by Moriah Jovan
“I. Am. Your. Lover.”
His third.
“I have always been your lover.”
Fourth.
“And I will always be your lover.”
His voice was so raw he dropped words, matching his thrusts to his cadence.
“You married me.
“Your loyalty should be to me.
“You are mine.
“All of you.”
She gritted her teeth. Used the counter for leverage. Matched him thrust for thrust.
Rode their angry fucking to its end.
Came screaming his name.
His back arched and he roared as he drove into her one last time.
She collapsed on him, her chest heaving.
He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her shoulder, tried to catch his breath—
—and sank his teeth into the crook of her neck, making her shudder with the intensity of her response to that.
Silence while their breathing returned to normal.
Savages.
Giselle sighed.
“I’ll let you do this,” Bryce whispered in her ear finally. He held her close, his fingers curled in her hair. He licked her skin where he’d bitten her. Kissed. Nipped. “But not because of Knox. This is for her. She’s going to need every bit of strength and courage you can pump into her in a week. But once she goes back to that office, I’ll give him a week to do the right thing by her and then I’ll go in there and pull her out myself—and don’t you dare say a word to him about that before I do.
“After this, no more. I’m tired of sharing you with two other men, family or not, loyalties or not, Fen or not. Proviso or not. You changed loyalties when you married me, and I’m going to hold you to that.”
He pulled away from her then and held her face gently between his hands. She could see that his anger was gone, but his face betrayed deep hurt and weary resignation. “They will never love you like I love you, Giselle.”
She swallowed, ashamed that she had hurt him so badly, that she had caused that pain in his face, and whispered, “Okay. I’m sorry.”
* * * * *
60: TO SIP FROM A DEVIL’S CUP
Justice was late. again. This had never happened to her before. Always prompt, always prepared, she hated the fact that now, five weeks in, she had acquired a reputation for tardiness. She could only chalk it up to her dread of facing another day in the prosecutor’s office, dragging her feet out the door every morning.
She’d arrived late twice after her first day. Knox hadn’t known about it either time and Eric had only given her a scowl.
Today, her luck only extended to the fact that she’d straggled in so late, everyone else was in court.
Except Knox.
“MCKINLEY!” he roared at her when she came in at exactly 9:13, harried, overwhelmed, and terrified. “In my office. NOW!”
Justice stepped into Knox’s office, her heart thundering. She knew she’d get reprimanded for her extreme tardiness, but she could bet he’d also make good on Richard’s prediction that he’d call her on her mooning.
Her spine tingled in horrified anticipation and she swallowed. Hard.
He walked in behind her, slammed the door, and brushed by her on the way to his desk. She stiffened at the slight touch of his body against hers, but she couldn’t squelch her strange reaction to a man she feared.
She took a deep breath.
Knox dropped himself in his chair and relaxed, his loafered foot on the edge of the desk, his chair tilted back, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers steepled under his chin, his face carefully blank as he studied her. She started when he spoke.
“That’s the fourth time you’ve been late in five weeks. Care to explain yourself?”
There was no excuse.
She knew it. He knew it.
“I can’t,” she finally said.
“If you’re late again, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I guarantee you won’t like it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, one other thing.”
Justice knew what was coming and she swallowed, already mortified.
“I know you’ve been hankering after a piece of my ass since you got here so all I want to know is where you’d like to have it. Here, now, or later when I can take you home and do you up proper?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Ex—excuse me?” she stammered. She felt herself flush and her blood thump madly in her ears as she stared at him in morbid fascination.
“I asked you where you wanted me to fuck you. Here or at my house?”
She squeaked.
“Yes, Miss McKinley, you heard me right. Pick a place, any place. I’m yours.”
“No!” Justice cried and closed her eyes against her rising horror. Her fists clenched at her sides until she felt calm enough to look at him, she opened her eyes slowly to find his face carved in mocking amusement.
“Miss McKinley—hello. I’m still waiting for an answer.”
“No,” Justice said again, as forcefully as she could manage.
Knox pursed his lips and looked at her in speculation. It was a lion’s look, right before he tore into his prey’s throat. Justice felt a trickle of anger of a type she didn’t recognize. “That’s sexual harassment.”
She jumped at his bark of laughter, then scowled as it turned into a rolling guffaw. It took him a while for his amusement to subside, and he wiped his eyes and chuckled every once in a while. “Sexual harassment,” he crowed. “That’s hilarious. Sweetheart—” he said, then paused to chuckle. “I’ve been investigated for every felony in the book—six times. Do you think anybody’s going to pay attention to a little sexual harassment? Sexual harassment doesn’t exist here. I give the orders. You take ’em. That’s it. End of story. Fini. If that means I point at that couch and tell you to lay down, that’s what’s gonna happen. If I tell you to go make coffee, you do that, too. If I tell you to make coffee bare-ass naked, that’s what I expect to see. You understand that?”
He’d offended her deepest philosophies, and for that, she’d face any fire. She drew herself up with a dignity and courage she didn’t know she possessed. “I quit.”
His amusement fled. “No one quits this office before they’re trained, Miss McKinley,” he said low. “I will not have my name on someone’s CV who hasn’t earned that right. If you have to stay here ten years before I think you deserve my name, then that’s what’s going to happen. And I will come looking for you just like I did that first day you were late—and I will find you.”
She didn’t doubt it.
“Now, you have two choices: You can be a good little attorney and do your work the best you know how, or you can be a bad little attorney and take all the harassment you can handle—sexual or otherwise. You’re here to stay and to do what I say. Get used to it.”
Justice’s mind raced. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. Who could she contact? What agencies would care enough to bust a small-time prosecutor in a small-time county?
“And oh, if you’re thinking about trying to set the feds on me yet again, good luck with that. They keep looking and they keep not finding.”
“You’re just a two-bit bully,” Justice whispered, afraid of Knox Hilliard as she’d never been afraid of anything in her life, yet thoroughly angry with him.
His face stretched into a calculating smile that chilled Justice to the core. “No, Justice,” he murmured, “I’m worth much more than that. Perhaps, six bits. Shall we discuss where and when again?”
“No,” Justice said, her nostrils flaring. “I can’t imagine any woman going to you willing, without being paid.”
He catapulted out of his chair and around his desk, and Justice, feeling very stalked, whirled to open the door, to get away from him. With a powerful hand, he shoved it closed so hard she thought the wood would crack. And she was trapped—trapped between the solid door and the large, hard body of the Chouteau County prosec
utor, whom she’d just called a thug.
She pressed closer to the door in an effort to get away from him, but he pressed closer still. The warmth of his flesh seeped into her, made her super aware of him, and her breath came harder and faster.
“What do you think now, Justice?” he whispered warm in her ear, his sweet, rich butterscotch breath tickling her cheek. Her body, palms, and other cheek pressed flat against the door, and she could feel his arousal against her backside.
She swallowed when she allowed herself to acknowledge its presence against her and what it meant. What it meant to her.
His large hands caressed the curve of her hips as his lips caught at her earlobe. Justice gasped at the contact, not because she didn’t expect it, but because she didn’t expect it to be so . . . gentle.
And she certainly didn’t expect the sharp pang that shot through her body and settled between her legs, in a place that suddenly seemed empty and wanting for— She closed her eyes, horrified that she wanted what Knox had and that Knox was perfectly willing to give it to her.
“What was that you said about having to pay for it?”
His voice was liquid warmth, hot spiced cider, melted chocolate. His mouth closed softly over the skin of her cheek here and there, butterfly kisses. Justice’s eyelids drooped and she felt a soft sigh pass over her own lips. She was vaguely appalled at her own reaction, but could no more stop it than she could make Knox leave her alone.
Even if she wanted to.
Her buttocks tensed when Knox’s fingers spread out over her hips and his thumbs caressed her chintz-covered skin even as his mouth moved to her neck and throat. Her hands, flat against the wood, curled inward as Knox’s masculine scent wrapped itself around her, beguiling her senses, making her want more.
How could a man so utterly despicable make her body feel so many wonderful things?
Things she’d really never believed happened to a woman with this intensity.
Things she’d wanted from him for three years.
It wasn’t until Knox’s fingers began to gather up the front panels of her skirt, and his palm touched the inside of her nylon-covered thigh that Justice was shocked enough to realize how . . .
Lush
Verdant
Exquisite
. . . he made her feel.
“Leave me alone.”
“Not an option,” Knox murmured into her ear as he continued to nuzzle her there. “You’ve made it very clear that this is what you want and I will give it to you. Don’t doubt that for one minute.”
It was when he kissed and sucked the underside of her jaw that Justice realized he was absolutely right, and that yes, she would go willingly.
“No, please, don’t,” she finally whispered. “Let me go. Please. I don’t want this.”
He stopped, pulled away from her slowly. She glanced at him over her shoulder. He didn’t smile. His sapphire eyes gleamed. He breathed heavily. She flinched when he reached a hand out to caress her cheek, a feather-light touch. “You’re a hot mess,” he murmured. “Go sit on the couch a minute.”
He wheeled away from her then and went to a small fridge she hadn’t seen. He took out a small bottle of water and tossed it to her. “Your face is red.”
Of course it was red. She was embarrassed and aroused. Embarrassed about being aroused. She looked down and away from him, then stepped toward the couch, where she sat on the edge of it, primly and properly smoothing her dress under her, keeping her knees perfectly together and aligned, the hem dropping a respectable two inches below them.
She looked down at her hands. Opened the bottle. Took a couple of small sips. Pressed the bottle against her face.
Knox leaned back against his desk, his ankles crossed, his arms over his chest. He just watched her.
“You can’t keep me here.”
He reached behind his body under his suit coat, then withdrew his hand and placed his shiny silver semi-automatic pistol on top of his desk very deliberately, never taking his eyes off of her.
“Can’t I.”
Justice felt like her chest had collapsed, completely unable to comprehend the enormity of what he’d said with that one simple gesture.
“But I’m not going to have to work very hard to give you what you want, am I?”
She closed her eyes in deep, deep shame.
“Stand up and straighten out your clothes, then get back to work.”
* * * * *
61: ELTON LIVE
The futures trading for the initial public offering of HR Prerogatives was out of control. Eilis stood at the podium with Sebastian at the New York Stock Exchange, feeling him watching her. Eilis was nervous as she readied herself to strike the opening bell.
Jack Blackwood, CEO of one of the most powerful investment banks on Wall Street, and Melinda Newman, the CFO of Blackwood Securities, stood with her. Blackwood Securities had underwritten HRP’s IPO on the strength of Sebastian’s work and word. Once Eilis rang that bell, Sebastian would no longer be her trustee because Knox would consider that the end of the receivership. All it would need then would be for him and the judge to sign it off.
It would be done. She would be free of what David had done to her, free of a court order, free of her babysitter. Not free of her shame, and she could barely stand to look at Sebastian because of it.
The sweet ring of the bell that morning signaled the end of her road with David. And Sebastian. Confetti flew, the roaring began, the boards went crazy, and her symbol, HRPS, was the first across. She looked down at the trading floor and back up to the ticker, joy and delight swelling her soul to bursting, but tempered with melancholy.
Sebastian had given her this.
And then he would leave for good, not even a weekly impersonal email copied to Knox.
She looked up at him to see him still watching her, the corner of his mouth quirked.
“Congratulations, Eilis,” Sebastian said and held his hand out for her to shake. She did, hesitantly. It was the first time he’d touched her since February, when he’d held her in the saleroom at Christie’s. “Your bills are paid. With the sale of Morning in Bed—very wise decision—you have significant cash reserves. You have a good staff. Your receivership is over, and it took just under a year.”
Then it was Jack’s turn, who hugged her. Melinda she hugged too, but tight, like a sister, and she sniffled back bittersweet tears. It was Melinda who’d shepherded the process, thus had been with Eilis every step of the way. The chairman of the NYSE and all the rest of whoever she’d been introduced to but didn’t remember all gathered for handshakes.
Eventually they wound their way outside to Wall Street on their way to Jack’s office, chatting a bit before Eilis and Sebastian went to their hotel and Jack and Melinda went back to work. After that, the rest of the day could only be anticlimactic.
Once they reached the marbled lobby of Blackwood Securities, one of Jack’s assistants accosted him and drew him aside to speak frantically. “Sebastian,” Jack said low once he returned to them, “not to horn in on Eilis’s day or anything, but Fen’s in town.”
Eilis looked at her watch. “And running late,” she muttered, then realized she’d spoken too loudly when both Sebastian and Jack turned to look at her. Melinda stared at her with one eyebrow raised.
Finally, Sebastian said, “Out with it, Eilis. You’ve been hiding something from me about OKH and Fen from the minute I proposed this IPO.”
She took a deep breath, then reluctantly opened her mouth to explain—
A deep male voice boomed, “Sebastian!” The sound echoed off the marbled walls of the cavernous space.
Eilis knew that voice, had anticipated it because he would want to take this golden opportunity to do what he’d spent years trying to do—and failing at every turn.
She watched Fen Hilliard stride toward them, elegant and grand as always. Eilis stared at him and he stared at her. “Sebastian,” Fen said again without looking at him, cordial, always cordial, yet his vo
ice contained an underlying note of hatred with which he had never spoken to Eilis. “Jack. Ms. Newman.”
Neither Jack nor Melinda said a word.
“Fenimore,” said Sebastian, who had not missed that he wasn’t today’s target.
“Eilis, congratulations on your IPO,” Fen said expansively, offering his hand to her, which she refused.
“Fen,” she murmured, feeling her Inner Bitch begin to creep over her, to cover her, to protect her, “you’re late. I expected you five minutes ago.”
Sebastian started, but Fen laughed. “Of course you did, my girl, of course you did.”
“So how much did you buy?”
“Nine percent.”
“And you flew all the way to New York to do it personally,” she said, calm now that her beloved Bitch had returned. “I’m flattered.”
“I had to thank you for so graciously handing yourself over.”
“Fen,” Sebastian said, “shouldn’t you worry about your own stock instead of hers? It’s a little late to be playing raider—and on a company as small as hers? That makes no sense.”
He turned to Sebastian then. “Why, Sebastian, my dear nephew, of course it makes sense. It isn’t my problem you obviously don’t know why it makes sense. Right? Eilis?”
Rage.
Rage she had known long ago and thought she’d put away. Rage that strengthened her, empowered her. It burst through Eilis’s soul and she allowed herself to ride the wave.
“I’m glad you’re here, Fen. It gives me the satisfaction of knowing you couldn’t get to me unless I gave you a way to do it. God knows, you’ve been spinning your wheels for the last twenty years. But you knew I’d be here with Sebastian, so all things considered, I’d think you’d want to keep this private.”
“It’s as private as it needs to be, Miss Logan,” he said, smug. “Your house of cards is safe with me.”
“You built that house, Fen. You and that evil cunt you sleep with.”
Before she could move or say anything more, Sebastian had Fen’s wrist clasped in his big hand, caught as he’d been about to slap Eilis. Jack and Melinda stepped back, horrified.