Chapter 5 #2
A strand of hair had come loose from her braid, and it brushed against my arm as she leaned close.
I clenched my jaw and tried to think of absolutely anything else but the feel of her warm breath on my skin.
Once she was done, she spun away to set down the razor and pick up a bottle of hand sanitizer, giving me a brief respite in which to beg my nether regions to behave.
And then she was back, leaning in as she wiped my arm down for a second time.
She smelled good. Like incense. The kind they burned in hippie stores to cover the reek of the devil’s lettuce from the break area out back.
One more half turn brought Stella’s leg back in contact with my arm, and something in me finally snapped. I unclenched my fist and brushed my fingers over the inside of her ankle.
She froze.
So did I.
What the fuck was I doing?
And why couldn’t I seem to stop myself?
Slowly, she pivoted away, her expression unreadable, and it clicked.
She was too calm, too collected, too flawless.
Like that almost-kiss hadn’t happened. Like it was that forgettable.
Like I was that forgettable. Meanwhile, here I was begging the chub in my pants not to go full flagpole.
It made me want to drag her down to my level.
Undo her. Ruin her. Grab her by the shirt and haul her forward so I could smear that perfect lipstick all over her face with my mouth.
Something ugly was crawling up the back of my throat, demanding to be let out.
This was a sickness I’d been fighting my whole life, the need to prove that I was good enough, that I was worthy.
And what better way to do that than by fucking a spoiled brat in the shop her parents paid for?
She was always going to hate me for what I had done to her brother, and for what I planned to do to her and everyone else she’d ever cared about, so what did it matter if I added one more sin to my list of crimes?
If I was going to be the villain in her story, I might as well earn the title, right?
Plus, it wasn’t like Stella was some innocent nobody.
She was a villain herself in someone else’s story, and that was a large part of why I’d chosen her.
It was easier to hate her knowing what she’d done, knowing that the protection of her wealth and privilege had kept her from paying for her crimes.
“See you tomorrow!” her grizzled coworker called before the chiming door announced his departure.
Alone at last.
This time I wrapped my whole hand around Stella’s ankle.
“What are you doing?” she said, echoing my earlier thought.
“What we both want me to,” I answered, dragging my fingers up the inside of her calf.
She shuddered, eyes closing, lips falling open, just like they had before we’d been interrupted. “I don’t even like you.”
“Who said this has anything to do with us liking each other?” My fingers reached her knee and curled around the back of it. Gripped.
She started to say something, but I cut her off before she could talk us out of this.
“Get up here.”
I grabbed her arm, and with a tug, I had her moving, but her leg swinging over mine?
That was all her. A clear indicator that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost their goddamn mind.
The transfer paper fluttered to the floor, forgotten, as she landed in my lap.
I dropped my hands to her hips and ground up just enough for her to feel what she’d done to me, gripping her hard enough to know I resented her for it.
Her palms slapped against my bare chest as she was forced to brace herself upright. But no one was forcing her to dig her nails in so hard. And no one was forcing me to like it as much as I did.
“You’d be prettier without the piercings,” I said, some small part of me trying to save myself from this stupidity by being an asshole.
“And you’d be prettier with your mouth stapled shut,” she shot back.
I rolled my hips into her. “So you only want me for my body?”
“No, your winning personality.” Her tone was deeply sarcastic.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
We moved forward at the same time, shutting each other up. With our mouths.
Stella’s lips popped open immediately, and I knew from the first glide of my tongue against hers that this was a mistake.
Because it wasn’t awkward. Or hesitant. Our teeth didn’t click together.
We didn’t have to go slow at first as we learned each other’s kissing style.
No, we went into it hard, rough. Like we’d been doing this for years.
Her tongue felt like heaven, pausing, swirling, deepening the kiss as her hands gripped my face and she tilted my head back to give herself better access.
And her hips. Fuck, she knew how to move, that slow drag of her pussy up and down the length of my cock making me want to shred the layers between us and drive up into her wet, welcoming heat.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” she said as we shifted angles. “I make out with all my clients.”
“Dirty little slut.” With my voice gone low from lust, the words came out even rougher than I’d intended.
Stella must have liked the sound of them, because her lips crashed back into mine on a moan.
Our tongues met again, mouths pausing open as we twirled them against each other in an absolutely filthy kiss.
My hands swept up from her hips, briefly framing her narrow waist before stroking upward to her ribcage and pausing there.
I brushed my thumbs along the underside of her breasts, felt her arch into me with a silent plea for more.
The sound of a chime echoed through the shop. We froze, eyes opening, staring at each other as heavy footfalls headed in our direction.
Stella dove sideways off me. Or maybe I threw her. Either way, the squawking noise she made as she went flying had those footfalls picking up speed.
“Your mouth,” she hissed, scrambling back onto her stool. She was one to talk. Blue was smeared from her nose to her chin like she’d cannibalized a Smurf.
At least I’d achieved my goal of ruining her perfect face.
I clapped a hand over my lips and yanked my knees up to shield my now raging erection from view.
Stella put her back to the door just as her crotchety coworker strode into view. He paused on the threshold, eyeing us with obvious suspicion. “Everything okay in here?”
“We’re fine,” Stella said, facing the wall.
His gaze narrowed. “Forgot my keys.”
“Oh, okay,” Stella responded, her voice a whole octave higher than normal. Real smooth. “Did you find them?”
“Yeah.” The big guy looked between us again. “How much longer you going to be?”
“Maybe ten minutes?” Stella said.
He jerked a nod. “I think I’ll wait after all. Spend that time setting everything up for tomorrow.”
He shot me a warning look and stomped away.
Stella released a shaky breath and grabbed a paper towel to wipe at her mouth. Afterward, she tossed it my way. “Here, clean your face off.”
I flicked it onto the floor. “Ew.”
She rolled her eyes. “Your tongue was just cleaning the back of my teeth.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to use your dirty rags.” I reached past her and snagged the roll of paper towels myself.
Somewhere nearby, a loud noise sounded, like her coworker had slammed a drawer.
Stella glanced toward the hallway. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual,” I grumbled, wiping my lips clean, but maybe I should have been thanking him instead. Seducing Stella would have been fun in the moment, but it also would have complicated things further down the road.
I didn’t need to fuck her to play my part as the villain; what I had planned was more than enough to make her hate me forever.
And plus, that kiss had quickly gotten out of hand, had been a little too good.
Even now, I felt the ghost of her lips over mine, working, coaxing, and it made me want to reach out and haul her back up here, to hell with her grouchy employee.
I chucked the used paper towel onto her work tray and then handed her the roll. Our eyes met as she took it, held for a moment before her gaze dropped to my lips.
“That won’t be happening again,” she said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.
“Then maybe you should stop staring at my mouth like you’re about five seconds away from re-attacking me.”
She yanked the paper towels out of my hand. “I didn’t attack you.”
“Yes, you did,” I said, gesturing toward the doorway. “I’m half-tempted to invite your buddy back in here to make sure you keep your hands to yourself.”
“You are so egotistical,” she said, spinning away to set the roll down and scoop her design from the floor.
“I like to think I have the appropriate level of self-confidence.”
“Sir, you are a blond man. Calm down.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She scooted back toward me, repositioning the transfer paper. “I can’t explain why that’s a burn. It’ll ruin it.”
I eyed her while she refocused on her work, wanting to say more, wanting to keep taunting her because I didn’t like how quickly she was getting herself back under control.
More loud sounds came from nearby, another reminder that we weren’t alone.
A wave of irritation washed over me, and this time, I did nothing to stem the tide, letting it distract me from Stella’s nearness and remind me of how I should have been feeling this whole time.
Her coworker’s return had fucked up my plan to reveal myself.
I’d booked this appointment so late because Stella had a (bad) habit of closing the shop herself, and I’d wanted us to be alone when I explained my true intentions.
I couldn’t do that now with Lurch loitering nearby.
Not that I couldn’t take the old bastard in a fight—I still met Josh at the dojo once a week so we could kick the shit out of each other.
No, it was because I didn’t want witnesses, especially not a dude who looked like he might have ties to the seedier side of this city.
So I’d just have to sit here and suffer through Stella’s nearness in silence.
Getting her alone again was going to be a pain in the ass.
She never seemed to leave this place except to run across the street for coffee, and unlike my best friend, I didn’t have the time to sit around watching people like a creep.
I had places to be, another event to prepare for.
Goddamn it, I was going to have to book a second late-night appointment, wasn’t I?
Hopefully she had something open in the coming days, because the sooner I laid out my cards, the better.
Stella and her brother were incredibly close, and my blackmail banked on that.
Blake and I had only interacted briefly, but between my “research” and being a good reader of people, I’d determined a few crucial things about him: he was young for his age (having obviously grown up sheltered), gullible, na?ve, and in a vulnerable state because of a recent breakup.
It made him the perfect victim, and he’d fallen easily into my trap.
Now he was in trouble. Trouble too big for his frat boys to get him out of.
This was blood-is-thicker-than-water trouble.
The type you’d only bring to someone who’d feel obligated to help you.
Someone who’d been protecting you your whole life, so you wouldn’t repeat their mistakes.
Which meant there was a very high risk that Blake might go running to Stella for a bailout before I could break the news to her myself.
Would that be the worst thing? I wondered, eyeing her as she taped the transfer paper into place.
If Blake got to her first, she’d have all the pieces she needed to figure out my identity.
He hadn’t seen my face at the party, but he knew my hair was blond, and that I was tall, muscular, and went by Mr. Strickland.
Plus, if he told her, I wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.
The yelling. The potential tears and pleading for mercy I didn’t have.
God knew I dealt with that shit enough with my regular clients.
Was I worried about Blake going to his parents instead?
Or worse, the cops? Absolutely not. Because I’d done my homework.
Thanks to Stella’s checkered past, I was convinced that Blake wouldn’t want to cause their parents any more grief or embarrassment.
And going to the cops risked a public scandal, something the McCormicks would do anything to avoid.
At my core, I was a gambler, and it was time to roll the dice.
One way or another, by the end of the week, Stella was going to find out who she was really dealing with. And then I could set my plan in motion.