by Lucy Score
“Why are you so nice to me?” Paige murmured, inhaling his scent.
“I’m a glutton for punishment, and you just defended me to the dragon lady.”
Paige smiled against his chest. “She’d love that nickname.”
“I’ll be sure to use it at Thanksgiving.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Preying upon her reluctance to go back to her apartment and wallow, Gannon talked Paige into checking out a furniture boutique after shooting wrapped for the day.
He had shrugged off her mother’s insults like they were nothing more than raindrops. Paige, on the other hand, let them burn into her skin and fester. Her mother was more intent on scaring Paige away from Gannon than remembering her daughter’s birthday.
But the lesson wasn’t received as intended. As Paige had learned to do in childhood when faced with the Leslie St. Jameses of the world, sometimes it was better to head in the exact opposite direction.
Gannon led her through the heavy glass doors on the first level of a two-story, repurposed warehouse in Brooklyn, and she was immediately overwhelmed by the colors and textures of the cacophony of home décor and furniture that sat in organized chaos within.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Paige asked.
“I want your thoughts on shooting here. My mom’s ordered furniture from them before. Small business, family-owned, kick-ass stuff. I wouldn’t mind tapping them for some furniture.” Gannon cocked his head and studied a gilded birdcage.
“You don’t need a birdcage,” Paige insisted. “Why aren’t you dragging Cat around? She’s got the designer brain.”
“I don’t want my sister designing my house. It’s weird. I want stuff I like, not stuff that someone else thinks ‘works.’”
“So, are we looking for anything in particular?” Paige asked, running her hand over a cherry armoire with sinuous curves.
“A bed,” Gannon said, shoving his hands in his back pockets and scanning the store.
“You took me shopping for a bed? Seriously?”
“What? You know what I like.”
“I know what you like in bed, not in a bed. Difference.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders. “Close enough. Besides, there’s this pizza place around the corner, and once you give the okay for shooting here, we can go grab a superior pepperoni pie and even some stupid salads if you insist on the green stuff.”
“This is work, Gannon. Not a date.” Her reiteration of their professional relationship felt more like an ingrained habit than an actual denial at this point.
He ignored her reluctance and dragged her further into the belly of the warehouse. He was right. It would be a great place to shoot, she decided. Tall, industrial shelving created makeshift aisles and housed everything from rewired light fixtures to fireplace screens.
The furniture section was organized without rhyme or reason, overstuffed leather couches sat nestled next to delicate writing desks and wire-framed baker’s racks in an array of colors.
Gannon flopped down on a four-poster with dizzying scrollwork.
Paige shook her head. “Nope.”
He opened one eye. “Why?”
“Too feminine,” she insisted.
He rolled to his side. “Okay, smarty pants. Let’s see what you’d pick.”
Paige browsed the selection while Gannon yawned from his mattress. She knew he wasn’t really interested in furniture shopping now. He was looking to distract her from her run-in with her mother. And she needed it.
He knew her whether Paige wanted to admit it or not. Gannon had taken the time to get to know her, and that knowledge hadn’t evaporated with her ending things or their breakup or whatever the hell it had been. He cared for her. Otherwise, why would he be here dragging her from store to pizza shop to keep her from wallowing?
He was a good man, a solid one.
He’d made a mistake, but Gannon King wasn’t the kind of guy to make a mistake more than once.
He’d ended up in bed with Meeghan and never let it happen again. He hadn’t been entirely truthful with Paige and when faced with those consequences had been nothing but honest since. He learned, adapted, and he still wanted her.
She saw it then. Dark wood, the slight curve of the headboard, sinuous leather inserts. The frame of the bed sat up high enough to accommodate drawers on either side. It was big, solid, and—she tested the mattress—just right for Gannon’s muscular frame. Soft enough to comfort at the end of a long day yet firm enough to offer support. She relaxed against the pillows and closed her eyes, trying to imagine the bed in the space that would become Gannon’s master bedroom.
Against the brick wall, she decided. Two heavy nightstands with those sexy grey washed wooden lamps. Navy drapery and linens. Yeah, this fit him.
She felt the mattress dip, sensed his weight on the bed next to her.
“Okay, you win,” he sighed.
“I know.”
She opened an eye and turned her head to look at him. He lay on his side, one hand under his head, studying her with those serious greenish brown eyes. Those eyes said it all. Want, need, tenderness… and something stronger, sharper. Yet he held it all back, waiting for her to be ready, for her to make the decision.
When she let everything else drop away, it was the easiest decision she’d ever made in her life.
“The pizza’s going to have to wait,” she breathed.
––—
“Why here?” she murmured against Gannon’s busy mouth as it worked hers into a frenzy. Her back was pressed against the front door of the brownstone as he blindly fumbled with the keys.
“Home,” he growled. “I want you here. I want us both to remember the very first time here.”
It was good enough for her. The door tripped open behind her and they stumbled inside, refusing to break apart long enough to walk across the threshold. It was dark, but Gannon knew the way. He half carried her up the stairs, avoiding the rickety bannister that was somewhere further down the fix list.
The door to what would be the bedroom hadn’t been rehung yet, so Gannon dragged her through the opening. “Sure? Are you sure?” he asked her, his hands busy pulling her sweater over her head.
Her lips broke with his. “Positive. I want you Gannon. Here. Now. Fast.”
“Thank God.” He stripped off his own shirt and threw it on the floor, spreading it out with his foot. “It’s going to be here, Paige.”
She didn’t question him, didn’t wonder why he wanted her in the gutted, empty bedroom of his new home when he had a perfectly good bed a few blocks away.
Nothing mattered but his naked torso, his callused hands caressing her smooth curves. Not expectations, not rumors, not even truth. She wanted this, and she would take it.
She busied herself with the fly of his jeans, and Gannon flicked open the clasp of her bra. His sigh was relief, admiration, adoration, when her breasts fell into his palms. Rough against smooth, soft against heat.
She moaned when his thumbs brushed across her aching nipples.
Before she could shove at his jeans to free him, he reached into his pocket for his wallet, and she heard the crinkle of foil.
“Awfully confident, aren’t you?” It was only half a joke. He’d known she’d come back to him even though she’d never let herself consider the possibility.
Just another example of Gannon knowing her better than she was comfortable with.
“Consider it a lucky charm.” His voice was rough as concrete block and sent a delicious shiver up her spine. “I thought they’d expire before you were mine.”
Nothing he could have said would have made her more frantic. She pressed herself against him, her breasts flattened against his stone chest.
He took her down to the floor, bracing their impact with his arm and lowering her onto his shirt. She felt the grit of the dirty hardwood under her legs and thought it was sexier than any mattress in any bedroom.
“Honey this time it’s going to be fast becau
se I need you that way. I’ll make up for it later.”
God, yes. Her body sang with need, pulse thundering, muscles quivering. She wanted him fast and hard and a little desperate. It was how she felt right now. She needed him to remind her exactly why their bodies craved each other so fiercely.
“Make up for it after pizza,” she whispered.
He laughed, sounding pained. And without another word, his mouth closed over the peak of her breast with a desperation that had Paige arching under him and crying out in pleasure. She used her feet to wrestle his jeans down his legs and reveled when one less layer separated them.
“Your body, princess, deserves to be worshipped,” he groaned, licking at her nipple before switching to the other one that strained for his attention.
“Worship later,” she murmured. Her body couldn’t take a slow, purposeful seduction.
“Tell me you didn’t put up the time lapse cameras in here, yet.” The thought wasn’t enough to stop him from sucking at her peak, but it was enough for her to freeze for a millisecond before relaxing.
“Not yet. They go up for drywall and painting,” she panted. She glanced around the shadows in the room for good measure but was distracted by his mouth back on her breast while his fingers peeled her jeans from her hips.
She couldn’t quite catch her breath. There was too much dark and not enough oxygen in the room. There was a danger here, a danger of being consumed and never coming back to herself.
But it was a price to pay, and in this second, it wasn’t even a choice.
“You are the sexiest woman in the world,” he murmured, stripping the denim from her. He slid up between her legs, his teeth teasing a trail up her inner thigh. Paige drew in a sharp breath when she felt his hot breath at the apex of her thighs.
“You said fast,” she accused.
“I have time for a pit stop,” he promised, dipping down between her legs. His tongue slicked between her folds, and Paige levered her hips up against his mouth.
“Gannon,” she hissed.
“Baby, if you only knew what hearing my name like that from your mouth did to me.” He licked her again, the rough texture of his tongue triggering the nerves in her clit to dance and contract.
“Show me,” she demanded.
He did just that, leading a frontal assault that left her quivering under him. He slid two fingers into her as his tongue worked her over. Paige gripped at his hair, and when she couldn’t get purchase, the floor.
“I need you to come for me right now because I can’t hold off being inside you, Paige.”
Her body and Gannon had a special relationship, one where he gave the orders and her body jumped to obey.
He used his tongue to lave her trembling nub, fingers driving into her and curling ever so slightly.
She cried out, every muscle tight as a bow as a climax, unexpectedly violent, ripped through her.
Gannon groaned against her as she came around his fingers. His hips pistoned against the floor as if priming himself for what came next. She’d barely stopped coming when he was pulling back just far enough to slide the condom over his purple-headed erection.
He wanted her as badly as she needed him. That gave her comfort as soul-shattering aftershocks continued to wrack her body.
Gannon settled himself between her thighs, and just the weight of his body, the position of his cock, sent her up again. She went from satiated to needy and desperate in less than a second.
She bucked against him, insisting with her body.
But he held her still, her face framed between those big palms.
“One thing,” he said, eyes boring into her. “We’re in a relationship.”
“Gannon!” She was aching for him. She needed him buried inside her. They didn’t have time to have a talk about expectations. She needed him to fill her.
“Say it, Paige. No misunderstandings this time.” He cheated, probing her greedy entrance with the rounded crown of his cock. She was already spasming with need. “Say it.”
“We’re in a relationship.” She whispered the words, and they were almost lost entirely when he drove into her.
He groaned in her ear as he muscled his way inside. She gasped, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
“You okay?” He breathed the words in her ear, ragged and harsh.
She was stretched wide to accommodate him just on the safe side of her limits. “God, yes.” Her voice was strained and breathy, and her body tense with the decadent sliver of pain his invasion caused.
His dusting of chest hair teased her hardened nipples. Gannon’s tattooed arm took just enough of his weight off of her.
He wrapped her hair around his other fist and slowly, slowly eased out of her. She watched his eyes when he sank back into her and saw the fire there.
“Fuck. Honey, I can’t stop.”
“Don’t you dare stop.” Paige urged him on with her body. Jacking her hips up to meet his thrusts, she clung to his shoulders, nails digging in and scraping flesh. He pinned her with his body and his eyes. Those hazel orbs held her enthralled. She took and took as his hips slammed into her, the floor biting into her back, her ass. But he was inside her where she needed him the most, and nothing but the finish line mattered.
She saw the glaze come over his eyes. The sweat dotting his forehead and arms belayed his effort to hold back. There were no words now only the soft grunts that escaped Gannon’s throat, the cords of his neck standing out with the strain.
“Yes!” she begged. Paige hitched her legs up higher over his hips and felt her sex ripple around his shaft. “Gannon!”
He released her hair only to grip her breast, squeezing, plumping, and Paige flew over the edge at full speed. She felt herself close around him, and then he was driving into her, holding himself there, his feet digging into the floor so he could stay fully sheathed in her.
His shout of triumph as he came inside her ripped through the dim light. She quaked beneath him feeling him temper the power of his thrusts to match the waves of her own release. His pleasure echoing hers.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“What are you doing?” Paige asked. Her head was pillowed on the arm he had tucked under his head. They both were staring up at the unfinished ceiling in the master bedroom.
“I’m composing a thank you note to your mother in my head.”
She laughed, rising up onto her elbow to study him to prod him in his ribs. “Very funny.”
“Dear Leslie, I can’t thank you enough for being a pompous ass and forcing your beautiful, stubborn daughter to get out of her own way,” he recited.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re thinking about pizza.” Gannon screwed up his handsome face as if he was trying to read her mind. “And trying to figure out what this means.”
Paige flopped back down on her back, breaking the eye contact. She’d been doing exactly that.
“I don’t want to be in a relationship right now, Gannon.”
“So you used me for sex?” he asked in mock horror.
“I forgot how hilarious you are after sex,” Paige grumbled, stretching her arms over her head.
Gannon reached over, his large palm closing over her breast. “I’m hilarious all the time. You just have a terrible memory.”
“Today’s my birthday.” She wasn’t sure why she’d said it beside the fact that it had been poking at her in her head. She’d seen her mother on her birthday, and Leslie hadn’t remembered. Paige had barely remembered. Her life was full steam ahead right now, and she didn’t have time for things like relationships with sexy, smoldering men or birthdays. As rebellious as her mother considered Paige to be, it appeared as though she were following in the family’s footsteps after all.
“Today’s your birthday, and you let me fuck you on the floor of a construction zone?” Gannon was surprisingly pissed.
“Uh, thank you?” She wasn’t sure what kind of answer he was expecting.
He propelled himself off t
he floor, dragging on his jeans. “Get up.” When she didn’t move fast enough for his liking, Gannon hauled her to her feet.
“Geez, is this a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am?”
“Put your clothes on, Paige. We’re having a birthday.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want a birthday.”
“I don’t want a birthday, Gannon. I don’t want a relationship, Gannon.” He was misquoting her in an obnoxious falsetto. “Sometimes you’re really infuriating, you know that?”
“You were a lot nicer to me when you didn’t know it was my birthday.”
But he was too busy looking at his watch and muttering to himself. The shine of sex was rapidly wearing off, and Paige wished that she had kept her big, fat mouth shut.
“Let’s go!” The order was given over his shoulder as he trundled down the stairs to the main level.
Paige tugged her sweater back in place, zipped her jeans, and shuffled down after him. “Yeah, yeah. We’re going.”
––—
Darkness had fallen on Brooklyn, at least as dark as the borough could get with its army of LED streetlights. They drove for a few blocks before Gannon cut the wheel and expertly worked the oversized pickup into a parking space on the street in front of a closed fish market.
“Stay here.”
Before she could even come up with a smart comeback, he was slamming the door and stalking down the block. Paige rested her head against the seat and sighed. She’d chucked her will out the window today and embraced the bad decision that was Gannon King. Again.
Paige frowned through the windshield. She didn’t feel like she’d let herself down. She felt… satisfied, smug even. There was no doubt that time spent in bed—or on the floor—with Gannon was never time wasted. The man made pleasure an Olympic sport. But she’d expected to feel guilty for letting herself down, for caving. She didn’t have time for a man as demanding as Gannon. She didn’t need any distractions at this point in her life.
