by Maggie Wells
“So you and Will were lovers.” She turned every ounce of Scarlett she had loose on the last syllable, drawing it out until it practically reverberated between them. Then, she pursed her lips and waited. It was an obvious prompt, but a powerful one. It was a trick her old Sunday school teacher, Miss Martha Baines, had wielded like a sledgehammer. One designed to tempt the biggest sinner to confess. “And you just happened to end up married to his best friend.” Lifting her water glass, she added Miss Martha’s patented smirky smile. “How’d you manage to pull that off?”
Josie blinked then grinned as she dropped her fork, eager to unburden her soul. “Oh, they made it easy.” She took a sip of her own water. “You’ve never met two men with such a complicated love-hate relationship. I’m telling you, if they weren’t so uber-het, I would have happily volunteered to be the filling in a T-A-S sandwich.”
Betty had no idea how to grant absolution for that particular confession, so she sidestepped. “Uber-het?”
“You’ll never meet two manlier men.” Heaving a put-upon sigh, Josie pursed her lips in an exaggerated pout. “Sadly, I’ve made them so paranoid about it they both jump if they come within less than a foot of each other. God forbid they actually touch and make all my homoerotic dreams come true.”
Heat flashed through Betty as she imagined herself fielding overtures from the two men, one smooth and subtle and the other brash and bold. She remembered the crazy fantasies Will’s desktop dirty talk stirred, and the next thing she knew, she was picturing the ultra-urbane Greg Stark wearing a brown UPS uniform. Her cheeks burned hot enough to wilt the lettuce on her plate. She stared down at the crumbles of green-veined bleu cheese on her on salad, unable to meet Josie’s gaze.
“See what I mean?”
The soft sing-song in the other woman’s voice told Betty that Josie knew exactly what she was thinking.
Clearing her throat, Betty gave up any pretense and lunged for her water goblet once more as Josie signaled their waiter.
“We’ll need a bottle of truly voluptuous red wine and that dessert I warned you about earlier,” she said when the eager young man appeared. “Two spoons, extra ice cream and whipped cream, but no cherries. We have no use for those.” Josie added a smile so sweet it screamed ‘Troublemaker’ as she handed the man the remains of her salad. “If you can somehow turn these salads into a couple orders of really crispy French fries, I’ll triple your tip and my friend here will kiss you smack on the lips.”
Betty gasped and started to protest, “Me? What? I will—”
The server, who couldn’t have been much older than her own son, grinned down at her and whisked her plate away with gratifying speed. “Yes, ma’am!”
Chapter 15
By the time Josie returned Betty to the office, they were obviously tipsy, Greg had moved beyond agitated to aggravated, and Will was beside himself. Three hours was more than enough time to nullify a friggin’ arms agreement. He didn’t even want to know what the two of them could have talked about all that time.
Will lowered his feet from Betty’s desk but refused to rise as the two women stumbled through the door arm-in-arm and giggling like teenagers. He probably should be as annoyed as Greg was, but seeing the two of them so obviously enjoying each other’s company, he couldn’t quite muster it.
Thankfully, Greg had no reservations about charging into the fray.
“We don’t customarily take three hour lunches, ladies,” he announced as he strode from his office.
He was peeved because Josie stopped replying to her husband’s text messages an hour ago. Since then, Will had taken even more of an earful from his best friend. The harping didn’t bother Will much. After four decades of friendship, he had enough knowledge of Greg’s inner workings to know his buddy wasn’t really worried, either. He just wanted something to fret about. Greg loved fretting almost as much as he loved taking a stand and making proclamations.
“See?” Josie covered the fact that she tripped on the door rug by throwing herself at Greg. “He gets all uptight and bossy.” She beamed a smile bright enough to rival the sun as she ran an appreciative, if inappropriate, hand down Greg’s chest to his stomach, then let her fingers curl around the buckle on his belt. “And stiff.”
Greg groaned, and the women both snorted with laughter.
“I love it when you get stiff,” Josie said, tipping her face up in a blatant invitation for a kiss.
Rolling his eyes, Greg manacled her wrist and pulled her hand away from his belt. “Okay, time to go home.”
“Really?” Josie’s dark lashes fluttered. With a breathy sigh, she pulled from his restraining grasp and slid both hands up to cradle the base of his skull. “I thought you said you had so much work to catch up on.”
Will had to give old Greg credit. He tried icy, but it was hard for a guy to really sell it when he had a scorching hot woman wrapped around him. “I think it’s obvious to everyone you’re not about to let that happen.”
Her lips curved into a smile, and she pressed a kiss to Greg’s jaw. Having seen enough of their necking to last a lifetime, Will turned his attention to the willowy blond slinking into the kitchen area. He launched himself from the chair and caught her just as she stumbled against the doorjamb.
“Easy there, Ms. Asher.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, he turned so she’d be snuggled up against him as tight as her partner in crime was against his partner. “Have a good time?”
The pointed tips of her small breasts made their presence known through the layers of clothes between them. He slid a leg through hers, and she bowed. God, he loved the way she responded to him. He rewarded her with a nuzzling kiss just beneath her ear. She tipped her head to grant him better access and he took it. The gauzy material of her skirt bunched as she instinctively started to ride his thigh. A strangled growl caught in his throat and he went from semi-hard to super-sonic in no time flat.
“Hm? Oh yeah.” Her voice was soft and smooth as heated honey. “She’s real nice.”
“Nice isn’t the word most people associate with Josie.”
She slid her hands up and into his hair. If she hadn’t done the exact same thing to him a half-dozen times, he’d have thought the two women had spent their liquid lunch trading tips. As it was, he wanted to know exactly how loose the wine he smelled on her breath had made her lips. Or Josie’s for that matter. He leaned his head back, denying her access to his mouth. For once in his life, he wanted to talk before the kissing, but he wasn’t so far gone that he’d waste a whole lot of time examining the reasons why. She swirled a lazy pattern along the underside of his jaw then took a playful nip at his ear lobe.
“You’re one to talk. I have some messages for you here somewhere,” she murmured against his skin.
“You girls talk about me?”
“Of course.” She tipped her head back enough to squint up at him. “Do you really know a woman named Desdemona? I thought she was funnin’ me when she said it, but—”
“Stop.” Needing at least a couple answers and a horizontal surface before he was willing to be distracted, he pulled her hands from his neck and held them captive between them. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about the way she moved against him. Christ, he could feel the heat of her. “I don’t know any woman but you.”
“Mm-hmm. Good answer.” She shifted to her tiptoes, but her lunchtime love affair with a grape played hell with her center of gravity.
The top of her skull caught his jaw. His teeth clacked hard and he fell back against the counter.
Betty went along, practically turning his pratfall into porn as she rubbed against him like a cat in heat. “D’jeet yet?”
He was so strung out between curiosity and craving it took him a few seconds to translate the question. “Oh. Yeah, I ate.”
“Damn.”
She broke the word into two sexy syllables as she ran greedy, grabby hands down and up his arms. He flexed. Of course he flexed. The
re wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t have. And, damn it, he was about to flex her into next week if she didn’t stop crawling all over him. Gathering a few weak strands of resolve and the one scruple he owned, he planted his hands on her hips and prepared to set her away from him.
“I was kind of hopin’ you might be hungry enough to put me up on this counter and have your way with me again,” she said in a not-so-hushed rush.
His muscles bunched for real this time. The tips of his fingers bit into the soft curve of her ass. He turned and was about to lift her up so he might grant her fondest wish when he heard Josie’s husky chuckle. Raising his hands like a man faced with a SWAT team, he held them high as he stepped out of Betty’s reach.
He shot a nervous glance at the door to the outer office. “I don’t want you hanging out with Josie anymore.” His chest heaved and his jeans were too tight for comfort, but he didn’t bother trying to mask his reaction to her. “She’s a bad influence on you.”
Irritation flared in Betty’s eyes. “How do you know I wasn’t a bad influence on her?”
Just then, Josie tripped past him, her cheeks rosy and her skirt hitched up in the back. Her tinkling laugh bounced off the walls as she enveloped Betty in a hug so exuberant he might think they were the ones with a lifetime of friendship behind them.
“I have to go. Someone’s getting a spanking.” She shot a sassy smile at Greg who hovered in the doorway. Turning back to Betty, she dropped a wink broad enough to catch a blind man’s eye. “I hope it’s me.”
“It’s you.” Greg grabbed his wife’s hand and pulled her away. “Now I’m thinking it’s a damn good thing we didn’t hire you,” he grumbled, looking as fierce as a man sporting a reddening hickey on his neck could. “Too disruptive.”
“I know,” she cooed. She waved over her shoulder and trotted to keep her feet under her. “Bye, kids. Don’t work too hard!”
Seconds later, the front door closed, cutting off the last of Greg’s grumbles and Josie’s giggles. Will stared at Betty. She stared at him. The tip of her tongue slipped out to wet her bottom lip. He could drag her out of there, haul her home, and take her to bed. Or…he could have a late lunch. He almost laughed at himself for taking the time to weigh the options.
“Do not move,” he said, raising one finger to emphasize the order.
In less than thirty seconds, he had the bolt thrown on the front door and skidded to a stop in the kitchen. Unfortunately, half a minute was plenty of time for Betty to have second thoughts. He found her sagged against the counter, one hand pressed to a petal-pink cheek, her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor halfway between ‘Oh crap’ and ‘What the hell am I doing?’
Shit, he hated it when women went there.
Drawing a steadying breath, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Before you say anything, just let me say for the record that I am not the least bit full and could definitely eat again.”
Her head jerked up and her hand fell away. He was gratified to see her stand up straight as a dancer. The woman had backbone. It was one of the things he liked most about her. He also liked kissing his way down that backbone to her sweet little ass, but the opportunity to do that anytime soon had probably just slipped away.
“Do you think he’ll want to fire me?”
He blinked, taken aback. “Greg?”
She winced and shrugged. “Well, I’d hope you wouldn’t, but maybe I only get long lunches when you’re involved.”
A few minutes earlier she was asking him to dine on her, now she was implying he’d pull some kind of power trip and it ticked him off. “You can take a long lunch whenever you damn well please.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Annoyed at being forced to defend his friend as well, he snapped. “He’s a dick, not an ass.”
This time she pressed both palms to her cheeks. “I can’t believe…I didn’t mean to…I’m so embarrassed.”
“Josie tends to have that effect on people.”
Her chin came up, and this time she rolled her shoulders back as she lowered her hands. “She’s wonderful.”
“Absolutely.”
He gave his agreement without missing a beat, but she didn’t seem mollified.
“She’s fun and free and completely…outrageous.”
“All that and more.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he cocked his head. “It’s great to see her coming back to life again. Things were rough for her.”
“She’s incredible.”
Will nodded. “I’ve been a fan for years.”
Her lips pursed as though he’d asked her to suck a lemon. He bit back a smile as he watched her struggle between jealousy and the need to save face.
“Yes, I know,” she said.
“She’s the best thing that ever happened to Greg.” He crossed over to her but stopped when they were toe to toe. “And straight as he might seem, Greg’s exactly what she needed.” Unable to resist touching Betty in some way, he tucked a hank of golden hair behind her ear. “He lights her up like a flare.”
Her bows knit. “A flare?”
The frown was too much to bear. He had to make it go away, so he pressed his lips to the tiny crease. “Too hot for me to handle.” When she scoffed, he chuckled and pulled her into his arms. Hugging her tight, he rested his chin on the top of her head. “Besides, haven’t you been listening to what everyone’s been telling you? I’m enough trouble on my own.”
“Are you, now?”
He reared back, narrowing his eyes to slits. “Are you thinking I’m a soft touch?”
She stared up at him so filled with sweetness and light he wanted to take a big, ravenous bite out of her.
“Who, me?”
“I can promise you, there’s not one inch of me that’s soft right now.”
She gave her head a slow shake, but a knowing smile played at the corners of her mouth. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his fly. “I’m wrong?”
Betty raised her shoulder and let it fall, the movement causing her to slide her warm palm over his overeager dick. “I can name six parts of you that are delightfully soft.” She shifted her weight to her toes, giving him another incidental, but in no way accidental, stroke as she pressed her lips behind his ear lobe. “This spot,” she whispered. “It’s one of my favorites.”
He held very still, letting her have her way. At least, for the moment. “Is it?”
“The skin under your biceps, and that yummy line that runs along your hipbone.”
She trailed her hand over his jeans again, and he could only think one thing: Home. His place. Hers. It didn’t matter. He only needed to get her naked. Home was wherever naked Betty was. “Let’s go home.”
“I can’t. Too much work to do. My boss is a slave driver.” She licked him right at the notch at base of his throat. The exact same spot he liked to lick her. “This is another.”
“I’m about to drive into you right here, right now.”
“There’s a place just inside your thigh. The skin is so smooth and you smell so damn good,” she whispered. “There’s a muscle or tendon or something there.” She glanced up and waited oh-so-patiently until he managed to focus. “I want to bite it.”
“That’s it.” Releasing her abruptly, he staggered back, holding up his hands as if to ward her off. “Definitely no more lunches with Josie.”
She smiled, fully aware of the affect she was having on him. “Don’t you want to know what the sixth one is?”
“No.”
Lie. Liar. He was the biggest liar on Earth. He wanted to know what it was more than he wanted his next hit of oxygen, but a part of him was afraid. To think he’d felt bad for Greg. Okay, maybe he hadn’t been too sympathetic about how helpless his friend became when he fell for Josie, but now, in this moment, he completely understood. This soft-spoken, pink and white bunny of a belle had him tied up in knots Houdini couldn’t un
ravel.
And she knew it.
The gleam in those lake-blue eyes told him as much. Her gaze never left his. She didn’t wobble one bit as she reclaimed the distance he’d tried to put between them. He would swear on the biggest stack of bibles Sister Laurent could produce that the slide of her tongue over her lips played out in high definition slo-mo.
The soles of his feet melted into the floor. She reached out, stretching only one finger toward him. Her fingernail scraped the rough cotton weave of the denim covering his cock, outlining the very tip of him with pinpoint precision. His eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. He forgot how to breathe altogether. Every ounce of self-control he possessed was dialed in to that spot. A soft puff of breath tickled his lips. That should have been a hint that he needed to brace for impact.
“I love how you feel against my tongue,” she whispered. “The skin is so soft, but you’re so big and hard and hot.”
Her drawl did unbearably obscene things to words that would barely have been naughty coming from any woman but prim, proper Ms. Betty Asher. He needed to have her. Own her. Be the absolute and unquestioned boss of this prissy, perverted little plantation flower. Pulling her hand to his mouth once more, he planted a wet kiss to the center of her palm, relishing the way her fingers curved to fit the shape of his cheek. He curled those dangerous digits into a loose fist before letting her go and turning on his heel.
“My office. Now.”
“Your office?” she asked with a puzzled shake of her head.
It was all he could do to resist the urge to adjust himself as he crossed the room. He didn’t dare look back to see if she followed. It didn’t matter much if she did at this point. After two days without her and twenty minutes of crazy intense foreplay, he would just slam the door and jack off into his shirt. Either way, he was going to blow in about two minutes. God, he hoped she followed. He’d hate to have to explain to Greg why he had to fire her for insubordination.
