With This Ring

“Any news on the pizza delivery man who was harassing us?” she asked.

“Hmmm … that.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, hmmm that?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course, I want to know,” she said crisply.

“Well, something didn’t add up about that whole episode. So I got my men to do some digging around. It’s unconfirmed, but I think he was working for your father. His job was not to hurt you or Britney, but just to scare you. I believe your father might have thought it would bring us closer together.”

“What makes you think it was him? Maybe it was your father,” she challenged.

“Did you know your father owns apartments on the second and fourth floor of this building? Through off-shore companies, of course.”

Her eyes widened.

“It was the fact that the guy just disappeared into thin air that gave me the idea. He obviously had access to one of the apartments. Also, the way he gave your father’s men the slip was very suspicious. Your father runs a very tight ship and even after such a security breech, none of your security detail were given the boot.”

She sank down on the floor and sat cross-legged. “Wow! My father is something else. I can hardly believe it.”

“Your father likes to win. The end always justifies the means.”

“But what about when I was stabbed? My dad would never allow me to get hurt like that.”

“No, that was not your father. I don’t know who that was or why they tried to hurt you. It was most probably something to do with our wedding, but since that is off …”

“Right.”

I was left helplessly staring at her red, parted lips. Memories of them stretched around my cock flooded into my brain. It had driven me wild to see her like that.

“What?” she asked suddenly.

Shit. I must have been staring at her like a demented fool. “Nothing. I should be going.”

“Wait,” she said, jumping to her feet.

“Yes?” I replied.

The dimness of the room cast her in a glow that was just so soft and perfect she looked almost ethereal. I knew not to go any further with her, but the look in her eyes. It made me burn. She started to walk towards me, her gaze unblinking, and I couldn’t move.

“I have been thinking,” she said softly. “What if we meet up once in a while?”

“To fuck?” I asked, almost in disbelief.

Her gaze faltered from mine, but her voice was sure and strong. “Yeah.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Maxim

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea … for either of us.”

“Why?” she asked, a frown on her lovely forehead.

“I already have someone for that. You met her the last time at lunch on Madison Avenue.”

I felt a pain in my chest. What was wrong with me? Shouldn’t I take the crumbs I was being offered? Why hold out for more when more was not forthcoming? But I refused to take the words back. I did have someone and she was perfect because she threatened nothing within me, unlike the woman before me right now. With Freya, my sanity was at stake.

I thought she would stop then, any other woman would have, but she kept going. “You can’t have more than one?” she asked, a defiant light in her eyes. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

I realized then she had convinced herself we could have something that was purely sexual. If only she knew the fire she would be playing with if I agreed to what she thought she wanted.

“Come here,” I murmured.

I knew the moment the words left my mouth I’d made a mistake, but there was only so much self-control that I could wield in her presence. Hell, I probably deserved a medal for how much I had held back.

She came forward. When she was about two feet away, I reached out and pulled her to me and kissed her. Fire seared through my veins. Her response was fervent. I matched her passion and we expressed in that joining what words could not convey.

I would never again be able to kiss someone and not think of her. Her taste seemed like it was made exclusively to fit my palette, to quench a thirst I’d never even realized I had.

Eventually, we broke apart, our chests heaving and I stared into her eyes. She grabbed the belt of my pants and I let her take control. The power went to her head.

Her hands were shaking by the time she pulled my cock free. She stroked the hard length while I could do nothing but stare greedily at her. What was it about her that knocked the air out of my lungs?

She slipped her pants and underwear down her hips and reached up on the tips of her toes to slip her tongue into my mouth. I grabbed her ass and held her in place while she took my dick between her folds.