Due South (The Compass series Book 5)

by Tamsen Parker

  It’s embarrassing because I’m not exactly some adolescent virgin, but her tits… Holy hell are they magnificent.

  When I round the corner to her cube, there she is, bent over some spreadsheets that look awfully familiar. We’ve both been slaving away over this bond project, and it’s not going to let up until after this is over and done with. I hope it pays off.

  “Hey, Lucy.”

  She looks up, pushing some of that rusty hair off her forehead as her brown eyes come into focus. I’ve tried not to think about how pretty she is, because I don’t want to be that fucking creeper dude and I’m sure she gets a lot of that, but she is. She really is. And knowing how she looks, what she sounds like when she’s turned on, when she comes, is making the blood creep into my neck and face like wildfire.

  Her eyes bug slightly when she sees me, and I have to look down to make sure I haven’t left my fly open or anything because that would be incredibly embarrassing. Not to mention, like, harassment. But not on purpose. Jeez. Would she think I was trying to wave my dick at her? Oh, god. But no, my pants are zipped and my belt’s done.

  She flushes and looks away. “Hey, Evans.”

  We stand there for a minute, and it’s probably a good thing I don’t come talk to her more often because I’ve got nothing to say. I should have something to say. Even about the weather. But we live in San Diego. It’s always warm and sunny. Couldn’t we live someplace that could actually give us something to talk about? Sports, I guess? Does she like the Chargers or the Padres? I’d take her to a game. If she wanted to go. With me. Would she want to go on a date? If we were allowed to? Or did she just like the sex? Which would be totally cool. Because I liked the sex. A lot. But I definitely can’t say that.

  “How’s it—how’s your project? How’s it going?”

  She looks up at me with the most forlorn expression I’ve ever seen, and I want to kiss it off her face at the same time I know exactly how she feels. Because it’s how I feel too. I like a lot of the policy work, even the reports, and I’m happy to let India do all the high-level presentations and trainings, but this section of the bond proposal is boring as heck. I can’t wait to move on to something more engaging.

  “Me too.”

  She offers me a tight nervous smile and then looks back down at her work. She’s taken out a ruler and is checking the spreadsheets line by line and probably has been for hours. Maybe she should take a break before she goes cross-eyed.

  “Hey, you, uh, never did show me how to work that coffee maker.”

  Her head snaps back up, and there’s a slight frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. “Is that some kind of euphemism?”

  “What? No. I…I thought you were tired and maybe you’d like to get out from behind your desk for a few minutes. I didn’t mean…”

  Sex. I didn’t mean sex. Although now that she’s brought it up, I can’t get the images of last night out of my head. Lucy with her skirt stretched tight over her thighs while we crouched on the floor. The way her eyes were glossy and laser-focused and she bit her lower lip while we watched India and Cris fuck. How she’d looked after I’d exposed her when I went to grab the condoms out of my desk and how she’d still looked that way when I got back. She’d listened to me and she’d liked it. And once I got inside of her… I’d never felt anything so incredible.

  I’m trying to will the growing arousal in my pants to go away. Don’t be a creepy jerk who thinks he’s entitled to have sex with a girl just because he’s had sex with her before. Try as I might, though, my dick is still getting hard and I need to get out of here before she notices and my head explodes from humiliation.

  There’s a reason for the expression “died of embarrassment,” right? It’s because it’s actually happened? If it hasn’t, I’ll surely set the precedent.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. Good luck and don’t forget to go home soon, okay? And take a cab if you’re too tired to drive. BCG will reimburse you for it, I’ll make sure of it.”

  I turn to go before I say anything else like “Let me take you home,” because I don’t want her thinking I want to go home with her. I mean, I would, because I bet Lucy’s apartment is like her. Kind of vintage-y cool and I bet it smells awesome and her bed’s probably covered with all those pillows girls seem to like.

  “So you don’t want to have sex with me?”

  Her words stop me in my tracks because they sound like a challenge. I turn around and she’s got the luckiest pencil in the history of the world between her teeth. I would do just about anything to replace that pencil with a very specific part of my anatomy.

  “I…” I shut my eyes tight and shake my head before I scrub a hand over my face. “I’m not exactly sure what to say, Luce. Because the whole sexual harassment thing and the, you know, fraternization policy, and we’re friends and I don’t want to not be friends, but I—”

  “Answer the question, Evans. On my honor, I’m not going to sue you or report you to anyone. This is between you and me. You know, two people who’ve already had sex. Like the best sex ever. So I’m asking you if you want to do it again.”

  Oh.

  “Yes.” I cringe because that sounded too eager beaver, but heck yes I want to have sex with her again. Now isn’t the time to be a fumbling awkward moron. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be that other guy. The guy who was a bit bossy. Turns out India’s not the only woman who responds to boldness.

  So I shove aside all of my awkwardness and insecurities to let a few words out, words I hope will help me drag that guy out to play. I clear my throat, hoping to take the awkwardness with it. “Yes, Lucy. I’d like to have sex with you again. I’d like to have sex with you right now, in fact. So save your files, neaten up your desk, and I’ll meet you in the copy room in ten minutes.”

  I turn back to head down the hall to my office. I never thought I’d get to open the box of condoms I keep in my desk. But I did get to. And not only did I get to use one condom, I’m going to use another one shortly. Evans, you’re the man.

  And because I’m the man, the man Lucy wants to have sex with, I face her again. “And one more thing. Take off your dress when you get there.”

  I don’t miss the part of her lips or the way her already big eyes get wider. But I can’t stare because that would ruin the whole super-cool smooth guy thing I’ve got going on over here. I spin around again and do my best not to break out into a run or a touchdown dance as I make my way to my office. I grab the condoms out of my desk and then curse myself. Why the hell did I tell her ten minutes? I don’t want to wait here for ten minutes thinking about her getting all undressed in the copy room.

  That was completely idiotic. How do people do this? I should’ve thought this through. I have to keep thoughts of Lucy in her underwear at bay or I’m totally going to blow my load before I can even get back to the copy room. I can’t concentrate on work because of this raging hard-on, but I need a distraction. So I drag my phone out of my pocket, the condoms I’d stuffed in there tumbling out, and then almost clock myself in the face with the corner of the desk when I bend down to get them.

  The smoothness giveth and the smoothness taketh away.

  After I’ve stuffed the condoms back into my pocket—the whole strip because I’m so nervous and excited I’m shaking and I don’t trust myself to tear one off without ripping another one and I probably won’t need another one of these ever again, but I’d like to—I fish out my phone and start playing Sheep Leap. It’s this totally addictive online game with these fluffy little sheep who turn into demons, and anyway, it’s a decent enough distraction that it keeps me from jerking off right at my desk when I know there’s a super hot girl waiting down the hall. And if she listened to me—did she listen to me?—she’s in the copy room without a dress on. It’s time for me to go do something about that.

  Chapter Six

  ‡

  December 19th

  Evans

  I walk down the hall, trying to convince myself I won’t, i
n fact, be ridiculously disappointed if I get to the copy room and there’s a note scrawled on a Post-It that says “Suck it, loser,” instead of a curvy redhead in her underwear. Bullshit.

  But I have to prepare myself because there’s no light on in the copy room. I push on the handle and ease the door open. “Lucy?”

  There’s a giggle that makes my dick get hard all over again. That’s all it takes. A giggle. I’m such a goner.

  “I’m in here. Shut the door, don’t turn on the lights.” Her response is half-whisper, half-giggle.

  I do as she asks and then put my hands out because it’s pitch black in here and I can’t see anything. “There’s no one here.”

  “There’s no one here now. But you don’t know, someone could come back and then they’d see us.”

  Yup, that’d be terrible. I mean, humiliating, but for some reason the possibility of getting caught turns me on. Adds some danger—like spy sex. Yeah, spy sex would be awesome. My visions of pulling up Lucy’s evening gown to fuck her up against a plate glass window in a fancy hotel after we’ve completed our mission are interrupted by my fingers finding some satiny fabric in the dark. It’s smooth and warm. I follow where it leads and it leads to curves, god, so many of them. Down and it’s the rounded slope of her hip and doesn’t stop until I hit skin at mid-thigh, and when I go up, there’s the swell of her breast under my palm I can’t help but squeeze.

  Is this what Lucy wears all the time under her clothes? I thought the matching lacy pink bra and panties she had on last night were ridiculously sexy, but whatever this thing is might literally kill me with sexy. It’s probably a good thing the lights aren’t on because I’d drop dead if I saw what my hands are feeling.

  I touch her more, skate the pads of my fingers farther than the confines of whatever black-magic lingerie she’s wearing, and find her shoulder and then her neck. I want to kiss her, but if I want to kiss her, I need to know where her face is so I don’t press my lips against a stack of photocopy paper or a box of binder clips.

  Finally my hand hits her hair and I slip my fingers between the silky locks before closing my hand into a fist and pulling her forward. Just far enough to bend down and put my lips on hers. My first attempt is clumsy, my mouth landing half on and half off of hers, but we quickly correct and then I’m tasting her again.

  She must’ve chewed a breath mint right before I got here because her mouth is that minty cool, but hot at the same time. It makes me self-conscious because I definitely didn’t think—in the ten minutes I had that seemed like an eternity—to pop one of the eight different kinds of mints I have sitting in my desk drawer. Not suave, Evans. Not. Suave.

  Lucky for me, she doesn’t seem to care. She kisses me, her tongue licking sweetly at my lower lip, and I can’t even stand it. My hands twist in her hair, and she gasps into my mouth at the pull. I want to taste more of her, not just her mouth, but her skin, and, if she’ll let me, I’d like to taste the very center of her.

  I hold her fast while I pull back and lean down to kiss her shoulder. I lick her there, knowing under my tongue there are freckles. I’ve seen them when she wears sundresses and the cardigans she puts over them slip down her shoulder. I’ve caught glimpses before she can tug the unruly cotton back over her dappled skin and thanked the universe for letting me see that. And, yeah, she tastes good. Like vanilla smells—that’s how good she tastes.

  I kiss toward her cleavage and tug down the cups containing her breasts because I want to taste them too. The fabric of the cups is stubborn, tight against her, but when I’ve worked them down, they push up her breasts like a shelf and I wish so hard I could turn the light on. But if Lucy says no lights, I’m not turning on any lights.

  Cupping her in my palm, I lick and suck, finding her nipple and taking it into my mouth, nibbling at it because she liked that last time. It made her squirm and make these absolutely incredible noises. This time is no different. I work my mouth on her, switching from side to side, until she’s panting. Then I tug up the top of this slip thing she’s got on and find this flimsy scrap of fabric between her legs that’s damp. No, soaked is a better word for it. I honestly didn’t know girls could get this wet. Now I’m even more curious.

  I stop what my mouth is doing long enough to instruct her to lie down on the floor. We fumble some getting down to the rough carpet. Maybe I should start leaving some kind of mat or cushions in my office? Because if this is going to be a regular occurrence—and holy heck, I hope it will be—I’m going to need to put something under her. Because if the ground is hard on my knees, it must be even harder on her back. Especially after last night. Did I give her rug burn? Or, more technically, linoleum burn?

  But maybe I can make her forget. When we’ve stretched out next to each other on the ground, managing to navigate the big copier and the table the printers sit on and the shelves and shelves of supplies, I kneel up beside her and crawl my way toward her feet.

  “Knees up and spread your legs.”

  She squeaks, but does as she was told and my dick gets harder. I don’t think I’d like to control her the same way we watched Cris control India, that seems a bit much for me—too much responsibility I don’t have to spare—but it does send a surge of blood into my cock to hear the scratch of her feet over the thin, rough carpet.

  Shifting to between her thighs, I find her feet with my hands and run my fingers up the insides of her thighs until I reach the juncture of her legs and that soaking wet strip of fabric running between them. I want to rip it off her, but that seems rude somehow. I hook my finger through the fabric, enjoying the slick of flesh it travels through before coming out the other side, and I tug.

  “Would you be upset if I ripped these off of you? If they’re expensive, I won’t but—”

  “Yes, do it please. I don’t have the patience to wait for whatever you’re going to do. Rip them, please.”

  Her voice is tight and throaty at the same time, and it makes the urge I had to do violence to her clothing even stronger. Ripping her panties doesn’t happen quite as easily as I had hoped, the fabric more stubborn than I was expecting, even under the vicious force I exert. It takes me a few times and both hands to do them in, but when they’re gone, I’m even more eager for my prize. I drop to my elbows and work the snug slip high enough to uncover what I’m after.

  Grabbing the flesh of her hips, I drag her even closer. The smell of her from here is intoxicating, and I can’t help but say her name before I find a more productive use of my mouth. The feel of her under my lips and my tongue is flat out extraordinary. She tastes earthy and human, but with a sweetness that echoes the clearer taste of her shoulders. I lick her and lick again because I can’t get enough.

  A shift of her hips and a whimper gets my attention though and I tear myself away.

  “Are you okay?”

  I can’t break the habit of sight, even though there’s nothing to see. I let go of her hips to search for her hands, threading my fingers through hers when I find them.

  “No, I’m not okay!”

  No, no, no, what have I done?

  “Lucy, I’m so sorry, I—”

  “I was perfectly well until you stopped doing that. Now shut up and either go down on me again or fuck me. But I swear, Evans, if you leave me like this, I will never, ever teach you how to use the coffee machine. Ever.”

  Her threat makes me laugh. I must have addled her brain something good if that’s the worst she can come up with, but it does the trick. I go back about my business, paying more careful attention to the sounds she’s making, trying to match them to the ones she was making last night, and when she’s making the short, hiccupping gasps like she was right before she came, I stop.

  She practically shrieks her protest and maybe swears at me, but if she does, it’s indecipherable, masked by the desperate noises. I interrupt before she can make any more. “You said fucking would also be an acceptable means of making you come. Did you mean it?”

  “Yes, Evans, hell yes.
Fuck me. Fuck me, please.”

  Mild-mannered Lucy swearing up a blue streak probably shouldn’t delight me as much as it does, but it totally charms me. I reach for the condoms in my pocket, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to open one and get it on without any light to see by. I might be able to do it eventually by feel, but I’m not risking the minutes of fumbling for Lucy to realize what a hopeless disaster I am or the possibility I’d rip the thin latex. I can’t afford to have anyone else depending on me right now.

  I grasp her leg before I scramble for the door, telling her I’ll be back in a second.

  “Evans!” My name is an angry hiss, and I choke back a laugh.

  “Condom.”

  “Oh.”

  My logic is apparently an acceptable reason not to be inside her at this very second because she waits quietly for me to crack open the door, strip down by the dim light, and roll the condom on. I catch a glimpse of her, still lying on the floor, her burnished hair spread over the dingy carpet. She stayed. I didn’t even have to ask her to, and she’s still there, fists clenched in frustration because she wants me so badly. What awesome version of an alternate universe have I fallen into and can I stay here forever? How can I make that happen?

  The second I’m finished, I slam the door shut and she laughs as I clamber back over to her. Finding her, I follow her limbs until I position myself between her legs. I kneel and grasp her hips, dragging them up into my lap, and then I’m inside of her. She’s hot, so hot, and I have to hold myself back because I don’t want to hurt her. In this position, she doesn’t have any control so it’s all on me, and I won’t hurt her. I won’t.

  I work my way slowly, gently, but steadily into her tight heat, gritting my teeth hard because I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite so good. When I’m fully inside her, she wraps her legs around my waist, and I almost die from the pleasure. She wants me. But I want to hear her say it—I want her to say my name. While it would be the best thing ever to hear her gasp “Chanoch,” I don’t get my hopes up. And in fact, I told her to keep calling me Evans, which will do. Yeah, it’ll do.