“Yes,” Reid says, his voice absolute. “She is. The board wanted her father out. They wanted her to stay long enough for me to sell the business for fast, big money. I even had an offer on the table, but then I met Carrie and I knew we could do better and she most certainly deserved better. If we can hit certain goals, she’ll take over the controlling interest that was once her father’s. Carrie is a worthy investment for us both. And I might not be Jean Claude, but I have enough of him left in me not to make a decision based on who I’m fucking.”
“Just who you can fuck?” Grayson challenges. “Because Elijah has plenty to say about that. He wants you out and her in, now.” He looks at me. “What do you think about Elijah’s claims?”
This question hits a nerve or really two. Reid hasn’t told me what he knows about my father and he shut me down over Elijah and it must show on my face. “You don’t know about Elijah’s claims,” Grayson assumes.
“Elijah came to me and tried to take down Reid,” I say quickly. “He was unethical and unprofessional, driven by personal vendettas that he’ll use to destroy Reid and my company with him, and he won’t care. He just wants revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” he presses.
“A problem of his own creation,” Reid states.
“Does it matter?” I add. “He’s after the wrong thing and he doesn’t care who it hurts. And you just keep hitting Reid over and over. Why did you even meet with us?”
“As you said, Reid is good at what he does. And I believe him when he says you can make me money. He wouldn’t risk his credibility.”
“And yet you want to find a reason to say no,” I point out.
“On the contrary,” he says. “I want you to be the reason I say yes, so let’s talk about what yes looks like. I’ve been on a mission to place my firm in every state and beyond, starting with Asia.”
Asia again, I think, already concerned.
“I’m buying complexes and buildings to develop around the firm,” he continues, “I don’t want the firm to be the only revenue in each state. I’ve completed the set-up of ten properties in ten states and two in Asia. I’ll consider letting you take over one location in the US and one overseas, to start, as a test.”
“What locations?” Reid asks.
“Japan and Austin, Texas,” Grayson replies. “I’ll need a proposal. I want to see how you will handle domestic and international locations. Analyze what we’ve done thus far, tell me what you’d do differently, and we’ll go from there, but you should know I have a proposal I favor.”
“Can I see it?” I ask.
“No, you cannot see it,” he says. “Give me your best foot forward, not someone else’s. I’ll provide you with details on what we’ve done thus far.”
“What about budgets?” I ask.
“What about return?” he replies. “That’s what I want. Returns. Make that number right and the total investment will land where it needs to land.”
“Fully funded by you?” Reid asks. “Or will you want investors?”
“I’ll consider all proposals,” Grayson says. “It’s all about the big picture and the returns. We can meet next week when I’m in the city if you’re ready.”
“We will be,” Reid replies and we all stand up. “We’ll get to work right away.”
“Work is good,” Grayson says, “but enjoy the weekend.”
“Thank you for allowing us to stay at your property,” I interject quickly and the three of us make small talk as we enter the house where Leslie greets us. I’m just raving over our meal when Reid motions to Grayson and the two men step back outside.
Leslie keeps talking, but I’m distracted. This private meeting between the two men, instigated by Reid, hits those same nerves the Elijah conversation with Grayson hit and it’s all I can do to keep chatting properly. When finally, after five minutes that feels like an hour, Reid returns without Grayson, this visit is over. We head for the door where we graciously thank Leslie for dinner, while tension curls in my belly and tightens every muscle in my body. I’m angry with Reid over the secrets he’s keeping that make me have to question him and I’m nervous about what just occurred. Maybe he was just asking Grayson what he thinks about me, which is reasonable, but it feels more like the Elijah thing, like something he doesn’t want me to know, and I don’t like it.
I fight the urge to explode at Reid when exploding really isn’t my thing. That tells me that the secrets just aren’t working for me. That tells me that I’m a hundred shades of over my head emotionally with this man. Once we are finally on the porch alone, I don’t look at Reid or speak. I know there could be cameras filming us and I need what comes next for us to be private, not part of some test Grayson Bennett is giving us. I know this entire night is just that: a test, and my actions now could be a reflection on my control and Reid’s presumed character.
We start walking down the stairs. “He likes you,” Reid says. “You won him over.”
My reaction is one-part relief while that anger I’m feeling stays firmly in place. I don’t respond. Nothing I say will come out right at this moment. Reid is smart. He says nothing else and side by side we walk down the sidewalk toward our car, where the driver waits at the car door. Reid motions to him and he climbs inside the car, leaving us to our approach alone. I charge forward and reach for the rear door, but Reid is behind me, his big body framing mine, his hand on my hand on the door. “Talk to me before we’re in the car with a driver.”
I don’t turn. “You’re my boss right now. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me professionally and I have to live with that. If we’re fucking, just fucking, you don’t have to tell me anything at all. But if this is a relationship, I don’t want secrets or lies between us. Decide which it’s going to be, Reid.”
Several heavy beats pass, and I sense an internal battle in him, and I think he will say something, but he doesn’t. He releases me and steps back. I open the car door and get inside, not sure what to expect when he follows, and most certainly not when we’re finally alone. I just know what I want and that’s him. I want this man and I’m not sure just fucking is enough anymore.
Chapter Forty
Carrie
Reid joins me in the car and shuts us inside, the earthy woodsy scent of him teasing my nostrils, the power that is this man consuming me and the small space, and yet, he doesn’t touch me. In fact, he doesn’t even attempt to close the space between us. He settles in next to the door and taps the driver’s seat, which triggers the driver’s reaction. Without a word, the car is in motion, and with every inch we move, the space between me and Reid seems to widen. Somehow, despite this, I feel this man in every part of me. I have never in my life been so hyperaware of another human being. I want him to touch me. I want to touch him, but those secrets between us keep me in place, and him too, I suspect. Or perhaps I’ve scared him with my list of options right before we got into the car. Maybe he doesn’t want a relationship over fucking if that translates to transparency, while I don’t want a relationship over fucking that translates to secrecy. All I know is that I can’t continue on like this and I don’t even know what that means. Maybe we’re over. Maybe we’re just fucking, but again, I just don’t know if I can do that anymore and when my gaze catches on his hand on his knee, and I notice the way his fingers are digging into his leg, I know that he’s just as on edge as I am right now. I hate that I think of those hands on my body, too, but I do. I have it so damn bad for this man.
I’m not sure if it’s relief or distress I feel when only minutes later, the driver pulls us to the front of a navy-blue beachfront cottage illuminated in outdoor lighting. Reid doesn’t look at me. He simply reaches for his door and I spare us the awkwardness of him helping me exit. I don’t slide his direction, but rather open my door and get out. I meet Reid at the trunk where the driver unpacks our bags and Reid tips him before grabbing our luggage all himself before I can offer my help. “I have the key,” Reid says, his gaze meeting mi
ne with a hard punch of tension between us. “Grayson gave it to me before we left.”
I nod and when I try to reach for my bag, he holds onto it. “I have it,” he murmurs, turning away to move ahead of me and up the sidewalk with a brisk enough pace that he’s already unlocking the door when I reach the porch. He shoves open the door and the light flickers on, be it by his efforts or a motion detector, I don’t know. Whatever the case, he enters the cottage first, and I follow him into a narrow hallway, black wood flooring beneath my feet. Reid sets the bags down by a wooden table, and I shut the door, turning to lock it, the very act one of claiming the control that feels so damn out of reach.
By the time I face forward again, Reid’s back in control. He’s in front of me, pulling me to him, his fingers tangling in my hair, those blue eyes staring down at me, and the fact that he’s touching me is a blessed relief. I need this man and it’s addictive and terrifying at the same time.
“Reid,” I whisper when he doesn’t immediately speak, asking for answers, asking for more.
His answer is not in words. His mouth slants over mine, his tongue stroking deeply, and that’s all it takes. I’m lost and found again in this moment and this man. There are no questions, no secrets, no need for control. There’s just this kiss and I sink into it, my arms wrapping around him, under his open jacket, my body pressing to every hard inch of him I can manage, a soft moan sliding from my lips at just how good he feels. But when he tears his mouth away, his lips linger a breath from mine, vulnerability, and presence of mind has me challenging him for answers and myself for sanity.
“Was that a fuck you kiss or a relationship kiss?” I demand. “Or maybe just a distraction, a way to forget the secrets?”
“What did it taste like, Carrie?” he demands, his voice low, rough.
“Like that answer,” I say. “Indecisive.”
Tension flexes a path through his body beneath my touch and he releases me, pressing his fists to the wall on either side of me. “I fucked Elijah’s wife.”
I gasp at the unexpected answer. “What?”
“She wasn’t wearing a ring and I didn’t know who she was, but Elijah and I were rivals on a deal at the time, and I damn sure didn’t apologize.” He pushes off the wall and starts walking away, but when he would disappear into whatever the next room is, he half turns and adds, “I told him that if he knew how to satisfy his wife, she wouldn’t have come to me. I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life, Carrie, and I’m not sorry for most of them.” And with that, he turns and leaves me standing in that hallway.
I inhale and try to process what just happened. He didn’t know but he wasn’t sorry. He isn’t sorry. I repeat those words in my head about three times and my emotions land on anger. I charge after him, reaching the edge of a wide living room with cream-colored furnishings, Reid’s jacket and tie lying on the couch that faces a wall of curtains, of which one flaps in the wind, indicating an open door. I kick off my heels and follow him, exiting to a wooden porch overseeing the inky-black ocean waves crashing in the distance. Reid stands with his back to me, his hands on a wide wooden railing, the muscles of his broad shoulders bunched beneath his shirt.
I close the space between us and I dip beneath his arm and step between him and the railing. “You aren’t sorry?” I challenge.
“No,” he says. “I’m not sorry.”
“You say I’m going to hate you.”
“You will,” he says. “Maybe it’s already starting.”
“Maybe you’re trying to push me there. Maybe that avoids the relationship side of this. Maybe you want to make it happen. Is that it? You want me to get on to the hate so you can just fuck me? So you can backtrack all the rest of the talk and—”
His fingers tangle in my hair. “I don’t want you to hate me,” he bites out. “I dread the day you hate me, woman, but I can’t change who I am or what I’ve done. It’s already done.”
“I’m not asking you to change who you are.”
“Because you don’t know who I am, and I keep telling myself to walk away before you do.”
“Then I’m right,” I say. “You just want to push me to hate. You want a reason to walk back—”
“I don’t want to walk back anything,” he says, his fingers tightening in my hair, “and this isn’t just fucking.” His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue licking into my mouth, devouring me, consuming me. “How do I taste now?”
“Angry.”
“I am angry,” he says. “And I’m not hiding from that.”
“Why are you angry?”
“Because the hate will come and I can’t stop it. Because no part of me is not right here with you, Carrie. What about you?”
“I’m here,” I whisper, but I don’t say more. I can’t. He’s already kissing me again, as if he’s testing that claim of “I’m here” on my tongue, on his lips, turning me to press me against the wooden railing, his hand sliding around my hip to cup my backside. “You’re never all here with me,” he says. “You always hold back and that’s not good enough anymore. If this has to end, you’re mine until it does. You’re mine now.”
I don’t push back against that claim of ownership. I welcome it in a way I didn’t believe I was capable of welcoming such words. His mouth closes down on mine, the taste of him demanding and possessive, but there is also regret and the certainty of “the end” that I don’t want to exist. I want to drive that piece of his emotions away. I need to drive it away and I’m not sure I have ever been as aroused in my life. “This time is hard and fast, baby,” Reid says, his lips finding my ear, his hand caressing my breast over my silk blouse. “I need to be inside you.”
“Yes,” I whisper, and already he’s turning me to face the pole, forcing me to catch my weight with my hands, and already he’s unzipping my skirt and dragging it down my hips, right along with my panties, not ripping them away this time. I don’t even care that I’m outside, on a beachfront, naked from the waist down but for my thigh highs. I just want Reid and when his arm wraps my waist and he lifts me, kicking away the material, I turn easily in his arms, eager to feel him next to me. Eager for his mouth on mine again. Hungry for more, so much more, and I’m not sure it will ever be enough.
Nothing is ever enough with this man and yet I fear the day that it’s too much, and that has me tugging at his shirt, trying to drive away anything but the here and now.
Chapter Forty-One
Carrie
I want Reid inside me and that’s exactly where this is headed, hard and fast fucking, but some part of me pushes back, not on being owned by this man, but at the idea that I don’t own him. That’s the control issue. That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid with Reid, but it’s not about power. It’s about him letting me in, him letting down that stone wall, and while sex isn’t the way either of us owns each other, it feels like a good starting place. It was our starting place.
All is grand in the “I need control” scheme of things, but this is Reid Maxwell, and he wants to go hard and fast, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. His shirt is gone, and I’m pretty sure in between kissing him and touching him, I had something to do with that. His hands are all over me and my blouse and bra are short-lived, gone in a few quick movements. I’m now naked on a porch, on what I hope is a private beach, but considering I’m shoved against a pole, his powerful legs framing mine, his hands on my breasts, it’s hard to care. His fingers tug roughly at my nipples and I moan with the pain and pleasure of it, his cheek finding my cheek as he whispers, “I’m going to fuck you right here and now on this porch.”
Yes, please, I think, and my fingers flex on the hard muscle of his shoulders, and his mouth is on mine while he unzips his pants and my sex clenches with how soon he will be inside me, but that need to go deeper with Reid, to make him let go, stays with me. I reach down and help him with his pants, my hand wrapping his shaft and freeing him, but his hand covers mine, while the fingers of his other hand slide between my thighs and stroke the lin
e of my sex, pressing inside me.
I pant and his mouth lowers to mine once more. “God, I love the sounds you make,” he murmurs before kissing, and it’s all I can do not to melt right here and surrender to whatever he wants. I press my hands under his waistband and tear my mouth from his. “Why are you still dressed?”
He reaches for his pants and that’s when I try to go down on my knees, but Reid catches my arms. “What are you doing?”
“I’m pretty sure you can figure that out.”
“As many fantasies as I’ve had that involve your mouth on my body now is not that time. This is about us, feeling us, not me feeling you.” He melts me with those words, even before he kisses me again and that’s it. I’m done. I can’t fight this anymore. He squeezes one of my butt cheeks and smacks the other. I yelp and he’s kissing me, lifting me as he does, setting me on the waist-high railing, and then just that quickly, he’s pressing inside me, stretching me, driving me crazy in all those indescribable ways he and he alone does. There is just something about the intimacy with this man, something that has always been there, but feels different now like it’s changing, like we’re changing.
He presses deep, burying himself as far inside me as he can and then tilting me back to look in my eyes. “If I die anytime soon, I’ll die a happy man. God, woman, what are you doing to me?” His mouth closes down on mine and his hands close around my backside, squeezing as he lifts me and then we’re in this frenzied, grinding, thrusting, insatiable dance of pure lust and need. Reid’s hands are at my waist and I lean backward as he lifts me and pulls me down, thrusting into me, and I trust him to hold onto me. I know he won’t let me fall. His gaze rakes over my breasts, hot and heavy, but it’s not enough. He seems to feel the same, and he sits down somewhere, a large chair I think when my knees hit the cushion, and then I’m straddling him, my hands on his chest, our eyes locked, the connection between us a living breathing thing that consumes me and us.