Nicole Edwards - Perception

“That’s it, baby. Ride me, Sam. Show me exactly what you like,” Logan urged through gritted teeth, loving how responsive Sam was to Xander watching her.

Across the room, Logan barely noticed as Xander unstrapped Mercedes. Didn’t pay much attention to when Xander pulled her into his arms, holding her close as he continued to watch Sam.

Logan’s own release was barreling down on him, and he found it difficult to focus on anything other than Sam’s tight pussy sheathing him as she began to moan in earnest. “Fuck me, Sam. Fuck me hard, baby,” he demanded.

“Oh, God!” she moaned loudly.

Xander’s eyes came up to meet Sam’s as Logan watched and as though that glimpse were the detonator, Sam’s pussy gripped his cock and Logan couldn’t hold back.

Sam moaned again, softer this time, a silent release exploding through her as her pussy clamped onto Logan’s cock.

Logan growled in response, coming hard and deep inside of his wife. And when his world had righted itself enough for his eyes to focus, he glanced up to see Mercedes staring back at them.

It was at that moment that he wondered just what possibilities were in store for him and Sam in the future. Although he knew it wouldn’t be a threesome with Xander Boone, he did know that he and Sam had a hell of a lot more to explore.

The following morning…

Wednesday

Mercedes awoke to the sun shining through the open curtains of her bedroom. Unable to get her eyes to adjust to the luminous rays drifting across her bed, she rolled over, burying her head beneath the pillow as memories from the night before assaulted her.

What had she done?

As she inhaled deeply, the scent of fabric softener wafting into her nose, she realized that no matter how hard she wished, last night hadn’t been a dream. What she’d done… or rather what Xander had done to her had been real.

Too real.

And if realizing what had happened wasn’t bad enough, Mercedes had to accept the fact that she had loved every second of it.

Holy crap she was in so much trouble.

Never in her wildest imagination would she have dreamed up what had happened last night at Devotion, and sure as the sun was up and blinding with its intensity, Mercedes knew it had happened.

“Are you finally awake?”

Mercedes flew to an upright position, her pillow flying to the floor as she yanked her comforter up over her naked breasts. With what she knew had to look like abject horror on her face, she stared at the man standing in her bedroom. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Xander laughed, crossing to the windows and staring out as he pushed the curtains open even more, allowing the sunlight to all but consume the entire room.

Clutching the blanket tightly, Mercedes gave a second’s thought to what she looked like. She was definitely naked, and she knew her hair was a stringy mess all over her head, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it at the moment.

“Just checking on you,” Xander finally answered, turning to face her.

She could do nothing but stare at him.

Ok, so it wasn’t completely absurd to find Xander in her condo. After all, he did own a condo in the same building, – the penthouse – directly above hers, so he was nearby.

That explained his presence.

Since they both worked out of their homes, it wasn’t even odd that he was home that early in the morning either.

That explained his timing.

But it did not explain why he was standing in her bedroom, at the end of her bed, mind you, staring at her as though he was anticipating a replay of last night.

Not gonna happen.

“I should’ve never given you a key,” she said with exasperation.

Sliding his big hands into the pockets of his perfectly tailored black slacks that would provide her a mouthwatering view of his nicely sculpted backside should he turn around, Xander didn’t appear at all intimidated by her.

 Another sexy, seductive laugh escaped him.

“Quit that,” she told him, clutching her comforter tight to her chest with one hand and running the other through her unruly hair.

“Quit what?” he asked, grinning that half smirk that had melted the panties off of much weaker women.

“Quit staring at me,” she told him. “And get out of my bedroom. I need to…”

Shit, she didn’t even know what she needed to do.

“Take a shower,” Xander kindly filled in for her. “I’ve got breakfast ordered. It’ll be here shortly.”

With that, Xander turned and walked out of the room, leaving Mercedes to stare after him, admiring his finely sculpted…

Good grief, woman. Haven’t you learned your lesson already?

How was it possible that the man could make her four thousand square foot condo feel so damn small?

A solid hour later, fully dressed in her heels and one of her most feminine power suits, with its short skirt and form fitting blazer, Mercedes joined Xander in her kitchen. She would’ve remained in the comfort of her bathroom a little longer, but she had run out of things to do after she dried her hair, and she didn’t want Xander to think she was stalling.

Even if she was.

She found him relaxing comfortably at the breakfast table, sipping coffee and reading something on his iPad, a plate of fresh assorted bagels sitting in the center. Without saying a word, she went straight for the coffee pot, hoping like hell a little caffeine would erase the images from last night from her brain. The shower certainly hadn’t helped.

“How’re you feeling?” Xander asked, not looking up from what he was reading.

“Fine,” she grumbled as she rummaged through the refrigerator, searching for the creamer and the cream cheese.

She was far from fine after the events of last night, but by the way he was acting so nonchalantly, she got the impression she was the only one of them who was still thinking about it.

“Why are you here?” she asked him as she poured a little too much creamer into her coffee. Seriously? Why were her hands shaking?

“Meeting with Shane,” he answered easily.

Shit.

Glancing over at the clock, Mercedes noticed it was fast approaching nine o’clock. She hadn’t slept that late in… hell, in as long as she could remember. Her days generally started before dawn on a good day.

“Is he coming here? Or to your place?” she asked, trying to sound casual as she shoved the creamer back into the fridge.

Most of the time, they held their business meetings at Xander’s. His condo had double the amount of space that hers did, and he had three offices, his, his assistant’s, and an empty one, along with a conference room that he used for God knows what. Unlike her setup, his offices were separate from his actual living quarters. As for Mercedes, she merely worked out of her condo’s secondary master bedroom that she’d had converted into an office.

“I told him to come here,” Xander answered as she approached, placing his iPad on the table and sliding the bagels toward her. “You’re looking a little pale,” he added, tipping his head slightly to the side as he studied her with another of his infamous smirks.

“I wonder why,” she blurted, immediately regretting her lack of filter.

She blamed him.

“I hear orgasms will do that to you.”

Mercedes glared at him from across the table, letting him know with her eyes that she wasn’t going to take his shit this morning. She was not getting into this with him. What happened last night shouldn’t have happened. It was a demonstration that had gotten way out of hand.

So what if he’d given her one of the best orgasms of her entire life. With his fingers.

It wasn’t like she was going to tell him as much.

Refusing to dignify his statement with a verbal response, Mercedes reached for a bagel and opted to move the conversation back to neutral ground. “What’s Shane coming over to talk about?”

Xander grinned, an all-out, panty-melting smile that had Mercedes fighting to keep from looking away from him. Rather than say something entirely inappropriate, which Xander was known to do from time to time, he morphed into the business professional that she knew him to be, his smile fading away entirely.

“We need to talk about the two properties we’re planning to bid on,” Xander explained.

“By ‘we’, you mean you and Shane are bidding against each other? On both properties?”

Xander kept his eyes on her. “Honestly, I could give a shit less about the land, he can have it if he wants it that bad. I want the Milton building.”

Mercedes knew about both properties, the one hundred plus acres off of the toll road up in Frisco and an old office building off of Milton right there in downtown that had just come on the market. Both of them were zoned for either commercial or residential, which was the factor that always put Shane and Xander at odds with one another.

Admittedly, Mercedes had significantly more knowledge regarding the Milton building. After all, Xander had been interested in it since she first brought it to his attention, so she had looked into a few specifics and taken him on a tour earlier in the week.

“I think that’s smart,” she told him. “The Milton building will be your best option of the two. He’ll want to turn it into condos anyway, and there’re an overabundance of them in that area. He’s better off with the land. Much more opportunity for residential development up that way.”

That wasn’t going to make Shane a happy camper, but then again, going up against Xander in a bidding war wasn’t exactly one of Shane’s favorite things to do either.

Mercedes had known both men for quite some time. She knew how their minds worked because she’d worked with them both on practically a daily basis for the last decade.

She sold commercial real estate, and they dealt in commercial and residential property development, respectively. And many of the property transactions they dealt with were handled by her. Although she had a handful of other high profile clients, Xander was definitely her bread and butter. He knew it too.

Before they could go into further detail, her home phone rang. Grabbing the handset that was on the breakfast bar, Mercedes greeted the doorman, letting him know it was fine to send Shane up.

Rising from her chair, Mercedes contemplated getting more coffee before heading to her office. She definitely needed caffeine and a much more structured atmosphere or she would likely do something foolish such as allow Xander, or worse, Shane, know exactly what she was thinking. And the absolute last person who needed to find out what happened last night was Shane Gibson. If he found out, she would never live it down.

 “Let’s do this in my office,” she told Xander when she turned back to look at him, her face flaming when she realized how that sounded.

Shit. She was going to have to get a serious grip.

And soon.

The devilish gleam in his eyes said he’d caught on as well.

~*~*~*~

Doing his best to hide his amusement, Xander pushed back from the kitchen table and followed Mercedes through her condo. He didn’t, however, try to hide the fact that he was staring at her ass as she moved gracefully through the house.

The woman was fucking gorgeous, and she had an ass that made a man’s mouth water. Heart shaped and the perfect size to fill his hands nicely.

He’d been hoping she would come out of her bedroom after her shower wearing one of those form fitting, yoga outfits that she favored when she was home. Casual wear, she called them. Much to his dismay, Mercedes had clearly armed herself for battle wearing a short skirt and a blazer with those damn red heels that gave him an instant hard on.

Still, it didn’t matter what she wore. She was hot as hell. Shit, he was pretty sure she could wear a potato sack, and his dick would still stand up and take notice.

Mercedes cleared her throat, and Xander forced his eyes to move upward. He wanted to laugh because he’d been clearly busted while admiring her perfect ass. Rather than pretend he hadn’t been eyeballing her, he tossed her one of the heated looks he’d perfected over the years.

“Sit down,” she said with a choked laugh.

He was fairly certain that Mercedes was on to him. How could she not be though? After last night?

If she seriously thought that what happened between them at Devotion was just a demonstration, the woman was clearly missing a few marbles. And he knew that wasn’t the case because Mercedes was one of the most perceptive, intelligent women he’d ever met.