by Holly Hart
My raw emotions are closer to the surface than they’ve ever been. All my training is telling me not to do this, to cut this off and run from here as fast as my feet can take me.
Fuck my training.
“I’m not that girl you remember, Carson. Things happened to me after my family moved away. I’m not the same person I was before prom night.”
He leans closer so that our eyes are only inches apart.
“I know more than you think,” he whispers. “I know you can think on your feet. I know you can handle yourself in ways most people couldn’t even imagine. I know you’ve got steel inside you.”
He always knows the right thing to say. But how? We’ve barely spent any time together since we met again a few weeks ago. He doesn’t know my past; as far as he knows, I’m a consultant in supply chain management. Jesus, why is he interested in me? Could the Company have picked a more boring profession?
“You mentioned prom night,” he says. “I know now that something extraordinary must have happened to your family that day. And I’m so sorry I ever believed you’d disappear without contacting me if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I stay quiet. I just want to feel the warmth of his hands in mine.
“In a way, I think that day shaped who we are now. If you hadn’t left, I’d probably still be screwing around in a lab somewhere, trying to figure out why the world didn’t recognize my genius.”
I chuckle. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Don’t,” he says. “I was smart, sure, but I wasn’t motivated to do anything other than not be my old man.”
I can understand that. For years, everything I did was to make my father happy.
“But look at you now,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “And look at you. Actually, don’t bother. I can look at you enough for the both of us.”
I need to stop this. If I don’t run right now, bad things are going to happen. Things I can’t take back.
“Carson,” I say, but he stops with me with a raised finger.
“Hear that?”
The piano player has been playing Gershwin the entire time we’ve been here – there’s that situational awareness again, can’t turn it off – but now there’s just a single low note being played over and over.
That’s not the piano in the bar.
Now the beat of a drum and a guitar lick join in.
I’m not a perfect perrr-sonnn….
Is that…?
Carson pulls me up with him and leads me toward the dance floor.
“You…” I husk. “How did you…?”
He grins. “I texted the manager while you were powdering your nose at Piccolo. Or whatever it is that girls do.” He winks at me. “See – I’m still a nerd, really.”
We reach the floor and suddenly I’m clutching him so tight I fear I might break him. I float in his arms like a dandelion seed in the breeze, oblivious to everything around me. Twin tears escape the corners of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.
We sway back and forth as “The Reason” tells its hypnotic story of hurt and redemption, of heartache and forgiveness. The touch of Carson’s hand on my bare back sends an explosion of sensations up my spine and down my belly, into the junction of my thighs.
Carson’s lips find my throat, but this time I don’t think of chaperones seeing us. All I can focus on is the warmth of his breath, the electric touch of his tongue. The here. The now. The forever.
This moment is so right. I’ve been waiting for it since I was a girl, dreaming about it. It couldn’t be more perfect. In the arms of the man of my dreams, the only man in the world who truly knows me.
Except everything he knows about me is a lie. And I can’t follow through with this. Not just for my sake, but for his. I’m holding a ticking time bomb, and Carson can’t be anywhere near when it goes off.
I place my hands on his shoulders and push, separating us.
“Stop,” I pant. “I can’t…”
He smiles. “Let me guess: you’re going to pull a Cinderella on me again.”
“I have to. I can’t do this, I’m sorry. Not right now.”
“Yes,” he says, pulling me back in. His eyes lock with mine. “Right now.”
“You don’t understand,” I plead.
“But I do,” he says. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
I shake my head and steel myself to move. I position my right arm under his left; all it will take is for me to cock my elbow and trap him in an arm lock. After that, just a quick shifting of my weight and he’ll go flying over my hip and land on his back on the floor, I don’t care how strong he is. I’ll step out of my heels and bolt barefoot for the exit.
I move in to apply pressure when his right hand suddenly reaches into his pants pocket and pulls something out. Something small and narrow.
Rational thought disappears as my training takes over. My pupils dilate, taking in more light to process the sensory input. My strategy changes instantly to deal with the possible weapon in his hand.
I move my right arm so that it’s over his left instead of under. Then I bend my elbow and drive my hand upwards past his armpit, locking his arm in place. I jam my right knee into the back of his, bending the joint and forcing that leg to the floor.
Now he’s down on one knee, looking up at me with shock on his face and something in his hand. I realize suddenly that anyone looking at us would think he was proposing.
“Cassie,” he grunts. I let go of his arm and he takes a deep breath.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss.
How did this all go so wrong so fast? Things are spiraling out of control!
“I was trying to give you this,” he pants.
He opens his right hand and the light over the dance floor reflects off the polished brass of a skeleton key.
Embossed in script on the key’s handle is the word Regent.
No. It can’t be.
It can’t be.
Carter smiles up at me.
“Consider yourself caught,” he whispers. “The Chase is over.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
38. CARSON
The look on Cassie’s face is worth every moment of heartache over the past twelve years and then some.
Her hand closes over the key quick as a snake as she glances around the room. The she pulls me up from the floor and into her arms. She’s amazingly strong.
I see her throat working, but no words are coming out.
“Let’s go someplace more private,” I whisper.
My hand finds her back and I lead her off the floor toward our table. I drop a few hundreds next to our unfinished drinks and we’re on our way to the Regent’s lobby.
“What…” she stammers. “How did…?”
“I figured it out this morning,” I say, barely able to contain myself.
Every part of me wants to run to the top of the Empire State Building and shout “I won the Chase! I won Cassandra Vincent!”
On the outside, this manifests itself as a shit-eating grin. And a stiffness under my slacks.
The lobby is empty except for us and the night auditor, a handsome woman in a dark pantsuit. Cassie and I stand in front of the elevator, arm in arm, watching the ornate silver arrow over the door count the floors as it lowers itself down to us. It seems to take the better part of an eon.
The muted “ding” announces its arrival and the accordion doors slide open.
“Hang on just one fucking minute,” she says, grabbing my arm as I try to step inside the elevator.
Oh, shit.
Her eyes are blazing. She pushes me into the elevator and the doors close behind us.
“You’re telling me that you’re a competitor in the Chase?”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
“Yes?” I offer weakly.
“And you figured out that I was the quarry?”
“Uh-huh. This morning.”
“That�
�s why I kept running into you everywhere I went? You were following the information on the quarry?”
I feel like I’m being interrogated by the team on The Shield. The walls of the elevator feel like they’re closing in on me. How did this all go so wrong so quickly?
“Yeah,” I say. “I should have figured it out sooner, but I obviously had a blind spot where you were concerned. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
Her eyes narrow.
“So how did you figure it out?”
“I was talking to Tricia. She told me you were… inexperienced. Everything else just fell into place after that.”
She’s silent for several long moments. My stomach is buzzing with nerves. Everything was so incredible on the dance floor. And now this.
Finally, she looks up at me again.
“Do you mean to tell me you have so much fucking money that you dropped millions of dollars to chase a woman just so you could sleep with her?”
“Well,” I say. “It’s a little more complicated than that. But yeah, I guess that’s the elevator pitch version.”
I grin, throwing chance to the wind. “Get it? Elevator pitch?”
She looks down at the key in her hand, then back up at me.
“Surprise,” I say weakly, waving my hands like a third-rate talent show host.
Before I can react, her hand flashes out and grabs the back of my neck. I brace myself for a body slam or something equally unpleasant. And honestly, she has every right to be pissed. I screwed up. Bad.
Instead, she pulls me into her, locking her mouth on mine and squeezing her body against me with a force that I can barely believe.
Her tongue snakes around mine as her hands slide up into my hair. My own glide down the plum fabric of her dress and grip her buttocks, driving our pelvises together.
“I ought to kill you,” she gasps.
“Later,” I groan, clamping my lips on her neck and stabbing the button for the third floor.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
39. CASSANDRA
My chest heaves as Carson fumbles the old key into the lock with one hand. The other grips my hair and locks me in place on top of his open mouth.
Our weight is against the door when it finally swings open, sending us crashing into the suite. My ass rams into the corner of an antique bureau, knocking it back several inches on the dark mahogany floor.
The room is lit with a single lamp on the nightstand next to a four-poster canopy bed. Carson effortlessly lifts me off the floor and tosses me on top of it. It’s so soft, I feel like I’m landing on a cloud.
He tears off his tux jacket and hurls it in the general direction of the door. I reach up and help him with his bow tie, sliding it off in a single tug. He props himself on top of me on the bed with his left hand and undoes the top button of his shirt with the other.
I finish with the rest of the buttons, laying bare that sculpted torso. The shirt joins his jacket on the other side of the room. All of this is so new to me, and yet with Carson it feels like I’ve done it a thousand times.
Suddenly I’m compelled to just squeeze his pectoral muscles. They’re so solid, so smooth. My hands explore the rest of him, running down the xylophone of his ribs to his abdominals. I count the lumps under my fingers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Now that my hands are in the neighborhood, they might as well take care of these pesky suspenders. Two quick squeezes on the silver clips and they going flying backwards. Then my hand reaches for the clasp of his pants.
Carson’s mouth disengages from mine with a wet smacking noise. He fixes me with his gaze.
“What’s the matter?” I breathe.
“Are you ready for this?” he asks, his chest heaving. “I only want to do this if it’s what you want.”
I grab him and press my body against his bare chest, feeling the unyielding softness there.
“I’ve never wanted anything like I want this,” I whisper in his ear.
That may very well be the truest thing I’ve ever said in my life.
As if on cue, his pants hit the floor and puddle around his ankles. He kicks them off and stands there a moment, wearing nothing but his boxers and a pair of long black socks.
I try to stop it, but the giggle escapes me.
“Oh baby,” I purr. “You are so sexy.”
He holds up a finger.
“Hang onto that thought.”
In two seconds the socks are flying across the room like a pair of blackbirds on the wing.
That’s when I see the massive tent under his boxers, and I gasp.
He reaches under me and lifts me from the bed, turning so that he’s sitting on the bed and I’m standing in front of him.
“I’ve waited for this my whole adult life,” he says, his eyes wide.
“Then I better not keep you waiting a second longer,” I say, reaching behind me and sliding the zipper down the $14,000 plum dress until the slider hits the spot where my back meets the cleft of my ass.
I shiver and the dress falls to the floor, exposing me to Carson’s greedy gaze. He looks me up and down, every curve, every freckle, every single flaw, laid bare in front of him.
In spite of myself, I bite my lip. I’ve never wanted anyone’s approval so badly.
His mouth drops open.
“You’re perfect,” he growls.
I reach forward and pull his face to my breasts. He kisses them gently, stroking the undersides with both hands. My whole body trembles at his touch as he runs his fingertips along the sides, then glides around to the hollow of my back.
As he does, I close my eyes and drop my head back. The warmth of his mouth as it closes over my pale pink nipple is delicious. They’ve both been bullet-hard since we entered the elevator, begging for this attention. And truly, I’ve been running on a low ebb of desire ever since Carson stumbled back into my life.
He alternates between my breasts, kissing one gently while massaging the other. He starts out slowly, gently, then changes to scraping the edges of his front teeth up and down them. The sensation is so powerful, so delightful, that I almost lose my balance. After long moments of this, he wraps his tongue around the nub again and applies pressure, sending a flood into the slit under my panties.
Without thinking, I reach down between his legs and reach through the fly of his boxers to the hardness within. It’s so hot to the touch, like a branding iron wrapped in silk.
“Unhhh,” he groans against my breasts. My heart soars. I’m so glad I’m making him feel as good as he’s making me feel.
Well, maybe not quite that good. But I can try.
Carson stands and his shorts drop to the floor, leaving him totally nude in front of me for the first time in our lives. It’s like looking at Michelangelo’s David in the low light of the bedside lamp. Every perfect curve, every angle, delineated by shadow.
Except he’s considerably better endowed.
I can’t imagine ever seeing another man naked – anyone else would pale in comparison. For a split-second my mind threatens to go to the other contestants in the Chase, but I clamp it down instantly.
I’m not with one of them. I’m with Carson. And if this is a dream, I never want to wake up.
Chapter Forty
40. CASSANDRA
“No fair,” Carson breathes, reaching behind me and clasping my buttocks in his hands. “You can see me, but I can’t see all of you.”
He slides his thumbs under the lace waistband of my panties and pulls outwards and down. No one besides me has ever taken off my underwear before. The sheer eroticism of it makes me weak at the knees.
They slide down to my ankles and I step out of them. Carson leaves them hanging on the end of his index finger, a wolfish grin spreading across his face.
“Finally,” he growls. And by God, it is a growl. I can’t believe that the shy – yet handsome – teenage boy I used to debate has become this, this…
Man.
I let out a faint shr
iek of delight as he grabs me and lifts me back onto the bed. He returns his attention to my breast, kissing each freckle one after the other.
Meanwhile, his hand has found its way home. He uses it to stroke my pussy for a few moments until I can actually feel my lips parting in anticipation. God, that sounds so mechanical. But it’s so goddamn true. If mechanical is what a night with Carson is like, call me an engineer.
“You’re sure?” he whispers again. I can’t tell whether he’s afraid of my answer, or afraid of pushing me too far. I suspect the latter.
“Completely sure?”
I grab his hand and press his palm against my clit. My hips buck in response to his touch.
“Does that answer your question?” I whisper back to him.
He keeps his right hand on me as his left works my right breast and nipple. His mouth continues to attend to my left nipple. I lie there with my arm wrapped around his neck, making sure that mouth doesn’t stray from its job.
I shiver as Carson’s fingers reach my clit, gliding along the lips on either side. After a few moments, he dips the tip of his middle finger inside me.
My right hand grips his shaft, thumb on the underside, up and down. It’s like I’ve read a goddamn manual. In truth, just doing its job. Still, I go slowly, slowly. I have no idea if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, but judging by his groans, Carson is okay with it.
A handful of moments later, I feel the beginnings of a wave radiating out from between my legs. Part of it is sheer stimulation, part is the fact that it’s not from my own hand. It’s Carson who’s making me feel this way.
The intensity builds as Carson rolls his fingers around the circumference of my clit. Each twist brings another vibration, another wave, until I can’t hold back any longer.
I reach up and grab his neck, pulling myself to him and wedging my chin on top of his rock-like trapezius muscle. I drive my chin deeper and deeper into him with each tremor, as the pleasure waves finally crash against my shore.
My heart rate gallops as I gulp in air. It’s never been like this on my own. I want it to go on forever, entwined with Carson like this, feeling like this.