Hot and Bothered (10 page)

She hesitated, but only for a second. Then she turned around and met his gaze. Her eyes were dark and full of feeling. And she nodded.

9

W
HAT
HAD
SHE
DONE
?
What was she doing?

She knew now that she’d been wrong, and hurtful, to reduce what had happened between them in her office to
“that.”
She knew it wasn’t just about bodies colliding. There was something at work here that she couldn’t—or didn’t want to—give a name to.

But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t ruin her.

It didn’t mean it wouldn’t rob Mark and his father of money they needed.

It didn’t mean they wouldn’t break each other’s hearts when it turned out he didn’t want to live the life she’d chosen.

What they were doing now would have consequences. She couldn’t see all the ripples yet, but she could feel them. Something as seismic as Mark couldn’t happen to her without there being aftershocks.

And yet, here they were in a cab, side by side, on their way to her apartment. She had told him the most naked truth about herself, and she was going to make herself even more naked—maybe completely naked—in just a few minutes.

The craziest part was, there was still time to call it off, but she had no intention of doing so.

“There are dishes on my counter.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“There’s toothpaste in my bathroom sink.”

“I find that endearing.”

“There’s a book of erotic stories and a vibrator on my nightstand.”

“Okay, now that’s just unfair. I need to know more. What exactly were you doing with this book of erotic stories and vibrator?”

The taxicab driver’s eyes found hers in the rearview mirror. “I think that story is going to have to wait,” she said, gesturing at the front seat.

“You could whisper.”

So she did. “I like to lie on my stomach on the bed and read. And the rule is, I can’t touch myself. Not even through my clothes.”

“Oh,
God
,” Mark groaned. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

She was glad he’d asked. Telling him, watching his jaw tighten and his color rise, was a total turn-on. She’d never talked like this to anyone, let alone in the back of a cab. She kept such a tight rein on how she presented herself to the world, even with people who didn’t have the power to make anything of what they knew.

“Then when I totally can’t stand it anymore, when I’m ready to explode, I tease myself with the vibrator. It’s not super strong, just a buzz, and I bring it just close enough so I can feel the vibrations, but only that close.”

His hand went—involuntarily, she thought—to the bulge in his jeans, and he pressed his palm there, which didn’t cool her ardor any. She glanced at the driver, but if he knew what was going on in the backseat of his cab, he was discreetly pretending not to. “God, that’s hot,” Mark growled.

“I make it last as long as I can. I draw it out, and I make myself watch the clock to see how long I can hold out before I come.”

He choked out an incoherent sound, and she reached for the rise of his cock under his jeans. Brushing his hand aside, she found him with the ball of her hand and ground down. She knew the driver might see, and that if the cab stopped, someone could look in. She knew that it would make a mess and that at least one of them would be out of control.

“Hav.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was imploring her to be sensible or begging her for more. She didn’t care. Touching him like this filled her with a sense of power and joy. She wanted to make him feel the way he’d made her feel in the dressing room.

He lifted his hips to her palm and she pressed back, using her thumb to find more topography, the swell of his head, the ridge of vein. He made a nearly inaudible strangled sound. Not “stop.”

She checked the mirror, but the cab driver seemed to be keeping his eyes on the road. Her free hand wandered the tightness of the muscles in Mark’s thighs and abs. She loved the way his whole body strained in toward the spot she was pleasuring, the way everything got thicker and harder. His face was tight, too, his jaw locked, his eyes now closed. He looked as if he was on the edge, and she felt an answering sensation, like she was poised, like she could follow him right over without a touch, right here in the cab. How had she gotten so plugged in to him that just watching his rising arousal could wind her up like this? It felt amazing and terrible—dangerous and unstoppable.

The cab pulled up in front of her apartment.

She swiped her credit card and they practically fell out of the backseat in their haste to get into the building.

“Ms. Hoyt,” said her doorman, with his usual polite nod.

Haven nodded back. “Gerome. On the off chance that anyone asks, you didn’t see me with anyone.”

“Certainly not, ma’am.”

The elevator door had not quite closed when Mark leaned against the wall and lifted Haven up. She wrapped her legs around him, his erection pressed perfectly where she wanted it, hard heat against the part of her that had not stopped aching in days. He kissed her, an open-mouthed, helplessly hungry kiss that made her groan into his mouth and clutch at him. She yanked on his hair, hard enough that he yelped, and then she bit his lip.

A ping announced her floor, and he set her down and followed her out. “Do you do that all the time?” he asked.

“Kiss in elevators? You know I don’t.”

“Were we kissing? It felt like having sex with all our clothes on. But no, I meant, do you tell your doorman to be discreet?”

“There’s never really been anything I needed him to be discreet about before,” she said. “But I have told clients’ doormen to be discreet.”

“Does it work?”

“I doubt it. But I’d be remiss in not asking.”

She unlocked her door and he crowded her into the apartment.

There were shoes scattered around the entry, and she needed to vacuum up dust bunnies here and there. And she couldn’t remember whether she’d left chaos in the kitchen and the bathroom—

But he clearly didn’t care because as soon as the door closed behind him he scooped her up. Cradling her in his arms he said, “Which way to the bedroom?”

“Straight, first left.”

He deposited her on the unmade bed, and she tried not to notice the mess. The underwear she hadn’t thrown in the hamper, the clothes hanging off chairs and doorknobs. The sheets themselves, twisted because she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since the first time Mark had looked at her in the mirror. She’d dreamed of him, and masturbated to her memories and fantasies of him, and lain awake thinking of what she wanted him to do to her. She’d worried what a terrible, terrible idea it would be to let him.

But now she was letting him, and it did not feel like a terrible idea. It felt like the best idea she’d ever had.

“These sheets,” he said. “I love these sheets now that I know what you do in them. They are the dirtiest, filthiest, most awesome sheets in the entire universe and I want to rub them all over my body. You can’t ever wash them again. In fact, you can’t ever make the bed again.”

She laughed even though she actually wanted to cry. He took something that was difficult for her and made it magical and sexy.

She wanted to give him a gift in return. “Sometimes instead of using the vibrator I lie on my stomach and shove the sheets between my legs and rub off on them.”

The stuff coming out of her mouth today—she would not have believed it if someone had told her yesterday that she’d be saying those things to him. She would not have believed herself capable of it—with not even a twinge of shame. The only twinge was the one she felt between her legs every time she said something dirty to him. And twinge was too mild a description for what it felt like. The sensation was fierce and hot. Open, and opening still, unfurling, making way for him, not just physically. She wanted more of him in her world, this confusing man who had burst into her life and unmade all her best intentions.

“Show me,” he said. “Show me what you do. Show me everything you do.”

She stared at him, uncertain.

“Take your hair down.”

She would never have picked herself as someone who wanted to be commanded. The loss of control was something she thought would terrify her, but the sensation of yielding to him was as welcome and explicitly sexual as his hand between her legs had been Wednesday. As his mouth had been earlier today. Far from adding restraint, it made her feel released.

She pulled out pins and unwound an elastic, and her hair tumbled down. He ran his hands through it and buried his face in it, and she laughed.

He wasn’t laughing as he pulled back. “Take your clothes off.”

This was harder. This was nakedness. Real nakedness and more to come. She was certain that the longer she let this go on, the more thoroughly he’d peel away her defenses and get under her skin.

She knelt on the bed, unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall open. His gaze fell to her breasts and stayed there, hot and admiring. She basked in his stare, then shrugged her blouse off. She grew suddenly self-conscious and sucked in her stomach.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t hide from me.”

“I was just—”

“I won’t let you. Now your bra.”

She unhooked it with one hand and let it drop. His pupils dilated so fast she saw his eyes darken with it.

He crawled across the bed toward her and did what he’d done earlier, placing a hand on her breast a hair’s breadth from her nipple. Her sex tightened and tingled, answering the tautness of her breast. She felt empty in a way only he could fix. But right now he wasn’t interested in fixing it, he was interested in teasing. In making the emptiness and the craving grow.

He took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger so lightly she could barely feel him.

“Mmph.”

“What do you want?”

“More.”

“Like this?” He tightened his fingers infinitesimally, just enough to send a zing of sensation to her clit.

“More.”

Tighter.

He lifted his other hand to the other breast. “Does it feel twice as good if I do it to both?”

It felt more than twice as good, some kind of crazy logarithmic multiplier. She wriggled in his fingers, trying to get more touch, more sensation, but whenever she moved, he released her.

“If you want more you have to hold still.”

It was supreme torture, with one nipple in each set of clamping fingers, slowly tightening, but if she squirmed or arched or made noise, he stepped it back. She made herself hold completely still until the pressure was exactly, perfectly right, and then she said, “Please, just like that,” and he obeyed.

“I’m going to come,” she cried, tipping her head back.

“Not yet.” He let her go, and the orgasm, which had felt inevitable, retreated. “Skirt.”

She unzipped her skirt and lifted herself off the bed to slide it down.

“Lie back. Spread your legs.”

She did and he hooked a finger in her panties to sweep them aside.

“Didn’t get to really
look
before,” he explained. “You’re so wet, you’re glistening.” And he played with a finger in her wetness to show her.

“Nngha.”

“You’re supposed to be showing me, I know, but I can’t not touch. Do you mind?”

She shook her head, officially speechless.

He put the tip of one finger to her clit, and sensation spread like fire all through her groin, gathered itself faster than she thought possible and burst outward. He slid two fingers into her as she came and crooked them upward to tap her G-spot, and she came again, no space between to catch her breath. When her body stopped seizing and convulsing, she discovered both her calves were cramped. She had to take deep breaths to let go.

Then he stood up and took off his sweatshirt and his T-shirt.

This was for her. No mirrors, no Judy. No barber shop, no department store, no clothes.

Just the two of them, and she got to stare at him for as long as she wanted. All the muscles in his torso seemed to narrow toward his waist. Her gaze played over the ridges of his abs, the sculpted perfection of his pecs and the line of muscle that started at his hip and dived downward. The tufts of hair under his arms, the thickness of his shoulders and the leanness of his arms intoxicated her.

Slowly, reverently, she rose to her knees and came to the edge of the bed. He stood there and let her touch, her hands drifting, squeezing, caressing. She followed lines to where they curved, curves to where they ran straight and strong. He was like a cover model in a magazine, but warm and supple to the touch,
real
. Even his hair was just right, dusted across his chest and arrowing down into his jeans.

She reached for the button and he let her unfasten and unzip him. She ducked her head and—

“Nope.” He stopped her from putting her mouth where it desperately wanted to go.

She slanted him a look of disbelief.

“I can give you about three minutes, max, Hav. All depends on where you want me.”

She groaned. Everywhere. She wanted him everywhere.

“How’s this for a deal? You let me inside you now, I’ll let you suck me as long as you want later.”

There was nothing left to say. She pointed to the night table drawer and he opened it and took out a condom. Tearing the plastic wrapper and dropping it on the floor, he worked the latex down over his cock with one hand. The sight of that hand moving skillfully over his erection made her groan again. He was thicker around than any man she’d been with, cut and perfectly formed, with a wide swollen head she wanted against her soft palette almost more than she wanted him inside her. But not quite.

He slid her panties off and tossed them over the side of the bed. Up toward her he crawled, but this time he insinuated his body between her thighs, letting her feel all of him—the rough chest hair, the ridges of his abs, the trail of hair tickling her clit where her legs had parted wide for him. Then the hard, hot length of him pressing into her, dipping just the very tip into her wetness and—
Jesus
, he was way too good at this—using that same tip to rub back and forth over her too-swollen, too-sensitive clit until she was begging him.
Begging him
. Legs spread, stubble under her arms, breath of unknown freshness, in all her unkempt, unpolished glory, not giving the slightest fuck, saying, “Mark, please, please, please, please, please, please.”