by Cari Quinn
“I make no promises.”
“Ms. Copeland.”
My spine snapped straight. God, no.
Jax frowned at me. “Everything okay, Grace?”
I leaned in and kissed Jax’s cheek. “It’s fine.”
His hand slid around my wrist to hold me close. “Sure?” he asked in a low voice.
I gave him an easy smile. At least I hoped it looked like an easy smile. Maybe not such a self-important jerk after all.
I looked over Jax’s shoulder toward the doorway. Blake filled the arched pass-through, his gunmetal-gray suit accentuating just how tall and broad he was.
“I can handle him.” I moved around Jax and lifted my chin. Whether I was telling him or myself that was the twenty-four-million-dollar question.
“Mr—” No. No, we wouldn’t be playing that game right now. Not in my house. The gallery was my domain, and I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. “Blake. What can I do for you?” I walked toward him, and past him into the next gallery space. “I’m very busy.”
“So I see. Who is that man?” His gaze was still on Jax. In fact, he hadn’t turned around to follow me.
I rolled my eyes and kept walking. Finally, I heard his dress shoes behind me. I snatched an iPad off the desk and logged into the gallery’s mainframe. Each virtual room was labeled with a picture of each piece of work.
It was the only thing that ever worked with how much Philomena moved around the pieces. I scanned the room to make sure everything matched so far.
Anything so I wouldn’t look at him.
Why was he here?
How had he found me?
Why had he found me?
“Ms. Copeland.”
I ignored him and checked off the dozen pieces and walked into the next room. It was a smaller room overlooking the cove. This was the room that housed the best of our offerings at the galleries. I frowned at the empty pedestal, and made a note.
“Dammit, Grace.”
I finally looked up at him. Just a few days had made a huge difference. I hadn’t really been able to look at him when he’d surprised me at the house yesterday. But now…his perpetual stubble had grown into the start of a beard.
The dark hair didn’t soften his chiseled face. In fact, it actually made his jaw seem even more angular. I frowned when I finally noticed the white bag dangling from his fingers. My gaze bounced from it back to his face.
“Why are you here?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped and his eyes hardened. “I thought this was where you resided.”
My stomach dropped. Oh, God. I’d forgotten I’d used the gallery’s address on my application. What exactly could I say? There was only one way to play this.
Ignore him.
I moved around him and he grabbed my arm and dragged me in close. His voice was low in my ear. “More lies?”
Nothing about Blake allowed me to forget, or to ignore. Not when I was in his airspace. God, would it always be like this?
No.
No, actually it wouldn’t. I met his dark stare. “I’m full of them, remember?”
Instead of recoiling, he dragged me closer until I was on my toes, my chest crashing into his arm. We were alone here. The gallery itself was bustling with people, but this room was empty. All but done save for one piece.
“Why?” He asked. His eyes glittered with anger and something else I couldn’t name. Something I was too afraid to name.
“Why does it matter? You fired me. We’re done, remember?”
“It matters, dammit.”
“Why?”
His jaw was clenched so hard, I was getting a sympathy headache from it. His hold on me was equally intense. Not enough to bruise, but it would take a good, hard shove to get him to let go.
Why wasn’t I pushing him away?
My nipples tightened under my dress. He couldn’t know, but it was bad enough I did. Shame and heartache climbed up my throat. I hated it—hated him—for how much I wanted him.
We were nothing but smoke trapped under glass. We suffocated each other, wrapped around each other, and then dissipated the moment we were set free. Not even an ember left when we were done with each other.
He dropped the bag he was carrying, and his fingers tunneled through my hair. The iPad clattered onto the empty pedestal. He lowered and I went on my toes until our mouths collided.
Bright white heat flashed behind my eyes as he devoured me. Teeth, tongues, and lips—we were wild for each other. He lifted me off my feet and carried me until I hit the window. His hand pressed to the glass above my head as he loomed over me.
He didn’t hesitate. There was no question, no room for doubt. He dragged my dress up, his short nails scoring my outer thigh until his knee bumped my inner thigh.
I rode the lightning we created together until voices dented my consciousness. Too close. Too much.
What the hell were we doing?
Another heated fuck that led to nowhere?
He pressed his forehead to mine, his chest heaving. “I hate this. I hate wanting you like this. I hate knowing you’re using me.”
I tightened my fingers on his shoulder blades under his jacket. I didn’t even remember curling around him. “And you’re not using me?”
His eyes were fierce and so very angry. He gripped my hair at the nape of my neck and dragged my head back. His voice was a mere growl of breath. “I want to use you until we both can’t breathe again. I want to fuck you so hard that I forget who and what we are.”
My vision blurred and a single tear escaped to roll down my temple into my hair. “I’m not what you think I am,” I whispered.
“I’m not who you think I am.”
I frowned and gripped his wrist. Open up a trade magazine and anyone knew who Blake Carson was. Brilliant, withdrawn, and with a drive to succeed that rivaled Steve Jobs. He had to in order to become a billionaire before the age of thirty.
Did he mean what he’d done to get where he was?
I couldn’t think. Not with him crowding me. His hold was almost unbearably tight. It made me feel alive, and I needed that. I was so tired of feeling numb and lost. I loathed that it was Blake who brought me into this moment, but I was too starved to say no.
When it was over—when our skin cooled—I’d have to face the numbness and the secrets again. The questions that plagued me.
But right now, I didn’t give a shit.
I pushed him back a step and wrapped his tie around my fingers. “This way.”
Five
I turned and dragged him forward. His nostrils flared, but he followed. When he figured out where I was going, his shoulders relaxed a fraction, but not his face.
No, that intense face was ever present when I touched him.
I wondered if my own was the same.
We went down a hallway that was near-camouflaged with the blinding white of the walls. There was a tiny nook of space with a door that led to the framing room. I reached behind me for the sliding door, opening it and pulling him inside.
Just a few minutes.
It was all I could spare, and all I could really survive.
He slid the door closed , and the lock seemed so loud. Would everyone know I was back here? I released his tie, backing up until I bumped into the framing table. Canvas and matte board scattered under my palms.
Blake strode across the small space in three strides. He tore at his tie and three buttons opened. Tanned flesh and sepia slashes swirled over his chest. He lifted me up and planted me on the table.
I couldn’t stop myself.
I needed to touch. I leaned into him, and his warm, spicy orange scent hit me just before my tongue swiped over his skin. He gripped my hair, directing my aim up.
I wasn’t through with him. Not here, not in my space. I wanted to touch him. Especially his skin. I pushed open his shirt and snapped out of his hold. I looked up at him as I curled the tip of my tongue over his nipple.
His fingers dug into my neck, but he let me coast a
round the firm muscles and the dip of stretched landscape to the center of his chest. Smooth. Flawless save for tiny little scars here and there. I traced my nail over the cartography and tiny numbers of longitude and latitude that were almost burned into his flesh. At least the tattoo made it look that way. So delicate and so rich in artistry. And always covered.
I wanted to rip open his shirt and see it all.
I tugged his shirttails out and pushed the fabric off his shoulder. God, so much more to see. I frowned. I knew those maps. It was the coast of Marblehead, Salem, and Manchester Bay. A detailed seafaring compass was open and more numbers were scattered into the design.
My home.
Why was he marked with places near me?
“I’m not who you think I am.”
His words dented the haze of lust. Who had he been before Blake Carson, creator of the glass empire?
He dragged my attention—and my mouth—back to his neck and up to his mouth. The kiss was drugging and mind-erasing. He shifted and a whisper of silk made me open my eyes. And his lips were gone.
“Blake?”
He shrugged his shirt back on, and then wrapped his burgundy-colored tie around my wrists. “You haven’t really grasped the idea of a quickie, have you, Ms. Copeland?”
My mouth went dry as he brought the ends between my hands and tucked them into the curve of my fingers. I could get free if I wanted. Okay, maybe with a little wiggling, but I could get free.
He lifted my joined hands and hooked them around his neck. “Hold on, Ms. Copeland.”
I squeaked when he picked me up, pushing my skirt up before setting me back on the table. It was an old drafting table, and sturdy as hell. I was pretty sure I was just about to find out how sturdy.
“Stockings?”
I swallowed hard as he ran his hands up my inner thighs. Worse. Pantyhose. The seriously most unsexy garments made in the history of man. I squirmed, but he simply drew me closer to the edge of the table. He hovered his lips over mine as he found the seam between my legs and dug his fingers in.
I gasped at the rending of silk and the sudden cool air across the apex of my legs.
“They were in my way.”
“Can’t have that, can we?” I muttered.
He nudged my panties aside. “No.” Then he covered my mouth and he slowly slid two fingers inside of me. I groaned around the invasion of his tongue and fingers at the same time. I wanted to clamp my legs shut, but his hips were in the way.
Too much.
Not enough.
I curled my arms around his neck. Hindered by my bindings, I couldn’t pull myself up higher, push forward for something deeper. I was completely at his mercy.
I tore my mouth away, my cheek pressing against his bearded one. “Quickie, you say?”
“I changed my mind.” His strokes were slow and methodical, and his mouth went from drugging to melting as he sipped from my collarbone and pushed the strap of my dress out of the way. “What else do we have under here?”
“Not fair.” He’d stopped me from exploring, dammit.
He lifted his head until my arms were stretched, and his fingers slipped from my body. He flicked his belt tail free, and the clink of the needle hitting his buckle as he opened his pants sounded so damn loud. “I don’t play fair, Ms. Copeland.”
He ducked lower, dragging his teeth over the brocade top of my dress. The sound of his teeth tugging at the lace and tiny bits of embroidery over my nipples stalled any breath I had left in my lungs.
“Blake.” I tried to hold on to his neck and the longer silky strands of his hair, but he had a plan.
He crouched in front of me at the table and widened my thighs. “You wouldn’t want them to hear you, now would you?” He held a finger—one that just had been inside me—in front of his lips.
“Oh God,” I whispered. With nothing but his shoulders to hang on to, I ended up flat on my back when he tipped my knees up to get closer. When I tried to struggle up again, he pressed a hand over my bunched up dress.
And then he was there, between my thighs. He pushed my panties aside and lapped at me—gently at first. Such a slow and thorough taste that I squirmed from the pleasure and the onslaught of Blake learning every part of me. This wasn’t what we were about. It was the quick and dirty with clothes still on. It wasn’t the fringes of romance where a man wanted to please his woman.
I lifted to his mouth. I didn’t want to. I wanted to push him away, but I lifted for him. I rested my heel on his shoulder as he took more—demanded all. I lifted my tied hands to my mouth and bit into the tie. Anything to muffle the cries that wanted to erupt from me.
I thrashed on the table and he held me down. With just that one hand, he held me still and used his other hand ruthlessly. His thumb along my clit worked in symphony with his mouth until my thighs quaked and the skylight above me was nothing more than a blur of blue and white.
When I didn’t think I could take any more, he finally stood. He pulled me to the edge of the table, and I heard the snap of latex.
Oh, thank God.
I curled my legs around his hips, digging my heels into the loosened pants, into his hips and the delicious curve of his ass.
“Yes.” The word was a litany in my head and out of my mouth. He swiped the head of his cock along my swollen pussy. I was so beyond ready for him I couldn’t breathe around the pleasure.
I looked down at him, and tried to struggle up so I could get myself wrapped around every bit of him. He wasn’t having any of that. Instead, he stretched out over me and lifted my tied hands over my head.
“Grace.”
His eyes were wild, his lips wet from me, and his control was as shattered as mine.
He closed his eyes as he sank into me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get my arms around his neck and touch him. I arched up under him as he decimated any need to move. His hips drove into me until the table shuddered and I groaned.
“More,” I said.
His eyes snapped open. A single drop of sweat slipped down the curve of his cheekbone to his beard and I reached up for it. I licked there and over to his mouth. My scent was all over him. I wanted it. I wanted to taste my pleasure on his tongue and lips.
I lifted enough to get our lips to align and he moaned deep into my mouth. I inhaled his breath and sucked on his tongue. His fingers tightened on my wrists. I arched, dragging my teeth down his chin to his neck.
“Fuck.” He tried to move away from me, but I wanted a piece of the madness. I was tired of being the one who reacted to him.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and matched him thrust for thrust, stride for stride. “Fuck me harder,” I growled into his neck.
He cursed and curled his arm around my waist before he dragged me up. Just what I wanted. I curled around him and the friction made my brain fuzz. I wanted him insane like me. I wanted it more than I wanted the orgasm that was reaching for me with greedy claws.
This angle let him drive deeper and we both muttered filthy words around each other’s lips. It was freeing. To allow myself to tell him what I needed. Even when I couldn’t quite understand it, he did.
He tucked an arm under my knee and lunged deeper. The whole damn table was banging against the cement. Quiet had gone out the window, but I didn’t care. There was enough banging in the gallery that maybe no one would notice.
Maybe.
Please, God.
I wrenched at my wrists and the tie finally came free, sliding to the floor. I scraped my nails through his hair and brought his forehead down to meet mine. “More,” I choked out.
“This cunt is mine. I will fuck you until you can’t move, until we can’t hate anymore.”
I held on tighter and shuddered at his harsh words. Was there a way to fuck the hate out? If there was, this man would do it. I quaked around his punishing thrusts. The burn of our bodies rubbing, his sheer size, and the overwhelming exhaustion broke me.
He held me tight as I cried out. As my body was no longer
my own. As it indeed became his, and the room faded to a whitewash, then of rushing color behind my eyelids. Mind-bending pleasure flipped me inside out until everything was too much.
“Grace.”
My name melted into the frenzy and I sobbed against his neck. His hips jerked against my thighs, and I held on. He tried to struggle away, but I wouldn’t allow it.
If I had to show him where my madness was, he had to give me his.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, my hands cupping the back of his head as his dark eyes went opaque and he emptied himself in me. And where he would normally withdraw, I didn’t allow it.
I held on to him.
I kissed him.
I let myself love him.
Six
I wasn’t sure what to do now.
Fighting and recriminations usually started about now. In fact, I was a little afraid to stop holding him. We didn’t know how to do the after. We kinda sucked at the before too.
We were really amazing at the sex part.
He eased away from me, but for the first time, he didn’t turn away. He cupped my face and kissed me so softly that my vision blurred—again. What the hell was this man doing to me?
I opened my mouth. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but a tentative call of my name killed whatever pseudo-speech I was going to come up with.
“Blake,” I whispered. “Buckle up.”
He frowned down at me, his dark eyes losing that blissful softness. The Billionaire Tight Ass Blake was coming back.
Again, I heard my name being called. “Dammit, Linda.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Who?”
I shoved him back a step and hopped off the table. “Don’t you hear that? Crap. Where’s my shoe?”
“I believe it was digging into my glutes. They should still be on your feet.”
I laughed up at him as I snagged one heel from under the table. “Your ass, Blake. You have my heel prints in your ass.”
“Not the first time either.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “I’m not exactly sure what to say.”
Reserved Blake was taking over. I could see the transformation. He took care of the condom with a flash of linen from his inside pocket, then tucked it away in his pocket. But instead of a quick fix of his shirt, he slowly buttoned from the middle of his belly up.