All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) (13 page)

I tried to smile back. I thought I did, but
apparently I suck at faking my feelings just as much as I suck at
dealing with my jealousy.
Oh something will come of it, baby.
Alex Craven will get a hard-on and the hook will be remembering
your naked pictures, not the soulful Lady Percival holding her rare
and precious book! Mallerton’s paintings can go to rot, it’s Brynne
Bennett on his cock that he wants!

She sighed at me. “Are you going to tell me
what’s wrong? You just growled and I’m pretty sure growling is not
a universal signal for happiness and harmony.” She looked very
annoyed with me.

“This came through a bit ago.” I set her
mobile on her lap with the text on screen.

She picked it up and read it, swallowed once
and then looked to the side at me. “You got jealous when you saw
this.” Not a question.

I nodded at her. Might as well let it all
hang out while we were at it. “He wants to fuck you.”

All men do when they see your nude
photographs
. I wasn’t moronic enough to say that to her, but
man I could sure think it if I wanted. It was the bare naked
truth!

“I highly doubt that, Ethan.”

“Is he gay then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think Alex is gay but
I don’t really know.”

“Then he definitely wants to fuck you.” I
said grimly out the window now coated with drizzle and setting a
mood in perfect harmony with how I felt.

“Ethan, look at me.”

The tone of her command shocked the hell out
of me. And got me hard.

I looked over at my girl who had come to
mean so much to me in such a short time and wondered what she
wanted to say. I didn’t know how to share her, or how to not be
jealous, or how to be the graceful partner of a nude art model that
other men only wanted to drool over or fantasize about fucking. I
just didn’t know how to be that man.

“Alex Craven is not a
he
.”

Brynne rolled her lips together to keep from
laughing outright. It didn’t matter. I was relieved enough to take
her teasing and then some.

“Oh,” I managed, feeling very, very foolish,
“well then, you
should
go to dinner with Alex Craven and
I’ll wish you a ton of luck, baby. She sounds like she really wants
to hire you.” I nodded.

She laughed at me and said, “You worry far
too much, baby.”

I leaned toward her lips but didn’t touch
them. “I can’t help worrying, and I love it when you call me baby.”
I kissed her again, this time not like a Neanderthal, but how I
should have kissed her in the first place. I threaded my fingers
around her head and tried to show her what she meant to me. I
pulled back slowly with a few nibbles to her bottom lip, bringing
my hand down the side of her face and down her neck. “I want to
take you home now. My place. I need that…badly.”

I hope she knew this was my version of a
request. I’d asked her to bring enough clothes for a few days but
couldn’t be sure she’d actually done it. I just wanted her with me
all the time. I couldn’t explain it any different than a very deep
wanting…a requirement of having her right there for me to talk to
and touch. And fuck. It made me such a needy bastard but I just
didn’t care anymore, and holding back from pushing her was
annoyingly difficult.

“All right, your place tonight.” She brought
her hand up to my hair and fingered it, searching me again with her
intelligent eyes. I swear she could read me like an open book and I
wondered why she even put up with me. I hoped it was because she
was beginning to love me back, but hated to ponder much because I
always returned to…
what if she doesn’t?

“Thank you.” I took her hand from where she
held it and brought it to my lips to kiss. I lifted my eyes to see
her reaction and was pretty damn happy to see that smile of hers. I
smiled back and put the car in drive. Time to get my girl home
alone where I could act on all those things I really wanted to do
with her.

♥

The chicken parmigiana in my mouth was
perfectly prepared with succulent meat, savory sauce, and spices,
but the company sitting across from me at my table was even
better.

I’d watched her make it earlier while I
worked from my laptop. Sort of. I’d come out and set up on the
kitchen bar and got to look over and smile at her sometimes. I
enjoyed the sounds of her working in the kitchen very much. It was
a nice feeling along with the delicious smells coming from a room I
rarely spent much time in. Smells of our dinner that Brynne was
making with her lovely hands.

Pretty fucking sexy stuff if you ask me.

It was different than what Annabelle did for
me—an employee who cleaned and cooked things and labeled them in
the freezer. This was something real. A thing people do because
they care, not because they are being paid.

Having a woman in my home cooking for me was
not something I had any experience with either. But I was pretty
sure I could get used to it. Yup. Brynne had me hooked. Brilliant,
sexy, beautiful, accomplished, a damn fine cook—and beyond fine
spread out underneath me in my bed. Did I mention sexy and
beautiful? I thought about bedtime for us later.

I took another bite and savored the taste.
She had her hair up in one of those claw clips and a deep v-necked
top in crimson that drew my eyes right down to her mouth watering
nipples which were budded up nicely and screaming for my mouth. A
few long strands of hair had slipped from her hair clip and rested
over the swells of her cleavage.
Mmmmm…delicious
.

“I’m glad you think so. This is really
simple to make,” she said.

I watched her mouth and lips as she took a
sip of wine, totally shocked I had spoken aloud and glad she
thought I was merely talking about the food. “How did you learn to
cock so well?” I sputtered, “I mean cook!”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

I gave her a grin and a wink. “You do
both
so well, baby, my cock
and
the cooking
part.”

“You idiot,” she scolded. “I watched cooking
shows and learned. My dad let me experiment on him after the
divorce. You can ask him about when I first started cooking.” She
laughed and speared another bite of dinner and popped it into her
mouth. “But better not ask him about when I started
cocking
you!”

I laughed at myself and hung my head. “Not
as good as this food you’ve made tonight then?”

“Not even close. My first attempts were
awful, and Daddy paid the price. He never complained though.”

“Your dad is no fool, and he loves you so
very much.”

“I’m glad you two talked it out. He really
does like you, Ethan. He respects you a lot.” She smiled at me.

“Ahhh, well I feel the same about him.” I
hesitated before bringing up her mum, but figured I should. “I
don’t think your mum was too impressed with me today though. Sorry
about that. I thought it best to introduce myself and tell her what
I was doing in your life—I probably could have said it more
tactfully though.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. She actually
said she’s glad you’re watching out for me, and that you sounded
determined to make sure nothing happens…”

I caught the falter in her voice and wanted
nothing more than to reassure her, but waited for her to
finish.

“She thinks you’re obsessed with me though.”
Brynne toyed with her chicken.

I shrugged. “I didn’t hold back with her,
it’s true. I told your mum how I feel about you.”

She smiled at me. “She told me that too.
Pretty brave of you, Ethan.”

“Telling the truth is not brave, it’s
expected.” I shook my head. “It’s important to me that your parents
know I’m not just providing security for their daughter.” I reached
a hand toward her. “It’s important that you know that too, Brynne,
because you’re so much more to me.”

She put her hand into mine and I gripped it,
closing my eyes as well as my fingers around the delicate bones of
her hand. The same lovely hand that had made my dinner tonight, and
tied my tie this morning. The same hand that would be touching my
body when I took her to bed and laid her out in a very short while
from now.

“You are too, Ethan.”

I felt that possessiveness come over me
again. I swear it worked like a switch. One minute I was tolerating
our situation well, or thought I was, and then something was
spoken, or alluded to, and bam, I went into—I need to fuck you
now—land.

Her words were all I needed to hear. I rose
up from my chair and took her with me, picking her up with my arms
and feeling those long legs of hers wrap around my waist so I could
carry her out of the dining room and into the bedroom.

She held the sides of my face and kissed me
madly the whole way I carried her. I wasn’t complaining. I loved it
when she was all sexed up. And Brynne could be like that.

Thank. Fuck.

I peeled her top and bottoms off her, not
waiting for the foreplay of stripping, needing to see her body
before I totally lost it. She had on a violet bra and a black
thong. I groaned down at her from above. “What are you trying to
do, woman, kill me?”

She smiled and slowly shook her head back
and forth. “Never,” she whispered.

I leaned down and kissed her slow and sweet
for that answer, but my heart was beating hard and fast. God, I
loved how she was with me, so soft and alluring—accepting of
me.

I loved many things about her
.

I flipped her over onto her stomach and
unhooked that pretty bra and ditched the thong. I just took in the
sight and breathed out, dragging my hands down her back, her hips,
the cheeks of her lovely ass and then back up again.

Once she was naked, I calmed some and slowed
it down. I left my clothes on and stretched out beside her. She
turned her face to mine and we just stared at each other.

I reached for the hair clip and took it
away, spreading her hair out on her back and shoulders. Brynne had
long, silky hair. I loved to touch it and drag my fingers through
pieces of it. I loved when it whipped my chest when she was on top
of me working out my cock. I loved to grab a huge handful and hold
her with it while I fucked her to a shattering orgasm and she cried
out my name.

But I didn’t do any of that tonight. Instead
I worked her over slowly and carefully, getting into all the places
I have to be with my tongue and my fingers, making her come and
come again before I got undressed and my cock into her.

We fit beautifully together like this. Sex
with her shattered me down to my deepest levels of complexity; even
if Brynne wasn’t aware, I was. I don’t even know what I said to her
during the heat of it. I say all kinds of things to her because she
likes my filthy mouth. She told me so. It’s a damn good thing too
because I cannot help it. The filter between my brain and my mouth
is pretty much nonexistent.

I still didn’t know what I said to her after
the explosive orgasm that had me so drained I began drifting off to
sleep still buried inside her and hoped she let me stay there for a
while.

But I knew it when she said, “I love you
too.”

My eyes flew open and I stared into the dark
and held on to her. I replayed the sound of those words over and
over and over again.

Fuck. They’re going to do it. My heart
started to pump as fear like I’d never known raced on adrenaline
charged veins throughout my body. I’d been waiting for this to
come. Deep down I knew it would but to save my sanity I’d pushed it
away. Denial worked for a while but the time for that had
expired.

“
Are you ready?” he asked me. The
creature who asked the question was the one I wanted to gut, and
leave to leak out slowly. The one who talked about HER. The one who
taunted all the time about hurting her.

Fuck, NOOOOO!

I shook my head as he advanced on me, his
face very close, the smoke from his clove handrolled swirling and
tantalizing, making my mouth water. Funny how I could crave a
cigarette in a moment like this, but I did. I would’ve pulled the
fuckin’ thing out of his mouth and shoved it in mine if I
could’ve.

My arms were pinned from behind by another
and my nose plugged. I tried to hold my breath and go out that way
but my body betrayed me. The second I gasped in a breath he poured
something vile down my throat. I tried to keep the elixir from
going down, but again my body took over in a basic function to keep
me breathing. How ironic. They were drugging me in order to execute
me…so I wouldn’t fight the process…so they could videotape my death
and show it around the world.

No. No! NO!

I fought it with everything I possessed but
he just laughed at my efforts. I felt tears squeeze out of my eyes
but I was sure I wasn’t crying. I never cried.

He barked out the order and then I saw it.
The camera. A subordinate set it up on a tripod while I stared and
let the tears roll out as the opium started its hold upon me.

I was indeed crying I realized.

But not for the reasons they thought. I
cried for my dad and for my sister. For my girl. They would have to
see this…
thing
…be done to me. The whole world would watch.
She would see.

“
Introduce yourself!” He ordered.

I shook my head and gestured to the camera.
“No video! No VIDEO, you cocksucker! NO FUCKING VIDEO—”

The backhand across my mouth was so brutal
it shut me up by force of the blow. He barked another order at the
one with the video camera who aimed the lens at my tags and read in
halting English: “Blackstone, E. SAS. Captain. Two nine one five
zero one.”

He started toward me again, this time he
pulled a khukri out of its sheath. The blade was curved and finely
honed. Even in my weakening ability to react to what was coming
from the drugs, I could see the tool was well prepared for the job
it was about to do.