by HELEN HARDT
Everything he says makes perfect sense. “You really are brilliant.”
“I’m no more brilliant than the next guy,” he counters. “I just know what my strengths are, and I know what they’re worth.”
“Braden…”
“Yeah?”
“Addison thinks you’re behind all this, that you’re trying to make me into an influencer and destroy her in the process.”
He takes a drink. “That’s what she said?”
“Yeah.”
“And you believe her?”
“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “Of course not.”
He doesn’t reply right away. Odd. Could there be something to Addie’s theory?
Finally, he speaks, after draining the rest of his Wild Turkey. “Addison is a troubled woman.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Don’t you? You’ve been working with her for more than a year. Isn’t it clear that she has to be the center of attention? And when she’s not, she sprouts claws?”
My mind races back to my conversation with Tessa. According to Betsy, Addie pursued Braden relentlessly, to the point of stalking him, eleven years ago. Classic Addie, wanting Braden’s attention and…doing what when she didn’t get it?
Neither Addison nor Braden will speak of that time.
Why?
“I see your point,” I say. “Can you tell me more about her?”
He pours himself another Wild Turkey. “Nice try.”
“I don’t understand. Why won’t you talk about your time with Addison? You were both young. Surely it couldn’t have been that horrible.”
“‘Horrible’ is too tame a word.”
I swallow, my skin turning icy. What went on during that summer, and why won’t they talk about it?
Jealousy rears its ugly green head, and though I know better, I blurt out, “How was she in bed?”
He stays silent.
“Tell me, Braden. Please.”
“Why do you care?”
“I just…do.”
“For God’s sake, Skye. We were kids. Neither one of us knew what the hell we were doing.”
“So you did take her virginity.”
“Who said that?”
I don’t answer. I can’t violate Tessa’s and Betsy’s trust.
He advances toward me, and I quake before him.
“Why does any of this matter to you? Do you want to know if she was better in bed than you are?”
Yes. But I don’t say it.
“Do you want to know about all my previous lovers? There are a lot of them, and I won’t apologize for anything I did in the past.”
I tremble without meaning to. “I’m not asking you to.”
“Then exactly what are you asking, Skye?”
“I…don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what you’re asking. You want to know how you compare to Addie, to everyone I’ve slept with.” He takes a long drink of his bourbon. “I’ll tell you only this. I’ve never cut a business trip short for any woman. Never…until now.”
Heat courses through me, and my clit hardens and throbs.
He comes forward until only inches separate us, but he doesn’t touch me. “You challenge me. You perplex me. And damn it, Skye, you fucking infuriate me. You want to know how I feel about Addison Ames? Honestly?”
I nod shakily.
“I’m grateful.”
“G-Grateful? Why?”
“If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t know you.”
I choke back a tear of joy. “Braden, I—”
“Shut the fuck up.” His lips slam down on mine.
I open instantly and accept his devouring tongue. How long have I been here? This is our first kiss of the night. He denied me before, and now I ache for this forceful meeting of our mouths.
I spread my legs, straddle his hard thigh, and grind against him, easing the ache in my clit. Only it makes me want more. More kisses, his tongue on my nipples and between my legs, that orgasm he denied me earlier.
Braden finally breaks the kiss, turns me around against the kitchen island, and brushes my slacks and panties down my hips.
“Braden… Christopher. And Annika.”
“This is my house, not theirs.”
“But…”
“Quiet!” he roars.
Then his dick is inside me, pressing like a steam engine between my closed thighs and into my tight channel.
I cry out without meaning to.
He grabs my hands and places them flat on the marble countertop. “Don’t move,” he commands.
He thrusts into me again and again, the cold marble biting into my belly with each angry thrust. My clit isn’t getting any stimulation except the indirect pulling from Braden’s forceful plunges.
I want more. So much more.
But I can’t move. He told me not to move.
If I could just find something to rub against. All I need is a slight friction, just enough to—
“I feel you searching,” he says against my neck. “Don’t, Skye.”
“But I need—”
“Don’t!” He smacks the cheek of my ass and then holds on to it, gripping me tight, keeping me still as he fucks me harder. “I told you to keep quiet. You’ll get your orgasm, but on my terms.”
I close my eyes, bracing myself against the counter, bracing myself against his thrusts. It’s so good, so complete…and I can almost be happy with the sheer fullness of him inside my body.
“God, you’re tight. Feels so good.” He bites my neck lightly and then sucks at it. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
Mine.
I like the word. I like that he says it. I like everything about it. I want to be his. I want to be his even more than I want that elusive orgasm.
He releases my ass cheek as he pulls out of my pussy.
I gasp in surprise, looking over my shoulder. “You didn’t—”
“All in good time. I needed to be inside you for a minute. Now I need something else.”
“What?”
“Did you forget you’re not supposed to be talking?” He slaps my ass, and then a jolt ripples through me when he taps my clit.
Again. And again. Until it’s not a tap but a soft smack.
Each swat gives me just a taste of the friction I crave. Just a taste…and I want so much more.
Until the swats become full-blown hits. “Ah!” I cry out, urging him on and hoping I haven’t earned punishment by talking. I tingle all over, and when Braden finally stops torturing my clit, he slides his tongue between my legs. He laps at the juices coating my thighs and then slides forward to my clit, swirling around it.
I close my eyes.
The intensity of the emotion coiling in my belly overwhelms me. I want a repeat of the last time we did this—of those multiple orgasms he forced me to endure.
And what an endurance it was.
He told me to beg him to stop that night, and though the intensity went from pleasure to almost pain, I didn’t give in.
I didn’t give up control.
My control is what he still wants.
Even now, as I revel in his attention, his tongue probing my pussy and my ass, finding every nerve that takes me to the brink, I hold back.
I promised him my control, and in return he promised to sleep with no one but me and not to use condoms.
I made a deal.
I’ll stick with it, even though I’ve become a marionette, with Braden manipulating my strings.
Gah! Too much thinking. Pleasure rolls through me in soft waves, and I climb, reaching, reaching…
He slides a finger inside me while he licks my asshole. I moan in pleasu
re. The peak is in the distance, coming closer, closer…
Until his voice permeates through the haze.
“Skye,” he says, his voice low. He thrusts his fingers into me and massages that spongy interior place inside. “Come. Now.”
Chapter Forty-Two
I burst.
I burst like a geyser at Yellowstone.
I burst like a storm cloud exploding in rain.
I burst like a sun going nova.
I burst.
I burst into an intense nirvana.
Garbled words leave my mouth. My knuckles whiten as I clamp my hands against the edge of the marble countertop. My body tightens, loosens, tightens again as electric current seems to race through me, my arteries and veins its power lines.
“Braden!” I cry out. “Yes, Braden, Braden!”
He pushes me further into euphoria, continuing his chant. “Come. Now. Come. Now.”
It’s never-ending.
Perfect and never-ending.
He pulls another climax out of me and then another. Everything in the universe throbs with my clit, my pussy, my whole body. I’m limp against the granite countertop, completely at his mercy.
“That’s right,” he says. “Keep coming. Give me another one.”
I explode. Truly, as if I’m his to turn on and off by the sound of his voice, I shatter, pulsing, jumping off the precipice again and again.
“Give me more, baby. More.”
Again I respond to his command. I fly. I fly again. And again.
Orgasm after orgasm rolls through me, twisting my world and smashing my perception. I’m high and then low, hot and then cold, all the time emotion rocketing through me.
“Keep going,” he urges.
One more begins in my clit, races outward to my limbs, heating my blood. My legs no longer hold me up. If Braden loosens his hold, I’ll collapse.
“Again,” he says.
But I’m used up. I can’t.
Until you beg me to stop.
That’s what he wants. I brace myself as another climax tries to emerge. I close my eyes, allow it to take me, and I soar once more into the clouds, this time finding an inner peace I’ve never felt. I’m in a dream. A beautiful erotic dream, so colorful and intense.
“One more, Skye.”
I’m still drugged, still floating in dreamland, but my body is done. I can’t take anymore. He told me not to talk, but I have to get the words out. To tell him…
“Can’t,” I grit out.
“You can.”
“No. Please. I can’t. Stop.”
In a flash, he replaces his fingers with his cock, ramming into me as I fall from my last orgasm. He thrusts and thrusts and thrusts, his groans a hum of vibration around the bubble of lust encircling us.
He fucks me hard and fast, again and again, until he plunges deeply into me. “God! Skye!”
I feel every puff of his breath against my neck, every pulse of his cock as he releases.
And I keep my hands glued to the countertop.
After a few minutes, he pulls out, and I hear him zip and snap his pants.
Still, I don’t move.
“You may move now,” Braden says. “Christopher will drive you home.”
Christopher—as I suspected, he has been here the whole time—had a front-row seat for our little interlude. He probably wasn’t watching, but he sure as heck could hear every little detail.
I choke back the sadness and confusion that threatens me. Didn’t Braden just say he was grateful to Addie because she led him to me? “You said you’d never kick me out of your home again.”
“That’s true. I did.” He walks out of the kitchen but looks over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I left my business meetings to get back here, so I have a lot to do. I’ll be in my office working.”
Semantics. That’s all this is. He’s not “kicking me out,” but he’s leaving me. He’s done with me for the night. Though he is here because of me, and he probably does have work to do.
His invisible bindings are pulling me in two different directions.
I check my watch. Ten o’clock, and I have work in the morning. I can stay here and sleep in one of his extra bedrooms, but I don’t have any supplies. I haven’t brought any extra clothes over yet.
He hasn’t given me a choice at all.
He found a loophole. Braden is a billionaire businessman. He’s probably very good at finding loopholes.
I hop off the counter, dress, gather my purse, and head toward the elevator.
“Home, Ms. Manning?” Christopher says.
The thought of riding with Christopher when he knows exactly what just happened—not just our encounter in the kitchen but what happened afterward as well—makes me nauseated.
“No, thank you. I’ll call an Uber.”
“Mr. Black wants me to drive you home.”
“Please. Don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother.” He calls the elevator and rides down with me.
Once in the car, I gather my nerve. “Christopher?”
“Yes?”
“How well do you know Braden?”
“As well as any employee knows his employer, Ms. Manning.”
“Please. Could you call me Skye?”
“If you wish.”
“I wish.”
“Very well…Skye.”
When we reach my apartment building, Christopher gets out of the car and opens the door for me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Mr. Black wants me to see you to your door.”
“Oh.” First time for everything. “Okay.”
Christopher and I enter the building and take the elevator to my floor. When we reach the door to my studio, I pull out my key.
“Allow me.” He takes my key, opens the door, and hands it back to me.
“Thanks, Christopher. Good night.”
“Skye?”
I turn.
“He’s a good man.”
“I know that.”
“He cares for you.”
I lift my eyebrows. “Does he?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve said all I can. Good night.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Addie’s still sulking the next day at work. Not surprising. I’ve made up my mind to call Eugenie, but I can hardly do it while Addie’s in the office. Instead I do the usual—read and respond to emails, check yesterday’s sponsored post, and delete a few comments that are borderline negative. Then I respond to comments on some of her fake personal posts, all of which were staged by me. I check email again. Addie has an offer from a new restaurant in downtown Boston. It looks like a place for the young and hip. Good. She’ll be happy about that. I forward the email to her.
Then, on a whim, I log out of Addie’s Instagram and into my own.
“What?” I say aloud.
My following has increased from two hundred to over twenty thousand seemingly overnight.
I never logged out of Addie’s account yesterday, so I had no idea what was happening on my own. No wonder Susanne is interested.
I’m nowhere near Addie’s ten million followers, but still… This is unbelievable.
All because I’m Braden’s girlfriend.
If my newfound followers only knew how close I came to screwing that up last night. I always push. I always try to take charge of every situation.
Addie walks out of her office. “I have an appointment.”
I scan her calendar. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s personal.”
“Okay. When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you get the email I forwarded? From that new
restaurant?”
“I’ll deal with it later.” She walks out the door.
Okay, then.
Now that Addie’s gone, I’ll call Eugenie.
My heart begins to race. Why am I nervous? They called me, after all. I’m just returning a call. Braden said not to take the first offer, but I’m no negotiator. I’m a photographer, an artist. Not a businesswoman or attorney. How am I supposed to control this phone call when I have no idea what I’m getting into?
Just do it.
I hear the words in Braden’s voice in my mind.
I exhale and dial the number.
“Susanne Corporate,” a voice says.
My heart is thudding. “Eugenie Blake, please.”
“May I tell her who’s calling?”
“Skye Manning, from Addison Ames’s office.”
“Thank you. I’ll see if she’s in.”
A few seconds pass.
“Skye, how are you?”
“Hi, Eugenie. I’m fine. I’m so sorry about yesterday’s mix-up.”
“Not a problem at all, and perfectly understandable,” she says. “Addison was a little taken aback, I’m afraid.”
A little taken aback? Try jealous rage. “We worked it out.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I love how the Cherry Russet stain looks on you.”
“Thank you. It’s my favorite.”
“I can see why. And I must say, you’re starting to amass quite a following on Instagram in record time.”
“I wouldn’t call twenty thousand followers anything big,” I say. “I’ve started dating Braden Black. That seems to be the catalyst.”
“Yes, what a lucky woman you are!”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I just say, “Thank you.”
“The fact that you’ve gained that many followers within days is very telling. We think you’re going to be huge. Anyway, we had a run on the Cherry Russet after you responded to that comment on Mr. Black’s post, so we’re prepared to offer you five thousand dollars to do a series of three posts on your own account highlighting our products.”
Five thousand dollars? For a few posts? Sounds like a mint to me, but Addie gets six figures for some of her posts. I’m tempted to take it and run, but Braden’s advice erupts like a volcano in my mind.
Never take the first offer.
The problem is, he didn’t tell me how to ask for a higher offer. I race through our conversation. Maybe he did. He said counteroffer something higher. So instead of turning Eugenie down, I say I’ll do it for this amount.