by Sybil Bartel
My front door opened.
“Olivia.”
Jesse. Big, strong, tall, blond Jesse. He had a key. He’d always had a key. But I didn’t have a key to his place. I never had. And that didn’t seem weird until this very second.
I looked up at brown eyes that used to be my anchor. “Why are you inside my apartment?”
His gaze briefly scanned the length of my body then his eyebrows drew together. “You wanted me to wait in the hall?”
Hall. Street. At his place. “You could’ve called.”
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
I patted myself down. “Because I don’t have it.”
“You lost it?” His expression said it all.
I had never lost anything. Not even my wits. But apparently tonight was a whole new ball game, complete with suck-ass decisions. And my traitorous pussy clenched just thinking about them. “Lost, left, what difference does it make?” I was a failure. At everything.
“Are you drunk?”
He said drunk like it was a four-letter word. And to him, maybe it was. I’d never gotten drunk with Jesse. In fact, he rarely drank anything besides water. “Who only drinks water anyway?”
He sighed and pulled his lips into his mouth. I used to like when he did that. It looked cute. Or something. But now it didn’t look cute. It didn’t look like anything except a big ole comparison to a dark-haired, giant-dicked stranger. A stranger who’d ruined everything I’d worked my ass off for the past year. Every second of my life had been consumed with getting this charity off the ground just to prove I wasn’t a horrible person. But I was. Horrible. I fucked strangers and I let my brother die. And I needed more alcohol. Or sex. Or a new life.
“Come on.” Jesse gently took my arm and pulled me inside my own apartment. “Let’s get you some water.”
Water. “It doesn’t fix everything, you know that, right?”
He shut the door and locked it then looked down at me. “What’s going on, Olivia?”
“Uh-oh,” I mocked him. “Now you’re serious.” I lowered my voice to mimic him. “What’s going on, Olivia? Drink some water, Olivia. Answer your phone, Olivia.” I wrenched my arm out of his grasp. “Go kiss your fucking girlfriend. I’m sure she likes it.” I wanted my couch. And some Chinese food. And more alcohol.
“Is that what this is about?” he accused. “You’re angry because I kissed you?”
I threw my shoes down and spun. “I’m angry because you should’ve kissed me years ago, but you didn’t. And now we’re here, and here?” I swept my arm around my small apartment. “Sucks.”
He took two giant strides and pulled me into his arms.
I burst into tears.
“Shh, it’s okay, Liv. I’m sorry. We’ll go back to how things were.”
I cried harder.
He was holding me. My Jesse. After I’d let that asshole fuck me and my future. Nothing was going to be okay. Everything was ruined. Everything. “I let my brother down,” I sobbed.
Strong, familiar hands swept my hair from my face and warm lips touched my forehead. “No you didn’t. He let you down.”
I froze. “What did you say?”
Jesse sighed. “He let you down, Liv. He let everyone who loved him down.”
“No.” I pulled back. “You don’t get to say that about him. How can you even think that?” He’d never said anything bad about my brother, ever.
Jesse grasped my shoulders. “He made a choice, Liv. But he didn’t have to make that choice. He could’ve reached out. He could’ve come to me or you or your mom, but he didn’t. What he did was selfish.”
I shoved him away. “How dare you!” He didn’t get to talk about my brother like that. “He didn’t have a choice. He was suffering. You of all people should understand that.” Jesse and I had never talked about this. “Why are you even saying this?”
In a rare show of temper, he threw his arm out. “Look at this place, Liv. You have a college degree and more intelligence than any woman I know but you’re throwing it all away, walking dogs for a living and selling everything to get a nonprofit off the ground that glorifies what your brother did!”
“Leave,” I ground out. “Now.”
He stormed to the door. “Maybe you should ask yourself why I never kissed you before.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off but instead, I did something much worse. “Maybe if I’d enjoyed it, I would. But I didn’t.” Asshole Alex was right. Jesse didn’t have any game. “Maybe you should’ve put a little more dick into it!”
He was on me so fast, I never saw it coming. One hand gripped a handful of my hair, the other grasped my face and Jesse kissed me, really kissed me.
My back hit the wall, his mouth slammed over mine and everything he didn’t do in our first kiss, he did now. Aggressive and hot and consuming, he ground his hips against mine and he dominated me.
But it was all wrong.
And it was over before I could make heads or tails of what was happening.
“You want more dick? I got plenty. I’m just not an asshole about it.” He walked out.
I slid down the wall and my head started to pound, literally, until I realized it was someone banging on the door.
“Go away.” I didn’t have the energy for this.
“Open up.”
“You managed to get in all by yourself before. You figure it out.” Fuck Jesse and his kiss. My head hurt.
The door swung open but I wasn’t looking at construction boots… I was staring at Ferragamos. My gaze dragged up the length of his perfect fucking suit pants and landed on a tensed jaw. “Shit.”
Alex scowled. “Your boyfriend left you like this?”
“I told you he’s not my boyfriend.” Why the hell did this asshole need to be so fucking hot? “Go away.”
“Get up,” he snapped
I didn’t move. “Who the hell died and made you boss? Leave.”
He didn’t hesitate. He reached down and plucked me up, just like he’d lifted Mrs. Pendleton off my boss. “Where’s the bathroom?”
I told myself I didn’t bother squirming because I didn’t have the energy, but in truth, he just smelled so damn good. “Put me down.” I needed to remember he’d ruined my life. And fucked me. Royally.
“You walked home barefoot,” he stated, like he couldn’t believe it.
Well, that answered one question. “You followed me?” I should’ve been pissed, but I wasn’t. I was being carried through my apartment like someone gave a damn about me and I was stupidly thinking how nice it felt. Fucking alcohol.
“You left your phone.” He pushed the bathroom door open with his foot and set me on the toilet. “You need to put a lock screen on it.” He turned the shower on.
I stared up at him. Somewhere between here and the penthouse, he’d lost his jacket. His biceps straining his dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal ropey veins and his expensive watch, he looked more than capable. He looked determined. And he’d ruined my life. “I’m supposed to hate you.”
“I get that.” He adjusted the temperature.
But I didn’t hate him. I was relieved. I didn’t have to get up tomorrow and walk yippy little dogs or kiss my bitchy boss’s ass or check fifty thousand details for a startup charity. I no longer had to sell my soul to pay a wager on guilt I’d never afford. Fate had walked into my fundraiser in an expensive suit and that was that.
Tendrils of steam filled my small bathroom and my thoughts bled into words. “I’m not admitting to shit, but if I were, I’d tell you I feel relieved. Do you know what kind of pressure I’ve been under?” Pressure not to fail. Pressure to start the charity. Pressure to do everything, every day, by myself. But now I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to do anything. I was at ground zero. I couldn’t fail anymore.
“No.” He tipped his chin at my dress. “Take it off.”
“Planning a fundraiser is like a twelve-month root canal. And no way, I’m not falling for that again.” I shook my head and slid off the
toilet but he caught me just before my ass hit the tile. “Bad shit happens when I take my clothes off around you.”
He smirked. “You’re the first woman to tell me that.”
I pointed at him. I think. “You’re bad juju.” Fuck. “Now I sound like Franklin.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Who the fuck is Franklin?”
“The Cecile punching bag.” I snorted. “I think I like Cecile.”
“Don’t get any ideas, sweetness. Submissive suits you.” His hands around my waist, he lifted and I was on my feet. “Arms up.”
I raised my arms. “Don’t think for one second that I’m submissive.” I swayed. “Because I’m not.”
“Right.” His sarcasm-laced tone said he didn’t believe a word I was saying.
He whipped my dress over my head and my mind jumped. “You did, you know.”
He blatantly scanned the length of my body and shook his head. “Damn, sweetness. Turn.” He didn’t wait for me to comply, he turned me. “What’d I do?”
“You single-handedly took down my fundraiser.” Yeah, my boss had gotten all her little friends to withdraw their bids but Alex had pissed her off. I didn’t think for a second it was just because his date had slapped her. “I should be impressed. One man with all that sway over so many women?” Most of the attendees tonight had been women. I’d chalked it up to women loving dogs more than men, but what the hell did I know? “Oh, no doubt about it, you’re gooood.”
“You have no idea.” He unhooked my bra and slowly brushed his hands over my shoulders. “But I can’t take all the credit on this one.” His jaw clenched.
“I hate my fucking boss.” I laughed but it didn’t sound funny. “Wait. She’s not my boss anymore. She fired me.” I’d never been fired. “And who the fuck is she to fire me? I didn’t get in a catfight over… over….” I looked up at him. “I don’t even know your last name.”
“Vega.”
I snorted. “Not Vegas.”
“No. In you go.” He effortlessly lifted me into the shower.
Hot spray burned my chest. “Ow!” I scrambled to adjust the temperature.
His hand closed around my wrist. “Leave it.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whined like a little girl then cowered in the corner farthest from the spray. I never whined.
He pulled me back and tipped my head to wet my hair. “Because you’re dirty.”
“You’re dirty,” I accused.
“I didn’t walk six blocks barefoot,” he calmly stated, running his hands through my wet hair.
“You fucked a stranger.” Score one for me. Wait. Damn it. I did the same thing.
His chuckle was more ironic than humorous. “Wasn’t the first time.”
Something nudged at my brain, like a big giant clue I should’ve been picking up on, but it was as if all the vodka and whiskey had put a wet blanket on my reasoning. “You should be more careful.” Did it count as fucking if I didn’t come? “I could have a disease.”
“As tight as you were? I doubt that, sugar.” He plucked my shampoo bottle out of the caddy.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Exactly as I said it. You’re tight.” His hand slipped between my legs. “There’s no one tending this garden.” He stroked me once.
My head fell back and my mouth opened on a moan and every nerve that’d been aching for release stood up at attention. He brushed his thumb over my clit then retreated.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
“You want me.” His strong hands massaged shampoo into my hair.
“You wish.” Denial. Denial was safe… Jesse was safe. I groaned and slid down the wall. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.
“Hey.”
He reached for me but I swatted him away. “Go away. I’m done with you.” I curled into fetal position with my back to the spray and closed my eyes.
“We need to rinse you off.”
“I don’t care.” I didn’t care about anything, except the gnawing bite of embarrassment in the pit of my stomach. The fundraiser, Jesse, the man with the biggest cock I’d ever felt—I shivered and for three heartbeats, I felt utterly alone. Then the shower curtain slid back and arms wrapped around me.
“Come on, sweetness, on your feet. Almost done.”
I was standing and cradled by a hard male body before I could open my eyes. I reached back for purchase and my hands encountered rock-hard muscular thighs. “You’re naked.”
His giant cock pressed into my back. “That’s the idea behind a shower.” He tilted my head under the water and rinsed my hair.
I looked up at him. Square jaw, hair wet and slicked back, his eyes the color of the ocean at night, he was even more handsome than in the penthouse. “Why are you here?”
“You left your phone.” The words fell out of his mouth too quickly.
I turned in his arms. “You’re lying.”
His intense gaze zeroed in on me and the shower shrunk to two bodies caught between the hot spray and steam. He didn’t deny it and I didn’t push. My arms went around his neck and his hand cupped my face as naturally as if we knew more than this moment between us.
“Alex.” I tasted his name, letting it slide past my tingling lips.
His thumb swept across my cheek.
And suddenly, everything caught up with me. I was in my shower, naked and alone with a strange man who didn’t have blond hair or big brown eyes. I dropped my arms. “You were wrong.”
“About?”
“Jesse kissed me again. He can put everything into it.”
His nostrils flared but his voice remained steady. “Then why isn’t he here?”
“He walked out.”
Alex’s chest rose on an inhale as his fingers worked their way through my wet hair to my head. “You’re beautiful. You don’t need him.”
“You don’t know me enough to know what I need.” I was proud I’d strung all those words together without missing a beat.
This time, it was his cock that rubbed between my legs. “Don’t I?”
I forced my muscles to hold still. “Sex doesn’t solve everything.” But sex with him? The way he was consuming me? How my nerves were hovering on the edge? I knew it would make me forget everything, at least for awhile.
He gently pushed me against the wall then bent his knees slightly. “Good sex does.” Thrusting his hips up, he gave me more pressure.
Every lick of desire he’d ignited in the penthouse returned tenfold and I groaned shamelessly. “I’m not….” Oh my God, I wanted him. “I’m not fucking you again.”
“I’m going to make you come.”
Except he didn’t say it like it was a given. He growled it like a warning and I should’ve known to push him away.
Because in the next second, he sank inside me and I lost all my resolve.
I had to know.
Just once, I had to know what this woman felt like without a condom.
And goddamn she was perfect.
But I was so motherfucking stupid. I slid halfway out of her tight heat then shoved right back in. She was so damn intoxicating, I couldn’t catch my breath. Wet hair, water-slicked skin, hard nipples, she was fucking gorgeous. Gorgeous in a way I didn’t want to think about.
I knew I’d ruined her fundraiser. Baiting that client had been a mistake. Shit, going in the first place had been a mistake. But I’d bought all the damn paintings, and now I was balls deep in the sweetest woman I’d ever felt. I didn’t have an ounce of regret. If that’s what it took to get me here, I’d do it a thousand times over.
I hitched her legs around my hips and latched on to one nipple then the other, and she unraveled in my arms. She wasn’t falling apart because she knew who I was or what I was paid for. She wasn’t getting off on some fuck fantasy of a male prostitute. It was just me and her and I wanted to come inside her more than anything I’d ever fucking wanted.
I bit and sucked my way up her neck, grinding my hips against
her clit as possessive bullshit crawled up my consciousness and lodged in my chest. “You on the pill, sweetness?” Jesus fuck, I had no business asking. I needed to pull out and put on a goddamn condom. I’d never come inside a woman. Ever.
“No,” she panted.
Fuck.
“Implant.” She lifted her arm to show me, then arched her back and pushed down on my cock.
I kissed her.
Deep and heavy, my tongue sank into her mouth and I devoured her untainted pureness. Stroking in a rhythm that matched my thrusts, I wanted all of her. The taste of her lips, the feel of her coming on my cock, the look in her eyes when she let go. I wanted her for her and I made a decision.
I pulled back just enough for her to look at me. “I’m clean.”
Her sexy, hazy, blue-eyed gaze met mine.
She looked so innocent, shit kicked at my chest from the inside and I needed to make sure she understood. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
She sucked in a breath. “The implant, I’ve never tested it. I’ve never let a guy….”
My heart rate spiked and I gripped her chin. “Your decision.” Goddamn it, I wanted this.
She squirmed and her muscles tensed around me. “You’re so big.”
“You’re handling it.” Too fucking perfectly.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
I dropped my hand to her clit and rubbed as I plunged my tongue back inside her mouth. Three thrusts and she started to come. Gritting my teeth, I pulled out and warned her. “You come on me and I’m gonna follow suit. You hear me?”
“No!” she cried out, reaching between us.
“I’m not denying you, sweetness. You need to tell me what you want.”
She grasped my cock and I jerked in her hands. “Yes, please, please, please,” she begged. “Fuck me. Come inside me.”
I shoved back into her and sank to the hilt.
We both groaned and I fucked her exactly how I wanted to, without barriers.
Pounding into her, my tongue twisting with hers, I dominated her. I didn’t think about a fucking thing except giving us both what we wanted. With the water beating down my back, her legs wrapped around my hips and her tight pussy gripping me, I started to lose it.
Her back stiffened and her thighs shook. “I’m gonna… ohmigod.” She gasped. “I’m coming.”