I don’t even have time to digest that incredulous statement before he’s moved, lifting off of me, and when I would rise to follow, he flips me onto my stomach. Suddenly I’m across his lap and his hand is on my backside. I raise up on my elbows and look over at him. “What are you doing?” I ask, my heart racing.
He squeezes one of my cheeks. “Punishing you for making me obsess over your beautiful ass since the day I met you.”
“That’s not my fault. An ass for an ass and—”
He smacks my backside, not hard, but it stings and I yelp. “Reid!”
“And for tonight,” he repeats. “I’m punishing you for tonight.”
“I called you.”
His hand comes down on my lower back. “Flatten out. Lay down.”
“I’m not laying down.”
“I’m going to spank you,” he says. “Lay down.”
“Reid,” I bite out, “damn it.”
“You can say no,” he says. “You can always say no. Do so now and I’ll let you turn over.”
Do I want to say no? My answer comes shockingly fast. “I’m not saying no. Lord help me, I’m not saying no, but I’m just—I’ve never—”
He drags my legs out from under me and settles me flat on my hips, one hand settling on my lower back. “Relax,” he orders softly, his hand caresses my lower back, his palm traveling up my spine while the fingers of the other travel to my backside, sliding along my sex, and sink inside me. I pant with the intimate invasion that is there and gone. Then he’s patting my sex, over and over, and my God, it’s good. It’s sexy and erotic and it’s far more right than I’d ever imagined. I’m aroused. So very aroused. So very on the edge. Some part of me knows the spanking is coming, but I can’t think about that when I’m so close to coming. Only I don’t come. It comes. He stops patting my sex and I have one second of awareness before he spanks me, one fast palm that stings and then his fingers are back inside me, stroking me, teasing me. I’m panting when he spanks me again and then again. And then nothing. His hand just rests where it’s settled over my sex.
I suck in air, expecting another palm, wanting it, and wanting more, so much more. “Reid,” I breathe out in desperation and that must be what he was waiting for because it’s then that he acts.
He drags me off of his lap and then on top of him, straddling him, and before the impact of just being spanked by this man can fully hit me, he’s kissing me. A deep, passionate, drive-me-wild kiss and I have never needed a kiss like I need this one. I sink into it, into him, molding myself against him. I still need more, so much more. “Hold onto my neck,” he says. “Our only condom is in my nightstand. I’m going to stand up.”
His bedroom. I don’t seem to want to go there. I press my hands on his shoulders, leaning back to prevent him from getting up. “I’d tell you I’m on the pill and that I’m free of all things that might kill you or make your manly parts fall off, but then you’d have to actually trust me.” The statement is out before I realize that I’m now staring into those piercing blue eyes of his, and the dim lighting of the room does nothing to diminish their impact.
“You want me to trust you?”
“Yes,” I say, “but it’s not about this moment. It’s about all of them.”
His expression is that stone I know this man to be, the stone that is unbreakable, and I don’t know why I would think that would change for me. Abruptly, he rolls me to my back, his big body on top of mine and then he just stares down at me again, tension banding around him and us until he kisses me, hard and fast, and then orders, “Don’t move or I swear I’ll spank you again.”
He stands with that threat and I don’t disobey simply because I’m trying to catch my breath. But I can’t catch my breath. He’s undressing and is one hell of a specimen of a man, all sinewy muscle and perfection, and in about sixty seconds, he’s naked and returning to me. He comes down on top of me, the thick ridge of his erection jutting between my legs.
“Trust is a dangerous thing,” he says, his cock sliding along the slick line of my sex before he presses inside me, driving deep, burying himself to the hilt, as he adds, “You understand that, right?”
“And yet you’re not wearing a condom.”
“I keep breaking rules with you.” He rolls to his side and drags me with him, pulling my leg to his hip.
“I’m pretty sure getting spanked was my unknown, never-considered rule before now, as was not fucking assholes.”
He strokes hair from my face and tilts my face to his. “Did you like the spanking, Carrie?”
It’s in that moment that I realize after all of my fears of this man owning me, I laid across his lap and let him spank me, and have zero regrets. “Yes,” I say. “But that’s not the point.”
He shifts inside me and then pumps his hips. I pant and arch my back. “Then what is the point?”
“You,” I whisper because it’s my only coherent thought. “You push me, and I don’t know if I love it or hate it. Both. I think both.”
He drags my lips to his. “The feeling is mutual.” And with those words that I don’t even understand, his mouth closes down on mine again. His tongue presses past my lips and it’s a slow caress, a savoring, a shift in the mood. The anger is gone. The push and pull between us is all pull now. I don’t even know the moment we start moving, our bodies swaying, molded close, hands all over each other. I am lost in this man, in the contrast of the man who spanked me to the man that cradles me to him even as he thrusts inside me. I can feel him everywhere, goosebumps on my skin, my body hyper-sensitive to his every touch.
We build into a sudden urgent need, our bodies moving faster, his hand on my backside lifting me into the pumps of his hips and I both want what comes next and resist it at the same time. I don’t want this to end, but he cups my breasts and squeezes and I’m over the edge. My body stiffens and then I begin to quake. He moans, a deep guttural moan, and rolls me almost to my back with a hard thrust of his cock, and he too shudders and shakes.
I don’t know how long we are lost in that place of utter release and complete escape. I come back to the present, with me on my back, and him completely on top of me. And now comes that moment after, the one we’ve shared once before. The one that ended with him telling me to put on my clothes and leave. It’s what I expected of him then. It’s what I should expect now. Reid is Reid. No matter how good we just felt, I cannot let myself get emotional. He will hurt me. It may already be too late and I don’t know how I let this happen.
Feeling as if I’m suffocating in my own stupidity, I press on his chest. “I need up.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Carrie
“I need up, Reid,” I repeat when he doesn’t move.
“Hold on, baby,” he murmurs, the endearment rolling off his tongue in this intimate, warm way, that does crazy things to my stomach, and feels nothing like his arrogantly delivered “sweetheart” references.
He reaches over me and before I know his intent, he’s pressing tissues between my legs, and as silly as it seems, it feels more intimate than anything we’ve done so far. It drives home the absence of the condom, the undertone of asking for and giving trust between us. “Baby?”
He eases back to look at me. “Did that bother you?”
“Since when do you care what bothers me?”
“Answer, Carrie.”
“No,” I say. “It didn’t bother me. I just—we’re—just—I need a bathroom.” I roll away from him and sit up, tossing the tissue in a well-placed trashcan.
Reid is sitting next to me in a flash, snatching up my blouse as I reach for it and tossing it out of reach. “What are you doing?” I demand.
He grabs his shirt and settles it over my shoulders. “Making sure you stay.”
I glance over at him. “I don’t like an awkward morning after, and all of my things are in my apartment. I should just go now.”
“It won’t be awkward because this isn’t some drunken mistake. I was an asshole in the offi
ce.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“I was pissed at you.”
“Pissed at me?” I ask incredulously. “For what?”
“Because I was sure once I fucked you, my obsession with fucking you would end, but it didn’t.”
“So you were an ass to me,” I supply.
“Yes. I was pissed. But—I’m sorry.”
I blanch and rotate to face him. “Did you just apologize? And, with a bonus of you being naked while doing it?”
“I did, in fact, apologize while naked.” He reaches up and strokes hair behind my ear, the touch remarkably tender, his voice softer now. “We’ll get up early and I’ll walk you to your place so you can get ready.”
I catch his hand, needing to control what I can about where this is headed. “If I stay, then tomorrow morning, it’s over. We don’t do this anymore.”
“No,” he says. “I’m not going to say that. I’m not going to make you a promise I can’t keep. I already know that I’m not only going to want to touch you tomorrow. I’m going to touch you tomorrow, Carrie.”
“We’re supposed to be fucking each other out of our systems,” I remind him.
“And so we’ll keep trying.”
“You’re confusing me, Reid.”
“You and me both, baby.” He leans in and kisses me. “Stay. I want you to stay, and I want you to want to stay.”
He wants me to stay. I want to stay. I can’t seem to say the words, though. I can’t seem to get my head around what I’m doing with this man. But I’m staying. We both know that I’m staying. “Are you going to feed me if I stay?”
He laughs, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh, not like this, not natural and at ease. “Yes. I’ll feed you. I’m starving for food and you. There’s a sandwich place I love around the corner. They deliver.”
“Jersey’s?” I ask.
“Yes. Jersey’s. I can’t believe you knew that.”
“I love it, too.”
“Well then. You go to the bathroom. It’s to the left by the stairs. I’ll order.”
“Great. Thank you.” I stand up, holding his giant shirt closed around me and I start walking, only now aware of the long, rectangular-shaped room with windows that literally climb the room to the second floor.
“What do you want?” he calls after me.
“Tell them to make Carrie’s usual,” I say over my shoulder without turning or looking out the window. I just want a bathroom and a few minutes to myself.
I reach the door, enter, and shut myself inside. I lean on the door, taking in the long mahogany cabinet beneath a shiny white countertop with a mirror above it. I look down at myself in Reid’s shirt and I have a come-to-Jesus moment. I like being in his shirt way too much. I like being here with him way too much, but I’m not a relationship person and neither is he. Reid and I connect professionally and sexually. There is no reason I can’t just enjoy this ride. That’s how you enjoy a man like Reid, as an adrenaline ride that can be sustained. I’m not falling for him. I’m living the high of the ride. The end. I will not go anyplace else with this.
I drop the shirt, pee, wash up, run my fingers through the wild mess that is my hair, and that’s it. I’m not going to give myself a chance to think beyond the logic I’ve established. I’m going to enjoy Reid. I want to know Reid. I can learn from this man. I have never been with a man who I admired and wanted, to learn from. It’s sexy. It’s part of his allure. I pull his shirt back into place the best I can and when I open the door Reid is standing there, wearing nothing but his unzipped pants, beautifully naked from the waist up. He lifts a T-shirt in his hand to show it to me. “This won’t be so big on you and you can actually use your hands to eat.”
He brought me a T-shirt? “Thank you,” I say.
“Drop the shirt you’re wearing.”
“Just like that? Drop the shirt?”
His eyes burn hot with challenge. “Just like that.”
“Fine. Just like that.” I let it fall from my shoulders and pool on the floor behind me. I am now naked but for my thigh highs, and Reid sweeps my body, his gaze hot and heavy, my nipples puckering beneath the inspection. He groans low in his throat and drags me to him. “You’re beautiful. Really fucking beautiful.”
I can’t breathe with the intensity in his voice that is almost anger. Like he doesn’t want to feel whatever he feels, and I wonder if we’re headed toward him suddenly wanting me to leave, but then he’s kissing me, a sultry stroke of tongue before he says, “I’m not even close to done with you, woman.”
“And if I’m done with you?”
“I’ll lick you until you aren’t.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “You say—”
“The truth. I told the truth. That’s what I’ll do. And if we don’t get you dressed, I’ll be fucking you when the food gets here.” He kisses me again and pulls the shirt over my head. I shove my arms inside right about the time his phone rings from the living room.
He grimaces and runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it in a spiky sexy mess. “For once I’d like to ignore that damn thing,” he says. “But I have to get it.”
“Of course you have to get it.”
“And you understand that,” he says, and this must please him because his hands come down on my waist and he pulls me to him, kissing me hard and fast before releasing me to chase down his phone somewhere near the couch.
For just a moment, I scan the room I’ve barely noticed because of the man that consumes it and me. The large gray cloth couch a shade darker than the floor, the one where I just had an orgasm, is the entry of the room, framed by cream-colored chairs that are leather to contrast the gray. There’s a gray rug under the couch. The coffee and end tables match the chairs. Cluster lighting dangles just above the seating area, resembling diamond raindrops in the sky. It’s appropriately Reid in its simple masculinity while I don’t believe there is anything simple about this man beyond this room.
I move forward, intending to join Reid where he’s now standing by the couch on the phone. Instead, I find myself stepping to the window just in front of the living area, staring at the Statue of Liberty alight in the center of a now black sea. My stomach knots with about ten emotions, all personal, all about where I am in life right now at this moment.
“Tomorrow,” Reid says to whoever he’s talking to. “No, Gabe. I’m not dealing with this tonight. Tomorrow. I’m hanging up now.” I sense rather than know that he does just that, and in a few beats, he is standing beside me, his hand stroking down my hair.
“Problem?” I ask, glancing over at him.
“My fucking brother is always a problem.”
“Gabe?” I ask, turning to face him.
“Yes Gabe. He has no limits. Not where I’m concerned.”
“It’s just him and a sister, right? You don’t have any other siblings?”
“We have a younger brother, who lives in Texas. He’s also completely removed from the family business. He’s a civil engineer which is a blessing. Gabe manages to be a pain in my ass enough as it is.” He pulls me to him, hands shackling my waist. “Forget Gabe. What were you thinking when I just joined you?”
“I don’t think I’ll share that,” I say, my hand settling on his chest.
“Why?”
“It’s my own personal baggage. It’s not for you, Reid.”
“What if I want it to be?”
“But you don’t. You just think you do because we’re in the moment. Tomorrow changes everything.”
“We had this discussion. Tomorrow changes nothing. What were you thinking?”
“I love your view, Reid,” I say.
He narrows his eyes at me. “And you’re comparing my view to yours?”
“Yes,” not sure how he reads me this easily but maybe that’s part of how he’s made so much money, and he’s under forty. He’s a good poker player. He reads people.
“I have years on you, baby. You know that, right?”
“Yes. I do. I know.”
His hand goes to my face and he tilts my gaze to his. “You don’t have to sell your apartment. You aren’t going to lose your job. We’re going to make a lot of money together.”
“I really hate that you had me investigated.”
“It was before we were personal. You know that, too.”
“That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“You aren’t selling your apartment.”
“I am, and I’ll buy another later,” I say, “more like this one.”
“I’ll make your apartment part of the deal when they sign you as CEO. We’ll pay it off.”
“No,” I say immediately. “No, I’m not some sort of kept woman, Reid. I will earn what I get.”
“Kept woman? The board will award it to you and you take every perk you can get. You think that you won’t be earning it?”
“I think you’ll earn it. I think you’ll make it happen. You thought I betrayed you tonight for a reason.”
“What does that mean, Carrie?”
“You know what it means. I had the chance to sweep control and I didn’t take it, but you would have and that’s why you have this apartment and I’m selling mine.”
“You’re seeing this with the wrong eyes.”
“Exactly,” I say. “If you were me, would you have taken it?”
His expression hardens. “Not with you.”
“But with someone else?”
“Not with you.”
The doorbell rings. “That’s our food.” He kisses me. “We’re doing this together for a reason. I can’t do it without you. I’ll teach you how to swim with the sharks and win. And no, you don’t have to be as brutal as I am.”
“Why wouldn’t you demand that I be exactly as brutal as you?”
“Because I want you to stay you and you’ll be better for it.” The doorbell rings again. “I’ll be right back.”