The Right Swipe

by Alisha Rai

He didn’t know how she’d take it if he told her how sweet and kind she was. Would she think he was getting too attached and cut him off?

  Because he was. He was getting frighteningly attached. “Let me show you to my room. You need to sleep.”

  SAMSON’S LARGE BEDROOM was the only place in the house, as far as Rhi could tell, that looked like it had been touched in the last decade. Here was some of the personality that was missing from his slick L.A. apartment and in the rest of this home. She crossed her arms over her chest and chafed them, though she wasn’t cold, and glanced around with curiosity. The walls were painted a soft gray, the king-sized bed covered in a fluffy white duvet. The end tables were clear, the closet doors open, revealing a few shirts, still in dry cleaning bags. A painting above the bed depicted an open-air hut with a thatched roof nestled on golden sand.

  “I’ve had that since I visited Samoa as a kid. It’s a beach near where my mom grew up.”

  “It’s lovely.”

  He pulled back the comforter. “Do you want me to sleep in here or would you like to sleep alone?”

  His question was matter-of-fact, leaving the decision up to her. “Yes. I want you.” Rhiannon would brush her teeth and wrap her hair later. They wouldn’t be sleeping yet. There was too much restless energy jostling around inside her, both from her confrontation with Peter and from the surge of empathy for Samson.

  It had been a busy night.

  Samson pulled her close once they were in bed. She didn’t know how long they cuddled. Or when they started kissing.

  He stripped out of his clothes first, and the sight of all that tan, smooth flesh made her mouth water. He was such a nice specimen of a man, all his slabs of muscle layered on top of each other, his belly wide and thick.

  He pressed her back against the bed and brushed his lips over her cheek, her lips. Her hands fluttered, then came to rest on his hot, naked shoulders. Samson slid his hands around her waist and untucked her shirt, skimming his palms up her sides.

  His touch was tender and sweet, and part of her, the part that was still terrified by the evidence of how much she’d grown to trust him, hated how much she loved it. So she ran her fingers through his hair and tugged his head up until he could clearly see her. “Right now, I need you to fuck me hard.” She deliberately used the crude word. He drew back, and she wondered if she’d hurt or offended him, but he nodded.

  As soon she had his consent, she kissed him again, and it was rougher this time, dirty, their tongues rubbing against each other, their bodies doing the same. His hands grew surer.

  Their fingers fought with one another as they tried to get her clothes off. Her shirt went first, and then her bra. Samson stripped her pants and panties off in one smooth move.

  He sat back and stared at her. “How are you so perfect,” he marveled. A shiver of pleasure ran from her head to her toes.

  Rhiannon scrambled onto her knees. His cock was thick and heavy and she cupped it in both hands. “Can I take you in my mouth?”

  “You never have to ask.”

  “It’s more fun to ask.” She stroked his shaft down and back up again. A shot of heady power ran through her. “That way you know what’s coming.” She bent forward, letting her hair tickle his thighs. “You can anticipate it.” She licked the tip, delighting in his groan of pleasure. “And I know you want it.”

  “I want it. I definitely want it.”

  She’d given him a taste, and he was reacting like she’d given him a feast. The sweet man.

  She took more of him in her mouth, sucking him deep. Normally, blow jobs weren’t something that turned her on. Rhiannon liked to be good at everything, so if she wasn’t an expert, she didn’t see the point in putting forth her whole effort. But Samson didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t some blow-job queen.

  He didn’t need to resort to hair tugging for her to understand his urgency. It was there in the contracted muscles of his stomach and the sounds he uttered, a sexy symphony of sighs and groans.

  Rhiannon was so into it, she was startled when he drew away. “You said you want it hard?”

  She nodded.

  “Get on your hands and knees.”

  A thrill of need and desire shook her. Her movements were less than graceful as she got into the position he’d demanded, but his groan when her ass faced him told her he didn’t care much about grace.

  She heard the rip of a condom wrapper and then the bed depressed behind her. Her fingers curled into the bedspread when he parted her folds. “Are you wet?”

  “Yes—Jesus.” Her fingers clenched tighter as his tongue swiped over her pussy.

  Teasing laughter filled his words. “Just making sure.”

  The man was sweet, but that sweetness hid a streak of filth. Pure filth.

  She moaned when he thrust inside her, and he raised her ass higher as he set a steady and rough pace. He laid his palm flat on her back, pressing her upper body down so he could fuck her even harder. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he gritted out.

  “It’s not enough,” she managed.

  “Oh no?”

  Uh-oh. That was definitely a challenge-accepted if she’d ever heard it.

  He snaked his hand under her body and pulled her upright, so there wasn’t any space between their bodies, and gave her short, fast thrusts. She cried out. “Yes, perfect. More.”

  His thick arm tightened around her breasts, his heavy breaths tickling her ear. “Look.” He nudged her with his forehead. “Look at us in the mirror.”

  She turned her head and almost came right there and then. The full-length mirror on the wall gave her a perfect view of the two of them in profile, his much bigger body tight against hers, penetrating her. No one had ever called her a woman of small stature, but right now she looked tiny, caught up in his grip. Helpless.

  He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, his pained expression reflecting back at her in the mirror. Or he was the helpless one.

  Or they were both helpless.

  He kept one arm around her breasts to plaster her to his front. With two fingers he opened her up to rub his thumb against her clit. A kiss glanced off her ear. “You close?”

  “Yes.”

  Samson guided her back down to the bed. She pressed her cheek to the pillow so she could keep watching in the mirror, gasping when he held his hand gently but firmly against her neck to keep her pinned down while he hoisted her hips higher. The biological function of sex became a cinematic masterpiece, each muscle contraction in the side of his ass and his thighs hypnotic and amazing.

  The orgasm hit her hard and fast out of nowhere and she shuddered. His thrusts grew harder, rougher. She was still shivering when he groaned loudly and pushed deep inside her a final time.

  Rhiannon couldn’t budge, not even when he moved off her and collapsed onto his back. All she could do was lay there in a ball of wasted energy and limp muscles as he got off the bed and dealt with the condom.

  It was only when he returned to the bed that she lifted a finger, and it was mostly to sleepily let him arrange her so he could big-spoon her. His hand coasted up her arm. He had calluses that teased the hair on her flesh. “Your skin is so soft, Rhi.”

  Rhi. He didn’t slip up anymore. He’d respected her demand immediately, even when he hadn’t known the story behind how Peter had tarnished the thought of a lover using her full name.

  He was a good guy. The fragile bloom of hope dug its way out of the frozen ground of her heart, and she almost whimpered.

  He stroked her back, settling her. There were things they needed to talk about, logistics for the morning to plan out. As if he could read her mind, he kissed her ear. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up early, and we can sneak you back into your room at Aunt Belle’s house before breakfast.”

  “I asked for breakfast in my room.” She’d wanted to psych herself up before her pitch. The best way to do that was to be alone.

  “Before anyone else wakes up, then.”

  “Thank you.” Rhianno
n meant the thank-you to apply to everything. Coming to her rescue, bringing her to his home, sharing why he’d been so distant. Fear and worry trembled awake under her contentment, but his arm flexed and she fell right back into the warmth of his grip.

  It’s okay. Tonight, she’d let him hold her and protect her.

  And then tomorrow, she would win. All by herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  RHIANNON WASN’T going to win Matchmaker.

  She could see it in the slightly bored look in Annabelle’s eyes, in every doodle William made on his notepad. She had scrapped the PowerPoint, but she still had to give Annabelle her numbers and projections, didn’t she? Speaking from the heart sounded cute, but it couldn’t tell the woman cold hard facts about the terms of her deal.

  Rhiannon crossed her legs. They were doing their pitches in the library. Unlike the rest of the house, which was light and airy and open, the library was darker, with navy walls and heavy furnishings. She’d been in more masculine, stuffy enclaves than this, but that didn’t mean she liked them.

  Rhiannon sat in a wing chair facing the big windows, open to the lovely garden on the side of the home. Annabelle and William sat opposite her, behind a desk. Annabelle’s chair was larger than William’s, almost thronelike, so the man appeared smaller than his boss.

  Rhiannon wondered how he felt about that. It was a power move, one Rhi might copy one day. But then again, odds were low that she’d ever hire someone like William.

  “As far as employee retention goes—” Rhiannon broke off midsentence when William covered his mouth to hide his yawn. She couldn’t blame him, she was boring herself, and this was her presentation.

  She rethought her entire presentation and decided to go with her gut.

  This is another performance, another show. Imagine you’re up on that CREATE stage again, and kill it.

  Only this time, the stakes were so high. She had to be successful. “Annabelle, may I go off script? Why don’t you ask me what you’d like to know about me? Get to know me better.”

  The older woman straightened. “I love going off script.” She picked up a piece of paper in front of her and ripped it in two, tossing the scraps in the air. “Scripts are for fools.”

  Ah, jeez. Rhiannon wondered what important section of her proposal the woman had just destroyed. She forced herself not to dwell on that and refocused when Annabelle spoke. “Tell me about yourself. From the beginning.”

  An open-ended question Rhiannon often asked her prospective employees. “I was born and raised in western New York. My mother was a housekeeper, my father was a groundskeeper. He died when I was young.”

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  She softened. “Yes. A brother. Gabe. He’s perfect.”

  Annabelle grinned. “I loved my sister dearly, but I never would have called her perfect.”

  “Gabe’s perfect,” Rhiannon insisted. “He’s kind and sweet and everyone likes him. He’s getting married later this year.”

  “You’re close to your family.”

  She thought about how her mother badgered her to call and winced. “Yes. Though my mother might say I don’t call her enough.”

  “I used to go weeks without contacting my loved ones when I got busy or distracted. Luckily, the people I loved, I chose wisely. When I did reach out, they were right there.” Annabelle squinted. “I regret that now, a little. Seems like I can’t remember some of the things that made me busy, but I remember most conversations I had with my family and friends.”

  Rhi shifted. That didn’t sound like it needed a response, so she settled for a noncommittal “Hmm.”

  Annabelle consulted the tablet in front of her. “You have an impressive educational background.”

  “My parents were employed by a wealthy family. They sent my brother and me to an expensive private school.” She left out how she’d been tormented at that school, how she’d thrown herself into every activity so she could prove she was better at everything than everyone, no matter how much money her family had or didn’t have. Sure, she’d had friends, those who had had her back. In that sea of rich, privileged snobs, her skin color and working class background had still made her a prime target for the assholes.

  “How kind of them.”

  “Very kind,” she echoed.

  “And then you went to Harvard?”

  “I’m a Yale man myself,” William interjected.

  “I got into Yale as well.” She’d picked Harvard because she’d had a photo of her father visiting the campus. She’d liked to imagine, when she walked across the grounds, that she was retracing steps her dad had once taken. A silly, sentimental reason to choose a school. “I didn’t graduate, though. I dropped out and moved to California.” For a while, she’d thought she’d found a home, with Swype and with Peter. With a man whose intellect seemed to match hers, who seemed so dedicated and consumed with her.

  But that had turned dark so quickly and quietly, she hadn’t even realized she was lost again until she was.

  “I never graduated from college either,” Annabelle confessed. “There was no matchmaker major, and I knew what I was destined for.”

  Rhiannon jumped on that. “We have a lot in common, the two of us. I wish I had known you when I was starting out. I could have used your mentorship.”

  Annabelle’s face softened. “I don’t know how much help I would have been. Matchmaker was created almost by accident, and it wouldn’t be what it is today without Jennifer. And the executives she hired.” She tipped her head at William, who looked smug and mollified at being credited with the growth of the company. “As far as I can tell, you did everything on your own.”

  “I did. Though the seed money for Crush came from a friend. Now my silent partner.” Annabelle and Katrina could meet if the deal progressed further.

  Samson and Katrina should meet too.

  She mentally shook herself to get rid of that far too enticing idea. As it was, it had taken all her concentration not to think about Samson since he’d snuck her back into Annabelle’s home this morning after a blissfully deep night of sleep.

  Rhiannon crossed her legs. She’d dressed in her usual casual wear today, unable to stand the thought of not being comfortable. William had definitely given a judgy sniff at her choice of jeans and T-shirt, but he wasn’t the first man to sneer at her.

  “Why did you start your company, Rhiannon?”

  There were easy, pat responses she could offer. Annabelle, with her unexpectedly perceptive gaze, might see through those. “I grew up in a town where everyone knew your business, or if they didn’t, they made it up. Everyone’s life was set on a certain path. People were shocked when I got into every college I applied to. They were more shocked when I made my first million.”

  Annabelle rested her chin in her hands. Today she wore a loose canary yellow top and jeans, her feet clad in UGGs, and she looked more like a college student than a veteran of the industry. “You wouldn’t be the first person in the dot-com—I’m sorry, app—industry to start your own company to prove people wrong.”

  “No, I started it to prove myself right,” Rhi corrected. “To prove what I already knew—that I’m right to be proud of my brain and confidence.”

  Annabelle’s smile was approving. “Do you feel like you’ve proven yourself right yet?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know.” She’d set so many goalposts in her head. If she could make a million, if she could make a billion, if she could beat Peter . . . had she proven herself yet? If not now, then when?

  William shifted. “This is all fascinating, but I think you skipped something in your oral résumé. You worked for Swype, yes?”

  She braced herself, made sure her face was wiped clean of expression. “I did. Yes.”

  “In what capacity?”

  He already knew this, but she indulged him. “I was VP of marketing.” She’d had her hand in every aspect of that company, but she wasn’t allowed to say that or anything else which would
imply she’d had a primary role in creating the app, according to the terms of her exit settlement.

  “And you had a relationship with your employer?”

  Well. This was brazen, but she’d roll with it.

  Annabelle shifted, her frown disapproving. “William, how is this relevant?”

  “I’m fine answering.” She wasn’t, but it would appear shadier if she didn’t answer. “Peter and I dated for about a year. It was well known throughout the company. We broke up. I left Swype and started Crush. These things happen.” She almost choked on that last meaningless nothing sentence, but managed to get it out.

  These sorts of things were bound to happen. Bound to be forced to make nice with a man who had tormented her and almost run her out of her own industry and faced no repercussions for it.

  That was life.

  Annabelle smiled with approval. “I like your calm attitude. Be like the Europeans about past lovers, that’s what I always say.”

  Did Europeans often want to murder their exes? If so, then Rhiannon was very European. “Sure.”

  “It’s interesting you built an app so similar to Swype’s.”

  She narrowed her eyes at William. Now this, she’d fight him on. “Swype didn’t invent swiping right and left. I did not lift one proprietary bit of technology from them.” She resisted the urge to say she knew that because she’d helped build Swype. “Swype has had years to test us in court and they’ve refrained because they know they’d lose. Not sure where you have standing to litigate for them, though.”

  Annabelle tapped her fingers on the desk. “William, why are you being so confrontational?”

  William scowled at his boss. “I am not. I merely want to clarify Ms. Hunter’s history.”

  Nah. He believed the lies Peter had spread about her years ago. Hell, Peter was probably still spreading lies about her, about how she’d slept with him to get ahead.

  It was easier for William to believe those lies. They probably confirmed what he’d already thought: that there was no way a woman like her could get as far as she had without cutting corners.

  She could address the lies right here and now. Tell them she had been in the right all those years ago and it had been Peter who had been the liar and cheat. She opened her mouth, then closed it.