Girl Gear 1: All Tied Up (13 page)

He wanted to spend time, learning her hot spots, feeding her hunger. Making her wait until she turned on him and devoured. But he’d had too much to drink, he mused, then realized he hadn’t had enough. Between thoughts of getting her naked and the way her toes were tickling the pit of his knee…He drew in a sharp breath and held it, forced his attention out of his pants and back to the show.

Chloe presented her salted skin to Eric, pulling the neckline of her top even lower and holding the lime wedge, pulp out, between even white teeth. Eric made as if to give thanks, hands piously together and eyes closed, until Chloe hooked her fingers in his belt loops and yanked him forward. He wrapped his free arm around her waist, finishing the move she’d started by pulling her lower body hard into his.

He settled the flat of his tongue in the salty hollow of her throat, mumbled and hummed his appreciation of her taste into her skin. Chloe arched her neck, giving him better access and an encouraging invitation to continue.

Macy’s invitation followed. She shifted in her chair, leaning back far enough to rub her curved arch over the muscles of Leo’s inner thigh. His hand tightened around his drink and he spread his legs wider. She repeated the caress, first one side, then the other. Her toes flexed into the fabric of his trousers and a snarl rumbled through his chest.

Eric’s tongue grew bolder, licking away the trail of salt, flicking across Chloe’s upper chest and earning him a playful ear-boxing and a reprimand to get back to
work. He laughed into her skin and corrected his downhill course, approaching the valley between her voluptuous hills.

Macy needed no course correction whatsoever. The toes of her second foot had worked their way beneath the cuff of Leo’s khakis. Her skin was cool and smooth. His was heated and hair-roughened. The simple anatomical contrast between the sexes raised the heat of the blood pooling in his groin.

It was a sad state of affairs when he let a sprite of a wild child turn him on with her toes. Yet he couldn’t remember another woman’s conventional seduction getting him so hard, so fast. This was what he so enjoyed about Macy. She was bold and adventurous, not the least bit shy when it came to going after what she wanted. Or insisting things be done her way.

So far he’d given her what she wanted. He’d let her have her way. She’d gotten a roommate, a teammate and his attention. Now he intended to get his. This private under-the-table lap dance was not a bad place to start. And by the time Eric had managed to dip his tongue deep into Chloe’s cleavage, Macy’s soles strategically rested in the V of Leo’s crotch.

Eric licked away the last of the salted trail of juice, lifted his head from Chloe’s chest and grinned like the devil. Then he tossed back the shot of tequila, shuddered, settled his mouth on Chloe’s and sucked the juice from the waiting lime.

But he didn’t stop there, when the lime was spent and the Jose Cuervo burn had eased. His tongue scooped away the pulp and rind and swirled freely into Chloe’s mouth. And when Chloe reached out and grabbed his ass, the crowd roared.

Eric and Chloe had the room’s attention as they
moved from the kiss into a hands-on set of dirty dancing. Lauren and Anton joined them.

And Jess was just reaching for Melanie when Leo felt a shift in Macy’s gaze, from the dancers to his face.

I
T HAD BEEN THIRTY-SIX
hours since he’d had her.

And the last thing Leo expected was to look up and see Macy drawing a bite of fried rice from between two chopsticks, her tongue curling around the food, teasing the tips of the wooden skewers the way she’d teased the head of his dick.

He hadn’t expected to see her lightly nip at the flesh of a pork rib, leaving the bone whistle clean, licking the sticky sauce from her lips and the tips of her fingers. He hadn’t expected to see her pinch the tail of a grilled jumbo shrimp, closing her lips around the thick meat, sucking the seasoned juice from the shell.

The ball of her foot stroked the burgeoning bulge behind his fly. Her chin lifted; her eyelids fluttered and closed. She opened wide and swallowed the whole thing deep down in the back of her throat.

Leo came close to upending the table in a ferocious exhibition of his inner Gladiator. Fortunately, Macy was the only one to notice the way he shoved the edge of his dinner plate hard against hers when he reached across the table, wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her to her feet.

She didn’t resist or object, but made the long reach for her drink to wash the food from her mouth before she followed where he led. In this case, the far edge of
the impromptu dance floor. As far away from the rest of the group as Leo could get without leaving the room.

With Ray and Sydney deep in conversation at the table, and the rest of the couples caught up in the music or in each other, the timing of Leo’s abduction could not have been planned any better. No one noticed the commotion, his desperation or the erection straining the fly of his pants.

He put his back to the room and pulled Macy tight to the front of his body. She nestled into him like a pearl into the shell of an oyster, right where it belonged. The admission struck him hard with its corny truth.

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

She looked up at his face and caught him considering his flight options. Her innocent expression was more of a lie than Leo could stand. There was nothing innocent about Macy Webb. She was the original black widow spider, spinning the sticky threads of her deadly man-snare.

“Were you wanting to dance? Or did you just want to get your hands on me?” She could hardly keep a straight face as she wrapped her arms around his waist, hooking her thumbs into the belt loops at his sides.

Even wearing shoes, she wasn’t tall enough to reach around his neck, and here she stood in nothing but bare feet. Comfort over etiquette. Just like the kid she insisted on being. Instead of the woman she was, the woman now working to mow down his beliefs about what he needed from the opposite sex.

What he needed was to get his head on straight.

His forearms rested on her shoulders; his hands met in the center of her back and pressed her close. “What I want right now is probably better left unsaid.”

“Why? You think I’m not adult enough to handle it?”
She looked up again, eyes wide once more. Innocent again.

He wasn’t going to fall for her act. Not this time. “Is that what you want me to think?”

She gave a small shrug. “I don’t really care what you think.”

He maneuvered them away from the crowd and closer to the front foyer, tiled in a rich Italian marble of an equally rich espresso color. “You’ll never make a very convincing witness with that lousy Swiss cheese testimony.”

Macy sighed in capitulation, resting her cheek on his chest. Good. He was finally getting her attention. But then she snuggled up to him and asked, “What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?”

Leo could only roll his eyes. “A vampire only sucks blood at night.”

“Hmm. What’s the difference between a lawyer and a leech?”

“A leech quits sucking your blood after you die.”

She tsked. “You would know all the suck jokes.”

He spun them around, backed them almost the entire length of the foyer. And then he stood in place and did no more than shuffle his feet and sway from side to side. “You’re hopeless. Do you have one single serious bone in your body?”

“Nothing compared to what you’ve got going on.” She looked up into his face. Their bodies slowed until their feet remained unmoving, their knees sandwiched together, their hips aligned in a way that had nothing to do with the dance. “I mean, I knew you had a Jones for playing games….”

Leo felt heat pool and spread, felt a compelling need to ease the building pressure. He dropped a hand to
Macy’s backside, held her close and pushed forward into her belly. “This is not about playing any game.”

Her eyes drifted shut, drifted open. Her smile was nothing if not tickled pink. “And here I was beginning to think you were the one who was hopeless. You are allowed to have fun just for fun, you know.”

When he wasn’t quick enough to refute her allegation, she slowly frowned, slowly added, “Or didn’t you know?”

He knew she was thinking about the time they’d spent in bed. The time in the shower that had started on a dare she’d been more than willing to accept. Even now he was rising to the private provocation she’d boldly issued both above and beneath the dinner table.

She was right. Enjoying her body, her wit and her mind had nothing to do with competition, with making his mark, with getting ahead. It was fun and games with no agenda, no ulterior motive.

So, what was he doing here?

His life was a study in focus, success and striving to excel. He surrounded himself with the people, bought his way into the games designed to make it happen. He never lost sight of the goal.

So, what was he doing here?

The possibility that he was here for more, that he wanted more and wanted it from Macy, landed with a gut-deep punch. A punch he should’ve been able to dodge. He’d forgotten his own fundamental rules of play.

So, what in the hell was he doing here?

“You never did tell me what it is you want,” she said, her voice too soft and sweet, too concerned female, too not-Macy for his liking.

“Never mind,” he muttered gruffly, because he
wasn’t quite sure what he wanted any longer and was afraid he wasn’t going to like it when he finally figured it out.

“Fine. Whatever.” She shrugged off his comment and his attitude, drawing herself up stiffly in his arms. “It’s not like I’m going to lose any sleep worrying about it.”

Leo gritted his teeth, forced a deep breath and blew out his self-directed ire. He might not like what Macy had done to his mind, but he was solely to blame for this inexplicable lapse in concentration. And he owed her an apology for acting like a son of a bitch.

He realized all this as he stroked a fingertip along her jaw, repeated the caress on the opposite side. Her eyelids grew heavy, her mouth dreamy. The tip of her tongue peeked from between her lips as Leo lifted her chin and asked, “Do you lose sleep over anything?”

“Only when I have a good reason.” She looked up then, met his gaze. And what had been a look of the sweetest surrender became an invitation best suited for a corner in the dark. “Do you have one to give me?”

He shook his head.

“No?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed to a scowl.

He shook his head again. A piece of work, this one, like hot and cold running water, needing nothing more than the turn of a handle to alter her mood. “That wasn’t a no.”

“What was it then?” She tried to slip her arms from around his back.

He caught her fingers, so cool and tiny in his hands, and held them at his waist. He wanted to dispel her skepticism—even if the effort cost him more points than he gained. “That was me. Enjoying you.”

And at that, her expression blossomed into a look of
pure bliss. Her soft sigh warmed his skin straight through the fabric of his shirt.

“See?” She nuzzled his chest with her cheek, burrowed her nose into the loose folds of black linen. “I knew you were capable of having a good time.”

He held her where and how she wanted to be held while listening to the strains of the music drifting into the dimly lit foyer from the main room beyond. Mood music. Hot and throbbing and utterly untamed. And Macy’s mouth making wet and wild with that bared section of his skin.

A deeply drawn groan, primal and raw, rolled from his gut to his throat. He pulled her farther into the shadows. “So getting me all worked up? This is what you consider a good time?”

“I consider it a start.” Glancing up, she wiggled both brows, her tongue slicking over her lower lip. “It’s not like all that fancy footwork was just for you, you know.”

When he didn’t, couldn’t, immediately respond, she quit with the nuzzling and burrowing and hit him lightly in the shoulder. “C’mon, Leo. We showered together yesterday morning. It’s not like I came on to you in there out of the blue.”

He wasn’t going to argue. If anything had been out of the blue it had been Macy stepping into his shower. He was still recovering. Not from the sex, but that she’d taken him up on the dare.

This wasn’t the time or the place, but he wanted to know why. Why now, but even more so, why then? Had sex been one more tactical move in her game plan? Or had she shed her clothes and her inhibitions because the sex had been with him?

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked as he returned her hands to
his waist and put their bodies back into slow motion. “Why did I come on to you?”

“Yes. And…”

“Why did I come all over you?”

He crooked up both corners of his mouth, the smile a private appreciation of her candor, when another woman would’ve gone for coy. He didn’t think he’d ever enjoyed a seduction—or a seductress—more.

“That one is easy. And obvious,” she said, answering her own question without giving him a chance to start thinking with the head on his shoulders. “I’m easy. And I’m obvious.”

What she was was clever, quick-witted and quite confident that he wouldn’t think her either easy or obvious. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“What
would
you say?”

“‘Take off your clothes,’ for starters,” he said, keeping one hand centered on her back, working the other between their bodies and up under the fabric to her belly.

“Leo?”

“Hmm?” Her skin was tender and soft, her curves the perfect fit for a man’s hands.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and shivered.

He was learning her shape, the way she wanted to be touched, what he could do to heighten her pleasure. “Getting even for the fancy footwork.”

“The only skin to skin contact I made was my toe to your shin.” The party lights reached only as far as the edges of her eyes, tinting her irises the intoxicating gold of aged brandy.

Irises and aged brandy. Leo knew he had to be drunk. “Feel free to grab my ass anytime.”

And at that, Macy reached behind him…and turned the brass knob on a door he hadn’t noticed.

A bathroom. A tiny guest bathroom. With nothing but a toilet, a basin and a lock on the door.

Click!

He held Macy by the waist and lifted her onto the edge of the countertop of espresso-and-indigo-colored porcelain. Her hands went straight to his backside.

“Greedy wench,” he managed to mutter before his mouth descended, covering hers, one hand around her back, the other finding its way between her legs and under her skirt. A simple thong, nothing more, easily breached, and he did, his fingers finding her ready, finding her wet and wild.

She backed away from his touch, pulled her mouth from his and looked down, mining the wallet she’d dug from his slacks pocket. “Not greedy. And not stupid.”

She waved the condom she’d found, then went to work freeing him from his boxers. He ripped open the foil packet, caught her watching, her lips parted, her tongue pressed to her two front teeth.

When he offered, she accepted, taking the protective sheath and checking the direction of the roll. At the first touch of her hands he swallowed hard, thrust forward, and she covered him completely.

He wanted to wait, wanted Macy to go slow, but this wasn’t about taking his time. This was about here and now and tamping down the flames of this particular fire. Macy had braced her heels in the small of his back; her palms straddled the basin for support.

Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back, and Leo was done with taking his time. One hand held the damp thong to the side; one hand held his cock and guided. He was in and she was tight and nothing mattered but the look on her face. A look that said he’d done good.

It was the reflection of his own face in the mirror that told a different truth.

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, Lauren finally put the finishing touches on Macy’s new logo. Her eyes aching from hours spent staring at her monitor, her back aching from sitting too long, Lauren now stood at the backyard pool railing, leaning against the custom-made iron grille that separated the covered patio from the pool, where Anton was swimming his scheduled laps.

She shivered lightly. The night air was cool, the moon high and full. The heated pool would be warm. Her cover-up hung unbuttoned over her suit. Both remained dry. She’d had every intention of joining him in the water when she’d stepped outside ten minutes ago.

But then she’d stopped to watch him swim.

The pool’s underwater lights cast his sleek form in shadow—a dark phantom slicing through the water in perfect, long-armed strokes. He never missed a beat. He never faltered or sputtered or tired. His disciplined control never wavered.

He swam by rote: a certain stroke, a set number of laps. She admired his commitment to his athleticism, his health and his routine. He managed to fit exercise into his daily agenda no matter what else he had going on.

Lauren sighed. She was kidding herself to think she’d ever live up to his expectations. She wasn’t even sure that his expectations, for himself but especially for her, fit in with the plans she’d made for her life.

And none of this would she have known if not for the scavenger hunt and her impetuous move into his house.

She smiled to herself, a rueful private expression of her current unsettled mood. To kiss Macy or to kill Macy. That was the question. One thing was certain.
Lauren had a decision to make. Unless what she had was a decision in need of unmaking.