"But it's true!" she wailed loudly. "I didn't find out anything bad about you, Trent. I found out that you are a disgustingly wonderful person who went to great personal sacrifice to pull my family's company out of the morass that my father had left it in. You saved a company you didn't own, for a man who wasn't your father, and who seemed to be doing his best to drive it into the ground."
His response was characteristically serene. "I didn't do it because it was my job. I didn't do it for your father. I kind of did it for myself, but most of all, I did it for you."
"I know!" she lamented loudly, and he was surprised to realize that he had to suppress a smile at her vehemence. "You did it for a woman you had to have realized despised you for her own self-centered, egotistical, spoilt purposes, who was completely and totally blind to your true intentions. That's what's so God-awful about the whole thing!"
For the umpteenth time in this conversation, Trent was at a loss. He found himself mindlessly parroting back at her, "God-awful? Why?"
Stevie rounded on him, suddenly angry. "You're a freakin' genius. You can't possibly be that oblivious, besides, oblivious is my forte."
He snorted. "About something like this? I'm absolutely lost at sea. I have no idea why my having saved your family's company has you so wrapped around the axle."
Stevie got right in his face, pressing her nose to his, like a Chihuahua challenging a Great Dane. "Because I thought you were a monster. I thought you had ulterior motives - even now, when I looked into your past, I was all prepared to find out that you were mobbed up, or had made a bargain with Satan or – or – something equally as nefarious."
Her anger spent, she slumped in place, not against him, but not leaning away from him either. Just into a dejected little pile of herself. "I treated you so badly, Trent. I…" He heard her swallow. "I don't even know how you can bear to be in the same room with me. I was insulting and snotty and bratty and out and out horrible to you, all while you were dealing with my father practically sabotaging your efforts to get the company back on its feet at every turn for some unknown reason."
Suddenly, it hit him who the person was who had to be the source of her information. "You spoke to Millie."
Stevie nodded. "I did. She had nothing but obnoxiously glowing things to say about you. She's the one who told me how badly Daddy had done at running the company, and how, even though he brought you in to pull its feet out of the fire, he was kind of jealous of your abilities at the same time and was constantly throwing monkey wrenches into your attempts at saving it." She sighed. "She thinks you're a saint, you son of a bitch, and I'm halfway there myself."
"Far, far from it, baby girl." He shrugged. "I just...love you, and I had my own selfish reasons. I wanted to keep the company alive for our unborn, completely fictitious at that point, children."
Finally, Stevie allowed herself to collapse against his chest. "I just don't know how you did it all these years, with me so obviously hating you. You must be a saint, Trent. Otherwise, how did you keep from just...tipping me over your knee every time you saw me. I was such a little brat! When I think of some of the things I said to you, I just…" She shook her head, and he could feel his chest dampening with her tears.
His arms closed around her, and he realized – for the millionth time – how lucky he was to have had this particular dream come true.
Well, almost all of it, anyway. He wasn't going to go nitpicking.
Much.
He was a greedy cuss when it came to her, and he wanted everything he could possibly get from her.
"Well, believe me," he said, clearing his throat. "It wasn't easy. That's why you ended up there those two times."
"It should have been so many more than that, I'm ashamed to admit." Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it.
"Well, that's quite an admission, considering the condition of the bottom you're currently sitting on, darlin'."
That didn't even get a ghost of a smile from her.
"Can I tell you something?"
She pulled a bit away from him, looking up at him, her soul bared in her eyes. "Yes, of course! I want to hear anything you'd like to tell me."
Trent adjusted himself, having stiffened – and not in a good way – in some areas that were now protesting at his unusual position. When they were more comfortably arranged up against the front of the window seat he'd had built in this room just because he knew she loved them, he kissed the top of her head. "I have a confession to make."
Stevie held her breath, he could feel it, and he chuckled.
"You're not the only one who worries. You did a very good job convincing me that you couldn't stand the sight of me, and now that I have you, I'm finding that knowledge niggling at the back of my head all the time. I'm always just a tad surprised when you're actually waiting for me at home and not calling me from some undisclosed location to tell me to fuck the fuck off."
The man's impression of her voice – and her choice of vocabulary – was disturbingly accurate.
"Especially, considering the unusual nature of our relationship, and the condition that your bottom is often in."
Stevie nodded. "But you knew me well enough, even from arm's length, to know exactly what I needed, and, frankly, what I wanted all along."
He couldn't have been more stunned. That very intimate aspect of their lives was something that was very precious and special to him. It bound them together in a way and to a level that he didn't think most couples achieved, and he was amazed and honored that she trusted herself into his care to that extent.
If it hadn't been something she got anything out of on any level, he would still have loved and adored her, still gotten hard if he so much as thought of her. But the fact that she did – that he could see how she'd blossomed as a direct result of it – was the frosting on the cake, as far as he was concerned.
And yet, to him, there was still, very definitely, something missing.
Something big.
"You're not mad at me for snooping?" she asked, obviously nervous about his answer, twirling her fingers into his chest hair, fit to rip it out.
"No, I'm not. I understand that compulsion to learn everything you can about someone pretty well. I have to say that I wish you'd come to me first, but I know why you didn't. I've not been very forthcoming about myself."
"After what you told me about your mom, I didn't want to make you feel embarrassed, either."
Trent patted the hand that was slowly ripping out his chest hairs. "Thank you for trying to spare my feelings. But next time, please try to feel free to ask me anything. I'll always do my best to give you an honest answer."
"Thank you."
Since they were being all open, and they were both more truly relaxed than they'd been in a long while, he decided to put his cards on the table about that big, missing component that he really didn't want to admit had been bothering him, but it had. "Stevie?"
"Hmm?" she replied, nuzzling his neck.
Before she could distract him, he blurted out, "Do you – can you ever possibly see a time when you might – when you might have some kind of positive feelings towards me?"
It was such a plaintive lament, much more worthy of her than him, and it tore her heart right out of her chest and stomped on it in front of her that he felt he had to ask her like that, like a beggar at the back door.
Chapter 9
In answer to his question, she pulled away from him, and he allowed her to do what he usually did for her – she arranged him, lying stretched out on the cushy carpet, on his back.
His body, of course, sprang immediately to attention, its natural state around her, at least when she wasn't crying her eyes out as she knelt in all her naked glory, next to him.
"You've been unbelievably generous to me and my family, Trent," Stevie began, placing her hands on his chest.
Trent turned to look at her. "I don't want your gratitude."
She placed a finger over his lips to silence him. "I know that. I do. But I
feel it, anyway. You went above and beyond, and I appreciate it, more than you will ever know." With that, she bent over and kissed him, those beautiful breasts pressed against his chest as her tongue teased and tempted his, and she drew the curtain of those auburn curls around them.
"You've given me so much, Trent. May I please give you something?"
His cock jerked at her submissive tone, and his heart ached at least as badly. "You may," he answered gravely.
He almost came to regret those words, but what a sweet, sweet regret it was.
Trent was an amazing lover, and because of his dominant position, he controlled the tone and tenor of their lovemaking, not that she had any complaints. It was very focused on her, because there was nothing he liked better than to get her off. It was almost a fetish for him, getting her off got him off.
But this time, she wanted it to be all about him, and Stevie did her best to remember everything she'd learned about what he liked.
Her hair was a big turn on for him. He was always caressing it or wrapping it around his fist or burying his fingers into it to control her head or her mouth more closely, or more harshly. So she dragged every inch of it over every inch of him, from top to bottom, mostly just letting it slide over him, but also using the curled ends to tease his nipples, and of course, that huge, throbbing cock of his, which was already more purple than red with need.
She teased him terribly, tickling him with it, especially his balls, which she knew were extremely sensitive. Up and down the entire length of him, until she replaced it with her eager mouth and hands, tracing back over the same areas, nipping here, suckling there, defying a rule he had put in place for her about not playing with his nipples.
For some reason, for a very enlightened man, he just couldn't deal with having them stimulated for more than a few seconds at a time, and Stevie had her theories about why. She thought they were incredibly sensitive, like a woman's, and that he just couldn't handle that.
She had often wondered if she might be able to get him off just by playing with them, as he had proven more than once that he could do to her.
And not that she was going to take the time to do so right now. But she did spend extra long on them, and her reward for doing so was the way his hips arched up, seeking her heat.
"You are so going to get a spanking for doing this. You know you're not allowed, Stevie," he warned, although he was finding it hard to put much emphasis in it, everything she was doing felt so damned amazing.
"I don't think so. No spankings shall result from touching Trent's nipples," she proclaimed, as if she was reading from a legal document.
"I don't think so…"
"It's all there in black and white."
"All where?"
"Wherever. You should have read the contract. All your business education and you didn't read the contract? Tsk, tsk."
"I did, I wrote the contract, honey," he drawled, trying to look stern but failing miserably, he knew.
"Doesn't it feel good?"
"It feels amazing, but that's not the point."
Stevie pouted, but she did leave off his nipple in favor of licking her way down his stomach to the prominent happy trail she was after.
"You have just the right amount of chest hair," she commented, slinking slowly down that tall body, feeling his cock twitching beneath her as she did so, but pretty much ignoring it in favor of licking his heavy, muscular thighs and down over well developed calves until she found his feet.
"Are you ticklish?"
"No."
She proved him a bit of a liar there. He had giggled uncontrollably at first, but then he exerted that Zen will of his and no more giggles.
It was too bad, because Stevie loved the contrast between his size and that high-pitched laugh of his.
Someday, she was going to explore that weakness of his more fully, but not now. Instead, she crawled back up him to sandwich his cock between her breasts, licking the head every time it appeared and fucking him with her titties, surrounding them with all the breast flesh they could handle, but stopping when he sounded close.
His hips rose, trying to follow her, when she sat up, arching, seeking, until she sat back down, her dripping wet cleft pressed directly over him.
His sigh was so unselfconsciously hedonistic that she had to smile.
But other than allowing him to occupy her cleft, his broad head resting against her clit, she didn't do anything for him.
And Trent wasn't going to put up with much of that.
"Stevie."
One word. One strictly delivered word.
But she didn't look particularly worried.
"Is there something I can do for you, Trent?" she asked innocently, leaning forward to bracket his head with her arms, thus raising her hips off him.
"Yes, there definitely is. Stop being a cock tease and fuck me, you wench."
She stopped in the act of kissing him deeply, her fingers buried in his short hair. "Oh, I'm a wench now, am I?"
Trent snorted. "You've always been a wench, a beautiful, headstrong, spoiled wench, who desperately needed someone to come along and bring her into line."
"Oh, and I take it you fancy that you're that man for me?"
All of a sudden, he wasn't going to put up with any more, and Trent jackknifed up, capturing her chin in his fingers. "I know it, Stevie. I've known it for so long – that you belonged to me, that you were made for me."
She found herself flipped onto her back so quickly, it knocked the breath out of her a bit, and before she could do anything about it – like she could, even if she'd had the opportunity – she felt herself being filled by him and, although it felt as amazing as it always had, she pouted a bit.
"I wanted to be on top!"
Trent captured a hand in each of his, folding her arms back, bent at the elbows, so that her palms were facing out but her fingers were laced with his from behind.
"I'm sorry. You should have reserved that position at least two weeks in advance, ma'am."
"Ma'am? You did not just 'ma'am' me in bed! I oughta…"
Trent withdrew slowly, but hammered himself home within her, making her gasp and whimper in his ear – their mating call.
"You oughta obey me. You oughta take everything I give you. You oughta…"
"Love you," she finished for him quietly, her eyes locked with his. "And I do."
"You – you what?"
He had screeched to a halt and blanched pure white, looking as if he was about to faint.
"Trent, are you okay? Don't go towards the light, honey, stay with me! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill you with my love..."
He grabbed her up and hugged her, fit to cause some real damage, until he remembered himself and let up a bit, apologizing profusely and asking her repeatedly if she was all right.
Through both laughter and tears, she assured him she was, and he brought his lips to hers in the most exquisitely tender kiss a man ever laid on a woman in the history of humanity, his tears mingling with hers. "I can't – I can't believe it."
She found herself atop him again as he rolled with her, giggling like a maniac, then brought them onto their sides, facing each other. "Say it again."
"I love you, Trent Lazenby."
"Again."
"I love you, Trent."
"Again."
"I love you."
"Again."
Stevie laughed. "I love you."
As his tear-filled eyes met hers, he merged them again, this time much more gently, much more profoundly, saying, "And I love you, Stevie Coolidge. You have made me the happiest man in existence on the planet, ever. I…" his voice broke as he began to move within her, arms wrapped tightly around her. "I never – thought – I'd hoped that, eventually, sometime, maybe before we died you might…"
"Stop." Stevie wiped the tears from his face like he had done so many times for her. "You're going to break my heart, you big lunk." She captured his face between her palms. "I'm sorry that it took me so damned lon
g to open my eyes and see the truth."
"You stop. You can't spend your life regretting the past. Celebrate the present with me, instead."
He gave them one hell of a celebration, and just when he knew she was about to come apart in his arms, and he was about to do the same in hers, his lips hovered over hers, and she thought he was going to kiss her.
"Again."
Her face wreathed in smiles, she began to chant it breathlessly for him as he brought them both over that peak.
"I love you."
"I-I mmm – I love you."
"Uhh...I...oh, Trent, please, I love you!"
"I. Love. You.
"I told you it was a bad idea."
"Shut the fuck up, you'll wake him! Just stumble your way to the spare room and go to sleep. You're drunk."
Mo snorted. "And you're not?"
"I'm the most sober of the six of us."
Mo tapped her on the shoulder. "It's just us."
Stevie whispered, leaning towards her friend to do so and nearly falling over in the process. "I know that! But I was still the soberest – most sober – of all of us, all weekend."
Suddenly, the lights came on in the kitchen, and there was her husband-to-be, leaning against the doorframe, looking dangerously sexy, all six-foot-twelve of him, broad shoulders, muscled arms...
She headed towards him, in his general direction, anyway, never more sure of anything than that he would catch her if she started to fall.
And, of course, he did, swinging her up in his arms.
"Whoa, cowboy, you haven't even bought me a drink yet!" she teased, then spoiled it by snickering and giggling in fits and starts, then burping very loudly.
Trent just smiled and held her more tightly as she drunkenly wiggled around. "Stay still, woman, or I'm going to end up dropping you on your head."
To Mo, who looked just about the same worse for the wear, he smiled and said, "Thank you for bringing her home to me in one piece – however soused."
"You're welcome, I think." Mo stopped in the act of moving towards the first floor spare room she usually slept things off in. "Are you sure you wouldn't be willing to be cloned?"
Never Say Never Page 10
