She’s all mine now.
Rather, her company is, but with the way she’s looking at me as we step into my living room makes me believe that she is too. It’s like I planned this room specifically to be a frame for her. Like I was waiting for her all this time.
Maybe I was.
The papers are all signed, the champagne’s been drunk, and we’re coming back from an intimate dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Italian place a block from my house. It’s not my private club, but I can tell she’s charmed by my friendly relationship with the owners.
January’s charmed by everything today, her attitude since the signing one of happy brightness. I can’t see any secrets in her eyes.
So where have they gone? Or was it only concern about her funding, and now that she has it, she has me right where she wants me?
I put those thoughts away and force my mood to lighten up. So what if she was more concerned with the funding—she’s here tonight.
“Should I open another bottle of champagne?” I ask as I toss my jacket across the sofa.
January opens her arms to the view of the bay, looking as if she’s about to take flight. “I’ve had more than enough. I have to work tomorrow and start earning back your investment.”
I don’t bother to tell her that five million is nothing to us. “Not until tomorrow though. I have other plans for you tonight.”
She giggles, and the sound rolls through me all the way to my heels. I can’t remember the last time someone actually giggled at me.
“Should we be contacting Dev?” she asks. Her saucy grin makes my cock stir. “So that he knows we’re committing coitus?”
One corner of my mouth curls up. “No. Dev is the last person I want to involve. And committing coitus?”
If there was ever a way to kill a man’s erection stone dead, it’d be those words. But my desire for her is more powerful than that, an all-consuming thing that demands I have her now.
She shifts and stretches, clearly feeling the champagne. She’s gone lanky, languid, and oh so sexy.
“Now that it’s all official,” she says, “it feels so much more illicit. Doesn’t it?”
It actually doesn’t. It feels more real, more solid, now that our relationship is in the open. The papers are all signed, the Bastards all know—this is the most real relationship I’ve had in years.
I won’t let that realization shake me.
“You wish no one knew about it?” I raise an eyebrow. “Not very ethical, Miss Harris.”
“Sometimes secrets can be fun. Sexy.” A cloud passes over her face, as if the secrets she’s thinking of aren’t those things at all.
Damn. And here I thought that was behind her. In a way, I was hoping she was only worried about the money, because that was one thing I could definitely give her.
Whatever else she’s hiding, the reasons she has for being so desperate for help, I can’t know. Anjie’s sleuthing never found anything, and my power in this world only goes so far. I get almost everything I want but can’t read her mind no matter how badly I want to.
I want her to be happy, carefree again, so I distract her. “What sexy secrets do you have?”
She shakes her head. “None. I’m sadly boring.”
That’s a damn lie. She’s the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met. And she’s most definitely got secrets.
Anjie got her report back to me today. There’s nothing new there—everything’s on the up-and-up with her previous companies, and the rumors about Fuchs offering for Ultra aren’t anything more than whispers. Although Fuchs has been buying up lots of encryption companies lately—probably to sell the tech to the CIA and NSA. He’d be an ideal buyer for Ultra if he was interested.
January’s committed to selling her tech to some phone company and using it to protect ordinary people, but I’m not convinced they actually need it. The world’s most powerful encryption on pictures of your kids? It just doesn’t make sense. Once she sees the size of her cut, realizes the life it will give her, she’ll say yes. They always do. Idealists don’t last long here. Not the real ones.
I want January to last though. I don’t want this place to chew her up and spit her out like it does to so many others. Hell, I want to be her own personal shield.
Finally I stop lying to myself. I’m falling for her all over again. And I’m terrified all over again.
Logan let someone in, thought they’d be in love forever, and then she broke him. I know January is here for funding, know that she’s got secrets, ones I can’t unearth even with all my contacts—I’d be a fool to fall in love with her.
No. No, I’d be a fool to let her know I’m falling for her, that she has that power over me. We can continue on as we are—blazing hot sex, me showering her with gifts—but until she comes clean, until we sell her company and the money issue isn’t between us, I’m not going to be vulnerable. I learned my lesson in college with her.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes are tight with worry.
I smooth out my expression. “Nothing. The usual work bullshit.”
“Oh. What’s—” She shakes her head, catches herself. “Of course you can’t tell me. Your NDA is ironclad.”
True. But there can’t be much of a line between work and our relationship, not with how obsessed we both are with our careers. I’m going to be there tomorrow in her office, working right alongside her, and will be until her encryption system sells.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. I don’t want you to worry about a thing when you’re with me.”
The shadows under her eyes lighten, something like hope chasing them away. “I—”
Her breath catches, and the moment suspends between us.
She’s finally going to tell me.
My heart catches too, reaching out to her. Trust me. Tell me.
“I don’t worry when I’m with you.”
Maybe she’s lying, but I want to believe her, so I do.
“Good.” I seize her hand and pull her into me. Her curves are soft and her skin is silk, and she smells like my dream of a woman. “God, but you’re so fucking gorgeous.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and presses her lips to mine, her tongue tracing the seam of my lips. Her desire is as hot and urgent as mine, which only fuels the fire in me. No matter how hot we burn together, it feels like it will never be enough.
“I need you,” she says against my lips, into my throat, along my collarbone. I’ve never had a woman so hungry for me.
“Come to bed with me.”
She pulls away, her breath catching and her eyes wide. “Your bed?”
I nod, then pull her in for another kiss. I can’t tell her that I’ve been dreaming about her in my bed. I don’t want her searching gaze on me, burrowing into mine. She sees too much, and I don’t want her seeing too much into this.
Although it is a pretty big deal, inviting her to my bed. But I won’t let slip how big of a deal it is. That way it won’t mean anything to her, and my secrets will remain safe.
I want her in my bed, and I get what I want. It’s that simple.
I take her hand, lead her down the hall and up the stairs. “I haven’t given you the grand tour, have I?”
Really, besides the living room, office, and my bedroom, there’s not much else to the house. Some guest bedrooms, a gym, and a rooftop deck with a view as amazing as the one in the living room.
I’ll have to arrange a private dinner for us on that deck one of these nights. Or maybe some morning. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, have a chef come in and make a mind-blowing brunch for us. Dinner’s too predictable. Brunch will surprise her.
“No,” she says. “Is that what we’re doing now?”
I push open my bedroom door and shake my head. “Not tonight. I have other plans.”
The shimmer that goes through her makes my cock hard as steel. So beautiful, so sexy, so responsive. And so damn smart. If I were looking for the perfect woman, she might be it.
If.
Her hand goes to the zipper of her dress. “Plans? That sounds interesting.”
There’s the slightest of snicks, a few teeth of the zipper releasing. But she holds it to only a few, teasing me.
I take a spot in the armchair in the corner, flicking on the table lamp as I do. The light is soft, caressing, a perfect frame for her.
“Interesting is one way to put it.” I gesture to her dress. “I think you forgot to finish something.”
Her chin lifts. She’s thinking about defying me.
Oh, sweet January, if that’s the game you want to play…
Then her chin drops, all coy submission, and the back of her dress opens like a flower. She shimmies out of it.
I take a short, sharp breath, embarrassingly close to a gasp. But damn it, I can’t help it, because she’s a fucking vision. The black lace cups of her bra hold her breasts high and tight, and I can glimpse the dark curls between her legs behind the lace of her panties.
I run a hand down my cock, spread my legs. Fuck, that feels good.
“So this is where the magic happens.” January is looking around the room, her gaze coming back to the bed again and again.
It’s an impressive bed. The frame is solid oak, waxed to a high sheen, and the mattress is raised high enough to be a throne. The sheets are like sleeping on an angel’s robe.
She can’t look away, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. She’s imagining so many things on that bed, her and me and sweat and needs, I can tell.
Lucky for her, I can make all those fantasies real. Lucky for me too.
“Get on the bed,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow but does it, her long limbs making me picture them wrapped around me. Soon enough, we’ll get to that. January perches on the edge, then leans back, her breasts high and her legs a straight line to her pussy.
“You’re going to stay all the way over there?” she asks.
“Mmm.” I shift my legs, making more room for my growing erection. “Touch yourself.”
She lifts one hand, sets it lightly on her collarbone. I can see her pulse thrumming at the base of her throat.
“Is that where you want to be touched?” I ask, my voice rough.
“I want to be touched all over.”
“Show me.”
She runs both hands over her torso, down her arms, and then cups her breasts, squeezing hard and biting her lip. Her nipples jut out through the fabric.
I palm my cock as I take her in. She’s a work of art, an erotic muse made flesh. I want to grab her and never let go. But her touching herself is too damn hot to stop now.
When her fingers find her nipples and pull, I groan like I’m dying. “Jesus.”
One corner of her mouth tips up. She knows what she does to me.
“Again,” I say.
She does, and it’s even more potent this time, her fingers sure and certain as she teases herself. I’m sure and certain I could come just from watching her. Already my cock is pulling toward the waistband of my pants, demanding to be released. I can feel the wetness at the tip.
“You like that.” It’s not a question or a tease from her. More like she’s as lost in this as I am.
I stroke myself. “I do. And so do you.”
She releases her nipples and lets her hand trail down her belly, the skin there as soft as my sheets. “I really want to be touched here though.”
When her legs spread and her fingers rub over the crotch of her panties, I can see the dampness spreading through the fabric and along her thighs. Her skin gleams with it.
The urge to go to her, to bury my face between her legs, is almost unstoppable. But I hold back. I want her out of her mind, and losing my own control isn’t the way to do that.
“How wet are you?” I ask. I can see for myself, but I want to hear her say it.
“Soaked.” Her fingers dip under the edge of her panties. “And my clit is swollen. It almost hurts to touch.”
But she continues to stroke it, and I can just see how slick and throbbing it must be. As slick as my cock is, still trapped in my pants.
“Take the panties off. Take all of it off.” It feels like I’m speaking through gravel, my voice as low and rough as the things I want to do to her.
January doesn’t bother to be coy as she unhooks her bra and kicks off her panties. My heart races into overdrive. I squeeze my cock through my pants, trying to take the edge off. But there’s no relief there, not when January is sitting back on the bed again, her feet on the floor, her knees open just enough for me to glimpse her sweet pink folds.
“You want to watch?” she asks. She runs a languid hand across her pussy lips, more teasing than anything.
“For now.”
“Mmm.” She makes a small growl of pleasure, her breasts bobbing as she reaches between her legs, her hand more insistent now.
I watch as she slips one finger inside, slowly working at herself, her thumb finding her clit. Another growl of pleasure from her, her hand working faster.
This is so fucking hot that my brain is about to explode into flames and send fire sizzling down every one of my nerve endings.
She slips another finger in, her hand speeding up, groans falling from her lips even as she bites down to keep them inside.
My own hand is working nearly as fast even though my cock is still trapped behind too many layers of fabric. Don’t fucking do it, I warn my oncoming climax. Watch her.
My iron control is rewarded when she comes with a scream that rattles the windows, her skin pink and damp all over, just like the deep, delicate folds of her pussy. Her breasts quiver deliciously with every shuddering breath, and I’m transported by the sight.
Jesus God, just remembering this could keep me hot in a blizzard.
But when she opens her eyes, the entire scene shifts. No longer is she a slave to her pleasure. No, now she’s fully in control.
Her next words cement that notion: “I want to see you.”