She halted mid-step.
His blue eyes were blazing, his jaw rigid. “Do you even care what havoc you might cause with your program?”
She was speechless for a second—of all the galling nerve!—and he used the opportunity to tug her into a corridor off the lobby. As opulent as the rest of the hotel, it showcased pictures of illustrious guests going back decades, but led only to a fire exit and so was currently deserted. Backing her up to the cold marble of a pillar at the very end of the hallway, he dropped his backpack and towered over her, both his hands above her head, boxing her in.
“I may have been lying to you, Liv, but I told you the truth about one thing. I’m sorry you dreamed this whole project up to begin with and I’m sorry I’m in the fucking middle of it. And I’m furious,” he said in a low tone, “that you’re just smart enough to be able to do this. Plain old stupid people like Randy up there can’t fuck things up quite as much as smart stupid people like you can. You’re giving them the technological tools to shut down everything that’s good about the Internet.”
Before she could issue a stinging retort, he dipped his head, taking her off guard. She tasted his firm lips, his tongue, hot with an aggression he hadn’t shown her last night, plunging into her mouth as he held her chin still for him.
She brought her palms to his shoulders, trying to push him back, but he ran his hands along her rib cage, just below her breasts, and pulled her even closer, flush against him, nudging her legs open in the process. She groaned at the rush of pleasure, not ready for it and not equipped to fight it off. When her bulky purse found itself wedged between them, he shoved it away, dropping it to the floor, and moved his hand to her breast as he kissed her, fondling her roughly through the material of her dress, pinching her nipple, pinning her to the pillar with his body.
The fierce onslaught of sexual intention, a reminder of last night, a promise of what might have been, had her feeling, not thinking.
And she kissed him back, giving as good as she got, her fingers clenched in the hair at the back of his neck, her legs open to his hard thigh, practically riding him, his erection throbbing against her stomach. He felt so good. This felt so good.
He moved his lips to her throat, tugging on the modest neckline of the sheath as if he’d like to rip it open, bare her right to the navel, and in the absence of that pulled up the hem of her dress, his greedy hand sliding along her thigh toward where she was wet and ready. An impossible longing washed over her. God she wanted him to.
A cough and a “hey” had them jumping apart. Dazed, she saw a lobby guard over his shoulder.
“Can’t say I blame you, man,” the guard said. “But can’t let it go where it kinda looks like it’s headin’.”
Jonathon stepped back further, flushed and breathing heavily, and nodded. “Right. Sorry,” he said, turning his head slightly toward the guard.
“No problem. But this is a hotel. Get a room.” The guard walked away.
She straightened, scooping up her purse as he retrieved his backpack.
“Good advice,” he muttered, taking her arm, steering her back toward the lobby. But instead of heading to the street, he turned toward the registration desk. She stopped in her tracks.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting us a hotel room.”
“What for?”
“What do a man and a woman who were just making out in a public place and almost fucking against a pillar usually get a hotel room for?”
Torn between the blood still racing in her veins and her natural reticence not to be seen registering into a hotel in the middle of the day with a strange man, not to mention the whole corporate spy thing, she said, “I’m not sure I want to do that.”
He looked at her sardonically. “You put on a pretty good show just now.”
She tried again. “I mean—”
“Save it. We need to talk, right? We can do it in your office if you want, but a hotel room is more private. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that to begin with since we’re already here.”
The privacy of hotel rooms was a many-splendored thing these days. First Randy, now him.
She reflexively glanced in the direction of the exit, and he added, “Just stay put. I’ll get the room if you don’t want anybody getting the wrong idea, but don’t bolt before I get back. We need to sit down and straighten this out. Sooner rather than later.”
“All right. I’ll wait.”
The time he took to register and come back was not long enough for her to clear up her confusing feelings on the matter of Jonathon Crestwell.
“Come on.” He led her to the elevators, not even looking at her when they stepped in and were alone together, certainly not touching her. Maybe he did just want to talk.
That made one of them, she admitted, glancing at his profile as the elevator rose. His dark hair was mussed from her handling, his mouth set in a grim line, his whole body tense, and she could almost feel the heat emanating from him. Was that anger, or the need to take up where they’d left off at the pillar? Both maybe. At least she knew that was what she was feeling.
But Jesus, they did need to talk. Half of her wanted Jon to disappear and half wanted him to stick around long enough to make sense of all this, in a way that wouldn’t ruin her career or have her hating his guts.
She thought of him pressing his hard body into her.
And half of her wanted him to rip her clothes off.
Great, three halves. Now she couldn’t even do math, she was so rattled.
She tried to get her mind back where it should be, jutting her chin out, not looking at him either. “Security has orders to bar you from the office.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I’m just explaining why we couldn’t go there,” she told his reflection in the mirrored elevator door. “I don’t want the complications that would entail.”
“I’d hate to cause you complications.”
When they got to the room, he threw his backpack in a corner and she tossed her purse on top of it.
She was pleased to see a sitting area with a table and two chairs as well as a sofa. She ignored the king size bed. “All right, let’s sit down.”
“I’d rather try a bed this time.”
She glanced at him, her pulse jumping. He was watching her…and unbuttoning his shirt.
“You said talk.”
“I lied.”
She went to retrieve her purse. “Fine. Why am I not surprised?”
“You shouldn’t be. After doing it on a couch and almost against a pillar, you thought the two of us were going to be alone in a hotel room with an actual bed and just talk?”
She went to the door, intending to leave—well, sort of—and he paused in his undressing to grasp her wrist and tug her to him, her purse falling to the floor, its contents tumbling out.
“We’re not done with each other,” he said, low, “and you know it. If that guard hadn’t walked up, I’d be pressing your bare thighs against that cold marble and sinking my cock into your hot, tight—”
She jerked her wrist back. “Don’t.”
“I know you want to. We both want to.”
Not done with each other yet. He was right. It was how she felt. As if the transition between tender lover and hostile stranger had been too fast for her body to catch up. She was still primed and ready to melt for him at the slightest touch.
Had melted for him downstairs.
Even now, as angry as she was, she was readying herself for him again, her nipples hard and aching, and a familiar tingling between her thighs. He unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, shrugging out of it, exposing lean muscles she’d clung to last night.
“Tell me you don’t want my hands on you, stripping you bare so I can taste those sweet pink nipples with my tongue, suck on them, hard…”
Her breath came faster, his frank words weaving a tactile picture with each shocking suggestion.
“I’m going to test how wet you are bet
ween your warm thighs, feel it with my fingers,” he came closer, “rub it into your clit. Then I’ll shove my cock deep inside you.”
Her eyes dipped to the bulge in his trousers, and the corner of his mouth went up, knowing they were both thinking of the long hard heat of him pressed against her. Moving inside her.
“We can talk all you want afterward, but now?”
She backed away from him and he followed until the bed was behind her and he was right in front of her. His bare chest, all tanned hard muscle, was almost touching her nipples through her dress as he leaned down, hands skimming her shoulders, and whispered, “Now we’re going to fuck.”
Maybe if he’d used another word she would have been lulled into submission. Making love the right phrase to allow her to go with the feeling between her legs instead of the one in her heart. But the bitter aching reminder that fucking was all there ever was between them, all there ever could be with his duplicity, gave her the resolve to step away from the bed. She crouched to the carpet, scooping the key ring and wallet and tissues that had scattered back into her purse.
“I don’t think so,” she said and heard an exasperated sigh behind her, deeply satisfied by it, even if the rest of her was distinctly unsatisfied.
He went down on his haunches. “Fine, we’ll just talk.”
“Fool me once…”
His smile, whether it was sincere or not, was a sight to see, though she was an idiot for thinking so.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “But I have a proposition.”
“I bet you do.”
She straightened and he followed. “Forget what a good girl you are, Ms. Altman.”
“Only if you forget what an asshole you are,” she muttered.
“I will. We both will. Just let yourself have this. Pretend if you want to. Pretend we met down there in the lobby.”
She hesitated. God, if only…
“We rode up in the elevator together and I couldn’t take my eyes off you. It’s not the afternoon.” He went over to the window and pulled the curtains closed, plunging the room into semi-darkness. “It’s late at night. You’re here for a conference—”
“This is silly.”
“—and so am I and we both had a little too much to drink. And for once that busy little brain of yours isn’t racing.”
It certainly wasn’t now. She couldn’t keep one thought in her mind except how much she wished that were true as he relieved her of the purse again and took her hand, bringing it to his lips, slowly, gentling her as if she was a wild pony that might bolt away. He laid her palm flat on his chest, his eyes narrowing at her touch, excited by it too, his skin hot and his voice lower, hoarser. “You know you shouldn’t. You never have. But you wonder what it would be like to let me do with you what we both know I want to do.”
She caught her breath.
“You know I’m thinking about it too. How much I want it.” He moved closer, slowly, the hard unyielding pressure of his erection against her stomach making her body quiver, her hand ache to move of its own accord down his hot chest to cup him.
“Who would know if you stopped being a good girl, for just a little while, and invited me in to your room?”
Her breath was ragged.
“Let me touch you how I want to touch you. See if I can make you come, like you were going to make yourself come tonight, alone in your bed, one hand rubbing your nipple and the other between your thighs.”
She stiffened, not because she was turned off by the image, but because she was turned on by it.
He slid his hand to her inner thigh before she realized it, causing an incredible pang of pleasure that elicited a groan out of her as he stroked her lightly beneath her panties, swirling his fingertips in her slick, over-sensitized tender parts.
“Nobody will know,” he murmured, “if you turn your beautiful body over to me for one night…”
She arched against him, his lips moving to her ear. “…let me show you how hot and sexy you are…use me…and then go home like the good girl everybody thinks you are.”
She went for him, plunging her tongue in his mouth, gripping the waistband of his pants as he pushed her back to the bed. They came at each other, like two combatants, determined to seize the advantage from their opponent. She clawed at his pants, not nimble enough in her state to work the zipper, and he climbed on top of her, anchoring her arms above her head in one hand and jerking the hem of her dress up with the other.
“Hold still,” he grunted, ripping her tiny black panties off as he ground his mouth into hers. The delicious pressure of him was everywhere, his hard lips, his insistent hands, his massive cock jabbing into her now bared thighs through his trousers.
Their lovemaking last night had been explosive, intense, but it was a long courtship and a gentle seduction compared to this encounter.
She struggled at the hold on her arms and when he wouldn’t let go, muttered against his lips, “Please. I want to touch you.”
He whispered back, “Since you asked so nicely,” and let her hands free, both of his now wandering her body, seeking out hollows and curves, squeezing, enticing. Her thumbs moved along his high cheekbones, the edge of his mouth and he nipped the tip of one finger, before she skated them down the hard contours of his chest.
“Open your legs,” he demanded, his knee already insistent between her thighs. “Wider.”
But she pushed at his shoulders, rolling him over on to his back, kissing him still, hot wet kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his neck, the beginning of his pecs. Climbing on top of him, she gathered her rumpled dress all the way to her hips, baring her thighs, so she could seat herself firmly on the crotch of his pants, her aching center pressing into him.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed, his hands coming around to her bare bottom, squeezing, running a finger down her crack, the forbidden suggestion spurring her on.
“You wanted to do this to me in the elevator, didn’t you?” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. It was too low, too urgent.
“Elevator, lobby…I wanted to step up behind you at that conference and hike your dress up and slide my hard cock inside you, stuff it in until you were so filled with me you couldn’t move.”
He watched her, eyes narrowed, breath rapid, as she undulated on the khaki material, rubbing herself against his still-covered hardness, the friction exquisite for both of them. He took it for about a minute, seeming to grow even harder, if that was possible, then sat up with her on his lap.
“But you were naked in my fantasy.”
He reached behind her to unzip the sheath and unhook her bra, his big warm hands caressing her back as he bared her to him, her heavy breasts falling free.
The excitement in his eyes, his long lashes dipping a little as he looked at her, and the greedy touch of his hands as they came to the front, cupping her breasts, stirred her more than she would have thought possible.
“Naked for me…”
He fondled the globes, teasing her sensitive nipples, bending his head to take one in his mouth, running his tongue along the rigid tip and then sucking, hard.
“Oh, God, that feels so…” In a frenzy of excitement, she came up on to her knees to reach beneath her and undo his pants, quickly, in her desperation finally up to the task. She shoved the boxers down and freed his scorching cock as he positioned her and brought her on to him with one fierce downward thrust.
They both groaned, their faces close now, eyes open, panting into each other’s mouths, and for a moment she just felt him, pulsing, hard and deep within her.
“Exactly where I want to be,” he rasped.
And she rose up on her knees the slightest bit, feeling the drag of his cock against her sensitive muscles, only to slide down again, repeating the motion, arching. Her head fell back in ecstasy and his forward to torment her engorged breasts, licking, nipping, inciting her to move faster. He switched his attentions from one breast to the other until she thought she would go insane as, gripping her hips, he took co
ntrol, moving her on him, up and down, lifting his ass to meet her downward motion, squeezing her cheeks, harder, deeper, faster. Orchestrating her body to satisfy them both.
“I want to see you come,” he managed.
Then he flooded into her—she could feel it as the waves of her own orgasm overtook her—and she clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, their skin hot and sweaty.
For a long minute the only sound in the room was their labored breathing as they drifted down from the rush, the rustling of clothes half on and off against the tangled bedding.
She raised her head when she could and he said flatly, his breath slowing, “I forgot the fucking condom. Shit, that wasn’t part of the fantasy.”
Hard to believe endorphins could dissipate so quickly.
But what did she expect? A sonnet?
She took a deep breath and lifted herself off him, his sperm running in a warm trickle down her inner thigh. As if she needed any more proof that she did incredibly stupid things around this guy, for this guy, with this guy. She went for a Kleenex on the nightstand.
“I just had my period,” she said dully. “We should be okay on that score.”
“I’m clean. In terms of STDs. I always wear a condom.”
“Apparently not.”
He brought his hands up to his face and rubbed.
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “That was a stupid thing to say. Safe sex is my responsibility as well as yours.”
“I get tested regularly and I haven’t had sex since my last one. Except with you, that is.”
“Okay.” Her dress was a crumpled belt around her waist and she didn’t know whether to take it off or put it back on. She looked around, as if for the good girl she had let go of for a time. “I know I said ‘I can’t believe I did this’ last night, but now, I really cannot believe I did this. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.”
He stared at her.
“Can we move on now?” she continued, trying to keep her voice steady, and adjusting her dress in the effort.
He sat up and pulled his pants back on.
“Or is wild incredible sex with me part of your master espionage plan or something?”
Tempting the Corporate Spy Page 9