I moaned loudly as I came, not caring if the whole office heard me and rushed down from the fifth floor. I was late to work, exhausted, irresponsible—and so, so satiated that none of it mattered.
Nash pulled out as soon as I shattered around his fingers, leaving my body aching at the emptiness. The echoes of the orgasm forced my walls to clench emptiness, throbbing against the knob that filled my ass.
“Get on your knees,” he demanded, not waiting for me to recover. “Beg me for permission to suck my cock and swallow my cum.”
The post-orgasm euphoria fogged my mind, reducing me to nothing but need.
I forced myself to stare him in the eyes as I knelt. He looked lethal. A dangerous fantasy confronting reality. Every death-defying moment condensed into a single person. Something that sounded like a human, breathed like a human, but couldn’t possibly be human. He was so much more.
With my knees on the floor, I squeezed my thighs together, desperate to find relief. The movement made the knob feel tighter in my ass, drawing a tiny moan from me. It had been so long since I had been touched, and he was torturing me for the hell of it.
“May I suck your cock?”
My tone suggested he could go to hell. I sealed it with a taunting smile, unbelieving of how wet I was. He narrowed his eyes and waited for me to continue.
Shit.
Was I really going to ask this?
Was this really my kink or was I just desperate for Nash?
Both, I decided and submitted to his will.
“May I swallow your cum?”
“Fuck.”
A mutter.
He looked like he couldn’t believe he had let it slip out.
Or maybe he couldn’t believe I had actually asked that.
Neither could I.
His face remained frozen in a scowl, like he was fighting himself. Two hazel eyes glistened with irritation. That defined jaw clenched. Our eyes met and held, his defiling mine, stripping me down to nothing.
Nash recovered first, unzipping himself. Instead of removing his shirt and sliding the suit pants down, he pulled his erection out and ran his palm down the long, thick length. “Open.”
I parted my lips, slipping the tip of my tongue out. He traced my lips with the head of his cock. Pre-cum smeared across the sensitive skin before he suddenly slid in as far as I could take him.
“Shit,” Nash cursed.
My wrists bit against the belt, needing to place two palms on his thighs and steady my body.
He slid out slowly. His eyes fluttered shut before they popped open, meeting mine. He thrust back into my mouth and hit the back of my throat. I struggled to take as much of as him as I could, but I wanted to prove to him I was more than he thought I was.
It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.
“So fucking good.” He ran a palm through my hair, clutching the messy strands and gripping onto them in a way that hurt so nice. “That’s it, baby. Take my cock.”
His groans lit me up. I hollowed my cheeks, sucking as hard as I could, pushing as deep as my body allowed.
When I moaned around his cock, he growled, “You only ever get wet for me, don’t you?”
Yes.
But he couldn’t know.
Even when I spoke to Ben, it was Nash I pictured as I’d touch myself. Nash I’d imagine as I came.
Nash, Nash, Nash.
He invaded my mind, all because of one night I couldn’t wipe from my memory.
I hated his control over me. He didn’t need it. Probably didn’t even want it. But he had it. A gift I couldn’t pry out of his fingers even if I tried.
So, I shook my head—or tried to, but his thrust stopped the movement.
“Such a liar.” Two palms pressed the back of my head until my nose dug against his skin and he slid down my throat. Nash thrust into my mouth again, deep and long, before he pulled out and stroked his length. “Open your mouth, my devious liar.”
He gave me half a second before jets of cum shot out at me. I barely parted my lips in time to catch them. It fell down my chin and dropped onto my chest.
“Don’t swallow yet.” He stepped forward to trace the cum on my chest around a nipple. “Let me see.”
I opened my mouth. His essence still filled it, the taste something I savored. Nash’s chest rose as he took in the sight. Disheveled hair. Harsh eyes. Defiant stance. He looked like he felt—a nightmare disguised as a dream.
Leaning down and reaching behind me, he released me from the restraints and nudged my jaw closed with a single finger.
“Look at me as you swallow.”
I tilted my chin up to face him. We held eye contact as his cum slid down my throat. My poor heart battered my chest at the look of satisfaction unfurling across his face.
“Tell me how I taste, little Tiger.”
Like a god.
“I’ve tasted better.”
“Pretty little liar.” His thumb traced the length of my jaw and tilted my chin up until I couldn’t look away. “You suck cock like a good girl, but everything else from your lips is so, so bad.” Full lips met my temple and dragged down until they pressed against my ear. “Do you want more?”
My palms fell to his chest, yearning to scratch away his shirt and dig into his smooth skin. “Yes.”
So quiet, I wondered if he had heard it.
I didn’t want to repeat myself. He had carved my resistance. A rose without her thorns, naked and yielding.
Nash dragged a finger past my collarbone, between my breasts. “Do you want my cock inside you?”
“Yes.”
Another whisper.
“How badly? Tell me how badly you want my cock. Tell me how you want me to fuck your tight, little pussy.”
I should have processed the glint in his eyes as he said it. It reeked of ulterior motives. The face a grandmaster made seconds before he said, checkmate.
Instead, I latched onto Nash, cursing the fact that everything with him was a challenge.
A test.
I refused to lose.
“Rough.” I dug my nails into his chest and scraped. I wanted to leave a mark, like the scars that adorned his torso. Mine would be shaped like me—wild and unforgettable. “Hard. Like it’s the first and last time you’ll ever touch me.”
He laughed then, the sound deafening so close to my ear. “I told you we’re not fucking. And unlike you, I’m not a liar.”
In the time it took to exhale, I had already lost. He was past the doorway, leaving me in my ripped shirt, cum dripping down my thigh and a knob in my ass.
This was supposed to cure me of my fixation.
It had only made it worse.
My mood worsened as the day progressed.
I told Nash to go to hell, and by the time I cleaned up, changed, dropped my bags off in my closet, and arrived to work two hours late, Nash was typing away at his laptop with the rest of my coworkers.
Apparently, hell was my office.
He cocked a brow as if to say, and where have you been?
I had been joking when I accused him of stalking me, but maybe he actually was. He had made himself at home in the office, replacing one of the computers with his own laptop, taking up the entire desk as if he owned it.
He does own it, Emery. Given the state of your trust fund and how desperate you are for work, he basically owns you, too.
God, trying to screw Nash had been a horrible idea, like taking on the Avengers armed with an unloaded gun. I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Ben.
Durga: Newsflash—you give horrible advice.
I deleted the text without sending. Guilt gnawed at my stomach. A—Ben usually nailed every piece of advice he delivered. B—screwing Nash out of my system would have worked if he were anyone else but Nash, the one guy on Earth to take more pleasure in turning down a no-strings-attached hook up than wild sex.
Pocketing my phone, I eyed everyone. Cayden’s desk was too messy for anyone to justify booting him from it, so Ch
antilly sat on the couch I normally shared with Ida Marie and Hannah.
No one explained why Nash was here as I entered, the silence so opposite of what this place resembled sans dictator Nash.
I dropped my Jana Sport at the foot of the couch and leaned down to hug Ida Marie. “Sorry that I’m late, y’all. Some asshole wouldn’t let me into the elevator, and then I had to stop by the, um, restroom.”
Lame as far as excuses went.
I was off my A-game, stealing glances at Nash every few seconds and trying not to be obvious about it. He didn’t look up at me. In fact, he typed away at his laptop as if nothing had happened.
“Pay dock.” Chantilly pointed to the coffee table with her chewed-up pen, not bothering to offer me her attention.
I took a seat on the floor, wondering if I had stepped into the Twilight zone. I pulled out my sketchbook to begin drawing portrait ideas for the C-level suites. As soon as my sketchbook hit the coffee table, a stack of folders fell above it like Jenga pieces collapsing.
I counted down from ten, bit my tongue until it bled, and finally looked up at the jackass who had thrown the papers down. “Yes?”
Nash wore the same bespoke suit. His hair no longer stuck up in several directions, but his eyes remained wild, caged by a thinning veneer. I studied him for signs I had company in this lust.
How easy it had been for him to leave me etched doubt into my brain.
His tongue against my collarbone.
His fingers curled inside me.
His cock pressed against the back of my throat.
None of it seemed to faze him.
But to me, touching him was a song on repeat you couldn’t forget. Each touch—the beat. Each orgasm—the bass. Each demand of his—the lyrics.
Beg for me.
Suck my cock.
Swallow my cum.
A song that never got old.
“I need copies of these.” His eyes snapped to the Bvlgari watch he never would have been caught dead wearing four years ago. “Two each.”
I skimmed the papers. Half of them had been typed in a foreign language. The word Singapore stood out to me, along with Delilah and Nash’s names.
“I’m not your assistant.” When I swiped them off the table, the papers floated to the carpet like dead leaves. I wanted to step on them and watch them crumble. “Do it yourself.”
“Check your contract.”
Nash didn’t bother to pick up the papers. He pulled out his phone, and I just knew he was playing Candy Crush. I doubted he played for the game, but for the pleasure of pissing people off. Another tool in an arsenal that resembled the U.S. Army’s.
He continued with his game, adding, “You’ll notice clause forty-two, subsection C clearly states each employee may have added job responsibility in the company’s time of need. I am the company, and I am in need.”
I waited for a sign he was bluffing.
Wishful thinking.
He could bluff, but he’d never break.
The contract had been ridiculously long, and it would have taken me a month to go through it in detail. I skimmed it as best as I could, but it had been lawyer-speak, and Reed assured me it was a standard form every employee had to sign.
Fuck. Me.
We didn’t have printers in this temp office. Where did he expect me to go? Did Kinko’s still exist?
Nash continued, “There’s a coffee shop next to the printing center on third street.” Fishing out his all-black credit card from my wallet with fingers that had just been inside me, he tossed it onto the stack of papers. “I’ll make it easy for you this time, seeing as your level of competency sits somewhere between a lobotomized pigeon and the dip-shits who wrote Disaster Movie. Dark roast. Black. Largest size.”
Picturing his torture, I collected the papers from the floor and the company credit card, taking my sweet time. I used his company card to buy everyone at the tent city Chipotle, myself new jeans to replace the pair I’d left in his room, his damn paper copies, and the coffee (decaf because he didn’t deserve to be caffeinated).
I shot a text to Ben on my way back.
Durga: Does North Carolina have the death penalty for murder?
Benkinersophobia: Yes, but you can take out your aggression through angry phone sex tonight. My balls are bluer than a whale’s.
Durga: Whales have pink balls, and they weigh, like, one ton. At the very least, I hope you’re proportional.
Benkinersophobia: Durga?
Durga: Yes?
Benkinersophobia: Shut up and fuck me tonight.
Durga: [GIF of Chris Pratt thrusting]
Nash was still in the office when I returned after changing into the new jeans and dropping my sweats off in my closet. Except this time, he had begun a meeting without me.
I snuck in and sat next to Ida Marie, resisting the temptation to crawl my way there on the zero-point-zero-zero-zero-one-percent chance he wouldn’t see me.
No such luck.
Nash glanced at his watch before ignoring me. I set his copies and coffee down on the table, took my seat, and whispered—in my defense, discreetly—to Ida Marie, “What is he doing here? I thought he wasn’t supposed to show up until we had the 3D renderings done and ready for his approval.”
That should have given me at least a week without seeing him.
Ida Marie scribbled across her notepad in indecipherable strokes. “Chantilly just announced that he’ll be helping with the workload.”
“Couldn’t he hire someone local for this project?”
My notebook sat at the bottom of my Jana Sport. Rather than fetch it, I leaned back and studied Nash. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. Fifteen years of knowing him, and that was the single habit I ever noticed.
Ida Marie dipped her shoulders and fidgeted with the notes she’d been taking. “Maybe he’s one of those involved C.E.O.s?” Even she didn’t sound convinced, and a felon dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit could swindle her out of her wallet. “I’m sure there’s a good reason. You don’t think we’re in trouble or anything, right?”
“No.”
But there had to be a reason. I remained on high alert. Nash plowed through request after request, ordering us around like a drill sergeant. He held up the fabric swatches and sorted through them before settling on the one I liked the least.
I mean, I disliked all of them. I thought this make-the-hotel-as-bland-as-possible thing was a huge mistake, but what did I know? I only had a major in fashion design and a minor in interior.
“This color contrasts with the flooring.” He seemed hollow as he spoke, almost detached in a way that made me question why he had chosen the hotel business in the first place. “We had a similar color scheme in our Beijing location, which was featured in an hour-long Hotels Digest film. It’s also a AAA Five Diamond Award recipient.”
Somewhere in the past four years, the passion had seeped out of him, a leaky faucet of enthusiasm. This wasn’t the Nash Prescott who walked around with bruised knuckles and a look in his eye that suggested he knew something I didn’t.
Working at Prescott Hotels bored him. A daily chore. I never thought Nash Prescott would be the type to sell out.
I must have been making a face, because he asked, “Is there something you’d like to say, Miss Rhodes?”
I mulled over an answer before settling with, “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Translation: you’re not gonna like it, so let’s not continue this war in public. Blood is a bitch to get off low pile, polypropylene carpet.
Say it. I dare you, his eyes challenged me.
Chantilly’s eyes, on the other hand, screamed with warning, and if she could have strangled me without ending up in a six-by-eight cell, I was sure she would have… but because I had never been one to pass up a good dare, I spoke my mind.
“Your ‘vision’—and I use that term loosely—feels like a sell-out. Yeah, your company’s brand is this bougie, ritzy bullshit, but you’ve never been
.” Fuck. That sounded like I knew him. “I mean, your brand originally wasn’t,” I corrected, my voice sharper than an ice crusher. “Your first location in Bentley, South Carolina had style. It screamed class without the side of boring. Haling Cove is a college tourist trap. Your clientele may be wealthy, but they’re also young. This is your opportunity to finally do something that isn’t total Arnault-Koch-and-Mercer-style bullshit.”
Silence.
Would have been blissful had my heart not been pounding so hard, I swore I was seconds away from a heart attack. Horrible figure of speech, given the audience, but I felt no sympathy as Nash stared at me like he wanted to storm over here and…
I didn’t know.
Strangle me?
Bend me over his knee?
Seems legit.
“You’re right,” he began, his eyes finally, finally alive. It thrilled me to bring the spark there, which should have been a sign to back off. He’d already made me beg him to fuck me then left me hanging. What more could he do? “This is North Carolina. Maybe hotel guests will be turned off by the aesthetic. We want less Winthrop Scandal and more friendly neighborhood billionaire. Any suggestions?”
I could have killed him, picked apart his eyes, and fed them to the coyotes. “We need a focal piece for the lobby. It needs to be large enough to take up the entire center of the lobby. It also needs to be something that draws attention to justify the minimalistic design points. We want it to be a conversation starter, too. It’s the only thing that will save this hotel from being a total snooze fest.”
Chantilly raised her hand before speaking. “We can’t afford a focal piece. We have to stay on budget. We already bought some of the fixtures, flooring, and paint in the current color scheme,” she slanted her gaze my way, “so I strongly suggest we ignore Emery’s idea.”
Nash twirled a pen in his fingers, so uncaring about this hotel, it bothered me. “I guess Winthrop Scandal it is.”
Devious Lies: A Cruel Crown Novel Page 22