Ruthless Pride

by Naima Simone

  He grazed her with his teeth, wringing another cry from her. It became his mission to drag them from her, to earn a shudder from her slender frame. His mission and his pleasure.

  While he switched from one breast to the other, Sophie removed his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders and arms, casting it to the floor. His shirt followed. Her nails raked down his bare back, trailing fire in their wake, and it was his turn to shiver.

  Releasing her with a soft pop, he straightened, shifting forward and moving her backward until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. But at the last second, she twisted and, grabbing his upper arms, turned him. They switched positions, and she pressed her palms to his chest, her touch like live coals on his skin.

  “My turn,” she said, eyes so bright he swept a thumb underneath one. Then brushed his lips over the same spot. “Can’t distract me,” she breathed, and pushed.

  He sank to the bed, his palms slapping down beside his thighs. She didn’t hesitate, but knelt in front of him, and his thighs automatically spread, making room for her. His breath hitched in his lungs, and his body froze. Anticipation, lust and excitement hurtled through him, and he could only stare down at this beautiful, sensual creature as she fumbled with his thin leather belt and the closure to his pants.

  The metallic grind of the zipper ricocheted through the room, deafening in his ears. She pushed the edges apart, exposing his black boxer briefs. Together, they studied the almost obscene bulge of his thick, long erection. Was she remembering the same thing as he? How he fit inside that too-tight and too-perfect sex? How he’d had to work his way inside her, claiming her bit by bit as she softened around him, strangling his dick even as she embraced it?

  Because, God, he remembered. Remembered and wanted it so bad he’d become one huge walking ache.

  Finally, when she snagged the waistband, his paralysis broke. He covered her hand with his, squeezing.

  “You don’t have to do this, sweetheart,” he rumbled, offering her an out. Even though the thought of her tongue sliding down his column nearly had him coming without one touch.

  “I know I don’t have to,” she said, lifting her gaze from his cloth-covered dick to meet his. “I want to.”

  Then she was gripping him. Stroking him.

  Pleasure so sharp it danced on the edge of pain seized him, and, head thrown back, palms flattened on the mattress, he strained against it.

  Nothing, fucking nothing, had ever felt as good as this woman’s hand on his cock.

  Oh damn.

  He stood corrected. Hot, wet warmth bathed the head, followed by gentle swipes of a tongue. His head jacked forward, needing to take in the sight of Sophie with her mouth full of his flesh.

  Locking his muscles, he fought down the ball of fire coalescing and swirling at the base of his spine and lower. God, he was going to come. Right down her throat from just the swipe of her tongue. He closed his eyes but, seconds later, snapped them open, unable to not look. To stare. To behold this picture of knee-shaking carnality and brand it on his brain.

  Lashes lowered, color painted her sharp cheekbones and one of those hungry whimpers escaped her as she swallowed him down, tongue rubbing, mouth sucking. Her fist pumped the bottom half of his pounding column, and her damp lips bumped her fingers each time she bobbed over him. Up and down, she tortured him, loving him, making him her slave.

  Because right now he would do anything for her if she. Just. Didn’t. Stop.

  “Sweetheart,” he growled, and the endearment was churned-up gravel in his throat. “You’re trying to break me with your greedy little mouth. And I’m going to let you do it. I’m going to let you take me apart.”

  His words seemed to galvanize her, to fuel her passion. Tunneling both hands in her hair and tangling them in the thick strands, he didn’t try to control her, just allowed himself to be swept along in the ride.

  She took him deeper and deeper until the tip of him nudged the back of her throat.

  She let him slip into that narrow passage, swallowed around him.

  She elicited shudder after shudder, curse after curse from him.

  And when the telltale sizzle snapped and popped down his spine, legs to the soles of his feet and then back up to the base of his dick, he didn’t hold back. Didn’t pull her off him.

  He gave her everything. Every last bit of him.

  Chest heaving, he waited for the dark edges crowding his vision to retreat. Only then did he loosen his grasp on Sophie’s head and suck in a much-needed breath into his screaming lungs. That orgasm should’ve destroyed him, laid him out. Instead, it fed the desire that still flowed through him like an open pipe.

  He clutched her shoulders and, surging to his feet, dragged her up with him. In seconds, he had her naked on the bed and under him. He attacked her mouth, voracious. The taste of him on her tongue only inflamed him more. Snarling against her lips, he nipped the full bottom one, then treated her chin and throat to the same erotic bites.

  Once more he feasted on her breasts, licking, lapping and tweaking until she writhed beneath him, those kitten mewls spilling from her. God, he loved them. Hoarded them in his head so he could replay them later when he was alone in his bed.

  He shook his head, dislodging the thoughts and the sharp stab of loneliness they lugged along with them. Skimming his lips down the center of her chest, he paused to flick his tongue in the bowl of her navel, then continued until he reached his goal.

  Inhaling, he trapped the musky sweet-and-tart scent of her. He jerked awake last night with this scent teasing him, tormenting him. Unable to resist the lure, he dipped his head and dived into her sex. One hand splayed wide on her lower belly to hold her down, he palmed her inner thigh with the other, granting him easy access to the flesh that he couldn’t get enough of. Her scream danced around his ears as he slid his tongue through her swollen, soaked folds, circling the bud of nerves at the top of her mound. Over and over he returned to gorge on her like the delicious, addictive feast she was.

  Her thighs clamped around his head, and her fingers dug into his hair, grasping tight, and he didn’t let up. Not until he pushed her right to the edge of release—and over it.

  And as she still shook and gasped on the waves of pleasure, he shoved from the bed and stripped. Removing his wallet and then a condom from the billfold, he tossed his pants to the floor and climbed back onto the mattress, crawling over her. Quickly, he sheathed his rock-hard flesh in the protection, then maneuvered her until she straddled his hips. His erection surged up between them, and he swore he could feel her labored gusts of breath on the tip.

  “Ride me, sweetheart,” he grated, cupping her hip and fisting his dick. “Take me.”

  Her eyes found his, and, without breaking their visual mating, she rose over him. Then sank down on him.

  He was the first to break their locked gazes. Closing his, he released a hiss as she enveloped him, slowly accepting him. Both hands gripped her hips, steadying her. She fell forward, her palms slapping his pecs. Head bent, she pulsed up and down his flesh, taking more and more of him until, finally, she was seated on top of him. And he was so deep inside her, he had to, once more, battle back the rising of his orgasm.

  “Sophie,” he growled, bucking his hips as if he could screw just a little bit more of himself inside her, when there was nothing left of him to give. “So tight. So wet. So damn hot. I didn’t—” He cut himself off before he could utter the rest of the too-revealing sentence. He hadn’t imagined how perfect she took him. How she undid him. “You good, sweetheart?” he asked, flexing again, unable to help himself.

  “Yes,” she breathed, crushing a kiss to his lips. “God, yes.”

  “Take me, then,” he ordered. “Take us both.”

  Lifting off him until only the head of his dick remained, she hovered for only a second before slamming back down on him.

  Moment
s ago, he’d thought nothing had felt as good as Sophie’s mouth on him. So wrong. Watching her rise and fall above him, face saturated with lust... Having her lush, muscular core sucking at him, fluttering around him—nothing could compare to this.

  Jackknifing off the bed, he sat up, burrowed his fingers in her hair and captured her mouth, swallowing each sob, each whine. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders and head, she rode him, jerking on him, hips swiveling like the most carnal of dances. She wrenched her mouth from his, tipping her head back on her shoulders, lost in the pleasure she chased. The pleasure bearing down on him like a freight train with greased wheels.

  Not without her, though. He wouldn’t go without her.

  Reaching between them, he slid his fingers down her quivering belly to the small, swollen bundle of nerves cresting her sex. One stroke. Two. Three, and he pressed down hard.

  Her core clamped down hard on him like a vise grip, feminine muscles milking him. Grabbing her hips, he held her aloft as he thrust up into her, granting her every measure of the release that shook her like a leaf in a passion-whipped storm. Only after her screams ebbed to muted whimpers did he let go, hurtling into the dark, shattering abyss of release.

  As he fell, slender arms encircled him.

  And he held on.

  Nine

  Sophie rested her head on Joshua’s chest, his steady heartbeat a reassuring thud under her ear. She should move. Should order him to leave since the sex was over, and her senses had winked back online. But her limbs, weighted down by postorgasmic lethargy and wrapped around his torso and thigh, wouldn’t obey. Besides, when he’d left the bed to get rid of the condom, he’d returned with a warm, wet bath cloth to clean her. After that tender and thoughtful consideration, it would be rude of her to kick him out.

  Okay, and that sounded weak even to her own ears.

  She might as well just admit it; she wanted him here in her bed. His weight next to hers. His heartbeat echoing in her ear.

  So dangerous. She was entering such treacherous, risky territory.

  Saturday night, she’d been so certain that she would be able to contain the passion between them to one night. That she could walk away unscathed.

  God, she’d been so arrogant.

  He’d left her singed to her soul. And days later, she still felt the burn. So much that when he’d shown up on her doorstep, she’d tried to convince herself again that she could separate physical from emotional. That she didn’t need his trust. Didn’t need anything but another release that left her feeling like a postapocalyptic refugee.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to block out the direction of her wayward thoughts, but that only caused a livestream of how she’d spent the last hour with Joshua. Of their own volition, her fingertips brushed her lips. And she shivered, experiencing again the fierceness of his possession.

  He was the first man she’d gone down on. Had he been able to tell? No other had stirred the need to share that intimacy, to make herself so vulnerable. To give so much—her mouth, her throat...her control.

  But Joshua wasn’t just any man.

  Somehow, he’d sneaked beneath her carefully constructed armor and touched more than her body. He’d infiltrated her heart.

  Terror barreled through her as she admitted the truth to herself.

  And this time, when she squeezed her eyes shut, it wasn’t the erotic reel that played over the backs of her lids. It was her, alone, curled up on her couch, hurting. Her, staring at her computer screen staring at an image of Joshua with another woman on his arm. Her, crushed and lost, gazing at her apartment door, willing a knock to sound. For him to be standing on the other side.

  Pain cascaded through her in a crimson shower. Pain and fear.

  He’d warned her about not wanting a relationship. Straight up told her he didn’t want to be in one with her or any woman. But especially not her. He might not have voiced that, but the words had been there, ringing in the room. Not a woman who might betray him or use him for a story. He would never be able to disassociate her from her job. So once more, she faced the decision—love or her career.

  Well, she would be faced with that decision if he wanted her for more than sex.

  Which he didn’t.

  But the fear went deeper than his rejection. It reached down to the core of her that dreaded becoming dependent on a man for her happiness, her security. Because when he left, where would she be?

  A shell.

  “That’s the second sigh in as many minutes,” Joshua said, his voice rumbling under her ear. He traced a meandering trail up and down her arm, and she savored his touch. Committed this relaxed version of him to memory. “What’re you thinking about?”

  Of how I’m foolishly falling for you even though I know you will shatter me.

  “Actually, I was thinking about you.” Not exactly a lie. But sharing the truth wasn’t an option.

  Tension invaded his body, and she hated it. “What about me?” he asked, the same stiffness coating his question.

  Heaving a sigh—her third—she sat up, her hip pressed to his, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “While I was working on my follow-up article, it struck me again how much you do for those who are in your employ and this community. All without any expectation of credit or acknowledgment. It’s so admirable, and if I could put all of that in bold, font size eighteen, I would. People should know that you’re not just a CEO consumed with making money. You’re not just another businessman with the ‘rich getting richer’ mentality. You actually care about people and their welfare and their success.”

  Joshua rose, resting his back against her headboard, the sheet he’d pulled over them pooling around his lean waist. “I don’t do it for accolades or recognition, Sophie. None of that is important to me.”

  “Isn’t it?” she whispered. His hazel gaze sharpened, narrowing on her. Though her heart lodged in the base of her throat, she pushed on. “You might not do it for public consumption, but I suspect personal acknowledgment drives you even more.”

  A frown creased his forehead, and anger, as well as another unidentifiable emotion, flashed in his eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped.

  She should let it go. He obviously didn’t appreciate her playing armchair therapist. Especially not from the woman he was just fucking. But she couldn’t. Joshua might not want her outside this bedroom, but God, he deserved so much more than this half life he lived. He was too good a man, had sacrificed so much for family and those who had been devastated by the Black Crescent scandal. And if no one else cared enough to tell him so, to let him off the hook he’d leaped on himself, then she would.

  “Maybe not. But I know what I’ve seen. And as I told you before, I know you.” Lowering her legs, she curled them under her hips and fully faced him. “Every time you set up a new program assisting those less fortunate than you... Every time you donate to a worthy cause... Every time you make another payment in reparation to the families bankrupted by your father’s actions, you attempt to erase a black mark you believe mars your name. A black mark that you didn’t put there and isn’t yours anyway.”

  “Sophie, stop,” he growled, throwing the sheet back and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

  But she shot her hand out, grabbing his wrist. He could’ve easily shaken her grip free, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her, and she had no problem taking shameless advantage of that display of thoughtfulness.

  She rose to her knees and crossed the small space of the bed until she knelt at his side. Tentatively, she reached for him, her hand hovering above his shoulder. Not willing to back down now, she gently touched him. He didn’t jerk away, but he remained stiff, unyielding. A slash of pain lacerated her heart, but she refused to back down.

  Not when his happiness could be the casualty.

  “You’ve lived
in your father’s toxic shadow all these years. When do you come out of it?” she asked softly. “When do you get the chance to live in the sun in your own light?”

  “That sounds like a pretty fairy tale, but there is no coming out of it for me. Not as long as my last name is Lowell.”

  “But what if there is? You have nothing left to prove—you’ve rebuilt what Vernon almost destroyed. You’ve repaired your family’s reputation with your hard work, dedication and loyalty. You’ve reimbursed the families your father stole from. What more can you give? Your life...your soul?”

  He scoffed, but she didn’t let him accuse her of being dramatic, which she was certain had been his next comment. Before he could reply, she slid off the bed and scooped up her discarded shirt from the floor with a “Be right back. Don’t move.”

  By the time she returned moments later with a black binder in her arms, she half expected him to be already dressed and ready to leave her apartment. He had pulled his pants on, but they remained unbuttoned, and he sat in the same place she’d left him.

  Relief flooded her, even as fear trickled underneath. Would she be revealing too much when she handed him the binder? Would he see what she so desperately tried to keep hidden?

  Inhaling a breath, she crossed the few feet separating them and perched on the mattress next to him. “Here,” she whispered, handing him the thick folder.

  He glanced at her, his gaze steady and unwavering on her face. Searching. Though everything in her demanded she protect herself from that too-knowing, too-perceptive stare, she met it.