by Amelia James
“More. I want more.” I panted in his ear, not exactly sure which man I was talking to… or about. Greedy slut.
He groaned and planted his knees, kissing his way up my neck to my open mouth, his tongue wrestling with mine.
“You can have anything you want, baby.”
I wish. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it back, exposing his ear. My lips moved, but the words weren’t mine. Or were they? “What if I said I want him?”
Oh my god, I am a slut!
Will growled and came. He shuddered as his hot juices spurted inside me. I’d always come firsthe made sure of it but I didn’t mind his coming first this time, because I’d made him lose controlsomething new, something different.
Oh, how I loved different.
My body trembled. I closed my eyes and felt himAlex
pinning me to the wall, our sweat-slicked bodies sliding and sticking. Someone watched Willstaring at us, his blue eyes intense and dark. I shuddered and felt my hot juices dripping down our thighs. “Oh Allllll….”
Shit! Was I calling his name?
I bit my lip and tasted blood. It hurt, but I deserved it.
Will buried his face in my hair and tickled my neck with his tongue. He looked up and wiped my lip with his thumb.
“Did I do that to you?”
I shook my head, blinking back tears.
He kissed my cheek and lay beside me, holding me close.
“Let’s sleep in. We’re not in a hurry today.”
I nodded and let him sleep on my shoulder. Sunlight blazed through a gap in the curtains, throwing a spotlight on my tormented heart. I loved Will, but Alex…. Alex appealed to my darkest desires, my baser instinctsdifferent, but also dangerous. And he was wrong, so wrong.
Alex was Will’s best friend.
Forbidden. I shouldn’t even think about him.
But I wanted him.
I’d never thought about cheating before. When a new guy sparked my interest, I just dumped the current guy.
Being with Will was
different; he spoiled me, indulged me. So did every other guy I’d dated, but unlike those others, Will understood and appreciated my needs.
When we’d met, I’d told him I didn’t want a long-term relationship.
He’d looked at me with a confident smile and just a touch of arrogance, and said, “You’re already mine, darlin’, and I’ll prove it to you.”
Woo boy, he hadin so many delicious ways. His bold challenge had aroused my stubborn resistance, and I refused to admit he’d won.
Alex possessed the same overconfident charm. He never took no for an answer, and always wonnot above doing a little wrong when it suited him.
I’d heard rumors about him at the office. Some I believed without question, but some….
Everyone at the firm knew about the partners’ creative billing techniques and other suspicious activities.
We worked together, the only reason I hadn’t already slept with Alex, even though he had no problem breaking the firm’s rule about not dating co-workers or clients. A lot of women appreciated his cavalier disregardincluding me.
But I couldn’t cheat. I just couldn’t. Not gonna happen.
I closed my eyes and dozed off, flirting with consciousness.
A part of my dream I didn’t tell Will about, a part I didn’t acknowledge until now, floated in the back of my mind and wouldn’t fade.
“Are you finished with her?”
Will’s stoic expression was unreadable.
Alex gave me that chilling smile. “For now.” He let go of me and stood back.
“I’m sorry, I….” I tried to cover my naked body.
“You wanted something different. I know.” Will smiled. “I understand.” He reached for me, but I stepped back. “Promise you’ll always come back to me.”
I took his hand.
Were dreams just random images or did they mean something? Was there some impossible chance Will might forgive me if I slept with another man? Did I dare risk finding out?
Not with Alex. Will’s friend, my co-workerhe was too dangerous. But he was new…
different… exciting.
That’s exactly why I wanted him.
Dirty Words
I flipped the kitchen light on and grabbed the nearest chair as a wave of blinding brightness nearly sent me to the floor. The drunken dizziness cleared after a couple seconds, and I searched the fridge for a bottle of water. My whiskey-drinking days had begun and ended last night…
er… this morning, I realized, by the time on the microwave clock. Ugh. 3 AM.
I leaned back against the counter and downed the bottle of water, hoping it would counteract the looming hangover.
“You look cute, Talia.”
I nearly dropped the water bottle. Of all the people who might have seen me in that kitchenin nothing but a spaghetti strap tank top and string bikini underwearwhy did it have to be him?
Alex Sheridan, hotshot attorney and youngest junior partner at the firmhe wasn’t even thirty yetwas the chair of the criminal defense department. He wasn’t my boss, technically. I worked as a paralegal for another lawyer in his department, but I still unofficially worked with the newest partner, my old boss Holland Spencer.
I’d told Holland over and over again that I didn’t want to be on his ‘team’ anymore, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I liked the money he paid me, so I kept doing it.
I’d been glad when Alex moved me to his department.
He turned me onand scared me a little. He had connections, inside and outside the firm, with people who made the senior partners look like boy scouts.
Alex and Will both hailed from the South. They went to high school and college together, but Alex had come to Chicago for law school, and stayed. Will had transferred up here a little over a year ago, after his promotion to detective, and I met him at Alex’s Super Bowl party last winter.
We hung out with Alex a lot, but I never minded seeing him after work. He was pretty nice to look at. Okayvery nice.
I had a little crush on him, but so did every other woman in the department. Alex was a good lawyer because he got what he wanted. He
specialized in manipulation, plotting and scheming. The senior partners had their allseeing eyes on him. That
would’ve scared most people, but Alex didn’t seem to be afraid of anyone or anything.
His opponents, and even some of our clients, feared him.
E v e n I didn’t trust him entirely.
The firm had punished him once for violating its ethics rules. What a joke. Most of the partners, especially my ex-boss, didn’t bother with a little thing like obeying the law, and somehow Holland had sucked me into that gray area too.
Since Alex hadn’t made full partner, he was still subject to their regulations. Not that he cared.
Oh, hell yes, I was attracted to hima notoriously single bad boy hiding a dark side behind his charming smile.
I glared at him across the kitchen table. “What are you doing up?” I should’ve run for cover, instead of letting him check me out.
He’d had a lot to drink too.
Maybe the firm’s ethics rules didn’t apply at three o’clock in the morning. Maybe our professional boundaries were as fuzzy as my brain.
I’d been with the same guy for almost a year, and it sure felt good to have someone new look at my body. I still loved Will… I just wanted some strange, too. That first-time rush was long gone for me and Will, but this attention from Alex excited mesomething new and forbidden. His intense stare felt like insistent fingers on my skin. I couldn’t hide from him. My nipples tingled, and I didn’t have to touch myself to see if my girl parts dripped; I could feel it.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” His fiery gaze burned right through my shirt.
“I needed water.”
Alex had invited us over to watch football with a few other friends. Will and I had drunk too
much, so Alex let us spend the night. We’d slept in his bedroom, leaving him to sleep somewhere else.
I could have sworn the boys exchanged devious glances when we said goodnight.
Probably just my imagination.
“I couldn’t sleep.” His head dropped back on the leather chair.
He was wearing nothing but his jeans; I had no idea his shoulders were so broad. I’d only ever seen him in a suit and tie, almost always with the top button of his shirt undone and his tie tugged loose. He seemed to chafe at ties.
His short brown hair stuck out in all directions, and his eyesblack in the dark living room, but I knew they were a startling bluefocused on me, following my every move as I walked toward him.
“I couldn’t shut off my brain.” He drawled when he spoke, his voice worn out and lazy.
“Happens to me all the time.” I sat down on the coffee table in front of him, catching a sly smile on his face as I pulled my knees together. “You get an idea in your head and it goes on and on.”
His gaze moved over my body.
Don’t let him look at you that way! I was sitting nearly naked with another man while the man I loved slept just down the hall. Why was I tempting someone else?
Alex’s eyes sparkled in the dark, and he licked his lips.
Maybe he was tempting me.
I sat too close to him, hoping he would touch me. What the hell are you thinking? Will touched me as much as I wanted. He couldn’t keep his hands off me, but I knew his hands too well. I wanted unfamiliar hands on my complacent skin.
“Is it okay if I sit on your table?”
His smile turned dangerous.
“You can put your sweet ass wherever you want.”
The first thing I learned in my law classes was that the most important concept in the legal profession was defining terms. Sexual harassment was defined as unwanted or unwelcome advances. Alex’s flirting was often playful and sometimes bold, but never unwanted or unwelcome. I gave it right back to him more often than not, but he maintained a professional demeanor at the officeunless we were alone.
I shouldn’t have flirted with him so much. If I’d been single, it wouldn’t have been a problem… but I wasn’t single and didn’t want to be. I’d always been a flirt. I tried to rein it in, but Alex wouldn’t give it up. Will didn’t seem to care, though, and he often laughed at Alex and me when we really got going. Maybe it turned Will on a little. Alex didn’t have a girlfriend to worry about.
A while ago, there’d been rumors that he’d slept with a female client of his, but she disappeared. The police questioned Alex and the firm investigated him, but they’d never laid charges. She was never found, and Alex was never arrested.
As far as I knew, he lived alone. He’d furnished his condo nicely, but without much thought or feeling. A rich leather couch and matching chairs decorated the living roomtasteful, functional, necessary. The kitchen felt sparse and Spartan. Compared to his cluttered and busy office, his home looked as though he hardly spent any time there.
“I think I’ll take my sweet ass back to bed.” I tried to stand up, but he leaned forward and grabbed my hand.
“Don’t. Stay here and let me finish undressing you.”
With your eyes? That’s not what he said. The room suddenly got hot and small and my heart fluttered under my breast. “I shouldn’t”
“Why not?”
Seriously? I glanced down the hall and then back at him. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to run. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
His laugh sent chills down my spine. “You would too.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Damn it, what am I doing? I couldn’t play his game. He would win because he had no regard for boundaries, no respect for rules, and no fear.
“Stay here and prove me wrong.”
“No.” I couldn’t trust him.
Ever. I had to get away from him. Now.
Before I could move, he fell back in the chair and dragged me with him, my legs sprawled over his lap. His hands slid down my back, and I tried to stand up but somehow our bodies fit closer together. His fingers felt like fire on my skin.
I felt his cock get hard between my legs, and rubbed against it without thinking.
He groaned and stroked my bare thighs with one hand, while the other teased the cotton panel stretched tight over my hot flesh.
“Slut,” he whispered on my neck. “You were wet before I touched you.”
I leaned back and slapped his face so hard my hand stung.
His black eyes sparkled. “So you wanna play rough?”
Hell yes. I’d had no idea until I slapped him. A wild thrill shot through me, and my heart raced as he grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my face down, his lips stopping just short of mine. Then he waited.
There had to be some reason I shouldn’t kiss him, but damned if I could remember it.
My fingers curled into his bare chest and he hissed. I liked m a k i n g him squirm for a change.
“Kiss me,” he growled.
“I shouldn’t”
“I. Don’t. Give. A. Damn.”
Well hell. My lips touched hisbarely. I pulled back and looked at himunfamiliar, dangerous, and so exciting I devoured his mouth without thinking. Don’t think, just touch.
I ran my fingers across his strong shoulders and down his arms. His skin felt hot under my hands, his body hard. He sucked in his abs so I could get into his pants, if I wanted to. I slid one hand over his stomach and under his jeans, touching his hard cock, smiling when he groaned.
He pushed my straps off my shoulders and fondled my bare breasts, circling my nipples with his thumbs, sending shock waves exploding through me.
I leaned back and his mouth found my nipple, sucking hard, his breath hot on my breast.
“Don’t stop,” I gasped. He groaned and clamped my nipple between his teeth, and I squirmed on his lap. Was this pleasure or pain? No matter, because I liked it.
His hand slid between my legs, rubbing my fleshy button through my panties. I groaned and shifted, hoping to force his hand under the cloth. It worked. His fingers touched my wet skin, slipping in and out, fucking me with his hand harder and faster and hotter, until I started panting his name. His hands moved under me again, and his cold open zipper scratched my bare thigh.
His fingers hooked my crotch and he pulled my panties aside. “Let me fuck you.”
“No!” I stood up and fell backward onto the coffee table.
Alex swore and collapsed in the chair, panting hard.
He couldn’t move fast enough to grab me again before I stumbled down the hall, tripped into the bathroom and closed the door. Somehow, a rational thought kept me from slamming it and waking Will. I twisted the lock and rattled the knob, making sure it held.
From the other side of that hollow barrier, I heard Alex laugh. “I’m not sorry.”
I stood in the dark on the cold tile floor, shivering with the realization that I wasn’t sorry either. “One of us will be.”
My weak voice echoed in the small room, but Alex didn’t answer.
I flipped on the light and cringed in the harsh glare, closing my eyes until they adjusted; gasping at my reflection in the mirror. My shirt was still caught under my breasts, and I yanked it up, hiding my nakedness. Good God, what had I done? I closed my eyes and turned away, leaning against the door. Alex had had his hands on mein me. I didn’t want to remember, but I couldn’t stop.
His tongue in my mouth….
He’d forced me to kiss him, hadn’t he? My hands in his pants… but he let me do it. He wanted me to touch his cock
hard, hot and a little slippery.
Alex wanted me. No doubt about that.
“I want to fuck you, Talia.”
His voice sounded in my head. Or was he standing in the hallway? Did it matter? The memory of his touch lingered on my skin. His fingershow many?in my pussy, and his thumb on my clit. I’d never used those words
before. I felt dirty hearing them in my head, dirty when Alex had touched me. My nipples hardened into little throbbing beads. I liked dirty. My girl parts… no, my pussy dripped againstill.
When had that happened?
When I’d slapped him. Oh God. Play rough. Wow. Liquid heat shot through my stinging fingers and dripped down my thighs. I pressed my cheek against the door, hoping the smooth solid surface would cool me, but my ragged breath heated it up. My eyes closed tight. Oh, that was a mistake.
Carnal images invaded my head: my nipple between his teeth, his fingers stroking my wet panties. He squirmed under me when I grabbed his cock. He pulled the soaked cotton aside and violated my pussy. I felt my body betray me.
“Oh fuck!” Yes, Alex, fuck me!
Damn it, why? I didn’t need him. I wanted himpleasure with no strings, a new and different cock in my pussy
and I wanted it hard. I wanted to be dirty and like it.
I couldn’t breathe; couldn’t stand up. Blackness swirled behind my eyes, and molten heat gushed between my legs. I was coming. “Fuck! Please!
Damn it, Alex.”
I wanted to be punished.
His victorious laugh rang through the door, echoing off the stark walls. “I knew I could make you come.”
I stumbled back and hit the sink, slid down to the cold hard floor, hugged my shaking knees, and sat there shivering for God knows how long.
When I opened the bathroom door, the hall was empty.
Alex had snuck away in the dark, silent as a predator. Was he watching me from
somewhere? Hiding and waiting until I was vulnerable again? Grinning like a triumphant bastard?
I knew that smile well.
I felt my way down the dim hall and crawled into bed with Will, trying not to wake him.
He rolled over and slid his arms around me. “Where’d you go, baby?”
“I needed water.”
“Mm.” He nuzzled my neck and held me close. “Your body feels hot.”
Still? “Too much alcohol.” I turned my back to him and pulled my legs together so he couldn’t feel my wet thighs, but he rolled with me, spooning me and rubbing his hard cock against my ass. He always slept naked. I did too, but I’d kept some clothes on that night, feeling the need to protect myself in Alex’s bed. Not that it did any good.