Her blue eyes got even bigger. I didn’t think they could, but they did. I squeezed her hands before she ran away. She stared at my face, and then at our joined fingers in confusion.
“Lucas?” Her voice had gone soft and vulnerable. She looked afraid. Like she might get hurt. I didn’t want to hurt her. That was the last thing I’d do. I swore to myself in that moment that I’d never, ever hurt her.
“Everyone that matters to me has been trying to tell me this from the beginning,” I continued, looking anywhere but at Rae. “Victoria doesn’t want to be with me. She doesn’t want me back. But while I’ve been busy trying to create the perfect fake relationship for myself, I’ve been ignoring the truth. There’s real potential between us. I know you feel it too.”
I hope you feel it too. Otherwise I’m going to feel like such a fool.
“Lucas, I don’t think you realize what you’re saying.” Her voice was very small. It wasn’t like her at all.
“I know exactly what I’m saying Rae.” I squeezed her hands, warming them in my own. It was a bit chilly outside. “I’m saying that I want you.”
Before I could stop myself or wait for an answer, I kissed her. She looked like she needed to be kissed, and she tasted like sweet champagne. Her surprised lips parted after a moment and I kissed her with every ounce of my desperation, trying to convey with my body what I wasn’t able to properly articulate with my words.
I’ve never been great at talking about my feelings. I’m pretty good at figuring out how other people are feeling, understanding their motivations, and predicting their actions, but those same skills have never worked on me. Introspection isn’t my strong suit, which was probably why I’d needed Cole and Wendy to lay it out for me. But now, for once, I knew what—or rather, who—I wanted. And she was right beside me.
Rae let me kiss her, and after an initial second of reluctance, I felt her passion rising with mine. She surrendered. Rae buried her little fingers into my hair and leaned into me. She let me kiss down the long line of her neck, wrap my arms tight around her waist, and mess up her carefully curled hair. But when I finally pulled away, her face was soft, but pensive. “You’re going to regret this,” she told me. It sounded like a promise.
I had a promise for her, too. “Never.”
“You will.” Her voice was surprisingly sad.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“I thought you didn’t want to double down anymore?” She was giving me every opportunity to back away from what I was asking for. Little did she know, I couldn’t. Once I’d started down this path there was no changing course. I’d used my last energy on this course correction. I was now on a runaway train. This either ended with Rae in my bed tonight or never seeing her again.
“I’m learning to make better wagers. This is a good one.”
“No, it isn’t.” She smiled a sad little smile at me, and there seemed to be something fierce fighting with something vulnerable behind her eyes. “If you want to get out of here, I’ll go with you tonight. But first, I have to tell you something that will probably change the way you see me completely. I’ve been keeping something from you and I just can’t do it anymore.” She shook her head and looked miserably at the ground.
For a moment, I was speechless. This was not how I expected this to go.
A tear slid down Rae’s cheek. I went to brush it away, but she winced out of my grasp. “You’re going to hate me in a moment,” she said. “I’ve been lying to you.”
29
Rae
My heart was in my throat. I brushed my tears away with a stubborn hand and sat up straighter. It was time to tell the truth. If I was going to wreck my career and my personal prospects with Lucas in one fell swoop, I could at least do it bravely. I owed myself that much. “Azure Group is going to liquidate Notable Match once they acquire it and get rid of your technology.” The moment I said the words, I felt lighter. I’d hated lying. I’d especially hated lying to Lucas.
He frowned and shook his head at me. “What are you talking about? That’s not the agreement.”
I knew it wasn’t the agreement. The agreement was that Azure Group was going to grow it. Everything we’d told him so far supported that idea.
My voice was sad. “They change their agreements whenever it suits them. Paper is just paper to them. It’s now in their interest to liquidate it.”
Lucas’ eyes had gone huge and round. “Well if that’s true, then I just won’t sell.” I could almost read his thoughts. He was thinking that there were other private equity investors in the world. He could simply find a better one.
“Yes, you will sell.” I sighed and looked back down at my feet. “Azure Group already has your code. You gave it to them. Back out now and they’ll destroy it anyway.” I took a deep breath before continuing. This was the worst part. “You either let them pay you for the pleasure and enjoy being CEO of a shell for five years or fight them and lose. They’ll send your case over to our legal department and sue you for everything you’re worth. They want Notable Match dead and their pockets are deeper than yours. No matter what you do, Notable Match gets fucked. But you should still sign the deal, because if you don’t, you get destroyed for free.”
“The NDA—” He started, and I cut him off with a rude noise.
. “It won’t save you. They’ve got an army of lawyers. Real ones, not just wannabes like me. You’ll never prove their litigation is retaliatory. Even if you somehow could get proof, they’d bury you in paperwork. Individuals don’t win against multi-billion-dollar corporations. Trust me. I’ve seen plenty of people try and fail.”
Lucas pulled away from me and I could see him running through my logic in his head. I knew it held up. He’d be looking for flaws, loopholes, backdoors, trapdoors, anything that would save Notable Match. There was nothing. Eventually he did come up with a question.
“Why?” He asked me. “Why would they even want to bury Notable Match? Was this the plan the whole time?”
He must have been wondering if I had been planning on fucking him over since I first laid eyes on him. It hurt my heart to think about it. I’d already betrayed him. He’d never forgive me. The least I could do now was tell the truth. It was late, but it was still better than never.
I shook my head at him. “No. It wasn’t the original plan.” I could hear the guilt in my voice. “I swear that it wasn’t the plan the entire time.”
“But why would Azure Group do this?” Lucas asked. It was a very valid question. They had initially been planning to grow it. No business would buy an asset like Notable Match just to destroy it. It made no sense. Unless you considered the bigger picture.
“They acquired a major competitor of yours last week. Datability. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Anyway, in order to cinch the deal, our CEO did something pretty fucked up. The deal was predicated on the agreement not to modify their essential operations for five years. She showed them your technology and promised that your algorithms would never see the light of day to convince them to sell to Azure Group. Now that they have Datability, Azure Group won’t compete against their own tech.”
I swallowed hard. This was a worst case, no-win scenario for Lucas. And that wasn’t even the worst thing. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I feared I might hyperventilate. It didn’t take Lucas a very long time to figure it out.
“You knew.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I did.” I refused to lie to him anymore. Even though it would probably cost me my entire career, I just couldn’t go through with what I’d been asked to do. It wasn’t worth it to me.
“For how long?”
“About a week.”
Lucas was still staring at me in disbelief. There was no anger, at least not yet. I was sure it was coming though. “Last week—last Sunday—when Kyle came by… he was trying to tell me what Azure Group had planned.” My heart twisted. “He came to warn me, and you stopped him. You kept him from telling me the truth.”
“Yes.
That’s right.” I was starting to cry again. “I was afraid.” My heart was beating so loud and so quickly that I wondered if Lucas was able to hear it. “Telling you this could cost me everything, but I know it will cost you even more. It’s ok if you hate me now. I understand.”
Lucas was quiet for a long time. I stared down at the ground and waited for him to start yelling at me. It never came. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I looked at him.
He was staring off into the parking lot. His profile was lit by the lights of the bar, and I marveled at how handsome he was. Lucas’s strong jaw was set in a stubborn frown.
“I’ll figure out a way to save Notable Match,” he said eventually. “I have to.”
I nodded. If anyone could, it was him. “I’ll go now,” I told him. “I’m sure you don’t want to see me ever again.”
I rose, but I didn’t make it two steps before Lucas laughed. I turned, completely dumbfounded.
He’s laughing? Has he lost his mind?
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked me.
I blinked. “What? I was going to go home.” My voice was shaky. Adrenaline shot through me. Was he angry? I didn’t believe there was any chance that Lucas would ever harm me, but I had every reason to believe that he was going to yell at me. I didn’t like being yelled at.
“There’s no way I’m letting you go anywhere without me.” He pulled me back toward him and kissed me again. I couldn’t believe this reaction.
“Lucas, you should be angry with me.”
“Were you supposed to tell me all this?”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
“You could lose your job for telling me, couldn’t you?”
“Yes.” I paused. “If you tell Azure Group, I’ll definitely lose my job.”
“You broke the rules for me.”
I had no comeback. I had broken the rules for him. “It was the right thing to do.”
His grin was almost unbelievable. “You just proved me right,” he said to me.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“You just proved me right that I was smart to bet on you.”
He drew me closer and wrapped his arms around my waist possessively. I almost couldn’t bear to hope, but of course I couldn’t entirely resist. Was there a chance he could forgive me?
“You aren’t angry with me?”
“Do I seem angry with you?”
I shook my head. “No...” I still wasn’t sure I trusted this reaction. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to double down. Hard. I’m going all in.” He kissed me again. I got the feeling that his double entendre was intentional, and it set my heart racing. “I’ll figure out the rest later.”
30
Rae
When we got to Lucas’ loft, I could barely remember how we got there. I was pretty sure there had been an Uber involved, but all I could think about was getting out of my dress and closer to Lucas. Anticipation was making my heart pound and I was dizzy with the feeling. As soon as we were inside, Lucas slammed the door closed and pulled me back against him.
The time for slow was over. The time for thinking, and doubting, and second-guessing was over. I was all out of worry. But I was prepared this time.
“I have condoms in my purse,” I told him with my remaining foresight while he figured out how to unzip my dress.
Lucas arched an eyebrow at me as he found the tricky side zipper. “I bought some too. As soon as you left last time.” He finished with the zipper and pushed the dress off my shoulders. I stepped out of it.
We both smiled. It was pointless to resist this. It was inevitable that we’d end up in bed together. It had been inevitable since Cliff almost swallowed that damn bee.
My dress was quickly abandoned on the ground by the door. Lucas’ shirt ended up on the couch. His shoes were near the kitchen. Mine were next to his pants in the hallway. We ended up in the bedroom. Lucas banished the cats and then came back to my arms.
He was just like I’d imagined him being in the thousands of secret fantasies I’d let myself indulge in over the past two weeks. He was as confident and assertive in the bedroom as he was in the boardroom, and sometimes I needed that. Craved it. I needed a partner that would take control. I found myself tossed up on the bed, turned over on my stomach, and stripped out of my panties and bra in an instant. His hands lingered possessively over my breasts, my ass, my waist, and the curves of my hips. I pressed up into his fingers, reveling in being explored like this.
His hands brushed between my thighs and I spread them wide for him. He made a pleased noise in the back of his throat when he felt my heat and wetness. I was ready for him. Beyond ready. Needy. I pushed my pussy down against his fingers eagerly.
“I don’t think I can be gentle,” he whispered in my ear between kisses. “It’s been too long for me.”
“Then be a little bit rough. I like it. I’ll tell you if it’s too much.” I turned around and looked at him when I said it, and I saw his pupils dilate excitedly. I’d always had a bit of a thing for submitting in the bedroom. Nothing crazy or anything. No pain or latex bodysuits. The world of kink is expansive, and I’d barely ever toed the edge of it. But when you spend all your time in charge of things at work, being able to let someone else be in charge feels so good. With Lucas, it felt necessary and right.
He flipped me back over, pinning my wrists to the mattress and kissing me hard. His fingers wrapped all the way around each of my wrists.
“Too much?” he asked, testing the pressure against my wrists.
I shook my head. “Not enough.”
He grinned, gripped my wrists tighter and together over my head with one hand, and then leaned in to tease my mouth with his. I arched up into him, greedy for connection. Sensation. Anything he could give me to get me out of my own head. His other hand pulled and pinched one nipple and then the other until they couldn’t get any harder. When he pulled his mouth away I was panting. The emptiness between my legs ached.
Lucas seemed as overwhelmed and desperate as me. When he pulled back to unbuckle his pants and roll a condom on, I watched with him with hungry eyes. I could never imagine a more attractive partner.
The strong muscles of his arms and shoulders tensed and flexed when I ran my fingers up his sides and back. His skin was soft and he smelled so damn good, a heady, potent mixture of pine, clean soap, and citrus. I couldn’t get enough of it.
My hands stroked down his chest and he shivered against me before turning his attention back between my legs. I worked my legs wider apart as he eased forward, gasping into the first pinch of penetration before relaxing blissfully into the feeling. He wasn’t the only one who was out of practice. But just like riding a bicycle, I found the balance and rhythm right away. We breathed and moved together, wide-eyed, open-mouthed and overwhelmed by the newness and pleasure.
After the first few gentle thrusts, Lucas became more demanding. He held me tighter, staring down at me and watching my face carefully for any sign of discomfort or pain. He didn’t need to be so careful. I pushed back stroke for stroke, arching my back, lifting my hips, and urging him on.
My mind was finally empty of any thoughts beyond us. Our movements. Our bodies. Every synapse in my brain was alight with the joy of giving and being taken.
Our mouths found each other again, and I was moaning against his lips for more. He gave it to me, driving into me harder and pinning my forearms to the mattress. I could feel my climax coming and I chased it. I came hard around him, gasping his name and staring up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.
When my mind cleared, Lucas was looking at me fondly but with a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes.
“More,” I mouthed. He smiled devilishly and my heart flipflopped in excitement. I wanted so much more. I wanted everything. If he wanted to tie me up and tease me for the rest of the night I’d eagerly get down on my knees and beg for it.
He pulled away and turned me over once mor
e. I thought I knew what he wanted, but when I tried to go up to my hands and knees, he pressed against the small of my back to keep me prone. His fingers pushed my thighs apart. Being penetrated again from behind, face down, nearly pushed me right back over the edge. My desperate pussy clenched around him and I heard myself making high, whimpering noises.
“Lucas, harder please…” The voice was mine but it didn’t sound like me. It was breathy and high. He nipped at the back of my neck in reply.
In this position he was completely in control. I ground my ass up against him as best I could, and he reached a hand around my thigh to rub leisurely against my clit. It was exquisite torture to be fucked like this, barely able to move but completely pampered and stimulated.
Unexpectedly, he slowed his hand. “I really shouldn’t get you off again after you kept the truth from me for a whole week.” His voice was deliciously teasing.
I was so close. This teasing made it so much better… and so much worse.
“Lucas please,” I whimpered, pushing against him greedily. It wasn’t quite enough without his fingers.
“You’ve been bad,” he growled in my ear. “Why should I give you a reward?”
I was beyond saying anything coherent. I was just sensation. Just breathless, helpless need. All I could do was moan and writhe and push mindlessly against his hand.
If he would just move his hand…
“Oh alright,” he finally whispered, sliding his fingers back to put pressure on my clit right where I needed it. I could feel his lips drawn up in a smile against my neck. “I can’t say no to you when you make such sweet little noises for me.”
His breath in my ear told me he was getting close and I came again just before he did, finally collapsing next to me in exhaustion and bliss.
We cuddled for a long time before a question that had been pinging around in my brain finally percolated to the top.
“Hey Lucas?”
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