C H A P T E R T H R E E
Lincoln
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By the time we’ve reached the end of the hall, the noise from the games fades into the background. As I swing open the door, we are greeted by the bright colors splashed onto the cream walls from my collection of abstract art inside my personal sanctuary here in the penthouse. Lamps throw light up and down the walls and off the plush furniture, as well as the warm wood desk and bookcases against the long wall across from the entry.
“I’m not going to fuck you.” She blurts out as I shut the office door behind us.
No, but I’m going to fuck you. Even if it’s the last thing I do in this life.
The A/C murmurs overhead as I watch her pace the perimeter of the room, and I’m eyeing her with the same intensity that a starving lion eyes a grazing gazelle. The temperature in my office is set at exactly sixty-nine degrees, never more, never less. I can be obsessive in a lot of ways, and the right temperature is one of them. But right now, that thermostat must be fucked, because I’m about to burst into flames.
Her delicate fingers touch everything as she floats along, turning her head now and then to glance at me, her stunning face taking on a calculating, cautious expression. I know she’s playing at a casual indifference, but she’s as wound up as a spring, waiting to see what I’ve got.
When she pauses to look then finger a first edition copy of The Age of Innocence on the wall of shelves, I feel it in my gut. The sound of her voice giving Mel the name of the character from that book swirls in my brain, lighting a fire inside me that will not be extinguished.
She’s the one.
That phrase isn’t something I’ve let myself think about in a long time. I believed in the idea of there being a “one” years ago. That was back when I still felt each breath and woke up with a sense of hope. The right person was out there for me, and I just had to find her.
But those kinds of ideas have been so far removed from my everyday life, I lost touch with them. Not exactly a lack of belief, but more like forgetting those lofty dreams of childhood. Reality sets in, and you deal with the day-to-day. “The one” became a kind of long-lost romantic ideal that just finally gave up and trickled out of me one day at a time.
The women I managed to date felt more like a complication for which I didn’t see the reward. Finding any real connection to someone was as elusive as rain in the Mojave.
So it went. I gave up on that gut feeling that somewhere in this world lived my other half.
But now, something tells me that as much as I wish in some ways for that feeling remain dead, I may have been too hasty in my decision.
Maybe.
Unless I’m the one getting played. Because she’s good.
Exceptionally good.
And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I’m not sure I’m better.
“You’ve read it,” I tell her as her fingers caress the binding of the book.
It’s not a question, and in that second, the sparkle of something in her eyes tells me she feels this connection too. Like a live wire humming between us. Set to shock the dead parts of us both with a voltage neither of us expected.
And now, to remove any lingering doubt about what’s going on here, she’s still touching that fucking book.
Where she got her goddamned fake name.
I make my way from where I’ve been standing to admire her from a new angle. To be closer to her, close enough to feel her presence disrupting my world. My cock aches inside my pants. There will be no relief in this life unless it comes from her, but right now, it’s not my needs that are on my mind. It’s hers.
When I’m so near that I can see her pulse rhythmically moving under the creamy flesh at the nape of her neck, so near that I catch a hint of her arousal on the air, I stop. Reaching across the small space that separates us, I set the tip of my index finger at the base of her throat and watch as she freezes at the contact.
Her breath is quick, shallow. I feel it pulsating beneath my touch. “Have you?” She swallows then finishes. “Read it?” She whispers the last words, moving from my touch like a swan, spinning elegantly a quarter turn back and forth on her heels as she pulls the book out an inch, then slips it back into place.
“It frightened him—” My voice deepens as I quote my favorite passage from the book, my eyes noting the slow dilation then tightening of her pupils as I speak “—to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.” I enunciate each word slowly, taking in all the history in her eyes as I repeat the words I’ve read so many times.
We stand frozen in that moment, reading one another in a way that leaves the calculations of the games we play behind. I note the slight change in her breathing. The way her shoulders drop and she blinks slowly as if savoring each word.
“How about a wager?” I say as I close the few inches left between us. Her body now facing me, feeling the hardness grow with every step as her scent swirls in my head and I think of how she will taste the first time she fills my mouth with her cum.
Because she will. I’d bet my life on it.
My question darkens the brilliant green of those magnificent eyes, but she’s on the hook; I just need to reel her in.
“What makes you think I’m the betting type?” Her sarcastic question is followed by a smile that curls into those lips. Lips that were born to ring my cock, and my balls tighten, ready on a hair trigger.
“Educated guess.” I let my words fall heavy as I square my body in front of hers, shift my shoulders back. Her fingertips finally leave the gold-embossed spine of The Age of Innocence to pinch away a lock of hair that’s caught in her eyelashes.
The heat between us is palpable, and her demeanor shifts. She reminds me of a cat. Half dozing on the windowsill in the sunlight; however, as asleep as she may seem, she still hears and sees everything. Her playful flirtation takes on a more businesslike tone as she speaks.
“Listen, I already said I’m not fucking you, and I meant that. Mean that,” she adds hastily. “Second, I owe the house five grand. It’s no big deal. Spot me another five, and I’ll earn yours back before you know it, and then some for me.”
“You’re in no position to dictate terms.” My fingers replace hers on that errant strand of golden hair, and I see the soft shudder that reverberates in her shoulders. “But I don’t need you to fuck me. So you don’t need to worry about that. What I need you to do...”
I scoot my feet forward, the front of my suit coat now just brushing against the points of her tits. We’re so close I can smell the hint of Cherry Coke on her breath, an overlay to her natural scent that sits somewhere between strawberries and lust. She’s driving me to the brink of my own sanity, and I love every moment of it. Her bright red lips, offset by her flawless pale skin, have me entranced.
I haven’t been this alive in years.
“What do you need me to do?” Her voice is distracted, her hands moving to the buttons on the arms of my suit, twisting them so the light catches in the dark edges as I shift my weight, bringing one leg to nudge my knee between her soft thighs.
A shiver draws a line down my back as she opens her legs to me. She’s mine. All mine. The hard muscles in the top of my thigh push forward, my leg moving up into the space between her legs as my lust turns into a battalion of warring need.
“Tell me your real name,” I growl.
I bring my hands to her face, settling the fingertips against the pink of her cheeks, dancing them across her skin as if the heat there burns me. Slowly, her own hands hook around my wrists, coming along for the ride, keeping her connection to me as I rub my leg back and forth between hers.
“That’s it?” she whispers. “Tell you my name, and you’ll forgive my marker?” She opens her mouth to continue, but I shift two fingers to cover her lips. I don’t want it so easy.
“That’s only part of it. I have more terms in order to relieve you of the debt completely.”
The blush on her cheeks spreads to her neck and colors her chest as her breath falters. She begins to rock as her hips betray her. Pretending to be simply adjusting herself, she gently sways back and forth against my leg. Her need for the very thing I want is growing as the vibration between us nears the point of no return.
I drop my fingers to pinch her chin as she speaks.
“And what...are your other terms?” Her voice shakes on a lower tone as she barely gets the words out, having to clear her throat mid-sentence.
I lean in, my fingers leaving her lips to push her hair behind her ear. My lips trace down over the roundness of her cheek. I linger there for a moment before sliding to within a hairsbreadth of the corner of her mouth, until I feel her breath stop in anticipation.
“With the first orgasm I give you, you’ll cover my fingers. And when you do, you’ll tell me your first name.” I trade the tenuous connection of our bodies for something more solid, pushing myself against her and leaving no doubt what’s about to happen.
My thigh rubs thick and hard against the heat of her cunt as her fingers tighten into forceps around my wrists. Her weight is balanced on my leg, the toes of her red fuck-me pumps barely touching the floor. Her hip joints open, letting her settle against me. She has no idea what this is doing to me. Seeing the desire in her eyes fuels me.
“With the second orgasm, you’ll fill my mouth. And you’ll tell me your last name.”
A whimper catches in her throat as my mouth comes down to take hers. Her lips open, and I plunge my tongue inside, the first taste of her running through me like wine through a drunkard. I’m done. I need this woman. And not only in my bed.
I need her in my life.