“Is that what’s bothering you, Andrea? That it was free? Are you more kinky than I gave you credit for being? Maybe I don’t feel bad for not paying the check, but you feel bad you were stiffed. Is that it? Well, I’m more than willing to be fair.” Kicking her legs open, he stepped squarely between them. She was tall for a woman, but he was taller still and hunched down a little to press their bodies together at precisely the right point. “How much for a quickie?” he whispered.
A glance up and down the hallway proved it empty, but who knew how long that would last. She didn’t have time for these games, especially now, and when he reached for the hem of her skirt, she slapped his hand away irritably, without thought. “Stop that. Someone could come by.”
His green eyes, so warm and relaxed and friendly, suddenly looked…not. “Come on, then.”
With an unyielding grip on her upper arm, he yanked her into an unoccupied office down the corridor, slamming the door shut behind them. He fiddled with the doorknob for a second, but realizing there was no lock on it abandoned the effort.
“We removed the lock on this office door. Long story.”
He didn’t ask as his hands went to his jeans. “Bend over the desk and pull your skirt up.”
She folded her arms over her chest, and favored him with her most withering stare. “I’m not amused by this, Evan.”
“Call me Mr. Reynolds. Maybe that’ll turn you on.” He unbuttoned his jeans as she looked around the darkened office and parked one hip on the desk. It was one of the smaller offices they used for visiting executives, although the last young up-and-comer to occupy it had given them more trouble than he was worth.
“Funny you should duck in here,” she commented. “It must have a sense-impression that lures overconfident, oversexed males. Although I guess that’s a tautology. We had an executive trainee from Wharton in this office recently who used it as his own personal hook-up center. He made a pass at anything that moved.”
“Including you?”
“Oh my goodness, he wouldn’t dare. He tried to stay out of my way, but when I found one of our more promising securities lawyers, a Miss Randall, sobbing in the restroom one afternoon due to some Neanderthal comments he had made on her ‘inability to deal well with people’—by which he apparently meant talk sports and laugh at his stupid jokes with the best of them—I took care of him.”
“Tattled to Michael, did you?”
She scoffed. “As if I’d need Mr. Reynolds to take care of a lowlife like that guy. I fired him myself and thanks to Miss Randall, didn’t even have to pay him severance. Apparently she also didn’t deal well with people when they played with her hair during meetings and tried to inch her skirt up her knee while she was giving much-needed legal advice about the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“How very gender-friendly of you, Miss Prentiss. But I’m sure Miss Randall got an earful about unprofessional behavior like crying in the office as well.”
“On the contrary, I complimented her on doing it in the bathroom. I did remove the lock on this particular office door, though, as a cautionary tale.”
Evan closed the distance between them and with very little effort flipped her around and bent her over the desk, his hand flat on the small of her back as she felt the cool wood of the desktop against her cheek. The reminder of how strong he must be with all his manual labor troubled her in the context of the world Tottingham had so abruptly brought back to her.
“Much as I’m enjoying your professional reminiscences, babe,” he whispered in her ear, “the truth is I just want my fuck, okay?”
She let the statement hit her head-on. Hurt her. It was true in any case undoubtedly. Better this was how they ended it rather than with him waxing lyrical about building shelters for puppies with his own two hands and making his way in the world without relying on his family billions. “I never had a doubt, Evan.”
He shoved her skirt up and prompted, “Mr. Reynolds.”
Given her persona, most people assumed she was probably the opposite of a submissive. Indeed, she’d endured many a joke about how she must have a whip and a closet full of leather and stilettos and some secret website where she chided men about how very bad they’d been and how they needed a spanking. But that had never appealed to her any more than the part she had played in the past did either.
She didn’t want to be a dominant or a submissive. All she wanted was—
She cut the thought off as he slid her panties down her thighs, those callous-roughened hands still gentle for all the menace of his words. The probing of his fingers between her legs proved her dry.