10 Rules to Sex Up a Blind Date (7 page)

Chapter Eight

#NewRule: Be warned: hot tempers and confined spaces don’t mix... Unless you’re in the mood for superhot make-up sex. #Justsaying

Tally frowned at her computer screen as yet another speculative tweet appeared in the #EpicHotLoverHunt stream and her original tweet continued to clock up retweets at a rate that hadn’t slowed for over three hours. Her stomach contracted. She’d deleted the stupid post half an hour after sending it, once she’d arrived at the office and realised the furore it had caused. How was she supposed to know that approximately 80 per cent of her followers were so desperate to find a decent Hot Lover they didn’t care if he was an alpha hole?

But as the retweets mounted and the search for Brent’s true identity escalated, her anxiety increased. Maybe the guy had proved himself to be a class-A bastard. But publishing his picture online might not have been her smoothest move. Not only could she be open to a liable suit if he was identified, she wasn’t entirely sure even he deserved to be the object of an oestrogen explosion of these proportions.

She tried to override the memory of his hand skimming over her stomach as he pressed inside her that last time.

‘Hey, Tal, snap out of it.’ MyPad’s features editor, Jill Clinton, clicked her fingers in front of Tally’s face. ‘What’s so interesting, anyway?’

Tally slapped the lid down on her laptop. ‘Nothing.’

‘Spoil-sport.’ Jill grinned. She was a good boss. Smart, hip, not too much of a slave-driver and usually game for a laugh. But Tally wasn’t sure she’d be grinning if she found out Tally’s hidden identity. Especially now @BlindDateBitch seemed to have morphed, in the space of a single knee-jerk tweet, from being the single woman’s smart-mouth friend into the prime hot lover’s pimp.

‘Marketing rang to say we’ve lost the half-page ad on fifteen.’ Jill got down to business. ‘Kel’s rejigging the page, but could you write up a sidebar to fill the gap on...’ Jill rotated her hand as if trying to conjure up an idea from thin air. ‘Design dos and don’ts for kitchen makeovers, or something like that...basically anything amazing that you can illustrate from our stock photos.’

‘Sure.’ Tally’s brain knotted.
Terrific.
Just what she needed when the shit was hitting Twitter, her emotions were in turmoil and she’d got about an hour’s sleep last night...real work.

‘Have it on my desk by six. Eight hundred words should do it.’

‘Excuse me, sir, you can’t come in here without an appointment.’ The pained cry from the magazine’s receptionist, Gloria, had them both turning towards the front of the warehouse space that housed MyPad’s offices.

‘Tally Gladstone’s expecting me,’ came the gruff response from the man bearing down on poor Gloria.

‘Who’s he? Please tell me he’s here for a photo shoot? He’s gorgeous.’ Jill’s teasing voice seeped into Tally’s consciousness past the blast of shock as Brent O’Neill headed across the industrial linoleum.

He’s the Epic Hot Lover.
And he’s here to bite me.

Tally’s heart smacked into her ribs. Bright blue eyes locked on her burning face and her mind scrambled to come up with a way to avert the disaster.

‘What are you doing here?’ Her question came out on a lame huff as he arrived at her desk, the temper radiating off him in waves.

‘I think you know.’ He snagged her wrist and hauled her out of the chair. ‘We need to talk.’ Without another word, he marched out of the office, Tally trailing along behind, while her friends and colleagues all did their best guppy impressions.

‘Excuse me, would you like to feature in our Hunks in Toolbelts column?’ Jill called out from behind them. They both ignored her.

‘Are you insane?’ She slapped at the hand manacled to her wrist. His strides lengthened. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re taking me?’

‘Somewhere private,’ he hissed over his shoulder, dragging her past Gloria, whose eyes had rounded to the size of dinner plates. ‘Don’t worry, you can tell your million followers all about it once I’ve finished giving you the spanking you deserve.’

Whaaaat?

She struggled in earnest then, shock warring with outrage, not only from the threat, but from the spark of sensation that shot down her spine and exploded in her arse. He’d spanked her several times last night. And she’d loved it. His dominance had been arousing, inflaming her senses and making her want to surrender control. But the thought of him laying his hand on her arse now, as if he had a right to, as if he’d bought and paid for the privilege, made her temper explode like a firecracker—unfortunately, it also made her hum like a high-end vibrator.

‘You son of a bitch. How dare you act as though I’m in the wrong here.’ She hurled the words at his back. His shoulders tensed, but it was the only response she got as he headed past the lifts and slapped open the swinging door to the empty offices on the other side of the recently rehabbed building.

Yanking her into the cavernous space, he swung her round to face him, his brows lowering over eyes that had gone a cold flinty blue.

She rubbed her wrist, her breath heaving. ‘You lay a hand on my arse and I’ll sue
your
arse from here to next Sunday.’

‘
You’re
gonna sue
me?
’ He stabbed a thumb into his chest. ‘That’s fucking rich! After you posted a picture of me and intimate details about my sex life to a million people.’

‘Bugger off, I’ve got a few hundred thousand followers at most,’ she shot back, trying not to panic at the thought that he had discovered her identity—and so must know all about the ongoing Twitter hunt—which offered him as the prize. ‘Plus, I didn’t identify you, so it’s not libellous. And no judge is going to consider Epic Hot Lover defamation of character—because most guys would be flattered.’

‘Uh-huh? Well, I’m not most guys.’ He slapped a hand against the wall above her head, surrounding her in that subtle laundry-soap scent. ‘A picture counts as identification. And Epic Hot Lover wasn’t the only hashtag.’ His temper sparked off hers, making the adrenaline pump through her veins like wildfire. ‘I’m also the ultimate alpha hole, remember?’

‘It’s only libel if it’s not true,’ she sneered. ‘Mistaking me for a hooker totally makes you an alpha hole. And the fact that you obviously have no qualms about paying women for sex takes you to a whole new level of alpha-hole-ed-ness!’ she shouted, her tongue tangling on the word.

‘Alpha-hole-ed-ness?’ he quipped, his face fuming.

‘Oh, piss off. My syntax suffers when I’m angry.’

‘Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who’s mad.’

Fire burned through her nerve endings, and her treacherous nipples peaked beneath the bodice of her dress as his chest brushed her breasts. His clean scent invaded her senses, bringing with it the visceral memory of his tongue teasing her clitoris.

She slapped her hands against his chest, intending to give him a shove. But as her palms connected with the sculpted muscle beneath his T-shirt, tension rippled through him and echoed in her sex.

‘FYI, I don’t pay women for sex,’ he said. ‘Ever. That was a misunderstanding.’

She braced her arms, determined not to let him get any closer—struggling to maintain her fury as her nipples hardened to aching tips and the shimmer of sensation gushed into her panties.

‘That’s funny, because you tried to pay me.’ He’d insulted her. And not just her, but every woman who’d ever been slapped with that double standard that said that any woman who enjoyed sex, and wasn’t afraid to go out and get laid when she got the urge, had to be a whore.

‘Only because I read your damn business card and freaked out.’

‘You thought
Tally Gladstone
, MyPad
Design Journalist
was secret code for
Tally Gladstone
, MyPad
Is YourPad If You Pay Me Enough?
’ she shouted back. ‘That’s not being freaked out, that’s being totally freaking unable to read plain English.’

‘Not
that
card, the other one. The one for your Twitter habit.’

Her elbows unlocked as she recalled what she had on her @BlindDateBitch cards—something about hot dates and not stopping till you got your rocks off.

Bugger!

But then her arms stiffened back up. ‘Bollocks, that’s still a stretch. I never asked you for a single cent. I’d have to be a phenomenally crap call-girl to be at it all night and not have mentioned a price. Once.’ Her temper shot straight back up to boiling point. ‘And you only left me a hundred and fifty quid. You cheapskate. That BJ in the shower was worth at least a grand.’

‘Don’t mention the blow job.’

‘Why the hell not?’ she bristled, well and truly on a roll now. ‘I had you on your knees...’

‘I know!’ His fingers threaded into her hair, drawing her head back. The cold blue of his irises had all but disappeared as his pupils dilated to black. ‘Is this making you as hot as it is me?’

The question came out on a rough groan, as if it had been wrenched up through his chest. But then he rocked his hips against hers and the solid length of his erection rubbed against her belly through the layers of fabric.

Need drenched her knickers. Her breath rushed out in ragged pants.

‘I’m still mad at you,’ she said, trying really hard to sound convincing, but her temper was burning out...incinerated by the ball of fire throbbing in her clit. Her sex clenched on emptiness, the desire to feel that wide girth thrusting into her again painful.

‘Damn it.’ He grasped her wrist, shoved open a door behind her and

dragged her into a cramped store-room—the shelves of boxes and cleaning supplies illuminated by a tiny window at the far end. The door banged shut, echoing into silence.

‘I really want to fuck you.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a plea. She could say no. She should say no. But her tongue chose that precise moment to swell up and stick to the roof of her mouth. ‘Please tell me you feel the same way?’

Her head bobbed, giving him the answer they both craved.

‘Thank you, God.’

Her back butted the wall as his hand swept down to grasp her thigh. Hooking her leg over his hip, he angled his body until the full weight of his erection connected with her swollen sex. The ridge ground against her clit through the wet satin of her panties and the rough denim of his black jeans. The aching need to be filled intensified. Her hands splayed up his chest, then clasped his neck, her fingers driving into his hair as their mouths met. Their tongues tangled, then thrust deep in a hungry kiss—the argument forgotten as the frantic need to join took hold.

She shoved up his T-shirt, flattening her palms against the ridged strength of his abdomen, then stroking down to his jeans as her tongue fought to gain ground.

She found his fly, struggled with the buttons as his hands skidded up her thighs to bunch the skirt of her minidress around her waist and cup her buttocks.

One...two...three...

It seemed to take an eternity for her to release each button. His lips sucked on the pulse point in her neck, devouring the sensitive skin under her chin, his chest flattening her aching breasts and his fingers kneading her bottom. She freed him at last, pushing down his boxer briefs to capture the pulsing length in her palm. Corded veins pumped as her fingers curled around the massive velvet-soft shaft.

He moaned as she ran her palm from root to tip, slid her thumb across the broad head, slippery with precome. His thick erection leaped in her hand, his strained curse loud against her ear.

‘Shit. Stop.’ He jolted back, dislodging her hand. Then groaned, the sound as rough and raw as the relentless pulse of need in her sex. She reached for him, but he grabbed her wrist, lifted her hand to anchor it above her head as his big body trapped her against the wall. ‘I don’t have a condom.’

‘I’m on the pill,’ she blurted out. She wanted to touch him, stroke him, feel him inside her. Now. She couldn’t wait. It would kill her.

‘Great. But what about...?’

‘I’m clean,’ she added, searching his face, willing him to believe her. ‘Honestly. I’ve never done it without protection before.’

So why was she planning to do it now? The question popped into her head, but was instantly drowned out by the blood thundering past her ears and heading south.

‘That’s cool,’ he murmured. ‘Me neither.’

‘Even with your ex?’ she asked, trying to hold on to her sanity long enough to behave like a grown-up.

‘Especially with her.’

Her pulse leaped with a strange feeling of elation. This would be a first, for both of them.

The thought of taking all of him had her heart galloping like a racehorse on steroids. Doing it bareback had never seemed remotely erotic before. But now...it really did.

Cupping her bottom, he lifted her, wedging his hips between her spread thighs. She hooked her legs around his waist. The huge head of his penis nudged her entrance, only to butt against the satin covering her sex.

‘Damn, your panties.’ His grip loosened.

‘No, don’t,’ she said, desperate not to let him stop, even for a moment. She didn’t want to have any more time to think about this. She just wanted the primal rush of release. ‘I’ve got it.’

She reached down to push aside the soaked gusset and then grip his length. He gave a harsh grunt as her fingers directed him to her entrance.

Holding her hips, he rammed home in one solid thrust. Her tight flesh stretched to receive him, the aching fullness delicious. She moaned, her head thudding against the wall, the penetration immense, unbearable. Emotion clogged her throat as he remained motionless, waiting for her to adjust to the brutal invasion. His breathing stirred the short hairs at her nape as he buried his face in her neck. His fingers dug into her thighs while her hands slid off his shoulders, anchoring herself as she clung to his biceps.

‘You okay?’ The low, urgent enquiry—and the whisper of uncertainty—pierced her heart, bringing back that glimpse of the man who had made her yearn to know more about him the night before.

‘I’m good, but hurry up before someone comes looking for us.’

This needed to be hard, fast and above all, impersonal.

He lifted his head, his face rigid with purpose as he drew out then pumped back, sending himself deeper, further. She sobbed, the shock of penetration nothing to the coil of need that twisted tighter with each thrust. He established a relentless rhythm, adjusting his hips so that his pelvis rubbed her swollen clitoris every time he sank to the hilt. She rocked into the thrusts, riding the wave as the pleasure soared. Her tortured sobs matched his feral grunts, her gaze locked on his.