Authors: Stella Rhys
“I’m sure you can.”
I paused and bit my lip. “Fine. But quick.” Leaning forward, I parted my mouth for Abram. Heat flashed in my cheeks as I lifted my eyes to catch his dirty little smile before bringing the plump strawberry closer, finally touching its tip to my tongue. I bit down gingerly but gasped at the sensation of hot liquid dripping onto my chest. Abram laughed as I swallowed the bite, sliding his hand under my dress as he leaned in to kiss my lips.
“Say the word and I’ll lick that off your body right here.”
Just like that, instant throbbing. I clamped my thighs shut around his hand, electricity tingling over my skin. “You wouldn’t do that in public.”
“Try me.”
I held my breath as he closed his mouth over mine, the heat of his tongue commanding me. I dug my nails into his shoulder as he licked the sweetness inside of my mouth, giving low, rumbling groans just audible enough to drive me wild. But with a tug on my dress, I flinched. My eyes darted wide and I blinked at him, quickly taking in his chiseled jaw, crystal eyes and everything that told me he was Abram.
Fuck
,
I cursed, realizing that his hand on my breast had flashed me with an image of Jesse.
No. No, no, no.
“Are you alright?” Abram frowned.
“Yes,” I breathed hastily. “I just… it feels like we have an audience here and I just want to be in private with you.” I trailed my hand off his shoulder, looking him in the eye as I ran my fingers down his hard chest and six-pack before cupping his package. “I need to be alone with you now,” I murmured desperately. And I meant it. I didn’t care how vulgar it sounded – I needed to fuck Jesse out of my head.
The sound of my hunger had Abram’s entire body instantly rigid. Slapping a couple large bills onto the table, he slid my legs off his lap and clenched his jaw. Nodding out the door, he muttered, “Go fast.”
We only just made it into the penthouse.
The elevator door barely closed before Abram had my dress in a puddle around my ankles. My arms around his neck, he lifted me right out of it, pulling my bare legs around his torso and running his tongue in a hot, torrid line along the curve of my neck. I let my head fall back, breathing out a moan as he tasted every inch of my skin like it was candy, licking along the underside of my jaw, getting me so incredibly hot that I had no idea where we were till I felt my knees hit the living room sofa. Straddling him, I tore at his belt, undoing it and breathing deep as his hands trailed from my neck to my naked breasts. My breath was short, staccato as I waited for a guilty flash of Jesse, and I thanked God when there was none.
“Fuck, I really don’t ever want to miss you again,” Abram rasped as I tore at his belt. He groaned when I released his hard cock from its confines, immediately wrapping my fingers around him and stroking. Sitting back, his blazing eyes traveled slowly from my pumping hands to my stomach, my breasts, my collarbone and lips. “I don’t want to have to miss this body again.” He leaned forward into my neck, sucking my skin, trailing his hands down my waist and to my hips. “These sexy fucking thighs,” he pressed down on them hard, massaging his way to my ass and squeezing two greedy handfuls. Need pulsed in my sex as I felt him getting rock hard in my palms. “I don’t think you realize how much I want you, Isla. Every second of the day,” Abram murmured, reaching around my back. From behind, he slid his fingertips just along my wetness before slowly, gently pushing inside me. I moaned as he let out a low
mmm
. “This is all I want,” he whispered, his words slicing into the air. “Fuck everything else if I can just have this every day, every night.”
His words sent chills through me and yet I was burning hot. I rolled my head back, my long hair grazing the tops of his thighs as I gently bounced on his fingers. Abram sucked a sharp breath between his teeth.
“Christ, you’re so wet.”
I could only respond with a delirious hum from my lips. I was drunk off desire – drunk off the feeling of wanting Abram more than anything in the world and knowing that I could actually have him. It was a simple, incredible sensation. “Baby,” Abram whispered warningly as I lifted my hips off his lap to run his smooth helmet along my saturated pussy. His pulsing smoothness on my clit had me bucking forward, sending a million hot bursts of sensation through every nerve ending in my body. “Fuck, Isla, that feels too good…” Abram groaned, cursing with tortured pleasure as I teased us both, sinking myself down on just the tip of his cock.
Holy shit.
I’d never felt him like this before. Skin on skin, the fiercest gush of anticipation surged through my veins. I couldn’t control myself any longer. “Isla – ”
“I’m on the pill,” I breathed out, and with his growl, I slammed my hips down on him, our lips crashing together as his hot, hard cock filled me to the hilt. I gasped as his tongue swept voraciously over mine, swallowing my pleasured moans and absolutely claiming me as I’d so needed him to. His fingers tangled in my waves. He squeezed my thighs, sucked my nipples, kissed the swells of my breasts. He made my body his to please. And with hot, blissful gratitude, I rode him hard, swiveling my hips, plunging up and down on his thick shaft and grinning when he eventually stopped everything to simply watch my breasts bounce before him, utterly mesmerized. I felt like a goddess, especially when his gaze tore off my body to lock on my eyes, staring so deep inside me that I was sure he’d stripped the last of me bare. In that second, it felt like I belonged to him. And as I hurtled to an orgasm, his eyes never leaving me, his lips muttering
yes
and
come for me, baby
, it felt as if he belonged to me.
Under normal circumstances, I’d wonder if I was being absurd but after he came, ribbons of his pleasure on my belly and between my breasts, he kissed my lips softly and cleaned me off. And then as he lay with all his weight on top of me, exhausted as he murmured sweet words in my ear, I heard him say a few words that stopped my heart for a moment. Not those three words, but five that felt just as breathtakingly good.
“I just want this forever.”
~
The next morning, I awoke with Abram’s arm wrapped around my waist, his hand cupped under my breast. My eyes blinked open slowly, processing the sight of the Hudson River straight across from my eye line, outside the floor-to-ceiling window of his master bedroom. My mouth curled with content as I closed my eyes again, just for a few seconds, so I could revel in the moment. Apparently, bliss was waking up next to Abram. Only then did it dawn on me that I’d never slept a full night with him, or ever witnessed his sleep. I’d never seen his Spartan body at rest, or his eyes closed for more than a minute. Lifting my head off the pillow, I tried to turn just enough to witness it but he immediately stirred.
“Damn it,” I laughed, plopping my head back on the pillow. “Good morning,” I murmured as I felt him nuzzle the back of my neck, stroking his thumb back and forth over my nipple.
“Morning.” His voice still sounded like warm sleep. It was so cute I had to spin my whole body around and fully take him in. Pressed against his chest, a giggle bubbled to my lips. His messy hair was so damned cute. He tousled it all the more by raking his fingers through and yawning. “What time is it?” I let him reach for his phone on his nightstand. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Quarter past nine. I can’t remember the last time I slept in this late.”
“This is late? It’s still very much morning.”
“I know. I just haven’t slept a full night in a long time.”
“Why not?”
Abram smiled with bleary amusement, watching me lay on my side and get comfortable on my pillow. “I want to, I just can’t. I usually wake up after three hours. But I guess you’re my lucky charm.”
“Ah.” I smiled, trailing my fingertips along his tanned skin. It looked flat-out lick-able against the stark white sheets. “So this body was built on three hours of sleep a night. Imagine what you could do with a full eight.”
He watched me trace the deep lines of his six-pack. “I guess we’ll need you in bed with me from now on so I can find out.” I looked up at him, biting my lip to suppress what would be a horrifically dorky smile. Abram laughed, pulling me onto his hard chest and pushing back my messy morning hair. He gazed at me. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“I genuinely didn’t think this was a real thing.”
“What was a real thing?”
“Waking up looking perfect.”
I tried to smirk at him but instead blushed so hard I had to turn away. Abram laughed, tipping my face back toward him. I chewed my lip, forcing myself to let him look at me. As much as I loved it, Abram’s undivided attention – his blue eyes flickering with a thousand secret thoughts I couldn’t read – was overwhelming. It didn’t feel like the smiley, lazy gazes I used to have with Evan in the morning, when we were still doing okay. It was intense, as if Abram could see something inside me that even I didn’t know about. But for the sake of appearing like a mature adult woman, I didn’t avert my gaze. Whatever he was doing, I let him do it. I wondered if he could feel my rising pulse against his chest because suddenly, he gave me a break, cracking a smile and gently stroking my hair.
“We’re off today,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nate and I are going to see if Jesse can follow through with his promise today. He said he was going to get Stefan’s location.”
“Are you skeptical?”
“Yes. But the guy who made Stefan’s new papers works close to the Toro Family, so the reality is that he’s more likely to hand over the information to Jesse. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
“Fair enough. So you’re saying Jesse’s gone all day and you and I have no plans whatsoever?” I lifted an eyebrow, suddenly very excited by this news.
“Kind of.” Abram grinned as he got up, treating me to the spectacular view of his undressed body, the muscles in his traps and shoulders rippling as he rolled his neck to stretch. “There’s an event tonight that we’ll need to attend.”
I watched him disappear into the bathroom. “We?” His chuckle came back at me.
“I. They definitely expect me because it’ll be right here in the hotel, and I’ll be making a speech. But I’d be happy if you came with me.”
I grinned like an idiot. “I’d love to,” I called back, masking the giddiness in my voice. But I could really get used to this – waking up in Abram’s bed, laying tangled in his luxurious sheets and calling back and forth to each other about the plans for the day, like an actual normal couple.
Or semi-normal at least. My heart twisted a bit when I heard what the event was.
“They have one of these galas every year for their schools and for the library. But this year, obviously, it’s in honor of Gavin,” Abram murmured as he returned to bed, sitting up against the headboard. He watched with a little smile as I climbed into his lap, my long hair tumbling down my shoulders. He pushed the waves behind my back, pulling me closer by my waist. “I haven’t seen his parents much since the funeral.”
“Why not?”
Abram heaved a sigh, his bare chest warm against mine. “You know who they are. They’ve been famous all these years for being everyone’s beacon of hope – these positive guiding lights. So when Gavin died, as distraught as they were, they tried to keep that up. To be positive. Not talking about how he died or who killed him, just trying to celebrate his life. And that wasn’t quite my agenda. Not after what they put him through.” I watched the familiar darkness crawl into Abram’s eyes – the same one I had seen the night he’d first told me about Gavin’s torture and death.
“Can you tell me your best memory of him?” I blurted my question, blinking at how sudden it was. But I was just desperate to pull Abram out of that dark place before he sunk too far in. I had bad memories associated with that look. It meant he was reliving Gavin’s torture, cut by cut, second by second. Aside from that, the last time I’d seen it on Abram’s face, he had disappeared on me. “The funniest memory you have of him – that will always be a happy one in your mind.”
Abram was silent. I let go of the breath I was holding when the sky color returned to his eyes.
“He tried fighting my dad.”
I blinked. “What?” I smiled nervously as Abram laughed, leaning his head back and gazing out the window as he recalled.
“We were in high school and Gavin was this smart, skinny kid. Beanpole with glasses, basically. And I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore but I couldn’t stop. The fighting. I’d knocked some kid out and he was still in the hospital ten days later. And I heard he was from a poor family, no health insurance, they were banking on his fight to pay their rent. So I felt like a piece of shit. I wanted to stop fighting but my dad wouldn’t let me out of the next two matches he booked. So when he came to get me, Gavin – all one hundred-twelve pounds of him – got right in his face and said, ‘If you don’t let Abe out of this I’m going to beat the living
crap
out of you.’ Because ‘crap’ was as far as he went with cursing. And my dad laughed in his face so Gavin took a swing, landed one punch, and then got his ass thoroughly handed to him within two seconds. At which point I got in between them.” Abram shook his head, looking back at me with a small, crooked grin. “He had this little scar from that day on, right in the middle of his eyebrow.”
I shook my head. “So I’m not the only one you’ve scarred,” I teased, touching the fine white line on my forehead. Abram gazed at it softly before brushing his lips over it.
“That was Nate. I have no intentions of ever leaving a scar with you.”
“Fine.” I bit my lip. “Continue.”
Abram gave a little laugh and shrugged. “Gavin realized he couldn’t help me, so he paid that kid’s hospital bill and just tried to be there for me. To talk me out of the guilt spiral after every fight. He helped me finally get my way, break off contact form my dad. He had my back through everything – even when I came back and started making money off of all the same things that turned me into a piece of shit. He never came to any of the nights, never gambled at the Monarch, but he never judged me. He just made sure to be there for me.”
I could feel how taut Abram’s muscles were under my hands. I frowned as he looked up at me, cupping my face and gently pushed back my protruding lip. I didn’t even realize I was pouting but I couldn’t help feeling utterly heartbroken. It hurt to get to know more about Gavin Theroux. It hurt enough to know that he’d been so brutally murdered, but it hurt even more to know that he had
always
been that good person everyone knew him as, even as a little kid. He’d always been exactly what Abram needed.
“What are you thinking about?”
Abram’s question stirred me out of my thoughts. “Nothing. Just that you were lucky to have such a good friend. Some people go their entire lives without meeting a Gavin Theroux, let alone having the chance to be his best friend. His brother, basically.”
“Yeah, some people have best friends who end up marrying their ex-boyfriends right?”
“Oh, wow. Low blow.” I pretended to be offended but I knew Abram was just trying to lighten the mood.