“You somehow have an extra page that you carry around and slip into the magazine, after she picks a card?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No. That would be a feat, there. I’ve seen the magazine before, and I knew about the page, about the card. I’m actually responsible for that page being in all of the copies of that publication, and it’s a popular one around town.”
“Well, that seems pretty damned involved to me. But that makes no sense. She picked the card.”
“It’s not involved, since I do the damn trick all the time, and I get many uses out of it. I make James provide copies of those magazines all over the property, which is easy for him, since he owns the publication.”
“But that doesn’t explain why she picked that card. She said so.”
“She thinks she picked that card. But she didn’t. I suggested it, not in a way she realized, and that is all there is to it. Like I said, cheapest trick in the biz.”
“Wow. They all work like that?”
He shrugged. “It depends. To say I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve is like saying James has a lot of money. Not even touching on the surface of it.”
“You think a trick like that would work on me? Could you have suggested which card to pick to me like that?”
His mouth twisted, and he stroked a hand over my hair. “Well, no, certainly not now. It’s all out in the open, for you and me.” Something dangerous was bleeding out of his eyes.
I backed away. “I need to get to work. Tell me your good news fast, because I’m heading out on the floor.”
He shook his head, his eyes on my body.
I was wearing a fitted navy polka dot halter dress with a big bow at the neck, and a sweeping hem that hit just above the knees. I hadn’t been dressing to impress when I’d put it on, but suddenly it felt like the dress was too sexy to wear to work.
That’s what his eyes did to me. They had the power to transform. The way I felt. The things I wanted.
“You aren’t going to tell me your good news?” I asked, breathless now.
“I can’t even remember what it is.”
“Must not have been that good of news.”
A ghost of a smile played around his mouth. “It had some stiff competition, in terms of my attention. Never had a shot.”
He took a step in my direction, and I inched a careful step back. There had to be boundaries, somehow, someway, and it seemed like not having sex in my office in the middle of business hours was a good place to start.
“I really do need to get back to work,” I told him, when he’d backed me to the wall.
He picked me up by the waist, carrying me straight to my desk. He set me on the edge there, and it was high enough that he could squeeze his hips between my thighs, and hit just the perfect spot.
“This won’t take long.”
I snorted. “Well, that’s hardly selling it.”
He smiled, and sank down to kneel in front of me.
I’d never realized before just how multi-functional a stand-up desk could be.
He buried his face between my legs without even pulling up my skirt. He just inhaled, making me squirm.
His hands began to inch my hem up. I helped him, officially gone to the dark side for the immediate future.
Sanity rushing out of me between one ragged breath and the next.
And in that same breath coming back, I let sensation in. Blissful oblivion in.
It seemed like a good trade. Impossible to turn down, really.
He bunched my skirt up around my hips, nuzzling into my sex. I sucked in harsh breaths as he pulled my panties off.
With this teeth.
I struggled to watch, when my eyes wanted to drift closed in pleasure.
It was a sight worth seeing.
I dragged a fistful of my skirt up, stuffing it in my mouth in an attempt to muffle my own cries.
How could I have forgotten the magical things his lips could do? And his tongue.
And his hands. Once those magic hands set to work on me, there was no setting up boundaries, no stifling cries.
He licked, lapped, tortured and teased, while my hands in turn stroked his hair or tried to pull it out. That delicious scruff on his jaw added to the torment, tickling at the skin of my inner thighs.
It wasn’t long before I was tensing, my thighs gripping his head hard, the torrid sensations reaching their fever pitch.
I came, crying out his name, no thought, no care to where I was or what the hell was happening to my self-control.
He was smiling when he straightened. Very smugly, I thought. “Well, what do you think? Did I sell it?”
I just shook my head with no concept of what he was talking about.
Rational thought would return.
Eventually. But not yet.
“You said I wasn’t selling it. I was asking if I changed your mind.”
I just shook my head, gone mute. It wasn’t a no, it was a ‘I have no idea what the fuck is going on.’
He kissed me, one long drugging taste; before he pulled back. “Come by my place after work. Don’t find any panties between now and then.”
He left.
It took me a few minutes to recover, and it was only as I was straightening my clothes that I caught the full implication of what he’d said.
The bastard had made my underwear disappear.
He hadn’t given a time, but I ducked out of work early.
I’d been basically worthless for the two hours I’d stayed. Who could concentrate on anything after that? Not me. I could barely focus on the road while driving there, nearly ran myself onto the shoulder as my mind ran rampant with visions of the encounter in my office and then continued to wander to the night ahead.
I had to ring the doorbell several times before a shirtless Tristan opened the door.
He was gleaming with sweat. It would have taken inhuman willpower not to drink in every inch of his muscled, tatted up body.
And I was human. Oh Lord, was I human.
He’d clearly been working out by the no shirt, athletic shorts, and running shoes he was wearing.
He’d always been in incredible shape, but this new, disciplined version of him had taken it to a whole new level. He’d taken all of that antsy energy that he’d once used alcohol to mellow out, and applied it to a workout routine of epic, addictive proportions.
And I was addicted to the results.
His shorts hung low and his sweaty, cut to within an inch of its life, pelvic V muscle, was giving a silent but clear invitation to my tongue.
I knew what I wanted first. It was all I could do to keep from getting on my knees and going down on him on his doorstep.
I moistened my lips, then reached out a finger, running it down his slick chest. He didn’t so much as twitch.
That should have been my first clue that something was wrong.
But I was blinded by all of that gloriously bared flesh, oblivious to all but the physical.
“You’re early,” he panted.
“You changed my mind. You sold it.” I took a step closer, watching my hand trail south. I could see his erection moving, growing through his fluid shorts.
I wasn’t even going to let him shower before I wrapped my lips around his spectacular cock.
He turned abruptly, striding back into his house, leaving me to follow.
And I followed, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I toed off my shoes in the entryway, and unbuttoned my dress. I pulled it over my head and threw it behind my shoulder before I’d made it through two rooms. I unsnapped my bra, tossing it behind me somewhere between the living room and dining room.
I was completely nude by the time he stopped, his back to me, in the kitchen.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I told him huskily.
He rounded on me, took in my state, and set his jaw.
“Who were you out with this afternoon, Danika?” he asked me in a terrible voice.
I stiffened, wishing I’d kept
my dress on.
I didn’t know how to answer, and the first thing out of my mouth was perhaps the most incriminating thing I could have said. “Who told you?”
His eyes clenched tightly shut.
He reached up a hand and raked it through his hair. It was trembling. Badly.
“You answer first. I want to hear it from you. Who were you with this afternoon?”
I swallowed hard, feeling sick to my stomach. Why the reaction? I asked myself. It was illogical, but even so, undeniable.
I felt bad about this.
Guilty.
Because he wasn’t angry. I’d seen Tristan angry more times than I could count, and though he was difficult when he was angry, I could manage it. Could manage him.
But this wasn’t anger; it was pain. My actions hadn’t enraged them; they had hurt him. It was so much harder to navigate than simple rage.
“I went to lunch with Andrew. He was in town, and we’re still friends. It’s not something you should be getting this worked up over.” There, it was out of my mouth and nowhere near the deal he was making it into in his head. “Now tell me how you found out, and what you heard that’s upsetting you like this. It’s clearly been blown out of proportion.” I began to inch back, intending to locate my dress and have this conversation with a bit more dignity.
He followed me, out of the kitchen, through the formal dining room. He followed until I reached my dress, menace in his every step.
The second I had the dress in my hands, it was wrenched away.
He didn’t use his hands but his body to force me back and down onto the sitting room’s sofa. He followed me, covering my body, his eyes liquid gold as they bore into mine, lit with accusations that I couldn’t bear to face.
He crawled between my legs, pushing my arms above my head, clutching my wrists. “When I was leaving your office I heard Kate and Sandra talking. They were wondering if you were going to tell Andrew about me. They weren’t sure which one of us was your boyfriend, and which one of us was the other man.”
I winced. The girls were being harsh on me behind my back. That was never fun, but especially when the bite of that gossip could leave some lasting marks.
One of his hands snaked down, and he fingered my sex. He rubbed until I was nice and wet, then plunged two fingers in deep.
He was thrusting them in and out when he asked, his voice so pained that it made me ache, “Did you…?” he couldn’t finish. He had no stomach for this, but I knew what he was trying to ask, knew what his mind had fixated on.
“No, of course not,” I said unsteadily.
His eyes closed, fingers coming out of me. I looked down between our bodies as he pulled his stiff, quivering cock out of his shorts, and guided himself to my entrance.
With agonizing slowness, he rubbed the head of his shaft against my tender flesh.
“Did you kiss him?” he asked, as he began to push inside.
“No, no, I told you. He and I are just friends now. That’s it. Friends.”
He kissed me, shoving home.
I sucked at his driving tongue as his shaking body took my shaking body in hurried, desperate thrusts, my hands still pinned above my head by one of his.
I arched my back, rubbing my aching breasts into his hard, sweaty chest. I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t feel enough.
He groaned into my mouth and moved faster, thrusting harder, deeper, until I felt each heavy drive, an invasive, numbing pleasure filling my lower body, then bleeding in great gushing hemorrhages into the rest of me.
He pulled back, still moving in and out. Eyes raw, nostrils flared, he rasped, “How could you fall in love with him? How could you do that?”
He always knew when to strike, and I was at my weakest here.
I shook my head and closed my eyes, feeling lost, feeling found, my body, heart, and mind at war.
But even war was forgotten as, gasping, mewling, trembling, and holding on for dear life, I fell over the edge. Broad pulses of sensation moved in beating waves from my cunt, from deep in my womb, and reverberated unrelentingly through my entire, defeated body.
Tristan fared no better as shouting, grunting, gasping on top of me, shaking head to toe he came, emptying himself inside of me in long heavy spurts that were perceptible as my clenching sex milked him dry.
I didn’t speak after. He didn’t either, not at first.
He lay still on top of me, though raised enough not to cut off my breath. The only sign of life in the room for endless minutes was the harsh drum of our heartbeats racing against each other as they met through the pressed flesh of our chests, and the pulsing of our sexes still joined together.
Finally, he pulled back to look at me. Something wild flared in his eyes. The pain, as it always does, was turning into something akin to rage.
“Last year you told me you were in love with him. Those words came out of your mouth, directed at me. You cared about him enough to destroy me with that. You were planning to marry him, you said. You felt confident enough about that marriage to tell me, of all people, that it was a foregone conclusion. What do you imagine that did to me, to hear you say that? What would the reverse do to you? Tell me.”
I just shook my head. I remembered so clearly where I’d been when I’d heard a rumor, just over a year ago, that he and Mona were engaged. It had messed me up.
Being apart was one thing, but the idea that some other woman could be his wife? That was out of fucking line.
And I’d planted the same poisonous idea in Tristan’s head about Andrew and me. I was fully culpable here. I’d given him that idea, knowing that it was utter nonsense, knowing quite well that it would mess him up like it had me.
I felt guilty enough about it to offer some small recompense.
“First of all, let’s be clear. You have no claim on our years apart. You don’t own any of them.”
His golden eyes were filled with a supplication so raw that I couldn’t take it at close range. One small rant had reduced him from the rage back to the pain.
I pushed him away, wrenching him off me, out of me, scrambled back, then stood, and backed up until my shoulder blades hit a wall.
“No claim,” I repeated. I was naked, but I didn’t even try to cover myself from his eyes. My body wasn’t the most exposed part of me just then. I wanted to cover my heart.
“No claim,” I repeated again, voice quavering. “But of course I didn’t love him. I wanted to love him, but love is not about want.”
His eyes had gone pure liquid.
I shuddered, then started to shiver, and not from the cold.
“He was good for me, but love is not about good.”
My hand jabbed at him, then at me, then back again, the motion wild, chaotic. “This is what love gets you, okay? I cared about Andrew, do care about him, but I walked away clean.”
Lips trembling, voice trembling, I continued, “Love doesn’t let you walk away clean. Love is messy. I don’t have to tell you, of all people; Love takes a fucking piece of you before it’s done.”
If it is ever even possible to be done.
I couldn’t say that part aloud. Fear still held too strong a hold on me, and I respected that fear enough to give it the time it needed.
He rose and moved to me. His shorts rode low on his hips, the waistband in front still pulled under his scrotum. He hadn’t bothered to raise them enough to cover his heavy, spent cock. I didn’t think he even noticed.
It was distracting, but not as distracting as the unrelenting glint in his eyes. His mood had altered with the flip of a switch.
My rant had appeased him, to put it lightly.
I wasn’t sure that had been its desired result. I’d wanted to solve a problem, not create a new one.
He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes tender enough to break me.
“Come here,” he urged softly, taking his hands away from my face, and opening his arms wide.
With a shuddering sigh, I fell into them.
&nb
sp; CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TRISTAN
I wrapped my arms around her and clutched her to my chest, letting her words wash over me, allowing them to soothe me. She hadn’t been happy to say them, but they still worked as balm to my wounded heart.
We stayed like that for a long time, but it couldn’t last forever, especially since we were skin on skin.
Eventually, we started shifting and soothing rubs turned into lingering touches.
Her hand moved to my stiff erection. Her teeth bit at her lush lower lip while her palm pumped at me, her grip firm as she ran it up and down my length. I loved the feel of her hand on me, the way her delicate fingers curved so perfectly around my throbbing length.
I watched her face while she touched me. That dear, beautiful face. Her hair was parted down the middle and pulled back tight today. Even our efforts on the couch hadn’t loosened it. It was a severe style, but somehow it only enhanced the raw beauty of her features, her clear gray eyes standing out like pale crystals, her trembling lips so lush I couldn’t stop picturing them wrapped around my cock.
Not yet, I thought. Maybe next time.
This time I needed to feel her against me again, to press my whole body to her whole body and feel.
My lips latched onto hers, plundering hers, bruising in their conquest.
Mine, my lips told her.
I backed her flush into the wall, dislodging her hand from me.
Lifting her high, I held her propped up with a hip braced between her legs, gripping her ass in both hands.
I buried my face against the soft mounds of her breasts, rubbing my stubbled cheek against the hard nub of her nipple.
She squirmed and gasped at the abrading contact, clutching my head to her.
I worked my way over to her other quivering breast, nuzzling into the tight crest, turning my head to lick and suck it into my mouth.
I drew hard on her nipple until she whimpered. Until she begged.
Mine, my body told her, as I pinned her to the wall.
She was panting in short, heavy gasps, her breaths puffing against the top of my head. I swear just the sound of those labored breaths could have gotten me off.