Chapter 10 #3
Her fingers twist into my hair and when I slide two fingers inside her, the wet heat of her clenching tight around me, while the toy works her clit, she comes so hard her whole body locks against mine.
She screams into my shoulder, her teeth biting down on the fabric of my shirt hard enough that I feel the pressure against my skin.
Her legs clamp around my forearm, and I hold her through every wave until she goes boneless against the mattress.
Her body vibrates with aftershocks, her breathing shallow and fast against my neck.
I press my forehead to hers. Her skin is damp and warm and her breath rolls across my lips in short, trembling pulls. Her eyes are wet, her lashes dark and clumped together. Her cherry lipstick is smeared across her chin and my collar, a red streak that marks me as thoroughly as any signature.
"Still regretting clause four?" I murmur.
"Shut up." She pulls my mouth back to hers. "And take your pants off."
I stand at the edge of the bed. She watches me from the mattress, her body flushed and trembling, her blue eyes heavy-lidded and locked on my hands as I unbutton my shirt and shrug it off.
The fabric lands somewhere behind me. Her gaze drops to my chest, the viper tattoo, the trail of dark hair below my navel, and she bites her swollen bottom lip and the sight of her teeth pressing into that cherry-stained flesh makes my cock strain harder against my slacks.
I unbuckle my belt. The metal clinks in the quiet room and her thighs press together on the mattress.
I unzip slowly, watching her watch me, watching her chest rise and fall faster with every inch of fabric I remove.
My slacks drop and I step out of them and her eyes widen the way they did the first night she saw me, and the fact that my body still has that effect on her makes my pulse pound behind my ribs.
I wrap my fist around my shaft and stroke once, slow, base to tip.
Pre-cum beads at the head and her lips part on a shaky exhale.
I'm hard enough that the ache runs all the way to the base of my spine, throbbing with every heartbeat, and the need to be inside her is so sharp it takes every ounce of discipline I have left not to bury myself in her in one stroke.
"You're staring again, tesoro."
"You're standing naked in front of me holding your cock. Where else am I supposed to look?"
I press one knee into the mattress between her thighs and she opens for me without hesitation, her legs falling wide, her red heels catching the city light as they press into the dark sheets.
The cherry leather against the charcoal fabric is obscene and beautiful and I will never get tired of seeing this woman in nothing but those shoes.
I settle between her legs and brace myself on one arm.
My free hand guides my cock to her entrance, the slick heat of her already coating the head before I press forward.
No barrier. Nothing between my skin and hers.
She's wet and swollen from the orgasm and when I push inside her the tight, hot grip of her body takes every thought out of my head.
She gasps and her hands fly to my shoulders. Her nails dig in and her back arches off the mattress as I slide deeper, inch by inch, filling her until my hips press flush against hers and I can feel every pulse of her body around me.
"Fuck." The word falls out of my mouth raw and wrecked because the feel of her bare, skin to skin, no latex, nothing but her warmth clenching around my cock is something I wasn't prepared for.
I hold still and press my forehead against hers and breathe.
Her walls flutter around me and her hips shift beneath me, restless, wanting.
"Move," she whispers against my mouth. "Please."
I pull back and drive into her and the sound she makes fills the bedroom.
I set a rhythm, deep and steady, each stroke pressing the full length of me into the tight heat of her body.
Her legs wrap around my waist and the heels press into the small of my back, the leather warm against my skin, pulling me closer, harder.
"So fucking good." I groan it against her throat and feel her pulse hammering against my lips. "You feel like you were made for me."
"I was." She says it without hesitation, her blue eyes locked on mine, her hands gripping my face. "I've always been yours, Massimo."
My hips snap harder. Her body takes every stroke, her walls tightening, her breath catching on each thrust. I reach between us and find her clit with my thumb, pressing firm circles into the swollen flesh, and her mouth falls open and her eyes roll back and she's close again, I can feel it in the way her thighs shake against my hips and her fingers claw at my back.
"Come for me." I press harder with my thumb, drive deeper with my hips. "Let me feel you, tesoro."
She shatters beneath me with a cry that cracks open something raw in my chest. Her body clamps tight around my cock, pulsing, pulling, and the sensation drags me over the edge with her.
I come hard, buried deep, my release spilling hot inside her, and the groan that tears from my throat is broken and desperate and sounds nothing like a man who has spent his life in control.
I collapse against her, my face buried in her neck, my chest heaving. Her fingers run through my sweat-damp hair and I feel her lips press against my temple and her legs loosen around my waist, the red heels sliding against the sheets with a whisper of leather on cotton.
We breathe together. Mine and hers. Tangled and spent and still connected, my body softening inside hers while her heartbeat slows against my chest.
"Clause four," she murmurs against my hair, her voice wrecked and sleepy and warm. "Best clause in the whole damn contract."
Later that same evening Sloane is in my kitchen wearing my shirt again, barefoot, her hair wild, her lipstick completely destroyed.
She sits cross-legged on the counter eating pad thai from a takeout container with chopsticks she handles better than I do.
The kitchen smells like peanut sauce and chili oil and the faint trace of her shampoo that seems to cling to every surface she touches.
"Your delivery guy definitely knows what we were doing," she announces through a mouthful of noodles. "He couldn't make eye contact."
"I tipped him well."
"You tipped him in guilt. There's a difference." She points a chopstick at me. "Also, your bathroom still needs plants. We need to remedy that. And a shower lamp."
I lean against the fridge, the stainless steel cool against my bare back, and watch her eat on my counter in my shirt with pad thai sauce on her chin.
My penthouse has never had this. A woman on the counter with her legs crossed, takeout containers on the island, the low hum of conversation and the clink of chopsticks against cardboard and the quiet sound of a woman who isn't afraid to tell me her thoughts.
This is what it feels like to stop being the man behind the curtain. To step out from behind the contracts and the negotiations and the three AM legal briefs and just be in a room with someone who sees me the way I see her. Not the fixer. Not the Syndicate's counsel. Just the man.
I cross the kitchen, take the chopsticks out of her hand, set the takeout on the counter, and kiss the pad thai sauce off her chin. The peanut sauce is warm and sweet against my lips and she laughs into my mouth.
"You're a mess," I tell her.
"Your mess." She says it without thinking. Then she hears herself and her eyes widen and the flush creeps up her neck. "I mean. Contractually. Your contractual mess."
I press my lips against her forehead and feel the warmth of her skin and the faint dampness of sweat at her hairline. "My mess."
She leans into me. Her cheek rests against my chest, warm through the thin cotton of my shirt.
She unfolds her legs and spreads her thighs, making room for me in her space.
Her hands settle on my waist, fingers pressing gently against my bare skin above my waistband.
Through the window, Chicago spreads below in cold silver and amber, thirty-three floors of distance between us and the world.
The contract sits on the counter behind us, signed and real.
The silk slipper sits in the trash where I put it.
The red heels sit by the bedroom door, paired together and where they belong.
I hold her. She lets me. And for the first time in fifteen years, the silence in this penthouse doesn't sound like loneliness. It sounds like home.