His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Read online

  “You don’t even know me. You don’t know the details.”

  “I know more than you think I know.” He brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “For instance, you need a drink. You’re really tense. Come sit down.” He turns me toward the room and I take in the open space with a connecting living room and kitchen—brown leather couches and dark wood beneath my feet. It’s downplayed money and power, much like my first impression of the man, who I know is worth millions, which doesn’t comfort me. Not when Jean Claude and my ex together are worth billions. They’re powerful. They’re dangerous.

  Still, Gabe has cast bait that I’m biting on. All kinds of bait that I’m biting on. Thus why, as he crosses the room and heads toward a bar in the corner next to a wall of windows and beneath industrial piping that is part of the design of the ceiling, I follow. The minute he’s behind the bar, I’m in front of it. “What does that mean? You know more than I think?”

  He sets a glass in front of me and fills it with an amber liquid. “Honey whiskey. Try it.”

  I decide he’s right. I need that drink, but I come with a warning. “I get drunk easily. Whiskey is strong.”

  He rests his elbows on the bar and fixes me in a blue-eyed stare. “I promise not to let you fall off the bed or me.”

  My cheeks heat and I down the whiskey that turns out to be both sweet and somehow warm going down. I empty the glass and set it down on the counter. “I also haven’t had sex in two years. I’m not sure I even remember what to do.”

  He arches a brow. “Two years?”

  “Yes, two years.”

  “That’s longer than I thought.” His eyes warm and they warm me the way that whiskey did, all the way down. “I’ll refresh your memory. I promise.”

  Because he’s good at fucking. I know this. I feel it. It’s how he touches me. It’s how he kisses me, but honestly, I think anyone who looks at him knows this about Gabe. I wonder about the history that got him here. I wonder if it’s anything like mine. “Have you ever been married?”

  “I’m not the marrying kind of guy.” He refills my glass and downs his drink before doing the same of his.

  “As in never married?”

  “Never.”

  “And you’re how old?”

  His lips quirk. “Thirty-seven. You?”

  “Thirty,” I say and on that note, I take a small drink of the whiskey. “You know they say that any man over thirty-five that isn’t married has something wrong with him. But, that said, I disagree. Half the men that are married should never have gotten married. It’s like an expectation we all feel obligated to meet. Marriage is not what it’s cracked up to be.”

  He studies me for several beats and takes my glass right when I’m going to sip again, the touch of our hands electric, and oh God, it’s been so long since I felt that kind of spark. “How much do you feel that drink?” he asks.

  “It’s not the booze talking,” I assure him. “It’s just what I feel.”

  He sets my glass down anyway, out of my reach. “How long have you been divorced?”

  “A year.”

  “And no sex for two years?”

  “He had another woman, and I suspect he had a lot of women in the five years I was married to him.”

  “Then why’d you stay?”

  “I didn’t know until the end.”

  He downs his drink and rounds the bar, pulling me close to him. “Two years is a long time,” he says, tangling fingers in my hair. “How long since you had an orgasm?”

  “You’re asking if I took care of things myself? Of course. I’m human, but I’m really tired of taking care of things myself.”

  “You won’t need to take care of anything yourself tonight, sweetheart.” He cups my face. “And if I have my way, anytime soon.” With the implication that this isn’t a one-night stand, he leans in to kiss me but I press my fingers to his lips.

  “Wait. Jean Claude is dangerous. My ex told me before I was even in a war with Jean Claude that he believed he’d killed someone who got in his way. I’m in his sights. I’m dangerous. Maybe we shouldn’t—”

  He pulls my hand from his mouth. “Talking about another man when I’m about to give you an orgasm is not good manners.” He lifts me and sets me on the barstool, and then he’s on his knee in front of me, sliding my skirt up my legs and pressing my knees apart. “I’ll make you forget Jean Claude. That’s a promise.” He slides his hands up my thighs and when his thumbs stroke the lace of my thigh highs, sending darts of pleasure through my body, I decide he’s right. I’m going to forget everything but this man, and right now, I can’t seem to remember why that might be a problem for him or me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gabe

  Two years since she’s been fucked and I’d be willing to bet a whole lot longer since she’s been properly fucked. Her dry spell ends tonight.

  I’m still on my knee in front of her, with her on the barstool, her knees wide at my urging. “Gabe,” she whispers, and I like that she’s present enough to use my name. To know who is giving her pleasure. What I don’t like is the damn cage that is my jacket. I shrug out of it and reach for my tie. She tries to shut her legs, but I’m not allowing that to happen. I change my mind when I see how awkward and vulnerable she looks. That’s not what I want for her right now. Not ever.

  I kiss her knee and then stand and lift her from the barstool, setting her on the ground and molding her close. “Better?” I ask softly, stroking her wild red curls from her face.

  “I’m pretty obviously nervous, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” I reach for her glass and hand it to her. “Finish this.”

  “I may need you to carry me to the car when I go home if I drink that.”

  I’m not letting her go home. I knew that the minute I decided to bring her here, but I don’t say that. Not yet. Not now. “I’ll take good care of you,” I say instead. “Drink.” I offer her the glass again and she downs the whiskey.

  I set the glass on the bar and grab my phone from my pocket, turning on one of my music playlists, and a Kane Brown song starts to play. “How do you feel?” I ask, setting it on the counter.

  She yanks my tie the rest of the way off my collar and tosses it. “Like I want to forget, and I hate that I’m acting like a nervous school girl.”

  I don’t ask what she wants to forget. She has an ex that knows Jean Claude and Jean Claude is targeting her. Those two things are not coincidences but she’s smart, really damn smart to find someone like Reid, who worked for Jean Claude while training under our father. “Do you know what I think about your nerves?”

  “That you don’t know how a damn grown woman who was married could be this nervous?”

  “That it’s charming and sexy.” I stroke her cheek and kiss her. “And you weren’t nervous when you kissed me in the bar.”

  “That was different. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know who you are. I didn’t—”

  “Knowing who I am is good. It means you chose to come here with me, not a stranger.”

  “We are strangers.”

  My lips curve. “I told you. I know more about you than you think.”

  “What else can you know about me?” she asks, giving me a curious look.

  I could fuck her right now and show her the many ways I understand needing an escape and I will, just not yet. For reasons I can’t explain, I want to savor this woman.

  I catch her hand with mine, lacing our fingers together as I walk her backward, and decide to slow things down, guiding her to the floor-to-ceiling window. Both of us grab the wooden railing that runs along the center of the glass. “It’s an amazing view,” she says, as we stare out at the Statue of Liberty lit up and seeming to float in an ocean of darkness. “Why this view instead of the park or the cityscape?”

  I turn to her and lean a shoulder on the glass. “Because when I’m home, I want to escape the city and the demands it represents.” She turns to face me and I pull her to me and she doesn’t resist. She melts into m
e, her fingers curling on my chest and even without a skin to skin connection, just feeling her close has me burning alive. I want her naked. I want inside her. I want her present, and out of her own head.

  “That’s why I brought you to this window,” I say. “To show you that right here, in this apartment, in this room, we’re above the city, outside that world. It’s just you and me.” I cup her face. “So be here with me. Forget everything else.”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, I want that very much. I’m here. Screw that asshole. He doesn’t get to be here with us.”

  I go stiff and pull back to look at her. “Do you still love him? Is that what that meant?”

  Her eyes go wide. “Oh God, no. I don’t remember loving him. I must have. I know I must have, but I swear to you, Gabe. I don’t remember loving him. I’m not here to forget him. I’m here for me. For you. Because I want to be and damn it—” She pushes to her toes and presses her lips to mine, just like she had in the bar.

  I’m stiff a moment, weighing her words, but when she moans and starts to pull back, I decide, fuck her ex. She’s here with me. She’s mine tonight. I cup her head and lick past her teeth, letting her taste that decision on my lips, in my kiss. She’s mine tonight and I will have all of her. She moans this time with a low, rough, needy tone and she’s right there with me, answering my demand with her own. Something about my pulling back drove her forward, pushed away her reserves. She wants what she’s been denied, she wants me and this and I don’t give her time to change her mind.

  I turn her to face the railing and step behind her, forcing her hands to the bar, my thighs framing her legs. My fingers find the zipper of her dress and I drag it down to her lower back to the top of her backside where it stops. I brush her hair over one shoulder and then unhook her bra, sliding my hands under the material to rest my palms on her arms. My lips press to the sweet spot between her shoulder blades and I inhale the sweet, floral scent of her, savoring the moment, like I don’t savor the women I fuck, but then I know there is nothing about this woman that is like any other woman but one, and she’s long gone. She’s gone forever. She’s the reason I never wanted to fucking savor anyone again, but I am. I can’t seem to just make Abigail a fuck that is hard and fast and over. She’s happening to me. She’s happening in a way I don’t want her to happen, but it’s too late. She’s here. I don’t want her to leave.

  She arches into me, her backside pressing to the thick ridge of my erection straining my zipper, and damn it, I need her naked and in my arms. I shove the dress off her shoulders and down her arms. She untangles her hands and I press her forward again, impatient now, impatient in all kinds of ways with this woman. She grabs the railing again while I carry the material all the way down her hips. When it pools at her ankles, I lift her and her heels fall off with the dress. I kick everything aside. Now she’s facing the window, naked but for her thigh highs and a tiny slit of black lace down the center of her gorgeous backside. She’s at my mercy and yet some part of me is certain that I’m the one at her mercy. And that’s a problem I need to fix and fix now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gabe

  With Abigail facing the window, I step into her, cupping her perfect backside and pressing my lips to her ear. “You’re at my mercy now.”

  “I’d only be at your mercy if I didn’t choose to be here, but I do.”

  I think my cock grows an inch with that statement. She might be a bit shy and nervous, but she’s still the woman who kissed me and thanked me for waking her up. The combination of shyness and confidence contradict each other and yet, in some incredibly fucking sexy way, they are one with this woman. I scrape my teeth over her bare shoulder and cup her breasts, leaning into her, absorbing her soft curves. “Good,” I say, teasing her nipples. “I want you to choose to be here, but I also want you to choose to give me control. Trust me to please you.”

  “I don’t do trust,” she whispers. “Not anymore. Don’t make it that.”

  She doesn’t do trust. She’s been burned and I understand. God, how I understand, but I reject her rejection. I turn her to face me and press her hands to the rail behind her, mine over hers. My gaze meets hers, and I find that same mix of nerves and defiance in her. She wants me, but she wants control. “When you feel pleasure that is control. When I give you pleasure, when I’m the man that did that for you, that’s control. Me fucking you just to fuck you, that’s nothing but fucking. That’s not what this is.”

  “It is,” she says. “It’s fucking and don’t call it anything else. I don’t need to call it anything else.”

  “Oh we’re fucking, baby, but there are different degrees of fucking. There’s the kind that’s just done and over and then you barely know who fucked you. And then there’s the kind you remember. The kind you crave more of and can’t get enough of. The kind where you know exactly who made you come, and exactly who you need to make you come again. And you’re going to remember this and so am I.” My gaze lowers over her puckered nipples and high breasts before it returns to her face. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

  Her lashes lower, her expression affected in all the ways I want her affected. I lean in and press my cheek to hers, brushing my lips over her delicate skin, inhaling that sweet scent of her even as I nuzzle her neck. “I want you in a bad way, woman. I brought you here. That’s more control than you realize it is.” I pull back to look at her. “Don’t move your hands. Do what I say. It’s all about pleasure. It’s all about the moment.” I don’t force her to respond. I lean in and brush my lips over hers. “It’s just you and me, and we’re on top of the dark waters of that ocean behind you, where no one can reach us. Don’t move,” I say again.

  This time I release her hands and I step away from her, just far enough to appreciate how damn hot she is leaning against that railing, the ocean and the Statue of Liberty behind her. Her in nothing but thigh highs and a tiny pair of panties. “Now what?” she challenges, her chin lifting in defiance, as if she refuses to cower under my inspection, which makes me wonder if the man before me wanted that. If he wanted her to cower.

  “This,” I say, reaching for my shirt. Unbuttoning just enough to pull it over my head. I toss it, letting it float down to hit the hardwood floor while her eyes rake over my body, landing where I expect them to land: my tattoo, the half sleeve I got when I was struggling with loss.

  Her eyes go from it to me. “You have a lion on your arm and its eyes are blue like yours.”

  “Like my mother’s,” I say when I would normally say nothing else.

  “She’s gone,” she whispers. “She’s gone, right?”

  I feel that question with the same pain I always feel, a biting, deep, pain that I don’t like exposed but she’s exposed herself in ways I don’t think she intended: she’s naked now, with a man she wanted to hire, that she wanted to help her, and that means I need to give her something, I need to make her feel that I’m exposed as well.

  I close the small space between us, my hands settling on her narrow waist. “It’s about faith and strength, two things she valued.”

  Her hand goes to the lion. “She’s gone.”

  “Yes. She’s gone, but I’m right here.” I press her hand back to the railing. “Right here, one hundred percent with you and just you.” I cup her face. “Where I choose to be.”

  “You really confuse me,” she whispers.

  “Don’t be confused,” I say. “Let me be clear to erase any doubt you have. I want you like I have not wanted in a very long time.” And with that, I close my mouth down on hers, licking past her teeth, tasting her, and holy hell, she tastes like everything I have ever wanted, everything I have denied I needed. I tell myself to resist that idea but she moans this soft, sweet moan that undoes me.

  I cup her head and deepen the kiss, my fingers finding her nipple, my need to undo her the way she undoes me driving me now. And she responds as I want, all but going limp against me, her knees swaying, while the angle of her body forces her hands to
stay on that railing. I tear my mouth from hers and breathe with her. “I’m going to make you come now,” I promise. “And then I’m going to do it again.”

  “What about you?”

  “That’s later. This is now.” I lower myself to one knee, my hands on her hips, my gaze meeting hers, her teeth scratching her bottom lip.

  “Gabe, I—”

  “You what?” I ask, pressing my lips to her belly and licking the soft skin there, her muscles trembling with the touch. I look up at her and prod, “You what?”

  “I—can’t seem to remember.”

  “You want? You need?”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Those things.”

  I reach for her panties, and close my hand around them, ripping them from her body. She yelps and I scrape my teeth over her hip, laving the offended skin with my tongue, licking my way back to her center. I linger there and my gaze lifts to hers. “I really want to touch you,” she pleads.

  “After you come,” I promise.

  “Now,” she whispers, but I don’t give her that chance. This is where she’s at my mercy. I lift her leg to my shoulder and lick her clit.

  She gasps and I lick again, suckling her and then sliding two fingers inside her. She moans and I’m all in. I want another moan. I want more of the salty sweetness of her on my tongue. I want her orgasm and I want to make damn sure she knows who gave it to her. Me. Gabe. I did. I own her right now. Her damn ex-husband does not and he won’t ever again. I’m going to make sure she knows that. I’m going to make sure she says my name.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Abigail

  I choose to be here.

  I have that empowering thought, but I lose it with Gabe’s tongue. It’s been so long since any man has licked me this intimately. Even longer since it didn’t feel awkward and weird. And nothing about this man feels awkward. Nothing about his tongue and his hands make me feel anything but pleasure. He licks me and his fingers and tongue together send darts of pleasure radiating from my sex, through my entire body. That wave of ultimate release starts to slide through me and I’m not ready, but I can’t hold back. “Gabe,” I pant out, my grip tightening on the railing. “Gabe, I—”