“Will this do for now?” he asked, gesturing toward the food. “I can have something special prepared. I would have, if I’d planned on you being here.”
“It’s wonderful.” I wondered if it was important that he hadn’t planned on inviting me, but he had. He hadn’t even planned on me staying for the public ceremony.
“Would you rather eat in the dining room?”
“I’d like to see the dining room before I leave, because I can only imagine it’s stunning. But eating here is fine. You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you. I like eating in the kitchen, unless I’m dining with guests.”
He took a bite of his sandwich, then shook his head. “Not that you’re not a guest . . . I meant more like a dinner party or a group.”
I nodded. “This is cozier for one or two people.”
“Exactly.” We ate in silence for a few moments, Grant staring at me over his water glass or while he chewed. I felt his eyes on me, the heat of his gaze almost like a touch. When I glanced at him between bites, he didn’t look away, but kept staring.
I ate the last olive I’d selected, and drank the rest of my water.
“More?” he asked, moving as if to get up.
“No, thank you. I feel better now.”
“Good. So, are you pissed that I sent Chris away on principle, or because you actually wanted to take him up on his movie marathon. Horror movies, wasn’t it?” Grant took the tray to the sink. “How long did you have to think about it before you turned him down?”
I decided honesty was best. “You had no right to alter his life like that, just because he asked me on a date.”
Grant spun me on the stool and pushed forward to stand between my thighs, his hands on the edge of the counter behind me.
“No right? I don’t even know what that means. None of us have rights. We have what we take, what we make ours.”
His face was close to mine, making it hard to come up with a coherent argument.
“I wasn’t going to go out with him,” I answered weakly.
“Because you didn’t want to, or because you couldn’t without blowing my story?” His lips brushed the corner of my mouth. “If it wouldn’t have mattered, would you have said yes?”
“If he’d asked me before . . . before I met you and agreed to let Hollis think we were engaged . . . yes, I’d have gone out with him.”
“If he were still here, and I told Hollis that we’d split up, would you go out with him if he asked again? Hm? Jump into his arms the moment you were free?”
I put my hands on his waist. “No.”
Grant looked back and forth from one of my eyes to the other, as if searching for a hint that what I said was a lie.
Or the truth.
“I’m not sorry I sent him away, Sophie. If you’re waiting for me to apologize, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
“What about,” I asked softly, “being sorry for not trusting me. Would you apologize for that?”
Grant licked his lips and breathed slowly. “All right.”
He kissed me until I put a hand on his chest and gently pushed. “All right? That’s your apology?”
“I’m not a trusting person,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not something you should take personally.”
I laughed softly, but I was aware that was probably the best I was going to get. But then his eyes narrowed, his voice lowered, and he leaned close again.
“If I had to pick someone to trust, to try to trust . . . I’d pick you.”
Before I could react, Grant took my hand and pulled me off the stool. “Come on. I want to properly thank you for this morning.”
I hurried with him up the stairs to his bedroom, a dark-paneled room with reddish-gold and black coverings on the four-poster bed and windows. Four plush pillows made the rich-looking bed extra inviting. The only other furniture in the room was a bench at the end of the bed, upholstered in the same colors, a dresser with only a small tray of bottles and a black velvet ring box on top, a closed cabinet with ornate woodwork that stood opposite the bed, and a huge flat-screen on the wall above that. The sculpted carpet was gold with a reddish-golden design that ran through it. One wall was empty, but the slight line in the middle must have been where the doors met, hiding a walk-in closet. A mirror hung on one side.
Grant pulled the covers down and tossed two of the pillows to the foot. The sheets were a darker brown, with hints of gold and black in them. He began undressing.
“Top of the dresser.” He nodded at it, so I held my hand over the tray with the bottles and the ring box. When he nodded again, my insides did things they shouldn’t have done on seeing it. It wasn’t what I thought it was. And if it was, it didn’t mean what it should.
I hadn’t thought anything of it when I’d seen the ring box at first. Now, it sucked all the air out of the room, and I could barely make myself touch it.
“Hollis is starting to get suspicious, I think.” I heard the bed—not a creak, but a whisper of movement—and turned to see Grant completely naked, sitting with his back against the pillow, his long legs crossed at the ankle. “Thought a ring would add a touch of sincerity.”
I opened the box, and my breath caught. It wasn’t just a solitaire, but a wide setting with rows of tiny diamonds culminating in one large one at the top.
“You can wear it to the wedding if you’d like, let them all think what they want. Or, if that makes you uncomfortable, no need. Wear it around Hollis and a few others.”
“It’s stunning,” I said, my chest tight with emotions I didn’t understand. I understood the guilt I felt, though, about not telling him the wedding was off. Today, I promised myself. I’ll tell him today, just not right this second.
“Put it on, make sure it’s all right. I can take it in this afternoon if it needs to be sized better.”
With a shaking hand, I slipped the ring on. “It fits perfectly. How . . . ?”
I eyed him and closed the little box. “The ring, the dress sizes—how do you keep getting those things so right?”
Grant shrugged and patted the bed next to him. “I have an eye for beautiful things. Take off your clothes. Jewelry and shoes, too.”
He still looked tired, drawn through the eyes in a way I hadn’t seen before today. I didn’t feel like pressing. All that could wait, couldn’t it?
“We can talk more later if you want to,” Grant said, perhaps picking up on my mood, something else he was so good at. Right now, you need to be punished. I want you spread out in my lap so you can ride me while I redden that perfect ass of yours.”
A thrill jolted through me as I stripped. “Punished for what?”
“Considering Chris Hale. Looking at me with pity today. And now, asking that question.”
When I got close, he took my wrist and roughly pulled me down to lie across his legs.
“It gives me pleasure. That’s all the reason I need.”
His hand smacked down, hard enough to make me cry out.
Eleven
“You’re so fucking hot, Sophie. I want to do everything to you, all at once.” His hand stung my other ass cheek. “Tell me again how you might have gone out with Christopher Hale.”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“If you’d met him before you met me . . .” Three stinging slaps.
“Yes. Yes, I’d have said yes.”
“You’d have gotten on your knees for him? Spread your legs?”
I sucked in a breath. I knew what he wanted me to say, I just didn’t understand why. A few smacks rained down on my already stinging skin.
“I would have.”
“Come up here.”
He helped me straddle him, and I felt as exposed as I ever had, sitting there naked on his lap, legs spread wide. He dropped a hand to one thigh and reached over with his thumb, making lazy circles right on my clit.
“You’d have let him touch you like this, put his mouth on you the way I have.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
>
His eyes cut up and met mine. “But not now. I saw to that.”
“You . . . did.”
“No one else gets to touch you like this. You belong to me.”
He tapped that spot with his thumb until I shivered. Then he scoffed, a light laugh trailing out. “So wanton. You know how good I can make you feel, and you want it bad, don’t you?”
This all seemed so odd after a funeral, after seeing Grant so somber not long before. But he wasn’t wrong. I did want it. I wanted more of whatever he was willing to give me.
“Tell me what you want, Sophie. Beg me for it.” His other hand caressed and squeezed my breast, the thumb rubbing the nipple roughly side to side.
“Please, Grant. Please, fuck me.”
“You want this?” He took his hard length in hand and pressed it down so that the head teased me where his thumb just had, the slick flesh sliding over my nub and sending little whispers of pleasure deep into my body.
“I want your cock,” I said, the words feeling dirty coming out of my mouth—dirty but good. “Please, fuck me, Grant. Give me your cock.”
Grant blew out a breath like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and grabbed one of my hips, urging me up onto my knees. “Sink down onto me, Sophie. Take it all.”
He held himself steady while I lowered my body, his hardness pushing into me until I was completely seated in his lap, filled. My body practically hummed with the feel of it.
“Clasp your hands behind your neck and don’t let go.”
It felt awkward, but I did as he asked. I was conscious of the ring on my finger, and touched it with the fingers of my other hand.
His hands went to my breasts, squeezing and pulling and pinching the nipples while I squirmed in his lap, still glorying in the way it felt to be on him this way. Grant focused on my left breast, teasing the nipple with just the right amount of roughness, inflicting pain slight enough to send heat coursing down my body without making me want to flinch away.
“Ride me, Sophie. Fuck yourself on my cock.” I rose up, and as I lowered myself onto him again, Grant slapped my ass hard with his right hand. The next time, he slapped with his left hand. “Bounce on me. Show me how badly you want it.”
I fell into a rhythm of fast up and down motions, and each time I took him in again, he spanked one side or another, the blows coming harder, meant to sting more. In no time, I was whimpering and jerking up and forward with each smack, my thighs burning from riding him, my nipples throbbing from his attentions.
“Grant,” I gasped with another sharp smack.
“You want me to stop?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip.
“Beg me.”
My ass was on fire now, and each new smack fanned the flames. “Please stop,” I cried out as I dropped onto his cock again and met his hand. Despite the burn, my building orgasm began swirling in my lower body, ready to break free.
“What?” Smack.
“Please, stop. Grant, please,” I practically whimpered, riding him fast and hard, ass burning raw, thighs threatening to cramp.
“I’ll stop when we come.” His hips bucked up, lifting me with his body and driving his cock deep. I kept moving, bouncing, and a hand squeezed my breast. The other continued the onslaught of punishment.
“Stop,” I begged, but kept riding him as he thrust up into me. “Please, stop.” And somehow begging and being told no, feeling I had no control over what he did or what I felt, pushed me over the edge.
I screamed, and Grant had to grab my waist to keep me from tumbling backward as I arched and came. His whole body jerked, and he clamped onto my hips, holding me still, and he shouted in pleasure of his own. Only then, shuddering, impaled upon his length and riding out the tail of my own orgasm, did I realize that I hadn’t just cried out.
I’d done something he’d been quite clear I should never do again.
I’d screamed his name.
*****
Thank you for reading “His Longing!”
Don’t miss the last part of the story, “His Desire,” Billionaire Blind Date Book Five.
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His Longing (Billionaire Blind Date Book 4) Page 4
