Yours for the Night (5 page)

She glanced at her watch. “Are you ready? The limo will be downstairs in a couple of minutes.”

Stepping out of the bathroom, Jewel caught Marianna’s wrist. “Take that off.”

“My watch?”

“Clients don’t like to know you’ve got an eye on the clock.”

Brock Ransom had hired her for the party. She could do anything she wanted. Or nothing. She could have fun or she could choose to castigate herself. She undid the band, tossed her watch on the bed, and followed Jewel out the door.

Dammit, she was going to enjoy herself at a big gala with delicious food, the best wines, and scintillating conversation. She’d worry about what might happen later in the evening . . . later.

CHASE TOOK KRISTA OUT TO DINNER. HE HADN’T GONE SHOPPING. Besides, he didn’t have enough cookware in the apartment. If he’d even known how to cook decently. After Rosie died, he’d sold the house and gotten rid of all the furniture. She was imprinted all over it, and he couldn’t live with the reminders. He now had a small, utilitarian apartment—basic two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and one long room that passed for living and dining—with 30

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naked walls and cheap, bare-minimum furnishings. Krista had never said a word about it, but he realized it worried her, his lack of interest in anything, not even the creature comforts of a home.

The restaurant he’d chosen was a homey Italian place with cheesy red checkerboard tablecloths, noisy families, and the scent of tomato paste and garlic permeating the air.

“You look tired.” Krista leaned in to be heard over the buzz of voices and a burst of laughter from the next booth.

“I’m fine, sweetie.” Which was what he’d said to Harve, minus the sweetie. At least Krista had waited until dessert to say something. She had tiramisu, he a coffee, and the waiter had left the check by his elbow.

“You always say you’re fine, Dad.”

“That’s because I am.”

Her brow creased. Krista had her mother’s curly dark hair and brown eyes, and his square jaw. She wasn’t a traditional beauty, but she shone like a star in a dark night. Her college boyfriend Andrew didn’t know what a gem he had, and sometimes Chase wanted to knock the kid upside the head. Then again, he wished Krista had more self-esteem than to allow herself to be disre spected. But kids, they didn’t listen. Any more than he listened to Krista when she ragged on him about getting out more.

“It’s not like I’m saying you should date. But you should do something to get out of the house.”

“We’re out tonight.” He smiled.

She wasn’t buying it and lowered her voice. “I miss her, too, Daddy.” She called him Daddy when she was trying to wheedle her allowance out of him early, or when she was worried about him.

“I don’t know any women I want to date,” he said, still trying to avoid the subject.

“It doesn’t need to be a date. You always liked the symphony. You could ask that couple you and Mom used to go with. I’m sure they’d love it.”

It was years ago, before Rosie’s depression. “I’m pretty sure they’re divorced now, and I believe she’s moved away.” Not that he had the woman’s number. Krista slapped lightly at his hand. “You’re not a good liar, Dad. You don’t have any idea what she’s doing now.”

He did know they’d divorced, but only because Dick, the husband, had come 31

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to Rosie’s funeral. Krista probably didn’t remember. Chase remembered everything, especially the way Dick had avoided his eyes, the way everybody had avoided him. He felt the long, slow spiral grabbing at him, sucking him down. Not now, not in front of Krista.

He turned the stem of his water goblet on the table. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but I have a date next week.”

Krista gave an unladylike snort. “No way.”

“It’s true. Harve set it up for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh God, Dad, we’re doomed. Harve set you up on a blind date?”

“Harve’s got good taste.”

“He’s a T and A man,” she scoffed.

He glanced around to make sure no one had heard. “I can’t believe you just said that to your own father.”

Her eyes crinkled in a smile, before she turned serious again. “Do you really have a date?”

“Yes, I do.” He forced himself to smile. “But Harve bullied me into it.” And he sure wasn’t telling Krista that it was a date with a hooker. He just wanted to make his little girl happy, to show her he was trying to move on so she didn’t worry so much. She was the most important thing in his life. The only thing that meant anything.

“Do you know her name?”

Damn. Busted. He smiled wryly. “I admit I’ve forgotten it.”

Actually he’d been hoping Harve would forget the whole thing. Now Chase would have to do it. Krista would ask. And be disappointed if he said he hadn’t gone through with the date.

BROCK RANSOM WAS BALD AND WORE GLASSES, BUT HE HAD THE

sweetest smile and told the funniest stories.

“So she asked me what that hundred-thousand-dollar payment to the former CEO was for.” He wasn’t handsome. He was your average Joe, and his nose might have been broken once, yet he held his audience of seven, their attention rapt.

Even Marianna, who’d been an executive assistant for two years—career change number three—was dying for the punch line. Jewel had long since 32

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disappeared and Marianna didn’t even care that she was on her own with her

“date.” Jewel was right: it wasn’t the looks, it was the man. And Brock’s personality more than made up for his lack of Mr. America features.

“I looked her straight in the eye”—Brock gave a dramatic pause—“and said it was a golden shower.”

Marianna’s lips twitched. Brock squeezed her hand.

“She didn’t even crack a smile, just said that must have been some golden shower.” He guffawed, a sound straight from his gut that had heads turning in their direction. The man’s laughter was infectious rather than obnoxious. “It took almost five seconds for me to realize what I’d said. Then I had to retract and say I meant a golden parachute, not a golden shower.”

The man next to Brock snorted out a laugh. “Didn’t you ask her how she knew what a golden shower was?”

Brock smiled, and really, it was the nicest smile. “I thought it best not to embarrass myself further since it was my first week as CFO, and she was the new audit manager.” He raised Marianna’s hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles lightly, and smiled. “If you only knew the number of times I’d stuck my foot in my mouth . . . You just have to learn to laugh at yourself.”

Marianna had never been good at laughing at herself and was always mortified if she made a mistake. She figured, though, that with a boss like Brock Ransom, she just might be able to get over it. He made her laugh too much.

“Your drink is empty, dear. Let’s get a refill.” Pulling her from the crowd they’d become part of, he moved on. He called her “dear” as if she were his daughter, but his gaze assessed and recorded. The man was sharp. He’d guessed she was a little nervous and told her he was proud she’d accepted his invitation. He complimented her and introduced her as if she were someone important. She became someone important because of him. All the while, he touched her, a brush of his fingers at her throat, down her arm, her back. Never out of bounds, just always there. And every time he made her laugh, Marianna got wet.

She didn’t know why.

That was a lie. She knew exactly why. It was his fantasy. The one in his profile. This CFO of a Fortune 500 company wanted to skirt the edge of risky, to get naughty at a party of his peers, where anyone could turn a corner and discover him.

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Perhaps he wanted to be discovered, to become the talk of the event. Brock loved a titillating sexual story. Now he wanted to create one of his own. As he grabbed a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, Marianna slipped closer and nipped his earlobe. Just a little bite. Brock froze. Had anyone seen?

Marianna hoped so. That’s what he wanted. It excited her to give it to him. She wanted to step out of her staid world and get naughty. If she was going to get paid for sex, she sure as hell wanted to enjoy it. Brock wasn’t the handsome man of her dreams, but he made her laugh. Looks only went so far, then there was charisma, and Brock had loads of it. Marianna wanted to give him his fantasy, a little naughty play, the titillation of risky business.

He handed her the champagne. “Tell me more about you.”

“I’m a librarian.”

He chuckled. “A naughty librarian.” His chuckles carried, but his voice was low. “Tell me the naughtiest thing my little librarian has ever done.”

Marianna didn’t think Brock would mind if she made up a story. Her skin flushed, images racing through her mind.

“We need to be somewhere a little more private for that.” She stepped back, pulling on his hand, leading him out to the balcony. The long terrace overlooking Van Ness was relatively unpopu lated, but the night being chilly, with fog rolling in off the bay, the management had lit the standing heaters. Taking him to one end, on the other side of a huge potted ficus, she pushed him back against the wall. Resting one hand at his belt, she tucked her fingers just inside his waistband.

The scent of sex surrounded him, and she knew if she touched him, she’d find him hard inside his pants.

“Tell me,” he whispered, his pupils dilating in the dim light. And she spun him a fantasy.

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5

“AT MY FIRST JOB OUT OF COLLEGE, MY HEAD LIBRARIAN WAS A VERY

commanding man, in his fifties, bald, wire-rimmed glasses.” Marianna dropped her voice, just a murmur in Brock’s ear. “He made my panties wet whenever he called me into his office.”

“I bet he called you into his office a lot.” Brock’s rising temperature heated the air around them.

“He did.” She pouted prettily. “No matter how hard I tried to be good, I always did something wrong.”

“Such a bad girl,” Brock played along.

He shifted, she shifted, until she was almost flush against him, just a hairsbreadth separating them. He smelled of spicy aftershave, and his hard cock caressed her low on her belly.

“One day, I was in the fourth-floor stacks finishing up after the closing bell, when I heard steps on the metal stairs.”

“Were you scared?”

“Yes, I was,” she said, wide-eyed. “I knew it was him, and I knew I’d done something wrong. I just didn’t know what.”

“I’m sure he was about to tell you.”

“He said”—she dropped her tone an octave—“‘You’ve been bad.’ And I said,

‘What can I do to make it up to you, sir?’ ”

“What did you want to do?” Brock’s mouth quirked with a knowing smile.

“Oh, I wanted to do a lot.” She winked.

“Right there in the stacks, you naughty girl.”

“Any of the other employees could have come up the stairs.” She rubbed his chest, pushed aside his tie and slid a finger into his shirt to touch bare skin.

“Anyone,” she whispered.

Brock closed the micron of distance between them, and that was definitely an I’m-happy-to-see-you bulge in his trousers.

“So then I said, ‘I’ll do anything, sir, just don’t fire me.’ ” She enjoyed her story, her nipples tight in her little black dress as she wished she’d had a head librarian of her own.

Brock slid his hand around her waist, his fingers resting on her hip. 35

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“If you take off your glasses, can you still see me?”

He laughed. She glanced to the rest of the terrace to see if anyone heard. No. The few couples braving the chill were busy talking.

“I can see you without them.”

“Take them off. We don’t want them steaming up at a critical moment.”

“Take them off for me.”

His arms came fully around her, holding her at the waist, molding her lower body to his erection. She put his glasses in his suit pocket. He had nice gray eyes without them. Then she spread the lapels of his jacket, enclosing herself in them.

“Cold?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Easier access,” she whispered. His pulse trembled at his throat. “So, where were we? Oh yes, you agreed to do anything the head librarian wanted so he wouldn’t fire you.”

“He told me to turn around and face the shelf. So I braced my hands on the metal. Then I felt his hand on my ass.” She shuddered dramatically. Brock slipped his hands down to cup her butt.

“Then he lifted my short little skirt.”

Brock bunched her dress in his hand and raised it.

“I wasn’t wearing any panties,” she said.

He tested the tops of her thigh-highs with his blunt fingertips, found the edge of her thong. Marianna swallowed. She was warm. She didn’t need the heaters, and instead relished the cool air on her backside.

“Then what did he do?” Brock urged, his gray eyes smoking.

“He leaned in close and told me to spread my legs, then he slipped a finger down to test how wet I was.”

Brock stroked the crease of her ass along her thong. “How wet were you?”

“Drenched,” she whispered, mesmerized by her story, by his touch, by the fact she was letting a virtual stranger stroke her. And she wanted more. “He turned me around.”