Niall
The ruse is over.
It stopped the minute she scraped her nails down the length of my back and screamed my name. The sun is barely peeking through the blinds in her apartment as her bare arse is pressed up against me. We’re entwined, spooned together, her back to my front, completely naked in her bed, and for the first time in my life, I’m not panicking. I don’t have the insatiable urge to disappear before she wakes or leave cab fare on the dresser while I spend the morning drinking coffee at Starbucks until she gets the hint that I’m not coming back.
It scares me how right this feels. When I said the vows to Laken last night, part of me meant them. Some deep and crazy mental part of me wanted to pretend they were real. That maybe I’d wake up this morning and it wouldn’t have been just words said during amazing sex.
She’s asleep, but I hope to hell last night meant something to her. I can’t remember the number of women I’ve fucked in my life, but never have I lost myself in one like I did Laken Cavanaugh. I watched her. I drowned in her. I wanted to bury myself inside her and never leave. After fucking her against the door, I’d carried her to her bed and I’d spent the entire night loving her body with my cock, my tongue, my fingers…hell, anything I could touch her with. As I whispered what I wanted to do to her in her ear, I willed her to read between the lines, to hear what wasn’t in my voice but what was in my heart, to see that this wasn’t just a one-night stand for me.
“I want to taste you all night.”
I want you forever.
“You’re so wet for me.”
You’re the one I’ve waited for all my life.
“I want you so much.”
I think I might love you.
I hope she felt in the way I made love to her that I don’t want her for just one night. I want her and Preston forever.
We’d fucked all night and early into the morning. Even when she fell asleep, I’d stayed awake and watched her sleep, knowing I’d dipped a toe into unknown waters that I had no idea how to navigate my way through.
And now, in the early morning, I know screwed doesn’t begin to cover what I am. Unable to take the rejection I know is coming, I give her one last kiss behind her ear and slip out of the bed before she can give me the speech I dread hearing.
As I close the front door to her apartment, for the first time since uttering the phrase to Gloria in the conference room of Tate & Cane that started this whole mess, I wonder if I can pull this off tonight, or when it’s all over, I’ll lose my job, Sophie’s future, and most importantly, the woman I don’t think I can’t live without.
***
I’ve heard the phrase “take my breath away,” but I’ve never experienced it until I arrive outside Laken’s apartment dressed in my tuxedo and stand anxiously waiting for her to open the door. The minute I see her wearing what can only be described as floor-length satin sin, the phrase makes more sense than anything ever has in my life. She still looks beautiful, but there’s an edge to her tonight that borders on seductress.
The dress seems modest in the front, with a thick tie that wraps around her neck and dips low enough in the front to show off her ample assets, but not scandalous enough to seem suggestive. It melts into a body-hugging turquoise satin number that pools at her feet with a thigh-high split that allows a hint of her leg to peek through when she walks. However, that’s where the demureness ends. The minute she turns around, I have no doubt that dicks everywhere will stand up and salute her, thanking God that she exists to walk the Earth. The entire back of the dress is bare, the base of the material resting at the top of her arse and barely hugging the sides of her breasts. The skin of her shoulders and back are coated in some sort of shimmer glitter that catches the light when she moves, holding my eyes hostage. She’s all I see. She’s all I breathe. The world around her ceases to exist. I’ve never seen anything so exquisitely beautiful in my life.
Breathtaking.
But what does it for me are the shoes. Crystal-encrusted stiletto fuck-me heels that elevate her legs in a way that forces my mind on nothing but having them draped over my shoulders at the end of the night, hold my eyes prisoner to the floor.
“Eyes up here,” she laughs with a throaty chuckle, bringing my attention back to her face.
Ladies need to learn one thing. To entice a man, it’s all about the heels. High heels and nothing else will have him on his knees begging for your mercy. Forget the expensive lingerie.
“Shoes stay on,” I barely manage on a whisper.
Bending one knee, she seductively braces her heel against the wall. “Well,” she says, hooking a finger under my chin and bringing my attention to her heavily smoky eyes. “It’d be rude to take them off at the party, now wouldn’t it?”
“No, I mean after the party. Keep the shoes on when I fuck you.”
Bringing her lips within a breath of mine, a wicked smile plays on Laken’s mouth as she licks her wine-stained lips. “Let’s just see how tonight goes, shall we, Mackay? Depending on how well things go, I just may fuckyou.”
Funny how foreshadowing works, huh?
In my head, I hear, “If we pull this charade off and both get what we want out of this, I’ll ride you until we both can’t walk tomorrow.”
I have no clue that Laken’s words are literal.
***
