16. Holland
CHAPTER 16
Holland
O liver barely spoke while we met with the CFO, whom I’d previously known only from the photo on our organizational chart. I glanced at him to see if he was going to jump up to handle the tech portion of the presentation as he had on Monday, but he had a dazed look in his dark, stormy eyes. He rested his jaw in one hand, his index finger absently rubbing across his bottom lip in a way that had me taking deep breaths in an effort to steady my voice. He came out of it slightly when I finished, but kept throwing dark looks my way, making me wonder if he was angry at me, if I’d said something I shouldn’t have during the presentation. If he was mad about that, he could shove it. He’d had every opportunity to jump in, and instead he’d just sat there looking like he was in a trance.
When Rob had thanked me, and then stood and left the office, I closed the door instead of walking through it. “What the hell?” I asked him as I turned around. I spun to find him only inches from me, that same darkness burning in his eyes as he moved in close and pushed me roughly back against the door, his hands at my waist. We hadn’t spent much time together this week—I’d worked late getting acclimated to my new responsibilities and he’d been getting back up to speed, too. There’d been a few quick kisses, but no more desktop interludes, and the tension between us was palpable.
Before I could ask another question, Oliver’s mouth was on mine, and his body was pressed up against me, pinning me to the solid wood door behind me. This kiss wasn’t gentle and soft, it didn’t ask permission. It felt like he was staking a claim, as if he sought to possess me, to own me with his rough mouth, his forceful tongue. If anyone had asked me, I would certainly have said I’d never want to be possessed by anyone. But the way Oliver’s mouth insisted my lips open to him, the way his tongue plunged between my lips, and the way his body completely covered mine as he took away my breath and my ability to move or speak—those things had me rethinking what I really wanted.
When one of his big hands pulled my blouse from my waistband, the hot palm sliding up my ribs and pushing away the wire cup of my bra to palm my breast, I couldn’t help the surprised cry that burst from my lips.
“Quiet,” he growled, certainly thinking of Pamela, just feet away behind the door. He pulled his mouth away and ran his hand down the side of my face, the look in his eyes feral and searching.
He held my jaw for a moment, the heat in his gaze searing my blood and making my heart beat faster, and then he rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip before tugging it down. I couldn’t help letting my tongue dart out to taste the tip of his thumb, and as soon as I did, his hips jerked against me and he let out a guttural curse under his breath.
I tasted him again, and he pushed the thumb between my lips as he ground against my hip. I sucked on his thumb, my eyes never leaving his, even though there was something in his gaze I didn’t fully understand. As I sucked and licked his thumb, I couldn’t help grinding against the strong hard thigh he’d pushed between my legs, and I let my eyes slide shut for a brief moment as I enjoyed the sensations rocketing through me. I might have been able to come just from the friction and the intensity of his eyes and the pressure of his fingers on my nipple, but he stepped away abruptly.
“Not here,” he said, straightening his trousers and turning away as though nothing had happened.
“Here seemed okay earlier this week,” I reminded him, stepping up behind him to wrap my arms around his waist and press my breasts into the firm broad muscle of his back. I let one hand slide down his chest and then pushed it below his waistband, cupping his rigid cock with my hand.
“Come to my house,” he said, pulling my hand away and stepping out of my reach. “I’ll send a car for you. Go home and get your things. Spend the night.”
I thought about that. I wanted it, I wanted to spend the night in Oliver’s arms, to let myself be carried away by the incredible things that had already happened this week, to lose myself in this moment. But I wasn’t sure it was the best thing. “I don’t know,” I told him. “ So much has happened, it might be good to get some distance. Some perspective. And Oliver . . .” His eyebrows rose as I said his name, the almost black eyes still smoldering. “You’re my boss.”
He shook his head, ignoring me. “I’ll send a car at eight.”
“It isn’t nice to tell people what to do like that,” I told him, my resolve quickly fading. It wasn’t nice, but it was hot as hell.
“But you’ll do it, because you’re a good girl,” he said, purring this last into my ear as my traitorous body responded with nothing but yessss. “Please,” he added with a sarcastic smile. And then he whispered in my ear again, “I have a lot of avocados at my house, duchess.”
I laughed. “Avocados, huh? Then I guess I’ll see you there.” It felt a little like giving in, but when I thought of going home to my empty apartment it seemed like it would be a poor way to celebrate a really important week. Spending the night with Oliver was what I wanted. Even if it wasn’t the right thing.
I stepped out of Oliver’s office to find Pamela’s eyes on me, a question on her lips. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey, you,” I said, stepping around to face her. “How are you? I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in a while.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. How’s the new job going?”
“Good,” I said, my voice revealing my discomfort. I was getting used to the idea of my promotion, but I still felt defensive when it seemed linked to Oliver, and having my lipstick undoubtedly smeared as I slid out of his office probably didn’t help with my argument that I’d been promoted on my own merits. “Thanks.” I looked away.
“Hey,” she said, her tone pulling my gaze to hers. “Everything okay? You need to talk?”
I shrugged. I did need to talk. I was tempted to invite her out, tell her everything and see what she thought. Pamela was smart and capable, and I valued her opinion. But I also worried that I’d lose her respect, and maybe even her friendship if I revealed what was going on between her boss and me. Between my boss and me. “I’m okay,” I said, covering with a smile. “But let’s definitely get lunch soon, okay?”
She nodded and I went back out to the elevator, got my stuff together and headed home.
At eight, a Town Car pulled up outside my apartment building, and a man in a dark suit buzzed my apartment. I watched him pull up from the front window and marveled a bit at the fact that Oliver had a car and driver at all. The funny thing, I decided, was that I hadn’t met Oliver Cody, really. At first I’d met Hale, and if someone had told me he was the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the country I would have laughed hysterically. I was actually thankful for having gotten to know Hale first. Oliver would have been far too intimidating.
As I slid into the open door and relaxed against the leather, I wondered how many people Oliver had met in his life who were more interested in who he was from a business or financial standpoint than who he was as a man. I didn’t know him well, but I knew he was sweet and funny, thoughtful and vulnerable at times. I knew he had been hurt, that he’d spent months nursing that wound. And I knew that for some reason, meeting me had been part of what helped pull him back to stand in the daylight, to walk among the living again.
Ingram, Oliver’s driver, turned out to be South African and had an accent I would have liked to hear more of. He was a quiet man who told me he’d worked for the Cody family for more than a decade. He drove me north on the 405, pulling off—somewhat unbelievably—at Mulholland Drive, where as far as I was concerned only movie stars, models, and directors lived. But Ingram wound up the hills and through the narrow tree-lined streets until he pulled to a stop before a long brick wall, grown over with greenery. He turned in, pulled up to a broad iron gate and typed in a code to make the gate swing inward.
We stepped from the car into a front courtyard filled with flowers and trees. Roses lined the fence, but they were in need of pruning, and weeds sprang up in many of the beds, the neglect evident even in the sparse glow of the lanterns lining the path to the door.
Ingram walked me in, and I felt strange entering this expansive rambling ranch house with no sign of Oliver around. The front entrance soared in Spanish tile and stuccoed archways, and inside the huge wooden door a wrought iron chandelier glowed overhead. Oliver’s voice echoed down the wide hallway to my right, but he wasn’t greeting me. It sounded as if he was on the phone, maybe angry. Staccato bursts of conversation hit my ears and caused my muscles to tense as I stood and looked around me .
“I’ll leave your bag here, ma’am.” Ingram dropped my overnight bag just inside the front door. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable? Can I get you anything?”
I followed Ingram to a long low bar perched on a raised step overlooking a sunken living room that featured a wall of windows to the back, where a glittering blue swimming pool spanned the length of the yard. “Wow,” I said to Ingram. “What an incredible pool.” Steam was rising from the water, and the entire length of it glowed.
“Heated,” he said with a wink.
In the center of the stretch of granite-topped bar sat a bright blue bowl completely filled with rough-skinned avocados. I couldn’t help the smile that overtook my lips. “Thank you,” I said, sitting and reaching out to pick up an avocado.
Ingram smiled at me and disappeared. I heard the front door close after a minute, and assumed I was alone with Oliver, who still hadn’t shown himself.
After a few minutes of sitting, I grew impatient and decided to explore. I prowled through the rooms at the front of the house, investigating a space that was both elegant and livable. It was a showplace, filled with dazzling art, shining glass baubles and impressive furniture, but it also felt like a home. As my eyes fell on a family portrait—Oliver standing next to an older man and a lovely woman who sat in a chair and smiled at the camera with a bright hopeful smile—I realized this was a family home. Without any confirmation but the photo, I understood that this was where Oliver had spent at least part of his youth. This was his parents’ home.
His voice rang down the hallway again, and I decided I’d been waiting long enough. My body still hummed from his touch after our meeting that afternoon, and an aching need had throbbed between my legs since then. I’d never wanted anyone the way I wanted him, right or wrong.
I slipped off my flats next to the front door and padded softly down the hallway, my feet cold on the rubbed Spanish tiles. I moved slowly, looking around me as I went. There were pictures of him lining the hallway. Oliver, grinning out from too many school portraits to count; Oliver, standing atop a podium in swimming briefs, holding a gold medal; Oliver, next to his father with the soaring towers of Cody Tech in the background and a pair of ribbon-cutting scissors held between them.
Standing there, I was struck with the realization that Oliver had had everything I’d always dreamed about. The parents who loved him, the family house . . . I didn’t feel the searing jealousy I’d felt as a kid when I’d walked down a hallway like this, strewn with evidence of everything I never had. Instead, I felt happy for him, glad to know he’d been cherished and prized. And I felt a surging grief on his behalf—to have had all this and lost it so suddenly . . . But one thing was clear to me as I examined a picture of his parents as young adults, beaming down at a chubby blond toddler on a tricycle—Oliver’s parents had chosen him. He had been treasured and loved. I would make sure he understood that because he needed to know. I didn’t know why his parents hadn’t told him he was adopted, but I didn’t believe it mattered at all. These pictures were proof. I tore my eyes from them and walked quietly forward .
Had Oliver moved back into his parents’ house after they were killed? I couldn’t imagine that he’d lived here all along.
I turned a corner, following his voice to an office sunken down two stairs and facing the backyard. Oliver didn’t turn to look at me. He was standing in front of the wall of windows, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck as the other held the phone to his ear.
“Burton,” he was saying. “I’ll have news for you soon. You just need to wait a little longer. Can you give me your commitment to wait a bit longer? The next board meeting should resolve all of these issues.” He sounded weary, and I felt distinctly as if I was interrupting. I backed away and walked softly back out to the living room. I wanted Oliver’s attention, but I had just thought of a better way to get it than interrupting an important work call. He’d already told me some of the investors were thinking of selling shares, and that it was critical to restore their confidence and that of our clients.
I slipped through the sunken living room to the tall glass doors facing the pool. Once out on the back patio, I turned back to survey the house, which was all glass from the back. I could see a soft glow coming from the other end of the house, directly across from where the pool’s diving board was positioned, and I knew that was where Oliver stood staring out. Without glancing at him, I walked to the deep end of the pool and stood next to the diving board, feeling emboldened by the knowledge that his eyes had to be on me, he couldn’t avoid seeing me here.
I threw one glance over my shoulder to let him know I was aware of his presence, and then I slipped my sundress off over my head and stretched my arms up, looking up at the sky through the trees that arched over Oliver’s yard. After a long languorous stretch, I reached back and unclasped my bra, dropping it with one hand to the pile my dress had made, and then I stepped from my panties, depositing them in the pile with a toe. Taking a deep breath, and working to look confident despite my complete lack of experience in stripping for a man, I walked to the diving board and stepped up, shivering slightly in the cool air. The water beneath me glittered a soft blue, lit from beneath, and the steam rising off its surface gave the yard a surreal feeling. It was incredible to be standing out here. This was nothing like the houses I’d grown up in, and I didn’t know many people with pools—especially heated pools—even now. I tried not to think about the miles-wide financial divide between Oliver and me. It shouldn’t really matter, anyway.
With three long strides I reached the end of the diving board and dove off, pushing hard with my legs and reaching my hands in front of me. I swam to the shallow end, letting my mind focus only on the sensation of my muscles pulling, the warm water on my skin. In the past week I felt like I’d become all sensation. My body had been more awake since meeting Hale, and every inch of my skin felt more responsive, more alive than ever.
I came to the surface, finding the bottom of the pool with my feet, and I turned, pushing off again and swimming a couple laps back and forth. The rushing sound of the water in my ears drowned out everything else, so I didn’t hear the door open and close, didn’t hear Oliver’s feet crossing the slate surround to stand above me at the edge of the pool. But I felt him as I churned through long strokes under the nearly black sky. I felt the air shift, as it always did around him, the cells of my body aligning to his, even over a distance. Oliver was like a magnet to me, and when he was close, I was drawn to him. I swam to the shallow end again and came up, my chest exposed to the cool night air as I reached up to push water from my hair and smile at Oliver.
He stood bare-chested and barefoot, still in his work trousers with his hair a tousled mess atop his head. That brutal jaw was clenched, the scruff of his beard glinting as the little bits of gold reflected the light flickering up from the pool. His eyes were black and his expression unreadable as he watched me, that jaw firm and solid. One of his hands was clenched into a fist at his side.
“Hi there,” I said. “You were busy, so I decided to swim.”
“I saw,” he said, confirming that he’d gotten the benefit of my little show.
“Coming in?” I asked.
He unfastened his pants and dropped them, with the briefs, to the ground, and dove long, swimming to the other end and back without a breath. He came up almost beneath me, his body skimming mine as he broke the surface of the water. His eyes caught mine and I had a fleeting sense of danger when I took in the flare of emotion within his dark orbs.
Before I could ask if anything was wrong, his mouth was on mine, a continuation of the possessive kiss he’d stopped back at the office. His hands were as greedy as his tongue, sliding over my curves beneath the water, and the combination of heat from his mouth and his hands coupled with the feel of the water made me clench all my muscles in an effort to gain some sense of control over myself. My head fell back into Oliver’s hand, and my mouth opened to him. He slipped a hand beneath my ass and lifted me easily in the water, my legs going automatically around his waist.
I could feel his cock pressed against my inner thigh, thick and hard beneath the surface of the water. I wanted to see it, to touch it. It was odd, I’d never really had a thing for a man’s cock. I mean, functionally, sure. But I’d never wanted to explore one, to know one the way I wanted to know Oliver’s. He was a commanding guy, undoubtedly. He had been even when I’d know him as Hale, aka Mr. Big Dick. And something about that forcefulness of personality, that unquestioning attitude that he was in charge, that the world and everything in it were his, struck me as innately linked to his masculinity, and therefore his cock. Was it weird to think of his dick as so critical to his power?
As he ravaged my mouth with his, I lost the train of thought a bit, but I realized one other thing. As much as I liked his dick, I liked his heart more. Despite his tendency to try to rule the world, I’d seen so much more to this man. I’d seen him sad and vulnerable, laughing and silly. And I’d seen him losing his mind as that glorious dick pounded into me, a state I hoped to bring about again soon.
Oliver had me against the edge of the pool, his arm protecting my back from hitting the hard wall, and he was rubbing against me, pushing that huge hard dick against my most tender spot as his mouth pulled back and teased my lips gently. “God, Holland,” he said, his voice a razor’s edge of lust. “You drive me fucking crazy.”
I responded by biting his lip and was rewarded with a low groan.
His arm held me fast against him, his hard chest rippling against my skin. With one hand he reached down to tease me with his fingers, his arm curling beneath my leg and those long thick fingers stroking and pulsing in a rhythm that soon had me moaning into his demanding mouth. “God, I want you,” I said on a moan.
He stopped kissing me and pulled his head back, his eyes flickering. “Say it again.”
“I want you, Oliver.” I tried to retake his mouth but he pulled it back and a wicked smile played across his lips.
“Tell me how much.” His fingers were still moving, and now one penetrated me, making me gasp with shock and pleasure.
“Oh God, so fucking much,” I moaned, pressing myself against him, wrapping my legs tighter around his waist and ducking my head to inhale the warm masculine scent of him just beneath his ear. Another noise escaped my throat as he pressed another finger inside me, his hand still managing the right amount of pressure against my clit so that I was writhing in his embrace.
There might have been neighbors nearby, but I neither cared nor looked to find out. I was out of my mind with pleasure. Between the heat of Oliver’s body and the soothing water, the pulsing motion of his hand and his hard cock pressed against me, I could barely form thoughts or words. I didn’t have enough energy to worry about nosy neighbors—and the yard was grown over with tall draping trees that provided at least an illusion of privacy, if not the real thing.
Oliver didn’t cease the relentless teasing of his hand or his mouth on my neck, my ear, my own mouth, and within a few minutes I knew I was seconds away from coming. I pulled myself back and caught his wild eyes. “I want you.”
“You mentioned that, but I don’t mind hearing it again,” he growled, a smile on his face under those dark eyes. His muscles bulged as he held me to him, the dark blond hair covering his jaw reminding me of his purely masculine appeal.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want you. All of you. Inside me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Now.”
His fingers returned to their place, but his eyes had grown heavy. “I don’t have a condom out here, Holland.” He sounded sad about this fact.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t usually careless about things, but I wanted Oliver more than I wanted to think about anything else. “I’m on the pill,” I managed to say. “And I’m clean.” I hadn’t been with anyone in years. I was spic and span.
Oliver’s eyes didn’t leave mine, watching to make sure I meant it. “I’ve been tested,” he said. “I’m clean, too.” He lined himself up, just the tip teasing my entrance.
I shivered in his arms, more ready than I’d ever been .
“You’re sure?” The words were a harsh whisper, as if he struggled to get them out.
“God, please, Oliver!” I was begging. I could think of nothing but that big cock sliding inside me, filling me, giving me something to center on as I spun out of control. I wanted it with an irrational needy desire, beyond reason or logic or common sense. “Please,” I moaned.
Oliver groaned, clearly defeated by his own need, and the next thing I felt was his soft thick tip pushing, filling me. He entered me slowly, a wild pulsing heat replacing the cooler feel of the water. “Fuck,” he breathed, his head falling forward to rest on my shoulder as he slid all the way inside me, so slowly I thought I might die of anticipation.
A noise I didn’t recognize as my own voice escaped my throat as he pushed all the way in and held himself there, neither of us moving. I could feel him inside me, a pulsing heat filling me and radiating through my limbs, and I squeezed myself around it, loving the way the contraction caused Oliver to suck in a sharp breath.
“Fuck,” he moaned, his voice a rasp. And then he was pulling out, pumping back in, pulling out again and thrusting harder. His arm braced my back against the edge of the pool and his other hand was on my ass, his fingers sliding around the globe of one side and into the crease.
A noise escaped me, a long, low shuddering cry of pleasure that ripped from my throat as every muscle inside me clenched and convulsed around Oliver. I fell apart in his arms, and when I was finished, he pulled slightly out and it was happening all over again—his fingers, his cock, everything else about him. I lost myself, and if he hadn’t been holding me, I might have drowned in his pool. Somewhere in the midst of my body fragmenting and exploding, I felt him coming with me, and I relished the feeling of weightlessness. I was everywhere and nowhere, floating and flying, surrounded and completely untethered. And then I was just in Oliver’s arms, out of breath and still connected to the most attractive, most incredible man I’d ever met.
When I came back to myself, he was smiling down at me. It wasn’t the wicked mischievous smile I’d seen moments before he’d sent me soaring. It was a gentle, sweet little-boy smile, and my heart actually jumped a little bit in my chest. Our embrace turned into a long hug as we disconnected our bodies, unwrapped our limbs from each other. After a moment, Oliver held only my hands and he stepped back from me, that smile still in place and his face lit by the pool light shining up from beneath the water.
“Has anyone ever told you what an incredible woman you are?” he asked.
I laughed. It was a defense mechanism. But in reality, no. No one had ever told me anything like that. Mama Gi had always been supportive, maybe even loving at times. Mostly she was a rock, and she made sure we had what we needed. Delia loved me, I knew that. “There really hasn’t been a lot of that in my life,” I said honestly. It wasn’t a plea for sympathy. It was my truth.
“There should be a hell of a lot more of it.” He tugged my hand and led me to the steps of the pool. “I’ll be in charge of making sure. ”
“You’re already in charge of enough with everything going on at Cody Tech,” I said, deflecting the attention that made me feel vulnerable and exposed.
Oliver stopped me and pulled me into his arms, and we stood there naked, embracing as the moon glowed above us and my heart threatened to reveal more of me than I had to anyone before. “You need to know how special you are,” he told me, looking down into my face, his words firm and earnest. “I’ve never met anyone like you. You . . . glow,” he said, half his mouth turning up in a smile as his eyes searched mine.
“I glow?” Though this kind of attention was slightly embarrassing, I needed clarification on that. I couldn’t help but laugh.
He shook his head, and it was his turn to look embarrassed. “I don’t know how to explain it. When I met you, it was like I’d been walking through darkness. Like in movies where the character sees everyone else but only in shadow? Where no one really sees him?”
I nodded. I’d seen a movie where a girl had been murdered, and she could run through the streets of her town, see her family but not communicate with them.
“But you saw me.” He stared into my eyes for a second, placed a sweet kiss on my mouth and then straightened. “Even when you hated me, you saw me.”
“I didn’t hate you. You were just having a personality failure when we first met.”
He grinned. “Let’s go inside,” he said. He led me from the pool and retrieved my clothes and then scooped up his own.
I grabbed a towel from a nearby chair and followed him inside, feeling shy and awkward in the soft light. When I was dry, I pulled my dress back over my head. It had been easier to be honest in the darkness by the pool.
“Are you tired, duchess?” he asked.
“I am, actually.” I glanced at the clock. Somehow it was already after ten.
“We’ll have to eat all these avocados in the morning, then,” he said, putting the one I’d dropped on the bar top back into the bowl.
Oliver took my hand and led me through the house, stopping to grab my bag where it sat next to the door. I followed him obediently, too tired and satisfied to do anything else. At the end of the hall, he passed the double doors that I would have assumed opened to the master bedroom, and walked me into a small room with a queen-sized bed against one wall and trophies lining the bookshelves. Posters of Olympians covered the closet door, and the desk held an ancient desktop computer.
I couldn’t help but gape as I looked around me. “We’ve gone back in time,” I said. “To Oliver Cody’s high school bedroom.” I turned my stare to him, questions spinning through my mind.
“They left me the house. But I can’t sleep in the master. Nothing in here has changed since I went away to college, and I haven’t had the energy to do anything about it. There are a couple guest rooms, but I guess . . .” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, shrugging and dropping my gaze. “Like I said, I’ve been a little out of it.”
Oliver looked exhausted suddenly, bruised circles appearing beneath the dark eyes. I took his hands and stepped close. “Did you ever fuck anyone in your high school bedroom, Oliver?”
The sadness and pain in his eyes cleared a bit and something else sparked there in their place. I took his mouth with mine and pulled him toward the bed.