No Reservations (2 page)

There was something to be said for standing fully dressed above a basically naked, restrained woman.

He bent to cup her buttocks. Kneading them, he lifted her hips and lowered his lips to graze her wet heat. He thrust his tongue inside her and she thrashed against his mouth. Her pussy was scented with her perfume. The aroma of musk and woman was wild. He pulled his tongue back to suck hard on her clit and she arched her back. He slid two fingers inside her, thrusting faster and faster until she screamed out loud in pleasure.

There was no control left in him. He stripped quickly, his cock straining against his clothing until he freed it. He slipped his wallet from his pants and withdrew a condom. “I’ve got us covered.”

“Just get up here!” she demanded.

Travis kneeled on the bed and rolled the condom over his cock. Alicia never took her eyes off the sight. Heated, she moaned when he shifted to thrust the head of his cock against her pussy. He tilted his hips and ground slowly inside her, dragging the penetration out as long as he could. Then he drove into her, again and again. She pushed up to meet him, her hips tilting and rocking, their bodies shuddering together and their voices mingling in gasping, moaning sounds. His blood pumped and the pressure grew stronger until he couldn’t hold back any longer. From deep within, come spurted from his body and erupted inside the condom.

He collapsed on top of her.

She gave him five minutes to recover. Then Alicia bit him and struggled beneath him until he rolled off with a groan, barely managing to keep the used condom contained. He used a tissue from a box on the bedside table to dispose of the evidence of their passion and collapsed on the bed beside her.

“What?” He managed to gasp before she pressed her hips to his.

Freed from the added restraint of his weight, she pulled at the remainder of her clothes and tossed them aside, her lips never leaving his, her tongue working its way inside, invading his mouth, taking captive his own tongue. Making him crazy as she straddled him.

“Is that all you’ve got? No round two?” she teased when she finally lifted her head from his. Laughter tinted her voice and sparkled in her eyes as she smiled from above him. He remembered that look, that wolfish smirk. She’d looked that way at the campus bar after she’d won a shooter contest.

His erection sprang to life at the challenge. It felt damn good to compete with her again.

* * *

It was dark and quiet when Travis opened his eyes. He glanced at the glowing marks on his watch and cursed. He’d missed the flight. He grinned into the darkness. He didn’t care.

He rolled to look at the woman beside him on the rumpled bed but found the covers empty. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the hotel bed.

“Alicia,” he called toward the bathroom. “I missed the flight.” He stood, stretched, enjoying the mild ache in his muscles brought on from the hottest sex he’d had in a while. The room smelled like citrus, musk and sex, like Alicia. He picked his pants up from the floor.

It struck him then. Her clothes were gone.
She
was gone.

“Damn.” He walked to the doorway, double-checking that she wasn’t in the bathroom after all, and flicked on the light. The room was empty of anything belonging to Alicia except her scent.

A bit of color caught his eye. On the mirror above the counter, something had been scrawled in red—cherry red, like Alicia’s lipstick.

Too bad you missed the flight. Thanks for the tickets. Now we’re even. Game over.

“What the fuck?”
Even for what?
he wondered as he turned on the tap to run cool water over his hands and then splashed his face. He was going to miss the get-together. But the realization wasn’t as annoying as he would have thought it would be. Alicia was fantastic in bed. She felt like…like more. But she’d played him.

Travis gritted his teeth together as chagrin blended into annoyance and anger. “Oh, no you don’t, lady. The game is really on now.” Travis had learned long ago that battles were best won in small increments. She wasn’t going to get away with this. It was one thing to play a game, another to flat-out cheat. Someone deserved a little lesson in sportsmanship. He headed for the shower. Now that he wasn’t headed out to Boston after all, there was only one place he planned to be.
Andrew Wyeth Exhibit, here I come.

Chapter Two

“Relax—everything went exactly as you planned, didn’t it?” Alicia’s best friend, Selene, spoke around pouted lips as she painted her mouth a violent shade of red in the gallery’s powder room.

“Yeah.” Alicia stared into the mirror. There should have been a big grin on her face. Hell, she should feel happy, confident. Smug, even. She’d gotten what she wanted: a night with Travis to settle all the old regrets from years ago. And she’d enjoyed it, enjoyed him, and gotten the tickets to the exhibit. She’d triumphed and even rubbed it in a little—he’d missed his flight and was stuck with the hotel bill. It should feel good, finally getting back at him for embarrassing her in college. She should be laughing. Instead, she felt like she’d swallowed something hard and cold.

“Well, buck up, chickie. We’re here, rubbing shoulders and making contacts. Travis never knew what hit him, and he’s probably still trying to decide if he’ll ever recover.” Selene glanced over at her and grinned.

“Right.” Alicia flicked her hair over her shoulder and bared her teeth at the mirror. The problem was she wasn’t sure
she’d
recover. The sex had been incredible. She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry as she thought yet again about Travis’s hard body and the way he’d taken control in bed. That hadn’t been part of the plan, but it
had
been her favorite part of the night.

She shivered. It was a damn good thing she’d woken first, taken the Wyeth tickets and run. Otherwise she might have stayed, and that was not something she was about to consider. Travis was in sales, for God’s sake. She’d already gotten rid of one cutthroat asshole. She didn’t need to get involved with another.

What she’d found attractive in Travis at State was the same thing that had drawn her to her ex-husband Richard: an aggressive competitiveness that at first seemed so sexy. It had been a disaster in a marriage. Sleeping and screwing with Travis’s plans was a sort of payback to all the guy players out there, every one of them just like her sleazy ex. She’d gone for it, and she’d won.

“C’mon. You look awesome, and I—” Selene blew a kiss at the mirror, “—am ravishing, of course. Let’s go.” She led the way out of the powder room and Alicia followed. The hallway quickly branched into the first gallery room, where people mingled and took in the beauty of a varied collection Andrew Wyeth’s best, and last, works.

Alicia wandered toward the watercolor collection along the back wall. Despite weeks of coveting the contacts the exhibit, and events like it, might bring her private charter business, the idea of making polite conversation left her repressing a sigh. Selene walked with her for a moment but then peeled off to chat with a small group of men hovering near an appetizer station. She had a wicked look in her eye. Alicia shook her head and grinned as she silently wished the single men in the group luck.

Against the brick red of the backdrop wall, the first watercolor landscape’s pale colors caught Alicia’s attention but didn’t hold her interest for long. She walked on to study the next and then the next until she found the first portrait on display. Wyeth, the “Painter of the People,” had always been one of her favorite artists and the reason the exhibit had snagged her interest. Planning a way to turn her love of art into a way to bolster her business was a bonus. She would have come to the exhibit anyway if the place hadn’t been sold out. How had Travis managed to get her a set of tickets? She shook her head.
Why are you thinking of him again?

Alicia studied the clean lines of the painting before her. The face of the woman stared back at her. Barely smiling, she still had a lush sensuality that seemed to express contentment, satisfaction, and perhaps sexual completion. “Like I haven’t thought about sex enough,” she muttered to herself.

“And here I’d begun to believe you didn’t think about it enough.”

Alicia froze at the deep tones of the voice coming from behind her.
Oh, no.
It couldn’t be.
She glanced over her shoulder and then back at the painting, grimacing at the realization that Travis had followed her to the exhibit. Of course he’d known she’d be here—he’d given her the damn tickets.

“Travis. Come to see the exhibit for yourself?”

“Not exactly.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, gently, possessively.

Her heart pounded in at his touch.

“I came to see you. The way I see it is, you still owe me a flight. You skipped out on me last night and now here I am, stuck in Chicago and no trip to Boston on the roster.”

She glanced up at him, checked to see if there was any anger in his eyes. His voice sounded like deep velvet plush, and beyond being wickedly sexy, it held the slightest hint of danger. Her nipples peaked inside her silk dress. “Hardly my fault you slept through the flight.”

“No? I think it might be. Keeping you under control wore me out.” He glanced at the painting. “And it gave you the same look she has, right there.”

Alicia’s cheeks flamed. She glanced around the room to see if anyone had overheard, then stared fixedly at the painting in front of her. The worst of it was, he was absolutely right. Being at his mercy, even though it had been implied more than real, had left her completely satisfied. It was the best sex she’d had in years. And good God, she wanted it again, right now. Business, mingling and art be damned. Giving in to the desire would be so easy. And he would play with her again, that much was clear. But she knew better.
So not a good idea.

She ducked away from his touch and stepped along sideways toward the next painting. The portrait depicted another woman, equally happy as the last, although this time the painting seemed to be mocking Alicia.

“You left me high and dry.” Travis had followed her. He touched her again, wrapping one big hand around her elbow. “I’d planned on getting to Boston to see the guys, the old crew from Michigan. We were going to take in the game. By now I’d be catching up on John’s new venture and Ed’s latest baby pictures. He has two little boys now.”

Alicia’s stomach tightened. Guilt was eating a hole through her belly. So she’d played Travis and gotten back at him for all the pranks he’d pulled at college, and for embarrassing her. What did that prove? What had she been thinking? That had all been years ago, and he clearly cared about the people he’d been planning to meet. Although she knew them as well, they had been his friends and supporters, not hers. Still, how many guys kept the friends they’d had in college days? She opened her mouth to apologize but he cut her off.

“The way I see it, you owe me a favor. I’d still like to see the boys. They’ll be there for another three days. If you can get me out of here on a flight by tomorrow night, I’d call it even.”

She didn’t have to think about it. “Done.” Guilt was not a feeling she had any intention of carrying around with her.

His hand tightened on her arm. She looked up into his eyes and realized immediately that doing so was a mistake. He held her gaze, lust coasting on a simmering wave of heat that passed from him to her and left her gasping for breath. “There’s just one thing. I don’t want to drive home tonight. It’s a three-hour commute from Chicago. And you’ve already stiffed me on one hotel bill and a flight gone wrong. I’d rather keep you where I can see you.”

* * *

Travis had to fight the grin that threatened to break out as he watched Alicia’s face grow pink with embarrassed anger. He hadn’t missed the way her eyes shifted to the left and she’d flushed as he mentioned his thwarted plans. Years of negotiations told him she felt a little guilty, and it was now or never if he wanted to take advantage of the fact. And there was no way he was letting her get away with playing dirty. She deserved a little payback. But he’d rather see her spark with anger than wilt under guilt.

“You’ve done worse in the past, mister. Don’t think I forgot about the way you sabotaged me in the final quarter of the portfolio competition.”

“You aren’t still thinking of that? It was just a game, Alicia.”

Their voices were rising and people were looking at them. Before she could say anything else, he tugged her from the room and into the next gallery. She resisted for a second, then glanced around the rapidly filling room and seemed to realize what he was doing. The second gallery held dividing walls suspended from the high ceiling on long steel rods. They supplied more surface space for the paintings, but they also provided smaller pockets of space and a certain degree of privacy from the crowd.

Stepping between two of the panels, she yanked her arm from his grasp. “It might have been a game for you, but I was serious about winning and you cheated.” Her full lips pouted slightly as she huffed the words out.

“I did not cheat. I won fair and square.”

“You tricked me—you left information sitting around, all of it pointing to a major investment, and when I bought the damn stock it tanked.”

“Like I said, Alicia, it was a game. And if you read something into the stock information I left out, that wasn’t anything to do with me.” Travis held her gaze, tried to impart his genuine surprise at what she’d accused him of.
Maybe coming here was more important than I thought.

“You didn’t try to get me to buy that junk on purpose?”

Her cheeks were pink, and guilt and uncertainty reflected once again in her eyes. He hesitated, for once his negotiation skills stymied. What did he want from her? If he didn’t know what he sought from the deal, he couldn’t move forward. He wasn’t really angry anymore, but he did still want to pay her back, play the game a little longer.
I want her.
Desired her in his bed, the teasing spitfire ball of fun she’d been in college combined with the powerful business woman she was now, all wrapped up as one, naked in his hands. He didn’t want her to come to him because she felt guilty.

“No, I didn’t. But you can bet I was happy when you fell behind and I didn’t have you breathing down my neck. You almost won. I had no idea you thought I’d cheated. I was just happy it was my turn for a change.”

“And my note. What about that? I sent you a note to meet me after the finals and you didn’t show.” She pressed her lips together and he could see a trace of remaining anger in the set of her mouth. The only problem was, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t get a note.”

“Right. Of course you didn’t.” She turned away to look at the paintings again.

He caught her arm and gently pulled her back toward him. “If I’d had an invitation from you to meet me
anywhere
, Alicia, I would have. Anywhere, any time.” His voice deepened as he spoke, the tone thickening in direct proportion to his desire at the thought of their last meeting.

“Hmm.” She smiled, the sparkle returning to her eyes.

Attraction, quickly followed by lust, pulsed through him. “But you do owe me.”

She took a breath. He could see the rejection forming in her eyes. Quickly he stepped closer to her, slid a hand beneath the mass of her hair to touch the back of her neck in a possessive caress. Her eyes darkened, the pupils dilating under his gaze. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He lowered his lips to hers, gently at first, then taking possession of her mouth. She opened for him and he had to fight back the urge to ravish her mouth. She responded in the same mix of sweetness and fire as she had the previous night and it made his cock ache.

“Ahem.”

Travis stepped away from Alicia as he realized they’d acquired an audience. A beautiful blonde, the same woman who’d arrived with Alicia earlier, stood nearby, her eyebrow cocked and an amused grin tilting her lips. Unfortunately, Travis caught the motion of several other people glancing away. He’d lost control and gone too far.
So much for getting out of here and taking Alicia home.

“Selene, perfect.” Alicia’s voice shook slightly. She sounded like he felt, half drunk and half high and wanting so much more than a few stolen kisses. “I’ve decided to cut the night short. Think you can manage to do the mingling on your own? Travis and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

Her decision caught Travis by surprise. Lust throbbed in his veins, and he prayed his throbbing cock wasn’t as obvious to the world as he was afraid it might be.

“Okaaay.” Selene eyed the two of them and then took Travis in, head to toe. It was like being stripped naked. She smiled and he swallowed. “Try not to do each other in, okay? Play nice.”

“Oh, we will.” Alicia laughed. She grabbed his hand and tugged, and for once he was happy to follow.

Alicia marched them to the cloak room. She didn’t meet his eyes, but her spine was stiff. She’d obviously made a decision and decided to take the bull—him—by the horns. Travis followed along. He’d let her be in charge for now, but when they found a bit of privacy, he’d find out how far either of them could take control.

* * *

For the tenth time in the few minutes it took to find her car, Alicia circled the whole mess in her mind. She’d acted out to punish a man who, if she believed him, had simply been playing a game. Their competitiveness had once been fun, even if she’d been disappointed with him in the end. Only her recent experience with her ex had made her view Travis in the light she had since his arrival back into her life. He didn’t deserve it, didn’t even understand that she’d been acting out to remove a few old regrets so that the newer, fresher ones wouldn’t seem so bad. Travis wasn’t a bad guy. And the sex, the sex she was hoping for again, was awesome.

She’d treated him badly, although he didn’t seem as upset as she would have thought. Now she’d promised him another flight and was taking him home. Except she wasn’t certain there
was
another flight available tomorrow. And she wasn’t sure she could handle another round of that amazing sex. It might let him in a little too close.

“You’re speeding.” He took up so much space in her little car. He’d insisted on keeping an eye on her. Now he was sitting in her tiny vehicle, headed for her messy house and looking like a cat, a really big cat, who seemed to believe she was a bowl of cream.