Before we land, Emery reappears, her hair slightly mussed from sleep. She looks at me shyly as she sinks into the seat next to mine. I know she didn’t hear my conversation with Blythe, but something’s wrong. I can see it right away. Before I can ask, she speaks.
“Can I ask a favor?” Emery asks. “I know you’re going straight from the airport to the office, but I think all of this travel…it’s sort of messed with my system. Do you mind if I take a few hours off? I just want to stop at my place and recoup a bit.”
Of course it’s taken a toll. I’ve forced the girl to fly back and forth across the country in a matter of days. Even on a private plane, that’s not an easy task.
Not to mention I haven’t given her much opportunity to sleep.
I nod. “Take the entire day. You were supposed to be out, anyway, since we’re back early. Ramon is already working on the Pink deal and Sandy can help me wrap everything up.”
She smiles. “Thanks.”
I run a finger along her jaw. “Is there anything else?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
But I can tell there’s something else bothering her. Not that I’m owed an explanation. Going back to the office means going back to reality. And even if this trip has made each of us realize there’s something more going on between us…well, I can understand why she might be having second thoughts. God, we’re not even a public couple, are we? Blythe’s words referring to Emery as my mistress hang over my head. What must this feel like for Emery? Her first sexual partner and she’s…
She’s my mistress.
For once Blythe is right. It’s time to end this divorce nonsense. It’s all bullshit. Because the only one who matters to me is Emery. And even if I’d never met Emery, Blythe and I are over. We were over before Emery sailed in the door and dumped coffee all over me. Hell, we were over before Emery even moved to New York.
Fucking with Blythe by dragging this divorce out…it’s not worth it anymore. Emery means more to me than exacting any kind of retribution on Blythe. And I can’t move forward with Emery with Blythe hanging over us.
I should explain all of this to Emery. But old habits die hard and so instead of pouring my guts out to her I tap my fingers on the armrest and think about it. Besides, actions speak louder than words and I need to back up my words with a signature, one ending my marriage in the only way it still exists—legally.
“You can tell me,” I say, instead. “We still have a few hours to go, and I’d like to listen.”
She smiles again, her eyes sad. “It’s complicated.” She shrugs, her eyes shifting away with the movement. “Like inexcusably complicated.”
“I think you mean unexplainably complicated.” I smile, reminding myself how much more dramatic life felt when I was her age. When every problem felt bigger than it was. “Try me.”
“It’s not really,” she pauses. “I don’t think you’d be able to understand.”
I frown at her cryptic response. She turns back to the window, watching the clouds streak past us. Is she feeling awkward about us? About the private plane? About the trip in general? About the gifts I’ve given her, the payments for her student loans and the donation to the charity?
Or you know, my wife?
“I’m not sure New York is going to work out for me,” she says, her voice so quiet that I nearly have to lean forward to hear her.”
The confession startles me. “Why?”
She sighs. “It’s an expensive, complicated city. And nothing is ever quite what it looks like at first glance.”
I shake my head, reaching out to take her hand. “So let me help. You’ll get a raise when your internship ends. When you’re a permanent employee at Duke Capital.”
She lets out a sad laugh and pulls back her hand. And now I really don’t understand. What the fuck happened between when we boarded this plane and now?
“You can’t always be there to rescue me,” she says. “I’ve got to take care of myself.”
She blinks her long lashes at me as she looks back, meeting my eyes with hers.
“And besides,” she adds. “You’re married, remember?”
It’s those words that tell me, definitively, that my gut was right. It’s time. It’s time to finalize the divorce with Blythe, whatever the cost. Whatever it takes to free me to be with Emery, in every sense of the word, then I’ll do it. I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with her. However she’ll have me.
“I won’t be for long,” I tell her. “I’m going to sign the papers.”
She tilts her head. “You are? But why?”
Because of you, I want to say. Because I can’t bear the thought of pushing her even further away. I know why she’s doing this. She doesn’t want to be a mistress, and I’ve forced her into being one. I need to tread lightly. I don’t want to make Emery feel worse. This is all on me, not her.
Claire was right. I’ve defiled this girl in every sense of the word.
“I should’ve done it a long time ago,” I finally say. “I told you that I was sick of Blythe taking so much from me. Her affair…it was with Robert, my best friend. I told you that. You can’t imagine what it feels like, to watch not one but two people you thought cared about you just chuck you out like garbage. I became too fixated on vengeance. It was petty, trying to find a way to make her pay. To keep her from getting anything more from me. And so I dragged it out, for absolutely no legitimate reason.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “And now here I am. Screwing myself. Allowing her to hurt me because she’s taking you away, inadvertently.”
Emery glances away. I worry she’ll start to cry again, but then she turns to me and shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “She’s not.”
She leaves her chair and straddles mine, kissing me hungrily and feverishly as I bury my hand in her hair. I kiss her back with the same conviction, hoping that she understands that this is exactly where I want—and possibly need—to be. With her, with everything she is. I kiss every inch of her I can reach, from her nose to her cheeks to her jaw, raining kisses down until I get to her neck and chest. I tell her with every kiss that I’ll do anything, be anything that she wants, as long as she stays here with me.
We’re alone in the cabin, but I’m not putting on a show for the crew, so I stand, tugging Emery behind me, hand tucked in mine as I walk us back to the bedroom. The sheets are still mussed from her earlier nap, and I drop her gently on top of them. She looks up at me with those big eyes, full of desire and want.
“Take it all off,” she demands, gesturing at my clothes. “I want to see all of you.”
Her words spark a different idea in me. “What if you’re not allowed to?”
She raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
I remove my tie and drop down next to her on the bed, dangling it in front of her. “What if you’re not allowed to see me?”
She bites her lip and looks from the tie to me.
“You mean…I’d be blindfolded?”
I nod. “It’s something we haven’t tried yet. And I do enjoy surprising you.”
The lust spikes in her eyes, and I’d love to know what’s running through her mind. I imagine she’s picturing all the things I’ve done to her already, and wondering what it would be like if she wasn’t able to see my every move. Each touch would be a mystery, a tease.
She nods, more hunger in her eyes. “Let’s do it, Mr. Duke,” she adds with a bit of cheek.
I’m smiling when I wrap the tie around her head, covering her eyes and tying it in the back. She sits expectantly on the bed, and I consider the best way to begin paying her back in pleasure.
Well, she did want me to take off my clothes.
I remove my shirt and unbuckle my pants, making sure the noise is audible. She licks her lips in response, and her chest rises with a quick intake of breath. My cock twitches as I watch her tongue slide out to wet her lips. Soon, that marvelous tongue will be on me and my cock, but for now, I’ve promised her new sensations to make her toes curl.
I shrug off my pants and boxer briefs, letting my cock spring free. As if she knows, Emery kneels forward on the bed, reaching for me. I push her hand away and force her to sit back on her knees.
“Am I going to have to tie up your hands, too?” I ask.
She growls in response, and I smirk. Maybe all this defiling isn’t such a bad thing.
I slip onto the bed and sit behind her, getting so close that my dick is pressed against her back, hard and ready. She gasps at the feel of it, and then I reach around and massage both of her breasts with my hands as I nip at her neck.
“Harrison,” she purrs. “Oh—”
My fingertips flick her nipples, hard and aching beneath my touch. I’d love to flip her over and suck on them, but I wait. There will be time for that.
Instead, I trace my one hand down her stomach, reaching between her legs to tease the lips of her wet pussy. She widens her legs a bit, allowing me more room, and I continue to trace the folds with my fingers.
“More,” she gasps. “Please.”
“You’ll take what you get,” I tell her, and she groans as I find her clit and circle it teasingly with my finger.
“I will if you make me,” she snaps back, and all the blood remaining in my body rushes to my cock at those words.
If I make her? Well, I can certainly do that.
I remove my fingers and suck on them, letting her hear the pop as I remove them from my mouth. Then I drag the tips of two wet fingers down her torso, slow enough that her breathing increases with anticipation and perhaps a bit of the unknown, before I slide two long fingers into her wet, clenching pussy as she moans and writhes. I keep the other hand tweaking her nipple as I kiss on the back of her neck, relishing her shivers and the way she arches against me.
God, I’ve got to have her. I can’t wait any longer.
“Please,” she demands, clearly on the same wavelength, clearly full of the same desire that’s coursing through me. “Fuck me,” she adds in a bit of a whine, just in case her demand wasn’t clear. I snap off the blindfold and she turns, pressing the hot, wet flesh of her pussy against the outline of my cock. God, she’s so ready, so impossibly ready.
“Patience,” I tease, reaching for my pants on the floor to grab a condom. As I do, she drops her head and gives one long lick to my cock, forcing a low groan out of me that’s primal and feral.
“I want you,” she demands again. “And I’m taking what I want.”
She licks again, from the base to the tip, and then she takes me into her mouth, wet and hot and perfect. My hips jolt forward against her lips, but she puts a hand on my thigh, pressing me back into the bed as her head bobs up and down, taking me deeper than I’d thought she was able.
I could come right now, explode into her mouth, but that’s not what I want. I ease her back, and she looks up at me with lust, her lips slick from my dick.
“Who knew you were so naughty?” I ask.
She smiles. “I learned from the best.”
Her words alone could tear me apart, but it’s her eyes and the way she’s looking at me, knowing that I have made her this way. Yet, even with her inexperience, she’s also made me. Brought me to the brink of things I never thought possible. And here, with her now, I only want more, more, more.
Because looking at her, with her messy hair and her fresh face, it all hits harder than I expected. I do want to be with her. I want her like this, every day. I want her easy laugh. I want her passion. I want it all.
I slide the condom on over my cock as she wipes her mouth, and then I sit back, kneeling on the bed. She lays down, her legs already falling open, but I shake my head.
“No,” I say. “We’re trying something new.”
I guide her to straddle me so that her pussy is flush against my cock, and she grinds gently against me before I help her into the right position that she can sit down and envelop me while on top of me. Once she understands, she lowers slowly, letting my cock drive up deep inside her waiting pussy.
“Oh—”
Immediately, I notice the change in the sensation. This position pushes me so much deeper inside of her, and as she leans forward, she realizes that it also allows me to rock against her clit. Her jaw drops on a gasp, her face contorting with pleasure as she moves forward, and I wrap one hand around her ass, guiding her motions until she gets the hang of it herself. I use the other to cup the back of her neck, keeping her steady as she writhes on top of me, her breasts bouncing. Her hair’s come completely undone, wild around her head, and she’s wild, too, lost in the pleasure that we’re getting from each other.
Her orgasm shakes through both of us as she grinds forward, and mine comes almost immediately after, exploding inside of her as I watch her lose herself in the throes of our passion. In moments, she collapses on me, still rocking slightly as I remain inside of her.
It’s terrifying, the want that slides through me, even now. It’s insatiable, something that cannot and will not be fucked away. Whatever it is must be more, and I don’t know if that’s even what she wants from me.
She touches my face and I open my eyes to find her peering at me.
It doesn’t matter what she wants. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to her. I’ll move heaven and earth to give her what she needs. Because she’s changed me, and even if it was possible to go back to who I was before, I don’t want to.