I feel stunned. Happy. He considers me to be in his life—not on the other side of enemy lines, but in his life. And he’s in mine. Henry, with his fierce beauty and loyal heart and amazing vision for things, he’s in mine.
I’m ecstatic for a fraction of a second, like I won some kind of lottery.
Until I remember why it could never work with us.
Vonda.
I never want to see hate in his eyes when he learns I'm Vonda. It would pierce me clear through to the bone.
He traces soft circles around my knuckles with a finger. I’m glad he has something to do, because things are turning too dangerous and too beautiful, all at once. And the air between us runs thick and wild. And I want him like mad.
Get away. You can’t have him.
“But your birthday is soon?” I blurt.
“I want nothing to do with it. It’s a thing with me.”
“Fine. Your birthday is just another day,” I say.
“Say it again,” he turns to me, eyes hooded.
“Just. Another. Day.”
Just another day—with one big difference, I decide.
I’ll give him a present he’ll never forget—the papers that transfer Smuckers’s shares of Locke Worldwide to him. It’s a few days short of the twenty-one-day cooling off period, but it’s close, and the papers aren’t technically telling him. I already hired a lawyer to do it. I told him to buy a ream of that thick parchment paper to print the stuff out on it so it would feel more impressively gift-like.
I want everything ready.
But I can’t be in his life anymore. He’s too high profile for me not to be revealed as Vonda.
It’s not just about the hate in his eyes. It’s remotely possible he’d believe me, but it wouldn’t matter even if he did.
My getting outed as Vonda would hurt the people we most want to protect.
The publicity of Vonda would attract my mother’s attention and she’d take Carly back in a heartbeat, use her to squeeze me. Maybe even Henry. Or just use Carly as a meth ticket somehow.
And Vonda O’Neil linked to Henry Locke? So toxic to the trust and stability of the Locke name. To his family he protects. All those people with names he memorizes so carefully. He can’t be linked to Vonda.
I need to stay away from him. Get out of his life and stay out. He’ll love his birthday present. It’ll make him so happy.
I visualize myself getting out of the limo. Walking to my door. Alone. It’s not where this night is going, but things need to take a U-turn.
My heart hurts. I’ve never wanted to be real with somebody like I want to be real with Henry.
Smuckers fusses, and I use it as an excuse to free my hand from Henry’s, like his fussing is this emergency that requires snout-smoothing caresses and a deep gaze into doggie eyes.
I try to think of some unromantic thing to talk about.
“One question,” I say. “And you need to answer honestly. What is up with the Dartford brothers? Do they just sit around rubbing their hands and dreaming of building what people most don’t want them to build?”
“And then laugh maniacally? Something like that.”
“They were mad,” I say. “I’m glad people could see they were jerks.”
“It wasn’t just showing them up as jerks,” Henry says. “It was how you were. You have to understand, at these meetings, usually there’s nobody on the side of the everyday people. I think they sense their powerlessness sometimes. Then you step in with the Smuckers thing, and it was brilliant. And you were on their side, and they knew it was genuine.”
“They should’ve known you were on their side.”
“Yeah, I’m still the developer. Whereas the way you blazed in, you were their ally. I think Brett and Kaleb are going to need months to recover. Shit. Kaleb’s protests? We couldn’t have staged it better if we tried. Like we’d written a script for him. It couldn’t have been better. It really was like a dog is pushing everyone around, which I guess it was. It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in all my years in business. You and Smuckers did what we couldn’t do in an hour of yelling—you made them open their minds and listen. You opened the door to a redesign of the Ten.”
“That you thought of.”
He brushes my neck with his knuckle. Hot blood courses through my veins. “God, Vicky,” he says. “Battle of the jerky titans?”
“Umm…” My cheeks heat.
“You don’t like rich, entitled guys. That’s what I think.”
I like one of them. A lot.
“I don’t want to be that to you,” he says. “Though I did try to trick you and make you sign everything away.” He slides his finger over my cheek.
“And you got me arrested,” I say.
“Detained. Still—I’m sorry about that,” he says.
“Oh, you should be.” I give him a fake angry look, like it’s all a joke. Henry’s made so many things new for me. He gave back some of the things that Denny stole from me.
His eyes are dark. He’s not in a jokey mood.
“Well, to be fair,” I rattle on, “I did put a dog throne in your boardroom and make you talk to Smuckers as if he were human.”
“I hated it,” he says. “But I kind of admired it, in a what the hell! way.” He hooks a finger over the collar of my shirt. The sizzle of his touch spreads through me. “I didn’t know what was up or down. When you did that.”
Can’t have you. Can’t have you.
The air runs thick between us. “Brett seemed kind of angry tonight,” I try.
“I don’t care about Brett,” Henry rumbles. We pass the glare of a shop-front spotlight and Henry’s eyes flash hungrily. Focused on me and me alone.
I tear my gaze from his. We’re near the park. “Where are we?”
He lowers his voice. “We’re going to my place, Vicky.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
My heart is thudding so hard, I’m surprised the limo isn’t vibrating. “Now who’s being entitled?”
“Carly has a sleepover—April told me.” His hand is back, taking mine like it’s his.
“I don’t know.”
He pulls my hand to his mouth, kisses a knuckle. Still those hungry eyes. “You do.” He takes my lips in a hard kiss.
“So entitled.” My words sound breathless to my ears. My sex throbs. “You think you can get whatever you want?”
“Come home with me,” he rumbles into my neck.
“I can’t. It’s not just my responsibility to Carly...”
“I’m tired of responsibilities,” he says. “Let’s forget them for a while. Be two people without any of it.”
I rest my head back on the seat, gaze at him in the flashing dark and light. The feel of him looming slightly over me excites me. I want him to loom over me like that while I’m naked. I want him to pin my hands and devour me. I swallow. “Sounds to me like you’re suggesting a dirty role play.”
“The opposite,” he says. “I’m suggesting us without the roles and responsibilities. We leave them in this car.”
My mouth goes dry. Of all the offers in the world, he makes this one. My heart twists.
The shadow of a wicked smile plays at the corners of his lips in the dim light of the posh ride. Slowly, eyes pinning mine, he straightens his arms in front of him, shooting his cuffs.
He turns his watch hand palm up. My breath hitches as he releases the clasp with a snick. The watch falls into bracelet mode.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “What are you doing?”
He slides a finger under the metal band and pulls it off his hand. Again that evil smile. He holds it out on his long, thick finger. I’m thinking about the way that finger felt inside me, back on that rooftop. Maybe he is, too.
He flings the watch onto the empty seat opposite us. It bounces and comes to rest. Its hard body glints in the light. A symbol. A tease.
Maybe just this night, I think.
He rests a han
d on my thigh, heavy and warm. His breath comes fast. “Now you,” he says. “Leave something behind. It’ll just be us.”
I look down at my outfit, wishing I’d worn one of my necklaces. I would throw that on the seat for him. My sweater? But I have only a cami under it. A shoe? I hold out my hands. Not even wearing rings.
I set a hand on Smuckers’s furry head. “Sorry, buddy, looks like you’re spending the night in the car.”
I feel a hand tighten around my ponytail. A voice deep and low. “This.”
Shivers skitter down my spine. “You want my hair?”
“Shut,” he gusts into my ear, “it.”
I bite back a smile. Is the limo going a million miles an hour? It might be.
“Stay still.” He pulls at the back of my head. He’s working the band from my ponytail.
My breath comes out in shudders. He works it down the length of my hair, movements rough and clumsy. I like him being rough and clumsy with my hair. I like everything he’s doing. I want to feel everything. I want to do this thing, us like two nobodies.
I feel when he gets it free. I wait for him to toss the ponytail holder onto the opposite seat, but instead he grabs a handful of my hair, seems to tighten his fist around it—not pulling it, just grabbing it.
It comes to me that he’s never seen it down. I feel his nose at the back of my head. I hear him suck in a ragged breath.
My heart jumps into my throat.
“Put out your hand.”
I do as he says, trying not to let it shake. He sets the tie in my palm with a shivery brush. I close my fist around it, holding it there for a moment, suspended in time.
Then I toss it to the seat.
It comes to rest next to the watch.
Avatars of the two of us, like dragonflies trapped in amber.
Twenty-Four
Vicky
* * *
Henry lives in a lavish prewar building on Central Park, all marble walls and chandeliers. A scary-looking bouncer-sized doorman in a brown uniform and brown hat opens the door for us.
We walk into the lobby, hand in hand. Leaving the world behind.
“Who’s this?” the doorman says, grinning at Smuckers. Smuckers strains at his leash, tail a blur of wagging, because, stranger petting!
“It’s Smuckers,” I say, tightening my grip on Henry’s hand.
Henry swears under his breath as the man kneels in front of Smuckers.
I slide my hand under Henry’s suit jacket. He seems to vibrate under my touch.
Things turn out to be more exciting than Smuckers could’ve imagined—the man has a fist, and from inside that fist comes the smell of food. Finally the man opens his hand and sets down a bone-shaped treat, which Smuckers gobbles.
Well, who can pass up a bone-shaped treat?
“How’s it going?” Henry asks him.
“Fine and dandy,” the doorman says, ruffling Smuckers’s hair. “Look at you, mister!” Smuckers is apoplectic with glee. He likes this doorman.
Henry drapes his arm around my neck and whispers in my ear. “Sorry.”
I pull closer, slide a hand over his firm ass. “Will he have a problem,” I whisper, “if we make out on the floor over there?”
“Come on, Smuck.” Henry takes the leash. “See ya later, Alan,” he says.
Alan salutes Smuckers and then us.
We head deeper into the maze of marble and chandeliers and elegant carpeting and get to the pair of elevators with golden doors. Henry hits Up, never taking his eyes from mine.
The elevator inspection license is posted between the two elevators, just like in our building, except in our building it’s under smudgy Plexiglas. In this building it’s in an ornate gold frame like it’s a freaking Picasso.
“Some fancy action right here. If I’d’ve known, I would’ve put Smuckers in his silver bow tie.”
Henry gives me this look like he doesn’t give a crap. He’s so past giving a crap. He yanks me flush to him, chest to chest, lips inches apart. His heart bangs against my rib cage. His cock bores into my belly—hard—like he wants to make me feel it.
“Yes,” I breathe, immobilized by him in front of the elevator inspection certificate of the rich and famous.
His lips brush mine. It’s a whisper of a kiss. A shimmer of sensation. Flesh nipping flesh. Teasing and electric.
I touch one of the buttons on his shirtfront. I slip my fingers under, seeking his warm body, pressing the back of my hand into the hard plane of his stomach. He lets out a little groan of surrender, then takes my upper lip in his teeth for a moment, catching, releasing.
I find his belly button. I slide my knuckle down his trail of soft hair into the elastic of his underwear.
A ding sounds from somewhere.
Henry’s hands close over my shoulders as he kisses me. He maneuvers me sideways and backs me into the elevator without breaking the contact of our kiss. Smuckers is a blur at our feet.
Henry turns and stabs in a code, then backs me up to the wall, kissing me some more. He slides a hungry hand over my loose hair and then over the fuzziness of my sweater, over my breasts and shoulders, all the way down to my wrists, which he captures in his hands.
I’m a butterfly, pinned by his gaze, as he lifts my arms and presses them up against the dark velvet of the elevator wall panel. Again he kisses me, lips like plush pillows.
“I want you so bad I could die,” I say.
He kisses me harder.
The doors slide closed. Smuckers is a small sentry below, waiting for the doors to open again. Or maybe he’s trying to figure out the strange white shape he sees in the aged gold patina.
“Maybe you should stab some buttons a few times. Get this thing going.”
“Nobody’s stabbing any buttons,” he growls into my neck.
I like the growl. I tunnel my fingers into his hair, grab two fistfuls, kiss his cheekbone, then his lips.
“You were supposed to leave your hands up there against the wall,” he says.
“My hands are in a misbehaving mood,” I mumble into the kiss.
The bar of his cock is finding the V of my legs under the wool of my skirt, pushing and pressing, just the good side of too much.
His breath sounds harsh. It heats my skin like a burn as he slides his hands over my hips.
Feverishly, he starts sliding my skirt up toward my waist. “These skirts.” His hands tremble as he gathers it up, bunching. “You kill me all the time.”
“Henry. We’re in an elevator. What if somebody comes in?”
He pauses to cradle my chin with gentle fingers. His fingers are gentle but his gaze is pure savagery. Maybe he’ll kill anybody who comes on. Maybe that’s it.
His words feather over my lips. “You see me put in that code? That code takes this thing directly to the top floor, which is my floor. This is my front door we’re in.” He kisses me. “My doorway.” He kisses me again, then pulls back to look into my eyes. “Mine.”
In a heartbeat, the nobody game turns dangerous. Mine. He means me.
My shoulders press back flat against the velvety wall. My sex aches. Throbs. The third-floor light flicks off and the fourth-floor light flicks on, strange stars.
He kisses me. Melts me.
I’m a thief, and I’ve broken into somebody’s beautiful home. I’m enjoying their furniture, helping myself to their food, wearing their soft clothes. It’s wonderful, but it also hurts, because none of it can ever be mine.
Just one night.
He’s back on the skirt project, making a logjam of thick fabric and lining, like ropes around my hips and thighs. “Uh,” he says, stepping back, panting. “Get it off you.”
I start to unhook the waist.
“No, no, hell no.” He’s shaking his head. “Keep it on. Just pull it up.”
“You like when it’s pulled up.” My heart pounds. Even in this, he’s so specific in his vision.
“Do it.” He pants ferociously.
I can’t resist.<
br />
I bend over and grip the hem, gazing at him from under my lashes as I draw it up slowly, turning it inside out on myself. “You have to do it nice and neat,” I say. “Or it doesn’t get done at all.” I say it all prim and proper, because that goes with the skirt fantasy he has.
There’s a feral light in his eyes. The powerbroker billionaire of the century feels out of control.
Even before I have it all the way up, he falls to his knees in front of me. “Jesus, you’re so hot.” Strong fingers slide up to grab my fleshy butt cheeks as he presses his face to my panty-covered mound.
The elevator jolts to a stop. The doors slide open revealing a dark penthouse suite, moodily lit, city lights visible in the distance.
Smuckers escapes the elevator, leash dragging.
“Smuckers just…”
“Let him destroy the place.” His words are hot against my throbbing sex. His tongue rasps over the fabric. “Let him set the whole planet on fire.”
“Well, you have quite the low opinion of poor Smu—” My words die in my throat as rough fingers yank aside my soaked panties and invade my soaked folds, sliding, stroking.
Pleasure sparks through me. My knees turn to jelly.
“You are so wet.” He’s pushing my panties down my thighs, down my legs, pulling and mauling them off. “You kill me. You kill me with your secret hotness.”
He grips my calf. “Up.”
Shaking, I comply. He frees me from my panties, fingers and fabric a whisper against my ankle. He guides my leg over his shoulder, opening me to him. The air hits my heated core.
I grip the rail on either side of me, pulse racing. I have no right to be here.
I have no right to this man.
He kisses my bare mound, mauling it with his mouth, edging his lips deeper between my folds. I let out a strangled cry when he hits my clit.
Confident hands press the flesh down there wider. I squirm and whimper as he swipes a tongue over the length of my seam.
He holds me tight. “Vicky, Vicky, Vicky,” he breathes into my heat, licking me mercilessly. Rough whiskers abrade my inner thighs.
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