Taking the Score(21)

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as though the fact of her gorgeous legs on display was not in any way connected to the gargoyle impression he knew was welded to his face. Already grumpy because his sister was pissing him off, a cat was running the show, and there was a gorgeous out-of-bounds, socks-buying woman in his kitchen, Emma’s cheer was not helping.

“You’re an even worse singer than you are a stripper.”

“I know.” Grinning, she glanced back toward the way she had come. “Wouldn’t have thought the sound could carry all the way to the kitchen.”

“I was walking by when it assaulted my ears. Kevin didn’t like it, either.” Kevin had actually sat there listening like it was the most soothing lullaby. Idiot.

Her good humor remained undiminished in the face of his surliness. “My sister and I used to sing that song constantly when we were kids. It’s so ridiculously OTT. We’d even act it out.” She pivoted on her toes and sang, “Turn around,” with both her hands in a dramatic framing of her face.

He jumped on that crumb of information. “You have a sister?”

“Yeah, Daisy. She lives in Pennsylvania where we grew up.” Clouds scudded across her face before brightening too quickly to be genuine. “And speaking of sisters, are you looking forward to yours coming into town tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

She frowned. “She always seems so nice on the phone.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, she sounds like she has personality.”

Diplomatically put. Brother and sister couldn’t be more different. Liv had inherited their father’s outsize presence and in-your-face attitude. She loved and hated Senator Broderick Kane in equal measure, constantly seeking his approval and spitting at the mention of his name when he refused to dispense it.

Brody was more like their mother, Suzanne Boudreau Kane, a Houston society beauty who married down. Two kids and five years later, she realized Broderick Kane II was never going to change. She could only stand so many of his cast-off mistresses showing up with mascara-streaked cheeks and blubbering lips, telling her he’d promised to leave his wife and make them the next Mrs. K. So Suzanne did all those mistresses a favor and divorced him—reaming him of millions in the process.

Even with this shitty precedent for relationships, Brody had still allowed himself to get tangled in Kerry’s web of lies. He blinked back to the present to find Emma watching him, eyes narrowed to curious slits.

“My sister’s a menace and this whole weekend is a nightmare in the making.”

“It can’t be that bad. I’m sure it’ll be fun to see her and her friends.” She pressed the button on the Keurig. He found himself mesmerized by her slender fingers and imagined them locking onto his ass. Making her own mark. “So, do you know her bridesmaids well?”

His ears perked up at the note of feminine interest he heard in her question. Time to test the waters. Outbid, outflank, or outsmart.

“I’m probably going to have to sleep with one of them.”

“What?” Her brow knit furiously. He enjoyed that.

Casual as all fuck, he showed her his sister’s latest text message.

“What does that mean? Is she trying to”—major levels of frowning now—“set you up with a bridesmaid?”

“She thinks I’m not getting laid enough.” He leaned in. “She’s right.”

Emma remained still, just seemed to absorb his proximity with a sexy shiver.

“Why is she trying to get you laid?” Her voice sounded ever so slightly high-pitched. She tore at a sweetener packet rather violently and added it to her coffee. “Is there something wrong with you?”

He snorted at that ridiculous notion. They both knew his skills were not in question.

“My sister thought that offering one of her friends in sexual sacrifice would drag me out of the rut I’ve been in.”

“But you just got laid. Very well, I might add. Isn’t that enough to tide you over for a while?”

“Maybe for a woman. But if a man doesn’t use the goods, they shrivel up—”

She rolled her eyes.

“—and now that I’ve realized what I’ve been missing, and you’ve done such a great job getting me back up on the horse, for which I’m immensely grateful, then I think I’m ready to spread my wings.” He motioned to the wing-spreading area. His groin. “This really shouldn’t go to waste, now, should it?”

Another sweetener packet suffered the same ferocious fate as its predecessor. Vigorous stirring followed. “So do you know this Gabby?”

“Might’ve met her once or twice. My sister’s a flavor-of-the-month kind of girl, goes through friends like water. If I recall, Gabby has amazing green eyes and legs up to here.” He motioned to his chin, then changed his mind at the last moment, and held his hand level at Emma’s nipples. “Superhot.”

“But she likes Coldplay.”

“We’re probably not going to be talking much.”

She squinted at him. “I know what you’re doing. You think I’ll be so annoyed at the idea of you banging someone else that I’ll raise my hand and say, Tappable ass right here, buddy!”

“Raising that T-shirt would be preferable. You’re only wearing it because you know it turns my crank, you witch.”

“You’re a man. Erections occur with the slightest breeze.”

“Jealous much?”

She stared at him, evident disbelief at his playfulness in those big blue eyes. He wasn’t a fun person to be around, as his ex-fiancée never failed to inform him, but something about outside-the-office-Emma tickled him to no end.

Outside-the-office-Emma…the inklings of a plan formed in his lust-fried brain.

Raising her mug to her lips, she took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. Overly sweetened, he suspected. “Jealous like you were the other night at the thought of me doing lap dances for handsy old pervs?”

A growl erupted from his throat, an unabashed display of possessiveness that even he found to be clichéd. But it drew the perfect reaction. Her teeth snagged on the pillow of her lower lip and emerged moist. Her nipples budded against the thin fabric of his tee.

Ms. Strickland likes it when you growl.

He closed the gap between them, gratified when she stepped back against the counter.

“Admit you’re jealous, Emma.”

“Never,” she said defiantly.

“Just your nipples then. They’re pouting.” He inclined his head. “And these earlobes have a greenish tinge to them.” He brushed his lips across the delicate shell of her ear. “And this spot where your neck meets your shoulder”—he inhaled her scent and placed the lightest kiss at that sensitive patch of skin—“the most jealous of all. And you in that tee is not helpin’ anyone, baby.”

“Are you telling me your engine gets all revved up when you see an old tee?” Fake bravado trilled through her voice. She pulled at the hem of the shirt. It fell to midthigh, but her drawing attention to it stirred his blood into a cauldron of need.

“When I see you in it. Because now it’s going to smell of you.” Reaching behind her, he bunched the material so it shaped to her perky breasts. “I know it brushed your skin, rubbed your nipples, that you were wearing it when I fucked you to paradise on my bedroom floor. Maybe you hitched it up to your hips while you thought about me and stroked yourself last night.”

He gave her a moment to pull out of his grasp, and when she didn’t, he hiked the tee higher, up past her ass. A wisp of lace crashed into his vision field as she parted her legs on a moan.

“You have other clothes. Ones I bought you. You don’t have to wear this, so why are you tormenting me?”

Her breathing came in short tugs, her breasts straining against the fabric he held taut against her body. Every part of him howled to be completed by her surrender. He could dip his head and suck her stiff nipple, but she had to ask for it. Beg for it. Last time, he took.

“Why are you wearing it?” he repeated.

“Be-because it’s soft.”

“And?”

“Comfortable.”

Not satisfied with that answer, he nudged his knee between her legs. Her lips parted to reveal all that wet, succulent pink, mimicking the pliant heat he longed to plant his cock into over and over. “And?”

“It smells of you.” In a surprise move, she put him on the back foot by leaning in and inhaling from his neck. “But it’s a ghost of your scent and can’t possibly compete with the real thing. God, you smell so good. It was the first thing I noticed about you when I interviewed. You shook my hand and I walked out of there on a contact high. No one should smell that good or look that hot. And in glasses, too, you fucking dick.”

That’s more like the Emma I’m getting to know. Chuckling, he rubbed his jaw against hers, her honesty unraveling a knot of longing inside him along with his dirty inner monologue.

“I’ve been fantasizing about you for months, Emma. God knows why, because you went out of your way to dress as unattractively as possible. I’ve jerked off to you in my office bathroom more times than I care to recall, every lash of my cum with your name on it.”