“I want you to come for me, Avery.”
I moan because I’m practically there already. Just the anticipation of his touch, of his mouth, of his cock buried inside me is enough to fire my nerve endings into a heated frenzy. He rubs the pad of his thumb over my clit and I arch at the contact as if touched by a live wire. Each erotic caress makes me quivery and I squirm, desperate for more. I gasp when he drives two fingers deep inside me, tiny spasms of sensation pulsing in my core as my body clenches around him, trying to hold him tight. Hungry for more.
He watches me writhe, looking devilish in his tuxedo and tie while his hand plays my sex with sinful skill. His face is taut, his mouth curved with satisfaction as he drives me toward the brink of madness.
He fucks me with his fingers, long strokes that plunge deep, stretching my walls. His thumb swirls over the taut pebble of my clit, slicking me with my own juices. I don’t even try to hold back my climax. It slams into me, splintering me on a sharp cry that I’m sure can’t be masked by the soft jazz playing in the car or the privacy glass.
“Oh, God . . . Nick!”
I curl up off the seat, reaching for him as the waves continue to pour over me. He catches me in his arms, kissing me fiercely. His strength never ceases to amaze me. In one smooth movement, he hoists me onto his lap and sits back against the seat, leaving me to straddle his thighs. I feel decadent and wild, my dress bunched around my waist, my nakedness spread across his fine trousers. My knees are bent on either side of him, my ass resting lightly on the lengths of my sandals’ heels.
Together, we attack his zipper and free his cock. I register Nick reaching into his pocket for a condom, but I’m too caught up in the feel of him in my hands to even pretend I have the capacity to think about protection. I stroke his length, swirling my hand around the thick stalk of his shaft with one hand, while my other gently lifts his balls out of his pants.
“Ah, fuck, baby.” He throws his head back on a curse, his neck tendons straining. He throbs in my grasp, his erection jerking under my fevered caress. Hot, silky fluid weeps from the tip of his cock, slicking my fingers as I intensify my rhythm.
Nick’s answering snarl is animalistic, the hottest sound I’ve ever heard. He shackles both my hands in his fist, then swiftly rolls the condom onto his erection with one hand. Gripping me by the hips, he adjusts our position, then guides his cock to me. On a harsh grunt, he thrusts inside, at the same time pulling me down to take the full measure of him.
I gasp at the enormity of him inside me at this angle. Nick is big, but sitting atop him like this, I feel stretched to my limits. Full to the point of pain. And then . . . he begins to move.
There is nothing gentle or cautious in the tempo he sets for us now. Our bodies crash together urgently, feverishly. It’s primal and raw, so incredibly arousing.
He fucks me like he can’t get enough—like he’s as desperate for me as I am for him.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders as he levers me up and down on his cock. “Feels so good . . . Oh, God . . .”
His answering growl vibrates against my breasts, and his hips pump more vigorously. I ride him with complete abandon, the entire world winnowing down to just this moment. Just this pleasure. Just this man.
“It’s so good . . . yes . . . harder . . . don’t stop,” I whisper brokenly, tears prickling the backs of my eyes from the intensity of what he’s doing to me. I’m wanton, wrecked, out of my mind with sensation and the spiraling need to come again. “Oh, God, Nick . . . don’t stop.”
He doesn’t stop. Hammering into me, he draws back to watch my face as my orgasm rips through me. I shudder and break on a scream I can’t contain. I want to look away from him, embarrassed by the ferocity of my response, but when I try to lower my gaze, Nick’s fingers are at my chin, refusing to let me hide.
He drives into me again and again and again. His strokes are coming harder, ramming deeper, prolonging my release while he chases his own. I see the tension grip him now. His muscles turn to granite under my fingertips as I cling to him. Inside me, his cock feels even more immense, pulsing, and hot as fire.
Our gazes lock and hold even as his big body arcs beneath me with one final, bone-jarring thrust. I feel his cock jolt as he comes. I see the ferocity on his face as he buries himself deep and his climax explodes out of him.
And still, he keeps pounding. Branding me with the heat of him, making every cell in my body submit to his will, to the power his body has over mine.
“Yes,” I gasp, as if answering the command. “Nick, yes . . .”
I clutch his shoulders as he sends me toward another peak. When I tumble over the edge a moment later, the tears I’ve been holding back spill over with me. I tell myself the reaction is merely physical. I tell myself that the hot constriction in my chest is nothing more than my body’s response to desire and pleasure I never dreamed I’d know.
And as I cling to Nick in the back of his limousine, cocooned from the city and the rest of reality waiting outside, I tell myself the biggest lie of all . . . that I’m not falling for this man who will never be mine.
Chapter 24
If I’d been harboring any delusions about Kimmie not throwing me under the bus at work, they evaporate no sooner than I walk in the door for my shift the next afternoon. Joel is standing in back of the restaurant signing for a delivery when I walk past the hostess stand at the front of the house. His dark head lifts and swivels in my direction. Seeing him with an unpleasant expression on his face is nothing out of the ordinary, but today, his scowl is thunderous.
Tasha zooms out from where she’s folding silverware setups to intercept me, her eyes wide with warning. He’s pissed, she mouths to me.
Yeah. As if I can’t see that for myself.
“Hey, Avery!” she calls out with exaggerated volume. “Are you feeling any better today?”
“Don’t bother,” I tell her, as she walks with me back to the coat room.
I quickly fill her in on my evening out with Nick and my unexpected, ultimately unpleasant run-in with Kimmie at the hotel.
“That back-stabbing little bitch. I guess that explains why she’s walking around like the cat who ate the canary today.” Scowling, Tasha folds her arms over her chest. “I hope you make her choke on the feathers.”
I give her a wry look in acknowledgment. “I honestly don’t give a shit about Kimmie. And I don’t regret a single second of yesterday.” I slant Tasha a grin. “Or last night.”
She exhales a dramatic sigh. “Okay, go ahead and tell me how awesome it was parading around in front of the Who’s Who of Manhattan on Dominic Baine’s arm.”
I let go of a small laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t call it parading, but, yeah, being with him is always pretty awesome.”
I shrug my purse off my shoulder and sit on the chair to switch out of my flats into my work heels. The same chair where Nick made me come with just the power of his words. Heat creeps into my cheeks and I slowly shake my head.
“I like him, Tasha. It’s scary how much.”
“You like him, he obviously likes you. You’re both unattached, gorgeous, and sickeningly hot for each other. Oh—and his personal net worth could support the entire population of a small country. Remind me how any of this is scary?”
Maybe it wouldn’t be for someone else. Anyone else. But I have a hundred reasons to be afraid of what I’m feeling for Nick, each more terrifying than the next. If I were to begin listing them for Tasha now, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
I do, however, know where they all end. My truth. My lies. And the dark place where I’ve buried all of my ugliest, most damning secrets.
“When are you going to tell him?”
My head snaps up at Tasha’s question. For a moment, I’m startled. Did I speak my fears out loud?
“Sooner or later, he’s going to find out you work here, Avery. If he’s got a problem with that, then he damn well doesn’t deserve you.”
I nod because I know she’s right.
I should tell him. I dodged a bullet last night with Kimmie, but just because she didn’t have the opportunity to out me to Nick in public doesn’t mean I should try to prolong my lie.
There is a chance he would forgive me for this small untruth I’ve told him. As for the rest of them—
“Avery.” Joel’s grating voice shakes me from my thoughts. He’s just arrived in the open doorway, his eyes cold on me, his thin lips compressed in a flat line. “My office. Now.” His glare lands on Tasha next. “Get out on the floor. I don’t pay you to stand around and shoot the shit with this one.”
She gives me an apologetic look before scurrying out of the coat room. I glance up at Joel, hating the way he seems to delight in making everyone cower.
Even though I should hustle to obey my boss’s orders, too, I remain seated on the chair. It’s strange, but just feeling the cushions surrounding me, supporting me, gives me a fortitude I can’t explain. Just a few weeks ago, I did things in this chair I never would’ve considered doing before I’d met Nick. And now, I feel a different kind of boldness building in me—one that can’t be bowed by an overbearing, abusive bastard like the one fuming across from me in the doorway.
I take my time putting my flats away in my bag, then I get up and carefully stow my things in my locker. I’m being spiteful and defiant, but at the moment I’m finding it hard to care.
Joel’s rising agitation is nearly palpable. He huffs out a sharp breath. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said, my office. Right fucking now.”
I shut the locker door with more force than necessary, then pivot to face him. “I heard you. But guess what? You don’t pay me to jump at your command. Unlike Kimmie, I’m not here to kiss your ass. I’m here to work. And I have been—six days a week without fail for the past year and a half.”
I’ve taken him aback, I can tell. But Joel’s a natural bully and he recovers quickly. “Maybe you should’ve considered that before you bailed on your job yesterday and left me in a lurch behind the bar. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“I haven’t missed a day since I started working here, Joel.”
He ignores me, his face going red. “And leave Kimmie out of this. At least she’s reliable.”
I snort, unable to hold it back. “Oh, she’s reliable, all right. How long did it take her before she told you we ran into each other last night? Did she wait until she got in today, or did she call you right from the hotel?”
Judging from his constipated expression, I’m guessing it was the latter.
“People who work for me only get one strike. After all this time, I’d have thought you knew that.” His mouth purses as he judges me now. “So, as of today, you’re off the night schedule.”
“What?”
I see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips, as if he’s taking great joy in doling out my punishment. “Since you obviously have better things to do, I’m putting you on days. You can begin with three shifts a week, just like anyone else starting fresh on the job.”
The bastard. “That’s going to cut my income in half, Joel. This is bullshit, and you know it.”
“You wanna lose this job?” He steps forward, his barrel chest puffed out as if he thinks he can intimidate me. “Frankly, you’ve always had a bit of an attitude, Avery. I gotta tell you, it’s pissing me off.”
Of course, it would. I know about men like him, men who equate control with oppression. Men who don’t think twice about grinding their heel on someone’s head to make them obey. Men who bully or beat or abuse the people around them.
I’ve known men far worse than Joel—my stepfather being one of them. But just because Joel is less of a monster doesn’t make him right. It doesn’t mean my hackles don’t rise in reaction as he moves in even closer to me, crowding me in the small room with no one else around.
His voice softens now, but I feel it as the threat it truly is. “In case I’m not being clear, let me help you understand something right here and now. You need to show me the respect I’m due. I’m a reasonable man, Avery, but I won’t tolerate insubordination.”
“How do you feel about complete and utter loathing?”
I can’t help it—the words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. And once they’re out, I don’t even want to try to take them back.
With anger fueling me, I turn away from him. Steeling myself to the weight of his glower, I go back to my locker and calmly collect my things. I can feel his eyes on me as I sling my purse over my shoulder. When I swivel around, I find him gaping, his jowly face corpulent with color, his upper lip beading with sweat.
I pause in front of him. “In case I’m not being clear, let me help you understanding something. I fucking quit.”
I step past him and stalk through the restaurant, telling Tasha I’ll call her later and ignoring Kimmie’s slack-jawed stare from across the room as I go.
~ ~ ~
I’m nearly to the subway station when the reality of what I’ve just done finally sinks in.
Fuck. I have no job.
Worse than that, I’ve torched the bridge at Vendange beyond repair. Not that I’d ever want to go back now—not if it means working for that imperious asshole, Joel. For what certainly isn’t the first time, I reflect on how fortunate I am to have Claire Prentice’s house-sitting money to cushion my fall. I’ve managed to save most of it, minus the back rent I paid my former landlord. Still, my remaining thirty-five-hundred will only take me so far.
This is the first time I’ve been unemployed since I was legally old enough to work, and some of my bravado falters as I hoof my way up Madison Avenue in my work heels with no place really to go.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I slow at a corner for a traffic light, thankful that I’m in New York, where a woman muttering expletives to herself in the midst of a pedestrian crowd doesn’t draw as much as a wink of attention.
Have I lost my freaking mind? I think maybe I have, because as terrifying as my not-so-distant future is, right now, I also feel a conflicting yet undeniable sense of liberation.
I’m unshackled, but I’m also well aware that it’s only a temporary freedom.
Throwing away my job and paycheck is one thing. There is a harsher reality awaiting me just a few short months from now. When Claire returns from Japan, I’ll not only be jobless, but homeless too.
And then there’s Nick.
I meant it when I told Tasha I’m afraid of how much I like him. Each time we’re together, I feel myself falling deeper under his spell, against my better judgment. Against all of my self-imposed rules about not letting anyone get too close to me.
Yet, in spite of all that, as I step away from the curb with the rest of the crowd to cross the street, it’s his face I want to see the most. It’s his voice I need to hear.
I retrieve my phone from my purse and bring up our text conversation—the one I’ve revisited more times than I care to count. Nick’s number is just a finger-tap away. When we parted last night, I told him I wouldn’t be able to see him for a couple of days because of work. He hadn’t seemed pleased about that, but he’d allowed that he also had business that needed to be attended.
While I don’t want to bother him if he’s working, right now, there’s a part of me that simply needs to feel connected to something solid and real. As hard as it is for me to admit it—even to myself—Nick is becoming the steadiest, most secure harbor I know.
Before I can lose my nerve, I tap his number and send the call.
He answers before the first ring has died out. “Avery.”
“Hi.”
“This is an unexpected pleasure.” His voice curls around me, warm and dark and velvet-soft. I hear him quietly dismiss someone in the background, his tone all business. That terse edge is gone when he comes back to me a moment later. “How are you today, beautiful?”
I smile, savoring his tender endearment. “I’m fine. Still thinking about yesterday. And last night.”
He makes a low sound in the back of his thr
oat, something sensual that makes my insides melt a little. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else but you all morning. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how gorgeous you were, riding me in the back of my limo, and about all the ways I want to make you come again.”
Oh, God. Since I can hardly manage to walk a straight line when he’s saying such delicious things to me, I ease out of the flow of foot traffic and take up a position near a men’s clothing store.
“Nick, I’m sorry to call you at work.”
“Don’t be.” He hesitates. “Is that traffic noise? Avery, where the hell are you?”
I glance up at the sign on the corner. “I’m on Madison, at the corner of Forty-sixth.” I inhale, then push my breath out on a sigh. “I quit my job today.”
Nick is quiet for a short moment, steady as always in his calm. “You sound rattled. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I think so. I guess . . . I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he orders me. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”
“Nick, that’s really not necess—”
“There’s a hotel right where you are. Wait for me in the lobby. I’m on my way now.”
He ends the call without giving me a chance to refuse or say anything more.
And, true to his word, before ten minutes have passed, I watch his glossy black BMW slide up to the curb. One of the hotel valets steps out to greet him, but Nick waves off the assistance. Hurrying under the marquis entrance of the stately hotel, he pushes through one of the revolving doors and finds me inside.
“Avery.”
As it always does, my stomach flips at the sight of him. He’s dressed in a graphite gray suit, the jacket open over his white shirt. No tie today, but even with the top two buttons of his collar unfastened in an office-casual way, he still looks every inch a world-class business titan.