The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet 2)

Christopher takes my hand and turns it over, pulling away the clay where it’s formed a protective barrier. He makes a tsk sound, probably because I’m careless. Because I have a death wish. Because I don’t wea

r a suit and move numbers around on paper all day. It makes me want to smack him, that sound; why can’t I be good enough for him? He isn’t your father, Avery said, but this sinking feeling in my stomach is exactly the same.

Except Christopher does something I don’t expect, something I never would have imagined. He presses his open mouth against my thumb, his lips unexpectedly gentle, his tongue sweeping over the cut. There’s clay and blood and sweat, right there against his tongue. He must taste every dream I have, every failure I fear. He must taste me.

His eyes close, lashes long and black against his cheek, and he moans. He moans as if I’m some sweet nectar he never imagined tasting. I’ve had this man’s cock in my mouth, and still this is the most unabashedly sensual experience of my life. He sucks gently, the suction of his mouth on my thumb somehow reaching straight to my clit, pulling me taut, making my legs press together.

When he looks up at me again, his eyes are hooded. “You know I want you. You’ve always known I wanted you, and you got into so much trouble because you loved when I came after you.”

My laugh feels a little shaky, like I’m walking a tightrope high above the ground, praying that I’ll keep my balance long enough to reach the other side. “I don’t get into trouble. Trouble gets into me. That would happen whether you were there to save me or not.”

His lips quirk up. “But you do love it when I come after you.”

“Is that why you’re here? Am I in trouble?”

“No,” he murmurs against my palm, pressing a burning kiss against my lifeline. “I thought we would try something new this time. I’m not here to save you or protect you. I’m not here to catch you when you fall. So I’d recommend not climbing anything.”

That makes me laugh, though it’s more an exhalation of disbelief. He has always been the white knight to my damsel in distress. It’s been a gift as much as a curse, a way to keep himself near me without ever being vulnerable. “What would you even do with me if you weren’t catching me?”

“I have some ideas,” he says in a voice like black gravel, rough and sliding. He steps close enough that I can feel his body heat against me, that I can smell the musk of a day’s work in the office, the grit and determination of him made real.

My voice comes out a whisper. “I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not falling.”

Two fingers under my chin. He gazes down at me with fierce possession. “Catch me instead.”

There are only two seconds in which I might reclaim my sanity. Two seconds when I might remember that he’s dynamite and I’m flame. I use them to lean closer, savoring the brush of his breath against my lips. Every nerve ending in my body lights up in anticipation. His hand slides to the back of my neck, and I surrender to the certain explosion, letting my head fall back, my eyes close. His teeth sink into my bottom lip. Starbursts flare behind my eyelids.

I’ve been with Christopher a million times in my imagination. If I had a dollar for every time he pressed his lean body over mine… I’d be rich with it, swimming in money.

The times with Sutton should have been the real thing.

They should have been reality, but this, this feels brand-new.

He doesn’t kiss me; that would be too easy for a man like this. He’s made of sharp edges, and he uses them to leave a mark. He bites at my mouth like someone long starved, made violent with it. Strong fingers grasp my hair. The groan he makes sinks into me—a barbed-wire sound. I’m pinned from all sides by him, panting in his hold, whimpering so he knows I don’t want him to let go.

It only seems to inflame him; he walks forward, forcing me back against the scaffolding, cold metal bars crossing my back. It’s too much, too much, and I take a swipe at his lips with my teeth.

Only then does he gentle. It’s like he was waiting for me to fight back, like that’s what he needed all along. Maybe that’s what he meant when he said save me; maybe I have to hurt him to do it.

I pull at his white dress shirt, his jacket, but he’s made too solid to move. The only way to reach him is through my mouth, and I nip at him wherever I can reach—his lips, his chin, the angle of his jaw. He sucks in a breath, but it doesn’t sound like pain. It sounds like someone who’s felt something too good, and he backs up that impression by pushing his hips against me. There’s an outline there, unmistakable. Hot and hard against my belly. Sutton is large, but Christopher is made of steel—not just in his cock, but his abs, his arms. Everywhere I can reach, he’s forged with fire.

Except for his throat. There the skin is tender, almost velvet, with a late-night bristle that burns my cheek. I slip my tongue out to taste him; he’s elemental earth. He vibrates at the slickness, tilting his head back so I can reach better. I move down, down, down in defiance, pressing my lips to the hollow at the base, feeling his heartbeat move through him.

“Please,” he says, and he sounds so lost. He sounds like I feel most of the time. I never imagined that Christopher Bardot would bare the most vulnerable part of his body.

Never imagined that he would beg.

This is someone always in command, the smartest man in the room, the most determined. And when he cedes control to me, power rushes through my veins. I can do anything if this man needs me.

Anything except decide what to do next. Despite the wildness of our threesome in the Den, despite Sutton’s creativity, I’m not really that experienced when it comes to sex. I don’t really know what normal sex looks like, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what Christopher would want anyway.

He solves the problem by pulling away long enough to yank off his jacket. He lays it down over the dusty floor, ruining the expensive fabric. “For your knees,” he says, and I remember the salt-sweet taste of his cock in my mouth. I drop down, too eager, but then he’s beside me. Under me.

And I realize that none of Sutton’s creativity prepared me for this—for Christopher lying flat on the bits of rubble, only half-shielded by his jacket. For my knees on either side of his head, padded by his jacket, the pale peach cotton of my dress spread out over him. It’s only shock that has me reeling back, only shock that has me gasping, “No. Wait. Don’t.”

Even so I’m not expecting him to actually stop, to push my skirt away long enough to ask in hard, explicit terms, “You don’t want me to lick your cunt?”

My hips react in a visceral way to the word cunt; they rock forward as if asking for his tongue, needing it. Sutton pressed me up against a wall and held me there. Christopher ordered me onto Sutton’s cock and fucked my mouth. There’s a certain amount of helplessness I can pretend in those situations—I didn’t know his mouth would make me orgasm. I couldn’t predict his lap would have a stiff cock pointing up.