by Violet Blake
He rolled over onto his back and pulled me on top of him. His hands covered my ass and squeezed, making me gasp.
“I’m dying to taste you,” he growled, and pushed me upright. He slid down the bed until his face settled between my legs. “Fuck, Blair. You have the sweetest pussy.”
I was turned on by the sight of his face between my thighs, let alone the sound of his voice saying “pussy.” He grabbed my thighs, dug in his fingers, and lowered me so my sex touched his mouth.
I threw my head back and cried out. His tongue moved inside me in a furious rhythm, and his hands held me in place. I tousled his hair with my fingers, until he grabbed them and moved them around to his abdomen. With my spine arched it gave him an entirely new angle to tease. I moved my hands back, back, back to grab hold of his abandoned penis.
He moaned, the vibrations only heightening my arousal. I moved my hand up and down his length, loving the way he grew harder and longer with every lash. Flicking me faster and harder with his tongue, he pushed me closer and closer to orgasm.
I closed my eyes, panting and unable to focus on anything but the delight his tongue provided. That, combined with his stubble against the soft skin of my thighs? It was enough to make a girl come undone.
Which is exactly what happened next.
I shuddered and writhed against his lips, crying out so loudly I’m sure I scared the neighbors. And when it was all over, he moved me on my back, and kissed my belly all the way up to my breasts. There, he drew circles around my hard areola with his tongue, and I breathed, trying to get a freaking grip and stop the world from spinning. “We…broke…the rules.”
He looked up from my nipple and winked, giving me the sexiest of smiles. “We didn’t have sex,” he countered, flicking his tongue across the tip. “You said no sex outside of the list. This is just fun, friendly, getting-to-know-you stuff.”
Right. Because this is exactly what friends do. Could I argue?
Before I could open my mouth, he gave my nipples the same attention he’d given my sex, managing to pull another orgasm from me within seconds.
“All right, now you’re just showing off,” I said, laughing. “Besides, don’t you want a turn?”
He covered me with his body, his eyes level with mine. “You’re pretty beat up and I feel like kind of a jerk getting you naked right now.”
“Kind of like one?”
“I didn’t say I was totally innocent, did I?” He grinned and kissed my cheek. “Besides, you seem to like it.”
I sniffed. “You do get high marks.”
“I want you,” he said. “I want to feel what it’s like to be inside you. But you’ve got to be sore from last night.”
I was, but not to the point that he hadn’t distracted me from it. I couldn’t say anything for a few moments. Considering my parents were such dicks when it came to my almost-death, having somebody treat me with such care kind of left me dumbfounded.
“Also,” he said, rolling onto his side, “I don’t have any condoms.”
I was on the pill, but still. I wasn’t about to push that issue if it made him more comfortable.
Knowing he wouldn’t back down gave me no choice, though. “All right, but next time, you’re in for some crazy ass sex, you got it?”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear.”
Chapter Seven
Monday morning I went into work, prepared to answer questions about the lovely black eye blooming on my face, and happily exhausted. Sawyer had driven me home last night and offered to stay. Not because he wanted to continue our foreplay fest, but because he’d been worried about me being home alone after being mugged. After the sleepless night I’d had, I regretted sending him away with a kiss and the reassurance I could deal on my own. He’d already paid somebody to change my locks, so that left me with some comfort.
This morning, I’d put on my big girl panties back on, and trotted my tired carcass to work. As I walked into the front doors, I buttoned my tailored black jacket and smoothed the skirt of my form-fitting magenta sheath dress. Although the clocks registered just a few minutes before 7:30 a.m., the place was a flurry of activity. Many of us coordinated with people on the East Coast, so we had to be in at 6 a.m. or earlier. Luckily, I didn’t have any meetings scheduled that early.
I made my way through the office and found my desk. My cubicle mate, Eva, wasn’t there yet, which gave me a few minutes to catch up on emails I’d missed over the weekend. Nothing big had happened, so I was off the hook.
I sent an email to my boss, Victoria, to ask for a ten-minute meeting today. The last thing I wanted was to call too much attention to my injuries, but I had to tell her I didn’t have a cell phone where she could reach me in the evenings. So not the thing I wanted to tell the person who was in charge of giving me a full-time position in less than thirty days.
Within twenty seconds of hitting send, she shot back a quick reply and said to come now. Wringing my hands the entire way, I walked to her office. Unlike mine, hers was a real office, with windows and walls and doors and everything we were all slogging away for.
Victoria Wilson was the embodiment of a powerhouse. I swear pure caffeine ran through her veins. A treadmill desk took up one corner of her office, and she had already hopped on it. With a Bluetooth headset in her ear, she typed furiously. Her outfit screamed “powerful executive, hear me roar”, but instead of Louboutin heels to complete the look, she wore a pair of hot-pink Saucony running sneakers. No fair that somebody could pull off that combo and still appear so put-together.
Her dark-brown eyes found mine and widened. “I have to go, Rich. Catch up with you later, okay?” She clicked the headset and put it on the treadmill’s desk, then hit the button to power down the belt. On her way over to me she finger-combed her spiky pixie-cut, highlighted with caramels and russets. “What happened?”
I tried to smile. “Long story.”
She walked around to the front of her desk, and motioned for me to have a seat in one of the club chairs, then sat across from me. Next to her chair was a small table, and she grabbed a bottle of hand lotion, then slathered it onto her rich, mahogany skin. She couldn’t have been much older than forty, but she had one of those timeless looks about her, where she could be anywhere between thirty and fifty. “Do tell.”
I filled her in on the mugging. “Which is why I wanted to meet with you. Usually, you know I’m more than happy to work nights and weekends and such, but she took my phone and you might not be able to reach me until I get my hands on another one.”
To put it delicately, they didn’t pay me enough to buy another one.
She frowned, and I was sure she’d tell me not to even think about coming in after my lunch break today. “Alice in IT can get you a loaner phone. I can’t attest to the quality, but you’ll have something to use until you can get a new one. I don’t like to think of women running around without a phone.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, holding back a breath of relief that threatened. I might’ve been desperate, but I didn’t want to show everybody. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“I can’t function without my right hand, Blair. You’re invaluable to me.” Her attention flicked to the door behind me. “Good morning, Eva. Come in. Let’s get started.”
Eva was my counterpart on Victoria’s team, which was to say we were basically glorified personal assistants who needed to climb up the corporate ladder if we wanted to survive. Victoria was all about female empowerment and didn’t handle us like underlings. She was fair and treated us like peers, but Eva and I were smart enough to know who controlled our fates. We complemented each other pretty well—Eva rocked at crunching numbers and finding statistics related to campaigns we worked on, and I was good at the creative and strategic elements.
Or so I liked to think. That deadline for my probationary period loomed, and I didn’t dare get too comfortable. Eva had already made it past hers, and although she had given me some great advic
e the past few months, she didn’t have time to look out for me much. She was a single mom and had gone back to school at the age of thirty. She didn’t have the energy to take care of me, too. Which was totally fine. But with a startup company like Watson & Associates I didn’t dare take anything for granted. They had a good reputation, but not much history for me to study so I’d know what strategies to employ to keep my head above the shark tank.
The three of us strategized and coordinated for the next half hour, before going back to work. Eva and I walked to our cubicle, and I filled her in on my weekend.
While Eva made a phone call, I logged into my phone account online and checked the activity. Hopefully nobody had made calls to MILF sex lines. All I’d have to do was log in and activate the replacement phone Alice gave me when we had time to meet up this afternoon.
At lunchtime, I got a surprise when Jessica showed up at my desk wearing a visitor badge. “Hey, bitch. You hungry?”
I peeked around, hoping nobody had heard her. Most everybody here was pretty cool, but still. “Mind keeping it down a bit? I’m trying to get hired here.” I softened my words with a quick kiss to the cheek. “But to answer your question, I’m famished. Let’s go.”
I let Eva know I was stepping out. When we were outside, Jess gave me a playful shove. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me Saturday.”
I hid behind my sunglasses, ashamed. “You were out of town and I didn’t want to bother you so I called Sawyer.”
“Judging by his stupid smile this morning, you did a lot more than call him. My dad was so freaked out he actually called me to come see for myself.”
I wanted to die. Just thinking about the things we did last weekend, well, if my panties got any wetter we’d have to go to the restaurant in a paddleboat.
“Um, he might’ve done a few things to distract me from being mugged, yes.” Which also reminded me I was three days late with rent, which I’d better pay or I’d be kicked out ASAP. Ugh. “Please tell me you’re not mad.”
She turned and walked backward for a few steps, her hands emphasizing her surprise. “Mad? I’m practically shitting my pants right now!”
“Do you want a napkin?”
She wrinkled her nose and turned around to walk next to me again. “Sawyer? Really?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought for a moment that she’d be upset, or that she’d betray her bewilderment when I told her. I figured she’d be surprised, but not…this. Hadn’t she practically pushed me on him just Friday?
“If this thing between Sawyer and me is going to do anything to hurt our friendship, I will tell him to pound sand. I will call him right now.”
I’d have to borrow her phone, of course.
She shook her head. “No, no. It’s not that at all, I promise. I love you both and want to see you happy. I just…I know you’re not in any place to have a relationship right now, and I kind of get that feeling that he wants more.”
“What? You told me not three days ago to go for him. I wasn’t going to do it, but extreme circumstances prevailed, and now it’s sort of happening.” I wouldn’t tell her about our arrangement to keep her mother—aka Sawyer’s aunt—away from Sawyer’s dating calendar. As if things needed to become even more complicated.
The restaurant was only a few steps away. We stopped at the door, and a waiter took us to a table. When we’d made our drink orders I laid my menu on the table.
She sighed and sank into her seat. The heat had wilted her hair a little, and she fanned her cheeks. “I didn’t think it would actually happen. Who knew you were going to get mugged and he’d be the only person in town to come get you? God damn it, this is romantic.”
“Romantic? I got punched in the face!” Yet somehow I was laughing.
“I bet he was all too happy to kiss it better, though, wasn’t he?” Her glossed lips pulled into a goofy frown. “Aw, you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.”
I grabbed a menu and hid behind it. “Go away.”
“Would it help if I told you he’s had a thing for you forever, too? You should have seen the way he reacted when you showed up on my doorstep and announced your wedding was off.”
I hadn’t told them I was moving back to Colorado that day. I’d called her after my parents had told me to leave the state of Massachusetts because I’d disgraced them, not giving her details, just saying I was headed over for a visit. I was hopped up on post-op pain meds, antibiotics, and still not quite cognizant of the severity of what’d just happened. But Jessica was my person, the one I could trust with my life, and I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather go to than her. She’d thrown me a small party, having no idea what to expect when I arrived. The moment I saw her, Emily, and Sawyer waiting for me on her front step, emotion had slammed into me like a runaway freight train. I knew at that second that I was home, and they were my family.
I lowered the menu. “Jessica Callahan, you’d better tell me everything you know. Ev. Ry. Thing.” Hopefully I emphasized the misfortune that would befall her if she left out any detail.
“He’s going to murder me if I say anything.”
I held up a butter knife, twirling it around my fingers in a way that would make Don Corleone proud. “Spill.”
“Blair, I can’t. Not only is he twice my size and able to break me in half with two fingers, but there are some things that are just better coming from the source.”
“All right,” I said, releasing the knife. “I get it. I’m just going to have to do Number Nine on him to get him to spill all of his secrets. A few neck ties, a feather, and that riding crop you got me are all it’ll take to—”
She clamped her hands over her ears and shook her head. “Not hearing this. I am so traumatized.”
“That’s one way to keep you out of my dating life.” I winked, not meaning a word of it. Should couldn’t just drop a bomb on me like that and not follow through. But Jessica had to be mistaken. Sawyer and I, up to last weekend, were friends. Running partners. And now he wanted to have sex with me to win a bet. That’s it. That’s what friends do for each other. Right?
The waiter brought our drinks and salads.
She took a bite of her salad, taking her sweet time to swallow and dab at her still-glossy lips with her black linen napkin. “Have you told him all about the breakup with Ethan, your parents, and all that?”
Oh, that. See, that’s where it all got too complicated for an arrangement that involved so many rules and the not-relationship things we were up to. I stared at my lap and raised my shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t really need to, do I?”
She tapped her fingers on the tabletop, although it sounded more like a sub-machine gun firing. Jessica’s silence lasted so long I had to peer up. Bewilderment didn’t begin to describe her expression. And every time her lips would twitch to speak, she’d shake her head and clamp them together.
My bangs fell over my eyes and I didn’t move them. “What?”
She reached across the table and moved my bangs, tucking them behind my ear. “You should tell him. The more he understands about your situation the easier it’ll be for both of you.”
In other words, she didn’t want either of us to be hurt.
“I don’t think he needs to know all about this mess.”
“He does. He totally does. If he thinks he has any shot at something with you, telling him the truth will be the thing that makes him realize he doesn’t.” She arranged her cherry tomatoes on the rim of her salad bowl.
“I’d rather jump off a building. Or marry a billionaire who’s got the emotional equivalent of my shoe.”
“Point taken. However, I know you were hurt. I also know there are things that are too painful to talk about, which I hate, although I get it. But I’m not the one you’re getting into a relationship with.”
I didn’t bother to correct her.
“Sawyer has been through a bunch of shit, too, Blair. Rather than push him away, and pretend this thing between you two is just sex, why not t
ake a chance? Just think about it, okay?”
“A lot can change in thirty days,” I allowed, not wanting to argue.
“Moving right along…” She reached into her purse and handed me a white iPhone. “This is the one I just upgraded from. Now I can heckle you about screwing my cousin via text.”
I stuck out my tongue. “We didn’t go all the way yet. Get your facts straight. And I don’t kiss and text.”
She stopped. Her jaw fell to her lap. “You didn’t go all the way? What the hell? I gave you a mission!”
“It’s not for lack of trying.” I motioned up and down my body. “He’s apparently too much of a gentleman to do a girl who’s just had her ass kicked.”
She sniffed. “Hm. Well. I guess that speaks well for him. God, he’s such a goody-goody.”
I smiled, remembering Ben’s Captain America reference. Although it was the “kinky fucker” part that I found more intriguing.
“But seriously. I haven’t seen him so disgustingly chipper since…I don’t know…ever? I’m not even kidding, Blair. The man looks like he staged a coup to overtake all the breweries in the US and won. It’s gross. And sweet. You must have a really magical puss—”
I closed my eyes. “Lalalalala. Can’t hear you.”
She winked. “Payback. What sounds good?” she asked, opening the menu.
I opened my menu. Crap, this place was expensive. And for somebody who had zero dollars to her name, I should probably start washing dishes right now.
“I’ve got this, by the way,” Jess said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Stop it. If it weren’t for you, I’d be getting my ass chewed by Sawyer for the disaster at the Summit brewery over the weekend. You did me a huge solid.”