“I’ll be downstairs doing the wash if you need me, Mr. Sterling,” she said with a warm smile my way. She tucked the notebook into the back pocket of her jeans, hefted a basket full of rumpled clothes, including the ones I was wearing last night, and disappeared down the back stairs.
Brandon poured me a cup of tea and set it on the counter next to a small pitcher of cream and a porcelain cup of honey. I shuffled over to fix my tea while he walked over the chaise lounge under one of the large windows and sat down, mug of coffee in hand.
“Not that you don’t look sexy as hell in my clothes, Red, but where the hell did you find that shirt?” he asked.
I leaned against the counter, sipping my tea, one of his fancy Chinese blends. Damn, that was good. No Lipton for this man, that was for sure. Okay, so maybe I was okay with some of the perks of living with someone as rich as Croesus.
I shrugged. “It looked like the most comfortable thing up there. I didn’t want to ruin any of your new shirts, which seemed like almost everything else.”
He gave me a funny little half-smile and gazed at me with a raised eyebrow. “Is there really something so wrong with the finer things in life?”
“Nothing at all,” I lied, raising my own brows in return. “I’m just not sure why you need so many of them. Most of your t-shirts still had tags on them.”
He smiled again, this time grimly. “Yeah. Well. I guess when you know what it’s like to go without, you don’t ever want to have to do it again.”
“Bubbe says that. She was born during the Depression.”
“She’s a smart woman.”
I took another sip. “Yeah, well, she also hoards cans of food that are ten years expired. Sometimes we even find them in her closet.”
“Hey, she knows how to prepare for the worst.”
“By getting too much of everything?”
“It works, doesn’t it?”
We sipped silently, the slurping sounds echoing softly in the open space of the kitchen. It only emphasized just how enormous this place really was. Four floors, plus the servants’ apartments; thousands of square feet, most of which Brandon likely didn’t use. For one man to live here…it was beyond decadent, really. It was obscene.
“You don’t even use half the rooms in this place,” I pointed out as I looked around the massive kitchen and out to the solarium. “It’s so huge. Doesn’t it feel empty?”
He shrugged from his seat on the lounge, where he was lying back against the backrest, his feet kicked up on a pillow.
“I keep it full of interesting people,” he said with diffidence, echoing the famous line from The Great Gatsby, although I wasn’t certain it was intentional. “It’s the best.”
I considered his defense for a moment. “And you like the best?”
He shot me a sharkish grin. “Always, Red. You know that.”
I gulped. Something kept nagging at me, something that kept telling me how very out of place I was in a house like this. With someone like this. I needed to ask again. “Then why settle for me?”
He blinked at the question as the grin dropped from his face. After pondering the question for what seemed like forever, he sat up from his position on the lounge, raised a very sexy finger, and beckoned me to where he was, pulling me next to him on the chaise as he leaned us back together. I basked in the feel of his palm sliding up my thigh while the other pulled my head onto his chest. He was so warm, so large, I couldn’t help but feel completely safe tucked into the crook of his arm.
“I think that question says more about you than it’s asking of me,” he said, stroking my hair. He pulled it lightly at the end of each stroke in a way that rendered me complete putty. “But I’ll answer it anyway. Aside from how beautiful you are, Red, you’re above all genuine. You’re genuinely intelligent. You’re genuinely kind. And even though you obviously have a low threshold for bullshit, you’re genuinely a loyal, dedicated person. But most of all, you’re honest. There’s no guile in you, no malice. It may not be the most valuable quality for a lawyer, but I love that I can see every emotion on that glass face of yours. I see you, Red. Just like you see me.”
I was glad that face was currently buried into his chest so he couldn’t see the emotions that were certainly melting across it.
“More like a freckle face,” I muttered into his pec, trying to distract from was what probably the best compliment I had ever been given. I had always hated the smattering of freckles that decorated my cheeks and nose, thinking they made me look like a little kid.
“It’s a unique, fucking gorgeous face,” he insisted, sitting me up so I straddled his waist and he could reach around and clasp my mussed mane between his hands. His eyes burned with such obvious intensity, I couldn’t have looked away if I wanted to.
“You’re a classic ginger with a twist,” he said, stroking my cheekbones with his thumbs. “Hair like a sunset, green eyes, high cheekbones, those full, insanely kissable lips. But instead of the pasty skin most redheads have, yours is olive-toned under your freckles, like an Italian’s. Why is that, by the way? Is your mom dark?”
“No, you can thank Bubbe for that,” I said with a shrug. “Jew.”
“Ah. And your freckles are from the Irish side, right?” When I nodded, he smiled. “I could get lost in this face, Skylar.” He paused, drifting his lips over the contours of my cheeks and over my eyelids. “I think I already have.”
Before I could tell him that his own face, with its straight, geometric lines, wide blue eyes, and deceptively full lips, drew me to him like a moth to a flame, he closed those lips over mine and showed me just how lost I could feel in him too.
“Please,” I whimpered when he finally let me come up for air.
“Please what?” He trailed his lips down my neck, dragging his teeth lightly over the edge of my shoulder blade as his hands lightly tugged his shirt off my body, leaving me naked in the morning light.
“Won’t Ana or one of your other…ah…people see us?” I asked, although I was already too distracted by the feel of his mouth on my bared skin to care much if anyone saw me sitting here without any clothes on.
“Don’t,” he growled in my ear, causing goose bumps to rise all over my skin. “I’ll worry about them. You just focus on what I’m doing to you.”
His hands floated down my neck and over my shoulder to settle over my bare breasts, cupping each one briefly, as if to measure their weight.
“Watch my hands,” he murmured. “Watch the way I touch you. Watch how you respond.”
Obediently, and barely able to breathe, I followed his orders and watched, completely rapt, as his thumbs brushed feather-soft over the smooth skin of my nipples, causing them to pebble in delight. He sighed with satisfaction, and seized the tips between his thumbs and forefingers, tugging and twisting gently until each nipple visibly protruding toward him. I gasped with the shock of it, mired in the pleasure and pain of his touch. Brandon hummed with appreciation, tugging forward, and forcing me to lean into his waiting mouth.
His teeth clamped lightly over one nipple, and I yelped quietly in reaction to the stark, thrill that shot through my body. He took his time, teasing and nipping, rolling the tight, tender nub between his teeth while his fingers continued their torture on the other side. My hands tangled into his hair, when he switched to the other nipple, merciless in his onslaught until I was writhing atop his hips.
I reached down to the hard, obvious protrusion pressing against my core through his short, but he released my breast from his mouth and jerked my hand away.
“No,” he said firmly. “You can touch my face, hair, shoulders to hold onto something, but that’s it. I said you have to watch.”
He returned to his work at my nipple, and I watched dutifully as he seized it in between his teeth and flicked it quickly with his tongue. I grasped ineffectually at his hair and rolled my hips against his obvious erection, looking for a friction I couldn’t quite access. His fingers continued to alternately tug and pinch at the o
ther nipple until he switched sides again, and they dropped down the taut confines of my stomach to still my hips.
“Easy, baby,” he murmured at my breast. As he closed his mouth back over my nipple and continued to flick his tongue over it, his thumb slipped lower and found the soaked, throbbing nub of my clitoris.
“Aaah!” I cried at the contact, but continued to watch him at my breast, watched his mouth take me in further as his thumb found a rhythm at my core. My hips, as if of their own accord, began to move with the rhythm he was setting with his tongue and his hand, and together we built toward the peak of pleasure I had already experience several times the night before.
“Brandon…” I moaned as he seized my nipple between his teeth and bit again, just hard enough to make me jerk. As I teetered on that delicate edge of pain and pleasure, my orgasm surged up my body. I collapsed and bit his shoulder back while I shook in his arms. He released my breast, but his thumb continued its work, gently rubbing out the rest of my orgasm until my body stopped its shaking.
Lightly, Brandon nipped at my neck, waking me. “Good?” he asked. “I think that was a record.”
“Mmmm,” I groaned. “You’re becoming better at that than I am.”
He shifted beneath me, and I could feel the evidence of his desire still pulsing between my legs.
“Your turn,” I said as I sat back up. I leaned in for a kiss that tasted of coffee and the caramel sweetness of turbinado sugar. With a big arm around my waist, Brandon tugged me flush to his body, returning my kiss until we were both completely out of breath.
“You don’t…I wasn’t trying to…” he muttered as I ineffectually tried to tug down the boxers that he still wore. “Red, aren’t you sore?”
Finally, his cock lay free and heavy in my hands, and I greedily situated myself over it, wincing slightly as I helped him inside. We both sighed with content as he found his place, buried completely within me.
“A little,” I admitted as I helped his shirt off. “But you feel too damn good.”
I moved slightly, allowing him to find a bit of friction in me. His brow furrowed as if in slight pain himself, but his hands clenched at my ass as he pushed himself deeper. He slid his hands up my back and pulled me back down to lay flush against his torso, begging for entry again at my mouth as we started to move together.
“Tell me again,” he murmured against my lips.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me you love me.”
Oh. I pushed myself slightly up from his chest so I could see his face. The flat plane of his muscle was warm under my hand. I gripped slightly with my fingers and stared straight at him without blinking.
“I love you, Brandon,” I said, softly, but clearly. My heart skipped for a moment—out of fear or passion, I couldn’t tell. Mostly likely a bit of both.
He watched me, shaking slightly as he pressed further into me from below. “Say it again.”
I leaned down so my face hovered above his, so we could breathe in each other’s scents and bask in the warmth of each other’s bodies. The action caused him to pull out of me slightly, and he groaned. His hands floated over the plane of my back, soft and luxurious with their touch.
“I love you,” I whispered again.
With a groan, he yanked me down onto him, forcing me to take him hard, to the hilt. I gasped at the sudden impact, but allowed him to seize my hips and continue the same movement while we watched each other, completely rapt. I winced again, and he slowed his movement, watching with obvious sympathy.
“I knew you were sore,” he murmured. He moved me again, this time with less force.
“A little,” I said, but rolled my hips closer, forcing him back in with the same kind of intensity as before. I sucked in a breath. “It hurts, but in a good way.”
“I guess I wore you out last night.”
“Never,” I purred, and leaned back down for another kiss. He rolled his hips, pushing even deeper inside, and I moaned against his lips.
“I can’t,” he breathed into my mouth, as his movements began to pick up. His hands clenched, seeking better purchase on my hips and the flesh of my ass. He groaned, almost as if in pain himself as he thrust again. “God, I can’t stop, Skylar.”
“Don’t.” I pulled at his lip lightly with my teeth and urged him on, pushing my hips down to meet him, thrust for thrust. The pain slowly receded, and very quickly all I could feel was blinding pleasure. “Oh God, Brandon, don’t. Don’t stop!”
“FUCK!” he cried, and we moved frantically, seeking that deep, primal connection that can only be had when both lovers lose themselves completely. I don’t know exactly what happened next. I lost hold of his shoulder, sitting up and closing my eyes so I could only feel the deep, penetrating friction of him within me. We shook and cried together, my body writhing atop his while he punished me from below. And at last, with a final cry from both our mouths so guttural and complete that there was nothing left to give, we seized in each other’s arms, quivering and pulsing until there was nothing left to give.
It was only then that I fell back over his shoulder and allowed him to pull me close a second time that morning. His chest still quivered slightly beneath cheek, and our naked skins were slick with a thin sheen of sweat. But he gripped me tightly, unwilling to let me go, unwilling to break the connection.
“Love,” he muttered into the tender place between my neck and shoulder where he had buried his face. It wasn’t a statement or a proclamation. Just a word that captured the moment.
“Love,” I repeated, my voice ragged and worn. “Yes.”
~
A slow clap broke our giddy silence from the other side of the room. Jerked out of our post-sex stupor, Brandon and I both scrambled off the lounge, tripping slightly over our naked limbs and grabbed madly for clothes before turning to face the intruder.
“Who the fuck are you?” I yelped, clutching Brandon’s wrinkled shirt to my chest and trying to find the armholes without flashing the person.
“Well, you certainly don’t waste time, do you?”
The woman who was standing in the kitchen entrance was dressed immaculately in a pale cream suit topped with a camel-colored coat that was too perfect not to be cashmere. Her nearly black tresses were swept back from her angular face into a neat chignon, revealing tasteful pearl and diamond droplet earrings that matched the massive ring on her finger. She was stunning. She was also a woman I had seen before, outside of Brandon’s office only a few short months ago. The one in fur who called him “darling.”
“What the fuck, Miranda!” Brandon roared once he had tugged on his boxer shorts and swung his robe around his shoulders.
“It was a nice show, Bran,” she said casually, tracing one elegant finger up and down the molding around the doorframe. “Although I can’t say it’s what I originally intended for that chaise. It’s a one of a kind, you know.”
“Miranda, what the fuck are you doing here?” Brandon asked, this time keeping his voice barely below shouting level. His accent, however, couldn’t be hidden at all.
“You haven’t been answering my calls,” she replied, stepping fully into the kitchen and placing her hands neatly on the marble countertop of the island. “And you blew off our last two appointments with the lawyers. I know you’re having a little fun right now, but I really do need those tickets we discussed. Mother is expecting you at the Cape next week, you know. Are you still planning to go?”
“What the hell is going on?” I exploded behind Brandon, having since tugged the ratty shirt over my torso and ducked behind the kitchen island to shield my bare legs. I glared at the woman, who only twisted her perfectly glossed lips into a smirk. “Who are you, and what are you doing in Brandon’s house?”
“Ooh, aren’t we familiar? Do you want to tell her, Bran, or should I?” she asked sweetly. I glanced at Brandon, who stood dumbfounded next to lounge, for once unable to speak.
“I’m his wife, sweetie,” she said, standing up fully and dustin
g her hands off on one another as if she had exposed them to some kind of germ on the immaculate countertop. She looked up, and her brown eyes had all the warmth of a glacier. “This is my house. That’s my lovely furniture you’ve been defiling. And that’s my husband you were just fucking.”
~
Chapter 37
“Skylar, wait!”
The words fell on deaf ears as I rushed upstairs, only able to hear the roaring of my inner thoughts. I hadn’t wasted time to witness any kind of exchange between them, or to allow her to see more of my naked ass longer than it took to beeline out of the room toward the stairs. It took me approximately fifteen seconds to get there, fifteen seconds to feel exactly like a teapot ready to boil.
His wife. The words kept filtering through my ears, like a bad record snagged on repeat. His wife? I threw the few things I had brought to the house into my purse, stumbling about his bedroom looking for the rest of my things. Ana had somehow folded and brought my deserted pantsuit upstairs and laid them neatly on the bed, which was now neatly made. Of course it had to be the ugly brown one I’d bought at Daffy’s before even graduating college—of course that was the suit I’d have to wear while I faced off with Jackie Onassis downstairs, a woman who not only looked like she’d just walked out of Vogue, but who also happened to be Brandon’s wife!
A sob came, hard and fast, landing into the back of my throat and swallowed back as quick. I wasn’t going to cry. I was not going to cry with that woman here to see. Goddamn it, where was my bra? With a stifled shriek, I realized that if Ana hadn’t brought it up, it was probably still lying somewhere in the living room, just a few feet away from where her royal highness was probably standing. The thought only brought back further memories of the very intimate things he had done to me down there. While he was married. Fuck.
With trembled hands, I managed to tug on my slacks and jacket as quickly as I could. I shoved my feet into the sensible brown pumps that I’d bought on clearance at DSW. I would have killed for my Manolos right then.
Legally Yours (Spitfire Book 1) Page 40
