by Leigh, Mara
His hands slid up over her tightly clenched calves and she relaxed, slightly. After last night with Connor, the fraud, she’d barely thought about the fantasy, but clearly it wasn’t over.
Luke yanked the legs of her chair, pulling her ribs against the table’s surface and further disguising her lap under the black cloth. His hands slid up and down her legs, teasing ever higher, and then he parted her knees, pressing them out until her skirt would yield no farther. He pressed up on the sides of her skirt, and she raised her butt off the chair to help him. Glancing at her image, now projected on the screens, she nodded as if she were leaning forward to better listen to the panelist currently speaking.
“Do you agree, Victoria?” the moderator asked.
“Can you give me a moment?” she asked. “I’d like to hear what Henderson thinks before I respond.” She’d missed the question.
“Thank you,” Henderson, one of the other panelists, said, and the camera’s focus shifted to him. Luke’s fingers brushed over her panties, teasing her, flicking up and down, his strokes hard, then soft, then hard again. In spite of herself, she grew wet.
Henderson, the windbag, was spouting enough business jargon to fill a garbage skiff. His company’s policy of refusing donations to NGOs in war zones and other troubled areas disgusted her. Luke tugged on the sides of her panties and she lifted again, just enough to allow him to draw them down and slip them off.
“Any response?” the moderator asked, and the cameras turned back to her.
Luke pressed a finger inside her. She bucked, but on camera it looked as if she were coming to attention.
“Yes, I certainly do have a response.”
Luke spread her legs wider and pulled her even closer to the edge of her chair, forcing his finger deeper.
“It’s a mistake to measure philanthropic efforts solely with bottom lines or other business performance measures,” she said.
Luke’s hands spread her thighs and his mouth landed on her sex. She glanced at her image on the screen, but the cameras weren’t picking up the heat in her cheeks. Not yet.
“Charities and NGOs aren’t the same as corporations. I do agree that charitable organizations need oversight. I agree that their spending should be transparent to donors, and that their administrators must be held accountable for their decisions, but that does not mean that their efforts can be evaluated using return on investment or other business-based calculations.”
Luke’s tongue licked and probed as she spoke, and the sensations made her feel powerful. She held two thousand people’s attention as Luke’s tongue and lips and teeth and hands paid full attention to her thighs and slit and clit.
“Corporate funding of charities is crucial,” she continued. “Corporations take enough from the world; they need to give back.” Luke’s finger plunged inside her. “But one harmful side effect of corporate giving has been bringing business mentalities to bear on not-for-profit results measurement. Their activities cannot be evaluated purely on financial or other traditional performance measures.”
Luke added a second finger, and pumped, stroking her g-spot, and her chest contracted. So did her sex, but she pretended her pause was intentional. “The title of this panel shows the problem.” She gestured toward the screen. “Is my fellow panelist suggesting we abandon people when their situation worsens? When all hope seems lost?”
His fingers still inside her, Luke started to suck on her clit. She drew a sharp breath, turning her face away from her mic.
“Are you okay?” the moderator asked.
“Perfectly fine,” she answered, although her voice was strained.
A dildo slid along her thigh, then rubbed against her folds. It plunged inside, almost painfully, even though she was wet and this one was slightly flexible, curving into her as opposed to yesterday’s glass. She pressed down on the table and tipped her pelvis to better accept the thrusts, bracing her hands for support as the dildo pushed harder and farther, hitting all the right places, and yet not arousing quite the same sexual thrills as yesterday. Something was off.
She looked out into the crowd and saw Connor. He was staring at her, frowning, his arms crossed over his chest.
How dare he act angry? He was the one who’d deceived her. He was the one who’d had sex with her under false pretenses to gain the upper edge in some attempt to manipulate her.
Exactly what it was that he wanted, she still didn’t know. But the details didn’t matter. It was the principle.
As they looked into each other’s eyes, his expression changed, and his frown started to look more like hunger. Lust filled his eyes, and his tongue flicked out, just the tiniest bit, to wet his lips.
Her body contracted around the dildo, and instantly she was carried back to last night when it had been his dick, not a fake phallus, inside her, when he’d shouted her name in the throes of desire and lust. That had seemed real. Clearly she wasn’t as adept as she’d thought at judging character, telling real from fake, reality from fantasy.
Henderson said something particularly heinous on the other side of the stage.
She raised one hand off the table. “I’m going to have to play a Red Card on that,” she said, and the dildo drew out from inside her. Luke’s hands gently pulled her skirt back down and then he took his hands off her.
As she spoke to the crowd, to Henderson, she didn’t look back in Connor’s direction. She couldn’t. He’d ruined everything. She’d hired Fantasies Unleashed, and they’d exceeded her expectations, but everything Luke had done to her—today and yesterday—paled in comparison to sex with Connor.
It wasn’t Luke’s fault. She scrawled a quick “Thank you,” on a piece of note paper, then slid it beneath the table, relieved when she felt a momentary caress on her ankle in response.
***
“Evan, can you give me some privacy?” Vicky asked a few hours later, when she heard the knock on the door of her suite.
“Do you have another meeting before the closing remarks?” Evan made some frantic gestures on his tablet, searching for the details of a meeting he thought he’d forgotten.
She placed her hand gently on his upper arm, drawing his attention. “This meeting is private. It’s not on my calendar.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.” He started to gather the documents spread on the dining room table, which was large enough to seat thirty.
“Leave them,” she said. “I just need fifteen or twenty. Can you leave by the service entrance?”
“Sure, boss. I’ll be back in fifteen?”
“Fantastic.” She waited until she heard the service door at the back of the kitchen close, then she headed down the corridor and through the foyer to the suite’s main entrance.
Eleanor stood at the door, dressed in a boucle suit that looked like Chanel—way too warm for Vegas—but the woman herself seemed calm and cool.
“Victoria,” she said.
“Eleanor, come in. Please.” She gestured to let the other woman step by, and then led her to the living room where they sat in the same positions they had just two days earlier. It felt a lifetime ago.
“Thank you for agreeing to this meeting,” Eleanor said. “We don’t often have clients who invoke their safe words, and in these cases, I like to perform a customer satisfaction interview in person if possible.”
“Eleanor.” Vicky smiled and leaned forward. “Your guy, Luke, was great. Really. I was completely satisfied and will even add a bonus for him.”
“Then...”
Vicky shook her head. “It was my fault. Another man, not one of your staff. You don’t have anyone by the name of Connor working for you, do you?”
“Not assigned to your fantasy, no.”
“I thought as much.”
“What happened?” Eleanor asked as if she were a friend, as if it were the most natural thing to ask.
Vicky kicked off one shoe and, tucking that leg up under her, sat back into the soft sofa, letting her other leg hang free. “A man approached me
the first night. I thought he was one of yours, so . . .”
“Was it good?”
Vicky’s cheeks warmed. “Yes, very good. Until I realized what was going on.”
“What was going on?”
“Well, that he wasn’t one of your staff.”
“But the sex was consensual and good?”
“Yes. But he wants something from me.”
“Oh.” Eleanor reached over and squeezed Vicky’s forearm. “I’m sorry. What did he ask for?”
“Nothing. Not yet.”
“Then forgive me, but why are you so certain of his motives?”
“I told you the day we first met. Men don’t approach me, especially not at these things, unless they want something from me.”
Eleanor leaned back. “Can I give you some advice?’
Vicky shrugged. “Sure.”
“It’s possible that men don’t approach you because you send signals that you’re not approachable.”
“I have to do that. In my position, in my industry, with my wealth...”
“I get that, dear, I do. But that night you were expecting one of my men, so you let your guard down. This man clearly liked what he saw and approached.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t have ulterior motives.”
“True, but it doesn’t mean that he did.”
Vicky leaned back against the soft cushions and turned to look out the window. The view reminded her of last night and all that she’d felt with Connor when pressed up against that glass. Perhaps Eleanor was right. Perhaps she at least owed him a chance to prove his intentions.
It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be able to face whatever he said. If she were proven right, it’s not like it hadn’t happened before. Each time she’d been burned, it had stung less. She’d built up her immunity to heartache—apparently to the point where she emitted such a strong repellant it didn’t let men close enough to bite.
She turned to Eleanor. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For everything.” She moved forward on her chair and reached out with both hands. Eleanor took them, and the two women held hands for a moment before they both stood.
“I hope you get everything you want,” Eleanor said.
“So do I.” Both shoes kicked off, Vicky followed Eleanor to the door.
“Don’t hesitate to call,” Eleanor said, “if you’re ever in Vegas again.” And after a quick handshake, she was gone.
Vicky padded back into the suite, glancing at her watch to see that she had less than five minutes before she’d need to be back in her heels, seated at the dining room table, and dealing with business and Evan.
Chapter Eight
* * *
At the end of her conference closing address, Vicky stepped away from the podium to thunderous applause. So what if these people thought she was an Ice Queen? She didn’t need any more experiments to prove them wrong.
Evan stepped up beside her as a wave of conference-goers swarmed the area in front of the stage.
“Holy shit,” he said as they reached the stairs leading down. “Sorry, boss. Should I call security?”
“Let’s not overreact,” she answered, and then she took the outstretched hand of the first man to reach her.
He pumped her arm like he expected to draw water. “Great speech, Victoria, great speech. I’m Frank Westerburg. If I can just have a few minutes of your time to tell you about the great work my charity is doing in Indonesia. With help from your foundation—”
“Contact my office.” She smiled. “If I have any openings, they’ll schedule a meeting.”
Two men pushed forward at the same time, smashing shoulders. One shoved the other.
Evan stepped forward. “Gentlemen.”
At least a dozen men tried to make their way around the two arguing men. The mob pressed forward and one of the men fell into her, knocking her back. Her heel hit the bottom stair leading to the stage, and she dropped to her butt as the man fell forward onto the railing beside her.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, “but I just wanted to compliment you on your speech and ask—”
“Get off her.” Another man forcefully pulled him back from the stairs. It was Connor. He was frowning. His tie and collar were loosened.
He pulled her to her feet. Wrapping one arm firmly around her waist, he guided her quickly up the stairs, back onto the stage, and then behind the curtains that formed the wings. He didn’t stop until they were off the back of the stage and in the service corridor at the edge of the ballroom.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” She smoothed her hand down her side, shocked that she was actually shaking. It wasn’t her first time being mobbed. “You’d think I was a rock star or something.” She laughed, but it sounded thin.
“To this crowd, you are.” He stood a few feet away, no longer touching her, and she was shocked at how much she missed the safety of his touch.
“Victoria?” Evan stepped into the corridor. “I’ve called security. Wait here. They’ll escort you to the suite.”
“That’s okay, Evan.” She pushed off the wall and corrected her posture. “Let security calm the crowd if they need to, but from here I can get up to the room via the service elevator and into the suite through the back door.”
“Okay,” Evan answered. “I’ll be up in a while?”
“No. I’ll see you in the morning. What time is the car coming?”
“It’s in your phone.”
“Great. See you then.”
Evan eyed Connor with concern, but followed Vicky’s orders. Once he left, she was alone in the service corridor with Connor.
“Thank you for defending me back there,” she said. “I suppose I owe you a meeting now. If you call my office”—she pulled a card from her clutch—“I’ll make sure Evan knows to expect your call.”
“I don’t want a meeting.” He frowned.
“Then what is it you want?” She eyed him suspiciously.
“Nothing,” he said gruffly. “I’ll get you safely to your room, and after that, I never want to see you again.”
Her head snapped back as if he’d struck her. “What?”
“After the way you treated me last night…” He shook his head. “I’m not a fan of game playing.”
“I will not be accused—”
“Please,” he cut her off. “You’ve been playing some kind of game this entire conference. I bet you play it all the time—hiding your true self from everyone, putting on some kind of act. Okay. That’s fine. You’re entitled. But that doesn’t mean you can fuck with people.”
“It was you who fucked me.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” he said, “and I think we were both pretty involved in the fucking.” His jaw twitched. So angry. And his anger served to fuel her own.
“You accuse me of playing games.” She pointed her finger at his chest. “But it’s you who pretended to be someone else so you could get into my panties. So you could...” She still had no idea what it was that he really wanted.
“You seduced me that first night.” He pointed right back. “You. I’ve never had a woman come on to me like that.” He brushed back his dark hair. “I can’t lie. It was hot, and when you made it clear that you were down to fuck, I thought, why not? She’s beautiful. I’m single. We’re adults.”
“And she’s the richest woman in the United States. The female Bill Gates. The Ice Queen.” She listed her various media-assigned labels.
He took a step back. “I had no idea who you were.”
“Bullshit.”
“Not that first night. I didn’t know who you were until the next day, when I saw you step onto the stage.”
She stared into his eyes, looking for signs that he was lying.
“The first night, I thought you were hot,” he said. “One of the best fucks I’ve ever had. But I didn’t know who you were, and”—he stepped closer—“I have to admit that I didn’t get interested in you—r
eally interested—until the next day.”
“And there it is!” Ire rose inside Vicky again. She pushed back against his chest and glared up into his eyes. “You didn’t get interested until you realized I was good for more than a fuck. When you realized I had money and power.”
He reached out and cupped her face possessively, engulfing half her head with one hand. Her brain told her to pull away, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
“You know what turned me on?” he asked. “You know what blew me away? Sure, it was your power, but not because I wanted to benefit from it. I was intrigued because the hot woman I’d fucked against the door of a utility closet had another side. A side that was smart and confident and could mesmerize a room of three thousand people.
“I was blown away by you,” he continued. “How everyone in the room was seeing only the parts of you that you wanted them to see. But me?” He exhaled and shook his head. “Fuck. I got hard watching you talk at lunch that day. It was like I was the only one in the room who saw the real you under the image you put out there.
“Outwardly, you were all business, but when I looked into your eyes, what I saw was passion. Heat. I felt like you were turned on as much as I was. Watching you, I imagined myself fucking you, or eating you out from under the podium. I even imagined a flush in your cheeks, a slight dilation of your pupils despite the bright lights.”
It was like Connor actually knew what had gone on. He’d been able to tell how turned on she’d been, even if no one else in the room had.
His thumb caressed her cheek. “I spent the rest of the day figuring out a way to surprise you, to see you again, to spend some time with you when we could talk and get to know each other beyond our genitals.”
She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her turn, and the connection she felt when she looked into his eyes shot heat to her belly. She rarely trusted anyone, but all she could detect in his eyes, in his voice, in this story he was telling, was sincerity. Had she misjudged him?
“Do you want to fuck me again?” she asked to test him. “Is that what you want?” She turned against the wall and pushed her ass back.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, not even touching her. “If you’re not interested in me, Vicky, that’s fine. I’m a big boy. But I’m telling the truth. As much fun as I had fucking you that first night, I didn’t really want you until I saw you on stage the next day. Watching you, seeing the dichotomy between Victoria Adams”—he made air quotes—“and the woman I’d fucked. I’ve never been more intrigued. It made me want to know you.”