The Boss (10 page)

I checked the clock. It was quarter to seven.
My stomach knotted with excitement. I had just a little over an
hour before Neil would arrive, and I intended to seduce him from
the moment he stepped through the door.

I showered carefully, so I wouldn't get my
hair wet, then dried myself and rubbed some of the divine smelling
hotel lotion into my skin. I frowned at my hair in the mirror. I’d
worn a tousled up-do all day, but it was work hair.

To my unbelievable good luck, when I pulled
out the pins my hair let down into waves I couldn't have possibly
achieved with a curling iron and infinite patience. If there were a
patron saint of sexy hair, I would be lighting candles to her, for
sure.

I touched up my makeup, thickening my
eyeliner just a bit and swapping my nude lip color for a dark berry
gloss I’d found in the bottom of my purse. I dressed, neatened up
the bathroom, then hurried downstairs.

Standing before the mirror in the living
area, I tugged down the hem of the short dress that clung to my
body like a glove. The wide sleeves fluttered from my elbows as I
reached up to fluff my hair one last time. I thought back to what
I'd looked like that day at the airport six years ago. This was a
definite improvement to greasy teenager skin and bad highlights in
a tee-shirt and jeans.

I found an iPod plugged into a stereo dock,
and I took the liberty of scrolling through the albums. I was
pleasantly surprised to find some genuinely cool choices - Peter
Gabriel, Florence + The Machine, Damien Rice - and ultimately I
selected some TV on the Radio. A slow, moody song filled the entire
suite from built-in speakers.

After some searching, I’d found the switch to
lower the shade over the huge window. There was a dimmer switch in
the main living area, so I turned down the lights, then arranged
myself on the wide white couch. I wriggled my skirt up a bit and
spread my legs, my attention fixed on the door.

I couldn't believe I was doing this. I
couldn't believe it was actually happening, after six years. After
I had given up hope of ever having a sexual experience as
satisfying as my night with Leif. Every muscle in my body tensed
with anticipation. My breath caught in my chest as my fingers
ventured down, under the black lace of my panties. I thought back
to my white cotton underpants that night at the Crowne Plaza, and I
giggled to myself. If anyone had told me back then that I'd be sex
ambushing the man six years later, I wouldn't have believed I would
have the nerve.

I closed my eyes and stroked two fingers down
my slit. My hips lifted. I'd been so eager for this moment, now it
seemed like my skin was too sensitive to touch. I thought of what
Neil would see when he walked in, and remembered the undisguised
appreciation in his eyes while he'd watched our hands on my
body.

My stomach fluttered with nervous
butterflies. What if he was expecting the girl from six years ago,
who'd only had sex with fumbling teenage boys? What if he got here
and was turned off by my initiative? After all, he'd found my
naiveté so endearing the last time we were together.

Oh shut up
, I scolded myself.
Would
you really want to fuck a guy who only wanted you for your sexual
inexperience? No, because that would be weird.

I’d made a salient point, I had to
concede.

My fingertips circled my clit, and a shaky
breath stuttered across my lips. My flesh felt hot and heavy under
my hand, and I cupped myself, letting my fingers slip between the
folds of my sex.

The door clicked open, and the weight of my
desire became like an electric current. My lungs seized, my limbs
quivered. I opened my eyes, a soft groan escaping me when I saw
Neil there. He closed the door and dropped his messenger bag. His
gaze met mine and held it as he walked toward me in his long black
coat and leather gloves. I don't know how I managed to maintain eye
contact, but I did, and I had never felt so sexy in my entire life.
Why had I ever doubted that this would please him?

His maddeningly neutral expression gave
nothing away, but he couldn’t disguise the hunger in his eyes. Oh,
he wanted me. He stood over me, looking down as I continued to move
my hand beneath my panties.

"Take those off." His voice was soft and
deep, the tone firm. I was being commanded, not asked. A perverse
thrill shot through me, and I shivered.

His eyes followed my hands as I slowly peeled
the scrap of black lace down my thighs. He stepped closer and ran
one gloved hand up my calf, raising goose bumps on my skin. I
moaned at the cool touch of the leather, and he grasped my panties,
jerking them down the rest of the way. I slipped my feet from them
and watched him lift the lace to his nose.

"Oh god." My exclamation tore out on a ragged
breath, and I pressed my thighs together against the pounding ache
in my cunt. I wanted him so badly I trembled, but I was afraid of
what would happen when we actually touched. The longing, the
desperate, clawing sexual need that had been missing from every
encounter I'd had in the intervening six years crashed over me,
turned my blood into liquid desire coursing to every throbbing cell
in my body.

"Don't stop," he said, removing his gloves
slowly, tugging one fingertip at a time. I spread my legs a little,
and he ordered, "Wider."

I heard my pulse in my ears as I parted my
thighs further. Neil took off his coat and tossed it across the
ottoman, on top of the gloves he'd already discarded. He moved to
stand between my spread legs, looking down at me with his hands in
his pockets. He was hard, his cock a visible ridge against his fly
beneath his unbuttoned jacket.

I stroked myself, letting my fingers wander
further, to dip inside before tracing upward again, coated in the
evidence of my overwhelming desire. I smoothed the silky wetness
over my clitoris, into the short, neatly trimmed strip of hair on
my mound.

Wordlessly, Neil watched me rub my clit in
slow circles. Being like this for him, my legs open, my pussy
exposed and gleaming wet while he stood there fully dressed, turned
the naughty factor up to eleven and then some. Just thinking about
what I was doing spiked my arousal higher. I had done things with
him that I'd never done with anyone else, and that knowledge made
me feel oddly safe.

My thighs tensed, and I planted my black
pumps firmly against the rug. My orgasm wound tight inside me,
ready to spring and uncoil me from the inside out. A yelped, "Ah!"
of frustration escaped me, and I lifted my hips from the sofa. I
was going to come, I was so close, I was going to come while he
watched me, without him ever touching me, and I was so goddamn
close -

"Stop."

The word was confusing in the context of the
moment, and that was enough to shock me into actually stopping. My
internal muscles clenched painfully, reaching for the climax that
had been suddenly denied.

"What?" I panted, gripping the hem of my
dress to physically restrain myself from relieving the ache.

"Come here." He held out his hand to me, and
unthinking I offered him the one that had just been busy between my
legs. He pulled me to my feet and braced my swaying body against
him with a palm at my lower back. Being so close to him made me
dizzy; his faintly spicy cologne filled my head, and my skin became
hyper aware of his body heat, even through our clothes.

With his other hand, he brought my still damp
fingers to his mouth and sucked them between his lips. I gasped at
the touch of his tongue against my fingertips as he tasted me, and
he released them with a small, strangely serious smile.

I rose on my tiptoes, my hand sliding around
his neck and into his hair to tug his mouth down to mine. His groan
was muffled by our kiss, but the hungry sound went bone deep,
vibrating off my every nerve ending. He swayed with me to the low,
insistent beat of the music. My thighs stuck together with the
wetness that had smeared between them. My body wept for his touch,
for his cock, for fulfillment.

His tongue stroked against mine, while one
hand slid down my arm to lace our fingers together. He broke our
mouths apart, dropping kisses along my jaw on a path toward my ear.
He traced the edge of my earlobe, and I shivered in his arms.

"I have fantasized about this every day for
the past six years," he whispered, the ragged edge of need apparent
in his voice. I almost sobbed in relief to hear those words. It
wasn't just me, then. There had been something incredible between
us, and clearly there still was. I hadn't been crazy, looking for
this kind of passion. It did exist.

He held me tight, his arm locked behind my
back, holding me on my feet as he nibbled the shell of my ear. The
prickly, over-sensitive feeling made me gasp. I leaned heavily
against him, my breath speeding up, my muscles tensing as he laved
over and over the same, extremely erogenous spot. It was like being
tickled, but the feeling shot straight to my groin, and he didn’t
let up even as I writhed away from his mouth. I squeezed my legs
together, my toes curled in my shoes, and I only realized what was
happening when my cunt spasmed with a flood of wetness and grateful
relief poured through my muscles. It wasn't the most mind-blowing,
intense orgasm I'd ever had, but it did take the edge off my
painful need, and he had managed to do it just by kissing my
ear.

"Oh," I managed on a shaky breath as I looked
up at the dark amusement in his eyes. "I think I'm in trouble."

"Yes, it appears so." He grinned, boyish and
self-congratulatory, and released me, leaving me to stand helpless
and shaking as he went to the wet bar. "You had some champagne,
then?"

Champagne?
I’d just had an orgasm in
his arms, from him sucking on my ear. Not from fucking me or
fingering me or eating me out, but from tame,
backseat-in-high-school necking. And now he was asking me about
champagne?
I could barely stand upright.

"I did," I smoothed down my skirt, feeling
suddenly self-conscious.

He poured some and came back to me with
maddening slowness. "I didn't see another glass. Do you mind if we
share?"

The other glass was upstairs on the marble
countertop beside the bathroom sink, but someone could have offered
me a million dollars to leave the room and I wouldn't have. Not
when Neil was so close to me, so oddly self-possessed while I was
still trembling with my need.

"That is a very pretty dress.” His eyes moved
over my body in near reverence. He took a sip from the glass and
handed it to me. "Now turn around, so I can get you out of it."

I turned slowly, my ankles still weak and
wobbly from my climax. Neil stepped up behind me, so close that his
trousers brushed the backs of my bare legs. He found the zipper
between my shoulder blades and smoothly pulled it down. The music
stopped, leaving us with only the sound of the metal teeth parting
to punctuate the silence. He pushed down my sleeves one at a time,
as I shifted the champagne from one hand to the other. His palms
followed the path the fabric took, every touch igniting a scorching
trail across my skin. The dress fell to the floor, and I shivered.
I still wore my black lace bra and my heels. When my hand moved to
the clasp at my back, Neil brushed it aside.

"Leave it on, for now. The shoes as well."
The rustle of silk told me he'd taken off his jacket. When I
turned, he was unbuttoning his shirt.

"Should we go upstairs?" I asked, raising an
eyebrow as I sipped from the glass in my hand.

He pulled his arms free and tossed the shirt
to the floor. Which was slightly alarming to me, because I knew it
probably cost more than my share of the monthly rent. But Neil was
standing in front of me, shirtless, and that kind of took
precedence over everything else. He was fit, and not just fit for a
man who was almost fifty. Brown hair with a smattering of silver
lightly shadowed his tight chest, and narrowed into a line down his
flat stomach. He crushed me to him, and the shock of his bare skin
on mine made it impossible to stand on my own.

He kissed me hard, his hand tangled in my
long hair, and when we were both breathless he lifted his head to
answer my question. "Not now. I thought I'd lay you down on this
sofa and bury my face in your cunt first. Unless you object..."

My jaw dropped. "I remember you being direct,
but I'd forgotten how direct."

He winked and took the champagne from me.
After a long swallow, he set the glass on the small table beside
the couch. "I haven't heard an objection. And I've been looking
forward to this all day."

The pure, molten heat that suffused me had
nothing to do with the champagne. I took his hand and pulled him
with me to the sofa, where I reclined as I’d been when he'd
arrived. He dropped to his knees between my spread legs and rested
his cheek against my stomach. The evening stubble on his jaw
scratched my skin. I thought of how it would feel against my inner
thighs, my labia, and I moaned, raising my hips and silently
willing him to reach his destination quickly.

He didn't need my urging. He lifted one of my
legs over his shoulder, then the other, and bent his head. His
tongue parted me, and I curled up with a choked exclamation,
burying my hands in his hair. He gripped my hips and pushed them
firmly against the sofa. I fell back, letting him hold me captive,
his big hands pressing me down as he sucked and nibbled. When his
tongue slipped inside me I sobbed aloud.

"God, the taste of you," he murmured against
my thigh. "I could stay here all night."

He pulled my clit into his mouth, the stubble
on his cheeks rasping my slick, open flesh, and my body tightened.
The stiletto heels of my pumps dug into his back, but if he didn't
care, I didn't either. I lifted myself against his mouth, and he
slipped a hand beneath my ass to hold me. He pressed two fingers of
his other hand to my cleft as he sucked me, and with the slightest
tilt of my hips they were inside me. He pushed deeper and crooked
his fingers, pressing hard against my g-spot. I felt my pulse
center under his tongue, felt the edges of his teeth teasing my
clit, and white-hot pleasure seized every muscle fiber in my
body.