by Erika Wilde
She made an impatient sound, her hands grabbing at his hips, yanking him forward. “Don’t be so slow and gentle,” she said, trying to make him go faster. “I want . . . I need . . .”
Already knowing what this woman preferred, he thrust into her full force before she could ask, stealing the rest of her words before she could voice them. His body met hers in rapid succession, again and again. Each time he filled her, he gyrated against her sex, then withdrew all the way to the tip before he slammed harder, deeper, giving her everything he had.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “Yes.”
Her eyes went dark, her jaw slackening as she started panting for breath, while he lost all sense of time and place as he pounded into her, needing the unrelenting pace as much as she did. Her legs came up to lock higher around his waist, her body shuddering from the impact of each brutal, dominant stroke. He dropped his head against the side of her neck, and feeling a possessive, animalistic urge to mark her as his, he sank his teeth into her flesh and bit her—and savored the tight throb of her inner muscles squeezing him as she started to come around his cock with a soft, keening cry of pleasure.
He lifted his head just so he could watch her expression in the throes of passion—and it was so fucking hot and sexy the way she completely let go, holding nothing back as she enjoyed every ounce of the pure bliss coursing through her veins.
She was stunningly beautiful, and with another deep stroke, his own orgasm hit him like a Mack truck, driving the air from his lungs. With a guttural sound rising up from his throat, he mindlessly ground himself into her, against her. His release became a long, endless surge of ecstasy as he lost himself to everything but the mind-blowing feel of being inside her.
It took him a while to recover, for his thundering heart to calm. He took a deep breath, trying to regain some semblance of control as he met Tempest’s sated gaze and her satisfied Cheshire cat smile.
“Wow, Remy,” she murmured huskily. “That was worth waiting for.”
He couldn’t have agreed more. He was still inside her, and he glanced down at all the clothes they still had on. In their haste, they’d only removed enough to join their bodies. “Jesus, we’re still dressed.”
She laughed. “Next time, we’ll get completely naked,” she promised him. “And the comfort of a soft bed would be nice, too.”
The fact that there would be a next time made him way too happy, he realized as he finally separated their bodies so they could both get cleaned up. God, he could get used to this. Not just the sex but her. She was intoxicating. Addicting. Funny and sassy and sexy. And while they’d made a pact to enjoy this affair while it lasted, Remy honestly wondered if he’d ever get enough of Tempest Wilder.
“So, where do we go from here?” he asked, trying to navigate this new relationship between them that wasn’t a relationship.
“How about dinner?” she suggested, not missing a beat, her voice tinged with humor. “You made me work up an appetite and I’m starved.”
He chuckled, grateful that she’d taken the playful route instead of a more serious one. “Dinner it is. The least I can do is feed you.”
Chapter 8
Remy took Tempest a block down the street to O’Brien’s, a pub that he frequented—a lot of times by himself, since it was within walking distance of his place, and occasionally with his project managers after a late evening meeting at the office. As soon as they entered the joint, it occurred to him that he should have chosen somewhere more . . . tasteful.
O’Brien’s was an old, run-down establishment that had been around this neighborhood forever and had been passed down through three generations. To everyone in the area, it was known as a blue-collar workman’s pub where laborers came in after a hard physical day at work to pound down a few beers, eat one of O’Brien’s famous Fat Burgers, and to blow off steam with their buddies.
There wasn’t a slick businessman or neatly pressed suit in sight. The place was dimly lit, loud, and rowdy, and most of the conversations that could be heard were crude and punctuated with colorful language that a lady did not need to hear or be around. The smell of ale hung in the air, nothing had been updated in a few decades except for the necessities, and the customers were encouraged to toss their empty peanut shells onto the concrete floor as part of the rustic décor.
Remy glanced at Tempest, who was taking in the atmosphere with curious eyes, and cleared his throat to get her attention. “You know what, there’s a nice, quiet Italian restaurant a few blocks down the street. Why don’t we go there instead?”
“Why?” She met his gaze and arched a delicate brow, accentuating that daring light in her eyes. “Are you embarrassed to be seen here with me?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Oh, she didn’t miss a trick, this one. Remy wasn’t embarrassed as much as he was concerned, considering the rough-around-the-edges clientele. She had to have noticed that she was one of the few women in the place, and hands down the best dressed one at that.
“No, I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you,” he said, squashing that notion, even if he knew she’d been goading him. “I just realized, belatedly, that this probably isn’t your kind of place.”
“Stop trying to judge me, Remy,” she said, calling him out. “I know this may shock you, but I’m a girl who loves a good beer and a burger.”
“Okay, then,” he said, and turned toward the young hostess who’d been waiting for them to make a decision. “There’s just the two of us. Do you have a booth available?”
The girl nodded as she collected their menus. “Sure do. Right this way.”
Remy’s request for a booth was twofold. He wanted privacy, and he definitely wanted to be as far away as possible from all the rowdy, on-their-way-to-getting-drunk guys sitting at the tables in the middle of the pub. But in order to get to their seats, Remy and Tempest had to walk past the roughnecks, and they weren’t shy about staring and ogling Tempest, who, in her classy but tight black skirt and those designer heels that gave her legs for days, was an anomaly in this joint. He wanted to punch a few of them in the face for even laying eyes on her, but instead kept his cool and placed a protective hand on her back to make it clear she was his, while shooting any man he caught leering at his girl a fuck-off death glare.
By the time they slid opposite of one another into the Naugahyde seats that were patched in numerous places with duct tape to hold together rips and tears, Remy’s annoyance was clearly obvious because, from across the scarred wooden table, Tempest grinned at him.
“Wow, that scowl on your face is something else,” she said, amusement threading through the feigned awe in her voice. “I think it’s cute, but don’t worry, to anyone else, it’s as intimidating as hell.”
Her teasing comment alleviated the tension in his body and made him relax and inwardly smile. “I’ll give you cute,” he refuted on a low, playful growl that stayed between them. “By laying you across my knee and putting my handprint on your ass so you won’t forget that you’re mine.” He hadn’t meant to sound like such a possessive caveman, but clearly Tempest brought out that side of him.
And she liked it, too, judging by the telling flush that swept across her cheeks as she leaned across the table toward him. “I hope that’s a promise, Mr. Lowell, because I think I’d really enjoy getting a spanking from you.”
His palm tingled at the erotic images already filling his head—with Tempest bent over his lap and his hand marking her soft flesh as she cried out in pleasure—and his dick wasn’t far behind. Jesus, he’d fucked her less than an hour ago. He should have been sexually content, but Tempest and her suggestive, unabashed comments had him on the verge of dragging her out of this place to have his way with her again.
Stifling a groan, he shifted restlessly on his side of the booth, while Tempest set aside her menu without even looking at what the place offered, then clasped her hands in front of her on the table.
“You already know what you’re having?” he asked her curiously.
She was completely serious. Not even knowing what he liked or what he’d pick—hell, he could have opted for liver and onions for all she knew. She was bold and adventurous and game for anything. It was one of the many things he enjoyed about her.
This time, he didn’t question her choice or even follow that up with an are you sure? When their waitress arrived at their table with a fresh bowl of peanuts and asked if they were ready to order, he told the girl what they wanted.
“We’ll each take one of your Fat Burgers and whatever Guinness you have on tap.”
“Sounds good,” she said, then collected their menus and left their table.
“I can’t wait to see what a Fat Burger is,” Tempest said, actually sounding excited about the pub’s specialty as she cracked open a peanut shell, ate the nut inside, then didn’t hesitate to toss the hulls onto the concrete floor like everyone else in the joint as she glanced around the pub. “I like this place. It has character.”
“Almost too much character,” he said with a laugh, though he couldn’t deny being surprised at how at ease Tempest was in this environment, considering her family’s wealth and how she lived.
Which made him think of her brother, Maddux, and the shocking news that he’d been shot shortly after the fairy-tale ball. Not fatally, thank God, and while Remy had reached out to Maddux a few days after it happened to express his concern and to make sure his friend was okay, he didn’t know any details. At the time on the phone, Maddux had told him that they’d have to grab a drink because it was a long story, but their schedules hadn’t aligned. And Remy had heard that Maddux was now living with a woman, and that was obviously occupying the other man’s time, too.
He waited until their waitress delivered their glasses of beer before cracking open a peanut and broaching the subject with Tempest. “So, how is Maddux doing after being shot? I spoke to him briefly just after it occurred but not since.”
“He’s doing well.” She took a drink of her beer and used her tongue to lick the bit of foam off her upper lip. “It gave us all a good scare at the time, but he’s already back to work. A bullet is not going to keep my brother down.” She grinned.
He smiled back. “Do you mind me asking what happened to cause him to get shot?”
“It’s a crazy story, actually.” She fiddled with a peanut shell before flicking it onto the floor, her demeanor changing. “And a complicated one. I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about from the beginning?” he teased.
She hesitated a few beats before replying. “Okay. The beginning of the story takes us back fourteen years to when my parents were murdered by a ruthless man and his sidekick who worked for the Mafia.”
Stunned disbelief rippled through Remy as he stared at Tempest and the serious look on her face, along with the pained glimmer in her eyes. He’d had no idea that her parents were dead, or rather, murdered. It wasn’t something that had ever come up in conversation with Maddux, and why would it? Remy had always just assumed her parents lived somewhere else, retired and living the good life in a warm climate.
“Jesus, Tempest. I’m so sorry.” The words felt inadequate for what she and her brothers had lost.
“I know all you see is the massive security tech empire Maddux has built and all the wealth that goes with it, but we didn’t grow up that way. Not even close,” she said softly. “My parents owned a small restaurant and ran it themselves, but money was always tight and we lived modestly. It didn’t help that a man by the name of Theodore Cole and his goon, Gavin, kept extorting payments from them. My mom and dad were scared enough of what might happen to them or us if they didn’t comply that they managed to scrape together the payments he demanded . . . until they had no extra money left to give without losing our house and their restaurant, which was their livelihood.”
Another wave of shock poured through him, but he remained quiet as she took another drink of her beer, then dropped her hands to her lap, rubbing her palms along her thighs anxiously—and the confident Tempest he knew was not an anxious, fidgety woman, so he knew whatever was coming next was difficult for her to tell.
She exhaled a deep breath and met his gaze from across the table. “At that point, Theodore threatened my parents and told them that if they didn’t come up with the money, they weren’t going to like the consequences, but they just didn’t have the cash. Shortly after that, a grease fire was deliberately set in the restaurant kitchen. My mother was in the office doing paperwork and got trapped by the spreading fire and died. My father, who tried to rescue her, ended up having a cardiac arrest and dying that same day. Maddux was there the night it happened but couldn’t do a damn thing to save either one of them.”
Her pain was palpable, and seeing her so vulnerable softened something in the vicinity of Remy’s heart that had been stone-cold since his nasty divorce. “How old were you when it happened?”
“Twelve,” she said softly, absently rubbing away the condensation on her glass of beer with her fingers.
Without thinking, only knowing he wanted to offer her some kind of comfort, he reached across the table, slipped his hand into hers, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “That had to have been really tough to deal with.”
“Oh, it was definitely terrifying and heartbreaking. For all three of us.” She gave him a faint smile. “Thankfully Maddux was eighteen when it happened, so we didn’t all get split up into foster care.”
Remy knew what a blessing that was. Having been passed through the system as a teenager, he was all too aware of how cruel and harsh that environment could be in the hands of the wrong foster parents.
“Both Maddux and Hunter took on so many responsibilities after we lost our parents,” she went on, giving him more insight to her past than he’d ever expected. “They had to find a way to provide for the three of us and take care of me since I was the youngest, and it wasn’t easy since we didn’t have much. I never wanted to be a hindrance, so I did everything I could to be independent and self-reliant and not to get into any kind of trouble.”
“You were just a child,” he said, seeing a whole different side to Tempest and how and why her strong, determined personality had developed at a very early age—most of which had been survival instinct. “Not even a teenager.”
She shrugged, but the casual gesture did nothing to erase the vulnerable emotions he’d glimpsed in her gaze. “I just didn’t want my brothers to have to worry about me when they had so many other important things diverting their attention, you know? I didn’t want to have to depend on them, or anyone, actually, and I always want to make them proud of my life and accomplishments.”
He smiled at her, impressed with the woman she’d become, despite the odds she and her brothers had been given. “I’m sure they’re incredibly proud of you.”
She suddenly shook her head, and ducking her chin in embarrassment, she pulled her hand from his. “This was not the conversation we were supposed to have,” she said, her voice a bit flustered. “This was about Maddux and how he got shot and not me and my childhood woes.”
She conveniently shifted the conversation back to Maddux, and for the next few minutes, Remy listened as she told him about her brother’s fourteen-year quest for revenge against the men responsible for her parents’ murders, which had coalesced the night of the fairy-tale ball. Except, things had not gone as planned, and Maddux had taken Theodore’s daughter, Arabella Cole, as collateral of sorts. When Gavin, the man who’d wanted Arabella for himself, kidnapped her with the intention of holding her hostage to lure Maddux to his death, Maddux ended up taking a bullet to save her life.
He shook his head as he tried to process it all. “So, you’re saying that your brother fell in love with your enemy’s daughter?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes.” A light, cheerful note finally returned to Tempest’s voice, chasing away the more agonizing emotions talking about her pare
nts’ deaths had dredged up. “Arabella is incredibly sweet and kind and compassionate, and exactly what Maddux needed in his life, even if he didn’t realize it at the time.”
Tempest was right. It was a crazy story, but he was glad she’d trusted him enough to share something so personal with him. It dawned on Remy that the loss of a parent was something they’d both experienced and understood. And even though hers had been ruthlessly taken from her and her brothers in one fell swoop, and Remy’s mother had opted to walk away from him for what she perceived as a better life, both ways were devastating in their own way. Yet despite all that, Tempest had found a way to be so positive, playful, and upbeat—instead of letting resentment and bitterness define her life or her future.
It was an eye-opening revelation.
As their waitress arrived with their meals and set a heaping plate of food in front of each of them, Remy was forced to admit that he’d harbored a lot of preconceived notions about Tempest Wilder, not to mention all the assumptions he’d made about her and her life, most of which had been wrong and she’d debunked. She’d lived far from a charmed life, and with each new thing Remy learned about her, his respect for Tempest grew. Beneath the sophisticated outer trappings, she was just a kindhearted, generous, beautiful woman who seemed to want to live her life to the fullest . . . and make her brothers proud.
“Holy shit,” Tempest said, her eyes wide as saucers as she took in the pub’s Fat Burger—a full one-pound meat patty piled high with layers of cheese, strips of bacon, crispy onion straws, lettuce, tomato, and topped off with O’Brien’s secret sauce, all of which was nestled between two huge buns. Next to that was an insane amount of French fries.
She glanced at him, her expression incredulous. “Why didn’t you tell me this burger was the size of my head?”
