SEAL'd Heart

by Alice Ward

  And still, I didn’t think of turning back. Jess’ words stayed fixed in my mind. She was right. If I didn’t go into that penthouse, I would spend the rest of my days wondering just what I’d missed.

  The elevator doors dinged open, and I slowly stepped out and into what at first seemed like a hallway. It wasn’t, though. The small area was more like a foyer, with marble floors and small tables at each end holding vases of flowers.

  Right across from the elevator sat a cracked open door, classical music drifting out of it. I took in a shaking breath and reached backwards to steady myself against the wall. Now that I’d gotten so far, I was committed.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified. Just what Niall meant when he referred to pleasure and pain, I had no real idea. It scared me that I liked just the suggestion of it, scared me that the man awoke in me a desire to let all control of what happened go out the window. A big part of me just wanted to show up and let what would happen happen. It was a part of me I didn’t recognize.

  When I knew I could stand there no longer, I took my trembling legs across the floor. I knocked on the door and waited. No answer.

  Maybe he can’t hear me over the music.

  Slowly, I pushed the door open. What lay before me was probably the foyer, judging by the giant vase, bust of a man, and not much else, but it was the size of my whole bedroom.

  “Hello?” I called, shutting the door behind me. Still no answer.

  Doors went off in two directions. I chose the one the music came through and found myself in a giant living room. The far wall consisted entirely of windows, a breathtaking and sparkling view of Chicago spread out through them. Caught in the vision, my nerves dissipated. I walked across the long wooden floor, my eyes sweeping the nighttime cityscape.

  “You like it?”

  I jerked and turned around, nearly stumbling and falling against the window, the high heels almost being the death of me.

  Niall stood in a doorway I hadn’t noticed before, his hands in the pocket of his dark blue suit, and his chin tilted down as he gazed unabashedly at me.

  “Yes,” I said in a quaking voice. “It’s so high up, I think you can see my neighborhood from here.”

  He gave a single nod. “Perhaps.”

  His footsteps echoed across the floor as he approached me. I tried to keep my breathing even. Was this how it was going to happen? He would just walk over and screw me against the window? And so quickly at that?

  Several feet away he stopped. “Your timing is impeccable. Dinner is just ready.”

  “Oh,” I replied in a small voice. I’d barely even thought of food all week, let alone eaten it. My mind, body, and schoolwork had taken a turn for the worse thanks to only being able to focus on one thing.

  His hands slid from his pockets, gold gleaming from a knuckle ring. One large and smooth palm spread, gesturing for me to go first. “The dining room is right down the hall. At the very end.”

  I nodded. “All right. Thank you.”

  His eyes stayed on me as I walked past him and through the doorway he’d appeared in. Oil paintings on the right and closed doors on the left marked my journey. The end of the line appeared in the form of a long dining room with a white cloth laden table. Red roses sat in the middle of it all, surrounded by candles.

  Just the sight of such clichéd romantic symbols made me blush. To be wooed was something I had most definitely not expected. Whips and chains would have surprised me less.

  The two place settings were right next to each other, at the head and corner of the table. Niall walked behind me, the air seeming to rustle and spark as he did. He went to the chair at the right of the head and pulled it out, looking at me expectantly.

  I took the cue and sat down. “Thank you,” I murmured.

  Instead of responding, he took his own seat. “How was your ride here?”

  Underneath the tablecloth, my hands twisted in my lap. “It was nice, thank you... for the limo and all.”

  He gave that single nod that I’d already come to expect from him.

  “And the spa,” I went on. It was unnecessary.

  I bit my lip before saying the second part. Apparently, Niall did find it necessary since he didn’t appear to trust me to either dress myself or do my own hair and makeup.

  “My intentions include showing you a lavish weekend,” he said with a grim face. “I would never stoop to giving you anything but the best.”

  “Thank you,” I said since I didn’t know what else to say. Did the man ever smile?

  A door to my left opened, and I jerked again. A man in a chef’s coat entered, a large tray balanced in his hands.

  “Are you vegetarian?” Niall asked.

  “Um, no not really. I mean, I cut back, since it’s bad for the environment and all. It’s the top cause of deforestation. It’s why the rain forests are being cut down. All the cattle and their grain, you know. And then there’s the methane emissions...” I bit my bottom lip. I had hoped I wouldn’t be bringing my embarrassing trademark nervousness, but apparently, it had stowed along in my mouth. Sometimes when I didn’t know what to say, I said way too much.

  One corner of Niall’s mouth lifted. So there it was. A smile.

  The chef began wordlessly serving us, piling asparagus, potatoes, and some kind of glazed chicken dish on the thin china.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “No,” Niall responded. “Once everything is clean you may leave.”

  With a nod, the man disappeared, opening the door and revealing a glimpse of the kitchen. Niall opened a bottle of white wine sitting on the table and poured us each a glass.

  On my lap, my phone buzzed. I glanced down at it, seeing Jess’ text: Juicy details?

  I wanted to text back, but it was too rude, so instead I silenced the phone. “Um, someone took my bag when I got here,” I said, suddenly remembering it.

  “Yes, and he’s already put it in the foyer.”

  “Oh... really? When?”

  Niall rested his forearms on the table and leaned a bit closer to me. “Everything is planned out exactly the way I want it to be. Do you not know that by now?”

  I inhaled, tasting the earthiness of his cologne. “It seems that way.”

  He picked up his knife and fork and began cutting his meat. “What do you think of being here so far?”

  “Um... well, I don’t really know.”

  “Understandable.”

  I picked up my own silverware and feebly took a bite. The ball of nerves in my stomach could hardly take it, but I forced the food down. What were we supposed to talk about? What questions did we ask? So where are you from? Did you play sports growing up? What’s your relationship with your parents like?

  All of the normal questions you asked on a date just didn’t seem to apply in such a situation. I couldn’t sit there in silence though. I needed to speak.

  “So you have a tech company,” I began. “Will you tell me about it?”

  He tilted his head and looked right into my eyes, sealing me to my seat with their heat. “Yes,” he smoothly said. “I started it my first year at Harvard. It was a thriving business before I graduated. Initially, it began as a venture into robotics, but it’s since grown. We have more patents than any other corporation in the country.”

  He went on from there, but I only absorbed a fraction of his words. Instead, his face, his mannerisms, took up most of my attention. He hardly moved, unless it was to raise his hand slightly to stress a point, and he looked into my face to a degree that made me extremely self-conscious. I didn’t exactly hate it, but it felt strange to be such an unwavering part of someone’s attention.

  I managed to choke down half of my meal, nodding and saying the occasional word while Niall went on. When he tried to pour me a second glass of wine, I declined. One was good, enough to take the edge off. Two and my decision making skills might be lowered by a few degrees.

  Though perhaps they had been the whole week.

  “Y
ou’re a waitress,” he proclaimed, not even segueing from talk of his own work.

  “Uh, yes. Part time. I’m in school... to become a nurse.”

  “Hm,” he murmured, placing his square jaw in his hand. For a few seconds, he just looked at me. Surprisingly, it was starting to be all right. I was getting used to constantly having his gaze on me, to not being able to make a move without him knowing it. It almost felt comforting in a way. Niall made me feel wanted, desired... craved.

  “And why?” he asked.

  “Why?” I searched for words, momentarily distracted by my train of thought. I shrugged. “Because I want a job that helps people. Isn’t that obvious?”

  Something new sparked in his gray eyes. It was a level of attentiveness I hadn’t yet seen. “Because of your career choice? No. Not every person in the medical field is exactly... beneficent.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m starting to see that.”

  “But you are.”

  I scoffed. “You don’t know that.”

  “You almost went on a rant about the dangers of beef before dinner even began.”

  Heat entered my cheeks. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “Luckily, we had chicken.”

  I laughed at the first semblance of a joke I’d heard him make.

  Niall leaned back in his chair, seemingly to get a broader view of me. “And you’re adventurous. You came here. I like that.”

  “Or maybe I’m crazy. My roommate told me not to come. Of course, my other roommate told me I had to.”

  He blinked a few times. “What do you think?” he softly asked.

  My pulse quickened, and I struggled to speak. “I know this whole situation might be insane... but I wanted to come. I wanted to see…” I licked my lips, my mouth too dry for me to continue.

  “And what do you think so far?” he asked, his voice somehow even lower.

  “I don’t know,” I breathlessly replied. “Every moment has been a surprise. The limo. The spa. This...” I looked around the room, “…place.”

  “And me? What do you think of me?”

  I studied his face, less anxious than I was before. “You’re hard to read. I doubt you let very many people in, if any at all.”

  His face remained passive. “Are you drawing from the stereotypical rich bad boy model? The man who seems to have it all but is really impossibly lonely and sad inside?”

  “Does that exist? Is that you?”

  One eyebrow twitched. “I suppose that even if it was you’d never know, seeing as I supposedly don’t let people in.”

  “Touché.”

  His hand reached forward to trail down the inside of my arm. I shivered at the touch, little thrills traveling through my body over and over again. His fingertips glided down across my wrist and over my palm, making little circles there.

  Niall spoke painfully slow. “But there must be secret sides to everyone.”

  I gulped. “Yes,” I murmured, not even really thinking about what I was saying. All I could pay attention to was his touch on my hand, the nearly overwhelming presence of his body seated so close to mine.

  Was there a secret side to me? A darker side perhaps, one that longed to be in the presence of such a mysterious man? One that ached to be overpowered, taken hold of?

  Niall’s hand traveled back up my arm and slipped fluidly onto my side. I gasped as his fingers clutched the fabric of my dress. Next thing I knew, he was hauling me up and pressing my back against the wall, his leg pressed between my bare ones, his hot gaze bearing down onto mine.

  “You tell me to stop, and I’ll stop,” he said.

  I nodded, still in shock from being yanked out of my chair. Even yes had become an impossible word.

  Still gazing down at me, his hands slid down and found the hem of my dress. They twisted the fabric, raising it up and over my hips. Fresh air pressed against my heated and aching thighs. Niall still looked at me, not making any move to kiss me as one finger traced the top of my lace underwear. I gazed back at him, afraid to keep looking but afraid to look away. Someone’s breath quickened, became panting, and I realized it was mine.

  His finger hooked the top of my panties and twisted them, making the fabric between my legs bunch up and rub against my folds. He tugged tighter, and I gasped. The slightest smile flickered across his face. A second later, he disappeared, sinking to his knees to rub his hands up and down my legs. I let my head drop back against the wall, my eyes falling closed. So this was it. Here we were, and there was no walking away because that was the last thing I wanted to do.

  Niall rubbed my legs harder, parting them. He lifted the right one, hooking it over his shoulder. His face nuzzled against my underwear, and I nearly groaned. Something hot pressed against me, and I realized it was his tongue, pushing the tangled underwear out of the way. It ran up the length of my pussy, swirling around and around, then grazing over my swollen nub. I bit my bottom lip and stopped myself from screaming. Was the chef still here? Did it matter? Not even an earthquake would have made me push the man on his knees in front of me away.

  One of Niall’s hands made its way along my hip to grasp my rear. It held on tight, fingernails digging into my ass. He pressed even harder, making my skin sting in protest. I shifted slightly and as I did so, my hips pressed closer to his mouth. Niall sucked on me harder, the pleasure in the front getting wound up with the pleasure in the back. They meshed together, making it hard to tell where one began and one ended.

  I moaned a little bit, unable to stop myself. Niall’s mouth slowed down it’s frantic pace, being replaced instead with a finger inside of me. My legs quaked, one still over his shoulder and one planted firmly on the floor. It was getting harder to hold myself up, the impending explosion of pleasure making me weak. Niall moved his hand from my rear, raking his nails along the side of my thigh.

  I opened my eyes, took in the room that was the same and yet so different. It was hard to get my breath, hard to do anything other than just try to stand up.

  Quickly, Niall stood, unbuckling his belt as he did so. The backs of my heels pressed against the wall and I could practically feel my eyes go wide. There? Right in the dining room?

  His pants were dropping, and in his hand gleamed a condom package he must have pulled from a pocket. His boxers fell to the floor as well, revealing a smooth, long cock. He worked quickly, unwrapping the condom and sliding it over himself. With a quick step forward, he pressed his mouth against mine, his tongue creeping between my teeth and dancing over my own. His hands went under my thighs and he lifted me until I was off the floor, suspended in the air, my spine pressed into the wall.

  His cock pressed into me, making me moan the second it nudged my entrance. Niall bit my bottom lip, working it between his teeth while he pushed farther into me. With a quick flex of his hips, he plunged deep into me, making me stretch and ache. Slowly, he withdrew and I nearly cried out from the loss, but there wasn’t time because he was balls deep once more. I watched his face as he fucked me, worked his way in and out. His eyes had darkened, the look on his face focused and intent. I shook against the wall, my hands frantically clutching the top of his suit jacket.

  Noises escaped my mouth — foreign sounds I’d never heard, some of them resembling words and some of them purely animalistic. Niall groaned against me, his own sounds of satisfaction making my pleasure grow.

  He drove deeper and faster into me, hitting my g-spot with such force that I exploded, the pleasure hitting me in wave after wave. Niall groaned, his fingers tightening around my legs and his hips pressing flat into mine. He stilled and for a few seconds, we stayed there, his damp head next to mine while his arms still held me up. Slowly, he lowered me. My heels clicked against the floor, and my dress fell awkwardly down around my hips.

  Niall placed his forearms on the wall next to me and looked into my face. “Are you tired?”

  I gathered some of the breath I’d lost in all the moaning and panting. “Yes,” I managed to say.

&nbs
p; He gave one of his single nods. “I’ll take you to your room. Tomorrow there will be more.”

  I gulped, not knowing what to say. Thank you?

  Niall pulled his pants back on and then went to push open the door we’d come through. I followed him down the hallway and into one of the side rooms. The door he picked seemed to waft open at his touch. In the low-lit room rested a queen size bed plus an entertainment center as well as a bookshelf filled with hardcover books. A window showed the same sparkling view of the city every other one in the loft did. A side door opened up into the bathroom.

  Sitting on the floor, at the foot of the bed, was my bag. Someone had snuck in and placed it there while Niall and I were having dinner.

  Or screwing.

  “Everything you need is in the bathroom,” he said.

  I took a couple of small steps into the room and then turned around to face him. “Thank you.”

  He blinked rapidly and then looked at me. I opened my mouth, thinking I would ask him not to go, tell him I wasn’t tired yet. But yet though I was suddenly exhausted, I also felt ravenous, crazy for his touch. Insane for his presence, even if we didn’t have sex.

  The growing feelings were almost too much to bear. The one and only time I’d had “just sex” with a man, it had involved a crazy amount of alcohol and no lingering desire to be around the person — just a desire to forget that the drunken one-night stand had even taken place. I needed some time alone to process everything that had already gone on between Niall and me.

  Niall hovered for another second, his weight shifting forward and towards me like he was considering staying after all. Finally, though, he only nodded and turned around, the door clicking shut behind him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Niall

  I stood outside of the guest room, my hand still on the knob. Another few seconds ticked by and I continued to stare at the shining orb. With one twist, it would take me back in there. Back to Emma. Her soft lips. Her delicate sighs. Her sparkling eyes.

  But I couldn’t. I didn’t do sleepovers with women. It gave them the wrong idea, helped them think that just maybe the thing we had extended beyond simple screwing.