I hoped. Oh, God, I hoped.
“They’re going to come back,” I said, heaving for breath as Will’s teeth closed around my ear. My core, my center was already pulsing for him. “We should stop, don’t you think?”
In response, I was whirled around and shoved against the bedroom door. My shirt and bra were torn off, hips were pulled out, skirt yanked up, panties shoved down.
“Do you really want to stop, Lil?” Will growled. His tongue licked down my earlobe, and when he bit softly, I barely registered the clink of his belt unbuckling before his cock slipped between my legs. “Say the word, and I will.”
His hand found the fleshier part of my ass with a loud smack that echoed through the empty space. It was hard, with a sharp sting that made my desire even sharper.
“Say it,” repeated Will as he slapped me again. “Yes or no?”
“Mmmm.” I was practically wordless, shocked, yet pushing back into his harsh touch, tipped my hips to welcome him. “Y-yesssss.”
But he teased, having harnessed his need to keep me waiting.
“Fuck me, you’re wet.” Will shuddered as he gently thrust between my thighs, keeping his cock trapped between them, the friction creating a slippery preview of what was to come. “Always so ready. You need this as bad as I do, don’t you, baby?”
“Y-yes-Oh, God!” I whispered, long and loud as he breached my entrance. I did need it, but I still wasn’t ready to take him. The sheer size of him simply required more…time.
“Take me, Lil,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as he eased himself in, inch by terrible inch. “God, you’re so damn tight.”
“I…can’t…Will!” I gritted the words through my teeth. He was so big, and it had been so long. He almost—almost—hurt, but nothing that came close to how amazing he actually felt, to the exquisite match of our bodies together.
“You can, baby.” His low voice rumbled against my neck. “You can, and you will. Because you need to, and I need you to. Take it. Take me, Lily. All of me—for all of you.”
He sank in that final inch, sheathed completely, and stayed there, perfectly still except for the way I could literally feel him throbbing inside me.
“I could come like this, you know that?” His breath was hot over my neck, and his teeth grazed my nape slightly. “Being in you, feeling you squeeze my dick the way you do. Jesus Christ, Lily. Do that again.”
Instinctively, I inhaled, pulling up and in with my body, feeling the way he pulsed. I could come this way too. One swipe of his thumb, and I’d be a goner. I was so, so ready to let go.
Will’s big palms slid up my sides, dipping around my waist, pausing around my rib cage, feeling my curves before he cupped both of my breasts.
“Do you feel that?” he said as he pulled out almost completely, then sank back in to the hilt.
“Mmmm.” I was beyond words, my forehead pressed to the wall, urging him shamelessly to shove back in, again and again.
“Say it, Lil. I need to hear you say it.”
Out. Back in. His pace was immeasurably slow, centered while his hands kneaded my breasts in time with his movements. He tugged lightly on my nipples. I moaned.
Will paused. I pressed backward into him, urging him on, but he was resolute in his stasis. Then one hand left my breast and threaded into my hair, pulling it tightly so I was yanked against his chest.
“Say it,” he ordered.
“S-say what?” My stutter had become so much worse in the past few weeks, but right now, it wasn’t out of fear. It was from anticipation. Only Will had the power to undo me this way.
“You know what.” He yanked lightly on my hair. The slight pinch made me moan. “Say it, Lily.”
So I said the only thing I could think of that hadn’t been said. He had murmured the words to me, but I had kept them to myself, letting them sing inside my chest, a vulnerable gift I hadn’t quite been ready to give.
But now, the words sang. “I love you.”
Will’s entire chest relaxed. “Thank fucking God.”
In a blur of movement, I was flipped around and picked up, and Will attacked my mouth like he had been starved for days. He took three long steps to the windows, set me atop the deep sill, and plunged back inside me.
“That’s right, Lil. Spread out, just like that.” Will licked his thumb, then drew it down my torso, between my breasts, grazing my navel, and landing on top of my clit. “Fuck, I could eat you alive, you know that?”
I peered up at him. “Why don’t you?”
A sly half grin tugged the corner of his mouth, revealing one dimple that I wanted to lick. “You little vixen. Don’t tempt me.”
He leaned over and sucked on my lip, giving me a very good idea of what it would feel like to have that done lower down. He thrust deeper, and I moaned.
“Sometime soon, when I have more than five damn minutes, I’m going to spend an entire day with my face between your legs.” He pushed in again, and the friction of skin on top of skin, rubbing that sensitive spot, caused me to jerk against him. “Breakfast.” Thrust. “Lunch.” Suck. “Dinner.” Shove. “And every snack in between.”
He licked his lips––it was all too easy to imagine him licking me instead, and the idea was my undoing as he pulled my lower lip between his teeth.
“Will,” I hissed. “I’m…oh, God, I’m so fucking close!”
“Mr. Baker?”
We both jerked toward the door, where Carol was trying and failing to turn the knob.
“Mr. Baker?” she called again. “Everything all right?”
“Don’t stop,” Will whispered as he continued to pummel forward.
I arched back into the window, but right as a moan threatened to escape, it was clapped silent by Will’s big palm over my mouth.
“We’re just talking it over, Carol,” he called out, snaking his other arm around my back and yanking me close so we were chest to chest.
“Let go, Lil,” he commanded in a whisper only I could hear. The muscles carved into his chest, his abs, his hips, his arms—all of them clenched and rippled with each movement. He dropped his thumb down to my clit and rubbed. “Let go, baby. I’m right here with you. Let me fuckin’ feel it.”
“Anything I can help with?” I could barely hear Carol’s voice as my head tipped back again. The only thing keeping me fully upright was Will’s steel arm.
“We’re fine, Carol!” he shouted in a choked voice as he pistoned forward. “We’ll meet you out front.”
As the sound of her heels echoed down the hall, Will gripped my hips and pounded into me with everything he had. I exploded.
“Will!” The name erupted from me, a deep, visceral shout that was quickly swallowed by his kiss. I arched upward as my climax steamrolled through me, pounding me into the window along with Will’s unforgiving movements.
“Fuck, LILY!” he shouted in a voice that I swear all of New York could hear.
We grasped at anything and everything—limbs, fingers, hips, hair. Nothing was enough, and yet everything was too much as pleasure roiled through us both. Wave after wave. Sigh after sigh. Until finally, there was nothing left to release.
And then, at last, time and breath slowly put us back together.
“Well,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “That was, um, unexpected.”
“That was needed,” Will corrected me gently. He cupped my face, urging me to look up at him. “Feel better?”
I nodded. “I do.”
His mouth quirked in a funny smile—one he reserved only for me. “So is this it? Is this home, at least for another two weeks?”
I glanced at the windows, which were, ironically, completely uncovered. If Will had issues before about snooping photographers, they were gone now.
“We’ll have to draw the blinds next time,” he said, with no little resentment as he read my thoughts.
Will slouched over me, skin meeting skin as he slid out. He pressed tender kisses up and down my collarbone, somehow s
till full of hunger, but a different sort. He needed to be close. We both needed to be close.
“Damn,” he muttered. “I wish we could stay here. I want to go to dinner with my mother like I want a hole in my head.”
He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder while I threaded a hand into his hair, combing it lightly through my fingers. My stomach dropped too at the mention of tonight. He wanted me to go, but if I was being honest, Tricia Owens-Baker scared the hell out of me.
I wouldn’t leave him alone in this, though. Not now. Not ever.
“I love you,” I said again, squeezing him with what little comfort I could offer with my small frame.
“Love,” Will repeated with no little wonder as he stood up and looked down at me. He pushed a strand of curling hair out of my eyes and smiled ruefully. “What’s that, huh? How would I ever know it from anything else?”
“Because you know me,” I said.
I cupped his face between my hands, enjoying the feel of his cheekbones under my thumbs. I tipped my head up to kiss him again, and his tongue slipped around mine delicately. Vulnerable.
“Then love is freedom,” he whispered between kisses. “Because that’s what I feel when I’m with you.”
7
“Are you sure you can’t come?” I pleaded with Calliope for the fourth time that night.
My friend, soldier that she was, had brought my things herself from her apartment to the new one Will and I were renting, along with a selection of dresses for me to borrow for dinner. We were due at Le Corbeau in thirty minutes—Will didn’t want to leave for at least twenty, but Benny had been nagging at us for the last hour, getting visibly more and more stressed every time Will batted his words away. I wasn’t so sure being late was the best way to make up with a woman who had literally slapped him across the face that afternoon, but I wasn’t much inclined to care about her opinion anyway.
“She can fucking wait,” Will kept saying every time Benny or I brought it up.
Benny grumbled and repeated, “Eight o’clock, man. Eight o’clock.”
I felt tired. And terrified. And hungry. It had been a crazy day, and there was still more to come. All I wanted to do was crawl into our giant, king-sized bed and keep making up with Will for the rest of the night. But there was no avoiding Tricia Owens-Baker, who had called Benny at least five times in the last hour to make sure Will wasn’t skipping out on her again.
Calliope fluffed my hair over my shoulders. She’d come armed with a coconut oil hair mask that my hair desperately needed after taking abuse in the unrelenting Spokane sun and then two more weeks refusing any treatment at all in her apartment.
“I’m sorry, boo,” she said. “I can’t come. I have to get to another event tonight for one of my clients. You’re gonna have to brave the storm on your own.”
I scowled into the mirror, and she laughed.
“Stop, you big baby,” she said as she looked over the rest of me. “Okay, this is much, much better than before. I was about to take you to my girls uptown to shame you into doing something here.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t deny that it looked better. Most of the curls and body had returned to my long, dark brown locks, which were piled over my shoulders.
I ran my hands over the sleek silver dress Calliope had loaned me. Between its bustier bodice, tight pencil skirt, and the way the back cut halfway down my spine, the satin basically put every curve I had on display—most of which were a lot tighter after weeks of triathlon training.
“You look gorgeous,” Calliope said, wrapping her arms around my waist and setting her chin on my shoulder. “Baby’s back, huh?”
I snorted. “I don’t know about that.”
“For what it’s worth, I like him.” She stood and walked over to the bureau, where she started putting her supplies in a bag.
I turned. “Who, Will?”
Callie nodded. “I wasn’t sure, at first. I hated that he hurt you, obviously, and knowing who he is, his history and everything…yeah, it’s all a little alarming. But you seem good together. I don’t know. You seem more at peace, I guess, when he’s around. Like I haven’t seen you in at least four years…maybe ever.”
I smiled at my friend, nodding. “I think you’re right. I know there are red flags, but we’re better together, Cal. I’m sure of it.”
She finished packing up her things, and I followed her out of the bedroom and into the living room, where Benny was pacing by the front door and Will was staring out the picture windows grumpily, arms crossed over his chest.
Despite his proclamations that he didn’t give a shit what his mother thought of his wardrobe, Will had still gussied up a little for tonight too. He wore the same black, immaculately fitted pants that he had worn on another dinner date—one we were supposed to have the night he found out his father had died—and a pressed charcoal button-down that made his eyes glow against his tan skin and mane of blond waves. He hadn’t bothered to tie his hair up—preferring, I suspected, to let it obscure his face. Too bad for him, it made him look that much more edible.
He turned when Calliope and I walked in. Benny stopped in his tracks, and Will’s mouth dropped.
“Wow,” he said as I walked over to where he stood. “Holy shit, Lil. You look—”
“She looks like a movie star’s girlfriend,” Calliope said as she walked to the door, slinging her bag of products over her shoulder. “I did good.”
But Will shook his head, making his hair swish lightly around his cheeks. “Nah. She looks like a star by herself. Wow.” He pulled me close, then ran a hand over my shoulder and down my waist, stopping just short of curving around my backside.
“And…that’s my cue. Bye, boo.” Calliope waved, ignoring Benny’s sly looks.
I waved back. “Bye, girl. Thank you!”
After the door shut, I allowed Will to pull me back toward him so he could look me over more thoroughly.
“This is going to be torture,” he said, toying with one strap of the dress, pulling it over my shoulder, then back into place. “I won’t be able to think straight with you sitting next to me in this, Lil.”
I smiled shyly. “Well, good. Then maybe you’ll be too distracted to argue with your mom.”
At the mention of Tricia, Will’s face collapsed into a frown. He pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “Ah, well. Here’s hoping.”
There was a knock on the door panel. We turned to find Benny standing by the exit.
“We ready to go?” he asked. “There’s a car at the service entrance.”
“Any paps outside?”
Benny shook his head. “No one knows where you are yet. But they’re hunting, so I doubt it will take long, especially with Tricia in town.”
Will grabbed a pair of sunglasses off a console and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “Better get it over with.” He reached out for me and squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry,” he said as we followed Benny toward the service elevator.
“For what?” I asked.
Will grimaced. “For whatever is about to happen now.”
Despite Will’s best intentions to be late, we ended up walking through the kitchen at Le Corbeau, one of the nicest French fusion restaurants in New York, at exactly 8 p.m., and were briskly guided past the open-mouthed kitchen staff by a haughty maître d’ to a private room in the back of the restaurant. “Private” was a bit of a misnomer—the room itself was completely visible to the public, with multiple folding glass doors left open, heavy drapery pushed to the sides.
We followed Benny into the room in a slight daze, but Will stopped everyone when he served a nasty glare to the maître d’.
“Did you know I was coming?”
“Y-yes, Mr. Baker,” stuttered the host.
“So you do know who I am.”
“Will,” I murmured, but when I tried to take his hand, I was brushed aside.
“Of course,” answered the host again. “I—the others in your party assured us that this would serve
your needs exactly, sir.”
“Do you think it serves my needs to be stared at like a fucking zoo exhibit?” Will snapped, gesturing toward the restaurant, which had gone relatively quiet with his arrival. His glare remained fixed on the quivering host.
“N-no,” said the maître d’. “Of, of course. A terrible oversight on our part.” He scurried around the room, closing the glass doors and shutting the curtains over them. “Can I get you anything to drink, sir?”
“Honey, we already ordered a bottle of Macallan 18, your favorite.”
Will squinted in the direction of his mother’s voice, one that had turned strangely syrupy since we saw her that morning. Then he turned to the maître d’.
“Just a Perrier,” he said curtly. “And the same for her. You good with that, Lil?”
I nodded, and the maître d’ took Benny’s order before fleeing the room and Will’s bad temper.
“Well, Mom, I hope you’re happy. The place will be crawling with fucking paps by the time we’re done.” Will straightened his shirt, then pulled out my chair and his. “Let’s get this shit show over with.”
In the seat next to his, Tricia Owens-Baker smiled sweetly. “Will, there was no need to overreact. This is a nice restaurant. No one here is going to tip anyone off about anything.”
Will scowled.
Tricia rolled her eyes. “Good lord, I would have thought you’d grow out of the theatrics during your ‘time away.’”
Will remained as stony as ever and squeezed my hand as he sank into his seat. “I learned from the best. It’s bred in the bone, isn’t it?” Then he looked up at me, all traces of irritation gone. “Babe? You okay? You, um, wanna sit down?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. Not because of the doors or the attention we had. Not because of Will’s mother or the other unfamiliar people at the table. I was stuck where I stood because of the one very familiar face smirking from across the gleaming wood.
My nightmare, my own personal demon, the man who had tormented my dreams for the last year and spent three before that doing it in real life, pulled his napkin out from beside his plate and fluttered it delicately over his lap before looking directly at me.
Indiscreet (The Discreet Duet Book 2) Page 7