CHAPTER SIX
HOSTILE TAKEOVER
Marcus and Helena left at one thirteen in the morning.
Nathan locked the door behind them.
We stood in the entrance hall listening to the rain and the fading sound of their car.
My knees still remembered the library carpet.
My jaw still ached from Marcus.
Nathan’s cock remained hard beneath his trousers because Helena and I had denied both men the release they expected.
He looked at me.
“Was that strategy?”
“Partly.”
“More.”
I smiled.
“I wanted him frustrated at the board tomorrow.”
“And me?”
“I wanted you frustrated now.”
Nathan came closer.
“Why?”
“Because you liked her mouth.”
“You liked his cock.”
“Exactly.”
The argument entered us before either person decided whether it was serious.
Nathan caught my waist and pushed me against the closed door.
“You stopped when I was close.”
“So did Helena.”
“You told her to.”
“She listened.”
His mouth covered mine.
The kiss tasted like anger and another man’s skin still faint on my tongue. Nathan felt it. His hand tightened at the back of my neck.
“Did he make you gag?”
“Yes.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
The truth made his body harder against me.
“Do not punish me for answering.”
Nathan stopped.
The line from the notebook entered the hall.
No body settles a debt.
Rivalry cannot become contempt.
He breathed once against my mouth.
Then released my neck.
“I am not punishing you.”
“Not yet.”
“What do you want?”
The correct question.
I put my hand inside his open trousers.
“I want you to take the frustration Marcus left and use it on me because I asked, not because you think I owe you.”
Nathan’s eyes changed.
“Say where.”
“Against the door.”
“More.”
“Hard enough that I remember this house belongs to us after they leave.”
He turned me.
My palms hit the dark wood.
Nathan lifted my dress and found my cunt still wet from Helena’s mouth. He touched me once, two fingers sliding through the slick heat without entering.
“She did this.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus watched.”
“Yes.”
“And you watched her take my cock.”
“Not enough of it.”
He struck my ass.
The crack moved through the entrance hall.
No staff.
No witnesses except the security line outside and the rival couple disappearing into London with the same frustration inside their car.
Nathan entered me in one hard movement.
My forehead touched the door.
The stretch was familiar and immediate. Home after another man’s mouth. My husband’s cock inside the body Helena had just tasted.
“Whose room?” he asked.
“Ours.”
He pulled back and drove deep.
“Whose wife?”
“Yours.”
“Who did you kneel for?”
“Marcus.”
The answer made him fuck me harder.
“Who are you with now?”
“You.”
Every thrust made the brass lock tremble near my hand. Nathan held my hip with one hand and my throat with the other, not squeezing, only keeping my face turned enough that I could see him in the narrow mirror beside the door.
The executive wife looked used.
Hair loose.
Mouth swollen.
Black dress at her waist.
The man behind her looked less civilized than the investor who had negotiated rules in the library.
I loved both.
“Tell me about his size,” Nathan said.
The demand reached directly into the jealousy he had chosen not to hide.
“Bigger than you.”
His jaw tightened.
“More.”
“Too big to take quickly.”
He struck my ass again.
“More.”
“He made my jaw hurt.”
Nathan pushed deeper.
“And me?”
I met his eyes in the mirror.
“You know every place that hurts and every place that opens.”
The answer changed him.
Competition stopped being measurement.
He slowed one stroke, then drove into the exact place that broke my breath.
“Again,” I said.
He did.
My orgasm built fast because it had begun in the library and traveled through denial, jealousy, and the sound of another car leaving our property.
Nathan’s fingers found my clit.
“Come for the center.”
The phrase was arrogant.
True.
I came with my cheek against our door and my husband’s name louder than the rain.
Nathan continued until my legs shook.
He did not come immediately.
He held me open and made me feel every controlled movement, proving nothing to Marcus because Marcus was gone.
Proving something to himself.
I reached back and caught his hip.
“Still here?”
“Always.”
Then he came inside me.
The warmth filled the place another man had only occupied in memory that night.
We stayed against the door until Nathan softened.
Afterward, he carried me to the downstairs bathroom, cleaned my thighs, and brought water without asking.
The same private language after every public risk.
I sat on the marble counter wearing his shirt while he stood between my knees.
“Did you want Helena alone?” I asked.
“Tonight?”
“Ever.”
He thought before answering.
“Yes.”
The truth cut.
I let it.
“Did you want Marcus alone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
We sat inside the equal wound.
“Good,” I said.
The word no longer meant victory.
It meant we had found the truth before it became a weapon.
Nathan touched my wedding ring.
“Tomorrow, boardroom.”
“Eleven.”
“Do you trust them?”
“No.”
“Do you want them?”
“Yes.”
“Too fast.”
“You knew.”
“I wanted to hear it.”
The old exchange closed the night.
At two fourteen, an alert appeared on my phone.
Webb Strategic had raised the North Atlantic bid by another fifteen million.
Nathan read the number over my shoulder.
“He did not wait for the meeting.”
I opened the acquisition file.
“Neither will I.”
I raised ours by twenty-five.
The hostile takeover had moved back into daylight before either couple slept.