Handcuffed in Housewares: Tulle and Tulips, Book 3 Read online

She ran her hands along his neck and tugged him closer. “Then kiss me again. I really like when you kiss me.”

  He grinned. Some requests were simply impossible to deny. Conservative Leigh asking for a kiss in a breathless whisper was such a request. It filled him with excitement. It lifted his heart with a lightness, like he’d been filled with helium and could float away.

  Holding himself off her torso while he did as she’d asked, he slid his hands beneath the hem of her shirt. Part of him hungered to have her naked quickly. Another part, a calmer part he wasn’t accustomed to, told him to go slowly. For the first time, he found himself easing into a seduction rather than rushing toward an orgasm.

  Moving his fingers in a dance along her stomach and sides, he held himself back from moving toward her breasts. She wanted his touch. He knew it from the way she arched her back off the desk. She leaned into the kiss, pulling him into her arousal.

  Her hands never stopped moving over him, and every inch of skin she touched leapt to life as if her fingers jolted him with electricity. She touched the lowest part of his back, the sensitive spot just above the waist of his jeans. The electric jolt that ramped his blood pressure higher and higher streamed through him—blood and muscles—to his dick.

  He rolled his hips, rubbed himself against her. She jumped, ground herself against him. The veins in his neck strained with the force of his restraint. He moved from kissing her lips to nibbling a path down her neck. His hands worked their way eagerly toward her breasts.

  Restraint wasn’t going to last as long as he’d hoped. Fire coursed through him until he was sure he would combust. Every muscle, even ones he hadn’t been aware of in too long, tensed with readiness.

  He hadn’t been this aroused at the idea of sex in Hearth and Home. He hadn’t been this aroused at the idea of sex ever.

  “Burton.”

  “I don’t want to rush this, Leigh.”

  She pressed into him. His eyes rolled back in his head and his ass muscles clenched.

  “You’re making it really hard not to, though.”

  “Then don’t try.” She trembled, a full-body quake beneath him. “You can go slow the next time.”

  “Okay.” He pulled her off the desk and stepped away long enough for them to strip each other. It wasn’t the dramatic and frenzied ripping of clothes they showed in movies, but there was a definite urgency driving them.

  Leigh picked his wallet up from the desk and handed it to him. As he pulled out the condom, she resumed her reclined position on the desk. Her hair fell around her shoulders and over the wood of the desk. Work would never be the same again.

  He was grinning again when he moved back to his previous position.

  “You’re not the woman I expected you to be.”

  “Should I take that as a compliment?” She played with his hair and stared into his eyes.

  “Definitely.” Pausing his craving for a moment, he kissed one corner of her mouth. “My first impression of you was entirely off base.” He kissed the other side of her mouth. “You’re conservative, but not stuffy.” He kissed a pulse point in her neck. “Willing to try new things.” He kissed the other pulse point. “And you’re generous with your kindness.”

  “I must have made one hell of a first impression.”

  He retreated enough to look her in the eyes again. “I began adjusting my opinion the moment you turned and looked at me.”

  “Guess it’s good neither of us judged the other by the cover.”

  “Or lack of cover in my case.”

  She angled her head as if she was studying him. Her eyes twinkled when she winked. “I can’t say I minded your lack of cover.”

  He laughed. It was a laugh that started deep in his belly and rumbled through his entirety. It was the kind of laugh he hadn’t felt like sharing with a woman since before his ex was his ex. “Ditto.”

  “Well, if you feel the same way—” she arched up and bit his chin playfully, “—would you stop yammering and have sex with me already?”

  “You bet.” He was laughing again when he pulled her a little closer to the edge of the desk. He held her hips and positioned himself for a quick thrust. The instant he slipped into her warmth his laughter died and every molecule of his being heated. It wasn’t a calm heat, or even a fully welcoming heat. Like he’d stepped into the flame of a blowtorch, it was an intense and focused heat.

  Writhing and rolling her hips, Leigh didn’t give him time to adjust or decide how he felt about the intensity of the moment, not that she knew how he was feeling. Her movement sparked more fire, launched him higher.

  Intentions of taking his time to explore her body, to indulge in the delights of her curves, evaporated with every withdrawal. She closed her eyes and relaxed every time he thrust. When he withdrew she stared deep into his eyes and squeezed. Her inner walls teased him with complacency and then begged him to stay a beat later.

  Gentle glide in.

  Pulsing pull out.

  They moved in harmony.

  Closer.

  They’d put their issues and hang-ups aside, and in return were being rewarded with moments of perfection.

  Closer.

  On a withdrawal he paused. Her eyes drifted shut when he spoke. “Keep them open. I want to see your eyes.”

  She obeyed. He stared past the conservative surface and smiled at the sexy temptress hiding in the shaded green pools. He didn’t thrust like he had been. He instead eased slowly in, reveling in the miniscule and countless pulses of her convulsing muscles as she neared her orgasm.

  Her eyes flared wider. Her throat bounced with a swallow. All the way in, he tilted his hips forward, nudging her g-spot and then keeping the pressure steady for a moment. With tiny pumps of his hips, barely moving away from her, he carried her closer. She rose higher and higher off the desk, trying to get closer, trying to keep him in place when he released the pressure.

  She sucked her lower lip beneath her teeth and Burton was sure he’d lose it. Words couldn’t have helped them communicate more clearly as they touched and stroked and petted each other. Each time he rolled his hips forward her fingertips dug into his skin. When he eased off so did she.

  Pressure.

  Her mounting pleasure seeped into the pulses of energy that escaped from her fingertips.

  Release.

  She fed a hunger he hadn’t recognized in himself.

  Pressure.

  She brightened the darkness that had grown in his heart.

  Release.

  She reawakened the dreams that had once lived in his soul.

  Pressure.

  When he would have eased off again, she dug her heels into his ass and held him still. Then it became her turn to apply the pressure as she worked her inner muscles along his length. Warm, tight and gripping she beckoned.

  The base of his spine tingled. Every muscle in his core and beyond contracted and coiled. With a final flex of her inner muscles, he popped the lock on his control. Their moans of release mingled as they sailed over the edge and into the stars together.

  Getting handcuffed to a toilet hadn’t turned out how he’d planned. Looking down at the curvaceous woman still clutching him deep inside, Burton realized it had turned out better. Much better.

  Chapter Seven

  Leigh sat at the large round table topped with a Lazy Susan. Surrounding her were the other planners from Tulle and Tulips—Lori, Misty, Tabatha, Shayna, Kayla, Gisella, Darci, Tess, Issabelle, Aleshia and Brittany. It wasn’t often all their schedules lined up for a night out, but when they did the conversation took a predictable path down Debauchery Lane.

  “So tell us more about your sexy bowling partner,” Kayla said as she scooped a slice of cake on her plate.

  “He’s a nice guy. We had a good time.”

  “How much of a good time?” Tabatha winked.

  “You were there.” Leigh traced the rim of her wine glass. She ignored the desserts on the Lazy Susan turning before her and hoped Tabatha would drop t
he subject.

  “But you left with him.”

  So much for hope.

  “We talked business. I went home.” She shrugged as she lifted her glass for a drink.

  “If you’re doing business with him, surely you’ve talked to him since.”

  Tess may look like the clichéd blonde that jokes were modeled after, but she could always be counted on to insert logic into a situation. It came in handy when she worked with her clients to figure out what food to serve and how much. It was annoying when you wanted a subject dropped.

  Her logic wasn’t something Leigh wanted to face, because when it came to thinking about Burton she didn’t feel particularly logical. She was trying not to feel anything, because while he had humored her unwillingness to be an exhibitionist, there would come a time when his preference for sex games would invade. She wanted to be brave enough to go there with him, but her mind’s programming said she’d be better off staying away.

  “I gave him the contact information for the job. He’s dealing directly with the client.”

  “So you really haven’t talked with him?” Aleshia, the youngest of the group at barely twenty-two, asked with a sweet naiveté.

  “I really haven’t.”

  “Why not?” Tabatha’s question, unsurprisingly, carried a clear as crystal you’re-out-of-your-damn-mind inflection. “It’s not every day a man like that comes your way.”

  A man like that. “A man like what, Tabatha?”

  “A sexually adventurous one.”

  Leigh shook her head. Burton had talked a good game when they’d gone bowling, but he hadn’t called. It was logical to think he’d allowed their differences—his thirst for sexual adventure and her need for quiet connections—to change his mind. “A man like that has nothing to offer me.”

  “Except screaming orgasms.”

  Darci, never able to fully hide her nervous energy, fiddled with the diamond, tie-shaped necklace she almost always wore. “I didn’t meet him, but it sounds to me like he’s a man who could bring a little sparkle into your life.”

  “My life has enough sparkle.” She traced the rim of her glass again. “There’s no such thing as enough sparkle,” Darci declared.

  “Or orgasms,” laughed Gisella.

  Leigh had known when Tabatha asked her to join them for happy hour the conversation would eventually turn to Burton, just as she’d known her friends would try to talk her into indulging in sex games. What they didn’t seem to understand was that they were encouraging her to do something she wasn’t built for.

  “Perhaps that’s true for you guys. It’s not for me.” At least not the way her friends meant.

  “I saw the way he looked at you.” Shayna stuck her fork into a giant slice of four-layer chocolate cake. She closed her mouth around the cake and moaned in delight. Leigh wasn’t sure if the moan was over the cake or the idea of how Shayna thought Burton had looked at her. “Are you telling us nothing happened between you two? That you don’t want anything to happen?”

  “Yes, I’m telling you I don’t want anything to happen.” It wasn’t the full truth. She didn’t regret what had happened, but neither did she want anything else to happen. Or, she didn’t want to want it when he clearly didn’t. She’d rub her temples in confusion if there were a chance Tabatha wouldn’t pounce on it as a weakness. Instead, she continued running her finger over the rim of her glass until the lowest of hums began.

  “Wanting something even when your mind tells you not to want it…” Lori smiled. “Sounds a little like me not too long ago.”

  “Which didn’t make any more sense then than it does now.” Misty stated around a mouthful of tiramisu. “When are you going to put Trevor out of his misery?”

  “Yeah, Lori.” Eager to get her friends off her sex life, Leigh jumped on the new train. “How many times are you going to make that poor man propose?”

  “You know he’s never asked the same way twice?” Lori propped her chin on her palm and smiled a dreamy smile that didn’t quite hide the doubt lingering in her eyes.

  “You’re afraid the romance will end if you say yes. Or that he won’t really love you.” Kayla, who had a surprising knack of seeing things in the viewfinder of her cameras everyone else missed, spoke quietly. If the camera really was a window into the soul, Kayla was its master.

  “Does that make me a bad person or a coward?” Lori’s voice didn’t come across as defensive, but rather as a woman concerned with the answer.

  “No.” Isabella fluffed a ruffled sleeve of her peasant blouse. “But I don’t think you have to worry about either possibility when it comes to Trevor.”

  “I’ve worked with a lot of men, but Trevor…” Brittany sighed. “He could teach classes in romance. As for loving you, he’s sunk.”

  “Could you imagine what the dating scene would be like if men actually took those classes?” Shayna sighed around another bite of her cake.

  “I imagine it would look a bit like bowling with Burton.”

  Leave it to Tabatha to find a way to circle the conversation back around to Burton. The woman was a predator and gossip was her prey.

  “You guys should have seen the way he gave Leigh pointers. She had to have felt every inch of him.”

  And every inch of him had felt…delicious. In the bowling alley. In his office. In his bedroom. Delicious enough that a night hadn’t passed without him slipping into her mind or dreams.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about him or the way he made her feel or how apparent it was that she hadn’t bothered him the same way, because wouldn’t he have called if she had? Wouldn’t he have called if she’d been fun enough for him to want more?

  “He’ll call. Even the most resistant ones call.” Misty smiled the smile she always smiled when she thought of her fiancé, Jace. He’d wanted Misty even while he hadn’t wanted to want her, or anyone. And he hadn’t been able to stay away.

  “Burton prefers a different kind of woman.” A toilet tramp willing to play games.

  “Then be his kind of woman.” Tabatha shrugged. “It’s not as hard as you think.”

  “Maybe that’s the real problem,” Brittany suggested with a wicked wink. “Poor guy is embarrassed.”

  “If he’s half of what you guys say…” Aleshia erupted into a fit of giggles so high-pitched and teenagerish it made sober women cringe. “No way that’s true.”

  “True or not, he hasn’t called.” The admission was one that hurt even while she understood it.

  “So call him.”

  “Not happening.” Leigh narrowed her gaze on Tabatha, not that she thought for a second Tabatha would let the matter drop. They’d circled back around to a sexy man. The subject wouldn’t be changed.

  “What’s so scary, Leigh?” Lori swirled the wine in her glass, but didn’t drink any. She seemed perfectly happy to interrogate Leigh like they’d tried to interrogate her about Trevor’s proposals. “Are you afraid you might enjoy whatever adventure he pulls you into?”

  That and not being able to stop. The idea of indulging that side of herself, the side she hadn’t let out to play since… It was too dangerous. Losing control was too dangerous. She couldn’t admit as much to her friends, though, without telling them about the past, and that was something she never talked to anyone about.

  “Listen.” Tess spoke up, again offering her brand of reason. “Maybe you’re afraid, and we’re not saying you should go off and start having crazy sex in public.”

  “Though that does sound fun.”

  Leigh ignored Tabatha. She tried to tune everyone out, but they wouldn’t be silenced. They would push and push until they felt their voices had each been heard.

  “There’s nothing wrong with allowing yourself to indulge in some pleasure once in a while,” Tess continued. “Have some fun.”

  “If you don’t want to have it with Burton then give me his number so I can call him.”

  “Tabatha!” Shayna smacked her friend and shook her head. “Stop trying to poa
ch.”

  “If nothing’s happened and she doesn’t want him it isn’t poaching.”

  “That’s not how it works and you know it,” Kayla stated bluntly.

  “All she has to do is say she wants him.” Tabatha shrugged and looked at Leigh. “Do you want him, Leigh?”

  It was a look that dared her to deny what she wanted even while daring her to admit her deepest wants. Embrace an adventure or stay safe within predictability. It hadn’t been a dilemma, or even a question she’d asked herself, in years. That it was coming up when she was still within the first year of a new business venture where her success impacted the success of so many others and didn’t have the time for a distraction was problematic.

  More problematic than how easily she’d given in to desire when she’d been with Burton was how quickly she would slip into a downward spiral if she spent more time with him.

  Excitement.

  Adventure.

  Indulgence.

  They were all normal experiences, unless the person having them was her. Looking around the table at her friends, weighing their suggestions with what she’d felt in Burton’s arms, Leigh forced herself to admit an uncomfortable truth.

  She wasn’t ready to handle the consequences of being with Burton, but neither could she stomach the idea of Tabatha making a play for him any more than she could stop thinking of what it would be like to be with him again.

  The only way to stop the circling advice and see how much she could handle would be to give their suggestions a shot. And keep Tabatha away from Burton.

  “Yes, I want him. I don’t know what to do about it, but I do want him.”

  Each of her friends smiled, but Tabatha’s smile was the broadest, brightest and most triumphant.

  “The what-to-do part is easy.” Tabatha offered with a wink. “You call him, ask him out, and then you let him screw your brains out.”

  So much easier said than done because saying the words didn’t have the power to hammer each nail into her obsessive nerve center with an addicting accuracy. Thinking about him, the admission, calling him, had heat slipping along her cheeks and the tops of her ears.