LOVING ED: A Billionaire Romance (NIGHT OF THE KINGS SERIES Book 11)

by Shayne Ford

  I swallow hard and set my glass on the edge of the bathtub before I grab the phone and bring it closer.

  “Go on.”

  “I wanted to feel you against me like I used to...” he says seriously this time, his voice tinged with emotion. “Remember? When we danced for the first time, and we ended up in that bathroom?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  My voice is really quiet.

  “I wanted to have that moment again, but this time without the audience... Not that was anything wrong with having an audience anyway, but I wanted to enjoy it even more.”

  He pauses for a moment.

  “You looked like a dream tonight... Even better than I imagined. What I didn’t anticipate was the fact that we would never get to that point again.”

  “I didn’t want that.”

  “I didn’t want it either.”

  “I thought that it was the right thing to do.”

  “Because I gave you a fair warning? I didn’t want to push you away.”

  He’s right. I wish he weren’t.

  “You didn’t push me away. It’s how I felt at that moment.”

  “I realize that it was my mistake.”

  “Perhaps, or perhaps it was supposed to be that way,” I say, longing for his words. “Tell me more about that image.”

  “In that perfect plan of mine, we were twirling, and I was whispering words in your ear,” he says with a quiet voice as well. “And I would’ve told you sweet nothings while my breath would’ve rolled on your hair and my fingers would’ve trailed down on your neck. I would’ve asked you to give me another chance, perhaps a hundred if that’s how many it took because I wanted to make it work and be with you again, this time for good.”

  My eyes start swimming in tears, my fingers slippery on the screen.

  It takes a sheer moment of distraction and my phone slips from my grip, sinking into the tub like a rock.

  “Oh, my God,” I burst out.

  Agitated, I immerse myself in the water as well, trying to fish it out.

  “No, no... Fuck no,” I grump as I scoop it out and realize that Ed is gone.

  I call him back. My call goes straight to his voicemail. I barely start to dial again when I see his call flashing.

  I run a trembling hand over my face, the tips of my wet hair stuck to my cheeks.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry. It just slipped into the water. My phone...”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I take a long breath.

  The moment is gone. His normal voice is back, and all I wish right now is to be able to turn back time and freeze that second.

  The moment when he felt close to me again and opened up and was vulnerable like he used to be. The moment when he said the words I never thought I’d hear from him again.

  It’s all gone now.

  “Um... Can you give me a moment? I need to get out of the bathtub,” I say.

  Holding my breath, I wait for his response.

  His answer brings a sigh of relief to my lips.

  “Sure.”

  8

  THEA

  Butt naked I slip under the covers, roll to the side, sink my shoulder into the pillow, and tuck my elbow beneath my head.

  “I’m listening,” I say with a breathy voice.

  His words come after a moment.

  “Where are you?”

  “In my bed.”

  “Naked?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Are you teasing me now?”

  “Not more than I’m teasing myself.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “Hot.”

  “What is hot?”

  I smile.

  “My skin.”

  I flex my leg, sliding my knee against the sheet.

  “My skin against the cold fabric of my sheets.”

  “What else is hot?”

  I pull my knee toward my chest, my legs spreading, the air brushing the smooth flesh between my thighs.

  Tingles spread on my sex.

  “Between my legs... “ I say with a strained voice.

  “Show me.”

  His voice sends more tingles down my back, prompting my hips to roll a little.

  “I want to see it,” he says, his voice vibrating deep and raspy.

  A shiver travels down my back as well.

  I ponder.

  “Do it, Thea. Take a picture.”

  “Give me a moment.”

  I mount the phone on the selfie-stick.

  I hang up, roll to my stomach, and flip the covers off me before I take a few snapshots. I pick two of them, glamorize them with a couple of filters and study them.

  I choose the one that I like the best. My legs are open, the swell of my butt perfectly captured, my lower back as well and also the tips of my long hair.

  The rear view of my folds looks sexy as hell.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  I get another rush just by looking at it, and then one another one as I realize that he is going to see it.

  I call him. He picks up at once.

  “I just sent it to you,” I say.

  Silence comes from the other end.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  His voice drawls a little, carrying the most beautiful rasp and smokiness.

  “What are you doing?”

  He laughs. A smoky throaty laugh as well.

  “Touching myself while I imagine licking your inner thighs until I reach that spot between your legs... Slowly parting your folds with the tip of my tongue and tasting your softest, most sensitive flesh.”

  Wetness drips between my legs as every action painted by his words stirs a reaction in my body.

  My hand goes down my hip and then around, stopping short of touching my sex, but my hips roll, and my flesh starts pulsing, a need growing deep between my walls.

  “How does it feel?”

  His voice is tense––tenser than before.

  His breath is heavy.

  I press my cheek into the pillow, crush my chest against the mattress while slowly grinding against the bed.

  “I wish you were touching me the way you said you would,” I murmur a bit distracted, grappling with a wave of pleasure.

  “It feels good,” I continue.

  The more I roll my hips and hump the air the more turned on I get.

  A light flashes across the screen. I tap the alert, and a picture of his fully erected cock fills my view.

  My eyes see it, and my mind starts processing it–– veiny, thick hard length, while my center wants it.

  Warm wetness trickles down between my legs, sweet tension growing in my belly. I clench my thighs, the pulsations getting even stronger and then I open them, my eyes still on the picture in front of me.

  “Tell me...” he says, tempting me to voice my feelings as if he knows what’s in my mind.

  “I’d love to feel your mouth between my legs,” I say with a quiet, sultry voice. “I’d tilt my hips up a little so that you could reach deep inside me. I’d love to feel your lips licking and sucking on my clit and then your tongue thrusting into me.”

  I pause, losing my concentration for a moment as everything I say creates a firestorm inside me, the same way everything he said before affected me.

  “Go on...” he mutters, his voice even heavier and raspier.

  “And then...” I murmur as my eyelids slide halfway down, my eyes glued to his erection.

  My words freeze on my lips as my hips begin to move again, my entrance dripping wet.

  “Don’t stop,” he says, his voice intense.

  Demanding.

  “I can’t...”

  I suck in a short breath as I feel my body gearing up for more tension and more pleasure.

  “Keep going, Thea.”

  “Okay... All right. And then I’d love to have you right behind me...” I say, my hand sliding down onto my butt,
kneading, yet still avoiding the hot flesh between my thighs.

  I move my fingers to my chest and start to knead my mounds as well, my nipples getting hard.

  “Oh, damn it...” I breathe out as my skin begins to burn, and my insides start to cry for him.

  My temperature surges, my pulse racing as well.

  “Touch yourself,” he orders, his voice spurring goosebumps and tingles on my skin.

  “I am touching myself,” I say through gasps, my vision getting hazy.

  Cloudy.

  “Finger yourself,” he commands. “And then tell me what you’d want me to do to you while I’d be at your back.”

  The phone flashes another alert.

  A clip pops up when I tap it and starts playing on a loop. His fist wrapped around his thickness, sliding up and down, stroking his flesh from the root of his erection to the chiseled tip, his legs spread open, his balls tight and heavy too.

  “Oh, my...”

  My mouth starts watering as I begin to lose control of my own body.

  The sound of his clip gives me a sample of his breaths too, and a few quiet groans.

  “Ed...” I murmur, high and incoherent. “I want you here... At my back,” I rumble, my fingers sliding lower, touching my entrance.

  “I want to pull me under you and enter me...” I groan, wrestling with need while drowning in pleasure and frustration.

  My fingers are already in. I feel myself clenching. I draw them still. I’m wet and hot, my hips now rolling.

  “Oh... I want to feel you deep inside me. I want to feel your weight on top of me. Your hand around my neck. Your cock entering me over and over again... stretching me,” I mumble, my eyes trained on his moving hand, and his hard flesh, on the teasing movement of his hips, every motion I see echoing deep inside me.

  My fingers slip now deeper. And deeper.

  “I want you in, Ed. I want you deep in me... I want to feel you. I. Want. You. Baby. I want you close to me.”

  “I’m in, baby. I truly am. And I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll never let another man come close to you...”

  With that, I clutch my phone in desperation while my body starts to shudder around my fingers, hips shaking, grinding, moans crawling up my throat.

  “I’m fucking coming...” I groan, riding that wave alone.

  For a few good moments, I scale up like crazy until I reach that perfect point and my brain lights up, my body shaking, my skin ablaze as if my body gets turned inside out.

  “Ed...” I gasp as I hear his groans and the curse coming from the other end.

  The line goes dead briefly.

  It takes me a few moments of sublime relief before I regain my focus, and make use of my voice.

  A few seconds later I get a final clip from him, and then his call.

  My eyes are already soaking in the images.

  Creamy, silky cum, trickles down his fist, his cock as hard as it was before.

  A soft smile curves my lips before I laugh quietly––relaxed, high, wanting him now even more.

  “This was the best orgasm I have ever had... Without you in the room,” I say, grinning. “I can’t wait to see you next week,” I add before I say goodbye to him and hang up the phone.

  Giddy, I crash into the pillow, screaming with happiness.

  THEA

  “No,” Liz says, looking at me with eyes peeled wide.

  “Yes,” I mutter, nodding.

  Terry glances at me as well as she slides a plate of cookies onto the table.

  Not much surprise shows on her face.

  She takes a seat across from me while Liz remains standing.

  “When did you put in the application?”

  “A while back, but I didn’t know if I wanted to spend a full semester there or only the summer.

  “The summer would’ve been just fine. I want to go there too, but not now.”

  I read her eyes for a moment.

  “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t be away from Terry and Chloe and what’s his name.

  “And you can?”

  “I have no problem living overseas for a few months.”

  “You’ve never lived anywhere except for LA and this place, and now you’re going across the globe to a place you know nothing about.”

  “You sound like Ed Preston.”

  Terry raises her eyes from the plate and looks at me.

  “What did he say?” Liz asks.

  “He didn’t like the idea much. But I don’t like the fact that he leaves in two weeks either, so there. We’re even.”

  “Oh, so that’s what it is? You’re leaving because of him?”

  She tosses me a questioning look.

  “Or to be with him?”

  “I won’t be with him. I mean, geographically we can’t be together. He’ll be in Monaco. I’ll be in Turkey a month from now.”

  Liz slaps her palm against her thighs.

  “I can’t believe this,” she says, aggravated.

  “What’s your problem?” Terry asks. “You don’t spend much time with her anyway.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Liz says, taking a seat at the kitchen table as well. “I am worried about her.”

  “Don’t be,” her mom says as Liz scoops up a cookie from the plate and pops it into her mouth.

  “Who are you gonna talk to?”

  I smile.

  “People. You and Chloe, on the phone. We can chat as well. I’m going to have a roommate.”

  She cocks an eyebrow at me.

  “Roommate?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Her name is Samira.”

  “Turkish?”

  “German. What else would you like to know?”

  “What happens with your King?”

  “My King will get used with the idea the same way you will.”

  She tips her head to the side, studying my expression.

  “Seriously, now... Are you going to see each other?”

  My smile falters for a moment.

  Terry’s eyes linger on my face as well while I spend a moment musing.

  “We’ll take it day by day and step by step,” I say reserved.

  They both read my eyes.

  “That’s the way to do it,” my aunt says.

  “What did he say last night at the party?”

  I take a long breath, grinning bittersweet.

  “It was, um... a rollercoaster. We fought. Then we made up. Then we distanced ourselves from each other. Then we made up again. He’s a complicated man. Different than anything I’ve known.”

  They look at me in silence while I speak again.

  “I don’t know what we’ll happen to us. I have no idea if we’ll go all the way or only for a short while or if everything will go bust. It’s hard to say or predict. One thing is for sure. We both want ‘us’ to happen. So for now, we fall and crash as often as we need to, and then we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off before we try it again. At least, we’ve both made peace with the idea that this is how it’s going to be. I don’t know what else to say. It’s not only about what we want. Or what he wants. I think he wants me. But there is something deeply ingrained in him that makes him pull away from me. Sometimes when I expect it the least. Sometimes when he gets too close to me. I already told him that, and he couldn’t deny it, but I don’t think he wants to change it either. I think he knows that it’s the main thing that keeps us apart. It’s new to him as well, and it explains the history he had with other women.”

  “Speaking of other women...”

  “She wasn’t his date,” I say curtly. “He told me that, and if my instinct serves me right it was the truth. Anyway... We sort of established a safe area where we can meet and talk and perhaps love each other without letting things get out of control. We’ve also established that we are friends. Initially, he agreed to that, but right after, he turned things around and tempted me, making me broke my own rule. I didn’t expect him to accept the idea of friendship to begin with, so there was no surpri
se that he tried to amend our deal. The good thing is that we started to interact as friends, and he no longer plays games–– which is a big step forward, and for now, I love him the way he is.”

  “What about him? How does he feel about you?” Liz asks.

  I shrug, pushing a smile back.

  “I don’t know. I think he likes the fact that I challenge him. Other than that, he made concessions and tried to meet me halfway. He seems committed to making it work.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, Thea,” my aunt says. “No one knows how these things evolve anyway. Sometimes taking it slowly is the faster way to get anywhere.”

  Liz’s sigh brings a chuckle to her mother's lips.

  “You’ll survive, Liz. Leave Thea alone. There’s no need to make her feel guilty because she’ll be away for a while.”

  “Speaking of that... Ed invited me on a trip next week.”

  They both flick their eyes at me.

  “Business or pleasure?” Liz asks.

  “Neither. It’s a family matter...”

  They wait for me to continue.

  “I’m not at liberty to talk about it since it’s something very private to him, but his invitation flattered me.”

  “Where are you going?” my aunt asks.

  “Las Vegas.”

  Liz watches me with puppy eyes.

  “What’s the problem now?”

  “He’s taking you away from me for good,” she says only half-jokingly.

  We all start laughing.

  “Don’t be so pessimistic. Nobody is taking me away from you. And just to prove it to you, what about we’re doing some shopping today?” I ask, checking the time on my phone. “If we leave now, we can beat the evening rush,” I say, a smile growing on her face.

  9

  THEA

  The week slips away in a blink of an eye.

  As I go ahead with the preparations for my next month departure, it finally sinks in me that I’m actually doing this.

  Living in a foreign country for a few months. I never thought that I'd be doing this.

  It makes the idea of Ed leaving the country a little more bearable. We will still be far from each other, but at least, we’ll be on the same continent.

  We keep in touch the entire week via phone and text messages without actually meeting each other.