by Scott, Talyn
“Only because you work for me,” he said while eyeing her shrewdly, “is that it?”
She had a feeling she’d made things worse, so she lost all sense of reasoning and used Ryan ruthlessly. “That and Ryan.” She inwardly groaned. It would be all over the club in ten minutes flat.
“Ryan?” Sven had the nerve to laugh at her. “Earlier, I distinctly overheard him asking Dakota to a rival bar that he wanted to check out on Saturday night.”
“He does that from time to time.”
“You didn’t see the way he was rubbing up against her.” The corner of his lip curled like a snake.
“I trust him.”
“Because you’re just friends and everyone knows it.”
“We can just be friends, too, if you put your mind to it,” she almost pleaded.
“No one understands why you live in a hovel over the club when you can have so much more.” He had the nerve to sniff her hair.
Oh, everyone had offers of ‘so much more’ as long as she raised tail for payment. “I have obligations and I’m grateful to have the hovel.”
“I can give you more.”
That broken record was the typical, horny, self-indulged rich man’s mantra. She straightened her spine at the carefully worded insult. Blythe decided on the high road long ago, at least as close as she could get to it. Although she had a physicality men adored and a pitiful bank account that could use a decent deposit, she was no man’s whore.
Sven had other thoughts, though. His hand brazenly moved to her knee, squeezing the painful knot that had formed mid-morning after a strange encounter with a crate full of gourmet chocolate. She’d found a year’s supply of the best confections money could buy parked in front of her apartment door and tripped over it like a gawking idiot. Logic said she’d be foolish to think that they were from Ryan.
Sven had taken her silence as an invitation to close in on her lips. But God, in his infinite wisdom, took the time to intervene. The door chimed and Trixie was still on break. Meaning Mr. Sexy And He Knew It had to put on the charm with someone other than her. “Don’t go anywhere, Blythe,” he warned. “We’re going to work this out.”
What an ass-hat. Work what out? She rubbed her sore knee and wished just one pair of pants had been washed so she didn’t have to wear a skirt around Sven. On top of that, she’d eaten so much chocolate for lunch, she’d was experiencing scary bouts of tachycardia even now, and Sven’s annoying machineguns didn’t help any.
Then she heard his voice.
“I may be a bit early, but she’s expecting me.”
As if. She shot out of her chair to duck in the bathroom, but Sven was too fast. He came around her partition and pulled her reluctant body forward. “Ah, here she is.” His accent was soaring over the lands of Malaysia, which meant Sven was highly pissed. “You should have told me you had a dinner date to begin with, Ms. Giarrusso.”
She wanted to disagree, but her brain kicked in at the last second. Blythe could use Sixten for the greater good. “I was so engrossed in work, it slipped my mind.” She smiled sweetly. “Sixten is always too early, or much, much too late.” Sixten’s eyes narrowed a fraction when she stared up at him. “Trixie isn’t back yet, so I have to man the phones, Six.”
He played right along, releasing a dazzling smile, which displayed two perfect dimples anyone could get lost in for a while…or forever. “Then a kiss, angel, to hold me over while I wait.”
He curled his strong hand around her wrist, reminding Blythe of the difference in their sizes, and pulled her flush against him. Taking advantage of her circumstances was what Sixten was all about, so it was payback time. She discreetly pinched his side as hard as she could when his soft mouth closed over hers, but Sixten didn’t have the decency to flinch.
Then, her toes curled without warning.
When her lips parted on a surprised gasp, he moved in for the kill, sliding his expert tongue over hers in a worshiping, systematic rhythm that spoke of bad, bad things. The kind of things she shouldn’t revisit. The kind of things she remembered about him in the middle of the night when she woke up in her bed all alone.
But they weren’t alone now. Sven grumbled, “I’m outta here, and so are you. Go eat your early dinner.”
Heat pushed its way to Blythe’s cheeks. Embarrassment was never easy for her to hide, even with her deep skin tone. “Are you sure, Sven?” She stared at Sixten’s chest, subtly trying to wrench her arm free, but he held firm.
“Sure am,” Sven huffed. “I’ll get our hydrotherapist to play receptionist while Trixie’s gone, and I’ll see you…tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tonight, you have to hit INKS as well as the bar, right?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Blythe.” He stomped to his office and slammed the door.
“Hydrotherapist?” Ice-green eyes burning with shocking possessiveness stared down at her.
“If you have to ask”- she had to look away – “you don’t wanna know.” Blythe marched back to her cubicle, grabbed her purse, and prayed she could get away from him and hit INKS early.
The clouds moved over the afternoon sun, cooling the sidewalk enough to make an early-evening stroll bearable. Still, a trickle of perspiration slid between her breasts, and she fought like mad to ignore it. Leave it to Sixten Kovac’s kiss to break her out in sweats.
They’d walked away from the spa, going past several shops until they reached the corner. People openly stared. They had always made a striking couple, and human nature often orbited around the pretty. But Blythe knew firsthand what kind of trouble her above-average appearance could garner, and that wasn’t pretty in the least.
A car nearly rear-ended another when its driver wolf-called her, instead of keeping his eyes on the road. Sixten shot him a murderous glare and muttered tightly, “Aren’t you the fantasy girl?”
“Six, we’ve walked far enough.” She stopped, ignoring the men elbowing one another as they walked by. “Sven has better things to do than spy on us.” Or so she hoped, but she wouldn’t bet on it.
He placed his hand on the small of her back and ushered her in the direction of Maxxi. “Is this the bistro you frequent?”
When someone else insisted on paying, she thought, since she didn’t have a dime to drop in this place. “I only left with you to get away from Sven. You understand that. Just like you know I don’t wish to eat with you.”
“If wishes were chocolate…”
“They would be at my front door,” she groaned. “I’m injured because you wanted to be Mr. Wonka.” She pointed to her knee.
“I could kiss that.” He wasn’t looking at her knee at all. He stared at her chest until her nipples pebbled under his relentless scrutiny. “Starting from the top of your head…. Retract that.” He deliberately slid his pink tongue over his bottom lip. “I’d start with those two” – he spoke to her breasts – “and work my way down…and back up again…and right back down again. Damn, I could do that all night. Wanna give it a go?”
“Ryan wouldn’t be happy to hear you say that, or to find out how you attempted to corral me into dinner,” she said, trying to appear indignant while tapping a pink, peep-toe pump on the sidewalk. They both knew he hadn’t pressured Blythe, but he had the grace not to refute her.
Like an idiot, she wanted to close her eyes and kiss him. Step back in time on one of the better days…
A strange wind blew through and their eyes simultaneously fixated across the street on the river. Without the sun’s brilliance, it just sloshed around like dirty, gray bathwater. They were supposed to get married there, on the banks of the Caloosahatchee, followed by a lavish reception at a historical home one block over. When Sixten turned his angelic face back to her, she knew he was remembering the same thing.
Then, his eyes tightened, and he had the nerve to shoot green icicles at her. “The ‘Ryan bit’ is getting a little old, angel. Perhaps you should come up with some new lines,
since we know you don’t have a serious relationship with him. Oh”- he snapped his long, eloquent fingers -“I’ve got just the thing.” He snatched her hand and brought her fingertips to his lips. “Lick me everywhere, Six.” He whispered while nipping her index finger roughly. “You know the way I like it,” he said in perfect falsetto, mimicking her husky voice.
“What’s gotten into you?” She pulled her hand back, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d backed her into an empty alley next to a vacated store.
He glared at her throat for a long moment, before he said, “Oh, I don’t know. What’s gotten into Ryan, or Sven, or the man swerving his car off the road in a near miss with a minivan full of soccer kids? How about the guys skirting us on the sidewalk, hoping I would take off so they could have at you?”
“Stop.”
“You stop.”
“It’s not your concern now.”
“I want it to be.”
“I’m not yours anymore.”
“That fact doesn’t stop the jealousy, Blythe.” His eyes were truly haunted. “It never goes away.”
But his love had. “Maybe you should catch me in bed with another man and then you’ll quickly get over it.” Take that lover boy.
“Since, you speak from experience.”
Blythe white-knuckled her purse and watched everything blur. Much too late, she realized she must have been crying all along. She could blame it on Tony’s illness, her most-recent attack from Sven the shark, her exhaustion from her own sickness, or she could accept the truth. No matter how hard she tried, Blythe never stopped loving the faithless, beautiful man who stood towering over her.
She dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Makeup was at a minimum today, but she had on mascara and it wasn’t waterproof. “Why the chocolate?”
“’Cause he wouldn’t buy you any.”
That’s right, she realized. Ryan refused to buy the candy bar hidden beneath the cucumbers in their shopping cart, even though she’d fiercely threatened him. “Yours were from Italy.”
“Your favorites, I remember them all,” he said wistfully. “Especially the chocolate dipped hazelnuts you sneaked into the movie theater on occasion. You know, the ones wrapped in silver.”
“I had them for breakfast, thank you.” She worked a mental wrench around her pipes, and successfully closed off her tears. She stood wondering when her erratic emotions would ever go away and leave behind simple peace instead.
“If you won’t have dinner with me tonight, then I want you to have breakfast with me tomorrow.”
She knew he wasn’t referring to a date, and his wicked gleam snapped her back to reality. “I’m not sleeping with you again. Ever. I think I made that point quite clear when I returned your engagement ring. I didn’t look back then, and I’m not going back now.” Oh, she’d looked back every day, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Then let’s move forward.”
“That only works in bad movies.”
Something flashed behind his eyes. A look that said he was upping the game, but she didn’t know what that particular game was. “I’m still not giving up, Blythe.”
“Work on it.” A chill went down her spine. “If you stay away, it’ll get easier.” For both of us.
He shook his head no. “Every year I fought to stay away from you. But, as you know, on your birthday, it was impossible.”
“Yes, I was there on all those birthdays.” Thanks for nothing.
“Since… I proposed on that particular day…” He trailed off recalling the past, before he boldly declared, “You’re the most important thing I’ve ever had, and this time, I refuse to let you go.”
“I’m sorry.” She squared her shoulders. “That’s not gonna work for me. If, at any time, I was that important to you, you would’ve opened your zipper for me only.” Crude, though by the twisted look on his face, she had made her point.
Then, that look transformed into something alarming. His pale eyes flared as they moved over her face, across her throat, and wandered down her curves with possessiveness emanating from every pore of his body. Oddly enough, Blythe could feel the strength of his need, and it was frightening.
She took a step back.
He took one forward.
Another step back and he caged her against the wall within the steel of his arms. “Don’t,” she said. The single word came out throaty, and she hated him for that.
Her lips burned with the brush of his, and she hated him even more for turning her body into a hot mess that didn’t care how tortured her heart was. Her knees buckled and he caught her with one arm around the small of her back, bringing her tightly against his chest. “Don’t,” she repeated when he slid his whiskered chin across her jawline and suckled her earlobe.
“I want to,” he whispered against her throat.
He stole her very breath, making her want things that she shouldn’t want. Things she’d convinced herself had never happened to begin with. She was going to drown. Drown in the irrevocable hell he would place her in again when he took another stomp across her heart. “I hate you,” she tried to say it convincingly, though they both knew it was a lie. He’d taken everything else, but she needed her pride back.
“Liar.”
“When I look at you, I’m disgusted,” Blythe gritted, pushing fists against his chest and fighting for her personal space.
His lips touched her ear. “Don’t hold back.” He moved his hand lower, a single ripple that ended with him cupping her bottom.
She wiggled to free herself, but he tightened on her and groaned loudly while using his hand to grind her against his hardened length. His movements were so sure and knowledgeable, as if he’d never spent a day away from her body. “I loathe your touch.” It had been so long since she sated her needs, she was afraid she’d climax on the spot.
He knew it, too. Sixten’s breathing picked up, nearly as ragged as hers. He dipped his head, murmuring through her blouse against her hardened nipple, “You need my touch.” And he bit it ever-so-lightly while her heart pounded in anticipation of what was about to come.
Her fingers opened from their fists and, embarrassingly enough, she clawed him closer. “Whatever you’re doing, whatever this is…undo it.”
“It’s a done deal.” Faster and harder, he stroked her through their clothes. “I have to make you come….have to.”
“Uh,” she couldn’t finish her comeback for lack of coherent thought.
His other hand left the wall, sliding around her breast and twirling the opposite nipple between his thumb and fingers while he continued tormenting the other with his mouth. All the while, his right arm worked her against his stiff cock until sparks flared behind her eyelids.
The friction licked fire along her skin until her breath stilled. Close, closer, closing in on her, and she shuddered against him with a shocking intensity she’d only known with one man. She roared with her body.
Sixten cut her off, crushing his mouth to hers until she thought they suddenly shared the same body. Her head spun from aftershocks, and her mind fought for the control it had lost. And when she spoke with a hoarseness that told of a screaming orgasm, her face flamed with mortifying shame. She bit his lip, gently but successfully stopping him.
He leaned back, eyes heating with dark sensuality, as though he’d mistaken her bite for naughty foreplay. After blinking them a few times, he realized the push-off, and then they took on a pleading intensity. She shook her head and watched as they quickly turned into an empty sadness. “Don’t look at me that way,” she said restlessly.
“You belong to me and me alone.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
“Only your pride is keeping us apart.”
She dropped her hands from his chest and realized he just didn’t understand. “It was pride for the first few hours after our break-up. You know, while I was still in shock.” She leaned back against the rough brick, sacrificing a dece
nt blouse on its sharp edges, but she didn’t care. “After that, it was survival, getting over the pain of losing you. Or, maybe,” she said, lifting her hands helplessly, “grasping the fact that I never had you to begin with.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” she said softly. “So long ago, I thought you were flawless, did everything right. For a while, I thought I was crazy, but now, I recognize the whole thing as youthful ignorance. At least I pretend it’s that.” She nodded and closed her eyes. “Without a doubt, I loved you with a strange desperation. I wanted you more than anyone should want anything. The lies, the hurt you put on me nearly brought me to my knees.” She flicked them open. “No, I take that back.” She stared him down. “Clearly, you brought me to my knees. But I’m not there anymore. I’m no longer down while looking up at you.” Blythe’s body was still struggling with aftershocks. She couldn’t explain how their recent intimacy just happened and she refused to try. Of course, it had been so long since she’d been with anyone, and her body was needy. “I don’t understand what just happened here, I really don’t.” She said determinedly, “But I do know it won’t happen again.”
He gave her a look that said she was gravely mistaken, but instead asked, “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“The same thing I did, Six,” Blythe said with genuine conviction. “Grow up.”
Chapter 10
Sixten’s frown deepened while going through the many scenarios he’d pictured for his outing with Blythe. None of them ended with him leaving her at a questionable tattoo parlor. She’d proceeded as if it were old hat to sit with testosterone-laden males who were getting everything pierced and inked while licking the very floors she walked upon. He wasn’t happy about that one bit, and her days working there were numbered. Sixten had barely left INKS without breaking a few legs, and he couldn’t imagine what she dealt with at the Goth club, Six Feet Under.
