House of Payne: Steele (25 page)

Her cheeks flushed red at that. “I was just kidding about that. I’m actually wearing the cutest little silk thong.”

Holy shit
. “It will be the truth by the time you leave this room, I can promise you that.” With his gaze never leaving hers, he began stalking toward her. “And by the time you leave this room, you and everyone else will know that no one gets to flirt with you except
me
.”

Alarm mixed with excitement in her wide eyes before she surged to her feet. “I can’t tell. Are you angry?”

Really? She had to
ask
? “I’m a little pissed, yeah. Considering all the flirting that was going on right the fuck in front of me, I think I have a right to be.”

“What flirting? Are you talking about how one of your men winked at me? That was nothing, Steele.”

“It’s not
nothing
when you make even the likes of Olivier and Echo smile. It’s not
nothing
when you have a man-whore like Trace flashing his lady-killer smile and winking at you because you’re sending out all the signals that you’re receptive to it. It’s not
nothing
when you go out of your way to be so crazy-charming that even happily committed men like Panuzzi and Havlik are eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she scoffed, and the sound was equal parts angry and disbelieving. “Receptive? I didn’t do anything except be myself. Flirting wasn’t even a thought in my mind.”

“You’re out of your cocoon and you’re loving it. You’ve discovered you’ve got power over men, and you enjoy making them dance to your tune.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Shock and an undeniable hurt flooded her expression, and it hit him harder than a slap in the face. “I used to apologize for everything—you know that better than anyone. But I’m not going to apologize for doing nothing more than simply being myself. My attacker blamed me for being so slutty he was driven to burst into my home and assault me for hours. You’re the one who helped me see that that’s a horrible mind-fuck that I never should have fallen for, so I’m not going to fall for it now”

“Essie—”

“I won’t be held accountable for other people’s actions, because that’s not my responsibility. I only take responsibility for my own actions, and I do it gladly, because I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. I spoke to Olivier twice, and I never spoke to that man who winked at me. The person I was speaking to at the time was
you
.”

“You called Olivier
honey
,” he snapped, though he felt like an idiot doing it because she was right. Technically speaking, she hadn’t done anything except be herself, something he’d been encouraging her to do since they’d first met.

Just not in front of other men who would appreciate her.

Understandably, his statement made her blink. “So what?”

“So, don’t call anyone
honey
again. I don’t like it.”

“Oh. Oh wow, I get it.” The baffled outrage in her eyes slowly dissolved, and in its place grew the beginnings of a light-filled smile. “You’re jealous.”

What the fuck
. “I’m not
jealous
. I just need you to be more careful with how you are with people.”

“Especially male people?’

“Male people, regular people… whatever.” Her smile grew into an all-out grin, and it pissed him off all the more. There wasn’t one fucking thing about this that was funny. “I’m serious, Essie.”

“I know you are.” With that insanely lush mouth of hers still curved, she closed the distance between them, her arms reaching up to loop around his neck. Like magic, the pissed-off edge grinding away inside evaporated when her body melted like warm wax against him. “You don’t want any man looking at me, the same way I don’t want any woman looking at you.”

Something inside his chest took flight. “You don’t want any woman looking at me?”

“Of course not.” She stood on her tiptoes to touch her mouth to his in a lingering, oddly soulful kiss. Then, as his world still rocked from that, she guided his hands past her waist, down her thighs and under her skirt to the bareness of her beautiful, better-than-fantasy ass. “That’s how it is when you belong to each other. Did you mean it when you said you wanted us to fuck like animals?”

His mind became an absolute train wreck, filled with her words, his emotions, and above all the sensation of his hands clamped onto her bare ass. “Yeah, I did. That’s why I had our meeting moved into this room. The large conference room’s equipped with cameras that activate the moment anyone enters. Essie—”

“Call me kinky, but the thought of having sex on camera… it’s kind of a turn-on.” As she spoke, her hips rolled fluidly against him until he groaned. The achy throb of need deep in his cock drowned out everything else. “I love watching you when you’re inside me, Steele. In my eyes you’re always beautiful, but when you’re starting to come, you’re the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t mind filming us together someday, just so I could watch you in that moment, over and over again—”

Wildness erupted inside him like a fever in his blood, and he crushed her mouth beneath his to stop the flow of words and start the flow of something far more inspiring. But he couldn’t deny that a wound that had never healed—a wound he’d gotten used to carrying inside him—flinched to sudden, new life. It was her claim that he was beautiful that had done it. He needed to drown it out before he could allow himself to believe that claim was real.

Tightening his arms around her, he lifted her off the ground, pivoted to the table and deposited her on its edge. Her knees parted, and a thrill tightened his chest when one of her heels hooked around his calf muscle and slowly stroked upward.

“Are you sure about doing this here?” Her mouth broke free from his, something the savage in him didn’t want to forgive. He didn’t want to do any talking, dirty or otherwise. “I know you’ve got a thing for public sex, but this is where you work.”

“I’ve got a thing for burying my cock inside that sweet pussy of yours as deep as I can whenever we’re together. Not my fault that we’re often in public together.” Truer words had never been spoken as he tore the fragile thong down her legs and stuffed it in his pocket, before he returned to her mouth. What he’d said was true. He couldn’t keep his hands off of her. No other woman had ever had this effect on him, not even Apolline. Only Essie made him so horny he didn’t give a damn where they were. Didn’t give a damn even if he lost the job that he loved so much. As long as he could become a part of her, he was willing to take that risk.

Any
risk was worth it if he could be inside her.

“Fuck.” He whispered it against her mouth, the thought hammering in his brain while his pulse hammered with equal force in his cock. “My God…I
need
you, Essie. Do you fucking understand that?
I need you
.”

“I need you too.” Her breath whispered over his lips in the sweetest damned caress. Like everything else about her, it completely unraveled him. “I’ll always need you. Always, even on my last day on earth.”

A rough growl erupted from him a second before he dug out his wallet to retrieve a condom, tore through the fastenings of his clothes and rolled the protection in place. As he did, her words echoed in his head until the promise in them was all he heard.

Always.

Always.

The weight of that one word was so vast it almost crushed him.

In a kind of desperation he put a hand to her chest and pushed her back to lie flat on the table. In the same motion he opened her legs wide and lifted them to rest on his shoulders, then took his dick in hand to slide its blood-darkened head along the gratifying wetness of her channel. It felt so good, so fucking right, that he almost missed that little sound she made—that half-moan, half-burst of surprised breath. He loved it when she made that sound. Feverishly he strived to have her make it again by rubbing himself over her clit, and was convinced some vertebrae in his spine melted when she gave him the gift of that sound again, even as her slick wetness soaked him. She never failed to be ready for him, he marveled. Never failed to make him feel welcome, wanted, even loved.

Loved.

With one fierce thrust he entered her, a groan breaking from him as her hot depths closed around him like a tailor-made glove. She took every last centimeter of him as if she’d been made to fit his exact specifications. The spine-tingling friction of sliding into her heat again and again was like finding where he belonged.

He belonged with her.

Driven to drown everything in the blissful sensations flooding through him, he leaned forward until her thighs were almost at her chest level and his eyes were looking right into hers. The purity of pleasure multiplied a hundredfold as her love-drunk eyes focused on him, seeping into him until every nerve ending buzzed with crazed, intoxicated delight. With his gaze locked furiously with hers, he plunged wildly into her like it was what he’d been created to do.

Maybe that was true.

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, breathless. A whisper from the sweetest dream he’d ever had could never compare to Essie when he was inside her. “There’s that face. That beautiful face. I love to see it like this. I love it. I love it.” Her eyes began to close while the red-hot channel around him tightened in that mind-shattering way he couldn’t get enough of, and with a groan he gave himself over to it completely. “I love you.”

The wave of pleasure that had been threatening to break suddenly overtook him, plunging him into something so pure it could only be called rapture. As he thrust into her as if his life depended on it, her words echoed through him until they were all he heard.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Three little words. Who knew three little words had the power to terrify a man?” Exasperated, Essie moved around to Angel’s other side, checking the way the material gathered under the arm. The seam was just a little tighter than it had been, but it would do in a pinch. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him run so fast.”

“I think
last-minute alterations
could conceivably count as two words, since the first two are hyphenated. In my book, less words equals less scary, so that makes Twist an extra-special wuss.” Smiling, Angel kept her arms up over her head while Essie stepped back to check how the white blouse hung. The blouse had a body-conscious silhouette, with the midriff and breasts covered in solid fabric, while the arms, shoulders and back were covered in white sheer material to show off the wearer’s ink while still looking feminine, even elegant. Though she had this design in the women’s daily wear line, Essie thought it would do just was well for a night out on the town when it was paired with its chiffon skirt, with its strategically spaced mesh panels up the sides. A woman could easily wear a thong underneath it and still have that risqué, nothing-underneath look.

Or, a woman actually could go commando, just as she had done when she walked casually out of PSI the day before, her thong permanently disappeared into Steele’s pocket.

The thought made her grin as she went over Angel’s outfit one last time. She hadn’t been able to ask Steele for her thong back, as they’d had to rush to get themselves decent when someone rattled the handle of the door and crashed into it, clearly thinking it would swing wide open, when in fact Steele had locked it. Essie had hustled out of there soon after and left Steele to deal with whatever fallout there was in their decision to temporarily take over the meeting room. He’d texted her later to tell her that he’d dodged any trouble with his employer, but he’d been tagged to do some overnight surveillance that would keep him busy.

As much as she’d missed him, the alone-time was fine with her. The rundown of how many stars would be ogling her House Of Payne collection less than a week from now had kicked her into a manic flurry of activity. Suddenly nothing was cool enough, sharp enough,
awesome
enough to be seen, and all she wanted to do was polish each piece until she was convinced it couldn’t possibly be any better.

She wasn’t there yet. But she was getting there.

“I guess my brother doesn’t care whether or not he looks hot in my clothes. That’s going to make him look bad and me look worse. I’m thinking of calling our mother to strong-arm him into behaving himself,” Essie muttered, shooing Mooch off the notepad she’s left on the window ledge. The cat offered a musical trill as he jumped down, gave her a dirty look, then sauntered to the kitchen area like he owned the place. “Twist always listens to her. Okay, you can relax, Angel, we’re done.”

“Cool.” Angel lowered her arms and looked this way and that in the mirror, smiling at how her dreamy, fantasy-based tattoos showed through the pale mesh. “I don’t suppose I get to keep any of this stuff once the show is over, so I?”

“You kidding? As far as I’m concerned, it’s all yours.” Essie ticked off the items they’d gone through and was pleased to see that as far as Angel was concerned, they were ready for the big show. Twist, however, was another matter. “Did that dork of a brother of mine say where he was going? I really do need to have him show up for one final fitting before Friday’s dress rehearsal.”

“No, and to be honest, he’s driving me crazy.”

“Oh? What’s he up to now?”

Angel loosed a gusty sigh. “That’s just it, I don’t
know
. Twist has been acting weird lately. He won’t give me a straight answer to a straight question. And he’s been disappearing on me, usually before we drive into work together, and whenever I ask him where he’s going, he gets all shifty. Which, in Twist’s case, is him telling me to my face that he’s doing something right now that he doesn’t want to tell me about. Subterfuge isn’t exactly his thing,” Angel acknowledged with a grimace, even as Essie made a telltale sound of understanding that made Angel wheel around. “What? You know something, don’t you?”

“Uh…”

“What is he up to? Essie, you can tell me, I won’t say a word, I swear. What’s going on with Twist?”

“Um…” Essie sucked in both her lips and bit down hard. It was the only way she knew how to keep from blurting out the beautiful surprise Twist was putting together for Angel’s birthday that was now less than two weeks away. Not only did the entire Santiago family know about it, but so did Angel’s own family and best friends as well. The only person truly in the dark was Angel, and Essie wasn’t about to be the one to illuminate her and ruin everything.

“Look, I just need to know one thing.” To her surprise, Angel grabbed both her hands and hung on tight, and the anxiety in her sister-in-law’s expression hit her right in the heart. “Is Twist… is he regretting getting married? Is he spending all this time away from me because he feels like I’ve somehow trapped him, and he’s missing his old bachelor—”

“Oh my God,
no
.” Horrified, Essie squeezed Angel’s fingers before dragging her over to the couch to pull her down onto the cushions with her. “Angel, honey, you’re so completely off-base it’s not even funny. My brother thinks the universe exists just so it can have the privilege of revolving around you, okay? You have nothing to worry about.”

A shaky laugh escaped Angel, and she tucked her pale blonde hair behind her ears. “It’s just… that’s my worst nightmare, I guess. My father felt trapped in his marriage to my mom, and while they’re back together now, it was rough for a long time after he let that particular cat out of the bag. I never want Twist to feel trapped by me. I love him so much that I’d let him go, if that was what he needed to be happy. It would kill me, but I would do it. He’s my whole world.”

“I’m so glad.” Essie again reached for her hand while her sister-in-laws words brought moved tears to her eyes. “Twist deserves to be loved the way you love him, Angel, and you deserve the same. That’s exactly what you have, trust me on this. There
is
something going on, but it’s a super-crazy good something that you’re going to love forever, so try not to worry about it, okay? The last thing your husband would ever want is for you to feel even a moment of worry or anxiety. He loves you so much that the thought of putting you through anything upsetting would tear him apart.”

It was true, Essie thought later after seeing her sister-in-law off and the clothes Angel had tried on hung before her for one last steaming. Her brother had had a rough life, in part because of her attack, and there had been a time where it seemed as though Twist—and the rest of the family—would never know true happiness again.

But love healed all wounds, especially the kind of love that touched the soul. That was what Angel and Twist had. She was the balm that soothed her brother’s wounds, and that thought eased Essie’s conscience over telling Angel that Twist was working on a big surprise for her. Twist loved his new wife so much that he’d no doubt break out in hives if he knew his actions were causing Angel stress. That was how it was to love someone; the thought of hurting that person, even inadvertently, was too terrible to even think about.

She knew that now.

She hadn’t meant to tell Steele that she loved him, but she wasn’t sorry she did. It was impossible not to love a man who’d gone out of his way to bring her out into the world. She lived life now in all its glory, and she had Steele to thank for that. It had taken a living nightmare that most people would thankfully never experience to shove her into her cocoon of numbness, where nothing of life could ever touch her. It only made sense that a man beyond any fantasy was the one who was strong enough to pull her back out of it.

She was wrapping the cord around the steamer when a knock on the door brought her attention around to it. After a quick check through the peephole, her heart skipped a beat as she swung it open with a breathless smile. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself, sweetness.” Though he looked like he hadn’t slept and his face was shadowed with a sexy scruff, his eyes lit up the moment he saw her. His arms came around her while propelling her back into the cramped apartment, and the moment they did everything clicked into place in her world.

“Tell me you’re done working for the day.” The words were growled into her neck as he kicked the door closed behind him. “After spending a boring-ass night with Havlik, who talks too much, and Echo, who doesn’t talk at all, all I wanna do is take you out for some ramen, then go home so we can fuck like rabbits before sleeping the clock around.”

In a heartbeat, she realigned her thinking. “I just wrapped up Angel’s fitting session, and I can let my brother off the hook for tonight when it comes to making him do his final fitting. I was going to apply the screws to him via our mom in order to get him to cooperate, but torturing Twist can wait until tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you the sweetest thing, sacrificing like that.” He lifted his head from where it was against her neck to kiss her, a slow, deep tangling of tongues that heated her skin so much she began to believe spontaneous combustion could actually happen. When he at last broke the kiss and nuzzled his face with hers, the sound of his disturbed breath told her he felt exactly the same. “You know, if you keep kissing me like that, I don’t mind if your brother never cooperates with you. Hell, I’ll pay him to keep doing whatever it is he’s doing just so I can have you all to myself.”

“Believe it or not, he’s buying a dream house for his much-adored new bride and surprising her with it on her birthday,” she said, smiling against his lips. He recoiled a fraction, no doubt in surprise. “I know, crazy, right? Buying something that important without even consulting Angel… I can’t believe my brother’s guts. Then again, the Santiagos are well-known for going big when it comes to romance. Not to mention Angel’s dad is an architect who knows exactly what his daughter would like, so they’ve drawn up the perfect house for them to raise a family in. Isn’t that sweet? Crazy, but sweet.”

“Yeah. Crazy.” His arms loosened and his hands fell to her hips—not pulling her into him, but rather simply holding her still, as if he didn’t know what to do with her. Slowly her smile faded as she stared up at him, a rivulet of disquiet trickling through her when she couldn’t decipher his expression.

“What?” She touched his cheek, and though she couldn’t visibly detect any movement on his part, some instinct deep inside sensed his withdrawal. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing.” His mouth moved into a smile, but it never reached his eyes as he gently set her away. “You hungry? I know it’s early, but I’m feeling the need to get out of here. What do you say?”

Something was wrong. She was sure of it. But since he was obviously not in the mood to share, she decided to let it slide—for now. “Let me just feed Mooch for the night and we can go.”

“Mooch, huh?” As she headed into the kitchen area, Steele moved to where the clothes she had steamed hung by the window. “Still taking care of that cat?”

“His owner moved out unexpectedly and left Mooch behind.” Reaching for a paper plate, she opened a can of beef liver pâté. The damn cat ate better than she did. “As wonderful as it is to have peace and quiet, I’m still pissed off that that self-centered jerk upstairs abandoned his cat. When you choose to open your life to a pet, you should have the freaking decency to accept full responsibility for taking care of it, you know? But he didn’t, especially when it wasn’t convenient for him, first-class prick that he was, so that’s it. I now have a cat.” Checking the water dish to see if Mooch had enough to last overnight, she plopped the pâté on the paper plate, set it down and watched the cat zero in on it like a food-seeking missile. “Okay, that should do it. Let me just wash my hands and—”

“Wait.”

She turned on the faucet, soaped up her hands and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Wait, what?”

He took a breath that moved his whole chest, and as she reached to turn off the water his eyes burned into her. “I need to know if that’s what you think of me.”

“What
I
think of
you
?” Confused and hating that the unnamed disquiet was now a hell of a lot more than a trickle, she dried off her hands as she turned back to him. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you were talking about how that asshole upstairs treated his pet, but I’ve gotta know… if that was your veiled way of talking about how I treat my Pet.”

What in the world
… “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“From the time I set my sights on you,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her, “I’ve made damn sure you were well taken care of, even going so far as to clear out that noise-making asshole upstairs so you could live in peace. I did that, and whatever else that needed to get done, because I care about your happiness, even when it’s not
convenient
for me, so I’m nothing like that dick.”

Essie stared at him, her jaw unhinged. “What? You made Thor move?”

“That guy was a piece of shit,” he grated, and his eyes were almost black with a dangerously churning emotion she couldn’t put a label on. “I explained to him how much he needed to get himself gone, and his response was to prove how he was the king of assholes. He didn’t give two shits that he was making you and all his other neighbors crazy. Said y’all should’ve felt fucking
privileged
to hear him play without paying a cover charge. Fucker.”