As he stands there, watching me.
We are each waiting for the other to surrender, and I admit that I want to, oh god, I want to. I want him to take me into one of those rooms, take me behind one of those doors and take me hard until he makes me come. No one would ever know. But that is not the way this is going to play out. So I stand my ground and taste the anticipation as he tests my nerve and my willpower.
‘‘I see,’’ he says finally. ‘‘And what if I fail?’’ He’s walking back toward me now, long, loose strides. He moves in close enough for me to feel the heat of his body, to smell the newness of the suit and the subtle kick of his aftershave. ‘‘What if I can’t make you come?’’
I raise one eyebrow.
‘‘Fine,’’ he says, and there is that wicked smile again. ‘‘What if I can’t make you come quietly?’’
‘‘If you want your ten percent, you’re going to have to earn it,’’ I say coldly. ‘‘You cannot have something for nothing, Mr. Brady.’’
He is breathing a little faster now, and his eyes are so dark they’re almost black. His shirt collar is open, and I can see the flush playing under his skin. ‘‘Certainly not with you,’’ he says. ‘‘Did you know they call you the Ice Queen?’’
I smile. ‘‘Yes.’’
He lifts one hand, touches the hem of my dress. The fabric moves against my skin, magnifying that touch a thousand times. ‘‘Apparently,’’ he murmurs, his mouth close to my temple, ‘‘you’re a cold, hard-faced bitch who hasn’t had a decent fuck in years.’’
I’m not cold now. I’m hot, so hot. My spine tingles, and I can feel wetness starting to gather at the base of my spine, in between my legs. ‘‘So I’ve heard,’’ I say, as his fingers find their way up my thigh, the fabric of my dress gathering at his wrist. His touch is gentle and sure as he strokes his way up, up. I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to distract me, trying to keep me talking as those skilled fingers find their way between my legs and still for a moment. He had expected to find silk, I know. Not flesh. ‘‘But it’s so difficult to get a decent fuck these days,’’ I whisper.
He exhales slowly, and suddenly he’s the one fighting to stay quiet, exactly as I intended. His temper is raring to go. I can feel it, see it in the flush that stripes his cheekbones and the pulse beating in his throat. I glance down, and it thrills me to see that his cock is hard. I wait for him to move his hand away, to accept defeat, knowing that however much he wants to prove me wrong, he can’t. But he doesn’t. Instead, his other hand finds my waist, holding me steady as he moves so that his thumb is resting against my clit and his fingers find my heat.
‘‘We might get caught,” I say, the words sliding out of me in a whisper as his fingers slide over me. I can’t afford that possibility, and neither can he.
‘‘Yes,’’ he says. ‘‘We might.’’
And then both of us could lose everything.
‘‘Do you really want the ten percent that badly?’’ I ask him, as he begins to draw small, intimate circles against me. I bite into my lip to hold in a wordless sound of pleasure as I feel the hard rub of the ring on his thumb, and his fingers find the entrance to my body and create delicious pressure there, as he promises to be the decent fuck that I told him I can’t find.
‘‘No,’’ he says, that beautiful voice rough, his accent thickening. ‘‘I want you.’’
And with just a flick of his wrist he is inside my body. I grab on to his shoulders, dig my fingers in tight, and as I drop my gaze to the floor, I see the reflection of the two of us.
Liam sees it too. His hand leaves my waist, gathers up the fabric of my dress and holds it up so that we can both watch what he is doing to me. My pale skin, his hand, the darkness of his sleeve. I widen my stance, watching as he fucks me with his hand, and I know this isn’t about his ten percent. It’s about the two of us and our uncontrollable need for each other. Something happens to us when we’re together, something that neither of us can control, even when we want to.
I need to cry out. I need to release some of the tension twisting tighter and tighter inside me. I need to scream out the pleasure he gives to me, and I know he needs that, too. ‘‘Yes,’’ I say. ‘‘Yes.’’ Somewhere inside, a secret part of me wants the people waiting downstairs to know exactly what is going on up here, to know about all the things I can make Liam Brady do.
‘‘Darling,’’ he says to me. ‘‘Hush.’’
Those words light a fire of recklessness inside me. ‘‘Why?’’ I ask, a touch too loudly, testing the acoustics. I rock my hips, testing his hand, and oh god, it feels good. Strong and skilled and sure. His fingers are long and thick inside me. The crew are so close, sharing the same air as us, no doubt wondering what we’re doing. My breathing is fast and frantic now, and I’m going to cry out. I won’t be able to stop myself. That fire builds as Liam plays with me and I play with it, and I know I’m on dangerous ground, now.
But I can’t stop. The pressure inside me is immense, uncontrollable—my breasts, my pussy throbbing with arousal—as Liam surrounds me with his heat and his scent and his fierce determination, this beautiful, incredible man who made me as much as I made him. His fingers fuck into me, as he rubs his ring over my firm, throbbing clit. I wish it was his cock, and I tell him that, watching as his eyes flash fire.
He could break me, I know, just as I could break him, and he is breaking me now. ‘‘Horny bitch,’’ he whispers in my ear. ‘‘If only they knew.’’
I fight my climax with every ounce of strength I possess. ‘‘I thought you were supposed to be a decent fuck.’’
‘‘We aren’t fucking,’’ he says.
‘‘No?’’ I reach down, press the palm of my hand flat against his swollen cock. ‘‘Then what are we doing?’’
‘‘Negotiating,’’ he says, and then he fits his mouth to mine and drinks in my screams as my orgasm rushes through me, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe, how to think, who I am, and the power of it is wonderful. It’s everything.
It’s worth more than anything else.
I open my eyes. I touch his face as he smoothes down my dress, his hand lingering on my thigh for the briefest of moments. He steps back and as he does so, I hear footsteps. Someone is coming up the staircase.
Liam must have known we were about to get caught. I am only heartbeats past climaxing. I can still feel the throb of him inside my body, where everything is hectic and not yet calm. I opened the door to our secret, and he closed it before anyone could see inside, when I know that what he wants most of all is to throw that door wide open and leave it that way. But I have said no for so long because he’s twenty-seven and I’m thirty-nine, because I’m his boss, because he needs his career and I need mine, and most of all because I like the fact he’s my secret fuck toy. I like the power of it. I like the control. He owns me so completely that this is the last thing that feels like it still belongs to me.
‘‘Everything all right here?’’ asks the woman at the top of the stairs. I recognize her as one of the models hired, at great expense, to drape herself all over Liam and look moody and achingly desirable as he fills his two minutes on MTV. ‘‘Liam and I need to practice our scene.’’
I consider firing her on the spot, but I’m not quite back in full bitch mode yet. ‘‘Of course, you do,’’ I say, my gaze not leaving Liam for a second. ‘‘You have an hour to get this wrapped up, and then I’m pulling the plug.’’
‘‘On the shoot?’’ asks the model, obviously concerned.
‘‘On everything,’’ I snap back. I walk to the top of the stairs, head held high, my Ice Queen facade firmly in place. I follow the woman down the stairs, my fingers tight on the banister, my body still hectic.
Liam is behind me. I can feel his heat, his gaze on my back, the power of his body and the things that he does to me, the power of his control.
He’s the one keeping our secret, not me.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and walk over to t
he piano. Liam sits there as I open my briefcase and pull out the new contract, the one that gives him his ten percent. He has earned it, after all, though it was his regardless. I just couldn’t let it go without a fight.
He flicks through the pages, takes the pen I offer him, and then a wide smile curves his beautiful mouth. He crosses out the new percentage, writes the old one in its place and then signs his name in a loose black scrawl. His gaze meets mine, slides slowly down to my mouth. ‘‘Thank you, Mrs. Brady,’’ he whispers, so that only I can hear. Then he sits back. ‘‘Coldhearted bitch,’’ he says, and this isn’t a whisper. Not even close.
I look at him, and there’s so much that I want to say. So much I need to say. But the others are watching, and he’s twenty-seven and I’m thirty-nine, and this is his career, and it is mine. He needs these people to know he’s here because he’s earned it, not because he’s the best fuck this record exec has ever had, and I don’t want to be known as the record exec who abuses her position and fucks her acts.
I stiffen my spine and stare at him coldly. The whole room holds its breath, a collective pause as they wait for me to verbally slay him.
‘‘Darling,’’ I say. ‘‘Hush.’’
Potential
Heather Day
Verity pulled into the sweeping driveway in her silver Mercedes and got out of the car to admire her latest purchase. Looming before her was a handsome, detached house with a slightly wild front garden. Banks of trees discreetly hid the neighboring houses from view and the only sounds were birdsong and the whine of a lawnmower from somewhere down the street. This house was one of the more upmarket in this aspirational London borough. And now, it was all hers.
Verity couldn’t help but smile as she made her way up to the front door—she’d been waiting for this moment ever since the auctioneer’s gavel had fallen on her winning bid four weeks ago. Thank goodness all the legal formalities were now out of the way, and she could get on with transforming this slightly unloved house into a wonderful place to live.
Not that she’d be living here herself, of course. This was purely a business transaction—just the latest acquisition in a long line of properties she’d smartened up and sold for a healthy profit.
In the weeks since the auction, Verity had ordered new kitchen units and booked the fitters who were due to arrive shortly. She hadn’t wanted to waste a single second. Years spent working in the high-pressure world of London finance had made her impatient and commercially astute. Despite taking early retirement from that world as a very wealthy woman, she found herself doing mental sums as she walked through the house’s many spacious rooms, calculating what profit she might be able to generate from it. She’d just stopped at the back door to admire the sizable garden when the doorbell rang.
Verity checked her watch and smiled—the fitters were right on time. She smoothed down her smart gray suit, checked her makeup in a hand mirror and, after touching up her dark lipstick, went to let them in.
“Morning, love!” said a cheerful chap in a coffee-stained T-shirt and faded jeans. “Here for a kitchen refit I believe?”
“Yes that’s it. Please come in, right this way. I’m Verity.”
“Nice to meet you, Verity. I’m George.” He whistled as he stepped into the house and saw the scale of its interior. “Nice place you got here. Let me introduce my men. This is Stuart,” George gestured to a tall, middle-aged man who gave Verity a cocky wink, “and this pipsqueak is Joe, my nephew.”
Joe, it was fair to say, was stunning. He was a blond-haired, blue-eyed, youthful beauty with succulent lips and slim hips who looked far too delicate to be doing building work.
“Morning, ma’am.” His voice was soft and respectful, and as he spoke he fixed her with those piercing blue eyes.
Verity shivered, already plotting ways to woo him into her bed. Or onto the floor, or the kitchen table… She wasn’t fussy.
“Now,” said George, bringing her out of this happy reverie, “any chance of a brew?”
“Of course,” replied Verity, “black tea all around?”
The older men both nodded.
“Actually,” said Joe quietly, “have you got anything herbal?”
George and Stuart both snorted with laughter.
“You know what, Joe? I’ve got a ginseng infusion that’s to die for. Ignore the old codgers, they’re just jealous of your refined taste.”
She touched his arm gently on her way to the kettle, and the grateful smile he gave her was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
It quickly turned into a hot, sticky day and Verity wedged the back door open to try and keep the men cool as they stripped out the rickety old kitchen units. Nevertheless, it was hard work and all three were sweating profusely by midmorning.
Verity sat in the kitchen on a folding chair, pretending to research local house prices on her laptop while secretly sneaking glances at her workers. She was delighted when Joe abandoned his T-shirt, displaying his tanned, lithe torso for all the world to see. Every time he bent down to fetch a tool, his faded jeans slipped teasingly down his narrow hips. Verity was in seventh heaven and spent most of the morning nurturing fantasy scenarios about the two of them getting better acquainted.
The men made good progress with the kitchen, and when the clock struck noon, George asked Verity if they could sit in the garden to eat lunch.
“Of course,” she replied, “let’s enjoy the sun. Joe, would you mind helping me with the drinks?”
Now that she’d finally gotten him alone, Verity took the opportunity to find out more about her handsome worker as he poured glasses of lemonade.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Joe?”
“Twenty, ma’am.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but how on earth did a lovely young man like you end up doing building work?”
“I only help Uncle George during the summer; the rest of the time I’m studying for an art degree—which is why I need the money.”
“Oh, how wonderful. You paint?”
“Yes, landscapes sometimes, but mostly portraits. I find people fascinating.”
He locked eyes with Verity just long enough for her to see past his shy veneer and catch a glimpse of the depth and passion that lay underneath. She felt sure he would make a caring and attentive lover, and intended to put this theory to the test sometime in the very near future.
“Well, we better get these drinks out to the troops. Can’t have you all dehydrating.”
They handed out the lemonade and sat outside in the sunshine. As they ate and drank, Verity cast furtive glances at Joe and, more than once, found him looking straight back at her with quiet interest in his eyes.
As much as she would have liked to watch the men work all day, Verity had things to get done in the afternoon. She spent an hour researching new properties on the Internet then drove to local shops for paint and wallpaper samples. While she was walking past the shop fronts, a colorful window display caught her eye. At its center sat a smart wooden case, filled with a kaleidoscope of expensive-looking paints and brushes.
As she stood admiring the case, Verity couldn’t help but think that Joe would love it. And this case wasn’t cheap—he’d have to save up for weeks to afford something like this, while, to her, the cost was inconsequential. She smiled as she entered the shop and made the purchase, thinking how happy this was going to make him.
When she got back to the house, Verity found that the men had made great strides with removing the old kitchen units. She was impressed; at this rate they should have the new kitchen fitted within the week. She felt that familiar excitement; this was going to be another successful renovation. She could picture the finished product so clearly she was almost tempted to move in herself.
That wasn’t how this business worked. It would be no good if she got attached to every property she intended to sell. No, Verity knew, through personal experience, there was no more point growing attached to houses tha
n to any man. Enjoy them both at the time, but keep your distance, she reminded herself.
It wasn’t long before the working day was over and the men packed up to leave.
“Thank you so much for your quick work, see you tomorrow. Oh—Joe?” she grabbed his arm as he was about to step outside. “Could you spare me a few more minutes? I can drop you home later.”
“Sure. I’ll see you two tomorrow.” He waved good-bye to George and Stuart, who walked to their van, nudging each other. They were obviously all too aware of her intentions. Joe, on the other hand, seemed endearingly oblivious.
“I’m happy to try and help, but really I’m just an apprentice. George is a much more experienced builder—”
“Oh shush,” said Verity, leading him into the living room, “I had something far more interesting than my partition walls in mind. Now tell me, Joe, do you find me attractive?”
She had long ago discovered that when it came to seduction, a direct approach was best. She knew she looked good in her high heels and figure-hugging suit, and she wanted Joe to want her. She imagined that beautiful mouth servicing her every need, and dreamt of unleashing the delights hidden beneath his faded jeans. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to pounce on him then and there.
A flush reddened his cheeks, and he fiddled with his watch nervously. “I’m flattered, but I’m not sure about this… I mean, I work for you…”
“Technically you work for George.”
She removed her jacket and dropped it casually to the floor, keeping her eyes on his as she did so. Then she undid the top three buttons of her blouse to reveal a hint of cleavage.
“Wow, I feel like I’m in The Graduate,” he joked.
“And does that turn you on? The thought of being with an older woman?”
“Ummm…” said Joe.
He was tongue-tied. So cute, she thought. He hadn’t retreated from her, but he also didn’t appear to know what he should do next. Obviously, she was going to have to make the first move here. She advanced toward him, undoing the remainder of her blouse buttons, and then shedding the garment. Stepping closer, she pinned him against the living room wall and looked into his face. His nostrils were flared, his pupils dilated. His breaths had shortened to faint ragged panting. So, he was aroused…
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