“Leave it. Up on the bed.”
He followed her movements as she nervously pushed a lock of thick hair behind her ear before she scrambled onto the bed. He stalked after her, a predator waiting to claim his prey.
Ever so slowly, he inched toward her, his massive frame shielding her body as he trailed his hand up the smooth skin of her legs before he stopped at the apex of her thighs. She held her breath, suspended in anticipation, but when his fingers slipped underneath the drenched silk of her panties, seeking her soft flesh, her groan matched his own.
“Fuck,” he rasped, marveling at how responsive she was. He hadn’t even touched her up until then, but she was wet and ready for him, her tight canal hugging his fingers, pulsing and clenching as if to draw him deeper.
“You want it just like that?” he asked, referencing the passage he’d just read as he continued fucking her with his fingers with his thumb pressed against her clit.
“Please,” she begged.
It was dark, primitive, the need she evoked in him. Just when he thought it couldn’t get bigger or burn brighter, he fell deeper into the sole purpose of consuming her whole. She whimpered plaintively when he moved his hands away from her center, but in the next moment, he hurried at the fastening of his jeans, just barely shoving the waistband of both his jeans and boxers down. His cock sprang free, thick and hard, and he growled when her soft pink tongue swept over to lick at her lip.
Her eyes flew to his face with he gripped the center of her panties between his hands and tore the damp material in one hard tug and aligned himself to her entrance. Without warning, the thick head of his cock pushed through her swollen tissues and her hips canted up to take him deeper.
He fucked her hard, oblivious to everything but wet heat that gripped his pulsing cock.
He was rough, merciless.
Feral, even.
Her breath hitched as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and all sane thought flew from his mind as his thrusts changed tempo until he was slamming into her body, demanding everything from her but giving all of him as well.
When her breathless moans turned into shrieks, he slowed and searched her eyes. “Please, just like that. Please Lucas, don’t stop.”
“You’re fucking perfect,” he muttered. “Perfection,” he whispered against her lips as his mouth took hers savagely, mimicking the motion of his hips between her thighs.
Moments later, when she came, he’d swallowed her cry before he ripped his mouth away from hers and emptied himself inside her.
Now, as he stood in her office, he wondered if she’d be willing to forego the rules for some afternoon play.
“You’re thinking about sex again, aren’t you?” she accused, her playful tone jolting him back into the present.
He held his hands up, even as he felt the smirk twitch at his lips. “I plead the fifth, counselor.”
But he moved towards her, slow and steady, his intent clear in his eyes.
She jumped up and shoved away from her desk. “Oh no you don’t,” she hissed. “Lucas, we talked about this,” she whispered furiously.
He noted with interest that her delightful breasts were heaving in the way they did when she was angry, aroused, or both. She sure as hell didn’t look angry right now.
He prowled closer, enjoying the way her eyes widened with panic as she edged closer to the floor to ceiling window behind her desk.
“Lucas!”
He stopped just short of one of the padded chairs seated across her desk before he settled into one. “What?” he shrugged innocently.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but still remained in her position. “That was mean.”
“What was?”
“You deliberately made me think you were—you—arghh! You’re insufferable sometimes, you know that?” she huffed.
“But you love to suffer me, don’t you? What are you more upset about? That I made you think that we were going to have a lunchtime quickie or the fact that my dick isn’t buried deep inside you right now?”
Color stained her cheeks. “You can’t say things like that!”
He ignored her. “Trust me, I’m upset you’re not flat on your back on the desk right now too. But you insisted on these ‘rules’,” he used air quotes around the word for emphasis, “so I’m here in a non-sexual capacity.”
She rolled her eyes at him. When she’d initially presented him with the rules, he’d loudly objected.
No bases at the office (first, second, third, or home). Written communications on company messaging and emails were to be purely professional in nature and remain innuendo-free. They were to enter and exit the office separately, not together.
And he wasn’t allowed to eye fuck her seven ways to Sunday in the presence of others.
She batted her eyes at him. “Okay, Mr. Sinclair. What non-sexual favor can I do for you today?” She leaned against the window, arms crossed under her chest. He appreciatively admired the way her posture plumped up her breasts.
“No eye fucking Lucas!” She glared.
"I can't help it," he shrugged. "It's not like I want to be walking around with a constant hard-on, baby." He turned his best puppy dog eyes on her.
"Seriously?" She asked, but the sound of her laughter was light and carefree. The sunlight from the window glinted off her hair, giving her natural highlights and once more, he was amazed that she truly had no idea how stunning she was.
He fixed his gaze on her, and she sobered at his steady stare. "What?"
"I had an interesting call today."
"Oh?"
"When did you last speak to your mother?"
Suspicion immediately clouded her eyes. “Why?” she asked hesitantly.
“Just curious.”
Her brow wrinkled adorably.
Whipped.
Hell, she was even cute when she frowned at him. He ignored the word that whispered across his mind and leaned forward.
“I spoke to her today, actually,” she said slowly.
“She mention visiting anytime soon?”
She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes. “Ok Sinclair, cut to the chase. I’m done with this cat and mouse game. Why the sudden interest in my mother?”
He shrugged once more. “Just wanted to know if you spoke to her before or after I did. Guessing it was after, considering she told me that I shouldn’t listen to you if you told me you weren’t looking for anything serious…and that if I was of the same mindset, then I should stop my ‘dalliance’ with you because I was eating up valuable time you could spend focusing on looking for someone who was husband material.” As each word left his mouth, her eyes got progressively wider until he feared her eyes would bulge out of her pretty head.
She groaned as she unceremoniously plopped down in her chair. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, her face hidden between her fingers. “Please ignore my mother. How did she even get your number?”
“Someone named Sarah apparently gave her the main line to reception, and she asked to speak with me, regarding an urgent matter concerning Miss Harlow. When Rosie popped her head into your office, you weren’t inside and Tyrone didn’t know where you were, so she assumed something had happened and interrupted me in the middle of a meeting.”
“Oh my God.” She looked up, consternation written all over her delicate features. “I am so, so sorry. I’ll speak with her. I can’t believe this woman.”
He chuckled. “I can’t believe her either, but no need to apologize baby. I was bored out of my mind with the new marketing pitch. This call was definitely more entertaining than sitting in that room trying to uncross my eyes from staring at all of those damn graphs and numbers. Anyway, looking forward to meeting her.”
“Huh?”
“She mentioned something about paying a visit to make sure I met her standards. Happened to be on a flight out next week, so I invited her to the gala celebration for the Hiliau deal.”
Her consternation was replaced with a murderous look. “You what?” sh
e shrieked, the sound piercing through his eardrums.
He winced. “God, have mercy. You sound just like her,” he muttered.
She continued to glare at him. “You are unbelievable, you know that?” Despite the heat in her words, he was thankful for her lowered tones.
It was a rhetorical question, so he didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to be pleased with his next bit of news.
“Makes sense. My family will be there too. We can kill two birds with one stone.”
Her horrified look was back in full-force, and he tried not to laugh. She pointed her finger at her office door. “Out!”
“But baby—“ he started.
“No! No more. I can’t look at you right now or Liz is going to have to bail me out of jail for aggravated assault.”
Wisely, he rose from the chair. As he made his way to the door, he kept his mouth shut, but right before he opened it, he turned around. “Hope you can look at me in a few hours baby, because we’re going out to dinner with my little sister.”
He quickly left the room and shut the door behind him. When he heard a low scream followed by a heavy thud against the door, he silently patted himself on the back for his prudent timing.
Chapter Twenty-One
She actually enjoyed dinner.
For the most part.
Lucas didn’t have any pictures of his family (that she could see) in the penthouse, but she’d conjured images of perfection. She’d stiffly walked into the restaurant, expecting to be sized up and found lacking by a towering, reed-thin blonde in Barbie doll sized clothing.
After all, that’s exactly what had happened the first time she’d met Zach’s sister. She was rich, cold, and beautiful and had no need or desire to get to know Sophie.
That had been the sum total of her expectations, and she’d silently fumed the entire ride to the restaurant, the dread in the pit of her stomach resisting his attempts to cajole her out of her dark mood.
But Grace Sinclair had defied her expectations and then some.
For one, she stood a few inches taller than Sophie, but she was anything but towering. She certainly wasn’t reed-thin or dressed in miniature sizes either. Her figure was definitely on the fuller side, but her shape was impossible to make out in her baggy clothing.
Sophie hid her dismay at Grace’s outfit behind a bright smile, feeling like a first class hypocrite. Liz would have a field day with this one if she thought I was bad.
After two decades of reluctant study under Liz’s critical eye, she could tell the knit and material of the younger woman’s black pants was expensive, but they were too baggy—likely several sizes too large, making her appear larger than she probably was. Her instant recognition of Grace’s top wasn’t due to her fashion savvy.
She remembered gasping out loud at the ridiculous price tag on the very same shirt while browsing J.Crew’s website during a Liz-imposed bout of online shopping. The shirt was made of a soft gray cashmere, but again it looked like Grace had gone several sizes up. That, combined with the crew neck, pockets, and casual cut of the garment, made it look like a sweatshirt. The way the shirt made her gray eyes seem brighter was the only redeeming quality.
No one would have guessed that the shirt was nearly six hundred dollars on sale.
Despite the pricey attire, she found Grace approachable and down-to-earth. When they’d entered the restaurant, she’d had eyes for no one but her big brother. Her excitement was palpable as she raced over from the cocktail bar, purse and drink forgotten, before throwing her arms tightly around Lucas. When she finally released him, the hero worship she felt for her older brother shone clear and unadulterated in her eyes, and bittersweet warmth tightened in Sophie’s chest.
She’d often wished for another sibling, and even though Liz was as close to her as any blood sister could possibly be, the bond between siblings was unmistakably unique.
The warm feeling evaporated immediately however, when Grace finally turned to her, a carefully guarded look in her eyes that had now turned to frost.
Sophie smiled tightly and extended her hand.
“Sophie Harlow. It’s so good to meet you,” she said cheerfully, the tone false to even her own hers.
Lucas looked at her quizzically, before turning back to his sister to make introductions.
“Grace, meet Sophie. Sophie, Grace,” he said simply, motioning from one woman to the other.
Grace gave her a funny little smile, but shook the proffered hand nonetheless.
They were seated within minutes, courtesy of Lucas’s frequent patronage of the small Italian restaurant nestled in the heart of Tribeca. It wasn’t until after the maître’ d escorted them to a medium sized round table, in a semi private room shielded from the rest of the establishment, and Grace excused herself to use the ladies’ room, that Sophie turned on Lucas.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“It would have been nice if you’d given me more warning than a few hours,” she snapped back.
He rolled his eyes at her, having heard this several times already. “It’s fine. Relax.”
“Easy for you to say. She’s your sister,” she sulked. “And she clearly didn’t want to meet me.”
This time, he frowned at her, disappointment evident in the way he tightened his firm lips. Ordinarily, she would have focused on the perfection of those lips and how they drove her crazy, but the unsettled feeling in her stomach grew even rockier.
A look she’d seen all too often on Zach’s handsome face when she did something to cause him displeasure.
Like wearing a white sundress to a yacht party after Labor Day.
The memory, and how she’d apologized for something so trivial, so meaningless, all the while the bastard was cheating on her caused her blood to heat. Anger throbbed in her veins until she was certain she was going to explode.
She stood abruptly and pushed out of her chair, ignoring the napkin that fell from her lap to the floor.
“Look Sinclair, I honestly don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about me. If your sister loves me, great. If she hates me, too bad. I don’t care how many zeroes and commas you’ve got in the bank, you don’t control my life.”
Lucas sat back in his chair, his jaw clenched with something in his eyes that looked suspiciously like…anxiety?
But Sophie was on a roll now, and she ignored his expression.
“What you see is what you get. If you don’t like it, you can toss yourself off Mount Everest. You might get to call the shots at work, but if you think you can do that with the rest of my life, you’ve got another thing coming. Coercing me into unplanned family dinners at the last moment, answering my phone, inviting my mother for God’s sake, and shaming me into feeling like I’m doing something wrong when I’ve done nothing at all is your problem, not mine. Please tell Grace I’m sorry I can’t stay, and do me a favor and think about what I’ve said. If this concept is too hard for you to wrap your Neanderthal brain around, then my feet are going to walk a hell of a lot further than that door right there,” she fumed as she spun around to turn her index finger towards the door of the restaurant and made to grab her bag.
The last thing she expected to see were Grace Sinclair’s cool, gray eyes sparkling with amusement as she brought her hands together in a sharp clap.
Her cheeks went hot, and she immediately looked away from the other woman. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, moving to make a quick escape.
“Please don’t leave!”
She halted and managed to look at the other woman. “Sorry?”
Grace’s full lips twitched at both corners, until she finally started to laugh uncontrollably.
“This is priceless. Oh my God, Lucas, you better not screw this up. If you bring a bimbo around after this, I’m never letting you hear the end of it.”
What just happened?
Sophie’s brows drew together in confusion. “Huh?”
Grace stopped laughing enough to motion Sophie to her chair. “Please have a
seat. If you don’t want Lucas around for dinner, he can go forage for food elsewhere. But you are my new best friend. I’ve never seen anyone, much less a woman he’s dated, stand up to him like that. Well-deserved or otherwise,” she giggled.
Words bled together in her mind, but she could only respond with “We’re not dating.”
The younger woman raised her brows knowingly. “Uh huh.”
“I’m a lawyer. He’s retained me to do some work for his company.”
Grace clapped. “I love this. She doesn’t even want anyone to know she’s with you.” She turned to face her brother and her face sobered. “I’m serious, thank you for coming to your senses. And if you fuck this up,” she warned, “I’m telling Mom that you came close to not diluting our gene pool, but you screwed it up and instead you’ll end up giving her grandchildren with a baby momma called Bambi.”
“You got it all wrong, sweetheart. Bambi’s mine, Gracie,” a smooth, deep voice drawled from behind her.
Grace froze for a few seconds, until red flushed her cheeks.
Lucas took advantage of Sophie’s confusion by setting both hands around her waist and pulling her backwards so she sat in his lap.
Sophie looked from Lucas to Grace to the man standing behind her in confusion. He smiled easily, ignoring the stony expression on Grace’s face as he slid into the chair directly across from her.
Her gaze landed back on Lucas when she felt his warm lips press against her ear as he responded to her earlier words, his voice low. “Your warning is duly noted, baby. I’ll do my best, but let me just remind you that I can keep you sore for days—and you won’t be able to walk very far when I’m done with you.”
Sophie squirmed in his lap, suddenly uncomfortable as his words evoked vivid images in her mind.
Lucas tightened his arms around her before he let out a sharp laugh. “Might as well relax honey. We’re just the opening act compared to them. Welcome to the Grace and Sean show, otherwise known as Mortal Combat, part two-hundred.”
Beyond Bliss Page 17
