by Lynn, Stacey
I had no choice. My body operated on his command alone. I came again, another one or one long ridiculously long one, I didn’t know. My body had never felt so alive before, on fire and ice cold all at once.
Then he was there, slamming in one last time, yanking me back by the hips, settling himself all the way in me. His fingertips dug into my soft flesh, aching from where he’d already spanked me and he grunted out his own release. “Fuck. Yes. Hot damn you’re incredible, little one.” He moved slowly, milking out his own climax, dirty talking. “So damn good. Wanna stay right here, so damn deep inside. Fuck.”
I shivered beneath him, breathless. My legs hurt from being spread wide enough to take him and the knuckles on my hand hurt from my tight grip on the bedsheets.
We stayed there for a moment until he’d calmed.
He pulled out slowly, one of his large hands at the small of my back. “Let me take care of this and I’ll take care of you. Stay here.”
He was still so bossy, but sweet. The dichotomy of this huge man who had the strength to snap me in two but care to be gentle with me threatened to unravel me.
It’s sex, Elizabeth. Just sex. Just a way to move on. Do not get attached.
I repeated the mantra. It wasn’t the first time I had to tell myself this. More like the hundredth. In fact, I’d done it all weekend whenever my thoughts drifted to our last encounter.
After tonight, I needed to get a rubber band and snap my wrist whenever I got the ridiculous idea this could possibly lead to something more.
This was sex. Hell, I hadn’t even seen him.
But I heard him clearly.
He’d be back for more.
Which mean when he returned, and a warm rag was pressed to my center, I was smiling.
“What’s so funny?”
He didn’t seem angry. “Nothing’s funny. That was really nice.”
“Good. I’m glad it was really nice for you.”
So the brute could tease.
“Yeah,” I sighed as he cleaned me, wiggled as he brushed against my clit, and then he moved to the plug.
I tensed at the feel of his hands on the base, but his other hand went to my back, rubbed large calming circles all over me. “I’ll go slow. Relax.”
I tried. I tried to relax. It should have been easy, but as he tugged it out, everything else tightened, including my sex that should have been well-satisfied. I made a sound of displeasure as it slipped from me and he was rolling me to my back.
“Still want more?” he asked.
“Yes.” My hands went to my face and his warm hand gripped my wrist, tugging it to my stomach.
“No.”
“Please. I want to see you.”
I had to know. Know who this man was who could do all these beautifully wicked things to me and still leave me wanting more.
“No. Not yet.”
Not yet. That meant it would happen. Someday.
I just had to be patient.
“Okay.”
He seemed to hesitate a bit, but then he moved. The bed shifted from his weight and his mouth was there, taking what he wanted, hands at my thighs, stretching me wide open for him. He ate me until I was crying out for him, for more, and I came, screaming the name John, knowing it was fake, wishing I could call him by his real name. And as soon as I was done and mindless, without the care he had shown earlier, he stood.
Something soft and cool landed on my stomach. My dress. I covered my body with it, hugging it tight against me.
“You can get dressed after I leave,” he said. “See you soon.”
His voice had gone so cold, I shivered from it.
He dressed quickly and the door clicked behind him before my muscles were in working order.
I struggled to sit and ripped off the blindfold. The soft light from the lamp in the corner did nothing to diminish the sting in my eyes.
It wasn’t from the light. It was from him. The man who had just completely undone me and walked away like I was nothing when he’d shown such care.
Which meant as I dressed, I wiped tears, stupid frustrating and pointless tears from my eyes.
It’s just sex, Elizabeth. Don’t screw up again.
The problem was, I didn’t know how I’d screwed up this time.
* * *
I slid into my chair at my desk and finally removed my sunglasses. Who cared that’d I’d been inside for ten minutes already. My eyes were puffy and red, from lack of sleep. I tossed and turned all night, unable to stop thinking about the weekend and the last several days. More than once I’d punch my pillow, envisioning it as Connor’s face.
He’d called me a handful of times, which meant bad things. When Connor scooped a story, he was relentless. When he wanted something, he fought his heart out until it became his.
But why after six months was he fighting for me?
“Ugh,” I groaned, and logged into my computer. I was only in the station for a few hours before lucky me, I had to spend more time following Gage around.
It would be so much easier to do this story if the guy was a jerk.
“Jeez. Rough weekend? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound like that.”
I glanced at Will over the top of our computer monitors. “Like what?”
“A wounded animal.” He cringed. “And no offense, you sort of look like shit. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, but thanks for the pep talk.” My tone was listless. Defeated. It took six months to get over Connor and find the strength to re-start a huge portion of my life and in a weekend, I was just as miserable as I’d been the night he ended things with me.
Awesome. Freaking Connor.
“Hey. What is it? Connor again?”
News reporters were a bunch of gossips. It was part of our job. Part of life. It hadn’t taken long at all for word of our relationship to hit the news stations when it started and our break-up news traveled twice as fast.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I know he’s covering the hospital thing so I assume you had to see him this weekend. And there’s only one other time I’ve seen you so miserable.”
His brows arched above his glasses. Yeah yeah. Six months ago. I’d cried for weeks. Carried around a tube of hemorrhoid cream to reduce the constant puffiness around my eyes. Then I’d slept with cucumbers covering my eyes and drank more gallons of water than healthy.
He’d left me a wreck and if I was looking even mildly as bad as all of that, I was in serious trouble.
“It’s not Connor.” I didn’t even want to say his name much less admit to him being part of the reason I had very few hours of sleep.
The other cause was a man behind a black mask, whispering dirty words into my ear while he screwed me senseless. Except in my dreams, that voice sounded a lot like Gage Bryant and when I’d ripped off the mask in my dream, it’d been Gage’s face inches from mine.
So yeah, working today and following him around wasn’t going to help a darn thing.
Maybe I needed to call off seeing John until this story was done. Another complication in my life certainly wouldn’t improve anything.
“If you need to talk…”
I burst out laughing at the painful sound in Will’s voice. He was a good guy, but a guy all the same. “No thanks,” I assured him and smiled when relief softened his features. “If I need to bitch, I’ll grab Amanda.”
Or one of my sister-in-law’s. They were always down for a good male-bashing session and I never minded they were bashing my brothers. Two of them were married and they’d given me so much grief when I was growing up, it was nice to know they still gave the women in their lives headaches from time to time.
“Okay. Well, if you need someone to kick his ass—”
“I’ll call Blake or Jax,” I assured him.
Will was a good guy but a little too sweet to kick anyone’s ass. Although the offer was appreciated.
Jax would be first on my list. He was former military, operations un
known to all of us and he now ran his own security firm. He was the guy you didn’t want to mess with. Hell, he was my brother and he still terrified the shit out of me. He was also the only one of my brothers who wasn’t married.
Blake was an electrician. Blue collar through and through who loved his wife something fierce. They’d been high school sweethearts. He walked up to her one day when he was seventeen years old, right in the middle of the lunchroom, stared directly into Haley’s green eyes and declared, “Someday, you and I are gettin’ married.”
He made it happen two years after they graduated high school. I was twelve when they started dating and could barely remember an important moment in my life without Haley in it. But Blake was big, a linebacker in high school with no desire to go to the next level. He was the brother who threatened all my high school boyfriends with bodily harm if they so much as laid a finger on me in an unappropriate way. If I went to him and so much as mentioned Connor’s name, Connor would be in the hospital with several broken bones, minimum, and Blake would be locked behind bars.
Which was exactly why I wasn’t telling any of them anything.
“Enough about me and my drama.” I waved my hand in the air as if clearing the air could clear my mind, my distraction. “What’d you do this weekend?”
He ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair and made a face. “Ugh. Heather’s family came into town.” I’d heard stories about his in-laws. The dad wasn’t so bad, but the mom? She was vicious, constantly throwing out digs and jabs at how their house wasn’t clean enough, Heather’s hair wasn’t done right. She was overly critical and lacked acceptance. Whenever Will spoke about his in-laws, I was baffled.
How a mom could be so intentionally rude to her grown children was beyond me and anything I experienced in my own life.
“You want to talk about it?” I asked.
The look he shot me was all man.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“It’s a no.”
“Okay then. How’s the summer travel series going?”
He was visiting beaches on the North Carolina coast and traveling down through South Carolina over the course of two weeks. It meant a lot of day and overnight trips for him, and if I hadn’t been giving this hospital story, I would have been pissed Shane took the travel stories from me.
“Splendid. I was in Wrightsville Beach last weekend…” He kept talking and we spent a few minutes chatting about his trip to Wilmington before his phone rang.
He answered it and I checked my emails, and when it was time, I went in search of Jason so we could head to the hospital.
Thirteen
Elizabeth
I was near the back of the small group following Gage down the hall. On the way to the hospital in the news van with Jason driving, I’d asked him a huge favor.
Let me hang out with him and the videographers instead of being up front. He peered at me strangely and shrugged. “Whatever. Yeah.”
We planned on cutting and editing the story in the van afterward. I’d do voice-overs and I’d record my intro and closing after the tour as well. The segment was set to show as a teaser late afternoon and show in its entirety for the evening news.
I didn’t exactly need to be front and center.
Small blessings would have been appreciated. Like maybe Connor ate some bad sushi and was at home suffering from food poisoning.
Unfortunately, the universe decided not to work in my favor.
There were far few reporters today, just four of us from the local stations and one from a national syndicate morning show. Apparently Gage Bryant made quite the splash on the morning shows where two women cackled and giggled while they drank wine at eight in the morning and dished about all the fun pieces of celebrity gossip.
I stayed sandwiched between Jason and another guy with a video camera hitched on his shoulder. There were far few places to hide today and if Connor dared speak to me at all I couldn’t guarantee my fist wouldn’t end up in his face.
Gage showed up in slightly distressed blue jeans, and a Rough Riders T-shirt, logo-stamped and placed perfectly on the curve of one of his pecs. He was menacing and so heart-stoppingly beautiful, last night’s dream flashed in my eyes and made my skin flush down to my toes.
Connor arrived and gave me a smug look, swiping his gaze down the length of my body. I used to adore that possessive gleam in his eyes, but right then I was choking down the taste of vomit.
Maybe I needed to try to the rotten sushi route. Or tell my boss I didn’t care much for the promotion at this time.
Anything to get me away from men who were driving me absolutely insane with too many conflicting emotions.
I had my long blonde hair styled back into a low ponytail, and a baby blue dress on that not only fit my frame to perfection but hugged every inch while covering everything to keep me professional. The heels of mine and other female reporters clicked like old-fashioned typewriter keys as we moved down the linoleum-floored hallway to the family center.
We’d come up the elevators, the same location where I followed Gage the week before, and as we passed the mouth of the hallway where I assumed Brandon still was, my gaze drifted down.
Maybe I’d stop by afterward to see him. Over the last week, being around Brandon was the only time I’d felt the least bit calm and centered. Shame that it took being around a sick nine-year-old to give perspective on what was important in life.
I repeatedly tapped my iPad to my forehead. Forget about the weekend. Focus on the story. Don’t think about Velvet for a another single second.
Repeating it didn’t help. Neither did the slight sting on my forehead from the iPad smacking it.
A hand pressed to my arm on my next whack and I jumped.
“What?”
Jason’s brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. He looked at me like I was a freak.
Awesome. I was doing a bang-up job being professional.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, taking the tablet out of my hands. “And don’t break the company’s shit. That’s not cool.”
I snatched it back from him. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m distracted.”
“Well, get focused ‘cuz we’re here.”
“Wonderful.”
He wasn’t wrong. As we hit the mouth of the hallway, bright teal and blue double “R’s” linked together lit up beneath a row of lights.
Above the team’s logo, “Bryant Children and Family Center” was painted in bright teal.
Jesus. The guy had his name on a wing of a hospital. What did he think of it?
My eyes slid to Gage. He was off to the side, answering questions from the national syndicate reporter. But his arms were crossed and his gaze was laser-focused on the window across from him, like he was headed to the line of scrimmage and the game was tied in the fourth quarter. His answers were quiet, brief enough not to be rude, short enough it was clear he didn’t want to elaborate. Eventually the reporter gave up and waved her hand toward the cameraman with her.
“Where do you want to start?” Jason asked me. The camera was already on his shoulder and his face was hidden from me behind the behemoth old school looking thing.
“Let’s wander,” I mumbled. I flicked across the agenda on my iPad even though I’d had it memorized since last night.
Tour the wing. Ask questions. Get one-on-one time with Gage and leave when we were done.
It was laid back and relaxed, the perfect kind of interview and set up, but that didn’t mean I was either of those things.
Nope. I practically felt Gage tracking me with every move we made. I gave Connor a wide berth. When he moved right, I waved Jason left. Amusement danced in Connor’s eyes when he caught me avoiding him. If he thought this was a game, he was completely wrong. I didn’t trust myself not to slap him and end up being the one on the six o’clock news. I could already see the headlines.
Reporter assaults ex while on assignment helping promote cancer wing of children’s hospital.
I zigzagged my way through the expansive area. The footage would be a bitch to edit. More than once Jason grumbled something that didn’t sound polite. Already mic’ed up, I turned it on and stopped every once in awhile to give a brief, off-the-cuff statement about the hospital, where we were, a reminder when it was opening and more than one rundown on Gage’s responsibilities with the project. Usually, I found passion in my work.
Not then. Every word left my throat like someone was yanking them out on a poorly connected string. And every time either Gage or Connor moved, I shied away.
Avoidance was my best policy even if I ended up looking like a fool.
We wandered to the basketball court area. Four indoor hoops about eight feet in height. They had side nets and return lanes like you’d find in an arcade and scoreboards that lit up and included a countdown.
I picked up one of the basketballs and was rolling it in my hands when Gage saddled up next to me.
His presence was unmistakable. Hair spiked at the back of my neck and traveled down my spine.
Gage grabbed another basketball and without pause or thought, launched it into the air. It swished through the net next to the one where I was lined up and rolled back to him. He spread his fingers, long and strong on an equally large palm and gripped it with ease.
“Have any questions for me? You’re the only one not fighting for time today.”
Are you the man from Velvet?
The question, the mere thought, made me choke so hard I covered my mouth with my hand, dropping the ball to my feet.
What was wrong with me?
He bent down and grabbed the basketball bouncing at our feet. One large hand gripped it and my breath stalled. He was crouched down, glossy black hair at the top of his head, his shoulders wide, knees spread. Time slowed as he held the ball in one hand, head tilted back. His lips pursed, eyes narrowed in a quizzical way.
He stood, every movement of it was defined as if someone had pressed the slow-motion button on the remote that was my life. When he reached his full height, he had to be closer to me.
