And still I want more.
I buck and twist, clutch and pull, beg incoherently for the feel of his cock inside me. For the feel of his big, strong body covering mine.
And still he doesn’t give in.
Still he pushes me, until I’m sobbing, mindless, balanced on the sharpest edge of pleasure and pain.
My body is no longer my own. I’m enthralled, ensorcelled, desperate for him and what we can build together. So when he spikes his tongue and swirls it inside me, sending ecstasy slamming through me one more time, I take it. I take it and take it and take it, until he pauses for just a moment.
And then I’m on him, ripping at the remainder of his clothes. Skimming my mouth over his tattoo, his chest, his rock hard abs. Turning us so that he’s the one pressed against the desk. His hands clench in my hair and he shudders at the feel of my lips on his skin, my body pressed to his. He groans my name, pulls at me as I did him, but it’s my turn and there’s no way I’m yielding. Not before I take him as high and make him as crazy as he made me.
I slide to my knees in front of him, let my hair brush against his long, hard cock as I revel in his groans. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, I slide him into my mouth, not stopping until he hits the back of my throat.
“Fuck, Chloe, baby,” he growls, his hands fisting in my curls, tugging at me as I get my first taste of him in far too many hours. He’s hot and silky and perfect—so perfect—that I want to stay like this forever. On my knees in front of him, a supplicant trying to give back to him just a little of what he gives me so effortlessly.
I suck him even deeper, stroking and swirling my tongue along his length as I do. I scrape my teeth gently along the underside of his cock then soothe the small sting with long, sensual licks. I keep it up, taking him deeper and deeper until he’s breathing in great shudders, his hips arching off the desk, his fists in my hair yanking my mouth down on him hard, again and again and again.
For long seconds, I give him what he wants. Then, just as he starts to leak pre-cum into my mouth, I pull back with a lingering swipe of my tongue.
“Don’t tease,” he gasps, his hands tightening in my hair. Sweat is pouring off him now, his body a taut, quivering mess beneath me. “Do it. Please. Just do it.”
His face is all harsh planes and sharp angles and for a moment I want nothing more than to lick my way along that jaw, those cheekbones. But his voice—low and growly and desperate, so desperate—is just as compelling as the look on his face. Just as compelling as his fingers twisting in my hair and I know that Ethan’s not the only one who’s suffering.
The need running through me is just as deep, just as desperate.
Leaning forward, I put my mouth on him again. Start to take him deep, to take him over the edge. But even as I slip my lips over the head of his cock, even as I lick long, slow stripes along the length of him, I make sure it’s not quite enough. Not quite what he needs to get off.
Maybe that makes me a little bit cruel, but I can’t help it. I’m not yet ready for this to end, not yet ready to relinquish this sexual power I have over Ethan. Usually I’m the one begging, the one who loses all control of her mind and her body as he pushes for more. As he takes everything. The fact that it’s him on the brink this time, that he’s the one who is moving restlessly under my mouth, that he’s the one who can’t quite catch his breath and is begging me to end it, gives me a different kind of satisfaction than the orgasm I know is waiting for me the second I cede control back to him.
And so I continue tormenting him, taking him deep and circling my tongue around him as he groans and gasps. Over and over I take him right to the brink, only to pull off just as he’s about to come. Each time I do, the fingers in my hair get a little more desperate and his heartbeat gets just a little higher.
The power is a beautiful thing and I’m drunk on it, drunk on him and the knowledge that he needs me as much as I need him. It’s what I’ve wanted more than anything these last few weeks, the knowledge that Ethan is as addicted, as exposed, to me as I am to him.
The fourth time I do it, Ethan groans deep in his throat. Then he slides his hands out of my hair and down my cheeks to cup my jaw and tilt my face up this. Our eyes meet and for a moment, I nearly drown in the turbulent blue of his gaze. In the desperate desire, the desperate love, that he makes no attempt to hide. The force of it hits me like the ocean back home, in storm-tossed waves that swamp me, pull me under. That make it impossible for me to breathe.
“I love you, Chloe,” he tells me, all deep and gravelly as his thumb strokes along my jaw. “I adore you. I worship you.” His voice goes lower with each syllable, until the words are almost indistinguishable. Almost.
The words, his voice, the feel of him against me, take me higher. Make it impossible for me to wait any more. I press hot, open-mouthed kisses to his abs, his thighs, his dick, his balls. Then I lick at the space behind them with hard strokes of my tongue that have him arching and trembling against me.
With thoughts of finally finishing it dancing around the edges of my mind, I move back to his dick, start to take him into my mouth again. But he’s done waiting.
With a growl that comes from deep inside of him, he pulls me off, whirls me around so that I’m bent over the desk, stomach and breasts pressed to the cold wood, ass in the air. He does it so smoothly that it takes me a moment to even register that it’s happened, to understand that he’s the one back in control.
By the time I do, his fingers are sliding along my sex, testing my readiness, and all thoughts of who’s in control vanish inside the maelstrom of pleasure taking me over. I arch my back at the first touch of his finger on my clit, push my hips back against him in silent desperation.
Ethan groans, presses his hand firmly between my shoulders to keep me in place. And then he’s right there, his cock sinking inside of me slowly, slowly, slowly.
“Do it!” I plead, unconsciously echoing his words from a few minutes ago as I try to thrust backward, to take more of him—all of him—inside me.
But he’s got his other hand wrapped around my hip, his thumb digging into my ass as he holds me in place. I’m totally at his mercy now, spread out before him like some pagan offering for him to toy with at his whim.
Ethan’s not in the mood to play right now, though. Instead he’s focused, intense, trembling. As close to the breaking point as I am.
It’s that knowledge that has me going pliant beneath him as he slides deeper and deeper into my body.
When he’s all the way in, so deep that I swear I can feel him in every part of me, he stops. Waits for my body to adjust to the length of him inside of me. But I adjusted to the feel of him weeks ago, my body so attuned to his that I don’t need the extra seconds. Don’t need the consideration.
I just need him, moving against me, pounding into me. Sending me careering into an orgasm that seems like it’s been forever in the making.
I slide a hand out from beneath myself, wrap it around his left hip and pull him hard against me even as I shove back against him.
That one move is all it takes to shatter Ethan’s tenuous grip on control. And then he’s slamming into me, harder and harder. His chest is pressed to my back now and he’s growling low in his throat, muttering filthy, dirty, sexy things into my ear. His words take me higher still, send pleasure coursing along my every nerve ending even before his hand slips beneath me, his finger circling my clit once, twice.
He lowers his head, presses hot kisses along the love bites he’s left on my shoulder, my back. It’s the last straw, this reminder of his claim on me, of the fact that I belong to him in every way a woman can belong to a man, that sends me spiraling up, up, up into an orgasm so intense that the room goes black around me.
Chapter 6
When I can breathe again—think again—I scoop Chloe into my arms and carry her into the bathroom for a quick shower. She’s soft and pliant, her body melting against mine under the warm spray, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have n
ot to take her again.
And again.
But Tori is waiting downstairs to help her pick out a wedding gown and the longer I keep her in this room, the longer it will be before I can make her my wife. And while, logically, I know it won’t be a big deal if we don’t end up getting married until tomorrow, I also know I don’t want to wait that long. I’m determined to put a ring on Chloe’s finger, to tie her to me forever, before something else goes wrong.
With our rocky history, I think my concern is justified.
Not that I think anything bad is going to happen, but if it does—if it does, I want the reassurance that Chloe belongs to me, no matter what.
“You’re awfully brooding for a man about to get married,” she tells me, tilting her head up for a quick kiss.
The water is streaming over her, and she looks sexy as hell.
“Not brooding,” I answer before pressing my lips to hers in a kiss that turns from soft to heated in an instant. “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”
A lot of women would probably melt at that line, especially considering I mean every word of it. But not my Chloe. She just rolls her eyes at me. “Think you’re pretty charming, don’t you?”
“I would, but there’s this hot redhead who’s made it her mission to keep me in my place.”
She laughs then, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me down for another kiss. “Her life’s mission,” she whispers against my mouth.
Those three words are all it takes to make me hard again. “You’re mine,” I tell her, sliding my hands to her waist to play with her belly chain.
“I am,” she agrees, in between soft kisses to my jaw and throat. “And you’re mine.”
She presses her mouth to my collarbone, nips sharply enough to leave a bruise. It’s her way of marking me as surely as I’ve marked her.
It’s the last straw. Fuck the schedule. Fuck worrying about Brandon. Fuck everything but this moment, here and now, with the woman I love.
I slide my hands around to her back, then down to cup her ass as I lift her against me.
“We can’t,” she tells me, even as she wraps her legs around my waist.
“We have to,” I answer, sliding inside of her. She’s hot and tight and wet, so wet, despite her halfhearted protest.
“Tori and Sebastian—”
“Are busy people. They probably don’t even realize we’re running late.”
“But—”
I suck her lower lip into my mouth, bite down softly. She moans, trembles. Her fingers clutch at my shoulders as she arches against me.
It’s all the encouragement I need. Slipping one of my hands between us, I glide my fingers over her breasts. I pinch her nipples, stroke her stomach. Then, just as she whimpers a little—the sound getting lost in the press of my mouth against hers—I slide my thumb across her clit. Once, and then again and again.
She cries out and I revel in the soft, broken sound. In the way she leans her head back against the cool tile of the shower and the way her body clenches around my cock. It’s the best fucking feeling in the world.
“You sure you want to hurry this?” I tease. “Sure you want to run off and meet Sebastian and Tori?”
“Who?” Her voice is faint, her eyes glazed.
It only turns me on more, the way she loses herself in me and what I’m doing to her.
The way she loses herself in us.
And then she’s moving, her hips lifting and falling against my own and I’m lost, too. Drowning in sensation. Drowning in the feel, the scent, the sound of Chloe. She’s all melted honey and broken breaths now, all heat and softness and need as she licks my chest, claws my back, shudders against me.
“Ethan, please,” she gasps and it’s all I need. All I’ll ever need—the sound of Chloe calling my name as she trembles on the edge of ecstasy.
And then I’m thrusting, deep and fast, inside of her as my thumb circles her clit in the way I know makes her crazy. It only takes a few seconds before she’s crying out, her nails digging deep into the muscles of my back.
“I’ve got you, baby. Let go. I promise, I’ve got you,” I tell her just as I pinch her clit between my thumb and index finger.
She whimpers, a high-pitched keening sound that has electricity shooting up my spine and need tearing along my every nerve ending. I grit my teeth, try to hold on just a little longer, just a little—
Chloe comes screaming my name, her body milking mine with a series of hot, hard pulses that send me careening over the edge with her.
“Chloe, baby, I love you,” I gasp as I empty myself into her.
Her arms tighten around my shoulders and then her mouth is on mine, her lips swallowing my own cries as she takes everything I have, everything I am, deep inside of herself.
—
Half an hour later, I leave Chloe at the elevator bank with a kiss as she heads toward the Atlantis’s designer boutiques and I head up to Sebastian’s office. It turns out that, despite my rather lengthy delay, my timing is just about perfect as I make it to his office only a few seconds after he does.
“Come on in,” he calls, heading to the bar in the corner of his office. “Beer?” he asks, holding up a bottle of Corona. “Or scotch?”
“Scotch, I think.” I pick it partly because I know he’s just dying to rib me about my “pussy surfer beer” and partly because the conversation I’m about to start calls for it. Besides, he never has any limes, and pussy surfer beer or not, Coronas need lime.
He raises a brow but doesn’t say anything else as he pours me two fingers, neat, of Lagavulin before grabbing a Guinness for himself.
I think about giving him a hard time about his beer choice—it’s a time-honored tradition, after all—but it turns out, I just don’t have the heart for it. Not with everything I’ve got to tell him.
I start toward his desk and the chairs sitting in front of it, but he stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s check out the view,” he says, steering me over to the small seating area in front of the picture window. I couldn’t care less about the view, and I think he knows it. But he’s got some kind of issue with his desk chairs, and I don’t give a shit where we sit, so I go where he directs me.
Besides Chloe, he’s pretty much the only person on earth I trust without question. But as we sit down—me facing the window, him facing away from it—I’m still a little antsy. Because it isn’t just my shit I’m trusting him with now. It’s Chloe’s as well, and that isn’t quite so easy. Not when it’s my job to protect her.
Buying myself a little time before cutting to the chase, I take a long sip of my drink and then ask, “So, what are you doing here?”
“Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing,” he answers with a smirk.
“I told you, I’m celebrating my engagement to a fabulous woman.”
“While I agree that getting a woman like Chloe to marry you definitely deserves a celebration, we’ve been friends a long time, Eth.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Something else is going on, too.”
So, no small talk, then. Not a surprise considering neither one of us is particularly fond of inanities. “You could say that.”
“I am saying that. So spill, man. What’s up?”
I shake my head, try to figure out what I want to say and how I want to say it. But in the end, all that comes out is, “Brandon.” But because Sebastian knows me, and knows my brother, it’s enough.
“Ahh.” He takes a sip of his beer and though he tries really hard to disguise it, the look on his face says he’s anything but surprised. “Of course. What’s he done now?”
Yeah, he knows Brandon. Maybe better than I did up until a few weeks ago. “This doesn’t go any further.” Yeah, this is Sebastian, and I know it’s not necessary, but I don’t take chances with Chloe. Not with something like this.
“So it’s bad, then.” It’s no more a question than my statement was. “Tell me.”
It takes a minute for me
to get the words out. “He raped Chloe.”
The words hang there between us for long seconds as Sebastian tries to assimilate them and I try to deal with the fresh wave of fury that swamps me. My baby brother, the rapist. My baby brother, the soon-to-be-congressman. My stomach churns even as rage scrapes against my skin from the inside.
“What the fuck, Ethan?” Sebastian’s voice cracks with anger and shock, but not disbelief. No, a quick look at his face tells me it’s no stretch for him to believe Brandon is capable of that.
“It was a long time ago,” I tell him. “When they were in school together. He was a senior, she was a freshman.”
The bastard. The unbelievable, entitled little bastard.
Sebastian drains his beer. “She didn’t report it.”
“She did.” I’m clenching my jaw so tightly that it aches, but there’s nothing to do about it. Not if I’m going to have any kind of reasonable conversation here. “My parents bought her family off, made her drop the charges. She recanted her statement, signed a nondisclosure agreement.”
“What the fuck?” Sebastian says again, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it.
He gets up, this time, though, and takes my glass before walking back over to the bar to refill it. He pours three fingers into my glass, then grabs another glass and does the same to his own. When he hands it back, I take it and slam the thing down in a couple of long gulps. Maybe not the wisest move, but I’m dying here. I need something to keep me steady if I’m going to get through the next hour.
I wait for Sebastian to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just settles back into his chair. Watches. Waits. He’s good at that. Good at gathering all the facts before making a decision. It’s part of the reason I’m here. He’s also loyal as fuck. Another reason I’m here. And he knows me better than just about anyone, even Chloe.