Fair Game (16 page)

He wanted the job, he wanted the new challenges. There was only one problem. Josie Tybrook. She’d be his direct report. If he took the job, he’d have to end it with her. He knew he could separate business from pleasure, the work day from the evening fun, but continuing the relationship could be construed as unethical. Nor did he think Josie would easily separate him being her boss versus her lover. She’d already had a problem with the fact that he was a customer. She’d flip out if he were her supervisor.

Dammit, he
wanted
this job. Which meant he’d have to give her up.

The thought started an ache in his left temple he had a hard time ignoring. “It’s a great offer. Castle’s a good solid company. Mind if I take the weekend to think about it?”

“I’d think there was something wrong if you jumped on it,” Connor said. “Decisions like this aren’t made lightly.”

No, they weren’t. It was, though, a damn good indication of Kyle’s emotions about Josie Tybrook. If it weren’t for her, he’d have agreed to take the job right now.

Spying their meals arriving from the kitchen, Connor laid his napkin across his lap. “I’d like to keep this confidential until we come to an agreement.”

It made good business sense to announce only once all terms had been agreed to and accepted. “No problem.”

After that, the conversation turned light. Connor brought out the baby pictures. He was a proud father, a loving husband, a man one could respect. A man one could work well with.

Kyle had a lot to consider.

Back in his car, his cell phone beeped. He’d left it on the console. Flipping it open, he had four messages, two from Watsonville, one from Coyote Ridge, the last from Josie.

His heart skipped a beat. If he took the job, their games were over. He dialed in, listened to her voice.

“I’ve got big plans for you, buddy boy. Here’s the scoop. You are not allowed to have an orgasm until our next meeting. You are not allowed to whack off. You are not allowed to do it with another woman. You will hold your load until I say you can release it.” Her voice dropped. “If you do get off without me, you forfeit a turn. Got that?”

She had such a nasty mind and a sexy voice. Did he detect a question there, as in, was he seeing another woman? She could be testing the waters, expecting him to deny any entanglements. They’d joked about Kisa, but he’d never flat-out stated that Josie was the only woman he intended seeing for the duration. The possibility existed that Josie could be jealous, perhaps even proprietary. He found he liked the idea.

He had the weekend before he needed to make a decision on Connor’s offer. In the meantime, there was no reason he couldn’t have her one more time. Besides, he had to go up to Washington State next week for some site inspections. He didn’t want to wait to see her until he returned. They needed to step up the one-week limit she’d put on things and make a date before the weekend was out.

Maybe she’d make him change his mind about taking the job.

 

 

 

KYLE called her back three hours after she’d left her dictatorial queen-bee message. Josie closed her office door, leaning against it with the cell to her ear.

“I’m out of town next week,” he said.

Which totally blew her plans out of the water. Dammit.

“So,” he went on, “it’s got to be this weekend.” He paused, letting that sink in. “Or you’ll have to wait for your challenge until I get back.”

It sounded like an ultimatum. It felt like escalation. “You just can’t wait more than a week for an orgasm.”

Her stomach hitched. What if he had some other little plaything to take care of him on the road? Maybe the darling Little Miss Snowflake accompanied him on business trips as his secretary and more.

Even if she hadn’t said all that aloud, in her own mind, she came off like a shrew.

“What I can’t wait for,” he said, “is your hand, your mouth, and your pussy all over my cock. I want all that right this fucking minute.”

Oh. God. Yes, please. He disarmed her with that one sentence, a reaction that was actually kind of scary. “Sweet talker,” she muttered.

He smacked her a little kiss over the phone.

“All right. Saturday.” She knew what she was going to do, just not where. “I’ll have to call you back with the location.” A little feistiness was in order, too. After all, it was
her
challenge. “So keep all of Saturday free, day and evening.”

“What about the night?”

“I turn into a pumpkin after midnight.”

She wasn’t spending the night with him. She wasn’t sleeping with him. She never stayed over at a lover’s house, and no one stayed at hers. You slept with a guy, and they got all proprietary. There was the whole morning-after routine, too. Really, what did you talk about? Your life? Your dreams? With Kyle, they could talk about work, the project . . . no, no, no. She was already mixing business with pleasure, she wasn’t about to muddle up her real life with his as well.

“Fine.” He laughed. “I will block out nine a.m. to midnight just for you and be at your beck and call, to answer your every whim and desire.”

She toed the carpet with her shoe, hugging the phone to her ear. “You don’t have to go overboard.”

“I have only one condition.”

“It’s my challenge. No conditions.”

“If I’m at your beck and call, there’s a condition.”

She puffed out a breath. “Fine. One condition only.”

“You do have to let me shoot my load before it’s over.”

“I have every intention of that.” Oh boy, did she ever.

“Thank God.” He sighed.

She felt the sound like a caress along her thighs. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”

“I admit I had vision of you putting a cock ring on me and not letting me take it off.”

“Oh man.” It was just the thing. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Holy shit, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

She laughed and did a Snoopy dance over to her desk, then threw herself in her chair. “This is marvelous. I love it.”

“Please don’t.” But she heard the smile in his voice, the male satisfaction.

“You know you want it, that’s why you brought it up.” It would go so perfectly with her other big plan for him. Oh yeah. “I have to go shopping after work,” she whispered to him. “And you are going to love it.”

He’d trussed her up like a Christmas goose. He deserved everything she planned to do to him.

 

 

 

SHE waited beside her white hybrid car, a black canvas bag slung over her shoulder.

She’d called him Friday afternoon with the place, instead of keeping him in suspense until Saturday morning, and she’d chosen the middle of the day. As before, she didn’t tell him what, only where and the time he should meet her. Being a sunny, gorgeous weekend, the traffic was a bitch even it wasn’t a work day. At a little before noon, everyone was heading over the Santa Cruz mountains to enjoy the sun and the ocean, and the address she’d given him was right on the way.

He’d finally found the place in the half-full lot of an Indian casino he hadn’t been aware existed in the Bay Area. What did she have planned this time? Strip poker? Her games kept his heart rate up and his cock hard determining ways to turn the tables on her.

First, though, he had to discover how she’d try to take him down a peg. He’d figured that’s what all her games were about. Taking him down. Hence the panties, the dressing room of a lingerie shop, and how quickly she’d glommed on to the cock ring idea. He deserved comeuppance for tying her down. That would set the tone for most of their subsequent battles, he was sure.

What he’d liked, though, was that so far they’d both won. No matter who was in charge, they both ended up on top.

As he climbed from his car, she crooked a finger at him without saying a word. She wore a tie-dyed, wraparound skirt that swung around her calves and revealed a tasty bit of thigh as she walked. Wending her way through the parked cars, she crossed the newly macadamized lot to a series of trendy storefronts opposite the casino.

She chose a set of green glass doors that masked any view of the inside. PARADISE arched in a curlicue font across the front window, accompanied by painted palm trees and brilliant birds-of-paradise.

Inside, the lobby walls were sponge-painted to look like fake rocks in varying shades of gray and black. Recessed lighting in the ceiling centered on palm trees in pots and gleamed on the black-and-green mosaic floor. Mist puffed from jets along the baseboards to complete the steamy, jungle setting, yet underlying it was the scent of chlorine.

The young woman at the counter wore tight leopard skin, heavily outlined eyes, and a deep red lipstick that looped too far outside the true lines of her lip. “May I help you?”

“We’d like a private room.” Josie pulled out her wallet.

Kyle still hadn’t decided what the place was. Perhaps a spa or sauna, his and her massages.

“I have the coupon from the website, too”—she laid it on the counter—“plus we’d like the free extra half hour since it’s before five.”

She was born into wealth, yet she watched every penny. She wouldn’t let him buy her an expensive corset, and she used Internet coupons. As if she had to earn everything rather than be given it. In a regular family-run company, she would have had the manager’s job without question, and yet she seemed to work hard to deserve all she had. Right down to the economy car she drove. She probably lived off her salary, not her family money. She worked off her reputation, not her family name. Being accepted for her accomplishments was more important to her than all the wealth and comfort her family could supply.

The leopard woman rang up the charge. “Would you like any water?”

“No, thanks.” She hugged her magic canvas bag tighter, her body language indicating she’d brought her own bottles.

“Then follow me.”

The woman was leopard from head to foot, with thin spike heels that wobbled as she walked. In flat sandals, a spandex work-out top, and a quarter the amount of makeup, Josie outshone Ms. Leopard by a mile. He admired the sway of her ass in the wraparound skirt.

Down the hallway, the chlorine aroma intensified. Unlocking a door, the lady snapped on a light. “No bubbles or lube in the tub, please. The towels are right up here.” She pointed to a wire rack above the light switch.

“Thank you.” Josie motioned him inside as the woman left them, closing the door.

Fifteen by fifteen, the room had two levels. Surrounded by wood decking, a recessed hot tub sat up a short flight of stairs, its water already rumbling and frothing. At tub level, exactly opposite the door through which they’d entered, lay a thin mattress covered in a jungle-print sheet. The lower level was perhaps a couple of arm lengths wide. The floor they stood on was concrete, with a shower at the far end, just below the hot tub.

Josie hit a switch, and the overhead light flipped to a black light. Jungle images glowed in fluorescent color: insects, birds, palm fronds.

With that mattress, the room was made for illicit activities. “You bad girl,” he said. “How did you know about this place?”

She gave him a look and shook her head, rolling her eyes. “I like a good soak.” She arched one brow. “Now strip, slave.”

Hanging her bag on a hook beneath the towel rack, Josie pulled out a couple of water bottles and fed them through the railing surrounding the tub, setting them on the deck within easy reach. Then she stood, arms akimbo, hands on hips.

Kyle kicked off his flip-flops, yanked his T-shirt over his head, draped it over one of the hooks along the back wall, then popped the buttons on his shorts.

He was naked beneath. Beautifully, magnificently naked and hard already. Josie heated on the inside. Oh, the naughty things she had planned for him. “Now get in the shower.”

He turned on the tap, holding his hand under until the water warmed, then stepped beneath the spray.

“Soap up,” she said.

From a wall dispenser, he filled his palm. Josie leaned against the wall just beyond the fall of water. “I want to see you clean everything.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He soaped his chest, which was covered with the lightest dusting of hair. He lingered over his nipples, his eyes on hers. Then he stroked down his stomach and grabbed his cock. It grew in his fist as he pumped, gaze still on her.

“You better not come,” she admonished.

“I won’t. This is nothing.”

Oh, it was something, all right. Gorgeous and suckable. She pulled the tie on her skirt and let it fall, then slowly stepped back to hang it on a hook next to his clothing. She left her sandals behind, too, then rolled off the spandex bodysuit.

In the black light, her white thong and bra glowed. She stripped those off as well.

“You going to help me wash?” he asked, still stroking himself.

“Oh yeah, I am.” He had no idea the things she was going to put him through. She climbed beneath the water, which he’d left on the cool side. That was fine; once in the tub, they’d heat up fast. “I’m taking over.”

Pulling his hand away from his cock, she smoothed the soap all over his shaft, balls, and back to the sensitive bit of flesh before his ass. Even in the dim lighting, she saw his pupils dilate with the slight pressure she exerted.

She leaned in to bite a nipple and loved his involuntary shudder.

“We have to make sure you’re very, very clean.” She tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “So turn around, grab the railing, and spread your legs.” She gave him a wicked smile.

He visibly suppressed his own smile and followed her instructions, presenting his back as he wrapped his fists around the railing and looked out over the bubbling hot tub.

“Spread ’em,” she said, like a cop getting ready for a pat down. Then she pumped soap from the dispenser.

Right up against his side, she pressed close, put her lips to his ear and whispered, “You’re going to like this, prisoner.” His butt cheeks were smooth as she caressed them.