Bought And Paid For (Part Three) Read online

  As he draws me into another long, deep kiss, I melt. I relax. I even start to forget about tomorrow night’s business dinner and how one wrong move from either Grayson or me could ruin this entire fake girlfriend charade.

  If it is a charade anymore...

  I forget everything but him as he explores my back with his big, capable hands and runs his tongue into my mouth. I moan, falling in to him even further.

  We kiss for what feels like hours of lazy foreplay, the water lapping, his hands slick against my skin as he caresses me. He worships me as if we have all the time in the world, mapping my ass, my hips, my waist, then my breasts as if he’s taking a journey that he never wants to end. He kisses my neck, finding a million erogenous zones that spike through me with zapping delight.

  Under the water, I can feel him getting aroused — his cock is long and stiff as it rests against my thigh — but somehow he’s restraining himself. He’s that ruled by self-control, and this experienced man is about to initiate me into his sexual world with his expert hands, fingers, mouth, and beautiful cock.

  God, how long can I wait?

  As he plunders my mouth, I get restless, shifting closer to him so that I can feel his tip against my clit, but he merely breaks off our kiss.

  “My baby is so ready,” he whispers. “But, as I said — we’re going to take our time. You’re never going to forget this night.”

  No kidding, and I dig my nails into the skin of his wide shoulders in carnal anguish. He makes a low, frustrated sound and suddenly turns me around on his lap. Water splashes out of the tub, hitting the floor with a smack as I suck in a breath. The length of his cock is nestled between my throbbing lips, and at the nearly pornographic sensation of his bare hardness, I lean forward, bracing my hands on the edges of the tub and arching so that my pussy slips over his shaft.

  I want him inside me now.

  “So eager,” he whispers, tugging my hips back toward him so that my twat kisses his belly. His large palms cup my tits. “But you aren’t going to get it yet. I’m going to make your body sing tonight many, many times, and then I’m going to fuck every thought out of your mind.”

  My clit bangs against the skin of his belly. I want to feel his cock sliding through my slit again.

  But he’s clearly still in control of himself, even if I’m not. I restlessly rub myself against the base of his cock and his belly, trying to make the ache of my pounding clit go away, wishing that I would just climax so I won’t feel this torture anymore.

  Grayson soothes me by pouring bath gel over my back. He soaps me up, taking his damned time, keeping me at a frustrating boil. He washes me everywhere while kissing my ears, the back of my neck, my spine. All the while, my pussy clenches and unclenches against his shaft, building up to something I’m not going to be able to hold back for very much longer.

  It’s only when he slips his hand to my tummy and rubs me that I start to lose it, the muscles there jumping, thumping with every stroke. And when he coaxes his fingers to my clit, all it takes is his touch to trigger me, and my world busts apart in a series of bangs that get harder and faster until I’m as liquid as the warm bathwater.

  Shuddering, I pull in air, but I can’t fill my lungs. When Grayson lightly bites my neck, I go even weaker. Then he easily lifts me out of the water, taking me with him out of the tub. I can’t even manage to stand up, so I cling to him as he dries me off with a thick towel and then takes me into his arms again. He carries me to his massive, round bed and lays me down in the moonlight that streams through the French doors.

  He gazes down at me with a frightening, arousing appetite, looming over me, naked and domineering, his muscles rippling as he leans down to brace his hands on the mattress. I grip the bedspread as he speaks in a low growl.

  “I want to taste you again. I can never get enough of you. Fuck, you don’t know how many times my mind has drifted off while I’m trying to get things done in the office or lab. I’m always thinking about how you taste like sweet oranges soaked in cream. How you’re so delicious.”

  He has no idea how many times I’ve dreamed about him. And, like the little beast I am, I spread my thighs for him. His gaze burns all the brighter, a fire that’s about to get out of control.

  With a muttered curse, he climbs onto the bed. As he sits, he takes my legs and pulls them up and over his shoulders. I expel a shocked gush of air, but I’m thrilled beyond imagination as he gives me a gentle order.

  “Wrap your legs around my neck, baby.”

  Disobeying him doesn’t even enter my mind, and I tighten my legs around him. He uses his fingers to part my lips, then bends to my pussy. He blows softly with such moist heat that I moan loudly. He slips his hands down my thighs. As I hold back another tormented groan, he runs his palms over my stomach until his hands cover my breasts with the heat of his touch.

  “Everything about you puts me under a spell,” he murmurs near my beating pussy. “Everything.”

  Then he licks up my slit, and a light show floods my vision — lasers, flashes, strobing slices of red and pink that pump me up until I’m swelling. He kisses my most vulnerable place with long, slow strokes as he also stimulates my breasts with his fingers. I grind into him while pressing my hands over the back of his, connecting to him like never before. When he starts sucking and playing with my pussy lips with his tongue, he makes satisfied erotic noises as if I truly am delectable. I can feel the hungry hum of his mouth against me, and that only adds to the growing pressure that’s expanding in my core.

  “Grayson,” I whisper. “Do it.”

  He speaks against me. “Do what, baby?”

  “Your tongue. Please.”

  He squeezes my tits, and I buck off the bed. Then, with a voracious thrust, he enters me with that talented tongue, fucking me with it slowly and thoroughly, in, out, in, out. As I moan and squeeze my thighs around his neck tighter, he keeps caressing my breasts, and I’m so overcome with sensation that I start to come again with a rolling pressure in my belly that spreads and spreads like a growing quake.

  A crack of oblivion.

  A thunderous bolt of destruction.

  And then my world slips to black.

  I don’t know how long I’m out, but when I come to, I’m a wetter mess than ever. Grayson is propped up on his elbow, lying on his side and looking down at me with intensity. Pleasure. Enthrallment.

  “I thought I lost you,” he says.

  He’ll never lose me. What I feel for him is beyond comprehension, and right now, I think — I truly think — I see the same thing in his eyes. “When will you...?”

  “Give you my cock? Soon, Harlow. Very soon...”

  But he’s a damned liar, because he starts exploring every inch of my skin for what seems like hours. I’m not complaining as he kisses me, slipping his fingers into my slippery folds, then pulsing his fingers into me and opening me up in preparation for his cock. The pulses turn in to hard, fast pumps that whip me back into a frenzy. I’m so soaked for him, beating so hard and hot that I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. I’m so desperate that I wrap my fingers around that teasing cock of his. At his incredibly hard thickness, I groan.

  “Please,” I say.

  I can feel a rumbling in his chest, and I know he’s at the end of his sexual rope too.

  He slips a third finger into me, and I gasp in surprise as he opens me wider than ever, pumping slowly, stirring my juices, getting me high.

  “You need to be ready for me,” he growls.

  “I’m ready...so ready...”

  “Almost there, sweet baby. Almost there.”

  He swirls around his fingers until I want to cry out louder. He plays with my clit, returning me to the fringe of darkness, and when I claw my nails into his arms and scream his name in utter frustration, he finally relents.

  He picks me up, guides me back to the pillows, and then props me up and hooks my legs around his hips. Even in the near darkness I can see how excited he is. I can feel his en
gorged cock as he urges his smooth, silky tip against my clit. My vision goes upside down with the sensual shock, and I wiggle against him, trying to get him to truly fuck me.

  He makes a primal sound, and he pushes his velvety head slightly down until it’s inside me. The opening of my pussy expands around his tip, and with a burn of pain, I jam my nails into his skin harder.

  With a muttered curse, he reaches down to his cock, and when he swirls his tip around inside of me, opening me up even more, the burn starts to mellow.

  “More,” I whisper.

  He slides in a little more. My vaginal walls embrace him with a wet grip.

  “More,” I say.

  With a feral moan, he pushes all the way into me, and I rock away from the pillows and bed, taking all of him in. There’s some pain, but sensation quickly gives way to pleasure as he begins to stroke in to me with smooth, even thrusts. I move with every one of them, my body humming, my blood chugging as he plows me with his cock. Then it’s as if I never felt any pain at all as Grayson looks into my eyes, fucking me wonderfully, sending me higher and higher. It’s as if the air gets thinner, harder to breathe as I soar up closer to the night sky. Shooting stars paint the night, arching, imitating every pulse of Grayson’s cock into me.

  The stars burn brighter, darting faster, flaring down to nip at me. Then, with one explosive burst, I come. I shower apart just as he climaxes inside me with hot, slick, wild pulses.

  As I catch my breath, I become a part of the night, everything dimming until I feel his arms around me. Then I slowly open my eyes as the earth finally goes still. I tremble in his embrace as peace descends on us.

  Our skin is sweaty, our juices mingling. He kisses me and then cups my face, looking into my eyes with such intensity that I know without a doubt he feels what I do.

  Grayson Royal has real feelings for me.

  But as he pulls me against him so I’m lying on his chest, unable to see his face, I can’t help but wonder if I saw a bit of terror along with everything else...

  Sleep starts to brush over me as I lie content in his arms. I’m never letting go, and whenever we wake up, I know Grayson will feel the same way...

  But when morning comes, I’m proven wrong.

  He’s gone from the bed, leaving nothing except for a note on the pillow next to me.

  Harlow,

  I must see to the details of the dinner with Jake Foreman tonight. Jayne will spend the day with you, polishing up your final details. Please stick to the schedule I have given her, as timing is vital.

  I will see you at six when the limousine arrives for us. Jayne will see to it that you are ready.

  Grayson

  And that’s all he wrote.

  I’m beyond stunned. Hurt numbs me all over, and I’m not just talking about the slight soreness I feel between my legs. Where there was excitement and heat the night before, there’s a sense of nothingness now.

  Am I nothing to him? I’d been so sure that his defenses tumbled down with me, but this note...

  This note is so cold that I can’t even feel my heart.

  I find myself walking through the day as if I’ve been anesthetized. Jayne watches me curiously as I go through one last mock dinner interview with her and then submit myself to a facial, manicure, pedicure, and massage.

  All the while I say nothing, because this pain is beyond comprehension.

  But then, little by little, the pain turns to anger at Grayson and his damned walls that he keeps up to protect whatever emotions he’s hiding for whatever reason.

  Then the anger turns into determination.

  By the time Jayne brings me my beautiful dinner gown at five thirty PM sharp, I’ve decided how things are going to go down at that dinner.

  I put on my best fake girlfriend smile for Jayne, ready to show Grayson exactly what he’s dealing with.

  Grayson

  “How is Harlow?” Rick asks as we stand at the bottom of the open-arm staircase in my foyer. He’s wearing a tuxedo, and he keeps adjusting his bow tie as he trains his gaze on the landing above in anticipation of seeing her. “Has she been anxious today? Stressed out? Unsure of herself?”

  Jayne is right next to me, brushing the creases from my own tuxedo jacket. I shrug in annoyance and she stops.

  “Harlow is rather reserved today,” she says as she walks around to the front of me, inspecting my appearance as she speaks. “I don’t know if it’s because of the impending dinner with Jake Foreman or something else.”

  She glares at me, and no words are needed — Jayne obviously knows something happened between Harlow and me. If she knew exactly what it was, she would have already eviscerated me with her sharp wit. But at this point, it’s clear that she only suspects there’s something off between my mail-order bride and me, unlike Rick, who is absolutely clueless.

  Jayne sighs in exasperation and turns toward the staircase, focusing on the landing as well. “Perhaps I should go to Harlow’s room and nudge her along, but she said she was going to be down momentarily.”

  “Let her be, Jayne,” I say brusquely.

  Both Jayne and Rick clamp their lips because I have turned this room into someplace about as welcoming as an ice cave. Hell, I feel just as frozen, because I know that I fucked up with Harlow when I left her in bed this morning to wonder what last night truly meant for us. Goddammit, it’s just that I couldn’t sort through all the emotions that hit me so hard during our first time together. I’ve never been so sexually fulfilled before and I’ve never felt what I think I feel right now. The only real emotions I’ve ever had were for my family, but this shit is in a different league.

  Harlow shakes me to my very foundations — she is a natural disaster that has torn my life apart, and, after last night, I have no idea how to keep everything together.

  Even so, there’s an even more pressing issue that’s weighing on me now: Is Harlow the type of woman who’ll get revenge on me tonight by embarrassing me at this monumental dinner because of how I treated her?

  I don’t have much time to wonder, because when she appears at the top the staircase, the world stops spinning around me.

  She is a vision in a long, innocent white dress with ruffles that flare out from her waist to the floor. She is an angel with hair that’s pulled back by sparkling clips that allow most of her sunshine curls to tumble over her shoulders. Diamonds sparkle at her ears, throat, and wrist.

  As my chest clenches, it’s as if she is my dream come to life.

  And I made her my nightmare.

  “Jake Foreman has no idea what’s about to hit him,” Jayne says. “Go Team Royal Romance!”

  At the thought of any other man even looking at Harlow the ice freezes my veins. I turn around and start walking toward the front door. “My limo arrived five minutes ago. Rick, yours is waiting for you.”

  I stand by the door, opening it so everyone can walk outside before me. Meanwhile, Harlow slowly makes her heavenly way down the stairs, smiling at Rick and Jayne as she passes them, then going cold again as meets my gaze.

  As she passes me, she merely says, “Good evening, darling.”

  And then she’s out the door. I stare after her, barely realizing when Rick passes me too.

  He’s wearing a hopeful smile. “Fingers crossed!”

  He pats my arm on his way out.

  Before I can get out of here, Jayne comes up to me and grabs my tuxedo jacket. She lowers her thick-framed glasses and glares at me again. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but I’ve got frost burn. What the hell happened between yesterday and today?”

  “None of your business, Jayne.”

  I close the door behind me.

  The taillights of Rick’s limo trail off toward the gates of my property. Harlow has already gotten in to our limo, and as I walk toward the vehicle, the driver gives me a blank look as if he can feel the frost burn too. I grit my jaw and get inside, sliding over the seat next to Harlow. She’s looking straight ahead at the dark divider that
serves as a barrier between the front seat and back.

  The more she doesn’t talk, the tenser I get.

  It’s still silent as we take off. The silence is so pervasive that I have to put on the radio to a classical music channel to soothe the atmosphere. Then I pour champagne from the waiting iced bucket into a flute. I offer it to her, and she accepts without even acknowledging my existence.

  My jaw is about to shatter because I’m clenching it so fucking hard as I pour a flute for myself. “Is this how it’s going to be all night?”

  She merely takes a sip of her champagne and then lets out a long ahhh.

  Anger curdles in my gut. “May I remind you about that fifty thousand dollars you seem to need so badly? Remember — if you don’t succeed in this job tonight, that money is—”

  “Gone? Yes, yes. You don’t have to remind me about the money, darling.”

  I am about to break the flute in my hand as I grip it.

  She leans over and turns the radio to a hard-rocking channel. Then she pumps up the volume until the bass thuds through the air. It tangles with my heartbeat, which is already out of control. I debate turning off the music altogether, but there’s nothing else I want to say to Harlow anyway.

  Actually, there’s a lot I should say to her.

  I wish you didn’t make me feel anything.

  I wish another woman had shown up for this job.

  As we are driven to the North End, nerves and anger eat away at me. By the time we arrive at the Swann Room, I’m about to rip the leather off the limo’s seats.

  The vehicle stops at the curb, and I glance at Harlow. I will not ask her to forget what an ass I was this morning. I will not plead for her cooperation.

  I do not scrape and bow to anyone.

  The driver opens the door, and I climb out, then wait for Harlow to take my hand. I’m dreading the moment she comes out, because, if she ignores me, this will be over before it even begins. She can humiliate me that easily tonight in front of all these people who’ll decide my future.