A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7) (6 page)

He was close to her, a mere inch away from their thighs touching, but even that was far too distant for him. It was time to push those boundaries just a bit. He pulled her into his lap in one quick move. She gasped a little, but her arms came up and around his neck. “I do have one more request. Kiss me, Chelsea. Nothing more.”

Her breath was shaky and she wiggled a little on his lap, making his cock lengthen almost painfully. “You want me to kiss you? Why?”

“Because we might have to make Ian believe it. Come on, love. I want a kiss. I’m not going to attack you. I’m going to sit here and be satisfied that we’re close.” He let his arms go securely around her waist, settling her in. He stroked down her back. “It’s just a kiss.”

She nodded and stared at his lips for a moment. Patience. She required a man with a patient hand. Though his every instinct was to take over, he intended to give his little sub what she needed.

After a long moment, her hands came up as though she’d decided he wouldn’t let her fall and she could explore. She placed her palms against the sides of his face, brushing over his whiskers. He should have shaved but between the flight and getting home to find his cousins on his doorstep, he hadn’t had time. She didn’t seem to mind. She took her time, running her fingers over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. She skimmed his eyebrows and stroked his chin. Finally she got to his mouth, her thumb running along his bottom lip.

“You know it should be a crime,” she murmured. “Most women would kill to have lips like yours. They’re really beautiful when you look at them closely.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Are you studying me?” While she took her time with him, it gave him another chance to watch her. He took in the way she ran her tongue along her lips to wet them, how the pulse jumped in the delicate vein of her neck, how her breathing had picked up. She was becoming aroused and all he had to do was get close to her.

“Sometimes when you look at a piece of code it’s just numbers on a screen and that’s all most people see. I like to study it. Those numbers mean something. They’re not just random. They make up a piece of the coder. I don’t look at people the same way, but your face says something about you. I don’t know what yet.”

“You don’t have to,” he replied. “You only have to know that you’re safe with me. Kiss me.”

She took a deep breath, seeming to steel herself, and then she leaned forward, bumping her nose lightly against his before meeting his lips. A quick brush and she pulled away. “There.”

Oh, she didn’t know him at all if she thought he would let her get away with that. “Now it’s my turn.”

She stiffened in his arms. “Your turn?”

“Now I’m going to kiss you.” He didn’t give her time to think, simply cupped the nape of her neck and gently brought her down so his lips met hers. Warmth sparked against his skin and the need to get her on her back was almost overwhelming. He could prove to her that she belonged underneath him. He could spread her wide and by the time he let her up, she would know she was his woman.

Or she would think he was her assailant. No. He molded his lips to hers ever so gently, giving her time to relax. He would play this her way for now and that meant not giving in to his very Neanderthal need to drag her away somewhere and brand her with his cock.

Very slowly she relaxed, her hands coming up to cup his shoulders as she started to respond. When her mouth flowered open, he took advantage, letting his tongue rub against hers in a slow slide.

Her chest met his, and there was no way to miss how her breasts felt, how that gorgeous ass of hers wriggled around on his lap. She moved and then she was rubbing his erection in all the right ways.

Her eyes flew open and she scrambled off his lap. Her voice was shaky, her lips a nice pink from their session. “I think that’s enough for now. I’m really tired and some of the searches I need to do could last all night. Do you think I could grab a shower and a nap?”

He would certainly be taking a very cold shower. “Of course. It’s back through the main hall. The last door at the end of the hallway.”

Maybe he’d gone too fast. He had no way of knowing if her father had kept his abuse to the physical. God, he wanted to kill the man. It was really too bad the bugger was already dead.

Chelsea stopped and turned back. Without saying a word, she picked up her bag and stopped at the table Simon had been sitting behind. She picked up the pen and quickly signed her name on the bottom line. “You’ve got a deal, Weston.”

He was smiling as he watched her walk away. Yes, he finally had her where he wanted her. He just had to find a way to keep her alive.

Chapter Three

Chelsea couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. She was thinking about Simon. She wasn’t thinking about his penis. Nope. She wasn’t thinking about his big old man part at all. She wasn’t thinking about how that thing had felt against her backside.

She sighed and stared at the screen. It wasn’t like staring at it would make someone respond faster. Her friends were careful. They were all underground hackers who tried to ensure no one could locate them, so they would all think about what they would and wouldn’t say. There was no surety that they would contact her at all. If they decided it would hurt them, they would stay silent.

Because at the end of the day, they weren’t necessarily really friends. She’d just had such a shitastic life that she believed a loose group of acquaintances—only a few of whom she’d actually met in person—formed her circle of friends. She’d learned that wasn’t true. Real friends became family, and real family bled and died for each other like the McKay-Taggart group did. If she had been relying on them for information she would have had it in seconds. They wouldn’t have left her staring at a screen and praying.

She sighed in frustration. She couldn’t concentrate and it wasn’t about how much anxiety she’d dealt with during the day. It was all about the man lying not ten feet away from her.

After she’d taken her shower, she’d walked out to find him drying his hair from using the guest bath for a shower of his own. He’d been dressed in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that somehow managed to cling to his hips right above that place on his body that she was trying hard not to think about. Hard. He looked hard everywhere. From his sculpted shoulders to those abs she wanted to touch because they couldn’t possibly be real. He’d told her to take the left side of his enormous bed and he hadn’t liked it when she argued. She’d narrowly avoided a spanking.

Now he was sleeping and she was…

Why was she waiting? What the hell was she doing? She was twenty-seven freaking years old and if she didn’t do something about it, she was going to die a virgin, and didn’t that just sound pathetic?

Years had passed since that day she’d almost lost her innocence to violence. Years of fear and worry and confusion, and finally a sad acceptance that she wasn’t meant to have that kind of intimacy. Now she wondered if she shouldn’t at least try. Just to say she’d done it.

It wouldn’t work with Simon. Not in the long run, but she did feel safe with him. He might rip her heart out, but he’d be polite about it and there wouldn’t be any awkward run-ins at work and family functions. No, never for the duke’s son. After he was done with her, he would likely try to convince her that he wanted to be her friend. He would never cause a scene. He would smooth everything over and wait the exact right amount of time before introducing a new girlfriend to the group. Chelsea would get to watch him find a girl he could really love and she would be alone but he would never try to push her out of their shared social circle.

Simon moving on would happen one way or another. Would it really be so much easier to watch him with his perfect girl if she’d never slept with him? Or would she always regret not taking the chance?

She glanced over to where his still form lay on the bed.

It wasn’t like she was making love with the dude. She was merely scratching an itch she hadn’t even known she had before Simon Weston showed up in her life. She could get the whole deflowering thing over with and he probably wouldn’t even know if she brazened her way through it.

God, she wanted to talk to Charlotte. She glanced down at her cell but decided against it. It was two o’clock in the morning. She would wake Satan up and he was a surprisingly gossipy demon. He would want to know what was going on and then everyone in the world would know her business.

But she really wanted to ask her sister’s advice.

“You should come to bed, Chelsea. It’s very late and we’ve got a long day ahead of us.” Simon’s deep voice rumbled through the room.

How could just the sound of his voice make her heart pound? This was stupid. She was not going to get up and go to him.

Her feet weren’t listening to her head. She stood up. How to handle this? It was best to just get it over with. She was a “rip the bandage off” kind of girl. It was best to take the hit and get the thing done quickly.

Surely sex wouldn’t be so bad. She’d liked kissing him. She’d kind of loved kissing him right until the moment she’d felt his cock and then she’d shut down, her mind going to all kinds of bad places.

She couldn’t live like that. She had to let it go or she would end up an old lady with a houseful of computers watching cat videos because she couldn’t even bond with a real one. Simon was safe. She could use him to get over her fear and then maybe she could find a more suitable man. A nice nerd who wouldn’t make her exercise. What was that about?

Focus. She needed to be focused.

“Do you need something?” He sat up. The room was dark, lit only by light from his alarm clock and what was streaming out from under the bathroom door. She could still see his chiseled features but maybe he wouldn’t be able to see her scars. Was there any way to have sex without taking her pants off?

“Yes.” She tried her best to sound somewhat seductive. Her hands were shaking. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She needed to know that she could do this. She needed to not be such a flipping freak show. Maybe if she fucked Simon, everyone would get off her back about being pathetic. “I think I know what we both need.”

He turned his body so he was facing her, swinging his feet around until they touched the carpet in front of her. “A throat lozenge? You sound a bit hoarse, love. Are you coming down with a cold?”

So she wasn’t good with the sexy voice it seemed. Maybe he preferred forward women. “Look, Weston, here’s the deal. You’re here. I’m here. We signed the contract. I’ve thought about it. What’s the point in waiting?”

He ran a hand through his hair and yawned a little. “Waiting? Is your leg bothering you? You want a session at this time of night?”

Oh, he was slow on the uptake. “Sex, Simon. I want sex.”

And then he wasn’t slow. She gasped as she found herself flat on her back on the bed before she had time to say another word.

He loomed above her, his body pressing against hers. He weighed roughly two hundred pounds, all of it muscle. It should have made her feel pinned down, but in that moment she just loved being close to him.

“You want sex?” He didn’t have the same problem she had in the sexy voice department. His voice was like warm honey sliding across her skin.

“Yes.” She breathed him in. He smelled like soap. She had the strangest urge to run her nose over his skin so she could memorize his scent the way she’d memorized the feel of his face, the way his whiskers felt under the pads of her fingers, how silky his lips had been.

His hips moved against hers. “You want my cock?”

“Yeah.” She hoped he would stop talking soon and just take her. Get it over with so she could know it was done and then maybe he would hold her. That was what she really wanted. She wanted to be in his arms. The sex stuff probably wouldn’t work for her, but she’d liked kissing him and she thought she would like cuddling. She liked it when he touched her.

He stared down at her. “Tell me how you like it.”

“Like what?”

It was his turn to sound a little impatient. “Sex, Chelsea.”

She had no idea. She kind of thought she didn’t, but she couldn’t be sure. It seemed like a thing to get through to get to what she did want. She’d seen enough movies to at least have the lingo down. From what she understood about dudes, they didn’t want to take their time. She was cool with that. It would get her to the good stuff faster. “Hard and fast, buddy.”

Rip the bandage off. Yep, that was the way to go.

His face loomed over hers and she was almost certain he would kiss her again. “Chelsea? How many lovers have you had?”

God, when did he turn into chatty Cathy? “A bunch. Come on. Let’s go.”

His hand went to the waistband of her pants. “You’re ready? You’ve had a ton of lovers and you’re ready for me to just shove my cock in and start thrusting.”

She was pretty sure that was some kind of trap, but she was committed at this point. “Yes. I know what I want.”

His hand started to snake under her pants, moving quickly to get under her panties. She squirmed, trying to get away. For the first time, she felt some nervousness set in. She’d said she wanted fast, but he was moving at quantum speed.