A Taste of Honey (6 page)

“How many?” he said tightly, taking a big gulp of his vodka tonic as though bracing himself.

“Total? Or just this week?” A frisson of unease trickled through her veins as she met his icy green glare. His question didn’t deserve an answer, yet she heard herself say, “More than can be counted on one hand, but fewer than can be counted on both.” She took a hearty sip of cabernet and waited for his reaction.

“Total, or just this week?” he mocked.

“What about you?” she shot back. “Big stud like you, I’m sure you’ve had your share of tail. If I recall correctly, all four of you Donovan boys were notorious along the north shore.” Their little town was right outside Lake Tahoe, near some of the best skiing and mountain sports in the country. As such, there was always a steady inflow of tourists, and Kit could feel her smile harden as she remembered all the stories she’d heard about Jake and some ski bunny or other.

A dark flush stained his cheekbones, evident even in the dim light of the bar.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said, telling herself she couldn’t care less about Jake’s lovers that came before or after her.

So why did the thought of him with another woman cause the wine to curdle in her gut?

Chalking it up to drinking on an empty stomach, Kit firmly reminded herself of her purpose. Taunting Jake about his sexual past and luring him into a combative conversation about sexual double standards was not going to help her write her columns.

Luckily he seemed equally eager to change the conversation’s course. But not in the direction she would have liked. “So do you want to find love, Kit?”

Maybe I already have.
The thought barely had time to register before she thrust it away. They had to get off this track, fast, before she said something she really regretted. Turning to face him, she set her wineglass on the table and slid her palm slowly up his thigh. Steely muscles jumped through the fabric, the heat of his skin coursing through her fingers. “Not tonight,” she whispered. “Tonight I’ll settle for good, old-fashioned lust.”

The distraction was effective—for both of them. A hot pulse of said lust surged between her legs as Jake pulled her face close for a greedy, tongue-thrusting kiss. One hand traced the bare skin of her calf, up over her thigh, traveling upward to squeeze the curve of her ass in his big, broad palm.

For several minutes they made out on the couch like two crazed teenagers in the back of a bus. It was only as Kit’s hand trailed down his abs toward his waistband that Jake seemed to come to his senses.

Lucky for her, since she’d been about to get them both arrested for lewd conduct.

Grabbing her briefcase in one hand and her in the other, Jake steered her out onto the street. The cold air brought her partially back to her senses. Even at this relatively late hour, this part of the city was crowded with the shoppers and diners that frequented San Francisco’s Union Square neighborhood.

Kit cursed. They needed a cab, now. She barely recognized the sex-crazed woman who seemed to take over her body whenever Jake so much as laid a finger on her, but if she didn’t get him inside her, and soon, her entire body was going to burst into flame.

Jake tugged at her arm, hurrying her along. She prayed his hotel was close.

Apparently Jake had another destination in mind. After a block or so, he yanked her into an alley between two buildings, dropped her briefcase, and unceremoniously pinned her up against a cold brick wall.

His mouth met hers with bruising force. “I can’t wait,” he muttered between his tongue’s luscious forays. “I have to get inside of you.”

Wet heat surged between her thighs, her pussy clenching in anticipation. Still…“What if someone sees us?”

“Don’t tell me,” he whispered as he bit and sucked at her neck, “an experienced, sophisticated”—she moaned as his hand clamped firmly over her mound—“woman like you would let a little thing like getting caught stop her.” His fingers yanked the crotch of her thong aside and sank into her hot, willing folds. “I didn’t think so,” he said, pumping his fingers in and out, finding her more than ready.

Big hands shoved her skirt up around her hips. Kit yanked open his belt and tugged on his fly, groaning when his rock-hard cock surged against her hands.

“You make me so hard,” he whispered, thrusting against her fist as he fumbled in his back pocket for his wallet. “It’s only been two days, but I feel like I’ve been missing you for years.”

She pulled him closer until the tip of his shaft brushed against her slick, wet core. His hand shoved hers aside to roll on a condom. “Are you always this prepared?”

He lifted her with a husky chuckle, pinning her firmly against the wall and hooking one leg up over his elbow. “If I was lucky enough to see you again,” his voice hitched on a groan as he sank all the way in, “I wanted to be ready.” He ground hard against her, pulled almost all the way out as her greedy inner muscles quivered and grasped to keep him buried deep.

Kit started to come as he shoved back inside. The back of her head ground against the rough brick wall; her leg gripped his hip as she struggled to press herself against him more firmly. A high, keening wail erupted from her throat, and Jake’s hand came up to cover her mouth. She writhed and squirmed against him as he thrust in hard, heavy strokes, grinding the base of his shaft against her clit, making her orgasm go on and on.

He came with a softly hissed curse, replacing his hand with his lips to take her mouth in a surprisingly tender kiss.

Kit barely felt him pull out and straighten her skirt, slowly becoming aware of her surroundings. Holy crap, she’d just had sex in public—in an alley, for God’s sake! Never in her life had she so completely lost control, especially when it came to sex. She watched Jake ditch the condom in a nearby dumpster and zip up his fly.

This was insane. The whole encounter had taken less than five minutes, and other than a couple of rumpled shirtfronts, their clothing had barely been disturbed.

With shaky hands she twisted her hair back up into a knot and secured it with her clip. Jake picked up her briefcase, and she wrapped her shaky fingers around the handle of her purse. She’d dropped it at some point during their ten-second foreplay.

He slid his hand around her waist and nuzzled his face against her neck. “I want to get you home and get you naked,” he murmured.

Unbelievably, her nipples immediately went rock hard and her pussy clenched in primitive response.

Kit chose not to dwell on her disturbing, overwhelming response to Jake and instead focused on the fact that if she could keep him around for the next month, “Stripping It Down” would have ample source material.

J
ake went home with Kit that night and never left. Three weeks later he sat at her kitchen table drinking coffee in his boxers and eating his Cheerios as though he owned the place.

She eyed him over the Entertainment section of the paper, still not entirely sure how this had all happened.

First his toothbrush had appeared next to hers. Next, his razor took up permanent residence on her sink. Soon after, he’d started bringing a spare change of clothing, until finally, Sunday afternoon he’d arrived with his suitcase and asked her for a spare key.

Like an idiot she’d given him one.

Other items had followed. Instead of being used as a receptacle for nail polish and leftover takeout, her refrigerator now contained a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, milk, and beer. Even as it gave her pause, Kit had to admit it was nice to wake up and always have milk for her coffee.

Still, just because Jake was acting like a live-in boyfriend didn’t actually make him one. After all, he was leaving in a little over a week to return to Boston, at which point she fully expected him to end their affair. Because despite his proprietary move into her apartment and into her life, he’d said nothing about wanting a commitment beyond what they currently had.

Which is more than fine with me,
she reminded herself firmly. Though she would miss the sight of him half-naked in her kitchen.

Unable to resist, she moved behind him, sliding her fingers through the dusting of black curls covering his world-class chest. He tilted his head back and she kissed him, the taste of hot coffee and hotter man nearly bringing her to her knees.

Though she’d never admit it, there was something to this full-time boyfriend thing.

Not that she thought of Jake that way. Unfortunately, despite Kit’s assertions to the contrary, Elizabeth had started referring to them as a unit, inviting them out as a pair, even going so far as to change Kit’s hotel reservation for the wedding so she and Jake could stay together.

Even her editor at Bustout had gotten on the bandwagon. “What does your boyfriend think of these columns?” she’d asked Kit just last week.

“He doesn’t,” Kit had replied, “because he doesn’t know about them. Besides, he’s not my boyfriend,” she’d said tersely, “he’s research.”

“Damn, you’re cold.” Tina laughed. “I almost feel sorry for the poor guy. Whatever he is, try to get him to stick around for a while, because thanks to you, the site’s never been more popular.”

At the time, Kit had been surprised not to feel the expected elation at her column’s popularity. It was true though; her column—and consequently Bustout.com—had experienced a surge in readership over the past three weeks. And Kit had even received e-mails from her friends with copies of her own column, exclaiming over this hilarious, clever column that she just had to read.

Instead she’d been brooding over what Tina said. She tried to convince herself that C. Teaser was just a façade, a persona she put on for the entertainment of women everywhere. But when she thought about how she was using Jake for material, she wondered if that cold, calculating man-eater was the real Kit after all.

As she felt Jake’s hands reach up to stroke her forearms, she tried to banish the guilt that snuck up on her more and more frequently these days. As though to remind herself not to get foolishly caught up in the haze of great sex and warm emotions Jake awoke in her, she had taken on a particularly harsh tone in “Stripping It Down” in the past couple of weeks. She’d purposely made Jake out to be a sex-hungry, pussy-whipped idiot held firmly in her thrall.

Which was so far from the wickedly intelligent, funny, charismatic, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous man that he was.

She buried her face in his hair as a voice whispered, not for the first time, that she was on the verge of completely screwing up her relationship with the one man she could spend the rest of her life with.

She banished the thought before it could take root, reminding herself of her purpose. She was with Jake only to further her writing career. And if she got some great sex and nice dinners out of the deal, hey, she’d take the perks.

“Ouch,” Jake winced, tugging her hands away from his chest.

Kit didn’t realize she’d been unconsciously digging her nails into his skin. She muttered an apology and made to move away, but he grabbed her wrists, staying her. “What are you doing tonight after work?”

“I was planning on working on a freelance project.” Truth was, the latest edition of “Stripping It Down” was due tomorrow, and she hadn’t been able to come up with anything good.

“Any chance you could join me for a work dinner?”

Kit stiffened and straightened. Going out together with their mutual friends was one thing. In her world, at least, you brought a date to work functions only when you were ready to admit to the world you were using the “BF GF” words. Which was why in the three years she’d worked at the
Tribune
, she’d never had a date to the holiday party.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” she hedged. “I mean I’m not, we’re not,” she stammered. Crap. The last thing she wanted was to get roped into one of those “state of the relationship” talks.

Jake managed to completely distract her simply by standing up. He was so much taller that her braless breasts were pressed against his abs, and against her stomach she could feel the bulge in his boxers stirring in interest. Her body responded like Pavlov’s dog, even though he’d woken her up this morning with his tongue buried between her legs.

“It’s not a big deal, Kit. Everyone else is bringing their wives and girlfriends, and I’ll stick out as the odd guy if I go alone. Don’t read anything into it.”

His green eyes were bright with amusement, and she saw nothing in them to make her doubt his assertion that this was nothing more than a casual favor to him.

Damn, if she really wanted a relationship with him, her heart might actually break right now.

“Fine,” she agreed, resigning herself to a long evening with stuffy venture capitalists and their trophy wives and girlfriends. “Tell me when and where.”

Surprisingly, the dinner wasn’t nearly as hellish as Kit had feared. Jake’s surprised delight at seeing her hadn’t hurt. After taking in her tight navy turtleneck sweater, chocolate brown pencil skirt, and knee-high chocolate suede boots, he’d pressed a kiss to her ear and murmured, “You look great.”

Which made her glad she hadn’t gone with the deep V-neck blouse and red ankle-strap fuck me pumps she’d been tempted to wear just to shake things up.

It was clear Jake was the baby in his firm, as most of the West Coast partners—the “younger crowd,” Jake had assured her—were at least five years older than Jake’s thirty-four. She couldn’t help but be a little awed by his undeniable success at such a comparatively young age. Not that it surprised her. Even back in high school, Jake had exuded that certain something, like a pheromone, something that assured the world that he would never be average.

It was what had made her fall in love with him in the first place. What kind of a moron had she been, thinking he would find her equally special?

The thought drew her up short. Since when did she succumb to feminine insecurity? Besides, the woman she was now was twelve years and miles away from caring about whether any man—Jake Donovan included—found her “special.”

Still, she was enjoying the solicitous boyfriend act he was putting on, holding her hand under the table, making sure her wineglass was full, smiling admiringly as she spoke intelligently about many of the companies the firm had invested in. It was rare that her business-reporting background felt like a social asset. Most of her friends weren’t particularly interested in tech trends and the latest CEO shake-ups.

The only black mark on the evening was the fiancée of one of the other partners, a shrill, skinny woman around Kit’s age. Once Amy, a junior PR exec, had heard Kit was a business reporter, she’d immediately launched into a list of her clients and all the reasons Kit should write feature stories on each and every one one of them.

That is, when she wasn’t drooling over Jake like she wanted to spread death by chocolate icing over his body and lick him clean.

“You must work out,” Amy said to Jake, her eyes flickering hungrily over him from across the table. Her fiancé, a stocky dark-haired man with a thick neck and well-developed paunch, didn’t seem to notice.

Jake smiled uneasily. “I get to the gym when I can.”

“Come on,” Amy said, fluttering her eyelashes as though a grasshopper had just landed on her eyeball, “you don’t get a body like that with occasional trips to the gym. What’s your secret?”

Kit’s fingers tightened around the stem of her wineglass. Of course she wasn’t jealous. She never let herself care enough to be jealous. But she did believe in a code of conduct among single women. In Kit’s world, one did not flirt with another woman’s date.

The wicked devil who’d urged Kit to dress like a slut made another appearance on her shoulder. Leaning over the table, Kit said in a low voice so the rest of the table couldn’t hear, “I’m very demanding. I keep him in shape with our marathon fuck sessions.”

Amy’s mouth sagged open, and her fiancé, who’d apparently been paying attention to the whole exchange, laughed so hard he shot wine out of his nose.

Almost immediately Kit wished she could take it back. It was a special talent of hers, having a few glasses of wine and making some scathing or inappropriate remark. In situations like this, her internal editor clicked off and she forgot that not everyone thought she was funny, even if she found herself hilarious.

For all that she tried to convince herself she didn’t care, she didn’t want to embarrass Jake in front of his coworkers.

Kit turned to Jake, almost afraid of what she’d see. There was no shock, anger, or even embarrassment on his face. His expression was one of smug pride that said he was the luckiest man in the room and he damn well knew it. “What can I say,” he said, sliding a hand across her shoulders. “If she put out a workout DVD she’d be richer than that Tae Bo guy.”

Oh. My. God.
She froze in shock, wineglass halfway to her lips.
He gets me. This man who I’ve written off as the first and worst dog in my life understands me better than anyone I’ve ever met.
She felt like she was falling headfirst into the mischievous warmth of his eyes.
Not only that, he’s actually charmed by me.
A panicky feeling swelled in her chest, and she was saved from having to analyze this new, terrifying revelation by the announcement that after-dinner drinks were now being served in the bar.

She caught Jake’s hand before he could follow the others. “Come with me,” she said, tugging him down the hallway toward the restrooms. She was suddenly edgy, restless, compelled to show him that she felt…something. Something she was in no way prepared to put into words.

She pulled him into the women’s restroom and shoved him into the handicapped stall.

“Kit, we shouldn’t—”

Pushing his back against the door, she sank to her knees and ripped open his fly. “Don’t tell me,” she whispered, pulling his pants and boxers below his hips, “that an experienced, sophisticated man such as yourself would let something like getting caught stop him.”

He laughed softly to hear his words thrown in his face, the sound morphing into a moan as she grasped his pulsing erection in her fist and ran her tongue down its entire length. Grasping him around the base, she rasped her tongue along the underside, lavishing special attention on the spot just below the velvety plum-shaped head. He tasted so good, like salty man skin and earthy musk. The feel of him throbbing against her tongue made her thighs squeeze against the aching pulse of her sex.

Big hands threaded in her hair, guiding her motion as she sucked him as deep as she could, feeling him against the back of her throat, fingers coming up to tease his sac. In the past three weeks she’d come to know his body as well as she knew her own, knew exactly how to touch him to bring him to immediate, explosive release.

Now she used every trick in the book, trying to convey without words that despite all her efforts to the contrary, she’d actually come to care, that he was amazing in so many ways, that this month with him had brought her more happiness than she’d ever thought possible.

His groans echoed off the tile as her fingers cradled his balls and her fist pumped him hard and fast. Her lips sucked and teased the head, and just when she knew he was on the very brink, she sucked him deep, relaxing her throat muscles as he exploded into her mouth. She milked him of every last drop of come, kissing the tip one last time before tucking him back in his boxers.

Jake pulled her gently to her feet and closed his mouth over hers, groaning into her mouth as his hand started to draw her skirt up her thighs. She gently brushed him off.

“Don’t you want me to?”

She pressed a finger against his lips, unable to stifle the tiniest of moans when he sucked it into his mouth. “That was all for you.”

His slow, crooked smile was worthy of a toothpaste ad. “I need to know what I did to deserve it, so I can do it every day for the rest of my life.”

Even though she knew he didn’t really mean anything by it, she was stunned that his use of the phrase “the rest of my life” in relation to her didn’t send her into a tailspin of panic.

Kit woke up early the next morning to check her e-mail. For the first time ever, seeing all the praise for “Stripping It Down” didn’t fill her with thrilled pride. Instead she felt a little nauseated. Last night she’d been forced to acknowledge that what she and Jake shared was special, beautiful even, and it wasn’t right for her to denigrate it for the sake of entertainment.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that, at the very least, neither Jake nor any of her friends knew of her bitchy alter ego, and if she stopped now Jake would never know how she’d used their relationship to boost her column’s readership.

As though reading her mind, Tina called at that very moment. “Kit, I’m sorry it’s so early, but you’ll never guess what happened.” Even through the phone, Kit could hear Tina quivering with excitement like a Chihuahua.