Bad Boss, page 12
So the eventual realisation that it was for his abilities, not himself, that he’d been wanted must have been awfully painful. I felt that pain too, even though I didn’t want to, because I knew what it was like to feel that you weren’t enough for someone.
Ulysses’s expression was normally granite-faced, but there had been something even harder in it than usual when he’d mentioned being called a ‘good boy’. Like a dog...
God, I hadn’t known what to say. I’d felt angry and hurt for him, but he was a difficult man to comfort, so in the end I hadn’t said anything, instead letting my hand rest over his.
I couldn’t refuse to tell him the truth about Damian, about all the things in my heart, even though I suspected he wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t treat him like a ‘good boy’, as if he wasn’t even a person.
He’d tried. I could see it in his face as I’d told him about how I’d never felt good enough. How I’d felt I had to contort myself to make people happy. How I had to contort myself for him too.
He was making the effort for me. And it came to me in a sudden burst of irony that, right now, it was him contorting for me, trying to understand what I’d told him.
My throat had tightened and then he’d said that stuff about sex. About being myself when I was with him. And that had surprised me. Even shocked me. Just as it shocked me that he seemed so certain about it, especially when I wasn’t certain myself.
How could he know that? How could a man who couldn’t read other people, and wasn’t interested in reading them, who only considered his own viewpoint, know me better than I knew myself?
He put his hands on my hips, drawing me towards him, until I was standing pressed to his powerful body. He felt hot, hard, the warmth of his palms burning through the thin silk of my dress. His dark, deep gaze was full of that cold focus, yet heat as well, the contrast fascinating to me. ‘Let me show you,’ he said softly.
I struggled to take a breath, because the air seemed suddenly lacking in oxygen. He couldn’t possibly be thinking what I thought he was thinking, could he?
‘What? Here?’ I looked around a little wildly. ‘Right now?’
‘Why not?’ he asked with his usual infuriating calm. ‘There’s no one else here.’
‘Ulysses. It’s the Eiffel Tower. We can’t have sex on the Eiffel Tower.’
‘I’m not sure of French law around sex in a public place, and maybe legally we can’t. But don’t worry. I can get such things overlooked.’
Law. He was worried about the law.
‘People will see. There are probably cameras and all kinds of...’
He was already turning me, crowding me against the rail with all of Paris at my back. There was a wire cage around the whole of the top deck, so there was no danger of falling, and the second deck was a long way beneath us, so in essence he was right. No one would see. So I didn’t know why my heart was beating so fast or why I was feeling so nervous, especially when this wasn’t the first time we’d done this.
‘Colour?’ he asked shortly, gripping my hips, his body pressing insistently against mine.
He was very hot, his clean, fresh scent surrounding me, arousing me. I couldn’t work out what I was nervous about. Was it the fact that we were in the open or did it have more to do with what he intended to do?
He’d said I was myself when we were having sex, but what did that mean? How was I myself? I didn’t even know and maybe that was what scared me—the fact that I didn’t know.
So don’t you want to find out?
I caught my breath.
He was still, those black eyes of his so intent, as if he saw something in me that I didn’t see myself. He was so blind in many ways, yet at the same time he saw things so clearly. Without anything clouding them or getting in the way. What did he see when he looked at me? What was I to him when he held me? When he touched me? When he was inside me?
‘Green,’ I said in a thick voice, knowing that as soon as I said it he’d take charge.
And he didn’t disappoint.
His gaze flared hot, but he didn’t kiss me as I expected him to. Instead, he reached down, gathering up the front of my dress while leaving the rest of me covered. I shivered as his fingers brushed over the front of my underwear, tracing the shape of my sex through the fabric. He didn’t look down, his attention on my face as he stroked me. My cheeks got hot, my breathing fast, and a sudden shyness swept over me which was strange, considering all we’d done together the previous night.
I wanted to look away but, as if he knew exactly what was going through my head, he shifted his grip from my hip to my chin, holding my head still so I couldn’t turn away from him. And he kept up the gentle stroking, tracing my sex through the lace until my knees felt weak and the fabric damp.
‘I don’t know how this is supposed to show me myself,’ I said breathlessly, trying to cover my nervousness.
His eyes glittered in the sunlight, dark and depthless. ‘Are you contorting yourself for me now?’
‘I...uh...’ I stopped on a gasp as his finger found my clit, circling it gently, making white-hot streaks of pleasure fan out inside me.
‘Well?’ His gaze raked over my face, his intensity hotter than the sun above us, his finger circling maddeningly, a light, almost unbearable pressure. ‘Are you, Morgan?’
I blinked, trying to think through the rising pleasure. The ache between my thighs was growing more insistent and I could feel myself getting even wetter. I wanted his finger to press harder, give me more, and my hips moved, shifting against his, encouraging more pressure, more friction.
‘Answer me,’ he ordered.
I realised I’d lost track of things. My hands were on his chest, gripping the front of his shirt, and my thighs were trembling. I wanted to lean back, spread my legs, give him greater access, because this wasn’t enough.
‘No.’ The word came out thick and husky. ‘I...don’t think so.’
‘No,’ he echoed. ‘You’re not. You’re not contorting for me at all, but for yourself. Because you want me to make you come.’
‘I...’ I began, only to have the words fail as his finger pressed down on my clit, pleasure flashing like lightning along all my nerve-endings.
‘You are yourself now, Morgan.’ He kept up with the circling, round and round, making me pant. ‘Right now, all that matters to you is pleasure. Your own pleasure.’
I swallowed, my throat bone-dry, trying to get my brain to work. ‘I...suppose that’s true.’
‘It is.’ His hand on my chin shifted until he was gripping my jaw, tilting my head back so all I could see was his black eyes. ‘Your true self likes physical pleasure. It likes touch. It wants passion and it wants to be free to experience those things.’ His finger slid just to the side of my clit, the indirect touch making a moan gather in the back of my throat. ‘Your true self is responsive and demanding. It wants what it wants, and it doesn’t much care whether that’s right or wrong.’
His voice slid along my nerve-endings together with the touch of his fingers, cold yet hot, smooth yet with a rough edge. How did he understand these things? Could he really see them? Did he really know what he was talking about?
Ulysses moved even closer, pressing me harder against the rail, the feeling of being trapped by him sending my excitement sky high. ‘How do I know?’ he asked, as if he could read my mind. ‘Because, right in this moment, I’m all those things too. Responsive and demanding. Passionate.’ The pressure of his finger increased until I was shuddering, my hips trying to lift against his. ‘I want to fuck you as badly as you want me to fuck you. The only difference is that I don’t care so much for my pleasure. It’s yours that matters the most to me.’
The words he said rippled through me and I found myself watching his face, the way he was watching mine, looking into his eyes and seeing only the heat this time, not the cold. It hadn’t occurred to me that this was where we communicated perfectly. Where we matched perfectly.
Because it was true—he was all those things and so was I. Here, right now, we understood one another in a way I’d never understood another human being in my life. And that I would find this with my genius and very literal, enraging, infuriating boss was something I’d never expected, not in a million years.
He was right. I wasn’t contorting myself, wasn’t making myself more acceptable. Wasn’t worried about what I said in case he didn’t understand. Wasn’t laboriously having to explain myself.
He understood me and I understood him.
We were so very different. Yet right now, like this, we were the same.
He stopped touching me, reaching for his wallet and getting something out of it. I inhaled as I realised that yes, indeed, he was pretty much intending to fuck me at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
My heartbeat roared in my ears, but I didn’t stop him. Not when he unzipped his trousers and sheathed himself, and not when he lifted my dress again, tugging the front of my knickers aside. He lifted me, bracing me against the rail, his strength astonishing as he held me up, ready for him, and I lifted my legs and wound them around his waist.
His eyes were full of flames and I stared straight back. All the lights were green, and he saw it, understood it without having to ask, and then he was sliding into me. Not hard and fast this time, but slow and deep. I bit my lip at the agonising pleasure of him stretching me, a sweet, delicious burn that had my thighs gripping him tightly, a groan escaping me.
He made no sound except for a hitch of breath that told me everything I needed to know about what he was feeling. Not that I needed to hear it. I could see it in his face, in the rigid lines around his eyes and mouth, in the set of his jaw. In the black furnace of his eyes.
We were one in this moment and not just physically. It went deeper than that. It was elemental, almost.
A rush of emotion caught in my throat and I wanted to hold on to this feeling, hold it for ever, because it made the cold damp of loneliness vanish from my bones, filling up the space left behind with heat and pleasure. With passion.
With Ulysses.
He began to move, taking his time, drawing out of me in a long, slick glide and then easing back in. I forgot we were on top of the Eiffel Tower, forgot that all of Paris was at my back. Forgot about every single little thing except for the coal-black eyes of the man in front of me, inside me, and the leisurely flex of his hips, the spread of pleasure that was lighting me up.
I had the feeling that I knew him. That I’d always known him. And that he knew me too. He knew me better than I knew myself. Perhaps he always had.
I lifted my hands, wound my arms around his neck and leaned in, tasting his mouth, kissing him as slowly and lazily as the movement of his cock inside me. Taking my time, not rushing. And he let me explore, opening his mouth so that I could kiss him deeper, tasting coffee and a dark sweetness that had all the blood rushing to my head.
There was no hurry between us, no urgency. No fighting or resisting. This time it was the moment that mattered, the unspoken understanding that was rippling between us, the pleasure almost secondary.
His grip changed, his weight pressing me to the railing and the bars of the thin cage that protected us from the drop, his fingers gripping into the iron. He altered the angle of his hips slightly, every thrust now brushing against my clit, making me moan helplessly into his mouth.
I tightened my arms around him, arching into him, the pleasure tugging at me, urging me to go faster, harder. But I didn’t want to. I wanted this sweetness to last, because I had the sense that once it was over I wouldn’t have it again. I would lose him.
The thought was unbearable.
I kissed him deeper, harder, and his grip shifted again. I felt him ease one hand between us, his fingers brushing over my achingly sensitive clit, everything in me drawing into a tight, hard knot.
Tears pricked behind my eyes.
‘Red,’ I whispered against his mouth. ‘Red, Ulysses.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ulysses
I HEARD HER very clearly and I stopped, my pulse pounding, my cock still buried deep inside her.
I was breathing very fast and I was having difficulty getting my thoughts in order. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. Had I not read her correctly? I’d thought we understood each other so I hadn’t asked her for her colour. I’d thought I didn’t need to.
You’ve done that once before, though, haven’t you?
Yes, but that had been with Uncle John. And I’d been ten. It wasn’t with Morgan.
You didn’t understand him. You’ll never understand her.
I ignored that, lifting my mouth from hers and looking down at her.
Her eyes were so blue and liquid with moisture, her lips full and red, swollen from our kiss. The heat of her pussy gripping my cock tightly was undeniable, and she was wet too, so surely I hadn’t got it wrong? Surely she wanted this?
‘Am I hurting you?’ I grated out. ‘Is that why you want me to stop?’
She shook her head, her breathing ragged. ‘No, it’s not that.’ Her arms around my neck shifted and she cupped my jaw with one small hand. ‘I just...don’t want this moment to end.’
But it would end. Everything did. ‘Morgan...’
‘I don’t want it to end because I don’t want to lose this feeling between us.’
A heavy weight shifted in my chest. ‘You won’t lose it. We can have sex again.’
‘No, it’s not just the sex, Ulysses.’ The sunlight caught the tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
I stared down at her, trying to ignore the soft grip of her body, her heat and the scent of her arousal. Trying to ignore the physical pleasure so I could concentrate on what she was trying to tell me.
‘How can you lose me?’ I asked. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Her other hand came up so she was cupping my face between her palms. ‘But you do. You go somewhere I can’t follow. Where I don’t understand you and you don’t understand me. Where we don’t have this feeling between us any more.’
I understood even as she said it. For once, I knew exactly what she was saying. The physical pleasure we shared enabled us to connect in a way that normally we couldn’t. It bridged the gap that was too wide to cross when we weren’t in each other’s arms. But soon it would be over and the connection would snap. And once again we’d be left with a distance that could never be bridged.
I didn’t know what to say, because it was true and it made something inside me hurt. Which in turn made me angry, because there was nothing I could do to fix it. I couldn’t change myself. I couldn’t be different.
This was the way I’d been made and, apart from that one moment back when I’d been a kid, when I’d looked at Uncle John and wished that I wasn’t different, I’d always been fine with how I was.
But I wasn’t now. Now, I wished I could be like everyone else.
There was nothing I could say, so I leaned down and kissed her, covering her mouth with mine, giving her the only thing I could, which was pleasure. I moved again slowly, drawing out this moment for as long as I could, until she was writhing in my arms, twisting and gasping, her thighs locked tightly around my waist.
Then I shifted again, changing the angle yet again, hitting her clit with each thrust. Soon she’d put her arms around my neck again, holding me tightly as she buried her face against my throat, her whole body convulsing as the climax hit her.
I closed my eyes as I thrust harder, deeper into the wet heat of her, finally allowing the rush of the orgasm to take me as well. The pleasure was annihilating and for long moments afterwards I wasn’t able to move.
I simply stood there with Morgan pressed against the iron of the cage around the viewing deck, deep inside her, the sun on my face and my closed lids, the scent of her around me. She felt so good I could have stood there for ever.
Did she feel the same? Was this, too, something I could understand?
I opened my eyes and looked down to find her blue gaze on mine. I studied her and studied her, but I couldn’t read her expression. I didn’t know what she was thinking, didn’t know what she was feeling. She was a mystery.
My gut clenched, the pleasant emotion that had gripped me before draining away.
‘And, just like that, he’s gone.’ Her voice was fragile glass.
She was talking about me, wasn’t she? The tightness in my gut felt like pain. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m here.’
But she looked away as if she hadn’t heard me, making the pain deepen. Was she dismissing me? Did she not want to talk to me? What was going on?
I couldn’t bear not knowing, so I gripped her tighter. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Morgan. You have to tell me.’ Would she explain? Or would she dismiss it the way she’d tried to before?
She looked back, blue eyes glittering. ‘Why do you want to know?’
The question felt like a test. Where the answer was important. And there’d definitely be a right answer and a wrong answer.
I didn’t want to get it wrong, but right now it felt like I might.
I didn’t reply immediately, trying to think of how to say this, groping for the words because it was difficult to explain. Not that I could explain it to her—I couldn’t even explain it to myself.
‘I want to know because the answer...matters to me,’ I said. ‘It feels like something I should know.’ Did that explain it adequately? I had the sense that it didn’t and her expression didn’t give me any clues whatsoever, so I went on, feeling as though I were blundering through a jungle without a path or even a map. ‘I’m interested in you. I’m interested in the way you think, and I want to know how you’re feeling, because...you’re important.’
I wasn’t sure if that was what I should have said, because her expression twisted and she looked away again.
