Grounded (30 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mr. Kinky

I tried to just wait after that, but I was restless and worried.
 
I had no clue where he could have gone.
 
I didn’t know where he’d go if he was going out and upset.
 
It was only two in the afternoon.
 
Had he just gone back to work?
 
I hadn’t a clue
.

I tried hard just to wait patiently for him to return.
 
I tried to paint, but it was no good.
 
I tried to watch TV, but I was hopelessly distracted.
 
I called Stephan, who was in Vegas with Javier, but he hadn’t heard from James.
 
I told him what had happened.

“Are you okay?” he asked.
 
“Do you want to talk about it?”
 

Of course my feelings would be his first concern
, I thought.

“I’m fine,” I told him.
 
“It sucked, but it’s not as though James has ever made a secret of his past.
 
If anything, it made me see that what he did with those other women is
not
the same thing that we do.
 
I’m worried about
him
, not me.
 
The look in his eyes, Stephan… I feel like I broke his heart again.
 
I need to find him.”
 

He had no idea where James had gone either, but Stephan did what he did best.
 
We talked for hours, about everything, but mostly about James, and I felt better when we said goodbye.

That good feeling lasted only an hour when there was still no sign of James.
 
It was almost seven p.m. when I got desperate.
 

I was wearing a small slip of a dress, sans bra.
 
It was an ‘around the house in the hottest part of the summer’ kind of outfit.
 
I took the time to put on a bra, and found some comfortable shoes that matched the sleeveless, off-white dress.
 
I called Blake as I grabbed my bag.
 
I was at the top of the stairs when she answered.
 

“I’m going out,” I told her before she could say a word.

“I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

And she was there, quick as a flash.
 

The rest of the security was waiting in the lobby for us.
 
They hadn’t replaced Johnny, and I was fine with that.
 
I figured if this many people couldn’t protect me, it was a lost cause, anyway.

No one asked me where we were going until we were all in the large black SUV that had been designated for my use.
 

“The Cavendish Hotel,” I said.
 
It was only a guess on my part, but I could see him going to his office if he was upset.

Security escorted me to the office suites, and I thought I must have been right as I saw that his receptionist was still on duty.
 
She nodded for me to enter his office, as though she’d been instructed just to let me in.
 

No one followed me as I opened his door tentatively.
 

James was there, sitting at his desk, staring blankly at his computer, his hand unmoving on his mouse.
 

I stepped inside and shut the door softly behind me.
 
I walked to him, but he didn’t look at me.
 

Still, I saw something wounded and vulnerable move behind those tarnished eyes of his as I approached.
 

“James,” I said softly.
 

“I’m sorry,” he said brokenly, his voice no more than a whisper.
 
“I only seem to disappoint you.
 
If it makes you feel better, I’m beginning to hate the man I was before I met you.”

I stroked a hand over his hair.
 
“Of course that doesn’t make me feel better.
 
As far as I can tell, you’ve always been wonderful, even during your slutty days.”

“I feel like life was easy before I met you, because it didn’t matter,” he said in a rough voice, leaning into my hand.
 
“
Nothing
mattered before I knew you.
 
I was a pretender, playing at life with monopoly money.
 
I didn’t
feel
anything.
 
Nothing ever really changed because
I just I didn’t care.
 
And now that it does matter
—
now that everything matters, it’s so much harder, because things have weight now, and my life has substance.
 
You can hurt a thing with substance.
 
I’ve become vulnerable, where nothing could have hurt me before.
 
My mistakes, even my past ones, will have consequences now.”

I moved into him, pulling his head into my chest.
 
He nuzzled there, making me sway with the force of his affection.
 
I kissed the top of his head comfortingly.
 
“I understand completely, James.
 
I fought my feelings for you for so long for just that reason.
 
Letting you in meant opening myself up to a pain I thought I was immune to, because I had become frozen to all of it.
 
I was unfair to you, and even to some of my friends.
 
You were right when you told me that I have room in my heart for more than Stephan.
 
You read me so well without me ever having to say the words.
 
It astounds me.
 
Perhaps we
were
made for each other.
 
You’re making me a believer, my love.”

He wrapped his arms around me.
 
“I’m sorry you had to see that video, Bianca.
 
I tried so hard to keep it from getting out.”

I rubbed my cheek against that silky hair.
 
“You didn’t make me watch it.
 
I take responsibility for that.
 
And I learned something important from it.
 
It did hurt to watch you with her, but I think it was worth it, in a way.”

He pulled away far enough to give me a genuinely baffled look.
 
“Why?!
 
How?”

I gave him a small smile and some very solid eye contact.
 
“Because I learned that you may have fucked a lot of women, James, but I’m your first lover.”

“Yes,” he rasped, kissing me like he owned me.
 
I loved that kiss, and yes, that ownership.
 

“You’re so different with me,” I told him as he pulled away long enough to pull me on top of him.
 
I straddled him in his chair.
 
“You always were, from the very beginning.”

“Yes,” he murmured, undoing his slacks to pull out that delicious cock.
 
It was hard as a poker and ready to go, as ever.
 
“I’ve told you this.
 
It’s unfortunate that you had to see me at my worst to believe it.”
 
He ripped off my panties as he spoke, making the words come out harsh and raw.
 

He impaled me on his arousal forcefully, not checking if I was ready
—
not letting me respond.
 
It didn’t matter.
 
I shuddered with the pleasure, and the pain, of his possession.
 

He didn’t move once he’d seated me to the hilt, but held me there, looking up at me with his heart in his eyes.
 
I loved those eyes so much.
 

I cupped his cheek.
 
“You’re so different with me,” I repeated.
 
“You never made me look down; you never let me look away from you.
 
You never walked away from me.”

He shook his head.
 
“Never.”
 

“I loved your eyes first,” I told him, repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole
—
we had been all along, and he’d been so clever to know it right away.
 
I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance.
 
“I see it, too, James.
 
I see the other half of my soul in you.”
 

He jerked against me suddenly, grinding me against him.
 
He never broke eye contact as he came inside of me.
 

He pulled my forehead to his, giving me a self-deprecating grin.
 
“Well, that was embarrassing.
 
I feel like a teenager.
 
I’ll have to make it up to you.”

I smiled back, far from upset about it.
 
I loved affecting him so powerfully that he lost control like that.
 

“I have no doubt that you will,” I said, meaning it.
 
If we were keeping score on orgasms, I was in the lead by four to one, at least.
 
The man always could play my body like a drum.

He slid a hand between our bodies, moving his thumb in soft circles over my clit, circling his hips to move his thick length inside of me in an intoxicating grind.

“Touch me,” he said roughly.
 
I relished the chance.
 
It seemed like more often than not only he did the touching.

I ran my hands over his chest and up to his shoulders. I cupped his face in my hands before running my hungry fingers to the buttons of his shirt.
 
I loosened it clumsily, popping a few unfortunate buttons as I went.
 
I moaned when I got his chest bared enough to stroke that perfect golden skin.
 

He brought me like that, with those little circles of his hips and that clever thumb, his skin under my hands.
 
It was a gentle wave of sensations.
 

He grabbed my hips firmly and thrust harder as I still quivered around him.
 
Big hard thrusts turned into rough bucks.
 
He bucked me nearly off his length before yanking me back onto him.
 
What had started gentle turned into a deliciously rough ride as I was still recovering from the first orgasm.
     

His eyes turned from tender between one hard thrust and the next, taking on a possessive gleam.
 
He didn’t even have to say the words. I knew what he wanted.
 
“I’m yours, James.
 
Yours.”
 

Those tarnished depths glittered at me as he made me fall over that fine edge again.
 
He didn’t let up, pounding me until I knew I’d be deliciously sore, topping me from the bottom, controlling my body’s movements without having to utter a word.
 
I loved that the most, that I could put myself into his control and, at least here, like this, he always knew just what I needed.

He brought me again and watched my eyes as I fell apart before he let himself pour into me with that rough little moan that I loved best.

He was pulling himself out of me when he froze.
 
His eyes shot to mine, his concerned.
 
“You’re bleeding,” he told me.
   

I grimaced.
 
“Ich.
 
I’m starting my period.
 
Sorry.
 
I think maybe we jumpstarted it.”

He laughed, looking relieved.
 
“As long as I didn’t do it.
 
And don’t be sorry.
 
I don’t mind.”

He pushed my hips back against the edge of his desk, pushing my dress up high.
 
I tried to bat his hands away.
 

He laughed again.
 
“This is where you draw the line?
 
I’ll never understand why some things are more taboo than others.”

“And that’s what makes you so kinky, the fact that you don’t see the difference.”
 

He just shrugged.
 
He was at peace with the kinky part.
 
“Lift up your leg.
 
Let me look at you.”

I batted his hands away again, cringing when I saw the blood on his suit.
 
“I don’t even want to know the price of the suit we just destroyed.”
 

He looked down at himself and shrugged.
 
“I don’t give a fuck about the suit.
 
I do give a fuck about that scandalized look on your face.
 
You have to realize that’s just like blood in the water for me.”

“Literally,” I muttered, still batting his hands away.
 

“Get your ass on the desk,” he said with a grin.
 
“I want to go down on you while you blush like that.”

I glared at him, painfully embarrassed.
 
Just the thought had me frozen to the spot in mortification.

“I’m going down on you,” he told me in a stern voice, though the smile still playing around his mouth kind of ruined it.
 
“On the desk or in the shower.
 
I’ll let you pick that much.”

“Shower,” I said quickly.
 
It seemed far preferable.
 
At least there wouldn’t be a mess in the shower.
 

He pulled me into the bathroom, stripping us both and leaving our clothes in messy heaps on the floor.
 

He didn’t draw it out, pushing me against the tiled wall and going to his knees in the steamy spray.
 
He buried his face against my core, throwing my thigh over his shoulder.
 
I gripped his hair, letting him take most of my weight as he worked his clever tongue against me.
 
And if his tongue was clever, his fingers were
brilliant
.
 
Both worked me, playing on different nerves, drawing moans out of me, and pushing me over that fine edge in swift moments.
 
I lost all recollection of my own embarrassment under his perfect touch.