The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

She tried to push back against him, but he held her firm.

Letting out a frustrated huff, she let her head drop so her forehead rested against the window. “Don’t you dare tease me anymore.”

“Who me?” As if he had the ability to do that anymore. He was praying for strength not to give in to all she offered, because once he sheathed himself again he knew without a doubt that it was going to be hard, fast, and fucking amazing.

“Yes, you and your go-slow-until-she’s-stupid plan.”

A bead of sweat ran down his neck as he fought not to thrust into her. Not yet. “It worked.”

“Fuck yeah it did,” she said with a soft laugh, which made her core squeeze the tip of his cock.

All the color bled out of his world as pleasure shot through him and his balls tightened. Fuck he was close. He ground another few millimeters off his molars and pulled back from the point of no coming back.

“If I go hard, I won’t be able to go for as long as I want,” he said, his gaze on the reflection of her beautiful face in the window.

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me that your nickname should be Mr. One and Done?”

“Hell no.”

“Then fuck me and we’ll go slow next time.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. His control evaporated so thoroughly it was if it had never existed. He drove into her, claiming her as his. The moment he was as deep as he could go something primal woke up in him, recognizing something in Clover that Sawyer couldn’t pinpoint but knew was there, intangible and undeniable. After that, it was as if the moment controlled both of them. She met his every thrust, giving as good as she got, rotating her hips and pushing against him to drive him in farther, until they were one unit pursuing and chasing their climaxes together. The sound of their bodies slapping together filled the room along with hard breaths and desperate moans. She was close, he could feel it with every push forward so he slid one hand around her hip and glided it down her soft folds to her clit. She bucked against his touch. So sensitive and responsive.

“Yes, that’s it,” she panted. “Right there. Please.”

Denying her wasn’t something he was going to do. Putting one finger on each side of her clit, he rubbed against the bundle of nerves in time with each hard, deep thrust of his cock until she came screaming his name and squeezing him tight inside her. One more thrust and he followed behind her, his orgasm hitting him with the power of a six-ton truck.

When the world slowly came back into focus, he still had an arm tight around Clover’s waist, helping her to stand. For his part, two things were holding him upright at the moment: his hand planted against the window and sheer fucking will not to look like a wimp in front of the woman who’d just rocked his world.

“Bed,” he managed to get out.

“Yes,” she answered in a half-asleep whisper.

Separating them only long enough to roll off the condom and dispose of it in a nearby trash can, he then picked her up in his arms and crossed the room to his bed. It wasn’t a place where the women he had sex with spent the night. He wasn’t an asshole about it, but the women he dated knew the score going in. So did Clover. This was an arrangement, a little fun. He should take her to her room. It was just down the very long hallway. She had her own bed where the sheets were probably cold, maybe itchy for all he knew. And anyway, they hadn’t specifically negotiated sleeping arrangements. In his arms, Clover sighed and snuggled against him, nestling her head against his shoulder.

Fuck it. She was staying with him.

He lowered her to the bed and climbed in behind her, pulling her close to keep her warm. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Anyway, he wanted to be there when she woke up and wanted round two. Plus, she felt really good—which ran a far second to not getting stuck with the nickname Mr. One and Done. It did. Really. Sure of his reasoning, Sawyer let his eyes fall closed and drifted off to sleep with Clover in his arms.

Chapter Thirteen

A week later, Sawyer sat at his desk in his home office catching up on a morning of missed work, thanks to his second ever trip to the flea market and reread the same email for the third time without comprehending a single word. Too much of his attention was focused on the strange noises coming from the general direction of his living room. By the time the second loud bang sounded—followed by a muffled groan, what had to be a curse in another language, and a shouted promise from Clover that she was all right—he shut the lid of his laptop and got up. He wasn’t going to get a damn thing done until he figured out what in the world was going on.

Walking down the hall, he found a pile of deliveries from Dylan’s Department Store. Included among the sexy date-night dresses that showed just enough skin to tantalize and work-appropriate dresses in bright colors and patterns that had probably never been seen before in Carlyle Tower was a pair of heavy-duty hiking boots. He stopped and studied the boots. Since Clover wasn’t going to any construction sites, they had to be for her Australia trip.

After a quick glance toward the balcony where he could hear her cursing again, he grabbed the boots and carried them to the hall closet and shoved them in the back on the very top shelf next to another pair that had been delivered a few days earlier.

It wasn’t like she was going any time soon, and so he’d rather have the big picture showing exactly what he envisioned right now. There was nothing more to it than that. No reason to overthink it. They were just boots.

He found Clover out on the balcony and almost swallowed his tongue, but not before he could offer a quiet thank you to whoever had invented yoga pants and tank tops. Her tight black pants molded perfectly to the curve of the ass he’d worshiped last night and every night for the past week. His cock twitched against his thigh and his brain was already working out if the potted bushes the decorator had placed at strategic positions on the balcony would block the neighbors’ view, because all he wanted at the moment was to peel her yoga pants down, spread her legs, and fuck her until they were both blind.

She looked up and spotted him. “Perfect timing,” she said as she rolled the heavy, rusted-out wreck of a metal medical tray out onto a newspaper covered section of the balcony.

“For what?” He had ideas. Lots of them.

She held out a white dust mask, the kind that was held in place by a rubber band that went around your head.

Oh no. Not happening. Not in this lifetime.