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Which, to his shock, was what he was really after.

Not allowing himself to dwell on that startling realization, Joe decided to play along with whatever game Taylor had in mind. “Unsatisfied?” He grinned, letting the sledgehammer drop to the ground.

She stepped closer, reaching out with one finger to snag his T-shirt and pull the hem up, exposing his stomach. “Distracted,” she said, running her finger up and down his abs, which twitched and jumped as though hit with an electric current. His dick, already pressing against the fly of his jeans, surged to nearly painful hardness. Sweat that had nothing to do with the heat or physical exertion trickled down the small of his back.

“What were you thinking about?” he asked, resisting the urge to reach out and pull her blouse all the way open and bury his face between her tits. The ball was in her court. He wanted to see how far Taylor would go to get what she so obviously wanted.

She paused, biting her lip, and for a moment the confident seductress was replaced by a shy teenager. “You,” she finally whispered. He cocked an encouraging eyebrow. “Naked,” she said, a naughty grin appearing as she got back into her role. She moved closer, so close he could feel the heat of her skin, feel her breath against his chest as she pushed his shirt higher up his torso. Her tongue flicked out to catch a stray bead of sweat, and he groaned at the contact. Quickly he took off his shirt, flinging it somewhere in the direction of the plastic table. Taylor used one hand to exert gentle pressure to direct him, backing him slowly toward the single chaise.

He sat down, swallowing hard as she pushed her blouse open and unfastened the front closure of her bra. Her tits spilled free, like two berry-topped mounds of cream. His mouth watered for a taste. “Taylor,” he said, swallowing convulsively as she reached up under her skirt to reveal yet another garter belt—a black one this time. Jesus Christ, in all these months of watching her, he’d had no idea she was dressed like a porn star underneath her all-business attire. He reached out to her, realizing as he did so that he still wore his leather work gloves and the rest of him was covered in dirt and concrete dust. He started to stand up. “Let me get cleaned up.”

She pushed him back down onto the chaise. “No, I want to do it right here, right now.” She was a woman on a mission, her eyes glittering with lust and sexual power.

“But I’m filthy,” he said, holding his hands up in emphasis. “I’ll get you all messed up.”

She licked her lips and gave him an almost evil smile. “Then I guess you better not touch me.”

S
omewhere during the short drive home, the dam holding Taylor’s sex drive in check had ruptured. Every wild, lust-filled impulse she’d ever denied blazed through her, setting her on fire, filling her with a need so powerful her body nearly shook with it.

At first she was afraid that Joe, still annoyed by her cold treatment earlier that morning, would push back too hard. For a moment, all the lingering fears and insecurities threatened to overpower her desire to take him like some kind of conquering Amazon queen. But then he’d cocked his eyebrow, grinned that sexy grin that made her go all hot and throbbing inside, and she knew he was up for whatever she had in mind.

He was gorgeous, sweaty and streaked with dirt. Her primitive reaction shocked her. Taylor had always gone for “tidy” sex—with all parties showered and fresh before hitting the sheets. But she didn’t want Joe like that. She wanted him covered in sweat from a hard day’s work, a man’s work.

“Take off your pants,” she said, surprised at her own bold tone. She didn’t know if it was the look in his eyes, so dark with a desire she could nearly feel, or the hard ridge of his cock, pressing so blatantly against the confines of his pants, or the fact that she’d never have to look across a boardroom table at Joe and see a knowing smirk. Whatever the reason, she was more confident, freer in her sexuality than she’d ever been. She barely knew him, and yet, on this level anyway, she trusted him more than any other man she’d ever been with.

“Well all righty, then,” he said, his light tone belying the hungry look in his eye as he unlaced his work boots, unzipped his pants, and shoved them down his legs. He stood and her breath caught at the sight of him, naked and fully erect in the bright midday sun. His erection bobbed away from his flat stomach, the plump head flushed and swollen. Taylor unzipped her skirt. Catching it before it hit the ground, she stepped out of it, carefully folding it before placing it on the plastic table. She shrugged her blouse off her shoulders, goose bumps breaking out as the silk rasped against the skin of her arms. Which left her in her bra, undone in the front, her black garter belt and stockings that she’d felt silly donning earlier this morning, a bright red G-string that barely covered her mound, and her black pumps.

From the way Joe’s cock flexed and bobbed, it was obvious he enjoyed the view. Taylor moved closer, and his hands reached toward her breast. “Uh-uh,” she chided. “You’ll get me all dirty.” His jaw flexed, eyes narrowed, but he obediently clasped his hands behind his back. Reaching out, she closed her hand around his cock, stroking the thick length from root to tip. He was so big her fingers barely closed around him, and moisture pooled between her legs as she anticipated taking him deep. Leaning in, she traced the outline of his pectoral with her tongue as she pumped him with her fist.

“Kiss me,” she demanded, tipping her head back as he bent his head. He was rough, demanding, thrusting his tongue deep in her mouth as he pumped against her hand. She gripped him firmly, pulling him close enough to rub the engorged head of his cock against her stomach. He moaned into her mouth, sucking on her tongue as her thumb swirled a pearly drop of precome around the head. “Taylor,” he gasped, prodding insistently against her belly, “if you don’t stop that and fuck me like you mean it, you’re going to get a lot dirtier than you bargained for.”

She released him, and Joe took the opportunity to catch his breath and tamp down the urge to bend her over the cheap plastic table. Taylor’s hand reached out, and he shuddered in anticipation. Using one finger, she pushed him back toward the chaise. He happily complied, reclining on the padded lounger, dick pointing straight up like a flesh sundial.

Sun dappled her skin where it broke through the leaves, glinting off her almost silvery blond hair. He stared up at her, transfixed, still not entirely sure this wasn’t all some lust-induced hallucination caused by the raging hard-on that had plagued him all morning.

If it was, he didn’t want to stop it, so he lay there obediently as she dug something out of her skirt pocket. It took all his restraint not to pump his fist in triumph when, with a smirk and a small flourish, she held up a condom. She swung one long, lean leg over the chaise, providing him with a mouthwatering view of her silk-covered pussy. Her scent wafted into his nostrils, fresh perfume and musky, aroused woman. Keeping his hands clamped on the arms of the chaise, he sat up and buried his face between her legs, tongue licking against wet silk as he sought the firm bud underneath.

“Take off your panties,” he whispered harshly. “I want to taste you.”

She hesitated, her hands hovering over his shoulders as though to push him away. He nipped her through the silk, a gentle, light pressure of his teeth that made her startle and gasp. “Do it.”

He licked his lips as her slim, pale fingers pulled the crotch aside, revealing damp blond curls and plump, slick flesh. Her pussy lips were as soft and pink as those of her mouth, swollen as though begging for his kiss. Her clit was a dark rose peak, pulsing and throbbing in the warm spring air.

His kiss was soft, loving, as tender as any he’d ever given a mouth. He savored her sweet, salty flavor, eliciting tiny moans that sent bolts of sensation directly to his cock. He could feel her climax building, feel it in the way she trembled against his face, in the way her cunt rippled around his tongue when he thrust inside.

But she pushed him away before he pushed her over the edge. “I want to come on your cock,” she whispered. His gaze jumped to her face, and he saw that she was as startled as he by her frank language.

Uncertainty appeared in her eyes. Joe lay back and shot her a lusty grin, trying to put her at ease. “Then I guess you better suit me up,” he said with a pointed look at the condom she held between her thumb and forefinger.

She smiled and lowered down until she sat on his thighs. Gripping him with one hand, she rolled the condom down with the other, smoothing it into place with such deliberate care Joe nearly came from the soft pressure of her hand.

Tugging the crotch of her panties fully aside, she held him in place as she guided him to the dripping entrance of her pussy. He almost lost it as he watched the thick head of his cock sink into her tight flesh. She threw her head back, tits jutting out as she sank all the way down.

She rode him hard, hands splayed against his chest to brace her as she rocked on her knees. He lifted his hips to meet her, groaning as his balls met the soft flesh of her ass with every pounding stroke. The chaise creaked under the onslaught, threatening to collapse under them, but Joe didn’t care. His mind, his body, his very being was completely focused on the prissy bitch cum sex goddess riding him, this gorgeous woman, so full of contradictions, who in a few short days had touched him in ways that went so far beyond sex.

Every nerve ending in Taylor’s body was alive, bursting with sensation. Every inch of skin seemed an erogenous zone as she rose and fell on the thick length of Joe’s cock. Tiny details stood out in stark relief—the gold flecks in his green eyes as his gaze ran hungrily over her body; the veins and muscles bulging in his arms as he gripped the chaise almost desperately; the musky scent of their sex mingling with blooming flowers and leaves.

She spread her knees as wide as the chaise would allow, desperate to take him deeper, harder. A warm breeze wafted over her skin, making her nipples tighten to the point of pain. As though reading her thoughts, Joe raised his head and caught one tip in his mouth, sucking so hard it nearly hurt. Taylor’s high, harsh cry echoed up to the trees, and she arched into his mouth.

With him sitting half-upright, her clit bumped against the firm ridge of his pubic bone with every stroke. Her climax, which had been hovering around the edges of her awareness, suddenly pulled into sharp focus. One stroke, two, and the explosion rolled through her. She stilled, holding him as deep as he could go, grinding herself against him as she wrung out every last pulse of pleasure.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he groaned. “Can you feel how hard you make me?” He lay back, his feet falling to the ground, using the leverage to thrust up into her still-pulsing core. His chest heaved like he’d been running hard and fast, until finally, with a groan that ripped from his chest, his cock jerked and pulsed inside her as he came.

Although Joe had done his best not to dirty her up, Taylor still required a bit of cleanup before returning to the office. Her stockings were ruined, shredded and snagged by her enthusiastic gyrations, and her panties were stretched beyond repair. No amount of powder could conceal the rosy flush in her cheeks. And the smile on her face? She didn’t think anything could take that off.

Joe had followed her inside and washed his hands so he could wrap her in his arms and give her a “proper” kiss good-bye. Like anything they’d done up to then was anywhere near proper. Still, he’d cupped her face in his hands, the soft press of his lips tender, almost comforting. Unlike the carnal, ravenous encounter they’d just shared, this was a sweet caress that warmed her in a way no orgasm ever could.

By the time she’d left, he was back at work, demolishing her backyard with swings of his heavy sledgehammer. She didn’t allow herself to dwell on him or what would happen going forward.

She only hoped whatever happened, it involved a lot of Joe, naked, telling her how hot she was as he made her come.

“I
was thinking tonight we could meet up after work, maybe have dinner downtown or something,” Joe said.

Taylor looked up from her paper, regarding Joe over the rim of her coffee cup. A burst of contentment coursed through her at the sight of him. And, as she’d done for the past three weeks, she nipped it in the bud, reminding herself that regardless of how great he was in bed, no matter how nice it felt to come home to his cooking every night, no matter how gorgeous he looked sitting across the breakfast table from her, sweaty and shirtless from their morning run, this thing with Joe was just temporary. A transitional, meaningless fling until she found someone she could actually get serious about.

Despite her determination to keep their relationship about nothing more than a few (hundred) orgasms between neighbors, Taylor was growing increasingly worried about her level of detachment. Which was understandable, considering that since that day several weeks ago when Taylor had attacked him like a crazed nympho in her backyard, Joe had taken on the role of the ideal boyfriend.

That evening, when she had arrived home, her phone had been ringing as she walked in the door.

“Are you coming over here or am I going over there?” he’d asked.

Her mind had swirled with all the reasons she should put him off. But when he’d said, “Never mind. You come here since I actually keep food in the house,” she’d gone, muffling the voices in her head protesting that having sex with him in her backyard in broad daylight was perfectly acceptable between casual sex partners. But having dinner? That was crossing the line.

Yet Taylor had ignored the voices that night and every night since, until here she sat, sipping her morning coffee with her not-boyfriend as though they’d been together for years. And apparently Joe was ready to move their relationship beyond the confines of their respective houses.

Though she knew it was unlikely, she didn’t want to chance running into one of her colleagues while out with Joe. They would take one look at him, gorgeous, younger, someone who moved in completely different social and professional circles, and think she was playing sugar mama to some hot young stud. And while she wished she could be one of those people who didn’t care what others thought, right now, she couldn’t afford not to. The local high-tech financing world was a small one, and she knew people gossiped. Especially about single, ambitious women like herself. She was so close to a promotion she could taste it, and the last thing she needed was to have rumors swirling around about who she was sleeping with, taking the focus off her professionalism and putting it onto her sex life.

Men in this business might be able to get away with their trophy wives and girlfriends, but Taylor had no doubt she would be mocked, especially since her recent behavior contrasted so sharply with the perfectly poised, professional image she cultivated.

“You don’t need to take me out.”

“Taylor, we’ve been seeing each other for almost a month, and we’ve never even made it out of the house. Let me take you on a real date for once.” His tone was light, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’m not sure what time I’ll be leaving the office, so why don’t we stick to the usual routine?”

“Fine.” He stood up and dumped the remainder of his coffee down the drain. “Speaking of work, I need to get going.”

A not-so-subtle hint that she needed to get herself home to shower and head into the office. He stood at the sink, his back to her as he stared out the window facing her house. Tension knotted his broad shoulders. He shook his head and said almost to himself, “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”

She stood and wrapped her arms around his waist as guilt flooded her. “Of course not,” she said, grateful he couldn’t see the awful truth in her eyes. Joe was smart and perceptive. Over the past few weeks, he’d displayed a sometimes disconcerting ability to read her moods. He knew how important her professional image was to her and, though they’d never discussed it directly, had most likely inferred that he didn’t exactly fit the mold of her ideal mate.

He turned and kissed her, not his usual soft peck good-bye, but a hot, wet, tongue-thrusting kiss meant to make her weak in the knees. As she showered and dressed back in her own bedroom, she wondered how something meant to be fun and casual had become so complicated.

She had no illusions of being with Joe long-term. But she couldn’t deny that the past few weeks had been amazing, and not just because of the sex. It was scary how quickly they’d fallen into a steady routine. Regardless of when she got home, he either appeared on her doorstep or left a message on her voice mail telling her to get her ass over to his house as soon as she got home. On nights when she didn’t have an after-work social obligation, he almost always had dinner waiting. Afterward they’d cuddle on the couch, watching movies or expressing mock disgust at reality television contestants, until one of them (usually Joe) oh so casually put a hand down the other’s pants.

As she drove to the office, she marveled over how, for the first time, she knew what it was to be completely comfortable in someone’s presence. She felt no pressure to impress him with her accomplishments or be on guard against saying the wrong thing. He teased her and laughed at her and called her on her bullshit, but never in a way that made her feel anything but cared for. He always seemed to be available to her, even though she never called him to make specific plans.

That was one area where she had held firm—she never called him to let him know her schedule. Though the rudeness of it chafed at her, for Taylor, double-checking plans and running her schedule by someone else implied an obligation to that person. In short, it turned a casual fling into a real relationship.

Which, she reminded herself as she settled into her office chair and pressed her computer’s
ON
button, was not something she could have with Joe.

Somehow, she needed to find the resolve to cool things off, if not end it altogether.

Her stomach tightened at the thought.

“Who killed your puppy?” Jenna plopped down in her guest seat, coffee cup in one hand and an apple fritter as big as her head in the other.

“I don’t have a puppy,” Taylor replied blankly, her mind still wrestling with the suddenly abhorrent thought of ejecting Joe from her life.

“From the look on your face,” Jenna said around an enormous bite of pastry, “I would have thought someone threw your puppy off a freeway overpass.”

Taylor wrinkled her nose in disgust. Though thankfully, the image of dead puppies distracted her from Joe for a few precious seconds.

“Is Lord of the Orgasm falling down on the job?”

Taylor couldn’t help but laugh at Jenna’s latest nickname for Joe. “Nope, everything’s fine there,” she lied.

“Will I get to meet him this weekend at Spellman’s barbecue?”

“No,” Taylor said, aghast. “Why would I bring him?”

“The invitation specifically said to bring your significant other,” Jenna said slyly.

Taylor made a show of looking through her in-box. “Joe is not my significant other. Like you said, he’s like my man aperitif, cleansing my palate until I’m ready to date again.”

“From what I can tell, he’s not only cleansed your palate, he’s ruined it for anyone but him.”

Taylor did her best not to show how close to home Jenna’s comment hit. She tried but couldn’t imagine doing the things she’d done to Joe to another man, letting another man touch her the way Joe had. She could barely remember what sex with Steven had been like. Their sex life, never anything remarkable, had faded into a vague gray blur.

In contrast, she could remember every touch of Joe’s lips and fingers, every stroke of his cock inside her.

But, as she had told Joe the day she first met him, there were more important things than sex upon which to base a relationship. Good—okay, great—sex could only take them so far. The best thing to do would be to end this thing with Joe before she made the classic female blunder of mistaking great sex for true love. Because that’s all there was between her and Joe, right?

Jenna plopped a bound copy of a business plan onto Taylor’s desk. “Here’s the idea I was telling you about. I think I’ve finally found my deal. Now, if you can tear your mind away from King Dong for a little bit, I want to run some numbers by you.” As the entrepreneur in residence at Apex Ventures, it was Jenna’s job to seek out promising technologies, develop a business plan around it, and convince Apex to fund the new venture. If successful, Jenna would become the new company’s CEO.

Taylor pushed lingering thoughts of Joe out of her mind. If she helped Jenna pull off this deal, Taylor would be that much closer to making partner. All the more reason to quit wasting time mooning over Joe and put her focus back on her career, where it belonged.

Joe heaved Taylor’s cheap plastic patio table into the Dumpster he’d rented. He’d completed the finishing touches on her new flagstone patio earlier today and decided he couldn’t stand the sight of her sorry-assed lawn furniture in her beautiful new backyard. A brand-new teak set was scheduled to be delivered any minute, complete with a double chaise lounge. He grinned in anticipation of testing it out when Taylor got home.

Even so, he couldn’t get rid of the nagging sensation that he was on borrowed time with Taylor. He’d have to be a complete idiot not to realize he was far from Taylor’s ideal man. He’d never laid eyes on her ex, but he knew the exact type. A cocky exec in his late thirties, a lawyer or a venture capitalist or some other job where he made lots of money without actually making anything.

Despite all the time they’d spent together in and out of bed, he still didn’t get her. Which was probably why he was still so fascinated, he thought wryly. Though he’d never really been into girls who tried to fuck with his head and played games. But that was just it—while he knew Taylor was holding herself back, emotionally if not sexually, it wasn’t because she was trying to tease him or keep the mystery going. Something in her life had made her desperately afraid of making what she considered a wrong choice, and if he could only figure it out, he was sure he could break through all of her stupid hang-ups about who she should or shouldn’t be dating.

He suspected it had something to do with her family. Every time he brought it up, she closed up, quickly turning the conversation back on him. He’d tried a million different ways to probe, but she never gave an inch.

Not that he was any better. So far, all he’d told her was that he had an older sister and a younger brother and that he’d grown up in the Bay Area in a comfortably middle-class family. Which was all true, though he’d left out facts he was sure Taylor would find important. Like that his sister was married to one of the most successful venture capitalists in the country, and he had no doubt Taylor had met him in the course of her career.

He’d been tempted to tell her that first day, when she was so shocked that a plebeian such as himself had known what a VC does. At the time, he’d stifled the urge, reminding himself that he didn’t need to impress her with his family connections. Now he kept quiet because he wanted her to take him at face value, wanted to know that she’d fallen in love with him because of who he was and not how he could further her career.

He peeled off his gloves and tunneled his fingers through his hair, cursing himself for thinking like such a goddamn chick. But he was in unfamiliar territory, afraid he was actually in love for the first time in his adult life, but with a woman who seemed determined to keep their affair under wraps.

He wondered, not for the first time, why he was so worried about defining their relationship. He had a beautiful woman who loved fucking him and didn’t care whether he bought her dinner first. A woman who didn’t call him twenty times a day to consult him on how she spent every minute of her day. In the past, he would have called her the ideal woman.

But after nearly a month, Joe was more determined than ever to break down the barriers Taylor had erected between them and prove to her that while he might not be her ideal man, he was the only man for
her.