by Selena Kitt
From behind her, he tugged her shirt over her bra but not all the way off. "I'll do better next time," he whispered.
"Yes, you will," she said.
The band of her bra tightened for a second and then went loose when he unfastened it. It tangled with her shirt as he exposed her breasts to the night air. She lifted herself into his hands, and he pushed her tits together. God, his touch engulfed her, so strong and sure. She needed more of him.
His mouth touched the column of her neck, his tongue tracing a line from her shoulder to her ear. Desire made her body tighten and ache for release. She covered his hands with her own and arched her back more, pushing her ass into his hard-on.
He dug his fingers into her, engulfing her with his savage caress. She let up a long moan. He wanted more, too. His need for her came through with every touch.
He pinched the hard points of her nipples between his rough fingertips, rolling them until she squirmed on his lap. A cry of pleasure poured out of her. She opened her legs on his lap, spreading them wide, and he rested his thigh between them. She ground her pussy against his iron-hard leg. Abundant juices made her panties stick to her heated flesh. Honey-sweet friction built between her legs.
"You're making me so wet," she said. She released his hands and opened the button of her jeans before slowly lowering the zipper. The metallic rasp seemed very loud to her heightened senses. Her whole body hungered for stimulation, for sound and scent and touch. "Give me your hands."
He obeyed her by letting his broad palms slide down over her stomach to her waist. She met him there and took hold of his thick wrists, guiding them into her open pants.
"You know what to do, Monroe."
He reached in beneath her panties, making the fabric peel away from her slick folds. He rubbed her mound slowly, as if taking care not to miss any part of her. The rough pads of his fingers teased her clit. The pressure created a swell of need inside her.
He smoothed slippery juices over her swollen lips. Maddened with pleasure, she steadied herself as best she could against the chair and the floor so that she could stimulate herself. Her own nipples in her own hands. She flicked and tugged at them until she thrashed against him. As ecstasy and lust transformed her, the steady sound of his breath, in and out against her shoulder, anchored her on the edge of reality.
Then he plunged three fingers into her. Her gasp opened into a cry. Her core clenched greedily around him, gripping him tight as he started to work her. He stroked her hard and deep, and the wet sound of his fingers inside her kept time with the sharp edge of her breath.
Deep within her, his fingers curled to find the center of her pleasure. His firm, forceful touch there sent her spiraling up to a stratospheric climax, one that kept her floating a long time, impaled on his capable fingers before her slow descent to the steamy summer heat and the tangle of her clothes. He waited for her to catch her breath before he withdrew. She turned over on his lap as he lifted his fingers to his lips.
She took hold of his hands again. "Not all of it."
He raised one eyebrow, smiling around his index finger.
"Now I want you to make yourself come." She unwound her legs from his and dropped onto the deck to watch him. "Show me what you'd give me if you had the condom."
He chuckled as he opened his pants. "You'd get better than this if I had the condom."
More of that defiance in his tone. That definitely excited her.
"Show me."
He unfastened his pants and freed himself. She couldn't see him perfectly in the dark, but the way his hands moved told her that he was just about the size she'd imagined.
He tucked one hand beneath his cock, cradling his sack as he squeezed his shaft. He turned to face her. A soft, dreamlike expression overtook his features as he pumped himself.
He stared at her as he masturbated eagerly. He tugged and stroked his balls while he handled himself. Gradually his tempo increased. His fist slid up and down over his thick tool, and the sheet of muscle that was his stomach clenched as his pleasure increased.
The sounds he made stirred her, and her pussy ached and throbbed in time with each ragged breath. Soon, he closed his eyes, his jaw set as he jacked off. His body rocked up and down in the chair. Unseen, she fought the temptation to join him, to stroke herself as she watched him.
At last, he bit his lip, suppressing a coarse growl. An instant later, he came in his hand, his spunk spattering his abs in pulses. When his orgasm subsided, he came to rest in the chair, panting. He waited for what seemed like a long time before he opened his eyes again.
"I was halfway there by the time I started," he said. He groped around in the darkness beneath the chair for his shirt. "If I had the condom, you'd get better." He swiped at himself with the shirt before looking at her. "I promise."
Gigi swallowed hard, hoping he couldn't hear the sound it made in her suddenly dry throat. To her surprise, she couldn't come up with a suitable response.
Chapter Three
She'd never dreaded coming to work before now.
That wasn't true. It couldn't be. She must have had evenings when she wasn't exactly looking forward to spending a whole shift at the bar. Probably when she was fighting a cold or pissed off about a bad date or something. Two summers ago, she'd had to fire someone who'd been stealing from the bar. She'd spent all night dreading that.
This was just the first time she'd dreaded work because of something she'd done herself.
She let the car coast down Low Tide Drive, glancing over at the beach on her right. Plenty of sunlight at this hour, and plenty of traffic to go with it. She slowed for a gaggle of oblivious kids strolling across the street, heading for the restaurants and shops.
Mostly for the bars, she knew. Happy hour beckoned the young tourists.
She made her way up to the intersection with Liberty Lane and turned left, heading for the back parking lot. Someone had backed into someone else, apparently. A glistening pool of safety glass crunched under her tires as she turned into her parking spot.
His weather-beaten truck was in its usual spot, next to the dumpster. Her heart sank.
Well, you knew he'd be here.
She leaned forward and let her head rest on the steering wheel. Maybe she could just hide here all shift long.
She'd managed to get off the patio last night with no trouble. Noah had teased her a little as he helped to fasten her bra, and she'd joked about whether he was going to put his shirt back on after he'd used it to wipe himself off. In the end, he'd stood by, shirtless, as she turned out the lights and locked up. She'd grinned at him as he drove off bare-chested.
Embarrassment only raised its head in the shower, with the stinging spray of hot water on her very tender nipples.
All the things she'd done rushed back to her.
With an employee.
With a valued employee.
She dragged herself out of her car and walked around the safety glass on the way to the back door. Loud rock music poured through the screen door, along with the scent of Old Bay mingled with cooking grease. The fragrance and sounds usually cheered her up, but today they had no effect on her mood.
She'd known this would happen. She knew it the instant she saw him, coming through the door with the 'help wanted' sign in his hand. She knew she'd be too weak to say no to her own urges, too weak to be professional. She'd put her hormones first like a fucking teenager.
Now it might hurt the business her family had built for her.
He'd quit. He'd quit for sure. At least he'd shown up to do it in person.
He probably just wants his check.
She headed down the hallway to the bar. Lynyrd Skynyrd followed the Stones, the loud twang of Southern rock filling the room. Her heart galloped as if she were walking into an arena filled with lions, and not the bar where she'd spent most of her life.
Heather waved at her from her place behind the bar. "You make the run yet?"
Gigi shook her head. "No, probably tomorrow. Y
ou need anything now?"
She dared to hope that some urgent need would allow her to leave long enough to do some shopping. She'd have to look Noah in the eye at some point, but it didn't have to be right now.
Heather frowned and looked around behind the bar. "We should be all right for another day." She looked back up at her. "You all right? You look tired."
Gigi nodded. "Tired. Summers get harder every year."
"You know it," Heather agreed. She went down to the edge of the bar for an order.
Where was he?
Noah emerged from the kitchen, hauling two big buckets of ice. He hefted one onto his shoulder with ease, frowning intently into the ice bin as he let it cascade down. Those amazing arms of his.
Dammit.
"Monroe," she said, trying to keep her voice firm.
He emptied the bucket and glanced up at her. If he was bothered at all by last night, his face didn't show it. In fact, his neutral expression suggested that nothing at all had happened last night.
"Boss?"
"Come talk to me when you're done with that?"
"You got it."
She went to her office to wait for what felt like forever.
She tried to track his steps. He would have to dump the rest of the ice, return the buckets, and maybe refill them again. The ice bins got low quickly during happy hour.
She almost got back up to lean into the hallway when he appeared in the open door.
"You need me?"
"Yeah." Would she ever not be affected by the sight of him? Not now, not likely. "Come in here and shut the door."
He complied, and instantly the room seemed too small for them both.
"Listen. Last night."
He opened his mouth and then shut it again.
You did that. He's all scared of you now.
"What we did last night," she said. "I maybe shouldn't have done that."
He smiled gently at her. "We're grown people, Gigi."
"That's not the problem," she said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. "I'm your boss. I'm in a position of power over you."
His face went red. It would have been cute if her own skin wasn't prickling, too.
"You know what I mean," she said. "It's not appropriate. I don't want you thinking that I think it is. It definitely isn't my way of trying to get you to stay here."
He chuckled. "I didn't think it was. Look. I meant what I said. We're consenting adults. I wanted it as much as you did."
She almost said that was good but thought better of it.
"Last night was last night," he went on. "It means whatever we decide it means. But I don't think it changes anything between us."
This time, she did say good.
"You need anything else, boss?" he asked.
She wondered if he knew what that did to her. She wondered if she'd ever hear that question the same way again.
"No, we're good. I just didn't want that between us… to be awkward or anything."
He shook his head. "It's not awkward for me." He headed for the door before looking over his shoulder. "Not even a little."
* * *
"Goddammit!"
Gigi's voice echoed up to the patio's wooden rafters, snapping Noah out of his flashlight-assisted inspection of the long dead lighting system. Instinct drove him to the edge of the balcony, and he looked down into the deserted parking lot.
She stood with her hands on her hips next to her corner parking space, her face turned upwards to the heavens. She let up a ragged cry of frustration and let her head drop back down. Noah jogged down the stairs and arrived at her side in time to see rage bloom on her face. He followed her gaze to the car.
Both the passenger side tires were flat. Something glittered in the gravel and dust around them. He knelt next to the car and sifted through the dust until he found what he was looking for.
He lifted three metal spines from the dirt beside the tires and showed them to his boss.
She turned her fiery glare on him. "What the fuck are those?"
Noah bit his lip to keep from smiling. This woman, who had just last week talked two very drunk bikers out of a fistfight without swearing once, now dropped an F-bomb on some sheet metal screws. He was pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate his amusement at the irony, at least not just now.
"They're screws. The nice, long kind, for the roof." Noah nodded toward the hair salon and its nearly completed addition. "Probably from next door. Contractors must have spilled them."
"Spilled them?" She extended her hand, and he reluctantly gave her one of them. She held it up to the streetlight and inspected it. "How do you spill these?"
Noah shrugged. "It happens."
She knelt beside him and stroked one of the tires. "I'll have to get them patched, I guess."
"I don't think you can patch these, boss." He took the screw from her, suddenly nervous about leaving the sharp implement with her. "No telling how many you picked up."
"Are you saying I have to replace two tires?"
He checked out the smooth surface of the tire beneath her fingertips. She needed to replace them anyway. But this was not the time to broach that subject.
"I'll give you a ride home, boss."
"No, no." She rose carefully, balancing on the flank of the car. "I'll call Triple A."
"At this hour? You'll be waiting forever." Gravel crunched beneath his shoes as he stood up. "I'll drive you. This will wait until morning."
She glared at the rear tire as if her will would re-inflate it. Noah tried hard not to smile at her expression. Enraged or not, she'd have to face the prospect of replacing those tires.
He sensed that her real issue was sharing the truck with him. Despite his little consenting adults speech and both their best efforts, things were still awkward between them after their encounter upstairs. That was just too bad for her, though. Awkward or not, she was riding home with him. No way he was leaving her here long after last call to wait for a stranger to tell her she'd have to replace her tires.
If she were his girlfriend, he'd put his hands on her shoulders. Maybe knead that fury out of her. Not to be sexual. Just to acknowledge that sometimes shitty, expensive things happened, and that she wasn't alone in being pissed off about it.
But Gigi wasn't his girlfriend, was she? She was a gorgeous woman with a demanding sex drive and some inner conflicts about fucking him. She was also his boss.
So he kept his hands to himself. For now.
"All right, Monroe." She sighed. "All right, dammit."
He brushed gray gravel dust from his hands. "Good. I'm all done inside. We can go whenever you're ready."
* * *
Driving home after work bothered Noah for reasons he used to have trouble naming. The traffic-clotted madness that marked his drive to the bar didn't faze him. At rush hour, he was surrounded by people on their own missions, trying to get home or stop for groceries or meet friends for the evening. Late at night, he had the road to himself.
Not having all those people to pay attention to should have made things easier, but the empty streets pushed his senses to high alert. After a few weeks of making that late-night drive, he realized that part of him was looking for people. That side of him wasn't nearly as hypervigilant as it used to be, but the quiet still bothered him.
Tonight, his boss's directions provided just the right distraction. She led him deeper and deeper into the suburbs, away from the water and the highways lined with strip malls and hotels. Trees gave shelter to narrow drives, and petite houses lay in darkness. People envisioned this sort of place when they talked about settling down with a family.
"Nice neighborhood," he said.
"This is where I grew up. Used to ride a bike up this very street." She pointed at a tree. "Fell out of that tree once. Next right."
As he made the turn, he caught her wistful grin. "Happy memories?"
"Yeah." She pointed again. "There it is."
He pulled into her driveway and coasted beneath the b
oughs of a tree to her carport. The ancient transmission clunked when he put the truck in park, and they turned to face each other as the engine gurgled.
They watched each other in silence for a few seconds.
"I'll call Heather in the morning, I guess." She glanced down at his lap briefly before her gaze skittered to the gearshift.
Damn if he was going to make this easy for her.
"I can pick you up if you want. You know, if you want to make a run on the way in."
Her tempting lips pursed as she shook her head. "No, no. Heather has to be up early anyway. Besides, she has the supply list."
He bit his own lip to keep from chuckling. Was she even going to thank him?
He ran his fingers purposefully over the gearshift and stroked the knob with the pad of his thumb. "If you say so, boss."
A breeze tickled the branches overhead, making them sigh. She'd probably sit here all night rather than ask him for anything. But she wanted to. She wouldn't still be sitting here, her knee up on the bench seat, if she didn't want something. If giving the gearshift a bit of a hand job jogged her memory, then so be it.
"You want me to come in with you?"
She turned away from her study of the gearshift to face him. "Yeah."
He laughed and rested his arm on the back of the seat. "You gonna ask me for it, or what?"
That shy schoolgirl act melted when she lifted her eyebrow.
"I mean, you didn't have any trouble telling me what you wanted before," he added.
"We were at work before, Monroe."
"We were at work," he said, "but we weren't exactly working."
He wasn't sure what he thought would come from teasing her. Maybe some of that rare embarrassment, like when she'd called him into her office. Instead she shifted her weight on the seat and leaned against the door.
"So you want me to ask you to come inside with me." She crossed her arms beneath that amazing rack. "Is that it, Monroe?"
He could almost reach her. Just a few inches and he could run his fingers over her satiny cheek, push them between her lips like she had done to him on the patio.
But he kept his hands where they were and nodded.