But I also didn’t know if this, right here, was an ugly continuation of her lies in the bedroom. I didn’t see a reason for it to be, as she didn’t have anything else to gain out of it, but liars tended to stay liars. Edwin Hunt proved that better than anyone else.
I had to go. Even though I knew I would see her again later.
“I have to run,” I said. “Business.”
“Business? Or avoiding questions?”
Well, she could bore into people when she wanted to. I had always known she was much more than a pretty face and a fantasy-filled body, but damn could she make things tough.
“Both,” I said, a degree of honesty I was surprised to have given. “I’ve got...”
I paused when I looked to my right. Two tables down, a man sat by himself, reading a book. But there was something about the way that he was positioned that made me more than a little uncomfortable. I shut my mouth.
“I’ll tell you more later, OK?”
I hoped that the soft tone of my voice and the metaphorical olive branch would be received by Layla in the right fashion. She seemed to get it well enough, and I departed with a gentle hand on her shoulder.
This new information... it certainly put Layla Taylor in a new light. I had more sympathy for her, and I hadn’t even brought up my situation with Claire and the role reversal, although that was a move probably made for the best.
I began to strongly suspect that my days and my interactions with Layla had not ended. In fact, they had only just begun.
Chapter Twelve
More than anything, when I got home, the feeling of everything that I had done and was working on caught up to me.
I’d spent the past few weeks in a deal-making blur, starting with Burnson Investments and now making my way off to Virtual Realty. I was meeting friends, enemies, enemies-turned-friends, businesswomen-turned-romantic, and everything in between. I had barely allowed any time for myself, and when I did give it to me, I inevitably wound up using it with the mindset of recovering for another deal.
I wouldn’t call it burn out, but I would call it sheer exhaustion.
Thus, when I got home, I didn’t even bother taking my clothes off. I just headed straight for bed, shut my eyes, and fell asleep before I could even think to turn the heat on.
WHEN I AWOKE, SEVERAL hours had passed. The sun was beginning to set, and it was just after 7 p.m. My first reaction was sweet relief and feeling a million bucks better.
My next reaction was to hope that nothing urgent had happened in the last few hours. Unlikely, but in the world of deal making and negotiating, things could change on a dime without any notice. It wasn’t fair to assume that just because Saturday had whirled around that the world had also slowed down.
If anything, this was when the men separated from the boys.
Assuming there was anything to separate them, at least.
In what seemed like a rather unusual move for me, I opened my email first. I deleted the usual marketing messages from clothing companies and other places I liked to shop and found a recent email from Morgan with the title “VR.”
“Dad is boasting more about VR. Thinking he might have made moves. I think we need to get you out to SF. I can fly you out first thing tomorrow at 6 a.m.”
Well, didn’t have much choice in the matter now, did I? And even if I had a choice, I would have requested Morgan to send me as soon as possible. Like my brother, I was desperate to get this deal completed. I needed Edwin Hunt to know why I had declined his offer and why, soon enough, his own son would be leaving the family business. He could stalk me all he wanted, but he needed to know why he had lost—it would be that much more satisfying.
“Done,” I wrote back. “Just let me know airport.”
I hit sent, rolled over, and grabbed my phone. No message from Layla this time, which... I was disappointed by?
I didn’t have much time to feel disappointed, though, because when I read Claire’s message, I knew what was coming.
“Feeling lonely tonight. Mind coming over? 455 50th Street, Apartment D.”
I knew what would happen if I went over there. Only for a few moments did I have the strength to contemplate what to do.
Because in my lifetime, I had learned one thing—a deal that was offered today had no guarantees of being offered tomorrow, no matter how concrete and how definitive those plans looked.
“Sorry, just woke from a nap. Be there in an hour.”
As soon as I sent that message, I headed to the bathroom, grabbed some condoms, and brushed my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror, thinking that with the fact that I hadn’t shaved in some time, I looked awfully scruffy. But maybe that was what was especially hot about me to Claire.
However it went, I was happy to acquiesce. We were on the same wavelength at least, and for that, I was eternally grateful. I just had to hope Claire, in a moment of honesty, didn’t confess something about her company that I couldn’t have known. I didn’t want to be in the same spot Layla was in or the same spot Edwin liked to be in—one where they could take advantage of others.
I checked my email one last time before walking out the door. Morgan had already replied.
“JFK.”
Well, at least I got the good airport.
I headed out the door, locked it tight, and made me way over to Claire’s. I scanned the streets as I moved, feeling like a wanted man on the lookout for people checking him out. I could never be too careful, even for something as innocuous as sex.
Then a terrifying thought crossed my mind. What if these goons went to Claire and questioned her?
Sadly, it wasn’t out of the question. If the “villain” doesn’t talk, go for his “sidekicks” and get them to sing like a bird. I could easily see one of them pressuring Claire to divulge information that Edwin could use against me.
Maybe I was overthinking the whole thing, and that would have been more believable if not for the bullshit move of calling me with a masked voice. I wasn’t overthinking it. Edwin was a sad, pathetic man who was the worst loser I had ever met in my life short of maybe John Burnson—not a coincidence the two were such close friends. It would bring me great joy to see them go down when MCH took off.
I came to Claire’s street and checked behind me and ahead of me. I didn’t recognize anyone following me, so I kept moving forward. I came to her apartment, buzzed at her intercom, and got let in. I walked up four flights of stairs before coming to her place. I took a deep breath, told myself that our honesty with each other allowed for this to happen, and knocked.
From that moment at which I knocked to when I heard footsteps, the paranoid thought that Claire had done this as a test and would disown me cross my mind. It was not even the first time this season that a woman had manipulated me to test my business acumen—who the hell knew if this was the same thing? The silence was long enough that I contemplated it as a real test.
If this was a test and it was a test I failed, I would truly be fucked, and not in the sexual way. Given that Morgan was my only real ally left and that he was the one who introduced me to Claire, he would know immediately of my folly. And when he knew my folly, he would realize I was an unstable business partner.
Maybe he had planted the idea outside of the bar where I’d made out with Claire not as a move like his old man, but as a way to test me.
I sounded like a fucking lunatic, I know. But could you blame me in my spot? I was always an outsider, and it always seemed like the insiders were working to screw me over, even within my own adoptive family. It was no wonder I had trust issues.
But then the footsteps came, and they came at Claire’s normal pace.
She opened the door, wearing nothing but a towel.
“Hi, Chance,” she said, blushing.
You know, it was funny how I had begun to see her as more and more attractive with each passing day. At first, I had felt no attraction for her. Then I considered her cute and well-put-together, but not arousing. Then I saw her as beauti
ful.
But today was the first day in which I felt that primal, carnage urge to just slam her against the wall and fuck her right then and there. She knew full well what she was doing answering the door in her towel. Yeah, her hair was wet, indicating she had just showered, but the timing of it was no accident.
I just eyed her up, reveling in how she seemed to shake with excitement at how I examined her. My God, she was beautiful. Wearing nothing but a towel let me see the little freckles at the top of her chest and on her arms, adding features to her pale white skin. Her eyes looked yearningly up to me, as if I and only I could fulfill what she needed right now. She looked like she was begging me to make a move, but I enjoyed seeing her beg, if not out loud.
I took one step in so she could have the courtesy of shutting the door. She quickly did so and locked it. Now, there was nothing between us but the space I would soon close.
“Mmm,” I said, as if enjoying delicious strawberry ice cream. I admired her now-obvious figure and how the hair on her arms was standing up on ends, a sure sign of complete nervousness. I wasn’t sure how her sex life with her last man was, but given how she was all but quivering with anticipation, it was not hard to imagine how much better I would feel in comparison.
This realization activated a side of me that I had never anticipated Claire unlocking. No longer was I objectively looking at her as beautiful. There was nothing objective about me right now.
It was all subjective. My entire world revolved around Claire McLendon, and it was an intensely hot world, one getting degrees hotter by the second. I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it down her arm. I circled around her, examining every angle, every area of skin, every strand of wet hair running down past her shoulders.
“Such a beautiful body,” I said.
Like a tiger coiling for a strike, I was letting the tension build. When the time came, I would make my move, and Claire would barely be able to know what hit her. Oh, sure, she would know it was Chance Hunt inside her, but it would be a vicious, savage Chance Hunt that she had never seen before. She would wonder where the businessman had gone.
I’d tell her. This wasn’t the polite, courteous, listening Chance Hunt. This was the animal inside Chance Hunt who only shared the same name. This was the beast coming for his beauty. This was the real Chance Hunt.
“Chance,” she said.
I shushed her. Her time for making noise would come once I had her in my arms or underneath me. That was near. But for now, she was mine to control and mine to handle, and I would force her to take what happened in silence.
“You are mine,” I said, breathing hot breath into her ear. “You will do exactly as I say. You will not question me. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head. Good. She was getting the message.
From behind, I slowly placed my hands on the towel, removing it from her. The towel dropped to the floor and I admired her body from behind, saving the best part for last. Her pale skin made her look like something out of a Victorian painting, but it was so fucking perfect I didn’t care if it was a classic or modern look. I kissed from her neck, running my hands gently across her stomach and up to her breasts. Her nipples were hard and her moaning increased.
I dropped my hands down, down, down... but pulling away just before they touched her there. She started to turn, but I held her firm in place.
“Ah ah. You move when I let you move.”
She turned back. I kissed her down, moving down her back, running my hands over her legs, all while avoiding her pussy. That was to be saved for the end, when she was so riled up and so built up she would feel as if she would have to literally explode from the pleasure coursing through her veins. I went back up her body, enjoying her soft moans that she failed so miserably to repress.
“Turn,” I commanded.
She did, wearing a nervous, anticipatory smile. I had seen enough. I had felt enough. I had smelled enough.
I grabbed her, pulled her to me, and lifted her off the ground as we made our way to her bedroom.
Chapter Thirteen
My shirt went off first, revealing my ripped shoulders, my broad chest, and my bulky arms. Claire moaned as I continued to kiss her, opening my eyes only to make sure I didn’t slam her into a kitchen table or wall by mistake. Once I lined myself up with a clear path to the bedroom, I charged forward.
I dropped her onto the bed, eliciting a quick cry followed by a laugh from her. I waited until she stopped laughing, and then I gave her a sly smile. Oh, was she in for a treat. She thought she knew, but she really didn’t. She had no idea what was coming. Someone as smart as her might have thought they could deduce what was coming, but that was such a naive thought.
When the animalistic side of Chance Hunt came out to play, there was nothing that could be predicted other than a good time and a pleasurable orgasm on both sides.
I just stood there for a second, admiring her body.
“What?” she said.
But I didn’t say anything. A man in heat didn’t speak more than he had to—he simply did what he had to and then some.
And so I crawled up the bed and kissed her. I felt her hands reaching for my groin, desperately trying to tear off the belt and unbutton them as she could. But I left her no choice to do that, moving down her body as I felt her warmth and wetness start near my groin and move up my body as I moved down hers.
Already, she was writhing with pleasure. Already, she was moaning my name like I was her god. Already, she was begging me to get started.
Ahh, but what was the fun in moving so quickly? Sure, she might feel good sooner, but delayed gratification resulted in maximal pleasure. Surely, someone as smart as Claire McLendon knew that.
When I finally found my face between her legs, I did not yet strike. I kissed her thighs, causing her to shake even more. Oh, God, was she getting impatient. I knew I had to move before pleasurable frustration turned to real frustration.
Now, the animal could strike. Now, I could sink my mouth into her. Now, I could go for the de facto kill.
I pressed my mouth into her lower lips, eliciting a surprised gasp. Perhaps she had not anticipated me moving so quickly when it was time. It’s like I said—nothing was predictable with me except the outcome.
I treated her pussy like the divine musical instrument that it was. I darted my tongue on it, I licked it slowly, I slid my fingers in and out; it created a kind of orgasmic symphony that wanted to hit its crescendo but could not be allowed to so early in the show. Oh, heavens, she wanted the conductor to get to the point and allow her to achieve the highest note, but what was the fun in that? She had to build to the moment of explosion; it would feel so much more well earned that way.
“Ohhh, Chance,” she moaned.
I heard her say that and a few other words, but I never paid much attention to them. I just followed the motion of her hips and the quivering that followed as signals of how she felt. She could always say something, but faking the involuntary twitching was, well, impossible since it was just that, involuntary.
But boy, if she somehow had mastered her body to do it, she sure was faking it a great deal.
I pushed her closer and closer to the edge as she swelled and begged for the sweet release. I would make her think I was giving it to her... and then emerge from the depths, look at her, and smiled greedily. I knew what awaited the other side of my work on her, and I anticipated it now just as much as she had anticipated this.
But first, she had to come.
At one point, I must have hit a particularly sensitive part of her, because her hips moved so violently I felt like she might have snapped my neck at any second. No harm, no foul, though. It just made me more greedy to get her to come.
When I knew I had her at the edge, I didn’t stop as I had before, but I did slow down so that every... agonizing... second... that... transpired felt like it moved at the opposite of the speed of light, bringing every moment to its maximum duration without actually losing the orgasm. Her g
asps became shorter, almost as if she was hyperventilating, as she awaited the blast of the symphony.
And then it happened.
For a good dozen seconds, like a symphony reaching the point where the chill reaches its greatest point, Claire exploded with pleasure, her legs shaking and her voice screaming at the top of her lungs. I hoped all of Manhattan heard the grand performance that we had just produced—it was nothing less than a true work of art.
When she finally finished, she squirmed away. I sat back, her juices still on my chin and lips, and admired her.
God, she was just so fucking sexy lying there, trying to recover from what I had just done. God have mercy on her soul, I knew that orgasm was sticking with her for hours, if not days, to follow. She was practically whimpering at how good it felt.
“My God,” she said. “How the fuck...”
I just smirked. An animal didn’t know his own secrets—he just did what he was born to do and let the rest fall where they may.
I hadn’t let this animal out in some time. It felt good to let him roam free. Claire had just so happened to benefit from allowing it to burst out of its cage.
And now, as Claire rose to her knees and came to me, I knew it was my turn.
With surprising strength, as she kissed me, Claire pushed me into the bed, returning the favor of kissing from my neck and working her way down to my chest. She had succeeded earlier in getting my belt off, but she hadn’t quite made it to my button. That... was not going to be an issue any longer.
In fact, it took her so short of time that she didn’t even have my pants completely off before she had her hands wrapped around me, beginning the slow torque and up-and-down motion.
Bruised (Hunt Brothers Saga) Page 10
