Tempts Me (4 page)

He put a hand over hers, curling his fingers beneath her palm to break the contact. “I shouldn’t have invited you. I knew this wasn’t going to work.”

Her lip curled briefly, and she let him go. “What the hell is your problem, really? ‘Cuz I can’t quite figure you out, you know? A couple minutes ago, you’re all up on me like butter on a cob of corn, and now you’re acting like I just tracked dirt on your favorite rug.”

Behind them, the bathroom door opened. A smug-looking blonde stumbled out, a man behind her with an equally satisfied grin. They both gave Elliott a nod as they passed.

“You have a license to sell hot dogs?” Simone said to the man, who, surprised, looked down at the open fly of his crotch.

Laughing, he zipped up and patted Simone’s shoulder. “Thanks, darlin’.”

“No prob.” She winked at him, then gave the blonde a set of devil horns with her fingers. “Get out of here, you crazy kids. Next time, check under the stall for feet.”

“Good advice,” the man said with a nod, then gave Elliott a grin. “She’s a keeper, son. Hang on to this one.”

The indignity of being called son by a man at least a decade younger than Elliott rankled, but he gave the other man a tight smile and waited until the pair of them had turned the corner before he faced Simone again.

“Let’s go. This entire evening has been a debacle.” He held out his hand to take her by the elbow, intending to move her forward, but Simone crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t move.

“Look. I don’t know what seed you planted in your ass, but it’s turned from a stick into an entire tree. If this party is a dud, it’s because you’re not even trying to enjoy it.”

“I don’t want to enjoy it.”

Simone’s brows rose. “That’s obvious. So why’d you come?”

Again, a discussion and situation he didn’t want to pursue, yet something about Simone had apparently stolen Elliott’s good sense, because he replied, “Because I keep my word.”

“Good to know,” she said, then leaned a little closer. “I like a trustworthy man.”

The scent of her filtered to him again, that fresh smell of lilies and water. It made him think of a sun-dappled lake, hot sun overhead. A rowboat. A picnic … Damn it. Elliott shook himself.

Simone Kahan was trouble.

“I promised Barry I’d come. So I did. But I don’t really want to be here—”

“So it’s not me.”

This gave him pause. A lot of it
was
her, as a matter of fact. “Bringing you was a mistake that for some reason I couldn’t help making.”

“You can be a real asshole, Elliott. You know that?” With that, she turned on her heel and stalked off.

He watched her go, intending to let her leave without so much as another word. He didn’t owe her anything. If anything, she was the one who should be grateful to him, bringing her to Barry’s place. He’d seen her work the crowd earlier. She’d never have been invited to anything this nice, if not for him.

Ah, shit. I am an asshole.

“Simone.”

She didn’t turn, didn’t give him more than the barest glance over her shoulder as she kept walking. Mesmerized by the sway of her hips, Elliott could only stare like a gobsmacked schoolboy for so long that when he reached for her again, she was too far out of reach. He caught up to her in two long strides, and snagged her elbow. Without so much as a blink, Simone easily pulled from his grasp, never hesitating.

“You wanted to leave. I’m leaving.”

“I’ll call you a cab.”

“No,” she said with a disdainful look. “You’ll take me home. All the way to my door. You invited me here; the least you can do is make sure I get home safely.”

Even in their short acquaintance, Simone had figured out a way of putting him in his place. Showing him up. He hated it, mostly because she was right. He knew he could be rude. Inconsiderate. Arrogant. Enough women had told him so that Elliott had come to believe it was true. But deeper than that, the truth was, he
had
invited her here. It
was
his responsibility to make sure she made it home all right. Elliott took his responsibilities very seriously. Simone had hit the heart of him, unerringly, and maybe unknowingly.

“Fine,” he told her. “I’ll make sure you get home.”

The briefest smile quirked her mouth, and the flash in her gaze told him that she’d been expecting him to refuse her. Simone lifted her chin. Offered him her arm.

“Sneaking out so soon?” asked a blonde.

The tone of her voice told Elliott he ought to recognize her, but he didn’t and settled for a show of teeth meant to be a smile. “Yes. Good to see you, though.”

“Who’s that?” He heard from behind him as he steered Simone through the crowd toward the front door.

“That must be Elliott’s latest sweetheart,” came the reply.

Simone heard it. She threw him an amused glance, then looked over her shoulder at whoever had said it. Then back at him as he kept his gaze on the front door. She had no coat, nothing to pause for, and he had her at the door before anyone else could stop them.

Right before they made their escape into the foyer and the elevator just beyond, the man from the bathroom crossed in front of them. He gave Simone a wink and clapped Elliott on the shoulder. “Running off already? The party’s just getting started. Tell you what, the both of you look like you know how to have fun. How about you come on over to my party the next time I’m in town? It’ll be a good time, I promise. What do you say, honey?”

Simone laughed and shrugged. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

Elliott said nothing as the man moved away, but suffered another clap on the shoulder. In the elevator, he punched the lobby button and leaned against the wall. Simone looked at him, shaking her head and laughing under her breath.

“What?” Elliott said.

“You have no idea.”

He frowned. “So tell me.”

“That guy,” Simone said as the doors opened and she went out without waiting for him, “was the future governor of Louisiana.”

*   *   *

She had no idea how stuff like that party worked, Simone would be the first to admit. Political wheelings and dealings. Currying favor. But one thing she did know was how to talk to people like they were important when they weren’t, and like they were no big deal when they were. It had been her experience that a lot of people who were used to being ass-kissed kind of liked it when someone didn’t treat them like they were made of spun sugar, ready to melt if you blew on them.

“How come you hate parties?” she said in the cab Elliott had flagged for them. He’d said nothing to her in the past ten minutes while they had waited for the ride.

“Who says I hate parties?”

“Barry.”

Elliott looked at her, finally. “Barry talks too much. I don’t hate parties. I mostly just get bored, that’s all. Everyone trying to impress everyone else. Like your friend from Louisiana.”

“I just met the guy tonight. He’s hardly a friend.”

“He invited you to his party next time he’s in town,” Elliott said darkly.

She let her hand rest on his knee, squeezing gently. “He invited both of us. Don’t worry. I’ll go with you. Even if you are sort of an intolerable date.”

Beneath her hand, the muscles went tight, bunching. He didn’t take her hand and throw it off him, but there was no doubt from the look on his face that he was considering it. She took it away. She didn’t need to chase.

They said nothing else after that. When they pulled up in front of her building, she squeezed his knee again. “Walk me upstairs.”

Elliott sighed, but didn’t protest. Simone couldn’t stop herself from smiling, not that she let him see her, as she led him to the elevator. She was giving him a hard time about being a pain in the ass, which was true. He totally was. But she’d been on worse dates, with bigger assholes than Elliott Anderson, and the fact was that his terse attitude intrigued her more than it made her mad. Oh, yeah, he’d been a little brusque tonight. Impolite, though immediately recognizing it when she’d pointed it out. Acknowledging it, if not contritely at least sincerely. She was having a helluva time figuring him out.

She liked that.

Maybe that made her kind of sick, but that wasn’t anything she didn’t already know about herself. She’d always been drawn to arrogant men, the ones who thought they knew best. Those were the ones who could give her what she craved. The problem with men like that was they were also the ones who felt like they had the right to tell her what to do.

Elliott was different. She’d known that for a while, watching him bring the parade of blondes into his office. Fucking them on his desk, sometimes without so much as a kiss beforehand. The way his hands always found their way into their hair, pulling. The roughness with which he handled them. But she’d watched him do other things in that office, too, things that had told her a lot more about his personality even than the way he fucked.

She’d seen him clean his desk phone with an antiseptic wipe and eat Chinese food from a container with chopsticks he pulled from a wooden case out of his desk drawer. She’d watched him bent over his computer, scowling, and she’d watched him with his cell phone pressed to his ear, face alight with laughter. She’d seen him working and playing. It was kind of creepy, actually, how much she knew about him from watching him after hours. What would happen if he knew everything she knew about him, she thought as she pushed the fourth-floor button and watched him lean against the interior elevator railing across from her.

“I’m at the end of the hall.”

“Of course you are,” Elliott said in a half-weary voice, though he followed her. “I guess you expect me to make sure you get inside okay, too.”

“Yes.” Simone bit back another smile.

“Do you want me to go inside with you?” He asked as she fit her key into the lock and pushed open the heavy wooden door. “Make sure there’s no serial killer lurking behind the shower curtain, that sort of thing?”

He might be a pain in the ass, but that dry sense of humor was the cherry on top of the panty-dampening cake. Simone turned to face him as he came through the doorway behind her. She tossed her keys into the small bowl on the table by the door.

“I don’t have a shower curtain. But tell you what,” she said, “since you came all this way, you could kiss me good night.”

He’d been looking around her apartment when she said that, blatantly assessing everything from her couch to the art on her walls, and at this, his head swung slowly toward her. “Kiss. You?”

“It might surprise you to realize this,” Simone said, annoyed and amused and also a little aroused, “but I don’t usually have to even ask.”

“No. I don’t suppose you do.”

The way he said it gave her a little shiver from the base of her neck all the way down her spine, where it lodged. Simone didn’t move closer to him. He didn’t move closer to her.

For a long few seconds she thought he wasn’t actually going to kiss her, and she would have to make the first move, because there was no way in hell she was going to let him out of here without at least tasting his mouth, just once. But then she didn’t have to worry, because Elliott reached for her, his fingers brushing her sleeve, then closing on her wrist.

It still ached a little from his earlier grip. More a memory of the small pain he’d inflicted than any real discomfort, but her heart skipped a beat anyway. Her nipples tightened. The shiver that had traveled down her spine now spread outward, turning electric, sending heat through her belly and between her legs.

“Come here,” Elliott said.

It was never the commands that got her hot, but the promise of what might happen should she disobey. Frankly, Simone could take or leave being bossed around. Mostly leave it. But the threat of discipline, of punishment, of pain … that set her on fire. She let him pull her closer, step by step, as though she were hesitant when they both knew she was anything but.

In the last moment, Elliott snapped her against him in a swift movement that made her stumble, but his grip on her wrist kept her from falling. She put both hands flat on his chest. In these heels she still wasn’t quite tall enough to look him in the eye, but she didn’t have to crane her neck to get her mouth close to his. Elliott’s free hand slipped behind her neck to cup the base of her skull, and everything inside her went liquid. Melting. She gave him her mouth, but he didn’t take it.

His fingers tightened in her hair. She’d worn her hair short forever, finding it more flattering and easier to take care of, but one thing she missed about having long hair was having it pulled. Somehow, Elliott had found the perfect way to tug it, short or not. The brief pain in her scalp went right between her legs. Electric.

Her lips parted. She murmured his name. He pulled her closer, his other hand leaving her wrist to cup her ass and grind her against him.

Finally, his lips brushed hers. Soft, soft, barely a kiss at all. More like the shadow of a kiss. A murmur. At least until she opened her mouth, giving him her tongue.

At the touch of it, Elliott groaned. His grip tightened in her hair and on her ass. Pinching. He ground his mouth on her. His cock rose between them, the heat and solid length of it on her belly sending another series of shivers through her.

A moan slipped out of her. Another when his fingers dug deep into her flesh and his tongue stroked hers. At the nip of his teeth on the corner of her mouth, Simone cried out.

Elliott moved back from her, blinking. If he’d let her go, she surely would’ve fallen, but he still held her tight enough to keep her steady. At least for a few seconds, and then his grip loosened.

“That was lovely,” Simone said, a little dazed. “Do it again.”

*   *   *

The taste of her filled his mouth. The smell of her covered him. The feeling of her tight ass under his hand, the slender curve of her neck inside the cage of his fingers—everything tipped him toward her again.

Elliott kissed her. The second kiss was harder even than the first. Her tongue stroked his, and when he sucked on it, then bit it gently, her answering gasp flooded him with an arousal so sharp it almost hurt.