by Mari Carr
After having only his hand for company these past few months, the snug velvet of her pussy tugged him rapidly toward climax. If she needed him to last, she’d have to slow down, let him take a more scenic route. “Lin—”
“Shut up.” She slapped his cheek hard enough to have him adjusting his jaw. If she were a guy, he’d have returned the blow.
Stunned, he lay silent as she convulsed on top of him, screaming out in completion. The sporadic clamping of the tight rings of her muscles on his shaft wrung an answering orgasm from him despite his confusion over the blend of their passion and the pain radiating along the side of his face.
He shot at least half a dozen long blasts inside the condom, which kept his sperm from embedding in the fertile landscape of her womb. After the peaks and valleys of their night together, he figured it was for the best. Before he could sort out how he felt about all the developments, Belinda’s wheezed gasp drew his attention to her. She leaned forward, allowing his softening cock to slip from her body.
“Oh my God.” She kissed the flaming handprint that had to be glowing beneath his five o’clock shadow. “I can’t believe I did that.”
If he were honest, he’d admit he couldn’t either. He’d never allowed a woman to strike him, for fun or otherwise. Well, unless you counted the spanking he’d taken as part of his hazing for the frat house, which had jumpstarted his unflagging obsession with public sex.
Something about Belinda’s confession sounded so genuine he couldn’t help but gather her to his side. She trembled as he rocked her.
“It’s okay, baby.”
“No.” Her hair brushed his pecs when she shook her head. “I hit you! I jeopardized everything. For what? A momentary high, no matter how delicious.”
She shuddered in his arms.
“We all have our kinks, B.” He stroked her cheek, adoring the vulnerable side she revealed to him. For once, she accepted tenderness from him, allowing him to coddle her. “I’m really thankful you trusted me enough to be honest about yours.”
Maybe someday he’d tell her about his unusual desires. Though, after tonight, he couldn’t imagine her allowing him to fuck her in front of other men and especially doubted she’d permit them to join in. Unless she could take the reins.
Hell, he hadn’t risen to his level in business without expert negotiation skills. Compromise he could do. A smile spread across his face.
“You came so hard.”
“You’re telling me.” He sighed.
“I’m really glad you enjoyed…that.” She dropped her forehead onto his shoulder. “I was worried.”
“Is that why you’ve kept me at arm’s length for so damn long?” He groaned. “If you’d told me what you needed—”
“Sometimes it’s not easy to share. Even with someone you care about.” She kissed the side of his neck.
He groaned.
“I mean, you haven’t exactly been honest with me, have you? You like to keep your secrets too.”
Sam froze. Could she know about his antics at Ménage Amore? It would be a relief to put everything on the table.
“I’m not asking you to divulge your proposal to me, but it would be nice to know you put as much faith in me as I have in you.” Her muscles stayed relaxed against his side. She didn’t pressure him.
“That?” He levered onto his elbows so he could look into her eyes. “You want to hear my pitch? Work in bed?”
“Watching you trade always makes me hot.” She cupped her breast and pressed her pussy to his hip. “I respect your drive.”
“I could say the same for you.” If that’s all it took to rev her up again, he’d be happy to oblige. “Plus, I wouldn’t turn down a chance to practice. I’ve gone over it a million times in my mind, but you’re great at fine-tuning an offer. If you don’t mind—”
“Not at all. I’d love to hear it.” She sat with her legs cast to the side, looking for all the world like a Grecian statue of Aphrodite.
“Great, thanks. And if I get nervous tomorrow, I’ll picture this—sharing with you, naked—instead of those sharks in their thousand dollar suits.” He grinned. “You’re going to be my good luck charm, Belinda.”
“I think I can say the same.” She laced her fingers with his. “I’m so glad I met you.”
He kissed her knuckles, then launched into his speech.
Chapter Three
Sam wove between lines of stopped taxis and pedestrians jaywalking left and right. He cranked up the stereo in the Maserati and belted out the next verse of Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire”. Sunshine had him squinting behind his tinted D&G glasses. The only thing that could have made the morning better would have been if Belinda had still shared his bed when he woke up.
After incorporating her suggestions last night, the last shred of his uncertainty had evaporated. His idea, the delivery, his standing with the company—each aspect for this morning’s meeting had been polished from nearly perfect to flawless.
Vice President Compton. It had a nice ring to it.
“Good morning, Frank.” Sam beamed as he rolled down the window for the firm’s lot attendant.
“Mr. Compton.” His usual teasing grin was nowhere to be found. “I’m going to need you to park next to the booth this morning. We’ll ride up to the office together.”
“Everything all right?” Sam canted his head. They’d had a rash of break-ins a few months ago. Other than a handful of stolen laptops, nothing had been damaged. Could someone have raided the building again?
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”
What the fuck? Was this the same man he’d snuck donuts with a few times a week? The same guy whose wife had baked him a lovely plate of cookies for Christmas last year when he’d confessed he missed Vicky’s homemade treats?
Sam parked and leapt from the car, eager to find out what had Frank’s tighty-whiteys in a bunch. Neither one disturbed the awkward silence in the elevator as they rode up to their suite. Frank escorted him straight to Gandle’s office. Maybe the partners decided to fuck with him to see if they could throw him off his game in one final test.
Lucretia, the firm’s executive assistant, announced his arrival to the partners via intercom without a hint of her usual smile, so he saved the chit-chat and recounted the introductory lines of his pitch instead. When the door buzzed open, he strode past Frank, who ushered him inside. All three partners—Smith, Winfield and Gandle—faced him.
“Compton.”
“Morning, Jack.” It’d been years since he addressed the man as Mr. Smith. “I’m glad we’re getting an early start today. I’m excited to share my proposition for a revolutionary new capital growth fund.”
“You mean one heavily focused on emerging markets, yet risk-reduced through the offsetting beta of commodities like oil and diamond futures?”
Sam sputtered as months of research was laid on the line like common knowledge. “How? Have you been spying on my files?”
“Hardly.” Winfield edged closer. The weight of Frank’s not-so-friendly hand pinned Sam to his seat. “Belinda suspected you’d try to claim her strategies. She came to us this morning and told us everything.”
“Wait. What?” Sam shook his head, trying to decipher what he’d just been accused of by the man he’d respected for years. “She told you about last night?”
“Then you’re not denying it?” Gandle scrubbed his hand over his face. “We’d hoped there was some other explanation.”
“I mean, I know it’s not the brightest idea. Sure. We’ve been seeing each other outside of the office for a few months now.”
“Dating? Is that what you’re calling it?” Winfield sneered at him.
“What else?”
“Belinda labeled it harassment. You pressuring her for concepts. Trying to get ahead and threatening her.” Smith stood now, slamming his hands on the desk. “We won’t tolerate our employees being treated that way.”
“What about false accusations?” Sam would have paced the room b
ut Frank kept him in his seat. “You apparently have no problem with those. That bitch—”
“That’s enough.” Gandle cut him off. “I think it’s best if you leave the premises now. If you have something more to say, you can do it through your lawyer. We’ve all made mistakes, son.”
“I’m not your child,” Sam roared. “Don’t treat me like one.”
“You’re acting it now.” Smith sighed. “We’re going easy on you, Sam. You’ve made significant contributions to this firm and your work ethic has never been questioned before. I don’t care to think how many others you may have borrowed from. Still, go quiet and we won’t put cause of discharge on your record. We have a severance package drafted—”
“Fuck you.” He glared at Frank. “Take your hand off me. I’m leaving.”
He burst into the lobby. Belinda tottered past, mincing her steps. She wrestled with a tri-fold board wallpapered in charts and graphs she must have raced to assemble after picking his brain last night. She looked haggard enough to validate his theory, though to the partners… Well, it played right into her story, didn’t it?
Sam growled at her before he could stop the primal sound from erupting from his chest.
“Stay the hell away from her.” Winfield looked as though he might explode.
“She told us how she had to fight you off. You may have tried to hide the evidence, but I can still see the imprint of her fingers on your cheek, exactly where she told us she slapped you.” Smith shook his head. “We can’t condone that kind of behavior from an executive in the firm.”
Sam’s heart dropped all the way to the basement, thirty-five floors below his body. “Excuse me?”
“Belinda has refused to press charges despite my encouragement.” Gandle looked as though he’d like to spit on Sam.
“Because she can’t prove something that never happened.” A glimmer of doubt seeded in Sam’s mind. She was convincing and would stop at nothing to come out on top. He saw that now. People might give her the benefit of the doubt in a he-said-she-said case.
“Even if I believed you—,” Winfield grimaced, “—there’s no chance we’ll allow you to stay employed. The negligence suits we’d subject ourselves to… We can’t afford that kind of publicity. And we certainly won’t risk her leaving. Not after the plan she proposed this morning.”
“My plan.”
“Smith, Winfield and Gandle’s now.” Gandle strode toward his desk. “Get him out of here, Frank.”
Sam slouched in his car, his hands completely numb. He’d parked at the curb on some random side street, since he didn’t have a clue where to drive to, and watched oblivious New Yorkers stream past.
For four hours.
The lunch crowd had come and gone. And still he lingered.
What he really needed was his twin. But Sawyer had left on an eight-week assignment at sea and couldn’t be reached.
In that moment he realized how alone he truly was. Sure he had friends—people he’d met along the path to the corner office at Smith, Winfield and Gandle. The motherfucking, piece of shit workspace that cold fish, cock-not-sucking Vice President Belinda McJudas would settle her thousand dollar high-heels in as she hunkered down to run his growth fund.
None of his acquaintances could replace his brothers.
He stopped his fist a fraction of an inch from slamming into the dashboard. No point in hurting his baby. For some reason, Seth’s face popped into the midnight behind Sam’s scrunched lids. “Slow it down there. Take a deep breath. Tell me what’s got you so pissed off and we’ll fix it.”
The same speech his brother had given when he’d spotted Sam in the barn, beating the shit out of a bag of feed one afternoon. He’d been in tenth grade. Roger Latner had somehow copied Sam’s American-history essay and taken credit for it after pretending to end their long-standing feud and be study buddies.
What the fuck? Did he have sucker tattooed somewhere in the mural of Compass Ranch?
He banged his head on the leather steering wheel, then drew his phone from his suit pocket. Suddenly his clothes suffocated him. He dialed Seth and yanked at the knot on his tie.
The line seemed to connect, but Seth didn’t speak immediately.
Sam stared at the screen of the device. It indicated the line was open. Maybe Seth didn’t have a great signal at home. If he’d joined his brother, maybe none of this would have happened. With his presentation approaching, he hadn’t considered more than half a second. He’d declined. For what?
Before he could test the line, a familiar though ragged voice zapped across the country when he needed it most. “Hey, bro.”
“Hey, Seth.” Both of them sounded as though they’d eaten a cheese grater for breakfast.
In addition to his anger, misery, frustration and outrage, a knife of fear cut into Sam. Something wasn’t right. The world was going crazy.
“What’s wrong?” Seth whispered.
Shit, shit, shit. That kind of pain hadn’t mangled his brother’s voice since the day after Silas left Compass Ranch. Change of plans. If Sam’s family needed him, he would be there. They came first. Always had, always would. No one else cared for him like they did. No one else warranted his loyalty.
“Who says something’s wrong?” Sam locked the sickness in his gut in a deep pit for examination later. Focusing on Seth counteracted some of the blinding agony. He gave it one last-ditch effort in case the bomb that had annihilated his life had made him overdramatic. “Where are you? You sound…fucked up. I thought poker night wasn’t ’til Wednesday. Are you hungover?”
“No. It’s not… Look, I c-can’t think right now. Focus on the point. You called me.” Seth had never lost it like this. Calm, easygoing, patient—Seth didn’t shake easily. Whatever had his brother so rattled had to be a travesty. “Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t sound like you’re skipping through daisies yourself.”
In that moment, nothing mattered but standing by his brother, no matter what he needed. Without hesitation, Sam announced, “I’m coming home.”
Not like I have a job to worry about anymore.
A shaky oomph puffed over the phone as though Seth had collapsed. “Thank God.”
“What the hell?” Sam’s tenuous hold on sanity slipped a little. This had to be bad. What if he couldn’t handle another ounce of despair despite his good intentions? “I tell you my cock ruined seven years of hard work for one moronic, not-even-that-great fuck and you say thank God?”
“Yeah.” A wet gulp followed as his brother swallowed hard. “It’s JD.”
His tone said it all.
“What the fuck? Seth! Don’t stop now. Jesus. What’s going on back there?”
Seth cleared his throat. “JD has pancreatic cancer, Sam. He’s dying.”
Dying? JD couldn’t possibly be sick. He was the strongest man on the planet—a badass cowboy. And young. Youngish. Actually, now that Sam thought about it, he had twenty years on Vicky. That must put him at… Damn, could that be? Close to seventy?
Somehow JD seemed ageless, constant, permanent.
“Christ,” Sam choked. In one morning his personal universe had undergone a big bang. The fabric of his existence unraveled thread by thread, faster than he could stop it. “I’ll be home tonight.”
“When does your flight get in? I’ll pick you up.” Seth assumed he’d already had something scheduled
Instead of burdening his brother with unnecessary details, Sam would make it work. Cost was no object. He did some quick calculations in his mind and guesstimated. “Six hours from now. Don’t worry. I’ll find my own way. You have more to worry about than me.”
“Don’t be a dumbass. I’ll always be there for you. We’ll talk on the ride in. I could use an ear myself, okay?”
Heat blasted Sam’s cheeks as he braced himself for recounting the sordid details of his disgraceful exit from his dream job. Not exactly the triumphant news he’d hoped to call home with. Shit. And on top of that, Seth needed someone to have his back. What
more could there be than the horrific news he’d shared?
Had Sam really heard his brother right? JD. Dying?
Another shot of dread-laced adrenaline spiked his heart rate. He rubbed the ache in his stomach.
“Yeah. Okay,” Sam mumbled when the silence lingered. “Pancreatic cancer. There’s no hope, is there?”
“Not for JD.”
Oh God. If Seth was there, if he’d heard the news, then Silas must already know but… “Sawyer.”
Their youngest brother had idolized JD growing up. Though they’d all been close, the connection was strongest between those two. Maybe JD had seen shades of himself in Sawyer’s Dom tendencies even when they were kids.
“He has no clue. Fuck. I’m sitting here outside the doctor’s office. Mom doesn’t even know yet.”
Sam wrestled sobs, which threatened to choke him, into a giant sigh. He would have flown to San Francisco to tell Sawyer in person except… “He’s out at sea. Got that special assignment he’s been gunning for. He left yesterday.”
“How long will he be away?”
“About two months.” Sam had been so caught up in his project he hadn’t paid enough attention. Eight weeks, he’d guess. What kind of asshole had he been that he hadn’t really listened one hundred percent? A self-absorbed asshole, that’s what kind. “When he gets back, he has two week’s leave at which point he told me he was turning off his phone and fucking himself into oblivion.”
Seth chuckled softly. “Has he decided about re-upping yet?”
“No. I think he was gonna figure out his future while he’s at sea.”
Seth considered that. “Maybe we should let him make that decision before we tell him about JD.”
“Shit,” Sam muttered. Did they have that kind of time? “He’ll kill us.”
“Like you said, he’s not going to be able to come home for at least two months. Let him have this time to get his shit together. If things take a turn for the worst, then we’ll get him home sooner. Somehow.”
“Okay. So you haven’t told Mom?”
Seth sighed wearily. “No.”