Love Stuck

by Michele De Winton

  “Why would I? It’s a private thing. Just for me. It’s not something I share with many people.”

  And yet he’d just shared it with her. Her muscles tightened, her jaw stiffening as she clenched it, thinking about what it would be like to sit in a softly lit room and have him play the piano for her.

  Maybe he sensed her thoughts. “Shall I distract you some more?” he said with more growl in his voice than he’d ever had before.

  “I’m pretty distracted already.”

  “I’ve been distracted ever since you stormed into my office with that stupid jacket.”

  Sass tried to pull back, but he didn’t let her, his arms were still around her, and her back was against the wall. “It was not a stupid jacket. It was a very expensive, very stylish, very you jacket.”

  “I don’t get it.” His voice softened again. It was an admission, not an accusation.

  “I know.”

  They still hadn’t broken eye contact, and long veins of heat were starting to spread throughout Sass’s body. “I see you, Kirk Anderson. I didn’t know about your family background, but I could see the hurt there. And the threat that you hold over yourself. You’re afraid of failing, afraid you won’t ever be good enough and so you drive yourself hard. Trouble is you hold everyone else to your same standards, and you probably miss that half the people around you just want to please you.”

  “More psychoanalysis?” But this time he didn’t sound pissed, just amused.

  “Call it whatever you want. Ridicule me into tomorrow even. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so. I also say that you’ve still got your arms around me when you don’t need to.”

  “That’s true. I’m not sure why. You’re infuriating.” But rather than releasing her he held her tighter.

  “And you’re an ass.”

  “So you keep saying,” he said. Now she was pressed hard up against the wall and could feel the heat pouring off his body. This was it, the moment she should tell him to back the hell off.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone is coming to rescue us anytime soon.”

  “Nope. Guess we’re not going anywhere.” Sass felt the unmistakable bulge of his erection press against her groin, and she bit her lip. The realization that she wanted this, wanted him, sent a hot flush all over her body.

  “Need any more distracting?” but it was more of a growl than a statement, and when he put a hand, its long fingers spread wide, to her waist, Sass all but melted. She nodded, and that was all the encouragement he needed to bend down and take her mouth in his.

  6.

  The first touch of his mouth to her lips brought the burst of electricity he’d felt when he first touched her. It flooded through his mouth. It should have hurt, should have burned him, but instead, it only made him ache to taste more of her. His hands curled around her midriff even while he told them to get back in his pockets and as she arched her back, he couldn’t have made himself let go if he’d tried.

  But he wasn’t trying. He was holding her and kissing her and goddamn if it didn’t feel better than a beer after a long hot day. Finally, he came up for air and breathed hot words in her ear. “We’re both not thinking straight. Being locked in here like this.”

  “Yeah,” she said then let out a moan as he took his lips to her neck. Her soft, warm neck.

  “But we’re here now. Stuck here for who knows how long.”

  “And life is short.”

  “Right. No one knows when their time is up, so it’s best to make the most of the time we have.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” she said and pulled his tie clean off and threw it to join his jacket.

  Then the kiss took over, and he couldn’t help the hand he pushed through her hair or the demand he threaded through the kiss.

  Her pink strapless top had a catch and zipper at the side, and he had it off before her next breath. Skin. Even in the muted light, he could see the pale glow of her skin, feel it warm under his hands, feel how much she melded to his hands when he ran them down her back. He spread his fingers wide and brought her so close that her breasts were crushed against his chest. His skin ached at the sensation. Too many clothes. He moved his hand to the waistband of her pants and his thumb smoothed a hot, languid circle there.

  He should have walked away. To the other side of the elevator anyway. This woman was trouble. First, she insulted him, then she clung to him, and then made him spill his childhood secrets. Although he still held the truth of its hurt deep down, the fact that he would never be good enough. For his parents, or, now he was coming to realise, for himself.

  But then she moved her lips to the hollow just below his earlobe, and he was done. He pushed her up against the wall and spread her legs open with his thigh.

  “Hey,” she said, but he bit her lightly on the shoulder, and her words trailed away, and they descended into another air stealing kiss.

  When he finally released her mouth again, she took a deep breath. “Maybe this will help.”

  “Help?” He pulled back a fraction.

  “You know. Us focus. I need to get my business going, and you need to chill the fuck out.”

  “Focus. Sure,” he said, and then in one movement unzipped her wide-leg pants and had them pooled in a silky mess on the floor. For a moment, he let himself enjoy the picture of her standing in front of him in nothing but a white strapless bra, white lacy panties and the highest black stilettos he’d seen in a long time. “That’s a great look on you.”

  “You trying out to be my assistant?”

  “Sure, I can assist you out of this.” His hand found the clasp of her bra, and he let it fall into the pile with her pants. Then he was back at her lips. Diving his tongue into her mouth, making her open up to him, deeper, further, faster. This time though he didn’t want to stop at her mouth. “You should never wear clothes.” He put his mouth to her left breast and circled her nipple with his tongue. So nice. Her skin had tightened, raised welts of goose pimples breaking out everywhere, but she wasn’t cold, far from it.

  “You like that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, man. Yes,” she managed, and he devoted some attention to the other breast, feeling the nipple pebble under his tongue. “I know you think you have all the answers about people, about me, but right now you’re going to let all that go. You’re going to let go of everything, and we’re going to get good and distracted, deal?”

  She nodded and fumbled his shirt open. Feeling her hands on his skin sent another burst of crazy hot lust through him, and he was sure every milliliter of his blood was currently pooled in his cock. It strained at his pants, the pressure of his zipper almost painful against its need to get out and plunge itself deep inside the woman in front of him.

  Her fingers scraped against his chest, and he sucked in a breath. Fingers toying with the waistband of her panties, he bit her bottom lip, gently. “I hope you’re not attached to your underwear?” Training his hand down, he moved it between her thighs, and she took another sharp intake of breath when he pressed a strong finger to the edges of her folds before sliding the fabric aside and pressing it inside her without further invitation. She clenched around him, and it was sexy as all hell. The thought of her clenching around his cock? Perfect. Hot. Wet.

  “Now. I want you now.”

  “For once, I think we’re both on the same page.” Kirk flicked the button on his pants, unzippered and let his suit trousers fall to his ankles. Only pausing to roll on the condom he’d stashed in his wallet, he grabbed her by the ass and using his body and thigh, held her up on the wall, her legs spread wide to receive him. “Let go, Sarah.”

  He nudged at her entrance, willing himself to take it slow but she didn’t seem interested in that idea. She smoothed her hands under his shirt to the base of his spine and raked her fingers over his skin before sliding down them to his butt and yanking him toward her hard and fast. He slid deep and firm inside her.


  For a moment, he didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to think in case the sensation overwhelmed his mind and he let go straight away. Because being inside her made him feel like that, like a teenage boy unable to keep control, chasing the rabbit of an orgasm so hard that he forgot it was a two-horse race. She must have felt it too, because she stilled, and clenched down hard around him. Slowly, slowly, his mind cleared, and he was able to withdraw, inch by careful inch till he was almost at her entrance again. Focusing on his breath, he slid in and out, over and over, till their breath was entwined and it felt like they might slide over the ceiling of the elevator and drift up into the air.

  Then she pulled at his butt again, arching her back and allowing him even deeper access inside her. “Dear god woman.”

  He shook, both from holding her hard against the wall and from holding himself back, wanting only to fill her up but not wanting this sensation of perfection to end too soon. Because this was unlike any other coupling he’d had before. She was silk against his skin, a wild cat under his hands. She responded to him immediately and completely, and let go of any pretense of holding back. She was as joyful as pure math. Their union as uncomplicated, as wondrous, as essential to his heart continuing to beat. They were one plus one, and with the addition of fear and anger and pride, they’d become an infinite constellation of possibility.

  Her hands moved from his butt to curl around his shoulders, pulling his chest closer to hers, so the hard buds of her nipples pressed against him. “I’m close,” she managed. “So close.”

  If his skin could have squeezed his body tighter he was sure it would have, the tension of holding back his climax was all through him, all over him. But with her words he picked up speed. His breath became shorter, and he noticed hers slipped into an easy rhythm with his. A moan crept from the back of her throat, and she arched her back even as he pushed her hard against the wall. She clenched around him, and he felt her climax building.

  Her breath hitched, and there, he felt her slide away from him as her body spasmed, her thighs gripping his waist as she tried to hold on. The spiral of her orgasm threw her head back, her breath deserting her, her eyes shut tight. She started to soften, her muscles releasing, he gripped her hips and started to work her over him, hard and fast. And there, he felt it. She started to tighten again.

  “Again? Really? Oh man, yes. Yes, please.”

  Coming hard on the heels of her orgasm, she was super sensitive, so when he thrust again, she cried out, the hiss of breath sharp and lost and desperate. It was incredibly hot.

  Giving up all semblance of control he let go and her cry was mixed with his shout as he filled her. His cock jerked, hard, making him lose his mind as he thrust deep and hard into the far reaches of her sex to seek every scrap of pleasure her body would share with his. The orgasm stretched on and on. Unbound, unrestricted by his mind’s fierce need for control. And then they were slumped into each other. Breathing hard. His body feeling like it had run all the way back to his folk’s place without stopping.

  “Well,” she said when she found her voice finally.

  It took him a little longer to get his breath back. “Indeed.”

  “You might be an ass, but you’re not bad at that,” she said breathlessly.

  He couldn’t help it. He threw back his head and laughed. Laughed harder than he could remember laughing in months. Was this what she’d meant when she told him to chill the fuck out?

  7.

  He released his iron grip on her ass and Sass slid down the wall of the elevator till her feet were on the ground. Only they didn’t seem able to take her weight.

  “Easy there.” His hands were back at her waist, holding her up till she got steady.

  “Who the hell are you and what did you do with Kirk Anderson?” she asked when she felt like she could talk with the appropriate level of snark to conceal how fragile she felt.

  “I’m not sure myself,” he said. “Must be something to do with the company.” But he said it blithely as if she wasn’t even there. He disposed of the condom in a handkerchief from his pocket and slid his pants back on. His shirt was still open, and she couldn’t help but look at the outline of his abs. Even in this murky light it was clear they were well taken care of, and her fingers tingled at the memory of running over them, feeling the tight bed of muscle under his skin.

  The lift suddenly started to move and she was thrown against his bare chest. How did he get to be so hot on the outside and so cold inside? Looking up into his eyes, she saw how hungry they were. How they scanned her body, completely naked except for the panties he’d abruptly pushed to the side. She was bare. Completely bare and the lift was moving. Feeling self-conscious under his hot gaze, she slid her panties back into place and reached down hurriedly for her pants, bra, and top. But then the lift shuddered to a stop.

  “This is getting out of control,” she managed just as the light flickered between the murky blue of the emergency light and bright fluorescent standard illumination for half a second, making her eyes ache before it settled back on the too bright fluorescent. The glare made her feel even more self-conscious.

  “You’re the one that’s out of control. I’m not sure what the hell came over me, but that was…something,” he said.

  Pulling up her pants and refastening her bra, she perked an eyebrow at him. “And you had nothing to do with it, right?”

  “Nothing that I remember. You were the one who pushed yourself into my chest.”

  “Me? You put your arms around me.”

  “You kept asking me to distract you.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “I did need distracting. I thought we were going to die.”

  “I know.” He paused, and for a moment she thought this was it. The moment he revealed that he wasn’t the cold hard man she’d first met, but this more sensitive one who hurt, and dreamed, just like everyone else then he opened his stupid mouth.

  “We need never speak of this to anyone.” The blithe tone in his voice had returned. Gone was the man who had shared a secret from his past and under the harsh light of the ordinary elevator lighting, his face had lost its softness, and his mouth was set hard in a grim line. But he still stood in front of her. Close enough that she could smell the strawberries they’d eaten for dessert. So, he’s hot and made you lose control. So what. He still has no idea how to be an actual human with emotions that last longer than an elevator ride.

  “You almost had me there,” she said. “I thought for a second you might have a real heart hidden under your boring suit. Guess not.”

  “My suit is a uniform of success. One that performs its function perfectly well.” He took a step even closer, and she had to tip her head back to speak into his face.

  “You have depth and history, and yet all you put out to the world is this abrupt, unfeeling front. Thank god I don’t work for you.”

  “Well we can agree on that.”

  She tipped her head to the side, unwilling to let him have the last word. Opening her big mouth had always gotten her into trouble, why stop now? “You’re never going to be any better than you are right now because you can’t put it all on the line. You’re scared it’s all going to be taken away from you, and that would mean your folks were right about you all along.” Sass felt mean as she said the words and saw them hitting their mark one after the other. Cruel but kind, sometimes that’s what it took to unlock a person’s true spirit though. That’s what she’d learned from her mother.

  Kirk’s face fell, and she saw fear in his eyes, real fear, but only for a second. He really was scared that he wasn’t good enough. That he wouldn’t make his stupid Forbes list. That his companies might fall if he didn’t work every hour of every day. That this was it, the high point of his life, and now he’d seen it, he’d found it wanting. Then the fear was replaced by anger. “What makes you think you have the right to talk to me like that?”

  “You threw me out of your office, so I get to do what I like.”

  “
In what world?”

  “In the world where you just had me melting up against that wall and then turned your cold hard heart back on to stifle any semblance of feeling you might actually have. You’re the one who told me to let go, and I did. I want to experience life. All of it. I’ve seen the darkness, and I’m not going back there. Not ever again. So now it’s my turn to tell you to let go and take a few risks. Let go of whatever is tying you up so tight, Anderson, or you’ll find everything you think is so important is as cold as your cryogenically frozen heart.”

  They stood there, the lift not moving, the only sound the heated rasp of their breathing. The anger and the fear played out across Kirk’s face as Sass watched and a distant part of her waited, fascinated to see which would win. But the other part of her felt for this man. This tall, handsome, successful man who had everything and nothing at his fingertips.

  “No one talks to me like that,” he said finally.

  “Except me.”

  “Except you.” His voice was raw, the emotion winning out against his ever-rational mind, just for a moment. And then, just when she thought the emotion was going to fade and he was going to yell at her again, Kirk closed the space between them and pushed his fingers through her hair. It sent a ricochet of lust rushing through Sass’s bloodstream all over again. “I don’t know much about you Sarah Hunt, but you press every one of my buttons and then some.”

  She smiled, happy that perhaps she’d gotten through to him. That he might look at himself a little differently in the mirror. “Guess people call me Sass for a reason.”

  “Don’t think this means I agree with you. I don’t want to lose control, and I certainly don’t want to risk everything I’ve had to fight for to get where I am.” Then he pulled back her head and took control of her mouth.

  Like it had the first time their lips touched, the contact sent bright sparks across Sass’s eyes. She screwed them tight, but felt herself sway as he delved deeper, demanding access to her tongue and then dancing his with hers. In the kiss, she could feel his frustration. Frustration that she was right or about some other thing she couldn’t tell, but if he meant to scare her off he was doing it wrong. Instead, she felt herself fall deeper into him. The hot lust rippled across her body and threatened to drown her in sensation.