The Principal's Office (11 page)

She wrapped her arms around his neck, anchoring him to her, until she was the one feasting on him. He steeped himself in her for long, sweet moments.

Then she fell back to the pillow and stared up at him. “I’ve never done or felt anything like that before.”

He wanted to tell her that neither had he. He’d watched, he’d played, he’d
done
the same thing, but he’d never
felt
with the same intensity. Because he’d never before had a woman for whom all this was new. Her experience was more important than his own. “Tell me about that fantasy.”

She blushed, something he would have thought was impossible to notice against her skin, already flushed with climax. “I’d never really want to be raped,” she said, as if she had to justify herself.

“Neither would I.” He smiled, petted her face, her neck, her shoulder, as if he were gentling a skittish animal. “But it’s very hot to imagine waking to find myself tied to the bed by a sexy stranger who was just about to ride my cock. Completely against my will.”

She snorted. “That’s not the same.”

He cupped her face, turning her to him. “No. It’s not. But we can fantasize about anything we want.”

“I used to read romance novels back in the days when the heroines were all kidnapped by pirates.”

“It was a formative fantasy, then.” She’d stopped reading them, he could tell, but she still trotted out that little female wet dream. He wondered how he could give it to her.

“You’re like the fantasy,” she whispered.

“An escape?”

She nodded. That wasn’t a bad thing. Role-playing, fantasy, it was all a way to get her to drop her barriers.

Propped on his elbow next to her, their skin flush together, her heat reaching inside him, he played with the ends of her hair. “You did well tonight.”

“Oh, did I?” She raised a brow saucily.

“Yes. I’m pleased with you, and I have to decide what we’ll do tomorrow night.”

“
Tomorrow
night?” She rose off the pillow.

“You’ll have your sons back on Sunday, so I don’t intend to miss a moment.”

“I’ll be exhausted.”

“You mean you don’t have an orgasm every day?”

She blushed again, a pretty pink hue. It was answer enough.

“Then we have to be sure you do,” he said. “The more orgasms you have, the more you’ll need.”

“Isn’t that the opposite of how it really works?” Her eyes flitted away as though she’d already found the answer for herself.

“No. A woman begins to crave orgasms. I want you to crave mine.”

Yes, he wanted her to crave his orgasms, the ones he was responsible for, whether she gave them to herself while she fantasized about him or he gave them to her with his mouth, his hands, or his cock.

He leaned close, breathed in the scent of his come on her skin, then whispered against her hair, “Tomorrow night, I will do all the touching. And you will come more times than you can count.”

RAND WAS RIGHT. HE WAS
ALWAYS
RIGHT. BY THE TIME SHE GOT
home, she needed another orgasm. She smelled his come on her, and she came. She thought about his promise, how he’d execute it tomorrow night, and she came again. She thought about her fantasy burglar,
and the orgasm simply dragged her under. She thought about all the nights in the week, all the things he could do to her, and she came again and again until she was so exhausted she couldn’t move.

He was dirty and carnal. A voyeur and an exhibitionist. He was kinky.

Gary would never have watched her masturbate. He would never have come on her or rubbed his semen into her skin as if it were lotion. It had been so much more intimate than sex. Her definition of intimacy was changing. Intimacy was trusting a man enough to do things for him that you would never do for anyone else. The things your mother would have washed your mouth out with soap for mentioning.

Kinky wasn’t bad; it was incredibly intimate. She would do just about anything he asked her to. What exciting thing would he want from her tomorrow night?

AFTER RETURNING FROM LUNCH THE NEXT DAY, RACHEL LOGGED
into her personal email. She didn’t make a habit of checking it at work, but if Rand had something special in mind for tonight, like a particular outfit or something he wanted her to bring, she might have to stop on the way home. Yeah, yeah, it was an excuse to get a kick out of talking to him, even if it was only email.

She’d given him her cell number, now her email address. Pretty soon, she’d tell him her last name and give him her home address. But Rachel didn’t care. At the oddest moments, during her morning work routine, while she was getting ready for bed, she’d smell him, as if he were standing right behind her. He was intoxicating. He’d gotten into her head.

Her heart skipped a beat. There it was. His email handle was generic, as was hers, and the subject merely read “Tonight,” but her pulse started to race anyway.

She opened the email.

He wanted her to go up to Skyline? Skyline Boulevard traversed the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Six-point-nine miles north along Highway 9? There was nothing there that she could remember, although she wasn’t sure whether that was past Woodside or not. Whatever. There was
something
there, and Rand had a plan.

“Yes, sir,” she typed back, mentally saluting. It was fun, a game, not knowing what to expect. Hopefully tonight he would take her all the way. So far, they hadn’t done much touching beyond that kiss. But what a kiss. Remembering, she melted all over again. He’d rubbed his semen all over her abdomen and breasts, but
he
hadn’t made her come yet.

She was just logging out of her email when a scuffle out in the factory caught her attention.

“You idiot.” Steve.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Matt.

“Then whose fault was it, kid?”

“I’m not a kid.”

“No, you’re a punk.”

What the…?
With her office door facing the entry to manufacturing, Rachel could hear the yelling as if they were standing right in front of her.

Erin and Dominic were gone for two days, Yvonne was out for the afternoon, taking her daughter to the obstetrician, and Bree’s door was closed. That left only Rachel, and Erin had told her to hold the fort while they were away. Of course, Yvonne hadn’t liked that since she had seniority, but that didn’t stop Rachel from taking her duty seriously.

“You shouldn’t have—”

“I didn’t—”

They were yelling over each other. Rachel marched out of her office and through the big arch into manufacturing. Steve was jabbing his finger at Matt’s nose, and Matt’s face was red enough to explode like an overripe melon.

The rest of the five-man manufacturing crew—though one of them was a woman—had made themselves scarce, either running down between the inventory shelves pretending they needed parts or out through the roll-up door at the back. Which was open, while the overhead heaters were blazing, wasting all that energy.

“What’s going on?”

Neither of them listened to her. Honestly, they were like two big kids fighting on the playground, right in each other’s faces. Matt was taller, but he was fifteen years younger and probably a hundred pounds lighter. Steve, whose bald head, stocky, muscled build, and tattoos screamed
motorcycle gang
, could have flattened Matt. Steve could flatten her, too.

But Erin had left her in charge. “Hey,” she shouted over them. “If you two don’t stop right this minute, I’m sending you to your rooms without dinner. Do you hear me?”

Matt pulled back, his lanky hair falling into his eyes, and looked at her. “What?”

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

Steve tilted his head, like a pit bull finally noticing the little pussycat. “Did you just tell me to go to my room?”

She stood taller. In her high heels, she was almost as tall as him. “Yes. Unless you both want to tell me what’s going on.” She glared at them. “Without yelling.”

She thought she saw the wink of Steve’s gold tooth before he cut off any hint of a smile. He stabbed a finger in Matt’s direction. “This little asshole—”

“Language,” she warned. If they wanted to be treated like kids, that’s exactly what she’d do.

Steve’s gold tooth flashed again, but this time he grimaced.
“This little miscreant put the wrong part numbers on all the transducers.”

Rachel knew their products somewhat. Put simply, the way Erin had described it to her, the transducers were the probes used to make the ultrasonic measurements that the gauges recorded. “So put the right numbers on them.”

Steve’s jaw worked. He was their quality control technician, inspecting the parts before they were either shipped or put into inventory. Matt, she knew, had taken over the manufacturing of the transducers, which, until recently, had been outsourced.

“It is not my job to fix his mistakes.”

“I didn’t make a mistake,” Matt jumped in. “We just had so many to get out today that I asked Fred”—their shipping and receiving clerk—“to put the part numbers on for me.”

“So you’re blaming Fred?” Steve got up in his face again.

Matt wasn’t backing off like a sensible kid. “No, I—”

“I said stop.” Rachel got right between them, pushing them apart with two hands like she was pressing weights. “Or I will put you in time-out.”

That was enough to cool them down again.

“I gather the parts have the wrong number on them, but they have to go out today, and someone’s got to fix it. You can worry about who’s to blame later. For right now, let’s figure out how to fix it.”

They glared at each other, then at her.

“I’m waiting,” she singsonged.

Steve huffed. “We have to stick the probes on a tester, figure out what they are, and re-mark everything. It’s easy, but it will take time.”

“How long?”

“All afternoon, but UPS is scheduled to pick up everything at four.”

She glanced at her watch. They had two hours. “So let everyone take some.”

“Susan and Tim have other orders to fill.”

She growled low in her throat, like Marge Simpson. “Then let’s put Matt, you, and Fred on it. I’ll do some, too, if you show me how to use the tester.”

They both stared at her.

“What?” she prompted.

“You’re not a technician,” Steve grumbled.

She narrowed her eyes. “Look, I can figure out exactly where to stick a probe.” He wouldn’t like where she put it if he didn’t start cooperating. She stared him down.

He was silent a long moment, then his eyes began to twinkle. He let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Rachel, you’re all right, you know.”

She smiled back at him. He’d never really given her the time of day, as if she was
just
a receptionist.

“And, Matt, we’re going to have to figure out what went wrong with Fred after we get the immediate problem fixed,” she said.

“I—”

She held up a finger. “Later. Right now, get Fred, and Steve can show us how to use the tester.”

“Yes, Rachel.”

The two of them scurried off to do her bidding. Amazing. She allowed herself a small triumphant smile. See, she wasn’t without skills useful in the workplace. Being a mom, she just happened to be great at conflict resolution.

DOWN IN THE TREES, IT WAS PITCH BLACK, BUT ABOVE, THE NIGHT
along Skyline Boulevard was bright with stars and oddly warm, as if a storm was blowing in from the south. Warm was relative, though; it certainly wasn’t summer weather. Rachel had dressed in a long wool skirt, matching sweater, and knee-high suede boots she’d had for years and worn only a handful of times.

She checked the trip odometer she’d set when she turned onto Skyline. Another couple of miles.

The trees bordering the road fell away into a landscape of rolling meadows, illuminated in her headlights for brief moments as she flashed by. As the tenths of the miles rolled over, she slowed. It would be a left turn. She didn’t want to miss it.

Okay, six-point-nine. She pulled into a turnout and followed a dirt road as it sloped down to the left. Not far from the boulevard above, she saw Rand’s parked car, just a dark shape against a darker night. He leaned against the hood, staring into the night.

Turning off the engine and killing the lights, she climbed out.
There was nothing but sky and stars and the dark blobs of the mountains.

“Come here.” He held out his hand.

Rachel took it, and he pulled her down to lean on the hood beside him. The metal was still warm from his drive.

“Look at that,” he said.

“I can’t see anything.”

He sighed. “All those people down on the flats, yet up here, there’s nothing, no one, just us and an ocean of stars.”

Behind them, a car whooshed by on the road, its headlights cutting the same path she’d made along the ridge. “Not quite alone,” she answered. “Civilization still rears its ugly head.”

He glanced back at the dying taillights. “Someone could see us if they looked for us.”

With the car hood warming her bottom, it wasn’t terribly cold, but soon she’d have to ask him to wrap his arms around her for heat. “So, what are we doing here?”

He looked once again at the hills that rolled down to the sea. “Car sex.”

“Car sex?”

He smiled, and she thought she could see starlight twinkling in his eyes. “Yeah. Sex in a car. Didn’t you ever do it in the back of your boyfriend’s car?”

“No.” She was the girl who’d wanted to wait. Then she’d dated boys who already had apartments. It was much harder to say no in an apartment. Then there’d been Gary.

“Well, I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. Car sex and sex outdoors.”

“You mean right here, right now?”

His teeth gleamed in his smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be some romantic buildup?”

“You mean where we fumble around in the backseat like teenagers until finally you say yes after I have my hand up your skirt?”

She laughed. “That’s not exactly romantic.”

He pulled away from the hood and stood in front of her. Then, in a flash, he pushed her to her back against the warm metal, and fastened his lips on hers. It was so fast, so carnal, she opened her mouth to him and wrapped her arms around his neck to mold their bodies together. He tasted fresh, spicy, hot, and he was already hard for her.