Nothing But The Best. Kristin Hardy

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      Rand rose to lay on the bed beside her, propping his head up on his hand.

      “You know, I kind of like this strip poker,” he said, running the flat of his hand over her belly.

      “Give me a minute.” Cilla’s voice was ragged. “You’ll like it even more once I can move.”

      “I’ve got time.”

      The sound of the fountains in the atrium drifted in through the open French doors. Time was irrelevant. Eventually, Cilla rose to press him flat on his back.

      Rand’s cock was still hard. He could feel the throb of the blood rushing through it. Anticipation, he thought. It was almost as good as the reality of sex, the expectation bubbling in his blood, the nerve endings sensitized so that even the drift of air stirred by the ceiling fan had his erection twitching against his belly. And then he felt the warmth of her breath, the nuzzle of her lips. A sigh escaped him.

      She didn’t tease, though, seeming to understand how close he already was. Instead, the electric heat of her tongue stroked up the underside of his cock and pure lust slammed through him. When she slid him into the warm wetness of her mouth, he groaned. He fought desperately to stay in the moment, to not let the rhythmic strokes take him past the point of inevitability.

      He wanted to prolong it, and when he went, he wanted to take her with him.

      “Why don’t you swing around here so that we can both enjoy ourselves,” he managed to say, grinding his teeth as she stopped her ministrations.

      “You mean…”

      He reached down to help her move into place, running his hands along her long, lovely thighs as she slid his cock back into her mouth.

      How much sensation could one person absorb, Cilla wondered as she felt Rand’s tongue trace maddening patterns over her clit even as she savored his erection. The next best thing to having it inside her was the immediacy of having it against her lips, of hearing his groan when she changed her motion, added her hand. But even as she brought him closer to coming, he was doing the same for her, each slippery stroke making the heat and tension rise within her, sometimes making her stop just to moan out her pleasure. In between, she savored him, drawing him closer and closer to that point at which the world ceased to be about anything but sensation.

      And then it wasn’t anything but sensation, her own surging pleasure and the shuddering soon after in his body as he released and let himself follow.

      IT WAS THE SOUNDS from the atrium, coming in through the open French doors, that woke her the first time. Cilla crossed over to close the doors and shut the blinds against the pitiless day.

      “What time is it?” Rand rasped.

      She squinted at the digital clock. “Nine.” Only three hours after they’d finally gone to sleep. It was easy to slide back into oblivion.

      When she woke again, it was closer to one, and real life was beginning to gather at the edges of her mind. The Danforth cocktail reception was less than five hours away and she needed to get her game face on. Board members, managers, lawyers…she might know them all, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to make a good impression.

      Showing up looking freshly boffed was probably out of the question.

      The hot water in the shower beating on her cleared her mind and left her with that wonderful sense of well-being that followed a night of truly great sex. Or a few hours of it, anyway. She’d found herself a clever, talented lover, indeed, she thought, smiling at herself in the mirror as she dried off.

      Cilla wrapped herself in a towel and walked into the room to find the blinds open and Rand sitting out on the balcony in just his pants, the newspaper open on his lap.

      He smiled at her. “Good morning.”

      She spent a moment or two just staring at him. Such a beautiful, beautiful man. “Good morning.”

      “You do nice things for a towel,” he said, and rose to cross to her.

      Cilla lost long minutes to his kiss, and then the feel of his hands when the towel dropped. It would be so easy to slide back into bed and let him take her away.

      Easy but not smart. She took a deep breath and moved back from him, plucking her towel from the floor. “As much as I would love to dive back in with you, my hooky’s over. Time to go back to the real world.”

      Disappointment flickered over his face. “I was hoping for a rematch.”

      “No can do. Sorry.”

      He sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

      “Being a grown-up sucks.” Every fiber hummed and waited as she hoped to hear some word of the future. For God’s sake, they hadn’t even properly had sex. They couldn’t let it drop here. Edgy with nerves, she crossed to the closet and pulled out some underwear.

      Rand grabbed his shirt from the floor and put it on. “So where do you live?”

      She slid into a denim miniskirt and a Mark Jacobs T-shirt. “L.A. And you?”

      “I travel a lot, but L.A. is sort of my base.” He buttoned his shirt and turned to her. “Can I call you next time I’m in town?”

      She beamed—she couldn’t help it. “I’d like that.”

      He scooped her against him. “I’d like that, too.”

      THE USUAL FACES, Cilla thought that evening, as she walked into the Danforth cocktail reception. The usual conversations. Danforth had reserved a private atrium room at the resort for the welcome dinner. Standing in little groups by the floor-to-ceiling windows were the five board members, most of the division heads for Forth’s, the department managers for Danforth and the financial cadre. It was maybe fifteen or sixteen people all told, the brain trust of the Danforth empire.

      Given that she wasn’t in the direct management chain, she probably ought to have been pleased to be involved.

      She wasn’t.

      What she was was frustrated that she’d had to work twice as hard and twice as long as any normal employee to make headway in the company. Only when she’d sent in her résumé under a false name and received an immediate callback on a management position had she been able to get her father to take her seriously.

      He’d spent much of his lifetime dismissing his wife.

      He wasn’t going to dismiss Cilla.

      She watched him now as he stood by the windows talking with the CFO, the head of legal and a board member. Sam Danforth wasn’t particularly tall, but something about the way he held himself commanded attention. She could see herself in the cleft of his chin and the green of his eyes, the eyes she often felt didn’t really see the grown-up her. And until he saw her and respected her, no one in his chain of command was really going to do so.

      She could tolerate that for the time being. Cilla was nothing if not patient. She’d gotten the education, she’d gotten the experience. She’d grown up learning strategy from her father. Now all she needed was the opportunity to prove what she could do.

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