She snorted.
Damn if she didn’t see right through him.
Three days had passed since their date with Stamos. Mac’s skin felt stretched too tight for his body, and the sun falling through his office window turned him hot under the collar. The closed door was too much of a temptation. He wanted to grab her up out of the chair, bend her over his desk, and make her cry out the way she had in the stairwell on Saturday night. He didn’t go in for high jinks in the workplace, but for her, he’d make an exception.
“Mac,” she said, overly patient, as if she were talking to a child, “he’s a regular I’ve dated for six months.”
Dated? She meant fucked, but he wasn’t about to say it.
“Isabel already spoke with him,” she went on, “and he does not agree to be watched.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Look, you said you wanted ménages because they were more lucrative”—yeah, he’d thought about how to 58
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phrase that one—“so deviating from that plan doesn’t make sense.”
She pursed her lips primly and sighed at him. “The kind of thing we had with Jessica and Spryo doesn’t come along often. I’ve got to supplement with my regulars.”
He knew nights like that didn’t fall out of the sky, but he wanted it again, needed it, was close to begging for it.
It was fucking unmanly to beg. He was used to negotiating.
“The priority is paying off the medical bills.” She was so irritatingly matter-offact. “To do that, I have to see my regulars.” Why did her simple statement make him see red? “And we’ll handle it the way Kern did.” She smiled pleasantly.
“You drive me, meet him with me, wait for me, I complete my business, and you drive me home.” She spread her hands, tipped her head, waiting for his agreement.
She was offering him a goddamn bone. One that had already been chewed, buried, and dug up again. No fucking way. “Here’s how it’s going to work.” He gave her a smile equally as pleasant, like a shark, perhaps. “I drive you, we meet him in the bar, we all three go up to the room, I watch you complete your business”—drooling like a mad dog every moment—“we leave, I drive you home”—then fuck like rabbits all night long—“or we cancel the date.”
Her gaze didn’t waver, yet her chest rose with a mesmerizing breath, her eyes narrowing as she exhaled. “Excuse me?”
“I promised your husband I would take care of you. This is how I’ve determined I will do it, choosing your dates appropriately.”
She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Slow and deliberate. “Kern never chose for me,” she said with heavy emphasis.
“Maybe he should have.”
She stood, magnificent in her anger, cheeks stained with red, eyes the shade of leaves just as the colors start to turn in fall. “Is this an ultimatum? Either I let you watch, cancel my date, or”—she jutted her chin—“or what, Mac?”
He’d seen it as a battle of wills. He was used to winning. If he didn’t get what he wanted, it had never really mattered if his opponent walked away. It mattered if she did. It mattered if he lost her. Their so-called deal had moved from being a deathbed promise he’d made Kern to being all about her. What he needed from her.
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electrical current raced through him. He wanted to be the man in her life. Fuck. It was too new and terrifying to acknowledge aloud. For the first time in his adult life, Mac backed down before he actually dared her to step over the line he’d drawn between them. “I’ll allow it, but only with a time limit, one hour, and only if you call my cell to give me the room number when you get up there, then again before you fuck him, and finally when you’re done.”
She laughed, the tension easing. “You’re such a freak. He’s harmless. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”
Neither did he, except that the thought of her alone in a hotel room with another man made him insane. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
She smiled, shaking her head, sashayed to the door, then turned with her hand on the knob. “He only takes half an hour.”
Getting in the last word, she shut the door behind her, her perfume lingering. Only half an hour with her? The guy was crazier than Mac was. But it did mean the rest of the night was his.
LEAVING MAC’S OFFICE BUILDING, DANI WANTED TO JUMP UP AND down and punch her fists in the air like a football player who’d made the winning touchdown. Of course, that would have been an unsportsmanlike display. She’d won. Over herself. No begging, no compromising. Yeah, sure, she planned to have sex with Mac after her date with Sheldon, but on her terms. She’d bested Mac. Unbelievable. Inconceivable. He hadn’t exactly backed down; he’d given her a time limit and ordered her to call, yeah, yeah, but he had to sit down in the bar and wait.
All right, it was a small triumph, but it was like telling herself she had to wait, proving she could wait. That gave her back the power. Okay, it was odd. One would think getting paid for sex made a woman powerless. Not so. She could turn a man down. She could get him blacklisted. It was when you needed what he could give you. Yes, she needed the money—and she was the first to admit how marvelous it had felt paying bills on Monday with what she’d received on Saturday—but she didn’t need payment from any particular man. The loss of power came when you needed the man himself. Saturday, Mac had overwhelmed her. Three days later, she’d gotten that in perspective.
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Back home after leaving his office, perusing her closet, running her bath, soaking, shaving, rubbing lotion into her skin, painting her nails, curling her hair, well, all that was for herself, not Sheldon. And certainly not Mac. It took three hours to prepare. A man would marvel at that. Dani savored every pampered moment. If she did say so herself, in a short red dress that hugged her breasts and flirted with her bare thighs, she’d knock Sheldon’s socks off. She’d paired the dress with four-inch spiked heels, which would put her at precisely three inches taller than him. He loved feeling dominated by a woman who dragged him by his tie into the room, pushed him down on the bed, and had her wicked way with him despite his feeble protests. The side benefit to all the prep time was knocking Mac’s socks off, too. He stared for a full ten seconds without a word when she opened the front door. Helping her into the car, he trailed a hand down her arm as if he couldn’t help the brief touch. As he drove them to the downtown San Jose hotel, his glance kept falling to the bare skin of her thighs. It felt deliciously good. Maybe too good.
They were early, Sheldon hadn’t arrived, and Mac ordered her a white Russian as they waited. It was a convention hotel, and the lobby bar was packed. Rather than tables and chairs, the seating arrangements were sofas and chairs with coffee tables in the middle. Every nook was filled, but Mac managed to snag one more chair for her date. Voices and laughter echoed off the high ceiling. Dani scooted closer on their little couch to hear Mac better. And because she loved the way he smelled.
“Where’s your cell?” he asked.
Dani smiled and patted her purse. “Right here. Yes, I remember I’m to call you with the room number when we get in, before we go all the way, and when we leave.” She smiled, saccharine sweet. What she hadn’t told Mac was that Sheldon never had intercourse with her, so technically, she wouldn’t need to call Mac in the middle. God, Mac had breathed life back into sex, and he didn’t even know it. This was how it used to be with Kern, before—
She stopped right there, closing her eyes for only the briefest moment as pain and guilt spiked right up into her heart. She couldn’t think about Kern now. If she had to do this, she’d have the fun, too. It was the only way to get through.
She poked at Mac to push herself back into the mood. “Oh, and I’ll tell him 61
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only the usual half hour, no matter how much he begs for more.”
He smirked. “Y
ou’re getting cocky.”
Dani grinned. Yes, she was. She needed to. Then she pinched Mac’s hand.
“Shh. Here he comes.”
Sheldon O’Dell shuffled into the hotel lobby, his suit rumpled, his hair windblown. A short, thin man in his late fifties, he wore wire-rimmed glasses and looked like the quintessential hen-pecked accountant. He was actually chairman of a Silicon Valley-based Fortune 500 and on the boards of several influential charities. He’d never given her his last name, but she’d seen his photo in the paper. The hotel he chose was decent but not extravagant, he drove a five-yearold American-made car, and his suits were purchased off the rack from a fine department store.
All of that was why Sheldon O’Dell was a very rich man. He paid her well. He was also masterful at oral sex. Especially when she ordered him to pleasure her. Sheldon loved to be ordered about. That was when he performed the best, and he certainly didn’t have any trouble on that end. She’d always wondered what his wife was like.
He slid into the chair beside her. “How do you do? I’m Sheldon.” He held out his hand. Mac shook.
Dani would love to see Sheldon in the boardroom. She couldn’t imagine he would sound as meek.
Clearly, Mac hadn’t been expecting Sheldon’s type. The way his gaze danced from her to Sheldon and back again amused her. He’d been ready to play the enforcer as he had with Spryo, laying down the rules, demanding. He didn’t know what to do with Sheldon. Dani loved throwing him off-kilter. It shifted the balance of power to her, right where she needed it.
“This is Mac,” she said, “my muscle.”
Sheldon did have a sense of humor, and he smiled shyly, his eyes reaching the knot in Mac’s tie and no higher. “Mac the Muscle. I like it. Very appropriate.”
Kern had met Sheldon in the beginning and deemed him harmless. He was actually a very nice man. She’d seen him a couple of times a month until she’d needed to stay home with Kern. He’d been solicitous, generous, and understanding.
Mac finally seemed to decide on the tack he’d take. Crossing his legs, he folded his arms and stared Sheldon down. Even if Sheldon wasn’t quite looking 62
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him in the eye. “I trust you’ll take good care of Dani.”
“Of course,” Sheldon agreed, removing his glasses to wipe them with a cloth he pulled from his pocket.
“I’ve instructed her to call me during the evening so that I know she’s all right.”
“Your concern is commendable.” Sheldon pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
Mac raised one brow. “She tells me you require only half an hour.”
It could have been a slam, but Sheldon didn’t react. His only reactions took place during their session when he begged her not to make him do all those naughty things. Other than that, he showed no emotion whatsoever. Now he simply said, “Half an hour is the perfect amount of time.”
Mac glanced at her, a curve to his lips that only she would recognize as a smile. “Shall we transact our business, then?”
“Of course.” Sheldon slid his eyes to Dani. She opened her purse, pulling out a small tin box, and handed it to him. Wedging it between his thigh and the padded arm of the chair, he surreptitiously removed a wad of bills from his pants pocket, laid them inside, snapped the lid shut, then slid the box across the coffee table toward Mac. Square and bright blue with a field of tiny forget-me-nots, it was well used, scratched, and dented. Filled with her payment, he’d given it to Dani the first time they’d met and told her to bring it back the next time. Her clients often had rituals they needed to perform in order to get off on the experience, things they couldn’t ask of their spouses. Part of Sheldon’s ritual was that tin box. Sometimes she thought he left it with her for safekeeping. If there was ever a time their relationship were to end, she would give it to Isabel to return to him.
Mac stared at the tin, then lifted his gaze to hers. She didn’t expect him to understand, but courtesans played into their client’s fantasy. Sheldon never told her what the box meant; she never asked. Though she had her suspicions, especially based on the nature of his sexual preferences. With the passing of the tin, she was now in charge. “Sheldon, it’s time,” she said sternly. “You know what to do.”
His breath quickened as he rose. Dani followed.
“Sheldon,” Mac said.
Sheldon’s head jerked up.
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“Half an hour. That’s all you’ve got. One second more, and I’m coming up to get her. And you won’t like what I do.”
Sheldon shuddered. Dani knew that shudder. Excitement. Anticipation. Mac had upped the stakes in the fantasy. Sheldon might actually take thirty-one minutes tonight.
Hopefully the extra minute would drive Mac crazy. 64
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10
AFTER DANI CALLED WITH THE ROOM NUMBER, MAC STEWED. HIS
imagination ran away with him, and the heat of his blood rose with his ire. Sheldon might be meek, mild-mannered, and odd, but Mac hated the idea that he was up there touching Dani as much as he would were Sheldon some handsome, young stud who’d stolen his girl.
How had he managed to get himself into this position? A goddamn cuckold—
wasn’t that what she’d called it?
He closed his eyes, and he could see that little man touching her, and it made him crazy.
The waitress was busy with a group of businessmen. A gaggle of office workers gossiped. There were couples, heads together, talking intimately, and men trying to do the pickup thing, their glances darting about the bar, landing on a quarry momentarily, then a flurry of discussion between them as they set up the game plan. No one paid Mac much attention. He flipped open the tin box, hitched his hip to pull out his wallet, and wrapped his own set of bills around the wad already in the box. Did Sheldon always pay the same? Would Dani notice?
Mac didn’t give a damn. Let her fight him on it. He was spoiling for a fight. The guy was weird. He’d liked Mac’s he-man act. To each his own. Mac glanced at his watch. He’d been brooding for more than fifteen minutes. His phone hadn’t rung. If Sheldon intended to finish in his requisite half hour, he’d better get started soon.
How could a man take only half an hour? It wasn’t possible. Well, it was, but not with a woman like Dani.
Mac had never been a jealous man. True, he’d never imagined giving a girlfriend to another man, but he also hadn’t watched a lover for any telltale signs of too much interest in someone else.
Jealousy over Dani had, quite simply, slammed into him like a Mack truck going a hundred miles an hour.
He sipped the remainder of her white Russian. Sweet and creamy with an afterkick. Just like Dani. Everything came back to Dani. Would Kern understand how the feelings had gotten away from him? When he asked Mac to take care of her, had he thought it might become more? Had he intended it?
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With a raucous burst of laughter from the male businessmen who had now combined their sofa and chairs with that of the female office workers, Mac realized he’d lost another five minutes.
Dani still hadn’t called. Dammit, she was leading him on, teasing him, testing him. Would he follow through on his threat to come looking for them if they were one minute late? Or would he sit and take it like a cuckold?
The white Russian was down to ice cubes. He threw a bill on the coffee table, shoved the tin in one pocket and his cell in the other. When you make a threat, you have to follow through. Even if he’d done it partly because he got the impression a little hard-ball was Sheldon’s preference. In the elevator, he stabbed the button. The evening with the Stamoses had been hot for more than just watching Dani. He’d gotten her off, not Spryo. Stamos and his wife were peripherals. It had been about Dani and him. Tonight with Sheldon was different. He’d never had his control stripped from him like this. Dani had a whole host of reasons for doing this that had nothing to do with Ma
c.
That was what fucking pissed him off and made him nuts. He exited the elevator with three minutes to spare. Stalking the hall, he felt like a grizzly bear just out of hibernation and Sheldon was in the way of his first meal. A passing woman gave him a wide berth. He admitted he probably looked a little crazed.
He found the room number and raised his hand to knock. And . . . Jesus. That was a moan. A sweet, feminine voice moaning in ecstasy. Goddammit. He put his head to the door because, really, he’d lost complete control of his faculties, acting like a jealous idiot . . .
The door gave an inch. It hadn’t been latched. The goddamn door was unlocked. He should have been angry, but the faint moans were higher now, louder, calling to him. He looked up and down the hall. No one else, no one heard. Two fingers to the door, his heart pounding, Mac pushed it open. The room was standard, bathroom and closet as you walked in, desk and TV
cabinet straight ahead. And a man’s feet hanging off the end of the bed. Mac closed the door as softly as he’d opened it.
His heart stuttered to a stop as he took the two steps necessary for a full view of the room. And the bed. And Dani.
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red lips parted. Sight, sound, scent overwhelmed his senses; long, smooth expanses of creamy skin, the room perfumed with her citrusy lotion and sexual musk, Sheldon’s head between her legs as she moaned and writhed. Her hips rose, wordlessly begging for more. He’d never beheld a more gorgeous woman or a more beautiful sight. All woman, taking her due, savoring it to the fullest. Nipples pebble hard, skin flushed as climax drew closer, her legs began to tremble.
“Filthy man, you love being so naughty, don’t you,” she murmured in a husky, sultry voice that strummed Mac’s cock. Sheldon seemed to go at her with renewed gusto.
“Don’t stop, dirty man, don’t stop,” she chanted, “or you’ll be punished.” With one last arch of her hips, she cried out, then her body shook and shivered. Her beauty in orgasm mesmerized him, each aftershock a little lighter, less intense, as she drifted back down from the pinnacle. She was never more desirable to him than she was in a state of orgasmic bliss. Mac was so fucking jealous he couldn’t see straight, think straight. He went with his gut and all the emotion roiling there.
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