Last Second Chance (28 page)

He pinned her with a wicked grin as he stood and backed her against her desk. “Let me refresh your memory then.”

She gasped out loud when he grabbed her hips and locked his mouth onto hers. His kisses turned her world upside down and flung her center of gravity far, far, from reach.

She let her fingers clasp behind his neck. “I missed you,” she mumbled into his mouth.

“Did you now?” He pulled back and stared at her probably now thoroughly swollen mouth.

She nodded.

“You know where to find me, Stella Jo.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know if…”

“If we’d get caught?”

“If you’d want to see me again so soon after—”

“Are you fucking serious?” He stepped back but didn’t let go of her. “Did I somehow leave you with the impression that I didn’t want to see you?”

His outrage alarmed her. Thankfully there weren’t too many breakables in her office. A glass paperweight and her heart were the only things that came to mind.

“I just didn’t know, um, for sure.”

“This has to be rectified immediately.” Lifting her suddenly onto her desk, Van’s hands began sliding her skirt up her thighs. Before she could even catch her breath, he’d slid her panties down her legs.

“Van. What if—”

“Door’s locked.”

The next thing out of her mouth was a shocked whimper. He’d slid a finger inside her and began lazily sinking it in and pulling it out. “Let me be clear—as in
crystal
fucking clear,” he growled against her neck. “I always want to see you.” He paused to kiss the spot just below her ear. “Every minute of every damn day.”

She responded by turning her face and brushing her lips against his before sucking his full lower lip into her mouth. She couldn’t help but moan as he returned the sensual lip treatment. When he let his free hand drop to her knee, she spread her legs farther apart for him.

“Okay.”

“And every minute of the night. Can’t forget the night.”

“
Love
the night,” she answered as he pushed in and pulled out. “Speaking of night…”

“Can I see you tonight?”

“Yes, please.” She didn’t even care if she sounded needy or desperate. With him this close, she was all those things and then some. She rocked harder against his hand, barely stifling a loud cry as she neared the highest summit of her orgasm.

She was so lost in his mouth and what his fingers were doing that she almost didn’t hear the knock at her door.

Van stilled, so she knew she hadn’t imagined it. It came again, louder this time. More urgent.

“Miss Chandler?” Dr. Ramirez’s voice called from the other side.

Eyes round and wide with shock, Stella gaped at Van.

“Breathe, cowgirl,” he whispered, slipping his fingers out of her and straightening her clothes. “Tell him you spilled something on yourself at lunch and were changing clothes in your office. That’ll explain the locked door. I’ll hide in the closet until I’m sure he’s gone.”

Leaving her trembling on the edge of her desk, he stepped into her small closet and winked before closing the door.

“Just a moment,” she called out, standing on shaky legs. “I had an, um, unfortunate spill at lunch and had to change.”

She checked that her clothes were adjusted and ran a hand through her hair before opening the door. “My apologies, Dr. Ramirez. I’m quite clumsy.”
And a terrible liar.

“These things happen.” He waved a hand as he stepped into her office. “I would’ve emailed you but I had a meeting on this side of the building so I figured I’d stop in. I was actually going to invite you to lunch, but as you’ve already had it—”

“No, I haven’t. I mean…” Stella took a calming breath. “I actually spilled most of it and came to change. So I was about to head right back into the Atrium. I’d love it if you’d join me.”

“Wonderful.” Dr. Ramirez’s kind eyes sparkled at her and she felt guilty for lying to him. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” She grabbed her purse and started to follow him out of the office, hoping Van would understand that she wasn’t trying to ditch him, just giving him ample time to escape unnoticed.

“Oh, before I forget,” Dr. Ramirez began, startling her by stopping abruptly. “Mr. Walker’s questionnaire never made it in. He mentioned that he’d had something come up during the interview and you were unable to complete it.”

Stella nearly choked on her own tongue. Something had come up all right. “Yes, sir. I spoke with him earlier. We’re going to meet this evening to get that handled.”

“Oh good.” Dr. Ramirez appeared genuinely relieved. “As you can probably imagine, he values his privacy. If you could go by his residence discreetly and take care of that, I’d appreciate it. We try to make sure our high-profile clients’ needs are met to the best of our ability.”

“I’ll make absolute sure of it,” she assured him, closing the door quickly before he noticed the low chuckling sound coming from her closet.

T
he knock came just after seven o’clock. He’d showered and contemplated remaining in his towel only. But since that had prevented them from filling out the survey last time and he truly didn’t want to get her fired, he put on a pair of jeans and a green T-shirt that reminded him of the color of her eyes.

Opening the door, he smiled at her appreciative once-over before giving her one of his own. She still had on the dress and the dangerously enticing fuck-me heels from that afternoon.

“Evenin’, cowgirl,” he drawled intentionally. “I understand you’re here to meet my needs to the best of your ability.”

Stella gifted him an amused smile before stepping inside. “Something like that.”

He closed the door, suddenly nervous and unsure about how this was going to go exactly.

Thankfully, she was ready to take the lead.

Stella propped back on his small round dining table and eyed him slowly. “So, this questionnaire,” she began. “Mostly it’s just lots of questions about comfort, privacy, and satisfaction.”

Van exhaled and stalked towards her. His bed dominated the majority of the space, but she hadn’t so much as looked over at it.

“Hm.” Once he was close enough to touch her, he stopped. “How about you go get comfortable on my bed. I’ll lock the door and make sure we have plenty of privacy. Then I can demonstrate an entirely new level of satisfaction—one you don’t even yet have the capability to dream about.”

“Van,” she breathed. “What if—”

“What if we had wings? We could fly,” he murmured in the husky, soothing tone that he knew turned her to liquid. He locked the door and walked towards where she stood beside one of the wooden dining chairs.

Without asking for permission, he reached under her dress and began sliding lacy red panties down her legs.

“God, I’m so glad they’re red. I love you in red.”

Her lips curved into a satisfied smile. She stepped out of the panties once he’d reached her ankles, but when he stood, she placed a hand on his chest and applied enough pressure to back him up a step.

“And out of red.”

“I have a proposition for you, Mr. Walker.” Her eyes darkened with need and his dick responded with a resounding yes to whatever her proposition was.

“What’s that, cowgirl?”

She shoved again and he let her push him down into the chair. His breath caught when she straddled him.

“I’ll let you do anything you want to me. Well…almost anything.”

“What’s the catch?” He leaned back as she pulled her dress over her head and brushed her red lace covered breasts against his chest.

“I let you have me however you want, follow all of your orders like a good girl, and you answer any questions I ask. Honestly.”

His stomach tensed. This was a dangerous game. But Christ. What mere mortal man could turn down an offer like that? She’d made him painfully hard just talking about it.

His mind formulated a quick plan. If she was so drunk with lust and need, she couldn’t ask too many difficult questions.

“Lose the bra and the ‘almost anything’ and you have yourself a deal, cowgirl.” He smirked. Poor woman didn’t have a clue what she was in for.

“Deal,” she whispered, unfastening her bra and letting it fall to the floor.

“Hands behind your back, Stella Jo.”

Her eyes widened but she complied. Using the lacy scrap of material he still held, he tied her wrists tightly, pulling hard for good measure.

“First question,” she began, her chest rising rapidly as her breathing became more erratic. “I want to know what happened with the fiancée. And why she still jets around the world saying you’re engaged to her. The truth.”

Van pulled his shirt over his head, raising his eyebrows as Stella’s pupils dilated. She licked her lips, and he grinned.

“Who would be able to let all this go? Chick’s delusional.”

Stella frowned and began pushing up and off of him. “Fine. I guess you don’t really want—”

“Easy, cowgirl.” Using both hands to clamp down on her hips, he pressed her back down over his denim-restricted erection. “I’ll tell you. But it ain’t pretty.”

She stared into his eyes and waited patiently.

He sighed. “I’ve known her a while. Since high school. I decided to move to LA so I could do the music thing and she followed. We got engaged, mostly as a publicity stunt after I’d fucked up some shit during a fight after a show. She took it pretty seriously, despite the fact that it was more about pleasing the label and making me look stable than ever actually getting married.”

Unable to resist, Van paused to run his tongue up the smooth column of skin that was Stella’s throat. Her breasts swelled with every breath. Her body was beckoning to him. Having her naked in his lap with tied wrists was hell on his dick.

“So, um, how’d you break it off then?”

Van pulled back. He hadn’t thought about any of this in quite a while. It wasn’t something he liked to dwell on.

“There’s this gimmick we do. A play on the band’s name. We pull a girl on stage during the encore and sing to her. Then she goes back to the Green Room with us after the show and her friends have to give up stuff like bras, panties, and so on, to get her back. You know. Hostage for Ransom
.
”

Stella snorted and gave him a dirty look. “Sounds more like a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Van shook his head. “Usually it’s them that we can’t get rid of, cowgirl. And trust me. Some of those girls are pretty tenacious when they want to be.” He circled each nipple with his tongue.

“I bet.” Stella shivered.

“Anyways,” he continued on. “This chick in Omaha that we pulled on stage ended up being extremely shy. She practically hyperventilated after the show. We were all freaking out, trying to calm her down and get her friends to hurry up and retrieve her. We didn’t even want to mess with them. We just wanted to make sure someone got her out of there safely. The band bailed, afraid she was going to sue us or some shit—like you said. But I couldn’t just leave her, so I helped her find her friends and then gave them a tour of the bus to make sure everything was cool. Vanessa saw us coming off the bus and thought I’d fucked her. She literally attacked the poor girl. Julie,” he said, remembering. “Julie Donahue. She was just a sweet farm girl who got dragged along to a concert she didn’t even want to be at. Vanessa blindsided her, appearing from nowhere and punching her in the face. She kicked her in the head several times before I could pull her off. She had a severe concussion and the label had to pay an insane amount of money to keep her parents from going public.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. So that was it. I called it off. When I went to get my shit from the apartment we shared—shit I should’ve just left and replaced—she called the cops and had a restraining order filed against me. After that, I was done. Completely. If the chick offs herself, well then, so be it. Basically she’s a walking talking tornado that destroys everything in her path.”

“Sounds like you have excellent taste in women, Mr. Ransom.”

“Speaking of tasting…” Needing a taste of her, he took as much of her left breast into his mouth as he could. He sucked hard until she cried out. Then he did the same with the right one.