But the more my anger stewed, the more her own built. When I glanced her way, she was staring out the window and grinding her teeth, the curves of her nails cutting into the skin of her palms every few seconds.
The ride remained silent and tense and didn’t break until the door to my apartment slammed shut behind us.
I tossed my wallet and keys onto the counter and pulled the tails of my shirt out of my pants. As I loosened my tie, Georgia geared up for battle, turning to face me and slamming her tiny purse down on the kitchen table with force.
“I can’t believe you!” she seethed.
“Me?” I asked in disbelief, four fingers pointing to the outside of my chest and raging heart pumping under the surface.
“Yes, you! That was a multi-million dollar deal. Access to ads we don’t have to pay for for twelve months!” She shook her head. “I’ve been working on it for the better part of six months! And you threw in the towel because you were a jealous boyfriend.”
“Fuck that, Georgia!” I yelled, and she jumped. It was the first time I’d ever raised my voice at her, and it felt just awful enough that I hoped it was the last. But she needed to hear this. “I didn’t screw shit. That deal was menial at best from the beginning, signing away our lives to him for an entire year. And the way Glen conducts business is bullshit.”
“I’m a woman, Kline! Sometimes I have to play the game a little differently than you.”
“That’s horseshit.”
She jerked back, and her face flushed red with anger.
“The moment you lower yourself to playing into fuckwits like Glen is the moment you’ve already shot yourself in the goddamn foot and leg.”
“I had it under control.”
“You didn’t have shit,” I spat. “He was touching you. There is nowhere, not one single place, where that’s appropriate in business, man or woman.”
“Kline—”
It would be bad enough that I’d interrupted her, so I forced my voice to calm. “You are a brilliant woman. When someone notices your beauty and belittles it like that, you tell them to fuck off, and you do it immediately.”
“I was trying to—”
“No,” I interrupted again, pulling my tie from my neck and tossing it next to my keys, softening my voice even further. “You’re right about a lot of things, a lot of the time, baby, but about this, you. Are. Wrong.”
Anger lined every angle of her body, the way she stood, and the expression on her face. But she didn’t say anything. She knew I was right. She knew she hadn’t been on her A-game, and she was fucking pissed about it.
Pissed that women had to be in that position in the first place.
Infuriated that she hadn’t held her ground when he’d pushed.
She could carry that anger for the whole night for all I cared. In fact, I hoped she did. Stewed on it. Learned from it.
I didn’t mind one fucking bit as long as she got the hell into my arms.
“Be angry,” I told her. “But, please, for the love of God, do it while you’re touching me.”
Two fuming steps ate half the distance between us, and I closed the rest, pulling her face to mine with a clutch of her jaw.
Buttons scattered as she ripped my shirt wide open and pushed the destroyed fabric from my shoulders. Heat ran down my spine like a bullet out of a gun, burning a track all the way down and gripping my balls at the bottom.
I could feel them tighten in excitement, and an aggressiveness I didn’t know I possessed surged through my veins in accompaniment.
As soon as the tattered fabric cleared my fingertips, my hands went straight for her ass and around, down the backs of her thighs and back up the inside, bringing her skirt with them. Scratching lightly, my fingernails tested her skin before the urge to grab overwhelmed me. Skin bunched and moved with the pressure before forming a perfect shelf below her ass where my hands could live.
I lifted her with ease, forcing her legs up and around my hips with pressure at my pinkies, and strode for the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders to ease the pressure on my own and redistribute it perfectly to my hard-as-fuck cock.
Uninhibited, she ate at my lips, sucking one and then the other between her own and running her tongue along the seam of them.
A groan rumbled in my chest and her breath came out in pants, but that didn’t slow either of us. Time versus pleasure was a race, the culmination of both right on the edge with no chance of stopping. I wanted her more than I wanted to breathe, and when she threw her head back, let go of my shoulders, and ripped her shirt over her head, she confirmed I wasn’t the only one.
“Suck on them,” she ordered, thrusting her tits in my face and reaching behind her back to unhook her bra.
With my hands at her lower back to hold her steady, I didn’t delay or disappoint, pulling one cup down with my teeth before she could find the clasp.
Little nibbles and sucking kisses, I tortured every inch of skin, burrowing my face in the bottom swell and biting it enough to make a mark.
She yelped slightly, but it morphed into a moan as she pulled the scrap of fabric down her arms in between us and threw it to the floor of my bedroom.
With my back to the bed, I fell to my ass, unwilling to abandon our current position or circumstances. Her knees sank naturally into the mattress at my sides, and the newfound freedom of my hands made me test the weight of her perfect tits in each one.
“God, Kline,” she whimpered. “They ache.” She let out two short pants as my tongue swirled the tip and sucked it deep into the warmth of my mouth. “I ache.”
“Make it better, Georgie,” I dared after releasing her pink nipple with a pop.
Always up for a challenge, she didn’t hesitate, backing off of my lap in an instant and unbuckling the belt at my waist. Her tongue flashed out and tasted her own lips as she did, heady arousal running so hot in her blood that she couldn’t stop. I nearly lost my fucking mind.
Belt undone, she made quick work of the button and zipper and shoved her hands inside before I could make a move to reciprocate with her skirt.
Jesus Christ.
The feel of her hand diving in to grab my dick without remorse or hesitation nearly made me come in my pants.
“Georgia,” I whispered, and her bright, fiery eyes jumped to mine with desperation.
She’d been pouring all of her angst and uncertainty from the meeting into this—into us—and I didn’t mind. But at the same time, I wanted her to feel what was coming from me. My jealousy, my rage—sure—but mostly my fucking disgust at listening to someone treat her like anything less than the smart, beautiful, goddamn goddess of a woman she was.
“Come on, baby. Climb on. Fuck me until it only hurts good.”
She finally shucked her skirt and I did the same with my pants, toeing off my shoes in the process. She didn’t bother, keeping her heels on her feet and climbing on top of me again.
I reached to grab a condom from my pants, but she slid down on my dick before my fingers even met the fabric.
“Fuuuuuck.”
“Oh yeah,” she agreed, emphatic. “I’m going to.”
“Condom,” I reminded her, grabbing her hips to slow her already building speed.
She just shook her head with a smile, a halfway distant look in her eyes suggesting she didn’t even understand what the fuck she was doing.
If I thought for even a second there was a chance I’d hurt her in some way or give her some kind of a disease by taking her without a condom, I would have stopped her.
But I knew for a fact I wouldn’t, and if there were other consequences, like an unplanned pregnancy, I’d literally run myself ragged to make it worth it for all of us.
Because good God, I did not want to interrupt or ruin this show.
I eased my grip on her hips just enough that she could move freely and she took advantage.
She found her rhythm quickly, her tits swinging deliciously and the plump cheeks of her ass cradling my thighs
and balls with every stroke down.
Her hair fell down and around her face, and her breath came out in staccato pants. I’d never seen a woman take hold of her pleasure so thoroughly. She squeezed me internally with every stroke, touched the skin on my chest like she couldn’t get enough—connected—and yet, she worked me with the focus of someone doing nothing but chasing their own pleasure.
A smile swallowed my face as her pussy did the same to my cock. Up and down she went, her thighs shaking more and more with each stroke.
“That’s it, sweetheart.”
She was getting close now, and her fingernails were digging half-moons into the skin at my chest. I grabbed a handful of flesh at the sides of her hips and held on, saddling up and getting ready for what was to come.
When a moan exploded from her chest, I lost any pretense of control. A clap of sound cracked the heavy, sex-filled air as I reddened the skin of her ass with one hand and plucked at one of her perfect nipples with the other.
“Ride that cock, Georgia.”
Her pussy clenched.
Fuck yes.
“Make it yours,” I demanded, pushing her to take it to the next level. With an ab curl, my mouth lunged for her untortured nipple and sucked it with a pop. Her pussy grabbed me again, and this time was slow to let go. “Fuckkkkk. God, this cunt. It’s gonna make me yours for fucking ever.”
And it was. That and her mind and her single-minded determination to redefine herself—to redefine her evening’s decisions—in one dominating ride on my cock.
If this was how we fought, I’d fight with her forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Georgia
“Honey, I’m home!” Cassie yelled. A familiar echoing thud filled my ears as she dropped her bags to the floor. “Where in the hell are you?”
“In here!” I called from the bathroom. My lashes fluttered as I tried to apply mascara without poking my eye out. I liked makeup, loved when someone helped me apply my makeup, but I wasn’t very good at doing it myself. Which was why if Cassie—the makeup guru—wasn’t around to help me get ready, I stuck with the basics.
“Aw, isn’t this sweet,” she said, resting her shoulder on the doorframe. “My little baby is all grown up, applying her own makeup and shit.”
“I even got my period last week, Mom,” I tossed back, my voice monotone. “I think I’m officially a woman.”
“What in the hell are you doing?” she scoffed, watching my reflection in the mirror. “Are you trying to remove your eyelid with that brush?”
See what I mean? Makeup and I weren’t all that great of friends.
Lipstick? Sure.
Blush? Yeah, okay.
Even mascara I could manage.
But anything else, I was pretty much incompetent.
“Give me that before you detach a retina.” She snatched the eye shadow brush from my hand.
I scrunched my nose. “What do you know about detached retinas?”
“I dated an optometrist like a million years ago and there was—” She stopped midsentence, taking in my narrow-eyed expression.
“Okay, if you want to be specific about it,” she amended. “I banged an optometrist a few times.”
“That’s better. Keep going,” I urged her.
“Well, there was an incident, and he freaked the hell out about my eye. Mumbling something about a detached retina.”
“Do I even want to know details?”
“If you don’t want to hear about how Wally’s giant penis poked me in the eye while he was com—”
“Yep.” I held up my hand, laughing. “I’m much better without.”
“I’ll tell ya one thing.” She smirked, resting her hip on the sink. “Wally was my first uncircumcised penis.”
I stared at her.
“What?” she asked, shrugging. “I felt like I was playing with one of those toys from the ‘90s. You know, the ones filled with water that would slip through your hands. I wasn’t prepared for the foreskin.” She looked off into space, thinking about God only knew what. “But once I got the hang—” She stopped, taking in my wordless expression.
Of course, internally, I was cracking up, but I knew Cass. Believe me, I had to disengage before she went any further. Because if she continued, we’d all know far too much about Wally.
“Geez, tough crowd,” she muttered, fiddling with my makeup and finding her choice in eye shadow color before gesturing to my eyes. “This color is all wrong, by the way. You have gorgeous blue eyes. You need something that’ll make ’em pop.”
She motioned for me to sit down.
I plopped my robe-covered butt on the closed toilet seat and waited patiently for her to work her magic.
“I was trying to do a smoky eye,” I admitted.
“Yeah, but these dark tones are all wrong,” she said, moving toward me with a color palette in hand. “You can do a smoky eye, but you need neutral tones. Otherwise, you’re just going to hide that spectacular blue.”
“Close ’em,” she instructed, brush held up close to my face.
I shut my eyes, sighing in relief. My best friend was home. Sure, we’d still managed to chat nearly every day through texts and short phone calls, but it wasn’t the same. Four weeks was a long fucking time.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she responded, a smile in her voice. “I’m happy you were actually going out and having fun while I was gone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I peeked at her out of my left eye.
She flashed an are you serious? look.
“I go out,” I disagreed. “I go out all the time. I party like a freakin’ rockstar!”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “A very poor rockstar, who isn’t in a band anymore, and starts yawning by nine and just wants to be home drinking wine.”
“I’m not like that all the time,” I denied, laughing despite myself. “But seriously, you’re never allowed to leave me again.”
The brush swiped over my left eyelid in smooth, sure movements.
“I wasn’t even gone for a month, and I’m here for tonight. Anyway, you were a busy little bee with your new boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. It felt weird to hear someone else call him that. In private, we’d exchanged the boyfriend/girlfriend sentiment frequently, but we were still keeping our relationship very much on the down low at work. My choice, of course. Kline was more than ready to make us public to everyone, but I just wasn’t in that place yet.
We had fallen into this relationship so quickly and I didn’t want to be rash about letting my coworkers know I was dating the boss. I couldn’t ignore that nagging thought in the back of mind that wanted to find a way to protect myself as much as possible if we didn’t work out—and protect myself from the shrieks of Dean if we did.
There was no denying we were together, but in a way, boyfriend didn’t feel like the right word for what Kline was to me. It was too small, too casual. In such a short amount of time, he’d become a huge part of my life.
The brush moved to my other lid, working a little quicker once Cassie had found her makeup-applying stride.
As I thought about Kline and me and everything we had together, a smile crept its way across my lips, until happiness consumed my entire mouth.
“Well, look at you, all smiley and smitten. By the looks of it, I’d say someone has got it bad.”
My cheeks flushed hot.
“Are you blushing, Wheorgie?”
“No.” My hands went straight to my cheeks. “I am most certainly not blushing.”
“Of course you’re not.” She laughed. “Tilt your head back.” She gripped my chin. “So, give me the scoop. What’s the boss really like?”
“He’s just… I don’t know even where to begin.” That smile was back, taking over my entire face—mouth, cheeks, even my eyes were crinkling at the corners.
“Dude, tone down the cheesy grin or else I’ll screw up your makeup.”
I laughed, despite my
self. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I really like him, Cass.”
She paused for a second and my eyes opened, meeting her intrigued stare.
“What?” I asked, starting to feel self-conscious. “Does the smoky eye look stupid on me?”
She shook her head.
“Then what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing. Close your eyes again so I can finish up. Other people need to get ready around here, you know,” she teased, her hip bumping my side.
I did as I was told and enjoyed the luxury of having someone else do the tedious task of applying eye shadow and liner.
“You know,” she whispered, “I think you’re holding back on me. I think—actually, I know—this thing between you and Kline, it’s a whole lot more than just like.”
“I said I really like him,” I retorted, my mouth staying in a flat line as she slid lipstick across my lips.
“I’m aware,” she said, her voice tickled with amusement. “But I think there’s another four-letter word rolling around in your brain.”
“Fuck?” I deadpanned.
“No, but how is the fucking? Is it everything you dreamed of when you were holding on to your coveted virginity?” she teased.
“Eh.” I feigned indifference. “I could take it or leave it.” I pulled the corners of my lips down into a pout, hiding another cheesy grin.
She snorted, taking in my absurd expression—smiling eyes, frowning mouth, and cheeks about to burst at the seams. “So, what I think you’re telling me is that he’s better than you could have ever imagined? Your Big-dicked Brooks billionaire can bring it.”
I shrugged, biting back a laugh. “Something like that.”
“I knew it!” She fist pumped the blush brush. “I’m not one to say ‘I told you so,’ but yeah, I told you so!” Cassie danced around the bathroom, shaking her ass and laughing maniacally.
“All right, crazy. Less gloating, more fixing my makeup,” I demanded, giggling at her antics.
“I feel like we need a kitchen dance party to commemorate this momentous occasion,” she announced, still dancing around in the silent room.
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