Chapter 17 Jade
The room is small—dark. It has low ceilings, walls lined with black curtains, low lit sconces, and one wall with a wide window looking into an empty room.
Tieran steps up behind me, gently grabbing my elbow. So gentle, and yet, it feels like a brand on my skin, searing in a way that makes me want to scream.
Stop touching me. Stop being so kind. Stop being so goddamn understanding. Stop being so perfect. Stop making me want to jump into your arms and never let go. I can’t have you, I can’t want you, and it’s killing me. Stop. Stop. Stop.
I’ve been acting out, pushing him away with biting words and a piss poor attitude, and he just won't go—from here, from my heart.
“Jade.” His voice is loud in the empty room.
I shake my head but don’t turn. “You need to leave.” It’s a miracle my voice comes out as steady as it does.
“Turn around, look me in my eyes, and tell me that’s what you really want. Because I don’t think it is, Jade. You may be able to bluff a boardroom, but you can’t fool me.”
“You don’t know me!” I throw up my hands in exasperation.
He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I’d bet I know more about you than most people.”
“Oh? Try me then.” My arms cross over my chest, and his gaze darts down and lingers, heating me from head to toe.
“You’re fiercely loyal, even though no one in your life has deserved that of you.
” I start to say something, but he cuts me off.
“I’m speaking right now, love. You can yell at me when I’m done.
” Well…ok then. “Your dad is your best friend because he’s the only person you’ve ever felt safe with, and for good reason, Archie is the best and bizarrely good at online games.
” I can feel myself soften at the fondness in his voice when he talks about my dad.
Steel your resolve, Jade. “You’re brilliant and successful, but it’s come at a price for you, one you shouldn’t have to pay.
Your favorite color is blue, though you never wear it—except on your toes, apparently.
You hate bad martinis, but you’ll take a bad one over a good beer.
Despite your rigid routine, you have a sweet tooth that would surprise most. You have everything you could ever want, an exciting life, lots of opportunities, status—but deep down, I think you want something else, something softer.
” He takes a step closer toward me, forcing me to retreat.
The smile that lights up his face can only be described as feral. “How did I do?”
“All of that was google-able,” I reason, shrugging my shoulders.
He huffs. “Bullshite.”
He takes another step closer to me, but I move to the side, hedging closer to the window and out of his path. If he touches me, I might cave after that speech, because he unknowingly—
or knowingly, it would seem—hit the nail on the head. He even knows my favorite color is blue; how the fuck does he know that?
“Jade—” Whatever he was about to say is interrupted by a couple coming through the door on the opposite side of our window.
No, not a window—a two-way mirror, and we’re about to get a private show.
They waste no time ripping each other's clothes off before the man has her on the bed with her legs spread. His head dives between her thighs, and she lets out a contented sigh of pleasure that has me shifting on my feet, very aware of the man behind me.
I turn my head slightly to look at Tieran, expecting him to be looking at the scene unfolding in front of us, but instead, his eyes are heavy on me.
I take one step backward.
He takes one step closer.
We’re chest to back, but neither of us pulls away. It’s foolish. I’m playing with fire, and I should leave, remove myself from this situation immediately. One time was an accident—a second time is a choice.
“Mmmm,” Tieran hums close to my ear. “I want to trace the gorgeous flush crawling up your body with my tongue.”
Everything in my body comes alive at his words, and the moans on the other side of the glass grow louder, more desperate. I can relate.
I take another hesitant step backward, colliding with Tieran’s front.
His hand immediately comes to my waist when I lose my footing, but he doesn’t let go once I’m stable on my heels.
We, or maybe just me, watches as the couple opposite us grunt into each other's skin, having switched positions so she’s laying on top of him, sitting on his face while she focuses her attention on his cock, alternating between stroking and sucking.
Alarm bells ring in the back of my mind, telling me I need to leave.
They turn into tornado sirens when Tieran starts softly rubbing my hip through the material of my dress.
I can feel him against my ass, and it’s making my thoughts scatter.
It’s making me stupid—reckless. I want to feel his hand on my bare skin, want to take what I want for once in my life.
After years and years of doing what everyone else around me wants and expects, I want just one goddamn thing for myself.
And I want Tieran. I have from the moment I laid eyes on him in that godforsaken bar.
Subtly, I shift my hips, brushing against his hardened length. He pauses his soft stroking and squeezes my hip—hard. I bite back a moan at that strong grip, wanting more. I rock against him again, tilting my head up, raising my eyebrows, as if to say “well?”
His cornflower blue eyes flit back and forth between mine. “I don’t want you to regret this in the morning,” he whispers.
“Stop trying to reason with me and take what I’m offering.” I push back into his groin again, and this time, his hips buck forward slightly, as if it was involuntary.
His head drops, and he groans into my neck, sending goosebumps up and down my body.
“You’re making this impossible for me. I’ve been spending weeks in agony, wanting to put my hands on you.
Desperate to reach out and touch your soft skin, sink my teeth into your neck, and hear those sounds you make again. ”
My carefully curated control snaps.
“Then touch me. You can be agonized again tomorrow.” I trail my hand up, grabbing his neck and bringing him down, licking at his mouth but not kissing him. Tieran’s arms band around me, his hips bucking into my backside again, and I moan against his mouth.
“Promise me,” he whispers against my lips.
“What?” I chase after him, desperate to feel his kiss obliterate me and put me together at the same time.
“Tell me you won't regret this tomorrow.”
I pull back to see indecision warring across his handsome face. He wants to give me this, he wants this, but he’s trying to do what he thinks is the right thing despite his body crying out for me.
It might be evil, but I give him a little nudge.
“If you don’t want me, I can go find that other guy.” My voice is a husky challenge, smiling an inch away from his lips, and his grip tightens to the point of bruising as he pulls me further back into his body.
“It’s like you want me to end up on the news tonight, love.
” He licks a path up my neck before catching my ear between his teeth.
“Is that what you want? For my name to be splashed over The Sun? Because that’s what will happen if I see anyone else’s hands on you.
” His words make me whimper when he places a wet kiss to the skin just below my ear.
“Please,” I beg.
His right hand skirts down the plane of my stomach until he reaches the slit of my dress, slipping under the fabric.
“This dress has been driving me out of my mind all night.” He thumbs at the lace covering my center, humming when he comes in contact with the wet warmth coating the material before pushing it to the side and administering teasing strokes over my slit.
He’s touching me, but it’s not nearly enough.
I cry out, head tilted back into the crook of his shoulder, undulating my hips, seeking more pressure, more friction. The couple across from us is forgotten when he cups my pussy, drawing two fingers through my wetness, teasing back and forth between my clit and opening.
Tieran circles around my entrance before spearing two long fingers deep inside me, forcing me up on the balls of my feet as I cry out at the intrusion.
Bliss, unfettered bliss, blanks out my mind.
His left hand trails up from my hip, teasing fingers brushing against my stomach, shifting upward to pinch my nipple before wrapping around the column of my neck while he simultaneously pumps his fingers in and out in perfect rhythm.
He tilts my head up and leans down, breath coasting over my lips. “There’s no world in which I wouldn’t make it out of here in handcuffs if someone else got to experience this.”
“That’s not your place,” I gasp, defiant even now. His resounding chuckles warms against my temple, as his hips thrust against my ass.
“I don’t care if it’s not my place. No one else is touching you.” He uses his thumb to place steady pressure on my clit, working his fingers in and out as everything coils tight.
My breath hitches. Thinking right now feels impossible. “I’m no—I’m not yours. You don’t get to make that decision.”
“You feel like mine when your sweet cunt is clenching around my fingers.” My walls pulse at his words, and he smiles wider down at me. “Do you think you would have gotten this wet for him?”
I pant out a whimpered breath squirming against his hard cock. He growls in my ear, “Answer me.” A gruff echo of my earlier words lobbed back at me.
“Yes.”
It’s an obvious lie.
“Don’t lie to me, love.” He nips on my earlobe. “You can pretend all you want—tell yourself we don’t work—but your body is betraying you. You want me more than you’ll allow yourself to admit. Now, be a good girl and come for me.”
He squeezes gently on my neck, and I unravel, body shaking as I come from the combination of his words and the mind-blowing pleasure he brings me with just his hands.
Slowly, he releases his grip around my body, rubbing my clit as the aftershocks of my orgasm heave through my body like a tidal wave.
A sense of longing settles over me when he steps away, the warmth of his body dissipating.
But when he slowly brings his fingers to his mouth, sucking them between his lips, Tieran hums out a contented sigh I can feel in my chest, and suddenly, I’m hot all over again.
I look down at his lap, noting the still raging hard on he’s sporting. I step toward him hand extended, but he grabs my wrist, stepping further out of my reach. “When you admit you like me, I’ll let you touch me again.”
I raise a brow. “You’re going to be waiting a while then.”
“Keep telling yourself that, love.”
The silence in the room is loud, but the implication is clear. I just made this…thing between us a lot harder to ignore.
When we remember where we are, I look over at the window and realize how easily the world around us faded when he touched me. Because the room on the other side of the glass is completely empty, and I never even noticed.