Beautiful Secret

  She threw her head back, laughing my favorite Ruby laugh. “I love that you think a spanking would be—”

  Two sharp knocks landed at my door and Tony burst in, smiling. The smile froze and turned sour, and then slowly straightened as he took in the sight of Ruby leaning casually against my desk. She bolted upright, pretended to find something to pick at on the front of her skirt.

  “Hi, Anthony,” she said quietly.

  “Ruby,” Tony said, brows pulling together. He looked over at me, and then back to her. “How’re the Barclay Industrial friction calcs coming?”

  Her blush was back, and her eyes fixated on the carpet. “They’re done, I just need to compose the email. Sorry, I was just catching up with Niall”—she caught herself—“Mr. Stella after the trip.”

  “Ruby, I’m sure it’s a relief that he is now aware of your crush,” Tony replied coolly, “but Niall is a vice president at this firm, and I’m sure he has a lot on his plate after the trip.”

  I felt Ruby’s wide eyes turn to me, and my jaw clenched in suppressed anger.

  What in the bloody hell was he doing?

  Tony continued, oblivious. “Perhaps you should leave his office door open when you enter, and leave the catching up for your nonwork hours?”

  With a tight nod and mumbled apology, she slid past him and out of my office.

  “Tony,” I ground out, leveling him with an irate look. My blood ran hot through my veins, heart pounded in my chest. “Was that entirely necessary? It’s her lunch hour. And ‘her crush’? She wasn’t in here harassing me. I’m just as involved as she is, and there is nothing improper happening between us. She does not report to me.”

  “No,” he agreed, “she reports to me.” Tony stared, his jaw tight, to where Ruby had left the room and closed the door behind her. “I guess I didn’t realize it would be so difficult for her to maintain professional boundaries.”

  My eyes widened as it struck me: Tony was jealous.

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could manage. Something had ignited inside my chest at his words. Tony wasn’t my superior; to the contrary. Technically speaking, I was being actively groomed for the position that would someday make me his boss. “You—the one who suggested I get a leg over, who called Ruby fit, who said—and I quote, ‘all legs, great tits’—who seems to hire only the best-looking interns for the Oxford program. You’re in here lecturing us on professional boundaries?”

  He blinked, his eyes clearing when he looked back at me. “I’m simply saying I hope I don’t find her in here again.” With a little nod, he turned and left my office.

  It seemed to take ten minutes for my pulse to return to normal. I was livid: pacing my office, contemplating taking this to Richard, to ensure that everyone was aware that nothing improper was happening, and to let Richard know that the way Tony had just spoken to Ruby was unacceptable.

  But I was too angry. As a rule I didn’t have conversations when I was this worked up: the idea that I would speak out of indignation rather than maintaining a certain professionalism was unacceptable. The issue here was Tony’s behavior, and my case would be weakened if I appeared to be speaking from an emotional place.

  For this reason, too, I waited another fifteen minutes before texting Ruby again. I didn’t want her to think Tony’s opinion mattered enough to anger me.

  Tony was out of line, I told her simply.

  I know, she replied. But it was still mortifying.

  I’m sorry, darling.

  It took several minutes for her to reply, but when the text arrived, I could hear the words in Ruby’s ever-patient voice: Don’t be. Let’s just enjoy your roommate-less apartment, your big bed, and the takeout you’re going to order tonight.

  I smiled at my phone, typing, Looking forward to it.

  And I was. I could barely wait to pull her into my arms and remind her that this, between us, extended far beyond the walls of any office.

  * * *

  Ruby went to her apartment to gather what she needed for work the following day, and I used the time to pick up dinner from my favorite curry place on the corner.

  When she arrived, she looked around the entryway and then stepped past me, into the living room.

  My flat was, perhaps predictably, tidy and simply decorated, with a smooth black leather sofa and broad matching chairs, a low marble coffee table, and a large, plush area rug.

  “If I had been asked to draw a picture of your place, it would look just like this.”

  Laughing, I took a step closer to her. “I’m happy to never surprise you.”

  She turned, stepping into my arms. “The fact that you never surprise me is one of the reasons I love you.”

  We both froze.

  “Did I just say that out loud?” she asked, closing her eyes in a tight, mortified wince. “Please tell me those words were only in my head.”

  I bent, kissing her forehead. “You’re lovely.”

  Something inside me slammed into my lungs, a self-inflicted punch to the chest for being unable to come up with something better.

  I love you.

  You’re lovely.

  It’s not that I was particularly surprised by her words, so why hadn’t I thought ahead and prepared some sort of response? It was official: I was the world’s biggest idiot.

  Ruby tensed and began to lean away, but I pulled her back against me, kissing her neck as I madly searched for the right thing to say.

  “Ruby.”

  “It’s okay,” she said on a quiet exhale, hugging me and pressing her face into my neck. She didn’t sound entirely okay. I wanted to look into her eyes and see what I would find there, but I couldn’t seem to move. She took a breath and after a moment, visibly relaxed. “I know I’m farther along in the feelings department. I’m sorry I just dropped a bomb of awkward.”

  “Please, it isn’t that . . .” Only I couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t pinpoint what this feeling for her was, if not love.

  Did I love her?

  I had no bloody clue what romantic love even looked like anymore; it felt like a foreign language. I cursed Portia for her coldness, for making me question every gesture, for undoing a childhood full of exuberant declarations of adoration, of wicked tiffs with my siblings, and constant affection from our mother. I cursed myself for managing to become such an emotional midget.

  I didn’t know what to call my feelings, but I knew they were expanding, and profound, and frightening—after all, losing Portia had felt like being unchained, but the idea of losing Ruby felt so hideous it turned something over inside me.

  And what it took for her to express her feelings so starkly and then to stay here in the middle of my silence and wait for me to find words . . . I wanted to give her everything I had, wanted to let her know how absolutely mad I was for her.

  I trailed my lips from her jaw to her neck, sucking, nibbling. Feel this, I thought. Let me show you the things I can’t say.

  I pulled her coat down her arms, tossing it aside and lifting my fingers to the buttons of her shirt, silently begging her to meet my eyes. She looked up with hesitation marking her features and then she read something in my face—pleading anguish, some needful hope—and she seemed to exhale a world of tension, reaching to pull my face to hers.

  “Are you suggesting we postpone dinner?” she asked against my lips.

  I nodded, wrapping my arms around her waist and walking us over to one of the wide, armless chairs in the living room.

  My hands were impatient: hastily unzipping her skirt, pushing her underwear down her hips, hungrily sliding my palms over every inch of her naked skin. Ruby’s curves were smooth, pale, utterly flawless, and I bent, sucking at her shoulder, grasping her breast in my palm.

  Far more carefully, she unbuttoned my shirt, eyes gauging my reaction. “We don’t have to—” she started, but I cut her off with a kiss.

  Let go.

  She slid my shirt from my shoulders, unfastened my be
lt, and slowly worked my trousers down my hips until I could kick them away.

  Taking me in her hand, she began to lower herself to her knees before me.

  I shook my head, in one motion pulling her up and bending to slide my lips over hers, parting them, tasting her. Her tongue was sweet and small in my mouth, pushing against mine with a sudden, aware desperation. Her slim, firm hands pressed against my chest, backing me into the chair, and she followed, climbing over and digging her hands into my hair as she kissed me: messy, biting, moans and tiny pleas escaping as my hands slid down her sides, between her legs, feeling her softest, most vulnerable skin.

  “Do you want to move?” she asked, lips wet, eyes heavy.

  Did she mean move . . . into her?

  “I . . . yes?” I arched beneath her, seeking contact.

  She leaned in to kiss me again before whispering, “I mean, do you want to move to your bed?”

  I closed my eyes, struggling against the way my brain wanted to pick up that question and consider it too carefully. Getting up and walking to my bedroom would ricochet us out of this place of lust and relief that felt so bloody good. I didn’t want to move an inch. I would think too much about what this meant, what I felt, that I’d never had sex in that bed, and that I’d only put a name to Ruby’s face just under four weeks ago.

  My brain wanted to be sure about all of this.

  Stop.

  No.

  No.

  “No.” I bent, kissing her neck as my hands on her backside urged her closer, pressing her, slick and warm, against my shaft. “I don’t want to move.”

  Her hips circled and she shifted up until I knew a simple arch of my hips would push me inside her.

  “Christ,” I groaned. I’d forgotten—or maybe I’d never truly known—how desire could be clutching and mindless and wild. I wasn’t myself. I was a man who wanted pleasure, wanted to fuck, and was free to do it for the first time in my life.

  “Shit. Protection,” I managed.

  “I’m clean,” she said on a tight gasp. “I’m covered.”

  Her eyes met mine, the question lingering there.

  “Come over me, darling,” I whispered.

  With a groan, I lifted up as she lowered herself and she choked out a small noise that sounded so much like pain and pleasure I nearly stabbed upward with how savage it made me.

  “Wait,” she whispered, her voice coming out so small and tight I pulled back to assess her face. She stared at my mouth, her own lips wet and parted . . . and she looked fucking sublime.

  “Let me . . . just . . . get used to . . .” Her eyes rolled closed and she let loose these delicious, hoarse cries every inch she lowered herself onto me.

  I struggled to remain still, my thoughts obscured by the silken feel of her . . . her body tensing so tight around me . . . her splintered gasps . . . the way her hands urged my head down to her chest.

  When I was fully inside her she began to shift in perfect, tiny, maddening circles. Her nails dug into the back of my neck and she squeezed me, breasts pressed to my face, whispering her broken thoughts right into my ear:

  Niall

  Oh, God

  I won’t

  It’s so

  She was getting off, using my body, and began to rise more each time, push harder onto me in her return. Her fingers slid higher and gripped my hair, her hot mouth sucked and scraped at my neck. The smell and taste of her, the warmth of her thighs and her breasts as her skin brushed across mine, the decadent slide and suction of her along my length; it was like being submerged completely, not needing or wanting to come up for air.

  And her sounds, oh. I’d never heard such honest expression of pleasure, tight and sharp right against my ear. The sound and feel of her—the fucking bliss she allowed herself—chipped away at my foggy notion of sex, my frankly laughable experience to date. This was for her pleasure just as much as mine and the reality of it—what sex should be: an intimacy to be shared rather than endured—made a fever tear through me, burning across my skin.

  I’d also never been so hard, or greedy to grab and feel and consume. Just when I thought there couldn’t possibly be more, she moved forward or leaned back, taking me further, drawing me in. I pulled her nipple into my mouth, sucking and cupping the other breast in my hand, wild for her to ride me recklessly, but wanting her to continue to chase the euphoria I could see all over her face, to get there before I would lose it.

  Because I knew, with Ruby, I would.

  I could feel the tension building in my thighs, the need to shove up and fuck, and take, and let go. I could feel this raw beast, clawing out of me, wanting sex like I’d never had but always needed: uninhibited and sweaty and hard.

  Ruby’s movements became irregular and she pulled my mouth to hers, lips parted and pressed to mine, simply rocking over me, feeding me her moans and gasps and jagged exhales as she fucked me. Her hips faltered, hands clutching at me, and I felt her tighten just before she arched away, crying out as she came. Her warmth, the slick feel of her stuttering on top of me, and finally—fucking finally—the way she rode me hard as her orgasm began to peak unleashed the last bit of my control. The pleasure for me was impossible and I bent, pressing my teeth into the firm swell of her breast, groaning into her skin.

  She collapsed into my chest and in a breath I lifted her, lowered her back to the plush carpet, and pulled her hips off the floor, sliding into her with a long, rough stab of my hips.

  Ruby’s breath caught—she was so tight, a fist around me—and she watched as I began to lose my mind, lose my heart. I didn’t know myself in this moment: this man who kneeled between her legs and held her hips in my hands to keep from fucking her across the floor. I hardly recognized the man who told her,

  Watch

  Look right where I’m fucking you

  You’re soaked so wet so soft

  Fucking hell you’re so warm and wet you feel so fucking perfect

  Pleasure cascaded down my back, clawed out of me and she was reaching between us, touching me where I pulled from her with every stroke, begging me with her eyes to let go, to show her how good it felt.

  I couldn’t close my eyes. Not in a million years could I close my eyes the first time she watched me come, over her, inside her. My thrusts were coarse, exhales sharp and harshly pulling grunts of exertion from my throat. I gave into the spiral, losing my rhythm, as I bellowed into the quiet room.

  Never before had I known a pleasure so intense.

  I stilled, chest sweaty and heaving as I looked down at her. Her breasts were flushed and glistening, cheeks splotchy and lips parted as she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Niall . . .” she said, running a shaking hand up my chest.

  Instinct kicked in: a panicky sense of obligation. I pulled from her, standing on shaky legs and jogging to the bathroom to retrieve a cloth, hold it under the warm tap.

  Returning to her, I bent, pressing the warm cloth between her legs, soothing and wiping away my—

  “Niall,” she said, stilling my hand with her fingers around my wrist.

  I sat back on my heels, looking up at her face. “Do you hurt?”

  Her brow pulled together in confusion. “No?” She took the cloth from my hand and pulled me back over her. “You didn’t have to run off to clean me up. I wanted to enjoy some postcoital kisses. I want to be messy because of you.”

  Embarrassed, I winced, bending to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Right. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Seriously, kudos, sir.” Her legs slid around my hips and I propped myself on my elbows above her. “Missionary is clearly your superpower. Noted.”

  I smiled. “It should be. It’s all I did for eleven years. Honestly, having you on top—” I stopped, feeling my stomach fall into an abyss when I registered what I’d just said.

  Beneath me, Ruby fell immediately still.

  “Bloody hell . . . Ruby. That was a terrible thing to say and at the most inopportune moment. I am an imbecile.” r />
  She ran her hands up the back of my neck, lifting to kiss, possibly in an attempt to shut me up. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” I said into another kiss.

  “It is,” she insisted, her voice uncharacteristically stiff. “I’m sure it’s weird to be with someone for the first time after only having been with her before.”

  “It’s not that . . .” I began, and then trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. I needed to fix this. It was bad enough that I’d gone mute when she’d said she loved me; I couldn’t let this be a disaster, too. “Ruby, my timing may be horrendous and I apologize for that, but I feel I need to explain how different this is for me.”

  She nodded, relaxing a bit beneath me. As I searched for words, I struggled to hold on to the clarity of only minutes before, when I felt completely joined to her, knowing her. She’d given me something so rare—true insight into what it was to make love—and I’d fucked it up immediately.

  “At some early point in our relationship, Portia read some article explaining that men needed sex at least once a week in order to not cheat. It was bollocks, but it became part of her mental relationship canon. Sex once a week. No more, no less. She was very organized, you see,” I said, hoping to add a bit of levity. “Staff meeting Mondays. Sex with husband Tuesdays. Rubbish pickup Thursdays.”

  Her eyes went soft with sympathy. “Ouch.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” I said, and then tilted my head, considering this. “It simply wasn’t very good, either.” I met her eyes, swallowing thickly as the words took shape in my mind. “And see . . . that, right there. Please understand I feel uncomfortable even saying this much, particularly given our current circumstances.” I made a show of looking down the length of our bodies, as if to emphasize the point, to which she smiled. “As a general rule I don’t discuss my personal life. But now you are my personal life. I want you to know every facet of me, and how different I am with you. And unfortunately that often means knowing things about my relationship with Portia. Somehow her view on it made sex both a special occasion and a chore.”

  Ruby drew one fingertip across my bottom lip, tracing the shape of my mouth as she said, “Did you ever tell her any of these things? When it ended?”