Temptation

by K. M. Scott

  Throwing the phone back onto the bed, I ran my hand down the front of my silk pajama pants, cupping my already hard cock. With any luck, Trina would do the trick. If not, then maybe I’d have to step up my efforts to get Olivia out of my system.

  * * *

  “TGIF, big brother! You doing anything interesting tonight?” Stefan asked as he barged into my office and sat down in front of my desk at seven o’clock on Friday night. He had a twinkle in his eye, which told me he thought he was being clever or he’d just gotten laid.

  God above, please let it be that he’s just being clever.

  Crossing my arms, I stared across my desk at his grinning face. “Nothing that would concern you. Shouldn’t you be out on the floor getting ready?”

  “I have time. I just thought I’d stop in and see my favorite big brother.”

  “Favorite? You and Kane on the outs again?”

  Stefan threw back his head and laughed. “No, but he’s only my half big brother. Not blood like us, Cash.”

  I leveled my gaze on him, suspicious of his motives. Something was going on. “We all have the same father, Stef. We’re all blood. So what do you want?”

  He licked his lips like an animal about to feast on prey he’d just killed. “A little birdy told me something interesting and I just thought I’d see how true it is.”

  I hated when he was like this. It made being civil to him almost impossible. In fact, it made me want to knock the annoying fuck right on his ass. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to my laptop. “I don’t have time for your games, baby brother. Whatever you heard likely isn’t true, and even if it is, it’s likely none of your business.”

  My dismissal of him didn’t work. Intent on irritating me, he continued. “I hear that one of my brothers has a new woman in his life.”

  Attempting to remain cool, I shot him a look intended to make him think I didn’t care, but my fingers stilled on my keyboard at what I knew was a reference to Olivia. “Nice to see Kane getting out. I wouldn’t fuck with him and whatever woman he has in his life now. If he doesn’t kick your nosy ass, she likely will.”

  Stefan laughed again, this time even louder. “As much as the idea of Kane’s possible girlfriend scares the hell out of me, it’s not that brother I’m talking about. I can’t believe you’d keep this a secret from me, Cash. I thought we were closer than that.”

  I stared at him in amazement. Closer than that? And fucking Kane gossiping to Stefan like some kind of schoolgirl. I thought I could trust him. “There’s nothing to tell, Stefan. Drop it, and tell Kane to drop it too.”

  “What’s Kane have to do with this?”

  Turning away from my computer, I folded my arms across my chest and shot my younger brother a look of disgust. “He’s the one who told you, isn’t he?”

  “No. Rachel told me the other day at the gym. So who is this mystery woman?”

  A surge of rage coursed through my veins at the thought of my ex and my brother gossiping about my personal business. And fucking Rachel! Why I ever thought I could trust that conniving bitch was beyond me.

  “Go away, Stefan, and don’t spend your time believing what my ex has to say,” I bit out, barely able to contain my anger at the two of them.

  He stood and took a step toward the door before turning around. “I didn’t mean anything bad by that, Cash. I just wondered.”

  “I’ve told you before, little brother. Don’t stick your nose in my business, unless you want to endanger what you have here.”

  I turned away from Stefan, not wanting him to see how furious I was about him and Rachel going behind my back once again. He closed the door, and I slammed my hand down on the top of my desk. Fucking bitch! And she wondered why I’d never forgiven her.

  At midnight, I left my office and scanned the club for any sight of Stefan. I didn’t need him ruining Olivia’s fantasy, regardless of how I felt about her. I saw him pawing up one of the bartenders behind the bar at the far end of the club, so I quickly headed up the stairs toward the room I knew Olivia would be waiting in, still angry about Stefan’s visit hours before. As if our being blood meant a fucking thing to him. He’d betray me again in a heartbeat, but this time if he did, Olivia could be the one to get hurt.

  Kane stood at the top of the stairs at his usual perch watching all the action in his area. I had to give it to him. The guy had every chance to fuck dozens of women every night, yet he never did anything to endanger us or the club’s reputation. I could trust my half-brother more than the one I’d grown up with.

  “Nice to see you again, Cash. It is Friday, though, so not a total surprise.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned forward toward me. “By the way, Stefan knows you’ve been seeing someone. He spent two hours earlier tonight pumping me for information. I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Thanks, Kane. What room is she in?” I asked, consciously sidestepping any discussion of Stefan and his childish antics.

  “Halfway down on the right. You’ll see the gold emblem on the door.”

  Nodding, I left him and headed toward Olivia, strangely needing to see her again like this. After hours of insomnia focused on her, I’d tried to fuck her out of my mind with Trina, but it hadn’t worked. All that happened was I had sex with someone as I pretended it was her.

  Maybe it was time to admit I wasn’t going to get this woman out of my head until I slept with her. It had worked with every other woman after Rachel, so why wouldn’t it work with this one? Once she admitted she knew it was me there with her, I’d make my move tonight. If I didn’t, I was never going to shake her.

  I entered the room and found Olivia there sitting silently on the chair with her blindfold on. Instead of the black skirt and beige blouse I’d seen her in all day, she wore a blue sundress and looked innocent and gentle waiting for me. She turned her head toward me as the door clicked closed but said nothing as I approached her.

  “Hello, Olivia,” I said quietly as stepped next to her.

  “Hello,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  She lifted her hand to touch my shirt and traced the outline of a single button. Lowering her head, she said quietly, “I thought you might not come tonight.”

  I took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips. Kissing her fingertips, I watched her bite her lower lip as my tongue grazed her skin. “Tell me what you want, Olivia.”

  Under her blindfold, her brows knitted. As she sat silently, a frown marred her beautiful mouth. I needed to hear her tell me what she wanted and let me know she knew who was seducing her.

  Finally, she sighed deeply and answered in a tentative voice that hit me deep inside in a place I thought I’d hidden away forever. “I want you.”

  All I had to do was fuck her and all these things that made her so appealing—so charming that I wanted to let myself be someone who could let her in—all of it would disappear. She’d become just another in the long line of women I kept at arm’s length, around when I wanted them and absent when I didn’t. It was all so simple.

  Then why the fuck was I standing there wanting to take her in my arms and make love to her like someone who truly cared?

  “I can give you what you want. All you need to do is let yourself go, Olivia. Can you let yourself go and enjoy this thing between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you, Olivia. I want to see you tremble with need as I devour you. I’m going to fuck you so good you won’t be able to walk after I’m done with you.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice full of desire as I leaned in to brush my lips against her ear.

  “If I slide my hand under that pretty dress, will my fingers get wet with your juices?”

  She whimpered and squeezed her thighs together to ease an ache I knew existed between them. All I had to do was take my cock out and I could have her right there. She was primed.

  Her mouth searched for mine, slanting over my lips when she found them. Eagerly, her tongue slid again
st mine, and I imagined how incredible it would feel moving up and down my cock, her head bobbing sweetly as she sucked me off. I held the back of her head and fisted her hair in my hand, tugging roughly even as she mewed her need into my mouth.

  I wanted her. And as much as I hated to admit it, I needed her. I needed her in my bed. In my life.

  Olivia’s hands burrowed under my shirt, her nails dragging against my chest as she worked to remove the fabric separating the two of us. The shy girl had blossomed into a woman who knew what she wanted. Her hand slid inside my pants and palmed my cock as she sucked the tip of my tongue in a preview of what I knew those lips would feel like wrapped around me.

  But still she hadn’t told me she knew it was me. She needed to show me she knew. I’d give her one more chance. Breaking our kiss, I leaned back away from her and watched her beautiful face register her confusion. All she had to do was say my name.

  “Olivia…”

  She moved her hands to touch me, but I was just out of her reach as I waited for her to say the one word I needed to hear. Instead, she said, “Please…”

  I left her sitting there, still waiting to hear my name as I closed the door behind me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Olivia

  The pain of rejection still stung the next morning as I lay in bed going over every moment of my time with Cash, inside and outside that fantasy room. What had I done wrong? Why did he leave me sitting there just as we were about to finally get together?

  That man was going to drive me mad.

  I heard a pounding on my front door, so I dragged myself from the bed to find Josie and Erin standing in the hallway staring at me with expectant faces. “Where’s the fire?”

  The two of them pushed past me into my living room and took their places on my sofa. I trudged back in, knowing why they were there. Erin stared at me, obviously waiting for me to say something. I looked around, unsure of what to say, until Josie finally spoke up. “We’re here to find out what happened last night. We want the details, and we’re not leaving until we get them.”

  Just as I’d thought. I slunk over to the chair and plopped down onto it. “Nothing. Not a damn thing happened, unless you’re a fan of some sexy talk and being left hanging.”

  “What the fuck? I’m beginning not to like Cassian March much,” Josie said with a sneer.

  Erin reached over to squeeze my arm. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me or anything like that. I guess I just was hoping he’d want me like I want him.”

  “Sweetie, you sound horrible. I hate hearing you like this. I feel a little guilty too since we egged you on to do this,” Josie added.

  “It’s not a big deal, guys.”

  Their silence as they looked at me with sad eyes made me feel even worse. The new Olivia was just as lame as the old Olivia. Olivia 2.0 had failed miserably in beta testing.

  “Liv, it is a big deal, not because of him but because of you,” Josie said as she stood and began to pace.

  I’d seen her do this before when she was trying to unravel a problem in her mind. Part of me wished she would be able to figure this out so I wouldn’t feel so awful about being left high and dry. At least if I could blame it all on something other than being a woman he just didn’t want I could feel better.

  “You shouldn’t feel like this is about you, honey,” Josie continued.

  “How is it not about me? I took a chance and put myself out there only to be handed a big fat rejection. Sounds like it’s all about me.”

  “He’s probably got some baggage you don’t know about,” Erin said in her usual sweet way. “You know, like he can only be with women who don’t intimidate him. That’s probably it.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. I’d spent my entire dating life dealing with the fragile male ego, unsure if I should let boyfriends win at everything from poker to friendly games of softball, so to find out that a man like Cash only wanted some weak thing to hang on his arm would make me feel like there was no chance at any happiness for someone like me.

  “I’ve seen the women he takes out in public, Liv. They’re gorgeous, like you, but other than that, they’re nobody big in business or law or any other career.”

  Josie’s description of Cash’s other women as gorgeous didn’t help either. I knew, like everyone else, that there were different types of gorgeous. There was gorgeous your friends said you were, and then there was real gorgeous—the kind that made men fall at a woman’s feet.

  My feet had never had any attention paid to them.

  “So what are you guys saying? I should only put myself out there with men who have no problem with smart women? You might have wanted to mention that before you got me all gung ho on the idea of a fantasy room.”

  Erin hung her head and quietly said, “In my defense, I never realized you were going for your boss. I just thought you’d have a good time and shed some of your inhibitions. I never would have told you to risk your job.”

  And there it was, the real problem. I hadn’t even thought of that before. I’d been spending all my time nursing my bruised ego when I should have been concerned about losing my job. Fanfuckingtastic.

  Josie stopped her pacing across the room and pointed at Erin and me. “Oh, don’t even go there. I will get you the finest sexual harassment attorney on the East coast and when he’s done with the March brothers, you’ll be the owner of Club X. I hear one peep about you losing your job, I’ll be on this like white on rice.”

  I lifted my hand to calm her down. “Relax. Nobody’s losing anything. The only harm here is to my ego. I never even let on that I knew it was him.”

  Erin narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you never let him know you knew, Liv?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “What does it matter?” Josie interjected impatiently as she made her pass by us.

  Turning to face Josie as she walked toward the window, Erin said, “It matters because the male ego is fragile. What man wants to think a woman can’t even recognize his voice as he’s standing there seducing her?”

  “He must have known she knew, Erin. The man’s not an idiot.”

  “But Josie, can’t you see? He shows up week after week and she never even lets on that she knows the man there with her is the very man she works with every day. That’s got to bug him.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway, guys. He proved he wasn’t interested, and that’s that.”

  “I disagree, Liv. I don’t think that proves anything.”

  I looked in amazement at Erin. “Are you suggesting this is my fault?”

  “No, not really. What I’m saying is that you may not be seeing the real picture. What if all the guy was looking for was some recognition that he was the one getting you all hot and bothered and all you made it look like was you were into some stranger whose voice you didn’t even recognize? I’m just thinking we should try to put ourselves in his place.”

  Josie began arguing the case against Cash in her usual dogged fashion and pacing even more determinedly, but as Erin’s words sunk in, I began to think I’d played this thing with Cash all wrong.

  “I never considered that. At first, I didn’t show him I knew who he was because I was so surprised, but then as it kept going, I didn’t know how to bring it up. My fear of rejection mixed with my insecurity over the whole thing added up to me just never saying anything.”

  “Liv, I say give him one more chance and let him know you know. Reserve another room and see what happens. If after you show him you know it’s him he’s still not into you, then fine. His loss. But I think you have to give him a chance.”

  Erin’s suggestion sounded like the scariest thing I’d ever heard. Give him another chance to reject me? Was I a masochist now?

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I can handle him knowing I know and still not wanting me,” I said quietly as her idea settled into my brain.

  “I agree,” Josie chimed in as she
took her seat on the couch. “Why give him another opportunity to be a dick? I say walk away.”

  “But you were the one who told me to take the chance with him. Now I’m just supposed to give up?”

  Neither of my friends said anything for a long time, but finally Josie answered, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Liv. What if he’s playing some kind of game?”

  I looked over at Erin, hoping for some counterbalance to Josie’s natural suspicious nature. “Nothing to add?”

  She shook her head. “I still stand by my hopeful suggestion. Give him one more chance and let him know, but I will add this. If you like him, I think you have to take the chance. The question is, do you like him?”

  Looking away, I avoided their gazes as I admitted the truth. “I do like him. It’s been a long time since anyone has made me want them as much as Cash. I liked how I felt when we were in the fantasy room. I’d like to see if we can be that outside Club X.”

  “Then there’s your answer. I think even our resident cynic here would agree. Go for it!”

  Josie scowled at being called a cynic, but Erin was right about her and my situation. “Okay, I’ll give him one more chance, but I’m not waiting until next Friday. I’m sure Kane tells him when I reserve a room, so I’m going to get one for Monday night. Olivia Version 2.0 might be braver, but she’s impatient.”

  “Now that makes me happy,” Josie said as she elbowed Erin. “At least if she’s going to do it, she’s going to do it on her timetable.”

  I reached over to grab my laptop and logged into my work email. Typing an email to Kane, I let him know I wanted to reserve a gold level fantasy room with the same man at midnight on Monday. Then I clicked Send, and that was that. Now the ball was in Cash’s court or soon would be.

  Looking up at my friends, I pressed a smile onto my lips even as my insides began to shake from the real fear that Cash really wasn’t that into me. “There. It’s done.”

  Josie steepled her fingers and cocked one perfect eyebrow. “Now we wait.”

  “Thanks for the evil villain thing there,” I joked.