So I dressed uneasily and followed him. I knew people had seen us and knew how many security cameras there had to be. It both thrilled and disturbed me that he wasn’t trying to keep us secret any longer. In his car, he told me that we would be there in five minutes. Then he told me to touch myself. Shocked, I met his eyes. In an instant, his wicked eyes gleamed. He took my hand, kissed it. Then he turned it over and licked my fingertips, sucking them into his mouth one at a time. Even that was incredibly sexy. Then he took my fingers, damp from his heated mouth, and pushed them down between my legs. He rubbed my wet fingers back and forth, guiding my hand with his as he used my wet fingers to stroke me. Mesmerized, I bit my lip to keep back a moan. When I could stand it no longer, the torment of his using my own hand on me, the tension in my body, the fear of the driver hearing us—I pushed his hand away and pulled him to me. We kissed, in a way too softly and sweetly—it was exquisite agony to have only the gentlest strokes of his tongue when I was trembling with need when I wanted more.
At the building, he unlocked a private elevator to the penthouse. As we rose to the top floor, he cupped my breasts through my tight little dress and fondled them, turning me on even more. My body responded to his touch, to every tug, every roll of his thumb across my pebbled nipple. The doors opened too soon, spilling us out, a tangled mess of limbs and mouths, straining to get closer. He pulled me into a bedroom, switched on a dim lamp. A broad platform bed, black silk sheets awaited us. My knees went weak at the sight. I looked at him. He kissed me, just locking our lips, letting them cling. I was his. If I hadn’t been before, that kiss made me his as surely as a lock and key, as surely as a ring could have done. A ring I’d never have from him. I stuffed that voice down, the one that objected, and I let myself have this night, this man and those slick black sheets.
Brent stood while I removed his clothes, the suit jacket, the tie, the shirt. When I opened his trousers, I felt the thickness of his erection spring forth. I gripped it with my hand for a moment before stripping off the rest of his clothing. I wanted him naked. Wanted him vulnerable before me, as I stood in my red dress and stilettos, taking in the muscular, gorgeous body of the man before me. I would remember what he looked like all my life, the stacked muscles of his stomach, the valley of smooth skin at his hips, the strong thighs I wanted to ride. I licked my lips on purpose, to watch how it affected him, how his cock twitched in response. I sidled closer, kissed his cheek and whispered.
“Did you miss me?” I said.
“I missed you, Cat. Every minute on that boat—I left early and went to London, but I wanted to show you everything there. You’d love London. I couldn’t enjoy it. I wanted to tuck you under my arm, hold you to my side as we walked, kiss you right in the middle of the street—” the words came streaming out of him like a confession.
“That could be dangerous in all that traffic,” I teased, kissing just beside the corner of his mouth.
“Never. I would never let anything hurt you. You have to know that. Not even myself and my position. That’s why this has to be—” he broke off.
Brent kissed me then as if he could no longer contain his arousal. His iron control was slipping, and it thrilled me. I felt his hardness against my belly through my dress.
“I missed you,” I said, “I even broke in my new copy of Forbes. I touched myself while I thought of you, Brent.” The confession felt sweet, and his groan and his deep, almost punishing kiss felt even sweeter.
My back was on the silk sheets, and the weight of him was on top of me. He worked the top of my dress down to capture my nipples in his mouth one by one and wind me up with licking and sucking them. I stretched my arms out above my head decadently, letting him spoil me, but I locked my legs around him, making sure he knew I wasn’t letting him stop. I palmed his head as he laved my nipple with his tongue, my other hand scratching his bare shoulder lightly, loving the light scrape of my nails on his skin and the way he reacted to it. He moved his mouth to my neck, sending shocks of pleasure down my body as he sucked the sensitive spot on my throat.
“Can’t. Wait—” he ground out between gritted teeth.
With one big hand, he shoved my dress up and hitched my knee up higher to open me to him. He was in me then, hard and fast, pumping relentlessly, his big cock filling me till I was breathless and holding on, sucking his neck as he pressed me down into the bed and fucked me. He groaned, “Yesssss” once and bucked his hips as he emptied into me. The liquid rush of his orgasm made me clench, my inner muscles fluttering at the hot shock of it. A sharp, quick orgasm made me clamp down hard on his cock as I came around him, bucking under him. His mouth found mine. It had been quick and dirty, exactly the way I knew it would be when we reunited after he was gone. The coupling in the board room had only taken the edge off until we could get to a bed. Then we were together in the sheets, twisted up and kissing until we had to break apart breathless. Then he would pull me in again and kiss me some more as if he’d never get enough. My dress came off at some point during the night, my lips were swollen and bruised from his hard kisses, his shoulders scored by my nails deep in the night when he woke me with his mouth between my thighs. It was a dark blur of sex and sweat and pounding hearts.
In the early morning, when we were at last calm and sated, still holding hands palm to palm, laying side by side in those black sheets, I turned my face toward him.
“I love you, Brent,” I said. It made me feel strong to say it like I had spoken the truth out loud instead of being afraid of it. I didn’t wait expectantly with some innocent smile on my face. I knew he wouldn’t say it back. His heart was so locked away, so compartmentalized that he might not even know love if he felt it. It had still mattered to me that I say it aloud and that I made sure to I own up to what I felt, to show him that it wasn’t a weakness.
26
Brent
I should never have brought her here. It was like I was an animal, and I’d lost all self-control. Everything that had felt so good, such relief in being with her and the staggering power of my release, had turned sour in one sentence. It was madness. Not even when I got married and divorced had I been this stupid and rash in my decisions.
She thought she loved me. That was it. The bucket of icy water in my face, the writing on the wall—whatever stupid metaphor would apply to the bed I’d made but wouldn’t lie in.
“I’m so sorry,” I heard myself say. I sound like an asshole, I thought, We’re in bed. She’s naked. You don’t break up with a woman in bed.
“Don’t be,” she said, touching my chest lightly.
I sat up, sprang up is more like it. Away from her touch.
“I shouldn’t have done this. I approached you at the party, I lured you away.”
“You aren’t the big bad wolf. You didn’t lure me off my path,” she teased.
“You were behaving in a far more mature fashion than I did. You didn’t seek me out and drag me to an empty boardroom. You didn’t insist on bringing me home afterward. You left me alone, completely civil and professional. I’m the one who couldn’t stop. I should have done better and I will from now on because you’re not for me, Caitlin.”