Chapter 21
Twenty-One
I ’d thrown down the gauntlet and Alfie picked it up without hesitation. He dropped his face to mine and I opened my lips to him, allowing him to seduce my mouth. I ran my tongue across his lower lip and gave it a gentle bite, feeling him shudder over me.
I hooked my toes into the waistband of his trousers and pushed them down over his hips, helping him kick them off.
To my delight, he was commando underneath.
I felt his length against me, his velvet shaft gliding through my plush folds.
Every inch of my skin sang with pleasure.
This was how I should have woken up this morning.
His hand trailed down the side of my body, gripping my thigh and hitching it around his waist, rolling himself against me. I gasped, desperate for more. This man was driving me crazy. His touch was heroin to me and I couldn’t get enough of it.
He rose up onto his knees, spreading me open as if for inspection. My heart thrummed at being so exposed. Alfie left no stone unturned. There was nowhere to hide. He placed gentle thumbs on me and opened me up.
“You’re more resilient than I thought. I thought you might be too sore to take me again so soon.
” Unable to wait any longer, I reached a hand between us and guided him to my opening.
His eyes flashed, excited by my boldness.
He obliged, sliding effortlessly into my wet folds.
He withdrew and plunged once more, stretching me. I bit back a whimper.
He stilled, letting me adjust once again to his size.
“Easy,” he soothed. A gentle hand pressed over my lower abdomen as if he could feel himself through my flesh.
He was waiting, working me gently. I gave him a small nod to signal that I was ready and, slowly, he drew out before slipping back inside, hitting the very end of me.
I arched off the bed, gasping. My toes curled as he hit that spot again, that spot so deep inside it was almost painful.
My core tensed and relaxed around him, trying to cling on for release, but too sensitive to stand the friction.
He dove into me regardless of my building desperation.
I gazed up at him, pleading. I didn’t know what I needed, but I silently begged him to do something to get me to the edge. He seemed to understand.
He drew himself out of me all the way and held himself poised at my entrance, my hips in his hands. The mist was gone from his eyes, replaced with a carnality that almost frightened me.
I barely had time to whimper before he surged into me. I cried out and arched my back.
“Look at me.”
I forced my gaze to his and he fell into me again, quickly finding his punishing rhythm. His drives were controlled, precise. He knew exactly which spot to hit and, instead of pausing a beat between strokes, he pounded into me relentlessly from root to tip.
His fingers dug into my hips, leveraging me on and off his cock as he tried to fuck me out of his system. I reached up and pulled him to me, taking his mouth in mine as my climax grew.
He thrust inside and held himself there, impaling me on him, suspending my orgasm in mid-air. I writhed, trying to find the friction. He smiled cruelly and just when my climax started to slip away, he picked up his pace again.
He licked at the sweat on the base of my throat as he pushed into me over and over. His punishing strokes drew my orgasm from me.
“That’s it,” he coaxed as I moaned my release.
As I trembled, he pushed harder and harder, trying to force me out, to exorcise me from his soul.
He almost looked as if he hated me. I pulled him close and held him as he released himself deep inside.
I felt it coating my flesh, so full of him it dripped out of me as he continued to thrust lazily, forcing every last piece of pleasure from me.
Sweat beaded on my skin and I struggled for breath. We lay, coiled around one another, slowly coming back down to earth.
“Am I out of your system yet?” I panted.
“Shut up,” he grumbled, his face in the crook of my neck.
For once, my mind wasn’t at war. In his arms, all of my questions quietened for now. His mind, however, was deafening. I held him, his face still hidden, but after a few minutes my core was crying out for freedom and I nudged him gently. He groaned in disapproval.
“Alfie, please.” I squirmed and he picked up on my discomfort.
“Are you alright? Does it hurt?” He pulled away immediately and looked down at my opening as if checking for damage. I closed my legs instinctively.
“Don’t do that. Let me look.” He parted my legs again and touched me gently. I flinched. I was so damned sensitive. He frowned, guilt written on his face.
“I’m fine, Alfie.” I sat up, my legs still draped over his thighs. I kissed him gently. His eyes had softened by the time I drew away. He pushed me back onto the pillows. I didn’t resist and fell back with a sigh.
“Stay there.”
He disappeared into the bathroom and came back a moment later with a damp washcloth. I couldn’t hide my surprise as he set about cleaning me.
“Have you done this before?” I asked him.
“Aftercare? No.”
“Aftercare? I’ve never thought of it like that before.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile I didn’t understand, as if he knew something I didn’t. I decided to leave it alone, instead revelling in his gentle care of me.
When I was clean, he returned the cloth to the bathroom. I stretched out on the bed, relishing the stretch in my muscles.
“You’ll spend the day with me today,” he said when he returned. I stifled a smile as he lay down beside me, pulling me into his arms.
“Can’t. I have plans today,”
“Plans with whom?”
“Keira. She’s selling her parents’ place and she asked me to help decorate.”
He wrinkled his nose in disapproval. “You would rather decorate a house than spend time with me? Why doesn’t she just hire someone?”
“Because she doesn’t have thousands of pounds just lying around, Mr Moneybags.” I laughed.
“Lola, I have a team of decorators at Harrington. I can pull a few to deal with your friend’s house.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that isn’t what this is.” I gestured between us.
“I don’t want you throwing money at all of my problems.” I could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to find a way of manipulating the situation to suit him.
“You can give me a ride home if you want to help,” I said before he could think up a plan that would no doubt fuck up my day.
He looked at me, a glint in his eye, the tension gone as quickly as it had come. He moved, leaning over me, his fists either side of my head, his arms straight.
“Now, is that any way to ask me for a favor?”
I suddenly felt very small as he stared down at me. I played along and batted my eyelashes up at him. “Please, Mr Tell, would you drive me home?”
He arched an eyebrow, smiling in that way that made his cheeks hollow and his cheekbones sharpen. That smile killed me.
“That’s better.”
“Do you ever not wear a suit?”
Alfie’s closet was huge. A railing ran down either side, with shelves and shoe racks underneath and matching drawers at the end.
The far wall was filled with a large mirror where Alfie stood, fixing his tie.
One side of the closet was filled with a row of suits in black and varying shades of grey.
No colour. Anywhere. The other side of the closet was painfully empty.
I sat on the large cream pouffe in the centre of the room, still wrapped in my towel, watching him.
“I have a meeting this afternoon,” he said as he straightened his tie. His movements were sharp. As if he had a drill sergeant at his back waiting to do a uniform inspection. He caught my gaze in the mirror. “What?”
“Nothing,” I shrugged. “Just imagining you in a pair of Hawaiian shorts.”
His eyes narrowed in a glare that would have had his employees running for cover. I burst out laughing, unable to hold it back any longer. With a scowl, he looked away, focusing instead on buttoning his waistcoat, but a moment later his gaze flickered back to mine. A smile twitched there.
I watched him finish dressing in fascination. He opened a drawer, revealing a selection of watches, and pulled out a Rolex. I thought about how I got ready in the morning, in a flurry of odd socks and hopping over Ryan’s toys.
He shrugged into his suit jacket, settling into it like a second skin, and turned to face me. He gazed down at me, looking over my messy hair and the towel around my body.
“What?” I asked.
“You need to get dressed. Come.” I took his hand and he led me downstairs.
He watched as I dressed in last night’s clothes, his eyebrow arching as I struggled into my underwear without dropping the towel.
Being naked at night was one thing, and being naked in bed was another, but stripping off in the cold, unforgiving light of day took a kind of nerve that I didn’t have.
“So, how are your plans for the Harrington garden coming along?”
The question caught me off guard. My Harrington garden hadn’t come along at all.
“Great,” I lied. I eased the straps of my dress over my shoulders. Alfie moved behind me. He lifted my hair and I shivered as he zipped up my dress, his fingers tracing my skin in light, teasing touches.
“Lola, knowing when someone is feeding me bullshit is what makes me such a good businessman, but I really hate having to use that skill with you.” His voice was so cold I shivered. I wrapped my arms around body as he turned me to face him. “Have you made any plans?”
“No. Though, should I bother?”
“Why not? You don’t want it anymore?”
“Of course, I do. But you just made it very clear this morning that the project is contingent on me doing what you want. You said yourself you’d have taken it away if I’d been unprofessional , which you could still do by the way.
If I don’t behave myself you could take it away any time.
” The tension in the air was thick as he turned over my words.
“It’s on the table. No matter what you do it’s on the table.” He turned away, effectively shutting me out. I followed him to the lift, giving him a sideways glance as we waited. His jaw was ticking which didn’t bode well for me.
“Thank you for not taking it away. I know that you could have.”
“You shouldn’t thank me for treating you with basic decency.”
Before I could say anything else, the lift arrived and we stepped inside.
Silence accompanied us all the way to the ground floor.
As we stepped into the lobby, I was greeted by a sea of disapproving looks as I emerged in an evening gown and just-fucked hair.
My cheeks heated with embarrassment. I felt an arm slip around my waist and Alfie’s voice in my ear.
“Fuck them,” he whispered. I looked up to see him slipping on his Wayfarers. His chin lifted with a cocky ‘ fuck you ’ to every onlooker, a reminder that there was a whole Never Tell side of him that I had yet to discover.
He squeezed my waist and just like that, my self-consciousness was gone. It should bother me that he could manipulate my moods as easily as he manipulated my body. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, it did.