by Joya Ryan
“You never told me your name,” he said and bit my bottom lip.
“Y-you heard it…”
“I want you to tell me.”
“Megan,” I whispered.
He gave a curt nod, as if that was all he needed. Which worked for me. The more details, the bigger the mess. Right now I reveled in the better part of my brain turning off and letting my body take over. I wanted to forget. Forget about a cheating boyfriend that broke my heart. The boss that stole my family’s money. Forget that my father, the one man who had never let me down, was suffering from his own kind of forgetting—and it was starting with me.
My eyelids felt like they were lined with recently welded steel. I didn’t want to be in my thoughts. I didn’t want to be alone with them anymore. Tonight…it just felt like too much to bear. And staring down a sculpted build of masculine strength, it was the first time in a long time forgetting was actually possible.
He studied my face for a moment, as if he sensed a slight shift in my mood. I gripped the back of his neck and pulled him down.
“Please, Preston. Just kiss me.”
The last six months of my life was disappeared with the barest of touches and his lips. Everything fell away, and that was exactly what I had wanted. This moment. Just him.
He slanted his mouth over mine. His large palm was still cupping my face and he pushed his thumb on my chin, opening my mouth wider. Delving his tongue inside, he took a deeper draw from my mouth like he was gulping down his last breath of air.
I’d never felt more consumed and we hadn’t even gone past kissing. He didn’t rush. Every lash of his skilled tongue was deliberate. Passionate. Long, hard strokes of his masterful mouth sent shivers to every part of my body.
I gently cupped his face in my palms, tracing my fingertips down his chin with slight pressure. I wanted to feel him. Feel his jaw work as he devoured me. The soft scratch of day-old stubble abraded my palms. He smelled, felt—kissed—like a man. So strong and controlled, like a well-oiled machine drawing every last ounce of willpower from me.
He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes. A frown split his dark brows. Had I done something wrong? I gently pulled my hands away.
“Don’t,” he grated. The words were sharp and cut through all the layers of misery I’d been carrying around. He gripped my wrists and guided my hands back to his face. “Don’t take your hands from me. Understand?”
I nodded. It was an obvious order, but for the briefest of moments, I caught a glimpse of vulnerability behind the hardness of his eyes. His mouth was back on mine and he didn’t slow down. His seeking tongue unleashed another dose of intensity and my whole body melted for him.
He pulled the hem of my tight skirt up a couple inches, allowing my legs freedom to bend and move better. Grabbing my ass, he hoisted me up. I instantly wrapped my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck. He gently bit the column of my throat as he maneuvered me into the penthouse. I heard the door shut behind us. He didn’t stop, instead heading toward the bedroom.
I had no time to take in the surroundings. Dim light, the smell of fresh clean linen and then soft cotton. A mattress hit my back. He made quick work of his shirt, threw it off, and stood at the end of the bed. My breath caught when I tried desperately to inhale. But the sinful man staring me down was making a simple intake of oxygen difficult.
My God, he was gorgeous. Broad shoulders, thick, firm muscles that spread across his chest and down his torso. His abs were cut and coiled so tightly they resembled welded bronze.
Those haunting green eyes beamed against the soft light, never leaving mine as he took off my left stiletto, then the right. Sliding his hands up my shins, I stifled a moan at the warmth of his touch. His roughened palms scratched against my silk stockings. I felt so small. He could close his whole hand around my calf and probably touch thumb to finger.
He continued his slow assault up my body until he came to my skirt. He unclasped it and peeled it down my legs and off, leaving me in my white lace thong.
“Unbutton your top,” he commanded.
I did. I opened each button, noting how my fingers were trembling with anticipation and nervousness. I’d never had a one-night stand before, never considered myself the kind of girl to have one, but nothing would have made me leave his bed—this moment.
I opened the fabric, baring my pale lacy bra that matched my panties.
He looked at me for a long moment, as if examining the entire length of my frame.
“White,” he rasped. “Such an innocent color.”
I glanced down my body. My stockings were nude but everything else was white. I’d never considered the “innocent” aspect before.
“You’re a lovely woman, Megan.” His voice was raw and heated but the words hit a chilly chord. It was a polite gesture, a baseline compliment designed to flatter yet maintain a distance, but I wanted to hear the words he was obviously holding back. The words that accompanied the growl that vibrated from him when he kissed me.
I didn’t want to hold back tonight. I didn’t want to give in to responsibility and torturous thoughts. I wanted intensity. Unguarded words and actions. To hear what kind of words matched the man with a dominant stance and sexy stare.
“A lovely woman?” I asked and positioned myself on my knees. With my white shirt hanging open and decked out in matching lingerie, my goal was to project more sex appeal than “lovely.”
Something that sounded like a low groan broke from his chest. I crawled toward him, confidence coursing through me. His eyes smoldered and I knew he was on the brink just like I was.
“Do you like ‘lovely’ girls, Suit?”
Crawl.
His hands fisted at his side and his gaze trailed from my face, to my breasts, then back up again. He didn’t answer so I pushed with, “Maybe nice girls?”
Crawl.
“And if I do?”
I pushed to my knees again at the end of the bed. “Then I’m sure to disappoint you.” Kneeling on the bed with him standing before me, I was eye level with his impressive chest.
“You look like a nice girl, Megan.”
I had spent twenty-three years being nice and all it had gotten me was trouble. Nice was easy to walk all over, lie to and shatter. I was done with nice.
I gripped his belt and unfastened it. “Not tonight.”
I couldn’t be. The moment I started thinking was the moment reality weaseled its way back into my mind. No reality. No soft, sweetness. No nice.
His eyes remained on mine. A silent challenge to see how far I’d go. I unbuttoned his fly and reached into his boxer-briefs.
The man was endowed. Not bothering to take his pants completely off—because that would mean I’d have to give up what I was currently holding and there was no way I was doing that—I worked his pants low enough on his hips so I could pull him free. His cock jerked in my fist, daring me to stroke.
I swallowed hard.
“Losing your nerve?” he said. Somehow, this had turned into a game, and I was more than ready to play.
“No. I was just making sure I followed your instructions of keeping my hands on you.”
With a tight grip on his cock, I tugged and fell to my back. He had no choice but to follow. He caught his weight, his hands landing on the mattress on either side of my head, bracing himself so his big body didn’t crash down on mine.
“What do you want from me, Megan?”
“Right now?” I gave a tentative stroke. “Everything you’ve got. No holding back.”
An evil grin split his face. “Done.”
He tore my shirt away and yanked my bra off with one hard rip, instantly bearing my breasts. The cool air didn’t even have time to hit my flesh before his mouth latched onto my nipple. I skimmed my hands up his body and wove my fingers in his hair. When he bit down on the sensitive peak, I cried out and arched my back for more.
He paid the same attention to the other. Nipping the plump flesh of my entire breasts, as i
f eating me alive. The only move I could make was to grip him tighter as he raked his mouth along my body, tasting and sampling every square inch from the bottom of my ribcage to the base of my neck. Pulling more of my skin between his lips, he kissed down my throat and along my collar, but always ending on the swell of my breasts, delivering one last bite to my throbbing nipples.
“You taste like sunshine and raspberries.” He opened his mouth, skating his teeth down the center of my chest to my navel and leaving a slightly welted trail of teeth marks. “Ripe and warm…I could eat you.”
He looked up my body to catch my gaze. He flicked the edge of my panties with his tongue and smiled against the lace. My breaths were coming so quickly I could barely keep up with my lungs.
Looping a finger around the crotch of my panties, he tugged until I heard the quick screech of lace ripping. He pulled away the tattered material, leaving me in nothing but my stockings. His hot mouth closed around the soft spot of my inner thigh and he sucked hard.
“Christ, you’re fucking mouth-watering,” he growled against my skin.
My blood was boiling and satisfaction surging. That was the growl I had been waiting for. No niceties. No polite words. Raw and unchained lust.
His breath danced over my aching core and I arched. Begging him to taste me where I desperately needed him. Instead, he drew away from me and stood. A clanking and rustling noise rang out as he shucked his pants completely and knelt at the foot of the bed. He grabbed the back of my knees and yanked me toward him until my ass was almost entirely hanging off the edge of the mattress. He spread my legs wide and barely brushed his lips over my clit. My hips jolted upward, seeking more.
“You have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.” He didn’t say anymore. Just tossed my legs over his shoulders and buried his face between my thighs.
His tongue darted out and flicked the tangled bundle of nerves, fast and hard. A hot flush clapped my body and I arched into him.
“Yes!” I gripped the sheets at my side and arched.
“Ah-ah,” his words vibrated against my aching flesh, “remember the rule?”
I looked down and saw those green eyes staring at me, demanding and angry. I was supposed to be touching him. I let go of the sheet and placed my palms tentatively on his head.
A low rumble broke from his chest. He sounded pleased. I had never touched a man’s head while doing this before. It seemed so…erotic.
“Good. Now hang on tight, sweetheart,” he rasped.
His palms slapped down on my thighs and he tugged me even closer to him. There was no other area on him I could reach. I had no choice but to keep my hands where they were.
He licked the entire length of my sex. I wound my fingers in his hair. He seemed to like that. Keeping his intense green gaze on mine, he took another taste. My grip tightened, so he did it again, and again, until he was raining wet flicks over my pussy, building a fire in my bloodstream.
All inhibitions gone, I pulled his thick hair and dug my heels into his back. I wiggled and moved to try to get him deeper, closer. My entire body was humming and pulsing with liquid nitrogen, the pressure so intense it made my toes tingle. The pleasure was so hot, it felt cold. I was so close…
He released me, quickly grabbed a condom from his discarded pants, rolled it on, and crawled up my body. Adrenalin burst though my veins and lit up every cell. The need to burn this energy and ride him was overwhelming.
I pushed on his chest and he turned to his side. Letting me maneuver him to his back, I straddled his hips. His big cock jutted between us. I leaned down and cupped his face in my palms like I had at the door when he first kissed me.
Slowing the pace just slightly, I explored his mouth with my tongue, taking laps, followed by little nips of his full bottom lip. He cupped my ass and ground his dick against my clit. It was obvious this man was dominant. Probably never laid back and took anything, but right now, I wanted to show him all I was feeling. Take out my pent-up aggression on the body he was offering. He was the one who asked me up and he was the one who made the move. I was ready to execute the deal.
Never speeding up the kiss, I subtly moved my hips until I was able to position the tip of his cock at my entrance.
“You know,” I whispered against his mouth, “I think you’re a lovely man, Preston.”
I slammed down on him. My pussy instantly encasing him and we both cried out. His vice grip encased my hips, fingers digging into the bone.
“Fuck, woman.” His muscles were all bunched and chorded and I ran my fingers down the flanks of well-cut abdomen.
He lifted my body so that just the tip of his cock was breaching me. His hips shot up just as he pulled me down on him. A sharp gasp burst from my throat.
“You’re so big,” I breathed.
Bracing my weight and sticking to the “constant touch” rule, I pushed on his chest and whipped my hips in his lap. Taking him deep, then stirring until the crown brushed that sensitive spot inside over and over. I was ready to scream from the pleasure.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” he grated. The edge of need and vengeance in his voice made my skin prick. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Without severing our connection, he flipped me to my back. He pushed his knees against my thighs, parting them even wider, and thrust again.
“Oh, yes!” I wrapped my legs around him.
He snaked one arm beneath my lower back and pulled me against him. He was rough, deep and ungodly amazing. Every forceful move and sharp thrust was controlled and manipulated so that every nerve ending of his hit mine. The man made love like it was an art and I was falling hard and fast. The burning beneath my bones spread from my core to my fingertips until I couldn’t register anything but him.
His scent. His body. His skin. It was the only thing that existed.
He pumped in and out of me, that thick cock stretching me more and more each time. He grew harder with every push and retreat. With one arm around my back the other came up to fist the sheets by my head. His slick chest pressed into my breasts and the feel of our raging heartbeats pounding against each other was almost too much to take.
Weaving his fingers in my hair, he forced my stare to meet his, and silently commanded me not to sever eye contact.
I held on tight. My nails sinking in to his shoulder blades, I kept his gaze.
“Megan…” he whispered my name and for some reason, the tender endearment made my chest hurt and a ping of wetness rise from my tear ducts.
My body erupted. Every atom burst into flames and spiraled from the center of my body to the tips of my toes. I came apart. Yelling his name and begging for more. He gave it. My orgasm was stronger, longer, than any kind of pleasure I’d ever experienced and he drew it out to the edge of the abyss.
When I felt him twitch inside me and the back muscles beneath my palms tighten, it was then I felt it. His release. His grip on me tightened and he buried himself over and over, riding out his own end.
My body was spent and my mind in worse shape than my liquefied bones. Never moving too far away, he pulled out of me and disposed of the condom. I went to sit up, but his arm came around my stomach and snatched me back.
Burrowing his face in the curve of my neck, he fell instantly asleep, holding me like I was something he didn’t want to leave.
Chapter Two
“You look like hell.”
I froze with my heels in one hand, the other on the front door knob to my apartment. It was barely eight AM, and after I had peeled the strong, deliciously smelling, Mr. Suit off me and snuck out of the penthouse, I came straight home to what should have been an empty apartment. “What are you doing home? I thought you had work today.”
“I do.” Emma stood behind the couch, shoving her laptop into her bag. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and she was dressed in jeans and a yellow shirt. Everything about Emma screamed, “sweet” and “dainty,” but the petite brunette could out-drink and out-cuss a sailor. She was a fr
eelance programmer and aside from my daily calls to Kate, Emma was my close friend and chat buddy. So I had never been so happy to hear the words, “I’m just running late.”
Emma looked up, her big brown eyes going wide and taking in my hair, last night’s clothes, and the obvious lack of bra under my blouse. “Oh my God, you’re doing the walk of shame.”
“What?” I gasped.
“You are! The hair, the I-just-had-an-orgasm glow, and is that—” Emma looked closer and I slapped my hand over my neck. “Is that a hickey?”
“No.” It wasn’t. “It’s teeth marks. And I had three orgasms.”
“Three.” Emma took a seat and abandoned packing. “I want all the details. So spill.” Then her smile faded and she went serious. “Wait. Is this about Brain?”
“No,” I said too fast.
She raised a brow. “Really? Because you aren’t really a one-night stand kind of girl.”
“How do you know?” I asked because she was the second person in the past twelve hours to imply that.
“Because I used to be one and, trust me, you are not. So the fact that you had, what I am assuming was your virgin sail on the USS No-Strings, the same day that Brian elopes with the slut he cheated on you with has me worried.”
I sighed and sat on the couch next to her. She was right. I wasn’t the one-night kind of person. But for a night it had been fun, thrilling even. “It just sort of happened.”
“So, what exactly happened?” she asked with a smile and wag of her brows.
“I found out about Brian and Grace eloping, my mom texted and I guess my dad is getting worse.” I shrugged. “It was just one of those days. Then Mr. Preston came in—”
“Mister Preston?”
“I didn’t really get his first name. We didn’t share a lot of info.” I closed my eyes and pictured how he looked when I’d snuck out this morning. Stubble on his face, his hair messed from my hands, a small contented smile on his face, and that incredible body, naked for my viewing pleasure. “He came into the bar when I was heading out and we just kind of, clicked.”