by Paige North
I fumble with a comment. “I didn’t realize that I’d get my own—”
My voice cuts off as his gaze intensifies and he slowly moves toward me. I retreat to the corner of the elevator, looking up at him as he gets close—so close that pops of fire seem to cover my skin.
“You’re one building over from my mansion,” he says quietly. “You’ll have your own space but I’ll still be able to keep a close eye on you.”
He’s so near that it feels as if his voice is vibrating into my chest.
So is this where he kisses me? Is he going to pull up my dress and look at the new, bare me?
I’m about to explode from anxiety, and when the elevator door opens I keep looking up at him, needing, wanting. Then, just as it seems he might pull me against him to press his mouth to mine, he closes his eyes, then backs up, away from me and out of the elevator.
My stomach continues its roller coaster ride, dipping down as I exhale.
He waits for me in the hallway, and I take advantage of the reprieve. I tuck my hair behind my ear and press my hand against my jittering heart, then compose myself enough to step outside.
He already has the door to the apartment open. He’s also back to a zero-degree attitude, removed and dispassionate. Did I say something wrong, or did I somehow annoy him by not saying something I should have said?
It’s so confusing, and I don’t know what he expects, desires or needs.
Now I’m back to not being sure about anything when it comes to this man.
As I calmly walk past him and into the entry vestibule, I stifle a gasp at what lies before me. I’m not sure what to call it, but it’s a grand room with a vaulted ceiling that reminds me of the cathedrals I’ve seen in history textbooks.
“This is what a Realtor would call a gallery,” Travis says, gesturing to the chandeliers and antique furnishings that line the passageway. “Walk into it, Nova.”
I do, step by flabbergasted step. I survey the old art on the walls, the doors to different rooms that branch off from the long hallway. I follow Travis into the first space, a living room, he tells me, and my head swims at the luxury of it.
My gosh, this is my apartment for the time being, and I’m absolutely stunned by it. And as Travis brings me to room after room, the fantasy continues: bay windows overlooking the sparkling city, a dining room with a long, stately table and more art, a library with stained glass windows, a guest bedroom with oversized closets, and—my gosh—there’s even a drawing room with burgundy-painted walls and more art and antiques.
I catch him watching me again, and I close my gaping mouth. I’m such a hick, I think, but there’s a gleam in his gaze, as if he appreciates my naïve excitement.
“This is...exquisite.” Then I flush. “I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. I don’t run in circles where I encounter ‘exquisite’ things.”
“You’ll be in that circle for the next fourteen days,” he says.
As if I haven’t been stunned enough yet, he takes me by the hand and pulls me out of the drawing room. His fingers are loosely entwined with mine as if he doesn’t want to fully touch me yet, as if he’s offering me a tease, a taste of what I have to look forward to when he finally gets me where he wants me.
A jolt of electricity shoots up my wrist, into my arm and tingles my entire body. His strong hand envelopes mine, and I feel warm all over.
As we walk inside the master bedroom, he drops my hand, allowing me to scan the creamy corner room that overlooks Park Avenue. The huge bed looks like it came straight from Versailles, with a button-tufted headboard and footboard glittering with crystals. There’s also an ivory vanity stool, a matching bench, and a nightstand, among the rest.
“I think I took a wrong turn and walked into heaven,” I say.
“Perhaps, or maybe this is someplace less pure,” he says, raising an eyebrow.
I find my brow breaking into sweat at the images his comment conjures. Me spread-eagled, with him fucking me as sweat pours from our bodies, and I scream again and again…
I shake my head and try to recover. “Is it strange that I’m dying to know what the kitchen looks like?” At his glance, I shrug. “I like to cook. Maybe I can cook you a four-course meal one night…”
He immediately cools off, and the sudden drop in temperature shuts me right up.
“I don’t expect you to cook for me,” he says. “There’re chefs for that.”
The way he says it puts a little crack in my heart. Have any of his women ever cooked him a meal because they actually wanted to? As dysfunctional as my family is, food has always been my mom’s way of showing Tate and me how much she loves us. Gary would rather order pizza though, which pretty much says it all.
As I wander around the room, running my hand over the fluffy bedspread, looking at the crown molding on the ceiling, Travis keeps his distance. But when I glance at him again, there’s a heat in his gaze that burns in me, melting me to liquid until desire pools in the very center of me. Yet other than that, his face doesn’t show any emotion.
Still, beneath those walls he puts up… Is it possible that there’s something? A wellspring of feeling that he’s hiding for some reason? As he continues to watch me, it seems like a connection forms between us, fusing across the room in an odd understanding that grows and grows.
He says so much without saying a word, I decide.
But then his jaw hardens, and I look away. Pulling myself together, I continue my exploration of the bedspread until my fingers arrive over a piece of clothing that I didn’t notice at first glance because the creamy material of it blends with the spread.
I pull my hand back from the dreamy, filmy, sheer fabric.
“A peignoir,” he says. “For your first night.”
It’s elegant and not trashy like this red dress I still have on. I almost feel as if it’s too good to touch my skin.
“There’ll be something new for you every night.” He’s still across the room, leaning against the wall now, observing me. “Everything else will be delivered later.”
With infinite care, I turn to the bed and stare at the exquisite negligee. I hold it up in front of me as the air conditioning blows the delicate material. It’s almost as if it’s been made from an angel’s wing with a little devil thrown in. Probably just enough for Travis Star to get turned on.
“If I didn’t know better,” I whisper, “I’d think I was a princess.” Or a doll.
I expect to hear his voice from across the room, but that isn’t the case.
“Every woman I’m with is a princess while she’s here,” he says from right behind me.
Oxygen snags in my lungs, and I can’t seem to get a hold of any so I can breathe. And when I feel his finger trace down my spine, every nerve ending cries out in sharp anticipation. His hand ends up at the bare small of my back, and he strokes me with his knuckles, as if mapping the curve there.
The tips of my breasts bud, and the next breath I take comes out with a shudder. My sex clenches, and I’m afraid to turn around, because I think this is it. This is where Travis is going to get his money’s worth.
“Nova,” he murmurs.
He wants me to turn around, but I’m frozen. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint him with my inexperience, even though he says he wants a virgin. I’m afraid—
My thoughts go dark as Travis turns me, crushing his mouth to mine.
Chapter 5
It’s as if fire roars through me, ripping through my belly with a blast of passion. Travis kisses me, one of his hands digging into my hair, his other one bringing me against his hard body, and I drop the peignoir. My bones seem to disintegrate, making me lose form as I clutch at his sleeves before I can fall.
No one has ever touched me like this, kissed me as if I’m the most desirable woman in the world… Never. And the more his mouth plunders mine, the more my sex throbs and gets wet. All the anxiety and insecurity I’ve been feeling all night pumps shocks of adrenaline to my heart until it seems on
the edge of exploding.
As he slows the kiss down, ending it with his mouth still open on mine, I fist my hands, pulling at the fine material of his jacket.
Is he comparing me to all the other women he’s had? Is he finding me lacking?
He looks into my eyes, his breathing harsh, and I bite my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I’m trying to control my own breathing, but I’m taking in shallow clips of air and I’m not getting enough. I’m dizzy, hazy.
So afraid he’ll send me away because I’m terrible at this.
“Nova,” he whispers.
He brings a hand to my face, running his fingertips down my cheek. My pulse lurches in confusion.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
I only nod.
“Don’t be, Beautiful. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do.”
I stare at him. He called me “Beautiful.” Surely he can’t mean that and he’s only trying to butter me up so he can get what he paid for, but damned if it isn’t working.
I nod again, slightly calmer now, though my heart is still pounding furiously.
He uses both of his hands to run his fingers through my hair, then leans down to press a gentler kiss on my lips. My mouth tingles as he keeps planting tiny kisses at one corner, then the other. I’m relaxing now, but my heartbeat is still a muffled, disorganized mess. All I can think is that he smells so good, like soap and musk.
He whispers against my ear, warming it. “First, take off your shoes.”
Okay. I can do that.
My ear still buzzes from his soft words, and I slide one of my hands down to push off a pump while holding his jacket with the other. It’s the only way I can keep my balance. After I take off the other shoe, I’m even shorter than I was before compared to him, and I look up into his gaze, as if for approval.
“Good.” He smooths back my hair again, comforting and lulling me. “Now tell me about any boyfriends you did have.”
“But I never really dated—”
“Surely there’s been someone at some point.” His voice is low and resonant. “A first kiss. A second.”
He slips his fingertips from my hair down to my neck, caressing my skin there as I fight for oxygen and my pulse kicks in again.
“There was…one,” I say. “In high school.”
“I thought so.”
Travis eases his fingers lower, then strokes the skin above the rise of my breasts. My mind is racing around as if on a track, the thump of my blood pacing it, heat pulsating in my clit.
“I was working a summer job,” I say, trying not to think about how Travis is lazily petting me while I talk. “It was at the local market. He was a stock boy, the owner’s nephew who was in town during school break. I was a cashier. All the other boys knew that Gary would probably whoop them if they got too close to me, but this guy…”
“He was braver than most.”
“He knew whatever happened would be temporary, and if he made his move at the end of summer, he wouldn’t have to face Gary. We…”
As Travis negligently skims his fingertips over my breasts, my words swirl away. It’s as if he’s exploring me, getting a closer look at—and feel of—his newest acquisition. He skims my peaked nipples, then slowly slips his fingers under the weight of my breasts, lightly tracing the heavy curves. The feather-light sensation of his touch makes me swallow, and I can hear the sound over my raging heartbeat.
“Go on,” he says.
As if it’s that easy. I struggle to form words before forcing them out. “We were taking a break in back of the market when the boy kissed me.”
“Your first time?”
“Yes.”
“And how did it feel?”
He runs his thumbs around my nipples, and even through the fabric of my dress and bra, I can tell that he knows I’m aroused. I can’t look at him straight in the eyes. I’m afraid he’s going to see how nervous I still am, so I close my eyes.
“It didn’t feel as good as this,” I whisper.
“Good to hear. But was it awkward with him? Embarrassing?”
It’s as if he wants to feel something other than the coldness I usually sense in him, as if he might be exploring my emotions, too.
“It was just okay. Not horrible. Maybe a little disappointing.”
Slowly, Travis pulls down the top of my dress, and my eyelids fly open. My breath suspends as the sound of the fabric hushing down my skin dominates the room.
When he has the material bunched around my waist, he casually says, “And what happened next, Nova?”
He drags his fingers up the skin covering my exposed rib cage then down the insides of my arms, checking out every inch of flesh. I lick my lips because my mouth has gone dry.
“We kept meeting for the next few days,” I say. “Out in the back of the market.”
“How far did you go with him?”
“Not very.”
The words clog in my throat as Travis hooks his thumbs into my bra straps and begins to ease them down.
“Did you let him touch you at all?” he asks.
“Not much. He tried to put his hands under my shirt but I said no.”
As he keeps lowering my straps, my breasts pop out of the only lacy bra I own—the white one that I bought on the sly and hid under my mattress along with the matching panties. Expertly, Travis reaches around me and unhooks the back clasp. The bra falls to the floor with a soft thud.
Now I’m really exposed, vulnerable in a way I’ve never been with a man before. My chest rises and falls with barely-there breaths that can’t keep up with the demanding throb of my clit. I’m soaked down there, needy, so needy.
Travis slowly looks over me, and there’s a fierce longing in his eyes that melts any trace of his usual coolness. Pressure builds in my belly at that look, threatening to rise and grow.
Tenderly, he cups my naked breasts.
This time, when he circles his thumbs over my nipples, a shock zings through me at the bare contact.
The motion of his circling thumbs on the naked tips of my breasts is too much to handle, the heat and pressure expanding inside me until there’s a sharp yearning in my clit that pounds and pounds. I grasp his wrists.
A small, animal sound rumbles from his throat, and he sweeps his hands down and over my waist, resting his palms there. He slips his thumbs between my skin and the bunched dress, then rubs my hipbones.
At the electricity that bolts through my clit, I grip his wrists harder.
“Only I’ve seen you like this, seen how fucking sexy you can be when you let your guard down.” Travis’s grip on me grows possessive, and he hooks his thumbs into the sides of my panties, pulling up on them until they press against my sex. I let out a tiny whimper at how my hairless mound responds to the pressure.
Travis pulls up on my panties again, and I rise on my toes, reaching over and pressing one of my hands to his chest. There’re so many layers of fabric between him and me, but I still think I can feel his fierce heartbeat underneath it all.
“Look at me, Beautiful,” he says.
I can’t.
“Nova…”
It takes all the courage I have to drag my gaze to his, and what I see there robs me of oxygen. He really does want me. Even after I told him how naïve and inexperienced I really am, he desires me, and when he reaches under my dress, I moan.
“Open your legs,” he says quietly. “That’s all you have to do for me right now.”
So I open for him, and his fingers rub against my panties, over my sensitive, newly smooth mound. I pull at his jacket again, fighting a cry that’s battering at me to get out. But there’s also something else that’s winding up in my belly, tightening, pulsing, throbbing, something deeper and stronger pushing and pushing to get out of me…
“So wet for me,” he says.
He gives my bare mound one more stroke, then pulls back. The rising pressure in me dips in disappointment, and I wince for him to keep doing what he was doing.
“Now take them off,” his says, his voice full of grit.
I know what he means for me to do, so I slide my panties down my legs, then look into his eyes again. His gaze is even hotter with need, a man who always gets what he wants.
He rests his hands on my hips then inches up my dress. When he looks down there, at my bareness, my clit pounds so hard that I wish he would just touch me, massage me, make the delicious pain go away.
“Such a gorgeous pussy,” he says. “My pussy.”
When he finally touches my naked mound, the sensation is so raw that my knees give out. I fall against him, and he whisks me to the bed, sitting there with me on his lap.
“Spread your legs again,” he says with more roughness in his voice. I bury my face into his neck. “Let me feel more of your beautiful cunt, Nova.”
I gasp at his dirty request, but I give him what he wants. I part my legs, letting him seduce me as much as he wants, whatever way he wants. When he reaches down and slides a finger through my wet folds, I push my face against him, opening my mouth against his neck, tasting the salt and heat of him.
“You like that,” he whispers harshly.
“Yes.”
As if to push me further, he presses his thumb to my clit. I tense up, sharply inhaling against him.
I make an indecipherable sound against him as he runs his thumb around that tiny little button on me that makes me lift higher off his lap. Each time he presses it I rise up and up, the chaos in me scrambling around my belly faster and faster. He works my clit harder, and my hips move with his every motion. I’m pulsating, losing it, firing up higher, higher, so high, and oh god…
I explode, crying out against him, pulling at his jacket and arching.
While my head goes fuzzy, I barely register that he’s removing his hand from under my dress, settling me back on his lap, then pulling the fabric down and covering me as I cling to him, trembling.
I think I just had my first orgasm, and from the raging flush that’s covering my body like a rushing wave, I really like it.
