“You wouldn’t sleep at all in my bed,” he told her.
Vicky turned her head away. “This isn’t fair.”
“It can end any time you want it to.”
“You’re a liar. You’ve disrespected my wishes every step of the way.”
Shane bent his head. She braced herself for a kiss. He made her wait. “All I think of is your wishes. And right now you want me to make love to you. You want me to make you come hard and fast. You’ll have to keep quiet though, won’t you, so no one hears.”
“Fuck off, Shane.”
The kiss was like liquid fire. She didn’t stand a chance. Her body was too damn hungry, starved for affection, the kind only he could give.
“Unzip my pants,” he said.
Vicky tugged at the zipper. “This won’t solve anything, it will make it worse. I will hate you more for making me one more notch on your belt.”
“Lawyers really don’t know when to shut up, do they?”
Shane used his tongue this time, exploring, recapturing all the lost territory from before and more besides. Her eyes slid closed as she matched his passion, searching his mouth with her tongue. They exchanged moans, their teeth clicked together as he bit at her lips more than once.
“On the floor,” she said breathless. “Take me…on the floor.”
Shane smiled as if he had known all along that she would crumble. Of course he had. Shane knew everything, the gorgeous motherfucker.
Vicky got down on all fours. It was going to be the quickest way and she was not in the mood to waste time.
Catching her mood perfectly, Shane knelt behind her on one knee and flipped up her skirt.
She dug her fingernails into the carpet as he went after her panties. It was eerily similar to the dream, silk tearing in his hands as he bared her pulsing pussy, her dripping, swollen lips that seemed to be made for penetration by Shane.
“You gonna sue me for these too?” He dangled the torn, fragrant silk under her nose.
“No, but you’d better not give me rug burn.”
Shane laughed. “You’ve got an answer for everything.”
If only. Right now she had a million questions about Shane and not a single solution. Nor was she likely to find one in her current position.
“Just hurry up before I come to my senses.”
“You’ll be coming all right.”
Shane planted both knees on the floor and jerked open his jeans then pushed them down over his ass, along with his boxer briefs. He pressed his powerful thighs against her, his hands caressing her buttocks. She moaned, pushing her butt back against him.
“Don’t make me wait,” she said, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.
“What’s the rush?”
Shane ran his finger over her swollen clit, making her writhe. She was so damn close, just a little more friction, a little more strategic stroking. Shane picked up on her overexcited state at once, promptly removing his hand.
She hissed in frustration. “You’ll pay for this. I don’t know how yet but you will.”
“You’ve had your revenge already, Vicky. I haven’t been able to concentrate on a damn thing since we left each other.”
Vicky mentally stored his words, intending to look at them later. They seemed important. Unfortunately she wasn’t thinking too clearly at the moment. “I don’t want revenge, I want…you.”
It was liberating and exhilarating and a little frightening to make the admission. Wanting Shane the first time had been easy—pure sex, no strings attached. This time felt more complicated.
“The feeling is mutual times a thousand, counselor.”
Shane expertly pushed his cock inside her, like a man all too familiar with the territory. She blushed to think of herself in such terms—one of Shane’s easy marks, any port in a storm right?
Vicky accepted him fully, sighing as he impaled her. She felt torn, wanting the speed and friction of thrusting but at the same time needing to just hold him like that, deep inside her.
She was afraid to climax because then they would have to deal with the rest of it, a relationship doomed to failure before it began. They were too different, incompatible, night and day.
“Oh yeah, Vicky, that’s what I need.” Shane seemed to read her mind, kissing her neck, giving her a moment to adjust, absorb. Prepare.
“I missed you,” he whispered, his breath warm in her ear.
A moan escaped her throat, a feeling of tenderness, the complete letting down of her guard. “Come on, baby, come on,” she coaxed.
Shane pulled out of her pussy very, very slowly. When he was almost completely withdrawn, he exhaled, as though in pain. A moment later he groaned and thrust his cock to the hilt.
The impact pushed her forward. “Oh fuck,” she murmured in approval.
Shane repeated the action. She felt as if she would catch fire inside from the friction all along her wet, starving canal. He braced himself now, grabbing hold of her waist. Over and over, he pushed into her. Vicky shuddered, feeling the orgasm building, the tingling in her toes all the way to the tips of her fingers, the storm about to release in her center, her clit hard and aching.
He knew how to fuck her and he knew how to move her and build her and guide her. He knew the right angle, how to thrust upward at the same time that he thrust in. She clenched her fists and lowered her forehead to the floor, giving in to the inevitable.
On the floor of her own office, her partner and her assistant close by, maybe within earshot. Momentary panic gripped her as she tried to remember if she had locked the door. She hadn’t, why should she? Nothing was supposed to happen.
The terror curled inside her, a hot, indescribable release. Someone could walk in at any moment. She was as helpless to prevent that as she was to stop Shane from fucking her pussy.
She didn’t want him to stop. She was in heat. Everyone would know that she was a hot wench who loved sex, couldn’t get enough of it. There was another word, much less polite. She scarcely dared think of it.
Shane, what are you doing to me?
“Let it out, baby,” he said, urging, demanding.
Vicky whimpered, holding it all back, trying not to scream. Her head swam. It was her secret dream, her worst nightmare.
“I’m gonna come inside you so fucking hard,” he growled. “Do you want it? Do you want my hot cum in you?”
“I do…oh god, I want it in my pussy. Come in me, use me.”
Unromantic dirty talk, they were in perfect harmony.
“Baby, you know what a sexy woman you are. You know how you draw me, attract me like a fucking wild animal.”
“I saw it when you walked in. You came for this, you came to fuck me. You knew I would give in.”
“Yes, you can’t resist. I can’t either.” Shane released a low groan followed by a string of curse words. His cock thickened, engorged with blood. How long had he been saving up?
His release was like a flood. She dissolved at once, synchronizing her orgasm perfectly. It was like one climax shared by two people, everything read and understood, the whole world contained in the thrust and release, the tension and spasm of muscles, the shared heat, the drops of sweat, the surging pulses. On and on it went, swirling slow motion but so intense she had to grit her teeth.
Every bit of energy was sucked out, pulled into a single vortex that went god knew where. Aftershocks kept her humming and buzzing for minutes afterward. Shane kissed her on her back, her neck and shoulders.
She whimpered as he pulled out his flagging cock. She didn’t want him to, just as she hadn’t wanted him to come here in the first place.
You see? This is why a man like this is so much trouble. He will hurt you inevitably, even if he doesn’t want to.
“That was the best yet,” said Shane, rising to his feet. He meant it as a compliment but it supremely pissed her off, him acting so self-satisfied so casual, as though he had done something totally innocuous like breaking a record for sit-ups or something.
>
“I’m glad you’re so pleased with yourself. Do they have a scoring system, back at the agency or wherever it is you work?”
Shane lifted her to a standing position, leaving her no choice but to look him in the eye. “What are you talking about? Why would I keep score?”
“It doesn’t matter, soldier boy. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, work stuff. You’ll understand if I don’t show you out?”
He frowned.
Vicky cringed internally. It was a bitchy thing to have said.
“I suppose I had that coming,” he said simply.
She watched him pull on his clothes. She did the same, stone silent.
“I guess this is goodbye,” she said when they were both dressed.
“Do you want it to be?”
Vicky stared at her hands, folded in front of her. She didn’t answer and eventually she heard the door open and close.
Sometime later she felt Kat rubbing her arm. “Vicky, are you okay? You need to sit down.”
How long had she been standing there?
Vicky no sooner collapsed on the couch with Kat next to her than the floodgates released. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried and she wasn’t entirely sure why she was crying now.
“Did Shane hurt you?” Kat asked as they held each other tightly.
Vicky couldn’t lie. She would love to blame him for everything, make it all simple, but that just was not the case.
“He held up a mirror,” Vicky said at last. “It turns out I’m not as beautiful as everyone thinks.”
Chapter Four
Vicky put off going home that evening as long as possible. It was half past eight by the time she locked up the office and headed down to the parking garage. Every little sound grated on her nerves, the ding of the elevator arriving at her floor, the hum of the machinery as it took her down to the bowels of the building, even the way her heels clicked on the concrete.
Kat had asked her about a million times if she was okay until finally Vicky had had to chase her off.
“Go home,” she had told her dearest friend. “Polish the handcuffs and oil the leather or whatever it is you kinky people do for chores.”
Kat had laughed. “At least you’re still in there. I just wish I could reach you better.”
There were limits to friendship though, Vicky knew. Places only lovers could go. Surely Kat understood. The way she and Chase looked at each other, talking without saying a word, communicating everything with smiles and eyebrows.
Was Vicky jealous? A little. No, a lot, she thought as she rounded the corner to the spot where her little red roadster was parked.
Damn Shane for making her feel so lonely. She had been just fine until he came along. It was a joke really. What had Shane ever done but screw her.
Regret choked her. She had been the one to act like a jerk today. He hadn’t deserved her attitude. There were about a million better ways she could have handled that, letting him down easy. What if he went off and died in some jungle now, wouldn’t it all be her fault, him taking his last breath in some terrible place on some dark mission?
“Took you long enough.”
Vicky’s mouth dropped. She might as well be seeing a ghost. “Shane?”
He made the car look like a toy as he leaned against it, just as he had leaned against her desk earlier. Her emotions swirled like a roulette wheel but where would she land, what number was going to come up?
Guilt gave way to enormous relief, followed by her usual inexplicable irritation.
“What are you doing standing out here? You almost scared me to death.”
“I’m here to take you to dinner,” he said with not an ounce of apology.
“I already ate.”
“In your office? What did you have, crackers from the vending machine?”
“I had Chinese delivered.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I fucking did.”
He shook his head. “I won’t bore you with how I know but trust me, I do.”
“What? Were you spying on me?”
“Just tell me what you like to eat and we’ll get out of here.”
“You tell me what I like. You’ve probably had me under surveillance.”
He smiled wryly. “I haven’t been snooping. Kat called me and told me you were here moping.”
“That’s none of her business or yours.” Vicky dug in her purse for her keys. “By the time I look up you had better be gone.”
“Looking for these?” He dangled her key ring from his index finger.
“How the fuck—”
“You can have them back after dinner.”
“How about if I call the police instead?”
“You mean on your cell phone?” Shane was holding it, having pulled it out of his back pocket.
Vicky went over the edge, deep into their game of parry and thrust. Two fencers, fighting for the upper hand. It spoke to, satisfied, something deep inside her. “I don’t know who you think you are or what games you want to play but I’m not some stupid little girl you can bully and cower, you play hardball with me and I will put your fucking nuts in a vise.”
Shane licked his lips. “Sounds interesting, but how about a nice steak instead?”
She lunged at him, trying to grab her keys. He held them and the phone just out of reach, six inches too high in the air.
“Give me.”
“This isn’t very ladylike, counselor.”
Vicky punched him in the stomach. She might as well have hit a brick wall. “Shit,” she groaned, doubling over.
Shane moved in, surrounding, enveloping her. “Let me take a look.”
She didn’t want him to make her feel better, safe, protected or cared for. Those were bullshit things that could be taken away in a heartbeat.
“Don’t bother, you’ve done enough.”
He kissed her wounded hand, instantly healing to her throbbing knuckles. “Come to dinner with me, Miss Victoria, please?”
The roulette wheel spun again. Legs shaking, stomach fluttering. “Dinner,” she said. “But that’s it.”
“Absolutely.”
Shane went to the passenger side and opened the door for her. He walked around, adjusted the seat and slid behind the wheel, literally possessing her car. It looked good on him, jeans stretched over muscular thighs, torso leaning back against the leather seat. His hand touched the wheel and he fired up the engine.
“Dinner means eating,” she felt obligated to say. “Two people in a restaurant at a table, knives and forks, plates and so on. Nothing else.”
“Dinner,” he agreed in a way that did little to ease her suspicions. “Knives and forks, I’ve got it.”
If this were any other man she would feel perfectly safe and on top of things. As it was, with Shane, her mind raced with the possibilities of what he might come up with.
The really bad part was, as much as it outraged her it also excited her, so much so that her panties were getting wet all over again.
“Slow down,” she complained as he took off down the street.
Shane turned to her and grinned. “I’m just getting started, counselor.”
Oh yeah, Vicky was lost and she knew it.
The side streets passed in a blur. Shane was giving the little sports car a run for its money, the same with its owner. They were a lot alike, in his opinion, Vicky and her car—sleek, powerful, not made to be driven by the faint of heart.
Oh no, you could not be asleep at that wheel. And you had to stay one step ahead, always. Shane was no psychologist but he was pretty sure he knew why Vicky fought him so hard. She was scared that what was between them might be deep and real, that it might threaten her scrappy, independent existence.
She had been burned before, hurt pretty bad. He recognized the scars. She might never have faced combat but there were plenty of other ways to stare death in the face. Losing a loved one, having one’s most precious dreams squashed, finding out you have some incurable di
sease, all of these were occasions that brought people to the brink and sometimes over it.
It was what you did afterward, how you came back that mattered. Vicky was a survivor and he admired that. That was what kept drawing him to her, the fascination of sex with someone who really felt like his equal, whose moves and desires and emotions matched his own. He could feel it with every thrust, every moan. It was uncanny the way he read anger, fear, fury.
One night at a time, that’s how it would have to be. The same way you handle combat—all the waiting, the mind-numbing emptiness punctuated by explosions, confusion and raw terror, the kind of split-second confrontations that haunted a man his whole life.
He had scouted out the locale, selected the restaurant and very soon he would carry out the plan. Know your terrain, that was the key. If at all possible, choose your ground and make the enemy come to you. Vicky wasn’t the enemy, just her innate reluctance. He had to break that down and then they would finally be able to talk.
Maybe nothing would come of it, but at least he would know. And, god it was fun playing with her. Just seeing her sitting there, so turned-on, so dead set against showing it.
“You don’t like how I drive?” he asked, trying to get her going again.
“This isn’t driving, it’s suicide.”
“Relax, I’ve driven stock cars, funny cars, you name it.”
“That would be great, but this is Main Street, not a frigging racetrack.”
He chuckled, sliding his hand to her warm, inviting thigh. His mind shifted instantly to sex—fast, intense, soul stealing.
“Both hands on the wheel,” she squealed.
“It’s called multitasking.” He let his fingers stray, crawling like a spider between her smooth, shapely thighs.
“I’m not a task, I’m a person.”
She was trying to pry his fingers away.
“I’m liable to have an accident,” he warned, “if you keep on shaking me like that.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” she fumed. “Let you grope me at will?”
“My hand has a mind of its own. Don’t spook it, that’s all I’m saying.”
Exposing Victoria Page 8
