Quiver (Revenge Book 1) (17 page)

Her body moved without her permission and she came to her toes, brushing her lips against his just enough to tease the ball in her stomach that ached for more.

And something broke in him. He seized her around the waist and tilted his head down to hers.

She parted her lips for him and his tongue slid in easily, tasting the moan that raced up her throat and matching it with his own as his kiss grew firm and unapologetic.

Her moans ebbed to whimpers as their tongues explored one another’s mouths. With each whimper his kiss came faster, harder, surer. His arm tightened around her waist, locking her against him with his breathtaking strength. Rock-hard against her stomach in seconds, his other hand clapped around her ass, squeezing desperately.

Veda’s feet left the floor before she knew it, dress bunching up around her hips as she locked her legs around his waist. She pulled her lips away, her stunned eyes opening and meeting his. Now dominant, her head above his, digging her fingers into his jaw, he allowed her to take the reins even as he parted his lips to hers, offering her his tongue.

Veda accepted with vigor, spreading her lips wide over his while wrapping her arms around his neck. Their tongues wrestled, and the sounds of their battle bounced off the quiet walls of the bathroom. When Gage set her gently down on the open changing table, Veda clawed his ass and pulled him firmly between her splayed legs, making the dress rise to her waist, never slowing their fervent kiss. A pained sound rumbled from his lips and entered her via their roving tongues. It wasn’t a moan, or even a growl, but something skin-tingly in between. It warmed her heart and her pussy in unison, and her trembling fingers were undoing his belt a moment later, driven by the music of his surrender, the taste of his soft lips, and the strength of his roving hands.

Her nipples tightened to the point of pain when he pulled his lips from hers, giving her just a moment to drink in the pained ecstasy tightening his brow before he’d moved his kisses to the sensitive skin of her neck.

She felt the evidence of her own desire tensing her face the same way it had his as he suckled her skin, the smacks of his lips’ caress filling her ears and quickening the pulse in her pussy.

Her eyes fluttered shut when he buried his hands in her hair and brought his lips back to hers. She opened for him with no hesitation, and their tongues found each other again. Never in her life had Veda been kissed like that.

And the tender feeling that ripped through her was no longer scary.

“Condom,” she breathed into his warm mouth, yanking the belt from his pants loops before snatching apart his button and tearing down his zipper.

Gage pulled back, eyebrows still so taut it made him look almost angry, dangerous, as his eyes moved into that place where he lost all control. He palmed the skin of her parted thighs and pulled her sopping pussy against his open zipper with a huff, feeling how wet she was, how easily her panties moved under his grinding hips.

“Fuck.” His nails pushed into her skin. “Goddamn it, Veda. I don’t have one.”

She’d never been more heartbroken by the sound of a few simple words. “No….”

He jammed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to hers. “I don’t have one, baby. Fuck, I need to be inside you so bad.”

She dragged her fingers down the back of his head and locked her legs tighter around his waist, cradling his stiffness more firmly into her center. She knew their first kiss had taken him down a road where the need to be inside her was crushing him. She knew because she was barreling down that same unparalleled road. At top speed. In a car with no brakes.

“I’m on the pill,” she whispered.

He seared another kiss on her lips, staying for a while before pulling back. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She already had his pants down over his ass, gasping as his hardness rose into the air. “I want to feel you bare. I want your cum inside me.”

Every inch of her body—her aching nipples, her pulsating pussy, her greedy hands, and even her lips—were all powerless to the sight of him. She took him between her fingers, drawing a slow tug before pulling her soaked thong to the side, guiding him to her throbbing entry.

“Oh God, Veda, please,” Gage whimpered, panting when his swollen head tapped at her tight entry. “Yes….”

The sound of the bathroom door hitting the wall stunned Veda so much, a yelp left her throat.

Gage, so taken by need, didn’t even seem to hear it, or realize anything was out of the ordinary, until that horrified sound left Veda’s lips. Then his eyes flew over his shoulder.

Both their gazes hit the bathroom door in a flash.

Nurse Latika stood in the open door, watching them with her eyebrows raised high.

Gage cursed under his breath and pulled Veda down from the changing table. He made sure she was settled on her feet before he shot Latika another look over his shoulder while yanking his pants back up.

Most people in Latika’s position would’ve apologized, maybe even excused themselves, waiting out in the hallway until the immoral couple they’d interrupted in the public restroom emerged and made the walk of shame back to the ballroom, all while avoiding eye contact.

Latika did them no such favor. She entered and moved across the bathroom, her silver gown skimming the floor, eyebrows still lifted high. She watched them from the corner of her eye, a knowing smirk teasing her lips as she stepped into one of the open stalls.

Veda leaned on the changing table, trying to hide her face while covering her smiling mouth, and Gage, finally having re-fastened his pants, shot Latika another look over his shoulder.

His deep voice bounced off the walls. “We were just making sure the changing table was secure—”

“Mmmmhmmm!” Latika slammed the door of the stall closed, clicking the lock behind her.

Gage looked back to Veda, whose wide eyes held his. They both fought guilty smiles.

“You didn’t lock the
fucking
door!” Veda mouthed silently, eyes accusatory, pointing arrow-straight fingers at the bathroom door.

Gage’s shoulders rose to his ears and he mouthed something back while motioning to the door with both hands.

Their hushed argument continued until they heard the toilet flush. They jolted at the sound, and the rustle of toilet paper drove Veda scurrying to the door. Gage put his hand on the small of her back and followed.

“Uh….” Gage straightened his tie against his chest, holding the door open for Veda, who dashed into the hallway with a quickness. “See you at work, Latika? First thing tomorrow morning?”

“
Mmmmhmmm
!”

10

Two days later, Veda found herself smoothing out her bun while passing the welcome desk of the busy Shadow Rock Hospital lobby with a trembling smile.

“Good morning, Latika!” Veda raised her hand to wave.

The nurse’s eyes rose over the rims of her glasses from behind the desk. When she caught sight of Veda, she lifted a silent eyebrow. The Cheshire cat grin on her face spoke volumes.

It was enough for Veda to stop in her tracks and reset, letting her waving hand fall back to her side before pivoting to her left and hurrying off in the opposite direction.

But when Latika cleared her throat loudly enough to make everyone scurrying through the lobby slow their pace, Veda stopped in her tracks, knowing it was for her. Her eyes slammed shut as she revisited the narrative she’d concocted in her head while getting dressed that morning.

We were in the heat of the moment
,
she’d say.

It was a one-time thing,
she’d lie.

It didn’t mean anything.
More lies.

She pivoted on her heel, ready to lie her ass off, and approached the welcome desk.

She cleared her own throat under Latika’s unwavering gaze, keeping her eyes lowered as she pressed her palms against the desk.

“Good morning, Latika,” she said.

“Good morning, sweetness.” Latika set a phone charger on the desk. “Will you do me a favor and return this charger to Dr. Britler’s cubby in the on-call room?”

Veda raised her eyes to Latika while sliding the charger off the desk. Was that it? Instead of torturing her for canoodling with an engaged man in a public restroom, the woman had opted to make Veda her personal slave?

Veda poked her lips out. Seemed fair. Even trade. She’d happily allow Latika to be her master if it meant never having an awkward conversation about that spit-shined rich boy.

“Absolutely,” Veda said, sliding the charger into her pocket. “That’s it?”

Latika leaned forward, her coy smile spreading as she cradled her chin on top of her stacked hands. “That’s all, sweetness.” The tone of her voice spoke volumes.

“Okay….” Veda turned away from the desk slowly, ready for Latika to change her mind and verbally obliterate her for being a home-wrecking whore. That smirk stayed pasted to Latika’s face but she said nothing, and Veda found herself exhaling as she walked away, headed for the on-call room. As she moved, she snuck another look over her shoulder at Latika. “Have a good morning!” She waved.

The woman dropped her head with a laugh.

Veda didn’t look back, but she felt Nurse Latika’s eyes burning a hole into her backside as she raced away.

The two bunk beds and computer desks in the on-call room were empty when Veda arrived, and she hurried across the small space to the white cubbies in the corner. As soon as she dropped Dr. Britler’s charger into his cubby, the sound of the door slamming closed behind her made her swivel on her heel.

She cursed under her breath at the sight of Gage, not even realizing she’d thrown her body backward until she crashed into the cubbies.

With a much calmer demeanor than her, Gage leaned on the closed door. He engaged the lock, filling the room with a devious
click
before he buried his hands in the pockets of his black suit pants.

Silence.

As Veda’s cheeks heated and her body went into overdrive, it hit her. She looked back at Dr. Britler’s cubby harshly, as if Nurse Latika would be there to receive the accusation building in Veda’s eyes.

She’d been set up.

She’d walked right into it, like the idiot she was.

She faced Gage just as he pushed off the door, his adoring eyes drinking her in. “I really hated having to resort to this. Forced to recruit my head nurse and exploit her scheming ways just to get a moment alone with a woman I’ve been sleeping with for
two months
. But you’ve left me no choice, Veda.”

She tried to back up but realized she was already smashed against the cubbies. The moment it shook under her weight, she acknowledged the intense feeling of déjà vu. The last time she’d been pressed against a wall with nowhere to go, Gage had closed in and left her dangerously close to a complete loss of control—and on a baby changing table, of all places.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Gage lifted his eyebrows as he moved in slow. His tone remained calm, but his eyes were anything but.

“I’m not.”

“I haven’t seen or heard from you in two days.”

“We can live without each other for two days, Gage.”

“Since when?” A smile broke through.

He was right. Since the moment they’d surrendered to each other in the elevator, not a single day had passed that hadn’t ended in her apartment.

In her bed.

And sometimes in her shower.

One night, it had even ended on her balcony.

They often joked that his fiancée had probably moved Juan the pool boy into her and Gage’s cliff-side mansion, since Gage was never there anymore.

Veda sputtered when he came in close. “I made the colossal mistake of using the word
friend
with Coco the night of the gala. That mistake spiraled into a movie night at her house. I wasn’t avoiding you. I was being held captive by a seventeen-year-old girl.”

“Mmmhmm.” Gage nodded. “And the night after that?”

Veda fumbled. “That night after that… I slept here. In the on-call room.”

“Why?”

“I had a patient who had complications. He didn’t wake up until the middle of the night.”

“And my unanswered calls? My texts?”

Veda didn’t answer. Not because she was out of excuses but because he was too close. His delicious scent, his debilitating aura, and his full lips—which she now knew the delectable taste of—all stirred together to create a cocktail that incapacitated her. Made it impossible to think. Impossible to speak. How she was still standing, she had no idea.

“Was the kiss that terrible?” His eyes darkened.

Veda’s fell. His deep voice came in even closer. The warmth of his breath on her lips. The tip of his nose against hers.

“Or that good?” he whispered.

Veda sucked in a breath when his fingers dipped into her hair, his short nails massaging her pounding skull, making the ache dissipate the moment he touched her.

“I was right, you know.” His other hand joined the first and he used his palms to nudge her chin up, forcing her eyes to his. “You taste like sour apple candy.”

What she saw in his gaze made her chest swell.

His voice deepened. “What are you so scared of, Veda?”

She couldn’t respond.

“How can anything that feels this damn good scare you so badly?”

She felt a lump move down her throat. “I’m not scared—”

“Bullshit.”

She clapped her lips shut, wondering when he’d learned to anticipate her lies before they even had a chance to spill out of her mouth.

“This is what’s going to happen,” he said. “After I get off work tonight, I’m going to let myself in your apartment with the key you cut me two months ago.” He pressed his arrow-sharp fingers into his chest, the smile vanishing from his face as he moved his fingers to hers, using a much gentler touch as he brushed the swell of her heaving breast. “And you are going to be waiting for me inside that apartment, like you have been every night for the last two months.”

“Okay, so you think you’re just going to
tell
me what I’m going to do—”

His pointer and middle fingers came to her lips, covering them until she stopped speaking. “You’re going to take off all your clothes. I’m going to take off all my clothes. And we’re going to finish what we started in that bathroom two nights ago.”

“Do I get a vote, or—”

“No.”

She couldn’t help a small grin when he cut her off again, reading her mind. “Nobody tells me what to do—”

She stiffened when he leaned down and stole the rest of her words with his tongue, licking her bottom lip before drawing it between his.

The moment she tasted him, her shoulders involuntarily relaxed. Her arms took on a mind of their own and snaked around his neck.

She let him have the kiss, following the lead of his soft tongue and his insistent lips as he moved between her top and bottom lip, sucking each one with more vigor each time until they were panting into one another’s deeply parted mouths, clawing their nails down each other’s backs, and flirting with the edge of control.

Veda moaned into the warmth of his mouth when he grabbed her ass and took her off her feet. She locked her legs around his waist and he slammed her back against the cubbies. Her moans moved to whimpers when his hardness was at her center. She broke the kiss—not because she wanted to, but because the pleasure of his tongue in her mouth and his hard dick between her thighs was too much to handle all at once.

She threw her head back, a breathy moan playing on her lips when he took the heat of his mouth to her neck. His kisses warmed her skin, and the whiskers of his beard made it tingle. That tingle spread to every corner of her body.

His ravenous hands traveled her body—her back, her arms, her thighs, her ass—never leaving any part of her without gripping it under his hungry fingers first. He lifted his head and caught her lips in another searing kiss. The sound that left his throat wasn’t a moan or even a whimper, but a gruff rasp that was toe-curlingly in-between.

It sent moisture shooting to Veda’s pussy, and she ground her hips against him before she could stop herself.

Their lips parted with a smack and he looked down at their roving hips. “I can’t stop thinking about the gala.” His heavy eyes rose to hers, naked with need. “I’ve never needed inside a woman as badly as I needed inside you that night. So I’m sure you can imagine the… incredible frustration… when I found myself unable to contact you for two whole days. It ends today, Veda. Enough.”

Her trembling fingers dropped between their bodies, undoing his belt.

Gage watched her face as she worked, the desire in his eyes rapidly replaced with something Veda didn’t recognize. “I don’t want any walls between us.”

She shushed him with her lips, her hands freezing on his belt buckle as she gave him her tongue.

He accepted it with a moan, taking just a moment to give her a firm kiss before pulling back, gasping, “I want you raw.”

Veda drew in a breath, her hands freezing in the midst of pulling his belt from the loops.

She took hold of his shoulders and let her legs fall from around his waist.

Sensing her retreat, he took her hips in a firm hold once she was on her feet, pressing his forehead to hers and shaking his head with a frown.

“We got out of control that night,” Veda whispered, looking up at him with big eyes, her pussy still aching for the bulge in his pants. She tried to keep her need for him out of her eyes, but from the way he was looking down at her, she knew she was doing a piss-poor job. “Thank God Latika walked in. She stopped us from making a really foolish decision.”

Gage palmed her cheeks. “You said you were on the pill.”

“I am, but…” Veda took a deep breath. “I haven’t had sex with a man bareback….”
Since I was eighteen
, she wanted to say
.
It stunned her how close she came to saying those words. To telling him the whole truth. Relief squeezed her heart when her common sense rebounded just in time to replace the hard truth with an easy lie. “Not without both of us getting tested first. I used to judge the hell out of girls who were stupid enough to lose control without first taking the proper steps to protect themselves. I never understood how they could allow their minds to get that far away from their bodies… Well, I never understood until…” She swallowed, and that time she didn’t fight the truth. “Until you kissed me.”

Gage pulled back and searched her eyes. His hand went into his back pocket, and he produced a folded piece of paper.

Veda’s eyes fell to the paper as he brought it between their bodies, clutched between two fingers. She looked up at him while snatching it from his hold and unfolding it. She only needed a cursory glance before a smile illuminated her face.

“Seriously?” she whispered.

Gage took hold of the cubby on either side of her head. “I came straight to the hospital the day after the gala and had a full workup.” A lump moved down his throat. “I’m clean.”

Veda breathed deep. “Well, you still don’t know if I’m—”

“I signed your new hire paperwork. I saw your blood work results.”

Veda let the paper fall to her side, rolling her eyes. “Such a stalker—”

She couldn’t finish because he’d splayed his hands father apart on the cubby and cocked one of his legs between hers, bringing them dangerously close.

“I don’t want anything between us,” he whispered. “I want all of you, Veda. Without barriers.”

“I think you’re forgetting about a pretty huge barrier called
Scarlett
.”