by Whitley Cox
“My kid covered herself head to fucking toe in Sharpie tonight because you told her to.” He pointed his finger in her direction. “Fucking Sharpie.”
“I most certainly did not tell Aria to cover herself in Sharpie.” She tilted her head like she was studying him, her nose wrinkling when she squinted, continuing to watch him like he was some caged animal at the zoo. He refused to look away and threw a glare right back at her. She didn’t avert her gaze either. In fact, she stared back at him for so long, it almost felt like a challenge.
Fuck this shit. He wasn’t done letting this whack job have a piece of his mind.
“You told her to show her feelings through art. And she wasn’t feeling like wearing pajamas. So she fucking drew them on. Because you told her to.” He stepped forward, but she didn’t retreat even one pace. She held her ground, and damn if that didn’t make him admire her more. She was fucking beautiful, strong, and even though he wasn’t convinced what she did for a living actually worked, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she was smart as fuck.
“You’re misdirecting your anger at me, Mr. Stark, when you know deep down I’m not the one at fault here.” Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she held his gaze, the dark streaks of blue in her irises deepening in color the longer he studied her.
“The fuck I am,” he ground out, though he could already feel himself losing steam. The realization of how irrational he was behaving hit him like a fucking runaway train. What had he been thinking coming here?
“You’re angry at yourself for what you saw on Monday with Aria. You’re angry at the fact that you weren’t there for her, you weren’t there to stop her from coloring all over herself. Because just like she said on Monday, you don’t have time for her. Now, whether your reason for not catching her was a valid one or not—you were probably tending to the baby—but either way, you were not there for her when she needed you to stop her from making a bad decision. And you’re taking this out on me because, I’m guessing, you’ve already beaten yourself to a pulp over Monday’s therapy revelation.”
He snorted. “Revelation … sure. If that’s what you want to call it.”
Heat flashed in her eyes, and her nostrils flared. “You may not think what I do actually works, Mr. Stark, but I have it on good authority that it does. I wouldn’t be doing what I do, or writing my PhD dissertation on art therapy and childhood trauma, if I didn’t think it worked.”
He snorted again and glanced away. Her gaze was hitting him harder than he realized. It was unnerving how unwilling she was to concede to his ire. She was not backing down, and he didn’t like how that made him feel about her. Glancing back her way, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You’re a hack, and I think Aria’s sessions here are done.”
What the fuck are you saying? You’re a fucking fool and you need to rein in that anger.
The noise in her throat made his body go rigid, and the words that followed set every cell inside of him on fire. “You’re an asshole, and maybe that’s best. Put your own needs and uneducated opinions before the health and well-being of your child. Father of the year, right there.”
He was toe-to-toe with her in two and half strides. “Don’t you fucking dare speak to me like that. You have no idea—”
“No, Atlas, you have no idea. You have no idea what your daughter is going through, and you continue to remain oblivious. You refuse to open your eyes and see that your daughter has indeed been through a traumatic experience and she needs help. Help I can give her. Help I can help you give her.”
Atlas growled and stared down his nose at the gorgeous, infuriating woman in front of him.
She plopped her hands on her hips and lifted her head to glare right back at him. “You don’t scare me.”
“And you don’t impress me.”
A muscle ticked along the smooth line of her jaw. “I don’t care. You’re an asshole, and you know it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” she scoffed. “Definitely.”
Her glower intensified. So did his.
But then, like a light switch, something changed between them. The heat between their bodies was still there, but it was a new kind of heat, one he didn’t recognize, but it warmed him in a much different way. A pleasant way. A way he wanted a hell of a lot more of. She must have recognized it too because her features softened. And then, just like in the movies, they were on each other.
His lips found hers, hers found his, and his tongue demanded entrance to her mouth. She tasted like cinnamon and smelled even better. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she tugged him down to her as he wrapped his hands around her back and held her against him. Her luscious breasts in the thin, white, cap-sleeve T-shirt pressed against his chest, and he could tell her nipples were beginning to bead.
With his eyes shut, he had to go by feel, but at the moment, he was feeling fucking incredible. Her hot little tongue tangled with and tasted his as he backed her up toward her desk. The iron bar in his shorts knocked her thigh when she hit the front of her desk, and he lifted her up to plunk her butt down. Not once did their lips unlock. Her hands unraveled from behind him and trailed down his shoulders, her nails scraping and sending shivers coursing through him. She went to work on the buttons.
Holy fuck, she wanted this.
She wanted him.
And Jesus fuck, did he ever want her.
With one hand fisting her ponytail, he yanked her head back by her hair and sank his teeth into the side of her neck almost hard enough to draw blood.
The sharp inhale next to his ear, followed by a low, cat-like purr, said she didn’t mind a nice bite. He nipped her again, only this time gentler, then laved across the bite marks with his tongue at the same time his free hand pushed up the hem of her shirt. Trailing his fingers along her silky-soft skin and feeling her shiver beneath his touch, he found the underside of her breast. The material of her bra was thin, and when he cupped her, her nipple pebbled beneath his fingers.
She’d finished with the buttons of his shirt, and ignoring his growl of protest, broke their kiss, peppering her lips and swirling her tongue down over his clavicle toward his chest.
Was she wet? He needed to know. Now plucking her tight nipple through the material of her bra with one hand, his other hand slid over her thigh, gathering the fabric of her skirt and pushing it upward. His fingers skimmed along her calf, behind her knee. He chuckled when she shivered against him. He hoped to do more than just make her shiver. His fingers continued up her leg to her thigh, the heat between her legs drawing them, and pushing aside her panties, he dipped two fingers in.
She wasn’t just fucking wet, she was saturated. His thumb strummed her clit, and her head lurched back, her eyes flared open, only to slam shut a moment later. Her lips fell back to his neck, her kisses more eager and fervent as her body quivered against his. He pushed his fingers inside her slick, swollen entrance, and the exploration of her lips on his chest stopped. She let them rest on his shoulder, her breath hot puffs of air against his skin.
He opened his eyes and started down at her. Even though he couldn’t see her face, she was a sight to behold. Flushed skin, long, curly blonde hair, little whimpers and gentle shudders each time he raked his thumbnail over the hood of her sensitive nub.
He continued to tease her, torment her, loving the way she bucked against his hand, rode his fingers and gasped when he tugged just a little harder on her nipple. He swore it was as hard as his dick was at that moment. Was she going to come? He thought she’d been close for some time now.
He was about to add a third finger when the growl from the woman riding his fingers like a mechanical bull caused him to pause. She lifted her head from his chest, grabbed his face in her hands and practically yelled, “Are you going to fuck me or what?”
Where the fuck had this little tiger come from?
Hell, fucking yes, he was going to fuck her.
He slipped his fingers from her cleft and finished ruffling up her skirt, then
slid her panties down her thighs and over her legs. She helped him by lifting her butt off the desk. Her fingers raked down his bare chest, the tiger claws coming out. She reached for him. “Fuck me, Atlas.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
His shorts were down to his ankles in a flash, and he was cupping her ass. She reached between them, grabbed his length and angled it toward her. He intended to go slow, but she wouldn’t allow it and bucked forward, taking him inside her nearly to the hilt. With a grunt and thrust from both of them, he was seated inside her.
Thank fucking God.
She cupped his face again and crashed her mouth to his, prying his lips apart with her tongue and wrapping the slippery muscle around his, sucking on it, sparring with it. The woman could fucking kiss.
It was like the floodgates had finally opened, and when she squeezed her muscles around him, the light switch not only flicked on, it was damn near blinding. He began to move, one hand cupping her ass, the other back up her shirt and toying with her nipple. It wasn’t the best position for great sexual leverage and momentum, but it would have to do.
Papers shuffled and crinkled beneath her, and he was pretty sure he heard a jar of pens or something crash to the floor, but none of that fucking mattered. What mattered was the woman wrapped around his dick like cellophane, and the way her tongue licked and sucked on his was like he was fucking citrus cooler ice cream and she couldn’t waste a drop.
Her fingers pushed the sleeves of his shirt over his arms, and she squeezed his biceps, groaning when he flexed them, which made them both laugh, still never breaking their intense kiss.
Her heat around him began to grow slicker and her cadence waned. He swallowed her whimper, morphing it into a groan of his own as her nails dug into his arm. That’s when he noticed the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Words in very distinct—handwritten—printing. But he pushed the thoughts of her tattoo aside and focused on the woman around him, the woman consuming him. Every noise, every move she made said she was close. Or at least he fucking hoped she was, because he was ready to goddamn blow.
She broke her lips away and scraped her teeth against his neck. “Oh God.”
He pumped harder. She squeezed tighter.
She stilled. Her mouth opened on a silent plea and … she exploded around him, cursing him, calling on a deity and making animal noises that he couldn’t get enough of. The intensity of her orgasm pushed him to his own. Every squeeze of her hot, slick channel pulsing around him drew out his own release.
His mouth found her neck.
He drove deep one more time, grunted against her skin, bit down harder on that delicate spot where her neck met her shoulder and his balls emptied. It’d been a long fucking time since he’d had such an intense release, his cock pulsing like it had its own heart as he filled her.
Even though she’d just had her orgasm, she helped his along by tightening her walls around him, drawing him in deeper, milking the head of his cock for every drop. And he would give her all he had.
11
Tessa located her panties and discreetly tugged them back on, careful not to meet Atlas’s gaze from where he stood, buttoning up his shirt. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was staring at her though. The heat from that intense gray probe made her whole body turn to molten lava.
She blew out a breath and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ears.
Holy crap. What the heck had she just done?
What the heck had they just done?
Had some world-rocking, life-changing, soul-shattering sex on your desk, that’s what.
She walked around behind her desk to pick up the steel pencil holder that they had knocked over, and a gush of liquid fled from between her legs, filling her panties.
Oh God.
“We didn’t use a condom!” she blurted out, fleeing from behind the desk and coming to stand directly in front of him.
He lifted his head, his eyes the size of dinner plates. “Oh my God. We didn’t. You’re right.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve used them, I forgot. I just got out of a long-term relationship. I mean, I’m on the pill. But … ”
He raked his fingers through his hair and then scrubbed that same hand down his face. “Me too. Haven’t used condoms in … ” His head shook. “Ten years? Maybe more? Was in a long-term relationship—obviously. She was on the pill. Then we were trying and then … ”
“I—I don’t know if I’m clean. Oh my God. He was unfaithful, and it all just happened recently. I haven’t had a chance to get myself checked. I am so sorry.”
“I’m clean,” he said, his tone so understanding, she wasn’t sure this was the same guy who had come barreling into her studio not too long ago. “We’ll both go get checked, make sure. I’m sure it’s fine though. Unless your ex was out whoring around?”
Her shrug was stiff. “He could have been. I mean he’s with one woman now, apparently been cheating with her for a while, but who knows. I’m really sorry, Atlas.”
“It’ll be okay.”
But he knew as well as she did that he couldn’t promise that.
“At least I can’t get pregnant.” The laugh that followed was forced and choppy. Her face fell into her hands, and she spun away from him, wandering aimlessly through the studio. “Never in a million years did I think that this was going to happen. What the hell?”
“You’re not … regretting it, are you?” His voice behind her made her jump, but the big, warm hands that fell to her shoulders were a surprising comfort. A firm squeeze encouraged her to turn around. “I mean, it was consensual, right?”
She nodded. “It was. I wanted it too. And, no … I’m not regretting it. It’s just … I mean, did you think that this, that that”—she pointed at her desk—“was going to happen when you came here tonight looking to tear a strip off me for wrecking your child with my hippie-dippie ways?”
His lips twitching at one corner was all she got from him. “No. I did not. But you hit the nail on the head with all of it, with what you said. I’m blaming you for my parenting failures because it’s easier to blame someone else than yourself. Particularly since I’m doing the very best I can at the moment and that’s still not enough.”
She cupped his cheek, and strangely it felt like the most natural thing to do so. “I know you are. But it’s okay to ask for help. Who is with the girls now?”
“A babysitter.”
“See, you asked for help. That’s a good thing.”
He snorted and averted his gaze. “I asked someone to watch my kids so I could come and ream you out. Class-A asshole right there.”
“Well, I did call you an asshole.”
He dipped his forehead to hers. “You did.” His eyes closed. “I’m sorry for the things I said. I didn’t mean any of them. If we’re going to dig even deeper into my fucked-up head, I guess I’m also angry at myself for being attracted to you.”
Her sudden inhale caused him to open his eyes.
“Because I am. I have been since the first day I brought Aria in.”
Her lips twisted before she spoke. “So a week ago?”
Those stormy gray eyes rolled. “Yes, fine. A week ago. But still … I didn’t think I’d ever be attracted to another woman, and now here I am—”
“Attracted to another woman who is not your wife,” she finished that sentence for him on a shaky breath.
“Yeah,” he exhaled. “And it’s just a lot to take in. And of course, because I’m a man—”
“It couldn’t possibly be your fault that you’re attracted to me, so you came to get mad at the source. Lumping all your life frustrations into one big ball of fury and launching it at the only person you could think of to blame.”
His bottom lip relaxed, and his eyes widened. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“I get it.”
“You do?”
“I’m a hippie-dippie therapist, remember? What you might not know about my oil-diffusing, crystal-weari
ng, moon-worshipping kind is that we’re very understanding and forgiving.”
His chuckle was quiet, but it shook his chest and shoulders. “Is it weird I feel like I’ve known you longer and better than just a week and three sessions?”
“No, because for some weird reason I feel the same.”
His fingers linked with hers at the same time their mouths met. She breathed him in, tasting his swollen lips from their earlier kisses and feeling his warm velvet tongue slide across hers. His name was like a mantra in her head. Atlas. Strong and powerful and oh-so-masculine. He really was carrying the whole world on his shoulders.
He was the first to break the kiss, his lips falling to her neck, nose nuzzling beneath her ear. “What are we doing, Tessa?” he murmured, his mouth tracing a path along her jaw, teeth nipping.
A groan bubbled up from deep in her chest. “I don’t know. All I know is that this feels really good, and I don’t want to stop.” Her fingers pushed into his hair, and she tugged his head back up, taking his mouth once again.
He met her groan with one of his own, deepening the kiss and bending her back, his hand moving from hers to the small of her back, keeping her safe … but not from falling.
He thought his head would have been a dense fog after leaving Tessa’s studio, but for some fucked-up reason, he felt clearer than he had in ages.
Was that all it took to clear the mind? A good fuck?
You know she’s more than that. Stop kidding yourself.
After double-checking that Tessa was indeed okay after their impromptu … fuck? Tryst? Meeting of the minds and genitals? He said goodbye to her, hopped back into his Land Cruiser and headed home. As he knew they would be, both girls were sound asleep, and Kimmy was watching a movie while texting on her phone.
“How’d the night go?” he asked, setting his wallet and phone down on the coffee table before sitting down in his recliner.