by K. L. Kreig
That’s the second time I’ve heard that word. I choose to ignore it the same way I did the first.
“No, you’re wrong. I will have you, my beauty. You and I both know that.” She opens her mouth, but I silence her with my finger. “But I truly don’t want to hurt you, Willow. I won’t lie to you, I won’t feed you bullshit lines just to get between your legs, and I won’t promise things I have no intention of delivering. You’ll always know where you stand with me. There’s an expiration date on this, yes, but we’re attracted to each other, and there’s no harm in two grown, single adults enjoying life-altering sex until then.” I use her own words with intent. “But please believe me when I tell you it would kill me, kill me to hurt you at the end of this. I don’t want to do that. If we’re both honest with each other about what this is, no one will get hurt.”
Her face softens. My cock twitches like mad, and my eyes get heavy when her palm cups my face. It feels so fucking good when she touches me. I can’t wait to feel her tight fist pumping me up to the edge of climax before I finish between her tits.
“Sierra scared the shit out of you, didn’t she?”
I’m stunned for all of two seconds before I howl with laughter. She squeals when my hands fall to her sides and squeeze. Pretty soon we’re practically wrestling around in my Rover like two teenagers, laughing and batting each other’s hands away until we’re both gasping for breath.
Then my lips are devouring hers, and she’s reciprocating.
Beat for beat.
Stroke for stroke.
Breath for breath.
Her limbs wind around my neck, and her sweet moans linger delicately on my taste buds.
Fuck, I want her.
Lost to where we are, I’m angling her head for better position when I feel a sense of being watched. I pop an eye open, freezing at our audience.
“Please tell me there’s nobody there,” she rasps against my lax mouth.
“Okay. If that’s what you want to hear.” I chuckle, giving her one last hard kiss.
Her hands cover her face. “Oh God,” comes out muffled.
“Stay there.” With a squeeze to her thigh, I grab the bottles of wine and exit, running around to open the door for her. I wave to my grinning family, matching with one of my own before opening Willow’s door.
“Come on, baby.”
Her wide eyes dart to mine, then to my outstretched hand. I wiggle my fingers until she takes it. When she’s safely out of the vehicle, I yank her to me and drop one more kiss on her lips, whispering, “Let’s do this.”
She smiles up at me. It steals my thoughts. “Let’s kill it.”
“Let’s.”
My nerves from earlier evaporate. A couple minutes later, introductions are complete and my mother has commandeered Willow away from me, leading her inside, arm in arm.
Following behind, I fish out my phone, grinning wide when I see a text waiting from Dane.
Project A in the works, sir.
Once inside, Linc and I hold back while everyone else fawns over Willow. It reminds me of the first time we all went to see Nicholas in the hospital after he was born. He was the first grandchild, after all. The shiny new toy that cried and wailed as he was passed around for inspection. Only Willow is not crying and wailing. She’s laughing and effortlessly chatting them all up as if she genuinely wants to be here. And they’re buying it, because really, what choice do they have? She has this inherent magnetism that draws everyone near her in. She’s… captivating.
“So, how did you meet her?” Linc asks me in a low voice.
Neither of us can take our eyes from Willow as my mother shows off her prized glass vase collection from every place she and my father have visited. Some of the pieces are one-of-a-kind and have to be worth a mint. Every once in a while, Willow will look our way and gift me with a small smile that makes her eyes sparkle like a night sky full of stars. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m among a choice few who gets these tiny glimpses of the real her.
I find myself thoroughly enjoying the fluidity of her trim body as she moves around the room. There are very few women who emanate organic seductiveness. Willow is one of them. She’s original and wholesome in every way I can see so far. “It was quite by accident,” I mumble absently, my eyes tracking her every step.
Or was it divine intervention? my conscience whispers.
I’m not one of those people who believes in fate. I don’t believe there’s a one-and-only soul that reflects ours walking the face of the Earth. I think meeting one person and falling in love with them is just sheer dumb luck. Staying with them for as long as my parents have been together and still being in love after all that time? Almost a statistical anomaly these days. Animals, by design, were not meant to be monogamous. In fact, there are very few animals that do truly mate for life and homo sapiens are not in that elite category.
But as I stand in my parents’ kitchen and watch how naturally Willow interacts with my mother and Gemma, like they’ve known each other for ages and the passage of time apart means nothing, I have to wonder if I’ve been wrong about this fate thing the whole time.
How did I happen to run into her on the very night my father talked to me about needing my help?
How did Noah happen to bring her right to my doorstep when I’d wished she was the one I’d be saddled with for the next few months?
How is it she consumes my every thought and I look forward to spending time with her more than I have anyone else? Ever.
Even though this charade will last but a few months, I find myself wanting to know everything about her. What happened in her past to dim the light inside her? How did she stumble into this questionable line of work? Does she enjoy it? Does she want to go back to it when we’re through? Does she want more in life than to adorn the arm of some wealthy man? Why doesn’t this ethereal beauty already belong to someone?
“She seems like a good accident,” Linc says. Tipping his herbal tea to his mouth, he takes a deep swallow. Lincoln doesn’t drink. In fact, he doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t smoke, and he doesn’t swear. Growing up, he got a load of shit for being a goody-two-shoes brown-noser, but never from us, his siblings. I love my brother. He may be living a hard life, his gender identity on the outskirts of societal acceptance, but he is the purest person I’ve ever met. Pure of heart, pure of soul. Anybody lucky enough to have his love should treasure it like gold, no matter their gender, no matter how they dress.
With difficulty, I tear my eyes from Willow to face my brother. He looks tired. “She is,” I confess with surprise candor.
“How long have you known her?”
“Not very long.” Yet it seems like a lifetime.
He looks to Willow again and then back to me. “Hmmm.”
“Hmmm, what?” I press, standing up a little taller. Is he onto us?
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Linc. Just spit out what you want to say,” I growl.
He shrugs. “You’re not gonna like it.”
Oh. Shit. He knows. Thirty minutes in and we’re already busted like a cheap McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. Gemma has those fucking things littering her house.
“Try me,” I grit, getting angrier than I should.
“She’s different from the others you’ve brought home.” Like I’ve brought soooo many women home.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” He goes back to studying her. It prickles me. I feel as if he’s about to pick her apart like he’s done with the few women of mine he’s met. If he starts down that path, he and I will be taking this discussion outside. It won’t be the first time I’ve tried settling something with my fists and he with words. I may be the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, but I also used to be a mean street fighter, defending the honor of my sister, Gemma, more than once. “She doesn’t seem to feel the need to impress everyone, for one thing.”
My fists relax. I chuckle softly. “You’re right there.
She doesn’t have that complex.”
“And she seems comfortable in her own skin.”
I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, but it just goes to show how good at fooling everyone else Willow Blackwell truly is. “What else?” I prod, curious now that I know he’s not about to rip her apart.
“She doesn’t fawn all over you. I like that.” He laughs when I shove him with my shoulder. “She seems like she’ll keep you on your toes.”
“Yeah, they’re cramping already,” I answer sincerely.
Linc has a slight smile when our eyes meet. “There’s something magical about her. I have a feeling you’ll have to set a lot of traps to catch this one, brother. She may be a little too cagey for Shaw Mercer, businessman extraordinaire and Battleship slayer.”
My lungs feel bound, not filling enough to even laugh at his joke about my prowess in both the boardroom and on the game board. “What makes you think I want to catch her? Who says I’m not just passing time like always?”
“Time to eat, boys,” my mother calls in the distance.
He clasps my shoulder and squeezes. “It’s like I said before. This one is different.”
Two hours later, we’re backing out of the driveway in moonlit darkness. Willow gives one last wave to my mother, who actually hugged her—hugged her—when we left. Turns out I didn’t have anything to be worried about. I think by the end of the night, they loved her more than they love me.
My mind reels over how well the evening went. I think every family member caught me alone to tell me specifically how much they like her. In all my years, that has never happened. And outside of Lianna, whom it took a month for my own mother to warm up to, no other woman has ever been accepted with such fondness or open arms.
In fact, when we left, my father specifically told me not to fuck this up. He used those exact words. “Do not fuck this up.” He rarely swears. I didn’t have a chance to ask him if it was because of his election or because he saw the same thing Linc did.
There’s something magical about her.
I don’t think I could have described Willow any better myself.
I glance over to see she’s gazing out the side window, deep in thought. Her left hand rests in her lap, but she’s making quick little circles with her thumb and middle finger. I’ve noticed she does that often, as if she can expend her nervous energy through the pads of her fingers. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it half the time.
Coldplay’s “Yellow” is the only thing cutting through the interior. We’ve not exchanged one word since we left my parents’ house. I want to know what she’s thinking. Does she like my family? Does she regret doing this? Would she call everything off if given a choice?
The urge to take her in my arms is overpowering. I want to hold her, protect her, keep her. I’ve had my hands all over her tonight, and the absence of her touch is making me restless. Regardless that it’s just the two of us, this time I refuse to deny myself what I want. Reaching over, I take her smaller hand in mine. That draws her gaze from the passenger window to our looped fingers and then to me.
“What are you doing over there?” I ask, bringing her knuckles to my lips.
Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine. “I was just thinking,” she says somberly.
“Don’t worry.” I wink. “The first time’s always the hardest.”
The serious look she had is quickly replaced by amusement. I really like it when I can do that.
“I will have you know that I graduated salutatorian of my senior class.”
Why do I cherish every nugget of information from her like they’re tiny flecks of gold I’m accumulating?
“You do realize salutatorian is second best, right? That’s not really something I’d go around bragging about,” I tease.
She rips her hand from mine, but she’s laughing. “You’re such an ass. No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Ouch.” I throw my free hand over my heart. “That physically hurt.”
“The truth hurts.” She twists in her seat to face me, a dazzling smile on her lips. “So, what about you? What was your class rank?” she challenges. “I realize it may be hard to remember as old as you are. You’re probably coming up on, what, your twenty-year class reunion soon, aren’t you? The mind is usually the first thing to go. Or the hair.”
Oh, Willow.
My eyes slide to hers. When my grin gets wider, she groans and drops her head against the window. “Of course. The only person who can belittle the glory of second best is the first, right?”
“I can’t help it I was a born genius.”
“You’re so full of yourself.” There’s no bite to her words, only humor, but it makes me harder than fuck. I’ve been battling a semi the entire night. Once again I put her hand in mine, and she lets me.
“I have no doubt you’d love it if you were full of me, too.” A bold statement that’s laced with nothing but raw want. The sharp intake of air she takes swings the energy from light and teasing to thick and pulsing, so I take advantage. “Tell me you’re thinking about my cock filling you up you right now.”
“Shaw.”
She tries to pull away, but I hang tight. “Tell me, Willow,” I demand.
Thirty seconds later I’m parked in front of her condo. She still hasn’t spoken. I swiftly undo her buckle and try to pull her into my lap, but she resists. She and I both know if her pussy ends up nestled against my pounding cock, it’s game over.
Since she won’t come to me, I’ll go to her. I lean over until she’s pressed into her seat with nowhere to go. Grasping her chin between my fingers, I grate thickly, “I want you to tell me that you’re thinking about my cock impaling you over and over as much as I am, Willow. I want to hear you say you’ve fantasized about the ecstasy I will shower over every inch of you if you’d only let me. I want you to tell me you touch yourself in the dead of night wishing my fingers were feathering your clit instead of your own.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispers gutturally before licking her lips. Another damn telltale sign she wants me. This.
“Why are you denying this?” I throw back hotly. Unable to resist, I place a soft kiss at one corner of her mouth, then the other before I rain kisses all over her cheeks and closed eyelids. “Admit you’ve been thinking of me fucking you just as much as I have,” I whisper as I go.
“Yes. God…yes,” she murmurs right before I slant my mouth over hers.
“Come home with me,” I plead between the kisses I’m drugging us with. I’ve not once begged a woman to come home with me. She seems to make me do things other women can’t.
“No.” Her refusal fans cool over my face, making my skin tighten in annoyance.
“Let me come inside then.” My free hand finds her bare thigh and crawls up until I’m pushing the hem of her dress up with it. My thumb is almost grazing her honeyed spot when she clamps my wrist, stopping me.
“No.”
I tighten my grip on her chin. “Why are you fighting us? You want this just as fucking much as I do.”
“We rarely get the things we want,” she says woodenly.
That fucking veneer is back. I’m beginning to hate how easily she goes back and forth between open and closed like she’s flipping a fucking sign in a window that says: Be Back in 10.
“Who hurt you, Willow?”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
My heart suddenly aches for her. I realize then that I’ve never been hurt by another person—I’ve never let myself be hurt by another person—yet it’s clear she has, and I have nothing to draw from.
“You’re wrong, Willow. You’re wrong about so much.”
Her eyes dart toward the window so she doesn’t have to look at me. She doesn’t even fight my hold anymore. I think it’s more comforting than she wants to admit. She doesn’t want to admit a lot of things. “You’re probably right,” she says, lowly.
I tug her face until our gazes connect
once again. “Let me in,” I tell her with conviction.
Her beautiful blue eyes turn glassy as water builds. “I wish I could.”
Finally, some fucking honesty. Now we can get somewhere.
“Do you want me to back off? I can honestly say it won’t be easy, but I’ll try if that’s what you want.” I hate those sour words, but the last thing I want to do is hurt this woman whose strength thickly cloaks the fragility of past wounds inflicted by someone or something.
“I don’t know what I want.”
I let my mouth curl into a gentle smile. “You’re wrong again.”
I don’t let her say another word. Kissing her tenderly, I coax her lips open. Our tongues duel languidly until her breaths pick up and she’s making those sultry sounds in the back of her throat that fucking slay me.
I want her. Her pussy, her ass, her mouth. I can picture her now on her hands and knees making those exact noises as she takes every inch of me wherever I desire. I want parts of her she doesn’t want to give me. And I want them badly.
But oddly, I want to protect her more. So, for now, I take a half-step back. “You did well tonight,” I praise.
“It was easy. Your family is great.”
“They are.” Letting my lips linger on hers for a few seconds longer, I know if I don’t leave right now, I won’t be taking no for an answer. With a little effort, I could probably coax her into saying yes, but I don’t want her to regret being with me either, so the only thing I can do is, “Goodnight, Goldilocks.”
She looks both relieved and disappointed when she responds, “Night, Drive By.”
Surprising me, she initiates the kiss this time, but it’s fleeting before the door slams and she’s hurrying up the walk. I wait until she’s safely inside, hoping she turns back like last time. She doesn’t.
I go to bed that night with my hand on my dick, coming violently to thoughts of flaxen strands tangled in my fist as I ruthlessly possess her mouth. I picture her bewitching blue eyes sweeping up my body, making sure she’s pleasing me with every thrust of my cock. I imagine her swallowing every drop as she hums around my heavy shaft like she can’t fucking get enough. I envision her getting herself off so we both fly at the same time.
