Page 73 of Heated Takeover

“I’ll come back to that,” he says.

“You are such a tease,” I complain, but he just laughs, a low and gritty laugh that I can feel against my skin like small warm waves. And as it happens, my belly is erogenous too. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that any part of my body isn’t, at least where Ash is involved.

He kisses my breast and I watch as his mouth covers each nipple, showering them with kisses, teasing them with his tongue before he comes up to my neck, devouring it as he did before. This man, the way he kisses me, the way he consumes every bit of me, both taking his time to enjoy every inch but also obviously hungry and needing, he devours me the way you would a fancy dessert. One you don’t get to have very often yet it is undoubtedly your favorite. So when you get to indulge in it, you want to taste every morsel, leaving nothing untouched, nothing left, and refusing to share with anyone else.

I don’t know if I have ever been anyone’s anything, if I am being honest. And now, I am Ash’s dessert.

He kisses me again for a long while. We make out like teenagers under the bleachers or in the back of a truck at the drive-in movies. Slowly, intentionally, like it’s all we have and even if it never went beyond that, it would be enough. Of course I want more. And I expect he does too. But in the same breath, I would rather have a little of him than all of anyone else.

I don’t think I will ever want any of anyone else.

“Ash,” I murmur into the kiss, and he answers back with a low, throaty, “Mmhmm…”

It’s not a question. He’s not asking what I want. He knows what I want. And I know him well enough and us well enough to know that it’s the same thing.

A moment later, he adjusts himself, sitting up slightly, and then I feel the hot, soft tip of his cock graze over my opening, momentarily brushing over my clit.

“I thought you were coming back to that,” I tell him, and he stops for a second.

“I guess I got distracted making out with you,” he says.

Then he presses the head of his cock against my clit again, this time with more pressure, rubbing and circling it over me until my nerves ignite and I moan, my head falling back on the bed.

“Ohh…” I let out, biting my lips, and Ash groans too, and the sensitive nerves graze against each other.

“Fuck,” he growls before pulling back slightly. “If I keep that up, we are both going to finish before we even start,” he says, and then he moves down an inch or two and presses himself inside of me.

I moan and he moans and my legs widen and he drives himself in the rest of the way until I am filled with nothing but him and I am wrapped around the whole of him.

“Damn, baby,” he says, coming down onto his forearms, his face hovering over mine. For a moment, I think he is going to kiss me again, but instead, he just looks at me, his eyes searching mine, his expression soft and vulnerable, and I can’t help but wonder when we crossed this line. This line where sex means something, touches mean something, words mean something. Everything means something.

It scares me. It’s not a line I wanted to cross. It’s one I did my best to stay far away from. But when being around a man makes you feel like you are wading in warm water and then suddenly that man is holding out a hand to you with a trusting smile and a bit of mischief in his eyes and then that very same man is pulling you into his arms and whisking you into the deep end of everything you were afraid of only to find that you are safe as long as you are with him…well. That changes things, doesn’t it? Even if it’s complicated and terrifying, it definitely changes things.

We continue to stare at each other as he dips in and out of me, slowly and intentionally. All the while, we memorize each other, admire each other, fall into each other, and maybe even fall for each other.

Our breathing is rapid but in sync, our inhales pressing our chests towards each other, against each other, then the exhales sucking us back. We are rhythmic like the ocean tide itself. He’s like the waves, I’m like the shore, or maybe it’s the other way around.

I wrap my legs around his side, and it drives his cock deeper inside me. We both moan at the added depth. Then his eyes darken a little, and he picks up the pace, in and out, further and further, harder and harder until heat picks up in a current with the potential to sweep us both off to sea.

“Yes,” I breathe out as my hips begin to shake against his, and he crashes against me over and over again.

“Yes,” he echoes back. “Fuck, baby girl. Yes.”

“Ohh…” I gasp again. Then I moan. Then I scream it as he plunges harder and deeper into me, and we both erupt with the weight of the orgasm and everything it entails.

As we both lie in his bed together, part of me just wants to let it be. To let this be my life and my future and see where it all goes. But as I watch him fall asleep, another part of me, the rational part of me, knows that I can’t. I can’t take any risks because it’s not just my heart at stake. Jamie is the core piece of this puzzle. I have no idea what would happen if Ash knew the truth. And because of that, I know how things really have to be.

This can’t last. This can’t keep going the way that it is going, no matter how beautiful this evening was. No matter what it meant to both of us. We can’t let it happen again.

But for one night, I will allow myself to forget everything. The fear. The words spoken by the accountant earlier. The complications and implications, and everything else. Right now, it is just him and me and nothing else matters. Until the sun comes up and steals the dream away.

Chapter 28

Marcus

“Where is the money going?” I bullet out every word of the question to Terry and Steve as they sit across from me in my office at Ashford. Aside from us, only Tuck is here, and the door is closed and locked. Laptops are closed; cameras are off. Even our phones are off because the dirty little detail about embezzlement is that it's an inside job. Right now, I don’t even trust the technology in the room, even if we aren’t at Mission Events.

“Overseas,” Terry says, and I’m not surprised. I didn’t expect any of the money that’s being extracted from M.E. accounts, and therefore Ashford accounts, to be at a bank that originated stateside. It would be too easy to track if that were the case. It’s practically suicidal for whoever is responsible.