22. Piper
CHAPTER 22
Piper
I hear a knock at the door and smile to myself, pushing the swiveling chair away from the desk. I know exactly who it is, and I can’t wait to wrap myself around him.
For the last couple of days, since we came back to Phoenix after having said the three big words to each other, we’ve been absolutely inseparable, or rather, even more so than usual, and we’ve been finding all kinds of excuses to work from home in the same air space either at his place or here.
Today, he needed to have an in-person meeting with Marcus, his super-efficient PA, though.
They were going to drop in unannounced at the new offices to check on the goings-on there 'cause, apparently, according to my man, that's a thing you do when you're the big bad CEO of a Fortune 500 company that just hired a whole bunch of new top execs to run a satellite office.
You have to convince them that you could appear at any minute so they learn that your rep is the real deal, and you would absolutely squash them and do a lot of damage to their careers if their actions warranted it, no matter that they could be up-and-coming rising stars in their field.
Basically, you have to make sure they get the memo that if they even think of fucking with you, you'd know, and they would be over and done with.
He says there'll be time to make them feel comfy and safe in their workspace later after they’re double-vetted and you're sure that they aren't going to be any trouble.
While he was away, I concentrated on drafting the last few chapters of my new book since I’m a total plotter, and I rarely pants-out a story without some serious outlining and researching first.
I save my work at the speed of light, put my laptop to sleep, turn down the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode I had playing on my iPad to get some background comforting and familiar noise while I plotted and skip out of the room like a sixteen-year-old ready to meet her date —which I could totally be since I’ve still got my V-Card and he’s my first love.
I open the door and just stare at him.
Damn.
My guy is hot in gray sweatpants, sexy as hell in his denim and leather biker gear, but wearing a bespoke power suit that looks like someone painted it on him, he’s so downright gorgeous that he’s practically dangerous to my health.
My heart picks up speed as I stand there like an idiot, looking on and feeling my face flush like after a full-on sunburn.
"Hey, baby," Gage murmurs with that chocolatey deep voice of his. There’s a little killer half smile on his sinfully full lips, and a pair of sophisticated dark square-framed sunglasses are hiding his gaze from me as he looks me up and down. Slowly.
God, have mercy on this poor little romance writer!
I gulp down air and croak out a ‘Hello , ’ my voice sounding like I just drank a cup of desert sand, while my heart pounds madly in my chest and… lower.
He pulls his sunglasses off, his smile getting bigger as he waltzes into the apartment, blissfully unaware of what his looks and his penetrating dark stare are doing to my hormones that, at this point, are practically throwing a rave party in some dark recess of my very being.
“How was the writing?” he asks me, cupping my face and bending down to kiss my lips.
I mumble a ‘ Good’ against his mouth that turns into a little surprised whimper when I feel his tongue starting to chase mine.
Just like that, he takes me over, passion flooding my senses as he kisses me hard, like he hasn’t seen me in days. His hands run feverishly all over my back and down to my ass as he pulls me into his arms, making me melt against him.
Then he pulls away, leaving me reeling.
I blink.
Uh.
Apparently, that was a simple kiss hello to him.
This guy really has no idea of the punch he packs, and I wonder… will it always feel like this?
Will he always be able to make me go up in flames for him, get this wet this fast for him, with a single smooch? Or is this going to settle down and reach a level where I’m going to be able to function and be rational around him, a level where a kiss will just be that… a kiss ?
And do I really want that?
He takes off his suit jacket and turns to hang it over the back of the sofa, his back flexing under the perfectly fitting off-white shirt he’s wearing. Then he starts to undo his tie, his eyes still on mine.
“So what do you want to do for lunch? Go to that little Greek place nearby that you like so much?” he asks, unbuttoning the first couple of buttons of his shirt.
I blink a couple of times to try and dispel the haze of lust that’s covering my eyes.
“Babe? What’s up? What are you thinking about so hard?” he asks, moving into my space and tapping my forehead with one finger.
I sigh, looking up at him. “Just crazy stuff, you know… the usual,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “What kind of crazy stuff? Book-related or us-related?”
He’s so damn perceptive with his questions!
Well, I might as well be truthful. “ Us-related . I was thinking about the future… the way you make me feel… when we are close, I mean… will it dwindle down, do you think? Or will I always feel like I have to hold back from climbing you like a tree even years from now?”
I see his eyes grow large.
Yeah, sometimes I say unfiltered stuff that most people need a minute to process, but Gage’s always pretty fast to recover his aplomb, no matter what I throw at him.
He smiles and pulls me back into the circle of his arms. “Are you holding back right now?”
I tilt my head to the side. “No fair answering a question with a question, Gage!”
He shrugs. “You answer mine, and I’ll answer yours.”
“I asked my question first,” I grumble.
He laughs and quickly kisses me on the mouth, his tongue coming out to barely touch my lower lip and making me shiver all over.
“Fine. Have it your way… I think and hope it will always be like this between us. Don’t you?”
I nod. “Yes…”
“Now you! Answer my question…”
“That was a very impertinent question, by the way!” I protest playfully as he gives me a squeeze to keep me closer to him, and that’s when I feel how very hard he is for me and gasp quietly.
So he is just as affected by a simple kiss hello as I am, then…
He shakes his head. “It might be a rude question, yes, but it’s a very pertinent one, baby doll. Now spill.”
“Fine. I was… I am… but are you doing it too? Holding back?” I ask, pressing my lower body until I feel his erection dig into my tummy.
He groans. “That’s redundant, love. Besides, I think part of me already answered you…”
I laugh. “Then why were you talking about going out for lunch like nothing happened?”
He smiles at me, kissing my forehead. “I was trying to give you some space, baby. Intimacy is important, but if I start telling you about all the times you get me hard all through the day or I actually do something about it instead of acting like it’s not happening every time, I’m afraid we’ll never leave the bed… I don’t want you to think that sex is all this is about. I love you. I want you to feel that.”
I throw my arms around him and finally do climb him like a tree. “I love you too. And I would never think badly of you for wanting us to be close… or closer than we’ve been until now even… And your love, Gage… I always feel it, no matter what we do. Always.”
He hugs me back. “Well, then… I’ve missed you like crazy, even if it’s only been a few hours, and I’ve spent the better part of my day thinking about ripping your clothes off and eating you out until you passed out. Attempting to conduct business with a painful hard-on that you’re trying to hide is not easy, let me tell you that. On the other hand, apparently, I get quite a dark glower on when I think about sex, and you are not there, so, in the end, it did help ‘cause my scowling scared the crap out of everybody.”
For once, I’m the shocked one. “Ah, well… that’s… that’s…”
I don’t know what I’m going to say, but it doesn’t matter because my man spares me the embarrassment of having to reply by pushing his tongue into my mouth.
My body fires up for him as his does for me just like that, and before I know what hit me, he is stumbling toward my bedroom while keeping me glued to his chest, my thighs spread on either side of his waist, our mouths fused together.
Gage slips his tongue out of my mouth, and after one more little kiss, he lowers me to the bed, on my back, one of my legs dangling off the edge.
He stands at my side, eyes looking at me so intensely that I feel his stare singeing my skin as he undoes a few more of his shirt's buttons while taking off his shoes simultaneously.
Then his hands reach for his belt buckle, but I sit up and stop them mid-way.
I feel bold today. I want… more .
I want to be in control.
Whenever we are intimate, Gage always takes the lead, which is great and hot as hell, but today, I want to explore our bond.
I want to make him feel as good as he makes me feel.
“Is something the matter?” he asks.
I sit up and then stand in front of him, shaking my head, my hands taking hold of his large wrists and bringing them between us.
I kiss his fingers, keeping my eyes on him, and watch as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
I let my tongue peek out to lick the tip of his thumb and he hisses.
He cocks one eyebrow my way, his fingers entwining with mine. “Baby?”
“We always play your games, Gage. Today… I want to play mine .”
Part of me is a bit afraid he’s going to shoot me down right now.
After all, he’s the experienced one, and the guy, and whatever I know about sex comes from theoretical research, or it’s something I learned from him, but even so, there are plenty of things I want to do to him…
I look at him head-on, even if my cheeks are burning.
He gives me this impossibly cheeky smile that almost gives him a boyish look that somehow makes him appear even more sexy and handsome in my eyes. “Hmm, bossy. I like it! Play away, baby, this is your show. I’m all yours,” he says, taking a step back from me and then spreading his arms wide before he lets them fall down at his sides.
I take a shaky breath and grin up at him.
I stand on my tip-toes to kiss him on the mouth softly, and then my hands make short work of finishing unbuttoning his shirt and then pulling it off and dropping it over the foot of the bed.
“Can you take off your undershirt, too, love?” I ask him and he nods, smiling.
"Sure, anything you want," he whispers, reaching behind his back to pull his white tee over his head.
I see all those tatted muscles of his coming into view and gulp.
God, I could lick him from head to toe like an ice cream cone for hours and never grow tired of it!
Those wings on his pecs call to me so strongly that I can’t resist running my hands over his chest while my lips caress over the black ink.
I pull back to look up at him, my hands sliding over his faint, sexy-as-hell treasure trail, and I smile when I see his hard abdomen draw inward the lower I go.
It’s nice to see that I can drive him just as crazy with a simple touch as he seems to be able to do with me when he’s the one doing the teasing.
“I think you’re way overdressed for what I have in mind,” I say while I work to undo his belt and free it from all the loops.
“That can be easily remedied, baby,” he murmurs, reaching past my hands to pull down the zipper over the huge and extremely hard bulge deforming his pants.
I look on excitedly as he removes his elegant slacks and then his socks, but when his hands reach for the waistband of his boxers, I stop him.
I turn us around until he’s the one standing near the edge of the bed, and then I push him down on the mattress until he’s half-lying and half-sitting on it, his head nestled against the million and one pillows I keep there.
He chuckles, getting more comfortable, and then puts his hands behind his head as he looks up at me, still smiling.
“Aren’t you the one that’s wearing entirely too many clothes now?” he quips in a husky low voice that makes my clit throb and turns my already wet panties into an even more soaked mess.
I lower myself onto him, straddling his muscular thighs as I look down at him, my long hair caressing his chest. "I am. And we'll fix that in a minute, but for now… for now, let me play a little bit," I murmur, my hands stroking slowly up and down his sides, before I lead them both to meet over the waistband of his black silky boxers, obscenely tented by his erection.
I see that there’s a wet spot in the front, exactly where I think his crown is pushing against as his hard cock tries to make an escape, and I bite down my lower lip, the nervousness I’ve been feeling up until now melting away.