Zoey wasn’t sure if that was meant to sound as sinister as it did. The words almost seemed to clank down to the floor. She thought if she looked, she might see them there, shattered and broken.
“Who controls their shares? The others?”
Cindy raised her eyebrows.
“The children,” Alex asked. “Has anything been signed? Assuming that the courts upheld any interest that children other than Claire and myself have in AEGIS?”
Cindy nodded. “Their parents made the decision to trust any potential interest with me. Arturo and Thalia both retained their own control, of course, though I will admit that they both planned to ask me for advice on what to do with them.”
“Did you plan to challenge the will?” Alex’s tone was harder than Zoey anticipated.
“It was written that way in order to give us the option.” Zoey could see the other woman now, standing in a courtroom, facing down a cranky judge. Her spine was straight as a fireplace poker, and her eyes were icy cold.
“What in the world gives you that opinion?”
“Do you contest that your father has access to the best lawyers money can buy?”
“No.”
“Do you think that any reasonably competent lawyer wouldn’t have advised their client that a far more concrete legal way to write that document would have been to list the beneficiaries by name? Do you think any lawyer ever wouldn’t have pointed out that the phrasing he chose leaves the document open to contesting, especially given the way he chose to live his life?”
“Oh, I can certainly see that conversation happen just as you say,” Alex said. His body language was relaxed, almost draped back against the couch, but his eyes were anything other than calm. “But what I don’t see, what I don’t hear is proof.”
“I’d happily submit to a DNA test.”
“Convenient, since Philip is dead, and can’t submit a sample.”
“You’re not going to believe me, no matter what I say to you, are you?”
Zoey flinched, waiting for Alex’s fiery response. Instead, she saw his set face break into a wide grin. “I believe you, I just wanted to see if you believed in yourself.”
It took a couple of long moments for the anger to glide out of Cindy’s eyes, but the strong line of her back didn’t weaken for even a moment. “So what do we do now?”
“I need to finish getting ready for the office. I’ll give you a ride into town, if you’d like. The car heads that way anyway. And we can have a conversation about what, exactly, you plan to do with your shares of AEGIS, if the courts award you the rights to them.” He nodded to Zoey, and she tapped off the recording.
“Thank you for hearing me out,” Cindy said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Alex replied. “I’m sure the hard work is just beginning. Zoey, would you mind following me for just a moment?”
There was something in the way he phrased the words that made Zoey’s insides tremble. “Of course,” she said, picking up her tablet and following him back towards the bedrooms of the penthouse.
He walked through the doorway of his master suite, and before Zoey had a chance to set the tablet down, the door slammed shut behind her, and he pressed her up against it with almost savage force. His mouth came down on hers, smashing her lips against her teeth, his knee pressing between her thighs, working her knees apart. She whimpered her yes into his mouth as his fingers dug into her flesh, leaving bruises on top of bruises.
“I wish you were wearing a skirt,” he whispered against her skin as his hips thrust against hers. She could feel him, rock hard and eager, just as ready as he had been the first time he touched her. “If you were wearing a skirt, I would rip your panties getting them off. I’d be between your knees again, licking you until you were wet enough, and then turn you to face the wall, and then I’d fuck you so hard, Zoey, I’d have to hold back so I wouldn’t break you. I’d make you bite your arm again, to keep from screaming. I’d—Jesus, I don’t know, I’d slide a toy in your ass and bite your shoulder when I came and—Jesus, Zoey, my father—”
“You should have bought me a skirt, then,” she said, making a bet with herself, in the moment, that he’d feel better for getting his frustration out rather than letting it overwhelm him. There would be time for the hard emotional conversation of what a terrible man his father had been later, when it was less raw, and he wouldn’t later regret saying awful things to someone he barely knew.
He groaned into her ear. “Next time, then.” It was just a little bit of a question, and she grinned and nipped at the skin of his throat, where it was close to her teeth.
“Yes,” she whispered. “And next time, you’ll have to spank me like before. I’m sure I’ve done something bad.” She reached her hand down between them, caressing his erection through the fine wool of his trousers.
“Oh yes,” he murmured against her.
“So what would be your second choice?” she asked, sliding her hand inside of his pants and rubbing her fingers over the swollen tip of him. His forehead dropped onto her shoulder, and he made a long, low sound, deep in his throat. His hips were moving with her rhythm now, not his. Yes, he’d contained everything he’d felt during that conversation, and this was the only way he knew to release it at all.
“I don’t—that feels amazing—” Alex leaned down to kiss her neck again, and she pushed him gently away.
“Mr. Blankenship,” she vamped, “I need you to tell me what you want me to do.”
He shook his head as if it were full of cobwebs he couldn’t quite clear.
Inspiration struck. “Am I correct that you want to keep going?”
“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes closed, his attention focused on her hand.
“Well then,” she said. She pushed away from the wall, and twisted them so that his back was leaning for a change. His eyes opened in surprise, and she caught them and held them while she dropped slowly down to her knees. She freed her hand to work his belt and zipper, then pulled his boxers down so that his cock sprang free.
“Oh Christ,” he murmured as she leaned over him.
Most guys expected her to just leap at their cock and just try to suck it down all at once; she always preferred starting with a long lick, like she was going after an ice cream drip. Root to tip in one small, firm motion, and then taking just the head into her mouth. He started to curse as soon as her tongue touched him, and the stream of profanity didn’t decrease as she wrapped her mouth around him.
He tasted salty on her tongue, thick and heavy and warm. She suckled the tip of him, one hand on his hip for balance, the other teasing her nipples into sharp points and then sliding down inside of her jeans to curl up inside of her. “Are you really?” he whimpered. “Oh god, princess, you are so filthy, so goddamned naughty.” His hand tangled in her hair, and he tried to force her rhythm.
She dragged her teeth over him, not hard enough to actually scratch, but enough to make him yip a little bit. “Mr. Blankenship,” she said, making her voice as much of a purr as she could manage. “I appreciate that you like to be in control. But just this one time, how about you let me take care of you?”
It was hard to put words to exactly what shimmered in the air between them. She knew it was hot and vibrant and strong, but it defined quantification beyond that. He didn’t say the words—she wondered if he knew how to actually say that he was giving up control of anything—but he did let go of her hair, and slowly but surely, move his hands up to knit behind his head.
She went back to work on the tip of his cock. His cursing was even more profane now, but his hands stayed pinned behind his head. Which was good; it kept him from hurting himself as he knocked his head back against the door. She hummed, deep in her throat, and he spasmed in her mouth, his eyes flying wide. “You keep that up,” he panted, “I’ll come right in your mouth.”
“Don’t care,” she said, around the huge width of him. He groaned again, his eyes rolling closed, his teeth worrying at his lower lip. “Could I really make you come? Just like this, nothing but my mouth?”
“Fuck—” he gasped as she closed over him again, her tongue flicking over his tip as she suckled hard at what she could fit into her mouth. “Talking like that, like you’re the naughty secretary in a porn flick? Of course you could, princess.” His hips were shaking, his hands moving in rapid, twitchy little motions. They clutched at the door, scraped at his hair, clung for a moment to the frame of the door above his head. “Christ, oh Christ, princess. You’re going to drain me, I’m not going to be able to do anything for you.”
She took him in hand for a moment so that she could look up at him, meet his eyes, and smile. “You’re doing something for me. Right now.”
She bent over him again, and knew as soon as her tongue touched him that there was no turning back; he was teetering on the knife’s edge of orgasm, and she locked eyes with him, stroking the base of his cock as she sucked him off. He came with hot rushes of fluid, and she swallowed him easily, letting him see how she savored him, how hot it was to see him trusting her with this, how vulnerable he was making himself, how intense the moment was.
It almost wasn’t a surprise when his knees went weak, and he slipped down the door to land on his ass. He chuckled for a moment, but the laughter flipped over into a sob almost too easily. She opened her arms for a moment, not quite confident enough to just reach out and gather him up, no matter how badly he was hurting. He almost bowled her over with the force of his motion as he dove into her arms. He curled up, almost like a child, his head resting on her shoulder as he clung to her.
He didn’t cry, after that one solitary sob, but he wrapped his arms around her so tightly that she thought she might have to ask him to relax so she could breathe. Almost, but never quite that tight.
When he sat up and faced her, his expression was quiet and calm again. “What is your plan for the day?” he asked as he stood, straightening his shirt, and zipped his fly. He walked across to his closet, and pulled riffled through several different colors of tie.
The speed at which he changed gears made her head spin. She took a short breath to get her bearings, and then smiled. “I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have to actually be in the Voice’s office until Friday, but I have some work I need to do.”
“Stay here,” he said. “Be here when I get home.”
The invitation happened so quickly she was almost surprised. “I don’t have any of my things.”
“What would make you more comfortable, me having a car bring you to your studio to pick up your things, or me having things sent here for you?”
“Alex—” Zoey took another, longer breath. “We barely know each other.”
He didn’t look at her, just went to the long mirror and knotted his tie. “Funniest thing. I need to be looking at myself in a mirror to knot a tie. I don’t know why. I should know how to do this by now.”
“You’re not answering me.”
“You haven’t said anything that required an answer.”
“I can’t just—shack up with you.” There were so many more words than that, and she knew that she’d said them in entirely the wrong order. She should have started with what it had been like growing up, being the girl everyone had assumed, for no reason she’d ever understood, would be easy. How whether she’d decided to give in or decided to hold out, it always backfired. How she’d grown up stuck in a game she couldn’t win. How he was the first person in a thousand years to not make her feel that way. To pay attention to what she wanted, and try to give her that. To notice that her ass looked better in jeans that were a medium rise, instead of the super low cut that was fashionable. To notice her breasts and whisper in a moment of heat that he liked them better small, that he could get more into his mouth that way.
Instead, she’d leapt for the words that would sting the most, implying that she thought he was just another playboy, like her gossip rag already told everyone in the world that he was. He covered the hurt in his eyes quickly, but not quickly enough. “I see. I thought we had reached an agreement.”
“About—helping each other?”
He gave a short nod as he shrugged into his suit coat. It fit his narrow figure well enough to make her ache to kiss him again. “So if I grab all my stuff, haul it all here, and then we sort out the mystery—then what? I can’t get used to living like this, Alex. This—this isn’t my reality.” The other stuff was all too hard to say. This was something, though, something real and true that she could articulate. This was a fairy tale dream. Waking up in a soft bed, someone making her coffee that was beyond divine, making her whatever she wanted to eat, with a personal gym, a view of the city, a car service on speed dial. She couldn’t go from this back to eating ramen the week that rent was due. She could barely survive her life as it was without hating every second of it. A week away from it, and it would kill her to go back. Not all at once, but slowly, inch by inch. And she knew it.
Alex turned back towards her, his eyes large and soft for a moment. Zoey could hear the words echoing between them—this could be her reality. In that moment, all she’d need to do was say that she wanted it, and he’d give it all to her, every single piece of it. Just because she looked at him, and didn’t stop looking at his wallet, or the depth of the color in his skin, but kept looking, to see the man inside of those features.
If he wanted her, it was going to have to be for more than that. He needed to know her. He needed to want her for herself, not just for how she looked at him.
And then he smiled, the softness washing away, replaced by that businesslike calm. “Of course,” he said. “I understand. Still, feel free to work here today, if you’d like. We can have dinner tonight, and formulate the next steps of our plan.”
She didn’t want to say yes. She had a nagging feeling that it was very much the wrong thing to do. But she didn’t know what choice she had. “All right.”
“Let me see your phone,” he said, and she picked it up off the bureau, where Sophia must have left it when she brought the rest of Zoey’s things into the room. She passed it to Alex, and she watched him tap a few things into it. “That’s the car company, my office, and my cell. If you need to get anywhere, feel free to use the car company, I’ll let them know they may hear from you. Call my office or my cell if you need me.” He paused, and then offered her that slow, shy smile. “Almost no one has my cell phone. I’d obviously like to keep it that way.”
“Of course,” she said. It wasn’t anything like enough. “Thank you.”
His hand went to her hair, stroking along the curve of her head, finding her jawline, and tracing that until his thumb could brush over her lower lip. The attention made her shiver, and reminded her quite viscerally that even though she’d had her fingers in her pussy just a few minutes earlier, she hadn’t come at all. “Have a bath, if you want,” he said, his voice thick and hoarse. “Pile your hair up high and cover yourself in suds.”
“Call me when you’re on your way home,” she replied, resting her hands on his shoulders and leaning up to kiss the pulse in his throat. “I’ll make sure I’m waiting for you.”
His nostrils flared ever so slightly as his pupils widened. “I think I could fuck you pretty much all day long, and never be satisfied,” he whispered. “Have you ever been tied up at all?”
She shook her head, feeling her heart skip into another gear entirely.
“Perhaps we can experiment with that later,” he said. “You might enjoy it. The feeling of being restrained, of giving up control, can be delicious.”
“Okay,” she said. Her breath was a bare whisper.
His head bent towards hers, and she expected the kiss to be full of fire and lust and promise for later. The soft brush of his mouth on hers was something entirely other. It was thanks and leave-taking and a reminder that he would return.
It reminded her that no, she didn’t know anything about this man, not really, but what she knew led her to believe that she wanted to get to know him better.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“Does your phone have video calling?”
He looked at her like she had a second head. “Of course.”
“Call me with that,” she said. “Right around noon, maybe. I’ll want a break from work by then. Maybe I’ll take a bath.”
He watched her with the same heated eyes she’d seen in the club, that first night. “Oh?”
“Mmmhmmm.” She reached out and trailed a finger tip down the length of his tie, never touching his skin, just letting him feel the pressure of her hand as he reached all the way down, hooking her finger in his belt and tugging him ever so slightly towards her. It was just enough to make him sway on his feet. “Where do you keep the toys?”
His teeth tightened over his lip, dragging over it in a slow motion that made her want to pull him down to her again, have him all over right there in the room. To hell with making Cindy wait, to hell with whether or not she heard them. Her pussy was aching, and god help her, he was reaching out to her, his finger sliding inside her jeans, where hers had been, twisting around her clit with savage intensity, just enough to make her ride his hand for a long, aching second. He whispered, “In the chest at the foot of the bed. Don’t come until I call.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will flog your ass senseless when I come home.”
“I’m not sure that’s a punishment.”
There was a darkness in his eyes that made her skin flush hot and tingy. “It’s up to you. If you’re a good girl, and wait for me, I’ll fuck you tonight. If you misbehave, I’ll beat you. You decide what you want.”
He swept out of the room with quiet confidence that made her shiver. Her pussy was soaking wet and quivering, and she didn’t know how in the world she was going to hold out until the noon deadline she’d set. If she even wanted to.
Zoey found herself smiling. There were some very interesting options here.