Beauty and the Bachelor

by Naima Simone

  “Sweetheart,” he murmured, eliminating the distance between them until her palm pressed into his chest.

  “I love her,” Sydney whispered, her fingers curling into his shirt. “For so many years, I tried to be perfect—the perfect daughter, perfect hostess, perfect socialite—but I always failed. I just wanted them to love me, accept me, for me.”

  “Sydney.” He brushed a knuckle down the golden softness of her cheek. “They do. Maybe they’re unable to show it, but they do.” Part of him rebelled at the idea of defending her parents, but this wasn’t about them; it was about Sydney. And to erase her pain, he would lie to Jesus Christ Himself.

  “I was afraid,” she admitted softly. “Does that make me a coward? At twenty-five years old, I was afraid to tell my own mother to back off.”

  “No, that doesn’t make you a coward,” he assured her, cupping her jaw and rubbing his thumb along the satiny skin.

  “But,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I was more afraid to be silent. It’s like something rose in me and warned me that if I didn’t speak this time, I wouldn’t do it again. That if not then, I would have been silenced for good. And that I couldn’t bear.”

  Gently pushing her arm aside, he shifted, bringing them chest to chest, thigh to thigh. He cradled her face, grazed a kiss over her lips once. Twice. And once more. “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. What you did today…it took courage, not cowardice.” He drew in a deep breath, stepped back, and dropped his arms to his sides. “Will you let me show you something?”

  …

  Sydney focused on Lucas’s broad shoulders and how his thick, black waves brushed the collar of his shirt as she followed him through the house and down the stairs to the brownstone’s garden level and into his study. Her lips tingled from his barely there kisses, the tender caresses so different from their usual raw, wild meeting of mouths. She lifted her fingers and pressed the tips to her skin. As he rounded his desk and glanced up at her, she dropped her hand as if caught doing something wrong—or incredibly telling.

  He stared at her, that enigmatic gaze touching on her mouth before he beckoned her closer. Once she reached the massive pierce of furniture he worked at nightly, he opened a drawer and withdrew a manila folder. Without a word, he extended it toward her. Curious, she accepted and flipped it open. On top lay an old newspaper article, yellowed around the edges and wrinkled as if it’d been handled many times before. She scanned the headline: BOSTON-BASED FINANCIAL EMPIRE CLOSES ITS DOORS. BANKRUPT. The clipping, dated fifteen years earlier, contained a grainy picture of a building and a handsome man with dark hair and piercing eyes of an indeterminate color in the black-and-white image. Beneath it, the caption read, “Robert Ellison, CEO and co-owner of the Dighton Group.” She frowned. The name seemed familiar, but it didn’t ring any bells.

  The article behind the first snatched the air from her lungs. An obituary. For a Jessica Ellison. Another picture. This time of a breathtaking woman whose features bore a hint of familiarity. Again dated fifteen years ago. No cause of death was listed.

  And the last clipping, the blaring headline compounded the ache building behind her sternum. FORMER BOSTON EXEC COMMITS SUICIDE IN HIS HOME.

  “Your father?” she rasped, her brain finally recognizing Robert Ellison. The man standing several feet in front of her shared the same sharp, angular bone structure. The mouth had been firmer, not as curved, and the black hair shorter, but the shape of his eyes, the arrogant slashes of eyebrows…those had been the same as Lucas’s.

  He nodded, the motion abrupt.

  Lowering to the chair flanking his desk, she flipped back to the original newspaper article and began reading. Twenty minutes later, she’d read all three pieces and perused the other items in the file. Pictures of both the man and the woman—Robert and Jessica Ellison—with a small boy. More clippings about Jessica from society pages. A death certificate for Robert—GSW to the head. As an avid fan of CSI and Grey’s Anatomy, she understood the term. Gunshot wound. Legal name change documentation for Brandon Ellison to Lucas Oliver.

  Oh, God.

  She lifted her head, met his implacable stare. None of what she’d read was common knowledge. After first meeting him, she’d scoured the internet for information about Lucas Oliver. And his father’s identity and suicide, his mother, her death, his real name—oh, God, his real name—hadn’t popped up in any of the results. What…? Why…?

  “Why are you showing this to me?” she breathed, barely able to shove the question past her constricted vocal cords.

  He smiled, the gesture humorless. “I was reminded earlier today of risks. And with your mother, you took the biggest of all. Rejection. If you can, then so can I.” He dipped his head toward the folder. “That’s me in all my ugly, naked truth. It’s why I came to Boston. It’s why I am.”

  Yet the articles were half the story. They told about his parents’ tragedy and deaths. The photos captured moments forever frozen in time. The documentation revealed impersonal, recorded facts. But they didn’t tell his story.

  She set the folder on the top of the desk. “Tell me,” she whispered.

  He remained standing, propping a shoulder against the window frame, his bright eyes remote and diamond hard, his full lips firmed into a grim line. His big body resembled a statue, rigid and unmoving.

  “My parents were never what you would call happily married. My father doted on my mother, loved her to distraction—maybe obsession. But she didn’t love him the same way. He was older than her by over ten years, and soon she didn’t want to stay at home with an old man, as I heard her put it many times during their arguments. She cheated—it was her favorite pastime besides shopping. And my father’s was turning a blind eye to her blatant infidelities. Until there was one betrayal he couldn’t ignore.”

  His posture and tone remained the same, but still she sensed a change in him. And she braced herself.

  “I was fourteen. I had stayed home from school that day because of a cold. Tired of being cooped up in my room, I’d gone downstairs for a snack, and that’s when I heard them in the study, arguing. Nothing new about that except it was one o’clock in the afternoon. Dad was never home from work that early. I remember stopping outside the cracked study doors, eavesdropping, my stomach hurting. But not from being sick. I knew something was different. My father never yelled, no matter how mad Mom made him. But this time, he was screaming at her. His business partner. His best friend. The man he’d trusted most. She’d slept with him. He was devastated. I’d never heard that agony in his voice before. And she…she didn’t give a damn.”

  Lucas couldn’t conceal the bitterness and rage. It spilled through, burning away the cold in his voice, though his face remained impassive. Her fingers itched to touch him, to try and soothe the hurt in the only way she knew how. The only way he would allow.

  “From that day forward, everything spiraled down at lightning speed. Dad stopped going into the office, just shut himself up in the study. He couldn’t face the man who’d betrayed him with the one person he’d loved most in the world. And his partner took full advantage of my father’s grief. Not three months after Dad found out about them, his friend”—Lucas spat the word—“formed his own company, convinced the bulk of their clients to follow him, and left my father with a failing, bankrupt business. He was dealing with that when Mom—” He broke off, straightened, and stalked to the bar. Several long moments passed as he poured himself a drink and threw it back, barely flinching. After he served himself another one, holding the squat tumbler in his hand, he continued. “Mom and I were in a car accident.”

  Sydney gasped, horror squeezing her heart in a pitiless fist.

  “Is that where you were…”

  “Scarred? Yes. While she argued with her current lover on the phone, the traffic light changed from yellow to red, and she didn’t notice. We were T-boned, and we spun out, wrapped around a tree. She died instantly.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Luke,” she whispered. “You were tr
apped in the car with her.”

  Again, an abrupt dip of his head. “Mom was dead, I had a broken arm and was permanently scarred, and the business my father had built was gone, stolen. I think Mom’s death was it for him. Though she’d betrayed him over and over again, had eventually left him, he still loved her. One day, about three months after the accident, he told me he was sending me to Chicago for the summer. To get me out of Boston and away from the memories. I didn’t want to go, but Dad was adamant. My flight was supposed to leave on a Tuesday morning, but when the car arrived at the airport, I lied and told the driver I’d forgotten my ticket. We returned home, and I went directly to Dad’s study, ready to argue with him. But when I pushed the door open, I saw…”

  He stopped, a muscle ticking alongside his jaw, his knuckles clenched so tight around the glass they blanched white. Unable to remain in her chair any longer, she rose and went to him. Pried the tumbler from his hand. Wrapped her arms around him. Squeezed him tight, as if she could transfer her warmth to him. As if she could absorb his pain. Several seconds passed. Then his arms encircled her.

  “He must’ve done it as soon as I left. The smell, the blood…” He shuddered, the tremble quaking through her. “Afterward, I found out he’d made arrangements before…before. Living with my uncle, his half brother I’d never met or knew existed. The adoption. The name change. The note he left me said he wanted to give me a fresh start without the taint of his name and legacy. I would’ve gladly carried his name,” he swore fiercely. “Proudly. But it had been his last wish, and I couldn’t deny him that. But as I stood over his grave, I promised I would regain everything that had been stolen from him.”

  “Luke.” She reached up, swept her thumbs over the lean lines of his cheeks, over the patrician bones. Over the tough skin of his scar. “He would be proud of you. You’ve achieved everything he had and more. That’s what he wanted for you. But,” she rasped, shaking her head, “you have to stop blaming yourself.”

  He stiffened against her. Grabbed her wrists as if to snatch her hands away from him. But she tightened her hold, gripping his scalp.

  “That’s bullshit,” he growled. “I don’t blame myself.”

  “Yes, you do. Do you think I can’t recognize guilt when I see it? After it’s been my best friend for so long? If you’d turned around ten minutes earlier, you could’ve stopped him. If you’d refused to go to Chicago instead of giving in, he would’ve delayed his plans and eventually changed his mind. Anything you did wouldn’t have changed his mind. You said he already had arrangements in place. He was determined, and your love for him and his for you wasn’t enough to keep him here.”

  The last sentence rang in the room. His turquoise gaze nearly singed her in its intensity, and she refused to back down from it.

  “And it’s okay to be mad at him for it, Luke. After our talk in Seattle, I returned to my room and admitted that all these years I had secretly been mad at my little brother for jumping in that pool. He’d known better. But it was okay for me to be angry with him, because I missed him. I loved him. Your father left you. He didn’t stick it out for you. Being furious with him doesn’t mean you love him any less.”

  His grip on her wrists tightened just shy of pain. Had she pushed too hard? Too soon?

  “Luke, I—”

  His mouth closed over hers, purloining whatever words would’ve come next. Along with her breath. The kiss…it was soft. Gentle. Almost reverent. No less breathtaking and powerful than his usual erotic conquering, but…different. She opened under him, submitting to his particular brand of passion as she usually did. But after a few moments, she pulled away, cupped his face, tilted it down. And took control.

  She pressed her lips to his forehead, his eyes, the scar, each cheek, his chin. When he tried to recapture her mouth, she avoided him and continued her path over his jaw, down his strong throat and over the shallow dip in his collarbone revealed by the freed top button of his shirt. His scent and taste—fresh rain after a storm and warm skin—roused her desire from simmering coals to hot, licking flames.

  With suddenly clumsy hands, she opened his shirt, the buttons seeming to shrink in size as she fumbled to release them. Finally, she slipped her hands underneath the gaping material and curved her palms over his shoulders. Sighing at the taut flesh over solid muscle, she slid his shirt from his shoulders. When they pooled at his wrists, he made quick work of removing the cuff links and stripping the clothing off.

  Since they’d first made love in Seattle, she’d seen him naked many times. She wouldn’t need sight to trace the delineated ridges of his abdomen, the silken trail of hair bisecting his stomach, or the corded muscle along his thigh. Still, that didn’t keep her breath from snagging in her throat at his masculine beauty. Slowly, she stroked her palms over his broad shoulders, down his toned arms to tangle her fingers with his. Rising on tiptoes, she grazed a kiss over his pectoral muscles, down the strip of skin between before shifting to a small, flat nipple.

  “This is for you,” she murmured against his skin, flicking the tip of her tongue over the dark brown disc. “Let me return the pleasure you always give me.”

  Not waiting for his response, she sucked on the hard nub, lightly biting down and soothing the sting with her tongue. Above her he swore, the curse harsh, strained.

  “Again,” he ordered hoarsely. “Your teeth. Do it again.”

  She complied, grazing the edge of her teeth over the peak before capturing it and nipping. Then she switched to the other nipple, treating it to the same attention, swirling, teasing, worrying it. His low growl vibrated under her mouth, the rhythmic clenching on her fingers quickening, becoming more aggressive. She released his hands, and they automatically darted to her head, sinking into her hair, twisting, pulling, and the tiny stings to her scalp added to the heat pouring through her veins. Yes, she kissed and tormented him. But his grunts of pleasure, the coarse groans of “fuck yes” and “harder, sweetheart,” and the tense pull of muscles were like sensual caresses stoking the fire in her higher, hotter.

  With a murmur, she sank to her knees, her lips tracing the light trail of black hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his slacks. Like his shirt, she attacked the closure, but unlike then, with surer fingers. She lowered the zipper’s tab, and the metallic teeth opened with a muted hiss, revealing the band and front of his black boxer briefs. Dipping her hand inside, she fisted hot steel flesh that pulsed with its own heartbeat. Their moans of pleasure mingled as she freed the long, thick column of his cock.

  “Sydney.” More tingling to her scalp, his tugging more insistent, more demanding. “Sweetheart…”

  She parted her lips over the smooth knob of the head and engulfed it, dancing her tongue under the pronounced ridge. His scent was concentrated here, stronger and fused with the musk of sex. She loved it. Loved this act of simultaneous dominance and submission. The giving and taking. Because while she wrapped her hand around the base of his erection, languorously pumped while ravenously sucking him deep, she also received pleasure. Loving him, making him tremble and strain under her hand and mouth was the sweetest and most potent aphrodisiac. She squeezed her thighs against the merciless spasming of her core, wanted to slide her fingers beneath her skirt and stroke her aching clit and drenched folds. But that would require letting go of his cock or his hip, and she wasn’t willing to do that.

  Hard but considerate hands held her still as he took her mouth, whispering encouragement and praise when she allowed him deeper. She held on, trusting him, needing to see him lose the control he wore like a second skin. But as his cock swelled and his thrusts shortened, Lucas swore, jerked from between her lips, and yanked her to her feet. And when he crushed her mouth to his, the gentleness of before had evaporated under lust and a voracious greed. He wrenched her shirt over her head, snatched down the cups of her bra, and feasted on her breasts. Ecstasy boomeranged from her nipples to her core and back again. She clutched his head to her as he alternated between tugging on the tips
with his fingers and tongue and drawing them deep into his mouth. It was so much—too much. She needed…

  Reaching behind her, she grabbed the tab of her skirt.

  “No.” His fingers closed around hers, removing them. “Leave it on. Boots, too.”

  He hauled the skirt up her legs until the black material pooled around her waist. Cool air brushed over her legs, her behind, and the damp flesh between her thighs. A wrench, and her ruined underwear floated to the floor, leaving her even more bared. And vulnerable. With her bra shoved under her breasts and her skirt bunched around her hips, she shivered, the state of half dress somehow more exposing than if she were fully naked.

  “Luke.” She reached for him, needing his fierce passion to sweep her away. Hands cupping her ass, he maneuvered her to the brown leather couch against the far wall. He lowered to the cushions, drawing her down with him so she straddled his lap. The soft material of his suit pants brushed her inner thighs, a sharp contrast to the aggressive thrust of his cock against her folds and clit. She gasped, rolled her hips, and whimpered at the pleasure that lanced her.

  Once more taking control, she rose on her knees, fisted the wide base of his erection, and slowly slid down. The head parted her, paving the way for the thick, large column to follow. Oh, God, he filled her. Stretched her. Branded her. After so many times, she should be used to the first resistance of her body to his penetration, but how could a person become accustomed to pleasure so acute it treaded the delicious, startling line of pain and ecstasy?

  Tiny, breathless cries escaped her throat as she rose and fell, rose and fell, swallowing more of him on each return until she surrounded every inch of him. Beneath her, he strained, a fine tremble quivering through his big body as he fought to not take over the fucking. His fingers dug into her hips and would probably leave faint bruises. Bruises she would treasure.