Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Twenty-Two

Damon

I was sittingat the bar at the Wild, looking through paperwork. It was a weekday, we opened in half an hour, and Cory was loading a new keg.

The bar had improved in the past few weeks. It was all Andie’s doing. She had bought new tables and chairs, getting rid of the old ones that were permanently sticky with spilled beer. A chalkboard had been put up behind the bar, listing the evening’s cocktail specials. She had even brought in a band one night to play bluegrass music. We were starting to get new customers instead of the same old crusty regulars every day.

I was engrossed in the papers I was studying, so I was surprised when I heard the slide of a glass over the bar. A glass of soda and lime appeared at my elbow.

I looked up. Andie was standing behind the bar, her arms crossed and her hip cocked. Her dark hair was tied up off her neck, and for a second I just stared at her like a lion who hasn’t been fed in months.

Since that incredible night at my apartment over a week ago, we hadn’t been together. It was impossible. When Andie and I weren’t at the bar, she was home with Miles—and the new, reformed Miles was always home when he wasn’t at school. It was great that he was taking his second chance seriously, that he was trying hard to recoup his grades and not run wild with the Traeger brothers. But it also meant that there was no way Andie could sneak away so I could bang her senseless like I wanted to. If Miles was aiming to be a model son, then the least Andie could do was be a model mom. Which meant no sex with the help.

At work, we had to pretend things were the same as ever so that rumors wouldn’t start. Andie was the boss, she was Terry’s ex, and again, she needed to be a paragon of womanhood—or she at least had to appear that way. When I worked with her, I had to pretend I hadn’t seen her naked, hadn’t been inside her bare, hadn’t had her in my shower and on my bed. I was a guy with a lot of self control, but it was very fucking hard.

I looked around. “Where did Cory go?”

“I sent him down the street to the market to pick up lemons and limes. We’re out.”

I’d been so engrossed, I hadn’t even heard Cory leave. Andie and I were alone in the bar, at least for the moment.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

“Invoices,” I said, distracted as I let my gaze travel her again. “You’re wearing a dress.”

“Very perceptive.” But her skin flushed a little. The dress was one of those wraparound ones, with a deep vee in the neck where the two parts overlap. It fit her like a second skin, and I could see the dip of her waist and the perfect curve of her hips beneath the fabric of navy blue with small white flowers on it.

“I’ve never seen you in a dress before.” Andie looked hot as hell in jeans, but this was something else entirely.

She shrugged, though her arms were still crossed. “I had to take Miles to meet his new therapist this morning. That’s why I’m late.”

“You went to meet a therapist in that?” She was wearing knee-high boots that brushed the hem of the dress. Jesus, she looked sexy. “Was he an eighty-year-old man?”

Her dark brows lowered in that way I knew so well. “You don’t think I should wear this outfit?”

“I think any man under eighty who sees you in that dress is not going to be able to concentrate on Miles’s mental well-being.”

“Oh.” Andie uncrossed her arms and smoothed the dress down her front, a gesture that was supposed to be professional but instead made the fabric pull over her perfect breasts. “He didn’t seem to notice.”

“Then he needs his eyes checked,” I said.

She flushed again, and our gazes met. It had only been a week, but I felt like a man who has crossed the Sahara on foot since he’d last had sex with Andie English. Like a man who had been off to war for years.

“Damon,” she said.

My gaze dropped to that vee between her breasts again. I couldn’t help it. “Yes?”

“I want to talk to you about your employment.”

I blinked, raising my gaze to her face again. “What about it?”

“I need to start paying you a salary.”

“No.”

She sighed gustily. “You can’t just work here for free forever.”

“You can’t pay me, either.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’d be fucking the boss.”

She blushed hard at that, the color flooding up her cheeks. I’d only said it because we were alone, and because I wanted to see Andie blush. Because she liked it—I could see it so clearly in her eyes. “That is—do not say that.”

I smiled. “Of course, that’s if I’m still fucking you. Which I’d like to be.”

“Stop.” She did not want me to stop. Not even a little bit.

Still, I said, “Seriously, I’m not going to be your employee, Andie. If it bothers you not to pay me, then pay me. But pay me as an independent contractor.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m the security expert you hire to consult with you about security for the bar. I send you a bill, you pay it. Very simple.”

She thought that over. “So according to you, it’s okay if you’re fucking your client, but not your boss?”

This woman. Just when I thought I had her pegged, she’d just blurt out a dirty word that made my blood run hot. “Just for the record,” I said slowly, “I am absolutely okay with fucking my client.”

Andie grabbed one of the laminated drink menus from the bar and fanned herself with it, making the tendrils of loose hair lift off her neck. “Oh, lord.”

So she was just as pent up as I was. That was good to know. The woman who had gotten in the shower with me had been passionate and practically insatiable. She was still in there somewhere. I just needed to bring her out again. And we needed some damn privacy.

I had no idea what I was doing—what we were doing. I only knew that all I wanted lately was to get Andie naked again, and she seemed to want the same thing. We were two grown adults, unattached and able to make our own decisions. We didn’t need much more than that.

What the hell was I waiting for? Andie was right here.

I pushed my stool back and put my papers into a stack. “I think we should have a meeting in your office.”

Andie’s eyes went wide and she put down the drink menu. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not? We meet in your office all the time.”

“Because I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking I finally put a proper lock on that office door,” I said. “I’m also thinking you’re wearing a dress. I have those two thoughts. That’s it.”

She let out a breath, a sound that told me she was tempted. Absolutely tempted. She looked around at the empty bar and whispered, “At work?”

“At work,” I replied, with confidence I didn’t totally feel. It had been long enough, she was wearing that dress, and I was taking my shot. Either Andie would go for it or she wouldn’t.

She went for it.

Her gaze met mine, and then she turned and walked toward the office. “Fine,” she said. “A meeting.”

I picked up my papers. As I followed her, Cory came back through the front door, bags from the market in his hands. “Meeting with the boss,” I told him.

Cory looked completely uninterested in this news. “Okay.”

As soon as the door clicked shut behind us, I turned the lock. Then I dropped my papers. Then I took Andie’s face in my hands and kissed her.

She grabbed the lapels of my jacket and kissed me back. She tasted like sweet lip gloss and hungry woman. I wasted no time running my hands over her like I’d been dying to do for over a week now, since the last time I’d had her. I cupped her ass through the fabric of the dress, squeezing just the way she liked it and making her moan into my mouth. Then I backed her against the desk and lifted the hem of her dress.

“On the desk!” she whispered. She was outraged and incredibly turned on.

“Yes,” I whispered back. “You’ll have to be quiet when I make you come.”

That made her moan again, though she bit it back so that no one would hear past the door. I was insane for her, craving her. I slid my hand into her panties and nearly lost my mind at how wet she was.

She made a little sound and squirmed against my hand, and except for the day I’d come home from a jog and found Andie on my doorstep, this was suddenly the best day of my life. I really, really liked making this woman squirm, knowing she was making those sounds because of me. I had seen her too many times when she was tense with stress, worry, and the burdens she carried every day. I had watched her keep it together for the benefit of everyone else. I wanted to be the one to make her eyes close and her head tilt back as she took a deep inhale of pleasure. I wanted to be the one to make her feel good. I wanted to be the one to make her let go.

Andie pulsed her hips up against my hand, and as I moved my thumb over her, she gasped. I pressed the fingers of my free hand lightly over her mouth, reminding her to be silent, and that seemed to turn her on even more. I was hardly the most wildly experienced guy on the planet, but I was starting to realize that even though Andie had been married, she hadn’t tried very many things. She’d never experimented, taken the time and attention to figure out exactly what she wanted and liked. I had no desire to know what her sex life with Terry had been like, but I was more than happy to be the guy who overwrote those memories with sex that was a little bit risky and actually fucking fun.

She bit the pad of one of my fingers over her lips, and then she sucked it into her mouth, and I nearly lost it. I leaned close to her ear as I stroked her. “You are so fucking sexy right now,” I whispered. “You’re making me insane.”

Andie made a little sound in her throat and grasped for my belt buckle, undoing it.

Well. If that was what she wanted, I was all for it. I nipped her earlobe and rasped, “On the desk?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

I slid her panties off while she worked my zipper. Pushing aside stacks of papers, I leaned her back to just the right angle. I parted her knees. I slid deep inside her. And then I fucked her right there on the desk in her office, her dress around her waist and her heels digging into my lower back. The desk made an alarming rocking sound, but no one came to the door.

When her body started to pulse, I put my hand over her mouth again, just hard enough to make her orgasm hit harder. And then, when we were both finished, I kissed her long and deep, on the desk with all the papers and the computer pushed aside.

The relaxed, dreamy look on Andie’s face was worth every bit of risk.

I was addicted.