by Skye Darrel
Everett opens a door in the glass and leads me onto the terrace, which must be the size of my parents’ backyard. A steel railing surrounds the edge.
“I cannot believe you have a freaking pool up here.”
“Doesn’t everyone own a terrace pool?”
I look at him.
Everett smiles.
I roll my eyes.
He holds the small of my back, guiding me to the railing. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
We must be forty stories up, and the view is breathtaking. A cool breeze blows through my hair as jitters hit my stomach.
“Nice,” I murmur, tucking a wisp of hair behind one ear.
“You should see it at night,” Everett says softly.
Our eyes meet for a moment before I look away. “How about that coffee?”
“Your wish is my command, Princess.”
“Princess?”
He takes my hand and looks at me as if it’s the most natural thing to say in the world. “Princess.”
We go back inside, and Everett leaves me by the sofa. He walks to the open kitchen. Along the way, he takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over a chair. My eyes wander down his back, those broad shoulders that taper to narrow hips and the snug seat of his pants.
My heart is thumping.
There's an espresso machine built into the kitchen. He brings back two cups steaming with a chocolaty aroma.
“Enjoy,” Everett says, handing one to me.
One sip, and my taste buds sparkle. “This is coffee?”
“Fresh beans. Machine does the rest. It’s an Italian model, custom-made. Best of the best.”
“Figures.”
“When’s your birthday?” he asks. “I’ll get you one.”
At first I think he’s joking, but there’s no hint of a smile on his face. “My birthday’s in October but no thanks.”
“Born in October, and your parents named you April?”
“Making fun of my name?”
“Only curious,” he says.
“April is for spring, rebirth and all that. Hope. They tried a long time to have me and they said it was the happiest day of their lives when they did. So they named me April.”
“It suits you.”
He’s staring at me again, and I don’t know what to say. The last time I went on a date—if this is a date—was in high school. And that was decidedly childish compared to what’s happening now. I’m about to ask if he lives alone, when a blur of golden fur leaps onto the kitchen counter.
I yelp and lurch, the cup flying from my hand to splash his white shirt.
There is a thing hunched over the counter that looks like a small cheetah. Black spots adorn its fur. Two pointy ears and a long tail whisking back and forth.
Everett grins. “Meet Achilles. It’s okay, April. He’s harmless.”
“You have a freaking cheetah?”
“He’s a Savannah cat. Half-cat, half-serval. Achilles is a crossbreed.”
“What’s a serval?”
“A wildcat similar to a cheetah. Achilles! Come here and greet our guest.”
The thing stalks over, long and slender, walking obediently like a dog to plop down at Everett’s feet. Everett scratches between Achilles’s ears, and the cat meows so deeply it sounds like a growl. He bares his fangs and hisses when he looks my way.
“I don’t think your cat likes me.”
“He’ll get used to you,” Everett says. Sounds like he means I’ll be coming around a lot. That’s pretentious of him.
“Go on,” he says to Cheetah Thing.
After the cat pads away, Everett looks at the stains on our clothes. His shirt has a giant brown patch in front.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
He picks up the cup I dropped. “It’s nothing. You got some on your feet. Sit down, I’ll get a towel.”
A part of me knows where this is going, what he's really after, and I feel warmer and warmer. “On the sofa?”
“Yes. Please.”
Alrighty. Only because he said please.
I ease onto the soft cushions while Everett returns with a white towel and kneels at my feet. He slips off my sandals and wipes around my ankles, all the while staring into my eyes. The towel is warm and wet and smells of lemons. Then he starts rubbing my right foot in an all-out massage. And oh my God I never knew my foot could feel this good.
“W-What are you doing?”
“You looked tense.”
“I . . . oh.”
His hands are divine, kneading under my sole and around my toes, and I lean my head back as tingling pleasure ripples up my calves and thighs.
His hands leave.
“Don’t stop,” I whine. I open my eyes, face burning. I did not just say that. It was not me.
Everett kneels between my legs and lays his hands on my thighs, just below the hem of my skirt. “I nearly lost my fucking mind thinking about you, April. You have no idea.”
My throat chokes with heat. “Thinking about what?” My voice is a whisper.
“You. You. The smell of your hair. The feel of your skin. Your smile.” Every word is a hot hammer to my heart. He leans forward, hitching my skirt another inch higher. “The taste of your cunt.”
I suck in a breath. That crude word should make me angry, but when he says it like that, I can scarcely breathe. “You don’t know what—what I taste like.”
“Let me find out.”
A riot goes off in my chest.
I’m nodding. Why am I nodding?
This is so wrong. I don't know him. This is not how dating works—when did this turn into a date? This is not a date. And if it were, we would have dinner first. See a movie next. Take a stroll somewhere. Hold hands and talk about stuff.
Not this.
I’ve never been with a guy before.
I mean, I wasn’t born yesterday, but gossiping about sex with my friends is one thing and doing it is another. I never thought in a million years my first time would be like this. Being a virgin is perfectly fine, thank you very much.
But somehow, I trust him. He won’t hurt me. I’ll just sit back a bit and see what happens. Way to go, April, letting a crazy man use spilled coffee to have his way with you.
“Anything wrong?” Everett asks.
I roll my eyes. His hands are halfway up my skirt and he asks me what’s wrong?
He hitches my skirt higher.
The only thing between Everett and my most intimate place is a layer of cotton already sticking to me.
Wet. No denying it, no hiding. He sees it too. He runs his finger over the wet fabric right against my clit, and my hips shudder.
“Everett,” I gasp.
He bends forward, lips brushing over my belly, and he bites the elastic of my panties, tugging them down with his mouth until they catch on my hips. I clench every muscle.
Growling, he hooks his fingers under the waistband and pulls the panties to my ankles in a hard yank. He tosses them on the sofa and pries my thighs apart, pulling me toward his mouth. He glares at my private parts like a man possessed.
I feel a tug between my folds. Wetness seeps out and I worry about making a mess on his stupid sofa. I worry how I smell to him.
A growl, this deep rumbling sound from his throat, makes me whimper.
His eyes lift to mine.
I watch as he reaches down, the tall sofa hiding his lower half so I can’t see past his waist, but I hear the jangling of a belt buckle, the slide of a zipper. My breath catches in my throat.
“I tried to control myself,” Everett says through gritted teeth. His arm makes a stroking motion and his face looks pained.
Then he rises, leaning forward to show me his hard cock, thick and long and veined, the head dimpled and swollen, dripping a strand of clear liquid. My chest squeezes, every part of my body singing to the raw male thing inches above my sex.
He groans as he strokes himself, more of that musky liquid falling ou
t in a thin strand. The fist around his cock moves faster.
“Oh God,” I breathe.
“You make me this way,” he says. “Has anyone touched your pussy before?”
“N-No.”
“It’s mine,” he grits out.
He lifts my legs over his powerful shoulders, holding my hips, and he brings my pussy to his mouth, teasing my clit from side to side with the tip of his tongue.
I arch higher. Trembling with pleasure.
Everett suckles my nub, making slurping sounds. I'm lost, moaning, focused on nothing but the throb that twists through my body.
“Please . . . please . . .”
“I want you to cum on my tongue. Do you know how to cum? Or do I have to teach you?”
His possessiveness, his tone, the wild light in his eyes—that question—it’s too much.
When he licks up my opening once more and thrusts his tongue inside, my whole body shoots rigid and I clench around him. The orgasm is blinding, white hot, and makes me squeal. A burst of heat flashes from my center, my hips jerking in his firm hands.
I’ve barely fallen from the peak when Everett sets me down, his face a grimace, and he puts his mouth on my throat, sucking and licking.
“So sweet,” he says. “A sweet little peach.”
Leaning back, he rubs the underside of his cock over my drenched folds, dragging on my clit without entering me.
His body tenses.
I feel his hot, sticky release squirting on my pussy and running down my thighs, until slowly we grind to a breathless stop.
Yes. Oh, yes.
Everett sits on his heels and kisses my belly button. He smears his cum into my skin and pulls my panties back on.
Seconds pass before I realize we didn’t even do it.
Get ahold of yourself, April. Consider yourself lucky. I can still go back to the way things were before Everett Royce.
Yeah, right.
“Next time,” he says.
“Next time?”
Everett nods. “Next time I’ll take your cherry.”
I gulp. A man who keeps comparing you to fruit is never a good sign.
He helps me off the sofa and pats down my dress. His cock is still hanging out, barely soft, and it’s impossible to ignore. The thick muscles of his hips form a steep arrow to his base, and I blush like crazy, entranced by the sight of him.
“Stay with me, April. I’ll give you the world.”
I meet his gaze as what we’ve done finally sinks in.
He can’t give me the world. No one can. I should stop this before it goes any further, but I can’t bring myself to tell Everett that we have no future together. There’s a ticking bomb in my body not even he can fix.
He doesn’t need to know.
“You’re sweet,” I say quietly.
He kisses my hand. “Never been called sweet before.”
“It's a polite way of saying you’re weird as hell, but I liked it.”
“As long as you liked it.” He tips my chin up. “What’s the matter?”
He can already read me so well, but I force myself to smile wider. “I need to get home.”
“Now?”
“I don’t want to get stuck in traffic,” I say. “I’m fine, really. Thanks for the coffee—and the other stuff.”
Everett looks at me for a while before he relents. We walk to the door. “You can always tell me anything,” he says.
I wish that were true. Maybe it is true, but I can't bring myself to tell him everything, like why I go to Support Group.
As we walk out of the door, my leg suddenly cramps, the contraction sharp and painful. I almost stumble before Everett catches me.
He flashes a smile. “Watch your step.”
“Thanks. I’m clumsy.” A white lie.
I should’ve taken my medication this morning. Those white tablets usually help with the cramping.
He holds my hand, and our fingers lace together. “I like clumsy,” Everett says.
Chapter Five
EVERETT
After dropping April off, I drive back to the Royce Building. It’s two-thirty in the afternoon. My day is long from over, but it’s hard to focus like this, thoughts of her swirling in my head. My cock is hard again.
When I tasted her on my sofa, I damn near lost all control.
She sparked a primal energy deep inside me, filled my head with something like bloodlust. My dark urges still linger. I want to fuck her hard and dirty. I want to kill any man who so much as breathes the air she has breathed. Get my hands on her soft body and hot skin. Take her. Claim her. Ruin her pussy.
But I quiet my urges by sheer will because I am not a fucking animal. I want to protect her, care for her, and give her my best. There would be no greater privilege than proving to April that I deserve her.
We didn’t make plans to meet again because she wanted time to think. That’s what April had said when she left my car. She seemed to be in a good mood, but I sensed she was hiding something. A sadness in her eyes that made my heart ache.
Can’t dwell on that now.
I walk into my office and steel myself.
Calls to make and meetings to attend. Calls and meetings—that’s what being an executive at a multibillion company boils down to. I’m so high up on the ladder I can’t even see the trenches. My days are spent in boardrooms and with a phone. I make decisions every hour affecting thousands of lives. Sometimes, I forget those lives aren’t numbers, like those children at St. Jude.
My father taught me the numbers trick, how to translate people into numbers. Assign them dollar values to assess costs and benefits. It may be ruthless, but it’s fair.
Royce Innovations fires the bottom 10 percent of our employees every year. A policy put in place by my father. The official motto of Royce Innovations is Building the future. But the real motto is No weakness.
It’s my father’s motto too. Of course, exceptions are always made for family. Sebastian, for example.
Calls and meetings.
People and numbers.
Hours pass. I take it one hour at a time and run on autopilot. They say it's lonely at the top and they are right.
I think of April.
At six p.m., security reports another protest outside our main entrance. Down with corporate greed, the usual accusations. But this crowd is smaller than last Friday’s. No reporters present. I tell Viktor Harlow to keep me updated and get back to work.
I need another location to build our new tech center. That tech center is the whole reason Royce Innovations expanded to Baltimore. St. Jude’s current location would’ve been perfect, but I promised April I wouldn’t touch the hospital.
My father isn’t happy about the construction delay. He called me from company headquarters in Seattle, asking why. I made up a lie about extending negotiations with the Baltimore City Council, and Edmund bought it.
I didn’t mention April. The old man would never agree to a marriage with April Finch. He has in mind a senator’s daughter for me, someone along those lines. Suitable stock to continue the Royce lineage.
But I only want one woman. I’ve never felt so clear about anything.
AT A QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT, I take the elevator to my penthouse suite. A long day is over. Coming home to April would soothe my pains, but no one is waiting for me but an empty floor.
I stop in the hallway outside my apartment as my mind wanders back to this afternoon. An image of April flashes in my mind. Legs spread on my sofa, her dress pulled to the waist, the smooth lips of her pussy glistening.
I close my eyes, unable to walk, my cock so hard I bite my teeth together until my jaw aches. I can still taste her on the edge of my tongue. Craving wracks my body like withdrawal from addiction.
This must be what Sebastian feels like when he hasn’t drunk in a few days.
I’m addicted to that girl.
Filthy thoughts skitter through my head—locking her in my apartment, tying her to my bed, plunging my cock into h
er pussy while I suck on her breasts. I want to make her scream before I worship every inch of her body. I want to stick my tongue down her throat before I soothe her in the cradle of my arm.
My thoughts careen between the nasty and the sweet.
She's set off a tumult at the center of my being, and there's no going back. I couldn't imagine a world without April. Not anymore.
I take out my phone and text her like I’m some lovestruck teenager: Got home okay?
A minute passes. She responds: Yeah.
I ask her where she is, and she replies in her room. I call and get four rings before she answers.
“Do you know what time it is?”
April sounds tired, but also playful. Perhaps I’m imagining that. “Wanted to hear your voice,” I say.
“You’ve heard it.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Whenever you want, I guess. I’m volunteering at St. Jude every day starting next week. Well, except Fridays.”
“What happens on Fridays?” I hear a breathy pause. “You okay?”
“On Fridays I visit friends, a group of them. Don’t ask me where. You promised not to ask about my life.”
I want to ask about everything, figure out what she does. Why she lives at home. Why she doesn’t do the things a woman her age should be doing. But April is right, I did promise, and only now do I realize how strange that promise is. “Very well, Ms. Finch. Keep your secrets. But you’ll tell me someday.”
“So sure, are we?”
I lean against the wall, savoring every syllable of every word that leaves her mouth. “When can I see you again in private? Not at the hospital. Just the two of us.”
“You mean when’s the next time you’ll get me on your sofa?”
My cock twitches. “Yes.”
“I’ll let you know,” she says.
“Don’t toy with a man’s feelings.”
“I wasn’t sure you had feelings.”
A growl leaves my throat. “Don’t tease me, Princess.”
“Hmph. I won’t tease you if you don’t call me in the middle of the night.”
“No deal.”
She sighs. “I just need some time to think, Everett.”
“About what?”
“Things. Did you mean it when you told Sebastian you love me?”