“Erica!” Blake’s tortured groan ripped from his lungs. The only sound that might have been heard beyond the walls of this room echoed off the walls as we both fell limp. Blake’s body covered mine as we struggled for breath. His fingers slipped from me, and my pussy fluttered around the hard cock still pulsing inside of me.
Buzzing and deliciously wasted, I faintly registered that we hadn’t been caught. The thought flitted away as Blake pulled out of me. A shiver ran over my exposed skin.
“Turn around. Let me clean you up.”
I pushed myself up and turned on shaky legs. I feebly held myself up by the table. Blake grabbed my panties from the floor. He cast his gaze down, focused on the task of cleaning my oversensitive flesh with the garment. I stared down at him, wanting to see his eyes but almost afraid to meet them after what we’d done here. If Greta only knew.
A knock at the door had me standing straight and shoving down my dress to cover my nakedness.
“Shit. Blake!” My voice was a panicked whisper.
“Relax. I’ll take care of it.”
He stuffed my panties into his pocket. He tucked himself away and buttoned his shirt. As he moved toward the door, I pushed away from the table, trying desperately to fix my totally wrecked hair. Frowning, he opened the door only wide enough to greet whoever was knocking, carefully hiding me from anyone’s prying eyes.
“Greta, I told you—”
She interrupted his berating tone with a quick apology, but her voice was so low I could barely hear it. Blake glanced back to me, his face revealing his agitation. He stepped out of the room without a word, leaving me to pull myself together.
* * *
I slumped into one of the chairs. Struggling to still the tremble in my hands, I tried to reason with the promise of danger that had sent my heart speeding and skipping. Fuck. Something about this time, apart from the others, had stripped me down in an entirely new way.
My body still hummed and ached where he’d been. Blake was right. Someone could have walked in at any time, and I wouldn’t have cared. Sometimes I didn’t recognize the person I’d become, the lover so enraptured with Blake’s touch, the way he challenged me in every way. He put me on edge, but I didn’t want it any other way.
I drew in a deep breath through my nose, determined to pull myself together. I’d triple checked my appearance in one of the room’s decorative mirrors. Time stretched on, and when Blake didn’t return, I ventured out. Greta sat stiffly typing at her desk. I wanted to ask where Blake had gone, but didn’t want to bring attention to anything she might have heard. My cheeks heated. I made my way down the hall to his private office inside the Angelcom building. I approached the door, open only a crack. Reaching to push it open, I stopped abruptly at the sound of a woman’s voice.
“When were you going to tell me, Blake?”
My stomach fell, my jaw clenched, and my already worn out nerves stood on edge. I knew that voice. I knew it, and I hated it.
Sophia.
“I told you this time would come. I didn’t think it would come as a shock to you,” Blake said.
“Then why did I have to hear it from Heath? You couldn’t tell me yourself? After everything we’ve been through.”
Blake sighed heavily. “You’re closer with him. I figured you’d want to hear it from him.”
“I was closer to you before you left me. Having Heath in my life means nothing when you’re not in it.”
Blake’s low tenor filled the momentary silence. “Don’t say that, Soph. Your friendship means a lot to him.”
“It’s about that little bitch, Erica, isn’t it?”
“Watch your mouth,” he growled.
“She’s making you do this, isn’t she?”
“I think we both know I don’t take orders from anyone, including you. You have all the connections you need. Your business has shown healthy profits for over two years. There’s no reason for me to stay invested at this point. We had an agreement, and it’s time for us to exit.”
“And what about us?”
The sharp edge of Sophia’s tirade had softened with these last words, tinged with enough pleading emotion to make my fingers ball into tight fists. I sent up a little prayer that Blake wouldn’t back down.
“What about us?”
She hesitated a moment. “She’s trying to keep us apart. Can’t you see that?”
Silence stretched over several seconds, the truth of her accusation settling into that space with absolute certainty. I wanted Sophia to finally have her claws out of Blake, and his connection to her business was the last thing tying him to her and their romantic history.
“This is the best thing, for everyone.” His voice had quieted.
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “Don’t let her do this to you. To us.”
“There is no us, Sophia. What we had is over. It’s been over for a long time, and you know that.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I’m better now. Just let me show you. I know what you need. This…what you’re doing for her...this isn’t you. You need a sub, someone who can appreciate everything you can give her. She needs a mentor, not a master. I need you, Blake. We need each other. Why can’t you see it?”
I heard movement and took a step back from the door. My imagination was spinning out of control, filled with wild scenarios of what was taking place beyond my view. Every vision involved Sophia, her hands on Blake, seducing him into succumbing to her desperate pleas. What if he weakened? She had a habit of touching him like she had a right to. But she didn’t. Never again would she have the right to lay hands on the man who would soon be my husband. I harnessed all my willpower not to barge in and tell her so.
“You need to go. It’s done.”
“What can she do for you that I can’t?”
Blake hesitated before saying his next words. “Sophia…we’re getting married.”
A heavy silence fell. I closed my eyes.
She didn’t know.
“When were you going to tell me?” Her voice trembled.
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
A short laugh escaped her, a delirious sound that made me worry about what she might do next.
“I guess not. So that’s it? She’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”
I read his silence as an affirmation. I prayed that it was.
“I imagine she’s come a long way since you whipped her then. Does she know about the club?”
“No, and she never will,” he shot back.
That soft, ingenuous laugh again. “You’re kidding me. You’re ready to spend forever with her, and she doesn’t even know who you are.”
“She does, trust me.”
“Don’t you think she should know?”
“Enough.” The word came out like a threat.
“Blake…” She was pleading again.
I imagined her on her knees, begging him, like the natural submissive she’d been for him. Ready to surrender everything to him if he’d only give in to her.
“You never gave us a chance,” she whispered.
“We never had a chance.” The low timbre of his voice was barely audible.
“Don’t do this to us,” she sobbed.
“Leave, Sophia. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
The movement came closer to the door, and I took a step back, my heart racing in anticipation of seeing Sophia in the flesh.
“Whatever you want, Blake, but I don’t think it’s this,” she snapped. “You’re going to regret this. We both know you will.”
The door swung open and she gasped. Her shocked eyes narrowed quickly, the bleeding mascara the only imperfection on her flawless face. Her pin-straight brown hair flowed over her shoulders and the top of her designer leather jacket.
“You.” The single word seemed to hold inside of it all of her spite. Tears shone in her eyes. Tears of frustration maybe, but whatever I saw there I recognized. A wild and untamed love. A love that b
reached the barrier of reason. “You’re the one he wants.”
“Leave, Sophia. Now.” Blake gripped the edges of the doorway behind her.
The look of pure disdain on his countenance both satisfied and sickened me. I wanted him to shun her. I wanted her to be the dirt under his feet. But I couldn’t deny that to have him look at me the way he was looking at her now would destroy me.
She took a quick step toward me, but I held my ground. As much as her words tore at me, threatening to expose every insecurity I had about belonging with Blake, I couldn’t let her see it. The man who could have anyone wanted me, only me. I lifted my chin, grateful for the heels I’d worn that gave me the height to look her in the eye.
“That’s right. I’m the one he wants. Now why don’t you be a good girl and leave?”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“He just did. Now leave us be. He doesn't want you here.”
A sneer marred the perfect planes of her face. “I made him who he is, Erica. The years that he was inside of me will be the years he’ll never be able to forget, no matter what you do. Think of that when you’re saying your vows.”
“Sophia!” Blake’s face twisted into an angry grimace as he took an intimidating step toward her.
Without looking back, Sophia disappeared down the hallway, leaving us there alone. I wanted relief, but rage and uncertainty rattled through me, making my hands tremble at my sides.
When Blake turned back into his office, I followed him in. I shut the door and leaned against it, needing its support. I stared at his silhouette as he looked out the window to the sprawling city skyline beyond.
I wanted to talk to him but wondered how I could possibly keep my emotions from bubbling to the surface afterward. I wanted him to make this right, to erase the terrible things that she’d said. Her words still stung, as if she’d physically hit me with them. The shallow part of me wanted to believe my words had done the same to her.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said.
“Why?”
He turned back, pinning me with the same green eyes that had me at his mercy only moments ago. “For her being here. For upsetting you.”
“Why was she here?” I had my suspicions, but I wanted him to confirm it. I needed to know they were done, completely and irrevocably.
“I’m pulling my investment from her agency, making her buy me out.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there you have it.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t?” I couldn’t hide the challenge in my tone. I didn’t want to hear regret.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It had to be done, sooner or later. Sometimes it’s just easier to appease certain people than to face off with them. She’s one of those people.”
“It’s better than being held hostage by her forever, isn’t it?”
“We’ll see. She’s used to getting what she wants.”
“What did she mean by...” I let out a breath, questioning how far I wanted to push him after the morning we’d already had. “The club,” I said quietly.
His eyes never left me. “What about it?”
I studied him. The twitch in his tightened jaw betrayed everything I’d heard, but he couldn’t possibly want to tell me.
“Tell me about it.”
He stalked closer, careful steps that brought us face to face. My back was against the door as he placed a flat palm beside my head. He towered over me, wordless empty seconds passing between us. “That place is in the past, and that’s where it’ll stay. Do you understand me?”
I took a few unsteady breaths. As much as I wanted to know, I questioned whether I should. “You can talk to me, Blake.”
His lips fell open a fraction. Filled with a nameless emotion, his gaze darted over me. Before either of us could say a word, he captured my face in his hands and melded our mouths together. His motions were rough, his lips a bruising force against my own, as if he were trying to erase the past twenty minutes. Maybe he was simply trying to erase the past. We could get lost that way sometimes, forgetting everything. But even his fierce passion now couldn’t overwhelm what had been said and everything I’d heard.
I pushed him back, ripping us apart. Jagged breaths burned through my lungs and tears threatened, a well of emotion that this morning had brought to the surface.
“Goddamn it, tell me.”
Adrenaline and love and the slice of fear that came with facing off with the uncompromising side of Blake pulsed through my veins. He curled his arms around my body, pulling me into a firm embrace that I was powerless to fight. His breath danced over my neck, his lips, softer now, almost resigned as they slid over my pulse. The tender way he moved over me almost demanded that I relax and stop fighting him. I weakened, wanting him to make this all right.
“Let it go. Please.” He brushed his cheek against mine. “Just let it go.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and held him back, wishing like hell that I could.
CHAPTER THREE
I stared out our bedroom window into the moonlit darkness. I replayed Blake’s conversation with Sophia in my head, over and over, like a track on repeat that wouldn’t stop no matter how much I wanted it to. I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, but I couldn’t forget the anger in her voice. Worse, the pain in it—an unsettling reminder that they’d loved each other once. That she still loved him.
And what the hell was the club? I’d thought of little else for the rest of the day but resisted the urge to ask him to tell me more about it. When it came to his past, I had to pry every painful detail from him. I planned to, but tonight I held back. A part of me didn’t want to upset him even more than Sophia’s visit had, but a deeper part of me worried about what I’d learn with the truth. Did I really want to know about this sliver of history that Sophia shared with him?
Still, I was about to become his wife, and I was haunted by the likely truth that she’d always know a side of him that I didn’t. That vast unknown was what kept me from sleep as the minutes and hours ticked by. Blake slept peacefully beside me. Moonlight cast shadows over his face. If I hadn’t memorized every beautiful feature, he might have looked like a stranger to me now, from this vantage, in the stark black-and-white of night.
Who was Blake…really? What made a man? What made anyone who they are at any given moment?
Blake was many things to me now. A lover, friend, a healer. A mentor too, yes. I cringed, hating Sophia’s derogatory use of the word. Who had he been for her? Had he changed so much for me? Would he resent it as our years together wore on? Forever was a long time.
For the first time in a long time, my visions of happily ever after were tainted with unwelcome possibilities. What if I married the man I thought he was, only to find he was someone else entirely? What would I do then? How on earth could I survive without him, or with him, knowing I wasn’t making him happy the way others had?
Blake stirred, momentarily pausing the incessant turning of my thoughts and the torturous barrage of doubt-filled questions assaulting my brain. He turned to his side, curling his body alongside mine. I stilled, hoping I hadn’t woken him with my restlessness. His bare arm wrapped around me, coaxing me closer until I could feel his heart beating against me, a slow steady rhythm.
“Love you,” he murmured against my neck. Seconds later, his breathing returned to its regular sleeping pattern.
I melted back into the welcome warmth of his chest and breathed out a heavy sigh. I wanted to cry then. I wanted to release all the terrible emotions Sophia had conjured. Why had I given her so much power over me? I had Blake’s love. He loved me. But…maybe she was right. Doubt resurfaced, making my reassuring affirmations seem childish and inferior.
Maybe I’d never know the man he’d been before or the feelings he’d harbored while they were together. I tortured myself with the thought until my body simply gave up in the early hours, leaving me barely enough sleep to stay
functional the next day.
In the morning, I sat at my desk, rubbing my tired eyes. I thought a new day might help. A fresh start and a clear head, except my head was foggy from lack of sleep. Blake and I had shared our morning coffee, but only a few words passed between us after I told him I didn’t sleep well. He hadn’t asked why. Perhaps he knew.
I tried to force my thoughts back to work, systematically weeding through the tasks of the day. Emails, meetings, getting everyone up to speed. Thankfully the business had been on track and prospering since our latest partnership. Alex Hutchinson, an accomplished tech CEO whose own e-commerce site dovetailed well with our focus on apparel, had taken a chance on me and the results were paying dividends for both our businesses. Thanks to Sid’s urging that we expand our reach and Blake’s introduction to Alex, we had been able to work out an arrangement where Clozpin referred more sales to his site and his promotions helped build the membership and traffic of ours. The result was that my business was now more than self-sustaining. I was on track to being able to return Blake’s initial investment sooner than I’d anticipated and still hold steady.
I looked up from the stack of papers containing August’s financials that I’d been working through. The clock on the wall blurred before coming into focus. Noon was approaching, as was my long-overdue lunch date with Marie. I’d considered canceling, but we really needed to talk about Richard. He was her boyfriend, but his role in the local press had become unsettling. As much as I wanted to put off our meeting, I couldn’t. I startled when the office phone rang.
A moment later, Alli poked her head around the partition. “It’s for you, hon.”
“Who is it?”
“Someone from the local news. Maybe they want to do a promo for the site? I would have fielded it but they specifically asked for you.”
“Okay, thanks.” I picked up the phone. “Hello, this is Erica.”
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