Wicked Pleasures Read online

  “If that’s what you want to do.”

  “Are you saying it isn’t what I should want to do?”

  “I didn’t say anything of the kind.” Colin opened the ketchup bottle and created a red puddle next to his perfectly good chips. “But I am getting a little tired of hearing about your empty bed.”

  Will squinted at him. “So you think I should force the issue with Janet then?”

  Colin took a deep breath then chuckled. “I think you should do whatever it is you need to do, Will.”

  “A whole lot of help you are.”

  Yes, he thought. He’d avoid Renae. Shouldn’t be too difficult. When he returned home from work in the mornings at the same time she normally left for work, he’d simply park in the far corner of the lot and wait until she left before going inside.

  Yes. That should work out just fine.

  And it wouldn’t have to be for long. After all, Janet would be home in a little over a week’s time.

  “Now, how about we start up those tennis matches again?” he asked Colin, who was already shaking his head.

  3

  OKAY, SO SHE WOULD avoid Will.

  When Renae knocked off work, she was happy with her plan, and decided it should be easy to implement. After all, they kept very different schedules, and if it came down to it, she could always park in an adjacent lot on the other side of the apartment building to avoid running into him coming or going.

  Truth was, she hadn’t expected to feel so…attracted to Dr. Will Sexton that morning. Hadn’t anticipated that the light, flirty tone that had always existed between them would dive into something more palpable and solid. When they’d kissed, no one had been more surprised than her. Pleasantly—no, blissfully—surprised, but surprised. After all, she wasn’t in the market for a man just now, even for sex, no matter what her body was telling her—and what her growing budget for batteries to use with her private toys was telling her. It wasn’t that she was antiman; it was that right now she needed to concentrate on her career. More specifically, she needed to convince Ginger Wasserman to let her buy into Women Only. Become a more solid part of the venture, and as a result take home a bigger piece of the pie.

  Not that she wasn’t being paid well for her work. She was. She shifted on the cracked white leather seat of her 1971 pink Cadillac Eldorado convertible. It was just that she wanted to feel more…connected somehow.

  She was perfectly aware that she might not feel that way had it not been for Leah Westwood opening a Women Only shop in the west end of the city, then Lucky doing the same downtown. Had neither woman come into her and Ginger’s lives, she would very likely still be operating the way she had for the past five years.

  But they had and as a result she felt different. Wanted more. Her mind was functioning with more of an eye on the future, her future, and the bottom line.

  Truth was, she wanted a place of her own to hang her hat at night. Sure, she might be able to afford a comfortable if small condo, or even a house, but she’d like something a little bigger, a little nicer, maybe. And while she was happy living with Tabitha, her roommate’s girlfriend, Nina, made it clear she was very unhappy with the arrangement. Nina wanted Renae to move on, even though Nina had moved in three months ago while Renae had been there six.

  She pulled her T-shirt away from her damp back, questioning the wisdom of driving with the top down when the August temperatures easily soared into the nineties at this time of day. Of course, Tabitha had no clue about the animosity that existed between the two women. And Renae didn’t think it a good idea to point it out to her. Male-female, female-female, the gender of those involved didn’t matter; a threat from the outside, from a friend or neighbor, perceived or otherwise, did.

  She took a corner, the disks on the belly-dancer costume, wrapped in plastic in the back seat, jingling as she did so. She glanced down at the jeans, T-shirt and flip-flops she’d changed into at work, then back at the costume, a slow, easy smile turning up her mouth.

  Will…

  For a few sweet moments the tensions that littered her life melted away, leaving nothing in its wake but the memory of his skillful mouth and his hard, welcoming body.

  Blame it on the heat, but she couldn’t remember wanting a man as powerfully as she’d wanted Will that morning. Given the way she was raised, men and relationships had always been something to question rather than to surrender to. That’s what she’d liked about Ginger Wasserman on the spot. Ginger understood her in a way that a Suzie Homemaker type never could.

  And it’s why she’d instantly understood that dark, lost look in Lucky Clayborn’s eyes when she’d walked into the shop months back.

  Renae pushed up her large, dark sunglasses on her nose and turned up the volume on the radio, hoping to edge the heavy thoughts out of her mind with a little rock ’n’ roll. Heart’s “Crazy on You” filled the humid air and she nudged the volume level up even farther.

  Of course, it was just her luck that the tune would make her think of Dr. Will Sexton again.

  She sighed. That’s all right. She knew that a little time and effort and avoidance would put him right back where he belonged, which was solidly in flirt territory. Whenever her heart or her hormones threatened to lead her in the wrong direction—which, granted, wasn’t often—she knew that as quickly as the emotions surfaced, they could as easily die away. And if she ever questioned the philosophy, she needed only to remember the pillow-shock syndrome that nearly every red-blooded human being had gone through at one time or another. Namely that moment when you opened your eyes the following morning to find the person who had seemed perfectly suitable and lust-worthy a few hours earlier had turned into the person you wouldn’t be caught dead with on a deserted island overnight.

  And experience had taught her that the sudden, unexpected change in her playful connection to Will bore all the earmarks of pillow-shock syndrome.

  Great sex material one day.

  The date from hell the next.

  She smiled to herself as the radio station launched into another Heart tune, this one more befitting her mood: “Even It Up.” Forgetting she hadn’t meant to, she began turning into the regular parking lot at the building, then at the last minute swerved back into traffic, earning her irritated honks from the drivers behind her. She waved her apologies then swung around to the back lot and claimed the last open parking space. She glanced at the SUV to her right, thinking it looked an awful lot like Will’s….

  Then he climbed out.

  ALL RIGHT THEN, some sort of higher power had it in for him.

  That was Will’s deduction as he stood next to his SUV and stared at Renae, her long, tangled sun-kissed hair, her clingy white T-shirt that did little to hide the lacy bra she wore underneath and her big, black glasses that made her look like the one-hundred-percent luscious, hot American woman that she was.

  He flinched when the radio station she was tuned in to launched into the opening strains of the old The Guess Who song “American Woman” before she switched the ignition off and plunged them both into a shocked kind of silence.

  “Come here often, do you?” he asked with a raised brow, accepting that avoiding her now was out of the question.

  She gave him a leisurely once-over then pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, her smile decidedly decadent. “Funny, I parked over here to avoid you.”

  He chuckled at her refreshing honesty. “Ironically, I was doing the same thing.”

  The way he saw it, the only thing to do now would be to walk with her to their building. To give her a brief wave then take off would be so appallingly rude as to make him shudder. So he waited as she pushed a button that put the top up on the hideous pink contraption she called a car, gathered what he could see was the costume she’d been almost wearing that morning from the back seat, then joined him next to his SUV.

  “I know why I want to avoid you,” she said as they began walking together down the path that would take them to their building. “But why
are you avoiding me?”

  Will was amazed by the myriad emotions pulsing through his bloodstream caused by merely walking next to the woman. For one, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off her pretty tanned face, even though it was currently devoid of makeup. And the way he kept eyeing her T-shirt and jeans, one would think he hadn’t seen a woman dressed in that way before. But it was the fact that he was inordinately interested in her feet, wrapped in her hot-pink flip-flops, that was the cause for the most concern.

  “Are your feet actually tanned?” he found himself asking.

  Renae looked down, appearing as caught off guard by his inane question as he was. The problem was he’d never before really noticed a woman’s feet and whether or not they were tanned. And it was more than just the neon-pink toenail polish she wore. There was just something wickedly attractive about her feet that made him fantasize about seeing them sticking out of a tub full of frothy bubbles…while she sat gloriously naked on top of him.

  “Why yes, I guess they are,” she finally responded, throwing him a sexy little smile. “And you’re avoiding my question.”

  Will stiffened a bit. “Well, it’s not that I’m avoiding your question, actually. It’s just that…” He couldn’t help grinning. “It’s just that I can’t recall it.”

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  “Ah, yes. That question.” Will eyed their building that seemed to loom outrageously far away. He felt the urge to pull at his collar, although he wasn’t wearing a tie but rather a white open-throat polo shirt. And a pair of stonewashed jeans and sports shoes he couldn’t wait to get out of.

  What was the question again? Oh, yes. Why was he avoiding Renae?

  “Well, you see,” he said carefully, “there’s this little issue of another woman that I’m seeing—”

  “The resident.”

  He squinted at her although the sun was behind him. “You know about her?”

  “Lucky filled me in.”

  “Ah, yes. Lucky. Colin’s Lucky, I presume?”

  Renae seemed interested in his mouth as he spoke. “One in the same.”

  “And she would have shared this information because…”

  “I asked for it.”

  “I see.”

  Will shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans despite the abominable heat. Partly because he was filled with the almost irresistible urge to tuck a windblown strand of her dark blond hair back behind her ear. But mostly because he was afraid where the itchy appendage might roam from there. More specifically down the line of her intriguing back to her nicely rounded bottom, which might make it necessary for him to usher her straight into his condo and the bed therein.

  But while he couldn’t touch her, he could look at her. And what a feast for the eyes she provided, too.

  He cleared his throat. “And your reason for wanting to avoid me?”

  She smiled. “Oh, pretty much the same. The resident.”

  He chuckled softly at that one. “You’re avoiding me because I’m dating someone else?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Because that doesn’t strike me as something you’d do.”

  The pathway wasn’t disappearing under his feet at the quick rate he’d like it to. But the building was finally coming up. Thank God. He honestly didn’t know how long he could withstand such a strong dose of temptation incarnate without succumbing to it.

  “How so?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem like the type that when she wants something, she takes it.”

  “Funny,” she said for the second time in so many minutes. “You strike me as the same.”

  He looked at her. Really looked at her. At the appealing shape of her mouth. The openness of her attractive face. The wanton invitation right there in her creamy-green eyes and said, “Your place or mine?”

  Without batting an eye she said, “Yours, definitely.”

  IF THE HUNGER RAGING through Renae’s body had been for food, she would have devoured an entire buffet.

  No sooner had the door to Will’s condo closed behind them than they were going at it like a couple of sex-starved teenagers, all groping hands and wild hormones. Her plastic-protected costume dropped to the floor along with her purse even as Will yanked up the hem of her T-shirt and cupped her breasts.

  “Ouch,” she said when he squeezed a little too tightly.

  “Sorry.”

  The pressure quickly turned pleasurable. Meanwhile, she tugged his shirt out of the waist of his jeans and flattened her palms against the rock-hard length of his abs. When she suddenly shifted her head to the right, she made solid contact with his nose.

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  Quickly their clothes dropped away to the sound of zippers being undone and fabric seams being ripped. Renae couldn’t seem to get enough of him. From his arms to his back to his hotly throbbing erection, her fingers moved, her blood surging through her veins, her breath coming in rapid gasps.

  Finally his fingers found her heat, burrowing through her tight curls then coming to rest against her swollen folds. She shivered, so close to climax that she surprised even herself. She bit down on her bottom lip as he parted her engorged flesh then slid a finger up her dripping channel then drew it back out. She started trembling so badly she nearly couldn’t hold herself upright.

  Oh, yes. This was everything and more than she’d hoped—she’d feared—it would be with the sexy doc.

  “The bedroom’s this way,” he said unnecessarily as he turned her while barely breaking the contact of their mouths, bumping her nose in much the same way she’d bumped his moments earlier. Walking backward was awkward at best, especially given the liquid consistency of her knees just then. She bumped into a couch—white leather—then nearly toppled over a plant stand—white lacquer—before her back hit the doorjamb that led to the bedroom beyond.

  They fell to the bed in a jumble of elbows and knees. Renae’s breath rushed from her lungs at the feel of Will’s elbow in her stomach and he made a low sound of warning and she looked down to find her knee a millimeter away from not only ruining the moment, but the entire lifespan of Will’s sex life.

  “Hold on…a sec,” she whispered, working her leg out from in between his and bending it instead around his thigh. Then she removed his elbow from her stomach and lay back, licking her lips in anticipation. “Now, where were we?”

  She watched his blue eyes darken and heard an almost animal-like growl emit from his throat as he launched a fresh attack on her mouth. Renae curved up into him, relishing the rasp of his lightly hair-covered chest against her smooth breasts. It had been a long time since she’d felt so out of her mind with need that she burned from the inside out. And Will was the only one with enough hose to put out the fire.

  She kissed him several times then drew away so she could look at where his erection was pressed against her lower belly. She swallowed hard. And oh what a hose it was, too.

  “Condom,” she whispered urgently, taking his impressive length in her hands and stroking him.

  He shuddered. “In the drawer to your right. Yes, right there.”

  Renae pulled out a matchbook promoting a nearby bar, a pen, then found what she was looking for. She opened the foil package with her teeth then rolled the cool, lubricated latex down his length, hoping it wouldn’t roll right back off because of his considerable girth. The scent of rubber and of hot arousal filled her senses as her fingers finally met with his scrotum. She gave the hair-covered globes a leisurely, explorative squeeze then spread her legs farther and positioned him against her waiting flesh.

  Yes…oh, yes.

  He bent down and kissed her and she restlessly moved against him, trying to force penetration even as his tongue swirled around in her mouth. She rubbed her breasts against his chest, reveling in the flames seeming to lick along her skin to join the inferno between her legs. Will pulled her right nipple deep into his mout
h and she moaned, throwing her head back against the white comforter—was everything in his place white?—and jutting her hips up hungrily toward his.

  “Please,” she pleaded, seeking the connection he was slow in giving to her.

  Finally he parted her slick flesh, positioned himself against her portal, then sank in to the hilt, filling her beyond capacity. Filling her beyond her wildest imagination.

  And finishing before they had even begun.

  4

  SWEET GOD IN HEAVEN…

  Will’s body finally stopped twitching and convulsing and he froze above Renae feeling a mortification he had never encountered before in his life.

  There was no playing off what had happened. No pretending that the instant he had entered her he’d climaxed as fast as a thirteen-year-old who’d paid for the pleasure. Even as he called on every ounce of willpower he possessed to prevent it from happening, Big Ben quickly turned into Little Willy.

  And Renae was making movements for him to get off.

  Will rolled to the side and lay on his back staring at the ceiling. “Well, that was certainly unfortunate now, wasn’t it?”

  He saw it as a good sign that she hadn’t immediately gotten up, put on her clothes and left without a word. He heard her head turn against the bedding as she looked at him. “Anticlimactic would have been my choice of words.”

  He looked at her, unable to stop the grin that threatened. “Well, for one of us anyway.”

  She began getting up and he gently grasped her arm and held her in place.

  “Sorry. Bad attempt at humor.” He fought to catch the last of his breath. “Give me a moment, will you? I can’t possibly let you leave after putting in the worst performance of my life.” He swallowed hard. “God, I haven’t come that quickly since…well, never.” He looked at her. “At least not since I was six and first discovered my penis was capable of providing pleasure.”

  “Six?” she asked with a raised brow.