“Do you?”
“You’re Tiger here. Powerful. Confident. Sexy.”
I don’t let her take me to the fuck zone. Not yet. “I’m always Nick to you, Faith. You know that.”
She inhales, her mood shifting, softening, a tentative quality to her voice as she asks, “Did you get my note?”
“I got your note and the check. And Istilldon’t want your money.”
“You promised to take it.”
“As you pointed out in the note. And I did promise, therefore, I will take the money. But we are at that place in our relationship where there is more ahead of us, not less. I won’t try to define what that is right now, in this moment, but it’s a hell of a lot more than how badly I want to be inside you right now.”
“You want to be inside me right now?”
“I always want to be inside you, Faith. You know that, too. And you know that gives you control. You have a lot of control but I need you to let me be who I am. And who I am is the man who wants to take care of you. I want to handle the bank. And I damn sure want to buy you the outfit you need for court.”
“I bought something today.”
“Faith—”
“You paid my bills at the winery today, Nick. I just couldn’t let you do more today.”
“I’m not Macom, Faith.”
“Stop saying his name.” Her hands come down on my shoulders. “I am not thinking about him. Nothing about you feels like him. Nothing about us feels like what I was with him.”
“Then let me be me.”
“Then you have to let me be me, too. It will take me time to lean on you, Nick. Because it’s not natural to me.”
“Because when you leaned on Macom, he abused that trust.”
“Now who is making him a part of our relationship? But if you’re going to go there, Ialwayson some level felt alone with Macom. So. I’vealwaysbeen alone.”
I stand up and cup her face. “So have I. But we aren’t alone anymore.”
“I’m going to protect you just like you do me, Nick. You need that, too.”
“Sweetheart, you can’t protect me by protecting my money. Money’s been saving me my entire life.Youare what I need.” I kiss her, my mouth closing down on hers, tongue licking into her mouth, the taste of coffee, and sweetness,hersweetness, exploding on my taste buds. It only makes me hungrier for her, for that certain little sexy thing she does and doesn’t even know she does. And she gives me exactly what I crave. She breathes into the kiss in that way that says, “Now I can breathe.” Now I have what I need and it sets me on fire, burns me inside and out, and I don’t play the control game I’d been ready for when she entered the office. I let myself go, deepening the kiss, letting her taste the hunger in me, the unleashed passion and she seems to feed off of what I feel, molding herself to me.
I drag her shirt over her head and I don’t stop there. Her bra follows. Her zipper is next and then I set her on the desk, my gaze raking over her breasts, before I reach for her leg, and settle the high heel of her boot on my leg. I unzip it and pull it away. Repeating the process with the other leg before I set her back on the ground, our bodies melding together, lips following, but I want her naked.Needher naked. I drag her jeans down her hips, and since impatience is my virtue right now, her panties with them. I lift her and maneuver her jeans away from her feet. And now, once again, she is naked and I am not.
Trust.
The word comes to me, clawing at me, my lies cutting me, the way I fear they will cut her, and I am not a man that feels fear.
She pushes off the desk and reaches for my pants, my zipper. I shrug out of my jacket, and by the time it’s off, her hand is slipping inside my pants, pulling my cock free. I wrap my arm around her and lift her, her legs wrapping my waist just long enough for me to walk us to the sitting area to my right. Ignoring the couch, I stop at an oversized chair, which I sit in, and I pull her on top of me, straddling me.
“You have on too many clothes,” she whispers, reaching for my tie that I really don’t give a damn about right now.
I cup her neck under her hair, bringing her closer, breathing with her as I say, “I don’t know if I’ve ever needed inside you as much as I do right now,” before I pull her lips to mine, letting her taste how real those words are, and she sinks into the kiss, into the heat of the moment.
In the midst of that kiss and the next, I manage to get just what I hunger for. Her sliding down my cock. Her taking all of me, naked, exposed,mine. “The next time I sit in this chair with a client across from me, I’m going to be thinking of this.” I press her backwards, wanting to see her, all of her.
She catches herself on my knees, arching into me as I thrust—her hips, her back, her breasts high in the air, nipples puckered. We grind together, a slow, hard, melding of bodies, and I wrap my arm around her waist, my free hand cupping her breast. My mouth lowers, tongue lapping at her pink puckered nipple. She pants out my name and I drag her to me again, her lips to my lips, and a frenzy of kissing and swaying follows—slow, fast, hard, fast again. Hard again. Harder now. Faster now. Her arms wrap around my neck, breasts molded to my chest, her body stiffening a moment before she trembles in my arms, and quakes around my cock. I shudder into release with her, and I lose time. There is just how she feels. The way she smells of amber and vanilla. The way her taste lingers on my lips.
When I finally come back to the present, I am instantly living that clawing guilt from my lies, remembering my own thoughts from earlier. I need her to know how much she means to me. I need to know when the truth is revealed, she can’t just walk away. Because I can’t lose her. “Faith.”