Chapter 20

Mitch

 

I felt the pull of compassion and decency towards where Connie sat, huddled and sobbing. She was weeping like her heart was breaking. I went to her and put a stiff arm about her shoulder. I could feel the heave of her shoulders as the tears came upon her, and I could sense the heat of her flesh through the thin fabric of her sweater. Beneath the touch of my fingers was the raised ridge of her bra strap. I stared blankly at the wall, dealing with my own demons of desire for her, while she slowly pulled herself together, sniffing and shuddering.

When at last she seemed settled, breathing in little shakes and gasps, I stepped back into the middle of the room and diverted my gaze out through the window. It was such an intimate moment of anguish that I felt like an intruder.

“Is that why you transferred me?” Connie asked in a meek whisper. “Were you worried about my actions impacting on your career, Mitch? Were you trying to distance yourself from me in case someone found out, and the scandal reached you?”

I turned on my heel and fixed her with a cold stare. I felt the truth leap impulsively to my lips and I could not snare the words before they were spoken.

“I wanted to distance myself from you, not because of any scandal, Connie – but because I want you. I want you the way a man wants a woman… and I know that’s not possible while we work together. It was all I could do to keep myself away from you.”

Connie stared across the office at me in stunned silence, her gaze enigmatic, her expression solemn but changing now to something else as the tension-charged silence drew out.

Shock showed in her eyes and then dawning realization glowed on her smile. It seemed to draw her from the chair, and she came towards me with a dreamy kind of determination. Her face lifted to mine, her lips parting.

I tried to reel away but a storm-surge of physical arousal drove us together. It came from far away, like the gale of a wind. I could feel my whole body stirred by the velocity of it. The walls of my resolve tumbled, and with it went the last of my reason and will.

I took her mouth fiercely, despising myself for the inability to resist the temptation of her. I felt a kind of guilty infidelity, as though I was betraying the vows I had made to uphold my own honor.

Connie’s mouth matched the hunger of my own. I felt her arms dangle around my neck and she lifted herself on the tips of her toes, her breath on my lips, the subtle scent of her filling my senses. I probed her mouth with the flick of my tongue and she went limp in my arms, our bodies pressed hard together, the arousal intense enough to strike sparks.

When at last I broke away from her she swayed towards the empty space where I had stood. I seized one of her wrists. Her lips were puffy and swollen.

She placed her other hand flat against my chest.

“Mitch –” but she said no more. Instead she gazed up at me silently and the dazzling blue of her eyes seemed to darken to the color of the unfathomable depths. Along the line of her jaw I saw the soft throb of her pulse. She opened her mouth to continue. Her lips were inflamed and she dabbed at them with the tip of her tongue to moisten them.

“No more,” I said. My voice sounded strange and husky in my own ears. “This is not what I had intended, and it’s not the reason I bid for you, Connie.”

 

 

 

Connie

 

My body felt like it was on fire. Every inch of my flesh tingled with desire.

I wasn’t going to accept ‘no’.

Not now… not when I was this close to Mitch and my lips still sizzled with the fire of his kiss.

He had been such a surprise. I had never truly appreciated the height nor the strength of him. His hands on my body had been firm, controlled, and in the brief moment we had embraced he had awakened within me an intense physical hunger. I could still taste him, and a shudder ran through me.

I pulled myself back within the circle of his arms, and his hands came around me in reflexive response. I crushed my cheek against the muscles of his chest, inhaling the masculinity of him.

My fingers were around his back, splayed and clutching at him through the fabric of his suit. Between us I felt the instinctive hardness of him as his body responded treacherously despite his reluctance.

“I can’t accept the money, Mitch,” I said, and then leaned away with my upper body to scrutinize his eyes. The movement drove my hips against the swell of his cock and the thrust of him maddened me.

“I want you to have it,” he said.

I lowered my voice to a manipulative whisper. “Let me repay you in the way I should,” I dangled the temptation and let the offer hang in the fragile silence. “You bought my virginity, and unless I give it to you, I’ll never be able to accept the money in good conscience.”

“You don’t need to –”

I cut him off. “I do need to. For my sake,” I said with feeling. “It’s the only way I can scrub my conscience clean and move on from everything I endured in that nightclub.”

Mitch said nothing. I heard the tortured shudder of his breath as he exhaled. I sensed the last shreds of his resolve were unraveling and I swayed my hips gently so that my lower body brushed harder against the throb of his erection.

“And if we can complete the transaction,” I chose my words carefully, wrapping my sinful hunger for him in harmless language, “then afterwards, when I have paid my debt, I will tell you why I chose to auction myself, and what I plan on doing with the money.”

Mitch looked pained. His voice was hoarse with disbelief. “You’re trying to blackmail me?”

“No,” I pressed my cheek against his chest again, feeling the tripping frantic beat of his heart. “I’m trying to entice you.”

Mitch threw his face to the ceiling; his eyes screwed shut, his fists clenched, and his whole body drawn tight with his silent struggle. Then he reached into the pocket of his trousers and unhooked a key from a bunch he had been carrying.

“Here,” his face had changed, no longer drawn or creased by torment. The color had faded, and now, once again, he was composed, his mouth hard, his intelligent knowing eyes resolved. “This is a key to my house. I’ll message you the address. I want you to be there tomorrow night at seven.”

I took the key, but Mitch wasn’t finished. He pulled me back against him and kissed me again, drawing all the strength from my bones and leaving me weak and breathless.

“What clothes did you wear when you displayed yourself at the nightclub? I want you to wear the same thing.”

“A schoolgirl uniform,” I admitted. “Like Britney Spears in that old music video she made.”

“You like her songs?” he sounded astonished.

I shook my head. “No…” I flirted and smiled with secret significance. “But every girl has a fantasy…”