Krista righted herself, hair caught in the drool at the side of her mouth, and faced those piercing green eyes. The papers were in a wadded ball of distortion at her chest.
“It’s just—um…” Krista cleared her throat at Sean’s quirked brow and yanked her top straight, a possible reason for this mess eluding her. Exhaling everything in her lungs, she went with it. “Yes, I was trying to turn Marcus straight. I did, in fact, grope him. He’s got a nice bod.” She turned to Marcus, trying to shift the focus to him, pages crackling as she unconsciously creased another few. “Did it work, Marcus?”
Marcus preened, “Well thank you, honey. It’s nice to be appreciated.” He took up his lounge against the back of the elevator, one long leg crossing over the other. “But no. You don’t know how to use my equip—“
“That’s enough,” Sean raised his hand to stop Marcus. “This conversation is a H.R. nightmare. What is really going on?”
“Wrestling?” Krista asked hopefully.
The doors opened again.
“Fix your top, sweetie,” Marcus said, smoothing his shirt. “Everyone will think we’ve had a three-way. Actually, I’d be willing to try…”
Sean raised his hand again with a pained expression on his face, not in the mood for tomfoolery.
Theresa entered the elevator. Mrs. Morning After had been the reason Krista realized Sean really was a pig. The first instance anyway. It was also the first time Krista had met Jacob. The circle of life was complete.
Theresa surveyed the elevator with a sweep of her eyes, recognizing Sean instantly. Her face fell, then turned red. Then an angry, livid purple.
“Hi, Sean,” she said with a hand on her hip.
Marcus smirked and moved to the corner of the elevator to allow the former lovebirds more room. Krista quickly moved in his direction. Things had just gotten really awkward.
For a wonder, Sean didn’t even look embarrassed. There wasn’t a hint of remorse. He smiled and said, “Hello, Theresa. I haven’t seen you in a while. How’ve you been keeping?”
Some of the purple lessoned, making her face look a blotchy puce.
“Oh, well …” She scanned the rest of the elevator. When she saw Krista she glowered. Renewing the hostile in her voice, she said, “Moved on already, huh?”
Krista looked around in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“Hi, Theresa,” Marcus said in a lazy tone. “How’d your mixer go?”
Theresa turned to Marcus as the elevator started moving. “Oh hi!” She was suddenly a ray of sunshine. “I didn’t see you there. It went great! I met this fab guy that has already taken me out to dinner. He’s a gentleman.”
Krista surmised that was a dig at Sean. Based on the fact that Sean was looking toward the front of the elevator pleasantly, waiting for the right floor, it didn’t have much effect.
“Wonderful. Sorry I couldn’t make it, doll,” Marcus said, checking which floor was chiming. “I had a million things to do Friday night.”
“Oh, no problem.” Theresa waved the thought away. “At least you responded. Some people didn’t even bother to do that.”
Another dig at Sean.
The doors opened.
“C’mon gang,” Sean said, stepping out.
They were on his floor. Theresa stepped out as well.
“Okay, bye, Marcus,” Theresa said sweetly. “Bye, Sean.” Not so sweet.
“It was great seeing you, Theresa.” Sean continued to use the same pleasant tone. Theresa got stars in her eyes before she about faced and walked away, trying to throw as much hip into it as she possibly could.
As Marcus and Krista followed Sean around a corner, Marcus asked in a voice tinged with humor, “Another one of your ex’s, Sean?”
“It has to last more than a night to be an ex, doesn’t it?” Krista asked Marcus, struggling to keep up with their walking pace.
Sean half turned with a warning look as they reached the door for the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Krista asked.
“Back to your office, via the stairs,” Sean said, holding the door for the other two.
“Oh no! No way!” Marcus exclaimed. “I have a very regimented workout routine that does not involve stairs.”
“I have four-inch heels that are adorable but not all that comfortable.” Krista pointed at her feet. “My feet will not hold up for three flights of stairs.”
“They are adorable.” Marcus nodded thoughtfully, looking at her heels. “But you should put more money into your footwear. They’ll last longer and be easier on your feet. Girl, you should know this!”
“Yes, I do know this, but I don’t make enough to constantly buy pricey footwear. With as many—“
“Stairs, now,” Sean interrupted firmly.
“Ooouu, I like when he gets firm,” Marcus said with a smirk, pushing Krista in front of him.
“I don’t,” Krista replied petulantly, gingerly putting her foot on the first stair as if it was covered in grime. “It means it’s harder to get out of what he wants.”
“This is true,” Marcus followed Krista’s example with the same expression of distaste.
Halfway up, Krista had to stop. “My feet are seriously killing me, you guys. I can’t do this.”
“Take off your shoes,” Sean said behind her.
“Eww! I’ll probably get syphilis from this floor. No.”
“Then soldier on.” Sean put a hand lightly on her back.
She hobbled up another two steps before she had to stop again. Marcus was on the landing, waiting. Sean stepped up beside her.
He held out his arm, “Help?”
“It’s not my balance that’s the problem,” Krista said, looping her arm in his and the other on the railing, using the two like crutches.
Sean looked down at her shoes. “Are they worth it?”
“Yes, when a fool doesn’t make me climb stairs or walk around the company all day.”
“A fool, huh?” Sean asked, chuckling.
“Uh oh, someone who doesn’t pander to the young stud. What will his ego do now?” Marcus leaned against the wall, watching the scene with interest.
“You never told me,” Sean said, ignoring Marcus. “What were you two doing falling into the elevator?”
“Just, uh…”
“Running from Jacob,” Marcus supplied, looking at his nails.
“Jacob? Why?” Sean’s voice got suspicious.
“He was in my office,” Krista admitted. “I didn’t feel like talking to him so I thought I’d wait him out.”
“What was Jacob doing waiting in your office when you weren’t there?”
“Loitering? I don’t know. I didn’t want to find out.”
“Does he visit you often?”
Marcus looked from his nails, eyes finding Sean’s face.
“Not often, no.” Krista grimaced as her heel got a hot spot, a blister forming. “Just to ask me out on occasion.”
“To ask you out? And you’ve said…”
Marcus’s brow knit as he continued to study Sean.
“I’ve said I had a boyfriend,” Krista replied slowly, uncertain where this round of questioning was going.
“A boyfriend? And do you?”
Krista felt the weight of the stare. Also that Sean had slowed their climb to nearly not moving at all. “Um, kinda?”
“You’re not sure?”
A wicked smile crept up Marcus’s face as he honed in on Sean.
Unused to the third degree from anyone but Kate and Jasmine, Krista got anxious. “Uhhhmmm…no—well, yes. I don’t know. I’ve been seeing him. Paul. I’ve mentioned Paul before…”
“You’re still seeing Paul?” Sean cut in, stopped now, his body facing her.
“Yes?”
“Didn’t you say you were bored?”
“Urrmm…well…I’m still getting to know him. I just…have issues...” The man was sounding like Kate when Krista was being grilled about Sean. She wasn’t sure what the hell Sean wanted. Why did it matter who she saw? And why was he asking in front of Marcus, who was all but taking notes?
“You are trying to like a guy that you currently don’t so you, what? Get good Samaritan points?” Sean demanded. He stared at her, emotions warring on his face, none of them readable. Before Krista could say anything, he shook his head and said, “Forget it. C’mon.”
He turned his back to her and lowered, reaching back with his hands.
“What—why?”
“What just happened?” Marcus asked, looking back and forth between the two of them like the TV was switched off by a ghost.
“Get on. I’ll give you a piggy back,” Sean explained casually.
Marcus’s smile turned back into a puzzled expression, his head tilting at Sean’s sporadic behavior.
“I’m in a skirt, I’m not—“
“Get on. I’m losing my patience,” Sean said quietly.
“I can’t believe I am doing this in a skirt,” Krista uttered, climbing on to Sean’s broad back.
“I wish I had my phone on me,” Marcus whispered excitedly, “I need a picture of this.”
“Shut up, Marcus,” Krista muttered, hiking up her skirt to get her legs around Sean’s middle.
“I know about Mike at the Christmas party, Marcus,” Sean said casually, looping his arms around Krista’s thighs. “If you tell this story, I’ll tell that one.”
“You know about…” Marcus fell silent, suddenly less relaxed than Krista had ever seen him. He turned away from the other two and continued climbing. “This would have been good, too. I really wanted to see Monica’s face.”
It was a pleasant climb. While Marcus was quietly contemplating whatever secret Sean knew, Krista was breathing in Sean’s scent, squeezing him with her legs, feeling his muscles bunch and extend beneath her. She nearly rested her head on his shoulder and tucked her face into his neck. It would have been great to lightly tickle his neck with her breath, give him a gentle brush with her tongue before she nipped him. She’d love to see what he did. Love to see if he lost control. She wanted to feel the body under this jacket, currently rubbing her crotch through her thin panties. She wanted to know if he’d become aroused—if he’d treat her like all his other girls, or slow down for her. Focus more on her pleasure than his own.
She was lost in her fantasy. Lost in the thoughts of tasting his skin. In seeing if that taste was as great as its accompanying smell.
And then to her horror…she did!
While her mind was thoroughly in the clouds, she bent her face and ever so lightly trailed her wet lips across the base of his soft neck. She felt his arms flex around her legs, his biceps hardening around her parted thighs. She tightened her hold too, lost to it, lost to the sensation of what she was feeling in that moment, completely unaware of everything else around her. She opened her mouth and trailed her tongue up his neck, making his body go slightly rigid…then followed through with nipping him lightly.
Sean took a deep inhalation of breath and stopped dead. It was what finally woke Krista up from her erotic dream.
“Oh holy f**k!” She nearly threw up with what she’d just done. What the God-damned hell is happening to me? I-am-losing-my-mind!!
Marcus was turning around, just about to open the door that would let them out onto the floor. Sean, still frozen, would not let go of her legs. Marcus’s confused eyes hit Sean’s face, of which Krista couldn’t see, then knit in another confused furrow.
“What’s a’matter?” Marcus asked Sean.
“Let me down, Sean,” Krista said, scrambling, trying to break his hold on her legs.
Chapter Seventeen
Sean, so God-damned turned on his c**k felt like it was ready to explode, couldn’t move. If he did, he would back her up against the wall so fast no one could stop him, and ram himself into her with everything he had. He needed to plunge so deeply inside of her he reached the center of her being, then thrust and thrust until the world went black. If he let go right now, his control would follow immediately after.
“Sean, c’mon!” Krista struggled behind him, her apex grinding into his back.
Sean clenched his whole body. In a voice thick with need and tight with strain, he said, “Marcus, help her away, please.”
Marcus recognized that look. He was a man after all. He was also a man who knew other men at the height of arousal. He knew exactly what was going on, but Sean couldn’t worry about that right now.
“Okay, yeah…” Krista clattered to the wall, the sound of her heels against the concrete echoing through the hallway. She swiped her hair out of her face and raised her chin, trying for some decorum. She wiped her forehead of sweat. “That’s—we—I’m…” Krista gave a thumbs-up, then scoffed at herself. “I’ll go brave Jacob now, if that’s okay…”
Shaking her head, she crossed in front of the other two with her head bowed. When she was through the door Marcus stepped up to Sean with a sinful smile.
“Having difficulty, there, ‘ol boy?” Marcus clapped Sean on the back.
Sean put his hands on his h*ps and let out a breath in a whoosh.
“What happened?” Marcus pushed.
Sean shook his head and looked at the door Krista had just walked through. “She caught me off guard.”
“With what? How?”