by Jess Bentley
I think I can keep control of this situation.
...How naïve am I?
Chapter 9
Jordan
Dinner is a special kind of torture, and after knowing what it was like to have R inside me it’s almost impossible not to drag him into a dark corner and let him pull up my dress, and claim me once again.
I don’t want to talk to anyone else, don’t want to do anything but envelop him inside me, as deep as he can go, as he holds me close and grips me when he comes.
Having sex with King more than makes me feel safe; it takes all my pain away. It makes me feel like I don’t need Kelsey anymore, that I can become my own person and live without her. Like I don’t need her shit anymore.
It strikes me that that’s the real reason I came here: to prove to myself that I am my own person and Kelsey is just a memory.
I talk to these sophisticated business people and try to be pleasant, but we have very little in common; mostly, I just stay clutched to R’s arm, feeling the warmth of him under the expensive light wool fabric of his business suit. It also helps to hang onto him since I’m still feeling a little faint after the treatment he gave me in the elevator.
His colleagues are looking at him, their unanswered questions about just who I might be plain on their faces. Some even look at me with some sort of recognition. It’s odd, but I try to just smile and welcome them, to do what he told me and behave myself. He’s acting perfectly normal, but every now and then he touches me in some intimate way that just stokes the fire inside me to a blaze. He strokes the inside of my palm when nobody’s looking, or he teases the back of my neck with his finger, sending shivers down my spine. I wonder if anyone can see what’s happening to me, to my body, when he touches me. Inside, it feels like everything is on fire.
I pick at my food. After stuffing myself in front of him, the last thing I want to do is look like a ravenous beast, even though he seemed to enjoy my natural self. I also don’t want to be stuck with a mouthful of food when one of his colleagues speaks to me. He’s suave, sophisticated, mature. People look up to him, and I’m sure they’re curious about me but only in relation to him.
He fills my wine glass, touches me under the table, and smiles at me secretively. Every time he does so I feel like we are the only people in the world, and for me we might as well be. But for him, I have to keep pulling myself back into reality. Business event. Business event.
When the dinner is finally finished, the people charmed and the deals made, we wait in the street for a moment for his car to arrive. R puts his arm around me and that woody scent fills my nostrils again. He holds me close until I lean against him. His body is warm, his muscles under his suit beautifully chiseled, the picture of perfection. I breathe him in, his scent mixing with the chilled air. With one of his hands on my waist and the other in my hair, I draw the smell of him into my nostrils again, and he tilts my chin up with his hand. His mouth takes mine, gently kissing me, his tongue snaking between my lips, pressing them open. His tongue is insistent. There is nothing in me to resist.
When we get into the car, his hands start to slither over my body, pushing off a shoulder strap, sliding under my skirt. He has my panties off, falling down into a tangle on the limousine floor. The light of Paris through the mottled windows shines on my bare skin.
I can’t help but respond to him, and my feelings of fear, of grief, all fall away as the wetness drips through my panties in response to his sheer insistence on touching me. Before long I’m on my knees in the small space, fully naked, in view of the city, with his—with my father’s friend’s—hard cock in my mouth. I’m completely ready to succumb to whatever he wants. I have no choice, since he’s the one who can take my pain away... at least for a while.
He tangles his hands in my hair as he presses my face into him. I open my throat wide as his cock enters. I grip him, trying to swallow his massive cock in one go, each thrust a challenge as the limo bumps along ancient cobblestone Parisian streets. His taut buttocks clench against my hands as he thrusts into my face, his fingers grasping. I choke a little but push myself harder, wanting to consume him—to submit to him.
To own him.
To be owned.
“Take it all,” he mutters, gasping. He throws his head back. “Take it all in, Jordan!”
I moan, vibrations hitting his cock as I pull him deeper, my fingernails buried in the supple flesh of his ass. He’s quivering now, close to coming. I need to have his cum inside me, and I swirl my tongue around his cockhead until the hot streams hit the back of my throat, almost filling my nostrils. I want it, and I gulp it steadily as he roars out my name, his back arched, legs shuddering with the quake of his orgasm. Briefly a sense of embarrassment that the chauffeur can probably hear us flickers through my mind before I decide I don’t care.
Finally I feel the near-relentless hardness of him slowly subside, his cock easing in my mouth, and I lick up the last droplets of pearlescence.
Our breathing is loud in the small space, and the air feels steamy, naughty, clean. Pure and primal.
He stares at me a moment before sliding his pants back up and buckling his belt.
Wiping my mouth, I slide up next to him on the seat. R grabs me and presses a kiss against my lips.
“Come to my room,” he says. Surely we can’t fuck any more today. Does he want to fall asleep with me? To sleep beside me? I stare at him. That’s a level of intimacy I didn’t expect to get to. Especially so soon.
I hope my desire isn’t too obvious on my face. I look up at him, and he smiles.
“Come on,” he says and grabs my hand as the door opens. The chauffeur lets us out and we stumble-walk-run into his hotel.
As soon as we make it through the door, he pushes me against the wall and kisses me deeply.
“Little Girl,” he says, grabbing my ass.
“King,” I answer softly.
“I thought you were going to call me R,” he says, gathering my ass cheek in his large hand and squeezing it hard.
“I like King better,” I answer.
“So do I,” he growls, and looking around, pulls me by the hand into the elevator.
“Are you always this insatiable?” I ask.
“No,” he says into my hair. His hand pulls my dress up again, playing with my thong, which is getting wetter and wetter. “Why, don’t you like it?”
“I love it,” I answer honestly.
“You’re a bad girl,” he observes. I blush. “If only your daddy knew.”
“You won’t tell him, will you?” I ask. A feeling of panic rises in my chest, and I shudder involuntarily.
“Not as long as you do what I say,” he answers. The panic doesn’t quite go away, but it morphs into something else. And the something else moves down to my between my legs, like a electrical bolt to my core.
I’ve never felt this way about a man before. The guys from high school weren’t really very interesting to me at the time, and once I got to college, things didn’t change much. Sure I had a crush here and there, but never anything like this. I barely even had sex when I was in college. I used to be that person in the student lounge, hanging out studying until I went back to my room and just let out my frustrations on my own hand. That’s all I had to myself.
It’s as if I know now what this body is for. It’s for this relationship, for what exists between us.
Did I just call it a relationship?
I don’t know what it is.
This thing I have with King has its own momentum. Either that or he’s in control. Because I feel like I am a little girl, just going with the flow of whatever it is that’s taken hold of me since I decided to call him that day.
And now, as I look up at him—his dark lashes and crow’s feet around light eyes, his stubble, his masculine features—there’s something in me that never wants it to end.
And another part of me wants it to end right away.
I can’t deny that part of me longs to go back to normal. For Ke
lsey to be alive. To be back in the safety of her friendship, not stuck in some foreign country with some man who’s making me feel things I didn’t think were possible.
Some man who is going to leave me. It’s not a question of if—it’s a question of when. I can’t stay with someone who is my father’s age. Can I?
I feel his hand against my ear as he strokes and pinches the lobe gently before leaning in and kissing my neck, and I’m brought back into the present.
“Where’d you go, Little Girl?” he asks softly, and I want to fold into his arms. But how can I trust him when I’m more and more sure every day that I couldn’t even trust my own goddamned best friend?
And yet, it feels like the safest place to be is in his arms. There's something so comforting about just letting go, letting him control me, handle me, make me feel whatever he wants me to feel. He takes me to a place where I don't have to think so much, where it's calm and beautiful and filled with bliss.
“I'm right here, King,” I reply softly, pushing up on my toes just before the elevator door opens again. “I'm right where you want me to be.”
We stumble back into the penthouse, his lips covering my mouth, his hand gripping the small of my back, pulling me off my feet. I lock my arms behind his neck and let him carry me away to the bed. Already I'm wet and swollen again for him, anticipating his touch.
His hands find the hem of my dress and slide up my thighs, parting my legs as he drops me on my back on the fluffy mattress. Immediately I feel his tongue, warm and wet, snaking along the seam of my sodden thong.
“Do you like this?" he asks, his voice muffled against my sex.
To answer, I only moan. I don't know what I’m supposed to say, and I'm afraid that if I open my mouth to speak, shyness will overcome me and trick me into telling him to stop. But I don't want him to stop. Instead, I plunge my fingers into his hair and pull his mouth closer to me.
It's answer enough. He growls against my slick folds, eager and hungry to taste me.
His fingers slide under my thong, pushing it completely to the side as his tongue swipes back and forth, plunging deeper and deeper into my folds. I arch my back, pushing myself against him as he flutters his tongue, sucking the juices from me, urging me forward until I come in a brilliant explosion that shatters my consciousness into a million pieces.
The next thing I know, I'm floating, drifting on a sea of bliss that seems to rock back and forth. I realize it's the motion of his body as he climbs onto the bed and positions himself next to me. He swipes a damp tendril of hair from my forehead and kisses me gently. I can smell myself on his breath.
“Such a good little girl,” he murmurs.
“Am I?” I ask, barely conscious of the words as they escape my lips.
His expression darkens. He can tell I’m talking about more than just the sex we just had. “Well, what you mean by that?”
Consciousness rushes back to me in a flood and I realize I don't know what I'm saying, but I do need to tell him something. He's looking at me keenly, as though he thinks he knows what I'm about to say.
“It's just… I'm not sure I can stay here.”
“Do you mean you prefer Istanbul?”
Despite myself, I smile. Could I really live without this kind of charm in my life? He barely seems real.
“No, King, I mean… I need to go back. To America. I need to go back home.”
He nods slowly, deliberately untangling his limbs from mine. I feel cold inside as he retreats. But, he doesn't seem entirely surprised either.
“You know, Kelsey’s will?" I stammer, fumbling for words to say. Now that the thought has escaped my lips, I sort of want to take it all back. I can feel the door in his heart closing, and something about that makes me frantic.
“Kelsey's will?”
“I have to be there…” I start. I look at my hands, as if they hold some secret information that will make it all okay. “The lawyers say I have to be there. Maybe there's something… Oh, I don't know. She left me something.”
“Money,” he says.
“Well, that's what people do, right? Leave money in their wills? I mean, she's got parents, she's got a brother…” Who else will be there? I guess it’s just us.
He nods slowly. “So, you're leaving. When?”
“The ticket is for the day after tomorrow.”
His arms fold around me, pulling me close. I bury my head against his neck and inhale his woody, masculine scent.
“Well, then you better get some sleep, Little Girl,” he murmurs, stroking my hair. I can’t resist doing as he tells me. Something about his voice seems so authoritative and again, I find myself simply taking the path of least resistance: the one he tells me to take. And it feels so comforting. My breath fills my chest slowly and deeply.
I automatically nestle against him, fitting myself into the warm space between our bodies.
Chapter 10
Raleigh
Two days. That's really not a lot of time.
As soon as she told me that she was going back for the reading of Kelsey's will, I knew exactly what was about to happen. Everything is about to change. This girl’s entire life is about to shatter around her ears, and she has absolutely no fucking idea.
Charmingly, the wine at dinner seems to have overwhelmed her after just a few glasses, and she cuddles up against me like some kind of baby animal, like a bunny or a kitten, humming softly as she falls into sleep.
But I can’t sleep. My mind races ahead, trying to anticipate the events as they will likely unfold.
My investigator assembled what I can only assume is a fairly complete and accurate picture of the events as they had transpired, and I shudder to think how Jordan will see them. She's going to see her life from a whole new angle, have everything she thought she knew turned on its head.
It is going to crush her. It would crush anybody.
I draw her closer to me as she sleeps, wanting nothing more than to fold over her, to create a safe space for her. I want to protect her from the inevitable.
Because it is coming, and there's really nothing I can do about it.
But is that true? Is there really nothing I can do? Actually, I can probably do a fuck of a lot. But first I need to get a hold of Kelsey's attorney, try to find out what's actually in the will. If she does simply hand off a bunch of money, that's not so bad. I can shield her from the worst of it.
But does that seem like Kelsey?
From everything I can ascertain, Kelsey was a bit of a sociopath. Would she have taken a moment to consider her friend’s feelings? Would she have tried to soften the blow? Or would this dramatic scene fit her motivations best if it were as gut wrenching as possible?
I have my answer. I know what's going to happen.
Jordan shifts against me, sliding her knee along mine. Crazily, I want to take her again. I want to plunge into her, to claim every inch of her. I want her to never doubt that she’s safe, and she is mine. She is safe because she is mine.
I have to do something. I know it's crazy for me to be acting like this. I know it's insane for me to be taking her places in public, to be parading her in front of my business acquaintances. I know it's risky. I know it's far more risky for me than for her. But I can't help it anymore.
What the hell am I thinking? And even as I ask myself the question, I know I'm not thinking anymore. It might be wrong in hundred different ways, but I feel something for her. Something real. Something I both don't want to feel, and can't help but dive into. And I'll do anything to protect her.
So she's got two days. At least I can move ahead of her. I can catch an earlier flight back to the States, smooth things out as best I can. And I can be there for her when it all happens.
I am the King, after all. I can make this work.
Chapter 11
Jordan
When I wake up in the morning, it takes me a moment to remember where I am. The high ceilings, the ornate plaster moulding, the billowing sheer curtains filtering the
early morning light.
I sit up, startled, in bed and glance around until it makes sense. This is R’s room. The penthouse. We spent the night together.
And now he's… gone?
I slide from the tall bed, my bare feet plunging into the thick pile of a luxurious rug. My head is still a little bit filled with cotton wool after all that wine I drank last night. What was that, three glasses? More? Is it possible that the wine in Paris is stronger than the wine in the United States?
I’ll bet it is. I bet it's just all part of this Disneyland fantasy of the weird European experience they've put together. Of course it is. How much more lurid can all this get? Of course they spike the wine with roofies or hallucinogens or something. That is so like the French.
Tiptoeing around the perimeter of the room, I look for signs of R. What am I supposed to do now? What does spending the night together mean, exactly?
But when I see the tented note card near the window, glowing softly as the morning light hits the thick, creamy paper, I already have my answer. It doesn't mean anything. He's gone, and I know it.
The note is handwritten, and I can't help notice that his handwriting is a luxurious scrawl, with long flowing lines and a bit of a flourish. It reads simply: “Urgent business. I'll return. Please stay as long as you like. – King.”
The note trembles in my hand until I finally drop it back on the mirrored silver tray. Please stay as long as I like? He can’t believe that I would stay. In fact, I told him I needed to leave. What am I supposed to do, just linger in his suite, propping myself up in the various locations like some tragic silent film figure, longing for her absent lover? Seriously?
Should I lean against the antique dresser and gaze at the ceiling? Fling myself across the bed and weep? Lean out the window and stare longingly into the street below while soft accordion music plays?
Given my slight hangover, all of those things actually don't sound too far from possibility. I could use a bit of a lie down.
