by Lexi Blake
It was perfectly silent, and for a moment, he wondered if one of them was dead.
Georgia stood in the middle of the great room, with its magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows and views of both the river and the mountains. He didn’t give a shit about any of it. All he could see was her, her blonde hair wild around her face as she stared at Logan. Logan was sitting on the couch, his body relaxed as though he hadn’t carried a woman away.
Maybe he could still save this. They weren’t screaming at each other. He could mediate. The Dom in him snarled at the thought, but he couldn’t start yelling when she was looking so fragile. “Georgia, would you like to explain to me what all of that was about?”
“Seth, would you like to go fuck yourself?”
Logan laughed. “You’re making it worse.”
She tossed him a quick middle finger and then turned away from them both.
His inner Dom was howling to get out. She thought she could pull the rug out from under him? Yeah, he’d invented that play. And he was finally comfortable with the fact that Logan and Henry were right. She was in a corner and she didn’t know how to get out. Oh, there was a wide hole she could go through, but it took her away from them. She wanted this, but she couldn’t ask for it. “Every time you curse or make a rude gesture when we’re trying to behave like adults, you’ll take another ten.”
It was time to get the rules out in the open.
She turned on him. Her face was red and tears pooled in her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. “Do you know what my brother will do if you lay a hand on me?”
He practically growled. It occurred to him how happy he was that this was coming out. If she’d been hiding her psycho side, he’d been covering up his ruthless-bastard side. It was time to show her there was a little Hyde in his Jekyll. He moved into her space, daring her to back up. “Are you talking about Win, baby?”
She refused to move, but he could see the way her eyes widened. “Yes. He’ll take you apart.”
Logan snorted. “I’d like to see him try.”
“He already did,” Seth said with a deep sense of satisfaction.
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
He loved how breathy that question sounded. “You didn’t think they came to New York for a visit, did you? Oh, no. They came to bring you home. Win wanted to save you from the big bad wolf.”
She shook her head. “Did he threaten you?”
“Fuck, man. How bad off is he now? What did you do?” Logan asked, proving how well he knew Seth.
Georgia looked over at Logan. “Don’t joke. You don’t know Win. He can be brutal.”
“And you don’t know Seth, honey,” Logan shot back. “I’ve never met a man who could be more nasty and manipulative than my best friend.”
“No, Seth is sweet. Win could hurt him,” she insisted.
Sweet. He fucking hated that word. “Your brother backed off, Georgia.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Win never backs off.”
Seth stared down at her, not ever losing contact with those wide blue eyes. “He backed off damn fast when I explained, in neat and very clear details, how I intended to take over his company and leave him with nothing if he ever tried to come between me and you again. I explained to all your brothers how I would take each of them down individually. They know I will ruin their lives and raze everything they care about if they attempt to take you away from me.”
“Ah, there’s Seth.” Logan had the faintest smile on his face. “I thought you had gone all soft on me, buddy. Georgia, he’s always been this way, ever since he was a kid. Seth always had a plan, and he always got what he wanted.”
She closed her eyes, taking a long breath. “You threatened my brother.”
Fuck. “Yeah.”
“You told him you would take DawComm away from him?” Every word that came out of her mouth was precise, as though she was trying to grasp the idea.
Damn it. He was in for a penny though. “Yes. I planned out a way that would cost me over a hundred million dollars, but I could do it. I also threatened to get Mark and Dare tossed off Delta Force, and I might have inferred that I would have Chase sniped.”
Logan’s laughter split the room. “You did your research, man.”
“A hundred million dollars?” Georgia’s eyes opened. Wary, questioning. “You would spend a hundred million dollars to make sure I didn’t go back to Malibu with my brother? You would threaten them and go to war with them? Over me?”
There was only one answer to the question. If she was offended, well, then he’d overplayed his hand. “Yeah. I would.”
“That is the sexiest thing I ever heard.” She went on her toes, and before he knew what was happening, she brushed her lips against his, a shy kiss. “I can’t be your mistress. No matter how nice I think it is that you would fight for me, I can’t be someone you sleep with and hide whenever anyone who matters comes around.”
His whole soul softened. He caught her in his arms, dragging her to his body. Those heels of hers brought her to exactly the right height. “I am sorry you felt that way today. I’ll take you out tomorrow and you can meet anyone you like. I’m proud of you. I’m also slightly scared of you now, but that’s a good thing. I think we’re finally being honest with each other.”
She bit into that incredibly sexy bottom lip. “You don’t only want me for sex?”
Time for flat-out honesty. It was the only thing that would work here and now. “I knew I would marry you about five minutes after you walked in my door. And how can you say I don’t want to show you off to anyone who matters? Besides you, no one matters to me more than Logan. I don’t have any family I care about. My granddad died and my mom and dad don’t care about me. I have Logan and I have this town.”
“I can’t not matter,” she said, but her head found his shoulder.
“You matter, baby.” God, she’d come to mean everything to him.
“Okay. I’m sorry about the stomping out thing.” She gave him the sweetest smile, and he felt his inner Dom start to fade.
“It’s okay.” He let his hands run down her torso to her hips, his cock hardening at the thought that he could have her. Soon. Very fucking soon. Like minutes from now.
“Are you serious?” Logan stood up and his hands were on his hips, a sure sign he was irritated. “She gets away with that? Man, if that’s the relationship you want, then I should pack up and head out to the Movie Motel because I can’t do it. You set a rule and you hold that line. Just because she turns those gorgeous eyes up and bats those lashes at you doesn’t mean a thing.”
She turned, glancing back at Logan, and there was no way to mistake the heat in her eyes as she stared at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, pull down those pants and get over my lap and take your punishment and then we’ll talk about sex. Then we’ll talk about setting you on the bar and forcing you to make up for the fact that you threw out our dinner. We’ll have to eat your pussy until we’re full.”
Her whole face flushed, her skin turning pink and her breath hitching. “You want to spank me.”
It wasn’t a question. He had a hunch that Logan had probably mentioned the whole spanking thing before. It seemed to be a theme with him.
The thought of Georgia willingly pulling down her pants and placing that round, sweet ass over his best friend’s lap to take some discipline made him worry that his cock was about to go off. “Yeah, he wants to spank your ass, baby. And he’s not the only one who missed dinner. I want to eat your pussy, too. I want to make you scream and forget that we were jerks tonight. Tomorrow we can start all over again. And in a few days, we’ll go to Logan’s moms’ anniversary party and you’ll be on my arm and there won’t be any question that you’re my girl.”
Georgia took a long breath. “But I have to let Logan spank me.”
“No.” He wasn’t going to blackmail her. “If you’re not interested in this lifestyle, then we can go straight to bed and I’ll treat you li
ke a lady. I want you any way I can have you.”
“I’m crazy about you, Georgia, but I can’t promise you what Seth can,” Logan said, his voice firm. “I can promise that as long as you and Seth want me in your bed, I’ll be there, but I can’t play it vanilla. The funny thing is, if it was anyone but you, I probably could. I’m going to be here in Bliss for a couple of weeks before I head back to Dallas. I want to spend that time with you. It’s selfish as shit. I was right when I let you go, but I can’t do it again, and that fucker you’re standing with knew it.”
Georgia shook her head. “He didn’t know we were connected.”
“Of course he did. Like I said before, Seth always has a plan. He wants you and he wants to share you with me. He wants the family he never had.” Logan stood there, a completely immovable object.
Seth felt broken. He almost didn’t recognize his friend. Henry’s words came back to him. He’d left Logan alone. He’d gotten lost in his own plans and empire building, and Logan had suffered without him. He’d been so busy thinking of the future that he’d ignored the present when he should have been helping his friend.
So he couldn’t leave him hanging out there. “I knew. Kitten told me. I was going to take care of you because I knew how he felt about you, and then I met you and I knew you were the one. Yes, I plotted. Yes, I threatened the fuck out of your brothers. Yes, I brought you here because I think you still want him. And yes, I want you to pull those pants down and lay across Logan’s lap.”
He had to hope that getting close to Georgia would change Logan’s mind.
She stood there for a moment, her whole body tense, and he was almost certain he’d lost her. Then her hands went to the fastener of her jeans. The fly was a big rhinestone to match all the bling she had on her ass.
She stopped and Seth’s heart almost did, too. He waited for the words that would kill his plans, but she merely frowned and knelt down and unzipped her boots. She set them aside and stood back up, her hands trembling as she undid the button of her jeans.
Logan sat back down, and Seth felt his heart in his throat.
His life, the one he’d waited for all these years, was finally beginning.
* * * *
She was taking off her pants. She was taking off her pants so Logan could spank her butt.
If her friends could see her now.
Except she didn’t have friends. She had actresses in LA she’d competed with and mean girls she’d tried to fit in with. Natalie and Kitten were the first friends she’d made since tenth grade when Lisa Jacobs had moved away because her dad got a job in Florida.
What was she doing? God, she wanted to get naked and lie down over Logan’s lap and find out why her sister-in-law smiled so much. And she was terrified to do it. She had totally lost her cool and freaked Seth out and then found out he was kind of a supervillain and that was so hot, but neither one of them had seen her naked. She wasn’t wearing pretty lacy panties. She was wearing heavy spandex to make her look thinner than she was because she couldn’t seem to lose that extra twenty pounds everyone seemed to think she needed to. Her undergarments claimed to take ten pounds off, so once she’d put on three sets just to see if the effect was cumulative, but that experiment had ended with her passing out at an audition and Win thinking she had an eating disorder.
And she hadn’t looked that much thinner.
Could he spank her in Spanx? He probably couldn’t do the pussy eating thing while she was in Spanx. Although it did have a convenient hole in the crotch. Maybe he could put his tongue through there and then he wouldn’t have to see her belly.
“Georgia?” Logan had moved in front of her, those green eyes staring down. Without her shoes, she barely made it to the middle of his chest. He was so big and broad, and Seth was standing beside him. She felt safe with Seth. Even the fact that he was a manipulative freak made her feel safe. All five of her brothers hadn’t managed to convince him to leave her. That meant something.
But what if they took one look at her body and ran? Or worse, continued on because they were being polite.
She couldn’t do it. If they didn’t like her, she wouldn’t be able to live with it. It was better to maybe find a way to be friends with them. Sex wasn’t worth it. She buttoned her pants back up before they saw the tan panel the spandex formed. Yeah, that was sexy. “I think I’ll, uhm, go and see about cooking something else. Seth has plenty of food. I can come up with something. I’m actually a good cook.”
Before she could move, Logan had caught her, his right hand cupping her chin and forcing her to look up. “What are you afraid of? Is it me?”
He terrified her, but not because of the spanking thing. She shook her head. “I don’t think the sex would be worth our friendship.”
The sexiest smile ticked his lips up. “We aren’t friends. We never have been. We’ve fought and kissed and you’ve made me utterly insane, but I can’t be your friend.”
That thought made her heart ache. “And you don’t want to be my boyfriend.”
A cloud passed over those green eyes. “That’s Seth’s job. I want to be your Dom. I don’t want to cause you heartache, girl. I don’t, but I’m also starting to think I don’t want to go through the rest of my life without knowing what it feels like to be inside you. I don’t think we would work long term. I think we’re too different, but this heat between us is like nothing I’ve felt before. I want you.”
She felt the heat, too. She’d felt it the minute she’d laid eyes on him. But he was a Greek god and she was just a woman.
“You might not want me if you saw me, really saw me. I wear a lot of makeup and I spend a lot of time on my hair, and I dress so I look way thinner than I am. My breasts are in a minimizer bra. Do you know what that means? It means they’re bigger than they look and they sag already.” She sniffled, her usual brat-girl persona failing her for once. “And I’m not good at sex. I know I look like some fifties pinup girl when I’m made up, but trust me, I’m not the sexy siren type. I can’t even get masturbation right, so I think I should spare us all the disappointment.”
“Show me.” Seth’s jaw was set, his eyes slightly narrowed. “Take off your shirt and that bra and show us your breasts. Be brave, Georgia. You want this. You don’t want some stinking half life where we’re ‘friends.’ Whoever told you you weren’t sexy was wrong.”
“Show us.” Logan’s eyes dropped to the place where her neckline touched skin, his fingers drifting from her chin to her neck. “He’s right. Be brave. If you get rejected, then at least you tried.”
But she’d learned not to try so long ago. Taking that first step seemed like willfully dropping over a cliff, and yet what were her other choices? Did she think she could be “friends” with Seth? Logan would be gone, back in Dallas and nothing but a memory, but was she willing to leave Seth and go live like some nun at Win’s mansion? Her brother would take care of her, but she would be a burden to him. Or she could stay here and fight and try to make a place for herself.
She slowly pulled at the bottom of her blouse, wincing all the way. The tight spandex she wore beneath her clothes covered her stomach all the way up to under her breasts.
“That’s good, Georgia.” Logan stared down at her. He reached out and touched the fabric that still covered her torso. “You don’t need this.”
At least he didn’t look horrified. “It smooths me out.”
Seth was suddenly behind her, his fingers at the back of her bra. “You don’t need to be smooth, baby. Come on, let’s get this off and give the Dom his due so we can get to the good part.”
The back of her bra came apart with a twist of Seth’s hand, and she had to catch the front before it slid off. “I think y’all should know that I’ve never gotten to the good part before. I might not be able to, but I want to try.”
“What are you saying?” Seth’s hands were sliding around her torso, slipping up toward her breasts. She could feel the heat of his breath on her neck, making her shiver.
&n
bsp; “She’s saying she’s never come before. You’re not a virgin, are you?” Logan asked, his fingers smoothing her hair back.
God, they were surrounding her, and she was finding it hard to get a full breath. Her girl parts were starting to sing. Every inch of skin they were touching felt like it lit up, and she was getting an achy, restless feeling between her legs. “No. I’ve slept with men before.”
“Not if you haven’t come, you haven’t. You’ve slept with selfish boys,” Seth said against her ear. His fingertips eased under the wire of her bra and her nipples perked right up.
“Seth is right.” Logan forced her to look him in the eyes. “I won’t stop until you’re screaming. Do you understand? Half of my pleasure will come from feeling that pussy clench down and damn near strangle my dick because the orgasm I give you is going to make your toes curl. And then Seth is a competitive son of a bitch and he’ll try to best me.”
“I’ll do it, too,” Seth vowed.
“He’ll need to make sure you come, too,” Logan continued. “No matter how long it takes, you’re going to come for us, and we’re going to teach you to never settle for less than being worshipped by men who care about you.”
Every word he said was like a drug invading her system and softening her up. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe this time she would feel like a woman and not a used-up thing at the end of the night. She let go of the bra and it fell to the floor. She heard Seth’s sigh of pure pleasure as his hands cupped her breasts.
“That’s better.” Logan stepped back, his eyes taking her in. His khakis had been a perfect fit before, but now they looked way too small. His cock pressed at the front of his pants, tenting them and making her feel bad for her previous, totally uncalled-for comments.
“I’m sorry for calling your penis small. It’s obviously not small. It seems to be pretty big.” Maybe penis size would make the difference. The men she’d been with before were way smaller than the monster that seemed to have taken up residence in Logan’s pants. God, even that stupid polyester uniform looked hot on him. She had a sudden vision of him doing a deep-cavity search on her.