Counselor Undone

by Lisa Rayne

  “Do you?” A clear challenge reverberated in his voice. “I think you need something else.”

  Her breath caught, and every nerve in her body began to tingle.

  “Come here, Jordis.”

  Slowly, he drew her the last few inches to the couch. He eased to a sitting position and placed her between his spread legs, releasing her wrist and sliding his hands under the hem of her untucked blouse. He rubbed his fingers along her lower back then up her spine until he reached the back of her bra. He looked into her eyes.

  The prospect of his hands on her breasts made her lower parts dampen. Nevertheless, she made a half-hearted attempt to stop the madness. “Michael,” she panted, “we can’t do this.”

  He spread his hands wide along her back. Paralysis overtook Jordis’s muscles. She stood immobile, transfixed by the look in his eyes.

  They remained in that position for several long moments, wordless, just breathing. Then, his thumbs moved in an arc, easing around her sides until they found the swell of her breasts. He mapped the undercurve of each breast, staring at the center of her chest as if he could see through the material of her blouse to the naked flesh below or make the buttons open with his mind.

  “When you touched my hair, I could feel it all over.” His voice remained low, husky. “It was as if you pulsed with electricity and sent a charge through my entire body.” He glanced up into her eyes and rolled his thumbs across the front of her bra to caress her pebbled nipples. “What would it take for me to make you feel that way?”

  She moaned and started to pull away.

  He stopped her. “Don’t run from me this time.” His thumbs worked over her nipples back the other direction. “Let me make you feel that way.”

  She stifled a whimpered. She certainly felt the charge now. The excitement forced her to breathe through her mouth. “Don’t play games with me, Michael.”

  “Trust me, the play I have in mind has nothing to do with games.” He pressed a kiss above the first button of her blouse. One hand released a breast and began to unbutton the blouse from the bottom. “I need to be with you tonight. Tell me what you need.”

  Her hands went to his arms, squeezing his biceps. “You know this is a mistake, right?”

  “It doesn’t feel like a mistake. You don’t feel like a mistake.”

  Intellectually, she knew she should stop him, but her mind couldn’t suppress the building eruption of a certain desire. She was a successful career woman, financially independent, sexually self-aware—everything women’s magazines touted as the modern-day Superwoman—but Michael Remington was evidently her Kryptonite. She hadn’t given herself to him yet, but it didn’t matter. She was his.

  Something about this man drew her. The lure of the words he’d uttered on New Year’s Eve pulled at her: You are my true Juliet.

  He hadn’t spouted them as a come-on. He hadn’t known she could hear him. He hadn’t known who she was then or even her name, but he’d been inexplicably drawn to her, too. She’d replayed those words in her head for days after that night, and she’d craved him. She still craved him, and she now understood the craving was mutual.

  “Jordis, tell me what you want.”

  She wanted him.

  What would it hurt to give in to him this one time? People already thought she was sleeping with him. If she was going to be the subject of gossip, she might as well reap the actual benefits of the torrid affair she was supposed to be having. Right?

  Wrong.

  She was making excuses for herself, putting herself in a dangerous position. She was already on the verge of falling for the guy. How much more emotionally entangled would she become if she slept with him? And what about her reputation and her career?

  He’d told her to trust him to take care of her. She’d never trusted anyone to take care of her before. She didn’t know how. This man made her want to try, and she understood the folly of that. Even the indomitable Michael Remington had limits to what he could accomplish. She, better than anyone, knew he couldn’t protect her from small minds and petty behavior. But, she also knew without a doubt he’d try, and she loved that about him.

  He pushed against her back, causing her knees to fall against the couch between his thighs. He released another button on her blouse and skimmed his tongue in light circles against her skin.

  Small minds and petty behavior quickly lost their significance. She closed her eyes, unable to process her conflicting thoughts. She eased her hands up his arms and rubbed her hands over the buzzed hair at the back of his head, powerless to stop her heart from making a decision that plunged her headlong into a carnal abyss.

  * * *

  Michael took Jordis’s touch as encouragement to abandon the sampling and head for the feast. The taste of her made him hard and needy. A woman had never made him needy before. He had to fill her with everything in him soon or he was going to explode.

  He pulled her closer, turning her and laying her on the couch. His tongue eased into her mouth and touched the tip of hers. When she hummed into his kiss, he tilted her face so he had a better angle to plunder her mouth. He ran his hands down her sides, along her hips until he reached the hem of her straight skirt. He started pushing the skirt slowly up her thighs.

  She flinched before grabbing his wrists. He looked down to where her hands gripped him. A knot formed in his stomach. If she stopped him now, he wouldn’t survive it.

  “We can’t do this.” She glanced over at his open office door.

  His eyes followed her glance. “There’s no one here but us.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Yes, I can. I checked.” He’d known she was still in her office working. He’d stopped at her door to shoo her home when he realized it had started to snow. She had looked so intense he’d decided to let her continue to work. He’d stayed late for that reason alone. She still drove that damn sports car, taking her chances the winter would stay mild. He hadn’t been able to leave knowing she’d be alone in the building and possibly get snowed in so he’d come back to his office to strategize more on his portion of their case.

  His hands moved, attempting to continue his unveiling. “Everyone left hours ago. You and I were the only ones left except for the cleaning crew, and they all leave by eleven.”

  Jordis pushed hard against his wrists. “Michael, please.” She glanced at the door again, her concern about making this encounter a possible exhibition apparent. “I can’t. Not here.”

  Knowing her history, he understood her reluctance. With eighty percent of his blood below his waist, his synapses hadn’t fired quick enough to comprehend the foolishness of seducing her here at the office. Even now with his brain kicking in, the swollen part of his anatomy ruled reason and selfishly wanted to continue. “I could lock the door?”

  She gave a closed-mouth smile at his hopeful tone, but shook her head.

  He let out a long, slow groan. “You do realize you worked until there were piles of snow on the ground? No one is crazy enough to still be here but you.”

  She placed her hands on either side of his face. “Then take me home.”

  He dropped his forehead against hers and expelled a loud sigh of frustration.

  She lifted his head, looked at him with hooded eyes, and repeated in a husky voice that made clear her intent, “Take. Me. Home. Michael.”

  * * *

  Michael pulled Jordis by the hand so fast her wedge heels slid across the snowed pavement as if she wore skis. Jordis laughed so hard she was practically hyperventilating by the time they reached her apartment.

  He grabbed the keys from her hand and unlocked the door. He dragged her inside, relocked the door, and threw her keys on the table in the entrance. His back went against the door, and he pulled her to him. “You know, I don’t appreciate you laughing at me.”

  “I can’t help it. Were you in a bit of a hurry, Mr. Remington?”

  “Yes. Still am.” He kissed her. Lips and tongues dueled. Hands roamed frantically ov
er cheeks and hair and shoulders. He managed to pull his mouth away from hers long enough to admit, “I promised myself the first time I made loved to you, I’d take my time and love you so thoroughly you’d scream my name over and over. But, right now, I’m so on edge I just want you hard and fast.”

  She dropped her coat to the floor and leaned her body against his. Sliding her hands inside his coat, she pressed two quick kisses against his lips. “Hard and fast works for me. Provided . . .” She slid one hand down to rub the sizable bulge at the front of his pants. “. . . you still make me scream your name over and over.”

  Michael flipped them so she was the one with her back against the door. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

  His hand went under her chin and pushed up, and he dropped his parted lips against hers. His tongue worked methodically inside her mouth while his other hand went simultaneously to the wall, searching for a light switch. He wanted to see her face clearly when she offered him hard and fast. “Lights?”

  She reached towards the wall opposite the one he’d searched and flipped a switch that illuminated the entryway in soft yellow light.

  He glanced at her eyes. Their color had darkened way past deep green, but hadn’t quite reached brown. He’d never seen that shade on her before. If it went with the hungry look on her face, he intended to inspire the color often.

  Michael shrugged his coat off and let it fall next to hers. His hands found the side of her thighs and inched up her skirt. When he got it high enough to slip a hand between her legs, his right hand went in search of Nirvana. Her groan of satisfaction let him know when he’d found it.

  Tiny strings and a miniscule triangle of fabric gave him ready access to what he wanted. He slipped a finger inside the barely-there underwear. The dampness he encountered forced him to concentrate on his breathing to prevent a premature end to an evening he planned to make last for several hours.

  When he found his control, he asked, “Why do women bother to put on these little pieces of nothing?”

  Breathing with difficulty, she replied, “Because our clothing doesn’t look half as good with undergarment bulges and panty lines. Are you complaining?”

  “No, ma’am.” A complaint was the furthest thing from his mind. “Pull your blouse out of your skirt for me.” She complied. He pressed the finger inside her thong inside her. Her head fell back against the door. “Now, unbutton it.”

  Her fingers unfastened the buttons as quickly as her unfocused mind would allow. Once she was done, he dropped his head to her neck to nibble his way across her collarbone. He stopped at the two bumps at the center of her neck, sucking gently in a way that made her clench around his finger. He smiled to himself. He’d found one of her erogenous zones. He filed the information away for later exploration.

  Loving the picture before him, Michael slid one bra strap down as far as her open blouse would allow and used his index finger to pull the cup off a lovely breast. He put the index finger in his mouth, pulled it out and rubbed her nipple with the wet tip. He watched it bead for him and goose bumps form along her chest.

  While he played with her exposed nipple and her unexposed bud of desire, her eager hands got insistent against his hardened package. His heavy breathing mingled with hers.

  Jordis unfastened his belt and slid it free of his belt loops. The clank of the buckle against hardwood floor echoed around the dim room as she undid his pants.

  When her hands slid into his boxer briefs, he removed his finger from its nipple play and grabbed both her wrists with the one hand. “Bellezza, you need to let me drive or I’m going to embarrass myself.”

  “You can drive all you want, caro mio. I just want a chance to check out the merchandise.” She smiled at the surprised look of pleasure on his face.

  “You’ve been studying Italian?”

  “I looked up a few words. I got tired of not knowing what you were calling me and you didn’t seem to want to tell me. ‘Sweetheart’ sounds so much more romantic in Italian.”

  He chuckled. “You know something?”

  She shook her head from side to side.

  “I think I may be in way over my head with you.” He kissed her deeply. “You sure about that hard and fast?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Good.” He added another finger to her core and immediately increased the tempo of his attention.

  Her hips moved in response and sexy vocalizations hovered in her throat.

  Michael grabbed his wallet from his back pocket. Not wanting to stop his manual stroking, he flipped it open with one hand and held it out to her. “Grab a packet for me, cara.”

  She smiled at his intentional use of the Italian endearment and quickly pulled an accordion of condom packets from his wallet. Not waiting for instructions, she tore a packet open with her teeth and held it out to him. “I’d help you out, but I wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself.”

  Laughing softly, he flipped his wallet behind him. A thud and jangle of keys indicated it had landed on the entryway table.

  “Impressive.”

  He pushed his pants and underwear below his knees, and sheathed himself quickly. “Baby, you haven’t seen impressive yet.”

  Toeing off one shoe and freeing a foot from the tangle of garments around his ankles, he yanked her skirt up past her hips, pulled aside her black triangle, and slid into paradise.

  They both let out a deep moan. Jordis’s hands gripped his shoulders and her head fell back, but he didn’t tarry in the moment. He lifted one of her legs, bending her knee over the crook of his arm, and immediately started a totally different kind of stroking.

  His gluteus muscles flexed repeatedly in a steady rhythm that made her roll her hips in complement. Her hands slid down his back, and she pulled him tighter against her, sending his control once again to the edge. He adjusted his breathing and wrangled his completion back into standby mode before lifting her leg higher to seat himself deeper.

  A keening sound started low in her throat, letting him know he was in the right spot. “Michael!”

  “I know, baby,” he panted. “Stay with me a little longer.”

  He dropped his head into the crook of her neck, and she lifted a hand to the back of his head, holding him there. Their tempo and breathing accelerated until their bodies beat a steady knock against the door. Her erotic lilt grew louder. They clutched each other, and he thickened inside her. The increased tightness of her sheath intensified his pleasure to the point of pain. He tamped down the primitive yowl building inside him and worked it out between her thighs.

  “Yes,” she cried. “More.”

  He gave her more. Her voice rose an octave, his name getting shriller by the second.

  “More?” he asked.

  “Yeeess.”

  Their knocking against the door grew fiercer, a rapid aural pulse playing like a possessed metronome to their sexual tune. His pants mixed with hers. A solo groan harmonized periodically with percussive breathing, and name calling rounded out the melody. The tune played over and over, louder and louder, until she was nearly screeching his name in a subdued repetitious cry meant to keep her neighbors from hearing more of the show than they probably already had.

  When her voice waivered in a tone that suggested her release was close, he gave two long, deep thrusts and commanded, “Let go, baby. Let it go.”

  Her spasms against his staff followed immediately, pulling his release out to meet hers. He dropped his mouth to her lips. The kiss captured the wail she could no longer suppress and kept him from emitting his own shout of ecstasy, which he suspected would sound more like the squeal of a ten-year-old girl.

  He released her leg and pulled her close. His heart beat frantically, but his spirit rested easy. She didn’t know it, but he had no intention of ever letting her go.

  Whipped. His brain taunted. That’s what he was, and he was thinking of a particular kind of whipped that came in a compound word and followed the offensive term for kitty.

 
He’d always hated that expression. He never understood it. In his other life, nowhere on the planet could a man find sex good enough to surrender his soul. He’d been enlightened at the school of Jordis, and his reincarnated psyche seeped into and displaced the jaded shell of his former self.

  He kissed her again, tasting her mouth from corner to corner before he asked, “Do you know what bellezza means?”

  She gave him a soft smile and nodded. “Beauty.”

  “And that you are.”

  He proceeded to show her how beautiful he thought she was from the front door to the living room couch to the hallway wall.

  * * *

  When they finally reached her bedroom, Jordis’s limbs felt like jelly. She didn’t think she could take any more pleasure. He’d removed her blouse, bra, skirt, panties, and shoes along the way. They’d been left behind like a trail of bread crumbs leading back from a den of iniquity. She lay before him wearing nothing. When he crawled up her body from the bottom of the bed and kissed her inner thighs, her eyes closed. With a satisfied groan, she grabbed his head and pulled him up for a kiss.

  “Hey, what are you doing? I wasn’t finished down there.”

  Her cheeks dimpled. “Darling, if you give me one more orgasm, I’m going to die of heart failure.”

  “How about just a small one?” He placed his thumb and index finger centimeters apart in front of her face as a visual aid.

  She gave a short laugh. If he were half as good with his tongue downtown as he was with the part of his anatomy that made him male, there would be nothing small about any orgasm he gave her. “You were wrong before.”

  His perplexed expression made her laugh in earnest.

  “I’m the one who’s way out of my league with you. You’re insatiable.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted. He placed a kiss along the top of one breast. “You’re delicious. You can’t fault me for being gluttonous when I’m with you.” He grabbed the condom he’d thrown on the bed before she’d collapsed onto it.

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t be serious?”

  He kissed her softly. “Don’t worry. This time I’ll take it nice and slow. You don’t have to do anything except let me enjoy you.”