Another Man's Woman (Late Night Delight) Read online

  “Here you are.” He poured a glass of bourbon for himself.

  She followed him through the house and he couldn’t help but to look at her face for her reactions.

  “I like the kitchen.” He did too.

  “Thanks.”

  “So this is where the Dominic Maxwell lives? Not too shabby.”

  “Why thank you. I think that’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me.” It wasn’t, but it was the first personal one.

  “Of course it isn’t. I always tell you that you’ve done a good job when you make me more money.”

  “Yeah and you make me feel like Spot when you do.”

  “S-spot?” She stuttered and he even thought that was cute.

  “Yeah. Like see Dick and Jane watch Spot run.”

  She laughed and the sound was throaty, full of verve and his cock went to full mast in two seconds flat. She took a healthy sip from the frosted crystal tumbler. “This is good, what is it?”

  “Amaretto Sour.” Yep, just like her.

  “Thanks. I like it.”

  “Wow, two compliments. I must have really been good in a former life.” Dominic chuckled and she smiled, just a quick flash of her teeth, then only a lingering lift of her lips remained.

  “I guess so.” But then she surprised him with her direct stare and her query just thereafter. “Why, Maxwell?”

  He knew what she meant. She deserved his honesty after all his subterfuge and he gave it. “Because I couldn’t let you do it. I know you think you want to, but when it comes down to it, that’s not you.”

  “How do you know? I might like boy toys and sex with strangers.”

  “No you don’t. Otherwise, you would have fucked me when we first met.”

  “How dare you?”

  “Oh, Nicolette I would dare much. The truth of what I know is nothing compared to what I found out. I promise on everything I love, that if you were not married we would have fucked on my desk the day you came into my office.”

  “B-but there’s no way! I never would have—“ Nicolette appeared flustered and he loved that.

  “Yes, you would have. I saw it in your eyes. When you walked in my office, Morris was not behind you. I only saw you those first crucial seconds and the look in your eyes told me that you wanted me. True indeed, you are not the type of woman to have an affair. But if Morris was not in the picture, I would have been. You can lie about everything else you want to. But tell me this, when you saw me you wanted me. Didn’t you?”

  Dominic watched her swallow the drink as if she was half dead from dehydration. Even when the glass was empty she sucked nervously at the melting ice before he gently peeled the cup away from her grasp.

  “Answer me.” He watched her look up at the ceiling before she looked at him then away again. “Is it that hard to admit then?”

  “No. I mean, it’s not that hard to admit. I did want you that day.” The small admission from Nicolette narrowed the gap between Dominic and his goals.

  “Since it’s time for the truth, why did you do it?” He asked her and she appeared too weary to prevaricate.

  “I’m tired. I am thirty-odd years old, alone and I haven’t had sex in years.” Nicolette’s voice had grown small and so unlike her, that he immediately wished that he hadn’t opened this particular can of worms yet.

  “You don’t want empty sex.” He knew her better than that. She wanted more than a simple culmination of bodies and an act of mating.

  “Empty sex is better than no sex.” She spoke boldly, but with a hint of hesitation proof positive of her lie.

  “Not true.” She looked ashamed for a split-second and Dominic felt contrite. Who was he to make her feel embarrassed about the needs of her body? “I don’t mean it that way, Nicolette. I know you. I know you well enough to figure out you would have hated yourself if you tried to have gratuitous sex with a stranger. You need a connection, you need to make love. Not sex for the sake of it.”

  “How do you get the right to pretend to understand me? You don’t know what I’ve been through.” He was disturbed by the fact she had the nerve to think that after five years, he would have no idea who she truly was.

  “Nicolette, I don’t pretend to understand you. I know who you are as well as who you aren’t. And as far as not understanding what you’ve been through, I was at your side for damn near all of it.”

  “Damn you to hell, Dominic. I wasn’t asking for much here. I just wanted to feel warm at night without a heating pad at my back! I just wanted to feel something again! Fuck you.” She looked as if she wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. The anger on her face was an aphrodisiac chaser to his drink and made him reckless.

  “You want to feel something?” He scoffed. How could she deny she felt anything when her nipples pointed at him like tiny penlights? And they damn sure were not tight from it being too cold. Actually, he needed to turn on the AC.

  Dominic made sure she saw what he intended as he invaded her personal space. She trembled and the full-bodied shudder pushed her away from him and into the wall. His mouth swooped down and captured the button erection of her right nipple into his mouth, shirt and all. He could taste her skin through the crisply starched cotton. Her hands fisted his hair and tore at what little hair he kept up top.

  A Spoonful of Sugar

  Nicolette was stunned at the admissions Maxwell made and even more stupefied that she made her own. She did want him from the first time she saw him, imagined she could climb him like he was a tree. Morris had claimed he needed to go to the bathroom just before the secretary told her to go inside. Her first sight of Maxwell was enough to make her pulse skyrocket out of control. He was absolutely gorgeous in an unselfconscious way.

  Dominic Maxwell was tall, maybe six feet or so. His hair was nearly black and cut close all over, but long enough to brush to the left side from a part. He wore glasses, but they only added to his neat appearance and framed the grey almond shape of his eyes to perfection. His face was stern, strong and square, but his eyes were hot as they scaled her from head to toe and back again. She saw his nostrils flare and her breathing stopped.

  It wasn’t until Morris came in and sat down that she remembered herself. Namely, who she was and why she was there. Dominic was never to know how many of her fantasies he starred in. There was something about him that she was drawn to immediately. The worst part was the more she wanted him, the snappier and more ill-tempered she acted, all just to ward off the possibility that she would throw herself at him. Until over the years their relationship was fraught with bickering banter to veil the chemistry that ate both of them alive.

  But when he wrapped his lips around her nipple, Nicolette knew she was going to get what she truly wanted for the last five years. Him inside her. She knew it was wrong to mix their type of business with mutual pleasure, but she couldn’t for the life of her deduce why. Dominic crucified her with just the simple nibbles he took of her taut flesh. Even with the barrier of her shirt his lips burned her. She couldn’t stop her groans, and she didn’t try to.

  He still held the glasses in each hand, hers the dregs of backwash and ice with his comparatively half full. One of her legs crept around his, kept him pinned to her desire and hungry flesh. It had been so long since any man had laid hands on her and the suckling tugs were so perfect she knew she would embarrass herself. Her head hit the wall and her hips parried his until she was desperate for more, had to have it.

  He pulled her even deeper into his mouth and nursed harder.

  “I’m going to… Ahh—” Shit, she was going to come right now and nothing could stop it.

  He stopped for just a moment. “Good… Oh, that’s good, Nicolette. I want to hear you come for me.” His mouth latched on harder and she heard the clink of the glasses hitting the wall in a smooth cadence she rocked to.

  The cry that left her chest echoed every which way and she felt the pitch reverberate along the drywall at her back. He lifted his lips and smirked before he leaned up
and took her lips. He treated her mouth with the same accord he gave her breasts and nursed her fat lower lip. After her shudders stilled, a wave of shame rolled over her next.

  “Don’t do that.” He said to her, but hearing his voice only made her feel worse.

  What kind of desperate woman was she, to have an orgasm from his lips on her nipples only? Scratch that, he only touched one nipple. Look ma, no hands, she thought, and the errant phrase made her laugh uncontrollably.

  “Not that I’m happy about the change in your mood, but what’s the laughter for?” She could see he was slightly perturbed. Not that she blamed him of course, she was a ninny who quickly vacillated from guilt to laughter in the blink of an eye and all while in his arms.

  “Nothing important.” She was sure that he wouldn’t understand. Hell, she didn’t get it herself.

  “Every thought you have is important to me. I want to know what makes your brows arch and your toes curl. I would love to know what makes you happy and what makes you laugh. Then when I figure out everything about you maybe I can finally sleep at night.”

  She was sure he had lost his mind. He needed to get some sleep? Nicolette hadn’t slept well in five years, at first her guilt from her unwarranted lust for Dominic, then later on because she was nervous at the idea of her lust being sated. From the moment she met him, she wanted him. From the second she smelled his signature Burberry cologne, she wanted more than a business only relationship. She wanted to give him the business. She wanted him bad enough that she was willing to buy a man who looked somewhat like him for the weekend so that she could let her obsession with him go.

  But he wouldn’t understand that, there was no way he could. How could Dominic comprehend what Nicolette didn’t fathom herself? There was something there between them, and she was unsure of what it exactly was, but the ardent affections were powerful enough to last for five years. If nothing else, she needed to put her out of control emotions in check fast. No other man would do, she knew that when she placed the order for the gigolo.

  Nicolette just hoped that if she kept the lighting low and had the man wear some of Dominic’s cologne, she could imagine she was with him in the flesh. Then maybe she could banish her fixation, abolish her fascination for him far, far away. She never imagined he wanted her in the same ways she coveted him. She never thought he desired her as much as she longed for him.

  “You could say something and keep me from feeling like an idiot who’s gotten too big for his britches.”

  Nicolette shook her head. “I don’t think that about you.”

  “What do you think then?” His head leaned to the side slightly and a crooked grin hooked his lips.

  “I don’t know if I can even elucidate.” She wasn’t sure if she should even try to.

  “You better. Or I think I can find a way to torture it out of you.” She deciphered his intent easily as she could see the plans he had for her in his gaze.

  “Yes, I wanted you from the moment I saw you. But what I wanted didn’t matter. I was a married woman who wanted to make her vows last. How could I do anything about the way I felt for you? Especially, when I knew what I wanted from you was nowhere near right or moral? I was a scarlet woman from the second my heart sped up and my panties grew moist at the sight of you. I’m a Christian, and the thoughts I had about you were far from godly. How was I supposed to look the man that I promised my life to in the eyes when I couldn’t even face myself? It probably matters very little to you, but I want… I mean wanted to be a good wife. An honest wife who had married an honest husband. And I paid for it with my marriage, because that’s karma.”

  “It means more to me than you think. The fact that you were an honest woman who deserved to be treated with honor is the only reason I haven’t played my hand until now. At first you were married, then I knew you needed space to get your mind right. But if you’re looking for more than your cold sheets, then I am the only man who will give it to you. By the way, Morris was a dirty bastard. He probably was never faithful to you. Yet, you blame yourself for something that would have happened anyway. ”

  “I don’t know if it matters how much he did or didn’t at this point. What’s important is that we suddenly have to have an argument about it two years later.”

  “ This is far from an argument, Nicolette.” He rubbed his jaw with one wrist. “The point is, you could find someone to fuck you, but your money can’t buy you what you truly want. And believe me Nicolette, It’s not a simple fucking you’re looking for. A real man would take you and hide you under a rock dressed in the finest silk so only he could appreciate the woman he has. A real man requires no payment to do that, only you. That’s all I want and trust me when I say that I would pay for the privilege to be inside you.”

  “How much?”

  “How much would I pay? Depends on how much of you I get to have. Would it be no hold barred or would you keep me at arm’s length?” His expression was deadly serious and she liked, no loved the idea that this man would pay his hard earned funds for the chance to have at her. Her husband had only approached her with a fraction of the desire she just had with Dominic in few minutes.

  “I would pay with my freedom to lay down with you.”

  “Really?” She knew he was serious, but she just wanted to see how serious he was about the idea of having her. It was a forgone conclusion, but it felt great to be wanted and thoroughly desired. It had been too long since a man had that look in his eyes with her as the focus.

  “I meant each and every word of what I said Nicolette. I would give my very freedom to take you in every way possible between two people. And know this, I will have you tonight in ways that I’ve dreamed of and I plan to have all of you this weekend. You are mine, and I am about to show you what it means when I claim things.” Nicolette couldn’t breathe, she tried to take a deep breath, but it seemed the oxygen never made it to her brain. She was stupefied and bewildered, even though she tried to drag herself from his spell.

  Why did this man affect her on so many levels? Why was she so in lust with him? How had she kept the need pinned inside for so long? The list went on and on, there were so many questions that she couldn’t answer. Or rather, she didn’t want to admit she knew the answers to.

  Out of Control

  Dominic was on fire. It had been so long since he was with a woman in the biblical sense that he thanked God sex was a function that the body never forgot. Otherwise, there would be more laughter than ecstasy this weekend. He knew he was going too far too fast, but Nicolette had forced his hand with her naughty plans. He had known for a while, at least the past six months that she was tired of her lonely bed. But she would never let him take their conversations to the deeper levels needed to make the professional relationship they had more than that. She would tip-toe around the white elephant in the room while they worked together.

  Their minds were much more similar than different and he saw signs that all was not perfect for the novelist, even with her recent success. She seemed, for lack of a better word, bored. She was alive, but not filled with life and she was too young to be so jaded. Not that he had room to talk. He was a thirty-five year old man who had never been close to matrimony. But that was Nicolette’s fault, he laid the blame for his bachelorhood at her feet. When he met her, he wasn’t looking for Mrs. Right, just Ms. Right Now. But from the moment he heard her sweet voice and saw her, no other woman would do. He dated frequently, but A.N. or after Nicolette, his handful of dates trickled to nothing. Every woman he went out with was wrong somehow, in some fundamental way that he couldn’t describe, only feel. The ladies were too loud, too picky, too skinny, or too pale. None of them had freckles roaming their chest and hands like she did.

  The other women he had spent time with, were not Nicolette. They were far from the one person he truly wanted and keeping his eyes closed when he fucked another woman was unable to erase the fact that they didn’t smell like her either. The very first thing his memory filed away when they met w
as the way she smelled. She was so clean and so pure, even as he knew her husband defiled her every night if the man had the sense the Lord gave insects. She reminded him of honeysuckle and almonds, along with other scents he couldn’t readily place.

  The first three years after he met her were spent castigating his lust for a married woman and the last two years he wasted with his attempts at patience.

  Nicolette trembled against him, soft shivers that only added fuel to his erection. When his eyes met hers, she seemed stunned by the fact she had come. He wasn’t, not at all. Her body always responded to his, just the same way he responded to her. There was no way he imagined her prior responses when they were together in close quarters. She always crossed her arms over her breasts when he saw her to hide the fat buds of her erect nipples from his sight. There were times he walked just behind her, not close enough to touch, but close enough he could feel the electricity jump from her body to his. Her back would arch when he approached her and the space between then was slight enough that their shadows on the wall were merged as one shape. In those moments he knew she was his, knew she was for him. She was just married to the wrong man.