Kept by Him (4 page)

Something happened those evenings. They didn’t even talk. It became routine to him.
To her. At first, he stayed only until she stopped crying. Later, he’d stay for hours,
until they were both tired and groggy from lack of sleep the next morning.

He’d spend all day waiting for it to be nighttime just to have those stolen moments
alone with her. The week before she left the household, her tears had long dried up,
and yet every night after the others fell asleep and he opened the door, he’d always
find her sitting in bed, awake, waiting for him.

They’d forged a bond so strong, they could each guess what the other was thinking.
Feeling. In fact, the only time Monica had ever broken down in front of the public
had been at her parents’ funeral.

When Daniel put his arms around her.

She’d started sobbing immediately and breathlessly pleaded in his ear, “Don’t let
them see this.” He’d hugged her harder and ducked his head, holding her as tight as
he could without breaking her bones, but he couldn’t keep the press from noticing,
everyone from noticing.

T
HE
I
CE
M
AIDEN
C
RACKS IN THE
A
RMS OF THE
P
RINCE!

How that story made headlines. Soon after, the press tried to pair them as a young
couple—Daniel was twenty-four, Monica twenty. Monica bought a place on her own and
asked him to stay away from her to let the speculation calm down.

Daniel knew the paparazzi weren’t to blame for this request.

The night before she left, Daniel hadn’t been able to merely hold her in his arms
anymore. He’d kissed her cheek. Her jaw. Her temple. Her forehead. Told her how pretty
she was … how much he wanted her.… And when he moved to fit his mouth to hers in the
way he’d been dreaming of constantly, morning and night, she leaped out of bed and
across the room, looking so genuinely startled Daniel had instantly backed off with
an apology.

She began dating older men, and Daniel—wound up from two months of sleeping with Monica
in his arms, warm and vulnerable and yet completely physically immune to him—forewent
the dating and went straight to fucking, basically. Anything that he could. He tried
kink, he tried variety, he tried screwing everything and anything that could help
him forget those nights, that kiss-that-never-happened, that one girl.

Even with his more lasting involvements of a couple of weeks, Daniel was never again
interested in knowing a woman like he knew Monica. Hell, those first few years, he
could hardly talk to her, his frustrations flaring every time he saw her cool smile
and guarded gaze, every one of their encounters causing him to react like a wounded
beast who would go bury his pain between another woman’s legs.

He’d cursed himself for making a move on her for
years,
for it had taken that long to gain Monica’s trust back.

But all that calmed down with time. Now those evenings were in the past, and they’d
gotten back to the point where they could be together comfortably for hours. They
laughed, talked, sometimes didn’t have to say anything at all when they sporadically
asked each other out to lunch. Daniel was a member of the board of Davenport’s, and
he saw Monica every Thursday morning at the board meeting. Sometimes he was early,
or stayed late … when he couldn’t quite quell the urge to see her.

Some of these times, he could tell she was eager to see him, as her eyes would flare
warm as a summer sky.

Other times, their stares would keep searching the other’s across the boardroom table,
and they’d both smile at each other when they clashed.

He could have her, he’d told himself for years. Yeah. He could have her if he wanted
to. Maybe he just didn’t want to risk losing her friendship. Maybe he would rather
settle for a little piece of her than nothing at all.…

Luke’s voice brought Daniel back to the present.

“I was your friend when all the shit went down between the two of you, Danny,” Luke
said. “I read the papers. And when you were drunk, she was the only thing you’d talk
about. I’m just saying if you’ve always wanted her, why not go for it?”

“Why the hell are you here so early anyway?” he demanded of Luke. “Can’t Mars men
sleep?”

“Got to run off the alcohol in my system,” he said, with a shrug. “Before a family
lunch with Peyton’s gang. But dude, last night when that woman came into the room,
I had to step back so your boner wouldn’t strike me. So just go tell this bullcrap
to some dimwit who wouldn’t know you from shit, dude.”

“I have a better idea. Stop minding everyone’s business and mind your own.”

“I’m not Chicago’s darling, baby. You are. Everyone wants to know what Danny Lexington
is up to.”

“Whatever. Go run yourself to a stroke, why don’t you.”

Luke laughed and slapped his friend’s back, and Daniel cranked his neck and stalked
outside to plunge into the Olympic-sized pool. He submerged all the way until touching
bottom, then he came up for air and slicked his hair back. He heard a whistle as his
trainer, Rico Manrico, snapped off some instructions, already thirsting for Daniel’s
blood.

“Right,” he murmured, then swam to the side of the pool to start warming up, but his
mind was swarmed with nothing but her, his body still primed, still aching for her,
his brain replaying over and over the way she’d asked, as casually as only Monica
Davenport could,
“Will you have sex with me, Daniel?”

Jesus. And not only had she asked for sex, but she’d stripped for him, her figure
ripe and tantalizingly provocative as she
came the hell apart
for him.

Last night he’d had his fingers in her pussy, and she’d been so seductively wet Daniel
leaked into his pants all the goddamned time he held her on his lap, her buttocks
scraping against his sex as she pushed her hips onto his fingers.

A fierce new erection tented his swim trunks as a fresh wave of heat overtook him.
He’d tried to be controlled, friendly even, while every pore and fiber in his being
had screamed with the need to feel every inch of her naked flesh against his. He’d
wanted to taste her sweet mouth, to cup the soft, full mounds of her buttocks in his
hands and squeeze them as he pumped every last drop of need inside her.

Of course she could not find pleasure in the men she dated.

They were companions to her, not lovers. They’d been shields to keep Daniel away,
and it had worked. Daniel had been watching her with them for years, all the while
telling himself that she would always be the Ice Maiden to them.

They didn’t understand her like Daniel did. She needed to be challenged, but not completely
dominated. She needed to feel both trustful and protected, but not vulnerable. She
sought weaker men to feel safe, but she didn’t realize she needed one that was
stronger.
She was used to pushing people away, and if you got too close, too fast, you were
done for.

Daniel was nobody’s fuck buddy.

His buddies were men, all of them except Monica.

But last night he’d have done
anything
to get in bed with her and finish what he’d started so many years before, in a small
twin bed in his parents’ guest bedroom.

He’d agreed to two weeks with her.
Two weeks,
where the line of physical distance she’d drawn for him a decade ago would be erased,
where she would settle on his lap and pump her hips into his fingers and ask to take
his shirt off, his pants off. God.

When she’d lightly stroked his straining cock after he’d been watching those moans
tumble out of her parted lips, his body had reacted with all the painful intensity
of a teenager’s. He’d climaxed like he hadn’t climaxed in his life, but he was
still
not satisfied.

A deep-rooted need for her gnawed at him, deep in his gut, where it most hurt. His
body throbbed. He wanted to feel her flesh caressing him, surrounding him. He had
never felt so ravenous before.

He thought he could control this hunger. He’d been controlling it for years. But like
some underfed, abused beast, it was out of its cage, and Daniel feared no amount of
willpower would hold it back now.

Only Monica held the cards here. She had to be the one that called, she had set the
ground rules for him. Now he got to play the part of sitting around, waiting, with
this infernal boner. Shit.

He groaned and submerged under water, surfacing to slick his hair back in frustration.

“Lexington!” his trainer called. “Get your head out of your ass and do those fucking
laps!”

*   *   *

Exactly fourteen hours later, his friends were laughing about Daniel firing Rico Manrico.

They were having poker night, at Cade’s place, and Daniel swung down his third Aviation
gin for the night with one hand while keeping his cards open with the other.

“So the brass-ball winner of the week definitely must be Daniel,” Luke said, across
the poker table from him, still chuckling.

“No shit,” said Cade.

Luke scowled down at his cards. “I always hated that sucker. I’m surprised you put
up with him this long, man.” He exchanged two cards from the deck. “Can’t see why
anyone needs him when everyone knows the most important muscle gets exercised pretty
damned well with fucking.”

“Your cock is not a muscle, dickwad,” Graves said.

“I meant the heart,” Luke accused. “Hell, man, I
knew
you were going to think dirty. What’s wrong with you, Graves? Is that all that’s
on your mind now that Chloe’s moved in? She’s got your brain scrambled.”

Daniel stiffened, then he pulled off his Ray-Bans so he could fiercely glare at smart-mouthed
Luke Preston. “That’s my sister you’re talking about, toad.”

“Whoa, hold your horses, buddy. You’re awfully sensitive today. Maybe you do miss
getting fucked in the ass by Rico.”

“The only one getting ass fucked today will be you,” Daniel said, going all in. His
cell buzzed as his friends started calling his bet, and he set down his cards and
tapped on the screen.

Hey u. Are u busy?

His pulse skyrocketed through the roof, and the fine hairs on his body stood up at
the electrical thrill of seeing Monica’s name above the text. He quickly replied:

No

A bland lie. He restlessly rubbed the back of his neck as he waited for her reply,
his dick already hard as a spike. The memory of her slick sex clenching hotly against
his fingers shimmered through him, heating every fiber in his body, making him throb.
Come on, come on. Answer me, princess.

“Your face just lit up like Las Vegas. Who is that?” Luke demanded.

“It’s not for you,” Daniel answered, his cards forgotten facedown on the table. His
balls clenched when his text pinged again.

Are u home?

His male instincts went crazy at the question, confirming exactly what kind of call
this was. A primal instinct surged through him with a need to imprint her with his
scent, his flesh; to fill her up with every drop of semen in his body. God, let him
only replenish, so he could immediately fill her up again.

He was usually the one who dialed a couple of his usuals when he felt restless, but
Monica had said
she’d
be the one calling, and he was on his feet so quick, he tumbled his drink. He texted
back:
Where are u?

Monica: Home.

Daniel: B there in 10

“Hey, you’re leaving? Is that a fucking booty call you’re answering? Who is it? Lexi,
who are you servicing?” Luke demanded.

He smiled coldly and flipped him the finger. “Obviously not you.”

“I get your chips, it’s my pad tonight,” Cade said, already making a grab for Daniel’s
pile. Cade was one lonely motherfucker, but he was also a moody one. There was really
no woman who’d ever dared come within biting distance of him. With Cade, one had to
be blunt straight away.

*   *   *

“Hands off, Scrooge. If I’m not back in an hour,” Daniel told Graves as he signaled
at his chips, “you give it to my sister.”

“Count on it,” Graves said, waving him off.

“Confess, motherfucker! Who is the lady?” Luke yelled.

Daniel laughed as he strode out, grabbing his gabardine wool coat from the closet.
He told himself it didn’t mean anything that his heart was in fast gear, that he just
couldn’t push his foot farther on the pedal. It didn’t mean anything except they were
friends, fucking, for the second time in twenty-four hours.

But it meant more than that, this booty call.

It meant Monica Davenport wanted him so much more than she was letting on.

*   *   *

Monica couldn’t understand this hot, reckless excitement. She paced around her beautiful
apartment and she just couldn’t stop staring at the clock. She’d never expected to
break down and call Daniel so soon. In fact last night, she’d even hoped her first
session would have been
enough
.

Instead, today she’d felt charged and edgy at the office. Her sex pulsed and clenched
when flashes of him interrupted her, even when she was speaking to her assistant,
reviewing the new designs for next year.

She’d stared at e-mails while only thinking that she wanted his fingers, his mouth,
his voice whispering in her ear. A strange hunger yawned open in her body. Suddenly
it seemed imperative she appease this need, and the only way she could think of was
to give in to exactly what it wanted.

When you were hungry, there would be no way to satiate your appetite but by eating.
And Monica wouldn’t be able to sleep with this … this … sexual anxiety. But now that
she’d called him, a wild tension gripped her every muscle, her nerves almost overwhelming
her.

She gazed around her apartment, everything perfectly in order, the light earth tones
having always calmed her. But she was anything but calm. Once again, she padded into
her enormous marble bathroom to eye herself in the full-length mirror.