The earnestness melted away, replaced by the seductive Grant again. “You understand me better than you think, Sophie. We’re more alike than you realize.”
He didn’t let go of my hand as he relaxed against the seat. “So, Chris Hale approved your design, did he?”
I was about to get whiplash with the way this conversation kept bouncing from one thing to another, but I nodded. “He did. We had a lunch meeting today.”
“A lunch meeting. I’ll bet the staff was thrilled about that. Nobody likes lunch meetings, unless you did it in a fancy restaurant and had martinis?”
I laughed. “No, nothing like that. Burgers and fries in Chris’ office.”
“In his office? So just a handful of people. One might think he’d have ordered something other than burgers and fries for a business meeting.” Grant scrutinized me.
“It was just me and Chris, actually. And he asked me what I preferred for lunch—burgers were my idea. That’s where I was when you called earlier.”
“Ah, so it was.” Grant blinked slowly a few times. Then he leaned toward me. “Your meeting with him, that was right before you decided to ignore me, remember?” He emphasized the last word. “I asked you to call when you got home and tried on the dress. You didn’t.”
My back straightened instinctively. “I don’t remember you asking. You told me to. Not the same thing.”
“So, a lunch meeting at Hollis’ company and then disobedience. Am I going to live to regret the reference?”
I shook my head, not sure what point he was making. “No, of course not. I still really appreciate it. I just didn’t like the way—”
“I can answer the question for you, Sophie. No. I am not going to regret it. I promise.”
“What—”
“I’m finished. How about you?”
I gasped. “Can we finish the conversation?” I managed to pull my hand away from his.
“I thought it was finished.”
I glared at him. Finally, he held his hand out in a sweeping motion.
“By all means, Sophie. Go right ahead.” One eyebrow cocked, and the slight smirk on his face made me want to either slap him or kiss him.
“I didn’t like the way you ordered me around today. You told me what to do, and then expected me to do it.”
Grant nodded. “And?”
“And . . . I didn’t like it.”
He leaned closer than he had all night except when he kissed my cheek. “No? Because the way you whimpered and writhed as I whipped your ass afterward? That says you did like it.”
“That’s . . . I—”
“You can resist all you want, Sophie. I encourage it, in fact. But a man like me making demands of you, taking you, making you shout in ecstasy in the middle of a crowded restaurant, you like it whether you’ll admit it to yourself or not.”
He leaned so close our lips almost touched, and his voice went deep and gravelly, demanding and insistent. “You like it, or you wouldn’t be here at all. And you wouldn’t be leaving the restaurant with me now so I can bury myself deep inside you and make you scream.”
Four
Grant took my hand and gave me little choice but to follow him out of the booth. He must have paid the check while Gail and I were in the bathroom, because he led me outside where he spoke to one of the valets.
I wasn’t letting the conversation go, but I didn’t want to continue it in front of the valets.
And then Grant was pulling me down the sidewalk by the hand.
“What—where are we going?”
“To the car.”
“But—”
“I feel like walking. Don’t you?” He turned to me and glanced down at my feet in the ridiculously high heels he’d bought me. “Ah, maybe not.”
Grant swooped me up into his arms, and again I could feel the hard body beneath the expensive clothes. A hard body I had only felt against me from behind and never really gotten to see or touch.
“Then you don’t have to walk. But when I take you home, in exchange for my chivalry, I want you naked in these shoes walking away from me. Just so I can watch.”
I laughed, but Grant didn’t. He liked the idea, and he meant it. The corner of his mouth quirked up, so at least he was amused that I laughed.
He carried me to the valet lot with its fence and line of cars. One man, more like a teenaged boy really, essentially guarded the cars. He was walking toward us as we approached, but he and Grant exchanged a nod and he kept going. The kid was abandoning his post.
“Grant?”
“Shh. Stop thinking so much.”
When we reached his car, I was impressed that Grant wasn’t winded carrying me that far. He pressed a button on his keys, and the car chirped as the alarm was turned off, the doors unlocked.
Grant lowered me to my feet but didn’t let me touch the ground. Instead, he sat me on the hood of his car. He pressed between my knees to stand flush against me, cupped my neck with both hands, and pulled me into a deep, hungry kiss.
“Do what I say, Sophie,” he whispered against my mouth, then nipped at my bottom lip. “Obey me.”
How could that thrill me and repel me at the same time? The idea of obeying a man went against my principles, but I couldn’t deny the shiver of excitement that coursed through me when he kissed me again, harder than before.
“Lie back,” Grant breathed.
I hesitated, because we were in a valet parking lot in public. Valets would be coming to get cars, somebody could simply walk in now that the kid guarding it was gone. We were outdoors, for god’s sake.
“Aren’t there security cameras? Anybody could see, Grant.”
“This is my car. Unless I press charges, there’s no need to review security footage, is there?”
“I—”
“Sophie,” he said sharply, but dipped in for a kiss to soften it. With a quick jerk at the top of my dress, he pulled it down below my breasts, freeing them. Grant’s big hands cupped them, and he pinched my nipples. “Lie. Back. Now.”
He gently pushed with the hands kneading my breasts. I resisted for just a moment, but the dark look in his eyes, the lust I could see there shot right to my core. I swallowed my reservations and leaned back on the hood until I was lying down. He pulled gently at my nipples, twisting a little harder each time.
“Look at you,” he breathed. “Touch them, Sophie. Pinch them.”
My hands replaced Grants. I only cupped my breasts at first, but it seemed I couldn’t resist anything he suggested. I squeezed my nipples and twisted them the way Grant had done.
“Don’t stop,” Grant said. And then he pushed my dress up, not far since it was already so short, and I ended up lying on his Mercedes with the black fabric essentially covering my torso with my breasts and ass completely bare.
“Grant,” I said softly, more uncomfortable with this kind of exposure by the minute.
“No more talking,” was all he said. He lifted my legs behind the knees and pushed until my knees practically touched my hands, “But you can moan all you want.”
Grant’s smug smile disappeared between my legs. I gasped as his mouth closed around me, tongue flicking in just the right place.
Then, I did moan. It punched out of me with a slap of his tongue against my flesh. Grant pushed two fingers inside me, stroking me from within as he sucked and flicked and mouthed me, prompting me to spread myself further despite worries about being outside in the open or the cameras.
With him devouring me the way he was, I couldn’t have cared less about any of that. I squeezed my nipples and massaged myself as he’d told me to. A thought flit across my mind about whether or not we might be damaging the hood of his car, but it disappeared with one good suck flick suck and Grant’s fingers pumping into me.
Grant’s other hand left my leg, but I held them in place, up and apart, wishing I had leverage to push myself harder against his mouth. I was so close, so close . . .
“Don’t come yet,” he growled, but his mouth gave me no choic
e. As he worked my clit with his talented tongue, my back arched hard enough that it hurt my head where it pressed against the hood.
I came against his mouth, and only after the intensity began to fade did I realize that I’d shouted. And I hadn’t just shouted in pleasure, I’d shouted his name.
He licked me with long, slow strokes, bottom to the oversensitive nub that made me twitch. When I built up the courage, I looked down to see him staring up at me, eyes hooded, unreadable. He pressed his lips against my tender, swollen clit, then straightened. Grant pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his mouth, crumpled it and shoved it back in.
Then he gently pulled me from the car until I stood, walked me to the side and turned me to face away from him, over the hood.
He was against me instantly, his hands squeezing my breasts, his breath in my ear.
“That was bad, Sophie. I told you not to come. You disobeyed me.”
He’d made me come on purpose, I had no doubt. Made me come just to punish me for it afterward.
“I think you need a reminder of who’s in charge.”
His gruff voice would have frightened me if not for his hands, squeezing and pinching my breasts. He wasn’t angry. Or at least, he was also aroused, if he was angry at all.
Grant’s leg slipped between mine, and he kicked my feet wide apart, his body keeping me from stumbling. His belt clinked as he unbuckled it.
A hand between my shoulder blades pushed me down onto the car. He grabbed my hips hard enough I was sure it would leave red marks, and somehow that excited me even more.
Grant reached up and grabbed my wrists, then pulled my arms behind my back. With one strong hand around both of my wrists, pulling enough to make me lift my head, Grant’s cock speared me with one hard thrust.
I cried out in surprise. Grant withdrew, but pulled my wrists and pounded into me again. He used my arms as leverage to pull me toward him with each thrust, starting faster than harder than he ever had before.
And my body responded. I’d just come again, but being taken this way, taken roughly outside over the hood of his car, with his voice growling at me about how I was bad . . . god, I just wanted him to pound me until I couldn’t help but come again.
“Where do you get off shouting my name like that?” he growled, as he thrust deep. “Hmm? I didn’t tell you to do that.”
I didn’t know whether I should answer or not, but he slammed into me and forced a groan from me as the angle of his thrust stimulated all the places I needed it to.
“Don’t do it again, Sophie.”
I think I nodded, but I was lost in the haze of the jolts of pleasure stabbing into me each time he filled me. His grip tightened around my wrists almost painfully as he used them to pull me back.
He started grunting with each thrust, and from the stretch I felt inside I knew he was close. I arched my back, trying to push my hips up as much as I could so that I could feel him everywhere, so it could help me over that edge . . .
Grant slammed forward and froze in place, then shouted and jerked as he came inside me, his hips locked forward, pushing, pushing, as if he could get deeper. I licked my lips and worked my muscles, trying to get there before he was finished.
And then he let go, slid from my body and pulled me up, turning me. Grant lifted me, my ass half-propped against the car hood, and lowered me onto his cock. His eyes fell shut, and he hissed as I took him in all the way.
His arm around my waist kept me from falling as he rocked up into me, the angle just right so that each movement had my clit rubbing against him. His arms moved me, fucking me on his still-hard length.
Grant’s eyes opened and found mine. “Come,” he growled, sounding inhuman, and I was helpless to resist.
Five - Grant
Sophie rode me, with my help, her wet channel tight around me. Her tits bounced as I lifted and lowered her, thrust with my hips, dragged every bit of pleasure from her body I could while bringing her closer.
I could feel how hot, how ready she was to come again, and when I ordered her to, she tossed her head back with a shout. Not like the one in the restaurant she tried to contain. A full-throated cross between a moan and a scream of ecstasy I hadn’t expected.
I hadn’t planned on her really letting go this much, not yet. But Sophie was always surprising me.
She rode out the orgasm, rode it down from a shout to a whimper, until I was barely rocking against her because I wasn’t ready to leave the warmth of her body yet.
She’d surprised me moments before when she’d shouted my name the way she had, a way that set claws down my back and an electric current through my cock. I should have known then. To put her clothes back on her, take her home, find her someone else to take her to the wedding.
It would have been doing her a favor, even if it hurt her at first. It would have been the kind thing to do.
But I’m not kind. I’m selfish, and even though I knew she was too attached, she didn’t understand this arrangement, I wasn’t done with her yet. I wanted more.
When I turned her, fucked her and felt how good she was, how responsive, I had to close my eyes. Because I couldn’t afford to want that much more.
I was in control and had to stay in control. I would not be like my father or like too many women expected me to be.
Those thoughts cooled my desire. I let Sophie stand, stepped back and helped her arrange her dress. “Time to take you home.” I opened her car door, and ignored the hurt and then angry look she gave me.
I’d just given her one of the most exciting sexual experiences of her life. What did she have to be pissed about?
And then I remembered that I’d given her all of the exciting sexual experiences of her life, and remembered how selfish it was to introduce her to pleasure this way when I knew it couldn’t last.
Hopefully she’d see it as a gift when it ended, and forget about me soon enough. Once the expensive presents stopped coming, once the gravy train left the station, the other women had. And I hadn’t cared. That had been my intention with them all along.
Sophie’s different.
I shook my head and pulled out of the lot. That was dangerous thinking. And if I let myself indulge in it, this would be the only one that bothered me afterward, precisely because she was different. Special.
I couldn’t be hurt that way. I wouldn’t allow it.
I waved at the valets who waited in front of the restaurant, trying to appease the angry diners who were waiting for their cars to be parked or retrieved. They looked relieved to see me go, even though they’d been paid handsomely for making sure nobody bothered us in the car lot.
“You bribed them,” Sophie breathed, as if she’d just realized what happened.
“Bribe is an ugly word. I paid them for a service.”
“You could have told me I didn’t have to worry about anyone discovering us,” she huffed. I liked that huff of hers.
“Where’s the fun in that?” I grinned at her, admiring her pout, undecided whether I would go into her apartment when I walked her up or not.
Her pout made the decision for me. I would go in, and I would pink up that perfect ass of hers for not doing as I asked without question in the car lot. And for shouting my name like . . . like we were lovers.
I couldn’t have that.
Six - Sophie
I looked out the window as Grant drove me home, still stinging from how abruptly he’d decided on that after he was finished. Grant seemed to be a man who could flip switches inside himself—soft one moment, hard the next. Tender and gentle, then cold and closed off.
“Come on,” Grant said, patting my thigh. “It’s not like it held you back, baby. You nearly howled out there.”
My face heated up. He wasn’t wrong. When he spun me and fucked me, I had ended up practically screaming when I came, it was so good. And the way he looked at me, the intensity . . .
I gasped as a thought came to me, unwanted. I never wanted it to end. Him looking at me like
that. Touching me like that.
In that moment when he’d stared into me, he might as well have been staring into my soul, and I wanted that feeling to go on forever.
I was so foolish, so stupid. There was nothing romantic about any of this—it was sex, the way Grant wanted, when he wanted. How could I even think such a thing?
“I didn’t howl the first time,” I said, my voice betraying me with a slight quaver. I’d shouted his name. I hadn’t meant to, but it felt right anyway. Until he seemed angry about it.
The grin fell from Grant’s face. “And I told you not to do it again.”
“Why?”
We were already at my building, and Grant got out of the car. I sat until he opened my door, as I knew he expected, and he took my elbow to walk me inside. Not a hand on my back, or around my waist holding me close. My elbow, like he was my handler.
I pulled my arm away and turned to him, stopping us just outside the main door. “Why did that bother you?”
He gripped both of my upper arms gently. “Sophie, invite me in.”
“Not until you tell me why.” I held my chin up, defiant. I wanted to invite him in, I truly did, but I wanted to understand, too.
Grant’s face hardened, his hands fell. “Good night. I’ll call on you when I require something else.”
It was like a slap in the face, but still I couldn’t stand him leaving like that. I should have let him go. Should have told him what an ass he could be and been glad he was walking away. Should have, if I had any sense at all.
I didn’t.
“Wait. Grant.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me, waiting, and I was once again struck at how completely handsome he was, how sexy and mischievous his dark eyes and full lips appeared.
“Please come up?”
His eyes narrowed and he smiled. In that moment, we both knew how helpless I was to say no to him. But at least if he came up and stayed a while, maybe I’d get an answer.
Neither of us spoke on the way up. Once we were in my apartment and I’d closed the door behind me, Grant grabbed the keys and my purse and tossed them to the side. He pushed my back against the door and stared into my eyes as he moved forward, our bodies touching.
His Passion (Billionaire Blind Date Book 3) Page 2
