Twisted (Delirium #1) by Cara Carnes

“Ten minutes. Whatever I want.”
    I gasped. Seriously? I was being bartered. “Hey, guys, I…” Bets held up her hand to silence me. Mortified, I hid my face in my hands and willed the floor to open and take me on the world’s longest elevator ride to China.
    “Five minutes and ewwww I work here.” Chuckles burst around us.
    “Done.”
    My pulse banged in my ears, a lump formed in my throat. They’d gone completely insane. I shook my head in disbelief. Bets smirked as she stashed the wad of ill-gotten loot in the can. “Nice doing business with you, Mr. Douglas. Next time it’s gonna cost you.”
    “I’ll make sure to bring my banker next time.”
    Bets relocated to stand beside me and reached beneath the register. She set a white timer on the counter. “She’s all yours, Twisted Nickel.”
    “Twisted Nickel?” Caleb asked.
    She shrugged. “It made sense in my head.”
    He chuckled and made his way to me as though nothing weird had gone down, like he hadn’t bartered for my time in a room filled with paparazzi determined to spread my business across the world because I’d somehow become the yummiest thing going since Nutella.
    “Okay people. You’ve got five minutes to show me the money. For all you cheap asses, line ‘em up over to the right and I’ll handle y’all now. There ain’t much I can’t answer about the two of them and their history.”
    “Oh really?” Caleb whispered against my cheek as he ran his hand along my side. “Your girl seems pretty confident she knows everything. Does she?”
    I waited until he’d dragged me through the double doors, down the hall and pressed me against the wall of the barely-there break room to settle my hand on his chest. Anticipation threaded through me. “She’s my BFF.”
    “I guess I’d better get to work on giving you some more to share.” He lifted me up and suddenly we were moving. Cold metal pressed against my thighs as he placed me on the lone table. Pleasure danced across my flesh wherever his fingers stroked, pinched and teased their way along my body.
    Our tongues, tangled, dueling for control I knew would never exist between us. Even though he hadn’t said so, he was as twisted up in whatever existed between him and me as I was.  Cool metal pressed against my ass when he lifted my skirt.
    I grabbed at his belt, and fumbled with the button on his jeans. I growled my frustration. “No more buttons.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” I shivered when he breathed along my neck and drew my panties down. “No more underwear.”
    “Yes, sir.” Deft fingers slid across my pussy.
    “So wet for me.”   I worked at his buttons again, but he stilled my progress. “Don’t. Next time.”
    I gasped when he plunged two digits into me. Thrusting myself against his hand shamelessly, I grabbed for him and claimed his mouth. Each powerful thrust fueled my need, commanded my body. Desire spiraled through me, threatening to consume me whole. I clutched Caleb. Lost within the whirlwind of need he’d swept me into, I ceded full control to him.
    “Caleb.”
    My muscles tensed beneath the onslaught of pleasure rippling through me. Memories of last night tumbled through my mind as I fucked his fingers, wishing he’d given me more, craving more than five hastily-turned minutes ticking away on an egg timer run by a well-meaning BFF with a goddess complex reigning over a village of paparazzi with me as the sacrificial focal point.
    Even though I knew vultures loomed a mere couple hundred steps from where we were, I clung to the brief euphoria Caleb dragged out of me with each sensuous glide of his fingers into me. Unable to hold out any longer, I soared into the haze whitening out the intruding reality awaiting me.
    I basked in the delirium as he swallowed my cries of pleasure with a hungered need flowing smoother than a shot of top-grade tequila, slow and hot. Battling to return to a steady diet of breath in, breath out, I severed the kiss and allowed myself to