by Megyn Ward
Because we’re in another deserted corridor together. Behind another locked door and they’re no one here to see.
No reason for me to keep a clear head.
No reason to keep my hands to myself.
To follow my own rules about fucking customers.
“No.” She shakes her head at me, like she has no idea what I’m talking about. Like she doesn’t even know what champagne is. “No—I don’t care about that. I just—”
I reach up to slip my free hand into her hair. Wrap its rough, callused fingers around the back of her neck to pull her closer. I’ve obviously lost my goddamned mind. I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that I let myself touch her like this once. Let myself feel and want all the things that having her this close to me set free and I want to feel them again.
Because that sniveling little shit was right.
I want something that I can ever have.
Something that will never belong to me.
I want her.
I want Delilah in the worst possible fucking way and it’s that wanting that keeps me coming back for more. Why I won’t let anyone else in this fucking place deal with her or her ridiculous, bullshit behavior. Why I can’t seem to stay away from her. Why every lick of goddamned sense seems to leave me whenever I look at her.
I want her.
And it’s gonna be the death of me.
“This about your dickhead boyfriend?” I whisper it, my mouth brushing against hers with every word and I feel it underneath my hand. A soft fluttering inside her throat that makes me remember what it felt like to make her moan. What it sounded like when she wrapped the breathless push of it around my name. “Because he’s lucky I didn’t throw his rich, royal ass out the fuckin’ window.”
“Nik?” Breathless, she shakes her head again. “He’s not… I mean, no. That’s not…” Her wide-eyed gaze slips away from mine and settles on my mouth as the stain on her cheeks intensifies. “I’m just… I’m—”
“Don’t.” My grip around the back of her neck tightens when I say it and I use the hold I have on her to push her back against the door we just came through. “Don’t say it. You’re not sorry, Countess. You don’t feel bad for the way you treat me. You don’t regret the trouble you cause. You don’t—so don’t insult me by pretending you do, okay?”
Her mouth hangs open for a second before it snaps shut and she looks up to pin her sky-blue gaze to mine. “I wasn’t going to apologize.”
“You sure about that?” I feel the corner of my mouth lift in a humorless smirk. “Because it sounds like you were about to apologize for being a pain in my ass for the past six years.”
Those perfect blue eyes of hers narrow slightly and god help me, the insolence she aims at me goes straight to my cock. I go thick and hard in an instant, so fast the sudden rush of blood south makes me a little dizzy. “Well, I wasn’t,” she tells me, her chin cocked at a stubborn angle. “Because I’m definitely not sorry.”
I don’t know what it is—the defiant jut of her jaw. The way her gaze finds its way to my mouth again. Goes soft and cloudy when she realizes how close I am. Her refusal to admit that she regrets her own bad behavior, muddled with the fact that she wants me every bit as I want her.
I don’t know.
But whatever it is has me digging the pad of my thumb into the soft curve of her chin so I can angle it even further, exposing the long line of her neck. “Good…” I murmur it against her jaw, skimming my lips along the line of it. Scraping my teeth along the tendon strung tight beneath the delicate skin of her throat. “I’d hate to think you were going soft on me, Ms. Fiorella.” I whisper it in her ear, giving its lobe a hard nip with my teeth that sets another one of those fluttering moans of hers free.
“As if,” she bites back, even as she brings her free hand up to spear its fingers through my hair where they curl into a fist against my scalp. “If you think—”
I still have a hand wrapped around her wrist and I use it to turn her hand between us, pressing her palm against her bare leg. “You don’t care what I think,” I remind her, drawing her hand up to trail her fingers along the inside of her thigh. “To you, I’m just a dumb lug with too many muscles and not enough money.” Pushing her hand and mine past the hem of her ridiculously short dress, I skim my lips against the soft patch of skin behind her ear. “I don’t matter, remember?” Fingertips shaped around the back of hers, I press them against the damp stretch of silk that covers her pussy. “I’m nobody.”
“Yes…” I don’t know if she’s agreeing with me or if she’s giving me permission to touch her and I don’t care. Not right now.
Finding the hem of her panties with her fingertips, I nip her earlobe again before I press a soft kiss against it. Slipping my fingers past hers to curl them around their edge, I pull them to the side, exposing her to the cool air of the stairwell and she whimpers in response. “Touch yourself.”
“Yes…” she says it again, no hesitation as her fingertips slide over the back of my hand to skim themselves along the seam of her wet, swollen pussy and she gasps softly at the contact.
“Are you wet, Ms. Fiorella?”
“Yes…”
“Who are you wet for?”
“You.” She pants it softly, her face turned into my neck so the warm spill of it tingles against my skin. “I’m wet for you…”
Christ.
This was a mistake.
I can feel the fingers I have wrapped around her panties start to tremble and ache. That’s how hard I’m holding on to them. Hard enough to hurt because if I let go of them, I’ll touch her and if I touch her now, I won’t stop.
Not until I’m inside her.
Not until she’s coming on my cock and screaming my name.
“Deeper.” I growl it against her throat, my grip on the back of her neck tightening when I feel her comply. The hand pressed between her thighs, brushing against mine as she pushes her fingers past the slick fold of her cleft, giving herself a slow, deep stroke. “Again.” I lick my way to her ear, the movement made painful by the clench of her hand wrapped in my hair. “Do it again. Fuck yourself for me.”
“Ohmygod.” The words are pushed out on a long, shuddering moan as she does exactly what I tell her, pumping her fingers in and out of her pussy while she grinds the heel of her hand against her slick, swollen clit in tight, hot circles that take her breath away. “I—”
“Do you feel that?” I lick and nip my way back to her mouth. “How hard you’re about to come?”
“Yes.” She whimpers again, the hand between her legs moving faster. “Yes…”
“For who?” I growl it against her mouth, the hand I have gripped around the crotch of her panties clenched so tight I can feel the delicate silk stitches holding them together start to loosen. “Who are you about to come for.”
“You,” she moans softly, eyes closed. The long sweep of her lashes fluttering against flushed cheeks as the orgasm building in her core begins to tighten and heat against the base of her spine. “I’m coming for you…”
I thought it would be enough.
I thought hearing her admit it would calm the firestorm of madness and lust raging inside me.
I thought it would be enough.
I was wrong.
“Look at me.” I couple the demand with a harsh nip of teeth against her lush lower lip before smoothing it over with a gentle brush of my tongue. “Open your eyes and look at me, Delilah.”
Her lashes flutter again as she struggles to show me the dull, cloudy blue of her eyes. As soon I see them aimed at me, feel the weight of them settled against my own, I feel it again.
I know it, as certain as I know my own name.
This was a mistake.
There’s no backing away from this.
Even if I stop now, there won’t be any walking away.
Not from this.
Not from her.
It’s already too late.
I’m already lost.
&n
bsp; And I don’t even fucking care.
“Say my name.”
“Gray.”
As soon as she says it, I kiss her. Take her mouth with a demanding sweep of my tongue, pushing past her slightly parted lips to claim every cry and moan she makes as she comes, her thighs trembling against my fist as heat and sensation spirals and shakes its way through her body.
THIRTEEN
Delilah
I FORGOT ABOUT NIK.
I forgot about the flowers and the giftbox sitting on my dining room table.
What’s waiting for me inside it.
I forgot how scared I’ve been.
How anxious and out of control the last month has made me feel.
I forgot about all of it because Gray is here. He’s with me. His hands are on me. His mouth and tongue working against mine and it feels exactly how I remember it.
Like a punishment.
Like worship.
He said my name.
He hasn’t said it in years.
Not since the night I kissed him. Since the night I teased and goaded him into kissing me and touching me back.
Say my name, Gray… say my name.
Since then it’s been either Ms. Fiorella or Countess.
Ms. Fiorella for the sake of propriety. When we’re in front of my friends and he knows he’s being watched and listened to. Countess when he’s had enough of my shit and drags me into a dark club corner to read me the riot act or tosses me into the back of my limo when he’s really reached his limit and sends me home for the night.
Both are always delivered in a deep, sardonic tone that tells me what he really thinks of me. What he really wants to say.
But when he says my name, my real name, it comes out different. He says it softly. Quietly. Like he’s afraid of the sound it makes when he says it out loud.
Like he’s cursing himself with it.
Like whispering it in my ear is an act of worship.
I want to ask him to say it again but I don’t. I know he won’t because he already regrets what just happened.
Already wishes he could take it back.
Somewhere below us a door opens and the sound it is like a starting pistol that jolts Gray into action. As soon as he hears it, he opens his fists. Untangles his hand from my hair. Jerks the other one from between my legs like he’s been burned. Suddenly he’s gone. As far away from me as he can get, that same what the fuck did I just do look on his face.
Just like last time.
“Hey, Boss,” someone shouts up the stairs. “You up there?”
Something that looks like shame passes over his face, his Adam’s apple bobbing and scraping a trail against his throat. “Yeah,” he calls back loudly, dark gaze nailed to mine. “I’m here—what’s up?”
“I’ve been calling you on comms but—”
“Battery pack died—what’s up?”
“Oh…” He sounds confused. Like letting his battery pack die is not something Gray would do. “Mike is here…” When the guy downstairs says it, Gray scowls. “He’s drunk and—”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Gray says, the scowl on his face dug in deep. “Keep him corralled until I get there.”
“You got it, Boss… you seen Ms. Fiorella? A few people said she finally showed up but no one can find her.”
“Nope.” The scowl deepens into something closely resembling a snarl as he stares right at me. “And as long as she isn’t setting any fires, I don’t really give a shit where she is.”
The guy downstairs laughs. “Copy that.”
The door clangs shut and relocks automatically.
“Fix your dress.” He says it quietly, his dark gaze sliding past me to fix itself to the wall behind me. Because even though we’re alone again, he’s still afraid that someone will hear him. Know he’s talking to me. Figure out what just happened between us. Because my dress is hiked up around my waist and my soaking wet panties are jerked to the side and he suddenly can’t stand the sight of me.
“No.”
My refusal is enough to yank his gaze back to mine and narrows it considerably. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.” I repeat myself even though I know he heard me just fine. “You made the mess—you clean it up.”
As soon as he understands what I’m saying, what I’m implying, his shoulders go stiff. His jaw clenches so tight I can practically hear his teeth crack. “Look, Countess—”
“My name is Delilah,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest to keep myself from yanking my dress down like he told me to. “Not Ms. Fiorella. Not Countess—Delilah. And I’m prepared to stand here all fucking night, just waiting for someone to take the stairs.” This is a staff only corridor. A series of locked doors that lead to various parts of the upper-level VIP area with a stairwell at the end of it that leads to the club’s lower level. A staff member could open any one of these doors at any given moment and the first thing they’d see is me, basically naked from the waist down and their boss standing over me, only a few feet away.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what happened between us.
“Okay… Delilah.” My name scrapes and cuts its way up his throat—all curse. No worship—as he reclaims the space he put between us. “You win.”
He’s standing over me again, close enough to touch and I drop my arms away from my chest like I’m going to but I don’t. Not because I don’t want to. I want to. I want to touch him but I can’t because he doesn’t want me to. Might break into a million pieces if I try.
“I don’t…” As soon as I say it, his shoulders go tight and I switch tracks because he knows what I’m about to do. That I’m going to apologize for the way I behave when I’m here and he doesn’t want to hear it. Not from me. “Nik is an asshole. He shouldn’t have said those things to you,” I say, the last of it getting lost on a breathless shudder when I feel the rough glide of his callused fingertips against the inside of my bare thigh. I don’t expect him to answer me. I expect him to yank my panties back into place and jerk my dress down over my ass so I don’t embarrass him. So he can pretend what happened didn’t happen.
Just like last time.
Instead of ignoring my carefully routed apology like I expect him to, Gray gives me a quiet chuckle that surprises me. Pulls my gaze up to his face to find him looking right at me. “As much as I wish he was wrong, we both know he isn’t…” The fingers between my thighs brush against my still sensitive pussy and I have to lock my throat against the soft intake of breath that the skim of them sets loose. “Most nights, it’s all I can do to keep myself from dragging you into the closest dark corner, yanking your skirt up and fucking you unconscious and unfortunately, I’ve never been good at hiding the way I feel—not like you.” Finding the edge of my panties, Gray slips his fingers beneath it and looks up at me through his lashes as he gently moves them back into place. “You’ve got them all fooled—the whole world into believing that you wouldn’t give a lowlife piece of shit like me the chance to lick your shoes, much less lick anything else. It makes me wonder what your fiancé and the rest of your entourage would think if they knew the truth.” He keeps watching me while he smooths the damp crotch of my panties into place with the back of his fingers, the firm press of his knuckles drawing a slow trail of desire from my swollen clit to my throbbing entrance. “That you want me, every bit as much as I want you.”
He’s wrong.
There’s nothing even about this thing between us.
I don’t want him as much as he wants me.
I want him more.
Instead of admitting it, I clear my throat and look away from him. “He’s not my fiancé. Nik—he proposed on New Year’s Eve but I told him no.” I don’t know why I say it. Why it’s so important for Gray to know the truth. Not just whatever tabloid fairytale that the bottom feeders are using to sell their magazine’s this week. “I broke up with him six months ago. We aren’t together—haven’t been together for a while.”
The corn
er of his mouth kicks up into a smirk. “Does he know that?”
“Knowing has never been Nik’s problem,” I tell him quietly. “Accepting is a different story.”
The corner of his mouth turns downward and his gaze goes flat, the light in his dark eyes winking out in an instant. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’s used to getting what he wants.” I look away from him, my brow furrowed slightly. “Doesn’t like to be told no.”
“Well, maybe the problem isn’t about his willingness to accept no for an answer.” Now Gray scowls at me, his hand moving from between my thighs to work with his other one to pull my dress down over my hips. He doesn’t have to pull too far. It’s short. So short I’d flash my ass at anyone who was looking if I bent over. Dress in place, Gray moves back, away from me. “Maybe the problem is that he’s getting mixed signals.”
“Mixed signals?” I drop my own arms to jerk my hemline as close to my knees as I can get it. “Why? Because I dress like a slut? Because I like to—”
“What?” He jerks back like I took a swing at him. “Seriously? No—the way you dress isn’t a signal. It’s a personal choice—one you’re allowed to make, ten times out of ten, without worrying about what sort of signal some asshole picks up because of it.” He shakes his head and looks away from me. “The mixed signals comes from the fact that you invited him here.”
“No, I didn’t.” When all Gray does is continue to stare into middle space, I shift my stance, angling myself into his line of sight. “I didn’t invite him here,” I tell him because it’s true. I didn’t. “I don’t even know how he got in.”
“He got in because he was on the guestlist—” He nails me in place with a hard look. “I know he was on the guestlist because I saw his name with my own two fucking eyes.”
Liz.
She must’ve added him to the guestlist, even though I made it pretty clear I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
Before I can explain, my phone vibrates in my clutch. It’s been blowing up all night. People wanting to know where I am. When I’m going to get here. What I’m wearing. Where I’ve been. It goes off again almost immediately.
