“Tell me how it feels, Sophie.”
“It kind of hurts.” I winced as I tried a gentle withdrawal. It was like having sex for the very first time— albeit, a better time than my first time— in that the more I moved, the easier it became. I picked up a rhythm, holding the dildo with two hands on the base, pumping it slowly in and out. “But pretty fucking amazing, too.”
“Do you think you could come, doing that to yourself?” he asked.
I nodded, a shaking breath sliding from between my lips. “I could. Oh god, I think I could.”
“Good. That will make this so much more interesting.” He sat up a little, carefully stabilizing the camera with one hand. “I want you to place the dildo on the chair, and sit on it. I’d like you to straddle the chair with your legs beneath the arms. You can either take it all the way inside, or you can lift yourself up and down with your feet on the floor. But I want to be able to see it, Sophie. I want to see it filling you up.”
I trembled as I moved to do as he ordered, setting the vibe carefully on the seat of the chair, as well. He’d said I would need it. I lowered my leg from over the arm of the chair, and I gasped as the toy slipped deeper inside me.
“Careful,” he murmured.
“As if I wasn’t going to be careful,” I chided, whimpering as my movements caused my engorged clit to brush against the shaft of the dildo. “I don’t want to get impaled.”
“These don’t appear to be the actions of a woman who doesn’t want to be impaled,” he said dryly.
I opted to do what he’d suggested, and raised and lowered myself on the dildo experimentally. I’d had plenty of fun with toys on my own in my life, but I’d never gotten so elaborate as to semi-bind my legs with a piece of antique furniture. I’d really been missing out. I moaned in relief as the beginning of an orgasm coiled within me, and my bouncing got a bit more enthusiastic.
Neil groaned as he watched me, and took a slow, deep breath through his nose. “I can’t wait to watch this with you. I want you to understand even just a fraction of what you’re doing to me.”
“I want to suck your cock while you watch it.” Two could play at his arousing talk game. I was getting a lot better at it.
“Are you close, Sophie?” he asked, and when I nodded, my lips clamped tight between my teeth, he instructed, “Now I want you to take the vibrator and use it. And I want you to come.”
“Yes, Sir!” I agreed enthusiastically. I reached for the vibe, nearly slapping it off the seat of the chair, but I caught it, turned it on, and slipped it over my very grateful clit. Within seconds, I rasped, “I’m coming! I’m going to come!” in a tight, high-pitched exclamation.
“Don’t stop,” he ordered.
“What?” My head was dizzy, spinning out of control, and I broke over the edge, my knees shaking, unable to support me. I slammed down on the huge toy and cried out at the shock of the blunt, hard tip hitting my cervix. A naughty thrill of cold pain spiked through me, prolonging the waves of bliss that radiated from beneath those two vibrating protrusions on the vibe.
“Don’t stop,” Neil repeated. “Leave the vibrator there.”
I wanted to pull it away. My clit seemed to scream, Okay! We’re done! It’s over! Turn it off! But I did as he’d instructed.
“How many times did you decide to edge before? Do you remember?” He asked this casually, as if I could forget the five long, fruitless climbs to release I’d already experienced tonight.
“Five,” I ground out, my entire body shaking from the overload of sensation.
“Then five orgasms, I think. It’s only fair payback.” He adjusted the camera again. “I want to see your cunt as you’re coming. I swear, I can almost hear the sounds it’s making. You’re so wet, you’re practically dripping down that cock.”
“Fuck!” I humped against the chair, grinding on the impossible length that wasn’t even all the way inside of me. It bent slightly, still braced against the chair, but I felt it slip as my internal muscles clenched on it in another strong climax. My toes dug into the carpet and I gripped the arm of the chair with my free hand.
“That’s two, then. Keep going.”
I couldn’t stop the third one from happening if I had wanted to, and by the time the vibration and the tight fit of my overstretched pussy had driven me to the break, I wanted to. My legs cramped. A trickle of sweat ran down my neck. And I was so close to flinging the vibe across the room and never letting it touch me again. The pleasure became pain so thoroughly that the fourth orgasm brought me to the very limit of my tolerance. I squirmed and cried and bucked so hard that the dildo fell from my tortured cunt and bounced onto the carpet, a torrent of wetness releasing behind it as I howled and bowed desperately in the chair.
The instant I could think coherently once more, I tossed the vibe aside, shouted, “Red!” and slumped down, dizzy.
Neil pressed a button on the camera, then started a slow clap. “That was incredible.”
I lifted one middle finger, but I was too tired to flip him off for long. Instead, I concentrated my energy on getting up and coming to lay beside him in the bed.
“I should put all that stuff away,” I mumbled against my pillow, feeling the weight of the other toys, the ones I was now thankful he’d hadn’t decided to use, on top of the covers.
“Leave it. If anybody sees all of that, they can just be impressed at how well my sex drive is handling chemo,” he laughed.
I opened one eye. “You didn’t get off.”
“I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “I don’t know which medicine it is, if it’s the pain medication or the anti-emetic or the damned steroids. Something is making it difficult for me to function.”
“Oh.” I stirred, trying to raise myself up a level of consciousness. “Should I write that in my—”
“No, don’t you go reducing me to figures on a damn chart,” he said wearily.
I owed myself ten bucks for that one.
Closing my eyes, I decided that if Neil wasn’t concerned enough about it to discuss it with Dr. Grant, I wasn’t going to push him. “I’m sure Dr. Grant deals with that stuff all the time. And you know that. If you’re not worried about it, and it’s not bothering you, then I won’t worry about it either.”
“Finally! A symptom Sophie isn’t worried about.” He pushed aside his pillows and reached for me, and I snuggled down beside him, nuzzling my head against his shoulder.
I had been so lonely before, when I’d hung up with Holli. Now, just from spending time with Neil, I felt so much better. And it wasn’t the sex. It was the intimacy.
In a way, I had to thank his cancer for that. We’d done things with each other I’m not sure I would have thought of trying if not for us needing to work around the unfortunate side effects of his treatment.
Neil reached up and smoothed his palm over his head. A few strands from a patchy spot clung to his fingers. He grimaced. “For a moment there, I had actually forgotten.”
I scooted up to give him a kiss. “That’s what I’m here for.”
He wrapped me in his arms and held me as tightly as an exhausted man could. “And I am so very, very glad that you are.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Later that week, either Thursday or Friday, I forget because my sleep schedule was so jacked up from all-night coffee binges, I found an email from India waiting in my in-box. My latest video already had over ten thousand notes.
I ran into the dining room in a tank top, Neil’s boxers, and my fluffy pink socks. I held my iPad over my head and crowed, “Ten thousand views!” while doing a ridiculous little dance.
Neil and Emma were having breakfast.
“Oh. Hey,” I said with a goofy flush. “I totally forgot you were getting in this morning.”
Emma shook her head and smiled down at her bowl of quinoa porridge.
“Ten thousand? Darling, that’s wonderful!” Neil pushed his chair back, and I went to him before he could stand up. I leaned down so he could hug me and kiss my cheek.
“Ten thousand views on what?” Emma asked, pointedly avoiding eye contact with either of us while her father pulled me into his lap.
I looped my arm around Neil’s neck. “A nail polish tutorial I posted on YouTube. India Vaughn posted it to her Tumblr and it’s just exploded!”
“Congratulations.” Emma took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, wiped her mouth and said, “I wondered what you were doing to fill your time lately. Dad said you were quite invested in your job at Porteras.”
Neil had been talking about me to his daughter? I wondered what kind of things he had said about me. I had been diligent about not listening to the conversations Neil had with Emma, because I didn’t want there to be any feelings of resentment at my intrusion.
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at him.
“I think this is something you should celebrate,” Neil said, happily changing the subject. “Maybe you and Emma could go out and grab lunch. Do a little shopping?”
Emma looked up, her spoon halfway to her mouth, her eyes huge. “Yes... I suppose we could.”
It was clear that the unspoken was, “We could also jam shards of broken glass under our fingernails.”
“Emma, if you have other plans—”
“Nonsense.” Neil wasn’t going to allow either of us an escape. “You and Emma need to get to know each other better, and Sophie, you need to get to get out of the house. You’ve been cooped up here for far too long.”
“Look at what you’re wearing, for god’s sake,” Emma said, resignedly backing up her father. “Dad’s right. We should go out, if only so you can get some color. And that’s coming from an Englishwoman, Sophie.”
I’d begun to understand Emma’s language, I thought. She was teasing me... or not. Maybe she was being honest. Or maybe not. But she wasn’t maliciously unrestrained, as she had been the first morning we’d met. She was talking to me the same way I’d heard her speak to her father. In other words, as a part of the family, or just someone she didn’t totally hate.
“Okay.” It had been a while since I’d washed my hair. They may have had a point. “Give me a second to shower?”
“By all means,” she said, her green eyes flaring wide.
After I’d thoroughly de-funked myself, I stepped into the closet and rummaged through my clothes. Neil came in and leaned on the doorway. “I want you to have fun today.”
“We will,” I promised him. “I haven’t really had a chance to see the city.”
“Don’t expect Emma to be much for sight seeing,” he warned. “But she’ll shop like a demon. Take as much cash as you’d like from the safe in my office.”
“Neil—”
“Don’t.” He raised a hand. “Consider it payment for your full-time nursing services.”
“Then give it to Josh,” I said dryly, adjusting my towel under my arms.
“Sophie, let me be perfectly blunt.” He walked toward me slowly with the cocky half-smile I had been missing lately. “If you don’t take some money, I’m going to start stuffing your purse with fistfuls of cash whenever you’re not looking.”
“I just don’t want to bankrupt you by going spend crazy or something.” Actually, I didn’t want Emma to think I was a gold digger.
“I appreciate that, since I’m so close to abject poverty,” he said with a grave sense of false sincerity. He regarded me seriously for a moment. “I’m not sure if you understand exactly how much money we have.”
“We don’t have any money,” I reminded him. “You have money. I have... a rapidly dwindling savings account back in the States.”
“We do have money,” he stated again. “I didn’t bring you all the way over here so you could have different scenery during your financial hardship. You told me once that you wanted to share your life with me, and I think a part of that is letting me share my wealth with you.”
“Okay, but you’ve been rich your whole life,” I reminded him. “You know how to be rich. How do you know I’m not going to just freak out and start spending like crazy all over the place? I don’t want to negatively impact your bank account, and I don’t want it to become a point of resentment between us. And you know I don’t communicate well about money. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Ah.” He said with a nod. “You’re concerned that your inability to talk about money in a frank and impersonal way coupled with my open-handed nature will create some kind of financial issue?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m uncomfortable with this stuff, remember?”
“Maybe this will put your mind at ease. I don’t think it’s even feasible for you to outspend the money I make in a day from my investments and income from Elwood and Stern.”
“I didn’t know that.” My throat was super dry all of a sudden.
This time, his laugh was one of disbelief. “Sophie, the occasional day of shopping isn’t going to break me, provided you’re not buying up companies. Although someday, if there were one you particularly wanted to buy and you came to me with a solid investment strategy— you’d really have to have more experience behind you—”
“Off topic, baby,” I interrupted.
“What I’m trying to say is...” He blew out a long breath. His eyes fell on the drawers on my side of the closet. He went to the top one, opened it, and pulled out the flat box that contained my collar. He held it up. “May I?”
A twinge of desire made me clench my thighs.
He fastened it around my neck, and I looked at myself in the mirror. The diamonds winked in the light like the droplets of water suspended from the ends of my hair.
Neil’s big hands splayed across my stomach and my chest. “Remember when we were fighting, and I told you that you could ask me for a million dollars and I would give it to you?”
I reached up to touch the collar. “This isn’t—”
“Three point six.” His gaze met mine in the mirror as his hand came up to cover mine, over my throat. “Why did you accept this?”
“Because you wanted to give it to me.” I had missed this intimacy, the purposeful touches. I’d missed submission. “Because it meant something to you and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“I wanted to give it to you because I love you, and I wanted to express it to you in an extraordinary way. To give you what no man in your past ever has. Perhaps it’s insecurity, perhaps it’s immature and selfish and insulting to you... but there is a part of me that wants you to have everything you want. Things you didn’t know you wanted. And I want to be the one who gives them to you.”
“That sounds like you’re buying my love,” I pointed out.
“No. You’d give me your love anyway. If I thought otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.” He slipped his hand down my body.
My knees went weak, but I knew he couldn’t hold me. I caught myself with my palms against the mirror, my fingers clenching and unclenching. I watched their reflections, then the reflection of Neil’s hand between my legs. My arousal, awakened by Neil’s touch, reached an unexpectedly quick high. I soaked up every delicious sensation.
God, I’d missed his hands on me.
I turned in his arms and pressed my body full-length against his. “It’s cruel to get this started when you’re not going to be able to finish it.”
“I feel like I might be able to finish it, today,” he said with a grin.
“I’m not going to fuck you right before I go out shopping with your daughter.” I giggled. “And definitely not if I’m going to be spending your money. That would make you my sugar daddy or something. Ick.”
“Emma gets dressed much quicker than you, anyway, so she’s probably waiting already,” he said with a rueful smile as he reached behind me to unclasp my collar. “How about I spend today resting, and we can try tonight. I actually feel... healthy. Or at least as close to it as I’ve felt in a long time.”
I wasn’t going to count my chickens before they were hatched. Neil could feel fine one moment, tragically ill the next. But I beamed at him
and said, “It’s a date.”
“A date makes it sound like we’d be going out. I’m planning on going in.” he said with a smirk.
“You must be feeling better,” I teased. “Get out, let me get dressed.”
When I came downstairs, Emma was waiting beside the door, texting. She held up a finger before she finished, then looked up brightly and said, “Ready?”
I followed Emma to the car. “I like your coat,” I said, considering the dove-gray wool. It couldn’t really be wool, though.
“Totally synthetic,” she reassured me. “Just as warm.”
“But what about all the chemicals that come from making synthetic stuff?” I asked, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“You don’t really want to argue about saving the planet, do you?” Emma asked with the lift of an eyebrow.
“No. No, actually, I kind of want to get drunk.”
“Ooh, let’s do that, please. Much better than shopping, even if it is ten in the morning.” She clapped her gloved hands together. “I know this great pub, it’s about twenty minutes away but they have vegan food. We’ll pretend to be there for lunch and get super drunk instead.”
She gave the address to the driver before we got into the car, and I settled back. What the hell were we going to talk about?
“How is my dad doing?” she asked, point-blank, before her door was even shut.
“Oh. Um.”
“I’m sorry to ambush you,” she went on. “But I haven’t had two seconds alone with you to ask, and all dad will tell me is, ‘I’m fine, better than expected, don’t worry about me.’ He’d say that even if the Grim Reaper were standing right next to him.”
“He’d try to pass him off as a business partner.” I sympathized with Emma’s frustration. Besides Josh and the other home care nurses, I was the only person who ever saw how bad things really were for Neil. Around everyone else, he used some inhuman amount of willpower to keep his pain from showing.
“Please,” Emma said, and her eyes were so big and round in her face she looked like the cat from Shrek. But not in a funny, manipulative way. “Is he going to be okay? Does he have any idea?”
The Girlfriend (The Boss) Page 29
