The Next Play: Part Three Read online

She sidestepped the question, still working up the nerve to tell him about the texts. “How did the meeting go with the Fillmore execs this morning?”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Fine, but it was boring as fuck without you there. And I didn’t understand half of the tech-talk they kept spouting, trying to show off. I needed my little computer genius there to translate most of it for me, so I’ve set up a second meeting with them. But we might not be able to squeeze it in until after five next Tuesday.”

  Thinking it was adorable that he was so in awe of her abilities with a computer, she said, “That’s okay. I’ll let Rey know that it’s going to be a long day, so Davey can go ahead and have dinner with them.”

  “Speaking of the little dude, where is he?” he asked, and she could tell by the genuine warmth in his deep voice that he wasn’t just asking to score points with her. That he actually liked Davey, and had enjoyed getting to know him over the weekend.

  “He’s with Rey,” she replied, gazing up into his handsome face. “He and Rey’s daughter, Piper, wanted to see a new movie that just came out, and Rey offered to take them.”

  “So you decided to come and see me?” he husked, his grin turning downright sexual as he lifted her up by her bottom—her legs immediately going around his waist, hands clutching at his powerful biceps—and carried her over to his desk, sitting her on the front edge of it.

  “I did,” she breathed out, thinking how similar their positions were to the ones they’d been in last Friday, on the other side of the desk. And yet, the circumstances couldn’t have been more different.

  Friday, he’d been doing his best to shove her away.

  And today, he seemed determined to keep her as close as possible.

  “Lucky me,” he murmured, sliding his hands along the outsides of her bare thighs as he stepped deeper between them. She expected him to lean down and kiss her then, but he stared down at her instead, and his blue eyes were warm with satisfaction as he said, “Aren’t you going to ask me how my lunch went with the guys?”

  After he’d sent her the sexy text about how much he’d enjoyed going down on her, she’d received another one telling her that he’d arranged to have lunch with the other four Atlas owners so that he could tell them that they were now a couple.

  Stomach tight with her nerves, she asked, “How did it go?”

  Another warm smile kicked up the corner of his mouth, and she realized that “happy” was an emotion her guy wore really well. “Great. Even Lucas managed to tell me congratulations.”

  She shook her head as she bit her lip and smiled, wondering why he couldn’t get over the whole Lucas thing. She took a deep breath, ready to tell him again that there was no way his friend was interested in her in a sexual way, when he pushed one of those rugged hands into her hair and tilted her head back, saying, “So, about the woman I was talking to when you got here.”

  “It’s not important,” she said in a rush, feeling her face heat. He’d obviously seen her response to the sight of them together, and she couldn’t help feeling like she’d overreacted. After all, women probably flirted with the man everywhere he went, so she was going to have to get used to it. And it’s not like Jonah had flirted back.

  “Just don’t make a big deal out of what you saw,” he husked, his free hand sliding up under her dress and molding over the curve of her hip. “She’s just a paralegal who works for one of our lawyers. She means nothing to me. I barely even know her.”

  That might have been comforting coming from some men, but knowing what little she did about Jonah’s past, Jocelyn had a feeling he’d probably fucked around with a lot of women at Vane, the sex club where he’d been a longtime member, who he “barely” knew.

  “Well, you mean something to her. She was looking at you like she’d enjoy nothing more than eating you alive,” she said, unable to stop the next rough-edged words as they spilled out of her. “And I’d probably be an idiot to believe that she hasn’t already done it.”

  The fingers on her hip tightened against her skin, as if he were afraid she was going to try to slip away. “Damn it, Jace. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” She blinked up at him. “State the truth?”

  A frustrated frown wove its way between his auburn brows. “I can’t change my past,” he ground out, his blue eyes darkening as he moved the hand in her hair to the middle of her back. “God knows I would if I could, but I can’t.”

  “I know,” she sighed, closing her eyes as she turned her head to the side.

  He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against her hair. “But I can tell you that I’ve never touched Liz, baby.”

  She blinked again as she turned her head to stare back up at him. “Jonah, she looked at you the way a woman looks at a man that she’s seen naked.”

  The V between his brows got deeper as he worked his jaw a few times—and then he made a hard, guttural sound in the back of his throat. “Fuck,” he cursed, shoving the word through his clenched teeth. “That’s because she has.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes shot wide as she jerked back, feeling like she’d just been kicked in the stomach. “What? You just said that you haven’t messed around with her!”

  “And I haven’t,” he growled. “I swear.”

  “Oh, God,” she said breathlessly, understanding knocking the air from her lungs. “She watched you, didn’t she? At Vane. She saw you…perform there, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” There was a dull flush of color on his high cheekbones, his blue eyes burning with regret. “She was there one night on a date, and I saw her in the crowd.”

  “Ugh.” She felt sick. And, seriously, what kind of freaking date took place at a sex club?

  He dropped his forehead against hers and groaned. “I know, baby. I suck.”

  Before she could think of all the good reasons there were for why she shouldn’t ask him, she heard herself say, “How many people did you sleep with there?”

  He stiffened, then pulled back, the look on his handsome face a cross between wary understanding and extreme frustration.

  Holding her hands up, she quickly said, “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “Jocelyn—”

  “Just forget it. This is pointless.”

  “No!” he growled, gently grabbing onto her wrists and bringing them against his broad chest, the solid wall of muscle rising and falling with his hard breaths. He kept his dark, intense gaze locked tight with hers, making it impossible for her to look away. “Just listen to me, please. None of that shit means anything, and I wish I knew how to make you understand that. What we have, it may be new, but it’s already so much fucking better than anything I’ve ever had before, and I don’t want to have to hide it. I want to be able to tell women like Liz that I’ve got a girlfriend who already has me wrapped around her little finger. I want every single one of them to know that I’m fucking taken, and that it isn’t going to change.”

  Over the weekend, Jonah had made it clear that he didn’t want to keep their relationship a secret—and when it came to women like Liz the Paralegal, she could see the advantage in broadcasting the news far and wide. But she knew it wouldn’t make any difference with a lot of the women from his past.

  “Even if you run a freaking ad in the paper,” she told him, “it won’t stop women from flirting with you.”

  Cupping her face in his hands, he brushed his thumbs over her cheeks as he said, “Who gives a shit? They don’t matter. Don’t you see that? They’re like static. A blur. The only thing my eyes want to focus on is you.”

  She couldn’t help but give him a trembling smile at those incredible words, and he started to lower his head with a husky groan, his warm lips only just touching her sensitive ones when her phone suddenly buzzed in the little purse she had draped over her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” she whispered against his mouth. “I need to answer that in case it’s Rey.”

  He stepped back, giving her room to get to her phone, and sure enough Rey’s smiling face was
illuminated on the screen. Slipping off the front of the desk, she walked a few feet away as she swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call. “Hey, I’m here. Is everything okay?”

  Rey assured her that everything was fine, and that she just had a quick question. While her best friend’s voice filled her ear, Jocelyn watched Jonah from the corner of her eye. He’d turned and propped his tall body against the front of his desk, where she’d just been sitting, his strong arms crossed over his broad chest, a breathtakingly possessive gleam burning in his heavy-lidded gaze as it moved over the curves of her body.

  Her throat worked as she gave a hard swallow, and she somehow managed to murmur a few words to Rey before ending the call. He looked so freaking sexy when he watched her like that, one hand lifted so that he could stroke his thumb across his bottom lip, and she could feel her need for him swirling through her system like a molten wave of lust, her body responding to him from nothing more than a greedy, smoldering look.

  Jonah’s beautiful blue eyes had always had a kind of power over her. But now that she knew he was hers—that he wanted her, all of her—that power had been magnified, until it was all she could do not to run across his office and throw herself at him, begging him to give her everything. His body. His future. His tortured, beautiful heart.

  She wanted it all. Everything. Every single part of him, from the perfect to the broken pieces. She just wanted him.

  “Is Davey okay?” he asked, saving her from doing something crazy as he pushed away from the desk and walked over to where she stood.

  “Yeah,” she replied, slipping her phone back into her purse, and then looking up at him as he stopped right in front of her. “Rey just wanted to know if I was all right with her taking him to her parents for dinner. They won’t be back until later tonight.”

  “Hmm,” he rumbled, staring down at her body as he ran his masculine hands up her bare arms, chill bumps spreading in the wake of his touch.

  “Wh-what?” she whispered shakily. “What are you thinking?”

  The smile he shot her as he lifted his smoldering, provocative gaze back to hers was so wicked it should have been illegal. “Why?”

  “You’ve got a certain look on your face.”

  A deep, deliciously sexy laugh rumbled up from his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “That’s because I was thinking about fucking you,” he said, lowering his head and playfully running his nose against the side of hers.

  “Oh.”

  “Everywhere,” he husked, brushing his lips over her warm cheek as his big hands spread over her bottom again.

  Gripping onto his muscular shoulders, she asked, “You mean like in here, in your office?”

  He slowly shook his head from side to side as he gave her ass a hard squeeze. “No. I mean everywhere on your beautiful little body, sweetheart.”

  “Ohhh,” she said again. Only that time she kind of moaned it.

  “Your mouth,” he whispered, kissing his way up the side of her neck. “Between your beautiful tits. Deep inside your tight, mouthwatering cunt. And in this incredible little ass. I want every single one of them, Jocelyn. I want it all. Again and again.”

  Her legs trembled, barely able to hold her up, her nails digging into his silk-covered shoulders as she held on to him.

  “You ever done that before?” he asked, pulling her tight against him as he looked her in the eye, his hard, thick cock prodding her in the stomach.

  She couldn’t help but give a quiet laugh. “Jonah, I’m a mom, remember? I’ve obviously had sex.”

  He raised one dark eyebrow. “In the ass?”

  “Oh. Um…n-no,” she stammered, blushing so hard she felt like she had the August sun beating down on her.

  He lifted one hand to her flushed face, brushing her hair back behind her ear, his voice deliciously low as he told her, “You need to know that I am always going to respect the fuck out of you, angel. I live in awe of you. Of how strong and sweet and smart and gorgeous you are. But it’s not going to stop me from doing filthy-as-hell things to your beautiful little body—won’t stop me from fucking it and getting my mouth on it in every way that I can—all the goddamn time.”

  It didn’t seem possible, but his hot, husky words were just making her want him even more.

  He settled his hand at the side of her neck, the rough tip of his thumb stroking softly along the edge of her jaw. “I let you call the shots last night and it nearly killed me. I ached for you all night long. Christ, I’m still aching for you. It never stops.”

  Sliding a dubious look toward the far wall of glass, she said, “Gabe has blinds in his office.”

  Jonah’s chest shook as he laughed. “That’s because he’s afraid of heights.”

  She grinned. “Seriously?”

  Lips lifting in a lopsided smile, he said, “He’s not a fan, that’s for sure. Though I suspect he’d keep them even if our offices were on the ground floor, because he doesn’t trust that the controls we have to make the glass opaque actually work. Knowing how possessive he is, I don’t think he’d take any chances that someone could watch him fucking his future wife.”

  Jocelyn lifted her brows. “Gabe and Denny have sex in his office?”

  “Why do you think he’s always smiling?” he asked, still grinning down at her. “He didn’t used to be like that.”

  “No?”

  “Naw. She’s the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him.”

  There wasn’t an ounce of jealousy behind those words, and she wondered if maybe Denny was right. If it were possible that Jonah really didn’t think about her in a sexual way. At least not now, after so many months had passed since the night he’d shared her with Gabriel.

  “So should we christen my office?” he asked silkily, stroking his hands over her bottom again.

  She arched one eyebrow. “I’m sure you’ve done your fair share of christening in here already.”

  His expression turned serious as he cocked his head to the side a bit. “I haven’t.”

  She smirked.

  “Scout’s honor, sweetheart. Not once.” He gave another low, husky laugh. “Though I was jerking off in the bathroom that first day you met with me in here.”

  “Ohmygod!” She laughed so hard that her eyes watered. “Seriously?”

  “Yep,” he rasped, leaning down and brushing a soft kiss against the corner of her smiling lips. “I was thinking about you and couldn’t help myself. Came so hard I nearly blacked out.”

  She shivered, imagining what he must have looked like that day, with his big, thick cock gripped tight in his fist, the heavy veins in his forearm bulging beneath his skin as he jacked himself hard and fast, his corded throat working as he kicked his head back and growled like an animal. She gasped, so turned on her nipples were pulling tight and tingling, and she cast a quick look over her shoulder, the design of the building meaning that if she were standing closer to the glass, she’d be able to look straight into Lucas’s office.

  “If we were going to fool around in here,” she murmured, wondering how they’d gone from discussing his past to this as she looked back up at him, “I’d want you to use that switch for the glass. I’d want it to be private.”

  His blue eyes were dark and hooded. “Fool around how?”

  “If I were to…give you…you know. If I were to give you head again.”

  “Yeah?” He used his grip on her ass to pull her even tighter against him, their lower bodies smashed together, his massive erection long and thick and rock-hard, throbbing against her belly. “You want my cock in your pretty little mouth again?”

  Instead of answering his question, she said, “But if I were to push you up against the glass right now and drop down on my knees, Lucas could walk into his office, look over here as he sat down at his desk, and see us.”

  “He could,” he agreed, his voice low…gruff.

  Pressing her hands against his chest, the pounding beat of his heart thrumming against her palms, she tried to
make sense of what she knew he thought of as his “kink”. Well, exhibitionism was at least one of them—but she had a feeling the list was long. “And that wouldn’t bother you?”

  The corner of his mouth twisted into a tight, wry smile. “I didn’t say that.”

  Her quiet laugh was just as strained as his smile. “Then I’m confused.”

  His big hands started to stroke up her sides. “The idea of another man touching you… Yeah, that makes me see red.” He lowered his head, his next words murmured against her lips. “But watching us…”

  “That turns you on, doesn’t it?”

  “It does—because it means that you’re mine,” he said, pulling his head back just a little, his dark gaze locked tight with hers as he covered one of her breasts with a large, warm hand, and she gasped as his thumb stroked across her sensitive nipple. “If Lucas were watching us, I know he’d be wishing like hell that it was his dick you were sucking on like you needed it to live, even though he knows that’s never going to happen, because your beautiful little mouth belongs to me. Do you have any idea how hot that makes me?” he asked, his deep voice deliciously rough and demanding. “How hard? It’s the ultimate claim—like a caveman dragging his woman in front of the entire clan and fucking her brains out—daring the other males to ever touch her again.”

  She lifted one hand to his face, stroking the rugged line of his jaw with her fingertips. “So public sex is always about possession to you?” she asked, feeling more puzzled with each word that came out of his beautiful mouth, none of the pieces matching up in her mind.

  His thumb stilled on her nipple, and he stared at her with so much confusion it made her heart clench. “No. It never has been,” he said slowly. “But things change, sweetheart. Because of you, I’m living proof that they do.”

  “I…I might let someone watch, someday,” she whispered, trying to meet him halfway. Because while she could never share him, her possessive streak just as fierce as his, she didn’t expect him to completely change who he was for her. That not only wasn’t healthy or realistic, but it would also be incredibly unfair. “But not Lucas. Not if he’s going to be my friend.”