by Eden O'Neill
I wasn’t sure I was quite prepared for this story, but I did still care about him even if we weren’t friends. I cared about him as a person, and that seemed obvious. I shouldn’t, but I did.
I also shouldn’t be here with him and I knew that, but that didn’t stop me. I truly did care about this guy.
Stupid, I knew.
I had a feeling he cared about me too. I mean, he showed me all this first, and he did have friends. It was the friend I’d been curious about, but I’d been neither bold enough nor brave enough to push him on what had happened after I’d left. I just wanted to make sure he was okay regarding that situation.
Then you leave.
The only reason I stayed now. I gave myself a mental out. He’d tell me what happened with her. I’d find out he was okay, and then I could leave.
A messy fold and Ramses tossed that blanket on the couch, and in a quick, but also surprising action, he picked up a remote on his granite desk.
Soft tunes drifted into the room, easy listening hip hop beats. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was trying to seduce me.
He opened his hands, waving them for me to come to him, and I thought he was. He frowned. “Come to me.”
“Why?”
“Just come.” He sighed, but still kept his hands out. “This is some awkward shit I’m about to tell you about, and I need the distraction.” His head lowered. “Dance with me and distract me. Please?”
Dance with him.
I suppose it was the please that did it.
And maybe the big brown puppy dog eyes.
He’d even placed his lip out, making me laugh, so of course, I came. I stopped just before. “No funny business.”
He appeared offended. “Funny business? Me? I’d never.”
My eyes lifted, but I did give him my hands. His form was fine, so he’d obviously done this before. He spun me out, and when I came back, we slowed into something a bit closer. I quickly realized it was because he didn’t want me to look at him.
How had he gotten so shy?
How had we gotten like this? Together again?
I fingered his lapel, my head rested on his chest, and I closed my eyes. The beauty of this was he couldn’t see my eyes either.
He had me vulnerable, too, in this moment, enjoying him, this with his arm around me. He folded our fingers together, and his jaw touched my hair.
“I told her,” he whispered. “I put everything out there.”
The sway threatened to stop, but I refused to allow it. I swallowed. “You told her your feelings?”
He told her he was in love with her?
Because that was what I really meant. He had been in love with her.
Was he still?
Why did it matter?
I stayed in heated silence, my entire body buzzing but only with nerves. I wasn’t sure I could handle what he’d tell me next.
Because if he said he was in love with her…
It did matter. It mattered to me, and though I wasn’t woman enough to say it out loud, I did think it. I cared if he was still in love with his first love.
Even if I didn’t want to.
He spun me again, but this time, he didn’t hide his eyes. This time, he made me face him, a beautiful god in a man’s body. A young man straddling the same line, but I was the only one who felt sophomoric in this moment, young.
Ramses’s hand formed around mine. “I did tell her my feelings. I told her a lot of things.”
“Like?”
He angled me around again, and when I returned, he pressed his lips close to my ear. “My feelings for you.”
My head jerked up, eyes narrow. “What?”
He… what?
“My feelings for you,” he emphasized, as if it didn’t mean anything.
As if it didn’t mean everything.
He kept me in a gentle sway, studied the effect of those words. His lips parted. “I told her about those feelings, and yeah, I told her other things. How there were feelings directed toward her, too. In the past.”
In the past.
“She basically already knew, but those didn’t seem so significant,” he said, shaking his head. “Not, well, after the other thing. They were the main things, so the others weren’t significant.”
Why was he saying this? Voicing this to me. I swallowed. “Ramses—”
“You asked me about the change of heart.” He studied my eyes. “Why I changed.”
I had but hadn’t known what I asked. It wasn’t until after I’d voiced it, when it was too late, and it became this.
Ramses blinked so slow, and pulling me close, he eased my hair away from my eyes. “I’m tired of being the one who gets in my own way,” he said, his throat constricting. “I’ve done it for years. I avoid and don’t deal with shit.”
I did too, how we met and connected. It wasn’t unknown to either of us. “I—”
His mouth dropped down in a breath, a charged pulse as he forced my lips apart. I hadn’t tasted him since his friend’s wedding night.
And God.
God, how he tasted, how he felt and smelled. He gathered my face and tugged my lip between his teeth, no chance of escape. There was no place to run. There was only him and me.
My mouth burned with a bruising kiss, and though he took what he wanted, he didn’t stay long.
He retreated with another breath, husky as he dragged his thumb across my mouth. His digit came away red, his lips the same. My lipstick hadn’t held up.
“Now, I can say I did everything I could when it came to this, you and me.” He nodded. “That I acted with no regrets.” He looked up. “Just like I did when I bought this place.”
His words made me emotional. Like I actually wanted to cry. He wouldn’t let me be a regret.
“I want you to be my girl. My girlfriend.” He smiled a little. “Whatever you want to call it, I want it. And I know what you said—”
I hooked an arm around his neck, stealing his lips before he both said and did more things that scared me. I didn’t want him to be a regret. And though, he may be one in the morning…
He wouldn’t be one now.
I kissed him, hungry, angry. I was angry.
Why did he have to ruin things? Break me down.
I was so damn vulnerable with him, but clearly, I wasn’t at the same place he was. It was enough to be here and in this moment.
And at the present, it seemed like enough.
His hand slid down my leg and beneath my dress slit. I toed out of my heels and weaved my legs around his waist.
He growled, pressing his lips to mine, his hands hugging my ass. I tongued his lips apart, grinding my hips against him, and he eased me away.
“What?”
He grinned, sliding me down his hard body. My feet returned to the floor, and he hooked a finger beneath my chin. He tipped it up. “Brielle, look at me.”
I did, and how beautiful he was, features defined and angular. Lips bruised from my mouth and smeared red from our kiss. I wanted to kiss the fuck out of this man, taste him everywhere.
But for some reason he was keeping that from me. He peeled my hands off his chest, kissing the back of them.
“For once, don’t use this.” He touched a lengthy digit to my temple before pressing my hands back to his desk. He angled in. “I got it from here. Trust me to. Okay?”
“Okay.” I stayed put, watching as he worked his jacket off his big shoulders. He tossed it back on the couch, then proceeded to unbutton his shirt starting at the wrists.
And holy fuck.
Lean, sinewy muscles defined solid forearms dusted with dark hair. He wore a wristwatch, which he took off, depositing it in his pocket before removing his shirt.
Tanned skin exposed readily to my sight, his body golden and perfect. He folded his shirt in front of a flat stomach. Like that mattered.
I think he just wanted to tease me, nothing but those playful eyes as he smirked. He set the shirt to the desk in a fist before
hooking my waist and picking me up with one arm.
My bottom touched his desk, and though I wanted to touch him, take control, I didn’t.
“This is driving you mad,” he mouthed over my lips, my entire body buzzing. He eased my legs apart. “Good.”
He fingered the zipper located at the back of my dress, his voice heated and gruff. He tugged, then worked my dress bodice down, bunching the material at my hips. I sat there in a strapless bra made out of lace, and Ramses groaned, gathering my waist in his hands.
“Your tits are fucking gorgeous.” He arched them toward his face, immediately peppering the swell with kisses. He tugged at the lace with his teeth but didn’t expose me.
Frustrated, I pressed his mouth between my breasts, his close-cropped hair rough beneath my palm. I spread my legs to hug his hips, but he yanked me away from him by my hair.
He arched my neck, studying me.
“I told you I got you,” he said, almost growling. I frustrated him, too. Good. He smirked. “I can make you wait longer. Do you want that?”
“No.”
He pulled my lips apart with his thumb. “Will you trust me, then?” He honed in. “To take care of you?”
I did.
“I do.”
His entire hand covered my neck, but not in a threatening way. It was more possessive, stating mine. He was staking a claim.
He was taking care of me.
He dropped to his knees, and I quivered. Even from the floor, this man was within clear access of my pussy. His desk wasn’t a short desk. He was freaking tall, so it had to be big to accommodate him.
“Give me my favorite thing,” he growled, forcing my legs apart. He got them as far as they could go, hooking my panties over. He used his digit, that ring he always wore playing at my sex. “Is it your favorite thing, too?”
Oh, it was definitely my favorite thing, and he was frickin’ good at it.
Chuckling, Ramses worked my panties off, using his ring again to tempt and tease my pulsating bud. I wondered if he’d fuck me with it again, but when he pressed a hand to my tummy, urging me to lay back, he simply buried himself between my legs.
He merely kissed me first, hot sensual kisses. He was so gentle with it, like he was kissing my mouth instead of down there.
I arched off his desk.
I stared at the ceiling while he made my toes curl, his fingers circling and preparing my entry while he tongued my lower lips apart.
He latched onto me once he had, gathering my breast in a single palm while he licked and sucked, and I cried out.
I elbowed up to see him, his head lost in the material of my dress. It was the most erotic sight I’d ever seen, my legs shaking to hook around him, but I worried he’d stop.
“Can I touch you?” I asked. Maybe if I did, he wouldn’t stop. This wasn’t me taking control. He took my hand, growling into my sex, and guided my fingers down there.
He made me touch myself while he tasted me, his smile forming against my heat.
“Touch yourself,” he urged, making me. He had me finger myself while he tongued my buzzing clit. “Feel how good you feel.”
I closed my eyes, so close to coming at this point it wasn’t even funny. Ramses was taking me to the edge, but at the brink, he rose.
Fingers behind my back, he flicked my bra off, exposing my chest. He picked me up without acknowledging that, my nipples diamond-hard while he returned my feet to the floor. With his height, it was like looking up at a mountain. The sun.
And once there, I didn’t want to leave.
Popping up on my toes, I tasted him, kissing him deep and full, and didn’t care about his game.
Yes, I had issues with control. I liked to make myself feel good, safe, because that was what control gave me.
That safety had been taken away too many times. With my ex-husband… other things, and I liked feeling like I had the power.
But Ramses definitely liked when I took control.
He liked fighting me for it, something I’d totally picked up on him during our time together. In fact, that give and take was probably one of the main reasons we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We both enjoyed playing this game of power.
“Bri…”
I dropped to my knees in front of him, undoing his pants. I hadn’t seen his cock in way too long, and I was gifted the moment I had his pants and boxers worked down his thick thighs.
He angled long, erect and oh so thick. Seriously, the man hit the second section of his abs at full attention, and my mouth watered.
He growled. “Bri.”
I ignored him, driving my hands up his hips. He gritted my name again, and I gazed up at him.
A strong warning flashed in his amber eyes, making them narrow, hard. I was ignoring him, and he didn’t like that. I was testing him, and he might not even want me to do this for him. He’d been more than vocal about his hesitance when it came to his size. I mean, he was big, so I got that. He might have even scared a girl or two, and with how attentive Ramses was, he probably didn’t want to hurt me.
Well, what he failed to realize was he didn’t need to worry about me. Anything he had, I could take. He also did like it when I challenged him.
I flicked my tongue across the head.
“Shit,” he ground out, his fingers burying into my hair. His thigh muscles pulsed, his body stiff and tight. “You don’t know what you’re about to do. I could destroy your fucking throat.”
The tail end of that came out on a chuckled rasp, rough and aroused, but he gave in when I pushed the head past my lips.
Holy shit.
Inch by glorious inch, my swallow long and full as I opened my throat to let him inside. He touched the back, and I still had a ways to go, but I teased him out and in. Sometimes I got there. Sometimes I didn’t, but regardless, I didn’t stop.
“Shit. Goddamn. Shit.” Awe in his voice, like serious awe as he took my face between his hands. He rocked slow, in and out. He pushed back my hair. “Fucking hell, who are you right now?”
I was the woman who had him shaking, at his knees if I wanted him. He had the same affect over me, and moaning over his length, I worked his balls in my hands.
His powerful body immediately stiffened, his thighs clenched tight. I thought he’d come in seconds, and he may have been at the brink because he guided me off him.
“Not so fast, professor,” he said, angling me around. He gathered my dress above my hips, hugging my back to him. “You only get to see me come between your legs.”
A promise in his voice as he pressed hot kisses across my neck. He pinched and worked my nipples, kicking his pants and boxers off. He removed my dress and we were naked in the middle of his office, his length tucked between my ass cheeks.
Whipping me around, he took my face again, backing us up toward the couch. He guided me down toward it as he loomed on top of me, his mouth touching mine.
I thought I’d come with the way he kissed me, and I wasn’t even joking. So gentle, hot and heavy before hungry and intense. He kept me on my toes, ready for anything.
It felt like this was Ramses in the complete sense, as exciting as he was equally passionate. He made me feel nothing but safe within his arms.
“Don’t let me think,” I rasped, hooking my legs around him. I tugged at his lips with my teeth. “I just want this.”
I just wanted him and to not think so damn much. Thinking made me make logical decisions, and I didn’t want that. Not in this moment.
A smile as he turned me around, then pressed his body on mine. He mouthed heated kisses across my back beneath him, and this had to have taken so much effort, to control himself without crushing me. He was so much bigger than me.
“I promise,” he said, his hand between my legs. He fingered me, my body tense. “Just stay here with me.”
My eyes closed as he tunneled deep within me, tight strokes with his long fingers. He got me so close toward the cliff before he reached for his pants and put a condom o
n. By the time he did, I was on my back, and he was on top of me again.
I knotted my arms behind his neck, my chin tilting up as he entered me, and my eyes rolled back.
God.
So full, so tight. He had the capability of ripping me apart, which he knew because he always started slow.
“Open up,” he urged, sucking my earlobe into his mouth. He rocked his hips. “Let me in.”
His hips dropped hard the moment I gave him the sign, my legs spreading apart the instant the discomfort subsided, and the pleasure took over.
I called out, my chest arching for his hands. Ramses took full advantage of that, his hands kneading my breasts.
“Stay with me,” he panted, his hips rolling in quick succession. “I got you.”
His fingers pinched my aching peaks. He fucked me deep into his sofa while he pleasured my breasts.
“Ramses, fuck me.” I buried my cries into his neck, tasting his sweat. I licked his pulse. “Hard. Please. I don’t need gentle.”
He trusted me on that, fucking me hard and fast. Raising my arms, he stretched me, and he swelled hot inside me.
He came before I did, his eyes rolling back. Even still, he didn’t stop his hips until the fire exploded in my tummy.
I spasmed around him, completely lost as he pulsed hard inside me. He finished well before, but even still, continued to kiss me.
“That’s it. Come back with me,” he coached, so tender. Gathering my breasts, he squeezed before cradling and massaging my back. He kissed my neck. “Don’t disappear on me.”
It was like he knew to say these things, that I would if I thought too much. I still might, sighing when he kissed me deep into the couch.
Ramses pulled out, but then there were his hands, his body. He tucked me tight into his mighty conclave. His unyielding wall of safety and security. He gave that to me. No questions asked.
I wasn’t surprised as he tucked me back into his arms, but the thing about us was, we were always a distraction for the other. We never allowed ourselves to be real enough with the other to be any other way. It would take effort to be with each other, an effort he seemed to want to make.
I want you to be my girl.
Too much thought, too many words. I’d create a new reality if I listened, so I closed my eyes.