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“Drake, yes. Yes, touch me,” Toni gasped.
Drake didn’t pretend or stall when they left his friend’s house. He made it clear what he wanted to do to her and with her once they arrived at the inn. Since Toni agreed whole heartedly with his plan, she’d practically raced him to her room.
Now she lay on her back in the bed while he tormented her with slow, teasing licks and sweeping strokes of his hands all over every inch of her body. When his fingers delved between her legs and rubbed her slick entrance, Toni’s back bowed.
“Stay still, Antonia.” Drake’s chuckle fanned air over her belly as he slid down her body and continued with his wicked nips and kisses.
She smacked a palm flat on the mattress. “Please. I want to feel you. In me.”
Thankfully, he’d tormented her long enough. “If you insist.”
Then he came over her and filled her with one easy plunge. Toni gasped at the fullness but Drake powered on, each thrust slamming her into the mattress beneath them.
“I love being inside of you,” he groaned.
Toni dragged her nails down his back, fingers sinking into his skin as she braced against his thrusts. He pumped faster and she lost the ability for coherent speech. Drake was uncontrollable and Toni did her best to match his wildly soaring passion. It worked. Their mutual desire sent both of them to their climax.
Drake collapsed atop Toni, chest heaving. She barely had enough strength to pat his shoulder and then her arm fell limply to the bed. Drake kissed her nose and rolled to the side.
“I need to go to the bathroom.” Her body was a sticky ball of sweat.
Drake’s grunt provided unnecessary assent. Limbs trembling, Toni climbed from the bed and wobbled to the bathroom. Her phone sat on the counter where she’d left it when she retrieved the lone condom conveniently provided by the staff in a discrete basket. One mistake Toni could ill afford even though she was on birth control. Drake certainly didn’t seem all fired up or concerned about protection.
She washed up and as an afterthought turned the phone on. It had been off since the dinner last evening with Drake. A crooked smile pulled at her lips while she waited for the screen to load up. The cell vibrated an instant later. It buzzed and jumped with an onslaught of incoming messages. Chrissy’s name scrolled down the page and Toni bit back her chuckle. Her friend was probably desperate for details.
Toni leaned on the counter and flicked to read the first message.
‘Call me!’
‘You can’t be serious, Toni. You need to call me right away.’
The messages continued, growing more and more desperate until the last one this morning that read: ‘Call me now!’
Fear snagged the breath in her chest as she hit the icon to call.
“Do you know who that is?” Chrissy screamed, bypassing a greeting.
“What are you talking about? I just got your frantic texts and let me start by saying you have officially freaked me out.” Toni lowered her voice to a hushed whisper and glanced over her shoulder. The door was cracked but she couldn’t see the bed or Drake from this angle.
“I got the picture you sent last night and I’ve been trying to call you.”
The tight clutch in her chest eased. Toni smiled. “Is that all?”
“Is that all? Is that all?” Chrissy voice rose with each question.
“It’s wicked gamer. I told you I was sending a picture of Drake.”
“Drake frickin’ Winston. You did not say your online friend was the head of Winston Enterprises.”
“What!” Toni fell back into the counter. CEO? Her Drake? Thoughts flipped through her head like a slow running movie. It wasn’t a stretch to believe he was a man who ran a multi-million dollar empire. But Winston Enterprises? They had their finger in every segment of entertainment, media and a grocery list of other ventures. Drake wasn’t just rich, he was a millionaire. And far outside her reach.
“Only you, Toni,” Chrissy moaned.
Toni dropped her head. Chrissy didn’t know the half of it. Only her. She’d slept with him. Built pipe dreams about Drake in her head. Mooned over houses and what their kids would look like. Well, not exactly but that had been next on her inner fantasy schedule.
“What am I gonna do?” She didn’t expect a response but Chrissy’s snappy retort jerked her upright.
“Have sex with him of course.”
“I already did.” The whisper came out with a sniff as her throat burned with this new knowledge. Why hadn’t Drake trusted her with his identity? Sure in the beginning she could understand not revealing who he was. But everything had changed in the last couple of days.
Or maybe that made her the bigger fool and things hadn’t changed for him at all. Was this a passing fancy for him? Sleep with the naïve woman and laugh all the way back to his fancy home. Oh, God, were his friends in on it? Carolyn and Kale had seemed so nice.
“I take it that isn’t a good thing.” Chrissy’s voice grew subdued, picking up on Toni’s mood.
Toni scrubbed at her cheeks determined to keep the tears from falling. Her chest squeezed tight and she ended up pressing a balled fist to her stomach. She needed to confront Drake. She choked and stared into the mirror. She was naked and had to go back into the room to confront Drake.
“I have to go and talk to him.”
“Okay, okay. Call me, Toni. Let me know you’re fine after.”
“Alright.” Toni ended the call and set her phone back on the counter, part of her wishing she’d never turned it on to check.
Her steps hesitant, Toni re-entered the bedroom. Drake wasn’t lounging where she’d left him. Wearing only his jeans, revealing the wedge of black boxers from the waistband, he appeared to be checking her door crack. She didn’t even have a desire to contemplate why he kept doing that.
“Drake, we need to talk.”
He tipped his head in her direction then returned to whatever held his attention. “I think so.”
***
“I know who you really are.”
Antonia’s outburst as she stood between the bathroom and bedroom confused Drake. His wards had been tampered with again but this time with more force as if the person had tried to break through completely. If he was the target why were there no attempts on his own room? “What?”
“Were you hoping I wouldn’t find out?” She hurried about the room getting dressed haphazardly in the clothes he’d thrown about.
Squinting at the elements of his magic, there could only be one reason why her room was the target. He didn’t like the ugly conclusion this led to.
“Drake! Are you listening at all?!”
His head jerked up at Antonia’s shout. Drake sighed and rose from checking the wards. “I think its time we really talked.”
“That’s what I said.”
This wasn’t how he wanted to start the conversation. Antonia swiped at her cheeks and stomped toward the bed where she froze and glanced from the neat sheets and quilt then back to him. It suddenly hit him that something was really wrong. She’d been questioning him but he’d missed part of it.
He studied her flushed face and watery eyes. His heart clenched. “Antonia? What’s wrong?”
When Drake crossed the room toward her, she backed up and held her hand up. “You lied to me.”
He wasn’t sure how they’d gone from being in bed together to him lying. “What did I lie about?”
Her lower lip trembled. “I know. I know who you are.”
This time as she said it combined with the look in her eyes, he knew what she meant. His heart sank. “Antonia, let me explain.”
“It’s true, right? You’re Drake Winston. The head of Winston Enterprises.”
Drake braced his hands on his waist and nodded. Denying it was pointless. “I was going to tell you today.”
She let out a bitter laugh and wrapped her arms around herself. “Before I found out on my own I’m sure. Did you laugh at me? Think it was funny that I had no idea who you were?”
Laughing at the only woman to accept him as is wasn’t something he’d ever do. He liked it less that Antonia thought he’d do that to her. “I wouldn’t laugh at you. I enjoyed just being Drake for once.”
Doubt clouded her gaze. “Why should I believe you?”
Ignoring her stay away signals, Drake closed the distance between them and cupped her jaw. He bent his head down to gaze into her eyes. “Because it’s true. I enjoyed your refreshing personality, your complete honesty.”
“But you chose not to give me the same.” Her amethyst eyes darkened. “I thought we were friends.”
Her breath hitched on the last word and it was like a knife to his middle. Drake dropped his hands from her face. Friends. He and Antonia were friends. She meant more to him than half of the people in his life and the truth of that was staring right at him.
“I think what you and I share goes beyond friendship.”
Tears welled in her eyes and it killed him. “Then why didn’t you just tell me? Especially after we...we—”
“Had sex,” he filled in.
She shot him a glare and Drake worked to hold in his smile. Now was not the time to be amused by her innocence.
“I think you need to leave. Give me some space to think.”
All thoughts of humor fell to the way side. “Antonia, listen. I know how this looks but you have to let me explain. There’s something bigger going on.”
He really needed to talk to her about the creature trying to get in her room.
She snorted and propped her arms on her hips. The move pushed her breasts up and the top she wore plumped her cleavage higher. Dressed in every day jeans and a simple shirt, he shouldn’t have found her sexy but he did and Drake’s mind immediately drifted to what they’d done in the bed together moments ago.
“I can’t believe you’re thinking about sex!” Genuine hurt flashed across her features.
Shit. “Antonia...”
“No. Leave, Drake. You’re not the man I thought you were.”
Those words gutted him even more than having her think he didn’t care. No one knew him like Antonia. He’d shared himself with her as much as he could. There were people in his life he didn’t trust anywhere near the way he trusted her. Only Ben and Kent knew him better but they’d been with him for more years than Antonia’s age. “Please let me explain.”
“I can’t. Not right now.” She pointed at the door and this time tears tracked silently down her face.
Drake brushed a thumb over one and she flinched. Despite his growing anger and fear, he accepted her wishes for him to leave. He couldn’t handle Antonia crying. He wanted to fix it. Assure her that he’d planned to tell her about his identity and much more but she wasn’t in any shape to listen.
Drake grabbed up his shirt, jamming his arms in the sleeves. He picked up his boots but stopped and turned at the door. “I’ll leave, sweetheart but we will talk about this later.”
She could bet on it.