Risk (It's Complicated Book 2)

by Ann Christopher

  Justus seemed, in short, happy.

  Realizing Justus was staring quizzically at him, Vincent hastily cleared his throat. “Maya, here, just beat me in chess.”

  Justus grabbed her and swung her in the air. “Is that true, little girl?”

  “Yes!” she squealed with delight. “Put me down!”

  “Go get your little bag.” Justus planted several kisses on her plump cheeks before he obligingly swung her down. He swatted her gently on the behind and sent her racing on her way. “Aunt Angela’s waiting for us.”

  Angela.

  Everything clicked into place for Vincent.

  Angela was responsible for Justus’s newfound happiness. Vincent should’ve known. Actually, he’d seen the attraction between them, but he hadn’t expected this: his son, the inveterate womanizer, the man who used and discarded women like paper towels, was in love for the first time in his life.

  And if Vincent knew anything about it, this would be Justus’s only time in love.

  “Well.” Tired, suddenly, his mind swimming with all the new things he’d learned about his son today, Vincent heaved himself to his feet and shivered inside his heavy wool cardigan. It was always so cold these days. “Let’s go see what’s keeping Maya.”

  Justus faced him, a faint wrinkle of concern marring his smooth forehead. “You okay?”

  “Of course,” Vincent lied.

  Angela took her sweet time about opening her apartment door for Justus and Maya, which only fired his blood to see her. He’d called her at the office and left two voicemails, which she hadn’t returned. Was she okay? Was she avoiding him? Or...

  Did she regret last night?

  The possibility tied his gut up in knots.

  He didn’t know when it’d happened that he started measuring time in Angela increments: thirty seconds until he’d see her; two hours until he could call her; three hours until Maya went to bed and they could make love again. The only time that passed quickly was the time he actually spent with her, and wasn’t that a bitch?

  He waited, knocking again.

  By the time she flung the door open and let them in, he was ready to look for a battering ram. Maybe he should ask for a key. He’d never done anything so possessive before, but pretty much every aspect of his relationship with Angela was a first.

  Her bright gaze went right to him and she gave him a guarded smile that felt like a gift of gold bullion. Forgetting all about her stern lecture regarding how they should behave in front of Maya, he started to reach for her.

  But Maya cried, “Hi, Aunt Ang-la!” and rushed forward, forcing Angela to stoop and hug her first.

  Frustrated, Justus turned and shut the door.

  “Hi, sweetie!” Angela took Maya’s little pink backpack from her, put it on the floor by the door, and kissed her on the cheek. “Did you have a good sleepover with Grandpa and Miss Lena?”

  Maya unzipped her coat, jerked it off, and shoved it at Angela, chattering a mile a minute. “Yeah! Last night I got to have popcorn and I watched—”

  Justus stepped forward. Impatience made him gruff. “Maya.”

  Maya started, her eyes widening with surprise.

  “Don’t leave your bag in the middle of the floor like that. You know Aunt Angela doesn’t like a mess.”

  As one, Angela and Maya, wearing identical quizzical expressions, looked at Maya’s backpack against the door, where it couldn’t possibly offend anyone, even Angela, then at each other.

  Justus clapped his hands. “Take it to your room. Let’s go. March.”

  Grumbling, Maya snatched up the bag and slunk down the hall toward her room. The second she disappeared around the corner, Justus grabbed Angela, who let out a startled peep, and pulled her in tight. Like last night, he was rougher than he meant to be, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  In fact, she sighed and pressed her face to his neck.

  He inhaled deeply, soaking her in. Lilies, fresh shampoo, and Angela.

  This, right here, was heaven for him.

  For the first time today he felt like he could actually breathe.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  “I missed you, too.”

  “Yeah? I called you today.” Despite all his best efforts, he sounded as casual as a doctor delivering some grave diagnosis. “Did you get my messages?”

  She hesitated. “Yeah, sorry. I was...really busy, and I, ah, just wanted to finish up and—”

  “It’s okay,” he lied.

  His gut told him she was lying, too, and the terrible certainty of it knocked him on his ass.

  So she hadn’t wanted to call him back. Just as he’d feared, it was regret, wasn’t it? She was sorry for last night. He loosened his grip enough to see her face and stared into it, desperate for some hopeful sign.

  And there it was. That vivid flush across her cheeks. The bright light in her eyes.

  He nearly choked on the dizzying power of his relief.

  Lowering his head, he kissed—devoured?—her with the enthusiasm of a child with his first bowl of ice cream. She opened for him, blooming like a daylily in the sun, and that was all he needed to put his insecurities on the back burner. He was here with her now. She still wanted him. What else could matter?

  Breaking away, he kissed her forehead, eyes, and cheeks, letting his hands roam under her sweater to her warm, sweet-smelling skin.

  “Missed you.” Forgetting himself, he kneaded her breasts through the heavy satin of her bra, then dropped his hands to her butt and pressed her, hard, against his insistent erection. “Missed you, missed you, missed you.”

  “Justus.”

  Angela had a way of saying his voice—half agonized whisper, half sob—that drove him insane. He backed her up against the wall and took her mouth hungrily, with no real idea what they could possibly do with Maya down the hall. When Angela’s hips began to undulate against him, he wondered, in his hormone-fueled daze, whether Maya would notice if they disappeared into Angela’s bedroom for a few minutes—

  “What’s for dinner?” Maya called.

  Justus and Angela leapt apart as if someone had turned a fire hose on them, turning in time to see the little girl run back up the hall. Angela had the presence of mind to stand in front of him to block him from Maya’s view.

  “I’m hungry,” Maya announced.

  Angela tugged the bottom of her sweater down, took Maya’s hand, and led her to the kitchen.

  “Barbequed chicken,” Angela said.

  She grabbed the oven mitts and took a white casserole dish out of the oven. Only her swollen lips and shaky hands marked her as a woman who had been seconds away from making love.

  Justus, who couldn’t pull himself together as easily, had to skulk into the bathroom and wait for several minutes until he became decent again.

  22

  Four hours later, Angela finally finished working for the night, got up from the kitchen table to stretch, and turned out the lights. She put her briefcase near her purse, where they’d all be ready to go first thing in the morning. Her hearing started at nine and, barring any further surprise appearances from the overzealous caseworker, she’d be on time.

  So...time for bed.

  If only she wasn’t so agitated.

  Her evening with Justus had been very unsatisfying. With Maya’s constant chattering, and her curious little eyes watching them all evening, Angela had had no chance to share a complete sentence with Justus, much less to lure him into her bedroom. When he left, he gave Angela a perfectly respectable, G-rated kiss on the cheek and departed without protest, a fact she found horribly disquieting, especially after the hello kiss he’d given her.

  Talk about frustrating.

  So then she’d grumpily bundled Maya off to bed, taken a cold shower, and thrown on her soft cotton sheep pajamas, figuring if she couldn’t have sex, she may as well be comfortable.

  Well, anyway. Time to call it a night—

  Knock-knock-knock.

  Startled, she reve
rsed course from the hallway and flew to the front door, fueled by her surging heartbeat and excitement. After a quick glance at the peephole, she swung the door open.

  “Justus. What’re you doing here?”

  Stupid question. The gleam in his eyes—hot and determined—gave her all the information she needed, and her belly tightened with a slow curl of anticipation.

  “You didn’t think I was gone for the night, did you?”

  “Maya—” she began halfheartedly, but he’d already sidled past her and gone to the living room, where he took off his leather jacket and tossed it on one of the chairs.

  “Maya’s asleep,” he said flatly, his voice low. “And I’ll be gone before she wakes up.”

  She barely heard him over the roar of her pulse. Couldn’t focus with her skin shivering to life. Could hardly breathe with the sweet ache between her thighs.

  In short, her body was already waving the white flag of surrender even if her three remaining brain cells didn’t like it.

  She was, and always had been, astonishingly weak where he was concerned. All he had to do was walk into the room—exist—and her resolve melted like an ice sculpture meeting a blowtorch. Still, she needed to set a few limits and do her due diligence to prevent him from digging his way any deeper into her heart and life.

  She frowned.

  He stared levelly and crossed his arms over his chest as he waited.

  “I think the best thing,” she said in the no-nonsense courtroom voice she liked to think made judges and juries sit up and pay attention, “is to set up a few ground rules, and I—”

  “Shut up, Angela.”

  Angela blinked, her mouth hanging open. “What did you say to me?”

  His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits that had her shrinking into her skin. He got up in her face and she took two hasty steps backward before she realized what she was doing and stood her ground.

  And then, to her complete astonishment and dismay, he reached for the bottom of his fleece pullover. In one smooth motion, he swept it and his T-shirt off and revealed the sculpted perfection of his arms and torso. A dizzying wave of heat from his big body swept over her, flattening her outraged protest the way an atomic explosion flattens everything in its path.

  All but choking with desire, she made a strangled sound.

  He came even closer. “I’m not seventeen years old anymore. I’m a grown-ass man. I’m sick of your rules. ‘Don’t put your feet there, don’t get water on the floor, don’t touch me, don’t let Maya see,’” he mimicked while kicking off his shoes and socks. “I think even you’ll have to agree I’ve been pretty patient, but enough’s enough.”

  “How dare you—”

  He slipped his hands under the waistband of his sweatpants and slid them down his long legs and off.

  Leaving him naked and fully aroused.

  Yeah, she looked.

  Gasped.

  Stared.

  A thin trickle of sweat slid down her chest and into the valley between her breasts as she slowly raised her eyes and met his smug gaze.

  Innate stubbornness combined with her control-freak gene to make her all the more intractable. Which was admittedly ridiculous, since the man had her teetering on the verge of orgasm and hadn’t even touched her yet, but there it was.

  She couldn’t see a graceful way off this playing field.

  “Do you think you’re just going to come in my house, tell me to shut up, and bulldoze me into doing what you want?” she asked quietly, frowning.

  There was a flash of white as he smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Unstoppable Force. I’m Immovable Object.”

  She stiffened.

  “And I’m wondering: what the fuck are you going to do about me?” he said, not bothering to disguise the amusement in his voice. “Are you going to bite your nose off to spite your face? Because we both know what we could be doing with each other in your bedroom right now, don’t we?”

  He reached down, fisted his thick length, and began to stroke himself.

  Angela couldn’t stifle a tiny whimper.

  “This could be you touching me,” he said, his lids lowering to half-mast. “I could be touching you. Don’t you want that?”

  She couldn’t answer.

  He began to pump harder. “Or maybe you want to touch yourself while I watch,” he said, his voice growing huskier. “That could be fun, too, couldn’t it?”

  Angela unstuck herself enough to shake her head in slow motion.

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling crookedly. “I think I’d like that. Touch yourself for me. Right now.”

  “No,” she managed.

  “Take your clothes off and touch yourself for me.”

  “No,” she said, but even to her own ears, it was beginning to sound like a maybe.

  He paused.

  Her beaded nipples began to throb.

  “Angela. Do it.”

  By the time he got to those two final words, she was hopelessly spellbound and languorous, as though he’d dipped her body in warm honey to make it as pliant as he wanted.

  Without conscious thought, she swept her pajama top over her head, shimmied her way out of her bottoms, palmed her own breasts, and nearly wept with relief. She cried out, letting her head fall back, and suddenly he was there, nudging her hands aside and squeezing her breasts with his own.

  “I need you,” she said, beyond opposition or shame.

  “I know,” he said, biting the sensitive tendon between her neck and shoulder before ducking down to suck a nipple deep into his mouth and letting it pop out again. “Why do you make me jump through these hoops? Huh? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said helplessly.

  He stood to his full height and frowned down at her, his glittering eyes taking up her entire field of vision. “From now on? There’s only one rule between us. Want to hear it?”

  Oh, God. She could only imagine.

  “No,” she said, dropping her gaze.

  She really didn’t. Too paralyzed to even shake her head, she waited.

  With an impatient grunt, he tapped the bottom of her chin, forcing her to look at him again.

  What did she see? An iron will. Unshakable determination that almost made it easy for her to surrender. Because she wanted control, yeah, but she didn’t want it like that. She couldn’t fight that.

  “Here’s my rule: nothing comes between us. Not your fear. Not your rules. Not Maya. We’re together now. I don’t want to have to fight this fight every day with you. We’ve been wasting too much time. Nothing comes between us.”

  He paused, giving her the chance to object even as his uncompromising expression told her there’d be hell to pay if she did.

  “What’s the rule? Say it.”

  She hesitated. By now he had his big hands clamped on her ass, and she had hers on his, and his heavy length lay between them, warming her belly with its insistent heat. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, and her rational thoughts were fogged behind an endless cloud of lust.

  It was overwhelming. Terrifying not to know where he ended and she began.

  And yet, when they were together like this, it was easy to let go. The most natural thing in the world because nothing else mattered. There was nothing else.

  “Angela? Say the rule.”

  When she opened her mouth this time, there was no hesitation.

  “Nothing comes between us,” she said, scraping her nails across his shoulders and pulling his face down for her demanding kiss.

  Justus greedily took her mouth and tried to savor the win. To do what he’d come here to do and lose himself in Angela.

  If only all his niggling little fears would stop their whisper campaign inside his head.

  The thing was, he belonged to her now. His thoughts belonged to her. His body answered to her. The sun only shone on his face when it entered the room with her smile.

  And he was so far gone, he volunteered for this torture every chance he got. He couldn’t sign up f
or it fast enough.

  It was a good way to go, though.

  He could almost laugh at himself if his mouth wasn’t so busy reclaiming hers. Maybe he’d smack himself upside his hard head if his hands weren’t so full of her hair...her tits...her ass.

  “Yeah,” he said, hiking her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist as he carried her to the bedroom, ricocheting off a couple walls as he went. “Shit yeah.”

  She held him tighter around the neck, kissing his eyes and cheeks before nipping his earlobe with her sharp little teeth. When he shuddered helplessly, she laughed that husky, skin-tingling laugh of hers, circled her hips, and rubbed those hard little nipples against his chest. All of this action caused her fragrant hair to shift against his face and tickle his nose, and he lurched into her room, slammed the door shut, and stumbled to the bed just before his control snapped in two.

  “Maya better not be on my side of the bed,” he warned, even though it was way past too late to do anything about it if she was.

  “She’s not.”

  He yanked the covers back, knocking a couple of Angela’s precious pillows to the floor in the process, and laid her down as gently as he could.

  Then he knelt between her bent legs and studied his prize by the light of a corner lamp.

  Tousled hair. Bright eyes. Swollen lips, above and below. Dark-tipped breasts that were perfectly round and rose and fell with the uneven rhythm of her breath. Taut belly. Wide hips. Sexy-ass legs with juicy thighs. And in between those thighs?

  He stroked her experimentally, trying not to notice the way his hand shook. She writhed and pumped her hips in response.

  Yeah, she was soaking wet. He sucked his fingers into his mouth and savored the taste of her—fresh oysters and clean woman.

  All for him.

  Yeah, but you know she’s not really yours, don’t you?

  And there was his fear again, as welcome to this little party as a pile of elephant shit in the corner of a four-star restaurant.

  Hesitating, he trailed his fingertips low over her belly and across her thighs just for the thrill of watching her shiver.

  She’s not really yours.