“Can I ask if this is usual? Like does he always buy entire wardrobes for the women he dates?”
She could sense Agnes’s hesitation, and Sunny wondered if she’d even answer. But then Agnes lowered her voice and said, “The truth is, most of the women Mr. Benton dates come with designer wardrobes. The full package, so to speak. I’ve never had to arrange for a toothbrush for one of Mr. Benton’s dates, much less a wardrobe.”
“Oh, okay,” Sunny answered feeling queasy in her stomach. “Well, thanks for mine, then. It’s um...really nice.” She quickly hung up the phone, wondering why Cole was so set on having her. Agnes had just confirmed once again that she definitely wasn’t his usual type.
Breakfast with Cole was just like she suspected breakfast with Cole would be. He spent most of it either staring out the window as though he’d rather be somewhere else or checking his phone. He didn’t say much, and all the while Agnes’s words rang in her ears.
The truth is most of the women Mr. Benton dates come with designer wardrobes. The full package, so to speak.
Sunny stood up, her breakfast only half-finished.
“Where are you going?” he asked, looking at her directly for the first time since she’d arrived.
“I don’t know,” she answered, fingering the diagonal ruffle on the coral colored silk romper she’d decided to wear to breakfast. “I was thinking of going to the community center and working on the routine for Sunday’s class. Or maybe I’ll pay Nora a visit, pretend to actually do my job.”
He gave her a sharp look, before checking his phone yet again. “We still have thirteen minutes left for breakfast.”
Sunny shrugged. “Sorry, I guess getting ignored for most of the hour has killed my appetite.”
A beat passed, and then Cole very deliberately set down his phone. “You think I’m ignoring you?” he asked her.
“I don’t have to think anything. I’ve been living it for the last seventeen minutes,” she answered.
“Sit down.”
Sunny opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off with a reminder. “We’re in public, Sunny.”
She sat down. He was right. Getting into a petty argument in public wouldn’t exactly sell their romance.
When she was once again seated, she waited for him to lambaste her for almost making a scene, but instead he leaned forward. “You have great legs. Actually you have great everything, but the outfit you’re wearing really highlights your legs.”
“Thank you,” she said carefully, appreciating the unexpected compliment, but wondering where it was coming from.
“I want those legs around my waist, holding on to me tight while I take you. Seeing you in that outfit, it’s all I can think about.”
Momentarily Sunny was struck speechless. “And that’s why you keep checking your phone? Because of my legs?”
He picked up his phone and turned it toward her. There was a clock open on it, one that was running backward. Sunny squinted at it in confusion, not understanding why he was showing her this particular screen. But then she realized that when the clock ran out it would be one o’clock. Twenty-four hours since she’d left the Benton Spa directly after getting waxed.
“You’re ah...” She couldn’t finish, she was so embarrassed.
“Highly anticipating taking a late lunch today,” he answered. He put his phone back in his breast pocket. “You think I’m ignoring you. I’m doing everything in my power to keep my hands off of you.”
Sunny couldn’t hide the wicked smile that came to her face. She, too, was more than a little turned on by the prospect of hooking up with Cole again. She’d thought about it all night and most of the morning. So it was nice to know she wasn’t the only one affected by the delay.
She slipped her foot out of her shoe. “I’m sorry to hear you’re suffering, Cole.” She raised her leg and pressed her foot lightly into Cole’s crotch. “But here, maybe I can help you...”
She kept her body language casual for the outside world, but she pressed her foot even farther between Cole’s legs and was instantly rewarded when she felt him go hard underneath the bare pad of her foot.
“Sunny...” he said.
She pulled her foot away and put it back in her shoe with a saucy smile. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t want you to lose control.”
His eyes were hot on hers now. “I’m going to let you leave our breakfast date early, then take a few minutes before I go back to my office. A nurse will be visiting you to draw blood within the hour. Go do whatever you want with your day after that, but no matter what you do...” He leaned forward. “Be back in the penthouse by one.”
A chill went down Sunny’s back, an incongruously hot one, and she felt herself clench down below in anticipation. She smiled, rising from the table. “Okay, see you later, Cole.”
She then walked away from their breakfast table, now thinking that her not being his usual type might not be such a bad thing.
Chapter 16
Cole didn’t get into his private elevator until five after one, simply to prove that he could wait. He needed to believe that he still had some control over this situation with Sunny, even if he’d been compulsively checking his countdown clock all day.
But delaying his arrival wasn’t a good decision on his part.
Sunny wasn’t in the living room, or in the guest bedroom. He was just about to call her phone, demanding to know where she was and when the hell she was coming back when he heard her whisper, “Cole, is that you?”
Her voice was coming from his room, and when he threw open the door he found her, sitting on top of his bed, with her knees tucked in front of her. Completely naked.
“I really liked that romper, too,” she explained, pointing toward where she’d carefully laid it out over the back of one of the room’s black side chairs. “So I took it off. I didn’t want you hurt it.”
She was totally serious, he realized, when she followed this explanation up with a nervous nibble on her lip, peeking up at him as if she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be to finding her naked in his bed.
But how could she not know? Bountiful breasts, wide hourglass hips, framing what he suspected was a very generous backside. He liked what he saw all right. Apparently, even after breakfast, she still wasn’t quite grasping just how sexy she was to him.
He became hard as a battering ram inside his pants. It had been a bad, stupid, terrible decision to wait even five minutes longer than necessary to come up there.
He’d promised himself that he’d punish her long and hard for teasing him the way she had at breakfast. He’d even told Agnes not to disturb him for the next hour, so that nothing could interfere with his erotic revenge.
But seeing her without a stitch of clothing in his bed...her heavy breasts out, their nipples pebbled, left no doubt that no matter how difficult it had been to get her here, she definitely wanted to be there now. He found himself having to look away for a few seconds, closing his eyes while he tried to get control of himself.
Control, control, control, that’s the most important thing, he reminded himself. This was all supposed to be about control. Taking back control of a situation that had gotten wildly out of hand. Conquering it before it could conquer him.
“Cole? Is everything all right?” He could hear her moving to sit up, a note of worry in her voice.
Cole was grateful for it. He hated the look of pity she had given him the night before, and even more so, the note of concern he now heard in her voice. It gave him the fuel to do what he wanted to do without his runaway lust getting in the way.
He opened his eyes and let her see just how cold they’d gone.
* * *
To Sunny it was like seeing Cole morph from a man into an ice sculpture. She’d delighted in Cole’s reaction to her at
first. The way his eyes had heated up, showing her that she wasn’t the only one who’d spent the day in the grips of some pretty hardcore sexual anticipation.
But then that familiar anger had come back, flashing across his face before he turned away from her, closing his eyes. And when he opened them again, the cool and controlled businessman was back in full effect, even colder than he’d been on that first day when they’d met in his office.
Sunny scooted back on the bed feeling very self-conscious. Putting herself on naked display on top of Cole’s bed had been a bad idea. She could see that now. Too much, too soon. No wonder he was giving her the icicle treatment now.
She reached for the blanket and tried to cover herself up, but Cole was across the room in an instant, his hand clamping around her wrist before she could even shield her breasts.
He held her there from his standing position at the edge of the bed, his green eyes running over her body like a scientist’s. “Show me.”
Sunny froze. “Show you what?”
“Spread your legs, Sunny. Show me the reason I was kept waiting.”
Sunny swallowed. Another command, this one impossibly intimate. Expose herself even more. One Sunny didn’t know if she could honor, not with the serious doubts now running through her head.
But somehow she made herself do it, uncurl her legs and spread them out for him. His gaze stayed on her the whole time, so strong it felt as if it was the power of his stare pushing her legs apart.
The only indication Cole gave that he was in any way affected by what he saw was the tightening of his hand around her wrist, right before he let it go.
He laid his hands down on the inside of her thighs, just below her V. Then...nothing.
He just stood there, looking at her, and she became deeply aware of her body’s response to his stare. She could feel herself start to throb, the lips of her entrance pulsing in and out, as wetness pooled at her center, and that made her feel even more exposed, even more naked than before.
She attempted to close her legs, but he easily kept them spread apart. In fact, he pushed down and spread her legs even farther apart, brushing his thumb lightly against the lips of her cleft as he did so. And a piercing arrow of sexual need shot through Sunny’s core.
“Was it worth it?” he asked her, his voice low and rough.
Sunny didn’t even try to answer. Just watched him watch her.
“Do you like lying here completely exposed to me?”
Another hard question to answer. Technically the answer was no. Sunny had never felt this uncomfortable in her life. All she wanted was to get away from him and his unwavering stare, but on the other hand....
She could feel herself involuntarily clenching and unclenching now. Practically begging Cole.
He answered her body’s silent plea, moving his hand to cover her now glistening mound.
Sunny moaned when his fingers found her slit, and she arched into the pads of them as he ran them up and down, tantalizing her, but not quite touching her in the way she needed to be touched. He didn’t put his fingers inside her the way he had in the hotel room on Sunday.
Now her embarrassment gave way to frustration. “Why are you torturing me?” she asked. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It is,” he answered, matter of fact. “But I also want you to understand what will happen if you ever tease me again like you did at breakfast.”
Understanding bloomed inside her mind. So he was punishing her for teasing him. Well, two could play that game. “Torturing me because I gave you blue balls falls under the ‘not nice’ clause,” she informed him breathlessly. “You’re in violation of our agreement.”
An impressed smile played along his lips. “You want me to be nice to you, Sunny?”
He brought two of his fingers just to the outside of her tunnel, pressing against its entrance, but not pushing the two digits through. Sunny hissed, her belly caving in with need before she arched herself into him, desperately trying to get him inside her.
It worked. Sort of.
He pushed in, maybe about an inch and stopped short. “Is this nicer, Sunny?”
“More,” she moaned.
He pushed in a little more. But not nearly far enough. Frustrated, Sunny let out a whimper of disappointment.
“Sunny, you seem upset,” she heard him say above her.
“Because...you won’t. You won’t....”
“Say it, Sunny. If you want me to be nice, tell me what you want.”
“I want you to push them in. All the way in.”
“Like this,” he asked.
He suddenly rammed his fingers inside of her all the way to his second set of knuckles, and for a moment it felt glorious, as though she was getting exactly what she wanted. But once again, he didn’t move.
“Move your fingers. Please, move them,” she demanded.
He didn’t move his fingers. Not even a wiggle. And when she tried to move her own hips, his other hand still on her thigh, pressed down, so that she couldn’t.
She brought her own hand down to her core, bitterly disappointed, but more than used to having to take care of her own needs.
He knocked it away. Then he just stood there, so long her body started to scream with sexual frustration.
“Not nice,” she moaned, her hands coming up to her own breasts, now heavy and swollen with need. She palmed them, tugging on her own nipples. She felt as if she was losing it, and closed her eyes, so that she didn’t have to see him watching her with that slight smirk on his face as she came completely undone.
“So not nice,” she panted. “You’re watching me humiliate myself. And it’s so not nice—”
He suddenly started pistoning his fingers inside of her and then his mouth came crashing down on her core, wet and hot.
Her back arched. The combination of his mouth and his fingers felt like the most erotic sex dream come true.
“Oh, Cole,” she whimpered. “That feels so good. So good!”
She didn’t last long under his double assault. She came in a blaze of heat, all the way from the top of her pelvis to the bottom of her toes.
And then he was on top of her, once again kissing her as he hauled her up higher in the bed. He unzipped his pants and Sunny cried out with pleasure. He filled her up completely, sinking in deep. It felt so nice to have him like this. Sunny guessed that he must have gotten word that her blood test came back clear before he’d arrived at the penthouse.
He obviously liked the feel of being unsheathed inside of her, too. He drilled into her, with a thrust that could easily be described as punishing. But it no longer felt anything like a punishment to Sunny, and she held onto him tight, more than happy to receive him.
“Get them around me,” he said, his voice now ragged and hoarse. “Your legs...get them around me, and come, Sunny, come.”
She did as he instructed, and this new position exposed her clit to his thrusts in a way it hadn’t before. She came almost immediately, her yellow nails digging into his suit jacket. Then he came soon after with an angry lion roar, his cock jerking inside of her.
After he was done, he rose up, looking down at her, his light green eyes filled with tenderness, and for a moment they melted Sunny’s heart.
But in the next moment, his eyes frosted over, and Ice Sculpture Cole came back. He moved away from her. “I should get back to work,” he said.
He started to redo his pants, and then stopped and said, “Actually, I should take a shower first.”
He took his phone out and set it on the nightstand before he began stripping out of his suit.
A chill ran all the way through Sunny, pinning her heart to the back of her chest. What he meant was that he needed to get her smell off of him. Erase all traces of what they’d done before he went back to work
. And what had been so beautiful for Sunny just a few moments before became ugly. So ugly, tears formed in her eyes, without warning.
She forced them back down, turning her head away, so that Cole wouldn’t see how much he’d hurt her. Hold on, just hold on for a few seconds, she told herself. The coast would be clear after he disappeared into the bathroom. Then she’d be free to run out and cry like a not very big girl in her room without him ever being the wiser. She waited for the click of the bathroom door.
But the click never happened, and eventually she heard his footsteps as he came back across the room to stand at the right side of the bed. She could feel him standing there, watching as she tried not to cry.
“I thought you were going to take a shower,” she said, when too many excruciating seconds had passed. She raised her head to take a quick look at him, and found him standing there in nothing but a bath towel, as if he’d thought about going ahead and taking his shower, but had decided to come back out there and talk to her instead.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding more than a little aggrieved.
“Nothing,” she answered.
“Sunny, remember what I told you about how I felt about you lying to me?”
She did remember that. She took a deep breath and confessed, “I have some issues, I guess. Big ones that I should have thought about before agreeing to this arrangement.”
Issues. Good one. If there was ever a way to send a man as all business as Cole running for the hills, it was to freely admit that she had major issues.
But the next thing she felt was the bed depressing under his weight. “I’m not good at this,” she heard him say beside her. “But I agreed, so yeah, okay. Let’s do this. Let’s talk.”
He said this in the same way a child would say, “Okay, sure, put a big heap of vegetables on my plate.” And that only mad Sunny feel worse.
“No, you don’t have to talk to me. I’m not asking you to talk to me right now. You—you don’t have to do that. Just go to work. I’ll be fine...”
No movement at all came from his side of the bed. “Are you upset because I punished you for teasing me?”
Vegas, Baby Page 10
