He doesn’t say another word as he turns abruptly and stalks toward the black rental car parked on the curb, but I don’t expect anything else from the man I once swore I’d spend the rest of my life with.
Twenty-Two
Lucy
I'm still on edge about Tom's visit when the work day ends, but when Jace comes into my office and pulls me close to him from behind, I feel some of the pressure lift from my body. Of course, a new pressure replaces it, and it only intensifies the second he dips his mouth to my ear and drawls, “Come over tonight, love. I have plans for your sweet cunt, and I don’t think I can wait much longer.”
My body arches. There’s nothing I want more than to wash away my frustrations beneath his body and sweat, but that’s not an option this evening. My mother has already texted twice. She wants to know when I’ll be home since we have plans to go out to dinner with her new “friend,” and I don’t want to stand her up. If I do, I’ll never hear the end of it—she still brings up the phone I lost while I was out with Jamie whenever I leave my device lying around the house.
“Come home with me,” Jace repeats, his warm breath fanning the nape of my neck.
“I can’t.” I splay my fingers on my desk as his hands wander past my waist to my ass. He cups it roughly, giving each cheek a pump that steals the breath from my lungs. If someone had told me my senior year of high school that this is where I’d be ten years down the road—bent over a desk by my boss, Jace Exley—I would have fainted where I stood. Doing this with him is madness, the opposite of what I thought I wanted out of a relationship, and yet I can’t get enough. I suck in my bottom lip and inhale deeply through my nose before releasing both. “I really, really can’t because I have dinner with my mother and her new boyfriend.”
But god, I want to spend the night with him.
“You can’t or you won’t?” he demands in my ear.
“Both.” At my words, he gives my ass a harsh slap, and I wiggle against him. He groans in my ear, then spins me around to face him, nudging his knee between my thighs as he draws me close to him. “Alright, love. Go home to your mother, then come to me after you’re done. I can come to you too, but I know I’ve got to be inside of you before the day is through.”
I roll my eyes up toward the ceiling, trying to pretend that what he just said doesn’t make my pulse pick up to a dangerous speed. “You're a sex fiend, Mr. E.”
He shrugs his broad shoulders, offers me a cocky smirk, and doesn't deny what I just said. Instead, he buries his fingers in my hair and tilts my head back. The tension sends a rush straight to my head that quickly sinks to my core. “You’re just now realizing that, Williams?”
He trails his full lips along the hollow of my neck, his stubble scratching my smooth skin. “Do you have any idea how badly I've wanted you since I sent that motherfucker off earlier today?” He kisses one side of my collarbone, then the other. “Do you know how hard it was to let him go without adjusting his pretty face for hurting you, Williams?”
“No.” He moves the knee between my thighs back and forth slowly, the friction wreaking havoc on my body. I release a strangled cry, which prompts him to go harder. Faster. “No,” I rasp, “I don’t.”
He bows me against him and lowers his mouth to my nipple. Although there’s a blouse and bra separating my flesh from his teeth and tongue, it doesn't make the sensation any less erotic. “Do you have any idea,” he starts, this time moving his teeth to my other nipple, “how much I’ve wanted to take you into the photo room, chain your ass to that bed, and fuck you until you forget about him?”
I moan, the strands of my hair not held captive by his grip flying around my face as I shake my head from either side. I can feel his cock against my stomach, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with my own, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to give into him. Fortunately for my lack of willpower, the moment he draws his knee from the juncture of my thighs to replace it with one hand, my phone vibrates on my desk.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Williams,” he warns, ripping a tiny hole in the center of my forest green tights, which I had picked up in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day in a couple of weeks. “I mean it. Don’t touch that fucking phone.”
“I have to,” I pant, hating the way my body shudders the moment he slides one long finger beneath my panties and rubs the calloused tip over my center. All Jace has to do is crook a finger, and I fall apart for him.
“You’re already hot and swollen and so ready,” he points out in a low voice brimming with cockiness. He knows exactly what he does to me and he revels in it. Moving his mouth from my breast, he brings our heads together, his breath ragged. “You don't have to do anything but let me make you come until standing upright is no longer in the cards.”
Dear god, take me now.
My phone dings again. Squeezing his eyes closed, he looks like he’s about to say something else but then he lets out a growl, releases my hair, and pulls his hand from my panties before he takes a step away from me. My throat goes dry as I watch him wipe his wet fingers on the front of his jeans, and my legs tremble at the wicked look he sends my way when he realizes I saw him. Leaning over my desk to support myself, I grab my phone. As I check my messages I feel him come up behind me again, his erection a hard distraction while I read over my mom’s text.
6:34 PM: Are you coming home soon? Call or message back and let me know.
“Was she like this when you lived in San Francisco?” Jace runs his nose along the sensitive spot behind my ear. I look over my shoulder to find that his eyebrows are raised questioningly, so I nod.
“There were many, many times where I’d get a message at three in the morning my time.” The corner of his mouth quirks but he steps aside, giving me plenty of space to collect my belongings.
“I hate to see that ass go,” he drawls. “But I'll stop being selfish.” When I pause in the middle of wrapping up my laptop cord to give him a skeptical look, he lifts his hands in front of himself defensively, flashing me a glimpse of tattoos and bronze skin beneath his black tee shirt.
“Go home to your mother, Williams. But later, you’re mine. No ifs, ands, or buts other than your own raised in the air and waiting for me. And if I must, I’ll tie you up just to get you home with me. Just a fair warning—if it comes to that I really will fuck your arse like I’ve talked about.”
Those words—those words—make my heart go wild against the walls of my chest. Since I can’t quite form a coherent sentence, I simply bob my head. He responds by playfully slapping my bottom and dropping a kiss between my shoulder blades that courses a heatwave from the top of my head to the base of my spine.