by Kira Blakely
“You just loved the food.”
Her skin flushed again. “I totally did! But I also enjoyed the company. You’ve led an interesting life, and you’re a good guy, dammit.” Pushing up on her toes, she pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.
Shawna tried to pull back, but Gage couldn’t allow it. He’d been dying for a taste of her since he’d had his last, and now that she was in his arms, he deepened the kiss. It was fiery, hungry and desperate on both their parts. She wanted this, too, but for some reason, she was holding back. Luckily, he didn’t have that problem. He held her close while his tongue plundered her mouth, fucked it the way he wanted to fuck her again. Hard and fast, then gentle and slow, until he found a pace that drove them both out of their minds with lust. Want.
Need.
Shawna pulled back and licked those kiss-swollen lips. “That was, uh… I wasn’t… that wasn’t gratitude.”
He laughed. “I know that, sweetheart. You want me as bad as I want you; I can feel it in the way you kiss me. The way you touch me. What I don’t know is why you’re fighting this.”
“Because this isn’t real, Gage. I can’t pretend to be your girlfriend and sleep with you and live with you. It’s too confusing, and I’ll end up as desperate and annoying as your regular women.”
Damn, but she had a point. He hated that. “I want to argue with you, sweetheart, I really do.”
She smiled. “I know,” she said and walked to the waiting jet.
Gage groaned and adjusted his now much tighter jeans and followed her up into the plane.
“How long until we land in Vegas?” she asked.
He frowned. “About ninety minutes, why?”
Shawna stood and shot him a saucy grin that made him so hard he groaned. “Because I think what happens outside of Vegas stays outside of Vegas.”
His smile stretched across his face. “I like the way you think,” he told her, lifting her in his arms and carrying her to the small bedroom where he tossed her on the bed. “This is gonna be fast and dirty, babe, because you’ve tortured me all night.”
She watched as he shoved his jeans and boxers down to the floor, licking her lips at the sight of his erection. “Good, because that’s what I’m in the mood for.” She stood and slowly pushed her red lace to the floor, turning her back to him. “We didn’t get to do it like this last time,” she said, before planting her palms on the bed so her ass grazed his growing erection.
“Shawna,” he growled, grabbing her hair in one hand and pulling so he could press a hard, yearning kiss to her mouth. She held his cock in her hand, stroking it against her wet folds teasingly.
“Gage, please.”
He reached for his wallet and protected them both before sliding into her wet heat. “Fuck, you’re so wet, Shawna.”
“You weren’t the only one being driven crazy at dinner,” she panted, keeping up with his punishing pace. “Harder.”
He gave her harder and faster and dirtier while she screamed his name. “Your pussy is dripping for me, Shawna; you feel it?” One hand snaked between her legs, finding her thighs drenched in her arousal. He licked his hand clean and pinched her clit.
“You dirty boy,” she growled as her body tightened and clenched hard around him.
He grabbed her tits for purchase and pounded long, hard strokes into her while she fell apart around him, his name on her lips. “You liked that, didn’t you?”
She shivered at his words spoken close to her ear, fanning her sweat-slicked skin. “I fucking loved it, Gage. I’ve never come so fast… before!” She screamed as another orgasm washed over her and finally, Gage let himself go with a roar.
“Shawna!” Her name was a prayer on his lips as his own climax poured out of his body. “Damn, woman.” He licked her neck, taking pleasure at the aftershocks making her body shake.
She collapsed onto the bed, sucking in oxygen with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
She turned over, baring her pretty pink pussy to his view. Gage couldn’t help it, he slipped a finger inside, making her gasp. “I was just thinking we haven’t even taken off yet, and I might not be able to walk after ninety minutes of that.” At his frown, she laughed. “But I’m willing to try.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” he growled and kissed her while he dropped to his knees and shoved his face between her legs, licking, biting and sucking her until her legs clamped tight on him and his name fell from her lips over and over as the jet began to taxi.
By the time they were in the air, he had Shawna flat on her back, tits jiggling while he pounded into her with all the desire he had built up over the night.
“Just like that, Gage,” she moaned, just like when she’d licked that sauce off her fingers. His own fingers tightened at her hips, knowing he would leave her bruised tomorrow.
“Like this, you mean?” Arms quaking with his desire, his hips pulled back. At her bereft cry, he slammed back in, over and over, until her pussy squeezed him, milked him and then he pulled back. “Not yet.”
“Gage, please!” She clawed at his back and biceps as her heels dug into his ass. “Please, Gage. More.”
He smiled down at her. “Darlin’, I told you I love hearing you beg.” He really did love it, more than he should, but it brought forth his animal urges. He thrust harder and deeper, palming her thighs so he could watch her pretty pink pussy glisten and pulse as he fucked her. She made him wild and hungry, he realized, leaning forward and pulling one of her tits into his mouth. God, she tasted as good as she felt, and the weeping sounds of pleasure she made drove him out of his mind.
“You’re so fucking responsive.” At his every touch, she cried out or moaned, every stroke produced a quiver. How was he supposed to get his fill of her when she was his walking fucking fantasy?
“Oh, yes, please. Gage, fuck, yeah.”
Her head swiveled back and forth, back arched off the bed so her nipples were points facing the ceiling. She was close, and he needed to be closer, pressing their bodies together until they were fully locked into one another. His strokes came long and hard and deep, his mouth kissing all over her neck and chest. Then she fell apart, and it was fucking hot. Gorgeous.
Breathtaking.
He followed soon after, roaring her name into the small jet bedroom as his own climax claimed him.
***
“Do you have an up-to-date passport?” Gage stormed into the kitchen, wearing a scowl. And no shirt. Good lord, no shirt! It really was unfair just how strikingly handsome he was, especially in low-slung mouthwatering jeans. And nothing else.
She couldn’t stop thinking about their time on his jet, but especially when he looked like he did now, all sweaty and grumpy and dripping with sex appeal. “Um, what?”
“Passport, do you have one?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We’re heading to St. Lucia next week. I have business there, and I need my girlfriend.”
Right. His fake girlfriend. “Oh, okay. How long will we be gone?”
“A week,” he grunted out and turned to leave.
“Gage, wait. I have classes that I can’t afford to miss.” There was really nothing she couldn’t miss but, damn, would it kill him to ask something once in a while? “I’m not rich like you, and no, I’m not asking you for money, but you’re asking, no you’re telling me to give up a week of work and miss classes all week.”
He stood there, silent and brooding. His silence said more than any words could and his gaze seared her. “Anything else?”
Okay, then. Apparently, this is how we are now. It had been four days since they returned from Vegas and things had been just like this. Gage was quiet and foreboding, and when he spoke, he was short and grouchy. Like she’d done something wrong.
“Nope, not a thing. Tell me when to be ready and I will. Like a good little girlfriend.” I don’t need this crap, not from him. Not from anyone.
With more attitude than was necessary, she shut off the stove and left the breakfast she�
�d made piled high on the marble counter between them. It was time to get to the library and work on her paper. And those transfer applications. She grabbed her bag, shoving the needed books inside and slipping her feet into her favorite burgundy Chuck Taylor’s.
“Shawna, wait.”
Every urge within her told her to stop, to turn around look into his sorry blue eyes and forget his harsh words. But she shoved that urge deep down, opened the door and charged out into the cold but sunny day. Whatever Gage had to say, he could tell it to himself since her input wasn’t required.
Only her submission.
No thank you. She had other things to worry about, like her thesis research and her classes. So, she parked in the student lot and took over a table by the window, and got to work. Her goal today was to finish her literature review and that was exactly what she would do now that she had most of the sources she needed for her thesis. No distractions.
Hours later, the sun had changed position in the sky and her stomach let its disapproval be known. Loudly. So, she packed up her bags and climbed three sets of stairs, feeling as though she had to dig her way out of the underground stacks before she finally made it outside. “Sweet fresh air,” she said, inhaling the crisp early evening breeze.
I didn’t realize I parked so far from the door. In the future, she would have to be more careful about that, even though she hadn’t seen or heard from Pearce since he set a small fire inside Gage’s house.
As she approached her car, Pearce suddenly stepped out in front of her, having obviously been lying in wait for her. “You didn’t think you could get away from me so easily, did you?” he asked.
“I hadn’t thought about you at all, Pearce. What do you want?” She wouldn’t turn her back on him, not now that she knew how unhinged he was.
“You, Shawna. All I want is you. I can give you whatever that pretty boy Steele can give you.”
She scoffed. “I doubt that. But I’m not interested in going back, especially after what you did.”
He stepped closer, and she stood her ground. “You talk about me, but fucking those girls meant nothing to me. I was just busting a load. I saw you fucking that asshole, giving him what belongs to me.”
“We’re done here.” She took a step away when he grabbed her arm. “Pearce, get your hands off me.”
“Why? You let everyone else touch you.”
“The lady said let her go.” A handsome black man well over six feet appeared, a menacing scowl on his face.
“Lady, what a joke!” Pearce laughed, squeezing her arm tighter. “Mind your business, dude.”
Shawna struggled and pushed away from him, causing him to grip her tighter. “Pearce, this is ridiculous. Your father can’t save you from everything.”
“We’ll see about that, you little slut,” he snarled and leaned closer with puckered lips. The words had barely left his mouth when her guardian angel yanked him in the air and tossed him on the ground.
“I told you to leave her alone,” the stranger snarled.
“You can’t run from me, Shawna,” Pearce groaned and clutched his midsection. "I will have you, bitch. One way or another.” He rolled on the ground in pain, shouting obscenities at her.
“Thank you,” she told the guy and took a few exaggerated steps away from Pearce. “I’m Shawna.”
He frowned. “I know. I’m TJ, your bodyguard.”
“My what!” She shook her head, certain she’d heard him wrong. “I think you’re confused, TJ. I’m a college student. A broke college student with no need or means to pay a bodyguard.”
His plump lips twitched with amusement. “I was hired by Mr. Steele to keep you safe.”
Of course, he was. “Well, thanks for your help just then, but that really isn’t necessary.”
“I’ll be here just the same, Shawna. I only intervened because he put his hands on you. Otherwise, I blend into the background.”
“I know none of this is on you, TJ, and really I am grateful, but this is weird.” He smiled but said nothing, so she turned on her heel and marched toward her car, feeling his protective presence the whole way. “Don’t forget about Pearce,” she tossed over her shoulder in an effort to get rid of him
TJ stopped. “Noah, your other guard, is nearby and police are on the way. He’ll make sure you get home safely, and I’ll give them a statement.” Then he was gone.
Her mood now soured, Shawna shoved her key into the ignition and drove back to her temporary home.
And my temporary boyfriend.
Chapter Eight
“You went after my boy over a piece of ass, Steele? I thought you had more sense than that!” Walter Worthington stormed into Gage’s office, uninvited, looking like the bloated blowhard he was.
Gage finished signing an invoice before looking up, calm as you please, and leaned back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. “It would be convenient for you, if that’s all this was, wouldn’t it, Walter? The truth is that your boy has overstepped this time. I have him on video assaulting one of my cocktail waitresses, his ex, if you’re at all interested. Then there’s the fire he started in my home and oh, right, he also accosted and assaulted her again over the weekend.” He gave the old man a moment to let the details sink in, his pale face proof he hadn’t been given the whole story. “Your boy needs help, not another get out of jail free card.”
Walter dropped down into the chair with an ungraceful flop and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away evidence of his discontent. “How do you know it was Pearce?”
“I witnessed the first incident, I was in my house when the fire occurred, and Shawna saw him peeking into my bedroom window. A bodyguard I hired to keep Shawna safe witnessed the last confrontation. This isn’t a piece of ass, as you so eloquently put it, Walter. Your kid has a problem and now he has a restraining order against him.”
“I can’t let him end up in jail, Gage.”
He nodded, knowing the man had been protecting the sniveling little creep his entire life. “Then I guess you’ll let your dear boy be the one to ruin what little reputation you have left in this city. And I thought it would be the new upstarts or the rumors of a hostile takeover that would do you in.” With those final words, Gage turned back to the stack of invoices he refused to rubber stamp.
“Is that a threat?”
“No, this is a threat. Deal with Pearce or I will, and I guarantee you won’t like my methods.”
The old man spluttered and choked on his words, seeming to think better of issuing another threat. Then he turned on his heels and stomped off.
Even if she wasn’t talking to him, and it was all his damn fault anyway, he would still make sure she was protected. After TJ had briefed him on what happened in the library parking lot, his first instinct was to yell at Shawna for not telling him herself, but he’d quashed that because it wouldn’t do any good. Despite everything that had happened between them, her lack of faith in him was all on him. So, he’d called up Ryker and Rafe and had them get to work on making sure that asshole stayed far away from Shawna.
She didn’t even know he’d done it, or if she did, she was still not talking to him after his behavior over the weekend. Which was a shame, really, because he couldn’t stop thinking about the return trip from California, even days later. Shawna had been so hot and sexy, responsive and eager to please. And he’d been… helpless to do anything but make her come. Over and over.
And over.
“What the hell are you grinning for?”
He looked up at his twin brother, who was blocking entry to his office. “Am I not allowed to smile since you’re a miserable dick?”
That actually pulled a smile from Ryker’s perma-scowl. “I’m not miserable, but you look like a damn creeper just sitting in your office smiling at the wall.” Ryker shook his head and took the seat Walter had just vacated. “I take it Worthington knows about his whack job of a kid?”
Gage nodded and gave him a quick rundown of their conversation. “He
’s either a complete dumbass or willfully clueless.”
Ryker stared at him, assessing him with the intensity only his brother could bring. “You’re really willing to make an enemy of Worthington over this girl?”
“Not this shit again, Ryker, all right? Shawna isn’t after my money and she isn’t in this with Pearce. What’s your beef with her?”
“No beef,” Ryker said, raising his hands in surrender. “But you don’t usually go this crazy over a woman, so I have to look out for you.”
“No, you don’t. Half the time, she can’t even stand me. Do you know she tried to get out of going to St. Lucia with me? Classes, she said, can you believe it?”
Ryker nodded. “She came from where we came from, Gage. School is her only way out of that life.” He gave his brother a thoughtful look before shuttering his emotions again. “Do you know anything about her family?”
Gage sighed. “Only that she doesn’t know her dad and doesn’t speak to her mother at all.” It hadn’t sounded like a good story and since she didn’t volunteer more, he hadn’t pushed.
“The mother is a real piece of work.” Ryker shook his head and whistled. “Basically, kicked Shawna out when she was fifteen because the loser she was dating expected them both to put out since he was footing the bills. Shawna left, and they haven’t spoken since.”
“And that’s supposed to tell me something about her?”
“No. I’m just telling you about her so you know what you’re getting into.”
“And what is that, Ryker?” Gage crossed his arms in a defensive gesture.
“She’s not like your usual women, Gage. She’s a hard worker and she has plans to be more than some kept woman. Just keep that in mind while you two play house.”
“Duly noted, little brother.”
With an amused smile, Ryker rolled his eyes. “Ten fucking minutes,” he grumbled the same way he always did. “I’m out of here. Let’s do dinner before you and the little lady jet off to St. Lucia?”