by Nina Lane
She brought her knees up, fire flaring over her nerves as he pushed slowly inside her. And even though she was already intimately acquainted with his cock, her nerves tensed as her body sought to accommodate him.
He paused, sliding his hand between them to find her swollen clit. The pressure of his fingers uncoiled streams of pleasure in her nerves, and she felt herself softening like butter. She shifted, hooking her legs around his thighs.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He pressed forward, but still slowly, as if he were afraid of hurting her. And oh, God, the easy, slick immersion was the sweetest torture. She moaned, writhing underneath him. His cock stretched her, the thick shaft throbbing against her inner walls. Then he was fully inside her, his head lowered and his breathing hard against the side of her neck.
“Oh, shit, you’re so tight,” he muttered roughly. “Christ, the things I could do to a sweet girl like you . . .”
“Then do them,” Polly breathed, bucking her hips upward in invitation. “I want you to. God, Luke, I’ve waited so long for a man like you. Show me what I’ve been missing.”
He paused, his gaze searing right through her. Then he pulled back, sliding his cock halfway out of her before easing in again. The second time, Polly matched the movement, and then he started thrusting inside her with rhythmic, slow strokes, creating a delicious friction that fired her urgency higher.
“More.” She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “Fuck me, Luke. I want it. I want you.”
A groan rumbled through his chest. He plunged into her deeper. And then they were fucking harder and faster, their bodies colliding again and again. Streams of pleasure washed over Polly, her blood rushing with hot sweetness like the taste of cinnamon meringue.
“I feel it,” she gasped, stretching her arms over her head as her breasts bounced in time with his thrusts. “I’m going to come . . .”
“Do it,” he ordered through clenched teeth. “Come on my cock, honey. Give it to me.”
Polly dragged a breath into her hot lungs and strained upward. She was so accustomed to having an orgasm from clitoral stimulation, but all she needed now was the continued, exquisite sensation of Luke’s cock pushing into her . . .
“I’m almost there.” She gripped his biceps, her arousal climbing to the breaking point. “I’m going to . . . oh, God . . . now . . . now!”
A cry tore from her throat when bliss exploded over her nerves. She quivered and shook, clenching her pussy around his shaft as he continued thrusting inside her. He lowered his mouth to hers, sweeping his tongue between her lips. His muscles tightened. He surged inside her and stilled with a rough groan, his own body shuddering with release.
Luke collapsed on top of her, their breathing hard and their bodies damp with sweat. Polly wrapped her arms around him. She tingled all over with lingering pleasure.
With a muffled grunt of satisfaction, he rolled off her, reaching out for her with one arm. She shifted to her side and landed right up against his body—which was lovely but also a little embarrassing since gravity invariably rolled all sleepers into the deep sag curving the middle of the mattress. Not that Luke seemed to mind, considering the way he pulled her right into the sag with him.
“It’s not your Savoir bed,” she felt compelled to remark apologetically.
“As long as you’re in it, I’ll sleep in any bed.”
With a smile, she curled up against him and rested her head on his chest. As she drifted into sleep, she had the vague thought that she was going to have to come up with something spectacular to beat this particular exercise in fun.
She woke when dawn light threaded through the curtains. Luke was gone, but the scent of him still clung to the sheets and pillow. She absorbed the delicious warmth sliding through her veins before she rolled over to grab her T-shirt and panties off the floor.
After pulling them on, she used the bathroom and emerged to find Luke sitting at the kitchen table, his attention on his phone.
She leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb and took a minute to admire the way he looked, his hair sleep-tousled and his gorgeous body clad only in his white shirt, all the buttons unfastened to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of his bronzed, sculpted chest.
He glanced up and met her gaze. Heat sizzled through the air.
“Really?” Polly asked dryly. “Other people are actually up at this hour to take your calls?”
“They don’t take my calls,” he replied. “I take theirs. They wait for mine.”
“So is that what I should do?” She stalked slowly toward him. “Wait breathlessly by the phone for a call from the eminent Luke Stone?”
“It would be advisable.” He slanted a glance at her as she approached.
She took his phone and set it aside before pushing her way between him and the table to straddle his lap. He was wearing his trousers, and the sensation of the expensive material felt rather delicious against her bare thighs.
After wiggling a little to get comfortable, earning herself a muffled groan from Luke, she draped her arms over his shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“If I told you to clear your schedule for Saturday night because I plan to take you out on a date, would you do it?” she asked.
He hesitated for an instant. Polly poked him in his rock-hard abdomen.
“Would you do it?” she repeated.
“I’ll have to see what’s on the calendar,” he said. “But I’ll make every effort.”
“You’d better do more than make an effort. Because I’ll be at your house Saturday night whether you want me to be or not.”
“I can make you no promises,” Luke said.
Polly tried to ignore the sense that that remark was a reminder of something more serious than a night out.
“Promise me Saturday night,” she said.
He reached around her to grab his phone from the table.
“You’re kind of a pain in the ass,” he muttered, scrolling over the screen. “I have a meeting at four to look over a downtown building for a retail site, but I can clear my schedule after six.”
“Give me that.” She took the phone from him and pulled up his calendar for Saturday night. In the six o’clock slot, she typed “Go on a date with Polly and hope I get lucky.”
She handed him the phone back. He looked at the screen, his eyes crinkling with amusement.
“I don’t hope I get lucky with you,” he said.
“You don’t?”
“Nope.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “I’m already lucky with you.”
Polly smiled. She eased back and threaded her fingers through his hair, brushing it away from his face. His gaze slipped down to the pendant she still wore on a silver chain around her neck. His fingers grazed her skin as he lifted the pendant into his palm and studied the flashes of blue, green, and gray embedded in the stone.
“It’s a Labradorite crystal,” Polly explained. “The Inuit people believe it fell from the fires of the Northern Lights. It’s meant to protect my aura from negative energies.”
“Your aura, huh?”
“Everyone has an aura. It’s the energy field that surrounds all living creatures and contains their essence. My friend Ramona said mine is damaged, so she gave me this stone as protection.”
“And you think it works?” Luke let the stone fall back against her chest.
“I’d be foolish to claim it didn’t,” she replied. “My mother always said not to deny something exists just because you can’t see it or it can’t be proven scientifically. There are too many mysteries in the world. Things you can’t explain by science or logic.”
“Like what?” He sat back and studied her, running his hands up and down her thighs.
“Grace,” Polly said. “Mercy. Faith in a divinity that no one has ever seen. Hope even when a situation seems hopeless. Love.”
Luke shook his head, his expression skeptical. “There’s no mystery to love.”
“How would you know? Have you ever been in
love?”
“No. It’s all just pheromones and endorphins.”
“Oh, my God.” Polly laughed and draped her arms around his shoulders again. “You are such a cynic. You’re going to be one of those old curmudgeons sitting on your front porch, shaking your fist and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off your lawn.”
“Good thing I met you first then, huh?” Luke brushed his thumb rhythmically across her collarbone. “Maybe you can save me from that fate.”
“As long as I’m on your schedule,” she murmured, “I’ll save you.”
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. As they indulged in another long kiss, she felt as if she were spiraling upward into sugar-laced clouds, her whole being filling with sweetness, rainbow sprinkles, and an emotion that felt remarkably close to happiness.
DESPITE THE FACT THAT POLLY hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, she sailed right through her test on aerated confections and nougat, successfully completed a pectin jelly exercise in her Jellies and Gummies lab, and learned about two new tax exemptions she could claim in her tax preparation class.
By the time she arrived at Wild Child to take over the afternoon shift from Clementine, she was feeling both productive and still all loosely warm from her night with Luke. She was sore in an entirely pleasant way, and it seemed as if thick, rich honey had replaced the blood in her veins. Not to mention her mind kept drifting off to replay the taste of his hot cherry-vanilla kisses, the glide of his big hands over her skin—
“You could take him to the Renaissance Fair.” Mia held up her cell phone triumphantly, waving it at Polly from a table where she was sitting with Ramona and Tom. “Now that is a man I’d love to see decked out in velvet breeches and a waistcoat.”
Polly tried to picture it and failed. The images of Luke in her head were all about crisp, tailored suits or just his long, muscular body stretched out above her . . .
She shivered, pressing her legs together and trying to focus on filling éclair shells with chocolate cream. Though she would happily jump right back into bed with him for the rest of the weekend, she did want them to have some fun that wasn’t sex-related.
“There’s a UFO meet-up and watch in Davis next Monday,” Tom offered.
“Or you could bring him to my fortune-telling group on Friday.” Ramona flicked one of her dreadlocks over her shoulder.
“Maybe you could get his-and-her massages,” Mia suggested. “Or take him for a spa day. Soothe in Indigo Bay gives detoxification baths using mud from a volcano in Cartagena.”
“Luke could just fly to Cartagena and go skinny-dipping in the volcano, if he wanted to.” Polly spooned more cream into the pastry bag. “Besides, I have to do things that don’t cost too much since I don’t want him to both advise me about the bakery and pay for dates, especially since dating was my idea. I thought I’d take him to the Snowflake Club for the Riders concert on Saturday night.”
Mia looked doubtful. “Snowflake skews a little young for him, doesn’t it?”
“He’s thirty-three, not fifty-three,” Polly said, vaguely insulted on Luke’s behalf.
“I’m just saying you might want to consider something more sophisticated.” Mia rose and approached the display cases, peering at the rather sparse offerings.
“He’s the sophisticated one, remember? I’ll bet he hasn’t been to a club in ages.”
“Neither have you,” Mia reminded her.
True. But this whole thing with Luke had started as a way for her to get back out into the world, and she was doing exactly that. So good for her.
Her phone buzzed, and she took it out of her apron pocket. A text lit up the screen:
L. STONE: How did the CEO feel without his peach?
POLLY: Hungry?
L. STONE: PIT-iful.
POLLY: I have to break up with you now.
L. STONE: I’d never sign off on that request.
POLLY: Are you at work?
L. STONE: In a board meeting.
POLLY: And you’re texting me?
L. STONE: Under the table.
POLLY: Omg. I’ve made it to the boardroom under the table. Maybe next time I’ll make it into your lap.
L. STONE: Any time you want. My lap is reserved for you.
“Earth to Pols.” Mia waved her hand in front of Polly’s face. “You’re out of doughnut holes.”
“Oh, sorry.” Polly slipped her phone back into her pocket and refocused on the empty baskets. “I’ll fry you up a batch. Can you watch the counter?”
Mia went around the counter to wait for non-existent customers while Polly returned to the kitchen. She grabbed a bowl of dough and dropped spoonfuls into the fryer. As she waited for the dough to crisp, she indulged in a memory of Luke’s fingers trailing down her spine, as if he were memorizing each of her vertebrae while he pressed his lips to the hot hollow of her throat and . . .
She jerked herself back to attention and fished the doughnut holes out of the fryer. After draining them and sprinkling them with powdered sugar, she brought them out to Mia.
“Yum, thanks.” Mia plucked a doughnut hole out of the basket and bit into it. Her eyebrows rose. “Wow. What did you do differently?”
“What do you mean?” Polly put a few on a plate and brought it over to Ramona and Tom.
“New recipe?” Mia indicated the doughnut hole as she chewed.
“No.” Polly frowned. “Why? Do they taste different?”
“Yeah, they’re better, actually. Lighter.”
“It’s just the regular batter.” She selected one for herself and took a bite.
A crisp, sweet flavor flooded over her tongue alongside a light airiness that reminded her of the pâte à choux dough for éclairs rather than doughnut batter.
“Wait a second.” Polly went into the kitchen and peered into the stainless steel bowl sitting beside the deep fryer.
Well, that explained it. How had she not noticed she was frying the wrong dough?
Because you were too busy remembering Luke Stone ravishing your body.
Any girl in the world was entitled to a free pass for making a mistake while thinking about getting hot and heavy with CEO Stone.
“I used the wrong dough,” she explained, returning to the front counter. “That was the pâte à choux I fried, not the doughnut batter.”
“Happy accident.” Ramona reached for another one. “You should sell these too.”
“I’ve used similar dough for French crullers,” Polly said, “but those are ring-shaped like actual doughnuts.”
She put the bowl on the counter next to the pastry bag and the tray of éclairs she’d been filling. Out of curiosity, she picked up one of the fried éclair balls and piped a bit of custard into the center before popping it into her mouth.
Wow. Her senses exploded with the taste of rich, creamy chocolate combined with the crisp airiness of the pastry.
“Try this.” She filled more of the fried éclairs with custard and handed them to Mia, Ramona, and Tom.
All three ate the confections, their eyes growing wide with appreciation and surprise.
“Delicious.”
“Amazing.”
“A little eggy,” Mia remarked. “But if you tweak the recipe, you’ll be on to something.”
The wind chimes over the door jingled. Polly’s heart gave a little leap at the thought that Luke might be coming to pay her a visit. Instead what looked like a geeky special ops force entered.
The five men were dressed in black trousers and black polo shirts bearing an insignia on the breast, and one of them—a tall, square-jawed guy with glasses who wore an impassive expression—was carrying a tablet and a briefcase.
“Polly Lockhart?” He extended a business card. “Gavin Knight, Knight Security. Luke Stone asked us to conduct a security risk assessment of your establishment.”
The men behind him were already skulking around, checking the door locks and windows and muttering to each other.
“Go ahead.”
Polly took the card with a slight sigh.
She really didn’t want to be indebted to Luke any more than she already was, but damn the man for being right. Wild Child had needed a security upgrade for months now. Heck, it had needed security.
“We’ll need access to your computer later today.” Gavin Knight removed his glasses to peer at her with penetrating blue eyes. “We’ll start with the physical assessment.”
“Sounds fun,” Mia remarked.
Gavin Knight regarded her blankly. “Are you an employee here, ma’am?”
“No, sir.” Mia slid her gaze over the security guy’s rather broad shoulders. “But I am a miss, not a ma’am.”
Polly threw her friend a “really with the flirting?” look.
Mia shrugged and mouthed, “I’m bored.”
Gavin returned his expressionless gaze to Polly. “Ms. Lockhart, we’d also like a list of your employees to assess staffing security levels.”
“I only have one employee,” she said. “I assure you she possesses a zero threat security level.”
“We still need her information, ma’am.”
“She’ll be in tomorrow morning, if you want to talk to her yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gavin Knight gave Polly a short nod before setting his briefcase on a table and opening it to reveal a high-tech laptop.
“Can I offer any of you some coffee?” Polly asked.
“No, thank you, ma’am. We’re here to work.”
She left them to it. Mia, Tom, and Ramona polished off the rest of the fried éclair balls and gave Polly their opinions on what the pastry needed to make the launch from delicious to out of this world.
As the security team continued to work, Polly went back to the kitchen to experiment with the pâte à choux she normally used for the éclairs. She tested and fried several recipes, then put each batch on a separate plate and filled them with the chocolate custard.
She brought the plates to the front counter. Tom had left, but Ramona was conducting a tarot card reading for Mia.
“Attention, please, gentlemen,” Polly called to the security guys who were still prowling around the bakery, writing on their notepads, inputting things into the laptop, and still doing a great deal of muttering. “Since you’re all experts on assessment, I’d like you to assess these different pastry recipes, please.”