Shaw Matthews was Beelzebub himself.
“Good morning, Whalen. I’m glad to see you’re walking okay.” He smirked. “I can hardly tell you were royally fucked a mere three days ago. What’s your secret?”
Dammit. My heart became animated, its arteries morphing into arms with hands that rattled its cage. Before, his presence had irked me and made me want to slam his face into the wall. Now it made me feel exposed. Not the kind of exposed that might make one feel naked in a roomful of strangers but the kind of exposed where a girl was glad to be rid of her clothes because that meant being one step closer to going at it like gorillas in the wild.
It took a great deal of effort, but I managed to get it together, determined not to let him see me sweat. Or breathe hard. Or mount him like a Catholic schoolgirl on spring break.
“It really is inhumane to be tortured so early in the morning” was my witty retort. And it had come in the nick of time, within the allotted space for such a remark without it looking suspiciously like I’d been affected by his presence. So, feeling the high from that small victory, I rolled with it. For all Shaw knew, the last time we’d seen each other was a very distant memory, one that had meant nothing at all to me. He’d been mediocre at best. I could pull that off, couldn’t I?
“Tortured. Funny. Here,” he said, handing one of the cups in my direction.
I scoffed. “Good idea. Poison should put me out of my misery.”
“It’s a grande three-Splenda white chocolate mocha,” he said, as if I should know what that meant. I did. It was my normal drink order. Entirely too specific for him to have guessed it. Maybe I hadn’t been far off the mark on my original stalker theory.
“When you took off like a bat out of hell from the coffee shop the other morning, Tiff said you were a regular. So I asked her what you normally ordered and decided to be a human and bring it to you.” He pushed it toward me again. I wasn’t going to accept it, but then I smelled the white chocolate and my pride was damned.
“Thank you,” I said, taking the cup. “Have a good day.” That was all the nicety he was going to get from me.
Opening my office door, I walked inside and set the cup and my messenger bag down, then started going through the mail left on my desk from Friday afternoon. Free coffee or not, I was in no mood for his bullshit.
Undeterred by my intended rudeness, Shaw and his smart mouth followed me. “So did you happen to talk to Rockford over the weekend?”
Right. Apparently, he felt like our little tryst qualified as something more. That definitely needed to be nipped in the bud. “First coffee, now small talk? I’m sorry, but did I miss the memo where we’re pals now? It was a one-night stand. Get over it.”
“I’d rather you were under me.”
Lame. I laughed at his failed attempt. “You’re such a guy.”
Shaw sighed. “Must we always be at war?” His voice was fraudulently sincere, but then again, I’m sure he meant it to be.
I didn’t want to play anymore, and he certainly wasn’t taking the hint, so I had to hit him where it hurt. “Yes, needle dick, we must.”
Shaw chuckled. It sort of made me want to laugh at my own joke, too, but I didn’t. “Needle dick? I believe the word you used Friday night was impressive.”
“I was drunk. Everything looks bigger through beer goggles.”
He set his coffee cup down and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Oh, so that’s how you want to play this?”
“Play what? I’m not playing anything.” I was acutely aware of the fact that I’d been cycling the same pieces of mail through my hands in an attempt to keep up the façade of boredom.
“Right. You want to act like what we did only happened because you were drunk, but you and I both know that’s not true. You weren’t drunk. It happened because you wanted it to happen. I wanted it to happen. And no one but you and I will ever know about it, so you don’t have to pretend you didn’t like it.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel good about your less than stellar performance,” I said without even looking at him. A move that was sure to piss him off. Good.
“Wow. I certainly would’ve thought the massive orgasms I so generously bestowed upon you would have at least melted three inches off that glacier of an ass attached to your backside. Guess I was wrong. It happens. Not often, but still …”
“Are you saying I have a big ass, Matthews?” I quipped back. “Because I’m pretty sure you weren’t complaining when you had two handfuls of it, trying to get your rocks off inside me.”
“Not inside you. On you. There’s a difference.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him stand. I was relieved that he’d decided to leave, because I didn’t know how much faster my heart could beat without exploding in my chest or whatever. But that saying about what happens when you assume hadn’t come about for no reason. Shaw hadn’t stood to leave at all. Instead, he walked across the room to the door and shut it, locking it as well.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The accelerated heart rate took a backseat to the blood boiling in my veins. He was taking liberties in my office, the jackass.
Shaw didn’t say anything. He just stalked toward me with a shit-eating grin and a spark of something naughty in his eyes. Oh, bloody hell. I was so going to lose this game.
“Did you think about me over the weekend?” He was still coming at me; I hadn’t even realized that for every step he took forward, I was taking one back in retreat.
I did my best to keep my voice from shaking, though I was pretty sure I failed miserably. “Pfft! You wish. I hate to break it to you, Matthews, but you weren’t that good.” I was a liar, liar, pants on fire. Though in truth, my pants—or skirt, rather—only felt like it was on fire because of the blazing hot juices that were pooling in my panties.
In the meantime, my archnemesis/best lay of my life was still advancing, and my back was to the floor-to-ceiling window with nowhere left to go. I liked it.
Shaw cocked his head and looked me over, his eyes sweeping down the length of my body and then stopping to stare right at my crotch. God, could he sense it? When his tongue ran along the inside of his bottom lip and then his teeth scraped across the tender flesh, I started to think maybe he could.
“Mm-hmm. See, I think I was. I think you thought about how my thick cock stretched and filled you, how I expertly worked your pussy with my mouth, and how good your orgasm felt as it pulsed around my cock.”
His strong arms caged me, the window at my back cutting off any possible escape route, and then we were flush. The heat of his body was a delicious contrast to the chill of the glass, and God, he smelled good, but I was determined to stand my ground in hopes that his little play would backfire and force him to wave the white flag. Instead, I could feel the rigid lines of the muscles on his chest, and my traitorous nipples hardened at the sensation of the warm skin beneath his shirt and the smooth length of his neck, which begged for my tongue.
He leaned in and spoke against my ear. “Are you wet for me now?”
Holy Jesus …
I set my chin indignantly, an attempt to fake him out. It might have worked if actual words of denial had accompanied the action.
His hand drifted down to my hip, and he pulled me closer. “You want to do it again. You want to fuck me and be fucked by me. I know because I’ve seen the erotic woman you really are. You can’t fake that, Cassidy. I can smell it from a mile away. I can smell you.” And then he nipped at my lobe.
Goose bumps broke out all over my body. Oh, my God … the things that man said and did. Bedroom talk aside, there was something carnal about the whole nipping and teeth-scraping thing. I wasn’t the sort that got off on pain, and I had no desire to be bitten so hard that the skin broke. No, for me, it was the act itself. A show of dominance, and though I was a woman who was well in control of her life and every aspect of it, for the first time, I wanted to let go. Not to be tied up and used strictly for his pleasure but to, for once, n
ot have to be the one in control.
I was sure he knew it. Which meant he was up to something.
“You’re a cheating bastard.” I have no idea how I managed to eke out the words, but I did.
Shaw chuckled. “Rule number one: Know your opponent’s weaknesses and never hesitate to exploit them to gain the upper hand.”
He had me there. It was so textbook. “And what’s your weakness?”
Another chuckle. His breath carried the aroma of creamy coffee mixed with a hint of mint. It was divine. “Getting lazy on me? I thought you had a thing for the intense research of your subject.”
“You say that like I want to study you. I don’t.”
“One of the many differences between you and me is that I can at least be honest with myself. And you, too, for that matter. For example, I can admit that I jacked my dick raw thinking about you this weekend. Want to know why?”
My knees nearly buckled at the imagery, but I didn’t falter. “I couldn’t care less.”
“I call that bullshit.” Shaw bent at the knees and then rubbed his length against me. He was hard. Dammit. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how unbelievably tight your pussy was. I squeezed my dick and squeezed it”—he rolled his hips with each “squeezed”—“and I still couldn’t simulate that same tightness.”
My hands were now fists at my sides, straining with the effort not to let them unfurl. I wanted to grab his ass and help him get closer. Hell, I wanted to pull up my skirt, release his cock, and use his shoulders to hoist myself up and onto it. But that would’ve been a gross betrayal of my sensibilities. I was losing control, and that simply wasn’t acceptable.
The picture frame on the corner of my desk caught my attention, and guilt sucker-punched me in the gut. Again. But something was different about it. I realized it wasn’t that I felt like I was betraying Casey. It was just that I didn’t want him to see the good girl he’d grown up with being so naughty with someone like Shaw.
I mustered what little bit of restraint I had remaining and shoved Shaw away. Because I hated him. Because I hated that I wanted him. Because I could tell from the look in his eyes that he hated it, too. And that just turned me on even more.
“Remember all those times you snickered behind my back and said I walked around with a stick up my ass?”
Shaw grinned like a twelve-year-old boy. If we’d been on a playground, no doubt there would’ve been some nana-nana-boo-boos right along with someone sticking someone else’s head in doo-doo.
He needed to be reminded that we were grown-ups at play, so I reversed the roles and leaned in close enough that he could feel my body heat without the pleasure of my touch. “You can’t hold the stick in place without some serious muscle contractions. Kegels don’t have shit on me. Hope the memory of it was enough to last you, because you’ll never feel it again.”
“Is that so?” Shaw reached for me a second time, but I put my hand out to keep him at arm’s length.
He looked down at my hand on his chest and then back up at me, the childish grin he’d been sporting replaced by something that looked a lot like carnal sexuality. That was probably the first time any woman had ever smacked Shaw’s hand away from the cookie jar.
I hid my victorious smile as I pushed off and walked over to my desk, putting Casey’s photo facedown.
Opening my messenger bag, I spotted the scrap of fabric I’d intentionally packed there. “You thought you were going to come in here and do what? Remind me of something that I couldn’t possibly forget happened?” I shrugged. “I haven’t forgotten. But what I’m really curious about is what you thought would happen after that. Did you think I’d fall to my knees and beg you to do it all over again? Because I won’t. I’ve been there, done that, and now I’m moving on. No big deal. But for the record, I did think about you this weekend. Only not the same way you thought about me. While you were playing spank the monkey and wishing you could be inside me again, I was retching over the toilet.” That wasn’t true, but I had my best game face on, so he bought it. “Now get out of my office, Shaw. I have work to do.”
“This isn’t over,” he said, with a grin that was confident and devastating enough to make me nervous.
“I just said it was, didn’t I?”
“We’ll see.” Shaw turned to walk toward the door.
And because I simply couldn’t resist, I followed. “Hey, Matthews!”
He spun around, not expecting me to be right behind him. His eyes went wide when I held up my hand to reveal that the pair of panties he’d ripped off me were tucked in my fist. Before he had a chance to process my intent, I sent the undergarment sailing through the air and into his face. He caught it as it slid down his chest.
“You owe me a new pair of panties.” With a satisfied smirk, I turned my back on him and began what I was sure was a very sexy saunter back toward my desk.
I heard him chuckle, and then my office door closed. It wasn’t until then that I plopped down in my chair and breathed a sigh of relief. If I was going to keep up with Shaw, it was going to take some work. Hopefully, he’d bail before I needed to wave a white flag of my own.
I really hated to lose.
The rest of the day was business as usual. I did what I did best, while Ally continued her research on Denver Rockford and then passed the intel to me so I could burn up the phone lines, making promises I knew I could deliver on. Guess what? It got me a private meeting.
Booyah! In your face, Matthews!
CHAPTER 7
Shaw
It was Tuesday afternoon and Denver Rockford wasn’t answering my phone calls. And he wasn’t returning any of the messages I’d left for him, either. Boulder was sending me the crickets as well. Needless to say, I was feeling properly ignored.
I loathed being ignored. It was a condition that stemmed from my childhood, but I didn’t need to pay a shrink gobs of money to tell me that. My parents were well skilled at forgetting about me, and that was fine, because I’d learned how to take care of myself at an early age. I was just glad I hadn’t had the baggage of a little brother or sister to take care of as well.
Jerry and Clarice Matthews were self-absorbed pricks who didn’t care about anyone but themselves. Maybe I even inherited a little bit of that. Made sense. How a person evolved in life was part genetic makeup, part influence from their surroundings, part learned behavior, and part sheer force of will. Thankfully, the universe had been on my side and had given me the determination and balls to break the mold and fashion one that allowed me to become my own man. Though watching Jerry and Clarice still left a hideous aftertaste in my mouth for relationships. I might even have a phobia of commitment courtesy of those two dysfunctional dipshits. The only reason they’d beaten the statistics and remained married for close to three decades was that neither one of them wanted to put in the time, effort, or money to get a divorce. Seemed to me that dealing with each other on a daily basis was more like sucking the life out of their own lungs, but some habits were hard to break, I supposed.
Maybe it had been the ugly image I’d been forced to endure as a kid that had led to my narcissistic tendencies, but I refused to play the victim.
Nothing had been handed to me on a silver platter. Not even the internship abroad, courtesy of Monty Prather. I’d busted my ass and earned that, right along with my stripes. I wasn’t gifted a prime position at the San Diego office. I’d had to prove myself with the foreign leagues before he’d handed me the key to Striker. And under his guidance, I’d thrived at my chosen profession. Without a college education to boost my chances.
People had me pegged all wrong. Cassidy had me pegged all wrong. But the misconception was still better than the truth, so I let them believe it. I’d given them the misconception with the mirage I’d constructed for their viewing pleasure, after all.
Cassidy was right about one thing, though. Every move I made was calculated. And each calculated move benefited me in some shape or form. I was skilled at reading people and picking
out the parts of them that I could manipulate to further my cause. And I did it seamlessly. Detecting a person’s most viable course of action was an art form, but finessing it to my advantage was a gift. Once I had someone in my sights, they didn’t stand a chance of denying me what I wanted. I made sure of it because I didn’t like to be told no.
Cassidy had told me no. She was the first woman to ever have done so. To say it put a spike in my determination would be an understatement. But, stunned, I’d had to retreat and regroup. My frustration at being ignored by Denver had been fueled by my frustration at being denied by Cassidy. The balance was off. Way off. And I needed to buckle down and find my vantage point.
Being forced to work late wasn’t helping matters. The weekly staff meeting had been rescheduled for today, earlier in the week than usual. Most likely because Wade was anxious to hear how close Striker was to nabbing Denver. You’d think the least he could’ve done was be on time for it, but apparently, the round of golf he’d decided to have with his old pal and my mentor, Monty Prather, after lunch had run longer than expected. It was a selfish move, but what choice did we have when the man calling the shots was also the man who signed our paychecks? More specifically, I wanted to sample a little bit of that puppeteer power, and the only way that was going to happen was by winning the partnership. Kissing Wade’s ass was part of it. So there we were in the conference room at seven o’clock, a little over a dozen agents doing their best to look sharp and happy to be there, when in reality, we were tired, hungry, and just wanted to go home.
The wall of floor-to-ceiling windows only emphasized the fact that it was now dark outside, making the interior lighting seem harsher. But Cassidy looked fresh as the morning dew. In fact, there was a bit of pink on the bridge of her nose, like she’d spent the day lounging by the pool on vacation. How the hell the woman managed it was beyond me. I was going to have to find a way to up my A game and fuck her into exhaustion if I stood a chance of keeping up.