27. Rhett
Rhett
I know I’m fucked when having Ana out of my sight for even a moment sharpens my irritation to a dangerous edge. She’s safe with her friend, even if the thought of how close they are and his flirtations toward her isn’t helping my sour mood.
When did I become such a fucking possessive asshole about this woman? She isn’t mine in that way, she’ll never be mine, and I should hope she wants to pursue a real relationship.
Fuck that. I’ve become a complete selfish bastard over her too, not wanting to give up what we have even if it is just a sexual release.
At least, that’s all she can believe it is.
I care about her more than I intended to.
She’s wrapped herself around me without even trying, and I’ll gladly suffocate to stay near her.
I order Ana a drink and scan surreptitiously around the venue. It’s a typical high-end casino, nothing more than what I’ve infiltrated before for certain jobs. They’re breeding grounds for corruption and an excellent setup for laundering cash.
“We meet again, Rhett Kaiser.”
I recognize the voice immediately with no small amount of distaste. Matthew Forbes takes up one of the bar seats.
“You get around, Forbes,” I say in a friendly, casual manner. An effort when I’m itching for violence. Maybe it’s an overreaction. I think of how bold he can be toward Ana even when I’m right fucking there. I don’t trust him.
He merely gives a cocky smile. “Where’s Ana?”
“Playing poker with Liam.”
“She’s a fine woman.”
Now I can’t refrain from the warning look I cut him.
He chuckles—a sound I want to take a knife to. “I’m just curious how you met and managed to capture the heart of America’s sweetheart.”
I want her heart. I want every damned piece of her, and the realization it isn’t mine to claim flexes my fists.
“We met on campus last year. She rejected me at first, had a fling with the asshole Adam Sullevan, then came to her senses.”
He hums. “Convincing story. And you two certainly play your roles well. Of course, I know it’s all a ruse. Perks of being a family friend.”
I don’t like the way his mouth eases a partial smirk and his brown eyes glint as if he’s won something. I don’t like him. I can’t pin why, other than he has the sly type of arrogance I have no patience to entertain.
Just then a woman comes over. She’s beautiful—blonde-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in a short blue gown.
My eyes are drawn to her chest, where a waterfall of diamonds adorns her neck with a ruby centerpiece.
If they’re real, it’s worth the kind of money men abandon all morals to gain.
I’m fixated on it like it’s a key, but Matthew’s sigh breaks my attention.
He lifts a finger to her necklace and lazily brushes under the diamonds.
I can’t take my eyes off the woman. They always have tells. A stiff posture, a hollow smile, dead eyes. To the room she’s an elegant prize of beauty; to anyone who sees her, she’s a woman here against her will. I train my sight on the diamonds dropping from Matthew’s finger back to her chest.
“A beautiful piece. It will look magnificent on the one it truly belongs to.”
I don’t like how this man fantasizes something in that moment.
I have pretty damn good intuition, and right now it’s telling me Matthew Forbes isn’t a good man.
Perhaps his father helps him keep his unsavory transactions untraceable, but I don’t care what it takes to deep-dive into the depths of his black soul and expose him.
“I assume you’ll be at the gala with Ana tomorrow,” Matthew asks.
“Of course,” I answer. Calm. Neutral. “Ana has been very excited. She’s even adding her own charity to fundraise for.” I give nothing away of the anger coursing through me at being among the worst kinds of humanity. Men who cheer and gamble and touch what isn’t theirs. Dirty money. Filthy trading.
“She always did have a kind heart. Too gentle sometimes. She’s a fragile, breakable little thing.”
Despite near trembling with rage, I have a feeling Matthew is important. He looks up at the blonde woman as if thinking of Ana— my Ana — and when he doesn’t find her standing there his expression turns bored.
“She’s a very capable, independent woman,” I say with just enough possessiveness to warn him she’s off-limits.
This bastard only seems to take it as thrilling insight into something he hasn’t given up pursuing.
He might have friends in high places, but I have friends in very fucking scary places and I don’t appreciate the way he speaks or even thinks about Ana.
It’s an extreme internal response, perhaps.
But what can I say? This woman is shaping me in ways she doesn’t even know.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to take this to my girl,” I say, picking up her martini and this time making it so damn clear Ana will never be his to even so much as glance at suggestively.
I scope the area, noticing a few more women who don’t look pleased to be here. Others are. I don’t have Rix in my ear here, but the fact my phone hasn’t gone off once meant he isn’t seeing anything else of suspicion through the cameras either.
Eager to get back to Ana, I don’t waste a moment more.
She’s a spectacle. A whole table of rich men and she sits as the most powerful, stunning thing. It isn’t just her appearance; Ana has grown into a confidence I find breathtaking, and she isn’t finished coming into herself.
Placing her martini down, I can’t stop myself gliding a hand around her nape as I kiss the crown of her head.
“I’m reminded why I never participate in these games,” she says, standing.
Her eyes are all fiery challenge, and I oblige her silent words to sit in her place. She doesn’t disappoint, slipping over my lap, and my dick twitches with her bold confidence. I hold her cards while she leans against me, still very much the player.
“How was your walk?” she whispers seductively in my ear.
“Torturous,” I say, relaxing at the feel of her on me, around me. Her scent calms my senses like nothing else.
Ana plucks a card, placing it down. She has a damned good hand and great odds of winning.
“I’m not familiar with your family name, Rhett Kaiser.” Darren addresses me.
“I don’t suppose you would be. My family is from far more ... humble roots.”
He nods as if he understands, but these types of people would never know humble even if they lost all their fortune. “You must have made quite the impression on our hopeful president to have the blessing of dating his daughter,” he observes.
Meaning: she’s too good for me. I beat him to revelation that long ago. Though it isn’t her father that makes her out of the league of every man in this room.
“My father may run the country someday, but he doesn’t dictate my life,” Ana says, sipping her drink. “Besides, no wallet or family name can compensate for a bland personality or a small cock.”
Fuck , she’s incredible. I squeeze her thigh, certain she can feel beneath her perfect ass just how desperate I am to bend her over this table and bury myself inside her while they all watch me claim what’s mine.
Just then a man walks in flanked by two security guards. I can tell by the stiffening demeanor, so subtle, of those around the table that this guy has to be important, and my mind rings with a name before Darren greets him.
“Jacob Forthson.”
Everything about him speaks sickening kinds of wealth, and my suspicions about how he gains it make every sleek inch of him, from the tips of his dirty-blond hair to the polish of his shoes, look like filth to me.
He’s younger than I anticipated, around my age of twenty-eight, but unlike Liam Forbes, I don’t get the impression he runs by anyone else’s rules. Only his own.
“Gentlemen.” Jacob greets them with enough arrogance to place him above everyone else. “I hope you don’t gamble too much away with the prizes on offer tomorrow.”
That earns a round of light chuckles out of nothing more than feeding this guy’s ego. When his eyes land on Ana and hold for longer than I can tolerate I place down her fan of cards, leaning forward to press her to me.
“Anastasia Kinsley,” Jacob marvels like he didn’t expect a diamond in his trove tonight. “An honor to have you in my venue. I wasn’t aware you were stopping by tonight.”
“It was a last-minute decision. My boyfriend and I came for the gala you’re hosting tomorrow.”
Her fingers playing absentmindedly with the short lengths of hair at my nape is the only thing grounding the beast inside me right now. Pride and relief swell in my chest that she’s asserted who I am, taking herself off the table as a prospect immediately.
Jacob says, “It’s a great opportunity for press. I was thrilled to hear you accepted my invitation.”
This confuses us both. I was under the impression it was Liam’s idea. He keeps his eyes mostly on his cards, the only person to give a nonchalant response to Jacob, who pays him little notice in return.
“Thank you for inviting us. It’s been an ambition of mine to visit New York,” Ana replies kindly.
“I invited you, darling,” he corrects. “I hoped it would be just you, but it’s no matter.” He doesn’t even look at me.
My rage must be tangible from the way he practically declares Ana available even while she’s sitting on the lap of someone else.
“Rhett Kaiser,” I say tightly. “I wasn’t going to let my girl come alone.”
“She wouldn’t have been alone,” is all he says.
This guy has some fucking nerve.
“I would have been bored,” Ana says. “Like right now. Take me home, baby?”
I don’t want to concede to Jacob, but he’s a powerful man, and right now I’m in his territory.
I’m a public spectacle by Ana’s side, and I can’t do something reckless like my boiling anger wants me to.
I could kill Jacob Forthson and sleep like a fucking babe.
For the activity I’m close to being certain he was involved in, sure, but more so now, for the eyes of lust and pursuit he’s set on what’s mine.
Folding out of the poker game loses me a shitload of money, but something about the men in play tells me they wouldn’t be graceful losers. It’s safer for Ana if I don’t continue.
We leave, and the drive back to our hotel builds tension between us. We didn’t make much immediate progress in figuring out what was at play, and I explain this to Ana. Some things take time and sensitivity, especially when dealing with such high-profile individuals.
In the elevator, the moment the doors close, Ana presses her body to me. Unexpectedly, as I’ve cast myself off in my own mind, going over every small interaction I had tonight.
“You are incredibly sexy when you’re focused and possessive,” she purrs in that sexy tone of hers.
I grab her ass, groaning at the incredible plump feel of her. “You’re turning me into a madman.”
“You were already there when I met you, Agent. You’re just letting the world see it now.” Her hand slips between us and she drags the heel of her palm down my aching cock.
“Fucking Christ, Ana,” I say through gritted teeth.
She smiles coyly, doing it again, and we’re only eight floors away from our room, but it’s too fucking long. I pull out my phone, tapping only for a few seconds.
“If you’re going to be a tease, you’re going to do something about it,” I growl, slipping my phone away and slamming the elevator stop behind her. “On your knees, little bird.”
Her eyes flick up just as the red light under the glass elevator roof panel goes out. Then she obliges with a wicked smile, working on my belt, and it’s the single most erotic thing I’ve witnessed as I brace my hands on the wall behind her to watch her on her knees.
Ana frees my dick, looking up at me through long, alluring lashes as her small hand grips me and her tongue traces from my tip to my base. I won’t take long—not when I’ve fantasized those perfect red lips around me too damn often.
“Take me all in, baby.”
She laps over my tip before she sucks, cheeks hollowing as I sink deeper into her tight throat. I don’t think she can fit all of me, but she’s clearly fucking made for me as she keeps going, taking every inch.
I hiss, one hand slipping into her hair, and it takes all my restraint not to pump my hips and fuck her throat. I want this time to be all her before I test her limits.
Ana works her hand at my base and sucks me off with the right amount of pressure, driving me to the brink.
“So fucking exquisite sucking my cock,” I praise.
She hums around me and the vibration tips me over the edge.
“Good girl— fuuuck .”
I can’t stop the few shallow thrusts into her mouth as I come. My forehead leans against my arm on the wall as she swallows all I give her, and the orgasm feels endless, fucking euphoric.
She keeps sucking, slowing her pace and wringing me dry, until my fingers tighten in her hair in a warning that I can’t take any more. Her soft giggle of pure triumph sings to my senses as she lets go.
Ana stands, trapped between me and the wall I can’t peel back myself from as I catch my damn breath.
“What have you done to me, Anastasia Kinsley?” I kiss her neck, losing myself piece by piece to this woman.
“Given you a world-rocking orgasm, I think,” she says with satisfaction.
I chuckle, tucking myself away before I hit the elevator button and let Rix know he can release the surveillance feed—at which I receive no small amount of jesting.
“I won’t forget I owe you two in return.”