“On a scale of one to ten, one being—”
“I got it, cowgirl. Read the questions and I’ll give you a number. Or better yet, circle all tens and take that fucking dress off.”
“That’s not quite how it works, Mr. Walker.” She gripped the pen tighter so he wouldn’t see her hands shaking.
“Oh, I know exactly how it works,” he said, leaning forward. “I know precisely how you like it, what makes you scream, and how to make you beg.”
Her jaw clenched as her lust-fueled desires sparked to life. Bastard.
“Question number two. How accommodating have you found the staff to be here at SCR?”
His grin turned smug. Irritatingly smug. “Oh, I think I’d say I’ve found the staff to be very accommodating. Definitely a ten.”
She narrowed her eyes. Did he mean her? Or the others? Were there others?
“Question three,” she began through gritted teeth. “Upon arriving, did you feel your privacy needs were adequately met?”
Van rubbed his fingers thoughtfully across the stubble on his chin. The stubble that had nearly rubbed her inner thighs raw.
“Hm. Let’s see. Upon arriving, I bumped into a beautiful woman who has sufficiently invaded my mind every day since. And now she’s sitting here while I’m wearing only a bath towel. So I’m not sure what that says about my privacy being respected.”
“You know what? We can do this another time.” Stella clutched her folder and stood.
“Whoa, cowgirl. Wait a second.” He stood and reached for her, closing the distance between them in a single stride. His arms encircled her waist and pulled her backward to his bare chest.
“Don’t,” she snapped, whirling around to glare at him.
“Easy. What’s wrong, Stella Jo? I didn’t realize you were actually getting pissed or I wouldn’t have kept screwing with you.”
Screwing with her. That’s what he’d been doing since day one. Everything he said poked at her exposed nerves and riled her inner turmoil all over again. The words she wanted to say, the questions she wanted to ask, wouldn’t make their way to her lips.
“You’re mad at me,” he said softly. “Really mad. As in not just messing around mad.”
“Rock star and a genius. Look at you.” She jerked out of his grasp.
“Beautiful and pissed. Look at you.”
She tossed him one last dirty look. She made it to the door before he said the words that stopped her cold.
“You’re mad at me because I made you feel. Because I got to you and you fucking know it. What I don’t get is why. Why is that such a bad thing? Is it because I’m not one of your pretty boys with a Ph.D. and a diamond ring I can’t wait to get on your finger?”
Listening to her own breathing in the silence that followed, she turned and faced him. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. And not one who’d ever had a particular flare for the dramatic. She’d never stormed out on anyone before.
“No. It’s because…because what the hell are we doing?” She huffed out a breath loudly in exasperation. “I’m not mad. And even if I am, it has nothing to do with what you do for a living or jewelry. I’m…confused,” she admitted. Their gazes locked as she exposed her secret truth. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. How I’m supposed to feel now. If I’m just supposed to be grateful for the experience and move on or if there’s more. Am I even allowed to want more? I mean, we’ve risked so much already and—”
“Baby, you are allowed to want whatever the fuck you want.” Van took the folder from her and set it on the counter before bracing his arms against the door on either side of her. “Tell me what you want right now.”
The simplest of words set his lips off in a sensual dance she couldn’t keep her eyes off of.
“You know what I want.”
He’d shown her. He’d known what she’d wanted, known even better than she had.
“You’re going to have to spell it out for me, cowgirl. Women like you confuse the ever-loving fuck out of me.” His forehead rested on hers. “A lot of people want a piece of me. I need to know if you’re one of them and which piece you want. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”
His confession filled her with confidence. Letting her hands grab his deliciously defined hipbones, she shoved his towel to the floor.
“I don’t want a piece of you, Van,” she said, pushing him backwards.
His eyes widened as she advanced on him. “You don’t?”
“Nope.” When they reached the couch, she pressed on his chest until he sat. “I want,” she began, lowering so that she could kiss the taut muscles that had been making her mouth water since she walked in, “the whole thing.”
Dropping to her knees before him, she stroked his already fully erect length.
“I’ve got a few more questions for you.”
“Let’s hear ’em,” Van rasped out without taking his eyes from her hand on his shaft.
“How many women have you tied up?”
“You sure that’s on the questionnaire?”
She frowned at him.
He cleared his throat. “Um, ever?”
She nodded.
“A few.”
Stella Jo thrust her bottom lip out in a fake pout. “Well, they do say practice makes perfect.”
“Stella?”
She licked her lips as a bead of moisture formed on the head of his dick. “Yes?”
“If it makes any difference, you’re the first one I’ve done anything with while completely sober in about ten years. And you are hands-down, without a doubt, no fucking contest, the most beautiful woman who has ever whimpered my name and begged me to fuck her.”
She smiled up at him. “Well that was sweet. For you, I guess.”
“You said you wanted romance.”
“Did I say that?” She tightened her grip on him.
“Something like that.” Van shivered lightly beneath her. His cock twitched in her hand.
“You okay, Mr. Walker?”
His eyes burned into hers. “I’m wondering if you’re going to finish that fucking checklist of questions before you do whatever it is you plan to do with my dick.”
“Well that’s not very romantic, now is it?” She slid her hand down, enjoying how smooth the skin encasing his steel erection felt as she stroked him.
“I could recite some poetry.”
“Hm.” Darting her tongue out and licking the underside of him, she moaned at the sweet salty flavor of him. “I do love poetry. Let’s hear some.”
Surprisingly, he groaned out a few lines of a poem she knew. One of her favorites actually.
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, or, being hated, don’t give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.”
While he recited, she swirled her tongue around his tip.
“Fuck,” he groaned out when she finally took him completely into her mouth.
“I don’t recall that being in the poem.” She arched a challenging brow.
He threaded his fingers into her hair and continued. “If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.” He paused and sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh fuck. Dammit, cowgirl, you’re going to make me come.”
Stella sucked him hard and fast, pumping him with her hand as she did. She ached to make him feel at least half as good as he’d made her feel.
“Do it,” she mumbled onto the head of him before tonguing his opening.