by Jess Dee
“Did you disappoint them?”
“My mother, maybe. My sisters never cared whether I danced or not.”
“I have a confession to make,” Ben told her then. He lowered his voice, as though afraid anyone would hear them through the closed door. “I was never much of a dancer either. Never once made it up on my toes.”
“Did you try?” Melissa asked, startled by the thought Ben may have done ballet.
“Er, hell, no. Why would anyone try something they hated?”
She looked at him, felt her lips twitch again. “Touché, Mr. Cowley. Point made.” She tilted her head to the side, watched him. “But I didn’t hate debating. I loved that. Disappointed my school horribly, though, when I agreed with the opposition. They kicked me off the team.”
Ben snorted. “You didn’t.”
“I most definitely did.”
“Okay, then, that I concede is a failure.” Not that he looked horrified by it. Not in the least.
But then Melissa didn’t want him horrified. She just wanted him to gain some understanding as to why it was so important she work so hard now. Work so hard to the exclusion of everything else in her life.
“There were more, Ben. Other, more significant failures that I can’t speak about. But that’s why I’m so determined now. I’ve failed once too often in my life. It’s ruined me. I don’t ever want it to happen again.”
Ben regarded her with serious eyes. “We can’t all be good at everything.”
“You’re right. We can’t. But there are some things we have to achieve. Some things that define where we go from that point on. And if we don’t achieve them, life changes in ways we never expected or never wanted.” And that was as much as she would tell him.
Ben must have picked up her resistance to carry this conversation any further. He regarded her in silence for a long while. “I hope that one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me about the failure that changed your life.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps one day.” She left it at that, noncommittal one way or the other.
He pushed a paper plate towards her. “You haven’t eaten enough. Try this.”
Melissa stared longingly at the treat in front of her. Sweet pastry wrapped around decadent caramel and smothered in milk chocolate. A billion or so delicious calories just waiting to be eaten. Begging to be eaten. With a will of iron, she refrained from grabbing it and shoving it into her mouth.
“It’s a caramel kiss,” Ben said. “My weakness. I have to have one a day. At least.”
“I know what it is,” Melissa answered demurely, feeling anything but. The only thing that tempted her more than the dessert was the man sitting opposite her. “But I can’t eat that.”
Ben raised a teasing eyebrow. “Another allergy?”
“No, dummy. Another kilo heading straight to my hips.”
He tsked. “Trust me on this. You have no problem with your weight. None whatsoever.”
“Hah. Tell my mother that.” The woman had been on her back since she was ten, harping on at her about her too-large behind and her overly rounded hips. Melissa’s obsessive need to run every morning did not stem from a love of the exercise. Although now she found if she didn’t run every morning, she didn’t have as much energy as usual. Truth was, the runs had become kind of addictive.
“I’m telling you. A caramel kiss is not going to do you any harm. Eat it.” His voice brooked no argument.
She gazed longingly at the treat.
“Okay, I’ll give you a choice. One way or another you get a kiss this lunchtime. Either take a bite of the dessert, or I’m going to plant my lips on that luscious mouth of yours and kiss you. With tongue. Lots of tongue. In broad daylight, while the entire company is at work.” He shrugged. “I know which one I’d prefer, but as I said, the choice is yours.”
Melissa couldn’t help it. She licked her lips.
Ben growled low in his throat. “Choose. Now.”
She grabbed the caramel kiss and took a bite. Sensational sweetness burst in her mouth, making her moan out loud. God, that tasted good.
“Lucky pastry,” Ben muttered. His eyes were black as night. Desire glowed from them.
Melissa chewed and swallowed, then held the kiss out. “Help yourself.”
Ben did not take his gaze off her mouth. “I intend to. Tonight. I intend to help myself to every last inch of you.”
She looked pointedly at her watch and grinned in triumph. “Twenty minutes without a mention of sex. That’s fifteen more minutes than I gave you credit for.”
His smile was hungry. Predatory. “Give me those fifteen minutes tonight and then see what you can give me credit for.”
For once Melissa did not bother to adopt her stern, professional demeanor. “And if I don’t restrict you to fifteen minutes?”
Ben studied her for a long, charged moment. The air between them seemed to vibrate, awareness and lust growing quickly. “Then hopefully I can gain a lot more credit in your eyes.”
She smiled at him. If he gained any more credit in her eyes, she’d have to put him on a pedestal. “I’m looking forward to you trying.”
He smiled back. “Not as much as I am, sweetness.”
Chapter Seven
Ten o’clock could not come fast enough for Ben. Blessedly, the offices emptied well before the allotted time. By eight thirty, he and Melissa were the only two employees on the floor.
Which meant he had an hour and a half of torturous waiting before he could hold her again. If the minutes had passed slowly last night, time seemed to stand still tonight. Ben swore his watch stopped at 8:37.
Need and lust and want prickled every inch of his flesh. His skin pulled taut over his joints, making movement painful. He was in hell. He had become an aching body of desire, every thought centered on Melissa, every breath.
If Melissa had thought she could deter him with her stories of failing, she’d been wrong. Hearing she had faults and weaknesses only endeared her more to him. Only made her more human.
By nine o’clock, Ben could stand it no longer. It might be an hour too early, and he might be breaking yet another of Melissa’s crazy rules, but he didn’t care. The need to see her again, taste her—hold her, talk to her—was too strong.
He marched across the two corridors it took to get to her office.
There she was, her hair caught in a ponytail behind her head, her eyes trained on her computer screen, oblivious to his presence.
Ben crossed the office in a couple of steps. Even as she looked up in surprise, his hands were on her waist, and he was pulling her upright. He hauled her out of her chair, straight into his arms, and before she had a chance to protest, crushed his mouth to hers.
For the first time since leaving her at lunch, Ben felt a measure of relief.
Finally, finally, he had her where he wanted her. And she was right where she wanted to be too, if the intensity of her kiss was anything to go by.
When had he become addicted to her? When had his need for her reached fever pitch? Why was she the only thing that could calm the restless twitch that had plagued him since lunchtime? Hell, since he’d left her in her car last night?
The need to undress her, to have her naked before him, wrestled with the need to hold her.
He settled for stripping her, one item of clothing at a time, without ever releasing her lips. Sweet. She tasted so damn sweet. Like the caramel kiss she’d consumed earlier. His favorite treat. His weakness.
Her hands were as busy as his, tugging at his tie, tearing at his buttons, yanking at his zip. The soft, hungry whimpers she emitted sent blood racing to his cock, and by the time she pushed his pants and boxers over his hips, he had a raging erection. Again.
Who could blame him? He held a bare Melissa in his arms. Every inch of her silken, nude flesh was pressed against his naked skin, from her toned thighs to the flat plain of her belly and the gentle swell of her breasts.
Closer. Christ, he wanted her closer.
She re
leased his mouth just long enough to murmur the word couch, and then their lips were melded together again. Several moments passed before they made it to sofa on the other side of her office.
Tonight Ben knew there would be no foreplay. No teasing. His need for her was too great. And by the way she gyrated her hips against his, he suspected she felt exactly the same.
Ben pulled away, but only to reach for a condom in his pants pocket, and then she was in his arms again. He briefly considered laying her down on the plump cushions but quickly changed his mind.
“Tonight, I get to watch you ride me,” he told her as he tangled his hands in her hair. His first priority was to set her gorgeous tresses loose. Prim and proper Melissa had no place in their lovemaking. He wanted the dirty, sexy, alluring, shy Mel.
She helped him, tugging at clips and yanking out an elastic, and there it was. Her mane of russet hair tumbling over her shoulders, framing her face.
His breath caught. “Well, hell.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and uncertainty crept into her huge, hazel eyes. “W-what?”
Ben shook his head, awed by her. “Mel…” He had to clear his throat. She was a bit of alright. “You’re…beautiful.”
She blinked, startled. “I am?”
“You take my breath away.” He had trouble finding enough air to fill his lungs.
Mel smiled shyly at him, a smile so different from the grins he’d tried to coax out of her just a few days ago, and so unlike the confident, seductive looks she’d cast him the last two nights, the disparity hit him full in the chest.
This was the other side of Melissa. The reserved side, timid even. A side that hid the confidence that usually radiated from her. It touched something deep inside his heart. Something he hadn’t expected to be touched ever again. Not after Sienna left him.
Ben collapsed onto the couch. “Come here, sweetness.” He held out his arms to her.
She came, slowly and hesitantly, but she came. And when she reached out and placed one of her hands in his, he tugged until she fell into his lap. This time when he kissed her, he could not stop the tenderness that had overwhelmed him from coming through as their mouths met.
Melissa was exquisite. And determined. And shy. And all woman. She had a lifetime of failures that plagued her, failures she wouldn’t let defeat her. What she didn’t have was a man to love her and to look after her.
She deserved to be adored.
He kept his lips relaxed and his tongue gentle as he kissed her. And she kissed him back in just the same manner. Sweetly. Tenderly. Deeply. Intimately.
Their previous kisses had been exciting, passionate and sexy.
This was all that, yet so much more.
Ben stretched out on the couch, taking Melissa with him. He pressed her body close to his, so close they could have been one, yet still it wasn’t close enough. He wanted—no, he needed—to be inside her.
“Ben,” she whispered, as though reading his thoughts. “Make love to me.”
He looked into her eyes and nodded his agreement. Any vocal response would have sounded glib.
He lay on his back, with Melissa straddling his hips. As though they’d been making love for a lifetime, she lowered herself onto him as he thrust his hips up. Their joining was seamless.
Ben slid inside her wet, waiting warmth.
When he was seated to the hilt, they both stilled and looked into each other’s eyes. Words were unnecessary. Melissa leaned down and offered him her mouth.
He took it, in a greedy kiss that lasted a lifetime. A kiss that rocked him to his very soul. Lying on the couch with Melissa above him, surrounding him with her heat, something clicked inside Ben. Like the changing of gears. Like he’d been driving in second gear for the last nine months, grinding aimlessly uphill, and had finally hit a flat and effortlessly changed to third.
The change was right. Easy. And so steeped in emotion Ben could not begin to figure out what exactly had changed. He just held on for the ride.
And what a ride. When Melissa drew away from his mouth, her lips kiss-swollen and her eyes closed, oxygen again eluded Ben.
She wasn’t just beautiful. She was a goddess. Perfect.
She lifted her torso up and began to sway atop him, the slick heat of her pussy pulling at his erection, consuming it, then releasing it in a sensual rhythm before consuming it all over again.
She danced above him; the long, elegant lines of her body epitomizing all that was feminine. Her breasts swayed as she moved, their seductive tempo hypnotic, and he couldn’t look away.
Ben let her lead him, losing himself inside her. He held her slim waist, his hands absorbing the satiny smoothness of her skin, and wondered again how he could have been so oblivious to her hidden beauty—both physical and emotional.
As much as Ben would have loved her dance to last forever, the tightening in his groin told him he wasn’t going to last much longer. Impossible to hold back the orgasm that built inside him. She was too appealing. Too irresistible. She made him feel…too much. Real, honest emotion he hadn’t felt since Sienna. Different emotion, but real nevertheless. Powerful.
Her neck was flushed, her nipples beaded, and she’d tunneled her fingers into her hair, thrown her head back and closed her eyes. The expression on her face was a mirror of the pleasure he experienced. Her sultry lips had parted, and blood tinged her cheeks pink.
He couldn’t resist her swaying breasts, raising his hands to cup them both, filling his palms with their soft weight. Her nipples stabbed at him, making him impossibly harder, and Melissa sighed a sultry sigh.
Absolute beauty.
His hips were moving now, driving his cock into her as she danced. Driving it deeper. Hell, he couldn’t get deep enough. Yet pleasure suffused his veins, his lungs. His heart.
It was Melissa who ratcheted up the ante. Melissa who changed the game. She dropped a hand to her pussy and stroked her clit.
It was too much, sensory overload.
“Mel…” He couldn’t speak, couldn’t find his voice.
She stroked faster, began to bounce on him, took him in as deep as he needed to be inside her. The flush on her neck swept down to encompass her chest, and just when Ben established he could not last another minute, another second, Melissa came.
She arched her back above him, thrust her breasts hard into his hands and dissolved.
The walls of her pussy clenched around him, tightening, relaxing, tightening, relaxing, so fast, Ben was once again lost to the rapture of their lovemaking.
He let her orgasm guide his own, and then he too was coming. Convulsing below her, shuddering, his cock pulsing inside her. It wasn’t like the previous orgasms with her. Not quite so frantic, frenzied.
This one was slower in building, yet far more powerful. This one involved not just a physical release, but an emotional one as well. As he came, he let go of his past.
She’d done it. She’d freed him from the shackles of his pain, of his hurt. She’d given him this incredible gift.
For the second time in his life, Ben learned what it was like to come inside a woman he’d begun to care deeply about. Sex with Will and their women was just that. Sex. But with Melissa, he cared. And that care made this orgasm all the more meaningful. All the more pleasurable.
All the more about Melissa.
Mel.
His sweetness.
Tonight she didn’t resist when he tried to walk her to her car. She didn’t even attempt to walk ahead of him or three steps to the right. Tonight they walked together, side by side the entire way. And when they reached her car and Ben tugged her into his arms and kissed her goodnight, she did not pull away. Regardless of the fact that the car park was half full, and people milled about around them, she kissed him right back.
A sweet, intoxicating kiss, the perfect complement to the sweet, intoxicating love they’d just made.
And when she climbed into her car and waved goodbye, Ben cursed the weekend that stretched empty
ahead of him, void of her presence.
On Sunday morning he gave in to his impulses and phoned her. He half suspected she wouldn’t answer. Not only was he breaking all her golden rules about keeping their professional relationship professional and their personal relationship about sex and only sex, he was phoning her, on her work mobile, on the weekend.
He didn’t care. He’d missed her. Saturday night had been cold without her. Dull. At nine forty-five, he’d almost left Will and his mates at the pub and headed to the office. Just in case.
Common sense had kept him where he was. Melissa would not be working. Even he knew that any open deals she had on her table were as up to date as they could be. She couldn’t find more work to do, no matter how driven she was.
He’d declined Will’s subtle invitation to a threesome. The other man had nodded towards a woman surrounded by her friends and raised an eyebrow. Ben had answered with a shake of his head—and ignored Will’s knowing smile. A threesome was not what he wanted. Melissa was.
Neither of them mentioned Will’s late-night observations at the office. Neither needed to.
By nine o’clock the following morning, Ben couldn’t hold back any longer. He lay in his big, empty bed and thought about Melissa. He thought some more about her, and a little more after that. And then he grabbed his phone, found her number and dialed, expecting the call to ring through to voicemail.
Her throaty, “Melissa Sparks speaking,” undid him. His semihard cock flared to life again at the sound of her voice.
“Hey, Mel.”
A brief hesitation. “Ben?”
“Yeah, sweetness. It’s me.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Uh, then why are you phoning?”
“No reason. Just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Ben—”
“I miss you.”
“This is highly inappropriate,” she huffed.
Ah, there was the Melissa he knew and loved. Not. “Wanna hear something even more inappropriate? I fell asleep last night thinking about you, Mel.”
“Melissa,” she corrected, just like he knew she would. “And no, I don’t want to hear that.”
