by Susan Arden
On my knees in the soft, wet sand, I followed Graham when he lowered me the rest of the way into the waves flowing around us. Cool against my heated skin. I pushed up and onto my elbows. “More than fine. You make me feel alive.”
Graham crawled over me until he was directly on top, and leaned down, pressing his mouth to my face. His lips started at the side of my jaw, sucking and nipping an arduous path toward my mouth. He described how I tasted, the things it did to him, and how he wanted more. My heart raced at the blood rushing in my veins and thundering in my ears. Each time he whispered about what I did to him, he drew me to him as he crept inside me, his voice swimming in my blood. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go down.
I shook my head, unable to touch his face without leaving sandy trails on his skin. I held up my hands. “Come swimming with me. I’m covered in sand.”
“Baby, I don’t care. You’re beautiful and I’d fuck you without mercy—covered in sand or not.”
God, I wanted him to—really wanted him to take me like an animal…mark me. Claim me. And it was troubling. How many times had he done something like this with other women he’d gotten to sign on the dotted line? I inhaled a shaky breath, pushing myself up and sitting in the swirling water. The first streaks of morning light were thin ribbons rising from the horizon.
“Tempting offer,” I replied.
He leaned over me and, even though I was seated, he placed his palms on either side of my hips and had me pinned to the beach. “Speaking of offers. I know I said you could have until Sunday, but I’m an SOB where you’re concerned. Tell me you’ll come with me to New York.” He brushed his mouth across mine and growled, “Eliza, please.”
I watched his eyes soften with the haze of vulnerability he’d shown me earlier, but in this moment, even his tone sounded unguarded when he asked. Under him, the weight of his body quieted my thoughts. Yeah, I thought about the possibility of drowning in his life, but at moments like this—brief interludes when he exposed himself—my worry evaporated. Not completely, but enough to be sure I’d rather have six months of Graham-flavored excitement, than never see him again.
Deadpanning, I dropped my gaze—for only a second. “Your persistence is remarkable if not impossible to escape. If we’re both trying to learn something, by rights, I should make you wait. But you are the hardest man to resist sooooo, yes. My dear impatient and extremely demanding Mr. Gordon, I’ll come with you.”
We gazed at each other, and he slowly shook his head as a wide smile spread over his handsome face. He barked out a laugh, a combination cough and chuckle. “Jesus! You just about broke me, Ms. Hillwood, and simultaneously made my week. Or year.”
“Now, it’s your turn to come with me,” I whispered, looking over to the sea lapping at the shore.
He pushed off me, reaching down to lift me up, and our bodies slid against each other, slick from the saltwater and rough from the sand. “You won’t regret it,” he whispered against my cheek.
“Neither will you,” I retorted, taking my sand-covered hands and wiping them over his face, and laughed. “Well, maybe just a little.”
CHAPTER TEN
Eliza arrived at my apartment with one suitcase. “Are you sending your stuff another way?” I asked, taking the case from her grasp.
“This is all of me,” she replied, looking unsure for a moment.
“Interesting,” I commented, already seeing the positive. I wanted to wholly provide for her. Now I’d enjoy undressing her in the clothes I purchased. If I wanted to rip them off her beautiful body, I wouldn’t have to worry. We’d simply find replacements.
“Hey, I travel light.” She shifted a book bag on her shoulder. “Is that an issue?”
“Not in my world. You’ll need things and we’re going to the right city for shopping.” I kept my voice level as we crossed the atrium and stopped in front of the concierge to give instructions on loading her bag into my private car we’d take to the airport.
“What sort of things?” she asked, her eyes wide and innocent. When she looked up at me like that, I found myself in a daze, getting hard, and ready to pull, if not drag, her upstairs for one more moment of getting lost with her before heading to the airport.
“Just nonsense. Evening wear and an endless supply of lingerie. Other than that, it’s whatever you want to wear.”
“Or not wear,” she replied with a low laugh.
Fuck. Talking about lingerie, I was stiffening in my jeans. I refused to let her become a member of the mile high club. It was so cliché and not what I envisioned for her under my command. It was either assuage my primal hunger to thrust my cock into her or reel it all in until we landed. We’d been apart for twenty-four hours and I was frustrated, horny, and undecided about what to do with her first. I guided Eliza away toward the elevator. We had thirty minutes before we’d leave—the possibilities were endless.
“It’s been a whole day since we have been together. I am very close to showing you what it would be like to have your clothes ripped off your beautiful body.” I arched a brow into her face as she blushed provocatively. Now it was my turn to laugh.
Waiting outside the elevator, I glanced down at her tits and realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. Holy hell, was she trying to break me? So much for laughing—I coughed and focused on my shoes.
“Will you go to your office tomorrow?” she asked as the elevator doors opened.
We walked inside and I met her emerald gaze. In the glass panels of the compartment, the sky behind her lightened her eyes. There were flecks of gold in her irises, and the dark lashes she batted up at me captivated and stole my train of thought. Well, all except one: fucking her against the side of the elevator car.
She repeated her question, asking in a slow, patient voice and smiling like she knew exactly what I was thinking. “The office? Are you due in tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I answered, not wanting to think about my schedule, but I guess I had to. Probably a wiser alternative, since the folks around Coral Isle wouldn’t appreciate seeing my naked ass pumping hard and fast, driving my dick into Eliza on the way to the penthouse. I inhaled and focused on New York, raking my fingers through my hair and wanting to pull every last strand out. “I didn’t ask, what are you planning to do about your undergrad program? The fall session is beginning. I have plenty of contacts who could get you in for a semester as a visiting student at one of the colleges in the city.”
“I haven’t decided. Does that matter, what I do? I thought you were absurdly busy.”
“I am, and I don’t want you to be bored.” Or lonely, which might lead her to wanting to return to Miami and her life here. I didn’t see Eliza being content sitting around day after day in a townhouse while I attended to business. It’d be a good couple of weeks before I knew if we’d be traveling to Hong Kong or California. That decision depended on the board meeting. “We’ll settle the matter once we’re in the city. But I do expect an answer, and it doesn’t have to do with yoga. Why not try something new? Wouldn’t that pique your curiosity? Novelty…experiment beyond your comfort zone is my point. We can do yoga together. There’s plenty of space where we’ll live. More than here.”
“In New York I can’t imagine it would be easy to sit idly by.” She stared into my eyes and smiled. “I get that you want me to be productive.”
The elevator doors opened and I leaned over, brushing my mouth against hers, aching to taste her sweet lips. “Baby, I want you to be happy. Pick anything as long as it suits you. You’ll have a driver at your disposal and your own account with funds I expect you to use. Not an overly hard task. Right?”
The doors started to close and I stuck my arm out, rather than ride back downstairs.
“I want to do more than shop,” she replied softly.
“You can teach me…yoga.” Holy shit. I was so on edge, and whether she knew it or not, she was teaching me things right now. My heart hammered in my chest and I drew my finger along the edge of her jaw, inhaling her scent. �
��I really want us to practice together. We’ll get whatever you need and I’ll have a room set up to practice. Would you like that?”
She shrugged, veiling her expression. “Sure. It was what I told my sister I’d be doing.”
“Eliza, all you have to do is tell me what you want, and I promise it’s yours. When I say I want you to be happy, I mean it. You’re intelligent. Creative. And there’s a whole world out there waiting for us to partake. I work hard and play harder.”
From what I’d learned in the last twenty-four hours, Eliza would do well to stay open to the idea of us practicing yoga, and since I was in control, I called the shots. In seconds, I saw a way to keep her occupied until she discovered what to do with her time. I knew just the right person to make sure Eliza remained occupied so whatever we experimented with at night wouldn’t be dissected in all the wrong ways during the day.
“Got that memo,” she said. “About your lifestyle.”
“Then you also understand why I want you to enjoy your time during the day.” More than likely we wouldn’t be able to address all my concerns. Not until and unless she trusted me.
I’d obtained and reviewed the initial security investigation file…not on Eliza, but on her stepfather, Abe Hillwood. I’d acquired a shit load about the asshole. Old Abe was a dentist who’d made some lucrative investments and stopped his dental practice. He’d gotten into the real estate market, flipping properties at first. When the real estate bubble burst, he started several companies specializing in ruthless short sales. His shyster investment company acquired properties cheap, and Abe had a stockpile of holdings. The man wasn’t greedy for nothing. From what I could tell, he’d hoarded his investments, waiting and aware as we all were, that the economy would eventually turn around. Only recently he’d begun to market the properties he owned coupled with a lucrative, albeit shifty, side-venture. He was making a killing in offering high interest loans to buyers who couldn’t come up with the down payment. He banked that his clients—more like victims—would sign on the dotted line, and then he’d collect in methods associated with some shady-as-shit fuckers he’d recruited to secure his investments.
I didn’t have to think too hard about what a man like that would do to the infant daughter of the woman who’d screwed him over both publically and privately. Eliza wasn’t his blood, but he’d agreed to take her in and raise her. That was a red flag. What had happened during the sixteen years she’d lived under his roof had to have been excruciating. So far, I’d uncovered some of Eliza’s medical records, detailing the chilling number of times she’d been admitted to the ER for contusions, sprains, a broken arm, and stitches. I fought to control my temper each time I thought about her as a child under his assault.
Suddenly, Eliza squeezed my arm, bouncing on her toes, and disrupted my inner rampage. “Graham, we’re going to New York. The Big Freaking Apple. Don’t fret. I’ll be fine.”
“Sometimes it’s a lonely place. It’s good to have structure to keep from getting lost.” I gazed into her green eyes and felt myself slipping. I had her up against the wall where two days ago, I’d had my first sampling of her body.
Now, I lowered my head and kissed her softly again, wanting to gauge her reaction. She opened her lips and kissed me back. The more I demanded, the more she feverishly shared until I was lifting her leg and peeling away her panties.
I stopped and stared down at her, inhaling her enticing scent.
She groaned, rubbing her hands over my arms. “No worries. If it’ll make you feel better, I have a few studios to investigate. There are trainings I can always sign up for.”
“But Columbia or the City College aren’t of interest?” I asked, lifting the thin material between her legs, so on edge my cock began leaking in anticipation of slamming into her and making her scream.
“Not right now. Oh, before I forget.” She dug into her bag and removed a folded piece of paper. “Here.”
I recognized the green wavy security lines from my company draft. “You can’t be serious?”
“No. I think the shoe is most definitely on the other foot. You can’t be serious with a payment of twenty-five hundred dollars for one yoga session where there was zero yoga.”
I should’ve known. “Consider it a loan.”
“My sister asked that I give it back. So, if you’d like to take up the argument with her, be my guest.”
“I’d be delighted. Shall I call her? Or we can swing by on our way to the airport and properly meet.” I arched a brow, giving Eliza my full attention. Yesterday when we spoke, she’d shut me down the second I’d asked to pick her up and properly introduce myself to her sister and brother-in-law.
She pressed her body to me. “Let’s not start with that again.”
“Fine. I have something else I’d like to start.” Without waiting another second, I thrust my finger fully into her. For several seconds, I greedily pumped my fingers into her pussy, and watched several captivating expressions play out over her face. I kissed her mouth and alternated with biting her neck, feeling her moan and clench, growing wetter and more swollen with each of my strokes.
“Graham,” she groaned my name, coming all over my fingers.
“That’s it.” I pummeled my hand between her legs, savoring how I enjoyed getting her off. Her arousal scented the air, driving me crazy. Lowering my zipper, I freed my cock and tore the crotch of her panties in one snap. “Now, I’m only going to fuck you until I can’t take it, and then you’re going to give me head until I explode inside your beautiful mouth.”
I positioned my cock at her entrance and drove myself into her. I thrust harder, stretching her tight lips, making her take me without restraint. I was an animal, pounding my hips between her legs savagely to make up for the hours she’d been away. When electrical jolts swarmed my senses, I lowered her legs and watched her sink to her knees, her mercurial eyes flicking along my hard-on. She hovered over my cock, her breath a sweet tease until she sucked my crown into that enthralling little mouth of hers. I resumed power fucking, only this time her mouth as I cupped her head. “Holy fuck,” I yelled, releasing down the back of her throat.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We parked outside along the tree-lined street, and from the sidewalk the front of his place was something out of a movie. A four-story brownstone decked out with ornate scrolling metalwork that decorated the Victorian curved stone surfaces, and framed the tall windows. My gaze fell to the massive front door and wide stone steps. This was the serious world of wealth and privilege. Not one, but several chauffeur driven cars went past as a few nannies or au pairs strolled by with children.
“We made it,” Graham said, smiling as he opened the door of his home. The driver walked in with our suitcases ahead of us as we stood on the porch. I needed a moment to get my bearings and savored standing there in the sunshine, scanning the street scene of my new digs.
“This place is much more densely packed than a Miami neighborhood, even with the beaches thrown in. City blocks have a lot going on here.” I glanced down the sidewalk at the ornate, glossy lamp posts in front of a long row of townhouses bordering each side of the street. The humungous steeple of an old church on the next block pierced the slice of sky. Yeah, we’re far away from Kansas.
Pulling me inside, he tweaked my nose gently. “A love-hate relationship for most of us. You’ll get to know the good parts.”
We’d touched down in New York in his private jet with a car waiting for us at the airport. If control were a factor in his life, I’d say he used it to manage time par excellence. If this had been my old life, there would’ve been hours of wait time, public transportation, and probably a delay or two thrown in. We’d flown from Miami and pulled up in front of his home in less than three hours. I’d told Laura he lived across from Central Park where I imagined he hung out. Of course, she was right in me not getting the facts, but it didn’t matter at this level of existence. I stood in his world…a very chic point on the globe, and decided the hell with fac
ts. His details were all consuming.
I followed him beyond the marble floored foyer, into a wide hall with doorways running on either side, and an ornate staircase further down. He slid open a double-set of pocket doors and entered what appeared to the living room.
“Make yourself at home. We’re alone today, and I have some calls to return.” He removed his jacket and tossed it over a chocolate-brown leather chair, picked up his cell phone for the thousandth time today, and began talking in business lingo to other high-powered executives I imagined.
His living room was a high-end version of some of the stores places Carmen had dragged me to when she’d outfitted her Coral Gables apartment. I scanned my gaze over the large brown leather pieces of furniture, distressed wooden tables, the beautifully crafted moldings, gleaming hardwoods, and just the right amount of accessories and, of course, original artwork—everything beautifully woven into clean, faultless lines.
Turning, I faced the hallway, vacillating about whether to go up the wide stairs or meander through the doorways before me. I inhaled the scent of lemon and something fresh, almost green, and ironic, given New York’s smog reputation. I started forward, passing a large dining room which took up the front part of the house opposite the living room. I heard him conversing, his voice echoing in the hall each time I reentered. Until now, I hadn’t understood that he was a seriously busy man. The time he’d spent with me must’ve meant he’d have to make up what was lost.
Today, I was greeted with a passionate kiss, a quick hard fuck, and a vision of him and his cell phone. He’d spent the time getting on the plane in a conference call with a short break before he continued in a round robin exchange from Miami to four of the seven continents. I listened to him change gears, speaking in various languages but all with the ease and polish of one who was a master. The conversations in English ranged from new product lines to factories being taken over by newly formed unions. Not once did he engage in small talk diversions. His face was sharply etched during the conversations, except for the few times our gazes snapped together, and he unleashed one of his panty-dropping smiles as his eyes roved down my body.
