by Stacy Gail
Nobody.
Suddenly aware of just how much testosterone there was in the same room with Essie and her irresistible cuteness, Steele looked for a quick way to wrap things up. “As of now, you’re all under an order of silence. Don’t tell anyone about the dress rehearsal, what your clothing lines are, or what time you’re supposed to be at House Of Payne. Anything that has to do with this contest is now officially out of your vocabulary. Does anyone have any questions?”
Essie raised her hand in that frigging adorable way of hers. Worse, he could have sworn he heard Trace chuckle again. “What about the people who are helping me out by letting me use their kids as runway models? I’m eventually going to have to tell them something if I don’t want to get charged with kidnapping. Which, for the record, I do not.”
“Avoiding a kidnapping charge is always a good plan,” Trace agreed, and as Steele watched, he tipped Essie a wink, looking like the ideal poster child for California with his white teeth and dark blonde man bun. It was a goddamn miracle Steele’s head didn’t explode then and there. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem if you let the parents know when they needed to get their kids down to the fashion show site.”
“Wrong.” Steele had zero amount of fucks to give when his snarl made all heads snap in his direction. That meant everyone was looking at him and not at how fucking cute Essie was being, and that was what mattered. “You can tell them to keep their schedule fluid for that forty-eight hour period, but avoid specifics until the very last possible moment. Carla’s cool, but I get the feeling Patrick would tell everyone he knows that his kids are going to be part of the biggest bash House Of Payne’s thrown so far this year.”
Essie paused a moment before nodding. “Yeah, that’s a good call.”
“Anything else? No? Then we’re done. Your credentials are in your folders,” he added, pushing to his feet. “Don’t lose them or let anyone handle them. They have a QR code on the back that we don’t want counterfeited, so don’t take pictures of them or post anything about them on your social media platforms. Thank you for coming, and if you have any questions please feel free to email me at the address I’ve placed on a general information sheet in your folder. Essie, stay.”
Trace clearly wanted to have a private word with him—or, barring that, see how many teeth he could knock out with one punch—but Steele didn’t have time for that shit now. All he said was “Later,” and herded everyone out the door.
Everyone, except Essie.
The moment the room was cleared, he shut the door and turned the lock. The sound of the bolt sliding home seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness of the conference room, and it seemed to be the signal she was waiting for to speak.
“That wasn’t exactly subtle.” The disapproval in her tone had him turning back to face her to find her still seated, her chair swiveled toward him. “Essie, stay? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for stealing whatever alone-time I can get with you, but I’m not into commands that should be heard only at Obedience School.”
“You know what I’m not into? I’m not into watching other men flirt with you when I’m right the fuck beside you and you’re not wearing a goddamn thing under your skirt.”
Her cheeks flushed red at that. “I was just kidding about that. I’m actually wearing the cutest little silk thong.”
Holy shit. “It will be the truth by the time you leave this room, I can promise you that.” With his gaze never leaving hers, he began stalking toward her. “And by the time you leave this room, you and everyone else will know that no one gets to flirt with you except me.”
Alarm mixed with excitement in her wide eyes before she surged to her feet. “I can’t tell. Are you angry?”
Really? She had to ask? “I’m a little pissed, yeah. Considering all the flirting that was going on right the fuck in front of me, I think I have a right to be.”
“What flirting? Are you talking about how one of your men winked at me? That was nothing, Steele.”
“It’s not nothing when you make even the likes of Olivier and Echo smile. It’s not nothing when you have a man-whore like Trace flashing his lady-killer smile and winking at you because you’re sending out all the signals that you’re receptive to it. It’s not nothing when you go out of your way to be so crazy-charming that even happily committed men like Panuzzi and Havlik are eating out of the palm of your hand.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she scoffed, and the sound was equal parts angry and disbelieving. “Receptive? I didn’t do anything except be myself. Flirting wasn’t even a thought in my mind.”
“You’re out of your cocoon and you’re loving it. You’ve discovered you’ve got power over men, and you enjoy making them dance to your tune.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Shock and an undeniable hurt flooded her expression, and it hit him harder than a slap in the face. “I used to apologize for everything—you know that better than anyone. But I’m not going to apologize for doing nothing more than simply being myself. My attacker blamed me for being so slutty he was driven to burst into my home and assault me for hours. You’re the one who helped me see that that’s a horrible mind-fuck that I never should have fallen for, so I’m not going to fall for it now”
“Essie—”
“I won’t be held accountable for other people’s actions, because that’s not my responsibility. I only take responsibility for my own actions, and I do it gladly, because I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. I spoke to Olivier twice, and I never spoke to that man who winked at me. The person I was speaking to at the time was you.”
“You called Olivier honey,” he snapped, though he felt like an idiot doing it because she was right. Technically speaking, she hadn’t done anything except be herself, something he’d been encouraging her to do since they’d first met.
Just not in front of other men who would appreciate her.
Understandably, his statement made her blink. “So what?”
“So, don’t call anyone honey again. I don’t like it.”
“Oh. Oh wow, I get it.” The baffled outrage in her eyes slowly dissolved, and in its place grew the beginnings of a light-filled smile. “You’re jealous.”
What the fuck. “I’m not jealous. I just need you to be more careful with how you are with people.”
“Especially male people?’
“Male people, regular people… whatever.” Her smile grew into an all-out grin, and it pissed him off all the more. There wasn’t one fucking thing about this that was funny. “I’m serious, Essie.”
“I know you are.” With that insanely lush mouth of hers still curved, she closed the distance between them, her arms reaching up to loop around his neck. Like magic, the pissed-off edge grinding away inside evaporated when her body melted like warm wax against him. “You don’t want any man looking at me, the same way I don’t want any woman looking at you.”
Something inside his chest took flight. “You don’t want any woman looking at me?”
“Of course not.” She stood on her tiptoes to touch her mouth to his in a lingering, oddly soulful kiss. Then, as his world still rocked from that, she guided his hands past her waist, down her thighs and under her skirt to the bareness of her beautiful, better-than-fantasy ass. “That’s how it is when you belong to each other. Did you mean it when you said you wanted us to fuck like animals?”
His mind became an absolute train wreck, filled with her words, his emotions, and above all the sensation of his hands clamped onto her bare ass. “Yeah, I did. That’s why I had our meeting moved into this room. The large conference room’s equipped with cameras that activate the moment anyone enters. Essie—”
“Call me kinky, but the thought of having sex on camera… it’s kind of a turn-on.” As she spoke, her hips rolled fluidly against him until he groaned. The achy throb of need deep in his cock drowned out everything else. “I love watching you when you’re inside me, Steele. In my eyes you’re always beautiful, but when you’re starting
to come, you’re the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t mind filming us together someday, just so I could watch you in that moment, over and over again—”
Wildness erupted inside him like a fever in his blood, and he crushed her mouth beneath his to stop the flow of words and start the flow of something far more inspiring. But he couldn’t deny that a wound that had never healed—a wound he’d gotten used to carrying inside him—flinched to sudden, new life. It was her claim that he was beautiful that had done it. He needed to drown it out before he could allow himself to believe that claim was real.
Tightening his arms around her, he lifted her off the ground, pivoted to the table and deposited her on its edge. Her knees parted, and a thrill tightened his chest when one of her heels hooked around his calf muscle and slowly stroked upward.
“Are you sure about doing this here?” Her mouth broke free from his, something the savage in him didn’t want to forgive. He didn’t want to do any talking, dirty or otherwise. “I know you’ve got a thing for public sex, but this is where you work.”
“I’ve got a thing for burying my cock inside that sweet pussy of yours as deep as I can whenever we’re together. Not my fault that we’re often in public together.” Truer words had never been spoken as he tore the fragile thong down her legs and stuffed it in his pocket, before he returned to her mouth. What he’d said was true. He couldn’t keep his hands off of her. No other woman had ever had this effect on him, not even Apolline. Only Essie made him so horny he didn’t give a damn where they were. Didn’t give a damn even if he lost the job that he loved so much. As long as he could become a part of her, he was willing to take that risk.
Any risk was worth it if he could be inside her.
“Fuck.” He whispered it against her mouth, the thought hammering in his brain while his pulse hammered with equal force in his cock. “My God…I need you, Essie. Do you fucking understand that? I need you.”
“I need you too.” Her breath whispered over his lips in the sweetest damned caress. Like everything else about her, it completely unraveled him. “I’ll always need you. Always, even on my last day on earth.”
A rough growl erupted from him a second before he dug out his wallet to retrieve a condom, tore through the fastenings of his clothes and rolled the protection in place. As he did, her words echoed in his head until the promise in them was all he heard.
Always.
Always.
The weight of that one word was so vast it almost crushed him.
In a kind of desperation he put a hand to her chest and pushed her back to lie flat on the table. In the same motion he opened her legs wide and lifted them to rest on his shoulders, then took his dick in hand to slide its blood-darkened head along the gratifying wetness of her channel. It felt so good, so fucking right, that he almost missed that little sound she made—that half-moan, half-burst of surprised breath. He loved it when she made that sound. Feverishly he strived to have her make it again by rubbing himself over her clit, and was convinced some vertebrae in his spine melted when she gave him the gift of that sound again, even as her slick wetness soaked him. She never failed to be ready for him, he marveled. Never failed to make him feel welcome, wanted, even loved.
Loved.
With one fierce thrust he entered her, a groan breaking from him as her hot depths closed around him like a tailor-made glove. She took every last centimeter of him as if she’d been made to fit his exact specifications. The spine-tingling friction of sliding into her heat again and again was like finding where he belonged.
He belonged with her.
Driven to drown everything in the blissful sensations flooding through him, he leaned forward until her thighs were almost at her chest level and his eyes were looking right into hers. The purity of pleasure multiplied a hundredfold as her love-drunk eyes focused on him, seeping into him until every nerve ending buzzed with crazed, intoxicated delight. With his gaze locked furiously with hers, he plunged wildly into her like it was what he’d been created to do.
Maybe that was true.
“Yes.” Her voice was soft, breathless. A whisper from the sweetest dream he’d ever had could never compare to Essie when he was inside her. “There’s that face. That beautiful face. I love to see it like this. I love it. I love it.” Her eyes began to close while the red-hot channel around him tightened in that mind-shattering way he couldn’t get enough of, and with a groan he gave himself over to it completely. “I love you.”
The wave of pleasure that had been threatening to break suddenly overtook him, plunging him into something so pure it could only be called rapture. As he thrust into her as if his life depended on it, her words echoed through him until they were all he heard.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Three little words. Who knew three little words had the power to terrify a man?” Exasperated, Essie moved around to Angel’s other side, checking the way the material gathered under the arm. The seam was just a little tighter than it had been, but it would do in a pinch. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him run so fast.”
“I think last-minute alterations could conceivably count as two words, since the first two are hyphenated. In my book, less words equals less scary, so that makes Twist an extra-special wuss.” Smiling, Angel kept her arms up over her head while Essie stepped back to check how the white blouse hung. The blouse had a body-conscious silhouette, with the midriff and breasts covered in solid fabric, while the arms, shoulders and back were covered in white sheer material to show off the wearer’s ink while still looking feminine, even elegant. Though she had this design in the women’s daily wear line, Essie thought it would do just was well for a night out on the town when it was paired with its chiffon skirt, with its strategically spaced mesh panels up the sides. A woman could easily wear a thong underneath it and still have that risqué, nothing-underneath look.
Or, a woman actually could go commando, just as she had done when she walked casually out of PSI the day before, her thong permanently disappeared into Steele’s pocket.
The thought made her grin as she went over Angel’s outfit one last time. She hadn’t been able to ask Steele for her thong back, as they’d had to rush to get themselves decent when someone rattled the handle of the door and crashed into it, clearly thinking it would swing wide open, when in fact Steele had locked it. Essie had hustled out of there soon after and left Steele to deal with whatever fallout there was in their decision to temporarily take over the meeting room. He’d texted her later to tell her that he’d dodged any trouble with his employer, but he’d been tagged to do some overnight surveillance that would keep him busy.
As much as she’d missed him, the alone-time was fine with her. The rundown of how many stars would be ogling her House Of Payne collection less than a week from now had kicked her into a manic flurry of activity. Suddenly nothing was cool enough, sharp enough, awesome enough to be seen, and all she wanted to do was polish each piece until she was convinced it couldn’t possibly be any better.
She wasn’t there yet. But she was getting there.
“I guess my brother doesn’t care whether or not he looks hot in my clothes. That’s going to make him look bad and me look worse. I’m thinking of calling our mother to strong-arm him into behaving himself,” Essie muttered, shooing Mooch off the notepad she’s left on the window ledge. The cat offered a musical trill as he jumped down, gave her a dirty look, then sauntered to the kitchen area like he owned the place. “Twist always listens to her. Okay, you can relax, Angel, we’re done.”
“Cool.” Angel lowered her arms and looked this way and that in the mirror, smiling at how her dreamy, fantasy-based tattoos showed through the pale mesh. “I don’t suppose I get to keep any of this stuff once the show is over, so I?”
“You kidding? As far as I’m concerned, it’s all yours.” Essie ticked off the items they’d gone through and was pleased to see that as far as Angel was concerned, they were ready for the big show. Twist, however, was anothe
r matter. “Did that dork of a brother of mine say where he was going? I really do need to have him show up for one final fitting before Friday’s dress rehearsal.”
“No, and to be honest, he’s driving me crazy.”
“Oh? What’s he up to now?”
Angel loosed a gusty sigh. “That’s just it, I don’t know. Twist has been acting weird lately. He won’t give me a straight answer to a straight question. And he’s been disappearing on me, usually before we drive into work together, and whenever I ask him where he’s going, he gets all shifty. Which, in Twist’s case, is him telling me to my face that he’s doing something right now that he doesn’t want to tell me about. Subterfuge isn’t exactly his thing,” Angel acknowledged with a grimace, even as Essie made a telltale sound of understanding that made Angel wheel around. “What? You know something, don’t you?”
“Uh…”
“What is he up to? Essie, you can tell me, I won’t say a word, I swear. What’s going on with Twist?”
“Um…” Essie sucked in both her lips and bit down hard. It was the only way she knew how to keep from blurting out the beautiful surprise Twist was putting together for Angel’s birthday that was now less than two weeks away. Not only did the entire Santiago family know about it, but so did Angel’s own family and best friends as well. The only person truly in the dark was Angel, and Essie wasn’t about to be the one to illuminate her and ruin everything.
“Look, I just need to know one thing.” To her surprise, Angel grabbed both her hands and hung on tight, and the anxiety in her sister-in-law’s expression hit her right in the heart. “Is Twist… is he regretting getting married? Is he spending all this time away from me because he feels like I’ve somehow trapped him, and he’s missing his old bachelor—”
“Oh my God, no.” Horrified, Essie squeezed Angel’s fingers before dragging her over to the couch to pull her down onto the cushions with her. “Angel, honey, you’re so completely off-base it’s not even funny. My brother thinks the universe exists just so it can have the privilege of revolving around you, okay? You have nothing to worry about.”