Best Served Cold

by Sandy Lynn

  Her aggressiveness only seemed to spurn him on. When she nipped his lower lip much as he’d done to her earlier, he growled. He’d done a lot of that since they entered the conference room, and she liked it. She enjoyed knowing she had gotten him so worked up he couldn’t even put together complete sentences.

  He ended the kiss and pressed her back against the table, his mouth going back to her shoulder. He kissed the spot he’d bitten then worked his way up her neck. He started to suckle on her neck, but stopped. Stacy moaned when he continued slightly lower, just below her neck on her collar.

  The harder Demetri sucked on her skin, the harder he thrust into her body. He quickly had her body clenching again, tremors ricocheting through her as every muscle turned to jelly from the force of her orgasm.

  After a few strokes, he paused, biting down on her again. If the force of his bite was any indication, his orgasm had been equal in strength to hers. They laid there, mostly on top of the large conference table, for an indeterminate amount of time. By the time Stacy felt like she had enough strength to make her trembling muscles support her, reality hit, and she pushed him away.

  They’d been fighting. They had been screaming and arguing. How could she have gone from rage to having sex so quickly? And how was she going to leave the building after he’d completely shredded her clothes?

  “What did we just do?”

  “Do you need a reminder so soon? That doesn’t do much for my ego. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind at all, but you’ll have to give me a few minutes. I’m not as young as I used to be. Though for you...”

  “We were fighting.”

  “No, you were venting,” Demetri corrected her.

  Stacy looked around the room. “That is venting? What’s your definition of fighting, then?”

  “I hope you never have to find out,” he told her, his voice tinted with sadness. He approached her and wrapped his arms around her, ignoring her protests. “You needed to get that out. You needed to feel something about your ex. You have to feel it or you’ll never really get over what happened.”

  “So that was, what? Your good deed for the day?” She was confused and annoyed.

  “No. It was me forcing a door open. And hopefully you won’t slam it shut again. Take the time to grieve, Stacy. You need that. If for no other reason than to make sure he has no more power over you.”

  “I’ll think about it. Can I please just sign those papers now?”

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want...”

  “I am.” She watched Demetri retrieve the paperwork. At some point, it seemed to have been scattered slightly. Automatically picking up the first pen she saw, she looked over at Demetri when he chuckled.

  “I know they say divorce can be rough, but I don’t think you need to sign these particular papers in blood.”

  She attempted to casually drop the pen. “I’d be more than happy to, if it meant this could be over faster.”

  Signing four copies of the separation papers with Demetri’s pen, Stacy sighed. She was one step closer to being free from her ex. She handed him the papers back and sighed. “Take off your shirt,” she told him after a few minutes of looking around the room in an attempt to find something—anything—to cover herself with.

  “Why?”

  “Because you destroyed my clothes, you punk. I am not leaving this building naked, and I don’t want to find out what happens if I run into an incubus or succubus while I’m so exposed. Nor do I want to run into Marix. I figure the least you can do for completely destroying my clothes is give me your shirt to cover myself with.”

  Laughing, he stepped back between her legs as his fingers nimbly worked on the buttons. He was on the third one when there was a knock on the door.

  Stacy blushed and kept her mouth shut tightly. Demetri’s laughter grew stronger as he yelled “Come in.”

  Thankfully it was Tina’s head that popped inside the door. “Good, you’re done. Here, I was told you might need these.” Tina’s head disappeared and her arm appeared in the opening. “I keep a spare set of clothes here just in case of an emergency. Guess it’s a good thing I do, huh?”

  Stacy wasn’t sure if she should be laughing or crying. Two people had walked in on her, while she was naked—at work!—and all she wanted was to have Demetri between her legs again. Instead, he was being a gentleman, and after tucking himself back into his pants, he retrieved the clothes Tina was holding inside the room. She wanted him to continue removing his shirt, to let her see his wonderful chest. She wanted to bite him as hard as he’d bitten her. She wanted to mark him as he had her. She wanted to wake up next to him again.

  “I guess this means you don’t need my shirt anymore.” He didn’t fix it as he continued toward her.

  In an attempt to look at anything other than his chest, she looked at the clothes he was holding. She wished she hadn’t done that as she stared at the miniscule skirt he was holding out for her.

  “What’s that?”

  “The clothes Tina brought for you.” He was smiling. Why was he smiling?

  “You could at least look guilty about shredding my clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because...because...” She couldn’t actually seem to think of a good reason he should be sorry about it. She really wasn’t, though it had been embarrassing to know her coworkers had seen a side to her she preferred to keep private. “Because those clothes are never going to fit me.” Even she wasn’t convinced by her argument, but she’d had to say something.

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  As he approached her, Stacy could feel her hunger building again. What was it about the man that made her feel like she was starving—and she didn’t mean for food.

  She tried to shrug out of the ruined clothes, but he stopped her.

  “Allow me. It is my fault after all.” Despite his words, he looked as though he was enjoying every minute of his ‘penance’.

  Demetri pushed her ripped shirt off, followed by the torn bra. His eyes—and hands—let her know he would rather let her linger like that, but he pulled the top Tina had loaned Stacy over her head. As he tugged it on her body, she was thankful that it was the kind that had a built-in bra. Unfortunately, it was the wrong size, and her breasts were straining the material.

  “It doesn’t fit,” she said trying to adjust her ample flesh in a more comfortable position.

  “I think it fits perfectly.” Demetri lowered his head and kissed the ample cleavage the shirt did not cover. His tongue traced the swells, then he lifted his head.

  How could she contradict his argument? Now she wished more of her clothes fit her the way this did. Perhaps she should go shopping again...

  A question popped into her mind before she could push it away. Would he always worship her that way, or would he soon grow used to seeing it and stop caring that she showed her body off for him?

  Shaking her head she tried to stop thinking of him as her boyfriend. He wasn’t. He was just her lawyer. Nothing else. Except her occasional lover. And did it really matter that occasional had become two nights in a row? Or that he’d given her more pleasure—she’d experienced more orgasms with him in this brief time than she had in years.

  “You need to stand up so I can help you with the skirt,” he whispered in her ear.

  She could already see the telltale bulge in his trousers. There were so many things she wanted to do, to try. But now was not the time. And how could she convince him she didn’t want a relationship with him if she couldn’t even seem to control herself around him? Or if she was constantly asking him to spend the night with her.

  Standing, her breath caught in her throat when Demetri lowered himself to his knees in front of her. He finished ripping the pants off of her, then placed an all too brief kiss on her bare sex. His tongue teased her clit before he pulled away. Slowly, with her help, he got her into the skirt, then took his time pulling it up her legs.

  Stacy knew he could smell her
arousal. He knew what he was doing to her. But he never touched her. To her dismay, his fingers never slipped or strayed from their task. When she was dressed, she looked down at herself. The skirt fit her well even if it was too short, but the top was obviously not hers. And it showed off the newest dark hickey he’d put on her. If the shirt showed off the ones she could see, she was positive it also revealed his other ‘love bites’.

  “I guess we should fix this, then.” She wanted to touch him. She wanted to run her hands over the hard muscles of his chest and glory in the way he growled softly in her ear as she did so. She behaved as she started buttoning his shirt.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you moved,” Demetri told her as she replaced the last button in its hole.

  “What?”

  “You pulled me to you after you promised you wouldn’t move your arms.”

  “Oh. That.” She blushed. How was it possible that she could still blush around him? “Well, you wouldn’t kiss me,” she told him, turning away from him. She couldn’t stand to look at him when she made her admission. She’d embarrassed herself enough already.

  “I’ll make sure not to neglect you that way again. But I am going to have to punish you for breaking your promise.”

  His hands rested easily on her hips. She couldn’t—wouldn’t look back at him. He had too much power over her body now. Looking at her shoulder, she gasped when she saw the spot he’d bitten clearly.

  “What did you do to me?”

  “Nothing you didn’t tell me I could do. And don’t think you’re changing my mind about punishing you.” His hand roamed over her ass.

  “I—I’m hungry. I want to go get supper,” she told him for lack of anything better to say.

  “Of course. But we will finish this discussion later.” His hand did not leave her hip as he guided her through the hallway toward the main office.

  “Good, you’re finished. I was beginning to wonder if I needed to order delivery.” Tina’s eyes sparkled with mischief when she looked at Stacy.

  Stacy was torn between forcibly removing Demetri’s hand, trying to coax the shirt to cover more of her body and just blatantly covering the newest hickey and the bite mark with her hands, if she could even manage to cover it all.

  “Let’s go, I’m starving,” Tina said with a smile. “And something tells me you two worked up quite an appetite.”

  Stacy refused to look at her friend as Demetri laughed. She determined to just keep her mouth shut and try to get through the night. Tomorrow, she’d call her guru and ask him to meet her. She was prepared to beg if necessary.

  However disgruntled she felt, there was a part of her that noticed Demetri seemed to be completely comfortable touching her. He didn’t seem to mind if anyone thought they were together—a couple. Even after so many years of marriage, Thomas had never seemed to be so at ease with her. Especially not in public. It had been as though he’d been hesitant for anyone to know she was his wife. Now she knew why.

  But Demetri was just a friend, and he seemed to have no problems showing her affection. Public displays seemed natural for him, and truthfully, she was enjoying them. A lot more than she should.

  He was everything her ex wasn’t, and that scared her. What if she allowed herself to fall for him and he turned out to be just another asshole in wolf’s clothing? Did she want to trade one disastrous relationship for another?

  She needed time to think about what she wanted. She would save that for another time. Right now, she had two friends she was determined to enjoy supper with. And as much as she’d never admit it out loud, Demetri really had helped her work up quite an appetite.

  Of course, she didn’t have to admit it after her stomach growled.

  But, being the great people that her new friends were, they kept their chuckles silent. At least at first.

  Chapter Eight

  Stacy behaved all weekend. She completely ignored the fact that she hadn’t seen Demetri since they parted ways at the pizza place, when he said he had business he had to attend to. She preferred not to think about what kind of business that could be. She’d already lost more sleep than she was comfortable with wondering if that ‘business’ was another woman. She preferred to think about the more pleasant aspects of the evening.

  Tina had laughed at Stacy when she kept sliding closer to Demetri through the course of the meal. Stacy had explained—several times—that she was getting weird looks from the men who passed her and she just didn’t want anyone to think she wanted them to do more than look. She refused to admit she just wanted to be closer to him.

  She also refused to admit she’d gotten warm fuzzies in her stomach as Demetri put his arm around her when one particularly dense man came over and didn’t seem to want to take the hint.

  Of course, that hadn’t stopped the strange man either, who pointed out any woman could get a friend to put his arm around her. She’d been shocked when Demetri chuckled and agreed. He was full of surprises, and they hadn’t ended there. No, he and the man talked about how it was only the right thing to do, to protect their female friends from potentially unwanted attention.

  When Stacy looked at Demetri, fully prepared to call him a traitor, he winked at her. With a shrug to the other man, he said in a very casual tone, “What can you do, though? Excuse me.” With no other warning, Demetri lowered his mouth to hers. She’d been too stunned to push him away. And when his tongue traced her lips, she’d automatically opened for him. She didn’t care that her hands were slightly greasy from the pizza she’d just been eating. It didn’t stop her from grabbing a fistful of his hair as his tongue plunged in and out of her mouth. He kissed her like that, stealing her breath, until she moaned and squirmed beside him.

  Breaking off the kiss, he smiled. Stacy wasn’t sure who he directed his comment to, but Demetri simply shrugged again and said, “There was some sauce...”

  Tina had laughed as the other man walked away, shaking his head. Then her friend—her best friend—had had the audacity to ask, “So how’d it taste?”

  Stacy knew that she was referring to the fact that both of her companions stared at her as she added red pepper flakes to her slices of pepperoni pizza, but she was still embarrassed.

  Demetri licked his lips. “Very spicy.”

  Tina shook her head and excused herself. When she was gone, Demetri lowered his head to her ear. “Very spicy and incredibly tempting, if you ask me.”

  When Tina returned, her friend chuckled. “See, I knew all those red peppers would get to you.”

  Stacy had felt hot, all right. But the heat flowing through her body had nothing to do with the dried hot peppers.

  Pulling herself out of the memory, Stacy rechecked her calendar. She was trying to figure out how much time she had to learn more about her clients before her next mediation session. Though this time, she’d be better prepared.

  Over the weekend, Tina had taken her back to the bookstore and, by her request left her. Stacy insisted that she’d have to start doing these things on her own. She’d wandered the rows and looked at the informative books. It had taken nearly a half hour for one of the employees to come to her as she browsed the selection. Tina had already explained that the real collection was in the back. But the only way back there was if an employee allowed you behind the curtain. They had some sort of mystical protection mojo going on back there.

  When she introduced herself, the woman barely blinked at her. When the clerk asked what she could help her find, Stacy whispered that she was looking for books about werewolves. The woman had simply stared at her, then showed her to the paranormal portion of the fiction aisle. It was like she didn’t believe her. Saturday she hadn’t been shown anything but the regular selection. And just to prove she was serious, she had made sure to smile as she made her purchase of books on Wolves and, to Tina’s delight, Fairy Tales.

  On Sunday, she’d gone back and after about an hour, the same woman approached. When she asked what she could help her find, Stacy smile
d. She took a deep breath and asked once again for the books on werewolves. Once again she’d been taken to the fiction section. This time Stacy smiled and asked for the nonfiction section.

  When the woman insisted that there was no nonfiction section, Stacy nodded. She told the woman that she understood. Perhaps she’d heard wrong when she heard they sold books that could be of use to her. Then she opened her cell phone and mumbled, “Where did I put Demetri’s number?”

  Those words had an instant reaction. She was ushered into the back section with an apology. The clerk explained about how they had so many gothic wannabes come into the store that they’d had to start screening their customers first. She lamented that the surge came from all the authors who seemed to be writing steamy romances about vampires and shape shifters. Of course the fact the employee complained about those steamy romances didn’t stop the store from stocking them. She’d noticed a particularly large display of them just before she walked through the back door to the private selection.

  After more than an hour in the back, Stacy’s checkbook was groaning, but she had some books. She had carefully arranged the small start of her library. She’d even separated her shelves. One was set up for her research and history books, and another would eventually be filled with her recreational reading.

  She’d even started a notebook for things she wanted to remember. Going over one of her books Sunday night, she’d found details about the war between Randal’s Vampire Clan and Demetri’s Werewolf Pack. As she read, she couldn’t help being incredibly thankful she hadn’t had any knowledge of the history between the two groups during her first mediation.

  After a particularly gory accounting of the last peace talks two decades ago, she’d put the book down. The only reason they’d agreed to attempt a peace was there had been a massacre. It hadn’t made the news, mainly because most of the dead had been vampires or werewolves. Few mortals had died that time. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the war a hundred years prior to that.