Fair Game Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Teaser chapter

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF

  Jasmine Haynes

  “Deliciously erotic and completely captivating.”

  —Susan Johnson, New York Times bestselling author

  “An erotic, emotional adventure of discovery you don’t want to miss.”

  —Lora Leigh, New York Times bestselling author

  “So incredibly hot that I’m trying to find the right words to describe it without having to be edited for content . . . extremely stimulating from the first page to the last! Of course, that means that I loved it! . . . One of the hottest, sexiest erotic books I have read so far.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “Sexy.”

  —Sensual Romance Reviews

  “Delightfully torrid.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “More than a fast-paced erotic romance, this is a story of family, filled with memorable characters who will keep you engaged in the plot and the great sex. A good read to warm a winter’s night.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Bursting with sensuality and eroticism.”

  —In the Library Reviews

  “The passion is intense, hot, and purely erotic . . . recommended for any reader who likes their stories realistic, hot, captivating, and very, very well written.”

  —Road to Romance

  “Not your typical romance. This one’s going to remain one of my favorites.”

  —The Romance Studio

  “Jasmine Haynes keeps the plot moving and the love scenes very hot.”

  —Just Erotic Romance Reviews

  “A wonderful novel . . . Try this one—you won’t be sorry.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Berkley Books by Jasmine Haynes

  FAIR GAME

  UNLACED

  (with Jaci Burton, Jasmine Haynes, and Denise Rossetti)

  SHOW AND TELL

  THE FORTUNE HUNTER

  OPEN INVITATION

  TWIN PEAKS

  (with Susan Johnson)

  SOMEBODY’S LOVER

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Skullestad.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / June 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haynes, Jasmine.

  Fair game / Jasmine Haynes.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-05378-2

  1. Sexual dominance and submission—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.A936F35 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2008055289

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Dee S. Knight

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Jenn Cummings, Terri Schaefer, and Kathy Coatney for always being there to keep me straight. To my agent, Lucienne Diver, and my editor, Wendy Mc-Curdy. I’d also like to thank the people at Graniterock, especially Don Roland, for all the time he spent showing me around the Quail Hollow Sand Plant. What a great tour guide! Any adjustments to the actual workings of a sand plant were made for the sake of expediency.

  1

  KYLE Perry was running late. He could have jogged the five miles across San Francisco from his home to the office faster than he’d been able to drive it. In fact, that’s often what he did when he was in town, except that today he had a morning meeting at the office, then a trip up to the Santa Rosa quarry in the early afternoon. Mondays were always a bitch. He was either catching a flight out, driving to a site, or prepping for endless meetings.

  He made it into the garage elevator just before the doors closed on the cramped car, and ducked around a delivery man to hit the button for the thirty-fifth floor. At lobby level, there was a mass exodus and an equal influx.

  Kyle moved to the rear, allowing room for the crush of new arrivals. Backing into him, a young woman knocked his knee with her notebook PC case. She turned her head enough to apologize, and he got an impression of green eyes and pink lipstick. She dragged the computer case in front of her to avoid hitting him again.

  In the pack of overheated bodies, she smelled damn good. Not perfumy, but fresh, like flowers or fruits, something natural and outdoorsy. Dark hair grazed the collar of her black suit jacket, curling softly. A tantalizing patch of nape peeked through. Some women were incredibly sensitive right there. A flick of the tongue, a light kiss, even a warm puff of breath could make them a little crazy.

  Kyle loved women, he loved sex, and he enjoyed the occasional flight of harmless fancy about a complete stranger a man might see on the street. Or in an elevator. The top of her head was level with his nose, her scent tantalizing his mind as he drew in the sweetness. That sliver of skin just above her collar made him hard.

  The car jolted to a stop a couple of floors up, throwing her off balance and right into him, his cock gliding along the base of her spine. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe, waiting for her to jerk away.

  Instead, she remained perfectly still. The crush in the elevator eased by two, but she didn’t add even an inch of distance between them.

  He closed his eyes a long moment and dragged in a deep breath of her, filling himself with her sensual fragrance. He felt her shift slightly, her ba
ckside caressing him. Or was that only in his mind? Hell no, that was her ass cradling his balls, her body rubbing his cock. One, two, three times. It was no accident.

  Kyle dared to lay two fingers on her hip, just at the waist of her slacks, his touch hidden from view by her jacket. Everyone watched the tick of floors going by, waiting for theirs to come up. No one noticed where he’d placed his hand.

  Except her. When the car stopped once again, she was flush up against him. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, feel the heat of her body seeping through his fingertips straight to his chest.

  And he scented her. Like a lion scenting his mate’s heat, something feminine and musky. He’d bet the world that her panties were damp beneath the staid black suit.

  More floors, the press of her body increasing against him. Then he felt the unmistakable slide of her hand between them. He was hard as a pylon. She cupped him, fit his cock into her palm, held him, gave a gentle squeeze. His eyes drifted shut as he relished her touch, her stroking him, taking full measure of him. He was ready to taste her, ready to take her, caught up in a fantasy of going to his knees and flicking his tongue between her legs. She would taste sweet, and her moans of pleasure would bring him to the brink. As she cried out in orgasm, he’d lift her up against the elevator wall, thrust inside her, high, deep, and come harder than he ever had before . . . The elevator stopped.

  Her body heat faded. She didn’t even turn around to see exactly whose cock she’d touched. She merely exited the car and turned right down the hall. Disappearing as the doors closed, she left him alone with six other people who didn’t have a clue what she’d just done to him.

  Turned his world upside down. Shattered his equilibrium. Damn, it was hot. He’d never see her again. Never know exactly what she looked like, just dark hair, green eyes, pink lipstick, black business suit; her fresh scent; and a hand that had the potential to take his cock to heaven.

  As the elevator stopped yet again, Kyle realized he’d missed his floor. He had to laugh. A day that had gotten off to a bad start was suddenly looking up.

  HEH. Well. That was sweet. Josie smiled to herself as she pushed through the double doors of SMG Industries’ high-rise San Francisco headquarters. Inside the lobby lay a gleaming black tile floor leading to a waist-high receptionist’s desk, the blond girl seated behind it almost hidden by her computer monitor.

  Josie had started off the morning commute in a really bad mood. Ernie Masters, her boss and the head of Program Management at Castle Heavy Mining, had called her cell on the way into the city this morning and told her he wasn’t going to make the meeting with SMG. No way, no how. She’d have to handle it on her own. Which was fine, except that Ernie had all the hard copies of her presentation. Dammit, she knew she should have taken care of the packets. You want it done right, do it yourself. It pissed her off to no end that he’d cancelled at the absolute last minute; otherwise, she could have gone into the office early and printed more. SMG Industries was a first-time customer for Castle, and this project was a major machine upgrade for SMG’s Coyote Ridge Sand Plant, one of their quarries out in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Being Castle’s lead program manager on the quarry project, Josie wanted to make a good impression.

  Because of that, her blood had been running high when she stepped into the elevator. Maybe that was the reason she’d done it. Or maybe it was because she was damned horny, not having had sex in at least two weeks. Whatever the reason, when she’d felt his hard-on at her back, she couldn’t resist touching. She’d caught a glimpse of his face when she stepped on the elevator. Short brown hair, blue eyes, older, late thirties she’d say, with a body she wouldn’t mind climbing. Not that she was into casual sex with strangers. She preferred casual sex with men she knew.

  He’d just felt so damn good. A hot, hard male. She couldn’t help herself, and he’d been pretty damn impressive in her hand. Ooh, baby.

  Maybe she’d see him again on the way out. Nice thought. The final result, though, was that she’d lost her ire with Masters. Whatever. He wouldn’t make it. Fine. SMG was her most ambitious project to date, and now the meeting was all hers. She’d get to shine.

  Setting her PC case on the reception desk, she smiled down at the girl.

  Rolling her chair away from her monitor, the blonde adjusted her headset and returned Josie’s smile. Her bright blue sweater matched her eyes, and the fuzzy glittering white snowflake on it showcased her chest. Cute sweater. Except that it was August, not December. Josie read her nameplate. Kisa Korsakov. Kisa? She stifled an inappropriate laugh. Perhaps back in Russia it was cold in August. “Hi, I’m Josie Tybrook. I’ve got a nine o’clock meeting.”

  “Vould you please sign our visitor’s log?” the girl said with a thick yet understandable accent as she pointed to the clipboard on the counter. “And your meeting vas vith whom?”

  Before Josie could answer, the lobby doors opened once again and Kisa turned all sloe-eyed and sultry, her husky voice somehow managing to drop another sexy octave. “Good morning, Mr. Perry.” She flipped her waist-length blond hair over her shoulder. “Vhat a magnificent tie you are vearing too-day.”

  Josie turned in the direction of the magnificent tie. She hadn’t noticed the tie—which was a simple red-and-black stripe—on the elevator, only the hot body. And the hard cock. Oh shit. That was Mr. Perry?

  “Thank you, Kisa.” He said it with the slightest edge of indulgent laughter, his gaze on Josie as he spoke.

  Kisa glanced down at her small yet perky breasts beneath the white snowflake. “And I’m vearing your favorite sweater too-day, too.” She batted her eyelashes.

  “So you are.” The edge of his mouth kicked up.

  Josie had to hang on to the counter to keep from falling over with laughter, both at the interesting little exchange and at herself. Kyle Perry. Wouldn’t ya know the guy she copped a feel off of in a crowded elevator would turn out to be the very man with whom she was meeting? She could hear her mother’s voice: “I don’t know how you get yourself into these messes, Josie.” Well, hell, she’d been out to impress, and she certainly had.

  She didn’t introduce herself. If he had any intelligence, he’d already figured out she was his nine o’clock appointment, the program manager on the Coyote Ridge project. She’d be working with him for the next three months while the new equipment and systems were installed, tested, and qualified.

  So. Just how would he handle the meeting after their elevator interlude? She couldn’t wait to find out.

  AS Josie Tybrook flipped to another screen in her presentation, Kyle leaned back in his chair, stacking his hands behind his head.

  At the conference room’s sideboard, Todd Adams, the sand plant’s superintendent, poured himself another cup of coffee, drinking in every word Josie said. He closed the blinds against a glare that played across the screen, then took his seat at the big oak table.

  Seated next to Todd, Will Stevens, head of Machine Maintenance for the quarry, relaxed in his chair, one booted foot propped on his knee. He gave off his usual air of nonchalance, but the guy had an almost photographic memory. Show him a diagram once, and he could practically redraw the thing blindfolded. His genius was machinery.

  Josie appeared to impress them both. When he’d first heard she was the daughter of one of Castle’s board members, he’d had his misgivings. Connor Kingston had assured him she was good, and gave an extraordinary attention to detail. The purpose of this meeting was to update the SMG team on subcontractors and outside suppliers to be used, scheduling, installation, training, debugging— especially for the new ticketing system—and a host of other particulars Josie was in charge of coordinating. Castle Heavy Mining would do the major portion of the equipment manufacturing, but on a project of this magnitude, there were myriad components that had to come from outside.

  Listening to her, Kyle now agreed with Castle’s CEO; Josie was very good. And in ways he was sure Connor Kingston didn’t even know about.

  “We’ve chose
n Wilson Products for all the electronics, including the depth finder and the electronic eyes on both the load-out system and the weigh station,” she was saying. “We used them on the Dominican project last year with excellent results.”

  She had a low, sweet voice, perfect for whispering dirty words in the dark of the night. Or over the phone. She’d apologized for her manager’s absence without casting blame and didn’t twitch or flush when Kyle introduced himself. For all her acknowledgment of it, or lack thereof, what happened in the elevator might have been nothing more than his flight of fancy about a pretty woman. She knew her stuff, too. She’d learned the ins and outs of SMG’s silica mining, researched the suppliers best suited for the company’s machine upgrade designs, and set up an aggressive yet manageable timetable. She wasn’t merely a pretty face or the daughter of a board member.

  And he wanted her. After that hot little elevator episode, when he saw the woman in the lobby, his heart kick-started. He’d had to enter with his suit jacket buttoned to hide his cock. Kisa, their receptionist, didn’t miss a thing, and she’d have thought the hard-on was for her and her snowflake sweater. He’d complimented the garment once. She’d started wearing it at least twice a month after that and pointed it out to him every time she did. Or perhaps she was pointing out her breasts.

  All he’d really had eyes for in the lobby this morning was Josie Tybrook. Smart, confident, understated, primly suited up in black business attire. Yet he could still feel the phantom press of her hand on his cock.