Crash for Me (The Blankenships Book 7) (2 page)
Read Crash for Me (The Blankenships Book 7) Online
Authors: Evelyn Glass
For a long time, it was just kisses, just the slow glide of mouths moving over each other, teeth testing lips, tongues gliding. There was something so different about kissing as an adult. As a teenager, she could remember the frantic urge of making out with someone, the rush to get as much arousal in as possible before one or the other of them yanked the plug. This was different. Sex would come. This slow burn of arousal would burst into conflagration. Later. Right now? It was enough.
The moment when it moved from enough to nothing like enough was fast, so fast she almost missed it. His fingers brushed over her cheekbone again, but this time, instead of moving back to the front of her face for another slow, sensitizing sweep, they slid back to curve down her neck, over her collarbone, to rest over the top of her breast. She took a deep breath, and her nipple brushed over the heel of his hand, the rasp of the silk turning an accidental touch into a spark.
And then things happened quickly. The angle of his mouth on hers changed, shifted, and the energy between them shifted wildly. His hand roamed her body more freely, with a sense of sampling what was to come. He slid one finger deep inside of her, with no real warning, and she shivered close to the edge of oblivious at the look in his eyes. “I own you right now,” he murmured. “You’re mine.”
“Yours,” she whispered back.
And then he pulled out the toy he’d brought from the playroom. It looked like a dildo, except that it had two loops of silicone at the base. She glanced at him, and then at the toy.
“This way,” he said, running his hand over the erection tenting his pants, “you don’t have to choose.”
She hissed with need and understanding as he stripped, slowly, and slipped between her legs. She spread her legs for him, lifting her knees, but he didn’t bring his hips towards her. Instead, he leaned down between her thighs, his mouth covering her mons and breathing hot air down over her flesh. “Oh, love,” she sighed, feeling her body clench around emptiness, desperate to be filled.
“See the thing is,” he murmured, his tongue darting out to flick against her clit, “that I don’t care if you come or not. I don’t care if it takes hours or minutes. If you come once or never or a hundred times. Right now, you’re mine. And until you tell me otherwise, I get to use you any way I want. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded, frantic; the flat of his tongue was pressed firmly against her sensitive nub, and every beat of her heart made the need for him soar just a little more deeply into her bones. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to form words with her mouth.
“So if I decided to lick you until you scream, and then jack off until I came on your tits, would there be anything you could do about it?” One finger was circling her cunt, not entering her, just stretching at her entrance, and she made a noise that was something like keening. “Words, Zoey. Could you stop me? If that was what I wanted to do?”
“No,” she forced herself to whimper. “No. No.”
“You’re at my mercy.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir. Oh god, oh please—yes—please—”
“What do you want? I want to hear you beg.”
Her pussy ached with arousal; her clit was as heavy as if it had been cast in lead. “I want you to fuck me, with that toy, I want you to fill me everywhere, I want to come clenching around you—”
“No,” he said, and his mouth closed over her pussy as his finger slid back, finding lube from somewhere and then gently opening her ass. She screamed as thunder poured through her, crackling and snapping, and the lightning followed, her hips bucking so hard that she thought she’d hurt him, but the passion was too much to be contained. He didn’t stop, didn’t let her come down, just kept dragging his tongue and his fingers—more than one now, god, how was he filling her so much, so well?—over the spots inside of her body that were turning her inside out, making her scream until her body just fell into limp disarray, hanging from the cuffs, the pleasure of it all wringing her out and leaving her behind in sodden scraps.
He kissed her then, keepping his mouth locked on hers as he fitted the toy under his cock. One loop around his shaft, the other over his balls, and then it jutted out beneath his cock, bobbing almost comically as he shifted down between her thighs.
When the head of his cock brushed over her clit, her body came awake again, even though she would have said it was impossible. She heard a groan tear through her as he ran lube over the toy, and then he was pressing carefully and delicately in her.
The sounds she made were positively filthy, low, and open throated. She felt far away, distant, away from what was happening to her body. Floating. This was the truth of it. This was why people did this, she knew suddenly. Because it gave them a chance to go away. To trust someone else to do the things that made their bodies light on fire.
She was full of him, swollen with him. He lifted her hips so that he had an angle he liked better, and the orgasm that curled through her had little to do with his cock in her—it was about the intimacy of his gaze on her, the sense of being filled entirely by someone else, and the way he stretched her to the limit, grazed the edge of pain, and then swelled just a little more every time she cried out. Her eyes were wide open, too full to blink, and his expression mirrored hers. Swollen, full, unbelievable.
He pounded into her until he followed her over the edge, his breath harsh and ragged, on the harsh edge of tears. He unfastened her wrists, his chest still heaving, and carried her down to the bed, curling her onto his chest with one strong arm, the other reaching to the side for a soft cloth that he used to clean up the fluids of their joining.
Was this what people meant by subspace? Her heart and mind felt far away, both rung out yet also revived by their journey. Her body ached with the force of his fucking, but she didn’t mind. Her wrists were sore, but as he massaged her arms, working through the pins and needles of having them extended, she found she didn’t much mind. He kissed her cheeks—when had she cried enough to wet them?—and ran fingers through her curls, gently detangling them. She let him carry her down into sleep. It was the right thing.
CHAPTER THREE
Opening her eyes meant remembering everything that had happened. She steeled herself for a moment, and then did it. Light flooded in with memories, and everything hurt.
The mattress shifted as Alex sat down next to her. “We need to talk.”
When she’d sat up, the covers had pooled around her waist. She reached down and tugged them back up so that her breasts were covered. “Okay.”
He smiled, but the expression didn’t warm his eyes. “It’s not anything bad. Not about us, anyway.”
“Okay,” she said again, but before he could keep talking, her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. “Hold on, it’s Helen.” He nodded, and she swiped to answer the call. “Helen?”
“Have you gotten out of bed yet, love?”
Zoey blinked fast for a moment, trying to get her brain into whatever gear Helen had found. “Not really, what’s—”
“Get up and get dressed. Your boyfriend, too. Don’t turn on the TV, don’t go on the gossip sites. Have him pick up his phone and call his PR person, and then his lawyer. In that order.”
“Helen, what’s happening?”
“Shit’s hit the fan, love. Gotta fly.” The call ended, and after a moment, the screen of her phone flipped back to the end call screen.
Alex watched her with a curious expression as she set the phone down and lifted the coffee again, relaying to him what Helen had demanded.
“Did she say why?”
“Nope.”
He pulled out his phone and leaned next to her as he opened the web browser.
“She’s a pretty smart lady, though. If she’s asking this, Alex, there’s probably a reason.”
“Probably,” he responded. “But if I don’t know what it is, I don’t know who to contact or what to tell them, do I?”
Zoey couldn’t find the words to argue. She took another sip of her coffee, then set it down on the nightstand to get dressed. She listened to Alex tapping at his phone. It didn’t take him long to start cursing. There wasn’t enough sense in the stream of swears for her to understand what was going on. She glanced back at the bed just in time to see him pick up his mug of coffee and hurl it viciously at the closet door. Coffee flew from the mug in an arc, and the mug itself smashed on the wooden door frame. The full length mirror shivered in its frame, but didn’t crack.
She stood still, a deer that had heard a crack in the forest and was searching for the movement of the wolf. Alex was frozen in place as well, chest heaving. Somewhere deep inside, she wanted to go to him, to try and calm him down, but when she told her foot to take a step forward, it simply refused.
“Sorry,” he snarled out, his voice something entirely different. She watched him set his phone down with exaggerated care, then walk to the closet door with exceedingly careful movements, as if he was made of spun glass and any movement might shatter him. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s fine,” Zoey lied, crossing her hands under her breasts and trying to unstick her feet so that she could find some underwear.
Which was, of course, when the bedroom door flew open, and Sophia hurried into the room, her hands a flutter. “Is everyone all right? I heard a sound—”
All the blood had drained out of the woman’s face, and it gave the Mediterranean olive of her skin a strange, washed out gray tone. Alex got to her before Zoey could, which might have been just as well, given her nakedness. She tried to fade into the background as Alex took both of Sophia’s shaking hands in his. “It’s all right,” he said. “I lost my temper over something stupid about the company that came in an email. I’m sorry for the mess. I’ll pick it up.”
It was as if he’d hit some sort of magic reset switch deep in Sophia’s core. She shook herself, pulling her shoulders back straight and strong, and shook her head firmly. “No need, Mr. Blankenship,” she said, her voice almost prim. “I’ll take care of it as soon as you and Ms. Gardener are done in here.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”
She made a chuffing sound. “It’s not imposing to expect me to do my job, as you well know. Thank you, but I’ll take care of it.” There was more, more behind her eyes and stuck in her throat, but she held the words back. She plucked the pieces of broken crockery out of Alex’s hands and gave him a watery looking smile before leaving the room.
Alex turned back to Zoey, and the hollowness of his eyes went straight to her gut. “What is it?”
He shook his head, slow and jerky, as if his joints were rusted. “Get dressed. We’ll talk out in the living room. Can you eat? I can make us something for breakfast. Sophia will feel better if she has something to do.”
“Is that why you—”
“No.” He shook his head again. “But if it’s working, I’m going to go with it.”
She slipped on jeans, a black sweater, and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, before leaving the room. Sophia was waiting outside, already armed with cleaning products and rags, and there was a determined set to her mouth. Sophia’s eyes turned towards Zoey as the younger woman walked out of the bedroom, but she didn’t seem to really see Zoey at all. It was an odd sensation, as if Sophia were just waiting for her to be out of the way.
And maybe she was. Maybe she was.
She found Alex in the little breakfast nook, where they’d eaten together after their first night together. Where he’d promised to help her find the next level of her career since she was going to have to give up the exclusive report of AEGIS’s double dealing given their relationship. She had to laugh about it, at least a little. Nothing had been normal since that morning. And yet, as much as it had hurt, she wasn’t sure she’d give up a single moment of it.
He was laying out a simple breakfast. Yogurt, fruit, bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon. Another cup of coffee. His hands were perfectly steady; this time, it was his face that gave him away. He sat down when she did, but he didn’t reach for anything to eat.
“You have a long day ahead of you,” she said. “Is the press conference still on?”
Alex took a long, deep breath. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know which option will do less damage.”
“Maybe that’s why Helen wanted you to call public relations before you saw what was going on.” She paused, giving him an opening, and then sighed. “What’s going on, Alex?”
Another sigh from him, this time coupled with him digging his fingers in at his temples. “Some gossip reporter claims to have put together proof that I’m involved with everything that’s gone wrong at AEGIS the past few months. And with Claire. And Olivia. They’re blaming me for all of it.”
Zoey was silent. There weren’t any words, none at all, to explain the wrongness that twisted through her at the thought. But she understood why people were sniffing around that story. It would sell, after all. “Wall Street Bad Boy Kills Sister, Mother, To Get Access To Fortune.” It would play into the racial stories that had been hot all summer, it would play into that scandalous vibe that got people to click, and it got people talking. Comments, sharing, going back to the article to look for updates—it had everything the media needed to get eyeballs on a story and make the clicks happen. “I don’t—”
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said. His voice was flat, for all that his knuckles were pale with tension. “I don’t expect you to do anything, to change anything. This isn’t your fault.”
It took a serious effort for her to yank her mind out of the guilt track it was in, and pull it over to something more helpful. “Okay. Have you called your PR department yet?”
He shook his head, and then looked up at her. The whites of his eyes were run through with red, and the rims looked sore and tight. “How do I call them and repeat what’s being said.”
She reached out tentatively and wrapped her hand around his. It took a moment for him to relax and let her take his grip. “They already know, Alex. It’s their job to know. So you call them, and ask them what to do.”
She worried that he would be upset, snapping at her speaking to him so slowly and simply, but he nodded, no trace of upset on his face.
“Do you want me to stay in here while you call?”
He was silent for another moment, and then shook his head again. “I’m sorry, but no. I’d—is that okay?”
“Yes,” she said, choking back the quick rush of pain that ran through her. “Of course.” Because it was, really, as much as it stung. Even if they’d been together for months or years, he’d have the right to have difficult conversations in private. She pressed his knuckles against her lips and then stepped away, walking into the living room. She wished there was a door to shut to give him more privacy—and to make sure that he couldn’t hear her as she dialed Helen’s number.
“How is he?” Helen said, as soon as the line connected.
“Shaken,” Zoey said. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much,” Helen replied. “The rumors popped up on several sites at the same time, and they’re not cross linking. So I’d bet money on an inside source.”
“Okay, so that’s good.”
“Except it isn’t.”
It took Zoey a second to catch up, and she cursed how just a couple of weeks had blunted her instincts. “No, of course not, because it looks like the information could have been sent before Olivia was killed, which could mean motive.”
“It’s possible. What happened with the police?”
It was Zoey’s turn to sigh and rub her fingers over her temples, glancing back towards the hallway that led to the breakfast nook. “He’s not talking much, Helen. He’s just destroyed by everything that’s happening. I’m afraid this will take him right over the edge.”
Helen was quiet for a few moments. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know,” Zoey said. “If you find out more, let me know. Otherwise—I don’t know, just keep us in your thoughts.”
“Always do, love.”
“Thanks, sha. Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.” Another moment of quiet. “Someone’s after you. You do know that, right?”
“Not me, I don’t think,” Zoey said. “But it’s very possible that I’m in the way.”
“I’d be sad if I had to find a new best friend. It’s far too much work, and I’m way too busy to deal with it. So don’t make me do that.”
“I’ll do everything I can to avoid inconveniencing you.”
“Cheers.”
The call disconnected, and Zoey stared at her phone for a long couple of moments, trying to remember how to breathe. When had things gotten so out of control?
Alex stepped into the living room just a few minutes later. “PR wants me down at AEGIS now. The press conference is moving forward, and we need to address these rumors ASAP. Will you stay here?”
He got points for asking instead of demanding, so she nodded.
“Be careful. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’m worried,” she said. She hated making herself one more thing for him to worry about, but he also had the right to know. “I love you.”
He kissed her, deep and long, his tongue opening her mouth and plucking the strings of her body in a familiar tune. “Would I kiss you like that and leave you wanting?”
She was breathless, her arms around his neck as she forced herself to blink hard and keep the tears away. “I doubt it.”
“Good.” One more kiss, this one close-mouthed but no less passionate, and then he stepped away. “I’ll be back.”
