Hers for the Evening

by Jasmine Haynes

  Like a frightened doe, you take the dildo, test it in your hand, its weight and feel. Dual-headed, you can grip it tightly and have total control. “Do it,” I command. This will be so good for you. You love it, fucking him until he spills his seed all over the bed without even touching himself.

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  Haley’s body flushed from head to toe. His words shot emotions through her like lightning flashes, sizzling her nerve endings. How could he have guessed this when she didn’t even realize it herself. As much as she craved letting go, she craved power. They went hand in hand. Using a dildo on a man was almost punishment, even if in his scenario, the guy enjoyed it enough to come. It was cruel yet a delicious thrill tingled like pins and needles along her flesh. She imagined the man was Artie. She imagined being in control. As much as Artie claimed she’d dominated him, he’d ultimately been the one in charge. Now was her chance to turn the tables on a man. The idea was Machiavellian, but it excited her like no other fantasy. Probably because she’d never dared to imagine such a thing.

  Now she wanted it, but she didn’t want him to get the impression she was bitter or sadistic. “That would be a good addition to the fantasy.”

  Two seconds, maybe three. How could he type that fast? “Liar. You want it so bad you can taste it. Put your hand in your panties and tell me how wet you are.”

  He made her burn. It was part of his mindfuck, and he was so damn good at it. Without even dropping the laptop, she had her fingers in her pussy the way he’d ordered her. She was creamy, her flesh hot, her clit throbbing. Laying her head back on the sofa, she stroked herself, moaned, imagined it was her faceless, nameless lover. She shot so quickly to climax that she almost let the computer topple against the coffee table, catching it as orgasm rippled and rolled through her body.

  She could barely type when it ended. “Very wet. I accidentally came without your permission.”

  “You’ll have to be punished.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “LOL,” he wrote. “You are a true submissive.”

  She wasn’t. She merely wanted someone to help her let all those inhibitions go. She wanted more of what this man did to her. If she’d known this was what answering an ad would be like, she’d have done it two months ago. Except it wouldn’t have been him. “Was that the end of your story, with the dildo?”

  “No.”

  “May I please have the rest?” She sounded oh so sweet.

  “Yes, you may.”

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  She sipped her wine, waiting, blood pulsing through her veins. She jumped when her e-mail beeped. Little shocks raced all over her body as she opened and began to read.

  After I’ve watched my fill, I have decided that I will have you. I planned to tease you and withhold myself, but you’ve been so good, so hot, you deserve my reward. You love my cock, you love the way I fuck. Unzipping, I let myself free, then I haul you up off the bed to wrap your legs around my waist. The door is only steps away, and I slam you up against the wood, pulling your head down for a long, sweet kiss. You love being manhandled. I fuck you there, against the door, hard, fast, while our friend watches from the bed. You cry out my name as your climax begins. Your hot little pussy clamps around my cock, squeezes, works me, and I can’t hold back. Jesus H. Christ, you’re the best I’ve ever had, ever will have.

  She felt herself floating away as if she’d had another orgasm. It was the fantasy. More, it was him. The way his mind worked, his dirty talk, his intuition into what she needed.

  “You give very good mindfuck,” she threw back. There was no doubt about it. Haley was hooked. 194

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  4

  DAMMIT, SIMON HAD COME INTO THE OFFICE AGAIN. ON A MONDAY

  morning he should have been checking in at the different job sites, but no, he had to come into the office. Saskia, their receptionist, wouldn’t be in until nine, and Haley had thought she’d have the half hour to herself. Which was why she’d sent out the e-mail first thing when she came in. She should have waited until tonight when she was at home and everything would be private, but no, she was a horny bitch and couldn’t wait.

  “You want some coffee?” Simon stuck his head out the break room doorway.

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.” She smiled, but it didn’t feel much more than a stretch of her lips. She had her e-mail open on her computer, but hidden by several other windows. As soon as Simon went back to his office, she could check it for the five-hundred-thirty-first time. Then, swear to God, she’d shut it down. She input some payables, listening to the rustle and clink in the break room. His footsteps faded away. She clicked over to her e-mail window. Nothing. Her heart sank to her toes. She couldn’t bring herself to close her inbox.

  She’d weighed the pros and cons all night long. Should she ask to meet him?

  Should she keep it e-mail only? What were the risks? He could be a serial killer. A rapist. Except she was willing. She’d told him she wanted to be tied up and have naughty things done to her, even by another man as well. So it wouldn’t be rape, but he could hurt her physically. There was also blackmail, though beyond her own embarrassment, nobody would care what she did. Driving to work, she knew she was going to do it, but her brain was still firing off a list of doubts. By the time she’d booted up her computer and opened her email, she’d decided to ask him to meet her for coffee. A public place. A nonsexual meeting. Her pulse had raced when she hit SEND, and for a long moment she felt dizzy looking at the monitor, as if the screen saver’s fish were up and swimming at a maddening speed. What mattered was having done it. She’d done something to get out of the rut she’d been in. That was half an hour ago. He hadn’t answered. Then Simon came in and ruined everything. Of course, she was paranoid he’d pick up vibes out of the air itself.

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  Suddenly an e-mail appeared in her inbox. Goose bumps ran up and down her arms. The fish started to swim before her eyes despite the fact that her screen saver wasn’t up.

  It was him. “When and where?”

  The ad had been placed in Saratoga, but that didn’t mean he worked or lived there. “Do you know Hobee’s at the Pruneyard?” She lived in Los Gatos. The Pruneyard in Campbell was close enough without being in the same city.

  “Yes. Meet me there now.”

  She wanted to laugh, with both disbelief and excitement. “Not now. I’m at the office.” She couldn’t explain to Simon why she would leave before Saskia even arrived. “After work.” She wouldn’t be checking her watch, worrying about time while she was with him.

  “Lunch,” he sent back.

  The bargaining titillated her as much as the sex talk, as if he were saying how much he wanted her. She could do lunch. Most of the time she ate something she brought from home. “Lunch is fine.” She stopped, drew in a deep breath, and typed again. “I have one thing to say. Please don’t lie to me. You must tell me the truth.” After Artie, she couldn’t abide a lie. She thought of Simon. “No lies of omission, either.” It was a lot to put in an e-mail to a man she’d never met, but she wanted him to understand her rules up front. It was easier said when they weren’t face-to-face where he could read all her emotions in her eyes.

  His rapid reply took her off guard. She’d figured he’d at least consider his answer longer.

  “I will never lie to you,” he wrote. “Not even a lie of omission. You haven’t asked my name.”

  She hadn’t wanted his name. It was supposed to be anonymous. She’d never intended to meet him, either, yet here she was changing the rules on herself.

  “What’s your name? What do you look like so I can recognize you?” She’d envisioned him handsome, tall, with a perfect body, but what if he was gross?

  “My name is Simon.”

  The world started to spin out of control. Her body shuddered involuntarily. She glanced to the hall leading to the two offices. “You didn’t say what you look
like.” Her fingers shook so badly she had to retype a couple of words before she hit SEND.

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  He shot off his replies so quickly, it was as if he already had his answers typed up. “You know exactly what I look like, Haley.”

  She grabbed the arms of her chair, knuckles turning white. Her emotions rushed up, choking her. He’d known all along. Which meant he’d looked at her computer on Saturday. Spied on her. He’d probably even written the ad to trick her, assuming she was a pathetic, horny, middle-aged woman who would jump at his sexy, titillating words.

  Goddamn him.

  She stood so fast, her chair went rolling, slamming into the wall. So angry she couldn’t see straight, she whacked her hip on the edge of the desk as she rounded it, but the pain didn’t stop her.

  His door was open. She slammed it shut behind her. “You asshole. How many responses did you get?”

  Seated in his chair, feet propped on the desk, his keyboard lay in his lap to type. “About fifteen.”

  “How many did you fucking answer?” The word slid off her tongue as if she used it all the time, and she didn’t fucking care. Her anger didn’t faze him, the crinkles at his eyes pronounced as if he were laughing at her. “Only yours. I deleted the ad after you replied.”

  A horrible, terrible wave of relief washed through her body. That pissed her off even more. “You are a liar, you have always been a liar, and you will never change.”

  He brought his booted feet to the floor and gently laid the keyboard on his desk. Ever so gently, as if it took great effort not to slam it down. Then he stood.

  “I have never lied to you.”

  “You lied about Artie.”

  “I failed to tell you things you didn’t want to hear. Whether you want to admit it or not, that’s not the same as lying. If I had told you, you would have hated me, not him, which you did anyway, so it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  “That is crap.” She didn’t yell, but her breath came fast and harsh in her throat.

  He stalked to her from around the desk. At six feet, he towered over her. Sometimes his height made her feel petite and feminine. Now it made her anger boil. “Let’s forget about Artie. You lied with that ad. 197

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  You tricked me. Got me to tell you things I never would have said if I’d known it was you.”

  “Exactly. You never would have told me.” He leaned down, crowding her, forcing her to back toward the door. “If you didn’t want me to know, you shouldn’t have been frigging yourself in the bathroom so I could hear.”

  Her face went up in flames, and without even a conscious thought, she raised her hand, bringing it hard against his face. Time stopped as she stared at the red imprint.

  She hadn’t meant to, honest to God, she hadn’t.

  “Feel better?” he whispered, his eyes the color of smoke.

  “No,” she answered just as softly. Oddly, she felt like crying. Tears pricked her eyes. It was the anger, all the things she’d lost, the good friend he used to be, how during the worst of the fights she’d had with Artie, she’d actually wondered if she’d chosen the wrong Foster-Ventura partner. Losing Simon had been worse than Artie’s cheating. She’d had no one to turn to for comfort. She’d had to handle everything on her own, find out about the credit cards and the debt all on her own. Because of the lie that was like a wall between them. She would never feel better.

  “You don’t have to forgive me,” he said, and she only realized she’d closed her eyes when his voice stroked her nerve endings. “All you have to do is let me give you the fantasy we talked about last night.”

  Her lids shot open. He was so close, his earthy scent filled her head, his body heat sizzled over her skin. “Let you tie me up?”

  He moved with the grace of a jungle cat, faster than a big man should be able to, thrusting his hands beneath her armpits, hauling her up along his body, then shoving her back against the door. Without thinking, she wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms about his neck.

  Like his e-mail fantasy. Her fantasy.

  “Let me down.” Her voice lacked any conviction. Because, heaven help her, he felt deliciously warm and hard against her body. She tried telling herself that it had been so long, any man would feel as good.

  “Last night you wanted me.” He shifted his hips, his cock at the juncture of her thighs. “I sure as hell want you.”

  This wasn’t right. No matter what, Artie would always be between them. Simon was her friend. No, wait, she’d told him he wasn’t her friend. “Last night I 198

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  wanted a figment of my imagination.”

  He grabbed her chin in his big hand, forced her eyes to his. “You wanted me.”

  Why did he have to feel so perfect? Why did it have to be so damn sexy to be slammed up against a door, his body surrounding her, hard, demanding? She swallowed, her gaze falling to his lips, wanting, needing. Except this was Simon.

  “You were my husband’s best friend. I would never even think about you in those terms.” Somehow she’d morphed them from last night to the twelve years they’d known each other. To her shame, she had thought of him like that. His jaw tensed. “Artie’s been dead a year. You haven’t had a man between your thighs in all that time.” He rolled against her, punctuating his words. “I will be that man.”

  She should have spit in his eye. The presumption. And yet. He was so right between her legs. Simon, so right in a way she’d never let herself truly acknowledge beyond a few fleeting thoughts she’d shoved away quickly. The command in his voice was like an aphrodisiac, setting her blood on fire. Even as she writhed against him, trying to wriggle away, he pinned her to the door with his hard body, slid his palms up her arms, and shackled her wrists in one big hand.

  Her body wanted to come. Falling completely still against him, it took all her will not to allow orgasm to overtake her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, couldn’t blink. Or she’d lose it all to him.

  “I will give you want you need,” he seduced, his chest expanding with a breath, caressing her breasts.

  She was afraid even to shake her head lest she lose control. “Let me go,” she managed.

  He held her with his body, his gaze, his will. “Kiss me first.”

  Her eyes were drawn to his mouth. She wanted to taste him more than anything in her life.

  “Force me,” Haley whispered.

  Simon took her chin in his fingers, his palm cupping her throat, her skin soft, fragrant, the slight musk of her arousal clouding his mind. His cheek still stung lightly with the imprint of her hand. He’d deserved it, taken his punishment. Now he wanted this. With the first taste of her lips, his knees threatened to buckle. 199

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  He didn’t know whether she opened her mouth voluntarily or he plundered, but she took him deep, sucked his tongue. The groan was his, the moan hers. His body moved, rocking, fucking her with clothes between them. He was up and over the edge in seconds, wanting to tear her T-shirt to get at her luscious breasts, rip her jeans apart to ease his fingers into her pussy. He had to release her jaw when she wrapped her arms tight around his neck. Ah God, she tasted so sweet, her body clinging to his, her soft hair falling all around his face and shoulders in a cloud. He braced one hand on the door, the other beneath her ass, and rocked into her, taking her with his mouth, his whole body, everything except his cock.

  Jesus, it was Haley, with twelve years of wanting launching into his kiss. He devoured her, but damn if she didn’t do the same to him, her fingers fisted in his hair, holding him as if she’d never let him go. She tugged on his hair, backing off to breathe, moaned, pierced him with her deep brown eyes, then attacked his mouth once more. Being above him, she controlled the kiss, angling her head for a deep assault. A firecracker? She was a tidal wave dragging him under, tossing him, drowning him in her scent and taste.

  She groaned, tore her mouth away, he
r head thumping against the door.

  “Put”—she had to breathe before the next words came out—“me down.”

  No, please, no.

  Yet he let her body slide down his, her legs, her breasts, her skin searing him. Her feet touched the floor, and she pushed. He didn’t move.

  “I kissed you,” she said, unblinking. “Now you have to let me go.”

  He wanted to shout his frustration, but he’d agreed. Simon backed off, his body on fire, his lungs working overtime, his heart shriveling. Without taking her eyes off him, she eased open the door, slipped out, and closed it behind her.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  How could she walk away from the power of what had happened between them?

  Because she couldn’t forget and she couldn’t forgive. He touched his cheek where she’d slapped him. Putting out that ad to get past her defenses was a worse mistake than all the others he’d ever made. This time, he’d lost her for good.

  Maybe. Probably. Whatever. Simon was not giving up. 200

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  5

  OH MY GOD. THAT KISS.

  Haley locked herself in the restroom, hunkering down on the closed toilet lid. A full bathroom with a stall shower, Haley had made it a girlie place, with a wicker stand containing extra tissue, TP, soap, and cleaning supplies, a flowered curtain tacked around the top edge to hide everything. Two bright prints of Mardi Gras masks hung on the wall above the toilet. In the mirrored cabinet over the sink, she kept her makeup. A pretty plastic curtain covered the shower. Working with all men, except Saskia, making the bathroom feminine was like staking a claim, or drawing a line in the sand. If you mess with my bathroom, I will mess with you. She fought to maintain that bathroom’s neatness with every guy that walked through their door, even Artie. They’d all knuckled under in the end, cleaning up after themselves, giving in because they finally figured out she’d never back down from this one thing. She hadn’t thought it was that much to ask, but men, they didn’t get it about not peeing on the toilet seat or wiping down the shower so it didn’t grow mold or gather soap scum. The only one who hadn’t put up a fight was Simon, not because he couldn’t win the battle. He was probably the only one who could win since he’d been the one to give her the most respect.