Set In Stone

by K. M. Scott

  This conversation was making me uneasy. “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to know where you went so I could find you there.”

  “And do what exactly?” I asked, challenging him.

  “Surprise you at your hotel. I’d think by now that you’d be almost expecting that from me.”

  “Yes, a whole week of knowing you and I’m already used to the unexpected from you,” I said with a smile as I secretly thought to myself that it had crossed my mind that he’d try to visit me in London.

  “Were you disappointed I didn’t show up?” he asked in that cute way that told me he wanted to hear I missed him.

  But I didn’t want to give him that. Not yet.

  “I was furious with you, so you should be happy you didn’t show up.”

  He walked over to me and stopped to place his wine glass on the island in the center of the room where I’d been standing the whole time. Leaning down, he kissed me softly on the lips and smiled.

  “Well, you know that you shouldn’t have been furious with me, so are you disappointed now that I didn’t show up in London?”

  “I don’t even know how to make heads or tails of that, Killian. I think you might be certifiably crazy.”

  He looked up like he was thinking about how crazy he actually might be and then looked down at me, shaking his head. “I’m not crazy. Well, maybe a little, but only about you.”

  When he said things like that, I couldn’t deny that just being around him made me happy. Something about the way he didn’t seem to need to ever hold back on what he felt or said made me want to be that free. I couldn’t be, not yet at least, but I wanted to be.

  Turning away, I took a drink of my wine and pretended to study the room around us. “I’m sticking with my original diagnosis. You’re crazy. My own crazy stalker. I can’t decide if that scares the hell out of me or makes me chuckle.”

  Gently, he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned my head to face him. “You know, not that I’m a stalker, but you pretty much make it so hard for a man that he has to resort to basically stalking you just to get you to see him, Tressa.”

  “Maybe that’s just my way to weed out men who aren’t worthy.”

  Killian smiled and took the glass of wine out of my hand. “Good to know I pass the test.”

  “Don’t you think you’re jumping ahead of things?” I asked as he slid his arm around my waist and pulled me to him.

  “No. I believe in thinking positively. I have no doubt I’m passing all your tests.”

  “Do you go into everything in life like that?” I asked, amazed at how confident the man always was. Did nothing ever make him doubt himself?

  Nodding, he grinned, his eyes sparkling as he gazed down at me. “Yeah. There’s no other way to be. If you have the goods, then all you need to do is use them to the best of your ability and you’ll succeed every time.”

  “I can’t decide if you’re confident or cocky.”

  His hands slid down from my waist to cup my ass, pulling me toward his body so I felt his already hard cock press against me. “Cocky is thinking you’re good when you’re not but you can bullshit your way through it. Confident is knowing you’re good because you are. I’m confident.”

  “Too confident, I think,” I murmured against his ear as he dipped his head to nibble on my shoulder.

  He looked up and faked a hurt expression. “How could you say that? Haven’t I proven more than once that I’m the best at what I do?”

  “Are we talking about football or something else?” I asked, loving how he played along with my teasing. “Because if we’re talking about something else, I’m not sure I’m ready to reward you with the title of best.”

  His hurt expression melted away, replaced by a sensual look that told me my time for teasing him had ended. “Then I’m just going to have to prove it to you tonight so you know who you’re dealing with.”

  Scooping me up in his arms, he threw me over his shoulder and began walking through the house as I protested. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me, Killian?”

  “Watch your head,” he said, completely ignoring my questions, as he walked through the doorway to head for the stairs.

  “Put me down! I can walk on my own,” I said, lightly pounding my fists against his muscular back. I’d felt that back while he was on top of me more than once. My pummeling him likely didn’t even register.

  “I know you can walk on your own,” he said before slapping my ass hard with the palm of his hand.

  While I watched the downstairs disappear step by step, I couldn’t believe he pulled this caveman act on me. If he was any other man, I would have screamed and pitched a fit until he put me down, but something in the way Killian did it so playfully made me not hate it.

  Still, I couldn’t let him think I liked his prehistorical man routine, so I continued to hit his back to get him to stop. “Are you even feeling any of these punches?”

  He laughed before he turned at the top of the stairs to walk down the hall. “Not really. It’s sort of like having one of those massager things working on my back. You can hit harder if you want. That might feel okay.”

  I pulled my arm back and hit him as hard as I could, but still I got no reaction. “Don’t make fun of my boxing ability.”

  “You know I can practically hear you pouting,” he said with a chuckle as he opened the door to a room at the end of the hallway. “Head down again.”

  I dropped my head against his lower back and waited for him to put me down now that we’d made it to a bedroom, but instead, he lifted me off his shoulder and threw me into the air toward the bed. I landed with a thud on the mattress, which thankfully wasn’t hard as a rock or I’d be crippled.

  Stunned, I looked up as he began lifting his black T-shirt over his head. “I can’t believe you tossed me onto this bed like a basket of laundry!”

  He poked his head out from underneath his shirt and smiled. “Like clean laundry. Nobody ever tosses dirty laundry onto a bed. That’s something.”

  I opened my mouth to say it didn’t matter, but nothing came out. The man had a way of making me speechless. Better for me to just watch him take his clothes off anyway. It was definitely a more enjoyable thing than verbally sparring with him.

  Killian tossed his shirt at the foot of the bed and unbuttoned his jeans before stopping to face me. “Am I the only one getting naked here?”

  Shrugging, I leaned back on my elbows. “I was enjoying myself watching you. Feel free to continue.”

  Enjoying myself was truly an understatement. Killian’s body was as close to perfection as I’d ever seen, much less experienced. All this time I’d had so little respect for athletes. Clearly, I’d never considered how incredible all that working out was for their bodies.

  My eyes traveled over his broad, defined shoulders that flared into muscular biceps and thick forearms covered in tattoos of images and words I’d never really looked at before that moment. One on his right arm looked like something tribal, and another on his left forearm said something about success, but as I tried to read it, he unzipped his pants and my gaze focused on his washboard abs and his lack of underwear beneath his jeans.

  “Do you always go commando?” I asked as he stepped out of them and tugged on my legs to drag me toward him.

  He didn’t answer my question, instead removing my shoes first. When he moved up to the white capris I’d chosen to wear with my favorite blue T-shirt, he ran his hands over my calves before answering, “No, but I had a plan for tonight, so underwear weren’t really needed for this job. I gave them the night off.”

  As he pulled my capris down my legs, I helped him by wriggling out of them. “A plan? What plan?”

  I had no doubt he’d had a plan. The man always seemed to have something planned for me.

  Killian lifted his head to look up at me and smiled. His green eyes had a twinkle in them like that first night we got together, and I had a hunch I knew what this plan of h
is had entailed just by that look in his eyes.

  “Well, I was either going to get you to come up here with me, or I was going to spend the night at your penthouse. Either way, I didn’t need underwear.”

  He slid his hands up the outside of my legs and hooked his thumbs through my underwear, tickling me and making me giggle. “That seems pretty presumptuous since I’d told you not more than an hour earlier that I hated you.”

  In one swift movement, he yanked my panties off and tossed them over to where he’d deposited his shirt. “Loathed. I think it’s important to get the sentiment correct.”

  “Loathed. I remember. Still seems pretty presumptuous.”

  Pushing my legs apart with his knee, he lowered himself down on top of me. Staring deep into my eyes, he said, “The word you’re looking for is confident, remember?”

  He thrust his hips forward slowly, and in seconds, his cock filled me completely. Whatever it was called, Killian was that and so much more.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Killian

  Tressa wrapped her legs around my waist and tilted her hips to take all of me on my second thrust into her tight cunt. She moaned sweetly in my ear as I began pumping into her, making my body crave her even more.

  For hours, I’d wanted to be inside her. When we were together, I knew we could overcome all the differences she was so sure should keep us apart. All of that meant nothing as soon as she let herself enjoy what we had between us.

  I loved fucking her. The icy, distant woman who insisted on being difficult with me melted at my touch, turning me on more than she could imagine. The change between that Tressa and this one who moaned my name and begged me to fuck her harder never ceased to amaze me. After that first time together, I wanted nothing more than to figure out how to get the ice queen who put me through my paces to be the woman who wanted me as much as I wanted her.

  As I pushed my hips forward to fill her once more, I thought back to the morning after she bid on me and remembered my fantasy about her riding my cock. Sliding out of her, I rolled her over on top of me. She looked down at me and her mouth made that adorable pout I couldn’t deny made me want her even more.

  “Why did you do that?” she sulked.

  With my hands on her hips, I positioned her over me. “I want you on top.”

  Tressa pulled her T-shirt off and then removed her bra, tossing them off to the side. Leaning down, she kissed me, sliding her tongue into my mouth before playfully sinking her teeth into my lip.

  “So you want me on top? I like a change of pace,” she purred in my ear.

  My cock nudged up against her ass as my need to be inside her ratcheted up another notch and the thought of my fantasy of her actually coming true made me hard as a rock. She rolled her hips to take me inside her, and the next moment I was filling her completely.

  Tressa sat up on me and began to ride my cock like her body was made for me. She looked like a goddess fucking me, her long dark hair teasing my chest just like I fantasized. I watched in awe as her inhibitions disappeared with each time she rocked her hips to take me deeper into her cunt. Her eyes closed, she rode me better than any other women ever had, and I loved it.

  When I thought I couldn’t handle any more, she looked down at me and smiled in the way only a woman who knew her own power could. Her dark eyes fixed on mine, and I reached up to cup her breasts. She moaned loudly and then leaned forward so I could take one deep pink nipple into my mouth.

  I sank my teeth into her tender skin and felt her body contract around my cock as she began to come. She bucked against me with abandon as each wave of her orgasm rolled through her. I stuffed my hands in her hair and tugged hard to force her to still on my cock as my release ripped through me, flooding her pussy as I groaned with relief.

  Fuck, this woman knew how to give a man what he needed.

  Tressa collapsed on top of me and made a sound like a whimper next to my ear. “That was incredible, Killian.”

  I ran my fingertips over her back as she continued to recover from coming. “I want you to know that was even better than when I fantasized about it.”

  Lifting her head, she looked down at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I fantasized about doing exactly that the night after the auction before I even formally met you. I told you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  A slow smile lit up her face. “You’re the first man to ever say anything like that to me.”

  Kissing her, I whispered against her lips, “Trust me. Other men have thought it too. They just didn’t have the balls to tell you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “That’s what you get with a confident guy. Confidence has its perks.”

  Closing her eyes, she nuzzled the space between my jaw and my neck and moaned, “Mmmm…I see that.”

  A few seconds later, she took a deep breath in and moaned again. “I need to know what cologne you wear. You smell delicious. It was one of the first things I noticed about you that night at the auction.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “I don’t wear any cologne. That’s all me.”

  Tressa sighed and kissed my neck. “Mmmm…”

  As we lay there naked in one another’s arms and me still inside her, it felt like Tressa had been a part of my life forever. I pushed her hair back and glanced down at her face. Her eyes closed, she looked so sweet.

  “I wish I’d grabbed our glasses before you went all Cro-Magnon on me,” she said with a smile. “I could really go for a drink of something right now.”

  “Me too,” I said as I started to move out from underneath her.

  But she stopped me, clinging to my neck and refusing to let me go. “Not yet. I can handle dehydration for a little while. Just stay here.”

  “Okay.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and heard her sigh next to me. I liked the fact that I could give her this momentary contentment I doubted she found much of in the rest of her life. Not that I was usually so interested in how anyone I slept with spent their time when I wasn’t around. As I lay there while Tressa traced her fingernail over my collarbone, I couldn’t remember anyone who’d made me care like she did.

  In a quiet voice, she whispered next to my ear, “I think you’ve hypnotized me or something. I’m guessing it’s your eyes. That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

  Sometimes she could be so cute.

  Leaning back, I lifted her head so I could see her face. She looked up at me with a dreamy feel to her eyes like I hadn’t seen before in her.

  “Why do you think I hypnotized you?”

  Tressa drew her eyebrows in toward her nose in an expression that seemed strangely unhappy considering the orgasm I’d given her and that she hadn’t wanted me to leave the bed just a minute ago. Confused, I waited to hear her answer as a lick of worry flickered inside my brain over what she’d say.

  “Because the Tressa I usually am would have never let you take me away. She would have never spoken to you again after the other night and that premiere. So I can only conclude you’ve somehow hypnotized me, and the only way I figure that could have happened is with your eyes. I thought they had a hypnotic quality to them when I first saw you up on that stage, so my guess is you did something that night and I’ve been under your spell ever since. I haven’t been able to determine how you keep me under it when you aren’t around, though, I have to admit.”

  I shook my head and tried not to laugh at how cute she sounded trying to understand why she was happy. “I don’t think I have that power, honestly. I have a lot of skills, but hypnotism has never been one of them that I know of.”

  She ran her finger over my cheekbone and pointed at my eye. “Well, there’s something going on because I don’t run off with men or give them second chances. Ever.”

  “Don’t think about it. Just enjoy it.”

  Rolling away from me, she turned her head so I couldn’t see her face clearly. “I can’t help it, Killian. That�
��s what I do. I think. It’s just who I am.”

  “Aren’t you allowed to have fun? There’s got to be room in your life for that.”

  I saw the corner of her mouth turn down, and she said, “I think I might be one of those people who can’t have fun. Not the way others do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Instead of answering me, she slid out from under the sheets and walked out of the room, mumbling, “Nothing. I’ll be back.”

  I lay there confused as to how that had all turned bad so quickly and wondering where the hell she planned to go without even a pair of underwear on her body. Looking around, I saw no way there could be a bathroom attached to this room. That must be where she went.

  And then a few minutes turned into ten and then fifteen minutes. She had no clothes on. Where the hell had she gone to? And what was that noise that sounded like someone had turned on a waterfall outside in the middle of the night?

  A quick walk down the hallway gave me my answers. The door to the bathroom stood open showing the light on, so I peeked in and saw her sitting in the tub, her arms hugging her knees as the water filled up around her.

  “Just figured it was time to grab a bath?” I asked with a chuckle.

  Tressa looked up at me and gave me a tiny smile. “I came in here to go to the bathroom and just felt like taking a bath. I never do, even though I have that gorgeous tub in my own bathroom. I’m always in such a hurry to get in and out of the shower every day.”

  Leaning up against the doorframe, I reminded her that wasn’t always true. “Not with me. We stayed in there until our fingers got all waterlogged.”

  “Okay, not always. I just wanted to take a bath.”

  “Sounds good. Move up,” I said as I stepped into the tub and sat down behind her.

  The warm water sloshed up around us and over the side of the tub as I stretched my legs out in front of me. Tressa stared back at me in shock.

  “What are you doing?”

  Gently, I pulled her back so she reclined against my body and wrapped my arms around her. “Taking a bath. Didn’t we just have this conversation? I’m beginning to think you have short-term memory loss, you know that?”