by Ava Claire
I whipped back to face him, ready to admit that this was fantastic and I was grateful—and I saw the same look I'd seen when we first met. His eyes were ravenous, downright sinful...and my body responded in kind. The warmth begun between my thighs and radiated outward. This wasn't just the sun on my back, a flicker of lust. I was on fire for him, all the reservations, and rule number one was called into question.
“No sex.” It came out hoarsely. There was no bite in the words, because my eyes focused on his mouth and I longed for a different kind of bite—his teeth, wrapped around the nipples that strained against my bra.
He advanced, his gaze nailing me to the ground. I saw the untamed lust in his gaze and I decided that I wouldn't run. I wanted him to eat me alive. Or at least eat...certain parts of me.
Heat stormed my cheeks, the thoughts running rampant in my head unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I was used to losing myself in the moment, but I wanted to feel everything with Xander. I wanted to savor every second.
Faint music purred from the dining room and-
Dining room.
I blinked, the world coming back to focus. We were on the patio, in full view of God knows who, and I was two seconds away from tearing off my blouse.
He was still advancing, the look in his eyes making the heat in my cheeks intensify and the wetness between my thighs was rebelling against my sense of public decency.
He backed me up against the railing and I held out a hand to keep him at a distance. “What do you think you're doing?”
“I'm going to lay you down on that cushion, spread your legs apart, and bury my mouth inside you.”
My mouth hung open in a mixture of shock and arousal. “You..but...the rule...”
His smile deepened mischievously. “I know you're used to being in charge and enforcing rules, but some rules are meant to be-” He reached out and gripped my belt, jerking it loose. “Tested.”
My head spun as I tried to muster the energy to push him back, but I had none left. The desire that had been edging up on my sense of self preservation all day hushed everything but his touch. “Xander...”
He held steady, fingers wrapped around the button, eyes capturing mine. “Say it again.”
I frowned, then gasped when he slipped the button through the hole. He was doing exactly what he said he would.
Taking off my pants and then he'd—
I melted into his embrace. I didn't care who saw, I didn't care about anything except his body and my body.
I'd never wanted anything as badly as I wanted him.
“Say my name again.”
I drew a shuddering breath and his need, my need, filled my lungs. I licked my lips, trembling as I felt his eyes follow my tongue's path, then he leaned in and retraced my steps with his own.
“Xander.”
I moaned his name with abandon and threw my arms around his neck, tugging at tuffs of his hair as he tore down my pants. My panties were next and I scrambled to discard them, the cotton thing flung to the side.
Screw the warmth of embarrassment of being watched. I felt the warmth of the sun on my butt—and I didn't even care because his fingers skated down to grip the round curve of my ass and he lifted me up like I didn't weigh a thing.
He caught his breath, his kiss swollen lips quivering as his eyes burned into mine. “Tell me you want this.” There was a hesitation swirling in the emerald warmth of his gaze. He was giving me a chance to walk away. To stand my ground about the rule that once seemed like a life raft and now was just pulling me down. The rule was drowning the intensity of this moment.
Fuck the rule.
My hair spilled into my eyes and I whipped it back. I didn't want to hide. I wanted him to hear and see my desire.
“I want this.” I kissed him hard, taking his bottom lip between my teeth and tugging until he groaned his approval. I let go and the words dripped like honey. “I want you.”
He took us to the floor, the cushions catching our bodies. I expected his hands to drop to his fly, but his hands returned to me, fingertips stroking up my calves and rounding my knees. He tore open my thighs and a gasp stole away from my lips. There was an urgency that radiated from him that made me bloom. This muscled, delicious, holy crap sexy guy couldn't wait one more moment to have me. Me.
His fingertips brushed my inner thigh and goosebumps ran wild, dialing every pore in my body up to hyper sensitive. I'd never been touched the way Xander touched me. Like I was meant to be his. Like this was the realest thing he'd ever known.
I was propped on my elbows, watching him gaze at my body like it was nirvana, right within reach. I'd never been so close to climax without being touched. When he disappeared, only the crown of his head visible, the warmth of his breath on me turned me inside out. He was just breathing, gusts of air caressing my skin and I was already panting and thrusting my hips.
He moaned against my skin, lips dancing across the seam to my core. I fell backwards in ecstasy, everything but his mouth fading to black. His tongue roamed inside me, tasting my need. Suckling my desire.
When I came I shook like I was falling apart and somehow, some way, it wasn't terrifying. No one had touched me in months, but when I blinked through the haze of lust I realized I was wrong. No one had touched me the way he touched me...ever.
Chapter Eight: Xander
“No helicopter ride to meet your parents?” Her sweetheart mouth dipped with feigned disappointment. “That changes everything.”
I swatted her ass playfully and the gasp, followed by the reddening of her cheeks as she tossed me a scolding glare, was almost enough to calm the apprehension that scrambled to my throat. The silence invaded the memories of an afternoon that morphed from business as usual to Penny—Penny's hand in mine, Penny's smile no longer hesitant, Penny letting go...letting me take us to the place we both longed to go.
And now we were headed to meet my parents.
That fact alone should have been enough to make me dig in my heels and catch a breath. This whiplash romance had my head spinning. But the sinking in the pit of my stomach had nothing to do with the gravity of introducing her to my parents. I was battening down the hatches because even though I still tasted her on my tongue, still heard her moans swirling in my ears, there was no escaping the fact that even though being with her felt as close to real that I'd been in a long time, the fact remained that I'd only met her because my father was forcing my hand. I was paying her a great sum of money to heed his wishes and it turned what should have been anxiety inducing for romantic reasons to anxiety inducing because this was an arrangement.
Just don’t think about the end. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy her and this thing, whatever it is.
For all my talk about letting go, living in the moment, and enjoying what Penny and I had, I’d been fooling myself. I saw her pop the grapes in her mouth like a bitter pill she had to swallow, eyes swimming with emotion she refused to own up to and I made a choice. I wanted to make her smile, do something gallant, and a little absurd. I wanted to show her a life that I often took for granted; I had a helicopter, private jet, and a fleet of cars to take me anywhere in the world. When she glided to the window and looked out at the city with awe, like she was moments away from pinching herself and waking from this dream, I knew exactly where to take her. Brentwood Winery was my favorite in the area and I wanted their delicious wine to coat her tongue; I wanted her to see that beauty and escape were within reach. Most of all, I wanted her to see that I was willing to do anything just to make her smile.
That was my first mistake.
My second was jokingly suggesting we swing by and meet my parents.
And then she said yes—and I realized that this wasn’t a joking matter at all.
I leaned back, trying to exude a confidence that usually came to me naturally. “It should be fairly uneventful. My father will be in his wing, under lock and key. The likelihood of him summoning us for a meeting is nil. My mother will treat you like a long, lost friend th
at’s finally come home.” I could picture the hug, my mother’s thin arms wrapping around Penny like a python, squeezing the life out of her. “And my sister-” I stopped cold, my hackles immediately raising. Marie was a lot of things: vapid, ungrateful, indulgent, and a professional liability, but one thing she was not was overly nice. If my mother dialed up the congeniality meter to 10, Marie would dial it down to zero and skip right to treating Penny like she didn’t exist at all. “Let’s just hope my sister is out spending money she didn’t earn.”
“And I thought me and my sister had issues,” Penny whistled.
I let her gaze pull me in and instead of shrugging it off, I owned up to my comment. “I have two years on my sister, but you’d think it was two decades.” My head told me that this was all too much, that she couldn’t possibly want to hear about my sibling drama, even if she could relate to feeling completely alienated from your own blood. My heart couldn’t help but share. There was something disarming in the way she searched my face like she was ready to shine a light to pierce all my dark memories. “When I was growing up, my father told me about the importance of hard work. I received constant reminders of how he put blood, sweat, and more blood into Wade Enterprises. My sister got hugs and kisses and if at first you don’t succeed, just bat your eyes and I’ll fix it for you.”
“I’m sorry, Xander,” she said softly.
I let out a rumbling sigh as I shifted in my seat and aimed my ire out the window. I ignored the sympathy I felt coming from her. I felt like I was whining, and men didn’t whine. “It is what it is.”
“You don’t have to do that with me. I know about not being seen by your family,” she murmured. The melancholy in her voice was the same loneliness I refused to name. It was easier to shove it to the dark recesses of me, throw myself into my work, and avoid it altogether.
I tilted my head in her direction, expecting to see sadness. Ready to take it head on and let her know that I’d learned not to go there, but she didn’t need my comfort. I saw the fight in her that had sparked back at the club. I saw determination.
“It would be easy to run from it all. I’m really good at running.” The sweetheart line of her lips hardening to stone. “Every time I run away, like I did this afternoon, I just give that scared little girl power over me. And that’s far more terrifying than anything they can throw at me.”
I stared at her, past the beauty, the white hot sex appeal that first drew me to her...and I saw the woman beneath. The one that didn’t need me to whisk her away to a winery because her family didn’t appreciate her. She didn’t need saving at all.
She dropped her chin to her chest, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “I’m not saying that you’re wrong to feel that way about your dad and sister-”
I brought my lips to hers, the kiss silencing her fears and soothing my own. I held onto her lips, only letting go when her hand dropped to my crotch.
“Penny Robertson, I’m beginning to think you only want me for my body,” I smirked against her mouth. The kiss alone was enough to make me wish I had a partition to roll up so I could have my way with her. The feel of her fingers wrapping around my cock hardened me instantly and in that moment, there was only one place I wanted to be...and it was between her legs.
I swept my tongue over my bottom lip and I swore I could still taste her, so I drew it over my top one too. My lips curled with pleasure at the memory of her body. How warm she was. How she invited me to taste her. Lose myself in her.
I drew my hand up her thigh and the little gasp that fell from her mouth sealed the deal. Nothing else mattered. I wanted to sink my fingers inside her, watch the way she let go when my fingers explored and I discovered every octave of the moans that flowed from her trembling lips.
Driver be damned—I wanted to make her come.
And then the GPS ruined the moment.
“In 0.3 miles, make a right on Cedar Way.”
It was barely above a whisper, as the driver kept the volume at an unobtrusive level, but it was equivalent to an alarm going off in my head. The house was on Cedar Way.
Danger! You’re almost home!
I jerked away from Penny like I’d been electrocuted. Her body went as rigid as if she’d felt the current too, then her face fell.
“Are you having second thoughts?”
The answer was yes, but it wasn’t because of anything she’d done. It was because of my fears. My worries. My time with her had been surreal and unexpected in the most amazing way. But I knew exactly what to expect with my family. Disappointment. Ambivalence. Ignorance. And for the first time, I wanted the opposite. I wanted them to morph into the loving family I refused to admit I wanted.
I wanted her to like them.
I wanted them to like her.
But how could any of that happen when I’d only met her because I was having one last night of debauchery, and the only reason we were together was because my father had ordered me to settle down, or else?
I couldn’t look at her, because somehow, she could cut through the bullshit and see the guy I hid. No amount of money or charm could shield me from those hazel eyes.
And even though my body buzzed from our kiss, my cock still stiff and holding out hope, my heart...well, I refused to even acknowledge the crazy plans it had for me...
I glanced down at my Rolex like I suddenly remembered that we had a tight schedule to keep.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” I told her with a sly grin. “Then we can make things interesting. Trust me, I’m going to get my money’s worth.”
I froze. What the fuck did I just say to her?!
“Excuse me?” she gasped.
I wanted to take the words back, my head, my fears, taking the wheel and driving me straight to Dickheadville, USA. I hesitantly glanced at her and the look on her face made my heart seize up in my chest. Her forehead was a series of lines, her eyes slits of frustration, but I saw the water that threatened to dump onto her cheeks any minute. She was hurting...and this had nothing to do with her parents or her sister. This was all me.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but she wasn’t done.
“Your ‘money’s worth?’ I let you eat me out and now you get to talk to me like I’m just a piece of tail?” I knew she was pissed because she didn’t even care that the driver could hear our conversation loud and clear. She was the kind of woman that blushed at all things sex related in public but behind closed doors was wild as hell.
She was the kind of woman that I didn’t deserve.
“I didn’t mean-” I hushed the rest of the pathetic defense I’d been ready to lobby. I could convince just about anyone of anything. To be successful in my field, you have to be able to read people and ascertain exactly what they want...so you can get them to do exactly what you want. She wanted me to tell her that what we had was special, even with all the evidence to the contrary, like my asshole comment. The unnerving part was that I wanted that too.
I had no idea how to fix this, so I opted for a subject change. “Home sweet home,” I joked, peering out the window.
She didn’t laugh. The only sound that followed my comment besides the awkward silence was the beep as the driver punched in the security code at the gate.
Whether it was daytime or beneath the cover of darkness, the Wade Estate always filled me with a paralyzing sense of dread. The property sat on top of a hill, the architect perfectly capturing how important it was for my father to look down at everyone, judging them with little mercy.
Oak trees stood like some wood and earth army, their spindly branches stretching and pointing at our car. The house itself scowled down at us, the gothic architecture more horror than the whimsical fantasy my mother usually described it as to other people.
The driver eased to a stop at the front entrance and promptly opened my door. When a chill cut through my jacket and shirt and seared my bones, I knew the meeting was going to go really well. I rounded the car to Penny’s side, holding out my hand for her. I expect
ed her to slap it out of the way, but she took it and didn’t let go as we ascended the steps to the front door. On the helicopter, her hand fit mine like that was the way it was supposed to be, her fingers twitching with excitement. There was no tremble of excitement rippling through her fingers now. It was back to business as I fed her to the wolves.
I punched the doorbell and in ten seconds or less, the door was pulled open. Branson, our family butler whose smile was as biting as a frown, stood at attention.
He cut his eyes at me, his teeth gleaming cordially. “Mr. Wade! I don’t believe madam is expecting you.”
Even though I wasn’t looking at her, I felt Penny’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline. My mother was a stickler for all things prim and proper, forcing the staff to indulge her fantasy. It was like some BBC show gone terribly wrong.
“We were in the neighborhood,” I lied.
Penny grunted under her breath, telling me she thought my reply was just as ridiculous as the ‘madam’.
I held back my smile, squeezing her hands as I performed the introductions. “Branson, this is my girlfriend, Penny Robertson.”
Branson shook her hand with more enthusiasm than I’d seen in the two plus decades that he’d been with my family. “Penny? After the-”
“Beatles song?” she finished. From the muscle that twitched near her temple, I had a feeling she got that all the time, but the warm smile she offered him when we stepped through the door never wavered. “Penny is short for Penelope. I wish I had an exciting story to share, but my mom just liked the name.”
I smirked, like I should have, but my throat clenched. That was the kind of thing I’d know if we had done this-
No more ‘right’, remember?
I dropped the panic that clutched my gut, opening my mouth to ask if she needed a tour, but Branson beat me to the punch, practically putting his arm around her shoulders to steer her away from big, bad Xander.
“I would be honored to give you a tour while madam prepares for guests, Miss Robertson.”