WORTHY, Part 3 (The Worthy Series) (6 page)

“Do you know anything about art?” I asked suddenly, wheeling around to face Milo as we reached the top of the stairs.

“I know what I like when I see it,” he said, putting his hands on my waist. If he tried, I’d bet he could almost make his fingers meet. I’d gotten so skinny that it frightened me. Hopefully, I could put on a little weight as long as we kept going back to Ganesh for bunny chow.

“Maybe we can go to a gallery sometime,” I said, taking another drink from my cocktail. Milo must have left his downstairs.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I also like this work of art right in front of me.”

I blushed at his compliment, thankful that the light in my room was dim, the result of the downstairs lights filtering upward. I hadn’t turned on the lamp by the bed yet. I had to remind myself that this was what I needed to do to move forward with my life. I needed to be with Milo, even if I was hesitant.

“April, are you sure you want this?”

Milo was watching me, and I cursed myself silently. He’d told me himself that he was more sensitive to the signals other people gave off than most. That worked both ways — eagerness and tentativeness.

I let my kiss answer for me, rubbing my hands over his smooth head, surprised at how soft it was. Milo responded in kind, ruffling my short hair with his fingers. It felt strange, my hair being so short in such an intimate situation, and feeling the air on my scalp made me shiver.

“You’re not going to be cold for long,” Milo murmured, reaching around me and unzipping my skirt. “I’m going to warm you right up.”

He slipped a hand beneath the fabric, squeezing my rear fondly, as if we’d known each other for ages. I experienced another brief moment of disorienting panic. I didn’t know this man at all. I knew his first and last name, what he drove, what he did for a living, and what his parents did, but that was about it. I didn’t know what he did with his free time or where he lived or whether he had any pets. I didn’t know his favorite color or favorite movie or favorite everything, but here we were, in my bedroom, about to become as close to each other as two people could possibly get.

If this was how dating worked, it was surreal and so difficult.

Milo made another move to hold back, but I urged him on, palming and then squeezing the erection making a tent in his trousers. He groaned softly and nipped at my neck, egging me on until he had to stop me.

“That’s feeling a little too good,” he said, unbuckling his belt and letting his pants fall to the floor.

“Do you have a condom?” I asked, looking at his erect shaft.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I always come prepared.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you, for a business dinner,” I remarked, raising my eyebrows.

“Was I right to presume?”

“You were very right,” I said, laughing as he tore open the foil wrapper and shook out the latex within.

“Help me with this, would you?” he asked.

I didn’t know the first thing about putting on condoms. Jonathan and I had never used them when we were together, but now that I knew my body was fully capable of bearing children — though my child had never come to fruition — I wanted to take precautions.

With a little fumbling around, I managed to roll the condom on over Milo’s cock. I felt like a schoolgirl, not a sexy and powerful CEO, but if he cared, Milo didn’t show it.

“I want to make you feel good,” I said.

“April, making you feel good is going to be what gets me off,” Milo assured me. He helped me to step out of my skirt, unbuttoned my blouse, slipped his hand beneath each cup of my bra to caress my breasts before unclasping the scrap of lace and nylon.

I wanted to feel good so badly. I needed this, and I wanted this. I wanted things to be good again.

If it couldn’t be with Jonathan — and it most surely could not — then I was going to make do with Milo.

After more explorations, after more buttons unbuttoned and clothes forgotten on the floor, we finally made our way to the bed, falling onto the soft mattress with a bounce. It was strange. I felt like a lot of time had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. I had been so busy tracing my fingers over Milo’s incredibly cut muscles, getting used to the length and width and shape of his cock, kissing him until I couldn’t breathe, kissing him until I couldn’t tell who was doing the breathing.

Whole hours could’ve swept by without me knowing. It was so amazing to have something else to focus on for once besides my own misery. It was good to have a goal, to see an end in sight.

Before, there was no end to my horror and my tragedy. It was an ongoing ordeal, something I could never escape, even if I wanted to.

Now, though, I had a goal: take down Wharton Group.

Of course, I had a much more immediate goal: let Milo Singh give me an orgasm.

Goals were such a good thing.

Milo kissed me continuously as he wriggled his fingers inside of me, as promised. I was so wet, so slick for him, so ready to engulf his erection, to take my pleasure in his and vice versa.

When he withdrew his fingers and replaced them with his cock, sliding in seamlessly, I gave a moan that was as much relief as it was pleasure. This. This was what I wanted. To feel this human connection was to feel human again. It didn’t matter what my name was or who I was pretending to be. That stroke, then the next, then the next one mattered much more than anything else. This was life. This was living, and I could never give up on this.

I seized the fingers Milo had pushed inside of me earlier and suckled them, earning a groan of appreciation from the lawyer. I licked and licked, fascinated by the taste of my own juices on his digits. I tasted salty and wholesome and sexy all at once.

“You keep that kinky shit up and I’m not going to be able to keep from coming,” he warned me. Kinky shit? I’d just been curious. The gesture had been more of an affirmation than anything, a toast to show me that I was still alive when I’d given myself up for lost.

Milo pumped in and out of me, dragging my hands above my head and pinning them there so I couldn’t have at his fingers anymore, taking away all my options and thrusting this one truth at me: I was going to come.

And this other truth: I was going to come screaming.

It had been so long. It had been so goddamn long that it should’ve been a sin.

I shouted myself even more hoarse than my new usual as Milo slammed home, sending me kicking and screaming over the edge of orgasm and beyond. My fingers scrabbled uselessly against his hands, which held me still even through ecstasy.

“So damn sexy,” Milo grunted, and I knew he was coming inside of that latex sleeve, that I was safe from his climax, that there was still enough separation between us to do what needed to be done — use this man’s skills and his devotion to me to get what I really wanted.

Wharton Group’s figurative head on a platter. After everything, I didn’t think it was too much to ask for.

And after that orgasm, with the knowledge that I would have climaxes for the rest of my life no matter who I was with — there had been a terrifying moment when I’d wondered if my ability to orgasm during intercourse had fled when I’d run away from Jonathan Wharton and the life I’d once had — I felt like nothing could stop me.

Milo pulled out of me, drawing me back into the moment, and tugged the spent condom from his cock.

“Safe and sound,” he said, grinning at me before throwing it into the wastebasket beside the bed. “I’m beat.”

“Is that really the time?” I asked, glaring at the clock. It was already 6:30 in the morning. I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had happened — or how long we’d spent pleasuring each other.

“You have quite the stamina,” Milo said, settling down in the bed and drawing me into his arms. “I couldn’t hold out for very much longer.”

“Everything felt so good,” I said wonderingly.

“We’re good together,” the lawyer said. “Now, time to get some rest. We’ll have to be up in a couple of hours, if you feel like going to work. Wouldn’t blame you if you called in sick tomorrow. I might.”

“You better not,” I said sharply. “We’re starting work on the Wharton Group investigation tomorrow.”

“Already?” he asked, looking at me strangely. “Don’t you want a little more time to get settled in at the firm? Observe and take notes? See how everything works?”

“I don’t want to waste any more time,” I said. “Wharton Group is all I’m thinking about from now on, until the job is done.”

“Well, sleep is the only thing on my mind right now, if you’re so gung ho about starting the investigation.”

“You’re still my point man, aren’t you?” I demanded. I was pretty sure I had my hooks in the lawyer, and I didn’t want to lose him now, not when everything was hopeful and ready and so promising.

“Of course,” Milo said. “But right now, I’m your tired man. You can’t expect great things from me unless I get some rest.”

I brooded for a few moments before smiling. Things were going to get better. Things were already getting better. It was so good to have something to focus on beyond my own pain. I was about to do some serious ass kicking, and all of the Whartons were going to be sorry I’d ever stumbled into their lives by the time it was through.

“Milo?”

“Hm?”

“Can I tell you something?”

He opened one sleepy eye and looked at me, a cute, exhausted smile pulling up at the corners of his mouth. “Go for it.”

I smiled in the graying dawn. “I’m going to really enjoy having you by my side when we take down Wharton Group.”

The lawyer opened his other eye and gave me a little scowl. I didn’t understand why he’d picked that expression.

“Go to bed, April. It’s late.”

“You can sleep if you want,” I said, settling down and grinning, ignoring his odd little frown. Maybe he was just grumpy when he was tired. “I’m too excited. Wharton Group will never know what hit them.”

Milo stared at me for a long time before he finally rolled over and went to sleep. I was too busy looking forward to seeing the mighty fall.

With Milo in the lead investigator spot and me being the driving force behind him, the Wharton Group case got off to an excellent start. We started going through everything that was a matter of public record with a fine tooth comb. Any time there was any sort of blip on the radar, the person who discovered it reported directly to me.

Most of my time was occupied with only tiny clues, only whispers of hints that could lead to something big, and it was as tantalizing as it was frustrating. I knew that the right information would bring the pharmaceutical conglomerate down. I knew that something had to be there. The Whartons were just too fucked up for there not to be one thing I could use against them.

I spent less and less time with Milo, always careful to keep him wanting more. He’d given me an incredible orgasm. There was no way I’d lie about that. But I didn’t need that all the time, especially not when my focus was the Whartons, and I felt like I hadn’t quite caught them in my crosshairs yet.

Besides. Exacting my revenge would be sweeter than any orgasm any person could ever give me.

“You’re going to burn out at this pace, April,” Milo told me as we both poured over phone records from the CEO’s office at the Wharton Group office building. They were all numbers Jonathan — or whoever was sitting at his desk — was dialing on a daily basis, and looking at them was sort of surreal. It was like trying to decipher a strange language. Who was he calling? Why was he calling that number?

My heart must’ve stopped for a full minute when I realized that one number that repeated and repeated and repeated was mine. My old cell phone number — Jonathan called it as recently as three weeks ago. The phone had been all but destroyed in the car wreck, and in the ensuing drama, I’d had the account closed and a new number issued.

What did he want? What could he possibly have to say to me? I had nothing that I wanted to share with him. When I was finished taking Wharton Group apart, then I might have a little message for him. But until then, I wasn’t interested one bit in what he had to say.

Except that I was. Except that I was dying to know why he’d called my old number seventeen times in one day. That was treading awfully close to stalker territory. If a girl didn’t pick up after three calls, that was the time to call it quits. Jonathan had moved well past the point of politeness or good social grace.

“April, did you hear me?”

Milo leaned forward, and I quickly scooped up the papers I’d been looking at. I didn’t need anyone figuring out that I was that repeated number. That wasn’t the kind of dirt I was looking to dig up.

“If you’re feeling burned out, you can leave the rest of this to me,” I said, taking the phone records away from him.

“I’m not talking about me getting burned out, I’m talking about you getting burned out,” Milo protested, surrendering the phone records. “Seriously, April, you’ve been at it for weeks. Why don’t you take a break? Let us take care of it. I’m your lead investigator, for Christ’s sake, and you’re micromanaging me to hell.”

I scowled across the boardroom table at Milo.