Baiting the Maid of Honor (13 page)

evening in a tuxedo. Not one word of complaint while Francois teaches everyone the waltz.”

He winced a little. Couldn’t help it. “That’s his name? Francois?” When she merely raised an

eyebrow, he sighed. “Deal.”

“What are your terms?”

Reed knew Julie wouldn’t like his idea, so he took a step closer in case she tried to storm off. To

his surprise, she didn’t back down when he brought their bodies flush, ran a hand over her hip, and let

it linger there. “I assume, as part of these pole dancing classes, you learn how to…dance? Without the

pole, I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Julie replied hastily, a flush moving up her neck. He wanted to follow it

with his mouth. “There might be…
some
of that involved,” she said shakily.

“Good.” His hand slipped across her shoulder to massage the back of her neck in slow circles with

his thumb. “If I win, you dance for me. In my room. All of your clothes come off.”

She swallowed audibly. “Won’t that lead to sex?”

“Only if you want it to.” He brushed his lips over hers. “You don’t have to second-guess what I

want. I’d take you right here if you asked me to.”

A whimper slipped past her lips. “I agree to your terms.” When her hands went to his belt buckle,

Reed’s stomach muscles clenched. Their gazes connected. “That said, I wouldn’t mind getting a little

preview.”

Reed pushed himself into her hands. “Take me out, then, baby. I’m already hard from watching you

prance around in that little pink skirt.”

She lowered his fly and pushed his jeans down over his hips. Her words whispered across his

mouth. “You want to give it to me hard, Reed?”

“You’ve never had it as hard as I’m going to give it to you.” Brain sufficiently scrambled, he

captured her mouth in a slippery kiss, nipping her bottom lip as he pulled back. “What changed your

mind? The cleaning?”

Julie hooked her thumbs into his boxers and slipped them down his legs, then rose to trace the skin

under his jaw with her damp, parted lips. “I love a man who cleans.” She pulled back a little, teased

his mouth with a swift kiss. “But I was the Tri Delt scavenger hunt champion four years in a row. I

never, ever lose.”

Before Reed could ascertain her intention, Julie took off running for the resort, leaving him there in

the woods with his pants and boxer shorts tangled around his ankles. With a hard-on to beat the band.

Torn between fury, unbelievable pain, and grudging admiration, he yanked his pants up and took off

after her. “I’m going to make you pay for that one, pixie.”

“It was worth it,” she yelled back over her shoulder, at least one hundred yards ahead of him on the

trail. The resort became visible in the distance and he picked up his pace. So did Julie. Her feet were

a blur as she sprinted along the concrete. It became apparent to Reed in that moment that he’d

seriously underestimated the pixie.

“What’s your last item on the list?”

“A bell.” She didn’t even have the decency to sound winded. “You?”

“A newspaper.” He laughed. “Face it baby, I’ve got you beat. No way do you find a bell first.”

“Oh, yeah? Watch me.”

“Get ready to dance.”

“A victory dance, you mean?” Julie glanced back at him, humor lighting her face. Then, as if she

hadn’t surprised him enough today, she mocked him, throwing his own words back in his face. “What

changed your mind, baby? The cleaning?”

“Oh, you are asking for it now.” Suddenly, she veered to the left and took the path leading toward

the hotel lobby. He followed right behind her as she threw open the heavy wooden door and entered

the lobby at a dead run. Customers watched curiously as they raced past the plush seating area,

dodging luggage carts and stray suitcases as they headed for the check-in area. An older man stepped

into Reed’s path, forcing him to slow as Julie reached the front desk first.

When he realized her plan, his booming laugh echoed across the lobby.

Chapter Eleven

Julie heaved the entire stack of newspapers onto the front desk and smiled at the dumbfounded

attendant. “I’d like to buy all of them, please.”

The young man studied her for a second, as if looking for signs of mental illness, then shrugged.

Julie felt Reed come up behind her just as he finished counting the newspapers. She pulled a twenty-

dollar bill from her skirt pocket and laid it on the counter, giving the young man her best smile as she

did so. To her left, Reed sighed loudly. She ignored him.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any more in the back, would you, sugar? I’m in a bit of a pinch, you

see. I’ve organized a papier-mâché craft hour for the children attending the wedding. Would you

believe I went and forgot to bring newspaper? The main ingredient. Sometimes I think I’d forget my

feet if I didn’t need them to walk. How long have you been working here? If I had to hazard a guess,

I’d say quite a while. You’ve got an air of confidence about you. Yes sir, you do. My Aunt Sylvie

always said that a confident man writes his own ticket in this world. Would you mind checking on

those newspapers, darlin’? Bless your heart.”

As the young man turned, looking more than a little thunderstruck, toward the back office, Reed

leaned over and spoke quietly in her ear. She tried unsuccessfully to ignore the hot shiver that ran

down her spine. Try as she might, nothing could stop him from affecting her. She’d wanted him on the

mountain to a stunning degree, had barely managed to hold back. “You can try to prevent me from

getting a newspaper, but what about your bell? You still need one to—”

Without batting an eyelash, Julie slipped the front desk bell into her tote bag. Ignoring Reed’s look

of shocked reproach, she tucked a stack of newspapers under each arm and took off in the direction of

Starbucks, where Kady was waiting to crown the winner. She glanced back to find Reed breaking

into a jog after her and she couldn’t help but laugh. The look on his face suggested he hated losing just

as much as she did. Deciding the newspapers were weighing her down, she set them on a high table

and made a break for it. Even if he picked up one of the papers and tried to catch her, Starbucks was

so close that he’d never catch—

The optimistic thought died in its inception when two strong arms snagged her around the middle,

catching her in mid-stride. Even if she hadn’t caught his oaky sent, the wide chest she was pulled back

against would have told her it was Reed. Before Julie could protest, he pulled her from the lobby into

an adjacent hallway, which led to a series of first-floor rooms. As the sounds of people and rolling

luggage faded away, their labored breathing was the only sound that remained. He let her drop to her

feet and pushed her against the wall. Suddenly, Julie felt basely desperate for him. Her body begged

for his. Adrenaline, the remnants of their fight, the challenge he’d given her on the hunt, had

heightened her already-colossal attraction to him. Yet even knowing that, she wanted him with a

fierceness that made her moan and close her eyes when he fit their bodies together.

One calloused hand slid up the back of her bare thigh, disappearing beneath her skirt. When it

reached her bottom, he palmed it roughly once, then boosted her higher to fit his erection between her

legs. Julie’s head fell back against the wall on a gasp. “Any other day, I’d let you get away with that

little stunt. Not today. Not when winning means a private striptease from the girl who’s been keeping

my cock permanently hard. A striptease that ends in me fucking her into next week.”

Her breath shuddered out. “Y-you didn’t win either.”

In his left hand, Reed held up a single newspaper, then let it drop. “We’ll keep it between us.”

His hips flexed and Julie bit her lip hard. She could feel the flesh between her legs clench

reflexively and go damp at the thought of Reed inside her. Nothing mattered at that moment, apart

from the need. Not their differences or what would come afterward. Julie couldn’t see past playing

out her hottest fantasy. Dancing for this man. Tempting him. Finally being seen as something other than

efficient and pretty to look at. She’d never wanted anything quite so badly.

“Take me to your room.”

Reed kissed her once, long and hard, growling in his throat the whole time. Tangling her fingers in

his hair, wanting to get lost in the kiss, she protested when he abruptly backed away, but he simply

grabbed her hand and led her down the corridor, turning right at the end and stopping at the second

door. Once inside, she expected him to kiss her, throw her on the bed, and finally slake the incessant

hunger. Instead, he unbuttoned his shirt slowly, watching her closely like a predator, eyes heavy with

arousal. In other words, no way was he letting her forget about their agreement or allowing them to

become distracted. Good. Julie didn’t want to forget about it, but now that the moment had arrived,

she didn’t know where to start. She worked in the liquor business. In the South, no less. A man’s

world that she’d had to bust her behind to infiltrate. And despite what Reed thought, organizing a

destination wedding was no walk in the park, either. This was just a simple dance. One she’d walked

into with her eyes wide open.

Now or never, Julie.

Doing her best to look confident, she grabbed an armless desk chair, pulling it to the base of the

bed. With a toss of her hair, she indicated for him to sit. Now shirtless, he dropped into the chair and

stretched out his long legs in front of him without breaking eye contact. Hair tousled from pulling his

undershirt over his head, tattoos and scars spreading across his muscled chest and abdomen, he

looked criminally sexy, but the rapid pulse at his neck gave him away. He was just as affected as she

was. That telltale sign shot her full of confidence, making her feel hot, desirable.

“Are you sure you want this?” Julie asked him. She pressed a button on the clock radio, stopping

when she landed on a station playing what sounded like tribal music. At once, her pulse beat faster in

time with the drums. Excitement swirled in her belly. “Once I start, I’m not going to stop until you

can’t take anymore.”

Reed’s mouth parted in surprise, but he hid the reaction quickly. “I can more than handle a lap

dance, baby. What I can’t handle is waiting. Get started.”

Julie’s lips spread into a slow smile as she sauntered forward, stopping between his outstretched

legs. Supporting herself on his shoulders, she bent forward slowly to speak right next to his ear. “No

touching.”

“I know the rules.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t mean you won’t try to break them.”

“Why are your clothes still on?”

She bit his earlobe and tugged. “So impatient.”

Reed hissed a breath. “If you only knew the things I want to do to you, pixie, you’d already be

underneath me with your legs in the air, screaming loud enough to shatter glass.”

“All in good time,” she countered, straightening once more. One deep breath for courage and she

started to move. She released her hair from its ponytail and shook it out, combing her fingers through

it slowly in a way she knew made her breasts strain against her tank top. Anticipation laced with

excitement made her nipples pebble. She watched Reed’s chest rise and fall faster as he noticed.

Wanting to keep his eyes there, she ran her hands down slowly over the swells of her breasts, giving

them a light squeeze that had him shifting in the chair.

“Let me see them. Let me see where I’ve been.”

Ducking her head and looking at him through her eyelashes, she let her hips begin to sway, drawing

his attention away from her chest. Her hands smoothed down over her thighs, lingering at the vee

between her legs, before sliding back up to the hem of her shirt. Inch by inch, she lifted it, revealing

her naked breasts. She tossed the garment at Reed. He caught it in midair and threw it across the room

without looking away from her once.

“Jesus. I only got to see them in the dark last night…your breasts were made for sucking on, Julie.”

He leaned back in the chair, stroked his fly with the heel of his hand. “When I used my mouth on you, I

could taste how much you wanted to have me between those breasts. Tasted sweet as fuck.”

His words startling a moan from her throat, Julie’s hands rose of their own accord to circle her

thumbs around her nipples. She continued the smooth figure-eight motions of her hips, the combined

movements causing fire to lick over her skin. Seeing Reed looking so incredibly turned on triggered

answering sensations throughout her body. Flames that she needed him to extinguish. Just not
yet
. Not

until the entire fantasy played out. Not until she drove him past his breaking point.

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she danced just close enough that the tips of her breasts swayed

in front of his parted mouth with her every sensual movement. Reed’s guttural groan bathed her