Chapter 11 #2
"Then maybe you shouldn't—" She breaks off as my thumb brushes her nipple through thin cotton. "Fuck."
"Language, Miss Blake."
She laughs, breathless. "You're the worst."
"Yes."
I unhook her bra with one hand, a skill I've never been grateful for until this moment, and replace the cotton with my mouth.
She arches off the sofa and her hand flies to her own mouth and the sound she makes against her palm is the most erotic thing I've ever heard.
I take my time here. Tongue circling, teeth grazing, learning what makes her hips roll and what makes her fingers tighten in my hair and what makes her breath stop entirely.
She's responsive in a way that's devastating. Every touch registers on her face, her body, the catch in her throat.
"étienne." My name in her mouth sounds like a warning and a plea at the same time. "Please."
"Please what?"
"Touch me."
"I am touching you."
"You know what I mean."
I do. I unbutton her jeans. Slide my hand inside slowly, watching her face the entire time. Her eyes are locked on mine and her lip is caught between her teeth and when my fingers find her she's soaked.
The realization that she drove across Paris in the middle of the night with this need already building inside her…
I lose whatever thought was forming.
I stroke her slowly. Methodically. The way I approach everything worth doing—with precision and complete attention.
I find the rhythm that makes her breath hitch, adjust the pressure until her hips are chasing my hand, catalog every response the way I'd catalog a collection I'm building from scratch.
She's trying so hard to hold on to the anger and her body won't let her.
"I've thought about this," I confess against her lips. "Every night since you arrived. What you'd feel like. What sounds you'd make."
Her hips rock against my hand and she whimpers and I feel it in my cock.
"More," she whispers. "Please. More."
Two fingers slide inside her and she clenches around me immediately, tight and hot, and I press my thumb against her clit and start a rhythm that's calculated to take her apart as efficiently as possible.
Because that's who I am. I'm the man who controls everything.
And right now I want to control exactly how and when she comes.
She grabs my wrist, not pulling me away but holding me there, holding me inside her, and her hips rock against my hand faster now, losing their rhythm, losing control. My mouth swallows the sounds.
"Let go," I manage. "I want to feel you."
She comes apart on my hand. Silent, shuddering, her whole body arching off the leather.
The flutter of her lashes. The way her lips part.
The way she bites down on her own wrist to keep from crying out.
I watch every second of it because I am a man who notices details and these are the most important details of my life.
I want more. I want everything.
She's still trembling when her eyes open and find mine. She's wrecked. Flushed and breathing hard and looking at me with an expression I've never seen on anyone's face before, not directed at me, not like this.
Her eyes find mine, still hazy, and something shifts in her expression—from undone to decided.
She reaches for my belt, and I let her. She unbuttons my trousers and wraps her hand around me and I have to brace myself against the armrest because nothing has felt this real in months.
Her grip is firm and warm and she strokes me once, slowly, watching my face, and I realize she's doing what I did.
Studying me. Learning what makes me lose control.
"Are you sure?" I need her to say it.
She pulls me closer by the hips. "Get inside me, étienne."
I almost smile. Almost. She says it the way she says everything. Direct. No performance. Honest in a way that slices right through me.
I settle between her thighs and push into her slowly and we both stop breathing. She's tight and warm and when I'm fully inside her, our foreheads pressed together, I feel something crack open in my chest that I didn't know was closed.
"Look at me," I say.
"Yes, étienne." Barely a whisper.
I stay. Fully inside her. Not moving. Letting us both feel it, the weight of what this is, what it means, what it's going to cost.
Then I move.
Not gentle. Not careful. Weeks of wanting have burned away everything civilized in me.
I fuck her into the leather sofa with my hand over her mouth and my forehead against hers so I can watch her eyes.
Sophie's ninth birthday drawings are pinned to the corkboard behind us and I should care about that and I don't. My hips snap against Madeline's and she meets every thrust, her body rising to mine like she's been waiting for this, like she's as desperate as I am, and the sofa creaks beneath us.
I've spent my whole life in control. Of my company. My daughter's world. My emotions. Every room I walk into bends to my will. But this woman has her legs wrapped around me and her nails in my back and she's whispering "Don't hold back" into my ear and I am not in control of anything anymore.
"étienne—" The rest is muffled against my palm. Her eyes are wide and locked on mine and I can feel her tightening around me, building toward something she can't stop.
I slide my hand between us and press my thumb against her clit.
She shatters. Biting down on my palm, her whole body clenching around me so tight I see stars, and I follow her with my face buried in her neck and her name caught somewhere between my teeth and my throat, my hand pressed over her heart.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
I'm still inside her. Still pressed against her.
Her fingers trace the back of my neck, slow and absent, and her face turns into my shoulder and she just breathes.
I let her. I close my eyes and let myself have this, the weight of her beneath me, the warmth, the quiet.
Her heartbeat against my chest, slowing. Mine matching it.
I press my lips to her temple. It's not a kiss exactly. Something softer. Something I didn't plan.
She makes a small sound and burrows closer and for thirty seconds I am not étienne Laurent. I am just a man holding a woman on a sofa in the dark, and it is the most terrifying thing I have ever felt.
Then the clock on my desk ticks and the world comes back.
I'm standing before I've consciously decided to move. Buttoning my trousers. Straightening my shirt. Reaching for my phone.
"étienne?" Her voice is confused. She felt it, the temperature dropping. "What's happening?"
"My car to the airport leaves at six. I should try to sleep."
She sits up slowly. Pulls her sweater down. Finds her jeans and pulls them on with hands that aren't quite steady.
"So that's it," she says. "You summon me here. You—" She stops. "And now you're just done."
"Bernard will drive you to Bastien's tomorrow. I've already arranged it."
She flinches.
"A few minutes ago you were inside me. Now you're arranging my transport to another man's apartment."
"The schedule—"
"—Fuck the schedule!" She stands. "You lied to get me here. You slept with me. And now you're shipping me off and running to Milan."
I don't answer.
She moves toward the door.
"If you'd asked me to stay, I would have. But you don't ask. You just decide. For both of us."
She walks out.
I listen to her footsteps fade. The elevator. Then silence reigns.
I stand at the window and watch the taxi pull away, carrying her back to Raphael's, where she'll sleep for a few hours before Bernard drives her to Bastien's.
I've just handed my rival exactly what he wants. Touched her and claimed her and sent her to him.
The self-sabotage is so complete it's almost artful.