He wished for me.
Spread on that coffee table, skirt hiked up past my waist, panties gone, heels still on, body shaking from how hard he’s taking me.
I almost choke on the image, not sure why I’m so damned turned on. It’s like my body is overruling my mind, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve held off from sex the past few months. Sure. That’s a good enough explanation. It kinda-sorta explains why I’m so hot and wet right now. It’s not him. It’s me. Just my body doing what it was designed to do when the time is right. Which means he’s not in control of my body—I am.
“Why are you here?” Hayes whispers down to me. “What do you want from me?”
I almost remind him that it’s a free country, that me being here is pure coincidence. But I hold back for some reason, like I want to keep the mystery, let him think I’m here for a reason. A laugh almost escapes my sticky, painted lips, and I feel like I’m slipping into an alternate reality. I don’t know if I’m a rich, powerful woman in firm control of her own life, her own body, her own future, or if I’m a silly schoolgirl who longs to be swept off her feet by a distinguished billionaire, carried across the threshold in his powerful arms, whisked away to a happily-ever-after in a chariot drawn by unicorns. (Unicorns can fly, right? I don’t know, coz I never read that crap as a kid.)
“Why are you here? What do you want from me?” I mutter. That’s what Hayes just asked me, and I think I’m redirecting those questions to myself. What I’m feeling is really messing with me, and I know it’s just lust, just the environment of this dark private lounge with old leather and cut crystal everywhere that’s making me fall into this dreamy, fantastical state.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” Hayes says, blinking as if he’s surprised by what he’s feeling too, just like I am. “But I know what I want from you, and I sure as hell hope it’s the same thing you want from me.”
I gasp when I see the hunger in his eyes, see the way his chest moves as he breathes heavy, feel the way his body is tight like he’s desperately trying to stay in control. Hayes is as turned around by this electric attraction as I am, and somehow that means something to me even though I don’t want it to mean anything to me. Even though it shouldn’t mean anything to me. Even though it can’t mean anything to me.
Can it?
“I can’t make sense of this,” Hayes growls, clenching his fists as if he’s physically trying to hold himself back from me. “My brain knows this is a setup, a scheme, a trap of some kind. But my gut says go ahead, and that’s scrambling my fucking signals because my gut instinct is never wrong. Fucking never! Shit, I want you in a way I’ve never wanted a woman, Hannah. I want to feel your lips against mine, your body against mine, your fucking soul against mine.”
My lips move but nothing comes out. I know Hayes has seen it all with unscrupulous women trying to get their claws into him. Hell, I meet gold-digger men all the time, and for years I’ve been very careful about telling a potential boyfriend how much I’m worth. So I’m not surprised that a man like Hayes recognizes this as a setup, a scheme, a trap.
And you know what?
Maybe it is a trap.
But a trap that’s got me too.
Got me bad.
3
HAYES
This is a bad fucking idea, I think as I fight to stay in control. I want her so damned badly I can barely see straight, and I’m so wild with arousal that I swear I can smell her sex calling to me from between those divine thighs. My cock groans to be let out, and my tongue yearns to taste her mouth. The line between fantasy and reality is shifting, and I’m sinking into a trancelike state that master meditators take twenty years to achieve.
Of course, the only enlightenment I’m seeking is to see Hannah bare-bottomed and spread wide, and although I know this whole setup is sketchy as fuck, that I have to be an idiot to follow my cock into what has to be some sort of trap, I can’t shake that gut instinct that says this is right, this is good, this is perfect, this is . . . fate?
“Do you believe in fate, Hannah?” I mutter, doing my best not to babble as my lungs fill with her scent, almost overwhelming me.
“Only the weak believe in fate,” she says, her brown eyes telling me she’s as messed up as I am, that whatever her plan was, it sure as hell wasn’t this. Whatever this is.
“Nobody’s ever called me weak to my face,” I say softly, inching towards her and running my finger carefully along her smooth round cheek. The warmth of her skin almost makes me explode in my pants, and I’m seeing stars as I gently stroke her neck.
Hannah shivers from my touch, but she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t slap me across the mouth and kick me in the balls. She feels it too, I know. Feels whatever this is, this feeling that doesn’t have a name—not a name I care to use, anyway.
Love at first sight?
Fuck that.
Doesn’t exist outside of Disney movies and glossy paperbacks.
But neither does fate, I think as I take my foot off the coffee table, place my hands firmly on the armrests of her chair, and lean over her. My broad body casts a dark shadow over her, and she looks even more beautiful in the shade.
“Fate simply means that we’re being drawn to a future event, an event that already exists in the realm where time means nothing,” I say, not sure where this New Age crap is coming from. Did someone brainwash me on a plane? Hypnotize me at a restaurant? Scramble my brain-waves at the beach?
“Drawn to a future event?” she says. “What event might that be?”
I look down at her hand, doing my best not to linger on that intoxicating view of her full cleavage that I want in my face. She isn’t wearing a ring, but I see a faint tan-line on her left hand, on the ring finger.
Instantly a wave of jealous rage rips through me, and I almost rip through the leather arms of the chair as I claw at it like a maniac. I’m shocked at the reaction—which I always considered another form of weakness. Only losers fly into jealous rages. Men who believe they can’t do any better than what they’ve got right now. Or worse: Men who fall for that crap about two people being “meant” for each other.
“You’re married,” I whisper, clenching my jaw as I realize I need to stand down, back the fuck away. Married women are off-limits, no matter how hard my cock throbs, no matter how loud my heart beats, no matter how sweet her siren song sounds to my soul.
“Only when convenient,” she says. “Wanna see my ring?”
I frown, not sure what she means. But the sparkle in her eye gets to me, and I nod.
She reaches down her neckline, and I almost lose my mind as the sight of her fingers disappearing into her bra. When those fingers reappear, she’s holding a ring. A shining band of white gold that could easily pass for a wedding ring to the casual observer.
But I’m not a casual observer, and I grab her hand so I can get a closer look. “Where did you get this?” I say, blinking three times when I realize it’s the same design as the ring I have at home, the ring Ingram wears, the ring that’s a membership card to a secret society that no longer accepts new members . . . and has never accepted women.
“Same place you did,” she says, pulling her hand away and slipping that ring onto her finger. “Why so shocked? You didn’t know it came in white gold too? I do like the black titanium, but that’s more of a bro-dude alpha-male type thing. Not my style.”
Some of the dots connect immediately, and now I know how she got in here. That ring gives you access to private rooms in elite clubs all over the world. The Society is so secret it doesn’t have its own clubs. We just infiltrate other exclusive clubs, a membership hidden inside another membership, like those Russian dolls that keep popping open to reveal another layer.
I’m shaken, and all sorts of doubts and suspicions roll through me. Slowly I pull back from her and sit down hard on the table, almost breaking it with my weight. The brass legs bend but don’t break, and I loosen my tie and cross my arms over my chest.
“When did the Society start accepting women? Or anyone, for that matter. I thought it closed its doors decades ago, shortly after Ingram and I graduated business school,” I say. It doesn’t bother me that the Society accepts women, of course. I’m just surprised that the Society’s still active. Hannah’s not a recent grad, but she’s a helluva lot younger than my ancient ass. Fuck, the Society is so clandestine that it even keeps secrets from its own tenured members? Ingram and the other guys will get a kick out of this.
“They only invited a handful of women,” Hannah says, fingering the ring.
“Who’s they?” I demand. “Nobody asked me, and I’m one of the oldest members of the Society. The rules say that any changes to the rules must pass by unanimous vote.”
Hannah snorts. “I guess that rule got changed too,” she says. “A lot of rules got changed after Mother and Father resurrected the Society.”
A chill rises up my back like the twin serpents of myth. The origins of the Society are somewhat murky—even Ingram and I don’t know the full history. You’re only told that it was founded by someone known only as Father. There was no Mother, far as we knew. And Father—if he even was a real person—would have been long dead by now.
My mind is racing as I try to make sense of all this—everything from Hannah walking in here, to the effect she’s having on me, to this unexpected conversation about the Society—which, to be honest, seemed to be all but dead, with just a handful of us left, billionaires who mostly tossed their rings in a drawer or used them as props, like Ingram.
I force myself to relax, taking slow, deep breaths until I’m back in control of my emotions. Then I flash a lazy smile at Hannah, like this stuff is way too childish for a distinguished old bastard like myself. “Mother and Father?” I say through that lopsided grin. “Do they live in a dollhouse in the clouds?”
Hannah nods earnestly. “Yes. And they ride unicorns back and forth from Earth.” Her eyes flash a playful innocence that makes me want to pull her into me and smother her with kisses.
I laugh, and suddenly I decide that all of this is just coincidence. The ring explains why she’s in this private room. She’s probably in town for a meeting and just wanted to use the club. I do that all the time when I travel. So it’s all just a coincidence. It’s not some devious plan designed to trap my ass in a relationship that leads to marriage and a line of brats who insist on calling me Daddy.
I should be relieved, but to my utter surprise I feel a deep disappointment. And suddenly it all starts up again in my head, and I wonder if what looks like coincidence is actually fate, destiny, meant-to-be.
And then just as suddenly I make another decision.
My final decision.
This is fate, I decide.
And nothing else matters.
I’m about to tell her, but just then she sighs and bites her lip and blinks up at me.
“I need to tell you something,” she says softly. A long pause, during which she swallows hard. “The reason I came here is—”
“I don’t want to know,” I say, clamping my hand over her mouth as I double down on that decision that comes from the unconscious part of me, bypassing my brain, shutting down common sense. It’s a decision that comes straight from my heart, from that warmth I feel all over my body, the warmth of the sun at midday, the warmth of the surf on the sand, the warmth that poets and writers spend their lives trying to describe. It’s a warmth I didn’t believe existed, but now that I feel it, it seems like it’s the only thing that exists, the only thing that’s real.
It’s the warmth of love.
And although I know love is for weaker men, for dreamy idiots, for those whiny poets and sugary-sweet writers, I can’t deny what I feel. Maybe this is my midlife crisis, but nothing in my cold, calculating life has ever felt this fucking clear. She’s mine, and that’s all there is to it.
“You’re mine, and that’s all there is to it,” I say, taking both her hands in mine and leaning close. “That’s why you came here, Hannah. Because you’re mine, and I’m yours. The details don’t matter. The backstory is meaningless. The past is irrelevant. We’re being pulled by our future, and this is our future.”
“What . . . what’s our future?” she whispers, her eyelids fluttering as I draw close, so close I feel her breath on my lips.
“This,” I whisper. “Just this.”
And then I kiss her.
By God, I kiss her.
4
HANNAH
He kisses me, and the kisses breaks through my defenses, makes me terrified that this is already more than just casual., that this feels more real than it should. That attraction I felt has only grown, and I almost believe Hayes when he says we’re being pulled by a future, by our future, a future where we’re together and all this stuff is just the paperwork, just the fine print, just the backstory, fate’s excuse for bringing us together.
It’s like a fairytale, isn’t it? A girl and a boy meet. They look into each other’s eyes. They fall in love. A kiss. A caress. And a happily ever after. End of story, right? The reason I came here doesn’t matter. Twenty years from now I won’t even remember why I came here, high heels on my feet, lipstick on my face.
I see my lipstick on Hayes’s face when he pulls back just so we can both draw breaths. Clearly that kiss was a two-way thing, judging by how I’ve painted his handsome face in red, like I’m marking him as mine. He smiles and licks his lips, and suddenly all that tension melts away.
And so when Hayes kisses me again, I kiss him back again. When he caresses my neck I shudder in approval. When he traces his tongue down past my neckline I arch my head back and let him pull open my top, snap my bra off, grasp my heavy breasts in his big hands. He sucks each nipple as I moan, his hands sliding along my thighs and moving up my skirt. He tears my wet panties off even as he sucks my boobs, but just as I hear the heavy buckle of his leather belt come off, the moment is shattered by shrillness, violated by vibration.
It’s our phones ringing and vibrating.
Both our phones.
Ringing at the same time, with the same ring-tone, the same vibration.
“What the fuck?” Hayes says, pulling back and reaching for his phone.
I do the same, pulling my bra down over my boobs as the strangeness of the simultaneous calls makes a chill run down my spine. I glance at the number, and I do a double-take when I see the Caller ID say “Mother.”
“Why the fuck does it say Father is calling me?” Hayes mutters as he stares at his phone.
I glance down at the white-gold ring that hangs on my necklace. Then I hold my phone up so he can see the ID. Hayes’s eyes go wide as we exchange a mutual WTF look, and then we both answer our phones.
The next few moments are the strangest of my life, and when I hang up and turn back to Hayes, I know Father just told him the same thing Mother told me:
“Father and I disapprove,” Mother had said. “And so we’ve had your assets frozen, your bank accounts drained, your property confiscated, your safety deposit boxes seized, and your investments voided.”
There’d been a pause, and when I tried to say something, Mother’s voice came back on with the same message. It was only then that I realized I was being played a pre-recorded message. My name wasn’t even mentioned, and after the message played back three times, the call disconnected.
Now Hayes and I look at each other, and in that moment I know we’re both suspecting the other. We’re also in total disbelief, and immediately we dial our accountants and lawyers and try to ask them as casually as possible if everything looks OK with our finances.
And things most certainly do not look OK.
“This is a prank, right?” I say, brushing my hair from my face as I feel my lower lip tremble. “No one can wipe out tens of millions of dollars in assets, right?”
“Tens of millions? Hell, I’m missing tens of billions!” Hayes thunders, his eyes wide and wild, his big fists clenching and releasing as he paces the room, his shirt
unbuttoned, belt hanging open. He stops and narrows his eyes at me, and then continues pacing like he’s trying to stop himself from openly accusing me of something.
“Maybe we’re being hazed by the Society,” I say uneasily, reaching for my torn panties and then wondering if I should put them in my bag. “Just a trick, an illusion. Somebody’s just messing with us—probably one of your buddies, I bet. Like that guy you were with earlier? He had a Society ring on. I saw it.”
“Ingram?” Hayes says with a frown and a firm head-shake. “No way Ingram would go in on something like this. He knows I’d break his fingers and then his fucking neck.” Then he snorts and glares at me. “Did you just suggest we’re being hazed? What do I look like, a fucking frat boy from the University of Dumbass?” He shakes his head again, eyeing me up and down before glancing at my bag and folder on the table. “Lemme see that,” he growls, snatching up the folder and my bag before I can stop him.
I’m on my feet in an instant, and I pull my skirt down and button up my jacket as high as it’ll go. Then I cross my arms under my boobs and glare at Hayes as he empties all my shit on the coffee table like he’s a mad husband who suspects his wife is cheating.
“None of your business,” I snap when Hayes holds up a tube of something cream-colored. It’s just an unmarked sample of lip-balm from one of my holistic companies, but I’m too pissed off to explain.
Hayes tosses the lip-balm over his shoulder, and then with a roar he swipes his arm across the table, sending all my stuff flying. I blink in shock at the temper tantrum this so-called distinguished billionaire is displaying, and then I shake my head when I realize where my mind was just a few minutes ago.
“I need to get out of here,” I mutter, touching my neck as the reality of what’s happening sinks in. At some level I don’t believe what my accountants and lawyers just confirmed—but it’s freaky as hell the way both our phones rang at once. And how is it that Hayes’s lawyers and accountants told him the same thing? Is the Society really that powerful? Sure, when we were invited to join they told us that the Society’s influence cut through everything, from business to politics, the World Bank to the World Wrestling Federation, the IRS to the freakin’ IRA.
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