Protecting His Assets

by J. K. Coi

  He opened the door and held it for her. She hesitated, and he was positive she would have some reason why she suddenly had to leave. The disappointment almost smothered him, but he bit his tongue. It had to be entirely her decision. Given their professional association—no matter how much of a technicality it was at this point—he refused to push and risk making her uncomfortable.

  He was about to tell her that he’d just have the car take her home, but then she stepped forward and edged past him. He gripped her forearm before she continued, trapping both of them in the doorway so her breasts grazed his chest, and the scent of cinnamon filled his senses.

  He started to ask if she was sure but shut his mouth fast. April Porter was more than capable of taking care of herself and making her own decisions. She was no wilting flower or insecure flirt. That was one of the hundred things he was coming to appreciate about her, and he wouldn’t insult her intelligence by suggesting she didn’t know her own mind.

  She looked up at him, her hesitation gone. The only thing left glistening in her gaze was a combination of expectation and promise.

  He kissed her. Hard. Hot. Blatantly telling her how pleased he was with her decision. They moved out of the entryway, and he tipped the door closed with his foot without releasing her.

  She tore her mouth from his and looked over his shoulder. “Lock it,” she ordered.

  “Always looking out for me?”

  Fielding was in custody. The threat had been neutralized, and there was nothing to worry about anymore, but he reached back and did it anyway because otherwise he knew she wouldn’t be able to lose herself in the moment and enjoy all the things he was going to do to her.

  “It’s my job,” she said, “and as long as I’m getting paid—”

  Her gaze widened in horror, and she drew back sharply. He flinched and grabbed her hand, refusing to let her retreat. “Don’t,” he said firmly. “The job is finished. This is just between us.”

  “That might be true if we hadn’t started this long before the job was done.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Everything worked out,” he reassured her. “All that matters now…is now.”

  “One night for pleasure,” she said, biting her lip. “Let’s have this one night to give in to it, to be reckless and wild with one another.”

  One night? They were free, and all she wanted was one night? That was usually more than enough for him, but with her…he didn’t want to think about being done with her. Not yet.

  “April—”

  “One night, Nolan,” she repeated firmly. “After tonight, I’ll be moving on to another assignment and helping my dad get through his treatment. You’ll be taking the business world by storm and going to more of those fancy business parties. We’re not even going to exist in the same stratosphere. We both know that beyond tonight, it would never work between us.”

  “I haven’t gotten where I am today by refusing a challenge.”

  “Are you saying that you want a relationship? The messy kind with lots of strings and expectations and compromise?” Her beautiful lips pursed. Was she asking him, or making it a proposal?

  His grip on her hand tightened, but he hesitated.

  Her chin tipped, but then she smiled and leaned in to kiss him. “One night,” she murmured in a low voice, between breaths. “But I have no doubt you’ll make it a night to remember.”

  “For the rest of your life,” he murmured. He worked his hands into her hair until he heard pins dropping to the wood floor, dragged her full against him, and kissed her with all the urgency that was racing through his veins.

  Her body was hot right through the slinky, thin fabric of her dress. She was a marvel of toned muscle and lush curves, and he wanted to immortalize every line, from the top to the bottom. She moaned into his mouth and gave him her tongue, and the taste of her defied all reason, made him weak in the knees. He backed her up against the wall, mostly to keep his legs from collapsing beneath him.

  He took her face in his hands. Her eyes were already bright with rising desire. Her breaths were short and quick. “Goddamn,” he muttered with a sweeping wave of awe and euphoria. A man could get high just watching her. And he’d put that look on her face.

  Clothes. Too many freaking clothes.

  He felt for the zipper of her dress up by her shoulder blades and dragged it down the length of her spine, trying to go slowly and savor every moment of the reveal, but he felt clumsy and desperate.

  The zipper stopped just at the top of her ass where it started to flare out, and he slipped both hands inside. Her skin was so soft, irresistible to the touch. So he touched. And touched. His hands smoothed up and down her back and cupped her sumptuous ass. She squirmed against him and it felt so good he wanted to lift her leg up around his hip and drive his cock in her right there.

  He pulled the dress apart, intending to drag the straps from her shoulders, but froze at the sound of fabric ripping. “Shit.”

  She chuckled. “There’s a hook at the neckline, in addition to the zipper,” she said. She turned around and pulled her long hair over her shoulder, glancing back at him with a molten, sultry expression that only increased his desperation.

  “I’ll have it fixed for you, and it’ll be good as—”

  “Just get it off me. Hurry.” Her voice broke. He flipped open the fastening of her dress. It spread apart, a deep V down the beautiful slope of her back. “You inspire me,” he said. He wrapped his forearm around her waist and pulled her into the cradle of his body. He peppered kisses all the way down her spine, bending her over until she braced a hand against the wall. “I want to write poetry all over your body. With chocolate. And then lick it off.”

  “I didn’t know you wrote poetry.” Her voice was already guttural and broken, which made him smile.

  “I don’t.”

  “How else do I inspire you?” she asked. Her ass pressed back into his hips.

  “Let me count the ways,” he said, grinding the thick bulge of his aching cock against her.

  With a gasp, she straightened and spun to face him. He took a few steps back to take it all in. Her eyes glimmered. Her face flushed. Her chest rose and fell beneath the gaping fabric of her dress.

  He was spellbound. She was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen…and he would have her tonight.

  Chapter Eleven

  They were seriously beyond the point of no return. Even if she hadn’t been able to see it in his eyes, she felt it in her bones and coursing through her veins.

  Was she absolutely sure about this? She was crossing more and more professional lines every second here. Shouldn’t she be more concerned about that?

  She wasn’t. Maybe she’d still been a little uncertain about making assumptions when Nolan picked her up earlier, but not anymore. Any guilt about letting her professional and personal lives mix was gone.

  She gazed at Nolan and hunched her shoulders, letting her dress fall. It slithered down her body to the floor, leaving her standing before him in nothing but her bra and thong…and her garter, which hadn’t been holding up her stockings ever since the car and she was lucky they hadn’t sagged down to her ankles by now.

  He watched her with such intensity that her skin burned, but then she watched him, too. He shrugged off his jacket, tugged at his expertly knotted tie until it loosened, and started to undo the buttons of his shirt. She shivered with anticipation. With need.

  They both kicked off their shoes at the same time, and then Nolan came after her again, sweeping her up in his arms. As one, they stumbled across the living room through the doors to the darkened bedroom.

  He flipped on a small table lamp by the bed and she paused.

  His brow lifted. “I want to be able to see every inch of you, all night long,” he said.

  Boxing and training had kept her in good shape, and there’d always been guys around the gym to feed her ego if she’d wanted that. But her dad had always discouraged those relationships. The only guys who’d made a serious
play for her had been the kind who’d been out to prove something. To her, to her father, to the world. In the ring, those guys went after one thing, and out of it, they’d looked for a different sort of prize. But she’d known better, and she’d been focused on her own goals. None of those boys had ever seriously tempted her. No one had ever seriously tempted her.

  Except for one, and that had turned out…badly.

  She crawled up onto the brand new mattress that had been covered with fresh sheets and a luxurious duvet, and motioned for him to join her there. It dipped with his weight as he obliged and immediately reached for her. She eased back across the width of the wide bed, with him on top.

  Ah geez, he covered her like a big electric blanket, hot and heavy. It was the best feeling in the world…or so she thought for as long as it took for him to start kissing her again, and then so many new bests hit her one after the other it became impossible to rate them.

  He removed her bra and panties and worshipped her breasts with his mouth, and—Jesus. His hands. His hands moved over her skin with both precision and urgency, raising goose bumps like a map to tell her where he’d been and where he still had to go. Everywhere. He went everywhere, playing her like a harp. A shivering, moaning, orgasming harp.

  She was still shuddering with aftershocks when he reached into the dresser drawer and pulled on a condom, but he braced himself above her and entered her so slowly, making sure she felt every amazing inch of him sinking deep as he looked down into her eyes.

  When he paused, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He reached between them to tweak her clit, and when he started to draw back she dug her fingernails into the tensed muscles of his biceps. Three long strokes, and she was going off all over again.

  “Oh my God, Steve.” She gasped. She’d never directly addressed him by his first name before this moment, but if there was ever a time to dispense with formality, it should be now, right?

  She opened her mouth over the thick muscle of his shoulder and bit down in an attempt to stem the flood of overwhelming sensation and complicating emotion.

  “Ah fuck.” His whole body went beautifully rigid for several long moments, and then released.

  Afterward, he held her close, dropping his head into the cradle of her neck. She felt him struggling to control his breathing, like her. She tasted the saltiness of his sweat-dampened skin, and saw the sheen on her own. She felt his heart hammering wildly, creating a musical beat in time with hers as their chests pressed together.

  Here in the dark they were in perfect sync for a single brief moment, as if both of their very different worlds had stopped spinning just long enough to torture her with how perfect it could be between them. It was almost enough for her to believe that tomorrow morning would never come, and they wouldn’t have to get up to face different paths when the sun came through the big windows.

  She closed her eyes. It was a lie, but she could pretend. Morning wouldn’t arrive for a few more hours.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was still early in the morning, although the sun had indeed risen and nothing would keep the day away. April slipped out from Nolan’s forearm and got up to give her teeth a finger brushing in the adjoining bathroom. She snagged his dress shirt from last night on the way and pulled it on.

  When she was done, she returned to Nolan’s room but stopped halfway to the bed. She looked down at him, stretched out like a beautiful warrior prince waiting for his harem to come tend to him, and gulped as her imagination went crazy.

  They’d made a deal for one night only, and the night was definitely over. She should probably turn around and get a move on. It would be smarter if she were already dressed before he awakened. The two of them would be less likely to submit to temptation again.

  But she couldn’t look away. And then he stirred, and she was irresistibly drawn closer. One last time before they let the world back in? He had driven her over the edge so often last night but never let her take control, and she wanted a turn.

  Slowly climbing back on the bed, she lifted the hem of the shirt she still wore and settled over his thighs, biting her lip at the naughty feel of her bare pussy pressed to his skin. She thought he must be awake and would open his eyes then, but he didn’t. Boldly, she spread her palms over his pecs and retraced the hills and valleys of the muscular figure she’d gotten to know so well last night, all the way to his hips.

  His cock was filling out, growing hard. She touched a single finger to the tip and smiled when it jerked toward her. Oh yes, he was awake. And he deserved to be teased within an inch of his life.

  “Are you going to join me?” she asked huskily and cupped her breasts. “Or am I just playing with myself here?”

  He groaned and snapped his gaze open. She crossed her arms and pulled the shirt over her head and shook her hair back out of her face.

  “Damn, you are without a doubt the most amazing thing I’ve ever woken up to,” he muttered in a voice hoarse with sleep and desire, while his eyes glittered with electric energy. He put his hands on her knees and slipped them up her thighs in silent but unmistakable encouragement for her to come closer. “I didn’t want to open my eyes, in case it was all just an overactive wet dream.”

  She wasn’t ready to let him call the shots. She pinched her nipples and bit her lip at the stab of delicious pleasure-pain. “And do you have those often?”

  “I have a feeling I’ll be having them a lot more, now that I know exactly what to dream about.” He put his hands on her hips and tried shifting her forward, but she shook her head. She wasn’t finished torturing him just yet.

  She slipped her hands down her belly to the triangle between her spread legs and dipped one finger into her own slick heat while he looked up at her with eager intensity.

  She circled her clit and shuddered as gentle waves shot through her.

  “Go deeper,” he murmured, his grip on her hips tightening. He dragged her forward so she wasn’t sitting on his thighs anymore but right on top of his erection.

  “Hey, I’m the one in control here,” she replied, but she lifted just enough to slide her middle finger deep.

  “Two fingers,” he said. “Do it.”

  She didn’t bother to argue with his bossiness this time. Two fingers. She was fucking herself with two fingers right in front of Steve Nolan, his hard cock an insistent presence under the crack of her ass.

  He bucked beneath her, and she threw her head back and closed her eyes, giving in to the pounding of her heart and the throbbing pressure building in her core. She was so close. God, so close. But this wasn’t what she’d planned, so with a final stroke and a deep breath, she eased back again and wrapped her wet fingers around his penis.

  She swiped her thumb over the head before leaning over him and licking up the drop of moisture that appeared there. His back bowed as she took more of him in, but before she could settle in to drive him right over the edge, he flipped her over and knelt between her legs.

  She looked up. “I wasn’t finished!” she cried.

  “Oh, we’re not finished,” he assured her with a wicked smile. “Not by a long shot.”

  She knew exactly where he was going when his head dipped down, and she shook with anticipation. His hands were a firm weight on her inner thighs, pushing her legs wider.

  She bucked almost completely off the bed when his tongue licked all the way up her pussy like a cherry Popsicle. Nolan shifted so he was flat on his stomach. He cupped her ass cheeks and held her right up to his face. She could only see his eyes, and they looked all the way up her body right into her face and held there.

  His tongue pierced her again and again, while keeping her orgasm maddeningly out of reach. But finally he lifted his head and reached into the drawer for a condom. She lifted her arms to take him, but he shook his head and guided her onto her stomach.

  He’d seized control from her just like that, and he tormented her for a long, erotic hour. But as she lay by herself in the middle of the bed afterward, trying t
o regulate her breathing and savoring aches in places she hadn’t ever felt before, somehow she didn’t mind having given in once again. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

  The shower came on in the bathroom. That meant the new day had indeed come. April stretched and her stomach growled. She got up and looked around for Nolan’s shirt again. It had ended up crumpled at the foot of the bed. She grabbed it and padded out to the kitchen before remembering that there hadn’t been much to eat the last time she was there.

  She opened the refrigerator door. It was full. There were eggs, milk, juice, fruit, and vegetables. All normal things one expected to find in a refrigerator.

  “The maid brought a few things for me after the insurance crew was done in here.”

  Of course he had a maid to do groceries for him. Only regular people went out to buy their own food. Yep, reality was definitely poking its ugly face into her glow.

  She looked up to see him standing there, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His skin gleamed, and his damp hair stuck straight up on top of his head like he’d just rubbed the towel through it a couple of times.

  “You look good in my shirt.” He was looking her up and down like he would rather eat her for breakfast than anything she could put on the stove. “Your legs go on for miles, and I’m already devising reasons to make you bend over and show me more.”

  Self-conscious, she tugged, but the hem already hit her almost to the knee. If she turned and bent over, he wasn’t getting that good a look at her ass.

  He shook his head with a grin. “Not the back,” he said, gazing pointedly at her gaping neckline. She hadn’t done up all the buttons, and if she bent even just a tiny bit, he would have a perfect view of absolutely everything.

  Nolan crowded her into the open refrigerator and nuzzled her neck. The cold made her nipples poke through the white fabric of the dress shirt. “Let’s stay here today and forget about everything else,” he murmured.