“It’s less of what happened that I’m apt to share at the moment,” he said, backing me up toward his desk without laying a single hand on me. “And more of how it made me feel.”
Shit. “Do you need to have a session?”
Not really the time to poke at the beast, but I never could help myself when it came to him.
And, as often happened when I poked, I was rewarded. I fought not to purr as his hands gripped my hips, his touch sending electric pulses to my core and warmth up through my chest.
God, it had been so long. I wanted to lean in. Wanted to cling. Wanted to urge him to touch more.
Turned out no urging was needed. “I believe a session isn’t necessary.” He pressed his body flush against mine. “I can already succinctly articulate the emotion.”
Delicious chills ran through me as he slanted his mouth toward my ear. “It feels,” he said in a husky baritone, “like I’ve been fucked in the arse. By my wife.”
My mouth fell open, my body ready to protest before my mind had strung any defense together.
He pushed tighter against me, pinning me with his hips while also showing off an impressive erection hidden inside his Brioni suit. Vaguely, I was aware of him reaching across the desk for the bag he’d set down earlier, then fully aware when he dug inside and pulled out a bottle of generic lube.
“I thought it only fair to reciprocate,” he said.
Adrenaline shot through my system, my heart palpitating as I understood his intent. “Now...Edward…”
No words came after that because I wasn’t all too sure what it was I wanted to convey. I needed a second to think.
But he didn’t give me any time at all.
“Turn around.” He was already guiding my body to do as he’d commanded.
I was halfway turning, so used to surrendering when he took charge, then came to my senses. “Wait. I’m…”
I blinked up at him, unable to finish this sentence as well.
His eyes connected with mine, serious and seeking. “Are you telling me to stop?”
I should have.
I should have stood my ground, pushed him off of me, and said This is not happening, no fucking way.
But I was scared. Not because I thought he’d force himself on me, but because I was afraid that if I protested, he would stop, and while I was also very intimidated about what he apparently wanted to do to me, I was desperately wanting him, in any way he’d give himself.
Especially if he planned to give himself on his terms. That air of danger and dominance exuding from his every pore was not a detriment but, rather, a bonus.
Instead of responding with words, I simply finished turning around and leaned my palms down on the desk, readying myself for whatever he wanted to give, be it pain or pleasure or some cruel combination of the two.
“Good girl,” he said, stroking from the collar of my dress down my spine, like he was petting a beloved animal.
I arched into it, seeking more as he continued over my ass, squeezing one cheek before gathering my skirt up at my waist. With one hand, he wriggled my panties down until they were stretched taut across my thighs then stepped back to admire the view.
He emitted a throaty, “Mm,” a sound I echoed when he touched me, a single finger tracing my cunt. I was embarrassingly wet, dripping without any more stimulation than that. Eager, too, my hips pushing back, urging his finger inside me.
He granted me the smallest dip only to bring it back out almost immediately, trailing my wetness up to the hole above it, the rim that had never been breached, not in this direction anyway.
He worked himself in with his thumb, if I had to guess from the shape and curve of the rest of his hand on the flesh nearby. The tracing of this hole elicited a different reaction from me. It wasn’t exactly unpleasurable. In fact, it felt kind of nice, though, also foreign, and while my body knew what it wanted from a finger at my cunt, it didn’t quite know what to do with one in my ass. Should I lean in? Should I pull away?
Currently, I was frozen in place, and that wasn’t doing much for me.
But then his hand was gone from my ass, and he was slanting over my body, his mouth at my neck. “Who do you belong to?” he asked.
And even though I’d heard him and knew exactly what he wanted to hear in return, I said, “What?”
His hand came up to collar my throat, firmly, but not threateningly. More possessive. “Who. Do you. Belong to?”
It was a thinly veiled request of consent, maybe because, while I hadn’t told him to stop, I also hadn’t told him to go on. I hadn’t given him an outright “okay.” It was admirable that he needed that from me, I supposed, though I didn’t believe he would ever actually force himself on a woman, despite his tendency to dominate and control.
I also didn’t suspect that was all this was about now.
He knew it would be easier for me to “let” it happen and maintain the right to resent him for it later. It gave me both my cake and the eating of it, and that was way too much for Edward to ever let me have.
If I wanted the cake, I had to own the cake.
And that meant answering his question with yielding honesty. “You.”
I could feel the whoosh of hot air as he sighed into my nape. “Say it again.”
“I belong to you, Edward.”
I didn’t have to say any more for us both to understand my meaning. I was his to do with as he pleased. Because I wanted to be his. Because I trusted what he’d give me. Because I needed it, too.
With my consent given, he went into action, moving his hand from my throat and standing straight up. I glanced over my shoulder to see what he was doing.
“Eyes forward,” he ordered.
I lingered, watching as he undid his pants, pushing down his boxer briefs just far enough to bare his steel column of flesh. It was hot, as always, his cock impressive to look at as well as be fucked by, but knowing where it was going this time, it was also a bit intimidating.
Maybe that was why he’d wanted my eyes forward.
I shivered and turned back to the desk, leaning down on my forearms. I had a feeling I was going to need the support.
He reached for the lube next. I watched from the corner of my eye as he flipped open the lid with one hand and pulled it out of my view. A tickle of wet down my crack told me he’d poured some there. His thumb returned to push some liquid inside before his touch disappeared again.
Then I could hear the slick sound of moisture and skin as he applied it to himself. I remembered watching him the other day, staring at his hand gliding along his cock, and imagining it now behind me made a fresh pool between my legs.
Cold pressure against my tight rim snapped my thoughts back to the present, to the foreign sensation at my backend and the visitor who wanted in. My muscles stiffened, my breath caught in my lungs, as I waited for the part that came next. The shove forward, the pain that would undoubtedly accompany it.
But it didn’t come.
His tip stayed poised at the entrance—the exit?—while, once again, his palm traced down my spine, soothing me. Settling me.
“Touch yourself,” he said sharply.
“I can’t.”
“I’m not asking.”
I shook my head and bit my lip. “I don’t want it to feel good.”
It wasn’t as though I thought I deserved to be punished. I’d done what I’d done for good reason, and however it had turned out in the end, I had no regrets.
But I also knew that Edward wanted me punished, and I wanted to be us again, and if giving him this could pay for what he perceived I’d taken away, then I would give it absolutely, with complete capitulation and trust.
From the low groan he gave at my words, he not only understood but appreciated it.
“I’m not sure right now if I want it to feel good for you either, but the fact remains that I will tear you apart if you don’t relax, and I certainly don’t want that.” This time he moved my hand down for me, using my fingers
to caress the blazing bud of nerves, held them there until he felt confident about my finger strokes.
Then his fingers were inside me, in my cunt, pushing in from behind. He crooked them to massage against my G-spot in exactly the right way, the way only he’d ever discovered, and within several seconds, I relaxed into him, pushing my hips back, begging for more.
He took advantage of my ease, and slipped the tip of his cock inside me, stopping when he got to the tighter rim inside.
“Keep rubbing,” he commanded.
I hadn’t even noticed I’d stopped. I’d been too focused on the new sensation at my ass. His cock, it turned out, felt definitely bigger than his thumb. Like I-do-not-know-how-this-will-ever-fit big, and panic tensed my shoulders. Rubbing myself didn’t seem to help. I was too busy concentrating, too distracted to feel anything good.
Edward’s hand disappeared from my cunt, more liquid trickled in around the head stuffed in my ass, then his hand returned to mine, shoving it out of the way so he could swirl firm circles over my sensitive bud.
Yes. Just like that. Yes.
I’d forgotten how good he was at working my clit. Bodies couldn’t remember sensation like that. Like pain. I could remember that I liked it, that it was really, really good, but I couldn’t remember the exact feeling.
And the feeling was fucking fantastic. My back arched, and I moaned.
He leaned over me again, and sprinkled kisses at my neck while pushing his cock back and forth against the tight ring inside me. Wanting blatantly to be in.
Rather metaphorical, I thought abstractly.
“You spoke to him,” he said, low and urging. This wasn’t a question, but the next part was. “In person or on the phone?”
That’s what this would be then? An interrogation? I was glad, at least, that he didn’t say his name. It didn’t belong in this act, though even keeping his name out of it, he was still here, between us. As he had been for so long.
I hung my head, resigning myself. “In person.”
“Did you play the seductive role or the dragon?”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“You know what I’m asking.”
I did, but the question irritated me. “I didn’t try to seduce him, Edward. His brother was there, and even if he hadn’t been—”
My words cut off as he inched farther inside me. Not a lot, not the whole of him, but his crown had definitely breached that rim.
He stayed there, still, letting me get used to it as his fingers worked magic, going back and forth from my clit to my cunt. Discomfort morphed with pleasure, and pretty soon I couldn’t tell if I loved his cock in my ass or I just tolerated it.
Just when I decided it was definitely more on the love side, he shoved in all the way, filling me completely.
Holy.
Mother.
Fuck.
I felt filled. Overwhelmed. Full of Edward in every possible way—in my ass, in my cunt, in my head. In my belly, where our baby reminded me of her presence with a gentle flutter. He was all-consuming, and I never felt closer to him or more taken over or more on the verge of...something...something unnamable, and all of it was so fantastic and thrilling and new and painful and it terrified me to tears.
“Play with your nipples. Breathe.” He was insistent but reassuring, and without even thinking, I complied, brushing the flat of my palm across my clothing, which was enough to stimulate my breasts these days.
And I breathed. A deep in and out followed by another. And another.
Then everything knotted inside me relaxed, and he was still there—still so completely there and everywhere—but it was no longer unbearably oppressive. Now it was fascinating and tremendous and even a little comforting and a whole lot of wonderful.
“There you go. Like that. Just like that.”
He started moving, slowly. With short, delicate thrusts that sent shivers down my spine, made me warm and flushed and disoriented. Spun me up toward orgasmic euphoria.
I was in this blissed-out stupor, dazed by feeling so much in so many places at once, when his interrogation resumed.
“You saw him, his brother was there.” He nipped my ear before going on. “And you said, ‘Please don’t let my husband have your company. Give it to someone else. Anyone else just not him.’”
“No!” He shoved harder, or in my alarm, I’d pushed back on him, and now I wasn’t responding just to his accusation but to the throbbing heat inside my rear. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, no.” Then I worried he’d think I meant no to the action, which even at its most overwhelming, I didn’t want to stop. I tried again. “Oh my God that’s intense, and no, I didn’t say anything close to that.”
“What did you say?” His voice was hypnotic as was his rhythm, steady and pulsing, somehow hitting that tender spot deep inside me from the other side. Stars spread across my vision. A sonorous hum vibrated in the back of my throat.
“I said I knew.” I had to close my eyes and take a second so I wouldn’t explode. Once I caught my breath, I rushed on. “I knew he wouldn’t give it to you. So I asked him to help make whatever he decided look like my father’s idea.”
Edward slowed ever so slightly. His hand tangled in my hair, smoothly before giving a rough pull. “You weren’t out just to fuck me?”
Does he really think…?
I was on the verge of coming when I got it. Got why he was giving me this aching pleasure when he was so entirely incensed with what I’d done, not just now but the whole last six months—stopping my birth control, running away, refusing to give up A’s name.
He wasn’t just angry. He was also impressed.
He wanted me to submit to him, and I did, but he also wanted me to challenge him, and I did. And maybe it was like how I enjoyed being scared of him as much as I enjoyed being cared for, two opposing emotions that pulled and tugged and stretched and made him crazy and confused and basically fucked. No wonder we’d been at such an impasse—his battle was with himself as much as it was with me, and what was he supposed to do with that?
There wasn’t much I could do for his personal wars.
That didn’t stop me from wanting to acknowledge it. “No,” I said, my syllables short. “But admit it.” Heaving breath. “You kind of admire that I did.”
“That’s enough. That’s enough. That’s enough.” A mantra repeated over and over as he pounded in, in, in, his pelvis slapping against my thighs, his words a hoarse string of That’s enough, no breaks in between. One more time he tried to say it, his voice threadbare as he thrust harder, harder, harder. “That’s e—
If he finished the end of his sentence, I didn’t hear it. Sound muffled around me, as though I’d been plunged underwater, or like the aftereffect of a very loud boom. All I could hear was my heart in my ears underscored with a whir as an electric storm flashed across my vision and my muscles went completely rigid.
I cried out and spiraled and convulsed, taken by a full-body climax that was at least a 9.0 on the orgasm Richter scale. I couldn’t remember ever being so devastated from pleasure, so completely wrecked that I didn’t know up from down. Couldn’t tell if I was standing upright or a puddle on the floor.
Distantly, I was aware of clenching around Edward’s cock, of his dedicated commitment to keep thrusting, to the stuttered final jab before he roared with his own release, a jagged sort of groan that I was sure would make me hot every time I thought about it for years to come.
I sort of blacked out then. Several seconds went missing from my awareness. One moment I was braced on my forearms with Edward coming in my ass, the next thing I knew, my panties were up, my forehead was against the desk, and my husband was zipped up and put away behind me.
With gentle urgency, he pulled me up, gathered me into his arms and kissed me. Complete and thorough and all him because, even though I was grateful for his lips, I was too boneless and dazed to really do anything but take it.
When he’d seemed to get what he needed, he broke away, pressing his
forehead to mine and sighed. “What am I supposed to do with you, bird?”
“Love me.”
He let out a gruff chuckle. “I love you too much, I think, sometimes.” Without moving our heads apart, he ran the back of his knuckles across my jaw. “I hurt you.”
He had that pitch of regret, and the way he was holding me, I was certain he was talking about what we just did.
“Yes,” I conceded. “But not how you think. And I hurt you too.”
His eyes closed briefly then opened again. “Knowing that doesn’t erase our argument.”
“I know.”
He brushed his nose lightly against mine, then untangled himself from me in degrees—first his forehead, then his hand from my jaw. Then his body was no longer pressed against mine. Then it was the desk that held me up entirely and not him at all.
He turned away to the windows to gaze out.
I wasn’t ready to lose him again, and I wasn’t sure that I even was losing him, but I needed to know some things regardless, and this seemed as good a time as any to ask. “Will you tell me how it played out?”
He didn’t turn around. “A three-point alliance between Werner, Accelecom, and Pierce Industries. An opportunity to bring our assets to the US and for Werner to break into the foreign market while simultaneously developing hardware that can compete with Google Fiber. Nathan Murphy from Mirage is being offered Werner CEO.”
“And no merger.”
“No merger.”
It was ambitious, but also totally doable with the financial strength of Pierce Industries. Hudson had that kind of power—gigantic power. The kind that was both awe-inspiring and ominous. It was a top-of-the-game privilege to be able to partner with him.
My ribs ached with realization. “He tied us more securely to him, didn’t he? He doesn’t just own the majority shares of Werner but now he’s linked Accelecom as well.” I thought I should probably tell Edward I was sorry, but there wasn’t an apology I could give that would be worth the one deserved.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t believe it was all Hudson’s idea.” After giving me time to react with shock and curiosity, he went on. “The younger brother presented the idea. You’ll never guess who was at his side.”
Rising: Slay Four Page 8
