PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (51 page)

“I assumed being presumptuous was part of your core
nature,” I replied, letting out a little laugh and looking away from his
impossibly sexy cock, still rock hard and ready to please. Why couldn’t I just
have it once—just this one time?

Nathan reached down, pulling me to my feet and
straight up into his arms. It was a completely different experience when
compared to the way he’d pressed against me from behind. Here in his arms, in
his embrace, I felt safe.

“You know, Sandra, maybe we can’t fuck, but there’s
more to me than my cock,” he whispered, licking his lips. I yelped in surprise
as he picked me up off the floor, cradling me in his strong arms and carrying
me swiftly to his bed.

The billowing sheets beneath my exposed flesh were
like heaven on earth, and for a moment, I was able to forget the smell and the
disrepair around us. I was able to ignore the shoddy apartment altogether and
focus solely on what this handsome and talented man was doing to me.

Nathan’s hands glided over my body as he lay gentle
kisses up my milky thighs. His mouth was so soft, so tender, and even his
little love bites made me coo as he lightly inflicted them upon me in a hot,
scintillating trail. Just as I thought he might drive his lips right into my
sensitive heat, he passed by it entirely, instead sweeping up my stomach toward
my tits.

“Oh, God,” I gasped as he drew a nipple between his
lips and flicked his tongue across the tip. He suckled it lightly, laving it
with his hot tongue before bestowing upon it the softest of bites, scraping his
teeth with utmost care across the delicate nubbin. Then he pulled away to guide
his hands up beneath my large mounds, lavishing my other breast with the same
tender, electrifying sensations.

“Don’t stop,” I begged him as he pulled away, kissing
up to my neck. For a moment, he was between my legs, his cock pressing hard
against my thigh. I could feel him throb with desire, each of his spasms
sending ripples of desire through me. But we couldn’t do this—not without
protection.

“Relax, Sandra,” Nathan whispered into my ear,
planting a kiss on my neck that was so tender it made me swoon. “I’m not going
to fuck you. Not this time…”

This time
. That implied this was more than just a one-off
fling. Did he see more in me than just an opportunity? Did he regard me as more
than just a warm, female body placed conveniently in the same living space?

More
importantly, was I starting to feel the same way?

The thought of letting Nathan plunge his enormous
shaft deep inside me was almost irresistible, but I fought the urge to capture
him with my legs and drive him into my wanting core. I kept myself from
throwing him off me and riding him at a gallop until exhaustion overtook us
both. He rewarded my patience, slipping downward again, kisses trailing across
my chest and back toward my spot, my throbbing and aching spot. I was desperate
to feel his touch again.

His mouth found its way over my bare, swollen mound, planting
kisses across it before dipping between my folds and letting his tongue run a
soft line up to my nub. I cried out loudly as I rode his silken tongue, letting
him write love letters in soft strokes that sent me higher than the sky.

I shivered in ecstatic bliss as one of his fingers
found its way inside me, followed by a second, their thickness nowhere near big
enough to fill the yearning emptiness at my core. I wanted the real thing,
wanted to feel his cock burying into my depths, his bare skin inching into my
own. Even so, I groaned and bucked against his flickering tongue, letting his
mouth drive me higher and higher as he pumped his fingers into my quivering
flesh.

Nathan was moaning now, the vibrations rolling through
me from head to toe. Every part of my body was shuddering, another long and
wonderful orgasm crashing over me. Nothing could possibly feel this good. It
was criminal for this man to be so wealthy and so talented in the sack. I
wanted to arrest him. I wanted to handcuff him to my bed and never let him
stop. I could keep him as my own personal prisoner.

But he didn’t stop. As the waves of my orgasm rolled
and began to fade, he rotated his wrist, bringing his fingertips against the
front wall beneath my taut tummy. Without a word, he curled them, running
across something that shot a jolt of renewed pleasure through my body. With a
laugh and a smile, he attacked that spot, every thrust of his fingers bringing
me further into madness. I was drawn into oblivion, the feelings so warm and rapturous
that I could only call this place heaven. I lost all semblance of control as I
gave myself to the sensation.

In that moment, Nathan had me… Body, heart, and soul.

CHAPTER SIX

I
hadn’t fooled
around like this since I was a teenager. The bed was a wreck, my skin singing
with joy at the caress of the wonderful cotton beneath me. No wonder Nathan
brought these sheets. They probably cost more than I spent on my entire bedroom
set at home, but I didn’t care. I wanted to spend the rest of my life wrapped
in this stuff, living in this dirty little apartment with the billionaire who
had brought me such unfathomable bliss.

I glanced over at Nathan. He was quiet, his chest
rising and falling slowly. We’d spent most of the morning right here doing
everything
except
fucking. I’d worn
the man out, and truth be told, he wasn’t the only one who was exhausted. Even
now I had slipped a finger between my thighs, just remembering all the
wonderful things his tongue had done to me.

But it
was no use. I couldn’t conjure the same sensations that Nathan had inflicted
upon me only a few hours ago. I sighed in frustration, looking over at him once
again. “This isn’t fair, you know,” I murmured, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

No man deserved to be this good in bed - especially
not one born into an unholy pile of money and such a god-awful handsome face.
In the past, our sexual encounters were fast and furious, but the last few
hours had been completely different. Nathaniel Hale hadn’t fucked me. We had
made love…

Ordinarily, I’d have felt lucky to land him, but a
little voice in the back of my head kept asking if maybe this was only
happening because we were stuck together.

I shook the voice out again, ignoring it. Nathan made
me feel things no man ever had. If he was using me, well, I was happy to use
him right back. Maybe this would last a week, maybe it would last longer, but
right about now, I didn’t care. Our futures were uncertain in more ways than
one.

And that meant
I was going to need to do a little shopping.

Nathan was going to stay put, but I could slip out for
a few minutes to pick up some supplies. Besides, I was starving. I climbed out
of bed, and a few minutes later I was presentable enough to hit the corner
store. I smiled at myself in the mirror, barely even recognizing the sparkling
eyes staring back. It had been awhile since I was this happy.

It was
a strange feeling—happiness. It was something I’d denied myself for what felt
like forever, just another self-inflicted punishment in the wake of my Jenny’s
death. That was the thing about loss: instinctively, we all wanted to hold
someone or something responsible. There had to be accountability. It was an
intrinsic part of the human grieving process. Nobody ever wanted to hear,
“accidents happen,” because then it meant there was no one to blame.

You had
to direct all those feelings somewhere. All that anger and anguish and rage—you
had to let it out. Unfortunately for me, I was the only one who could bear that
burden, and at the time, I’d thought I deserved it.

What
had changed? How could a night with Nathaniel Hale absolved me of the guilt I’d
carried?

On the way down the hall, a man inside one of the
rooms watched me pass through an open door. I recognized the rookie
immediately, and gave him a little nod.

“Babysit him for a few minutes,” I said quietly. He
stepped out into the hall, shutting the door behind him. “I’ll be back in
fifteen. Going to grab some breakfast and a few supplies.”

The rookie nodded as I walked past him. He wasn’t
about to question a detective, and that was all the better for me, because
Captain Pierce probably wouldn’t appreciate my little store run.

It didn’t take long to reach the ground floor, and although
the shitty little Honda wasn’t much to look at, it was comfortable enough on
the drive up the street. I flipped on the radio, letting a little music fill
the cabin. Its helped me clear my head.

“What are you doing, Sandra?” I asked myself, gripping
the steering wheel a little harder. Sure, it was fun to mix a little business
and pleasure, but I’d worked damn hard to make detective. It had taken years
before the men around me gave even the smallest amount of respect. Was I really
going to risk that for another ride on this man’s billion dollar dick? What
would they say if they found out Detective Williams had slept with a witness?

My own self-doubt wasn’t stopping me from grabbing the
biggest box of condoms from inside the glass case at the supermarket.

I finished my little shopping trip with a few bags’
worth of groceries. We now had all the fixings for a few days of properly good
breakfast, a handful of quick microwaveable dinners, and plenty of bread and
lunch meat. I would have loved to do more, but this wasn’t going on the police
budget, and first year detectives aren’t exactly rolling in the dough.

I was on my way up the stairs to the room with the
heavy bags straining my arms and digging into my fingers when I realized
something was wrong. The rookie wasn’t in the hall where I’d left him, and he
didn’t respond when I rapped quietly on his door.

Fuck.

I lay the bags down on the floor, pulling my gun from
the ankle holster beneath my jeans. I’d only been gone twenty minutes.
Twenty-five, at most. I stepped up to a window along the hall that was
streaming light into the cramped space with the row of apartment doors. Out on
the grounds, I could still see a few of Nathan’s security team, but that was no
guarantee that someone hadn’t slipped by.

I did the only thing I could do. I burst into a run,
barreling down the hall toward the farthest door. There was only one job I was
supposed to be doing, and I’d went and screwed it all up for some grub and a
lousy pack of condoms.

As I came to the door, I saw it was slightly ajar. I
kicked it in as I swept the gun across the room, immediately feeling
embarrassed as the rookie and Nathan both sat quietly on the little couch with
their hands in the air.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked the rookie,
about ready to strangle him for scaring me like that.

“Sorry, detective. I had to report to Captain Pierce
that you’d stepped out. He said we have a credible threat on Nathaniel Hale’s
life and asked me to move rooms until the threat was over.”

“There’s no room in here!” I protested, glancing from
the rookie to Nathan.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make do with the floor. Captain
says it should be safe to leave you two alone in a few days. Three days, tops.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As I stepped
back into the hall and went back to retrieve my grocery bags, there was a
definite feeling of contempt rolling through me. Captain Pierce had it out for
me, and he’d been orchestrating this whole thing as a way to embarrass and
harass me. I should have seen it coming. I should have seen past the heartfelt
speech he’d given me, past the mock attempt he’d made to get me to say “no.” It
had all been a lie, every last word of it. I wasn’t held in any higher esteem
now than when I’d joined the damn force as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie.

And now, what little enjoyment I was getting out of it
was going to be ruined by some stupid kid just out of the academy sharing a few
hundred square feet of living space.

“Fuck,” I whispered as I lifted the bags and started
back toward the room. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. The angel on my shoulder was
telling me shacking up with Nathan again was a bad idea. And the devil on my
other shoulder? Well… she was telling me we could make it a few days and still
get what we wanted.

That
happy thought didn’t make the time pass any quicker.

The next few days were impossibly dull. The three of
us made do, sharing the couch and watching what few channels the antenna on our
shitty little television could pick up. In the meantime, I took shifts with the
rookie, keeping an eye on the grounds. Nothing changed except for my
discomfort. The kid was a snorer, and his proximity to my couch made bedtime a
real bitch. Thankfully, Nathan had a spare set of expensive earplugs in his
bag-of-many-tricks, and by the end of day three, things had improved from a
hellish nightmare to marginally tolerable.

I went to bed as usual, sprawling out on the couch and
shooting one final glance over at Nathan. He was watching me, a smile plastered
across his handsome face. “Soon,” I mouthed, smiling back as he gave me a
little nod.

I shoved the plugs in my ears, drowning out the
buzz-saw laying on our floor, and in no time at all, sleep found me.