Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (15 page)

Silence met her inquiry. “Hello? Can I help you?”

The realization that they weren’t in her room, this wasn’t her phone, and the caller probably wasn’t expecting her to answer hit her about the time a female voice sounded in her ear. “Harley?”

Lenore. Harley closed her eyes, wishing she could go back about five minutes and change the unchangeable. She hoped her gulp wasn’t audible, though from the way Damien’s fingers went completely still on her body, she figured it was.

“Yes.”

Twice’s manager sounded strained as she asked, “Is Damien there?”

Do I have to answer that?
“Sure. Hang on just a minute.”

Nausea churned in her stomach, but she’d always faced her problems head-on. So instead of burying her head under the covers, she lowered the receiver and pressed it into the sheets, praying the cloth would muffle her voice. “Damien.”

“Who is it?”

Was that anger in his voice? She hadn’t meant to answer; it had been instinct. Didn’t everyone have the instinct to answer when a phone rang near them? Especially when they were awakened from a deep sleep?

Deciding the excuses would have to wait, she said, “It’s Lenore.”

Damien’s answer was unrepeatable. He jerked away, letting her leg flop to the bed as he scrambled out the other side. Pain throbbed along her inner thighs, proof she wasn’t used to exercise quite like what she’d experienced last night. But it was the pain in her heart that truly hurt. She got that he was her boss. She got that it might look bad to an outsider. But damn it, they were consenting adults. They’d agreed this wouldn’t affect how Damien treated her at work. His anger made her feel like he was ashamed of her, but she remained silent. As Damien rounded the bed, she pulled her legs back together, curling into a protective ball. She watched as Damien snatched up the phone, instructed Lenore to call him back on his cell, and slammed the receiver down with much more force than necessary. Harley didn’t know if her flinch was a response to the clatter or the sudden pain as her hand brushed her still-swollen nipple.

Not exactly the morning after she’d imagined.

Damien snatched his pants from the floor, the perfect view of his naked rear and long, muscular legs depressing her. They should still be wrapped around each other, taking their arousal to its natural conclusion. But when he turned to step into his pants, she could see that Damien’s cock was no longer firm. Clearly something else had taken precedence.

The chirping of Damien’s cell phone jangled along her already screaming nerves. “I need to take that,” he said, not looking at her.

My cue to exit, apparently
. Except she was in no fit state to cross the hall to her own room. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply slipped from the bed, naked, feeling exposed in a way she hadn’t last night when Damien had seen and touched her as intimately as a man could touch a woman. Without a word she crossed to the bathroom and stepped inside, closing the door with a quiet
click.

She was showered in five minutes, dry and wrapped in a towel in ten. Hair and teeth brushed. How long could she hide in here? Should she stay or go? As much as she hated being where she wasn’t wanted, she refused to sit on the side of the shower waiting for Damien to finish his conversation. Tucking the end of her towel in securely, she took a deep breath, then another, and opened the door.

Damien stood with his back to her, the cell in the palm of his hand. “Let me make something absolutely clear, Lenore. Harley and I are adults. What happens between us outside of work is no one’s business but ours.”

Exactly. Some of the tension left Harley’s shoulders.

“It is when it opens the company to the liability of a lawsuit.”

Harley blinked. She knew Damien kept the sound on his phone set to high so he could hear it over the music blaring in the club at night. She just hadn’t expected to be able to hear Lenore so clearly in the quiet hotel room. Volume could be a bitch sometimes, she guessed. And apparently so could nightclub managers.

Damien’s voice stayed cool. “Harley’s job performance, or lack thereof, has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not we’re having sex.”

“Right.”

Harley had to grit her teeth to keep from defending herself. This was a conversation she wasn’t supposed to hear. She needed to just grab her things and go instead of torturing herself with eavesdropping.

“Lenore,” Damien said, “I value your opinion. I understand this might be more of a struggle for you than anyone because you are female and a manager, in the same position essentially as Harley is at Thrice. But you have many more years of experience.”

Harley bristled at that as she leaned down to snatch her clothing up from the floor. Her towel loosened, slipping before she could catch it in her already full hands.

Damien continued. “Can you honestly tell me, after a full week of working with Harley, that you believe she’d use sex to get out of doing her job to the best of her ability?”

The last word wavered as Damien caught sight of her from the corner of his eye. He blinked, his gaze captured by her breasts as they jiggled when she straightened, dress in hand. Then he turned back to the cell and pressed a button, presumably the volume. He put the phone to his ear as he turned his back to Harley’s nude body.

Silence rang like a bell through the room. Harley slid on her thong, then wrestled with her dress to turn it right side out. Damien sighed in response to whatever Lenore was saying. “No, I don’t believe that.”

Didn’t believe what? One big, strong hand, the same hand he’d been using to touch her as she slept, lifted to run through his hair. Did his fingers smell like her? The whole room smelled of sex, but knowing her cream scented his fingers, so close to his face, did funny things to her insides.

“Yes. Look, I understand. Anything could happen. It could get messy. But that’s my choice, not yours. We’d like for life to follow the rules all the time, but it’s not usually that neat and orderly. The situation is what it is. Harley and I will work it out,
without
the help of my various employees. Understood?”

Okay. Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about losing her job this morning. She dragged on her dress as she thought about that. Damien was very good at hiding his emotions. The way he spoke to Lenore could be anger at his manager, at the situation, or just plain morning grumpiness. Or it could be regret.

What would she do if it was?

Damien said good-bye and tapped the button to end his call. Strained silence filled the air between them. Should she say something? What could she say that wouldn’t make things worse? As the minutes spun out, she finally decided to take the chance. “I’m sorry.”

Damien twisted around, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. His lips tightened, then relaxed. He walked toward her.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. Picking up the phone was pure instinct. It could happen to anyone.”

It could, but it hadn’t. It had happened to the employee he’d slept with. Did he really believe she hadn’t meant to reveal their relationship, or was he just saying what he thought she wanted to hear?

And then Damien slid his fingers under her chin, the faint scent of sex on his skin, and forced her to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”

She shrugged. “I can understand why she feels that way. But it’s not me, Damien, I swear. Whatever happens between us, the club is separate. I would never use our relationship against you.” There was too much at stake if she even considered it, anyway. Whether she worked for him or not, Klio would always be a tie between them.

“I know,” he assured her, but his eyes remained wary. And there was nothing she could do about that. Only time would prove her loyal, trustworthy. For now, she decided to fake it until she made it.

So she gave him a smile she knew was sincere. It felt soft, happy, like she’d felt inside after he’d taken her. She wanted him again, but using sex to distract him from their predicament felt wrong, almost as if she’d be doing exactly what Lenore had accused her of. “I need to pack. How about breakfast after you shower?”

Damien continued to gaze into her eyes for a long moment. Harley let him look. He’d find what he was looking for eventually. Finally he leaned down and brushed a closed-mouth kiss across her lips. “Sounds good. Is fifteen minutes enough time?”

She nodded, and her nose bumped his. A spark of the intimacy they’d felt last night jumped between them. Damien’s gaze dropped to her breasts, and with a groan of frustration, he cupped them, thumbing the aching nipples into long, tight points. “Maybe we need a bit longer than that,” he said huskily.

Her response was barely above a whisper. “Maybe.”

And just that suddenly, she was ready for him again. Damien didn’t even wait long enough to take her back to bed. Instead he backed her up against the wall. The straps of her dress rasped along her skin as he tugged them down her arms, trapping them along her sides. When his mouth took one nipple, a zing of pain had her catching her breath, but the pleasure soon overtook any discomfort the long night had left behind. She rose onto her tiptoes, arching into his mouth, tugging awkwardly at the button of his pants with her restrained arms.

Cool air brushed her legs, and she realized Damien was lifting her dress. Delving into his pocket, she found one last condom packet, which Damien helped her open, along with his pants, then slide down his shaft.

Preparation over, he scooped Harley up so her legs wrapped naturally around his waist. He didn’t even take off her thong; he simply tugged the scrap of underwear to the side and drove straight up into her body.

“Aahh!”

Her swollen channel resisted, but Damien was determined. He set a quick, steady pace. In moments he was fully inside her. When he tucked his head against her neck, his teeth teasing the sensitive juncture just above her shoulder, Harley clamped down around his thick cock. Once, twice more was all it took, and she was coming like a freight train at full speed ahead. Damien threw back his head, agony etched across his face as he pulsed deep inside her, filling her full of his shaft and his pleasure.

Chapter Seven

Thrice wasn’t the same without Harley. Even the air felt different Thursday night as Damien waited for his friends to show. Damien, Alex, Ryan, and Ian had fallen into the habit of meeting once a month for a stag night, except Damien couldn’t get away from work this month and Alex found his dance card conspicuously full lately. So they’d compromised and agreed to meet at Thrice, but something about the club just felt…off.

And if he suddenly had to have his lover in his club for it to “feel right,” he needed to have his head examined. Quick.

He’d caught himself watching her repeatedly this week. Since their return from Colorado, his call with Lenore had weighed heavily on his mind. Though he strove to sound firm and confident during the conversation, some small part of him had agreed with her, had been wary that maybe, just maybe, Harley wasn’t as trustworthy as she seemed. But just like she had the previous two weeks, Harley threw herself into the planning for Thrice’s all-day New Year’s Eve event two hundred percent. She had the Midas touch when it came to management, everything falling into place as if trying to please her. She had proven herself over and over. So why was he still so uneasy?

Ryan dropped into the chair beside him, a black cocktail in hand that matched his black eye makeup and the thick spikes of black hair sticking out like a porcupine all over his head. It never failed to startle Damien when his assistant came into the club “off duty” in his Goth guise. The man was the epitome of prep by day, and yet the emo persona fit him like a second skin.

“What the heck? Dude, I thought we talked about the makeup thing,” Alex Brannigan, Damien’s best friend, said as he walked toward their table. He and Damien and Sara Beth, Alex’s ex-wife, had grown up together in LA, and Alex had relocated to the Atlanta office of Keane Industries when he was made senior vice president last year. Now he was president, he and Sara Beth were divorced, Sara Beth was openly committed to her lover, Samantha, and Alex was engaged with a baby on the way. Yet for all the chaos that had filled his life the past few months, the man looked remarkably content—except when he was giving Ryan a hard time. His dark eyes shone with amusement as Ryan hemmed and hawed over the insult. Despite his twenty-five years, Ryan would always be the “young” one in the group—and trying to knuckle his head to prove it would only result in damage and dismemberment. Those spikes were lethal. Words worked much better.

Alex and Ryan clasped hands in a typical, manly crossover grab, bumping shoulders at the same time. Damien noticed Alex, joking or not, kept far away from the face paint and hair. When Alex turned to him with a smile, Damien reached to greet him as well. “How’s it going, Alex?”

A wry smile twisted his friend’s mouth. “Well, the morning sickness has hit—morning, noon, and night. It’s the biggest misnomer I’ve ever heard.” His shudder was accompanied by a wide grin that told his true feelings. Vomit or not, Alex was ecstatic about Cailin’s pregnancy.

Ian chose that moment to arrive. “Hey, didn’t I tell you to leave that estrogen talk at home? No babies, no women, and certainly”—Ian’s face turned slightly green, though Damien wasn’t certain if that was nausea or the lighting in the bar—“no morning sickness.”

Ryan made distinct gagging noises from his seat at the table. Ian’s green tint grew more pronounced, and Damien laughed as Ian reached out to pop Ryan upside the back of his head, only to stop when he realized the spikes stood in his way.

The four men took their seats around the table, and Damien felt himself relax. Maybe this was what he’d needed, a chance to feel normal again, to ground himself away from Harley’s destabilizing influence. But thinking of Harley reminded him he had a bone to pick with Ian—and a few of the man’s perfect white teeth to smash in, come to think of it. Before he could bring up the subject, Ian stepped into it first.

“So,” Ian drawled, his Southern accent distinct at a tableful of Californians, “where’s the hottie from the other night?”