Beautiful Secret

  But then I heard, “Ahh,” and that . . . well, I definitely wasn’t expecting that.

  “You look so bloody gorgeous.”

  I knew that voice. I’d spent the last six months with my ears straining to hear him step out of the elevator and onto my floor, to speak during meetings. For him to speak to me. This was Niall, and he was . . . I think . . .

  “Go slow. I want your tongue to play with me before you show me what you look like when you beg for it.”

  OH MY GOD.

  I blanched. Had I somehow stumbled onto something I wasn’t supposed to have? Was this even Niall? It seemed impossible that he would record anything like this, let alone give it to me to hear.

  Unless he didn’t know it was being recorded. Was he . . . with someone? Should I tell him I had this?

  “Did you think about this earlier?” he said through the tape. “When you licked your dessert from your spoon, or sucked the sauce from your thumb, did you imagine you had my cock between your lips?”

  Dessert? Was he talking about . . . ?

  I straightened and glanced toward the conference room, not sure if I was surprised when I found him already looking at me. I didn’t know how long he’d been watching, but when he nodded, slowly, I was certain he knew exactly what I was listening to, and that he’d orchestrated this entire thing so I could.

  “You want it?”

  “Like that.”

  “Oh, sweet girl . . . suck me . . .”

  He was getting himself off, thinking about me going down on him . . .

  He must have done this last night after dinner—Holy shit!

  It was sixty-eight degrees in that office, and I was sweating.

  Niall didn’t look away from me once, and I swear this situation could only have felt dirtier if he’d had me spread out naked on the floor. And then, only barely. How did he do that? We’d hardly touched, and yet it felt like he’d touched me in ways that nobody else ever had.

  “I’ll never get this sight out of my head. Never.”

  I crossed my legs and pressed them together, shifting in my seat. I could feel how wet I was, how ready my body felt to do exactly the things he was talking about.

  “I’m coming. Ruby. Ruby. Please . . . please let me come inside.”

  When the group broke for lunch, I noted the way Niall hesitated to leave. He’d have to face me now—now that I’d listened to his hit single—without the safety net of twenty feet, a wall of glass, and fifteen engineers and transit authority workers between us. He was nervous, and fuck if it wasn’t the most endearing thing I’d ever seen.

  Unable to put it off any longer, he gathered his things and stepped out.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starving,” I told him, wondering if—hoping—he got the implication of my words.

  Judging by the way he reached up and began to fidget with the knot in his tie, I was guessing he did.

  I tilted my head toward the hallway. “Walk with me?”

  I led us out of the office and down a slowly emptying hall. A man from the meeting stopped us on our way.

  “There’s lunch on the floor above us. It’s National Taco Day or something, if you’re hungry. Should be . . . interesting.”

  Well, the most interesting thing this guy was going to have happen today, anyway.

  “We need to touch base with the London office,” Niall said smoothly. “But we’ll be up as soon as possible.”

  And I had to admit, I was impressed.

  With a nod, the intruder was off and we continued on, down one hall and then another, until the sounds of voices were just a hum in the opposite direction.

  “We’re calling London, are we?” I asked.

  “Not exactly.” He glanced over at me, smiling. “I assume you’re taking me somewhere quiet to talk?”

  “Talk?” I said with a little smile.

  He pursed his amazing lips. “Perhaps.”

  “Speaking of ‘talking,’ here are your notes,” I said, handing him the notebook.

  “Ah. Thank you.”

  A dark room stood at the end of the hall, and I led him inside, closing the door behind us. Then, leaning back against the cool wood, I said, “Your messages were very . . . engrossing.”

  “Engrossing, you say?” He took a step closer.

  “They affected me,” I said through a giggle. “Deeply.”

  Tilting his head and wearing a smile that tilted half of his mouth deliciously, he murmured, “How so?”

  I moved to answer, to give him something playful and coy, but when our eyes met, every coherent thought left my brain. My heart started beating so hard with the sudden, surreal understanding that this wasn’t a fantasy, this wasn’t just flirtation. I wasn’t sitting in the middle of a Thursday meeting imagining all of this.

  We’d blazed past so many Niall Stella Moments that I’d stopped keeping track.

  The Number of Times Niall Stella . . . Touched My Calf, Tucked My Hair Behind My Ear, Looked Me in the Eye and Asked If I Came.

  Told Me He Wanted Me to Swallow His Come.

  Recorded Himself Masturbating to Share with Me.

  Was About to Kiss Me.

  This was a thing. We were a thing.

  “Answer me.”

  I lost the ability to play for the moment, ducking my head. “I ache.”

  “Tell me.” His voice was somehow both commanding and gentle as he bent, kissing my neck. “When you ache, what does that mean?”

  He knew. He had to know. He wanted me to say the words. “It means I’m wet.”

  He inhaled sharply through his nose, running it up my neck and along my jaw. “Bloody hell, Ruby, will you look up and kiss me?”

  I tilted my head, completely out of breath and heart crashing around the cage of my lungs. The smell of his cologne permeated the darkness and I felt almost drunk on him, on his nearness and the realization that I was actually going to touch him. Kiss him. And he would kiss me back.

  He bent to meet me, lips parted with a shaking exhale. He’d been expecting a small kiss, a quiet slide of his lips over mine. I could tell because I knew him better than maybe I should at that point, but also because of the careful way he bent to me and the gentle brace of his hands on my waist.

  But I couldn’t do small and quiet. I’d wanted this for too long. The relief—the awareness of him, his scent and the warm Stella skin—clawed up my spine, jolting through my arms, and I pulled him down into me. I gave him anything but small and quiet. My lips slid over his, pulling his bottom lip in between and he huffed a little breath against me, groaning.

  I wanted to swallow it up, wanted to consume his sounds and keep them inside me so I could save them for later and listen to them on a loop, again and again.

  His mouth was unreal: firm lips and that perfect man combination of soft and hard, giving and commanding. My world was spinning. I dug my hands into his hair, pressed my breasts into that solid wall of his chest, and let loose the most ridiculous sound of relief and need I’d ever made.

  He groaned louder now, surprise and thrill making his hands grip me reflexively before sliding around my back and clutching me close.

  Close enough I was bent backward as he curled over me, his lips parting only enough to let loose another deep sound as his tongue slid into my mouth, tasting me.

  Close enough that I was positive he felt my heart hammering through my chest.

  Close enough for me to feel him growing hard, longer, pressing into my stomach.

  I was so wildly, deliriously hungry for him, for this, that I let out tiny gasps, a tight moan at the feel of his tongue sliding over mine. I barely had time to process what I was saying before “Niall. Please,” escaped.

  “Please what?” He slid his lips to my ear, kissing, exhaling in a shaking gust of air. “Anything.”

  “Just . . . kiss me.”

  I felt his small laugh. “I believe I was kissing you.”

  “Then touch me. Something. I feel . . .”

&
nbsp; “Show me,” he whispered against my mouth. “Show me where you ache.”

  I couldn’t stop the small whimper that escaped my throat, and I pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes.

  Turning my hand so that our palms touched, I twisted my fingers with his, bringing them up to place a single kiss on the back of his hand. His gaze flickered from my eyes to my mouth, and back again, before he nodded, slowly. Hands still entwined, I brought them between us and down until together they slipped beneath the hem of my skirt.

  “Yes,” he groaned, feeling bare skin as we moved up together, finally brushing the damp fabric of my panties. I took a step back, and then another, bringing him with me until my back was pressed against the door.

  He followed my lead, fingertips slipping beneath the lace to skim along my skin, slick from wanting him.

  “Already,” he gasped moving back and forth so easily.

  I nodded but couldn’t form even a single word in response. I wanted him so much it hurt, and now he was touching me, finally, his long index finger smoothing along my bare flesh to slip over and between, finally to where I wanted him most of all.

  Right there,

  Oh, God, there,

  Oh, it’s so good.

  I gave him every thought before I was even conscious of it.

  He traced the same path again, along my entrance and back up to my clit with a surprisingly competent touch for someone who wasn’t even sure whether the woman he’d spent over a decade with had enjoyed the nights they shared together. His lips moved from the corner of my mouth to my jaw and then up, finally tracking the shell of my ear.

  “This is what I’ve wanted,” he whispered. “What I think about. What I thought about last night. I thought about your soft tongue, how you would feel just here. What it would feel like to slip into your body, your mouth. I think about it nearly to the point of obsession.”

  I pushed back into the door, wanting to escape the increasing urgency of his touch, or needing the support it offered me, I wasn’t sure. I only knew that I was lost, only a breath away from falling apart so completely he might never be able to put me back together.

  “Inside,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Want to come with you inside me.”

  “When you speak this way . . .” he said, but did as I asked. He pushed one finger into me, and then two, pumping deeply. “Bloody hell . . .”

  Sensation built, making my legs weak and my kisses distracted and wet all over his lips, his chin. My desperate sounds carried only so far as his mouth before he consumed them. His thumb circled, firm and sure, as fingers slid in and out. I could swear he was pushing deeper with every stroke, reaching something inside me that was wild and untouched.

  And then, the feeling built until it was spilling over and I came, my body arching into his hand. His mouth found mine again, and he whispered things I only barely understood.

  “Give me your sounds,” he said. “Let me keep them to think about tonight.”

  But we had all night together, I remembered. No meetings and no dinners planned with anyone from the conference. Nobody that would interrupt us. I wondered if he knew that, too. Maybe doing this here was easier, with the distant sounds of office life coming from the other rooms around us, reminding us both that we couldn’t take it too far. Maybe—

  “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this,” he said, rubbing his nose along mine, “but stop thinking.”

  “Just . . . wow,” I said, wanting to slip like warm honey down to the floor. Regretfully, he pulled his hand from my skirt and wrapped his arms around me, keeping me upright.

  “ ‘Wow’ is good. I’ll take ‘wow.’ ”

  “We should do that again,” I said, feeling my stupid grin.

  “Just seeing how quickly you fell apart in my arms . . .”

  “No kidding.”

  He glanced at the door, his expression falling the smallest bit. “But we’ve been gone for some time; we should join the others.”

  “You—” I started, eyes flickering down to his cock.

  He was still hard—impressively so—but he stilled my hand when I reached for his belt. “Quite used to it by now, I can assure you.”

  I frowned. “But I can—”

  As if on cue, a voice called out from the other end of the hall. Time was up.

  For now, I thought. We had an entire night, and I planned on enjoying every second of it.

  TEN

  Niall

  I could sense from the way Ruby kept glancing at me that she was up to something.

  “What?” I mouthed when she’d trapped that full pink bottom lip between her teeth and finally looked up at my face after staring at my neck, my arms, my hands.

  She shrugged. “Nothing,” she mouthed back, her tongue peeking out between her teeth with the single word.

  She knew. She had to know what that tongue did to me. So soft and pink and teasing.

  I tore my eyes from her and back to the woman leading today’s discussion on hurricane disaster relief budgeting. All around the room, eyelids drooped or hands doodled on notepads. For my part, I’d found the meetings all week predictably intense but fascinating. I loved my job, loved the topic of disaster preparedness and the details we had come together to scrutinize. I enjoyed work in a way I suspected many of my colleagues didn’t: it was my escape, my passion. So it threw me somewhat when I found my eyes wandering to the clock, my mind drifting to Ruby and what would happen between us tonight.

  We had no meetings, no social obligations. From 1700 until the following morning, we had nothing but time . . . together.

  With Portia, we’d had all the time in the world, eleven years’ worth. And yet, even in the beginning, more time in each other’s company was never something either of us particularly yearned for. Everything felt more important than having lunch together; even something as simple as a few hours side by side watching television was always passed up in favor of working independently or catching up on odd projects. But Ruby seemed to practically vibrate at the prospect of a handful of hours alone—with me.

  Clearly what had happened over lunch was an admission that we both needed to move forward, away from the flirtatious games we enjoyed during the day into something more personal and intimate at night.

  I simply didn’t know how well I could do it. I had little practice being forthcoming about emotions, and even less experience being bare sexually with another person. I knew I’d made her come. I knew I could give her far more pleasure than what I’d done today. That wasn’t really what worried me. What worried me was knowing she would give me exactly as much as I wanted from her.

  If I wanted to make love to her tonight, I could. If I wanted to feel myself deep in her throat, I could. If I wanted limits, I would need to be the one to set them. But did I truly want limits, or did I think I should want them?

  My stomach cramped and I looked back to the woman at the head of the table. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Ruby tilt her head and glance at me, and I suspected she was watching my every thought pass across my face. I was starting to believe she had a decoder ring and was the one person I’d known other than my brother and younger sister who could take one look at me and know just how much I was hiding.

  I blinked up, met her eyes.

  She studied me briefly, her expression softening as she smiled, mouthing the words, “Don’t worry,” before looking down at her notes and then up at the moderator.

  At once, my shoulders relaxed, my jaw unclenched.

  Let go, her voice whispered in my thoughts. We’ll figure it out together.

  * * *

  We walked back to the hotel, and Ruby babbled sweetly about the meeting, the oddly warm weather, the band she’d been dying to see live that was in town. She talked to me about all the wonderful nothings I wanted to hear, distracting me from my own neurosis about the impending evening.

  At the Parker Meridien, Ruby steered us to the elevators, down the hall, and stopped in front of the door t
o my room. Turning her green eyes up to mine, she whispered, “So. Decision time. Do you want to hang out with me tonight?” She placed her palms flat to my chest. “No pressure. I can go to my room and masturbate to a Ryan Gosling movie, and you can go back to your room and beat yourself up for not getting me topless, but the choice is entirely yours.”

  I swallowed, taking a few calming breaths before giving her a kiss that started at the corner of her mouth and slid over to her cheek, then to her ear. “Yes, please,” I murmured.

  “So,” she said, managing to stretch the word into at least three syllables. “Dinner out, or in?”

  It took no more than three seconds for me to answer, “In,” and with a bright smile, she took my keycard from my hand and let us in, bounding across the room. She kicked off her shoes, jumping on the bed and rolling until her face was in my pillow.

  “Dammit, they changed the sheets. This pillow doesn’t smell like you.” She flipped back over, hugging it to her chest anyway.

  “I’ll make sure to have them leave the linens tomorrow.”

  Then, in a Niall Stella voice, she said, “An excellent notion,” and nodded once crisply, bringing a smile to my lips. Smiling back at me, she reached for the room service menu off the bedside table and flipped it open. “What are you in the mood for?”

  I leaned against the desk, watching her. Loving seeing her in my room, on this bed, so easy and comfortable in this role as . . . girlfriend.

  Sitting down to unlace my shoes, I murmured, “Hmm. Maybe a burger?”

  “Are you asking me?” She looked back down at the menu. “They have a few choices. Cheeseburger and fries?”

  “Perfect. And whatever dark beer they offer.”

  She chucked the menu to the floor and grabbed the room phone. I heard the quiet echo of a voice on the other end of the line and Ruby laughed, cupping her hand over the receiver. In a playfully scandalized voice, she said, “They called me Mrs. Stella.”

  I smiled, slipping off my shoes. Mrs. Stella was my mother, or—once upon a time—Portia. “Mrs. Stella” wasn’t this vivacious creature sprawled on my bed with her skirt slowly inching up her long, slender thighs.