Taste of Temptation

by Moira McTark

  She nodded silently.

  "You okay?” His voice was as strong and soothing as the hands he laid on her bare shoulders. His thumbs pressed into the knotted muscles astride her spine and circled slowly. How did he always know where to find her when she needed a distraction from her head?

  Feeling exhausted from the wind up of the day, the efforts invested, she leaned back into his hands. She didn't have it in her to haggle or argue. It was easier to just give in. “I'm fine. Frustrated. Connie's going to tan my hide for this."

  Jason's hands stopped moving at her neck. “Laine, Connie is a crusty old bat with a rawhide heart, but even she couldn't object to this. The groom was giving it to a bridesmaid before the wedding. This would have been a marriage made in hell. It was doomed."

  "I know, but it's my job to make the wedding happen. It's my livelihood. My chosen career. If I'd been on my toes instead of screwing around with you—"

  "Hey now, to my utter and eternal disappointment, there was no screwing going on. You were trying to make this cake materialize. And most importantly, the bride was better off finding out before she actually married that piece of crap. You can't beat yourself up."

  So easy for him to be confident in the morality of the situation. He wasn't the one debating over whether he would have been able to do the right thing and tell if the circumstances of discovery had been different. He wasn't the one with a job on the line. Or a past haunting him.

  "It's my job, Jason, to make sure that weddings happen. Not to ensure the couple is a perfect fit. I'm not a matchmaker. I'm a wedding planner. My livelihood depends on making the wedding happen."

  "Don't get so worked up about this. It's just a job. You lose it, I'll hire you here. No biggie.” He reached out and scooped up one tiny bit of frosting and dotted it on her nose. “It's out of your control. Loosen up."

  Loosen up? What in the hell?

  That was the final straw. Exasperated, Laine grabbed a solid handful of cake, spun on her stiletto and slung it into Jason's stunned face.

  Her satisfaction lasted only an instant before she sucked in her breath with the horror of knowing she'd made a potentially monumental mistake. Jason reached up and swiped the buttercream and cake off his face, taking a menacing step toward her.

  Her hands shot up, palms out in a pacifying gesture. Shit, he looked like he meant business. “Okay, I'm sorry. Jason, I'm sorry, don't—"

  The wet glob of creamy frosting splattered across her face, and one chunk of cake rolled down her nose and into her cleavage. No way.

  She wanted to scream, be angry, but her cheeks were betraying her, the corners of her mouth defying gravity and her need to look mad.

  Jason eyed the cake and then reached out and, with two fingers, swept the glob from between her breasts and popped it into his mouth. “Coconut,” he said, chewing thoughtfully.

  She stared, wide-eyed. Dumbfounded by the affront. “You—you—” At a loss for words, she spun back for the cake and grabbed two fistfuls, ready to retaliate.

  His strong hands clamped onto her arms. “Whoa, that's enough."

  Tired of circumstances beyond her control, Laine decided to take destiny by the reins. The cake was going all over him. She pulled at his grip, twisted and ... slipped from his grasp, launching face first into the second tier.

  "Whoops,” came the muffled concession from behind her, sounding less than sincere.

  Baked confection erupted from her mouth, sweet spongy goodness embedded down the front of her dress, frosting, greasy and slick, smeared across the swells of her breasts and face. Her hands fisted tightly, and a strangled moan of fury erupted from her depths.

  It must have sounded like pain, because in a flash Jason was by her side, trying to take her hand and pull her away from the destroyed dessert.

  He wished.

  Laine wrapped one hand around his wrist and planted her feet for the best leverage, all under the pretense of accepting his assistance, and then yanked back using everything she could muster to throw Jason into the cake behind her. He had to outweigh her by nearly a hundred pounds—she never would have gotten away with it but for the slick stretch of frosting smearing the carpet underfoot.

  He toppled forward and, suddenly, Laine was going down with him, and, dear God, she was afraid he'd crush her. He spun around and, landing on his back, pulled her down on top of him. The cake cart shot forward, the cake itself collapsing underneath their bodies.

  Eyes wide, Laine tried not to laugh as she stared down into Jason's stern face. Bits of frosting and crumbs gave him a stuccoed complexion—so very not the perfectly groomed man she was accustomed to doing business with. Of course, that perfectly groomed man would never have his arm circled around her waist the way he did now, would never look at her with the smoldering stare that was suddenly setting her on fire.

  Laine lay on top of him, her legs together in a stiff line along Jason's body, her arms folded up under her breasts as some sort of futile defense against the hard planes of his muscular torso. He wore his clothes well, but lying on top of him gave her a new appreciation for what rippled beneath his Zenga suits.

  She looked down at herself and felt her cheeks heat. Her breasts looked like giant frosted melons swelling up between them. Melons with berry garnish. Her nipples had popped completely free of the ruined gown and pointed up through a sheen of greasy frosting at Jason.

  Slowly, she turned her gaze up to meet his. The look in his eyes left little question as to what he was thinking and nervous anticipation began to simmer within her. Suddenly, the arm around her waist tightened and Jason rolled them over so that Laine was underneath him, squishing into a pillow of dessert for two-hundred-fifty. He pushed himself up on one arm, his hips resting against her, his legs tangled with her own, the hard bulge of his cock at her abdomen.

  Heat pooled in her belly, and every nerve danced with an electric charge across the surface of her skin.

  Her lips parted, shallow breaths mingling between them. “You started it."

  Her hushed words seemed to absorb all other sound around them.

  Jason's eyes narrowed inches above her. “I was trying to cheer you up."

  Biting her bottom lip, she gazed up at him. All she wanted was to run her frosting-slicked fingers through the dark slash of straight hair falling across his brow, pull his face down to her and lick the buttercream off the strong lines of his jaw. She wanted him, but their relationship was based on little more than a mutual love of sparring. She didn't know any other way to be with him. “You still started it."

  The solid columns of muscle that pinned her at either side tightened in. His knee shifted, nudging between her thighs. Lowering his head, Jason had only one retort. “Fine ... Now, I'm finishing it."

  His mouth met hers in a slow, sinking press of hard against soft. A measured rub of tender skin caressed back and forth with increasing pressure until the tip of his tongue touched the corner of her mouth and traced across the seam of her lips in a devastating assault. Desire swirled through her, overcoming her mind as she wrestled with the possibilities and repercussions. The kiss, all coercion and confidence, demanded she open to him. It was an exercise in restraint Laine couldn't endure. Her lips parted on a soft gasp, and Jason's tongue delved into her mouth, thrusting deep and then retreating in a rhythmic promise that sent a shuddering need racing through her core.

  The hungry, wet velvet rub of his tongue against her own pushed her over the edge, swept away all thoughts of consequence and a primal, desperate need took control of her body. Their heads angled, deepening the kiss. Her hips pressed up against the ridge of his erect cock, her hands splayed wide across his chest, stroked over the muscles, the heel of her palm testing the unyielding resistance. He felt too good, so far beyond her wildest, most forbidden fantasy—

  Suddenly she tensed, breaking away from the kiss with a desperate, “please,” as she turned her head to the side and squeezed her eyes closed, her hands fisting against his shirt. What was she doin
g? This was a risk to her job, her career. This wasn't what she was supposed to be doing—and he was the last person she should be doing it with. Jason might be certain he could handle the aftermath of a fling like this with total professionalism, but Laine wasn't so sure she could guard against emotion. Dependency. Expectation.

  Her breath came faster with the encroaching anxiety, and Jason pressed a slow kiss against the side of her neck below her ear. “Don't think yourself out of this, Laine.” His words were ragged, husky. “Can't you feel what's between us?"

  She could feel it. It was huge and hard and she wanted it. And now, having had a taste, she wondered if she backed out, would she ever stop thinking about it?

  Catching her chin, he tilted her face toward his. Jason looked into her eyes, and then ran his hand down the line of her arm to her fist. Pulling it up to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles, lapping at the frosting between them with his tongue, until her balled hand flexed open, and his tongue flicked against the connective tissue between her fingers, sending waves of wet heat flooding between her legs.

  "Give in,” he rasped against her skin as he licked and kissed his way back up her inner arm to where the soft flesh of her breast swelled beneath the joint. Pushing down the fabric of her dress, he cupped the globe, squeezing gently as if to test her for ripeness. The warmth of his hands melted the frosting between them into a slippery gloss covering her skin.

  "Let me have you,” he breathed across her chest as his fingers slid from the wide base of her breast toward the nipple in one seamless caress that stopped just shy of the nipple. He lowered his head and licked a slow circle around the outer areola, pausing mid-orbit to nip at the fleshy mound before suckling the sting away. “Laine."

  The sound of her name on his lips, rough and desperate, pushed her beyond her senses, and all restraint broke. Clinging to his shoulders, she rocked against him, her knee skimming up the side of his thigh and hip to ease the throbbing ache in her sex. His hips pressed down, shifting with a steady pressure as he continued to feast on her body. He grazed the candy-hard tip of her nipple with his teeth.

  "Please,” she gasped, and he lowered his mouth around the erect tip and drew it in with a suction that pulled deep through her core and made her moan and beg again.

  She grabbed at his shoulders, fumbled down his back and settled against his butt. Gripping the base of muscle, she pulled him against her before following the line of his belt around to the front.

  Breath coming in steady pants, she struggled with the buckle wedged between them, while he suckled at her breast. Her mind was lost in the rhythmic pull across her body. Her core throbbed with an aching need to be filled, a desperation she didn't want to fight. She wanted this. She wanted him. And buried in a confection of pure, sexy sin, her smile spread wide as she gave herself over to seduction completely.

  "Jason."

  Releasing her nipple, Jason ran his tongue up the side of her breast, across her collarbone and through the hollow at the center of her slender neck. It was heaven to feel her writhing under him. Watching her for so long, wondering what it would be like to hold her, kiss her, taste her—nothing could have prepared him for the ecstasy of her surrender. He'd tried to resist, to maintain the context of work only between them, but every time he saw her, something new and special caught his attention. The smell of her hair, the way she walked, her devotion to her clients ... the way he sometimes found her looking at him with soft eyes that held a million questions.

  Now, as she looked up at him, her warm brown eyes still questioned, but they burned with a need he longed to satisfy. Supporting himself with one arm against the floor, he slid the other under her back to unzip her dress. She arched into him, facilitating his efforts until he knelt back and slid the saturated gown off her svelte form. She wore only panties, a simple pink swatch of silk darkened with her wet need.

  Laine propped herself up on her elbows, an impish smile playing on her lips. Biting her bottom lip, she looked down at the panties and slipped her thumbs into the tiny string waist. Beneath lowered lashes, she gazed back up at him. “These are all wet and ruined. What are you going to do about them?"

  A rough laugh escaped with his breath at the challenge he was more than ready to meet. “I've got some ideas, don't you worry.” His cock was fully erect, pressing against the front of his slacks, but it would just have to wait.

  The corner of her mouth twisted up in an anticipating smile as he backed down to kiss her knee. Lapping at the sugary sweet frosting, he worked higher up her inner thigh to the hollow aside her juncture. With one hand stroking lightly over the damp patch of fabric, he followed with his mouth, breathing warmth through the sodden strip.

  Her hips tilted up to meet the pointed tip of his tongue as he ran it through the sensitive valley of her pussy.

  The sultry moan that escaped her drove him on, pushing him to his limits. Drawing in her musky scent, he had to taste her, had to feel her pleasure against his mouth, around his cock, again and again. He didn't think he'd ever be able to get enough. His hands slipped up to the slim hem at the top of her panties, and as he pushed his tongue against her opening through the fabric, his fists twisted, snapping the band.

  She cried out, spasming against his mouth, sending waves of pulsing heat down his cock. He was never going to last.

  He pulled the fabric from between them, revealing her smooth sex, shiny and glistening with her juices. Teasing between her plump lips with his tongue, he tasted the residual sweetness of cake mingling with the tang of her essence. It was heaven. Greedy for more, he delved into her channel, making her gasp and buck. He lapped through her depths until her fingers sifted into his hair, pulling him closer as she rocked against his face.

  Running his tongue back up her pretty pink folds, he slipped a finger inside her, stroking the wet interior as his tongue sought out her hard clit. He thrust into her with a second finger, and her tight walls hugged against him, making him desperate to feel them hugging his cock.

  He wanted her to come again and again, wanted to give her so much pleasure she wouldn't be able to think of anything but the feel of his body satisfying hers. He circled her clit faster, stroked it with the flat of his tongue, all the while feeling her body's response intensify as it constricted around his fingers.

  "God! Yes,” she gasped, as he scraped over her sensitized bundle of nerves with his teeth and then sucked the little jewel between them. Her hips bucked and every part of her seemed to move in symphony with the suction of his mouth and stroking of his tongue, until she came in a chorus of screams against him.

  The fingers wound in his hair spiraled free, seeking purchase on the shoulders of his shirt—yanking at it, trying to pull it free. Jason was a man willing to accommodate. Anxious to feel the rasp of her hard nipples against his flesh, he reached back and jerked his shirt over his head, tossing the garment to the side with her discarded gown. He unclasped his slacks, and his cock sprang free through the opening of his boxers.

  Laine sat up, naked, legs spread, her swollen pussy lips slick from his attention. Her eyes still maintained that faraway quality of the recently satisfied, making him throb with renewed need to meet her there.

  Her gaze tracked down his body to his cock and held. Quickly, he found his wallet and retrieved a condom. He needed to be inside of her, fast. His throat tightened. “Laine, I've got to have you.” His voice was thick and gravelly, desperate as he rolled the rubber over his aching shaft.

  Laine lay back, her arms twined loosely above her head, and whispered, “Have me."

  It was almost more than he could stand to keep from thrusting deep and hard into her right then. Muscles tensed, he leaned over her and ran his hands up the length of her arms to circle her wrists and pull them higher over her head. Heat flashed in her eyes as she tested his hold, and when he didn't give, her lips parted, trembling, as her halting breath came faster.

  "Jason,” came her urgent plea.

  Pressing the thick head of his cock agai
nst her opening, he eased into her tight, wet passage. Laine's eyes closed, and she slid one bent knee high up his back as he pushed slowly inside her, deeper and deeper, until their bodies met in a hungry kiss of flesh.

  He pulled back and then sank deep again, savoring her quiet gasp as his shaft nudged her womb. Thrusting steadily, his every penetrating stroke claimed her body until soft friction and measured movements gave way to reckless contact, and their bodies were covered in a sheen of sweat and slapped together with each driving thrust. Jason felt his balls contract, and the nerves throughout his body spark to life, lending to the sensation of impending release. Laine cried out, her inner walls constricting with hard rhythmic pulses around his cock, as she begged him to take her harder, faster. Gasping, she spasmed wildly around him, demanding his thundering release. He roared as his body tensed in pleasured agony, and his seed spurted out into the condom.

  * * * *They'd made love ... in a cake. Who knew how much time had passed since Jason, sated and fatigued, pulled her on top of him and closed his eyes. Laine had lost track of her place in the universe the instant his mouth grazed hers. When they touched, every part of her body, every part of her mind, blurred into one driving need to merge with the man who made her insane.

  Her heart was pounding in her chest—what was she doing? Jason was too much of a risk. She thought about him too often, too intensely, to keep her heart from getting involved. And, worse yet, the reality of him had exceeded her fantasies by far.

  Her phone rang. The muffled digital trill of “Here Comes the Bride” sounded from somewhere beneath the mush of cake and cream, indicating that Connie was the caller. Laine's head snapped up, her eyes wide. She was buck-naked, sprawled atop the sleeping form of Jason Henley in what could only be described as a ruined prep room at the Henley Hotel. The remains of the cake were embedded in the carpet and her every nook, cranny and crease.

  What in the hell had she been thinking?

  Frantic her boss somehow sensed that Laine had taken the perilous path and fallen into bed—er, on the floor—with their number one partner in the wedding industry, Laine was desperate to clarify to her—to anyone—the one-time nature of the whole thing. Pushing up on hands and knees astride Jason's prone form, she tried to crawl off him. Her knee slid out and her elbow jutted into his rib.