New Beginnings (85 page)

“You expect me to carry on a conversation when you’re doing that?” She whimpered, biting her lip as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

“God, you’re so gorgeous. You take my breath away.” That sounded like a cheesy line, but I had no other words to describe the way she made me feel.

“You’re doing a pretty good job of taking mine away too.” She rolled her head around, resting her chin on her chest. “Oh God, that feels so incredible.”

“Let go for me.”

Without any further prompting, she exploded, tensing around my fingers as her whole body trembled.

“Beautiful.” I loved that she took instruction when necessary and questioned me when she felt compelled to do so. I wanted to introduce her to pleasure unlike anything she’d ever experienced. I wanted to take care of her. But I wasn’t looking for a submissive woman.

I knelt in front of her, prying her legs apart when she seemed inclined to close them. “Open for me, sweetheart. I need to see you, to taste you. I’ve been waiting so long for this.”

“It’s too soon, Deacon.” She reached for my shoulder.

I gave her a pointed look. “Hands behind your back. Don’t move them until I tell you to.”

Her sex was seeping, and I was harder than I’d ever been, but I would try to prolong my own gratification. I’d never been restrained before, but I wanted our first time together to be special. I’d waited this long; I could wait a few more days. Even if it killed me.

Flicking my tongue over her swollen bud, I held her hips firmly when she bucked, trying to resist me.

“Hold still, or I’ll put you over my knee.” I wasn’t kidding, and the fight drained from her body. I relished the sight and smell of her, letting her test the limits of my control. I nipped at her before swirling my tongue through her slickness in a languid, never-ending loop.

“Jesus, Deacon… keep that up, and I’m gonna pass out.”

I loved turning her inside out because she was doing the same to me, and I was still fully clothed. I used my tongue leisurely, taking my time to enjoy her, until I could tell she was on the verge again.

Within seconds, she released an urgent cry I wished I could have captured with my mouth. But I couldn’t tear myself away from the sweet essence flooding past my lips. I licked her beyond the point of pleasure until she teetered on the edge of insanity, desperate for me to stop but feeling helpless, without an escape.

I stood, capturing her face in my hands before I locked eyes with her and plundered her mouth. The kiss was slow and sweet, my way of thanking her for trusting me with her body. It was a gift I never intended to take for granted.

“Let me,” she said, reaching for my belt buckle.

“Not tonight, my sweet.” The thought of her going down on me almost prompted me to table my plans, but I couldn’t. She was too important. “We’ll have plenty of time for that. I promise.”

“When?” she asked, pouting. “I want you.”

I felt as if I’d waited forever to hear those three little words from her luscious lips. Dozens of women had said them to me, but none had ever elicited the unfamiliar aching sensation in my chest that accompanied her words. “I want you too, more than you know, but we have to be patient. The wait will be so worth it. You have my word.”

Mia

“So that’s it?” Eleni sounded disappointed. “He didn’t even let you suck his—”

“Nope.” I was lying on El’s couch later, curled up in the fetal position. When I had returned to pick up Rosie, she invited me to stay. She’d claimed if her date was a bust, I’d make a good excuse for not inviting him up.

“That is so weird,” she said, filing her nails. “It doesn’t sound like him at all.”

“Maybe the stories you’ve heard about him are exaggerated.” I
so
wanted them to be. I didn’t want to believe Deacon was as cruel and heartless as his former lovers claimed. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe he was a
nice
guy, but I wanted him to have a modicum of decency. Otherwise our arrangement would come to an abrupt end in the not-too-distant future.

“Or maybe he’s just different with you than he was with those other girls,” Eleni said.

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “He said some pretty weird shit to me tonight. I don’t know whether he was serious or not. For all I know, he may say stuff like that to every girl he’s trying to get into bed.”

Eleni sat up straighter. “What kind of stuff? Tell me. Word for word.”

Being able to share everything with my best friend again was nice, especially since I needed someone who could be more objective than I could where the boss man was concerned. “He said he didn’t want me dating anyone else.”

Eleni rolled her eyes. “Duh. You really thought that control freak would be willing to share you?”

“I guess not.” I didn’t feel comfortable telling her what he’d said verbatim, but I needed her input to know whether I was reading too much into it. “He kind of indicated he was looking for a more permanent arrangement. You think he was just saying that to get me into bed?”

Eleni laughed. “You really think that guy needs to work for it?”

It bothered me that female companionship came so easily to him, probably because I knew what I would be up against if our relationship ever did get serious.

“Hey,” Eleni said, leaning forward to look me in the eye, “I don’t mean to bum you out. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to either one of us in… ever. I say you should just have fun with it. Don’t overanalyze it. Don’t expect too much, but don’t be too guarded either. Let him in, but protect your heart. Don’t let him hurt you.”

I was worried that if I let him in, I wouldn’t be able to protect my heart. Every time I saw or spoke to him, it seemed as if he stole another little piece of it. “I’ll try, but—”

My cell phone vibrated on the coffee table as Deacon’s name flashed across the screen.

“Oh, it’s him!” Eleni squealed as she clapped. “He misses you already. Okay, I’m going to go have bubbles, but I want to hear everything he said when I get out, okay?”

“Sure.” My heart thudded as I answered his call. I heard Eleni’s feet padding down the hallway as I said, “Hey, Deacon. What’s up?”

“Where the hell are you?”

I held the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen. Yup, it was him, but he sounded nothing like the sexy, composed man I’d left a few hours earlier. “Well, hello to you too, lover.” It wasn’t a good idea to bait him when he was in a mood, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You ditched your bodyguard so you could go where…?” The steely calm was back in his voice. Damn, he was hot, even when he was mad at me.

“Oh, so you heard I introduced myself to Nate tonight? He is such a sweetheart. And so sexy.” No doubt about it, the next time I saw him, he would be putting me over his knee.
Yum.
“My God, those shoulders and that tight ass—”

“Don’t. I’m not playing.”

Something in his voice told me I couldn’t push him any further, so I sighed in resignation. “I spotted some guy parked outside your building when I left. He was in a black sedan with tinted windows. I figured that must have been your guy, so I hopped in the passenger’s seat.”

“You did what?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you that part, huh?” I hoped Deacon didn’t have an issue with high blood pressure. If he did, my teasing may prompt him to stroke out. “Yeah, I hopped in, and we had a nice chat. I asked him about his life, told him about mine, and then I told him to take the rest of the night off.”

“He works for me, not you.”

“But he’s guarding my body.”

“Maybe I need to rethink that.”

“You can’t!” Jumping to Nate’s defense wouldn’t help his cause, but I had to make my obsessive freak see reason.
My
obsessive freak? Since when had I decided that? Must have been when he’d had his head buried between my legs and refused to come up for air. “His mother’s in the hospital. He’s working two jobs to pay her medical bills.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“I told you I asked him about his life and told him about mine.”

“I don’t like this. I hired a bodyguard to watch your back, not your ass.”

“Oh, please.” I told myself his Neanderthal act would get old in a hurry, but at the moment, it was kind of flattering. “He’s a nice guy. If he’s going to be tailing me, we may as well be friends.”

“You don’t have to be friends with him.” Deacon sounded exasperated. “You don’t even have to talk to him or look at him. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Too bad. I like him, and I’ve decided we’re going to be friends.” I knew a relationship with Deacon would be all about concessions, with me making most of them, but I had to stand my ground sometimes. This seemed as good a time as any.

“Maybe I’ve decided to fire him before you can get too close.”

“You think that would stop me from being friends with him? Ha. You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Starkis. Go ahead. Fire him. Then I’ll bust my butt to help him find another job.”

“You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.” He heaved a sigh. “Care to tell me how you convinced him to take the rest of the night off?”

“He said he hadn’t been able to visit his mother for nearly three weeks because he’d been working so many hours. So I told him to go see her tonight. I assured him I would hop in a cab and go straight home.”

“But you didn’t go straight home. So I’ll ask again—where the hell are you?”

“How do you know I didn’t go home?” I sat up, looking around the small apartment. I half-expected to see him scaling Eleni’s balcony. Yes, he was that crazy.

“I stopped by your place, and you weren’t there.”

“Why did you stop by?”

“I had a change of heart about waiting,” he said, lowering his voice. “After you left, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I needed to be with you.”

My heart melted because I knew he wasn’t accustomed to admitting neediness. I decided to put him out of his misery. “I’m really sorry I missed you, baby. I came back to El’s to pick up Rosie, and she asked me to crash here. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Say that again.”

I frowned. “Which part?”

“‘Baby.’ Say that again.”

I smiled at the way the endearment rolled around his tongue. His accent was so delicious that I could have gotten off just listening to his voice.

“Baby.”

He groaned. “What the hell are you doing to me? Before I met you, I was perfectly sane—”

I masked my laugh with a cough. “Sorry, but there’s no way you’re going to convince me you were sane or normal. You’re a sexy, obsessive, gorgeous control freak with an obscene amount of money. There is nothing normal about you.”

He chuckled. “Touché. Come to my place, sweetheart. Spend the night with me.”

This was all happening so fast my head was spinning. My boyfriend had just moved out, and my boss was asking me to become his lover. How weird was that?

“I can’t.” I smiled when he grunted. For all of his sophistication, he often behaved like a petulant child, and I found that strangely endearing. “Sorry, but Eleni asked me first. You’ll just have to wait your turn.”

“Have you two ever…?”

It took me a minute to realize what he was asking. “What? God, no! You can’t be serious.”

He laughed. “Calm down. I was just asking.”

“Were you hoping we had?”

“No way. Then I’d have to worry about her pleasuring you instead of me. I told you I don’t intend to share you with anyone.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yeah, about you.”

“I have to get some sleep now.”

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” he said.

“I can’t. My brother’s in town, and I haven’t seen him in six months.”

“Invite him to dinner with us. I’d love to meet him.”

I could imagine my brother’s reaction to the news that I was dating my boss only days after breaking up with my boyfriend. Chad had never been Drew’s biggest fan, but I suspected he would have serious issues with Deacon’s jealous streak, not to mention his history with women.

“It’s too soon. He doesn’t even know I broke up with Drew yet.”

“Ugh, don’t mention his name to me.” After a beat, Deacon asked, “Did he give you a hard time when he came to get his things?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Smart girl. Okay, you can’t have dinner with me tomorrow night. How about Friday?”

“Sorry, no can do. It’s a girls’ night. We planned it weeks ago.”

“A girls’ night? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“I can invite Nate into the bar to chaperone if that would make you feel better,” I said as a slow grin spread across my face. I was going to have so much fun teasing Deacon. Maybe Eleni was right. Maybe I was a bad girl.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he growled. “Who are you going out with?”

“Just me and Eleni and a few of the girls from work.”

“You mean some of the other models? Who?” He sounded nervous, which led me to believe he had more to hide than he was letting on.

“Melanie, Christie, and Edie.”

“Shit, Mia, I don’t want you going out with them!”

“Why not?” I asked, getting the sinking feeling I’d be smart to let it go.

“Because I don’t want…” He slowly released a breath. “I don’t want them talking to you about me.”

“Why would they?” When he didn’t respond, I felt queasy. “Have you been with
all
of them?” His silence spoke volumes. “Oh my God, I don’t believe this.”

“Sweetheart, listen to me—”

“I have to go.” I hung up before he could finish.

I knew he would call right back, which he did. I turned my phone off and slipped it under the throw pillow I’d stuck under my head as I slid down the couch. I tugged the faux-fur throw over me, and that was how Eleni found me a few minutes later.

Her cell phone rang, and I grabbed her wrist before she could answer it.

“If it’s him, please don’t answer it.”

Eleni frowned at the screen. “It is him, but why is he calling me?”

“Because I hung up on him and turned my phone off.” I rolled onto my back, flinging an arm over my eyes.

“You realize my address is in my personnel file, right? He’s probably gonna show up here if you don’t answer.”