by Megan Hart
A moan slipped out of her. Another when his fingers dug deep into her flesh and his tongue stroked hers. At the nip of his teeth on the corner of her mouth, Simone cried out.
Elliott moved back from her, blinking. If he’d let her go, she surely would’ve fallen, but he still held her tight enough to keep her steady. At least for a few seconds, and then his grip loosened.
“That was lovely,” Simone said, a little dazed. “Do it again.”
* * *
The taste of her filled his mouth. The smell of her covered him. The feeling of her tight ass under his hand, the slender curve of her neck inside the cage of his fingers—everything tipped him toward her again.
Elliott kissed her. The second kiss was harder even than the first. Her tongue stroked his, and when he sucked on it, then bit it gently, her answering gasp flooded him with an arousal so sharp it almost hurt.
Everything around him turned to glass.
“Harder,” Simone said into his mouth on the edge of a moan.
He kissed her harder. Held her tighter. She slid the flat of her hands up his chest to pull him closer to her, tipping her head so he could get at the smoothness of her throat with his teeth.
Oh, yes.
Elliott dragged his mouth along her skin, tasting her. He found the curve of her collarbone and nipped it as he rubbed her against him, belly to crotch. Simone Kahan was intoxicating. He couldn’t get enough.
He was not a man who lost himself, and yet at the sound of her murmured urging, Elliott found himself tumbling into that twisting, turning rabbit hole of desire he’d done his best to avoid for so long. With a groan, he fisted his fingers in the short length of her hair to pull her head back farther. Mouthing her jaw, he found the sweet spot just below it and sank his teeth into her flesh as he slid a hand between them. Up her skirt. Between her legs, he found her heat and slid his hand along smooth, silky panties.
“Oh, fuck, yes,” she cried when his thumb circled the tight knot of her clit.
That broke him out of the trance he’d unwittingly found himself in. Elliott, blinking, lifted his mouth from her. He’d left no permanent marks, though her pale skin was pink where he’d nibbled. It was harder to pull his hand from between her thighs. He wanted to slide his fingers in her heat and watch her squirm against him until her pussy clutched and she shuddered into climax. He wanted to do that to her. Make her come. Make her scream his name while she did it, too.
He shoved her skirt up over her hips to expose her panties to him. Plain white, cut high on the leg, the damp silk molded itself to her pussy. He stroked her again. His fingers dug into the softness of her inner thigh, pinching lightly. When she shook and shivered, moaning, Elliott did it a little harder.
Her blue eyes, the color of a late summer sky, opened and looked into his. Her pupils had gone wide and dark, her gaze unfocused for a moment, until she blinked. Smiled.
“More,” Simone whispered.
Elliott pulled away. His cock was so hard it ached, and she had to have felt it against her, but Simone didn’t even glance downward. She frowned, eyes narrowing without leaving his.
“What?” she asked.
“This is … “
“Delicious,” Simone murmured. “Delightful.”
She took his hand and pressed it to her body again. Not against her clit, but at the softness of her inner thighs. The marks his fingers had left. She curled his fingers, urging him again to pinch and squeeze her.
“More,” she said.
With a low, helpless groan, he bit again into the curve of her shoulder. Simone bucked beneath him, spreading her legs and tilting her hips to press her pussy against his hand. Elliott dragged the bluntness of his nails over her skin.
It would be too much. Too hard. She would scream, but not in pleasure. She’d twist away from him, look disgusted or worse, betrayed. But then he slipped his fingers inside her, finding her slick and hot and ready for him.
Elliott kissed her again, tasting blood. Last week he’d fucked a blonde who’d barely moved beneath him. She’d faked an orgasm and lied about it when he tried to really make her come, pushing his mouth away from her clit, saying she’d had enough. The week before that, he’d pulled his lover’s hair a little too hard, not even on purpose, and she’d squealed in such outrage he’d lost all interest in fucking her. But Simone moved beneath him like a dream, responding to his every touch. Every stroke, every pinch.
Every bite.
She arched beneath him when he bit again, scraping his teeth along her skin. Too much, he thought, even as she put her hand to the back of his head to hold him close. Too much. He was going to really hurt her if he wasn’t careful.
Elliott pulled his hand away. Stepped back, out of reach. Breathing hard, he tried to clear his mouth of the taste of her. Her smell clung to him.
Simone straightened, the lazy, lustful glint in her eyes becoming something else. “What’s the matter?”
Elliott reached to touch one fading mark on her throat. She didn’t wince, didn’t flinch. If anything, she leaned into the touch like a cat butting his hand for a caress.
Everything inside him went first hot. Then cold. He pulled away again, shaking his head.
“I’ve got to leave.”
“Elliott…”
Without waiting for an answer, he backed toward her front door. She didn’t follow him, and when the door had closed behind him, he let out the breath he’d been holding. In the elevator, Elliott straightened his tie. Smoothed his hair. By the time it opened to the lobby, he’d composed himself, but it took him the entire cab ride home before he could stop his hands from wanting to make fists.
Inside his own apartment, he poured himself a glass of whiskey, neat, though it was nearly one in the morning and too late for drinking. He sipped at it, staring out the window into the city lights. He closed his eyes, thinking of her silky hair. The sweetness of her pussy, and how she’d gasped a moan when he’d pinched her.
His cock thickened again at the memory, and he downed the rest of the whiskey before stalking to the bedroom, where he stripped out of his suit and hung it up. In only his boxer briefs, erection straining the material, he stroked himself through the fabric for a moment before letting out a muttered curse.
“More,” she’d said, and he’d wanted to give her more.
He’d wanted to pinch her until she bruised. Bend her over the back of the chair, lift her skirt and leave the marks of his hands on her ass. Thinking of it now, his cock throbbed.
“More,” Simone had said, but she’d had no idea what that meant for a man like him.
No woman ever had.
* * *
She’d watched him walk out her door with the stiff-legged gait of a man who’d been hit someplace tender, but she hadn’t gone after him. Simone had never been a run-after-the-guy sort of girl, not for a man she’d been completely and desperately in love with, and certainly not for one she barely knew. Still, with her heart still pounding and her neck and thighs still tingling from Elliott’s attentions, she had thought about at least calling his name to see if he’d look back.
She was glad now that she hadn’t. The marks had faded, but the memory of his kiss hadn’t. Nor had the memory of his twisting, pinching fingers. He’d barely hurt her. There’d been the potential there for so much more, but not, she decided, from a man who’d looked at her as though she’d grown another head when she asked him for it.
It didn’t stop her from watching him, of course. He was too delicious to give up, and besides, Simone had long ago learned she was a voyeur. It was harder to do it during the day because of the tint on the windows and the glare from the sun that fell for most of the working hours directly on his part of the building. But come four o’clock or so, when the shadows fell and then night … yeah. She still watched him.
For two weeks, she barely caught sight of him, even the few nights she’d worked late when she really didn’t have to. She’d glimpsed him once in the lobby, but he hadn’t even g
lanced her way. She’d thought about going directly to his office, knocking on the door and seeing what he’d do … but Simone didn’t chase men. And what would she do anyway, if she caught him?
Elliott Anderson seemed like kind of a mess, and Simone didn’t have time for that.
Tonight she did have work to keep her at her desk beyond regular office hours. Her boss, Tasha, had left for vacation on Monday, leaving a long list of work that needed to be done by the guy angling to become her full-time assistant. By Friday Jimmy had started falling to pieces. Simone laughed now, sorting through a stack of files and spreadsheets and color-coded files he’d brought into her office with a desperate look. Tasha was a stickler for organization and Jimmy was … well. He was Jimmy.
“She’s not going to give me the promotion, is she?” He asked now, miserably.
“Probably not,” Simone teased.
Jimmy looked crestfallen, broad shoulders slumping. “It’s not like I tried to make a mess of it, but damn it, Simone. Tasha’s impossible. She left me about a million things to take care of while she was gone, twice as much as I’d have to do if she were here and I was actually her assistant for real. Did she do this when you were her assistant?”
“Nope. But let’s face it, I was a lot more organized than you are.” Simone propped her feet on the desk, studying him. “You could just stay in your current job, you know. Lots less stress.”
“Lots less money. And it’s a dead-end job,” Jimmy said with a scowl.
Simone couldn’t argue with that. “Have you ever thought about a different line of work, Jimmy?”
“Every damn day.”
She laughed again, waving a hand at him. Jimmy was cute. Tall, big, smarter than he looked. “You know, you’re too hard on yourself. You really have all of this covered. You’re going to be fine. All of this stuff is fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“You sure?”
“Tasha can be hard, but she’s fair, Jimmy.”
He thought about that. “Yeah. I just really wanted to prove to her that I could handle everything. Hey. It’s Friday night … You wanna come out with us?”
She’d made plans with Aidan. Nothing set in stone, certainly prone to change. It had been weeks since they’d seen each other and she was sorely in need of a good, hard fuck and suspected it might be the same for him. Still, they didn’t plan to meet until much later. She swiveled in her chair to study him. “Us, who?”
Jimmy scratched at the back of his neck, looking suspiciously shy. “Me and some of the guys from finance.”
“Oh. Finance. That sounds like a thrill a minute.” Simone snorted softly.
Jimmy grinned. “Not fair. Besides, I was talking to Rob and he wanted me to ask you.”
“Rob. From finance?” She couldn’t put a face to the name at first, then had a vision of male pattern baldness and bad ties. Neither were a deal breaker. There were more important qualities in a man than his hair or clothes. “Have I met him?”
“He came out with all of us that night after Tasha took us to dinner for the holiday party.”
“Oh. Right.” She still barely remembered him, which said more about him than anything. “I’ll pass. Thanks, though.”
Jimmy glanced at the windows and gave her a significant look. “Late night for you?”
Simone didn’t bother with a blush. Jimmy knew she watched Anderson from the windows, because they’d talked about it once or twice when they were both working late. She’d never invited him to watch with her. That would’ve been super creepy. And she didn’t owe Jimmy an explanation, not for anything. “Just because I don’t have a hot night set up with the boys from finance doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.”
“Oh, I know you have a life,” Jimmy said seriously. “You’ve got more of a life than any girl I know.”
He was charming, calling her a girl that way when Simone was at least five years older than him. She studied him, looking for any sign that he was giving her a hard time, but Jimmy looked totally sincere. “Is that what you think?”
“Oh. Yeah. Definitely. You’re … something else,” Jimmy said with a wry grin.
She sat back in her chair. “Should I be insulted or flattered?”
“Both?” Jimmy laughed, ducking away from her kicking foot. “I’ll tell Rob you’ll make it another time…?”
“Why I oughtta…” Simone shook a fist at him, then shook her head and turned back to her computer, already focusing on the work. “Don’t tell Rob anything. If I decide to come out with you, I’ll let you know.”
Jimmy paused in the doorway. “Simone.”
“Hmmm.”
“You sure you don’t want to come out with us? It’s more fun than spying on that lawyer from eleven.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, meaning to say something else teasing, but stopping at the look on his face. “I really do have plans. With a real person, Jimmy. Really.”
He frowned. “Are you sure…?”
“I’m sure,” she said firmly. “Now get out of here. Have fun tonight.”
She waited until he’d left before she began to shut down her computer. A blur of motion from Elliott’s office caught her eye. He’d turned on his desk lamp. Taken off his suit coat, loosened his tie. He bent over the desk, writing something on a pad of thick white paper. He used an expensive pen, and though it was too far away for her to read his words, she could see they’d been stroked out in thick, perfect lines of black ink. A list, maybe. Or a poem, she thought with a small smile and a shake of her head. He didn’t strike her as the sort of man who’d write poetry.
She watched him for a few more minutes, until he sat back in his chair with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. In the warm glow of his desk lamp, different from the harsh white light from the overhead fixtures, the hair at his temples glinted more golden than silver. He leaned forward suddenly, crumpling the paper and tossing it to the trash.
A flashback of those strong fingers pinching her nipples made them immediately tight. Simone drew in a breath, shaking her head. Get over it, she told herself. You never even fucked him.
Easier said than done, though. Her thighs rubbed when she shifted in her seat, the sleek nylon of her hose making her suddenly aware of every motion. She preferred stockings and garters, not just because they were sexy but because a series of brutal yeast infections during college had taught her to hate pantyhose. She hardly ever wore them, but when she did it was always without panties beneath, and that wasn’t helping much. Every time she squirmed in her seat, the soft fabric pulled against her clit.
“Oh, Elliott,” she murmured, “why do you make me so crazy?”
He looked up as she said that, looking outward into the night. Not at her. He couldn’t have heard her. Yet for a moment it seemed as though he were looking right at her.
Her cell rang, breaking the mood, and Simone slipped it from the pocket of her jacket as she sat back in her desk chair to shut everything down. “Hey, you.”
Aidan’s familiar rasp never failed to send a small tingle through her, even when he wasn’t trying to be sexy. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Immediately, Simone sighed. “Let me guess…”
“I’m sorry, babe. But something came up.”
“Was it your penis?” Simone asked dryly. “I’m gonna guess it was your dick.”
Aidan laughed. “You could come with us.”
Us. Ugh. She knew what that meant. “Corrina? No, thanks. The last thing I need is to be getting the evil eye from your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“No, Aidan. I’m not your girlfriend,” Simone told him. “That girl most definitely is, or at least she wants to be. Desperately.”
Aidan was silent for a moment. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
Ultimately, she didn’t. Simone had walked away from Aidan long ago, at least in the girlfriend/boyfriend department. It didn’t bother her that that Corrina believed getting on her knees with her hands tied behi
nd her back was the best way to get into Aidan’s pants, his wallet, and his heart … but it did bother her that Aidan seemed to be falling for it.
“C’mon, don’t be like that,” Aidan said in a low voice.
“How would you feel if I called you up late on a Friday night after we’d made plans to tell you sorry, I’ve got a better offer?”
“It’s not … better.”
Simone huffed a sigh so deep it blew the fringe of her bangs off her forehead. “She will let you gag her and tie her up before you spank her. She’ll call you ‘master.’ Don’t tell me that you don’t think that’s better. At least give me that respect, Aidan. We promised we’d never lie to each other, do you remember that?”
He was silent for a moment or so. “She can’t take the cane like you can. Or a flogger, or a strap.”
“It’s not a contest,” Simone snapped, her voice suddenly thick with an emotion that surprised her. Not jealousy. Not melancholy or nostalgia, but maybe a combination of all of those. A sickening thought occurred to her, and words tumbled out of her before she could stop them. “Oh. God. Oh my God, Aidan. You love her.”
“No,” he began, but stopped himself when Simone made a low noise of disbelief.
“You are in love with her,” she whispered.
His silence was her answer. There was nothing more to say after that, so without another word, Simone disconnected the call. Her phone felt heavy and warm in her hands. It rang. Aidan again. Slowly, deliberately, she thumbed the screen and sent the call to voice mail.
Then she turned off her phone.
* * *
Superstition.
Elliott hated it, and ritual, and habit, at least the sort of habits that made no sense. Regular exercise, that was a good habit. Double-checking for your hotel-room key before you stepped outside, then remembering to pull the door completely closed behind you, that was a sensible habit. Flossing after meals made sense, too.
But this … this list-making habit was ridiculous. He had a smartphone that knew more about him than his own mother ever had. He had not one but three phone apps that acted as to-do lists or reminders. And yet here he was with the pad of paper and this pen, making a list of everything he had to be grateful for.
