Temptation’s Edge (22 page)

“Oh yes.”

She pulled the vibe out a little, drove it hard inside her, imagined Connor doing the same as pleasure made her body clench with the first edge of orgasm already.

“Come on, Connor,” she murmured. “Fuck me hard.”

She pumped her hips, taking the vibrator deep, her pussy clenching around it. She was fucking the toy in sharp thrusts of her hips, grinding on it. Beginning to come.

“Connor…fuck me…just fuck me…yes!”

Her climax hit her hard enough to blind her, to make her yell his name.

“Connor!”

Still she pumped the huge vibe into her pussy, needing more.

Not enough…

It wouldn’t be. Only Connor himself would be enough.

Finally she stopped. Pleasure still shimmered deep in her body. Need was just as deep, just as powerful a force. Need for
him
.

Connor.

She was trying to catch her breath as she pulled the big phallus from her body, switched it off. Her body was still burning, still hungry for satisfaction. But she knew she could fuck herself with her vibrator all night long and never feel the satisfaction she craved. That was something only Connor could supply. His touch. His command. His presence.

She had to wonder if she would ever be truly satisfied, or if he’d ruined her forever, somehow.

Either way, she would see him tomorrow night. And that was really all that mattered right now.

At five minutes to seven Connor pulled up across from Dylan’s building. He looked up, found the lights on in the apartment, knew Mischa waited for him up there. He could get hard just thinking about her. Seeing her, imagining all the dirty things he would do to her back at his place after dinner.

“Down boy,” he muttered to his rising cock, pressing a hand over the crotch of his jeans. It didn’t help much.

He swore under his breath as he got out of the car, crossed the street, rang the buzzer. She didn’t say anything over the intercom, just buzzed him into the building.

He leaned against the wall of the elevator as it carried him to her floor.

Have to see the girl. Have to get my hands on her.

It had been too damn long.

Four days?

But he didn’t have time to question himself. The elevator opened and he was in front of her door. He knocked. She opened it looking like every fantasy he’d had of her since he’d left town. Except that she had too much clothing on.

But he liked it. A wrap dress in a black and red print that skimmed her curves, showing plenty of cleavage. The high black heels he loved seeing on her, like a little touch of fetish. And fucking fishnet stockings.

She was smiling at him with that lush red mouth of hers.

“Aren’t you going to say hi?” she asked, laughing a little.

He stepped in, kicking the door shut behind him.

“No.”

He made a grab for her, yanked her in close, turning her so her back was to the door as he pushed her up against it. Then his mouth was on hers and he was kissing her, his tongue driving inside. She tasted of toothpaste and flowers. Which didn’t make sense. He didn’t care. He breathed her in, drank in her hot, wet tongue. Crushed her breasts beneath his palms, feeling the hard swell of her nipples through her dress, her bra.

He stopped kissing her only so he could rake his tongue along the slender column of her throat, needing to taste her.

“This is a hell of a hello,” she gasped as he pushed her dress aside, reached into her bra and pulled her flesh free.

He bent to take her dark red nipple in between his lips, licking, then sucking, then biting hard.

“Ah, that’s good, Connor…”

Her hands were on either side of his face, holding his head to her. His were snaking up under her dress, lifting the hem as he slipped up her thighs, found that the stockings were held in place by a garter belt. There was nothing else under there. He would have smiled if his mouth hadn’t been filled with her sweet, fragrant
flesh, the swollen tip of her nipple. He kept sucking on it as he cupped her ass with one hand, kneading, pinching. The other he slipped right into the wet folds of her pussy.

He began to work her right away, thrusting two fingers inside her, pressing on her clit with the heel of his hand.

“Fuck, Connor.”

Yes, fuck her…

His cock was hard as steel. He let her ass go long enough to unzip his jeans. To pull his cock out and sheath it with a condom from his coat pocket, then he impatiently fought his way out of his coat and dropped it to the floor. Then he was on her. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist even as he plowed into her body. Her pussy enveloped him, hot, wet flesh tight around his cock.

“Ah, Christ, Mischa. This is what I needed. To fuck you. Just. Like. This.”

Each word was punctuated with a sharp thrust of his hips as he drove into her, pressing her back hard against the door. Pleasure was the only thing counteracting the hammering in his chest. The only thing to feed the pulsing beat in his cock. The only way he could be a part of her.

She was moaning, her hands clasped behind his neck. He held on to her ass and plunged, again and again, while she arched her hips into him. While she came, her pussy squeezing him like some hot, silken fist around his cock. Then he was coming, shouting, fucking her as hard as he ever had. Needing it to be this hard, this primal.

His legs were shaking, and he had to pull out, to ease her onto her feet. Her cheeks were flushed, her gorgeous tit still out of her dress, the nipple enticingly red. He ran a fingertip over it, felt her answering shiver. When he looked back to her face, her eyes were a brilliant blue, glossy with her recent orgasm.

She was breathing hard. So was he.

“Well,” she said after a minute. “Welcome home.”

It did feel like being home, he realized. Being there with her. Being inside her body.

Can’t think like that.

He couldn’t seem to stop.

I am in big trouble.

He wasn’t going to think about that, either. Instead, he smiled at her. “Ready to go to dinner?”

She laughed. “I might need a quick whore’s bath. And to change my panties. If I were wearing any.”

“Bathe away. No panties,” he told her. Commanded her.

She gave him a mock salute before she went off to the bathroom. But he didn’t mind her being a little sassy. He was back in the driver’s seat, which was exactly where he needed to be. And where he intended to stay.

Mischa loved the little downtown Italian place on sight—one of those old-school restaurants with big red vinyl booths and checkered tablecloths. The kind of small restaurant only the locals would know about. She was sure the food would be wonderful.

“They make one hell of a
puttanesca
here,” he told her as they slid into the booth.

“The whore’s spaghetti?” she asked, grinning.

“Well, you did take a
courtesan’s
bath before leaving the apartment.” He gave her a wink, his brogue heavy. “I thought it only fit.”

She laughed, not for the first time that evening. “
Puttanesca
it is, then.”

He ordered the wine without consulting her, which she had to admit she rather liked, and the waiter brought it quickly.

She’d noticed before how almost everyone sort of jumped for him. She didn’t think it was his size, although that could be intimidating.
She figured it was his natural air of authority, something people probably responded to without knowing they were doing it. She sure as hell did. Even when she was fighting it. Which she wasn’t doing tonight. It felt good.

She
felt good. Still buzzing from the fast, hard fuck they’d had up against the door the moment he’d arrived. And maybe simply because he was
there
.

The wine arrived, a California Zinfandel, and Connor had the waiter pour for them. He handed her a glass and raised his.

“Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass with hers.

“What are we toasting to?”

“I’m Irish. We’re good toasting to the drink.”

“Come on, Connor. Surely you can be more creative than that,” she teased.

“Well then, you mouthy little minx, how about we toast to the absolutely spectacular fuck we just had, and to more later on. With some spanking thrown in for good measure. My hands are itching to feel your fine, sweet ass.”

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting him to say. She didn’t know what she
had
expected. But it delighted her, making her grin widen.

“You are a vulgar man, Connor Galloway.”

He raised a brow. “But you like that about me.”

“I do.”

They clinked glasses, drank.

“How was the caterer?” he asked.

“It was good. We managed to pick a menu. Everything seems to be on track. Although Dylan and I are both grateful as hell for Lucie. She’s the only one of us who seems to know anything about this wedding stuff.”

“And your other meeting?” He sipped his wine, the glass looking ridiculously small in his big hand.

“That was good, too. Productive. Greyson and I met with an attorney and went over the paperwork to set up the partnership, and had him look over the lease before we sign it. I’m getting excited about opening another shop, although it’s going to be a huge headache to get it started. There’s all the hiring, the build-out, ordering chairs and supplies. Thank God I have a partner this time; that’s going to make it only half my own headache, anyway. We stopped and had some lunch and brainstormed shop names, but haven’t come up with anything solid yet.”

“Lunch, eh?” He sat back in the booth, crossing his arms. “Then what?”

“Then we opened a bank account for the new shop.”

“A joint account?”

“Well, we both have to be able to sign on it, of course. Greyson will be the one who’s here the most to oversee construction and…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“As if you’re pissed off about something.”

“Do I?”

She leaned in closer, examining his darkening features. Oh yeah, he looked annoyed as hell. Trying to cover it up and not doing a very good job of it.

“You want to know if we’ve slept together, don’t you?” Why was a part of her pleased about it?

He paused, unfolded his arms, as if he’d just become aware of his defensive posture. “I’ve no right to ask.”

“No. But I’ll tell you, anyway. Nothing has ever happened between us. If it had I wouldn’t be going into business with him. I don’t think business and pleasure mix well. Once you sleep with someone the dynamic between you changes.”

“In what way? I’m not questioning the concept; I’m wondering what your thoughts on it are.”

“You can have a one-nighter with someone and if you’re never going to see that person again, then that night is what it is—good, bad, whatever. But if you’re going to see each other again, well, it had at least better be good.”

“Excellent point, that.”

“If that person is a friend,” she went on, “then you
will
see them again, and the friendship will forever have that extra weight of the sex. Which can be really awful if the sex didn’t go so well.”

“Are you insinuating that sex with Greyson wouldn’t go well?” he asked, a grin on his face, one dark brow quirked over his green eyes.

She laughed. “No, not at all. Although I can see you’d
love
for me to say so. What I’m saying is, if you’re friends, then you’re taking a risk with that friendship. And if it does go well, and you continue to see someone, friend or someone you’ve just met…” She paused, pushed her hair from her face. “Okay, look at us, for example. We’ve been seeing each other, sleeping together, for almost two weeks. But it’s been a very condensed less than two weeks. Maybe because we both know my time here is limited.”

“And also because of the intensity of the power play dynamic.”

“Yes,” she agreed with a nod, “everything is more intense because of that. And now we’ve ended up…here. Having to wade through this connection thing. If we had met at Dylan and Alec’s engagement party, flirted a little, but never taken it that one step further, things would be completely different between us at, say, their wedding, than it will be now.”

He moved in closer, lowered his voice. “Yeah, because if we hadn’t already slept together I’d probably have to take you into some back room during the wedding and fuck your brains out.”

She laughed. “Well, there is that.”

He gave a small nod of his chin, his eyes sparkling. “I may still have to.”

“That’s…a possibility. But does what I’m saying make sense to you?”

“It does. I agree with all of it. But let me ask you what conclusion you’ve come to?”

She took a few moments to collect her thoughts, her fingers toying with her wineglass. “The fact that you felt you had to go away for a while, the fact that we’ve had to have a sort of revealing conversation, come to some agreement about how we do things from here, proves my point. If this were Greyson and I having this conversation, it could make being in business together a little…loaded, as I said earlier. Definitely more complicated.”

“Are you saying you can’t have sex with someone without becoming attached?”