by Sage, May
It was uncanny, how important it seem to understand what made that half smile form at the corner of her mouth; he couldn’t recall ever being as intrigued by anything.
“Something I missed?”
“People assume Alice likes orange juice. And crocheting. And baking. She’s upset about it, because she can’t stand orange juice.”
“How about…”
“Cakes are sacred and wait until you see my crocheted bikini before condemning my hobbies. And I’ll have a brandy, if they’ve got it.”
Ah. So the little princess didn’t want to be viewed as such; Colt couldn’t help his predatory smile. He could think of a few ways to make her feel very, very bad.
“It seems to be a standard, though. Assume three things about me. Two would be right, the last, absolutely off the mark.”
“Really?” Kellan was asking, a certain glint in his eyes; everyone groaned. He was about to make a challenge out of it.
“Everytime.”
“I’m game if you can make it worth my while. If I win, I get a kiss?”
Kellan obviously had a death wish; he knew how territorial Colt was. He hadn’t shared Action Man figures a quarter of a century ago; what made him think he’d changed in the meantime?
“And what do I win?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
Colt really didn’t like that. Without meaning to do so, he’d walked closer, standing just behind her stool. She didn’t seem to mind, so he grew bolder yet, and placed his hand on her back again.
Still no visible reaction.
What was she thinking?
“Well, then you get to kiss whichever one of us you little heart desires, don’t you?”
Kellan was dead meat if he carried on looking at her like he wanted a piece.
She seemed to consider it, for a minute, but then, she was nodding.
Great. He was going to be incarcerated for murdering a sibling tonight.
Colt didn’t understand it, and for a heartbeat, he despised her for the unreasonable hold she had on him. His attraction, taken to the nth degree, had somehow forged some sense of possessiveness that had no logical grounds. He didn’t know her. Hell, he didn’t even like her that much. She smiled too much; some of it had to be faked. She was nothing but a pretty package.
When telling himself that failed to work, he downed the beer and signaled the barman for another round, switching to scotch.
“No, I’ve got one! You were on the student council, a cheerleader and you won Homecoming Queen, right?”
“Right, wrong, right,” she responded in her singsong voice, yet again proving her ridiculous theory true.
It was uncanny. Everyone except Colt had taken part on and off for two hours; one of his brother or Tamsin would randomly throw a few suggestions and it didn’t matter how likely they seemed, there was always a wrong one.
She’d given her sister’s phone number to check each fact and when Kellan had lost his tenth bet, he’d contacted her; she wasn’t lying.
Colt only smiled; they were looking at that game the wrong way. He could win in two seconds flat, anytime; he would have, too, if he hadn’t been ninety-nine percent certain that Alice would choose him, when she was crowned victor.
She was on her fourth glass of brandy, and it had loosened the perfect exterior; instead of seeming entirely indifferent to his touch, and staying elegantly poised, hands on her closed knees, she’d gotten up and tucked herself under his arm.
Yeah, he was pretty damn smug about that. She could have chosen Kellan or Kane, but she was sticking to him.
“They are boring,” she murmured against his ear, getting on her tiptoes to reach his face.
Her hand was resting on his chest and her body, completely flush against his. How right that felt.
“You’re right, they are. I’d give it a go, but I’m afraid that would end the game prematurely.”
“That confident, are you?”
“Oh yes. Give me a free go, I’ll prove it.”
“Free?”
“One guess doesn’t count – so we don’t have to end the game for the rest of the kids.”
She considered that, before asking:
“Is it still worth a kiss?”
Is it ever.
“Well, I think that would be fair, wouldn’t you?”
She swallowed hard, eyes locked on his lips, before nodding.
“Right. Well, you’ve never had anal sex. You never fucked in a public venue. You broke up every single relationship you’ve ever had.”
Her eyes widened in shock, although he’d stuck to the most lackluster assumptions he could make about her. He had a few others at the back of his mind. She’d never had a threesome, she probably fucked with the light off, she had most definitely never had her asshole licked…
He’d do all of that to her, if she became his. Well, maybe not the threesome, he reserved those to hookups, not girlfriends.
That was a big if. When she was in his arms, everything seemed simple, but it really wasn’t.
For one, she was drunk. Sober, she’d never shown an inclination toward him. That meant that while he would most definitely take full advantage of those lips in about three seconds, it wasn’t going to go further right now.
Secondly, he was still a workaholic who couldn’t keep a girlfriend, regardless of the size of his wallet.
Thirdly… Oh yes.
There was that on the pro side of the coin.
Completely cutting off his train of thoughts, Alice brought her lips to his and kissed him like her next breath depended on it.
Fuck.
He almost fell on the stool behind him, and she climbed on his lap as soon as he was sitting, straddling him right against his hardening dick.
Triple fuck, she knew what she was doing.
When he thought the kiss couldn’t possibly get any better, her tongue came out to lick his lips, before brushing against his, teasingly. Damn. If they’d been alone, he would already have worked that dress up her delightful curves; nevermind the brandy she’d ingested.
She moaned in his mouth when he gathered his wits enough to kiss her back and his hands worked up her thighs.
Fuck. Stockings. She wore stockings; not thighs, not even hold-ups – stockings, with a garter belt.
He was screwed.
Chapter 3
Four days later, she still wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
Brandy was the enemy, never again would she succumb to it.
Funny enough, she wasn’t embarrassed by the dozen of little things her new circle of friends had learned about her; from the constant presence of Momo, the one eyed teddy bear who shared her bed, to her admission to crying at every single Disney movie she’d ever watched. It wasn’t her fault: the music composers of Disney soundtracks were evil geniuses, their oeuvres, delivered just when the protagonist was going through a rough patch, never failed to turn the water works on.
No, what made her want to curl up and never again leave the house was the fact that one look at her and Colt Colburn could tell she was Ms. Boring in the sack.
“It’s a bit early, but as you’ve all sent me your Christmas and New Year Eve pieces, there’s no event between now and Valentine’s day. Most of us have got holidays in January, so I thought we could divide the workload while we’re all in.”
Linda, always organized, had got them to think about Halloween in August, Christmas by Halloween, so it was no surprise to see her get to Valentine’s Day now.
“The heart and flower crap sold less than any other issue. Our readers want realistic, in depth; how to keep him interested, rather than and we lived happily ever after.”
Most nodded, admittedly reluctantly. It was a hard pill to swallow, but an accurate one. HEA was dead, to their generation.
There were eleven writers working at On Top. Jess, who wrote sexy stuff, mainly, was the only married one, and anyone who read between the lines could tell that her relationship wasn’t all that. Karen, Jackie, Steve, Paul
a and herself had found that their partners had been cheating on them at some point. Linda and Helene had been dumped. Gwen had done the dumping. Tony and Natasha were stressed, always on their toes, because they couldn’t tell where their respective relationships were going.
They were a diverse bunch, so if they were in any way representative of their demography, Linda had a point.
“I want things our readers would relate to, which means things we would relate to. Any ideas?”
Alice’s hand was up before she’d finished asking the question; she always had ideas. Good ones, too.
“How about a bucket list? You know, ten sexual things I’ve never done before Valentine’s Day.”
“That’s great. Jess?”
“On it,” the sensual blonde announced, forcing a smile while she wrote things down.
Wait a minute, that wasn’t right.
Not the fact that her proposal had just been poached and given to someone else – that, Alice was used to – but Jess’s expression. She was good at hiding her feelings but this time, she completely failed. She seemed about to cry.
“Actually, I want to do it,” Alice volunteered before she could think.
Everyone turned to her, no doubt assessing her youthful pout and attempting to pair it up with the idea of accomplishing a sexual bucketlist.
Laughter erupted. Fucking laughter.
She straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes.
“That was my idea, Linda. I never say anything, but how would you feel if every time you proposed something, your boss was handing it down to someone else?”
She’d never said it out loud, although others had brought it up, wondering if she did mind about them writing a project she’d thought about.
Alice normally brushed it off. She wouldn’t have bothered protesting today, if it hadn’t been obvious that Jess was dreading the prospect of accomplishing anything sexual. One only had to meet her asshole of a husband to understand.
The snickering immediately stopped and Linda looked concerned and guilty. Shit; that hadn’t been part of the plan.
“I wasn’t… aware I was doing that to you, Alice. Fuck, I’d be fuming. I just thought it wouldn’t be your area of expertise.”
Yep. Because everyone knew she was Ms. Boring.
“But of course you can work on it. Just let me know if you can’t handle it.”
Alice nodded, wondering how the hell she was going to dig herself out of that one.
It took five minutes to find a solution, twelve days to act on it.
Step one had been to actually write the damn bucket list in black and white; step two was to find a specimen willing to experiment each point.
Actually, that was a lie. Step two was finding the guts to approach the said specimen, because she’d immediately decided who was the best person to speak to.
Alice finally convinced herself to go for it at one in the morning a Friday, and to ensure she wouldn’t chicken out, she’d sent an email asking Tamsin if she could be received that afternoon.
It wasn’t the first time she’d made it to the long, tall tower belonging to Colburn Global, but in October, she’d been confident, fearless. She’d known there was a good chance or receiving a rebuff, and she hadn’t cared. It wouldn’t have been personal.
The situation wasn’t very different now. She needed his help to write an article. That was all it was, she repeated to herself.
Yuck. Her hands were sweaty. Hands actually did that?
She looked around for something to wipe them with, and had to settle on her legs.
At their first meeting, she’d worn her poshest business dress, a dark purple A-line one inch bellow the knees. Today, she’d gone for the complete opposite: leggings, ankle boots, a long white tunique and a leather jacket. It was purposeful, hopefully reminding him that she was here as a friend of a friend, too.
She smiled at the receptionist who indicated the elevator, inviting her to go right up. The reporter in her loved that; she’d met him in the cafeteria, the last time around. Having a peak of the CEO’s office was so much better.
There were a few people with her in the lift at first, but they stopped at the thirteenth, the fifteenth, the twenty-first floor, letting her ride the rest of the way by herself.
Alice was suddenly in broad daylight; the elevator had been utterly dark until she reached the last floor, but now every wall was transparent, giving her an unparalleled view of the city.
She really seemed to be at the top of the world.
The door opened at the thirty-first floor, but she ignored it, too taken by the unbelievable perspective.
“Ms. Vaughan?”
She turned to an attractive guy who was looking at her from behind a large desk.
“The view is the same in Mr. Colburn’s office. You’re expected right about now.”
•
Colt hadn’t been surprised by the Tamsin’s email – inconvenienced, but not surprised.
“Alice wants to see you, give me a suitable time,” was all it had said.
There wasn’t a suitable time today – or within the next three to five days, for that matter. They were closing for Christmas week and the list of things to do beforehand was humongous.
However, Colt knew better than to put out Tamsin and Alice.
He’d known for over almost that Alice had something to say for close to a fortnight; the way she’d looked at him when she’d thought he hadn’t been looking, and blushed when he’d caught her at it had given him a clear idea of what it might be.
It had made him smile. That genuine shyness was refreshing – also unnecessary. They weren’t in high school anymore: she could have just walked across the room and jumped on him, no one would have cared. Tamsin would have let them borrow a room to get the initial frustration out of their systems.
But it wasn’t what she was made of; in the world of girls like Alice Vaughan, men chivalrously did the work. That was fine with him; he could time it right. He’d planned on asking her out sometime between Christmas and the New Year, because his workload was ridiculous at the moment; besides, watching her squirm had been entertaining. Frustrating, but entertaining.
However here she was; Colt couldn’t pretend to be entirely displeased. Bad timing, but he respected her for growing a pair of balls.
Bruno let her in and she put him on his ass again.
He liked the look; goodie two shoes had met a rock chick. The leggings revealed the curve of her thighs – taut, feminine, slim and extremely sexy. To make things worse, she closed her legs, proving that, indeed, she had a boxed gap.
He swallowed hard, wondering why the hell he’d met her at the office.
He immediately pushed the Do Not Disturb button under his desk.
“Alice. Take a seat. Can I get you a drink, princess?”
The princess thing slipped through his lips before he could help it.
She sat and nodded, without a word, looking down at her hands and blushing.
Fuck, that was sweet.
“Brandy?”
“Don’t you dare,” she replied, finally finding her voice. “I’ll have something that won’t make me confess to my darkest sins, please.”
“Champagne it is.”
“It’s two, Colt. Coffee would do.”
“Boring.”
That word did something rather drastic to her whole persona – her confidence, completely nonexistent one second, blossomed and made her shine like a diamond. Shoulders back, she stared at him head on, the dark purple eyes blazing fiercely under the long lashes, freezing him in place.
“Yes, I am. That’s the reason I’m here, actually. Bring me a flute and come back here; sit.”
She was ordering him around. Him.
Why the hell was he obeying?
“I generally am the one giving direction within these walls, princess.”
“Perhaps. But you’ll want to be sitting for this. Right. Cut to the chase, I need you to be my sex toy for a litt
le while.”
A beat passed. And another one. A couple of minutes, after that.
“Come again?”
Chapter 4
There was no way he’d heard that right. Unless she’d been kidnapped, abducted and replaced by some sort of alien; he knew a wiz from college who’d gone into something related to spaceships and UFOs, he could get a report, try and track the most recent activities around California.
“I’m boring. You know it, I know it – everyone who meets me can see it.”
“I never said… Fuck, it was just about coffee.”
“Never had anal sex, public sex…”
“A lot of people aren’t… adventurous.”
“You mean, a lot of people are boring. It’s a problem for me on various levels; professionally, for one. I’m a journalist in an entertainment magazine, but every single idea I get is given to other members of the team, who are deemed more adventurous,” she said, emphasizing on his term of choice. “I’ve had a brilliant idea for Valentine’s Day – a sexual bucket list piece, and I want to be the one writing it. However, I’m a content writer, I don’t do fiction. I want to get the fun, the dirty and the ugly in black and white.”
By the time she’d finished the tirade, he’d downed his flute; he grabbed the bottle and filled his glass up again.
Right now, there was an angel on his left shoulder, a devil on the right one. He was too engrossed by what was coming out of Alice’s mouth to listen to either of them.
“Sexual bucket list,” he repeated.
Single-minded, but oh, well, he was a man.
She fetched something out of the inner pocket of her jacket, and presented him with a piece of paper.
Fuck the angel. He was on his merry way to hell.
Public location. Club? Office? Parking lot? Somewhere were we can get caught, anyway.
Load a sex tape online. No face. Fake hair.
Quickie.
Mile-high club membership.
Public bathroom.
Masturbate in front of him.