Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Waking up in Gareth Branson’s bed was not part of my plan. The flashbacks of how I got here? Not good.
At least I don’t have to roll over and face him. He’s in the shower, and the sound of the water rushing through the pipes could lull me right back to sleep in no time, if that were an option. Not to mention the soft early morning light breaking through his bedroom windows.
God knows this is my favorite time to sleep, but I need to get the hell out of here.
I’m stumbling around in nothing but my thigh high stockings, searching for my bra when he emerges from the bathroom with a towel around his waist.
“Oh, good. You’re up.” He lifts my bra from his nightstand on his way to the closet. “Looking for this?”
He tosses it on the bed.
“Yeah, thanks.” The headrush when I stand straight makes me sway like I’ve just stepped off a boat. “We drank a little when we got back here last night, right?”
Everything after being bent over his desk is fragmented. Like video clips being played out of order. And out of focus. I sit on the bed to keep from toppling onto the rug.
“Sure. Let’s go with a little.” He walks out of his closet already wearing pants and pulling on a crisp dress shirt. Light blue, and fuck if it doesn’t make his eyes look like morning glories in contrast.
How is he so bright-eyed? I can’t even open mine all the way.
Then again, he isn’t the one who had a breakdown last night.
“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me—”
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s fine? You’re dealing with a lot, Jewel. Your father just died.”
“Please, I barely knew him. He had nannies raise me until I was thirteen. After that, it was just me. He was never around, always gone for work. Christ, I don’t even know what he actually did for a living.”
I manage to hook my bra, despite my shaking hands. The rest of my clothes are easier to find, lying in a rumpled heap like I dropped them where I stood before I climbed into his bed.
“Why don’t you get some more sleep?” He knots a royal blue tie and, Jesus, he’s going to ruin every shade of blue for me. “I’ll come back at lunch and take you to your car.”
Shit. My car is still parked in front of his office.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get a ride.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” He pulls his wallet and keys from a wooden box on his dresser, takes a business card from a slim holder, and sets it on the nightstand. “My office number and my cell are on here. Let me know if you decide not to wait for me. But for now, will you please go back to bed?”
“Okay. I’ll be gone before lunch though. It was good to see you again.”
“You, too, Jewel.”
“Liar.”
“Not at all.” He kisses me on the forehead before he goes. “Don’t leave, sweet girl. Wait for me.”
His freshly showered scent lingers over me as I burrow into his sumptuous sheets and pillows.
When I wake again, the sun is bright, and it’s less of a struggle to open my eyes, but I need coffee. And a sauna to sweat out the rest of last night’s alcohol.
His shower looks like something out of a magazine, more jets and controls than a carwash, and big enough to accommodate a truck.
There are motion sensors on the faucets at the counter.
Lights embedded into the mirrors that can be dimmed or brightened with the same touchpad on the wall that controls the overhead fixtures.
The whole bathroom is designed to stroke the male ego. Sleek. Powerful. Excessive.
I get the psychology behind the design. I’ve applied the same concepts to dozens of kitchens. Five minutes into meeting with a new client, I know if I’m going to need to play up the bells and whistles or keep it simple and classic. Gareth is apparently a bells and whistles guy.
Nothing simple about Mr. B.
He was such a mystery to me before I walked into his office yesterday, and now I’m standing naked in his bathroom looking inside his brain, spying through a window he doesn’t even know he’s left open. They never know.
I tell myself I’ll use the same towel he used this morning to keep from adding more laundry for the housekeeper I’m certain he has, but I know the real reason, and the disappointing truth before I even wrap it around my body.
It’s a poor substitution for his skin against mine, but it’s the closest thing I can give myself as a parting gift. One last touch.
Walking back into his bedroom wearing only his towel feels entirely too comfortable. This isn’t the house my best friend grew up in. It shouldn’t feel familiar to me at all, but I am so at home in his space. And I need to get the hell out of here right now.
I got the answers I came for. It’s time to go, to drive away and never look back.
When I drop the towel to his bedroom floor, a wolf whistle sounds at my back, and I freeze, until I recognize the gravelly laughter trailing it.
“I thought you weren’t coming back until lunch,” I say without turning to face him.
“How careless do you think I am, sweet girl?” His cologne snakes through the air behind me, the smell preceding his touch as it slithers over my shoulders, before it coils up from my waist as his arms encircle me, positioning us like the portrait burned in my memory.
“I had to take a meeting, sign off on some prints, but I was never going to wait that long to come back for you.”
He brushes my damp hair aside, and his teeth leave tracks down my neck. “No way would I let you leave here feeling like you did something wrong. All you deserve to feel is satisfied. And sore.”
His fingers press inside me. “I want this creamy little cunt tender and bruised, cock-shy but still burning for it. Fuck, sweet girl, I want you addicted to the things I do to you, the way I make you feel. And shameless in the face of it. What do you want?”
“All of that. Everything you just said. Use me, Daddy.”
He spins me to face him, shoves me so I fall back onto his mattress, clutches my legs, and yanks my ass to the edge. “Grab your ankles. Hold them up and show me what’s mine. Keep them there until I’m done with you.”
“Is this what you were thinking about in your meeting?” I ask as he rams his hard dick inside me.
“You know it’s exactly what I was thinking about. I couldn’t get back here fast enough. Did you make yourself come in my shower?”
“No.”
“Did you play with your pussy in my bed?”
“No.”
“You will.” He takes my right ankle from my grasp so we each have hold of one. “Do it now. Touch your clit.”
I trace it with my fingertip, enjoying the gentle sensation, careful to circumnavigate the most sensitive center, but when he thrusts his erection fully inside me, it forces my touch across the lightning switch and sends a flash through my core too soon.
I’m not ready for that much stimulation yet; it agitates, stings. I move my hand to my breasts, try to draw his attention upward, but he’s not having it.
“Put your hand back where it was. Work your clit while I watch.”
“It’s too soon.”
Without warning, he pinches my clit, rolls it between his thumb and forefinger the way he plays rough with my nipples. I lift my hips, seeking relief but his hand follows, his fingers continuing to knead and squeeze.
“Please,” I pant. “Let go. It’s too much.”
“Relax.” He releases the pressure in increments that match the lowering of my hips. His dick is still seated to the hilt. When my back is flat on the mattress again, he lets go of my clit like I’ve asked.
“Reach back up here.” He returns my second ankle to my hand. “Spread wider, open all the way for me.”
I can’t imagine how much more open I could be, but I pull my legs farther apart.
The harder he fucks me, the more my body slides toward him.
My ass is fully over the edge, but he isn’t slowing to reposition me.
Grasping for purchase on the comforter, I fist the material and press my shoulders into the mattress.
By the time his fuse blows, I’m nearly jack-knifed, my knees practically kissing my shoulders.
Gareth slides his arms under me and lifts me back onto the bed before he pulls his spent cock out of me. “Hold your legs there. I’ll get a towel.”
“Hurry. I’m not actually a contortionist.”
He drags the tip of the towel over my stomach teasingly. “I’ve not even begun to contort you into all the positions I have planned.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be in town long enough to check off your whole list.”
“You’ll have to come back soon then. Or maybe I’ll come to you next time.”
There can’t be a next time. I should be gone already. I’m fucking this up nine ways from Sunday. And the longer I stay, the more fucked up I’ll be when I leave.
He climbs onto the bed next to me. “Sit up against the headboard.” I slide back and stretch out my legs, and he hands me a pillow.
For what? To cover myself? Seeing the confusion in my eyes, he moves it where he wants it: over my arm just above my waist. A pillow for his head. My arm positioned to cradle him there.
“It’s not just your pussy I want sore when you leave me.” He stretches across my lap and squeezes my breasts together. “I want these gumdrop nipples raw, throbbing under your clothes, keeping me on your mind.”
“I could be here for weeks still. Never said when I was leaving town.”
“That flight reflex is lit up like neon in your eyes, sweet girl. Just want to be sure you think of me after you’re gone.”
God, I shouldn’t love this, holding him against me while he does things to me with the singular intention of making me hurt in the end. It hurts now, even as his warm soft tongue rolls over my nipple in between the nibbling and fervent sucking, but I don’t want him to stop. Not yet.
I look down at him with my nipple in his mouth and his jaw moving as he sucks on me as if I’m actually nursing him, and I know how sore I’m going to be when he pulls off, but I still don’t want him to stop.
Letting my head fall back, I close my eyes, try to imprint this moment somewhere it will stay forever. As if I’d ever be able to forget him touching me in any way.
When Gareth is satisfied that he’s left a lasting impression on my nipples (and he has—he definitely has), I dress, and let him drive me to my car.
He asks for my number as if he’s some guy I just met. This is all so strange, but I give him my number, and then he kisses me like we’re ending a date.
“If you have clothes with you, you can come in and change in the bathroom in the lobby. It’s private, no multiple stalls.”
“No, everything’s in my hotel room.”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Monarch.”
“Do me a favor? Go see Shandy this afternoon. I’ll text you her address.”
“Gareth, we literally haven’t seen each other since I moved away.”
“Please. I really think it would do her good to see you.”
“Send me her phone number, too. I’m not going to show up on her doorstep out of the blue.”
“Thank you.” He kisses me again, and so help me, I would attempt to negotiate with terrorists if he asked me to.
“What am I supposed to say when she asks where I ran into you?”
“Tell her the truth, Jewel. In the building where you had to meet with your father’s attorney.”
I sit behind the wheel of my car with cold air blowing on my face and watch him go inside, wondering if I can really do what he’s asked. Gareth makes it sound so easy, so logical. Of course, I should go see Shandy while I’m in town. Why wouldn’t I?
Everything I’ve done with him since last night plays out in my head like a movie. And now I’m supposed to go be his daughter’s long-lost best friend? Sit at her kitchen table and meet her kids? Pet her dog? Drink her wine?
Fuck. I do want to meet her kids. And pet her dog.
And I could really use a glass of wine with an old friend.
If only I could roll back time and do all those things before I sat on her dad’s face, let him tie my hands behind my back and shove his dick in my mouth, felt his belt across my ass, attacked him, spent the night in his bed, fucked him again, and then engaged in a little breastfeeding kink to put the cherry on top of the whole batshit banana split.
Christ on a corn chip, I should probably be seeing a whole team of psychiatrists for even considering this.
I send the text before I chicken out. She responds right away.
Gareth was right. She’d love to see me, says I should come straight over.
I pull out of the parking lot and head back to my hotel room to change clothes and do something with my hair—to brush my teeth, rinse and spit the taste of her father out of my mouth.