Suddenly His Page 3

  This whole situation is ludicrous, but I can’t deny the conversation is making me feel better. Distracting me from what’s to come. “I’m…Maisy. Just Maisy. I’m eighteen. I clean offices, but I want to narrate audiobooks someday—”

  “You do?” Jack asks, sounding surprised. As quickly as he interrupts, he shakes himself. “I mean, that’s interesting. Please continue.”

  “I, um…I can only fall asleep at night if Friends reruns are playing in the background. I hate exercising on purpose, it has to happen spontaneously. I’ve never had tequila. I’ve actually never had a drink at all.”

  “Would you like one now? It might help you relax.”

  “Yes, please,” I whisper back quickly enough to make him laugh.

  And that laugh. It’s hot smoke. All velvet and curling and deep.

  Rusty from disuse.

  Jack swallows and pushes off the bed, scanning the room. He leaves me for a few moments, returning with a short glass of something amber colored. “It’s not tequila, but it’ll do the trick.” He holds it to my lips. “Knock it back fast. No one likes the taste at first.”

  “Okay.”

  His eyes remain on mine as I open my mouth, tip my head back and let him pour the liquor down my throat. It burns, but I let the slide of fire continue until the glass is empty. My eyes water when I swallow, but I manage not to cough.

  “Good girl,” Jack rasps, setting the glass down on one of the tables positioned in between the armchairs. “You did that like a pro.”

  The liquor tastes terrible, but I have to admit it helped. An enjoyable warmth is walking through my limbs, ridding them of the most jagged peaks of tension. Also, I’m suddenly holding myself to a less strict standard when it comes to ogling his body. I can’t seem to stop tracing those lines that create a V at his hips. What are those called? Am I staring?

  “Maisy.” Jack tips my chin up. “Not that I don’t love your eyes on me, but there’s something important we need to get out of the way. Before we’re not alone anymore.”

  Gulp. Had I actually forgotten about the upcoming show for a second? “What is it?”

  He unhooks his belt and slides it out of the loops, dropping it to the floor. “Before they get here, I want you to get comfortable with my touch. My kiss. I don’t want us having…” His jaw ticks for a few seconds. “I don’t want you having all of your firsts in front of an audience.”

  I don’t immediately discard the idea. In fact, I consider it.

  Is it possible I’m…not going to mind him touching me so much?

  Does that make me shameful?

  Sitting on this huge bed in my slip dress with this big, beautiful man in front of me, knowing he paid ten million dollars to sleep with me…I know, I know I shouldn’t have a quickening tickle between my thighs. I know it shouldn’t turn me on to be desired so much, but I’m shocked to find…I’m getting there. In a life of toiling and labor, I’m suddenly a commodity. An object of lust. And it’s a little bit of a rush.

  “That makes sense,” I whisper. “Getting used to you…before.”

  His expression doesn’t change, but the pulse at the base of his neck starts to fly. “Good, Maisy,” he says thickly, reaching up to slowly trail a fingertip along the slope of my shoulder. “You’ve never had a man touch any part of you before. Have you?”

  I swallow. “No.”

  Lust brightens his blue eyes to a different shade, tightens the lines around his mouth.

  He flicks the strap of my dress off, sending it slinking down my shoulder. And then his open mouth follows the path his finger took, the tip of his tongue searing me, making me gasp. When he reaches my neck, he stops, hissing a breath against my skin. “Fuck. I knew you were going to be delicious, but this is criminal. The innocence is dripping off of you.” His hands slide under my knees. Pulls me to the edge of the bed and steps between my thighs. “Is it dripping out of you, too, angel?”

  I can’t answer that.

  I’m not experienced enough to feel comfortable giving my secrets, not with words, but my body seems intent on informing Jack that yes, there’s a warm glide of liquid traveling through the folds of my sex. My back arches gently and I bite my lip, allowing my knees to spread just a touch wider. Jack’s breath stutters in response, his hands dragging up my thighs, taking the hem of my dress higher, up to my hips. Digging his fingertips into me there.

  “Jesus, you’re a ripe little virgin, aren’t you? Ready to get plucked.” His hot mouth travels up my neck, bathing my ear in labored breaths. “Know you need something but no idea what that something is. Isn’t that right, Maisy?”

  “Yes,” I admit, before I can stop myself.

  My admission makes him shudder. “Fuck. Me.”

  There’s a low pulse between my legs now that I’ve encountered while listening to the steamy scenes of a romance novel, but I’ve never explored it. Never tried to figure out where it could lead in real life. That pulse beats faster when Jack’s hands glide up my ribcage and clutch my breasts, his thumbs strumming my nipples roughly through the thin silk of my dress.

  “That feels so good, doesn’t it?” he asks, raking his teeth over my pulse. “Tits like these need a firm hand. They’re teasing little things and we can’t let them think they’re in charge, can we, angel?” He bares his teeth against my ear, his grip tightening hard. “Can’t let them know they make my dick so hard, I could come all over your thighs just thinking about them.”

  I moan at those words. Those forbidden, filthy words. They’re not romantic or flowery, like I thought I liked. They’re base and honest and they make my head swim. Make my face turn towards Jack’s, seeking a kiss, even though I don’t know what I’m doing. He meets me halfway, though, as if he’s attuned to me. As if he was just waiting for me to reach the point that I needed the kiss as an outlet for what he’s making me feel with his hands, his lips, his speech.

  “Maisy,” he whispers unevenly, breathing hard against my mouth, condensation making our lips slide together sensuously, the slick friction making me think of sex. Of bodies joining, moving together desperately, mating. And that’s how our tongues move. They lap at each other like greedy things, his fingers burying in my hair to tip my head sideways, devouring me with a breathless slant of his lips. “Dear God, this fucking mouth—”

  Approaching voices interrupt whatever Jack is going to say.

  Jack grits a curse, pressing our foreheads together, his eyes squeezed shut.

  It’s the second time he’s made me forget what’s about to happen, but there is no way I can put off the fear any longer. All those men, all of their gluttonous eyes are going to be on me. How am I going to stand it?

  “Hey. Look at me.” He tilts my face up. “It’s just you and me the whole time. You and me. There’s no one else here. Okay?”

  “I don’t think I can pretend like that.”

  “Yes, you can.” He keeps nodding until I nod with him. I can’t look away from his eyes, they’re so intense. So beautiful. They’re courting my trust and I have no option but to hand it over. There’s no alternative if I want to get through this with my emotions intact. “I’m going to touch you in ways that will force you to focus on me. Only me and what we’re doing. I’m going to be right up in your beautiful face the whole time. You’re not going to see anyone else.”

  His voice is rife with confidence and I can’t help but believe him.

  Jack is going to make it okay.

  “Just…” I hear leather groan as men begin to take their seats around the bed. Material is shifted and zippers are brought down. Time’s up. Oh God, I can’t believe what I have to tell him first. What I have to say out loud. “I-I just started on the pill. My mother insisted when I turned eighteen. But it’s only been five days. It’s not effective until a week has passed,” I whisper in Jack’s ear. “Can you…can you make sure you don’t…”

  “You’re asking me to pull out? Fuck.” He blows out a breath, his fingers flexing on my hips. “Yeah…I can
do that.”

  “Promise?”

  He nods, starts to say something else—

  “Showtime,” Winston calls, dropping into the chair directly to my right.

  And the music starts.

  4

  Jack

  I wasn’t exaggerating when I told Maisy that I’m a pure asshole.

  This room, this world, is where men like me belong. Where we end up after we’ve squeezed blood from our enemies and padded our bank accounts using ruthless practices. This is where finance gods come for thrills. There is even part of me that wants to belong here, because it validates my belief that I’m irredeemable. Not worth loving or sticking around for.

  But I look at her…

  I study her perfection and I ache like hell to be better.

  A good man. A moral one.

  These are the urges I’ve been wrestling with for six months. Her innate goodness makes me hope for things I know are fucking useless. That she could love me? There is a better chance of balloons and ticker tape raining down from the ceiling.

  How am I so sure?

  My past, yes. Of course there is that. But there’s more.

  As much as I hate Maisy losing her virginity in front of these men…there is a twisted part of me I can’t totally subdue. A part that is beginning to relish having witnesses when I claim her. I’m going to do it better and longer and with more skill than anyone else can. They’re all about to know it. About to hate me for it. And when it’s over, there will be no doubt that she’s mine.

  It’s animal instinct I was unaware I possessed until this second, when the vultures are circling the bed and ogling what’s mine. Lusting for her. Their coveting of Maisy has tickled my need for domination. To leave no doubt who wears the crown.

  If I could reach inside my chest and rip out this sick itch, I would do it in a heartbeat. She deserves better and I hate myself for the excited throb in my gut.

  It clashes with my outrage. I’m one man with two halves.

  One sick. One decent.

  Which side is going to win?

  The music is definitely calling to the corrupt side of me, with all its heavy, rounded bass notes and lightly tapped cymbals. Maisy still sits on the side of the bed in front of me. I’m doing my best to block her view of the men entering the room for this wicked ritual, but the pulse at the base of her neck is fluttering like crazy. From our kiss?

  Again, hope is dangerous when it comes to anything good. Like her. But I allow myself to wonder if she’s as affected as me. If that kiss blanked her mind and backhanded her senses, the way it did for me. Her mouth. Her tongue. The way breath saws in and out of her throat when I change angles. It’s a decadent trifecta that I need more of immediately. Her little nipples are still hard against the silk of her dress, her lips swollen. If she’s this responsive when I fuck her, these men are going to be driven into a frenzy.

  Don’t let that excite you.

  Don’t you dare feel pride over her dazed expression.

  Be better for her.

  I cradle the back of her head in my right hand, pressing her forehead to mine. Syncing our breaths until I’m back with Maisy. Until it’s just her and me. “Scoot back into the center of the bed, angel. Okay? I’m coming with you.” She starts to inch backward and I follow, prowling over her, never breaking eye contact. “Stay with me.” I nip at her lips, requesting without words they open for me. They do and I suction our mouths together. Watch her lids flutter at the wet contact. In my mind’s eye, I know what the men around us are seeing. A devil dragging a sacrifice to the center of the altar. That’s how it feels, so why is my cock so hard?

  Goddamn you, Jack.

  We reach the middle of the bed and I turn her with a sweep of my forearm, angling her toward the headboard, and our kiss continues. It keeps going, because I can’t stop. We’re essentially making out, me and this innocent angel, my hard body wedged between her pale, lithe thighs, her fingers exploring in my hair. So sweet. So perfect. So unlike me.

  That thought propels my hips forward and she gasps, her knees jerking around me.

  “Don’t be scared,” I say thickly, capturing her knee in my hand, trailing my palm slowly, all the way up to her hip. Then around to her ass, cupping her right cheek in my hand and fondling it with ownership. “I’m going to make sure you’re ready to take it.”

  Her sides heave, but she seems to like how I’m touching her, those white teeth sinking into her full bottom lip, a mewling sound escaping her throat. “H-how?”

  I drag the ridge of my erection side to side against her panties. “With my tongue, angel.” I demonstrate by twining our tongues together, going deep, deep inside her mouth until she moans, shifting beneath me on the bed. “Just like that, but I’ll be kissing your sexy pussy. Does that sound nice?” I nod on her behalf. “You’re going to like my tongue between your thighs, but you have to keep your eyes closed, Maisy. The whole time, understand? So you only focus on me, only think about me and feel what I’m doing.”

  She draws in a shaky breath. “Okay, Jack.”

  Maisy saying my name with such trust causes a twist in my chest.

  Don’t let her down.

  “Close them now. Hands over your ears, too.”

  She does what she’s told and I kiss a path down the center of her body. I stop at the fragrant valley between her tits, licking her stiff buds through the silk. Right, left, right again, and all the while I’m gathering the hem of her dress in my hand, pulling it up to her waist and leaving it bunched there. There is a chorus of groans around me when her panties are revealed and it’s easy to see why. They’re soaked to the skin, the cleft of her pussy visible through the drenched cotton. Before I can register my own actions, I press my face up against the soft pillow of her sex and gentle scrape my teeth up the center.

  “Jack,” she whimpers, her hips lifting briefly.

  Gorgeous baby. All mine. I nuzzle her until those folds part, enough to close my lips around the bud, teasing it with subtle nods of my head, then I pin it with the stiff tip of my tongue, pressing down until she soaks the rest of her panties. And only then do I slide them down her thighs…

  They remain dangling in my hand, my body frozen mid-movement.

  Her pussy…it just can’t be real.

  Chairs scrape forward, men vying to get a better look, groaning at what they see.

  “Reopen the bidding,” one of them begs, his voice guttural. “Please.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I growl, grateful Maisy is covering her ears. That, coupled with the bass pulsing out of the speakers, will keep her from hearing their agitated reactions to her supple virgin flesh. Her dripping, hairless little cunt. The word tight might as well be tattooed across the soft contour of it, because that’s what it advertises. It promises male ecstasy, plain and simple. A fantasy come to life. The experience of a lifetime for a man’s cock.

  Jesus. Christ.

  How the fuck am I going to pull out?

  When I drop her panties on the edge of the bed and lean down for my first lick, her sugary taste exploding on my tongue, I realize I was a shortsighted idiot to make that promise. There’s no way. No way I’ll be able to give up even a split second of this creamy flesh around my dick. It’s utter decadence on my tongue. Warm and slippery and soft. The flavor of heaven. Beautiful, forbidden heaven.

  I cradle both of her ass cheeks in my palms, squeezing to keep them still, sawing my tongue gently through the split of her sex. My upper lip finds the shape of her clit and rides it, making it swell with quick side to side movements, before I introduce it to a flick of my tongue.

  Her body reacts like a cracked whip, her hips rearing up, sobbing.

  “Would you look at that?” someone pants in the darkness. “Slut.”

  “Horny little bitch,” says another, their hand moving in a blur in my periphery. “Dirty, naughty brat. Begging for it.”

  I make note of every voice I hear. I vow to myself to ruin every single one of these men wh
o say foul, untrue things about this angel. My angel. But she can’t hear them. That’s what keeps my tongue moving, keeps me focused on giving her pleasure. Right now, she’s enjoying what I’m doing to her, but if I stop to beat these men senseless, I will shatter the cocoon keeping her safe. So I lose myself in her taste. I place long, drawn-out kisses on top of her clit and make her writhe, make her cry out. I get her right there, right there, on the edge of climax, then I stretch her with two fingers. I pump them in and out of her, watching my thick knuckles battle through her tiny opening, come away dripping. Over and over again, until my balls are so fat with come, I’m seeing double.

  My hunger has expanded into something so great, so urgent, I’m barely conscious of sliding my fingers out of Maisy and climbing up her thrashing body, easing her hands away from her ears, kissing each of those blessed palms before letting them go. Sealing my mouth over hers in a voracious kiss while I unzip my pants and let out my swollen cock.

  “God. God, you’re incredible,” I rasp, ripping the top of her dress down to her waist, then ramming my hips up between her splayed thighs, groaning over the sight of her virgin tits rebounding, bouncing back into place. “Still just you and me, angel,” I say, my lips traveling over her sweeter, younger ones, swallowing her gasps. “Just you and me. We’re going to fuck now.”

  She nods, her eyes unfocused. “I know. I w-want to.”

  Lust climbs me like ivy, wrapping around my windpipe. “I noticed.” I grip my cock and rub it in her pussy. “Such a wet girl for me, aren’t you? So hot to have that cherry plucked.”

  “Yes,” she breathes.

  “Look at me when I’m filling you,” I whisper against her parted, panting lips, planting the throbbing head of my shaft inside and rolling my hips, planting myself deep, deep inside of her. We never break eye contact, even though mine threaten to roll back in my head at the too-tight glove cinching around me. Bracketing and milking me, her body somehow innocent and well trained at the same time. “Oh fuck, angel. Oh fuck. Feels so fucking good.” I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “Are you okay?”