Persuasion Skills (9 page)

She had always been different. It had
only taken him a decade to realize why.

He leaned back in his seat and let his
gaze roam over her features. He had always considered her beautiful, but now he
saw more than just his best friend who happened to be pretty. He saw the woman
who had pushed and praised him. The woman who had stood by him yet always
called him on his bullshit. The woman whose advice he always sought and whose
disappointment could make him weak. He saw his best friend and finally lover.
He saw the woman it took him years to fall in love with, and she was fucking
beautiful.

“I know what you’re trying to do, you
know. The wine, the music.” She sniffed the air. “The cologne.”

She was also too damn smart for her own
good.

She picked up her glass of wine and
sipped it experimentally, before tossing him a bored look.

He reached out for her free hand and
engulfed it in his own.

“And what exactly is that?”

She rolled her eyes at him, her look
obviously questioning his intelligence.

“Your little attempt at seduction. What
did you do, buy every
Cosmo
from the
last twenty years?”

He chuckled at her. She really should
know him better.

“First of all,
this
is an attempt at romance, not seduction.”

Her face puckered with a look of
confusion.

“And secondly, I didn’t buy any
magazines. I wrote a short algorithm that searched every digital magazine and
website with the highest frequency of specific key words.”

“You Googled.”

“I didn’t
Google
anything. I told you I wrote an algorithm—”

“Uh-huh, right. So you searched for key
words regarding the perfect dinner to get in a woman’s panties,” she said, a
smile tugging at her lips.

There was a familiar glint in her eyes
that always used to make him cringe, but no more. She was in the mood for an
argument, and damn if it wasn’t turning him on. Then again, he was finding
lately that everything about her turned him on and probably always had.

His cock twitched in agreement, and he
gave a mental shrug. He probably had made the decision subconsciously to be
annoyed all those years to keep himself from flipping her over onto the nearest
surface and fucking her senseless.
What a
pity
, he thought, thinking of all of those awesome missed opportunities.
The woman loved a good argument.

“Romance. Not seduction.”

“What’s the difference? You’re still
hoping for the same end result.”

“And what exactly do you think that end
result is?”

“To get me into bed.” She shot him a look
that just screamed,
Duh!

“Sorry to disappoint you, honey, but
that’s not my goal.”

“Nice try, Romeo. Tell that to someone
you didn’t have plastered against a tree for most of the afternoon.”

She pulled her hand free and glared at
him before picking up her fork and starting in on her salad.

He grinned in the face of her ire. She
wanted to pretend that her responses to him were just a reaction to the mood he
was trying to set. That was fine. It would take some time before she realized
that the heat between them was genuinely mutual and definitely more than just
attraction.

Good thing he had excellent reasoning
skills.

“You have a tiny birthmark on your
pussy,” he said, picking up his own fork.

Her eyes widened in surprise.

“It’s on your left outer labia.” He speared
a plum tomato and brought it to his mouth. He chewed the round fruit slowly,
staring into her shocked eyes.

“Ever since I saw it, ever since I had you
wet, and hot, clinging around my dick, all I can think about is stripping you
down and sucking that mark into my mouth,” he said, reaching casually for his
wine glass.

Her gaze blazed with heat in response to
his words, and he could see her nipples harden through her shirt. His groin
more than appreciated the view.

“I really don’t think that—”

“Every time I’ve seen or thought of you
since that night, all I can think about is how good you felt stretched around
my cock and how much more I wanted to do to you,” he said, overriding her
response. “If all I wanted to do was seduce you, Pep, I would have fucked you
against that tree and not let either of us come up for air until frostbite set
in.”

Her perfect pink tongue snaked out and
licked her pouty lips. Did she realize what an invitation that was?

“If I wanted to seduce you, I’d lift you
on this table right now and have you for dinner and finally gorge myself on the
prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”

Resisting the urge to pull her into his
lap and make good on his words, he held her arrested gaze and continued.

“Don’t ever doubt that I want you, Pep,
but I won’t settle for just a physical relationship with you. If we’re going to
make this work, it’s going to be all or nothing.”

Her lips firmed, and her chin struck out
in a mutinous angle.

“I don’t take directives well, Jaxon. If
I want to have anything with you, it will be when I’m good and ready. No amount
of candlelight and wine is going to change that, so your Pepe Le Pew
impersonation is wasted.” Her voice came out in a sexy rasp.

He grinned at her telling retort. She had
said
when
she was ready. It was a
small victory, but a win, nonetheless.

“Maybe,” he said, conceding her point.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I want to romance you, that I want you to
know how much you deserve to be wined and dined..” He shrugged his shoulders at
her.

“And for your information, I consider
myself more of Tramp than a Le Pew.”

“Didn’t he feed Lady spaghetti?” Her eyes
were lit with laughter, and he could see her shoulders relax.

“Well, I can’t plan everything.”

Her snicker filled the air.

“Yeah, right. I take it back. You’re no
Pepe. You’ve got Johnny Bravo written all over you.” She grinned at him.

He tilted his head back in consideration
before nodding his agreement. Lifting his arms, he began to flex as if he were
lifting weights.

“You’re right. He was both intelligent
and handsome and sex—”

She tossed a tomato at him before
concentrating back on her plate.

“Don’t push your luck,” she said dryly,
her smile softening her words. “What am I going to do with you?”

He could tell she was genuinely puzzled,
and tried to lighten the mood.

“Well, I have a few suggestions, but
since I’m trying to be a gentleman…” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, relieved
to hear her answering snort.

Dinner progressed with little argument
after that. Pepper gradually relaxed enough to engage in conversation and
didn’t stiffen when he grabbed her hand again. After years of obeying an
unspoken hands-off rule, he couldn’t seem to stop reaching out for her. He
loved the feel of touching her smooth, chocolate skin.

After the meal, he was able to coax her
back over to the couch. They continued to talk as he pulled her feet to his lap
and gave her a foot rub.

The little sounds she made drove him
crazy, and as the night progressed, he felt his self-control slipping. Her
occasional nervous glances towards the bed on the other side of the room were
the only thing keeping him in check.

It was obvious that she was unsure of
what would happen when they made their way to bed. He had a few thoughts about
how to put her at ease and give himself some relief at the same time.

She stifled a yawn, and he felt a wicked
grin stretch across his face.

“I think it’s time for bed,” he said,
shifting her feet from his lap and standing up.

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “I’m
really not that tired.” Her unease was clearly written on her face.

She was so cute. He leaned down and
scooped her up and over his shoulder.

“What the—”

Her startled yelp was muffled by his back
as he marched over to the bathroom.

When he reached the room, he shut the
door and placed her gently on her feet. She opened her mouth to no doubt blast
him with a round of curses when he began unbuttoning his shirt.

“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled.

“Getting ready for bed,” he said as he
tossed his shirt to the floor. His undershirt quickly followed, before he began
unbuckling his pants.

She averted her gaze and shifted her feet
into a wide stance, her hands firmly planted at her hips.

“That doesn’t explain why we’re in here
right now.”

“I always shower before I go to sleep.”

He pushed his jeans, boxers, and all to
the floor before stepping out of them. Her gaze drifted down his body to focus
on his groin. His dick twitched in greeting.

She flicked her gaze quickly up to his,
and he could see the answering heat flare in her eyes. Her throat moved in an
obvious gulp, and he had to bite back a groan.

“Since when did you need an audience to
bathe?” Her voice came out low and husky.

He stepped towards her, and she
immediately took a step back. He continued his slow approach, crowding her into
the large walk-in shower.

“Who said anything about an audience?” he
asked as he reached to her side and turned on the water, shielding her body
with his own.

Chapter Nine

Jaxon Grey was either too sexy for his
own good, or she had finally purchased a first class ticket to Hussy-Ville.

Pepper stared at the hard bare chest only
a few inches from her face. She was pretty sure that any common sense she had
melted to the floor the minute he dropped his pants, but held out hope that she
hadn’t lost all brain function completely.

She bit back a groan when he leaned
forward to tug her shirt over her head. Cool air briefly brushed her skin
before he reached around her back and unhooked her bra. His thick shaft rubbed
against the sensitive skin of her stomach, and she had to brace herself against
the wall to keep from wilting against him.

Think, think,
think!

Somewhere out there was at least one
feminist rooting for her, she was sure of it. If only he didn’t feel so good.
His cock twitched against her skin, and she couldn’t hold back a whimper.

“You have the softest skin,” he
whispered. He nibbled at her shoulder as his hands worked at freeing her from
her jeans.

 
He
pushed them to the shower floor and slipped his hands down to squeeze her ass
before slipping her thong down her legs.

Lifting his head, he looked down at her
now-naked body. His nostrils flared before he bent down to lift her feet out of
her pants and toss the garment out of the shower onto the bathroom floor.

When he bent down, the water his body had
been shielding hit her heated flesh. The warm spray was the wake-up call she
needed. Reaching down, she pressed her hands onto his shoulders.

“You need to stop.”

His strong hands smoothed up her outer
thighs before clutching her hips, pulling them slightly forward. His gaze
flicked up and captured hers.

“Why?”

His softly-spoken question blew a small
breath across her exposed mons. She hissed in a quick breath.

Breaking contact with his smoldering
gaze, she tilted her head back against the marble tile.
Stupid feminists
. After a few gulps of much needed air, she finally
replied.

“Because, despite the fact that I agreed
to stay here with you this week, this doesn’t mean I also agreed to become your
personal sex toy.”

His hands slid around and grabbed the
cheeks of her ass. She locked her knees in an effort to keep from arching into
his hold.

His raspy chuckle filled the damp air. “I
don’t consider you a sex toy.”

“Yeah? So what do you call tossing me be
about and stripping me naked?” she asked, struggling against the urge to look
down.

She doubted the sight of him kneeling in
front of her aching pussy was going to help her on the resistance front.

The quick flex of his shoulders was the
only warning she had before he surged back up to his full height and gathered
her close.

Her breath caught at the full contact of
his hot skin against her own.

“I call it taking a shower with my wife,”
he said before lifting her, spinning them both around.

The spray of the water hit her at full
force. She sputtered under the rain of the showerhead and glared up at him.

“I don’t actually recall agreeing to
shower with you.”

He grinned down at her, his amusement in
the situation showing clearly on his face.
Arrogant
rat.