TIMBER: The Bad Boy's Baby (19 page)

“What next?” she asks, breathing hard as I pull her into my lap at the edge of bed, so that she’s straddling me.

I brush her long hair over her shoulder. Her nipples are still perfect and erect. My thumbs circle them, my cock growing harder as she arches her back once again. She really has that move down pat—and the thing about Emmy is, it isn’t a move. It’s like her body is made to get hot and bothered.

Hot for me.

I move a hand down her back, running it over her soft-skinned ass, my fingers grazing her hole, knowing I’ll have her on all fours later.

“What’s next is I make love to you,” I tell her.

She shakes her head, ever so slightly, as if disbelieving me.

“Don’t say it like that,” she says. Her breath is showing me she’s hot and ready, but her words tell me she’s holding back.

Which, I mean, I fucking get it. I’ve never been like this before.

Make love? Who the hell am I? McQueen would never stop giving me hard time for cheesy-ass words like that.

But I can’t help it.

I don’t want to push Emmy against a wall, I want to cover her with my body, create a space that is safe and warm and ours.

I know, I’m a fucking
Lifetime
movie.

But this woman is something else entirely. And the best thing is, she has no fucking clue. A charmed-life girl wants to hear words like
make love
. A jaded woman doesn’t want to hear the same things. She doesn’t
need
the same things.

I want to know what Emmy needs.

“Who hurt you?” I ask.

“Everyone,” she says, a sharp laughing escaping her swollen lips.

“Who’s everyone?”

Her arms are around my neck, and my arms are around her waist, and I can’t think of a time I have ever become so wrapped up in anyone.

The last time I cried over a woman it was at my mother’s funeral. Before that it was at my sisters’.

Like I’ve said, my family is fucked up. Women in my family are tools, something you use to build what you need. For my Pops, it was his fucking empire.

So now I don’t get close to women, because I don’t need to get personal—real personal—with anyone. Because it fucking hurts when they leave. Hurts when they die.

Hurts when they’re murdered.

But Emmy is different. I can see it in her eyes, in the warmth of her smile, in her uncompromising laugh, and in her no bullshit responses.

“Everyone, meaning my parents,” she says. “My father was awful, beyond terrible. He was a drug dealer in Seattle. It was bad, and my mom was just somehow okay with it, when, honestly, it was no place for a child to grow up. But then they died and my sister and I were left on our own—okay, do you really want to talk about this now? Because I mean … like, the mood was all steamy and now it’s like … heavy. I have enough heavy in my life,
Boss
.”

“I can see that,” I tell her. “But it sounds like we’re more alike than you know.”

“I don’t know … you’re like….” She looks around the suite, taking in the rich leather, the thick drapes. The velvet chairs. My family was loaded, always. Money was never lacking. And I try to see this room through her eyes, the eyes of a child who grew up without money. And even if in some ways we’re alike, in other ways we’re different.

Maybe it’s time for different. Maybe it’s time for her.

“I’m a twenty-seven-year-old man who’s worked his way to the top of this town. I get it. You think I’m an ass, because I am an ass. There’s no hiding that truth. I’ve fucked half the women in this city. I ride them hard and make them come, and Emmy, there is no denying who I am. But there’s no denying who you are either,” I tell her.

“And who is that?” she asks. “Because it feels like I’m a girl working my ass off to pay for stupid bills, a college dropout, and your latest conquest. Is that who you think I am?”

“No,” I tell her, my eyes searing into her perfect baby blues. “I think you’re mine.”

I grab a condom from the drawer in the table next to us and roll it onto myself. Her eyes, filled with desire, look down at my fully erect cock, and she blinks back tears.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asks in disbelief. “Being so perfect? You don’t even know me, know the mess I am.”

“I don’t fucking care about your mess. I can clean up anything.”

And then I press my lips against hers, devouring her with my mouth, I place her in the center of the bed, her brown hair splayed around her face, and I can’t imagine a more beautiful sight.

“Emmy, tonight, forget about everything. Everyone. The problems you have will be here regardless. Tonight, just think about what you want, about your pleasure. I’ll give it to you.”

With my arms on either side of her, I lower myself as she spreads her legs, her opening still pink and pulsing with desire. She’s ready for my hungry cock, and she won’t be satisfied with anyone else, ever again.

I’ll make sure of that.

My cock enters her, and she gives a sharp gasp as I push myself in her tight pussy. I love a woman nice and tight, but filling Emmy is like something else entirely. I’d swear she’s a virgin, but I know she’s not—she’s definitely sucked a guy’s cock before. She knew how to handle me way too well.

But I do know she’s never been with a man as big as me, because her eyes got so greedy when she saw me earlier. And now her eyes roll back, she’s so overcome with me inside her.

Leaning over her, covering her body with my own flesh, I press deep, listening to her moans of desire, wanting her words to always be lost when she is filled with me.

I want her to be lost, until she is found.

She comes quickly. And when she does, she laughs, loudly, as if she is shocked by the way her body has been overcome.

I thrust myself in her, coming too. And, damn, if this woman’s been overcome, I’ve been fucking undone.

W
aking up
, startled, I look at the clock. Fuck. It’s after ten in the morning. I’m in bed, somehow tucked in under blankets. But I don’t remember that. All I remember is a gorgeous cock and a more gorgeous orgasm and a night of fucking I’ll never forget.

Looking around, I see that
Boss-man
is no longer next to me.

Of course he isn’t. He was using me last night, the same way I was using him. An escape. A release. I don’t even know his name.

I get out of bed, my stomach rolling with hunger. I can’t even remember the last time I had a good meal.

I smile to myself, deliciously, thinking that my mind is
way
too dirty. Because honestly, I didn’t eat, but I sure as hell could have swallowed
Boss-man
all night. Which I basically did.

Okay, back to reality, Emmy. That was make-believe, this is real-life.

And even though the last thing I want to do is put those fishnets back on, put on the crumpled pleather leotard, slide on those stilettos … I know I must.

I need to get to my apartment, shower.

I need to visit my sister in the hospital.

I need to pretend this never happened, because
Boss-man
is shady in the ways I promised myself I’d never get tangled up in again. Shady in ways that make me feel like I am my mother’s daughter.

And I want to be more. The past five years, I have fought to be better, braver. Stronger. The kind of woman my mom never was.

I wrap a sheet around me and walk from the bedroom to retrieve my clothes. Stepping back into the empty suite’s living room, where the guys played poker last night, I think how much really has been a mystery.

I’ll never see
Boss-man
again. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll glimpse his friends around the casino.

Before I dress, I grab my purse from the closet where I stowed it last night when I got here. No missed calls on my phone, so that’s good. Though I did miss a text an hour ago from Claire asking if I wanted to meet for morning Bloody Marys.

I smile, hoping she had a good night, knowing there is no way in hell I am going to dish about mine.

I need to put that orgasmic time behind me.

It’s for the best—I certainly have enough on my plate. Determined to move forward, I walk through the living room to get last night’s uniform. Putting my sad excuse for an “outfit” back on will equal a walk of shame I’ve never experienced in Vegas.

But there are worse things than getting properly screwed.

No shame here.

A few shopping bags sit next to my rumbled uniform. Looking around the empty room, I frown, knowing they weren’t here last night.

Setting my phone down on the stack of magazines on the side table, I take a better looks at the bags around me. Designer everything. Completely above my pay grade.

I pull out a tissue-wrapped pair of Saint Laurent white skinny jeans and a black-and-white top in a size six. My size.

Well, at least on the days I don’t eat Tommy C’s pizza. Which last night I did not.

Next to it, a Jimmy Choo bag contains a box with a pair of size nine leopard print heels, that yeah, look like they might hurt to walk in, but it would be worth dying in these. A La Perla bag holds a gorgeous white medium-sized thong, and a matching white lace bra — 34DD, my size again.

A fourth bag holds a Bordeaux-colored, sleeveless bandage dress from Herve Leger that literally has me drooling. Another shoebox holds a pair of Dolce and Gabbana peep-toe booties in black. There are no underthings for this dress, and I kind of think that’s the point. This dress leaves exactly zero to the imagination.

I swallow, never actually having held such amazing pieces in my life. I empty all the tissue paper from the bags, wondering what it all means, not liking what it implies. There’s no note, no explanation. No nothing.

Standing, I bite my lip. Hesitant. Near the door, there’s a cart with a carafe of coffee and a silver lidded tray. I walk to it and lift the lid, revealing fresh fruit and a bagel with lox.

I frown; my stomach roars. I try to think. What the fuck does this all mean? Then, next to the food on the cart, I see a small vase with a single exquisite red rose. An envelope leans against it.

On the front it reads
Emmy Rose
in a rough scrawl.

Running my finger across the seal, I pull out a piece of
Spades Royalle
stationary.

E
mmy
,

I want to see you again.

In this dress.

Then I’m gonna tear it off of you.

And you are gonna fuck me.

I won’t take no for an answer.

Tonight. Eleven o’clock. Stacked.

— Boss-man

M
y heart pounds
in my chest, and I don’t know what to think. I blink, trying to decide … do I put on these fucking clothes and walk out of here like I’m the property of a guy who is supposed to be a one-night stand?

The property of a guy who’s shady. Shady like the kind I have to avoid—the kind that was my father. The kind that killed my mother. The kind that nearly killed me.

I saw the way
Boss-man
spoke to the guy in the hallway last night. It sent a shiver down my spine … I can’t go back to a life full of loss, full of nothing. I’ve worked too hard to become something.

I can’t. I can’t get tangled up with this cocky bastard. That note alone should be reason enough to stay clear of this womanizing, no-name asshole.

He thinks he can buy me? I cannot be bought.

Grabbing my fishnets, I sit on the couch, determined to walk out of here—yeah, maybe in yesterday’s clothes, but my head will be held high.

As I start to roll the netting over my foot, I hear my cellphone ring. I grab it, wondering if it might be
Boss-man
.

Ugh. Like it would be. Like it matters.

I reach for my phone and a hotel magazine with the name
SPADES ROYALLE
splayed across the front tumbles to the floor. I grab my phone, answering it before it goes to voicemail.

“Hello?” I grab the fallen magazine, pausing on the article that it’s flipped open to.

What the fuck?

“Emmy? This is Detective Clark, down at the station.” His voice is gruff, the only way I’ve ever heard him speak.

“Detective Clark?” I ask, my voice catching. My eyes stuck on the article on the floor. Detective Clark is the last person I expected to hear from. “Is everything okay?” I pick up the article, completely distracted by the picture of Ace, the owner of Spades Royalle Casino.

Completely overwhelmed. Dizzy.

I sit down, trying to focus on the detective.

“Yeah, it’s Clark. There’s been some development on your sister’s case. You need to get down the station, stat.”

“Do you know who the driver is?” I ask, hoping the answer is yes. Finally, yes.

“Just get down here and I’ll fill you in.”

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as possible.” Finally, something about my sister. I’ve waited two months for this phone call.

I hang up the phone, my eyes absorbed with the picture of Ace.

The smoldering green eyes that had locked with mine all last night.

Ace, the man I slept with. The man who fucked me silly.

Ace is
Boss-man.

I’ve been royally screwed by a bad boy.