Insatiable (5 page)

I still couldn’t get rid of Vaughn Ward’s awful smirk. But I could be professional, couldn’t I? I could set aside my feelings for the few months this account would consume and then be rewarded with an incredible promotion.

Junior Partner Quinn Windsor
, I kept thinking.

I could stomach him for that long. I knew I could. And besides, some pretty model or actress would catch his attention any time now and he’d just forget about plain little me.

I took another breath and looked back at Ms. Spencer, ready to give her my answer.

V
AUGHN

I’d gotten tired of that hotel suite quickly, so I bought a house in Boston. It was a brownstone in Back Bay. Beautiful and old and full of character.

But what interested me most at the moment was the black-maned beauty sitting across from me in the wingback chair, her bare legs crossed. She wore a dark dress that matched her hair. The hem toed the line between risqué and scandalous, and just looking at those long legs got my heart pumping.

“This is such an incredible house, Vaughn,” she said.

We sat near the picture window on the third floor, the sun streaming in. It bathed her already tanned and toned body. We’d met at a party on Saturday night for some modeling agency. They’d heard I was in town and sent the invite over right away.

I didn’t mind the attention. Stacey was gone. And I couldn’t stop thinking about that Quinn girl from that marketing meeting. I’d needed something to take my mind off things and that something was a lingerie model sitting across from me.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” I said, “But I have to say right now the only truly beautiful thing I can think about is you.”

She blushed. Slowly, so that I got a good look, she let the tip of her tongue trace around her full, glistening lips. Then she leaned forwards in her chair, her cleavage pushing up even higher.

“Is that so?” she said.

For some reason, I kept thinking about the way that Quinn girl blushed when I flirted with her. The way her freckles stood out as her cheeks heated.

This girl across from me was, well, a model. She had no freckles. Perfect everything. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t in her, and normally I didn’t care.

Still, I couldn’t help thinking there was nothing unnatural or plastic-surgeon sculpted on Quinn.

“Vaughn?”

“Hmm?” I said, focusing on her again.

“I’d like to do some modeling for you. Would you like that?” she said.

I realized then that I couldn’t remember her name. I wanted to say Mandy or Marissa. Something with an M. Normally I was good with that sort of detail. Women liked men who could remember their name.

I leaned back and breathed out, throwing my arms wide across the back of the couch. “Sure, baby.”

I got away with it. She smiled and stood up, twisting somewhat to really accent the lines of her body, the curve of her back and the flair of her hips.

She kept her eyes on me the whole time. Reaching back, she unzipped her dress and then stepped out of it.

A few pieces of lacey lingerie hugged her. Sheer brazier, panties so tiny they were more like a couple pieces of string than actual underwear.

Normally such a sight got the blood pumping in all the right places. I did feel something, just not nearly the intensity I was used to.

“Do a little spin for me,” I said, swishing one index finger in a circle to illustrate my request.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and let it slip out slowly while she turned around. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s great. Hot,” I said, feeling distracted and then feeling annoyed with myself for feeling distracted.

My eyes kept drifting over to the little breakfast bar where my cell sat, my thoughts shifting to wondering when I might hear from C&M about my demands. I’d meant what I said. Quinn or bust.

And not only because I wanted her. In that meeting she’d taken everything I threw at her. I knew what a demanding jerk I could be sometimes, and finding the people who could put up with that and still do good work was harder than it seemed.

“Playing hard to get?” she said.

“Hmm?” I said again, realizing that I’d been looking everywhere but at the beautiful, basically naked lingerie model strutting about in front of me.

Of course, I knew these types of girls were used to getting all the attention they ever wanted from men. It turned them on when you ignored them. Same principle as with cats. Ignore them and they’ll come to you.

Except this time I hadn’t done it on purpose.

Is that why Quinn is on my mind so much? Because she ignored me?

“I asked if you’re playing hard to get,” she said. “Because I’m going to tell you now, I always get what I want.”

She slunk over to me, her hips swaying in a way that would have normally had me loosening my collar. She sat on my lap and I smelled her perfume. There was something sensual, carnal, and raw about it.

Finally, my body started responding the way I expected it to. I put my hands on her bare thighs and ran them up until I cupped her ass.

“Really?” I said. “Because there’s something I should tell you, too.”

She leaned in close, grazing my jaw with lips that were soft and warm and inviting, tracing along until she reached my ear. Her hot breaths washed over me, full of promise.

“And what is that?” she said just before taking my earlobe between her teeth and nipping it.

I nuzzled my lips against her neck, in that sensitive spot where it met her jaw, for a moment before replying, “I always get what I want, too.”

This is good, I’m hardly thinking about Quinn at all!
I thought. Unable to help myself, I glanced over at the phone.

Then she started grinding against me and my breath caught in my throat. “So take what you want,” she said.

I made a growling sound in my throat. I picked her up and tossed her down on the couch. Her long legs wrapped around my waist and her fingernails dug into my back, sharp even through my shirt. I hissed. It was a nice pain.

She grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked my face closer to hers. Her eyes smoldered with desire, and her inner heat flushed her cheeks. “I want you to undress me with your teeth.”

I had no problem with that. Still, in the back of my mind this didn’t feel as fun and exciting as I knew it should.

Then my cell started blaring, the screen lighting up the wall next to the breakfast bar.

“Hey!” she said.

I didn’t even realize what happened until I stood by the breakfast bar with my cell in my hand. At the sound of my phone, I’d disentangled our bodies and left her hot and flushed on the plush couch.

The top three buttons of my shirt were undone, and the ends of my belt dangled in their loops. When had that happened?

The phone vibrated in my hand. “M. Callaghan” the call display read.

C&M
, I realized. This was a call to tell me whether they’d accepted my demands or not.

My heart palpitated at the thought of seeing that Quinn and her freckles again.

I hadn’t felt this way about someone since...
Since Stacey
, I realized. At that my palpitations disappeared, leaving an almost sick sensation in the pit of my stomach.

“Vaughn? What the hell?”

I answered the call. “What’s the news, Callaghan?”

For a second, I heard nothing but Callaghan’s breathing. It was something I’d encountered many times in the past. People weren’t used to my forwardness.

They wanted their pleasantries and niceties. But those usually just got in the way of the truth.

“Mr. Ward, I wanted to let you know personally that we at C&M are pleased to tell you that we will be continuing our business relationship.”

At that, the palpitations and the nerves both returned full force. Then I was the one being quiet. Somewhere inside, I knew that I’d been hoping that they would refuse. It was strange to have my feelings divided in this way. Normally, I was so certain of everything.

It was one of the reasons for my success.

“Mr. Ward?” Callaghan said. His old man’s voice sounded even more gravelly over the phone.

“Yes, right. I’m going to want to start right away. I expect I’ll need to hold another meeting... Go over things with... with...”

“Miss Windsor?” Callaghan said, “Yes, of course. I’ll send everything down the line. We’re at your disposal.”

“Great,” I replied. I hung up. Setting my phone down, I leaned against the breakfast bar. The lacquered wood felt nice and cool against my palms.

“Vaughn?”

My breath caught in surprise. I’d been thinking about where to go from here. I could do that sometimes: get lost in thought. Though it was a habit I thought I’d kicked long ago.

“Yes?” I said. I drummed my fingers on the bar for a second before turning around. She sat on the couch, the seductive lingerie model in her lingerie.

“Are we doing this or what?” she said.

Desire tugged at my insides, but not enough to overcome the inertia of that phone call and what it meant. “No.”

She scoffed and stood up, marching over to pick her dress up off the floor. “Whatever happened to that
I always get what I want
talk?”

She pulled her dress up, but in her agitation she couldn’t get a good grip on the zipper. I stepped forward and tugged it up for her. She went stiff at my touch, but didn’t push me away. I got another whiff of that perfume, but didn’t find it as intoxicating as before.

“Sometimes what I want changes. Sometimes I guess even I don’t know what I want,” I replied.

“Whatever,” she replied. She started heading for the stairs.

I watched her, knowing that something inside me was different. And the change happened when I met Quinn.

And it bothered me that the only thing I could compare it to was when I’d met Stacey, who’d left my life so spectacularly.

Q
UINN

“Of course he wants to start right away,” I said to myself. I’d gotten an email from Mr. Callaghan himself. It was a brief message, but I could read between the lines.

There was a lot riding on this account. Not just the reputation and financial well-being of C&M, but also my career in marketing.

I couldn’t help thinking how much nicer, how much easier, this would be if every time I thought about Vaughn Ward my stomach didn’t churn. My mind kept returning to that moment in the elevator when he asked what I’d do if he kissed me.

I knew that I should definitely feel offended, maybe a little mortified, as his forwardness. But a part of me I didn’t really want to acknowledge found that forwardness attractive and refreshing.

And he is handsome
. He was the kind of handsome that would make me ache deep and low if I let it.

I finished loading up a bunch of material, mostly what I’d worked on over the weekend, onto a USB stick and I started the process of turning everything off so that I could go and get this job over with.

Hopefully it would impress Ward, he wouldn’t demand any revisions, it would go on to be a successful campaign, and I’d be a junior partner this time next quarter.

Just before I put my computer to sleep a notification came up that I received a new email. I checked it. It was Anne from the art department.

I went over and found Anne seated in front of a bank of flat-screen computer monitors. There had to be half a dozen of them set up on the wall, each one showing a different picture or animation partway to completion.

“Hey,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder.

Anne always worked with her headphones on. I could hear what sounded like Katy Perry’s latest hit bleeding out from the small speakers. She pulled the headphones down so they rested at her neck and then spun in her chair to face me.

“Quinn! I’ve got those composites ready that you asked for,” she said.

“Great! But why didn’t you just email them to me?”

“Because I heard you landed the entire Phoenix Software account. Is it true that
Vaughn Ward
requested you himself?” She grinned up at me.

I always liked Anne. She’d started at C&M a couple months before I did. I’d been fresh out of undergrad and green around the ears and she’d helped me get acclimatized here. We liked to look out for each other.

She was something of a hipster. Curly blonde hair with pink highlights, thick, black-rimmed glasses. She also loved retro skirts.

“How did you know that?” I said, “I don’t think anyone’s supposed to know that yet but Mr. Callaghan, Ms. Spencer, and me.”

She winked. “Let’s just say that Callaghan’s secretary doesn’t mind sharing some office gossip around the water cooler. And why do you look so sour? This is incredible!”

I thought of putting it down to not drinking enough coffee this morning or something, but Anne was right. I should have been ecstatic. And I knew if we switched places I would ask her the same question.

I took a quick look around. The art department was pretty much empty, what with it being close to quitting time.

“It’s Ward. I just don’t relish the thought of having to work with him.”

Anne raised an eyebrow at me, “You make it sound like such a chore to work with the guy
People
rated number 17 in their most beautiful people edition last year.”

It was my turn to offer a raised eyebrow. “That’s awfully specific. Why do you even know that?”

A hint of rouge touched her cheeks, setting off those highlights in her hair even more. “Can’t a girl have fantasies? Ever since I heard C&M had a shot at his account I’ve been doing my research. But you’re trying to distract me. Where’s the beef?”

I rolled my eyes. I should have known something was up when she asked me to come see her. I pursed my lips, considering. I decided I might as well tell her. Better than keeping it bottled up.

“I don’t like Ward.”

“What? Like his company’s policies or something? Why not? Did you know he publishes his salary every quarter, and that Phoenix Software is also one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the country right now?”

I waved at her to stop. She could get a little excited, sometimes. “No, no. Phoenix Software is fine. I don’t like Vaughn Ward the man, and I’m not certain I can work with him.”