It was almost too much. I had to keep myself in check or risk scaring her off by acting like a ravenous beast. But after not being able to touch her for ten days, all the while wanting her more than I'd ever wanted anyone in my life, mixed with the rush of adrenaline thinking I'd lost her, I was ready to shake off every ounce of control and devour her.
"God, Shay, you are something else." I could barely get the words out. Every muscle in my body was tight as I held myself back. I knelt down in front of the bed like a gentleman, but my thoughts were anything but polite. The slow, difficult task of wriggling off a pair of wet shorts nearly caused me to break my teeth between a clenched jaw.
Shay leaned back on her elbows, still cold and slightly dazed as she waited for me to pull the shorts free. I got up on my knees and sat between her thighs to gaze at her body, clad only in a sheer bra and panties.
I lowered my mouth to her thigh and ran a trail of kisses up toward her pussy. She inhaled sharply in anticipation as I curled my fingers around the lace of her panties. I lifted my gaze to her face and ripped the lacy string apart, before yanking the wet panties free.
I pushed my shorts to the ground. My cock sprang free, hard with hot rage at being neglected for so long. Shay scooted back and reached her hand out to me. I took hold of it and kissed it as I knelt between her legs. I could hear every beat of my heart in my ears.
I swallowed hard. "I'm trying to pace myself," I warned.
"Don't."
I leaned down over her, pressing my swollen cock against her belly as I kissed her mouth and her long neck. "You are worth every fucking dollar of a million bucks," I muttered against her skin.
Her body deflated beneath me. The urgency she'd met me with vanished and she turned her face away from my mouth. "Off, please. Get off."
I backed away, confused and feeling as if someone had just punched me in the gut. The second I was off and standing on the floor, Shay curled onto her side and crawled quickly off the bed.
"What am I doing?" she sobbed.
"Shay, what's wrong? I don't understand."
She stopped at my door, her wet clothes grasped in her hands and shielding her naked body. "What was I thinking?" Another sob left her lips. "I spent so much time telling myself that this was fine, that I wasn't a whore. That it was business and I would be financially set up and never dependent on anyone again. And then there's you and you said"—she dropped her already husky voice lower to imitate mine—"trust me there's not a damn thing that's loveable about me." Her shoulders jerked with another sob. "And it turns out, I'm not just a whore but the world's most expensive one." She ran down the hallway and into her room, slamming the door shut behind her.
30
I walked into the shower. It was good and cold, but it wasn't going to cool the heat in my body anytime soon. I decided to give Shay some time to figure out what she wanted to do. In turn, it gave me time to know what to say to her without making things worse. She had every right to hate me. I had only been thinking of my own needs when I came up with the stupid plan. I'd used her without any regard as to how the whole fucking thing would affect her. I figured she'd be walking away with a nice sum of money, but I'd forgotten to factor in that she was human, with a soul, a human soul. Something it seemed I'd lacked . . . until now. And when Shay walked out of my life, which she surely would, she'd be taking a big part of that newly found soul with her. My heart would be thrown into the mix as well. A heart I barely knew I had but that I'd found through the simplest everyday events, like watching Shay make sure to butter every bit of her toast to the edges and then she always finished the ritual by licking her fingertip. Or watching her wrinkle her nose at an unfunny comedy show or the way she nibbled on an apple while deeply enthralled in a book. And then there was the way she walked and talked and laughed and scoffed and even argued. Even her temper was fucking adorable.
In her distress, she had rambled some, making it hard for me to follow her line of thinking. But she'd brought up my own moment of scoffing when I assured her she would never fall in love with a jerk like me. Was it possible she had fallen for me in some degree? I'd never even considered it because deep down I knew I was my father's son, great at business but wholly unlikeable as a human. I'd fed my needs with money, business successes and non-stop sex and that had left me feeling incomplete and worthless. Shay had helped me see some light in my darkly empty existence.
And that was what I would tell her. I would make it clear as day that she had changed me. It was no longer about lust, or nefarious contracts, or reaching physical limits. It was about a connection that I'd never had and one I hadn't ever expected. In a week and a half, Shay had helped make me a better man.