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When
he teased the opening with his sheathed cock, she pushed back against him. He
pushed into her asshole slowly, and it stung a tiny bit at first, but then once
she grew used to the fullness it felt incredible. He reached underneath to play
with her clit as he fucked her ass. His thrusts weren’t as forceful as they’d
been inside her pussy, and she was grateful for that. It had been a long time
since she’d had anal sex, and she wanted to enjoy it.

“
Lie down for me, Julianne. This feels so damn good.”

She
lay prone like he asked, and he kept his hand on her pussy while he fucked her
harder now. She couldn’t believe it when another climax began to build, and
soon her cries joined his as the orgasm washed over her and his thrusts grew
jerky and quick.

“
Oh, baby … here I come again.”

By
the time he finally finished and pulled out, she winced, but the soreness
dissipated as he took off the condom and then turned her over to hold her in
his strong arms. Both of them were covered in a fine sheen of sweat and her
hair was damp, but he didn’t seem to mind because he kissed it and stroked her
head and back, whispering her name over and over.

Julianne
had never been fucked like this. Not even five years ago during those stolen,
hot forty-seven minutes. She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face,
hoping he really had meant it when he said there would be a next time. Because
there was no way she’d be able to stay away from Kane Bannerman now, even if
she never wrote another story about him.

Chapter
Eight

Kane
woke and at first had no clue where he was, or who was sleeping next to him.
Then it all came back in living color and glorious detail, and he grinned like
an idiot. The object of his undying lust for the past five years was next to
him, naked. He’d licked and sucked every square inch of her body, he’d paddled
her luscious ass, and he’d fucked every hole.

What
time was it? He chuckled softly. They’d likely missed the entire game and he
truly didn’t give a shit, but he did crawl off the bed and go out into the main
room. He peered out at the arena through the closed screen, and was able to see
enough to realize that the game was still going. Glancing toward the bedroom,
he turned on the TV and watched the last ten minutes, pumping his fist in the
air when the Demons won. Then he turned off the TV. The entire game would be
available to stream again tomorrow morning. Right now, he had more important
things to attend to.

He’d
love to spend the night with Julianne, but would she come back to his
apartment? They could stay here, but he’d done that once, alone, and it had
been too creepy.
The
building was huge, and very few people spent the night in it. He’d felt
isolated and alone, and he hadn’t enjoyed the sensation at all. It triggered
too many memories of a terrible night when he was only seven and had
experienced his first tornado up close and personal.

Kane
shivered and hugged himself. No. He didn’t want to spend the night here, even
with Julianne. He’d wake her up and ask her to come back to his apartment. Then
he could make love to her again.

He
gathered up the leftover food, placed it into containers, and then stacked the
containers in a bag. Then he made sure the wine glasses were clean and all the
trash was in the wastebasket. Every few days the housekeeping staff emptied it,
but they didn’t go into any room except the kitchen, and they wouldn’t place
dirty dishes in the sink. He’d found that out the hard way once when he’d
simply left everything out in the main room after a party.

Kane
locked the balcony door, made sure the shade was secure, and then he gathered
up the personal items they’d left in the main room and returned to the bedroom.
He watched Julianne sleep for a few moments, wondering if she hadn’t wandered
into his office Monday morning if he ever would have seen her again. So many
times during the past five years he’d almost called her, but pride had
prevented him from doing so.

He’d
made a lot of incorrect assumptions about her this past week, although in his
defense, not without good reason. She really had changed, and he didn’t believe
it was possible for people to do that. Not completely. Was she playing him? No.
He didn’t believe that either. The only thing that did concern him was who this
source was. From what Julianne had divulged, the source obviously worked for
him, and had lied at least once. That made her potentially dangerous.

Kane
hadn’t built his ancestor’s company into what it was today by being nonchalant
when it came to the security of the business, or the loyalty of his employees.
He needed to figure out a way Julianne could name this source without
compromising her integrity as a journalist.

For
now, he crawled on the bed and kissed her ass cheeks. They were still pink, but
the puffiness had abated somewhat. That she had allowed him to do what he’d
done still amazed him. Who would have guessed that Julianne Wallis had a kinky
side? She came across as a hard-nosed, smart-mouthed reporter. The contrast
between that image and a woman who let him put her over his knees and paddle
her was intoxicating.

She
stirred in her sleep, so he rolled her onto her back and opened her legs,
kissing up and down her thighs. He loved the smell of a woman after sex, all
warm and funky. It made him want to plunge his dick into her again, but if they
did that, they might never leave this loge tonight.

Julianne’s
eyelids fluttered, and she opened her eyes all the way and smiled. “I was
afraid I’d dreamed the whole thing.”

“
You didn’t. Time to get dressed. We’re going back to
my apartment for round two.”

She
laughed. “Who won the first round?”

He
leaned over to kiss her mouth. “I did.” Then he took her hand and pulled her to
her feet before he changed his mind and stayed here with her all night.

“
Who decided that you won it?”

“
I did.”

She
giggled. “I must have missed the rules.”

“
I won because you’re still here and naked.”

“
Oh, I see. Then why should I get dressed?”

He
frowned. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have while horny as hell. It
would kill the mood stone cold dead. “Because I have more toys back home than I
do here.”

Her
delighted smile sent a wave of relief coursing through him. “Excellent. In that
case, please hand me my clothes.”

Once
they were outside, she asked who had won the hockey game. “We did, and before I
forget to tell you this, I owe you an apology. I should have escorted you here,
not asked you to meet me.”

“
Kane, it’s all right. I had fun on the trolley. There
were a lot of Demon fans, and it got me in the mood for the game. They were fun
and silly. It made the ride go faster.”

It
hadn’t occurred to Kane until just now that she’d had to take the trolley here.
He lived within walking distance but realized he had no clue where she lived.
“Next time I’ll behave more like a gentleman. In fact, I’ll start right now. Do
you need to return home before we go to my place?”

“
No. I brought along what I might need in case I spent
the night with you.”

His
heart did a weird fluttery thing at her words. “So, you weren’t kidding. You
really did hope we’d make love tonight.”

She
stopped walking and put her arms around him. “Yes, I did hope that. I meant
everything I said tonight. I haven’t stopped thinking about you all this time.”

“
I meant what I said, too. I only live about five
minutes from here. I’d be honored if you spent the night with me.”

She
kissed him, and he didn’t give a shit that people were still outside, walking
all around them. He’d waited five years for this, and this time he wasn’t going
to blow it by acting like a damn animal. Julianne wasn’t a liar or a cheat
anymore. She was a vibrant, exciting woman, and he wanted to get to know her
better. Much better.

****

Julianne
whistled softly as Kane walked her through his penthouse apartment. It was
bigger than the house she’d grown up in with all those siblings, and nearly
everything inside it looked like it belonged in a museum. “Where did you get
this stuff? Did you have time to salvage that much from above ground?”

He
shook his head. “No. You’ve heard about the teams Addison Carlyle employs,
right? He lives in
NorthWest
and owns Carlyle
Imports. Most of the men and women who go up to the surface and retrieve items
for money are part of his teams.”

“
That would be fun to do. Have you ever gone with
them?”

A
quick emotion passed over his face, and she swore it was anxiety, but then it
was gone. She couldn’t imagine Kane Bannerman afraid of anything. “A few times.
Long ago. Now I leave that to the experts. Emmett Radcliffe still goes, though
not as often as he used to. He’s the true adrenaline junkie among the twelve of
us.”

“
You’d have to be to go up there. I’ve heard it’s
horrible. Nothing like we left it.”

Kane
took her into his arms and kissed her. All thoughts of what it was like on the
surface of the Earth these days were gone as his tongue slid into her mouth.
Her pussy was wet again, and despite the soreness all over her body, she would
fuck him right there on the tile floor of his great room if that’s what he wanted
to do.

When
he released her, he gazed into her eyes with unbridled lust. “You haven’t seen
my bedroom yet.”

“
A terrible oversight. Take me there at once.”

His
bedroom was the one room she imagined had been decorated to suit his
personality, rather than simply filled with antiques and oddities he’d
collected from the surface. It was all chrome and steel, but fit him perfectly.
The furniture resembled the modern design of what she’d seen in the loge, but
this room had been better put together.

The
large expanse of full-length windows looked out over the fake night of
NorthEast
, but few buildings from this view were as tall as
this one. He’d have total privacy in here, even at night with the lights on.
“Do you keep the shades open at night?”

“
Yes. I like to pretend I can see real stars when I
glance out the window from my bed.”

She
studied his face. “What you’re all doing, the secret teams and the work behind
the scenes, you each really do want the same thing, don’t you? To return to the
surface.”

He
nodded before she finished asking. “Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. If we as a
people stay down here long enough, we’ll forget all that. What it’s like to
breathe natural air and see the actual sun. We won’t remember the moon, or the
sound of rain hitting hot pavement. We won’t know the difference between fake
birdsong and the real thing. We’ll never see an insect. It will all be gone if
we wait much longer. It’s been almost seven years now. Think of the children
born here during that time in all the cities around the globe who have no idea
of the world we once knew up there.”

Julianne
had to take a step back as the enormity of his words rushed at her. She’d
misjudged him. She’d misjudged all of them. Sure, they were billionaires, and
they lived and breathed their work, but there was more to each of the men than
their companies and their fortunes. She understood that now in a way she never
had before, and shame at what she’d done to Kane all those years ago filled her
once more.

If
they didn’t succeed, no one would ever live on the surface again. The very fate
of the entire planet was in their hands, and she had the chance to become part
of their mission. She could help them do this.

She
licked her lips and swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat.
Julianne knew what she had to do. It was time to step up. “The source is
Isabelle Sharpe. She works in your general administrative assistant pool, but
you didn’t hear that from me. I’ve never revealed a source, Kane. Never. You’ll
have to find another way to out her because if you tell anyone I told you, I’ll
deny it.”

His
eyes widened, and then he furrowed his brow. “I know the name, but I can’t
honestly say I ever remember speaking with her.”

“
Then she fabricated the story about you asking her
out, and I was obviously wrong about my assumption that it was the other way
around.”

He
gave her a confused look.

“
When she told me you asked her out and she turned you
down, I could tell she was lying. I then assumed it was the other way around.
That she had asked you out and you turned her down.”

“
Julianne, very few of my female employees approach me
and ask me out. I don’t make myself available to them on purpose so that what
happened to me years ago will never be repeated.”

“
What happened to you?”

He
averted his gaze and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. There was a
story here. “It’s not pretty.”

“
I’m sure it’s not, considering you avoid giving any
possible suggestion that you’re dating an employee. Since your friends have no
boundaries where that’s concerned, whatever happened to you must have been
traumatic.”

“
It nearly ruined my company.”

She
walked over to his bed and brushed her fingers along the comforter. Soft and
plush. She’d have expected nothing less. “I’m not asking as a reporter, Kane.
I’m asking as friend.”

“
Is that what we are?”

She
turned at the sound of his voice, so small and unsure. It was unexpected,
considering everything they’d done so far tonight. “I certainly hope so. I’m
not in the habit of fucking strangers. That only happened once.”

The
corners of his mouth turned up. “Yeah. Same here.” She saw him swallow. “I’d
like us to be more than friends, though. Much more.”

“
So would I. Let’s start by trusting each other. I
think we have a great start, but I know I have to earn that from you.”

“
Thank you for acknowledging it.”

“
What happened to you that nearly ruined your company?”

He
took a seat on the bed, so she did as well. “Her name was Ellen Grimes, and I
hired her specifically to work in my PR department. This was ten years before
we all moved underground. I was twenty-four and had been at the helm of this
company for less than one year. I had no fucking clue what I was doing.”