by Ravenna Tate
“Yes, you can, Sela. I’ve never seen you more beautiful than you are right now.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say the words, but she bit them back. He withdrew his fingers and slipped his dick into her pussy from behind. He was so damn hard and swollen that it took mere seconds for another orgasm to begin, especially at this angle. She clenched her hands into fists and cried out loudly as he fucked her slowly, torturing her with long, slow thrusts in which he pulled out almost completely before diving back inside.
How he had this kind of control after the time he’d spent with the ice and the oil was behind her imagination. The man wasn’t human. When he stopped, she heard him put on a condom, and then he rubbed the oil that was on her skin, working it in, before sliding his cock into her asshole. There was no pain, only the most peaceful sense of fullness she’d ever experienced.
“Oh, Sela … oh baby, you feel perfect.”
“It is perfect. You’re perfect.”
Damien made soft, sexy noises in the back of his throat as he fucked her in the ass. His thrusts were slow and deliberate, and all Sela could do was lie there and take it. She had no strength left, but it didn’t matter. All she felt was pure bliss. She’d never been so thoroughly fucked or sated.
When he pulled out, she knew he hadn’t come yet. She heard him take off the condom, and then he untied her, took off the blindfold and sat her up. He cupped her face. “I want to come in your mouth. Will you let me do that?”
“Yes.” She’d give him anything he wanted right now.
“May I tie your wrists together again?”
“Oh … yes. How sexy. Yes.”
He kissed her roughly, and then he tied her wrists behind her back with the tie that had served as a blindfold. She shivered in anticipation as he stood in front of her and stroked his dick. It looked ready to burst, and she’d never seen it so swollen. She licked her lips, and he teased them with the tip, which glistened with pre-cum.
“Open your mouth, niña.” She did as he asked, and then moaned as he grasped her head with both hands and moved his cock in and out. She relaxed her throat muscles so she wouldn’t gag because there was no way she wanted him to stop now. She’d had three or four orgasms, and this poor guy had held off his own the entire time.
His grunts grew louder and his thrusting faster when suddenly he cried out and her mouth was filled with hot cum. She tried to swallow all of it, but some ran down her chin. He didn’t seem to mind. He moaned and pushed inside with jerky thrusts, holding her head, and then he pulled out and knelt in front of her. He reached behind and freed her wrists, then held her close, stroking her hair and back.
“Are you okay? That was incredible. Thank you.”
“I’m fine. I loved it.” I love you.
Why couldn’t she say it? The words were right there!
“We both need a shower.”
It was well after midnight, but she didn’t care. She’d never sleep again if it meant having this with Damien every single day of her life. He led her upstairs, leaving their clothes and everything else in the great room, and then held her under the spray while they lazily washed the oil and his cum off each other.
They had barely dried each other off when they lay down on his bed and he pulled her into his arms. Sela drifted off to sleep, happier than she’d ever been. This was where she wanted to stay forever.
Chapter Ten
Late Saturday morning, Damien waited outside the gym in SouthWest for Sela. He’d tried all morning to work, but it was pointless. He was still tired from last night, not that he was about to complain. He’d never had an erotic adventure like that, and it would be difficult if not impossible to top it.
The memories from last night weren’t the only things keeping his mind occupied this morning. They were meeting Santino at the mall in less than an hour, and Damien dreaded it. While he and Santino were closer than Damien was to most of his employees, he hadn’t told him he was dating his sister for one very simple reason. He knew the man protected her as if she were his daughter, and as far as Santino knew, Damien was still a player.
Now, he realized he should have told Santino himself about Sela, and he should have reassured him that he had no intentions of using her. The fact that she hadn’t mentioned it to her brother until a few days ago was inconsequential, as far as Damien was concerned. He was the man, and he should have stepped up and acted like one from the start.
He was so in love with Sela it was crazy. That was a given, but how could he tell her that when he hadn’t even been macho enough to approach her brother first? Damien was ashamed of the way he’d hidden their relationship. It would only fuel Santino’s belief that Sela was on her way to being another one of Damien’s conquests. He intended to fix this today.
Sela was all smiles when she came out of the gym, hair still damp from the shower she’d taken and looking good enough to eat in a summer dress and sandals. “Thanks for waiting until I showered. I work up such a sweat when I teach.”
“I can’t believe you woke up after only a few hours of sleep and taught two lessons.”
She laughed and linked her arm in his, smiling up at him like he’d hung the moon. The real moon. “I’m high on the most incredible sex I’ve ever had. Life is perfect.”
“You’re perfect.”
“You’re not so terrible yourself.”
It would be so easy to tell her he loved her, but talking to Santino had to be taken care of first, plus he didn’t want to push her. It was difficult for them both to trust this much, and if he blew it by moving too fast, he’d lose her. Damien couldn’t handle that, so he intended to play this carefully. Sela was the woman he wanted to spend his life with. He would not let her get away. “Are you ready to face your brother, niña?”
Her smile faded. “We have no choice. It should have been done already. I was wrong not to tell him right away.”
“No, I’m the one who should have said something.”
She gave him a droll smile. “We’re both blaming ourselves, aren’t we? Let’s not, okay? I want this to be a happy day.”
Damien put an arm across her shoulder and pulled her close. “Then we’ll make it that, mi amor.”
She gazed up at him with an expectant look, as if she wanted to ask him something, but then her attention was on the man watching them from the parking lot of the mall. She waved to her brother and sprinted over to where he stood, in front of the corner unit that would soon house Sela’s studio. Damien took his time walking over so he could watch their interaction.
Santino didn’t look happy as he and Sela talked, and he gave Damien more hard looks than made him comfortable. Damien picked up the pace and approached Santino, sticking out his right hand. “Thanks for meeting us here today. Sela is so excited about the studio.”
“Let’s see it, then.” Santino’s voice was hard, but Damien didn’t react to that. Santino would have to come to terms with this in his own way, because Damien had no intentions of giving up Sela.
She whistled when they walked inside, then turned to face Damien. “I can’t believe they’ve made this much progress already!”
Santino narrowed his eyes. “I thought it wasn’t opening for another two to three months?”
Damien grinned. “We pushed up the timeline on this one as soon as Sela signed the papers.”
Santino gave him a suspicious look. “Why? Because you asked them to?”
“Yes, I did. She’s teaching at the gym where she has no privacy with her students, and where she gets bumped out of her studio space if they have an event going on. Plus, Tomás and I agreed that having one of the corner suites done would attract other tenants.”
Santino nodded. “All right. That makes sense, but what does Ernest think of your plan?”
“I’m not interested in what Ernest thinks of it.”
“You need to be.”
Damien frowned. “Why?”
Santino cut his gaze toward Sela, who was currently touching the dryw
all and gawking at the flooring stacked in one corner. She wasn’t paying attention to them, but Damien lowered his voice anyway. “Are you upset with me about dating her, or is there something else that has you rattled?”
“Both, but what I discovered this morning while working at home is the more urgent matter.”
“Does it have something to do with Ernest?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Sela turned and watched them. It wasn’t that Damien didn’t trust her, but he wondered if this was something that should be discussed outside the company. Then again, if he planned to make this woman part of his life permanently, she had as much right to know about his business as her brother did. Then again, she knew quite a bit already, so why should this matter?
Aside from whatever was going on with Ernest, Damien did need to speak with Santino alone for a few moments, and there was no point in delaying this any longer. He approached Sela. “Niña, would you be upset if we discussed business for a moment?”
She grinned. “Does that mean you want me to walk out of hearing range?”
Damien kissed her on the hair. “Only for a few moments.”
“I understand. You don’t have to ask again. I’ll go and look at the progress on the other units.”
Santino grabbed a hardhat one of the workers had left on a table and thrust it toward her. “Wear this.”
Sela took it from him with a grin, and Damien knew without asking that she would be careful. She’d been here before. As soon as she left the corner unit, Damien turned his attention toward Santino. “Before you tell me about Ernest, I owe you an apology. I should have told you I was dating Sela.”
Santino looked stunned, and Damien couldn’t remember too many times when he had. He blinked a few times, and then seemed to recover. “She’s fifteen years younger than you, and vulnerable. You haven’t dated the same woman longer than what … a few months?”
Damien nodded. His respect for Santino just jumped up a few notches. “I was that man, but I’m not anymore. I won’t hurt her. I’m in love with her.”
“What? You don’t even know her.”
“I know her, and I know that I am in love with her.”
“How? It hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s been two weeks. How long does a man need to know he’s found the woman of his dreams?”
Santino shook his head. “Does she know this?”
“No. I want to wait because I know you’ve both been hurt and her trust was shattered. So was yours.”
Santino’s expression turned slightly sympathetic. “You had the same experience.”
Damien nodded. “Almost everyone we know was affected in a similar way. I’ve had a lot of time to think about the way I used to be, and what we all went through. I’m not that person any longer, Santino. I swear to you I am not going to hurt your sister.”
He sighed. “All right, but hear this, Damien. I don’t care how long I’ve worked for you, or how much I love this job. If you do … if you hurt Sela, I will ruin you.”
Damien stuck out his hand again. “Agreed.”
Santino shook his hand. “Okay. Now I need to tell you this about Ernest before Sela returns. She doesn’t need to know this.”
“Would it matter if she knew?”
Santino looked slightly guilty. “I suppose not, but I’d like a chance to dig further before either of us tells her this.”
Damien frowned again. “Just tell me, Santino.”
“Let me start at the beginning.” Santino’s gaze cut toward the end of the row, but Sela wasn’t in sight. “Do you remember when I first met Tomás?”
Damien nodded. Santino had been in his office discussing an IT issue, and Tomás had come over to drop off the contracts for the mall remodel project. When Santino learned from Tomás there was studio space available, he’d told Sela. Damien left the hiring of the construction crew to Tomás, who hired Ernest as the foreman for the project.
“You told me Tomás was already unsure about Ernest when he hired him,” said Santino. “There had been rumors on other jobs that he was involved in some sort of supplier scheme.”
“That’s true, but Tomás has known him a long time and wanted to give him a chance since they were only rumors. He assured me nothing had been substantiated.”
Santino gave the row of shops under construction another quick glance. “What you never heard were the comments Tomás made to me about Ernest’s former nickname. When we got to talking about one of the units being perfect for Sela’s studio, Tomás gave me an earful about Ernest. He said they used to call him JackHammer because he’s loud and he digs right into projects.”
Damien nodded. He could see that about the man.
“Thursday morning, I was going over the daily reports that both teams send me of the names they recommend be entered into Liane Peyton’s database.”
Liane Peyton was engaged to Emmett Radcliffe, President of Radcliffe Software and Web Design. She also had designed the database where all the teams the Weathermen now had in place entered names and other information they found on user names that spanned both the message boards within their respective companies, and the message boards that hackers frequented.
“And?” asked Damien. That was why they had the teams. It was their job to find those names, to make sure they were in the database that all the Weathermen now had access to, and then to track down the IP addresses and machine IDs of names that came up across all the boards.
“JackHammer was on the report of usernames.”
“What?” The hair on the back of Damien’s neck prickled.
“That’s not the worst of it. Most of the messages from that username were on your PR board, but the name also showed up once on a hacker board. I asked the other team to trace his machine ID or at least his IP address as soon as I saw it, although they would have done so eventually on their own. They traced the messages to the computer that Ernest uses for his construction business.”
Damien had no words. He merely started at Santino.
“Did you hear me? I’m telling you that Ernest Hamilton, the man that Tomás subcontracted for this project, is one of the people posting some very negative things on your PR message boards under the username JackHammer. He also posted twice on a hacker board.”
Damien struggled to wrap his head around this. “What did he say about the company on these boards?”
Santino looked uncomfortable. “He alleged you got into this particular project because you’re trying to take money away from the little guys, as he called them, like Tomás.”
“So these messages were recent.”
“As recent as a few months ago, yes.”
“What were the messages on the hacker board?”
“Noncommittal kinds of things. It looked like he was just poking around for the sake of curiosity, and answered a couple of users who asked about the flooding above ground in this area, but I want to find out if he’s posted on others before. No one just wanders onto hacker boards without a damn good reason.”
This time, it was Damien who glanced up and down the rows of units, but Sela was still nowhere in sight. “Agreed. Dig around, but keep that part quiet for now. Does Ernest know that you’re aware of his nickname?”
Santino shook his head. “I doubt it. Not unless Tomás mentioned telling me.”
“We need to find out. That’s a huge risk to take, even for Ernest.” He also needed to investigate deeper into the rumors suggesting Ernest was involved in a scheme. He’d need to speak with Tomás and find out what else he knew, and why he’d felt that the rumors weren’t true. None of this added up, and Damien didn’t like it when that happened.
Damien heard footsteps behind him and turned to find Sela walking back toward them. The issues surrounding Ernest had to be addressed, sooner rather than later, but they would have to wait. They’d promised to have lunch with Santino, and this was important, too, for all three of them.
Chapter Eleven
> Sela wasn’t sure what Damien and Santino had talked about while she’d peeked into the other units under construction, but both men were tense during lunch. One thing was certain. Their discomfort had nothing to do with her and Damien.
Almost as soon as they sat down, Santino grasped her hand and told her he was happy for her, and that he wished her and Damien the best of luck. Sela almost fell out of her chair. Her brother wasn’t a sappy person, and he almost never did a complete one-eighty so quickly.
They talked about everything except the mall remodel project during lunch, but that was fine with her. Whatever was going on clearly had to do with Damien’s company, and she knew that Santino or Damien would tell her if they could.
When lunch was finished, she walked back to Damien’s apartment with him and asked if everything was all right at work. “I know you can’t tell me everything that goes on there, but if I can help in some way, I want to.”
“I’m not sure yet if there is anything wrong, per se. There is something I need to dig into further, and I need to do it today. It’s too important to wait.”
“I understand. Don’t worry. I have plenty to do. I’m still interviewing, and now I need to step that up.”
He smiled at her, but she caught the worry on his face underneath as well. “Santino seemed surprised I did that for you.”
“Is that something you usually do on projects?”
“Never.”
“That’s why then, but it did show him this isn’t just a fling for you.”
“It did, and that’s what I wanted to show him, but now I’m worried. Have I made it difficult for you to get everything done on time?”
“No, of course not. My studio will open on time, and I’ll be ready. Don’t you worry.”
He kissed her, and it was all Sela could do not to beg him to spend the afternoon in bed. But clearly something was on his mind, and it was important he take care of it. Business was business, after all.
“I’m not worried about you at all,” he said, the admiration in his voice sending shivers down her spine. “You’re one of the most resourceful and driven people I’ve ever met. If you weren’t established in your career, I’d offer you a job at my company.”
