“I want to talk to you about that,” Kyle said in a low voice as he leaned closer to Tempest to keep the conversation more private. “You can’t be serious about not seeing me any longer. Why don’t you send this contractor on his way, and you and I can settle this misunderstanding between us alone, without an audience?”
Kyle reached out and ran his fingers down her bare arm in a too-intimate caress, as if that contact alone could persuade Tempest to give him what he wanted. Watching Kyle touch her and seeing Tempest flinch caused all the rioting emotions inside of Remy to come to a head, sending a shaft of irrational jealousy and anger flaring through him, like a hot poker stabbing at old, unhealed wounds.
Remy didn’t hate Kyle. He didn’t even know him. But the thought of Kyle, the half brother who had had all the things in life that Remy had gone without, attempting to seduce the one woman Remy had been trying so hard to resist evoked a visceral, possessive urge to claim Tempest as his own. He knew his thoughts weren’t logical, but at the moment, he didn’t give a rat’s ass.
He walked toward Kyle and, without hesitation, grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the elevator. “Tempest has made it clear that there is nothing left for the two of you to talk about, so I think it’s best that you leave.”
Kyle yanked his sleeve from Remy’s grip, his expression incensed. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Remy wanted to blurt out the truth, spew all the hurt and pain his own mother had caused by completely rejecting him, then loving a new son with her rich husband. But he kept all the rage and bitterness shoved way down deep, hating that it had even cropped back up when he’d believed he’d had all those insecurities and self-doubts under control.
Remy hit the call button for the elevator and kept his voice as even as possible when he next spoke. “I’m the guy who’s telling you to leave before I call security to toss you out on your ass.”
Kyle huffed indignantly and glanced beyond Remy to Tempest, as if he expected her to defend him, but she didn’t say a word. The elevator doors slid open, and for a moment it looked as though Kyle was going to put up a fight. But Remy was bigger, taller, and stronger, and Kyle was nothing more than a spoiled rich boy who was used to getting his way. Not tonight.
Realizing he didn’t have much of a choice, he stepped into the elevator and looked toward Tempest, tugging on his tuxedo jacket to smooth out any wrinkles. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, just as the doors closed.
Still facing the elevator, Remy dropped his head, closed his eyes, and exhaled a deep breath, still battling those dangerous, edgy emotions trying to claw their way out. Jesus Christ, he had to get his shit together.
“Remy?” Tempest’s voice was soft and gentle behind him, along with the hand she placed on his back, as if she sensed his inner turmoil. “Are you okay?”
He swallowed hard. No, he wasn’t fucking okay, he realized. Tempest had no idea Kyle was his half brother, that Remy’s childhood had been less than picturesque, and when his father had died seven years after his mother’s abandonment, his own mother had ignored Remy’s plight and pleas to come and get him. She’d flat-out refused to take custody of him when he’d had no one to turn to. When he was fourteen, the state had been forced to put him into fucking foster care, where he’d spent the next four years trying to protect himself like a wary, abused dog. That’s where he’d learned to become scrappy, like the tramp Tempest had called him.
“Remy?” she said again, clearly concerned.
Unable to shake his dark mood, he turned around to face Tempest, who was looking at him with clear, guileless eyes. He was feeling raw and reckless enough to show her a glimpse of that fractured man and, in the process, invoke enough fear to make her understand he was not the man for her. He had nothing left to fucking lose.
He placed his hand at the base of her throat, feeling her delicate collarbone beneath his thumb and fingers, along with the sudden rapid beat of her pulse gaining momentum against his palm as he slowly, gradually pushed her back up against the nearest wall. But her elevated heart rate wasn’t a result of panic or unease because of his more dominant position. No, there wasn’t an ounce of uncertainty in her gaze as it held his. Her lips were parted in anticipation and her beautiful amber eyes were filled with pure, undiluted desire.
“Remy,” she breathed, and this time his name was wrapped in the same wild hunger flowing through him.
The undeniable need to mark her, claim her, take her was stronger than anything he’d ever felt for a woman before. She made his blood run hot through his veins and his dick harder than steel. She made his cock ache to feel her warm, wet pussy squeezing the length of his shaft as he fucked her the way he’d imagined for too long.
Her parted lips beckoned for him to kiss, but before he showed her the ruthless man beneath the polished tuxedo, he desperately needed to know one thing. “Did you sleep with him?” he asked, his voice sounding rough and raw to his own ears becaus
e the possibility cut sharp as a knife through him.
Her eyes widened. He’d clearly startled and confused her by the abrupt, out-of-the-blue question. “What . . . I . . . We only dated a short while. Kyle might be arrogant, but he’s harmless.”
The fact that she didn’t give him an answer only made him more tense. He braced his forearm on the wall by her head and leaned in closer, his gaze direct as it held hers. “Did. You. Sleep. With him?” he asked more succinctly.
“No,” she said softly. “I never slept with Kyle.”
Even as profound relief shuddered through him, he was kissing her, forcing her head back against the wall as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, hot and deep and invasive. His entire body crashed into hers, his hard chest crushing her soft breasts, his hips grinding against hers, and his erection digging right between where her thighs met her mound. Everything about this moment was wild and reckless and tinged with a desperation to erase all the painful memories Kyle’s arrival had dredged up with something far more pleasurable.
And that sensual, inviting distraction was Tempest Wilder, the one woman who drove him crazy with lust and made him ache to end his three years of celibacy in her sweet, warm body.
His mouth continued to ravage hers like a man starved for the taste of her, and the thickening of his cock made no mystery of how much he wanted her. Her own needy, welcoming moan vibrated against his lips, and she eagerly pushed her hands into the front of his jacket and skimmed her fingers down to the waistband of his pants. She fumbled with the buckle of his belt, and while the thought of having her fingers wrapped tight around his dick as she stroked his shaft made him throb even harder, he didn’t trust himself not to come all over her fist like a fucking teenager being given a hand job for the first time.
That’s how out of control this woman made him feel, and as much as Tempest seemed to enjoy having the upper hand, he wasn’t about to let her take the lead. Before she managed to undo his belt, he tore his mouth from hers so he could grab both of her hands and pinned them above her head. They were both breathing hard from his bruising kiss and all the adrenaline pulsing between them, but she didn’t struggle against his hold. If anything, her body was lax against his, trusting him despite how rough he’d already been with her and that he currently held all the power in the situation.
He looked down at her flushed face, at the smoldering need shimmering in her smokey amber eyes and the parted lips wet and swollen from his assault on the soft, delectable mouth he envisioned sliding down the length of his cock and sucking him off. His balls drew tight in his briefs, and he groaned at the illicit thought.
Her hips shamelessly rolled against his aching dick, her lashes falling half-mast as she teased him the only way she could since he’d taken her hands out of the equation. “Remy . . . touch me. Please.”
She begged so sweetly, and while he knew he was heading into dangerous territory, his lust-fueled brain reasoned that he’d already crossed one line with her tonight, so stepping over another wouldn’t make much difference at this point.
His fingers were long and strong, so keeping her wrists anchored above her head with one hand didn’t take much effort. As his gaze held hers, he moved back just enough to put a few inches of space between their bodies so he could give hers the pleasure it craved. The high slit in her dress provided him easy access, and the second his fingers brushed along the smooth, silken skin of her inner thigh, she started to pant in anticipation.