No suits, no polite charm, only his cock filling me up and his hand around my throat while he fucked me like an animal from behind. His length stretched my inner muscles in a tight burn as I stood on tiptoes trying to take him deeper. Every scape of my rock-hard nipples against the cold glass sent another spark to the inferno building at the base of my spine. Harsh breaths and needy whimpers mingled with the slap of flesh against flesh and the wet, slick sounds of his cock drilling into me. The filthy symphony swirled around us, dragging me higher and higher until I crescendoed toward orgasm. “Christian, please.” His grip on my throat stole my screams and turned them into hoarse pleas. “I need...I’m going to…” I lost the rest of my sentence to another wave of pleasure when he reached around to stroke my clit. Once. Twice. Just enough to deepen the ache, but not enough to break the leash on my swelling release. “I love when you beg so sweetly for me.” He buried his face in my neck and nipped at the skin. “Do you need to come, hmm?” “Yes.” My answer spilled out in a sob. “Then be a good girl and push that pretty little cunt back on me.” I obeyed without thinking. I arched my back so I could fuck back at him while he gripped my hips with both hands and slammed me onto him. Broken squeals and whimpers fell out as my body shook like a rag doll’s from the combined force of our efforts. “Just like that,” he groaned. “You look so beautiful like this, spread wide with my cock buried inside that tight pussy.” Electricity replaced the blood in my veins. I was lit up from the inside out, a live
wire of sensation that he stoked hotter with every thrust. Christian’s hold on my throat tightened while he reached around and pinched my nipple with his other hand. “Come for me, sweetheart.” That was all it took. My orgasm finally broke free. It crashed through its restraints and consumed me whole, sending a wave of heat from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. My body bowed from the intensity of the pleasure, and I would’ve collapsed onto the ground had Christian not been holding me up. I was still floating on my high when he turned me around and lifted me up so my back was against the glass and my legs hooked around his waist. He hadn’t come yet, but his strokes slowed into a gentler rhythm. “I love feeling you come around me.” He kissed his way up my neck to my mouth. “You are fucking perfect.” The words hit me somewhere deep and vulnerable. Emotion lodged in my throat, but I wrapped my arms around his neck and rode him faster, more comfortable with taking the lead than examining the feelings his statement brought to the surface. Christian’s breaths harshened. His muscles went taut, and I could feel him throbbing inside me before he finally came with a loud groan. We held each other in the come down, our skin slick with sweat and our foreheads pressed against each while we caught our breath. “So,” I panted. “Do you feel more relaxed?” His laugh rumbled against my skin and made me smile. I loved pulling a real laugh out of him. They were more common these days, but they were still sources of pride. “Yes, Butterfly. I do.” “Good.” I clung to him as he carried us to the shower. If I were with anyone else, I never would’ve found the courage to do what I’d just done. The fear of rejection would’ve been too strong, even with someone I was dating. But that was one of my favorite things about Christian. I could be who I was and who I aspired to be in equal measure. I never had to worry when I was with him.
37
CHRISTIAN
My nights with Stella were the only peace I had. My days were a tumult of work and chaos. I’d spent the past month weeding out suspects for the traitor, figuring out how the hell someone created a device similar to Scylla, what that someone’s connection to Stella’s stalker was, and tracking down the stalker bastard himself. I already had a shortlist of suspects for the leak.
Every name made my blood run cold, but I had to be careful how I handled the situation. I couldn’t make a public move until I was certain who the traitor was. Loyalty ran both ways, and false accusations were the fastest way to seed resentment among the ranks. I had the perfect trap in mind, but I needed to wait until Harper Security’s annual poker tournament to set it. Until then, I couldn’t trust anyone in the company with sensitive information. As for Scylla, I could almost guarantee Sentinel was the one behind the knockoff device. They’d imitated everything else I’d done; copying proprietary hardware was the logical next step. I also wouldn’t put it past them to bribe or blackmail whoever the traitor was. I sat on that suspicion. First, I’ll deal with the traitor. Then, I’ll go after Sentinel. The only remaining question mark was their ties to Stella’s stalker and who the fucker was. I’d combed through Stella’s contacts, but she’d interacted with so many people over the years it was impossible to narrow them down to a decent suspect pool.
The stalker could be anyone from an old colleague to the barista who made her drink every day.
Part of me admitted I could’ve gotten further in all my investigations had I not been distracted. I wanted to spend time with Stella, which meant no long hours or overtime at the office. I took her on dates every weekend, ate dinner with her every evening, and fucked her into oblivion every night, all the while knowing I should spend that time doing something else. Stella’s ability to fuck with my rational decision-making crystallized a little over a week after Frank Rivers’ timely demise. I clicked and unclicked my pen as I stared at the note on my desk. The stalker had gone underground since Hawaii. No new notes and no contact…until now. Click. Click. Two sentences, typed and delivered in a plain, unmarked envelope. It’d been tucked in with the rest of our mail even though it didn’t contain an address. You can’t protect her, and you will NEVER
have her. She’s mine. Whispers of rage brushed my senses. The message itself wasn’t concerning. It sounded like something a petulant child would write. What was concerning were the three photographs that’d accompanied it: one of Stella getting breakfast at the cafe near the Mirage, one of her taking photos at the National Mall, and one of her exiting the grocery store.
All of them had been taken in the weeks since we returned from Hawaii. The rage thickened and coated my skin with frost. I was tempted to give in and take it out on one of the many names I kept in my database for that very purpose, but I suppressed the urge in favor of calculating my next move. I couldn’t trust anyone except myself with Stella’s safety, not even Brock. He wasn’t one of my suspects, but he hadn’t noticed the stalker getting close enough to take those photos of her, which was a big fucking oversight. Granted, his job was protection, not surveillance, but it still pissed me off. The stalker had resurfaced after weeks of radio silence, and I bet a forensic analysis of his note would return the same results as it always did. Nothing.
Whoever he was, he was damn good at keeping his hands clean and sneaky enough to get that close to Stella without her or Brock noticing. If anything happened to her… My stomach clenched. D.C. wasn’t safe until I sorted out my internal mess. I couldn’t focus on tracking down the stalker if I couldn’t trust my men.
Click. Click. I made up my mind on the second click. I set my pen on my desk, tucked the note and photos inside my inside jacket pocket, and drove home. Stella was in the kitchen when I arrived. She was so busy blending that atrocious wheatgrass smoothie she loved and humming along to the radio that she didn’t notice my entrance until I wrapped my arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. “Christian!” Surprised delight filled her voice. “You’re home early.”
“Slow day at work,” I lied. I breathed her in, reassuring myself that she was safe and in my arms. She smelled like sunshine and green florals, and I let the scent dissolve some of the tension in my muscles before I spoke again. “I had an idea.” “Uh oh,” she teased. “Should I be scared?” “I doubt it. It’s on your vision board.” I’d seen the list she’d pinned to the corkboard in our room. She said she’d created it in college and never threw it out. The list consisted of three things: a brand partnership with Delamonte, an extended trip through Italy, and a walk-in closet.
Two of those three were crossed off. Stella turned to face me fully. Her eyes had widened with shock and a touch of hope. “Italy,” I confirmed. “Summer vacation. We can do a month-long trip through the country. Rome, Milan, the Amalfi Coast…” Taking her out of town was the obvious answer until I sorted out the mess on my side, and her bucket list gave me perfect cover for the trip. I didn’t want to tell Stella about the stalker’s latest note. It’d been directed at me, not her, and I didn’t want to freak her out. Not when I didn’t have a clear solution yet. “Another trip?”