19
Dylan
A state of euphoria doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Forbes, and her hold on me, came out of nowhere—very thin air as minuscule as it is grand and undeniable. I feel her in my bones—not like when I would wonder why she stared me down like I was an evil man—but with a force I don’t care to ignore anymore.
I haven’t ‘liked’ a woman in a long time, or if ever like this. Enough not to be physical for hours but talk and share things—what I’m allowed to, at least. Which wasn’t much—grade school and how similar our childhoods were. She tells me about her first job at a movie theatre which her dad made her get because she kept maxing out her credit cards.
My first assumption was canceled when I discovered her mom died at a young age, and her dad spoiled her as a result, sounds fair enough. Then, of course, there’s high school and how she was elected prom queen, which wasn’t much of a surprise to me. She’s gorgeous and has a distinct feminine charisma I’ve become privy to. And somewhere in all that, what it was like when she found out she was sick, and how she got worse, trying to seem like she was fine so her dad wouldn’t worry.
And what I discovered on my own, that her mother died from the same disease because she couldn’t make it long enough for a transplant. I tried to promise myself I wouldn’t open those files and refresh the information I knew I had, but also knew I could never share with anyone. Even myself sometimes. But I did.
I left her apartment when the sun already came up, and it wasn’t worth trying to go to sleep. I was refreshed by her energy and presence even when she occasionally strayed back to her snippy attitude, but I was all for it.
And everything reminded me of how much she deserves the truth even if I am all but sworn to keep it to myself. It won’t make sense not if I want to make this work.
I need to come out of my shell and do something other than loathe myself every other day. Companionship is a lost art to me which only exists in fictional stories. I stopped believing it was possible even if my brothers showed me otherwise. Forbes and I are more than impossible on the surface level, but with everything that I know and what we’ve talked through, we owe it to ourselves.
I’ve grown fond of her, extremely, and that’s worse than not liking her because I never did, that was never how I felt.
What I feel now, I can’t put into words.
* * *
Holden gave me marching orders that took me the entire workday. We have resolved the financial issue with Arnold, all that’s left is the final hit—merging stock, holdings, every asset they’ve ever acquired, the IPO. In a few legal hours, it will be ours.
The employees have settled down and taken the severance packages and payoffs, mine as well. Nothing else is ready to come out and bite us. It seems surreal that we pulled this off.
The employees who worked for Arnold will keep their jobs, like Emily and Forbes, and are secure in their positions for what is left of the company as an individual conglomerate—legal consulting and international relations.
Carson was nice enough to give me a heads-up from Emily that Forbes now knows we are buying the company she works for. I watch my phone and wait for the blow as we barely remembered to exchange numbers in the midst of everything last night, but nothing shows up.
I relax in my office, hide out, drink the rest of my gin and swallow down all my troubles. Forbes will be mad, angry, and I don’t know if it will affect the common ground we landed on. Multiple times.
I’m messing up at every turn, keeping stuff from her, and I’m not sure how far this can go. I distract myself by reading, then cleaning my office myself, and deciding to leave early. Not knowing what response I may get, I text Forbes and tell her I am coming by her place to take her to dinner.
I barely send it off before Liv, my assistant, barges in without knocking.
“Liv,” I growl. Standing in front of the door, she could have knocked me down with it if she had swung it any farther.
“Sorry, sir, someone is here to see you. She insists on it. I told her you were leaving the office.”
“It’s fine.” I step back. She flusters. Liv is a young, simple brunette. She’s worked for me since I got here. We get along well enough because she knows I like to be left alone.
“I’ll send her in.” She dances off. I sigh, turning on my heels and finger combing my hair in frustration. I was about to leave.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Forbes.
I turn, surprised to see her in my office. My eyes widen as I look her over, unfairly beautiful in her demure dark green office dress fitted at her waist and hips, stopping at her knees. Her chest heaves with her breath, her cleavage pressing the neckline that’s not very low but looks it because of the shape of her body.
Her eyes are hard on me, narrowed as she comes closer. I lick my lips watching her full pink lips purse with faded lipstick, and take a deep breath to get ready for it.
“Tell you what?” I fake, glancing at the empty gin bottle and wishing there was more.
She scoffs, brushing past me, carrying her scent my way. I follow it like a drug needing another hit after being away from her for less than twelve hours.
Her wavy, flowing hair slides down her waist as she turns, now perched in front of my desk.
“That you’re effectively having me fired. Is that a thing you do?” She cocks her head, whining her voice.
I roll my lips and carefully walk toward her. I undo the button of my jacket again and set my hands on my hips to keep from touching her. I have a feeling that isn’t allowed.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, meaning it.
She falters only a fraction.
“Answer the question, Dylan,” she snaps, seething at the bit.
“That wasn’t a question. That was a heavy, misguided accusation.” I take the steps landing two inches away from her. I inhale her aura, her feminine, subtle scent. Licking my lips, I stare down at her waiting for her to relax. I probably won’t get that.
“Whatever.” The bridge of her nose wrinkles as she stares up at me and evens out her breathing.
“Do I get a proper hello?” I lower my voice. The ends of my fingers, hanging by my sides, itch to touch her.
It’s like they haven’t forgotten the silk of her skin, the thrum of her blood pumping to my touch as I hold her, caress her, memorize every perfect inch of her.
Forbes is an angel—whether dark or light, I don’t know.
“No, Dylan. I’m angry with you, very angry.”
I come closer to feel and hear the halt of her breath. Her eyelids flutter closed and then open, her bottom lip trembles.
“You like me best when you’re angry.”
My hands find her hips trailing up the side slowly before I cup the small of her back. I step closer, and her chest brushes mine as I press my crotch to her, working very hard to keep my cock to behave.
It’s failing, epically.
I lean in close, my nose brushing the ridge of her cheek following close to her hairline and down the curve of her ear. She’s warm, her scent drifting to my nose as I continue down, burying in her neck below her ear. Slowly, she tilts her head to the side and allows me to continue.
I press my lips to the junction below her ear, brushing her skin, feeling her hair rise and reach out for more. My body slides against hers on its own, mostly. I bring my hands up her back following the curve, the dip in the center, and through her hair as I toss it to the side and get a clear view of her neck and shoulder. I watch, rapt, as her pulse rises and falls, her skin darkens from its natural tan. Her eyes close. She bites her lip and releases it, exhaling slowly.
I cup the other side of her cheek and hold her in place while I kiss down her neck and find a sweet spot to focus on. I suckle the curve of her neck and shoulder as she mewls softly, barely. The sound of her breathless moan vibrating through her body and reaching me is catastrophic to my brain and my senses. They don’t exist around her. They
exist for her.
“Forbes, you drive me mad. Do you know that?” I kiss back up her neck brushing across her lips but not kissing her as I move to the other side of her jaw. Her lips part with a sigh as she turns and silently asks me to continue.
“Your taste.” My tongue presses to her earlobe before I nip on it. “Your scent.” I pull back and kiss under her ear moving farther down her neck as I did before.
Her breath rises, her pants growing to tiny moans I hear in my ear. Her fingers cinch around the nape of my neck driving forward to rub into my beard before she cups my face, gripping me tightly like she wants to hurt me, but she could never.
“Dylan, please… I’m mad at you,” she says firmly like she may be reminding herself and not me.
“You want to be.” I pull back kissing down the front of her neck this time. She drops her hands to the desk gripping the edge firmly.
I cover her hands with mine as I kiss the curve of her breast, left and then right a few times. Her clavicle trembles with her breaths heightening coming closer and shorter.
“For whatever reason. And I don’t understand it, you know it’s just business.” My voice is gruff, hardened yet shaky as I try to contain myself. I get lost around her. I forget what should be, what shouldn’t be.
It’s just her.
And though I knew she would be angry, I didn’t take steps to inform her myself, to be the good man and the bad man at the same time—break integrity for this company or be true to a woman I have feelings for. It was an impossible decision. She’ll hand it to me soon enough, but not before I get my fill of her.
“You lied.”
“You never asked me a question,” I growl. She gasps as I grip her hips suddenly and set her on the desk knocking over a biro holder and some other things.
“Dylan—”
“You own me.” I cut her off spreading her legs and driving her up to me, the press of my cock through my pants aligned with the heat of her sex.
And I pull back to see the look in her eyes unfold.
“I don’t sleep. Not without thinking about you first. Not without dreaming about you. My life has become about you. I want to know how you did that. I’m angry, too. Because you now own me. You barge into my office, and you scream at me, and expect me to roll over, cower from you. You’re not a snake, Forbes. I won’t let you behave like one either.”
Her breath halts again as she parts her lips, words knocking on her tongue but not coming forth. She softens her gaze, the tension in her shoulders, and the cold in her eyes. Coming closer, she kisses me.
Hard, passionate, searing—her lips meld to mine, her body, her mind. Everything.
Needing air, I bring myself back and find her gaze again.
Hazy but focused on me. I know I owe her an explanation. I know she may or may not be mad, in theory, but I’m tired of the roadblocks paving themselves up.
It has to stop.
Forbes breathes heavily, her moist breath filling the gap, matching mine.
“I own you.”
20
Forbes
“I figured you’d be happy about that.” Dylan traces the line of my jaw with his lips, passing my lips as he moves to the other side. I’ve never wanted anyone to kiss me so badly.
Like other things, I’ve never wanted such things of this magnitude.
Dylan left me in a trance all night and into the morning. I walked into the office, a zombie because I had barely any sleep. So, it wasn’t very welcomed when I discovered in a meeting that Dylan was buying the company I work for. I held it together in front of all the other employees until I got to the confines of my office and came apart. I don’t understand, how I got in this position with Dylan again.
And I am failing at holding my resolve, again.
“I’m not… you couldn’t give me at least a heads up?” I sigh, breathless. Teetering on the edge of insanity for a while now, Dylan has been teasing me by barely touching me, yet I feel his touch everywhere.
It hasn’t really left me, not since last night.
To spend hours talking to someone, discovering things I may not have cared to find out if I didn’t let myself give in a little bit. Now I feel foolish for having done it because I feel betrayed and lied to again.
But when Dylan looks at me, when he touches me—it’s too hard not to trust him.
Blindly, inexplicably.
“You know I couldn’t. Private IPO until it isn’t.”
“Am I’m capable of being a mole?” I ask, rhetorically.
“I don’t know that. Not at the time it was important.”
I plan a retort but gasp instead through my open lips clutching the lapel of his suit jacket when his fingers dip between my legs, ghosting the edge of my panties. They’re arguably ruined by now with the drip of my desire for him.
He continues, his lips tracing the corner of my lips, his two fingers tracing the press of my sex in my panties, and his other hand holding me in place at my ribs. My eyes close seeing the red that I feel. I ignore all the protests in my mind reminding me that I came here to scream and yell and be mad, and let them go for a while. Just for this moment.
My hands trail down his chest, his pecs are solid and warm, his abs the same, clenching with every one of his breaths. I find the bulge of his cock in his pants, grasp it in my hand hardening against his thigh. He groans, cursing under his breath as he kisses the swell of my breasts straining against the top of my dress. My thighs clench when he finds my clit hiding under my panties, a feather-light touch I feel down to my toes. I dig my heels into his ass with the sharp end of my heel, and he barely flinches. I grip him tighter and still nothing.
“Dylan…” I snarl. He stops suddenly, his hand goes safely to my side, his face far back enough to look in my eyes.
My lips part to speak, but I don’t have a chance before he kisses me, finally. It’s like an earthquake, only prettier, less destructive. Somehow, he manages to prove to me, at every turn, that I want him.
Despite each turn and block, I want him. I don’t know what the truth is about my father anymore, his lips separate mine, and that ceases to matter. I don’t know if I even have a job anymore because of him. His tongue splices mine, and I forget how to care.
The clock starts to tick on us, perhaps it started a long time ago, but it is only evident now that his lips are embedded on mine, his body forging a path to mine.
A dead end, no way out.
He kisses me harder. I kiss him back, my fingers tangling in the soft locks of his hair, the ends of his beard scratch my jaw and cheeks. My body tingles like I’m not aware of anything else.
With just a kiss, I know that everything else with Dylan is even more catastrophic. All through the night, through all my months old condoms and energy, whether I’m mad or not, it won’t matter anymore. I see that now.
We’re volcanic just as we are astonishing.
Still, I push him away for the explanation I deserve.
Dylan presses back, exhaling a warm, moist breath as he separates from me. I press off the table landing on shaky legs. He crosses the room and stops, combing his fingers through his hair.
“I drank all my gin,” he mutters.
I smile to myself while running my tongue over my swollen lips. My hand flies to my chest as if pressing it there will quell my heartbeat. Dylan looks back at me, and I walk around his desk as his eyes train on me and sit in his chair. He huffs under his breath, eyes brightening a little bit. It’s as close to a smile as I may get.
“That’s my chair.”
“It’s comfortable.” I lean back, my arms pressed to the armrests. It’s a huge, brown leather roll-back chair. It looks like it belongs on prime time for how pompous an office can be.
“You look good.” He licks his bottom lip, then turns and sits down at the chair opposite his desk. Leaning back, he crosses his legs, clasps his fingers around his knee and keeps the same, even expression on his face he always has. The only variation I get to see is the
red in his cheeks and slight glistening behind the iris of his gray eyes.
“I know that.” I lean forward on his desk. There are no open files or anything for me to snoop around. His white desktop computer is shut off, and the keyboard placed perfectly in the center.
I wait him out. I’m much better at this than he is. Clearly.
“It was a simple merger, Forbes. We have been developing it for months. No one knew but the four of us, not until it was imperative not to keep it under wraps. Jackson Arnold was the first to know following that. He agreed easily because the company was in turmoil, the pure definition of it. Without us, he would have sunk and barely bought out his board let alone care about his employees. Plus, we needed his capital to have stock great enough to take the company globally. Something our father always wanted to do.” His evenly deep voice cracks, and it makes me soften. I think of last night and everything that was revealed to me. I can’t imagine the hurt—the actual pain that Dylan goes through every day. I wish he would tell his family what happened, but I can’t force him to. The same way I can’t force him to tell me what happened with my dad.
“You have tons of companies abroad.”
“We own other companies’ stock. We don’t have our own office operating the same way we do here. By buying Jackson out of his company and merging, we could do that. We have an office opening in London later this year.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes. “Why would that make me feel any better? You lied. People I work with lost their jobs, a lot of them.”
“I understand that. People here did, too, and it was the worst thing about it, but we gave them options, opportunities. We aren’t in the business of making business evil. And we only liquidated his stock, merged assets, and you keep your job if that’s what you’re so mad about. I thought you would have already known that by the time we could go public, and you know as a professional that we couldn’t until that IPO hit the market on Arnold.”
Taking a deep breath, I relent a little bit. The meeting that told me who was buying us out was short, and I was only told by my one boss that we had to go through emails from HR and be available for meetings with disgruntled employees. I kept it in long enough for the day to be up.
Wilde About Dylon: The Brothers Wilde Series — Book Four Page 14
