After Hours Read online

  “I had my buildup on the dance floor. I don’t need more.”

  “What if I do?”

  Wariness flashed through her moss-green eyes, then was gone as one of her hands released his buttocks to cup his dick through his pants. An impish smile curved her lips. “I can feel. You don’t need any more buildup, either.”

  Jilly’s fingers clasped tighter, pumping his stiff cock. He groaned. If she kept up with the squeezing, he also wouldn’t need to bother with taking his clothes off or locating a condom. He’d be coming right here by the suite’s entrance.

  Not that it was a bad idea. In fact, it was a very good idea.

  Moving too fast to allow her the time to digest his actions, Brendan jerked from her hold and slid his hands down the front of her dress and under the short hem. Elation filled him as his fingers met with the crotch of her panties, making it clear she wore the type of stockings that were hooked to a garter belt and ended at the tops of her thighs.

  He pushed past the damp lace and speared through the curls beneath to finger her slit. With a shallow gasp, Jilly released a hot stream of breath into his face. He liked the sound of that, of her losing control. From the way she’d taken over their sensual dancing to her agreement to have sex even before he could ask, he took her as the type who had to be on top and in command, both in bed and in every other facet of life. It was time she learned change could be a good thing. “You’re wet.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not enough.”

  “What?”

  He moved his finger, stroking the swollen lips of her juicy cunt, but going no farther. He wanted to build this up the way she said she didn’t need. He wanted to make her come undone completely, until she was thrashing in his arms and screaming with her climax.

  Her breathing grew shallower with each caress of her pussy lips and finally he allowed himself to go farther, to rub at her engorged clit. She shuddered with that first touch and his entire body vibrated with the unguarded look on her face.

  Damn, she was stunning when she let herself go. Not more stunning than other women he’d fucked, just different, that something different that had convinced him to break from the norm and be the one to do the approaching.

  Brendan stilled his teasing and skewered one finger deep inside her warm, slick sheath. Her eyes flared wide and then shut.

  “Open them, Jilly!” In the past he’d never cared about watching the excitement in his lover’s eyes—only pleasing their bodies. This woman he wanted to feel and see everything with. Maybe it was because she didn’t seem to recognize him and want him for his money or legacy, the way so many others did, or maybe it was something else. It was a maybe he’d ponder later; right now there were far more pressing matters at hand.

  Jilly opened her eyes. He added another finger to the first, plunging in and out of her drenched cunt, rubbing against her clit with each deep thrust. He reveled in every whimper, every throaty sigh, and the awe of rapture building on her expressive face. “I want to watch your eyes when you come. And you will come. You want to right now. I can feel your pussy contracting, begging to be let free. Come for me, Jilly. Let go.”

  “Not like…” The muscles of her sex compressed, pulling at his fingers, hardening his cock to the point of explosion. “Wasn’t…supposed to…be like…” Her eyes slammed shut. She snapped them open again as her pussy clenched around him, contracting tighter, tighter, then all at once letting go. “Oh, God….”

  Hot cream poured over his fingers, showering his palm and forcing him to mentally stop himself from responding in kind. This moment was for her. There was plenty of time for him later. “That’s it, sweetheart. Just let go.”

  Brendan pulled free of her sex and brushed his fingers across her clit. Jilly’s body let loose with another round of tremors. She bit down on her lower lip and her cheeks blazed with vivid pink. Her eyes stayed focused on his. Focused and so damned green and direct they seemed to see right through him.

  “Fuck, you’re so intense. I love watching your face when you come. It makes me want to see how many different expressions I can bring out. How you’ll look when I take you with my mouth, my tongue. When I fill up your sweet cunt from behind. I want to see it all, Jilly, but I don’t think one night will give us enough time.

  “Once I move here permanently, we’ll meet again. Wherever you want. Once more, or twice. However long it takes to see—”

  A squeak slipped past her parted lips, cutting him off short. She closed her mouth and took a step to her left, dislodging his fingers from her body. Her head whipped around, coming to a stop facing the opposite wall. “Oh, my God, would you look at the time! Ten forty-five already.”

  “Like I said, we won’t have time for everything tonight, but we’ll still have time for plenty.”

  Jilly continued to stare at the wall clock another few seconds and then looked back at him. Determination filled eyes that moments ago had been dark with ecstasy. “No. We don’t. I—I have to go. Now!”

  “What?” Brendan took a step back. Was she fucking kidding him? Things were just getting good and she had to go?

  “I was supposed to be home by ten.”

  Yeah, she had to be kidding him. Who in their right mind went to a wedding reception with the intention of leaving by ten o’clock? A kid, or maybe a ninety-year-old. Neither of which she happened to be.

  Feeling irritation made all the worse by the restless ache in his pants, he smirked at her. “And this is because of your Cinderella complex?”

  She frowned. “She could stay out until midnight.”

  He almost laughed with the irony in the remark, only he wasn’t up to laughter at the moment. “My point exactly. What the hell’s the rush? Mommy and Daddy have the curfew reins held extra tightly tonight?”

  Fine lines marred Jilly’s forehead. She wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at him like she’d just reentered her body and didn’t like what the person who’d taken over in her absence had done. Unfolding her arms, she moved to the door. “I—I’m sorry. I have to go. Ginger needs me.”

  “Ginger?” As in her daughter, maybe?

  “My…she just needs me.” She opened the door and slipped through to the other side, closing it behind her.

  Brendan stared at the door, uncertain of what he was feeling. Shock. Anger. Disbelief. Maybe a combination of them all, over the unlikelihood of what had just happened.

  Women never walked out on him. Sure as hell not without a good-bye or an explanation to their abrupt departure. And for damned sure not seconds after he’d given them an orgasm with the intention of supplying several more. But then, women generally knew who he was. Jilly hadn’t and she’d wanted him all the same, at least for a small amount of time. That made her one among the masses. Having left him with a major hard-on or not, it also made her a challenge he couldn’t resist, not when he’d yet to taste that slightly too-wide mouth of hers.

  “You left to feed your dog, and that doesn’t strike you as odd behavior?”

  Jillian frowned at her friend Tawny, who sat next to her in the boardroom, waiting for the Monday morning meeting to start. They were keeping their voices lowered, but she was still far from comfortable talking about her personal life around her coworkers. “I knew she’d be hungry. I always feed her before I go to bed and I always go—”

  “To bed at ten thirty,” Tawny finished with a knowing look. “That you live by a hard-and-fast schedule these days is clear. What’s also clear is that your leaving had nothing to do with a schedule, but the fact that you were scared.”

  “What?” The word came out loudly. She cast a surreptitious glance around, thankful to find no one paying attention.

  “You were afraid of letting go enough to have a little fun.”

  “I have plenty of fun and I wasn’t scared.”

  “Uh-huh, right. The hard-nosed persona and black-widow wardrobe might have the rest of these people convinced, but, girl, I know you better. I know the real you. I also know th
at, outside of your brief lapse Saturday night, the last time you let the real you come out to play was four years ago when we got drunk off Jell-O shots at the company New Year’s party.”

  And Jillian had subsequently proceeded to ring in the New Year by kissing every guy in the place on the mouth whether he was single or not. Every guy including the husband of a major hotel chain proprietor with whom she’d been in the throes of signing a grand-scale deal. The deal had gone belly-up fifteen minutes later and the job Jillian loved had come damned close to going right along with it.

  Heat raced into her cheeks with the far-from-pleasant memory and she focused on her portfolio on the table in front of her. She wasn’t afraid of letting go of the cool and composed professional image she’d spent every day establishing since that fateful night. But she also wouldn’t screw it up. She’d worked too hard to get here, on the cusp of taking over the role as senior advertising account executive when Donaldson retired next month, to jeopardize things over one night of fun—even if the mere thought of the fun currently under discussion had her sex growing moist and tingly, and her pulse picking up.

  She pushed the sensations aside and glanced at her friend. “Fine, I’m not exactly the life of the party on a routine basis. I lived that life once. I don’t want it anymore.”

  Tawny’s hot-pink lips curved upward, and amusement glimmered in her eyes. “Kinda like the way you didn’t want Brendan Saturday night?”

  “I never said I didn’t want him. I just…didn’t have time.”

  “Right. Because you had to rush home to feed Ginger.”

  “Because I don’t have time to deal with a relationship.” Jillian just managed to hold back her laugh. The last thing an admitted bad boy like Brendan had been after was a commitment. He’d suggested they meet for another night or two of sex. She was well aware that was all it ever would have been.

  Tawny tipped back in her chair and frowned. “If it’s one night of fun you’re after, then you missed your chance. By the sounds of things, this Brendan guy wasn’t after anything more than a few minutes of exploration time in your pants. That being the case, it brings us back to my original point. The only reason you didn’t finish what was started on that dance floor is because you were scared.”

  “For the last time, I was not—”

  “Good morning, everyone.” Larry Neilson, CEO of the advertising agency, entered the boardroom, his booming voice silencing her. “I’d like to kick off today’s meeting by introducing you to Neilson’s newest employee. Not that I think with his track record, he needs an introduction….”

  She was not scared…. Jillian continued her tirade silently while Larry droned on about the new hire. If Brendan hadn’t brought up the fact that he was moving to the area, she would have gone through with things in a heartbeat. She was way overdue for some excitement of the sexual kind. Given how quickly he’d had her abandoning her better judgment and crying out her bliss as he brought her to climax, he definitely could have done the job.

  Maybe Brendan was no longer a candidate to relieve the carnal hunger Jillian had been denying for too long, but there had to be plenty of others out there. She would simply find one to see to her needs for a night or two. So what if he didn’t have Brendan’s talented hands and sexy smile? She didn’t need a man of his caliber to satisfy her. She just needed someone who was anatomically correct.

  All right, so a decent face wouldn’t hurt when it came to getting her heated up. She closed her eyes as that face began to take shape. Dark eyes were always good, the kind that seemed to look right through you and into your darkest, deepest, most intimate secrets. He might as well be tall and have dark hair.

  Mmm…Nice, full, sensual mouth. A tongue that—

  Tawny’s elbow nudging into her side dissolved the developing face of Jillian’s fantasy lover. She opened her eyes to glare at the other woman, but never made it past the man who stood twenty short feet away—the tall man grinning at her with amusement in his sinfully dark eyes. The man who had the breath wheezing from her lungs and her heart beating so hard it was liable to come out of her wide-open mouth.

  Larry’s spiel drew to a close. He added in an elated tone, “Everyone, give a warm welcome to our newest account specialist and a man who’s already assured me he’s in the running for the senior advertising account executive position once Donaldson retires, Brendan Jordan.”

  2

  W hen he’d first walked into Neilson’s boardroom and spotted the woman cloaked in dowdy black with her hair pulled back into such a severe knot it was a wonder her head didn’t explode, Brendan had felt a sense of déjà vu. It wasn’t until her mouth flopped open and she’d shifted uncomfortably in her seat that recognition set in. Then all he could think of was one thing: What the fuck had she done with the knockout he’d met Saturday night?

  Jilly could hide her delectable body all she wanted, but the striking beauty of her face and that too-wide, too-tempting mouth would still be there for all to see. They were sure as hell still taunting him. One look at those dark red lips and his body was back to the state it had been in when she’d walked out on him two nights ago—hard as hell and ready to gather up the woman responsible and remedy the situation.

  If the fish-face look were any sign, Jilly had no plans to let that happen. If the sudden glowering were to be believed, she’d be happy if he turned back around and pretended he’d never stepped foot in Neilson’s boardroom, let alone knew her from another far more enjoyable time and place.

  “Why don’t you take a seat while I go over this week’s updates, Brendan?”

  Brendan nodded at Larry, and started along the wall that stretched out beside the elongated conference table. There were two open chairs—one across the table from Jilly, and one a seat away. He’d just as soon be sitting beside her—under her would be even more preferable—but he settled for the chair one away.

  A redhead in a cleavage-baring orange top sat between them. She raised an eyebrow, her Day-Glo-pink smile wide and warm. Quietly, she asked, “‘Brendan.’ Now, why does that name seem so familiar? Hmm…” She glanced in Jilly’s direction. “Jilly, do you have any idea why Brendan might seem so familiar to me?”

  “I don’t know,” came a blasé reply from Jilly.

  Brendan leaned back in his chair to see past the woman’s head. Jilly sat facing the front, appearing as if she weren’t aware she was being spoken to, certainly not about him. Her rigid posture suggested she wasn’t nearly so oblivious.

  The redhead laughed, pulling his attention back to her smile. It reminded him a lot of the smile Mike had shot his way right before Brendan had approached Jilly at the reception. The one that now made it clear Mike had known that Brendan and Jilly would soon be coworkers, and that he couldn’t be more amused that Brendan wanted her. Mike had also made it sound as if he thought she’d turn him down.

  Was that her MO, to get a guy hard and aching and then run? If so, she was in for a surprise. He might have let her walk away temporarily, but he had no plans to do so long-term. Sure as hell not until he got some answers—to both her reason for leaving him and to his own for thinking about her since.

  “You’ll have to forgive Jilly,” the redhead said in a hushed voice. “She’s suffers from SMD. By the way, I’m Tawny Madison.”

  “It’s a pleasure, and what exactly is SMD?”

  “Selective Memory Disorder. Nasty little thing.” Her smile grew and the amusement he’d detected spread into her eyes. “Once upon a time Jilly was this fun-loving woman who was the life of the party, but then she was bit by a dark and nasty bug and—”

  “Oh, God.” Jilly turned to glare at them. “My name is Jillian, not Jilly,” she hissed out, “and I was not bit by a dark and nasty bug. Now would you please knock it off already and pay attention to the meeting?”

  “And miss filling Mr. Tall, Dark, and What the Hell Were You Thinking When You Left Him to Feed Your Dog? in on the Jilly in witch’s clothing. Sorry, girl, no can do.”

&
nbsp; Brendan managed to hold back his laughter at the implication in Tawny’s words. If that was on Jilly’s MO—get the men hard and aching, only to leave them high and dry so she could go home and feed her dog—she seriously needed to work on her routine. “That wouldn’t happen to be Ginger, would it?”

  The pink he’d spotted in Jilly’s cheeks when she’d looked up and seen him smiling at her returned. She closed her eyes and inhaled audibly. She reopened her eyes and annoyance shot from her gaze in waves so heavy and lethal a lesser man would have cowered. Her lips parted and Brendan waited for the barbs she would fling his way. He wasn’t a lesser man, but he must have been a deranged one because the passion behind her anger only added to her appeal.

  “That’s it for this morning, folks,” Larry said from the front of the room, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. “Thanks as always.”

  Jilly glared a moment longer, then looked away and pushed back her chair. She stood and grabbed her portfolio, clearly planning to make a break for it. Larry appeared at her side before she could go anywhere. “Since your positions are so similar, Jillian, I thought you’d be the best person to show Brendan around.”

  “Lovely.”

  She’d muttered the word, but not quietly enough. Brendan fought a smile while Larry asked, “Pardon me?”

  She glanced over at Brendan, her gaze returning to its narrowed state for an instant, then back at Larry, and smiled. “I said…lovely. I was hoping you’d ask me.”

  “Excellent.” Larry turned to Brendan, and Jilly made a beeline for the door. “Brendan, you’re in great hands with Jillian Lowery. She’s one of Neilson’s best, not to mention your biggest competitor for Donaldson’s position. Shame there isn’t a need for both of you up that high. With her experience and your reputation, you’d make a great team.”

  So that was the reason her look had gone from fish-faced to pissed off in the midst of Larry’s introduction. His presence here gave her competition that concerned her.