by Alisha Rai
Nicholas had moved away. What’s done is done, Livvy.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” She’d had another tiny piece of her heart shattered, thinking Nicholas had betrayed her whole family.
His chest rose and fell, the unfinished mermaid looking utterly silly. “I assumed it wouldn’t matter. Would it have made a difference to you?”
It’s impossible for us to be together now. They won’t let us.
“Are you asking if we would have stayed together?”
“Yeah. Could we have survived my father taking your family’s company? Even if you knew I’d opposed it?”
Livvy had seen the finality in Nicholas’s eyes when they’d ended things, had felt the creeping foreboding when she’d met him that day in the woods.
She’d never met her grandpa Sam, but she’d heard stories about the man and the odds he’d overcome to become a wealthy businessman. One of Sam’s favorite sayings had been Nothing’s over ’til you quit.
Nicholas had quit. It was over.
“Probably not.” Which wasn’t a total lie. She sniffed, hoping that the tickling at the back of her throat didn’t actually become tears. God, would that be embarrassing. “I’m real glad John doesn’t hate us. That’s . . . that’s cool to know.”
“He wants to see you. He asked me to arrange a meeting.”
Yearning made her heart clench. John had been a surrogate grandfather to her, showering her with as much love and kindness as he had his own grandchildren. “He knows I’m here?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
No, he wouldn’t have. She was Nicholas’s dirty little secret.
Don’t get snarky; he’s your dirty secret as well. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“He would be kind to you. I promise.”
She took pride in her steady hands, but they were shaking now. “If he’s not?”
“We would leave.”
“You’d come with me?”
“Of course.”
The immediate agreement shouldn’t have soothed her, though she knew his main goal in chaperoning was to protect his grandfather, not her. “I have to think about it.”
He tilted her chin up and her breath caught. His eyes were soft. Warm. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at her like this, without his guard up and a layer of frost in place. She wanted to savor every second of it as much as it terrified her. “He missed you.”
It was sad how much she wanted him to replace that he with an I. Pathetic. “If . . .” She trailed off, the words clogging up inside her throat.
“If what?”
Fuck it all. No ifs. Ifs opened a land of possibility, led to a universe where anything was doable. Where the children of feuding families could unite and overcome the odds and ugly history between them. If was a word for fairy tales, not reality.
If was to be avoided at all costs.
You said you were done for good.
But that look he was giving her, exacerbating her need for ifs. It was short-circuiting her brain.
She did what she always did when she stopped being able to think around this man. She kissed him.
FOR THE second time in a week, Nicholas found himself swept into the hurricane force that was Livvy. She took his lips—forcefully, perfectly—leaving him without a need to think. With a jerk, he pulled her off balance and dragged her up and over him so she was straddling his lap.
She tore her lips away. “The door. Let me lock . . .”
“I already did it when I came in.” He’d flicked off the neon Open sign too.
Someone might call him presumptuous, but he hadn’t anticipated their lip-locking. He simply hadn’t wanted anyone to interrupt them.
She didn’t seem to mind his foresight. She went back to kissing him, her tongue slicking over his.
You shouldn’t be doing this. Don’t do this. Why are you doing this?
Because he really couldn’t help himself, and neither could she. Their conversation had been raw and real and without snark or animosity, something neither of them had engaged in since . . . well, since well before they’d broken up.
And all because he’d indulged one feeling—the desire not to leave her.
Each honest word he’d spoken had made him feel better, calmer, stronger. It had always grated on him, the betrayal in her gaze when they’d ended things, the knowledge he hadn’t corrected her when she said he wanted the takeover. He’d kept the truth in his heart, unable to utter it. My dad’s blackmailing me to stay away from you, and I can’t stomach the thought of you fighting in vain for us when I know I can’t be with you.
He’d made the rational choice, acting as cold as he could, convinced he was ultimately making the right, least painful decision for everyone involved.
Who’s being rational now?
Not him, and he didn’t particularly know if he cared.
Her fingers tunneled through his hair and tightened on his scalp, and he bit her lower lip, trying not to leave a mark but hoping he did anyway. His hands slid down her back, under her skirt. The thong she wore gave him complete access to her round flesh, and it overflowed his palms. Her touch ghosted over his chest, his stomach, to the fastening of his pants. A butterfly caress trailed over the thickness of his cock, and he sucked in a breath. She pulled her mouth away and pressed a hot kiss on his neck.
There was a spot—yes, there. He groaned and arched up, his cock pushing against her palm when she licked the hollow of his throat, then nipped the same spot. She rubbed the bulge in his pants, rasping the cotton of his boxers over his hard, ready flesh.
He tilted his head back to give her better access, closing his eyes to block out the harsh fluorescent overhead lights. He could pretend they were somewhere else. A soft bed in a nice hotel. His place. Her place. Places where lovers went to have sex. “What do you want?”
She sucked his neck, and he bit the inside of his cheek. “I want your dick in my mouth.”
His dick was in perfect agreement, hardening to a painful degree. That would feel so good, her slick, wet tongue slipping over him, cheeks hollowing with suction. Too good.
He gripped the back of her neck and pulled her away from him. “How about you come on my tongue first?”
Her brow furrowed, and she sat back on his legs. “Why do you always do that?”
He struggled to concentrate, which was hard when he had Livvy perched on his lap. “What?”
“Every year, you would go down on me. Always. But the instant I tried to get my mouth on you, you’d haul me up. Distract me. Why is that?”
Discomfort gripped him. He shrugged. “I got older. I’m not some twenty-year-old who can get it up multiple times.”
She snorted. “I don’t think getting it up has ever been your issue.”
“Do you not like my tongue between your legs?”
“See? Distracting me with silly questions.” She fiddled with the button of his pants. “When we were dating, you used to break speed limits to get to me if I ever so much as teased you about a blowjob.”
Truth. “Let me,” she’d whispered in his ear one night in his car, her hand rubbing his cock through his jeans.
How could he have denied her then? “I did love it. I’m just . . . not accustomed to it anymore.”
She blinked. “Are you saying you don’t let anyone go down on you?”
He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “Not in a long time.”
“How long?”
Since you. But he couldn’t admit her mouth had been the only one on his cock. That was far too uncomfortably revealing. “A long time.”
She searched his gaze. “Do you not like it?”
“No. It makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Vulnerable.” He’d always felt powerless during their encounters. He couldn’t stop himself from coming to see her or leaving the next day. He couldn’t stop himself from having to go back to his passionless, unexciting life.
> He hadn’t wanted to give up any more power. Even if that meant cutting out something he’d once adored.
He didn’t know how to explain all of that. It wouldn’t make sense to most people, maybe not even her. He opened his mouth to stutter out some sort of explanation, but she spoke first.
“I get it.”
He blinked.
She slipped her thumb over his lips. Up and down, side to side. Unable to look away, he bit her thumb, laving the spot with his tongue.
“Can I . . . ? Can we try? If you hate it, I’ll stop.”
Nicholas swallowed. The silence stretched between them. She didn’t push or prod, merely sat on his legs and waited.
That patient, calm waiting was what convinced him. Livvy wouldn’t get mad or sad or make him feel like less of a man if he demanded they stop. “Yes.”
Her hand left him, and she gathered her hair up high on her head, securing it with a ponytail holder on her wrist. His body went taut with expectation beneath her, and her lips curved in a knowing smile. “You couldn’t not get hard when I was putting my hair up, could you?”
Going down on him had been the only time, save when she was working out, that Livvy had ever put her hair in a ponytail. It had gotten to the point that he damn well couldn’t see her jaunty little hairstyle without wanting to see her on her knees. “You always had one of those elastics on your wrist.”
“I always will. Sometimes tying my hair up is the only task I can accomplish in a day,” she joked. Or at least, he thought it was a joke.
She shifted, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, and slid down until she was between his thighs. He wanted to close his eyes from the potent picture she made, her body tight and toned, dressed in black leather pants—where did one even find black leather pants?—and a long-sleeved, low-cut gauzy top. Her fingers danced over his fly, unbuttoning the placket, letting his cock jut out. Her cool hand wrapped around it, stroking the hot flesh. He groaned and tipped his head back.
Her fingers ghosted over his hipbones. “Do you know my favorite part of your body?” she mused, with a dreamy air.
“Are you holding it?”
“No, baby.” Before he could recover from the casual endearment, she traced her free hand over the indentations at his groin. “I never know what to call these dips right here. One of my friends said they were come gutters.”
He huffed out a laugh, as always amused and mildly scandalized by her ribaldry.
She stroked over the second dip, her expression absorbed. “I think the proper name is Apollo’s girdle. I like hip-dip sexy things. What do you think?”
Think? How could he think when her mouth was level with his cock? “I don’t care.”
“You have good ones, whatever they are,” she breathed, and ran her tongue over the dips in question. “I approve.”
He tightened his hands on the seat’s armrests. “Fuck.”
“Ask me.”
There was a steely command in her voice. He stood poised on some precipice, one where he handed her all the power, where she turned his ordered world into chaos, and he couldn’t stop.
“Suck my dick,” he said, his voice guttural.
Those red-slicked lips grinned, and she rubbed her cheek affectionately over the bulge of his cock. “Whatever you want, sir.”
She licked the underside, tracing the vein. “I like doing this too,” she whispered, her breath a puff of air on his cock head. “I’d always get so wet when I sucked your cock, remember?”
God, he did remember. Nothing had felt better than sinking his fingers inside her after she’d gotten off her knees. Knowing his pleasure had gotten her excited had been its own form of arousal. “Livvy.”
She traced the tip of his cock over her lips, leaving them shiny. Shiny with him. “Do you feel out of control yet? Helpless?”
“Yes.”
“Is it so terrible?”
“It’s . . . unusual.”
“I’ll let you have some power.” She pressed dainty, tiny kisses down the shaft. “Pull my hair.”
He exhaled. “Are you sure?”
“You know I like it rough.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m using you again.”
“Maybe I want to be used.” Her dark eyes flicked up at him. “Maybe I get off on that.”
He raised both hands and slid them over Livvy’s scalp. Her head felt small in his hands, the hair like coarse silk against his fingertips. He used one hand to gather up the strands and wrap them around his fist. All the while, he was cataloguing her reactions, so apparent in her expressive face: the way she bit her lip, the way her eyes narrowed in pleasure, how her short lashes fluttered. He used his grip to pull her away from where she was teasing his dick, leaving his cock just out of reach of her lips.
“Suck my dick.”
Her lips curved. “Whatever you’d like. Sir.”
It was the sir that broke him, that made every dark fantasy he’d ever had about being serviced flare to the surface of his mind. Livvy on her knees in his office, his car, her bed. Her lips surrounded the head of his cock, and he arched his hips higher, letting her take him deeper. He used his grip on her hair to move her how he wanted, when he wanted.
It had been so long since he’d had this, he felt awkward at first, but they found their rhythm.
“Remember when I would sneak into your room?” he rasped. “You’d be waiting for me with your hair tied up.”
She moaned around his cock, and he groaned in return, his hips picking up speed, working in tandem with his hands on her head. He was full-on fucking her face now, possibly too savagely, but just when he grew worried that he should slow down, he noticed her arm shifting.
“Are you fucking yourself?” he said, the question more of a statement, because yeah. Her fingers were busy and hard at work, her leather pants unzipped just enough to let herself play. The knowledge that this was turning her on as much as it turned him on had him fucking her mouth harder and faster, the wet tightness and suction making his head spin. Her moans grew, the vibration of the sound sending tingles of pleasure straight to his balls. For a second he wondered if he should withdraw, but she shook her head, taking him deeper, her throat closing around the tip of his cock, and he exploded, spurting on her tongue. It took him long moments to recover, and he tilted his head back, gasping. “God. Thank you.” A thank you wasn’t enough. Not only for the orgasm, but for the heady, brief moments of freedom he’d found with her mouth.
He’d been powerless and, yet . . . powerful.
He hadn’t felt both those things at once in years. It was thrilling and scary and exciting.
Clothes rustled, and he opened his eyes to catch her shimmying out of her pants, her strong muscles flexing, the ink covering them dancing. A dragon wound itself around her right leg, the scales blue green and vibrant, eyes blood red. A flame licked her upper thigh, a blur of crimson and orange and yellow.
That dragon had appeared on her body four or five years ago, but it had always been too dark for him to see it properly. He wanted to inspect every scale, but she was moving, climbing on top of him. She faced away, her legs draping over his thighs, his sensitized cock brushing the small of her back. “You want to thank me properly?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
He nodded dumbly. She grabbed his hand and brought it between her legs. He took over, and slid his fingers under the lace waistband, lifting her panties away from her skin, to catch a glimpse of her mound.
She let him play, her hands reaching over her head to grip his neck, nails digging into his skin. He looked down her body as it moved and writhed on top of his, loving every inch of her pleasure. Her moans grew louder and faster, her breathing deepening, and he followed her cues, his cock perking up at the way she was massaging it with her back.
Recognizing the signs of her impending release, he pressed his lips against her ear. “You’re so close, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Come on me. Let me feel tha
t pussy squeeze.”
She inhaled deeply, her body bearing down on him. “Give me more.”
“More what?”
“More fingers. I need you to fill me up.”
He thrust three fingers inside her, widening them. “There. Better?”
“Yes.”
“Better than my cock?”
She whimpered, her hips moving faster. “No.”
He pressed his thumb tight against her clit and sent his fingers deeper, curling them to hit the spot that always made her body rock. She cried out as he massaged that flesh, not giving her a second of reprieve. He bit her neck, harder than he’d ever previously dared, and her body bowed, her inner muscles tightening and releasing on him.
When she was finally done, he stroked her flesh softly, loath to leave this wet, warm place. He wanted to do everything to her.
Every little thing. Every sexual act he’d missed and hadn’t had in so long with this woman.
His phone rang, puncturing their bubble of sexual bliss. He cursed it mentally, because she immediately slid off his legs, grabbing her pants. Whatever this interlude had been, it was at an end. He sighed and buttoned up his trousers, grimacing at his renewed erection.
His phone stopped ringing, then started again.
“You should get that,” she muttered. “Sounds urgent.”
Annoyed, he pulled his phone out from where it had fallen in the crack of the chair and glanced at the display. His father this time. His grandfather, he could ignore. Brendan, not so much. The man wouldn’t quit calling until he picked up, even if it was for the tiniest of details.
With a rough sigh, he stood and turned his back on Livvy. Though he wanted nothing more than to watch her ass jiggle as she wrestled her pants on, he couldn’t do that and speak to his father.
“Yes?” he answered the phone shortly.
“Nicholas, what the fuck is this?”
“What?”
“These protestors. We have ten stores now with picketers. An anonymous source leaked that we’re selling countless products made by prisoners. Who the fuck did that?”
Nicholas straightened, eyes narrowing. “Countless? No one knows that we’ve confirmed the two products except for you, me, and Grandpa.”