I wanted to pay attention to what he was doing but Georgia's voice came at me.

When it did, my focus went to her and my eyes went back to my knees.

"We need to talk," she stated.

"I'm not ready," I replied.

"Right. Then we still need to talk and when I say that I mean about David. I shut him down and shut him out. He hasn't been able to get into his office since Wednesday. He's complaining to Dad, saying work isn't getting done. Dad's up in my s.h.i.+t about it. You've had days. You find anything I can give to Dad so we can move that along?"

I felt Nick's hand glide around the top of my ankle.

I kept my gaze to my knees.

"Not yet, considering half the time I'm spending looking into that situation and the other half I'm spending doing his job so things don't get delayed, pile up or missed. Though, I do feel that I'll need to spend time in his office. There are things there I'd like to review."

"So you're finding something," she guessed.

"I have so much, it's impossible to find anything without taking weeks, something he well knows, his responsibilities something he can't be away from for a weeks-long audit. It wouldn't be smart, naturally. The work he does has to continue to get done. But further, Dad would never allow it."

Nick's hand, which was drifting up the inside of my calf, stopped.

I looked to him.

He was down the bed, on his side, head in his hand, elbow in the bed, other hand under the covers, head tipped back, eyes on me.

Listening.

Intently.

"You're right," Georgia informed me. "Dad wants him back in the office on Monday."

"I need at least another week."

"I can probably buy you a day. That being this day," she returned. "So my suggestion, get your a.s.s home, grab this coffee and the donuts I got you and get to David's office."

"I'm not working today."

"Li-"

I looked to my lap and my words hissed through the air like a whip. "I'm not working today."

"You're gonna have to get over that s.h.i.+t," she warned.

"I'm over it but I'm in the middle of something else," I retorted. "That being the stunt David pulled, a stunt the simple fact he pulled it should buy me at least another week of a.s.sessing the situation. You can't get Dad to accept that and he sends him back to his office, so be it. Not the first time such a decision has been made, the consequences of which might not be promising."

Georgia was silent because she knew I spoke truth.

Nick's hand started moving back up the inside of my calf.

By the time it hit my knee, I felt his touch in my p.u.s.s.y.

My eyes went to him.

He was no longer listening intently.

His attention was aimed at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I looked down.

My hand with the sheet had slipped. I wasn't exposed fully but there was a lot to see.

I s.h.i.+fted the sheet up.

Nick's hand started moving much faster down the inside of my thigh.

"Are we done?" I asked my sister.

"We need to have lunch this week," she told me.

"Pick a day just as long as it's later in the week, text me where to be, I'll be there."

"Okay, Liv. And-"

Nick cupped me with his hand.

I cut my sister off. "I have something I need to do. Enjoy your Sunday."

"Li-" I heard before I disconnected, hit the b.u.t.ton at the side to turn the ringer off and tossed the phone to the bed.

I was about to lunge at Nick when something moved over his face.

No.

More than one something. It looked like he was at war with himself.

One side won, leaving his expression sharp.

"You know what I do," he said quietly.

I held my breath and nodded.

"Have a care, Olivia."

More honesty.

I'd mentioned David's name. And Dad.

There were things he could read in that but David was the legitimate side of the business. No one would have interest in that.

But still, what Nick said was the first indication he gave that he wasn't just out for a f.u.c.k or whatever else he could get from me.

But that he was looking out for me.

I stared into his eyes.

Then I lunged.

I did not need years of visits with a psychologist to explain to me that I had zero control in my life so that was why I liked control in bed.

The partners I'd chosen, none of them had seemed to mind. All of them had seemed to like it. They had provided varying degrees of pleasure depending on their talents. They appeared to receive the same.

It wouldn't matter if they didn't. I never saw them again so their opinion of my performance meant nothing to me.

The battle for control with Nick was entirely different.

There weren't varying degrees of pleasure.

There were varying degrees of dizzying pleasure.

Everything was a contest from kisses to touches to the ultimate f.u.c.k, with each contest having two opponents.

And two winners.

I'd spent the last four evenings banging Nick Sebring, and until last night, getting dressed when it was smart and getting the h.e.l.l out.

But that morning, in the light of day, both of us naked, Nick talking quietly on the phone to order breakfast that included champagne, seeing his grin, our banter of the night before I knew I shouldn't engage in but couldn't help myself, falling asleep under him, something else I knew I shouldn't allow but I didn't stop-our f.u.c.king went manic.

For my part, I needed that time to turn things back. To reduce him to a tool, a length of warm, hard flesh, a stiff c.o.c.k, all there simply to get me off.

This was what I always tried to achieve with Nick. Effort that was wasted because I spent every moment between being with him until being with him again thinking about being with him.

I suspected his game was much different. I didn't know his game but I knew there was one. I was not just a f.u.c.k. But I was also not the woman he intended to take to dinner with his brother and his family either. If I was, we wouldn't be meeting at a hotel. If I was, he'd ask me out to another type of dinner, a getting-to-know-you one.

So that morning, in the light of day, I had to win. I had to reduce him to a length of warm, hard flesh, a stiff c.o.c.k and nothing else in a way I could keep him in that place until this was over.

If I didn't, over coffee, champagne and a fruit plate, all would be lost because I would get lost in the desperate desire to swim forever in Nick Sebring's eyes.

And as we engaged in our intimate war, Nick played safe like he always played safe.

Bigger and stronger than me, he could overpower me easily and make this a scene I would not enjoy.

He never did that unless it was safe for him (which meant safe for me) to win his point.

As for me, I always took advantage of this handicap.

Like I did then after we both tired of the scrimmage. Ready for more, I got him to his back and climbed on top.

I tried to ignore the beauty of his collarbone carved in a wide rise on either side of the apex of his throat. The smooth, sculpted bulges of his pectorals. The rippled swells of muscle over ribs. The flat but indented plain of his stomach and downward pointing angularity of his hip muscles that led to the spread of dark hair that fed to then bedded the root of his perfectly formed c.o.c.k.

I just guided that beautiful c.o.c.k to me and watched between us as I took him. Made him fill me. Plunging down and rearing up, frantic and reckless in my need to ignore all that was him lying beneath me and drive myself straight to o.r.g.a.s.m like he was any man with any c.o.c.k I could use to get me off.

And it was getting me off.

I was panting with the burning need to reach the end as well as the effort I was expending to take me there when I saw his ab muscles contract, veins popping out along the hard flesh from black pubic hair to his navel.

G.o.d.

Just seeing that...

Almost there.

But he was curling up.

My eyes cut to him and I lifted a hand to his shoulder, forcefully shoving him back down.

And I rode.

One of his hands curled around my hip.

I knocked it away.

And I rode.

A blue flash fired in his eyes and he moved again to press up, lifting several inches off the bed.

I curled my hand around his throat and shoved, taking him back down.

I kept my hand there, held tight, eyes locked to his...

And I rode.

But it had happened. I saw it. I felt it. It was everywhere. It filled the room. It marked his frame. His expression. There was so much of it, I felt it sink into my skin.

I'd taken it too far.

This was proven when, with a feral growl that I could swear originated in his shaft and tore out of his throat at the same time it ripped from my p.u.s.s.y straight through me, his eyes dark and riled, he wrapped an arm tight around my waist. He flipped me to my back. I then found my wrists captured and pressed deep into the bed, his face an inch from mine, his c.o.c.k pounding brutally between my legs.

And it...

Was...

Astounding.

"Knees high," he grunted.

Without a thought outside what that would give to me-or what more it'd give to me-I lifted my knees high.

Oh yes.