by Ember Flint
Well fuck ‘em, over my dead body.
There’s not a fucking chance I’m going to let this fly ever, no matter how much of my weight I have to throw around and how many favors I’m going to be beholden to those I have to convince to implement my solution instead of this shitty one these money-grubbing old-timers proposed.
And if nothing else works, I’m going to veto this and to hell with good relationships with the other directors.
I see they are hard on my heels and I walk a bit faster. No way I’m going to get trapped by one of them.
Jamison Trent, one of my very few friends and lawyer, waves at me, urging me with his black eyes to get going from the entrance to the hall and nods toward him.
He is right: we are supposed to be having lunch with some of my major shareholders to discuss the finer point of SCI’s latest acquisition and we are already late.
I look at Carson, standing by my side and still talking with one of the members and adamantly shaking his head as the guy keeps on trying to turn him to his way of thinking.
Not gonna happen, pal.
I feel my jaw clench and set as he turns his focus on me.
“Don’t even try, Julian,” I say.
Then we hear a commotion not too far from us and we all automatically turn around to see what’s going on.
I feel my eyebrows rise to my forehead and then I frown, my eyes following the movements of two stocky security guards as they unceremoniously drag away a young woman.
She is thrashing around too much for me to clearly distinguish her face.
I see a chaos of honey blond long curls, curves, rosy cheeks and dark eyes.
She is so tiny she is no longer touching the floor as those two brutes hold her between them.
She is crying, screaming and kicking and is the biggest responsible for all the ruckus around us as she tries to escape their unforgiving grip, swearing like a sailor.
She is clearly not going to give up without a fight. They are obviously much stronger than she is, but even if she is very small in comparison and outnumbered, she is giving them both a hard time and she is reprimanding them loudly right now.
I smirk at her choice of words, she could have the most hardened cowboy blushing with her cursing, but the smile falls from my lips when I see how tightly they are restraining her.
I winch at the way their hands are grabbing her, at the way their fingers are digging in the delicate-looking, pale skin of her bare arms.
“Unbelievable! You are hurting me, you dumb motherfuckers, put me down this instant!” she wails.
I feel my heart constrict at the mention of her being in any sort of pain and before I know what I’m doing, I’m striding toward them, feeling a mounting rage inside my chest.
“Take your hands off of her!” I boom, my deep voice making them jump a little.
They take one look at me as I stare them down and I can see perfectly the second in which realization of who I am dawns on them.
“Right away, sir,” whimpers one guard, releasing her and taking a step back.
“Yes, sir,” mutters the other one, letting go of her forearm. “We were just following—”
I glare at him, interrupting him mid-sentence. “Don’t say another fucking word if you want to keep your job. I don’t want to hear excuses and if you were going to say that someone else in this bank ordered you to actually manhandle this woman in such a way, you can count on the fact that you won’t be seeing this person around come Monday. This is a bank, not a strip joint and you’re security guards, not bouncers. Don’t come telling me someone perceived a harmless young woman like her as a threat.”
“She was in hysterics when we were called sir, we didn’t mean to—”
This time is the furious blonde the one who cuts in. “Well, fuck, of course I was in hysterics: these stupid bankers won’t listen to me and their going to take my ranch, all that I have, away from me, you morons!”
The guards look down and take another step away from her as if actually afraid of such a tiny woman.
I smile a bit, finding the situation more than a little amusing considering their sizes, but when I take a look at the way her big hazel eyes are flashing in rage and pain I reconsider.
I study her a little bit more closely, her lovely face is flushed, her full lips drawn in a thin line, there’s a frown on her forehead and her ample set of breasts is heaving up and down under the top of her short, pastel blue sundress.
I blink rapidly, for a moment unable to speak.
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful and never have I wanted to do something as much as I want to dry the enraged tears sliding down her pink cheeks right now.
She looks like a tiny barrel of gun powder set to blow any minute now, but underneath the bravado I can see she is lost, tired, sorrowful.
Something —maybe everything— about her calls to me and I take a step closer, glaring at the guards until they scramble away from us.
I know there’s a crowd gathered around us at this point, I can see Carson and Jamison standing close together a few feet behind her and looking at me with matching puzzled expressions on their faces, but I don’t care.
All of a sudden, her legs give up on her and she crouches down, breathing hard.
I can see her body is trembling slightly and I feel a claw clench around my heart again.
I bend on one knee in front of her. “Hey, it’s alright now, try to take deep breaths, okay? Tell me what’s going on?”
She doesn’t answer and looks away and I see more tears running down her face.
I feel the urge to reach forward and touch her cheeks again, but I keep it under control, clenching my fists at my sides.
“Won’t you at least tell me your name then?” I ask, trying to make my voice sound even and less gruff. I don’t think I’m having much success; I’m still pissed off like hell at those two jerks for putting their hands on her.
She sniffles a little and looks up at me. “Aria.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Aria. My name is Ca—”
“Cash Stone,” she finishes for me, giggling through her tears.
The sound of her laughter, warms me in places I did not know were cold and melts something inside of me I did not even know I had.
“I know who you are. Everybody in Austin, in Texas, hell maybe all around the United States, knows who Cash Stone is,” she sasses, her big eyes clashing with mine.
I can’t say I’m much surprised with her reply.
I smile at her as I raise to my full six-feet five and help her stand up again, holding her little soft hand in my much bigger and rougher one; her ivory skin contrasting with my tanned one.
I feel a spark of electricity buzzing between us and I know she does as well, because for a moment she looks confused and a new layer of delightful rosy blush covers her skin, down to her neck and cleavage this time.
I gulp, feeling a decided tug where I probably shouldn’t, considering where we are standing, but I can’t pull my eyes off of her: she is that pretty.
I don’t know her, but I’ve never wanted to keep someone safe as much as I want to right now with her standing in front of me.
I want to hold her, keep her, protect her, touch her, kiss her, fuck her, make her happy. I want everything at once.
All this mess of feelings and wants hit me like a fucking cannon ball, making me almost dizzy with their intensity and that’s when I hear my own voice screaming a single word in the middle of my mind. Mine.
I’ve never felt so drawn to a woman before, never perceived such a sense of rightness, of belonging.
Fuck me if I know what the fuck does it mean, but I sure as hell want to find out.
“Last name, sweetheart,” I ask, guiding her away from the hall and toward one of the sitting room nearby.
“Murphy,” she answers quickly, her eyes on me.
All the way she is squeezing the palm of one of my hands between her fingers,
while the other is splayed on her lower back and it feels so natural, so perfect, like we have walked this way, side by side and so close a million times already.
My heart is pounding away in my chest at the revelation and at what it could mean.
I can’t make my rational self think too closely about my actions at the moment: I’m all instinct right now.
I open the door and gesture for her to precede me inside and when I see the only occupant of the room is some guy manning the reception, I glower at him until he mutters a ‘sorry’ stands up and runs away.
Aria laughs.
“Does that happen often?”
She nods toward the guy scampering for the door.
I shrug. “Often enough.”
She sighs. “Must be nice to have that kind of power on other people.”
I shake my head. “It’s not, trust me.”
We fall into a lengthy silence, filling it only with longing, curious looks and rapt study of each other.
When I feel my cock starting to really make a statement, I break the quiet. “So, are you going to tell me what happened here?”
I see her shoulders fall and she lets go of my hand. “Why do you want to know?”
I stroke the peachy skin of her jaw with the back of my fingers. “I just do. Tell me, Aria.”
A shaky sigh leaves her lips. “This stupid bank is seizing my home.”
I nod to her and take her hands in mine again. “Calm down, Aria. It’s going to be alright, you’ll see.”
She shakes her head and fresh tears wet her face.
I dry them with my thumbs, making her look up at me. I kiss her forehead and I see her blushing even more brightly.
She is too fucking beautiful for words really and my reaction to her gets pretty obvious again.
I give up on trying to hide my erection, there’s no way I could.
I can only hope she doesn’t notice it or if she does that it doesn’t scare her too much.
The fact I don’t travel light, it’s easy to surmise even when I’m not in such a state, but this way I’m simply obscene.
I stroke her cheeks gently, making her breath catch in her throat.
“It will be okay. Don’t worry. Come on, sit down, let me get you something,” I say, guiding her toward a row of plastic chairs and gesturing to the mini fridge behind the reception.
When she is settled, I go pick up a bottle of water for her and I push it in her hand. “Here you go, baby. Drink a little water and try to calm down, really. I told you: you don’t need to worry anymore.”
Aria sniffles. “I don’t?”
I nod, caressing her face again and then my lips descend on hers.
I wish I could keep the exchange mild, but I can’t.
For a moment I fear she’s going to pull away
—possibly slapping me in the process, if not downright punching me, all the time bending my ear with a string of nasty words—, but she doesn’t.
I swallow her surprised moans, until she sags completely against my chest, the little sounds she is making and the softness of her lips molding to mine, driving me crazy and getting my cock even bigger and harder.
I grasp the sides of her head and deepen the kiss when I feel her fingers dive in my hair, my tongue seeking her timid one.
I’m losing myself in her, feeling everything I know about who I am and my life until this morning slip off from my mind as I kiss my soul away.
I don’t know for how long we kiss, but when I let go of her we are both breathless and horny for more.
Shit, I’ll give every dollar I have to have the right to push that dress up, wind those shapely legs around my waist and fuck her until we both pass out, but I can’t.
Not like this. Not here and not when she is clearly too distraught to take a step like this.
There’s no denying I want to own every inch of her delicious body, but I also want her to be in a better state of mind when —no point in saying if— that happens.
I want her to want this and in order to get to that, I need to understand what the fuck is going on in her life now.
I make her sit down again, realizing only as I do that, that I must have picked her up and crashed her to my chest at some point while I was devouring her sweet mouth.
Aria brings a hand to her lips, touching them cautiously as she stares up at me, a look of wonder and confusion in her large, dark eyes.
I take a step away, feeling something akin to physical pain in putting distance between us, her artless beauty digging a hole in my chest that I know only my hands on her again could fill.
I look at her wild mess of golden bouncy, silky looking curls and all I want to do is run my hands through them, bury my nose in them and crush her to me all over again.
My mind briefly wonders if her other curls are going to be just as blond and soft and sweet and I feel my dick getting even harder and angrier at my decision to leave.
I force myself to take another step toward the door, my heart hammering away, my hands clammy, my nails digging painfully in my palms.
“I must go now, Aria. We’ll meet later, okay?”
She nods, looking a bit dazzled. “O-okay.”
Fuck, I’m scaring her. I really suck at this kind of things.
As it is, I’m astonished at myself actually, I’m usually not this talkative, especially not with women —aside for Molly of course. I don’t think I have said so many not-work-related words together to a woman in ages and yet I feel like with Aria I could talk endlessly.
I would mangle any attempt at explaining what the fuck is going on in my head, but the words would flow freely anyway —of that I’m sure.
“I want you to stay put, baby. Okay?”
Aria nods mutely, probably too stunned to speak.
“Don’t worry and don’t cry anymore. I’ll fix this.”
“How?” she asks, her voice nothing but a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter now, I will. I promise,” I tell her and stare at her until she believes me and nods.
“Okay, Cash. Thank you,” she says and takes a little sip from the bottle.
I feel something snap inside of me at the way my name rolls off her tongue every time she utters it and restraining my desire to gather her into my arms again, takes all the strength I have.
I probably look a bit scary as I leave, my face hard and unsmiling, I know I’m not helping her at all acting like this, but there’s not much I can’t do: my reactions to her are too strong to control.
I turn around and leave the room, closing the door behind me, with my thoughts running in the opposite direction of my feelings.
I walk up to Jamison and Carson and before either of them can even start questioning me, I start to bark orders at my lawyer, under the astounded eyes— with reason, this is very out of character for me— of Carson.
“Jamie, find out everything you can about that young woman in there. Her name is Aria Murphy.”
My friend eyes me warily. “What about our lunch?”
I walk out of the building with my friends in tow. “Reschedule. Focus on this entirely. Keep her safe in the meantime.”
“What do you mean keep her safe, Cash? Why would you—?”
I interrupt him, my tone inviting no further comments.
“I want her in the best suite of the resort. If it’s busy, make them vacate it.”
Carson’s mouth is agape right now, his eyes almost coming out of their sockets.
While Jamison is staring at me like I’ve just sprouted a second head.
“Okay, I guess.”
I nod once. “Great. Get going. I want a report ready yesterday, alright? Talk to you later,” I say.
Jamison jogs back in the bank without another word, but from time to time he turns around as he gets closer, looking at me as if he doesn’t recognize me.
I’m not at all shocked at his reaction: I hardly recognize myself right now.<
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I look around for my limo and when I don’t spot it, I pick up my cell to text Paul, my driver.
In the meantime, Carson simply looks at me, eyebrows arched, deep green eyes studying me.
He is annoying the shit out of me. I roll my eyes in exasperation.
“I know, you don’t understand. I’ll explain later,” I say, starting to write the text.
Carson shakes his head of tick silver hair and gives me a knowing little grin I’m not too sure I like. “Oh, son, I understand alright,” he replies in a chuckle, giving me a pointed look and then he goes back inside as well.
I rub a hand on my face, sighing.
An image of Aria’s soulful eyes flashing in my mind.
I’ve never seen eyes quite like hers, their shade so unique, ever-changing in the light, not totally brown and sparkling with shreds of golden here and there. The overall effect similar to that of liquid gold amber dribbled over the bark of a dark oak.
I want to know everything there is to know about her, not just how can I help her with the bank.
I want to wrap myself around her curvy body and never let go. I need her, even if I don’t know her.
I want her for myself like I’ve never wanted anything before and I will have her.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she is going to be mine —no: she already fucking is— there’s no letting go, no other way.
I’m going to stake my claim on her and she’s going to let me do it.
Chapter 4
ARIA
The more I look around myself, the less I can’t believe the day I’m having today.
This morning I woke up to the very real possibility of losing Silver Bridle Ranch, with no prospects, no hopes, sad, pissed off and totally broke.
Then I was sitting in front of an indifferent-looking banker, more concerned with looking down my dress or at the screen of his computer —on which I’m practically sure he was watching porn, considering the rapt attention he was giving to the thing— than he was with helping me find a solution with what he called ‘my issue’.
A very politically correct definition for him I’m sure, but boy did it piss me off!
Before I knew what was happening, I had launched into a long tirade.