Sterling raises his eyebrow at me and opens his mouth. Before he has a chance to respond, I head to the couch and turn on the tv. I start chugging the forgotten beer that I left on the coffee table.
Sterling sits down next to me. There is 2-3 inches of space in between us. Not wanting to shift too far over and call attention to the lack of space I try to focus on the show. Some woman is wandering around with a full face of make-up and her hair done, wielding a hammer and doing her best to convince us that she remodels houses for a living.
I snort out loud, before making it my mission to finish the rest of this beer in under 3 minutes. I’m doing pretty well. And then a large masculine hand reaches over and stalls my progress.
Sterling’s touch is firm but gentle. He takes the bottle out of my hand. Just when I thought I could avoid having a conversation about this atrocious night, the universe laughs in my face.
“Hey, look at me,” he demands in his deep voice. It is impossible not to follow the order. My head swivels up and I catch the look in his eye. I’m not sure what his blue-grey eyes are trying to convey but they look like the ocean before a storm.
“This asshole isn’t going to bother you long, I promise. Holt and I will get to the bottom of this. Nothing is going to happen, I swear,” he is adamant, and I believe him.
Slowly I nod. Again, it is on the tip of my tongue to ask him why he cares, but I am honestly too scared of the answer. Oureyes seemed to be locked in a trance when I realize that my hand is clutching his. I drop it quickly and stand up.
“I guess I should go to sleep,” I say quickly and busy myself by grabbing the almost empty bottle and bringing it to the kitchen. Needing to escape what was a major faux pas on my part. I was clutching his hand like I was dangling off a cliff.Such a fool.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I spin around from the sink and collide nose first into a solid muscular chest. Sterling’s hands come up to steady me and they stay on my arms. I am frozen in place and speechless. We are so close that I can feel him breathing. Which means he can feel ALL of me too. My soft stomach against his hard six pack. My rolls against his muscular physique. The thought of that shakes me out of my stupor and I start to pull away.
Just as I open my mouth to apologize for practically mowing him over, his mouth slams down on mine. Muffling any noise that I might have made. One of his hands glides down to my lower waist and the other skates up to where my chin and neck meet to hold me in place.
He takes full advantage of my mouth being open and slides his tongue against my lips. He dominantly enters my mouth as if on a mission to claim foreign land. The hand on my low waist starts to slide lower.
Just before it reaches my ass he slows down and steps back. My heart is racing, and I can’t catch my breath. It is what I would imagine I would feel like while running a marathon.
“Good night,” he says abruptly and walks into the spare room quietly shutting the door behind him. I gape after him, wondering what the hell just happened. I run my hands through my hair and stare up at the ceiling.
I cannot believe that happened, am I in some alternate universe? This trope happens in romance novels, not in real life.I stumble to my room and close the door. Laying on my bed on top of the covers I start to obsess over that kiss.
It was…wow. I mean, not that I have a lot of kisses to compare it with— but when they say “toe-curling” in novels I finally get what they mean. I bring my fingers up to my lips and lightly touch them.
Stop that. Don’t even go there.Reality slams back into me. He stopped. He must have realized it was a mistake. Nothing is going to happen here. Don’t set yourself up for another disappointment. It won’t do you any good. It will just lead to more cracks in your armor that will need to be patched. Pieced back together. There were already enough of those. Being overlooked by the opposite sex your whole life will do that to you. That old cliché—always the bridesmaid never the bride? Well, it has a kernel of truth to it.
Sitting up, I take a deep breath and promise myself that I won’t make a big deal about it tomorrow. It was an anomaly. It just happened, it meant nothing. I pull down the covers and shut off the light. Hoping that when I wake up in the morning this hollow feeling won’t be so pronounced and that I can ignore it.
Chapter 16
Sterling
Damn it!I couldn’t control myself anymore. I warred between wanting to kiss or strangle her since I met her. When she ran into me for the second time in less than 24 hours, I had to act. I knew that when she opened her mouth, she was going to apologize and shy away. I wasn’t going to give her that chance.
So, I did what I do best and took charge. I had to stop after a few minutes or I wouldn’t be able to. As it was, my dick was standing at half mast—after one fucking kiss. Normally, kissing is a means to an end. I’m not a total asshole, I know that foreplay is necessary— and I consider myself pretty good at it. I have had no complaints from previous partners.
Being controlling has its perks for my partners. For instance, I feel powerful when I can make them squirm in pleasure, when I can keep them on the edge and make them mindless. There is no greater high than being able to pull and control the pleasure strings. Part of the game is kissing. This was different though. I wanted to consume her, I needed to feel her. It was like this internal need to mark my territory. If I had gone on much longer we would have ended up on the kitchen floor.
I needed to regroup. It was best that I stepped away tonight. Remaining in control is how I had gotten so far in life, and I wouldn’t lose it now. A part of me, one that I didn’t want to analyze too much, liked this chase and wanted to savor it. Wanted to prolong it a little.
While my anatomy wasn’t getting the message my brain was completely on board with this plan. I also needed to get a handle on this situation. Shooting Carter a text, I asked him to call me. I figured he was awake- it was only 11:00 PM. In seconds my phone buzzed.
“You summoned,” Carter sarcastically said as soon as I had the phone up to my ear. Carter was our ace in the hole. A total techie with hacking abilities beyond our imagination, and an addiction to the gym.
If he wasn’t in front of a computer, he was taking out his frustrations on some poor punching bag or weight machine. He was an unstoppable force with the ability to hack and track. He spent some time doing special ops shit for the government. Things that he won’t share with us and is a bit of an enigma.
“She is getting text messages now,” I get straight to the point. Is there anyway you can look into them?
“I’m almost done with her background check, but I can get started on tracing the email and text messages. By all accounts she seems fairly average. She has her business and a small circle of friends and family. Your girl hasn’t been in any kind of trouble— other than the one and only speeding ticket that she got 5 years ago,” Carter chuckles. He keeps going. “Her social media is filled with posts about friends, family, restaurants, and places that she has travelled with. It all seems pretty low risk. Other than sharing her location when she posts, I don’t see anything too controversial. I’ll look into her clients last.”
“Got it. That isn’t very helpful though,” I point out, stating the obvious. If she had someone trolling her on her socials or had some drama come up from the past, we may be able to follow the trail of breadcrumbs. However, with little to go on, this was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“You are right, maybe her client list will give us something to work with. Even her finances seem pretty standard. Shebrings in a bit more money then she spends. Has a small savings account, a credit card, mortgage, student loans. It doesn’t look like she has any kind of gambling habits or addictions. Well, unless you count her kindle subscription, coffee purchases, and farmers market runs as an addiction,” he chuckles again.
