by Nikki Sloane
My heart was beating so fast but the rest of me was slow. Desire was heavy, filling me up and weighing me down, and it was what kept me from stopping Royce as he pushed me to sit on the table.
Anxiety turned tighter, screwing my throat closed and preventing words from coming out as his hands urged me down onto my back. He hitched one of my trembling legs over his shoulder, unaware of the panic that clawed in my chest, desperate to break free.
The table was hard and cold, and a man hovered between my legs, preparing to put his mouth on me, and it was too much like last time. It was way too much.
Somehow, I found my voice, and it sprang from me in a single, furious word. “No.”
I slapped a hand on his head and shoved him away, then reared back on the table. He pulled back, stunned and confused while watching me scramble to my feet.
He put a low hand out, in a gesture that said ‘steady.’ “What’s wrong?”
My gaze darted from him, to the table, and back again. I crossed my arms over my stomach. “Not like that. Not on the table.”
I’d never seen his eyes go that wide before as he realized what had caused the panic. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I—” He stared at the ground for a moment, lost in thought. “I wasn’t thinking.”
He moved toward me cautiously, like I was a wounded and unpredictable animal. Slowly, he reached for me, gauging my reaction. I allowed him to ease a hand onto my hip. To hesitantly invade my space.
“Tell me what you’d like. What you need.” He sounded and looked utterly serious. “Because I just want to make you feel good.”
I eyed the loveseat before turning my full stare back on him. “I want it gone. I need the memory wiped clean.”
His face twisted. He wanted to give it to me, but I’d asked for the impossible.
I set my palms flat against the plane of his chest and lowered my voice to a hush. “Give me something to replace it with.”
His expression was devastatingly determined. “I can do that.”
Gone was the urgent, frantic dash. Now, his movements were deliberate and purposeful. The heat between us didn’t flame out, it shifted and went underground, which was the most dangerous kind. We’d burn from the inside out, the foundation up, and there was no way to put it out.
While he kissed me, Royce’s steady hands smoothed over the lines of my body. He touched me with awe. His unhurried fingers skated sensually along my skin, lighting up nerves and setting off a cascade of sensations.
His methodical work made me quiver.
When he lowered himself onto the center of the loveseat, he gently grasped me by the elbows and encouraged me to climb into his lap. I put a knee on either side of his hips as he sat back with his shoulders against the cushions. We were caught in each other’s gaze when my damp center brushed against him. Just the tiniest contact, but my breath cut off. It felt exciting. And good.
His palm was still on my elbow, but it coasted up my arm. It traveled over my shoulder, slid up my neck, and continued until his fingers wove into my hair. His head rested on the back of the couch as he stared up at me, his eyes filled with hunger.
“I’ve never wanted anyone,” his voice was uneven, “the way I want you.”
Oh, my God. My heart faltered then picked up again, beating at twice the speed.
His other hand was on my waist, guiding me to move. To rock my hips against him and rub myself along the length of him. It elicited a sigh from us both, and I shuddered with pleasure. My movement adjusted my body on him, and as I went to settle back into his lap, the head of his cock was positioned right at my entrance.
He didn’t ask my consent, but he didn’t have to. He held statue still and left the choice to me. If I didn’t want to go further, all I had to do was lift off of him. Instead, I lowered myself on him, taking him inside me at measured pace. His lips parted so he could drag in ragged breaths as I crept down, and his head tipped further back, his eyes drifting closed.
It was still a lot, and he made me uncomfortably full, but my body seemed to adjust quicker this time. Once he was seated fully inside, I let out a tight breath. He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and simply stared at me like I was a wonderous creature.
His hand on my waist urged me once again to rock on him. The gentle, slow stroke wrung a whimper from my lips but set him on alert.
“How does it feel?” he asked.
“It feels . . . good.”
A smile hinted his expression, but I moved my hips, and he went serious again.
As I hesitantly found my rhythm, his sensual hands resumed their work. They caressed my breasts, notching over my hardened nipples. They smoothed along my thighs. Slid up my back, tracing my spine with his fingertips.
Royce sat there, and his heavy eyes watched me as I rode him, my body undulating, letting me find my way. But the tightness inside me kept building. The feeling of urgency twisted harder, squeezing the air from my lungs.
I had my hands on his chest for leverage, but I lifted them and laced my fingers together behind his neck, pulling him to me. When our mouths locked together, time suspended. Nothing existed outside of this room. Nothing lived beyond the two of us, our bodies connected as one.
I writhed on him until sweat dampened our temples and moans drifted from our lips. I held his head in my arms, crushing him to my breasts, relishing the way he teased me with his mouth and teeth. His hands on my ass pushed and pulled, lifting me to keep up the urgent tempo we were both desperate for.
When my leg muscles began to fatigue, he must have sensed it.
“Lean back,” he encouraged. His arm looped behind me. “I’ve got you.”
I did as he asked, arching my back and setting my hands behind me on his knees. It made enough space so he could push a hand between our bodies and touch my clit.
“Oh, my God,” I groaned, pleasure nearly overwhelming me.
I threw my head back, and beneath me, he took over. His deep thrusts shook my body all the way down to my foundation. And that fucking hand of his. It just kept stirring and moving and pleasing. I was a quivering mess as my orgasm approached.
He grunted and strained as he chased his breath, but he didn’t stop driving. Not even when a loud gasp burst from my mouth and I came. Heat, coupled with deep satisfaction, poured down through me, wave after wave, seemingly endless. I’d only started to come down from my orgasm when his started.
He clamped his strong arms around my shuddering body and buried his face in my chest while a series of pleasure-soaked moans fell from his lips. He gasped one after another against my naked flesh.
Like a coin in a spiral funnel, time restarted slowly. It looped one tediously long second and sped gradually with each pass, spinning faster as it closed in on the center. Round and round it went until it was a flashing blur of movement, and then . . . time snapped back to normal as it dropped into the well below.
Royce softened his hold on me, just enough to peer up into my eyes. “That should have been our first time.”
I dropped a kiss on his lips. “It was.”
TWENTY
ROYCE AND I SPENT AWHILE KISSING on the loveseat, but eventually my legs protested how I was straddling him, and I climbed off. We dressed, and when he fished his shirt off the floor, I took it and tossed it across the room.
“You look good naked,” I said. “I think I like you better that way.”
He chuckled as he went after it. “I also prefer you naked. Maybe don’t bring any clothes when you move in.”
My smile drained. “I have to tell you something else.”
He had his head halfway through the neck hole of his t-shirt, and his movements slowed as he pulled it on.
“When I danced with your father, he said some stuff.”
“About me.” It was a statement, not a question from Royce.
“Yeah.”
A tight smile pinched on his face. “Don’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth, but just for fun, what’d he say?”
“H
e basically told me not to trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”
This time his smile was more of a smirk. As I looked down at my engagement ring, my shoulders slumped.
He picked up on my unease. “What is it?”
My stomach was full of acid and a sour taste filled my mouth as I worked up the courage. “He said he owns me, and eventually he’ll have me.”
Royce solidified. He locked down his doors and shuttered the windows, going immobile.
Had I just flipped some sort of fail-safe switch and deactivated him?
Finally, he blinked. He put his hands in his pockets and stared vacantly at the glasses on the table. “He’s fucking with you. Or maybe he was just testing to see how you’d react.”
I frowned.
It was hard to believe that was all it was. The look in Macalister’s eyes that night had been incredibly real. But perhaps he was a fantastic actor like his son. Plus, Royce knew his father better than I did. Shouldn’t I trust him?
“Okay.” I still wasn’t convinced but wasn’t sure what else to say. “I thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it.” He glanced at the door and put a hand on the back of his neck, massaging it. “Do you want to finish the tour? We got kind of . . . sidetracked.”
His easy smile chased away the unpleasant memory.
We were almost at the top of the stairs when Royce hooked a finger in the belt loop of my shorts and jerked me to a sudden stop.
“Hey,” he said. As he moved in to join me on the same step, the banister was at my back and his expression was hard to read. “I didn’t mean to make light of what he said. It’s fucked up, I know. You have to remember everyone in this house has an agenda. We’re all positioning to get what we want, and no one says what they mean.”
I lifted my chin to meet his gaze. “Including you?”
He placed one hand on the wall beside my head, then the other, trapping me beneath his hungry stare. His gaze roved over my face and settled on my lips. “Yeah, Marist. Including me.”
Royce leaned in and captured my mouth. He kissed me like a conqueror, and I was happy to be claimed as his.
Just outside of the doorway, someone cleared their throat, loud and excessive. We both froze.
I didn’t have to hear anything else or see him—I already knew. I could blame the cold draft on the air conditioning, but it was really Macalister’s frosty presence. Who knew how long he’d been standing there?
Royce straightened away from me the moment his father stepped into our view.
Macalister had on a full suit. Clearly, he’d come straight from the office, but it was a long ride from Boston, and he hadn’t so much as loosened his tie. He stared at us with his piercing eyes and drained all the heat from the moment.
“Marist.” He said my name like I’d done something wrong. “While you’re here, I wanted to let you know our lawyers are drafting the prenup. They should have it to me by the time you move in.”
Seeing him again was like walking into a spider’s web. Hundreds of invisible threads pulled at my skin. I wanted to sound confident but failed. “All right.”
His gaze flicked to his son and narrowed. “Royce and I will go over it together with you.”
The subtext was clear. This wasn’t a request, it was a decree.
Neither of us had a response, and Macalister must have taken our silence as acceptance because he nodded. “Well, then. Enjoy your evening.”
Friday afternoon, I finished packing. I’d put it off as long as I could, but I had to move in and be at the Hale estate this evening. Macalister wanted his meeting to discuss the prenup after he and Royce had come home from the office.
Ever since my contentious afternoon with my parents and the financial advisor, things hadn’t been great at home. My mother had been treating me to more and more passive-aggressive statements as the rest of the week played out, and although I was terrified of moving into the Hale estate, a small part of me was relieved to be leaving.
She was angry. A spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
As I zipped up my toiletries bag and put it in the suitcase, she was upset I’d told her to cancel the annual ski trip to Aspen the week of Thanksgiving. My family had been going for years, but the situation now was too dire.
“It’s not that much money,” she whined.
Her comment grated. If I’d learned anything from this ordeal, it was that she had no concept of money. It hurt me how her youngest daughter was moving out, and yet all she cared about was some lousy trip.
“You don’t even ski. You sit in the lodge with the other women and play cards.”
She scowled. “I enjoy spending time with my friends.”
I’d swear half of Cape Hill made the trip. It was almost more about social status than having an actual vacation.
But where were my mother’s friends now? She’d given up her luncheons with them at fancy downtown restaurants and stopped donating to their fundraisers. Her friends miraculously dried up with our family’s cash flow.
“Now that you’re engaged to Royce, our family should be there. You know how that trip is.”
“I do. I’m sure he’ll take me, even though I couldn’t care—” Fuck. Why had I said that?
“I see.” She went stiff. “Well, I’d love to go, but we can’t all find a Hale to take us.”
I slammed shut my suitcase, wishing I could stuff myself inside and get away from her.
But she couldn’t leave it be. “Think about how it’s going to look if people find out we’re in a tough spot, and you’re suddenly getting fancy jewelry and expensive trips from Royce.”
Tough spot? We weren’t just broke, we were in serious debt. I tried to stay calm. “Expensive trips?” I said flatly. “You just said it wasn’t that much.”
“They’ll think you’re only after his money.”
I zipped the suitcase closed, set it on its wheels, and gave her a cold look. “I am only after his money.”
It had been true once.
Now it tasted like a lie.
Royce said everyone in his house had an agenda, and I was bringing my own, but as I pushed past my mother and headed for the stairs, I wondered when mine had shifted. Because saving my family was no longer my primary objective.
Getting a chance to have more with him was.
I was given the guest bedroom sandwiched between Royce’s room and the library. It was decorated in white and slate blue with mirrored furniture, and like his, there was a small sitting area opposite the king-sized bed.
Unpacking didn’t take long, and once I’d finished, I curled up on one of the chairs with a book, trying to pretend this was all normal and my home now.
It didn’t work.
A little after six o’clock, Royce knocked on my door. He’d loosened his tie and undone the top button of his dress shirt, and although he had relaxed his clothes, he looked anything but comfortable as he stood in my doorway.
I felt it too. Awareness that there’d be something buried in this prenuptial agreement that neither of us were going to like.
He surveyed the room, noting the large stack of books I’d put on the dresser, held up by my Pegasus bookends.
“Hey.” He delivered the news in a solemn tone. “He’s waiting for us in the library.”
I hated the tension hanging in the air. I closed my book, climbed to my feet, and marched toward Royce. His lips pressed to mine, and for once, our kiss had nothing to do with desire. It was about connection. Partnership. Like the ring on my finger, it was a wordless promise we were together.
Lucifer was a black shadow in the hallway, and when he saw Royce, he issued a soft meow and brushed against his master’s legs. But as we approached the library, the cat stopped and sat on the carpet. His wary green eyes regarded Macalister, who sat behind the desk and glared back at the cat with a similar sentiment.
It was overcast this evening and the curtains overwhelmed the window, so only a slice of light penetrated the lib
rary.
“Shut the door,” Macalister said, presumably to keep the cat out, although Lucifer looked like he’d abstain anyway. Cats liked warm things, and the man behind the desk wasn’t.
Once the door was closed, he didn’t tell us to sit. Royce took a chair, so I followed suit and sat on the edge of the other. Once again, Alice’s reminder about my posture flitted through my head, and I pulled my shoulders back.
Everything was so different than the last time Royce and I had been in this room. It still smelled like books, but the magic was gone. Nothing was cozy or inviting, and all the power radiated from the man in the suit who’d ordered this meeting.
“This is the first draft of the prenuptial agreement.” Macalister rested his spread fingertips on a pale blue folder in front of him. “However, after our discussion, we’ll need to make a few addendums.”
My stomach clenched. There was a gleam in his eyes that didn’t bode well.
Royce didn’t notice, or he was playing his role. He settled into his chair with an air of indifference. “What kind of addendums?”
“I am concerned about the relationship forming between the two of you.” Macalister’s hand on the folder curled into a loose fist. “When you fall in love so quickly, it’s guaranteed to end just as fast, and it will destroy the partnership we’ve been working toward.”
Royce scoffed and sounded disgusted. “Nobody’s falling in love.”
I tried to mimic the same confidence when Macalister’s gaze slithered over to me, but I must have failed, because the side of his mouth quirked.
“What is it, then?” he asked his son. “Lust?”
“Yeah. I’m only interested in fucking her.”
The cruel, easy way it rolled off his tongue filled my stomach with stones. I reminded myself this was a lie. Not just because his father was sitting across from us, either. Royce wanted more with me. The way we’d been together in the wine cellar showed that.
