Versed in Desire
Anne Calhoun
“Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
When Corryn meets Luke at her new boss’s party, their attraction is instant and electric. He’s ready to give her any pleasure she desires—but Luke is a company vice president, her boss’s best friend and completely off-limits. Refusing his offer is the most difficult choice she’s ever had to make, made even harder by his continued seduction at the office and the fact that she hasn’t been able to write poetry—her favorite pastime—since denying herself. Corryn is desperate to have Luke but she’s all too aware of the risks of giving in to temptation. But after months of denial, she knows she must choose: end their flirtation for good or surrender to the inevitable….
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter One
May…
Choices come with consequences. I knew that, so I said, “I really shouldn’t.”
As I expected, a chorus of supplication rose from the group of young advertising execs clustered around me. The ringleader, a ruddy-faced blond as confident he was my type as I was sure he wasn’t, raised his voice above the good-natured entreaties. “Come on…just one poem.”
A rather uproarious loft party hosted by my boss of two weeks wasn’t my usual venue, but Tony had invited me for my renown as a slam poet, not my skills as his administrative assistant. Gregarious and well-connected, Tony routinely gathered people from the upper strata of Manhattan’s various tribes—fashion, Wall Street, advertising, publishing, the arts—and provided generous quantities of premium alcohol. I stood in the center of a whirling melee of noisy talk and alcohol-fueled laughter, not the ideal conditions to recite verse.
But this group didn’t care much about poetry in the first place. I was merely a pretty girl promising a moment’s entertainment, and the easiest way to extract myself from the situation was to give them what they wanted. Experience has taught me that going into performance mode would distance all but the most ardent admirers, and I had other techniques for them. “All right,” I said. “Just one.”
I inhaled, drawing energy from the party and the street noise drifting through the enormous open windows, let the breath out slowly as my listeners quieted, then I inhaled again and began. The words of the poem that a month earlier won the New York Invitational Slam came automatically as I scanned my audience, drawing them in. Despite the background clamor and two glasses of wine, I knew I wouldn’t stumble. I wrote poems with performance in mind, knitted them into my breath as I strode along city streets, absorbed them into my body with the clatter and sway of the subway.
But when I made eye contact with him, I stuttered, then stopped. Standing alone in the noisy crowd, he seemed impervious to the sound and laughter cresting around him. Espresso-brown hair matched the shadow on his jaw and the intent expression on his unsmiling face. The bold look in his dark-chocolate eyes sent a bolt of visceral attraction streaking through my body, leaving hot spots smoldering in my nipples and pussy and a lone thought in my brain—oh, to get you alone….
It was a great line. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a line in my poem. The look held for two seconds, then three. Too long to be part of the piece’s natural rhythm. Not long enough.
I tore my gaze away to finish, grateful the heat of the room and the wine would explain the blush creeping up my neck. Despite the mistake, I achieved my goal; my audience paid their compliments and drifted away with only a few admiring glances. Alone again, I sipped my drink and tossed a glance in his direction.
Our eyes didn’t meet right away because he was finishing an unhurried visual tour of my body that started at my calves, toned and taut above four-inch leopard-print heels, paused at the curve of hips accentuated by the tie of my wrap dress, dipped with my waist, lingered at my shoulders where my hair blended with my shimmery black dress, finally dallying at my mouth. When our eyes met my raised eyebrows made it obvious I’d caught him staring, but there was nothing apologetic in his gaze.
Oh, fun. I held out my hand. “I’m Corryn,” I said.
He closed the short distance between us to take my hand in a firm grip. “Luke,” he said. Despite a day’s worth of stubble he was too clean-cut to be in entertainment or the arts; a low-key pair of dark-blue jeans and an olive V-neck sweater put him in either the Wall Street or the advertising clans. As we ended the simple handshake, one long finger stroked across my palm.
Understated, but with a hint of scoundrel. Very intriguing.
“You made me falter, Luke,” I said, mustering irritation to cover something far more primitive simmering in the pit of my belly.
Up close, I saw dense lashes and a mouth that walked the seductive line between full and sulky. He was just a couple of inches taller than I am, but I was wearing heels. Barefoot, or better yet, naked and spread for him, I’d tuck under his chin just right.
A small smile quirked the corners of his mouth as he watched me assess him. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said.
Still not even a hint of apology in his demeanor, so I continued with mildly irritated. “What on earth could make up for me looking like a slam virgin in front of the frat boys?”
His dark eyes held just enough amusement to tell me he took the remark no more seriously than I’d meant it. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
A surprisingly blatant offer from a man still water-calm in the midst of a party bordering on outrageous, but I’d take it. I’d lay him back and fuck him until I was satiated and he was the one fumbling for words.
After I knocked some of that confident amusement out of his eyes.
“Restitution is most meaningful when the offending party designs the recompense,” I said archly. “You tell me what I want.”
His gaze never left mine. “You want me to put you up against a wall.”
I’m not often stunned speechless. Luke had accomplished that feat twice in five minutes. I gaped at him, the rapid thud of my heart echoing in my ears.
“In those heels we can probably manage it,” he added, the cadence of his words rumbling under the party’s high-pitched din. He looked around nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just traversed the gap between introduction and intimate with a single sentence. “Finish your drink first. You’re a poet?”
I welcomed the opportunity to sound like a rational human being, and the game wasn’t over yet. While I loved the spoken word, the sound and shape and taste of syllables in my mouth, arranged on the page, performance poetry was my labor of love, working as Tony’s admin my labor for money to pay the bills. Given Luke’s focus I doubted he cared much about either. “Just a word geek. You?”
“Math geek,” he said.
This time he startled me into a laugh because I’d no idea math geeks looked like the devil incarnate. Self-possessed Luke studied me as if I’d disappear if he blinked. There was no doubt in my mind he wanted me up against that wall as badly as I wanted him to put me there.
I don’t remember what we talked about after that because the connection that had snagged me from ten feet away was like holding a live electric wire up close. He asked reasonable, thoughtful questions, a nice change, but the way Luke listened, his attention totally focused on me, drew me in as surely as if he had me on a hook. Every time he looked at my mouth as he leaned a little closer to hear what I was saying, electric pulses skittered down my backbone and heat flared in my pussy. After twenty minutes of me talking