Читать книгу Mistresses: Just One Night - Yvonne Lindsay - Страница 17

“ALL I’m saying is that it’s cliché. Not that it wasn’t good.”

Reclined against the black leather sofa in his office, Levi chuckled and looked down to where Elise lay on top of him, her stubborn little chin stacked on her hands over his chest. “It can’t be cliché if it was an emergency.”

One slender brow pushed up into an amused arch. “An emergency? How exactly was that?”

Catching one of those soft loops falling about her face, Levi twisted it round his finger before letting it spring free into its silky coil. “You needed a distraction. And I needed to hear you moan. The office was the closest place to make it happen.”

“Your apartment is next door. Literally attached to the club.”

“Too far.” And it had been. The moment Levi had seen her walking toward him, he’d been ready to strip that dress off her and put her up on the bar. Only he wasn’t a public display kind of guy and the chest-beating beast in him was typically of the mind that if Elise went the rest of her life without letting another man see that unbelievable expression of ecstasy on her face, it would be okay with him.

Hell, he couldn’t even think about her soft parting lips and half-lidded eyes without his groin starting to tighten.

Elise was giggling at his more-than-honest response. That lithe little body of hers moving in a way he couldn’t ignore. And then she let out a soft sigh and something inside his chest tightened too.

So different.

Her lips drifted over the spot and she kissed him there. Softly. And if he hadn’t liked the feel of it so damn much, he would have flipped her beneath him right then.

“Besides,” he added, “Bruno’s over there. You know as well as I do, if we’d gone through that door, we’d have been looking at a walk before we got anywhere near the bed. Plus the guys downstairs would be pissed if I threw off the rotation.”

“The rotation?”

“Yeah, they like walking him. Worked out some kind of system for who gets to do it when.”

A second passed and then another.

“Levi, you’re not what—” Swallowing once, she shook her head, then turned so her sexy mess of hair concealed her face and prevented him from seeing her eyes. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d normally care about—maybe it wasn’t something he’d even notice—but right now he was curious what she’d been about to say.

Gathering a bit of her hair, he was about to tuck it aside when she shifted above him and then began backing off the couch. “I should get out of here.”

Levi’s brows pulled down as he pushed to his elbows. She wasn’t looking at him as she slipped her dress over her head and let it slither down her naked body.

“It’s getting late and I have to work early.”

Right. It made perfect sense. And maybe the only reason it didn’t feel that way was because he was an arrogant S.O.B. and he hadn’t been the one to suggest it. Maybe he just didn’t like that Elise kept getting the jump on him … even when the out she offered was the one he’d always taken in the past.

Levi swung his feet to the floor and started pulling on his own clothing.

Or maybe what he didn’t like was the way that easy connection between them had evaporated between one breath and the next, and now Elise looked as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. As if they’d completed the sex portion of the program and, uncertain about what came after, she was ready to bolt.

He could tell her to stay. Wake up with her in his bed. Have her again and then drive her back in the morning.

Instead, he reached over and tugged her closer so she stood between his knees and he could rest his hands at the backs of her thighs. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

Light fingers trailed down his chest. “I was worried about interrupting you at work. I won’t make a habit of it.”

“Stop by any time you can.”

Elise wasn’t the type to show up at four in the afternoon and stick around until closing, sucking back drinks and getting stupid. Hell, she barely drank at all—which was one of the reasons he could actually relax around her. There wasn’t any gauging reactions and weighing responses. No questioning judgment or keeping an eye on her for her own good. He didn’t have to work when they were together and he liked that.

“Won’t I get in the way?”

Maybe if he were at the start of his project, rather than the end. But the truth was, HeadRush and its staff were virtually running without him. “No. Besides, everyone needs a break once in a while, right?”

She met his eyes. “I needed a break like you. Like this.”

Yeah, so maybe he’d needed it too. His palms coasted up her legs beneath her dress to— “No panties.”

Even in the dim light, he could see the blush rise to her cheeks. “I haven’t found them yet.”

“Is that so?” A quick glance across the office and he located the scrap of silk in a little heap against the base of his desk. Urging her closer, until her shins met the front of the couch, and then further still so all she could do was let out that soft breathy laugh and crawl back onto his lap—her knees straddling his hips as they sank into the leather cushions—he shook his head. “I don’t think it would be right to let you leave until we found them.”

“Oh, really?”

Really. He settled back into the cushions, pushed the bunched fabric of her dress even higher than it had ridden on its own. Ground his molars down. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

She arched that sexy brow at him, silently telling him she couldn’t wait to hear this.

“We’ll check the couch here first. Thoroughly. Then have a look around my apartment.”

“Your apartment, hmm. What about Bruno?” she asked, that sinful smile doing things to him that suggested the trip to his loft was a ways off.

“We’ll walk him first and then resume the search. I’ve got a good feeling about the bed. But if we don’t find anything … you’ll just have to stay the night.”