Grey grabbed me under the arms and yanked me up, shoving me against the wall and muttering something about being an idiot and going to hell for sure. My head spun, and my dick throbbed. Before I knew it, he’d opened my pants and fisted my cock.
“Oh fuck,” I said on a gasp. “God, please.”
He dropped to his knees and licked my cock, starting with the tip before slathering the shaft with saliva and then sucking the entire thing into his hot, wet mouth.
I let out a long groan of disbelief and pleasure. This was… this was unbelievable. Incredible. Mind-fucking-blowing.
I grabbed his hair but tried not to pull. Nessa used to throw a fit if I dared pull her hair. But, god. This… this was so different. He wasn’t hesitant at all. Grey Blackwood knew exactly what he was doing.
I shoved my free hand into my mouth to keep from screaming. The whole thing was over in seconds. The incredible sensations had built and crested before I knew what was happening. I bit into my fist and choked on a scream, horrified at the possibility of drawing attention from the guys awaiting my report.
This was way, way more than a dare.
And I would never tell a soul about it, no matter how much shit it earned me from Kirby and the other assholes.
I looked in his eyes, desperate to see… something in them. Pleasure? Approval? Satisfaction? But Grey was hard to read. His eyes were intense as hell, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Your turn,” I said, switching places with him and trying to act way braver than I felt. I wasn’t one for one-sided hookups, but I also didn’t want to humiliate myself in front of him by trying something new.
Sure enough, what came next was horribly humiliating. My fumbling at his belt, his endless patience, the sounds I made when I revealed his dick, the way my hands shook when I reached for it.
I glanced up at him as if asking for permission. The look in his eyes was oddly vulnerable, so unexpectedly exposed that I hesitated a beat before he quickly shuttered it.
“Suck me.”
I leaned in and tasted him, squeezing my eyes closed and trying to ignore the entire room spinning around me. His hand was gentle in my hair, caressing my head softly as if with affection. I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d assumed he’d grab me, control me with a strong, maybe even painful, grip.
But he treated me like brittle glass, as if the mishandling of this moment would result in disaster.
And it did.
“What the actual fuck?”
Everything happened so fast. The open door, the barked questions in multiple masculine voices, the bright light of a camera flash, the snickering laughs and singsong taunts, the feel of Grey’s hand as it brushed against my face before quickly tucking his dick back in his pants and zipping up.
The sound of my father’s stern voice promising to ruin Grey Blackwood for corrupting his son. The sound of Kirby Heath’s father revoking Grey’s job offer. The snickering of my supposed friends calling me the king of dares. The surprised squawk of someone promising Grey was no longer an employee of the Crosbie Golf and Country Club.
And the deafening sound of my drunken, confused self saying nothing at all.
1
Grey - 15 years later
“Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected.”
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“Must you always go in there looking like the Doom-Bringer?”
My personal assistant had a lazy drawl despite being one of the hardest workers I’d ever met. I shot him a look. “In this case, I am literally a doom-bringer. Do you expect me to go in there with pompoms and a cheerful chant about the joys of acquisition redundancies?”
We were striding down Ninth Avenue toward the Gallin building for my last and the ultimate takeover in the plan I’d concocted after that night at the Crosbie Country Club fifteen long years ago. York Capital was finally mine. It had taken me ten long years of planning and surreptitiously buying up stock here and there as the market and my own liquid capital allowed.
But it was finally here. The day I got to walk in and tell Warren York where he could shove it.
“Not cheer exactly, but you could at least fake a tear for all the people who will be losing their jobs through no fault of their own.”
I glared at Marcel out of the corner of my eye. “I am nothing if not generous with severance packages.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. It just seems like the only time I see that fire in your eyes anymore is when you’re telling someone you’ve ruined their life.”
A lanky teen with giant headphones almost clipped me on a skateboard. I grunted and stepped to the side, trying not to bark out a complaint about him not watching where he was going. “When did I ever have fire in my eyes for something besides work?”
Marcel skipped to catch up with me. His shorter legs often had to work harder to keep up with my pace, but the younger man had boundless energy, so I didn’t worry too much about it.
“When you helped those kids in Queens find a place to practice their music. When you donated a truck to the family rescue group. When you visited your mom for her—”
I cut him off. “Stop. If this is your way of buttering me up for some other do-good project, it’s unnecessary. I told you to go ahead and fund whatever causes you want. That’s the purpose of the Blackwood Giving Program. Just submit your request to Dara, and she’ll assess it.”
“You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, which is incredibly uncharming.” He grabbed my elbow to stop me from walking into a moving car, but as soon as the car passed, we continued. “You’ve become so focused on building the business, I feel like you’ve forgotten how to have fun.”
“I’ve never been fun,” I corrected.
He fisted his hands and shook them in the air while letting out a sound of frustration. “That’s what I’m trying to say! God, Grey. You’re going to die of a heart attack before you’re forty. What’s the point of all this financial success if you don’t have some fun? Take a break, for god’s sake. You did it. You finally finished the corporate acquisitions you’ve been working on for a decade. Go to the Mediterranean, ride a camel in the desert. Hike the Appalachian Trail. Do something. Something other than studying the market and jumping at every opportunity that comes your way.”
“The point of financial success is to ensure I never have to worry about money ever again,” I informed him. “To make sure my mother doesn’t have to clean up another puddle of vomit or get groped by a patient on pain meds. To make sure everyone who ever doubted me, ever stood in my damned way, knows I succeeded despite the obstacles. To help others. That’s the point.”
“Yes, fine. I know. I get it. But it’s done now.” He grabbed my arm again to stop my forward progress. “Let me book you into that resort I told you about in the Caribbean. Just for a week. You can get massages, drink umbrella cocktails, and maybe find an island man in a tiny bathing suit to keep you company.”
“Remind me again why I keep your bossy self around?” I grumbled.
“Because my charming smile lights up your life. Also, because my very rich, very muscular husband would frown on you firing me.”