by Lisa Childs
She could not disappoint them or herself. She couldn’t sacrifice her dream for a man. She had too many friends who had. Her mother and sister had done that and now lived dull lives of quiet resentment. She had no intention of ever winding up like them.
She didn’t need a man.
But she wanted one...
An emptiness stretched inside her, an emptiness she was never aware of until she had started having sex with Simon, until he’d filled her.
Completed her.
She shook her head and laughed at herself. While she loved designing lingerie, she was not some hopeless romantic. She didn’t need a man to complete her. She didn’t need Simon.
She needed to focus on her designs. So she returned her attention to the sketch pad lying across her bed. Tightening her fingers around her pen, she swept it across the page as she designed a corset with, of course, her signature bow. Bette’s Beguiling Bows—that was the name of her line. She put the bow at the bottom, though, so it would sit atop her ass, where Simon loved her bows. Even when she had her clothes on, he skimmed his fingers over her skirt until he found it.
What would he think of this design?
She couldn’t wait to sew up a prototype to get his opinion. But that would take a couple of days and...she only had four before she left Street Legal. That didn’t necessarily mean that their relationship would have to end. But then it wasn’t really a relationship.
She wasn’t sure what the hell it was.
And she didn’t think he knew, either.
Her doorbell rang, and her pen shot across the page as her heart leaped. It could have been a friend. She’d shared her new address, with the ones who hadn’t already known it, when they’d called to complain about being MIA the past week. She’d explained that she needed to finish up things at work before she could leave. But what she needed to finish the most at work was whatever this thing with Simon was.
No. They could not continue seeing each other once she left. She would be too busy. And he was too...Simon. He would grow bored soon, if he hadn’t already.
The doorbell rang again, as if someone was leaning against the button. And she knew that he hadn’t grown bored yet. Smiling, she headed toward the door. A quick glance out the peephole confirmed her suspicions regarding the identity of her visitor.
It wasn’t one of her girlfriends.
Her pulse quickened, and her skin tingled. As she opened the door, she asked the question she’d wondered the last time he’d shown up at her apartment, “How do you keep getting past security?”
“I know the doorman,” he said, his face flushing slightly as he looked away.
“You dated someone in the building,” she guessed.
He nodded.
“A model?”
A model had recommended the building to her. Her friend Muriel also had an apartment in it.
He nodded again. And his face grew a little redder. But she realized he wasn’t embarrassed when he held out a crumpled-up piece of paper to her. He was mad.
She sighed and stepped back as he strode into her apartment. “I already know you crumpled up my resignation,” she reminded him. “It still doesn’t change the fact that I’m leaving.”
“You made that clear when you left this on my desk,” he said.
And she saw what the paper was. “Ah, my job description,” she said. “I figured that would help you when you post the job, which you should have done last week.”
“Bette...”
“Unless you intend to just hire someone through a temp agency,” she continued. “That’s your prerogative.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “It’s my business. Isn’t that what you keep saying to me?”
She smiled at his grumpiness.
“This isn’t funny,” he said.
“You really aren’t used to it, are you?” she asked. “Your charm not getting you your way.”
He tensed and stared down at her as if he’d just realized that was the case. “It’s not exactly like you’re immune to me,” he said as he stepped closer to her. And as if he’d once again taken her words as a challenge, he touched her, sliding his thumb across the fullness of her bottom lip.
Her breath escaped in a gasp as desire raced through her. But he sighed wistfully, as well.
“I’m not immune to you, either,” he said. “You make me forget...”
“What?” she asked.
But he just shook his head.
“To post my job?” she teased.
“How can I forget that?” he asked. “When you keep nagging me about it?”
She took the crumpled-up piece of paper from his hand. “You didn’t like my job description?”
“I think some things are missing,” he said.
“Like what?”
He slid his hands over her ass. “Like ‘must look good in a tight skirt.’”
She’d been so eager to start working on her designs that she hadn’t changed yet. She’d only taken off her cardigan. The camisole she wore beneath it was silk and so thin that it was evident that her nipples had tightened. They pushed against the fabric as his fingers traced the bow on her underwear.
“And ‘must wear lingerie under those tight skirts.’”
She was on board with that. She needed to sell out her line to impress the retailer and extend her contract with them. “Might be kind of hard for a man to find skirts and corsets big enough.”
He chuckled and lowered his head to hers, pressing a quick kiss against her lips. “I never knew how funny you are, Bette Monroe,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m quitting Street Legal to devote myself full-time to my stand-up act,” she said.
He chuckled again but then sighed. “Hell, maybe you are.”
It would probably be more believable to most than finding out she was a lingerie designer.
“I feel like I barely know you at all.”
It was true. He barely did. But she’d done that to protect herself. She didn’t want to get too close to him. She didn’t want to really fall for him.
“What are you going to do once you quit?”
She tensed.
And his grumpiness returned as, his voice gruff with irritation, he asked, “How can that still be none of my business?”
“What do you think has changed?” she asked.
“I’ve seen you naked.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“I haven’t?” he asked with an arched brow. “Do you have a body double I’ve been having sex with, then?”
She laughed and said, “You’ve definitely seen me without my clothes. But you haven’t really seen me naked.” Telling him about the hopes and dreams she had worked so hard to pursue would have truly been the way she would have lain herself bare to him. And she wasn’t ready to do that with someone she couldn’t trust.
His brow furrowed as if he was confused.
So she added, “I haven’t seen you naked, either. Not really. I don’t know much more about you than Allison McCann has put out in the press releases for Street Legal.”
He cocked his head and studied her face, skepticism on his handsome one. “Really? After working for me for two years...”
“I know how you’ve been the past two years,” she said. “About how hard you work...” She smiled to soften her next words. “How hard you play...”
Because the conversation was getting so serious between them, she wanted to play now. She was far more comfortable with that than with the conversation heading where it was—into very personal and private matters of hearts and souls.
She wasn’t ready to let him see either her heart or her soul. Not now—not when they had so little time left to be together and not when she was beginning to feel so damn vulnerable with him.
She stepped closer to him until her body pressed
against his. Arching her hips into his, into the erection straining against the fly of his suit pants, she teased, “I love how hard you play...”
He narrowed his eyes as if he was completely aware that she was trying to distract him and he wondered why. But he couldn’t resist her any easier than she could resist him. Those narrowed eyes darkened as his pupils dilated, and his chest began to rise and fall as his breathing grew faster and shallower.
Her pulse quickened even more than it had when he rang the bell. He excited her so damn much with his touch and his kiss.
But he didn’t touch or kiss her. He just continued to stare at her. And she knew she wasn’t the only one who was afraid of being seen naked—truly naked. Simon wasn’t any more comfortable about laying himself bare to her.
She’d once thought that he didn’t have a heart or a soul. But now she knew he had them. He just hid them to protect them, like she did.
And knowing that about him, knowing that they had something in common, scared her even more. She could not fall in love with Simon Kramer.
Chapter Twelve
WHAT THE HELL did she do to him? With her, he had no control. He couldn’t resist her; he couldn’t do anything but want her.
He swung her up in his arms and carried her toward the room that had to be her bedroom. But she caught the jamb before he could carry her over the threshold.
“Put me down,” she told him.
“What—why?” Had she changed her mind? That wasn’t like her. She didn’t have much more control than he did once they started kissing.
Touching...
“I—I have to put something away first,” she said. She wriggled down from his arms and rushed into the bedroom.
Before he could follow her inside, she closed the door on his face. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he heard a lock click, as well.
She really did not want him inside her bedroom. The last time he’d been in her apartment, he hadn’t gotten beyond the couch in the living room where they’d had sex. Tonight he’d wanted to be in her bed nearly as badly as he wanted to be inside her.
But now he wondered if he would be allowed in either? Had she locked herself inside for the night? Did she want him to leave?
Stunned, he could only stand there for several long moments. What the hell was going on in there? What was she doing? He lifted his hand to knock, but before his fist could strike the white-painted wood, the door opened.
She reached for his hand and tugged him inside the room with her. Looking over her head, he peered around the space. Like the living room, the floors were dark hardwood—the plaster ceilings high. The exterior wall was brick with a tall window while the other walls were painted a dreamy blue. The bed, a fluffy-looking queen-size one, shared the space with a library table that had been converted to a desk. If she’d taken any records from the office, they were probably stashed in that desk.
“Should I check the closet?” he asked. “Did you push a lover in there?”
She laughed. “No. I was getting this out of the closet.” She stepped back and twirled around to show off the negligee she wore. It wasn’t as long as the one she’d had on the first day he’d come to her apartment. This one barely covered her luscious ass.
Like all her other outfits, it had a bow on it—this one on the front—at the top of the satin ribbon that crisscrossed the bodice, binding it together. The pale blue fabric was a wispy lace through which her nipples showed.
He groaned. “Damn, woman, how much of this stuff do you own?”
And who had bought it for her? Had she bought it for herself? Or had a lover picked out the lingerie for her to wear for him?
Something flashed through him—something he hadn’t felt since he was a kid—envying kids who’d had a mom and a dad and a house, who hadn’t had to con people for money for food and clothes.
How he’d hated those kids, hated that they’d taken for granted what he’d always wished he had.
Her brow puckered as she stared up at him; she must have caught the expression on his face. “Don’t you like it?”
He automatically reached for the bow, running his fingers over the satin ribbon. “I love it,” he said. “I love it all...” Most of all, he loved her body, the sweet curves of it, the soft skin.
The heat and the passion that burned him when he slid inside her, when he slid home. Desperate for her, he tugged the bow loose so the negligee dropped from her body. Then he pushed her back onto the bed.
He’d never felt this way, never felt so desperate to claim someone as his. Hell, he’d never wanted to claim anyone as his—until Bette.
He moved his hands and lips over her body, spreading his kiss and caress as if he were branding her as his. He had never felt possessive of another human being before. Had never felt this madness in his blood and his fiercely pounding heart.
Her heart pounded just as fast and furiously beneath his palm that cupped her breast. She was just as excited as he was, her chest heaving as she panted for breath.
He’d never had anyone match his passion the way Bette did. He didn’t have to make sure she was ready for him. He knew she already was. And of course when he stroked his fingers over her mound, he found her hot and ready. And a pulse beat there for him, in her clit.
Her breath shuddered out as she arched off the bed. “Simon...”
She needed him just as badly as he needed her. But with her, he wanted to make sure she got as much pleasure as he did. So he moved down her body. And he slid his tongue over her clit, back and forth.
She whimpered and shifted against the bed. Her hands clutched his shoulder and then his hair. “Simon!”
He thrust his fingers inside her. And she came.
His vision blurred as his desire intensified to insanity. He undressed in such a frenzy that a button popped off. Then he tore open a condom packet and sheathed himself before sliding inside her.
She was so hot. So wet. So ready...
She moved beneath him and around him. They rolled across the sheets, tangling them, tearing them from the bed. Passion burned between them. They clutched at each other. Despite her release, she was desperate again, desperate for more pleasure. He made sure she got it, making her come again and again before he finally let himself come.
Then he dropped limply onto her body, struggling to breathe again as his heart finally began to slow its frantic beating. He raised his head from her breast and stared up at her in wonder. “What the hell do you do to me?”
She just shook her head. She either didn’t know or couldn’t speak. So he didn’t think she’d be able to move, either. But after cleaning up in the bathroom, he strode back into her bedroom, and she wasn’t there.
Where the hell had she gone?
“Bette?”
She stepped out of the other door, the one to the walk-in closet. But she was wearing only the robe that had been lying across the foot of the bed. So why had she gone back inside there?
Was she hiding something in there? Or in the desk? She glanced at that, too, as if checking to make sure she’d left nothing out. But then she grabbed up his shirt from the bedroom floor and held it out to him.
“Trying to get rid of me?” he asked.
“Uh, no,” she stammered, but her eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t want to stay, though.”
She must have heard that rule of his, how he never spent the night with anyone. If he wanted a chance to search her closet and that desk, he was going to need to make an exception to that rule. So she wouldn’t catch him snooping again, like she nearly had last time, he had to wait until after she fell asleep.
“You are trying to get rid of me,” he said, and the hurt he allowed in his voice wasn’t entirely feigned. “I really should check to see who you have stashed in that closet.”
“Nobody,” she replied quickly, almost too quickly.
He doubted any man could have hidden in there while they’d had sex. Even if he was married, Simon damn well wouldn’t have done it. He would have taken apart the guy who dared to touch her while he was seeing her.
“You really aren’t seeing anyone else?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I told you I don’t have time for dating right now.”
“What are we doing, then?” he asked.
“We’re not dating,” she said. “That’s why it would be weird for you to stay.”
He’d had women beg him to spend the night in their beds. But this one—the one with whom he actually wanted to spend the night—seemed almost on the verge of begging him to leave. He reached for her, closing his arms around her shoulders to draw her close to his chest. “How ’bout I just stay until I recover enough for us to do that again?”
She rubbed her hips against his. “I think you’re recovered enough.”
He chuckled. He was. Just being close to her made him hard as hell. “Not quite yet.” He tugged her toward the bed, pulled back the tangled blankets and pulled her down onto the mattress with him.
“You really want to stay?” she asked.
“Just for a little while,” he lied. He didn’t know how long he’d have to stay for her to fall asleep.
She settled her head against his shoulder. “What do you want to do until you recover?” she asked.
“Talk.”
She tensed.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ll talk. You can just listen.”
She must have been intrigued enough that she moved her hand to his chest, and her fingers began to stroke the skin over his heart. Did she feel how hard it was beating yet for her?
“I will post your job,” he promised her.
She released a shaky sigh but he didn’t know if it was of relief or disappointment.
“Do you want me to add the tight skirts and lingerie into the job description?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. It would be hard for a guy to find and I probably would be better off with a male assistant. I’d be less distracted—” he moved his hand down her back to the curve of her hip and ass “—because you sure as hell distracted me the past two years.”