by Cari Quinn
Provoke Me
Cari Quinn
Book two in the Unveiled series.
Sometimes extreme provocation can lead to exactly what you need…
Attracted. Kelly is focused on the bookstore she manages. Sex is relegated to a list of candidates on her PDA. Only one man pushes all her buttons―her boss.
Fascinated. Spencer is determined to fight his desire for Kelly. For years they’ve bumped heads over the store they both love. But there’s more than one reason a potential relationship is too complicated.
Provoked. When Kelly and Spencer unexpectedly meet up at a sex club, all the rules go out the window. Suddenly there’s only one way this match of wills can end―naked, preferably all night long. In this battle for sexual supremacy, there are two winners—and two losers, when their stubbornness leads to the very thing each dreads most.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Provoke Me
ISBN 9781419933653
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Provoke Me Copyright © 2011 Cari Quinn
Edited by Jillian Bell
Cover art by Syneca
Electronic book publication June 2011
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.
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PROVOKE ME
Cari Quinn
Dedication
To my mom, who thinks I’m a genius even when I’m so not. And to Taryn Elliott, who went above and beyond the CP call of duty by reading all 80K+ of this ms, twice, including the night before I submitted it. I can’t wait for the day you dedicate your first book to me!
Chapter One
Being called to the boss’s office was never a good thing. Especially when said boss sat entirely too close to the doe-eyed pastry vixen from the bookstore café.
But she wasn’t jealous. Not in the slightest.
Kelly Crossman inhaled deeply and knocked on Spencer Galvin’s partially open door, interrupting the Hallmark moment on the loveseat. Spencer and Leigh stared at her silently. Looking guilty as hell, the both of them.
“You wanted to see me, Spencer?” Kelly asked when her vocal cords unfroze.
Had she just interrupted them on the verge of a clutch? Forget verge. Leigh had practically been in his lap and her graspy little hands had been an inch away from his dark blond curls.
Petite and adorable, Leigh Cory was the kind of woman men loved to fawn over to feel big, strong and capable. Kelly had never figured Spencer as the type to need that kind of ego stroking.
If he did, well, bully for him. That would explain a lot about why he’d never looked her way. She was as far from petite and fawnlike as a sheep was from being sleek. And God, she’d never felt more tall and gawky and completely out of her element than she did right now.
“Yes, Ms. Crossman, I did. Come in.”
Everyone else in the store got the first name treatment, she got Ms. Crossman. What did he call Leigh when they were alone?
Maybe he just groaned unintelligible words. Who really needed names then?
Wincing at that image, Kelly propped her hands on her hips and strode into his office. She’d be damned if she shrank away. Not here, not now. And for damn sure, not with him.
Not only was Spencer the big boss man, he’d been her crush since oh, the moment she’d laid eyes on him. The first time he’d argued with her in that alpha male I always know best way she’d been in serious lust, which probably proved the depth of her dysfunction. But he never talked down to her. Much. He just liked to poke holes in her ideas until they resembled swiss cheese.
He was brilliant, ruthlessly so. An amazing boss. And his ass was a thing of beauty.
She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops. “Sure I’m not intruding?”
“No.” He gritted out the word. “You’re not.”
Kelly almost said, Tell that to Doe Eyes, who looked as if she’d been socked in the stomach. But somehow she held her tongue.
Leigh reluctantly slid away from Spencer and rose. She lifted her chin and shot Kelly a look that spoke volumes.
Hands off.
Kelly smiled again, this time icily. As if she’d pay attention to Leigh’s warnings. She’d seen her type before. They radiated that don’t hurt me, I’m so wittle and defenseless vibe and then put out the minute they were behind closed doors.
And wow, this one must be a method actress because her cheeks even looked wet. Had she actually been fake crying to get into Spencer’s pants?
Maybe she should file that idea away for later. Hey, whatever worked…
“Have a nice day, Lisa,” she said as Leigh booked for the exit.
She always called Leigh the wrong name, helpless against her urge to needle Little Miss Perfect. Did she really think no one noticed the way she simpered around Spencer? He seemed immune to her attempts at flirtation, or at least that’s what Kelly’d thought.
Then again, Leigh had just been in his arms. A place Kelly had never been.
Would never be.
She shook off that thought as the door closed behind Leigh. She’d never be in his arms for lots of reasons, number one being they worked together. Her job meant everything to her. She wouldn’t jeopardize that for a one-night stand. Even if there were times she was sure she’d climb out of her own skin if she couldn’t get her hands on him, she wouldn’t risk her position in the store. She had her priorities.
Spencer skirted his desk, giving her a glimpse of his toned ass showcased in perfectly cut slacks. Her mouth watered.
It didn’t hurt to look.
He sat in his captain’s chair and steepled his hands on his stomach, a pose intended to radiate relaxed confidence. Normally it might have. But she’d become adept at reading him over the years and there was no mistaking the deep lines of tension etched around his eyes. She imagined those eyes warming like hot coffee, steam rising in their hidden depths. Scalding her if she got too close, like she was now. Here in his inner sanctum with another woman’s fresh-cut-apple scent a tart tang in the air, she wanted more than ever to push the limits between them.
They worked well together. Mostly well. They disagreed from time to time, occasionally saw things differently. The Book Nook was his life, as it was hers. When he was in town—as regional manager, he attended to The Book Nook’s other stores in Maryland as well as the new stores they were opening in Virginia and South Carolina—he was at work bef
ore sunup and remained there long after closing. Nights she made sure to work an extra shift, just in case she’d get to tease him. She loved doing that.
And she’d never once seen him loosen his tie.
Then there were the other nights she stayed late, when he wasn’t around. One of them stood out in her mind in particular. When he’d left his office unlocked and she’d been alone in the store—and lonely. Feeling more than a little reckless. Weeks later she still couldn’t believe she’d taken things so far. But exploring his office had led to imagining he was there with her, and then exploring herself…
She’d kicked back in his chair and stretched out her legs, rubbing her thighs against the supple leather. His crisp aftershave permeated the air and she’d reveled in it, spinning fantasies worthy of the sexy books she read during breaks. He’d left some paperwork on his blotter and though she hadn’t snooped, his messy handwriting made her smile. He wrote fast. Did everything fast, from what she could tell. She’d pictured him swiveling to talk to her as he always did, except this time he flipped up her skirt to rub her ass. And then he guided her down on his waiting cock, her name spilling from his lips.
“Kelly. Oh God, Kelly.”
By then she’d been on the loveseat, her fingers frantically working her pussy. She’d brought herself to the most spectacular orgasm ever. All because of him.
She released a shaky breath and blinked the memory away. No one knew. She’d just had some harmless fun. Even so, she never did crazy stuff like that. But damn, had it felt good.
“Are you dating Leigh?” she blurted.
Are you fucking her? Is she getting what I’ve never had the guts to go after?
Lists on PDAs didn’t count. She’d listed him as number ten on her somewhat sophomoric list of men she wanted to have sex with as a whim, not out of some misplaced belief she’d ever actually get her hands on his naked body. But for a while, that list had given her, the girl once voted most likely to be the last virgin at Middlemarch High, a way to level the playing field. She didn’t have to wait for some guy to find her sexy. Instead she could pick her targets and go after them as methodically as some women charted caloric intake.
She charted that too. But her PDA was basically her diary and she liked keeping a record of things. Just call her sentimental. But no matter how many lists she put Spencer on, unless she changed her name to Profit and Loss, he wasn’t interested.
Or so she’d believed until she’d seen him in a semi-clinch with Leigh. Now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she didn’t have him pegged at all. Just because he was devoted to work didn’t mean he didn’t have sex. He had needs like everyone else.
And oh God, so did she. She bit the inside of her cheek as his gaze pierced hers.
“Absolutely not. Leigh is my employee.” As are you. He didn’t voice the rest, but she heard the implication just the same.
Kelly lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “When I came in here, I assumed—”
“Assumptions are dangerous. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
“What about a girlfriend?” she pressed, going for the gold while she had the opening. Her gaze dropped to his noticeably bare left hand. “No wife,” she added, though she already knew he was single.
“I’m married to the store,” he said simply.
If he was surprised by her line of questioning, he didn’t show it. But that was Spencer. Inscrutable, controlled, driven. He wouldn’t be flustered by a few pesky questions from one of his employees.
One of his much younger employees. He was a decade older than she, and probably considered her about as complex as a tricycle. But Leigh was several years younger than she was. So what did that mean?
He wouldn’t lie. She might not know much when it came to the inner workings of the man’s mind, but she knew that. He’d never been anything but honest in the three years she’d known him. True, he tended to be pretty close-lipped. But he wouldn’t shy away from a direct question. If he said he wasn’t dating Leigh, he wasn’t.
“Why did you ask to see me, Spencer?” she asked finally, the silence beginning to unnerve her.
He rarely looked at her for more than an instant, but right now those instants were piling up. Her skin prickled under his attention and a single drop of sweat slipped down the back of her knee, wending its way down to her fashionably cheap clogs.
She wasn’t dressed in something cute and flirty like Leigh. She didn’t own cute and flirty. Well, maybe at the back of her closet, along with her precious few going-out outfits. But cute wasn’t her standard MO. That was a hard look to pull off when you were almost five-ten in flats.
His hand dropped to his top drawer, still partially open. His fingertips slid along the edge, drawing her gaze until she shook herself out of the mental fog he seemed to invoke every time he was within spitting distance. “Unlike everyone else, you call me Spencer. Not Mr. Galvin. Why is that?”
She tried not to frown. Why wouldn’t he get to the point? She wasn’t called to his office very often. Now he wanted to play guessing games?
“Leigh calls you Spencer.” She also undresses you with her eyes every time your very fine ass strolls past her café counter. “Marcia also calls you Spence,” she reminded him. Marcia was the store manager and Kelly’s immediate supervisor.
He waited. Apparently Leigh and Marcia didn’t count.
She hissed out a breath. He never strayed into personal territory with her but she’d also never seen him this stilted. This forced. “Because when we met, you told me to drop the formalities.”
“And you took my advice.” With a thin smile, he shut the drawer with an audible click. “Yet I’ve never even called you Kelly.”
“You can. You should. Isn’t The Book Nook’s spiel that we’re all one big family?” Her palms were so wet that she scrubbed them on her cargo pants. “I love my job. There’s nothing else as important to me.”
He tapped his thumb on his blotter, his gaze unwavering. “Not even your extracurricular activities?”
“What extracurricular activities? I fucking live and breathe this store. If you’re requiring more than that from me—”
He held up a hand. “You’ve more than met every requirement set before you thus far. Since you have, I’ll ignore your very smart mouth.”
That very smart mouth opened and closed on another retort. She perched on the edge of the loveseat, her breath tripping as his gaze rested just a shade too long on her tight yellow blouse. She hadn’t worn it to showcase the girls, but it was a nice side benny. Apparently her boss had noticed.
What the hell was going on? Had she entered some new dimension? He never looked at her like…a woman.
Good God, that was it. He was suddenly viewing her with something that could only be termed appreciation. And an edgy speculation, as if he were about to reach out and feel her up like he might cantaloupes at the supermarket.
She was certainly plenty ripe for him. Her eagerly budding nipples and drenched panties attested to that fact.
“Sorry, Spencer,” she enunciated his name carefully, “but maybe I’ve missed a step. What extracurricular activities do you mean?”
Again a pause. This one ended quickly, with another of those enigmatic not-quite-a-smiles as he rolled his chair back from the desk and swiveled toward her. Trying to make her feel more at ease, she guessed.
As if that would ever happen.
“Standard question, Ms. Crossman. I’m merely trying to weigh your devotion to The Book Nook. We do everything we can to ensure our employees’ loyalty. Retirement plans, generous time off, opportunities to advance.” His canny dark eyes narrowed, his stare dropping to her cleavage-revealing blouse yet again before returning to her face. “Do you aspire to advance, Ms. Crossman?”
So much for using her first name.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. The only thing she aspired to do at the moment was to kneel down in front of his chair to see if that bulge in his pants was as big as her hormone-lad
en brain kept insisting it was. “Yes. I do.”
Truthfully she wasn’t sure about that, but she liked keeping her options open.
He shuffled some papers on his desk and opened a folder. “Your résumé states you have a degree in calculus, but you started working here full-time shortly before graduation. Why is that?”
Great. She was being interviewed when she hadn’t even applied for a position. When she wasn’t even sure she wanted more responsibilities. She was happy doing what she was, where she was.
“I love books more than I ever loved math.” She shrugged. “I’d planned a career as a business analyst until I took a job here. Within a few weeks, I knew this was what I was meant to do.”
The corners of his mouth crinkled. Not a real smile, exactly, but close. “My final major was environmental forestry. My sister got me a job here after I’d been out of school a few years. She enjoyed it, but books aren’t her passion like they are mine. And I’d been on the six-year-plan in college to begin with, so she knew I’d try anything.”
Her wickedly smart boss hadn’t done well in his courses? Wow. “College took you six years?” she asked, still not quite believing it.
“Yes. It took me two years to settle on a major. Does anyone finish in four years anymore?”
She shrugged. “I did.” Actually three and a half, but who was counting?
“Of course you did.” His smile seemed as awkward as his posture. Was Spencer trying to share some of himself? Or did he have another agenda?
“I’m sure they snapped you up here,” she said, at a loss how to react to this impromptu session of You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
“When I interviewed here, I was working construction. No, I wasn’t snapped up. I started on the lowest rungs. And I stayed there until I got clear about what mattered most.”