After he spent in her, they rested and talked, and when her naked body began to excite him again, she stroked him hard, then took him in her mouth and gave him pleasure that way too. She wanted him to feel that she held nothing back from him. That was the key.
And now, in the morning, knowing that nothing was free, he wanted to know what she expected. This taste of her was to set the trap. If he wanted more, he needed to settle things.
What did she want?
That was easy.
"I want to be in on the Milan deal-on my own, not as Lissa's flunky."
He sighed. "You think you can compete with Lissa Edwards? She's coming back into the game."
"I don't need to compete with her, not one on one. She provides analysis and insights that you use to put together a proposal. I can hire people to do it."
He shrugged. "I could hire those people myself."
"Then you'd have to ride herd on them, give them direction. And you'd bear the entire cost of their salaries and the overhead. If I have those costs spread over several clients, that will make things most cost effective."
"You realize that walking into the meeting with Lissa gives a person an advantage, don't you? She has the information at her fingertips. The people in the consortium know her and will listen to her. You are an unknown."
"They'll get to know me, and if our bid is good, then we will be on our way."
Tom pulled the covers off her and ran a hand over her breasts, and then down her belly. He was touching her differently now, and that pleased her. He was touching her possessively, as if they had a deal. "I can work with you, but having Lissa out there, working for someone else, worries me. If you can solve that problem for me … "
Tina gave him a wicked smile. "I know a way to do exactly that. I can make sure she doesn't help Julio Torres steal the contract."
The scowl on Tom's face told her she'd hit a nerve.
"That bastard. He's the only one who worries me, and he got close to Edwards."
"But on his own … "
"You are sure your idea will work?"
She took his hand and slid it down so that his fingers were warm on her pussy. "Let me tell you what we can do to keep them from working together," she said.
He toyed with her, slipping his fingers into her as she talked, and when she'd explained her idea, he laughed. "You're a sneaky bitch."
"Your sneaky bitch." She reached for his cock and found it hard. "Now fuck me, you bastard."
For the first time since Lissa had come back to work, Tina felt herself in control of her career. Lissa had smothered her, making her work on some small accounts, subcontracting analysis to economists at the universities, and admin work. Her vision of her place in all this was sitting in boardrooms with wealthy men and women, planning grand projects.
Like the one in Milan.
She'd never do more in Lissa's employ, never get more responsibility, because she was weak when it came to econometric modeling. Lissa didn't understand that modeling, number stuff, was just grunt work.
Not long after she started with Lissa, she decided that once she had some experience and saved some money, she'd start her own company, a different kind of company. She would play to her strengths and emphasize her creative side, pay more attention to the vision. She wanted to provide inspiration to the planning phase, then her backroom monkeys would crunch the numbers to support her ideas and she'd present their data. High-profile jobs should be glamorous, not about tedious economic studies. In her heart she knew clients would find her approach irresistible.
But launching a company was difficult, expensive, and a huge risk. She wasn't about to quit a high-paying job-that did make her visible, at least-for a gamble. No, before she quit she needed money and clients of her own, clients that saw her role as she did. Unfortunately, Tina found saving money hard. Representing a vision required keeping up appearances, and her apartment, her car, her clothes, her lifestyle, were all expensive.
She'd been frustrated.
Then Willa Gruber contacted her to ask for a simple favor. She suggested they could work together and might have some mutual interests. The woman wanted some simple things. It involved cutting off communication between Lissa and her employer, Julio Torres. She was certain it was a turf thing. Without knowing any details, she assumed that somehow Lissa was interfering with Willa's plans. So one woman helped another get around her employer. In return for her services, Willa made some calls and got Tina a few clients. They were small and didn't pay much, but they liked her style. The jobs were low profile enough that Lissa wouldn't hear about them.
When it was clear that Lissa was pregnant, bells went off. Willa's desire to keep the two apart made sense. When Lissa had to go into the hospital, Tina felt she'd been handed her chance. For two months or so, until the babies were born, she'd be the face the clients saw. They'd hear her ideas, and if they were receptive, she'd have the opportunity to drop careful hints and find out if they'd be willing to switch their business over to her.
Poaching clients was harder than she expected. It came as a shock that most of Lissa's bread-and-butter clients were too fucking loyal. They had no interest in her ideas. What they wanted was for her to go into meetings and discuss how to weight variables and do other analysis. There was no vision there at all. Tina's degree in economics wasn't hardcore, more social science than econometrics, and she'd skated through at that. Even when she let the rumors slip out that Lissa might have a drug problem, they didn't seem to hear a word. All they wanted was more of what they'd been getting all along. A few hinted that she could get their business, but they expected to get more of the same at a lower price.
Fuck that.
Tom Acker was the exception.
When she mentioned to Willa that she was negotiating with Acker to work on the Milan deal, Willa surprised her. "I'd be grateful if you can get that contract signed soon," she said.
"Tom's not in a rush."
"But I am. I'd like to see her under contract before she knows much about the Milan deal."
That made sense, given that Julio Torres was the other major candidate to do the work, and the woman's agenda was to keep those two far apart. She enjoyed the clandestine work she was doing with Willa, but getting Lissa a contract with Acker didn't suit Tina's plans. He was a big, juicy client, and from the moment she'd had the first meeting with him, she'd cultivated the idea that she was the right person to work with him. In meetings, and then in his bed, she'd insinuated herself.
Now, by a quirk of fate, things looked really good. Tom was interested, and her plan might even make Willa happy. If Acker got moving on things, she'd work with him and Lissa wouldn't be able to work with Torres. Things might not go the way Willa expected, but the result was the one she wanted.
Everything had been poised to happen right. She'd ensure she was a player in the Milan project, working closely with Tom. She'd quit her job and ditch all the small clients. She wouldn't have time for them. And then suddenly things were thrown into chaos. Lissa was back in the office. Her damn sister had come out of nowhere to provide child care, and urged Lissa to get back to work. The woman came in, changing everything back to how it had been, and the deal with Tom wasn't done yet. His lawyers were still going over details.
Damn lawyers. Things would have to move fast now. She needed things in place. With Lissa back, the situation was different. What would have been easy was still possible, but riskier.
She was having dinner with Acker that night and she'd let him know, get him to poke the lawyers with a cattle prod. Of course, he'd extract a price. He'd hinted at it that morning. "That was good," he said. "You're hot. But the thing is there are lots of hot women who don't even want as much as you."
"Anyone in particular?"
His smiled suggested there might be. "If you want to keep my interest, be prepared to play a few games."
"Games? Kinky games?"
"Any games I want."
Tina didn't mind a few games. Not when the stakes were so high. Sure, if he wanted kinky, she'd be kinky. At least kinky enough to make certain she was on the team in Milan.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was morning. A brilliant sun rose over the palm trees that dotted the waterfront of the Mediterranean Sea brightening the office. Julio sat at his desk in his Barcelona office building. When he'd first built this building, he'd been proud and delighted to be able to sit at his desk with his coffee and watch the sunrise. This complex had made his name as someone who could design and manage international-scale projects. Now the newness and excitement were gone, and it was just his office, but he still appreciated the mornings in it.
This morning, all mornings for a time now, a feeling of helplessness, of having missed something important, had pervaded his thoughts and made him sad. That sadness had nothing to do with his office or the sunrise, or success or failure. For a man who prided himself on taking on challenges that others wouldn't attempt, of succeeding by doing things his own way regardless of what others thought, it was a strange, miserable sensation.
It wasn't failing that bothered him. You didn't reach for the brass ring as often as he did and not experience failure. If he didn't fail at things now and then, it would be a sign that he'd stopped setting his sights high, an indication that he'd lost his edge. Maybe that would happen someday. It was reasonable to assume that eventually he'd do like so many people and begin to settle for equaling his previous performance, essentially repeating himself by sticking to things that had worked in the past.