Never Let Go: Top Shelf Romance Collection 6

by Steiner, Kandi

  “A Diet Coke?” I raise my eyebrows. He doesn’t drink diet. More than that, he scoffs at any man who does.

  “There are regular ones in the same drawer. Underneath yours.”

  I yank open the door and bend back over, digging through the ice cold pile of bottles, getting frustrated when I can’t … I look over my shoulder and see Trey settled back on the stool, one foot up on the adjoining stool, his eyes fixed on my ass. I straighten and his eyes jump to mine. “What?” he asks.

  “You don’t have any regulars in there.”

  “Maybe they’re in the other drawer, to the left of it. But arch your back this time. And moan a little.”

  I sling my can of Diet Coke at his head, and he catches it, one-handed, a mischievous smile lighting up his face. “What? I’m thirsty!”

  “I’m sure you are,” I grumble, kicking the door shut and leaning against the counter. “I ought to sue your ass for sexual harassment. “

  “Wear that suit in court and no one will believe you.”

  “It’s not that bad.” I glare at him and steal my soda back, tapping the lid before I crack it open.

  “What’s underneath it?”

  I ignore him and push the contract forward. “Sign this so I can get out of your hair.”

  “Fine. Come over here and explain it to me.” He drops his foot from the other stool and pulls it out, his hand fishing in the top drawer of the island for a pen.

  Trey Marks has several sides, but his business mode is the most tempting. It’s the seriousness that takes over his face, the somber tone, that smooth tongue that delivers words like boning, peephole, and thong without hesitation. I’ve taken advantage of it, stocking our meetings with female buyers, their reactions similar to my own, the entire room one big estrogen explosion by the time he slips his hands into his pockets and strolls out.

  Now, I move to his side of the island and perch on the stool, leaning forward and pulling the cover page back into place. I have barely begun my explanation when I feel the tip of his pen pulling up the edge of my skirt. I stall, my eyes dropping to my thighs, the skirt inching higher, past my knees, now my thighs. My hose ends, my skin pale against the edge of the black lace, and my breath catches when the tip of the metal crosses onto my skin. “Easy…” he says slowly. “I’m just checking…” He slides the pen along the top of my stocking, until he reaches the garter clip. “What are these, the Mirabellas?”

  “Yes.” I reach down to tug the skirt back into place and he swats away my hands.

  “Put your hands on the counter, Kate. This isn’t going anywhere.”

  This isn’t going anywhere? This has already gone somewhere it shouldn’t.

  “I’m not touching you, Kate. Calm down.” He sounds so mild, as if he is examining packaging samples or marketing copy.

  I let out a frustrated breath. “What are you doing?” We don’t do this. This is not playful flirtation, not when I am wet from just the touch of his pen.

  “Put your hands on the counter. Flat. Palms down. Trust me.”

  In eighteen months, he has ordered me to do many things. I almost always obey. Not always because I want to, but because I like to. When he uses that voice, it does something inside of me. Something that felt—back when I was engaged to Craig—wicked. Put your hands on the counter. Flat. Palms down. I glance down at his pen, the metal tip of it next to the lace of my stocking. He drags the point lightly against my skin and I close my eyes. I carefully place my hands on the cool surface of his counter, my fingers spreading over the marble, lines of silver and blue across the giant expanse of white. Trust me. In some ways, I trust him with my life. In other ways, these ways, I wouldn’t put anything past him. Will he lower his mouth to mine? Maybe. Will he slide his hands up my sweater and brush his fingers over my breasts? I hope so.

  “You know we’ve had some complaints of the elastic getting stretched out on these.” He slides the pen underneath the top of the stocking, his eyes on the motion, and I watch as he tilts his head, watching the nylon stretch. “Have you experienced that?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to slide my hand under here.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to.” His eyes lock with mine, his hand not hesitating as he sets the pen down on the counter, and reaches his hand forward. I can hear the roll of the pen as it moves toward the edge, but I can’t look away, can’t breathe, as he holds my eyes with his. “Is that okay, Kate?”

  His hand closes on my thigh, a warm grip of ownership, and I close my eyes.

  “Is that okay, Kate?”

  I can’t answer him. If I speak, I’ll beg. If I say anything at all, he will know just how badly I want him.

  He slides his hand along the inside of my leg, his palm along the lace, his thumb on my bare skin, playing with it as he moves. “Open your legs, Kate. Uncross them.”

  “Trey.” It is the best defense I can manage. I think of Mira, of smelling her perfume, and I reach out to grab his wrist, to pull it away—

  “Just your right hand on the counter.” He moves off his stool, coming closer, and I can smell his cologne, feel the brush of his shirt against my sleeve. I remove one hand from the counter, my body swiveling to him, and my knees brush against the thigh of his jeans. “This is market research, Kate. I’m just examining the product. Now, open your legs before I pull them apart myself.”

  I open them. I let my feet hang loose from the stool and open my knees, one heel dropping to the floor, the sound loud, my shoulders jumping in response. I lift my eyes to him, and he slowly nods, holding me with his stare. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t blink, and I’d be surprised if he is even breathing. For a moment, both of us just are. Then he drops his head, and I watch as his second hand joins in, both tracing over the place where my garters clip to my stockings. He runs his fingers up, my shirt stopping his hand, the fabric restricted by my butt on the stool. He softly clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Stand up.”

  “I’m not standing up.”

  “Kate.”

  “Stop saying my name. I’m not standing up.” If I stand up, then my panties are going to end up coming off, and this is going to go to a very bad place, a place that I have been wanting for over a year, but that doesn’t matter right now, none of that matters right now, because this isn’t just Trey, this is the owner of Marks Lingerie, and if he—he slides his hands underneath my skirt, and I gasp when his fingers reach the bottom edge of my underwear. My other heel hits the floor.

  He tilts his head, his fingers caressing the silk, then the top of my thighs, then the detailed edge between them. “Are these from the fall collection?”

  “Winter.” The word whispers out of me. “Please stop.” I’m so wet. He hasn’t even done anything, hasn’t even kissed me, and I am so needy, so desperate.

  “You want me to stop?” His fingers stop their play above my thighs, and he slides one slow, sure hand in between my legs, his touch soft and teasing, my legs opening wider despite myself, my hips thrusting upward, begging for him to—

  He brushes his fingers across my clit, and I whimper. He slides his fingers lower, in between my legs, pressing into the damp area, and when he says my name, it is a swear across his lips. “Stop,” I beg.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  Chapter 25

  HIM

  I mean it when I say it. I don’t know if I can stop. Not when she sits on the edge of the stool, her skirt pushed up, knees spread, her legs limp and hanging open. I stand before her, one hand squeezing and caressing her thigh. My other hand is seriously fucking with my mind. It plays with her pussy, her sweet pussy, a thin bit of my lingerie the only thing between my skin and hers. I’m terrified to move those panties aside; I’m terrified, if I touch her bare heat, if I feel the smooth skin or silky hair, that I will lose all control. If I push one finger, or two, inside of her … god damn. How will I stop myself from yanking at my belt, my zipper? How will I stop myself from freeing my cock and thrusting it
inside of her? I am just seconds away from being able to have her, from gripping her ass and pulling her onto me, from pushing deep inside and fully owning this incredible woman. I could fist her hair and kiss her mouth. I could taste her, have her, please her. I could spread her open on my counter and tease every part of her with my tongue, my fingers, my dick. I could tell her how I feel and plead for her heart. I could come inside of her, and have her for the rest of my fucking life.

  I could scare her away and lose her forever.

  Stop, she’d said. I pull my hand away and straighten, putting one foot, then two, between us. I have to stop. I have to. Against the zipper of my jeans, my cock hates me even more.

  I turn away from her and take a breath, schooling my features, willing the raw need to leave my eyes. Had she seen it? How badly I want her? Of course she had. Touching her? What the fuck was I thinking?

  It had been the news of her date that had broken my restraint, the way she had bounded inside, full of stories and smiles, as if this guy was a possibility, as if he could, in any way, make her happy. I had seen hope in her eyes, and a panic switch in my heart had tripped.

  Stop, she’d said. I turn back to her and attempt the playful tone that has gotten me out of a hundred situations. “And you say I don’t follow directions.”

  She faces the island, the contracts spread out before her, and I know what I will see when I step beside her—control. My beautiful girl loves it, the hiding of emotion, so many interactions a game where her words don’t match her features, and her meanings are never easily deciphered.

  “Why did you care what I was wearing under my suit?” Her head doesn’t turn to me, it stays tilted down, over the contract, her fingers busy, pulling off and reaffixing SIGN HERE stickers that aren’t needed.

  “I wanted to know if you were at least giving the guy some sort of effort.”

  That causes her head to turn, and she looks at me as if I am mental. “It was our first date. A coffee date. He wasn’t going to see anything under my suit.”

  “Because … you told him you were a serial killer?” I feign confusion, furrowing my brow and earning a smile from her.

  “Because it was a FIRST DATE,” she intones. “We didn’t even kiss.” She taps the top of a page. “Come sign.”

  “He didn’t kiss you?” This is alarming, and I sit, pulling the first page toward me and scrawling my signature across the bottom.

  “No. Which kind of surprised me.” She tilts her head, watching me sign the second page, a slow smile spreading over her lips. “It was kind of nice, actually. He was such a gentleman about it.”

  This I don’t need. Her gushing, her starry eyes, her fucking “gentleman.” What was the point of having IT hack into her eHarmony profile if it ended up matching her with comparable men? They were supposed to make her profile such a train wreck that she was only paired with losers. “What does he do? This gentleman of yours?”

  “He’s a dentist,” she tosses out, pushing another page in my direction. “Or a tooth surgeon. Whatever that’s called.”

  “An oral surgeon?” I ask, my hand tightening on my pen.

  “Yes!” She snaps. “That’s it. Thanks.” Any effect that my hands had had on her has apparently disappeared. She now seems a hundred percent focused on this stupid contract and this dumb date of hers.

  “Did you like him?” I ask the question as casually as I can, my pen biting into the soft paper, my scrawl rougher than usual.

  “I think so. He’s a lot better than the other guys. And I’m pretty tired of looking.”

  “That sounds like the recipe for success. A guy who’s better than a pile of idiots, and a woman tired of looking.” I shove the final page toward her and stand. “Does love have any piece of that equation?”

  “It was our first date, Trey,” she calls out. “Give it a few more dates.”

  The next question I shouldn’t ask; it’s not any of my business, not appropriate among coworkers, and not even among friends. I stalk my way to the fridge, fighting it. Still, right before I find and crack a beer open, it comes. “When are you planning on fucking him?”

  She is standing, gathering the papers, a paperclip in hand, when the question hits. She doesn’t look at me. “That’s none of your business.”

  “I just don’t want you to rush into it. It’s only been … what? Nine months since you and Craig—”

  “Shut up.” She turns toward me, her hands reaching back to the counter and she hoists herself onto the marble as if she was fifteen. “If I wanted you to, you’d fuck me right now.” She pulls up her skirt, working it over her thighs, and spreads her knees far enough apart that I can see the pale pink of her panties, a match to the garter straps. A year ago, we’d argued over the name of its color. A year ago, I’d stared at a sample set and envisioned them on her. “So don’t lecture me about my virtue or if I’m ready. I think you just don’t want me to fuck anyone else.”

  I try to keep my eyes on her face, but it is difficult when her legs are open, her words challenging me, and I am almost in reach of her. “Don’t tempt me, Kate.”

  “Am I right, Trey?” She drags my name along her tongue and it has never sounded so sexy in its life.

  “You’re my best friend. I’m trying to watch out for you.”

  “So you don’t want to fuck me.” She lifts her chin, pulling self-consciously at her blouse, and her knees start to close.

  “Stop.” I step forward, my hands settling on her knees and pushing them apart, her body opening like a flower for me, that fucking pink silk flashing at me from between her thighs. I pull my gaze from it and back to her face. “If you want me to fuck you, Kate, just say the word. Don’t ever be confused over whether I want that. There’s not anything on Earth I want as badly as you. I’d love to know if the chemistry that we have … if it could be how I imagine it.”

  One of her hands moves, a tentative reach that runs along my right collarbone before settling on my chest. “And if it isn’t?” Her eyes dart to mine, and the fact that there’s insecurity in them breaks my heart.

  “God, I hope it isn’t. I hope it’s terrible. It would make our lives so much easier.” I smile, and her eyes warm, and holy shit—this may actually happen. I wet my lips and say the one thing that may destroy it all.

  “But I meant what I texted you, back in Vegas. It’s too risky.” I slide my hands off of her knees, my fingers memorizing the contours of her legs, the silky feel of the stockings. I step back and put my hands in my pockets before I make another mistake with them. “There’s too much—”

  “At stake,” she finishes, her knees meeting, and she pushes off of the counter and down to the floor, gripping the edge for support. “Yeah, that sounds familiar.” She bends down and pulls on one heel, and then the other. “When do you leave for New York?”

  “Tomorrow night.” I hesitate, second-guessing my next move. “Want to come?”

  She shakes her head, reaching for her purse. This must be it, the end of her visit. I used to like the solace, the moment when I would step inside my home and hear NOTHING. Now, it only feels lonely.

  She pauses next to me, on her way to the door. “We good?”

  “Always.” I lean into her and she brushes her lips against my cheek. “Drive safe.”

  “I will.” She squeezes my arm, and then, her heels clipping out of the kitchen, she is gone.

  “We good?” If my answer had been lingerie, it’d have been a bustier. Deceptive as hell.

  Chapter 26

  HER

  I turn on the shower and unclip the garter belt, rolling the expensive hosiery down my legs and stepping out of my damp panties, leaving the pile of lingerie on the floor of my bathroom, the rest of my undressing done with less ceremony. I consider the suit, then toss both the jacket and the skirt in the direction of my bed. He’s right, it is ugly. And I’ll never be able to wear that skirt again without thinking of his pen pushing up the fabric, his hands so close behind it. Naked, I open up the do
or and step into the shower, closing my eyes as the hot water hits my skin.

  I don’t know what to do with him. I’d almost begged him. I’d almost said I didn’t care about commitments and risks and had him take me to his bedroom right there.

  Put your hands on the counter. Flat. Palms down. God, the places my mind had run. I could feel the heat of him when he had moved behind me, the brush of him against me. If he had knelt, had lifted my skirt and bared my ass, run his fingers along the Brazilian cut of my underwear, if he had dragged my panties to the side … I slide my hand down, to my swollen clit, and softly brush my fingers over it. Had he realized how wet I was? How badly I wanted him? Even now, I throb at the thought of it, the huskiness in his voice, the dominant way his hand had closed around my thigh.

  “I’m going to slide my hand under here.” I rub a slow circle around my clit and reach for the handheld shower attachment. I flip the control and water pulsates from the head, a small groan falling from my lips as I press it between my legs, the hot water strumming across my clit, my legs tightening in response. I brace a hand against the tile wall, my eyes closing as I remember the look in his eyes when his hands had slid under my skirt, when his fingers had explored the edges of my panties, when his hand had cupped me, his gentle fingers pushing the damp fabric inside of me. All he had had to do was move the piece of fabric aside. One tiny movement. One curve of his digits, and I would have gripped his shoulders and sobbed out his name, promised him anything, and begged him for everything. Replace those fingers with his cock, and I would have sold him my soul.

  “Open your legs, Kate. Uncross them.” I need him in an unnatural way. I need him to push apart my thighs and put his mouth on me. I need him to suck on my clit and tease me with his fingers; I need him to gather me against his chest and push his cock inside of me. I want to look down and see his bare cock, to watch it against my skin, the thrust of it, the tight clench of his abs, his hands on my hips, the burn in his eyes when he buries it fully. Just the thought of it makes my legs tremble, my hips thrust, and I grind against the shower head like a dog in heat. I bite my lip. Sometimes, with just a certain look, I can sense his arousal. That look always makes me think of his cock, thickening inside of his pants, growing stiff, the hard ridge of him pushing against the fabric. I tilt my hips forward, giving a sigh of pleasure as my legs nearly buckle, my orgasm close. I imagine him standing up from his desk, that look deepening, his hand pulling on his zipper, pulling out his cock.