Sweet Surrender (60 page)

“Yeah, like she would go for that,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Who would go for what?”

His head shot up as Kristen stood at his door, hands on her hips, grinning at him. Well, shit! What was he going to say now?

“Nothing.”

Walking into his office, she closed the door. “It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“I thought I told you to go home, after cleaning the bar?”

“Yeah, well, I thought I would stay back and see if anything else needed doing.”

“There’s nothing else to do, so you’re better off heading home.”

“So, who were you talking about? If you need to talk or anything, I’m here, you know?”

Why did she have to say that? His cock was hard just thinking about having her under him, or against his desk. The way she was standing there, looking around the room sent all kinds of images through his brain about all the ways he could have her in just his office.

Wiping his hand over his face, he knew he couldn’t go there, really. “Thanks for the offer, but no. I can handle it all on my own.” Standing he walked over to the door, and opened it. “You should head home, Kristen. I can do the rest here.”

She moved beside him. “I know something is on your mind, Joey. I can see it all over your face. Please talk to me. If I have done something wrong, I would prefer you tell me about it. If I’m not doing something right around here, tell me. I’d rather know than get fired. I need this job,” she whispered.

Ahh, shit! She thought he was going to fire her? She hadn’t done anything wrong besides get his cock hard at every opportunity. Stepping in front of her, he lifted his hand and lightly stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Kristen, you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just me, I have things going on I need to sort out.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned into his hand; her skin was soft against his hard hand, as he rubbed along her cheek.

“I can help, if you need it, Joey. We all have things going on, and sometimes it helps if you ask for it.”

“What I have going on, you can’t help with sweetheart.”

God, he wanted to ask her, but he didn’t want to ruin their working relationship, or what they had of one anyways.

He turned towards the door, but her hand came up and rested over his. “You never know what I could help with, Joey. I’m good at a lot of things,” she whispered behind him.

He groaned, “I’m sure you are, darling.”

She stepped around him, but before she walked away from him, he pushed her up against the wall; he had to know.

“I need to know something before you go,.” he whispered against her lips.

Her breathing had picked up as he got closer to her.

“What do you want to know?” she stammered.

“This,” he said, as his mouth covered hers. She was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted, and he knew the rest of her would be, too. His hands had a mind of their own as they slid from her arm to her hips, pulling her into him further, so she could feel what she had done to him.

She whimpered against his mouth as her body melted against his. Pulling her back into the room, he slammed the door closed and had her against it within seconds. His mouth moved from her mouth to down her neck, nipping as he went. Something about the way he held her against the door with his mouth on hers; he just knew he had been there before with her, but that was impossible. He had never seen her before he hired her. Her hands gripped his shoulders as her leg rubbed against his. One of his hands moved down and grabbed her ass, pressing her as hard as he could against his cock. He pushed one of his legs between hers, until her hips swayed back and forth along his leg.

She was hot against him. Jesus, so was he. “You have no idea what you do to me, when you wear these,” he said as he placed his hand between her legs, against her core through her tights.

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

Her moan was music to his ears, and even that trigged something in his mind; he had heard that exact moan coming from her lips, before. Her head banged against the door, but he didn’t care if anyone heard them. It was about time that they all did, since he had with all of them.

His hand slid up to the top of her pants and dipped into them. His mouth stayed on her neck, sucking, as her own hands moved over the crotch of his pants, palming him through them.

His hips moved on their own accord, his other hand moved her against his leg as his fingers found her wet center.

“Jesus, Kristen, you’re wet.”

All she did was moan. Damn, he was ready to moan himself as he circled her clit.

“Joey.”

“Jesus, I want you, you have no idea how much,” he said against her neck.

His finger slid into her, and her walls gripped him as he entered. Damn, she was tight. Her hand covering his cock moved as he did. In unison they moved together, as he went in and out, her hand slid up and down the length of him.

Kissing his way down her neck to the top of her shirt, he pulled it down to reveal to lace bloody bra she was wearing under it. Fuck, he loved lace; it did all kinds of things to him. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, nipping, causing her to gasp at the sensation.

She was grinding against his hand as she slipped her hand into his jeans. She was so close to wrapping her hand around his throbbing cock, when his phone rang on the desk. He ignored it; he was not going to miss this chance he had with Kristen, it could be the only one.

“Joey, your phone,” she moaned again.

He moved to her other nipple, pulling it further into his mouth. His fingers moving faster and faster inside of her. Fuck, she was ready to send him up in flames just by how she felt around his fingers.

His phone stopped and started right back up again. She pushed at him lightly. “Joey, you need to answer that, it might be something important.”

Stopping the movement of his fingers, he rested his head against hers. Both breathing heavy, he removed his fingers from her and stepped back, not taking his eyes from hers, while he reached for his phone. She looked absolutely gorgeous standing there: head leant back against the door, both her hands in fists at her sides, and her top pulled down exposing her bra and nipples.

The ringing stopped. Noticing that someone had left a voicemail, he listened to it.

He heard Chantal’s strangled voice come through the phone,
“Joey, (cough, cough) my shop is on fire, I’m in the storeroom in back, I need you, please, (cough, cough).”
And then the line went dead
.

“Fuck.” He raced around, grabbing his jacket and wallet, and then ran towards the door, dialing her number.

“Is everything alright?” Kristen asked as she fixed up her top.

For that spilt second, he had forgotten about her standing in his office. “No. A friend’s shop is on fire. I need to go.”

Kristen followed him out of the office and through the back door, towards his truck.

“Do you need me to come with you?”

He opened his truck door, and stopped. “I’ll be fine,” he said, glancing over her body from head to toe. “But what happened just now, we aren’t done. Not by a long shot, baby.”

Her body shivered under his gaze. Grinning, he jumped in and reversed out, headed towards Chantal’s shop.

What the hell was going on? How the hell was her shop on fire.
Fuck!
He hoped it was not something stupid that she had done. And why the hell was she calling him and not Dominic? They hadn’t really spoken to each other after him declaring how he felt, and needing time apart from her. Although he still had strong feelings about her, he really hoped she wasn’t hurt or anything. He didn’t care that she had rung him, he would still do anything for her, but she was with Dominic. He should be the one going to her.

Maybe she had already rung him and he was on his way, but was too far from her shop, and she thought Joey was closer. Or maybe something else was going on. Jesus, this didn’t sound right to him. As he was speeding down the road, he pulled out his phone and rung Dom. If he didn’t know, he was about to.

“Hello.”

“Have you heard from Chantal in the last hour or so?” he asked as he indicated to go in the right lane.

“No. She won’t answer any of my calls, or bloody text messages,” Dom growled.

“Well, you need to get to her shop. I’m on my way over there now. Something is going on. She left a message saying her shop is on fire.”

“What! Is she all right? Did she say anything else to you?” Dom hissed.

“No, she left a message, that was it. That is why I’m heading there now. How far away are you from her shop?”

“I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Jesus, why didn’t she bloody ring me?”

“I have no idea what is going on between you two, but you need to sort it out after this. I’m turning down her street now.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let her leave last week,” Dom grumbled.

“It’s not the time to start bitching about last week, Dominic.”

He slowed his speed down as he turned down the street. The whole street was pitch black. He couldn’t tell whether her building was on fire or not, until he turned the corner closest to her shop.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“The whole front end of the shop is blazing. I can’t even make out the sign on the roof or the entrance.”

The flames were everywhere. Screeching to a halt, he jumped out. The sign was melting right in front of his eyes, the door was covered in flames, and the windows were ready to explode.

“Joey!” Dom screamed over the phone.

“Won’t be able to get through the front, if I barge the door, the front of it will collapse.”

“Fuck. I’m five minutes away.”

He could hear Dom cursing as he drove. Sliding back into his truck, he quickly moved around the back of the building.

“I need to call
000
. I don’t know what it is like in there, but I’m going in. I’ll see you when you get here. Remember, park out back.”

“Gotcha.”

Calling
000
as he jumped out of his truck, he explained what had happened. They had already dispatched a crew that was heading his way. Running to the back door, he contemplated whether to wait for the fire brigade, or go in there looking for Chantal. The heat coming from the inside of the building was unbelievable. He really hoped that she was in the back room like she had said, and wasn’t in the front of the shop.

His stomach turned as the thought crept in that she might be passed out from the smoke, or worse, dead. He wasn’t going to continue the thought. He needed to get in there now and not stand out here in the back alley, figuring out the best thing to do for her. It wasn’t standing out here waiting for the fire brigade.

Racing back to his truck, he ripped out the spare blanket from the back and went back to the door. Taking one last breath, he kicked the door off its hinges and ran inside, calling out her name.

––––––––

C
hantal had the most horrible week of her life. Nothing went right at all. Everything she tried to do, completely and utterly went down the drain. The motor of her car blew as she was driving towards her parents. She then had to agree with her father to take one of the family cars, for which she was grateful. Then, when she went to work, all the orders scheduled for delivery just disappeared. She had contacted the postage service and was relieved that she had decided to get postage insurance on all her items.

Someone has also broken into her store. They had managed to bypass her security alarm and get in, but nothing was taken. She still didn’t understand why they bothered getting in if they didn’t take anything. Then, there was the fact of Dominic. He contacted her every chance he could: ringing, texting, dropping by her house—although she wasn’t staying there—having flowers delivered to her shop. He even had Nate and Skylar ringing her, asking her to talk to him, but she was not having any of it.

He had even come into her store. She had to hide out in the back storeroom and listen as he argued with one of the girls working for her, asking where she was. She didn’t want to see or hear what he had to say anymore. After that eventful night at the club, she had heard enough. He could do as he pleased now with whoever he wanted, but it wasn’t going to be with her any longer.

Several nights, he had even waited for her to leave, and followed her as far as he could. He eventually found out that she was staying at her parents’ place. He had tried to get in to see her, but with the tight security her father had he never got too far from the front gate.

After that, Jason and Gavin drove her to work or any other place she had to go, in case she had a run in with him. She had cried herself to sleep every night over him. Every time she had closed her eyes, thinking she was going to have a peaceful and restful sleep, images of Dominic and Renee together, in ways that she only imagined her and Dominic together, flooded her mind. It made her sick most nights, waking for the most horrible nightmares she had ever had.

In the last few days, she had received over a dozen bouquets of flowers from him, each with a note apologizing for what had happened. Notes full of lies, claiming that nothing had actually happened between him and Renee. She didn’t believe a word. Everything that he said was a lie, just like the everything had been. She wasn’t going to go through it anymore with him, it was over.

Now, she was standing in her shop at the change rooms with a customer, listening to her complain about her body image and how half the outfit she tried on didn’t look appealing on her. She just rolled her eyes. Everything she had in her shop came in various sizes; from size 6 all the way up to size 26. She hated shopping in stores where the largest size that they had was a size 16. She wasn’t small like most women, and she was happy with her body image, but it was a pain to shop for.

That is why when she opened her shop up she wanted a wide range of sizes for every kind of body type, no matter whether they were small or large. Once her customer had finally decided on the outfit she wanted to surprise her husband with, she ran up the sale and watched as she left. She breathed a sigh of relief. “God, I’m so glad she had finally decided on something. I was ready to pull my hair out.” She laughed as she told Lisa.