He pressed his pelvis into mine and I could feel the throb of his cock against my center through the thin barrier of his trunks. “Still want this?”
“More than ever.”
His lip turned up in an appreciative grin while his hand reached down to undo his trunks. “I’m not concerned whether it feels good for you or not.”
“What happened to your fucking being of value to both partners?” As soon as I said it, I realized I was pushing my limits.
But Reeve only smirked. “This isn’t my screen test. It’s yours. I don’t give value until I know it’s deserved.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the best time to throw his words back at him, but out they came. “Awfully confident, aren’t you? Some people might call it egotistical.”
“Emily —” It was a sharp warning, but I swore I saw amusement behind his eyes.
Still, I’d gone too far. And I didn’t even know why. I just couldn’t help myself, as though I thought that if I fought against him until the very last moment that I’d somehow hate myself less for it when I finally gave in.
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe I simply knew how good it would finally feel to submit, how rewarding. And it scared me. Scared me almost as much as the idea of not having it at all.
I was so aroused. Every cell in my being was on fire, ready to combust. And Reeve was there, on top of me, telling me he would have me and all I had to do was let him. “Okay, okay,” I said, serious now. “No teasing.”
“Good girl.” He braced his elbows on the ground at either side of my head, then nudged my thighs apart with his knee and settled between them. I could feel the tip of his cock at my entrance, could feel it twitch as his eyes scoured over my lips and breasts – lips he had yet to kiss today, breasts he had yet to touch or lick.
That was when I understood that he wouldn’t. Not this time. He wouldn’t caress or explore my body, wouldn’t indulge even though I could tell he wanted to. He was going to make this as sterile as possible, for what reason, I didn’t know. To say that he denied himself? As some sort of self-challenge? To prove a point?
Whatever his motive, I couldn’t go along with it. I needed release. I was too wound up, too painfully turned on. At the risk of crossing the line again, I asked, “Any problem if I concern myself with it? With feeling good?”
He hesitated only a fraction of a second. “By all means, go ahead.”
One hand clutching to his shoulder, I lowered my other hand and pressed my thumb to my clit just as he shoved up and inside me. I cried out in surprise, but also in a bit of pain and a whole lot of pleasure. I hadn’t been exactly prepared, and damn, he was hung. Or he just filled me in the right way. I didn’t know since I hadn’t actually seen him.
Reeve locked his eyes with mine. Though he said nothing, I could see that he was just as shocked as I was by… by what? The initial contact? The fit? The electricity that radiated in waves from where we were finally joined? Jesus, he wasn’t even moving yet.
And then he was.
He was moving, thrusting in deep, even strokes. Each time he entered, he buried himself to the balls. Each time he pulled out, he withdrew to his tip. His long, languid tempo ensured that I felt every part of his cock each and every time he filled me and released me. The tension in my belly knotted and tightened. With the added pressure on my clit, I’d be over the edge soon. Too soon.
Reeve’s expression didn’t change. He was restrained, in control while I was spiraling out of it.
I started to move my hand away.
“Put it back,” Reeve said, the gravel in his voice the one indication that he was affected. “Keep touching yourself.”
“Thought you didn’t care. If it felt. Good for me.” My words were breathy and my phrases short.
There was a glint in Reeve’s eye. “I don’t. But if you come, it will feel better for me.”
I resumed the swirling of my bud, cautiously, but even with the half-hearted effort, my orgasm began to build. It was so erotic – Reeve’s detached attitude, the primal way he rutted into me, the fact that we were in plain sight of everyone in his house. My fingernails dug into his shoulder and I bit my tongue, trying to remain as stoic as he was and failing as tiny sighs of pleasure escaped behind my closed lips.
Reeve pushed forward, inching my hips back so that he hit even deeper. Then he increased his speed, rocking my backside into the concrete in a way that scratched and stung. “Since this is all self-serving” – his voice was even grittier now, husky and raw – “you don’t need to tell me that it feels good. Because I don’t care.”
“Right.” Damn, though, it was too much. It felt so fucking good. “Ah, God. It’s so. Ah.”
“Don’t say it.” The warning that laced his words only inched me further toward the pinnacle. “Don’t you dare say it.”
“I’m not. Saying. Anything.” But I was there, I was bursting and now only sounds left my mouth, syllables with no meaning but when put together said very definitely how fucking fantastic it felt. My entire body shuddered as my orgasm ripped through me. I squeezed my eyes shut and let it take me.
Somehow I could still hear Reeve talking. “You’re coming,” he said. “I can feel it. Fuck, Emily, you clench so hard.” He forced through my tightening walls, continuing to pound into me with fierce determination. Then he was coming too, jabbing against my pubic bone as he spurt inside of me.
When I calmed, I opened my eyes to find him still hovering above me, still staring at me with intense scrutiny. I still couldn’t quite get a read on him, but there was a question in the furrow of his brow. Or confusion. Irritation, even.
I took in a shaky breath and wondered what he saw on my face. Disappointment, I imagined. I hadn’t expected to rock his world but I’d wanted to at least know I’d pleased him.
Then again, he was still inside of me. Maybe I had.
We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he sat back on his knees, pulling his trunks up over his cock as quickly as he left me. He trailed one solitary finger down my naked pussy and said, “Leave a landing strip next time you go into the salon. I don’t like feeling like I’m fucking a little girl.”
He left me. I dressed quickly and followed him into the house but neither Reeve nor Anatolios met me. The butler retrieved my purse and I was escorted to the door.
CHAPTER 12
I’d just stuck the key in the door when my cell rang. Though I was already balancing my mail, the next week’s script for the show, and the Diet Coke I’d gotten from a gas station on my way home from the day’s shoot, I fumbled to answer when I saw Reeve’s name on the caller ID.
“I want to see you,” he said, without preamble. Just the sound of his voice made my stomach flutter and dirty thoughts invade my mind.
“You do?” I braced the phone on my shoulder and pushed the door open. Inside, I dropped everything but the phone and my drink on the floor and turned around to push the door shut, eyeing a gray Bentley that pulled up across the street as I did. My neighborhood was swank but not Bentley status. It was something that drew attention.
But it didn’t have nearly the hold on my curiosity as Reeve did.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” There was an undercurrent of playfulness in his tone that had me breathless and wanting.
Be chill, Emily. “Huh. Does that mean I passed my audition then?” Having not heard from him since I’d left his house several days before, I’d waffled back and forth between thinking he was taking his time and thinking I’d fucked up. Either way, the week had seen me more than a little distracted, not to mention burning out a set of AA batteries.
“Was there any question?”
I fell into the front room armchair and thought carefully about my words. It wasn’t a time to get clingy, after all, but I wanted to be considered for a role that was more significant than fuck buddy. “There were lots of questions,” I said finally. “The audition was Sunday. It’s Friday and you’re only now calling. You p
lay it awfully cool, Sallis.”
“You know how casting decisions can take time.” His grin was apparent through the phone. “Here’s an answer to your lots of questions – you passed. With flying colors. And now I want to see you.”
“To see me,” I repeated. “For clarity that means…?”
“I want to fuck you.”
God, how did he make me blush so easily? “And when exactly would you —?”
“Now. There’s a car waiting outside.”
The Bentley. “How thoughtful. But why don’t —” I cut myself off before refusing his ride. Though I hated the idea of being stuck at his house without my own transportation, I needed to make an effort to do things his way. “Okay.”
“Excellent.”
I was already heading to my closet, worried about what I’d come up with to wear on such short notice. “Tell your driver to give me ten.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Whatever you think you need to do before you see me is unnecessary.” His eagerness had me giddy. I had to bite back a giggle.
“At least let me put on something that I haven’t been wearing for a twelve-hour shoot. I need five.” My black-and-white A-line skirt was clean. I could pair it with a red tank and a white jacket. Throw on my black four-inch-heel Louboutins with the red accents.
“Five then,” Reeve conceded. “Honestly, Emily, don’t spend too much time choosing an outfit. Whatever you’re wearing isn’t going to be on for long.”
Having a driver to Reeve’s turned out to be a good thing. My body hummed the whole way over making it hard to hear my thoughts, and my thoughts desperately needed to be organized before I had another encounter with the man. Not having to drive gave me time to focus elsewhere.
You have an agenda, I reminded myself. An agenda that doesn’t have anything to do with stopping the reverberation between your thighs. I’d spent a lot of time on my get-close-to-Reeve plan so I had a basic idea of what to do next, but since it was a mission that relied on improvisation, I didn’t have everything entirely ironed out. I’d look for signs of Amber, of course, and, ideally, I would earn Reeve’s trust to the point where he would let something slip.
Yeah, real likely with Mr. I’m N. Charge.
Maybe if I got in his inner circle – if I got him to take me to dinners with Vilanakis or even other friends of his – maybe then I could find a solid lead.
So much time had passed, though, and even Joe hadn’t delivered any information recently. There was a good chance that I was chasing after a trail that was long dead.
But even if I was too late to rescue Amber, I had to know what happened to her.
Or you want the excuse to wrap yourself in Reeve. There she was again, her voice ringing in my ear as clear as if she were sitting next to me.
“Maybe that’s true, Amber,” I said quietly. “But it’s about you, too.”
“Did you say something, Ms. Wayborn?”
I looked up to find the driver looking at me in his rearview mirror. “Sorry. Just talking to myself.”
He smiled awkwardly, probably unused to conversing with the people he drove. It was an opportunity for me, though, and while I was sure that Reeve had spies in all of his employees, there had to be something I could glean from him.
I leaned forward. “It’s Emily, by the way.”
He nodded with another awkward smile that told me he’d never call me anything but Ms. Wayborn.
“And you are…?”
His eyes darted from the road to the mirror and back to the road. Finally he said, “It’s Filip.”
Reeve seriously had his men trained. Getting even a simple name shouldn’t be like pulling nails.
And now that I had his name, I’d reached a dead end. I considered a second. “Is that an accent I hear? Where are you from, Filip?”
He answered with less hesitation this time. “Egaleo, Ms. Wayborn.”
I’d never heard of it, but I made a guess. “Is that Greece?”
He nodded. “Just outside of Athens.”
Reeve either really liked being able to communicate with his employees in a language most people didn’t know or he liked surrounding himself with people from his homeland. His parents’ homeland, actually. It was hard not to immediately want to say the whole thing smelled of mob. I grew up on Hollywood stories, though, and was smart enough to realize that the most scandalous of options was not always the most correct. So I had to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Except then we were at Reeve’s house, and Filip opened the door for me to climb out of the back. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and as I passed by, I caught the edge of a tattoo peeking out from under his shirt.
I stopped and bent toward him. “That’s an interesting tattoo. What is it exactly?”
Filip tugged at his collar, covering the design. “It’s nothing. Mr. Sallis is waiting for you inside, Ms. Wayborn. Just go on in.”
But I’d seen it before it had been hidden. A V, stylized to match the ring of Michelis Vilanakis.
No one greeted me at the door and the handle turned when I tried it. I headed through the foyer, the heels of my shoes resounding in the quiet house. Once the walls opened up to the main living space, Reeve was there, dressed in a sleek gray suit with a black dress shirt and gray tie and I forgot all about Filip and his tattoo. Reeve was so striking, so overwhelmingly captivating – I needed a moment to catch my breath.
I didn’t get it.
He came to me immediately and pulled me to him, setting one hand on my hip and threading his other in my hair. Holding my head like he had that morning in my kitchen, he kissed me. Claimed me. Devoured me. He licked into my mouth with bold, possessive strokes, painting his presence with his tongue, stealing the air from my lungs, spinning my world on its axis.
Soon, he moved his hand off my hip and up, up my torso where he finally – finally – clamped his palm around my breast. His grasp was strong, his fingers kneading into me as he squeezed and released, mirroring the way my pussy begged to clench around his cock. I clutched to his lapels for balance, ready for him to push me to the couch, to the floor, to the wall. Ready for him to ruck my skirt up around my waist and plunge into the warmth of my body.
Just when I was thoroughly dizzy and lust-swollen, he pulled his mouth away. “Thank you for coming.” His smile lit his face, matching the one I was sure was on my own lips. “And before you make some tacky joke about not having come yet, I’ll assure you that you will.”
I half-giggled, half-groaned. Half-melted in anticipation. “Well, glad that’s out of the way.”
His hand was still at my breast, his thumb teasing over my nipple now while his other palm wrapped around the back of my neck. He studied me, his eyes taking in my features with such intensity, as if despite all the time he spent looking at me he’d never truly seen me.
“I’m an awful host,” he said eventually. “I should tell you to make yourself at home, but all I care about is making myself at home inside you.”
Why don’t you? What came out was, “Uh-huh.”
His mouth found mine again as he grabbed my ass and drew me into him. If the last kiss had been intense, this one was consuming. My face burned from the scruff of his five o’clock shadow and my lips stung from his nips. I threw my leg around his upper thigh, opening myself, practically grinding against him.
Then, out of nowhere, the ability to think came rushing back, and thoughts, though jumbled, flashed through my mind, competing with my senses. Thoughts like, Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. And, Would it be out of line to start undressing him? And, Wasn’t there something I was supposed to do when I got here? And, If this is how he makes me feel with this kiss, how the hell am I going to survive tonight?
I began shaking my head, disconnecting myself from his mouth as I pressed my hands against his torso.
I was almost afraid Reeve wouldn’t accept my retreat. I was also totally afraid he would.
Tonight, he was a gentleman though. Cup
ping my face, he asked, “What is it?”
My eyes darted from his collar to his ear to his chin – everywhere but his distracting lips. We’ll get back to that, I promised myself. I had to remember Amber first. Remember that I was here on false pretenses. I might need to be able to make demands from Reeve eventually, which meant I had to well-establish the part I was playing now – a woman who was looking for a sugar daddy. I needed to ask for… something… to set the standards of exchange in our relationship. I had to do it now while he was in a good mood. But what to ask for?
I had no answer yet, and here he was waiting for a response.
I cleared my throat. “I’m trying to decide if this is a good time to bring it up.” It was partly true. Mostly, I was stalling, trying to remember what I’d asked for from men in the past. Back then I’d needed everything from clothes to housing. Now I needed nothing.
“Unless you’re talking about my cock, then it’s never going to be a good time to bring it up.” He was teasing though, his tone light. “So might as well get it over with. Come sit with me.”
He took my jacket and purse and set them on an armchair. Then he wrapped his fingers in mine and pulled me after him to the couch. He sat down and I moved to sit next to him, but Reeve tugged me instead onto his lap. He pushed my knees apart so I’d straddle him then ran his hands up and down my thighs, sending electric sparks across the surface of my skin.
I watched his fingers disappear under my skirt and return on their next sweep down. “This is awfully distracting.”
“It’s meant to be. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Okay.” What had I wanted to say? I swallowed, letting my weight settle on him as I gathered my thoughts. “So.” Something stiff rubbed against my inner thigh. I looked down to find his pants tented. “Oh.”
Reeve’s pupils were dark. “Yes, I’m hard. You’re sitting on my lap, what do you expect?”
“Nothing less. Just.” I tried to adjust myself so that I wasn’t pressing quite so intimately against him, but his hands flew to my hips, stilling me. The heat of his cock radiated through his pants, heat that was also reflected on his face. “Like I said, distracting.”