Kiss Don’t Tell. Avril Tremayne
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the receptionist wouldn’t hear. ‘I know it can’t be easy for someone like to you to take …’ Hmm. She needed a word that wouldn’t set off his alpha temper. ‘To take …’
‘Orders?’ he supplied, not low and soft.
‘Yes. I mean no. Not … exactly.’ She grabbed his arm and steered him out of hearing range of the receptionist. ‘Everything’s covered in the contract, you know, to make sure neither of us does something the other hasn’t bargained on. The clause about the lessons being taught in my home is there for privacy reasons. Mine and yours. Now, there’s wiggle room in there—for example, I’m happy to come to your place sometimes, if it’s more convenient—but the office is completely out of bounds for me. You can understand that, can’t you? I’m sure you don’t want me popping up at building sites, or at family functions, or—well, you know what I mean.’
There, that was logical, reasonable. He’d have to see she was making sense.
‘I understand you want to call the shots,’ he said. ‘But I don’t work like that. So how much of that “wiggle room” am I going to get?’
‘That will depend how valuable you turn out to be.’
‘Oh, I’m worth the money, I promise you.’
She looked into his eyes and knew it was true. Suddenly the hand that was still on his arm started to tingle and burn; she hadn’t even realized she was still touching him. She sucked in a reactionary gasp, released her hold and took a step back. ‘The thing is, I generally don’t enjoy surprises.’
‘Sex is full of surprises, Lane.’
‘But the contract—’
‘Don’t make me tell you what to do with your contract before we’re even through our first date, Lane.’
It’s not a date, it’s a lesson, and I’m paying you to do what I say. The words trembled on Lane’s tongue, and she had to draw in a deep breath to stop herself saying them. She needed something placatory to stave off a public escalation of hostilities, but she couldn’t think of a replacement response. She didn’t have placatory skills. There was a terse moment as their eyes clashed. And then she gave up. ‘I’m going home,’ she said, simply said tightly. ‘We can discuss it in private if you’d care to join me there.’
‘Let’s not “discuss” it to death, Lane, let’s just suck it and see as we go along,’ Adam said. He gave her a cold-eyed smile and closed the distance between them, full of the promise of sex. ‘An expression you can think about while you drive home. In fact, why don’t you spend that drive imagining what I’ll do to you once we’re nice and private, since “discussion” isn’t high on my list?’ Another of those cold smiles. ‘Sweetheart.’
With a swallow and a nod—which was a ridiculous response, because what was there to nod at?—Lane headed again for the elevators.
She turned for one last look at him as the elevator doors opened and he—good God!—winked at her. Which discomposed her so much, she took a fraction too long entering the elevator and the doors semi-closed on her.
She heard him chuckle as she stepped fully in and the doors closed properly, and as the elevator commenced its descent to the car park, she leaned weakly against the wall. Great. It was just great to be laughed at because she was awkward and clumsy and incapable of taking the nuances of sexual attraction in her stride. She knew all about being a laughing-stock to your sexual partner—thank you, DeWayne Callaghan, for that lesson—and she didn’t like it. At all.
This was not the way things were supposed to unfold. Adam had barely glanced at the contract before signing it, and she’d just bet he hadn’t looked at it since. He seemed disinclined to listen to a word she said about the contract’s terms and conditions. And she was fairly certain what he’d threatened to tell her to do with the contract would be anatomically unpleasant, if not impossible.
This was not good.
On the other hand … on the drive home, she fired up her imagination as Adam had suggested, and the visions in her head were fairly eye-popping for a girl who was almost a virgin.
***
It took an hour for Adam to cool off enough to front up at Lane’s. And even then, it took every ounce of his self-control to knock not pound on the door of her super-neat house in her super-neat street, chosen pragmatically, he’d just bet, to be close to the airport for the flight attendant housemate.
Okay, he was honest enough to admit he deserved to be slapped down for forcing that office meeting on her. And he knew he wouldn’t be pleased if one of his lovers sauntered onto one of his building sites and planted her mouth on him in front of anyone who happened to be in the vicinity the way he’d done to Lane, so she’d hit that nail on the head.
But it just galled him that she hadn’t slapped him down so much as ‘managed’ him like he was a naughty boy. He would have preferred it if she’d lost her temper, flamed up at him, stomped off without even speaking to him. But no, never in public of course—as he should have known.
All his hopes now were pinned on her losing her cool the moment she opened the door and they were ‘in private’. It would be a sign she was human, at least. The closer he’d got to her house, the keener he was to see how her temper manifested itself. Nothing short of a rage-filled ‘How dare you do that to me!?!’ would do.
But when she opened the door …?
Nope.
No temper.
Just that barely there smile that he was starting to believe was her habitual expression and not applied deliberately to one-up him. Not bothering to comment on his lateness—not even giving him the satisfaction of a subtle glimpse at her wristwatch.
Impressive. And infuriating.
She held the door open for him.
He stepped in, walked past her, through the short hallway and into the living room. He looked around. No canapés this time. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be seeing smoked salmon in this house again any time soon. She’d learned her lesson, like the good student she was.
‘All right, I’ve been imagining, as instructed, and I’m ready,’ she said. ‘So—here or in the bedroom?’
Adam’s temper evaporated with the shock of that. He shook his head to clear it. Had he heard right? Surely not. It would be taking cool, calm, and collected way too far, even for her. But she was waiting for his answer, and there was no hint that she felt anything except interest in his answer—no, his instruction.
‘The bedroom,’ he said, a little awed, a lot intrigued. How far would she go?
‘Through here,’ she said.
Was that a tremble in her voice or did he only hope it was?
She led the way to her room and turned to face him. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Shall we get undressed?’
She’d already removed her jacket. Now her hands went to the buttons on her shirt.
There was no doubt who was calling the shots tonight, and it wasn’t Adam Quinn.
Was he gaping? Adam thought he must be. But Lane just kept unbuttoning.
She managed to get half her buttons undone before Adam could find enough of a voice to say, ‘Keep your clothes on.’
That stopped her. ‘Is it a … a turn-off, to do that without being asked?’
Turn-off? She sounded so uncomfortable saying that. He recalled how she’d tripped over the word ‘douchebag’. Weirdly, it cheered him up, that she couldn’t say those things easily.
‘Is