by Nina Crespo
“Ninety-four? Don’t you mean ninety-nine?”
“Nope, but the other six percent you don’t want to hear about unless you’re heavily medicated, trust me.”
“You’re so bad.” Jasmine laughed. “But we’re not changing the subject. Why are you so adamant about this? You said you wanted to help Drew close the deal. Making over his closet was a benefit you threw in. You also just started kinda-sorta sleeping with him. Maybe this time you shouldn’t push so hard. There could be a good reason why he’s not on board with making changes. Stop trying to fix him. He’s not broken.”
Tab bit back her argument. Drew battled the past through his obsessions, being over-controlling and rigid, and not showing his feelings. It was as if wearing the same clothes provided armor for him. Why? She didn’t know yet, but she’d find out. Her clients usually started opening up once the transformation began.
Drew’s not your client.
Tab tucked the last tie in place. He needed to know people cared about him, she cared about him. Not backing down in this was her way of showing it. Curiosity pulled her to the drawers built into the wall. As she opened and closed each one, the smell of cedar and laundry soap mixed in with the lingering scent of Drew’s cologne drifted into the air. She opened the third one. Oh, yeah. Those could stay. Smiling, she closed the drawer and went back to the ties.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Jasmine said. “I’m the last person to tell you not to mix business with sex, but if you think playing naked fairy-godmother-with-benefits will gain points with him, you’ve inhaled too much magic sexy dust.” Murmurs from a deep masculine voice came through the phone. Jasmine giggled. “In a minute, Ethan. What did I tell you about ear hustling my conversation?” Loud smacking kisses came through clearly over the phone.
She sounds so happy. A wistful pang of longing tugged in her chest. She wanted Drew to come back so they could pick up where they left off—getting to know each other without arguments getting in the way. She wanted to look in his eyes and know thoughts of Shana hadn’t consumed headspace he could use for something else. Like planning to have a life not locked down by restrictions. Doing this without him might make him a little upset when he came home, but she’d come up with something over the weekend. A smile pushed away the sadness. Maybe the tie-kini had other uses.
“Sorry, Tab. So, have I gotten through to you at all about this?”
The colorful ties stood out, bold, beautiful, meant to be paired with new things. “I vote for inhaling more sexy dust and twerkin’ and swervin’ my ass down the road of forgiveness.”
“No you didn’t just use swerve and twerk in the same sentence.” Jasmine’s laughter fueled hers.
“Oh yes, I did. In fact, I’m swervin’ and twerkin’ right now.” She danced to the imaginary beat and added in a booty shake. “And if I have to use what I got to put a spell on him…” A strange sensation tingled along her spine. She looked over her shoulder, and her heart jolted to triple time. Drew, a total package of handsome…albeit, unhappy handsome blocked the doorway.
“Tab… Tab, are you there?” Jasmine called out.
“Hey, Jasmine. Gotta go. Bye.” She took the earpiece out and laid it on a shelf stacked with T-shirts. “You’re back early.”
“My meetings kept getting…interrupted.” His voice remained calm, but irritation blazed in his eyes. He moved in slowly.
She took a step back and held up her hands. “Hold on a minute. If you would have answered my messages about rescheduling the tailor, I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
“You mean you wouldn’t have decided to send me naked selfies of you.”
“I wasn’t naked. I had clothes on.”
“Yeah. Mine.”
Even angry, he looked good. She’d missed him so much. The argument she’d prepared for this moment tangled with the urge to throw herself at him and plant a hello kiss on his lips.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Really?” He smirked with a disbelieving look and glanced at the open tie cabinet. “You came into my bedroom…”
“You said to make myself at home.”
“And you went through my closet.”
“No, I went through this cabinet to look through your ties.”
“What do I have more of, boxers or briefs?”
Lie…lie…lie. No…no…no. Her inner saint battled with the same evil twin that had gotten her and her hoo-haa in trouble ten years ago. “Well, I had to look around to find your ties.” That was good. Somewhere in between confirm and deny.
Pinning her with a sexier male version of Jasmine’s arm-twisting truth-stare, he stepped within inches. His cologne surrounded her. The heat of his body radiated over her. Her knees grew weak. “What do I have more of, boxers or briefs?”
“Briefs.” She dropped her gaze. A distinct ridge grew underneath the zipper of his slacks. She swallowed dryness from her throat. “No plans to change that.”
He took off his burgundy tie and held it up. “What about this one? Does it stay or go?”
Everything should go, the tie, the shirt. “That’s up to you.”
Drew dropped it on the pile and crowded her space. “And what should I do about you?”
“I don’t understand.”
He grasped her hips. Dread and awareness played tug-of-war in her middle as he leaned near her ear. “Wrong answer.”
Chapter Seventeen
He’d awakened after very little sleep, highly pissed and horny as hell, to find a selfie of her in nothing but his ties knotted over her breasts and hips. He’d delegated tasks, made the necessary approvals, and left. What he’d say to her had played in his mind the entire flight home. She’d gone through his closet without permission. Worn his clothes in ways that guaranteed him sporting wood every time he’d put them on. Used sexy photos to do what? Convince him? Drive him crazy so he wouldn’t notice her carting off his clothes? He wasn’t one of her causes in her crusade to change the world one closet at a time.
The image of Tab bent over, moving her ass in tiny shorts to her own sensual beat flashed into his mind. Fuck it. Having a conversation about boundaries could wait.
Drew claimed her mouth. It wasn’t about finesse or taking it slow, but about making up for all he’d lost because of her. A lost temper, loss of sleep, loss of control, lost moments of sanity over those damn selfies. All he could think about was the softness of her mouth, the silky feel of her skin. What it felt like to be inside of her. He should have deleted the photos, but he kept looking at them. He ended up with a hard-on no amount of hand jobs in the shower could take care of. He had to put his ass on the company jet to find relief in the source of his pain.
He tore apart the knot at her waist and touched skin that was even silkier than he remembered. He kissed her harder, and she dueled with his tongue glide for glide. She reached for his belt buckle. He grabbed her hands. If she touched him, he’d come like a virgin school-boy.
“No, not yet.” First he’d drive her crazy and senseless to the point where the only thing that came out of her mouth was his name over and over again. He dragged down a tie from the rack and looped it around her wrists. A hint of excitement penetrated the haze of desire in her gaze, and his heart stuttered in his chest. “You like being tied up?”
She swallowed. “Maybe a little.”
The look in her eyes said more than a little, totally in line with the hell yeah in his mind. He pushed apart the suits behind her. Raised Tab’s hands above her head, and tied her to the closet rod. “You should have told me. We could have done this a long time ago.”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.” She trailed her tongue over her bottom lip and arched her back.
He curved his hands around her breasts and her pink nipples beaded. He raised her breasts higher, pushed them together, and lashed over her nipples with his tongue. Tab’s breathing grew unsteady. She whimpered as he sucked one into his mouth and squeezed the other between his fingers.
&n
bsp; Reaching between them, he unfastened the rivet closure and zipper of her shorts to slip his fingers past lace. He trailed along her cleft and sank in, rubbing her clit with shallow strokes. Tab’s hips bucked against his hand and she rose higher on her toes. “Drew…please.”
He drove in deeper until her pussy gripped his fingers. Beautiful. Wet. Fuckable. His.
Head thrown back, eyes closed, Tab caught the rhythm of his thrusts. “Yes…yes…like that.” Scarlet coloring rose up Tab’s throat. He leaned in, nipping and sucking the delicate skin into his mouth. Gentle flutters became clenching pulses around his fingers. The musk of sexual arousal wafted into his nostrils. His heart pounded and his cock ached in anticipation of all that incredible silky heat. Tab rocked her hips faster with her cries growing louder as she rode her way to pleasure on her fingers. Her orgasm settled. No longer able to wait, he untied her hands, picked her straight up, and carried her to the bed.
He laid her down, toed off his shoes, and tore at his clothing. Still relaxed and slumberous from her orgasm, she treated him to a torturous strip tease of peeling off her shirt and slipping her shorts and lace panties down her legs. His gaze locked on the slow glide of her hands over her breasts and down her belly. She bent her legs and put her feet on the bed, knees open, and his lungs hijacked the air inside of his chest as she slid two of her fingers into her sex. While she pleasured herself, she glided her other hand back up to her breast, feathered her dusky nipple with her fingers, and then pinched the tight, turgid peak. She looked hungrily up at him from underneath her lashes before her eyes fluttered closed with a low moan. She was a woman who knew her body, knew what she liked, and that turned him on even more.
He crawled between her legs to sweep his palms from knee to inner thigh. “Damn, you look fucking beautiful doing that.” He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until Tab stopped stroking herself and removed her fingers.
He looked up, and she lifted her arms, reaching out for him. “But, I’d rather have you.”
Her low, husky voice was like a tug, and his balls tightened in anticipation. She was so responsive, so sexy, and so open, thinking of all the possibilities broke him out in sweat.
“Tell me what you want.”
Tab hesitated, opened her mouth as if to say something, then sunk her teeth into her bottom lip.
“No way, Tab. You’ve never held back. Don’t start now.” Not in the only place they seem to find common ground.
“My purse.” He followed her gaze to where it lay on the other side of the bed. “Inside pocket.”
…
Hard core whips and bondage weren’t her thing, but sex as a main dish with a little erotic thrill on the side was.
Drew went to her purse and found the lipstick vibe. “Is this what you want?”
She nodded.
He stared at the vibe, then her, and his cock swelled between his legs. As he crawled onto the bed beside her, vibe and condom in hand, her whole body flushed with a rush of longing.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She looked up into his gaze. It wasn’t a throwaway question. He never went halfway. If she surrendered to him, the single-mindedness he applied to everything in his life would now be focused completely on her. The dawn of realization spread tingles through her chest. Any other time she’d push and try to persuade him her way, but here, this moment she needed to let him take control. “Yes, I do.”
“Keep your hands above your head.”
“You could tie me back up.”
He knelt between her legs, and laid the vibe and condom to the side. “Later. Right now, lie back and enjoy it.”
She lay back on the pillows, quivers in her belly as he smoothed palms up her legs from knees to inner thighs and glided to his destination. He lightly stroked his thumbs up her slit and delicious warmth flowed through her. Moaning, she sunk her head into the pillows and lifted her hips into his hands. He stroked her again, this time with a little more pressure breaching her slickened inner flesh and flicking the pad of his thumb over her clit.
“Feel good?” he asked huskily.
A hard shudder moved through Tab and she curled her toes into the mattress, her sighs hovering in her throat. “Yes,” she whispered.
He reached beside him, and her mouth dried out in hearing the purr of the vibrator. He glided it along her inner thigh. Every nerve ending awakened. He stroked the vibe and his hand over and around her thighs but avoided the place she wanted touched the most. He moved the vibe closer, running it softly along the cleft of her sex, and she clutched the pillow and moaned. Each soft stroke stole air from her lungs. All she could take in were shallow breaths. Drew sank the vibe deeper and grazed her clit. Electric-like tingles of ecstasy jolted through her. He repeated the sensual torture again and again until she cried out, clutching the pillow as she writhed on the mattress.
So good, too wonderful, she’d die before he was done. One hard shudder of pleasure arched her body from the bed and she put her hands down, clutching the sheets. Drew took the vibrator away.
“No…don’t stop,” she groaned.
His soft chuckle warmed her skin, and he kissed her inner thigh. “Lift. Your. Hands.”
She met his gaze and the lust in his eyes heightened her need. She lifted her arms and tightly curled her fingers into the pillow, turned on even more by the command in his voice.
Drew switched on the toy and teased her flesh with quick buzzing pulses, and she fought to keep her hands in place. He added to the sensual torture, stroking his fingers into her before she lost all control. She arched her hips, meeting his thrusts, lost to the orgasm that was taking over. Her thighs shook, her belly quivered, heat blazed over skin as it hit her hard.
“Fuck.” Drew turned off the vibe, held her open, and plunged his tongue inside of her.
Spasms bordering on pleasure and pain tugged through her middle. “No…no more…please, I can’t,” she begged, squeezing her thighs around his head.
He grunted unintelligibly, took hold of her hips, but gentled to slow, long laps with his tongue. “Please baby, I need a little more.”
Sated on an erotic high of sensation, she willed herself to breathe as his soft, warm tongue stroked her. No man in her life had given her so much in bed. Drew moved away to put on the condom. He moved over her and on the way up he paused to lave and suck at her nipples. Every tug of his lips shot to her core. She gripped his head, battling between wanting him there, filling her aching sex.
He stretched over her, claimed her mouth, and drove in deep. They sighed and moaned together. “I want to give you more,” he rasped out. “But I need you hard and fast.”
The way she wanted. “Do it.” She wrapped her legs high on his waist as he molded his hands to her ass and drove into her, skin slapping against skin.
“So good…so tight.” Drew’s muscles tightened and he grew rigid, groaning as he found release.
Tab met him there, lifting her hips, giving him all he demanded, willing to give him more.
Later, she lay with him, drowsy and content, Drew spooned against her back. She soaked in his warmth and reveled in his strong arms wrapped around her. Miami in the morning. Why did she have to go?
The rumbling of a truck filtered in from outside and she sat up. “Oh shit.” She’d almost forgotten.
Drew’s brow lowered with a wary look. “Who’s outside?”
She slipped out of his grasp and got dressed. So much for the plan and having a few days to come up with her great excuse, but it was just a small change. He wouldn’t mind. Right?
Tab averted her gaze and focused on buttoning the white shirt. “You see, there’s this shelter downtown that provides interview clothes to people who can’t afford to buy them. I thought it would be a great place to donate some of your ties…and shirts.” She peeped from under her lashes. “And maybe a few suits, but I bought replacements. They may still need a little more tailoring. I used one of your suits as a guide for the measurements.”
>
Drew’s face remained expressionless.
She fumbled the next button as her heart bumped hard against her ribcage. Oh no. She’d blown it.
He finally chuckled. “You don’t give up, do you?” His bare chest rose and fell with a long breath as he lay, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll do it on one condition. After this, you let it go for the rest of the week.”
Not mad. Yes! She jumped on the bed, straddled Drew, and peppered him with kisses. “Deal. You won’t regret it.”
He cupped her face. “I mean it, Tab. Let this be enough for now. We’re not going discuss this or deal with anything else that will interfere with our weekend.”
The doorbell rang.
“Tab…” He brought them nose-to-nose and his hazel brown gaze held hers.
“Promise.” She smacked a loud kiss to his lips, hopped off the bed, and ran out of the bedroom. It wasn’t a whole closet, but he’d made a start. This could open the door to more changes…and a reason for more long weekends in the future.
Chapter Eighteen
Half asleep, Tab buried deeper in the pillows. Rain. The one thing she didn’t need to deal with on her drive. Maybe it would stop before morning. Ugh. Did she have to leave? Yeah, she had a job to do. A souvenir for the road might help cheer her up, though. She should convince Drew to make whole-grain pancakes for breakfast. He could eat them and she could lick syrup off his abs.
Smiling, she shifted closer to the middle of the bed, expecting his warmth. As she became fully awake, she sat up and brushed her bangs from her eyes. Not rain, the shower. Why was Drew taking one in the middle of the night? Had he slipped out of bed for a workout? He’d done it before when he couldn’t sleep. She lay back down and waited, listening to the steady drone of water on tile.
She could go in there. He wouldn’t mind. Unlike in the past with her other boyfriends, she’d quickly gotten over her inhibitions about sharing bathroom space. She could easily imagine doing her hair and makeup while he shaved wearing nothing but a towel. It amazed her how doing simple everyday tasks with him like fixing a meal, cleaning up the kitchen, or tucking in the sheets on the bed felt so…right.
