Grounded (Up In The Air #3)

CHAPTER FOUR

Mr. Excessive

James tucked me in tenderly, kissing my forehead and telling me to get some sleep. I didn’t argue. I doubted I could have walked out of there, let alone gotten back to his apartment still standing, without some sleep. I drifted off.

I awoke slowly, languorously, stretching my sore body against soft sheets, my eyes drifting open with an effort. The sight that met my eyes brought me fully awake.

The black and blue bouquet of wicked roses was arranged on the pillow as though it were a real arrangement. James wasn’t in bed with me, of course—he was working, but the bouquet was apparently his replacement. I turned away from the brutal reminder of our earlier activities, sitting up.

I didn’t know what had happened to my clothes, other than that they weren’t in the room with me, and out there was an office. I found myself in the awkward position of having to wrap myself in a sheet to peek carefully into the office. I would be mortified if James had company.

Thankfully he was alone, sitting at his desk silently, a phone to his ear. He noticed me immediately. He waved me to him. I approached him slowly, clutching the huge, soft white sheet to me tightly.

He covered the mouthpiece on his phone carefully. “Morning, my love. Lose the sheet and sit here,” he said, patting the spot on his desk directly in front of his chair.

Oh my.

He had more plans for me.

I felt self-conscious as I dropped the sheet, but I forgot the feeling almost instantly as I saw his hot gaze on my body.

“So what’s the problem?” he said into his phone, his voice a little gruff.

I had to brush against him to move to the spot he had indicated. I knew it wasn’t an accident. He gave my hip a brief kiss as I moved to arrange myself.

I perched myself on the edge of his desk, facing him.

He was fully clothed in a crisp, fresh suit. Of course he’d have ungodly expensive extra suits on hand, just in case. This one was a traditional dark gray suit, perfectly tailored in the modern style. His dress shirt was the same color but with a bright white collar, his tie a shocking crimson. He looked devastating, perfect, and sinister—all at once.

He was finely dressed down to his toes, and I had not a stitch on. I was soaking wet and he’d barely even touched me. The old-fashioned office setting wasn’t helping the situation. There was something so inherently erotic about him mastering me from behind the desk where he reigned over his own powerful empire.

He used his free hand to push my thighs wider apart with a firm touch. He covered the mouthpiece of his phone again. “Lean back on your elbows,” he ordered.

I complied.

“Handle it,” he said curtly into the phone.

He rubbed my thigh almost idly, tracing the index finger of his free hand in a leisurely path to my sex.

I writhed.

He used a rather soft touch to sift through my folds. It drove me insane. I shifted against the desk until I could reach the sides of my breasts with my hands. I kneaded at my own flesh roughly.

James gave me a pointed look. That look said I was being very naughty, but he didn’t stop me.

He jammed two fingers into me without warning and I cried out.

He covered his mouthpiece. “Quiet,” he said chidingly, then got swiftly back to his phone call.

He dragged his fingers out, dragging along the most perfect nerves mercilessly.

I could barely process what he said into his phone as he plunged those expert fingers back into me. It was something along the line of, “that’s what I pay you for,” but no one could have paid me to care at that point.

He worked me with those thick fingers for long moments, still with the phone to his ear. I was on the edge of release when I felt him shift a little, leaning towards me.

“Send me the report. Yes. That will be all,” he said.


Seconds later, he buried his face between my legs, his pretty mouth going directly for my * and sucking as his hands stayed busy inside of me.

I didn’t last ten seconds before he had me crying out in release, a hand burying itself in his silky hair. I clenched tightly around those skillful fingers.

He pulled them out slowly, standing. He sucked on his fingers and I writhed under his stare. His hands moved down to the waist of his pants. I watched with hungry eyes as he released his hard, heavy erection from its confines.

He bent down and kissed me, an open-mouthed, hot kiss where I tasted myself on his mouth. I sucked on his tongue.

He straightened abruptly, gripping one of my nearly limp legs, bringing my ankle up to his shoulder. He arranged my other leg on his other shoulder. He kissed the inside of my ankle, and drove into me.

His turquoise eyes were intense on mine as he moved inside of me. Those eyes were so tarnished. It made them impossibly more beautiful to me.

That angle, with my hips on the very edge of the desk, and my legs pushed so high, felt so deep and intense that he was pushing me over the edge and into another orgasm with a few hard strokes.

“Come,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

I fell apart.

He didn’t let up as my inner muscles spasmed around him, didn’t even slow down. He leaned down hard, pushing my legs nearly flush with my torso. His eyes were close to angry on mine, our foreheads almost touching, as he rasped, “I’m going to make you come so many times that you forget all of the ways that you can find to doubt us.”

And he did. He hammered away at me, pressing the hot spots on my body with consummate skill. I wasn’t sure I could form a coherent thought when he finally allowed himself to empty inside of me. I certainly couldn’t think well enough to count my own orgasms. He twisted his hips viciously right at the end, making me come again despite the fact that I was beyond sated.

I couldn’t even lift an arm as he pulled out of me slowly.

“Go to sleep, Love. I’ll tell the guys that we’ll have a late dinner. You need to rest a bit.” As he spoke, he was lowering my legs, and then shifting me into his arms. I was asleep before he could carry me back into the bedroom.

When I woke again, James was in the same position he’d been in the last time. He was at his desk, a phone to his ear. He swiveled his chair as I stepped tentatively into his office. He smiled wickedly as he studied me. It was his Dom smile. Mercurial man.

He covered the mouthpiece of his phone. “Drop the sheet and come here,” he ordered, his tone, oh so casual.

I obeyed, feeling surreal as the scene before my second nap seemed to be playing itself out again.

He covered his phone again. “Get on your knees and suck me off,” he ordered casually.

I lowered myself, licking my lips as I watched him. It was as though he’d read my mind. When I’d seen him sitting there, sprawled out like an insolent king on his throne, this was exactly what I’d wanted to do to him.

I freed him from his slacks with greedy hands. I gripped both hands around that perfect cock, stroking.

He plunged his free hand in my hair tightly, pulling me to him. He shoved me between his legs, moving his hips to the very edge of his chair. He pushed into my mouth. I opened for him, sucking in his tip with a little moan. He thrust in deep, f*cking my mouth so deep that I gagged.

He pulled out, then thrust in again.

I barely noticed when he loudly hung up his phone.

“Relax your throat muscles,” he told me. “Take me deeper.” I took a little more of him that time.

“Use your hands,” he ordered, and I twisted my hands around his base as I sucked him in as deep as I could manage, bobbing my head furiously.

He gripped both hands in my hair, guiding me with hard tugs. He made the loveliest sound in his throat as he poured into me, jerking his hips. I loved it, making my own little sounds as I continued to suck even after he came. He had to tug me away rather firmly. He gave me the warmest look for my efforts.

“You love having your mouth f*cked, don’t you?” he murmured, stroking my lip.

I hummed in agreement. “I love all of it,” I told him, my voice low.

We showered together in the office’s well-appointed restroom. He washed me with tender hands and lingering caresses, as was his wont.

“Your office isn’t what I expected,” I said as he dried me thoroughly. “It doesn’t have the James touch.”

He kissed a hip as he dried my legs. “It was my father’s office, as well. I could never bring myself to change any of it.”

I stroked a hand through his wet hair. My sentimental James.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the bedroom had a closet, or that that closet had clothing for me. James seemed more interested in finding clothes for me than in dressing himself as he perused the large rack of women’s clothing that took up exactly one half of the closet. He was mostly dry, though some of that golden skin was still deliciously damp. He had a towel slung low across his hips. It made it hard to focus on what I was supposed to be doing; to even remember that I was trying to do anything but watch him with hungry eyes.

James pulled a pale gray sheath dress with a boatneck off the rack. “This,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him. “And do I get to pick out your clothes?”

He waved a hand at his side of the closet, still rifling through my rack of clothes. “As you wish, Buttercup,” he said, moving to a display of belts set against a large dresser at the back of the closet.

My breath caught at the phrase, and I glanced at him. He wasn’t even looking at me…

I moved to his side of the closet, shaking it off.

I sifted through clothing so expensive it felt wrong to even touch it. “Do you need to wear a suit?” I asked, because I had so seldom seen him dress in anything else.

“It would be preferable, since we’re dining at one of my properties, and I prefer to appear professional at my place of business. But if something else catches your eye, I’m certainly amenable.”

I shot him an arch look. “Do you suppose beating a guy up for insulting your girlfriend appears professional?”

He grinned at me, not the least repentant. It was a little infuriating. “I’m only human,” he said.

I shook my head at him. He was impossible.

I picked out a beautiful pale gray suit. I quickly located a brilliant turquoise shirt and tie. I’d seen him wear the color before, and it was beyond stunning on him.

I turned to show him my selections to see him bending down to collect a pair of suede turquoise wedges. He held a thin turquoise belt in his hand to go with the sheath. I studied his choices, and then mine, and began to laugh.

I laughed so hard that I had to sit on the floor, my towel falling off me.

I giggled harder as a grinning James pounced, our clothing falling in heaps around us as he pinned me to the floor.

He brushed wet hair out of my face and smiled into my eyes.

“Did you see what I was picking out, or are we really this crazy?” I asked him, laughter still in my voice.

He stroked my cheek, giving me the sweetest smile. I didn’t think there was a person on the planet that could be on the receiving end of that smile and not fall in love with it. With him.

“Of course I peeked,” he told me. “I was prepared to change your whole outfit until we matched.”

I giggled harder and he kissed my laughing lips. He didn’t linger, pulling back quickly.

“You’re insane,” I told him, and stood up to dress.

He hugged me from behind, pressing hard against me, rubbing his smooth chest along my back. He spoke into my ear, “Insane for you, my love.”

I stiffened, warmed by his words but instantly uncomfortable. What did he mean by that? Was it as serious as it sounded, or just his naturally affectionate nature showing itself? He had been saying outrageous things to me from the start, so I had tended not to take them seriously, but it was becoming clearer by the day that he was very serious—that he always had been. Was he expecting me to respond in kind? Because I wasn’t ready for that—didn’t even know how.

The awkward moment quickly passed. James simply kissed my neck softly, and let me go to dress.

He had his office bathroom stocked with toiletries and cosmetics for me. I found this both completely insane and totally convenient. He even had a hair dryer for me. I was ready in less than twenty minutes, James in under ten.

“Do you mind going to dinner with Frankie next time we’re in Vegas?” James asked as I finished up. “Next week sometime.”

“Not at all,” I said quickly, still embarrassed at how jealous I’d been of the woman’s easy affection with James at our first meeting. But she was apparently one of the few beautiful women on the planet that James hadn’t slept with, and I felt too silly for assuming that they had some sort of a past together. I wouldn’t mind a chance to let the woman get a better impression of me.

“And Lana called me. She wants to do lunch with you. She’s in New York this week, and said she’d make herself flexible for you. I told her to contact you, since I wasn’t sure of your plans while I’m working.”

“Oh, that sounds nice,” I said, and meant it. I’d liked the other woman instantly. She was refreshingly candid and easy to talk to. I didn’t expect to make fast friends with many of the people in James’s affluent circles, and so one such friend was a huge comfort.

“Also, Parker and Sophia want to have us over for dinner. I told them maybe in a few weeks. Parker’s version of not scaring you off alarms me, to be honest.”

I smiled, silently agreeing. Baby talk was so not the way to not scare me off.

James wrapped a possessive arm tightly around my waist as we left his office. Blake was waiting for us at the elevator. She nodded at James, her face set in its usual severe lines.

“Reassign Johnny,” James told her shortly.

She was visibly nonplussed. “Sir, what did he do?” she asked, even as we filed into the elevator.

I turned my head to study his face. His jaw was clenched, but that told me nothing of what he was thinking.

“He wants Bianca. I saw him checking out her legs when he was supposed to be escorting her safely into the elevator. You don’t need to fire him; he just needs to be moved. He doesn’t get to guard her body.”

I hadn’t particularly liked Johnny, not at all, in fact, but he was being beyond ridiculous. “James—“ I began.

“Don’t,” James interrupted, his tone bland. His words were not. “If you make a case for why you want him close to you, it won’t help him, trust me.”

I stiffened. Of all of the hair-brained, arbitrary, completely unreasonable things I’d ever heard, this had to top it. “I think you are being crazy. This has nothing to do with Johnny—“

“I don’t like the way you say his name. It’s much too familiar, considering how short a time you’ve known each oth—“

“Are you joking?” I burst out.

“I’ll see to it as soon as I am able, sir,” Blake said, not questioning his crazy actions. I didn’t suppose he would tolerate it if she did. But I could certainly question them.


“James, I won’t allow you to be a tyrant. Johnny did nothing wrong. You can’t say he wants me because of how you interpreted a look.”

“This isn’t about my jealousy, Bianca. Or at least, not only about that. This is about your safety, and if he’s too busy ogling your legs to do his job, he’s of no use to me.”

“And this is based off one look?” I asked him, my jaw setting.

“Yes. I have good instincts.”

“I don’t care. You’re not reassigning him after one look. You told me that I had a say in who was hired or fired, or anything else, and I say that he is not being reassigned based on one look.”

His jaw clenched hard, but I saw immediately that I had won. “Fine. You need more proof. I’ll keep him around long enough to get it. Blake, keep me updated on his behavior when I’m not present.”

“Yes, sir,” she said with no expression. I wondered what she thought about his crazy antics, but I sure wasn’t going to ask.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, trying to move on from the silly altercation, trying not to stay upset when he had at least conceded to my wishes.

“It’s called Red. It’s one of my restaurants. It’s just next door. The guys are meeting us there for dinner.”

I smiled when he called them ‘the guys’, because it sounded so familiar and so comfortable, as though Stephan and Javier had been his ‘guys’ forever.

The second we emerged from the elevator and into the massive hotel lobby, we were flanked by my security and Clark.

I shot James an arch look. “Don’t you think this is all a bit excessive?” I asked him.

He squeezed my hip in his hand hard enough to bruise. “Until your father has been found and imprisoned, nothing is too excessive. I can afford it, so indulge me.”

“Hmm,” I said, not sure what to do about his overzealous measures. If I was honest, a part of me liked the protection, liked knowing that my father couldn’t get to me even if he tried his best, but the rest of me knew that four people to guard one insignificant woman was completely ludicrous.