The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

Then, Sawyer took one hand from the railing and slid it across her waist, pulling her closer so that every inch of her was aligned with his body. “Have I finally gotten you to concede on a negotiation point?”

“If you’ll recall, I was the one who suggested we have a little fun in the first place.” There. That sounded cool and flirty, not like she was so hot right now that he could flip up her skirt and fuck her against the balcony railing.

“Now it’s my turn to give you advice.” He tightened his grip, eliminating any doubt about whether he was as ready for this as she was. “Any time you’re talking about having hot, dirty sex that makes you come so hard your whole world turns neon, the last thing you want to bring into the conversation is the word ‘little.’”

Unable to stop herself, she rubbed her ass against the very not little length of him and relished his responding hushed groan.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” she said, her eyes

beginning to flutter closed.

“Come on, honey.” He dipped his head lower and kissed the sensitive spot where her jaw met her neck. “Let’s go have some fun.”

Chapter Twelve

Sawyer was holding on to his control by his fingernails. He and Clover had said their hurried good-byes and sat a foot apart from each other in the back of the Town Car—any closer and he was afraid he’d forget that Linus was only a few feet away in the driver’s seat. The temptation to strip her down and fuck her in the backseat had him on edge enough that he’d had to practically sit on his hands. Now he was suffering through the longest elevator ride of his life up to his penthouse, staring at her reflection in the mirrored doors as she inched the hem of her dress higher and higher, millimeter by millimeter.

She was toying with him. Sure, it was a private elevator, but the security cameras were obvious. So he stood as still and hard as a statue as she watched him watching her drag her hem a little higher with every floor they passed. Her red-tipped nails played along the bare flesh of her thigh as she teased and tormented him as the floor numbers lit up, one after the other. If he had enough blood in his brain to form a question, it would have been about whether they’d see the penthouse foyer or the silky edge of her panties first. He didn’t trust himself to talk. To reach out to her. To do anything more than fist his hands in his pockets to help cover his obvious bulge from the cameras and remember to stand in a certain spot to be sure the eye in the sky wasn’t getting the same mesmerizing view that he was.

By the time the ding on the elevator sounded, he’d had all the anticipation he could take. Without giving her time to utter a word of protest, he scooped her up in his arms just as the doors began to slide open. She fit against him, solid and real, unlike the fantasy he’d had this morning in the shower. This was the real Clover—dangerous curves, smart mouth, teasing eyes, and taunting brain able to dismantle him with only the sway of her full hips if he wasn’t careful. Primed and pushed to the breaking point, he strode into his penthouse and headed straight for his suite of rooms at a hasty clip.

“In a hurry, Mr. Stuffykins?” Clover asked, her hands busy murdering the knot in his tie as she tugged and pulled the silk free.

Please God, don’t let her ever use that name in front of another human being. “Your taste in nicknames sucks.”

“It fits you since you need to be taken down a few pegs.” One last yank and his tie slipped free.

He chuckled and turned down the hall to his room. “And you said I was a bad flirt?”

“Got me there.” She shrugged and let go of the tie, letting it drop to the floor just inside his suite.

The desk in the office third of his suite caught his attention. It was a flat, clean, horizontal surface. He slowed his pace, an image of her bent over the glass top, her crazy striped skirt scrunched up around her hips and her legs spread wide as he thrust deep and hard inside her nearly made him stumble. God, it was tempting. So. Tempting. But what he wanted to do took space, time, and possibly a nap in-between sessions.

“And here I thought you weren’t bad at anything,” he said, picking up his pace and speeding through the sitting room third of his suite.

“Sawyer Carlyle,” she said as she went to work on the buttons of his shirt. “Are you trying to flatter your way into my panties?”

“Are you even wearing any?” he asked as they crossed through the door to his bedroom, the king-size bed drawing him like a magnet.

Her fingers went still in the middle of freeing a button and she looked up at him through her thick eyelashes, wetting her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Give the woman a cat-o-nine tails and she wouldn’t have been able to torture him any more effectively. He’d been joking. She was most definitely not. Pre-come beaded on the tip of his cock at the idea of Clover waltzing around the city without even the skimpiest scrap of lace between her legs. Would she? The possibilities made his cock ache. He stopped at the foot of the bed. There was only one way to find out. Hating to let her out of his arms but knowing if he didn’t, there was no way he’d have enough control to take his time the way she deserved, he tossed her onto the bed.

Pillows went flying before she sank down in a sea of brilliant red, her blond hair spread out like a silky curtain. The only thing that could make the vision more perfect was if she was naked.

“You have too many clothes on.” If he was the kind of man who begged and pleaded, that’s exactly what he’d call the words that had just come out of his mouth.

She smiled up at him and it wasn’t shy or coy. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. “Then unwrap me.”

“I got in trouble for that line earlier.”

“Stop arguing and get me naked,” she demanded, a threat of desperate want taking her voice lower.

Now who was teetering on the edge? Time to see just how far he could push her. It was only fair in this kind of negotiation.

“But where to start?” Still standing at the bottom of the bed, he leaned forward and traced a finger down her calf to her ankle before wrapping his hand around the back of her high heels and lifting her leg in the air. “Here?” Her breath stilled as he pretended to focus all his concentration on the black shoe. “No, I think I want you to leave them on. They’ll even out the height difference later when I have you naked and pressed up against the window.” Keeping her leg aloft, he trailed the fingers of his other hand up from her ankle to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and continued north until he hit the hem of her dress. “Here?” He brushed his thumb over the edge of the material. “Nah. You’ve been teasing me with this for so long that I think it’s only fair to torment you back until you’re begging me to slide your dress up your hips.” He wasn’t sure which reaction made him harder, the narrowing of her eyes when she realized there was a negotiation ahead, or the way her sweet mouth opened in surprise when he dropped her leg without fanfare, bent down over her, and grabbed her by the hips. “So where does that lead? Oh, that’s right.” Fast as a blink, he flipped her over onto her stomach and followed up the move by slowly lowering her zipper a few inches before stopping, loving her frustrated groan. “Yes. I want to unwrap you from behind.”

By the time he’d gotten the zipper all the way down, his entire body was hard and demanding attention. A skinny river of her creamy flesh lay exposed to his hungry gaze where the zipper lay open. He caught a flash of her bra’s bright blue color and a dusting of pale peach freckles along her spine that led his attention lower to the initial rise of her completely bare and succulent ass.