17. Spencer
17
SPENCER
“M mm… yes. Just like that.”
I craved the sound of her moans. On the touch of her hands on the back of my head, holding me in place, fighting for release. The way she humped my face, grinding, breathing faster, all the while her juices coated my tongue. It only made me want more, and I was greedy enough to drive my tongue deep inside her, as far as I could go, to taste every last drop.
“Shi-it, yesss!” Her hips lifted, jerking, her legs spreading wider. “Holy fuck, that’s so good!”
It was, and I didn’t think I’d ever have enough.
Opening my eyes, I gazed across her writhing body, watching her tits rise and fall with every sharp breath as her orgasm built. She cupped them, pinching her nipples, her head rolling from side to side. An erotic masterpiece, the hottest thing I ever saw, so hot my cock dripped precum onto the sheet under me.
I doubled my efforts, lapping up to her clit and flicking the sensitive nub, driving my fingers in and out of her heat. “Oh God… fuck, Spencer… don’t stop… r-right there, I’m… I’m…”
I rode it out with her, holding on when she threatened to buck me off as her body took over. She howled, gripping the pillow under her head, straining before falling back with a deep sigh.
I did that to her.
There was no satisfaction sweeter.
“Is there anything else I can do for you this morning?” I kissed my way up and down her inner thighs, chafing the delicate skin with my morning stubble.
A soft smile touched her mouth as her eyes fluttered open. “That depends. What did you have in mind?” she asked in a soft, playful voice.
“I was thinking…” Reaching across the bed into the nightstand, I retrieved a condom. “I should sink my cock deep inside this pretty pussy and fuck the hell out of you.”
Desire flashed in her eyes, and she bit her lip, nodding. “I think that sounds like a very good idea.”
With the latex rolled down my length, I parted her thighs and positioned myself between them. “You want my cock, sweetheart?”
“Want, need, what’s the difference?” she asked, locking her legs behind my back.
Fuck, how was she so perfect? Not only her body, which I would never get tired of, but the woman she was inside. There was no awkwardness, no shame in announcing what she wanted. She didn’t play coy, didn’t pretend her libido was just as strong as mine. I didn’t know until now what a fucking turn-on that was. She had taught me more than she could ever understand.
Rowan gasped softly when I breached her entrance, filling her in one sure stroke. Her mouth fell open, and her back arched while a low moan vibrated in her throat. “You feel so good,” she whispered, moving with me, meeting me stroke for stroke, taking me the way I took her. It was intoxicating.
I realized as I leaned down to kiss her that I wanted to do this every morning. Every night. I wanted to fall asleep next to her the way I had after dinner and hours of conversation last night. I wanted to wake up and indulge in her every morning.
I wanted us.
“Harder,” she whispered, eyes meeting mine, staring into my soul. “Fuck me.”
She gasped when I gave her what she wanted, driving deep, hard, rocking my bed in a rhythm that quickened as we both got swept up in the moment. In each other. Her moans echoed around us, the sound adding to the inferno building. Her nails dug into my ass, pulling me deeper, and it was almost enough to make me lose control.
Not yet.
But I was losing my grip, pushed closer to the edge with every stroke, every time she moaned my name. “Spencer… fuck…”
Caught between relief and disappointment when she clenched around me, signaling the end, I wanted more, even though this couldn’t last forever. But there would be more. There had to be. Giving this up wasn’t an option.
That thought was still at the forefront when I had no choice but to grit my teeth and give in to the sensation rushing through my body. My balls pulled up, and I came until my ears rang, then collapsed in a heap at her side. She was splayed out on the bed, breathless, glowing in the morning sun. I would’ve given anything to freeze this moment. To live in it forever.
Fuck, was this love? It didn’t matter how I tried to fight it. There was never any hope.
When she sighed heavily, I almost believed she’d heard my thoughts and was reacting. Instead, she opened her eyes and groaned. “I really need to get moving. I have to go home and get ready for work.”
“Take a day off,” I suggested, but she only laughed.
“Would you mind if I take a shower first?” When I arched an eyebrow, she shook her head. “No, that is not an invitation. I really do need to move my ass, and something tells me you’re not going to help things.”
“Are you kidding? I’ll wash your back while you take care of the front. You will get done in half the time.”
“Yes, because I’m sure it would be that easy.” When I reached out, hoping to grab hold of her, she managed to escape my clutches and roll out of bed. I took in the sight of her glorious ass as she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door.
As much as I would’ve liked to spend the rest of the day doing exactly what we had just finished, she had a point. We both needed to get on with our lives. It was so easy to escape back to this world we were creating together, even if neither of us meant to do it. Whenever it was the two or three of us, if Hannah was around, there was no one else in existence. Only us. And somehow, that was enough.
Who am I turning into?
All I knew was I could never be the man I was before.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I had left my phone in my pants pocket instead of making sure to place it on the nightstand where I could easily reach it. Nothing had mattered more than getting her out of her clothes and taking her. Now, I got up, running my hands through my hair to smooth it a little while looking around for my pants. I found them kicked halfway under the bed and reached down to pull the phone free.
That was when I discovered my mistake. I should’ve been paying attention to the phone.
Bruce: Call me immediately.
Connor: Jesus Christ, call me when you see this.
Lex: What the fuck is this story about you? Is it true? How the hell did I not know?
That was only the beginning. There were so many more texts and missed calls. A sense of the world coming to an end gripped me, even as the sound of Rowan's soft humming in the shower filled the air. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
She wouldn’t…
All it took was opening the text app and clicking the link Lex had sent. The headline was a punch in the gut that took my knees out from under me, making me drop to the bed while I stared in disbelief at the ugly accusation.
Ugly because it was true.
Tech Guru Guilty of Destroying Actress’s Career
I struggled to skim the first few lines of the story, every word making my blood run colder— Spencer Collins’ reckless driving caused a brutal car crash, which left his pregnant girlfriend permanently disfigured… fled the country while her family was forced to raise the daughter he refused to acknowledge.
No. Anything but this. I was going to be sick. My stomach churned, and I was sure whatever was left in there would come out all over me and my phone and everything else. It wasn’t possible. Yet there it was, in front of me. The deepest betrayal. A knife to the heart.
It had to be somebody else.
Amazing, the way I immediately jumped to defend her. I didn’t want to believe it, but who else could it have been? Few people knew about the crash, but even fewer knew about Hannah and the circumstances she grew up in.
Disappointment crashed into me, stole the air from my lungs, and left me shaking. This was a woman I thought I would want for the rest of my life, and all the time, she had planned on betraying me this way. There was no other explanation. Unless Dad did it to get back at me somehow, but why would he? It would mean implicating himself in the cover-up.
I stood when the bathroom door opened, my back to her when she emerged. “That water pressure is insane,” she reported with a happy sigh. “What I wouldn’t give to have that at my place.”
Even now, she pretended. My blood was boiling, my heart was pounding, and bile was rushing into my throat. She was the only one who could’ve done it—he only one with a reason to get back at me.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I growled, turning toward her, watching her eyes widen as she stopped in the middle of running a towel over her body.
“Excuse me?” She had the nerve to let out a disbelieving laugh as she looked behind her like she was searching for whoever I must be talking to. “What did I do wrong now? I wasn’t even in the bathroom for long.”
I pitched the phone across the bed, watching as it landed in front of her. She looked down at it, then up at me, her features pulled together in confusion.
How could she do it?
How could she act like this?
I could count on one hand the number of people who knew about that night, all of whom had something to lose by exposing me, except for her, so long as she managed to keep her name out of it and deny breaking the contract she signed. It had to be her, no matter how much part of me wanted to believe otherwise.
“Read it,” I grunted. “And congratulate yourself. You fucked me over. You finally got the last punch. The death blow.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She was laughing, but it was tense, nervous laughter. I would’ve been nervous in her position. Knowing I got caught.
Through my teeth, I grunted, “ Read. It. ” It was like I had never seen her before. I was staring at a stranger, one with the ability to lie to my face and not give two shits.
How could she?
It had all been a lie from the beginning.
She huffed but picked up the phone, shaking her head before she began to read.
Then the phone started to shake. “No,” she breathed out, eyes widening by the moment. Her mouth fell open, lips peeling back from her teeth in an expression of horror.
“What? Did you think he wouldn’t go public? That he wouldn’t contact every fucking tabloid in existence that wasn’t owned by the Diamond family?” Because, of course, Connor would never allow something like this in one of his publications. But there were plenty of others, no matter how vast the family empire happened to be.
“No. I didn’t! ” She dropped the phone on the bed, lifted her head, and stared at me from across the sheets we had tangled what felt like a lifetime ago but was only minutes. Incredible how everything changed all at once. I was staring at a stranger now.
“No?” I barked out a laugh while pulling on a pair of sweatpants. “What a fucking joke. That’s all you can think to say? No?”
“What do you expect me to say?” A glance her way told me she was shivering, crossing her arms over her bare tits, following my every move. “I had nothing to do with that. Spencer, I would never! ”
“Bullshit!” I shouted, the sound loud and sharp enough to make her jump. Good. Let her be afraid. She should’ve been. “You were the only other person who knew about Hannah, right? How your parents raised her after I ran off.” The more I thought about it, the more obvious it was. “I sure as fuck never told anybody what happened except my business partner, and he wouldn’t sabotage us like this.”
I laughed in complete disgust at the woman I imagined making a life with only ten minutes ago. “What, it wasn’t enough?” I demanded while tears welled in her eyes. They wouldn’t help. “Your great career, your promising future, the life you swear you’re so satisfied with? It wasn’t enough that I apologized and told you I never meant to desert you?”
Holding up a hand so she wouldn’t say another word, I asked, “Or did you spill your secrets to Damian before the night I thought we cleared the air? I haven’t forgotten how hostile you were when we first reconnected. What did he offer? Money? Or was the chance to destroy my name enough for you?”
“I already told you.” Now, anger leaked into her voice. It wasn’t so shaky and weak. “I didn’t do it. This wasn’t me!”
“Who the fuck was it? Tell me. If it wasn’t you, who could it have been?” I wanted her to tell me. I needed her to. I needed to believe there was another explanation because I didn’t know if I could live with myself otherwise.
When the best she did was whimper, my heart hardened for good. I snarled, “Get your shit together, walk out the door, and make sure I never have to look at you again. I’ve got much more important things to handle now that you’ve completely fucked my life.”
“Spencer.” Her voice quivered. “Please. Don’t do this. I’m telling the truth. Why won’t you listen to me?”
“I’m done listening to you. Consider the scales balanced. Congratulations.” I picked up her dress that was on the floor at the foot of the bed and picked it up, throwing it in her direction. “Get dressed and get the fuck out of here. Now!” I barked when she didn’t move fast enough.
“But what about Hannah?”
Hannah. Her name made me second-guess everything that had come out of my mouth, but I hardened my heart. “I’m not giving her up. You’ll hear from my lawyer. We’ll make arrangements that way.” This was too fucking much. I couldn’t handle it in front of her. I needed to be alone, where I couldn’t see her or hear her voice. It was bad enough I smelled her all over me.
“So that’s it?” she whispered. “You won’t give me a chance to defend myself? You won’t even listen? That’s how this ends?”
“No. That’s not how this ends because there was never anything to end.” That much was obvious, no matter how the words choked me. How was there anything real between us if she could commit a betrayal like this?
The phone on the bed buzzed, reminding me of what I had in store—phone calls, demands, accusations. No doubt Miles would call, frantic, pissed off. I couldn’t blame him. I’d assured him I had this under control.
Then, I had to go and lose sight of the ball. Too busy playing house, pretending to be a family, trying to make up for my father’s callousness and cruelty.
What a joke. Because of that, here I was, watching my life fall apart while a sniffling, whimpering woman pulled on her clothes. The phone buzzed again, and I turned away from it, pulling back the curtain and gazing out over yet another perfect day. Not so perfect from where I was standing.
“Would you at least let me speak? Because?—”
“So help me, God, Rowan,” I growled out, gripping the windowsill until my hands ached. “I’m not going to say it again without screaming. You need to go, and you need to make sure I do not see you again. Everything can be handled between our lawyers. I guess you’d better find one.”
“It. Wasn’t. Me. You’re going to regret this,” she whispered, footsteps heading for the bedroom door. “You stupid prick. You’re going to feel so sorry when you realize what you lost. I guess it’s easier for you this way. You can run away again without looking like a coward.”
“I told you to get the fuck out of my apartment!” It only felt good in the moment, screaming that way, bellowing out my rage, disappointment, and betrayal. Letting it all out only left room for other things to fill the void. Regret was the big one.
That got her moving, anyway. The next thing I heard was the slamming of my front door. I closed my eyes and drew a deep, shaky breath, fighting to control my nervous system before the panic and rage built to the point where I couldn’t contain them anymore.
There would be a way out of this. There had to be. Damage control—threatened lawsuits against the publications who ran the story. They couldn’t possibly have proof. I’d have someone read the articles for me since I doubt I could do it myself. Not without losing what little group I had on myself.
Behind me, the phone buzzed and buzzed. Instead of picking it up and opening Pandora’s box, I gave myself another minute to breathe. To grieve the fantasy I’d believed was real.