She stepped back when I closed in on her but her eyes never left mine. Her cheeks reddened and her chest rose and fell quickly as she leaned back against the door and stared up at me, her blue eyes swirling with the same desire that lived in mine.
“I’m so glad you decided to join me.”
She nodded but gulped when I pressed one hand on the door above her head and clicked the lock with my other.
“Because, you see,” I whispered, leaning into her and running the tip of my nose up the edge of her neck. Her breath caught and the softest of moans tumbled from her. Her scent assaulted me and I held back my own moan. “You belong to me, Esther. You always did. And you always will.”
Once again, she nodded. “Yes. I belong to you.”
I nodded with her, her acceptance biting at my chest and sending jolts of excitement to my dick. “I really didn’t want to do this here,” I murmured, placing a tender kiss to her cheek and then to her jaw, the faintest touch of her sending electricity through my veins and making my heart pump harder. “But, right now, I don’t fucking care very much where we are.”
She tilted her head to the side, her eyes closing as I journeyed my lips back down the side of her neck, dropping tiny kisses along her soft skin. Dipping my tongue out, I dragged it up the centre of her throat, the taste of soap tingling my taste buds. Her fingers were suddenly in my hair and she dragged my mouth to hers.
“Kiss me, damn it.”
Crushing my mouth to hers, her demand one I’d dreamed of hearing from her for so long, I lifted her body up and into me. Her legs were around me in seconds and she clung to me as I spun around and walked us back towards the desk.
“Rik,” she groaned into my mouth, her sweet tongue darting around mine as she started to grind up and down, using my hard-on to give her the slightest bit of relief.
Perching her on the edge of the desk, I freed my hands and cupped the back of her head, refusing her any slack. Her tongue duelled with mine, her soft infrequent moans driving me fucking crazy.
She lifted her arms when I grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and lifted it over her head.
“Jesus, fuck,” I groaned when her braless tits stood firm and tempting. She had perfect breasts, small and perky, and although I’d imagined over the years how she would look naked, I realised that my imagination could never have done her justice.
A sprinkling of freckles across her chest made me bite down a groan as I lowered my mouth. Her head fell back when I took a hard nipple between my teeth and gently bit down, my tongue teasing the tip.
I was struggling to quieten the rage inside me, the forceful need to take her hard and fast making me yank open my fly and take out my cock. Fisting it, I slowly worked myself, trying to ease the painful throb that was making my teeth tremble.
“I want to watch you,” Esther whispered as she shuffled back on the desk to gain a better viewpoint.
“That’s really not a good idea,” I growled through clenched teeth. “I’m so fucking hard that the only reason I’m fucking stroking myself is so I don’t slam into you and fuck you until we’re both crazy.”
Heat blazed in her eyes, and unable to look away, I watched when she lifted her hips and undid her jeans. Slowly, her eyes fixed on my cock, she pushed them down her legs, along with her knickers.
“Oh my God,” I groaned, fighting with the cum in my balls. She had the prettiest cunt ever, her pink flesh plump and slick with arousal. She was bare, aside from a tiny patch of blonde hair that decorated the area just above her clit.
However, when I moved my hand towards her, she caught my wrist. “No.”
I frowned in confusion, but when she slid her legs open and slipped her own hand between them, my cock jerked in my fingers.
Her long fingers teased at her entrance and her eyes hooded with pleasure when she dipped inside and dragged her juices up to her clit. “Watch me while I watch you,” she begged quietly, the huskiness in her voice making me wank myself harder.
I fought with the urge to dip down and close my lips around her clit, the sweetness that I just knew would welcome me making my mouth water.
Her fingers briskly circled her clit, her impending orgasm making her rub harder and faster.
“Come for me, babe. I want to see how fucking stunning you look when you come for me. You have no idea how many times I’ve pictured you coming for me, and on me.”
Almost instantly, her head fell back and a long, drawn out whimper fell from her. She struggled to keep her legs open and I quickly held open her thighs, needing to see her cum drip from her.
She cried out when I dropped to my knees and moved her hand away. “Fuck!”
I devoured every drop, her taste sweet and salty as my tongue worked its way inside her and I ate her out with a ferocity that took both our breaths. Within minutes she was coming hard again, this time my tongue working her into an orgasm that blew us both away.
“I can’t, Es,” I uttered as I stood up, positioned myself between her open thighs, and drove straight inside her.
Her pussy clamped around me, her muscles taking me in with a small amount of resistance, and we both moaned loudly. Her legs wrapped around me, and locking her ankles together, she pressed her heels into my ass and forced me deeper.
“Jesus, so fucking good,” I managed through the restriction of my clenched jaw.
Every inch of me that she took drove a shiver up my spine and made my mind tremble in ecstasy. Dropping my face to her chest, I sucked a nipple into my mouth and started to fuck her. Her hands landed on the table behind her for support as I slammed into her over and over. Her groans of pleasure grew louder and louder, and aware that my team could hear us, I didn’t really give a fuck.
“Is that good?” I growled over her mouth before taking her bottom lip between my teeth and softly sucking on it.
Nodding, she groaned and lifted her hips into each of my deep thrusts. “So good,” she mumbled around my lips.
“Your cunt is so hot, is it hot just for me, Es?”
Again, she nodded. “For you, Rik.”
The pressure in my balls and brain was becoming painful but I held back, needing to feel her come around me, for me, and only for me.
When she came she gripped onto my cock so hard that I had to pull out quickly, remembering that I was bareback. Her body shook as I drove my fingers inside her to prolong her orgasm. Her cries of bliss fascinated me, her eyes rolling back and her mouth falling open. “So fucking beautiful,” I snarled as I watched her come.
As soon as she recovered she dropped to her knees before me and took me straight into her mouth.
“Shit, fuck!” I growled, fisting her hair as she sucked hard and long, the tip of my cock sliding into her throat.
She gagged and pulled back, her wet eyes looking up at me. Spit fell from her lips and dribbled onto my cock. “Come for me,” she pleaded. “I want to taste you in my mouth.”
Taking me back into her mouth, she sucked me like her mouth had been specifically created to warm my cock, the pressure perfect and the deep pulls on me giving her her wish instantly. I slammed my hands on her head, holding her still as I forced my cock down her throat and spewed cum into her belly.
She swallowed it all, her throat working greedily to drink every damn drop that I gave her. My lungs squealed with the pressure and I roared out her name, amazed that I could find a coherent thought amid the inferno in my head.
Licking her lips, she smiled up at me. “You taste better than I had thought. Quite sweet.”
I quirked an eyebrow and cupped her chin gently. “So you imagined it too?”
“Many times,” she admitted as she gently bit down on her lip. “So many times.”
“You were twelve!”
She laughed and took my hand as I helped her up. “Not then. I was in love with you then, but it wasn’t a physical attraction. Over the years when I thought about you, the sexual side came with my memories. I masturbated with you in my thoughts many times, Rik Bane.�
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“Shit, don’t tell me that,” I grumbled as I put my cock back in my trousers and zipped up, then scooped her into my arms and carried her over to the small sofa that sat against the back wall of my office. “Or we’ll never make it out of this bloody room.”
Settling her on my lap, I held her tight and pressed a kiss to her forehead as her stunning blues gazed at me. Then her words penetrated my brain and I gasped quietly. “You loved me?”
She blinked, her forehead creasing slightly as if she was confused. “Yes. I thought you always knew that.”
“Well, I just figured it was just a friend love, not romantic. I loved you that way, but I always thought my feelings were unreciprocated.”
“Then you’re a fool. Many times I told you that you were the only one who made my heart beat harder, that I wouldn’t ever have survived that hell-hole if it weren’t for you. How could I not love you?”
I sighed and shifted her so she was facing me. “What happened that day?”
Once again she appeared puzzled and she tipped her head to the side. “You seriously don’t know?”
Anger bubbled in me and I growled. “I looked for you for years, Es. If I knew what happened it would have given me a clue as to where to find you.”
“My father was being closed in on by the MI5. I thought you’d have known that with you working for them.”
I shook my head and waited for her to carry on.
“We had to run. And hide. I wasn’t allowed to contact you in case it compromised our cover. But to be honest, I didn’t want to drag you into my father’s shit anyway. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Your father is a cunt!”
She nodded, and sighed. “Basically, he had to start the business up from scratch again. Find new men, a new place, new identities.”
“And that’s why he trained you up?”
“Yeah. I was needed. Although,” she paused and lowered her eyes from my face. “I was glad of it. I missed you so much, Rik. You grounded me, and all of a sudden I felt lost. I was broken and I had no one to fall back on anymore. Fighting – killing – was the only thing that I could connect with, the only outlet for all my anger and hatred.”
I held her tighter to me, her sorrow evident in the tears that shimmered in her eyes.
“I became someone you wouldn’t recognise. And, while I was ashamed of that, I couldn’t stop. And I couldn’t ever let you see the girl I was without you. So I never came back, I couldn’t.”
“You think I would ever turn my back on you, Es? I loved, love, you too much to ever walk away from what we had, will have.”
“Will have?”
My heartbeat stuttered with the look of horror in her eyes. Her head shook and she clambered off my knee. “We can’t ever have a relationship, Rik. You know that! I’m a Dean!”
A snarl rumbled in my chest and my mouth dried. Slowly rising from the couch, I stalked towards her as she backed up. “Not a chance, little legs. For fourteen years all I have thought about is you. All my heart has fucking beat for is the day that I got you back, the day when once again your fucking blues look at me the way they used to. I don’t give one, or a million, fucks that you’re a Dean.”
Her eyes widened with every word, and I closed in on her. Her back pressed into the desk behind her and she gasped when I seized her chin and forced her head further back so her eyes were on me and me alone.
“I have no idea why you think I was regime government, Esther. I was never part of the system.”
Blinking, she reared back. “What? But I thought Memphis is military intelligence.”
“It is, but I was never a part of that. I don’t know why you think I was.”
“Then how come you work for them now?”
I chuckled. “I don’t work for them. They work for me.”
“Shit.” She screwed up her face. “Then what the hell is Memphis?”
“Memphis is a service that is funded by the government, but it is free from all the bullshit restrictions the MI5 and 6, or SIS as they stupidly love to be referred to now, have to deal with. There are no rules for us, no restrictions. I…” I paused, weighing up my words. “I haven’t been a good boy, Es. In fact, I took a route when you went that made your father look like a fucking amateur.”
“What?”
Shrugging, I finally released my hold on her and smirked. “I don’t do rules, and I definitely don’t do what the law dictates. However, five or six years ago I was finally nailed down. It was a take that should have been simple. I won’t go into specifics, but I was finally hauled in.”
Esther settled her arse on the edge of the desk and fixed her stare on me intently as I relayed my story.
“Except, what I had expected didn’t happen. Drew Parker, head of intelligence, had a proposition for me. They were looking into subsidising a new team, a team that wouldn’t be held back by red tape or controlled by decrees and law. It was growing ever difficult to bite down on shit that was managing to walk away with stupid rules and policies. Drew wanted a team that was fuck all to do with the system. And he wanted me to lead.”
“So you can basically do as you want?”
I nodded. “Basically. We are given specifics, information, and we take it from there. The money is shifted through a number of procedures so that the government can camouflage our existence and their involvement.”
“This is bullshit,” she huffed, shaking her head sceptically.
“Have you any idea how frustrating it is to put years of money and detail into pinning down shitheads that slip through the net because of some ridiculous loophole in the law? I’m talking paedophiles, traffickers, serial rapists. The lowest of the fucking pile, Es. If the service can’t end the problem because the pussies making rules up won’t get their heads out of their arses, then my team take over.”
“You terminate the problem, you mean.”
“Yep. Rather like you did for your father.”
“But I didn’t really have a choice.”
“We all have choices, Esther,” I grumbled, unable to stop myself from narrowing my eyes on her. “And you’ve made it pretty clear you enjoy it.”
Anger contorted her pretty face and her hands pushed at my chest. “You know nothing about me anymore, Rik. Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”
“I’m not judging you, I just don’t appreciate lies.”
She laughed, the coldness to it showing me a side to her I had never seen. “All you have done since you stepped back into my life is lie!”
“No, I haven’t. You just made assumptions. I didn’t answer your questions, but that’s far from not being honest. You presumed I was here for you, because of your father. Which is shit. I took over Sparrow because some fucker, including your precious Geoffrey, has been selling on government secrets.”
She caught a sharp breath and her face paled with my revelation. “No.” Her head shook as tears prickled her eyes. “Geoffrey wouldn’t do that.”
I snorted. “He’s been selling on for two years, Esther! Get your head out of his ass!”
Her pretty face paled further and her throat bobbed as she forced back the vomit. I felt bad that I’d broken the respect she’d so obviously had for her former boss. But now I was her boss, and she needed to be up-to-speed with what she was now working on.
“I’m sorry, Es. But you don’t want lies. You made that clear. So I won’t lie to you. Geoffrey Sparrow was on the take. Sparrow Towers was in so much debt that I can only presume Geoffrey didn’t have much choice.”
Thunder stormed her eyes and she narrowed them on me. “Did you kill him? Was that your job?”
I sighed, disheartened that I had expected the question. “No.”
Shaking her head, she took a step back. The tears in her eyes bubbled over and I reached out to wipe one away when it lost track and bled into the groove between her bottom lip and her chin.
“I won’t lie to you, Esther. Too many people have done that in your life, and I can p
romise that all you’ll get from me is honesty, even if it will hurt you.”
She looked dubious but releasing a sigh, she finally nodded. “Okay. I trust you, I don’t want to but a part of me knows you’re telling the truth.”
“That would be your heart,” I whispered as I moved back into her personal space. “It knows me, better than you think.”
Her beautiful blues stared up at me, the twinkle back now that she accepted the truth. “Maybe, maybe it’s just the fool in me that seems to come out whenever you’re around.”
“You think love is foolish?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. Love does nothing but hurt, Rik. And to be honest, I’m scared shitless that one of us is going to get hurt.”
I couldn’t promise her that I wouldn’t hurt her, because I knew deep down inside me that I would hurt her, no matter how hard I tried not to. It was me. Hurt and pain bled from me freer than blood. I breathed heartache easier than the air that filled my lungs. Yet, I couldn’t stop loving her. That came even easier than bleeding and breathing. It was engrained in me, like a natural instinct. Loving Esther Dean was a pure and innate compulsion within me.
But it didn’t mean I wasn’t fucking terrified of it.
Twenty
Esther
Will looked shocked to see Rik when we both walked into my warehouse. It didn’t surprise me that he’d invited himself along. I had a feeling I was going to clash with many of Rik’s stern orders. I also had a suspicion he was going to be a dreadful boss, in the nicest possible way.
It felt good to feel his hand in mine, even if his recent officious presence was a little overwhelming. He’d declared his love for me and, to him, that meant attaching himself to my side. Yet, the warm feeling in my gut made me grip onto his hand tighter, the firm and possessive touch of him after so many years healing the endless bleed in my soul.
“Didn’t expect to see you, Bane.”
A look passed between the two and I sighed, shaking my head at Will when realisation hit me like a bolt of lightning. “You’re Memphis!”
Bane (Memphis #1) Page 12