Chapter Eight. Asad #4
A reluctant smile tugs at the corner of my mind. I was willing to give that thirty percent to her all along; I was just curious to see how hard she’d fight for it. This is Ember though. I should’ve known.
“As far as HEA, that’s still in the works for HoC,” I continue, circling the last item on her list. “As far as I know, it’s still not perfected. How close are you to having it distribution-ready? Because that affects our discussion on it.”
“I’m close. It tested well with our focus group, but there are some things I want to fine-tune. I’m saying another two weeks. Three at the most.”
“Okay.” The woman was a fucking beast at what she did.
“Here’s my counter with HEA. You retain the formula for three months after you leave.
” She frowns, parting her lips to argue, but I shake my head, stopping her.
“Let me finish. In those three months, we would be dependent on you to still supervise the cooking of the drug, which means you’d continue to have a foot in the company even after you’ve officially walked away from it.
I can’t have that. We’ll be divorced. You’ll no longer work here.
But you’ll still have access to Cross facilities?
Personnel? To sensitive information? Nah, that’s not good business, and it puts you in a dangerous position as well.
So, three months, and in exchange, you receive thirty-five percent of the profits from HEA. ”
She contemplates my suggestion, and after a long pause, she dips her chin.
“You have a deal.” Turning the paper around, she slides it across the desk. “Put those changes down, then sign the bottom.”
I blink.
“Fucking seriously, ma?”
“Completely fucking seriously. If Lionel Messi’s first contract was written on a napkin and was binding, ours should hold up, too.” She taps the top of the paper. “I’ll wait.”
“Nah.” I fold my arms across my chest, still holding the pen.
“There are a few more things we have to discuss since we’re putting everything down in a …
contract.” She sighs, and I’ma let that slide.
For now. “I don’t know what you have planned in your head, but this will be a real marriage.
No separate residences. You’ll be living with me as husband and wife. ”
“Oh hell no,” she balks, backing away from the desk as if creating distance between my words. “I’m not giving up my home for this shit that’s not even real. That’s my property. My … mine. I’m not abandoning the only peace I have.”
“I’m not demanding you have to sell it. Keep it. Rent it out. Hold on to it. I really don’t give a fuck. But in four weeks, you will be moving into my home and living with me for the next three years.”
She laughs, but it’s caustic, resentful. And her gaze gleams with those same emotions.
As well as fear.
My stomach hollows, as if a huge spoon scraped it out. The fuck? I doubt she’s even aware of what that stare holds. If she did, I know for a fact, Ember wouldn’t allow me to see it. She’s been fly at the mouth with me, stood up to me in ways no one else would dare if they valued breathing.
So what…?
“What’re you afraid of?” I bluntly ask.
“What?” she snaps. “I’m not afraid of shit.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re mad as fuck. And right now you want to go for my throat. But you’re also afraid. Don’t bullshit me. What is it?”
She starts to shake her head, but then stops and turns away from me, tunneling her fingers through her hair.
In a moment so quick that if I wasn’t obsessively watching her, I would’ve missed it, her shoulders sink, as if a huge weight bears down on her.
On instinct, I move forward, about to round the desk and get to her, but before that step is completed, she straightens, those same shoulders drawing back, her back arrow straight.
And when she pivots to face me again, she’s expressionless except for the small smile touching her mouth.
“Don’t bullshit you.” The smile deepens but it’s heavy with disdain instead of humor.
“Okay. Let me ask you a question instead. Can you think of any reason why I would object to living with you again? Especially given how truly fucked-up the last time we cohabited went? You really believe I would willingly consign myself to that hell again?” she asks, her voice rising with each question.
Fury pours through me, burning like a corrosive acid. I’m flush with it, fucking sweating. I backpedal several steps because if I don’t … if I don’t, I just might take my anger out on that pussy or throw her through that window—it’s a toss-up.
All these years and she still doesn’t fucking see.
And short of stapling her fucking eyelids to her forehead, I can’t force her to.
“Willingly or not, it is what it is. And come four weeks from now, your li’l ass is going to be in my house as my lawfully wedded wife. Being happy isn’t a requirement of this arrangement. Fake that muthafucka.”
“I’m not faking shit,” she shouts, slapping her hand down on the desk.
“If you wanted a phony bitch like your mother, you should’ve had that ho who was just sucking your dick marry you.
Fuck I look like pretending to be ignorant of or delighted with my husband slinging dick all over the fucking West Coast while I bury myself in a lab earning his ass money.
You got me fucked-up. Michelle might’ve been okay with looking like a fool for Marcus as long as he threw a black card and jewelry her way. But I’m not her. Never will be.”
“You seem real preoccupied with my dick, Ember.”
Pure, unadulterated joy and brutal lust punch through me, so strong my veins sizzle with the power. My body sways a bit before I go still.
Even across the distance that separates us, I catch the stiffening of her voluptuous frame.
I wish I would stop myself from tracing the heavy, full curves of her breasts, the deep valley between them bared by that jacket that I both want to worship and incinerate.
Her catch of breath is as loud as a bullet’s report as I don’t conceal my open scrutiny of the lushness of her hips and that fat, perfect ass that I can see even though she’s facing me.
The high-waisted pants only emphasize those thick-ass thighs, and shit, I want to switch out the diamond studs in my ears and wear those instead.
Li’l baby got a sick-as-fuck body. I have to suppress an almost animalistic urge to make her list every man who had the pleasure of exploring it so I can take their lives before our wedding. It’ll be her gift to me.
“And you seem real enamored with it,” she sneers, although there’s still a little tremor threading through her voice. “My point remains. If you’re expecting me to be one of these silent, turn-a-blind-eye Mafia wives, then you’re going to be disappointed. I match energy and body count.”
That has me charging across the room and in her face, backing her up against the curtained window.
Slapping my palms on either side of her head, I cage her in between the glass and my body.
I lower my head, then my hand, and slowly wrap it around the front of her throat.
Given the nature of our … history, I don’t tighten my grip—I don’t hurt her—but it’s firm enough to let her know I can. At any time, I can.
“Say it again. I dare you. Tell me again how you’re going to give away my pussy.”
She glares up at me, fisting my shirt at my waist. Unease shimmers in her golden eyes, but it’s nearly drowned out by the anger. Anger and more. It’s the more that has my hand remaining around her neck.
“Ain’t nothing over this way yours,” she says. And I would’ve believed she meant that shit if not for the shivering in her voice.
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?” I murmur, pressing my fingertips into the sides of her throat, savoring the throbbing of her pulse against my palm.
Her grip on my shirt tightens, and it pulls taut across my stomach. I inch closer, answering that unconscious plea for me to invade her personal space. The tremble that was in her voice transfers to her body, and I absorb it, take a dark, vicious delight in it.
“Yes,” she whispers, her gaze lowering to my chin.
“Nah, look at me,” I order her, and when she obeys, those honeyed eyes snapping up to meet mine, pleasure and surprise wing through me.
I lower my other hand from the wall and, with my gaze still on hers, cuff that fat flesh between her thighs.
A high, shocked whine escapes her and she shoots to her toes, but I follow her.
I open my mouth on her jaw, sucking it, drawing hard on the flesh in a wet kiss that gifts me with another of those cries.
With a low hum, I drag my tongue up her cheek until I get to her ear.
“If this pussy”—I squeeze her flesh harder and grind the heel of my palm against her clit—“ain’t mine, then why is it so fucking hot and wet, I can feel it through these pants? Huh? Tell me something, ma.”
Head tipped back and teeth sunk into her ripe bottom lip, Ember doesn’t speak to me.
But her face does. It’s saturated, fucking drenched with pleasure, with hot, grimy need.
Her chest heaves, and those big, rounded hips move like she’s working somebody’s fucking pole, riding my hand.
Seeking what I’m holding just out of reach for her.
Taking a chance, I tighten my grip on her throat just as I press hard on her clit.
She gasps, her eyes flaring so wide I can read every emotion in their light brown depths.
Shock. Lust. Uncertainty. Her body stiffens, and then a shudder rips through her like a seizure.
I frown even as her lashes lower and soft whimpers break on her parted lips.
Her hips continue to buck, but the rhythm is jerky, uncoordinated. My frown deepens.
The fuck?