She settled her arms around his neck as he cupped her breasts in his hands and groaned with pleasure as her flesh filled them. “Lovely,” he breathed. “So round. So firm.” Then he lowered his mouth to her nipple and swirled his tongue around it before he suckled it. Delight darted along her veins as his clever tongue and teeth pleasured her, as he nibbled and sucked and licked his way from one to the other and back again.
“Miss Best,” he said, his voice muffled against her skin, “I would like your permission to lick your nipples every day.” He slid two fingers between their bodies, and she jumped with the sudden, unexpected pleasure as his fingers found their target. “And since we’re on the subject, your clit, as well.”
“Shall we write that into the contract?” she asked, and gasped as he hooked her panties with his thumbs and pulled them off. In return, she undid his belt and fly and yanked his trousers and boxers down, tossing them to the floor.
“If not the contract, then certainly your calendar.” He pulled her into her former position, and she settled onto his naked cock as he gazed up at her. His mouth was swollen and his eyes glazed and dark with passion. He tongued a nipple, drawing it into his mouth and releasing it with a sound like a kiss. “I can’t live a single day without at least looking at your magnificent breasts. Naked, of course. We’ll need to specify that in writing.” His hips rose under her, and she ground herself against him. “And making you come. In your office will be fine. On your desk, preferably, but I’ll make do with the carpet if I have to.”
“On my desk?” she asked weakly.
“Yes indeed. You can lie on it and I’ll sit in your chair and eat you for lunch.”
“Goodness,” she whispered. “Lucky me.”
“Miss Best, there’s a condom in that wallet on the nightstand. Would you be so kind?”
In seconds she had it unwrapped and rolled down on him. He repositioned her above him and she sank onto the tip. A moan escaped her as she stretched to accommodate him.
“Miss Best,” he ground out, cupping her breasts so that his thumbs abraded her nipples, “I can’t wait any longer. Please use me ruthlessly for your pleasure.”
She kissed him deeply and sank onto him, feeling his tongue slip into her mouth and his thick erection slide deep into her body. Feeling his hands on her breasts as she rose and fell in slow motion. Feeling his fingers slide between them to touch her clit and stimulate it, as slippery with her creaminess as it would be if indeed he did have her on her own desk, bringing her to orgasm with his tongue-
She shuddered as the pleasure detonated under his clever fingers, spreading through her body like a flash bomb. Her body contracted around him and he groaned. He gripped her waist and, even as she cried out with the magnitude of it, thrust into her again and again, his hips flexing against the mattress.
He drove into her a final time and gasped, and she clutched him tight with every internal muscle she knew how to use. “Eve!” he cried, and she felt his body shudder as his chest heaved with the effort to breathe.
And then they were spiraling down to the mattress again, twined around each other, holding on as if they were two survivors in a high sea.
“Yes,” Eve said on a long sigh. “This is definitely going on my calendar.”
12
EVE SAT ON a padded stool in the center of the set, facing the live audience. The spotlight felt hot on her scalp, but she was used to it-and besides, she never stayed on the stool very long. The electricity of the unpredictable usually goosed her off it within about five minutes-and goosed the ratings, too.
Atlanta loved these things.
Usually she did, too, but today her concentration was shot. The fact that she’d left Mitch’s hotel room with barely enough time to skate home, change her clothes and get down to the station probably had something to do with it.
She’d had an Army shower-three minutes flat. It was impossible that she could still smell the scent of Mitch’s aftershave, hours later. Impossible that her panties could still feel damp, or that her secret places could still be sensitive and slightly sore.
Something moved off to the side, and she saw the man himself take a seat at the far end of one of the right-hand rows.
What strings had he pulled to get a seat? People started lining up on the sidewalk outside at six in the morning. Getting in was a crapshoot. People who looked interesting, had interesting opinions or simply happened to be wearing a hat that their two PAs liked were admitted. Eve figured it was kind of like a New York club. It didn’t matter how much money you had or who you knew. If the PAs nixed you, better luck next time.
Her music died away and she grinned at the camera. “Good afternoon, Atlanta-I’m Eve Best, and I’d like to keep this Just Between Us.”
The crowd screamed and propelled Eve up off the stool. “We’re swapping today with Friday, folks, in order to give you a two-part show. I want to talk about Understanding His Motives-Is What He Says Really What He Thinks?”
The studio rang with shouts and applause.
“For those of you brave enough to come up here and tell the truth-or not-you’re going to be filmed, and then tomorrow Dr. Barbara Birdsall, who specializes in male/female communications, will analyze-” she put a hand on her hip and struck a pose “-just what exactly is goin’ on.”
The next half hour took all her ingenuity and stage management skills as two women took their boyfriends to task on live television. A husband made promises to his wife. A middle-manager type of about forty who was clearly skipping out on his day job talked about how difficult it was to get anything done in his all-female shop.
One of the angry women with the cheating spouse was a housewife who taught neighborhood women how to strip for their husbands or boyfriends. The crowd’s response to her was so terrific that Eve made a mental note to get her booked for a show later in the month.
And then Cole was giving her the signal to wrap and their twenty-two minutes of live television was over. Town-hall days, while they might be unscripted, exhilarating free-for-alls, left Eve with a combination of a mental high and physical exhaustion. She always stuck around afterward, though, to thank the people who had been brave enough to come up on the stage. If they asked, she would usually pose for pictures and sign autographs.
As she did what she’d done hundreds of times before, though, a part of her mind focused on Mitch, zeroing in on him and holding him on the screen of her awareness as though she’d developed a silent radar overnight. And when the crowd finally thinned, she knew the moment he got up from his seat and made his way down to the front.
She steered the stripper housewife over to Nicole and turned to find Mitch near the false wall that backed onto the hallway to the lobby.
“Nice work,” he said as he fell into step beside her. “It’s like a three-ring circus. How do you keep everyone from killing each other?”
“This isn’t Jerry Springer,” she reminded him, ushering him up the stairs and into her office, and closing the door. “People are here to have fun, get something off their chests or contribute. I had a guy a couple of weeks ago get onstage as part of his civic duty. It was kind of funny because our topic was How Early Is Too Early for Sex Ed? He was a teacher. Took a day away from his classes because he felt so strongly that kids should be armed with information from day one.”
“He should’ve had a talk with my mom,” Mitch said. “She’d have preferred day billion. My dad wound up having to tell me about the birds and the bees when I was twelve.”
What had he looked like at twelve? She’d bet those brown eyes and that narrow dimple at the side of his mouth had been just as effective on the girls in seventh grade as they were on her.