by Amelia Wilde
“Because—” She grits her teeth, taking one of her hands off the wall for a split second before she remembers what she’s supposed to be doing. “Because I love being yours.”
This is as close as she’s gotten to saying that she loves me, too. Not that I expected her to make a grand confession the moment I showed up today. If there’s anything I’ve learned about Isabella, it’s that she’s always going to confound my expectations.
I nip at her earlobe with my teeth, the gentlest bite, and she sucks in a big breath. “I can tell.”
Then I’m behind her, unzipping my pants and lining up the head of my cock with her opening. She bucks her hips back against me, working the tip inside, and that’s all it takes.
I thrust inside of her with all the pent-up heat that’s been building all day, taking her in one stroke. “Oh...” Isabella has to let go of the wall to stifle her moans, blocking the sound with one of her knuckles. “Yes,” she whispers as I pick up the pace, my hands on her hips, rocking her with this rhythm. And when I reach around her waist and seek out her clit with my fingertips, she says it again: “Yes, yes.”
Yes, yes, yes.
Chapter 31
Isabella
One car trundles by, and then another, and then the road is clear. I run across and settle back into my rhythm, the morning air humid on my skin. Already humid, and it’s only the middle of May. Everyone complains about the heat in the city, but I like it. It’s the cold I can’t stand. When I retire, I’m going to go somewhere tropical and never look back. Especially if I can get Jasper to retire along with me. Although—
I laugh, letting the music from my earbuds wash over me. Retiring with Jasper. It’s far too early to be thinking about details like that, but I can’t help myself.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
That much has become clear in the last few days.
At first, I could make all my decisions based on how likely they were to surprise him, to throw him off-balance. I got caught in my own trap, clearly, because I feel like I’m floating three feet off the ground, ready to crash back to Earth at any moment.
Hence the early morning run in Central Park.
I nod to a guy going the opposite direction and keep going. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Jasper wants to be with me.
That’s the first fact to start with.
He wants to be with me, and in spite of everything that I loathe about men like him, I want to be with him, too. Am I ready to admit, out loud, in words, that I love him? I don’t know. It feels a hell of a lot like love. My heart beats hard with it. My chest aches with it. I think of him the moment I wake up, and his grin is on my mind while I drift off to sleep. Even the prospect of toying with him beyond our usual banter is starting to repulse me, and that’s why I got into this in the first place.
I don’t want this to be about money.
That’s another fact that weighs on my mind.
I don’t want all of this to hinge on my mother’s building, or even the fact that Jasper’s wealth far outstrips my own, no matter how many buildings I intend to open across the state this year. I don’t want to need that kind of assistance from him. I’ve never needed it from anyone else.
My phone rings in my pocket, the ringtone coming clearly through my headphones, and I reach for the button just below my ear and press to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Are you all right, Isa?” My mother’s voice is tinged with worry. “You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel. You sound like you’re gasping. Should I call someone?”
“Mom!” I laugh out loud. “I’m out for a run.”
“At this hour?” I can practically see her standing in her kitchen, wringing her hands. “Are you alone?”
“It’s almost six-thirty. It’s light out.” I take in a deep breath and let it out. “And I’m not technically alone, no.”
My mom sighs on the other end of the line. “That security service doesn’t count.”
“It really does. What’s going on, Mom? Did you have something you wanted to talk about?” I take the curve to the left in the sidewalk, slowing my pace so she doesn’t think I’m being chased.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
My heart aches. Back in the Bronx, my mom worked long hours and went to school, so she needed every hour of sleep that she could piece together. But that didn’t always work out. A memory comes to me: her silhouette at the doorway to the bedroom late at night, backlit by the streetlight outside on the ground floor, the light filtering through the cheap curtains.
Are you still working, Isa?
A couple more pieces. I promised they’d be done tomorrow.
You should get some rest.
You should get some rest, Mom. I’ve got this. These two will cover groceries and electric.
Those bills haven’t come yet.
But they will.
A pause. A heavy sigh.
I don’t deserve this from you, Isa. I can always ask Mr. Horvath if he’ll give me a break on rent. It’s just until I’m done with school.
Go back to sleep. I’ll be in soon.
I’d worked lots of nights like that, hands tired from the sewing, just so she wouldn’t have to ask anyone else for help with the bills.
She never did go back to sleep, either—at least not until I did.
“Mom, you’re not going to have to move. And if you do, Evie and I will be there to help you. You don’t have to worry.”
The silence tells me I’ve said the wrong thing.
“Mom?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I promise you, it’ll all work out. I am handling this.”
“It’s too much, Isa.” Her voice breaks. “You’re always handling everything. I never should have retired. I never should have agreed to—”
“You should have retired, but you should do more than that. You should enjoy your retirement. You’ve worked damn hard, Mom.”
“Not hard enough. If I had—”
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Don’t go back to this.”
“Back to what?”
“Don’t—don’t go back to second-guessing every decision you’ve ever made, Mom. We made it out of that apartment. We made it out of that neighborhood. And I’m going to keep you where you want to be. You don’t have to doubt it. In fact—” I steel myself for the lie. “I’ve made some real progress on financing the building. I should be able to buy it back from the developers, and you can stay as long as you want.”
“Oh, Isa, really?”
“Really.” I smile while I say it to try to make the word sound as genuine as possible. “I just need to finish my run and get back to work, okay? Go back to bed. It’s too early for you to be up.”
“All right.”
I finish my loop around Central Park with her words ringing in my ears, but even before I’m out of the shower, the excited warmth is back in my chest. So I have to figure out a few more things with Jasper. It’s not the end of the world. More complicated, maybe...
At headquarters, I stride in with my head held high. Angelique looks at me from her desk with wide eyes. “You’re on a mission.”
“Damn right.”
I open the door to my office.
In the middle of my desk is a big, white box tied with a ribbon the same color as Jasper’s eyes.
“Angelique?”
She’s instantly at my shoulder. “It came this morning, by courier. I had to give him a million forms of ID.”
Heat rises to my cheeks, but I’m not going to let a box slow me down. I move quickly to the desk, dropping my purse onto one corner and picking up the box. There’s a small card attached to the ribbon with two words: Surprise! -Jasper
I lift the lid.
I’ve been attending awards ceremonies long enough that what’s inside shouldn’t shock me, but it does.
Angelique hovers over me, looking into the box with a low whistle. “Wow.”
S
o much for keeping money out of this...
Chapter 32
Jasper
My legs are burning, and my core is on fire, but I increase the speed on the treadmill one more time, my feet connecting hard with every step. It’s a reckless speed, almost out of control, but I have to do something to get some of this energy out of my muscles.
Otherwise, I’ll be insane by the time Isabella arrives later in the afternoon.
Thinking of her makes my heart pound in a crazy rhythm that has nothing to do with reason. It’s only love. The stupid, headlong kind of love that I felt as a teenager, only a thousand times more powerful. All I want is to be looking at her, listening to her voice, fucking her.
Finally, finally, the treadmill beeps, signifying the end of the mile, and I slam my hand down on the stop button.
Done.
I spent the morning lifting weights, music on loud in the background, and fitting in as many miles as I could. I wonder what she’s doing right now. Probably relaxing in her apartment. Or, knowing Isabella, she’s sneaking into the office on what’s supposed to be a day off to work on something. She’s always working on something. She never feels like anything is done.
We’re kindred spirits, that way.
Just yesterday, when she got into work, the first thing she did was call me. I was waiting in my office for my cell phone to ring.
“Hi.”
“You are just determined to make everything complicated, aren’t you?” Her voice rang with truth, but there was also a hint of a laugh.
I played the fool. “Complicated? By doing what?”
“I assume this white box on my desk is from you. I’m basing that assumption on the tag. It’s got your name right here.”
“You got me. I sent it.”
“Jasper.”
“What?”
“You cannot send me gifts like this.”
“Why not?”
“First of all—” Isabella sighed, but I’m positive there was a smile behind it. “This necklace is worth a fortune.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
“I do like it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s worth a fortune.”
“Isabella Gabriel, you are the kind of woman who deserves extravagant jewelry. What if we were to attend another awards ceremony? I’d want you to have something nice to wear.”
She laughed. “It doesn’t have to be…you know what, never mind. Thank you for the gift, Jasper.”
“No, tell me.”
Isabella had dropped her voice then. “I want to be with you.”
“I know. I’m over the moon.”
“I don’t want to be with you just because you can do things like…this.”
“I would imagine it has more to do with my unbelievable sexual prowess.”
Her low laugh made desire zing down my spine. “That, too. But I don’t want you to get the idea that—”
“That you’re just after my money?”
“Yes.”
“But you are after my money…at least a little bit. My building, anyway.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“That’s all been decided,” I reminded her, teasing. “You’re mine. Your mother is safe. What more is there to do now, other than get the hell away from work and out of all these clothes?”
“How do you know what I’m wearing?”
“It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. I want it on the floor of my penthouse.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“Then meet me there.”
“Necklace or not, I’m not cancelling another day’s worth of meetings for you.” She hung up while I was still laughing.
I’m walking down the hall to my bedroom when my phone buzzes on my bedside table, the vibration loud enough for me to hear it even from outside the room. I rub one of the small towels I keep in the gym across the back of my neck one more time and pick up the pace. Isabella.
It’s an incoming call, not a text, and I snatch up the phone without looking at the screen. “Hello, gorgeous.”
“Lovely.” My dad’s voice is dripping with sarcasm.
All the invigoration from my date with the gym drains out of me. “What is it, Dad?”
“Just calling to tell you that your secret’s out. You and that woman were plastered all over the tabloids this morning.”
I laugh out loud. “You think that’s the first time we’ve been in the press?” I flash back to the awards ceremony—the way we danced around each other on the red carpet, the way she leaned in to make it look like we were in the middle of some passionate affair instead of a business arrangement, what I did to her in that alcove, how her face looked when I turned on that vibrator. Those photos made waves, too.
“I know it isn’t. It’s just that last time I had to look at pictures like this, I didn’t know you were getting played by a gold digger.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s not a gold digger, Dad, and her name is Isabella.”
“Oh, Isabella. What a beautiful name.”
“Thank you.”
“What has she asked you for so far?”
“Nothing.”
He laughs, too hard and for too long. “Think again, Jasper. It might have started with something small, but she’ll be working her way up by now, if those pictures are any indication.”
I took her to dinner last night at a club, and the usual Friday night paparazzi were outside when we left. Both of us were laughing, and I swept her into my arms while we walked to the car. She upped the ante by crushing her mouth against mine, kissing me so passionately that it was like we were totally alone, back in the penthouse. Cameras flashed. I didn’t give a shit. Isabella is the only woman I’ve appeared in public with like that in years, and I don’t care if everyone knows how I feel about her.
“Or maybe it’s not that,” continues my dad, doing his best to sound thoughtful. “Maybe it’s something she’s asked you not to do. I’m sure it’s probably something that benefits her while you take a loss. Does that ring any bells?”
“No.” My answer doesn’t sound convincing, not even to me.
“I see how it is. Well, enjoy your Saturday, son. I’d advise you not to fall any deeper into this trap.”
He hangs up before I can answer.
“Fuck you,” I say into the stillness of the master suite. The phone lands on my comforter with a muffled thump, and I turn my back on it, heading straight for the showers.
I try my best to ignore the icy pinprick of doubt in the bottom of my gut.
This might have been about power and money and property in the beginning, but it’s not now. We’ve moved past that. Far past that.
Right?
Chapter 33
Isabella
I press my hands into Jasper’s chest, bracing myself. His blue eyes are shining, locked on mine, and there’s a heat in his face that burns into my core. Holy shit, I love this. I love this so much.
I lift my hips again, drawing myself up as much as I can and lowering back down, hard, onto his cock. “Fuck.” The word is a soft burst from his lips. His fingers tighten around my hips, and when I rise up again he adds his own strength to the thrust. I’m riding him like a madwoman, like I can’t get enough of him filling all the space inside me, stretching me still, and it’s because I can’t. I can’t.
When we’re fucking like this, everything else goes out of my head, leaving behind an electric hum of pleasure. God, do I need it. There’s a new fire lit under my ass these days, and it’s because of that stupid lie I told my mother. I spend most of my time focusing on the fact that it’s not a lie if I make it come true. I just need to do it rather quickly, before anything else happens.
Jasper’s muscles tense, and he keeps me hovering above him, my pussy clinging to the head of his cock. The anticipation, even now, is so intoxicating that it sends a jolt of pure heat through my core. My head tips back, and I can’t stop the moans from coming out of my mou
th. I don’t care. I don’t want to.
“Do you want more of this?” He growls the words, his voice a dark, sultry invitation.
I dig my nails into his chest. “Yes. Give it to me.”
He narrows his eyes, a possessive light flooding them. “What did you just say?”
A shiver runs down my spine. “I said, give it to me.”
He sets his jaw. “Wrong answer.” Then he’s lifting me, turning me, pressing me onto the comforter on hands and knees, his hands running over the flesh of my ass. “Who do you belong to, Isabella?”
A gush of wetness between my legs. I need this more than I ever will care to admit. I’m not afraid of him—not really—but I crave what he does to me. I grip the comforter in my fists. “You.”
“And who decides what to give you?”
“You do.” My voice drops to a whisper, my entire body already revving up for what’s to come. I rock my hips backward, pressing my ass farther into the air.
I would never do this with another man. I’d never let another man do this to me. But with Jasper, it’s different. Everything is different. I’m going to make everything different—tie up all those loose ends.
But for now, I’m going to get punished.
And I’m going to like it.
His hand tenses against my ass, and I go still, waiting.
The stroke doesn’t come.
I groan in frustration, pressing the side of my face against the comforter, looking up at him with wide, begging eyes.
Jasper leans down, nipping my earlobe between his teeth. “I know what you’re doing.” His tone is all dominance. Wetness collects between my legs and starts to make its way down the insides of my thighs.
“I’m getting punished.”
“You’re baiting me.” The corners of his lips curl upward in a smile, and then he’s leaning in again, his breath hot on my ear, his lips hotter on the pulse just behind my jaw. “You’re baiting me, trying to get me to punish you.”
“So what if I am?” The sentence is breathless. In these moments, I am that woman, and there’s no getting around it.