by Amanda Usen
“Five minutes.” Her voice was faint but determined.
He glanced up to see her staring at the clock on the bedside table.
He eased one finger inside her and began to thrust in sync with the movement of his tongue. She was clenched so tight around his finger he knew she was fighting the pleasure with everything she had. He also knew her muscle tension would work against her, pushing her closer to orgasm. He varied the rhythm of his tongue and curved his finger, seeking a spot he remembered well. When she began to rock against his hand, he knew he had her. Her eyes were clamped shut, every muscle tense enough to shatter.
She made a choked sound and broke, fluttering against his hand and mouth. Her taste intoxicated him. He licked and sucked, drawing her sweet pleasure into his mouth, drinking her in until the last aftershock trembled against his tongue. Then he glanced at the clock and slipped another finger inside her. She was wetter, even hotter, and his cock throbbed painfully against the bed. Easy boy, we’re just getting started. He was going to win the bet, all right. Just not the way she expected.
She grabbed a double handful of his hair and tugged, lifting his head away from her. “I didn’t beg.” She was breathless.
“I didn’t expect you to. Your orgasm was a given.” He pumped his fingers in and out of her body and shifted his grip so he could flick the tip of her clit with the fingers of his other hand. He felt tension building in her body again and loved watching her fight it. “But I’ve still got three minutes. Before my time is up, you’ll beg me to stop—or admit you don’t want me to.”
…
She came again, even harder this time, and a loud moan ripped from her throat. Every time his fingers hit that spot inside her, it took her a little higher. She wanted his cock, bad enough to freaking beg for it, but she wasn’t going to do it. How had this happened? She’d been doing so well. It hadn’t been nearly as hard to be aggressive as she’d thought it would be, but then wham, bam, she was on her back, and he was doing that thing, and she was coming.
Satisfaction coursed through her, thick and hot, as his fingers glided over her clit.
“That’s it, sweetheart. You’re fucking amazing, and I want to be inside you the next time you come. Just say please. You know how good it is between us. I can tell you remember.” His fingers were everywhere, sliding, circling, and thrusting. She took deep breaths, trying to force calm into her fevered body. She wasn’t going to beg him for anything. She ground her clit against his fingers. So close…
His fingers slid out of her, drawing a long, low groan of protest from her chest. A second later, his heavy, hot body pressed her into the bed, and her thighs opened. He took his weight on his arms and moved his hips so that the heavy length of his cock stroked the top of her sex. She couldn’t think, could hardly breathe, couldn’t do anything but want him inside her, but she’d be damned if she’d say the words.
“One minute.” His face was pure sensuality as he rubbed himself against her. “Once I get you started, you go all night. Let me go with you. I promise I won’t tell anybody, and I won’t try to buy your bar, either. Let me spend the night inside you, and we both win. Just say the word, and I’ll give you everything you want, any way you want it.”
It took a second for his words to sink in. I won’t tell anybody, and I won’t try to buy your bar, either. Need pulsed and pounded, making it hard to remember the terms of their bet. Was he conceding? “That sounds like begging to me.”
“Just stating the facts.”
He pressed her into the bed. His body was hot and hard, his motions rigidly controlled. His deliberate slide took her to the edge and held her there, pinned. She was burning for him, had been all day. That kiss in the alley had started a fire. His hands and mouth had fanned the flames. Now she wanted him inside her, taking her in all the ways she remembered, and he’d thrown the bet, giving her what she needed to say, “Yes.”
Chapter Four
She arched her hips, wanting him to rub against her again, but he shifted away. Her gaze darted to the clock and saw he’d won. Her heart dropped. Had he just played her?
He reached into the bedside table and withdrew a box of condoms. Extracting one, he opened it, and covered himself. Relief blasted away her uncertainty as he kneeled between her legs and gazed down at her. The sight of his erection, so straight and hard, made her tighten, soften, and get even wetter. She couldn’t wait to have him inside her and feel the mindless ease of their sexual connection again. “What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“We’ve got all night now. What’s your hurry?” He reached to cup her breasts, pinching her nipples. Flames licked lower, and she clenched, unable to articulate why she wanted him inside her right now, just knowing she did. He caressed her belly and hips, and then dragged his fingers through her folds. She pressed into his touch. His gaze was intense as he followed his fingers with the tip of his cock, rubbing, spreading her wetness before he sank into her inch by slow inch.
She writhed, bucking her hips to bring him deeper.
“Exactly as I remember.” His chuckle was hoarse. “So fucking hot. So tight. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I know what you want. It was unforgettable for me, too.” He sank to the root and rubbed a circle around her clit before he rose up and fed her his length again, even slower this time. She throbbed around him, feeling full, swollen, liquid, and ready to scream if he didn’t pick up the pace.
He caught her wrists and drew them straight down the sides of her body, holding them in place with his elbows and cupping her shoulders with his hands. He trapped her legs, too, bracketing them with his and holding them closed around his cock, which felt like it was growing bigger every second. She gasped as everything compressed, and then moaned as he shifted forward, getting deeper. She couldn’t move anything except her forearms as he made shallow thrusts into her body, lighting her up from the inside, so she grabbed his ass and held on.
“You know what I like to hear.” His voice was a rough whisper. “Do you remember how much you enjoy saying it?”
Oh God.
His arms banded her sides and his legs held her immobile. The concentrated movement of his hips drew helpless whimpers from her throat. Her entire being was focused on the connection between them getting tighter, stronger, and more explosive every second. Relentlessly, he drove her toward her peak, holding her gaze as he thrust into her. His intent regard was as erotic as the quickening movements of his hips hitting every pleasure zone inside her. She had nowhere to go but up. She let him take her.
“Please.” Her voice was as ragged as his, barely recognizable. “Make me.”
Ecstasy burst inside her in sharp, almost painful spasms that he stoked with tight thrusts. Fire radiated from her clit through her belly, breasts, thighs, and extremities, a conflagration getting hotter by the second. He moved his legs between hers, thrusting them apart with his knees, and she grabbed her thighs, opening wider for him. He used her shoulders for leverage, pulling her closer, until she felt the tip of him reach the end of her. His back arched, and a low groan rumbled from his chest. She watched his features grow sharp, his eyes bright, and his lips press tightly together. Her breath caught at the raw beauty of his desire.
Pleasure washed through her again as he released in a series of hard thrusts, and she knew why she’d wanted him inside her so badly. She’d needed to see him lose control and know he was as powerless to resist the attraction between them as she was.
He collapsed on top of her, squeezing the air from her lungs, and then rolled, taking her with him. She felt his hand grasp the condom as he slid out of her. They were both breathing heavily, and sweat slicked their bodies. She lay on top of him, listening to the wild pounding of his heart and feeling its echo inside her.
A loud knock on the door made them both jump. “Room service.” The words rang out in the silent hotel.
Quin’s arms tightened around her. “He better be gone by the time I get to the door or I’m going to kill him.”
She
eased to the side, and he rolled off the bed, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll just be a second and then I’ll grab the food.”
She sat up, very aware of her nakedness. Where had she thrown her dress? She found it on the other side of the bed just as he came out of the bathroom wearing a robe. He handed another one to her, and she took both into the bathroom and locked the door.
She stood, clutching the dress and robe, and stared into the mirror, unsettled and confused. Her hair was everywhere, and the small amount of mascara she’d applied had landed beneath her eyes. Now what?
She didn’t have her cell phone, so she couldn’t text Lila or Jenna for suggestions, even if she was willing to explain the events that had led her to this point. Her friends had drunk the fairytale Kool-Aid within months of each other. Lila was so in love with her fiancé Jack, her eyes looked like cartoon hearts, and Jenna had just gotten engaged, too. No help there.
How had she gotten so far off course? She’d planned to show Quin she wasn’t a pushover. Instead, she’d begged him to fuck her before the last minute of their bet had elapsed, an epic fail. But, wait, there’s more. Now that there was a locked door between her and Quin’s panty-melting sexual magnetism, her brain was working again. Or perhaps multiple orgasms had dulled her raging desire for his body enough to let reason shine through. Either way, the humiliating truth was making itself known.
She’d set herself up to fail.
On purpose. In the most basic way a woman can. I shaved my bikini line and wore my best underwear.
She shrugged into the thick, white terry-cloth robe and sank down into the padded chair next to the vanity, covering her face with her hands. She’d subconsciously engineered a bet to get them into bed, and it had been easy to be aggressive because she’d wanted to touch him. She’d been thrilled when he’d conceded, not because he’d leave Last Call alone, but because she wanted to have sex with him.
A wave of arousal swept through her, leaving her tingling, hot, and excruciatingly aware of the extent of her self-sabotage. That fifteen minutes had been hers as much as his, but as soon as he’d offered to take control, she’d gone flat on her back with her arms open and her legs spread wide.
She slumped in the chair. I’ve got to get out of here. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew damn well she wasn’t going anywhere. If I wanted to leave, I would have put on my dress. The thick terry-cloth of the hotel robe embraced her.
Why pretend to resist if she was going to sabotage herself? Even though he was the embodiment of everything she hated in a man, an unapologetic player used to getting his way through brute force of money, she wanted to spend tonight with him. So what if he had women across the country waiting for him to call when he was in town? She wasn’t going to become one of them. Maybe she hadn’t set herself up to fail; maybe she’d set herself up to win. She’d made it clear he wasn’t going to get his hands on Last Call and found a way to get his hands on her, guilt-free, all night.
She looked around the bathroom and saw multiple showerheads in a glass-and-marble stall, a sunken tub, a stunning array of toiletries, and a mountain of soft-looking towels. Sounds from the next room told her he was setting up the room-service cart in the bedroom. She heard music playing. What was waiting for her at home? An empty apartment.
His world was so far from hers, it was like another galaxy. She worked twelve-hour days trying to keep the café profitable, losing sleep, eating leftover sandwich prep, and barely taking time to shower each day. Quin lived in luxury with five-course meals delivered to his suite and a water park in his bathroom. Since she’d technically won the bet, why not enjoy the spoils of war? The other half had it pretty good; she might as well take advantage of it.
She hung her dress on the back of the door and used the bathroom. After washing her hands, smoothing her hair, and arranging the robe to show the maximum amount of her minimal cleavage, she opened the door.
…
Quin released a silent sigh when he saw she was wearing the robe. He’d figured the odds of her staying were fifty-fifty, no matter what she’d said ten minutes ago, so he’d begun laying out a feast to entice her.
“What on earth is that?” she asked, pointing at the room-service cart.
“Half warming oven, half refrigerator. It keeps the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold. I hope you don’t mind me starting without you. I’m starving.” He tipped a raw oyster into his mouth.
She made a face. “The oysters are all yours.”
“You don’t like oysters? How can you not like oysters?” He’d been in love with them since his first taste. Complex, salty, lush on the tongue, like a cool breeze blowing in from the Gulf. “Try one of these.”
“Hell, no.” She shuddered. “Slimy, snotty, and nasty.”
“Sex in the ocean,” he countered. “And proof of a regional dish on the Keystone menu.”
“No self-respecting local chef would serve raw oysters with mango-habanero Jell-O.”
“Aspic.”
“Whatever.”
Luc had said the same thing. In fact, his Cajun chef agreed with many of the points Betsy had made about the menu, and he was sick of hearing it. He watched her take an empty bowl from the cart and fill it with carrot bisque from a heated pitcher. She sat cross-legged on the bed next to him where he’d put the tablecloth from the cart and dipped her spoon into the soup, blowing to cool it. He wanted to lean across the bed and trace her pursed lips with his tongue. When the spoon slid into her mouth, he wanted to follow it. So he did, putting one hand on her bowl to steady it.
“What was that for?” she asked when he let her go.
“For not putting your dress on and leaving.”
She flushed, and he wondered how close she had been to doing just that. He was going to make her glad she’d stayed. He tipped another oyster into his mouth. After he swallowed, he licked his lips and found her watching him. “C’mon, you’ve got to try one.”
A calculating gleam entered her eyes. “I’ll eat an oyster if you tell me why you don’t like New Orleans. I saw the look on your face when we were talking about the menu. What gives?”
“It’s not an interesting story.” And he didn’t talk about it, ever.
She took an oyster off his plate and held it a few inches from her lips. Her tongue emerged, dipped into the liquor, and then traveled over the moist, curved surface of the fat oyster. He went hard as a rock, imagining his hand wrapped in her silky black hair while she tongued him just like that. A puff of air hissed out of his lungs. “Do that again.”
“Start talking.”
He watched her lick her lips, surprised to discover he wanted to tell her. “I was born here.”
Surprise flared in her eyes. Then she smiled and tipped the shell straight into her mouth. He watched her throat as she swallowed. A pulse beat strongly, and he wanted to trap it under his fingers while he licked the strong column of her neck, enjoying the salty taste of her sweat.
“Go on,” she said, looking at him from under dark lashes.
He shook his head. “There are only a handful of people who know, and you just sucked it out of me like…an oyster.”
“Is it a big secret?”
“The past is irrelevant.”
“The past is the good stuff. The things that make us who we are.”
“I don’t consider a junkie mom who overdosed on heroin and abandoned her kids the good stuff.” He saw pity in her eyes and hastened to add, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I was adopted by an incredible family, and I don’t remember anything that happened when I was living here.”
“Nothing?”
He shook his head. “The past isn’t even a memory to me. I’m all about the future. What about you? How about a little quid pro quo? Tell me why you don’t want your mother to know about us, even though there is no us. Most women consider me a catch.” Not that he’d allow himself to be caught. Marriage was the first step toward divorce, and there was no way he was going there.
She snorted. “My mother definitely considers you a catch, which is why I don’t want her to think I’ve succumbed—however briefly—to the family curse.”
He tipped another oyster into his mouth and swallowed. “And the family curse is…?”
She began to hum a vaguely familiar tune, but he couldn’t place it.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard Someday My Prince Will Come?”
He shook his head.
“Fitting, I suppose, since you’re not exactly a prince.”
“Should I be insulted?”
“Only if your desire to get me naked is rooted in the need to find a suitable wife.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you want to marry me and fill your hotel kingdom with babies?”
His stomach turned, and his horror must have shown on his face because she laughed. “Exactly. I don’t have any illusions about you, and I don’t want to put up with the load of crap I’ll get from my mom if she finds out we hooked up. She’ll think it means something it most certainly does not.”
Was he so easy to peg? A psychologist would probably have a field day with his reasons for avoiding long-term relationships and not wanting children, but who could blame him? Everyone he’d loved had left him, one way or another. He considered that while she finished her soup and explored the room-service cart. Her robe gaped as she bent to reach into the refrigerated compartment, and his cock stirred. She made a sound of triumph as she pulled out the half-empty bottle of champagne and poured two glasses.
When she handed one to him, he said, “I guess I don’t believe in happily ever after, but I’m a big fan of happy-right-now.”
“Preaching to the choir, buddy. That’s why I put on the robe.” She clinked her glass with his and then moved the other plate of oysters in front of him on the bed. “You’re going to need these. The aphrodisiac properties of oysters are well-documented.” Her naughty smile sent more blood rushing south.
“They’re already working for me.”
Her gaze dropped to his lap, and her eyes glazed. He patted the bed right next to him. For a second, he’d been tempted to suggest accepting his offer to buy Last Call was a brilliant example of happy-right-now, but business could wait. He was glad she’d put on the robe, and he wasn’t going to do anything that would jeopardize his chance to get it off of her. “Why don’t you grab a plate and sit a little closer? I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”