He went to his knees behind her.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t stop, that she didn’t want him to.
He pushed the dress high. “Oh, I dare.”
Then he licked the crease of her bottom. She moaned. Forcing her to spread her legs wide, he came at her pussy from behind. The most erotic of sensations, his tongue on her, his hair brushing her butt, yet all she could see in the mirror was herself.
A smudge of lipstick by her mouth, her pupils so wide she couldn’t see the blue, her skin tinged with the flush of arousal. She leaned on her elbows, closed her eyes, then knew she had to watch every second. He licked her pussy, then her clitoris. Breath panted from her lips. Her nostrils flared as he hit an acute spot. Putting her head forward, her hair fell across her face, sticking to her lipstick. She groaned for him.
Then the woman in the reflection reached up to pinch both nipples. Pain shot down to the point his tongue caressed, and nothing had ever felt so good. She angled higher, giving him better access, and he rewarded her with a finger inside.
Her nipples a dusky rose, diamond-tipped, she palmed both breasts and held them out. So wanton, eyes a little glazed, lips parted, the reflection begged her to pinch harder.
She almost came. “Stop. Wait. Don’t make me come yet.” She sucked in a breath, moaned, as he strummed her pussy with tongue, teeth, and lips.
“Please don’t, please don’t,” she chanted, trying to stave off orgasm. “Please, I want you inside me.”
He rose, and she almost collapsed on the counter. His lips glistened, his cheeks moist with her juice. Leaning forward, he grabbed her chin, and kissed her hard, making her taste herself, and it was too much. “You need me,” he whispered.
“Please fuck me, please fuck me.” She would always beg.
Unzipping, he donned the condom he had in his pocket, then lifted his shirt and dipped back to watch as he slid inside her. She wanted to turn, look at him, but more, she wanted to watch everything in the mirror.
Her lipstick was crushed on her mouth. Tears had leaked from the corners of her eyes, and her mascara smudged circles beneath her eyes. She looked wanton, used, and loving it.
Just like Harper’s lover. For the first time, maybe because she’d come to terms with Harper, Trinity could finally admit that she’d been jealous of the woman’s abandon, how she’d given herself up to the sensations. Trinity did the same.
And oh, it was horribly, terribly good. To be turned-on and out of control, to want a man so badly she’d let him mess her all up. Gulping, she pushed back, taking him as deep as he could go.
“You make me fucking crazy,” he whispered, his eyes on hers in the mirror.
It wasn’t romantic or sensual. It was raw heat, and Trinity reveled in it. She savored the huskiness of her voice as she called out to him. “Fuck me, fuck me, harder, faster.”
He filled her, and it was like no other sex act, the pleasure doubled in the mirror. Bracing against the tile beneath the glass, she met his thrusts, strained, groaned, became an animal.
It was beautiful.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt the heat build, rise to her nipples, streak along her arms, cascade down her legs.
And Trinity soared off into orgasmic outer space.
HE’D come when she cried out, her body sucking him deeper, shooting him higher. Then he crumpled to the floor, taking her with him. The scent of her come mesmerized him. She filled his head, and he licked his lips to gather the sweet taste of her.
What they’d done wasn’t kinky, except if you considered they were watching themselves in the upstairs bathroom of her father’s home. It transcended mere fucking. It was, however, idiotic considering that Rudd, a potential blackmailer, was downstairs. Yet Scott hadn’t been able to stop himself from following her. She’d been so damn standoffish all night, it made him nuts.
And when he’d tried to force her to tell him how much she needed him, she kept her mouth firmly closed. Even as he pushed her over the edge into orgasm. He loved the word fuck on her lips, yet it wasn’t enough. He wanted the word love.
He feared he’d never get enough to satisfy him.
20
“OH my God,” Trinity whispered, her hand on the knob. “You forgot to lock the door.”
Scott cursed. Then he smoothed a finger down her cheek. “Does it worry you?”
She’d fixed her makeup, and now he’d messed with it again. She loved that he liked to mess with her. It was truly frightening, the number of things she loved that he did to her or made her feel. “It would have been hot,” she admitted, leaning against the door, “if someone saw us.”
Except that it was her father’s house. She’d gotten carried away. Again. If she wasn’t careful, her secret would be exposed. What if someone had walked in on them? God forbid, what if her father had? This kind of risky behavior just wouldn’t do.
One hand by her head, Scott nuzzled her hair. “So that’s how I can make you crazy for me, be sure someone is watching.”
So tall, so deliciously scented, his nearness did wild things to her. She was weak where he was concerned. Her mismatched jumble of emotions put her off balance. One minute she let him do anything he wanted anywhere he wanted, the next, the consequences terrified her.
Tucking her evening bag beneath her arm, she pushed him away. “We have to get back downstairs before someone notices we’re missing together.” Opening the door, she slipped out alone, leaving him behind. For now. But like an addict, she knew she’d be back for another hit.
Her legs were wobbly as she skated on air down the hall. Could a girl get drunk on sex? Hell yes. Her father’s house, however, was not the place to be naughty with Scott.
Bouncing down the staircase, she stumbled on her high heels. Daddy stood in the middle of the marble entry hall. Waiting. Her heart stuttered.
Voices, then a burst of laughter drifted from the double doors to the living room. She took the last steps, her eyes glued to the set of her father’s lips and his deadpan expression.
“I wondered where you’d gotten to.” He glanced past her, up the stairs to the landing above. As if he knew—or at least had an inkling.
Trinity couldn’t help herself, her own gaze followed, horrified that Scott would be there in plain sight.
The upstairs hall was empty, and she could breathe again. “Just using the ladies’ room, Daddy.”
He smiled then. “Actually, I was looking for Mr. Sinclair. He seems to have disappeared. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t gotten lost.” Then he winked. “And a little bird told me you might be together. ”
Good Lord. What little bird? And how much had this little bird chirped in her father’s ear? Lord. Mr. Wanamaker? Yes, Herman, I do believe I just saw Scott Sinclair boffing your daughter in the upstairs restroom. Quite an exciting sight, if I do say so myself. Won’t be able to look at her with a straight face on Monday. Chill bumps pebbled Trinity’s skin. If her father had come looking five minutes earlier . . . the bathroom door hadn’t even been locked, for God’s sake. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Okay, she had to believe Daddy’s “little bird” hadn’t walked in on them, otherwise her father wouldn’t have winked.
She went for haughty—“I’m sure Mr. Sinclair will eventually find his way back. He doesn’t look like a stupid man”—but was afraid she came off sounding just plain mean.
Scott wasn’t a stupid man, but he did want what he wanted exactly right when he wanted it. And he dragged her along, too. Willingly, yes, but this was the last time she’d let him corner her. She lost all sense of propriety around him.
“Honey, he’s perfect for you.”
“Daddy,” she shushed him, her eyes darting to the open living room doors, then just as quickly back up the stairs. “Why don’t we get back to your guests?”
He didn’t let her go. Instead, he squeezed her arm, lightly but inexorably. “I want him for you, honey. He’s such a good match. He’s older, settled, he can take care of you.”<
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The faint stirrings of ire simmered in her veins. This was Scott’s fault. If he hadn’t shown his interest to her father . . . “Daddy, I don’t need to be taken care of.”
But Daddy would not let it go. “I worry about you. I’m not getting any younger. What if something happens to me?” All his earlier joviality slid down his face, and he looked like the haggard man he’d been since he and Lance had their falling out. “Don’t mess this up, honey,” he murmured. “With Lance gone, I’m counting on you. Now go find Mr. Sinclair and make nice.”
Her father’s words trapped her neatly between making him happy and taking control of her own life. He waved his hand at her, shooing her away as he backed toward the living room, then turned and disappeared once again.
She was left with only the slightly false tones of dinner party laughter.
That is not fair. The words hovered on her lips. She didn’t need a man to take care of her. She didn’t want a man to take care of her.
“Dare I ask what that little tête-à-tête was about?”
She hadn’t even heard Scott on the stairs.
Trinity turned slowly. “My father thinks I need a settled, old man like you to take care of me.” God. What a bitch. She hated the sound of it, but the man brought out the best yet also the worst in her.
Scott’s jaw tensed. “I don’t consider myself old.”
With her chin down, Trinity looked up through her lashes, and her eyes sparked. “I don’t need a man to take care of me.”
“I’d say you needed me badly a few minutes ago.”
“That was sex.” The words hissed off her tongue.
“Fucking good sex,” Scott murmured, well aware of the open doors behind her.
She’d been hot, bothered, and pliable for him upstairs. All his. Yet in the space of five minutes, that woman was gone. As always, she was one step forward, two steps back. Dammit. He should never have shown his interest to Herman Green. Thinking himself a matchmaker, the gentleman only complicated the matter.
“You’re worried you’ll have to give up your sense of control.” He thought it to be a reasonable comment. Control of the situation had been her issue right from the beginning.
Her nostrils flared, her lips pinching. “It isn’t about control. It’s about the fundamental basis of this relationship.”
That pissed him off, yet he kept his voice low. “We don’t have a relationship. You meet me, you fuck me. That’s it.”
“You didn’t seem to mind it up in the bathroom just now.”
Her spite hit him in the chest. “That was the best. I loved it.” And damn her for denigrating it. “But I want more.”
“Well, that’s all you’re going to get,” she shot back. “Because I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“I don’t fucking want to take care of you.”
With one step, she got right up in his face, her scent all woman, all sex. “Then what’s wrong with the way we had it?”
His temples started to ache. “Because it’s not all I need, dammit.” He feared the sharp edge of his tone carried in the high ceiling. Any moment, someone could exit the living room and catch them arguing.
Her answering whisper was just as harsh. “It’s all I’m offering. It’s all I ever offered.”
Shit. She had a way of throwing a punch that knocked him in the heart, the head, and the balls all at once. “You just don’t like giving up control of what, when, how and where.”
He expected her to deny it. “So what?” she countered instead. “You knew when we started that’s how I wanted it.” She punctuated with a glare. “But you want what you want, and my feelings about it be damned.”
“That’s crap. I have always considered your feelings.”
The tendons of her throat worked as she swallowed, her nostrils flaring as she took a breath, let it out, then finally . . . the words. “Take it or leave it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that we keep our affair a secret, the way it was before. And we have fun without all the messiness that goes with more.”
“No. No fucking secrets.”
She stepped away, her eyes unreadable. He could back down, he knew it. But he wanted more than to meet her in hotels, the backseat of his car, or even his bedroom if it meant she’d sneak away when the sun came up so she could change at her own place.
He flexed his fingers. There could be no compromise on this one. “No secrets.” Then, in barely more than a murmur, he added, “take it or leave it.”
She closed her eyes for a couple of a seconds longer than it took to blink. His heart stuttered in his chest like a gambler’s just before his bluff gets called. In those two seconds, he let his chance to retract slip away.
“Then I leave it,” she whispered.
OH God, oh God. Outside on the stone stoop, Trinity covered her mouth in case a scream tried to escape. You idiot. It was her father’s voice. No, Lance’s. Harper’s. Scott. God, it was all the men in her life telling her what to do.
Her cheeks were flushed yet her hands were cold as ice. She’d left her wrap inside, and the cool March night pebbled her skin. Or maybe it was the thought of never seeing him again.
Cold turkey. She shuddered. She couldn’t handle the withdrawal all over again. Staring at the door, she willed it to open, willed it to be him changing his mind. She didn’t want him to beg or grovel. She simply wanted to go back to the way it had been Tuesday morning when she’d woken in his arms.
The door didn’t open. Scott didn’t follow. Trinity knew she’d lost. She’d gotten angry and reacted on the spur of the moment. Yet that didn’t make what she’d said any less true. She would never stand securely on her own two feet if she didn’t . . . stand.
Why did all the men in her life have to push-push-push? As if she was a twit without a brain in her head? Because she allowed them to, that’s why. Men did what you allowed them to do.
As much as she wanted Scott, she couldn’t let him push her into a relationship she wasn’t ready for.
BY Monday morning, Scott realized he was as stubborn as Trinity. He hadn’t told her he loved her. And all Sunday, instead of picking up the phone, he’d checked his e-mail constantly, waiting for her capitulation. He was unwilling to make the first move because, he told himself, he wanted a helluva lot more than to be her secret “boy toy.”
Thank God Monday morning arrived with work to occupy his mind. He signed off on the final version of the 10K report for the SEC. It was now ready for Rudd’s and the auditors’ approval.
Despite Ron’s grumbling over the bottom line, Scott hadn’t given in. Ten minutes after he sent off the file, his company e-mail beeped, and he knew damn well who it was.
“We need to discuss,” the e-mail read, “now. You do realize your job is on the line here.”
Je-sus. Was that a threat? Scott cocked his head, staring at the computer screen. Could Rudd have sent the photos, finally making his demands today? Change the bottom line or your job and your life are toast.
Before he had time to analyze, Grace knocked on his jamb. “I need to talk to you.” She closed the door, her lips thin, and her face more on the pale side than usual. Something was up.
Instead of taking a seat as she usually did, she leaned back against the doorframe. Sighing, she perused her stylish pumps, then focused on something out the window behind him. He put off his confrontation with Rudd for a few minutes. Scott felt like making the man sweat a little longer, because he sure as hell wasn’t giving into any blackmail. Dealing with Grace gave him time to formulate a plan.
Show and Tell Page 32
