17. Layla
LAYLA
“ Y ou're trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
“No.” He settles between my thighs, the heat of him making me gasp despite my sensitivity. “I'm trying to ruin you for anyone else.”
The arrogance should annoy me. Instead, after what he just did, after how patiently he took me apart, it just sends fresh heat spiraling through my body.
I slide my hands down his back, fingers trailing over the tension in his spine. “Then ruin me some more,” I whisper, voice husky.
“He catches my hip, holding me still, his restraint paper-thin. “Layla,” he murmurs, voice breaking slightly, “protection?”
“Birth control,” I breathe. “And I'm clean. You?”
“Same.” His forehead drops to mine, and I can feel him trembling. “But if you want?—”
“I want you.” I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer. “Just you. Nothing between us.”
He groans, the sound torn from deep in his chest. “You can't say things like that and expect me to maintain any control.”
“Maybe I don't want your control anymore.” I nip at his jaw. “Maybe I want to see you as desperate as you just made me.”
“Careful what you wish for.”
He lines himself up with my entrance and drive in with one smooth thrust, and we both go still. The fullness is overwhelming, perfect, like finding a piece I didn't know was missing.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You feel?—”
“Oh god. I know.” I dig my nails into his shoulders. “Move. Please.”
The next thrust is slow, measured. He sets a rhythm that's barely enough, each stroke deliberate, unhurried, designed to drive me insane.
“Bennett,” I plead, trying to arch against him, but his hands on my hips keep me still.
“Let me enjoy you.” He maintains that maddening pace, even as sweat beads on his forehead. “I want to feel every second of this. Want you to feel it.”
And I do. Every nerve ending is alive, aware of each controlled movement. He angles his hips slightly, finding a spot that makes me gasp, then keeps hitting it with mathematical precision.
“You're shaking,” I manage to say, running my hands over his trembling arms.
“Because I want—” He has to pause, take a breath. “I want to let go. Want to fuck you the way I've been fantasizing about. Hard. Deep. Until you scream.”
“Then do it.”
“Not yet.” Another slow thrust that has my nails digging into his shoulders. “Not yet.”
“Please.”
He leans down to kiss me, never breaking that torturous rhythm. “Soon.”
He keeps the pace steady even as I writhe beneath him, even as I beg and plead and curse his name. Only when I'm nearly sobbing with frustration, when every muscle in my body is coiled tight, does he finally— finally —increase the tempo.
“Yes,” he breathes as I cry out.
The change is gradual at first. Slightly faster. Slightly deeper. Testing what I can take. But when I meet him thrust for thrust, when I whisper his name and beg for more, something shifts in his expression.
“Harder,” I demand, and feel his control crack.
“Layla.”
“I want to feel you tomorrow.” I bite his shoulder, marking him. “Want to sit in that boardroom meeting and remember exactly how you feel inside me.”
His hips snap forward involuntarily, earning a sharp gasp from me. “Fuck. You can't say things like?—”
“I want everyone to wonder why I'm shifting in my chair. Why I can't quite meet your eyes.” I dig my nails in harder. “Want to be sore in the best way.”
That does it. His control doesn't just snap, it shatters. He hooks one of my legs over his shoulder, changing the angle, and the first hard thrust has me seeing stars.
“Is this what you wanted?” His voice is rough, almost unrecognizable. “To see me lose control?”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a moan. “Always so composed. So perfect. I want to see you undone.”
“Congratulations.” He slides a hand between us, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves. “You've succeeded.”
The combination of his fingers and the perfect angle pushes me over the edge again. “ Bennett !” This orgasm is deeper, more intense, pulling him with me as my body clenches around him.
“Fuck! Layla!” My name is a broken sound as he follows me over, his release pulsing hot and deep inside me.
We collapse together, breathing hard, bodies still joined. His weight should be crushing, but instead it's comforting, grounding me to this moment.
“Two,” he murmurs against my neck after our breathing slows.
I laugh, the sound slightly hysterical. “You're really keeping count?”
“I'm a numbers guy.” He lifts his head to look at me, and the tenderness in his expression steals my breath. “It's what I do.”
“Nerd.” I giggle.
“Absolutely. Would you prefer a spreadsheet? I could track frequency, duration, intensity?—”
I cut him off with a kiss. “You're ridiculous.”
“Mmm.” He rolls us so I'm sprawled on top of him. “Thoroughly ridiculous?”
“The most thoroughly ridiculous.” I trace patterns on his chest. “So... about that wine and conversation?”
“Still available.” His hands stroke up and down my spine. “Though I'd need to move to get the wine, and that seems impossible right now.”
We lie in comfortable silence, the city lights painting patterns on the ceiling. Reality hovers at the edges, but I push it away. Tomorrow will bring even more complications— my father, more meetings, the impossible task of pretending this didn't happen.
“I should probably go home.”
“Stay,” he says quietly, his arm tightening around me. “I want to wake up with you.”
“I didn't bring anything?—”
“I have everything you need.” His arms tighten around me. “Just stay.”
I should say no. Should maintain some boundary, some pretense that this is casual. Instead, I burrow closer.
“OK.”
He presses a kiss to my hair. “Thank you.”
“For staying?”
“For being here. For wanting this despite all the reasons we shouldn't.” His voice carries weight I'm not ready to examine. “For seeing me as more than the corporate villain your father paints.”
“You're not a villain.” I prop myself up to look at him. “Complicated? Yes. Frustrating? Absolutely. But not a villain.”
“Your father would disagree.”
“My father thinks anyone who challenges him is evil.” I trace his jaw. “He'll come around. Eventually.”
“And if he doesn't?”
The question hangs between us, heavy with implications. What are we really doing here? What happens when everyone finds out?
“Then we deal with it,” I say finally. “Tomorrow. Tonight, can we just be Bennett and Layla? Not CEO and COO?”
“I'd like that.” He pulls me down for a kiss that quickly heats. “Though I should mention—the night's not over. ”
“No?”
“I believe I mentioned multiples. Plural. More than two.”
“You really are trying to ruin me.”
“I am,” he rasps, rolling us again so I'm on top. “I'm going to be the best mistake you ever make.”
As his mouth finds mine again, as his hands start their devastating exploration, I think he might be right.