CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gannon’s place was a one-bedroom fourth-floor walkup in a squat brick building two blocks away from the factory his family had renovated into King Construction headquarters and three from his beloved nonni’s house.
“This is not what I expected,” Paige announced when Gannon shoved the key in the lock of the heavy wood door. She was nervous, which embarrassed her.
“Don’t knock it,” Gannon smirked. “It has a bed and laundry facilities.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean why don’t you live in some concrete and glass loft somewhere downtown?”
“My family’s here,” he said, giving the door a shove.
The apartment was small, but Paige could see touches of Gannon everywhere. He made much better use of the space than she and Becca did in their crappy little apartment. A battered leather couch faced the massive flat screen mounted to the wall. It was flanked by custom built-ins that housed a sparse collection of books. The coffee table was obviously a King original with its thick wooden top and hefty metal legs.
The kitchen was no bigger than a medium-sized closet with a skinny L of countertop. Pocket doors painted a glossy black led to the only bedroom. There were no plants, no homey touches or pictures.
“Are you a minimalist?” Paige teased, crossing her arms and studying the view through the three windows in the living room.
He gave the pocket doors a shove and dumped her bag on the serviceable navy spread on the bed.
“Smart ass,” he said without any heat.
“I don’t like to have to worry about a bunch of crap when I’m on the road so much of the year,” he shrugged.
Paige crossed to him and slid her arms around his neck. “I’m just teasing. I’ll show you my place, and you’ll get the joke. It’s just a dumping ground between shoots. We don’t even have a coffee table. My bed is my desk.”
“You’re nervous,” he accused, running his hands down her back to rest on the curves of her hips.
She nodded. “We’ve never not been working. I don’t know how not to work,” she confessed.
He blew out a breath. “I hadn’t thought about that. Consider this though. If we can get along on set with deadlines and drama and bullshit, don’t you think we can enjoy a few days of peace and quiet together?”
She bit her lip. “I want to say yes, but it’s us. We thrive on deadlines and drama and, yes, bullshit.”
He laughed, squeezing her hips.
“Maybe this will help with the nerves.” Gannon kissed her, softly, sweetly, and Paige felt the tension melt from her shoulders.
“How about some wine?” he offered, pulling back and rubbing his thumb over the lips he’d just kissed.
She nodded again. He left her to explore the bedroom and connecting bath and returned to the bedroom moments later with two glasses of red wine.
She accepted the one he offered and sipped.
“I like seeing you off-center,” Gannon admitted with a sly look. “It’s nice to know that you’re human.”
“I’d like to point out the fact that you’re the one the network wanted proof of humanity from. Not me.”
Gannon moved her bag from bed to floor and then took her wine glass from her, setting both glasses on the nightstand.
“Let’s see who’s more human,” he insisted, cupping her face in his hands. This time when his mouth closed over hers, there was nothing gentle or sweet about it. Raw and possessive, his lips bruised and battered hers as his tongue invaded her mouth, stealing her breath.
Grateful to have something to cling to, Paige poured herself into the kiss and gripped Gannon’s t-shirt in white knuckled fists. Here she could hold her own with him, matching fire with fire.
“I’ve thought about taking you here a thousand times,” he murmured against her mouth.
“But we just started—”
He didn’t let her finish. “This started a while ago for me.” His hands slipped under the hem of her raspberry sleeveless shell, drawing it up and over her head. He focused his attention on the front clasp of her capris. Catching up quickly, Paige shoved her hands under Gannon’s t-shirt and yanked it over his head.
“God, you are so gorgeous,” she murmured.
“That’s my line, princess.”
He stripped her and tossed her on the bed. She bounced once before his body covered hers, and they rolled. Paige found herself on top and took advantage, straddling his narrow hips and sliding flesh against flesh. The cords on his neck stood out as Gannon closed hands over her hips and worked her against him.
“I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this,” Paige murmured, not entirely conscious of the words slipping through her lips.
“We’ve got a lot of time to make up for,” Gannon agreed. He rolled them again, pressing Paige’s back into the mattress. “When you look at me like that…” he shook his head, losing the words.
“Like what?” she was breathless with need.
“Heavy eyes, full lips, like you’re begging me to be inside you. It makes me lose my mind.” As if to prove his point, he levered his hips bringing the swollen head of his cock to her entrance.
She bucked against him. The hand he pressed to her shoulder and then her breast held her in place. “Not yet, honey. Not yet.”
Paige thought he was reaching for a condom, but Gannon slid down her body biting and teasing his way across her stomach to the inside of her hip bone and lower still. He bit her inner thigh, and she gasped.
“Open for me, princess.” His voice was rough, thick.
She forced her legs open, bent at the knee, and quivered when she felt his hot breath tease her. “Gannon.”
“I love hearing my name from your mouth,” he said darkly. “Say it again.”
His tongue flicked over the swollen lips of her sex.
“Gannon!” she hissed.
“Fuck,” he whispered, pressing his mouth to her.
Paige arched up, fighting the pleasure that such vulnerability brought. He pinned her legs with his big, rough palms and sampled her flesh. His tongue blazed through the slickness, the proof of her desperation for him. When he brushed over her clit, Paige gasped.
“That’s what I want, honey. Give it to me,” he murmured against her, his lips and tongue working her.
Her blood heated, her breasts ached, lonely and full. Paige wanted, no, needed more. And when Gannon pressed two rough fingers against her opening, she stopped breathing.
Sliding them home into her tight, wet channel, Gannon began a relentless assault with his tongue.
“Gannon!” He’d taken over her body, and now all that mattered was the climax shimmering on the horizon. His fingers flexed inside her, grazing that secret spot, and Paige bowed back against the pillows, levering her hips up greedy for more.
He growled against her, and she sobbed out another breath. He was all-consuming, ruthlessly driving her toward the peak. His fingers and mouth worked in concert tempting her higher and higher.
She felt the first tremor, and her legs fought to close on him, but he forced her open devouring every sweet drop of her climax. Fighting it made it harsher, more jagged, and the orgasm ripped through her without regard for anything other than its own brilliant existence.
Gannon groaned his pleasure into her, tasting her and driving her harder into it. Paige’s hands knotted in the comforter beneath them as her body shook with ripples of pleasure.
“That’s what I’ve been dreaming about,” Gannon whispered on a ragged breath, kissing her inner thighs with his sinful mouth.
“More,” Paige sighed.
“Oh, baby, you have no idea.”
He moved away from her, leaving her body loose and used on the bed. She opened a lazy eye and saw him frantically pawing his discarded shorts for his wallet.
“Bag,” she murmured.
“What, honey?”
She pointed at her bag on the floor. “Condoms. Whole box.”
He pounced on her bag and triumphantly pulled out the box she’d stashed inside. “Have I ever told you you’re the smartest woman I know?”
“No, but I’m going to expect it regularly now,” she teased, rolling to her side. She enjoyed the view as Gannon rolled the condom on his impressive erection.
She felt her pulse kick up a notch. There was something about knowing that she did that to him, that she made him that hard…
“Roll over,” he said, his voice a dark rasp.
She complied and felt adrenaline surge through her as he shoved her shoulders down. She pressed her face down into the comforter still warm from her own body heat.
“I want to take you in every way I’ve thought about for the past year,” he rasped.
“Then take me.”
He drove home, sheathing his thick cock inside her. The force of his invasion caught her breath, and it took her a moment to relax around his thick length.
He growled deep in his throat, and her sex rippled around him, her body begging without shame for more.
“Is this okay?” he asked, flexing into her.
“God, yes,” she gasped. Paige pressed up on her hands and tossed her hair back, meeting his gaze over her shoulder.
He swore and began to move in her. When she looked away, Gannon gripped her hair with one hand and her hip with the other. He began to ride relentlessly. She was so full of him, so dominated by him. He thrust into her with a restrained desperation that was an aphrodisiac to Paige.
The angle pulled him deeper than he’d ever been. And Paige gasped at the fullness. Her body burned for him. There was no way a fire like this could last. Something this hot, this bright, had to extinguish itself.
But that didn’t matter right now. What did was the man behind her shuddering into her and making her burn.
On a long, guttural groan, Gannon pushed her down flat, slapping at her ass to have her roll over. “Need to see you,” he murmured.
She opened for him, accepting his weight with a greed she’d never known. She wanted him on her, in her.
“Please,” she whispered.
And he sank into her again. That beautiful stretch of her muscles to accommodate him was easier this time. “Anything you want, Paige. I’ll give it to you,” he promised, his lips searching her neck, her jaw, until they found her mouth.
She kissed him with a terrifying need. His hips levered into her, powerful thrusts that had her muscles clutching and clenching. He brought a hand to her breast. “I need everything from you.” He dragged his mouth away from hers and latched on to her straining nipple. He stroked over it once, twice, with his greedy tongue, and she was panting under him.
“Gannon, please!”
He released her nipple and moved to the other that was begging for his attention. He was buried in her, and she felt the incessant desire grow. She bucked her hips against him demanding a faster pace. He let out a laugh, a deep rumble in his chest.
“Greedy,” he accused.
But she was so close. The next orgasm loomed over her, and it was all she could think of, all she wanted.
He withdrew, lapping at her nipple before giving her a shallow thrust. She gasped out a litany of incoherent words. Paige released the sheets and dug her hands into his perfect, round ass, begging him with her body to fuck her. To fulfill her. To own her. The muscular chest that had hypnotized millions of women across the country flattened her to the mattress. The hazel eyes that had enthralled strangers, bored into hers.
“Now, Paige,” he ordered, slamming into her with the relentless force of a piston.
He rammed into her again and again, forcing her body to accept him. She could only cling to him, digging nails into that bronze, beautiful flesh. “Now,” he repeated, and she heard the desperation.
She obeyed with early, teasing tremors that shoved him over the edge. And when his body stiffened to unleash his first load into her, Paige was tensed to receive his pleasure as well as her own.
He groaned and grunted his way through his release, never ceasing in his attention to her, dragging her orgasm out until she was a puddle beneath him. Used and wrung out, swamped with pleasure.
Gannon collapsed on top of her, his hard chest and rippled abs pressing into her, melting her into the mattress.
“Paige?”
“Mmm?”
“That’s only a small sampling of the things I want to do to you in this bed.”