“I know. Thank you.”
As he left my office, I sat back in my chair. There were a number of women in my past who might cause problems for me with my wife. The women I’d slept with were aggressive by nature, ones who put me in the position of needing to take the upper hand. Eva was the only woman who’d ever grabbed the lead and made me want more.
It was getting harder to let her be away from me, not easier.
“The team from Envoy is here,” Scott said through the speaker.
“Send them in.”
—
I powered through my day, wrapping up the week’s agenda and laying the groundwork for more to come. There was a lot I needed to get off my plate before I could take time off with Eva. Our daylong honeymoon had been perfect, but far too short. I wanted at least two weeks away with her, preferably a month. Someplace far away from work and other commitments, where I could have her all to myself with no interruptions.
My smartphone vibrated on my desktop and I looked at it, surprised to see my sister’s face on the screen. I’d texted Ireland earlier to let her know about the engagement. Her reply had been a short and simple, Yay! Stoked. Congrats, bro!
I’d barely answered the call with a quick hello when she cut me off.
“I’m so fucking excited!” she yelled, forcing me to pull the phone away from my ear.
“Watch the mouth.”
“Are you kidding? I’m seventeen, not seven. This is so awesome. I’ve wanted a sister forever, but figured I’d be old and gray before you and Christopher stopped bouncing around and settled down.”
I sat back in my chair. “I live to serve.”
“Ha. Yeah, right. You done good, you know. Eva’s a keeper.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Thanks to her, I get to harass you now. Always a highlight of my day.”
My chest tightened, forcing me to take a minute before I could reply in an easy tone of voice. “Oddly enough, it’s a highlight of mine as well.”
“Well, yeah. It should be.” Her voice lowered. “I heard Mom losing her shit over it earlier. She told Dad she went to your work and you guys got in a fight or something. I think she’s kinda jealous. She’ll get over it.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine.”
“I know. It just sucks that she couldn’t keep it together today of all days. Anyway, I’m thrilled and wanted you to know that.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not going to be the flower girl. I’m too old for that. I’m up for being a bridesmaid, though. Even a groomswoman or whatever. Just sayin’.”
“All right.” My mouth curved. “I’ll pass that along to Eva.”
I’d just hung up when Scott buzzed through my office line.
“Miss Tramell is here,” he announced, making me realize how late in the day it was. “And, as a reminder, your videoconference with the development team in California is in five minutes.”
Pushing back from the desk, I saw Eva round the corner and come into view. I could watch her walk for hours. She had a sway to her hips that made me ache to fuck her and a determined tilt to her chin that challenged every dominant instinct I had.
I wanted to fist her ponytail in my hand, take her mouth, and grind against her. Just the way I’d wanted to the first time I saw her. And every time since.
“Send along the proposal deck to the team,” I told Scott. “Tell them to review and I’ll join in shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eva swept through the door.
“Eva.” I stood. “How was your day?”
She rounded the desk, then grabbed me by the tie.
I was instantly hard and totally focused on her.
“I fucking love you,” she said, before yanking my mouth down to meet hers.
I hooked one arm around her waist and felt around for the opacity controls with my other hand, all the while letting her kiss me as if she owned me. Which she did. Absolutely.
The feel of her lips against mine and the unmistakable possessiveness of her actions were exactly what I needed after the day I’d had. Holding her close, I turned and half-sat on the edge of the desk, pulling her in between my thighs. I could say it was a more secure way to hold her, but honestly, my knees were weak.
Her kisses did that to me. Did what three hours of sparring with my trainer couldn’t do.
Inhaling through the rising lust, I breathed her in, allowing the delicate fragrance of her perfume and the provocative scent that was hers alone to intoxicate me. Her lips were soft and damp against mine, demanding in the subtlest of ways. Her tongue licked delicately, savoring, teasing and arousing me effortlessly.
Eva kissed me as if I were the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted, a flavor she craved and was helplessly addicted to. The feeling was heady and had become necessary. I lived for her kisses.
When she kissed me, I knew I belonged right where I was.
Tilting her head, she moaned into my mouth, a soft sound of pleasure and surrender. Her fingers were in my hair, sliding through it, tugging it. That sensation of being caught—claimed—challenged me on the deepest level. I drew her closer, until the firmness of her belly pressed against the hardness of my erection.
My dick was throbbing, aching.
“You’ll make me come,” I murmured. All the effort I’d once had to expend to become aroused enough to orgasm was unnecessary with my wife. The fact that she existed stirred my blood. The strength of her desire was enough to set me off.
She leaned back slightly, breathless like me. “I don’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t, either, if I didn’t have a meeting waiting.”
“I don’t want to hold you up. I just want to thank you for what you said to my dad.”
Smiling, I gave her ass a two-handed squeeze. “My lawyer said I’d score major points for that.”
“Work was so busy, and I didn’t have a chance to call him until lunch. I was so worried he’d hear about our engagement before I could tell him.” She shoved at my shoulder. “You could’ve given me a heads-up that you were announcing it to the world!”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t planned, but I wasn’t going to deny it when asked.”
Her lips twisted wryly. “Of course not. Did you see that ridiculous post about a baby bump?”
“A frightening thought at this point,” I said, trying to keep my tone light despite the sudden rush of alarm I felt. “I’m planning on keeping you all to myself for a while.”
“I know, right?” She shook her head. “I was freaked out that my dad would think I was engaged and pregnant, and just couldn’t be bothered to let him know. It was such a relief to call him and find out you’d explained everything and smoothed the way.”
“My pleasure.” I would set the world on fire to clear a path for her, if that’s what it took.
Her hands went to work unbuttoning my vest. My brows arched in silent query, but I wasn’t going to stop her.
“I haven’t even left yet, and I’m missing you already,” she said quietly, straightening my tie.
“Don’t go.”
“If I were just going to hole up with Cary for a bit, I’d do it here at home and not in San Diego.” She lifted her gaze to my face. “But he’s a head case over Tatiana being pregnant. Plus, I need to spend time with my dad. Especially now.”
“Is there something you should be telling me?”
“No. He sounded good when I talked to him, but I think he was hoping we’d have more time together before I got married. To him, it seems like you and I just met.”
I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but I couldn’t. “And we can’t forget Kline.”
Her jaw hardened. She dropped her attention back to where her fingers were buttoning my vest. “I’m leaving soon. I don’t want to fight again.”
I caught her hands. “Eva. Look at me.”
Staring into her stormy eyes, I felt the tug in my chest: a slow wrenching that could turn me upside down. She h
adn’t stopped being angry with me, and I couldn’t stand it. “You still don’t understand what you do to me. How crazy you make me.”
“Don’t give me that. You shouldn’t have brought up Corinne the way you did.”
“Maybe not. But be honest, you brought up Kline this morning because you’re worried about seeing him.”
“I’m not worried!”
“Angel.” I gave her a patient look. “You’re worried. I don’t think you’d sleep with him, but I do think you’re anxious about crossing a line you shouldn’t. You needed a strong reaction from me, so you were blunt and you got it. You needed to see what it would do to me. How just the thought of you with him makes me insane.”
“Gideon.” She gripped my biceps. “Nothing is going to happen.”
“I’m not making excuses.” I brushed my fingertips across her cheek. “I hurt you and I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. I wanted to avoid causing any problems and they happened anyway.”
I knew she regretted our fight. I could see it in her eyes. “We’re learning as we go. We’ll fuck up now and again. You just have to trust me, angel.”
“I have, Gideon. It’s why we’ve gotten so far. But the fact that you’d hurt me at all—on purpose . . .” She shook her head and I could see how what I’d said was eating at her. “You were always supposed to be the one I could count on to never hurt me deliberately.”
Hearing her doubt her trust in me was a hard blow. I took the hit, then explained myself the way I’d only ever done with her. I would explain anything, talk for hours, write the promise in blood . . . if that was what it took to make her believe in me.
“There’s a difference between deliberation and malicious intent, wouldn’t you agree?” I cupped her face in my hands. “I promise I’ll never cause you pain just to hurt you. Don’t you see that I’m just as vulnerable? You have the same power to hurt me.”
Her face softened, became even more stunning. “I wouldn’t.”
“But I did. You’ll have to forgive me.”
She stepped back. “I hate when you use that tone of voice.”
Inclined toward self-preservation, I didn’t allow the smile I felt to show. “But it makes you wet.”
Tossing a glare at me over her shoulder, Eva moved to the window and stood in the same spot I’d occupied that morning. Her ponytail showed off her beauty—and left her no way to conceal her emotions. Hot color rose in her cheeks.
Did she know how often I thought about tying her up when she was riled like this? Not to cage her or leash her, but to hold that vibrant energy of hers, that lust for life I’d never learned to have. She gave that to me, surrendered it fully.
“Don’t try to control me with sex, Gideon,” she said with her back to me.
“I don’t want to control you at all.”
“You manipulate me. You do things . . . say things . . . just to get a particular response out of me.”
My arms crossed as I remembered her kissing Kline. “As do you, which we just discussed.”
She faced me. “I’m allowed to, I’m a woman.”
“Ah.” I smiled then. “I knew that.”
“You’re such an enigma to me.” She sighed and I could see her letting the lingering resentment go. “But you’ve got me pegged. You know all my buttons and just how to push them.”
“If you think I don’t spend a good percentage of every day trying to figure you out, you’re not paying attention. Think about that while I handle this meeting, and then we’ll say good-bye properly.”
As I sat in my chair, her gaze followed me. I adjusted the fit of my headset and paused when I realized she was staring. She liked looking at me. And hers was the only avid hunger that had ever made me feel good about myself. I’d never had the knee-jerk defensive reaction to her sexual interest that others provoked. She made me feel loved and wanted in a way that wasn’t the least threatening.
“Watching you get into business mode makes me hot,” she explained, her voice just husky enough to prevent me from fully focusing on work. “Sexy as hell.”
My lips twisted wryly. “Angel, behave for fifteen minutes.”
“What would be the fun in that? Besides, you like me bad.”
Damn straight.
“Fifteen minutes,” I reiterated. Considering I’d planned for the meeting to take close to an hour, that was a major concession.
“Do what you have to do.” Eva stopped by my chair and bent over like a pinup girl to breathe in my ear. “I’ll find something to occupy myself with while you’re on the phone playing with your millions.”
My cock was abruptly, painfully hard. She had said something similar to me when we’d first started dating, and I had dreamed of it in the weeks since.
I would have told her to wait, but I knew she wouldn’t. She had a determined look in her eye and a taunting swing to her hips as she circled my desk. I’d fucked up and she wanted to get a piece of her own back. Some couples punished each other with pain or deprivation. Eva and I, we punished each other with pleasure.
The moment she stepped out of view, I logged into the meeting without activating my camera and I muted my microphone. All half-dozen participants were actively discussing the materials Scott had provided. I gave them a moment to register that I’d logged in . . .
. . . and used the time to stand and open my fly.
Eva kicked off her heels. “Good. It’ll go easier on you if you cooperate.”
“You don’t actually believe having your mouth wrapped around my dick while I’m on a videoconference is going to be easy at any level.” Even then, the team in California was chiming in with greetings through my headset. I ignored them for the moment, thinking only of what was about to happen right there in my office.
Only weeks ago the possibility that I’d play while working would’ve been nonexistent. If Eva had been wired any differently, I would’ve made her wait until I had the time and attention to devote fully to her.
But my angel was a dangerous lover, one who got off on the thrill of being this close to discovery. I would never have known I enjoyed that edge if not for her. There were times I wanted to fuck her for the entire world to see, so it would be known definitively how completely I possessed her.
Her grin was pure wickedness. “If you liked things easy, you wouldn’t have married me.”
And I was going to marry her again, as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be the last time. We’d be renewing our vows often, reminding each other that we made a promise to be together forever, no matter what life threw at us.
Lowering gracefully to her knees on the far side of my desk, Eva set her hands on the floor and prowled toward me like a lioness on the hunt. Through the smoked-glass surface of my desktop, I watched her move into place, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.
Anticipation coursed through me, the rush of the challenge and erotic expectation. Everything about my wife gave me pleasure, but her mouth was in a class by itself. She sucked me off as if she were starved for my cum, as if the taste were something she was hooked on. Eva gave me head because she loved it. Watching me unravel while she did it was just a bonus.
I adjusted the spread of my fly and pushed down the waistband of my boxer briefs, studying her face as I revealed how she’d affected me. Her lips parted as her breath quickened, her body shifting back until she was sitting on her heels like a supplicant.
Settling into my chair, I absorbed the unaccustomed feeling of restraint around my thighs and the pull of elastic beneath my balls. My reaction was swift and unpleasant, the sensation of being bound dredging up memories I kept ruthlessly buried.
Reconsidering, I started to roll back in my desk chair, my heart rate rising . . .
Eva swallowed me.
“Fuck,” I hissed, my fingers digging into the armrests as her fingers dug into my hips.
The rush of wet heat over the sensitive crown of my cock was shockingly intense. Hard suction tightened around me and a satin-soft tongu
e massaged the perfect spot. Through the pounding of my heart, I heard the team questioning whether my webcam and headset were working properly . . .
Straightening my spine, I slid forward and activated my feeds. “Excuse the delay,” I said briskly as Eva took more of me. “Now that you’ve had the chance to review the deck, let’s discuss the steps you’ll be taking to implement the recommended adjustments.”
Eva hummed her approval and the vibration reverberated through me. I was hard enough to drive nails and her slender fingers were teasing me, stroking with just enough pressure to make me want more.
Tim Henderson, the project manager and team leader, spoke first. I could barely focus, seeing him more from memory than the monitor in front of me. A tall, painfully thin man with pale skin and a wild mane of dark curls, he liked to talk, which was a blessing considering how dry my mouth had become.
“I’d like more time to review this,” he began, “but off the cuff, I’m thinking this is a seriously accelerated schedule. Some of this is great and I’m excited about seeing what we can do with it, but phasing into consumer beta testing is at least a year away, not six months.”
“That’s what you told me six months ago,” I reminded him, my fist clenching as Eva took my cock to the back of her throat. Sweat bloomed on the back of my neck when she pulled off, her mouth a hot velvet suction.
“We lost our top designer to LanCorp—”
“And I offered a replacement, which you declined.”
Henderson’s jaw tightened. He was a coding genius with a brilliant creative mind, but he didn’t play well with others and was resistant to outside intervention. That would be his prerogative . . . if he weren’t eating my time and money.
“A creative team is a delicate balance,” he argued. “You can’t just plug a random person into the void. We’ve got the right man on the job now—”
“Thank you,” Jeff Simmons interjected, his angular face breaking into a grin at the praise.
“—and we’re making progress,” Tim went on. “We—”
“—keep blowing through your self-imposed deadlines.” My tone was gruffer than I intended due to my wife’s wickedly agile tongue. Soft, playful licks from root to tip were driving me half out of my mind. My thighs ached with strain, the muscles hardened by the force it took to keep me in my chair. She was following the line of every sensitive vein, stroking over the throbbing ridges with the flat of her tongue.