Chapter 16
Ian
I could hardly believe how forgiving she’d been about everything. I couldn’t believe I was here. In bed. With this beautiful, amazing woman in my arms. I didn’t think that it’d ever happen. I didn’t think that she’d ever let me back in after what I’d done; after so blatantly shutting her out. And for what? My father’s company.
I held her even tighter, almost as if my body was mimicking my thoughts of never letting her go. I felt the need to hold on as I smiled against the top of her head, and closed my eyes, relishing the smell of her shampoo. The scent I’d smelled earlier that night as I drunkenly lay atop my couch. It was intoxicating.
I placed a singular kiss on the top of her head, and felt my heart well up when she nuzzled even closer to me as soon as I did. A faint and content sigh sounded from her as soon as she pressed her head even more snugly in the crook of my arm.
I wanted nothing more than to have my lips on hers. I wanted nothing more than to feel her once again.
I ventured closer to her, so close that I gently skimmed her lips with my own, teasing her, teasing me. We both sighed at the contact and I kissed her. Deep and slow at first, like it was the first time.
I took her lower lip between mine and gently suckled it. She moaned and I released her just before opening my eyes to see her staring back at me desire full in her lustful eyes.
I dropped one hand to her lower back and snaked the other around the back of her neck, making sure to tilt her head to the side so I had access to the spot that I knew she loved for me to kiss. I knew because every time I pressed my lips to it, she moaned, and pressed herself into me even more fully. I knew it was tender.
I leaned in and simply breathed onto the flesh over the spot. Once I heard a moan escape her lips, I laid my mouth directly on the target, and immediately she began breathing heavily.
I ran my tongue over her flesh and lightly bit down, dragging my lips agonizingly slowly across the flesh up to her ear.
I noticed that her chest quickly began rising and falling, and her breath growing heavier and heavier.
I dragged my hand from her neck, to her collarbone, over her chest, between her breasts, and down her waist. I traveled as far as I could reach, feeling her, needing her. With urgency I’d never known before.
She leaned her head into mine and I it hit me that it really was over. The fight didn’t matter anymore. We wanted each other.
She captured my mouth, passionately taking control. It was like she was using all of the emptiness, the sadness, and all the regret we’d both felt over the past couple of weeks to give me the most incredibly riveting kiss I’d ever experienced.
I growled into her mouth, and suddenly she sat up, clearly regenerated and ready for another round. She pulled my hair and then pushed my head into the pillow roughly, before leaning down and kissing me again.
I loved the feeling of her breasts against my chest when she was on top of me.
I knew that she knew that, though, because as soon as the thought even entered my mind, she pressed herself against me even more fully. I grinned, like a teenage boy about to make love for the first time, and laid my hands flat on her back as she kissed her way from my mouth, along my stubbled jaw and down to my neck.
I was becoming more and more aroused by the second.
I wrapped an arm around her, and swiftly flipped her over so that she was lying flat on the bed with me hovering above her.
She gave me a knowing look, biting her lip seductively. So damn seductively. She knew just how to turn me on. I only hoped I could do the same for her.
And that’s where an idea was formed. I smirked, taking it as a challenge.
I pulled her to the edge of my bed and leaned over her, just before softly grabbing her breast, and squeezing gently. I ran my fingers over her already erect nipples, reveling in the gasp she made as soon as my fingers enclosed around it.
Her back arched, and she inhaled sharply, the more I worked.
I massaged her breasts, the muscles beneath, her stomach, her shoulders, her biceps… rubbing her slowly, deliberately. I wanted to focus on more than just the two areas most men focused on. I wanted to show her that I cared; that I was willing to take my time, that I wanted her to feel good.
But before I got too far into my massage, she pushed me off of her. Admittedly, for a second I was almost worried, but when she straddled me, I knew that she was more than fine. I also knew that I had won my challenge.
She slyly smirked at me, and laid her hands on my arms.
“These arms drive me crazy, the muscles . . . just, mmm,” she mused, and I almost scoffed. I hadn’t been in to the gym nearly as much as I should have been.
If she loved them; if she thought they were sexy; then that was really all that mattered. She bit her lip, as she scanned my body. It felt good. Seeing her enjoying my body even a smidgen of the amount I’d enjoyed hers was amazing. Because I was more than enjoying the view from below. More than that, though, I was just enjoying the fact that I was able to have her at all again. All of her.
She began tracing faint circles on my chest while I watched her, and trailed her soft fingers down to my sides and even further down to my thighs.
I knew where she was going. I knew this was about to be another round. I knew we were about to absorb ourselves, once again, in another life-altering and incredible moment. A moment to end all moments.
I could only hope that every moment with her was a moment to end all moments; and at this rate, I could feel that it was very much possible.
I was clearly aroused when she reached my groin. I couldn’t have hidden it even if I was trying to. Which I definitely wasn’t trying to; I wanted it more than she did, I was sure. Well, almost sure. The look she gave me, biting her lip, eyeballing me up and down definitely gave me an indication that she wanted it pretty damn badly.
Fueled with lust and desire — and hopefully a bit more — she suddenly and swiftly maneuvered herself perfectly on top of me again.
“Kate, holy shit,” I gasped, as soon as I felt myself enter her. “I’m going to go quick.” I hated that I had said it, but damn it all, she was killing me. She was fueled, I knew that, so was I, but she was like the energizer bunny, all of a sudden. Her hips slammed forward and back, forward and back, with an intense speed that I couldn’t quite handle.
She was moving a whole hell of a lot faster than I could keep up with. Hell, it was hard enough to go more than just a few minutes with her — looking the way she did, and me feeling the way I did about her — at regular pace, let alone super intense pace.
She grinned, and kept going, not caring that I was about to explode in another roof-busting orgasm. She clawed at my chest as she rode me, and I grabbed her waist, massaging tenderly the flesh that I could grab. I was sure that my eyes had grown as black as the night outside my window; full of lust and desire.
Complete.
Pure.
Desire.
“Goddamn!” I screamed, as she continued to force me deeper and deeper, faster and faster into her.
“Yes!” she screamed, rocking herself back and forth.
And then, just like that, she slowed, and the pressure that had been building and knocking at the gate slowly but surely let off and backed away.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, coyly.
“You know…” I breathed heavily, the pressure still strong between my legs as she moved at an alarmingly slow pace. “Exactly…” I had to take a deep breath. One in. One out. And then another. “What you were doing…”
I grabbed hold of her waist, and moved my hips to meet hers, harder, trying to increase speed.
“I thought you didn’t want it fast?” she asked, feigning an innocence that I knew she didn’t have.
“Now it’s too damn slow,” I grunted, trying to pull her faster into me. Only, she didn’t budge.
“Too fast. Too slow,” she mused. “Can’t win.”
I knew she was playing me, but I also knew that if she didn’t stop, I was about to lose it.
My breathing was already erratic, and my groin was tense, and sensitively awaiting climax. The slowness was almost unbearable; even worse than the friction packed quickness.
I lifted my head up and pulled her into a kiss, distracting her, just before rhythmically started thrusting up. She moaned. Hard. In my mouth. Just before throwing her head back, and arching her back.
I was definitely enjoying the view. So much that I took hold of the opportunity and pulled my head up once more to grab hold of one of her perfectly round breasts and suckle at the other’s erect nub.
“Oh, God…Ian,” she moaned. It was all she could muster. Her breath was becoming ragged. She leaned back, allowing me more access to the deepest parts of her core, and instead of losing the opportunity, I grasped it, ready to push her over the edge.
I grabbed hold of her waist and pulled her into me, flipping her onto her back before I quickened my thrusts. One after the other, after the other, as she leaned back and held herself up by her hands which were place on the bed just beside my knees.
“Yes! Yes!” she screamed so loudly I could feel it vibrate off the walls. I was sure that whomever lived below, could definitely hear the bed pushing around against the floor and her voice bouncing over the walls.
But I didn’t care. And I doubt she did either.
Her eyes were basically rolling to the back of her head. I knew she didn’t care about much at that point.
And then it was over. It only took one more deep thrust before she plummeted into another orgasm.
I felt her body tighten around me, and I knew that I couldn't hold off any longer.
Her body was clenching for a second, and so were her walls. I could feel her closing on me, entrapping my arousal and holding it close as it contracted around it with an intensity just as strong, if not stronger than the last.
The clenching, the screaming, the look of her gorgeous, sweat glistened body above me… that’s what did me in. With one more powerful thrust, I, too, was clenching and convulsing. I let out the most intense, guttural groan I’d ever mustered as I felt my body tighten and euphoria glazed over my flesh and rocked me from the inside out.
Panted breaths filled the room, as I collapsed into her, tired. I tried my best to keep as much weight on the bed as possible. I didn’t want to crush her. Especially after she’d just given me the best experience of my life.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply, as if she was trying to taste me; as if she was reveling in the satisfaction. I smiled. I could only hope I’d given her satisfaction.
We fell away from each other, both needing to cool off, as we kicked ourselves from any covers that were near. It was hot. Scorching fucking hot.
And we were just trying to catch our breaths as we looked at the ceiling.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, as soon as I’d caught mine, before looking over to her.
“So where do we go from here?” she asked, almost dreamily.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my throat all of a sudden feeling dry.
“Well, we still have a lot to discuss. We can’t just sweep everything under the rug and have sex all the time. This stuff has to be put in its own bed. I don’t want it sleeping with us anymore,” she smiled. “Not that we’ve slept much.”
“You really want to talk about this now?” I asked.
“I think we are both about as blissful as we can get at the moment, gonna take a lot to screw that up . . . so, yeah. Now.”
I knew that the lawsuit wasn’t worth giving up what we were starting to build. What we’d discovered we had. It wasn’t worth losing her. I’d told her that. But I knew I had to tell her again.
“I hate that I did what I did…” I started, but she planted her hand over my mouth to quiet me. I gulped, unsure of what was about to happen.
“Quiet…” she said. “I don’t need to hear any more about that. We’ve talked about it. That’s over. I do want to know what the lawsuit is, though… what caused all this mayhem?”
And then I stopped, almost dead in a sort of silence as I recalled every bit of information I could muster, even what I had in the very back corner of my mind, where I’d seemed to store almost all of the Murphy/Cross drama.
“Well, I know some things,” I said. “But not as much as I thought, really; or really as much as I’d admittedly like to believe I do.”
She smirked. “As usual?”
I rolled my eyes. “Har-har!” I mocked, sarcastically. “Okay, here’s what I know,” I smiled. “A long time ago my dad and Michael, your dad, worked together. I think they both even went to school together. And, right after school, they both actually started working at Bio-Research — both of them — right out of grad school.”
“I knew that Bio-Research wasn’t always ‘in the family’ but I didn’t know your dad worked there, too. Interesting,” she mused. I could tell the inner-gears of her mind were starting to turn. Like I was greasing the cogs in the machine.
I smirked, “Yeah, well in perfect Murphy/Cross fashion, right after they started working together, they had some sort of falling out. And I guess, as it turns out, that falling out never got fixed. Instead, my dad flew the coop. And that was when he founded MTS.”
“What was the falling out over?” she asked and immediately I shrugged.
“Actually,” I began, as my mind started recalling more and more of the things that I’d thought about recently; as well as the things Dad had once told me. “Dad always said, ‘While asshole Murphy is busy with his future-failed marriage, I’m building an empire,’ so it’d be about the time your dad married your mom. Jean, was it?”
She nodded, slowly, almost hesitantly. I could tell that she was almost upset, and I remembered that her mother was a bit of a sore spot with her.
“Knowing how business minded my dad was, maybe he thought your mom was distracting Michael from his work, or…” I stammered, “He mentioned a woman one night just before he died; it sounded like she was the type of woman that was the love-that-got-away kind of thing… I wonder if he’d always been bitter about Jean.” I groaned, a bit annoyed that I didn’t know more about my own damn father. “I mean, I remember him mentioning Jean quite a lot…” I said. “I never really thought about it being your mom. I think they actually met her at the same time.”
“Wait. So all of this was over my mom? You think they both had fallen in love with her or something?” she laughed, as if she was completely dismissing the idea. But, I wasn't going to be so quick to dismiss it. In fact, that was pretty much exactly what I was thinking.
“It would make sense. I’d almost be willing to bet on it,” I said, and immediately watched her mouth drop open and eyes basically bug out of her head. “My dad never really talked about the specifics with me; but it makes sense that it’d be something like that. He was never one to talk about his feelings.”
“Sounds like he and my dad are cut from the exact same cloth,” she scoffed. “I didn’t have a clue about any of this.” Her words were trailing, sad almost. “I didn’t realize that there might be such a history between our families. I just assumed it was all business related.”
“I guess if you’d followed in ol’ daddy’s footsteps you would have learned the straight up Montague/Capulet drama,” I laughed. “Well, some of it. Something tells me daddy-dearest would have been just as tight-lipped about it as mine was.”
“I usually try to stay out of Dad’s business. Besides, Dad stopped talking to me about things a long time ago. I’m not sure if it’s because he was mad about it, or if he just figured it was none of my business anymore —you know, since I wasn’t going to be involved with any of it.”
“I’m not exactly sure what caused my dad to sue. I know he’d threatened BioResearch a few times over the years. I just don’t know what made him finally pull the trigger. That’s why I really assumed that some sort of “theft” really did happen.” Anything and everything to do with my father was still like a fresh wound having salt poured into it.
I wasn’t sure if I was just sad about his death, or if it was the fact that I felt I didn’t know what the truth was, or even if it was just the stress from it all. Probably all three, intertwined into one huge clusterfuck.
“I mean, maybe Dad wanted to put Bio-Research into financial ruin. They weren’t having the best year, and this lawsuit definitely drove them even further down the rabbit hole. I’m not sure if he wanted to make sure they’d never be able to find their way out of the shit they’d found themselves in, or what exactly. But whatever it was, I don’t think it was a coincidence that the lawsuit came at such an opportune time.”
The more I spoke the more I realized I was trying to come to a conclusion at the same time I was talking. All the while, Kate just listened, not saying a word.
“I mean, Ben even said Bio-Research is actually in the middle of another lawsuit, as well.”
That’s when her head snapped up to look at me. “I knew there was another lawsuit, but I don’t know much else. Do you know what that is about?”
“No,” I sighed, plainly. “Never cared enough to ask.”
“So what is this lawsuit between Dad’s company and yours over anyway? I know it’s a patent, but what is the patent for? Something big?” she asked.
I laughed. “You’re interested?”
“Not really,” she snorted. “But I do want to at least know what the big deal is with this ‘patent’.”
“Well, it’s huge. Really huge. It’s a technology gold-mine,” I said.
Her head cocked to the side, as she waited for me to go on. I smirked, and continued, “It’s an early test for lung cancer; and, in all honesty, it could revolutionize the treatment of the disease.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “Sounds impressive.”
“Not even just that, though. It’s almost complete. It’s almost completely perfect. Whoever owns it will make a killing. I’m talking enough money — and therefore enough customers — to basically cripple the competition.” I sighed and wiped my hand over my face just before propping up on my elbow.
“Anyway, MTS decided to sue Bio-Research for the technology. I thought I knew for a fact that Dad developed it. I mean, long nights of working and planning. I thought he was telling the truth, but Ben says they have come up with some crazy bit of evidence that says the opposite.”
“Evidence that proves MTS stole it?” she asked.
“So they say,” I whispered. “Makes me believe I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I don’t think I can take the risk. If the company loses its reputation then we have nothing.”
“Which do you think is more likely? MTS or Bio-Research stealing it?” she asked, “Because honestly I don’t know myself. I wouldn’t have put it past my dad completely. But from what I’ve always been told about John Cross, I doubted very seriously that I could put it past him either. Sorry, no offense,” she added.
“None taken. I know my father’s reputation. Here’s my take, considering they both worked at BioResearch years ago, I could see it going either way. They shared ideas with each other and Dad had access to BioResearch’s patents. All I know without a shadow of a doubt is that my dad hated Michael Murphy.” I sighed again. “The closest thing I can even begin to figure out the more I think about it, is that maybe they were developing it together and Dad took it to further the research. I mean, my dad has always been more interested in the research side of the business and Michael was more interested in the legal side.”
She scoffed. “That’s sort of funny considering your dad is the one that started the lawsuit, right? Gotta love irony.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I said. “I’m hoping I’m wrong, though… I mean, I hate to say this, but I hope it’s your dad that’s in the wrong”
She smiled faintly. “I know you hated to say that because it’s my dad that you’re talking about, but I also know that you make a solid point. If my dad was interested in the legal side and yours had taken the research away from Bio-Research, regardless if he was working on it while he was there or not, was any lawyer is still going to paint that as stealing. Even if he developed it more. Even if he made it better. Because he was an employee of a company that was developing it. It would definitely paint him as the villain.”
“Exactly,” he offered. “And as much as I don’t want to say anything bad about your father, I also don’t want to think mine would be the villain.”
She let out a heavy breath. “You know, I really don’t know what to think. Because, I mean, no matter how shitty my Dad can be, and he can be ruthless. He can be cold-hearted, even. But usually, he’s pretty fair. I want to believe he probably felt that the technology was his to use; and the only way for him to think that was if it was BioResearch’s property. Whether it was just his or not, I feel like he had to have had some sort of inkling of an idea that it was safe to use the technology. I honestly — no matter how hard I try —can’t imagine he would try to take something that wasn’t his. I doubt he would want to open a can of worms like that. But, I wasn’t there. I could be wrong. I guess neither of us can really know what the hell had happened between those two men. What I do know . . . is what’s going on here. Between us. And no matter what happened then, it doesn’t change what this is. I won’t let that happen again,” she nestled closer to me and wrapped her arms around me.
“I will never let that happen,” I assured her. “There is no amount of money worth being without you again.”
As we lay in bed that night, I couldn’t shake the fact that something kept nagging at me. It wasn’t just all the shit about MTS and BioResearch and the lawsuit. It wasn’t just my dad. It was something entirely different from all of that.
It was Kate.
It was the fact that I was with her, and I knew how much it would affect not only the company but also me as a person. It would affect what I would do and how I would act and how I would feel about pretty much everything moving forward.
I took a deep breath, realizing just how big of an elephant really was in the room.
“So…” I started, unsure of where to take the conversation. “When are you leaving?”
She laughed, offensively. “Well, damn, I can go right now,” she scoffed with jest.
I sighed and looked at her seriously. “That’s not what I mean,” I said. “It’s just…” I felt my heart start to race. “I mean, I know you’re moving…”
I didn’t really know how to say what I wanted to say; hell, I wasn’t even sure exactly what I was trying to say.
“I guess what I mean is, what is this? What are we?” I asked, before realizing that I didn’t have it all out yet and word vomit was ready to spew all over. “I mean, what do we do? When are you leaving?” I didn’t want to think about it, but I had to. This woman had my heart and it was going to go wherever she went. I needed to prepare myself for that.
“My lease begins in July, and the job starts in August,” she whispered, sadness present in her voice. It was a sadness that jarred me. Almost completely into oblivion as I laid back and let the silence overtake us.