Her body was still aroused; she could feel it in every twinge of her still swollen sex and in the tight pearling of her nipples. It was, apparently, obvious to the employee as well, because his eyes became shrewd, and his look turned into something she really didn’t like.
Kip stepped in front of the man, effectively cutting of his line of sight, and, despite her reaction to their embrace in the elevator five minutes ago, she wanted to hug Kip all over again. “I’ll take that,” he said gruffly, reaching for the tray.
The employee took a step back. “I’m supposed to deliver it—”
“Nope.” Kip grabbed the handles of the tray. “You’re done. Leave now.” He wrested the tray from the man, and the metal dish covers clacked slightly.
“Yes, sir.”
Kip kicked the door shut, and it slammed home. “Fucking pervert,” he muttered, carrying the tray to the dinette and setting it down.
Victoria couldn’t help it; her giggle escaped. Fucking pervert. This from the gigolo and his paying customer.
Kip’s head snapped up, and his gaze landed on her. As soon as it did, however, his glower evaporated like magic, and a begrudging smile tugged at his lips. “Stop it. I know it’s ironic.”
She giggled again, but this time, it was a laugh of relief and gratitude. That guy had been creepy. And Kip had stood up for her. Again. Twice in one day.
Damned if I don’t want him again already.
Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because, Kip’s slight smile turned full-fledged. “Oh, no, you vixen. Food first.” He reached out and plucked one of the metal covers from its dish.
The aroma of good food immediately wafted through the room, and Victoria’s stomach growled loudly.
He chuckled. “Come on, beautiful. Get your strength up, because we have slow to do still.”
“Oh, do we?” Her words were teasing. Flirtatious. As she rose from the bed, she couldn’t remember the last time—if ever—such a tone had come from her.
Once she had taken a seat at the table, he edged out the other chair and sat as well.
It was a well-mannered move, waiting until the woman sat, and Victoria found herself suddenly curious as to where he would have learned it. In his profession or in his personal life?
You know better! She shook her head, dislodging the errant notion and forbidding it to return. She didn’t need to know anything about Kip’s personal life. It was irrelevant.
He placed a plate before her, and her stomach growled anew. He’d ordered a lunch of rich foods: some kind of bisque and a decedent sandwich that made her mouth water. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken the time to eat a meal she actually wanted to eat. “Was this the surprise you were talking about?” she asked, placing her napkin on her lap.
“You haven’t eaten lunch,” he said, as though this were an answer.
She laughed. “I usually don’t eat lunch.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “Really?” He frowned. “Why on earth not?”
She shrugged. “I forget. Get caught up in work.”
“That’s a shame.” He picked up his spoon and stirred his soup. “Where do you work?”
“Precision Media Services,” she answered automatically. Her fingers froze above her own spoon.
Personal details. She closed her eyes, torn between begging him to forget what she’d just said and wanting him to ask her more personal details. “Kip,” she said wearily.
“You’re in advertising?” His voice sounded odd.
She raised her head and looked at him. “You know Precision Media Services?”
Now, his gaze skated away. “We live in Vegas. Of course I know it.”
It wasn’t an entirely honest answer; she could immediately tell. But they had already gotten far more personal than she had promised herself they would. “Let’s talk about something else, shall we?”
His shoulders relaxed. “Please.”
But, then she didn’t know what to say. How did one make casual conversation with the person they were paying to fuck them?
She realized her hand was still hovering over her spoon when Kip clasped it in his. “I can see you thinking.”
“Well, I am,” she couldn’t help but retort. She thought for a living. It was a hard thing to turn off.
“Honey, it’s just conversation. If it’s going to be a strain, we don’t do it. Isn’t that why you’re paying for a lover when”—his gaze swept her—“you clearly don’t have to?”
Every muscle in her clenched neck relaxed. That was exactly why she was paying him. That he said so freely and without condemnation meant more to her than she could say. “So, we’d just sit here in awkward silence?”
He took the time to draw a spoonful of soup to his mouth, swallow, and blot his lips with the napkin—again, perfect manners. His gaze was heated and never left her face. “Silence is only awkward if you make it so.”
“Not in my experience.” She hated silence. She could make great conversation as a professional, but that was because the conversation always revolved around her work, and she was excellent at what she did.
But, personal conversation? She was terrible at it. So she avoided it. And silence.
Okay, she avoided people.
Kip took another bite. “So, we talk.” He nodded toward her spoon where it still rested beside her bowl of soup. “Eat up,” he said softly.
She found herself obeying him automatically—something she would never do ordinarily, as she was used to calling the shots. As the first bite of her meal hit her belly, she realized she was ravenous, and she took several more bites before she looked up to see Kip staring at her with that damned amused dimple showing again.
She felt her cheeks heat and grew even more discomfited. Why was she always blushing?
Kip straightened the napkin in his lap and grabbed his spoon again. “What’s your favorite color?”
“My—” Her spoon clanked against the side of her bowl. “Why?”
His shoe nudged against hers. “Conversation. I happen to be an expert at carrying on a conversation devoid of personal details.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What if my favorite color is a deeply personal secret?”
That dimple flashed again, but this time she didn’t mind. She had been trying to amuse him, and that it had worked filled her almost the same way as the several bites of delicious meal had. He sobered, and the dimple vanished. “Why, is it the color of my eyes?” he asked.
Her spoon clanged again, but she held it together. That particular clear blue was quickly making it to the top of the list, as a matter of fact. “Not everything is about you, you know.” She loaded her fork with salad. “What’s your favorite color?” She took her bite.
“Currently?” His shoe nudged hers again. “The pink of your sweet pussy.”
Lettuce almost went flying everywhere. She swallowed hard, and her bite of salad went down as though it were a variety of tossed glass shards.
“Kip!”
“Yes?” He took a casual bite of his own salad. “Wait.” He put down his fork and grew serious. “Is that your favorite color, too? We can’t both have it.”
Oh, my God. She wanted to lick that smirk he was trying to hide right off his face while straddling his lap. She looked down at her salad and carefully loaded her fork. “I don’t have a favorite color, so that one’s all yours.”
“Don’t have a—” He made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat, and when she looked at him again, he was shaking his head. “What the actual fuck. Didn’t you color as a kid? Which crayon did you fight over the most with the other kids?”
Had she colored as a kid? That seemed frivolous. But, kids were frivolous, right? She shrugged.
“Okay, the only right answer to that question is the macaroni and cheese crayon.” He canted his head. “Obviously.”
“That is not a color.”
“Macaroni and cheese is everything.” He placed a palm over his chest. “You hired me just
in time. I have so much to teach you.”
Her lips twitched. He already had taught her a lot. Like, how much she needed sex. Good sex.
“So, no favorite color. What about a favorite movie?” He sat back in his chair, and that was when Victoria noticed his plate and bowl were empty. She glanced down at her own plates and found them in the same condition. When had that happened?
“Um, probably a documentary?” she mumbled.
He shook his head. “This may be hopeless.”
“Hey.” She straightened. “Ask me about my favorite rhetorical appeal or something.”
“Pathos,” he said suddenly. “It’s obvious.” He grinned.
Pathos? The emotional appeal.
She hadn’t thought it possible to find this man any more attractive, but then he’d gone and joked about Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle.
She licked her lips, and Kip’s gaze followed the progress of her tongue with rapt attention. He shoved his empty plate away. “I think it’s time for dessert.”
She glanced at the table and frowned. There wasn’t any dessert here.
Kip reached for a small dish that had escaped her notice and removed its cover. He licked his spoon clean, his gaze locked with hers, and Victoria forgot how to breathe.
“Come here, honey.”
She nearly tripped over her feet she was on them so quickly. He held a hand out to her, and she placed hers in it. He tugged her forward, and then she was sitting in his lap in a close approximation of what she’d fantasized about minutes before.
With their gazes still locked, Kip began unbuttoning her blouse. His fingertips brushed across the skin he was baring as he slowly undid each button in a way that had to be intentional. By the time he was tugging her blouse from her pants, she was tingling all over and more ready for dessert than she had ever been in her life.
He skimmed his palms up her arms, and the fine fabric of her blouse rippled between their skin, causing her nipples to pucker. When his hands reached her shoulders, he brushed her blouse off them, and it slipped down her arms and hit the floor behind her without a sound.
Kip pulled in a slow, loud breath, and then his gaze flicked down. He swore softly. “Miss prim Victoria and her lingerie.” He traced his fingers over the edge of the corset she’d hidden beneath her business attire. “You’re a walking orgasm, honey.”
As he brushed the edge of the corset again, his fingers chafed the sensitive, plumped curve of her breast, and a tiny moan split her lips. He traced the corset’s boning down to where it disappeared into her trousers. “What are you hiding under here?”
Her mouth was dry, but she still managed to say, “You have to take your shirt off to find out.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t take his gaze from her body. “Negotiating. I can live with that.” His hands rose to his top button, and he began unceremoniously and quickly unbuttoning his shirt.
She placed a hand over his. “Slower.”
Now his gaze found hers, and after a moment, the left side of his lips tipped up. “Yes, ma’am.”
True to his word, his movements slowed. By the time his shirt was half undone, Victoria was cursing herself and her slower. Her breaths thready, she shoved his hands aside and undertook the task herself. She couldn’t keep her own fingertips from his skin, so smooth and soft over such hard planes of muscle. She jerked impatiently, and the last resisting button flew off and bounced against the wall with a pop. She shoved the shirt from his shoulders and immediately smoothed her palms over his pecs and down the slabs of his abdomen, which dipped beneath her touch.
“Victoria, your pants.”
“Shh.” She moaned as she skated her palms back up again and over his massive shoulders down to his biceps.
If seeing was believing, touching was even more so. His body was unreal; she wanted to memorize it through her hands.
She squeezed the muscles of his upper arms, and they gave not at all beneath her fingers.
His hands landed on the tops of her thighs, and he squeezed. “You promised.” His fingers traveled toward her fly.
“You can’t expect me to stop touching you.” She stroked the stark line of muscle between his biceps and shoulders.
“I had to stop touching you!”
Her lips curled. “Fair enough.” With one hand, she led one of his to the button of her pants. Even through the corset and the fabric of her trousers, she could feel the heat of his impending touch. “Go ahead then.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. For someone she was paying to romance her, he undid her pants with a speed and lack of finesse that was at odds with his job. Thank God.
With him distracted, she had freedom to stroke his upper body to her heart’s content, but when he slid her pants down her hips as far as they would go before their position stopped them, she paused, her thumbs over his nipples, slightly anxious for his reaction.
Reverently, he stroked a thumb down a piece of elastic. “Is this a . . . ” His gaze snapped to hers. “You’re wearing a garter belt.”
She knew it was ridiculous. She’d just come from work, for fuck’s sake. No one wore a garter belt to work. But she hadn’t had sex in so long that her lingerie had become her one and only sensual habit. She lowered her chin in the semblance of a nod.
His mouth clamped closed, and a muscle ticked in his cheek. In the next instant, he was standing.
With a squeak, Victoria wrapped her legs around his hips and cinched them tightly. One of his massive hands cradled her bottom. He snatched the dish she hadn’t looked into yet with his other hand, and then he was striding across the room.
No, striding was too leisurely a word. One couldn’t sprint with an entire other person wound about them, but he got pretty close.
His hand squeezed her ass. “Shit, this is a thong, too, isn’t it?”
She buried her face in the curve of his neck and licked his collarbone instead of answering.
The clack of glass meeting wood sounded to her right, and then both of his hands were gripping her around the waist. Through the pressure he was exerting, she could tell he wanted her on her feet, but she rather liked hugging his hips with her thighs.
The skin of his stomach and back was a silky caress against the insides of her legs, and, with his current state of arousal, the deliciously firm tip of his erection was pressing right where she wanted it . . .
“Down, woman.”
She acquiesced with only a slight grunt of irritation. “Fine, but you’d better make it up to me.”
He smiled her way, but his eyes were still locked on her lowered pants. “I promise.”
Well, then. “You want these off?” She nearly started at the sound of her own voice. Where is this sex kitten coming from?
“You have no idea.” Kip hooked his thumbs in the waistband, and since her pants were already down around the tops of her thighs, the touch of his fingers against her ass made her shiver.
She shimmied a bit, and, amid a quiet curse, he shoved her pants down. Because of the silk stocking on her legs, the pants slid quickly to the floor. Victoria kicked them aside and glanced back up at her lover.
His mouth was agape. Literally agape.
Power unlike anything she had ever felt in a boardroom surged through her.
She stepped back, feeling the bed a few inches behind her, and, holding out her arms, spun for him on her tiptoes.
An odd noise sounded from behind her, but by the time she circled around to the front again, he was completely composed—if he’d ever truly lost his composure at all.
“Turn around again.”
Victoria raised an eyebrow. It was a very clear order, and instinctively, she stiffened. Yet, the look of hunger in his eyes . . .
After a slight hesitation, she turned around, presenting him her back.
In seconds, there was a tugging at the laces of her corset. His breath brushed across her ears in only a moment’s warning before he spoke in a low, indecent tone. “I’m taking this of
f, but everything below your waist stays on. You understand?”
Another order. When every inch of her tingled at the promise in his voice, however, she nodded.
The corset relaxed, but Victoria didn’t find breathing any easier to come by.
His soft lips caressed the hollow beneath her ear. “Arms up, honey.”
She obeyed immediately.
He drew the corset over her head, and she shivered at how good it felt to be bare.
The corset hit the floor somewhere behind them with a soft crush of bone and silk, and heat immediately covered her back.
His chest pressed against her shoulder blades, and his hands spread over her belly. “Better?” He nipped her earlobe.
She jumped, and his arms around her tightened. “Yes.” Her voice was so breathy he had to have a hard time hearing her. “Yes,” she said more strongly.
“Good.” He skimmed his palms up her stomach and over her ribs. By the time she was arching into his touch, he was already covering her breasts with his hands and lifting them.
She moaned.
He did, too, while he pinched both her nipples. “So beautiful.”
She needed to touch him, too. Reaching behind her, she found his hips with her hands, and unable to resist, she arched back even more, pressing her ass against his groin.
She was rewarded by a sharp hiss of air past her ear. The press of him was not enough. She slid her hands between their bodies, found his erection, and squeezed.
He thrust against her, and she nearly cried yes. But then he was gone, taking all that delicious warmth away.
“No!”
“Get on the bed, Victoria.” The order was followed by an immediate slap of her ass.
She gasped and arched up to her toes, but in the next second, she was scrambling on top of the bed with a desperation that should have scared her but instead felt more natural than breathing.
By the time she lay panting on her back, Kip was reaching for the dish he’d deposited on the bedside table. He stirred whatever it held solemnly as his hot gaze poured all over her from the top of her head down to her toes and then back again. He stepped toward the bed. With one hand, he reached down and undid his pants, then shoved them and the black briefs he wore beneath over his hips and down his thighs until he could kick them away.
Hard Work Page 10