Hot and Bothered (6 page)

“This tour’s going to be great,” she said. “You guys are going to kick butt and take names.”

She’d found it worked well to talk about things she wanted as if they were fait accompli. This put her in the right mindset, and she found it helped her get other people there, too. Sure enough, Pete was still nodding. “Yeah, hell, yeah. We sure will.”

“Hav?” It was Bennie again. “Mark Webster.”

“Send him in.”

“Hey.”

Mark barely made eye contact with her, and he didn’t acknowledge Pete at all. Not a good start. “Hey, Mark—I was just telling Pete how much I appreciated his willingness to talk this out.”

“Yeah.”

Jesus
. What was she going to do with him? Get this over with as fast as possible before it blew up on her, that’s what. And before—before she started thinking about how good he looked. He was wearing camel-colored cords and a soft brown sweater she’d picked out for him. She knew how soft it was, and she’d seen it on him in the dressing room, so she didn’t have to stare at his pecs to know how well it fit his shoulders and chest. She thought of Judy’s hands tracing Mark’s seams, fussing over the line of his clothes, and how much she’d wanted to brush Judy off and put her own hands on him.

She thought of the way his hands had felt on hers, urging her into intimacy with the guitar. She thought of the wistfulness he wore when he talked about his dad.

She thought about the night at Village Blues and those moments when they’d talked. He’d revealed so much of himself to her, and she understood that he couldn’t hear his own talent, that he’d made himself sacrifice the music lessons he loved to give. He was only half living his life.

That night he’d smelled tangy, some kind of sea-scented aftershave that made her want to put her fingers in the holes in his jeans, the ones in the knees, the ones where the pockets were stitched to the butt. And the one just opening up from strain alongside his zipper, barely big enough for the tip of her pinky.

She’d thought,
I wish we were alone
, and
Thank God we’re not alone.

“So...” Pete said impatiently, and she jumped.

“Pete—we asked you to come here today because Mark has something he wants to say about the breakup of the band.”

“Yeah?”

She didn’t like the challenge on Pete’s face as he eyed Mark with a slight smirk. What had happened to the charming image he’d trotted out for her? Was he completely two-faced, or did he hate Mark Webster that much? And if so,
why
?

Regardless, she had to get things back on track. “And let me just say again that we appreciate so much your willingness to hear him out.”

She could almost see Pete preening at that, the lift in his shoulders and tilt of his chin. What an ego. She just wanted to get this over with. If Mark could issue the apology and Pete would accept it, they could move on. She could get Pete out of the room. While Pete’s shoulders had lifted and the corner of a cocky grin had found its way onto his arrogant face, Mark’s stance had slumped a few more inches.

If you’d asked her before she’d met him, she would have said she didn’t feel sorry for Mark Webster at all. She believed he’d gotten himself into this fix. Now, though, as she looked at the two men, she had trouble buying that version of events. Something had happened to her during the time she’d spent with Mark—aside from the obvious fact that he lit her hormones on fire. She’d gotten to
like
him.

You’d think it was a good thing, liking your client, but she wasn’t so sure. A good criminal lawyer didn’t have to believe in his client’s innocence to defend him, and a good image consultant didn’t have to like her client. It wasn’t up to Haven to decide whether someone was worthy of fame. She didn’t have to feel as though the old image was ill-deserved and the new one overdue. She just did her job to the best of her abilities.

Right. She had a job. She had to remember that.

“Mark—go ahead.”

“I regret any lasting damage my temper has caused you.”

Mark said it well. He raised his head, straightened his shoulders and looked Pete in the eye, just as she’d instructed him. She could even hear sincerity in his voice. As far as the apology went, she believed he meant it.

Pete’s rogue eyebrow went up farther. She could tell he wasn’t fooled. He knew a non-apology when he heard one, but he didn’t jump on it. Instead he scrutinized Mark, a cool appraisal that made Haven’s blood run cold. “That’s very kind of you, Webster.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, a slow reverse domino effect.

“You should know, I’m leaning heavily toward doing the tour,” Pete said.

They were the right words, and she let herself relax a bit.

Her first stupid decision.

Pete’s smirk widened a degree. “I could be persuaded quite easily.”

“What would it take to persuade you?” Haven asked. She had to keep Pete talking, to move him in the direction of closing this deal. If that meant playing straight man, so be it.

How could one not-particularly-handsome face show so much self-satisfaction? Now that she looked at him up close, he didn’t seem boyish as much as just bland. He had none of the hard lines or beautiful bone structure that Mark did. In fact, he struck her as dissipated, soft around the jawline and puffy under the eyes. He’d been living as hard as Mark had, in his own way, and for a moment she felt sorry for both of them. This was the price of early fame.

“Tell you what,” Pete said. “Why don’t you and I have dinner tomorrow night and I’ll let you do your best to convince me.”

For a brief moment she failed to understand. She thought he was talking to Mark, and she couldn’t figure out why Pete, who clearly hated him, would ask to have dinner with him. And then she got it, and her instincts said a low, firm,
No
.

Actually, it was Mark who’d said no. He’d straightened up to look squarely at Pete, and he said it again. “No. No way.”

If the eyebrow rose any higher it would be lost in Pete’s bangs. “What’s it to you?”

Her whole body rang a warning, and she tried to call Mark off but couldn’t catch his eyes, which were focused with laser precision on Pete. “She’s not some pawn you can bargain with.”

“Huh,” said Pete. “I don’t recall asking you. I think Haven can speak for herself. Right, Haven? What do you say. Dinner?”

She understood now, all too well, how Mark kept letting Pete rile him up. The guy was a toad, but it was impossible to ignore him. Given that there had been some unintentionally shared woman in their past—God, Pete was brilliant at this.

“Quit it, Sovereign.”

“Why, Webster? Is there any reason Haven can’t say yes to a date with me?’

“She’s seeing someone, right, Haven?”

Well, yes, she supposed she was technically seeing Jewelry Marketing Guy, since she’d agreed to go out with him again. Regardless, there was no way she would agree to dinner with Pete. Quite apart from the fact that she had no desire to give an evening to him, it would only inflame the situation between him and Mark. “Right,” she said.

Her office felt close and hot.

Mark’s face was dark. Pete’s still wore a smirk.

“Well,” said Pete, “that’s a pity. Because I’m sure if we had just a little time together you could convince me to do the tour. If you change your mind, let me know. You’ve got my number, right?”

“You’re a dick, you know that?” Mark was all bristle.

“Mark, don’t,” Haven said.

“This is between you and me, jerkoff. Don’t bring her into it.”

“This has nothing to do with you and me,” Pete said coolly, “and everything to do with how very beautiful I find Haven. Don’t you agree? Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Mark,
no
.” She caught his arm again and almost got yanked over as he lunged at Pete. Pete sidestepped them and headed for the door.

“Don’t get your undies in a bundle. Haven, I’m free every night this week. You know where to find me.” He gave a little toodle-oo wave, and before Mark could wrest himself free and launch a fresh assault, Pete was gone.

6

T
HAT
ASSHOLE
.
That pile of shit, dickwad, lower-than-scum, son-of-a—

Going after Haven that way, treating her like a pawn, treating her like collateral, like something he could bargain with.

“What the
hell
, Mark?”

It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t grateful. She was
pissed
.

“Really? Is that what you think the best approach to this situation is? I had it under control. We told him I was seeing someone—”

“And he couldn’t fucking leave it alone. He couldn’t—”

“You can’t keep doing this, Mark. You can’t keep reacting to every little thing he does and says to you. You’re totally stuck in the last decade. And you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot. Hell, you’re going to launch a weapon of mass destruction at your foot. How many second chances do you think you’re going to get?”

“I—”

He didn’t find himself at a loss for words too often, but this was Haven. And he was not rational where she was concerned, apparently. The barbershop, the department store, the blues jam—nope, not rational.

“You act like a guy who has nothing to lose, but that’s not how it is, Mark. You told me yourself, you need this tour. You need this money. Think about your dad.”

He hadn’t been thinking about his dad when Pete was taunting him into yet another stupid reaction, nor of the new batch of hospital bills that had shown up yesterday. He’d been thinking about Haven—the way she listened, the way she noticed. Her breath on his cheek, her whisper in his ear, the smell of her, the all-over satin glorious sheen of her. How much he wanted her in his hands, around his cock, under him.

He didn’t want Pete Sovereign to spend one single solitary moment alone in her company.

“I don’t want him to touch you.”

He’d said it on impulse, without thought, without regard to what those words would feel like, said out loud. For him
or
for her.

She froze, then deflated quickly, the anger leaving her face, her posture softening. Hearing the words,
I don’t want him to touch you
, she’d understood what he was trying to say to her:
I don’t want anyone
but me
to touch you.

She was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before, her eyes big, her lower lip soft and full. It was as if she was
begging
to be kissed, although there was something uncertain in her stance, a hesitation he’d glimpsed only a few times before, mostly during those exposed moments in the mirror. Then she’d looked so unlike the woman Haven Hoyt presented to the world, so unlike the woman he knew she desperately wanted him and everyone else to see.

Haven
. This was the woman he wanted to touch, to slip inside, to find his way to the heart of.

He acted without thought, taking her mouth with his. He kissed her hard, pressing his way into her as if he owned her, as if she’d given him permission.

She
was
giving him permission. She opened and softened and her whole body yielded to his, fitting against his length, all heat and spark. She whimpered into his mouth, little bursts of sound every time he found a new part of her with his tongue or mapped out another contour of her body with his hands. The tight, satisfying arch of her ass, the nipped-in slimness of her waist, and against his chest, driving him mad, her full curves. He’d have to let go of her mouth to do it, but he could dip his head and slick his tongue over the upper surface of her breast, and it was, he learned, indeed, as smooth as satin.

She’s going to make me stop,
he kept thinking.
She’s going to make me stop.

But she didn’t. Far from it. She wrapped her fingers in his hair, and with her other hand she groped at his waistband, tugging up his sweater, pulling his T-shirt out of his pants, slipping her small, cool palm up his torso, over his abs, up to his chest. Her hand warmed as she stroked his chest and found his nipple with her thumb. She toyed with it, something he’d never thought he liked, until now.

He found himself backing her up against the door of her office, and he didn’t realize he’d found her thigh under her skirt until his fingertips reached the top of her thigh-high stocking. Above the squeeze of the elastic, her skin was soft and warm. His cock throbbed, painfully hard against his fly.

Now she’s going to make me stop.

She could have made him stop. All she would have to do was flinch or hesitate. Probably she could have cooled his ardor by being merely cooperative, lukewarm.

But there was nothing lukewarm about Haven right now. She squeezed her thighs together, trapping his fingers in the softness there, and he stopped breathing for a second. Stopped moving.

She grabbed his wrist and moved his hand higher.

Holy fuck.

His fingers traced an edge of lace, slipped under, found a fuzz of hair, then her sweet, damp heat. He kissed her again, and her mouth slid against his, her tongue parrying and retreating, flirting, urging. When his fingers touched her opening, she moaned, and he had to brace himself against the wall and take a mental five seconds.

Both her hands were on his fly now, grappling with the button and working the zipper down.

I’m going to fuck her against the door of her office and she’s going to let me.

She bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood, and he pushed her more forcefully against the door, crushing her hands between them. She kissed him harder. The sounds she made were quiet but intense, as if she were aware of her secretary outside but unable to stop what was bubbling up from inside her. It was quite possibly the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.

She’s not going to stop me.

He didn’t understand. Not completely. Why would a woman like Haven Hoyt let herself do what Haven was doing, let herself lose control, let herself want a man like him? She pressed her pussy against his hand, his middle and index fingers inside her, her clit slick and swollen against his thumb.

“You are the hottest woman I’ve ever met,” he said, because it was the truth and he couldn’t help but say it.

Now she had her hand in his briefs, around his cock, and oh, God, what was she doing? Licking her palm and sliding it around the head, slipping down and trapping his cock against his abs. It didn’t make sense that Haven, who didn’t look like she could tolerate having a hair out of place, was making everything so insanely wet and slippery. He couldn’t even catalog it all, the slip-slide of her mouth on his, the slick wetness between her legs, the ease of her hand jacking him higher and higher, almost frictionless with saliva and skill.

She was going to make him come, and he wasn’t a hair-trigger kind of guy. He prided himself on his control, on his ability to draw things out and make them good for a woman. But if she didn’t stop that, he wouldn’t be able to sort out the sensations, catalog them, control them. They were going to consume him and break him open from the inside.

She broke her mouth free of his, suddenly. “I’m coming,” she gasped, unnecessarily, because he could feel the spasms against his fingers, feel her hands on his cock become frantic. He wasn’t stopping her, she wasn’t stopping him, neither of them was stopping this madness, and air hissed from her throat, a silent scream, her face buried against his chest. His orgasm boiled up from his toes, harsh, gripping, almost painful, his cum spilling over her fingers.

For a few moments afterward, he almost believed it would be okay. He was limp with satisfaction and relief, his legs barely holding him up, and he told himself in that moment of starry, stupid bliss that it hadn’t been a colossal, braindead, unprofessional—what had she called it?—
weapon of mass destruction to the foot
. That, as out of control as she’d seemed, Haven had actually been in command of herself and had made a decision that she could live with. He hoped she’d lift her head now and smile at him and they’d joke around but also acknowledge the seriousness of the connection they’d forged. This sort of thing didn’t happen all the time. You didn’t want to do it again three seconds after you were done, not usually, not—

Not ever, if he were honest.

Then she lifted her head, and he saw right away from her face that it was nowhere near okay.

* * *

T
HE
LAST
TREMOR
of the best orgasm of her life had not yet faded when Haven’s brain started working again.

Oh, my God, what have I done?

His arms, tight around her, were holding her up. Her legs were too weak to support her.

Standing.
For a brief moment her mind was split between horror and admiration.
Standing! We made each other come standing up!
This was accompanied by a reverberation of vivid, intense memory, of the way she’d
needed needed needed needed
. An echo of pleasure, and pure, silver sensation.

Then a flood of shame.
Standing next to my office door.

With my administrative assistant on the other side.

Did she hear?

What kinds of noises did I make?

Haven couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything she’d done, in fact, or anything she’d thought. All she could remember was how good it had felt and how much she’d
craved
the momentum, the rush, loving the way her need had driven her along, clutching and reaching and grabbing. She’d never felt anything like this before, the slick heat of his mouth and how it had merged in her mind with the hot, wet need between her legs and the feel of his iron-hard cock sliding under her palm—which she had
licked
.

She remembered that part because one of the things she’d never really liked about sex was how messy it was. Why couldn’t it be more civilized?

Her hands were covered with his semen, sticky and wet. Shouldn’t she be more upset about that? She felt removed from what had happened between them, as if she’d read about it in a book. Had she really loved the way his cock had looked and felt when he’d come all over her hands, definitive proof that she’d made him lose control?

His hands were still on her, his fingers still in her, her body still fluttering against his touch. Damn, he was an expert at that. From the moment he’d touched the lace edge of her panties, she’d known he was going to make her come and she was going to let him.

And, oh, God, that made her remember that she’d been unwaxed and not freshly daubed clean, no newly applied deodorant—and she’d been sweating from the strain of dealing with Pete and Mark. Who
knew
what her breath smelled like, because she’d brushed her teeth this morning, of course, but then there had been her coffee-and-bagel breakfast.

He
knew what her breath smelled like. He knew she’d totally and completely lost control of everything—of the situation, of her image, of herself.

The last spasms were subsiding, and her body was cooling. The mess on her hands felt far less like a gift. There was no bathroom inside her office, only the one out there past her admin’s desk. In her own desk, she had a roll of paper towels and a box of tissues.

Shame. Regret.

She lifted her head. He was waiting for her, his eyes questioning.

She saw no such negative emotions there, and that made her angry. This wasn’t just her loss of control, it was his, too. She wasn’t the only one who had something to lose by screwing this up. If anything, he had more.

She pushed his hand out from under her skirt and broke away from his embrace. Retreating to the desk and using the toe of her shoe, she opened the bottom drawer and extricated the paper towels.

He was watching her, and now he looked worried.

Good
.

Turning her back to him, she cleaned herself up with angry swipes. He should understand that she wasn’t one of those women he could pin against an office door without consequences.

She knew she was furious with herself, not with him, but it was impossible to keep the anger fully contained. It was just too big.

She gave him a paper towel.

“Haven.”

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

“Let’s talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk
about
.”

“It was—”

“It was a mistake.”

Even though part of her wanted to know what he’d been going to say. It was what? It was—

It was sordid, unacceptable. And a terrible, unprofessional mistake that she might regret the rest of her life. She was a rising star in image consultation, in the biggest city in the United States. She had celebrity clients and great word of mouth. But she’d skirted close to fiasco with the Celine incident, and the circles she moved in were extremely unforgiving. She competed for work against a small group of high-powered women, including the notorious image consultant clique referred to as the Power Girls, who were ruthless and would dismantle her if she gave them the slightest opportunity. They had friends in the highest of high places and they’d happily smear Haven’s own image all over local and national media. The muddle would be just as big as the one she and Mark had just made with their out-of-control lust.

Haven Hoyt. Sex—or what passed for it—with a client. In her office. With her admin in earshot. Who’d want her to rehab an image after
that
?

No one.

She tossed the paper towel, the evidence of their madness, into the trash and dug in her desk, praying for a Wet-Nap. She needed time to think.

Damage control
. She was the queen of damage control, right? The queen of image.

There was nothing to fear here. She’d rescued far more sensitive situations from far grubbier human foibles.

She could do this. She could put it back together again.

But not if she looked at Mark. If she let herself see the tenderness on his face full-on, she’d never be able to clean this up.

“First,” she said. “This never happened.”

“Haven—”

“This. Never. Happened. You have to promise me.”

If he couldn’t promise, she’d move to the next level. Bribery.