Cruising the Strip (13 page)

“Oh…” Harmony couldn’t think of another thing to say. She’d pored over Leona’s answers to every test, but tried to tell herself it was all about business, thoroughly knowing the person she was working with, even if all by e-mail.

“So I wrote you that story.”

“You
wrote
that?”

“Yes.” Leona smiled. “For you.”

Details of the story—she’d read it at least a dozen times—burst into her memory like fireworks. It had been exactly the kind of scene she’d always wanted. “None of your quizzes or tests hinted that you were a writer.”

“I write only for myself. And, well, for you.”

“I’m honored.” Harmony felt heat flare in her face.

“So,” Leona persisted. “Did you like it?”

“I loved it.” Harmony didn’t look down, but she was pretty sure her suit jacket didn’t hide the fact that her nipples had just gotten very hard.

Leona smiled, and her gaze once again swept over Harmony’s body. “Does your office door lock?”

Oh, fuck, Harmony thought. That’s how the story started. She nodded.

“Do whatever it is you do to tell people you’ve gone to lunch. Then lock the door.”

Her hand shaking, Harmony forwarded her calls to voice mail, then put the inter-office away message on her computer for anyone who was looking for her. “Off hook for thirty” meant she was not reachable, and the next person in charge should deal with whatever the problem was if it was urgent. She only went off hook once a month, perhaps, but never for such a heart-pounding reason.

She dimmed the office lights that were visible through the transom over the doorway. Then she locked the door.

“Come here.” Leona held out one hand.

Harmony knew without asking that she should straddle Leona’s lap. She had to pull her suit skirt all the way up to do it, revealing her thighs.

“That was number twenty-four—nobody knows you like wearing garters and hose,” Leona said. “They’re incredibly sexy.” She ran her hands along the inside of Harmony’s thighs. “Very lovely.”

Harmony settled on Leona’s lap and felt the bulge immediately. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before.

“I had it tucked,” Leona said, as if Harmony had spoken. “I put it on in that handy bathroom just down the hall. Look at me.”

Shivering, Harmony felt herself falling completely under Leona’s spell.

“You’re a bottom, and you’re suggestible. You said as much in your answers to that what’s-your-porn-star-identity test. I
know
I am pushing your buttons. Is it okay?”

Harmony nodded. She couldn’t have formed the word
no
to save her life at that moment. She didn’t know why she experienced sex this way, and she’d gotten hurt far too often, but sometimes it was glorious. Sometimes…maybe this time.

“Is it okay that we do this here? Are you going to get fired? I’m a top, but that doesn’t mean I get to be destructive in your personal life and expect you to accept it. Being a top, to me, is not about hurting you, it’s about protecting you.”

“You can’t tell anyone we did it here. Ever.” She’d never let a business contact get under her skin this way, and Leona was under her skin, deeper even than that. A stranger, but not. A friend, but not. She’d made mistakes in the past about whom she could trust. Las Vegas was full of users. “I don’t care if they know we fooled around, but not—”

“I’m not your ex. I won’t be reckless with your reputation. Why would I tell someone else how vulnerable you are, and risk them figuring out what it took me a year to put together? No way, not when I want to be more to you than the hot, quick fuck we’re about to have.”

“Oh. Oh, my.”

“That is, if you say yes.”

All those e-mails, a dozen a day, short jokes, long, intense presentations of her position on some fine point of the hospitality contract, articulate, but never mean. Harmony dealt with a lot of people who thought resolution was achieved by yelling and insults. Leona had always been respectful of Harmony’s position representing the hotel, even when they’d had tense exchanges about who was paying for the fresh flowers in the meeting rooms, or if the beverage allowance included mixed drinks or just wine. Discussions around money brought out the worst in people, but Leona had never crossed the line.

“Yes. Or no?”

Trying to take a deep enough breath to calm her nerves, Harmony asked, “If I say no, does that mean no forever?”

“Of course not.” Leona reached halfway to Harmony’s cheek, as if to caress her, then deliberately put her hands on the arms of the chair. “We’ll resume this talk later, if you want to wait. I just thought…if you liked the story, that…”

“Yes.” It came out as three syllables as Harmony failed to conquer the quaver in her voice. She hadn’t been down this road before.

Leona gazed into Harmony’s eyes for a long, long moment. “I promise that the way we are right now is not going to bleed over into who we have to be when the lights go on again, when you unlock the door.”

Harmony wondered how Leona had known she needed to hear that. “Yes,” she said more steadily.

Without a pause, Leona said, “Then take out my cock.”

Her breath started coming in little gasps all over again. Harmony managed the button, the zipper, then reached inside. Leona’s thighs were wet, lord she’s as excited as I am, Harmony thought. She freed the warm silicone and greedily rubbed the tip against her panties, brushing her clit.

Leona helped Harmony slide out of her suit jacket, folding it neatly before resting it carefully across her satchel. Harmony couldn’t stop herself from shifting and grinding in Leona’s lap.

“Do you have another pair of pants? I’m going to get yours all wet.”

“I have that covered. Don’t worry.” Leona unbuttoned Harmony’s standard-issue white business blouse, then smiled at the decidedly non-standard bra. “That’s as lovely a sight as those garters. The staff uniform makes you look very professional, but I like seeing you this way.”

Harmony shuddered as Leona trailed long fingers over the cups of her bra. She’d been expecting Leona’s arrival yesterday or today, and had told herself it was only coincidence that she’d picked out her favorite lingerie. Her heartbeat was pulsing across her skin, responding to the simple caresses.

“Beautiful,” Leona murmured. She unhooked the front clasp. “Show me.”

Harmony ran her hands up her tummy, hoping she was at least a little bit coquettish, as alluring and sensual as the woman in Leona’s story. She didn’t want to be a fantasy, though; this was too real to her. Gazing into Leona’s eyes, she eased her fingertips under the cups, slowly pulling them aside until it was Leona who looked down.

The sound Leona made when Harmony toyed with her nipples, then pinched them, showing how firmly she could be touched, that sound conquered what little trepidation Harmony had left.

“Thank you,” Leona whispered just before taking one red, aching tip into her mouth.

Harmony ground down on Leona’s lap, her fires at a full raging roar. “You have to…” She paused to find something like coherence. “You have to tell me to be quiet.”

Leona looked up, a question in her eyes.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll scream.” That would be bad, she wanted to add, but the deeply pleased gleam in Leona’s eyes took her breath away, again.

“Oh goodness, you are turning into the woman I’ve been searching for all my life.” Leona licked her lips. “Talk to me with your eyes. Tell me what you feel by the way you move on me. But no words, no cries, no moans.”

Harmony looked her need at Leona, saying it all.

“Lift up,” Leona said quietly, “and slide down on me. I want to hear you taking me inside you.”

Harmony couldn’t control how loudly her heart was beating, and she hoped that Leona understood that if she didn’t gasp for air, she would faint. Even so, she was quiet enough, the room still enough to hear the wet sound of Leona pulling her panties aside, then the soft whisper of Leona’s cock parting her folds, finding the place Harmony needed Leona to possess.

Leona thrust upward as if she could wait no longer to take Harmony all the way. “Hold still. Let me.”

Harmony froze, her hands on Leona’s shoulders. Leona pushed up again, harder then again, and again.

“Listen to you. Listen to your body loving what I’m doing.”

Harmony nodded. She could hear it, inside and out. She was a bottom, but that didn’t mean she craved wax or chains, or cleaning boots with her tongue. It wasn’t about physical compulsion or dominance; it was about someone getting into her mind, working her brain from the inside so the outside could do what it was doing now. Giving by taking. Yielding every place in her by choice.

“Look at you.” Leona gasped. “You’re beautiful like this.”

Sobbing in silence, Harmony came in convulsive explosions as Leona held back her own cry with gritted teeth. She collapsed into Leona’s arms, her head on Leona’s shoulder and they moved together again, slowly, rocking skin to skin.

Finally, Leona kissed her.

“Thank you,” Harmony murmured. “I’ve never…” She didn’t quite know what else to say. She stole a look at Leona’s face and saw that the intense top was gone. The cherub, a little nervous and shy, was back.

“You get it, right?” Leona said quietly. “That I want this, but I want to see if we can have more than this, too?”

“I get it,” Harmony said. “You’ve made me laugh every day for the past year, too. I think we’d be fools not to see if we can do that in real life. Because if you’ve got sex and laughter, you’ve got just about all you need.”

Leona’s arms tightened around her and she shifted just enough to wake up Harmony’s stretched nerves and muscles all over again. She glanced at the clock on the desk, then realized Leona was doing the same.

The top came back. With deep pleasure, with joy, Harmony did exactly as she was told.

*

“How are you going to explain what I did to your pants?” Harmony gave Leona another sheepish look as she fastened her bra and tried to regain her composure. She felt awed at the depths to which she had surrendered to Leona, and yet somehow powerful at the same time. The combination was new and very intriguing.

“I couldn’t fit the toy
and
a pair of pants into the bottom of my satchel, so I decided honesty was the best policy.” Leona picked up the cold cup of coffee on Harmony’s desk. “Soon as you’re ready, you’re going to bolt for the bathroom for paper towels.”

Harmony laughed. “Let me get my blouse tucked in.”

“You really are beautiful,” Leona said.

“Not everyone thinks so. My nose is too—”

“You’re beautiful,” Leona repeated. “Especially when you smile. And I would really like to take you out to dinner tonight.”

She might just mean it, Harmony thought. “Dinner before or after that intimate buffet for one hundred and fifty, cash bar and slideshow A/V setup?”

“After.” Leona grinned. “Dinner and breakfast.”

“Yes.” Harmony pulled on her jacket and adjusted the cuffs of her blouse. “There, I’m ready.”

“Here goes nothing.” Leona poured the coffee into her lap.

Laughing, Harmony unlocked the door and hurried to the bathroom.

“Editing is such a bitch.”

Jules Montgomery pushed back from the desk in her hotel room and rubbed her face with both hands. The generic black plastic digital clock on the bedside table read 7:45 p.m. She’d been working five hours—five hours that felt like fifty, and that’s exactly what she’d accomplished, fifty pages of edits. After twenty-seven novels, she should have anticipated the fact that she could only manage ten pages an hour if she was truly, seriously editing. Critically appraising her technique, as opposed to just looking for spelling errors and egregiously repetitive language, took time. Time she was desperately short of. Why she had agreed to speak at this damn conference when she knew she had a deadline in ten days remained a mystery. Her agent would say it was because she always overestimated her abilities, and she would counter with the argument that she never missed a deadline or a scheduled engagement.

Still, alone in her hotel room on a Friday night—in Las Vegas, no less—even she had to admit that her life of all work and almost no play was wearing her down. No wonder she couldn’t keep a girlfriend. No wonder she hadn’t had sex with anyone, even a stranger, since that time three books ago that she’d hooked up with a bookstore manager one night after a signing. That had been an all too brief few hours that had left her physically satisfied but emotionally disquieted. She had to struggle not to ask herself,
Is that all there is?
She didn’t want to believe she had nothing to look forward to except random encounters with attractive strangers, even if her recent experiences failed to suggest otherwise. She was, after all, a romance writer. She believed in fate and passion and love. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to write about it, not as many times as she had.

“And this one’s not going to write itself, either.” She grimaced at her laptop. “Or edit itself.”

She supposed she could slough off the edits for a while and work on her presentation for the romance panel the next afternoon, but that would be cheating. Putting together a thirty minute talk about something she loved to discuss wasn’t nearly the same as wringing the last drop of emotion out of every single word on a page.