by Kira Graham
She’s beautiful, even in spite of smelling a little sweaty, and suffering from red eyes and a nose pinkened by tears. Her skin is like alabaster, yet holds a golden hue as if she’s glowing from within. And her breasts. God, I’ve never thought of breasts in poetic terms, but dammit, that’s the kind of language that I wish I had to describe these full, firm globes tipped with small nipples the color of soft pink roses. It’s apt, I guess, and something that I’ll compose into prose later. For now, I need to see the rest of her.
Letting my eyes drift downward, I take my time in cataloguing every inch of her before I meet the object of every one of my sick and sexual dreams. Now I really wish that I had a supply of soft, poetic words, because somehow, I don’t think that “perfect” or “beautiful” will do it. She’s small and delicate, and her inner lips, swollen and wet, peek through just a little, enticing me to go down there and have a taste. I want to—
“What the hell are you doing? Get your clothes off,” she orders in a hissed breath, causing my own breath to explode out of me when she shoves down my pants and grabs hold of my cock, using a hard grip.
All thoughts, all fantasies and desires, scatter the moment she touches me.
Her hand is small, and my cock is big, but this woman isn’t some shy little wallflower. She tightens her hand until her fingers meet, and smiles a siren’s smile when I throw my head back and moan, punching my hips forward. I haven’t been with a large number of women—haven’t ever thought about uncommitted sex in grand enough terms to analyze why I pick my partners so carefully, for that matter—but what I can say now, without a doubt, is that Rosetta is like no one I have ever been with. She’s not shy about her sexuality, and she thrives on the thrill of knowing that she has me right where she wants me. And if she’s into power plays, then I’ll roll, because fuck me, is it sexy when she starts to stroke me, watching closely and enjoying how hard it is for me to control myself.
Moisture beads out of my slit, rolling down my shaft and coating her smooth skin so that her strokes become a slippery glide that makes my balls grow tight and hard with the need to release.
“Rose. I can’t…” I groan, gritting my teeth to fight the pleasure. “It’s been too long. I don’t have the control to stop, and I want to come inside of you.”
Her smile is beatific, almost mischievous, when she bites into her lip and rolls her hips up, letting the crown of my cock slide down to kiss her clit.
“Then come on, big man. What are you waiting for?” she purrs, the heated glance she gives me from beneath her lashes snapping the final shred of control that I’ve been holding on to.
We should make love this first time—Jesus, I can’t believe that I’m using those sappy words—but what I end up doing when she lines me up to her opening is a ravaging. I can’t help it, and, Lord above, I dare anyone who has ever wanted a woman as much as I’ve wanted Rosetta to argue. I thrust home as slowly as I can, but don’t stop until I’ve filled her with every thick inch. Rosetta gasps, squirming a little against the seat, her eyes wide pools of shock and pain before she moans and melts a little, her body relaxing enough to settle and stretch to fit me.
“Holy…” she gasps, nearly making me come when she bites into her lip and moves experimentally, shifting around until she’s adjusted. “You’re…impressive.”
I smirk despite the pain of holding still and try to play it cocky. Having a woman, especially this one, tell me that I’m impressive is enough to make my sappy ass preen. I don’t, though. Partly because I refuse to be like Adonis, but mostly because the vixen moves beneath me, gasps, and tightens even more, her eyes rolling back when I hit a rough patch deep inside her.
“Rose…” I whine, not sure if I can hold on.
Embarrassing myself isn’t an option, but goddammit, I’ve been whacking off for months and still have the control of a youth—
“Move, Zeus!” she orders, and—yeah, that’s all it takes.
She’s warm, wet, smooth, and so tight that my thrusts aren’t easy. I start off slowly, as slowly as I can manage—waiting her out, watching her every reaction, and feeling her every quiver until I feel her go liquid inside. Then I speed up and let myself feel her. She’s like silk, the soft flesh inside her warm and clutching at me, sucking around my cock like a hot mouth.
“God, you feel good. Too tight,” I groan, picking up the pace when Rosetta widens her thighs, plants her heels on my ass, and pushes back at me, her low cries and panted sighs giving me the go-ahead to take her harder and faster.
And take her I do. I slide home with increasing speed, encouraged by the growing wetness that slides out of her, making my entrance easier. I don’t make love to her so much as we attack each other, coming together over and over again until it feels like I’ve been inside of her for hours. We kiss each other whenever we can breathe, and touch each other all over as our hands seek purchase and try to learn each other’s bodies. Somewhere in between, when my mind is nearly imploding with pleasure, I lean down and suck at her nipples, using my mouth to turn the pink buds red and engorge them with blood. This drives her wild and sends her over the edge, and I feel her core tighten just seconds before she convulses and lets out a scream, her fingernails piercing my skin as she pulls me closer and gives in to the pleasure.
It feels spectacular, and, if I were stronger and less desperate, I’d keep holding on and let myself feel every second of her fiery release as it pours around me. But I’m not. I come mere seconds after she starts to spasm, and spurt into her so hard that I feel my head go loose on my neck. It goes on for a long while, as if my nuts have been overly full for far longer than they should have been, and by the time I come to rest, drained and spent, Rosetta is purring beneath me and stroking my back, looking like a well-satisfied, blue-eyed siren.
“We totally need to do that again,” she whispers, her words a breathy flirtation that would make me hard if I were capable of that right now.
And we will.
Forever.
Chapter Nine
Zeus
We walk into my office amid whispers and stares that I am proud to say Rosetta doesn’t seem to acknowledge, even when they annoy me so much that it takes a monumental effort to stay calm and keep my thoughts to myself.
I don’t blame these people for gossiping, or for the whispers that color every step we take, but it’s starting to wear thin fast, especially when I consider that it’s been a week since Rosetta made bail and came home with me. In that time, we’ve established a shaky sort of relationship based on sex, mutual friendship, and this thing I like to call necessity.
That rubs me the wrong way because I don’t want her to stick with me out of necessity, just because she needs me to buffer her from the world. Unfortunately, I can’t exactly point this out when things are so up in the air. The past week has been rocky, to say the least. Between the case and sex, which I think for Rose is as much about seeking a distraction as it is about chasing pleasure, we’ve spent nearly every day cooped up in my apartment. As great as my place is, with its generous size and its hot tub on the terrace, it’s become a prison to us both.
That’s why we’re at the office today, with Adonis due to arrive and set things straight with her. She’s working for Hart Inc. from this point forward and will be spearheading the Waters-Hart deal, handling all the contracts and legalese, as well as liaising with me as the CFO, and Adonis, who is the CEO.
I thought it a bad idea at first, but Adonis is right; Rosetta needs a distraction and work to keep her mind busy, and I need her here, being watched over twenty-four seven while I do what I do best. Investigate. So far, I’ve had only one lead that fizzled into nothing after a pizza delivery guy told Nate that he’d spotted a guy walking away from Rose’s building in the early hours of that morning.
Nate and Heath basically conned, bribed, and hacked their way into the available public footage, along with Brent’s help, and they eventually got the back of someone who may or may not be a man, and who is, for
all intents and purposes, unidentifiable.
That shit works great on TV for dramatic effect, but I dare anyone in real life to zoom in on someone, run facial rec, which isn’t what people think it is, thanks to Hollywood, and then make a definite ID. In our case, what we have is a grainy image of a black blob, thanks to the lack of light.
Basically, we have nothing.
And that means that we’re no closer to helping Rosetta because, as evidence goes, this unidentifiable image is as shaky as hell. What I have from the blood tests that I ran on her is a trace of a drug that basically mimics rohipnol, but mentioning that to the cops would only undermine the alibi that I provided for Rose. Telling them that she was drugged would put me in the line of fire, and while I will do that if worst comes to worst, Rosetta refuses to even consider it. Her words went something along the lines of, if I tell the police that she was drugged, thereby clearing her name and making me the number one suspect, then she will confess so fast that they’ll have her in a cell in minutes.
It’s as frustrating as hell, and yet her sense of caring, and the fact that she’d rather go to prison than let me take the fall, warms my heart. She may not love me—and trust me, she doesn’t seem to be even a little bit romantically inclined towards me—but she does care.
“I want my own office.”
“And I want to eat your—”
“Zeus!” she hisses, slapping a hand over my mouth and looking towards the door, as if someone might have just heard me.
I chuckle and set her aside, striding towards my desk, where a ton of work awaits me. Or Rosetta, seeing as how my only goal today is to dig more deeply into her case. With the help of a hacker I know.
“See? We’re both destined to be disappointed today, babe. Look at it this way, Rosie. You share an office with me, and you won’t have to see me in cuffs when I fuck someone up for going near you. Now, be a good girl and help me move some stuff over there, by the couch and coffee table. I’ll work from there while you clear up this load,” I tell her, laughing when she spots the mess on my desk, and her eye twitches.
“I don’t think I’d have to deal with paperwork in prison,” she grumbles, giggling when I snarl and cast her a glare.
“Don’t say shit like that! It isn’t funny.”
“No, but there are some funny parts! Cleo took a still of that new footage and put it on her phone as her wallpaper. She titled it ‘Scarrie.’ Get it? I looked like Sissy Spacek in that pink dress with blood all over me, half-crazed.”
“Not funny,” I snarl, shaking my head and growling when she looks at the phone and cracks up again.
“It is a little funny. And so is the call that I got from Bee this morning. Can you believe that she’s working her angle from the streets? She thinks that she’s some big-time shady lady with enough contacts to get a bead on whoever is responsible. I hated to break it to her, but sucking dick sort of makes questioning a non-starter,” she laughs, cracking up again when I groan and cover my dick.
Mention sex when she’s in my vicinity, and I get hard; it’s basic biology, really. She’s what I want, and any mention of her tells my body that it can get it, again and again. Which is all great and fine—when I have the time to be messing around. But right now, I don’t. A week is seven days, and seven days is too many hours to be standing around without answers. With my luck, this DA will come charging at us in mere days.
“They’re just trying to help,” I sigh, shaking my head ruefully.
I finally met this trio—Carla seems to be out on bail, too, something that only happens when your father is the leader of a cartel, and your brother is a cold-eyed, dead-hearted thug. I like them, though, but mostly because they seem to have banded together and decided that Rosetta is one of them and in need of protection.
At the rate that brother of hers is going, I won’t have to hire security anymore. There are so many tattooed men hanging around my building now, we’ve had two police busts in the past few days. Happily for us all, Juan doesn’t mix business with family, and none of the guys had any drugs on them.
“They’re putting themselves in danger. I don’t trust this guy, Z, and I don’t want the girls involved. What if he gets mad and targets one of them? Oh my God, I have nightmares about this, and then I think of Alex, Cleo, and Sin, and it makes my fucking pits leak,” she sighs tiredly, taking a deep sniff of my chest.
That makes me preen, especially when she rubs closer to me and seems to purr when I hold her more tightly.
“Drain your pits, lady—it’s all going to be fine. The girls are being watched at all times, Juan has people on Carla and her girls, and your dad is reaching out to that CIA buddy of his. We’re on top of this,” I lie, hating myself for it.
I hate myself for all of it, really, because the truth is, it’s my fault. I got Rosetta fired from her job—inadvertently, but still, it was my prompting that had Donald looking at Rosetta’s performance. All I asked the man for was a place on his team so that I could help her, and he took it as an invitation to get rid of her at a time when she needed his support the most.
Honestly, I’m not sad that he’s gone, just annoyed that his murder is hurting Rosetta.
“You’re a terrible liar, Hart, but I appreciate the effort. And I am heartily sick of being this sad, dramatic loser that I’ve become. I want to get in here and help you clear your desk, and then maybe I’ll look into future jobs. Yeah, yeah—I heard you. I need to look forward with a clean slate and positive thoughts, so yeah, if I believe that I’m going to shake this, then I need to start planning for the future, and that future needs me to have a job. Maybe I could teach?” she muses, already lost in thought as she takes a seat and starts to look through the files.
I don’t answer her, letting her lose her worries in something she knows, something that is normal for her and enough of a challenge that she’ll forget her troubles for a while. It’s while she’s muttering about taxes that Adonis walks in and stops in the doorway, a soft expression taking over his face when he sees the dark circles under her eyes. Motioning to me, he backs out and waits as I silently close the door and wave my assistant off to fetch coffee.
“She okay?”
“Define ‘okay.’ If using sex to distract herself is okay, then we’re both peachy fucking keen. If it’s constantly obsessing over how this guy heard us talking about Cameron Black and our belief that he was a patsy, then she’s winning all the awards for okay. Oh, and let’s not get started on the nightmares that wake her up. On the nights when she actually sleeps,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand though my hair. “She isn’t okay, and the longer this drags on, the more worked up she gets. I’m considering taking Pop up on his plans,” I confess, wincing when Adonis frowns.
“Running from this isn’t going to solve anything, Z. If you take Rose and skip out, then they are guaranteed to label her a fugitive. We talked about this, and you agreed,” he whispers, glaring at people to get them back to work when they try to listen in on our conversation.
“What would you have me do? We have no leads and no idea where to start looking, and, from the talk coming out of Brent’s department, the DA is looking to make an example out of her. If it was Cleo, you’d already be on that jet,” I tell him, watching him flush and mutter a curse before he nods.
“I would, but Cleo—she isn’t Rosetta. She’d frog-hop over us all to get to that jet, and then flip us all off before she flew off into the sunset on her lonesome. She loves me, and she loves the rest of us, but she loves her freedom more. Rose isn’t like that. She wants the truth, and she won’t be satisfied until she gets it.”
That’s what I’m afraid of, and it’s the reason that I’m walking around with a syringe full of sedative in my jacket pocket as we speak. If the time ever comes when I have to make the hard decisions, we’ll be on that plane and out of here. I will not see Rosetta hurt, and I won’t see her in prison, either. Just thinking about how close she came to death when that asshole was in her apartment makes my nuts shrive
l. I can’t imagine how she must feel, knowing that she was passed out and at his mercy.
Knowing all this and hitting dead end after dead end, I’ve come to the conclusion—after hours of sleeplessness last night, and after spiking Rosetta’s hot chocolate with an herbal sleep aid—that I might have to do something that will make her hate me. And if saving her means that I’ll have to force her to flee, then I’ll do it, without a shred of guilt. Someone out there is not only obsessed with Cleo, but also willing to remove anyone that may be an obstacle to getting to her.
I love Cleo like a sister, and I would kill for her, but I won’t lose my woman to this. Not for anyone.
“The truth. What the hell does the truth matter in the face of all this? The evidence is overwhelming, Addy. Blood. Fingerprints. You name it; they’ve got it. These murders were executed with more precision than a military strike. And no—before you ask, we’ve searched that angle already. We have nothing in that direction, either,” I sigh, going quiet when Dana comes back with coffee and hands it to us.
“I made this myself, sir. And I made the cake, too. Can I take some in to Rose?” she asks, her eyes going soft when I sigh and nod silently.
“Keep her company, won’t you? She won’t admit it, but it’s bugging her that people aren’t speaking to her.”
“You betcha. Maybe the two of us can get that desk of yours cleared off for the first time in three years,” she replies sassily, giggling when I make a move as if to hip-check her, and scuttles into the office, leaving Adonis and me alone again.
“It’s driving me crazy, and poor Cleo is beside herself about it all. She blames herself. And me, when she gets that harebrained idea stuck in her head every few hours. I can’t quite escape the notion that this is about her, and yet this—doing this to Rose—just doesn’t make sense. And those fucking emails, man,” he grates, his frustration apparent. “What the hell was Rosetta thinking, sending those assholes death threats?”