Page 30 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)
Chapter Eighteen
Nell
H e kept catching my eye, giving me that wicked grin that scrambled my brain.
Those deep dimples, carving sexy lines into his cheeks.
He’d done it in the restaurant and made me screw up a bunch of the dinner orders.
He’d done it on the drive back to his office building.
And now he was doing it again, right now, from behind his desk, while I was trying to concentrate on Bruce’s game texts.
I crossed my legs and tried to catch my breath. That bad bastard. It wasn’t fair.
“Nell? Earth to Nell? Do you have any of them finished yet?”
I jerked my gaze back to Bruce. “Uh, do I have what finished?”
Bruce was hanging on to his patience. “The manuscripts for the goblin caves! Did you get those done? I need to submit them to the graphic artists! Soon!”
“Ah ... um ...” I winced. What with last night’s attackers, and the police station, and the protracted bouts of incredible sex, I hadn’t had a second to work on the game. In fact, I’d forgotten about the existence of the game. “I’m so sorry, Bruce, but I?—”
“She’s been busy,” Duncan said.
Bruce’s eyes narrowed. He looked from Duncan to Nell. “Busy? With what? More than usual?”
I felt myself begin to blush. “My life’s been kind of crazy lately. If you want, I’ll try to whip something up right now.”
“Okay, but I was hoping to brainstorm about the octagonal tower and the magic mirrors right now, to get a jump on those for next week. And how about the prophesies for the cursed tomb of the lost kings? Have you started in on those yet?”
I resisted the urge to excuse myself for slacking off. “Not yet, but I have some ideas,” I said. “They’ll all need to be encrypted, though. Is the program ready?”
“I roughed out a Rosetta stone last night.” Bruce looked like he was on the edge of pouting. “We’ll be here till midnight if we want to have a chance in hell of finishing?—”
“No,” Duncan cut in. “She’s been waitressing all day, and last night, she got attacked on the street.”
Bruce looked at me, shocked. “Attacked?”
“Yeah. I was, ah, mugged,” I mumbled. “Fortunately, Duncan was there. He scared them off.”
Bruce looked at his brother. “Dude! You didn’t say anything about a battle with the forces of evil on the streets of Manhattan! Mom is going to freak!”
“Not if you don’t tell her,” Duncan said. “In any case, Nell needs dinner and rest. Plus, she has an appointment at nine in Queens. It’s not happening tonight.”
Bruce looked from him to me, and back again. Slowly, a grin spread across his face. “I see,” he said. “Does she need her beauty rest, then? So that’s the way the wind blows. That’s interesting as hell. Inconvenient. Poorly timed. But, ah … wow. Who knew.”
“Shut up, Bruce,” Duncan growled.
“I’m sorry about you getting attacked, but we have got to get some more material churned out by Monday,” Bruce fretted. “I don’t know how you expect us to?—”
“Tomorrow,” Duncan said.
Bruce rolled his eyes. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, Dunc.”
“Who cares? Work doesn’t care what day it gets done.”
“I’m free tomorrow,” I piped up quickly. “We can absolutely work tomorrow.”
Duncan looked at his brother. “See? Problem solved. We’re done here for the day. Let’s wrap it up. We’ll talk tomorrow morning about when to meet.”
Bruce got up and backed toward the door. “Fine, then. I’ll just go on home and slave away on my Rosetta Stone while you two lovebirds?—”
“Out, Bruce!” Duncan’s voice lashed like a whip.
“I’ll just, ah, engage this lock for you. To save time, you know.” Bruce flicked the lever and ducked out the door. It snicked shut behind him.
“Duncan! That was unnecessary!” I said hotly. “You embarrassed me to death! I promised him that I’d get those goblin cave manuscripts—oh!”
He pulled me up onto my feet and led me around his desk, then settled me onto his lap, straddling him. I struggled, twisting.
“Hey! Are you nuts? The conference room wasn’t kinky and inappropriate enough for you? You have to up the ante?”
“Always.” He stifled my protest with a persuasive kiss that stole my breath.
I grasped his wrists for balance, gasping for air.
“It’s just a kiss,” he murmured, nuzzling my throat. “About that conference room. Every time I pass the door, my dick gets hard. No, no, don’t panic. The door’s locked.”
“That makes it worse!” I protested. “Everyone is speculating!”
“No they aren’t,” he said. “Everybody’s gone home but Bruce, and he’s already drawn his own conclusions about us.
Forget all of them.” He gripped my hips, pulling me tight against that hot bulge, and kissed me hungrily.
“I did a crazy thing today,” he said, between kisses. “And it’s all your fault.”
“Oh, really?” I quavered, thighs clenching. “My fault? How’s that?”
“I was supposed to convince my sister Ellie to see reason, and change her major from theater back to economics.” His arms tightened, grinding his erection against my melting, quivering sweet spots. I could hardly breathe, it felt so good.
“I called her,” he continued in a low, wondering voice. “I was about to do my spiel, just like a fucking robot when someone pushes the button. And then I found your petals.”
“Really?” I said. My panties and his trousers were a whisper-thin barrier between the scorching heat of his erection. “And?”
“I just stopped. And I told her to go for it.” He sounded bewildered.
I was so surprised, I laughed. “Really? Just like that?”
“Just like that. Out of nowhere. There I was, rose petals all around me. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring her down. The program crashed. And it’s all your doing, Nell.”
My heart swelled. I cradled his face in my hands and kissed him. “Congratulations,” I whispered. “You did a great thing. You did the right thing.”
He cupped his hand behind my head and deepened the kiss.
My long sweater skirt was rucked up high on my thighs, over the same beige gartered stockings I’d worn the day before, and his erection pressed against the gusset of my panties.
I tried to pull away, gasping for breath.
“I’m going to give you a great big wet spot,” I warned him. “You won’t be fit to be seen.”
“Only one solution.” He lifted me up, cupping my bottom, and swiftly yanked his belt loose and his pants open.
His cock sprang up, empurpled, stiff, and hard.
I cried out as Duncan slid his finger delicately inside the crotch of my panties and into that hot, liquid well of pure sensation, swiveling and stroking.
A sharp tug against my hip, the fabric strained, and ripped.
He pulled me back down, and I gasped with pleasure as he slid his thick, stiff cock slowly, completely inside me.
I braced myself against his chest, arching and wiggling. “Hey! Hold on! I’ve been spoiling you, but don’t you start thinking your masterful alpha bullshit is how it’s going to be with us,” I warned. “Now you’re ripping my clothes?”
He slid relentlessly deeper, then rocked tenderly inside me. “But my masterful alpha bullshit always seems to make you come,” he pointed out, his voice a low, velvety rumble. “And I can buy you more clothes. Anything you want.”
“That’s not the point,” I said fiercely, though my body was betraying me.
I could barely speak. I was swaying on top of him, head thrown back, gasping for air, my pussy squeezing eagerly around his cock.
“It’s like I said that first night. Just because you can turn me on doesn’t mean you control me. That you run the show. Remember that.”
His fingers clutched my hips, lifting, pulling, pulsing. “That’s way too deep for a guy like me. Especially when all the blood in my body’s been redirected to my dick.”
“Playing dumb is a cheap excuse,” I shot back.
“Only one I’ve got,” he admitted. “Your waitress friend told me I could make up for my intellectual shortcomings by being good in bed.”
That snapped me out of my sensual daze, and I jerked upright. “No! She didn’t!”
“She absolutely did,” he said solemnly. “Ask her, when you see her next. She’ll corroborate with pride.”
“Oh, my God.” I covered my face with my hands and started to laugh. “I can’t believe them. I just can’t believe it.”
“I have to admit, I found it kind of comforting,” he mused. “I figured, maybe there’s hope, you know? Even for a lumbering, fist-dragging, Neanderthal meathead like me.”
“Oh, you just shut up!”
“Good thing you like ’em big and stupid, right?”
I swatted at him. “Stop it! You’re making it worse!”
“Not worse. Better,” he said. “It feels fucking amazing. Those little fluttery clenches around my dick every time you laugh. Laugh all you want. I’ll keep you laughing as long as I can.”
I pressed my hand to his mouth, chest hitching, eyes watering with shaky giggles. “Shhh. Really. Please, Duncan, damn it. I’m serious. Stop.”
“Fuck, no.” He pulled my hand down, grinning. “So this guy walks into this bar?—”
“Shhh!” I stared fiercely into his eyes. “I. Am. Serious. Acknowledge it!”
He nodded, and kissed my palm. “Okay, okay,” he soothed. “I’ll be good. I won’t do my alpha thing. I won’t even move. I’ll sit here like a statue. Your life-sized sex toy. You just squeeze me, ride me, do whatever you want until you’ve had enough. Sound good?”
Oh, boy, did it ever. I did exactly as he offered, squeezing him inside me until my lower body was flushed and glowed with intense, shuddering pleasure, shaking with firecracker jolts.
He kept his promise, though it could cost him.
It took a while for me to get where I needed to go, with him so motionless.
He trembled, gripping my arms tightly, staring at my face as I writhed and whimpered, too lost to pleasure to be self-conscious.
It was a long, slow climb, but the outcome was inevitable. And explosive.
He caught me as I arched back and plunged into free fall, his growl of satisfaction vibrating through me.