Taking Care of Business (20 page)

'In another minute, if I don't move,' he explained as she moved to his side. With a hand on his dick. . . his cock, he thought with a smile, to keep the condom from sliding off, Brandon swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pointed his toes carefully, first one foot and then the other, stretching his muscles to keep them from locking up on him. He glanced over his shoulder at Leah, then stripped off the condom as he leaned forwards to hook the waste can with one finger. A nest of tissues already littered the bottom, but he threw a few more in on top. When he tested his legs again, it seemed safe enough to stand, but he didn't.

'I'm going to use the bathroom,' he said.

Amusement flickered in her eyes and she leaned forwards to kiss his shoulder in a gesture he wasn't expecting. 'You don't need to ask my permission to go. I'm not that harsh a mistress.'

He hadn't been asking permission, just letting her know because girls could be squeamish about bathroom stuff. Something in her tone though stopped him from getting up just then. Or maybe it had been the kiss to his shoulder. Or maybe he didn't want to move away from her just yet.

'I know you're not,' he told her, and brushed her hair over her shoulder.

Leah's smile thinned a little when he did that and, he couldn't figure out why. She let him kiss her mouth though and, when he paused in the doorway to look back , she'd been watching him. He closed the door, more for her benefit than any modesty on his part. He used the toilet, ran some warm water in the sink and splashed his face and crotch, but hesitated before using the last towel hanging on the rack. The Hilton had a green policy of only replacing linens during a guest's stay at the guest's request. Leah must not have requested fresh towels every day.

Before he could decide if he should drip-dry or use a washcloth instead, the door creaked open. Leah, still naked he was glad to see, came in. Spotting the water running in the sink, she looked at him. Then the towel.

'Here,' she said. 'Let me.'

She grabbed one of the unused washcloths from the rack and ran it under the warm water while he watched, not sure what she was planning. She squeezed it gently, but it was still soaked when she pressed it to his belly.

Brandon jumped at her touch, and she shushed him with a small murmuring admonition that made him want to laugh . . . but he didn't. In order to laugh he needed breath and her touch had stolen it away.

Looking up at him, Leah moved the cloth over his belly and thighs, wiping away the stickiness of sweat and the residue of her arousal. She moved between his legs, her touch gentle as she wiped the cloth slowly over his cock and balls, too. She put her foot between his, nudging to get him to widen his stance, and though he felt foolish he did it because looking into her eyes, her hand on his cock, he was pretty sure he would do anything she wanted.

She cleaned him thoroughly but swiftly and then ran the cloth under the warm water again and passed it over all the places she'd already covered one last time. Water pooled in his pubes and ran down his thighs and calves and feet. It tickled, but again he didn't laugh.

Leah put the cloth in the sink and took down the last towel. Looking up at him again, her head tilted sideways so she could see his face and, with a quick glance, also his body, she crouched in front of him on the bathroom's terry-cloth mat. She didn't kneel, just bent her knees more gracefully than he ever could have. Her hair fell forwards over her face as she looked at the towel in her hands.

His mouth dried at the sight of her there.

She used the towel with the same quick efficiency to dry his feet and legs. She moved upwards, standing, and dried between his legs and, finally, his belly.

It was the most sensually arousing experience of his life. He couldn't get hard again so soon, not after the mind-blowing sex they'd just had, but nevertheless arousal coiled in the pit of his belly, behind his balls. He let out a slow shuddering breath.

Leah tossed the towel on to the counter and leaned back against it, her legs slightly spread and her hands gripping the faux marble. 'Your turn.'

He took the cloth and ran the water, keeping his eyes on his hands so they wouldn't shake. He squeezed out most of the water, but when he turned to get down in front of her, his knee sent out a warning, loud and clear. Try it, buddy, the old soccer injury said. You'll get down, but you won't get up.

Leah must have seen his wince because she put her finger under his chin to lift his eyes to hers. 'I don't want you to hurt yourself.'

Brandon nodded and slipped an arm around her waist to draw her closer as he let the warm damp cloth slide between her legs and up over her belly. Leah tilted her head back to look up at him, and her mouth curved in that secret smile again. He wanted to know what she was thinking, but was a little afraid to ask. He was pretty sure she was the sort of woman who wouldn't have any problem telling him.

'Very nice,' she murmured when he'd cleaned her as thoroughly, if not as neatly, as she'd done for him. She gestured for him to put the cloth in the sink, then took both his hands and settled them on her hips as she hopped on to the counter and drew him between her legs.

Maybe he could get hard again after all.

Pressed against her like that, an interested but not yet ready prick against her soft warm flesh, Brandon understood without question why Viagra had been invented.

Leah slid her flat palms up his chest, stopping at his nipples. She rubbed them a little with her fingertips, and they pebbled as his skin broke out in gooseflesh. Brandon shivered, but not from cold.

'You like that.' Her smile teased him again.

'When you do it, I do.'

Her lips rounded. 'Good answer.'

He laughed and moved to kiss her. She didn't move towards him, but she didn't pull away. He stopped a breath's distance from her lips, patient when he had to be, until she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her tongue slid into his mouth, then out again. She tasted so sweet, his body stirred in a valiant effort.

Without breaking the kiss, Brandon tightened his grip on her and lifted her from her spot on the counter. Leah let out a cry and clung to him as he turned, but a second later she relaxed in his grasp and beneath his mouth. He kissed her as he walked, praying the bed would find them before the floor did. His knee twinged but held. He lowered her on to the bed and crawled up after her, his mouth finding whatever spot he could.

When she lay on the pillows with him beside her, Leah put a fingertip to his lips to stop his kisses. 'Brandon.'

'Yes,' he said and waited for her to kick him out.

'I'm going to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth.'

'Why would you assume I'd lie?' he asked bluntly, not to be a jerk but because he'd already given her multiple orgasms and he figured he was entitled to a little trust.

'I didn't!' She looked a little shocked.

Brandon rolled on to his back, one arm behind his head, to stare at the ceiling. She didn't say anything. After a few seconds, he turned his head to look at her. She'd sat up and pulled a pillow on to her lap and was squeezing it.

'I'm not a good liar,' Brandon said. 'You can see a lie all over my face, or so I've been told.'

A smile twitched her mouth but she didn't quite give in to it. 'By who?'

'My mother, first of all,' he said. 'And about half-a-dozen girlfriends. So I'm inclined to think they're right.'

'Ah.' She nodded and chewed the inside of her cheek. 'Well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply you'd lie. I just wanted to be sure you'd be honest.'

He sat up too, mirroring her position with the other pillow. 'I will be. But you have to be honest with me too.'

She gave him an assessing look. 'Is that what you'd like to do? Trade secrets?'

'Do you have some?'

'Everyone has secrets, Brandon.' She looked at the pillow in her lap. Her hair fell forwards over her face and shoulders, so long it brushed the pillow where her hands twisted together.

He couldn't think of any he had, but the playful, sensual mood was dissipating and threatening to turn into one of 'those' conversations. 'You can ask me anything,' he offered gamely. 'Go ahead. Just like Truth or Dare.'

She looked up at him then. 'So, if you don't want to tell me the truth, I get to give you a dare?'

He laughed. 'I'll tell you. Go ahead. Ask me what you wanted to.'

Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath in through her nose and let it seep slowly from her mouth. 'I want you to tell me how you felt when I told you to leave.'

He didn't ask which time. He knew what she meant. But he didn't have an answer he could articulate. Not right away.

Leah studied him. 'Were you angry?'

He shook his head. 'No.'

'Hmm.' She tilted her head and sucked her lower lip for a second, which drew his attention inexorably to her mouth. 'Don't you think you should have been?'

'Do you want me to have been angry?' His knee couldn't take the cross-legged position any longer so he stretched out his legs, then lay on his side with his head propped in his hand. He kept the pillow in front of him though, because she still had hers, and this was the sort of conversation where nakedness wasn't a plus.

'I want to know what you felt, that's all.'

'I wasn't angry. I was disappointed. I was surprised. But I wasn't mad.'

She plucked at the pillow's white case, then held out her fingers like she was examining her manicure. Brandon had seen girls do that before. It meant she didn't want to look him in the eye.

'How about you? What did you feel like when you told me to go and I did?'

'I liked it.' The answer came out of her almost before he'd finished asking the question. She gave him a challenging stare, which was better than her avoiding his gaze.

'And the list,' he said after a few seconds in which neither of them spoke. 'You liked giving me that list.'

Leah lifted her chin. 'You liked that too.'

'I could've cut diamonds with my dick that day, Leah.'

She laughed and he was glad. 'Really? I couldn't tell.'

He reached to trace a circle on the part of her knee peeking out from the pillow. She had tiny sharp stubbles there he hadn't noticed before. He doubted she'd appreciate him pointing them out, even though he liked feeling the prickles under his fingertips.

'What do you like about it?' Brandon didn't need to think too hard to guess. He'd met her ex, that frigging punk. She'd told him, that first night, that Mike had liked to tell her what to do. Brandon figured she was just getting a little payback- with a different guy, but how could he complain?

'What do you?'

'When you tell me what you want, I don't have to guess,' he said pointedly. 'It makes my job a heckuva lot easer.'

He'd put it that way deliberately, the part about the job.

He wasn't completely clueless. He couldn't pretend to guess at all her issues, but her asshole ex-boyfriend was a big part of them. Brandon wasn't going to imply what had just happened was anything other than what she seemed to want it to be: sex, plain and simple. Except there hadn't been anything plain about it and it didn't feel simple either.

'Do you always get a hard-on that could drill brick when someone gives you a list?' Her tone was light, but her eyes weren't teasing.

'No. Just you.'

Her gaze travelled over his face. 'I believe you.'

'I told you, I'm not a good liar.' He wanted to let his fingers drift higher, to the inside of her thighs. He wanted to find her slippery heat. Instead, he took his hand away.

She noticed, her eyes going to her knee and then to his face, but she didn't comment on it. 'I like knowing I've provided you with everything you need to know in order to please me. It gives you no reason to disappoint me.'

'Me? Or any guy?'

She pulled the trigger of an imaginary gun. 'Bingo.'

That stung, a little, that she was making a point of him not being special. 'Is that true?'

'You think I'd lie?'

'It wouldn't be the first time I've been lied to by a beautiful woman.'

Everything that had been open in her face shut down. 'Just because you don't want to believe it's not true doesn't make it a lie.'

Brandon didn't move, though it took a lot of effort not to get up and get dressed. Walk out. It was probably what she wanted anyway.

Well, screw that.

'From what I can tell, you didn't boss your ex around.'

Her mouth thinned and anger flashed in her eyes. It was better than the blank look she'd given him a moment before. 'That's none of your business.'

'It's my business when he comes to where I work and threatens me,' Brandon said matter-of-factly.

There was no hiding her surprise and anger now. 'He did that? What did he say?'

Now he sat to lean against the headboard. 'He told me to back off. You're his.'

'Well, I'm not!' He shrugged, deliberately. 'Hey, if I'm just a stepping stone, that's cool.'

It wasn't.

'Or if I'm just a reason to make him jealous -'

'That's not it at all!' Leah slammed the pillow from her lap on to the bed and got up.

She was so gorgeous it almost hurt to look at her. Brandon had been with women who had perfect bodies, not an extra ounce of fat or a stretch mark or a wrinkle or blemish anywhere on them. They'd been the ones who wanted to make love with the lights off or who threw on a robe the second they'd finished. Leah didn't bother.