Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(8)

The sudden noise of the key in the door made the neighbor’s Chihuahua start barking hysterically. Those piercing little yips were as sharp as if he were four inches from my left ear. His owners were a flighty pair of grad students from San Diego. They were always leaving him out on the balcony when they weren’t home. The walls in the apartment complex were thin. Too thin for my taste. Good thing this situation would be history soon.

I heard Stephanie curse on the other side of the door when she dropped her keys. The door was only a few steps away from where I sat. I could have gone over there and opened it for her. Instead I casually switched off the lamp on the table beside my drink and waited.

“Shit,” hissed Stephanie as she stumbled through the door in a jumble of legs and heels and purse. She tossed her bag into a corner, flung the door closed and stood in the foyer with her hands on her hips. “Chase, why the hell are you just sitting there in the dark?”

I said nothing. I took a slow, deliberate drink and then carefully placed the bottle back on the table. The lights from the courtyard spilled into the living room and showed me the kind of uptight business getup she wore to her downtown office every day. Black pencil skirt, heels to match, button up blouse with the sleeves rolled to her elbows as her permanently wild hair spilled halfway down her back in riotous waves.

“Chase?” she asked, a little uncertainly as she shifted her weight and pressed her legs together.

I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my knees. My voice was a menacing growl. “Look at your cheap ass. Your skirt is so f*cking short.”

She sucked in her breath and took a cautious step backwards. Then she stiffened. “Of course it’s f*cking short. Got to make sure a man knows where to point his cock.”

I jumped to my feet. She didn’t flinch. She just stood there, breathing heavily and glaring at me in the semi-dark.

“You’re not going to make this easy,” I muttered, sliding closer.

“No,” she shook her head, hands still on her hips.

“You’d better f*cking promise.”

“Up yours.”

I circled her, close enough to catch the minty smell of her shampoo as she shook her hair and swiveled to glare at me. I made it difficult, intentionally, cutting around in an abrupt switch so that she nearly toppled from her damn heels trying to follow me with her scowl. Even in her heels on I was about eight inches taller and always at least five times stronger. I got behind her and before she could do a thing about it I had an iron grip around her waist, my hands firmly capturing each hip and kneading hard. Her breath caught in a sharp shudder as her defenses wilted, her head lolled back against my shoulder and her ass pressed into my cock.

I pushed her hair away and sucked momentarily at her neck before murmuring in her ear. “I think you need to remember who’s in charge here, honey.”

She snapped her head away, one more move of defiance. “I don’t remember anything you dickhead.”

“You will. I’ll have you begging.”

“Impossible.”

“Factual.”

She tried to twist around but I stopped her, flattening one hand over her stomach and slipping the other into the waistband of her skirt, easing right into her panties.

“You think it’s that simple?” she said through gritted teeth but she was clutching my arm by that point and trying to direct the motion of my fingers as they found their way inside, stroking, pushing.

“It always has been, Steph. From the first time I finger f*cked you over a lucky deck of cards in a Vegas hotel room. Remember?”

Oh, she remembered. She was practically liquefied over how much remembering she was doing. When I got close enough to feel how wet she was I almost lost my concentration. I didn’t want to do that now. It was always so much sweeter when we played it out for a while. And this was going to be one sweet ending if I had my way, which I always did.

There was no need to hold her in place at this point. She was all thawed out and pliant, with no plans to go anywhere until I let her. Stephanie Bransky was all husky moans and straining muscles as she rolled her hips, trying to get off on my fingers.

Casually I unbuttoned her blouse with my right hand while my left stayed between her legs.

“Chase,” she breathed. “Oh god.”

“Shush baby. You’ll get what you want when I get what I want.”

Whenever I felt her * start to spasm around my fingers I let up and didn’t let her get there. She pushed her ass against me harder, trying to speak directly to my cock, but I wasn’t giving in yet.

That wasn’t the way this game went.

Stephanie sighed with exasperation, turning her head to the side, craning up, trying to see me. “So what do you want?”

I unzipped her skirt with my free hand and nudged it to the floor. The white glow of the courtyard lights let me see her black panties and her bare, shapely legs that always looked best propped up on my shoulders, wrapped around my face or splayed out in decadent glory as I pounded all the willful sexy hell out of her.

Shit. My cock, impatient little f*ck, was trying to bust right out of my pants and I didn’t want that, not yet.

I withdrew my fingers and replaced them with my thumb, flicking up against her clit in a way that made her writhe like she was electrified.

“I want,” I told her mildly, “to hear a story.”