Beck & Call (17 page)

“I need to take these off,” he said.

He meant her thong panties. Damien didn’t protest as Jake drew them down her legs. Mia tried not to dwell on how damp they were.

“So pretty,” Jake praised, stroking her legs along the way. He made one knee jerk by tickling the vulnerable skin behind it. He smiled at that and sat on the mattress. Her tiny mint green panties dangled from one finger. “I’m tempted to sniff these, but you’ve probably blushed enough. I’d rather your blood pooled elsewhere.”

“Thank you,” she said more tartly than she’d intended.

He grinned, tossed the panties aside, and swung over her on his hands and knees.

Oh boy
, she thought as the mattress dipped beneath his weight. He was hot and big and her hands weren’t free enough to push him off anything he had a mind to explore.

This, she had no doubt, was the point in leaving her wrists tied up.

“My,” he said. “So much to feast on. Where should a humble horse man begin?”

He feinted a kiss toward her mouth. Was Damien’s prohibition against frenching still in effect? Jake acted as if it were, nuzzling into her neck instead. That was sufficient to make her wriggle, especially when his hands slid up to cup her breasts again.

She gasped when he pushed her right nipple free of the corset top. As he took it into his mouth, her spine bowed off the covers, her hands automatically gripping the silk ropes. Jake wasn’t afraid to use real suction. His lips and tongue worked a wicked magic on a long chain of nerve endings. In seconds her clit was pulsing, her sex overrun with cream.

She gasped even louder when he let go of her.

“You’ll want to scoot that chair closer,” he said to Damien. “I believe your wife is about to lose control.”

She heard the chair scrape the carpet but couldn’t look away from Jake. His knowing smile held her mesmerized.

He caressed her torso through the boned corset’s silk. Each of her ribs received his stroke, then her waist and belly. Mia’s body tensed as his hands molded over and rubbed her thighs. He was coaxing her knees apart, opening her most personal parts to his gaze and more.

His smile gentled as he sensed her tension. He kissed the inside of one sprawled knee and then the other.

“You don’t have to do this,” she blurted.

“Mia,” he said, his voice amused but also gravelly. “You can’t imagine I’m being forced. This is my privilege.”

“I—”

“Shut up,” he laughed, covering her open mouth with his palm. “Be a good wife and please your husband.”

When he put it that way, she had to obey. He caressed the groove between her thighs and hips.

Then he laid his mouth over her pussy.

She jerked, but his tongue was only tickling her. He moved his hands to hold her labia from his way. His thumbs felt good when they pressed down and rubbed. A low noise escaped her throat. The weight of his muscled forearms trapped the loll of her thighs. She couldn’t get away even if she’d wanted to. That idea made her pussy well. The tip of his tongue flicked her clitoris, which was way more sensitive than she expected, as if a jolt of electric current were shooting straight up it.

Shit,
she thought—or possibly said aloud.

Jake chuckled against her mound and did the flicking thing again.

She cried out and gripped the wrist ropes harder. Her pelvis seemed to rock up by itself, her legs suddenly wanting to crook around his broad shoulders.

“Just this one,” Jake said, obliging her by arranging the left to drape down his powerful back. Her right leg he held down even more firmly.

So Damien could watch, she realized. That leg would have blocked his view. She groaned, impossibly turned on by that. She wouldn’t look at the other man, couldn’t—her eyes were screwed tightly shut—but she was suddenly hyperaware of other signs of his presence. She heard his quickened breathing and the little shifts he made in his chair. Was he leaning closer? Were his knuckles white? Could he see the expression on Jake’s face?

Thinking about all that made her thrash uncontrollably.

“Fuck,” Jake said, perhaps in response to the rise in her excitement. “I can’t wait anymore. I’m giving you what you need right now.”

She’d needed it forever, it felt like. Since before their first kiss. Since before Audition. Maybe since the day they’d met. She moaned as Jake’s mouth engulfed her with total possession. He was sucking her clitoris and lashing it and digging his thumbs into the strongest nerves that branched away from it. She groaned as one thumb crooked into her passage. Jake pressed one spot and then another like he was working his way around a clock. His breath panted against her, hungry sounds breaking in his chest. Damien had been right. Jake was into this. The ache of near orgasm rose from deep inside her pussy.

“Please,” she moaned, the word torn from her.

Jake’s exploring thumb found a spot inside her that was erotic gold.

Her eyes flew open as she came.
This
was a climax. Intensely pleasurable sensations burst in her core and spread outward. Her toes were curling, her thigh muscles tightening with ecstasy. Her head rolled from left to right. Damien had risen to watch the end, and he’d pulled off his fancy gloves. His bare hand gripped the bedpost, covering the final loop of her silk wrist tie. His knuckles were white, just as she’d fantasized.

When she lifted her gaze to his, he didn’t look away.

Though she couldn’t read his emotion, the potency of his stare seared her. What a soul he must have. Saint or sinner, he burned inside like a sun.

Finally the sweetness of her orgasm faded out.

Jake lifted his head from her. She sensed Damien shifting his attention to the other man even as she did herself. For the moment, Jake was focused on her. With his fingers feathering her thighs, he licked his lips and lifted one brow in question.

Mia laughed with the bit of air she could gather. Though breathless, her body was deliciously relaxed. “Five out of … five gold stars!” she slurred. “Or are you … waiting for … something … other than a review?”

He chuckled and rubbed her hip. “A review will do for now.” He groaned as he pushed to the side of the bed to sit. “God, that got me all worked up.”

He looked ruefully at his lap, where the large bulge of his erection was pushing up. “I don’t suppose—?”

“No,” Damien said in response to his unfinished suggestion. “You’ll enjoy it more if you wait.”

Jake smiled, slow and mischievous, a reaction Mia had no trouble interpreting. It hadn’t escaped either of their notice that waiting was Damien’s special obsession.

~

The pair’s matching grins unsettled Damien—especially Jake’s. The man hadn’t been granted a release, but he appeared to be on the same satisfied page as his cohort. Decision rose in Damien before he could squash it down.

“You two are coming home with me.”

“Excuse me?” Jake said. “That wasn’t our agreement.”

“You need oversight,” Damien said. “You’ve already proved you can’t be trusted on your own. You’ll stay with me and we’ll … bond.”

“
You
want to bond,” Jake said. “With us.”

“Do you deny that was a successful scene?”

“Very,” Jake said. “And I admit that was thanks in part to you. Obviously, we both find you inspiring. However—” He slitted his eyes at Damien. “We didn’t agree to let you take over our whole lives.”

Damien hadn’t been a hundred percent sure he wanted them to agree—until Jake resisted. He crossed his arms stubbornly. “Move in with me or the deal is off.”

“
Move in
?” Mia blinked then abruptly shut her mouth.

“I have plenty of room and any amenity you could wish. Plus, it would only be for two months.”

“I don’t know,” Jake said. He looked at Mia.

“It’s up to you,” she responded, deferring the choice to him.

Did Damien resent that? For an instant, it seemed he did. He shook off the sensation. “There’s
lots
of room,” he insisted. “You’ll still have your privacy.”

Jake rubbed his jaw and considered. Knowing nothing else would get him his way, Damien held the other man’s gaze without wavering.

“I’ll want a concession,” Jake said, obviously shifting to bargaining mode.

“What concession?”

“I don’t know yet, but when I tell you, you won’t refuse.”

Damien got the
Godfather
reference. He also got that Jake wouldn’t ask the impossible. Jake might be sly, but he seemed honorable.

“Agreed,” Damien said and held his hand out to shake on it.

When Jake returned the clasp, his hold was warmer than Damien expected. Damien shook dozens of hands a day and thought he knew every style: from grips that crushed or tried to ingratiate, to nervous sweaters and germaphobes. Jake’s was neither sycophantic nor pugnacious.

Jake shook hands as if he liked Damien.

~

After all the planning and drama, Mia found it strange to have the scene over. It was though. Damien left to inform the limo service he didn’t need to be driven home. Mia sensed he wanted a chance to pull himself together. She understood the urge. She wasn’t back to reality yet herself.

Once Jake had undone her ties, she sat up and rubbed her wrists. His smartass smirk was nowhere in evidence.

“You’re worried,” she said, noting his serious expression. “Didn’t this turn out the way you hoped? He’s invited us to his home. We’ll be able to search there.”

Jake bent down, searching for something on the floor. “Yes. That was a lucky break.”

“But?”

He retrieved her panties and handed them to her. “But I can’t read him as well as I’d like. I’m not sure what he wants—aside from us putting on a show for him.”

Since her companion seemed distracted, Mia pulled the thong on without blushing. “I think he wants more than a show. Underneath, anyway.”

Jake grunted and rubbed his nape. “Here’s the thing: who is Damien identifying with when I dominate you? Am I his proxy or are you?”

“Why can’t the answer be both of us?”

“It can,” Jake said, but he didn’t seem satisfied with that.

“You thought
you
were Damien’s standin. Because he’s been following your scenes here.”

“I suppose I did. Obviously, he’s top dog in his business life. Sometimes people switch roles from work to private…” He stopped speaking to stare into mid-air. “Actually, I’m not sure I’m asking the right question. There’s something else going on with him. Some other reason he is the way he is.”

“He’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma,” Mia suggested. Jake laughed, the furrow between his brows relaxing. Mia liked that he wanted to talk things through with her. Probably, she ought to do the same.

“Jake,” she said. “Something’s been bothering me. Damien seems to … like us. I don’t know if he’s guilty of what Raeburn claims, but he’s still a human being. If he discovers we did all this to manipulate him, he’ll be hurt.”

“Yes. I’m not thrilled about that myself.” He didn’t suggest they call off the job, just laced both hands behind his neck and stood thinking silently.

Though she didn’t think he was posing, he looked yummy like that—all bare-chested and muscular.

Jake had his mouth on me
, she thought, the idea suddenly surreal. What did their adventures mean to him, really? Wasn’t he, in his way, as big a mystery as Damien?

“Your shirt’s over there,” she said, pointing it out to him.

He shook himself from his thoughts and smiled.

“You’re a trooper,” he said, which was hardly a role she’d daydreamed about filling.

~

Jake had returned to his driver role. Mia watched him open the silver car’s rear door for Damien. The CEO glanced at him before sliding in.

“You too,” Jake said, surprising her.

“I thought I’d ride shotgun.”

His mouth twisted. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. You’re too distracting for safe driving.”

She wore the loose jeans and pullover hoodie she’d brought along for after—not exactly siren wear. “For real?”

“For real,” he said with a faint smile.

“I assure you I don’t have cooties,” Damien added from the back seat.

She had to slide in then. Up till then, she and the CEO had ridden together in roomy limo compartments. Now Damien seemed very close, which was unexpectedly pleasant
and
awkward. Despite the recent orgasm she’d enjoyed, part of her wanted to swing onto his lap and grind on him like a stripper. The impulse didn’t go away as Jake put the electric vehicle in motion.

Damien cleared his throat. “Your attire appears quite … comfortable.”

Him being self-conscious allowed her to relax. She turned toward him until her knee nudged his nearer leg. “Do you always talk like that?”

“You mean so formally? I’m afraid so. When I was a boy, my classmates called me ‘the professor.’”

“I bet you were a cute kid.”

He pulled a face. “I was a dichotomy. The brain and awkwardness of a nerd and the looks of, well …” He trailed off.

“A Greek god?” she suggested teasingly. The comparison didn’t seem to please him, though it was pretty accurate.

He shook off his irritation and shifted around to her. “What about you? What sort of child were you?”

She hesitated. This was a genuine get-to-know-you conversation, the kind that might deepen Damien’s feelings of betrayal when their arrangement reached its inevitable end.

Damien’s face stiffened. “If my question is too personal, you need not answer.”

“It isn’t that.” Mia sensed Jake checking on them in the rearview mirror. Jake kept telling her to be herself, though the self she was didn’t really like telling this story, not when Jake hadn’t heard it either. “According to my mom, I was weird even as a baby. She claimed I crawled to my own drummer—usually away from everyone.”

Seeming interested, Damien propped his chin on his hand. “You were introverted.”

“Yes. I played by myself more than with other kids, assuming you don’t count imaginary friends. My brother Mike was eight years older. He was better at fitting in. Outgoing. He was my best friend, I guess. My protector.”

“Go on,” Damien said when she paused.