If I had planned for this, I would have worn something sexy, but instead, I have on a pair of everyday, cotton bikini-cut panties and a purple, deep-cut lace bra. They don’t match, but to him it probably doesn’t matter.
He then picks me up and pushes me down on the bed. He slowly takes my panties off and throws them on the other side of the room.
“Only to prevent you from putting them back on early,” he says with a big grin.
“You determine how far we go,” he says, tossing a condom onto the nightstand.
My body nearly vibrates with anticipation of his touch, at the thought of having him dip inside me.
“Just go ahead and put that on,” I say, leaning over to kiss him. Rules were made to be broken. “I am more than ready.”
He stops me.
“You determine how far we go by how many truths you can tell me,” he clarifies, and I want to shrivel up in a ball and roll away.
I lift my eyebrows, and I feel the slight crease in my forehead.
“Truths?” I question. I gulp down what felt like a growing ball of fur in the back of my throat. “What kind of truths?”
Devlin rises above me, the tight muscles in his arm flexing, and slides his perfect body between my legs. Sensations sizzle through me everywhere that our bodies meet. I can feel pleasurable sensations between my thighs.
“You wanted me to get to know you before we moved things to another level.” He speaks words, but I find it hard to concentrate. A different part of his body seems to magnify with each word. His rippled six-pack abs, his tight, meaty ass, the bulge pressing against me, all cloud my mind.
“I’m going to ask you questions, and any time that you answer truthfully, we move closer to the prize,” he says huskily, keeping his body perfectly still above mine.
Damn. Devlin had more control than he gave himself credit for.
“And what’s the prize?” I whimper.
“Penetration,” he exhales before thrusting against me and grabbing my neck simultaneously. “Do you want to play?”
My pussy dripping, I nod my head.
He places his face between the rise of my breasts.
Want bounds through me in ripples and I nearly explode right then and there.
“What is your name?” he asks with an expert hand massaging my left breast.
“Ayron Winters,” I mutter, allowing my body to flow with the movement of his hand.
“Good.”
Sliding away the lacy fabric of my bra with his mouth, he flicks his tongue against my hardened nipple. I whimper when he makes it disappear into his mouth.
I slide down a little and press my pelvis against the hardness of him, aligning his dick to fit perfectly against my clit. My arms automatically wrap around his neck.
He releases my nipple, leaving it just as wet as my pussy had become.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper with my eyes closed, successfully lost in a trance of good feelings.
“Where do you live?” he asks.
I open my eyes. He wants those dangerous truths, the ones that I refuse to give an answer to in the light of day, but I need his dick inside of me so badly that I ache all over.
His eyes are intense, and I can tell that he is serious.
I circle my fingers across the ripples of muscle on his back.
“Kiss me,” I demand breathlessly.
He nuzzles away the fabric from the other side of my bra, and hovers there above my nipple, neglecting to take it in.
I arch my back to feel his hardness and push my nipple against his lips.
“Where do you live?” He breathes against my nipple like it is a microphone at a sound check. Devlin gives a small thrust of his hips against me, initiating all sorts of tingles that fray my resolve.
My muscles clench in anticipation, wanting to feel the rod that is pressed against it move to the inside.
“Where do you live?” he asks again, this time his voice taking on a guttural sound that lets me know he needs this just as much as I do.
“3327 South Kingsley Avenue,” I blurt out.
Need for him spirals through me as he appeases my senses by taking the other nipple into his mouth. “Good,” he mouths against my tit, increasing the pressure of his sucking and circling his finger around my other nipple.
I try to control my breathing as he slides his mouth away and trails it down below the brim of my panties.
His smooth hands slide away the fabric and I feel exposed.
He places small suckles over the outline of my V, avoiding the sensitive folds that lie below.
I shudder when his lips press against the lips of my vagina.
“What do you do for a living?” he grunts into my folds, each push of air that follows each word causing my well to water more.
“I—I am a—I’m a professional organizer,” I stutter before steadying my body in anticipation for the licking of my life.
He shakes his head and parts my fold, exposing my pulsating clit.
“What do you do for a living?” he asks again, so close to the spot that I nearly scream.
“Devlin, please.” I shudder.
He sits up and moves away from the bed.
“I can’t force you to tell me the truth, Ayron,” he says, picking up his pants.
I raise my head, nearly disoriented with a confused sense of want and panic twisting through me.
“You went to school with doctors,” he states, with force behind each word.
“Wait,” I say, placing a hand into the air.
“Random people stop you to explain how you changed their life. That shit don’t add up,” he says.
I leap up. How did he put his clothes on so fast? This is going horribly wrong. A whirlwind of dread sweeps across me. Angst claws at my insides as I watch Devlin’s jagged movements.
“The truth is, I am a psychologist,” I explain, hoping to calm him, keep him, stop him from leaving. “Dr. Ayron Winters.”
“A what?” he yells, his eyes widening.
“Wait. I thought that you—” I thought he had figured it out.
“I didn’t know what to think, Ayron. I just felt like you were holding back. Your body tensed when I asked you the question each time.”
“So you were using my pussy as a lie detector,” I respond.
He stops to look at me.
“I wanted shit to be out in the open, for there to be no unanswered questions. Stupid me.”
The hurt and rage that swirl in his now-piercing icy eyes feel like a stab in my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing that this is it. This is the end of the rollercoaster and I have to tell him the truth. All of it.
Devlin gathers clothing and belongings at a furious pace. He’s angry and has every right to be.
“I was hired by your father,” I continue.
He expels a breath of air, shaking his head and flaring his nose.
“Should’ve known that he was involved,” he snarls.
“He wanted me to help manage your anger and get you to enjoy life a little more,” I explain.
This time when he looks at me, there is no trace of the anger. It looks as though he is biting back tears, and that hurts my heart. I feel lower than dirt.
“Tell my father that I’m fixed,” he says, reaching for his wallet.
He throws a credit card at me and four hundred dollars in cash.
“Use this to get home. I’ll make sure that you are paid generously for your services,” he says with no emotion before walking away.
“Devlin!” I call to him. “Wait,” I tell him, rushing from the bed. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have any clothes on. He has to talk to me.
“If you ever cared for me a little bit at all, stop,” I cry in an unrecognizable voice. “Listen. Please. I’m begging you.”
He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look at me. He moves away swiftly as though I had not been there at all.
A slamming door echoes through the suite, and I feel like
it echoes through me as well.
I crumple onto the floor with no words left.
Tears explode like waterfalls and the heaving sobs from my stomach won’t stop.
I am alone, again. Just how it always ends.
Chapter 16-Devlin
I can’t leave New York and Ayron fast enough. I knew that Ayron had been holding back, but damn. I thought that I would find out that she dropped out of school before finishing her doctorate or something, that maybe she didn’t tell me where she lived because she used to have a stalker. I thought that she was scared to take it to next level and that this weekend would show her that I was sure about her, that it was all right to open up to me.
Big fucking mistake.
My father had paid her to be my girlfriend and therapist? I know why my father did it. He’s a businessman. Everything is a business transaction to him. He knows how to get his way. He had done it before with my tennis instructor, but I never thought that my father would go this far. A woman? All of the clues were there. I was so blinded by her beauty that I couldn’t see it.
It’s only been two weeks since getting back home, but the pain was still there.
I push my fist against the punching bag I had installed in my bedroom before an urge to rip the weighted bag down surges through me. Ayron had suggested it. Although I have a workout area in my home, Ayron had suggested that having something closer to punch out any aggression as soon as I wake up or before I go to bed could be beneficial.
I hit the bag again. She’s everywhere in my home. I had the housekeeper donate every pair of jeans I bought and all of the stupid cookware that Ayron loved. I can’t even eat a goddamn egg without thinking of her because it had become our routine to eat breakfast together lately.
“Hello,” I growl into my ringing phone. Somewhere deep, I hoped that Ayron would call to explain herself, at least apologize.
“Damn, buddy. What’s going on?” Kevin asks in his usual chipper voice.
I sigh and explain the situation to my friend. I don’t have many associates, and losing Ayron has lowered my options in confidants significantly.
“The only bright spot in the situation is that because I took her to the stupid Gala I was able to get some dirt on Trevor’s snake ass,” I confess, finishing a recount of the past events to my friend. “The private investigator forwarded me the video of Trevor sneaking around on my sister with one of the secretaries while I was in New York.”
“Are you serious?”
“I wish that I weren’t. How idiotic? Even I know--don’t shit where you eat,” I say, shaking my head. “Damn, now I’m even talking like Ayron. She had a saying for everything.”
Kevin laughs.
“She really got to you?” He chuckles.
“I’m glad you find my misery comical,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait man,” Kevin adds, stifling his laugh. “I called to tell you that I’m getting married.”
I move the phone away from my face to make sure that I have the right caller. Sure enough there is the picture that I have saved of Kevin on the screen holding on to two leggy blondes.
“To who? Why? You have to tell me this story.”
“I will, my friend, but we have to be face-to-face, passing a bottle of some old stuff for you to really understand,” he explains in his normal, lighthearted way. “I need you to be my best man, though.”
“Uh. Sure man,” I tell my friend. I want to be happy for him, but right now there is no space for anything other than the emptiness that Ayron left. “Just tell me when and I’ll be there.”
I pad barefoot from my bedroom to the open living room at the entrance of my home.
I scrub a hand over my gruff, unshaven face. Without work or Ayron, I haven’t had a reason to dress or shave or clean. Leaning back on the sofa facing the fish tank, I allow my mind to drift where it always goes lately, my beauty, my Angelfish. I imagine her soft lips against me and her soft body pressed against mine. Her almond-shaped eyes rounding with excitement. The look of her vulnerable, round eyes when she lay under me, or the rolling of her sarcastic eyes—the scenarios play like a movie in my mind.
Fuck. I miss her. I should call, check on her. I had left her naked and alone and not even called to see if she made home all right. That shit was wrong. Would she even talk to me? I had thrown money at her like a damn prostitute.
My hand restlessly slides into the pair of yoga pants that I couldn’t bear to get rid of and clasps around my hardened dick with memories of Ayron’s bubbly ass bending over on our first date. Damn, she had ruined me. I close my eyes and sigh. I need her.
I open my eyes. My hand won’t help, won’t stop the ache that I feel for her. I have to find a way to get past the feeling. The days haven’t mattered, time hasn’t helped a bit: I still fucking want her.
I look over at the tank and something is odd. Mufasa is aimlessly swimming around the tank, alone. He is alone. Then I notice the pattern. He is swimming from the rock cave where he and Sarabi usually hang out to the top of the tank and back. I look up and notice Sarabi floating at the top on her side, lifeless.
I run to the kitchen and empty a cereal box and rush back to the tank. I grab a net and fish Sarabi from the top before plunking her into the empty box. I wouldn’t feel right flushing the loyal friend. Damn.
I place the box next to the tank and then notice the flickering, thrashing movements as Mufasa swims jerkily in circles.
“I can relate, Mufasa,” I tell the fish after tapping the glass.
Today, my key card worked when I entered the office from the parking lot and strolled through as if it were any other day. Everything in the building is still abuzz, a hive of people bustling, as though I were never absent. The empire hadn’t broken or fallen to ruin in my absence. Everyone and everything is still in place.
I walk past my office to Gloria’s desk and pick up my work phone. I had emailed some information to it earlier and asked her to help me with a project. Today’s review meeting would be interesting to say the least.
When I reach the board-room, I lock eyes with a familiar face. A young woman with a round face and big round eyes. She startles with recognition as she rushes past me to her desk on the second floor. I wonder if she had been in the board room to assist Trevor.
Sitting in front of my father, brother, sister, Trevor, and a myriad of other straight faces that make up the executive board is a sobering experience.
Trevor’s smug face moves into a sneaky smirk as he sits forward and calls the review to order.
“On the recommendation of President Emeritus David Masters, we are holding this review to determine the future of Devlin Masters as the Chief Operating Officer of Finance and Operations after his display of hostile actions against another member of the executive board.” Trevor looks over at me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
I look into the solemn faces of each of the members. They all look so miserable.
My brother is spineless and basically floating through life without purpose. My sister is bitter and unkind. My father is lonelier than he admits. The death of my mother, his partner, his friend, who held him together in life as they built a fortune together, killed a piece of him a long time ago. The others are assholes, whoremongers, or jerks with no real love or connection in their lives. I don’t want their story to be mine.
I should be worried about my job, but I am thinking about her again.
Ayron’s voice rings in my ears and I speak my truth to the board.
“Life is the sum of our experiences and what we learn from them. I apologize for my actions, but I am grateful for the opportunity to become better, to grow. I have made changes in my life to funnel my aggressions and control my actions,” I say.
“What about the counseling?” Trevor asks, sitting back as though he had placed the nail in the coffin. As though he knew I hadn’t completed it. Under normal circumstances, he would have been right, but because my father is a smart man, ther
e are no worries.
“I completed three weeks of counseling,” I tell them.
My father slides over manila folders to the members.
“Inside you will find a sworn notarized statement from a certified psychologist as to his cooperation,” my father explains.
Ayron again. Damn. I miss her.
The executives read over the information, nodding and smiling as they do.
What the hell could she have written to make these people smile?
Trevor looks irritated.
“Are there any other questions before we begin making our decision?” he asks.
I roll my eyes and smile because it makes me think of Ayron.
“Is this funny to you?” Trevor huffs. “This lack of respect for the company—”
“Let me stop you right there,” I say. “Dana, please go out of the room for a few minutes.”
She looks confused, but does as she’s told. I then pull my phone from my pocket and press play.
On the large flat-screen mounted in the conference room, the video of Trevor screwing a second-floor secretary, who is also the niece of one of the board members on a company desk, pops up. Gloria had connected my phone to the screen through an app prior to the meeting.
Eyes bulge, mouths drop, faces twist and turn away.
“What did you have to say about respect?” I add. “While I may have punched you after you provoked me—using my insecurities about my mother’s death was really low, might I add—I refrained from hunting you down and knocking in your face when I found out how you treated my sister and several other women in this company, who were shuffled around after you used them.”
Trevor’s face reddened.
“I—if you—this is not about me,” he says, sounding frustrated as he stands and stomps out of the room.
I turn off the video.
“For each action, there is a reaction or consequence,” I recite. “Because of my actions, I have learned so much more about life and myself. I look forward to hearing your decision. Thank you for your time.”
Fast and Loaded: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 23