Chapter 57
Friday nights used to be date night. I miss those days. Tonight, instead of a date, I got a text from Anderson. “Meet at your place at seven.”
How romantic.
But I can’t give him crap for the brevity of the text. Whatever has happened today, it can’t have been good. He’s been silent most of the day. No texts, no calls. Today was the day he was going to get the money from his dad, and since he’s been quiet all day, I assume it went badly. What if Elliot figured out our scheme and refused to give him the money? Or maybe something else went wrong. I won’t know until Anderson gets here.
He knocks on my door, and I leap to my feet. Anxiety has ridden me hard today, and I need answers. When I open the door, though, all urge to grill Anderson evaporates. He looks awful. Handsome but awful. Anderson is drenched. Dark smudges sit atop his cheeks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. His lips are tight. His eyes take the cake, though. Almost hollow-looking.
I know guys hate talking about their feelings, but I can’t help but blurt, “What’s wrong?” as I close the door behind him.
He sets a bowling bag on my table. “You have your money.”
“In cash? I thought it would be a wire transfer or something?—”
“Cash.”
He kicks off his shoes and takes off his coat before wandering into my bedroom. My doorway frames him when he turns to me. “Can we talk?”
I race to be at his side, and he motions for me to follow him to the bed. We arrange ourselves until I’m on my back, and he’s on his side, facing me. It’s how we lay for so many days in my bed while I was pretending to be kidnapped. We would talk for hours like this until we couldn’t take it anymore and had to get naked. I hope that’s where this is heading, but I doubt it. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Today … things went bad.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
He shakes his head. “Can’t. Won’t.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Tension breaks on his face as he smiles sadly at me. Then he leans down for a kiss. It’s brief and chaste, but god, I needed it. “Sorry, I didn’t kiss you when I came in.”
“It’s fine, Anderson. You’re sort of freaking me out.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to.”
“What can you tell me? Start there.”
He sighs and lies back, so I crawl onto his shoulder and cram myself into the nook there. It’s nice to just lay and listen to his heartbeat and breaths. Sets my mind at ease better than Xanax. He says, “I need to get away from my family, June.”
Well. Anxiety is back. “What? Why?”
But he shakes his head. “Without getting into details, they are not good people.”
“But everyone I met was perfectly nice and?—”
“My dad. It’s him. He’s the problem.” His jaw is tight when he says this, and I get the impression things are worse than I thought.
“Oh.”
He takes a deep breath to calm himself. “Dad is a monster. He is just as bad as Andre Moeller. Maybe worse. I don’t know enough about Andre to say for sure. But Dad is … in a similar line of work, I think. I want no part of it.”
“But how would you extricate yourself from him, Anderson? He’s your father. You work for him?—”
“The company pays for my apartment, my life … I don’t know. I’ve built a reputation as a decent attorney, but I’ve done that on the back of West Media. Everything I am is tied to him, and I hate it. So, maybe I’ll try a different industry. I don’t know. But I have to get out.”
He’s panicking. I feel it coming off of him in waves, and he’s threatening to make me panic, too. So, I take a different course of action. “Anderson?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Whatever you choose to do, I support you.”
He pauses, and when he finally looks at me, it’s all nerves in his eyes. “And if that meant I was poor, you’d?—”
I laugh and throw my thigh over his. “You think I care about your money? Honestly?”
“I didn’t mean to be offensive, just that?—”
I kiss him. He’s stunned, I can tell. He hardly moves when I do it. But as the kiss deepens, Anderson strokes my cheek. I smile up at him after. “Yes, I’d support you even if it meant you were poor. Money is not why I like you.” But like has not felt like a sufficient word for days now.
“Why then? Without that, who am I?”
I fling myself on top of him, straddling his waist. “You are Anderson West. The boy who made my life a living hell when we were kids because he had a crush on me and didn’t know what to do with that because he was never properly shown affection. The guy who went to my alma mater to follow me there, I suspect. And the man who won a sex auction just to keep me safe. Anderson, your money makes a lot of things easier for you, but it doesn’t make you who you are. If things were harder for you, then you’d work harder.” I shrug. “But money does not define you. Your father does not define you, either. You do.”
He grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me down to his lips. “I needed to hear that.”
“I will tell you that whenever you need to hear it.”
He smiles up at me and kisses me again. But this time, the tension in his lips is gone. I let him wrap me up in his arms. It feels so good to be held by him after all of this craziness. It’s all I ever want to do. But as the kiss goes on, I want more.
I want everything he has to give me.
“Anderson?” I ask between kisses.
“Hmm,” he murmurs against my jaw.
“I want you.”
He looses a breath as he stares into my eyes. For a moment, it’s like everything stops. There is nothing outside of my bed and this man beneath me. But then he grabs my hips, and everything starts again. Our kisses. My heart. My fingers argue with his shirt until I give up and remove my own instead. He shrugs out of his shirt, and I finally have his skin on my palms. His carved muscles make me crave him even more.
I kiss his shoulder while he shucks my pajama bottoms off. Then I kiss and bite my way down his body before I unbuckle his belt and work on his jeans. He helps me get them off, and suddenly, I have the world’s hottest man naked on my bed. I’d pause to appreciate the sight, but I need him now.
Instead of pausing, I climb back up his body and trail my tongue up his length. He has the most enticing vein pattern on his cock, and I take my time to memorize it. He hisses a breath when I get to the tip. I love that sound. But Anderson is too impatient for a blow job and grabs my shoulders to pull me up his body. He rolls me onto my back, climbing over me. I’m breathless with need, and all I can think of is Anderson.
When he’s on top of me, I feel so protected and small and cherished. I love it. Clasping my hands onto his neck, I pull him down for a kiss, and his tongue dances with mine as his hand trails over my tits and lower. He reaches between my thighs, and I yelp in his mouth.
His touch makes my pulse thrum in my clit. My hips keep jerking to and from his fingers as I grind against him. He growls when he slides two fingers into me. Warmth pools in my belly as he works me over, building the orgasm quickly. I can’t help it. Can’t slow down even if I wanted to. His touch is too good. Everything with Anderson is too good.
Just as I crest up into my climax, he slows down to draw it out. He’s figured out exactly how to play my body in the days we spent in my bed, and he’s using that to my advantage, knowing I’ll come even harder this way. But as he slows, he kisses me gentler. Sweeter. His tender touch keeps me high, but these kisses make everything warm and low. My body tenses, and just before I come, he says, “June, I love you.”
His words push me over the edge, and I come so hard I see stars. I scream out, “I love you, too!” as I orgasm all over his hand. Ecstasy fills me from toes to skull and beyond, like I’ve turned inside out on his fingers, but in the best way possible. As my body shakes, he kisses me again as he nestles on his knees between my thighs. I need this so bad. I’ve felt so disconnected from him all day. This will fix everything.
He rubs his wet thumb over my bottom lip as he stares into my eyes. “June, I love you more than anything?—”
“You must if you’re willing to betray your family for her.”
We both jump at that, and his father stands in my bedroom doorway. Anderson throws the blanket over me, then snaps, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came for what’s mine.” He grabs the little black bag from my table and leaves.
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I never expected to meet the love of my life while auctioning myself off the to the highest bidder.
Anderson West is the heir to a billion dollar fortune and I had to work my butt off for everything I have.
At school, he was my bully.
In law school, he was my rival.
In the real world, we fell in love. Hard.
Our relationship should have been a fairy tale. But his controlling father turned it into a scandalous headline.
The world is full of dangerous men and the most dangerous ones work for the Wests.
After loosing my job, I have to work for his family”s biggest rival and play a dangerous game of chess.
When someone comes after me, Anderson takes his life, and I become an accomplice in covering up a murder to protect the man I love.
Is this the end of us or is it just the beginning?