by Liz Meldon
“Ah.” Finn’s eyes narrowed slightly, like a psychologist assessing her from the other side of the couch. “And would you rather he and I switch places, with he the one wanting to taste you all over?” Her cheeks warmed again, almost to the point of pain, and Finn chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Even if that was true, Skye didn’t hate the fact that Finn was here either. “How does that make you feel?”
“A bit wounded.” He placed a hand to his heart. “But I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
“Then maybe that’s my advice to you. Take care of yourself.”
He inhaled sharply, lips twisting into a wicked smile. “Oh, I like you, Miss Skye. Very much.”
There it was again—that fire. It crackled across her skin, leaving her hot and flushed and desperate to fan herself down. Instead, she folded her hands together and tried to maintain this unexpected air of cocky nonchalance.
“You know, even if I were interested in your offer,” she started, adding a one-shouldered shrug for effect, “and I’m not one hundred percent saying I’m not—but if I were, I’d need a little more from you.”
“Saving your dress wasn’t enough?”
“I need a backstory,” she told him. “I need to feel invested in you as a character. I need a bit of oomph to get going.”
“Emotional oomph?”
“Emotional oomph.” She gestured between them. “I need to feel like I kind of know you, at least. Just a little bit of connection.”
“Mental oomph too, then.”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Skye.”
She tried to come up with a quip on the fly using the word hard, but couldn’t. Instead, she just shrugged again and offered a demure fluttering of her lashes. “I guess so. Those are my terms.”
“I can’t just be a man in a good suit who wants to fuck you?”
While longing throbbed through her entire body, Skye managed to shake her head. “What happened to just wanting a taste? You’ve really upped the ante here.”
“What can I say? Witty banter does it for me.”
She looked away, lips pressed together, not wanting him to see just how much of an effect he had on her. Witty banter apparently did it for her too.
All these years with a sugar daddy, she had been too busy getting on with her life finally, too busy taking care of herself at last, to consider dating or sleeping with anyone. For the most part, Cole kept her busy enough that her emotional needs were met—even if they didn’t see each other in person as often as Skye would have liked, they spoke on the phone or through video chat at minimum once a week—but she had suppressed her physical needs for a long time now. There was nothing in their contract that said she couldn’t be intimate with another man; she just couldn’t parade him around in front of the press afterward. Nor should she choose someone who might sell their dirty secret to the highest bidder the next morning. Skye did a quick scan of the man in front of her. For some reason, she felt like she could trust him.
Maybe Finn was just the man to quench her thirst, to break the dry spell—to make her scream.
A chill sprinted down her body, reverberating across her sex and settling on her sensitive bud, eager for the caress of those strong hands.
Why not?
It was just sex.
“Okay, backstory,” she said a little breathlessly. “Name. Age. Height. Some fun facts. Go.”
Any other guy would have hightailed it out of there by now. Actually, any other guy would have offered a vaguely sympathetic “that sucks” at the sight of her covered in wine, then darted after the two drunk, scantily clad women who had almost ruined her night.
Finn, meanwhile, inhaled deeply, his broad chest expanding and deflating—tantalizing, hypnotic. She wondered just how hard it would be if she poked at it. The tailoring certainly highlighted a toned figure underneath.
“Right. Here we go then.” Finn clapped his hands together, snapping her back to the conversation. “My name is Finn Rai. Thirty-five. Six-three. Oldest of five. My parents own a chocolate company—”
“Rai’s Sweets?” Her eyebrows shot up. “As in… You’re…”
He nodded, seeming almost embarrassed she had figured it out so fast. “That’s me.”
“You’re a Rai. From Rai’s Sweets.” The revelation knocked the wind right out of her sails. She’d been playfully tormenting a billionaire. Rai’s Sweets competed with the best of them—and they made her favourite milk-chocolate salted caramel bites. “I…I always buy your salted caramels at the gym.”
Finn snorted. “Probably the worst place for us to sell them.”
“Or the best. We’re all hungry at the gym.” Okay. The fact that he was heir to a billion-dollar candy empire shouldn’t throw her off. Cole was a billionaire. She met men and women who basically hemorrhaged cash at every event he took her to. Finn Rai was just another man—a man who wanted to fuck her.
Skye rolled her shoulders back to bolster her courage, noting the way Finn’s eyes dipped down her chest briefly before jumping back to her face. She had played with rich men and their ilk for four years now, with and without Cole there to back her up. This was manageable.
Still, though. It was almost like she had just met a celebrity she’d never known she idolized until that second. Those salted-caramel-chocolate pieces of paradise rocked her world at least twice a week.
“Let’s see, what else…” While his brow furrowed, as though deep in thought, the too-obvious smirk suggested he thought he was in the clear. He wasn’t wrong. “I play squash every Saturday with my niece and nephew in Santa Barbara. If I could, I’d run a wildcat sanctuary, but apparently that doesn’t look great on a portfolio. I hate mustard. Relish is also questionable. My father was born in Mumbai but emigrated to London in—”
He stopped abruptly when she placed a hand on his knee. Warmth radiated up her arm.
“I think I’m good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Miss Skye,” Finn said, standing and buttoning his jacket—like they’d just concluded a multimillion-dollar deal of some kind. “I think you’ve made a very wise decision. One that I hope will be more than satisfactory for all parties involved…”
Before Skye could get a word in edgewise, Finn grasped her chin firmly and claimed her lips. White-hot excitement twisted through her, and a moan escaped unexpectedly as she let herself be taken. A swift nip at her lower lip encouraged her to open her mouth to him, his tongue sweeping over hers, encouraging it to play—but with grace, with poise. A strange thing to consider, a tongue being graceful, but she’d had too many inexperienced men shoving their tongues to the back of her throat in her day; Finn was a welcome change of pace.
Her hands shot up, clutching at his jacket, eager to feel that body against hers, and an arm around her lower back eased her to her feet. He tasted like mint and smelled like heaven, the faint hint of scruff across his cheeks and chin adding a sharp edge to the kiss. Just as she’d suspected, Finn was a man who took care of himself physically, the grooves of his body firm beneath the hurried exploration of her greedy hands. Unable to help herself, Skye popped his jacket buttons open, then slid up his torso and pushed said jacket off his muscular shoulders. Their lips parted, but only just, still hovering near enough that she felt each hot breath, her nerves on fire.
“Straight to business then?” he asked as his jacket fell to the floor, and she answered with a desperate kiss of her own. He had claimed her—she thought it fair to return the favor. Her fingers wove through his thick head of hair, tongue brushing over his and retracting before he could retaliate. She moaned again when he pulled her to him, hard, dipped her backward, and kissed her like he wanted to devour her.
Skye had never been devoured before.
And it was about damn time, honestly.
What thrilled her the most was that Finn had no qualms in taking what he wanted. The force behind hi
s kiss, the way his hands roamed her body—he made his desires known, then acted on them. After all the years of questions, of analyzing every touch, every look shared between her and Cole, Skye couldn’t have asked for a better, or more needed, one-night stand companion.
An embarrassing squeak slipped out of her mouth when Finn hoisted her up and deposited her on the bathroom counter. The combination of cool marble on the backs of her thighs and Finn’s searing gaze blazing down her front sent a shiver down her spine, her skin erupting with little bumps. A throb of need pounded through her system with each touch, and when he slipped his hands under her knees and dragged her to the edge of the counter, she could feel a slickness between her thighs, her sex wet and wanting, that made her cheeks flame.
“You blush beautifully,” he murmured, tracing the red from her cheek, down her chin, then to the valley between her breasts. “Makes me want to eat you right up.”
“Isn’t that what you promised?”
“I did indeed.”
“I just want to make sure I’m getting what was offered.”
“Oh, you will.” Lust pooled deep within his gaze as it darted up to meet hers. “That and more.”
“Big talk. Let’s see if you can back it up…” Her voice hitched when he ran his tongue along her jawline to her ear, tracing the shell before nibbling at her lobe. She arched beneath him, a hand digging into his shoulder as he quested lower. Each kiss alternated between firm and soft, chaste and filthy, until he paused where her neck and shoulder met to suck—hard. Her eyes widened and her hips bucked like they had a mind of their own. “Oh!”
Rather than sliding over the edge of the counter, she straddled Finn’s waist, his belt buckle biting into the tender skin of her inner thigh. Her soft hiss made him reposition himself, and in place of metal, Skye found a very solid, almost worryingly thick cock pressed against her. She bit her lip, deciding right then and there to just surrender to the ride.
After all, if she really wanted to, she could always get off—in more ways than one, probably.
Finn ended his love bite with a flash of teeth; her toes curled in response, her back arching further and forcing her up against him. Just as he’d promised, he spent enough time on her wine-drenched skin to leave her a tormented mess, a symphony of soft moans tumbling from her lips while she ground her hips against him. This was what happened when you went on a four-year dry spell waiting for a man who clearly had no interest in you—just a little affection, a touch of physical intimacy, and Skye was gone.
While she wanted him to devote the same time and attention to her nipples, which had hardened to stiff peaks beneath her lacey bra, Finn continued his journey downward—though not without kissing each along the way.
“It seems a shame to ruin your outfit,” he murmured against her skin, and at that point Skye didn’t care if he just ripped it all off and had his way with her, though she would appreciate his care for expensive lingerie when this was over.
Slowly, Finn eased down her body, pressing kisses and licks here and there, catching the garter belt around her waist with his teeth. He snapped it, the sharp sting against her skin making her squirm. He paused, however, when he reached her panties.
“This… is a complicated contraption,” he mused, hands skimming over the undergarment—pleasure spasmed through her when he grazed her sex—and down to her stockings, then to the ties that connected the stockings to the belt at her waist.
“I can just—”
“Ah, ah,” he chided, batting her hands away with a smirk. “Allow me.”
Skye sat back on her elbows, head resting against the mirror, and watched as he navigated her complex lingerie getup with all the precision and care of an archival technician handling a delicate artifact. Each brush of his fingers over her skin sent a rush of excitement fluttering through her body before eventually settling in her core. Even the slightest of movements now reminded her she was wet, positively dripping with need.
Carefully, as if wanting to preserve Skye exactly as she was, Finn unbuckled each belt, one at a time, and slid her panties down until they reached mid-thigh. Free from the constraints of straps, he was able to pull them off completely, but only after buckling her back in—and snapping each garter, just to watch her writhe. He then folded the damp lacey material in half and set it aside on the counter, though for a moment it looked like he wanted to tuck it away in his pocket.
Skye couldn’t decide if she’d let him get away with it or not, but she wanted to see him try.
“Now, come forward,” he urged softly with a crooked finger. Biting the insides of her cheeks, Skye complied, slowly scooting to the edge of the counter again, though he kept prompting her until she was about to fall off.
“But—”
“And give me those beautiful legs.” Finn sounded comfortable issuing directions, and, besides a quick flick of his gaze to hers, had no problem following through when she hesitated. He lifted each leg over one shoulder, and colour flooded Skye’s cheeks when she realized she was straddling his face—sans panties. His tongue darted quickly across his lower lip as he took in the view, as if admiring a work of art. “Perfect.”
Although she wanted to watch him appreciate her, she just couldn’t. Instead, Skye made herself comfortable on her elbows and let her head fall back, losing herself in the gentle nips he peppered up her thighs. Alternating between each side, the sensations grew sharper, more defined, the closer he got to his destination, and by the time she felt his breath on her wet slit, her body shook, having had enough of the teasing, the torment—desperate for it to end.
Desperate for that moment.
“Oh, fuck!” she cried when his mouth finally closed over her swollen clit, tongue flicking at the sensitive bud. So primed for pleasure that each sweep of his tongue, each suckle of his lips, nearly sent her crashing over the edge. Her ankles locked behind him as his hands kneaded her backside, massaging each cheek as his relentless mouth ravaged her. At one point, when it became too much, too much pleasure, too much everything, Skye tried to wriggle out of his grip, but Finn held tight, renewing his blissful torment with a wild look in his eye, tongue thrusting in and out of her briefly before returning to her clit.
What she would have done for a finger or two…
Only she didn’t need it. Before long, she pitched over the edge between sanity and ecstasy, gasping his name like a proclamation of worship, when a climax hammered her every which way. Finn held her twitching body tight, offering no relief from his talented tongue, not until she tugged at his hair and uttered a pitiful, “Please, god…”
Her orgasm prickled through her, and rather than extinguishing the blaze Finn’s touch set across her skin, it only made it worse—fuel to the fire. As he set her on the counter, her back against the mirror, the tension in her muscles eased away, but not completely as it always had after a stellar climax. Instead, she found herself hungry for more, desperate to douse the flames any way she could.
Finn had already moved away from her, headed for one of the sinks to rinse his mouth. When their gazes met, however, it was clear the fervor burning within him was far from extinguished too.
The thought thrilled her. Excited her. Worried her—but not enough to send her running. So, Skye reached for him, ignoring the slight shake in her fingers, and waited. The blaze snapped and spat and hissed behind his eyes; and within the span of a few tense, controlled breaths, the fire brought him back to her.
5
My Favourite Things
Finn came for her like she was his only source of oxygen—of life itself. Skye threaded her fingers through his hair, lips slightly parted as he claimed them for his own again. Desire, strong as ever, oozed through her body as the memory of her recent climax faded, replaced by a need she had never felt before. She squealed softly when Finn yanked her back to the edge of the counter, hands roaming her figure at his leisure before they slipped beneath her, cupped her backside, and lifted her up to him. Arms wrapped around his neck, she c
aught his lower lip with her teeth, reveling in the warning growl that rumbled deep within his chest.
There was something primal about him. Something animalistic in the way he looked at her, in the way he handled her. At first glance, Skye never would have guessed that was the case. While breathtakingly handsome, Finn had also appeared uptight, wealthy, and unwilling to wrinkle his suit. But his jacket had been on the floor ever since she yanked it off his body, there to be stepped on and kicked around. In her eagerness to explore his muscular planes, she had ripped a button right off his pressed dress shirt—and he hadn’t batted an eye.
For the first time in a long time, Skye had a man’s complete and utter attention. No distractions. No half-focus. It was very clear in the way he touched her, kissed her, bucked against her, that in that moment, she and he were the only ones in the whole world.
She shivered at the thought, at the idea of being the object of a man’s lust from top to bottom. It was a feeling she could certainly get used to.
Before she had a chance to wrap her legs around his hips, eager to rub herself against his still very present erection, Finn broke the kiss and in one swift motion flipped her around and bent her over the counter. Her hands snapped to the mirror to steady herself, eyes fluttering shut as he ran his lips along her neck, hands closing around her breasts.
“Do you know my favourite thing about fucking?” he asked huskily in her ear. As one hand slipped beneath her bra to finally pluck at her almost painfully hard nipple, the other wandered lower, two fingers testing the sensitive bundle at the crest of her sex. Skye uttered a breathy cry at the first caress, so gentle and so light—yet it sent a tremor of white-hot pleasure licking up her body. He murmured her name, as if to remind her he’d asked her a question, and her eyes shot open to see their reflections in the mirror.
