fisted his hands at his sides as she curled searing fingers around his stiff length. “Teach me.”

  Every noble intention he had imploded. He yanked her hand away. He was rough as he turned her and bent her over his desk. He smoothed a hand over the upturned curve that had tempted him for so long. He didn’t even recognize his own voice.

  “You’re a bad, bad girl, Beatrix.”

  He jerked her skirt upward, baring her to the waist. She was wearing a pair of black lace boy shorts that made her pale skin seem to glow. He felt outside of himself. No logic, no rational thought. Impulse and lust unhinged him.

  “Wait, I…”

  “No.”

  Slap.

  Bea made fists and arched her back. Her gasp was sharp. His palm stung. A scalding pink handprint welted up from the delicate border of skin visible on the curve of her silk-clad ass. The mark excited him beyond reason. It said—mine.

  Pervert. Sadist.

  “Oh, God, Bea. I’m sorry.”

  He started to step back, his knees shaking.

  “Again.”

  He froze. “What?”

  “Again. Touch me like that again.”

  Lust raged over his fear. He raised his hand over and over, and each time he connected with the rounded contour of her ass, she ejected low, trembling moans across the polished surface of his desk. They were like prayers—no, they were like answers to prayers. Heady, soft and tremulous, a language all their own that reached him through a haze of lust so thick he could feel it skate along his skin. All of the heat he’d suppressed, all of the fervor he’d reined in, fueled him now, engulfing them both in a warm cocoon of dangerous intimacy.

  He prefaced each of the open-handed slaps with a murmur to the woman underneath him. “You’ve thought about this, admit it.”

  Slap. Another moan. His mouth was an inch from her ear and his palm fell solidly flush with her right cheek. He smoothed his fingers back to delve teasingly into the crease of her thighs. When her panties became a hindrance, he tore them. She shuddered under him and his next slap connected with fevered bare flesh.

  “My hands on you everywhere.”

  Slap.

  “I want to hear you beg for me to get inside of you. Here.”

  Bea jerked against another feather-light sweep of his fingertips through her swollen core.

  She was so wet that his fingers and palm came away drenched with her juices. He could smell her.

  The skin of her right cheek and thigh were bright and radiator hot from the contact of his palm. He pulled his hand away from the slick, tempting center of her.

  “Damn it, Elijah.”

  God, she sounded delicious. His cock was so hard that it was near-painful. He was having a hell of a time controlling the urge to ram himself inside her and ride until they both passed out, but she couldn’t know that, shouldn’t know that just yet. This was about her arousal and her surrender and he was going to show her how breathtaking it could be.

  “I want to hear you beg.”

  Slap. Slap.

  He raised his fingers to his mouth and wet them, taking the taste of her from his fingertips. She nearly growled when he scraped a damp, well-manicured fingernail upward from her searing center to ring the soft, dark threshold to the most taboo of ingresses to her body.

  “Fuck. Eli, please.”

  “Once I’ve had you everywhere else, I’ll take you here. It’ll hurt, just a little, but you’ll come so hard you won’t even remember your name.”

  “Eli!”

  He pressed his fingertips the barest degree forward.

  “Mr. Elliot. Say it.”

  He slicked the pads of his fingers back to flick at the scalding wet entrance of her pussy.

  “Mr. Elliot, ple—”

  His fingers rammed inside her, and the low vibrato of her moans turned quickly to louder, throatier landmarks—signs t
hat she was seconds away from coming for him.

  Pure, primal satisfaction surged in him. His own control strengthened at the loss of hers; her surrender shored up the flagging foundation of his willpower and lent him ease.

  “Are you going to come for me?”

  Slap. Slap. Slap.

  He reached under her and delved a thumb upward through her soaked folds. Deep, broad strokes of her clit had her writhing back against him. There was no set rhythm or pattern to the jerks of her hips—the only thing constant was the steady ferocity of her inner muscles squeezing around his fingers. Her breath came in short, heavy bursts and she threw her head back, nearly oblivious, her eyes closed. The nape of her neck was damp with sweat when he put his lips there. He lifted the hand not occupied inside her grasping heat and slid it up to her collarbone, stroking her throat, bowing her back against him with a fan of fingertips just at her pulse point.

  “Come on, baby, almost there. I want all of it. Loud.”

  She swallowed and he felt the contraction of her throat muscles under his fingers. “Eli, people…still in the building.”

  He pulled his fingers out of her.

  Slap. Slap.

  “Let them hear you.” He wasn’t gentle when he thrust those same blunt-tipped fingers back inside, knuckle-deep.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Louder.”

  “Please!”

  “Again.”

  “Please.”

  There was no way anyone close to the vicinity of their closed door could mistake what was going on. He raked his teeth down the column of her neck, pulling back to watch the dark lace of her lashes flicker over the wide, unseeing flare of her hot amber eyes. She jerked against him, one hand covering his at her throat, their fingers lacing, her other hand splaying on the desk as she hitched in one final, shuddering breath. Her scream split the sterile, refrigerated air. He helped her through her orgasm with deep, curling thrusts of his fingers and a string of profanities whispered so low they were nearly drowned out by her cries.