“No, that’s not going to work. Absolutely not. You can’t take thirty percent on that, not when you’ve already got thirty on—”
She paused, listening, then smiled at him in greeting and looked down at the lock and back at his face with raised eyebrows, as if to say, See? I locked the door for you.
He wanted to devour her.
“Ha!” she said suddenly. “Don’t be stubborn. If you won’t come down to fifteen, she’s going to walk.”
Having noticed the plastic bag in his hand, she narrowed her eyes at him and mouthed No presents.
He shrugged and walked into the kitchen, setting the food on the table and extracting a condom from the box to slip in his pocket. Ellen trailed behind him and rested her hand briefly between his shoulder blades, a casual touch that pleased him and fired him up at the same time. “Oh, yes, she can and will do that,” she was saying. “Aimee has another offer, and it’s looking better all the time. You think about it. I’ll give you an hour.”
She disconnected the call and took off her headset.
He backed her into the nearest wall and kissed her with all the desperation of a man who’d gone home unfulfilled and woken up hungry. Her mouth was soft, her fingers in his hair, and he needed to put on the brakes or he’d do something reckless, like bend her over the kitchen table and take her in front of the window, the blinds open to anybody who cared to look.
Ellen wasn’t helping. She kissed him back hard, unbuckling his belt as he moved his hands inside her shirt to pop the clasp on her bra. When she stroked him through his pants, he cupped her breasts and asked, “How about we do hard and fast and rough right now?”
So much for putting on the brakes.
Hooking one leg over his hip, she pressed up into him and moaned when he pushed her more firmly against the wall. “You read my mind.”
He got one hand between them and unzipped her shorts. She was wet. He made her wetter. She talked dirty in his ear and made him harder.
A phone rang.
He slipped one finger inside her. She gasped. Then another, and she swore.
The phone kept ringing.
She swore again, but this time it wasn’t the good kind.
“That’s not mine, Clark.”
“Shh,” he told her. Now that she’d pointed it out, he couldn’t pretend not to notice. His phone was ringing on her kitchen table. It was almost certainly a work call. If it was someone on his team, he needed to return the call within a minute. Two minutes at the most.
He’d always performed well under pressure.
Four more rings, and he had his zipper down, the condom on, and her shorts and panties around her ankles. She kicked them off. The call went to voice mail. He lifted her, gripping her hips as he positioned himself between her legs.
When she wrapped her thighs around him, he moved inside her, deep and hard, groaning at how tight she was, how sexy, how utterly intoxicating. “Ellen,” he said, his face buried in the silky fall of her hair. She draped her arms around his shoulders and the back of his head, clutching him to her neck and spurring him on with every eager, helpless sound she made.
Neither of them lasted long. Maybe a dozen strokes, his fingers plucking at her nipple, and she started to tighten around him. He followed almost immediately with an orgasm so stupefying, he thought he might black out.
Chest heaving, mind temporarily blank, he held her there for a long moment before he remembered the phone. When he raised his head to look at her, her eyes were still cloudy and her lips parted. He kissed her soft mouth, wishing he could carry her to bed and keep her there all morning. Make up for this crude, greedy assault with a day of languid exploration.
His phone buzzed. A message waiting.
Kissing her one more time to tell her he’d rather be staked to a hill of fire ants than leave her right now, he disentangled himself and set her feet on the floor, waiting to ensure she wouldn’t wobble. Then he made himself presentable again and checked his messages.
“Hey, Caleb. It’s Eddie. We’ve got a situation here at Miss Short’s place. She, uh, seems to think she’s going to drive herself to an appointment. Alone. You didn’t say we were allowed to keep her here against her will, but I thought she was supposed to be escorted, and this isn’t on the schedule. We’re blocking her exit, and she’s not real happy with Sean right now. Give me a call back, okay?”
He found Ellen’s shorts under the table and brought them to her. She was still standing with her head tipped back against the wall, watching him. She looked satisfied and happy and so sexy he wanted to shoot Carly and have done with it.
“I have to go,” he said with an apologetic smile. “They need me over at Carly’s.”
“Aren’t you going to ask your question first?”
He kissed her one more time, his thumb tracing the delicate line of her jaw. He’d forgotten all about the questions. He asked the first one that popped into his head. “What’s your middle name?”