by Angel Payne
She glowered at me. “What? Why?”
“Get. In.”
She didn’t speak again until we stepped off at the nineteenth floor and she followed me into the hall, where I made my way toward the doors of the Grand Deluxe Suite.
“Killian, I have no idea what you’re—”
She sputtered into silence when I knocked on the door to the room. Then gasped when the door was yanked open and Kim appeared in the space, already outfitted in her dominatrix glory. I was nearly tempted to gasp myself. I’d seen the ensemble when she tried it on in Beijing—diamond and leather choker, form-fitting black latex mini dress, hip boots with ball-busting heels—but combined with her strict hair, temptress makeup and wicked crop, the effect was markedly different.
Kim flicked the edge of the crop over my shoulder and across my chest. Her ruby-red lips curled on a feline grin. “Damn, Jamie. You clean up pretty well.”
“You took those words out of my mouth,” I countered. “When you bought all that, I didn’t know how it would all look together.”
She gave a good-natured sneer. “Your exact words were ‘what the fuck, Mistress K?’”
I held back a chuckle. “Yes, they were.”
“You believe in the power of accessorizing now, young Padawan?”
I shot a beseeching look upward. “You want to help a guy out so I can let you get down to business in there?”
“Or up to business, as the case may be,” she drawled. While holstering the crop in a pocket on her boot, she turned kohl-lined eyes to Claire. “Miss Montgomery, it’s a pleasure, as always. Great gown.”
Claire squirmed, clearly nonplussed. “Errrm—thank you.”
An uncomfortable beat went by. Kim hurriedly glanced over her shoulder then back to me. “You mentioned help?” Pointedly, she added, “And receiving it in a hurry?”
Claire shifted again, starting to step back. “Killian, this isn’t nec—”
“Yes, it is.” I snatched her hand, yanked her back then swung my regard back to Kim. “Just here for a little enlightenment.” I let Kim throw us a curious squint before stating, “Miss Montgomery has opted to attend the church of popular media this week.”
Kim rolled her eyes and sighed. “In which chapel? Wait; don’t tell me. The one where you and I cavorted around Beijing, hitting all those Commie hot spots before going back to the hotel to hump each other like bunnies all night long?”
As I nodded, Claire let out a little hiss, battling to pull away from me. Mortification twisted her face and posture, but at the moment I didn’t care. Enduring her wrath about this embarrassment was better than watching the distrust in her eyes—the hurt and agony she’d endured because of lies spread by strangers. I gripped her tighter, already knowing this confrontation would get worse before it got better.
“That’s got to be one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while.” Kim already angled toward Claire as she said it, knowing her words would carry repercussions. “Don’t hiss out on me, girlfriend; just calling it like I know it. You know Jamie wouldn’t be my type even if we were the last two people on earth, right?”
Claire’s double-take was fast, furious, and outright delectable. I fought back the craving to surge forward and kiss her as she frowned and stuttered, “Wh-what?”
Kim rocked back on one heel. Withdrew the crop from her boot again. “Sam,” she called. A thwick of the slapper served as her punctuation. Within seconds, a guy appeared who looked barely out of college, his chiseled body clad only in black briefs, his head bowed over his handcuffed wrists. He dropped to Kim’s feet and licked one of her boots, whimpering when she slid the slapper along his jaw. “Good boy,” she crooned softly.
“Thank you, Mistress,” the boy whispered.
“Are you ready for me to tie up your cock and beat on it, Sam?”
“Ohhhh yes, Mistress!”
“You’re such a good pet. I can’t wait to reward you for waiting so patiently for me. Why don’t you go kneel by the bed, and I’ll be right along to attend to you.”
“Of course, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress.”
I ducked my head to recompose my features as Sam scampered off into the suite. When I lifted it, a smile still tempted my lips. I traded a smirk with Kim. We both glanced at Claire, who answered with wide eyes and deep silence. I couldn’t read her bead on the revelation at all only to know I hovered somewhere between relief and guilt in looking at her.
Kim hitched a shoulder against the door frame, looking at Claire but nodding toward me. “You picture this man in that scenario at all, Miss Montgomery?” After a long pause filled with more wordlessness from Claire, she turned and faced me fully again. “So am I excused now, boss?”
I gave her a fast wink. “Of course. Run off and have your fun. Play safe.”
She winked back. “Of course.”
“Thanks, Kim.”
“Pssshhh. That was easy. I didn’t even have to talk about a certain someone becoming Mr. Surly and Snarly after every phone call he made to a San Diego cell phone number.”
Before I could get in a reprimanding glare, the woman ended our exchange with a taunting laugh and a solid door slam. I chuffed at myself, knowing I should’ve anticipated the parting shot before knocking on the door. Not that it would’ve prevented it. If anything, it helped make the point I needed to drive home with this little field trip.
The point that still didn’t seem to be sinking in to the woman at my side. I peered carefully at her slowly-blinking eyes, battling to translate her expression. As if we were out on the ballroom dance floor again, she simply stared at my tie.
“Claire?”
“What?”
Her retort was more a seethe, retightening my tension level. Was I ever going to solve the Rubik’s Cube of this woman again? Though I inhaled deeply to temper my own tone, it was impossible to wean all my frustration from it. “Well? Are you satisfied now?”
That at least returned her gaze to me. Granted, her irises resembled a pair of golden hatchets aimed straight for my jugular, but that didn’t stop my cock from surging with need for her all over again. “Satisfied?” She spat it while taking advantage of the one second I loosened my hold, wrenching away and marching back down the hall toward the elevators. “No, Killian. I’m not ‘satisfied.’ I’m mortified.”
I followed her, despite peering around for the Mack truck her words had come in. As she jabbed at the lift call button and shook her head, I tried to stammer a response. “I…just thought…”
“You thought wrong.” She jabbed at the call button for the lift again. “You can also tell the lunatic who crawled inside your skull that dragging me up here for that,” —she speared a finger the direction of Kim’s suite before stomping into the elevator— “had to be one of the most boorish, nervy, insane—”
I snapped her tirade short by slamming my hands on either side of her head, pinning her against the lift’s wall. “And effective.” The assertion emerged in a low snarl and I wasn’t a damn bit sorry for it. I wanted her to hear the fury in my own voice. And the conviction. And the need. “You want to tell me you don’t get the point now, fairy? And that you should have talked to me about all this before jumping to crazy conclusions?”
“Stop calling me that!” she blurted. “And stop talking about ‘conclusions’ as if I were sitting around here moping over you like—”
I bit the bullet. Kissed her into silence. It wasn’t a move of passion; it was a smack of anger, and she all but spat at me in the seconds after. I answered her with a small, one-sided smirk. “Claire, my sweet, you taste like Häagen-Dazs.”
She glared. “What?”
“Yep. At least a few quarts. Probably an exotic flavor to remind you of home, like piña colada. You’d never go for chocolate if you wanted to wallow in a really good mope.”
She shoved against my chest. Spun to the button panel and punched the number for the next floor down. “This conversation is over. This, Killian, is over.”
; I moved up behind her, even more calm and confident in my steps—yet never more invigorated in my life. “So you’re acknowledging there’s a ‘this’?”
“No!” she shot. Relief sagged her shoulders when the doors slid open. “I don’t know what I’m—” She jolted to a stop, her gown swishing around her legs, her head dropping into her hands. “Dammit, don’t you understand?” She laughed bitterly before muttering, “Of course you don’t. How could someone like you possibly comprehend the terror I feel every time—”
“What?”
I whipped around to stand in front of her again. So much for feeling in control. She stripped that shit from me the moment tears encroached on her voice. All of them sparkled in her eyes when she raised her face toward me again, and confessed in a little rasp, “Every time I look at you and feel all the things that I do.”
I was really going for the idiot punch card tonight. Ten paralyzed silences and you got a free smoothie with your next visit to Moron-land. But I had no idea how to process what she’d just confessed with such precious, honest simplicity. I hadn’t shaken it, kissed it or aroused it out of her—so now it turned around and smacked my ass with pure shock. And when I should’ve been taking elated advantage of it, I stood there like a dumbfuck while she burst with an anguished sob, sidestepped me and ran out to the terrace.
The Shanghai Terrace was one of the city’s most popular open-air restaurants with its trendy Asian vibe but had closed early tonight, likely because of the brisk spring wind now whipping at the red drapes on the four-poster couches positioned across the patio. I barely noticed the gusts as I followed her—fuck it, chased her—and caught her by the elbow, slamming her against me once more.
“Tell me,” I demanded, lowering my face inches above hers. I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t need to. She knew what I demanded—and that I wouldn’t let go until she’d surrendered the words. The certainty of that knowledge glistened in her eyes. And the dread.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t, Killian. Please—”
“Why?” I heard the vicious bite in my growl and didn’t care. She’d talked about secrets during the hour that had changed everything, back on the tarmac at Midway. I followed instinct in chasing that subject now. “Is it Andrea?” I charged. “Margaux? Do they have something on you? I can protect you, Claire. You just have to—”
“No.” She struggled again but I had her by the waist now, resolute against making the mistake of letting her go again. “No. That’s only the start of it, okay?” She squeezed her eyes shut, releasing tears down her cheeks. “God! If that were all there was to this now. If only—”
“What?” I demanded when she didn’t fill that telling pause. “If only what, Claire?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “If only I hadn’t gone to you in the plane. Or answered the phone when you called last week…” Wind rushed across the terrace, pulling thick strands of her hair out of its twist, tangling with the tear tracks across her high cheeks. “And stopped myself from getting lost in you. Giving too much of myself away to you.”
I caressed a hand up her face. Dropped my forehead to hers. She felt so damn good in my grasp—her body tiny and sheltered by mine. So perfect. So right. “Why is that a bad thing?”
She reached up, too, trying to push my hand away. But after a second of hesitation, she meshed her grip into mine, instead. “When is being lost a good thing?”
The wind blew stronger. I didn’t need a second sign. If the elements themselves were letting go of doubt and inhibition, then I was ready, too. “If I’ve got to walk away from you, then I never want to be found again.”
Her face turned up. So did her lips. Her stare, glowing like illuminated amber, seeped warmth and completion through me. “Oh, Killian…” She murmured it like a chastisement but rose up on tiptoe in a gesture of entreaty. “Be careful what you wish for.”
I had no idea who kissed who first, nor did I care. With the fusion of our mouths, I finally had fulfillment for my soul. I clutched her body tightly, letting my fingers press into the flesh exposed by her gown’s scooped back, rejoicing as her arms slipped beneath my jacket and found my nape and scalp.
I needed more.
So much more.
Now.
Barely breaking the contact of our lips, I swooped an arm around her knees and lifted. Though I braced myself for at least a squeal of protest, Claire only mewled her encouragement, sending adrenaline to my legs to cover the half-dozen steps to the nearest deck couch. After laying her on it, I pounced in a circuit around the thing, hauling the drapes shut in four clean sweeps.
When I returned to her, my heart thundered and my body pounded, drawn to her like a ship finally finding its harbor. I stretched my body beside hers but in the space of one consuming kiss, I stroked a hand beneath her dress and up her thigh to find the lacy scrap covering the treasure I sought most. As I yanked impatiently at the fabric, I rolled to position myself between her legs. My body muffled the distinct tear of the lace giving way to my force.
“Oh, my God.” Her stunned stare beamed up into mine. “Oh, my God!” she repeated as I pushed away the panties, sliding my touch inward and lower. Then lower…
“Perfect,” I murmured in return. “Holy shit, Claire, your pussy is so perfect. And so hot for me. And oh…feel this…so very wet for me…”
It sounded like pillow talk but every fucking syllable was the truth. Her flesh, so pliant yet tight, so quivering yet sure, was the gateway to bliss I’d been dreaming about for two interminable weeks. Her little moans were just icing on the erotic cake. She emphasized each by gripping my shoulders harder, finally shoving my jacket off in order to grab at me through my shirt.
“I swear, if you keep doing that…oh, and that…dear hell, Killian, I’m going to scream…”
I couldn’t help emitting a wolfish chuckle. “That’d be a fun twist to the evening.”
“You’re evil.”
“I’m yours.”
“Stop saying things like that.” She said it wistfully, adding a long gaze full of equal yearning. In return, I leaned low and sank my mouth against hers. When I pulled up, our stares still locked, I rocked my cock against her cleft, wondering how much longer I could take the torture of my pants and briefs.
“What should I focus on, instead?” Another feral smirk—that disappeared as soon as she issued her reply.
“Getting lost,” she whispered. “With me. Inside me. Please…”
Chapter Fourteen
Claire
As soon as the words spilled from me, his expression tightened and intensified, turning his face into the definition of shadowed beauty. Oh, God. My plea had affected him on a deeper level than I intended.
You really going with that, girlfriend?
All right, it may have been exactly what I intended. Being here with him, cocooned in this crimson hideaway with the silken wind around us, liberated something inside me. Killian’s nearness set more of my spirit free, his strong body and fervent embrace giving me the security I’d longed for, the bravery I craved to finally admit things—to him and myself.
I fumbled at his waist while we continued kissing, consumed by our passion. His dark carnality dragged me like an undertow after a summer storm, and I never wanted to be saved. Surrender was the only choice. I gave it with a long, willing moan.
Killian finally leaned back and unbuckled his belt, working his tuxedo pants and briefs down around his trim hips. He returned to me quickly, settling eagerly between my thighs, where we were finally able to slide flesh against flesh. I gripped his shoulders and sighed from the nirvana of his rigid staff against my pulsing sex, teasing my stiff, needy clit. As he pushed a little harder, I abandoned my effort for silence. My high cry of pleasure tumbled free, flying with my spirit now.
“I’ll never get my fill of you.” The faint stubble on his jaw was an erotic caress as he growled it in my ear. “It’s only fair to warn you now, Claire. You’re a fever in my blood. A torment in my dreams.�
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I stared into his dark eyes. “Is that why you won’t leave mine, either?”
He pulled back a little. I couldn’t define the look on his face anymore. It had surpassed intense, shifting to a force that clutched at my throat, even stung at my eyes. His lips parted as if he had words for me in return, but nothing came out. I was glad. Sometimes, consonants and vowels were crimes against the splendor of the universe, especially when its gifts were something like our something. My chest tightened, but the rest of my body trembled, terrified and electrified in the same crazy moment.
I finally blurted the only thing that made sense.
“Make love to me.” I yanked at his hair, pulling his face to mine in a long entreaty of a kiss. “Please, Killian. I need to feel you…everywhere.”
A gorgeous smile spread across his lips. “Hold on baby; let me suit up.”
“No.” My appeal bordered on pathetic and I didn’t care. “I need you now. It’s okay. I’m on the pill, and I trust you—”
“No, you don’t.” He brushed the hair from my forehead. “An hour ago, you thought Kim and I were doing the Beijing bonk.”
“And you quickly proved how stupid I was.”
“Not stupid.” He lowered a soft kiss to my nose. “Had I been you, trying to assess the Killian Stone enigma, I would’ve jumped into the same pool of assumption as the rest of the world. But now,” —he already had a condom yanked from his pocket and ripped the packet with his teeth to free the latex— “I get the pleasure of coaxing you over to my pool.”
“Oh,” I squeaked. It was the only possibility, given the new hardness in his jaw and seduction across his features. Both turned more intense as he wrapped my fingers around the rubber.
“Roll it onto me.” His voice was gritty. “I want you to feel how much my cock’s missed you. How deeply I’ve longed to be part of you again.”
The wind gusted, coinciding with his fierce hiss as I fitted the condom around his shaft. His flesh swelled, steely and hot, against my touch. I gasped as he pushed into my fingers, his pulsing veins and searing crown filling my grip.