Temptation (Club X #1)(29)
Author: K.M. Scott

“Hello, Olivia,” I said quietly as stepped next to her.

“Hello,” she whispered breathlessly.

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

She lifted her hand to touch my shirt and traced the outline of a single button. Lowering her head, she said quietly, “I thought you might not come tonight.”

I took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips. Kissing her fingertips, I watched her bite her lower lip as my tongue grazed her skin. “Tell me what you want, Olivia.”

Under her blindfold, her brows knitted. As she sat silently, a frown marred her beautiful mouth. I needed to hear her tell me what she wanted and let me know she knew who was seducing her.

Finally, she sighed deeply and answered in a tentative voice that hit me deep inside in a place I thought I’d hidden away forever. “I want you.”

All I had to do was fuck her and all these things that made her so appealing—so charming that I wanted to let myself be someone who could let her in—all of it would disappear. She’d become just another in the long line of women I kept at arm’s length, around when I wanted them and absent when I didn’t. It was all so simple.

Then why the fuck was I standing there wanting to take her in my arms and make love to her like someone who truly cared?

“I can give you what you want. All you need to do is let yourself go, Olivia. Can you let yourself go and enjoy this thing between us?”

“Yes.”

“I want you, Olivia. I want to see you tremble with need as I devour you. I’m going to fuck you so good you won’t be able to walk after I’m done with you.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice full of desire as I leaned in to brush my lips against her ear.

“If I slide my hand under that pretty dress, will my fingers get wet with your juices?”

She whimpered and squeezed her thighs together to ease an ache I knew existed between them. All I had to do was take my cock out and I could have her right there. She was primed.

Her mouth searched for mine, slanting over my lips when she found them. Eagerly, her tongue slid against mine, and I imagined how incredible it would feel moving up and down my cock, her head bobbing sweetly as she sucked me off. I held the back of her head and fisted her hair in my hand, tugging roughly even as she mewed her need into my mouth.

I wanted her. And as much as I hated to admit it, I needed her. I needed her in my bed. In my life.

Olivia’s hands burrowed under my shirt, her nails dragging against my chest as she worked to remove the fabric separating the two of us. The shy girl had blossomed into a woman who knew what she wanted. Her hand slid inside my pants and palmed my cock as she sucked the tip of my tongue in a preview of what I knew those lips would feel like wrapped around me.

But still she hadn’t told me she knew it was me. She needed to show me she knew. I’d give her one more chance. Breaking our kiss, I leaned back away from her and watched her beautiful face register her confusion. All she had to do was say my name.

“Olivia…”

She moved her hands to touch me, but I was just out of her reach as I waited for her to say the one word I needed to hear. Instead, she said, “Please…”

I left her sitting there, still waiting to hear my name as I closed the door behind me.

Chapter Eleven

Olivia

The pain of rejection still stung the next morning as I lay in bed going over every moment of my time with Cash, inside and outside that fantasy room. What had I done wrong? Why did he leave me sitting there just as we were about to finally get together?

That man was going to drive me mad.

I heard a pounding on my front door, so I dragged myself from the bed to find Josie and Erin standing in the hallway staring at me with expectant faces. “Where’s the fire?”

The two of them pushed past me into my living room and took their places on my sofa. I trudged back in, knowing why they were there. Erin stared at me, obviously waiting for me to say something. I looked around, unsure of what to say, until Josie finally spoke up. “We’re here to find out what happened last night. We want the details, and we’re not leaving until we get them.”

Just as I’d thought. I slunk over to the chair and plopped down onto it. “Nothing. Not a damn thing happened, unless you’re a fan of some sexy talk and being left hanging.”

“What the fuck? I’m beginning not to like Cassian March much,” Josie said with a sneer.

Erin reached over to squeeze my arm. “Are you okay, honey?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me or anything like that. I guess I just was hoping he’d want me like I want him.”

“Sweetie, you sound horrible. I hate hearing you like this. I feel a little guilty too since we egged you on to do this,” Josie added.

“It’s not a big deal, guys.”

Their silence as they looked at me with sad eyes made me feel even worse. The new Olivia was just as lame as the old Olivia. Olivia 2.0 had failed miserably in beta testing.

“Liv, it is a big deal, not because of him but because of you,” Josie said as she stood and began to pace.

I’d seen her do this before when she was trying to unravel a problem in her mind. Part of me wished she would be able to figure this out so I wouldn’t feel so awful about being left high and dry. At least if I could blame it all on something other than being a woman he just didn’t want I could feel better.

“You shouldn’t feel like this is about you, honey,” Josie continued.

“How is it not about me? I took a chance and put myself out there only to be handed a big fat rejection. Sounds like it’s all about me.”

“He’s probably got some baggage you don’t know about,” Erin said in her usual sweet way. “You know, like he can only be with women who don’t intimidate him. That’s probably it.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. I’d spent my entire dating life dealing with the fragile male ego, unsure if I should let boyfriends win at everything from poker to friendly games of softball, so to find out that a man like Cash only wanted some weak thing to hang on his arm would make me feel like there was no chance at any happiness for someone like me.

“I’ve seen the women he takes out in public, Liv. They’re gorgeous, like you, but other than that, they’re nobody big in business or law or any other career.”

Josie’s description of Cash’s other women as gorgeous didn’t help either. I knew, like everyone else, that there were different types of gorgeous. There was gorgeous your friends said you were, and then there was real gorgeous—the kind that made men fall at a woman’s feet.