to it.” With a parting nod to her and Candy, Blaine headed for the lunchroom door.
Courtney sighed as she watched him walk away. Given his indifference toward her once she assured him she could breathe normally, their actions Friday night had left him unfazed. She’d been just another woman he’d brought pleasure. Now, he was back to business as usual. While she was left to ogle his ass and wonder if there was still a chance Candy had been accurate about his supposed time-and-again urges to ogle Courtney’s own.
3
A knock sounded outside Blaine’s open office door, followed by Courtney’s “Is now a good time?”
With an absent nod, he looked up from scanning a set of plans. She came inside, pulling out an armless, padded green chair on the opposite side of his desk and sitting down. A half hour had passed since he left her in the lunchroom. Long enough to move past the heart-pounding fear he felt upon realizing she was choking. But not long enough to forget how amazingly good she’d felt cradled against him, once the candy had dislodged from her throat.
In any other venue, he would have given in to his urge to nibble on the sweet spot of her neck. Not at work. Even in his office with his lower half hidden behind his desk, he shouldn’t allow himself to be physically turned on by her.
At least he’d made it back to his office before his cock had grown noticeably hard. Closing out the paperwork portion of a project he’d been avoiding had taken his mind off her to the point that his erection had faded away.
Now to keep his mind focused on work while she sat across from him in that bull’s-eye red top. The square cut of the neckline didn’t show off her cleavage, like so many of her shirts did these days, but when he’d been standing behind her, he’d had a prime view down the front. Her white cotton bra fit the secretly sensual woman she used to be instead of the outward vamp she’d become.
Blame it on the fact he’d yet to end his celibacy streak, or maybe the way his time in a mostly impoverished area had strengthened his appreciation for the simple things, but the plain style was a huge turnon.
Turning off that line of thinking, Blaine set the plans aside. “Looking for that figure?”
Courtney frowned. “Figure?”
“The reason you knew my schedule.”
“No. I ended up tracking it down myself.”
Had she? Or had she made up the need for a project fee to avoid admitting she wanted to track him down for another reason like to discuss what had happened in his kitchen Friday night? The openly appreciative way she’d eyed his body in the lunchroom suggested as much.
Resting her crossed arms on the edge of his desk, she sat forward. “I know I sort of said thank you for helping me, but words seem a bit weak considering it’s potentially my life we’re talking about.”
He had been afraid. And he had been trying to be good. Now his thoughts were centered on the press of her arms around her breasts, creating a generous supply of cleavage where before there had been none.
Pulling his attention back to her face, Blaine risked testing the waters. “Did you have a good time Friday night?”
Wariness shot through Courtney’s eyes. Her gaze zipped to his open office door.
For someone who’d recently made a habit of flirting with every guy at Pinnacle, be they single or attached, she was awfully worried about being overheard. “Dancing,” he improvised. “I heard you tell your friend you wanted to go out dancing.”
Visibly relieved, she looked back at him. “It was a pleasurable experience.”
“You’re into pleasure?”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction, conveying what he already knew—that he shouldn’t have asked the question in this setting. Her voice dropped to a throaty whisper with her response. “I’m not into pain, if that’s the alternative.”
Since he’d dared to start the conversation, there was no point in backing down. Giving her breasts an open leer, he pointed out, “Then you’ve never been exposed to the right kind.”
“Of pain?” She looked and sounded appalled.
He wouldn’t mind one bit changing her stance on the issue. His cock twinged with the idea of pinking her backside, and he amended that “wouldn’t mind one bit” to “he’d downright love it.” Keeping his tone professional, he said, “Like most anything else, there’s good and bad.”
Courtney seemed to turn the words over, as if weighing whether to give pleasure-pain a try in the near future. Then all at once, a naughty smile took over her lips and she asked, “Can I take you out to dinner tonight?”
If her smile was a foreshadowing of the night she had in mind, then the answer was a big hell yeah. Before he accepted the offer, Blaine made one thing clear. “I don’t date.”
“I meant as my way of saying thanks beyond a few lame words. Dating’s overrated.”
It was what he’d expected her to say, what he’d been counting on. The reply also made it seem Jake and Randy’s belief she had a full-time guy lined up for down the road was a crock of shit emerged out of office gossip.
Recalling her Friday night words, about some people not getting the concept of no strings, he nodded his understanding. “Has a way of landing a person in a position where they feel the need to escape.”
“Exactly.”
“So I’ll pick you up at seven, we’ll have dinner out, and then go back to my place for dessert?”
“No good. Picking me up will make it feel too much like a date. I’ll meet you at Valerio’s at seven.” Courtney’s voice dropped a few notches, and her eyes sizzled with sensual heat. “Then we can go back to your place for dessert.”
It was sad, really it was. But Courtney couldn’t stop from giggling her anticipation of the night ahead as she dropped down on the apartment couch and pulled on a pair of heeled black slingbacks. She’d thought Blaine wasn’t interested in sleeping with her for real, after he’d gotten so sedate following her choking session. But he did want to sleep with her for real.
More precisely, he wanted to have her for dessert.
She shivered with excitement just thinking about spreading whipped cream on his meat-flavored banana and then licking it back off.
Perched on the arm of the couch, wearing her typical summertime evening gear of gray cotton shorts and a white, midriff-skimming T-shirt, Gail pointed out, “You’re incredibly giddy for someone not going on a date.”
A few months ago, Courtney would have been dressed much the same and be gearing up for yet another routine night at home, watching movies with Gail. Now she was dressed to get laid and, yeah, giddy as heck about it.
She really didn’t think that Gail needed to follow in her sex-diva footsteps, but she wished her friend would at least go on one date this year. Since she’d broached the subject numerous times and Gail seemed less impressed each one, Courtney didn’t bother to bring it up. “Did I tell you I got a present from a secret admirer today?”
“No.”
