The Negotiator

by Avery Flynn

“I’m sure you like to think so.” She turned and flashed a brilliant smile at Sawyer who was only a few steps away, close enough to end the conversation but too far to have caught any of it. “There you are. We were afraid you’d gotten lost, and I have some people I’d like you to meet.”

  Helene turned and nodded at a pair of women standing near the open door to the balcony. They were tall, blonde, and—Clover’s breath hissed out in surprise—the women from the other day at Sawyer’s office. Looked like Mommy Dearest here wasn’t about to go silently into the good night and give up her Marry Off Sawyer to someone of her choosing campaign.

  “Alamak,” she muttered one of her Singapore students’ favorite expressions of shock under her breath. It fit particularly well here since it translated to: oh, my mother!

  Beside her, Sawyer stiffened and let out a quiet—but impressively creative—stream of curses before setting two champagne flutes on the piano. “You’ve got to be kidding, Mom.”

  Helene took a delicate sip of her champagne. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Those are the wife candidates you wanted me to take to lunch the other day.” Sawyer’s jaw bulged as he clamped it down tight as if he were afraid of what else would come out.

  “Yes,” Helene said.

  “I.” The word came out deceptively even as he whisper-shouted them. “Am. Engaged.”

  Helene lifted her shoulders in a bored shrug. “I don’t see a ring, and until you’re in the church…”

  The other woman let her words trail off, their meaning as clear as the Waterford crystal in her hand. Helene wasn’t about to give up on her original plan. Sawyer growled—literally—and his neck corded. It didn’t take an expert to realize that Sawyer was about ten seconds away from going full-on Hulk, all the while the wife-to-be twins were bearing down on them.

  Shit. She had to do something. This was her job, and she was making a total mess of it. Instead of sitting here gaping like a very entertained fish out of water while Sawyer and his mom quietly fought like rich people did, she needed to do something. Now. The idea was only half formed, but she grabbed ahold of it and blindly jumped.

  “Maybe this will do as a reminder until then,” she said, drawing both their attention. She grabbed Sawyer by the lapels, yanked him lower, and laid a kiss on him.

  At first, he didn’t respond and Clover had half a second to think oh shit! before Sawyer took her face between his palms and deepened the kiss. She couldn’t pinpoint the moment the kiss went from for-the-job to oh-my-God-take-me-now but by the time he pulled away, her hair was messed up, her lips swollen, and her entire body was primed for more. A little punch drunk, she stumbled just a bit as she snuggled into Sawyer’s side to face-off with the Dragon Lady and her minions.

  All of the icy coolness was gone from Helene’s face, replaced by a heated glare and a stubborn set to her jaw—the original to her son’s replica. Without waiting for whatever sharpened verbal knife Helene was about to unsheathe, Clover spoke up.

  “Sorry, girls, this one’s taken,” she said, breathless, to the pair of wide-eyed want-to-be wives. “Tell your friends.”

  After a couple of huffs from the would-be wives and a final chilly glare from Helene, the trio strode off without a glance back at them. Heart hammering against her ribs and the giddy flush of having won another battle against the formidable Helene Carlyle, Clover didn’t protest when Sawyer led her through the French doors and out onto the large balcony overlooking the heart of Harbor City.

  The last pink rays of the setting sun peeked between the skyscrapers crowding the horizon. They stood next to each other, her hand curled in his, her pulse still jackhammering through her, drinking it in as if they’d been out in the desert for too long. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen the city from this vantage point, but it never failed to take her breath away. It was, in a word, magnificent.

  “I think you just earned a dinner at Vito’s,” Sawyer said.

  For saving his ass again? Oh yeah. “I would have figured a rich guy like you would have more to offer. Your mom was willing to pony up half a million for me to leave you high and dry.”

  His head whipped around. “She did not.”

  “Oh yes, she did,” she said with a chuckle. Teasing his mom hadn’t been smart, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  He grinned. “I hope you said no.”

  “I countered with a million five.”

  He let out a laugh, low and rumbly, and tugged her over so she stood with her back to his chest. He dropped his hands to the railing on either side of her hips, close enough to almost touch but not quite. “Are you sure you have to go to Australia? Carlyle Enterprises could always use another great negotiator.”

  “Another?” she scoffed.

  “I went easy on you.”

  “Whatever you say.” She gazed out at the city lights beginning to blink on. “It’s gorgeous up here.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said as he tucked her hair behind her right ear, letting his fingertip glide down the column of her neck. “I used to come out here with my dad and pick out the Carlyle buildings.”

  Skin tingling from his touch, she tried—and failed—to come up with something witty. “An interesting form of father-son bonding.”

  “Oh, there were baseball games and the regular stuff, too, but this was always my favorite.” He dropped his hand back to the railing.

  She could still feel his almost-touching presence, but the lack of actual contact made it easier to think. And breathe. And remember her name. The fact that they weren’t looking at each other but at the city skyline made the moment both intimate and anonymous.

  “Why was this your favorite?” she asked softly.

  “Because from up here you can see the entire city like one big picture. It was my father’s favorite view.”

  And now it was his. Her chest tightened at the thought of him having to have his father-son bonding moment alone. She may have run from Sparksville as soon as she could, but she never felt like she’d left her family—no matter how hard she tried to shake her mom sometimes.

  As though suddenly aware of the over-share, Sawyer leaned down and kissed her shoulder. “You know, it’s also a great place to impress the ladies.”

  “Oh yeah? Pick up a lot of women at your mom’s house, do you?” she teased, leaning her head to the side to give him better access as he continued to plant soft kisses along her shoulder up to where it met her neck.

  “Oh sure, lots and lots,” he murmured. “Great pick-up spot.”

  She rolled her eyes at him over her shoulder, laughing. “Did you seriously just tell me about all the other women you’ve dated while trying to flirt with me? Let me give you some advice. That is not a good line to use when flirting with someone.”

  Sawyer chuckled. “I suck at flirting, but I’m much better at other things.”

  The laughter stilled in her throat. “So you keep promising.”

  There. She’d said it. And he said…nothing. Heat beat at her cheeks. Had she overplayed her hand?

  Then, Sawyer took one hand from the railing and slid it across her waist, pulling her closer so that every inch of her was aligned with his body. “Have I finally gotten you to concede on a negotiation point?”

  “If you’ll recall, I was the one who suggested we have a little fun in the first place.” There. That sounded cool and flirty, not like she was so hot right now that he could flip up her skirt and fuck her against the balcony railing.

  “Now it’s my turn to give you advice.” He tightened his grip, eliminating any doubt about whether he was as ready for this as she was. “Any time you’re talking about having hot, dirty sex that makes you come so hard your whole world turns neon, the last thing you want to bring into the conversation is the word ‘little.’”

  Unable to stop herself, she rubbed her ass against the very not little length of him and relished his responding hushed groan.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” she said, her eyes
beginning to flutter closed.

  “Come on, honey.” He dipped his head lower and kissed the sensitive spot where her jaw met her neck. “Let’s go have some fun.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sawyer was holding on to his control by his fingernails. He and Clover had said their hurried good-byes and sat a foot apart from each other in the back of the Town Car—any closer and he was afraid he’d forget that Linus was only a few feet away in the driver’s seat. The temptation to strip her down and fuck her in the backseat had him on edge enough that he’d had to practically sit on his hands. Now he was suffering through the longest elevator ride of his life up to his penthouse, staring at her reflection in the mirrored doors as she inched the hem of her dress higher and higher, millimeter by millimeter.

  She was toying with him. Sure, it was a private elevator, but the security cameras were obvious. So he stood as still and hard as a statue as she watched him watching her drag her hem a little higher with every floor they passed. Her red-tipped nails played along the bare flesh of her thigh as she teased and tormented him as the floor numbers lit up, one after the other. If he had enough blood in his brain to form a question, it would have been about whether they’d see the penthouse foyer or the silky edge of her panties first. He didn’t trust himself to talk. To reach out to her. To do anything more than fist his hands in his pockets to help cover his obvious bulge from the cameras and remember to stand in a certain spot to be sure the eye in the sky wasn’t getting the same mesmerizing view that he was.

  By the time the ding on the elevator sounded, he’d had all the anticipation he could take. Without giving her time to utter a word of protest, he scooped her up in his arms just as the doors began to slide open. She fit against him, solid and real, unlike the fantasy he’d had this morning in the shower. This was the real Clover—dangerous curves, smart mouth, teasing eyes, and taunting brain able to dismantle him with only the sway of her full hips if he wasn’t careful. Primed and pushed to the breaking point, he strode into his penthouse and headed straight for his suite of rooms at a hasty clip.

  “In a hurry, Mr. Stuffykins?” Clover asked, her hands busy murdering the knot in his tie as she tugged and pulled the silk free.

  Please God, don’t let her ever use that name in front of another human being. “Your taste in nicknames sucks.”

  “It fits you since you need to be taken down a few pegs.” One last yank and his tie slipped free.

  He chuckled and turned down the hall to his room. “And you said I was a bad flirt?”

  “Got me there.” She shrugged and let go of the tie, letting it drop to the floor just inside his suite.

  The desk in the office third of his suite caught his attention. It was a flat, clean, horizontal surface. He slowed his pace, an image of her bent over the glass top, her crazy striped skirt scrunched up around her hips and her legs spread wide as he thrust deep and hard inside her nearly made him stumble. God, it was tempting. So. Tempting. But what he wanted to do took space, time, and possibly a nap in-between sessions.

  “And here I thought you weren’t bad at anything,” he said, picking up his pace and speeding through the sitting room third of his suite.

  “Sawyer Carlyle,” she said as she went to work on the buttons of his shirt. “Are you trying to flatter your way into my panties?”

  “Are you even wearing any?” he asked as they crossed through the door to his bedroom, the king-size bed drawing him like a magnet.

  Her fingers went still in the middle of freeing a button and she looked up at him through her thick eyelashes, wetting her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Give the woman a cat-o-nine tails and she wouldn’t have been able to torture him any more effectively. He’d been joking. She was most definitely not. Pre-come beaded on the tip of his cock at the idea of Clover waltzing around the city without even the skimpiest scrap of lace between her legs. Would she? The possibilities made his cock ache. He stopped at the foot of the bed. There was only one way to find out. Hating to let her out of his arms but knowing if he didn’t, there was no way he’d have enough control to take his time the way she deserved, he tossed her onto the bed.

  Pillows went flying before she sank down in a sea of brilliant red, her blond hair spread out like a silky curtain. The only thing that could make the vision more perfect was if she was naked.

  “You have too many clothes on.” If he was the kind of man who begged and pleaded, that’s exactly what he’d call the words that had just come out of his mouth.

  She smiled up at him and it wasn’t shy or coy. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. “Then unwrap me.”

  “I got in trouble for that line earlier.”

  “Stop arguing and get me naked,” she demanded, a threat of desperate want taking her voice lower.

  Now who was teetering on the edge? Time to see just how far he could push her. It was only fair in this kind of negotiation.

  “But where to start?” Still standing at the bottom of the bed, he leaned forward and traced a finger down her calf to her ankle before wrapping his hand around the back of her high heels and lifting her leg in the air. “Here?” Her breath stilled as he pretended to focus all his concentration on the black shoe. “No, I think I want you to leave them on. They’ll even out the height difference later when I have you naked and pressed up against the window.” Keeping her leg aloft, he trailed the fingers of his other hand up from her ankle to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and continued north until he hit the hem of her dress. “Here?” He brushed his thumb over the edge of the material. “Nah. You’ve been teasing me with this for so long that I think it’s only fair to torment you back until you’re begging me to slide your dress up your hips.” He wasn’t sure which reaction made him harder, the narrowing of her eyes when she realized there was a negotiation ahead, or the way her sweet mouth opened in surprise when he dropped her leg without fanfare, bent down over her, and grabbed her by the hips. “So where does that lead? Oh, that’s right.” Fast as a blink, he flipped her over onto her stomach and followed up the move by slowly lowering her zipper a few inches before stopping, loving her frustrated groan. “Yes. I want to unwrap you from behind.”

  By the time he’d gotten the zipper all the way down, his entire body was hard and demanding attention. A skinny river of her creamy flesh lay exposed to his hungry gaze where the zipper lay open. He caught a flash of her bra’s bright blue color and a dusting of pale peach freckles along her spine that led his attention lower to the initial rise of her completely bare and succulent ass.

  “Why, Clover Lee.” He glided a finger across the swell of one cheek. “I’m shocked at your brazenness.”

  “Liar,” she said, turning her head to look back at him as she wiggled her ass at him like a red flag at a bull. “If anything, you’re totally turned on by it. The next time we go out you’ll wonder the entire time if I’m wearing any panties.”

  She was right and, no doubt, she knew it. Fuck, he was already going through every moment he’d seen her before and wondering if she’d been wearing underwear then. It was blissful torment, but nothing compared to having the woman ready, wanting, and half dressed in the middle of his bed.

  “Guess that just means I’ll always have to check before we go out.”

  The white, black, and red lines of a tattoo on her right cheek peeked out from under her dress. He hooked a finger around the material and pulled the unzipped opening wider, revealing an unmistakable cartoon kitten. It stopped him dead in his lusty tracks. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it.

  “Hello Kitty?”

  “A youthful indiscretion.”

  Now that he could believe. Probably a spur of the moment adventure, the kind that sounded so good at the time when you didn’t think about a lifetime with a cartoon tattoo on your ass. “I can’t wait to hear all about it, but there’s something else I want to hear first.”

  “What?”<
br />
  He slid his hands up the outside of her thighs, catching the hem of her dress and shoving it higher and higher until it was over her ass. Maybe it was on instinct or maybe it was because she wanted to hurry him along, but she spread her legs, giving him a front row seat to one of the wonders of the world. When he moved his hands again—this time cupping the back of her legs, letting his thumbs caress her inner thighs as he moved higher—it wasn’t in determination or dominance, but in reverence. Her skin was soft beneath his touch. Silky. Smooth. Addictive. And when he brushed against her swollen folds, they were wet with need—for him, for what they were going to do. Releasing the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, he brushed the pad of his thumb against her core.

  Her answering moan nearly undid him.

  “I wanted to hear that.” He licked the taste of her off his thumb. “Just as sweet as I imagined in the shower. Do you know what I was fantasizing about doing to you while I jerked off?”

  Her eyes were closed, her mouth open slightly, and her words came out breathy, “Tell me.”

  “No.” His hand went to the few still fastened buttons on his shirt. “I’m going to show you.”

  …

  Lying on her stomach, her breaths coming in shaky bursts, Clover’s world turned electric. Every nerve. Every breath. Every touch. Everything was supercharged.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. The sensation of Sawyer’s fingers as they traced long, lazy patterns across the very farthest outreaches of her wet folds, over the curves of her butt, up and down the sensitive back of her thighs, was almost too much. Adding sight would overwhelm her. Just the glimpse she’d had of him as he’d stripped off his shirt in a determined rush, followed up by kicking off his shoes and stepping out of his pants had her squirming. Her attempt to roll over onto her back and fully enjoy the show had been met with a firm smack on her ass and a practically growled order to stay exactly where she was.

  Sawyer was as silent now as the first moment he’d touched her desire-dampened flesh. Was that a minute ago? Five? Eternity? She had no fucking clue. All she knew was that she was lying face down in the middle of his bed—her dress up around her waist and her heels still on—drowning in tormented desire. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop the nonsensical pleas and sighs of pleasure with every downward stroke, slow circle, and exploring thrust of his devastatingly talented fingers.