“I told you. You’re the greatest. Your pleasure makes me think maybe there’s hope for me after all. It makes me think maybe I’m not such a waste.”
“A waste — you? How could you be a waste? You’re rich beyond your wildest dreams. You command a business empire spanning the world. You have men and women falling at your feet wherever you go. How could you be a waste?”
He laid his cheek against her ear. “I didn’t know I was until I met you. I didn’t know anything was missing from my life until I found something I couldn’t have. You don’t know how relieved I am that you agreed to let me touch you and take you. I would have fallen at your feet and begged you if you hadn’t.”
She could only shake her head and stare out at the city before her. “I don’t believe you. You’re full of flattery.”
His voice drifted into her ear from far away. “Do you think this sort of thing happens to me all the time? Do you think I meet someone like you every day? You give me hope. You make me see my life in a whole new way. You make me see what could be possible.”
“What could be possible?”
“Run away with me.”
She whipped around fast. “What are you talking about?”
“Run away with me. Don’t go back to that cheap apartment with Tom. Let’s get out of here and find out what is really possible.”
“You’re crazy. I’ve got to work tomorrow — at your company.”
“Don’t go to work tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.”
Her jaw dropped. “How can you say that? You’re my boss. You’re CEO of the company I work for, and you’re telling me not to go to work tomorrow?”
“I’m ordering you, as your boss, not to go to work tomorrow. I’m ordering you, as your boss, to run away with me and turn your back on Tom and everything you hold sacred.”
She swatted him on the shoulder. “Cut it out. You might be able to order me to ride home in your limo and you might be able to order me to spread my legs for you to fuck me to kingdom come, but you can’t order me not to go to work tomorrow. You’re off your rocker.”
“I don’t want this to end, Ruby. I want to find out what it would be like to have nights like tonight all the time, to do it with someone I really care about. I want to take you home to my house and live with you.”
Ruby backed away. “I’m not going home with you to your house, and I’m not quitting my job, and that’s final.”
His face hardened. “Why not?”
“I’m not running away. I might care about you and everything, but I’m not running away from my life. That’s not what this is about for me. I’m not running away from my job, and I’m not running away from Tom. I’m not running away from my apartment to go off with you. No way.”
“You care about me? How much do you care about me?”
She waved her hand. “That’s neither here nor there.”
“Oh, it’s very much here and there. Do you care enough about me to want this to continue?”
“I might want it to continue, but that doesn’t mean I want to run off with you.”
A black cloud darkened his countenance. “I care about you, Ruby. I care about you enough to run off with you. I care enough to throw away everything on the chance that we could have more nights like tonight. Do you want more nights like tonight?”
“I want all my nights to be like tonight. I would give just about anything to get that, but we couldn’t get it by running away. We could only get it by facing reality and making a real life out of it.”
“I have to have you, Ruby. I fell in love with you. Don’t ask me when or how it happened. I only know I can’t let you go. My whole life has changed. I can’t let you go back to Tom.”
She smacked her lips. “Don’t go throwing around a word like love. That’s the coward’s way out.”
He bared his teeth in maniacal fury. “Did you just call me a coward?”
She took a step closer to him. “You’re not a coward, Chad, so don’t talk about loving me and don’t talk about running away. If there’s a way we can have more nights like tonight, or if there’s a way we can have this all the time, night and day, we have to do it another way, without running away.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. The first thing we would have to do is go to work tomorrow morning.”
“Why would we have to do that?”
“To make it real. Tonight was nice and all, but it wasn’t real.”
He pulled his head down between his shoulders. “It was real to me. I guess it wasn’t real to you.”
“It wasn’t part of real life. That’s what I mean.” She came nearer and tried to take his hand, but he balled it into a fist. He stiffened his arm against her touch. “If I’ve learned one thing in three years with Tom, it’s that love is about the everyday details. It’s about waking up together and getting ready for work and coming home and cooking meals and cleaning the kitchen. That’s love. We wouldn’t get that by running away.”
“That’s why I want you to come to my house. Believe me, it’s a lot nicer than your apartment with Tom.”
“Talking to Tom is the very first thing I would have to do if I wanted to spend any more time with you at all. We have to face this thing head on, not run and hide in fairy tales. I have a job to do, and so do you. You have a company employing hundreds of people, all counting on you for their livelihood. You owe it to them and to yourself to show up to work tomorrow morning and not run off with some floozy from HR.”
He didn’t take the bait. He compressed his lips and turned away. “I could make you happy like that. I could love you like that and share all your days and nights. You obviously don’t love me the same way.”
She shook his stiff arm. “If I say I love you and want to make this a real thing, the first thing I have to do is get my own place. I have to meet you on equal terms, not move into your house and set up shop. I have to move out from my apartment with Tom and start a whole new relationship with you. That means we live separately and build one block on top of the other. That’s the only way we could have any kind of real love. If we didn’t do that, this thing would die a wretched death. We would start to hate each other, and we would both go back to the way we were before — maybe even worse off than we were. Neither of us wants that.”
He waved his hand. “If that’s all you want, you could move in here. This room is empty. You could stay here, and you could come to my house and I could come and visit you here.”
“That won’t work. I guess this is your room, isn’t it?”
“Sure, it’s mine. I pay for it. That’s how I know you could stay here as long as you want. Isn’t it nice enough for you?”
“It’s very nice, but it’s yours. I have to have some place of my own, where I can tell you to beat it if you make me mad. We have to meet each other as two consenting adults, not as boss and employee.”
“But if you keeping going to work every day, that’s what we will be.”
“We won’t see each other at work. We never have before, and we would be two anonymous people outside of work. That’s the best we could hope for.”
“If you don’t stay here, where will you stay?”
“I’ll have to work that out.”
He rounded on her with a tortured snarl. “Don’t go back to Tom, Ruby. I can’t stand sending you back to him after you just spent the most amazing night of my life with me.”
“I won’t go back to him, but I do have to talk to him.”
“Send him an email.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “I wouldn’t be the person you want to spend time with if I did. Besides, he knows something that could help us. Some friends of his are going out of town for a month. They asked us to water their plants and feed their pets. I could stay there until I find my own place.”
He glared at her under smoldering brows. “Are you sure you have to do this? I don’t like it.”
“I’m sure. It’s the only way.”
“So what do you have to do?”
“I have to go back to the apartment, for one thing. I have to pack some clothes. I have to get my phone, and I have to text the people about their house. I have to talk to Tom and tell him I’m leaving. I have to do all of that, and I have to do it tonight before I go back to work tomorrow morning.”
He growled under his breath. “Do you have to?”
She pulled away. “Yes, I have to, so come on and drive me home. The sooner I do it, the sooner we can come back together.”
Chapter 9
Ruby walked away to the vanity against the wall. She bent down and examined her hair in the mirror. She ran her fingers through it and her thumb under her eyes to fix up her mascara. Then she stood up straight and smoothed her gown down her hips.
She still looked half decent from the party, but this new plan left so many questions unanswered. Did she really want to start some kind of relationship with Chad Archer? They did it once in the back of his limo. What kind of a beginning was that?
Behind all the questions, though, her heart and soul told her this was right. She couldn’t go back to the life she lived right up until she walked into that party. She would never be a virgin again, and she didn’t want to go back to a life without the stupendous, cataclysmic orgasms Chad gave her. He was the only man she knew for a fact could give them to her. Breaking up with Tom and going with him made sense.
She couldn’t go back to that apartment. She changed too much in one night. She needed her own space from which to build the next exciting phase of her life. She would love and learn and enjoy whatever came along, but she would do it on her own terms.
She cast aside the rules by which she lived her life before this night. She would write a new rule book in the morning, but it would be her rule book. Not even the great Chad Archer could live her life for her. If he really loved her the way he said he did, he would have to accept that.
He came up behind her one more time, and when he put his arms around her, the same magical attraction pulled her against his massive body. She glowed all over with arousal and contentment. She belonged here, in his arms. She didn’t belong anywhere else.
He kissed up her neck to her ear, and tingling electricity cascaded down her skin. It pricked her nipples awake and stabbed into her crotch. She already knew what he wanted. She wanted it, too. Her heart flooded with sweet affection for him. She wouldn’t call it love. Her relationship with Tom, that she used to call love, bore no resemblance to this. This encompassed her whole world, her whole being.
She didn’t have cleaning the kitchen and getting ready for work with Chad — not yet. If she ever did, maybe she could call that love. This? This was the universe. This was heaven. This was life and death and skin and bone and days and nights and the rest of their lives. This was something so far beyond her understanding she didn’t know what to call it. Love didn’t cover it. Love was mundane. This was eternal.
She didn’t want this to end. She didn’t want to face another day without the glorious sunrise he gave her. She blessed him and worshiped him for giving her the chance to make it real.
He slid his hands down her stomach to her hips. He swayed her back and forth in his arms and melted the resistance out of her joints. Her box throbbed in aching desire. The honey flowed down her lips to sting her ass. He shoved his prick into her ass from behind, and she leaned back to nudge it to its full rigidity.
His teeth touched her neck. Ruby stiffened in alarm, but that thrill of danger only excited her all the more. He growled low, and his bite stabbed her skin. She whined in pain, but the rest of her answered his animal madness with equal ardor.
She saw herself in the mirror. His hands ranged over the blue dress. He twisted it and heaved it off her tight curves. He drove her to insanity dragging that cool satin over her skin. She hummed in erotic ecstasy. Already her pussy puffed and swelled with hot blood for his attack.
He slipped the dress up her legs, and one powerful hand dove under the hem. His fingers cut between her legs to find the slick slit between them. Ruby whimpered at those inquisitive digits exploring her wetness with exact precision. Her body opened at his command. She responded as never before.
His other hand surrounded her voluptuous breast, and his burly frame tilted her forward. Her cleavage hung open in the mirror. She opened her mouth to moan to herself. Her own glaring desire turned her on as much as his touch.
His eyes drilled into her from behind. He fixed his gaze on her reflection, and she locked her eyes on his brooding face. He glared at her while he fingered her dripping crevice. He knew he turned her on. He knew he gave her the most earth-shattering climaxes possible. He knew he owned her and dominated her with his every glance.
She moaned to him. She pleaded with her eyes for mercy, but he thrust his fingers deeper into her chasm to stir her molten lava with masterful strokes. He pumped her juices from her exotic chalice while his fangs tortured her neck in ever-harder bites.
His hands went into a whirlwind all around her. She couldn’t think of anything or see anything but her own blatant lust. The next thing she knew, he shoved her forward so hard she came down on both hands on the vanity. He tossed her skirts over her hips, and his bare rod delved between her thighs. She gasped out loud in startled shock, but he came at her faster than ever. One mighty arm looped around her waist while the other hand plowed her petals apart.
He flicked his fingertips over her clit to make her convulse in rising torment, and Ruby braced herself for his wicked intrusion. His cock stroked its length along her nether lips, and its glistening syrup lubricated it for its entrance into her welcoming orifice. She flexed her hips along its slippery passage, but each hesitant pause at the tip passed without the anticipated penetration.
His rod bumped her clit with every stroke, and she came down to angle it home, but the driving plunge never came. He slid his fingers down to her opening to guide it, but he never guided it in. Ruby went wild with pleading whines and sobbing cries, but he held off, longer and longer.
All at once, his thick middle finger dove into her twitching cunt to fill her to the brim. His palm compressed her clit and brought her to the brink of climax. At the same time, he retreated an inch, and his cock slipped all the way back between her legs.
He hovered there for a fraction of an instant, just long enough to bring a broken moan to her lips. Then he struck. He angled his hips up to poke his wicked weapon between her cheeks, and his pussy-saturated shaft slipped into her darkest hole.
Ruby shrieked in furious agony, but she already learned in the limo to like it whether she wanted to or not. His fingers kept her dangling on the brink of blistering orgasm, but this new invasion catapulted her over the precipice into unknown lands. He slammed his hand back against her clit with his fingers parting her tissues harder than ever. Those brutal strokes touched the rigid tool inserted in her ass, and the combined sensations of pleasure, horror, and cosmic release exploded through her until she couldn’t struggle anymore.
She relaxed into his monstrous attentions. She rested her hands on the vanity and watched herself succumb to his conquering passions. She backed her ass against his striking blows and gave herself over to the intoxicating waves surging through her. Let it happen. Never let it end.
How long it went on, she had no idea. He glided one commanding hand up her chest to stand her on her feet. She leaned her back against his chest and let him drill into her core. His cock touched forbidden territory in her deepest self. His other hand gripped her in tenuous rapture to melt before his fire.
Her head lolled back on his shoulder. She moved where he moved her. She felt what he wanted her to feel. She was what he wanted her to be. She always would be. His teeth sinking harder into her neck woke her from her reverie. Her eyes snapped open, and she beheld his face snarling at her in the mirror.
Every muscle flexed and bulged under his shirt. His chest hulked over her to devour her, blood and bone. His gritted teeth separated, and a prima
l roar ripped from his being. Sticky hot juice blasted her insides, and fragrant sweat burst out all over his skin to seal them together for all time.
An hour later, the limo stopped once again in front of Ruby’s apartment building. Chad got out and walked her up to the door. He held her hand, but he didn’t look at her. He scowled up and down the street.
The first light tinged the sky. Lights came on in the building overhead. Ruby tried to take her hand away, but he caught hold of it tighter. The words grated in his throat. “Do you really have to do this?”
She turned around. “I thought I explained all that to you.”
He shrugged and looked away. “I know. I just hate to see you go back in there.”
“It’s only for a little while. I’ll change my clothes and have a talk with Tom. I’ll be into work later, and hopefully , by the end of the day, I’ll be staying in my new place. Isn’t that what you want?”
He hitched his shoulders up to his ears and shook himself inside his jacket. “I guess so.”
“What’s wrong?”
He cast a ferocious glance up at the building. “Don’t go in there. I’d like to tear Tom apart rather than have you walk away from me to go back to him.”
Ruby started to say for the fiftieth time she wasn’t going back to Tom, but she stopped when she caught sight of Chad’s face. His jaw clenched and unclenched again and again. His eyes swept up and down the sidewalk — never to her. His mouth contorted in a hideous mask of agony so she almost hated to look at him.
This was hard for him. This was a lot harder for him than it was for her. She welcomed the coming changes. She rejoiced in the new future unfolding all around her. She seized this transition with both hands. She would overcome any obstacle to become the new Ruby in all her glory.
He suffered for her sake. He wanted more than anything to bend the future to his will, but he couldn’t. He could only stand aside and suffer.
She squeezed his hand. “It’s only for a little while, and then I’ll be back with you. I’ll see you at the end of work today.”
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