by Megyn Ward
Lifting my head I look down the length of my body to find him between my legs. Eyes pinned to mine. Mouth inches from where I need it to be. “I want you to,” I breathe the words softly. “I need you to, Keaton.” I reach for him, trying to pull him closer. “I need you to. I need—”
The feel of his tongue running itself up the center of me. The impossible width of his shoulders against me. The hands on my thighs holding me open. It’s all so sudden and intense my knees try to slam themselves shut around his head and I moan his name so loud, I’m sure his neighbor can hear me, as clear as day.
“Goddamn it,” he growls against me, nuzzling and nipping my pussy with his lips and teeth. “It’s too good. You taste too goddamned good.” He sweeps his tongue up the center of me, again and again, licking my wet pussy like he’s starving. Like he can’t get enough. “If I keep going, I’m bound to get rough and I…” I can feel his hands on my thighs. His fingers digging in. “I don’t want to scare you. I think maybe—”
“I don’t care. I want to come in your mouth.” I don’t know where the words come from and after this is over I’ll probably be mortified that I actually said them out loud, but not right now. Right now, I’d say and do anything to get what I need. “Please, Keaton.”
I feel another growl, the vibrations of it passing from his lips to mine, right before he closes his mouth over me to thrust his tongue past my entrance, licking and sucking my pussy until I’m writhing and screaming for release.
“Ohmygod…” My hips buck against his face, meeting each greedy lap of his tongue with the sort of mounting desperation that has me reaching for him, threading my fingers through his hair to pull him closer.
Closer.
I need him closer.
Suddenly the pillow is gone. Strong arms lift and anchor me in place. Dragging me closer. My legs flung over his shoulders. My ass on his chest. Shoulders pressed into the bed.
Exactly what I asked for.
Exactly what I need.
My hips rock against Keaton’s mouth, meeting each thrust of his tongue, riding it shamelessly while he devours my pussy, so greedy I think he might swallow me whole.
“Keaton…” I moan his name, opening my eyes to find him looking down at me, watching me fuck his mouth the expression on his face so hot, so primal, I feel my spine snap tight, my thighs start to shake and try to close again, even as I’m arching my back, as tight as a bow, thrusting my clit against his tongue. Offering myself to him. Begging for more.
His fingers slip past my slick entrance, two of them pumping into me with a single thrust, long and deep enough to pull me apart and I scream again, my orgasm ripping through me so fast and hard I can’t see anything but him. Can’t feel anything but this.
Him.
Keaton.
Eighteen
Briana
2018
At least it’s not on my couch this time.
That’s all I can think, standing here, looking at Kyle bare-assed, pants pulled down around his knees. His hands fisted in some other woman’s hair.
At least it’s not on my couch this time.
And again, I know what I’m supposed to do. What I’m supposed to say.
How could you?
I thought you loved me.
Why would you do this to me?
I’m supposed to throw myself at him. Attack him. Hurt him. Hurt her. Throw the ring he gave me a year ago in his face and tell him it’s over.
And I might’ve.
I might’ve done all of those things if I cared.
But I don’t.
I don’t care so I don’t say or do anything.
I don’t attack him because it would be a waste of time. I don’t throw the ring he gave me at his head because it belonged to Keaton’s mother and he loved her desperately. He misses her every day and seeing something that belonged to her would devastate him.
“Bri—” Finally over the shock of seeing me, he starts to untangle his hand from the woman’s hair while trying to stand and pull his pants up at the same time. “Bri, I can—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head and take a step back. “Just don’t.”
I look away from him. Up and over to find Keaton standing a few feet away, looking at me. Waiting for me to tell him what I want him to do. Who I need him to be.
My almost brother-in-law.
My friend.
The man I’m in love with.
I haven’t seen him in anything by family pictures in three years and he looks so damn good I want to cry at the sight of him. Everything I want to say, everything I want to tell him starts to push and crowd into my mouth.
Too much.
It’s too much, all at once, so I don’t say any of it. I turn to the woman who brought me here and smile. “I need a drink.” I bobble my head on my shoulders and laugh. “Probably more than one. Like six,” I tell her with a nod. “I need six drinks.”
“Come with me.” She tucks her clipboard under her arm and holds out her hand. “I mix a mean dirty martini.”
I’ve never had a dirty martini before.
I’ve decided I like them.
They get the job done.
“I have to say…” I look up to find Ophelia watching me over the rim of her water glass. “You’re taking it much better than I expected.”
“You expected me to have a full-blown meltdown in the middle of your boss’s sex club?” I take a gulp of my drink to quell the fluttering that erupts in my stomach when I say the words sex club.
Keaton owns a sex club.
I wish I could say it matters to me.
That it changes something.
How I feel.
What I want.
It doesn’t.
It never did.
“Yes.” She nods, setting her water on the table between us. “I expected you to behave like every other woman who’s found the man they love, in this place, without them.”
We’re in Keaton’s office. I was wrong. It’s on the second-floor, not far from where he had me sequestered. As soon as we let ourselves in, I kicked off my shoes and dropped myself into low, wide chair. Two minutes later I had a martini in my hand and I was halfway to being best friends with his assistant.
And sometimes lover. Don’t forget that one.
“Is that why you showed me?” I say it carefully because despite the fact that I want to pull her hair out of her head at the thought of her anywhere near Keaton, I like her. I don’t want to believe she took me to that room with the intentions of hurting me. “Because you wanted me to…”
“No.” She sits back in her seat, smoothing her fingertips across the place where the hem of her skirt hits her knee. “I showed you because I’d have wanted someone to show me. I would’ve wanted to know the truth, no matter the cost.”
“Two weeks ago, I walked in on him screwing a total stranger on my brand-new couch.” I take a drink from my glass, long and deep enough to drain it, before setting it down on the table in front of me. “I seriously doubt that was the first time he’s ever cheated on me.”
Ophelia doesn’t say anything, she just sips her water. The movement shifts the cuff of her long sleeve shirt just enough for me to see it.
A tattoo.
KC.
Keaton’s initials, in what looks like his own handwriting.
And here it is.
Anger.
Betrayal.
Heartbreak.
Everything I should’ve felt when I saw that woman on her knees in front of Kyle. I’m feeling it now.
And nothing else matters.
“It’s true.” I say it quietly because I want to scream it. I want to launch myself across the table at her. Attack her. Make her bleed. “Keaton bought you. He owns you.”
Her water glass stalls on its way to her mouth for a fraction of a second. Just long enough to answer my question without saying a word.
Yes.
She takes a sip from her glass, probably to buy herself some ti
me before slowly setting down on the table between us. “It’s complicated.”
I laugh at that. Not because I think it’s funny but because it’s either laugh or cry and I can’t cry. Not in front of her. “I imagine human trafficking usually is.”
Her jaw snaps tight and her eyes narrow on my face, so fast I think she might hit me. “My mother was dead by the time I was nine and my real father was long gone. There was no one else. No family who would take me… just my step-father. He kept me around, so he could…” She gives me a smile sharp enough to cut. “but he was careful to keep my virginity intact. When I was eighteen, he put me up for auction—virgins fetch a hefty price at Nina’s.” She looks down at her wrist, her thumb sweeping across the ink on her skin. “99.9% of the people who are sold sell themselves. Either because they get off on the thought of being the sexual property of someone else or because they’re desperate for money and their body is the only commodity they have to offer.” She looks up at me. “Keaton recognized that I was neither and he bought me. I thought…” She frowns, shaking her head. “What I thought doesn’t matter. What matters is that he didn’t touch me. Not once. He paid for the privilege and then he set me free.”
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “Then why…”
“Why do I have his initials tattooed on my wrist?”
I nod.
“Baring Keaton’s mark keeps me safe.” That’s all she says. No explanation. No elaboration.
“Are you in love with him?” That’s not what I want to know. What I want to know is if he’s in love with her. If they’re together, the way Kyle implied.
“Keats?” She lets out a laugh and shakes her head. “No. I’m not in love with him and he isn’t in love with me—but we care for each other. Take care of each other.”
From the way she says it, I can tell that it’s complicated doesn’t even begin to cover their short history together. I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.
“Will you excuse us, Ophelia?”
I look up to find Keaton standing in the open doorway. He’s talking to her but he’s looking at me.
“Of course, Mr. Carver.” Ophelia gives me a small smile before standing. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling she just made a joke.
Good luck.
She mouths the words at me, right before she leaves me to fend for myself.
Nineteen
Keaton
I’m not sure if I want to fire O for meddling in my personal affairs or thank her for doing what I should’ve done the second Kyle told me he and Briana were getting married.
Tell her the truth.
“We’re going to talk about this later,” I tell her as soon as she’s close enough for me to whisper. I’m going for stern and menacing but the grin on O’s face is telling me I didn’t pull it off. Not that I’ve ever managed it where she’s concerned.
She reaches up and pats my cheek. “You’re welcome,” she says, on her way out. She pulls the door closed behind her and uses her key to lock it, leaving me alone with Briana.
I have the sudden urge to run after her.
Instead I cross the room to the mini-bar and, ignoring the pitcher of martinis O undoubtedly made, pour myself a few fingers of bourbon.
“A sex club of your very own.” The dig comes from somewhere further than the chair she was sitting on when I came in and I turn around, drink in hand, to find her standing at the bank of floor to ceiling windows that overlook the Chicago River. “Looks like those classes at the community college paid off.”
I forgot how downright nasty she can be when she’s hurt. “Not quite. I have a silent partner out of New York.” Jase Bright is more than a pair of deep pockets. He’s my friend. Besides Amelia, he’s the only one I’ve got. “He gave me the startup capital and takes thirty percent.” I take a drink from my glass, the sting of whiskey searing my throat. “Enough small talk, sugar.” I take another drink to quell my nerves. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”
“How long have you known?”
“I didn’t. Not until tonight.” Even though it’s technically the truth, I take a drink to wash away the words because they taste like a lie.
Up until now, I’ve been careful not to know.
“I’ve known for two weeks.” She says it to the window. “I came home early from work one night to find him fucking a total stranger on my couch…” she laughs and shakes her head before looking at me over her shoulder, her mouth quirked into a half-grin that nearly cleaves me in two. “Not exactly what a bride-to-be expects to come home to on a Tuesday night.”
“I’m sorry, sugar.”
She turns away from me to look out the window and shakes her head at her reflection. “Then you’re sorry for the wrong thing.”
She thinks I mean I’m sorry Kyle cheated on her.
She’s wrong.
I’m sorry because I knew, even back then, how unworthy he was, and I surrendered her to him anyway. Gave him what he wanted, just like always. I have a mile-long list of regrets and that’s at the top of it.
That I didn’t fight for her.
I drop my glass and it hits the bar with a loud bang, sloshing bourbon over the sides of the glass and then I’m there, standing right behind her.
So close I can feel the heat of her on my skin. I haven’t been this close to her in years. Haven’t trusted myself to be. I clamp my hands around her upper arms to keep her from turning around. I can’t let her do that. I can’t let her turn around because if I do, I’ll be right back where I started, the very first time she looked at me.
I’ll be lost.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Twenty
Keaton
2015
Sweet Jesus.
I knew it was going to be different. I knew that if I let myself have her, I was going to feel and want things I’ve never felt and wanted before. I just hadn’t counted on what that different thing was.
More.
I want more.
Not just more of her body, although I already know there’ll be no getting enough of her. No way I’ll ever be completely satisfied unless I’m between her thighs, moving inside her.
No—I want more of her.
I want all of her.
And more is the one thing I can’t have.
After I made her come with my mouth, I did it again. And again. And then again. Until she’s liquid and boneless. The warm weight of her practically melted into my arms on the bed beside me before I finally let her rest.
“What about you?” she murmurs against my mouth when I lean in to kiss her. She moans softly against my lips when she tastes herself on my tongue. The sound of it goes straight to my cock and I have to swallow the groan that pushes its way up my throat.
“I don’t have any condoms, sugar.” It’s true, I don’t. But even if I did, I’d be reluctant to use them. I’m barely hanging on and I have a feeling letting myself fuck her would be a mistake. Might break something in me that can’t be fixed. Might push me to take the thing I’ve been wanting since I had my first taste of her.
More.
“It’s okay.” I feel her mouth curve under mine, the hand on my shoulder coasting down the length of my chest. My abs. “I trust you.”
Shit.
I take her hand in mine and pull it back up until it’s pressed against my lips. “You shouldn’t.” I press a kiss into the center of her palm before holding it against my chest. I wonder if she can feel it. How hard my heart is beating. How full to bursting it feels with her hand pressed against it. “You really shouldn’t.” I roll away from her to sit on the edge of the bed, planting my feet on the floor. My head in my hands.
“Keaton?” I can hear her behind me, shifting across the bed, closer, until I feel her hands smooth their way across my back. Soothing me, even though she has no idea what’s wrong. “What is it?”
Tell her.
Tell her and let her decide.
Maybe she’
ll still want you.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be either or.
Maybe you can be happy.
Have something for yourself
“This was a mistake, sugar.” I feel her hands go still and cold on my back and I have to lock my throat around the howl that builds inside me. “I…” I shake my head, pushing my fingers into my hair. “I took things too far. I took advantage of—”
One second, she’s kneeling on the bed behind me, the next she’s scrambling across it to get away from me.
Goddamn it.
“Bri—”
“Why do I keep letting you do this to me?” Streaking past me in a blur of blonde hair and tan skin to grab her shorts off the floor. Her shoes. “What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing.” She’s not talking to me, but I answer her anyway. She has to know that. How perfect she is. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not you. It’s—”
“If you say it’s me, I swear to god, I’ll beat you to death with my shoe.” She pushes the threat through clenched teeth, close and angry enough to bring my head up from my hands.
She’s standing less than a foot away, naked and seething, shorts and shoes clutched her chest, smoky blue eyes gone gray and shiny with tears.
“I—” I stop myself from apologizing because the look she’s giving me tells me she’ll have no trouble with making good on her threat.
“And while we’re at it, let get something straight, right fucking now.” She jabs her finger at me so hard it bobbles the shoes she has clutched to her chest. “I’m not a child. I’m not someone who needs saving—not from you. Not from anyone. I’m a grown woman who can make her own decisions. Got it?”
I nod, hands clasped together and hanging between my knees, fingers wound around each other so tight I can feel my joints straining because I want to grab her. Pull her back into bed. Get her under me. Tell her the truth. All of it. About how my parents died. That it was my fault. About the things I’ve had to do to take care of Kyle. Things I keep doing because our parents are dead and taking care of my little brother is my penance.