by Kimball Lee
William cursed under his breath as she put the screen back up and turned her body to face him. He had already surrendered any hope of resisting and he’d unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants and her small quick hands slipped inside his boxer briefs and they both moaned low and deep when his erection sprang free. She closed her hands around its thick, heavy length, her gaze full of wonder as she stared up into the darkening depths of his eyes. Her hands moved reverently over his thick, pulsing cock, fuck, would she ever have enough of this man? His face, his body, his sex— every part of him was seductive and overtly masculine and impossible to resist.
His mouth descended, claiming her lips in a raw demanding kiss as he lifted her and held her slightly above his cock for a moment. His hands were locked on her small waist, her long silky hair fell forward against his cheek as the kiss went on and on and she struggled to push her panties down to her knees.
He wove his fingers through the glossy length of her hair forcing her head back so that his lips were on her neck and then roaming downward to nip at her breasts through the sheer fabric of her dress. She moaned and leaned back, her hands on his thighs as her back arched, catlike and greedy for the lash of his tongue on her flesh. He glanced up at the face of this amazing girl, it was a study of lustful need, heavy eyelids half shut, heated pink cheeks and lips swollen from the intensity of his kiss.
He held her so that her hands were free and she let them roam over the fine lacing of his muscled abs and up to the smooth hot skin of his sculpted chest. At the sharp bite of pleasure of his mouth on her swollen nipples she hurriedly unbuttoned her dress and pushed the straps of her lacy bra down and away. He growled with pleasure as his lips surrounded an erect pink nipple and he was met with her lust-filled cries as she clutched at his short dark hair.
“Do you like that, darling girl?” He taunted, raking his teeth over her sensitive flesh. His hands slipped under her and he lifted and then pulled her body down hard on the entire length of his cock, rocking into her with relentless pressure. “Is it too much, baby? Can you handle all of me, Allie Darling? Because that’s what I need, I need your body to belong to me, I need to fill you and satisfy you like no one else ever will.”
“Yes… yes, you do. Only you, only you….” She cried out as his cock swelled inside her, stretching and battering her to her very depths. The ropey veins and wide head massaged the tender tissues of her pussy, the thick root stroked her clit with an unrelenting rhythm until she was shuddering and seizing as her fingers dug into his rippling biceps and she cried his name over and over.
“God, Allie, you feel so, so good!” His arms circled her so tightly she could barely breathe as he roared his release, shuddering violently as he poured into her. He sank back against the leather seat with her hair draped across his chest and her sweet body clutched tightly to his as if he never intended to let her go. “What have you done to me, Allie Darling and how the hell am I ever supposed to get anything done when all I want is to be with you? And when I’m with you I want to be inside you and this heat between us is so fucking hot it has to burn itself out, right?”
“I hope not,” she said, her cheek rested against his sweat soaked chest and she felt that she could stay there for hours or days or… years.
“Come on,” he said, we must be home, the car’s not moving. He smiled as she sat up and fumbled with fastening her bra. Then he laughed when she said “Fuck it!” and tore the lacy bra off along with her panties and tucked them both inside the pocket of his suit jacket.
“Well, that’ll be a nice little surprise for the dry-cleaners,” he said, and smirked as he helped to adjust her dress.
“I’m sure Miss Hawkins goes through all the pockets in your dirty clothes before she sends them out to the unsuspecting public. I’ll just bet she could write a book about the illicit treasures she’s found in your pockets,” Allie said as he zipped his pants.
William leaned over caught her wrist before she stepped out of the car, “You’re not like any girl or any person I’ve ever met before, Alaina. You both intrigue and infuriate me. Don’t think I’m finished being upset with you, you did a very bad thing today….”
“I know,” she said, leaning down to flick her tongue over his luscious full lips, “I had sex with the indomitable William Warfield in the backseat of a limo and I enjoyed myself way more than I should have. In fact there’s no telling where I’ll take advantage of Mr. Warfield next.”
“Very funny. You know what I mean, wandering the back streets of New Orleans with a man you didn’t even know and going inside a strange building with him. That’s never a smart thing to do, Miss Darling, when you were a little girl didn’t your parents teach you to bite and kick and scream ‘stranger danger’?”
“Yes, they did, but I don’t consider your brother a stranger, and how did I know he was your brother? Because when he first spoke to me the sun was in my eyes and my brain registered the sound and the size of him as you.”
He winced and let go of her wrist as he moved past her toward the townhouse and she was immediately sorry that she had compared William to his brother once again.
“Listen, William, I could get all pissy and bent out of shape and ask you a hundred questions about what you do when you visit your brother’s club,” she said, catching up to him as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside. She reached up, forcing him to look at her, tracing the tips of her fingers along his strong square jawline. “The thing is, other than this roaring attraction between us, we’re practically strangers. You didn’t even know me a week ago and I got by just fine. I took care of myself and stayed out of trouble, I’ve always been on my own in a sense. I don’t want to be another person you have to worry about.”
“No, I didn’t know you a week ago and my life was moving ahead in what I thought was the right direction. No distractions, no complications, no life altering issues. But now I do know you, Alaina, and nothing will ever be the same again— I’ll never be the same again,” he said and he sighed deeply, his warm hand caressing her cheek, his thumb grazing her delectably pouty bottom lip. “You’ve changed me… for the better, you’ve given me something real… someone real... someone to live for.”
Allie’s eyes filled with tears and words deserted her as the comfortable weight of his confession settled over her. Someone to live for! So they both felt the same way and the rest of the world with its ticking clocks and rules and measuring devices for true love could just disappear and leave them alone. They had fallen hopelessly in love in the space of a few days and it was as real and deep as anything either of them had ever felt before.
*
William may have thought it impossible for anything to surprise him, but he was wrong. Life had certainly dealt him a few surprises in the past week and it had all begun with the arrival of Allie Darling. God, he had it bad for that girl, the way she looked and felt, her hot skin under his hands, the sweet smell of her body, her singularly intoxicating taste.
His father’s health was precariously unstable and his brother had evidently fucked and then ditched his psychiatrist and none of it really mattered to William. And big-damn-deal, hadn’t he spent the better part of his life being his brother’s keeper and his father’s unappreciated errand boy? Where had that gotten him? He was president and CEO of Warfield Shipping and Warfield Consolidated Enterprises but he climbed that ladder on his own. He sure as hell hadn’t gotten any help from his father other than a nod of his head when the corporate board had voted William into power two years before. Hell, maybe William the third had pulled some strings behind the scenes or possibly it was just an unspoken rule that the eldest Warfield son took over when the father lost his will to lead….
“Hey, why the crinkled brow, are you totally lost in deep dark thoughts?” Allie asked as she slid into one of the tall carved chairs at the dining room table. “Wow, there’s a lot of silver and crystal and china on this table. I’m not really dressed for a formal dinner and do you know what each of these fo
rks are for?” She held up a sterling spoon that had short prongs and gave him a lopsided smile. “What’s wrong, William?”
“That’s an ice cream fork,” he said absently and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. The pesky thoughts that refused to let up about his father and especially his concern that Walden had set his sights on Allie. “Nothing’s wrong, darling girl, it’s been a long, tiring day and honestly I have no idea why we’re sitting in this ridiculous room. Hawk! Tell Ginny to bring two trays up to my bedroom and what on Earth made you think I would want to eat in the formal dining room tonight?”
“Well I just don’t know, William,” Beth Hawkins appeared at his side and stood over him with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. “I suppose I thought you might want to celebrate your father’s return to health and his surviving his brush with death. Or that Walden is back here in New Orleans safe and sound instead of crashing in some filthy opium den in Amsterdam or God knows where else. Mostly I thought you might want to sit down to a civilized meal served on your grandmother Warfield’s best china plates with this dear young woman.”
“Oh… well then…” he said, at a loss for words for the first time in his life which made Hawk and Allie and even Ginny snicker and then howl with laughter.
Chapter Four
The morning light streamed through the arched windows in William’s bedroom and fell like a golden veil over the decadent canopy bed. When William’s eyes opened the first impression he had was of warmth, and it was not because of the summer sunshine. It was the enfolding warmth and the exact rightness he felt as he held his darling fair-haired girl in his arms. He had all the money and resources a man could dream of within his grasp but he’d never known the simple pleasure of waking up with a woman in his bed, or anywhere else for that matter. Allie smelled of the lavender sea salts she had bathed in the night before and the fresh ironed linens on the bed, and her own dewy fresh scent. Her intoxicating smell along with the satiny perfection of her skin combined with her beautiful face and tender heart drew him to her like a magnet.
“G’morning darling girl.” He murmured and the softness of his tone was unfamiliar to him but it felt so good and right and somehow it eased an ancient ache hidden deep inside him.
“Mmm, hey handsome. Good morning to you,” she said, her eyes taking in his face as soon as they fluttered open. She pulled his mouth to hers with the thought that he was as beautiful as a lost-in-time prince from a fairytale, too perfect to be real. But he was real and every cell in her body sparked to life with a hunger for him, for the magic of his touch on her and in her, making her feel alive and more than that, immortal. Without even thinking a prayer formed in her heart that he should be hers to love forever, that what they felt in the newness of their union would never diminish and it would lead them to their happily ever after.
They were both late to work that morning and most mornings after that and neither one of them cared. William simply shrugged off Tanya’s twinkling smiles when he strolled into his office and Allie ignored Thelma Maguire’s glaring Arctic-cold stares. They were happy and that was all that mattered. Fate or destiny had thrown them together with a little bit of help from William’s unsuspecting father.
Later in the week Allie walked to the Roasted Bean and had her café au lait and she lowered her head but peeked up through a swath of fringed lashes as she passed by The Cathedral. She felt a powerful urge to turn her gaze up to the roof of the building where she was certain that Walden would be watching as she walked by. William swore he no longer concerned himself with his brother’s wellbeing, but Allie did, she wondered and worried about him more than she should. She had the odd sense of Walden watching her, and not only when she passed through the shabby streets of the warehouse district. The night before she had awakened and stepped onto the balcony outside the bedroom and she caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered figure whose face was obscured by the shadows. As he turned his back and walked away she had the strange sensation of fireworks igniting down low in her belly.
When Allie returned to her office from the coffee shop William was waiting to whisk her off for an early lunch but once they were in his new Maserati (Walden had never returned the one he borrowed) winding through the streets of the Quarter they had a terrible fight.
“Walden’s a complete wildcard, Alaina, and he’s utterly unpredictable. Why do you constantly put yourself in danger by going anywhere near him?” William yelled, enraged by her careless attitude toward her own safety.
“You’re a relentless control freak, William. Just so you know, I’d rather have you as my lover than my jailer but I’ll let you decide which role you choose to play,” Allie spat the words at him, disgusted by his obsessive desire to track her every move.
“Alright, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be controlling, Allie. I want to be the man you can’t live without and I suppose I’m still reeling from seeing you and Walden together. My brother has changed and I should be glad of that. He’s more reasonable and self-assured, he seems to have sorted out his life and he wants you to be part of it. You’re attracted to him, that was blatantly clear to me….” He faltered then as his mind flashed again to the scene of Walden and Allie on the stairs. He was shocked by the change in his brother, the calmness and authority with which he spoke and the confident way he’d touched her. It was all too possible for Walden to slip between them and take away this happiness he’d found with Allie.
“William, you can put that right out of your mind. There’s no cause for you to worry about me falling for your brother. I’m here with you because I choose to be, so trust me, okay? I’m sorry too, and I’ll be more careful from now on. No more wandering the streets and I’ll find a different coffee shop, I promise.”
They ate lunch and exchanged inane facts concerning work and the health of William’s father but the argument in the car lit a fire of need that could only be quenched in one unmistakable way.
She led him by the hand down the hallway at the Literary Society and then she gave him a brief tour of the hidden courtyard outside her office. William stopped her with a heated kiss and sank to his knees and lifted her short pleated skirt and kissed her again, more deeply and far more intimately and all was well between them once again.
“Oh the saints save me! Excuse me, excuse me, oh dear Lord!” Thelma Maguire screeched as she stood frozen in the open French doors that looked out from Allie’s office to the quaint little courtyard. The sight of William on his knees and Allie with her clutching his hair with her head thrown back in ecstasy was more than she could stand. “Out, the both of you this very moment and I don’t care if your father evicts the Literary Society from these offices, William. I will not have such obscene vulgarity flaunted in the plain light of day. Please vacate your office Miss Darling and Mr. Warfield I’m utterly speechless at such tawdry behavior from a fine upstanding man such as yourself. Honestly, a pillar of the New Orleans community, William, engaging in a scandalously pornographic act for all to see. I do believe I need a nerve pill…. ”
“You’re speechless Mrs. Maguire? You could’ve fooled me,” William said, standing and pulling Allie into his arms as he faced the older woman. “You can keep the lease on the building, Allie doesn’t belong here in the first place. I will expect you to give her all the time and space she needs to peruse your files as it suits her. And by the way, perhaps you could forgo your nerve pills if you found a nice man to indulge a few of your own scandalous fantasies with, either in the light of day or in the musty gloom of your bedroom. Gather your belongings, Allie, I’m sure some arrangement can be made so that you gather the research you need when Mrs. Maguire isn’t in the office.”
“Mrs. Maguire, I’m sorry….” Allie began but William assured her there was no reason to apologize and he helped her clear her desk.
He picked up the framed picture of Allie and her mother and scrutinized the face of the woman who had monopolized his father’s affection for more than thirty years. Like Allie, Liza wa
s uniquely beautiful, she had an innocent allure that captivated and held the eye of the beholder. Allie was a child of probably six or seven in the photograph but she’d grown into nearly the exact image of Liza. And William knew beyond a shadow of a doubt why his father spent his life pining away for his lost love. Allie had unwittingly ensnared William’s heart in the same web of joyful enchantment that filled him with a richness of spirit he never wanted to be free of.
“Alaina, will you make a copy of this photograph for me?” He asked, as she reached to take it from him and he caught her small thin hand and held to his cheek and smiled to think what a fool for love he had become.
“Of course I will, although I don’t know why you’d want a picture of my mother. Seems like she’s caused way too much sadness for your family, William, and I hate that.” Allie said when they settled into the Maserati and drove out of the city. “Where are we going?” she asked absently, thinking back on the look of disgust on Thelma Maguire’s face when she’d caught them in the courtyard. Hadn’t the woman ever felt the overwhelming thrill of a man’s touch, the hot wet heat of his tongue and his strong nimble fingers in the most tender reaches of her body? Evidently not or the old cow would have quietly stepped away from the scene and smiled to herself while she dialed up a few of her cronies and shared the shocking news.
“I have to work… somewhere,” Allie said and her voice was laced with a dose of worry now that the gravity of the situation took shape in her mind.
“Tanya will get an extra key for you from Mrs. Maguire or Brodie and as I mentioned before, you can do your research when that old battle axe isn’t in the office.”
