After Hours

by Jodi Lynn Copeland

  Her pussy gripped him hard as orgasm crashed over her. Thoughts of names, lies and everything else faded away as climax shuddered through him. With a savage curse, he rode the turbulent currents of his own personal waterfall.

  The moment lust lifted and sanity returned, Andy undid the handcuffs and pulled Tawny into his arms. Both of their pants were still hooked about their ankles and they fell together into a tangle of naked, sweaty limbs.

  Tawny pushed off from his chest, laughing. Her eyes twinkled with merriment and warmed his heart with hope. He hadn’t cared to consider tomorrow with any woman before her. From the moment they’d arrived at her secret destination of a book club meeting, he’d hadn’t been able to forget the idea. For tonight he would keep things light, continue the cat-and-mouse game of pupil and instructor they’d begun. Soon, though, he had to take things seriously, both by telling her the truth and acknowledging exactly what it was he hoped to get out of this relationship beyond great sex.

  Toeing off his pants, he rolled onto his side and brushed his finger along the soft rise of her cheek. Pale red freckles dusted her nose. He prided himself on taking in details, no matter how insignificant; blame it on the fact that he couldn’t get his mind off his dick when she was around, but until tonight he’d missed the freckles. They were endearing in a way he never expected to care about.

  Light, Andy reminded himself. Keep it light. “So, tell me, teach, did I pass?”

  She frowned. “Pass?”

  “Am I a master of carnality?”

  A smile tugged at Tawny’s lips. She kicked off her jeans and pounced on him. Devilment shone in her eyes as she grabbed the handcuffs and then his wrist. “No, but you’re a bad boy. A very bad, very naughty boy who obviously was studying up on his sexual technique without me. It’s punishment time, naughty boy.”

  Andy’s cock leapt as she moved off the bed and pulled the box of lingerie and toys from beneath it. She pulled out a whip and a second set of handcuffs. Her smile grew wicked as she climbed back on the bed and proceeded to shackle his free wrist and ankles. Passion burning hotly in her eyes, she moved up his body, dragging her damp sex and the soft flared tassels of the whip against the sweaty skin of his inner thighs, eliciting shivers of hedonistic delight.

  She set the whip aside and carefully removed his geek glasses, placing them on the filing cabinet beside the bed. “Things are about to get rough.” She picked the whip back up and cracked it against her palm. “I’d hate to break anything.”

  If her idea of rough punishment meant being laid out spread eagle, watching her beautiful breasts jiggle in his face while she taunted him with sex toys, then Andy could say only one thing. “Bring it on, babe. Bring it on.”

  Irritation ate at Andy as he listened to his brother-in-law rant through the phone line. He padded barefoot from the kitchen to his apartment bedroom while Rick droned on.

  “Fine.” The reluctance to agree reflected in Rick’s voice. “It isn’t the chick getting information from Joyce and selling it off to some big gun at Nielson. Somebody else has found a way to get their hands on my shit. I’m betting that somebody works for Neilson. I want copies of everything going in and out of that office. E-mails, faxes, meeting minutes, design plans. Whatever paperwork’s floating around, get it and get it fast. Things are getting shaky here. The backers are gonna start jumping ship. I don’t have any more time to sit on my ass and wait for this leak to wash out.”

  “It’s a shitty situation you’re in”—Andy scrubbed a hand through his hair; he had far better things to do than coddle a cranky Rick—“but what you’re asking is illegal.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, and I just bet you’ve never done anything illegal.”

  Bugging Tawny’s phone line and snooping through her computer system and home hardly qualified as legal. That was small potatoes compared to what Rick wanted. If Andy screwed with a corporation the size of Neilson and got caught, his life was as good as over. “Not to the extent you’re suggesting. Besides, I’m a one-man operation. Securing all the information you’re after would require a team and time.”

  “I told you we don’t got time.”

  “You don’t have time,” Andy corrected, letting his irritation bleed through the line. “If you’re seriously convinced that someone at Neilson is to blame, I suggest you take this thing to the cops.”

  “And get stuck in the system for months while the company falls apart? No fucking way, man. You’re all I have, Andy. All Joyce has. Or do you like the idea of your sister living in poverty because you were too much of a candy ass to make a few copies.”

  Andy glared at the phone. What a low fucking blow. Joyce was the only reason he’d agreed to help his brother-in-law. He wouldn’t continue to help for her sake. If worse came to worse and Rick’s ad firm bit the dust, he’d see to his sister’s welfare. Hearing the fury in Rick’s voice, he’d as soon have her living under the safety of his roof than with her husband. “I’ve done all I can. You don’t want to talk to the cops, you’ll have to figure out another way.”

  “Yeah, I guess I will. Thanks for nothing, dickhead.”

  The connection went dead with a slamming at the other end of the line. Andy considered calling Joyce and asking her to come stay with him immediately, at least until Rick’s problems passed. Only, his sister didn’t know Rick had problems, and it wasn’t his place to interfere in their marriage by telling her about them.

  He went to the dresser and grabbed a pair of socks. He had to flush thoughts of his sister and her husband from his mind. He was due at Tawny’s any minute for their nightly session. While they’d admitted Thursday morning that what they wanted from each other was more than a teacher/student relationship, they had yet to speak on exactly what it was they did want. He also had yet to reveal the true reason he’d come into her life—that he wasn’t a nerd at all, but a guy who knew about and appreciated technology for the ways it helped him with his investigations.

  If he said to hell with his ever-present desire to get her into his home and bed—both of which were decorated in ways a computer geek would never appreciate—he could risk not telling her the truth. But knowing she was at least casual friends with Joyce, the odds of her finding out on her own weren’t in Andy’s favor. Even if they had been, he wasn’t taking the chicken-shit way out. He owed her the truth. He just hoped the right amount of groveling would make her understand that they had more than lies between them. They had something good, something real. He’d be damned if he’d lose that something for so much as a day.

  Knocking on her front door brought an expectant smile to Tawny’s face. Andy was here. At least, she hoped it was her bad boy. The way she was dressed and laid out on her bed, if Andrew the nerd showed up, he’d probably come in his pants.

  If Andrew the nerd even existed.

  Considering how quickly he’d become sexual adept, it seemed he’d never been a true nerd at all. Just a bad boy who’d momentarily gotten confused about his talents and confidence. And had she ever been confused. She’d thought she wasn’t the brazen, wanton Tawny. Thought all those toys and risqué outfits she’d bought during her sister-in-law’s sex party two years ago would become victims of the dust bunnies beneath her bed. The past three nights and mornings, every last one of the toys had been dusted off and put to use, and she’d thoroughly enjoyed every screaming, quaking minute of it.

  “Tawny?” Andy’s voice came from down the hallway.

  Heat chased through her body and her pussy dampened. She’d broken out the most risqué of the outfits for tonight’s lesson. No, not lesson: lovemaking.

  She smiled. Was she falling for him? She hadn’t investigated her feelings fully yet, but the way her heart sped up and the happiness that filled her every time she saw him, at home or the office, it seemed she might be. “In here.”

  “I was starting to think you weren’t—whoa!” He stopped short in the bedroom doorway. His gaze drifted from the black lace teddy that revealed her hard nipples through precisel
y cut holes, to the open crotch splayed wide by the bent positions of her legs, to the black fuck-me stilettos digging into her comforter and mattress. She’d realize at the time of lying down how drastically the black contrasted with the pale pink of her comforter. Contrasted and gave her that much more of a naughty thrill over greeting Andy this way.

  “I missed you today.” She clamped her mouth shut at the unexpected words. Maybe she was falling for him, but she didn’t know where his feelings lay and didn’t need her big mouth scaring him off.

  Tawny glanced down, between her spread thighs, where her sex glistened with her essence. She batted her heavily made-up lashes. “She missed you, too.”

  His eyes darkened from hazel to deep brown as they met hers. His throat worked visibly. “I, uh, came over hoping to talk—”

  “But you’ve changed your mind.” She stroked the bed beside her. “We can talk later. Now I need you to fix me.”

  “You don’t look broken from where I’m standing. Hot as hell, but not broken.”

  “I am broken, though. And it’s your fault. I had this water craving today at work and my supply of bottles is fresh out. I thought I’d snag a glass from the water cooler. But you were already there, bent over, filling your mug, teasing me by waving your tight ass in my face. After that I didn’t need water. I was already dripping with wetness. I have been ever since.”

  She reached between her thighs and dipped a finger into her slick pussy. Her eyelids flickered to half-mast as erotic sensations shot through her sex and deep into her belly. “Oh, man, am I ever wet.”

  She worked her finger in and out of her sheath, heating up further with the slick sounds. “I could sit here and play with myself for hours and it would feel good.” Andy’s nostrils flared; loud, rapid breaths escaped his slightly parted lips. “But it wouldn’t feel as good as your fingers inside me, as your cock filling me up and taking me over the edge. I need you, Andy. Come love me. Or fuck me, if you’d rather.”

  “Love you. I’d rather love you.”

  Tawny’s heart constricted with the passion that clung to his words. That same passion vivid in his features, Andy moved to the bed, shucking his clothes in seconds to expose a massive erection she ached to get her lips around. He came down between her thighs and slid a finger into her body beside her own. He moved them together, stroking into her heated flesh and making her burn all the more.

  “I’ve never walked in on a woman as hot as you wearing so damned little.” He rose up to run his tongue over a nipple while he continued to pet her dripping pussy. “It’s an experience I plan to repeat again and again.”

  “Just where do you plan to find all these hot women?” She bit her tongue. Damn, she’d sounded jealous, like he wasn’t entitled to sleep with other women. They had no commitment to each another. But he’d sounded like he wanted to love more than her body, like he might already love her.

  Amusement entered his eyes as he rose farther up her body and rubbed her lips with his. “As much as it does wonders for my ego hearing the jealousy in your voice, I was planning on finding her right here. In this bed. Or in my bed, so long as the woman in question’s you.”

  Relief charged through Tawny, and a breath she didn’t know she was holding eased out. She pulled her finger from her body and pushed against his chest. He lifted from her and frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Shaking her head so that the curls floated righteously around her face, she grinned. “Uh-uh. You said something right. Lie down for me, Andy. On your back.”

  His look faded to one just this side of arrogance. “You plan to have your way with me again, is that it? What do you have in mind for punishment tonight? Whips? Feathers? Rope?”

  She moved between his feet. “Tongue.”

  “Tongue?”

  She nodded and bent between his legs. Resting her hands on his thighs, she licked her tongue across the weeping, dark purple tip of his cock, down the length of his hard sex. “Oh, yeah. And mouth, lots of mouth.”

  “Oh, fuck, yeah,” Andy agreed harshly as she returned to his tip, took him completely into her mouth and suckled.

  Fondling his balls, she loved him with her lips, thrilling in his salty-sweet taste, the feel of his silky fluid against her tongue, the scent of his arousal thick in the air. He grew incredibly harder in her mouth, hotter. Wetness pulsed in her cunt. He reached down and captured an erect nipple between his fingers, fondled it. Sweat gathered on her forehead. Cream leaked from the open crotch of the teddy to trickle along her thighs. She closed her eyes and let sensation take over, more than eager to go on sucking him forever.

  Loud chirping pushed through Tawny’s subconscious. With effort, she stopped sucking and glanced in the direction the sound came from, somewhere on the floor.

  “My cell’s in my pants pocket,” Andy bit out. “Ignore it.”

  She looked up at him and found his eyes intent on her, intense. Knowing he watched her every move brought a fresh course of wetness between her thighs. She returned to sucking him, watched his expression change, his lips part and breath push hotly out as ecstasy worked its way through his body.

  The cell phone stopped ringing. Andy released her nipple and pushed his fingers through her hair, pulling roughly in a way that spoke directly to her pussy. The phone rang on the filing cabinet beside her bed.

  “Go away,” Andy grunted. His tone turned husky yet elated as looked back at her, affection shining in his eyes. “Not you. You don’t ever go away.”

  The bedside phone quit ringing. Tawny focused on his words, on the fact that he wanted her in the long run. She wanted him, too. She knew it with heart-pounding certainty. Wanted him and loved him.

  She smiled around his shaft, sliding her tongue over the rigid veins that ran the length of it as she worked her mouth and hand in opposite directions. She stopped licking to hum against his shaft. With her free hand, she reached behind his balls and fingered the sensitive spot between his testicles and anus, dipped her finger into the puckered hole and applied pressure.

  “You little devil,” Andy ground out.

  His cock throbbed in her mouth, pushing between her lips automatically now. His fingers bit harder into her hair, fisting, yanking. His thighs tensed around her body, clamping her in place. A last thrust between her lips and hot cum shot into her mouth, coasting over her tongue and down her throat.

  Tawny moaned and kept sucking, wanting to savor every last bit of his essence. Low music started up from somewhere behind her. She recognized it as her cell-phone ring tone. Someone obviously wanted to speak with her badly. The same someone who’d called Andy’s cell? Did he have the number on file at work? If so, who would be working this late? Whoever was calling, it had to be important.

  Reluctantly, she lifted her lips from his sex. “Do you think it’s the same person?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.” His expression conveyed how upsetting he found the interruption. “You’d better answer it, just in case.”

  With a last teasing lick over the head of his cock, she darted from the room in search of her cell phone. She found it on the end table in the living room. Hitting the TALK button, she grabbed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  A frantic female voice came through the line. “Thank goodness you’re home. Is my brother with you?”

  She frowned as she recognized the caller. “Joyce, what’s the matter? You sound upset.”

  “I need to speak to my brother,” she retorted with a conviction Tawny had never heard out of the soft-spoken woman.

  “Rick’s on his way over. I overheard him on the phone with someone. I don’t know who, but he was shouting and swearing, and he said…he said he was going to make you two pay for ruining his plans.” She rambled on in a ragged tone. “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he could want to hurt you. I didn’t even know he knew who you were beyond—”

  “Slow down.” Tawny started back to the bedroom. In her panic Joyce had obviously called the wrong person. Still, trep
idation tightened her belly. “Joyce, this is Tawny you’re speaking with. I don’t know anyone named Rick and I’ve never met your brother.”

  “You know Andrew,” she exclaimed as Tawny reached the bed. “Rick is my husband. He’s on his way over there to—”

  “Andrew’s your brother?” The words left her mouth with a gasp while the impact of them hit her in the stomach like a physical blow. Two nights ago Joyce and Andy had been at the book club meeting together. Two nights ago they’d acted like nothing more than casual acquaintances. Two nights ago they’d lied to her.

  Sickness eating at her belly, Tawny looked at Andy. He sat on the side of the bed, his dimpled smile nowhere to be seen, only guilt. The meaning behind that guilt gripped her to the core. She felt suddenly naked, dirty. Like she’d been nothing more than a pawn in some game she didn’t know the name or reason behind.

  “Rick’s angry, Tawny. Really angry. I tried to stop him and he hit—”

  Andy stood and jerked the phone from Tawny. “Joyce? Slow down and tell me what’s going on. What’s Rick going to do?” Several seconds passed and his expression went from guilt to disgust. “Shit. Listen to me, honey, you need to calm down. I can take care of myself and Tawny. I promise he won’t hurt us.” He hesitated an instant, then, “No, I won’t hurt him either. Not if I can avoid it. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

  “Who are you?” Tawny’s words vibrated out on a wave of frustration and hurt the moment he ended the call. “Not a nerd, that’s for damned sure. How could I have been so stupid to fall for that act? You don’t kiss like a nerd. You don’t look like one outside of the mile-thick glasses and the clothes you used to wear.” She realized now that he wasn’t even wearing his glasses. She’d been so drunk on lust, she hadn’t even noticed. And it was lust. No way in hell did she feel love for this lying asshole. This stranger.

  God, did she even know Joyce? She’d believed they were developing a friendship, but had she been wrong about that, too?