Romancing Austin
Page 23
Adam pulled her into a room and shut the door. “Now, we can pick up where we left off.”
Her tear filled gaze swept upward to his face. “What?”
“It’s apparent the man you married doesn’t want you anymore.” He stalked toward her.
“I don’t—”
Adam grabbed her shoulders and pressed her against the wall. “It’s always been you and me, babe.”
Rage boiled up, replacing the hurt she just wallowed in. “Let go of me,” she bit out. “It was never about us.”
The door flew open, nearly off its hinges. “Get your hands off of her.” Holt’s voice faintly registered in the background amongst the chaos and music.
“Dude, back the fuck off,” Adam responded.
When everything came back into focus, she looked over at Holt, her heart slamming against her ribs.
His nostrils flared while he wrapped a hand around the back of Adam’s neck. Holt squeezed, his knuckles blanching white. Through gritted teeth he said, “Let go of my wife right now.” He shoved Adam to the side.
Her ex stumbled back. “And what are you going to do about it, bro?”
Fear spiked in Chloe’s gut. Holt was a man of barely leashed power, and she didn’t know how badly he would hurt Adam. The dumbass just never knew when to quit.
Holt grabbed Adam by the collar and pinned him with a menacing stare, the cords in his neck straining. “If I ever see you near her again, I’m going to beat your ass. Until there’s nothing left.” He pushed Adam back.
She swallowed back the ever present lump in her throat. “Did you send Adam to come and find me?” Her voice cracked with pain.
Holt pushed a gasping Adam out of the room and turned to look at her. “What?”
“You did, didn’t you? You told him. Where we lived, where I would be tonight.” Like a knife spearing her gut, cutting her wide open. “You were what? Trying to test my loyalty?” Please say no. Please say this is just a terrible coincidence.
“I never spoke to him before today.” He watched her face closely. “Do you want to be with that loser?”
The room seemed to close in on her. Suffocating the air and squeezing her from all sides. She didn’t know what to believe. Desperate to get away, she darted down the hallway. Doors. Bedrooms. Damn—she went the wrong way. If she retreated, Holt would catch her. Instead, she darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
Panic suffused her as her pulse raced and she—she just wanted to scream. The man who’d taken her by storm, the man she’d fallen for unexpectedly, who she married! She let him take her body, let her come inside of her—and for what? So, he could call the ex who destroyed her world and try to get her to take him back?
A knock sounded on the door. “Chloe. Open the door.” Holt’s voice rose over the music.
“Fuck no,” she shouted.
“Open the door or I’ll pick the lock. Choose,” he yelled from the other side.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” She pressed against the door as the lock popped. The betrayal of his actions stung and she tried to process it. Oh, hell no. She pushed with all her weight, but she was no match for his strength as he slipped inside. The door slammed shut as she fell against it.
He immediately locked the door and blocked her from the handle. “You need to hear me out.”
Heat stung her face. “I heard everything I needed to. You set me up. You told him where I was!”
“I didn’t do anything of the kind.” He stepped closer to her, moving her against bathroom wall. “But I do need to know why you went into a private room with your ex, Chloe.”
“I told you he and I were over, but my word isn’t good enough for you?” She pushed against his chest to move him back.
He didn’t budge. “When I saw him disappear with you out there.” He pointed to the door, a sheen of moisture glistened in his eyes. “I realized how much I need you.”
Her pulse pounded in her eardrums. “Adam told me it was you who called and told him where to find me. So, it’s too little too late for you to realize anything, Holt.” She tried to push him away as tears gathered in her eyes.
“From the first moment I saw you.” His hands cupped the sides of her face. “I knew I had to have you. You were like an instant addiction. I can’t lose you over something like this, love. He’s lying and you need to see I wouldn’t do that to someone I care about.”
Chloe struggled within herself. He looked so sincere when he claimed he didn’t contact her ex. But, he also admitted he didn’t trust her and that might be just as bad. She grabbed his hands and pulled them off to escape his hold on her, then ducked down and slid under his arm to escape him.
He stalked toward her, rubbing his chest. “I need you. Why would I hand you over to him?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She shook her head while backing away. “Whatever this is between us is over. You killed it the moment you contacted Adam.”
A hurt expression crossed over his face. “I don’t operate like normal people, but I don’t play games with something this important. Think Chloe, it isn’t true and deep down, you know it.”
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, and she balled her fists.
His eyes blazed at her. “Look into my eyes, love. The truth is there…or are you afraid to see it?”
The tiny space suffocated her. Is he right? Had she believed Adam, so she could run? Because she was too scared to let Holt all the way in? She couldn’t think straight. She needed to get out—to get away from him. Chloe tried to move past him again, but he caught her.
He grabbed her shoulders and pressed her back against the wall, caging her in again. “My entire life is built from restraint. Somebody, something always controlling me.” Pain laced his tone. “It’s why I took the control back, not letting anyone or anything rule over me. Not until you.”
“You’re not making any sense. I don’t rule over you. We got married for a business arrangement. Then what you did to me yesterday? You—you fucked me and still, you can’t even give me a proper kiss? It hurt.”
His gaze moved to her lips and he placed his palms against the wall on either side of her head, pressing his body against hers. “I planned on kissing you…A long kiss. One that would steal your breath away and get you to admit what you really feel for me.” His voice lowered an octave.
Her breaths became shallower at the heat in his eyes and his words. Anticipation coiled in her stomach as he moved closer to her face, bringing them nose to nose.
“From the first moment at the bar, you unraveled me.” His chest rose and fell as he came closer, his lips barely touching hers. “Each day together, this bond between us grows and I’ve never felt this connection with another. It fucking broke me, Chloe.”
She pushed against his chest to move him back, refusing to give in to him. “Then, you believed I went with Adam willingly. That I would betray you?”
“No, I knew deep down, you didn’t want to be with him, but maybe the truth is that we’re both afraid. These feelings you stir inside of me, I needed to know what they were. Now, I do. I can’t live a day without you by my side.” His jaw muscle ticked as he clenched his teeth and a fire lit in his eyes. “When I saw him with you, I felt rage. I wanted him dead—dead for hurting you, for ever touching you. You’re mine. Only mine.”
“You didn’t trust me, Holt. Trust is important. Can you ever trust me?”
Holt’s shoulders dropped, and he looked down. “I am trying. I really am, but it isn’t you I don’t trust.” Bringing a hand to his face, he rubbed his eyes. “It’s me, but I am willing to make it happen, because I can’t live without you. I won’t,” he said in a thickened voice.
As angry as she’d been before, he reminded her of a wounded animal. She knew he was a recluse. He never had a solid relationship with anyone, so he probably didn’t know how to nurture the feelings warring inside of him—and it scared him. Like getting her heart broken, scared her. Holt wasn’t a conventional man, she’d lea
rned that much, but she also cared enough to figure out how to handle him. “You hurt me tonight by thinking I would sleep with you, then go to someone else,” she said, emotion choking her voice.
“Never again, love. It wasn’t your fault; it was mine.” He fisted his hands in her hair and yanked her to him, pulling her in for a desperate kiss.
All rational thought fled from her as his tongue penetrated her lips. He bit her bottom lip, demanding her to open for him. When she surrendered, he took over her mouth, sucking her tongue to his, claimed in a heated embrace of submission. The taste of him drove her wild and she needed more as she scrambled for the buttons of his shirt.
He slid his hands down her sides to her hips. He pulled her dress up, then cupped her ass as he lifted her. “Forgive me for not trusting you, Chloe. Don’t fucking leave me, please.”
The desperation in his tone, in his words, made her heart clench. She wanted him. She needed to be the one to capture and break him. She wanted nothing more than for him to love her—only her. Then the realization made her succumb to the truth: she’d been falling in love with him and she couldn’t stand to give him up so soon. He was right, she had been afraid to let him in, and she’d wanted run away from what she felt for him. “I forgive you.” She knew she played a part in this mess too, and she intended to make it up to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he spun them, propping her on top of the white marble bathroom counter. She fought to undo his belt and unzip his pants, so hungry for him.
Holt grabbed the bottom of her dress, gathered at her waist and shoved it higher above her chest. Greedy hands slipped into her bra and he squeezed each breast with a heady possessiveness.
Their mouths collided, a passionate penetration of each other’s lips, hungry and devouring as their tongues sought the other one out. Her sex clenched, desire swelling in her core as she took his hardened shaft in her hand and pumped.
This man took her to heights of desire she only dreamed about, and she wanted him to devour her, mind, body and soul. More than anything, she needed to feel him inside of her, claiming her and owning what belonged to him. Breaking the kiss, she whispered breathlessly, “Green.”
Holt paused and tilted his head at her as that sexy smirk covered his lips.
“I’ll never get enough of you.” Holt smiled as he reached between them and grabbed his erection, sliding his hand over hers. “My cock is claiming your pussy right now.” His mouth hovered close to hers, and he sucked on her bottom lip. An overwhelming urge to coat her with his cum made his balls heavy. “I want you to feel me dripping between your thighs as we walk out of here.”
“I’m yours. Always have been.” Chloe moved her thong to the side, exposing her pussy to him as her breasts heaved. “Claim me.”
He growled as he grabbed her ass, pulling her against him and slammed inside of her, burying himself to the hilt—flesh on flesh. She felt so magnificent, gripping his shaft as he bathed in her pussy, bonding them together. “I’m never letting you go.”
“Don’t ever.” She moaned.
Holt moved his hips back and slowly pushed in each rigid inch inside of her again, her tightness welcoming him with moist heat. He eased in and out of her before speeding the tempo.
Pounding on the door sounded with a, “Hurry up!”
He ignored the knocking and drilled into his woman. When he’d witnessed the exchange between her and Adam, he’d fucking lost it. The rage and jealousy he felt at another man touching her was too much to bear. As he quickened his pace, moving in and out of Chloe furiously, he knew he could yield to her, because she surrendered to him in a way that soothed him. “Damn, baby, this is where we belong.”
“With each other,” she frantically panted as her greedy hips met each powerful thrust.
They were connected in every way now—bonded mind, soul and body.
He reached between them, moving his thumb down to where their bodies connected and wet his finger. Then he rubbed her clit with her own juices. “It’s you and me, love.”
“It always has been. If we just let it happen.” She kissed his lips, bucking against him. “I absolutely adore you.”
His chest tightened. While she didn’t say she loved him, it was close enough to what he needed to hear. “I adore you too, baby. I want you to change your name to Michaelson. No more Davenport.”
She moaned. “For you, anything.”
Faintly in the background, he heard more noise outside the door, but he didn’t care. His wife was spread open wide for him, and she was his priority. His balls tightened and his orgasm rose to the surface. “Come on my cock, my love.” He needed to feel her sex clenching him.
She grabbed on to him tighter while riding his shaft and finger. Her pussy tightened, convulsing around him.
Holt needed to claim her, mark her with his seed. Hot bursts exploded inside of her and he pumped, harder, faster to fill her as he roared. His. She was his—and he belonged to her. He claimed her soul, but most importantly she claimed his. His entire life he’d waited for this moment, for this type of link. Someone who understood the way he worked inside and out. While his wife finished milking the rest of his cock inside of her, he slowed his movement, loving the way she felt.
She grabbed the sides of his face, making him look at her. “Don’t ever think there’s anyone but you again.”
“I won’t.” He’d barely been able to hold back from bashing Adam’s fucking head in. He knew he had no right to, and that he shouldn’t, but it devastated him to see Chloe with him. He kissed her lips tenderly, sweat dripping down his neck. “You are mine and I am yours.”
“Always. My sweet husband.” She kissed him back. “So, did you sign Dex?”
“Yes.” He smiled against her mouth. “He’s coming in tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get Ashley too.”
“All I need is you.” She teased his lips with her tongue.
“Me too, baby.” Holt grabbed her face and lowered his lips to hers. He planned on kissing her breathless, devouring her mouth and melding her tongue with his. As he tasted her sweet lips, he realized that for the first time in his life, everything clicked into place. He had his wife and he forever belonged to her.
From Riley
Dear Reader,
First and foremost, thank you for picking up Romancing Austin. I’m so excited to be a part of this anthology and to share Consortium with you. I have had the immense pleasure of working with some talented authors on this, and I wouldn’t trade these ladies for the world. They are tremendous support and I am so proud to work with such an amazing group of writers.
I generally write dark erotic paranormal romance, and you can check out my Darkest Faerie Tale Series here http://amzn.to/18Tgwdv. Consortium is my first erotic contemporary story. I actually dreamt the first scene in this tale. When I woke up, the details were still so fresh and vivid. I popped open the laptop and jotted the intro scene down (3000 words). I didn’t know what I would do with a contemporary romance, but at least I had set the stage. About four months later, during happy hour with these lovely ladies, the idea of an anthology was born—based around South by Southwest. Of course, I thought it was fate. My dream happened to be about a wealthy, reclusive music executive and totally fit into the story. The result is now in your hands, and I hope you enjoyed. If you did, please leave a review for this story and any others you read in the anthology where purchased. It means so much for us to hear from you.
If you would like to stop by and say hi, you can visit me at www.RileyBancroft.com, or find me on Facebook or Twitter. I’d love to hear from you.
All the best,
Riley Bancroft.
Tall Order
Irene Preston
1
Win’s here.
Dylan forced air into constricted lungs.
At 6’7” tall, Aston Winkler was impossible to miss even in a penthouse crowded with SXSW partiers. When Dylan rounded the corner, the sight of the familiar face towering above the rest of the crowd knocke
d the wind slap out of him.
He stopped dead, ignoring the other caterers moving around him. Not here. Not now. He wasn’t ready to face Win yet. But Dylan couldn’t move for a full minute. He just stood there, risking exposure, his gaze locked on Win as though he was the only person in the room.
Eleven months, two weeks, and three days since he’d last seen the man he loved. He refused to call it a year.
Dylan pulled himself together and retreated to the kitchen. He couldn’t let Win see him in these clothes.
He glanced down at his blue Roy Rogers-style shirt and brown polyester pants. He looked like something out of a bad fifties western. He was a walking joke. Fitting, because Joe Bob’s Texas Catering Company was a joke to everyone in the Austin culinary world. A year ago, if anyone had told him he would ever touch food prepared by Joe Bob’s he would have laughed his ass off. Now here he was, Joe Bob’s new pet chef, hired on for the SXSW music festival to trot out in front of V.I.P. clients.
What difference Dylan’s culinary skills made, he didn’t know. Joe Bob’s catered to the convention crowd because no real Texan would hire them. The company churned out bland, assembly line food that the owner, Felix Minger, hawked as “real Texas barbeque” and “authentic Tex-Mex” to moon-faced Yankees who didn’t know pico de gallo from picante sauce much less a jalapeño from a guajillo.
Dex Reed, New Yorker via New Zealand with more cash than brains, had been the perfect mark. Felix had culled the rock star out of the SXSW crowd the way a lion separates the sick gazelle from the herd. Dylan would never forget the conference call to go over the menu. Dex wanted Tex-Mex, his concept of which seemed to be an unholy fusion of national fast-food chain offerings and the latest catch-phrases he’d picked up from Food Network. The rock star had heard Austin was the place to get tacos, so tacos were what he wanted—but not ordinary tacos. Something “elevated” and “in a taco bar, like that Elvis place.”