The Empire

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “When? When are you going to do that, because this isn’t it? And then maybe, just maybe, you’ll let me go and stop fucking with my head.”

  He lets out a low growl and presses me to the frame again, squeezing my breast roughly, even as he spanks me again. I cry out, and my sex clenches, damn heat gathering at my thighs. “Scare me away,” I beg. “Please. Then you win. Then you can decide that you’re not good enough for me or I’m not good enough for you or whatever it is that goes on in your head.”

  He goes still, utterly, completely still, but one of his hands remain on my breast, the fingers of the other flexing on my backside. “I’m the asshole, remember?” he finally says at my ear.

  “Right,” I whisper. “Spanking me again. I like it. I feel no fear with you, Eric. None.”

  Torment rips across his features and he buries his face in my neck. “Liar,” he whispers, and he spanks me again.

  “Who’s lying to who?” I demand, pressing my backside against his erection. “I’m the one naked and exposed. You’re hiding behind me. Behind them. You want me to leave.”

  He turns me to face him. “No, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Liar.”

  “I know you should. I know you will. I know—”

  I wrap my arms around him and press my naked body to his, holding onto him. “I’m scared.” I look up at him. “I’m scared of them. I’m scared of getting hurt. I’m scared of trusting you and you breaking my heart. I’m scared of being vulnerable and you leaving. Of being without the man who feels like he’s a part of me now. And you’re scared too. Of being like them to the point that you’re going to make all of my fears come true and then they win and we lose.”

  He stares down at me, a half-lidded stare, emotions radiating off of him that I want to read, that I want to understand. It pulses. It vibrates. He vibrates in that way he did on the plane and I know, I know, that I’ve pushed too hard. I press to my toes and my mouth finds his, and I hope and pray that he’ll get lost in me, not them, not the Kingston monsters that are too present in this room and our lives.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Harper

  My lips linger on Eric’s, his hard body, every inch and part of it, aligned with mine, but at this moment he’s not touching me. Seconds tick by, and I feel as if my head is spinning, my heart breaking. He’s shut me out. He’s decided he’s the devil and I’m some sort of angel above him. The princess, the damn princess that he’s going to leave gutted and bleeding.

  I push back and it’s as if I’ve ignited something inside him. He tangles his fingers in my hair and drags my mouth back to his. “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t be out here on the ledge alone, Eric.”

  “You’re not on the ledge alone. I’m right there with you. I’m not the one who’s going to leave. You are.”

  “I’m not leaving. Why would I leave?”

  “You will leave,” he says, ignoring the question. “Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be standing here, wasting any of the time I have with you. I should be kissing you.” His mouth closes down on mine and it’s pure animal hunger, possessive, brutal almost in its intensity, that part of him buried deep beneath the surface that I’ve sensed was there—no, that he told me was there. That he’s declared the part of him that would scare me away. That’s what he thinks. That ultimately, I will see all of him, know him, the real him, the real savant, and I will leave.

  And so, I answer that certainty in him that I will run away by leaning into him, by meeting every lick and touch with one of my own. He feels it, too, and this doesn’t satisfy him. It drives him. It pushes him. And he pushes me. Before I know his intent, he’s maneuvered us and we’re at the bed, which might seem like a fine place for a romantic moment if he didn’t turn me to face the mattress. If he didn’t press me to my knees and then lean me forward.

  I settle on my elbows and he wastes no time ensuring I’m not wasting time thinking. He’s immediately on his knee beside me, one palm between my shoulder blades, the other one my backside. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t dare me with words and yet I know the moment I say no, the moment I say stop, he would. On some level, maybe he’d revel in his success. Maybe he’d think that he’d pushed me to show my fear, pushed me to run, and if I do, it’s inevitable. But I don’t want to run. I’m aroused. I’m so very aroused and when his hand squeezes my backside, and then slides lower, between my legs, fingers pressing along the slick seam of my sex, there is no way he can believe I feel fear or resistance. He has to know how aroused I am. How in need I am.

  His hand lifts from my back, and his lips press there, a gentle brush of his mouth that is tender and sweet, but then he’s gone. He’s gone from the mattress, but he hasn’t left. He stands behind me, hands on my hips, and his fingers are back between my thighs, teasing me with his exploration, and when I arch into his touch, suddenly his free hand is on my backside, giving it a stinging smack. Sensations rush through me, wild and hot, and I have barely recovered when he is patting my sex, a steady pulse that sends darts of sensations through my body.

  “Eric,” I breathe out, the first word I have spoken, the only word either of us have spoken.

  He spanks me again and then he’s patting my sex again and I’m overwhelmed with the sensations that are suddenly gone. “Don’t move.”

  He shifts behind me and on instinct, I try to turn, but he catches my hips again. “Don’t move.” He spanks me. I yelp and ache with so much need I can barely breathe. He releases me and my nipples tighten and ache, as if he’s touched them and swore he’d never do it again. There’s a shift and soft whispers of movement behind me and then Eric’s hands are back on my hips, his fingers sliding between my thighs, and as much as I want him inside me, there’s this part of me that knows he’s behind me for a reason. He’s still shut down. He’s still keeping an emotional distance between us.

  A thought I don’t hold onto for long as his cock slides between my thighs and my sex, my aching sex, becomes the center of my attention. That is until he’s suddenly flipping me over onto my back and going down on one knee in front of me, pulling me forward, spreading me wide. “You just don’t run, do you?” he challenges, pressing his lips to my belly before his eyes lift to mine, the look there a mix of hot challenge and tender affection that defies his hand on my backside, but then, it was never a firm hand. It was just solid enough to arouse me. Just firm enough to be as perfect as every line of his handsome face, his high cheekbones, his firm jaw.

  “I wasn’t the one to leave,” I say. “You know that, right?”

  “I’m here now,” he says, licking my clit.

  I suck in a breath and fight the wave of arousal he’s stirred anew in me. “For now,” I whisper. “But how long does ‘now’ last?”

  “Until you leave, Harper. Until you leave.” And when I would object to this statement, his mouth comes down on me and he’s licking and teasing, using his fingers and tongue to do wickedly wonderful things to my body. He can’t believe I’ll leave. He can’t want me to leave or he wouldn’t follow that statement up with this kind of pleasure.

  I arch into his mouth, into his fingers stretching me when I want him inside me, not them. I want him filling me. I want him completing me, but then he does. He just doesn’t seem to know that. And all I know right now, is how good he feels. How good his fingers and tongue feel. I shatter, oh God, how I shatter and for long moments that are over too soon, there is nothing but the quake of my body. But then it’s over, and there is so much I need all over again, the sum of which is him.

  I almost expect him to place another barrier between us, to turn me over and fuck me, but he doesn’t. He slides up my body and molds me close, the rush of heat and emotion between us almost too much to allow me to breathe. I know how that devil comment affected him now. I just somehow know. He presses inside me, filling me the way I want to be filled, and when he’s inside me, buried deep, my hand settles on his cheek. “I will never believe you’re like them
. I will never see them when I look at you. And unlike everyone else in your life, I won’t leave.” Because that’s where his fear of me seeing him as a Kingston comes from. He thinks I’ll see them in him and I’ll leave. “I won’t leave,” I promise. “Good. Bad. All the in between. You’re stuck with me for all of it.”

  He doesn’t reject these words. His mouth comes down on mine and I know he’s weighing my words, I know he wants to taste them on my lips. And that’s how I know that he’s not convinced I mean them, but one day, one day, I will undo the damage the Kingstons created in him. One day, they will no longer be able to touch him or us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Harper

  The questions in Eric’s kiss transform to white-hot passion, but there is tenderness beneath the fire, beneath the wild hunger I sense in him. He cups my backside and arches my hips, pressing his cock deeper, rocking with me. Kissing me. Touching me. I am lost in this man in ways I didn’t know any person could be lost in another. Our legs are entwined. His fingers tangled in my hair, roughly pulling my mouth to his.

  “You’re not leaving?”

  “No,” I whisper. “Never.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  “Remember that. Stop assuming. Stop pushing. Stop—”

  With that, his lips slant over mine and his tongue presses past my lips. I feel that deep stroke in every part of my body, my sex clenching around his cock. “Still want me to stop?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already kissing me again and the demand is back, the taste of him all about power and control, the flex of his fingers in my backside, the push of his cock deep inside me echoing the same. I moan and I need him now with such intensity that it’s like I’m trying to crawl under his skin. I press against him, grab his hair, his arm, his perfect backside and it’s not enough.

  Eric rolls me to my back, lifts my leg, his hand on my breast, squeezing roughly, even as he thrusts harder and harder, jolting me with sensation with every collision of his body inside mine. Somehow through it all, we’re breathing together, just as we’re moving together. And he seems to know what I need, when I need it. He seems to know exactly where I need it because I’m there, so very there, in that place of perfection that no one wants to end. Sensations rip through me, quaking my body, tightening my sex around his thick erection. He pumps into the clench of my orgasm, moaning deeply, a low, rough masculine sound that would push me over the edge if I wasn’t already there. Fortunately, so is he, and we slide into that sweet spot together, riding it out until we collapse into each other. We hold each other, seconds stretching into minutes until he inches back to look at me, his eyes warm, flecks of gold in the depths of the blue.

  “Don’t move,” he orders, kissing my nose in the tender way that squeezes my heart before he pulls out and moves away.

  I lean up and watch him stand, his perfect tight ass stealing my thoughts momentarily, but as he starts to walk I call out, “Who put you in charge? Why should I do as you say?”

  He disappears into the bathroom and immediately pops back out. “Because you need this,” he says, holding up a towel as he closes the small space between us, going down on a knee to slide it between my legs. “And because I only order you around when I’m trying to protect you or give you an orgasm. Once we eat, we’ll get back to the orgasms. I’m fucking starving.” He stands up and walks to the bathroom where he disappears again.

  Protect me. He wants to protect me. I get that. Perhaps too well. The bathroom door is open and I climb off of the bed and pursue him. The bathroom is empty and I track through it to the closet where he’s waiting on me in a pair of sweats, with a T-shirt in his hand. He gives my puckered nipples a quick, but intense inspection, and then pulls the tee over my head. “We won’t eat if you walk around like that.”

  “Protect me?” I challenge. “From who? You?”

  He drags me close. “There’s no protecting you from me. I told you, if you run, I’ll run faster.”

  “And yet, you shoved me away today.”

  His expression tightens. “Because I don’t want to have to run after you, Harper.”

  “But you think you’ll have to,” I say, and it’s not a question. He made this point tonight.

  “Look. Harper, baby. I’d just confessed a fear of my father dying, which contrasted my desire to kill the bastard. That conflicting slew of emotions drove home who I am: my father’s bastard son. When you called him the devil, this family the devil, it was in a moment when I was connected to them in an uncomfortable way.”

  My hand settles on the warm, hard wall of his chest. “I want you to trust me. I want you to believe in me.”

  His hand covers mine. “Let’s go eat. Let’s share a meal. Let’s just be you and me for a few hours.”

  “You don’t trust me,” I whisper, my chin and lashes lowering with the defeat of this moment.

  His finger slides under my chin, lifting my gaze to his. “Of course I trust you.”

  “No, but it’s okay. I know how much and many ways you’ve been betrayed. Trust comes with time and experience.”

  “I trust you, Harper, or you wouldn’t be here.” He cups my face. “And I trust me. I know me and you don’t yet. Not in all the ways you will one day. You’ll know the savant and the man, and you are uniquely equipped to see the Kingston in me.”

  “You’re right. I am and I already do. Kingstons are driven, powerful, smart. You are those things, but you’re also your mother’s son. You’re a Mitchell, which means humble, kind, compassionate. And I’ll remind you of that over and over if I have to.”

  His eyes warm. “As long as you remember, I’ll remember.”

  “Tonight—”

  “I dealt with grieving for a man I hate, who all but killed my mother. That fucked with my head. I need us tonight.”

  Us.

  He needs us.

  “Don’t forget that,” I say. “Don’t push me away like you did tonight. Pull me closer. Talk to me like you are now. Be with me and—”

  He cups my head and kisses me. “I will.” His lips thin and he amends, “I’ll try. They trigger me, Harper. I won’t lie and say they don’t, but if I step back, just step with me.”

  “Yes,” I whisper, my eyes burning, emotion welling inside me. “Yes. I will. I will always step with you.”

  He laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine and kisses my knuckles. “My turn to say: remember that.”

  We share a smile and in that moment, I feel the growth between us, the expanding bond, the intimacy. I start to turn away and he pulls me back to face him. “Harper, I know what it’s like to be in a house that doesn’t feel like home. This is your home. Our home. I will make sure you are fully settled before we leave here again. And I meant what I said, if we have to buy a new place to make that happen—”

  “We don’t. We don’t need a new place. No place is home. People are home. You’re home to me. The only home I’ve had in a long—a very long—time. I do need to feel stable. I need solid footing but this apartment isn’t what does that or even my place in Denver. You do. We do.”

  “We do,” he agrees. “You’re home to me, too, Harper. Never, not one time tonight when we were fighting did I think—this is it, I want her gone. I thought—this is it—I can’t lose her. I won’t lose her.”

  I wrap my arms around him. “You won’t. That’s a promise.”

  “Never break a promise, Harper,” he says. “And neither will I.”

  And there it is. In a short conversation, we’ve defined what matters to us both: home, stability, and most importantly, trust. We both need to trust each other, especially when we might turn our backs and be stabbed by a Kingston at any moment.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Harper

  Eric calls downstairs to have our shopping haul delivered and then pulls on a T-shirt, while I dress in a pair of black tights and a black tee from the things Mia bought for me. Not long afterwards, the bellman arrives, and while Eric talks to him, I place t
he haul in the closet I’m now sharing with Eric. The idea of hanging my things next to his forever more, does funny things to my belly, but the fight we’re just recovering from is hard to shake. No. It’s more than that. I believe Eric and I are stronger for that blowup and our talk that followed. It’s more a clawing sense of foreboding that just won’t go away.

  Eric appears in the closet door, his light brown hair rumpled, his jaw now sporting a heavy stubble that is a far contrast to the refined businessman I’d met at the party that first night, and at the Bennett offices. And yet, somehow, it’s just as Eric as is the man in the perfectly fitted expensive suit. Two pieces of one puzzle, the rougher edges he’s sporting now, a part of him that I know is always present, but his need for control doesn’t allow him to show that side of himself to others. But he is home now, and he’s relaxed. He’s with me and he’s choosing to let me see all of him.

  His eyes are warm on my face as he says, “Take whatever part of the closet you want, Harper.”

  I cross to join him and wrap my arms around his waist. “I can’t believe this is our life. Us. Together. One closet.”

  “I don’t invite people into my space, Harper, but I like you here,” he says. “More than you know.” His voice is low, rough, and yet so damn tender.

  “I like me here, too. More than you know.”

  His lips hint at a smile, and oh how much I love his smiles, and how few I’ve seen, but soon this hell will be over. Soon, I silently vow, I will make him smile as often as possible. “Let’s order dinner,” he suggests.

  I nod eagerly and we head downstairs, debating our dinner choices. We ultimately order takeout from a Mexican joint Eric loves, and the delivery is fast, and the food amazing. I approve of his choice and soon our bellies are full, and we curl into an oversized chair in front of a stunning city view, the sun long gone. The city lights twinkling and winking, almost as if they’re celebrating this chance we have at peace. Some part of me knows that we have a world of evil waiting for us outside this apartment but the idea that this is our safe place together, our home together, fills me with warmth I can’t wish away. I need this. Obviously, Eric needs this, too.