Taking Care of Business (6 page)

He did everything just as she'd said to. Pitchers, glasses. Bagels. For some reason, the bagels had seemed particularly important. And, cripes, it wasn't like he'd had any doubt about his ability to make everything just right —it was his job, after all, and he was good at it. But standing there with his cock threatening to bust out of his pants and her murmuring 'You don't need to write that down, do you?' had made him all the more nervous that he'd forget.

He hadn't seen her after that, other than a quick glimpse through the doorway. She hadn't seen him. At least he didn't think she had. If she had, she hadn't acknowledged him and, cripes, he was obsessing.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge in his office and drank it back in a few gulps, then wiped his mouth. Every muscle in his body wanted to leap out of his skin, like his nerves were on fire and all he could think about was the soft scent of her.

Would he really go to her room again? Should he? What if she'd been playing with him? Girls did that, he'd discovered. Then again, he'd already decided she wasn't a girl.

He wasn't stupid. Telling him to come to her room had been a blatant but surprising invitation. The way she'd looked when he was picking up the ice, he'd been sure he'd crossed some line, done something wrong. Pushed some button. That had been it, he thought, tidying his desk to give his hand a mindless task to complete. He'd pushed a button.

But what kind?

'You think too much,' his last girlfriend had said. She'd been the same one to tell him he wore everything he felt on his face. Maybe that had made it easier for her to cheat on him and lie to him about it for six months.

Screw it. He wasn't going to think about it any more. He'd done what she told him. He'd earned his 'reward'. He was going to her room.

There was no reason for anyone to think anything about him going up in the elevator, but nevertheless his palms were sweating when he pushed the UP button. Inside, the mirrored walls showed his rumpled hair, which he smoothed quickly, and his work clothes. He couldn't do anything about them. Dark pants, white shirt, plain black tie with a tiny pattern of dots. He'd left his suit jacket downstairs in his office. Shoot, he should've left his tie, too . . . The elevator door opened on Leah's floor.

He was absolutely going to get laid.

His hand raised to knock on the door, but he didn't do it. Instead, Brandon let his knuckles just rest on the door. His head bent. He looked at his feet and neatly polished shoes. The carpet beneath them had been new just a year ago, but the geometric pattern already looked scuffed along the baseboards. He laid his palm flat on the door, pressing.

He was absolutely just going to walk away.

He'd been led by his dick before and he knew he would be again. That was a fact about being a guy. Sometimes the little head took over from the big one. He knew it, the way he knew girls liked him because he had good hair and a nice body, and because he had straight teeth. Big hands. Whatever. He'd been put together all right, thanks to the best of both his mom and dad, and he wasn't going to complain about it. He just wished, sometimes, that the girls who hit on him because he was 'hot' gave him credit for being something else too.

He couldn't stop thinking about the way Leah's voice had sounded when she gave him her list. She hadn't sounded at all the way she had when she'd told him to get out. She'd looked him in the eye, too, without looking away.

His dick throbbed a little, getting stiffer. He pressed harder on the door, his head still bent. His hair fell forwards, over his eyes, but he didn't brush it away.

If he knocked, this was going to happen. If he didn't, he could walk away from this. The conference would be over in a couple of days and he wouldn't really even have to deal with her much, if he made sure to set up the rooms the way she wanted. He hadn't needed to write it all down after all.

Before he could change his mind, Brandon knocked firmly on the door. Three times. Then he didn't know what to do with his hands. Pockets, at his sides, on his hips, nothing felt right. It wasn't as though he should be carrying flowers or candy, but he wished he was holding something.

Long minutes passed while he waited for her to open the door. He'd just convinced himself she wasn't going to when he heard the faint scritch-scratch of the chain being drawn back. The knob turned and the door eased open.

Leah didn't bother shielding herself with the door as though she hadn't been expecting him. She opened it all the way at once. She hadn't changed her clothes from earlier and the top buttons on her white blouse were still undone, but her hair had loosened a little, small hanging tendrils around her face.

He could smell her, a subtle whiff of perfume. The scent of roses and something else he couldn't identify. He wanted to press his face to the base of her throat and draw in breath after breath of it until he could figure out what it was.

'Well, hello.'

She didn't step aside to let him in and Brandon stayed on the doorstep. He started to speak, paused to clear his throat, tried again. 'I'm here.'

'So you are.' Still, she didn't step aside.

Leah looked him up and down without hiding her assessment. He wished again he'd changed his clothes, or shaved, combed his hair. Something. He was utterly convinced she was going to turn him away and completely uncertain of what he'd do if she told him, again, to go.

'You did everything I requested, and very nicely,' Leah said in a low voice. Her tongue slid along her mouth like she was tasting her words before she said them.

'I'm good at my job, Leah.'

She blinked when he said her name. It had come out a little harder than he'd intended. Brandon braced himself for her frown.

Instead, she smiled. 'Well, then. I guess you'd better come in.'

And because he wanted that too, he did.

He'd done everything exactly the way she'd told him to and now he was here. She could have pretended not to hear the knock on the door. She supposed she could even have made up a reason not to let him in.

But she didn't want to.

She was going to do this. Her heartbeat pounded in her wrists and the base of her throat and in strange places like behind her knees. Places she wanted to feel his mouth.

She stepped back, one, two, three. He moved inside the room. 'Close the door, Brandon.'

He turned to do it and Leah admired not only his swift obedience but also the curve of his ass. She took another two steps back and waited for him to turn around. It took only moments, but felt like for ever.

He didn't ruin it by talking. Other men would have stood there as if in challenge, but he stood with his hands open at his sides. His expression was open, too, those dark eyes searching hers and his full mouth slightly parted as though he had words to speak if only she'd grant him the permission.

She had to stop letting her imagination run away with her. Just because he looked so pretty at her feet didn't mean that was where he thought he belonged. It didn't mean she had the right to put him there, even if the thought of it weakened her knees and made her hands shake with desire.

'You did very well today.' Her voice didn't shake. Good. Leah busied herself fixing a glass of iced water so she had an excuse not to look at him for a few minutes.

'Thank you.'

The ice clinked in the glass as she raised it to her lips and sipped. Cool liquid chilled the inside of her throat but did nothing for the heat blossoming all through her. She set the glass down carefully on the table and looked at him again.

'Take off your tie.'

She knew the sound of a command and the hidden, secret thrill of obedience. She knew how free it felt to have the illusion of having no choice, of not having to think. Of only having to do. But what would he do?

His left hand went to his throat and pulled loose the knot of his tie in a slow, see-sawing motion. With the other he pulled the tie's loose end until it came free of the knot and trailed through his fingers. He pulled it slowly through his shirt collar and held it in one hand.

She wasn't going to do something silly and cichéd, such as tie his hands with it. There were rules to this, but that didn't make this a game. Leah looked into Brandon's eyes, still so seriously staring at hers.

Tension, as thick and sweet as honey, filled the space between them. Now was when he'd break it by reaching for her, she thought. But he didn't.

'Did you come here to fuck me?'

His mouth opened wider. Incredibly, he laughed. It was a self-conscious laugh and utterly sweet. It swept over her from head to toe and set her every nerve on fire.

Brandon ran a hand over his hair and looked away from her. He shifted, first on one foot, then the other, before finally meeting her gaze again. 'Yes.'

She'd held her breath without realising, waiting for him to make up some story, or a lie, but at his honest answer she let out the breath in a slow, easy hiss. She didn't know what she was going to say until she said it and, when she did, she felt as surprised as he looked.

'No.'

'No?' The hand holding the tie tightened on it. His eyes searched hers as his tongue came out to trail along his lower lip.

He didn't take a step towards her and nor did she move towards him. Yet the distance between them got infinitely smaller all at once. Downstairs, before, she'd been so close she'd been able to feel the press of his cock against her thigh. Now Leah imagined how hot his skin would feel against her hand if she gripped it.

She shook her head and backed up until her ass just nudged the edge of the table. She inched her skirt up fraction by fraction until the hem just brushed the tops of her thigh-high stockings. The lace of her panties would be showing by now, easily glimpsed if he angled his head just the right way.

Inside Leah's head, everything had gone white noise.

She'd felt this before, a handful of times. The first time she'd bound a man's hands had been in a barn on a summer night with her best friend at her side, and her mind had filled with this same nothing sound. The first time she'd allowed herself to be tied, wrist to wrist, to the bedpost and taken from behind with her eyes blindfolded she'd heard it too.

But now . . . now she sipped in air one small breath at a time as she looked at the man in front of her. White noise. White light. She blinked, but her focus had gone soft and fuzzy around everything but Brandon.

She was slipping into something and she thought she might be frightened if she didn't want it so very, very much.

'Use your mouth on me.' Her voice was thorn-snagged satin, smooth but rough at the same time.

He didn't move. Leah shifted the hem of her skirt infinitesimally higher. She parted her legs. Her fingers curled into the dark fabric of her skirt, so pale against her bare thighs. She could hear him breathing and that sound, too, filled her mind.

'Now,' Leah said, and Brandon dropped his tie to the ground and got on his knees in front of her.

He didn't go for her panties right away. Instead, Brandon brushed his lips over the elastic edge of her stockings. He hooked his fingers into the edge and pulled it down. The elastic had left a red mark and he kissed it, slowly. Then he licked the line it had left behind.

Leah shuddered and wound her fingers into his thick dark hair as Brandon nuzzled the inside of her thigh. His big hands slid up over her ankles and her calves and stopped at her knees. His fingers were so long they reached all the way around to the ticklish spot behind her knees.

The table creaked when her ass pushed back against it. It was a flimsy thing, not meant for hard-core fucking atop it. Leah let the hand not holding Brandon's hair grip the table's edge. She wasn't going to move. Not now. Not even if they broke it.

He kissed her cunt, then looked up at her with his lips still pressed to the lace. His hot breath covered her clit in a tangible caress. Even on his knees he was so tall he had to bend his head to get his mouth between her legs. Leah opened her thighs a little wider, eased back a little on to the table to make it easier for him.

Nothing about him had ever seemed shuttered, but shadows flickered in his eyes now when he kissed her again. He moved his mouth back to her inner thigh, his eyes on hers. He bared his teeth, the nip on her sensitive flesh so unexpected Leah let out a strangled moan. At the sound he stopped. Licked the small spot on her flesh he'd just abused. When he looked up at her again, the tiniest hint of a smile curved his mouth.

Without thinking twice, Leah twined her fingers tighter in Brandon's hair. She'd been right about him. The sound he made when she tugged sent a bolt of pure pleasure slamming through her. For a second his eyes closed and that fine mouth went a little lax. He looked up at her again, all trace of a smile gone, his eyes ablaze. She relaxed her grip, took her hand away.

She didn't wonder if he was going to pull away. She knew he wasn't. Again his hot breath eased over her bare flesh and over the lace at her crotch. His hands slid to just above her knees, then higher. Up her thighs, up and up, until his fingers curled into the waistband of her panties.

She drew in a breath, but, before she could let it out, he'd yanked her panties down her thighs to her knees. In sharp contrast to the slow sensuality of his initial exploration, Brandon pulled the scrap of lace down her legs until her wide-spread thighs wouldn't allow them to go any further, then used one hand to push her legs closer so he could get the material over her calves and past her ankles. His head bent, eyes following the progress. His hair brushed her thighs, tickling.

He hadn't hesitated to put himself between her legs, but now he looked up at her again without moving further. 'Tell me again what you want me to do.'

Leah didn't care if he needed confirmation because she'd almost scared him off with the hair-pulling or because it got his dick hard. All that mattered was he was asking her for it.

Brandon kissed her thigh. 'Here?'

She saw no trace of a smile on his face or heard one in his voice, but she wasn't able to forget the sound of his laughter when she'd asked him if he'd come there to fuck her. He was teasing her, a little . . . and she liked it. Blind obedience wasn't attractive; she'd never known how anyone could find it so. The bottom line was, she wanted Brandon on his knees in front of her, feasting on her pussy, because he wanted to be there and not because he wasn't man enough to say no.

'Higher.'

His lips trailed upwards along her skin but he angled his head to keep his mouth from reaching where she wanted it most. He kissed her thigh again, so lightly it would have tickled had she not been so attuned to every brush of his skin on hers. Then he kissed her other thigh, too, and nuzzled against it. His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed her in. He was smelling her.

This realisation weakened Leah's knees and she gripped at the wobbling table to keep herself from buckling. 'Higher, Brandon.'

A small but unignorable noise leaked from his throat at the sound of his name, and Leah let one hand drift up to release her hair from the anchor of its clip. It fell down around her shoulders, over her face, and she tipped her head back, eyes closed, lost in the sensations his mouth and hands were giving her. He liked it when she said his name. He liked it when she pulled his hair. Knowing these two small facts led her to another. He liked it on his knees for her, too.

His lips hovered over her clit, so close that when he spoke the air moved over her even though his mouth didn't. 'Tell me what you want me to do.'

She'd never much liked dirty talk for the sake of it. Most often men wanted her to say things such as 'I can't wait to suck your huge, stiff prick,' or 'Stuff my pussy full of your cock, baby.' She'd never really had one ask her to tell him what, exactly, she wanted him to do to her.

'I want you to lick me.' She spoke around a groan. His mouth was so, so close to doing just that.

She couldn't look down at him. Her back had arched and she'd kept her eyes closed. The edge of the table cut into both her palms as she gripped it. She felt his hand move up her thighs and she parted them wider at once. Now her ass shifted against the table, rocking it. She waited, tense, for him to comply.

Long seconds passed. Her stomach muscles and calves had begun to protest from holding the awkward position. She opened her eyes.

'Brandon,' she murmured, and her cunt pulsed at the way his entire body twitched when she said it. 'Lick my cit.'

His mouth opened and a deep breath escaped him as his hands moved on her thighs. He made that noise again, not quite the one he'd made when she'd pulled his hair, but a fucking sexy one just the same. All at once she was desperate to know what he'd sound like when he came.

Later. That was for later. Now she had his face between her legs and she was going to take advantage of it.

'Now,' she repeated gently, and threaded her fingers through his hair again, not yet pulling but reminding him she'd have no trouble doing it if he didn't get started.

His mouth fastened on her cunt. He sucked her clit gently, then set to work with a steady, slow pattern of tongue strokes that had her arching her back in moments to thrust herself closer to his mouth. When his hands slid behind her to hold her ass in place, Leah realised she'd been wriggling.

Leah had been with men who minced around her cunt like it was an appetiser, some small bite to whet their appetites. Others had regarded her cunt and their tongues as long-distance lovers or, worse, some x-marked treasure for which they'd lost the map. Brandon ate her pussy like he'd been born for just that reason.

He took his time. Moved slow. But he paid attention, too, shifting when she shifted and moving faster when her body tensed against him and she murmured instructions. Leah paid attention, too, as best she could with ecstasy shooting through her with every swipe of his tongue and stroke of his fingers. When she praised him with a simple, 'That's so good, just like that,' she heard the intake of his breath and the immediate muffled moan that came after. The sound of him taking such pleasure in pleasing her urged her to keep going when passion might otherwise have forced her silence. The more she said, the more he reacted, the more she found to say and the less she worried about sounding stupid.

Her voice had gone low and ragged and she sipped at the air to keep it steady. She gave herself up to the white noise in her head, the low, hidden thrum of erotic power she'd craved for so long but which had eluded her for nearly as long. Back tipped her head as her body arched towards him. Her grip flexed in the thickness of his hair and she tensed, listening for the shift in his breathing to tell her he was getting off on this as much as she was.

Orgasm welled within her, and Leah didn't fight it. She focused on the pleasure of his lips and tongue, the occasional scrape of his teeth on her tender flesh as he licked and sucked and nibbled. She drew close to the edge and he slowed the pace without her having to say a word.

He shifted again. She heard the pop of his joints as he moved but, if the position was hurting him, Brandon didn't complain. He only fixed his hands more firmly beneath her rear and held her closer to him so he could use the tip of his tongue to drill the super-sensitive place just above her cit.

'Right there.' The words purred out of her like the sound of paper tearing. Her cunt pulsed in the first wave of climax, but it held off.

Brandon, breathing hard, backed off a little. He kissed her thighs again as one hand slid from under her to stroke lightly along her labia and clit. Leah opened her eyes. She looked down at him.

He was looking at her. 'I want to make you come.'

He said he wanted, but it sounded as though he were asking permission. Another ripple of climax fluttered through her. She let go of his hair and put both hands back on the table, holding tight as she moved to keep the edge from digging into her.

'Use your fingers,' she said, watching the way his pulse beat at the base of this throat, where the shirt lay open to show his skin. 'Put them inside me. I want you to fuck me with your hand . . . oh . . . God, Brandon!'

She'd used his name deliberately before, but it slipped out of her without warning when he did as she said and slid one long finger inside her. Then another. When her mouth shaped it, when her tongue pressed it out from behind her teeth, it sounded like an endearment. She watched his face, the way he blinked, fast, when she said it.