Veda drank in his humiliation like water, grinning maniacally as she watched him empty the rest of his cocktail before lifting it into the air and motioning to their server for a refill. He wound his finger in the air to request he keep it coming.
Veda decided she wouldn’t stop torturing him until that dinner was over. He was torturing her, after all, with the very sight of his asshole face, so she saw it as an eye for an eye. It was only fair.
Appetite apparently ruined, Todd wiped his mouth. “Veda, you’re a doctor.”
She sighed in the midst of her own bite of food. Dropping her fork, she glared at him. Had he not had enough?
Why was he talking to her?
Why, why, why hadn’t she thrown herself overboard?
“I am,” she said.
“That thing about doctor patient confidentiality,” Todd started. “I always wondered if that was legitimate.”
Veda smirked, knowing where he was going. “Absolutely. What happens between a doctor and a patient is completely confidential. A medical professional could risk losing their license if he or she ever disclosed a patient’s private medical information without express written consent. In the event a doctor did make such a colossal mistake, all it would take is one phone call to the right malpractice lawyer to get the legal ball rolling. In fact, that ball would be at top speed before you knew it. Maybe even a couple of balls would roll, come to think of it. Two balls can be such a handful, wouldn’t you agree, Todd?”
He seemed to realize she wasn’t going to stop. After being castrated, he’d insisted that the police not open an investigation, too embarrassed to make it public, but that didn’t mean Veda wasn’t going to do everything she could to remind him.
Chad Kensington cleared his throat, as visibly uncomfortable as Gage, who was close to breaking Veda’s thigh in half as she and Todd glared at each other across the flickering candles on the table.
“Speaking of balls,” Chad said, not oblivious to Veda’s obsession with the word that evening, even if he didn’t understand it. His voice lowered. “How about what happened to Eugene, huh? Brutal.”
Next to Veda, Gage whistled softly with a shake of his head. “Unbelievable, bro.”
Veda cut her eyes at him.
Bro?
Who was this person sitting next to her? She swore on her life, if the next word that left his mouth was ‘dude,’ she’d finally start listening to the wiser part of her brain, leave that table, take the elevator to the top deck, and throw. Herself. Overboard.
Chad’s hazel eyes expanded as he nodded at Gage. He was wildly handsome, black hair close shaven, with a skin tone and facial features that told Veda he was biracial. Depending on the angle, he could be a mix of Black, Asian, Caucasian—pretty much anything. Chad appeared to have gone out of his way to bury his ethnic side, from his language to his demeanor to the hair on his head—shaved down to the base, presumably to hide its natural kinky texture.
Other than that debatably problematic facet of his personality, Veda had no reason to dislike this guy. He hadn’t been a member of the rapist brigade on the balcony, unlike Todd. He hadn’t said a single rude word to her since the moment they’d met. In fact, he’d been all-around pleasant.
Veda took a deep breath and promised herself that she would give Chad a real chance. For Gage.
“They’re calling him ‘The Shadow Rock Chopper,’” Chad said.
“News last night said the search for him has already hit a dead end,” Gage added. “But they think he’ll strike again.”
Chad nodded. “They’re saying it must be personal. That The Chopper had to know Eugene, that he had to have a really serious problem with Eugene, in order to stomach doing what he did.”
“For a minute they suspected it was a medical professional.” Gage scoffed. “Turned my hospital upside down for almost a month and still came up empty.”
“I personally think it’s a woman,” Chad said. “An ex-girlfriend or something.”
Veda kept her eyes on Todd during Gage and Chad’s exchange. Every time she was sure his skin couldn’t get any more red, it did.
“Definitely sexual.” Gage nodded. “News used the words ‘genital retaliation.’ Basically insinuated Eugene has done something worthy of retaliation. I thought that was a pretty unfair label to force on him, especially since the police don’t have any solid evidence.”
Veda’s lip curled.
“Outrageous,” Chad agreed. “Eugene is as gentle as an earthworm, even though he doesn’t look it. I can’t see him doing anything to a woman that would warrant that kind of attack.”
“Sometimes we don’t know our friends as well as we think we do,” Veda said, unable to stop herself from jumping in when her heartbeat tripled. “Eugene could be an entirely different person behind closed doors. In a way, we all are. Aren’t we?”
Silence.
The three men at the table all shared looks.
“True,” Chad said. “But… Eugene.” He said Eugene’s name as if that alone was a strong enough argument to prove his point. “Eugene. A sexual deviant? I just don’t see it.”
“Absolutely,” Todd jumped in, saying exactly what Veda would expect an asshole like him to. “If Eugene ever did something as out of character as sexual assault, the woman would’ve absolutely done something to deserve it.”
Her already pounding heart went into a boil, bubbling Veda’s blood, making the veins under her skin pump with such ferocity that she was unable to stop her tongue from lashing in Todd’s direction. “And what exactly does a woman do to deserve it?”
Gage clenched her thigh.
Todd shrugged. “I’m just saying…. What was this woman wearing? What signals was she sending? What actions was she taking? What was she doing that would make Eugene comfortable enough to approach her in a sexual manner? Did she get him to the point of excitement and then cut it off halfway?”
Veda’s eyes exploded. “So we haven’t even made it to dessert and have already blamed this hypothetical woman for the hypothetical actions that led to her hypothetical rape. Wonderful.”
“I’m just saying.” Todd shrugged. “Men will be men.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Veda spat.
“Well, what do you think, Veda?” Chad asked, appearing genuinely invested in the path this conversation was taking and oblivious to the fact that Veda was about two seconds from throwing her martini in Todd’s face. Every plate at the table had gone ignored for several minutes. “A woman’s opinion always proves most interesting at a table full of men.”
“Well you’re in luck tonight, my friend,” Todd said. “This one never has a problem spouting her opinion.”
This one. She didn’t even deserve to be addressed by her own name?
Todd smiled at her. “Just ask Gage’s mom.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Gage warned him.
“No, it’s okay, baby,” Veda said, doing everything to bite her tongue and ignore Todd’s attempt to deviate the conversation. She wouldn’t let him off that easily. Holding his eyes for a moment longer, she slowly moved her disdainful gaze to Chad, trying to wipe the anger from her face. “Chad, I think that, when a rape has occurred, the appropriate person to blame is the rapist, regardless of what the woman he raped was wearing, saying, or doing. I think thousands of women are raped every day and are made to feel so much shame that they can’t even bring themselves to punish the men who did it. The men who did it because the women were ‘too scantily clad, too drunk, too flirty, or too insert-bullshit-male-privilege-reason here.’”
Chad curled his lips down with a nod.
And Veda decided, then and there, that he could stay. At least he was respectful enough to know when to talk and when to listen. Gracious enough to make her feel like her opinion was heard and valid, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with it.
Todd chortled, appearing grateful when the waiter dropped a fresh cocktail in front of him. He snatched it up from the table, and the 23 on his wrist see
med to reach across the table and take Veda around the neck. She sucked in a breath as she instantly flashed back to the night when that hand actually had been around her neck.
“What women need to understand,” Todd started after a swallow of his drink, speaking slowly as if he were in front of a class of special needs kids, “is that a man can only be brought so close to the point of fruition before he goes completely blind. Before he can no longer be held accountable for his actions and the woman has no one to blame but herself.”
Veda jolted as if she were watching a horror movie and the killer had just jumped out of the shadows. She couldn’t open her mouth fast enough to rebuke.
“Now hold on,” Gage said before she could. “If a woman is expected to be held accountable for a short skirt and a suggestive manner, then a man is sure as hell going to be held accountable for where he decides to stick his dick.”
Todd’s eyes shot to Gage. They shared a look.
Veda watched Gage with her mouth hanging open, amazed that he’d basically just read her mind and spoken her thoughts out loud, damn near word for word.
“In fact, I find it a little offensive that you’re lumping me into a class of men who are reduced to nothing more than blubbering buffoons whenever they find themselves in the presence of a pair of splayed thighs.” Gage’s eyebrows locked together as he motioned to his chest with sharp fingers. “I don’t know about you, Todd, but I’m a grown man who’s perfectly capable of curbing my sexual appetite for women who are too drunk to comply or women who flat-out say no, regardless how close to ‘the point of fruition’ she may or may not have taken me. The only person who needs to be held accountable is the grown man who tries to justify his own deviant behavior by blaming the woman, the weaker of the two. Pathetic, cowardly behavior.”
“Agreed.” Chad nodded.
Veda nodded as well, her eyes going wider every second, her heart inches from climbing straight up her throat.
“I’m feeling misunderstood,” Todd said. “You guys are misunderstanding me.”
Gage held his gaze. “Just trying to make sure you don’t go full retard on us, dude.”
Veda smiled at him.
She couldn’t even be properly bothered by the ‘dude’ and ‘retard’—both problematic—that had just spilled from his lips, too turned on by every other word that had just come out of his mouth.
And right at that moment, she heard the words flying through her head. The same words she’d had to force through her head just a day earlier, but that came easily right then.
Words that she believed, really and truly believed, in the deepest depths of her heart, for the first time since the day they’d entered her wild mind.
Gage is not your number ten.
He can’t be.
16
“Whoa.” Gage’s smile lit up his face but fell the moment Veda’s lips smashed against his, replaced with a gravelly moan from the deepest pits of his stomach. His abs clenched under her splayed fingers as they ripped open the buttons of his shirt. “Mmmm….”
Veda came to the toes of her silver high-heeled sandals as he tilted his head down. They spread their mouths wide to taste as much of each other as possible. They licked, sucked, and smacked desperately. Veda’s fingers trembled as she ripped open the buttons of his crisp white shirt, one after the other, lips sealed to his as she gave him all her weight, pushing him back against the elevator wall.
He chuckled as his back slammed into it, his laughter warming her lips.
Veda was on him like glue, wrapping her arms around his neck while tilting her head to plunge the softness of her tongue between his parted lips, matching his moans with purrs of her own as the kiss grew instantly deep.
“What in the world has gotten into you?” he breathed against her lips once she’d gotten his shirt undone. He hissed through smiling teeth when she ripped open the flaps and laid her hands against his bare chest, running her fingers over every hard peak and valley, as if desperate to touch every inch of him equally. Her nails dug in, trying to claw all the way inside him.
His smile vanished, replaced with a desire-laden frown, and her breasts were under his own traveling hands in the next second. His breathing grew ragged as he tested their weight, squeezing and spreading his lips for her when she came in for another kiss.
As they fell into the softness of each other’s lips and tongues he clapped a hand around her waist and turned them so her back was against the wall and her ass away from the camera. Moving one hand from her breasts, he slipped it under her short white cocktail dress, cupping her ass cheeks greedily, one after the other, with the same hand. He gasped into the warmth of her mouth when his touch grew impatient, dipping into the warm seat of her panties. The pads of his fingers tapped at her soaking entry.
Veda’s lips left his with a smack to make room for the moan that begged for release from her throat, digging her fingers into his hair and gripping hard.
“You were so sexy tonight,” she panted. “Standing up for that hypothetical girl, all while shitting all over that hypothetical rapist asshole.” She pressed her forehead to his, their frenzied breath meeting in the sliver of space between their smiling lips as the elevator doors slid open.
“I felt you shaking under the table,” he whispered.
“It was like you were reading my mind. I’ve never been so turned on by words in my entire life. It was like you were making love to my brain, and now I really, really need you to make love to me.” As if her words were sending fuel gushing through her veins, her hands flew to the belt and zipper of his pants, undoing them. Gage held her body flush with his, guiding them out of the elevator. Veda locked her arms around his neck for leverage as they stumbled out into the hallway that led to their suite.
Their lips met again and they tripped over each other’s feet as they went slamming into the hallway wall, both crying out when Veda slipped her hand into his undone pants and wrapped her fingers around the hardness tenting his boxers.
“I’ve missed this so badly.” Gage bent down, cupped her ass, and stood tall again, forcing her off her feet.
Her legs slung around his waist with ease, ankles locking at the small of his back, lips searing another kiss to his as he carried her down the hall.
“I missed it too,” she said into his mouth, whimpering as he moved his kisses to her neck, showing ample attention to her most sensitive spots with hot laps of his tongue and nips of his teeth.
Holding her up with one hand while digging the other into his back pocket, Gage struggled to seize the keycard as every inch of his body quivered for her.
Veda ground her hips into his, feeling how easily her cotton panties moved, aided by the wetness of her aching walls.
“God, hurry,” she begged.
And he did, finally retrieving the keycard, forced to swipe it several times before the door clicked, signaling it was unlocked.
He threw it open and they stumbled inside.
The owner’s suite of Blackwater Cruises was the most beautiful Veda had ever seen. Decorated in deep purples and solid gold finishes, with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the beach and the orange cast of the setting sun, it was simply breathtaking.
Since they’d arrived on the ship, she hadn’t been able to enter that room without first taking a moment to revel in its beauty.
But that evening, the only beauty she wanted to revel in was the heavenly feeling of Gage’s thick cock spreading her soaking walls to the brink, making her worry he might split her right in two before he filled her to the hilt and sent every pleasure center in her body exploding to life, reminding her for the millionth time that he fit just right. Just snug enough for the swollen head of his dick to tap at her G-spot, making her bones convulse as shard after shard of incredible ecstasy flew through her.
Their lips danced as he carried her up the stairs to the second level, where a king-sized bed with all white bedding awaited them, plush and inviting and overlooking the entire suite, including t
he gorgeous ocean view.
Their kisses were slower now. More patient. They took their time tasting each other’s unique flavor, savoring the shots of unbelievable happiness each sweep of their tongues elicited, the monumental need each nip of their lips birthed, and the amazing anticipation of the bed that awaited them just a few feet away.
Gage enjoyed their deep kiss for several more moments once he’d made it to the edge of the bed, tilting his head back and forth as if he couldn’t decide what direction he enjoyed plowing into her more before finally laying her softly on her back.
Veda felt her curls fanning out behind her on the white duvet. She smiled as his eight-pack tightened when he leaned over and seized the straps of her dress. He pulled one of them down, taking her pert brown nipple between his lips the moment it came into his view, sucking it until she screamed from each amazing shot of pleasure. He did the same to the strap of the other side, letting her nipple plop from his lips with a smack, glistening with his love, before moving to the other to give it the same attention.
He flicked it with the tip of his tongue, just the way she liked it, smiling when her purrs moved to begs as he yanked her dress down her waist and over her writhing hips.
“I love you so much,” he said, his soft lips tickling her nipples before he stood tall and dropped her dress to the floor.
He removed the rest of his clothes, letting his hooded eyes run up and down her body until he was fully naked as well, his hardness reaching for her as desperately as her eyes begged for him, saturated with her need. His arousal let those heavy eyelashes of hers know they weren’t alone, the aching tip nearly purple, throbbing to get inside, to get wetter, warmer, already glistening with a dot of precum at the tip. When Gage stood for too long, just watching her, that dot raced away from the throbbing head and dripped to the floor, so hungry he was for release.
Veda reached for him when he finally leaned down on the bed, his flexing arms on either side of her, his weight causing sinkholes in the mattress. She spread her thighs wide, squealing when he took hold of her waist and tugged her down with ease, bringing her ass to the edge of the bed.
Purr (Revenge Book 3) Page 12