Her own wetness was against her fingers and she could feel where her flesh met his, and some dim part of her was telling her to pull away. But she couldn’t because his hand was over hers and he was holding her there. And somehow that was exactly what she wanted.
He kept her hand there as he moved, so she could feel him as he thrust. Then he guided her fingers to her clit and pressed them down. “Touch yourself,” he whispered roughly in her ear. “I want you coming all over my cock in the next five seconds.”
It took her about ten, but by then neither of them was counting.
As the second climax roared through her, Tamara had to bury her face in the leather of the seat in front of her to stop herself from screaming. And then, a few seconds later, she found herself being hauled back against Zee’s body as he turned his mouth into her neck, biting down as his thrusts became harder, wilder, out of control.
And when he came she could feel the vibration of his roar against her skin, the echo of it moving deeper, imprinting into her flesh like the grooves in a record.
For long moments afterward, neither of them moved, their breathing slowing. And Tamara let herself lean back against him like she was lying on a rock that had been heated all day by the sun, for whole seconds not thinking of anything at all.
It was he who broke the silence finally, his voice like a shock of cold water. “I should get you home.”
Home. Yes, that’s right. She been desperate to get home, hadn’t she?
“Okay. Sounds good.” Her voice was husky, as if she’d been screaming a lot.
His hands were at her hips again, shifting her, and then came the awkward process of putting her clothing back in place and putting herself back together. Pretending like the sex hadn’t just broken her open for reasons she couldn’t explain even to herself.
As they got back into the front seat and he started the car, he said, “Tell me your address, Tamara. Your real address. I’m not letting you wait on the side of the road for a cab.”
There didn’t seem much point in holding back now, so she gave it to him. And a silent ten minutes later they were pulling up outside her apartment building.
She wanted to say something then, but what could she say? After that? They weren’t going to see each other again anyway, right?
So she settled for, “Thanks, Zee.”
And got out before he could reply.
As she walked up the steps to the front door of her building, she didn’t look back.
But she heard the sound of the engine as he drove away.
* * *
Zee drove home, his head ringing like a bell and his body aching for more.
He carefully didn’t think about anything as he parked the Trans Am near the shitty old warehouse he’d bought dirt cheap a couple years back with some of his fight winnings.
The ground floor housed the gym that he’d outfitted himself and let the teenage outreach center use free of charge whenever they needed it. Often that meant giving martial arts classes and he liked doing that. Giving back to the center that had taken him in as a fucked-up seventeen-year-old running from his past.
Upstairs was his apartment, which he kept very basically furnished because he liked it clean and clutter-free. It was easier to keep his mind clear without a lot of junk around, helped him focus on the future without the past constantly trying to draw him back. Not that he’d had that problem in a while, but tonight . . .
Zee went into his bare lounge area, sitting down on the edge of the worn leather couch Rachel had found for him in a yard sale. He put his head in his hands.
He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t touch her, that she wasn’t his type. And what the fuck had he done? He’d screwed her in the back of his Trans Am.
Shutting his eyes, he stared into the blackness behind his lids.
What was wrong with him? Normally he had no problem keeping his dick in his pants when he wanted to. Yet Tamara had totally messed with his head. Not only was she exactly the kind of girl he swore he’d never get involved with again, but she also had a fucking boyfriend into the bargain.
He didn’t like complications. He didn’t like surprises. And that was both.
Christ, he should have stopped there, but he hadn’t. Because he hadn’t given a crap about her goddamn boyfriend or the fact that she probably came from a rich family like Madison had. He’d smelled her in the air, felt her against his body, and he’d wanted her.
And when he’d looked into those cool, dark eyes of hers, he’d realized they weren’t so cool anymore.
Women wanted him all the time. They saw him in the ring, liked his moves, his tattoos, his muscles, and they weren’t shy about letting him know. So it had been a while since he’d had to chase anyone, a while since he’d had to seduce anyone. And fuck, he couldn’t deny there was a hell of a thrill to it. Leaning over her, dirtying up those pretty ears of hers with a few words, watching the heat bloom in her eyes. Watching that cool, expensive woman disappear under the raw burn of desire.
Desire for him.
Yeah, he’d gotten a kick out of that. It was always a thrill to make a woman like her want what she shouldn’t have. Make her ignore her boyfriend, her better judgment, and no doubt all those rich-girl scruples of hers, for a quick fuck in the backseat of his car.
Which made him a prick and not at all what the last few years of his life had been about. He was supposed to be locking the darkness inside him away, turning himself into a decent guy, not letting it out and seducing poor little rich girls in his car.
In the backseat, making her scream, balls deep in the wet heat of her. Rough and raw and hot. And that had been pretty damn intense all on its own. But then she’d lifted her hips and shoved herself back on him, meeting his thrusts like a fucking champion.
He’d felt the same adrenaline rush as if he’d been in a fight and when he’d come, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from pulling her back against him, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. Jesus. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing with that kind of thing. He kept roughness for the ring; it didn’t creep out anywhere else. Or at least it shouldn’t.
Good thing you’re not seeing her again then, right?
Zee let out a breath. Yeah, a very good thing, which meant he shouldn’t be getting all wound up about it. He’d slept with plenty of women before, and sure, he had a few rules about that, which he’d thrown out the window spectacularly tonight. But there was no point letting one in particular mess with his head.
So he’d fucked a nice girl in the back of his Trans Am and he’d been a little rough. They’d both got a couple of orgasms out of it, no biggie. And he wasn’t going to see her again, so what the hell was he angsting about?
He shouldn’t be thinking about this shit anyway. He had the martial arts program he was running through the outreach center to go over, which was good, because focusing on the kids was a great way to keep his own behavior in check. Plus he had a fight coming up in a couple of hours. Sex was a great way to let off steam, no question, but some time in the ring with an opponent was better. The rules were clearer, all parties able to defend themselves well enough, and when it was over, it was over.
Zee dropped his hands from his face and stared at the floor a moment longer. Then he pushed himself to his feet and went to the bedroom to prepare.
And he did not think again about Tamara Lennox.
Chapter 4
He was coming for her. Again. And this time she knew he wouldn’t stop.
She raised her hand and the gun was there.
She fired.
The shot echoed and echoed and echoed. Getting louder and louder and louder. And she screamed as he fell, because she knew he wasn’t getting up again. . . .
Tamara woke up, her heart hammering, the sheets tangled around her.
God, she hadn’t had a nightmare like that for years.
She looked blearily at the clock on the nightstand. Five A.M. Wonderful.
Letting out a breath, she la
y back down and stared at the ceiling, trying to get her heartbeat under control. How weird to get a nightmare again after all this time. They’d gradually tailed off six years ago and she’d thought they’d gone for good, but apparently not.
What had set this one off?
Are you sure you don’t know?
A memory suddenly unreeled. Of her in the backseat of a car, a man’s hands on her hips, his cock buried inside her. Of her, screaming into the leather of the seat in front of her. Teeth closing on her neck....
Zee.
Tamara groaned and rolled over, pushing her hot face into the pillow, a wave of embarrassment and heat sweeping through her.
Keep it under control, her parents had always told her, and for the past eight years that’s exactly what she’d been doing. But she hadn’t last night. She hadn’t kept anything under control last night. She’d ignored her boyfriend, her family name, her job, her need for success. Everything that made her Tamara Lennox.
She’d ignored it all for the sake of sex in the backseat of a car with a tattooed bad boy from the wrong side of town.
Shame joined the heat and the embarrassment. What the hell had she been thinking? She was better than that, wasn’t she? After all, as her parents had kept pointing out to her, she had to be.
Tamara sighed, then rolled over onto her back again. Okay, so she’d made a mistake, but she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it. What she had to do was keep on the way she always did, moving forward, not looking back. Her career was her future and so was Robert, and that’s what she needed to concentrate on.
That and not making any more mistakes.
She slid out of bed and stalked into the bathroom. Running the shower on cold got rid of any lingering cobwebs from the nightmare, not to mention the lingering heat from the memories of being in Zee’s car.
Running through her daily schedule as per usual also helped.
She was nearly at the end of her internship and she really needed to pull out the stops if she wanted a permanent position in the firm. Her father certainly wouldn’t give her a free ride, which meant she was going to have to suck up big-time to Scott, her horrible boss. Who, unfortunately, had it in for her for some inexplicable reason.
It could be because she was the big boss’s daughter, but more likely it was because he’d asked her out when she’d first started working at Lennox Investments and she’d refused him. Since then he’d been a pain in the ass to deal with, on her back about everything, and that wasn’t even taking into account the way he looked at her, making her feel a bit dirty—and not in a good way.
Not in a Zee way, right?
Tamara shut off the water. Hard.
No, she was not going to think about him or what they’d done together last night. That was over and done with, and she needed to move on.
Stepping out of the shower, she dried herself off and then went into the bedroom to get dressed. But it wasn’t until she was putting on her makeup that she saw the bite mark on her neck.
Oh hell. Presumably that had come from Zee.
“Great,” she muttered under her breath, examining the mark. “You bastard.”
How the hell was she going to deal with that? She couldn’t go into work with a damn hickey.
Quickly she changed her top, going for a blouse in soft, black silk with a high collar that hid most of the damage, and using a bit of concealer to cover the rest. It wasn’t perfect, but at least no one could see it. If they didn’t look too hard.
Half an hour later, having stopped at her favorite café to get her morning latte, she walked into the offices of Lennox Investments, hoping for once that she’d gotten there before Scott so she could have at least an hour of uninterrupted peace in which to get some work done.
No such luck.
He tended to be an early starter and was already in his office by the time she arrived.
She tried to slink by his doorway on her way to her cubicle, but as she passed, he called out, “Hey, where’s mine?”
Dammit.
She stopped and turned. He was looking pointedly at her latte.
“Good morning.” She gave him a forced smile. “I didn’t think you’d be here or I would have gotten you one.”
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Scott was a handsome guy and knew it too, in his mid-thirties, tall and dark, with blue eyes that were always looking at her with varying degrees of suspicion. “Well, maybe I’ll just have to send you out to get another.”
“Uh, sure. Just let me go put down my—”
“In a minute. I need to talk to you for a second.”
Oh, great. What was it now?
Keeping a polite smile plastered to her face, Tamara came into his office and closed the door behind her, before moving over to the chair by his desk and sitting down. “What did you want to talk about?”
Scott put his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed out of it, letting out a long breath as he came around the desk to perch on the edge of it, looking down at her. His usual primitive dominance display.
He liked putting her down and making things difficult for her.
She liked annoying him by taking everything he threw at her and making it no problem at all.
Except you kind of liked Zee’s primitive dominance display.
Tamara shoved the thought from her head and widened her smile.
“So,” Scott said, clasping his hands over his knees. “I’ve got a project going on that I need someone to put in some extra time on. It’s going to mean lots of late nights, but I really think it would be beneficial for you experience-wise. You’d get a lot out of it.”
Tamara held on to her cooling coffee tightly. I think this would be beneficial for you experience-wise was usually code for I’m determined to make your life hell, bitch. At least it was in Scott-the-bastard language.
She held the smile, trying not to think of all the other work she had on currently that she could barely fit in as it was, let alone taking more on. “That sounds great. And when you mean late nights you mean . . .”
“Exactly what it says on the box. It’ll be a couple of nights a week, I would think. At least until the backlog is done.” His cold blue eyes watched her, gauging her like a snake watching a mouse.
Tamara made sure he saw nothing but utter delight at the prospect. “I think I can manage that. In fact, it sounds like a wonderful opportunity to get myself noticed.”
“If you can manage it, of course. The top brass do like a hard worker, it’s true.” His smile had begun to take on a sharp edge. “You’ve done wonderfully so far, but that means the pressure’s going to be on if you want one of those positions, especially given the quality of the other candidates in the running.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. Competition for the limited number of Lennox positions was fierce and there were other interns who were just as hungry for it as she was. And none of them had the bad luck to be the boss’s daughter. Or to have wretched Scott watching every move she made, just waiting for her to make a slip and screw up her chances.
Tamara’s face ached from smiling, but she kept it up. “Oh, I’m sure I can handle it.”
“Can you?” Scott’s own smile had vanished. “I guess you’d better. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that I have to make my recommendations at the end of the month. That’s two weeks from now.”
Oh no, she hadn’t forgotten. That was burned into her brain. Because if she didn’t get a good recommendation from Scott, she wouldn’t be considered for the position, which wasn’t an option.
She had to get a job at Lennox. Her parents were counting on her to achieve and after all the support they’d given her in the aftermath of Will’s death, she couldn’t let them down.
“I remember.” Tamara gripped her cold coffee tightly. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying. That’s your job.” Scott slipped off the desk. Then he abruptly stopped, his gaze dipping, narrowing.
And a w
ave of cold washed over her. Because he was staring at her neck, right where Zee’s bite was.
Dammit. She didn’t want him asking questions about that, because he would, she just knew it. And she had no answers to give him, no excuses to make. Everyone over the age of sixteen knew what a hickey looked like, for God’s sake; she couldn’t explain it away as something else.
She couldn’t even say Robert had put it there since Scott was very much aware that Robert was in New York.
A mark on her neck wasn’t any of Scott’s business of course, but that wouldn’t stop him from making an issue of it if he thought it would disadvantage her. Especially if it would disadvantage her....
With a sharp, decisive movement, Tamara stood up, continuing to smile brightly. “Well, I’ll just go get that coffee you wanted. Espresso, two sugars, right?”
Slowly, Scott’s gaze came back to hers, suspicion glinting in the depths of his eyes. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Great. See you in five.”
Then, turning on her heel, her heart pounding, she left his office before he could say a word.
She managed to avoid Scott the rest of the morning, burying herself in work, so by the time lunch came around, she’d almost forgotten about the night before. Then, as she was grabbing a quick coffee in the small kitchenette that serviced her floor, she ran into Rose.
Her friend was looking remarkably bright-eyed after a night spent clubbing. She even had the gall to give Tamara a sympathetic look. “Whoa, you look tired. You got home okay last night?”
“I did.” Tamara leaned against the kitchenette counter, watching as Rose shook a packet of sugar into her coffee. “And you don’t look tired. What happened with the club?”
“Actually I didn’t end up staying out all that late.”
This was news. Rose had the stamina of an ox and liked to prove it whenever she could. “I don’t believe you,” Tamara said flatly.
Her friend laughed. “Yeah, I know, but strange as it may sound, it’s true. I think it was Zee’s class that did it. I just came away from it feeling so . . . empowered.” She stirred her coffee, flicking Tamara a glance. “Like . . . in control of things. And the other girls all felt the same way.” She put down the spoon, turned, and leaned back against the counter, holding her coffee mug. “We went to that club afterward and when we got there I got so busy talking with the others about the class, I didn’t even feel like hooking up with anyone. I kind of forgot about it.”
Dirty For Me (Motor City Royals) Page 5