Take Me (Take Me 1)

Covering his mistake, Travis said, “Whatever. His place. Her place. She didn’t say anything to you about it?”

“Well, since you’re so curious about Lily’s sex life, I guess I can tell you that she didn’t seem that impressed with the guy.”

“What?” Travis exploded. If he continued to behave like such a moron, he was going to give himself away. As nonchalantly as possible he turned to pack up his gym bag. “Why not?”

Luke snorted. “She says the guy thought he was God’s gift to women, but”—he gave Travis a cocky half grin and lowered his voice—“she said the guy wouldn’t be able to find a clit if a million bucks rested on it.”

A growl rose up from Travis’s throat. “I’ll bet she’s lying.”

“I doubt it,” Luke said. He slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. “She told me all about how she had to fake it three times before she finished herself off. The guy sounds like a major loser.”

Travis wanted to slam his fist into the wall. Had Lily faked her orgasms with him? No way.

She couldn’t have faked her explosion against his thigh. Could she?

What about when she passed out against his door? That wasn’t just to get away from him so that she could play with herself, was it?

At least when his c**k was in her he knew she had really come, he reassured himself. Then again, he was so far gone he wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. It wasn’t inconceivable that she had just clenched her muscles a few times and moaned so that he would fall asleep, and she could get away from him.

He’d never before doubted his abilities with a woman. Based on their ecstatic screams he had always been one hundred percent certain that he had left them satisfied.

But now that the doubts were stuck in his mind, there was only one way to find out if she was telling the truth. He’d have to see her again.

And this time he’d make sure she came so hard that there would be no doubt in either of their minds who was a good lover and who wasn’t.

Then he’d be done with her. Once and for all.

Chapter Four

Travis stood at the entrance to Barker’s Furniture, in the setting sun, hardly able to believe that he was about to set foot in the grubby store. As an architect who designed multimillion-dollar homes for movie stars, investment moguls, and foreign royalty, Travis had never considered working with an interior designer from the Barker’s furniture department. His clients wanted only the best, so he found them hot new furniture designers who sold plastic couches for twenty thousand dollars a pop.

He had spent half the night trying to figure out how to get near Lily again without giving away his true intentions. He didn’t want her to think he was interested in dating her. Because he wasn’t. He just needed a palatable excuse to be alone with her again. Once he was, he would pull the best orgasm in the world out of her.

He was planning to hire her to furnish a room in the new San Francisco hilltop home he’d designed for a very wealthy couple. What the heck. He figured he could donate the furniture to charity later if he needed to. Nonetheless, he’d already wasted most of Monday in his office putting off this visit, wondering if he was just being a fool. Of course Lily had been satisfied by him. Of course he had made her come.

Multiple times.

But that voice in his head, the one that kept saying Are you absolutely sure? just wouldn’t shut up.

An elderly women opened the door for him. “Are you going to come in or stand outside scowling at our potential customers all day?”

Travis turned his lips up at the woman, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“No need to bare your teeth at me, young man,” she said, and Travis couldn’t help but feel like a bad-tempered idiot. “Now that we’ve got you inside the store, is there anything I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for Lily Ellis.”

The gray-haired woman eyed him up and down, stripping him naked with her gaze, so he added, “I’ve got a business proposal for her.”

The woman cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. “I’ll bet you do, sonny. What I wouldn’t have done for a business proposal from you in my day,” she said, using her bony fingers to make quotation marks around the words “business proposal.”

Inwardly, Travis recoiled from the sexual implications in the woman’s words as he waited for her to tell him where Lily was. “She’s in the back of the store by the dining tables. And good luck,” the woman said, before walking off toward the storeroom, snickering all the way.

“Crazy old lady,” Travis muttered as he weaved through the couches, lounge chairs, and coffee tables. A few seconds later he caught sight of Lily bending over a long pinewood table, dusting it in smooth strokes.

For a moment the only thing he could see was the two of them naked and writhing on the table.

Travis shook the image out of his head, forcing himself to look at Lily objectively. From his vantage point hidden behind a large armoire he studied her in the light of day. Her hair was redder and shinier than he remembered it ever being before. Although the truth was that he had never really hated her hair. Sure, he preferred straight blond or brown locks to such a bright red, but all in all, her red curls weren’t the worst thing about her.

She was wearing a well-tailored red suit and he’d have to be blind not to notice the way the fabric tapered in at the waist before flaring out to cup the curve of her ass.

He couldn’t remember Lily ever wearing such a vibrant color before, and even though he hated to admit it, the crimson fabric nicely offset her creamy skin. He could only imagine how blue her eyes would look today.

Travis caught himself seconds before he started quoting a Shakespeare soliloquy to her beauty. For God’s sake, he told himself, This is Lily.

Big, boring Lily.

His perspective firmly back in place, he stepped out from behind the armoire and called her name.

Lily jumped, dropping her dusting rag on the floor. She turned to him, shock painted across her face.

“Travis, what are you doing here?”

As if he were approaching a skittish, hungry dog that needed reassuring, he held up his hands and moved toward her. “Don’t look so worried, Lily. I’ve come to you with a business proposition.”

With each step that he took, Lily took a step back, until she was pressed tightly up against the table. Her voice shaky, she licked her plump red lips, and asked, “A business proposition?”