by Talia Quinn
“Try me.” It came out in a near whisper. As if I was telling him a secret. And maybe I was, at that.
We stared at each other for a long, suspended moment, and then I grabbed him by the shoulders, or he grasped my waist, or we both moved at the same time, and then, thank God, then we were kissing. Lips smashed together, mouths open, bodies crushed against each other. Nothing gentle about this kiss, nothing tender. I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought him closer, sought his tongue with mine, and wriggled my body as close as possible to his.
This. Him. Right now.
I fumbled at the fastening of his pants. He inhaled sharply against my mouth. Apparently he hadn’t thought I’d go through with it. But I wanted this so badly, I was shaking. Six long months living on the memory of one night. It wasn’t enough.
Thankfully, Dylan took over, unbuttoning the pants. I shoved them down his legs, exposing his impressive erection under a thin fabric covering. Thank God for the slit in his boxers. With a twist of my fingers, his cock was free. I slid my hand down the shaft, and he groaned.
“I can’t—we shouldn’t—this is crazy.” His voice cracked, a broken whisper.
I put my fingers over his lips. “Crazy. Yes.”
He grabbed my hand, sucking one finger into his mouth while his other hand reached down to my panties. I helped him pull them down. They dropped to the floor. Marie’s carpeted floor. The office.
We really shouldn’t be doing this.
I didn’t care.
Dylan sucked rhythmically on my finger. The sensation was unbearably erotic. And I wasn’t wearing panties. And his cock was hard and hot against my belly, through my skirt. He gripped my ass with his large hands, lifted me up, and slid inside. I opened my eyes, gasping at the sensation, only to see him staring at me, fierce and hungry, and that made me even more turned on.
“Do you want me?” His voice was husky.
“So much.”
“Then why?” He shoved into me again, and I rode the rhythm, the building pleasure, my insides clenching around him. “Why didn’t you want to see me again?”
“I did.” I gasped again as he moved again, hard. Fierce. “I thought about you every day. Wanted to feel you like this.” It felt so painfully good. Shivers up and down my arms, shivers inside my belly. “Inside me like this. Fucking me so hard.” I inhaled. He watched me, intent, hungry. “So good.”
“Have you been with anyone else since?”
“No. Didn’t want anyone else.” I tangled my hands in his hair. “More. Please. More.”
He gave me more, and I nearly lost my mind.
I bucked up against him, rode him, my buttocks slapping the wall as I slid against him. I could feel his muscles straining under my weight as he held me up and pushed into me again and again. The feelings spiraled so fast, so intense, and, like a thunderclap that shook my body, I came. He pulled out and let me back down to the floor, and I gave a sobbing, shuddering breath. Even though I was done, the spasms receding gradually, making me weak and boneless, I didn’t want to lose this connection, this link, this delicious, terrible encounter.
He staggered to his knees, clutching his cock. No condom. Right. I hadn’t even given it a thought, caught up in that primal drive to have him.
I knelt in front of him and wrapped my hand around his erection. That was all it took. He came with a groan. I found a box of tissues on Marie’s desk to clean up, then we collapsed on the floor, breathing into each other. Recovering. His pants were mussed, my skirt was a mass of wrinkles, and my panties were under my foot.
“Should I ask what I owe you?” Dylan’s mouth had a sardonic twist that I didn’t like.
I pulled away from him. “Are you kidding me?”
His gaze challenged, almost playful. “Shouldn’t I?”
“God, no.” I laughed, but it came out as more of a sob. “Maybe I should pay you. You’re pretty talented.”
“Good to know. So?”
“So?”
“What now?”
I stood, straightening my skirt as best I could. “Nothing. It happened. We got it out of our systems. We’re done.”
He stood too, picking up my panties from the floor. “Why are we done?”
Panic rose in my throat. He wanted to see me again? “Because you’re getting over a spectacularly bad marriage, and I’m hardly relationship material. It was an amazing encounter. Can we leave it at that? If we go further, we’ll screw this memory up. I’d rather keep it, thanks.”
“What are you so scared of, Saffron?” His eyes glinted. He was using the wrong name on purpose.
“I’m not scared. It’s not a good idea, that’s all.” I brushed my hair back into some semblance of a no-I-didn’t-just-have-sex-in-Marie’s-office coif and set my hand on the doorknob. “I need to get back to work. And don’t you have a meeting?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I frowned. “Can’t we leave it at this?”
His mouth twitched as he proffered my panties. “This. I meant this.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t about to put them back on, not after I’d stepped on them. “Throw them away.” I patted my skirt. “No pockets.”
He slipped them into his jacket pocket. That worked too.
I unlocked the door. Before I swung it open, he stopped me. “If anything comes of this…”
“A baby, you mean? Or an STD? Or AIDS?”
“I haven’t been with anyone but you in a year. I’m clean. I meant a baby.”
“Unlikely.” He hadn’t come inside me, after all.
“If it does, you know where to find me.”
I nodded. Fair enough.
As I walked back to my drafting table, I avoided looking at my coworkers. I’d have to deal with them in the break room. It was all too obvious what we’d been up to. I cursed Dylan in my head. I’d kept my sexuality out of the workplace, and now he’d made it the first thing on everyone’s mind. Thanks a lot, pal.
But that wasn’t fair. What happened in that office was at least as much my doing as his. I had wanted it so much. Wanted him so much.
Could I really keep away from him?
Yes. I had to. If we started something, I knew in my gut it would get serious in a heartbeat. Hell, sex between a supposed prostitute and john—anonymous, no-strings-attached sex—had turned into an all-night confessional. What would a week, a month, a year of Dylan be like? My heart couldn’t take that much emotional openness. A man like that—a strong, passionate man—he could tear my heart open with a spoon, leaving me hollow. Like my mother.
No. It was better this way. I’d figure out how to do uncomplicated one-night stands at some point. And maybe I’d eventually find a guy who didn’t scare me. I’d move in with him, or he’d move in with me, or we’d get a house in the suburbs and commute into Manhattan and live a picture-perfect life.
Or maybe I’d collect cats and sleep under a big asexual fur pile every night.
But a man like Dylan, he was off-limits. He’d seemed to accept it at the end. He hadn’t pushed again to see me. I wouldn’t hear from him again.
I bent over my drafting table and focused on the columns I was sketching in. If they were square and spaced three feet apart, with wood beams along the ceiling in between…
My cell chimed, an incoming text. Dylan? My heart gave a traitorous leap. But no. Of course it wasn’t him. He didn’t have my phone number. It was Fernando.
Come into my office, I need to talk to you.
Was it against company policy to have mad sex with a potential client? Had I turned Dylan off to working with us? How bad was this going to be? Firing bad or reprimand bad?
Yearning for the dignity of my lost panties, I walked the long path between desks to Fernando’s office. Naked and vulnerable was not a good combination. Even secretly naked. I felt off-kilter. Nothing about this afternoon was part of my carefully plotted out five-year plan. Dylan made me reckless. A perfect example of why I was right to avoid him.
&n
bsp; Chapter Six
Fernando was facing away from the door, gazing out the window behind his desk. He slouched in his chair. His posture seemed irritable. Tense, at least.
“Sit.” He spoke without turning around.
I sat. “Am I in trouble?”
He swiveled around. “Are you?”
“It won’t happen again.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What won’t happen?”
“Whatever you think happened.”
His eyebrows stayed up. “With Mr. Krause, I presume.”
I glanced out the door, irrationally hoping for escape. No escape was forthcoming. Nothing for it, then. “I am deeply sorry if anything I did led to scuttling the contract. I know it’s a big coup. I realize my behavior was unprofessional, but you have to admit it was also wildly out of character.”
Oddly, Fernando looked more puzzled than angry. “He’s not scuttling anything. He said he liked our preliminary work and thinks our vision is what his company is looking for. He needs to take it to his partners, but it sounds like they’ll be on board.”
Whew. “Glad to hear it. But…if you didn’t know…”
“Know what?”
I rushed past that. “And he didn’t decide to go elsewhere—then what did you want to see me about?”
The distraction worked. “You’re on the Juniper project. As a second lead. It’s a big commitment, a lot of late nights on top of your current workload, but you’re on.” He didn’t look pleased. In fact, he seemed more like he was telling me I was relegated to the basement mopping floors.
I swallowed. It didn’t help. I still felt like something large and uncomfortable was stuck in my throat. Second lead on the Juniper storefronts, presumably working directly with Dylan? I had a pretty good idea who came up with this gem of an idea, and his name wasn’t Fernando.
Since I started at Alvarez and Associates two years ago, I’d been the best worker bee in their hive. I worked through lunch, stayed late finishing projects, and woke up in the middle of the night with remodeling ideas in my head. Got 3-D models and blueprints in ahead of schedule. Never spoke out of turn. Never did anything to ruffle anyone’s feathers. I wanted this job to go well. I wanted a promotion based on my performance. I wanted to be Ms. Lilly, the outstanding employee, not Samantha the complicated human being.
And yet here I was. Exposed in every way. Impromptu angry sex in the workplace, which apparently led straight to a promotion I hadn’t earned, where my every move would be scrutinized and probably found wanting.
Damn Dylan.
No, I’d been equally complicit. Damn me.
That wasn’t right either. The sex, yes, I’d been so caught up in the emotion of it—the rawness, the need—I’d forgotten myself.
But the Juniper gig, no. That was all his doing.
To my surprise, I said it aloud. “No.”
“Excuse me?” Fernando leaned back in his expensive ergonomic office chair, his tone cool. But he looked less like he’d spit out a lemon rind.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I’m not ready for something this big. I’d be leapfrogging over half the office.”
“Are you saying you’re not good enough?”
“Not at all. I’m simply not ready. I will be, but not yet.”
“Are you turning it down?”
“Can I?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What if—” I realized my fingers were clutching the carved wooden arms of my chair so hard they were leaving tiny half-moon nail marks. I made myself relax. Breathe. Not think about Dylan.
So, of course, I blurted his name. “Dylan Krause.”
Fernando rubbed his forehead as if he was warding off a headache. I knew the feeling. “What if Dylan Krause what?”
“What if he was okay with my withdrawing from the project? Would that be acceptable to you?”
Unexpectedly, he laughed. Of all the reactions I’d anticipated, this was most emphatically not one of them. “You have hidden depths, Samantha. I had no idea.” He shook his head.
His phone rang. He answered it. “Alvarez. What’s up?” As the person on the other end of the line started talking, Fernando hit Mute and turned back to me. “What is Krause to you? You didn’t just meet him at a party, I take it.” When I hesitated, he waved his hand. “Forget it. The less I know the better, I suspect. I agree, you aren’t ready to take on the Juniper project. Do what you need to do to get out of it without burning the client. And good luck with your love life, but keep it out of the workplace in the future.”
Before I could respond, he unmuted his phone and started talking to the caller.
I walked back to my table on legs that didn’t support my weight very well, then sagged onto my stool.
Well, that was one way to make an impression on the boss.
I was going to kill Dylan.
~*~
Trouble was, I didn’t know where to find him. The security guard at his office building sent me up when I said I was working with Alvarez and Associates, but the receptionist on the top floor gave me a puzzled frown. “Is he expecting you?”
“Fernando Alvarez sent me over to sort out some details after their meeting. I thought he called…?” I trailed off suggestively.
“Right. Of course. He does this. You’d think… Never mind.” She paged through some documents on her computer. “He’s at the warehouse. Come back tomorrow?”
Tomorrow felt like an eternity. My fingernails bit into my palms. I needed the release of yelling at the man right now, not some theoretical future date. Plus, I’d gotten out of work early today to go to a theoretical dentist’s appointment. Unless I manufactured an emergency root canal and threw in a Vicodin stupor for good measure, I couldn’t exactly sneak away two days in a row.
“Where’s the warehouse?”
She gave me a skeptical look. “I don’t think…”
I leaned in, lowering my voice. “It’s kind of personal too. After that disaster with his wife, he and I…. And now he’s…and I think I might…” I took a deep breath. “I need to talk to him. He’ll thank you. I promise.”
It did the trick. Her gaze softened. “He’s been in a snit the past few months. Is that about you?”
I blanched. Because yeah, it probably was. My lie wasn’t much of a lie, was it?
She gave me the address, which turned out to be at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, miles from the subway. As I walked from the F, the streetscape morphed from the familiar funky, intriguing area under the Manhattan Bridge to something more desolate and scary.
The Navy Yard was less exciting than I’d expected. All I saw was a large parking lot surrounded by long, low buildings. One had the familiar Juniper logo out front. Thank God.
The building wasn’t locked, and there was no security at the front desk. No front desk, for that matter. Just a huge room filled with carved wood furniture. The place smelled of sawdust and wood oil.
Dylan was easy to spot. He stood in a clump with two other men and a woman, discussing a dining table. He gestured over it, his movement elegant and certain, but it was easy to see his unhappiness. The taller guy stepped back and talked a blue streak, wildly animated, obviously trying to convince Dylan he was wrong.
I laughed to myself. Convince Dylan Krause he was wrong? Good luck with that. My guy had the worst case of the arrogant stubborns I’d ever met.
My guy? Where had that come from?
He was emphatically not, and never would be, my guy.
Now that I was here, I felt frozen in place. No way could I go over there and interrupt. It was impossible. Besides, why? I’d spent the past months running away from him. What was I doing running toward him?
I turned to go. I’d write him an email and tell him he’d crossed a line with his imperious demand that I should be included on his design team.
Why hadn’t I thought to do that in the first place?
I made it to the door before a hand came down on my own, stopping me
.
Dylan. I knew without turning around. He smelled like wood shavings with the faintest hint of musky sex. Of me. His body heat radiated, enveloping me.
“Saffron. How did you find me here?” His voice, low and controlled, rippled through me. “Looking for a repeat performance?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I swiveled toward him, hastily glancing around. His cohorts were safely out of earshot, down at the other end of the warehouse, arguing over an all-wood recliner that looked hideously expensive and even more uncomfortable, with knobs and angles where none should exist. I relaxed a hair. “I’m here to tell you I’m not working with you.”
His eyes lit with a perversely amused gleam. “A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I wanted to make sure you got the message. You can’t tell my boss to put me on the account because you want to sleep with me again.”
“What if that’s not why I asked?” He still stood behind me, his hands braced on the door, but now that I’d turned, it was like I was standing in his embrace. Captive.
“Isn’t it?” Was he going to kiss me? Would I let him if he did?
“Maybe I wanted to see you in action. In your real job.” His tone caressed me.
“You can’t. It doesn’t work like that. I’m not ready. Linda and Blake would resent me like crazy. They’ve been at the firm years longer than me. And Fernando would be watching every move you and I made to make sure nothing inappropriate happened. It would be a disaster.” The words came out in a flood, breathless and unsteady. “You can’t march in and reorganize my life like you’re my master and commander.”
He let go, stepping back abruptly. “Why would I do that? I hardly know you, Samantha Saffron Lilly of the three first names. Maybe I wanted to make sure I saw you again.”
I pulled my jacket tight, feeling the loss of his body heat. “Well, it was a mistake. Call Fernando, tell him you’re fine without me.”
“I will. If you go out to dinner with me.”