The Redemption

by Nikki Sloane

  Sophia’s body went limp, relaxing into the mattress as she descended out of her euphoria and back to me. Her eyes blinked open, but they were foggy and unfocused, and then fluttered shut.

  I didn’t like the loss of our connection. I leaned over, placed my hands gently on the sides of her face, and held her head still so I could hover a breath away. “Open your eyes,” I demanded. “Watch me.”

  She obeyed, and her blue eyes peered up into mine, sharpening into focus as I began to move, gradually building my pace back up until sparks crackled inside my body, threatening to ignite. I wanted her to see what she did to me. I liked watching her come apart, and so it stood to reason she’d feel the same.

  We stared at each other with such intensity, it was as if nothing could make us look away. Blood roared in my ears, but the heat building inside me burned away all my fatigue. The raw need to find my end inside this girl and share myself with her was all that mattered.

  A groan welled up from my chest, my muscles corded, and the pleasure became a force I could no longer hold back. It ruptured and broke free, flooding my limbs with electricity that was both scorching hot and ice cold in the same instance.

  My gasp was loud and my movements erratic while my cock throbbed and filled her in blissful spurts, diminishing in intensity with each one.

  I stilled, took in a preparing breath, and lowered my mouth to hers.

  Her kiss was more powerful than I could ever hope to be. It wiped my mind clean of thoughts and doubt and whispered promises. It seduced and disarmed. And in my weakened state, I let it in, believing all it had to say.

  We can find a way to make this work.

  Our bodies cooled as I kept her trapped beneath me, my mouth roving against hers. I despised wasted time, but that wasn’t happening when our lips were locked together. Time seemed to stop altogether, anyhow.

  Eventually, I relented and withdrew, letting her up, but my gaze tracked her, watching carefully in case she was plotting her escape as she disappeared into the bathroom. I’d already told her she would stay the night with me, and I had meant it exactly as I’d said.

  It would be nice to share my bed with someone instead of an overly affectionate and persistent cat who had decided he owned me, and it wasn’t the other way around. I’d had the staff keep my door shut tonight and make sure Lucifer wasn’t inside so Sophia and I wouldn’t be treated to his scolding lecture of meows when we arrived.

  She shut off the bathroom light as she emerged back into my bedroom, and her footsteps were quick as she went to the pile of clothes I’d left discarded on the floor. She plucked out my white shirt and had one arm in a sleeve before she abruptly stopped.

  I’d told her she was to remain naked for the rest of the evening, and perhaps she was recalling that now. Or maybe she worried she hadn’t asked permission. Her back was to me, and I admired how stunning she looked as she turned over her shoulder to speak.

  “Do you mind if I . . .?”

  “No.” I didn’t mind in the least, and it was a cliché for a reason. The possessive streak inside me responded eagerly to seeing her in my shirt. While she’d been gone, I’d gotten into bed, my back against the upholstered headboard and the sheets across my lap. My gaze went to the empty space beside me. “If you’re cold, there is a blanket here.”

  She finished buttoning the bottom few buttons on the shirt, the sleeves far too long on her and the cuffs unfolded, but the way she looked was incredibly appealing. Her hair was tousled, her makeup softened and smudged, and she was—for lack of a better word—glowing.

  I’d done that.

  And after we had a few hours rest, I’d do it again, no matter how sore we both were in the morning.

  “You sure you want me to stay?” She glanced away, hesitant. “You don’t seem like the type of guy who wants to cuddle after.”

  I tilted my head to level a hard look at her. “Get in my bed, Sophia.”

  She moved swiftly, sliding in beneath the sheets and laying her head on the pillow, then stared up at me like I might change my mind at any moment and ask her to leave. It bothered me. All the careless boys she’d been with before had shaped her view of sex, including what happened afterward, and I was determined to change that.

  “Will you sleep?” she asked softly.

  “Yes.” A faint smile crossed my lips. “You’ve successfully worn me out.”

  I undid the clasp on my watch and slid it off my wrist, but she reached out and pulled it from my fingers. She studied the face then turned it over, reading the inscription on the back. “It’s about time. Love, Julia.”

  An uncomfortable sensation banded across my chest as I took the watch from her and deposited it on my nightstand.

  “A gift from my first wife. It was an inside joke,” I explained, although I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the way she stared at me with questions hiding in her eyes. “Julia didn’t like me very much when we first met. She thought I was quite arrogant.”

  Sophia feigned shock. “No.”

  I ignored her sarcasm and pressed on. “That didn’t matter to me. I’d decided fairly quickly that I wanted her, and even though she’d tell me she hated me every day, I didn’t give up.”

  Her eyes widened. “She said she hated you?”

  “My competitive nature means I will use any means necessary to win. She claimed some of my tactics were . . . unfair.”

  Distrust filled her expression. “Like what?”

  “She’d been dating someone else at first. When I’d offered him ten thousand dollars to walk away, he did.”

  Dismay ran visibly through her. “You paid her boyfriend to break up with her?”

  “I did her a favor. If someone had made me the same offer, I would have refused. There was no amount of money that would have made me leave her, and certainly not ten grand. He was a fool not to see how priceless she was.”

  “Oh,” she said, her outrage fading somewhat.

  It’d taken Julia weeks to speak to me after that, but I’d stayed committed. The man she’d been with moved on quickly too, confirming my suspicion that their relationship hadn’t been serious. It didn’t exonerate me completely, but I had no regrets.

  “It took her some time to forgive me. So, I bet her that if I could beat her in a game of trivia at the bar, she’d let me take her out.” All these years later, the memory still caused a smile. “I’d rigged it, of course. I paid the host earlier to give me the questions.” I’d done it for a solid month until she’d taken me up on my wager.

  Faint amusement lit her eyes. “Scoundrel.”

  “I convinced her to date me, and a few months later, when she finally admitted she was in love with me, I didn’t say it back. My first response was to tell her—”

  “It’s about time,” she finished.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled and mashed her pillow down so she could look at me better. “That’s a nice story.”

  It was. “I’ve never told it before.”

  I was glad I’d shared it with her, and it appeared the same was true for her. Sophia’s expression was soft and warm. “I don’t really remember her,” she said. “What was she like?”

  We’d just slept together, and procedure dictated I not speak about past lovers. “You don’t want me to talk about her.”

  She frowned. “I asked, didn’t I?”

  I shook my head to placate her. “She was a lot like you, actually. Not intimidated by me, even when she should have been. She enjoyed getting under my skin.”

  “I am intimidated by you,” she grumbled. “I’m just good at pretending not to be.”

  I gave a knowing smile. “And also like you, she was well liked. Friends with everyone who met her.”

  I hadn’t expected my statement to fall as flat as it did. Her gaze dropped from mine, staring vacantly at my chest.

  “I’m not like that.”

  Was she thinking about the father who refused to acknowle
dge her? Her parents? Tate Isaacs, who slept with her then cruelly brushed her aside? I wanted her mind off them. “You have dozens of friends. Hundreds, even.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Not really.”

  “Every event since you’ve been my assistant, I’ve watched as people gather around you.”

  “They don’t count,” she scoffed. “I mean, sure. I’m popular. But those people don’t give a fuck about me.”

  “What about Marist?” I countered.

  Sophia’s lips pressed together. “We’re not friends.”

  “You were in her wedding.”

  “Because I’m useful. If anything, she sees me as a frenemy and goes the whole ‘keep you enemies closer’ route.”

  What? How could that be?

  I must have appeared confused because she continued. “If we were really friends, don’t you think she would have told me the story about the time she almost died?”

  I inhaled a deep breath. “She wasn’t allowed to. I forbid it.”

  She hesitated. “Can I ask what happened?”

  It was becoming easier to share secrets with her, but this one carried a heavy amount of shame. “When Alice learned of my infatuation, she saw Marist as a threat, and . . . she poisoned her. Had I not discovered Marist dying on my staircase, it’s possible Alice would have succeeded.”

  Sophia sat upright in her surprise, turning to face me. “Wait, what?” I watched as she put the pieces together. “The allergic reaction Marist had before the wedding, the one that put her in the hospital.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand. You stayed married to Alice, like nothing happened.” Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t Marist go to the cops?”

  “Because the Hale family couldn’t be involved in that kind of scandal, and she understood that.” The irony wasn’t lost on me that had I done the right thing then, I would have avoided everything that came after, and it was possible I’d still be CEO and Alice would be alive. My legacy wouldn’t have been dragged through the mud.

  “But,” I added, “it was not as if nothing happened. She was punished and banished from the house. Alice and I had been over for years before that incident, but that was the day she knew she had truly lost me.” I swallowed a lump in my throat, wanting to justify what I’d done. “You need to understand, I aspired to sit on the board of the Federal Reserve, and I couldn’t risk divorce. She had the ability to ruin me, and at the time, that was the only thing that mattered. My name was everything.”

  It still was now.

  And it was likely hard for Sophia to hear. The name she had wasn’t her own, and the one she deserved wouldn’t be granted to her.

  The judgment in her eyes was intolerable, worse than two years of wearing state-issued clothes and having every decision taken away, and although I didn’t deserve it, I craved relief.

  “Tell me the truth,” she said softly. “It will be our secret.” She leaned close and set her hand on my chest, the heat of her palm soaking through like it could melt the ice in my heart. “Did you mean to kill her?”

  I stared into her eyes, wishing I had a confident answer, but since I didn’t, I’d give her what I could—the truth. “I don’t know. Everything on the balcony is hazy in my memory, and those final moments are . . . gone.” I set my hand on top of hers, pressing it harder against my skin, like I was swearing it to her. “I hope I didn’t. I want to believe I’m not a man capable of that.”

  She evaluated me with a critical gaze, and it stripped me bare. There weren’t any secrets left to hide from her.

  “I don’t think you are capable of that,” she whispered. “At least, not anymore.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  SOPHIA

  Macalister woke me in the morning by rolling me onto my back, unbuttoning his shirt I was wearing, and then he went down on me. He brought me to orgasm with both his tongue and two fingers inside me, and when I was a quivering mess, his steely eyes filled with power.

  “Up,” he ordered. “On your knees and face the wall.”

  He didn’t leave me time to catch my breath, but I scrambled to follow his command. I buried my knees in the mattress and stared at the headboard, tracing the nail head detail at the edge while he yanked the shirt down off my shoulders and tossed it away.

  His damp mouth was hot on my neck as his chest, faintly dusted with hair, bushed over my back. Goosebumps lifted on my arms, and my nipples hardened into points while his hands roamed over my body. They closed on top of my hands, lacing his fingers through mine, and I surrendered to his direction. I moved under my master’s power as he lifted our arms and slammed my hands to the wall just over the headboard, making me bend at the waist.

  It was uttered sternly in my ear. “These stay here.”

  I shivered with anticipation. His dick was hard, jutting against my back, and he rubbed it provocatively over my ass. Teasing. Promising. He unlaced our hands and dragged his palms along my arms, his fingers trailing over my skin like he wanted to assess each goosebump he’d given me.

  Up his hands moved to my shoulders, they smoothed down my back, gliding even slower, and I arched into his touch. The sensation of it pumped fog into my mind and steam into my body.

  “Fuck me,” I whispered.

  The heat of him went away, and his tone was frosty domination. “You do not tell me what to do.”

  He had me addicted to him already, and I was jonesing for my next fix. It made me desperate and reckless, and I affected a patronizing voice. “Sorry, Daddy.”

  Fire cracked across my ass, the pain of it registering a split-second after the sound of his skin striking mine. Holy fuck, that spank was serious. I gnashed my teeth to hold in the groan.

  Anger filled him, so hot I could sense it without even looking at him. Each of his words were deliberate. “Do not call me that.”

  Would he do it again if I did? Give me a matching red handprint on the other side? Excitement bubbled over. “Okay . . . Daddy.”

  It stole all my breath when he slapped the other cheek. Pinpricks tingled across my skin.

  “Enough.”

  I pressed my hands hard against the wall and turned over my shoulder to look at him. He stared at my ass like a man transfixed. He put a palm over the irritated skin and gripped a handful, clearly enjoying the way my red bottom looked in his hand. When his gaze lifted to me, he scowled, upset I’d caught him looking.

  I swallowed so hard he must have heard it.

  “Don’t,” he warned.

  But his dick was hard and throbbing, and the fire in his eyes was beautiful, and I couldn’t stop pushing him even if I’d wanted to. “Please, Daddy.”

  He grabbed the back of my neck with one hand and clamped down on my waist with the other, flattening his chest to my back. “You want to be punished, little girl, is that it?” he snarled. “I can accommodate.”

  He wasn’t gentle or slow as he entered my body. I was impaled. His cock roughly split me in two as he pushed his way inside without regard or apology.

  “Fuck,” we groaned together in our pleasure.

  My eyes pinched shut, and with my vision gone, it made space for him to completely take me over. He was deep inside my body and my mind, and if I wasn’t careful, he’d force his way into my heart too.

  His hands were rough and his hips rougher as he fucked me. His teeth latched on to the spot where my neck met my body, biting until it ached. I clenched down with the muscles inside me, squeezing every drop of enjoyment from him I could.

  “You like this?” he taunted. Or perhaps he was asking for real. It was impossible to tell over the violent slap of his body against mine and his ragged breath heaving into my ear.

  “Yes,” I sobbed.

  The electric charge of him sizzled through my system, overloading it. It grew more intense when his hand on my waist was shoved between my legs, touching us where we were connected. He found my clit and rubbed furious circles on it, and a tr
emble snaked up my legs.

  Moans poured from me, growing shamefully loud. Would his staff hear them?

  My arms were already shaking, fatigued from bracing myself to the wall against his aggressive, unforgiving thrusts. White flashes burst behind my closed eyelids. Oh, God. He was going to make me come again, and in this position, where his cock seemed to go on forever, I wondered if it might kill me.

  Pain radiated down my scalp as he snatched a handful of my hair and jerked my head back onto his shoulder. His tone was sinister, sliding into my mind like a knife. “You like the way Daddy fucks you?”

  Without warning, my climax slammed into me, causing my arms to buckle, and I collapsed forward, face-first into his pillow. But Macalister didn’t stop. He followed my descent and drove into me, riding my orgasm and using it to propel him into his own. He clenched a hand on my ass as his shuddering gasp punched the air in the room, and he held on to me even after the pleasure waned, leaving us panting for breath.

  “Jesus.” He pulled out of me and moved to my side, gathering me up into his arms. “Are you all right?”

  I stared up at him in my dreamy state, confused. It was easily the best sex I’d had in my life, so, yeah. I was more than all right. I reached up, wiping away the bead of sweat that had formed near his hairline. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  His eyebrows pulled together. “That was rougher than I’d intended.”

  I said it like an apology. “I pushed you.”

  “You did.” His gaze washed over my face, searching to see if I’d lied to him and he’d accidentally hurt me. He traced a fingertip over my forehead, brushing the hair back out of my eyes, and his tender gesture after such aggression was shocking.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Surprise flitted through his expression. “No. I was worried you would be with me.” His eyes went unfocused as he stared at my lips. “I have no business having sex like that.”

  I blinked, and then a grin widened on my face. “Oh, so you didn’t like it?”

  His attention snapped back to me. “That is not what I said.”