The Owner of His Heart

by Taylor, Theodora

  He chuckled. “Why do you think they call it a bachelor pad?”

  She started to say something smart, but then thought twice. She was here to snoop around for Andrew Sinclair’s contact information, she reminded herself, not to insult him. Instead she went over to the large black wrap-around couch and said, “Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, and I don’t mind sleeping on the couch at all.”

  Now he looked up, his cold grey eyes almost glittering in the loft’s dim light. “You’re not sleeping on the couch.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly let you take the couch. Really, I’m fine sleeping here. It looks like a really great couch. Soft…”

  The words died in her throat, as he laid his phone down on the office desk and started walking across the large space toward her. He paused for a few seconds, but only to strip off his suit jacket and toss it onto the couch that, according to him, she wouldn’t be sleeping on. There was absolutely no mistaking his intentions, and Layla once again had to tamp down opposite urges to run and stay rooted to the spot.

  Rooted to the spot won out, and she ended up feeling like caught prey when he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to him for a kiss that pushed all thoughts of sleeping on the couch out of her head.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THIS was not how Nathan had expected the night to go. Growing up the scion of an old money family, life experience had taught him you could make any problem go away if you threw enough money at it. He had thought he’d get Layla to sign the contract and leave on his terms before the Sinclair Ball and his brother’s return to town. But instead he’d ended up spending the majority of his evening furious at whoever had spray painted “LEAVE” on her door. For the first time in his entire life, he felt compelled to protect someone other than himself.

  She had looked so scared outside of that apartment door, for a few seconds he had actually wished he could be more like Andrew, a nurturer by nature, someone who knew exactly what to say and do when women got upset. Instead, he had invited her back to his place, with a somewhat vague plan to keep his hands off of her for at least twenty-four hours, even if she was sleeping in his bed. He had never been a gentleman, but he had figured he could play the part since Layla was shaken up.

  But when she offered to sleep on the couch, the old anger resurfaced. It had felt like she was threatening him, insinuating if he didn’t lay claim to her and let her know exactly what he wanted her next forty-eight hours in his abode to entail, then she would relegate him to friend territory.

  And he was many things, but he had never been and would never be Layla Matthew’s friend. So he’d kissed her, and much like the last time, it immediately sent him up in flames. His greedy desire for her burned hot and relentless inside of him, making him unable to care what she’d been through or that she had indeed looked as tired as she said she was when they had argued earlier back at her Squirrel Hill apartment.

  At that moment, he needed to be inside her, needed to know she wanted him the way he wanted, had always wanted her. And she was already responding to him – moaning underneath his kiss and rubbing her breasts against his chest, so he couldn’t help but want to rip off the clothes that separated him from her beautiful body.

  “Please,” she said again, and he groaned. Why did she have to do this to him? Make him want her like this?

  He swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bed. He removed everything but his underwear as quickly as possible, but caught her hands above her head when she tried to take off her own clothes.

  “No,” he said, digging a hand under the elastic waistline of her scrubs and cupping her mound, which was once again covered by a thin pair of cotton panties. “This is for me. Keep your hands up here.”

  He let go of her then, so he could pluck off her socks and shoes, untie her pants, and pull them down himself, revealing the lower half of her body slowly, like a birthday gift.

  He moved aside the crotch of the cotton panties, and she jumped when he pushed two large fingers into her opening. “You’re already so wet,” he said. “We’re going to have to do something about this.”

  The lips of her soaking slit quivered around his fingers and he could feel a responding gush of cream at his words, making her even slicker than she’d been before.

  He pulled his fingers out.

  “No,” she moaned. Her hips lifted and grinded, seeking the heat of whatever body part he was willing to give her, and he had to work hard to get his body under control and not whip his cock out and plunge into her right then.

  “Sshh,” he said, pulling her panties down her hips and over her knees and finally off her body all together.

  He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and kissed the inside of her thigh, before delving into her opening with his tongue.

  “Oh!” Her head lolled back and she ground her hips against his face.

  Her response was almost as good as her taste. He stroked his tongue further inside of her and pushed his nose against her swollen bud, determined to make her as crazy with lust as she was making him.

  “Oh, I can’t. It’s too much.” She was panting now, but he didn’t stop, instead he pushed against her with his nose again, and she bucked underneath him, her hips thrashing as her head whipped back and forth in wild abandon. Then she exploded for him, tugging at his hair and coming with one large moan.

  When she was done, she sagged against the pillows, but he wasn’t done with her yet. He crawled up over her body, so they were face to face. “Say please again,” he commanded.

  He still had his underwear on, but dragged his thick erection across her still quivering pussy, so she could feel him in her afterlight. She trembled at the touch of his cloth-covered erection, lifting her hips toward it.

  But he shifted, so she couldn’t grind against him, and was instead forced to feel the pressure of his cock against her opening but not have any of it. Yet. “Say please,” he said again.

  “Please,” she said. Her eyes were helpless with need.

  He pulled off her top and was grateful to find a front clasp bra this time. He released her breasts and palmed the left one. “That gets you nipple play,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her hard, dark nipple. “Now say please again.”

  “Please,” she said again without any hesitation whatsoever.

  He rolled away from her and a few deft moves later, had his underwear off and a condom pulled over his large, pulsing dick. But when he lay back down on top of her, he still didn’t give her what she really wanted. Instead, he lodged the large knob of his penis against her opening.

  Her breathing became very shallow, and she immediately let loose a series of “Please, please, please.”

  “Please what?” he asked her.

  “Please, Nathan,” she said.

  “What do you want me to do to you? Tell me exactly.”

  “I want you,” she said, frantically trying to move her hips, but he pressed harder into her, giving her even less purchase to move and even more pressure on her aching bud.

  “Please put it inside of me,” she said. “Please.”

  “Put what inside of you,” he asked against her lovely neck.

  “Put your penis in me.”

  His cock throbbed, demanding he do exactly what she’d requested now. But he stayed in control of himself.

  “How do you want me inside of you? Missionary? From behind? Sideways?”

  Her lust-filled gaze cleared for just a moment and she looked directly into his eyes. “Anyway you want me, I want you,” she said.

  He had been planning to play with her a little bit more, tease her until she sobbed for it, but that statement broke him. He lifted up and plunged into her, giving her all of him in one hard thrust.

  She gasped as if she’d just had the wind knocked out of her, but then she began moving her hips against his, her legs squeezing him around the waist. He lifted up on one forearm and took control back from her frenzied thrusts, forcing her into a slow, rolling rhythm with hi
m.

  She felt so sweet and tight around his manhood, perfect, like she had been created to have him inside her. With Layla, it didn’t feel like fucking, but like joining, like coming back to the place he most belonged.

  And when she climaxed, clinging to his back and arching up against him, lips pressed together against a scream, she pulled him over the edge, too. He released with a body-wracking shudder, pressing as deeply as he could into her before collapsing on top of her.

  Breathing hard, she kissed his forehead. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer for fear of saying something stupid. Like I love you. The old Frank Sinatra song coursed through his head along with the thought that he had to make her sign that contract and leave town. Not only because he wanted her gone before his brother got back, but also because he didn’t know how much longer he could keep himself from falling in love with her again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LAYLA woke up the next morning, thinking she hadn’t slept this good in ages. She stretched without opening her eyes. Even her bed felt better this morning. Her sheets were silkier as if they’d magically increased their thread count by a thousand fold overnight. And she rubbed her nose into the pillow, which felt especially plump. It was like sleeping on a cloud.

  Best of all, she thought, for the first time in months, she hadn’t woken up in the middle of some weird sex dream involving Nathan Sinclair—

  That’s when it all came back to her. Her eyes flew open and she found herself in a bed covered with black sheets, one way larger than her own modest full. She sat up with a gasp. And then she saw the stainless steel alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed. It read eight am, which meant she was supposed to be at work two hours ago.

  “Oh no,” she said, scrambling out of bed. She looked around for her clothes, but she couldn’t find them. They weren’t anywhere near the bed, and when she opened the black hamper, she found it empty.

  “Looking for something?” a voice called from the other side of the loft.

  She looked up to see Nathan in the kitchen, leaning up against one of the black granite counters, wearing nothing but a pair of black workout shorts and sipping coffee from a large black mug.

  For a moment she became mesmerized by the view, the way his ab muscles rippled into the hard triangle of his pelvis. But then she remembered herself and said. “I’m looking for my clothes. I was supposed to be at work two hours ago.”

  “No you weren’t. Kate called in sick for you.”

  “What? Who’s Kate?”

  “My assistant. That’s who I was texting last night.” He set down his coffee and walked over to her, making no pretense of his interest in her complete nakedness. The way his eyes ran over her body sent a shiver down Layla’s spine.

  Still she forced herself to stay focused on the business at hand. “I can’t just skip work. I need the money to pay you back—seriously where are my clothes?”

  “How about this,” he said, coming to a stop in front of her, so close, she could feel the heat radiating off of his post-workout body. “You sign the contract and I’ll give you back your clothes.”

  She backed away from him, thinking that the last thing she had time for was morning sex. “No, I have to get to work.”

  But he caught her by the shoulders and said in a reasonable tone of voice. “Your shift started two hours ago. They’ve probably already called in a replacement.”

  “Yeah, but I hate letting people down. I should…”

  He lodged his hand in the space between her neck and her shoulder, stroking his thumb against her jaw. To Layla, who could sense his cloth-covered erection just a few tantalizing inches away from her naked core, it felt like he was both caressing her and keeping her there, holding her in place.

  “You’re not letting anyone down,” he said. “You work for a business and businesses are set up to expect their employees to use the sick days they’ve been allotted. Take a break from being the nice girl already.”

  She peeped up at him. “You really don’t like that about me, do you? That I’m nice, that I take my responsibilities seriously.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, actually. You’ve always been a hell of a lot nicer to everyone but me.”

  “So when we were dating or whatever we used to do together, I wasn’t nice to you?”

  He paused, as if considering his words, before saying, “No. You weren’t.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You shouldn’t apologize,” he said. “For all you know you might have liked being mean to me. You always seemed to take pleasure in it, anyway.”

  She shook her head. “I would never take pleasure in being mean to somebody else.”

  “Again, how would you know?”

  A flare of annoyance provided her with some respite from the thick sexual tension that came with standing here naked like this. “It’s not very nice to tease me about things I can’t remember.”

  Something ticked in his jaw, and he didn’t take his hand away from her neck, but he did turn his head away from her, so she couldn’t see his face. “Well, you weren’t very nice to me. So now we’re even.”

  Even with his face turned away, she couldn’t help but see the haunted look in his eyes, the look she somehow knew she’d put there, even if she didn’t remember how or why.

  Now she reached up to stroke his jaw, turning his face back to her so she could look into his tortured eyes. “I don’t know who I was then, but I know who I am now, and the thought of me hurting you really upsets me. I think that’s why I want to pay you back so bad, not just because I want my dad’s debt off my conscience, but because I can’t shake this feeling there’s something I need to be making up to you.”

  His grey gaze became cold again, and he shifted his eyes to a point just beyond her shoulder, obviously not wanting to answer her unspoken question.

  “Nathan, no one’s ever made me feel the way you did last night,” she said. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, I just want to make it up to you, okay?”

  He still wouldn’t look at her, so she pulled the hand cupping her neck down to her left breast, hoping he could feel the heart beating underneath it. “Please, let me make it up to you.”

  Without warning, he turned his hand over and reversed the hold so he now held the hand she’d used to cover his in a vice grip. “You want to make it up to me? Fine, come over here.”

  He didn’t drag her, but he wasn’t exactly gentle as he pulled her into the office section of the loft. The contract he offered her last night was sitting on his desk in a brown envelope. He pulled it out with one hand, then shoved a pen into her hand, the one he had taken prisoner.

  “If you really want to make it up to me,” he growled. “Sign the contract.”

  “No!” She tried to tug her hand from his, hurt that despite what had happened between them the night before, he still wanted her out of his life.

  “Then you don’t really want to make it up to me, so stop saying you do.” He yelled this, before pushing her hand away.

  “Now if you’re done pretending to be Miss Sensitivity, I’m going to go finish my coffee.” He started back toward the kitchen.

  Layla clutched her heart, which was beating like a wild thing inside of her chest now. Hot tears were at the surface, threatening to overtake her, but at the same time, her damn sense of honor was already telling her what she should do, what she had to do if he was serious about needing this action to forgive her.

  “Fine,” she said, her voice wet with sorrow and anger.

  He turned around.

  And just so there was no mistaking her meaning, she bent down, naked as the day she was born, and started signing the contract.

  There were five post-it tabs with heavy arrows on them, indicating where she should sign her name for each section. She could feel Nathan standing behind her, watching over her shoulder as she signed away her life in Pittsburgh. Finally she reached the last page a
nd signed that one too, scribbling the date down, despite her vision, which was becoming blurry with unshed tears.

  But no sooner had she finished writing out the last two numbers for the current year, did Nathan turn her into his arms. He picked her up by the waist, and set her on the edge of his office desk. “Thank you,” he said. He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. His face was so close to hers he could feel his hot breath on her face. “Thank you. Now stay with me until you have to leave in August.”

  “What?” She was so sad and confused, she wasn’t sure if she was hearing him correctly.

  But he kissed her, leaning into her so she could feel the thick erection tenting his workout shorts. “Stay here with me. Let me have you until you go. That’s the second part of my deal.”

  Hot need burned inside of her and she returned his kisses, even as she tried to make sense of it all. “So you want me to go, but you want me to stay with you until I do.”

  He reached into a nearby desk drawer and pulled out a condom. “I want to get tired of you,” he said, pulling down his workout shorts and slipping the condom on over his straining erection. “I want to fuck you until I don’t feel this way about you anymore.”

  The way he said this, it sounded like he was in pain. Like Layla’s mere presence hurt him. “Then wouldn’t it be better if I left now, went back to my apartment and never saw you again?”

  “No.” His answer was vicious and hard, like the muscles that flexed in his chest and arms as he pulled her hips toward him. “Don’t leave. Stay.”

  Then he drove into her. Layla gasped to be filled so suddenly, but it felt good, the thickness of him as he moved in and out of her.

  “Say you’ll stay until your move date.”

  “I can’t think when you’re inside of me.” Layla collapsed her head on his shoulder. The sensations building inside her were primal. She could feel herself clenching around him, eagerly milking him into her.