“What does one get for the man who makes these things?” Sutton mused.

  “It is quite a quandary, isn’t it?”

  “I mean, it’s not as if you’re going to peg him.”

  Michelle cracked up, one hand on her belly reining in a huge laugh. “I’m absolutely not ever going to peg him, or another man. I like my men to be men. And I like their assholes to remain virgins,” she said in a whisper as she draped an arm around her friend.

  Sutton raised an imaginary glass. “To virgin assholes. May they always remain un-penetrated.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Michelle spotted the gift that she wanted for Jack. She snatched it off the shelf, marched to the counter, purchased it, and then left with Sutton.

  “How are things with you?” Michelle asked. “Do you miss Reeve, with him in Vancouver right now?”

  “Terribly,” Sutton said, clutching her heart. “I should be used to it, but I’m not.”

  Sutton and Reeve had been together for two years, married for one. A powerful casting director, she’d helped him earn his first big break, but once he nabbed the role in Escorted Lives, his career took off like a shot.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it? All the missing,” Michelle said, and while she’d never known the kind of love Sutton and Reeve had, she knew a thing or two about those pangs of longing. She’d experienced it in the deep heart-wrenching way that only death can bring when her parents had died. And she’d felt it for Clay for years, though in a vastly different way, of course.

  Even so, it was a far-too familiar emotion—the empty ache she’d felt for years for her friend who she’d hoped would become something more. In college, at the height of all that loneliness, he’d come into her life. Beautiful and handsome, kind and smart, he was best friends with her brother. That made him forbidden, in a way, even though they’d had only one drunken kiss during her sophomore year. That kiss had done a number on her vulnerable heart. It became the match that lit the fire she’d been building on the kindling of her very own raw and untended emotions.

  Now, years later, she understood enough about emotions to figure out there’d been a transference going on, a displacement of grief into unrequited love. In retrospect, she should have let go of the unrequitedness years ago. She should have known better. Perhaps she’d clung on to it to protect herself from more hurt. Perhaps believing that Clay was the one had kept her heart in that safe zone where it couldn’t be broken again, like it had the night her family fractured.

  Now that she knew that, and truly understood it, she had started to move on from Clay.

  Or maybe it was so much simpler. Maybe it was the birds and the bees. Perhaps it was Jack that made Clay start to feel more and more like a distant memory.

  Great sex had a way of erasing the past.

  “Missing is the hardest thing,” Sutton said.

  “It truly is,” Michelle echoed, linking elbows with her friend as they walked down the street, two New York women, out on a quick late afternoon shopping break and talking about their hearts, and their men.

  Not that Jack was hers.

  Not at all.

  “By the way, did you see that picture of you with Mr. Sex Toy Mogul?” Sutton asked in an offhand way.

  “What?” Michelle stopped in her tracks.

  “I saw it on Twitter. Someone was sharing it, and I was searching to check for Joy Delivered products. I think it was you in the picture. You were the gorgeous brunette he was spotted having dinner with at Gia’s, I trust?’

  Michelle blushed, flashing back to Carla’s comments about public lives. At least she hadn’t been named. No one knew her. No one needed to know her. She flew under the radar, unlike Jack. She’d been right, though, about Jack being recognized by those women that night. They must have taken his picture. Hers too.

  It was an unsettling feeling, having her picture taken without permission. Having it taken and posted online was even odder. But then she reminded herself it wasn’t a big deal. She’d simply had dinner. There was nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t as if she’d been filmed having sex on top of the Met Life Tower.

  They resumed their walk, passing a drugstore.

  “Oh, Sutton,” Michelle said. “I forgot. I need to pop into the store and get a pair of cheaters.”

  “Since when do you need reading glasses?”

  “I don’t need them for reading,” Michelle said suggestively.

  “You dirty bitch.” Sutton said, her eyes lighting up. “Let’s go get you some cheaters.”

  * * *

  He’d said hello to the receptionist then headed straight to his corner office and shut the door, a clear sign he wanted to be left alone. His only companion was the view of Manhattan from the windows. He could see New York. No one could see him. His phone buzzed, and he was tempted to ignore it. But the possibility that it might be her again had him grabbing it from his pocket.

  M: Remember that time you knocked on my office door after your first appointment?

  J: Yes.

  M: You told me you had unfinished business with my pussy.

  J: I did. I still do. Only because I fucking love your pussy, so I’m always going to want to do business with it, to it, for it, and in it.

  M: I have unfinished business with your fabulous fucking cock.

  J: Now you’ve done it again. Why do you torture me like this?

  M: It’s only torture if I’m going to leave you blue-balled.

  J: Well, what’s your plan, beautiful? Because my dick is hard, and I have no intention of jacking off in my office, and I have two more hours of work to get through.

  He waited, and waited, and waited. But no reply came.

  “Fuck it,” he muttered, because it was time to focus.

  He tossed the phone on his desk. He needed to take care of a few thorny issues with suppliers before the weekend, but all he wanted was to rid his body and mind of the residual tension from the day. The meeting with Denkler combined with the time at the shrink’s, in addition to all those jumbled feelings of fuck-uppery with Aubrey had him on edge.

  Michelle was nowhere to be seen to take that edge off.

  He fired up the computer screen when his office phone beeped with the receptionist. He stabbed the answer button. “Hey, Christine. How are you?”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Sullivan. There is someone here for you with a delivery from the library. She wants me to send her back,” the receptionist said, lowering her voice.

  “The library?”

  “She said you ordered some books for personal delivery,” Christine said, sounding thoroughly flummoxed. He was, too. Until, some neuron fired and he had the sneaking suspicion the edge was about to come off. “Send her back,” he said, and then hung up as his cell phone rattled once more.

  M: I hope it’s not work that involves other people.

  J: Why not?

  M: Because I wouldn’t want them to see what I’m about to do to you.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It is Certain

  “Come in,” he said, as the brown door slowly opened.

  The first thing he saw was a pair of strong legs. Then, black pumps, with a strap across the top of her feet. Then the owner of those gorgeous legs stepped inside, and he dropped the paper in his hand.

  Holy sex of his fantasies.

  He raked his eyes up and down, not even sure where to stop or where to linger because the whole package was a dream. Bare legs, black pencil skirt, tight as sin, her gorgeous brown hair pinned up on her head. Then there were the glasses.

  Sexy cat’s eye glasses.

  Peering over the top of them seductively, she shrugged off the black belted jacket she wore, tossing it on the purple couch. She had on a white blouse, unbuttoned to her cleavage. In her hand, she held a library book. She thumped it against her palm and gave him a stern look as she shut the door. “I believe you have some overdue library books, Mr. Library Patron.”

  “Is that so? What sort of fines am I looking at?” He licked his lips, never once taking his eyes off the stunning woman who owned this moment as she walked across the carpet in his office as if she'd been designed for this kind of play. She made her way to his desk, and hopped up on the corner of it.

  “You could be looking at some hard time,” she said, her eyes twinkling with naughtiness, her voice laced with innuendo. God, her mouth looked superb as she said hard. Her perfect red lips were so fuckable.

  His gaze dropped to his hard-on, tenting his pants. Her eyes followed his. “Very hard time,” she added, as she crossed those legs that he wanted to lick from her ankles all the way up. He could spend all day between her legs.

  “Would you like to collect that overdue fine?”

  “I might,” she said, leaving the book on his desk, then removing something from the breast pocket of her blouse. Lipstick. She opened the tube, and slicked some across her lips, turning them redder. He hissed in a breath at the sight in front of him. Michelle. Perched on his desk. Applying lipstick. He wanted to pin her down and ravage his sexy librarian.

  But he knew how to read women. And he knew this woman was running the show right now. This was her surprise for him, and hell if he was going to do a damn thing right now but take whatever she wanted to give. He only hoped she’d be giving it to him soon, because all the blood in his body had rushed to one organ. His cock throbbed.

  She tucked the lipstick between her breasts, and he groaned.

  “I’m jealous of your lipstick,” he said, his eyes straying longingly to her shirt. “Why don’t you unbutton that shirt a bit and let me see your tits?”

  “You should be very jealous of my lipstick,” she said, raising one hand to deftly undo a few buttons, exposing the swell of her full breasts.

  A low rumble worked its way up his chest. “Let me suck on them.”

  She shook her head, and wagged a finger. “No. That won’t pay the fine on your overdue books.”

  “What will then?” he asked, his fingers gripping the arms of his chair.

  In a blur, she dropped to her knees, and he was ready to sing halle-fucking-lujah. Michelle on her knees was his perfect Friday afternoon.

  “Do you like payback, Jack?” she asked with a perfect pout on her cherry-red lips, her quick hands reaching for his fly, and mercifully unzipping it.

  “If it involves your lips wrapped around my dick, then I do,” he said.

  “You came into my office and had your way with me in my chair. Now it’s my turn to finish you off,” she said, and quickly tugged down his briefs.

  His cock sprang free, and she wrapped her hand around him.

  “Fuck,” he hissed out, that first touch some kind of temporary relief from the throbbing. She stroked him, and he watched her, savoring the way her eyes turned hazy as she stared at him, like she was mesmerized by his dick. She dropped her lips to the head, and he groaned loudly at that first dizzying feel of her soft lips wrapped around him.

  A tremor rolled down his spine, and he speared his hands through her hair that was still up in some kind of twist on her head. “Fuck, Michelle. Your lips are fucking perfect on me,” he said, moving her up and down as he watched.

  She glanced up at him, flashing him some kind of knowing look with those brown eyes.

  “Look at you. Look at how good you look with my dick in your mouth,” he said, and relished the way her lips curved up while she sucked up and down. His fingers dug deeper into her hair. “I’m messing up your hair, but I don’t think you’ll be bothered.”

  She shook her head, then his balls drew up as her lips tightened around him. More friction, more suction, and he closed his eyes briefly, relaxing into the pleasure bursting through him with every stroke of her tongue, every suck of her lips. She tugged on his balls, rolling them between her fingers as she worked him over with her lips. All his frustration from the afternoon, all the tension from his session, it all melted away with the glide of her lips and the pressure of her hands.

  He groaned loudly as she dropped him from her lips, only to take his balls into her mouth and suck. He opened his eyes, not wanting to miss the sight.

  “You look so hot and dirty,” he told her.

  She let him fall momentarily from her lips. “Just you wait, Jack,” she said, then licked him back into her mouth, and he felt her throat relaxing as he rocked into her. He began moving his hips in synch with her, setting up a perfect rhythm.

  Then he heard a faint buzzing, just enough for him to open his eyes. He drew a deep, sharp breath as he felt a hum against the base of his cock. A hum he’d recognize nearly anywhere. Then a vibration sent waves of pleasure through him.

  “You are a naughty girl,” he gritted out as his blood pulsed. He gripped her head tighter, staring down to see what he suspected. Her lipstick was a vibrator, and she was rubbing it against his shaft. The twin sensations—her lips and the vibrations in his body—sent him closer to the brink.

  “I want to fuck your mouth so badly right now,” he bit out.

  She let go of him momentarily to whisper hotly. “Do it.”

  She turned up the toy, sending waves of pleasure through him, like an annihilation of the senses, and there was nothing else in existence but the sinful press of her mouth. His lungs tightened. His vision turned blurry. The rattle and hum of the lipstick sent mini tremors through his bones. Release was in sight, so close, and he curled his hands around her skull and pumped into her mouth, watching her as she took his cock all the way in. Her mouth was like a miracle, her body was divine, and she was built for the most sinful kind of sex he wanted to have.

  Hot, rough, adventurous.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been privy to her talented mouth sucking him, but there was something about this moment that sent a molten thrill through him. It was the way this blowjob was a fait accompli. She’d strutted into his office with one thing in mind. Being his fantasy.

  “I’m going to come so hard and I want you to take it all,” he said. “I need to fuck your mouth hard.”

  She squeezed his cock in her hand as an answer and drew the orgasm out of him in one long deep powerful suck.

  “Fuck,” he cried out, his hands wrapped around her head, her hair spilling all over his fingers as he gave her everything inside of him and she took it. She took every last drop as she slowed her pace, and he moved with her until finally, he let go of his hold on her, his dick dropping from her mouth.

  He exhaled deeply. A satisfied sound. She wiped her hand across her lips, her eyes lit up and her smile devilish.

  “Come here,” he whispered, and pulled her up in his lap. “You’re so beautiful when you do that to me.”

  “You like the way I look with you in my mouth?”

  “I love all the different looks you have. I love the way you look naked. I love the way you look with your legs spread. I love how you look in this seductive outfit. I love how you look when you come,” he said, lowering his voice as he traced her lips with his fingertip.

  “Were you surprised to see me?”

  He nodded. “Surprised and happy,” he said, edging her cheek with soft kisses that made her tremble against him and sigh sexily. Soon, soon he’d take his turn with her.

  He smoothed away her hair that had fallen in a wild tumble around her face. Some strands were still in the clip, but the rest had fallen free. Reaching up to the back of her head, he opened the clip and let the rest fall out.

  “Nice glasses, by the way. Do they help you see better?” he teased.

  “They make large objects appear even larger,” she said with a naughty grin. He laughed deeply, looping one arm around her shoulders, the other around her waist, and holding her close.

  “Thank you for making my Friday go from being annoying as fuck to hot as hell.”

  “Why was it annoying?” she asked, gentle concern in her tone. She ran her fingers through his hair. Softly. Ever so softly, and that small, tender gesture somehow undid him, loosening the remaining tangles of annoyance in his chest. He sighed heavily. He didn’t want to revisit the frustrations now that they’d started to dissipate, but here she was on his lap, and she’d done something that stripped all the tension from his body, and also somehow peeled away another layer from around the steel cage of his heart.

  “Remember when I said I hate politics?”

  “Yes.”

  He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “I had to have a meeting about some political race today,” he said, then shared more of the details about the race and the clubs.

  She arched an eyebrow. “I’ve never been to a BDSM club,” she said.

  “Do you want to go?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. It’s not my thing. And don’t say how do you know if you haven’t gone.”

  He laughed, leaning back in his chair, holding her tighter. “It’s okay. Even though I like fucking you into submission, we don’t need to play dom-sub games to do that.”

  She laughed too. “No, we definitely don’t. You can fuck me pretty much any way you want, but any submission on my part will be in the moment, not because of a need for roles. However,” she said, and he could sense she’d shifted to some sort of professional stance now, “I do think it’s ridiculous that Conroy wants to try to close those clubs and has somehow made that a rallying cry in a campaign.”

  “I know, me too.”

  “Consenting adults should be free to do what they want in the bedroom. Or the club, as the case may be.”

  “Which is only one of the reasons why I’d rather not have to deal with this situation.”

  “I take it you didn’t get into this business thinking you’d have to work with politics,” she said.

  “I’d rather just run the business. That’s what I like. I like the business side of it. Figuring out what works. How to make different lines more profitable, more successful.” He looked at the stunning view of Manhattan from his window, a reminder of how well Joy Delivered was faring. “Starting this business was my sister’s idea. We went in together because she brings the passion, and I bring the business side.”

  “You’re the numbers man. The logic guy. But Jack, that’s what you’re passionate about, right?”