31. Max

It's not just the explosive, all-consuming sensation of shoving my cock into Darcy's cunt, over and over, with a whole lot of power and very little finesse.

It's the sight of it all that has me fighting for control.

My angry dick, disappearing between those plump, creamy arse cheeks.

The delicate curve of her spine as she attempts uselessly to arch under my unflinching palm.

Her beautiful face in profile, her usually angelic features contorted with her need to come as much as with the effort of withstanding the uncompromising pummelling I'm giving her. Her outstretched arms, hands clenched into fists, chestnut hair strewn prettily across the leather of my desk.

It really is a most gratifying picture.

I'm surrounded by art, accolades, by the trappings of wealth and power and having well and truly "made it" in the business world. But nothing says victory, nothing says the sweet spoils of war, nothing says conquering hero like having a beautiful woman strewn across one's desk to poke and fuck and defile.

Fuck me, if she's not the ultimate prize. It feels right to be christening this office, and this desk, by coming deep inside Darcy's beautiful body.

She wants more, greedy, wanton, delicious little slut that she is; she wants more cock from this Dex guy, but I'll be damned if she doesn't hobble out of here knowing that my cock alone is quite enough.

I flare my nostrils, breathing heavily as I force myself to keep my moves rhythmical. Every thrust must be a turn of the screw that'll wind her tighter. Drive her higher.

She's close. Those long, elegant fingers are clawing ineffectively at my desk's surface, her eyes squeezing closed as she pushes her hips back to meet me every single time. Every time I ram home, her entire torso shunts up the desk. It must be sore, but the breathy, desperate whimpers she's making are so fucking intoxicating they spur me on like a madman. I can't hold back, so I hope to fuck she comes before I do.

Her orgasm rips through her, and I grab both her hips so I can piston through it as hard as I can. She's a writhing, crying mess of hair and skin, bucking beneath my hands as those wonderfully toned internal muscles clamp down on my dick over and over.

I fuck her through it, the hot, pure glow of pleasure coursing through my veins and dancing across my nerve endings as I follow her over the edge with strangled curses and jagged thrusts. Then I'm stilling as deep as I can inside her as I shudder through my own spectacular climax, a tsunami that subsumes me, leaving my body limp and my head clear.

As it ebbs away, I bend and gather her up in my arms, pulling her sated body flush against mine.

‘I thinkwe've worked up a sufficient appetite,' I tell her as she emerges from my office's ensuite bathroom, swinging her oversized bag. She's back in her dress, having brushed her glorious just-fucked mane of hair into submission and wiped the mascara smudges from under her eyes.

She's glowing and beautiful.

‘For what?' she asks.

‘Lunch.'

She looks at me like I've just grown an extra head.

‘You didn't think I'd make you come over here for sex and then turf you out, did you?' I ask.

‘That's exactly what I thought.' She tugs the handbag onto one shoulder.

‘Well, that's hurtful,' I say chidingly, moving closer so I can tug her against me. ‘One, I'd like to think I've been brought up better than that. Two, and far more importantly, you've been the unmitigated bright spot in my day so far and I'm not in a hurry to get back to work.'

‘I'd be pretty offended if it wasn't, and I'm not sure eating lunch with me will live up to what we just did,' she retorts.

‘Of course it will. Your conversational skills aren't that bad. Come on.'

I take her around the corner to Nobu in Berkeley Square, my hand firmly in hers. I haven't booked, but that's never an issue.

‘A sandwich will be fine,' she gasps as I usher her through their heavy doors. ‘We could just go to Pret.'

‘I don't do fine,' I tell her. ‘Nor do I do bread, especially processed bread. This is healthy if you order sensibly, and it's delicious.' I lean in and whisper in her ear as we approach the front desk. ‘That was a Nobu-level fuck, not a Pret-level fuck. Don't sell yourself short.'

The ma?tre d' greets me by name and promptly shows us to my favourite table. I follow Darcy up the shallow staircase, my hand light on the small of her back. It's the usual business lunch crowd—fewer gold diggers and more dealmakers. Anonymous guys in the Mayfair hedge fund uniform of open-necked shirt, no tie, and suit trousers.

I consult with Darcy on her preferences—my experience watching her devour China Tang's best tells me she eats everything—and order a selection for us to share, going heavy on the veg and sashimi. I don't need to be in a food coma for the afternoon—I'm still sex drunk as it is. While I love nothing more than a good fuck, it takes the edge off my… edge. Which is not ideal when you're at the helm of a business the size of the fucking Titanic.

Bad analogy. Wolff Holdings is in excellent health.

Anyway, I'll take this lunch for what it is—an hour to enjoy myself in all my post-sex mellow bliss with the enchanting woman responsible before I reengage Corporate Mode.

Said enchanting woman is currently fiddling with the strap of her sundress. I wave our server away and pour out our bottle of Pellegrino myself. ‘You okay?' I ask her.

‘If I'd known I was coming here, I would've dressed up,' she says, wriggling in her seat.

‘You're the most beautiful woman in this room,' I tell her sternly, ‘so it's good that you're dressed down. Showing the rest of them up any more would have been plain rude.'

She smiles at me and I grin back at her with genuine pleasure.

‘If you say so,' she says.

‘I do. You have precisely as much right to be here as everyone else. More, because you're with me. Okay?' I take a sip of my water.

‘Okay. But you'll be sorry at the end of the meal, because I'm getting so stuck in it's not funny.' She wiggles her shoulders happily, and I cock my head as I survey her.

‘What?'

‘You're very… refreshing.'

She rolls her eyes. ‘Refreshing like a wet wipe?'

‘A lot more. You're a bit of a novelty for me, you know.'

‘Uh-oh. That's not good.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because novelties by definition are only novel when they're new. Then they stop being fun.'

‘I can't imagine you ever not being fun,' I say.

She looks at me over the top of her water glass. ‘I try.'

‘Do you?'

‘What?'

‘Try. Is it a conscious thing? Because it certainly doesn't seem conscious. Do you purposefully try to be fun?'

‘I dunno.' She screws up her pretty little nose. ‘It's part of who I am, I suppose. I'm the fun one, and Gen's the sensible one. It's always been that way.'

That sounds a lot less to me about who she is and far more about who she's been pigeonholed as.

The fun one.

The bright, beautiful spark who dazzles and amuses and entertains.

She's all of those qualities, of course—they're clearly intrinsic to her—but I hope she doesn't ascribe her value to them. But I suspect Darcy isn't a woman who welcomes unsolicited psychoanalysis.

‘I see,' is all I say. ‘Is that why you dance? Because it's fun?'

‘No,' she says, ‘definitely not.'

‘Really? You don't find it enjoyable?'

‘I do, of course, but not because it's fun.' She scans the room, seemingly trying to articulate something. ‘I suppose it's like—I've never been the smart one, right? That's always been Gen.'

There she goes again, pigeonholing herself, allowing herself to be neatly indexed by someone else's fucked-up version of Dewey Decimal.

‘You're smart, and you're socially agile, and you're emotionally intelligent,' I say firmly. ‘I can tell. So don't say things like that in my presence, because it won't wash. And, by the way, it doesn't have to be binary. Gen and you can both be smart, and you are, so if your parents didn't make that clear then I'm sorry.'

‘Thank you,' she says softly. ‘That's really nice of you to say. But what I mean is, I wasn't academic. When I was at prep school, I wasn't studious.'

‘Being studious or academic and being smart are totally different things,' I argue. I categorically can't let this lie. ‘Take Richard Branson. Take me. I was a fucking nightmare at school—undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD. I didn't get either diagnosed till I went off to Eton and my housemaster worked it out in days. Fuck knows how I got through the Common Entrance, but they let me in, and I'll always be grateful to him.'

She's staring at me in astonishment. ‘You're dyslexic?'

‘Yes. But this isn't about me. My point is, you say you weren't studious at school. So what? Doesn't mean you're not intelligent.'

‘Okay, but I think what I'm trying to say is that there are different types of intelligence, right, and they're more like intuition. So you mentioned emotional intelligence—that's one. But physical intelligence seems to be another. Basically, my body feels smarter than my mind, if that makes sense? It's like my brains are literally in my muscles.

‘My body understands things without my brain even processing them, and it's instinctive and intuitive. I can hear music, even in my head, and just know how I should move to it. It's kind of like speaking a language and having no clue how you learnt it. All I know is, the music speaks to my soul, and my soul speaks to my body, and my body speaks back. Does that sound crazy?'

I take her hand across the table and squeeze it, but I don't let go. Because what she says moves me, for some reason.

‘No,' I say. ‘It doesn't sound crazy in the slightest. It not only sounds very sane, but very enviable, too, because I would say that kind of intelligence is a rare and beautiful gift to have.' I pause. ‘And you've just articulated—with beautiful poignancy, I might add—one of the many reasons I find you so mesmerising. Is that a better word than refreshing?'

She rests her chin on her spare hand and smiles at me. ‘It's much better, and I can spare a few minutes if you want to list all the other reasons.'

I throw back my head and laugh. ‘Well, obviously, your shy and self-effacing nature is the main one. No, seriously. You make me laugh, when a lot of people bore the ever-loving fuck out of me.'

‘As long as you're laughing with me and not at me.'

‘Always with you. Always. And'—I lower my voice—‘we've fucked, what, on three occasions, now? You're the first woman in a long, long time who hasn't tried to put a ring on my finger or at least get a new Birkin out of me.'

She makes a face. ‘That's uncool. I just want you for your big dick. That and all this really good food.'

I laugh again. ‘I'll keep feeding you, don't you worry. But I had to practically tie you to the bed the other night to get you to stay over. Most women would be freeing up drawers and trying to move their stuff in by now.'

‘Maybe that works for women who like old, crusty guys, but not for me,' she deadpans, and I grin, remembering her words to me that first night in France. If I recall correctly, she called me a crustyold Brit. Cheeky little wench.

‘We're back to that, are we?'

She smirks. ‘Seems so.'

‘I didn't notice you complaining when you were coming all over my cock just now.'

She doesn't look around to see if anyone can overhear. She doesn't bat an eyelid, which I fucking love. She merely pulls her hand away and picks up her water glass.

‘What can I say? It must be that you're still a novelty to me.'

She's unbelievable. I raise my glass to her. ‘Well played. I'll need to keep things fresh then, won't I?'

She clinks. ‘Absolutely. You don't want me getting bored, do you?'

‘Definitely not.' I grind my jaw. ‘So let's mix things up. Did you get Dex's number off Maddy?'

Her eyes dart evasively around the buzzing restaurant. ‘Not yet.'

‘Lucky for you, some of us are doers. I DM'ed Belle on Instagram and asked her for it.' I slide my phone onto the table and pull up the exchange.

‘Here you go. Send him a message.'

She looks at me, eyes wide. ‘Now?'

I smile wolfishly. ‘No time like the present.'