Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance) (32 page)

I lift my gaze back to his. “What did she say? About this morning, that is.”

He sighs and rubs his jaw. “A lot.”

“Wow,” I mumble through a thick layer of sarcasm. “That is excruciatingly detailed.” 

He throws me a look. Showing me his annoyance. “What do you think she said, Lotty? She thinks you’re too young. She thinks I’m taking advantage of you. She thinks I ‘should know better.’ She’s think I’m going to hurt you and then
she’s
going to lose you. She’s one hundred percent against us…so…yeah…
we
can’t happen…”

His lips are saying one thing but his body is saying something else entirely. His body’s reaction to me giddies me. His words don’t.

So, befriending manipulation, I turn again and reach for the door handle, murmuring, “That’s okay. No big deal. I’m sure Muscles will—”

This time I’m not just whipped around by his grip, but hoisted off the ground and slammed back against the door. Reflexively, my legs lock around his waist, arms around his neck. “Use Muscles’ name again to make me jealous, Lotty, and you’re not gonna like it.”

My eyebrow lifts into a teasing arch. “What are you going to do, kiss me to death?”

Ripping me away from the door, my body still wrapped around him like a coil, he stomps over to the bed and dumps me on it. But I don’t let go of him. Hanging on for dear life.

He’s hard as steel against my mound, and I’m so wet it should be a sin.

“Lotty,” he prays to my soul, right before burying his face in my neck. “I just…I want you so bad, it’s killing me.”

I don’t get what’s holding him back. Don’t get why he’s punishing himself. When it’s
so
easy to just get it over with, right here, right now.

I begin rocking up and against his hardness, the friction sending jolts of pleasure through me. “What Gloriel doesn’t know, can’t harm her,” I whisper to his hair. “She doesn’t have to know. It’s not like it’ll be serious with stupid emotions and feeling or anything. We’re just filling each other’s appetites.”

A groan leaves him as I continue to rock against him. I slip my fingers through his hair and grip, whimpering, as he grows harder with each rub against him.

I tug hard on his hair and he raises his head, gaze burning me through half-lidded eyes. Damn this man and his good-looks. Such torture to—

Before I can finish the thought his mouth is on mine, his tongue is inside, our desires entwined. I emit a squeak of sheer joy as he begins rocking against me, hard and pressing against my lace-covered folds.

He kisses me deeply, feverishly, with hunger unleashed. He sucks my tongue, bites my lip, and twists my head for an even deeper go.

Jesus
. If this isn’t starvation, I don’t know what is.

As my pleasure starts to heighten, my hips go haywire, rocking harder, faster, wilder, feeding him moans and mewls and whimpers.

Matching my pace, he tears his mouth from mine and his hands move to my breasts, cupping the girls hidden under two layers of clothing. He squeezes them, kneads them, restlessly.

“Lotty,” he whispers to my cleavage. “Lotty.”

It appears his vocabulary has been reduced to one word. My name.
I like it.

As I feel the telltale tingles, the tightening, the shortening of movements, I squeeze my legs tighter around him and brace for it.

“You’re going to come, aren’t you?” he rasps out.

“Oh, God,
yes
,” I confirm. “And hard.” 

His head bends to kiss me again. Deep, rough, and swift. And then, before I understand what’s happening, my legs are torn from around his waist and the weight vanishes from between my thighs.

Confused as all get out, I push up on my elbows, panting, shocked eyes searching, finding, and following Noah as he stalks coolly out to the balcony.
What in the…
?

I leap off the bed, my clitoris throbbing indignantly, painfully, protesting for a release. I stomp out to the balcony. Noah is taking position at the top of his yoga mat. “Dude, what the hell?” I hiss. “I’m not done with you!”

“Too bad,” he tells me in an extremely placid voice as he sweeps his arms up on a deep inhale and then brings them to a prayer clasp on an exhale.

“What do you
mean
‘too bad?’” I’m just short of stomping my feet like a toddler. “You’re still stiff hard and I need an orgasm. Get your stupid ass back in here.”

Eyes closed, and completely unperturbed, he repeats two more rounds of the whole sweep of the arms on an inhale, clasps hands on an exhale thing, before responding, “I was hard last night, too, when you fell asleep on my chest. You didn’t seem to care about my hard-on then. So why do you care so much about it now?”

Aha! So that’s what this about. Revenge. “Last night wasn’t about you. It was the
reward
you promised me. So why punish me now? Heck, why punish yourself? You’re going to get a serious case of blue balls.”

“Don’t let my balls concern you, Little Lotty.” He begins the process of a sun salutation. When he stretches to a downward dog position, he says, “Look. Can you see them from here? They’re fine.”

I’m mesmerized, not just by his balls, but by the entirety of him. It’s so hard sometimes to believe how amazing his body is now. From Fatty Nate to
this
? Unbelievable. My eyes trace every muscle, every cord, every perfect stretch as he moves through his poses.

He’s in a cobra stretch now, his eyes still closed, and a small curve to his lips as he goes on, “But your clit? I know it’s
not
fine. You want me to hike that dress up, pull your panties aside. You want me to press your thighs so wide apart they hurt. You want me to lick it, just the tip. Nip it with my teeth. You’re so wet, so on the edge, that’s all it would take right now for you to shatter. To come apart.”

When his eyes finally open, they narrow with displeasure: My hand is under my dress, buried in my underwear, working over my clit with swift rubs, aiming to get an orgasm out fast.

In a flash, Noah is off the floor and in front of me, seizing my hand, and yanking it out of my panties. “
No
. You don’t get to do that.”

“You can’t tell me not to,” I protest. “It’s my orgasm.”

He twists my arm behind my back and crashes me up against him with minimal effort. With Andrew, a move like this would have me shivering in fear. But not with Noah. Never with Noah.

With Noah, the move is so freaking hot he has me quivering with need.

“No,” he breathes. So softly. “It’s not yours. It’s mine.” He dips his head and runs his nose along my jaw, inhaling deeply. “And you can’t have it until I say you can, sweet Lotty.”

“Please,” I beg, the ache unbearable. “
Please
.”

Stupid of me to think he’d pity me.

He releases me, steps back. He opens his mouth and starts to say something, but it’s Gloriel’s muffled voice that I hear. “Charlotte? Is everything okay? Nate, you can’t fire Charlotte. If you do I will never forgive you!” She bangs on the door now, rattles the lock. “Charlotte, come on down, honey. I need your help.”

Noah arches an amused brow at me, moves back to the top of his mat, and slides right back into his pose.

Although his eyes are closed and he can’t see me, I jab a finger through the air. “This isn’t over, you…you…boy in stupid black tights.”

It’s not until I’m at the door and turning the lock that I hear him mumble, “I’m counting on it.”

S
EVENTEEN

“
M
RS.
G
LORIEL
V
AN
Der Wells, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

This is from none other than Qwesie James. Kiera giggles and Noah reaches for seconds.

I, on the other hand, mouth off, “So, the fact that you used ‘Mrs’ along with her married name while proposing marriage doesn’t seem weird to you?”

“It’s called showing respect for the deceased,” he returns, belching at the tail end of his response.

“Oh, Q, you sure do know how to make a woman blush,” Gloriel says with sarcasm.

We’re all slouching at the dinner table—Gloriel, Noah, Qwesie, Kiera and me—with empty dishes, full stomachs, and wine-glazed eyes.

Dinner was good. Exceptionally good. Gloriel never fails when it comes to food. Hence Qwesie’s marriage proposal.

Most of my day was spent plopped on a bar stool in the kitchen, watching Gloriel cook up a storm. She refused to let me help, so I just sat there and kept her company. I didn’t mind. The day was hers to boss me around. But I think her main goal was to keep me away from Noah. One, because I talk back too much. And two, because she’s against us hooking up. If I mouth-off and push him too far, I might get fired. And if we hook up, things might go sour, and I might quit/get fired.

Albeit unspoken, loud and clear, these are her fears.

Nevertheless, her hogging me all day wasn’t needed because Noah didn’t come down from his room until dinnertime. Qwesie arrived an hour earlier with Kiera, but he simply greeted us, picked up the decanter of scotch and two whiskey glasses, and went straight up to Noah’s room, as if instructed to do so in advance.

Maybe Noah knew that’s what Gloriel wanted. Or maybe she told him to. Or, maybe, he did it on purpose to prolong my sexual frustration. Suffice it to say, I’ve been on edge all day on account my denied orgasm.

Not a nice feeling. I can only imagine what blue balls feels like for a man.

I attempted to touch myself in the shower, but found I couldn’t, my body obeying a ridiculous command issued by a god of a man who smelled like heaven itself.

He said it’s his. And I can have it only when he says. Defiant as I am, something about that makes me
want
to wait. Makes me excited, anticipating the moment when he
says
I can have it. So I took a cold shower instead, attenuating the intensity.

This lasted until Noah came downstairs for dinner in slacks and a button down, damp hair finger-combed from his face. Green eyes doing an instant search for me the second he entered the dining room, finding me, staying on me as he pulled out his chair and sat down.

Those eyes narrowed, and I knew what he was searching for: Clues that I disregarded him and took what wasn’t mine. His orgasm.

The hot threat of his narrowed eyes brought the edge back in full force, and of its own volition, my body squirmed, my thighs squeezed together.

As if that’s exactly the reaction he was searching for, a ghost of a smile graced his lips, and he transferred his gaze to his mother, thanked her for preparing dinner.

From there on out, I’ve been nothing but a ball of frustration all throughout, and I took it out on Qwesie whenever he opened his pie-hole. Let’s face it; nothing sensible comes out of this guy’s mouth.

“Thank you so much for inviting me over for dinner, Gloriel,” Kiera says, while texting on her phone. “But I have to leave you guys now, if you don’t mind.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. She’s been checking her phone all night. In fact, she ate with one hand, all the while holding her phone in the other, as though expecting a text or a call from someone. By the enthused light in her eyes and the rapid tapping of her fingers across her phone screen, it seems her hope isn’t wasted.

I stare her down until she finally raises her head, a grin stretching her lips. When she notices me studying her, she quickly averts her gaze.

She stands. Lifts her handbag from where it’s been hanging on the wing of the fancy dinner chair and bids everyone a good evening as she click-clacks away.

Of course, I’m me, little miss inquisitive, so I’m up and following her before she’s out of sight, catching up with her outside the elevator in the foyer.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

She ostensibly checks her nails to avoid eye contact. “Oh, just to catch up with a friend.”

“What friend?”

“What’s with the third degree?” she asks her nails, still avoiding my eyes. “Go back to your billionaire. You two were basically having eye-sex all through dinner. Just bone already. Jeez.”

“Stop deflecting, Kiki. What are you hiding?”

Kiera is super candid normally. The whole no eye-contact thing is not her style. Plus, her tone sounds more annoyed than supportive as she mentions me and Noah, as though she’s suddenly…against us?

A thought settles, and panic explodes in my chest. Taking a step back from her, I whisper in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine, “No. Kiki, no. Tell you aren’t going to see him. Tell me you’re not—”

Her eyes snap to mine, her tone sharp. “So you suddenly want him now? You can’t have them both, Lotty. Make up your damn mind.”

“You’d betray me like that?” I ask her, taking yet another step back. “You’d give me up? After all this time, why now?” 

“Wait, what?” Bewilderment colors her features. The elevator opens but she doesn’t go in. “What are you talking about?”

“Andrew,” I hiss, his name like a grenade on my tongue. “You’re going to meet Andrew.”

A brief second of understanding passes over her face, and then hurt settles in, her face hardening. “After everything. After
everything, y
ou really believe I’d—” She stops, shakes her head, and blinks up at the ceiling. “Enjoy the rest of your evening,
friend
.”  She stomps into the elevator, furiously punches the down button, and then she’s gone.

I stare at the closed elevator doors. If it’s not Andrew, then who or what is she hiding from me?

“Oh, Charlotte,” I hear from behind me.

I turn to see Gloriel by the seven-foot tall decorative plant. She’s been spying on us. This freaking woman. “She’s hiding something.”

“Maybe she is,” Gloriel agrees. “But whatever it is, I can’t believe it’s anything that will bring harm to you. Come on. Help me with the dishes.”  

Noah and Qwesie retreated to the balcony off the living area sometime during my confrontation with Kiera. Do men really have that much to talk about?