The Seductive Nights Novellas Read online

  A prequel novella to Forbidden Nights

  “I don’t want lessons in seduction. I want lessons in submission.”

  The offer is too tempting to let slide through his fingers. Having been the star of his fantasies for years now, the chance to guide Casey Sullivan step-by-step, night-by-night, O-by-ecstatic-O in how to let go of control is a dream come true for Nate Harper. The hands-on training begins tonight, in the first night of seduction.

  The only problem is, how will these two best friends face each other in the morning after that kind of mind-blowing night?

  CHAPTER ONE

  New Orleans, noon . . .

  All his rigorous training over the last few years had paid off.

  Nate was now officially a certified expert at looking Casey square in the eyes, and he could sustain a full five minutes of conversation without staring at her legs, breasts, or ass.

  Okay, five minutes was a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe it was closer to three minutes, tops. But in his defense, he’d worked his way up from lasting only ten seconds without roaming his eyes up and down her beautiful body.

  Today, he was slated to earn his general stripes on this account because the blue-eyed blonde looked absolutely stunning as she stepped off his plane at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, her long, shapely legs on display in a red skirt and black heels. Damn, the woman was tailor-made for her job as the head of a sex toy company. She radiated sex appeal.

  She adjusted the strap on her shoulder bag as she scanned for him, a hand above her eyes to shield the June sun that was shooting balls of fire. The small executive airport was relatively quiet today; there were only a few other guys in suits meeting passengers here. Nate was a guy in a suit too, but he’d ditched his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up the cuffs on his sleeves. When she spotted him, her lips curved up in a big smile and she waved. She walked over to him, and damn, did she look fantastic from top to bottom.

  Eyes up, eyes up.

  When she reached him she planted a quick kiss on his cheek, and the citrus-y scent of her hair that was so very her drifted into his nose. “You’ve completely spoiled me, I’m afraid. I can’t ever fly commercial again after this kind of treatment,” she said.

  “The full treatment?” He arched an eyebrow. “And to think, I’ve told the flight attendants time and time again to stop all the naughty play on my jet, but they must have been unable to resist you,” he said dryly. She swatted him on the arm, then laughed as he took her suitcase and rolled it behind him as they headed across the tarmac, the midday heat and omnipresent humidity pelting them from above.

  “I was actually referring to the high-speed wireless in the sky you’ve got going on, which I made ample use of, as well as the risotto for lunch and Perrier,” she said, pointing her thumb back in the direction of the Gulfstream Nate had acquired full use of when he’d been wooed, courted and won in a search two years ago for a new Chief Executive Officer of The Luxe line of luxury hotels.

  When they reached the terminal, they were greeted by a blast of arctic air from the overactive AC units that were operating at full throttle in New Orleans these days.

  “Damn,” he said in a low whistle, shaking his head. “Makes me so sad to think you worked the entire flight. You’re such a workaholic.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “Touché,” he said because they were equally addicted to their jobs. They both logged long hours and late nights, their midnight emails to each other almost always answered within minutes, and took countless cross-country and transcontinental flights. “Speaking of, are you ready for your meeting?”

  She nodded, pushing a few loose strands of hair off her shoulder. “Absolutely. I freshened up on the plane, and brushed my teeth. Want to smell my minty-clean breath?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I was actually referring to your proposal for the lingerie company,” he said, slinging her previous words back at her.

  “Oh, the partnership proposal for Grant. That teeny, tiny little thing?” She waved a hand as if it were no big deal. But he knew how important it was to her. She turned serious. “I reviewed it a few more times, and practiced my pitch on the plane. I’ve got it down pat and I’m hopeful,” she said, holding up her hand as she twisted her index and middle finger together, “that he’s ready to play ball.”

  “If you were a ballplayer, I’d give you a good luck smack on the ass as you ran onto the field.”

  She raised her eyebrows and wiggled her ass, and yup. There it was. He’d made it three whole minutes before he dropped his gaze fully to her backside, which was so damn tantalizing. Round, firm and tempting. As they left the airport, he held the door open for her, enjoying the view while she walked ahead of him. Hell, if she was going to wiggle that smackable rear, he was going to stare freely.

  She tipped her forehead to the black town car, gleaming and polished, that waited by the curb in the broiling heat. “Yours?”

  “But of course,” he said as the driver scurried around to open the door. Once inside, she smiled like she had a secret. “Want to hear my pitch?”

  “You know you can always practice your pitches on me,” he said. He settled into the leather backseat, only vaguely wishing she wanted to practice other things with him. But that was never in the cards because their friendship was too important. As they’d both risen to CEO posts in the last two years, he at the hotel, her at Joy Delivered, they’d leaned on each other more. She was his sounding board, and he was hers. Though they both traveled frequently, they were based in New York, so they got together regularly to bounce ideas, discuss concerns, and provide advice and insight that benefitted their respective companies.

  As they drove away from the airport she launched into her proposal for Grant Abbot, a lingerie magnate who ran a line of upscale boutiques around the world. “Let’s talk about all that the LolaRing can do for Entice,” she began, and Nate was glad he was a good multi-tasker. Being close friends and confidantes with a smart, beautiful, clever woman who he also wanted to nail had turned him into the consummate juggler. However, keeping his focus on business turned far more complicated when she started to discuss the off-the-charts pleasure her new product was sure to deliver. Words like delicious, stimulation, and molten desire fell from her tongue and landed right in his lap.

  “We’re talking about the ultimate pleasure on a path to prolonged orgasm,” she continued, her stormy blue eyes fixed on him as she rattled off all the benefits of one of her company’s newest products. “And our intensely arousing toy, paired with your sleek and sultry new line of lingerie would make the most fantastic gift package for the sexually adventurous couple.”

  Okay, he was promoting himself to full lieutenant general stripes today. It was like pulling teeth to keep his mind anywhere but on imagining using this intensely arousing new product on her. Clenching his hands in tight fists, a massive dose of restraint coursed through his bloodstream as she waxed eloquent on the number of all-consuming, toe-curling, star-seeing climaxes she expected the LolaRing would serve up.

  God, he was being tested so fucking hard today.

  “So what do you think?” She shifted closer, her eyes wide and eager.

  He breathed out roughly, considering his response before he opened his mouth. The thing was, Nate Harper had been hot for Casey Sullivan for years, but when he answered her, he wasn’t speaking from below the belt. He was speaking from the brain. He was speaking as a businessman. As someone who was on the receiving end of pitches all day long. “You nailed it, Casey. I have no doubt that we’ll be celebrating at dinner later,” he said, since he’d already made a reservation at the hottest new fusion restaurant on Bourbon Street.

  She flashed a big, bright smile, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Here’s hoping we’ll be toasting to lingerie and dildos tonight,” she said, as she dipped a hand into her purse and reapplied her lipstick. They pulled up to her destination in the downtown business section.

  She grabbed the door handle, r
eady to head to her meeting. Then she stopped and turned to look at him, a softness in her eyes. “By the way, thank you for doing this for me. The plane, the car, the room at your hotel. . .”

  “It was nothing. I’m happy to help. I’ll make sure your suitcase gets to your room.”

  She nudged his shoulder. “Guess what? I even remembered to bring my shampoo. No hotel shampoo needed this time. Though I’m sure yours is fabulous.”

  He laughed. It was a running joke. She was particular about her shampoo, but always packed in a rush so she often forgot to bring it along.

  Minutes later, he walked across the cobblestone courtyard of The Luxe, lush with greenery and a fountain playing a lazy rhythm, then through the gilded revolving doors and into the marble lobby. Within seconds, his hotel manager rounded the corner and marched over to him.

  “Good to see you again, Mr. Harper,” Daniel said. The man had a homing beacon installed, but then, that’s what a good manager should do—zero in on the boss. He’d done so nearly every time Nate had stepped through the front doors the last few days. When he’d arrived earlier in the week, Daniel’s first words had been: “We weren’t expecting you ’til next week, but we’re always glad when you take the time to visit.”

  That was because Nate had rearranged his schedule so that his trip to visit his company’s recently renovated French Quarter property intersected with Casey’s New Orleans venture. He had no notions whatsoever of acting on his attraction; he’d learned to live with it and tamp it down. He simply knew this potential deal was important to her so he wanted to make sure he did everything he could, from the private ride through the sky, to the room on the top floor. She deserved it. He’d never met a harder worker than Casey, and if he could deliver a few perks for her, well hell—that was why he was in the business of delivering perks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  New Orleans, afternoon . . .

  “Think about the Rabbit. That’s become the rare product that’s known by one word now. Say the Rabbit and everyone knows it means the world’s best kind of vibrator,” she said, as Grant Abbot wrapped his long fingers around a glass of bourbon, knocking back a swallow of the amber liquid. Casey loved that his eyes were on her the whole time. The man was focused—he was interested in what she brought to him. “And I believe the same can be true of the LolaRing.”

  He took a beat before responding. He liked to take his time, it seemed. He wasn’t in a rush.

  “Interesting,” he said, his smooth voice a perfect complement to the jazz music that piped through the bar from the overhead speakers, as a handful of waiters and bartenders refilled the drinks of nearby patrons. It was only four in the afternoon, but Happy Hour had started early, and Grant had insisted they take their meeting to his favorite watering hole. “Such a better location for the conversations we’ll have about silk, satin and vibration, don’t you think?” he’d said with a flirty wink when his receptionist had shown her to his office, a corner suite in a nearby building with a view of downtown through its floor-to-ceiling windows. But she’d barely caught a glimpse of his 9-to-5 habitat because he’d placed a hand on the small of her back, and guided her down the elevator, around the block, and through the cranberry-red wooden doors of Velvet. The establishment was bathed in low lights and cool music, and had an upscale ambiance with its couches that were stitched from the same material as the name.

  Casey hadn’t let the switch in venue throw her off. Nor had she let herself be affected by her long-simmering attraction to the man. He was only a few years older than her thirty-two, and ever since she’d met him at a conference a year ago, she’d let her mind wander from his crystal blue eyes to his dark, close-dropped hair, to the way he wore a suit so damn well. Not to mention that accent. That Big Easy, Southern drawl that would likely sound delicious if he spoke low and sexy in her ear. Then there was the way he wore a shade of mystery, and chased it with a dash of intrigue.

  But she pushed all those other thoughts of him into the far corners of her mind. Because business was business was business. They’d been talking about the “synergies” between their two companies since they’d met—they were both purveyors of pleasure, after all. They were a natural fit, she reasoned, especially since she’d been guiding Joy Delivered down an expansion road in the last year and a half since her brother Jack had stepped down as CEO. Though she and Jack had founded the company together several years ago after she’d graduated from business school, he’d run the ship until the woman he fell in love with was offered a job in Paris. The romantic that her older brother was, he’d given up his post and moved overseas to be with Michelle. Their wedding was at the end of the month.

  Joy Delivered had already been thriving when she became the woman in charge. Under her care she’d turned it into an even bigger and more profitable business with her new focus on partnerships with like-minded companies. She’d been relentless in her pursuit of success since taking on Jack’s role. She wanted to prove to the business world and to herself, frankly, that she could guide the company as well as he had.

  Being a woman had never held her back, but she knew she had to work that much harder. When Casey wanted something she went after it passionately, with everything she had. It was ironic that the strategy had worked well at her company, but her approach hadn’t gone as swimmingly in her rather dismal personal life. A string of bad luck in relationships trailed behind her. Yup, laugh it up. She was the Sex Toy Princess who didn’t get any action beyond the battery-operated kind.

  It wasn’t that she chose badly, or liked jerks. She didn’t. But there were two issues working against her. One, men didn’t ask her out that often, and when she did ask out a guy, he’d often admit her profession scared him. “Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to approach a woman who sells sex toys?” one guy had said. He hadn’t lasted long. The other issue was that she had a notorious habit of speaking her mind, and, it turned out, that didn’t always work for the guys she had dated.

  “You intimidate me,” Scott, her ex, had told her, when he’d said sayonara the same night she’d been planning to ask him to move in with her. “You’re fun as hell, but I can’t see myself getting serious with an alpha female.”

  Ouch.

  She’d bristled at the designation. “Alpha female?” she said with narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about? That’s a term for a dog.”

  “You’re great at business, Case. But your relationship skills are kind of lacking. You never let me decide anything. You want to be in control of everything. You want to make all the decisions, from dinner to movies to what position in bed.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining about any of those positions when we were in them,” she pointed out.

  “It’s not hard for a guy to get off,” he said in an admonishing tone, and the message was loud and cruelly clear—I’m not into you in the bedroom.

  Later, after the soreness at being left again had abated, and after she’d turned a few hairbrushes into projective missiles lobbed at the door, she was able to call a spade a spade. She did like control. She did enjoy picking and choosing, whether they went to an art gallery or a film, and she absolutely loved telling a man how she liked it—harder, faster, there, right there, don’t stop. What was so wrong with that? Hell, this was the field she worked in. She marketed sex toys, for goodness’ sake. Her days, and her late, late nights were spent finding new ways to communicate all the joys her toys could deliver. And yet, something about Scott’s condemnations had stung because they’d hit home. They’d touched down and felt true. She was an alpha woman. Strong and confident, driven and ambitious, and absolutely unafraid of saying what she wanted. It scared some men. It scared most men.

  Good thing she and Grant were communicating then about business. She could be as direct as she needed to be.

  “What do you think about such a partnership? We’re keeping the toy under wraps until we roll it out later this summer with our key retail partners, and I’d very much like to have Entice as
one of those partners,” she said, then took a drink of her French martini as she waited for his response.

  He draped his arm across the back of the royal blue couch, tracing a line absently with his fingertip. The thought briefly flicked through her mind of him running that same finger against her shoulder, her neck, her leg . . .

  “I’ve often thought we’d make good partners,” he said, with a slight quirk of his lips, and a certain look in his eyes. A look that almost said there was an undercurrent of interest. Then he wiped his hand across his brow, as if it had gotten too hot in here. “And now you come to me with this sultry talk of a LolaRing,” he said, clearly enjoying the naughtiness of their professions. “What’s a gentleman to do?”

  God, the man was a flirt, and such a fine specimen. The head of his company, surely he wasn’t one of those guys who’d be bothered that she was strong-willed, that she was in love with work. Because she was in love with love, too. She was a believer in happiness, in possibilities, in two people who fall madly in love. The kind of love her brother had with Michelle. The kind of love she was determined, bad luck be damned, to find.

  She leaned her head back and laughed. “Then what do I need to do to get your bras and panties in bed with my hot new toy?”

  He laughed, a sexy rumbly sound. “Why don’t you let me tell you how I see this working?”

  “Please do.”

  His eyes seemed to light up when she said please.

  As they discussed all the possibilities of working together, she could taste the sugary-sweet flavor of a deal coming together. She wanted this one badly; she’d been chasing it for months.

  And then, there it was at last—he extended a hand. “Let’s make my lingerie customers even more satisfied,” he said, as he wrapped his fingers around hers. Excitement coursed through her and she wanted to pump her fist, to shout a victorious yes to the sky. Instead, she tamped it down. She knew how to behave like a grown-up.