The Businessman's Tie (The Power to Please, Book 1) by Deena Ward Read Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t caused by
embarrassment that strangers were staring at my cleavage. I knew it. And I knew
that Michael and the others weren’t solely turned on by the display of some
flesh.
    It was sensual and thrilling not just because of the result,
but mostly because of the action, the doing of it. I had done as he asked, and
I did it because it pleased him. Even though I was embarrassed. Even though a
big part of me didn’t want to, I did it anyway.
    I put myself on display because he wished it. And the
unasked question floating between me and my audience was, what else would I do
to please him?
    I think Michael must have sensed my revelation. He reached
out and ran a finger along the edge of my bra, tantalizing the tops of my
breasts. I didn’t stop him. I wanted him to do as he pleased, now, to keep the
heat rushing through me.
    He hooked a lone finger under the filmy lace at the top of my
bra. Pushing farther down under the fabric, the back of his fingernail rubbed
against my nipple. I didn’t need to look down to see what he was doing. I
watched the crowd, like he wanted me to do.
    He made a sound of enjoyment as the back of his finger stroked
me and my nipple went hard, an animate tingling thing. The people watching no
longer regarded my face. Their interest lay in what Michael was doing to my
breast, under the cover of white lace.
    Some of them smiled lazily, some leered, some wanted to be
me, and some of them wanted to be Michael, or to join him. The thought didn’t
frighten me. It excited me. I was with Michael alone. The other people only got
what he gave them.
    Michael’s touches raised the game to a different level. I
was in the thrall of this new thing, this new experience. My senses were on
full alert. I felt the driving beat of the dance music. I smelled Michael’s
cologne and the sweetness of the remains of my cocktail, the sharp scent of my
aroused and heated skin. I felt every millimeter of Michael’s finger, the
smooth arc of its rise and fall over my breast, the curious pressure of his
touch, the tweak of a fingernail’s scratch as it passed the sides of my nipple.
    I was living a fantasy I never knew I had. My body was keyed
to the moment. What would Michael do next? Would I allow it? How far would I go
for his pleasure? How far would I go for my own?
    And then I saw Him. I was drinking the attention of the
crowd when I saw him. He stood next to a grouping of nearby tables, and he was
watching me. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead. His jaw was
taut, and his body seemed coiled with strength.
    He met my eyes with an expression of anger that made me
wince involuntarily. Anger. At who? At me?
    It was The Businessman.
     
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    In the eighth year of my marriage, I had an affair with a
man who lived in the apartment above mine. His name was Doug, and he was a
senior in college. Because I married at a young age, only eighteen years old,
Doug wasn’t much younger than I.
    He was lovely and what I thought I needed at the time. He
adored me. Or rather, he adored my body. When he looked at me naked, his
features slackened, as if the lines and curves of my figure short-circuited his
brain cells.
    I was flattered. He made me feel beautiful and wanted. So I
slept with him every chance I got for nearly two months. When I told him it was
over, he cried. Sweet young man. He thought he loved me.
    When my ex-husband and I were first married, we had sex all
the time, common for newlyweds. The sex was okay for me, and I thought it would
get better in time. It didn’t. I never told my ex that being intimate with him
wasn’t as enthralling as I wished; his glass-thin ego never could stand the
weakest knock of complaint. So I faked it. If he wanted sex, he got it. Luckily
for me, as time went on, he wanted it less and less.
    The week before I began my affair with Doug, my ex had
climbed into our bed late one night while I was sleeping, and with hardly a
grunt of acknowledgement,