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  “Get in the car.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just get in the cab,” she replied with a nervous smile, “before I change my mind.”

  He extended his arm toward the open door. “Ladies first.”

  Every nerve ending in her body was tingling in excitement. The effects of the wine had made her brave beyond belief, but she knew there was no way she’d regret this in the morning. She climbed into the cab and scooted over to the far side. “Take us to 143rd and Broadway, please. Quickly.”

  She pressed her back against the car door as Ben reached for her, his eyes filled with mischief. Violet couldn’t help but give a nervous chuckle as his mouth claimed hers again. She was beneath him in the back seat of the cab, only partially aware that there was someone else in the car. Ben’s hands found their way just under the edge of her shirt; slender fingers danced along the curves of her waist and moved toward the small of her back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and giggled beneath his lips.

  He smiled but kept his lips against hers. “Ticklish?”

  She sighed as he moved his mouth away to nip at her neck and responded, “Only for the moment.”

  His breath against her ear ignited a fire in the pit of her tummy. “You smell like cupcakes.”

  “Do you like it?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “More than I did the first time we met.” The tip of his tongue flicked its way across the pulse point behind her ear. “And I liked it then.”

  For a brief moment she was thankful that she was already lying down, because the sound of his voice made her weak at the knees. Feeling encouraged, she reached up, running her hand up the back of his head and grabbing a handful of his straight, blond locks, so soft to the touch. She tugged his head. His eyes rolled back, and a moan escaped his lips. She may have liked the giddy schoolgirl feeling she got when he kissed her, but she wasn’t one to stay underneath a guy for long.

  Ben gave in willingly as she pushed against him and forced herself into a sitting position. His eyes darkened as she straddled him, and his already mischievous grin stretched across his face just a bit more as Violet displayed her more aggressive side. She tugged his head back again and allowed herself a moment to nibble on his neck and collarbone. Her dominance turned him on, judging by his breathlessness and the rapidly growing bulge pressing against her jeans.

  Ben gripped her tightly by the hips as the cab picked up speed on the West Side Highway. Violet gasped against his mouth as his hands made their way further up her back, beneath her shirt. A low growl settled in the bottom of his throat as his hands found the clasp of her bra; within seconds, it popped open. She pulled away from him with a startled squeak, her eyes wide as she let out a delighted laugh.

  “Somebody’s fast,” she teased, scooting closer to him in a thinly veiled attempt to rub against his massive erection.

  “Well, you did say you were likely to change your mind,” he joked, reaching up her shirt sleeves and deftly maneuvering her bra straps down.

  She allowed Ben to pull the straps off of her arms, and it only took another moment to pull it out from under her shirt entirely.

  “I’ll just take this.” He stuffed the bra into his pocket, and she threw her head back and laughed. With expert fingers, he tugged the front of her shirt outward and snuck a peek.

  “Impressive,” he murmured.

  “I like ’em.”

  Ben chuckled again and leaned forward, placing an affectionate kiss over her heart. Her breath caught in her throat, the out-of-place but terribly sexy gesture taking her by surprise. The car came to a stop and idled in front of her apartment building.

  “Thank God,” she said breathlessly, opening the car door and stepping out.

  Thankful she hadn’t tripped over anything climbing off of Ben, she reached into her purse. But he was already on the sidewalk next to her, having handed the cab driver the fare plus a pretty hefty tip. He pulled her close, tilting her chin towards him with a curled index finger. She felt her knees go weak and nearly went down before he hooked her against him by the waist and kissed her. Oh boy, she thought nervously as Ben’s hand slid up the back of her shirt. Let the dipping commence.

  • • •

  Violet’s apartment door opened abruptly, and they spilled in, attached at the mouth as she struggled with the lock. Her purse hit the floor a few feet away from the door, and she managed to get his belt and top button undone before Ben pulled her shirt over her head. She tugged at his v-neck, and he obliged by quickly taking it off. Violet wasted no time, letting her hands run over his torso as they kissed. She pushed him against the wall with a soft thud and wrapped her arms around his neck. He let out an involuntary groan, and with a small hop she wrapped her legs around his waist. His hands cupped her bottom as he walked through the living room and toward the hallway.

  “The first door to the left,” she moaned against his mouth.

  “Mmm,” he responded, opening her door with a gentle kick.

  Ben took a knee at the foot of the bed and lowered her, slowly, onto the mattress beneath him. Her fingers were tangled in his hair as they kissed, and he took the time to yank her jeans down, over her hips, and around her knees. Violet made a few jerky moves he couldn’t understand, until he realized she was kicking her shoes off. He stood to remove his pants as she lifted her legs high in the air to remove her own.

  He marveled at the sight before him. Clad in nothing but a pair of red lacy boy shorts that matched the bra still in the pocket of his discarded jeans, Violet’s body was built for trouble. Her wild, raven curls were fanned out on the bed; her slender neck led a perfect path to a small but perfectly shaped bosom that looked as delicious as her well-rounded hips. She carefully ran a hand down her soft, flat tummy, watching him as he watched her. She let her fingertips stop just beneath her panties, waiting for him to urge her on. Ben licked his lips, slowly dropping to his knees between her parted thighs.

  “Do you taste as good as you look?” he asked, his voice husky.

  “You tell me.”

  He smirked, letting out a growl as he hovered over her exposed breasts. He placed a soft, teasing kiss at the hollow of her throat, and Violet tilted her head back. The tip of his tongue danced slowly down the center of her chest. He cupped the underside of her left breast while he continued his oral assault on her torso. He settled his pelvis between her legs and pressed his erection against her sex. She pushed her hips upward to meet him, and he wished there were a faster way to get their underwear off. His tongue began its descent toward her most private of areas, forcing a melodic moan from her lips; hands on his shoulders, she gently urged him lower.

  “Please, Ben,” she sighed.

  “Tell me what you want, Vi.”

  Heavy-lidded, she answered, “Your face, between my legs. Now.”

  He planted a kiss just below her belly button before murmuring against her skin, “My pleasure.”

  She quivered as he backed up, pulling her panties down as he went. She bent her knees as she lay and ran trembling hands from her breasts to her lower abdomen. He could tell she was nervous; he wouldn’t admit that he was, too, because they had already changed everything. And there would be no regrets tonight. He leaned down and planted a feathery kiss on the backs of her hands as they gripped her sheets. He looked up, noticing that her eyes had closed, a small smile forming on her face as her cheeks turned pink.

  “No, Vi,” he instructed. “Watch me.”

  Her eyes opened, and her gazed focused first on his face, then his hands.

  “Perfect.” He grinned.

  • • •

  Pressing gently on the inside of her knees, Ben spread her legs apart, revealing her sex. He left a trail of nibbling kisses against her inner thigh as he made his way hungrily toward her silken folds. Violet’s breath caught in her throat as his mouth hovered briefly over its final destination. And when his mouth finally made contact, her back arched in response. Violet drew in a sharp breath, letti
ng out a desperate moan as he paused to nibble on her inner thighs, his mouth brushing against her sex as he passed from one leg to the other. She grabbed a handful of his hair and lifted her pelvis to his mouth, demanding more.

  As Ben’s tongue continued to tease her, Violet’s hips began to move of their own accord. She silently urged him on, her breathing labored as she swayed against his mouth. She delighted in the sound of his satisfied moan, and her body reacted to the rhythm his tongue had set as it swept against her. The vibration from Ben’s chuckle made Violet twitch and throb, her wetness increasing as his tongue probed her skillfully. Violet felt the climax coming, like a freight train picking up speed. Expertly, Ben’s tongue and fingers worked their magic; she tried to watch him, to give him what he asked her for. But she had already lost control, wanting nothing more than to fall off the jagged edge to which he had quickly brought her.

  Finally, she climaxed—a moan escaped her lips in a crescendo, and she gasped as waves of intense release washed over her again and again. Onward he continued, suckling and nibbling as she contracted and pulsed against his willing mouth. Expecting to come down from the high, her hips twitched away from him. She gasped in surprise as he wrapped his arms around her hips, pinning Violet to the bed and his face to her. Ben continued his delicious assault, invoking delighted sounds from Violet as he expertly took her right back to the edge of release.

  “Ben,” she moaned, slowing grinding against him.

  He had no problems matching her urgency, pinning her down with one arm as he freed his fingers to insert first one, then two, deep in her core.

  “Mmm,” he moaned as she contracted around his fingers. “So tight.”

  She panted as his whisper of a remark pushed her over the edge again. Violet whimpered as her vision went blurry and she lost all sense of time, surfing an orgasmic wave more intense than the first. His mouth left her; Violet sighed, thinking to herself that nothing could feel as amazing as this. That is, until she felt Ben hovering over her; without warning, he entered her—slow, deep, complete. Her back arched, and she gasped.

  He filled her over and over, his manhood nestling inside of her. She matched his passionate thrusts, and he grabbed her hands, lacing their fingers together as he buried his face in her neck. She lifted her legs and, to her delight, he went deeper; he moaned her name in exclamation, his head tilting backward as he thrust harder in response. Wanting so much more, she lifted herself against him and maneuvered herself on top of him. Ben was now pinned beneath her, his shoulders pressed into the bed as she gyrated against him. Back and forth she rocked, reveling in the feeling of his thick member inside of her. She felt him throb and pulse against her walls, and she knew he was near his apex. Their rhythm quickened again, and he sat up to grab a hold of her bottom and draw her closer. She wrapped her arms around his neck, using the leverage to widen the movement of her hips. She leaned back slightly as his eyes rolled backward.

  “Come for me,” she said, her voice demanding as she continued to grind against him.

  Her command sent him over the edge, and he thrust deeply, one final time, as his body went rigid. She held on to him with her head pressed against his shoulder, waiting for her heart to stop racing. Ben placed a kiss on her collarbone as he lifted her off of him easily, placing her gently on the bed beside him. He pressed his lips to hers, his kiss lingering, and Violet let out a small giggle.

  “A giggle isn’t really what a guy wants to hear after what he thought was pretty amazing,” he remarked with a smirk.

  “No, no,” she replied, letting out another giggle as he wrapped his muscular arms around her and pulled her close. “That’s not what I … I mean, it was incredible! But I can’t help thinking we’ve just made matters worse at work.”

  He nuzzled her neck. “Right. As in, how am I supposed to argue with the hardheaded supervisor when I can’t keep my hands off of her?”

  “Hardheaded. That’s going a little overboard, isn’t it?”

  Ben’s expression was comically bewildered. She tilted her head back and let out a laugh.

  “All right, all right! Hardheaded. But you weren’t easy to deal with either.”

  “That’s true. But now you know I wasn’t being rude on purpose.” He patted her behind affectionately. “I was too busy trying to ignore your amazing ass.”

  She chuckled again. “Well, it isn’t Shakespeare, but … Tomorrow should be interesting.”

  Seven

  Ben left her house about an hour before her alarm went off. They kissed goodbye with a promise to have dinner again on Friday night, and she closed her apartment door behind him with a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to play Who Walks in First?, that awkward game a couple plays when they’re co-workers scheduled for the same shift after a night-long secret tryst. Worse than the walk of shame, she thought as the picture of Ben taking a cab home wearing clothes that had spent an entire evening on the floor of her bedroom swirled through her mind. Her heart pounded as she padded gingerly toward the bathroom to run the shower.

  She knew the last thing she should have ever done was bring Ben home. She had a career to build with Wynne’s Kitchen, and fraternizing with management was a definite red-ink mark on her employee record. But she couldn’t find an ounce of regret, even as the thought of keeping last night a secret incited intense feelings of guilt.

  She let the hot water run over her face. She could still feel the weight of his hands and the feathery touch of his kisses on her skin; her body reacted with wave after delicious wave of longing. Being with Ben felt surprisingly right; Violet had no idea what lay beyond this week for them, but she couldn’t wait to find out.

  Ben was already in the office when she arrived, and the sales floor was bustling with the sound of the morning counter staff laughing and socializing as they set up towers of muffins and scones, trays of cupcakes, and platters of various cookies and bars for the a.m. rush. Violet went for her usual cup of coffee when Jay, the operations manager who’d been assigned to keep a close eye on Ben’s progress, approached her.

  “Good morning, doll,” he said in a playful tone.

  “Hiya, Jay. What’s up?”

  He smiled, the tip of his tongue touching his upper lip. “What’s up? You tell me. You just came in glowing like a UV light.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, we’re playing that game? Okay, that’s cool. But when you’re ready to tell me who you rode to work on this morning, I’ll be right over by the registers.”

  Violet dropped her head with a smile as Jay sauntered away. They had hit it off from day one, and she liked the sweet but sarcastic operations manager. But Jay loved to tease people and, if Violet weren’t careful, he’d unravel the secret. No after-work drinks with Jay, she noted mentally as she headed down to the office to pull online orders that had come in overnight.

  Her tummy did backflips in anticipation as she inched closer to the manager’s office. Violet urged herself to remain calm, cool, and collected, but how was she supposed to act like nothing happened around a guy who’d just spent hours between her legs the night before? Flashes of Ben lifting her off the bed as he thrust into her deeply made her weak at the knees. Violet held on to the doorknob to the office for a moment, forcing herself to take a deep breath. Surely Ben was on the other side telling himself the same thing. With a flick of the wrist, she opened the door and walked in.

  Ben’s broad back was to her, the same back her nails had dug into just a few hours ago. She’d clung to him for dear life as he filled her completely and brought her to mind-shattering climaxes over and over again. Violet gave herself a mental slap as she placed her purse on her desk. Ben turned around to face her, a look on his face that was close to indifference. It stunned her a little, but hey! He was keeping the same secret.

  “Good morning, Violet,” he said with a nod before turning back to his computer screen.

  She pressed her lips together briefly before nodding in re
ply. “G’morning, Ben.”

  The tension between them was thick, and a fog filled her brain as she struggled to keep from turning around and kissing him right there. The urges that swept through her were overwhelming; she’d forgotten what it was like to be so into someone.

  Finally, Ben spoke again. “Violet, is it true that the cameras here in the office aren’t equipped with sound?”

  She cleared her throat before answering, “Um, yeah. I saw the last manager check the cameras a couple of times.”

  “Okay, good,” he muttered, typing furiously on his keyboard.

  She clicked the print icon, having just accepted a stack of orders as a means of keeping herself busy and her eyes off of him. As paper rushed from the printer behind her, she turned toward it as a subtle way of watching Ben out of the corner of her eye. He was bent over his work station, foot tapping out an impatient rhythm as he stared at his screen and typed words into an email window. She stood and collected her print-outs; she thought she heard the squeak of his chair as he wheeled it about. Sure enough, he was staring at her. His eyes had gone dark and mischievous; his stare could have been misconstrued for murderous had she not seen the same expression in his face when they were in the throes of passion.

  “Listen, Vi,” he said, his voice calm and even. “I think that, for today, you should probably stay on the floor as much as possible.”

  She gulped. “Why?”

  “Because it feels like I haven’t heard you moan my name in forever,” he replied without expression, “and I’m afraid I won’t be able to control my urge to bend you over that desk and have my way with you. Understand?”

  She bit her bottom lip to keep from dissolving into a pile of mush. “Loud and clear.”

  Without a word, she gathered her items and excused herself from the office. She may have decided on the spot that she wasn’t going to let Ben see how easily he could turn her on, but that didn’t stop her from smiling uncontrollably as she headed through the prep area and onto the sales floor.