Her Twisted Pleasures (4 page)

Was Alex still awake?

Waiting in the leather chair where we’d kissed? Where I let him touch my…? I could find him. If he wasn’t in the living room, he was probably sleeping in the guest bedroom. I could sneak in…. No, he’d know as soon as I left my bedroom. He’d know I wanted him. Alex was evil. He made me feel dirty. He made me like it. With Will, I was a beautiful slut. With Alex, I was a dirty slut. Could I be with both men?

What the hell was I

thinking? I loved Will; I didn’t want Alex. I would never let him touch me again. I rolled over and wrapped my arms around Will, clinging to him while sleep eluded me.

Darkness crept into the room, and I closed my eyes before it found a way into my heart.

I woke up in bright sunlight with strong memories of another dream about him. It was just a dream, right? I didn’t really kiss him, touch him…

come for him. Oh no….

Will stood in the kitchen, laughing with Alex.

What would Will do if he knew his best friend had groped his girlfriend? What would he do if he knew I’d liked it? Shake it off, Talia. He couldn’t know. It would hurt him too much.

I got up and put on my clothes as if they were armor, shielding myself from the gorgeous devil in disguise before I went back to his lair.

He saw me first and smiled a secret smile—mean bastard—

but I would not fall prey to him again.

Will turned and smiled at me. “Mornin’ beautiful.” He put his arm around my waist, pulling me close and kissing me. “Ready to go home?”

“Yeah.”

“I left my jacket in the bedroom. Be right back.” He kissed me again and left.

I steeled my resolve and faced Alex, smiling with concrete confidence and absolute certainty that I would not—

“I made you come without touching you.” His eyes glittered as black as his heart.

“Next time there will be touching.”

My confidence crumbled and his words stripped my armor while my faithless body begged for his touch. “There won’t be a next time,” I lied.

Alex advanced, backing me against the counter, but our bodies did not meet. Mean bastard was teasing me. A sweet smile played on his lips, but his eyes held a dangerous promise. “Next time there will be fucking.”

His lips touched mine, closed, appropriate, perfectly pure. Purely tempting.

Next time. Absolute certainty.

All dirty words.

I liked them.

Next Time

“I disabled the system.

There’ll be no record of this conversation or any following.”

The black Armani watch the senior partners gave me for Christmas chafed my wrist, so I took it off and tossed it on my desk. Almost five. “If I can’t get it done tonight, we’ll try again later. Let’s meet when I’m finished, and we’ll discuss our next steps.”

I hung up my office phone and pressed a couple of buttons. My success hinged on no interruptions. Slushy snowflake clumps pelted the window. Winter wouldn’t start until next week, but in Chicago, snow ignored the calendar. My office was at the end of the hall on the twenty-fifth floor, in the tallest building on the block.

Quiet, private—I could get away with anything.

The five o’clock exodus was lighter than usual. Most of the staff, including my assistants, had left early to beat the snowstorm. A familiar red coat caught my eye as Talia paced outside my office, talking on her phone. The buttons on her blouse pulled tight across her breasts, and I moved to my doorway to get a closer look.

“Okay, it’s no problem. I’ll just go home and read a book or something.” She stopped and cast a wary glance in my direction. “I love you too. Bye.”

Will was working late, or so he’d told her. Perfect. Talia had avoided me since our make-out encounter after the game a couple weeks ago. This time she wasn’t going to get away so easily. Why did I want a woman who was in a

relationship with my best friend? I had my reasons. And women with boyfriends or husbands weren’t looking for another serious relationship.

They just wanted me for sex, and that was fine with me. I didn’t need attachments—not anymore.

I didn’t believe in abstract concepts like love or justice.

Give me hard evidence. It wasn’t about what you knew; just what you could prove. I was living proof that trusting relationships were a myth.

“Trouble at home?”

“No, Alex.” Talia jammed her phone in her purse and scowled at me. “Will got called to work. There’s no trouble between us. I just wish he would get upset about it like I do. Nothing ever seems to bother him.”

My experience in the

courtroom, cross-examining guilty witnesses, had turned me into a human lie detector.

She was telling me half-truths; there wasn’t any trouble between the two of them, but ever since the game, she couldn’t talk to me, couldn’t look at me. The trouble was inside her.

She sputtered and slapped the elevator button, drumming her fingernails on the panel while she watched the floor numbers light up. Her golden brown hair slipped over her shoulders as she tipped her head back; Will said the color wasn’t natural, but I wanted to discover that on my own. He said her eyes were brown, but in the too-bright hallway they looked green. Weird. Her breasts were small, perfectly proportioned with her slim body, and her ass was a sweet little peach.

Yeah, I definitely wanted a bite out of that. I’d first noticed her when her old boss, Holland Spencer, made partner and didn’t promote her too. She ended up in my department.

The firm has rules against dating co-workers, but I didn’t give a shit. That had never stopped me before. I wanted Talia. No rules and no relationship were going to keep me from fucking her

eventually.

“It’s snowing hard. Traffic is going to be a bitch tonight.”

She followed my gaze to the window across the hall, and groaned. “Damn it.” Snowflakes swirled in the gray sky.

“Hang out here with me for a while.”

“No.”

“I’ll keep you warm.”

Talia looked straight at me.

First score to the home team.

Her lips drew together in a tight disapproving line—clearly for my benefit—but her eyes sparkled like snowflakes under a streetlight. “I’ll bet you would.”

“Come on. I know Will would rather have you safe in my office than trying to drive in this weather.” I decided not to mention his name again. I stepped back against the doorframe and invited her to enter.

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. She chewed her lip and stared at the empty space. The office was nearly deserted by now, and she knew it.

She let the elevator doors close without getting on, and stood in the hallway, a tiny frown puckered her luscious red lips. “I’m not safe in your office.”

“Sure you are.”

The bullshit meter in her eyes went off the scale, and I laughed even as I lied. Her fingers brushed my thigh as she walked past me into the room I practically lived in. There was plenty of space in the double doorway; she didn’t need to touch me.

“This place is bigger than I remember.” She sucked in her breath and looked around.

My L-shaped mahogany

desk had taken up half the room in my old office, but in here it looked small. A leather couch and overstuffed chair that didn’t match sat in front of the wall of windows, and a small conference table with four chairs gathered across the room near the desk.

Talia took her coat off and sat at the table, back stiff, holding her purse on her lap like a shield.

“Maybe yourself

comfortable, baby.” I plunked down on the couch, spreading out my arms in an open invitation.

She didn’t take it. “I am.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her legs at the knee, locking her body up as tight as Fort Knox.

This would require more effort than I’d anticipated.

She’d been drunk last time, so it was easy to get her to drop her guard. And she was half-naked that night. Tonight she was wearing her work clothes: knee-length skirt, buttoned up blouse, and pantyhose. The firm required conservative dress, and Talia followed it to the letter—except for her fourinch platform heels.

I could use that rule violation against her, but first I needed to get her talking to me again. “Is this the first time you’ve been in my office?”

“Well… the first time since it’s been your office. I used to sit behind that desk for hours, working on Holland’s

computer. He was always asking me for help tracking his billing.”

Oh right, this was her exboss’s office.

She snorted and shook her head. “Still does. He can’t keep his money straight without me.” She looked at me—no, at the couch. “That’s new.”

“Bought it when Spencer moved up to the top floor and I moved in. It’s really comfortable.” I patted the cushion next to me. “Come see.”

She smiled and laughed.

“No.” But she put her purse on the table. Progress.

She watched me loosen my tie, her eyes turning large and dark when I opened a couple buttons on my shirt.

“Join me.” I looked at her buttoned-up breasts, and tried to push her knees apart with my eyes.

“Is that why you asked me to stay?” She grabbed her purse and stood up. “You don’t care about traffic. You just want to get laid.”

“And you don’t?” I jumped up and grabbed her arm before she got to the door. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I have in mind.”

She looked at the floor, fiddling with the clasp on her purse. “I didn’t—”

“Remember what I said would happen the next time we were together?”

Her mouth fell open and her eyelashes fluttered. I’d seen too many clients lie under oath to let that innocent act fool me.

“I don’t… I can’t….” She squirmed and pulled her arm free, but she didn’t try to run again.

I moved closer to her, backing her against the wall.

“See, I know you. I know you want some strange. I know you’d fuck me if you had the chance.”

“I did have the chance. I said no. Remember that?”

I chose to ignore that detail.

“I remember making you come.”

Her chest heaved and she spun away from the wall, darting toward the table.

Perfect. “I never….”

I laughed and closed the distance between us. Her butt hit the table, forcing her to sit down as her knees came up and parted, allowing me to step between her thighs.

“I know why you wear these come-fuck-me heels every day.”

I touched her knee, sliding my hand down her silky leg to her foot, knocking her shoe to the floor.

“And why is that?”

“You hate being told what to do, living by someone else’s rules. You’re a rebel, just like me.”

She slapped me so hard I heard ringing in my ears.

“What the hell?” I’d expected to get slapped again, but not so soon.

“I am nothing like you.”

Ah. Something else to use against her. “We’ll see.”

I touched her knee again, but this time moving my hand up, stroking her skin through her shiny hose. She caught her breath as I pushed her skirt up and found the lacy thigh-high top.

“This just proves my point.

You’re bending the rules with this.” I snapped the stretchy lace and she yelped.

“How is that bending the rules? The senior partners would never inspect my pantyhose.”

Rumor had it some of them would. I couldn’t let her get distracted, so I leaned on the table, forcing her to look into my eyes. “You’re not wearing panties.” It was a shot in the dark, but I was pretty sure it was on target.

She gasped. “How did you know?”

“I know… you.”

That made her mad again.

I snatched her other shoe and tossed it.

“You know nothing!” She shoved my chest and nearly toppled off the table.

I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against me, and somehow, in our struggle, we ended up kissing. I wasn’t even sure who’d initiated it. One minute she was giving me a tongue-lashing and the next we were tongue-fucking. My cock got hard and I rubbed against her naked pussy.

She bit my tongue. “No.”

She jumped off the table and ran for the door.

“Say that and mean it.” It was another wild shot, but it was right on the mark.

She stopped in her tracks. “I do.” Her gaze travelled down to the bulge in my pants, lingered a moment, and when she met my eyes again, she looked confused. “I did… last time.”

“I want you, Talia. I can’t hide it.” I grabbed my crotch and ran my hand up and down the length of my dick. “Do I have to tell you that you want me?”

“I want you, Alex. There. I said it.” She sighed deep and laid her hand on her heart. “But I can’t…. We can’t. But Will…?”

“He’ll never know.”

“He’s your best friend. How can you do this to him?”

I shrugged. With no answer to give her, I steered her off that track. “How can you deny what you want?”

Her gaze immediately drew back to my cock. She wanted me, but that wasn’t enough.

I needed to make her angry and reckless again. “Just fuck me and get it over with.” I reached for her.

A light went on in her eyes.

Did she think she could fuck me once and be done with it? I let her believe it.

Talia laughed. “Do you think I’m that easy?”

“Not at all.” I moved toward her, a new plan forming in my head. “I think you want to rip my tie off and strangle me with it.”

Her eyebrows arched and she gave me a puzzled look.

“I think you want to tear the buttons off my shirt and shred my skin.”

Intrigue sparked her eyes and I knew I was right. I moved close enough to touch her, but she didn’t back away. “You got wet when you slapped me.”

She shook her head, but she was a terrible liar, especially when she was horny.

“Both times.”

“I slapped you because you’re an asshole and you pissed me off.”

“Exactly. Do you know you’re licking your lips?”

Her tongue slipped back in her mouth and she clamped her lips tight.

“And when I grabbed your hair,” I snatched a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, “you almost came in your soaking wet panties.”

She hissed and twisted against me.

Her skin was hot; I was hard, and I knew she was wet for me again. I could smell it. I drove her back toward the wall, but she ripped loose and ran to the table. Hmm. Why hadn’t she gone for the door? She wanted me, but needed the courage to act on it.