“Look at me, Kali,” he commands softly.
“No.” I can’t. I don’t know why. Or I do. I think he will see something I don’t want him to see. Something I don’t even understand.
“Look at me,” he orders more darkly.
“No.” I shake my head. “No.”
He rips my panties and I jerk up, straightening to stare down at him. “That’s more like it,” he declares, dipping two fingers inside me. “Stay upright or I’ll stop.”
“You are so unfair.” My lashes flutter, a dull throb deep in my sex expanding, tightening. “I don’t think I can.”
“You can.”
I am suddenly exposed, vulnerable in some unknown way I don’t want to be, and I blurt out, “We can’t do this.”
“We’re already doing it.” He licks my clit.
“Oh … I … oh.”
“Have you forgiven me yet?” His fingers stroke inside me, and the words echo over my sensitive flesh where I want his mouth again.
“No,” I gasp, and reflexively I squeeze his shoulders with my thighs and fight the urge to shove his head back down.
“I’ll keep trying, then.” And, thankfully, his mouth closes over my clit again, suckling deeply. My hips lift with the empty ache inside me that his fingers cannot satisfy. I ignore his command to stay upright, falling back on my hands. He tugs me closer, and somehow I’m lying on the hard surface of the table, my legs around his shoulders.
My hands go over my face, my breasts thrust in the air. He laps at me, licking and teasing, his fingers stroking, pumping, and sensations ripple through my body. I am close, so close to release, but every time I am on the edge, he seems to know, licking to the left or right. My nipples are tight balls of pain, and I reach up and caress them, doing what I have never dared with another man, stroking away the pain he will not. And still it is not enough.
“Please,” I beg. “I need … I need …”
He suckles deeply and pumps his fingers faster, harder, and I am there … I … am … there. My body tenses and buckles with a tight piercing sensation, a moment before a wave of absolute pleasure overwhelms me, stealing my breath. I lose time and my surroundings, gasping back to reality to realize my fingers are twined tightly in his hair, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t been gentle.
I yank my hand back and look to my left, trying to hide my face, trying to process what has just happened. He maneuvers my legs to the side and then his hand slides under me, lifting me, pulling me to a sitting position, where I can’t hide from the depth of his intense stare, which is so much more. It is as if he sees all my broken pieces I wanted to believe no longer exist. It is a daunting thought, and embarrassment swims like shards of glass inside me, pricking already raw places. I have become his conquest, of which I am certain he has many.
I turn my face to the left again, but he cups my cheeks, forcing my gaze to his. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re my boss. Or ex-boss. That’s what’s wrong.”
“Right now I’m Damion. Just a man. A man who wants to be inside you more than he wants to breathe.” His fingers trail down my shoulder, teasing my skin, lower, until he’s teasing my nipple, touching me freely.
Damion, I whisper in my mind, shivering with the sensual way he is touching me. But I am back inside my own head, too aware of how nearly naked I am in every sense of the word, too aware to not see that he is not. And for a moment I want to run. I want to get away and hide, and this makes me furious with myself. No more running. No more hiding. I shove aside weakness and force myself to think clearly, to claim what I want.
My hand goes to his hip, my courage growing. This is a hotel fling and he wants to fuck me. I want to fuck him, too. I am not holding back. I am not going to romanticize what isn’t romantic. I’m going to enjoy this and then go back to my real life, which does not include this place or this man. I find his zipper, and my fingers trace the hard ridge of his erection.
He groans and I am empowered, hungry for him, urgent to feel his need match mine. To know he burns to be inside me the way I burn to have him there. My eyes lift to his, and I let him see what I feel. I let him see the lust and demand. And it’s like he snaps. Or we snap. Like my action has opened a door and suddenly we are set free.
His mouth comes down on mine, and he tastes wild, hungry. Urgent. I am urgent, too, bordering on lost again. So close to oblivion. So close to having him inside me. I barely register the moment he unbuttons his slacks. Or the moment my hand slides into his pants, but I remember wrapping his shaft, moaning as my fingers spread the silky wet heat pooling at the tip. And then his cell phone rings and it’s like a megaphone.
We both freeze, and he curses, burying his face in my neck. “Mother of Jesus, shoot me now.” He reaches into his pocket and glances at the number. “Fuck.” A pretty good indicator he has to take the call, and he punches the answer button. “Yeah, Terrance, what?”
I know it’s naughty and wicked, but I stroke his cock while he’s trying to talk, feeling the tension of his barely controlled arousal enveloping him as he says, “I’ll be right there.” He ends the call and drops his phone on the table, reaching for my hand. “Stop.” He drags my hand to his chest and sounds pained as he says, “As badly as I want to fuck you right now, I won’t do it with one foot out the door. Not like this.”
“I don’t care. Please—”
He kisses me, dipping his tongue into my mouth, a sweet, sensual caress that leaves me breathless, before he says, “Taste that. That’s you on my lips, and it’s the one thing that will make the meeting I have to go to tolerable.”
“You have to go?”
“Yes. I’ll be back. Soon. I promise.” He leans away from me, running a hand through his dark hair and then grimacing as he zips his pants.
I squeeze my thighs together, hugging myself, trying to cover my nearly naked body. And all of a sudden a waterfall of emotions crashes over me, none of which I recognize. Mostly I am confused. It’s the only emotion I can truly name.
He adjusts his shirt and steps close to me, stroking my hair behind my ear. “This won’t take long. Don’t leave.” His phone starts to ring again and he grimaces, reaching for it. “I have to go.”
“I know. You have a job.” But I don’t, and it’s then that I realize those emotions I am feeling are the aftermath of the past two days.
“We’ll talk when I get back.” He brushes his lips over mine and it’s a bittersweet last kiss, at least for me, before he’s headed to the door and gone.
Talk or fuck? I want to call after him. Because talking doesn’t work for me. Talking only upsets me. The door shuts and I stare at it, fighting a stupid pinching sensation in my eyes. Damn it, why do I want to cry? Why? But I know why. The idea of sitting here and waiting for him to come back and finish what we started just feels … bad. As if I’ve gone from a suspect to a bimbo. If this place and I weren’t done before, we are now. I’m not staying. I slide off the table. We’re done. My boss and I are done.
I need to get out of here so I can have a meltdown, pull myself together, and start over once again tomorrow.
Part Six
A view from inside …
The instant I am in my rental car and the engine is on, the past two days officially crash in on me, and the waterfall flows. I cry like I have not cried since “the incident,” and the concrete blocks crushing my shoulders are many. Losing my dream job, starting a new one, being treated as a criminal, and, the worst of all, almost calling my father and knowing how he would have treated me. Then there is Damion. I try to think of what happened between us as a mutual escape, but I am left feeling like his conquest. Like I lost myself all over again. I don’t like it. Not one little bit.
By the time I pull up to my hotel, I’ve weathered the short, vicious storm and have started to compartmentalize what I’m feeling. I’ll find another job. I’ll work two jobs if I have to, and I will get to the other side of this. I’ll start a blog and create new reporting opportunities no
one else can give me. I’ll find ways to make my dreams come true. A year from today, I vow, I’ll look back at all of this and laugh.
Feeling renewed, I ditch my work clothes for sweats and will myself to stop thinking about my cell phone, which isn’t ringing. “Proof you were nothing but an easy diversion for Mr. Damion Ward,” I murmur, settling onto the bed with my computer. The man seemed eager to confirm I’d quit, as if he wanted me to remember it was my decision and not his. Now I wonder if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted. But anger is good. Anger got me here. Anger will get me beyond here.
Well, that and my old-faithful feel-good drug: Chinese food, which I ate a lot of after Kent and I broke up, and not because I missed Kent. Because I’d lost myself. My dignity. My confidence. It took me six months after what I think of as “the incident” to look objectively at what happened. To see it and myself clearly. Kent tried to hurt me. And he did. But it was my father who cut me open and bled me dry. It was my father who made me feel that I wasn’t a real woman. That I was inadequate. And I believed him.
After an Internet search, I order enough food to feed an army and start my online job search. An hour later, I still have no food and I’m about to dial and check on it when a knock sounds on the door. “Thank goodness,” I mutter, heading to answer it and deciding this will not be a pity-party dinner. This is a celebration. I almost had sex with Damion Ward, who, despite being a jerk, is one hell of a man. And not once had I thought that I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough or whatever else I spent six months beating myself up with after “the incident.”
“Who is it?” I ask, being safe before flipping the lock.
“Damion.”
My heart thunders in my chest at the deep, deliciously male sound of his voice, and my emotions are immediately bouncing all over the place. This man gets to me. Really, really gets down deep inside me and stirs something raw and untouched, which I doubt is about him as much as about my past. Still, he is the one who has triggered this emotion in me, which means he can cut me in a way that only losing my mother and being crushed by my father have up to this point. I’m not sure I would survive that right now. Not this soon after … everything.
“Go away,” I call out.
“Not a chance.”
My elation and my fear over his reply collide, and I am weak in the knees. “How did you find me?”
“Your employment file.”
After what he put me through today, that hits a raw nerve. I unlock the door and yank it open. “You can’t do that. I have a right to privacy.”
“I can and I did,” he says, advancing on me. His hands come down on my shoulders, branding me, burning me alive as he walks us in to the room and once again kicks the door shut. “You were supposed to wait for me.”
“I never agreed to wait for you,” I counter, stepping backward and darting away from him, moving behind the kitchen counter, putting space and structure between us. “And I’m not your employee. You have no right to come here.”
“Why wouldn’t you wait for me?”
“We had our moment,” I say, trying to sound flippant. “It passed.”
“A moment?” he asks drily. “Is that what we had? Because I’m pretty sure it was a lot more than a moment.”
My brow crinkles. “I wasn’t being literal.”
“Neither was I.” He glances around the room and his jaw flexes. “Why are you staying in this place?”
“Why are you here?”
A knock sounds on the door. He arches his brow. “Expecting someone that’s not me?”
“Dinner.”
He turns to the door and opens it. I bury my face in my hand as he pays for my food. What is happening? What the heck is happening? I try to think, to process, but my heart is beating as wildly as a ten-year-old with a new drum set.
The door shuts, and my gaze jerks up to find Damion approaching the cubbyhole of a kitchen area where I’m standing. “Dinner is served,” he announces, claiming a bar stool and opening the delivery bag. “You got anything to drink in that fridge over there?”
I flatten both hands on the counter, lean on the surface; the goal this time, instead of being flippant, is to look more stable than I feel. “What are you doing, Damion?”
His hand stills on one of the two containers, eyes narrowing on mine. “Damion?”
I swallow the cotton in my throat. “What do you want me to call you? Mr. Ward? I don’t work for you anymore.”
“Damion. I want you to call me Damion.” And the way he says it, all deep and sandpaper-rough, sends my temperature soaring. I do not want my temperature to soar.
“What are we doing?” I ask. “What are we doing?”
“Eating dinner.” He balls the plastic bag and tosses it at my trash, as nonchalant as an afternoon at the ballpark. “And since you ordered enough for an army, I won’t feel guilty for joining you. I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”
“I tend to get carried away with Chinese food,” I explain, as if I need a reason for ordering what I ordered. I don’t.
“Works for me,” he approves, loosening his tie. “I’m famished.”
There is no missing the sensual undertone, and I quickly turn away to open the fridge, trying to hide the rush of blood to my cheeks. I grab two sodas to calm my nerves. What is happening? I inhale a discreet breath and turn and set the cans on the counter. “All I have is diet.”
His lips quirk. “I like that you blush easily,” he says, not so discreetly letting me know that I did not hide my reaction to his flirtatious remark. He pats the seat next to him. “Come sit.”
How am I going to sit next to him and not combust?
That brow of his arches. “Intimidated?”
“Yes,” I say, deciding that hiding anything from this man is impossible. So why try? “Now you intimidate me.”
He reaches over the counter and takes my hand, pulling me around to stand beside him. “Well, news flash, sweetheart. I feel the same.”
I laugh in disbelief, trying to suppress a memory of his mouth on my nipple. “I don’t intimidate you. You’re a powerful CEO, with money, success, and so many women chasing you that your door staff thought I was one of them.”
He turns toward me, hitting me with the full force of his pale-green eyes. “If only they knew that you are the one running away.”
He might as well have taken a hammer to the raw nerves he’s hit. “I’m not running from anything.”
His hands go to my waist as they had earlier, and he lifts me and sets me on the stool. “Yes. You are. But you can’t run fast enough. That’s a lesson you still have to learn.”
I blink at him, not sure if he’s talking about me running from him or about something else. I want to ask, but his hands fall away and I am left cold and confused while he loosens his tie and then opens both of the take-out containers. “One noodle and chicken. One beef and rice.” He glances over at me. “I approve.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because you’re here.” He hands me a plastic fork and softens his voice. “Let’s eat, Kali.”
I wet my lips, and his eyes follow the action. I am suddenly hot and bothered and ready to reach over and yank his tie the rest of the way off. Flushing again, I turn away quickly, his soft laughter telling me once more that I am busted.
I jab the fork into the center of a piece of chicken, then reach for my drink and open it, searching my mind for a topic that will not make me overheat. He pops his can and changes the subject. “I saw your full résumé today. You’ve been at the reporting thing since college.”
I nod, picking at the food. “It’s been a passion for as long as I can remember.”
“Then why come to Vegas?”
“I was stuck doing fluff stories. I wanted to do grittier, darker stuff. I felt I’d paid my dues, and so did the folks who hired me here. Coming to Vegas was supposed to be my ticket into the mainstream.”
He reaches over and takes a bite from the container in front of m
e, then shoves his closer to me. “Try it. It’s good.”
I take a bite and he watches me. I watch him. And I think … I think he wants to kiss me. I know I want to kiss him. I thought this was a fast little fling, but he’s here and it feels like more. Like sharing this meal is somehow more intimate than what happened earlier.
“What else did you leave in Texas, Kali?”
The question is like a splash of ice water. “Nothing.”
“What about family and friends?”
“My best friend just moved out of state.” I scoot food around with my fork. “My father is still in Texas.”
“And what did he think about you leaving?”
I cut him a sideways look. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“He’s pretty busy running his law firm.”
“What kind of law?”
“Mostly corporate takeover kind of stuff.”
He lifts his drink. “Dirty business,” he says, taking a swig and setting the can down. “Takes a certain kind of person to stomach that.”
“My father stomachs it just fine.” But it makes me curious about how Damion landed his job. “Didn’t you do some kind of consulting before you took this job?”
“Reading up on me, are you?”
“I wanted to be prepared for my first day at work.”
“Another reason why hiring you was a good decision. I worked as a business consultant, and I have a knack for finding snakes in the grass.”
“Meaning what?”
“Inappropriate use of funds, among other things. It goes beyond experience and education for me both now and then. It’s like how asking questions is inbred in you. I go into an operation, and a gut feeling leads me to the places and problems I need to discover. And, let me tell you, the many ways this operation was being abused was mind-blowing. Another year and the mob would have owned it.”
“But the media—”
Play with Me (Novella) Page 5