Who's on Top? (8 page)

“I'll tell you what I'll play for, Sayers. If I win, you've gotta talk to me. You open up. You stop being hostile and resistant. Because no matter what you
think, I haven't already judged and condemned you. I promise.”

“Mmm. Okay—if you win, I talk. If I win, on the other hand, you have to kiss me.”

K
ISS
D
OMINIC
S
AYERS
? T
HE
concept rattled around her brain like a pinball.

Oh, hey. I'll do that for free.

No, no, no, Jane! Be a professional. No sucking face with the clients. Bad idea!

“K-kiss you?”

He nodded. “And not just some little peck, either,” he added. “You want me to open up to you? Well, I want you to open up to me.” He shot her a grin that bordered on the lascivious.

She stared at him. They were getting into dangerous waters here. It was one thing to exchange a little banter, a few words rife with double entendres. It was quite another thing to… Jane gulped the rest of her beer just thinking about it.
Nope. No way. Not even.

“Okay,” her mouth said. “It's a deal. And since there's some question about how the game ended, I'll let you break.”
Aaaack!
What was wrong with her lips? Had they really just agreed to this crazy bet? She needed to twist them right off and keep them in a jar or something. Under control!

With a satisfied smile he rounded up all the balls and placed them into the rack. His touch on them was confident, sure, expert. He almost caressed them, as if they were—

Jane looked away and swallowed, crossing her arms over her breasts.
Stop it!

Dominic dispensed with the rack, lined up his shot and scattered the balls over the table like her runaway hormones. He sank the four and the five into a corner pocket.

Little balls,
she told herself.

He shifted to the left a bit and sank two more. “I'm on a mission,” he said with a disarming grin.

Jane shifted her weight from foot to foot. Was she crazy? How had she agreed to this? Unconsciously she pulled at her lips.

Clack, kerplunk. Clack, kerplunk.
Did the man never miss? She was getting a tension cramp in her toes.
Don't miss. Please don't miss….

He didn't. Two blinks later he was lining up his shot on the eight ball and casting her a mock-stern glance. “No choking, no sneezing, no cell phone rings. Promise?”

She nodded, forgetting to even be annoyed at his implication.

He shot. Game over. She'd never even had a chance.

Oohhhh-kaaaay.
Now she had to fight for her life. Or at least her pride. Because Jane always won. As a teenager, she'd been neighborhood champion.

She smoothed her hair back from her face and dug in her trouser pocket for the rubber band she knew was there. Slowly, under his gaze, she bound her hair with it. Yep, she knew she could win. So why this sudden shameless desire to throw the game? She became furious at herself for allowing the thought into her head.

“I'll return the favor and let you break,” Dom said magnanimously.

She nodded curtly.

“Just to allow you some shred of hope.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. Then she set up and slammed the cue ball into the heap, watching with satisfaction as the victim orbs scattered to all corners of the table. Not a single ball found a pocket, however, and she almost screamed in frustration.

Dominic cut his gaze from the game to her hot cheeks, and his mouth curved.

Odious, arrogant man. He'd put some kind of hex on her, it was obvious. That was the only explanation for her lame showing today. Because she certainly didn't want to kiss him. Imagine! He probably let his tongue loll out like a dog's. Or the thing was forked. Or he was one of those men who drooled on a girl's chin. Repulsive! Just because a guy was decent looking—okay, hot—did not mean that he had any technique, not to mention talent.

Clack, kerplunk. Clack, kerplunk. Clack, clack, kerplunk, kerplunk.
No, he couldn't be doing this again! He just couldn't be allowed to take the whole
game in this humiliating fashion. He'd miss eventually. He'd…game over? No!

He shot her a look full of intent, and she laughed uneasily. “Heh, heh. Surely you're too much of a gentleman to hold me to our bet.”

His grin was all shark. “You don't know me very well, do you, Jane?”

She swallowed and looked away.

“Perhaps I'm such a gentleman that I won't let you dishonor yourself by welshing.”

“Heh, heh.”

“I'll ask you one question before I claim my prize. Would
you
let
me
off the hook?”

“Heh.” But honesty demanded that she shake her head. Honesty was just
hell
on a girl sometimes.

Dom propped his stick in the corner and advanced upon her. He grasped her stick, gently tugging at it, but she held on to it as if it were a spear and she were a Zulu warrior. She'd…she'd…stick it up his nose if he came any closer.

“Give me your weapon, Jane.”

She cleared her throat. “No.” Why did it come out sounding like a question?

“Yes,” he said inexorably. “I think you owe me something, darlin'.”

She stared at his mouth, and her grip on the cue stick grew tighter. Somehow she knew that there would be no drool issues with Dominic.

“Jane,” he said, laughter in his voice. “If you wrapped your toes around that stick, too, I could
carry you off like a nice goat or suckling pig. Stick an apple in your mouth and hang you over an open fire to roast for some pagan feast.”

She choked. The darnedest things came out of this guy's mouth!

He bent over her, around the cue stick, and that mouth came inches from her ear. “I won't bite, Jane.”

She shivered. Turned her head just a fraction, toward his stubbly male jaw.

“At least, not hard,” he whispered. And his mouth found hers.

This time, to her shame, she
did
squeak. And worse, the squeak lowered into a whimper and the whimper into a bona fide moan. Because Dominic's lips were hot and firm and insistent…and parted her own all too easily.

The cue stick clattered to the floor unnoticed, and she gripped his shoulders to stand, because literally her knees had buckled on her, going defective for the first time in her life. Perhaps it had something to do with the way one of his arms wrapped around her rib cage and the other moved to the back of her neck, coaxing and massaging liquid heat through every nerve she had.

Vaguely she registered clapping and cheering in the background.
Huh?
And when Dom lifted his head and she could turn hers, they discovered the barkeep and all the contractors egging them on with whoops and hollers.

A hot flush spread over her neck and cheeks, and she closed her eyes. Mentally she threatened to re
turn her knees to the manufacturer if they
ever
did that to her again. As for her idiotic larynx, she resolved to have it removed tomorrow. Her throat had never made such…such…
politically incorrect
sounds! Whimpering had long ago been expunged from the twenty-first-century woman's vocabulary. Oh, she wanted to die.

“Come on,” Dom said. “Let's get out of here.”

 

J
ANE HELD HER HEAD HIGH AS
they moved past the leering contractors, who'd had a few too many and were urging them to get a room. Apparently they'd won a blue ribbon for Best in Show.

Normally she wouldn't have held Dom's hand, but under the circumstances she grasped it quite gratefully and clutched it even when the door shut behind them. Night had fallen while they'd been inside the bar, which seemed apropos, since he'd lured her to the dark side.

Jane was very aware of his body as they walked across the cracked asphalt parking lot to his car, where she let go of his hand. Immediately she missed the rough warmth of it; the texture of his skin. He must have seen the regret in her eyes, because though he disarmed and unlocked the car with his remote key, he didn't open the door for her.

Instead he backed her against it and took her mouth again in a hot, demanding, no-holds-barred kiss. Jane almost melted and trickled down onto the pavement as his lips parted hers again urgently and his tongue
took over her mouth, establishing the rhythm and possession that he wanted elsewhere in her body. He tasted of beer and something spicy—hot cinnamon?—and one hundred percent turned-on male.

A whole series of quick sexual shocks electrified her, shook up her nerves and ignited them with pleasure. Mad rushes of sensation shot from the tips of her breasts to her lower belly and between her thighs.

Dominic molded himself against her body, his erection hard against her belly and burning to go lower, seek her core, penetrate and stroke and pleasure her.

Her breasts had grown heavy and ached to be touched, played with, suckled—even bitten. As if she'd said it aloud, Dom's hands moved from her face to cup her there, lifting and squeezing until she went weak and rubbed shamelessly against him.

Then somehow her blouse was half-open and his tongue descended into her bra, his hands pulling it away from her flesh. She almost collapsed with the sensation as he found her nipple and devoured it, sucking as if he couldn't get enough.

Before she knew it, the rest of her blouse was undone and her bra unhooked while he suckled her other breast, and pleasure had her whimpering again into his dark, curly hair. She lost her sense of time or place; nothing existed but him, her and sensation.

She could have blamed it all on the beer, but she would have been lying. When he lifted his head, she kissed him hungrily again on the mouth, feeling his
male stubble scrape around her mouth and chin; it burned her skin like desire. Again his tongue thrust between her teeth and explored inside, dancing with her own tongue; mating with it.

He withdrew slightly, biting her lower lip and then sucking it in possessively, releasing and then nipping it a second time. He brushed his lips to the side of hers, along her jaw to her ear, which he invaded and enjoyed, too.

A deep shiver ran down her spine as she felt his tongue in the delicate whorls, his breath warm and sensual. Then her lobe was in his mouth, along with her earring, and she could hear little metallic clinks as it came into contact with his teeth.

Relentless, his lips traveled from there down the side of her neck and into the hollow at her throat; down again to the top slopes of her breasts. Here he lingered and nuzzled before taking them into his large, capable hands once again and kneading until she wanted to cry out.

Her hands, restless for something to do, sought out the thick, hard length of him against her belly.

He went rigid and his breathing came faster. His palms pressed her breasts inward until they met and then his thumbs began to move in slow circles directly on top of her nipples.

Jane let a whimper escape and closed her hand around his cock. He shut his eyes, then opened them and gazed at her with heavy, half-closed lids, continuing to tease and pleasure her breasts.

She moved her palm along the full, impressive length of him, which strained against his fly, and he groaned. His mouth swooped down again to her nipples, and her knees began to shake uncontrollably. She gasped as she felt his hand cup her bottom, the tips of his fingers moving along the cleft of her buttocks and then inward until he tickled and teased her mons from behind.

Jane helplessly moved against the pressure, her body becoming loose and moist. Unaware she'd been holding her breath, she released it in a slow, ragged exhale.

She gasped again as his hand plunged inside her slacks and then panties, massaging her bare cheeks but trapped by her waistband and prevented from going lower. With a growl, his other hand left her breast and made quick work of her fly. Then he was inside her panties, cupping her and stroking her, parting her with a strong, sure finger that quickly found her most secret spot and teased it relentlessly.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Jane was conscious of the Jaguar's door handle pressing into her backside and the window glass cool and hard against her spine as she jerked at his touch, tension coiling within her, tighter and tighter.

The night air was cool—even cold—on her aching, swollen nipples as he abandoned them for her mouth again, his fingers sliding inside her just as his tongue licked between her lips and plunged to meet hers. As they broke the kiss, she helplessly arched her
back and moved to take his fingers deeper, and yet deeper still.

His lips closed over one of her breasts again, and the sudden warmth after the chill, and the delicious suction, was almost too much to take. She felt herself climbing to that mysterious metaphysical height from which a woman falls to orgasm, closed her eyes and thought,
Yes! Finally!

Too close by, the door of the Three-Legged Dog crashed open and two beer-soaked contractors stumbled out, laughing and swearing at each other.

Jane and Dominic froze, snapped back to reality. He straightened and stood solidly in front of her to protect her from their eyes. She clutched her shirt together and zipped up her pants in record time.

To the casual observer they were two people just making out by a parked car. But the contractors recognized them from inside.

“Ain't you two got a room yet?” shouted one.

The other one laughed and made a rude gesture: thumb and forefinger of one hand forming a circle while he poked the index finger of his other hand through it repeatedly.

Dominic ignored them. If he took one step away from Jane, he'd expose her state of disarray.

Finally they got into their trucks and roared away.

Jane's face burned as if someone had held every inch of it to an industrial sander.

Dominic raked a hand through his hair and released a tense breath. He opened the door for her, and
she slid into the luxury of the Jaguar's buttery leather seats, beginning immediately to fasten her bra and button her shirt.

Still in a state of confusion, she didn't question the idiosyncrasy of a man who drove an expensive British import but frequented seedy, mangy bars like the Three-Legged Dog.