by Marni Mann
I looked at him again, reminding myself that we were having a conversation about his sister, not his fingers, or where I wanted them on my body. He’d apologized for something that wasn’t his fault. I owed him something similar. “I’m sorry for making an unqualified assumption, and for avoiding you all day because of it. It was wrong of me.”
“Now that I know the truth, I’m glad it happened. It shows me how much you care.”
But I wasn’t supposed to care, was I? And neither was he. That was what we’d agreed to: business only. Our encounters had been incredible mistakes that would never be made again.
I glanced away, unwilling to meet his eyes. If I did, he’d see the truth, which I was sure he could already feel in my body, hear in my voice, sense in my posture. But my eyes would confirm it, without question. I had told him we needed to end things, and I needed to stick with that, to stay strong.
“Look at me.”
He was inside my head again, responding as if I were speaking my thoughts aloud.
“I can’t.”
I felt him stand from the couch and move around to the front of me. Then his hands were under my arms, lifting me off the cushion and wrapping me around his waist. “Look at me, Frankie.”
“I—”
“Look at me.”
He wasn’t going to give up until I gave him what he wanted, and from this position, I couldn’t avoid him forever. Slowly, I raised my eyes and met his gaze. I felt it in every part of my body. If looks could devour flesh, his did that to me. His mouth parted and he sighed over my face.
“Fuck…I want you.”
I wasn’t sure which one of us had said that, but I felt like it had come from me.
FIVE.
DEREK
HER BODY WAS SPEAKING to me, telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. But her mind was holding her back. There was fear in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of me; she was afraid of what would happen between us, what would come of us professionally if things didn’t work out personally. I understood that. Before her, I’d never craved a woman longer than the hours my cock had been sunk inside her. Frankie broke every single rule I’d set, every promise.
How could I ever give a woman more than just the one night and one morning? Hell if I knew. But I knew I wanted something more with her, something I couldn’t define. The desire for it was there, and that was enough for now.
I didn’t think I could let go even if she wanted me to. Her ass was resting on my palms; her heels dug into my lower back as her hands gripped my shoulders. It all felt perfect.
So fucking perfect.
“I’m giving you a chance to change your answer,” I said.
She ran her fingers over my beard. I knew then what she was going to say, but I let the moments of silence pass between us, allowing her to feel like she had some control. The second I dipped inside her panties, which we were just moments away from, her control would be gone.
“Derek, I…” I stared at her lips, watching how they moved when she spoke my name, how they remained open when she paused and no sound came out. She was so beautiful, so raw, trying so hard to be strong after telling me about Hayden. It hadn’t been easy for her. I wanted her to feel like she could trust me with more than just her body, even if that truth involved my sister.
“If you want me, if you want this, then you have to tell me. And it has to be now.” I looked at her wrist. The bracelet she knew I liked was wrapped around her delicate skin; it was the one I had once asked her to wear. She had worn it today and that told me everything I needed to know. “Because Frankie, I don’t believe you really want things between us to end.” Her cheeks darkened and her pupils began to dilate with need. “If you tell me you don’t want me, I’ll…” She had to know I would respect her despite what I wanted. “…I’ll put you down and I’ll leave your condo. What happened between us won’t affect what we have professionally. I promise. But if you want me, then—”
Her fingers clenched my whiskers and pulled me toward her; her lips crashed against mine, her tongue teasing its way into my mouth. She moaned as I tightened my grip on her ass, lowering her enough to grind her against my dick. My cock was so fucking hard; it was begging to be let out of my jeans and plunged into the sopping wetness that I knew was waiting for me.
I was done waiting.
I carried her to the kitchen and sat her on top of the island, on the same stone slab that had separated us earlier. I dug out my wallet and grabbed the condom I kept in there.
Those gunmetal eyes were so passionate, so demanding as I held the foil between my fingers. “Fuck me,” she begged, her command making my dick throb even harder.
“I’m going to reward you for saying that.”
“Please, Derek. I want you now.”
I unbuttoned her pants and yanked them off, and did the same with her panties, but left her heels on. Then I unbuttoned my jeans and dropped them just far enough to free my cock. I tore open the foil and rolled on the condom before I pulled her to the edge of the counter. “Put your hands around my neck and don’t let go.” She obeyed my order. “I don’t care how good it feels, you are not to move your hands—do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she moaned. Her lips were on my cheek, traveling toward my ear.
My dick rubbed against her thigh as I caressed her clit. She was more than ready—wet, warm, tight, and hardening under my touch. As much as I wanted her, I didn’t want to hurt her. So I drove two fingers into her pussy, opening her wide enough to fit my dick. Her cunt curved around me, her grunting vibrating against my chest as her fingers clasped my shoulders. “Does that feel good, baby?”
She leaned her head back and opened her eyes. The city lights shone across her face the same way they had in the hotel room. She was fucking delicious.
She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “Yes…it feels sooo good.”
“Are you ready for me?”
She nodded, and I slowly pulled my fingers out. I moved closer and eased my tip into her. “You’re so goddamn tight,” I hissed.
Her legs squeezed around me. “Let me feel you, Derek.”
I rocked my hips forward and sunk into her. Her pussy was so warm and so snug, it practically clutched me when I banged my balls against her.
“Oh my God,” she yelled. “Don’t stop.”
I held her face and forced her eyes open. “Tell me what you want.”
“This—”
“No, Frankie.” I kissed her quickly, reminding her of the claim I had on her mouth, on her body, on the pussy I was buried deep inside. “Tell me what you want.”
She glanced at me sidelong, her eyes slowly closing. “You, Derek. I just want you.”
I wrapped my hands under her ass and lifted her off the counter. As her heels rubbed the back of my thighs, urging me to give her more, I hissed across her cheek. “You’re going to get me. All of me. All night long.”
“I hope so,” she moaned. She tipped her head to the left. “My room is that way.”
“Fuck the bedroom.”
“Good, I’m sick of it.”
I kicked off my jeans and moved through the living room, driving into her with each step, searching for a wall that had nothing hanging on it. When I found one, I pushed her against it and used my weight to hold her there. Squeezing her ass, spanking it with just the tips of my fingers, I plunged in and out of her hole.
“Kiss me,” I demanded. My other hand roamed her body until I found her tit, then with each thrust, I squeezed her nipple, pulling it through her shirt and the lace of her bra. Her back arched, her heels now puncturing my ass. The points felt like blades, which only made me fuck her harder.
“Oh…” she breathed, “my…” she grunted, “…GOD!” she yelled. She tightened around me as I pulled out, pausing at the tip of my cock before shoving all the way back in.
“I know you want to come.”
“Yes…God, yes.” Her nails dug into me now too, stabbing my neck as she clutched tighter. “I don�
�t know how much longer I can hold off…”
I rocked forward, thrusting again and again. My balls tightened as I tried to keep from shooting my load. “Come with me, Frankie.”
“Now?”
“Yes—right fucking now.”
I waited for her body to shudder, for her pussy to contract, for her screaming to fill my ears before I let go and emptied every bit of my cum. Her heels dropped as her arms went limp, but her hands remained around my neck. She didn’t want to let go…and I hadn’t told her she was allowed to.
“I don’t know how you do that,” she said as she finally stilled.
“Do what?”
“Make my body feel the way that you do.”
“Your own fingers can’t do the same thing?” I knew the answer I just wanted to hear her say it.
She straightened and lifted her head away from the wall. My lips found her neck, her vein, her pulse speeding up, tapping against my mouth. “No, not even close.”
I pulled back and read her eyes. “You touched yourself, didn’t you? After I told you not to.”
The corners of her lips curved down, and her nose scrunched up. That told me everything I needed to know.
“You were warned,” I growled.
“In my defense, I had broken things off with you. So technically, I was allowed to touch myself whenever I wanted.” While I carried her down the hall, she nuzzled her face into my neck, her tongue darting over the skin she’d clawed just moments before. Her lips then caressed it. “Am I being punished for it?”
I reached the room at the end of the hall and turned on the light. “Yours?” I confirmed.
“Mmmhmm.”
I passed a large walk-in closet and continued on until I reached the bathroom. I tried all the switches near the door until I found one that controlled the recessed pin lights, which gave the room a faint glow.
Stopping near the tub, I leaned her back so I could look at her face. “Fuck…I can’t get enough of you, my pink ivory.” I’d wondered all day if I’d ever be able to call her that again, if I’d ever hold this perfect ass or feel her soft, wet flesh wrapped tightly around my dick. And now I had her back—this dangerous, gorgeous woman who had changed me, who had made me do things I never thought I would.
Who made me feel things I’d never intended on feeling.
“So have me again,” she said. “And again after that.”
“No demands. You’ll get what I give you.” I set her on the marble bench inside the walk-in shower and turned on the water. While I waited for it to warm, I pulled off her shirt, unclasped her bra and got her fully naked.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” She stuck her foot under the stream.
I watched the way the water ran along her shin, how it coursed over her feet when she rubbed them together. I imagined how it would taste when mixed with the flavor of her skin.
I couldn’t wait one more goddamn second.
Quickly flushing the used condom, I then dropped my clothes on the floor and stepped into the shower. After pulling her off the bench, she joined me under the waterfall head, the side jets that were mounted into the wall sprayed over the top and bottom half of our bodies. It was a shower that transformed into a steam room, built for someone who didn’t just use it to wash, but someone who needed to relax too. I had constructed one very similar in my house in Portsmouth.
Frankie’s skin was glossy from the stream, her delicate neck fully exposed, her hungry fingers running through her hair…fingers I wanted clamped around my cock. She was decadent. Vulnerable. It took almost every ounce of self-control I had not to spread her legs and plunge my bare dick inside her.
The body wash I squeezed into my hand smelled like the beach and I massaged it over her. I rubbed small circles around her tits, her nipples hardening on my palms. I dipped my face, brushing my beard over each one.
“Ohhhhh,” she moaned, panting. “That feels so good.” Her hands went to my chest and slid down my abs and slowly moved back up my sides. Starting just below my armpit, she traced the black scripted letters that were tattooed over my ribs, ending at the side of my waist. “White,” she said, reading the ink.
It had been on my skin for so long, some days I forgot it was there. But when I was reminded, it reinforced what I needed to do, what Hayden and I needed to accomplish. It was my outer-most layer, hardened like bark to protect the rings within.
It was more than my protection.
It was me.
“It’s an odd word to have permanently written on your body.” My eyes followed her fingers. “What does it mean?
Maybe I would tell her one day. I’d let her into that part of my life and explain what had happened to my family and how I planned to make it right. But not today. “It’s my favorite color.”
She laughed, the sound echoing off the stone and glass, loosening her body even more in my hands. “For some reason, I don’t believe you.”
“No?” I kept working those small buds between my thumb and pointer finger, pulling and teasing, getting them ready for my teeth.
“No,” she sighed as pleasure spread over her face. “Your favorite color is in the beige family—natural, earthy and woodsy like your architecture…like your passion.” She chewed the corner of her lip. “Either that, or whatever color lingerie I happen to be wearing when you take it off with your teeth. But it’s definitely not white.”
That description…I wanted to taste it.
I grabbed her ass, pulling her against me as I took her mouth again. While she sucked the end of my tongue, I lifted her into the air, sat her on top of the bench and kneeled in front of her. Then I spread her legs as wide as they could go and buried my face between them.
“Ahhhhh,” she moaned, her thighs closing in on my cheeks. “Derek, your tongue…”
I looked up at her, my lapping coming to a stop. “What about my tongue?”
“Don’t…fucking…stop.”
I flicked it again, slower this time, taunting her with it. “Remember that punishment you asked about?”
“Oh God…no.”
“This,” and I lapped her clit, “is going to continue for a long time.”
“And what constitutes a long time?” She closed her legs again, but I pushed them apart. Her back arched as more moaning escaped from her lips.
I licked her again. “When you’re screaming so loudly to come, and your whole body is shaking with need, and you can’t take another second of it.”
“And then?”
“Then…” I dove back in, feeling how close she was getting as her pussy closed in around my fingers, her clit hardening under my tongue. “…and only then…” I tilted them up toward her G-spot and let her feel both sensations before I paused. “…will I reward you.”
“But…but I can’t take much more,” she panted.
I smiled. The look of pleasure and frustration that crossed her face was so beautiful. “Yes, you can, Frankie. And you will.”
SIX.
FRANKIE
I WOKE UP to pounding. It was louder than just a regular knock; it was a fist hammering against my front door. I checked the time on my phone and found it was a few minutes past six.
I gently lifted the blanket, trying not to wake Derek as I grabbed a robe from the bathroom and shut the bedroom door. I looked through the peephole and saw Reed. What the hell was he doing here? It was shocking enough to wake me fully.
“Frankie?” He knocked again. “The doorman said you haven’t left for work yet. I know you’re in there.”
I considered remaining silent, but I wanted him gone. “It’s…not a good time, Reed.”
“Just open the door.”
I knew he wasn’t going to go away until I let him in. But how had he gotten up here? I remembered the list that the front desk kept on file of the people who were sent straight up to my condo without the doorman calling me first. Anna, Brea, and my father were on there, but I thought I’d taken Reed off after we’d broken up. I was furious wi
th myself for forgetting to do it.
I opened the door just a crack and looked through the gap. “I’m not dressed.” But Reed was—fully showered, shaved, and holding two coffees in his hands. His cologne tickled my nose like a room full of dust.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen.” He slipped his hand through the narrow opening and pushed it wider, giving himself enough room to move inside.
“Reed, you can’t just barge your way in here.”
He slid in past me, stopping when he reached the living room. He placed the coffees on the table. “You left last night before I could—”
“Frankie…”
Our heads swiveled toward my bedroom, where Derek stood in the archway wearing a pair of jeans…and nothing else. My eyes ran over his hard chest and the bottom of the tattooed letters that peeked out from under his arm. He was the sexiest man I had ever been with; it was all the more obvious with Reed being so close by for contrast. I slowly looked over at my ex. His jaw flexed as he ground his teeth.
“Are you okay?” Derek asked me.
“You don’t have to check on her, asshole.” Reed’s voice was starting to rise. “I can handle her just fine.”
“Frankie…” Derek demanded.
I kept an eye on Reed to make sure this didn’t go any further. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“What is he doing here?” Reed asked me.
“What are you doing here?” Derek asked him back.
“Listen asshole, she’s my—”
“That’s the second time you’ve called me an asshole this morning,” Derek said, his voice eerily calm, but extremely firm. He moved closer to us. “I let it pass the first time, I won’t the—”
I slid between the two men, keeping closer to Derek and his amazing body. “Stop it,” I insisted. “Both of you.”