by Nina Lane
“Now you can cross that off your bucket list.” He turned his attention back to the binders.
“You have a really nice smile, Gavin,” Mia remarked. “You should lead with that.”
“Instead of?”
“Instead of this stern Roman emperor thing you’ve got going on.” She rose, picking up her empty bowl of ice cream. “Do you want anything to drink? I can make you my famous caramel-chocolate mochaccino, so you can have a delicious taste of something besides ‘black coffee, no sugar’.”
“No, thank you.”
“What about ice cream? I have chocolate chip or strawberry, but I’m guessing you don’t eat ice cream, do you?”
“I do not.”
She rolled her eyes and snarkily mouthed the words “I do not” as she opened the freezer and took out a carton of chocolate chip. Little brat. Again he had the urge to turn her over his knee and spank her for being sassy. A fantasy he’d jacked off to more than once.
From the corner of his eye, he watched her scoop more ice cream into her bowl. Her robe was pale blue with little flowers, the hem falling to her knees and leaving her smooth calves bare. The knot in the belt was starting to come loose. One tug and he could pull it right off her, see if she wore anything underneath.
Shit. He was getting hard.
Mia closed the freezer and returned to the table with her bowl. She caught his glance and smiled ruefully.
“Late dinner,” she said. “A friend and I went to check out this new bar for happy hour after work, but it turned out to be a dive with dirty tables and warm beer. Needless to say, we cut the evening short.”
Gavin’s shoulders tensed. He disliked the vague term a friend.
“What kind of friend?” he asked.
“Why, Mr. Knight.” Mia ate a spoonful of ice cream, her eyebrows lifting. “Are you asking because you’re a teensy bit jealous that the friend might have been of the male species?”
Irritation scraped his insides. “I am not.”
“The friend was Susan.” Mia sighed, mushing the ice cream with her spoon. “I haven’t had a boyfriend in, like, a year. Just a bunch of college boy dating. Which is totally fun, but predictable, you know?”
“I do not.”
The thought of her dating “a bunch” of horny college boys, however… that made him want to break something.
“Given your penchant for flirting, I’m surprised the boys aren’t lined up at your door,” he said.
“Oh, I get a lot of offers.” She waved her spoon in the air and spoke without conceit, as if she were merely stating a fact. “But none of them are really interesting. I guess it’s okay because I like to go out and have fun, but… I don’t know. A year ago, Polly was at this total dead end, and now look at her with Luke and her business and everything. Our friend Jessica just got engaged, and our other friend Mary moved to New York last month to take a job with a news agency. It kind of sucks when your friends are doing all this cool stuff, and your big news is that you went to a new blues club with Johnny, who’s in his fifth year at San Jose State and wants to be a musician because he’s been playing saxophone for a full week.”
She fell silent, staring at her bowl before looking up at him with a grimace.
“Way to spill my guts, huh?” A pink flush rose to her cheeks. “Sorry. I have no idea where that all came from. So what… you need the reception floor plan or something?”
He stood, pushing his chair back. Mia blinked up at him, her eyes green as a forest. He opened the refrigerator. A pizza box, a few cans of soda, and a jar of peanut butter sat on the shelves.
“Is this usually how your fridge is stocked?” he asked.
“I eat out a lot.”
“And when you’re home, you eat ice cream and other junk.”
Her eyebrows snapped together. “What do you care?”
What did he care? He wasn’t into analyzing his psyche, but over the past year, he’d grown unwillingly fond of Mia Donovan. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he’d looked forward to seeing her whenever he went into Wild Child. If she wasn’t there, he’d been disappointed.
In her short skirts and sweaters, twirling a lock of blond hair around her finger, swinging her crossed leg, leaning too close to him at the counter, batting her long eyelashes at him… fuck if he hadn’t started to enjoy that. To enjoy her.
“It’s important that you eat right,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the advice, Daddy.”
He closed the refrigerator. The “daddy” affected him even more than the “sir” had, spearing him with both heat and steely possessiveness.
“It’s not advice,” he said. “It’s a statement of fact.”
“Let me guess.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder with a scoff. “You live by statements of fact and a rigid routine. You eat the same thing every day, meals carefully calibrated to maximize their nutritional impact, you have a daily workout regimen that you do first thing in the morning, you arrive at work at the exact same time every day, and you follow a strict schedule utterly devoid of surprises.”
She’d hit the mark too close for his comfort. Much as he needed his routine and schedule, he disliked the reminder that she enjoyed ice cream for dinner and spontaneity.
“Surprises are a menace,” he said. “Routine is not.”
“A menace?” She laughed, the sound like little silver bells. “What about surprise parties or presents?”
He shook his head. “Not for me.”
“Really? Why not?”
“You can’t prepare for a surprise,” Gavin said. “You can’t plan or offer input. They come out of nowhere, and you’re forced to react in a way you might not want to. You have no control over a surprise.”
“That’s the point.”
“That’s why I don’t like them.”
She huffed out an exasperated laugh and turned back to her ice cream, crossing her legs in a way that made her robe slide up on her thigh. His gaze went to the golden length of her leg, his hand twitching with the urge to stroke her smooth skin.
Hell if he didn’t want to discover all her surprises.
He forced his gaze back to her face. She watched him with a playful expression, like she knew exactly the effect she had on him. Of course she did, the little minx. She swirled her tongue around the spoon, licking up the ice cream dripping down the handle. Lust snapped through him, the strike of a whip.
“So what makes Control Freak Gavin Knight lose control, hmm?” Mia asked.
“Keep licking the spoon like that and you’ll find out.” His voice was rough, edged with self-restraint.
“You mean like this?” Mia batted her eyelashes at him as she licked her way back to the top of the spoon.
Gavin shook his head, torn between wanting to give her more ice cream or hauling her into his arms and kissing her senseless.
“Brat,” he murmured.
“Spoilsport who doesn’t know surprises are what makes life fun.”
She dropped the spoon back into the bowl and rose to set it in the sink.
Her sweet, vanilla scent filled his head. Her robe gaped open more, exposing the curve of her breast. His blood heated into full boil.
She turned, her gaze colliding with his. A smear of ice cream decorated her upper lip. He wanted to finally taste that rosebud mouth.
He unclenched his hand from the refrigerator door handle and reached for the front of her robe. Her eyes widened. He fisted the material and pulled her closer until a few scant inches separated them.
“You like to tease me, don’t you?” His body tensed at her nearness, his dick pressing against the fly of his trousers.
Her throat rippled with a swallow. Uncertainty flashed in her expression, as if she were suddenly questioning whether it had been a good idea to push him this far.
“Well, you’re just so… hard,” she said. “No man has ever ignored me the way you do. I was just waiting for something to happen.”
He lifted his o
ther hand to cup her chin. “And what did you hope would happen, honey?”
“I guess I just wanted your attention.” She scowled, wrinkling her cute little nose. “Past tense. Wanted. Maybe I don’t like you anymore.”
“I doubt that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so now you think you know what I like and don’t like?”
“You like vanilla cupcakes and the color pink. You like boys with curly hair, margaritas, Zumba, and a band called the Riders. Your favorite book is The Secret Garden, your favorite restaurant is Lotus Indian Cuisine, and your favorite movie is The Princess Bride. You like music apps, Dungeness crab, penguins, a show called Curlicue, and the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park. You also like helping your friends and being loyal.”
Mia stared at him. “How do you know all that?”
“A year of noticing you.”
“I thought you barely knew I existed.”
He bit back a laugh. “I know you exist. In fact, you have my full, undivided attention. So now what?”
And what the hell was he getting himself into?
Chapter
FOUR
Now what?
She had no idea. Her mind was blank. All she could do was stand there with his hand fisted in her robe and his blue eyes pinning her to the spot. She’d had countless fantasies about what might happen the day Gavin Knight finally noticed her—fantasies ranging from him fucking her powerfully her on the bakery counter to them walking off arm in arm to share a chocolate milkshake.
She’d never once imagined them standing in her tiny kitchen, the air thick, with Gavin holding her in place and asking what happened next.
The heavy silence stretched into an eternity. She was trapped in his gaze, like a butterfly caught in a jar. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but the cadence of his breathing had shifted and a pulse ticked visibly in his jaw.
She’d gotten to him. After all this time, maybe she was about to discover that security operative Gavin Knight wasn’t quite as impassive as he’d always seemed.
“Now…” She darted her tongue out to lick her lips. “Now you can kiss me.”
Her heart beat wildly. His eyes darkened. For an instant, she thought he’d shake his head and move away, call her a silly girl, but instead he drew her closer with a firm grip.
Her breathing grew shallow. She lifted her hands tentatively to his chest. Pleasure washed through her. His hard, solid muscles beneath her fingers and the body heat that flowed clear up her arms sent her reeling. He felt better than she’d imagined, and she yearned to slide her hands under his shirt, touch the taut, bare skin of his abs…
Like an eagle swooping to a nest, he lowered his head and slanted his mouth across hers. There was no fumbling, no hesitation, no uncertainty. Gavin Knight was a man who knew how to take what he wanted. And take her he did—urging her lips apart, sliding his tongue into her mouth, tasting every part of her. He moved his hands to the sides of her neck and up to cradle her head, titling her face to just the right angle so he could plunder her mouth with his.
Mia’s knees went weak. She tightened her fingers on his shirtfront, her whole body swaying toward him. Everything inside her came alive—blood pulsing, nerves firing, heart pounding. In all the times she’d imagined him kissing her, she’d never dreamed it could be so exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Like she was falling, spinning downward into a galaxy of stars without knowing where she would land.
He moved one hand from her neck and unfastened the belt of her robe.
Oh my God… a moan escaped her as his strong, callused hands caressed the bare skin of her midriff. Aside from a pair of pink bikini panties, she was naked. A hint of anxiety coiled inside her.
He lifted his head from hers. He grabbed her wrists and placed her hands behind her on the counter. Her robe fell open fully, revealing her bare breasts, the curve of her waist, her taut belly hugged by the pink cotton of her panties. Gavin stepped away and raked his gaze over her body as if he were about to devour her.
Probably he was. Her breathing quickened. She’d never been shy about her body, but with him staring at her like that, radiating experience and potent masculine heat, a wave of self-consciousness struck her.
“Pretty.” Gavin drew one finger between her breasts all the way down to the edge of her panties. “Do you wax?”
She squirmed. A flush rose to her cheeks. “Yes.”
An approving rumble sounded deep in his chest, like a lion claiming his territory. Her clit throbbed. He could probably make her come just by making those sounds.
“I want to see you too.” She gripped the counter, twitching as he continued tracing the edge of her panties, barely slipping his finger beneath the elastic.
“Not now.”
“But…”
“Quiet.”
The implacable tone of his voice silenced her. She wasn’t certain how she felt about that. As much as she’d been after him, she hadn’t known, not really, if she could handle the dominance and rigidity that were such an intrinsic part of him.
In theory, those qualities were one of the reasons she was so attracted to him, but she hadn’t considered what it would be like to contend with them in reality.
Now she was about to find out, and her entire being tingled with a riotous combination of nervousness, disbelief, and an excitement unlike any she’d ever felt before.
Gavin slid his hands back up to cup her breasts, flicking his thumbs over her nipples. Aside from his hard breathing and the massive bulge pressing against his fly, he was still totally in control of himself.
Unlike Mia, whose tenuous control began to slip away like raindrops falling down a windowpane. She shifted to press her breasts into his palms, mesmerized by the sight of his big, tanned hands against her pale skin, his long fingers twisting her nipples so expertly that currents of heat flowed to her core.
“God, Gavin,” she whispered, flexing and unflexing her fingers on the counter’s edge. “That feels so good.”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “So do you.”
He stroked his hands over her belly and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties. Mia’s breath stuck in her throat as he pulled them slowly over her hips and halfway down her thighs, revealing her smooth vulva and the wet evidence of her arousal. He slipped one finger over her mons and into her cleft.
“Fucking perfect,” he whispered, his voice guttural and rough.
She shuddered, arching her back to encourage his deeper penetration. “Gavin, I…”
“Do you want to come, little girl?”
She curled one hand around his rock-hard biceps, trying to stay upright. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, please… oh!”
He pushed his finger into her opening, circling his thumb around her clit. Urgency burst over her veins. She tightened her grip on him, lightheadedness sweeping through her. He wrapped one arm around her waist, hauling her against him, his other hand still working her sex with expert precision.
She closed her eyes, turning her face into his chest. His heart hammered, the thump echoing into her bones. Her body vibrated with the need for release. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that after all this time, Gavin Knight was holding her and touching her like this.
Her arousal coiled tighter and tighter, pulling her upward. He was saying something, his voice a low reverberation in his chest, but she couldn’t make out the sound of his words. He lowered his head to her ear. His hot breath brushed the side of her neck, sending tingles racing down her spine.
“Come on, my little flirt,” he whispered roughly. “You think I haven’t noticed you all these months? Your perfect tits under those tight sweaters you wear. Your hard nipples. The way you cross your legs and wiggle around in your chair. Are you thinking dirty thoughts when do you that? Getting wet? You don’t know how many times I’ve imagined bending you over a table and spreading your legs. Easing my dick into your sweet pussy, nice and slow,
before fucking you hard. Hearing you moan and beg before you come with a scream.”
Holy shit.
She couldn’t take it. She circled her hips, silently pleading with him to increase the pressure and send her careening into bliss. He did, thrusting his fingers into her while simultaneously rubbing her clit.
“Gavin… I’m… oh!”
Her body went up in flames. She gripped him hard, squeezing her eyes shut as overwhelming sensations cascaded through her. His voice shifted to a murmur, his one hand easing the lingering vibrations from her and the other splayed firmly against her back. She shook and moaned, suffused in an exquisite pleasure that she never wanted to end. He held her through it, his arms a velvet-and-steel circle of protection.
Mia drew in a ragged breath. Awareness came back to her slowly. Aside from her open robe and the panties tangled around her thighs, she was naked and still trembling.
In Gavin Knight’s arms.
His shirtfront was damp with his sweat against her cheek, his erection pushing into her belly. Even through his trousers, she felt the hot throb of his shaft, could only imagine letting him slide that massive length into her.
She shivered, her pussy clenching. Was he going to—
He pulled her robe back over her shoulders and fastened the belt. Mia stepped away, sudden heat rising to her cheeks. Aside from the burn in his eyes, Gavin’s expression revealed little of own arousal. He bent, sliding her panties down her legs.
Mia stepped out of them, bracing her hand on his shoulder. He gathered the pink panties in his fist and straightened. She held out her hand for them. Amusement glinted in his eyes before he stuffed her panties into his trouser pocket.
She stared at him. “You… you’re keeping my panties?”
“Mmm.” He walked to the table and began packing up his laptop.
“That’s a little creepy.”
He shrugged. “Do you want them back?”
She didn’t, actually. The thought of her panties tucked away in his pocket made her feel warm, cozy, and dirty all at the same time.
“No,” she admitted. “Just don’t tell anyone you have them.”
