Clare Connelly - The Deal / Turn Me On

It was only one night but I learned a lot about her and I’m not ashamed of using it to get my way.

Her eyes hook to mine, powerful and yet powerless, lost as well as found.

‘You know who I am,’ I say again, and drop my head to take one of her nipples into my mouth through the flimsy fabric. It adds an extra layer of eroticism to something that’s already pretty damned hot. I press my teeth to her nipple, just enough to make her draw in a sharp breath of pleasure.

‘Yes.’

It’s not clear what she’s saying ‘yes’ to.

‘You know I am due to inherit my father’s title, the estate, the whole thing.’

She groans, nodding.

‘In one month, I’m due back in England to take up my place in that life.’ I’m surprised how flat the words sound—the usual derision not in evidence. ‘I have only weeks left in Manhattan.’

Another gurgling noise as I transfer my mouth to her other breast and give it the same little bite. Her insides squeeze my cock so tight. I need more of her. All of her.

Impatiently, I push at her blazer and she pulls her arms from it, understanding that I need all of her, all of this. The camisole follows, the wet patches from my mouth visible as it scrunches to the ground at our feet. I have to put her down to get the tattered skirt from her body and I drag it off her with the lace thong, leaving both on the floor before spinning her around so her back is to me.

I push her forward at the hips, so her arms are braced against the windows, and I take the briefest second to imprint this memory on my mind—the sight of her naked ass, how hot she looks from behind. I spread her legs with my knee, and bring one hand around to her breasts, keeping it clamped there as my other holds her hips steady. I take her from behind quickly, thrusting into her, our voices mingling at the total possession of this, the rightness of my being buried deep inside her. The hand on her hip travels lightly to her clit, and I run it over her cluster of nerves as I move deeper and harder inside her.

My voice is music, deep and throaty, taking over the room. There’s no clock here ticking as a background accompaniment to this passion, but the desire is just as intense and just as overwhelming.

I forget that we’re in her office, I forget there’s a secretary just down the hallway. I forget everything except how this feels, how badly I need her, how it’s been nine nights of tormenting, snatched memories, of how I didn’t even want to go out and hook up with someone else because I didn’t think it could live up to this.

I am angry at that—angry at my dependence on being with her—but I am also thrilled because I’ve found Miss Anonymous and I have four weeks in which to enjoy her.

So long as she agrees…

WHAT THE HECK just happened?

I press my overheated forehead to the glass, staring down—way down—at Manhattan. My office is on the ninety-second floor of this glass and steel monolith. Believe me, I’d have preferred to cut costs and rent something cheaper, but my parents own two floors of this building and gave me a great deal on rent—besides which, my clients expect a certain air of wealth and prestige. The whole Billionaires’ Club is predicated on the idea of unattainable wealth and prestige, so I can’t exactly have my office headquarters in some three-storey brick walk-up in Brooklyn.

His breathing is ragged, just like my own. I stay right where I am, pleasure like fireworks just beneath my skin, exploding fast at my pulse points. I stare down at the snow-covered city, thinking of the time I went to visit Meemaw and Pa. I’d heard about them, but had barely spent more than an hour in their company. My mother worked hard to distance herself from her working-class roots. She’d married Hollywood royalty, she was a theatre queen and she wasn’t going to have the fact that she came from an ordinary family in the south do anything to harm her carefully cultivated image. I didn’t have those hang-ups, and right after Abbey died, I just felt as if I needed to see my grandparents, to spend time with them. I wanted the authenticity their life offered; I wanted to be as far from my parents and their set as possible.

So I went to Meemaw’s, and only a day or two after I arrived, a tornado crossed town. It was loud and fierce and so fast. It must have lasted only two or three minutes before it moved away again and the most surreal, unnatural silence followed.

That’s what’s happening now.

Silence, but weird and unnatural and, contrasted with our earlier passion, it is freakishly quiet in my office.

And I have no idea what to say, which makes me even more freaked out because I pride myself on being able to fill difficult silences and cover awkwardness with a quip or a joke.

Now, I’ve got nothing.

I’m just a tangle of nerves and excitement. My whole body feels as if it’s been stretched in a thousand directions, stretched by the speed with which my blood has terrorised it.

His hands on my back are gentle now, inquisitive, returning me to the here and now with a slow, sweet touch. He curves his palms over my shoulders and turns me around to face him.

It makes it so much harder to kick my brain into gear because one look at his face and I’m melting. What the heck is wrong with me? I don’t do rich guys. I find all that money off-putting and there’s no mistaking Nicholas Rothsmore’s background of privilege and wealth. It is in the strength of his spine, the confident tilt of his chin, the sophistication of his eyes, the dimple of his chin that for some reason screams aristocracy.

But there’s also something hard-worn about him, something broken and devil-may-care. Something that tells me he’s a risk-taker and an adventurer, that he might have been born to fit the mould of a privileged aristocrat but that he’s worked hard to fight his way free of it.

That alone keeps me rooted to the spot, unable to look away from a face that I have been seeing in my dreams since we snatched an hour together in Sydney.

‘I’m…’

He lifts a finger and presses it to my lips, his dark brows knitting together as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.

‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ I say against his finger. When he doesn’t move it, I dart my tongue out and flick it. His eyes flare wide and power rushes through my body.

This is bigger than me, bigger than him.

‘You made pretty sure of that.’

‘Not quite.’ I bite the soft flesh of his finger now, and he presses it to my lips, so I roll my tongue over it and feel his cock jerk against me.

He’s like the Energizer Bunny of sex. Then again, apparently I am too, because desire ignites inside me, and I wish we were anywhere but my office.

My office!

‘Oh, crap.’ I press my hand to his chest and push him back, everything forgotten except the fact Emily and I have an extremely casual relationship and she walks in whenever she needs anything. Not to mention I’ve just been screaming like a banshee at the top of my lungs.

I sidestep him and move away as if he’s explosive dynamite and I’m right in its trajectory. I need space. Space to think and I definitely absolutely need to get dressed.

‘That was…completely unprofessional.’ I lift a hand and smooth my hair over one shoulder, my fingers grazing my nipples by accident, so I have to spin away or risk him seeing my instant physical reaction to the simple touch.

‘It was also completely fucking great.’

A smile curves my lips. There’s a bathroom across my office—I work long hours and frequently have to attend Billionaires’ Club events, which I go to directly from here. Fortunately for me, there’s also a wardrobe and it’s always stocked with an array of outfits. I pull out a black pantsuit and a silk camisole, trying not to think about what Emily will say when she notices the obvious change of clothes, pulling the silk top on quickly to dispense with the whole nakedness thing.