Naked (9 page)

He grinned then brushed her hair away from her cheek. “You want to fuck me and then never see me again?”

Embarrassment washed over her face.

Temporary. No baggage. His sisters were right. So was Luke. This girl was offering him a good time on a silver platter. What kind of asshole would he be if he didn’t take it?

What kind of asshole would he be if he did?

“I might need some convincing.” He grinned.

“You’re right.” She reached down and pulled at the leather of his belt. “What kind of hostess would I be if I let you walk out of here unsatisfied?”

Without a hitch in her movement, she continued. The heavy clank of metal against metal was the only sound in the foyer. His heart pounded against his chest, sending a rush of blood through his ears. It drowned out any semblance of good sense. Because this wasn’t good sense.

“You’re a complete mystery,” he said. One minute she wanted to take it slow. The next she was ripping the button fly of his jeans with confidence and pulling out his erection from his boxer briefs. “And you have no intention of letting me solve you, do you?”

He sucked in a breath when the warmth of her hand touched his even warmer cock. The clamp around his erection was like a vise, intensifying the beat of his heart. No doubt she felt it against her hand, beating double time in her grip.

With no lubricant, Violet improvised, using her saliva to smooth her rough pumping. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Her soft words were barely audible. Her own breath erratic and labored. Just like his. She was enjoying this just as much as he was.

His head fell back on a curse. “That’s good.” The added moisture kicked up the slow simmer of an orgasm, one that started somewhere deep in his body.

He pumped his hips every few strokes, trying to pick up the pace, increase the tension. “Harder.” He wanted to mark her. Her hands. Her clothes. He’d even mark the door if nature was kind enough to let him shoot that far. “It won’t break,” he grunted, his head falling back when she did as he asked. “Faster.”

He crowded her, leaning forward so his shoulders were practically on her body but his hands remained behind his back. If he couldn’t touch her, he needed to kiss her. She spread her legs wider, pulling him closer with her free hand while the other continued its attack on his erection.

His mouth fused with hers and he swallowed her tiny moans and whimpers. Each one setting off an explosion in his groin bringing him one step closer to orgasm. Her tiny fingernails dug into his skin as she tightened her grip on his shoulder.

The absence of lube should have made it a horrific experience, but the rough glide brought an edge to it.

She halted their kiss, starting some kind of twisting motion with her hand, and it was too much. Too much sensation. Too much Violet.

“You should stop or I’m going to…” He groaned. “Violet.”

He grabbed a scarf from the wall beside them and placed it on her lap.

“Do it.” Her words kicked him over the edge and the shudder that broke free of his body was unstoppable. He practically doubled over from pleasure, grunting his release in her ear.

She milked his orgasm into the fabric, his seed spilling out over her hand.

They stayed like that for a moment. He enjoyed her hard breath against his neck. The smell of coconut in his nose. But he knew that if he didn’t step away, he might do something regrettable. Like forgetting this was temporary.

He removed his head from her shoulder and as he stepped back, she asked, “Can I take that as a yes?”

He burst out laughing, swaying back and forth on his heels, finally releasing his hands from behind his back so he could maintain his balance. His now wobbly legs needed as much help as he could get. He went to reach out, to touch her cheek softly, but she turned away, lowering her eyes to the ground.

Right. No touching.

She’d just spit on her hand and jerked his cock until he came all over. He bent his knees, catching her eyes then straightening so she’d follow. “That’s a hell yes.”

Her entire face lit up the same time her body relaxed. Warning bells went off all around him like a five-alarm fire in an office building. An ear-piercing warning telling him this woman was all kinds of wrong. All kinds of trouble that he just didn’t need or want. She was Jekyll and Hyde on a good day. With secrets. And that was a dangerous combination. But he needed something to fill the silence while he finished renovating the house for his mother.

He pulled up his jeans and righted his clothing, tightening his belt as best he could around his cock, which was once again getting hard.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a pen on the table she was sitting on. He picked it up and scribbled his number on her palm. He blew over the seven digits making sure they didn’t smudge before he dropped her hand then asked her to do the same on his.

“Until next time…”

With one last kiss, he opened the door and stepped outside. But before he closed it between them, he leaned back in.

“Oh, and Violet?” She turned, snaking her gaze over him one last time, sparking a tingle across his skin. “Make sure when you pleasure yourself tonight, it’s me you’re thinking of when you come.”

Chapter 7

No matter how hot the water was on Violet’s skin, no matter how long she let the spray pelt against her body, nothing was going to wash away the scars.

She let her fingers flutter over the markings. Tears stung her eyes as they roamed over the red, puffy lines. Would she ever be able to look down at her body again without crying? To wash her neck and chest without cringing or wear a spaghetti-strap dress to a business function or gala?

Her imperfections stared up at her. Mocking. Laughing. As if the first twenty-eight years of her life had been a bad joke.

The scars were a brutal reminder of her path. The life she was
supposed
to lead. A reminder to never consider deviating from it again because when she did, bad things happened.

Then what the hell are you doing with Noah?

That night in her foyer had definitely been a deviation from the plan. And it was the greatest time of her life.

Her hand had worked as if independent from the rest of her body. She’d watched him, the way he’d scrunched up his face, the way he’d let out shaky breaths every time she’d concentrated on the tip. It was like opening her eyes for the very first time.

Why had she never done this before? She had been so disengaged from sex. But this, watching Noah experience her hand job, was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

She’d channeled Harper. She did exactly what she’d described to Charlotte and…it had worked. It had worked so well that she took the encounter too far and propositioned him. Now what the hell did she do?

She turned off the water and thrust open the shower curtain, letting the cool air on the opposite side penetrate the cocoon of steam and warmth, pebbling her skin.

Squeezing the water from her hair, she stepped out and wrapped a towel around her body.

Walking up to the vanity, she used one finger to rub away the condensation on the tiny face mirror that she’d switched with the four-by-four mirror that had hung above the sink. It was now hiding in the hall closet.

She lifted on her toes, turning her face left to right, as she stared at her reflection.

Now, when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was weakness, an emotional wreck. The scars would never let her forget, but it didn’t mean she wanted to stare at her hideous reflection every day.

Her beauty had been a curse in the construction world, always the trait that had undermined her brains and hard work. And now she was floundering. Insecure about her appearance and decision making. It had been her idea to leave the party early the night of the accident. She had been angry after Steven’s complete rebuff of her attempt to reignite the spark between them. He had been content with vanilla sex, rolling over when he was done, and snoozing. So she’d stormed out, and like the proper gentleman, he’d followed. And now he was dead.

Enter Noah. He was fun. Hot. And oh, my God, that kiss. The feel of his cock in her fist. It was the single most erotic moment of her life. And she hadn’t even had an orgasm. But he did. All over her hand and one of her scarves.

He was a detour from her compartmentalized life because he didn’t fit. In fact, he blew those compartments to smithereens.

But now, she was going to have to make some serious decisions. She’d propositioned a stranger. A hot, sexy, perfectly sculpted dictionary definition of a man. In the moment, it had made sense. Her libido was on high alert. Her hormones had been seriously raging. And for a minute, with the way Noah had looked into her eyes, she had forgotten all about her scars.

But they were there, and very real.

She’d arrived in this small town not only to set the ball in motion for her residential project, but to get over the accident and come to terms with her new self. For the last five months, she’d made excellent progress on the project, but when it came to her self-esteem, she was in exactly the same spot she was twelve months ago when the accident had happened.

When it came time to make the big decisions, she had always been by her father’s side. More and more, as his memory deteriorated, some of those big decisions had fallen on her shoulders. Since the accident, her shoulders were unable to carry even her own personal issues let alone those of a multimillion-dollar company.

Today, she had even more work to do. As the president of the Toronto Women’s Entrepreneurial Association, she was responsible for planning the next gala. She was due to meet Carly Robinson in a couple of hours, the woman who’d volunteered to help her while she was away from the city. She needed someone to do the dirty work. She just wasn’t ready to face the women in her social circle just yet.

But that didn’t mean that Carly would get anything less than her best self.

She went about getting ready, dressing to impress. Styling her hair without the aid of a large mirror, working off memory from the hundreds of times she’d done it before. She touched up her face, hiding the small red mark on her chin that had been there since she was a teen, and, most important, hiding the dark circles under her eyes.

She drove the hour to the city, parking in the underground lot of the chain restaurant in North York. She knew her friends wouldn’t be caught dead at a place like this so there was no chance of an encounter. She was early and grabbed a table, ordering herself a coffee while she waited.

When Carly finally approached the table, her blue eyes were wide with excitement. Her blond hair was pulled into a low ponytail and her nose was a little red and irritated. Maybe she had allergies.

“Hi, Carly!”
That sounded breezy. Didn’t it?
“Thanks for meeting me here.”

“Are you kidding? I love this place.” She smiled sweetly and shimmied into the booth. “Have you had their ice cream and crepes? Delicious.”

Violet had worked with Carly for the last three years on the gala. The fact that she liked this place made Violet like
her
even more.

“How are things in my absence?”

“Sera has been great to work with while you’ve been away.”

Sera Van Andel was the VP of the association and had taken Violet’s absence as an opportunity to exercise her authority. To no avail.

“Although your shoes are pretty big to fill, Ms. Walker.”

Her shoes? Her shoes were average. Just a normal size eight. In all honesty, during her current tenure as president her shoes had been pretty small. Her performance had been mediocre at best.

You almost died.

Steven
had
died.

She had been the lucky one. The question of why plagued her every day.

“Please.” She reached out across the table and laid a hand on Carly’s. “I’ve told you to call me Violet.”

Carly was young. An aspiring fashion designer, currently trying her hand at designing bathing suits. The contacts she would make through the association, not to mention being on the board, would do well for her career.

“Right. I have to get used to that.”

Carly’s order of a coffee and a chocolate-banana crepe with ice cream brought her back to the conversation.

“Are you ready to order?” The waitress stared at Violet expectantly. She was maybe twenty, and had red hair and a large cluster of freckles over her nose.

“I ordered ice cream,” Carly said with a grin.

“But you haven’t eaten lunch yet.”

“Who says dessert isn’t a meal?” The look on Carly’s face said it all. Violet was a stick-in-the-mud.

But when Carly batted her eyelashes and waited patiently for her to order, she realized: Why the hell can’t I have ice cream for lunch?

“I’ll have the same thing.”

Carly smiled and brought out her notebook, placing it on the table in front of her. “Everything is planned as we discussed. The venue staff have been briefed. The itinerary has been forwarded. The menu has been finalized. I’ve secured volunteers to man the registration booth and to greet people when they arrive, and as the president, you will make a formal address to the attendees.”

At the description of the event, Violet’s eyes glazed over. The format was old. Tired. Kind of like herself.

“Violet. Is everything all right?”

It depended on the day. And today, thanks to Noah and her complete dismissal of her character, everything was not all right. Because it had felt too good. It had been too successful.

She felt different. Whether that was good or bad, it didn’t matter. She wanted things to be different, for her life and for the event. She needed to shake things up.

“Are you happy with the plans for the event?”

Despite advocating for female entrepreneurs, in Violet’s opinion, the event didn’t capture the diverse landscape of the association’s members.

“It’s what’s been done for years.” Carly was beginning to squirm in her seat as if she knew something bad was coming.

“Exactly.” How did Violet tell her she wanted to scrap the entire event and start fresh? Although she didn’t have any fresh ideas lying around.