Chapter Seven
WHO THE HELL was Bette Monroe? The shy woman with the glasses and her hair in a bun? Or the sexy siren in naughty lingerie?
He studied her across the small space between their seats in the back of the town car. She was wearing the glasses again, and her hair was all bound up. He suspected that was just a disguise—an act, like her worry that she was going to fall for him.
Just a few nights ago she had laughed when he’d asked if she loved him. So what had changed since then?
They’d had sex a couple of times. He was good. But he wasn’t that good, not good enough to make her fall for him just because he’d given her some pleasure. While other women had professed as much, Bette was different. Those women had already been half in love with him because of who he was and what he had: a hell of a reputation and bank account.
Bette had never seemed very impressed with either. But then she claimed money didn’t matter to her. That even if he gave her a raise, she wouldn’t stay working for Street Legal. He knew why now that he’d gotten a look at her checkbook. She’d made some recent deposits. Some pretty damn good ones.
She had to be the mole.
A pressure settled heavily on his chest with disappointment—which was weird. He should be relieved that he’d found the mole. Now he would be able to stop any more information leaks. He would be able to stop her.
All he had to do was fire her and block her access to Street Legal. Delete her passwords, change the locks.
She wouldn’t be able to sell any more of their information. But somehow it didn’t feel right. Maybe she’d received that money another way.
An inheritance...
“What?” she asked as she lifted her hand to her mouth like she had the night before. “Do I have something on my teeth? Lipstick smeared?”
“Not yet,” he said. But he wanted to smear it. Hell, he wanted it smeared on his cock as she sucked him off.
Her lips curved slightly. “Then what is it?” she asked. “Why are you staring at me?”
She really had no idea how beautiful she was. “I’m trying to figure you out,” he admitted.
She tilted her head and studied him as intently as he’d been studying her. “You wonder how I could fall for you when I laughed the other night when you asked if I was in love with you?”
He laughed now. “That’s the least of my questions about you, Bette.”
She sighed. “Are you still wondering why I’m quitting?”
“Wondering...” He laughed again. “That’s putting it a little mildly.” He was more than curious. He was desperate to know her reason.
“I don’t know why you care,” she said.
“I want to know what your better offer is,” he said. “To see if I can match it.”
“I already told you it’s not about money.”
“Why?” he asked. “Do you have family money? A trust fund or inheritance you just got access to?”
She laughed. “My father is the minister of a very small church in a very small town in Michigan. If he and my mom didn’t have housing provided by the parish, they wouldn’t be able to afford groceries.”
“Your mom doesn’t work?” he asked.
She shook her head, and her lips curled slightly with disgust. “Being his wife is her full-time job.”
So those deposits in her bank account hadn’t come from her parents. Bette Monroe was no trust fund baby. Where the hell had she gotten that money?
He could think of one place. Their opposition in court.
“She’s a loyal wife,” he murmured. As far as he knew, his parents hadn’t been married. He didn’t even remember his mother. According to his father, she’d abandoned them. But that didn’t mean it was true. His father hadn’t had any idea how to be honest. It had always been easier for him to lie than tell the truth. “That’s commendable.”
Bette sighed. “It’s sad.”
“So you’re not looking to get married anytime soon?”
She opened her mouth. And he expected an adamant no to come out of her lips. But then it was as if she caught herself and forced out a wistful sigh instead. “I would have said no,” she admitted, “a few days ago...”
“What’s changed?” he asked.
“You.” She slid forward and dropped to her knees on the floor between their seats, and she was between his legs. “You’ve changed. You notice me now.”
“You’re kind of hard to miss,” he murmured. And he wondered again what the hell she was up to...even as he was up again, his dick hardening and pushing against the fly of his pants.
Even though he couldn’t trust her, he wanted her. But then he couldn’t trust anyone. So it didn’t matter much. He just knew that he would never be able to trust her.
* * *
Bette glanced at the dark glass separating the front seat from the back seats. There was no way the driver could see back there. Was there?
Did she care?
As a preacher’s daughter, she should. But hell, Daddy had consigned her to hell long ago when she’d professed her love of fashion over bible studies. And she didn’t consider pleasure the sin that Daddy did.
She’d never felt as much pleasure as she had with Simon Kramer. And she knew it was going to end soon like all of his liaisons did. She was unsettling him with her actions and her words. While he was off balance, Bette wanted to push him over the edge, to the madness that he’d driven her to just a short time ago on her couch.
So she stayed on her knees between his legs, and she reached for the zipper on his pants. His breath hissed out with the sound of the metal sliding down as she lowered his zipper. She pushed aside the fine cotton material of his briefs and freed his penis. It pulsated and vibrated in her touch, veins bulging on it like the veins bulging on his neck as he arched his head back.
“Bette...” Her name was just a groan on his lips. “What are you doing?”
She peeked up at him through her lashes. “You don’t know? And here I thought you were the experienced one.”
He narrowed his eyes and stared down at her. “You’re really a preacher’s daughter?” he asked, and there was skepticism in his deep voice.
“I’m the black sheep,” she admitted. “The one who left for the big city and a life of sex and drugs.” Even though it was what her family believed, she laughed like it was all a joke. “Since I’m not into drugs, I guess I will have to settle for the sex.”
“You should never settle,” he told her.
She felt the same way, that her mom and sister had settled for security. But in that security, they were insecure because they had no idea who they were anymore. Because they had had to change so much for their partners.
If Bette ever really fell for anyone, he would have to love and respect her for who she was and not try to change her to fit into his life. Not that she wanted to fall for anyone.
So she didn’t risk settling for a person, she’d rather just settle for sex. But sex with Simon wasn’t a consolation prize. It was the grand prize.
Like most lottery winners who couldn’t make the money last, she knew the pleasure would eventually end, as well. So she had to make the most of it. The most of her time with him...
She lowered her mouth and closed it over the tip of his penis. It moved against her tongue, which she swirled around the girth of him.
He groaned and reached out, tangling his fingers in her hair. She’d have to redo the pins later because she felt some slip free. But she didn’t care.
She didn’t care about anything but driving him crazy.
He was too big for her to take all of him in her mouth. So she used her hands, too, sliding them up and down the length of him while she sucked on the head. Then she’d draw in a deep breath and take him as deep as she could manage in her throat.
Teasing him...
His hands moved from her hair to her shoulders and gripped them as if trying to pull her up from her knees. “Bette, you’re killing me...”
With his cock in her mouth, she looked up at him. Then she swirled her tongue around the tip.
And that control he seemed so reluctant to let go of must have snapped again. He arched his hips with the need to thrust. So she took him deeper in her throat.
Then she slid her mouth up and down him.
His hands gripped her shoulders as his body tensed, and a deep growl sounded as if it was torn from his throat. Then he came, hot and sweet on her tongue.
She licked him from her lips and smiled up at him.
He stared down at her, his eyes still dark with the dilated pupils swallowing the blue like she’d swallowed him. He shook his head.
“What?” she asked.
“How could I work so closely with you for two years and know nothing about you?”
“You didn’t ask,” she reminded him.
“Would it have mattered if I did? You’re not inclined to answer the other questions I ask you.” He tucked himself back into his briefs and pulled up his zipper and shook his head again as if he was unable to believe what had just happened.
And she was unable to believe that it hadn’t happened before. Women probably gave him blow jobs in back seats all the time. He was that damn gorgeous...
And irresistible.
She licked her lips again, loving the taste of him. Loving that she gave him that pleasure. And maybe that was what had taken him aback, that mousy Bette Monroe would do something like that. That was what kids had called her in school. She’d even been dubbed that in fashion college because she hadn’t had the piercings and tattoos, or worn the wild clothes her classmates had.
But what she designed wasn’t meant to be seen by everyone. Just the women who wore them and the men those women cared about enough to show.
She’d showed Simon more of her designs than she had other men. But it wasn’t because she cared about him. That wasn’t why.
“You remind me of the Mona Lisa,” he said.
She laughed. “What?”
“It’s obvious in that painting that she has some salacious secret,” he said. “And it’s obvious that you do, too.”
“I guess we share a salacious secret now,” she murmured as she stroked her finger across her bottom lip.
He groaned. “Damn it...”
“What?”
“You just made me hard again,” he admitted. “And I wouldn’t have thought that would be possible yet...”
Neither had she. But she was kind of glad that he was—because her pulse was pounding in her core, demanding release from the tension pleasing him had given her. She wanted to feel what he had, wanted the pleasure they gave each other.
And now he was the one sliding off his seat onto his knees on the floor between them. But even on his knees, he was taller than she was sitting. So he had to lean down to kiss her. His mouth sliding back and forth across hers. He groaned, probably because he could taste himself on her lips.
She touched him, moving her hand from his chest to his groin. And sure enough his cock was pressing against his fly again—long and hard and hot. She smiled against his lips.
“Siren,” he murmured.
She lifted her head and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”
His mouth curved into a slight grin. “You,” he said. “You’re the siren.”
“The mermaid who lures sailors to their deaths?” she asked. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
He laughed. “Oh, it’s not a good thing,” he agreed. “At least not for me.” His fingers shook a little as he moved them to the buttons of her cardigan. “Ever since you walked out of your bedroom all dressed up like this, I’ve been dying to know what you’re wearing underneath.”
But he took his time with each button, undoing them slowly as if he was building up the anticipation. That was probably how he unwrapped presents, as well—slowly to savor them.
But as a runaway growing up on the streets, had he had presents? How had he survived let alone thrived like he had?
She didn’t know him as well as she’d thought she had. There was much more to him than his charm and his ruthlessness—because now she understood why he had both.
For survival...
She wasn’t sure she would survive his slow, sweet torture of her. At last, he parted her sweater and pushed it from her shoulders. Then his breath hissed out between his teeth.
“Damn, Bette...”
She’d put on another bustier instead of a camisole. This one was leather, with cups, and of course her signature bow. It was tied at the bottom of the leather strap that bound the bustier together.
“Where the hell do you find this stuff?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anything as sexy.”
Pride suffused her. She could have told him he’d never seen it before because she’d designed it. But he would be seeing it soon since she would have her own line at the fashion house for the premier retailer of lingerie in the country.
He was already so surprised that she wore lingerie that she didn’t know if she was flattered or offended. If he laughed, like so many other people had, when she said she designed it, she would definitely be offended. So offended that it would be impossible to work out the rest of her notice for him.
Unless she could get him to cut that notice short...
But then he untied that bustier and released her breasts so he could play with them, and she wasn’t so certain she wanted to cut that notice short anymore. Because that would mean cutting short the pleasure he gave her...
And he gave her pleasure now.
While he suckled on one of her nipples, he moved his hand beneath her skirt. He pushed aside her panties and slid his fingers inside her. She was already wet and ready for him. When he moved his thumb over her clit, she came, crying out his name.
And he cursed.
Blinking away the desire, she stared up at him.
“We’re at the office,” he told her, his voice gruff with desire and disappointment. “We’ll have to finish this later.”
Her hands were shaking so badly that he had to bind her back into the bustier and button her sweater back up. But he did it, even as a muscle twitched in his cheek—just above his tightly clenched jaw.
“Definitely a siren,” he murmured.
She wasn’t one. But she heard one, a warning that she was getting in too deep with him. So she was almost honest when she said, “I really think I could care for you.”
But she wouldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t let herself fall for anyone, least of all someone as ruthless and charming as Simon Kramer.