“I won’t laugh at you, Kate,” he promised. “Just stay with me. Please.”
Pushing up and into her, Kathleen reeled back, and she heard no laugher, nothing but the sound of his moan hitting his ears as they met her own. Kathleen clutched at his arms and writhed against him, her body growing warm and wet as Adam kept her poised above him and he pumped harder, faster.
“Is it… am I close enough?” she asked.
“More,” he said. “God I want you.”
“Adam, I want…”
Unable to finish the thought, she found his lips again and started to sink into his kiss when he filled the longing between her thighs and sent her head back.
“Tell me you believe that,” he moaned. “I need to hear that---”
“I believe you,” Kathleen murmured. “I want this to be real.”
“Kate…”
With a final thrust, he exploded in her, and she began to ease her sweaty body away from him when Adam gathered her in his arms and forced her to focus on his brimming eyes.
“I can make it real,” he said. “This time… it can be so different.”
She started to ask him what he meant by that when Adam silenced her with a fresh kiss, and they fell as one back to the rug. He stroked her arms and nipped at her breasts as he softened inside her. But Kathleen kept him close and clenched her thighs as she reached for his face and smoothed a few stands of fallen hair from his face.
“Why am I different?” she asked. “What makes me so special?”
“You don’t have to ask that, Kate.”
His next kiss nearly assuaged her fears, and she stared to settle into his embrace when she slightly pushed back and peered at him hard.
“I would still like some kind of an answer,” she said. “Can’t you give me that?”
“Wasn’t this enough?”
Adam started to grow hard inside her again, and Kathleen whimpered with want, hoping to have him again when she grabbed his hands and made him focus on her gaze.
“It’s a start,” she said. “A real start. But does it end here?”
“We still have the meeting with Hotchkiss,” he teased.
“And after that?”
Adam hesitated, and her heart started to fall to the pit of her stomach when he pulled her closer and caressed her hair.
“I… I want us to make it work.”
“That doesn’t sound so sure, Adam.”
“I…”
He groaned as he lowered his head to her breasts and kissed his way towards her neck.
“Then how about I just show you again.”
Adam started to consume her, and Kathleen longed for him all over again when she pried her body from his and curled her legs close to her chest.
“Kate, please don’t---”
“Say the words, Adam,” she said. “Or send me on my way.”
Stretching to his feet, Adam stepped towards her and brought her face to his.
“I … I just like being with you,” he said.
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Kate, I am trying here.”
She moved to meet him and touched her hands to his arms as the fire flickered at their backs.
“And you’re okay with the view?” she asked.
“Much more than that.”
His kissed her hair and pulled her close. Listening to the beating of his heart, Kathleen nodded into his neck and released a heavy sigh.
“So we take the meeting,” she said. “And I’m going to hope that you’ll give me more. But right now…”
She wrapped his fallen shirt around her body and nibbled of a piece of sushi.
“I worked up an appetite. You?”
Adam laughed and sat next to her as she pushed a piece of raw fish into his mouth. Licking the ginger sauce away from her fingers with her tongue, Kathleen held his hand and sighed.
“We’ll eat,” she started. “Then we’ll go over the contract. And then we’ll see.”
“And hope, Kate. Don’t forget about that.”
Chapter 6
“Tell me again.”
Riding in the back of his town car, Kathleen watched Adam page through an entire steno pad’s worth of notes, his fingers flailing frantically as he whipped from one set of scrawl to another and then another.
“It’s all right there on the page, Adam,” she reminded him. “If you’d only listened to me.”
“Didn’t I?” he insisted.
“You made that a little hard,” she teased. “Hope it’s not going to show.”
Adam wordlessly pointed his pen to her out of order blouse buttons with a smirk on his face.
“Last time I let you put my clothes back on,” she said. A dark cloud spread over his face, and Kathleen started to reach for his hand when he held back and turned his total attention back to the notes.
“Kate, I need you to run it by me one more time.”
“You just want to hear me talk.”
“Added bonus,” Adam said. “But humor me, Kate.”
Rolling her eyes with a sharp groan, Kathleen eased her body closer to his side and tapped her fingers to the page.
“Hotchkiss isn’t the fool that Walters took him for,” she started.
“Or me for that matter.”
“Don’t want to think of you as anyone’s fool.”
Their eyes locked, and she moved to kiss him when Adam suddenly turned his head away.
“Fine,” she conceded. “Sure Hotchkiss drafted this. And eventually he realized that Walters would remember.”
“So why the brief?”
“Because of this little shred of sunshine.”
Adam focused on her notes, and a smile spread across his face as he asked for the first contract again. Kathleen unzipped his leather briefcase and flipped to the third page with a proud smile.
“Who said impulses were a bad thing?” Adam asked.
“You never did.”
He tenderly kissed her cheek and leaned back with a contented sigh.
“This is going to be short and sweet,” he said. “Thanks to you.”
“Me?” she nervously asked.
Adam started to shake his head when the town car screeched to a stop. Straightening his tie, Adam left her side, and he swept around to the passenger’s door, cracking it open as he took hold of her hand.
“Stick with me, and we’ll make this happen.”
Together they walked down a long white corridor, and Kathleen recognized Hotchkiss as soon as they opened the door. He smiled under a head of snowy white hair, and Kathleen held back a wink as Adam sat by his side and she started to hang at the back.
“No,” he said. “Take your seat at the table.”
“Adam, I don’t---”
“You’ve earned it, Kate. Come on.”
Assuming the chair at Hotchkiss’ other side, the three of them stared down Walters’ team. A pair of lawyers with slicked back hair and bronzed faces seemed sure that the sky would turn pink if they only stated as much, and Kathleen took a deep breath as Adam laid out their case.
“Now no one could ever accuse Mr. Hotchkiss here of a lack of enthusiasm,” Adam started.
“Good thing for me,” Walters said. Kathleen hadn’t liked him from the first meeting in Adam’s office, so smug and sure of.
“Of course he tried to correct the mistake before he got it too deep.”
“Mr. Torrance, this thing is binding,” Walters said. “My boys have gone over it until their eyes bled. And what? Your…girl caught something that we missed?”
Kathleen bristled at the insult, and Hotchkiss started to speak up for her when Adam held them both back and flipped to the third page.
“I hear that my client was a few sheets to the wind when you guys laid this all out,” Adam continued.
“My head was on straight.”
“Was it, Mr. Walters?” Adam asked.
Walters didn’t flinch when Adam brought Kathleen’s hand to the bottom of the page.
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“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“You found it,” Adam said. “Take your moment, Kate.”
She swallowed and started to tremble, but the feel of his hand pushing into her skin brought her body at ease, and Kathleen fixed her lips into a tight smirk.
“Even if Mr. Hotchkiss was… not in control of his faculties as you say.”
“Had my own hangover to prove it!” Walters said as he slapped his lawyer’s back and looked at her like a pig happy to writhe in mud stained with his own shit.
“So you failed to notice that Mr. Torrance’s client added this little nugget to the fine print.”
Right on cue, Adam offered a magnifying glass, and as Walters’ eyes strained to read the small letters, Kathleen rose to her feet and cracked her knuckles.
“Hard to see, Mr. Walters?” she asked. “I’ve committed it to memory. And if we’re going to call this the binding contract, then you should be more than happy with your .5 percent of whatever comes next.”
The color drained from Walters face, and Kathleen took some pleasure in the sight of the man fuming when Hotchkiss turned his head to Adam, his jaw going slack as he started to speak.
“Did I… did I really know to do that?” Hotchkiss asked.
“It appears so,” Adam said. “Now let’s just say we---”
“It’s not the binding contract!” Walters wailed as he pushed to his feet and started to move across the conference table. “And if it wasn’t for this fat bitch---”
The man’s hands were nearly at her neck when Adam batted him back with a jabbing punch to the jaw and sent the man flying back to his chair.
“You will watch your words when it comes to my associate,” Adam warned. “I hear that there are other individuals who question your so-called legitimate deals. And Miss Bedford will come after all of you if you don’t take a walk right now.”
Walters seethed as his lawyers helped him from his seat, and Kathleen couldn’t help but shudder as she watched them go. But Adam’s arm around her shoulders set her mind and her body at ease.
“Oh well done, Miss!” Hotchkiss said as he shook her hand. “Even I didn’t remember that I---”
“Good thing that she thought to look then,” Adam said.
Hotchkiss grinned from ear to ear, and he pocketed the contract.
“I’ll send you my bill,” he said. “Maybe put in a little extra for your pretty partner.”
Kathleen started to tell him that she was far from that, yet, when Adam simply nodded his head.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Adam said. “Do you need a ride or---?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “And from here on out I’m staying on the wagon.”
The man left with a skip in his step, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Adam turned his attention to Kathleen and lifted her up into his arms.
“Think I will make you a full partner soon enough.”
Squealing as he swirled her around the room, Kathleen moved down the length of his body, and she flattened her palms to his chest as she looked into his eyes.
“I told you that I was the girl for the job,” she said.
“Something so special.”
He kissed her quickly, and she was tempted to let him take her on the space of the abandoned table when Kathleen held him back and took hold of his collar.
“Not here,” she said. “Let’s go back to your office.”
“I’m not about to say no to you now, Kate.”
She stayed in his arms as the town car drove them back to his building, and as soon as they hit the twelfth floor and the edge of his office, Kathleen started to tear his clothes and bite down on his neck when a shrill laugh broke their bodies apart.
“Who is…? Who are you?”
The unfamiliar woman clapped her gloved hands together, and Kathleen stuck close to Adam’s side even as his body started to wilt.
“Becca, don’t,” he said. “She’s not like the others.”
“Of course she is. Now let’s have some fun with her.”
Chapter 7
“Adam? Who is this?”
“So you let her call you by your first name! Different. But I’ll play.”
The blonde woman pulled out a bottle of scotch hidden in Adam’s desk, and she took a hard pull as she splashed the excess behind her ears and set the crystal container down.
“It’s Kathleen, right?” she continued.
“I… it’s Kate.”
She tried to hold Adam’s hand tighter when he suddenly seemed to wilt like a dying flower in her grasp. Looking up at him, Kathleen expected to see him ready to fight for her as he had at the meeting. But he seemed softer, weaker, and as he hung his head and moved away from her side, the woman’s laugher moved like ice up her spine.
“Soon it won’t matter one way or the other,” she said. “But perhaps we should be formerly introduced. I’m Rebecca Waring.”
Maybe it was naïve, but Kathleen still extended her hand, and she was ready to shake when Rebecca Waring pushed her fingers away and smirked.
“And you’re the scrub that got a little too friendly with him,” she said. “Fat girls were always meant to keep him in line and make him realize just how much he had with me.”
“With…”
Unable to finish the thought, Kathleen quickly turned her eyes to Adam and saw nothing but his falling shoulders as he stood before the cold fireplace and softly shook his head.
“Adam, what is she talking about?”
Kathleen nearly had his body back under her hands when Rebecca pulled her away from him and clutched her chin.
“It’s our song and dance,” she said. “I keep him in line by making him hire less than pretty help. It pleases me when he crushes them. Makes everything in our bed so much more exciting.”
Kathleen felt as if she was hitting puberty on the twelfth floor all over again. Her hips were too round, her breasts too big for a girl hardly thirteen. It was an unlucky number then. And now…
“So that’s… that’s why he called me up?” Kathleen asked. “Just so you could laugh at me?”
Rebecca chuckled and started to turn to Adam’s side when he moved out from under her hand, his eyes staying on the floor as he spoke.
“I’m not laughing, Kate,” he muttered. “And it’s never been like this before.”
“Adam?”
She swept around to face him and forced his stare to her eyes as she kept her fingers just beyond the edge of his chin.
“But there has been a before,” she said.
“Honey, a sad cow makes a man appreciate a prize filly.”
Without another word, Rebecca lowered her long coat, and Kathleen had to gasp as the revelation of the woman’s perfect body contained in a green bustier and gray thigh high stocking was revealed. She kicked off her heels, and pushed Kathleen to the side as she folded her arms around Adam’s chest.
“Now send her on her way so we can get down to business,” Rebecca purred into his ear. “I know you went a little further with this one.”
“Because I---”
“Because you wanted to make me jealous? Oh, Adam!”
Her laughter shredded Kathleen’s soul, and she started to break into a run when she felt a hard hand on her shoulder.
“Kate! It wasn’t like that with---”
“But it is how it started, right? Why you brought all those other dogs through your door.”
“Kate, I swear that I’m sorry. I---”
“Save it!”
Slapping his face hard, she watched him wheel back, and Rebecca made no attempt to break his fall. His head fell down just beyond the fireplace, and Kathleen feared for him until he pressed up on his elbows and reached for her.
“Is that part of the act?” Kathleen asked. “You take me back into your arms so you can make fun of me with her afterwards?”
“Sort of how it’s gone down before,” Rebecca said. Staring at the nearly naked woman, Kathleen clenched her
hands into tight fists and charged towards her.
“Why?” Kathleen asked. “Why would you have to put the rest of us down just so you can feel better about yourself?”
“Because I can,” Rebecca said. “And because he likes it when I slap him around.”
Adam started to speak when his eyes fell again. He looked far from the captain of industry that needed a Girl Friday, and Kathleen was ready to laugh in his face and take off when she moved closer to him and lowered her voice.
“Is that all it is?” she muttered. “So she can make you pay for all your sins?”
“Kate… I have so many sins to pay for,” he said.
“What sins, Adam?” she replied.
“Honey, I think you should just---” Rebecca tried to bully in on the conversation.
“I am speaking to Mr. Torrance!”
Kathleen’s cry held the woman in place, and even as she wanted to relish in the silence that was Rebecca’s tied tongue, she looked back to Adam and grabbed his face.
“The whole truth now,” she said. “Or you’ll never see me again.”
It had all the scents of a suicide move. Maybe he was still having her on, and this was just the punchline. But Kathleen touched his face and found his eyes as he spoke softly.
“I… because I don’t deserve this, I don't deserve someone good and true like you” he said. “And the only good I can do is help scoundrels like Hotchkiss. Shouldn’t I be punished for that?”
Ready to agree with him in the wake of his latest client, Kathleen sighed and softly kissed his cheek, feeling his skin melt under her lips. Adam started to reach for her when she turned away, slinking to the floor as she tossed Rebecca her coat.
“Game over,” she said.
“Are you serious?” Rebecca asked.
“I’ll take care of him now. In ways that you can’t even imagine.”
“Adam, send this pig on her way so we can get on with it.”
His eyes were wide and watering as he moved closer to the bustier clad woman, and she responded by leaning in to move closer when Adam pushed her back and spit at her feet.
“Go back to your mirror,” he said. “That’s enough cruelty for you.”
Chapter 8
ROMANCE: BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The CEO's Game (CEO Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance) (New Adult Romance Short Stories) Page 3