She bit her lip, the dirty talk an unfamiliar experience but not an unwelcome one. To hear such a seemingly sophisticated man talk so coarsely did something to her, made her feel like she was seeing the primal version behind the curtain. “You have a filthy mouth, Van.”
“And you fucking love it,” he said, leaning down and licking the sticky orange juice at the corner of her mouth, as he thrust into her again. “You blush, but your eyes go hot. You’re not craving polite.”
She gasped as he angled just right inside her. “I don’t know what I crave.”
“Yes, you do.” He rocked into her harder and with more speed. “You said it yourself. You want to use and be used. Come again for me, baby. Use my cock. Let me feel you break apart beneath me.”
He braced one hand next to her head and tucked the other between them, stroking her clit with every thrust of his hips. Her lids fluttered shut as the tide of sensation built to a breaking point.
“Eyes on me, gorgeous. I want you to see who’s fucking you. And I want to watch you go under.”
She forced her gaze upward, the intensity of his stare burning through her. His dark blond hair had fallen forward and the twinkle lights sparkled above him, a fierce lion with a gilded mane. Then he smiled. And she lost it. The cry that roared up her vocal cords would’ve been loud enough to be heard at the restaurant downstairs, but he levered down and kissed her, capturing the desperate sound before it escaped. She poured everything she had into that kiss as her body went molten around him.
He pressed his palm against her bound wrists, pinning her to the table and pumping into her hard enough to rattle the bowls behind her. Her orgasm rolled through her in powerful, crushing waves and he tore away from the kiss, his groan of pleasure raking over her senses as he sunk deep and spilled inside her.
“Fuck, baby,” he said, letting his forehead meet hers, his chest rising and falling with panted breaths. “So much for the slow and easy evening I had imagined. I promise I at least planned to feed you first.”
She laughed beneath him, overcome with some weird combination of euphoria and the bizarreness of the whole situation. Here she was lying naked on a restaurant table with a perfect stranger slathered in olive oil and orange juice and drifting down from the best orgasm of her life. Who was this woman?
He chuckled along with her and reached up to untie her hands. “We’re a mess.”
“But my skin is now exceptionally moisturized, and I smell amazing,” she said, grinning.
“Indeed it is.” He pressed an openmouthed kiss to her sticky neck and inhaled. “And yes, you do. Citrus and sex, let’s bottle that.”
Her stomach flipped at the words. Citrus and sex were what her kitchen had smelled like after she’d found Doug. She’d thought she’d never be able to smell orange juice again without thinking of that horrible day. But Van had rewired her associations in a few mind-blowing moments. Now she wanted to roll around in that scent. “We’ll make millions.”
“No doubt.” Van gave her another quick kiss then eased out of her. He turned to discreetly strip off the condom and zipped up before looking back in her direction. “Remind me next time to not take no for an answer on bringing you back to my place. At least there I’d have a shower and towels to offer you.”
She rolled her wrists and then pushed up on her elbows, offering him a smile, but knowing there would be no next time. That’d been their agreement, her one condition. Tonight could only be an escape. A fantasy.
She couldn’t handle any more than that.
Especially with a guy who could make her feel like this. One who could make her feel this wanted and sexy, this . . . special. She knew she was definitely not the latter for him. Van was way too smooth and confident—a seducer. She doubted his bed was ever cold.
He was a playboy.
He was a temptation she couldn’t afford.
FOUR
Kade Vandergriff smiled when he heard soft snores coming from his left. Oh, how quickly a shitty day had morphed into an amazing evening. When he’d headed out tonight for location visits, all his frustration from a completely useless session with his attorney about their seemingly winless case had come along with him. It probably would’ve been wise to go home afterward to let himself settle down. But he hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of pacing the halls of his big, empty house for the night. The silence and space would’ve made him crazy.
So he’d driven into Dallas to visit his restaurants, hoping to channel all the crap from the day into a productive evening. But after only a few hours into his drop-in visits, his frustration hadn’t gone away but had instead morphed into nebulous, growing anger. By the time he’d arrived at Barcelona and discovered three of their most popular dishes had been eighty-sixed because of the manager’s oversight, Kade had been on the verge of a Gordon Ramsay moment.
But then Contessa had walked into the restaurant, chatting with her friend and looking like she wanted to be anywhere but there. Kade had stopped midsentence in his lecture to his manager and had forgotten why he was so damn pissed. He’d left his manager without another word and followed Contessa into the dating event, having no idea why he felt so compelled to follow her or what he was going to do once he got to her. But when her name hadn’t been on the list, he’d jumped at the opportunity to step in. A few minutes into their time upstairs, she’d made him forget every crappy thing that had happened that day. He’d gotten lost in the moment, lost in her.
He glanced over at his dozing companion. Contessa had curled up on one of the sofas in the bar to wait while he picked up the last of the food and dishes they’d used on their rooftop “un-date,” but exhaustion had apparently gotten the better of her. Or maybe it was the six-course meal, the three glasses of sangria, and the two bouts of amazing sex. Even he was feeling weary on his feet, and staying up until three A.M. was not a rare occurrence with his schedule.
Not for the first time, he wished they were back at his place where he could strip her down and tuck her into his bed for the night. Wake her up with his tongue between her thighs because damn the woman was sexy when she came. It was like each time it happened, she was surprised, like she didn’t think herself capable of that passionate of a response. And for some reason, she thought she wouldn’t like kink yet had responded to his commands with beautiful capitulation. Which, of course, only made him want to find out just how out of her mind he could drive her. They’d only scratched the surface tonight.
But he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get another chance. She’d laid it all out up front, refreshing but brutal in her honesty. She’d wanted an escape tonight. She’d wanted to use him for that, and he’d been happy to oblige. Hell, the one-night fantasy had become his specialty lately. Not that he was complaining. He’d enjoyed playing the third in a few scenes with his friends’ submissives at The Ranch, the private BDSM resort he belonged to. And he’d had his fair share of casual encounters over the past few years with kinky women, as well as vanilla ones. Fun nights. Exciting flings. Wild adventures.
But in the end, the result was always the same. After the initial rush, he lost interest. Since his divorce, even women who’d been open to considering moving the relationship to a more intense level—the level he desperately craved—he couldn’t seem to muster up the desire. Too often, it felt like those women were simply agreeing to his flavor of kink because of all the fringe benefits. He’d been down that road. Nothing like finding out the girlfriend you’re tying up and flogging actually hates pain and all things kink and is only taking it because she wants you to buy her that Coach purse or bring her on that trip to Maui.
But even the women who hadn’t been motivated for the wrong reasons had lost his interest in a month or two. The lifestyles reporter at the local paper had taken to calling him the Time Share Bachelor because his relationships had ended on such a predictable schedule. He never strayed, but he never
stayed either. Sometimes he wondered if his divorce had rewired him to only be capable of the temporary. So perhaps it was best for all involved that Contessa walked away from him tonight. Clean. Easy. No attachments or regrets. Everyone could look golden in a one-night stand. A flawless fantasy night for both their memory banks.
Kade sighed as he carried an armful of bowls into the kitchen to rinse them out, unable to shake his desire for more time with Contessa despite his perfectly valid internal arguments. They’d spent hours together. He’d taken her twice. It should be enough. Plus, she was vanilla for God’s sake. This wasn’t like meeting some girl at The Ranch where he could imagine all the dirty things they could try out and mutually enjoy. Contessa, despite her little glimmers of bravado, had a shyness about her, like she was almost awkward about sex. When he’d pinned her hands above her head, her eyes had gone as wide as a virgin’s on prom night. She may’ve been married, but clearly her husband hadn’t given her any more than the basics.
A damn tragedy, that. Because the kind of eager responsiveness she’d shown upstairs proved the woman was built for pleasure, starved for it. And everything in his body was giving a battle cry to be the man to feed her. But there was no way in hell he was going to chase her for the chance. He didn’t chase. Period. He’d spent too many years when he was a kid doing that crap, and it only got you humiliated. Chasing. Pining. Fantasizing about girls he couldn’t have. Only to be turned down so she could go be with the jerk who treated her like shit.
Never again. He’d learned. Girls who wanted to be chased, wanted to be in control of you. And control is one thing he’d never relinquish again.
“Need any help?”
Kade looked up from dumping the last of the food into the trash bin, finding Contessa wearing a sleepy-eyed half smile. He shook his head, his whirling thoughts calming at the sight of her. “Nah, it’s been a while since I’ve been on clean-up duty in a kitchen, but I haven’t forgotten how to do it.”
“So are you a chef?” she asked.
He smiled, amused that she hadn’t bothered to ask his position up until this point. It was a nice change of pace. Most women knew his whole resume before ever saying word one to him. “I went to culinary school, so technically, yes, I could be a chef. But that isn’t my current position. I own this place.”
And many, many others. But he didn’t need to volunteer that at this point. He kind of liked her not knowing the whole restaurant mogul aspect of his career. No matter what, it changed how people interacted with him once they knew.
“Wow, impressive,” she said, though she sounded more wary than impressed. “So you were totally cheating when you said you wouldn’t have to pay for anything. Technically, you’re paying for everything, down to the electricity keeping this light on.”
He grinned. “Are you going to convict me on a technicality?”
“Totally.”
He sighed. “Tough jury. Well, I have handcuffs in the car. Let me finish cleaning up and then you can take me in.”
She laughed. “Somehow I don’t think you’re kidding about having handcuffs.”
He sent her a sly grin but went back to rinsing off the last of the dishes. Actually, he didn’t have any in the car, but at home . . . At home he had enough restraints to bind her in a hundred ways and never repeat a method. “A gentleman never reveals his secrets.”
She went quiet for a while after that, and he began to regret the off-the-cuff comment. The girl had just gotten out of a marriage where her husband was keeping the biggest secret of all, and here he was joking about secrets.
He wiped his hands on a towel and turned to her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean, with your husband—”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head, cutting off his apology. “You’re fine. Truly, I wasn’t even thinking about the situation with my ex. Just about our agreement for total honesty.”
Total honesty. Like not even giving her his real first name or the scope of his job. He was doing stellar on that all around. But she was looking so pensive that he couldn’t help but walk over to her. He put his hands on her arms, rubbing the chill bumps there. “What’s on your mind?”
Her gaze slid to the right and down as if there was something eminently more interesting on the floor. “I’m trying to fight the urge to ask you a supremely embarrassing question, but one that I need an honest answer to.”
Uh-oh. That sounded like a no-win trap if ever there was one. But what was he supposed to say to that? “Well, since you’ve already declared that we’re not going to see each other after tonight, I’d say you probably have nothing to lose by asking.”
She took a deep breath, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip, and her gaze still locked on anything but him. “When I caught my husband cheating. He told me it was partly my fault, which I know is bullshit.”
“Total bullshit,” Kade agreed.
“But he said I was boring in bed,” she rushed on. “And I can’t help but wonder if maybe—”
“That fucker.”
Her attention snapped upward, surprise in her eyes.
He cupped her face in his hands. “Baby, I don’t know much about you. I don’t know your last name or what you do for a living. I don’t know if you take cream in your coffee or if you prefer tea. But I can tell you one thing for sure. There is nothing boring about you. Tonight was amazing. You were amazing. And if that idiot ex-husband of yours didn’t know what to do with a gorgeous woman and all that passion you have brewing right beneath the surface, then that’s on him.”
All the tension sagged out of her, and she closed her eyes, nodding in his hands. “Thank you.”
The soft response and her obvious relief nearly undid him. What kind of asshole made a vibrant woman like this doubt herself? He half wished her ex was here right now. Kade would let the guy watch as Kade took Contessa right in front of him, let him watch how glorious she was when given pleasure by a man who knew what he was doing.
“Don’t give his words another thought,” he said, kissing her forehead and wishing he could swipe the memory from her mind with the gesture.
“I know I shouldn’t, but it’s hard not to let doubt creep in. When you approached me tonight, I almost chickened out because I thought I might embarrass myself. I’m not that experienced. I married him so young and—”
“Contessa,” he said, frustration edging his words. “Stop.”
She blinked up at him, apparently taken aback at his change in tone.
He lowered his hands from her face, fighting the sudden urge to turn her over his knee and spank her for even giving that jerk another second of thought. “Stop doubting yourself. Inexperience does not mean boring. Boring is a woman who isn’t present with you in the moment. Boring is a woman who lies there and doesn’t participate or who isn’t open to trying new things. Boring is an attitude, not a lack of skill or experience. If you’ve got the desire, the rest can be learned. Taught.”
All it took was a good teacher and a willing student. And right now, he was feeling quite professorial.
“You think?” she said, looking unconvinced.
“Baby, nothing is sexier than a woman who wants to learn.” He moved forward, backing her into the wall, loving the little gasp she made when his burgeoning erection pressed against her. “In fact, it’s my biggest turn-on, showing a woman exactly what to do to please me.”
She wet her lips, her nerves visible right there at the surface. “Sounds like kind of a selfish way of looking at it. How to please you.”
He chuckled and slid his hand down along her hip. “Yes, but pleasing me reaps so many rewards. I always repay with interest.”
When he snuck his hand beneath her skirt and upward, she tilted her head back against the wall and groaned. “What would you teach me?”
He smiled with promise. She’d left her panties off since they’d been rui
ned earlier, and his fingers easily found what they were seeking. “The list is long, baby. It’d definitely take more than one night. I’m a kinky fucker.”
“Van,” she gasped, as he curled his fingers inside her, sliding deep into the slick heat.
“Want to be my student?” He pressed his thumb against her clit, rubbing in slow, tight circles. “I promise lots of one-on-one attention.”
“Oh, God.” She rocked against his hand almost as if she was trying to resist the urge but couldn’t stop the movement. Her voice went breathy. “I can’t—I can’t get involved. With anyone.”
The words sounded like a plea instead of a statement. She was so close to the edge already, even after her orgasms from earlier. God, he loved how hot she ran. Her arousal coated his hand, her sweet scent filling the sterile kitchen. “I’m not asking you to date me, baby. I’m not good at that anyway. I’m offering to show you what you’re capable of, to teach you what you want to learn. To have fun.”
Her fingers twisted in his hair as she rocketed toward release with her eyes squeezed shut and her head lolling from side to side against the wall. “Van!”
“Come for me,” he said, his voice going gritty with his own need to see her explode again. “Fuck my hand and take what you know I can give you.”
Her shout was sharp and desperate as she shattered in orgasm, the sound winding through the kitchen and empty restaurant. She called his name in a pleading prayer and melted against the wall like butter on hot cast iron.
He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing deeply with his own desire pounding through his veins. God, she was something to behold when she let go. No fucking way was he going to let her get away with only tonight. He needed more of this.