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2024-10-29 19:42:56"No.” He opened the car door and sat me inside. He slid across the seat and ghosted his fingers along the back of my neck into my hair. “That was because I couldn’t keep my hands off you. Tonight will be because I want you to go to sleep knowing I’ve explored every single inch of your body with my fingers and my tongue. Tonight will be because I want you to go sleep knowing every part of you belongs to me in the most obsessive way possible.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.” I finished on a gasp. His fingers were snaking up the inside of my leg, dangerously close to hitting the apex of my thighs.
“You’re my obsession, Gina, and I won’t stop until I’m yours. I won’t give up until you belong to me the way I belong to you—wholly.” He traced his tongue along the seam of my lips and his finger along my panties. &ldq
I wanted to squirm my hips and clamp my thighs together, but that would be giving him what he wanted—the knowledge that I am ready for him. “Now you’re getting in this boat, and as we travel around the city, you can sit opposite me and wonder about all the ways I’m planning to make your body tremble beneath me tonight.” I closed my eyes as I took a seat. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. He was playing my body and my desire in a way that meant I can’t stay out of the game. Every step further into my lust brought me closer to loving him, and he knew that. He was impulsive and playful when he wanted to be, but when he wanted something, he planned so carefully I had no choice but to go along with it. He did it in Paris and he was doing it now. If I believe him, that his love never faded, then I have no doubt that this trip was to make me fall in love again.
My body responded to him instantly, easily. The desire that had been building all day consumed me, and the heady feeling made me lose myself in the sweet stroke of his tongue across mine.“Tan hermoso,” he murmured, his teeth grazing my bottom lip. He sat up and I moved to sink my fingers in his hair, but I was trapped.He had tied my wrists to the bed. With his tie.“I told you… Tonight is mine. I can’t explore you and pleasure you the way I want unless you’re not touching me.”I wanted to argue and fight with him, but the lust that filled his eyes as his gaze travelled across my nearly naked body stopped me. Instead of annoyance, red-hot desire wrapped around me and I gave in to him.My heart pounded at the slow, reverent way he kissed his way down my neck and across my collarbone. Everything about the way he was touching me was
But this was his car.But still.Oh God.I slapped my hand over my eyes. Shut the fuck up, Gina. Love obviously made me a little neurotic and a whole lot batshit crazy.The car pulled up outside a tall glass building proclaiming Stone Advertising above the large doors. George was standing in front of it, his eyes on the sleeve he was playing with. Some guy in a suit opened my door.Blue eyes met mine as I left the car, and I raised my eyebrow. “Care to explain why you’ve pulled me down to your office on short notice?”“I need your help to select some images.”“Are you kidding me?” I stopped in front of him and poked his solid chest. “You pulled me down here without any kind of message to pick some damn photos? Do you know how crazy I just went in the car?”Evidently, he didn’t care—not i
The lump in my throat was too big to swallow, and I tried several times before it went. I stepped away from Georfe when he reached for me and walked to the windows. “I pushed that aside because you asked me to, but no matter what happens, no matter how real this is, it’s only happening because I have to be here. We can’t ignore the fact I’m only here because you’re paying me to be.” “What if I stopped it? Called your agent and cancelled it? Would you stay, or would you go?” “Don’t ask me that,” I whispered. “Would you call her and leave? Stop doing it so you could stay?” “I said not to ask me that!” I snapped, turning. “I don’t know, George. I don’t know. What I do is my life. It’s all I have.” “You have me, Gina. You know you do.” I closed my eyes. “Because I’m paid to. That’s always going to be
“Why? I was just a crazy American girl amazed by the Tower, just like thousands of others that pass through here every year.”“I was as amazed by you as you were by the Tower. Just like you had to see it, I had to speak to you.”I touched my lips to his gently. “I’m glad you did. Most of the time, anyway.”“Most of the time?” He smirked when I shrugged in response then sighed. “Come on. I made reservations for dinner.”“I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.” I looked at my light blue dress.“You look perfect. No arguments.” He pulled me down a long, winding street, and I flashed back to our first date.The one after he replaced my coffee. The proper one.“George?” My smile crept into my voice. “Are you taking me to that little sandwich shop we found
I swallowee. “You planned this, didn’t you? That’s why…” You bought me. I paused, unable to say the words. “Six weeks, not five. You knew all along this would happen.”“No, Gina. I didn’t know. I hoped, but I never assumed. Not a single day has passed that I haven’t hoped to look in your eyes and see what I feel reflected back again.”I turned and wrapped my arms around his waist. He embraced me swiftly, his face in my hair, breathing me in, his arms tight around my body. I sniffed.“You’re a real pain in my ass, Stone, ya know that?”“You’ve been a pain in my ass since you ruined my sweater by wiping coffee off your shirt.” He kissed my head and released me.“Oh, don’t even go there!”***I stretched out my
Air filled my lungs with one short, sharp inhale, and I fell into him. The Post-its scattered on the floor around us, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was burying my face into the chest of this man I’ve loved since I knew what love was and wondering what the fucking hell I was going to do.I clinged to the back of his robe. “Why didn’t I find them? Why?”“I wanted you to look,” he whispered into my neck. “I wanted you to look for something that was so glaringly obvious to me. Something you were oblivious to.”“How was I supposed to find them if I never knew?”“I don’t know. Jesus.” He cupped the back of my head. “I’ve done a whole lot of fucking hoping since you walked into that goddamn booth, Gina. I hoped every morning you’d find them, and when each night you hadn’t,
“Here,” he said and bent down.I frowned at him from the end of the bridge. There was no way he could find it. There was absolutely no fucking way he knew where it was.“Here,” he repeated with more conviction, a padlock in his hands. He turned to face me. “It’s here.”“There are thousands on padlocks on this bridge. You honestly think I believe you know the exact place ours is?”“Twenty-eight steps in, roughly.”“Are you kidding me?”“Kind of halfway down because you had a freak-out about it not being even.”“I don’t believe you.”“Silver and gold. We scratched our initials in with a penknife we found in my suite.”So much emotion rose in me at that memory. The moment I realized forever would never happen with the guy I loved
EpilogueFour Months Later“No, no, no!” I dropped my forehead to the table. “Why is this so hard for them to get right? Champagne and ivory are not the same color. The seat sashes are supposed to be champagne, not fucking ivory!”Brenda patted my shoulder. “There, there, Bridezilla. You have three months still to chew their asses out until they get it right.”“Brenda, with the amount George is paying them to get it right, I shouldn’t have to be chewing asses.” I sighed and straightened again. “This is crazy. Why can’t we just elope in some tropical country and get married without all this fancy crap?”My best friend laughed and shut the laptop down. “Okay, babe. Let’s get you a drink. You and I both know you wouldn’t want to have this any other way.”“I know. I just… I
I was not getting it out of him no matter how hard I tried. I knew he wouldn’t give anything away until he was good and ready, so I was stuck sitting here in my awkward limbo until he did. Stuck here, wondering, waiting, what-iffing.Our plates were cleared away and replaced with our main course. Again, it was eaten in silence, our eyes flitting from our plates to each other’s. The only difference was that there was a zinging of tension, one tight enough to cut, and I swallowed hard. My fork clattered as I placed it against my plate and looked at him firmly.“Do you want dessert?” he asked innocently, his steady voice betraying the tightness between us.“No. I want to know what this is.”“This? It’s dinner in the Eiffel Tower, sweetheart.”“No. What is it? Why are you doing it?”Geo
He prodded me in the side. “I think I found desires you weren’t aware of over the last few days.”Ah, this much wass true. Who knew having sex in front of a large bay window in the middle of the day was so fun?“I was very much aware of them. They’d just never been satisfied before now.”“They’ll continue to be satisfied, too.”“I should hope so.”He laughed quietly, burying his face into my neck. “Sit up. Let me wash your hair.”I did as he said, and he grabbed the showerhead from the little holder I placed it in for easy reach. When the water was the right temperature, I leaned my head back and let him wet my hair.“Ivan’s coming back to Seattle in a few weeks.”“He is?”“Hmm. He said he’ll call you to arra
“Again?”“Mhmm.”“Oh no.” I wrestled myself from him. “No, no, no!”I laughed, running through the apartment. And as I slammed the office door shut behind me, I realized my mistake.You never run from someone willing to stalk you until he can catch you.“Gina.” He hummed my name through the door. “Do I need to break the door down?”“That’s a habit for you.”“Open the fucking door. The longer you keep me waiting out here, the harder I’ll have to fuck you.”Oh, silly, silly man. When will he realized that, that was not a bad thing at all?I giggled and tapped out a random beat on the door. Truth was, I had no intention of letting George Stone fuck me right now.I planned to sit him on that fancy-ass leather chair an
“We are?” “Yes. You’re wearing my shirt again, and I believe it was some six hours ago I was promising to fuck you on my desk, so I suggest you get your ass into my office and hop up onto that desk pronto.” “You’re getting more demanding by the day, Mr. Stone.” I added some extra wiggle to my hips as I walked, and I was rewarded by a low growl of pleasure behind me. And punished with a sharp smack on my ass. “I never said anything about a demand. I’m requiring you get on my damn desk. Now move.” *** “Thank you.” George took a large envelope from someone and closed the door behind him. I watched from my slouched position on the sofa as he pulled a letter opener from the kitchen drawer and sliced the letter open. Because who doesn’t keep one of those in their kitchen?
It was ten in the morning and George still wasn’t up.That alone told me how much yesterday tired him. He was incapable of sleeping past six. Crazy man.I rocked my head from side to side. If I had any idea exactly what he was doing last night, I’d go into his office and finish it. As it was, I had no idea, so all I can was sit there like a freaking orange waiting to be juiced.I couldn’t read because my concentration wouldn’t last beyond a page. I had done my Candy Crush and Coin Dozer thing, and if I saw one more whining status post on Facebook, I’ll do one of my own.The sound of a phone ringing in his office cut through the silence, and I paused. Oh hell.I jumped down and ran into the room, barely blinking at the name on screen before answering. “Hello?”“Hello? Gi
I sat up, brushing hair from my face, and listened for any indication of him being around. There wasn’t any, so I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and made my way out of the room. The city lights flooded the front room, and I glanced at the clock. Three a.m. Where could he possibly be at this time? Something creaked in the direction of his office, and I walked down the hall to it. His door was cracked open slightly, and a gentle light from the television was flickering through the tiny gap. I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the door and eased it open, my eyes landing on his exhausted, shirtless figure. He was slumping over his desk, his fingers buried in his hair. His laptop was open in front of him, papers were scattered everywhere, some lying idly on the floor, and a desk light was illuminating the mess. “You should be in bed, asleep,” he mutte
“George!”“What does it say?” I looked at her. She bit her lip. “Rachel. Tell me now!”“She said that if you don’t pay within the hour, she’ll have it distributed to a large number of websites and presses ready to run a breaking news story first thing tomorrow. They’re waiting for her story.”“Will she fuck.” There was no wavering in his voice. Despite his lack of jacket and tie, George looked as serious as ever. “Rachel, get me her on the phone ten minutes ago.” He turned. “Alexander, get something drawn up that prevents her from contacting either Gina or me for the next fucking lifetime. This ends right now.”“George, you can’t pay her!” I wrenched myself from his mom’s grip. “Don’t be so fucking stupid!”He br
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking at my feet. Guilt and remorse—they flooded me. Consumed me.George pulled me into him and tilted my face back. “Look at me, Gina.”I shook my head. I couldn’t. Not this time. I couldn’t look in his eyes and know that everything we have was on the line. Everything he and his father have worked for was now hanging in limbo because of me.How many reporters have picked that up? How many stories will I see tomorrow? How many news alerts will pop up on my cell?“Gina.” His voice was hard. No-nonsense. “Look at me. Now.”My eyes disobeyed me. They raked up his body until they found a sea of bright blue.“We will figure this out. Do you understand me? It’s unexpected and sudden, but we will fix this.”Tears born of a real fea
