The Price Of Success (Fighting For Fireworks)

by Lee, Corri

  I shoved him away from me and ducked under his left arm, seeking refuge behind the chaise longue. My hands shoved into my hair and grabbed at the roots. “You can’t just wake up one morning and decide to ruin my life. I just stopped feeling like my life began and ended at you and you’re fucking that up for me!”

  “I could make your life, Cecelia. The way you make mine. The yin to my ya-…”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” I sank down onto the red velvet of the chaise longue and cradled my head in my hands. “We’d never work. You’re too power hungry and I value my independence. Not to mention that I just found fireworks.”

  Nathaniel swooped down in front of me and rested his hands on my thighs, slowly sliding them up to my hips. The sensation made my breath hitch and body heat with need. Every feeling I’d swept aside in that converted church flooded back to me in a torrent of craving and lust.

  “You found fireworks with me on Friday, when I whisked you out into the middle of nowhere and obliterated your inhibitions.” He snarled with a grin and pawed at my legs with his fingertips. “Even then, when I was throwing myself at you, you were so righteous that you kept me controlled.”

  I cupped his face in my hands and pulled his eyes up to meet mine, sucking on my bottom lip to keep a lid on my emotions. “I won’t do this, Nathaniel. I’m committed to Cole.”

  “How can you commit your heart to him when it already belongs to me? You belong to me, Cecelia. And you know it.”

  In an instant, his thumb had pulled my lip free and his mouth was on mine. There was a brief battle of wills before I let myself sink into him and surrendered totally and completely. His kiss felt perfect on me and I was hell-bound anyway- I may as well enjoy my descent to the second circle.

  I didn’t resist as he stripped me, it was no less than he’d done before. It was the feel of his bare skin on mine that sent me into panic.

  “Stop,” he purred, “and think about your quandary logically.” He angled himself between my legs and pulled them up to rest my ankles on the small of his back. I struggled to think straight through the enticing rubbing of his throbbing shaft against my seam. I was on the cusp of being ripped screaming from my morals, but somehow the way he remained so articulate on the precipice of intercourse urged me forwards. “You wouldn’t let me touch you when you thought I loved another woman, but you went to bed with Fiore loving me. Which one of us were you really cheating on?”

  “I didn’t know,” I gasped through my aching, “I didn’t know that I loved you until Friday.”

  “So you do love me.” He caught me mid-glare by sliding into me, a feeling so sublime that it pushed me to an immediate orgasm. He was a perfect fit to my body and wore me like a glove, the expression of his reciprocated notion reflected in the glint of ecstasy in his eyes. Not only my core shattered, but my mind too. Tiny pieces of me drifted into the ether and were reluctant to reform in the quivering vessel below. Nathaniel laid one single chaste kiss on my lips and pulled my lolling head around to trap my eyes in his. “Fireworks?”

  I scowled and rolled my eyes. “I hate you.”

  He grinned boyishly and kissed my forehead softly, rocking his hips into me with unnerving skill that would have lead me to believe that he had far too much sexual experience if I hadn’t known better. “I hate you too.”

  It didn’t take much to send me spinning. The heat was so intense between us that a new climax started before the last had ended. I’d never known sex like it before- no amount of intoxicants could compare to the high of having Nathaniel inside me.

  When my body exhausted and I shook violently, he entombed me in his arms and poured himself into me with a dry sob. I dared to think that the experience had been as intense for him as it had for me, and when he looked at me with a tear on his cheek, I believed it.

  That moment with Nathaniel had been worth the moral expense, but I doubted that this closeness was sustainable. He was too notorious, too prolific. I was expendable to him- a disposable lover. The novelty would wear off and he’d find someone prettier who didn’t talk back. Just like my novel.

  “Stop it.” He linked his fingers with mine and grazed my collar bone with his lips. “I can see what you’re thinking. I’m not your antagonist.”

  “Really? Because you’re fairly antagonising.” He scoffed and pulled me up to lean against him as he settled against the raised back of the chaise longue.

  His fingers glided up and down the length of my spine. “Nobody else dares to talk to me the way you do, Cecelia. I’ve made some appalling snap decisions in the past- I would have fired Lobke in a heartbeat on Saturday if anyone else had been in that car with me. But you stopped me and told me what I needed to hear. You’re my breath of fresh air through thick London smog.”

  “You’re still making bad decisions. I’m still with Cole.”

  “So dump him.” He mirrored my raised eyebrow and nodded with his lips pursed. “Believe me when I tell you that I will make you mine by any means necessary. Try telling me that you don’t want to be the woman who hangs off my arm for all time.” I blinked slowly, unable to truthfully disagree.

  “I can’t just turn around to him and say ‘by the way, remember your incessant paranoia that I was having an affair with Nathaniel? Well, that was justified and now I’m leaving you for him. Oh and please don’t order the London mafia to kill him.’ Besides, you’re too impulsive and ostentatious and Cole is reliable and caring and-…”

  “Boring.” He flashed those white teeth in a wolverine grin. “Fiore is boring and his threats aren’t good enough cause to stay with him when you could be living the romantic dream of true love that your parents wanted for you.” He pressed a finger to my lips when I opened my mouth to speak. “To add, I may be impulsive and ostentatious, but I’m not reckless. Every move I make is methodical.”

  I batted his finger away, eyes narrowed. “You changed my name to get laid. That was reckless.”

  “Really?” He smirked and pulled my body up so our faces were level. “Do you not now possess an apt knowledge of wrath and lust?” My forehead twitched. I was confounded by how the man turned a declaration of love into a lesson to be learnt. It would have killed the connection between us instantly if I hadn’t found it so endearing. “And if you’d read that paperwork properly you’d know that it’s not legally binding without your signature.” I growled quietly and timidly ran a finger across his abdomen. “You’re allowed to touch me, Cecelia. I’ve made it clear that I’m yours.”

  It didn’t seem appropriate to stake a claim over such a publicly idolised man. I’d have done better taking the Mona Lisa from the walls of the Louvre and passing them a limitless credit card. “But I’m not at liberty to take you. This is wrong.”

  “So you keep saying. You could have stopped this at any time, yet here you are, naked and glorious spread across the chaise longue that made you think of white knuckle fucking the first time you saw it.” My eyes widened and my face reddened in horror. The damn man was inside my head.

  “Do I give so much away?”

  “Nothing that you don’t want to. I only glimpsed love in your eyes on occasion, that’s why Isaac and Cornelia sought to confirm it for me. You control your universe in its entirety, as do I.

  “But now you are my universe, and don’t think for a moment that I won’t manipulate what I have to in order to make our relationship exclusive. If you won’t tell Fiore that your hand is bound to mine, I will.”

  I didn’t know which sentiment to panic over first. “ ‘Hand is bound’- what the hell?” `

  Nathaniel lifted my right hand to his lips and kissed the claddagh ring. “This hand is already mine. I’ll take the other if given the chance. I’d even have that implant ripped from your arm and ensure that you’ll always be a permanent feature in my life as the mother of my children, if that’s what it’d take to prove that I’m bound to you indefinitely.”

  I wrenched myself back from his reach and cocked my head suspiciously. “I
mplant? How do you know I have an implant?” His obscure knowledge of my chosen method of contraception dulled any warmth I felt from his confessions of wanting to marry and impregnate me.

  He laughed softly and pulled my arm out straight, running a finger across a small faded scar. “Relax, I haven’t compiled a dossier on you. I’ve just spent many hours over the past eighteen days coveting your body and memorising every inch.” He smiled as he rose to his feet to answer the ringing phone on his desk, pausing with his hand over the receiver. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Cecelia. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nodded to myself as he turned, knowing that he was deadly serious, but the lengths that he could potentially go to were a great source of apprehension. His claims made him sound like a man possessed- what could tip him into insanity? “Irina, is it urgent? Oh, really?” He turned and glanced over his shoulder at me with a wry smile. “Put him through. This ought to be interesting.”

  He pressed a button on his desk that made a familiar voice ring out. “Mr Alexander?” My hands slid over my face and supported my head as I heaved a great sigh.

  “Mr Fiore, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Nathaniel lounged back out across the chaise longue with a smirk.

  “Cecelia is with you?”

  “She is indeed, sir. We’ve just been-…” he trapped his tongue between his teeth, “… thrashing out some differences of opinion.” I shook my head critically, struggling to stifle my laughter. It hardly seemed appropriate to find his gibes amusing but something about the double entendre tickled me.

  “Oh okay, so she’s probably already invited you to dinner.” His head tilted towards me impishly.

  “No, can’t say she’s been given much of a chance to talk.”

  “Oh well, if you’re free, we’ll all be at the bistro at eight. Feel free to bring your brother, sister and your girlfriend.” I waved my hands furiously and mouthed ‘no’ repeatedly, but the mean glint in Nathaniel’s eyes remained. I couldn’t trust him not to turn the night into a disaster- goading Cole on his home turf and ending up in a battle for my affection.

  “My brother and I would be happy to attend, but my sister and significant other are otherwise engaged.”

  “Just a table for six then. No bad blood eh, Alexander?” He exhaled slowly and leaned over to tenderly brush my cheek with the backs of his fingers.

  “None at all, Mr Fiore. Ciao.” The smugness that the man, who had been bating for his blood, had just extended an olive branch while his girlfriend sat naked and post-coital in silence was wholly apparent on Nathaniel’s face. His favourable advantage waned with the persistence of his gloat.

  The line cut out and I glared at him sourly. “Don’t turn up.”

  “That would be rude.”

  “If you ruin my life, Nathaniel, I can promise you that there will never be an ‘us’. Let me deal with this in my own time. If you love me, you’ll wait.”

  Nathaniel reached over to me and pulled me over him, slinking down to lay flat across the velvet, and tucked my hair behind my ear. His cock nudged against me, poised to fill me as exquisitely as it had before. “Cecelia, I will wait for as long as my mind can bear. Two and a half weeks has already been too long- I am not a patient man. I’ve never lost anything in my life and I’m not going to initiate a losing streak with the thing I’ve spent my life searching for. You. Are. Mine. Permanently and irrevocably.”

  And with that, he eased into me, and fireworks flew in our eyes again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I hung limply over Nathaniel’s shoulder as he lowered me down onto the bear skin rug in front of the blazing fireplace. I had been subjected to several hours of mind-blowing, bone-shaking sex with intermittent breaks to refuel our energy with coffee. His ability to tear me to shreds with a single movement didn’t dull- far from it. Breaking my usual pattern of growing bored and uninterested at the first brink of ecstasy, I was still hungry for him even after my insides were raw with overuse.

  His lips sucked at my neck like his hunger matched mine. My over-sensitised skin prickled and chilled despite the roaring heat of the fire close by. Nathaniel had me shamelessly enraptured and the magnitude by which my feelings had alternated between two men over the past twenty-four hours sickened me.

  “What do you honestly stand to lose by being mine, Cecelia?” His face rose to mine and he nuzzled me gently.

  “My soul. Your influence has already changed me.”

  “I see no change. Indeed, you are polished and dressed-…” The smile reached his eyes as they swept across my naked form, “… usually dressed in designer fabrics and precious jewels, but you are no more or less beautiful than the day you squeaked into my building- a diamond in the rough.”

  I pulled his hand up to mine and wove our fingers together. Small things like those seemed far more intimate and illicit than the scratch marks I’d left on his back in the midst of a toe-curling orgasm. “I meant my personality, not my appearance. I crave to be complimented and adored.”

  “And quite rightly so. There’s no sin in having a proud image. Oh wait…” His lips hovered over mine briefly before he kissed me. “Yes, there is.”

  He had damn near pulled me back into round-… I lost count, but another round of white hot, shoulder-biting bliss when my eyes wrenched open and I raised my hand to my mouth in horror. “I made lunch plans with Bethany.”

  Nathaniel laughed and clamped his teeth down on my bottom lip. “Fiore called in his lunch break, you’d already missed her then.”

  “So what time is it?” He hummed apathetically and pulled himself away from me to retrieve his phone from his trouser pocket.

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Holy shit!” I attempted a desperate scramble to my feet but my legs failed me, knees still weak from being wrapped up in Nathaniel. “I have to go home and shower before she finishes work. How the hell do I get past her without an interrogation?”

  He mused for a moment. “Bathroom fire escape?” His jaw dropped when he realised that I was giving the option serious consideration. “Good god, Cecelia, I was joking. If you’re determined to keep today a secret, I’ll escort you out and obstruct her access. But she’s going to sense it.”

  “I know.” I prowled the floor to retrieve my underwear. “I’d just rather she sensed it with the power of female intuition and not with her nose because I smell of sweat and shame.”

  “Shame?” Nathaniel passed me my clothes and began to step back into his suit. “How complimentary.” I slumped back down onto the rug and threw my arms over my face. I was adept at ruining my life with a single sentence.

  I glanced up at him apologetically and frowned. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not ashamed of you, I’m ashamed that I’ve aborted all my values for…” I sighed and rubbed my temples, “I’ve compromised my integrity for fireworks. I never imagined that I’d have to make that kind of sacrifice.”

  “I still maintain that Fiore is ‘the other man’. Just because you didn’t know it, doesn’t mean you didn’t love me all along.” He held out a hand to help me to my feet and squeezed my fingers gently. He was right, of course. Once I’d realised, I had known that the connection was instant. “When I encouraged you to take calculated risks, I meant me. The moment I saw you, even from the distance of the lift, I had to make a bee-line to Eleanor’s office just to be close to you. Then when I saw those eyes-…” He sucked the air in between his teeth sharply and his eyes glowed with residual starvation. “We’re made for each other, Cecelia. A perfect match.” He mirrored the notion of Fabrio Bellissimo and my heart ached to have him in it. If he could have found a way to crawl inside me, it wouldn’t have been close enough.

  “I’ll talk to Cole tomorrow.” I slipped back into my shirt and ran my hands down the lapels of Nathaniel’s blazer. He had dressed too fast and I missed his body already. “But you’ve made some pretty bold claims about your intentions. You’re setting a precedent.”

  “I aim to please, Lolita.”r />
  I stepped back and clenched my hands into loose fists, eyes narrowed. I had read that book and watched that film too many times to not react. “Why did you just call me that?”

  He stepped forward and brushed my face with his fingertips, irises flecked with warmth reflected from the fireplace. “Your middle name is Dolores. It conjures images of a girl with enough allure and beauty to drive a grown man mad with forbidden love. Apt?”

  “It conjures images of a young manipulative slut.”

  “Well seeing as you are the eldest party in this tryst,” he cooed, tipping my chin up so our lips met, “and I am clearly the one manipulating you, let’s call it an affectionate pet name and ignore the semantics.” I whimpered quietly as he pulled my body towards his, my insides raw and bruised but still ravenous. “You’ll feel me inside you all night, Cecelia- you’ll wake up burning for me, feeling where I’ve been.”

  I slumped against him and rested my head on his chest, absorbing the sound of his heart pounding like a locomotive- the way it did when my teeth bore down on his flesh at the peak of pleasure in an expression so intense that it was almost vampiric. “You’re going to hell, Alexander.”

  “I’m already there, because the woman who completes me denies me unrestricted access to the most miraculous thing about her.” His hand slid up to my chest and settled over my heart. He was slowly but surely killing me with his romanticism. “I’ll leave with you. If I’ve done my job properly, you won’t have enough strength to walk home.”

  The lift doors opened to the office floor- a space that looked smaller and less clinical for having spent an afternoon sapping the control of its owner. Nathaniel was despicably spritely for the amount of physical exertion he had exercised in the previous hours and his cheeks still glowed with a delectable just-fucked flush. I turned briefly to the mirrored walls of the lift cubicle and saw that I too wore the telling red masque of post-orgasmic comedown.

  “Are you alright?” In the harsh bright lighting of the office, Nathaniel was forced to recognise that I was at a point of deep emotional turmoil, and he’d put me there.