by Myra Scott
He kissed me, sending spirals of pleasure down through my core. I leaned into him, not wanting to let go for even a second. When we broke apart, Luke was giving me bedroom eyes. Without wasting another second, I called over the waiter, Luke paid the bill, and we were tumbling out the door in under five minutes. Luke hailed a cab and we piled into the back seat, kissing and groping each other with desperation. During the ride to his place, we very nearly ripped each other’s clothes off, but we held it together just long enough. When we reached his apartment building, Luke thrust a wad of cash at the driver and helped me out of the car. He was gentle but strong, all but carrying me into the building. He led me to the elevator, and as soon as we were inside, he pushed me against the wall and kissed me deeply, just like he had that first night we met.
The doors dinged, and he pulled me down the hallway, taking just a couple seconds to unlock and open his front door. We spilled into the apartment, still clinging to each other as he flipped on the mood lighting. He led me past the small but elegant sitting room to his bedroom, turning on a stereo to pump some soft jazzy music through the air. He cradled me back down onto the bed, careful not to hurt my leg as he set my crutches aside and sank down to the floor, kneeling between my legs.
I could scarcely remember to breathe as I gazed down at him. He met my eyes, asking a silent question. I nodded. Luke cautiously unzipped my jeans and took them off along with my boxers and shoes, paying close attention to not hurt me in the process. It tweaked my leg, but I held it together, not wanting to dispel the mood. My cock sprang free, stiff and ready. Luke wrapped his fingers around my shaft and began to stroke slowly at first, then faster. I tilted my head back and groaned as he lowered his head down, opening his mouth to pull my length between his lips. He sucked softly, teasing me. I reached down to rest my hand on the back of his head, guiding him to keep going. It felt so fucking good. I hadn’t had a mouth on my cock in a decade, not that I wanted to tell Luke that.
“Just like that,” I murmured roughly.
He hummed his approval and moved faster, bobbing up and down on my shaft while my hips twitched involuntarily, fighting the urge to lose control and fuck his mouth hard. His tongue swirled around the head of my dick while his hand expertly stroked me up and down, bringing me closer and closer to the edge. I whimpered as he moved faster and sucked harder, glancing up at me with a mischievous glint in those gorgeous eyes. But just before he could take me all the way, he pulled back and stood up, unzipping his tailored pants and stripping out of his clothes.
I watched him intently, my chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. I could hardly stand it. I wanted him close to me, touching me, always. I couldn’t resist him. I reached up for him as he all but tore my shirt off of me before bending down to kiss me. I could taste myself faintly on his lips, his tongue. He cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs running over the prickly stubble on my jaw. I pushed him back gently, and he stood up straight again, looking down at me with a question in his eyes again.
His cock was nearly at my mouth already, and I couldn’t wait any longer; I needed to taste him. I reached out to wrap my hands around the backs of his powerful thighs and hold him steady while I pulled his thick, hard length into my mouth. Luke gasped and shivered with pleasure as I sucked him in, taking him all the way down to the hilt until I was nearly gagging.
“Fuck, that’s so good,” he growled. “You’re going to make me cum if you’re not careful, Casey. And I still want to fuck that tight little ass.”
Reluctantly, I pulled back, licking my lips. Luke grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back onto the bed, carefully climbing on top to straddle me without hurting my leg. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly. I could tell he wanted to grab me and fuck me mercilessly, but he glanced at my bandaged leg with worry.
“Fuck me like this,” I said, and wiggled away from him to lie on my stomach. I looked back to see him grinning, eyeing my ass with desire. He took me by the hips and pulled me back so that I was nearly hanging off the bed, lifted me to push two thick pillows underneath my belly, and then strolled over to his bedside table. He slid open a drawer and took out a small bottle of lube and a condom. I watched with impatience as he rolled the condom onto his massive cock, then slicked lubricant all over the protected length. He squirted more of the lube onto my tight pucker. I gasped at how cold it was, and he chuckled.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to take good care of you. I’ll warm you up,” he said.
Luke began to circle my asshole with two fingers, playing with the sensitive ring of nerves there, making me moan and tremble. He was teasing me again, making me want him. Need him. I knew he was worried about hurting me, but I wanted to beg him to just skip the niceties and shove his cock inside me.
“Just do it. Please, Luke. I need you to fuck me,” I pleaded.
“I will,” he said. “But I want you good and ready when I do.”
I sighed as he slid two fingers inside me, shocks of pure pleasure radiating through my body. I could feel my whole frame tensing up as he fingered me, stretching me wider and wider to accommodate his huge dick. But I wanted him to split me in half. I wanted him to fuck me until it hurt. Luckily, Luke seemed to be getting as impatient as I was.
“God, I can’t wait to slide my cock into you, Casey. Your ass is so fucking tight. You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he groaned.
I didn’t know what possessed me to say it, but I blurted out, “Gorgeous? Me? Not with this damn scar on my cheek.”
Luke bent over, arching over my back to kiss me on my left cheek, right on top of the jagged scar. He whispered into my ear, “I meant what I said, Casey. You’re gorgeous. And I want you so goddamn bad.”
Without another second to waste, he slowly nudged his cock deep inside, still bent over me, his breath hot on my neck. I let out a cry of mingled pain and pleasure, closing my eyes and giving in to the throes of bliss as he fucked my ass hard and fast, just like I wanted him to. Luke pounded into me, kissing my back, my shoulders, my neck. The engorged head of his shaft speared into my prostate again and again, making me whimper and moan with overwhelming pleasure. I gripped the sheets tightly as he fucked me, holding on for dear life.
With every thrust, my own cock rubbed against the slick satin sheets, and the combination of Luke slamming into my prostate and the sheets stroking my cock brought me all the way to the brink. “Oh, fuck!” I cried out, coming all over the bed, all over my own stomach.
“Oh yes, come for me, baby,” Luke growled between gritted teeth.
I was trembling and moaning, having a nearly out of body experience while he fucked me harder and faster, losing control himself. With a few more short, passionate thrusts, he came inside me, pumping the condom full of his sticky seed while he kissed my spine and held me close. He rocked his hips a few more times, then collapsed on top of me, the two of us panting together in tandem, feeling so close and secure, like I had never felt before.
God, I was really falling for him, wasn’t I?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - LUKE
My eyes cracked open the sweet, blissful morning after.
And the second I checked my phone, all those wonderful feelings evaporated as my heart rate doubled.
I’d overslept much later than I usually did, and in the early hours of the morning, Laura had blown up my phone with calls, texts, and emails in a panic. I only had to skim them to realize what was happening.
There was a surprise meeting being held at the Sentry, organized at the last minute with a handful of the most important executives at the casino—not including the four owners. And one name kept showing up as the one leading the show.
“Bryce,” I growled as I sat bolt upright in bed, the sheets falling off me as Casey turned over and gave me a sleepy smile.
“Hm? What?” he said as he realized I was nearly shaking with anger. I jumped out of bed and hurried to get my clothes on, moving fas
ter than I ever had before. “Luke, what’s going on?”
“I have to get to the Sentry, about an hour ago,” I snapped as I buttoned my shirt up and looked Casey in the eye. “Bryce is leading a fucking coup at the Sentry.”
“What?!” he said, getting out of bed and getting dressed with me. As a fireman, I shouldn’t have been surprised he was even faster than I was.
“I can’t fucking believe I slept this late,” I said. “Bryce is holding a meeting with some of the other executives—they’re trying to pin the responsibility for the fire on me ahead of time, since we don’t have a suspect for the arson yet.”
“What?!” Casey said as I finished getting dressed, and he followed me as I rushed to the door. “But the four CEOs, they have your back, right?”
“They might, but if they get enough pressure from the media and the other executives, I won’t have a choice but to resign,” I rattled off in a hurry, opening the door and turning to him. “I have to get down there and stop this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Casey blurted out. I started to protest, but he cut me off. “You don’t have time to argue.”
He had me there, and I gave him a curt nod.
“Then buckle up.”
I’d never raced to work this fast. I even left my car with the valet, which I never did, and Casey and I scrambled to the elevator.
In the elevator mirror, I had only a minute to straighten my hair and pop a few breath mints.
“Don’t kick yourself,” Casey said, apparently reading my mind. “You had no idea this was going to happen, sleeping in isn’t something you should blame yourself for.”
“Easy to say,” I murmured.
The doors were only half-open when I squeezed through them and raced to the conference room door…
...and it swung open before I could reach the handle, and I was face to face with Bryce, who stood there holding his briefcase in hand and smirking in mild surprise at the sight of me.
“Ah, good to see you decided to get out of bed today, Luke,” he said. “You’re a little late, I’m afraid. Oh, but while you’re here, you might want to update that CV of yours. I believe the executives found my report quite...persuasive.”
My fist clenched, and I felt every impulse in my body wanting to deck Bryce right then and there, but I felt a warm hand on my forearm. It was Casey, giving me a gentle squeeze to hold me back. I glared at Bryce as he brushed past me, followed by a small crowd of older men and women who I recognized as either other PR and marketing executives or shareholders in the casino.
It was a room full of the second most important people at the Sentry besides my four friends, and I wasn’t even around to defend myself to them.
Laura was the only friendly face, and she emerged last, looking haggard and exhausted, and she winced when she saw me.
“Laura,” I said, stepping into the now empty conference room and pulling her and Casey in with me. “What the hell happened in there?”
“A massacre,” she said ruefully. “Where were you, sir?”
I felt a pang of guilt, but I just shook my head. “That doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry you were alone for this, just... just tell me the damage.”
She ran a hand through her hair and took a breath. “Bryce called a snap meeting to discuss progress on the investigation. I tried to point out that we had leads on what might have happened at the concert, but Bryce just kept everyone’s attention on the fact that we don’t have a suspect yet. He made it sound like we never would, and it was a liability issue that you were responsible for.”
“So even if I’m not to blame, I’m the closest thing they have to a scapegoat to show the media,” I said, rubbing my face with my hand. “Goddamn him. I knew he had it out for me, but I never thought he’d pull a stunt like this. Smart move, too.”
“The guys won’t fire you though, right?” Casey reiterated, looking scared. “Zane, Mick, all of them; they know you’re innocent, right?”
I didn’t reply at first. I looked to Laura gratefully.
“Laura, thank you for being here. Take the rest of the day off. You deserve it. Yes, I’m sure,” I added when she opened her mouth to argue, and she nodded.
“Yes, sir. I’ll have my phone on,” she added, and she left me and Casey alone.
I looked to him with an even, honest gaze.
“They might not want to, but Bryce pulled a clever move here. At this point, if we can’t figure out how that malfunction happened, I’m the nearest thing to a guilty party the media will have. I’m one giant liability at that point. No, they probably won’t ask me to step down, but they’ll feel pressure from literally everyone else to make me do that. And I won’t let that happen. If I can’t get this sorted out, I’ll have to resign, because I won’t let the Sentry go through this crap all on my account.”
“Luke…” Casey started, but I stopped him, putting one of my hands on his cheek.
“Casey, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days, but I want you to know that I love you.”
The words were like thunder, and Casey was struck to silence for a few moments.
“I know this is rushed, but I want you to know that before shit hits the fan,” I said. “And I understand if you need time, but if things get hard, I don’t want that left unsaid.”
Casey was silent for a long time, looking at me in disbelief.
Then he ripped the Band-Aid off.
“I have to go,” Casey said.
I never knew four words could hit me so hard.
But just like that, Casey was looking as uneasy as he was the first time I saw him, and he hurried out of the conference room, leaving me alone.
I stared at the wall a long time, trying to process whether that had really just happened. What had I done? Did I rush it too much? Was I in a dream? Was this real?
But it was real. Too real.
My life was falling apart around me, and now, I had nobody to turn to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - CASEY
The next day, I was a damn mess of a person. I hadn’t slept a single wink all night, with all my stress and worry just hovering on top of me like a sack of rocks. I couldn’t believe how much of an idiot I had been with Luke. Once again, I had acted like a fool and possibly pushed away the one man I had ever felt such powerful feelings for. What the hell was I supposed to do now? How many times could I turn tail and bolt away from this man before he finally just gave up on me altogether?
So far, this morning I had just been moping around my apartment like a useless lump, agonizing over whether or not to call Luke and apologize. Or maybe just hop in my car, drive away, change my name, and start over in some podunk desert town where no one would find me. The embarrassment and regret were rising up and threatening to drown me, and I had nobody to blame for this catastrophe but myself. I was the idiot. I was the one who didn’t know how to react appropriately to someone being nice to me, to someone offering me love. Wasn’t that what we were all after in this life, anyway? True love? So why the hell did it scare me so much? What in the world was I so afraid of? What was I running away from?
As of yet, I had not discovered the answer. Instead, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring down at the hardwood floors intently, lost in thought and just blindly hoping that a good solution would occur to me like divine inspiration. But at the moment, all I was getting was a hard blank. I groaned and cradled my face in my hands.
“Damn it, Casey. This is why we can’t have nice things,” I muttered to myself. “Fucked it all up again, just as things were starting to go well.”
Just then, my phone started buzzing and I nearly fell off the bed in my haste to pick it up. I slid the screen open with my heart pounding, thinking it might be a message from Luke.
“Hello?” I said feverishly.
“Hi, darling!” chirped my mother’s c
hipper voice. I sighed.
“Oh. Hey Ma,” I replied.
“Well, no need to sound so disappointed,” she scoffed. “Might just hurt my feelings!”
“Sorry, Ma,” I said quickly. “I’m not disappointed, I swear. I love talking to you. It’s just that… I was kind of expecting a call. Well, hoping for one, more like.”
“Ooh. From whom?” she quipped, brightening up at the prospect of some hot new gossip or something. I smiled wryly, glad that she couldn’t see my face right now.
“Nobody. Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine. Just fine, honey. But I have the day off and I’ve been up since dawn cleaning the house and listening to some old records and I thought to myself, ‘wouldn’t it be lovely to talk to my amazing son’? So here I am,” she explained cheerfully. “How’s your leg, sweetie?”
“It’s good. Well, not good. It’s okay. Getting better by the minute,” I said.
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Casey. You’ve always been a quick healer, you know that? Remember when you were eight years old and you fell into that ravine while you were riding your bicycle around the block? Oh, I was so scared. Just petrified. I thought for sure the doctors were going to tell me you’d never walk again or something. But the EMTs plucked you out of that ravine, cleaned up that awful booboo on your knee, and you were good as new! Only needed—what was it? Four stitches? Hardly anything at all. You were so tough. Didn’t even cry. You know, I told your father you might be too afraid to try riding your bike again but wouldn’t you know it, within a few days you were right back on the road, riding around like nothing bad had ever happened at all. My little warrior, since the very start!”
I chuckled. “You have a good memory, Ma.”
She giggled. “Only when it pertains to stuff like that. It’s a mother’s memory, dear. I might forget my own phone number from time to time, but I will never forget the big smile on your face as you hopped back on that bike and took off.”
