Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Shandra
M y hands are shaking so badly I fumble with the keys, dropping them on the carpeted floor in front of our penthouse door. “Get it together,” I murmur to myself while bending down to retrieve my errant keys.
“Nice view,” my husband says from behind, and I smack my head into the door in startled surprise. “Shit.” Maverick lifts me effortlessly, holding my face in his hands as he examines my features for any signs of damage.
“I’m okay,” I confirm, rubbing at my brow. “You shouldn’t creep up on me like that.”
“I couldn’t help it. Have you seen your ass in that skirt?”
He’s crazy, but I’m smiling for the first time in hours. “No, take a picture?” I joke, jutting my ass out. A strangled sound rips from my lips when a camera flash goes off. “Oh my god, Mav, I was only joking!”
“See.” He thrusts his cell in front of my face. “Delectable. Bite-worthy.”
“You’re incorrigible.” I snake my arms around his neck and press my body flush against his. “But I love it and you.” I kiss him deeply, needing to lose myself in my husband to forget the horrendous day I’ve just endured even if only temporarily.
“I should come home early more often,” he teases in between kisses.
“You totally should,” I agree before sliding my tongue into his mouth.
Mav grips my ass and swivels his hips, ensuring I feel the hard length that’s all for me. “We should take this indoors before we give the neighbors a show,” he quips, squeezing my ass through my pencil skirt.
“We are the only penthouse on the roof,” I remind him, arching my neck and granting him greater access.
“Valid point, but there are still cameras. Let’s not give security the thrill of a lifetime.”
His lips suction on my neck, and he holds me securely while opening the door, and that is true skill. We fall into our hallway, joined at the lips and hips. Mav kicks the door shut, and then we’re a tangle of moans and limbs as we paw at one another with intense need. “Hands on the wall, gorgeous,” he says, flipping me around.
“I like where this is going,” I purr, setting my hands on the wall and thrusting my ass out.
“If I don’t get inside you in the next three seconds, I’m going to explode.” He pushes my skirt up to my waist. “Damn, that ass, these legs.” A shiver ghosts over my skin as his hands trail slowly from my ankles up my stocking-clad legs. “Love these.” His teeth graze the bare skin on one side of the clips of my garter belt.
“Hurry, love.” I need him to distract me. To bury himself deep inside and remake me so I remember what’s important, and it’s not the shit show I left back at the office.
“Someone’s needy,” he says, straightening up and cupping my pussy through my silk panties from behind.
“Please.” I whimper as he drags his finger up and down my slit through the silk.
“Hope you’re ready, honey, because I can’t be gentle.”
“Fuck me hard, Mav. The harder, the better.” My core clenches and all the muscles in my lower stomach pull tight at the sound of his zipper lowering. I cry out when his hand comes down on my ass in a slew of rapid slaps.
“Let’s see how much you want me.” Pulling my panties aside, he drives two fingers into my slick warmth, cursing under his breath when he finds me more than ready and willing.
“I fucking love you, Mrs. Anderson.”
“I’ll love you longtime if you put your big cock inside me.”
Mav chuckles, and my legs almost go out from under me when his dick nudges my entrance. “How can I resist such an offer,” he says before rutting inside me in one brutal drive.
My scream bounces off the walls of our plush home, and I cling to the wall for dear life as my husband fucks me like he hates me. Digging his fingers into my hips, he yanks my ass up higher, inserting the tip of his pinkie into my puckered hole to play with me as his erection plunders my pussy like a marauding pirate. “Fuck, yeah,” he grunts, slamming into me over and over. “That’s it, gorgeous. Squeeze my dick. Oh, yeah, just like that.”
Buttons fly everywhere when he rips my blouse and tugs down my bra to grab hold of my right breast. His expert fingers roll and tweak my hard nipple, sending darts of pleasurable pain shooting from my chest to my cunt. “I’m gonna fuck these later,” he promises, roughly kneading my boob. “I’m gonna cover them with my cum and spoon-feed it to you for dinner.”
“Mav,” I shriek, almost losing my balance when my knees buckle.
“I’ve got you, love.” His arm bands around my stomach as he holds me up while ravaging me, and it’s everything I need. “I can’t hold back much longer. Need to spill deep inside my woman.”
His dirty talk shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. Mav is an incredible lover, and he’s taken me to new heights I never even dreamed existed. All the girls at work call him Doctor Dirty because I stupidly made a flippant remark one time and they latched on to it like bees on nectar.
“I’m close,” I pant, sliding my fingers to my clit and rubbing it in sync with my husband’s thrusts.
“That’s so hot.” Mav punctuates his words with the motion of his hips, hitting me so deep I see stars.
We cry out together, shattering and pulsing as each incredible wave of pleasure rolls over us.
“Fuck, I needed that.” Mav slips out and covers my back with his hard, lean body, linking his hand with mine on the wall.
“Trust me, I needed it more.” My voice quivers, giving me away.
In a nanosecond, I’m spun around and he’s tilting my chin up. “What’s wrong?” Concern radiates from his eyes, and it’s all it takes to crack through the fragile walls I erected to hold emotion at bay today. A sob bursts from my chest, and the dam fully breaks. Collapsing in his arms, I sob against his neck and soak his shirt. He holds me close, running a soothing hand up and down my back as he lets me release it all.
“I ruined your shirt,” I say over a hiccup when I’ve finally exhausted myself.
“It’s only a shirt.” He pulls up his pants and fixes my clothes, as best he can with my ruined blouse, before scooping me into his arms and carrying me into the living room. “You feel up to talking?” he asks, setting me gently on the couch before claiming the space beside me.
I really don’t want to tell my husband this, but we have a no-secrets rule I’ve yet to break, and I’m not about to start now. “Not really, but I need to tell you what’s happened.”
Alarm flares in his beautiful blue eyes as his gaze rakes over me. “Are you hurt?” Lethal calm cloaks him in an invisible shroud as he calmly adds, “Are you hurt some place I can’t see?”
“No.” A fierce shudder zips through me at the thought of how close I came to having to give him a different answer.
“Who do I need to kill,” he growls, taking my hands and bringing them to his lips. He kisses the tips of my finger with so much tenderness and it’s completely at odds with the dark look on his face.
“No one. We’re not resorting to murder to handle this.”
“Please, Shandra. Tell me what’s happened. I’m imagining all kinds of horrific things.”
I run my hands through his dark hair that is now threaded with fine strands of gray. It gives him a distinguished look, and impossibly, he’s even more handsome. His patients are all half in love with him, and I suspect a large portion of the nursing staff is too. Mav is taking a page out of Sawyer’s book and embracing it instead of dying the gray hairs like a lot of men do.
I draw a brave breath and force the words out. “Phillip Renford cornered me at work today and tried to force himself on me.”
A muscle clenches in Mav’s jaw, and his fingers tighten around my hands. “I want details,” he grits out.
“We’re working on a high-profile account together, and we had to issue an important management report today. The deadline was tight, so we passed on the monthly staff lunch and worked through.” Panic sits on my chest, and I take deep breaths.
“It’s okay. You’re safe. He’s not going to hurt you again.” Mav’s reassuring words match his soothing touch as his thumb rubs circles on my hand.
When I’ve gathered my composure, I continue. “I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, he was there. He pushed me back into the cubicle, grabbed my breast through my blouse, and slammed his vile lips down on mine. I bit him and kneed him in the balls, and then I ran.”
“He’s a fucking dead man,” Mav calmly says.
“As much as I’m tempted to tell you to end that scum, that is not the way to resolve issues. Murder cannot become the go-to response.” The Anderson men are all super possessive with a dollop of dark on the side. Except for Harley, maybe. He’s the brother I’m least close to because he lives so far away, and we don’t see him often.
“He put his hands on you, and that is unacceptable.”
“Yes, it is, but I’ll handle this my way.”
“That fucker should have heeded my warning.”
I flipped at Mav when he told me he’d confronted my boss—who also happens to be one of the partners at the management consultancy firm I work at—and warned him to quit the sleazy innuendos. I knew it would only make things worse. Renford is a narcissistic, misogynistic prick who thinks his shit doesn’t stink. He has no clue about Maverick’s lineage or his association with the Elite. To him, Mav is an overprotective husband and a challenge. But stating this won’t help, and I don’t want Mav to feel bad about his prior actions when he was only trying to protect me, so I simply agree. “Yes, he should have.”
“Are you sure I can’t kill him because I really fucking want to.”
Flipping our hands over, I face his palms upward. I run the tip of one finger carefully up and down his hands. “These hands heal. They do not kill.”
“They do for you.”
“I love how protective you are, but you’re not to interfere, Mav. I’m going to deal with this officially and then I’ll resign. I had to force myself back to the office once everyone had returned from lunch, and I spent the remainder of the afternoon working on the report with him with the door wide-open. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I did it because I’m going to handle this my way.”
“You did what?” His eyes almost bug out of his head. “Why the hell did you go back?”
“Because I’m a professional and that’s what professionals do! If I didn’t return, he’d have grounds to report me, and I’m not letting him damage my reputation because he can’t keep his pervy hands to himself.” Anger replaces the fear coursing through my veins, and I latch on to it. “I took precautions. I told him his conduct was completely unacceptable and if he touched me again I was going straight to HR. I worked at a separate desk with the door open onto a busy floor. I told Natalie so someone was aware of what happened.”
“You should have reported it to HR immediately.”
“In an ideal world, yes.”
“What does that mean?” His troubled eyes search mine.
“It means he’s their star employee. He’s brought in double the new business of any other partner or employee. He can do no wrong in their eyes. To them, I’d be the problem, not him, which is why I couldn’t react without thinking it through.” I was way too emotional to think logically, so I had to compartmentalize and push it aside to get through the rest of the day. I brace myself for this next admission because my husband will not like it one little bit. I wet my lips and admit the rest of the ugly truth. “He threatened me. Said if I went to HR he’d ruin me, make it so I never worked in the industry again.”
“That’s it.” Mav takes out his cell.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Kai. We’re dealing with this fucker our way.”
“Put that down.” I slap his phone away. “You are not involving Kai or doing anything.”
“The hell I’m not.” Mav jumps up, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. “He touched you. Threatened you. And you expect me to just let that go? Fuck no, Shandra. That’s not how this is playing out.”
“Mav.” I stand and softly clasp his wrists, pulling his hands down from his hair. “I’m not going to let anything go. I want that bastard to pay but not with his life. We’re not God, Mav. We don’t get to decide who dies and who lives. And I need to handle this. It has to be me.” I thump a hand over my chest. “I’m the one who’s been wronged, and it’ll be me seeking vengeance because it’s the only way I can eradicate this sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. I need to take this prick down. If you love me, you’ll step aside and let me deal with this.”
“That goes against every facet of who I am, love.”
“I know.” I palm his cheek. “Please let me do this my way. Please.”
Torment is etched across his handsome face, and I know it’s killing him. I know he wants to wipe that scum from the face of the Earth and maybe I should let him, but I need to regain control because this has rattled me more than I thought it would.
“What is your plan?” he asks after a few beats.
“Natalie said I should just resign and go work someplace else, but fuck no. I’m not slinking off and letting him get away with it. Not just for me but for others too. Who knows how many women he might’ve done this to before? Maybe he’s done worse, or he will in the future if he’s not stopped.”
“If it gets out, and it most likely will, it will damage your reputation. You might not get another job. It’s fucking unfair, but it’s the way of the world.”
“I know, and I’m prepared to make that sacrifice. I’ve been thinking of setting up my own consultancy anyway. This might be the push I need.”
“I hate you won’t let me deal with him, but you wouldn’t be the woman I love if you didn’t fight back. I don’t want to be that man. The one who overrules his wife when she asks for something she needs, so fine. I’ll let you handle it. On three conditions.”
“Name them.”
“You keep me fully updated, you’re never alone with that prick ever, and if your way doesn’t work, you agree to at least discuss the options I’m considering.”
Mav knows I can defend myself. All the Elite wives are trained in self-defense, and I didn’t hesitate to act today, but men are still physically stronger than women, so I know being around Phillip is risky, but I’ll take precautions and make sure he can’t get to me. “I’ll agree to that, but I draw the line at cold-blooded murder, Maverick.” My husband endured a lot of unsavory shit growing up, and he’s still involved with the Elite, albeit a much more professional Elite. He’s had to do things he didn’t want to, and he might not want to hear it, but I’m trying to protect him from the darkness that still lives inside him. I know Mav and his brothers and friends could take care of Phillip with nothing leading back to them.
They can literally commit murder and get away with it.
But I don’t want that for my husband, my brothers-in-law, or our friends.
We can’t say we’ve moved forward and then pick and choose when murderous deeds are acceptable.
Maybe I’m na?ve. Maybe I’m clinging to false hope, but I’ll do anything to safeguard my husband’s soul. And that means he is not killing my boss—no matter how enticing the idea is.