Chapter Four
FOR THE PAST two years Simon had surreptitiously ogled his assistant, but he’d had no idea that she might wear lingerie beneath those tight skirts and buttoned-up cardigans of hers even though he had seen lace peek out between those buttons. Friday night he’d seen that lace when he’d undone a few of those buttons and discovered that sexy bustier. He wanted to undo all the buttons tonight, and he wanted to unzip that skirt and peel it off her luscious ass.
He wanted Bette Monroe.
His hand shaking a little, he set his wineglass back on the table. He hadn’t had much to drink but he made a point to never overindulge. At least not on alcohol...
He wanted nothing affecting his mind or his control. But Bette, sitting close to him, was affecting the hell out of him. What was wrong with him? When he was focused on something—like he was now on finding the office mole—he was never distracted from his task.
But she distracted him. He watched her lips part as she forked in a bite of steamed broccoli, and he wished her lips were parting for his tongue. While Bruno’s food was as incredible as it always was, Simon wanted to taste her more than the meal.
And not just her lips or her mouth.
“What?” she asked as she lifted her hand to her face. “Do I have broccoli in my teeth?”
He shook his head.
“Why are you staring at me?” she asked.
She really didn’t seem to know. He wasn’t used to that, not when he usually dated models and actresses whose egos rivaled his.
“Are you completely unaware of how beautiful you are?” he asked.
Her lips curved into a smile but it was a little mocking and she murmured, “For the past two years, you were completely unaware of me.”
He grinned. “That’s what you thought?”
“It’s what I know,” she said. “I might as well have been a copy machine for all the attention you paid me the past two years.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her face. Was that why she’d done it, why she’d given information to the opposition? Because she’d been resentful that he had never seemed to notice her?
“Did you want my attention?” he asked.
Her gaze slipped away from his, and her teeth nipped into her bottom lip. Maybe she was too embarrassed to admit that she’d wanted him to notice her, so he assured her, “You had my attention.”
Her teeth still nibbling on that full, sexy lower lip, she shook her head. “I find that very hard to believe.”
His seduction wouldn’t work if she didn’t believe that he found her attractive. So he leaned closer, pressing his thigh against hers, and he murmured, “I have spent countless hours admiring your ass...ets.”
Her lips curved into a smile. “If only that were true.” She gave a wistful sigh then.
“You really did want me to notice you?” he asked as a warning bell began to sound inside his head. She was acting very differently than she had Friday night when she’d left her resignation on his desk.
Her brown eyes widened behind the lenses of her glasses, and her lashes fluttered. “Yes...” Then she leaned against him, and her fingertips skimmed over his thigh.
His body tensed, with her touch and with the thought that just dawned on him. Maybe he wasn’t the only one turning on the charm. He had a feeling he was definitely getting played.
For what? More case file secrets?
But he was curious as to how far she would carry her charade. So he covered her hand with his and guided her fingers to stroke up and down his thigh.
She glanced sideways at him, and her lips curved into a smile while her already-dark eyes darkened more with desire. Or was that wishful thinking on his part? Then she moved her hand farther up his leg, toward his groin.
And he sucked in a sharp breath. “Bette...”
She tugged her hand from beneath his and brought it back to the stem of her wineglass. Then she stroked her fingers up and down it, like he wanted them stroking up and down his cock. Mischief sparkled in her dark eyes; she was completely aware of what he wanted, what he needed.
The need startled him. Sure, he’d felt desire before. Often. As a teen runaway, he’d wanted so much stuff—stuff he hadn’t had. Like a safe place to sleep, food, clothes.
He’d wanted those things so badly that he’d used some questionable methods to get them. But he’d succeeded then, just as he would now. He would succeed in getting the truth out of Bette.
The truth wasn’t all he wanted from her. He wanted release from the tension gripping his body. He was so damn tense that when she leaned against him, he jumped a little, making his chair squeak and nearly tip.
Her smile widened. And he knew for certain he was being played. While he hadn’t been as unaware of her as she’d thought these past two years, he’d had no idea what she was really like—or who she really was.
But he intended to find out. He had to regain control in order to do that, though—over himself and over her. So he reached around her and poured some more wine in her glass.
She giggled and asked, “Are you trying to get me drunk to have your way with me?”
“Would it work?” he wondered aloud.
“I’m a lightweight,” she said. “Just a few more sips and I’ll either be stripping off my clothes or passing out.” She brought the rim to her lips and tipped up the glass for a long, deep sip.
“If I have a vote in this, I’d prefer the stripping,” he teased.
She arched a dark brow above the top frame of her glasses and murmured, “I’m sure you would.”
Was she mocking him? The arched-brow gesture was one he’d been doing since he was a kid. While he wasn’t as aware of her as he obviously should have been the past two years, she seemed to have been aware of him.
“Do you play cards?” he asked.
“Why are you asking?”
“I was thinking we could play a hand or two of poker—strip poker.” He was really good at cards but most especially at poker.
She giggled again. “We’re supposed to be working,” she reminded him. “Not playing. You said this was a working dinner, something about taking notes.”
He chuckled now. “Oh, I’m taking notes.”
But he hadn’t learned much about her yet.
“I’m supposed to be taking notes,” she said.
He touched the stem of her glass as she took another sip. “You’re too drunk.” Was she? He wanted her, but he didn’t want to take advantage of her.
“Nope,” she said. “I’m just drunk enough.” And she rose from the chair.
Maybe she meant that she was sober enough, to know to leave before he seduced her, like he’d intended. Disappointment gripped him. He wouldn’t try too hard to persuade her to stay, not if she’d truly had too much to drink.
He narrowed his eyes. “Just drunk enough for what?”
She pulled her glasses off her nose and dropped them onto the table next to her barely touched meal. Bruno would be so disappointed that they hadn’t eaten much.
But Simon wasn’t hungry for food. And despite her stomach growling earlier, Bette hadn’t eaten very much. That was probably why the wine had hit her so hard—hard enough—that she reached up and tugged the pins from her hair. The sable-brown tresses tumbled down, falling in thick waves nearly to her waist.
He groaned. She was so damn sexy.
Then she reached for the buttons on her cardigan. She flicked open the first one and the second one. And Simon jumped to his feet and stepped close to her. Like he had when she’d touched his leg, he covered her hand with his. But now he stopped her fingers from moving.
“You’re not drunk enough,” he corrected her. “You’re too drunk.”
She tilted her head and stared up at him as if surprised. “You really want me to stop?”
“Hell, no,” he admitted. “I want you to undo every one of those damn buttons. I want you to unzip your skirt and take off your clothes, so I can see what the hell you’re wearing underneath them.” Because it was driving him crazy imagining her in lace and nothing else.
She stepped back and pulled her hand free of his. Then she continued undoing her buttons until the cardigan parted and slid down her arms. She wore a lace camisole that was so thin he could see the bra beneath it.
“Bette,” he murmured, but he couldn’t summon the protest he knew he should be making.
She touched her hip, pulling down the tab of the zipper until her wool skirt dropped to her feet.
His breath escaped in a gasp.
Her underwear was lace, too—black like the camisole and the bra beneath it. Then she tugged the camisole up and over her head until it fell to the floor atop the skirt.
“Damn,” he cursed her. She tested his control in a way it had never been tested before. He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out the image of her standing before him in that sexy black underwear. Her breasts nearly overflowed the cups of that black bra, and those cups were held together with only a bow.
He had to know. So he opened his eyes again, and he spun her around. Just as he’d suspected, there was a bow at the top of her luscious ass holding together the lace panel at the front of her panties to the tiny panel in the back.
And the control he’d fought so hard to regain snapped completely. He’d intended to seduce her, but she was the one seducing him. “Bette, what the hell are you doing?”
* * *
Bette couldn’t answer his question because she had no idea what the hell she was doing, either. Despite what she’d said, that she was just drunk enough, she would be able to remember with perfect clarity what she’d just done, how she’d just undressed for him...
And worse yet, he wasn’t drunk at all, so he would remember, as well. He stepped closer to her, and his hands gripped her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked again, his voice gruff while his eyes were completely black. The pupils had swallowed his blue irises whole.
“I’m a horrible poker player,” she said. “So I just saved myself the trouble.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to play.”
She was playing a very dangerous game. She wanted Simon Kramer to think she was in love with him, so that he’d cut short her two-week notice. She didn’t want to actually fall for him.
Of course she was in no danger of that. She knew him far better than he knew her. No woman ever held his interest for very long. Since he hadn’t even noticed her the past two years, she was surprised she had his interest right now.
Maybe that was because of the underwear...
He stared at the bow between the cups of her bra. And she smiled as pride surged through her. The pride was in the design, though. And maybe in the fact that she knew she had his attention now.
His full attention.
“I never said I didn’t want to play,” she reminded him. “I just thought we were supposed to be working.”
“It’s working,” he said, his hands sliding from her shoulders down her bare arms. “Whatever game you’re playing is working.”
She widened her eyes and feigned innocence. “What game? I told you I’m no good at poker.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her face. “Oh, I think you’re a damn good poker player, Bette Monroe.”
She reached for his tie and tugged the knot loose. “Then you better take off your clothes, too...” She moved her fingers to the buttons on his shirt, undoing them like she’d undone her cardigan. “Since you’re losing.”
“I am losing,” Simon said, his chest rising and falling with his erratic breathing. “You’ve completely taken control.”
She smiled again at the frustration and desire she heard in his voice. Her fingers skimmed down his washboard abs to the buckle of his belt.
“No,” he said, and his hand caught hers. “You don’t understand.”
“What?” she asked. “What don’t I understand?”
“I don’t lose control,” he told her.
She smiled but assured him, “You haven’t.” He hadn’t even touched her. Maybe the underwear wasn’t as sexy as she’d thought it was, as it made her feel.
“If you’re just playing some game with me, you better stop,” he told her. “Because I really—genuinely—want you.” For two years she’d wondered what it would feel like to have him look at her the way she looked at him, with appreciation and attraction. He was so damn handsome that he was actually beautiful. Beautifully masculine. Muscles rippled beneath her touch as she tugged her hands from his and skimmed her palms up his chest to push his shirt and suitcoat from his broad shoulders. Muscles rippled in his arms, too, when he shrugged it off.
For two years she’d dreamed about him turning his attention to her, about him seducing her as he’d seduced so many other women into losing their minds and hearts to him. She knew he didn’t want either her mind or her heart, though. So they would be quite safe from him. He wanted only her body. And she wanted his.
She had been so busy lately that she hadn’t had any time to date. It had been a while for her since she’d had sex with anything not battery-operated. And it had never been Simon. She wanted to experience his notorious sexual prowess while she had the opportunity. And she didn’t have to worry about losing her job afterward. She actually hoped that she did.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she assured him.
“Good,” he said. That control he’d sounded so worried about must have snapped because he dragged her against his hard, tense body and lowered his mouth to hers.
He kissed her as if he was starving, nibbling and nipping at her lips. She gasped as his teeth tugged on her lower lip. Then his tongue slid inside her mouth, mating with hers.
Her pulse pounded while heat rushed through her body. She didn’t feel the least bit of chill, standing in his loftlike office in only her thin lace lingerie, especially as his hands began to move over her body. His touch spread fire through her.
Tension wound tightly inside her core. She needed the release that she instinctively knew he could give her. But he seemed to be in no hurry to do anything but kiss her.
And a kiss had never turned her on as much. He stroked his tongue in and out of her mouth like she wanted his cock sliding in and out of her body. She moaned.
And he groaned in response. “You taste so damn good...” he murmured against her lips.
“It’s the wine...”
“It’s you...” Finally, he lifted his head from hers. But he stepped back.
She thought maybe he’d changed his mind; maybe he didn’t really want her. But his chest rose and fell with pants for breath, and she understood that he was just fighting again, fighting hard to regain control of himself.
She wanted him out of control. So she lifted her fingers to the bow between her breasts.
But he caught her hand and pulled it away. Then he shook his head. “No...”
She stared up at him through her lashes and asked, “You don’t want me?”
He groaned again. “I want you too damn much.” And he didn’t sound happy about it. “So let me do this...” He tugged on the bow until it slipped free of its knot, and the cups of the bra parted, falling away from her breasts. The bra dropped to the hardwood floor atop her clothes.
He cursed. And his skin flushed like hers, with passion. “Damn, Bette...”
She wasn’t cold, so that wasn’t why her nipples tightened. It was desire. For him.
He touched her. His fingers sliding from where he’d untied the bow between her breasts up to her collarbone and her neck. He found her pulse and traced his fingertip over it. It leaped like her desire for him.
And he must have known it. He smiled, just slightly, as if it was all he could manage with his lips parted as he panted for breath. His chest—his glorious naked chest—rose and fell, muscles rippling.
She had to touch, too. So she slid her hands over his skin. Soft, golden hair tickled her palms. How could he look like an angel but be such a devil—in business and pleasure?
She didn’t care, though. She wouldn’t be working for him much longer. And she was never really going to fall for him. But she had to convince him that she might. So she said, “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
His eyes narrowed slightly as if he doubted her. But then he must have remembered how handsome he was because he nodded in acceptance.
And she smiled.
“You’re not drunk enough,” he murmured. But he didn’t reach for the wine to pour her any more. Instead he reached for her. “You’re too in control,” he said, as if it was a complaint.
Then he proceeded to drive her out of her mind with his touch. His hands moved over her breasts, gently kneading and stroking while his palms brushed over and over her already tight nipples.
She moaned and leaned toward him, needing more.
He gave more. His hands moved down to her hips, and he tugged at the bows holding her panties in place. They fell onto her bra and clothes. Bette might have fallen, too, as her knees began to shake, but he lifted her into his arms. Her breasts rubbed against his naked chest as he carried her across the office to his couch.
The leather was cold against her back and butt and thighs, but it did nothing to cool the heat of her passion-flushed skin. She locked her arms around his neck, trying to pull him down with her. But he held back and knelt beside the couch. Then he feasted on her body as if she were a banquet Bruno had laid out for his pleasure.
But the pleasure was all hers.
He kissed her lips—just briefly, nibbling gently at them. Then her chin before he moved his mouth to her breasts. As he kissed them, his hands moved lower, over the curve of her hip and down the length of her thighs.
She shivered as sensations raced through her.
He pulled back. “Are you cold?”
Too choked with desire to speak, she shook her head.
He smiled now. He was back in control. Not just of himself but of her. And he knew it.
Before she could protest, though, he moved his mouth back to her breast and closed his lips over a nipple. As he tugged at it, she felt heat and moisture rush straight to her core. Then his hand was there, his fingers moving inside her. She arched against his hand, and he rubbed his palm against her mound.
“Simon...” His name slipped out on a gasp of pleasure.
“Bette,” he murmured. “You’re so damn hot!” And whatever control he’d regained snapped. “I have to taste you.” And his mouth replaced his hand between her legs. He dipped his tongue inside her, teasing her and building the tension. Then he withdrew it and flicked it over her clit.
She rose up and cried out as an orgasm shot through her.
He groaned. “You are so damn responsive...” But he stood up and moved away from her.
She reached out in protest. The orgasm had been good, better than she achieved on her own. But she knew there was more. She held out her arms to him.
But he stepped back and stared down at her. And disappointment filled her that he might stop. He unclasped his belt and pushed down his pants and briefs. He was so damn beautiful—his dick so long and hard as it jutted from a bed of curls even more golden than the hair on his head.
Somehow, as if he was a magician, a condom appeared in his hand. He tore the packet and rolled it over his cock. Then he joined her on the couch, connecting their bodies.
He stretched, then filled her. Bette arched and adjusted, making room for his impressive length and girth. She was so hot and wet that it was easy. And it felt right, like he fitted perfectly inside her.
He lifted her legs so that he sank even deeper and began to thrust in and out. Bette came again—that quickly—just from his movements. He was that damn good...
But then he got better. He leaned down and arched his back until his mouth could close over the point of one of her breasts. He sucked on the nipple as he moved.
Tension spiraled inside her again, and Bette arched and shifted, seeking to release it. She bucked beneath him, losing all control. They moved in a frenzy, like they were convulsing and then she did—as the orgasm slammed through her. Her muscles quivered and sensations gripped her. She had never felt anything as intense for as long. She just kept coming, the pleasure overwhelming in intensity and duration. She screamed his name.
Then he tensed and cried out as he found his release. Panting for breath, he leaned his forehead against hers. Staring into her eyes, he asked, “What the hell was that?”
She had no idea, either, beyond the most passionate sexual experience she’d ever had. And because it was, she was too stunned to remember her act. She said nothing as he slipped away from her, into the bathroom off his office. But she moved, dressing more quickly than they’d had sex.
She didn’t care if he wanted her to stay any longer. She had to get away. She had to regroup. So she left his office and stopped in hers only long enough to grab her phone and purse. Then she ran for the elevator, jabbing her finger against the button.
While she waited for the car to arrive, she heard him call her name. But before he found her, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. She jumped inside and jabbed at the button to close the doors. When they finally closed, she leaned against the wall and began to shake.
What the hell had she done?