Chapter 9
nine
COLE
“What are you doing back here?” I asked the girl. Belle.
I’d been down in the pit when she’d wandered into the shop.
I’d watched her walk to my office unerringly and then step inside.
She was a woman on a mission, and I really fucking wanted to know what that mission was.
Maybe she really was a cop, though she’d be the youngest, sexiest one I’d ever seen.
After a week of absence from The Clutch, and only seeing her when her car broke down, I’d started to think that maybe she’d listened to my warning. But here she was.
I ignored the part of me that was satisfied to see her here… flouting my polite warnings, even knowing there’d be consequences. She reminded me of Goldilocks with her shining reddish, golden hair, fucking sneaking around in a house that wasn’t hers.
She swallowed so hard her entire throat bobbed, and I had a sudden, carnal image of that same tanned column bulging around my cock. I’d bet she would choke so prettily.
I pushed off the doorway and into the office to distract myself from my rapidly rising hard-on.
“I-I got lost,” she stammered out. Her cheeks were glowing red. She was a terrible liar.
“Lost? What could you possibly have been looking for if you thought you could find it in my office?” I asked, walking slowly and deliberately toward her. “And why were you touching things on my desk instead of looking for the fucking door?”
For every step I took, she retreated a step.
We danced that way around my desk until the chair blocked her exit and she was stuck.
I advanced anyway, until her ass came to rest on my desk.
Lucky fucker. I’d never been jealous of an inanimate object before, but here we were.
Maybe I really did need to get laid, as Maddox had suggested.
I was fucking losing it over a mysterious, troublemaking stranger.
“I brought my car in for service,” she blurted out.
I actually laughed. “At midnight? Try again.”
“I…” She stopped and thought furiously, her eyes darting around my office before returning to me. “…you.”
“Me?”
She nodded quickly and took a deep breath. Crossing her arms over her chest, she cocked her chin, tilted her head to the side, and grinned.
“Yeah, you. Ash suggested you might be through here, and I thought… why not go for it, shoot my shot, and see if I get anywhere? I heard women do it all the time,” she said, arching an eyebrow at me. “Mr. Popular.”
Whatever I had expected from this woman, this wasn’t it.
She’d been too wary, too watchful and smart.
No, she wasn’t here to hook up. She was here for something else, and she was just counting on the fact that I didn’t hook up at my places of business.
Or maybe she thought I wouldn’t be interested in her. Pretty little fool.
She was playing a dangerous little game, and suddenly, there was nothing I wanted more than to play back.
She wanted me to believe that she’d come here twice now, angling to hook up with the Pres of the Hounds?
It was time to put that claim to the test. Nothing else was getting through her stubborn head.
She was cosplaying as one of the ambitious women who came in here to snag a hookup with a Hound, as high up as they could manage.
She had no idea how badly she fit that role.
“Hmm, they do,” I admitted. It was already the fourth time this week that some woman, dressed to the nines, had tried to corner me alone, but this time wouldn’t be like those. “If you’ve heard that, then you’ve also probably heard that I don’t fuck where I work.”
She shrugged and pushed off the table, bringing her closer to me. “Well, that’s disappointing.” Her lack of disappointment was impossible to hide. I fought the urge to smile. One thing about my little mystery woman: She wasn’t boring.
She gave me a smile. “I’m sorry. I’ll get out of your hair,” she said brightly, and made a move to step past me.
I closed a hand loosely around her upper arm to stop her.
“That’s it? You’ve given up on your seduction plan so easily? I’m almost offended. Unless you’re lying.”
She flushed even brighter. This close, I could see the constellations of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were hazel, light golden brown with flecks of green. Her lips parted and her breath slid out, sending heat down my spine.
She was beautiful, and she was lying, and looking me right in the eye while she was doing it.
She wet her lips, pink tongue darting over red lipstick. I followed the movement, only getting harder.
“I’m just gracious about admitting defeat,” she murmured. Her voice had dropped to a low, throaty tone, and I knew right then that if I slid my hand into her panties, she’d be wet.
“Well, let’s not jump the gun. I’d hate to send you away disappointed,” I murmured, and took a few steps over to reach my office chair.
It groaned as I settled myself into it. I still had my little spy in my grip, and I tugged her in front of me, trapping her with my legs between my chair and the desk.
“You got all dolled up, and came all the way out here, after I told you not to. The least I can do is let you do your thing,” I announced, enjoying myself for the first time tonight.
I let my eyes run down her body, lingering on the hem of her short skirt.
“I suppose you have a need that only I can help you with… and I’d hate for you to suffer. ”
She blinked down at me. I could practically feel her thoughts racing. She was a smart cookie; I could tell by her eyes. She was trying to figure a way around her lie, and I wasn’t planning on letting her.
“Meaning?” she squeaked out a second later.
“Meaning—seduce me… give it your all… who knows, maybe it’ll work.
Maybe you’ll be my exception,” I murmured and looked my fill.
She had a partially unbuttoned shirt on, and a black lacy bra was winking at me from the gap.
I’d seen similar outfits on half a dozen women at the bar lately, but now, on this woman, it seemed scandalous.
“You’re already doing a good job,” I told her.
She frowned at me. “What do you mean?” she wondered, but then her eyes dipped to my crotch and the hard-on pushing my jeans out, and she blushed.
“You’re beautiful… but you already know that, don’t you?” I mused.
She flushed even brighter, and bit her lip. There was something innocent about that look. Didn’t she know? No, I realized as I watched her fidget with her skirt. She really didn’t know. Interesting.
“Are you—making fun of me?” she asked. I hadn’t expected that glimpse of a soft underbelly.
I shook my head slowly and shifted, sending her eyes back to my obvious hard-on. “Clearly not.”
“You might be the only guy to think that,” she murmured, soft as a whisper.
I shrugged. “There’s no accounting for taste in this town, and besides… my opinion is the only one that matters, isn’t it?”
She brought her eyes to mine. Her pupils were huge. She nodded slowly, reluctantly. She was caught in her lie, and there was no getting out of it, unless she caved and told me why the hell she’d been sneaking around my office.
I relaxed back, setting my hands on the arms of the chair, and nodded meaningfully to her.
“Well, get a move on, sweetheart, I don’t have all night.
There’s probably a line forming outside to come and have a crack at this.
You’re not unique.” The carefully chosen dickish words had the desired effect.
I knew women hit on me because I represented a fantasy to them.
Rough and dangerous, but rich enough to take care of her.
The president of an MC, no matter what he looked like, or even fucking smelled like, always had plenty of offers.
Honestly, it turned my stomach for women to throw themselves at me, which was pretty much the reason why I didn’t fuck around at The Clutch, or anywhere lately.
Was that jaded? Fuck, yes. I was the most jaded of all.
Belle scoffed and tossed her hair, then leaned forward and placed her hands on the armrests of my chair, her thumbs touching my wrists.
“You think I won’t do it?” she murmured, a note of challenge in her tone.
I shrugged cynically. I saw her resolve form, and harden. Someone didn’t like to lose. I knew that feeling. I was the exact same.
Then she wet her lips, suddenly nervous, and actual anticipation roared through me. Somehow, she was hardheaded, sneaky, alluring, and so fucking innocent all at the same time.
“What should I do?” she murmured, her voice low. Her eyes rose to mine, and that heat that had been pooling at the base of my spine liquefied. “I don’t know what to do.” Fucking hell. Like I needed another reminder that she was too damn young and inexperienced for me. I patted my lap.
“Come sit here. Show me what a good girl you can be for me,” I instructed her, and to my satisfaction, she complied.
I was wearing a grease-stained white T-shirt, and old jeans with plenty of rips and holes, the kind that wore through from hard work, not designer bullshit.
My hands were dirty too, from working on a car, and calloused from the life I’d lived for longer than I could remember.
Still, she climbed onto my lap without a second thought.
Her weight settled on my lap, her cunt right over my cock, with only material separating us. Suddenly the months—or had it been over a year?—of voluntary celibacy felt like a liability. My control was dangerously thin.
“Well done, sweetheart, now… get comfortable,” I ordered. My mouth was feeling dry suddenly, and the world had zeroed down to this moment, this fucking chair, and a pattern of freckles I wanted to taste.
Gingerly, she moved on my lap, grinding her pussy against my crotch, settling herself more firmly on it.