Free A French Whipping by Nicole Camden

flowers drifted to his nose—a new perfume—and he inhaled involuntarily, letting the scent fill and surround him. It didn’t quite suit her. It was too light and lacking in complexity. He thought about the box sitting in his top dresser drawer. It had been there since he, Roland, and Milton had gone to New York to sell their first encryption software nine years ago, still tucked inside the Bergdorf’s bag. He’d nearly given it to her a dozen times, knowing that she’d love it, that the smell would make her green eyes light up and that dazzling smile break out on her face.
    “You’re staring.”
    He was. She made him feel like a nineteen-year-old idiot again.
    “Yeah, I know.” He started toward the door to the bar, tightening his arm against his side, trapping and pulling her with him.
    She fell into step at his side, her long legs matching his stride. He wanted them wrapped around him, wanted to smell her hair as he slid inside her.
    He opened the heavy wooden door to the bar with his free hand and stepped to the side to allow her to precede him. The hostess, a dark-haired woman with a beauty mark, smiled politely when she saw them.
    “Table for two?”
    “We’ll just take a seat at the bar,” Nick told her.
    Blake preceded him inside, leading the way to an empty stool and taking a seat. Nick stood next to her since there wasn’t another empty stool, but was glad of it when he realized that he had a direct line of sight to her impressive cleavage in the V-neck of her T-shirt.
    “Blake, what can I get you?” The bartender, a young black man with hazel eyes, smiled at her with a mouthful of straight white teeth.
    “Hey, Romeo, I’ll have a dirty Grey Goose martini with three olives.”
    “You got it, honey.” He set a coaster down in front of her and Nick. “What can I get you, sir?”
    Nick refrained from glaring at the kid. Romeo, my ass . “I’ll have a Talisker, neat.”
    “You got it.”
    The bartender stepped away to pour the drinks, and Blake looked up at Nick from beneath lowered lashes, her lips slightly parted. He wanted to part them farther. He wanted to draw her lower lip through his teeth the way she’d done to his.
    “Nick?” she said softly. “I thought you weren’t—”
    “Here you go.” Romeo set the drinks down in front of them. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.”
    “Thanks,” Blake replied and picked up her drink, taking a sip of the icy vodka.
    Nick ignored his drink for the moment. “You were about to ask me something.”
    Blake plucked the skewer holding three olives from her drink and drew the first one off with her teeth, watching him as she slowly chewed. His gaze fixed on her mouth and stayed there.
    “Was I?” she said finally, her voice breathless.
    Impatient, Nick picked up his own glass and took a healthy sip, glad for the distracting burn. “I’m willing, if you’re still interested.”
    “Hmmm . . .” she said, lifting one eyebrow and closing her lips around another olive.
    “Blake,” he growled.
    She rolled her eyes and dropped the skewer with the remaining olive back in her drink. “Sorry. That just wasn’t exactly flattering, you know. You’re ‘willing.’ It sounds like I asked you to help me move, or start an organic grocery business.”
    Nick scowled. She’d presented it like a damn service, but he was the one who made it sound unflattering. “You were right. I want you.” He glared down at her. “But just for a little while, and we make sure things don’t get messy. Sex and that’s it. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
    She softened, her eyes wandering over his face. “I don’t want that, either. In fact”—she shifted in her seat—“after you left the other night, I realized you were right to turn me down.”
    Nick had never thought the words “you were right” could sound so damn miserable. “Was I?”
    Looking away from him, she nodded and took another sip of her drink.
    Nick studied her, studied