by K. I. Lynn
“So, how long have you lived in Indianapolis?” I asked while I moved to the bedroom and changed into something more comfortable. We knew few details about one another, and I was going to get to the bottom of Nathan Thorne.
“My whole life, with the exception of college. What about you?” he asked.
He removed his tie and I licked my lips in memory of how he’d used it earlier. He also rid himself of his suit jacket and unbuttoned his dress shirt.
“Indiana native, born and bred,” I admitted. “I moved to Indy just before college and stayed. No reason to return anyway. Not much demand for lawyers in the middle of nowhere.”
He sounded surprised by my admission. “You didn’t go out of state for law school?”
I moved past him and walked to the kitchen.
I sighed and shook my head. “No. Too much to pay out of state tuition. I’ll be paying off my school debts for another few years as it is. Even with my grants.”
He smirked before admitting his parents had paid for college, including his stint at Harvard Law. I stared at him as he spoke of the East Coast school and his time there. He was smiling as he recounted his first year at the elite establishment.
I had always known he was more than just a transactional attorney. You didn’t go to Harvard Law for such a technical position. Another piece.
I admired his smile before commenting, “You know, that mask of yours is slipping a lot lately.”
He shrugged his shoulders, his smile faltering. “There’s no point in the pretense around you.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. “But I still don’t know your secrets,” I pointed out as I opened the fridge door, and dipped down to find some vegetables for a salad.
“No, but you know there are secrets. That’s much more than anyone else. It’s nice not to have to always pretend everything’s perfect.”
I, better than anyone, knew what he meant. Even his voice had lost its pretense and was low with little inflection.
“So, why pretend then?”
“It makes things easier.” He rubbed the back of his neck. It seemed a nervous gesture to me; he didn’t like the subject matter. “It didn’t take long to learn that after… People don’t really want to know that your knee and wrist ache every day, your body hurts in ways you can’t describe, that you’re plagued by migraines and nightmares, or your depression and anxiety continue years later.”
I stood staring at him after his impromptu confession. He hadn’t given much detail, but at least I knew why. It was easier than the truth by far. It kept looks of pity at bay. It kept the memories away.
“What about you?” he asked.
I pulled away from the open door, bringing with me a variety of vegetables and a can of pasta sauce. Pasta was quick, which was good due to how late it was, according to the wall clock.
“What about me?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “You really want to play that game? Do you want me to say it?”
“No.”
“Why then?”
“The same. It’s easier to say I’m fine then go into detail about how I put out a confident front, but inside I’m holding the darkness at bay and one word can send it crashing down.”
“You confound me,” he said.
My brow scrunched as I stared back at him in confusion.
“You have such a poor view of yourself.” He frowned, deep in thought, and his voice was full of concern. “How did you get this way?”
“Doesn’t matter. Damage done, and I’m working to get past it.” I swallowed hard, turning away from him as I located a cutting board and knife.
He settled his hip into the side of the counter, keeping out of my way as I worked. His position meant he could continue to talk to me and also watch my every move. “Hiding it doesn’t help you get past it.”
“No, it doesn’t, you know that all too well. The thing is: I’ve at least gotten a little better over the years. Have you?” I asked as I filled a pot with water and set it on the burner, turning it on high to get it boiling.
“Your eyes say differently,” he said, diverting away from my question yet again.
“I said I’ve gotten better, not that I was healed. Downers don’t help, that’s why I don’t go out drinking with people…you’ve seen what happens.”
“Yes, but that also shows you aren’t better.”
“You make me better,” I whispered in a small voice.
He blinked at me, his face stoic.
“You make me feel like I’m all of the things they said I wasn’t. Beautiful, smart, sexy…worth something.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Nathan asked after a moment of silence. “What did ‘they’ do to you?”
“You want to know? You’re certain you want me to tell you how every day I was told how insignificant I was?” I set down the knife and turned toward him, my arms crossing over my chest. “You’re not forthcoming with information, and I get that, I do. I hope one day you’ll be able to tell me. As for me… Well, when you’re young, and the people in your life tell you these things every day, you begin to believe them. They become ingrained into who you are, and I’ve worked damn hard to push them away. Years of therapy. I’ve seen a psychiatrist from the time I was seventeen. Twelve years later I have more confidence, but everything still haunts me.”
“I’ve done that to you, haven’t I? I’ve said something to trigger you?” His tone was knowing.
“You didn’t know,” I said with a shrug, looking away. “Alcohol is a double edged sword for me. It helps me sleep, but my depression spikes.”
“Yet you drink every Friday, letting everything come back,” he noted.
“Stalking me now?” I teased.
“No, just observant.”
“Well, Mr. Observant, can you hand me the bread sitting next to you?”
I placed the vegetables on a cutting board and rinsed my hands. My skin prickled with the familiar humming that passed between us, letting me know he was in very close proximity. I took the bread from him, letting out a breath. The back of his fingers caressed my cheeks as his gaze captured mine.
“You are so much more than pretty. That was what I wanted to say to you that night. Instead I was inadvertently mean to push you away.” He pressed his body against me, pushing me into the counter. His forehead fell forward, resting against my own. “How do you do this to me?”
With a small tentative move, I tilted my head, testing him, giving him an out before my lips found his. He didn’t move at first, didn’t breathe, but then his hands were in my hair, his tongue slipping in to find mine, his teeth biting my bottom lip when he gave in.
“Fuck, you taste so good. Could fucking eat you for dinner,” he said with a growl, his hips rocking forward, pressing his cock into my stomach. He was hard and my eyes closed from the euphoric feeling of what I wanted.
“Please.”
“Please what?” he asked. His hand moved down to my ass, squeezing it, pulling me closer to him as he continued to rock into me.
My fingers clenched around the fabric of his shirt, the heat in my cheeks rising. “Please, Nathan, I need you to fuck me. I need you inside me. I’ve waited all day.”
I received a moan of appreciation as the hand in my hair tilted my head back and his mouth began its journey down my neck. I was panting with need, still so worked up from earlier.
He was unable to take any more, and lifted me up onto the counter. My legs wrapped around his waist, and the new position had him lined up with my throbbing pussy. He pushed his hips into mine, rubbing the length of his clothed cock against me. I moaned at the sensation, what I’d been dreaming about all day.
“You like that? Little wanton slut begging for my cock. Is that what you want? Me to shove my cock in you? Make you scream?”
“Yes, fuck yes!” I pulled him back down to my lips. We shifted again as need took over.
We worked to remove our clothing as swiftly as possible. It was difficult, what with our lips crashi
ng together, and hands doing anything we could to get closer, but somehow we managed to remove them.
“Fuck.” He shuddered as I took his cock in my hand, stroking him. “God, you are so fucking insatiable.”
“Good thing you can keep up,” I managed to say as he lined up and pushed his hips forward, filling me one inch at a time.
“So wet for me,” he moaned as he pulled out and slid back in, his hips stilling.
His mouth moved down to my nipple, teasing it, the sensation sky rocketing down to my abdomen. I mewled, my hips trying to get him to move. My scalp cried out as he pulled my head back, exposing my neck, bowing my body and granting him access.
His gaze was commanding as he sneered at me. “I’ll fuck you when I’m good and ready. Until then you will sit there with my cock shoved up your cunt and be happy it’s there.”
A shiver ran down my spine at his words, and I complied. His hand moved down to where we were joined and his fingers began teasing my clit. I whimpered as the fire grew, my walls clenching around him, every flick of his fingers or tongue making me tighter. After a few minutes, his need to move took over. He started with short strokes that drove me insane. His teeth pulled on my nipple, and it was the final straw. My orgasm ripped through me, leaving me shaking.
“That’s it, baby, come all over my cock.”
Nathan released my hair, his hips beginning the punishing pace my body had become accustomed to. He’d given me no time to recover, and I was crying out, screaming; my body still so sensitive. I had no words, just sounds. My vision was blurred, unable to focus, my mind blank. Only my body remained to receive him and the pleasure he gave me.
He was shouting expletives, but I couldn’t understand anything other than his large cock slamming into me, his hands gripping me tight, and his mouth marking me. He forced my body over the edge again, and I felt tears running down my cheeks. I was literally crying from the onslaught of sensations.
“Shit, shit, shit!” His hips stilled; he was grunting and groaning as he came deep inside, sheathed to the hilt.
His body relaxed against the cabinets as he came down from the high. Our chests were heaving as our pants died down. My limp arms wrapped around his neck keeping him close. “Lila…fuck, Lila.”
“No. No fuck Lila. Lila done for tonight. Try back in the morning,” I managed to say. I received a chuckle to my neck in response, and a light kiss against my skin.
“I suppose I could wait a few more hours, maybe fuck you while you’re asleep in the middle of the night. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to wake up? My cock buried inside of you?”
I moaned at the thought. “Oh, God!”
“I’ll take that as a hell yes, Miss Palmer.”
“I am all for wake up calls like that, Mr. Thorne.”
Steam filling the room drew my attention away from him—the pot was at a rapid boil. Nathan stepped back, and I shuddered as he slipped out of me. He helped me down from the counter before locating a towel to clean us up. My feet touched the cold tile floor, and I turned to shut off the boiling water, but my legs failed me and I stumbled back into him.
He chuckled, his arms wrapping around me as he kissed my neck. “Hmm, maybe we should have something delivered instead of putting you near a pot of boiling water right now.”
“You may be on to something.” My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor, laughing the whole time.
Two hours later, we were full of fried rice and cashew chicken, lying in my bed. My head rested on his chest, and his fingers were lightly running through my hair.
“Hey, Nathan?” My eyes and body were heavy, sleep closing in.
“Hmm?”
“I’m yours, just so you know,” I mumbled, my mind drifting off into the dark of sleep before he could respond.
CHAPTER 11
Nathan never brought up my declaration in the following weeks. At least not in words. Sometimes I caught his expression flicker, like he was thinking about what I told him—about being his. It faded as soon as it showed up, and I figured that the thought of it made him edgy.
Every day his agitation grew. It was subtle, hiding in his perfected act, so most people didn’t notice, but I knew him better than they did. His fingers combed and tugged at his hair and neck more often, his leg bounced in an increasing tempo, and his fuse became shorter.
All-in-all, he was a ticking time bomb.
His nightmares shook the bed almost every night. His grip was bone crushing as he clung to me, trying to keep it all in. I soothed him as best I could, but I knew it would take more than me to fix him. He needed to let it all out, not keep it in. Purge himself of the emotions he kept tightly locked away. Pot calling the kettle, coming from me, but his pain was earth shattering compared to my own.
Over time, I learned he was taking a myriad of drugs daily. Anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, pain medications; I didn’t know everything he was ingesting, but I had a feeling some of them he was taking more than he did before and it was because of me. The effect I had on him, and the demons I caused to surface, were too much. He could try to deny it, but there was no point in hiding from me. Not me.
I was amazed at how well I was beginning to read Nathan when we were in the office. His discomfort for the Boob-Squad was clear, but no one else could tell.
I sat in my chair, pretending to work, when in reality I was gauging his reaction, trying to figure out why he didn’t tell the Boob-Squad to leave him alone once and for all.
His muscles tensed with every passing minute, and he was not good.
Tiffany, member number three, was clamoring for his attentions. Leaning toward him, the top two buttons of her blouse were undone, exposing the top of her breasts as she reached to point at some arbitrary word on a summons her client had received.
In my peripheral, I watched him try to avoid looking down her shirt, not wanting to give her any opening, eluding to his disinterest. However, he was a man with breasts being flashed at him, it wasn’t like he could resist their call for long. Even from my angle I could see right down her shirt and her ample assets were straining against the hot pink lace of her bra. Of course he was staring at her tits. It was like a fucking neon sign drawing people in. Who could resist that? Even I was having a difficult time looking away.
One small glance spurred her on, and she walked around to his side of the desk so she didn’t have to read it upside down. To most it looked like he was making room for her, moving over and back a bit. To me, I saw him fleeing, trying to keep space between them.
I was pretty sure if I hadn’t been there, she would have taken it as an invitation to mount him.
Despite his disinterest in the women in the office, especially the Boob-Squad, I knew he was attracted to many of his female colleagues.
I caught him sneaking a peek when he thought no one was looking. It didn’t bother me. We weren’t in a relationship, at least in the technical sense, and I knew he was only looking; he had no interest in acting on the attraction.
I learned a lot about him by observation; I was a people watcher. His cocky attitude wasn’t exactly a lie or an act. It was all based on the man he used to be; a smooth, charismatic, arrogant, intelligent, and fuck hot God. He was playing himself in a role that was no longer his life.
I broke down and asked him one night at dinner about Ian’s comment of him being a playboy.
“Playboy? No. You’ve saved me enough at the office to know that. However, I’m not a monk either,” was his response.
I nodded. “What lonely, angry, sad, and gorgeous man with a strong libido wouldn’t partake in casual sex now and again?”
He pursed his lips at me, his face unamused. “You see more than what’s good for you.”
“Like you?”
“Exactly.”
I still didn’t get it, why he didn’t regard me the same as all the other women. Fuck and run, look but don’t touch. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. What was it about me that attracted him?
“You’re d
aydreaming again, Palmer,” he said, bringing my mind back to the present. I looked around and noticed Tiffany was no longer hovering over his cock.
I gave him my best bitch brow to keep up the show. “Thinking, Thorne,”
“More fun if you were day dreaming.”
“And why is that?”
He smirked at me and returned to his work, ignoring me.
A moment later my phone buzzed. Why couldn’t he just tell me?
Because if you were day dreaming, I would have a valid excuse to punish you for ignoring your work.
Oh, that’s why. I swallowed past the lump that had formed in my throat before responding.
Okay, no more texting from you during work.
Lame, but that was all I could come up with. My brain had exploded at the implications of his words, wildfire ripping its way through my body. How did he always do that to me?
Telling me what I can and cannot do, Palmer? Now THAT’S something to punish you for.
My jaw dropped as I stared at the tiny screen. He was going to be the death of me in the most glorious of ways.
I was startled out of my thoughts by an unexpected rapping on the door, making me jump.
“Hey guys,” Mark, from the office next door, called from the entry. “Jack just called a meeting in Lincoln.”
We both nodded and rose from our desks, heading to the south side of the floor where the company’s largest conference room resided. Almost fifty people filtered into the space. Nathan and I ended up being shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning against the wall, as there were only twenty seats in the room.
My eyes scanned the faces of the room, and I did a double take at the man sitting next to Jack Holloway.
“Fuck.” I hissed through gritted teeth. What was Andrew doing here?
Nathan jumped, taken back by my low outburst. “What?”
“This’ll go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.” I directed his gaze to Andrew.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Venom laced his tone as he shot daggers at him.