by Angel Payne
The filthy word springs from her on a scream due to the brutal bite I sink into the top of her spine. Beneath me, her whole body convulses and shakes. Around my cock, her channel tightens and floods. And holy fuck, how good it smells. As I fill myself with her essence, more of mine fades away. A haze takes over my control. Primal. Pure. Thunderous. Dangerous. But in the midst of the storm, I still hear her voice. A high cry, paced in time to the carnal call of her body.
“Damn it. Reece. I need it. Give it to me!”
The storm inside provides me with her answer. Another bite, though into her hair this time. A brutal twist of my head, making her gasp in pain and arousal.
When I release the strands, I bash my mouth against her ear. “This isn’t about what you’re given,” I tell her in a snarl. “It’s about what I’ll make you take.”
The very next moment, I show her exactly what I mean.
With my cock, slammed deep and hard inside her cunt.
With my thrusts, showing no mercy or softness.
With my come, spilling in a torrent that dissolves my Emmalina into wild, free screams.
Fortunately, as I fuck her through second and third orgasms for us both, the cushions of the chair serve as an ideal muffler for her cries—which, by the time we reach the third completion, have actually turned to tears. As soon as I’ve returned to normal—whatever the hell that means when shit applies to my biochemical state—I pull free, step around, and fall into the chair, pulling her down into my lap along the way.
“My love,” I murmur into her hair as the rest of her emotion spills out. “My life.” I stroke her hair back from her face, kissing her temples in soft intervals until she’s spent.
I love you so much.
I want to vocalize that too, but a wad of emotion clogs my own throat as soon as she lifts her face, smiling at me through her adorably mussed makeup. Even now—perhaps especially now—with her mascara turning her into a raccoon and her cheeks tracked with her eye shadow, she has to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
We hold each other’s stare like that for several minutes, simply attempting to wrap our minds around the enormity of our emotions, before she finally speaks again.
“Thank you, Mr. Richards.”
I crunch a frown. “For what?”
“For all of it.” She states it as if telling me two and two equal four. “For finally showing it to me. What it really does to you.”
I deepen the scowl. “Because it’s that stunning?”
She rolls her eyes at my sarcasm. “Because it’s that real.” She lifts a hand to my face, where she strokes the corner of my right eye with the pad of her thumb. “Because you trusted me enough to let me see it.”
Finally, I get her point. After I took down those assholes who barged into the gala—my fury at Gregor and my fear for her turning into a double whammy for the grand Bolt light show—I was so far gone into the residual surge, I thought there was no choice about what she saw or didn’t see. But there had been. I could have run—could have gotten out of the building, found some secluded spot in an alley and rubbed one out for the cause—but I hadn’t. I’d stayed. I’d let her help me instead.
I’d trusted her. With all of it.
No matter how terrifying it had been—and shit, now that I replay every one of those minutes, I realize that it had been—I’d let her see all of the pain this time. All of the beast. The monster I’ll never fully be rid of.
Yeah, he’s still there. Still lurking inside, though tethered and mellow now, even as a deep thrill wraps the length of my spine while I lean in, kissing her deeply once more, our tongues gently swirling as our heartbeats throb in tandem.
When we finally pull back, neither of us goes very far. Still savoring her taste and reveling in her scent, I smile and murmur, “No more secrets, little bunny.”
Her answering smile is slow and sweet…and sexy as fuck. “No more secrets ever, big bad wolf.”
We kiss again, even doing the tongue tip tango, but I’m confused when we part. There are new furrows in her brow, and they’re defined and deep.
“Emma?” I communicate the rest of the question in my incisive tone alone. What is it?
She pushes out a determined breath. Squares her shoulders a little. “I’m so sorry that I ever doubted you, Reece. About what happened tonight. About what you told me would happen.” Her gaze falls. “And all I did was torque your balls and threaten you about ruining my stupid gala, and…”
I use her tearful pause to jerk her face back up, drawing her in for another kiss by clamping two fingers to her chin. “Not a ‘stupid gala,’” I dictate. “An event you worked tirelessly for to benefit an organization you care deeply about—and for good reason.” I stretch out my fingers, sending them along her jaw in strong, reassuring strokes. “An organization that is still going to do so much for so many. I promise you that, Emma. I’ll work with my father on this. Between his contacts list and mine, we’ll make enough calls to the right people so that RRO can keep running for years to come.” I stop, blinking in befuddlement when globs of tears brim in her eyes again. “Is…is that okay?”
She bursts into a teary laugh. “You amazing dork. It’s better than okay.” Her new kiss is fervent and salty and perfect, confirming I’ve definitely instigated the good tears again. “And it makes me happy, beyond belief, that you’re willing to partner with your dad on it too.”
Fast shrug. “I didn’t say that part would be the easiest.”
“But not impossible,” she asserts.
“No.” I force a smile. Fake it till you make it. Hopefully, the adage will prove true now more than ever. “Not impossible, thanks to you.”
She shakes her head. “I’m just the door girl, Mr. Richards. You two are the ones who have to walk through now. And I truly believe you can.”
I slant a sardonic grin. “So two dicks walk into a bar…”
A giggle tumbles out of her. “Oh, dear.”
“And say, ‘What do you have that’ll reform us?’” I’m on a roll now, despite her pressing fingers over my lips. “And the bartender says, ‘Hold on, I’ll go get Emma…’”
“Who has her own shit to work on, thank you very much,” she cuts in, pulling her hand back. With knuckles curled against her temple, she clarifies, “Because if you’re going to work on stuff with your dad, I hereby promise to attempt civility with Angelique.” Her eyes drift shut, as if she can’t believe the words have truly just left her. “Her intel was, after all, valid.”
I gaze at her for another long moment, overwhelmed with a bizarre mix of emotions. There’s love, of course, but I’m certain that’s been around since the moment I met the woman. The rest of it is what guts me now. The depths to which I admire her, respect her, even realize how much I can truly learn from her. My commitment to get along better with Dad, especially after his offer from tonight, is like a puddle of strength compared to her new pledge about Angelique.
“Well, I don’t think she’s expecting you to invite her out for mimosas and pedicures, sweetheart,” I murmur. “But it’s clear we’ll all have to learn to work with her and trust her, at least when it comes to learning the inner workings of the Consortium and the Source.” As all the uncomfortable implications of that clearly settle into her, I pick up her hand in mine and reverently kiss every one of her knuckles. “We’ll take it one day at a time, my love. Days—and nights—in which I plan to show you, in no uncertain terms, how thoroughly you have taken over every square inch of my heart, my body, and my soul.”
“Hmmmm.” Though her reaction starts out in we’ll-see skepticism, it turns into a show-me sigh as I continue my kisses over her wrist and along the inside of her arm. By the time I close in on the curve of her elbow, Emma’s using her free hand to dig into my hair and coax my mouth back up to hers. We groan together as our lips meet and our tongues mate, the heated union soon turning into a torrid embrace. Arms tangle, hands seek, and moans encourage until my woman rears up and twists ar
ound, planting her hips on either side of mine. I growl my approval, keeping my arousal centered in my cock in order to clamp her thighs, guiding her clit in a slow, rolling ride along the length of my cock, as I finally secure my mouth over one of her gorgeous breasts…
Until one of her hips meows.
My suction on her flesh is popped free as I give way to an extended grunt. “What. The. Fuck?”
Emma’s giggle is not what I want to hear—nor is her funny fumble into her dress, no matter how tantalizing her breasts look as they bounce along with her motions. After another three meows, she finally pulls her phone free.
“The damn dress has lights and pockets,” I grumble. “Sure there’s not a snack dispenser somewhere in there too? I’d like some Funyuns, a Snickers, and a martini, please.”
“What the hell?”
“I know, I know. Funyuns and martinis? But trust me, the salts really complement each other…”
“No.” She throws up a distracted wave while peering at her phone. “Dee Dee says I’m needed downstairs right now. Some kind of issue the cops are having with their report.”
I rake a hand through my hair as she backs off and fully stands. “Yeah. That makes sense but doesn’t. She can tell them everything you can in terms of what happened, but your name is still on all the paperwork.”
“Of course.” Her voice is tense as she shimmies completely out of the big gown—well, what’s left of it—and digs into a nearby suitcase for a pair of leggings and an oversized T-shirt from her favorite Broadway musical of the moment. “And, to be honest, as crappy as this timing is”—she gives my exposed cock a forlorn glance—“I think I want to talk to them too.”
I join her in issuing a silent apology to my erection. Talk of cops and incident reports would normally be just the pin to pop my bubble of arousal, but not right now, with the woman standing there in clothes that can be more easily shucked than the damn dress—with no bra or panties on underneath.
Think harder about the cops. Big dudes in sweaty uniforms, wanting nothing but the facts.
Though in this case, I’m not sure those guys are going to believe it. Even with a room of two hundred witnesses.
Which circles us around to the subject now at hand.
“Why?” I respond to her assertion. “There won’t be any statements they’ll be cleared to give you until after they book all those bastards and read them their Mirandas.”
“No. That’s not it.” Emma lowers into the chair in front of the room’s large vanity table. The bright lights around the top and sides of the mirror are still on, turning her eyes the color of Caribbean waters as she grimaces at the makeup collage on her face. I don’t move, hoping my dick will still be open to cooperating in a few minutes, though just by studying her expression in the mirror, I’m exposed to the new direction of her thoughts.
Probably because they’ve already been at the back of my mind too.
“You’re wondering why a sophisticated group like the Consortium sent such a ragtag operation to disrupt your event.”
She pauses, makeup wipe on her chin, to stab a glance at me via the mirror. “How the hell do you climb into my mind so freaking easily?”
“Same way you crawl into mine, Bunny.” I wince while beginning the torture of stuffing my balls back into my leathers. “But right now, let’s just say great minds think alike.” One testicle in. Fuck. Do I really have to do this? “And the same thing isn’t making sense to me either.”
She finishes wiping her face in the time it takes me to ease the second nut into the leather. From the corner of my eye, I watch her battle back a giggle.
“Baby,” she says gently. “Should I wait for you?”
I grit my teeth. Hard. “Go,” I get out, wondering how my dick will speak to me again after what I’m about to do to him. “This’ll be easier without you here.”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice is laced with mirth, though her steps are respectful as she rises and approaches, a goodbye kiss already in her eyes.
“Raincheck, Velvet.” I whip up a hand, palm out, as the fucker between my thighs already jerks with fresh blood. “Please.”
It’s the green light on Emma’s giggle, finally tumbling off her lips despite how she tries to mask it with a hand. Unbelievably, despite the raging boner still making my world a miniature hell, I find my own chuckle joining in, mixed with the sound of her calling back up the stairs, “I love you, Mr. Richards!”
“I love you, too, Miss Crist,” I whisper back. “God fucking help me, how I do.”
EMMA
Where are you?
After tapping out the text to Lydia, I again scan the dwindling crowd in the main event room. I’m standing next to Sawyer, who’s talking to a huddle of four cops who have assured me they don’t want to talk to me—yet. Four more men in NYPD blues, as well as a trio of official-looking guys in baggy suits with badges on lanyards around their necks, are still walking through the ballroom and dropping little numbered evidence flags.
After five minutes with Sawyer and the uniforms, I truly wonder why they told ’Dia they needed me down here so fast. I almost wonder if they’ll want my statement at all, since Sawyer is giving them more details about the incident than I could hope to remember. But as Reece just said upstairs, in all his erect and awesome glory, my name is on all the paperwork.
Just thinking of my superhero stud fills me with a million hot prickles accompanied by twice as many screaming hormones, all but ordering me to run back up to the attic dressing room and maul that magnificent cock of his all over again. But other instincts are niggling too. Something’s off about Lydia’s texts—and now I’m anxious to find her and grill her as to why.
I wonder, with a number of sister-wise intuitions, if she wants to talk about Sawyer. On more than a few occasions tonight, I caught her giving the man surreptitious head-to-toes—which might be, as far as I know, the only “base” she’s ever been to in her life with any guy. So if she’s gonzo interested in the surfer spy guy, that alone could explain her cagey behavior.
Finally, there’s a new meow from my phone.
Out back. Near the kitchen entrance. I need to talk to you. NOW.
Soft chuckle. “Ohhhh yeah, sister. You’ve got it bad for Mr. Fine Foley.”
Hold on to your panties. On my way.
Now that I’m not hindered by fifty pounds of glowing tulle, I make my way easily across the room and out the kitchen. A warm smirk spreads across my lips as a variety of one-liners fly across my brain. With as much hell as ’Dia’s given me over the last three months about “snogging the superhero,” it’s going to be such sweet revenge to get in a good opening dig about her infatuation with Sawyer.
But the second I step outside and see Lydia again, the fire in my smile fizzles. And the warmth in my blood drains.
As I take in her tear-streaked face. And her widening, terrified gaze. And the way she holds her hands behind her back…
“Dee Dee? What’s—”
“Em!” Her voice is only a gasp. “Don’t come any—”
A hand slams over her mouth. A hand covered by a sleek white elbow glove—on the arm of a woman I recognize from the gala. She’s older, which made me believe she was a friend of Lawson’s when I saw her earlier, but now I realize she’s not a fucking friend. She’s the dark-eyed, evening-gowned bitch who’s got my sister cuffed from behind and who now uses the cellophane gag trick on Lydia too…
Before hurling her inside one of the catering company’s vans.
Instantly, I have to resist doing two things.
Screaming.
And vomiting.
Neither is going to help me make headway with this eerily calm monster, who, ironically, has also brought the cosmic keystone, raising up all the strange chunks of tonight that haven’t made any sense. Suddenly, the whole bridge is there, connecting Angelique’s intel with the near-joke of a heist that those morons almost pulled off.
Almost.
Because they were never m
eant to really accomplish the crime.
The mass stick-’em-up was nothing but a smokescreen. For this. For what the Consortium really had planned all along.
As my mind wraps around that sickening knowledge, I square my shoulders. Raise my chin. Meet that bitch’s stare without blinking or shirking. Making sure she knows, without any second doubts, that I’m memorizing every inch of her face—and that if I make it out of this ordeal alive, there won’t be any location on the planet she’ll be able to hide.
But right now, she holds all the damn cards.
And because of that, I keep both the bile and the scream from rising in my throat.
And because of that, I rein back my stance. Hating every inch of the motion but somehow compelling my body to give her deference. Respect she does not deserve.
“It’s not my sister you want.” I stun myself by managing it with no wobbles.
The bitch in sequins curls a small sneer. “You are correct.”
“And it’s not even me you want, is it?”
The woman cants her head, angling her face into the alley light until I can almost picture how she looked as a younger woman. She was probably just as worldly and lovely as Angelique, only in a darker, Salma Hayek kind of way. Now, she’s nothing but angry angles and gaunt desperation, even as she returns in a murmur, “You…have uses. Perhaps even beyond what we have first conjectured.”
Uses.
Beyond what we have conjectured.
She’s Consortium, all right. And she has me nailed to her evil pinboard like a rare butterfly—that she’s willing to do some desperate things to keep. If I want to survive this—if I want Lydia to survive this—I have no choice but to stay still and look pretty.
“All right,” I utter past dry lips and a thick throat. “Then if it’s me you want, it’s me you now have. Just…just set my sister free. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have no reason to hold her.”
Madame Butterfly chuckles in full now. “Oh, querida, I have every reason to hold her.”