by Cole, S. Ann
“Someone whose got something they want to keep. To secure.”
Unnerved by the voice, I flinched and spun around to find Trevillo behind me leaning against one of the two large columns serving as a dramatic entryway to the penthouse, arms folded across his chest, inscrutable eyes watching me.
Shit.
Bummed at being caught — because I never, ever got caught — I feigned indifference and stared back at him.
Dispassionate, he watched me long and hard. Suddenly, he slammed the side of his head against the column in a way I’m positive caused him pain. He seemed to be having some sort of internal battle. But hitting your head against a wall?
His levels of intensity were just too much for me.
“Think we need to have that talk now,” he said, voice devoid of emotion. “If you don’t what I want, then I’ll let you go. I’m not gonna force you to stay.”
As he pushed away from the column, he took a step towards me — I think he meant to lift and carry me, which was habitual for him. But he abruptly turned on his heels and stalked off into the living area, prompting me to follow.
He was wearing a pair of gray Emporio Armani boxers, and I delighted in watching the rippling musculature of his broad back temporarily marked brutally with long, red scrapes from my fingernails. Surprisingly, I found them to be sexy as sin. I wanted to do it again.
Trevillo strode over to a large ivory sofa and sat down, dropping his forearms to his knees. When I sat down beside him, he turned impassive blue eyes to me. “Sit somewhere else, Krissan. I’m far too angry at you right now.”
He was angry yet looked so calm? I concluded in that moment this man was lethal. Anyone who could look that calm while angry was downright deleterious and shouldn’t be trusted.
Without a word of argument, I got up and moved to the sofa chair across from him.
Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his thighs and locked me into his gaze. “I had a nice, buttered-up, persuasive speech prepared to give you over well-done Eggs Florentine, fresh fruits, and steaming hot coffee. But fuck that. Since this is how you want to do things, then so be it. I’ll keep it short and spicy … or bitter … or however the fuck it ends up tasting to you.”
Pausing, his gaze dropped to my lips, then to my breasts, then further down, as though he were inspecting the product one last time before decidedly making a no-refund purchase. Then his eyes snapped back up to mine, and he nodded once, satisfied. “Trev’s. Yes. I want you to be Trev’s.”
The way he said it with such finality, made it clear it wasn’t a proposal, but a demand. I wouldn’t, however, allow him to bully me. The tone he used was most likely one he kept reserved for closing business deals and intimidating others into doing what he wanted.
Not allowing my voice to waver, I asked him, “And what does being ‘Trev’s’ mean?”
His facial response implying my question was asinine, he raised a censorious brow. “It means,” he dragged out as if speaking to a dimwitted child, “you’ll be mine. Alone. In case you’re not too keen on the English language: an apostrophe S shows ownership. That simple. Most of all, it means you don’t try to sneak out of my fucking bed in the fucking morning while I’m fucking sleeping!”
As he spoke, his volume crested, and I tried not to flinch at his feebly restrained anger.
Instead, I shot up to my feet, because I wasn’t going to brook him talking to me like that. “N-fucking-O. Translation? No!!”
“I’ve told you not to swear,” he said as he, too, rose to his feet.
“You can’t keep telling me not to swear when you swear more than a drunken, perpetually-pissed-off pirate!” Standing my ground, I glowered up into his now icy blues. “Let me out.”
Trevillo leaned down to level his gaze with mine across the coffee table. “N-fucking-O. Translation? No.”
Eyes now narrowed, I accused, “You said you wouldn’t force me to stay.”
Voice lowering to a smooth, seductive tone, he ensured me, “And I’m not going to … ”
The air grew still, and the world grew quiet as we stared at each other, his eyes focusing on me like a wild animal keeping utterly still for those last few seconds right before it attack its prey. Something devious flitted across his face, making me craven.
Just as I was about to demand he let me out of the goddamn apartment, he lunged for me and flattened me across the coffee table faster than the devil’s wink, the decorative scented candles toppled off the table to the floor. “Not coerce, babe. Coax.”
Before I could even let out a squeal at the sudden attack, his tongue was in my mouth, punishing my tongue with his.
Of their own volition, my fingers twisted in his hair, forcing him deeper. Out of anger, I caught his tongue and bit hard on it, but all he did was groan with pleasure into the kiss and forced his thumbs through the thin cotton of my tee until it ripped.
Breaking the kiss, he used his big, brutal hands to fully rip the material in two, leaving the shredded pieces to fall open to my sides. One hand flat on my stomach, the other one grabbed the waistband of my shorts and dragged them down my legs. The man was frigging rabid. Sans prelude, his tongue began beating down on my bud with a relentless rhythm.
“Ohdeargod!” I cried.
He tossed my legs up over his shoulders, then brought his hands up and around to the center of my back. Pausing, he ordered, “Cross your ankles, Krissy, and hold on to my shoulders.”
Before I could register his command, I was being lifted up off the table, hoisted up high on his shoulders. My legs reflexively crossed at the ankles for balance, and my hands gripped his wide shoulders.
“Goddammit, I love how tiny you are,” he groaned into my wet, sensitive spot, lapping at me like a Labrador. “I can do anything with you.”
He walked with me, tongue in ceaseless motion, over to the floor-to-ceiling window and pushed me up against it. I was high — high in the goddamn air, with my back flat against the window, writhing on his shoulders, drowning in the intense pleasure his tongue was evoking.
“Ohhh,” I moaned, as I moved against his tongue. “I’ve never … felt … I’ve never … no … ” I had no idea what I was trying to say.
Seized and locked by pure, unadulterated pleasure, constructing a coherent sentence was an impossibility at that moment. Trevillo pulled at my thighs, prompting me to uncross my ankles. As he urged my legs wider to match the width of his shoulder blades, I tried to grab something, anything, for balance, but there was nothing except the glass behind me. So I spread my arms out and pressed my palms flat against it, fighting to keep still as Trevillo prolonged his torture.
“You want to be Trev’s, Krissy?”
Unable to answer, I thrashed my head from side to side, re-situating my sweaty palms flat against the glass each time they began sliding down.
“Tell me,” he demanded, as he unyieldingly flicked his tongue over the most sensitive tip of my bud. When he didn’t get an answer, he sucked it. Hard.
That undid me.
Like brick slamming into a mirror, I shattered into splinters. On their own, my legs relocked around his neck and my hands fisted in his hair as my whole body juddered with the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had. “Sweet fuck … yes.”
Trevillo’s hands went up to the center of my back and helped keep me balanced during the quake of my orgasm. Wrung dry, my upper body fell limp against the glass, and I peered down at Trevillo who was peering up at me from between my still-quivering thighs, his lips glossed over with my arousal, one eyebrow arrogantly arched. Waiting.
I raked my fingers through his hair and whispered in a hoarse voice, “I’m Trev’s.”
“I’m expected on the dock in a few hours to go sailing with my brothers,” said Trevillo, peering at me over the rim of his coffee mug. “I’m taking you with me.”
After sucking me dry a few hours ago, he sat my enervated body down on the sofa and I dozed off instantly. Fifteen minutes ago, he woke me up to a heavy break
fast of Eggs Benedict and asparagus, sliced avocados, diced strawberries and pineapples with bread pudding on the side. All tastefully prepared by his hands.
The man was too amazing to be real. He could fuck like a demon, suck his way through the gates of heaven, and cook his way through the fires of hell.
“I don’t mind,” I responded, as I bit on an asparagus. “But I have to go home and sort myself out. No clothes.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at me across the table with a satisfied curve of his lips. “You don’t have to go home. I’ll have my cousin, Lori, bring some outfits here for you. She’s a stylist.”
“Nah. That’s cool,” I declined, shaking my head. “I’d rather head home.”
“Blowing off my offers in a polite manner?”
There was that tone again. That ‘calm’, anger-concealing tone.
Sighing, I set my fork down and raised my eyes to hold the blue gaze of the man sitting at the other end of the table, bare-chested and scrumptious. “I’ve agreed to … ’being yours’. However, I need you to agree to some things; things that I know are affixed to dating a man of your status that I’m simply not up for: I don’t want to be lavished. I don’t want you to buy me expensive jewelry and request I accompany you to boring functions with other vapid, pompous comrades slash business partners. I don’t want you to be partial and put me above other designers in DD at TDR just because you’re screwing me. I don’t want the hype. I don’t want your money. And I would prefer we kept this … thing between us on the quiet side.”
For a long moment, he just stared at me. Studying me. He took a breath as if to argue his case, but stopped himself and shoved a hand through his hair. On a shrug, he agreed, “If that’s what you want.”
Relieved he chose not to make a big deal out of it, I thanked him.
Then he stealthily tried to put in, “But it really would be better to have Lori bring over a couple changes of clothing for you instead heading to your place. If we don’t make it to the dock on time, they’ll think I’m not showing. I’m good for it.”
“Trev, I have to go home. I have nothing with me. No cellphone, house keys, nothing. I even left the house unlocked. JK is probably worried sick about me.”
“Why? Aren’t you a grown woman?”
“Why are you being so difficult?” I snapped.
Displaying defeatism, he held his palms up. “‘Kay, Krissan.” Pushing his chair back, he got up from the table and started out of the room. “Gonna shower.”
Not quite sure if he was upset with me, I took up my fork and resumed eating. If he was upset, I honestly didn’t care. This thing we were testing out was still new, and I wasn’t about to let him take over my life. Apart from sexual giving, I wasn’t used to giving myself to anyone. So stampeding head-first into something I didn’t know jack-shit about would be utter fatuity.
A few minutes later, as I was about to take a sip of my coffee, I glimpsed a figure in the periphery of my vision. Glancing up, I caught sight of Trevillo standing in the archway of the dining area. Naked. Wet. Naked. Hair slicked back from his face. Naked. Dick hard and erect. Naked.
One eyebrow was winged in a severe arch, while water dripped to the floor from his right hand that was grasping a sudsy soap bar.
With the cup of coffee frozen mid-air, my lips parted, and a lustful breath of hot air rushed out.
Shitting hell …
“You need to understand something, Krissy,” he began, taking careful steps towards me. “Whenever I drop the words ‘gonna shower’, it means, we’re gonna shower. I expect to see you sliding the doors open and stepping in under that shower with me, no more than a minute later. Aroused, eager, and impatient to be fucked under the spraying shower and against the tiles.”
When he reached me, he took the cup of coffee still suspended mid-air from my hand and set it down on the table. Then he bent and slid one arm beneath my thighs, the other around my waist, and lifted my inert body up off the chair. “If I don’t want you to join me, I won’t tell you I’m gonna shower. ‘Cause, then, what would be the fucking point?”
Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he proceeded back to the bathroom. “There’s so much more you need to learn about me.”
In the bathroom, he set me down right under the steaming hot shower, the water raining down on my head and soaking his white tee I was wearing. Stepping inside, he closed the shower door, and, not bothering to remove the soaked tee from my body, he slid a hand beneath it and up to my aching center.
Eyes rolling back, I moaned and allowed him to push me back against the tiles and show me who was boss.
Chapter 14
K. Kingston
Sweet Sins
“Why don’t you come in with me?” I suggested to Trevillo as he turned the car into my driveway and shifted the gear in Park. “It’s better than waiting in the car.”
Distracted, he began connecting his iPhone to the car system. “Go on. I’ve got a few not-so-short calls to make.”
On a shrug, I hopped out and headed up to the house. The front door was locked when I got up it, so I had to ring the doorbell since I didn’t have my keys. It didn’t take long before Jahleel swung it open, his eyes bloodshot.
“Dammit, Krissy,” he breathed out in a relieved sigh. His arms shot out around me and lifted me into a tight hug. “Been shittin’ my fuckin’ jeans worrying … ”
I giggled against his chest. “I’m fine, JK. I was at Trev’s”
Stiffening, he slowly released me so I slid down his body and was settled back on my feet. The downside to being short was people, men in particular, were perpetually sweeping me off my feet. Literally.
I glanced up at him and noticed that he was looking over my head at the car out in the driveway. A tic jumped in his jaw. Yanking me inside, he slammed the door behind me with more force than was necessary.
Hard and flashing with anger, his gold eyes connected with mine. “I get home, the door’s unlocked, your cellphone, keys and everything are still here. Now it’s just, ‘I was at Trev’s’? Could’ve given me a heads up, you know? Would’ve saved me the fuckin’ worry.”
For a pastor’s son, Jahleel had the sinful habit of swearing profusely and eating all his ‘ings’. Living with him was the main reason I swore as much I did. He wasn’t always that crass. Not until a few years back, when he’d started working with that R&B artiste. He transformed into a crude, gritty man since then. I both loved and hated it.
Stepping around him, I started for the stairs, knowing there was a man outside waiting on me. “Sorry for the scare, JK. It was unplanned, and I left in a hurry.”
“Would it have killed you to make a goddamn phone call?” he asked my back as I mounted up the stairs. “You always let me know where you’re going, and with who. And … ” Grabbing my arm, he spun me around to face him just as I reached the top of the stairs, staring at me with intense accusation. “Thought you said he wasn’t an Again.”
“Jahleel, I said I’m sorry, okay?” I apologized once more, growing impatient. “And Trev’s not just an Again. We’re … kind of in a relationship now.”
Freeing from his grasp, I continued on to my bedroom. Straight into the closet, I doffed the black T-shirt and boxers belonging to Trevillo that I was currently wearing and put on a mini silk robe, then began scanning the clothes-racks for nautical-style pieces.
As I selected white jeans shorts and tossed it over the crook of my arm, Jahleel materialized in the closet doorway with his hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatpants. “A relationship,” he said quietly, calm. “What’s changed? So fast, too.”
Selecting a white bandeau top that would crop high above my navel, I tossed it over my arm along with the shorts then moved to the other side of the closet where my jackets and blazers were. “Nothing’s changed, JK. I just … like him. A lot.”
At that, he took a breath and stalked off. But by the time I selected a striped, navy-blue crop-jacket and turned to exit the closet, he was there ag
ain, glaring at me. “Because he’s loaded, right?”
Exasperated and just about tired of damn possessive attitudes, I glared back. “What a fucked-up question to ask me! Am I poor? Are you poor? Do I want for nothing? Do you know me to be someone who gives a shit about a guy’s net worth, asswipe?”
Eyes softening, he immediately apologized. “No. That was an asshole thing for me to say … Sorry.”
Moving past him furiously, I threw my garments on the bed and went over the vanity to plug in my flat iron, then spun back around to look at him. He looked dreary as if he hadn’t slept at all last night, and I did feel bad I’d caused him to worry, but I also believed there was more to the irrational, yet personal, questions he kept shooting at me. Something was going on with him he wasn’t telling me about.
“Okay, JK, you’ve been acting pretty damn … aggressive all of a sudden. And I’m beginning to think you’re hiding something from me. What is it?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”
With a slight shake of his head, Jahleel raked his teeth over his lower lip as was his regular whenever he was irritated. He came up to me and stood hovering mere inches away and slid his index finger under my chin to tilt my face up so he could bore his intent gaze into mine. “If you can’t see what I’m ‘hiding’ from you in my eyes, or feel it in my touch, then I won’t tell you, bad girl. ‘Cause, then I’ll know I’m only forcing myself to give you somethin’ that doesn’t belong to you.”
Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on my nose then quietly walked out of the room. I watched the door he went through for a long while, struggling to keep old feelings at a distance. Willing them to stay buried.
Freakin’ Jahleel!
“What’s the point of that damn jacket if it’s covering less than what that … bra is covering?” Trevillo grumbled with an unpleasant scowl. He’d been looking disgruntled since I first got into the car back at the house, displaying his disdain for my choice of attire.
