One of Carlo’s tanned hands reached out and his forefinger lightly circled her areola. She gasped, her fingers curling into fists and her eyes closing tight. Carlo’s touch teased her again, the circle slow and maddening.
Worrying.
A snail’s pace would give him time to think.
Carlo already thought way too much.
She grabbed his hand and pushed it against her breast. His palm felt hard and hot and she stepped closer. “Kiss me,” she demanded. “I want your mouth.”
His laugh was soft. Deliberate. “So impatient.”
She thumbed his hard nipple and leaned in to lick the other with the very tip of her tongue. His fingers closed over her aching breast. She pressed herself into the harder touch and another shiver racked her body.
Carlo’s free hand chased the movement down her spine until he slid his fingers beneath the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. The snap on the front pressed into her belly and Lucy ripped it open.
His breath hissed out as his hand slid lower to heat a cheek left bared by her thong. Her hips crowded closer to his and he pressed his erection against the give of her abdomen. His face lowered to her hair. “Lucy, we should—”
“Take this to the bedroom,” she finished for him, closing her eyes at the delicious sensation of his palm caressing her naked bottom. They weren’t playing the start-and-stop game, not this time. She opened her eyes and her gaze lifted to his. “And I mean it.”
He laughed, that soft, amused laugh, as if her fierceness didn’t frighten him. “Else what? You’re going to bite me?”
A little smile played across her mouth. “Or else I’m not going to bite you.” And then she did, she bit him, a tiny nip right into the hard muscle of his chest wall.
Carlo jerked, and then in a blink he had her in his arms and was striding out of the kitchen. Giddy with triumph, she clung to him as her blood sped around her body just like her brothers’ slot cars used to careen around their zigzagging track. In a darkened bedroom, she only had the impression of austere space before she found herself dropped to a wide mattress.
Carlo stood beside it, looking down at her.
Her bare torso was pale in the shadows and in the vee of her unfastened jeans was a slice of the brighter white of her thong. Lucy toed off her shoes and socks, then went to work dragging off the clinging denim pants under his scrutinizing gaze.
She marveled at herself all the while. As much as she felt the need for speed, because giving Carlo time for second thoughts meant there’d be no follow-through for them, getting naked for a man wasn’t the most natural of Lucy Sutton maneuvers. She’d had a few lovers—three—but at this stage of the process she’d always felt a little fear mixed with the want in the pit of her belly.
A man was so much bigger. So much stronger. So much…other.
But now, with Carlo…
She kicked her pants over the side of the bed and hooked a thumb in each side of her thong. With Carlo she felt only breathless anticipation.
“Stop right there,” he ordered.
She froze. Her gaze jumped to his, but his eyes were impenetrable in the dark room. Just more shadows.
The bed dipped as his hip settled on the mattress. His hand cupped the vee between her thighs. “What’s your hurry?”
Hot, liquid desire rushed to meet the warmth of his hand. “I…I…” There was a reason, but she couldn’t remember right now what it was. “You…you…”
“Am the one who will be setting the pace.” He leaned over to deliver an almost-chaste kiss to her mouth, her lips softened by the need his expert fingers were stoking. They rubbed lightly over the satiny fabric of her panties. “I’m the boss.”
Her legs edged open and she reached for his shoulders to bring him closer. His chest brushed the tips of her breasts as he let her draw him down. “I’ve never been the best of employees, Mr. Milano.” Her voice sounded strained, but what else could she do? If he wouldn’t let her rush, then he had to let her keep it light.
Make it a game.
“So maybe you could outline the rules for me,” she added.
“Hmm. All right.” He straightened, going businesslike. “Take a memo, Ms. Sutton.”
Her fingers wandered over his nearest thigh to find his hard length behind his jeans. His hand caught her searching digits before they could curl around his erection.
“Ms. Sutton!” he said in mock shock.
“I’m only looking for a pencil,” she protested.
He choked back his laugh, then directed her touch himself so that she located her target. It was gratifyingly thick. Even through denim he felt hot.
“Oh, Mr. Milano. This instrument may be a little larger than I’m used to.”
His stern voice hid more laughter. “Are you bucking for a raise?” She heard him suck in a breath as she used the heel of her hand to trace his length. “Never mind then, Ms. Sutton, I’ll write the memo myself.”
She could have cried as his hand left its aching niche between her thighs, his forefinger drawing a line from the cleft upward, on the way bumping sensitive places that made her squirm against the spread.
“From Carlo Milano,” he whispered into the dark around them as his finger made curlicues across her midriff. “To all temporary employees.”
“ All temporary employees?” she questioned.
His hand stilled. “Point taken. Thank you, Ms. Sutton. To all small, blond, sexy yet temporary secretaries named Lucy. When in bed, there’s no rushing the tasks at hand. There’s no taking shortcuts. Clothes are optional—” and here he drew her thong down himself “—and screaming in pleasure is completely necessary.”
She should have laughed. It was a game after all, a seductive little game that she’d started. He was taking over, coming down on the mattress and between her legs so that they had to widen to accommodate him. He was still wearing his jeans, and the denim abraded the sensitive skin of her inner thighs as he leaned down to suck her nipple.
But the suction of his hot, wet mouth set aside everything in her mind except how right his weight felt, how well he knew to stoke her fire, how the way he blew air over her damp nipple was going to make her mad. “Carlo—”
“Mr. Milano,” he corrected, moving over to her other breast.
She gasped as he drew it into his mouth. “Mr. Milano, that…that…oh, keep doing that.”
What had she been thinking? She never wanted to hurry this part. And he kept his promise about setting the pace. The slow, slow pace. He left her breasts, left them aching, to move up her neck and explore the hollow behind her ears, the smooth skin at her temples, and to draw a line down her nose with the tip of his tongue.
She leaped like a fish to catch his mouth with hers and she heard him give another of those low laughs as he delivered nipping little kisses on her lips. But that wasn’t what she wanted, she wanted more—long kisses, luscious kisses, tongue kisses. Her hands gripped his hair to hold him closer, but he grabbed her wrists and pressed them gently to the mattress.
“Patience, Ms. Sutton,” he whispered against her ear, setting off another rush of goose bumps over her skin and liquid heat between her legs.
“Mr. Milano,” she panted out, struggling against his hold, which did nothing more than twist their torsos together so that his crisp chest hair teased her aching breasts. “Mr. Milano, I…I think I have some messages I was supposed to deliver to you.”
He reared up to look into her face, but again the shadows kept him in the dark. “What kind of messages?”
She raised up to kiss his stubbled chin. Wow. Even the whiskers turned her on. “Personal messages. Might I…I give them to you now?”
His hold loosened on her wrists and she took advantage of the moment to eel out from underneath him. Then she pushed him flat on the bed and leaned in to deliver the kiss she wanted. Long. Wet. Her tongue, she hoped, delivered the communication that she was really, really having a good time here.
His hands caressed her n
aked hips as she raised her head. She heard him swallow. “Interesting, Ms. Sutton. Are there…are there any others like that?”
“Like that and more.” She leaned in to deliver them, even as her hand sneaked down his belly. His stomach muscles twitched and his hand closed more tightly on the curve of her hip as she found the placket of his jeans. Then they were loosened and her hand found the hard heat that was so silky smooth to her touch.
Carlo dispensed with his jeans and his briefs in the speediest move he’d yet to make. Finally he and Lucy were naked next to each other and exchanging all kinds of communiqués: smooth to muscled, hard to yielding, man to woman.
He rolled on a condom. Then her hips tilted to take him in and they both groaned as he slid inside her. The delicious pressure set her to squirming again, and he clamped his hand once more around her hip in an attempt to still her instinctive movements. “Baby…”
“That’s Ms. Baby,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut as he drew out again, the slick friction so sweet and hot that she wanted to beg for more.
“Ms. Baby, this is so damn good. What…what is your critique, if I may ask?”
“Thank you…thank you so much for your interest in my opinion, Mr. Milano. And I, too, think it’s very, very good.”
Then he started a driving rhythm that made speech, let alone games, impossible. To keep up, Lucy wrapped her thighs around his hips, but he was making her mindless. Release was rushing toward her and she didn’t know whether to hold back or run toward its way.
Then Carlo slid his hand between their bodies and stroked the sweetest spot of all. “I think it’s time, Ms. Sutton,” he said. “I think it’s time to scream.”
After she did, after he came with an intensity that included a small, stinging bite on her shoulder, Carlo tucked Lucy into the bed beside him. They didn’t talk. They didn’t do anything to shatter the sated mood.
Sometime in the still-dark hours of the morning, she woke to find him at her breasts again—how quickly he’d learned her weakness! He drew her on top of him this time and she undulated against him, setting the pace, taking what she wanted, giving what he asked for in encouraging whispers.
They slept again.
The next time Lucy woke, the room was filled with pale gray light. Carlo was on the other pillow, studying her face.
She instantly felt a chill at his somber expression. “We shouldn’t have—” he started.
“Oh, no,” she said, jerking instantly upright. She didn’t even bother to hold the sheet against her breasts. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“What?”
“Don’t you go all fuddy-duddy on me now.”
Annoyance replaced the seriousness on his face. “I wish you wouldn’t use that term.”
“I wish you wouldn’t force me to.” Now she drew up the sheet, even as she started edging out of the bed. “I’m not going to let you take all the fun out of this.”
“The ‘fun’?”
“Well, ye-ah.” She frowned at him, as fierce as she could make it. “Have you forgotten the whipped cream? What would you call our little boss-secretary role playing, huh? Huh?”
“Lucy—”
“Look. I’ve got to get back to Elise’s. Then I have this family brunch thing. So listen to me fast and listen to me good. Last night we were both in need of a little fun. So that’s what we had. Nothing more and nothing less.”
And with luck, she’d have to say nothing else about it. No matter what she might want to say. No matter when she figured out what exactly that might be.
* * *
Lucy carried a tray of orange juice onto the back patio and stopped before her father. “OJ, Dad?”
He took a glass and she moved on to one of her older brothers, Sam. His nose was buried in the business section of the Sunday paper and she raised her foot to tap the middle with her sandal. “Hey, Mr. Wall Street. Want something to drink?”
He looked up at her as he folded the paper into his lap. “Don’t mind if I do. And what’s got you all rosy-cheeked this a.m., Goose?”
Rosy cheeks went even redder under his scrutiny, if their heat was any indication. Lucy wasn’t going to give him her first guess, though. Telling her brother she was suffering from beard burn was just not going to happen. “What’s with the newspaper?” she said, changing the subject as she slid her tray onto a nearby end table. “Don’t you get enough financial fodder with your weekday dose of the Wall Street Journal? ”
He stretched out his long legs and ran a hand over his crisp, short golden hair. “I was poring over the want ads for you, little sister. Someone’s got to be concerned about your future.”
“For a minute there I thought she could make a mighty fine waitress, but then she neglected to bring me a glass of orange juice,” Jason, her other brother, complained. “Thanks for nothing, Lucy.”
She shook her head, looking between their handsome, supercilious faces. “And to think I moved back to San Diego because I missed you guys.” Still, she carried over a juice to Jason, sprawled on a cushioned lounge chair.
“You came back because you were broke,” he said, reaching for the glass.
At that, she lifted it higher, letting the liquid slosh over the rim of the glass. “Whoops,” she said as juice spilled onto the lenses of his dark glasses. “Look what I just did.”
He sprang to his feet as liquid ran toward his chin, whipping off his sunglasses and then lunging for her as she leaped away from him. “Lucy, you’ll pay for that.”
From her safe position behind her father’s chair she grinned at him. “And how am I going to do that when you’re so sure I’m broke?”
Her brother gave up and turned toward the hose coiled in a nearby corner. Water gushed out, and he rinsed his glasses and then filled his cupped palm with water to clean his face, too. He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze speculative, but Lucy hadn’t moved from behind her father’s chair. She laughed.
“Foiled again, Jase,” she said, knowing that if he could have gotten a clear shot she’d be drenched by now.
Her mother came out just as he started making another threat for future retaliation. “And here I thought my children were all grown-up,” she scolded, though Lucy could tell she was so happy to have them there that they could have started an all-out food fight and Laura Sutton wouldn’t have minded. She was slender and as short as Lucy, and it was amazing to think she’d produced two six-foot-tall boys, not to mention Lucy and Elise.
Which reminded her…
“Where’s Elise and John, Mom?” Everyone in the family knew about Germaine McMillan’s fall, and Lucy had adjusted the timeline a bit to cover her absence from her own bed at her sister’s house. As far as the Sutton family members knew, she’d spent all of the night before at the hospital, not just part of it. When she’d made it back to Elise’s that morning, her sister and John had already left to run a 10K, but they were expected to arrive for the brunch.
“Your sister and brother-in-law are stuck in traffic.” Lucy’s mother settled one hip on the arm of Lucy’s dad’s chair, and he automatically settled his hand on her thigh. “What’s going on out here?” she asked.
Sam spoke up. “I was going through the want ads to find Lucy a job.”
Lucy’s mouth tightened. “I have a job.”
“Well, and how’s that going?” he went on. “You haven’t said.”
Four pairs of Sutton eyes turned on her. Lucy cleared her throat. “Fine.”
“Are you showing up on time? Taking a normal lunch hour?”
Lucy bristled at her brother’s interrogation. “Work days start at eleven, right? And lunch goes from twelve-thirty to three?”
“Lucy…” her mother started. “We love you. Your brother is just trying to—”
“Imply I’m lazy? Suggest I don’t know how to be an employee?”
“Goose, come on.” To his credit, Sam appeared sincere. “You have to admit it’s a bit…strange that you couldn’t stick with any of those jobs in Phoenix.”
“Strange for the Suttons. But a lot of other people find that their first position out of college isn’t exactly right.”
“Or, in your case, the second, and then the third?” This was from Jason. Leave it to a lawyer to trot out the facts.
“I worked plenty hard at those jobs and the people I worked for liked me.” She just hadn’t liked what she was doing for them. “I know you guys find that difficult to believe.”
“Lucy.” Her dad, the quietest of the bunch, entered the conversation. “Nobody’s doubting your ability to do a good job.”
“Remember all the work she did on her high school’s prom?” her mom chimed in. “The principal gave her special recognition at the graduation ceremony. And then there were those very successful fund-raisers she spearheaded for her college sorority’s charity.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Lucy replied. She had been damn good at organizing those events, just as she’d done well with things like the balloon festival postcollege. Of course, none of that impressed her siblings, who measured success by climbing rungs on the corporate ladder. “And I’m going to find the right place for me in San Diego. I will.”
“Carlo will surely give you a good recommendation,” Sam said. “That will help.”
Lucy still didn’t want to talk about Carlo. She didn’t want to think about him, about last night, about how his touch had set her on fire. Thank goodness it was Sunday and she had time away from him to forget that sexy laugh in his voice—would she ever hear “Ms. Sutton” again and not want to quiver?—and the seriously sensual way they’d come together the second time, his palms dragging over her skin and igniting fires in every cell.
“He will give you a good recommendation, right, Lucy?”
“What?” she looked around, surprised to find herself out on her parents’ patio when she’d been so lost in her memories a second before. “Who?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What exactly are you doing at McMillan & Milano, anyway? Given the way you’re so distracted I hope it’s nothing that requires more concentration than opening envelopes.”
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