SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “Stop staring.”

  “Can’t help it, Sweet. You look fucking amazing,” I admit, a smile curling my mouth when she gapes and then narrows her gaze.

  “What are you doing?” she hisses, shifting uncomfortably when I push away from the wall and step closer, crowding her into the corner where the panel of buttons is.

  She doesn’t seem to notice when I hit the break, her eyes going round, and her chest and neck flushing when I press in closer and cage her in against the corner. God, she smells good, and the way that her breasts push up over the top of her dress when she draws in a shuddering breath has my cock getting so hard that I almost groan when I push closer and feel her belly pressing into me.

  “Paying a beautiful woman a compliment,” I say huskily, bending down so that our mouths just barely brush. “You don’t like compliments, Rosetta?”

  “I—” she begins, and then stops and takes a deep breath, her breasts pushing out to meet my chest and nearly driving me over the line that I’ve set for myself. “You don’t compliment me. You shouldn’t,” she groans, licking her lips and staring at mine as if she’s starving for them.

  That’s good. It means that the slow, almost sneaky way that I’ve been playing this has put her right where I want her. At first, when I started out on this quest to catch my woman, I knew that I would have to be as sly as hell. As expected, and in no way a surprise to me, she wasn’t exactly into the thought of being friends with the brother of a man who “broke her heart.” Not that I believe that bullshit, but Rosetta has a dramatic personality, so I’ll give it to her, if only to avoid undermining her feelings. In any case, with that roadblock in my path, I knew that seducing her into friendship would be the first step—a step that I’ve slowly but surely made progress on by dropping little comments and curiosities here and there.

  My favorite was letting Cleo walk in on me in the shower, because I knew that the first person she’d call about it would be my Rose. That would spark her imagination, and, every night since then, I’ve warmed her up a little more, introducing a simmering sexual undertone to every conversation we’ve had.

  It hasn’t been easy to do, because she’s as skittish as hell and has a tendency to end the call whenever she feels uncomfortable, but by now, she knows that I’m into whatever a woman wants, and that pleasure is the only rule I’d take to bed with us.

  I’ve told her stories of old conquests, and the more we’ve shared, the more graphic I’ve let myself become, not because I necessarily enjoy raking up old love affairs, but because it turns me on to hear how curious she is about everything. Half of what I’ve told her has actually been about her, about fantasies I’ve had of making love to her, and those are the ones she seems the most taken with, so those are the ones I push on her.

  She wants it, even if she doesn’t want to want it, and I plan to use that insatiable desire that burns beneath her severe surface to get what I want. Rosetta will be mine. To take, to hold, and most definitely to keep—because, unlike my dumbass brothers, I know the right fit when I see it, and I can damn well guarantee that when I slip my cock inside her tight little sheath, we’ll fit. Perfectly.

  “Why not?” I breathe, letting my tongue swipe over her lips as I lick my own, a grumble of lust working its way up my throat when I get a hit of cherry from her lip gloss and then taste something else beneath it. Rosetta.

  “I don’t date Hart men. Lesson learned—oh, God. What are you doing?” she moans, her hips pushing forward when I reach down to cup her left ass cheek, allowing my fingers to shift closer to the center of her ass, knowing that the forbidden touch will drive her crazy.

  “Showing you what I want,” I growl, laying a soft, drawn-out smooch onto her closed lips.

  I want to do so much more, and if I weren’t a patient man with long-lasting goals in mind, I would rip her dress off right now, drop to my knees, and do it all. The need to taste her is physically painful, but I relish the ache and let it add to my anticipation of the pleasure that will fill me when I finally succeed in getting what I want.

  “You can’t want this. Stop that—shit, oh hell…ooooh,” Rosetta moans, her eyelids drooping when I slide my hand down and settle the tips of my fingers at the spot where I know her entrance is.

  The heat coming off her tells me that she’s aroused, and that if I pull the skirt of her dress up and press my fingers past the edge of her panties, I’ll find her wet. For me. Fuck, that turns me on so badly that I almost break my own rules.

  “You’re hot, Rose. Right here, where I promise you that my cock would fill you so full that we’d both come together. Can you feel it, sweetheart? I’d get you wet first, so wet that you’d soak my cock when I got in there. I can almost feel it myself. Right here,” I grunt, circling my fingertips around her opening and feeling her clench when I bend my knees to press right up against her mound.

  “We’re—oh, shit! We’re friends. Just friends,” she groans, her hips moving against me as she pants and bites into her lip, tempting me to go further than my plans dictate.

  Right now, I would give anything to throw her down, bare her sex, and thrust so deeply inside her that we’d both die from the pleasure. Slowly, I caution myself, while pressing my fingers deeper and using her dress and panties to please her, just to the point of unbearable need.

  “We are friends, sweetheart. Good friends. I know everything there is to know about you by now. How you haven’t had many sexual partners because you’re too busy working, and how every man you’ve been with has left you wanting. I wouldn’t do that, baby. I’d please you in every way your little heart desires. I’ve never not eaten a woman out.”

  “I know! Dammit, that feels good,” she sighs when I bump against her clit, our breaths mingling in frantic pants as I slowly push her towards climax. “It shouldn’t feel good.”

  “But it does, doesn’t it?” I purr, my tongue thickening with the words I’m about to say.

  I don’t want to say them, goddammit. I want to keep going until she explodes, and then I want to suck her sex dry and fill my mouth with her musky flavor. I don’t want to stop this, and yet, I know that I must. Planning and months of desperation have led me to this point, and I know that unless I help her see the truth of what she thinks she felt, she won’t ever succumb to the attraction between us. Sex for the sake of sex is one thing, but I’m in this for the long game, for the big payoff, and I won’t shortchange us both for just one fleeting moment of sexual gratification in an elevator. Even if my cock is roaring at me.

  “Doesn’t it, Rosetta? It feels good despite the way you want to feel about me. It feels good because you know that we’d be great together, and it will feel even better once you stop fooling yourself about that crush you had on Chilli,” I say flatly, hating myself when I feel her stiffen and then shove at me, her strength no match for mine.

  I step away because I choose to, and also because, as much as I have manipulated things thus far, Rosetta needs to make the choices here. I want her, and I’ve already said that I will do nearly anything to get her, but in the end, no matter what goes down between us, it’ll be her choice. I could fuck her six ways from Sunday and stalk her till the end of time, but I know that nothing will hold Rosetta until she chooses to be held by me.

  A few weeks ago, I got so desperate that I considered getting us both drunk and knocking her up. Hell, the idea still appeals to me—except for a few very important facts. One, if I have to get drunk to convince myself to do something, then it probably isn’t a good idea. Two, I might want Rosetta with an obsession that borders on unhealthy, but I do want her to want me, too, and not just because she is backed into a corner. The last and most important reason that I haven’t gone through with it is that I want more from her than just obligation.

  I’ve spent my life learning the meaning of that word, and of doing what is right despite the dreams I had of one day touring the world and researching the history that I find so fascinating. I chose family and obligation, and, while
I don’t regret it and am not unhappy with my life, I know where obligation can take you if you allow your inner darkness to lead the way. When it comes to Rosetta, she needs to want to be with me, and, by God, she will. Even if I have to trick her into admitting it.

  “Get off me! And don’t you ever touch me again, you son of a bitch. I don’t want Chilli,” Rosetta seethes at me, belatedly realizing that we’ve stopped moving and slapping a hand onto the release so that the elevator starts to descend once more.

  “But you thought you did, Rose. And you’ll keep thinking that until you self-destruct. You lost your job—”

  “Because of Black, you idiot, not because of some stupid crush I once had on your brother!” she yells, shocking the hell out of me.

  “Black?”

  “Precisely, you ass. And for your information, I know that Chilli and I wouldn’t have been a good match,” she sniffs, her face going so red that it looks like she’s about to explode.

  “Bullshit. What was all that stuff about how much he hurt you? You sent him a five-page letter,” I point out, still feeling sick to my stomach whenever I think about what she might have written to him.

  Yeah, okay, I’m jealous. Who wouldn’t be? I ask you. I don’t just want Rosetta; I am obsessed with her to the point of madness and beyond. I wake up wanting her. I fall asleep so hard that I am filled with a longing that makes it impossible to breathe sometimes. I think about her so much that it’s a wonder I get anything done, and don’t even get me started on how nuts I’ve become. I sit outside her apartment no fewer than two nights a week, for God’s sake! Who does that kind of shit?

  Me. Apparently, I’ve spiraled into a place of not only mania but also absolute lunacy when it comes to her, and here she is denying the very thing that’s driven me crazy, as if none of it ever mattered.

  “Tee told me to do it, and no, it wasn’t filled with love poems or any of that romantic drivel I once believed in, so you can stop with all the glaring. I just told him that he’s a worthless excuse for a human being, and that he should consider the way people feel when he leads them on.”

  “Five pages!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” she screams, throwing her hands up and marching out of the elevator when the doors pop open.

  “Rosetta!”

  “Don’t talk to me, you terrible man. I’ve had the worst day of my life, and here you are messing with me—and for what? Amusement? I’ll have you know, Zeus, that I am not up for being messed around. I had that from Chilli, and I had it from guys before him, and I just won’t have it again. Yes, I find you extremely attractive, but what woman wouldn’t? You’re gorgeous, and you freaking know it. As for whatever that was back there…” she hisses, throwing an arm back towards the elevator, allowing me to catch a glimpse of orange fuzz that makes my lips twitch.

  Ah, she’s come prepared for war tonight, I see, calculating the chances of getting her into the sack and somehow shaving her armpits, because I know for a fact that she won’t appreciate the first memory of us together being created while she’s sprouting orangutan pits.

  The odds are slim, and so I let my body calm down and listen to her ranting at me, basically blaming me for her loss of control. I’m stuck on something a little more sinister, though, which is possibly the only reason I lose my hard-on.

  Cameron Black.

  So that’s what has her so unhinged lately, I think, loving the fact that Achilles isn’t anywhere in there. God. I should really be ashamed of myself. Oh well, maybe one day.

  “Rose—”

  “In the head. I shot him in the head, even if my buddy put it out to the press that I got him in the chest. I was aiming for maximum deadage! And now I can’t interrogate him, which sucks, because I know, Zeus—I just know that it wasn’t him. Someone else was behind the stalking and the creepy threats, and it was not Cameron Black,” she says, winding down by the time that I’ve steered her to the car and into the back.

  “I agree,” I say softly when she takes a deep breath and gives me a moment to speak.

  That stops another tirade, and she blinks back at me in surprise, and then smiles, the elevator episode clearly forgotten now that she doesn’t see me as the enemy anymore. I’ll never tell my Rose, but the woman is really fucking distractible. Something that I will hopefully be able to capitalize on for the rest of our lives together.

  “You do? I mean, you don’t think it was him?” she asks softly, her brow furrowing.

  “Not in the slightest, and, if Cleo and Addy were being honest with everyone, neither do they. That’s why she still has her security team, and why Adonis still has the investigators combing through anything they can find.”

  We’re in the back of my limo, and no, I don’t usually allow someone else to drive me around—hell, I drove the limo here—but I need more time with Rosetta, and if the only way I can get it is to trap her back here with me, then that’s what I’ll do. I know that I said she has a choice, but I never claimed that I wouldn’t play dirty.

  “Then why isn’t anyone saying anything? I’ve been going nuts about this, going over that night and the kidnapping and the whole story from beginning to end, and none of it makes a lick of sense to me. First of all, who would target Cleo? And yes, I do believe that it was her being targeted, so don’t start giving me her version of it, because she’s just crazy. Who would go after her? And why? Why wait in Addy’s apartment for hours until he left, give Cleo a chance to leave, and then go crazy on the place?” she asks, giving me a hard look when I start to ask her how she knows so much.

  “Oh, puh-lease. I’m drinking buddies with a detective, Zeus. I know anything and everything I want to, and you’d better believe that I know what you and Adonis told the cops. I also saw the results of what little security footage came from his building, and, from what I saw, this guy is more than adept. Someone who plans an infiltration that well would not kidnap her in full view of hospital security. Which leads me to believe that Cameron Black—”

  “Was set up,” I finish for her, smiling when she frowns and huffs.

  “Exactly. He was a pawn within a larger framework, and if I’m right about that, then…”

  “I’ve already checked that angle. Black’s ex-wife and daughter are in Italy right now. Sheila Black mysteriously won a competition and was treated to a three-month trip around Europe,” I tell her, watching her eyes narrow.

  “Seems fishy to me.”

  “To me as well. That’s why I traced the travel agency that Sheila got the package from. It was a dead end. There’s no paper trail, and no money trail, either. The money for the trip was transferred to the hotels and airlines from an untraceable account, and trust me, it is untraceable, so don’t start getting ideas about one of your friends hacking into a bunch of shit. There’s nothing there.”

  “Ah, but there is. That proves, unequivocally, that someone set this up, and I’d bet good money that whoever did this was using Black’s family as motivation. That would explain why he was so gung-ho to get a date with Cleo, though God knows that men do tend to flock towards her, so it didn’t ring any alarm bells with me until that night. It would also explain the last words I heard him say. He didn’t want to do it, but he thought he had to kill Cleo,” she muses, biting into the corner of her lip while she mulls things over.

  “I think that this guy, whoever he is, knew that Cleo would fight, and I also think that he knew we’d find her before it was too late. The trail was too clear.”

  “Planned,” she says, nodding thoughtfully. “You know, this explains a lot, and while I will definitely need therapy about shooting a man who was being used as a scapegoat, I think that it all sort of validates my theories. Black was not the culprit. The question we have to ask now is—”

  “Who was pulling Black’s strings?” I finish, grinning when she hisses and tries to kick me.

  “Stop that! You’re stealing all my thunder.”

  “Well, according to my name…”

  “Get over yo
urself, Zeus,” she grumbles, grinning when I laugh.

  “All jokes aside, babe, this situation still isn’t sitting right with me, so do me a favor and stay close tonight, huh?” I ask, a shiver of foreboding slithering through my gut.

  I trust my gut more than I trust anything else, and right now, I’m getting bad vibes.

  “I want to snort at you because a person would have to be insane to come after me, Z. You see this inconspicuous little clutch? It holds a can of pepper spray and a small, Derringer-style, single-shot pistol that my dad gave me last Christmas. I may not like shooting people, but I will if they come near me,” she says solemnly, her eyes turning sad.

  “Black. It really bugs you, huh?” I ask softly, cursing myself for not figuring it out sooner.

  It’s my job to know what’s wrong and to fix it, not to push my own emotional baggage onto a situation and leave Rosetta struggling to come to terms with something like this. My girl may have a violent tornado of a personality, but she’s soft and romantic—no matter what she’s been saying about romance—and so of course she wouldn’t be okay with killing someone. I should have seen that and done something to help her.

  She shrugs and looks away, and I expect her to laugh it off as usual. But Rosetta surprises me when she turns back to face me, her eyes misty with emotion.

  “Black was a friend, of sorts, and a client I’d cultivated for a while. We weren’t best buds by any means, but we got along. He was a little boring, a little too vanilla, but he was a good man—and so if what I think is true, then I cannot be okay with killing him, Z. He was trying to protect his family, the very same thing that I was doing,” she says hoarsely, allowing me to pull her against my chest, as I hug her and hope to God that I can make it better.

  “Doesn’t change the fact that you only did what you had to, Rose. He was going to shoot Cleo, and whatever his reasons were, things were still not going to end well for Cleo. I, for one, am eternally grateful that you pulled that trigger when you did, and I’m even more grateful that you got there before he could do something that he’d have regretted as much as we would have. Adonis would have crumbled if Cleo hadn’t made it, and she can joke about her abduction as much as she needs to, but I know what a toll it took on them both. The man hardly works nowadays because he’s always running home to check on her.”