Chapter 9 #2
The button popped and he huffed out a breath. Her eyes were hot on his throat as he stretched his neck from side to side. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured.
Then he started on his cuffs.
Her eyes rounded again as she tracked the movement and Theo’s body pulled taut as a bow. He wasn’t sure what the game plan was here; maybe it was just a tease to counteract the prolonged torment of that indecent uniform. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to stop.
He couldn’t stop.
Not when his pulse thrummed through his body and her intense focus on his every action constricted his breath and throbbed through his balls, making him hyperaware of how good they’d been together and how long it had been since they’d burned up the sheets.
Had he been a monk in that time? Nope. Not until the celibacy thing, anyway. But no woman he’d been with since – or before – had held him in such thrall.
The silence built as the buttons on his cuffs ceded to his fingers, and he rolled his sleeves to mid-forearm, watching her watch him the entire time.
And Theo made damn sure he put on a show, not rushing it, conscious of Tiffany’s gaze glued to every minute twitch of his fingers and turn of his wrist.
She glared at him with stormy eyes when he was finally done, his arms folded. ‘You did that deliberately.’
Theo smiled at her red-lipped outrage. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Which was a grave mistake. Because now that his very PG baring of minimal flesh was done, the sudden glitter in her eyes told him she did not appreciate being manipulated.
And she knew how to hit back.
Moving out from behind the table, she walked towards him in a manner he could best describe as deliberately provocative. She didn’t stop until she was close enough for him to reach out and touch, but the sparks arcing from her body warned that she’d eviscerate him if he did.
Some men apparently found it hard to read women. Theo never had. He certainly had zero problems reading the hostility and frustration burning in Tiffany’s eyes.
She held there for a beat before lifting her hand to her bowtie and pulling on the tail, causing it to unravel much like his, the scrap of fabric hanging loose around her neck.
But she didn’t stop there, pulling on one side until it came free from her collar, and Theo swore that the zipping sound of fabric sliding against fabric in the utter stillness of the room was the sexual equivalent of a woman shaking her hair loose from an up-do.
Or taking off her glasses.
The pièce de résistance was her tossing the unravelled fabric on the ground like it was something she did every night as she stripped for bed.
Christe!
She might as well have ripped open her blouse for the immediate chain reaction it set in motion. His pulse surged on a roar that reverberated through his entire circulatory system, diverting blood to his cock so swiftly, the erection almost brought Theo to his knees.
‘You’re right,’ she said with that Mona Lisa smile of hers. ‘Much better.’
If he thought that was it, he was wrong. She was not done toying with him yet as her eyes undertook a thorough inspection of his body, raking from the crown of his head to the tips of his shoes.
Yep. She’d definitely turned the tables.
For a few minutes when he’d removed his tie and rolled up his sleeves, Theo had held her in the palm of his hand, but by being smug, he’d created a monster. And now it was he, suspended in a web of sexual torment, waiting with bated breath on her next move.
Just as soon as she’d looked her fill, obviously.
‘Oh,’ she murmured, glancing up from his feet. ‘Your lace is undone.’
Theo, still reliving the unwrapping of the bowtie on a loop in his brain, frowned.
Looking down, he confirmed the situation.
About to shrug it off, he stopped as she took a step closer.
A step so close, the fan of her warm breath brushed his chin as the height of her stilettos brought their mouths to within kissing distance.
Then she slowly but surely started to drop, and Theo swore he felt that breath brush everything in a straight line from the ridge of his throat to the tight bunch of his quads.
His chest, his abs, his cock. His very hard cock, which must be patently fucking obvious now she was fully crouched in front of him.
Expelling a breath, Theo reached for his whisky and took a deep swallow as, head bowed, Tiffany wordlessly reached for the lace and tied it in a double bow.
He gripped the glass hard as his pulse slugged hot and urgent through his groin, and he desperately tried not to think about the sexual connotation of their position.
But when she tipped her chin and met his gaze and said through that shiny red mouth, ‘Anything else I can do for you while I’m down here, sir?’ he knew he was fucked.
He might have started this, but she was going to finish it.
Dredging resistance from God knew where, he gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Thank you, stew, that won’t be necessary.’
‘Are you sure?’ One of those thickly arched brows of hers winged upwards as she reached for his belt. ‘You look kinda tense. I probably have’ – she pursed her red pouty mouth briefly before continuing – ‘just the thing for that.’
Her blatant suggestion was like a direct squeeze to his balls and Theo almost groaned out loud. ‘Tiffany,’ he warned, his pulse a hammer at his temples.
‘After all,’ she reminded him again as her fingers pulled the belt free of its loop and went to work on the buckle, ‘I didn’t take any celibacy vow.’
Like he needed to be reminded of that. ‘Tiffany,’ he muttered as she made short work of the buckle. ‘This is not appropriate.’
Her hand stilled on the button of his waistband. ‘You want me to stop?’
She looked at him through lashes liberally plied in mascara, her smoky kohled eyes all big and round and innocent.
Despite the taut spiral of tension cramping every muscle, Theo gave a grudging smile.
How was it possible to look so damn virtuous with that red mouth hinting at something so fucking wicked?
‘I don’t want you to… service me like it’s part of your job description.’
The words spilled out harsher than he’d meant, but they were as much for him as they were for her. With very little blood left in his brain, he was finding resistance harder and harder and, as a guy who was usually well disciplined, it was discombobulating.
He’d certainly never lost his head like this with a woman.
Breaching God knew how many employer conduct codes and workplace laws, not to mention dicing a little too close to the edge with the whole celibacy thing.
He should reach down and yank her to her feet, but that mouth of hers ratcheted up his level of thrall.
‘But what if I want to service you?’ She met his gaze directly as her fingers worked to undo the button of his fly.
Theo swallowed. The way she said service was in -fucking- decent .
‘What if I get off on making a hot Greek playboy billionaire look at me like that?’
The button popped.
‘Like what?’ he asked, his breath roughening as Tiffany slowly lowered the zip, the metallic scrape of the pull tab and the teeth opening – one by fucking one – like a fingernail scraping along his shaft. ‘How am I looking at you?’
‘Like I created the heavens and earth and that you’d give anything’ – the zip reached the bottom – ‘the contents of your bank account, this boat, your next breath, for me to open my mouth and take your cock.’ Her hand slipped away as her hazel gaze pinned him to the spot. ‘Right. To. The. Back.’
Theo felt every word that spilled from those plush red lips as if she’d licked them into the flesh slung low between his hip bones while she looked up at him through those eyelashes.
The urge to thrust his fingers into her hair, to rub his thumb over those filthy, filthy lips was so overwhelming, he shoved the hand not holding his glass into his pocket.
The silence in the saloon was absolute as neither moved. They just stared at each other – him looking down, her looking up. Him with his trousers open, her crouched in her high heels. But not in supplication. In full control.
Several beats passed, the thud of his heart marking each one until, finally, she rose to her feet, took the glass from his hand and downed the contents in one swallow.
‘On second thoughts,’ she said, slipping the tumbler onto the bar behind, ‘I think I will leave clean up till the morning.’
Then, cool as you fucking please, she turned on her heel and sashayed out of the saloon throwing, ‘Sweet dreams, Theo,’ over her shoulder as she exited.
Which he totally deserved.