by Susan Stoker
It was a simple text, a time and an address, the only personal affectation? See you there.
She still hadn’t added him to her phone, his number listed at the top of the text like some stranger, and, if she were honest with herself… he still was.
Two days.
She had only known Finn two days, but he was running through her mind more than any other boytoy ever had. Worse, she had climbed on his lap last night expecting him to fuck her in the glittery glow of those lights that had come on like magic, but instead he’d pushed her away. Insisted she come to his party. Tonight.
“Do you have an update, Aubrey?” Tania, her boss, stared at her across the table as Michael closed up his notebook after his presentation.
Locking her phone and tucking it under her leg in the chair, she smiled at the room and tried to switch gears. “The Pierson account is on track, and I’m verifying a few expenses with their admins to ensure we’ve categorized them appropriately, but I believe we’re well situated to give them good news come tax time. Also, I know last week we discussed the issues that happened in Dipszinski’s account, but I reviewed those line items and they will not recur this year. The adjustments we made with his office staff for their documentation should not result in a second audit.”
“Anything else?” Tania asked, and Aubrey felt a trickle of sweat roll down her spine. Her mind was scattered, and the question threw her more than it should have.
Was there something else she was supposed to provide an update on?
Swallowing, Aubrey plastered on the confident smile her mother had trademarked in her movies and passed on to her through the grace of genetics. “That’s all.”
Confidence won out, because Tania’s gaze moved to the next person in line to report, and Aubrey breathed a sigh of relief. Addled and aroused was not the optimal state for anyone to be in, much less someone in her position, dealing with multi-million dollar accounts that the IRS would positively love to dive into. Foreign investors, film-based expenses, costs both abroad and domestic? It was a swamp of information that she was supposed to be an expert at dealing with.
And, under normal circumstances, Aubrey was the person you’d want on your side.
Hell, her own parents had turned over their finances to her before she was even done with her degree. She was that good. But lately she’d been fuzzy, distracted. Her needs bleeding into her head during the day when she needed to be fully present.
It was the damn itch.
And Finn had had the chance to scratch it the night before. She’d climbed onto his lap hoping for it, but then he’d kissed her like the world was ending just before he’d pushed her away.
Was she losing her touch?
Or, worse, had she come across as desperate?
Their morning meeting ended and she wandered back to her office in a daze, finding the stale, cat food scented card he’d handwritten still peeking out from under her keyboard. She glanced at the clock on the wall knowing without a doubt that nine o’clock was going to take forever to arrive. Even with the sleek white dress hiding in her car, the bottle of vodka in the floorboard below it, she didn’t feel ready for whatever his party was.
His friends had made it sound like a big deal, cheering when she confirmed she’d be attending. Finn’s acolytes, disciples, whatever you wanted to call them—they worshipped him, and this party was clearly their church.
Aubrey just wasn’t sure she was ready to be baptized.
Seeing a guy for a second time was landmark enough. Not fucking him when she saw him a second time, and still agreeing to see him a third?
That was something so disturbing that Dr. Kirkland would actually call it progress.
Wrinkling her nose, she shoved the card completely under the keyboard and pulled up her email. Aubrey may not know what this party was going to be like, but at the end of the night Finn had made a simple guarantee to the hushed group that had only grown larger while they had been hiding on the roof—this party would be wild, wicked, and the theme was white and gold. The rest of the theme? A surprise.
People had been excited, thrumming with energy, but Aubrey had been thrumming with something else entirely. Her clit aching, her eyes wandering to a few of Finn’s friends who had looked her over as she’d laughed with them. So many possibilities…
And why exactly hadn’t she gone home with one of them?
Because you’re an idiot, she cursed herself and opened the first email in the list. She had a full day’s worth of distractions to keep her mind off of Harald Finn Solberg, his gorgeous body, his royal connections, and his hard—no. Work. She absolutely, positively needed to get to work.
***
“What did you say?” Finn covered one ear as the workmen around him dropped another pallet onto the tile, the sounds of drilling and hammering echoing off the high ceiling. Retreating towards his bedroom for a little bit of quiet, he pressed the phone closer to his ear.
“What the hell is going on over there?” Dick the lawyer asked, clearly irritated, which tempted Finn to go stand in the middle of the chaos just to fuck with him.
“Nothing. Why are you calling?”
A sigh was his only answer for a moment. “I said that Dr. Connor refused to discuss your progress.”
Finn grinned and nodded at a delivery guy who had followed him, signing his name on the proffered device. “Yeah, that whole doctor—patient privilege thing is a real bitch.”
“You’re supposed to be getting help, Finn.”
“Who says I need help, Dick?”
“Do you want me to call your father? He’s asked for an update, and all I have to do is…” The end of Dick’s rant was obscured by the steady beep of another incoming call. Pulling the phone away he was shocked to see Aubrey Dean across the screen.
With a grin that threatened to crack his jaw, Finn put the phone back to his ear. “Do whatever you want to do, Dick. I have a call I need to take.”
“Harald Finn Sol—”
Ending the call with the lawyer, Finn accepted Aubrey’s incoming call and quietly shut the door to his bedroom. “Hello, beautiful.”
“Really, Finn?” Her voice was a purr mixed with a hushed laugh, and his balls tingled just hearing it.
“What? Like you don’t know you’re gorgeous?” It was his turn to laugh as he wandered towards his windows, staring out at the afternoon sun baking the city far below him. “I thought we were past that level of bullshit.”
“I think you’re mostly bullshit, so if we’re past it, I’m not sure what’s left.”
“Ouch.” He grinned as he said it. “I’m guessing you finally saved my number?”
“No, I just hit the call button on the info from the text. Why would I need your number in my phone?” Aubrey’s sass had him chuckling again as he stretched and turned away from the windows towards his bed, falling backwards over the end of it.
“Having second thoughts about attending the party?” he asked, a tight ball forming in his stomach as he listened to her typing on the other end of the phone.
“Just curious what’s going to happen. Why don’t you tell me? There are still so many hours to fill before it starts.” If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she was as turned on as he was, that sultry hum to her voice just one hard thrust away from an all-out moan.
“What do you think is going to happen, Aubrey?” Smiling at the ceiling, he waited, listening to her typing slow, and then cease altogether. She was thinking, and so was he.
“Are you going to fuck me?” she asked quietly, and he laughed.
“Maybe.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“I do have quite a dick, but you know that already, don’t you?”
“Eh, it was alright.” It was only the smile in her voice that saved a wound to his pride, and the fact that he’d felt her twitching around his cock as he’d pushed inside her, heard her moan as he’d filled her and she’d squeezed him tight as a fist.
“Do you want me to fuc
k you, Aubrey Marilyn Dean?” Finn grinned at the ceiling, moving his hand down to the growing erection at his hips, stroking just enough to imagine her fingers. The way she’d brushed him in the bar just before their bathroom quickie.
“Maybe,” she purred, and then they both laughed.
Don’t good things come to those who wait?
Yeah, that old quote was true sometimes, but he’d always been a fan of Carrie Fischer’s mantra: Instant gratification takes too long. And what he wanted more than anything was to show Aubrey everything his world had to offer, to ruin her and all of her beliefs about her flaws so that she could see everything she was capable of—then she’d be free, and then she’d be perfect.
“Tell me what you’re doing right now.”
“I’m working,” she grumbled, and he could hear the eye roll in her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Nursing a hard-on that I got the second I saw your name on my phone.” The stunned silence on her side of the phone made him grin again as he popped the button on his pants and slid the zipper down to free the strain of his erection. “Want to tell me what you’re wearing?”
“Right now? A coral dress and tan heels.”
Finn didn’t even hesitate. “Underwear?”
“Of course,” she said, tone quiet.
“Take them off.” More. Stunned. Silence. “Aubrey?” he growled into the phone, finally wrapping his fist around the base of his cock to squeeze as he heard the soft whine of need in her voice.
“Fuck, fine. They’re soaked anyway.” Her irritated response made him smile.
“Are you saying I make you wet?”
“About as wet as I make you hard,” she retorted.
“So dripping wet then.” The pace of his stroking increased as he imagined her in her fancy office, facing off with some computer full of accounting shit, holding her damp panties in her hand. “Throw them away.”
“What?”
“Come on, you know you don’t need them. Just a few more hours and you’ll be here.”
“You still haven’t told me what’s going to happen at this party,” she answered, but he knew she’d tossed them. Her voice was a little more teasing, the hum of her tone just close enough to a moan that he was imagining her on top of him, riding slowly, with her chocolate waves backlit by the sun streaming in. “Tell me.” She almost sounded like she was begging and he bit his lip for an instant.
“The same thing that happens at all my parties, Aubrey.” It took more effort than he thought to keep his tone steady as he continued to jerk off to the sound of her voice, to the knowledge of her sitting commando in her fancy office chair, but he knew there was no fucking way he’d last five minutes at the party if he didn’t come before—and coming with her on the phone would be even better.
“What’s that?” Her question was breathy, and he imagined her fingers busy between her thighs, his balls tightening at the thought.
“Are you touching yourself right now, Aubrey?” A beat of silence in response, and he groaned low. “Go on, I know you’re wet. Touch yourself.”
“Finn…” She practically whined his name, and he stilled his hand to hold off his orgasm, squeezing as he listened to her soft breathing, the muffled, feminine sounds of her suppressed moans.
Fuck, this is hot.
“This party is about you letting go.” He started to stroke himself again as he answered her, steadily returning to the pace that had his spine tightening, his thighs tensing with the urge to thrust somewhere warm and wet. “It’s about you not trying to fit some fucking mold, to be someone who matches society’s bullshit expectations. Tonight is all about you getting what you want.”
Aubrey didn’t even speak, she just moaned softly, and he almost came at the visual of her thighs spread wide under her desk, her fingers buried deep.
“You have to ask yourself… what would you do if there were no rules? No expectations of you?” He clenched his jaw, holding off on coming for a minute longer even as her soft pants echoed against his ear like he could feel them. “Who would you be if you knew you’d be accepted just for being you?”
There was a strained moment where his body tensed, but he stilled his hand, gripping firmly, because he wanted to hear her come apart, and she was so close—so fucking close.
Reel her in, Finn. Get her to show up.
“You don’t intimidate me, Aubrey, you fucking fascinate me, and I want to see what you’ll do if you get to indulge for once. No guilt, no shame, just pure decadence. Pure hedonism.” Her moans were almost too loud for where she was, and he grinned, picking up his pace again. “Come, Aubrey. Let go, stop trying to hold yourself back. I want to hear it.”
Closing his eyes against the sunlight, he pictured her, remembered how she’d clenched tight as she’d come, her legs clamping down around his hips as she’d arched against him, and he thrust into his palm as the sweet, muffled sound of her cry came over the phone—and then he felt it. That blinding shock of ecstasy tightening his balls, turning his muscles rigid as he surged up into his palm, thinking of her, listening to her perfect sounds, and he growled her name as he came.
“Fuck,” he hissed as his vision returned and the world blurred back into view. If it weren’t for the panting breaths coming through the phone he would have assumed the orgasm had rendered him deaf. A low laugh rumbled out of him, shocked by the intensity of it all, by the impossible perfection of Aubrey Dean. “That was—”
“The party starts at nine, right?” She was breathless, but her tone was focused and it made him smile.
“Yes,” he answered with sated laughter still in his voice.
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
“See you—” then. Finn grinned as he lifted the phone to see the call had ended, and then he dropped his arm to the bed, slowly realizing the mess he’d made of his shirt and bedding and… well, everything. “Fucking hell,” he groaned, still feeling the tremors in his muscles that were way too intense for phone sex.
Well, phone sex with anyone except her. With Aubrey, he wasn’t that surprised.
Ripping his shirt over his head, he used it to wipe up as best he could, and then he stripped completely to head into the shower.
There was still so much to do before the party was ready—and it had to be perfect.
Chapter Six
Muttering under her breath, Aubrey tapped her small, gold clutch against her palm, waiting for the elevator to get to the forty-second floor. One floor from the penthouse—which meant that Finn’s friends also hadn’t lied about him having money—and she was already twenty minutes late to his infamous party, and sans one forgotten bottle of vodka.
It had been a stupid idea to drive home for a shower, but that damn phone call had left her thighs sticky and her mind buzzing. Just a single moment of weakness and it was like her fingers had called him of their own volition, and then she’d slid the devious digits between her thighs when he’d suggested it and listened to him come right along with her.
Prince fucking Finn was in her head.
Where the hell is your self-control, Aubrey?
The sudden ding of the elevator had her thoughts scattering, rushing out the doors, heels clicking over the tiles as she walked halfway down the hall. Music pulsed from inside, and she tried to center herself. To get some semblance of control over her racing heart, the strange twisting, fluttering feeling filling her stomach.
I want to see what you’ll do if you get to indulge for once.
Finn’s voice in her head, beckoning her to knock, to ‘let go’ like he’d suggested. Before she could second-guess her repeated stupid decisions, she rapped her knuckles against the door and smoothed the dress.
It swung inward, the music even louder as a barely dressed blonde in gold lingerie smiled at her, “Name?”
“Aubrey.”
“Oh.” The woman smiled and pulled the door wider to allow her to step inside. It was a small foyer, the walls close by, a long table lining one side below a huge
mirror. “You’ll need to leave your phone and purse with me before you join the party, Ms. Dean.”
Noting the use of her last name, and the odd tone in the beautiful woman’s voice, Aubrey handed her the tiny clutch without argument. “I’m guessing Finn told you about me?”
“He mentioned that you were on the list.” Leaning past to set her clutch on the table, the woman turned around to a black box on the floor behind her, taking out a dark green, shining laurel wreath. She nestled it in Aubrey’s dark curls, fidgeting with her hair like this stranger actually cared how she looked. It was… weird. “Perfect, now Finn can start the party.”
“Wait, it hasn’t started yet?” she asked, glancing towards the end of the entryway.
“Not officially.” The girl smiled and walked ahead of her so that Aubrey had no choice but to follow. As soon as they rounded the corner, her eyes went wide. Huge, white columns towered over the space, scraping the ceilings that had to be eighteen feet at least. Sheer drapes formed sections in the gigantic room that was already filled with people, and for a moment Aubrey tried to figure out the square footage of Finn’s condo, cross-checking it against real-estate costs in LA, and the high-rise location—and found herself coming up with a number that had her head spinning.
He was either very, very wealthy, or very, very stupid.
“Aubrey,” the amused hum of his voice had her smiling before she turned her head to see him, “the laurel crown fits you.”
She laughed, eyeing the golden version that sat slightly askew atop his blond hair, those Mediterranean Sea eyes rolling over her curves. Finn was wearing an actual toga, the covering revealing part of his muscular chest that she’d only felt up to this point, irked by the sudden tingling heat between her thighs. No, he’d already had the upper hand that afternoon, and it was her turn. Tilting her head, she openly evaluated him from head to toe before grinning. “You’re throwing a toga party like some pathetic frat boy? Really… I expected more, Finn.”