Chapter Six
She was trying to make him fucking mental. Had to be. It was the only explanation for that goddamned dress. Did she really expect him to behave? Because if so, she’d find herself thoroughly disappointed and flat on her back the moment he got her alone.
Sansone tucked his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo trousers and drew in a deep breath, fighting the growing urge to do more than watch Nyssa from across the room. He could very well get her beneath him within a matter of seconds but he didn’t think she’d appreciate that with at least one hundred other people milling about the million-dollar home of their host. They’d been invited to the black tie event together and ended up coming separately. Funny, in the last month they hadn’t done much separately, least of all coming. No, Sansone had the good fortune to witness that live and in color often. Fun didn’t even begin to describe what it was like to see Nyssa floundering for an escape that he refused to give. Night after night, day after day, she continuously tried to deny what was so blatantly obvious. She belonged to him. Signed, sealed and delivered.
His lips turned up just at the corners when he realized she was trying to ignore him. Heh. He could’ve gotten anxious or even frustrated with the fact that she refused to allow him access to anything outside of what he could do to her with his tongue and a well-placed finger but he hadn’t been lying when he told her he didn’t care how he got her to surrender. As of right now a tongue and a well-placed finger seemed to be the best options so he’d continue to use that trump card until he knocked down every single one of those defenses. She was adorable when she said the words “stop”, “don’t”, “Sansone”, or “please” just for them to turn into, “Sansone, please don’t stop.” He always left the power in her hand, always told her one simple thing that would call a halt to his hands or mouth on her but she never spoke the word; she never said no.
He knew her well—better than she wanted to admit. Nyssa needed to feel as though she had some type of say; she wanted to know she wasn’t a malleable Barbie he killed time with when bored. Sansone had put her anatomically correct parts to extremely good use, but he also consistently tried to show her that their playtime wasn’t just for play, no matter how much she wanted it to be just that. Every moment he had her under him, over him, bent over in front of him got Sansone just that much closer to his goal—Nyssa’s heart.
Snagging a champagne flute as a waiter strolled by, he found a corner and watched her as she moved around, her illusion gown catching light in the sheerest parts, giving one the impression that they’d see more of the bronzed skin just beneath the black, clinging fabric. On either side of her svelte, curvy figure one got a glimpse of what she might or might not look like without it on. You never saw too much, just enough to hold your attention, make you imagine what would happen if she were to move the right way, if the overheads caught her silhouette at just the right moment.
It had been tailored to fit her perfectly. She’d straightened her hair, the normally springy curls falling to her shoulders in soft waves. Her make-up was minimal with darkened eyes and pale lips. Each time she moved, the gown rippled and he swallowed. If he had known what she’d be wearing tonight he probably wouldn’t have let her out of bed this morning. He could see exactly why she hadn’t wanted to show up together.
Originally, when they’d received their invitations to attend a client’s charity ball, Sansone had no intention of coming. Mainly because he wanted to spend every waking moment between Nyssa’s thighs or with his head on her belly, listening to the low dulcet tones of her voice. But the moment he found out she’d be here, he’d gone out and bought a tux. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to get blood all over it by murdering the son of a bitch who was getting in Nyssa’s personal space.
Sansone was taking a step in her direction when a hand came down on his shoulder, halting him. “These rugs made me weep when I saw the price tag. If you stain them with someone else’s gray matter, I’ll be forced to make you weep.”
Snorting, he turned his attention slightly away from Nyssa and looked to the quarterback standing next to him. “You do know I’m the reason you were even able to buy them, right?”
Noel Haddon squeezed Sanson’s shoulder briefly before letting go. “And I do so appreciate your efforts to keep me whoring for your amusement, but you can’t commit homicide here. I just had the place renovated.”
“You don’t whore, you play games and win…then I promote you and get money from it… Ah, wait, I see why you would think you’re my whore.” Sansone purposely ran a fingertip down the side of Noel’s face. “But Daddy treats you good, doesn’t he? Lets you get pretty things?”
Bursting into laughter, Noel slapped his hand away. “There’s something severely wrong with you.”
Sansone tipped his flute toward the football player and took a sip. “You’d be right, my friend. She’s across the room right now.”
The other man smirked. “She’s what’s right with you, asshole. I just can’t figure out why you won’t get it together already.”
“It’s not for a lack of trying.” Sansone sighed. It was strange how everyone else could see it and the one person he needed to open her eyes, refused to. When they’d met Noel just a little over three years ago, he’d been a first-round draft pick and had the potential to become the biggest thing the NFL had ever seen and he wanted their management. The issue was that at the time he’d been a skeevey little prick interested in Nyssa’s assets more than her talents. A quick, whispered threat from Sansone as to how he’d break, repair, and re-break Noel’s arms if he ever insinuated he’d have more than just a working relationship with Nyssa had cleared said issue right up. Surprisingly enough, he’d found himself liking the dickhead.
“So you didn’t try to stop her from showing up in that?”
Except for right now. Right now Sansone hated him.
“I didn’t know,” he ground out as some fucker with a too-bright smile placed a hand at the middle of her back.
“An unfortunate oversight, my friend.” Noel looked around. “Hey, uh…Alana didn’t show tonight, did she?”
That captured Sansone’s attention once again. “Why do you ask?” Oh, he knew why. It seemed that the moment the quarterback took his eyes off Sansone’s woman, he set sights on his own, but Alana wanted nothing to do with Noel. She didn’t trust athletes or anyone who was in the public eye too often. She’d made that abundantly clear. Noel had made it abundantly clear he didn’t give one fuck. Mirrored situations.
The football player rolled his shoulders nonchalantly and took a sip from the crystal tumbler in his hand. “No reason. Just curious.”
Sansone tried not to laugh in his face.
“Er… Sunny?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t pretend to know all of Nyssa’s expressions but I am most definitely sure that particular one reads ‘Get me the fuck out of here. Now.’”
Frowning, Sansone glanced back to where his cara last stood and found her looking a lot less relaxed than she had been moments ago. He followed her line of sight and saw why. James Woodard was about twenty feet away and making a beeline for her.
Shit.
***
He’d been following her with his eyes all night and she could feel it. There was something about Sansone that made you acutely aware his focus was solely on you even if yours was elsewhere. How much longer could they play this particular game? How much longer could she pretend like she hadn’t lost an earring in his sheets before sunrise because she’d buried her face so hard in a pillow that the small diamond slipped out? Not much longer. Nyssa knew exactly what she was doing when she’d purchased the gown she’d taken so much care in selecting. She was testing the limits of his discipline, taunting him. Why? Because it gave her the sickest sense of satisfaction to know she made him burn the way he did her.
Was she wrong for it? Quite possibly, but that didn’t mean she’d stop. She’d never admit it out loud, but every second she’d spent with
him over the last few weeks had been well worth it. Every morning started with her deliciously sore and drowsy before she found herself staring up at a face that could send her quivering with one glance. Nyssa couldn’t put into words how happy it made her that he had some seriously creepy tendencies and liked to stare at her while she slept. She’d called him on it time and time again, and yet her pulse beat just a bit faster whenever her lashes fanned upward and she found him there, a smile in place that was only for her. He was only for her. More frightening realizations had never been made. Sansone had her in the palm of his hand, but what if her chose to flex his fingers and crush her?
Feeling shaky now from either his heated stare or too many glasses of champagne, she shot a quick stare around the room and found herself impressed that someone she’d dubbed Prickface Haddon had come this far and turned out to be amazingly, incredibly sweet. He was also amazingly, incredibly convincing. Tonight’s meals were three hundred dollars a plate, and although Nyssa hadn’t planned on coming she knew if she couldn’t bat a lash at spending half a grand on vintage Yves Saint Laurent then she couldn’t rightfully do so at donating to a children’s foundation.
Normally Nyssa wouldn’t have seen this as an opportunity to make Sansone insane but lately she’d been feeling her composure slipping. He was getting entirely too close, if that were at all possible, and she needed to take the reins for a little while, even if it was for just one night. When he’d stepped into the expansive ballroom in Noel’s home, she’d barely stopped herself from dropping to her knees and crawling over to him. He’d cut his hair, the curling locks now in a modified style that left the sides and back shorn and the top long enough to play with. A few days’ worth of stubble lined his hard jaw and his tux fit him as though God himself had sewn it together. Classically black with a velvet lapel and bow tie, it should’ve seem average, and maybe it would have if it were on anyone but him. Sansone could make a brown paper bag hanging off the head of his cock look like a spring collection.
She was drifting in and out of the conversation happening before her, wishing she’d brought Alana along, or at the very least Samara, who she hadn’t heard from in days, when another waiter came past and she placed her empty flute on his tray before freezing. Nyssa blinked, then blinked again, but the image before her never dissipated. However, it did move closer, and she found herself taking a step back.
James.
His gait was slow, almost apprehensive, completely different from the way he’d approached her when she’d first joined his agency. At the time he’d been all mischievous grins and sparkling blue eyes. Right now his shoulders were squared, his hands in his pockets and his stare on her. Determined steps brought him nearer. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She was in a room full of people and felt completely alone.
The last she’d heard of him he’d moved to L.A. and become the third partner of some new age agency that was expanding overseas. What was he doing here?
Nyssa turned her head, looking toward where she’d last spotted Sansone standing with Noel and found the spot empty.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
James got closer. Fifteen feet. Twelve. Nine.
Strong, familiar hands gripped her by the shoulders and turned her around. Unable to swallow down her panic toward a man who’d essentially stabbed her and twisted the proverbial knife, she gripped the front of Sansone’s jacket.
“Get me out of here. Now.”
Dark eyes held her own before he nodded once and somehow got her out of James’ reaching distance in a matter of seconds. They weaved around crowds of people—some they recognized, some who recognized them. Sansone led her down a long hallway off to the left of the kitchen where no one besides the wait staff was. A quick right turn brought them to several doors and he popped one open, finding it unlocked. The bathroom. Good, because she felt like she was going to lose every bit of shrimp puff and mini quiche she’d eaten.
“Cara?” Sansone said just behind her. “Are you all right?”
No, but she should’ve been. She should’ve been fine. She should’ve been able to stand there without flinching but she’d run. Nyssa had done the one thing that seemed to be instinctive when she was afraid—she’d run. But why? Eight years was long enough to get over something—someone—right? It was more than enough time to push away the insecurity that you were never anything more to someone than something they could puppet around at will. It was more than enough time to move on, to grow, to stop feeling like she wanted to stab him in the neck with a toothpick. But she hadn’t, she didn’t, and she wanted to!
“Nyssa.”
Sansone’s voice came a little sharper this time, and her gaze snapped upwards from her clenched hands as she leaned against the pristine sink.
He didn’t move from where he stood against the door, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted. “Are you okay?” The question came slower this time, as if he didn’t want to raise his voice for fear she’d go for the window just over the tub.
She gave a jerky nod. “Fine.”
“Liar.”
Her brows drew downwards.
Taking a step closer, he kept his posture relaxed. “You’re not fine. You’re shaking. And you’ve chewed off some of your lipstick.”
Nyssa released her lips and tried gripping her clutch hard enough that the shaking would stop. God, what was wrong with her? Why did he still have this effect after all this time?
“You’re angry, baby,” Sansone stated, getting just that much closer. “The sight of him made you angry.”
She closed her eyes and felt warm palms cup the sides of her face. “You hate that he still has the ability to pull any type of response out of you, whether it’s good or bad. It pisses you off that before he could even open his mouth you felt something. Because if you feel something, it means he still has control.”
How did he know? How did he get it without her saying a word?
Lips brushed across her brow. “I know because I know you. As hard as you try to close down, you can’t with me. We’ve been together entirely too long for that.”
Nyssa put a hand over his face and pushed him backwards. “Stop it with the creepy analytical fortune telling, all right?”
His eyes sparkled in the low light and she saw a grin dancing around his mouth before it even appeared. “There’s my girl.”
She pointed at him. “I’m not—”
“You. Are,” he growled, cutting her off. “And if I wasn’t standing here imagining whether or not you wore panties tonight while simultaneously trying to soothe you without using my mouth on places that would make you scream, I’d be in the ballroom trying to explain how and why a man was pile-driven through the floor. Mind you, it would’ve been feet first so I could kick his head around for fun.”
Nyssa tucked her lips in.
“I saw the smile, cara. You can’t hide it from me.”
She flipped him the bird.
His brows winged. “Is that an offer?”
“No.”
He pouted. “Why not?”
“Because my ex-boyfriend who also happens to be our ex-employer is in the same location as of right now!”
“And this pertains to me fucking you on the sink because…?”
Rubbing her temples, she replied, “Not funny, Sansone.”
He took her hands away and kissed both sides of her face. “You want me to give a fuck about Woodard? I can’t. Why? Because if I start giving a fuck I will commit heinous crimes tonight, end up in prison, and be without my hair products. Is that what you want, Nyssa? To see me sans volume mousse?”
“My God.” She sighed. “You are fucking off it.”
“No, I’m trying to make you laugh, and it’s succeeding.” Sansone gave her a patient look. “But if you need me to leave you alone so you can have a silent scream session without the help of my love laser, I’ll go.”
Was that what she wanted? For the one man who seemed to understand her without so much as a second thought to walk out a
nd leave her to get herself together? Or did she want him to stay exactly where he was, looking at her exactly how he was, touching her exactly how he was while making her forget the momentary bout of rage that had clogged in her chest?
It happened to be the latter.
Reaching up, she ran her fingers down his jaw. “I want you to stay.” Somehow, she knew that sentence sealed her fate, and yet she didn’t care. She’d think on the semantics later. Right now all she could truly comprehend was the fact she had a man willing to do violence if it meant she’d be safe from whatever emotions James had the ability to provoke. He hadn’t asked why she felt the way she did. He’d answered that question. He didn’t judge her for feeling that way; his eyes said he understood. Sansone got her. He got her. And for that, she wanted him.
For the second time since she’d acknowledged him tonight, Nyssa gripped the lapels of his jacket and yanked him toward her, pressing her mouth against his own and inhaling the breath he let go. He let her take the lead for all of five seconds before he drove his fingers through the hair at her nape, yanked her head back and slid his tongue against hers.
Sansone pulled back and put his lips to her ear. “Tell me to stop, Nyssa.”
She slowly shook her head.
His hands pulled at her hair a bit harder, the added sting sending heat to her clit, causing the nubbin to swell as her panties filled with moisture. “Are you sure? You have to be sure.” His mouth ran down her throat, stopping at the hollow as he swirled his tongue around her pulse.
Beauty and the Barracuda Page 7
