I, however, was an employee of Phyrefly Aviation. And I intended to use those gates to get the hell away from Tom.
“Devon, wait. Please!” I slowed, gritting my teeth as I did. “Can’t we at least go for a coffee, to talk?”
He made it sound so reasonable, like I at least owed him that much. And maybe I did. I found myself spinning back around and striding toward him, though my every step felt as though I were slogging through mud.
“Make it quick, Tom. I have to get back to work.” Without waiting to see if he was following or not, I reentered Higher Grounds.
I still wanted my coffee, dammit. I was going to need it to get through this clusterfuck of a day.
***
I watched as Tom stared out the window of the coffee shop, his mouth agape at the couple who had just walked by. Two women held hands, one a tall, attractive blonde dressed in a neatly cut business suit, the other a petite girl with her hair dyed bright blue, the dye job accented by the rings that pierced the skin of her ears, nose and eyebrows.
“What the hell kind of city is this to live in, Devon?” He turned to face me with no surprise, but plenty of disdain, and I bristled. I loved the vibrancy of San Francisco, loved that everyone in the city seemed comfortable in their own skin.
Though the city wasn’t that far from Sacramento geographically, it was worlds apart in every other way.
I wasn’t quite in the San Francisco mindset yet, but I was working on it.
“Tom, hurry up. Please.” The longer I sat there with those calculating eyes of his assessing me, the closer I came to reverting to meek, compliant Devon, the one that even Tom, the most vanilla man I had ever met, had become bored with.
I felt as if I were stranded in the choppy waves outside of Zach’s house, trying to keep my head above water.
“When are you going to drop this nonsense and come home, Devon?” Settling back in his chair, Tom sipped at his coffee with a casual air.
I placed my own coffee on the table and stared at him, knowing that incredulity must be written all over my features. I stared, waiting for him to explain further.
He seemed annoyed when I didn’t answer right away.
“Tom, I left you a note. I told you I was leaving. Given the situation in your apartment when I left the note, I think you’re fully aware of why I left.” I watched as Tom became visibly irritated, setting down his coffee cup hard enough that the steaming liquid splashed out of the small opening in the lid.
“You can’t possibly be serious, Devon.” There was that disdain again, and anger began to simmer in my core. “I let you have some time away, since you clearly needed to . . . deal with the situation. I even convinced the other partners to hold your job for you. But they—we—are expecting you back.”
Time to deal with the situation? Was he serious? I barked out a laugh, and then another. I felt like I should be furious, but it became clear to me in one crystalline moment that this man wasn’t worth so extreme of an emotion.
“We’ll get married, Devon. Next year we’ll buy a house. That’s our plan.” Tom looked incredibly puzzled that I wasn’t falling into his arms. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Tom, you are delusional.” Sitting forward in my chair, I looked him over thoroughly. He was good-looking, in a bland way, but what I now saw in his personality made him seem thin and weedy to my eyes.
Even if I hadn’t met Zach, hadn’t had my eyes opened to the vitality of a real man, I couldn’t picture myself married to this poor excuse for a human for the rest of my life.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have left the way I did. But you cheated on me. Cheated on me, Tom! You fucked someone else.” Tom reared back at my profanity, a word I probably wouldn’t have used weeks earlier.
I didn’t care. I was on a roll.
“I deserve more than that, Tom.” I couldn’t quite put a name to the emotion that I was feeling as I pushed my chair back from the table. “And I don’t want to see you again.”
“Devon.” Tom caught me by the wrist before I could leave. I looked down at his hand clasped around my wrist, its touch slightly clammy against my dry skin.
I felt nothing. No heat, no despair.
Just nothing.
“Get your fucking hand off of her.” The growl from behind me could have come from a wild animal. I yanked my arm free of Tom’s grasp and spun, adrenaline slicing through my veins like a knife, my heart in my throat.
Zach towered over nearly everyone else in the small coffee shop, taking up more than his fair share of space in that way that he did. Though he was still dressed in his fancy suit, the green tie that he wore that day as tidy as always, his stance and his expression spoke of danger as he glowered at Tom.
Here, I thought, was everything that I had been searching for. Here was everything that Tom and I hadn’t been.
Though I at least knew Tom well enough to see the anxiety travel through him, he retreated into the uptight persona that he had perfected. Not bothering to stand, he still tried to look down his nose at Zach.
“Who are you? More of the hired muscle?” To my surprise Zach laughed then, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Even as his lips curled upward, he looked capable of murder.
I was appalled to find myself thrilling to the barely restrained violence in him. Whatever was running through his mind, it fed some need deep in my soul. I wasn’t proud that I found I liked being able to evoke such a visceral reaction from him.
“That wasn’t a joke.” Clearly—finally—feeling threatened, Tom stood. Next to Zach he looked almost like a child, weak and immature.
“I didn’t think it was.” Zach held out his hand for me. Instead of grabbing my arm like Tom had done, he gave me the choice to put my hand in his. Though I was stunned at the intensity of his reaction to the strange situation I had found myself in, I didn’t have to think for even a fraction of a second.
I took his hand, and allowed myself to be drawn to his side.
Tom smiled nastily, and I shuddered. I had almost moved in with this man—if I hadn’t walked into that apartment right when I had, I likely would have married him.
“I see how things are.” My ex had the nerve to size up Zach as if they were equals. I bit my tongue, though I wanted to tell him that they weren’t even playing in the same game.
Tom was television in black and white. Zach was high-definition, big screen, surround sound.
“Watch how you talk to her.” Zach’s voice was quiet, and I was sure that I alone heard the threatening undercurrents running through it. I reached out, placed a hand on his bicep and squeezed in warning.
This didn’t need to become violent.
Tom ignored Zach, and I bit my lip, afraid of what was to come.
“You have some nerve, walking away because I was with someone else when you’ve been doing the exact same.” Tom’s eyes flicked from Zach to me and back again, as if trying to understand how the two of us could possibly be together.
If I had had any lingering feelings for the man, they would have died then and there. How could I—why would I—be with a man who didn’t believe that I was worthy of the world?
Tom moved to grab me again—for a lawyer, he was not very bright. Zach grabbed his hand in midair, his massive palm swallowing Tom’s smaller one as he squeezed slowly.
“It takes a lot to make me lose control, Mr. Cambridge-Neilson.” I watched, dumbfounded, as he slowly increased the pressure that he had on the other man’s hand. I was somehow not surprised that Zach knew my former boyfriend’s name. Tom howled like he was being beaten. The others in the cafe were silent, watching the spectacle as intently as if they were part of it. “But I find myself dangerously close right at this moment. Now, listen carefully. You do not touch Devon. You do not speak to her. No calls, no text messages. Nothing. In fact, don’t even come into
this city if she is in it.”
Ron and another of the guards came up behind Zach, but they stayed back, waiting for their boss to give them the signal. Tom took in their approach, had to know that he was beaten.
He just wouldn’t back down.
“You’re messing with the wrong person, pal.” How had I never noticed how nasal his voice was? Trying to yank his hand from Zach’s grip, he grew red in the face as Zach held on just a moment too long, proving that he was the one in control. “I’m a lawyer. I’m going to sue you for laying hands on me.”
Tom didn’t even look at me. His campaign to get me to return home had ended, overtaken with thoughts of himself and his own fragile ego.
“You’re going to be sorry.” Tom stalked forward, assuming, it seemed, that Zach would move out of his way. He didn’t, and Tom had to skulk around Zach inelegantly. “Does your boss know that you treat people this way on his property?”
Turning with an almost lazy air, Zach finally nodded at Ron. The two security guards immediately flanked Tom, who squawked, and began to hustle him out of the coffee shop.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Zach didn’t bother to reply, instead watching as Tom was escorted to the front doors of Phyrefly. Just before ejecting him from the building, I saw Ron shake his head, and heard his comment.
“That’s Zachariah St. Brenton, numb nuts. He owns this company, this building, and half of the freaking country. Ever heard of him?”
My last view of Tom was one that I would remember, as he stared with wide eyes and an open mouth, silent for the first time since I had met him. As he left, I felt lighter, as if he was taking some of my baggage with him.
That lightness vanished as I slowly became aware again of my surroundings. I looked around and found that Higher Grounds was still silent, everyone to a man staring agog at the spectacle that was Zach and me.
Zach looked down at me, and I read barely banked fury on his face.
“Come with me.” The words were bitten out from between clenched teeth.
“Now.”
Chapter Three
The elevators at Phyrefly were designed to hold twenty people at a time, comfortably.
As I followed Zach into the sleek interior, however, it felt very small. Too small to hold the two of us, especially if all of our issues were going to come along for the ride.
The silence was heavy, and I felt like I was going to choke if I had to breathe this weighted air in for even a moment longer.
“You didn’t get your coffee.” I blurted this out as I stood beside Zach, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. The inches between us seemed like miles. Were we never going to figure out how to manage this thing between us?
He looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues.
“I didn’t come for a coffee, Devon.” The emphasis that he put on the word coffee went a long way to giving me an insight into his thoughts.
He had come for me.
But how had he known that I was with Tom?
“How—” I stopped before the words left my lips. Phyrefly Aviation was ripe with security cameras.
I may not have known Zach very well, but I did know that he was far too controlling not to have access to those cameras 24/7.
I wasn’t sure if I should feel flattered or angry that he had been watching me without my knowledge.
I looked up to find his eyes trained on me, his expression daring me to make an issue of it.
“I keep a very tight hold on what I consider mine, Devon.” His words tipped me over that last edge into anger.
All of my life, I had had very precise expectations placed on me, and I had always felt that I had fallen just a bit short. I had thought that Zach might be different, for he seemed to like me just the way I was. And yet here we were, my billionaire lover furious at me for breaking rules that I hadn’t even known were in place.
“I’m not your property, Zach.” I shivered with both lust and fury when he stepped closer to me, his pupils dilating until his eyes were pools of black. “All I did was have coffee with an ex. Now, because of that meeting, I have some closure.”
“You’re too good for that asshole.” Reaching out, he pressed his hand over the place where my heart had begun to beat triple time.
My eyes widened, and I arched into his touch, closing my eyes, savoring the sensations that besieged me.
He pulled his hand away as if I had burnt his fingers, settling that mask of distance over his features again.
“Anyone is too good for him, actually. I can’t believe he’s ever had a girlfriend.”
My heart sank at the casual words.
For a moment . . . for just a moment, I had felt special. As if Zach was angry at Tom because Tom had once had me.
His words made me wonder all over again if I meant anything to him at all—or if all he wanted was the comfort he found between my thighs.
“Don’t think you can control me like you do everyone else.” I muttered the words below my breath, certain that he wasn’t even listening.
I gasped when I was pushed against the wall of the elevator with just enough force to get my attention. Zach’s hand cupped my throat, just under my jaw, and pressed gently.
“No, I can’t control you, Devon.” His powerful touch was calculated with just enough force to make me work harder to have to draw in a deep breath. “But I can impose consequences when I don’t care for your behavior.”
I should have shoved at him, told him to get away, broken things off then and there. I was getting tired of his hot-and-cold behavior toward me. Instead I found slickness pooling between my legs, my clit heating with anticipation.
In that moment I discovered that I trusted him implicitly—with my body, at least. And I couldn’t resist the surge of passion that ran through me as I saw how he looked at me, touched me with such strong desire.
A siren sounded as Zach removed the heated touch from my throat and slammed his palm against the red emergency button on the panel. The elevator ground to a halt, and, after he retrieved a key card from his pocket and waved it in front of the sensor, the siren halted, the air ringing in its aftermath.
I barely had time to register that he had halted the elevator between floors and seemingly locked it in place. When Zach spun me to face the wall of the elevator, I nearly lost my balance. I pressed my cheek against the cool chrome of the wall, the flush of my skin warming the metal.
My hands were pulled gently but firmly behind my back as Zach whispered my name seductively in my ear. Something soft and lacy was wrapped tightly around my wrists, binding them together at the small of my back.
“Your skin looks lovely against black lace.” Zach’s voice was rough, silk over gravel, as he whirled me around yet again. I leaned back against the wall, my arched back thrusting my breasts and their erect nipples forward, an offering for him.
Black lace. Oh, Lord.
He had tied me up with my own panties.
“Does this turn you on?” His voice was matter-of-fact, as though he already knew the answer. And as I pulled at my bonds, examined the anxiety that being tied gave me, I saw that he was right.
My anger at him had nothing to do with the way in which he was touching me now—in fact, the uncertainty and anxiousness brought about by his physical demands made me want him with an abandon that I hadn’t been aware I possessed.
I trusted that he wasn’t going to push me further than I wanted to go, physically.
Emotionally . . . well, I was still figuring that one out.
My pulse exploded when Zach—big, gorgeous Zachariah St. Brenton—dropped to his knees in front of me. Hooking his fingers into the cloth of my skirt, he impatiently tugged it up until it was bunched around my waist. His hands cupped the backs of my knees, then slowly slid up until my buttocks
were grasped, and he kneaded with firm fingers.
“Open your legs.” I wanted to obey. Heaven knew it was to my benefit to do so. But I found myself so overwhelmed with sensation that I couldn’t move, frozen in place against the wall.
“Consequences, Devon.” Then those strong hands slid forward, over my hips and between my thighs, shoving my legs apart with a roughness that I knew would leave a bruise.
I thrilled to the edge of violence in his handling of me. I was wet, my skin hot, my body trembling.
“I’m going to have your pussy.” With his thumbs he delved between the lips of my labia, opening me to the world. I shivered when the cool air hit my clit.
Zach lowered his head, blowing heated air over my tender flesh. I cried out, my hips bucking forward, and earned a sharp smack on my hip for my impatience.
“This isn’t for your benefit.” I couldn’t imagine how it could be for the benefit of anyone else when he closed his lips over the extended bud of my clit. A wail escaped me when, without warning, he closed his lips and his teeth over the sensitive nub and began to work me with the skill of a confident lover.
Though he was clearly upset with me, I thought I saw the ghost of a smile whisper over his lips at my heated reaction to his touch.
I struggled against the fabric that held my arms behind me. I wanted to fist my hands in the wealth of his dark hair, wanted to pull his face even closer. Not being able to touch the gorgeous creature who was tonguing my pussy was torture.
The thumbs that had been holding me open slipped inside me, just enough to stretch the tender flesh and make me buck my hips forward. I felt release circling like a hungry shark, so close to its prey.
Zach took me to the very edge, right to the moment before my flesh began to spasm with pleasure, and slid his thumbs out of my slick heat in the same moment in which he removed his lips from my clit.
“No!” Frantic, I stepped away from the wall and pressed myself against him shamelessly. I wanted—needed—his heat, his fire. I almost sobbed, my legs shaking, when he pushed me away, again turning me so that I faced the wall.
Surrender to Temptation Part III: Tempted to Obey Page 4
