A Will and a Way (15 page)

“Just as well I’m not lookin’ to get married either.”

Crooking a finger under her chin, he tipped her face up. “Ya think?”

“I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was just using you to save on batteries.”

“You are quite a charitable woman.”

“That’s me” She let her hand slide down his belly until it came to rest on his belt buckle. “I just keep giving and giving, expecting nothing in return.”

He dropped his own danish on the desktop. “Now that’s a bald-faced lie.”

She laughed then relinquished her hold on his belt. “You’re right.” Her eyes danced with mischief as she gathered a handful of her skirt, inching it higher on her thigh as she backed up against the front of her desk. “I told them I’d made you my sex slave for the weekend.”

He glanced down to find she’d stopped when the hem of the skirt was just high enough to reveal the lacy band of a thigh-high stocking. “Just the weekend?”

Her smile was sad and a little wary. “You know we should end this now.”

“Not yet.” The words were out of his mouth like a shot. “We’re just getting to know each other.”

“Puh-leeze. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

He stepped between her legs and cradled a thigh in his hands. The lace was rough compared to her silky skin. He leaned in to kiss her and felt the heat of her arousal. “I know you sigh when I slip inside you and you hum just before you come.”

“I mean outside of bed.”

“Whose fault is that? You wouldn’t even let me get through dinner.”

Betty cast a sad sigh. “This is going to end badly.”

He ran his thumb along the edge of her stocking. “Who says it has to end?”

She laughed but it was bitter and sharp. “Everyone.”

“And what makes you think they know me better than I know you?”

Cupping her cheek, he tilted her face up with his free hand. Betty hooked her ankle around the back of his knee and grasped his arm for balance. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she didn’t give in easily. He liked that about her. She was easy—in the best possible way—but still a challenge.

“They don’t know me. They have no idea what I want, what I’ve been waiting for all these years.” He stroked the tender skin above the band of lace with the tips of his fingers, then brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “They don’t know what this is between you and me.”

“Sex.”

He gave her a patient yet pointed look. “Fate.”

“That’s a convenient excuse, isn’t it? Everything you do is dictated by the whims of Fate. It’s not your fault if it doesn’t work out.”

His eyes narrowed. “Have I actually done anything to make you think I’m anything less than interested in having things work out?”

She closed her eyes, denying him access to her deepest thoughts. “Will, this is great the way it is. Let’s not pretend it will ever be anything more.”

“It’s already something more.”

She shoved back from her desk. “I don’t want anything more.”

He saw the panic in her eyes and noted the jerky movements of her usually graceful hands. Before she could rise, he placed both hands on the desk and dropped to his knees in front of her, his eyes fixed on hers. Impatience tightened his throat, but he breathed through it, reminding himself that they were mere days into this…whatever it was. The last thing he wanted was for her to bolt for real.

“Are you saying you only want sex?”

“Yes.” She drew the syllable out on a hiss. “Please.”

He swallowed then nodded. “Well, since you asked so nicely.” Will brushed a soft, teasing kiss across her lips. He smiled as he pulled back to look her in the eye. “Sex slave, huh?”

“Play your cards right, and I might consider keeping you the whole week.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I have to warn you, I rarely play fair.” Her soft moan washed over him. “But I do aim to please.”

* * * *

At last, Betty treated herself to a bikini wax. She was so long overdue she wondered how Will managed to find the right spot time after time. But he did. Not only was his aim pleasing, it was also mind-bogglingly accurate. A weekend of wanton wickedness, followed by a few days of office foreplay that sometimes devolved into actual play, should have been enough to work her desire for Will Tarrant out of her system.

But it wasn’t.

If anything, his take all prisoners approach to pursuing pleasure only heightened her yen for him. Will possessed an almost Bacchanalian approach to life. He believed in good food and lots of it. He was every bit as enthusiastic about fine wine as he was single malt and, disconcertingly enough, Yoo-hoo chocolate soda. And then there was the sex. The man was a most inventive lover. Teasing one minute, and sensuous the next. And there was no use in trying to play it cool. The man loved a challenge. The more she resisted, the harder he persisted.

She told herself over and over that it was just sex. A big, fat lie, of course. She liked him, damn it. Yes, the man was every bit as funny and charming as his packaging proclaimed, but he was also surprisingly perceptive. And sensitive. Not that she’d ever utter the word in his presence. In any context. If she dared, he’d probably turn the tables on her by picking out every single sensitive spot he could find on her and exploit them.

She sighed as she caught a glimpse of herself in a shop window. Will Tarrant was quicksand, and she was in it up to her eyebrows. But she didn’t want to be. Except she did want to. The only trouble was that she didn’t have the first clue what to do about it. Trying to untangle her feelings for him and their explosive affair was draining. Thinking about anything beyond the hours they spent in bed was so exhausting that she tried to find fun diversions, like getting her pubes ripped out by a sadist with a smile just so she could curse him in her head.

Of course, now she couldn’t wait to show her sleek little landing strip off. It was damn hard to resist a man as willing to be tied up as she was reluctant to be tied down.

The first day of April dawned warm and sunny. There could not be a more perfect day for an otherwise rational woman to realize she was a classic fool. She was obsessed with capturing the great white whale, the Warren Beatty of Riverside. The one man she had no hope of taming. And, unlike the deft flicks of the aesthetician’s wrists, the pain of tearing herself away from Will was bound to sting for a good, long time.

It would only get harder with every passing day. That’s what she told herself. Each morning she psyched herself up to call it quits, only to collapse like a soufflé the moment he smiled at her in just that way. She tried to be aloof and disinterested. It didn’t work. The man was a mass of the most startling contradictions, and she was too weak and too pathetically enamored to resist cataloging every one of them.

She didn’t want to know that he picked the tomato off every sandwich or salad he ate, but drenched everything in sight in pools of ketchup. She tried to convince herself that the way he turned all of his clothes right-side-out before tossing them into the pile that accumulated next to his hamper but never actually in it wasn’t charming, but annoying. And even if he was considerate enough to wash his whiskers down the sink and replace the toothpaste cap after every use, the last thing she wanted was another man sucking up all her air.

Particularly not a man who admitted that his only long-term relationship was his friendship with his business partner. Then again, Will was startlingly domesticated and seemed to be comfortable with that. He took care of his own space and invited her into it. Though he’d mentioned wanting to see her apartment, he hadn’t pushed when she resisted. That was the kicker. How could she defend herself against a man who ran such a subtle offense?

He was utterly and truly relentless. Patient. Understanding. Unspeakably giving in bed and out. What was worse, he laughed as readily as he kissed, and kissed as if he planned to stick around for a good long time.

Even if his kisses lied, how could any woman resist?

The truth was, she figured she was only hurting herself by continuing to indulge. And indulge they did. At his place. In the office. On her desk and his again, but not on Greg’s. Betty figured she’d have to face the mysterious Mr. Stark the following week, and she wanted to be able to look him in the eye. It would make it so much easier to beg for her job if she needed to.

She’d grown to love working at TAS, and not just because of the side benefits Will offered. She liked that the office still felt a little like the home it’d once been. It was hard not to picture young, dark-haired Will zipping in the kitchen door in hopes of scoring some cookies from Greg’s grandma. When she was alone in the office, she sometimes unrolled one of the long-forgotten blueprints and marveled at the intricacies and details each page held. She’d learned to differentiate Greg’s neat block lettering from Will’s forceful scrawl. Though she could admit that the former’s was more graceful and certainly easier to read, the latter’s stirred something inside her. Something that proved she was too friggin’ far gone if she was starting to find the man’s handwriting sexy.

Shaking off the thought, Betty picked up the pace as she turned the corner and headed for the office. She had plans for the weekend. Big plans. Fresh bikini wax-level plans. And every one of those plans involved the man with the sexy scrawl.

Betty blew through the front door to the office with a plastic bag containing a salad for her and a meatball sub for Will, but lunch was the last thing on her mind. The first thing she wanted to do was blow him. She’d never felt as powerful as she did when she took him into her mouth. Funny to think that once upon a time, she’d resisted giving blow jobs. After she and Donald had been married a year, she’d stopped even pretending to like it. Thankfully, he’d given up and quit asking. Pushing away thoughts of her late husband and the woman she used to be, she swung the bag onto her desk and shrugged out of the short trench coat she’d worn over her too-thin for Yankee spring wrap dress.

“Hello?”

She smiled when she heard the squeak of Greg’s desk chair. Will had taken to working from his partner’s desk, claiming he needed a more organized space in order to make his calls. Deep down, she suspected it was proximity to her desk that kept him there, but she tried not to dwell on that thought, or its implications, too much. Pinching the ends of the bow tied at her waist, she crossed the small reception area to the open doorway.

“I brought you a sandwich. Are you hungry?”

Will looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hand, a frown furrowing his brows. “First Lady of Percy, Mississippi? You put that on your résumé?”

She blinked. “Of course I did. It may have been a small town, but I performed a number of functions that were crucial to the administration.” She cocked her head as it struck her that he hadn’t questioned her experience before. “Are you just now looking at my résumé?”

His mouth stretched into the lopsided grin she’d come to know so well. “I’ve been distracted.” He tossed the papers onto the desk without a second glance, just as he had the week before. “I see that you were also the Managing Director of The Asher Agency. You pick your own title?”

“Of course. I also signed my own paycheck.”

“All types of insurance?”

“Everything but commercial.” Since he was obviously in a more business-oriented mood, she relinquished her plan to unwrap the dress and moved to take a seat in the guest chair. Crossing her legs, she gave him a demure smile. “It was technically Donald’s business, but I was fully licensed.”

He cast a frankly admiring glance at her legs, then flashed that rogue’s smile once again. “I don’t doubt that you ran the place with your pinkie finger alone.”

She tipped her chin up with pride. “And I was damn good at it.”

“Why did you leave it behind?”

The simple question made her lungs freeze and tears burn hot in the back of her throat. How could she possibly explain that losing her job was almost more painful than losing her husband? She fidgeted in her seat, momentarily wishing she had a cigarette even though she’d ditched the vile habit over a decade ago. Needing something to occupy her hands, she wound the strings that dangled from her waist around her finger while she adjusted the hem to cover her knee.

“The book of business belonged to Donald. I was just an employee.” Her voice sounded edgy and wounded, even to her own ears. She drew a steadying breath then released it slowly, forcing a tight smile but not quite meeting his gaze. “When he passed, they referred his clients to one of the agents coming out of the company’s training program.”

“Well, that blows.”

His flat assessment startled a laugh out of her, but her mind went straight to the gutter. Betty pictured herself on her knees in front of Will. His pants unzipped. His cock in her mouth. She knew his scent, his taste, the little grunts and groans he made when he was close to coming. The softness in his eyes as he lay spent and defenseless. The warmth of his crooked smile. Betty looked up to find him watching her, a fierce scowl tugging at the corners of his mouth. In that moment, she knew she was too far gone for her own good.

Jumping to her feet, she turned away from his too-tempting protectiveness. “You never answered me. Are you hungry? I brought you a sandwich.”

She almost made it to the door when he caught her. Long fingers wrapped around her upper arm. The same fingers that played her like a fiddle. Falling for this man was seventeen kinds of foolish. Too bad it was too late to stop.

“I’m hungry,” he said, his voice husky enough to turn even the strongest woman’s head.

And she wasn’t strong when it came to Will Tarrant. He was her kryptonite. If she didn’t find the strength to walk away from him soon, he’d destroy her.

“Betty.”

And that was all it took. She turned toward him like a flower reaching for the sun. But he wasn’t light and life. He was dark and dangerous. What had Mrs. Walker called him? Ah, yes. A modern-day pirate hell-bent on collecting all the booty he could get.

“Will, I—”

His mouth closed over hers before her body made the turn. The protest she meant to launch was instantly forgotten. She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him down, urging him to take more. If he took, she wouldn’t have to give. And then she could blame him when it all went terribly wrong. It would be so much easier to blame him. Her body bowed into the curve of his. Despite the disparity in their heights, they fit so naturally. How was that possible?