Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Matthew

My God, I can’t seem to concentrate. I don’t understand the odd click that happened inside of me when she walked into this office. Like…my soul was expecting her. It doesn’t make any fucking sense. We’re not supposed to have things in common. This anger we share, left behind almost certainly by our parents, our upbringing, it’s binding us tighter by the second. I have a clear mission here—seduce the brat and send her back to McGraw-Hale crying. After everything her father has done to my family, I shouldn’t be hesitating now.

She’s attracted to me. I can push a little, overwhelm her.

Unfortunately, I’m not so sure I won’t overwhelm myself in the process.

My dick is stiff, palms perspiring. She’s wearing a white skirt and it’s just north of too short for a job interview. Instead of pushing it up and sliding my fingers down the front of her panties…I have the most insane urge to lecture her.

You do not wear skirts unless I’m with you.

I want to say it to her while she’s face down over my lap.

She needs the anger spanked out of her. She needs it kissed out of her, too.

She’s lost and I want her to feel found.

It’s ridiculous. Inconvenient.

I’m supposed to be fucking her for revenge. To send a very nasty message to her father that we are watching McGraw-Hale and we don’t tolerate their attempts to learn our strategies. Any kind of ammunition thrown our way will only be used against them. I’ve been working my whole life to bring down her bastard father, Gerard Hale. Now is my moment.

I just didn’t expect the gold of her eyes to slice into my chest like a saw blade.

I’ve never responded like this to a female. I’m usually indifferent. They all look the same in the dark. My mind is never engaged. Definitely not my heart. But this girl…Kaylee. I would want every single light on. I would want her in my bed, not a hotel suite. I’d want to look her in the eye when she comes, taste her…

Taste her.

Oh, Jesus.

My pulse begins sprinting a mile a minute when I imagine eating her out. Giving her an orgasm. Pleasure. Listening to her pant my name, her thighs spread, supple ass cheeks flexing in my hands. Shit. I’m salivating. I’ve never been hungrier for anything in my life. My tongue would replace the flame of anger in her eyes with bliss. It would melt away and I’d be responsible. Fuck. I want to be responsible for her. What the hell is happening to me?

“I really should go,” she whispers.

But she can’t move, because my hand is wrapped around her elbow. I’ve moved closer to her on the couch, unconsciously, her cedar and roses scent dragging me in, along with the sound of her breaths. Breaths that align perfectly with mine. I’ve heard people talk about this, meeting a kindred spirit or a soul mate. That can’t be what this is? Can it?

No. Hell no.

In order to meet a soul mate, one’s soul would have to be available—and mine is not.

I sold it to the devil a long time ago.

I’m just in shock over the magnitude of this attraction.

I’ll fuck her and the spell will be broken.

She’s here to steal my secrets for her father and I can’t forget that.

I’m in a checkmate position with Gerard Hale. Execute it.

“How can you hand me this resume full of accolades and tell me you’re not impressive?”

I expect her to panic‚ since those honors are fake, but she keeps her gaze steady on mine, those golden eyes occasionally dipping to my mouth, the color on her cheeks deepening from light pink to fuchsia. “It’s just a piece of paper. Would your resume be an accurate summary of who you are?”

“Not even close.”

She hums, drawing me in closer. Dear God, the valley of her tits looks soft.

“What would your honest resume say?” she asks me.

For some reason, I can’t seem to be anything but honest with her about who I am. Our breaths match. They’re in perfect sync. “Calculating, ruthless, wins at all costs,” I answer.

Her lips twitch. “Don’t you have any good qualities?”

“In my world, those are good qualities.”

“What about my world?” she whispers, trembling. Trembling because my hand has just slid onto her knee, wrapped around it. Squeezing. “I…never mind. I don’t know why I’m asking you that. It doesn’t matter what qualities I find positive in a man. This is a job interview.”

Her nipples are in little points against the front of her blouse—and now there’s no use pretending I’m not salivating. Or that my hands aren’t aching to stroke her skin. Palm her tits. Spread her legs. “At some point, we’re going to have to stop pretending that’s all this is.”

“I don’t…have experience with this. It’s not normal, though…?” Our clothing rasps as I lean over her, bringing our mouths closer. Within inches of each other. “It’s not normal that…it’s hard to breathe around you?”

My head is spinning with the magic of her. “No, it’s not fucking normal.” Slowly, I graze her lips with mine, side to side, my right hand traveling up beneath her skirt. “What qualities would you like in a man? I want to know right now.”

“I’d only be guessing. I’ve never been with one.”

This is the second time I’ve suspected she’s playing games with me—and it pisses me off. The first time, when she called me a narcissist and made me laugh, I grew suspicious. I don’t like being pandered to or any sort of brown nosing—did she come here knowing that?

Am I being had?

I pushed aside that possibility when she tried to leave the interview. But now I’m back to being wary, because there is no way in hell a man hasn’t lost himself in this female. She’s irresistible. Beautiful and intelligent and vulnerable and strong and interesting. Even if she was raised out on Long Island by nannies, there had to have been opportunities for romance. A man would scale the walls of a fucking castle and slay a dragon for a chance with Kaylee.

She expects me to believe she’s untouched?

Is she acting? Am I being pulled into a lie and made a victim?

Maybe she’s my downfall. A perfect weapon sent by the enemy.

Even knowing that is a possibility, I’m not sure I can resist.

“I’m waiting, Kaylee.” My hand has been coasting up her thigh and my fingertips reach her panties now, my index finger slipping between her unsettlingly-soft pussy and the cotton crotch, tugging, then pressing back in, knuckle to her slit, rubbing, twisting, making her gasp. “What qualities in a man are important in your world?”

“Umm.” Her lashes flutter, neck flushing. “Honesty. Compassion. Humor.”

“I’m none of those things,” I rasp against her mouth—just as her flesh blooms open, allowing me to knuckle gently deeper and tease her clit.

Her grip flies to the arm of the couch, back arching on a rocky intake of breath. “Guess you’re out of the running then.”

“Your wet pussy says I’m not just in the running, I’m in first place.”

“Mr. Borden—”

I don’t know why her formal use of my name sets me off, but it does. I like it because a sick part of me looks forward to her obedience in bed. I hate it, too, because I want to be Matthew to her. Before I can reconcile my own intentions, I move in a blur of speed, turning her to face me and flattening her backwards onto the couch, crowding her legs open with my hips. “Matthew,” I say, my mouth against her ear. “I just knuckled open your little pussy. You call me Matthew now.”

“Matthew,” she whimpers.

It’s as though some of the stone caked to my heart erodes, falling away. I drop down onto her inviting curves, her soft, feminine body, and I ransack her mouth with mine. It’s just supposed to be a kiss. A means of arousal—for her. But the moment she opens her mouth, allowing my tongue in to play, my cock stiffens in pure pain. My thoughts grow hazy, all except for one. More. More, more, more of this perfection. Her velvet-smooth lips and the innocence of her tongue treating mine to testing strokes. The way her body seems to bloom beneath me, come to life, arching and twisting and panting.

I’m losing it. I’m losing myself in her.

Get your head straight.

I need to remember why she’s here. Remember my objective.

“Sarah…” I say hoarsely, dragging my tongue up the curve of her throat and nipping that full bottom lip, her pussy heating against the fly of my trousers. God, I want to call her Kaylee, but maybe referring to her fake identity is for the best. It’s a good reminder that she’s here to dupe me, fuck me over. Unfortunately for her and McGraw-Hale, I never lose. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh…” She blinks several times, as if trying to emerge from a haze and I struggle not to find that adorable. Sweet. Goddammit, she’s so beautiful. “You do?”

Those eyes. What was I saying?

Right. A proposition.

“I’ll hire you as my temp, but the job is this. You’ll spend the day in my office and…”

Her earnest expression almost causes me to falter. “And?”

“I’ll have full use of your body. All day. When I need it.” I grind down on her sex, thrusting her up the couch, watching her thighs jerk around me reflexively. Pure magic. “You’ll clock in at nine am and spend the day as my plaything.”

Her expression goes from euphoric to hurt in the blink of an eye. Really hurt.

It’s not manufactured—and suddenly I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. Loudly. My throat dries up and attempts to close. “I’m sorry,” I breathe.

She slaps me across the face.

Struggles to get out from beneath me, but I can’t let that happen or she’ll be gone and I’ll never be able to fix this. What am I fixing exactly? I have no idea. This girl is supposed to be my enemy in disguise, but none of that seems to be relevant in the face of her hurt feelings.

I pin her wrists on either side of her head, using my lower body to keep her from moving. “I’m sorry,” I say again. Those words sound totally foreign on my lips. Have I ever apologized to anyone in my entire life? “I’m sorry.”

“Get off me.”

My stomach twists violently. “No.”

She tries to buck me off. “You just offered to pay me to be your in-house hook up. I want to leave. I never want to look at you again.”

Panic claws at my back.

Fix it. Fix it now.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper against her plush mouth, then lower at her throat where her pulse races out of control. I’m pushing up her skirt. Dragging my open mouth down the front of her heaving body, toward her cunt. It’s my single-minded destination. I can repair this. I can give her pleasure and forsake my own. I can lick her off until she forgets my proposition. Never mind that she was supposed to say yes. That my plan was to make her my whore and rub her father’s face in it. Never mind that. My chest is ready to explode and I can’t think about plans and strategies. Who gives a fuck about those things when her eyes are clouded over with pain?

“Come on, baby,” I growl when I reach her panties. Nude. Nude thong. Goddamn. I lick her slit through the cotton like she’s the fountain of life, feasting on her mound through the dampening material. Sweet. “Let me apologize. I’m sorry. Let me make it better.”

Who the fuck am I in this moment? I have no idea. I’m just a man who is struggling with a girl who is trying to keep her panties on while I fight to pull them down. I can’t let her win this battle because she’s going to walk out and I won’t handle that well. I might demolish this fucking building if it happens, so I just need to get my tongue in her flesh. I need to atone.

That authority I felt earlier, when I pointed at the couch and told her to sit…it’s back.

I’ve only ever experienced this dominant impulse with Kaylee. And it takes me over.

I surge up her body, pressing my forehead down on hers. Looking her in the eye—and she must feel the jolt of electricity, the new energy, too, because she stops struggling and holds her breath. “You’re going to stay still and let Daddy apologize between these little girl legs.” I reach down and twist her thong in my grip, tearing it off in one growling pull. “You’re going to come on my face as many times as it takes to forgive me. Is that fucking clear?”

A shiver courses through her. “Yes,” she sobs, the fight going out of her.

Oh. Oh Jesus, this is…

Inescapable. Inevitable. Isn’t it? Aren’t we?

Even if we’d met on the other side of the world without hidden agendas, she would be on her back and I’d be asserting my dominance. She needs it. That much is obvious. As obvious as the fact that I’ve never been more attuned to my own needs. I’ve never needed at all.

Not like this. Not until her.

I move back down her body, biting her gently through her clothing. On her tits, her belly and hips. These thighs that open for me, trembling, but brave. I refuse to hesitate a single second and risk her remembering to be angry. No, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. So I kiss her inner thighs like a possessive motherfucker—because, God, that’s how she makes me feel—and I dip my tongue to her hole, stroking long and thorough up to her clit, bathing it. Worshiping it. Kissing and laving and teasing that nub while her breathing accelerates, whimpers and cries filling my office, the shadow of her writhing body moving on the far wall. Fuck. I’m going to have her painted there. I never want to forget the first time I got my tongue in her pussy.

“Daddy,” she whispers, her hips rising to meet my next lick, her tummy shuddering when I nibble and bat that little nub with gentle lips and a stiff tongue. I reach up, quickly unbuttoning her blouse and spreading it open, kneading her full tits until they’re swelling over the cups of her bra, into my greedy palms—and I continue to conquer the succulent flesh in front of me. She’s ripe and delicious and juicy and mine. And the more she enjoys my tongue, the more fulfilled I feel. Because of someone else’s pleasure. Hers. Christ. I never want to stop. “I…I…I think…I can’t stop it…” Her fingers slide into my hair and tighten. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Do as you were told,” I roar against her drenched sex. “All over my face.”

“B-but…is it supposed to feel like…like…”

“Like you’re dying?” I spit on her slit and lick it up. “Just wait until I fuck you.”

Her right hand leaves my mouth and slaps over her own. A second later she screams into her palm, her hips rocking one final time against my mouth before jolting, shuddering, her thighs flexing around my head, heels buried in the breadth of my back. I experience all of it, her, even while I’m reeling from the perfection of bringing this girl to orgasm. The new, deeply ingrained responsibility that’s building in me.

“No one goes near this pussy but me,” I shout into her stomach, my thumb working on her clit, extending the release as long as I can. More. More. I want to make her come every second of the rest of my life. “No one. Ever. My face is the contract and you just inked your signature on it.”

God help me. Once wasn’t enough.

Her sugar-sweet taste is driving me back down her body, shoving open her thighs. I bury my face in her sodden flesh and lap at it, holding her still with a forearm across the hips when she starts to struggle.

“No, no,” she says on a shaky exhale. “I can’t again. It’s too much.”

“You can. You will.” I lick everywhere. Up and down her sticky inner thighs, across her stomach, through the swollen valley of her cunt. I’m an animal and finally, finally, she wraps the strands of my hair tight in her fingers and lets me milk another orgasm from her pussy, groaning and rubbing my face in her perfection while she strains again, calling my name—Matthew, Daddy—until she sobs one last time and goes limp on the couch. “Do you forgive me?” I ask, rising above her, heart in my fucking throat. “Do you?”

She breathes hard for several seconds, those big, golden eyes running laps around my face. “No,” she whispers.

That single word is like having a dagger driven into my chest.

I’ve just torn down my walls for her, left myself vulnerable to the elements. I’m completely stripped clean and she still rejects me? She might as well light me on fire. Which is why I can do nothing but sit there, stunned and reeling, when she lurches off the couch, fixes her clothing hastily and runs out the door without a backward glance.

Denial and rage spear up inside of me like twin swords, puncturing everything in their path. I want to throttle her in that moment as much as I want to chase her down and…hold her. Rock her. Tell her she’s mine and beautiful and safe. What is happening to me?

I stand up and stumble to my desk, snatching up the picture in the far corner. I force myself to look at it. My father, sitting in the visitor’s area of the prison on my eleventh birthday, a sad piece of cake uneaten on the beat-up metal table, my head bowed forward. His broken expression. The shame in his hunched posture.

That shame he and my mother felt is what caused them to push me away.

Reject me. Act like I barely existed.

I keep this picture on my desk as motivation to crush my enemies at all costs. To win, no matter what. How easily I forgot in the last hour that Kaylee’s father is responsible for the rupturing of my family. And she has the nerve to push me away when I’ve never been more defenseless in front of another human being in my entire damn life?

No. No, she’s not getting away with that.

And she’s sure as hell not getting away from me.