‘Let’s not “discuss” it to death, Lane, let’s just suck it and see as we go along,’ Adam said. He gave her a cold-eyed smile and closed the distance between them, full of the promise of sex. ‘An expression you can think about while you drive home. In fact, why don’t you spend that drive imagining what I’ll do to you once we’re nice and private, since “discussion” isn’t high on my list?’ Another of those cold smiles. ‘Sweetheart.’
With a swallow and a nod—which was a ridiculous response, because what was there to nod at?—Lane headed again for the elevators.
She turned for one last look at him as the elevator doors opened and he—good God!—winked at her. Which discomposed her so much, she took a fraction too long entering the elevator and the doors semi-closed on her.
She heard him chuckle as she stepped fully in and the doors closed properly, and as the elevator commenced its descent to the car park, she leaned weakly against the wall. Great. It was just great to be laughed at because she was awkward and clumsy and incapable of taking the nuances of sexual attraction in her stride. She knew all about being a laughing-stock to your sexual partner—thank you, DeWayne Callaghan, for that lesson—and she didn’t like it. At all.
This was not the way things were supposed to unfold. Adam had barely glanced at the contract before signing it, and she’d just bet he hadn’t looked at it since. He seemed disinclined to listen to a word she said about the contract’s terms and conditions. And she was fairly certain what he’d threatened to tell her to do with the contract would be anatomically unpleasant, if not impossible.
This was not good.
On the other hand … on the drive home, she fired up her imagination as Adam had suggested, and the visions in her head were fairly eye-popping for a girl who was almost a virgin.
***
It took an hour for Adam to cool off enough to front up at Lane’s. And even then, it took every ounce of his self-control to knock not pound on the door of her super-neat house in her super-neat street, chosen pragmatically, he’d just bet, to be close to the airport for the flight attendant housemate.
Okay, he was honest enough to admit he deserved to be slapped down for forcing that office meeting on her. And he knew he wouldn’t be pleased if one of his lovers sauntered onto one of his building sites and planted her mouth on him in front of anyone who happened to be in the vicinity the way he’d done to Lane, so she’d hit that nail on the head.
But it just galled him that she hadn’t slapped him down so much as ‘managed’ him like he was a naughty boy. He would have preferred it if she’d lost her temper, flamed up at him, stomped off without even speaking to him. But no, never in public of course—as he should have known.
All his hopes now were pinned on her losing her cool the moment she opened the door and they were ‘in private’. It would be a sign she was human, at least. The closer he’d got to her house, the keener he was to see how her temper manifested itself. Nothing short of a rage-filled ‘How dare you do that to me!?!’ would do.
But when she opened the door …?
Nope.
No temper.
Just that barely there smile that he was starting to believe was her habitual expression and not applied deliberately to one-up him. Not bothering to comment on his lateness—not even giving him the satisfaction of a subtle glimpse at her wristwatch.
Impressive. And infuriating.
She held the door open for him.
He stepped in, walked past her, through the short hallway and into the living room. He looked around. No canapés this time. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be seeing smoked salmon in this house again any time soon. She’d learned her lesson, like the good student she was.
‘All right, I’ve been imagining, as instructed, and I’m ready,’ she said. ‘So—here or in the bedroom?’
Adam’s temper evaporated with the shock of that. He shook his head to clear it. Had he heard right? Surely not. It would be taking cool, calm, and collected way too far, even for her. But she was waiting for his answer, and there was no hint that she felt anything except interest in his answer—no, his instruction.
‘The bedroom,’ he said, a little awed, a lot intrigued. How far would she go?
‘Through here,’ she said.
Was that a tremble in her voice or did he only hope it was?
She led the way to her room and turned to face him. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Shall we get undressed?’
She’d already removed her jacket. Now her hands went to the buttons on her shirt.
CHAPTER SIX
There was no doubt who was calling the shots tonight, and it wasn’t Adam Quinn.
Was he gaping? Adam thought he must be. But Lane just kept unbuttoning.
She managed to get half her buttons undone before Adam could find enough of a voice to say, ‘Keep your clothes on.’
That stopped her. ‘Is it a … a turn-off, to do that without being asked?’
Turn-off? She sounded so uncomfortable saying that. He recalled how she’d tripped over the word ‘douchebag’. Weirdly, it cheered him up, that she couldn’t say those things easily.
‘Is it a what?’ he asked, hoping she’d repeat it.
‘I mean, is it unappealing?’ she clarified. ‘When a woman takes the initiative and starts … you know … the ball rolling?’
Starts the ball rolling? Adam swallowed a laugh. She was brazen enough to pay a man for sex but couldn’t actually talk about it without sounding like a prude. Ball rolling? It was kind of adorable.
‘Well is it unappealing?’ she asked again, a little impatient now.
Adam knew exactly what the early stages of arousal felt like, and figured Lane was certainly appealing to something in him, because the half-moon of bra he could see through the slackened opening of her shirt was pushing him into it—and God only knew why, since that bra was the most utilitarian undergarment he’d ever seen on a woman. Maybe seeing Lane even slightly dishevelled was as forceful as seeing another woman butt-naked. Especially coming on top of that kiss earlier, which had been so much hotter than he’d expected it to be.
‘I like women who take the initiative,’ he said, and somehow managed to sound like he was talking about the weather. He was going to match her cool for cool if it killed him.
Lane’s shoulders seemed to slump—yet they didn’t actually move. ‘Then what is it?’ she asked, rebuttoning herself briskly.
‘There’s just no need to hurry.’
‘But there is,’ Lane burst out, then seemed to catch herself. ‘Look, please understand, I’m not giving you an order, or trying to coerce you, or telling you what you should be doing. This isn’t … isn’t personal.’
‘Not personal?’ It was news to him that sex wasn’t personal. He waited, fascinated, for what would come next.
‘No. It’s just that I’m giving a presentation on economic indicators in the morning and I therefore need to be in the office early. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to step things up, so I can … um … check … my slide deck … um … before … er … What are you doing?’ Because Adam, one slow step at a time, had come right up to her.
‘This,’ he said, and reached out a finger to run the tip of it around the edge of her lips. ‘One of the first things to learn is that you don’t have to do everything all at once.’ He circled his fingertip inwards. ‘Waiting can be extremely … exciting. Lesson … Number … Two.’
Oh, God, her lips were soft. He moved his finger again, running it down her chin to the top of her collar, dipping it just below the stiff white fabric to rest where her clavicle dipped in the centre, at the base of her neck. He had to pause there because his breathing was becoming erratic. And he was supposed to be the experienced one! His finger still hooked in her shirt, he kissed near one eye, then the other, until her eyes closed, then he softly kissed her eyelids.
He moved back again, but Lane’s eyes stayed closed. She was leaning forward, l
ips parted, showing him that he was her guide in this, that she was willing to be led. It was as though that uncomfortable scene at the office had never happened, as though she was giving herself to him, putting her trust in him. It set off a strange feeling inside him. A shivery feeling that he wanted to understand for both their sakes before he went any further. It was something to do with how she could be both tough and soft at the same time.
No, it was more than that. A surprising jumble of things was making him uneasy.
She was super smart, but intuitively as well as academically—she’d had him pegged at the office, despite her woeful lack of experience with men on the prowl, making him wonder how she could know what he was doing and yet … and yet not know him.
She was clearly not a sulker—because here she was, ceding control to him despite the way he’d behaved.
She was driven to succeed—and yes, Sarah had told him she was like that, but it was startling to see her so absolutely focused on the goal at hand; she’d set aside the embarrassment he’d caused her without going over it endlessly and making him grovel, because she just wanted to move on.
He had to admit the whole Lane Davis package at that particular moment was pretty damn classy, which made her anything but unappealing. He wanted to touch her, and touch her, and keep touching her, and—
Stop now! Adam’s brain ordered. But somehow, his finger moved again. Then both his hands were moving. One button … two … a third … a fourth, undone. One more.
Adam watched the rise and fall of her chest. The plain white cotton bra was bared to his gaze, the hint of her shockingly full breasts visible over the tops of the cups. The freckles meandering down her cleavage were a sweet imperfection on her otherwise perfect skin. His finger couldn’t seem to help sliding along their path. He wanted to kiss them, one by one.
Danger ahead, he could feel it.
***
Lane’s breath caught as his finger circled each dot in the row of freckles she’d always thought she hated … until now. His touch was so strange—his calloused fingertips like a raspy whisper against her skin. She could feel a spinning sensation inside her, but didn’t know if it was in her head or somewhere else. She wanted to open her eyes, watch what he was doing, learn what he was doing, see his face, but her eyelids felt so heavy. Her arms felt heavy, too. Even her breasts—especially her breasts—felt heavy, the tips so sensitive she wished his questing finger would touch her there and relieve the pressure.
But he didn’t. His finger dragged upwards, making a slow retreat along the same path, and Lane knew instinctively he would do no more that night. She opened her eyes then, biting down on a sigh of disappointment. Men weren’t supposed to pull away from you when you were making it so easy. Even she knew that.
Adam’s fingers moved against Lane’s flesh. He was refastening her buttons.
She sucked in her breath as his hands brushed the tops of her breasts. It was on the tip of her tongue to demand he do what she was paying him for, but the words jammed in her throat. She’d embarrassed herself enough for one night, oozing at him like an overripe Camembert cheese. And she suddenly couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear the thought that she was forcing him to touch her when he clearly didn’t want to.
‘Please don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I can do it.’
She turned her back to him, her own hands moving into action. She was forcing the last button through its opening when Adam’s hands on her shoulders stopped her.
He turned her around and very deliberately undid the same five buttons. ‘I want to do it,’ he said huskily, and started doing the buttons up again while she stood rigid. ‘Just so you know, at the end of three months, I’m going to know every button of yours intimately. This is just the start.’
But Lane wasn’t fooled by the sexy voice. The buttoning/unbuttoning was nothing but a lesson in who was the boss. A mechanical lesson, putting her—the student who knew nothing—in her place. A lesson she’d bought and therefore had to value.
On that basis, she concentrated on not swooning towards him again and tried instead to analyse what it was about the way he smelled, the way his roughened fingertips felt, that made her feel so restless, so … edgy. She came up with nothing. She was clearly going to have to work harder, think more, feel less, divorce her body from her brain, if she was to make these lessons work for her.
Adam was frowning, his hands sliding up and down her arms as though he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. And then, abruptly, he stepped away, jamming his hands in his pockets.
‘I can’t make Sunday,’ he said. ‘If you want to uphold your two-night minimum, you’ll have to reorganize your weekend and meet me on Saturday.’
Lane said nothing. She was trying to work out why his voice sounded so sexy. It wasn’t as though he was saying anything seductive. It was nothing more than a calendar entry.
‘Okay, Lane?’ he asked.
The way he said her name was slow and husky. Sexy, even when he wasn’t saying anything specifically associated with sex.
‘Lane? I’ll come to you, okay? No surprises.’
It was always kind of gruff, his voice. Even when he was talking softly, like now. No surprises. Sweet of him to reassure her, since she’d told him she didn’t like surprises. Sweet. And sexy. And dark. She wondered if she could get the timbre of her own voice a little lower. Would that automatically make her sexier?
‘Lane?’
And now it was kind of urgent.
‘Lane!’
She blinked. Refocused. Blinked again. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of …’ How your voice will sound up close against my ear, how my voice will sound in your ear, when we— ‘Never mind. Just … thinking.’
Adam looked at her for a long moment. ‘You need to think less,’ he said.
‘Think less, feel more,’ she said. ‘Yes, I got that.’
‘So … Saturday?’
‘Saturday, yes, all right,’ she said.
Another long look from Adam. A half-step towards her, and then he said something under his breath, spun on his heel, and strode out of the room.
Lane heard the front door open … then close.
‘Saturday,’ she said, and looked down at herself—at her perfectly buttoned shirt, at her navy blue skirt, at her flat black shoes—and groaned. ‘Oh God, I’m going to have to go shopping.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Surely the green dress that had just been thrown over the top of the fitting room door was the only remaining untried outfit in the metropolis.
But apparently not, because two other dresses, a skirt and a satin top followed in quick succession.
Lane stifled a little scream. She only had herself to blame for this girly shopping trip. She’d thrown herself at Erica the minute Erica had arrived home from Los Angeles last night, garbled out what had happened in her absence and begged for her help choosing an appropriate wardrobe for her sex classes. Erica, with a martial look in her eye, had insisted on inviting Sarah along too, since Sarah had ‘already been so helpful’ in persuading Adam to take Lane on as his private student, and now …
Well, now, having spent three hours being pelted with assorted items of clothing, with only a black cocktail frock to show for the girls’ combined efforts, Lane was thinking longingly of her navy blue suit. And the fact that Erica and Sarah were whispering furiously to each other every time they banished Lane to a fitting room wasn’t helping to reconcile her to the prospect of any more shopping.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put together the mishmash of phrases Lane managed to overhear and conclude that she was the topic under discussion. Well, her and Adam Quinn and their ‘ridiculous contract’.
‘I can’t take much more of this,’ Lane called out to the girls, who answered her by lobbing a leather jacket into the room.
Dispiritedly, Lane slipped the green dress over her head and stretched it into place. She looked at herself in the mirror and h
ad to stifle another little scream. Awful. Scary, even. She looked like a green bean with breasts.
How did Erica and Sarah both manage to consistently look like they’d walked off a high fashion runway no matter what they were wearing? Lane was closer to a model shape than either of her friends—Erica being more voluptuous and Sarah being almost too tiny to be real—so why did everything she tried on look silly on her?
She slipped the leather jacket on over the dress. It didn’t improve the look.
Time to admit this was a waste of time. When she thought about it logically, it wasn’t as though David Bennett had ever appeared to be turned off by the suits she wore to work; he saw her in them practically every day and still managed to flirt with her! So if she packed away the momentary panic engendered on Wednesday night by Adam and his two undone buttons, wouldn’t she be better served by buying a couple of negligees to replace her white cotton nightgowns and leaving it at that? Things for going to bed?
She couldn’t wear that black cocktail dress to bed! She didn’t need that black cocktail dress at all—and certainly not for the next three months. It wasn’t as though she’d be going to a cocktail party with Adam Quinn!
So she would go out there, show the girls this current fashion disaster, then she’d insist on going home. After one last disgusted look at herself in the mirror, she exited the fitting room without even bothering to brace for the verdict.
Erica’s hastily bitten lip did not suggest anything complimentary would be forthcoming. ‘Maybe take off the jacket …?’ Erica suggested.
Lane took off the jacket.
‘The colour’s nice,’ Sarah ventured, ever the optimist.
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