Until I'm Yours (27 page)

“You threw it away!” I tip toward the trash can, dismayed to see vinaigrette dressing all over my document. “Stil!”

“Oh, keep your thong on. I printed the damn thing. You have a soft copy in your e-mail, so don’t go all nineteen seventy-two on me. Nothing’s ever lost in the digital age.”

“But, I don’t want to go home.” I bite down on my lip, feeling bruised by all the hard knocks of the last week.

“Yes, you do. I’d come with you, but I got a thing.” A smile softens that obstinate mouth. “You can kick your shoes off and curl up by the fire with your profit projection.”

I’d rather curl up by the fire with my…what do I call Trevor? I still haven’t figured that out. Though he seems to know exactly what to call me.

Mine.

I miss the way his kisses persuade me to forget everything else. How his hands caress me until I’m burning for him, straining toward him. I miss the heat of his eyes on my body when he thinks I’m sleeping.

The light in my office goes off.

“Stil, come on. Turn the lights back on.”

“Nope.” She grabs my purse and props the door open with her back. “Get up. Get out.”

She chatters all the way to her apartment, where we drop her off with waves and kisses and promises to see me in the morning. As soon as she’s out, the temporary smile falls right off my face and lands in the quiet she leaves behind. There’s nothing to sustain it. I raise the privacy partition between me and the driver/bodyguard person whose name I can’t remember right now. I miss Baker. He was so much more than just my driver, and I feel the loss of him more than the loss of my parents, which says a lot.

I’m so grateful that we aren’t ambushed by a group of reporters in my building’s underground parking lot. That happened once, but we’ve tightened security considerably since then. What’s his name takes the silent ride up the elevator with me, his eyes trained straight ahead with unswerving professionalism. I’m tempted to kiss him on the cheek to see if he would blush like Baker, but considering the slut factor Kyle’s team has raised considerably, that could be misinterpreted.

“Good night.” I unlock my door, turning to face him. “See you in the morning. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure, Ms. Baston?” He peers past me into the darkened apartment.

“Yeah, I only need security when I’m out.” I step inside, hand already on the knob. “Have a good night.”

As soon as I step into my apartment, I know something’s off. The air feels charged somehow, not like the desolate box I left this morning that only I’ve been inside of for the last few days. And the smell permeating the apartment—heavenly. I would assume I’d left something in the oven, except I don’t cook—ever. Should I call what’s his name back?

Fool that I am, instead of fleeing the scene of a potential homicide—my own—I walk as quietly as I can down the hall toward the kitchen. It’s bright in there for an ax murderer, and most psychopaths in my limited experience don’t hum “Benny and the Jets” while sautéing dinner. As soon as I enter the kitchen, a well-muscled back and broad shoulders block whatever is cooking on the stovetop. Even though my potential perpetrator faces away from me, I’d know that burnished hair, the wide, hard slope of those shoulders, and
that ass
anywhere.

“Bishop?” I’m scared to say his name aloud in case he’s some fevered hallucination the sound of my voice would dispel.

But he turns, a wide smile on those full lips, and opens his arms for me. That’s the only invitation I need. I drop my purse and am across the kitchen practically before it hits the floor. His arms are the sanctuary I’ve needed. Standing here in this circle of comfort, completely enclosed by his scent and his warmth, I feel safe for the first time since he boarded that plane last week.

“You’re here.” I whisper into his neck. “I thought…you aren’t due back for another few days.”

“This is true.” The deep timbre of his voice rolls through me like a tremor. He pulls back to cup my face in his hands and search my eyes. “I wrapped things up early.”

Whatever. Couldn’t care less. He could tell me South Africa floated into the wild blue yonder and he paddled all the way to New York on a piece of driftwood. I wouldn’t ask any questions. All that matters is that he’s here. My fingers wind into his hair, pulling him down and close enough to kiss. We skip slow, sweet kisses and cannon straight to desperate, our groans and panting the only sounds in the kitchen while we devour each other. I can’t stretch my mouth wide enough. Can’t touch enough of him at one time. I need more hands, more nerve endings, to absorb this thrill, these sensations.

Trevor hoists me up, and my legs wrap around his waist. He reaches behind him to turn off the food and walks down the hall and toward my bedroom. It’s too far. I can’t wait. I’m too empty. I need him to fill me right here, right now.

“Now, Bishop,” I say against his lips. “Fuck me against the wall. I want…please. Right now.”

Wordlessly, he turns me against the wall. I lock my legs around him tighter while he undoes his belt buckle. The sound of his zipper sliding open has me dripping, has my chest heaving with anticipation. He leans in, taking my mouth captive and then sliding his tongue down my neck.

“Your breasts,” he mutters into the silk collar of my blouse. “I want to see them.”

I brace one hand against his shoulder while the other scrambles to loosen the buttons on my blouse, baring the almost transparent bra. My nipples are so swollen from the thought of him, they press painfully against the sheer cups. I tug one satiny shell down to expose my breast. His eyes eat at my naked skin, and his hands slip beneath my arms, lifting me until my breasts are right at his mouth. His lips take my nipple, suckling me, the sound wet and erotic in the silent apartment. Every pull and tug churns the want in my belly, from my core through my heart until every part of me is electrified with need.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” His words singe the delicate skin around my nipple.

I nod my head frantically, so hollow, so aching and empty waiting for him.

He pulls away to look at me, desire zip lining between our eyes.

“Check and make sure.” He glances at the space where our bodies interlock, the juncture of my thighs, and then raises his stare back up to sear me.

My eyes never leaving his, I slide my hand beneath my skirt and into my panties, rubbing my fingers into the wet flesh there.

“Show me,” he says, eyes almost black, his voice a husky rasp.

I pull my fingers out, glistening with my readiness. He takes my fingers into his mouth, dipping his tongue into the valley between my fingers, sucking me clean, groaning at the taste of me. He presses closer and reaches between us, shoving my panties aside and thrusting into me so deeply, so fiercely, my back pushes a few inches up the wall. He’s so long and thick inside me, there’s room for nothing else, not even thought, only this intense pleasure I had begun to think I dreamed.

“Ahhhhh, Bishop.”

There has never been anything like this. The way he’s in and out of me, the scrape of my blouse against the wall with every thrust, hot and fast like a piston. The erratic syncopation of our heartbeats. The intimate slip and slide of bare skin against bare skin.

“Fuck,” he says, voice graveled with desire. “I’m not wearing anything. Are we okay?”

“I
promise, promise, promise
I’m clean.” My breath chops up in my chest every time he pumps into me. “And I’m covered. Oh, God, please don’t stop. It’s so good, Bishop. So good. You can’t stop.”

He nods, eyes pressed tightly together, one forearm against the wall by my head while the other arm curves under my backside. His head drops beside mine against the wall, and he leaves dirty, sweet, desperate things in my ear, accompanying every word with a deeper, harder push into my body until I’m riding the shimmering line between pain and pleasure, an agony of passion that wrenches cries from my throat until it’s raw. I can’t get close enough, tangling my arms behind his neck, gripping his hips with my legs, eliminating any space separating us. Emotion and sensation quake from my core, fanning out and over every part of me.

My orgasm starts as a shiver and builds and rolls through me. Trevor pounds into me without restraint, without control, overtaken by the rhythm his body sets, rattling the frames flanking us on the wall. In the grip of this tumult of sensation, I can barely hold on. My body tenses, bracing for the pinnacle. My heart races ahead. The thick muscles of his shoulders and in his arms supporting me tighten as he joins me, all his hunger, all his passion, flooding and filling me.

Finally.

I
’m so far gone over this woman. Henri would roll her eyes, deeply exasperated with me, but I can’t help it. And as good as Sofie looks in my shirt and nothing else, her shower-damp hair falling past her shoulders, it’s not that. Even that face and those long legs crossed as she eats the fish I made for her wouldn’t have me missing meetings. Her strength draws me. I love the unflinching way she looks, not just at the world, but at herself, the way she faces her mistakes and her flaws head on. She believes that even flawed, she can do good. Her willingness to change and evolve, but to never be less than who she authentically is. All of those things tighten the grip on my heart I don’t think she even knows she has.

“This fish is delicious.” She gestures to the panga I brought back just so I could prepare it for her. “Is this another of your mother’s recipes?”

“No, I had it at the Michelangelo in Johannesburg, and requested the recipe.” I rest an elbow on her dining room table, my chin on my fist. “Glad you like it.”

“I love it.” A smile takes its time spreading across her face. “Tell me how you came to break into my house two days earlier than I thought you would be back. We kind of skipped the conversation part of the reunion.”

When she smiles at me like that, we could skip it again, if it were left up to me.

“I finished everything for the Collective, and felt confident Harold and Henri could handle the rest of our meetings.”

“You skipped meetings?” She slows her chewing while she processes what that means. “To come back to New York?”

I get up from my seat and squat on my haunches in front of her, positioning myself between her bare legs, sliding my hands under the hem of my shirt to rest at her hips.

“I skipped meetings and came back, not to New York,” I say, answering the questions in her eyes, “but to you.”

Her smile fades, eyes dropping to her lap.

“Bishop.” Her whisper dances across my skin. “I don’t want to get in the way of what you need to do for the Collective. You deserve that position.”

“There’s something you should know about me.” I take my hands from under the shirt, sliding them to her lap, capturing her slim fingers between mine. “When the people I care about need me, I’m there.”

“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, slipping her hand behind my head to caress my neck. “I don’t want you putting all you’ve worked for at risk.”

“It’s not.”

Maybe it is. I don’t care what Thurston insinuated or what Hen said. I believe my record and my character will speak for themselves, and if they don’t, fuck it. I don’t want to lead an organization ruled by the same politics I have to work against to make a difference.

“I know you’re okay, Sof.” I push the hair over her shoulder, curving my hand around her jaw and forcing her to look at me when I bring up the bad news she told me earlier. “I also know it has to hurt that the Walsh board let you down. Has to hurt that your parents have turned their backs on you. It has to hurt that so many call your story into question because of things that have fuck all to do with what Kyle Manchester did to you.”

She holds our stare for a few seconds before pulling away, turning back to her plate.

“And how’d you get into my place?” She looks at me, telling me with her eyes she’s not ready to deal with all the hurts I enumerated. “No one can even get up here unless they’re on my list, much less inside.”

“A little birdie helped me with that.”

“A little bitch birdie named Stil, I presume.”

“That would be the one,” I confirm with a grin.

“No wonder she was so eager for me to get out of the office.”

“She texted me about twenty times.” I grin when my phone lights up. “Actually, there she goes again.”

“Tell her she’s on my list.”

My grin fades as I read Stil’s latest text.

“What’d she say?” Sofie takes another bite of her panga. “This really is divine. Make it for me again soon.”

“She says ‘Welcome back. Did Sofie tell you about her visitor?’” I look up from the screen, a frown sketched between my brows. “What visitor?”

“Why that little…” Sofie pushes her plate away, reaching for her wine to take a sip.

“What visitor, Sofie?” My voice hardens. “And don’t lie to me.”

Sofie rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. She clears her throat, tongue swiping across her lips.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I wish Stil hadn’t—”

“What. Visitor.”

“Kyle came to my office one night.”

Rage blurs my vision and pounds the blood in my ears, drowning out everything else for a second.

“What the hell?” I demand, on my feet, fists clenched. “When?”

“The day…” She drops her words for a second, drawing and releasing a quick breath. “The day before I went public.”

“But that was more than a week ago.” I run agitated hands through my hair. “How many times have we spoken since then, Sof? And you never even mentioned it?”

“I wasn’t going to…well, I didn’t think you needed to know.”

“Why the hell would you not tell me that?” I slam my fist into my palm, needing it to be Manchester’s face.

“Because of that!” she points to my fist. “I knew you’d respond just like this, and it won’t help a damn thing, Bishop.”

“Won’t help?” I lean forward until our noses almost touch and our breath mingles. “What did he say? What did he want?”

She doesn’t back down, doesn’t shy away, but meets my anger with her determination.

“He wanted to convince me that I had it all wrong. He wanted me to drop it all, and when I refused, he tried to intimidate me.”

“Who was there with you?” My voice, gruff, growling.

“No one,” she whispers. “It was just me. He came by after everyone had gone.”

Fury, helpless fury, almost chokes me. This is exactly what I feared, that he’d find a way to get to her. That I wouldn’t be around to protect her.

“You should have told me, Sofie.”

“So what?” She gestures to the fist balled at my side. “So you could go beat him to a pulp?”

“Fuck yeah, and I still can.”

“Good luck with that.” Her laugh is brittle. “He had a security detail with him. If you can get through those thugs, then what? It won’t change anything, Bishop.”

She stands, her eyes wet with rare tears.

“You could beat him till the cows come home, but it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that he raped me. It wouldn’t give anything back to me. It won’t make this any easier.”

And that’s it. I want to make it all go away for her. It drives me insane that I can’t fix this, that I can’t protect her from, not a knife or a gun, but from words. From opinions. There is a part of me that wishes I’d never encouraged her to come forward, because it’s killing me to see her suffer this way.

“Sofie, I have to do something. He should pay.”

She reaches up, clasping my face between her hands, melding our eyes together with the heat of her conviction.

“He will pay. That’s why we have to do this right. I don’t need you to beat him up. I don’t need you pissing circles around me, going caveman, comparing sizes.” She laughs humorlessly. “Believe me. Yours is bigger.”

I rest my forehead against her, managing only a breath before she goes on.

“You are my only vulnerability, Trevor,” she says, her voice trembling over my lips. “You’re the only spotless thing in my life, and if he can bring you down to his level, if he can ruin you, he knows it will throw me off. He knows I may give in.”

“Sofie, I’m not spotless. I’m not perfect, darlin’. I’m not a saint.”

“No, you’re no saint.” She closes her eyes, huddling against my bare chest, rubbing my back. “But in this fucked-up fairy tale, you’re the only prince I’ve got.”

“Baby—”

“I need you to hold me.” A tear escapes from under her closed eyes, making its way down her cheek. “I need you to remind me that there’s more to me than what they say, that there’s good in me. I need you to take care of me in the ways that
count
. Can you do that?”

She lifts her head, rubbing my biceps with one hand, taking my hand with the other. I’m speechless. All I can do is grip her tighter to me. I sit down, pulling her across my lap, pushing the hair off her neck so I can leave kisses there. Shelving my anger, my vengeance, is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but I can do it for now. For her.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

Sofie’s phone vibrates on the table, Walsh Bennett’s name flashing on the screen. Sofie rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“I can’t,” she says. “I know why he’s calling, and I just can’t. He wants to apologize for what happened with the foundation. I have to put that behind me for now.”

My phone vibrates on the table, too, but with a news alert. I pick it up to read the headline.

“That may not be the only thing he wants to talk about, Sof.” I turn the phone to face her. “Martin Bennett just officially announced that he’s retiring to focus on his company’s philanthropic work.”

Sofie tenses in my lap, eyes going wide.

“Oh, God, Daddy. He’s going to challenge Walsh, isn’t he?”

I nod my head slowly, placing the phone back on the table. Sofie reaches for her phone. When she listens to Walsh’s voice mail, he apologizes for not being able to save her with the foundation and confirms that the Bennett board will vote soon on its new CEO because her father has challenged Martin’s choice.

“Oh, God. Daddy’s really doing it.” Sofie stares unblinkingly at her phone. “He’s challenging Walsh, and essentially Martin’s wishes, to make a play for Bennett.”

“Bennett Enterprises is not your responsibility. Walsh can take care of himself, and your father certainly can and always does.” I press a kiss to the softest lips I’ve ever tasted. “You’re going to take the next few days to take care of
yourself
. And I’ll take care of you, too, in the ways that count.”

She smiles against my mouth, angling her head to kiss me back. The touch and slide of our tongues raises goose bumps across my arms and incites my dick to readiness despite the heaviness of our discussion.

“I’m sorry.” She squirms in my lap. “I can barely walk. You can’t put that big thing inside me again so soon.”

Our laughter shatters any passion the moment holds, and I can only shake my head.

“I’m serious, Sof. Let me take care of you for a few days. Take some time off.”

She looks at me from under her lashes, capturing the corner of her lip between her teeth, considering my offer.

“I can’t completely check out,” she finally says. “I have a meeting with François Wednesday, and we have a press conference for Goddess Friday.”

“I have a few things here and there, too, but they can be done from right here.” I cup her face. “Let’s be together for a few days. Say yes.”

I slip my hand between the buttons of my shirt she’s wearing, palming her breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers until it swells and pebbles. Her lashes drop immediately, eyes closed, head falling back against my shoulder. My other hand slides between her legs, finding the wet warmth I crave. My mouth waters at the thought of tasting her, eating the sweetness nestled between her thighs. As soon as I slip my middle finger inside, her legs fall open, her hips matching my rhythm.

“That’s my girl,” I whisper through her hair and into her ear.

“Are you controlling me with sex, Mr. Bishop?” Her breathy question is barely a sound.

“It’s the only thing I’ve found that does the trick.” I laugh against her neck. “Otherwise, I’d have no upper hand.”

“Oh, I like where your upper hand is right now.” A husky laugh slips past her pouty lips.

My hand goes still, the wet walls of her pussy still gripping my finger past the knuckle.

“So it’s a deal? You’ll give me the next few days? Forget the madness out there for a while?”

Her face clouds for a moment with something other than passion, and I realize until I mentioned it, she’d managed to almost forget the firestorm waiting for her outside these walls. I want that for her. Just for a little while. Just long enough to repair some of the damage this process has already done. I see it in her eyes, and the bruises don’t show, but I know they’re there.

“Sof, is it a deal?”

She lifts her lashes to look at me, a small smile budding on her face.

“It’s a deal.” She turns so that her long legs hang on either side of mine, straddling me in the chair. “And maybe I underestimated what I can handle. I’m ready if you are.”

Oh, ever ready.