And being smothered never felt so damn good. Especially when it’s the weight of her body on top of mine.

“He’s probably just playing it safe. He seems totally loyal to you. I’m sure if there was something going on, he’d tell you about it.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, leaning my head back against the warmth of her belly, while part of me worries about Omid, hoping that he really is okay and nothing has happened to him. “I spoke with Rafe when you were in the shower. He reiterated what he said to you about how much the brass really loves the pictures you’re turning in.” For some reason I need her to know how incredible they are, especially after all of the shit I gave her in the beginning about not being good enough.

“Thank you,” she whispers softly as her fingers thread through my hair, nails scratching my scalp in the most hypnotizing of ways.

“He asked me how we were getting along.”

I love the throaty laugh that follows with that hint of the unique rasp of her voice to it. It sounds almost as if she’s holding a secret and I’ll be the only one she’s going to tell. It also causes that slow burn of desire that’s always on low flame to start to simmer inside me.

“And what did you tell him?”

“Hmm… that we were managing one day at a time. That I still found you irritating and a know-it-all. That it was a real feat for me to sit hours on end with you and not want to strangle you. But that at least you were good at taking photographs because you can’t play Scrabble for shit,” I deadpan as her hands still in my hair and I wait for her reaction.

“Irritating, huh?” She removes her hands from my scalp and steps in front of me. She lifts an eyebrow in challenge as I try to figure out just where she’s going with this.

“Yep. And a know-it-all,” I say with a nod and a smart-ass smile on my lips as my eyes flicker down to the deep V of where her robe parts. Only about a foot-long section is closed now, affording me a killer view of her cleavage down to just above her belly button and a lot of leg, and damn if I don’t suddenly lose all train of thought.

“Well, Pulitzer, I’m so sorry that it’s so taxing for you to have to sit with me all… day… long,” she says in the breathiest of voices, drawing every single word out at the same time she steps forward and stands so that her legs straddle both of my thighs. I slide my eyes ever so slowly from her legs up her torso to meet her gaze, my hands itching to reach out and touch, but shit, I’ll let her take the reins for a bit to see just where she takes this because I’m liking the direction already.

“It’s a hard job, but somebody’s got to do it,” I say with emphasis. And of course at that same moment she lowers herself to sit astride my lap, ass on my knees, placing the enticing heat of her pussy right atop my cock. I have to hold back the wave of dizziness that threatens to assault me from the downright mind-rattling sensation.

“I like hard jobs,” she whispers as she leans in and brushes her lips against mine so that I can smell the toothpaste on her breath and the lotion on her skin. I lean forward to try and deepen the kiss, but she pushes her hands against my chest to keep me still in my chair while her hand snakes between her parted thighs to cup me.

And while damn those fingernails felt incredible on my scalp, the muted sensation of them scraping over the fabric hugging my nuts is Heaven. I groan, a man wanting his woman and not ashamed to show it. “Beaux…” My head falls back as the feeling of her more-than-competent hands on me shifts my train of thought from one frustration to a whole different type.

“Don’t speak, Tanner,” she says, causing me to snap my head forward and catch the taunt in her smile and desire in her eyes. “I’m annoying.” She slides backward off my lap. “And irritating.” She drops to her knees before me. “And while I may suck at Scrabble, I can suck other things much better.”

Yes. Please.

Our eyes hold, her lips twist with humor, and as I look at her on her knees before me with her hands running up my thighs, her thumbs stroking over my khaki-clad cock, the only thought I can process is what a lucky man I am.

We never break eye contact as her hands push my knees apart so that she can wiggle her way in between them and her hands begin to work the button and zipper on the shorts. In perfect sync with her, I lift up as she tugs my clothes down, and my dick springs free.

I love watching her eyes light up at knowing I’m hard and waiting for her without much if any foreplay. Shit, she could blow a cold breeze my way and I’d be ready for her. Even better than the look in her eyes is watching her have to make the conscious decision to tear her eyes from mine and look down at what’s waiting for her.

And call it male ego, call it machismo, I don’t give a fuck, but it’s such a turn-on watching her eyes widen and her tongue dart out and lick her bottom lip when she looks down. Every part of my body feels like it is standing at attention, waiting for the next touch, her mouth to take me in, the enticing visual of watching her suck me off.

Her eyes dart up to meet mine one more time as she lowers her head and puts my dick in her mouth. And it’s not like she teases me, puts the tip in and licks her tongue around the head to taunt me with promises of what’s to come next. Hell no. She lowers her mouth onto my cock and keeps going all the way until I hit the back of her throat.

“Goddamn,” I moan brokenly.

The sensation is so damn overwhelming that I want to close my eyes and savor it and at the same time don’t want to miss the sight of her working me in and out between her lips. One hand cups my balls, fingernails teasing the sensitive skin there while the other wraps around the base of my cock, following her mouth up and down with an added pressure that drives me fucking insane. She takes me all the way to the back of her throat again so that I can feel the vibration of the moan she emits against my dick. Her green eyes flutter up to meet mine as she holds still there.

And the sight of her cheeks hollowed and lips stretched around me, stuns me motionless. Something passes between us. Something more than just the desire coursing through us or the act we’re engaging in. And it’s fleeting, but it’s unmistakable.

The mix of sensations, tight grip followed by soft lips, her quiet moans of desire mixed with my harsh grunts of pleasure, my hand fisted tightly in her wet hair, and the endless pleasure of going deeper and deeper in her mouth catapults me to the edge of reason so damn fast that I’m holding her head still and bucking my hips in natural reflex.

I come fast and hard; my pants are harsh, my heart is lost, all sensibility thrown out the damn window as the grenade of sensation explodes within me, streaking up and back down in a fiery flash of everything and nothing all at once.

And she’s so fucking incredible as she rides out my orgasm, her mouth sucking me dry, her fingers becoming more gentle as my muscles contract and my dick becomes hypersensitive. My muscles start to relax, and she must sense it because the vibration of her chuckle around my cock still in her mouth is like a little aftershock of sensation that breaks through the fog of my climax.

She pulls back and just looks at me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “How are we going to explain that one to Rafe, huh? That’s all you, my wordy friend.”

It takes me a minute to get my wits about me, my mind still reeling from the unexpected but completely welcome blow job at the hands of BJ Croslyn. The irony.

“Up to me?” My voice sounds drugged and drowsy, and fuck if I’m going to apologize for it. “I seem to think you have journalist in your title too.”

Her laugh is low and seductive as I reach out and pull her back up to sit astride me, my hands working on undoing the knot of her robe, needing to feel her skin on skin. “Oh but you forget, I report with pictures, so I don’t quite think we’re going to document what exactly just happened.”

“Mmm, probably not.” I look up to her, our positions allowing her face to hover slightly above mine so I can see her eyes widen as I slide my hands inside her robe, my rough palms against the smooth skin of the undersides of her breasts. “But I might want to document a few things myself with your equipment of what’s going to happen next.”

“Oh really?” she asks, the words starting out strong but then ending in a sigh as my thumbs flick over the hardened tips of her nipples. I love watching her like this, eyes hazy with desire and her lips fallen lax from the pleasure I can bring her. “What’s going to happen next?”

Without saying a word, I reach down in the space between our thighs, brush my fingers over her pussy, and find it slick with desire. And the fact that she’s wet from sucking me off has my own libido already stirring back awake, her ability to make my body expedite my recovery time almost frightening. She gasps at the feel of my fingers just barely touching her as they find the tie of her robe and place it between her legs with one hand so that it falls through the opening that both of our parted thighs make. I grab it with my other hand so that one hand holds the robe tie at her back while the other holds it just above the front of her pelvis.

“Uh-uh,” I command as she looks down. “I want to watch you, want to see in your eyes what I do to you. Keep your eyes on me.”

And a quiet hush falls around us so that the anticipation thickens, our eyes locked, her mind wondering exactly what I’m going to do next. Drawing things out, I take the sash and press it against the cleft of her sex. Her legs tense at the feel of it there, but when I slowly start to rub it back and forth, I work it between the lips of her pussy so that it rubs with perfect friction over her clit. The first time her eyes widen and her breath hitches at the newness of the sensation before her head falls back for a moment to absorb the unexpected feeling. But then as I continue to move the tie ever so slowly back and forth and watch the sensation swamp her as she fights to keep her eyes from closing with the pleasure of it, the moan that falls from her mouth tells me she likes it.