by Kendall Ryan
“Don’t worry. This will feel good.” Sweeping my fingers through her arousal, I enjoyed the way she shuddered and shifted in my lap, rocking herself closer.
Pushing two fingers inside her, I felt her tense. I kissed her again and let her adjust. As I carefully slid my thick fingers out and then pushed in again, Emma closed her eyes, rolling her hips along with my thrusts.
The light streaming through the moon roof provided the perfect view, and I couldn’t resist watching her face in awe as I worked her over. “Does that feel good?”
She pressed a kiss to my lips, murmuring a soft, “Yes, very.”
“You are so fucking tight. I can’t even imagine how good you’d feel riding my cock.”
That dirty remark earned me another moan of approval, and a wet coating of her cream on my fingers.
“Ride my fingers. Make yourself come.”
At first, I thought I had pegged her wrong—maybe she wasn’t the type to follow orders.
Then relief sagged in her shoulders, like she’d been waiting for me to give her permission all along.
She moved her hips up and down, rocking against my hand. Slowly at first, and then as I curled my fingers forward and found the tender spot inside, she moved faster.
“That’s it,” I murmured. She was coming undone and I fucking loved it. Far more than I should have.
With each thrust, she took me deeper, and the soft sound of her damp arousal was the most beautiful sound in the world.
Emma’s tight body clamped down on me, her head dropping back between her shoulders as she came in a rush of wet heat that coated my fingers and made my cock jerk hard against my zipper.
Removing my hand from between her legs, I inspected my glistening fingers in the dim light. Her scent was light and sweet, and I wanted to taste it. But even more than that, I wanted to make her squirm.
Wiping the sticky mess she’d made onto the leg of my pants, which were already ruined, I made a low tsking sound in my throat. “Look at what you’ve done.”
Emma’s eyes widened as she moved from my lap to the seat beside me.
“These pants are positively ruined.”
“I’m sorry. Can I . . . ?” Emma reached for the bulge still raging in my pants, but I batted her hand away. “Don’t you want me to—”
I shook my head. “We need to be getting back. It’s late.”
The excuse sounded lame even to my ears, but I knew if I let her touch me now, I would explode. I needed to get home, to manage this need myself before things got out of hand.
And I could only imagine what Emma must be thinking.
“Ben,” I barked out. “Proceed to Emma’s address.”
The limo rolled forward, pulling onto the semicircular drive that led to the road beyond.
Emma watched me from the corner of her eye as we drove. I knew she was probably thinking she’d done something wrong, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d never wanted a woman more.
The silent drive passed by slowly, and when we finally pulled to a stop in front of her brownstone, Emma got out of the limo without a word, her shoulders sagging and her chin tucked into her chest.
I exited behind her and escorted her to the door. It was almost midnight, but I felt so keyed up and on edge, I knew sleep wouldn’t come easily tonight.
“Is everything . . . okay?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Everything’s fine. Good night, Miss Bell.”
“Good night, Gavin.”
“My assistant will be in touch with you when I have another event I need an escort for.” It was cold, even to my ears, but I didn’t know how to make it sound any different. It had always been the way I operated.
With a flash of anger in her bright gaze, Emma turned for the door and headed inside, closing it firmly behind her. I stayed until I heard the lock turn and then headed back to the limo.
“Where to, Mr. Kingsley?” Ben asked.
Knowing sleep was a long way off, I weighed my options. Though the idea of jerking one out appealed to me greatly, I couldn’t bring myself to go home to an empty house.
“Take me to the office.”
Despite it being after eleven at night, the lamp in Quinn’s office was still lit, and I bypassed my own office in favor of his.
His social skills were worse than mine—if that were even possible—but still, it surprised me he wasn’t out somewhere, or at least relaxing at home.
“Gavin? That you?” he called out.
He must have heard my footsteps approaching down the hall. I could have laughed at the fact he didn’t even consider that it might be Cooper.
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, rounding the corner to his office. I found him seated behind his desk, a glass of bourbon in front of him.
“I could ask you the same.” He smirked. Dark circles rested beneath his eyes, and his hair was overdue for a cut. In short, he looked like shit.
I knew he worked too much, knew he shouldered too much of the responsibility around here. But it had always been that way. Quinn was barely two years older than me, but he took the older-brother shit seriously. Growing up, he’d always looked out for me. Shit, he looked out for everyone. He had a soft spot in his heart for prostitutes and escorts. He’d saved more than one girl from life on the streets, and protected those who worked for us fiercely. Even though we didn’t always see eye to eye on everything, he was a good man.
“I was just going over last quarter’s financial statements.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples.
“Everything good?” I asked, helping myself to a glass of his bourbon before taking a seat in front of his desk.
“Everything’s good,” he confirmed, closing his laptop.
I sensed there was something else going on, some other reason he was here right now, but I didn’t press him.
Quinn took another slow sip of his drink, watching me. “Why are you here? Did you forget something?”
I shook my head. “Just wanted to check on a few things.” The lie rolled easily off my tongue, but my brother knew me better than to believe it. He didn’t have to say as much—I could see it in his eyes. He saw right through me.
“Tonight was your evening out with Emma, wasn’t it?” His dark brows drew together as he continued to study me.
“It was. I just dropped her off at home.” Taking another long sip of my drink, I hoped he read my fuck off signal loud and clear.
“How did that go? Did she live up to expectations?”
No such luck.
I shrugged. Maybe he thought I fucked her. I obviously didn’t. Ben could vouch for that. Jesus. “It was fine. We went to the event, and then I took her home. I won the Seychelles trip this year.”
“Oh, good. Another overpriced vacation you’ll never go on. Don’t change the subject.”
I rolled my eyes, adding another measure of bourbon to both our glasses. The bastard was referring to the trip to Tahiti I never took. Not that it went to waste. I gifted it to our highest-earning girl last year. She took her parents. I still had the photo of them on lounge chairs sitting on my desk.
As much as I didn’t want Quinn’s advice right now, I knew he was about to dish up a heaping serving. I bit the inside of my cheek and waited. The dude clearly had something he needed to get off his chest.
“Something’s different with this one,” he said. “I’m just trying to put my finger on what it is.”
He’d figure it out eventually; it didn’t take a rocket scientist. I drank the rest of my bourbon, waiting.
“I’m just trying to figure out if it’s more than just the fact she looks like Ashley.”
Ding, ding, ding.
Fucker.
“Drop it, Quinn. It has nothing to do with that.”
I didn’t want it to, and honestly, as I got to know Emma, the less their similarities seeme
d to matter. That first time I saw her in the coffee shop, though, I’d been knocked back three years.
Looking at Emma was like staring into the face of my once-upon-a-time. But I knew that wasn’t possible. I’d been there the day they’d lowered her into the ground. I’d said my good-byes, as final as they were.
They shared a few similar features, but Emma was her own woman, and one I was quickly becoming fascinated with.
“I know there’s something different about her. You haven’t even looked twice at a woman in months. Just be careful this time.”
I rose to my feet, my blood pumping fast. “Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
The fucking kicker? Quinn was right. Emma was feisty, yet had all the leanings of a submissive, which I’d always been attracted to.
“I don’t want this to end badly,” Quinn added.
Rubbing my temples, I regretted ever coming into the office tonight. Jacking off alone in the shower would have been much better.
“If you’re through, I’m tired. I’m going to head home.”
“Didn’t mean to piss you off,” Quinn said as I headed out of his office.
“Don’t worry about it,” I called over my shoulder, not bothering to look back.
As fucked up as all this was, I knew it was only going to get more complicated.
Tonight’s foreplay wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy the beast inside me. I wanted the pretty little Emma Bell. And I was going to have her.
Chapter Fourteen
Emma
I stared down at the article’s title in a bold font: “How to Make Your Man Beg for More.” Rolling my eyes, I shoved the vinyl-covered magazine back into its resting place on the periodical shelf.
I couldn’t even make Gavin take what I was offering, let alone beg. And I still couldn’t help the hot shame that burned deep inside my chest when I thought about the way he’d swatted my hands away from him.
What kind of man didn’t want to come?
I ran my fingers through my hair. That was just . . . insane.
Things had gotten so intense in his limo. With my dress pooled around my waist and my panties soaked through, he’d done such naughty things to my body, made me want things I hadn’t in a very long time.
I’d never been a sexual creature, never lusted after someone the way my favorite authors described in some of the romance novels I loved. For a long time, I’d thought that was what Nathan wished would change so badly. Like, if I could just get that switch in my brain to flick on, everything would be okay again.
Not that things had ever been okay between us. Not really.
And now, after years of my trying and wishing and wanting to change, Gavin had turned me into a whimpering, writhing mess. But worse than that? He apparently wasn’t interested. After all those years of wanting to be someone else, to act like a real woman, I had unlocked my own sexuality just to have it thrown back in my face.
It was possible that it had nothing to do with me, but I knew better than that. Whatever his deal was, Gavin didn’t want me to touch him, didn’t want me to pleasure him the way he had done to me.
All night, I’d racked my brain, trying to figure out if it was me, or maybe Cooper, or maybe something else entirely that had made things so strained between us. I wanted to understand and, in a way, I think I did.
Just as I had a desire to please and to be taken, he desired total control.
I’d never been so turned on in my entire life. It was as though we shared a secret sexual connection. His need to possess matched perfectly with my need to be taken. And if he’d have asked? I would have given it to him. Everything.
In the days that followed, I couldn’t help but wonder about what that meant, and why I felt so alive in his presence, despite all my experience screaming at me to run away and go for the safer, sweeter option. Did we have a touch of the Dominant/submissive leanings I’d only read about in my favorite erotic novels? The rough edge of his voice, the intensity of the moment . . . it was almost unspoken between us, but oh so perfect. It sparked me to life in ways I couldn’t begin to comprehend.
I would have thought, after everything I’d been through with Nathan, that I would tear away from the idea of someone possessing me again. But then, maybe my past was exactly what was driving me to experiment?
These new, sweetly dark fantasies were something to fill the void of heartache and terror that had been my love life before. And if I could manage it? Well, then I would prove to myself that I could have a satisfying sexual relationship and not lose myself, that the real control was always with me.
And so I spent days waffling—at war with myself over what should have or might have or could have happened. But in the end, I figured out a few essential truths.
I wouldn’t let my fears over what happened with Nathan stop me from living my life. This was the most important thing, something I’d reminded myself of every day since I’d finally gotten away from him.
But also? I wanted Gavin. Rough and dominating and all wrong for me, and all I wanted was more.
I could tell myself whatever I wanted, but my heart knew the truth. I needed to feel as alive as I had in his arms that night. I needed to feel like a free, sexual, and capable woman.
When Monday came and I still had no word from either Kingsley brother, I decided to take matters into my own hands. With a deep breath, I fished my phone from my desk drawer and opened a message to Gavin.
Before I could get out more than four words, though, my phone pinged and my heart leaped into my throat. Maybe Gavin knew I was thinking of him. That we had some strange connection.
But it wasn’t Gavin. It was Cooper, and it read simply, Lunch at the office?
Easy, happy Cooper. The safe choice, the guy I should want.
“Be there in ten,” I typed back, then grabbed my purse and stuffed my phone inside.
With a thirty-minute lunch break, I’d never make it. I slouched my shoulders and stood in Stan’s doorway. “I’ve got a ‘lady errand’ to run.”
Stan nodded quickly. “Of course. Do what you need to do.”
I tried to stifle my smile as I walked calmly out of the library and hopped on the train. I didn’t know if this lunch would be with Gavin and Cooper both, but the fact was that the idea of seeing either brother made my heart leap and my pulse tick.
When I got to the main floor of their office building, I let myself inside.
“Afternoon.” Sonja watched me as I entered, and I was hoping that her sneer was only in my imagination.
Turning the corner, I made my way to Cooper’s door and knocked lightly. He wasn’t there, so I walked farther down the hall, toward where I could see half of a tall, muscled man in a navy suit.
“Hey.” The man turned. It was Cooper, calling to me from the doorway to Gavin’s office.
Hell.
And also, yes.
I felt a pang of guilt looking at Cooper’s stunning body and thinking back to Gavin’s expert fingers.
“Let’s get going.”
I heard Gavin’s gruff voice before I saw him. My self-doubt returned instantly, but luckily, as I walked inside the massive room, my grumbling stomach drew my attention to the impressive lunch spread on the large conference table in the center of Gavin’s office.
I swallowed hard, looking for a plate to serve myself, and my gaze fell on Quinn, who was seated at the other end of the table, completing the overwhelmingly handsome trio.
“Hey,” Quinn said. “Nice to see you again.
I nodded. “Likewise.”
“We ordered you a salad.” Cooper signaled me to my seat where a large mixed-green salad with all the fixings waited for me.
Gavin cleared his throat and started in a rough, to-the-point tone. “Upcoming schedules,” he said, his hazel gaze glancing from me to his brothers as I took my seat in front of him. An untouched plate sat in front of him.
“Have a little class, Gavin,”
Quinn said. “Let her get settled. We invited her for lunch, not the inquisition.” Then, turning to me, he added, “Would you like something to drink before we get started?”
Why couldn’t I be into at least one of the two sweet brothers? Of course, Gavin being short with me drove me even harder to want to please him.
“Water is fine, thanks.” I gave Quinn a quick smile, and he pushed a water bottle toward me while I used the plastic fork to stab a bite of salad. Apparently, I was the only one eating.
“There. Was that so hard?” Quinn muttered to Gavin, whose mouth was nothing more than a thin line.
“A healthy appetite. I love that.” Cooper smiled as I dug into my salad, and I watched Gavin grimace at him.
That’s right, Mr. Don’t-touch-me-there.
“Keeping my energy up.” I winked at Cooper, then popped a cherry tomato into my mouth and kept from looking at Gavin directly.
Gavin cleared his throat. “We want to work out our upcoming schedules.”
“To avoid any conflicts,” Cooper added.
I looked to Gavin to see his nostrils flare.
“I have gallery opening tomorrow night, and a golf outing the next day,” Cooper started.
I nodded along, glancing from Cooper to Quinn as Cooper went on. Still, the longer I refused eye contact with Gavin, the more I could feel him staring at me, making my skin heat.
I tried my best to focus on my lunch and listen to the dizzying conversation by these three distracting men.
A few moments later, there was a soft knock on the door and Alyssa popped her head in and looked at Gavin. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. There’s a telephone call for you, and it’s urgent.”
Gavin nodded. “Be right there.”
She smiled big and looked right at me for a moment before directing her attention to Gavin once again. “Sorry, I wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t urgent.”
Gavin cleared his throat before he stood and followed her.
“I’ve got to run too. It was lovely to see you again, Emma.” Quinn tipped an imaginary hat at me, and I smiled and tipped an imaginary hat back at him.