He breaks from our kiss, his forehead resting on mine and his breath panting against my lips. “I couldn’t let you resort to your hand, Rylee,” he murmurs, and I can feel his lips form a smile as they press against mine, smothering the carefree laugh his words incite. “You’re mine now. I’m the only one allowed to give you pleasure.”
Before I can think of a witty retort, Colton’s mouth is on mine again, his tongue delving between my lips, his body pushing me backwards so my hips hit the edge of the conference table. He presses me to sit down, nudging my legs apart with his knee, and steps in between them. I am now at a height disadvantage to him, and he leans over and cups my cheeks in his hands, his tongue soothing over where he just nipped my bottom lip. I keen with need as he continues his tantalizing assault on my mouth and all sense of coherence is lost.
In an unexpected move, he pulls his face back, his hands still framing my cheeks in possession, and stares at me. His eyes swim with emotion as his jaw clenches from unspoken words. We stare at each other and pant from the need that is driving every action and subsequent reaction. Feelings I want to confess die on my lips as the pad of his thumb reaches over to graze them tenderly. Something has shifted between us, and I can’t put my finger on it, but the look in his eyes tells me all I need to know: He wants me as much as I want him. Any doubts of mine that he wants another vanish with this singular look.
“I missed you, Rylee,” he says softly before wrapping his arms around me and folding me into him. He places his cheek on the top of my head, his arms squeezing tighter. Hearing him say it, admitting that I am a part of his everyday life too, warms me on the inside.
“I missed you too,” I murmur as I melt into the comfort of his arms, “more than I want to admit.” A small sound rumbles in his chest, and I know that my words have affected him. We sit like this for a few moments, reveling in the warmth and comfort from each other that we’ve missed over the past week and a half; we’re absorbing what we’ve finally acknowledged, verbalized, and are both accepting in our own ways. I plant a soft kiss over his heart without thinking. “I really like my surprise. You sure know how to spoil a girl. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he tells me, kissing the top of my head again. “I wasn’t sure how your office would react if I were to waltz in and take you over the edge of your desk.”
“What?” I laugh out loud as my body heats at the thought. I lean back so I can look up at his eyes. “That was your plan, huh?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“I believe you once told me that you were far from desperate,” I tease, throwing his words back at him.
He chuckles softly before pursing his lips. “That was before I spent an endless amount of time, in God knows how many boring meetings, thinking about what exactly I’d like to be doing with you.” A lascivious grin spreads across his lips. “And to you.”
“That’s a lot of dirty thoughts.”
“Oh, Rylee, you have no idea.”
I swallow loudly, the lust that leaps in his eyes and darkens his irises giving me a hint. “So, you planned on acting out these impure thoughts in my office? On my desk?” I arch my brow in mock disapproval, but the smirk on my face betrays me.
“Yep. I told you,” he says, playing along, “I take what’s mine when I want it…”
“With an audience of my co-workers?”
“Ah-huh.” He grins like a mischievous schoolboy. “I’d planned on coming straight from the airport this morning but I didn’t think Teddy would approve of it.”
I run my tongue across my top lip as I look up at him, placing my hands behind me on the table so I can lean back on them—my shoulders arching and my breasts pushing forward. I take notice of Colton’s eyes and their languorous appraisal of my new posture—his eyes heating and tongue darting out to wet his lip. “Since when do you care what people think?”
“Oh, sweetheart, believe me, I don’t...” he smirks “...but we still have to preserve your reputation.”
“I think that was ruined the minute I started going out with you.”
“Probably.” He shrugs in nonchalance. “I still think that your boss might object to his star employee being fucked on her desk.”
“But your boss?” I ask playfully. “He’s okay with his employees doing something like that? Here?”
A slow, suggestive smile curls one corner of his mouth, his dimple deepening. “Oh I think so,” he says, leaning down and laying his hands beside my knees on the table.
“You think so? Why’s that?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him as I continue to play along.
“Oh, he has quite a vested interest in this situation here,” Colton murmurs as he leans closer into me.
“Oh really?” I breathe as I involuntarily arch my back so my breasts brush against his chest. I bite my bottom lip as we stare at each other.
Colton’s breath whispers over my face. “Sometimes it’s fucking great to be the boss,” he says before lowering his lips to mine again, but this time it’s an achingly slow kiss that tantalizes and torments me to the point of no return.
I want him, and I want him now. My God the man makes me crave with an intensity I never thought was imaginable. His fingers begin a slow, languid slide up my arms, my body coiling at the thought of where his talented fingers will trail to next.
I lean my head back as his mouth skims down my jaw and expose my neck for him. I reach his hip with one hand and pull him harder against me as his mouth tempts and dips below the neckline of my sweater.
“Colton.” I exhale as need swelters through my core and fire spreads in my veins.
A loud beep fills the room suddenly and Colton sags against me as I hear, “Excuse me, Colton?” coming from the phone on the credenza.
“Fuck,” he mutters quietly against my neck. “Yes?”
“Beckett’s looking all over for you. Something about an issue with Eddie…” she trails off as if she’s afraid of his response.
“Christ!” he swears aloud, his body tensing in response to her comment.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Where?”
“They’re on the garage floor.”
“I’ll be right there. Thanks, Brooke.”
The phone clicks off as Colton straightens his frame to its full height. I push myself off of the conference table as he walks over to the glass-viewing wall to look at the garage below. When he turns back toward me he has transformed from the playful lover to the consummate businessman.
“I apologize, Ry. I have to go take care of something down below. Come with me?” he asks, holding his hand out, and I’m slightly taken back. Mr. I-Don’t-Do-Commitment wants to hold my hand at his work? Isn’t that a little too much of a ‘public display’ for someone with his history?
“I can stay here if you’d like,” I offer meekly, not wanting to leave his side.
He just looks at me oddly before reaching out and grabbing my hand and pulling me with him. “I’m not letting go of you, Ryles, until I get my fill of you,” he warns in a promise that causes flames of desire to lick at my center, “and that may just take a long fucking time.”
BECKETT NODS TO ME, THE ghost of a smile curling his lips as Colton leads me from the garage floor. We make our way to a side door that Colton ushers me through, and I find us in a stairwell of sorts. “Up.” Colton points as he places a hand on my back.
I ascend in front of him, his hand remaining on the swell of my backside the entire first flight. “Did I tell you how damn sexy you look today?” His voice rasps from behind me.
I look over my shoulder and smile at him. “Thank you,” I reply, recognizing the salacious look in his eyes. “But I have a feeling that your view is a little jaded from a lack of sex.”
The hum of appreciation in the back of his throat makes me smile. “Oh, baby, there’s definitely nothing wrong with my view,” he says with a chuckle. I start to go up the second flight again, but this time Colton’s hands seem t
o be touching me in various places with every step. A soft caress up the back of my thigh. A slight brush down my bare arm. A quick tap on my backside.
I know exactly what he’s doing, but it’s not like he needs to stoke the embers because I’m already a wild fire of need. Knowing that he wants me like this, needing and aching for more of his touch, makes me feel wanton and willing to play the game too. I sway my hips a little more than usual as I walk across the second landing. My hand purposely snagging my hem to reveal just a trace of what’s beneath it.
Colton’s lightning quick as he grabs me from behind, both of his arms wrapping around me in a vise like grip. “You little minx.” He growls in my ear as I feel the play of his muscles against my back. “Are you really going to tease me like that when I’ve been without being inside of you—tasting you for way too long? Especially when you know how desperate I am to have you.”
Thank God he’s as needy as I am because I’m not going to be able to hold out much longer. He nips my earlobe when I try to shrug away, the need almost debilitating. “Desperation doesn’t suit you. It’s not like you’re going to do something about it with a building full of your employees nearby?” I taunt playfully.
Colton spins me around, his body presses against mine, and his hands clasp at my lower back. The smirk on his face matches the wicked gleam in his eye. “Oh, Ryles, didn’t you know that dares like that are what rebels like me live for?” He leans in, his lips a breath from my ear as my heart pounds against my rib cage. “I will have you, Rylee, when I want, where I want, and how I want. It’s best you remember that.”
The dominance in his voice excites me. The threat-filled promise arouses me. The feel of his body against mine vibrating with need and his hands possessing my skin cause moisture to pool at the apex of my thighs. I tilt my head up and my lips part—needing his mouth on mine desperately. From what I read in Colton’s eyes, he feels the same way. The days apart have fueled our desire into a raging inferno. All I want to do is take anything and everything he can give me. The temptation of paradise at my fingertips.
I lean in to him succumbing to my craving, but before I can have a single taste, he spins me around and emits a deviously pained chuckle. “One more flight,” Colton says smacking my backside before placing both hands on my waist and urging me forward. I sigh out in sexual frustration and from the ache strangling parts deep within me. I’m on my second step when I feel the cool air of the stairwell on my ass as he lifts up the back of my skirt to discover what’s beneath.
I smile to myself, knowing exactly what he’ll find. It was one of those mornings where I didn’t feel particularly attractive, and I was grumpy because I was missing him, so I decided to make myself feel better by wearing something sexy and girly underneath. For some reason wearing lingerie always makes me walk with a little added bounce to my step when I need it. Little did I know how well that decision would pay off, but I do now when I hear Colton suck in a hiss of breath at what he finds.
“Sweet Jesus,” he mutters on a pained draw of air.
I move one of my legs to prop it up on the next riser and stop as I feel his finger trace the top line of my stockings and then up the strap of my garter. I look coyly back over my shoulder at him, “Is there a problem, Ace?”
He just smirks at me and shakes his head subtly, his eyes steadfast on what I can assume is the mixture of lace and satin beneath. “Woman, you really don’t play fair do you?” he exhales in a groan before tearing his eyes away to look up at mine.
“Whatever do you mean?” I bat my eyelashes at him and purposely bite my lower lip. I love watching his mouth part and his tongue dart out to lick his lower lip as his eyes darken and cloud—his stare unwavering on mine—green eyes to violet. I love knowing that I can bring him to such a state of desire without even touching him. And it’s all because of him that I can do this. He makes me feel confident and sexy and desirable when all I’ve ever felt before is run of the mill and unable to own my sexuality.
Colton’s eyes remain on mine but his fingers feather over my flesh to the edge of my panties. My muscles quiver at the proximity of his touch—so close yet so far from where I want his fingers to claim. Where I need them to. “Two can play this game,” he murmurs as he steps closer. “I seem to recall you saying predictability doesn’t suit me. Why don’t I show you how absolutely right you are…right now?”
I bite down harder on my lip to stifle a moan as his deft fingers pull my panties aside and he slips a finger into my molten core. I brace my hand on the stair rail beside me as he pulls out, sliding up and down the folds of my sex before tucking three fingers in me. “Oh, baby, I love how wet and ready you are for me.” He growls as I gasp out. “Do you have any idea what that does to me? How much knowing you want me turns me inside out?”
“Colton, please,” I plead. Right now I am not beneath begging for him to fill me. To take me to that unprecedented edge that only he can help me climb at a lightning pace.
“Tell me what you want, Rylee.” He chuckles as he withdraws his fingers, and I groan at the sudden feeling of emptiness.
I throw my head back. My eyes close as my body convulses with such need that its evidence glistens on Colton’s hand. “You. Colton.” I pant. “I. Want. You.”
He runs his finger over my bottom lip before leaning in and replacing his fingertip with his tongue, darting it between my lips before pulling away. I can’t help the whimper that falls from my mouth. “Tell me, baby.”
“Only you, Colton.”
In a flash he has me spun around, my back pressed up against the wall of the stairwell. His chest heaves and his jaw clenches as he looks at me with such intensity that I am lost to him. The outside world ceases to exist in this moment as I stand here exposed and unbidden. I am stripped physically and emotionally. I have never been more his.
Colton lifts my skirt back up, and forces my legs further apart. He smiles lasciviously as he sinks slowly to his knees, his eyes never leaving mine.
My rational thoughts should kick in now. My head should be treading atop of the waterfall of lust I’m drowning in and tell me that I’m in the stairwell at his work, but it does no such thing. Instead, my traitorous body shudders in anticipation, and when Colton notes it, his eyes spark and smile taunts as he leans into me. Within seconds a single laugh slips between my trembling lips as he rips my panties off of me effortlessly and stuffs them in his pocket. My mind and body are so focused on him, on what I need from him, that I don’t give the fact that he’s ruined yet another pair of underwear a second thought.
His fingers part my folds, his eyes never leaving mine, and he closes his mouth over my nub of nerve endings. My hands fly to fist in his hair, and I fight with everything I have to not close my eyes and give into the ecstasy of his clever tongue. I want to watch him while he drives me up and over, but the sensation is so strong that it overtakes me and I arch—my neck, my head, my back—pushing my hips out so I can rock against him.
He pulls my leg up and drapes it over his shoulder before adding his fingers to the mix. They press, push, and circle inside of me. My muscles clench so tight that when my climax claims me, I feel like my body shatters in a million pieces of ecstasy. Colton runs his tongue up and back over my sex before licking inside of me, drawing out every last tremor of my orgasm.
I sag against the wall behind me, needing its support because my legs have just been rendered boneless. I close my eyes and try to calm myself, but he has just obliterated my senses with such devastation that I’ve now lost a part of myself to him forever.
“My God, woman, a man could get drunk on the taste of you.” He groans as he places a soft kiss on my abdomen before rising from his knees. I open my eyes to his smug, satisfied smirk and eyes lidded heavy with desire. He leans in and kisses me forcefully, the taste of myself on his lips unexpectedly arousing.
I moan into his mouth, my hands snaking down his body to cup his erection through his pants, still wanting more, still needing more. He brea
ks from the kiss with a tortured groan and pulls away from me. “Colton,” I murmur, “let me take care of you.”
“Not here,” he tells me, smoothing my skirt down and smirking as he stuffs what’s left of my panties further down into his pocket. “I want to hear you scream out my name when I take you. I want to hear it when you fall apart from the things I’m going to do to you, Rylee. I want to claim you. Make you mine. Ruin you for any other man that dares to think of touching you.” He grimaces from the conviction of his words.
“You already have, Colton,” I breathe out without thinking, reaching out to place my fingertips to his lips. “I’m yours…” My words trail off as he stares at me, his jaw working overtime as he absorbs the words I’ve said.
A ghost of a smile mixed with an uncertain disbelief plays on his lips before shaking it away and pushing it aside. “I—we can’t continue here with what I want to do, but this,” he says, motioning to me and the wall, “will tide me over.” He flashes a quick grin at me before grabbing my hand and climbing the last flight of stairs.
I follow him, knowing my heart and body are far from recovered from that little episode. Haddie’s words flash through my head, and I can’t help but disagree with her. When it comes to Colton, I don’t just have it bad. I’ve drowned, been consumed, and am utterly and undeniably his.
Colton pushes open the door at the top of the stairwell, and I’m surprised to find us in the interior of a very masculine and sparsely decorated office. Assumptions aside, I know it’s his because it’s so similar to his office in Malibu. I step in behind him when I hear a gasp.
“Oh, Colt, you scared me half to death!” the feminine voice exclaims, and instantly my back bristles at her familiarity with him. Does the woman have to be everywhere? Fuucckk!
“Can I help you with something, Tawn?” Colton asks, and I swear that I hear an edge to the curiosity in his question.
Tawny straightens up from where she is leaned over his desk and straightens the papers she is fumbling with. Of course she looks flawless in her cleavage defying shirt, skin-tight pants, and freshly made-up face. The woman is absolutely, fucking perfectly stunning. Her lips form a startled O shape as she looks at Colton before her eyes dart over to me and then back to him. The catty, territorial girl inside of me wants her to notice the flush on my cheeks and that just fucked smirk on my face so it’s reaffirmed that she’s nothing more than a blip on Colton’s radar.