I was neither. I ducked my head inside the well appointed ladies’ room until I spotted those red ‘come fuck me’ heels inside one of the stalls. “Welcome to my world, Talia.” I retreated before she could say anything, wearing a satisfied smile and feeling lighter than I had in a week.
When Talia returned to the dining room she was put back together, no trace of the kiss, or my hands in her hair. She drew everyone’s attention again to open a few gifts while they let the decadent food settle, nodding occasionally to an intern in the corner whom she’d offered a day rate for his assistance. The kid sat in the back with empty plates all around and a tablet in his hand, taking notes. Weird. “Okay, now back to your meal.”
“You make it all look so effortless,” I whispered when she sat down.
“No one wants to know how the sausage is made,” she said plainly and drained her martini glass in two big gulps. She devoured the Korean short rib with Asian slaw with a sexy moan that made me grateful for the long tablecloth.
“This is all so wonderful, Talia. Thank you,” Poppy enthused, blue-green eyes filled with gratitude.
“You’re very welcome.” Her smile was genuine.
“When all this is over,” Poppy whispered conspiratorially, “we should talk about a different role for you in the company.”
Talia’s smile was bland, and she laid a hand on Poppy’s. “That’s not necessary.”
That was not the answer Poppy wanted to hear, but waiters dropped off more plates. “Saved by the plates,” I whispered to Talia who only shrugged, and for the first time I could see how exhausted she was.
The makeup hid them well, but the dark purple crescents still showed under her eyes in a much lighter hue. The slump of her shoulders and the way she used the chair to hold her up told me more than she would, apparently. She ate quietly and slowly, like she didn’t even have the energy to feed herself and it gutted me. Truly.
By the time the restaurant was mostly empty, Talia looked ready to fall over as she carried gifts out to the waiting SUV being driven by another intern. “I’ve got those,” I told her as I took the packages from her hands.
“I’m perfectly capable of doing my job.”
I glared at her. “You’re the maid of honor, this isn’t your job.” But it said a lot about how she was feeling lately.
“Whatever. I can handle it.”
“And it’ll be easier to handle with another pair of arms,” I shot back, putting the box of gifts in the car, ignoring her grumbling. “See, we’re already finished.”
“Thanks,” she said angrily. “You can go on home, Luke. I’ve got it covered.”
“I’m right where I want to be, besides you’re too exhausted to drive yourself.”
“I’ll call a cab.” She was damn stubborn when she wanted to be.
“Don’t waste a cabbie’s time by making them come out here for nothing. I’m perfectly capable of making sure you get home safely.” I crossed my arms and stared down at her, waiting for her next argument.
She glared. “Fine, happy?”
“Not yet Talia, but I will be.”
Soon.
Talia
“Thanks for the ride.” My heels wobbled on the graveled driveway as I shut the door and grabbed my work bag from the backseat. “Have a good night,” I told Luke, but it was premature because he had already killed the engine and stepped beside me.
“You’re exhausted,” he said and easily grabbed my bags from my arms. “Come on, let me help.”
I didn’t know what kind of help he was offering, but I was too tired for sex. That’s what my brain said, but my body was already starting to wake up thanks to his proximity.
“Only because I’m too tired to argue.”
He barked out a laugh. “That has to be a first, and that’s exactly how I know you’re too tired to be alone.”
He was right, I was too exhausted to argue with anyone, let alone someone who argued just for the hell of it. “I’m going to take a bath and go to bed, so don’t feel like you have to stick around.” Luke didn’t say anything, so I figured he would leave when I didn’t show proper appreciation for his help.
“Knock, knock.”
A groan escaped and I smacked the water. “Go away!”
Luke’s blonde head popped inside, smiling as his gaze raked over my bare breasts. “Need a hand?”
“I’m good, thanks.” If he touched me I wouldn’t be able to push him away, so it was best that we kept our distance. “You can go, Luke.”
“But what would be the fun in that when you so clearly need my help.” He walked in and sat down beside the tub, dropping his hand in the water beside my thigh and swishing it back and forth. “How could I not assist?” His smile had the ability to tug at the corners of my mouth ,and I shook my head.
“You’re incorrigible, you know that right?”
Luke took the bath sponge from my hand and added an ungodly amount of soap to it before he started to wash me. Up one leg and down the other he went in a slow, teasing manner that made my breath hitch. “Some say incorrigible when they really mean charming as hell.” The sponge slid up and down one arm and down my side, across my belly and then up and down the other arm. He soaped my belly in a side to side motion from hip to hip, side to side and rib to rib. It was a slow, intoxicating rub that had me panting and gasping for air. “So dirty,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice even with my eyes closed.
“It’s been a long day,” I shot back, sucking in another breath his palm grazed my nipples. Luke knew what he was doing and that was torturing me, plain and simple. He washed my breasts until I nearly orgasmed before moving to my back.
And then my hair. He washed my hair.
No man had ever done that, and I realized now I was grateful for it, such a small but tender gesture was enough to undo me, especially with my defenses so low. “I used to think this was a dye job,” he said absently as his fingertips pressed into my scalp.
“Until you saw me naked and realized the carpet matched the drapes?” He went silent for a long moment, and I was tempted to open my eyes, but then he barked out a laugh and it warmed me through.
“Yes, actually.”
“Like I’d ever choose to have red hair? You have any idea what kind of target that puts on a kid?” No doubt he didn’t, because he was big and blonde with the kind of smile that drew people in.
“For guys, sure. But girls, really?”
I nodded because that was always the reaction. No one became enamored of redheads until they were adults, before then, everyone treats you like the redheaded stepchild. Especially in temporary foster homes. “No one has it easier than blonds.” The last word came out on a moan as his hands dipped between my thighs and one finger slid deep. “Yes!”
“You’re the only redhead I’ve ever had, and I can say without a doubt, they have more fun in the sack.” I could barely focus on his words because his fingers sank deep, in and out, wringing pleasure out of me, one thrust at a time. “Watching you even now, head thrown back with your hands gripping the tub, it’s all I can do not to climb in there with you.”
“Luke,” I panted, spreading my legs wider to give him better access and when another finger slid inside I clenched around him and felt my orgasm build.
“Your skin is all flushed and beautiful, legs open so wantonly, tits perked out and your nipples are begging me to take a taste.”
“Yes,” I panted. In that moment, I would have done just about any depraved thing he asked as pleasure hummed just out of reach. “Luke!” That was it, one word uttered on my orgasm and it had to be his name. Not a ‘fuck’ or an ‘oh yeah’ but ‘Luke’.
It was hard to stay mad at a man who’d given you one of the fastest orgasms of your life before lifting you from the tub and gently drying every inch of your body.
“Told you. Just let me take care of you.” His words were spoken softly, sweetly almost, and I was too sated to argue, or shoot off a sarcastic comment.
/> Luke laid me on the bed, spread out for his perusal and stared at me until my whole body was one tight ball of want and desire again. And then he was naked and his body was pressed to mine, his mouth devoured mine in a sensual kiss that stole my breath, and my good sense along with it. “Luke,” I moaned as he kissed his way down my body. Slow, open-mouthed kisses that were meant to make me lose my mind, and it worked.
Sweet hot damn, it worked beautifully.
His lips and tongue and teeth, kissed, nipped and licked every inch of me, taking a long time between my thighs. He moaned deeply as he licked, sending shivers up my spine. A quick flick of his tongue on my clit and I fell apart, vibrating and pulsing with my hand buried in his hair, keeping him right where I needed him. “Greedy girl,” he said with a knowing smile, spreading me apart and licking me so slow, and so thoroughly he was able to pull another orgasm from me.
“Luke!”
“Yes? Something you want?”
Yeah, I wanted his cock and I wanted it now. And he wanted to play games. “Yeah, I’m feeling kind of sleepy,” I told him around a fake yawn.
“Then I guess we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” His grin was salacious. He gripped my thighs and slid into me. “Oh fuck, so damn wet.”
“What did you expect after all that?”
“Not. Complaining,” he said, biting back a groan.
“Luke,” I warned, squirming and pulsing around him. “Move.”
He began to move, but it was too slow. Too torturous. It felt like more than the good hard fuck I needed right now, he stroked long and deep like this was more like making love and that was…too much.
I liked it too much. Needed it too much. I more than wanted it, I couldn’t get enough of the way he filled me up and moved inside me. The way his brown eyes looked down at me, hungry and needy, raw and intense. Almost affectionate but I wouldn’t think too closely about that, hell I couldn’t because my body needed more. “Luke.”
“Yes?”
I looked up at him and the gleam in his eyes and I knew what this was all about. It seemed like it was more than a fuck but it wasn’t, this was control pure and simple. He wanted me to beg and I wasn’t above it. “Please.”
That earned me a hard thrust that hit my clit and send sparks of color shooting off behind my eyes. “Fuck, Talia.” His hips had a mind of their own but his willpower was strong, slowing down again to steady, deep thrusts that made an addict out of me.
“Luke, please. Fuck me. Please.” I stared at him intensely, letting him see just how much I needed him to fill me up, to pound me hard and fast and just let me come. “Please!”
He groaned, grabbing my thighs and hitching them high on his hips, Luke laid until the rough hairs of his chest brushed against mine, until his pelvic bone added pressure to my clit. “Talia, you feel so fuckin good.” There was no part of our bodies that didn’t touch, that weren’t intertwined as he thrust long and slow and deep, kissing me the same way.
It was intense and I couldn’t take it. Not anymore. His mouth made love to mine the way his body did and between exhaustion and a mild case of depression, I was powerless against it. No matter how bad an idea it was and no matter how good it felt, there was nothing I could do but enjoy the moment.
So I did.
I let go, stopped trying to hold back and just threw myself into it with the same wild abandon I always had. It was more intense this time, but I didn’t care, not when those slow strokes lit a fire low in my belly that became the building blocks of the most earth-shattering, body shaking orgasm of my life. “Oh fuck, Luke!”
My body clamped down hard around his as the orgasm took control of my body, twisting and vibrating it for long minutes until my body had been thoroughly exhausted. I felt the moment his orgasm hit, he tensed and surged into me so deep it felt like we were one. “Talia,” he roared as his orgasm shot out of him like a rocket before collapsing onto me.
A smile curved my lips at the weight of his body, the heat of his skin against mine. I was so boneless, so satisfied that I didn’t say a word when he snuggled up beside me and wrapped his arms around me.
I was too tired.
Feeling too good.
And the truth was that I didn’t want him to leave. Not yet.
Luckily my body was too exhausted to give it much thought and I drifted off to sleep with someone else in my bed for the first time in a very long time.
Luke
I must be crazy, it was the only rational explanation for why I was up so damn early on a Saturday morning and on my way to Talia’s place. With breakfast. The woman was in my head and had me all screwed up in ways I couldn’t possibly understand, so I decided not to try and just go with it. For now.
When I pulled up to her place, I expected to find her sexy and rumpled in a pair of barely there pajamas, instead she was behind the wheel of her car with her gaze focused on her phone. She screamed when I tapped on the passenger window, completely oblivious to my arrival. “What is it, Luke?” The question was laced with annoyance but I wasn’t bothered.
“Where are you headed?”
“I need to head up to Bend to deal with problems with some of our signs.” She didn’t say it, but the signs had been my responsibility and any problem with them meant it was my fault.
“You weren’t going to tell me?” The blank stare she leveled me with was all the answer I needed. “I’m coming with you,” I told her, hitting the lock on my car and jumping into the passenger seat. “Want me to drive.”
“No.”
Okay, then. I spent the first hour of the drive listening to Talia sing along to Whitney Houston’s greatest hits. She wasn’t the greatest singer but she wasn’t bad either. What she lacked in talent she made up for in enthusiasm. And volume. It was kind of adorable to see this tough as nails chick, cranking out ballads with all her heart.
But buy hour two, I’d had enough. “What’s going on with you, Talia?” She’d been acting strange for some time and even Poppy was starting to notice.
“I don’t know what you mean, nothing is wrong.” She sighed like even answering the question was an imposition but her gaze never slid to mine, a clear sign she wasn’t being honest.
“Cut the shit, Talia. Everyone has noticed, even Poppy with her pregnancy brain has noticed. The only reason she hasn’t said anything is because Blake keeps reminding her of how much you have to do these days.”
“Because my days weren’t busy before,” she mumbled. “Look I’m busy and I’m tired, okay? Besides that, when I’m not at work I’m allowed to do whatever the hell I want, okay?”
Hell no it wasn’t okay. The more she protested the more certain I was that something was wrong. “No one said you’re not but that doesn’t mean people who care about you aren’t allowed to ask.”
“If people gave a damn, they’d mind their own business.”
“That’s not how family works,” I told her with a frown. “If I had a nickel for every time Blake or Lacey were all up in my business I’d be a very rich man.”
“You are a very rich man,” she shot back drolly. “And I don’t have any family.”
“You have Poppy and Maple.” She didn’t say anything to that, clearly she really was done talking about this. “Want to pull over and have sex?”
She laughed just as I’d hoped, shaking her head and looking at me like I was an alien life form. “Maybe but not now. If those signs are screwed up we’ll have to do a rush order since the event starts next Sunday.” Already her mind went back to the never endling list she kept in her head, eyes glazed over as she pushed her sedan down the expressway. “Maybe on the way back.”
I smiled at her words. Even though it was just a maybe, I could easily turn Talia’s maybe into a hard yes. A very hard yes.
It was just past noon when we arrived just outside of Bend where they were already doing most of the work for the tournament. There were signs and flags up everywhere, telling the world there was an outdoor sports e
vent happening soon. “Shit,” she said when we came around the first real curve on the property and caught a glimpse of the sign. “That’s too small.” Shoulders slumped, she pulled out notepad and began scribbling furiously before she lifted her head and we kept going. “Misspelled,” she muttered under her breath as we passed another sign.
After we did a quick circuit of the property, we found the event organizers and had a quick talk with them and by ‘we’ I mean Talia. Turns out she really didn’t need my help because I was the one who’d screwed everything up. “Sorry,” I told her as we headed back to the car.
“Doesn’t matter now, it’s handled.”
“You’re not very forgiving, are you? That must mean you make very few mistakes. Must be nice.”
She glared at me. “I make mistakes all the time and I own them when I do because I’m not a fucking child. If you couldn’t or didn’t want to do them, you should have just said that.” She stomped away, annoyed as ever with me but I didn’t care because she had on another pair of jeans, black this time and they were molded to legs and an ass I knew very well.
I widened my steps in case she got the idea to take off without me, but I shouldn’t have worried because Talia was hard but she wasn’t mean. And when I slid into the passenger seat, she was already on the phone with the print shop. “Tell them to rush it.”
Talia held up a pearl pink nail to shut me up. “I expect them completed by and delivered on Monday. Before noon.” She sent me a look that said she wasn’t impressed with me. “Yes, I understand that the mistake wasn’t yours, however I explicitly asked for confirmation and I have yet to receive it.” She nodded, a solemn expression on her face as she listened and turned over the engine. “Yes, thank you. Enjoy your weekend.”
“Want to stay the night here?”
“Nah, I got stuff to take care of at home.” It was vague as hell and I had a feeling she was lying.
Naughty Takeover: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Boardroom Games Book 3) Page 8