by Donya Lynne
“I’m not a little girl, Harrison. If you haven’t noticed, I’m an adult now.”
He let out a brittle snort. “Obviously.” He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, his eyes sparkling in the darkness. “A few years ago, when you first left for Yale, I could still see the little girl inside you.” He smiled as if at a memory. “Even when I saw you over the summer, before you and Susanna left for your senior year, I still saw you as a little girl.” He paused, his gaze filling with desire as he touched her hair. “But when I saw you the other day, when you showed up here with Susanna, I almost didn’t recognize you. In fact, I didn’t recognize you at first. Your hair is different.”
She ran her fingers over it. “I got it cut.” She’d been preparing for interviews and had thought a shorter, sassier, more adult hairstyle would be better than the long, straight style she’d worn all her life.
“I like it.” He brushed the tips of his fingers across her forehead and down one cheek. “When I saw you, I thought, ‘Who is this beautiful woman in my house? Where did she come from?’ And then I realized it was you.” His thumb traced her eyebrow. “By then it was too late. I couldn’t undo what had already been done. I couldn’t unsee the breathtaking woman with a smile made of sunshine who had awakened in me something I hadn’t felt for over ten years.”
Ten years? Not since his wife passed?
Her eyes searched his. She wanted to ask him what she had awakened in him but, under the circumstances, didn’t feel it was appropriate.
“Desire,” he said, as if he could sense her curiosity. “You awakened desire in me, Rinn. I never thought I would feel that again. I never thought I would long for another woman since . . .” He cleared his throat and searched her eyes, refusing to state the obvious as if he feared it would destroy the moment. “But I long for you.” He cupped her face in one strong, warm hand. “I crave you.”
What a difference going away for a few years made? She’d left for Yale a girl and had come back a woman. And of all the men she knew, Harrison was the last one she thought would notice.
“Then”—she shoved down the waist of his undershorts and wrapped her hand around his hard shaft—“let the woman I’ve become give you what you crave.”
When she’d left for Yale, she’d still been a virgin, so in a lot of ways, she had still been a girl. But she’d gained an education in more than just academics at Yale. She’d dated. She’d even dated upperclassmen. And she’d had sex. Not excessively, but enough to know what she was doing.
Maybe that was what Harrison had seen in her the other day. Because she had come back to North Carolina a woman. No doubt it showed not just in her new hairstyle, but in the way she walked, talked, and smiled. Losing her virginity had been the final transition to adulthood, and she’d made it while she’d been away.
He sucked in his breath as she stroked him to the tip.
“Let me be the woman who watched you last night.” She rose on her toes and brushed her lips over his as she swirled her hand over the head of his cock, feeling moisture coat her palm as he wept a tear of semen. “The woman who couldn’t look away when she saw what you were doing to yourself, because you were so damn sexy.” Her hand slid all the way down to the root. “The woman who got so turned on by the man she now sees in front of her that she couldn’t stop herself from masturbating with you, because you got her so fucking hot.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, tipping his head back as she began stroking him in earnest.
“The woman who ensured that she came at the same moment you did and imagined what it would be like to fuck you until she was so delirious with pleasure that she couldn’t even remember her own name.”
His head rolled forward, his eyes finding hers in the darkness. “You’re going to make me come.”
So soon? My, my. It had been a while since Harrison Devereaux had been with a woman.
Harrison was a man who dominated everything and everyone around him. He walked into a room, and everyone stopped talking. Business moguls with three times his clout thought twice before making him a counteroffer in a deal. International dignitaries rearranged their calendars to accommodate his.
Harrison Devereaux commanded the meeting room, the conference room, and the boardroom. He bent over backward for no one, and everyone bent for him.
Yet she had him eating out of the palm of her hand.
The rush of power that came with knowing she could seduce a man with such authority was like pressing a vibrator to her clit. What a turn-on. To make an unyielding man like Harrison yield to her was the best kind of aphrodisiac.
Pumping her hand up and down his length, she leaned forward, kissed the side of his neck, then ran her tongue up to his ear. “Then come.”
As if he’d been waiting for permission, his whole body jerked, and he leaned back against the column of paper boxes stacked against the wall, shoving his hand into her hair and around the back of her neck.
Hauling her mouth to his, he wrapped his free hand around hers on his erection and squeezed, guiding her to increase the pressure.
He grunted his approval as she tightened her grip before letting go so she could do the honors herself. “Like that. Just like that.”
He groaned and tipped his head back again, ragged breaths hammering from his lungs. Leaning in, she closed her mouth on the side of his neck, scraping her teeth against his skin.
His whole body quaked as his cock swelled. She’d never been one to sleep around, but she’d been with enough guys to know he was about to explode. Grinning to herself as she dragged her lips to the hollow at the base of his neck, she reached down with her free hand and cupped his balls.
“Ungh!”
She thought he might blow out of his skin as hot spunk shot up like a fountain, splattering the bottom of her chin.
He gasped over and over with each subsequent contraction, the tendons in his neck straining, jaw clenched, semen spraying the front of both their bodies and dribbling down her fingers.
On the couch in Harrison’s office, it sounded like things were progressing toward a similar conclusion. Meanwhile, in the supply closet, Harrison’s palm remained clamped around the back of her neck.
He was still panting—hard—his body heaving, spent, and shaking from head to toe.
“Are you okay?” she whispered against his neck.
“Sh, sh . . .” He buried his face in her hair. “Don’t speak.”
Smiling, she pressed her lips against his chest and began to unfurl her palm from his still hard cock.
“No.” He grabbed her wrist, holding her hand in place as his whole torso twitched. “Don’t. Not yet. Just . . . stay here.”
They remained like that for a while, speechless, neither of them moving except to breathe, his cock slowly withering in her grasp.
Mason’s and Sarah’s joint pleasure was about to crest, but she tuned them out.
“How long has it been?” she asked, speaking gently as she finally eased her fingers from around his semi-softened cock.
She had assumed he’d dated after his wife died, but Susanna had never mentioned him having a girlfriend. And based on what he’d said about her awakening desire in him for the first time in ten years, as well as how quickly he’d reached orgasm just now, she was beginning to think that the reason Susanna had never mentioned a girlfriend was because Harrison hadn’t dated anyone since her mom died, let alone had sex with anyone.
“Too long,” he whispered into her hair.
She pulled back and looked him in the eye. “But . . . you have dated since—”
“No.”
She stared up at him, her eyebrows pulling together. “But you’ve at least had sex, right?”
His lips set in a grim line, but he didn’t look away.
Her mouth fell open as the realization dawned on her that Harrison, one of the most sought-after widowers in the country—if not the most sought-after—had been celibate for ten years. The only action his impressive cock had seen befo
re tonight had been with his own hand.
No wonder he’d reached the big finale in record time. He was like a teenager again, losing his virginity in the back seat of his father’s car.
“No?” she asked, searching his face for confirmation as the situation between Mason and Sarah reached critical mass.
Harrison shook his head.
“You haven’t been with a woman in over ten years?” she asked, still unable to comprehend how he could have gone without sex for so long.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” His gaze swept her face. “No one’s captured my attention . . .” He brushed his fingers down her cheek. “Until now.”
Mason and Sarah finished in a chorus of exclamations, profanities, and “OhGodohGodohGod!”
In the closet, Corinne was still grappling with what Harrison had just revealed. In ten years, no woman had caught his eye. None had made him feel even a flash of desire. But she had done both. From the moment he saw her in the front foyer the other day, his eye had been caught, and that had built a path for desire to follow. Now, here they were, changing the rules in the middle of the game.
Struggling in the cramped space, Harrison pulled up his pants, not even bothering to wipe away the remnants of his orgasm, as she tidied up as best as she could.
As they waited for his son and Sarah to get dressed and vacate the premises, Harrison pulled up his pants, managing in the cramped space to put his belt back on. Then he eased his hands over her hips and down over the globes of her ass. “I owe you an orgasm.” His lips teased hers.
She smiled against his mouth. “It’s getting late.”
“So?” He squeezed her bottom, pulling her closer, intent on giving her what she’d given him.
Her hands glided up his chest. “You have an early meeting in the morning.”
The truth was Mason and Sarah had thrown a wrench into their evening. She and Harrison had made the most of their time hiding in the supply closet, but knowing they weren’t the only ones awake in the house changed things. What if Mason came back? What if someone else happened by, on their way to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk, and heard her cries of pleasure as Harrison made good on his promise?
Harrison’s office was too public. They couldn’t have sex here. That much was clear now.
“Fuck the meeting,” Harrison muttered, sliding his palm between her legs as he kissed her neck.
As good as his hand felt caressing her, she gently pushed it away. “Not tonight.” She tipped her mouth to his, brushing his lips with hers. “Tomorrow,” she whispered. “Meet me at midnight tomorrow. My room.” Pressing the full weight of her breasts against his chest, she kissed him again, nipping his bottom lip with her teeth. “You can pay me back then.”
He gazed down at her like he wanted to argue. “Are you sure?”
She peeked out the crack just as Mason and Sarah hurried out of the office, hand in hand. Then she smiled up at Harrison. “I’m positive.” She lightly stroked her fingertips over his ear, brushing back his hair. “There’s too much traffic down here.”
One side of his mouth quirked as his eyes flicked toward the closed door. “Yeah, you might be right about that.” He gave her rump a tender pat. “Tomorrow night then. Midnight.” He squeezed her cheeks and pressed his body against hers. “Just make sure you’re ready for me.”
She straightened the errant collar of his shirt. “And why is that, Mr. Devereaux?”
“Because if I have to spend all day with you at the office, knowing I can’t touch you until tomorrow night, I’m going to be delirious by the time I get to your room.”
She rose onto her tiptoes and captured his mouth with hers, promising through the passionate exploration of her tongue sliding against his that he had nothing to worry about.
When she broke away, he weaved forward as if he’d been nowhere near ready for her to end such a blistering kiss.
“Don’t worry.” She palmed the side of his face as he tipped his forehead against hers and released a soft, needy moan. “I’ll be ready for you.”
Chapter Five
And she was ready for him the following night. When he lightly tapped on her door at midnight, she was waiting for him wearing a baby blue nightie and a pair of matching silk panties she’d hustled to the department store to buy after work. She’d barely made it back in time for dinner, which was its own living hell as she tried to eat and make small talk with him and the rest of the family like he wasn’t going to be in her room in less than five hours doing only God knew what to her.
And after a day filled with heated glances, secret smiles from across the room, and one scorching caress up the inside of her thigh when he’d called her into his office to “help him find a file,” she was beside herself with anticipation and had a pretty good idea what to expect.
“That’s cheating,” she had admonished, glaring coquettishly at his hand sliding back down her thigh.
“Sue me,” he’d replied, coming to a stop with his fingers on the inside of her knee.
She had arched one eyebrow, taken a step back, and whispered pointedly, “Midnight.” Then, with a flick of her hips, she’d spun and strolled out of his office, feeling his gaze follow her all the way out the door.
There certainly was something to be said for stoking the fire, because she had felt his carnal need for the rest of the day, especially during the drive home, when she caught him staring at her legs like he was already fantasizing about them hooked over his shoulders or wrapped around his back.
Now the time had finally come.
The moment she let him into her room, he pushed quietly inside, closing the door so carefully that she didn’t even hear the latch click into place. All the sneaking around and secrecy made what they were doing that much more exciting.
He was wearing a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants, a white cotton T-shirt, and no shoes.
“Is this what you wear to bed?” she asked, realizing she’d never seen him in anything but a suit or Dockers with a button-up shirt. The other day he’d worn a cream cable-knit wool sweater that had made him look a bit like a stylish fisherman who was the captain—the sexy captain—of his own fishing boat.
But flannel pants and a T-shirt? This was the first time she’d ever seen him so casual.
He looked down at his attire, then smiled up at her. “What did you expect? That I sleep in the nude?”
“Do you?”
He closed the distance between them and let his hands glide over her hips. “If I’ve got a reason to.” His gaze dropped to her flimsy nightie. “Are you going to give me one?”
Her palms slid down his chest and stomach. “Maybe.”
His smile said it all. He wanted her to be the reason why he ditched his pajamas for the first time in over a decade.
They stared silently at each other for a long moment, his gaze dancing over her face and hair as he tucked a stray strand behind her ear.
“Last chance, Rinn. Are you sure you want to do this? If you have any doubts and want to back out, now’s the time. Because once we do this, there’s no going back. I have no intention of stopping whatever this is between us.” He tenderly brushed his fingertips down her cheek.
What was he saying? That he was already in love with her? Before they’d even had proper sex?
The question must have shown in her eyes, because he gently shook his head, smiling softly as he took her hands. “I don’t know how long this will last, and I don’t know where it will lead, but you’ve known me your whole life. You know I’m not the kind of man who would do something like this unless I had decided I wanted more than just sex?”
Harrison had been a faithful husband, and an even more faithful widower. The fact that he’d seen something in her that had awakened his desire again didn’t just speak volumes, it bellowed from the rooftops “Harrison Devereaux is off the market!”
“What about Susanna? The rest of your kids? Your business partners?” She was ju
stifiably concerned.
“What about them?”
“Mason’s older than I am.”
“So?”
“Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“Do you?”
She shrugged but didn’t let go of his hands. “A little . . . maybe.”
He stepped closer, his gaze penetrating hers. “Age doesn’t matter to me, Rinn. I know it feels weird now, because, hell, I watched you grow up. Believe me, I understand how strange it is that I’ve known you since you were in diapers, and now I’m fantasizing about ripping off your panties. It’s crazy, and I’m a sick bastard for wanting you the way that I do, but I can’t help myself. When I saw you this week, you weren’t the little girl who collected Pokémon cards with my daughter, anymore. You weren’t the little girl who carried around a baby doll and pretended to change its diaper while Susanna pretended to burp hers.”
Corinne laughed at the memory of her Baby Love Me baby doll. She had taken her “baby” everywhere.
“I remember looking out my office window and watching you and Susanna pushing your little doll strollers in the garden. Then you would lay out a blanket, carefully lift your ‘babies’ from their strollers, and pretend to nurse them.”
Corinne cringed, her face blazing, making Harrison laugh. “You saw that?” she asked.
The thought that Harrison had watched her “nurse” a fake baby with her ten-year-old flat chest was mortifying.
“I thought it was adorable,” he added, taking a moment to admire her breasts. “Although I think you’re better equipped now.”
She hid her flaming face behind her hands. “This is so humiliating.”
“Hey, stop.” He pried her hands away from her face. “Don’t.” He kissed her fingers, pulling her closer. “All I’m saying is that you’re not that same little girl anymore. The one who sat in my office with Susanna after school, reading storybooks and doing your homework. The one I quizzed on her spelling and arithmetic while I quizzed my daughter. You’re a woman now. A beautiful, mature, smart, sexy woman, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all week.” He paused, searching her eyes. “So, yes, it’s weird, at least for now. But in a few weeks or months, it won’t feel that way anymore. We can create a new normal.”
