by Mia Watts
“You left things unfinished,” he answered.
“You pursued me for a fuck?” She cocked a brow and ambled over to him, shaking out the belt and cinching it as she went.
He looked amazing naked. Spread out for her benefit, he rested back on one elbow as a knowing smile tugged at his lips. All lean muscle mass and sinew, Ian’s sculpted form glistened from post-coital afterglow. His impressive cock rested on his thigh. No, it didn’t rest, it lounged. Sprawled with ownership and confident it had recently brought someone pleasure. Could a cock be cocky? His darker-toned sack cuddled the base of his restful shaft. They too glistened but she was the cause of that.
She motioned to the tissue box by the couch and he reluctantly got up to take care of the translucent sky-blue condom. “I didn’t actually formulate a coherent thought beyond wondering where you had gone.”
He dropped the tissues and condom in a waste basket by the sidebar and washed his hands in the small sink. Leaning back against the bar with his ankles crossed and his hands propped behind him on the edge of the countertop, he looked completely comfortable in his skin.
And why wouldn’t he be? Ian Tate had the body of a God and the skill to back up the claim.
“But you did follow me here. Were you angry because you felt I owed you something?”
Some unknowable emotion flashed across his features. The sunny, relaxed expression turned less so and more watchful. “What do you mean?”
Flora stopped in front of him. She traced a manicured nail up the center of his sack. “I mean, usually when a player wants to fuck me, it’s because he has an ulterior motive. Do you?”
“I think I’m offended.”
“It’s a legitimate question for a woman in my position.”
He snorted, pushed up from the bar and walked past her. “No ulterior motive, Ms. Harper. I just think you are a fine piece of ass and I wanted to tap that.”
She swallowed hard, trying to compose her features into one of mild amusement before she faced him again. When she turned, she saw that Ian had on his jeans and was reaching for his shirt.
“Don’t bullshit me. I deserve an honest answer,” she said.
Ian barely paused to look at her as he roughly tucked in his shirt, closed and belted his pants. He ran a hand through his hair. The short strands barely stirred from position. “I like you. You interest me. It’s a boy-girl thing. You seemed to like me, too, so I thought I’d take a chance. Was I wrong?”
“No.”
He came to her, drawing her into his arms. “Good.”
“It’s awkward and completely against policy.”
“We’ll deal with stuff as it comes up,” he said, shrugging. “It doesn’t have to be awkward.”
“You’ll have to sneak out.”
He winked. “The old quarterback sneak it is.”
“That was awful.”
Ian took her hand and led her to the door where he flipped the latch open. “When can I see you again?”
“Thanks to Bobby, you’re pretty much going to see me every day.”
“I mean,” he said, murmuring huskily. “When do I get to see you again?”
Anticipation knotted her stomach. She hadn’t felt this giddy since grade school and she knew her smile went from ear to ear. “Ah! You mean see me,” she reiterated, using his impromptu code word for fuck.
“Uh huh.” He nuzzled her neck, reached for the hem of his jersey and began tugging it up only to reach beneath and massage her ass.
“If you aren’t careful, it will be sooner than you think.”
“Fine by me.”
“I have a job to do,” she reminded. He nibbled her neck and goose bumps tracked over her body. “I know. If you find out where I live, I’ll let you in and you can see me all night long.”
“Can’t I just ask you where you live?”
“That’s cheating. So I guess we’ll find out how much you want to see me.”
He ground his hips forward. Already hard, his cock teased her barely covered pussy. “I have time for a look-see now.”
She giggled. She hated gigglers, but she actually giggled. “I don’t.”
“Harper!” Bobby Sterling bellowed. “Well, shit!”
Flora felt the hot-cold wash of fear. She hadn’t heard the door open! “Sterling, get the fuck out of my office.” Abruptly, she pushed Ian away and straightened the jersey. Folding her arms across her chest gave her some security that he wouldn’t see how undressed she actually was under Ian’s shirt.
Bobby laughed gleefully. “Fantastic! Fucking fantastic.” He shut the door behind him as though he were in on their secret. He clapped Ian on the back. “Where is it?”
“No, Bobby, not now,” he muttered.
“Do you mind?” she snapped at their intruder.
“Not at all. Just go ahead and give me the footage and I’ll get out of your hair,” Bobby said.
His eyes lit with unfriendly joy. Flora glanced from him to Ian, noted the way Ian’s teeth ground together and the slashes of color that marked his cheekbones. Embarrassment? Shame? What was that look?
“Why would Ian have practice footage?” she asked. “Don’t the coaches keep that for weekly review?”
“Let it go, Flora,” Ian said, his voice tight.
“So?” Bobby asked again. “You two fucked, right? She sure as hell looks like she’s been mounted,” he added.
His laugh made her stomach shift uneasily. “Ian?”
Bobby clapped him on the shoulder, pounding it in some strange man-ritual of accolade. Ian tried to shrug him off, shoved him toward the door. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“No,” Flora said, her voice ringing out clear and far bolder than she felt. She caught the door with the tips of her fingers and slammed it. If there was a confession to be made, hell would freeze over before she let the office hear it.
The pit of her stomach went sour. Her ears roared and her mouth went dry. There was more to this exchange and she instinctively knew she had to hear it. “What footage?”
“Flora, it’s nothing,” Ian promised.
“That’s right, Harper, nothing for you to concern yourself with. Yet.”
“What’s he talking about?” She directed the question at Ian, ignoring Sterling all together.
“She’s good, right? Tight ass, perky tits, she had to be good.”
“Shut the fuck, up, Uncle Bobby.”
“Uncle? Oh, God.” Her temples throbbed. “No wonder you keep pushing him on me. Nepotism at its best.”
“It’s not like that,” Ian insisted.
“Of course it isn’t, Harper.” He smacked Ian as though he hadn’t already boy-clubbed him enough. “I couldn’t believe it when you scored a kiss on your first down, but shit, Ian, you fucked her and it isn’t even half-time!”
“Bobby!” Ian shouted.
“That’s right, Ice Princess, my boy set out to seduce you and we got it all on tape. Guess you’ll be offering to suck my dick to get it back. Won’t Deeks be pleased with my ass?” Bobby boasted.
Flora thought she might be sick. All that tenderness, the calculated plowing of her body until she wept for the sensations he created, all her begging and eagerness to take Ian’s cock again and again—was orchestrated?
“God, I’m such a moron,” she whispered. “Get out.”
“Bobby, fuck off! Flora, I never filmed you.”
“You were going to.”
“Bobby asked me to—”
“—fuck me? Get in my pants and post video footage on UWatch.com? Ruin me? Nice. Classy. Well done, you giant prick!” she shouted, enunciating the last two words individually.
“Flora. Shit. This is all going wrong,” Ian ground out in apparent frustration.
“Did you or didn’t you agree to screw me for Bobby?” she demanded.
“No,” Ian insisted.
“He’s telling the truth. I only asked him to…” Bobby started out helpfully.
Ian glared at him.
“To?” she pressed.
“Put you in a compromising position,” Bobby confessed.
“And?” she asked.
“To make sure I got it on film,” Ian finished.
“Then there is no way this is going to go well, you asshat! Get out!”
———
“Wow, you look like warmed over shit,” Dill Harper said five hours later.
“Thanks. I love you, too, big brother,” Flora groused.
“You should have seen her when I first got to her office.” Fauna grinned, apparently pleased that she wasn’t the center of this sibling snark session.
“Why?” he asked. “Where did she transport this time?”
Flora rolled her eyes. Of course he would know it all had to do with the damn curse. Stupid faeries and their tricks—couldn’t even give her a magical gift that worked. No receipt, no exchange. She leaned on the breakfast bar knowing that Fauna was dying to tell him and for once, being okay with that. Maybe Dill would offer to take down Ian Tate as a matter of family honor.
“The where isn’t the problem,” Fauna sang.
“Uh oh. Do I want to know?”
“I transported to the office wearing nothing but Ian Tate’s jersey and his belt,” Flora interjected.
Dill laughed loudly.
“You forgot to mention you were wearing his whisker burn and cum, too,” Fauna said, grinning. A blush darkened her cheeks.
“No shit? You and Tate? Won’t you get fired for that?” Dill asked.
“Yes.” And the most miserable part wasn’t the job loss. It was the hit to her dignity. That’s why she hurt deep inside, her dignity had been bruised. Sure, keep working that angle, Flora.
Dill and Fauna grew silent. They’d all suffered the effects of faery magic and knew when silence was the best remedy.
Flora swirled her mother’s lace doily on the cool marble surface. A hot pink rose, embroidered at its center, spun dizzily. The kitchen clock ticked, its ancient workings grinding gears as they prepared to jump the minute hand forward. Dad had fixed that clock, had spread it out on the dining room table as he cleaned gears and reassembled it, nearly every summer of her childhood until it worked. It still sounded rough.
She closed her eyes, absorbed the familiar sounds of her childhood home. Rose potpourri tickled her nostrils and she could make out the supporting ticks of other clocks throughout the first floor. They were hallmarks of her parents. If she opened her eyes again, she’d see lace and various shades of pink roses over-decorating every inch of usable space. It was as though her parents’ hobbies competed with each other. It might even be true if they weren’t so disgustingly, drippingly in love with one another.
“So Mom and her sex party. What’s the latest excuse for that, again?” Flora asked, abruptly opening her eyes on the subject change.
“Not sure,” Dill said. “She said something about Joe and Sage needing toys for their post-commitment ceremony vacation, but I also heard her tell Willow that Dad broke his cockring.”
Flora and Fauna groaned.
“Sage and Willow can handle themselves,” Fauna said, commenting on the two siblings not present. “Mom lives to shock us. We all know the toys are for her and Dad.”
“So, you going to be okay, or do I have to go kick some ass?” Dill asked.
The random flip-flopping of subjects didn’t faze her. She and her siblings didn’t need explanations to follow the tangents typical of them. It’s why she’d asked Fauna to take her to the house after she’d called for clothing. No matter what they said, her family always made sense. She couldn’t say the same about Ian.
Between him and Bobby, they’d given her enough clues and admissions that while she understood that she’d been used, she didn’t know why. She couldn’t make sense of it.
Flora didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Coming home wouldn’t suddenly translate the confusion into substance. Still, coming home made her feel a little less shaky. She sure as hell couldn’t face the possibility that Ian would find her apartment as she’d dared, and then expect her to see him all night long. He couldn’t be that stupid.
She wasn’t.
“Flora?” Dill put his hand over hers.
“I’ll kill him,” Fauna promised vehemently. When Dill and Flora both laughed, she interrupted. “I’m serious! I’ll show up at his place unseen and kick him in the balls. Then I’ll do something…damaging.”
“And with any luck, your invisibility won’t wear off? What world are you living in? It’s Murphy’s Law à la Faeries. When have you ever had your curse work in your favor?” Dill reasoned.
Flora kissed her cheek. “I love you, but you don’t have a vengeful bone in your body. I got all that when our DNA split.”
“What did Tate do to you?” Dill asked. “I haven’t seen you this down on yourself in years.”
“It’s nothing,” Flora said, shrugging as though it would reinforce her claim. Talking about the last time she’d been down wasn’t something she wanted to do. If Dill found out Haler had been hired by the Gladiators, it would spark a whole different line of questioning she didn’t want to get into, too. “I’m tired. I have to get up tomorrow and deal with a bunch of male testosterone laden football players.”
“Instead of seeking the solitude of your penthouse, you thought you’d hang out here?” he asked skeptically.
“Why not? You are.” Flora reached for her glass of ice water and headed for the hall.
“What kind of guy does that to a woman?” she heard Fauna murmur.
Flora paused in the hallway to listen.
“What kind of guy is able to do that to Flora?” Dill countered. “He got close, fast.”
“He got her guard down, somehow.” Fauna sounded as dumbfounded as Dill had.
Not wanting to hear more of their speculation, Flora continued down the hall. She couldn’t help them with their questions. She had the same ones cycling through her head.
How had he gotten so close, so fast?
Most of the guys she had gone out with had deferred to her, let her handle the course of the relationship. Not Ian. Ian had barged into her life, into her personal space, and had taken up residence in her head without apology.
He’d taken ownership of her feelings as though she’d only been borrowing them for a time. She’d felt every slide of his cock as he stroked inside her. Sleeping nerves had woken. Now she had to deal with the aftermath of knowing what it was like to experience the full scope of orgasm with a man who’d touched her body and her heart in new ways. He’d left her with a mess of emotions to explore and untangle. Trying to fit them back where they belonged seemed an impossible task.
Not that they’d ever be the same again. They couldn’t possibly be. Ian had changed something by stripping her of more than clothing. He’d cradled her dignity and coaxed truth from behind her usual façade, and then left them on the proverbial table for anyone to see.
It was similar to having a finger wrapped in a bandage and once the bandage was removed, the finger felt new and alive where it had been deprived of sensation. That’s how she felt, like her feelings were on sensory overload at his hands because he’d removed the bandage around them and left them exposed.
God, it hurt. He’d used her. Ian had left her raw, open, bare. The media flies would have a field day with her if she showed any vulnerability. Hell, they’d swarm when they found out about her affair with Ian and she had no doubts that he’d tell them. Isn’t that why he’d promised Sterling he’d get it on film?
Betrayal etched a painful trail beneath her breastbone.
How the hell did she get herself back? As long as he had her, her equilibrium was shot.
Chapter Nine
Ian had just about had it with Flora’s cold shoulder. They’d been intimate for fuck’s sake. He’d made her beg. But when it came to explaining Bobby, she’d been unwilling to listen. Yeah, it looked bad, but it wasn’t really. Well, maybe a little bad. Okay, fuck, he’d acted like a b
astard and he didn’t have any defense at all because he was going to do what she thought he was going to do and what Bobby had asked him to do, but he never would have delivered a sex tape if she were innocent.
As he thought it, Flora’s gaze skipped over him. She motioned for the set director to join her, then bent her head over her clipboard as he nodded. Two child wranglers brought in the five kids meant to share the cancer research photo promotion with Ian, Tilden, and Bing.
Basically, it was more of the same. Two days now of Flora ignoring him and him trying to catch her eye. Jesus.
So maybe he hadn’t figured out the technicalities of whether or not she was innocent. He hadn’t actually asked, nor had he researched the entire situation, but mostly because he’d been too busy trying to get his cock buried inside Flora where he could get as close to her as two people could get, but he’d meant to. Didn’t that count for something? Damn, even his thoughts sounded awkward.
He’d have looked into the blackmail, guilt-innocence thing eventually, once they’d come up for air.
His stomach flipped eagerly at the thought of where he’d like to be muffled when he opted to come up for air. Ian wouldn’t have served her over to anyone else. Sharing Flora with another man, even for the purpose of having her arrested for blackmail, or blackmailing her to stop blackmailing Deeks, stirred jealousy in his gut.
The set director smiled at her and Flora smiled back, warmly.
“Bing, Tate, Tilden. We need you behind the kids,” the set director bellowed.
Bing nudged him and motioned with a tip of his head, as though Tate had needed the additional clarification. Tilden smirked, moving off and keeping his distance.
“Yeah, I got it. Behind the kids,” Tilden muttered.
Flora gave Ian a flipping stomach and swirling gut. He vaguely wondered if Mento-bismol made a product for romantic indigestion. He’d buy stock.
Granted, from Flora’s point of view, Ian couldn’t blame her for not wanting to speak to him. He got that loud and clear. Could even understand it. But in his mind, he wasn’t all that bad a guy. Not if one looked at the reasoning, the information, the motivation behind why he promised Bobby he’d catch Flora in the act.
