“I want to see you make yourself come.”
She crooks her finger at me. “I want to suck your cock while I do it.”
I didn’t think I could get any harder, but she’s just taken me to another level. I walk to her, my cock heavy and leaking. I kneel next to her head and she licks the tip. My hand goes to her breast, and I slowly palm it.
She adjusts so that her mouth can take more of me. I watch her fingers start to circle her hard nub. My cock is getting plenty of attention, as I feel her tongue flick the tip and lick the underside. She pulls me in deeper.
Her free hand squeezes my balls as I piston in and out of her mouth. I reach for her nipple and have just begun to twist when without any warning, I shoot rope after rope deep down her throat. I can’t decide if I’m more impressed that she drinks it all down or that she doesn’t stop pleasuring herself until she’s reached her own pinnacle. She pants her release as her pussy spasms.
I collapse beside her. “Fuck. You’re incredible.”
“I’ll show you more of my appreciation after I catch my breath.”
For a few moments, everything is quiet.
“I’m sorry about last night.”
We’re both lying flat on our backs, staring at the coffered ceiling as our breathing returns to normal.
“Me too,” she says. “I don’t want our relationship to be like that. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But we have to talk and understand each other,” she says.
I take a deep breath of air. “I know.” I kiss the top of her head. “I do want you. It’s just… It’s… It’s complicated.”
“It is. And maybe you’re on to something here. Rather than dive into everything at once at home with the girls, when we have an itch to scratch, we should get a hotel room. We can be loud and naughty.”
I caress her smooth skin. “I do like loud and naughty.”
“Okay then.” Her arms snakes across my middle. “So, tell me why you didn’t come home last night and have no plans for coming home tonight.”
Chapter 13
Lilly
I hold my breath, waiting for Nate’s explanation. I’ve been as flexible as I possibly can, and hopefully I haven’t humiliated myself. I just need to understand what’s happening in his head. Does he think this is a mistake?
“When we were finished having sex in Italy, you jumped out of bed and ran to sleep with Bex,” he says after a moment.
Okay… I roll into him and rest my head on his chest. I can hear his heartbeat as I circle my fingers through his chest hair. There’s more to this; he’s just not ready to talk about it. “You’re right,” I say. “I did do that. That’s my job. I know the girls gave you permission to date and said they think I’m a good match for you, but they don’t really know what they’re saying. We can’t change things overnight. And that doesn’t seem to be what you want either.” I get up on my elbows so I can look him in the eye. “I would have loved to stay with you, but it presented a situation I didn’t think we wanted to discuss yet. It doesn’t seem we’re ready for that. Right now, you can’t even be in the house with me.”
Nate sighs heavily, and after a moment he nods. “This part of me has been shut down for a long time, and when we came back home…it all hit me. I’m sorry. As you know, I don’t have a lot of dating experience anyway. I’m not going to do things well.”
“Do you want to date around for a while?” I hold my breath. “I get it. You’ve been with one woman your entire life. Maybe that’s smart. Shop around and see what’s out there. Take a few samples.”
He pulls away from me. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I don’t want to date anyone else. Until we were together, I wasn’t sure I could even get an erection with someone who wasn’t Cecelia. I’m not interested in messing around....” He trails off.
“What do you want?”
He looks into my eyes and really seems to think about it at the moment. “I’m still sorting through this, but ultimately, I want to hold your hand when we’re with the girls. I want to kiss you when I see you. And, I want to spend the nights with you tangled up in the sheets. I want what Cecelia and I had again—though I’m not asking you to be her. I don’t know how to describe it well… I want a friend, and I want a lover. And I think that can be you.”
I take a moment to smile at him, feeling hope in my heart. “I want that too, but right now we aren’t talking about just the two of us, we’re talking about four of us. You’ve mentioned that being in the house is tough at times. Is that part of what’s keeping you away right now?”
He looks away. “I suppose.” He plays with my hair.
I wait, and he doesn’t say anything. Finally, I ask the question that’s hanging out there unsaid. “Do you feel like being with me is cheating on Cecelia?”
“Partially,” he says just above a whisper. “But mostly I think I’m just scared. I never, ever thought she would die before me. I’m the one who went to war. I’m the one who flies all over the country in a small plane. She was supposed to mourn me and move on, not the other way around. She was so much stronger than me, and she left us. I can’t go through that again.”
I roll on my back. “Nothing in life is guaranteed. Look at my mom. She was vibrant and happy one day, and the next she sits in a wheelchair waiting for her body to give out. We can only take a chance and enjoy life. Sometimes we fall and our knees get skinned. It doesn’t mean we stop.”
“I want it all with you, and I want it yesterday, but I can’t get past this nagging feeling that I’m doing something wrong. When we hit the tarmac this morning, I freaked out. My old life came rushing back to me, and I didn’t know which way was up. And once I get a handle on that, then I ask, what happens when you decide the girls or I are too much work?”
I snort. “What happens if you don’t like how I chew my toast in the morning? Or that I sip my coffee too loud? How do we tell the girls?”
“You eat and drink? I don’t know.” Nate grins. “That right there may be a deal breaker.”
I laugh and sit up. “I’m serious.”
He caresses my breast. “I know you are. I don’t have all the answers right now. But, I’ll work on it. I really will—not just run away.” He looks up at me. “But I have another project in mind at the moment.”
I can see his cock getting hard again.
He rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and I moan my appreciation. “Right now, I want to enjoy you.”
He rolls me on my back and lies on top of me. I can feel his hardness pressing against my thigh, straining to enter me. He moves his mouth from my lips to my neck to my shoulders, and lingers on my breasts. His hot mouth welcomes my hard nipples, biting and sucking them. He then makes a trail of little butterfly kisses down my belly, stopping just above my mound. He kisses my legs and thighs, intentionally avoiding my aching pussy.
After tormenting me this way for what seems like hours, he says, “I’m dying to taste you...”
He nestles between my legs and eats my pussy. He makes his tongue as hard and stiff as possible and penetrates me. Then, with his tongue wide and flat, he circles and strums my clit. He knows just what to do.
I run my hands through his hair. “You’re very talented,” I breathe as I get close, hoping he’s going to tip me over the cliff.
But he keeps bringing me to the edge, then stopping. It’s pure torture.
“Please. I need to be fucked now,” I beg.
When he nods and sits up, I pull one of the condoms from the box and kiss the tip of his glorious cock before I roll it on.
I straddle him, and when I feel his cock fill me, I’m in heaven. I ride him with slow, long strokes so that he almost falls out, and then I come back down, controlling my speed. The smell of sex fills the air.
His hands are all over me. He grabs my hips to impale me even farther onto his cock. He guides my speed to a frenzy, squeezing my breasts as I ride him.
Without letting go of his cock, I swiv
el around to face the opposite way. I give him a smile over my shoulder.
“Oh baby, I love to see your ass pumping up and down,” he groans.
Suddenly, he grabs my hips and throws me down on my back in the plush bed. He moves my legs over his shoulders and drives himself deep into me. He holds on to the heels of my shoes for balance as he fucks me hard and fast.
“God, baby, faster, harder, fuck me,” I moan.
He flips me over on all fours to take me from behind. I love the way my breasts rock as he pounds me. He lightly slaps my ass with each thrust.
“Harder,” I plead.
“You like that?” His hand comes down again.
“More.”
“You like when I fuck you hard and deep, don’t you?”
He spanks me again, and his balls slap at my clit each time he fills me.
Nate’s dirty talk sends me careening right down the rollercoaster of my climax.
“Y-Yes, Nate, fuck me harder! I love your cock. I want you deep inside of me!”
The room fills with the sound of wet bodies crashing together again and again. It’s punctuated by grunts, groans, and moans as we work ourselves into a frenzy.
My toes curl, my body goes rigid, and my channel tightens as bliss overtakes every pore in my body.
“Oh, fuck! You’re so tight,” he says as my orgasm holds him in a vice.
“Yeah, baby. Give it to me. Don’t stop.” I gasp, holding on to the sheets as he plows right through, immediately building me up for another orgasm.
“Is that hard enough for you?” He rams his cock into me and pumps away.
He grabs my shoulders and thrusts harder. I play with my clit as he slams into me. I’m so close to coming again. I want to come with him.
“Lilly, I’m ready. I’m going to shoot a hot load...”
I rub my clit furiously. Slick noises fill the room.
He grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me back as he groans.
As soon as I feel his cock finish its pulses, I explode. My body quakes with him still buried inside me.
As our breathing finally becomes less labored, we disentangle from one another and collapse on the bed. We hold each other in silence for a while.
“We’re pretty loud,” Nate sighs. “It’s going to have to be a lot of hotels for a while.”
I fight sleep. “It doesn’t have to be so loud...” I look at the clock, and it’s seven thirty. “Oh! I promised the girls I’d be home in an hour. I need to get ready to go.”
His hands slip away.
“You can come with me, you know. We can get some cuddle time in after the girls go to sleep, which will be soon since they’re jetlagged. Thank goodness it’s spring break and they don’t have school right now.”
“I’m tired, too,” he says.
“Think about it while I take a quick shower.” I hop up and soon find myself in the most glorious shower.
Despite the steam, after a few minutes I can see a magnificent man stalk into the bathroom to join me.
He soaps up his hands and spends a long time making sure my mound and backside are clean. Then it’s my turn to wash him. I slow down as I get to his chest. He’s beautiful. It takes all my willpower to finish the shower and get ready to head back to the house.
As I dress, I’m happy to see him gathering his things.
“I’m ready to go too,” he tells me once I’m headed for the door.
I wait in the hallway for him to join me.
“Thank you for convincing him to come home,” Trevor says in a low voice.
I smile. “Cecelia’s ghost is strong.”
“It was a huge loss,” he agrees. “But you’ve brought a lot of the bright color back into the house.”
Like me, Trevor’s an employee. We know what’s going on in the house and with its occupants often before they do. His words mean a lot. “Thank you.”
After another moment, Nate rolls his bag into the hallway, and we’re off.
When we get home, I yell for the girls. “Look who I found out front!”
“Daddy!” Bex runs to him, almost knocking him down.
“Hey, Dad,” Katrina says, not looking up from her phone.
“Hey! I have an idea. Why don’t we all get in our jammies and watch a good princess movie on Disney+?”
Bex jumps up and down and claps. “Yes!”
Katrina shrugs her agreement.
Nate looks at me, and even as he nods and smiles at his daughters, I can see he’s unsure how he feels about all this. Cecelia is everywhere in this house. These are her girls. He has to be overwhelmed by all the memories here, even if he does want to move on. But I’m determined to help him do it.
Chapter 14
Nate
Though I had to white-knuckle it through that first movie night after we returned from Italy—I fought with my feelings for the full length of the live-action Mulan—it’s gotten easier. Watching a movie all together in my bedroom a couple times a week has actually become a regular thing for us. Though some nights we do better than others.
Katrina left about twenty minutes into Frozen, complaining that she’d seen it a ridiculous number of times—totally true. And other nights both Bex and Lilly are fighting sleep, so I don’t know why we’ve bothered. The last time we watched, I carried Bex to her room and came back to find Lilly asleep. I pulled her in tight, and she snuggled up against me. She fits perfectly.
And it’s not just movies. We’ve developed a nice routine all the way around over the last three weeks or so. I’m trying to be home more often, and to be truly present when I am. Bex is always happy to see me, though Katrina remains moody and challenging. The girls have returned to school, and Lilly has found them both some horseback riding lessons.
At night I usually get a short time with Lilly, but the most we do is make out and steal kisses. Occasionally she falls asleep at my side, but she always wakes before the girls do and sneaks back to her own room.
The weather continues to warm, and we’ve found our new normal. Cecelia hasn’t come to me in my dreams for a while, and I feel mostly okay about that. For the first time in a long time, I think I’m happy.
Until everything changes.
My phone rings, and it wakes me just after six a.m. It’s Walker.
“Hello?”
“Nate, this is Walker Clifton with the US Attorney’s office.”
He’s very formal, so I follow his lead. “Good morning, Mr. Clifton. This is an early call.”
“We wanted to let you know we’ve arrested Christina Daniels in relation to your wife’s murder.”
I feel every bit of air rush out of my lungs, as if I’ve been punched in the gut. Christina was Cecelia’s close friend.
“What can you tell me?” I manage to ask after a moment, my mind racing.
“Mr. Lancaster, this is Harper Marks with the US Attorney’s office,” says a new, female voice on the line. “We’re still investigating but it seemed Ms. Daniels was preparing to leave the country in a private jet, and we wanted to stop her. It will be in the national news, and we wanted you to hear it from us first.”
“Christina and Cecelia were close,” I tell her. “She was here with us while we were looking for Cecelia and helped to plan her funeral. She isn’t someone we just knew; she was a friend.”
I’m vaguely aware of Lilly leaving the room.
“Nate, I know this is tough,” Walker interjects. “We have several other arrests coming. When we searched your home, office, and the foundation offices, we confirmed our suspicions. Please be patient with us. But for now, we are holding Ms. Daniels, and the news outlets and tabloids already are aware. We wanted to protect you and your girls.”
“I understand,” I mumble.
“We’ll continue to keep you apprised as we’re able to,” Ms. Marks says. “But we see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Thank you.”
“Nate, I’ve called Jim Adelson.” Walker’s voice drops and becomes mo
re personal. “I know Mason’s out of town. Marci and I would like to stop by later. Will you be around?”
“I’m guessing we’ll be home all day.” I start to think of all the helicopters and mess that will be barreling down on us. We can’t leave the house. I run my hands through my hair. My mind then jumps to every interaction we’ve had with Christina. How do I tell the girls the worst thing that ever happened to them was caused by someone they know?
“This is going to open a lot of wounds. Do you want to take the girls up to Whistler?” Walker says as he shifts fully from US Attorney to my friend.
I like that idea. “Let me talk to Lilly and the girls.”
“Whatever you need.”
“Will you be calling Cecelia’s parents?” I ask.
“That’s our next call,” Ms. Marks says.
Thank goodness. I’m not sure I could explain this. “Thank you, both,” I tell them. “I appreciate the update.”
I hang up and sit back hard against my headboard. Holy fuck. I knew that stupid bitch was trouble when she got so cozy with Cecelia, but I thought she just wanted a wealthy husband. Her girls are friends with my girls. I rub my face, at a loss. What the hell?
Lilly walks in with Trevor behind her. “I’ve spoken to Jim,” Trevor says. “He agrees that getting out of town is probably wise. We understand you have access to Walker Clifton’s place in Whistler?”
I nod.
“Your pilot can be at the airport in twenty minutes. I’d like to bring a full crew. We can add Mr. and Mrs. Cortez and Alicia, as well, if you’d like.”
“Thanks, Trevor. May I speak with Lilly for a moment?”
He nods. “Of course.” He steps outside, pulling the door closed behind him.
Lilly is wearing a T-shirt that almost hits her knees and a pair of men’s boxers. She pulls the T-shirt down farther. “What happened?”
“They arrested Christina Daniels this morning.”
“What? Wh—Why?”
“In connection to Cecelia’s murder. They have other arrests still to come, but they have something on her, and they caught her trying to leave the country, so they stopped her.”
Showdown: Tech Billionaires Page 13