Playing to Win

by Sami Lee

  “Did you just say…”

  “Wank material.” Sam winced. “That’s way too coarse, but it’s the truth. I’ve been as hard as a flagpole since the second I saw you hours ago, when we were both standing right here. All the blood rushing in that direction has made my brain pretty useless. Anson had to stop me ripping off the arms of that guy who hit on you. Hell, I almost ripped Anson’s arms off.”

  Abbi watched, stunned, as Sam ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

  “Why?” she asked, needing him to say it. “Why did you feel that way?”

  “Because I’m a jerk.” He smiled that self-deprecating smile. “And a hypocrite. I’ve been picturing you naked for weeks, but I don’t like it when other men do it.”

  Abbi sank back against the door because her legs suddenly turned to jelly. Sam had been lusting after her? He was jealous over her? Her heart thundered, damn near rattling her rib cage. Nerves made her mouth dry out and she instinctively licked her lips.

  Sam’s gaze caught the action. His suddenly intense focus made her heart knock harder against her sternum, when Abbi wouldn’t have thought that possible. She opened her mouth to say something, to ask him why, or when, or how on earth a man who could have any woman in the world had taken an interest in her, but all that came out was his name on a moan full of longing that was far too revealing. “Sam.”

  He responded with a groan and one purposeful stride forward. The next thing Abbi knew, she was in his arms, her lips melting beneath his as he took her mouth in a savage kiss. She snaked her arms around his neck, opening for him, offering herself. Giving away the secret of her desire that she’d fought so hard to hide. It was all out in the open now. He couldn’t misinterpret the way she kissed him with such pent-up hunger. She’d wanted him for long torturous weeks and now he knew it.

  But he was kissing her the exact same way, as though he was starved for the taste of her. Abbi’s heart soared at the knowledge. Big, sexy, stud-and-a-half Sam Cormack wanted her. The thought was delicious, and it increased her arousal tenfold. Her breasts ached where they were pressed against the hard wall of Sam’s chest and wetness gathered between her legs.

  There was no going back to a place of sensibility now. Abbi didn’t want to.

  “Abs.” Sam pulled back enough so they could both breathe, but he couldn’t seem to stop sampling her lips in frantic little bites. “Abs. Fuck. I want you. I’ve been going mad with it.”

  He was a client. Sleeping with him could screw up her career. He was a player who could break her heart if she let him. Yet his raw, honest confession destroyed whatever was left of her sense of responsibility.

  He can only hurt you if you let him into your heart, Abbi. Which you won’t. And you’ll only wreck your career if you lose your head.

  Abbi unwound her arms from around Sam’s neck and unfurled her clenched fist. She’d held onto her keys so tightly they’d made red marks on her palm. She selected the door key and turned around to insert it into the lock.

  “Abbi?”

  The note of uncertainty in his query made her heart flutter. She wondered if it wasn’t already too late to keep her emotions intact where Sam was concerned. Sex for the sake of it, without love or the potential for it, was not something she’d ever tried. But it couldn’t be that hard, right? Men could do it.

  Sam could do it.

  Why not her?

  Keep your heart and head together, that’s all you have to do.

  Abbi pushed open the door and stepped inside her apartment. Then she turned and met Sam’s gaze with a smile. “Aren’t you coming in?”

  Chapter 4

  Is that a trick question?

  The glib retort remained trapped in Sam’s head. Too many messages were firing around in there, and the ones that controlled speech weren’t operating as they should. The only synapses that were working were the ones that told his dick to stay hard, and the ones that demanded he step over Abbi’s threshold, kick the door shut behind him and sweep her up into his arms where she belonged.

  He devoured her mouth again and she responded with the same fire as before. Damn, but she tasted so intoxicating, so heady and sexy. She completely did his head in, and before he knew it, she was pressed against the closed door and he had her sweet little breasts in his hands.

  Why Sam had ever thought bigger was better was beyond him. Abbi’s soft mounds felt so right in his hands, their peaks stiff against his palms as he kneaded her flesh. The silky material of the dress was a flimsy barrier, but a barrier all the same. He wanted it gone.

  Abbi seemed to feel the same way about his jacket and shirt, because she was desperately trying to pull them off. He’d suspected she might have been attracted to him despite the scorn with which she’d usually addressed him, but Sam hadn’t dared hope for this kind of enthusiasm. Her impatience fed his own, and he stepped back far enough to strip off his jacket.

  While he ripped off his tie and then started yanking at the buttons of his shirt, Abbi watched him with hunger in her eyes. He saw it in the soft light of the foyer lamp she’d left on earlier. He also saw the sharp jut of those eager little nipples pressing against the dress and the way her cleavage heaved with her panted breaths.

  “I changed my mind, I love that dress,” Sam said. “But take it off now.”

  She hesitated only a second before reaching behind her neck for the halter fastening. She undid it quickly and the blue-green silk fell to her waist, revealing the soft swell of pale breasts with dark, pointed tips. Sam’s erection jerked. Then she pushed the garment over her hips, doing a little shimmy that made her tits sway and revealed…

  Nothing.

  Holy mother of God.

  “You weren’t wearing panties?” The question practically wheezed out of him. “All night you had nothing on under there and I didn’t know?”

  She glanced downward self-consciously. “The dress was too clingy. There would have been a visible panty line.”

  Sam had no idea what she was talking about. He barely heard her over the roaring of blood in his ears. His cock was a rock-solid shaft of pure, primal need, and as a result, it was pretty much the only thing he was capable of listening to anyway. He rested a palm on the door beside Abbi’s head and leaned over her while his other hand went to her stomach and then quickly down to the small thatch of hair between her legs.

  She gasped when he touched her intimate folds. Sam barely stifled a groan. She was wet. His finger wasn’t even inside her and he could feel the abundance of moisture. “Open your legs.”

  Abbi stared up at him, her green eyes wide with surprise. But she obeyed his gruffly issued command, shifting her legs apart. Her heels made soft clicking noises on the tiles. Was there anything hotter than a woman wearing nothing but heels?

  Was there anything hotter than Abbi wearing nothing but heels with her legs spread compliantly for him? No. Sam had never seen anything sexier in his life. He failed to conduct his exploration as slowly or gently as he should have, instead finding Abbi’s sodden entrance and delving inside with a swift upstroke that made her body bow.

  “Oh, God…”

  It wasn’t a moan of protest, so Sam kept up the assertive rhythm, shafting her with one finger and then two. She clamped down on him, so tight and so fucking wet that he nearly lost control and replaced his fingers with his cock in one swift motion.

  Not yet. God, not yet, get a hold of yourself.

  “I’m gonna make you come, Abs.” Sam said it as much to give his addled brain a clear message as to inform Abbi.

  “Yes.” Abbi writhed against the door, already halfway there. “Please.”

  Sam dipped his head and kissed her, invading her mouth with his tongue the way he was invading her pussy with his fingers. She made little panting sounds and sucked on his tongue, drawing a groan out of him. He felt the leak of precome in his pants, the threat of early release pulsing through his balls. Fuck. He could not do that now. Please let her go first.

  Determine
d, Sam pressed his thumb to Abbi’s clit. She was swollen and ready for his touch. Her body bucked with his first strokes, making the door rattle on its hinges. Sam didn’t release her mouth. He went right on devouring her moans as she gyrated to the motion he set with his fingers and thumb. When she came, her orgasm washed over him too. She’d rocketed to the pinnacle from nothing more than the work of his fingers. His ego kind of liked that.

  And the selfish, asshole part of him liked that now it was his turn. He’d never needed to come so badly in his whole life.

  Withdrawing his fingers, Sam brought them to his mouth and sucked the taste of her off them. Her flavor was incredible. He should have gone down on her. Why the hell hadn’t he used his tongue, made her climax even better?

  Because he was as selfish asshole, selfish and impatient and apparently undeserving of his reputation as a lady killer.

  When he opened his eyes, Abbi was looking at him with wonder painting her expression, and Sam let his moment of self-recrimination pass. Next time. Next time he’d take better care with her, would make her come three times before he took his own pleasure. Right now, he couldn’t manage that. His restraint was threadbare and it suffered another blow when Abbi reached for his fly and started undoing it.

  “Tell me you have something with you.”

  It took Sam a moment to get her meaning. “Oh. Shit. Yeah. I do.”

  He snagged his wallet from his trousers before they fell to his ankles. He kept two condoms in the back section and he tugged one out, tossing the wallet aside carelessly. While he ripped open the foil wrapper, Abbi reached down and cupped him through his jockey shorts.

  “Ah, Jesus.” Sam rocked into her touch, a helpless motion that reminded him how close to losing it he was. “Don’t do that, Abs.”

  “I want to touch you.”

  Sam encircled her wrist and set her wicked hand away from him. “I want you to touch me too, you’ll never know how much. But I’m going to blow my load if you do.”

  Something seemed to click in her mind. “You really have been wanting this, haven’t you?”

  “Hell, yes.” Sam held her gaze as he lowered his jockeys and carefully worked the condom over his swollen shaft. “I’d see you in those professional-looking skirt suits and get so turned on I was sure you’d notice.”

  Abbi shook her head in amazement. “I didn’t. I thought the way you flirt was just what you did with all women.”

  “I’m not a monk, Abbi. But I’ve never pictured bending another woman over a desk and giving her a spanking because she won’t stop haranguing me. But you…” He stroked her lower lip with his thumb when her mouth fell open. “I’ve imagined that with you more than once.”

  “You…you like being harangued by women?”

  Sam smiled when he realized she’d deftly skipped over his reference to spanking her. In truth, he’d never intended to actually do that. It was just a fantasy he used to get through her regular sessions of ‘let’s list all the problems with Sam’.

  Wasn’t it?

  “I like you, no matter how hard you ride me.”

  It was the simple truth, Sam realized. He liked Abbi. He liked that she didn’t take any of his shit lying down. He appreciated that she wasn’t impressed by his money or his sporting prowess or any of that. He enjoyed that she could parry every one of his glib or crude lines with something tough but classy. He loved how she looked in a skirt suit.

  He loved how she looked naked even better.

  “Speaking of riding…”

  Abbi squirmed against him and he smiled. “You read my mind, babe.”

  He lifted her until her legs wrapped around him. Her heels clicked together at his back and Sam was overcome by the need to have her, to take her against the door with her shoes on. The image of that in his mind was so fucking hot he went and did it instead of making what would have been a much more polite attempt to find a softer surface. A bed. A couch. Something besides her front door.

  Politeness was beyond him at this point.

  He prodded at her entrance with the aching head of his dick. Abbi clutched his shoulders and bore down, welcoming him in. A moment later, he was ensconced in her tight channel, her muscles flexing around him.

  Abbi gasped. Sam swore. “You hurt?”

  “No. Oh, God… Please.”

  He rocked inside her, giving her the friction she wanted. That they both wanted. It was heaven. Sheer sublime heaven. Sam held her hips and thrust into her, over and over. It took all his willpower not to slam inside her hard, he was so desperate to get off. To get off inside her, Abbi Lehman. The woman who’d plagued his dreams for weeks, who drove him crazy with her saucy mouth and her taut little body and her rough, panting sighs.

  “Yes. Yes…oh!”

  She went into spasms around him, her inner muscles taunting his dick, and before he could stop it, Sam was coming too. He released in hot jets inside her, muttering unintelligible words and holding onto Abbi as if he was afraid he’d spin off into the stratosphere without her to anchor him. It was wild and tumultuous, something he had no ability to control or understand.

  Why, oh why did this feel so much like…need? Not wanting or instinct or base, primal sex, but something else. He held onto Abbi long moments after they’d both climaxed, after their ragged breathing had started to settle. He held onto her not because he was too exhausted to move, although that was also true. He didn’t let her go because he couldn’t.

  He needed to hold her. He wanted to hold her all night.

  He’d hadn’t wanted to hold a woman all night since Tiffani, the one woman who’d used his weakness for her to make a colossal fool out of him.

  “Sam? Are you okay?”

  Abbi’s question made something inside Sam shrink away. He’d been clutching her to him so closely even she’d started to realize it was weird.

  “Sure. I’m great,” he lied. “You?”

  “Fantastic. That was…”

  Sam chuckled and feared it sounded a bit maniacal. “A little wild, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam slipped out of her, trying not to let his reluctance show. He used the action of pulling up his pants to avoid looking her in the eye.

  He’d fucked her with his pants around his ankles. Way to impress the lady, Cormack.

  When he finally gathered the courage to look at Abbi, she was watching him with something of a kicked-puppy look in her eyes. “This was a huge mistake, wasn’t it?”

  Sam’s stomach dropped. He’d never felt so bad in his life, not even when he’d run over his brother Mel’s foot when he’d been learning to drive. He hadn’t thought about Abbi in any of this. All he’d thought about was his own cock, his own jealousy when he’d seen other men wanting the same thing he did, his own need to stake a claim to something he had no right to. He’d thought about getting his rocks off without considering if Abbi was the kind of girl who could have sex and not be emotionally affected.

  He could do that. He was a guy and he’d had a lot of practice both before and after his short-lived, disastrous marriage. During his marriage, he’d been very emotionally involved, while it turned out Tiffani had not been. That was not a mistake he planned to ever make again. Best way to avoid that was to remain detached. To never, ever feel like he needed a woman, because if he did that…

  Well, that brought him back to the days of Tiffani. Humiliation. Hurt. Emptiness.

  Christ. Thirty years old and he wasn’t even a functioning adult. Abbi shouldn’t be giving herself to someone like him.

  “Abbi…you were incredible,” Sam said, because that much was true.

  Her smile was lopsided, undeniably sad. “But this was a huge mistake,” she repeated. “I know. I knew it when I invited you in.”

  Ouch. Sam kept his expression neutral. “Then why did you?”

  She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. Her face filled with color as she seemed to suddenly remember she was naked. She crouched to retrieve her dress. “Hormones, I gues
s.”

  Her answer was the reprieve he needed. Hadn’t he just been overwhelmed with the fear that he might hurt her with his relationship ineptitude? But Abbi obviously didn’t want a relationship, at least not with him. She’d had no trouble keeping her emotions detached, after all. It should have been a relief.

  Instead, it made Sam’s chest tight, his skin uncomfortably hot.

  He made sure his voice didn’t betray any of that. “That makes sense. Hell, I was as horny as a toad too.”

  Abbi shot him a look as she refastened the halter snap of her dress. The dress Sam would doubtless never forget. Wank material, indeed.

  “As a toad? Are toads naturally horny?”

  “I don’t know.” Sam chuckled. “It’s just a saying.”

  “Another one of your quaint Australianisms?”

  “Something like that.” It was good that Abbi was teasing him again, that he was laughing. “So we both got what we needed and no harm done?”

  “Of course not.” She said it as though the idea was laughable. “Unless of course you decide to tell my boss and ruin my career.”

  Sam was floored. “Bloody hell, Abbi. You think I’d do that?”

  She read his stunned look carefully and her expression softened. “No, I know you wouldn’t. That was a dumb joke.”

  But something that had obviously crossed her mind as a possibility. He really hadn’t shown himself in the best light since she’d been assigned to be the buffer between him and the media. Sam felt like a heel. Not just for making her job difficult, but for fucking her against her door without even taking off his pants.

  Wasn’t he a first-class prize?

  “I had a great time tonight, Sam.”

  But now it’s over. Sam easily read between the lines. Time for him to go. He couldn’t resist touching her just one more time before he left though. If this mistake of theirs was never going to be repeated, now was his only chance.