Seduction by the Book

“Hello,” he said, trying not to sound too eager.

“Hi, it’s Cassie. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

He closed his eyes—oh, that voice. “Hi, Cassie. No, I’m just—” Sitting here thinking about you. “Working on the Belzer project. What are you up to?”

Her laugh tinkled over the line. “Nothing quite so impressive. I’d like to order a chair, but before I do, I wondered if your offer of muscle is still open.”

He unconsciously flexed his biceps. “Sure.”

“Great. The chair won’t be delivered until next week, but they’re going to drop ship it to the curb, and I’ll need help to get it up to my bedroom.”

Bedroom? His cock twitched. “No problem. Just let me know when you come.” He winced. “I mean…when it comes.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate it. I’m so glad that we can be friends now. Bye.”

Mark tried to think of something to extend the conversation, but was too thrown by her comment about them being friends to react quickly enough. Friends? He didn’t want to be friends with Cassie. Of course, considering he’d dumped her, being friends was a gracious offer on her behalf.

When he started to disconnect the call, he frowned at the noise on the other end of the line. It sounded as if Cassie had set down the phone without ending the call. In the background, he could hear her moving around, humming. He started to call her name, but he conceded he liked the idea of listening to her happy sounds, and it dawned on him that he wished he was there with her. He imagined her bustling around, smiling at nothing and everything, unsuspecting of how outrageously sexy she was.

Then the humming grew louder and he realized with a start it was mechanical, not human. An electric toothbrush maybe?

But when Cassie’s moan sounded in the background, he blinked. No way…she wasn’t…

“Ummm…ummm…oh…”

She was using a vibrator to masturbate. Despite his incredulity, Mark’s cock began to thicken. Instantly he pictured her lying on the bed, naked, her knees open, stroking her clit with the vibrator. He reached under the towel covering him and grasped his hardening length. God, he wanted to be there, plying her with his tongue until she tossed out the battery-operated contraption.

How did she taste? Probably like her kiss—honey and musk, intoxicating. His mouth watered for her.

He stroked himself in time with her moans and gasps, so caught up in her sensuous noises that he almost dropped the phone. He kept his mouth away from the receiver so she wouldn’t hear his own panting. His balls began to tingle and he knew he was very close to losing control. He slowed, taking his cues from her soft murmurings. When her cries began to climb, he followed pace. And when she shouted her release with a passion that shocked him, he joined in her climax, shooting his load with a guttural groan.

He shared in the breathlessness of her recovery, then he reluctantly disconnected the call, lest she realized what she’d done. Shaken, he sat up and drank deeply from his glass. He’d never imagined that Cassie Goodwin was the kind of woman who…pleasured herself.

Then a disturbing thought occurred to him—who had she been thinking about while she fondled herself? Mr. XXL, or maybe Mr. Platinum Cufflinks?

Certainly not the man who had dumped her, he acknowledged morosely.

But he so wanted it to be him.

6

CASSIE WAS DECIDEDLY NERVOUS when Mark pulled into her driveway. It had been over a week since her “accidental” self-gratification incident. Judging from the timestamp of the length of the call, he’d heard everything before hanging up. But the fact that he hadn’t called her in the days since made her uneasy.

Had he been repulsed by her behavior? He had seemed so attentive to her when he’d dropped by her house, and on the golf course, and so responsive to her heated kiss, but maybe she’d gone too far.

Or maybe he was seeing someone else, she reasoned. After all, it seemed likely that the handsome, successful architect would have his pick of girlfriends. Or maybe he truly just wasn’t into her, as his parting words from their previous breakup had insinuated.

If so, she admitted, standing next to the giant crate delivered to the curb, this could very well be the most humiliating experience of her life. She’d have to find a new book club because she’d have to move to another city.

Mark climbed out of his SUV looking impossibly fit and handsome in worn jeans and a pale blue T-shirt that set off his hazel eyes. Just the sight of him set her heart in motion. She was still in love with him, she realized with a sinking sensation, which only made this more risky. For a few seconds, she considered bailing and telling him the manufacturer had sent the wrong piece of furniture. But then she remembered the words of the book club coordinator, Gabrielle.

I don’t want you to be alone when you’re pushing forty, like me, and asking yourself ‘what if?’

Cassie took a deep breath for courage. She didn’t want that for herself either, to look back and ask what if she’d let Mark Shapiro see the sexy side of her she hadn’t been able to show anyone else? She wanted to be able to say that she’d revealed all of herself, even the side that she was still getting used to. If Mark rejected her again, then so be it, but it wouldn’t be because she held back.

“Hi,” he said.

His smile and admiring glance over her jeans and tank top gave her a shot of encouragement. Were her cheeks as red as they felt? “Hi, Mark. You’re a dear to come and help me like this.”

He ran a hand over the edge of the large crate. “This must be a good size chair.”

She wet her lips. “It is.”

“Okay.” He picked up the crowbar she’d removed from the garage. “Let’s get it uncrated.”

She stood back as he pried off the side panel of the crate. Inside, the chair was obscured by wood shavings and bubble wrap. She helped him lift the long, horizontal shape from the crate.

“That’s a funny-looking chair,” he remarked.

Her pulse jumped. “Actually, it’s part chair, part bench.”

“Okay, well, I think I can get it if you’ll hold open the door and show me where you want it.”

She walked ahead of him as he wielded the awkward piece of furniture, opening doors and clearing the way to her bedroom. When he crossed the threshold, she pointed to an empty corner of the room. “You can set it there.”

He lowered the item to the floor carefully, then straightened and glanced all around her room, his gaze lingering on the mid-century style bed of pale maple. Just the sight of Mark inside her austere bedroom made her stomach flip. She’d pointed it out to him when she’d given him the initial tour of her home, but he’d never slept over, never spent any time at all in her room.

He gestured to the wrapped chair. “Don’t I at least get to see it?”

She smiled and nodded, then retrieved a pair of scissors. But her hand shook slightly as she cut away the tape and packing material to reveal the long contoured, armless chaise-like chair upholstered in supple black matte leather. It was higher on one end, with a deep dip in the center.

He scratched his head. “That’s an interesting design, but it looks…comfortable.”

Cassie took a deep breath, then announced. “It’s a tantric chair.”

He looked confused, then his eyebrows rose. “Tantric, as in…sex?”

She nodded, holding his gaze.

His mouth opened slightly, then his eyes went smoky. “If you’re trying to torture me, Cassie, it’s working.”

The air between them sizzled with electricity. His body language—the softening of his eyes, the hardening of his jaw, the bulge in his pants—told her how much he wanted her. But the clenching of his hands meant he was holding back, hoping she would make the first move?

It was the moment before Connie Chatterley marched into Mellors’s cabin in the woods and lay down on his bed.