His voice rang down the hallway again, and I decided I’d been waiting long enough. My body still hummed from his touch after our meeting that afternoon, and an aching need had throbbed between my legs since then. I’d never wanted anyone the way I wanted him, right or wrong. I slipped off my flats next to the front door and padded softly down the hallway, my feet cold on the rubbed Spanish tiles. I moved slowly, looking around me as I went. There were pictures of him lining the hallway. Oliver, grinning out from too many school portraits to count; Oliver, standing atop a podium in swimming briefs, holding a gold medal; Oliver, next to his father with the soaring towers of Cody Tech in the background and a pair of ribbon-cutting scissors held between them. Standing there, I was struck with the realization that Oliver had had everything I’d always dreamed about. The parents who loved him, the family house…I didn’t feel the searing jealousy I’d felt as a kid when I’d walked down a hallway like this, strewn with evidence of everything I never had. Instead, I felt happy for him, glad to know he’d been cherished and prized. And I felt a surging grief on his behalf—to have had all this and lost it so suddenly…But one thing was clear to me as I examined a picture of his parents as young adults, beaming down at a chubby blond toddler on a tricycle—Oliver’s parents had chosen him. He had been treasured and loved. I would make sure he understood that because he needed to know. I didn’t know why his parents hadn’t told him he was adopted, but I didn’t believe it mattered at all. These pictures were proof. I tore my eyes from them and walked quietly forward.
Had Oliver moved back into his parents’ house after they were killed? I couldn’t imagine that he’d lived here all along.
I turned a corner, following his voice to an office sunken down two stairs and facing the backyard. Oliver didn’t turn to look at me. He was standing in front of the wall of windows, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck as the other held the phone to his ear.
“Burton,” he was saying. “I’ll have news for you soon. You just need to wait a little longer. Can you give me your commitment to wait a bit longer? The next board meeting should resolve all of these issues.” He sounded weary, and I felt distinctly as if I was interrupting. I backed away and walked softly back out to the living room. I wanted Oliver’s attention, but I had just thought of a better way to get it than interrupting an important work call. He’d already told me some of the investors were thinking of selling shares, and that it was critical to restore their confidence and that of our clients.
I slipped through the sunken living room to the tall glass doors facing the pool. Once out on the back patio, I turned back to survey the house, which was all glass from the back. I could see a soft glow coming from the other end of the house, directly across from where the pool’s diving board was positioned, and I knew that was where Oliver stood staring out. Without glancing at him, I walked to the deep end of the pool and stood next to the diving board, feeling emboldened by the knowledge that his eyes had to be on me, he couldn’t avoid seeing me here.
I threw one glance over my shoulder to let him know I was aware of his presence, and then I slipped my sundress off over my head and stretched my arms up, looking up at the sky through the trees that arched over Oliver’s yard. After a long languorous stretch, I reached back and unclasped my bra, dropping it with one hand to the pile my dress had made, and then I stepped from my panties, depositing them in the pile with a toe. Taking a deep breath, and working to look confident despite my complete lack of experience in stripping for a man, I walked to the diving board and stepped up, shivering slightly in the cool air. The water beneath me glittered a soft blue, lit from beneath, and the steam rising off its surface gave the yard a surreal feeling. It was incredible to be standing out here. This was nothing like the houses I’d grown up in, and I didn’t know many people with pools—especially heated pools—even now. I tried not to think about the miles-wide financial divide between Oliver and me. It shouldn’t really matter, anyway.
With three long strides I reached the end of the diving board and dove off, pushing hard with my legs and reaching my hands in front of me. I swam to the shallow end, letting my mind focus only on the sensation of my muscles pulling, the warm water on my skin. In the past week I felt like I’d become all sensation. My body had been more awake since meeting Hale, and every inch of my skin felt more responsive, more alive than ever.
I came to the surface, finding the bottom of the pool with my feet, and I turned, pushing off again and swimming a couple laps back and forth. The rushing sound of the water in my ears drowned out everything else, so I didn’t hear the door open and close, didn’t hear Oliver’s feet crossing the slate surround to stand above me at the edge of the pool. But I felt him as I churned through long strokes under the nearly black sky. I felt the air shift, as it always did around him, the cells of my body aligning to his, even over a distance. Oliver was like a magnet to me, and when he was close, I was drawn to him. I swam to the shallow end again and came up, my chest exposed to the cool night air as I reached up to push water from my hair and smile at Oliver.
He stood bare-chested and barefoot, still in his work trousers with his hair a tousled mess atop his head. That brutal jaw was clenched, the scruff of his beard glinting as the little bits of gold reflected the light flickering up from the pool. His eyes were black and his expression unreadable as he watched me, that jaw firm and solid. One of his hands was clenched into a fist at his side.
“Hi there,” I said. “You were busy, so I decided to swim.”
“I saw,” he said, confirming that he’d gotten the benefit of my little show.
“Coming in?” I asked.
He unfastened his pants and dropped them, with the briefs, to the ground, and dove long, swimming to the other end and back without a breath. He came up almost beneath me, his body skimming mine as he broke the surface of the water. His eyes caught mine and I had a fleeting sense of danger when I took in the flare of emotion within his dark orbs. Before I could ask if anything was wrong, his mouth was on mine, a continuation of the possessive kiss he’d stopped back at the office. His hands were as greedy as his tongue, sliding over my curves beneath the water, and the combination of heat from his mouth and his hands coupled with the feel of the water made me clench all my muscles in an effort to gain some sense of control over myself. My head fell back into Oliver’s hand, and my mouth opened to him. He slipped a hand beneath my ass and lifted me easily in the water, my legs going automatically around his waist.
I could feel his cock pressed against my inner thigh, thick and hard beneath the surface of the water. I wanted to see it, to touch it. It was odd, I’d never really had a thing for dick. I mean, functionally, sure. But I’d never wanted to explore one, to know one the way I wanted to know Oliver’s. He was a commanding guy, undoubtedly. He had been even when I’d known him as Hale, aka Mr. Big Dick. And something about that forcefulness of personality, that unquestioning attitude that he was in charge, that the world and everything in it were his, struck me as innately linked to his masculinity, and therefore his cock. Was it weird to think of his dick as so critical to his power?
As he ravaged my mouth with his, I lost the train of thought a bit, but I realized one other thing. As much as I liked his dick, I liked his heart more. Despite his tendency to try to rule the world, I’d seen so much more to this man. I’d seen him sad and vulnerable, laughing and silly. And I’d seen him losing his mind as that glorious dick pounded into me, a state I hoped to bring about again soon.
Oliver had me against the edge of the pool, his arm protecting my back from hitting the hard wall, and he was rubbing against me, pushing that huge hard dick against my most tender spot as his mouth pulled back and teased my lips gently. “God, Holland,” he said, his voice a razor’s edge of lust. “You drive me fucking crazy.”
I responded by biting his lip and was rewarded with a low groan.
His arm held me fast against him, his hard chest rippling against my skin. With one hand he reached d
own to tease me with his fingers, his arm curling beneath my leg and those long thick fingers stroking and pulsing in a rhythm that soon had me moaning into his demanding mouth. “God, I want you,” I said on a moan.
He stopped kissing me and pulled his head back, his eyes flickering. “Say it again.”
“I want you, Oliver.” I tried to retake his mouth but he pulled it back and a wicked smile played across his lips.
“Tell me how much.” His fingers were still moving, and now one penetrated me, making me gasp with shock and pleasure.
“Oh God, so fucking much,” I moaned, pressing myself against him, wrapping my legs tighter around his waist and ducking my head to inhale the warm masculine scent of him just beneath his ear. Another noise escaped my throat as he pressed another finger inside me, his hand still managing the right amount of pressure against my clit so that I was writhing in his embrace.
There might have been neighbors nearby, but I neither cared nor looked to find out. I was out of my mind with pleasure. Between the heat of Oliver’s body and the soothing water, the pulsing motion of his hand and his hard cock pressed against me, I could barely form thoughts or words. I didn’t have enough energy to worry about nosy neighbors—and the yard was grown over with tall draping trees that provided at least an illusion of privacy, if not the real thing.
Oliver didn’t cease the relentless teasing of his hand or his mouth on my neck, my ear, my own mouth, and within a few minutes I knew I was seconds away from coming. I pulled myself back and caught his wild eyes. “I want you.”
“You mentioned that, but I don’t mind hearing it again,” he growled, a smile on his face under those dark eyes. His muscles bulged as he held me to him, the dark blond hair covering his jaw reminding me of his purely masculine appeal.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want you. All of you. Inside me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Now.”
His fingers returned to their place, but his eyes had grown heavy. “I don’t have a condom out here, Holland.” He sounded sad about this fact.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t usually careless about things, but I wanted Oliver more than I wanted to think about anything else. “I’m on the pill,” I managed to say. “And I’m clean.” I hadn’t been with anyone in years. I was spic and span.
Oliver’s eyes didn’t leave mine, watching to make sure I meant it. “I’ve been tested,” he said. “I’m clean, too.” He lined himself up, just the tip teasing my entrance.
I shivered in his arms, more ready than I’d ever been.
“You’re sure?” The words were a harsh whisper, as if he struggled to get them out.
“God, please, Oliver!” I was begging. I could think of nothing but that big cock sliding inside me, filling me, giving me something to center on as I spun out of control. I wanted it with an irrational needy desire, beyond reason or logic or common sense. “Please,” I moaned.
Oliver groaned, clearly defeated by his own need, and the next thing I felt was his soft thick tip pushing, filling me. He entered me slowly, a wild pulsing heat replacing the cooler feel of the water. “Oh God,” he breathed, his head falling forward to rest on my shoulder as he slid all the way inside me, so slowly I thought I might die of anticipation.
A noise I didn’t recognize as my own voice escaped my throat as he pushed all the way in and held himself there, neither of us moving. I could feel him inside me, a pulsing heat filling me and radiating through my limbs, and I squeezed myself around it, loving the way the contraction caused Oliver to suck in a sharp breath.
“Fuck,” he moaned, his voice a rasp. And then he was pulling out, pumping back in, pulling out again and thrusting harder. His arm braced my back against the edge of the pool and his other hand was on my ass, his fingers sliding around the globe of one side and into the crease.
A noise escaped me, a long, low shuddering cry of pleasure that ripped from my throat as every muscle inside me clenched and convulsed around Oliver. I fell apart in his arms, and when I was finished, he pulled slightly out and it was happening all over again—his fingers, his cock, everything else about him. I lost myself, and if he hadn’t been holding me, I might have drowned in his pool. Somewhere in the midst of my body fragmenting and exploding, I felt him coming with me, and I relished the feeling of weightlessness. I was everywhere and nowhere, floating and flying, surrounded and completely untethered. And then I was just in Oliver’s arms, out of breath and still connected to the most attractive, most incredible man I’d ever met.
When I came back to myself, he was smiling down at me. It wasn’t the wicked mischievous smile I’d seen moments before he’d sent me soaring. It was a gentle, sweet little-boy smile, and my heart actually jumped a little bit in my chest. Our embrace turned into a long hug as we disconnected our bodies, unwrapped our limbs from each other. After a moment, Oliver held only my hands and he stepped back from me, that smile still in place and his face lit by the pool light shining up from beneath the water.
“Has anyone ever told you what an incredible woman you are?” he asked.
I laughed. It was a defense mechanism. But in reality, no. No one had ever told me anything like that. Mama Gi had always been supportive, maybe even loving at times. Mostly she was a rock, and she made sure we had what we needed. Delia loved me, I knew that. “There really hasn’t been a lot of that in my life,” I said honestly. It wasn’t a plea for sympathy. It was my truth.
“There should be a hell of a lot more of it.” He tugged my hand and led me to the steps of the pool. “I’ll be in charge of making sure.”
“You’re already in charge of enough with everything going on at Cody Tech,” I said, deflecting the attention that made me feel vulnerable and exposed.
Oliver stopped me and pulled me into his arms, and we stood there naked, embracing as the moon glowed above us and my heart threatened to reveal more of me than I had to anyone before. “You need to know how special you are,” he told me, looking down into my face, his words firm and earnest. “I’ve never met anyone like you. You…glow,” he said, half his mouth turning up in a smile as his eyes searched mine.
“I glow?” Though this kind of attention was slightly embarrassing, I needed clarification on that. I couldn’t help but laugh.
He shook his head, and it was his turn to look embarrassed. “I don’t know how to explain it. When I met you, it was like I’d been walking through darkness. Like in movies where the character sees everyone else but only in shadow? Where no one really sees him?”
I nodded. I’d seen a movie where a girl had been murdered, and she could run through the streets of her town, see her family but not communicate with them.
“But you saw me.” He stared into my eyes for a second, placed a sweet kiss on my mouth and then straightened. “Even when you hated me, you saw me.”
“I didn’t hate you. You were just having a personality failure when we first met.”
He grinned. “Let’s go inside,” he said. He led me from the pool and retrieved my clothes and then scooped up his own.
I grabbed a towel from a nearby chair and followed him inside, feeling shy and awkward in the soft light. When I was dry, I pulled my dress back over my head. It had been easier to be honest in the darkness by the pool.
“Are you tired, duchess?” he asked.
“I am, actually.” I glanced at the clock. Somehow it was already after ten.
“We’ll have to eat all these avocados in the morning, then,” he said, putting the one I’d dropped on the bar top back into the bowl.
Oliver took my hand and led me through the house, stopping to grab my bag where it sat next to the door. I followed him obediently, too tired and satisfied to do anything else. At the end of the hall, he passed the double doors that I would have assumed opened to the master bedroom, and walked me into a small room with a queen-sized bed against one wall and trophies lining the bookshelves. Posters of Olympians covered the closet door, and the desk held an ancient desktop c
omputer.
I couldn’t help but gape as I looked around me. “We’ve gone back in time,” I said. “To Oliver Cody’s high school bedroom.” I turned my stare to him, questions spinning through my mind.
“They left me the house. But I can’t sleep in the master. Nothing in here has changed since I went away to college, and I haven’t had the energy to do anything about it. There are a couple guest rooms, but I guess…” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, shrugging and dropping my gaze. “Like I said, I’ve been a little out of it.”
Oliver looked exhausted suddenly, dark circles appearing beneath the dark eyes. I took his hands and stepped close. “Did you ever fuck anyone in your high school bedroom, Oliver?”
The sadness and pain in his eyes cleared a bit and something else sparked there in their place. I took his mouth with mine and pulled him toward the bed.
Chapter 17
Oliver
I woke to the sight of Holland’s milky back at my chin, and all that dark red hair splayed over my pillow. For the first time in months, my first thoughts weren’t dark and painful. The erection I had as a result of her sweet soft ass pressed up against my dick was another story, but my heart felt light for a change. Holland had stayed all weekend, and we’d acknowledged our first Valentine’s Day together by staying in bed and watching eighties movies in between bouts of some pretty athletic sex. It had been the best weekend I could remember—neither of us spoke about work or the potential complications that might face us there. I’d just spent an entire weekend reveling in the light Holland brought into my world.
Being inside Holland was like visiting another dimension, and after months of feeling nothing at all, it was like waking up. And as much as I loved being inside her—hell, if I could figure out a way to live there, with my dick hard in her forever, I’d probably do it—there was so much more to Holland than the sex. And the sex…well.
Mr. Big Page 15
