by Vivi Paige
“Good.” Will released him and snarled down at him. “Call the firm and tell them everything. Everything. Or I’ll be back when you least expect it.”
Will came over to me and took my hand. Together we left the manor. We were all the way outside before I realized I was still holding the gun, which I tossed away in disgust.
We clambered into the Spitfire, Will in the driver’s seat, and I turned toward him. “What happens now?”
“We pay a visit to Devlin,” Will said flatly. “And put this whole thing to bed once and for all.”
We drove in silence back into the city. My mind roiled with my father’s attempt on my life. The only solace I had was the knowledge that Will loved me, and I loved him. In order to break away from my past, I embraced my future.
My future with the man I loved, the same man who kidnapped me and threw me in his trunk a few days ago. Yeah, it sure seemed like a spy novel plot to me.
Devlin’s condo was on the Upper West Side, ironically in the same building as mine. I shook my head as Will was about to buzz Devlin and used my card to get us inside instead.
Then we rode up to the penthouse—of course he lived in the penthouse—and walked right in without knocking. For a crime lord, Devlin left his doors suspiciously unlocked.
“Knock, knock, motherfucker,” Will growled as we burst in. The apparent Devlin—sitting on a tastefully upholstered divan in a white bathrobe, eating bonbons—I shit you not—looked up with surprise but no fear.
“Well, well, I was wondering when you’d show up, brother,” Devlin said. “Joe has a concussion, by the way. I’m taking his medical bills out of your fee.”
“Don’t you brother me,” Will snarled, moving over to slap the tray of bonbons out of Devlin’s hand.
“Dude,” Devlin said with a frown. “Not so loud. You’ll wake my wife.”
“I could give a fuck,” Will snarled, though I noted it was in a much softer tone and lower volume. “Listen to this and tell me we weren’t being played the entire time.”
Devlin listened while Will played back the recording he’d made. Then both of us told the story of the last few days, though neither of us mentioned our blossoming relationship.
Though I could tell Devlin had already guessed the parameters of our association. He kept eying me craftily while Will spoke.
“All right,” Devlin said. “I’ll admit, Hunter Shaw played us all for fools. That will be the last mistake he ever makes…”
“No.” Will glanced over at me. “Hunter Shaw gets to live. Believe me, he’s learned why you don’t mess with Mayhem Brothers, LLC.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile. Did he make a faux pas while trying to say “Mayne Brothers,” or was it deliberate? In either case, it made Devlin smile as well.
“Then so be it. Your handling of this rather arduous situation has earned my trust, little brother. The contract is cancelled, and Miss Shaw is free to go.”
Will and I hugged each other tightly as my heart soared with joy.
“Not that she wants to go anywhere,” Devlin quipped as he sipped his tea. “Welcome to the family, Scarlett Shaw.”
Will nearly fell over himself with happiness. I guess Devlin’s seal of approval meant a lot to him. All I knew was I could finally let myself be happy with the man I loved. Our lives might not have fit into the parameters of a fairy tale, but at least we had our happy ending.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Welcome to my humble abode.” Smiling, Scarlett slid the key into the lock, and then opened her apartment door. We stepped inside and she did a little curtsey, waving one hand at her living room. “It ain’t much, but it’s mine.”
“It ain’t much?” I repeated, arching one eyebrow. “This is a miniature palace.”
“Says the man with a yacht and God knows how many houses.”
“Safe houses.”
“Yeah, safe houses,” she laughed, doing air quotes with her fingers. “Let me just pack a bag and we can be on our way. All right?” Without waiting for me to reply, she turned on her heel and headed into what I assumed to be her bedroom. I followed after her to see a heap of clothes covering the bed, shirts and dresses littering the ground.
“Wow.” Standing by the doorway, hands on my hips, I took in all that mess with one single glance. Scarlett didn’t even notice. She just packed her things, picking random clothes from the floor and stuffing them inside her suitcase. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to be choosy about what she gathered.
Now that we had sorted everything, we had decided to take the yacht and travel down the East Coast for a couple of weeks, and I couldn’t wait to hit the road. Or, rather, the ocean. It’d be nice to enjoy ourselves without having a dark cloud hanging over our heads.
“What’s this?” I asked her with a mocking tone, picking up a tie from the floor. “Have you been bringing men up into this bedroom?”
“From time to time,” she threw back, teasing me. “But that’s over now. I have everything I need right here.” Padding her way toward me, she laid one hand on my chest and kissed me. “That tie is mine anyway. I like the preppy look, ya know?”
“Huh,” I muttered, “and here I was, thinking I could use it to tie you up.”
She froze, her lips curling into a smile. “Well… we’re not running late. Are we?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “In fact, we have all the time in the world.” Returning her smile, I closed the distance between us and wrapped the tie around her wrists. “This is going to be fun.”
“I like fun.” Looking straight into my eyes, she smiled. It wasn’t a simple smile, though. It was one brimming with wickedness, one that held all the dirty things that had to be running through her mind in that moment. Now that our feelings were no longer a secret, things would be so much easier between us.
“Then you’re gonna love this,” I continued, tying the other end of the necktie around the bedpost. She had her back turned to me now and looked at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide with anticipation, and I felt a wave of energy crash against me as I imagined all the twisted little things I could do to her. She was mine now. I knew it—and so did she—but I wanted her to experience it.
I took one step to the side and, even though she tried to follow me with her gaze, the angle I was at stopped her. Knowing I was in her blind spot, I took off my belt, purposefully making the buckle clink. Holding it in my hands, I rolled it up and took one step toward Scarlett.
“Spread your legs,” I whispered into her ear, smiling as I watched her obey. To see her like this, so dutiful and eager… Fuck, what else could I want? Give me all the money in the world and I’d just set it all on fire. Nothing would ever compare to her. Nothing.
Slowly, I brushed the leathery tip of the belt against the back of her knee. I brushed it upward until I found the hemline of her dress, and she trembled slightly. Grinning, I grabbed at her dress and pulled on it as hard as I could, my fingers bunching up the fabric. There was the sound of it ripping, and Scarlett gasped as I tore it off her.
“I ruined it,” I continued, the tip of the belt now moving up to between her legs, “just like I’m going to ruin you.” The muscles in her neck moved softly as she swallowed, and I could almost feel the anxious anticipation that gripped her. No, fuck that—she was so wet that I could smell her anticipation.
Keeping the belt between her inner thighs, I took a moment to appreciate the way her lace underwear hugged her curves. Her black thong left little to the imagination but, at the same time, it made my mind race as I tried to imagine what lay past the veil. And her bra, the way the lace seemed to hug the perfect curves of her breasts, almost like the hands of a past lover…
Suddenly, I felt a burst of lustful rage shooting into my veins. I thought of all the other men Scarlett had been with, the assholes she must’ve brought to this bedroom, and something surged inside me. Even though I knew they all paled in comparison to me, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling like a possessive madman.
> Gripping the belt tightly, so much I could hear the crack of the leather, I cocked my arm back and whipped the belt against her ass. I did it fast but carefully, just enough to surprise her, but I made sure not to hurt her. She yelped, her ass cheeks clenching as the belt made contact, and I stared at the red mark it had left. I did it one more time, careful to thread the line between pain and pleasure, and she became so fucking wet I could see her juices drip from her thong and pool on the floor at her feet.
Dazed, I dropped the belt from my hand.
I reached for her ass and caressed the red marks on her skin, her flesh so tender and soft. “The things I want to do to you…” I whispered, my free hand sliding up her spine and all the way up to her neck. I brushed her hair over her right shoulder and leaned in, softly depositing my lips on her nape.
“You can do them all,” she whispered, and even her voice seemed wet. Wanting. I don’t know how the fuck that works, but I swear I could feel desire dripping from her words, her whole body alight with maddening lust. I thought I liked sex, but Scarlett… Fuck, she breathed sex. She was sex. “I’m yours, Will. You can do with me as you please.”
“And I will.”
I opened the clasp of her bra, but I didn’t yank it off of her body. Instead, I watched as the cups drooped over her breasts, slowly revealing her milky skin and rosy nipples. With one hand on her waist, I leaned in and kissed her between the shoulder blades. I kissed her neck, her shoulders, and every inch of naked skin that I could. In my mind’s eye, I remembered the first time I had laid eyes on her, and the first time our lips touched. Back then I was nothing but a single-minded predator, but even then I knew she was different. All it took was a kiss for me to know.
Gently, I allowed my hand to go around her waist, and my fingers fell over the dark fabric of her thong. It was completely drenched, wet to the touch, and that made my heart beat even faster. Before Scarlett, I never really cared about the enjoyment of the women I was with—although I’m pretty sure they always enjoyed themselves—but with her… her enjoyment was half the fun. I craved seeing her writhing under me, I needed to hear her moans and screams, and I was always desperate for the way she begged me to fuck her harder and harder.
Just like me, she was insatiable.
Clenching my jaw, I grabbed her thong. I was about to tear it into shreds when I realized I wanted to take my time. After all we had gone through, I wanted to slow down and appreciate every moment.
“You know I love you. Don’t you?” I whispered, brushing one thumb over her lips. “You know I will always keep you safe.”
“I do,” she whispered back.
Love and lust swirled inside my head until they became one and the same, and I closed my eyes and kissed her neck once more. Slowly, I lowered myself, my mouth hiking down her spine. I went down on one knee and, doing it as slowly as I could, I peeled her thong down her legs. The sight of her naked ass, the pink flush of her pussy peeking from between her thighs… yeah, that set me off.
“Step back,” I commanded her, directing her movements with my hands. Still with her hands tied to the bedpost, she bent by the waist and took a couple of steps back. As she did it, her pussy revealed itself to me, and my cock became so hard I half-expected it to tear its way out of my pants. “I want to taste you every single day for the rest of my life.”
Laying my hands on her ass, I leaned in, my tongue slipping past her drenched lips. I brushed it over her folds, her sweet wetness making me hungry for more, and then I covered her little pussy with my open mouth. Pushing my tongue deep inside her, I gave her a good lashing, the fingers of my right hand now pressing down on her clit.
She moaned, her hips moving so smoothly I could barely notice, but that was enough for me to go crazy. Every little thing she did was enough for that to happen. Slapping her ass with my left hand, I devoured her like a wild animal tearing into its prey, her sweet juices dripping down my chin as I consumed her. I pressed my mouth so tightly against her pussy that I could barely breathe, and the plea of my lungs for air went ignored. I just kept going until her movements shed their smoothness, the frantic sway of her hips reaching a fever pitch.
Thrusting back against me, she let a string of moans escape from her mouth, and I heard the knotted tie straining against the bedpost, the wood creaking under Scarlett’s pull.
She screamed.
Her voice was like poison, filtering into my brain and seeping into my body. It unleashed an onslaught of hormones into my bloodstream, and my tongue slid in and out of her drenched pussy over and over again. Her inner walls trembled for a second, and she came hard, her fluids gushing out and dripping down her legs.
“You’re such a wet mess,” I told her, pulling back and sucking in a deep breath. Her own breathing was ragged and uneven, and her hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall. Reaching forward, I cupped her heaving breasts, softly pinching both her nipples to remind her we weren’t done. Not yet.
“That’s your fault,” she managed to say, her words coming out as a dazed groan.
“It better be.”
Brushing two fingers over her pussy, I brought them up to her mouth. I laid them over her lips, and then slipped them inside. Her tongue swirled around my fingers for a second, and she moaned softly, enjoying the way she tasted. Fuck, to see her doing that was almost enough for me to want to devour her again. It took all that I had not to go down on my knees and press my mouth against her drenched pussy once more. I could eat her out for hours on end and I would never get tired.
“I love it when you’re dirty like this,” I told her, my cock so fucking hard I could barely think straight. “I’ve ruined you. Haven’t I?”
“Maybe I’m the one who has ruined you,” she corrected me. “But I like the sound of it. I want to be ruined. Always did.” There was a slight pause, and then she added, “But only if you’re the one doing it.” The possessive beast that lingered inside me felt appeased for a moment.
She knew exactly which buttons to push, which levers to pull. She was perfection made flesh. That made me wonder. How in the world had I gotten so lucky? What had I done to deserve a woman like her? When I asked her those questions, whispering them into her ear, her reply came without a moment’s hesitation.
“You didn’t do anything to deserve me,” she breathed. “You just took me. One look into your eyes and I was yours. There’s nothing I could have done.”
“And if you could…? Would you have it any differently?”
She responded by thrusting her ass back, trapping my cock between her ass cheeks.
“What the hell do you think?” She looked at me over her shoulder, her expression one of defiant lust. I took in the brightness in her eyes, the way locks of hair tumbled over her face, and the burgundy color of her lipstick. My cock twitched then, almost as if reminding me it had urgent needs.
“I think it’s time we put that mouth of yours to good use,” I told her, taking the tie off the bedpost. Her wrists, though, remained bound. “On your knees.”
“What if I don’t want to be on my knees?” She asked me, that defiance in her eyes burning brighter. “What are you going to do about it?”
I smiled.
Moving fast, I pressed my hand against her pussy.
“You’re going to get on your knees,” I told her, never looking away from her eyes, “and you’re going to open that pretty little mouth of yours. Then… you know what happens then. Don’t you?”
“I want you to tell me.”
“I’m going to get naked, and you’re going to want me inside your mouth,” I continued. “I won’t do it, though. You’ll just watch me get harder and harder, and I’ll stop you from getting your lips around my cock every time you try.”
“No…” she whimpered.
“If you want my cock, you’ll have to work hard for it.”
“I will…” She breathed out, and she did it in such a way that it almost seemed like her heart was about to burst. There were no longer flames in
her eyes. There was a fucking wildfire there, a true raging inferno. I thought I knew what lust was, but what I saw in her eyes then… it was off the fucking charts.
“Then,” I finally whispered, “kneel.”
Obediently, she did as she was told.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
My heart hammered.
I heard my heartbeat in my ears, its steady and violent thrumming driving me crazy. Still with my wrists bound, I did as I was told and got down on my knees, all my teasing defiance now forgotten. Right now, all I wanted was to obey.
Much like he promised, he unbuttoned his shirt. Going deliberately slowly, his naked skin was revealed one inch at a time, and I realized I didn’t know if I’d be capable of enduring his teasing.
“Please…” The word escaped before I could silence myself. My hands shot up to his pants, my eagerness to have him stand naked in front of me too strong for me to fight off. He grabbed my bound wrists and leaned down, the devil dancing in his gaze.
“No,” he said, and I could tell that he was enjoying every second of this. “You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to do anything until I tell you.”
“But I need…”
“You need to do what I tell you.” Just like that, my wrists went limp and I placed my hands on my lap. If I was to get what I wanted, I needed to obey. “Good girl.”
He pushed his shirt down his shoulders, and it floated to the floor, landing in a heap at his feet. Still looking straight at me, he kicked his boots off, and only then did he take his hands to his waist. With maddening patience, he pushed down the zipper, and the sight of his tented boxers was enough for my center to clench.
“You like that?” he whispered teasingly, his thumb running underneath the hemline of his boxers. Slowly—so fucking slowly—he peeled them down, freeing his massive erection, and I unconsciously licked my lips in anticipation. Pinching my inner thigh, I forced myself to remember that I had to obey. And it was a good thing I did, or else I would’ve already lunged, my open mouth ready to devour him. “How much do you want me in your mouth?”
