by C. L. Parker
Sasha merely pointed at my roommate. “Gaydar says?”
Quinn made a buzzer sound. “Not gay, but I’d sure like to try to change his mind about that.”
“See? Not gay means it can be done, if done right. Totally seductable.”
Demi snorted. “I don’t think ‘seductable’ is a word.”
“I said it, therefore it is.” Sasha crossed her arms with a pretentious yet playful set of her chin.
Quinn was still in plotting mode; otherwise, he would’ve been all over her spoiled behavior. “You know, she could always skip the jock and go straight for the ball cutter. That way, if neither one of them lands the tight end—”
“Quarterback,” Demi corrected.
“Hold on. Ball cutter?” Things were getting out of hand.
Sasha patted my arm. “Wait a minute, honey. The grown-ups are talking.”
“Right. Quarterback. Whatever. They’re all tight ends as far as I’m concerned. But like I was saying, rudeness … If neither of them lands the pigskin lover, she’ll still have his balls in her purse.”
I was being ignored. I didn’t like being ignored. “Whose balls? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, yeah. Good idea! Why didn’t we think of that before?” Sasha sat back, pleased with the result.
Demi followed suit. “Brilliant idea! Two birds. One stone.”
Sasha nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she definitely needs to get laid.”
“Of course it’s brilliant. Hello? Queen of the balls, here.” Quinn preened, proud of himself.
“Can I be part of this conversation, please? What just happened?”
Demi reached for her beer. “We just solved your problem.”
I snatched the bottle away before it made it to her lips. “You did? Care to let me in on the secret?” It was still cold, so I decided on another sip for myself.
“Oh, sure thing. You’re going to seduce Shaw.”
I choked on the gulp I’d just taken, my eyes watering and the liquid going down what I was sure was the passageway to my lungs rather than to my stomach. Sasha started pounding on my back—as if that was going to help—while Demi lunged for the bottle, because clearly that was the culprit of my near-death experience.
Though I was still coughing incessantly, I couldn’t let them go one more second thinking that was even a remote possibility. “Oh, no, I’m not!”
Sasha huffed. “Why not? He’s good-looking.”
Quinn guffawed as if insulted by her statement. I was glad someone was on my side until he clarified himself with words: “Honey, that man is a piece of scrumptious wrapped up in good gawd!”
Demi laughed. “Right? So freakin’ beautiful.”
“And he knows it,” I reminded them. “Besides, they say the Antichrist will be beautiful, too.” Demi started to object but I cut her off before she could get a word out. “And I’m not going to screw Denver, either. I’m talented enough to get the partnership without having to stoop so low, but thank you for having so much faith in me.”
I was disappointed in my friends. They knew I wasn’t made up of the stuff that would allow me to do something like that. Maybe it was all in jest, but after the “by any means necessary” talk with Wade only minutes before, I wasn’t feeling all that confident in my own words. I needed some distance. Picking up my bag, I stood up and made my way toward the door without saying goodbye.
My friends and I would meet in the same bar, at the same table, tomorrow. They knew it. I knew it. And Shaw Matthews would most likely be there, too. As if he could read my thoughts, he turned to look at me, the intensity in his gaze catching me off guard and nearly causing me to plow into a table full of frat brothers. I recovered well enough, but I could still feel him staring at me all the way to the door, the scorching heat of it dissipating only after I’d put brick and mortar between us. I was sure he wore a cocky grin at my expense, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. If all went well at the meeting with Denver, I’d wipe it off his face tomorrow.
CHAPTER 2
Cassidy
I threw my messenger bag over my shoulder and left the office, hoping to beat Shaw to the limousine so I could get situated before he got there. After all, being first had its advantages, the best of which was knowing it would piss him off.
I was sorely disappointed when I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Striker’s big glass doors. The limousine was there, all right, but the impeccably dressed man with it wasn’t the driver.
Shaw stood before the open door, basking in his small victory. “After you.” He gestured toward the car with a gallant smile.
My feet felt heavy as they carried me forward, but I went anyway, though I didn’t take him up on his offer. “You can stop with the whole chivalry routine, Matthews. I’m not one of your dumb bimbos who get all swoony just because you use good manners. And I’m not particularly keen on the thought of you ogling my ass, so manners aside, you can get in first.”
The fake smile disappeared, as did Shaw when he climbed into the limousine. I slid in after him, situating myself as far away as I could get, which wasn’t any farther than the bench behind the driver on the opposite side. Shaw huffed when I left the door for him to close, which might have pleased the little devil on my shoulder. He shut it harder than necessary, then tapped on the dividing window, signaling the chauffeur that we were ready to go.
When we finally pulled away from the curb, I decided to stick with my original plan of busying myself with my work in hopes of creating as little opportunity to interact with Shaw as I could. Plus, some last-minute brushing up on my Denver Rockford facts probably wouldn’t hurt my cause. But wouldn’t you just know it? Shaw wasn’t the “suffer in silence” type.
“So, I was thinking about the reasoning behind Wade sending both of us to meet with Rockford at the same time instead of individually.”
Shaw Matthews had had a thought. This could be comical. “Is that right? And what did your simple mind come up with?” I asked as I pulled my laptop out of my messenger bag.
“Simple.” Shaw chuckled in that smart-ass sort of way. “You’re so funny. Seriously, I think he wants us to double-team the guy. You know, to make sure he signs with SSE.”
With the correct password entered, I was up and running and pulling up my next heavyweight client’s folder. “Wade is aware that I work alone. And everyone in the universe knows you’re a selfish prick, so I doubt very much he intended for us to work together. Teamwork does not a superstar athlete land.”
“Oh, yeah? Well then, why do you think he sent us both?” As he relaxed into the plush leather, his body language reminded me of an informal visit with a friend rather than a competitive debate between two rivals.
Friends, we were not. And he was wrong.
“The answer is as obvious as the shit on the tip of your nose, Matthews. We’ve been playing this ‘whose dick is bigger than whose’ game for quite a while now. Today, we’re going to find out.”
Shaw feigned offense, and not well. “Well, I’ve never …”
“That’s not what I heard,” I said with an artificial smile.
“Ha ha! You know, if I wanted to play dirty, I could take you to HR for sexual harassment. You’d be fired, and that partnership would be mine for the taking.”
“Ha!” My guffaw was loud enough to startle him. “You actually said that with a straight face. Like you wouldn’t be joining me in the unemployment line. Just how many women in the office have you slept with?”
His bottom lip curled outward. “Aww, you’re jealous.”
“You disgust me.”
“Yet you want to see my cock.”
“I do not want to see your cock!”
“Come on. Just admit you’re a little bit curious to know if all the rumors are true, and I’ll show you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re bluffing.”
Shaw tilted his head with a quirk of his brow, as if to say, “Am I?” and that was when things started to g
o south really quickly. Or, rather, his hands went south.
I could feel his eyes on me even as mine stayed glued to the massive hands that were easing down the abdomen of his slumping body to slowly work his belt. Nimble fingers popped the leather loose of the buckle, and then an effortless tug did the same for the button of his pants, but I would never forget the amplified sound of the zipper as it lowered. With the separation of each metal tooth, my heart rate jumped another ten points higher.
Though every instinct screamed at me to turn away, to do anything other than let him continue, my brain simply wasn’t getting with the program. This was wrong on so many levels; yet putting a stop to it wasn’t going to happen. Shaw expected me to cry uncle, but I wanted him to keep going. He was right. I was curious, and I simply had to see what was going to happen next. Maybe my brain had taken a temporary leave of absence.
Shaw’s brain, however, was present and fully functioning. There were no hiccups in his movements, no stifled sounds of protest, no indication at all that he wasn’t in complete control of the situation. To him, this was no big deal. When his hand disappeared beneath the black cotton underwear and then reappeared, full of thick flesh, I swallowed the hard lump that had formed in the back of my throat. And then the stroking began. His long fingers delicately fondled the protrusion that had erected from his pants, an act I found particularly distracting, to make matters worse.
“Oh my God!” Those words finally breaking free felt like the top being blown off a pressure cooker; eventually, they had to find the way out.
“What’s the matter? Never seen one before? Or do you have a little thing called penis envy going on, as I’ve suspected all along?” Shaw was obviously feeling particularly victorious that he’d been able to make me blush. And that would never do. It was just a penis, for Christ’s sake.
It might have been a second later, or maybe an hour, but Shaw finally broke the awkward standoff with a reminder of the challenge I, myself, had issued. “You wanted to see whose cock was bigger than whose. Here’s mine. Let’s see yours.”
My reservations were forgotten at the sound of the proverbial gauntlet hitting the floor. I snapped my head toward his, prepared to go the distance. “Are you seriously challenging me?”
He was. It was a contest I had no chance of winning. But I’d be damned if I’d ever back down from any he presented. Shaw knew that as well. What I found amusing was that he clearly thought I was a threat or he wouldn’t have felt the need to take the small victory to make himself feel better. Well, we’d see about that.
With a smirk on his face and a wicked glint in his eye, he shrugged. “If you’re scared, say you’re scared.”
I straightened up, put my laptop away, and secured the messenger bag under the seat, and then I pushed back my shoulders and set my chin in determination. “You don’t claw your way up the ladder to get to where I am in this male-dominated industry by being scared.” The material of my skirt slid up my thighs with finesse. “You might know something about that if you’d actually had to work a hard day in your life instead of having everything handed to you.”
I was sure he thought I was bluffing. No way was the “ice queen” going to show all her goodies to the likes of him. Yes, I knew what the gossip brigade called me around the office, and I was fairly certain I knew its source. Shaw Matthews was about to find out just how steamy I could make things.
The lift of my skirt revealed the tops of my silky black thigh-highs, and he swallowed hard. The amateur hadn’t been prepared for the possibility that I’d actually call his bluff, and it showed all over his face. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and his hand froze on his cock. And he couldn’t look away.
“What’s the matter, Matthews? Worried you’re going to lose?” I asked with an air of smugness to match his.
“I swear to God, Whalen, if you’re hiding a dick under that skirt …” His thought was cut short when I lifted my ass and revealed a dainty black thong to match my stockings.
“If I were a cross-dresser, I’m pretty sure these panties wouldn’t be able to hide it.” My fingers ghosted over the soft material between my legs.
Shaw cleared his throat and collected himself, still unwilling to back down. “That doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that my dick really is bigger than yours.”
True. “Oh, but mine’s so much prettier.”
“That remains to be seen, now, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t going to back down, either. “Show me.”
I didn’t hesitate. Shaw had upped the stakes in our competition, and I had no intention of letting him win. Showing the goods wasn’t something I was ashamed to do. It was just flesh, nothing he’d never seen before. Not mine, of course, but still. Besides, I really was finding our little standoff to be quite erotic—of that I was ashamed. I’d deal with the consequences later.
Slipping two fingers beneath the fabric at the inside of my thigh, I slowly pulled back my panties. My eyes were trained on Shaw’s face. His were trained on my semi-naked crotch. When his tongue flicked out to lick his lips, I knew I had him right where I wanted.
“And it tastes as delicious as it looks,” I said, hoping to seduce him to his knees. The fingers of my other hand slipped between the folds and then pulled back the skin at the apex of my pussy, giving him a fantastic look at the hidden treasure that resided there. “Here’s mine,” I said, rubbing my fingertip over my clit. “Like I said, not as big, but a whole hell of a lot prettier.”
I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but it was like I was having an out-of-body experience and wasn’t in control of them. Any of them. Not even when I said, “Suck my dick, Matthews.”
Shaw didn’t seem surprised in the least. In fact, he nodded toward his lap and his insanely engorged cock. “Ladies first. Unless you don’t know how to …”
It was another challenge. Challenges and I did not make a good combination. I was obsessed with rising above and winning any that were laid at my feet. It was a serious problem, and an unhealthy side effect was that I forgot who I was in the process.
I laughed. “Oh, baby, I’d have you whimpering like a scared little boy.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
My frown turned into a scowl. “Do you always have to be so stubborn?” I asked even as I knelt to the floor. “I’m just going to make you look stupid again.”
“How about if you shut up and put your money where your mouth is?”
I sighed. “Have it your way. I do enjoy the look of defeat on your smug face.”
I crawled across the small space between us until I was between his legs, and Shaw jumped when I yanked his cock out of his hand.
“You’re a real bitch, do you know that?”
“We’ll see who’s the bitch.” I wrapped my tongue around the head of his cock before engulfing it with my hot, wet mouth. He smelled good, freshly showered with a manly fragrance, and his soft skin was stretched smooth over the rigid muscle beneath. The veins in his cock were taut and pulsing with his blood. And I’d have ventured a guess that it was pumping pretty hard right about then.
Shaw sucked in a breath through his teeth as his head fell back, and I couldn’t help but notice the way his fists clenched on the seat at his sides with each bit of suction I applied on the upstroke of my mouth. Needless to say, I felt quite vindicated. He could’ve just sat back and enjoyed what was probably the best blow job of his life, but that wasn’t good enough for Shaw Matthews. Nope. Apparently, he wanted to enjoy the show, because he somehow managed to lift his head so he could watch.
“Jesus … I like your mouth so much better with my dick stuck in it.”
I let my teeth scrape along his flesh in retaliation for the comment, but he groaned in pleasure instead of pain. The guttural sound went straight to my naughty parts, and I could feel the wetness against my thighs, which really kind of pissed me off. I didn’t want to be attracted to the man I openly loathed, but my body apparently had a mind of its own.
“Take
your skirt off, but leave the shoes on.” Shaw pulled the pins out of my hair and let it tumble free of its confines.
“Fuck you,” I said when I released his dick from my mouth, all while unzipping my skirt and letting it slide down my thighs. Dammit, since when did I like him telling me what to do?
“If you’re lucky, I just might let you.” He smirked while shoving his pants down his legs as well. “Come here and finish sucking me off.” He grabbed me by the back of the head and forced it toward his lap. I went willingly, giving him the death glare all the way, but I wanted it every bit as much as he did.
“Mmm … You like to suck cock, don’t you? And all this time I thought you were either a virgin or a lesbian,” he said, fisting my hair as I bobbed up and down in his lap. “Turns out, you’re a bad little girl who likes to suck cock in the back of a limousine.”
I hummed in answer. He’d found my weakness: I loved the dirty talk. All that prim and proper I had to live through all day, every day, had no place whatsoever in my sex life. I liked it rough. I liked it hard. And I liked it dirty. And even though I hated the man I was blowing, I loved his thick cock in my mouth.
“You know what bad little girls get, don’t you?” Shaw gripped the hair on the back of my head to hold me in place and leaned forward. “They get spanked.” His hand sliced through the air and landed hard on the cheek of my ass.
I moaned at the contact, and he pulled my head up and pushed it back down again. I grabbed his legs, giving him complete control—something I’d never do in any other setting—and he moved me as fast and as deep as he liked.
“God, yes … Suck my cock.” He moaned and then spanked me again and again, because each time he did, I took him a little bit deeper. He was aggressive with his actions, but I was just as aggressive with my nails digging into his calf muscles and the death grip my mouth had on his dick.
The wet suction sounds and moans of pleasure from both of us were testament to how greedy we’d both suddenly become for each other. Finally, we were working together toward a common goal. The underlying competition was still there—we were both trying to make the other submit faster—but the journey was being taken together, each reaping the reward.
