ProvokeMe (14 page)

“You think I’m that easily influenced?”

She smiled, intrigued and excited by the intensity of his
expression.
He was good at this playacting thing.
“Believe me, easy will have
nothing to do with it, boss.” She raised her hips, shifting so her wetness
brushed his cock.
His forehead creased as if he was holding himself back,
trying to resist taking what she yearned to give.
“Fuck me, Spencer.”

He grabbed a condom from the depleted supply on the
nightstand and ripped open the foil.
Before she could blink, he’d rolled on the
latex and the head of his cock nudged her entrance.
But he didn’t slide all the
way inside.
He inched in and out, tormenting her with shallow thrusts.
Juice
dripped from her pussy, slickening his movements.
She heard her own gasps as if
she’d drifted outside her body to watch him decimate her, noted her quick
acquiescence when he shook off her greedy hands.

“Put them behind your head,” he said as she reached for him
yet again.

Already panting, she obeyed his wishes.
Anything to get him
to give her what she needed.
She laced her fingers behind her neck, clamping
down when he chose that moment to lever her hips upward and plunge.
This was
the Spencer she was coming to know, the one who drove into her hard and fast
and counted on her to keep up if she didn’t want to be left behind.

She tightened her legs around his waist as he drove her into
the mattress with his violent plunges.
He didn’t give her clit or her breasts
any attention, leaving both areas exposed and throbbing.
She wanted his fingers
on her, relieving the ache, but he wouldn’t offer that much.
Her pleasure was
under his control, just the way he liked it.

Kelly squeezed her inner muscles as he pumped into her
again, making him bite off an oath.
His chest expanded with the force of his
breaths.
Rotating her hips, she kept up the pressure, clenching her sheath
around him until a vein pulsed under his jaw, a visible warning of the effect
her teasing had caused.

She dug welts on her own neck as she drew him so deep they
cried out in unison.
He started moving faster, his shoulders bunched from the
effort of holding her still.
Gone was the methodical man who’d planned to fuck
her the way he wanted without her having any say in the matter.
In his place
was the man she yearned for, the uninhibited, wild Spencer she only ever saw
during sex.

And that Spencer she would have.

The air thickened, steaming between them as their damp
bodies slapped against each other in a race to the finish.
She bore down each
time he tried to withdraw his cock, tearing groan after groan from him, but he
wasn’t about to give in without making her pay.
He changed the angle of the
strokes, battering her pussy until even whimpering was beyond her.
Her only
salvation was that eventually he needed to catch his breath.

“You’re going to come first,” she panted.

Denial flared in his eyes.
He looked like a valiant
warrior—resolute, determined to be victorious in the battle royale of the
ultimate orgasm.
Coming first was both a win and a loss, and he wouldn’t go
down easily.

So she would have to battle hard.
And dirty.

He wrapped his hand around the base of his cock as he slid
home again and again, his length filling her completely.
The friction almost
felt too good, because how was she supposed to make him come first if her body
wouldn’t listen?
She moaned, caught between ecstasy and frustration.
Dammit.
She wanted to watch him come but she was so close.
She arched and accepted him
to the hilt, clasping him so hard she thought her back would break.

His hips jerked, his rapid puffs of breath the only sign
he’d reached the peak.
God, she loved watching him go over.
Long jets of his
cum pulsed into the condom, triggering more waves inside her pussy.
Her skin
flashed hot and she gasped as his uneven thrusts ground his pubic bone against
her clit.

Just a little more…

Mindlessly she followed him, riding the crest of delirious
pleasure saturating her body.
In the midst of it, he grabbed her hair and
crushed his lips onto hers, stealing both her moans and her breath.

When the blissful sensations started to ebb, she dropped
back into the pillows.
Dimly she registered the mattress shifting and assumed
Spencer had sprawled out beside her.
But when she glanced up, he was pulling on
his boxers.

“Where you going?” She couldn’t help the drowsy satisfaction
in her voice any more than she could stop the fear that raised its pointy
little head when he turned flat, cold eyes her way.

“I have some work to do downstairs.” That he was still a
little breathless wasn’t much consolation.

She looked at the clock and then back at him.
His expression
hadn’t unfrozen.
What the hell?
“At two-fifteen in the morning?”

“I’m behind.”

“Sure.
Right.
Guess that’s my cue to leave.”

For some reason she couldn’t imagine staying in his bedroom
alone as she’d done the night before.
Mistakenly or not, she’d felt as if he
was opening up to her a little.
So much for what she knew.

“I’ll drive you home.”

She rolled out of bed and knelt to pick up her crumpled
underwear.
“Afraid I’ll steal your car again?” She’d said it to be funny but he
didn’t laugh.
He didn’t even give her one of those half-smiles she loved.

“It’s late,” he said before crossing the room to the master
bath and shutting the door.

She fastened her bra and sat on the edge of the mattress.
Her damn thighs were still trembling.
If she touched herself, she’d smell him
all over her fingers.

Moisture dampened her eyes but she blinked until it was
gone.
She didn’t cry over men.
Ever.
Maybe she’d gone too far with the
boss jokes, but she’d thought he understood.
Stupid.
What made her think she
knew him?
They’d had sex a handful of times.
That didn’t make her an expert on
the man.

If she were honest, though she’d come every time, he’d kept
their encounters as impersonal as could be.
Forget emotions.
Anything beyond
straight sex and public play at Kink didn’t seem to interest him.
He hadn’t
gone down on her, though she’d given him a blowjob on the way home from the
club.
Hell, he hadn’t even sucked her nipples.
Delegating those particular
tasks to others seemed much more his style.

True, they’d only become lovers last night.
But she had a
suspicion more sex wouldn’t lead to anything but more of the same.
Yet she was
still sitting here, sniffling.

She wasn’t some bimbo.
At first she’d thought Spencer’s
distant demeanor was a challenge.
Sometimes it pissed her off, but she’d liked
the idea of breaking down his walls.

But what he’d just done—roll off her then look at her as if
she were no more important than the spitball on the bottom of his shoe—was not
acceptable.
Maybe his other screwees tolerated this sort of behavior, but she
had some pride.

Not a lot at the moment, but some.

Anger took root where a moment ago there had been only that
quivering feeling in her belly.
Thank God.
If she’d suddenly developed an
attraction to unattainable, emotionally unavailable men, she’d damn well get
over it.
She’d check him off her list—which he still had, the jerk—and move on.

She got to her feet and yanked on her thong.
The door opened
just as she pulled her tube dress over her head.
Though he watched her shimmy
it into place, he said nothing.

“I want my property back,” she said in the coolest tone she
could muster.

He picked up the trousers he’d folded over the arm of the
chair she’d slept in last night and stepped into them, pulling up the zipper as
slowly as if he had all the time in the world.
His shirt was next.
He did up
the buttons from the bottom to the top, his hooded dark eyes watching her all
the while.

“Well?” she demanded.

“No.” He reached for his belt and slipped it through the
loops of his pants.
Once he’d notched the leather, he shot his cuffs and faced
her again.
“Ready?”

“
No?
” Her voice rose.
“You’re not keeping my PDA.
I
paid a lot of money for it.”

“When?
Five years ago?” He gave her a dismissive glance
before he picked up his wallet.
“The thing’s virtually obsolete.”

“Then why do you want it?”

As the silence dragged, she fisted her hands on her hips.
This couldn’t be about her list.
He didn’t care about her, so why should he
care who she wanted to fuck?

“I’ll go to the police and tell them you stole it.”

“Go for it.”

“I’m not bluffing.”

“Fine.
You want what we’ve been doing made public, go right
ahead.”

“What we’ve been doing?
Fucking, you mean?
Well, guess what,
sweetheart.
I don’t have a problem with telling everyone in the goddamned
world.
You’re the one who’s buttoned up so damn tight I’m surprised you can
even come.” She knew she sounded like an irate child and she didn’t give two
hoots.
“Of course it’s so quick you probably don’t have time to really get into
it.
Ever heard the phrase one-minute man?
That’s you.”

His smile might as well have been a blade, it was so sharp.
“Doesn’t say much for you if you’re so hot to keep me in your bed, now does
it?”

She ignored him.
“Do you even know how to relax enough to
enjoy sex, Spencer?
Real sex?
The emotional connection that comes when you know
who the fuck it is you’re balling?”

“You know all about emotional connections then, I assume?
Was it emotion driving you to rank your lovers according to some system?
I’m
curious.
What symbol will I get?”

A shattered heart, she thought vengefully, turning away
before she erupted.
Well, worse than she already had.
Sadly she could get much,
much
worse.

“We have to work together.
I’m not getting in a pissing
match with you.”

“You started this.” He grabbed her arm and spun her back to
face him.
For the briefest instant, his face was alive with heat and fury and
passion.
She’d never seen anyone so beautiful in all her life.
“You’re not
getting the PDA back.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Not until I’m done with you.”

She didn’t know whether to rejoice or slap him across the
face.
“When you’re
done
with me?
Like an old tissue you can toss away?
What if I say we’re done right now?
Then what?”

“Say it.” She didn’t know if he was daring her or begging
her, his eyes were so raw.
“Say it, Kelly.”

She wanted to.
God, she wanted to throw the words at him to
see if that fleeting heat returned or left nothing but ashes.
But she couldn’t.
She didn’t know why or what made him different, but for the first time, she
couldn’t just walk away.

Her chin trembled.
She knew he saw it because his expression
gentled.
He loosened his hold, the pinch of his fingers erased by his pervasive
warmth.

Spencer lifted his free hand to stroke her cheek, a brief
touch that conveyed all that was unsaid.
He didn’t want her to go.
She could
tell just from the way he was staring into her eyes.

Hard-ass Spencer didn’t really exist.
At least not as much
as he wanted her to believe.
Why he preferred she think he was a bastard, she
had no clue.

If this was a game, someone had forgotten to tell her the
rules.

A long moment passed before she whispered, “Just take me
home.”

Chapter Eight

Kelly didn’t come to Kink the next night.
Spencer didn’t
know why he’d expected her to or why he couldn’t even look at anyone else
without seeing the innocent lust in her eyes when he’d asked her to suck his
cock.
The memory of her opening herself up to him in front of everyone had
blazed itself into his mind.
That wasn’t her.
He’d known that from the get-go,
but she’d trusted him enough to relax and see where it led.

He didn’t deserve her trust.
He was a bastard.
And tonight,
he was alone.

“Looking for some action, stud?”

Nina.
Again.
“Since when do you hang out here every night?”

“Maybe I thought we’d rekindle some of the flames between
us.”

At his silence, she let out a tinkling laugh.
“Strike one.”

“Look, Nina—”

“Don’t worry about it.
Lots of pricks in the ocean.”
Grinning, she slipped her arm through his and picked up his drink, a gin and
tonic.
She took a sip and made a face.
“No whiskey?”

“I have work to do.”

“And one’s never enough.”

Instead of the drink, he thought of Kelly.
Once, twice, half
a dozen times hadn’t begun to take the edge off his need for her.
“No.”

“So where’s your pretty little brunette?”

“Little?” He swallowed a laugh.
“She’s almost as tall as
me.”

“Yes, but she’s hardly in our league, now is she?” Nina ran
her fingertip around the edge of his glass.
“She might as well be a virgin.”

“I wasn’t in your league once, if you’ll remember.”

“Oh I do.” Her rich, smoky laugh smoothed some of the hard
edges inside him.
When he was with her, being the Spencer he’d been before
wasn’t like wearing a suit he’d outgrown.
“But you were a quick study.
That
one’s got stars in her eyes, Spence.
Mixed in with the stars are hearts.”

First Marcia had called Kelly starry-eyed.
Now Nina.
Was he
that blind?
“You misread her.”

Nina cocked one scarlet eyebrow.
“You think?
Well, don’t say
I didn’t warn you.” She pushed off the stool.
“Good luck,” she murmured before
disappearing into the scantily dressed crowd.

He didn’t leave right away.
That would’ve looked pathetic.
But then again, staying for another hour only to brush off anyone who even
glanced his way didn’t exactly make him seem less desperate.
By the time he
left the club it was nearly eleven and going home seemed like the least
appealing option he’d ever contemplated.

So he went to The Book Nook.

For years, the store had been everything to him.
His wife,
his most faithful lover, his family.
For a man who’d never before found
all-consuming passion in work, The Book Nook and what he’d found there had been
a revelation.

But for the last couple of months, he’d been fighting itchy
feet.
Things were changing in the bookstore game.
More stores were failing than
succeeding.
And his pushing for suggestions hadn’t been welcomed from the
higher-ups.
The owners, Diana’s parents, weren’t interested in fixing something
they didn’t see as broken.
To their eyes, this new digital craze would pass and
they could go on as they always had.
The Book Nook had a loyal customer base.
Now they could coast.

As far as Spencer was concerned, they were fooling
themselves.
He only hoped there would still be time to right the ship once they
realized their folly.

Kelly saw the handwriting on the wall.
Even if he was
resistant to admitting what that meant, he had to acknowledge her legwork.
She
was bright and forward-thinking, exactly the sort of ally a business needed
during these challenging times.
But a phone call this morning had proved the
Sinclairs weren’t interested in her ideas.

And
he
was too interested in the rest of her.

They’d passed each other a couple times in the break room
that afternoon but she hadn’t said so much as hello.
She refrained from sending
him any suggestive looks and she definitely didn’t bend over to show him her
thong.
If she’d ever been cooler to him, he didn’t remember it.
They might as
well not have been lovers at all.

What you wanted, remember?
That’s why you kept her
off-limits for so long.
Because work comes first.
Always.

It was probably for the best.
Her teasing last night had
rubbed his last nerve raw.
As had her insults about his performance.
One-minute
man?
That was low.
She’d come every damn time.
Not that he blamed her for being
pissed at him and striking out.

In the light of day, he realized he’d been transferring—or
whatever mumbo jumbo it was called—his own motives onto her playful comments.
He’d finally accepted that she hadn’t been behind leaving her PDA on his desk.
She wasn’t built to be deceitful and he was pretty damn sure she wasn’t
sleeping with him to get ahead.
He knew her better than that, his stupid
knee-jerk reaction aside.
But the snatches of himself he saw in her made him
wonder if she’d guessed the truth behind her taunts.
Maybe she really did
figure he’d be the kind of boss to play fast and loose.
Hell, he’d certainly
been the sort of employee who used any available avenue to get what he wanted.

Once upon a time, he’d traded whatever commodity he had at hand.
His mind, his body.
That he’d gotten snared in his own trap had served him
right.
For a while, he hadn’t been sure he’d make it out of it with his wits
intact.
Maybe Kelly would be better off if she learned now she shouldn’t play
when the cost of winning was too high.

And maybe this late-night philosophy of his sucked ass.

He parked in his usual spot along the side of the building,
surprised to see a couple of lights on in the back of the store.
Who would be
there now?
Usually most of the employees couldn’t get out of there fast enough
after closing time, except for the stragglers.

He couldn’t say he blamed them.
Most of them had social
lives to tend to.
Families, friends, spouses, kids…

Everything he
didn’t
have.
By his own choice mostly,
but still.
Normally he didn’t think about what wasn’t a part of his life,
because he’d set things up just the way he wanted them.
But tonight he could
only see the gaping holes work would never fill.

He’d never been good at juggling girlfriends, not when his
job took so much of his time.
But Kelly got him.
She knew how committed he was
to the store and she felt the same.
In that sense, they couldn’t have been more
well-matched.

In every other, they were fucked.

Spencer got out of his car and walked through the insufferable
wall of heat to the front door.
Once again, the temperature had to be near
eighty and the humidity was off the charts.
He slipped his fingers into his
collar and pulled the fabric away from his skin.
An ice-cold shower would feel
heavenly but it would have to wait.
He had paperwork to get caught up on, after
he figured out who the hell was camping out in his store.

Finding the door locked, he pulled out his key and entered
to the sounds of blaring hip-hop music.
At least he thought it was hip-hop.
He
never listened to anything other than classical or opera so he couldn’t be
sure.
He’d heard variations of music like this at the club though he never
stayed downstairs long enough to get the point.

“Hello?” he called over the din.
He waited a moment and tried
again.
Nothing.

He pocketed his keys and walked up the center aisle of the
store, skirting the large glass tower of new releases and sidestepping the
promotional end caps of bookmarks and trinkets.
The scent of wildflowers mixed
with lemon polish hit him just before he reached the romance section and saw
Kelly sitting cross-legged on the floor.
His breath caught but luckily she was
too engrossed in the novel open on her lap to notice him.

Watching her suck down the book brought him infinite
enjoyment.
She looked so damn adorable in her cutoff white overalls with her
hair twisted into two stubby tails, he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“What’re you reading?” he asked finally, bracing a hand on
the shelf beside him.
It helped support him when her gaze flew upward and he
realized she was wearing glasses, little round frames that made her eyes look
absolutely huge.

He hadn’t seen her wear glasses in years.
Probably a good
thing, because he’d just discovered he was hot for them.
Or hot for the woman
in
them.

“Spencer.” She closed the novel and shoved it on a shelf.
“I
was just rearranging this section as you asked me to.”

He bent and retrieved the purple-spined book.
“
Taken
?”
He cocked an eyebrow and flipped to the first page.
The writing was snappy and
he’d read three paragraphs before he realized.
A quick glance at the back cover
copy told him it was about a woman on a sexual discovery with a man she’d never
“tame”.
He cleared his throat and reshelved the book.
“How is it?”

“I only read a page or two.”

He didn’t comment on the scrap of paper she’d shoved in the
book a quarter of the way through.
Obviously she intended to buy it later.
Rather than reply, he glanced around before returning his attention to her.

“Been cleaning?” He pulled a cobweb off one of her pigtails
and prayed his voice didn’t betray his nerves.
He wouldn’t apologize for last
night but not because she didn’t deserve it.

She braced as if expecting a punch.
And said nothing.

Nice job, Galvin.

“It smells like a lemon grove in here,” he said, trying
again.

And like the damn flowery scent I can’t wash off my
sheets…

With a shrug, she scrambled to her feet to put books to
rights quicker than he would’ve thought possible.
Obviously she wanted to get
out of there—and away from him—fast.

To make himself focus elsewhere, he swiveled on his heels to
survey what she’d done.
The section looked totally different.
She’d reorganized
the placement of the shelves in a circular pattern around a central reading
area and grouped the books alphabetically under new headings.
Now inspirational
romances were far away from spicy, with a buffer of sweet to help them play
nice.
The glass tables sparkled, the wood shelves gleamed.
The whole area
invited a reader to curl up and daydream over a book, the vision he’d always had
for the store.

“You have a real knack for this.”

She didn’t respond.
When he turned back and saw she was
still shelving, he realized she probably hadn’t heard him.
The music was
deafening.
He tapped her shoulder and she jumped a foot, the movement sliding her
glasses down her nose.

He smothered a smile.
At least he wasn’t the only jumpy one.

“What is this?” he asked, waving a hand as she adjusted her
glasses.
“The music?”

“Oh.
The Fugees.
Lauryn Hill’s amazing.”

He didn’t argue with her assessment but he did link his
fingers around one wrist weighed down with a chunky gold bracelet.
“We’re
alone?”

“Yes.” She gave him a small smile he couldn’t quite
decipher.
“No witnesses.”

Kelly’s mouth was soft and pink, an irresistible lure.
He
leaned down to nibble her lower lip, transfixed by the trepidation in her
expression.
Did he really affect her that much?
She never seemed nervous about
anything.
He knew he should back away but he sank in deeper instead.

He tugged on one of her ponytails and drew her closer.
Sliding his tongue between her lips, simulating what he wanted to do with his
cock, made his balls draw tight to his body.
Their tongues coiled in a sensual
glide and their bodies lined up perfectly, her breasts mashing against his
chest, the vee of her thighs cradling his growing erection.
She kissed him the
way he felt—as if she were drowning and his air fed the last breath she’d take.