She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “I know. It makes me sick too. But there’s still a chance that only his heart is black and not his soul too. There’s the possibility that he’ll say no and I won’t know until it’s over either way.”
Lucas turned his hand over and squeezed hers. His intense blue eyes bored into hers showing concern when he spoke. “I don’t think there’s even a chance of that. I think he’s the devil himself. There are no limits to what he will do to get what he wants and he has no conscience about it either.”
Reagan felt a shudder rip through her body at Lucas’ tone. She knew, especially judging by the past six months, that he was probably right. But a shred of hope still tugged at her. She had grown up idolizing Aiden. How could a man that had known and supposedly loved her since she was just a little girl—even consider handing her over to be raped and toyed with by a man she wasn't supposed to really know? She couldn’t let herself completely believe that he would agree to that. She especially didn’t want to fathom the possibility that he would get off on watching it. But she could fathom it, somewhere deep inside, or she wouldn’t even be engaged in formulating a ‘test’ for him to begin with. She wasn’t an overly religious person, but every night she said a prayer that somehow, she and Lucas and even her mother were wrong. She could live with him being greedy and a poor businessman…but evil was an altogether different story.
Reagan reminded herself that this was their vacation and she was wasting way too much energy thinking about Aiden. She traced the lines in Lucas’ hand and with a naughty little smile she whispered, “Did you say something about a hot tub on our balcony?”
Lucas’s entire demeanor changed. He smiled back at her wickedly. “I did say that.
**
An hour later Reagan stepped out onto the enclosed balcony dressed in a white crocheted Kiini bathing suit. The small white triangles covered her breasts and the faint outline of her nipples could be seen through the thin fabric. The V-shaped bottoms rode high and accentuated her curvy hips and smooth thighs. Lucas was at the wet bar making them a drink and when he turned around and got a look at her he almost dropped the glasses in his hands.
“Jesus woman you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
Reagan laughed. “You like the new suit?”
Lucas swallowed. “Jesus, yes.”
“Thank you,” she said with a grin. “I like yours too.”
Lucas had on a pair of blue swim trunks and he had pulled off his t-shirt before Reagan came out. He liked to work out. He didn’t do it as much for the hard body as he did for the peace of mind it gave him. The hard body was a bonus though, he thought, when it made a sexy nineteen-year-old look at him like he was something she wanted to devour. Lucas handed her the club soda with lime that she had requested and asked, “Shall we?”
She took a sip of her drink and smiled, “Yes.”
Lucas put his free hand on the small of her bare back as she stepped up onto the deck of the Jacuzzi. He used his hand to guide her onto the first step and then once she was in the water, he stepped in after her. Reagan took a seat on the bench that wrapped around the inside of the tub and Lucas settled in next to her. The warm water and bubbles felt wonderful and the soft aroma of lavender filled his senses as Reagan snuggled in next to him. He put his arm around her and for a minute they both just sat there relaxing, enjoying each other’s company and forgetting they had a care in the world.
When Lucas finished his drink he set the glass down on the side of the tub. Reagan pulled away from him and stood up to reach over and set hers down. It was an innocent gesture but one that gave Lucas an almost instant tent in his shorts. Her suit wasn’t transparent but her nipples had become erect from the cold and they were so clearly visible that he could even see the little bumps on her areolas. He licked his lips as he thought about sucking them into his mouth. And then his eyes moved down to the V between her sexy, long legs.
The suit had molded to her inner thighs once it got wet and was almost revealing every inch of her smooth, shaved pussy. She sat down the glass and then slipped back down into the water. Lucas wrapped his arm around her and pulled her up against him, then crushed his mouth down on hers for a long, passionate kiss. Her hard nipples were pressed into him and he kept pulling her in tighter as their tongues explored each other’s mouths, loving the way they felt through the soft fabric, against his bare skin.
As they kissed he let his fingers find the string that was tied around her neck and pulled on it. He heard her suck in a breath when he found the other one and did the same thing. Once it was loose between them he reached up and pulled the small piece of fabric out and tossed it onto the deck. He pulled out of the kiss and looked into her eyes as she gasped and panted for breath as he began to caress one of her nipples.
She shuddered as he trailed his fingertips along the sides of her breasts and tugged on the erect buttons. When she felt his mouth on the turgid peaks she moaned and leaned back.
His mouth moved over her breasts sending streaks of fire through her veins.
He took his time, kissing every square inch of her body, slowly, tantalizingly, driving her mad with every stroke of his tongue.
She tried to touch him. Reagan longed to feel his throbbing cock in her hands. She wanted to swallow him whole and take his spurting fulfillment down deep in her throat but he wouldn’t let her. When she reached for him, he drew away. When she asked him to let her suck him, he said no. He gave her everything of himself, using his body and softly murmured words, and took nothing back.
“Lay back into my arms.” His voice was deep and commanding and she did exactly what he asked her to. He had one hand on her upper back and the other underneath her ass, squeezing those amazingly sexy cheeks. He held her there for a few seconds just taking in the sight of her incredible body. He took in the sight of her full breasts, large, dark-red nipples, flat stomach and the swatch of fabric that had been pushed to the side so that as she lay there now, one of her wet, swollen lips was exposed. She let out a little surprised squeal when he lifted her up out of the water and laid her back on the deck.
By the time he nudged her legs apart she was writhing beneath him, panting with need. He lowered his body until his face was nestled between her thighs.
"Oh my god, Lucas. Yes..."
He placed his entire mouth over the smooth mound and laved her with his tongue. Reagan’s body quivered as he sucked at the baby soft skin of her inner thighs and tickled her lips with the slippery tip of his tongue. Her wetness flowed from her pussy, down between her cheeks. Lucas made soft noises as he licked her juices, drinking it, drowning in it.
"I love the taste of you, Reagan. I want to lick you for hours."
Her entire body vibrated with desire as he teased her, kissing her everywhere but the one place where she desperately wanted his mouth. She shifted her hips this way and that, seeking the contact, needing it. She was aroused to such a fever pitch that when he finally slipped his tongue between her wet lips and touched her clit, she lost it. He stayed with her until the orgasm waned, his tongue flat against her. He grunted against her steamy flesh and squeezed her thighs with his hands. When she came down, he quickly brought her up to peak again. And again. Over and over he made her cum until she couldn’t take anymore and she begged him to stop.
Raising his head, he smiled at her. The storm clouds in his eyes were gone. The tension that always lurked in the lines and creases of his face had dissolved. All that was left was a sort of calm essence, a distillation of Lucas. It was as if she could finally peer through the haziness and see only him.
As he slid up and took her limp body into his arms, Reagan sighed, exhausted and trembling. There was no mistaking it—Lucas loved her. His feelings came across loud and clear just the same. When he touched her, his fingers sent tendrils of emotion along her skin. His tender, selfless foreplay nurtured those tendrils until his love was woven into her very being, a
round her heart and inside it. She felt it with every breath, every pulse beat. And it seemed to soothe away all the self-loathing, the shame and the guilt that had settled inside her. This man loved her.
She felt at peace when she closed her eyes and let oblivion take her.
Chapter 13
When Lucas and Reagan got back from Switzerland she found each task that Aiden ‘asked’ her to do to be more distasteful and harder to get through. Thankfully he hadn’t asked her to spend time alone with any of the clients again…yet, but she had noticed that something in the way he looked at her had changed. It was like he had suddenly realized sitting the appetizers out in front of his business interests was enough to reel them in…but not quite enough to keep them on the hook for a long period of time. Reagan would notice him watching her sometimes and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. The idea of her own brother possibly selling her to someone was enough to make her stomach turn. If it hadn’t been for her stolen moments with Lucas she would have lost her mind.
Every moment she had when Aiden wasn’t hovering over her or having her break in on a meeting to give the old rich men something to ogle; she was plotting and planning herself. When she first presented the idea of Lucas telling Aiden that he wanted Reagan for twenty-four hours, he had balked. He had adamantly refused to do it. But each time they talked about the things Aidan expected from her and how each task leaned more toward blatantly prostituting her than the last, the more Lucas began to come around to the idea.
Lucas had opened her eyes to the fact that she loved to be dominated and as much as the idea of one of the practical strangers Aiden might give her to, raping her and taking her virginity, disgusted and frightened her…the idea of role playing the whole thing with Lucas turned her on. She would sometimes even lay in bed at night, thinking about it and using her fingers to bring herself to orgasm or she would talk to Lucas on the phone about it and as they planned out the specifics and they would suddenly go from planning Aiden’s demise to full-blown, hot and heavy phone sex.
It was hot and Reagan loved it, and she found the patience the two of them had shown thus far to be withering by the day. She wanted to really be with Lucas, and see him whenever she wanted. She hated sneaking around and she hated that Aiden was in control of every part of her life.
It was a Tuesday night after Aiden had choreographed her ‘accidentally’ interrupting a meeting at the office between him and Lucas and Lucas’ father Rex, when Lucas called her and said, “I’m meeting with Aiden for lunch tomorrow at the house. Dad and I finally settled with him on numbers but I told him I wanted to meet somewhere privately to discuss the ‘bonus’ he and I had been talking about.”
Reagan was thoroughly depressed about the business. It was something her step-father had been so proud of and with good reason. He had built it from the ground up with the intentions of his children and grandchildren reaping the benefits of it for decades to come. By children, he had meant Reagan too and it warmed her heart to know that. But if the business had to be sold, she was happy that Lucas and his father would be her partner. They were both brilliant, good-hearted men and she knew they would help her take it to new heights.
Reagan sighed knowing it was almost over. She would soon know if Aiden was Satan himself or the brother she had always loved. Maybe he had just gotten caught up and taken things too far. What Lucas was about to propose would cause the heads of most brothers to explode. It might even send a ‘normal’ brother into a homicidal rage. Reagan wasn’t worried about Lucas on the off chance that happened. She knew that he was more than capable of handling himself. She only prayed that Aiden went in that direction and not the other.
On Wednesday morning when she came down from her room for breakfast she found Aiden sitting in the breakfast nook sipping his coffee and reading the paper. He looked up at her as she came into the room and smiled…and then he ran his eyes over her body, slowly, like he was picturing her without the jeans and blouse she was wearing. Reagan turned her back to him to pour her coffee but she couldn’t suppress the shudder from the chill that ran down her spine. She had caught Aiden looking at her like that once or twice before, but she had convinced herself those times that he was thinking of something else and she just happened to be in the way. The very idea that he was thinking of touching her or doing things to her made her want to vomit. Who is this man and how was he able to hide his true colors for so long?
By the time she had her coffee she had composed herself enough to take it over to the table and sit down across from her brother with a smile on her face.
“Good morning.” She looked out the large window next to the table and said, “It’s a gorgeous day out there.”
“Yes, it is,” Aiden smiled, drawing his tongue across his bottom lip. Reagan almost curled her lip in disgust, but she caught herself and held the smile. “Why don’t you spend some time out in the gardens enjoying it?”
She took a sip of her coffee and tried to act surprised as she asked, “You don’t need me at the office today?”
“I’m not going to the office today.”
Reagan took in his business suit and tie and the briefcase he always carried to work sitting on the counter near the table and asked, “Oh, are you taking a day off?”
“No, and neither are you. I want you out of sight unless I call you, but don’t go far in case I need you. I’m meeting with Lucas Ferris again, this time just him and me one on one. He requested this private meeting and I have a feeling he’s about to offer me a deal I can’t refuse.”
“Oh, well that’s good. What kind of deal is it?”
Aiden shot her a look of disdain. “It’s complicated business stuff that you would never understand.”
Reagan almost rolled her own eyes. Over the past year, Lucas had been schooling her in business and how to read and understand contracts. He never wanted her to be taken advantage of again the way that Aiden had taken advantage of her with his father’s will. Besides, if their plan turned out the way Lucas knew it would and Reagan hoped that it wouldn’t, she would be the one solely in charge of the family’s business dealings.
“Okay,” she nodded with what she hoped was a sweet, clueless smile. “It’ll be nice to spend some time out in the sun today.”
After breakfast, Reagan had changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and headed out to the rose gardens at the back of the estate armed with her iPod, a big floppy hat and a pair of gloves. She went to the tool shed and took out a box of gardening tools and carried it all over to the path that would take her into the midst of what had always reminded her of something out of a fairy tale, the way the multi-colored rose bushes wound around the cobblestone path. She spent the first hour or so clipping and trimming and just about the time she took her first water break she realized that she could hear male voices. She glanced over toward the back of the mansion and saw that the sliding glass doors between the veranda and the main living room were open. The screen was closed and just beyond it, she could see a large, shapely silhouette framed inside of it. It was Lucas and just the sight of his shadow made her mouth water. He must have asked Aiden to open the glass doors or opened them himself so that Reagan could hear what was being said inside. Although she couldn’t hear the words from where she stood, the pitch and the tone of their voices told her they were having some kind of disagreement. She wondered if Lucas had told him the plan and Aiden’s voice was high and strained because it disgusted him. She hoped that was the case.
Leaving her things where they were she quietly made her way back up toward the house. She stopped dead in her tracks when the cell phone Aiden insisted she carried everywhere in case he needed her, vibrated. Looking down at the face of it, she saw that he had sent her a text that said, “Go in the front door and put on that white bikini…quickly. Then pass through the main living room on your way to the pool. Do not put anything on over the suit.”
She curled her lip. It didn’t sound like Aiden was balkin
g what Lucas was proposing. It sounded like he was promoting it. She took off the hat and gloves and left them at the edge of the veranda and went back around front. Lucas’ bodyguard Frankie was at the front door. He winked at her as she passed and she smiled back at him. Frankie was the only living soul besides her and Lucas that knew about their last year together and what they had planned for today.
She went up and quickly put on the tiny bathing suit and then grabbed a fluffy white towel. She made her way down the stairs and as soon as she was close to the living room she heard her brother’s voice, “Did I mention her tits are like…” What the fuck? She stepped into the living room and Lucas and Aiden both stopped talking. Aiden was smiling at her with a lustful grin that made her skin crawl. She forced a smile back at him and then she looked at Lucas. He was smiling as well, but his eyes were doing their best to replace the cold that had run through her veins at the sound of her brother talking about her tits.
She smiled warmly at Lucas and hurried on past desperately trying to hide the anger that was flowing through her veins. She stepped out the door onto the veranda where she had been only moments before and closed the screen door behind her. She walked in the direction of the pool, stopping as soon as she was out of sight. That’s when she heard Aiden chuckle and say, "Three, no lower."
Reagan thought she had never heard anything so vile as the sound of her brother putting a price on her dignity. The greedy, sick bastard really meant to go through with it.
She heard Lucas counter, "One. Final offer."
Aiden then said something to the tune of, “Okay, but just a few minor conditions…” and by that time she was walking away, quickly. She barely made it to the pool house before closing the door and dropping down onto one of the chaise longues in shock. She wondered if it was odd that she didn’t feel like crying, now that she had heard it from her brother’s mouth and with her own ears. She simply felt numb at first and then after a few minutes it was like a fire had been smoldering inside of her and suddenly without warning it flared up and consumed her. She wasn’t going to cry. She was going to use that fire and the strength her feelings for Lucas gave her and she was going to ruin that son of a bitch.
Beg Me: Sold By My Brother Page 6
