EIGHTEEN
ELLE
When I was nine, my parents left me with my maternal grandparents while they took Zach to a youth leadership conference in Vermont. I was bummed to stay behind—resorting to behaving like a spoiled brat. My grandfather, a former district attorney, had quickly come up with a solution to occupy my time and challenge my brain long enough to stop my sulking. He’d turned off the TV and had me follow him to the sunroom of the Leesburg house my mother had grown up in. I’d groaned at the chessboard he’d set up, but Grandpa Sutton refused to let me go back to watching television until I’d at least given it a try.
While teaching me the basics, he’d explained how he had learned shortly before leaving for Vietnam. After the first game—in which I lost terribly—I had intended to quit, but then he’d said something that made me freeze in the doorway.
“You’re much better than Cheryl was when I tried to teach her.” When curiosity got the best of me, and I sat back down across from him, he shrugged. “I tried teaching your mom when she was about your age, but she never quite got the hang of it.”
Knowing chess was something my beautiful, perfect mother hadn’t accomplished had lit a fire under my ass. By the time my parents and brother returned to take me home, I was beating my grandfather. I’d even done well the year I played in high school—when my purpose for joining the team was for extracurricular points on college applications.
Tonight, however, I’ve played a losing game.
The proof of that is in the two black pieces sitting to the left of my side of the board and the giant pile of clothing on the floor by Graham’s feet.
“I thought you said you were decent,” I point out through a frown, and he lifts his shoulders, which look even broader than usual in his white tee.
“I’m a politician, Ms. Courtney. Twisting the truth is in my DNA.”
I shift in my seat, trying to find the perfect angle to hide my nipples from his scorching hot stare. “The fact you have no problem admitting this to me makes me feel even worse for your constituents.” Sighing, I nod to the board. “Your move.”
And he makes it, looking me right in the eye as he slides his knight forward. My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach. He’s just bent me over and screwed me hard.
“Checkmate,” he drawls, reaching his large hand across the table. He crooks two fingers. “The panties.”
“It’s not over,” I argue, but he shakes his head and touches his knight, bishop, and rook—all of which surround my king and make winning impossible.
“Panties. Now.”
Standing, I curl my bare toes against the cold floor and shimmy the white cotton panties down my hips. His eyes, which had seemed to darken a few moves before when I handed over the matching bra, now look pitch black. “Here.” I toss the underwear at him.
With a smug grin, he dangles them from his fingertip. I slam back down in my seat and cross my legs tightly together, hugging my arms over my chest to cover my breasts. Across from me, he’s pensive.
In my completely naked state, it’s unnerving.
“What now?” My voice wavers, but I keep talking because I’m so irritated with him for kicking my ass. “You sniff my underwear and gloat about beating me?”
“I’m not a thirteen-year-old boy rummaging around in a locker room, Ms. Courtney. I don’t sniff panties.” But I watch in mortification while he runs his thumb over the center of the fabric. He tosses them to the floor, where they land in the same pile as my clothes, earrings, and shoes. “I want the real thing. The pussy behind the soaked cotton.”
Heat engulfs my whole body at his words. “Do you have to make it sound like a water gun?” Nodding, he grins like he’s the king of the world, and I clear my throat. “You spent the last hour—the entire game—explaining in detail the thoughts running through your head. Of course, I’m ... affected.”
He slides his chair around to me, ripping a gasp from my throat when he touches my bare knees. “Open your legs.”
“Why?”
“Because I won, and a deal is a deal.”
When I part my thighs slowly, he stares unblinkingly at my sex until I snap my knees back together. His lips thin into a disapproving line.
“I don’t want modesty, dove. I want you writhing-in-your-seat-legs-wide-open-humping-the-fucking-air filthy.”
I start to point out what a mouthful that was, but realizing he’d probably retort by offering me a mouthful, I close my lips.
“Let me see your beautiful body.”
Glancing away from him at our surroundings, I see my reflection in the glass wall. Stunned at how flushed my body is, I shudder from head to toe. “I’m naked on a glass balcony in one of the most populated cities in the country.” I tighten my arms over my chest. “Excuse me for being shy about exposing my Brazilian and the exact shade of my nipples to the world.”
“I assure you that, at twelve stories up, your body is perfectly safe from unwanted eyes.”
“And yet you’re leering at me.”
“I said unwanted eyes,” he murmurs. Getting up, he shoves his chair away from us. He bends over me, placing one hand on each side of my chair. It takes every ounce of self-control not to react, not to reach out and touch him because my body is in flames, but I hold my head high in spite of my tense shoulders.
“Be honest with me, with yourself.” His dark eyes glitter dangerously, and I wonder what happens next. This is the most exposed I’ve been with any man in my life, and I’m both terrified and turned on. “You’ve thought about this.”
“Being naked in front of you?” I whisper. He nods. I have—so many times it’s pitiful—but in those fantasies, he’s always naked right along with me. “I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t.”
“Do you think about everything I’ve said I want from you?” Kneeling to the floor directly in front of me, he touches my ankles, slowly scooting them apart, his fingers painting strokes of electricity on my skin. “My tongue and cock tasting and filling every hole in that tight body until you’re incapable of words?”
My breath catches. “Yes.”
He walks his fingers up my thighs, increasing the pressure behind his touch the closer he gets to my center. Breathless, I buck my hips. “I want you to answer me honestly. No fucking filter.” He tilts his head up, locking his brown irises with my blue eyes. When I bob my head indicating that I understand, he says, “Tell me what you want right now.”
What the hell does he expect me to say? Fuck me, Graham. Touch me, Graham. Stop looking at me and follow through with some of your promises, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. I shrug helplessly.
“I-I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeats. The corner of his mouth quivers, and I can’t tell whether he’s suppressing a laugh or a frown. “Slide down to the edge of the seat.”
I move down slowly. “Now that the matter of our arrangement has been settled—except for the two weeks you managed to win back—I want you to know what I expect from you,” he says.
“And what would that be?”
He leans in so close the tip of his nose brushes my clitoris. Anticipating the tremors that will wash through me the second his mouth makes contact with my flesh, I stop hugging myself, revealing my breasts, to grip the sides of my chair.
“Graham?” I moan.
He inhales. Senator Sexy-Ass breathes me in so deeply, and the sound of approval he makes is so loud, my knees buckle. Catching my breath, I hear him say, “When I call, you come.”
“Is that sexually?”
“Have we reached that point, Elle?” He stares up at me, the look in his dark eyes absolutely wicked. “Have we gotten to the point where I say your name and you fucking detonate?”
“No, I—”
“Eleanor,” he says roughly. “Elle.” He puts his lips together and blows a rush of air against my sex. I squirm, so he does it a couple more times. “Ms. Courtney.” Grinning and taking in the sight of me breathing heavily and fisting my hands around the armrests, he growls, “Well fuck, maybe we have reached that point.”
I hate his teasing tone just as much as I despise the weight of desire in the pit of my stomach and the way I want to grasp him by his dark hair and slam his mouth against my pussy. Just thinking that word sends a ripple down my spine. He must notice because he laughs and slants his body away from mine. I want to scream, tell him he’s moving in the wrong direction.
“What are you doing?” I calmly ask.
“Watching you come undone.” Taking my hand in his, he brings it to his lips, licking each fingertip. I bend forward, reaching for the zipper of his jeans, but he sucks harder and shakes his head. “No dick for you, Eleanor.”
Then, without dropping my gaze, he guides my wet fingers between my legs. Once he starts my hand in a slow, circular grind that has me seeing everything between here and the heavens, he stands.
“Fuck yourself, Elle.” My fingers freeze over my folds, but he nods at the juncture of my thighs, urging me to keep going. “Fuck yourself for me.”
“But what happened to you doing it for me? What happened to all those promises you made not even half an hour ago?”
“Close your pretty mouth and move those fingers faster,” he orders, and I do only because the pressure is almost too much to bear. “That’s a good girl. Two fingers, fast and hard.”
I feel like I’m losing control—like I’m losing myself—but I obey. “Why are you doing this?”
“Did you not just tell me you didn’t know what you wanted from me?” he asks. I part my lips to give him a response, but he shakes his head. “A nod will do, Ms. Courtney.”
At the slow bob of my head, he says, “Put your feet on the table, legs apart, and look at me.” Trembling, I meet his requests, watching him through hooded eyes while he rearranges the pieces on the chessboard.
Every few seconds, he looks over at me, smiling as if he knows what I’m thinking—knows that I’m wishing I’d told him to screw me—as I pump my fingers into my swollen flesh. “Do you know how hard it is not to come over there and shove those fingers aside?”
I moan at the thought of it. “Why haven’t you then?” As he slides the tan queen back to D1, I notice his fingers are clenched. Somewhere, under that satisfied smirk, I’m getting to Graham. He’s just as affected by me. Suddenly driven by that knowledge, I throw my head back and make a little noise. I feel his eyes on my naked body, on my sex, and he’s quiet for a long time before clearing his throat.
“Rub your clit, Elle,” he says, his voice suddenly detached. “I want to see you come.”
I trace my thumb slowly over the throbbing nub. “Already?”
“If you can ask me questions, you’re not doing a good job.” He sits back down across from me, his expression unreadable. “Come for me, Elle. Let me hear you. Let me see you.”
Let me feel you.
Even though he doesn’t say it, I know that’s what he’s thinking.
Feeling his dark eyes closely studying every stroke of my fingers as I get myself off on his balcony sends my body reeling. The climax hits me hard, leaving me trembling from head to toe and panting. Focusing on coming down, I uncurl my toes and let the last tremors shake through my body.
“Now what?” I ask in a husky voice. “What do we do next?”
His expression is oddly calm, but even through the haze of pleasure, it’s obvious how tight his muscles are beneath his white tee and jeans. He gestures to my pile of clothes on the balcony floor. “Now you get dressed and go home. I’ll call you.”