by Kane, Jessa
Jesus, this girl makes me insane. It’s never enough. I can’t touch her fast enough, can’t get enough of her voice in my ears, her taste in my throat. Obsession is a mild term when it comes to what she’s woken up in my head, my heart, my soul.
How am I supposed to leave us to chance?
When morning arrives, she’s boneless and naked in my arms, smelling like marathon sex and sugar, exactly the way I want her at the start of every single day. I inhale the perfume of her eucalyptus-scented hair, run my nose along the slope of her shoulder, my dick hard again. Hurting for Maisy’s tight, tight pussy. And I’m going to have it. Soon.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand and I grit my teeth.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’ve been aware of missed calls, emails and texts piling up, but I don’t want to focus on anything but Maisy. What does the business matter if she’s not in my life, right? What is any of it for?
Still, I can’t let the company grind to a halt when there are so many people depending on me for a paycheck—see? I’m already way less of a bastard these days—so I turn over. Climb out of bed and snatch up the phone. “Yeah?” I ask, stepping out onto the balcony and closing the door, so I don’t wake the angel.
“Mr. Lincoln. Sorry to bother you, I know you’re taking a few days off.” It’s my secretary, Rob. “But Carlton Weatherly is in town. Unexpectedly. He’s asking for a meeting this morning to go over his portfolio and discuss changes.”
Carl Weatherly is one of the fund’s biggest investors. Not only that, he was one of the first to trust me with his money. I’ve tripled his wealth over the last five years, but I still owe him. Once he showed some substantial returns, all of his old-moneyed friends joined the party and catapulted the fund, put us in demand. I could pawn the meeting off on my COO, but not being there myself would be perceived as an insult when our relationship goes so far back.
I drag a hand down my face. “What time?”
“In an hour, sir. Sorry.”
Fuck, I mouth, glancing back at Maisy through the glass door. The last thing I want to do is leave her for a second, especially when we’re still figuring things out, but I don’t have a choice. And if I leave now, I might be back in time for lunch. She might even still be asleep when I get back. “Make sure the conference room is ready. Have his file ready on my laptop. Earnings reports, all of it. Give me some options to offer him, maybe that new Israeli oil company.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hang up and reenter the room, showering and dressing as quietly as possible. I pause at the foot of the bed, drinking in the sight of her. That nude body, covered in finger bruises and bite marks, curled around a twisted lump of sheets. I should feel like an asshole for leaving marks on her. And I would, if she hadn’t begged for them. Mark me, Daddy. Not to mention, there are nail tracks on my back and ass that make it look like I fought a jungle cat last night.
Just thinking of those red streaks I saw in the bathroom mirror, my cock throbs against the zipper of my suit pants and I ponder climbing back into bed, giving her a rough, quick, face-down fuck before leaving, but I force myself to resist.
Christ, sometimes I forget she was a virgin less than a week ago. She’s eighteen, for the love of God. And I’ve been riding her like an animal.
Let the girl have her rest.
Better yet, I’m going to bring her back some fucking diamonds.
Dozens of them. Maybe a tiara.
I turn from the room, but pause on the threshold. Maisy gave me three days to show her my true self and today is the third day. Have I succeeded? Have I shown her I’m a good man? A worthy man? A man she can trust, spend the rest of her life with?
My pulse is firing as I step out into the hallway and raise my phone to my ear.
“Rob, it’s me again. Put me on the phone with my accountant.”
* * *
Maisy
A ding causes me to wake up.
I’m disoriented at first, but I don’t forget where I am.
Oh no. There’s no way I could forget for a second that I’m in Jack’s bed. Not after last night. I didn’t even know it was possible to have that many orgasms. Every time, I kept thinking, this is the last one, right? And then moments later, another more powerful surge would wrack me, Jack growling filth in my ear. And the build would start all over again. Again. Again.
Every inch of my skin is tingling as I roll over, frowning when the man himself isn’t in the bed beside me. Where is Jack? I was looking forward to waking up and seeing him messy from sleep, since he’s always so put together.
Yawning, I sit up and hear the ding again.
It’s my phone.
Trying to remember where I put it, I slip out of bed naked and search for my purse, which I find hanging from the ornate, golden knob of a chest of drawers. I take out my phone and blink at the alert from my bank.
Two million dollars has been transferred to account ending in…
The rest is illegible through my tears.
He did it.
He released his hold on me. Gave me freedom.
I press a hand over the pressure in my throat, imagining how hard that must have been for him. To give up his final trump card, leaving me free to choose. Stay or go.
I love him.
It’s so easy to admit that now. Now that he’s shown me who he is deep down. A man who might be a ruthless, driven, determined, but he’s also good.
A man who does the right thing. A man with a damaged, golden heart.
That’s Jack Lincoln.
I hear the roar of an engine outside and jolt. Is that Jack? Is he leaving?
In record time, I brush my teeth in the bathroom and run to the closet and find the short, blue silk robe he bought me yesterday, wrapping it around my nakedness and sprinting for the hallway. Barefoot, I fly down the staircase, changing direction at the bottom and running toward the door.
“Jack!”
Bonnie is closing the front door behind him, but without so much as a raised eyebrow at my sudden appearance, she reopens it—and there he is. Sexy as all get out in a royal blue suit, his dark hair wet from a shower, cleanly shaved. He’s climbing into the back seat of the limousine, but he pauses when he sees me. And that’s when I see the worry, the anxiety blanketing his expression, no doubt because he just handed me my freedom.
“Maisy?” He steps back out onto the driveway, his worry clearing, turning to hope when I take a running jump and land in his arms. “Baby, I’m sorry. Have to take a quick trip to the office.” He kisses my temple, saying hesitantly, “What…is it? Is everything okay?”
“I love you,” I whisper, then louder. “I love you. I can’t let you to leave without me telling you.”
He stares, as if trying to make sense of my words. “You love me.” A beat passes, his chest rising and falling. “You love me?”
“Yes.”
A choked sound leaves him. “Oh my God.” His rushing exhale bathes the side of my face, his arms turning to steel around me. “I love you, too.” Blue eyes race over my face, incredulous, hopeful, stunned. “Is this really happening?”
Too emotional to speak, I can only nod.
His mouth finds mine and we moan into a twining of tongues, his lips moving over mine with such reverence and care, heat blooms behind my eyelids. The kiss begins sweet, like a celebration, but like it always does with us, the temperature spikes. Jack’s tongue begins to delve deeper, one of his big hands dragging up my ribcage to sneak inside the robe, massaging my breast. As if he’s hit a secret switch, I open my lips wider and find myself being devoured hungrily, my body lifted off the ground by his forearm, my thighs securing themselves around his hips. One eager stroke of tongues later, I’m turned and pinned against the side of the limo.
We’re not alone. His driver is sitting in the limousine, engine still running.
The maid is standing on the porch, waiting to let me back in.
I’m too caught up to care, though, and so is Jack. I mi
ght even be urged on by the presence of others, and if that makes me twisted or bad, he’s the one who created the monster. And based on the enormous erection he’s pressing up between my legs, he’s more than happy to accept the responsibility. “I need you,” he rasps, humping me roughly against the vehicle. Once, twice, three times. Panting into my neck. “I need inside. Need it now. Let me in.”
“Yes, Jack.”
His tongue traces a path from my shoulder up to my ear. “No matter who’s around, it’s always just you and me,” Jack says hoarsely, reaching down to unzip his pants, the thick, round head finding my entrance immediately, guided by his fist. “Just you and the man who loves you, adores you, worships you.” He thrusts deep, rocking the limousine behind us. “Fucks you.”
My scream tries to remain trapped in my throat, but it breaks loose, carrying in circles around the driveway. And Jack’s groans of pleasure join mine seconds later when he begins pinning me to the limo with crude slaps of his hips, the running engine making the vehicle warm against my bare butt. Vibratory.
“Mine. Mine. Mine.”
“Yes,” I breathe, holding on tight to his shoulders, trying to keep my thighs perched on his bucking hips, whimpering, whining, absorbing the blows, while straining to get just the right friction for my clit. I’m so sensitized from last night that in a matter of seconds, I’m already feeling that distinctive tingle of oncoming release. “Yes, Daddy,” I half-scream through my teeth. “Make me come.”
We’re filthy. It’s like we’ve accepted it, embraced it, and now we’re owning it.
Jack grips my knees and slaps them wide against the limo, his teeth biting down on my bottom lip and pulling, letting go, hips powering up and forward, his eyes traveling down to breasts that are now exposed, bouncing up and down in the open V of my robe. I imagine the picture we must make, Jack with his pants around his ankles, his taut buttocks flexing in the sunlight, my thighs open and eager to receive his savage drives.
“God, Maisy, I love you so much, I can barely fucking breathe,” he grinds out against my mouth, eyes flashing possessively, hands tightening on my knees. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me you’re mine forever.”
“I’m yours. Forever,” I hiccup, relief approaching quickly. So quickly that I have to grind down, shifting my hips with sharp movements, head falling back, eyes already blind in anticipation of the meteoric rise and steep drop.
“And I’m yours,” he says thickly in my ear. “So fucking yours.”
My heart flies and I follow, moaning wildly while those final thrusts drive me higher, up, up, up against the side of the limo. Until Jack curses, jaw slackening, impaling me to the hard surface with one final rough pump, roaring into the air above my head, release turning him to a rigid, shaking wall of muscle. Warmth bathes me on the inside and I beg for it greedily, wiggling my hips and whimpering in gibberish. We look each other in the eye at the most jagged peak of our mutual climax and forever is no longer just a word. It’s an inevitability.
“Maisy. My Maisy,” Jack whispers, letting me slide down the car and wrapping me tightly in the robe, embracing me tightly. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Jack,” I kiss his chin, his hard lips. “Always. I knew you would do the right thing. I knew.”
There’s a trace of vulnerability when he looks down at me again. “You’re going to be here when I get home, right?”
“Of course I am.”
When I say I’m going to be there, I truly mean it.
But circumstances have a funny way of changing in the blink of an eye.
13
Maisy
I sit on the bed in one of my new dresses, staring at the envelope of money and plane tickets to Belize. Jack told me I could return them to my mother, but I haven’t yet and there’s no more putting it off. If I didn’t feel so betrayed and hurt, I would have already called her or dropped the money by, but I’m dreading the moment I have to look in her eyes, knowing full well she meant to take off and leave me in the lurch. It’s going to make it all so real.
Flopping backwards on the bed, I pick up my phone, rubbing a thumb on the screen.
It’s kind of odd that she hasn’t called me, isn’t it?
She’s not even interested in pleading her case?
Maybe she’s too ashamed after being caught.
You’ll never know unless you talk to her.
Before I can dial, there’s a knock on the bedroom door. Thinking it’s Jack, my nipples harden and lust coils tightly beneath my belly button. But why would he knock on his own bedroom door? Come to think of it, Jack probably never knocks on any door. Just walks right through. Heart squeezing, I sit up. “Come in.”
Bonnie pokes her head in hesitantly. She stood at the door while Jack and I made love in the driveway, and my face colors in response to seeing her again, but nothing in her expression betrays any censure. So I relax.
“Miss Whitaker,” she says, setting down a brown paper bag just inside the door. “Mr. Lincoln asked me to pick this up for you at the drugstore.”
“Oh.” Already sensing what it might be, my cheeks flame again. “Thank you.”
She smiles warmly. “Of course.”
The door is closed with a quiet click.
Rolling off the bed, I stare at the bag for a moment before approaching. When I finally open it up, I find exactly what I was expecting. A pregnancy test. Nonetheless, my heart flutters up into my throat. I take a moment to examine my feelings. Am I hopeful that I’m carrying Jack’s baby? Or hopeful that I’m not?
I close my eyes and imagine Jack holding a newborn, swimming with a little boy or girl in the pool, how much the unconditional love of a child would transform him and…I can’t help it. I find myself hoping the test is positive. I want to share this life with him. Share a family.
Ten minutes later, I’m staring down at double pink lines, laughing breathlessly to myself.
Holy moly.
I’m pregnant with Jack’s baby. It must have happened Friday night, before my birth control started working. When he came inside me after promising he wouldn’t—that’s when it happened. If there was ever proof that Jack Lincoln gets his way in the end, this is definitely it. But I’m happy to let him this time, because I want to share in the amazing news with him. The way we got here was complicated, but we overcame the doubts and the result is…a life together. With a baby.
I can’t believe I get to tell him I love him and I’m pregnant in the same day.
And maybe because I’ll always love my mother, no matter what she does, I find myself needing to confide the news to her, too. Right away.
Leaving the test balanced on the edge of the wastebasket, I wash my hands and return to the bedroom, picking up my phone where I left it. With a deep breath for courage, I dial her number, giddy, musing how much has changed since the last time my mother and I exchanged words. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve become one half of a couple with a man I adore, who adores me back. I’ve behaved in truly naughty fashion…and enjoyed every second of it.
And now I’m going to have a child.
I’m definitely not the same girl I was walking into that party on Friday night, timid and scared of the unknown. I could have allowed Jack to swallow me whole with his demands, but I stuck to my guns and now we’ve reached common ground.
He gave me my freedom and I chose him.
It’s exciting. I’m happy. So happy. And I just want Jack to get home so we can make love again. Or maybe have another Nerf battle.
After everything that’s happened, I’m brave enough to face my mother, too, aren’t I?
Yes.
Bolstered, I listen to the phone ring for the third time. Fourth.
Just when I think she isn’t going to pick up, she does.
“Hi, Maisy,” she says quietly.
“Mom.” I swallow. “Hi.”
A beat passes. “Are you still…with Mr. Lincoln?”
“Yes.” I press a hand to my flat belly. “I’m
definitely with him. I will be for a long time.”
If I sense a trace of skepticism on the other end of the line, I’m too high on excitement to address it. “Maisy, about the money. And the trip I planned…” Her voice sounds unnatural, but that’s probably because she’s emotional and usually she’s very stoic. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. That was wrong of me. It’s just…I’ve worked and worked all my life and I just wanted something for myself. Maybe someday you will understand. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
“I know. And I forgive you for not telling me.” I think I would forgive just about anything in this moment because I’m so happy, soaring on the wings of a beautiful breeze. “Mom, I want you to be happy. I want you to go to Belize. The money is yours, okay? The tickets and everything. You can have it all back. Jack was just upset over you leaving me, but I know eventually he’ll be glad we returned the money, too.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath. “Do you mean it?”
I smile. “Yes. As soon as Jack comes home, we’ll drive over and drop it off. I can pick up some more of my things, too.”
There’s a muffled sound, as if she’s covered the receiver. “I can come there right now.”
“Oh.” My neck is beginning to prickle. “Um…I don’t know. I don’t want to call Jack and bother him at work, but…”
But he fired my mother.
I should probably talk to Jack before letting her back on the property, right?
Still, she’s my mother. If I’m going to live here, there’s a real possibility she’ll be coming here to visit. And it’s not like she’s dangerous or something, just because she was deceptive.
“I won’t stay long, Maisy. Please? Without your contribution from last week and no money coming in from Mr. Lincoln, I’m flat broke.”
It occurs to me that I’m the proud new owner of two million bucks.
“Oh, I have an idea. I can transfer you some funds—”