by Joanne Rock
She wouldn’t allow him to stop. Not now when her mind swam with sensual imaginings, her body more in tune to his touch than it had ever been for any other man’s.
“I dedicated twenty hours a day to this company for months on end after my father died.” She didn’t regret the time since it had given her a chance to finally understand the man who had always been too busy for her when he was alive. She’d come to peace with Ray Boucher in that time. But she wouldn’t bury her own needs for the sake of the company forever. “I’m entitled to a few hours of downtime.”
If she hadn’t been blindfolded, her increased senses might not have picked up the low rumble of approval that went clear through Wes. His body practically hummed with anticipation now, and she couldn’t quite believe she possessed so much power over the man.
Consumed with the need to fulfill her daydream visions, she edged backward on the chair, ready to drag him with her toward the conference table. But then his hands found her thighs, his thumbs sliding upward on the inside of her legs until she remembered exactly how much of a barrier stood between her and Wes now that she’d straddled him. Only a tiny triangle of peacock-blue satin shielded her from his wandering touch.
Maybe she could wait to tackle him onto the conference table. Right now, she could only think about what he might do when he discovered the decadent lingerie beneath her conservative suit. Heat licked tiny tongues of flame up her thighs as he nudged the nubby cotton tweed hemline higher and higher.
Cool air breezed between her legs before his fingers touched her. She held herself still, sensing his gaze on her now exposed hips.
“You’re gorgeous.” His whispered reverence soothed any wounds left by unflattering photos or the occasional broken zipper on her skirts. She delved beneath his suit jacket to touch him through his crisp blue shirt. Fiery warmth radiated from his shoulders, a wealth of heat she couldn’t absorb fast enough.
“You just caught me on a good day.” She knew she was a far cry from celebrity-perfect, but he made her feel beautiful.
“I’ve been dying since Friday trying to picture you wearing this kind of stuff.” Wes’s finger traced the out line of one satin strap holding her delicate G-string in place.
Part of her wanted to whip off the blindfold to see his eyes on her, but somehow it seemed easier to be bold and adventurous this way. With the scarf to keep her in the dark, she could be as brash as any daytime TV diva determined to have her own way.
Licking a kiss along his jaw, Tempest whispered in his ear. “You know I’ve got lots more where this came from.” She gave her hips a little shake to make sure he knew what she was talking about. “If you please me today, maybe you’ll be seeing more in the future.”
Hooking his finger into the satin strap, Wes tugged gently but didn’t pull the panties off. “I’d like that.”
“I’d like more of you, Detective.” She tugged at his tie, savoring the slide of hot silk between her fingers as she undid the knot. “You seem to be getting all the visuals here.”
Nimble, quick fingers went to work on her skirt but tons. “You can’t get a visual when you’re blindfolded anyway. Why not let me worry about what to see?”
“Only if you let me worry about what to touch.” She dropped her hand to his fly, amazed at her audacity. She’d never been this way with a man.
Her palm fluttering over the ridge in his trousers made his fingers move faster on her skirt. And then she lost track of his touch at her waist as all her attention narrowed to the hard heat of him.
She shoved his coat off his shoulders and felt him shrug out of his suit jacket. Clothes peeled off them in every direction, her skirt slipping to her feet, her jacket falling open to expose the peacock-blue satin bra with sheer lace insets.
He sucked in a breath and she almost envied him the ability to see. But she wasn’t ready to leave the safety of her blindfold yet, not when it infused her with so much delicious daring. The heat steaming off her skin warmed her perfume and supercharged the light, almond fragrance she wore.
“Like what you see?” She tugged on his belt, while he remained still
“Incredible.” His voice hit a hoarse note as she care fully unbuttoned his pants around an erection that would have made any woman’s mouth water.
Although it wasn’t her mouth going damp right now.
“I’ve been thinking about you today,” she confided, easing his zipper down until his cock sprang free. “Even though I didn’t want to.”
He rolled the straps of her bra down her shoulders with his palms before lowering his lips to the curve of her neck. “I think I’m insulted.”
“Don’t be. In these fantasies of mine, you were very good.” She shuddered as his lips roamed over the tops of her breasts, the low rumble of normal office conversation on the other side of one wall reminding her what a risk they took, although she knew no one would disturb her while her door remained closed. And no one would be able to hear her and Wes except maybe her office assistant.
But still…the others would know she’d been closeted with this sexy cop for hours and they would probably wonder.
“Then it wasn’t a fantasy.” He flicked off her bra and captured a nipple in his mouth. The hot sensation of his tongue swirling over her nearly brought her to her knees. “That must have been a premonition.”
He shifted against her and there was a rustling sound before he picked her up and deposited her to sit on the conference table.
Squealing in surprise, she soaked in the feel of the cool mahogany surface beneath her, providing a stark contrast to the hot, lean muscles bending over her. His cock brushed her thigh and she could tell he must have discarded his trousers along the way. He stood in front of her, poised between her thighs.
She wanted him, wanted this, so badly. Part of her longed to tell him she’d like to see him stretched out on the conference table beneath her, but even with the blindfold she couldn’t find the words.
Knowing she’d spent long enough in the dark any how, Tempest reached for the silk scarf around her eyes and nudged it up and off.
She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the bright fluorescent lighting overhead.
And oh. Ooh.
Wes naked was a sight to see. The carved muscle and flat abs appealed to her sculptor’s eye, but the weapon he was carrying…yipes. His shaft was pointed her way and looked very ready to strike.
Scooting toward the edge of the table she made her way closer, her greedy flesh hungry for a taste of him. He reached for her panties and snapped the skinny elastic straps, rendering her naked with a flick of his wrist. She leaned back on her arms to support herself, desperate to feel him inside her.
Her finger brushed a paper—no, a foil condom pack age he must have left on the table. Falling on it grate fully, she ripped it open with her teeth while she silently applauded his foresight. She was so far gone now, she wasn’t entirely sure she would have remembered to be careful.
Rolling on the condom, she savored the length and size of him. He gripped her thighs, lifting her off the table until she slid her arms around his neck to hold on. He guided her closer, finding the perfect angle, and gently thrust his way inside.
Stretching around him, her body worked to accommodate his. He eased her back down to the table, settling her there so he could free his hands to touch her.
Eyes falling closed as he spread her with his fingers, Tempest shuddered from the wave of pleasure, a tiny foreshadow of the completion she knew would follow. The skill of his touch amazed her, his finger zeroing in on her clit again and again, even as he moved inside her with long, devastating strokes. She opened her eyes to see his burning into her with enough heat to singe her very soul.
Confusion and pleasure tangled inside her, startling her with how much she wanted this man. He was giving her everything he had, his deft touch taking her swiftly to the highest of sensual peaks, and yet she wanted even more…
Sealing her mouth to his, she kissed away her doubts, her fears,
until only the heat remained. Her fingers sank into his skin, clinging, as he played between her thighs. His hips ground against hers, filling her so completely she thought she’d fly right apart.
Waves of pleasure crashed over her, pummeling her with their intensity. Her thighs locked, squeezing him tight to her until his release claimed him, too. Their shouts mingled, breathless and raw, bodies seizing with aftershocks. Lights danced behind her eyes, a star-studded spectacular just for her. She’d never had an orgasm like that. Not even close.
She almost hated to open her eyes and end this moment in case she never felt that way again. A depressing thought.
Wes’s arms coming around her waist saved her from having to make that decision, however. He readjusted her, lifting her off the table where she’d somehow fallen back in a slump, his hands cradling her from the hard mahogany surface.
“Are you okay?” His voice, filled with more tender concern than she’d expected from a man of hard edges, warmed her insides.
She knew that kind of thinking was downright dangerous. As a closet romantic nursing a hunger for soap operas, Tempest knew that real life didn’t operate the way she wanted. Therefore, sexy, honorable men like Wes Shaw could never be expected to fork over a bouquet of daisies and start a courtship just because they had wild sex on her conference room table.
Far from it.
The man who had run at the first hint of too much publicity was probably already busy looking for the door. Forcing herself to keep things light between them, she drew in a stabilizing breath.
“Just a little dazed, I think.” Smiling with as much composure as she could manage, Tempest pried her eyes open. “That was something else, Detective.”
HELL YEAH it was something else. Something out of this world and off his personal record books. Something completely unexpected and mind-blowing. It also happened to be eye-crossing, bone-incinerating and brain-scrambling.
Not that he planned to share any of that with Tempest.
“Damn straight it was.” He kissed her, more than happy to allow the heat between them to do his talking for him. “You think anybody heard us?”
“Only Rebecca. And I didn’t hire her because she can type fast.” She eased up, her naked body brushing his and making him want her all over again. “She’s my assistant because we went to school together. I’ve never had a tryst in my office before, but I trust her to keep all my secrets.”
Prying himself away from her before he pushed her back against the table all over again, Wes scouted around for clothes. Did it make him an awful person that he was grateful for the office setting that prohibited intimate post-coital conversations? Not that he wouldn’t have appreciated the chance to hold Tempest’s body against his a little longer. But the level of their sex connection had thrown him for a major loop.
“Good.” He tossed her a skirt while he zipped up. “I meant what I said before about not wanting to cause a stir for you. I didn’t expect things to get so…out of hand here.”
“Yet you arrived bearing prophylactics.” She shrugged into her jacket before retrieving her scarf. “You were well-prepared for a man who didn’t expect to get carried away.”
Busted.
“Okay. Correction—I wanted something to happen, but I didn’t think it would happen in the middle of your conference room.” He watched her wind the scarf around her neck, carefully tucking the ends into her jacket to cover those incredible breasts of hers. Desire slugged through him as hot as if he hadn’t just held her naked in his arms. “Nice view, by the way.”
She glanced up, brown eyes wide.
Jerking a thumb toward the wall of windows high above any other building nearby, he dragged his gaze away from her centerfold curves to the panorama of downtown. “You’ve got great offices here. I can’t imagine many buildings in the city rivaling this kind of view.”
“You’re full of it.” She fluffed her dark curls around her face and then pushed a few strands behind one ear. “But thank you.”
Her tone seemed different. Remote. Wes watched her, searching for a clue to her mood. She shuffled through some papers on her desk before slamming her appointment book closed.
“I guess I’m done here for the day if you want to walk down with me. I’ll have to make up my missed appointments another day.”
That was it? They’d just had the best sex of his life and now she wanted to dismiss him like one of her employees? He knew he had no right to be insulted since he’d been wondering how to avoid awkward after-sex conversations himself, but damn, even he wouldn’t have tried rolling out the door that fast.
Still, he didn’t have any intention of letting her out of his sight just yet.
“I’ll walk you down. Better yet, I’ll give you a lift back to your family’s home.” He would make sure she didn’t try to stay at her apartment tonight, not until the security system was up and running. “You said Park Avenue, right?”
“Wait a minute.” Tempest held out a restraining hand, blocking his exit with a manicured hand to his chest.
“What?”
“I thought you didn’t want any part of the public eye.” She slid her hand down and away. It surprised Wes how much he mourned the loss of that fleeting touch.
“I’m a cop escorting you home. That’s the NYPD doing a damn fine job, and believe me, the good stuff never makes its way into the papers.” When rumors had flown about the possibility of his former partner turning bad while undercover, however, the media couldn’t shovel up dirt fast enough.
“You know as well as I do that no journalist in the world is going to take that angle.” She shut down a coffee machine and flicked off the harsh fluorescent lights. It was only late afternoon, but already the late winter sky outside was hazy and gray. “As soon as they find out who you are and that we come from different walks of social life, they’ll either paint a picture of me as a gullible heiress getting taken by a studly fortune hunter, or they’ll intimate that I must be slumming it for a little while. I guarantee neither version is going to flatter us.”
No kidding. He could feel his nose already out of joint, his shoulders tense. “And you don’t like being viewed as gullible or slumming, I take it?”
“Frankly, I don’t care. I’m used to it, and I’ve learned not to buy any newspaper besides the Wall Street Journal so I don’t have to see things that upset me.” She moved from the conference room into her office and straightened a few papers while shutting down her computer. “But I don’t want to subject anyone else to that kind of scrutiny without ample warning.”
“Consider me warned.” He appreciated the heads-up, but even knowing the downside of dating her, he couldn’t seem to talk himself out of it. He wanted her anyway.
On the plus side of things—Tempest didn’t seem to care about media flack for her own sake. She wasn’t embarrassed to be seen on the arm of your everyday, aver age cop. Some of the tension in his neck eased. “And if you think I’m studly after a quickie on the conference table, just wait until you see what I can do when I have more time.”
“What makes you think you’ll ever have another chance, Detective?” She arched a delicate eyebrow and failed to hide a smile.
“I’m on to you now.” He tugged at her scarf as she pushed the button for a private elevator that stopped in her office. “You might look like an uptown girl, but you’ve got downtown, kinky tastes all the way. You can bet I’ll find more ways to use that against you.”
Her breath hitched just enough to make him want to kiss her again, but the elevator chose that moment to announce its arrival with a short chime. They left the building via her high-speed express car that took them directly to street level.
Her world probably boasted plenty of professional perks he couldn’t even wrap his head around, another little reminder of how different they were.
As if her warning about the media hadn’t damn well been bad enough. He’d barely had time to wonder how they would face that kind of attention when the elevator doo
rs opened in the lobby and cameras flashed in his face. A crush of reporters moved toward them, although Wes could only make them out in silhouette thanks to the blind spots dancing around his vision. Questions fired at them from all sides while portable floodlights drowned them in a white-hot blaze.
“Do you know who broke into your apartment, Tempest?” A woman’s shrill voice shouted from the crowd.
“Who’s your friend, Tempest?” Another voice—gruff and male—assailed Wes’s ears.
“Is it true police are investigating one of Boucher’s companies?”
Still partially blinded, Wes barreled his way into the throng, figuring anyone dumb enough to plant them selves in front of an elevator deserved the trampling. How could she live with this kind of personal invasion all the time?
“No comment.” He barked out the same words ten times over as he called on old college football skills to block and dodge his way through the crowd of camera-happy reporters and so-called journalists. Amazing what constituted news these days.
Tucking Tempest under his arm, he protected her the same way he’d protected the ball on numerous carries down the backfield in the days when life hadn’t been so complicated. Although he was guessing she wouldn’t appreciate the pigskin comparison, the tactic worked beautifully. She was in the end zone—his car, rather—in no time.
He slid into the driver’s seat in time to see her pulling down the visors and turning her head to the side, obviously a pro at deflecting media attention. Shoving his unmarked Ford into gear, he drove uptown.
“Short of beating them off with a stick, I’d say we handled that as best as could be expected, wouldn’t you?” He relaxed into his seat as they put a few blocks between themselves and Tempest’s inquisitors.
“You sound like you enjoyed it.” Only then did he detect the subtle sniffle behind her words.
“Are you upset?” He flipped the visors back up to get more light in the car so he could see her better in the twilight of a short winter’s day. She looked a little glassy-eyed. Hell, yeah, she was upset. He’d been too busy playing his position to notice. “I just assumed you didn’t want to talk to them about the case, so I figured you’d want to get out of there posthaste.”
