All Work and No Play... (In Bed with the Boss 3)

by Julie Cohen

  She remembered the friction of his skin against her breasts as he had taken her, up against that wall. So hard and yet so tender.

  He smiled down at her and nobody else in the room would have known it wasn’t real.

  Then again, nobody else in the room could see his eyes.

  ‘Do what I do, in reverse,’ he murmured to her, and began to dance.

  Jane hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she didn’t know how to dance. She’d hardly even been to a school disco. She’d danced at her two brothers’ weddings, but only to the fast songs.

  Never like this. Not slowly, close to a man, feeling his breath on the side of her face, hearing the rustle of his clothes even louder than the music.

  ‘You have to move your feet, Jane,’ Jonny said to her.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Like this.’ His grip on her waist tightened a little, and he began to move, first backwards and then to the side, in time with the music, pulling her gently along with him. They were small steps, movement for the sake of movement rather than for any point, and Jane found it easy to follow.

  ‘How’d you learn to dance?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m making it up as I go along.’

  She felt safe enough from falling over to glance up at his face. ‘You’re good at it.’

  ‘It’s not a complex dance. All it requires is for us to be close to each other and appear to be moving in harmony.’ He smiled at her again, and again it didn’t reach his eyes.

  Jane couldn’t move for a second, and her leg bumped against Jonny’s.

  She’d moved in harmony with him once. Their lips kissing, their bodies hungry for each other. Where had it gone?

  The high heels, the dress, his hands on her, all the people and the music and the lights. It was all wrong, a fake. Not who she really was.

  She pulled back from Jonny. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Shh.’ He dipped his head and nuzzled her temple as he spoke. ‘People are watching, Jane. You can do this. You’ll be fine. Just relax and follow me and the music. If we’re lucky some people will still have film in their cameras.’

  Photographs, of her at this moment, her body yearning for Jonny, and the two of them further apart than they’d ever been. ‘Jonny—’

  Jonny stopped her lips with a kiss. It was both gentle and controlling and Jane felt herself helplessly responding to it, wanting more.

  ‘I’m Jay,’ he said against her mouth. ‘And the two of us are in love.’

  He began to dance with her again, except now he pulled her closer against him, so that she had no choice but to lay her head against his shoulder.

  She could pull back and away if she wanted. She could walk off the dance floor and get a cab home and stop this charade once and for all. But he was tall and strong and his body was hard and compelling against hers and he had a power over her that she could barely understand.

  For a moment Jane closed her eyes and let herself be held by him. He didn’t wear cologne but she could smell the masculine scent of whatever he’d used in his hair to mess it into his model style. Her face was turned towards him, not far from his neck, and his skin was warm. She could hear, faintly and to a different rhythm from the song, the whoosh of his heartbeat and the swish of his breathing.

  A step backwards, one to the side. Her hip was between his legs, his thigh between hers, so close they brushed with every movement. Even through clothes, it was intimate. The way their bodies fitted together, moved together. His leg wasn’t quite touching her crotch, but his steps shifted the silk of her dress, sent a rustle and a vibration up her body that she felt as definitely as if he had slid a hand underneath her clothes to stroke her.

  Days ago, they’d been this close. She’d taken off her underwear for him. He’d slipped his hands up over her bare legs under her dress and given her mind-blowing pleasure. And then touched her with his mouth.

  Jane shuddered slightly.

  If he did it again, she would react the same way. She would be putty in his hands, shaking in the grip of the orgasm he gave her.

  He’d felt her shudder. She heard him make a low sound in his throat, and he brought their linked hands even closer to rest on his chest, pulling her more snugly against him. Her belly flattened against his.

  The song stopped and he held her still, a moment out of time where she could only hear them breathing together, and then the music started again, hazier and dreamlike. Their movements together were so slow that Jane was aware of every exaggerated sway of her hip, the small rubbing of his chest on her breasts. A public form of foreplay, a clothed imitation of the most exquisite lovemaking.

  Something she had never done with any other man. Couldn’t imagine doing with any other man.

  She felt Jonny bury his face in her hair, and inhale a deep breath that pulled her even tighter. ‘Jane,’ he whispered, so quietly she wasn’t even sure that she heard it, and he pressed a kiss into her hair. He shifted his head and kissed her forehead, then the top of her closed eyelid. The slight moisture and heat his lips left behind dissolved into coolness.

  Slowly, he unlinked his hand from hers and spread her fingers on his chest. With his now-free hand he smoothed back her hair. Her eyes closed, Jane could feel his fingers sifting through her curls. It was as if every strand had a nerve ending of its own.

  His hand settled on her neck, stroked gently around it to her chin, all in time with the hazy music. He tilted up her chin and Jane lifted her head towards him, his breath on her skin, without opening her eyes knowing his mouth was close to her.

  If she opened her eyes she’d see how this wasn’t real. She’d see his coolness, remember this was all a show. Even without looking she couldn’t believe this was real. But she could pretend it was an erotic, wonderful dream.

  Jane kept her eyes closed and when he touched his lips to her temple she hitched in a breath, heat rushing through her body. He kissed her cheekbone, down the side of her face, to the hollow underneath her ear where the skin was so sensitive that she felt goose-bumps raise themselves on her arms despite the warmth. A careful, thorough line of kisses along her jaw as she slanted her head to allow him access. And then she felt his mouth on her neck.

  His tongue touched the spot where her pulse thrummed, and Jane let out a moan, so low it could have been part of the music. But he felt it, because his kisses, still slow, became more fervent, even more thorough.

  Moving of their own accord, Jane’s fingers dug into Jonny’s shirt, stroking the hard planes of his chest. His heartbeat was faster than the music, now. When Jonny’s teeth nipped softly at her neck, she moaned again and her hips, still swaying, ground themselves into his.

  She could feel his erection. With every move, every kiss, it rubbed against her. She was so close she could tell his dimensions, compare them with her memories of him hard and hot in her hand. Of him parting her and thrusting inside her as her legs pulled him deeper and she clenched around him.

  She moved her hand inches to the side, slipped a fingertip between the buttons of his shirt. His skin nearly burned her. Even through layers of clothing she felt his penis jerk against her and harden even more.

  He groaned low and rough. His hand on her waist slid down to cup her buttock and hold her even more intimately against him. A shift of clothing and of pose and he could be inside her again, once again only the two of them in the entire universe.

  Pure instinct made her move her head and meet his lips with her own.

  Right away their tongues touched and he slipped inside her. Jonny, so real he filled every single one of her senses and made her desperate with wanting. Jonny, whom she’d had so deep inside her body that they had felt like one person, while he’d smiled into her eyes. His lips he used for talking and laughing, his teeth smooth and perfect, that confident, kind smile. His tongue giving her pleasure with his kiss. And their bodies dancing together now with no conscious thought, just harmony.

  He parted from her only to kiss her again. And again. The music
and his hardness and softness. She wanted all of him and yet his kiss was satisfying in itself, an infinite variety of movement, textures, desire.

  The song ended. She only knew it because her heartbeat sounded suddenly louder and she was more aware of his ragged breathing. Again they were caught in time in the pause of the music, and Jonny stilled his mouth on hers, just held her there as if they could stay there for ever.

  A drum roll and the music began again, this time with a flourish of clarinet. Something fast and catchy.

  Jonny lifted his mouth, kissed her once, softly, on her upper lip, and then the kiss was over. Jane opened her eyes.

  His face wasn’t cold any more. Instead his eyes were dark blue, pupils dilated with desire, his mouth parted and smeared slightly with her lipstick. She ran her thumb over his lips to remove it, and he just caught the tip of her thumb with his teeth in a gentle, erotic bite.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Jane said to him. Her voice was husky in her own ears.

  She saw him swallow. ‘Yes, I need to,’ he said, and he shifted her so he held her beside him with his arm around her shoulders pulling her tight. She missed the full-body contact, the sensation of his arousal so near to her. But they were leaving, together, and that idea held so much promise that she barely noticed the sea of people they walked through, the flashing of cameras and sequins, the words she responded to automatically because nothing counted but to get alone with Jonny and feel more of him.

  There was a cab waiting outside. He helped her into it, his hand lingering on her hip. When he slid in beside her she nestled against his side again and he held her there.

  The lights of London were nothing. Jonny was breathing beside her. She thought about closing the door to her flat behind both of them and pushing his jacket off his shoulders. Kissing him and kissing him. About him lifting her into his arms and walking with her to her bedroom. His bare thigh between hers, his firm belly. She had never seen him completely naked.

  Jane bit her lip. Again she couldn’t look at him, because if she did she would sob with lust. Instead she watched the lights go by in a blur and recognised her neighbourhood only because her body heated still more, knowing there wasn’t much time left before the two of them could be in each other’s arms again.

  He opened the door for her and helped her out of the cab. She stood, throbbing with desperation, as he paid the driver. Her hands shook as she unlocked the building door and climbed the flight of stairs, Jonny half a step behind her, warming her back with his gaze, even his footfalls masculine enough to build her desperation.

  Her flat was a million miles away. He wasn’t touching her but she felt every breath he took. At last she slid the key into the lock, twisted the knob, and opened the door.

  When she turned to Jonny he was standing with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘We did well, I think,’ he said, and the roughness that had been in his voice was smoothed out. ‘I think we convinced people, don’t you?’

  She was awash with desire. She was full of fantasies and emotion. And here was Jonny, her friend Jonny, standing here as if the last half an hour had been erased.

  ‘Convinced people?’ she repeated stupidly.

  He nodded. ‘I’m sure nobody would ever suspect that there’s nothing between us.’ He pulled one hand out of his pocket and checked his watch. ‘And we were out of the party early, too, and in such a way that Thom’s unlikely to give me a hard time. I’ll have a good few hours to put in on the book before I go to bed.’

  Jane sagged against the door. Dignity should have made her keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t help the next words coming out. ‘It was all an act? All of it?’

  Jonny shrugged. ‘It was your idea.’ He bent forward, as if to kiss her on the cheek, but then straightened without touching her. ‘Goodnight, Jane.’

  She watched him go. He had never looked so much like a stranger in a photograph.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Troubleshooting HTML, part one

  If your code doesn’t execute as you planned, don’t despair. Chances are, your mistake is simple and small, and you’ll be able to fix it by manipulating just a bit of your code, rather than trashing the entire thing and starting from scratch.

  Unfortunately, relationships are not like this.

  JONNY leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, and stared at the ceiling of his hotel room.

  Computers were easier. Computers did what you told them to. If something went wrong with a computer there was always a logical reason for it.

  ‘Please tell me that’s not why I’ve chosen to spend so much time with computers,’ he said aloud to the empty room. ‘Because that is just sad.’

  The room didn’t answer. Nor did his laptop. He didn’t think he’d find many answers if he did an internet search, either.

  Jonny sighed, and got up to stretch his aching back. He had a lot of this book to write, and a screaming deadline that he had to meet if he wanted to get paid, no matter what a mess his personal life was in.

  But HTML couldn’t keep hold of his attention when all he could think about was Jane in his arms on the dance floor, her skin under his lips and her body sweetly pressing into him.

  And then Jane at the door of her flat, with confusion, desire and pain in her grey eyes as he’d served up a little slice of revenge that had tasted bitter in his mouth as soon as he’d said it.

  Jonny flung himself back in his chair and pulled up his email application. He opened a blank message, addressed it to Jane, and typed faster than he’d managed all night.

  Jane,

  It wasn’t an act. None of it was an act at all. I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight and the only way I can stop myself from falling so much more in love with you that I’ll never escape again is to pretend to you that I don’t love you, even when I’m showing everybody else that I do.

  He stared at the words on the screen.

  How could he fix this mess? Was there some little action he could go back and change? The original email he’d sent, their meeting at lunch, the inadvertent cybersex session? The exhilarating moments when they’d been joined physically, closer than he’d felt to anyone before?

  Even when he’d been making love with her, when it had seemed perfect and wonderful and his dreams come true, it had been going wrong.

  His finger hovered over the mouse button to send the email to Jane. After all the deception and the misunderstandings, was the truth going to make anything any better?

  Jonny pictured her sitting in that bare flat, at her desk, reading his email. He saw her biting her lip and her expressive eyes filling with worry.

  She wanted him. But it was because of how he looked, and despite how she felt. And if she didn’t love him back, there was no point opening up his heart, because that wasn’t going to be fixed easily, either.

  He deleted the email, unsent, and clicked back on his word-processing program. He had a lot of work to do, and he certainly wasn’t going to get any sleep.

  They were in a tree, dangling their legs, except they were all grown up. She wore her silk dress and Jonny’s shirt was half open, unbuttoned at the top, his blue tie pulled askew. His hair was tousled but it wasn’t from styling. It was from her fingers.

  Her mouth felt raw from kissing. Her body was on fire. Jonny took off his glasses and his eyes were bluer than the sky surrounding them.

  ‘Tell me your fantasy,’ she said to him. A puff of breeze caught her hair, blew through her bare toes, and made her feel as if she could fly.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said, and he reached for her.

  He touched her and there was music. Hazy and compelling as a heartbeat, filtering through the leaves. Jane slid forward on her branch so she was close to him, close enough to dance. She raised her face to his and kissed him one more time.

  And then they were falling down, and the limbs of the tree were hitting the ground before them, hitting with dull thuds.

  Just before they re
ached the ground Jane sat up straight in bed, her heart racing and her body barely able to believe that she wasn’t falling through space, and she wasn’t in Jonny’s arms.

  ‘Stupid dream,’ she muttered, pushing her hair back from her face. It was tangled and damp with sweat. She kicked aside the covers and swung her legs out of bed and she heard the dull thuds from her dream again.

  It was the door. ‘Just a minute,’ she called, and found a pair of pyjama bottoms on her bedroom chair. The first time she put them on backwards so she had to sit on her bed and put them on again.

  Whoever it was was knocking on the door for the third time by the time she finally got to it. When she opened it, it was Jonny.

  He had on jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt and his dark-rimmed glasses and despite all this he looked so much as he had in her dream that she couldn’t do anything but stare at him in surprise.

  ‘Sleeping in?’

  His voice was cheerful, a complete contrast to how he’d left her last night, or the low passionate tones of her dream. He held out a cardboard cup with a plastic lid to her.

  ‘Skinny latte with chocolate. It should wake you up.’

  Jane didn’t take it. Instead she attempted to push back her hair again, but it was too much of a rat’s nest. That should teach her to use hairspray.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

  ‘Bringing you your favourite coffee?’ He held it closer to her.

  ‘Why else?’

  ‘We’ve got a date, remember?’

  She frowned, thinking back. ‘No. I don’t remember.’

  ‘We’re going away for the weekend.’

  Comprehension dawned. ‘You mean, what you told Gary and Kathleen? But that was a lie, right?’

  ‘Nope.’ He nudged a suitcase on the floor with his foot. ‘We’ve got a train in forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jonny shook his head. ‘Take the coffee, and let me in, and I’ll pretend I’m not insulted by your being so appalled that I want to go away with you for the weekend.’