Between Brothers

by Lauren Gallagher

And if I thought my blood pressure couldn’t jump any higher, I came around the corner and ran right into Max Gordon.

  Good Christ, he was wearing a suit that day. A tailored, shoulder-hugging, mouthwatering black suit.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile.

  “Hey,” I said, swallowing hard. Just what I needed. A meeting with a sexy man who was totally out of my league while I tried to survive the day without anyone realizing I was dressed like a slut in a businesswoman’s suit.

  We sat down at my desk and started going over some reports. At one point, he leaned over to get a better look at the section I’d highlighted. As he did, I caught that familiar mix of smoke and cologne, and my head spun as I wondered if his kiss tasted anything like Eric’s.

  Focus, I ordered myself. Work. Not sex.

  Trying to get comfortable, I crossed my legs and rested one hand on my thigh. To my horror, I realized that my posture had pulled my skirt taut over my leg. All it would take was a downward glance, and he would see the outline of the garter beneath my skirt. Panic surged through me. If I didn’t move my legs, he might see it. If I uncrossed and crossed them, the movement might catch his eye. I couldn’t be the only woman in the world who wore a garter, but I knew how Darren had responded to them. It was nothing if not provocative, something that was worn to be noticed, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted Max to notice.

  “Marisa?”

  My head snapped up. Max raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, I’m just not running on a lot of sleep.” Because I’m a fucking slut, and God Almighty am I dressed the part today. “What were you saying?”

  I fumbled my way through the rest of our meeting. After Max left, my friend, Colette, swung by my desk to see if I wanted to go for lunch.

  “Definitely,” I said. “I need to get out of here for a while.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  On the way out to the car, Max came around the corner in the hall and walked out with us.

  “You mean they actually let you ladies eat once in a while?” he said, smiling at both of us as we turned into the lobby.

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, so I just laughed softly. She said, “I’m sure they wouldn’t if we had a slave driver like you in charge.”

  Max snorted. “If they put me in charge, more than just the lunch breaks would be changing.”

  “Yeah, the place would probably go out of business in no time flat,” she said.

  He feigned offense. “I’m hurt, Colette, I really am.”

  “No you aren’t. Now get out of here before someone thinks we keep company with the likes of you.”

  He laughed and headed across the parking lot to his own car.

  “If he made the rules,” she said. “We’d probably all have to dress like the receptionists.”

  Well, if that were the case, I’m off to a damned good start today. “Good thing he’s not in charge then,” I said. My cheeks were on fire. Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice.

  “Are you blushing, Marisa?”

  Damn you. “No,” I said with a laugh that I instantly knew wouldn’t convince her.

  “You still have a crush on him, don’t you?” she teased as we got into the car.

  I laughed, hoping my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

  She shrugged. “Can’t say I blame you.”

  “He certainly isn’t husband material,” I said. “But damn, what I wouldn’t give to—” I cut myself off, suddenly remembering I was talking to Colette, not Darren.

  Her jaw dropped. “Did I just hear you right?” She certainly had no qualms about saying things like that, but I

  had never been quite so candid about such topics at work.

  My cheeks must have been bright red at this point. “Nevermind.”

  She clicked her tongue and laughed. “Like you’d do anything like that.”

  Oh, if you only knew. “Well, every girl has her secrets,” I said.

  She blinked, but didn’t ask.

  “Anyway,” I said with a shrug. “He’d have to notice me before I had a snowball’s chance in hell with him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, he’s not going to notice you if you keep wearing camouflage to work.”

  I eyed her. “Camouflage?”

  “Yeah. Cubicle camouflage.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She gestured at my clothes. “Come on, you’re dressed in almost the same color as the cubicle walls.”

  I looked down at my light tan skirt and coat and thought of the bland cubicle walls of the same color. Holy shit.

  “He doesn’t notice you,” she said. “Because you’re dressing to go unnoticed. He notices the receptionists because they’re dressed to be noticeable. No one’s going to notice a chameleon when he’s too busy checking out the Birds of Paradise.”

  I thought of the receptionists for a moment, mentally scrutinizing their short skirts and dangerously low cut blouses. Colette was absolutely right. Max noticed the girls that dressed to be noticed. I was dressed to blend in with the damned furniture.

  I sighed at the sinking feeling in my gut. I couldn’t come to work dressed like that, with just enough skin covered to keep me within the company’s relatively lax dress code. Just wearing sexy lingerie underneath my clothes had raised my blood pressure several points and rendered me almost paralyzed by self-consciousness.

  Darren may have tugged me partway out of my shell, but dressing like that would be a bit much. If that was what Max wanted, then he was, as I’d long suspected, out of my league.

  “Well,” Colette said. “I don’t blame you a bit for

  wanting a piece of him. I certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”

  “I wonder what he’s like in bed.”

  “I still can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.” Colette giggled. Then she said, matter-of-factly, “I’ll bet he’s incredible with his mouth.”

  I stared at her. “What makes you say that?”

  “He’s a smoker,” she said with a shrug. “He’s always chewing gum. If he isn’t chewing gum, he’s chewing a pen.”

  “And?”

  “Two words,” she said, grinning at me. “Oral. Fixation.”

  Be still, my beating heart. “You think so?”

  “Hell yeah,” she said. “The man is always doing something with his mouth. Always.”

  I had never thought of it that way, but she was absolutely right. And I wanted to smack her right then, because now I would never, ever be able to concentrate in Max Gordon’s presence.

  Twenty One

  Darren’s flight was due to land around one o’clock on Thursday afternoon, so it was no surprise when I received a text message at one fifteen.

  Busy tonight?

  I laughed, then wrote, I suppose that’s up to you, isn’t it?

  Moments later, he came back with, I’ll be there when you get home.

  I almost squealed with excitement. So much for getting anything done that day.

  The afternoon crawled by, but mercifully, five o’clock finally showed up. All the way home, I prayed that every cop in the area was busy, because if one of them pulled me over at that speed, I was going to be paying through the nose. Fortunately, the interstate was free of speed traps, and I made it home in record time.

  My heart leaped when I pulled into the parking lot and saw Darren’s car in one of the visitor spots. As soon as I got out of the car, he was out of his and next to mine. He kissed me, pushing his hips against me and making sure I felt just how hard he was right then.

  “Fuck, I missed you,” he said.

  “It was only a week,” I laughed.

  “I know,” he said, kissing me in between speaking. “But…fuck, I’ve been looking forward to this for days.”

  His kiss melted my spine. I broke away just long enough to say, “Then let’s take it inside.”

  “We could do it in the car.”


  Tempting. So very, very tempting. “In the house,” I said.

  We made it into the house—barely. We were still pulling clothes off even as he fucked me over the back of a chair in the living room. It was fast, furious, and perhaps five minutes after we came through the door, we were lying in bed and relaxing.

  “So how was your trip?” I asked as we lay together afterward.

  He shrugged. “Typical business bullshit.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why they needed me to go with them. There’s nothing they needed to tell me that they couldn’t have told me via e-mail. Fuckers.” Then he grinned. “But hey, if the client’s providing free booze and entertainment, I’m not going to bitch.”

  “Entertainment?” I raised an eyebrow. “Just what kind of entertainment?”

  “Actually the client just took us out to some of the restaurants in town,” he said. “But a couple of my buddies and I went to a strip club the other night.”

  “A strip club?” I smirked. “I didn’t think you were the type to enjoy such filth.”

  He batted his eyes innocently. “I hated every moment, of it, I promise.”

  “Liar,” I laughed.

  He grinned and kissed me gently. “I should take you to a strip club with me sometime.”

  “What?” I blinked.

  “Sure,” he said. “You never know, you might enjoy it.”

  “What is the attraction to strip clubs, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, how aggravating is it to watch a girl take her clothes off, when you can’t touch her anyway?”

  He laughed. “That’s half the fun.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Restraint.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

  He shifted his weight and propped himself up on one elbow. “Think about it,” he said. “It’s that thrill of ‘you can look, but don’t touch’. A hot, naked, gyrating woman, close enough to touch, but you can’t.”

  “So you’re paying to be teased?”

  “They don’t call it a striptease for nothing.”

  I pursed my lips. “Guys really enjoy that sort of thing?”

  He let out a breath. “Fuck yes. Especially if it’s a lap dance. When you can actually feel her against you, when she’s close enough to taste, but there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it…” He trailed off, closing his eyes for a second and exhaling.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  He smiled. “It may not make a lot of sense on paper, but trust me on this one,” he said. “Tease a man like that—tell him he can look at you, but he can’t touch you, and he’ll lose his ever-loving mind.”

  I paused, then laughed. “So that’s why you were so horny tonight.”

  His cheeks darkened. “Okay, you got me.” He kissed me. “But trust me, it wasn’t just the strip club that had me climbing the walls wanting to get back here.”

  “I suppose that’s a compliment.”

  “Trust me, babe, it is.” He smiled. “Strippers are hot, and they teased me to no end, but I’ve been wanting your pussy since before I even set foot in that club.”

  “Maybe I should strip for you,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  He sucked in a breath. “I think you’d kill me.” His brow furrowed and his lips twisted into a grin. I could tell he was picturing it.

  “I was kidding, Darren.”

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “Watching you strip would be fucking hot.” He touched the side of my face. “In fact, you should try it with Casanova.”

  My jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “It’ll mean taking a serious step out of your comfort zone, but I promise you, it’ll be worth it.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Baby, I guarantee you, if the man is a true red-blooded male, and you give him a striptease and a lap dance, he will be dying to fuck you within an inch of your life.”

  My breath caught in my throat at the thought of doing that to Eric, of driving him wild. I swallowed. “But, I don’t even know the first thing about stripping or lap dancing or

  anything like that.”

  “Trust me,” he said with a wink. “You don’t have to do it perfectly. Just slowly taking your clothes off, getting in his lap, touching him, but not letting him touch you…” He swallowed, then licked his lips. “Just, trust me.” Before I could speak, he pulled me close. “In fact, just thinking about you doing that is turning me on.”

  Twenty Two

  I chewed my thumbnail and paced in the living room. Eric would be along any minute, and I was second-guessing my plans for the evening. He would think it was ridiculous. I’d look like an idiot.

  I caught my own reflection in the TV screen and quickly looked away. Though I was dressed like I always dressed for work, all I could see was what was hidden under my ultra conservative skirt and coat.

  I glanced at the clock and wondered if I had time to quickly change into something a bit less risqué, but he’d be along any second. “Fuck,” I said aloud.

  No, I was going to do this. I had to. Darren hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and this was his idea.

  The doorbell rang.

  Too late for second thoughts.

  A shiver, one of both anticipation and sheer terror, ran up my spine as I went for the door. I let him in and he pulled me into a deep kiss, the kind of breathtaking kiss I had come to expect from him.

  He leaned me up against the door and kissed me again. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

  “So have I.” I pushed him back gently and looked him in the eye. “In fact, I have some plans for us tonight.”

  He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Is that so?”

  I nodded. “I’m calling the shots tonight.”

  “Feisty.” He bent to kiss my neck, sliding his hand over my hip to my thigh, his body tensing when his fingers grazed the hidden strap beneath my skirt. Cocking his head, he looked at me as he ran his fingers up the telltale shape of my garter. “That’s new.” His eyebrow lifted slightly and his lip curled into a dirty smirk.

  “Indeed it is.” I grinned, hoping he didn’t see my waning confidence.

  He ran his hands up and down my thighs, fingering the garter straps. “So what is this evil plan of yours tonight?”

  “What makes you think my plan is evil?”’

  “Well, if it isn’t evil, then I don’t want any part of it.”

  “I assure you, you want a part of this.”

  He grinned and kissed me. “Then it must be evil.”

  “Fair enough. Then I suppose I should tell you the rules.”

  “Rules?” He scowled, but his eyes were still sparkling with mischievousness.

  “Yes,” I said. “You are going to sit in that chair,” I gestured over his shoulder at my black leather armchair. “Until I tell you otherwise.”

  He glanced at the chair then looked back at me, that eyebrow lifting again.

  I went on. “And you can’t touch me until I tell you that you can touch me.”

  “I can’t touch you?”

  I shook my head.

  “But I want to touch you.”

  “You will. When I tell you that you can.”

  He grinned as he took his hand off my thigh and stepped back. “You’re the boss.”

  I nodded towards the chair and he gave me another devilish grin before crossing the living room and sitting in the armchair as I’d ordered.

  I turned towards the stereo and swallowed hard as I pushed “play”. When I faced him, he was watching me, his expression as curious as it was devilish. The music started and drowned out my thundering heartbeat.

  I swiveled my hips and moved in time with the music, running my hands over my clothed hips and breasts, just like the dancers did in the videos I’d watched earlier that evening. A heartbeat’s worth of embarrassment flickered through my consciousness, but it faded as Eric’s lips parted. He shifted in the chair.

  Still uncertain, but feeling a bit
less self-conscious, I

  unbuttoned my jacket and let it slide off my shoulders, then off of my arms, before tossing it aside. I started on the buttons of my shirt, watching his eyes as he watched me.

  Without taking his eyes off of me, he reached into his pocket and pulled three condoms out, setting them on the table beside his chair.

  “You seem pretty confident that you’ll be needing those,” I said as my shirt fell away enough to reveal my lacy red bra.

  He exhaled and looked into my eyes. “With what you’re doing,” he sounded breathless already. “I don’t think three will be enough.”

  I smiled and my self-consciousness was forgotten. I let my shirt fall to the floor and a moment later, dropped my skirt with it.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathed, staring at me, at the red garter belt. “Oh my God, that…” He chewed the second knuckle of his index finger, shaking his head and gripping the armrest with his other hand. Finally, he looked in my eyes and said, “You look fucking incredible.”

  “Why thank you,” I said with a grin. I moved towards him, slowly, watching the way his breath caught each time my hips moved. He was holding the armrests with both hands now, barely breathing, his jeans barely accommodating how obviously turned on he was.

  I had him right where I wanted him.

  I turned around and put my hands over his on the armrests, slowly lowering myself into his lap. Leaning into him, I pushed my ass against his rock hard cock, grinning with satisfaction as his knuckles turned white and his breath whispered across my shoulder. He groaned softly.

  I let my head fall back beside his. “Do you like that?” I whispered.

  “Oh fuck yes. I love it.” He turned to kiss me, but I gave him a coy smile and stayed just out of reach. If he kissed me, I wasn’t going to be able to keep this going. As it was, I was barely keeping myself from trembling as badly as he was. I hadn’t counted on how difficult it would be to restrain myself.

  I stood and turned around. I put one knee on the cushion beside his leg, shivering at the soft moan that escaped his lips when our legs touched, even if it was through my thigh-high stockings and his jeans. I brought my other knee up beside his other leg, straddling him in the chair and leaning forward so that my breasts were just out of reach of his mouth.