Hers for the Evening (23 page)

“Did you put him up to this?” she asked once Joseph was out of earshot.

“You mean being interested in the job?” Hunter gave her a singularly innocent look she didn’t buy for a minute.

“You know I mean inviting you to this meeting.”

“No.”

“No what?”

Hunter sighed. “He called me after you spoke to him and wanted to know the scoop. Like I would have done. Like you would have done.”

“So you invited yourself.”

He raised his eyes heavenward. “No. He suggested it.”

“And you agreed.”

An edge crept into his voice. “Of course I agreed or I wouldn’t be here. A week ago you would have invited me yourself.”

“A week ago we hadn’t—” She cut herself off.

“Fucked?” he supplied for her ever so politely. “You wanted to pretend it never happened, and I’ve played by your rules. You won’t let things get back to 153

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normal.”

Damn him. He was right. He’d treated her exactly the same as he’d always treated her. She was the one who was afraid to sit next to him in a quiet, elegant, romantic restaurant, the conversations hushed, the servers in crisp white shirts and black pants, candles flickering on the white tablecloths. Devon took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I jumped down your throat for no reason.”

Something sparked in his eye. She’d made another double entendre. It seemed inevitable with Hunter. She was fixated on sex whenever she was around him. And when she wasn’t.

Joseph returned but didn’t take his seat. “Sorry about that. Emergency at home. I need to take off.”

“I hope everything’s okay,” Devon said politely. Joseph grinned. “Emergencies are subjective. Nothing life threatening.” He spread his hands and his smile. “Thanksgiving coming up, family arriving. Everything constitutes an emergency when my wife’s mother is coming.” He parted his suit jacket to pull out his wallet. Devon waved away his money. “We’re courting you for the job, we’ll pick up the tab.”

Joseph nodded his appreciation. “I’m very interested.”

“So are we. HR will be in touch to have you interview with the rest of the team.”

He saluted, turned on his heel, and left Devon alone with Hunter and every single one of her desires for him.

Hunter wasn’t the one who scared her. She was afraid of herself. 154

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12

HUNTER HAD SWORN TO HIMSELF HE WOULDN’T TRICK HER AGAIN, but Joseph Stewart had called him a little after five. Devon was already gone when he went looking for her.

Their waiter topped off their coffees and took away the signed credit card slip.

Alone again, Hunter said, “Stewart’s a good man.”

“He’ll be a good fit for the team.” Devon toyed with her coffee cup.

“We need to talk.”

She pursed her lips. “We are talking.”

“About us,” he stressed.

She glanced around. “Please keep your voice down.”

She was trying his patience. The dining room wasn’t full, the tables were spaced a decent distance apart, and theirs was in a dim back corner. No one could even see them well. “Move closer so you can goddamn hear me.”

He was surprised when she did what he told her to do, sidling around the booth’s circular seat. Her fear of being overheard was greater than her terror of him.

“There is no us.” Her voice was quiet yet emphatic. It was taking advantage, but he shifted even closer, his thigh scant inches from hers. “I don’t like that you’re jumpy every time we’re in the same room.”

There were several things in that statement she could have taken umbrage with. “You don’t like it?”

This was the Devon he knew so well, but he sure as hell liked the one who obeyed his orders. “Yes, I”—he gave her the same emphasis—“don’t like it. You don’t look me in the eye. You disagree with every suggestion I make. In short, everyone in the office knows there’s something up.” There definitely was something up beneath the table. She’d driven him crazy during dinner, how she smelled, the way she tasted her food, laughed, talked. Even arguing with her didn’t tone down his reactions.

“That is completely untrue. I’ve been totally normal.”

He eyed her. Her breath came fast, breasts rising and falling beneath her suit jacket, her nostrils slightly flared like a high-strung filly, her mouth tense. 155

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“Normal like you are right now?”

She stopped long enough to take stock of her body’s reactions, then sighed.

“I’m nervous about it.”

“Because you’re in denial.” He expected her to get all uppity again. Instead, she leaned forward, elbow on the table, her cheek propped on her fist as she looked at him. “Denial about what?”

What was she looking for? A dissertation on how great it had been? A declaration that he wanted more? She needed a demonstration.

“Denial about this.” He slid his hand along her thigh, between the buttons of her skirt. All day he’d been looking at those buttons. Calf length, the skirt buttoned down the front, but Devon had left it undone from the knee down, her legs encased in black stockings. He’d wondered: garter belt or panty hose, thong or bare?

He had to know.

“What are you doing?” She didn’t stop him as he undid two more buttons, sliding higher up her thigh.

“What I’ve wanted to do all day long. You wore that skirt to make me nuts.”

“I didn’t.” Her gaze was unfocused, bewildered. He slipped another button loose. “I can smell you. You’re wet, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” The word wasn’t even a whisper, just a parting of her lips. Their coffees were full, the check had been processed, their waiter was taking care of other patrons. Hunter pulled her thigh over his, spreading her legs, opening her to him. The long white tablecloth would cover the view of whatever he did. “You’ve been dying for me to touch you all week, haven’t you?”

She swallowed. “It’s all I’ve thought about.”

Triumph sizzled through him. He quested higher, finding the top of her stockings. Question one answered, garter belt. His gaze locked to hers, he didn’t miss the slight widening of her pupils. “It’s all I’ve thought about, too. Let’s stop denying. We’re going to do it again.”

She didn’t answer.

Higher. He found her pussy, bare, wet. She shuddered. Question two out of the way. “I’m shocked,” he said. He hadn’t expected Devon to go pantiless at work.

She drew in a long breath, let it out. “I suppose subconsciously I was hoping for something like this.” She spoke without a smile. The realization didn’t please 156

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her.

Turning toward her, he leaned an elbow on the table, hiding the movement of his arm from view. “I would have fucked you any time you asked.”

She closed her eyes, opened them. “I know.”

It was written all over her. That was the problem. Hunter wasn’t going to let it stop him. He would make her see how good they were together. How much better they could be.

Sliding between her folds, Hunter found her clit unerringly. Devon almost bit her lip in ecstasy. It felt as if she’d waited forever. Wrong time, wrong place, but she couldn’t help herself. Hunter’s fingers made her wild. She couldn’t have stopped him if the waiter came over or the world threatened to end with an earthquake. She needed this, had to have it.

Devon sank her fingernails into his forearm. He stroked, rubbed, and circled her clit slowly. Heat rose to her face. Her lips parted on puffs of air. His eyes were intensely blue, hot, burning. For her.

“You’re going to come for me.”

She whimpered, it was so good. So wet, he slid and slipped in all her moisture, faster. The shockwaves started in her belly, shimmying out to her fingers and toes, shooting back to the very spot he touched her. The world quaked around her. She didn’t cry out or faint. She trapped every moan and sound inside. The effort only increased the magnitude, six-point-five, sevenpoint-oh, eight, then off the Richter scale. She came off the high to find her fingernails biting into her palm, a tear at the corner of each eye, and Hunter buttoning her skirt. She wondered what he would have done if it been a tighter fit with no buttons. Have her hike it over her hips?

Lord. What had she been thinking?

Ah, of course, she hadn’t been thinking at all. That’s how it was with Hunter. She straightened her hair, pushing back a tendril that had fallen loose. “I’m not usually a do-anything-anytime-anywhere kind of woman.”

“If you accept that this thing is unstoppable and simply go with it, you wouldn’t have these flare-ups.”

She laughed, not because he was funny, but more that he was completely correct. She was out of control because she wouldn’t give in. If she was discreet about it, then she wouldn’t spread her legs for him in the middle of a restaurant 157

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during the dinner hour. Even if it had been one of her hottest fantasies come to life. “I am not going to get caught with my pants down like Garrison did.”

“Totally different situation. He was cheating on his wife and stupid enough to let her figure it out. You and I are both single, consenting adults.” He picked up her hand.

She removed herself from his grasp and shifted away. “We don’t touch in public.”

“I agree.”

“No flirty sexual innuendos at work.”

He made a rude noise. “Spoilsport.”

“No more than once a week, no spending the whole night with each other, and we don’t tell anyone what we’re doing.”

His eyes flattened, and his shit-eating grin disappeared. “So we’re just fuck buddies.”

“I prefer friends with benefits.”

Jaw tensing, he stared at her. “I don’t.”

“Take it or leave it.” She sounded like Devon Parker, bitch with brass balls, and tried to soften it. “This is to protect both our careers.”

“I’m not worried about my career.” His voice was stone cold. That got her back up. “Because you’re the man, and men can do whatever they want, whereas a woman has to be careful. Any hint of scandal can ruin me.”

“May I hark back to the fact that Garrison, a man, got himself fired?”—she winced at Hunter’s reminder—“I don’t intend for that to happen to either of us. Besides, no one cares about consensual adult activities between single people.”

Why was he being so difficult? “Fine. People don’t care. We’re still doing it my way.” She grabbed her purse from the seat beside her. “I’m leaving. You should wait five minutes.”

“For Christ’s sake, as far as everyone here is concerned it was a business dinner.”

“Hunter.” That’s all she said and began shimmying out of the booth. He grabbed her arm, held on. “When we’re in the bedroom, everything’s my way.” His eyes glittered like glass.

Devon shivered. In the bedroom, she’d do whatever he said.

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GODDAMMIT. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS WAS NOT WHAT HE WANTED. Hunter watched her go, then waited the requisite five minutes. Why the fuck was he doing what she told him to? They were adults. If they wanted to have a relationship, they could goddamn well have a relationship. He’d learned something huge in the last month. He wanted Devon Parker in his bed all night long. He wanted to call her on the phone in the middle of the day and talk dirty. He wanted to take her to dinner, to a movie, for a walk in the park, and out with his kids to a Sunday football game. He wanted her without all the secrecy and sneaking around.

He wouldn’t let her paranoia stop him.

SHE’D MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. TRUE TO HIS WORD, HUNTER didn’t make a single sexual innuendo, not even a sly remark. In fact, he rarely smiled at all. But he didn’t forget what she’d promised him. Tuesday night, he called her cell at eight-thirty. Without even a hello or asking if she was busy, he said, “Saturday night. You will come to my house at seven o’clock. You will be wearing a coat, high heels, and nothing else.” He disconnected before she could answer yes or no. Her parents lived in Monterey. She was going down only for Thanksgiving Day, and would be back in town for the weekend. She didn’t have to ask for his address, having attended work-related social gatherings he’d hosted at the house.

She’d be there wearing nothing but a coat and high heels. Wednesday, she planned on letting everyone go by noon for the holiday. The crew was small anyway, as many chose to take the week off. The auditors, however, had their full contingent. Five minutes before noon, there was Larry the Lead taking up space in her doorway. She really could not like that man.