“Mmm, look what I earned,” she said, collecting a bead of fluid from the head. “What will I do with this?”
He released her and watched, with not a damn word to say.
Protecting the come on her thumb, Chelsea wiggled out of her jeans and undies. She looked at his face as she coated her clit with the droplet. The essence was liquid silk on her sensitive flesh.
“You feel so good on me,” she told him. Returning to her knees, she trailed her fingers down the length of him, then moved her hands to his ass and used only her mouth.
Assisting her, he rocked forward as she manipulated her throat muscles to take more. She wanted all of him, couldn’t settle for anything less than everything.
“Easy,” he said when she had to let him go to catch her breath and knuckle moisture from her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”
“I need to make the most of this.”
“We can take our time, go slow, if that’s what you need.”
Hell, why were there still obstacles between them? Neither was perfect and both were guilty of fucked-up decisions. That should be enough to make them equals. “We don’t get easy. We make stuff difficult and hurt each other.”
“And knowing that, we still ended up here.”
“That’s something to think about.”
“All right. You think about it, but I want to spend this time doing something else.” Dante laid her back and then her legs were draped over his shoulders.
Chelsea’s heart leaped. This was all so much luxury—the big gorgeous bed, man spoiling her stupid with his tongue, the privilege of being welcome to touch him as freely as she wanted him to touch her.
“I love what you’re doing.”
“What about this?” He positioned his cock to slide back and forth over her clit.
“I really like that. You’ve got good ideas.”
“Here’s another idea.” Dante took a condom from the nightstand, put it on, then slid slickly inside.
“Oh…God. That’s your best idea yet.”
—
“What about Rathbun’s?” Dante had been reluctant to say a damn thing that might pull them apart, but he’d been here with her for hours…and inside her for almost as long.
There was a reason her phone kept ringing from the other room, and he suspected it had something to do with her dinner meeting.
“About that. I forgot.” Lying on top of him, she kissed his nipple and went back for a lick.
“Lie.”
“All right, I lied. I didn’t forget. I just don’t want to leave.”
“Why not?”
“I’m awfully lazy.” She went back to kissing him while she rocked on his dick.
“That doesn’t feel like laziness to me.” He put her on her back and started to thrust, and soon they were back into the rough tempo they’d taken on earlier.
“I want to stay like this, fucking you and making music,” she said. “Can we do that?”
“And say screw basic needs?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“You need food.” He slowed their pace, looked into her eyes. He’d noticed her move her food around her plate yesterday, and now she was skipping meals. “If you’re ditching that dinner meet-up, then go someplace with me.”
“We shouldn’t right now. Atlanta’s a big city, but it’s not the best time for you to be seen at a restaurant with me. We don’t want it made public that Devil’s Music has commissioned you. You understand, right?”
That the almighty company came first? Yeah, he got that. He’d been born into that mentality. “Then let me finish fucking you and send you on your way.”
“Saying it like that makes me think you don’t understand.” She stroked his face. “Dante. Hey…we can’t brush off the reason you’re here. It’s not for a reunion with me. What we had was once in a lifetime, probably, and it was great, but it ended a long time ago. The sex is still incredible, obviously, but you’re here to provide a service to the record label.”
He kissed her and the talking stopped. There’d be time for reality when he dismounted and she slipped out of bed to shower.
Heat and pressure built, melded, overwhelmed. He wanted to put a welcome mat on her crotch and call her pussy home. “I’m going to need to restock condoms if we’re going to keep on like this.”
“Restock.”
“I’ll do that while you’re at your meeting, putting down a solid meal.”
“Just like a man. Assume a woman’s every problem can be solved with food. How about this, then?” She scooted away and his cock lurched, unprepared to leave her channel so suddenly. But she took off the condom and fit her lips over him, this time not letting go until he was gripping her hair and spurting once, twice, more, into her mouth.
Chelsea made a gratified hum as she swallowed. She kissed her way up to his lips. “There. We can call that my dinner. That’s our solution for every time you think I haven’t eaten enough.”
“My cock won’t fill you up.”
“Beg to differ.” Another kiss. “But if you’re not up for it, stop hassling me about food. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, relenting on this issue—because on this next one he wouldn’t back down. He put a hand in her hair and unwound the rubber band.
“Hey—that’s mine.”
“Now it’s mine.” He pushed it onto his wrist and held it up. “Every time you think you want to snap this, come to me and do it.”
“No,” she said, whipping her head to toss her hair to one side. “I’m not doing that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then you just want to hurt yourself.”
“It’s stress relief. I told you about this before.”
“Chelsea, you told me it was something you used to do back when your folks were married and were fighting all the time.” He sat up and urged her close. “Are you burning hairpins again?”
“No. The rubber bands are the only method I’m using…you know.”
“When did you start doing it again?”
“Some years ago. After we broke up, but that’s not specifically why. It’s not about that. It’s not about you. This is my cross to bear.”
“I’m in this now, too, ’cause it’s around my wrist.”
She huffed, pinching the band and letting it pop his skin. Didn’t hurt him, but he knew it hurt her, and as she’d said, it was her cross.
“You got over that not-wanting-to-hurt-me hang-up pretty damn fast.”
“Because you’re pissing me off.”
“Yeah, and you’re not punishing yourself. That’s how this needs to work, for as long as I’m here. Don’t worry about making yourself feel good. That’ll be my job. You concentrate on not making yourself feel like hell.”
“Dante, it’s not easy like that. We’ve already established that you and I can’t handle easy. The thing is, there were a lot of changes. I was made COO of all of this, you were gone, and I needed to cope with shit.”
“What shit? Responsibility?” Was her title the actual cross to bear? Was she searching for a reason to let it go?
“Shit I don’t want to get into it with you.” She climbed out of bed, picked up a pillow that had bounced away, and threw it to him. “I’m doing great now, though.”
Skipping meals, popping herself with elastic, and harming herself God knew how many other ways—that was doing great? “Swear you ain’t tellin’ me lies like that, Chelsea,” he said meaningfully.
Her chin quivered before she raised and looked down the line of her cute-as-fuck little nose at him. “You can stop reciting the lyrics now. Life is splendid. I’m on top of all of this.” She threw out her arms, making her tits jiggle. “Never before has a Coin said that on this land.”
Dante stayed on the bed for all of five seconds before he loped after her to the en suite bathroom, where she didn’t pause in her mission to get the shower going. Through the glass he saw her step under the spray. Water soaked her hair and bounced off her shoulders.
&nbs
p; “I’m going to need the truth,” he told her, going to the water closet and taking a piss. “Why did you screw over South Sounds?”
“I said I was done apologizing for that.”
He came to the shower and stepped in with her. When she didn’t object, he took a bottle of soap from a shelf, squirted a dollop in his hand, and lathered it over her back. Scents of cypress and citrus rose from the foam. “That wasn’t a request for an apology.”
“Then why are you bringing it up?”
“Because if you went in on that deal with Delilah thinking of it as reparations, I need to know if that’s also the reason you agreed to cut her out of Devil’s Music.”
“Reparations?” She went still. “Are you asking if my career trajectory has been motivated by a vendetta? Really, are you suggesting that everything I’ve done is for payback?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking. Did you work that deal with South Sounds and then cut Delilah out of this company to get yourself to the top of the Herst Plantation? Were you with me for the same reason?” He wanted to understand her, but he couldn’t if he didn’t know the truth. “Now that we’ve clarified the question, how about an actual answer? Be real with me about this. I’ve got no right to judge you for what you feel, but let’s be damn clear that I’ll judge you for lying to me.”
“I don’t think you have the right to ask me.”
“Don’t do that, Chelsea. Don’t use black and white as a shield. When we were together I loved you. It was real fucking love. What was it for you—love or one of the steps you took to get where you are now?”
“Right now I’m in the shower with you, so…”
“You know what I mean. Chief operating officer. A billionaire with your picture framed in gold in the same house where your great-grandmother spent her life in servitude and died in a fire. On the same land, Chelsea, where Solomon Coin was a slave.” She’d told him yesterday that she would prove this place couldn’t hurt her family anymore.
“Doing what I could to break down South Sounds was business. Delilah had a vision and I could see it for what it was—genius. Your father wouldn’t listen to her, and you were so loyal to her that she trusted me to make it happen.”
“I know how you repaid her trust.”
“With loyalty. This company possessed her, Dante, and the entire board could see it. Our corporate relationships were becoming strained. She went to New York and started shit with Wild Lock Entertainment. The company began receiving death threats directed at her after that. The cops couldn’t link the threats to Wild Lock, but we have our own intelligence sources. None of us were safe while she was in control. We had to stop her before she ruined all of us. I think voting her out saved her life.”
Now the same people who voted her out needed her to save Devil’s Music.
“I know she was hurt,” Chelsea said, turning to look at him straight on. “But Delilah has an eerie way of landing on her feet, and I’ve finally begun to realize that I was protecting someone who’s more in control than she lets on.”
“You’re justifying what you did, and evading my question.”
“I did cut down South Sounds and conspired to give Delilah a shove, but I didn’t do it to avenge my ancestors. I didn’t target the Bishop family. I fell in love with you. That was separate from business. But I can’t pretend that my family didn’t suffer here while yours prospered.”
“And now that things have flipped and I’m the one living in this building and working to keep your company profitable, how do you feel?”
“Don’t try to draw parallels. This is different.”
“Because the slave cabin is nice and fancy? You’re the one who said the cages look different now and not much has changed.”
“Can’t you see this is different? You have freedom.”
“I have a gas-guzzler that was delivered here this morning, and I’ll wager all the money in my bank accounts that it has a tracker. Just like the phone and tablet Terri Shoal gave me.”
She faltered. “Uh, well, those are security measures. The company’s in distress and we need to make sure that precautions are being taken to protect this project.”
“You’re getting good at this business-first attitude. You hardly flinched when you said that bullshit.”
“This is still different, Dante. You chose to come back to this, the same as you chose to join me in this shower. And it’s different because no one’s hurting you. I only want to make you feel good. Pleasure.” She reached for the soap. Squeezing the bottle into her cupped hand until she had a pond of the stuff in her palm, she returned the soap to the shelf and plopped her hand to his chest. Using both hands in tandem, she scrubbed up to his shoulders and neck. A bounce onto her tiptoes brought her closer to his height and she kissed his lips. “This feels good, right? So let’s think about nothing else for a while.”
Her touch felt better than good, but he was torn between wanting to take her against the shower wall and demanding the goddamn truth. That he couldn’t immediately decide was more troubling than anything. The heady fragrance of the soap and the rush of adrenaline confused him. Body versus mind. Only Chelsea Coin could split him in two like this.
She kissed him again, smiled, did it once more, and watched him for a sign of resistance or permission. Deciding for herself, she continued to scrub her soapy hands over his skin. She worked the pads of her fingers into his muscles, then continued down his sides.
They both looked down as she began to work bubbles into his pubes. In a quick moment she had him by the dick. Her soft hands had a firm grip on him. “This feels really good, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice so husky the words sounded incomplete. “What if I danced close to you…?” She demonstrated, wrapping her arms around him and gyrating against him. His cock slipped between her thighs. He wasn’t inside her, but damn, the heat of her pussy and the taut clench of her thighs was enough to command his blood flow.
She gave him an amazed laugh. “You get so hard. Hammer-down-a-nail hard.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to even try to test that out.”
“Wise decision. Are you like this with every woman who turns you on?”
“That feels like a trick question.”
“I’m just wondering if I’m special.” She continued to writhe on him and he moved with her and then they were under the spray. Water scattered the suds until he had her naked in his arms. “It’s okay if the answer’s no.”
“No.”
“Oh…”
“No, the answer’s not no.” She was special—the only woman who’d managed to get close enough to make him give a damn about something outside of his family’s company, the only one who’d loved him, the only one he’d loved. “You are special to me, for good reasons and bad. Maybe wanting to be in you—even when I was pissed at you—for seven years built up and this is the result.”
“Then you’re letting off steam, so to speak.”
“We should leave it at that and accept it for what it is. I want you to let off steam with me, Chelsea. I’m still wearing your rubber band and I want you to promise me you’re not going to put on another one or find other ways to hurt yourself when shit gets to be overwhelming.” He lifted her and brought her to the wall, and it was he who gyrated now, pushing inside her deep. “Come to me. If you want a fuck, if you want to snap this band, hell, if you want to talk it out, you come to me.”
“Then I need something from you. It’s not about taking away your options, but what you’re asking me to do is trust you, Dante. I can’t trust you if I’m sharing you with someone else. So if an ex calls you up or you pass a beautiful hooker on the street, where does that leave me?”
His exes were exes for damn strong reasons—but he’d thought that about Chelsea, too. The one consistency, though, was that after breaking things off with her he’d still thought about her. She’d had a presence in his every relationship, no matter how fervently he wanted her out of the molecules that made him who
he was. “You’re the one I’ll come to.”
They didn’t talk anymore—just indulged in slow, wet sex under the water until it took on a chill and forced them back to the bedroom. She missed her meeting and he didn’t make it back to the recording studio, but that evening they ate grilled cheese sandwiches naked and spent the evening laughing, touching, and making music.
Chapter 9
A knock on Chelsea’s office door interrupted her audio note-taking session. Dictating her to-do list helped her with recall and mental prioritization. She’d set aside an hour specifically for this and other urgent tasks that couldn’t be passed to her assistant or addressed after she returned from Louisiana.
She paused the voice recording. “It’s open.”
Teagan poked her head in. A bazillion curls bobbed around her face. “Are you decent?”
“Taking notes.”
“You know what I mean by decent. Is that orgasm in jeans around? Just wanted to give you time to adjust things, in case he was doing you on the desk again.”
Chelsea double-checked that her recorder was off. She definitely didn’t want to hear this conversation again. “He’s not around.” In fact, at the moment he was packing to join her on the company jet. “I thought the Harrods gift card put this to rest.”
London was one of Teagan’s favorite vacation destinations. The gift card was half bribe, half appreciation. Aside from some private teasing, the woman wasn’t making an issue of having found Chelsea and Dante obviously not working out an IT issue a few evenings ago.
Teagan walked in carrying a luscious flower arrangement that overflowed with garden roses, tulips, and southern hydrangeas.
“Oh, they’re gorgeous!”
“Don’t thank me,” Teagan said, bringing the arrangement to the desk. “And don’t throw them at me when you see who sent them. Swear, I almost took off my earrings when I saw the name on that card.”
Chelsea poked through the flowers for the card and read. “ ‘MP.’ It’s Moniqua Prenz.”
“What do you want to do?” Teagan asked, but was interrupted as Emma’s assistant, Charles, filled the doorway with his tall, slim frame.
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