Her Every Fantasy

So what the hell did I have to lose? A friendship I’d treasured while wanting more, only for it to fall apart anyway?

I stopped a mere foot from him. The intensity of the emotions vibrating from him wrapped around me but I didn’t let it deter me. I’d come through a very bitter divorce with a stronger spine and steely resolve never to doubt myself again. And now he was in front of me, six feet three inches of raw masculinity and long-denied secret craving.

A craving I’d received a quick, highly addictive but maddeningly brief taste of.

‘Why did you change the venue for this meeting? Didn’t you originally ask me to come to your office?’ I modulated my voice to that tenor he’d confessed minutes ago turned him on.

As if on cue, his eyes darkened, his jaw clenching as he struggled to remain unaffected. When he swayed just that tiniest fraction towards me, I knew I had him.

For how long remained a mystery, but right now, in this moment, he was mine. And I wasn’t about to lose my chance.

‘Is it because you wanted something else besides telling me everything you think I’ve done wrong?’ I didn’t give him a chance to reply.

A simple step and I closed the gap between us. A slow tilt onto the balls of my feet and I was sliding my palms over his rock-hard abs and up his chest. I registered the fierce pounding of his heart echoing mine. Felt and revelled in it.

‘Was it because you wanted another taste of me, perhaps?’ I whispered on a soft breath right before I let my lips brush the skin beneath his earlobe.

A deep shudder powered through him. ‘What the hell are you doing, rosebud?’ he rasped.

‘Dare,’ I breathed.

‘You’re still playing the game wrong.’ His voice was a night-dark rumble, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he was stopping himself from reaching for me. That glimpse of power over him spurred me on.

‘Am I? Then I guess you don’t want to hear my dare?’

I dropped my head a fraction to lick at the frantic pulse beating at his throat. His next breath hissed out. ‘Just fucking say it already.’

‘I dare you to do it again. I dare you to drag me to that sofa and use your tongue and your mouth and your hands on me. Just like you did last time. See if you can work some of this…angst out of your system.’

A pure, animalistic groan rumbled from his chest. ‘And what makes you think I’ll stop at just tasting you? That I won’t demand a hell of a lot more?’

My answer emerged with more than a vein of anguish. ‘You say you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t trust you not to abandon me after this lunch either. But I know you enough to know you’ll stop when I say. And I’m telling you I’ll let you…process your charged state if that’s what you want too.’

His hands found my hips then, roughly tugging me back from my whisper-light exploration of his throat, to stare deep into my eyes. ‘You think you still know me that well?’ he asked darkly.

Maybe not, but some things never changed and Bryce had more integrity in his little finger than most men did in their whole life. ‘Guess we’ll find out. Unless you’re too scared to take the dare?’

The words were barely out of my mouth before he was plucking me off my feet, the rugby-honed body he’d achieved in his time at Cambridge making light of my considerable weight. Bryce was the first and last man who’d been able to carry me without making me self-conscious about the extra pounds I carried. And while I’d shed a good few pounds during and after my divorce, I’d never quite achieved that golden figure of perfection in my head. And lately, I’d tried to be okay with that. It was, after all, what had earned me a dream career and sustained my growing empire.

But I still had moments of anxiety, moments when the mocking taunts and cruelty broke through my often solid barriers.

They tried to do so now.

But the moment Bryce tossed me onto the sofa and speared me with his dark hazel eyes, I let thoughts of the perfect BMI and cellulite melt from my brain. Instead I gave over to the tingling filling me from the inside out, registering in my peaked nipples, the dry anticipation in my mouth and the wet desperation between my legs.

He was still super pissed from our heated conversation and my final taunt, but already the anger was receding from his eyes, replaced by something earthier, something carnal that made my pulse stutter wildly before thundering even faster.

‘You’ve always been bold. But you seem to have developed a penchant for the downright reckless.’

I toyed with the long ties of my favourite wraparound top and slowly inched the hem up until a sliver of my belly was revealed. ‘I don’t see you throwing me out the door, so I’m guessing you still love a good challenge.’

A blaze flared in his eyes as he followed the path of my fingers over my taut stomach. In honour of this visit and simply because great lingerie always boosted my confidence, I’d donned one of my latest creations: fire-engine-red French knickers with delicate lace and cheeky ribbon ties and a matching balconette bra. With my reclined position, the bodice of my top had gaped to reveal my deep cleavage.

Another breath hissed from him as his eyes darted between my face, my full breasts, and the thighs I was slowly spreading. He stumbled forward and gripped the back of the sofa the moment I loosened the top to reveal the full effect of the bra and bullet-hard nipples.

‘Fuck.’ The word shot from his throat.

My gaze went its own journey, over the ripped chest I knew was hidden beneath his dark burgundy shirt to the bold outline of his cock beneath the fly of his tailored trousers. My mouth watered at the heat he was packing. Heat I’d secretly craved for as long as I could remember. But as much as I wanted to touch and explore, the need to experience what he’d given me that night in our distant past burned even hotter.

And Bryce felt the same if the rough hands that hooked behind my knees and spread me wide were an indication. My already rough breathing turned choppier.

‘Stop playing with that tie and open your top for me,’ he said gruffly as his hands trailed over soft leather to wrap around my ankles.

With a shrug and tug, I opened it, then arched my back to give him a full and unfettered view of my ample breasts.

He swallowed, then began to tackle my trousers with a wild little light in his eyes that triggered my own arousal. I should’ve been pleased that at least in this, we seemed to be in accord, but a tight little ball of anxiety wouldn’t shift from my belly. What if we never found common ground again? What if the friendship that had been my whole world was never salvaged?

The questions evaporated when Bryce discarded my trousers and leaned forward to brace himself over me. For several seconds, he didn’t move, simply stared into my eyes. Was he thinking the same? I never found out because his eyes swept over me, singeing every inch of me until his gaze was once again riveted between my thighs.

‘Did you wear this underwear for me, rosebud?’

‘Nope. They were for me.’

He dragged his gaze from my silk-covered sex to meet mine. ‘You needed to shred my control that much?’ he muttered.

‘Maybe.’ It was a little unnerving how well he knew me. To throw him off, I trailed a manicured fingernail over one heavy breast to my lace-covered nipple and slowly circled it. He caught and mangled one corner of his lower lip between his teeth as his gaze latched onto the tightened peak. After watching for a tense few seconds, he brushed my hand away and replaced it with his. Sensation screamed through me as he fondled me, his gaze darting between my face and my boobs, avidly absorbing my reactions, before he dropped his head to suck lace and flesh into his mouth.

My hot little gasp eroded my intention to tell him that, technically, my boobs weren’t part of the deal. That his task was situated much farther south. But the havoc he was wreaking was too thrilling to deny, his fingers plucking at the nipple he wasn’t sucking, a sweet torture that dragged a keening moan from my throat, and I lost the battle to curl my hands over his broad shoulders, to take a bite out of his gorgeousness.

God, he was far too good at this. My panties were already damp and he wasn’t anywhere near my pussy.

My fingers tunnelled into his hair, holding him prisoner as his teeth grazed over one aching bud. Like a willing magnet, my back arched into his ministrations, desperate for more.

He raised his head a fraction. ‘Tell me this thing has a front fastening. I don’t want to ruin it.’

Breath in my throat, I shook my head.

‘Bloody hell,’ he growled, then dipped his hands into the lace and scooped out my boobs.

The erotic sensation of my double Ds spilling out made us both groan.

‘Christ, you’re so fucking lush,’ he muttered, slashes of colour staining his chiselled cheekbones. ‘There isn’t an inch of you I don’t want to taste.’

With needy hands I dragged him back, crying out when he latched onto my peak again. The suction was even more intense, tongue and teeth coming into deeper play.

‘God, yes,’ I gasped as he mercilessly tormented me.

Maybe the crazy depth of sensation careening through me was because I hadn’t had good sex for so long.

By our first wedding anniversary, Dan had been hard-pressed to perform the bare minimum. By our second, we’d been down to the cursory once-a-month three-minute humping in the shower to convince ourselves we had something remotely resembling a marriage. The transition from there to divorce had been a measly miserable nine months.

Or maybe I was feeling like this because this was Bryce. An older, edgier version of the boy who’d blazed a memorable trail in the public school I’d despised until his arrival had made my existence bearable, the rugby-loving hunk I’d hung out with in Cambridge, and the man who’d been my best friend for years before he’d removed himself from my life.

Whatever the reason for my heightened emotions, a particularly clever twist of his fingers dragged me back to the present, to the heated blaze of his eyes fixed on me as he tormented me.

I gasped again as he lowered his head, flicked his tongue brazenly over my wet flesh and then blew on it.

‘Bryce…’

He kept hold of one globe as he trailed kisses down my midriff and belly to the edge of my panties. Crouched over me like some dark overlord, he scoured his nails lightly over the skin above the panty line, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. He repeated the action a few times, his other hand still tormenting my nipple, and each time I felt myself getting shamefully wetter.

By the time his fingers dipped beneath the scrap of silk, I’d forgotten to breathe.

One bold finger glided between my folds and he groaned. ‘You’re so fucking wet. You’re close, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I panted, my hips lifting off the sofa to meet his next glide.

He circled slow and sure, then dragged wetness to my clit. At the first touch, I let out another cry. He removed his hands from my body, repositioned himself with one knee on the floor while dragging my panties down my legs. Tossing the knickers aside, he spread me wide, his gaze zeroed in on my pink, glistening flesh. A rough breath shuddered from him.

‘Ah, rosebud. You’re still as beautiful as I remember.’ The quiet, almost reverent murmur made my heart lurch and, with his gaze fixed on my face, he slowly slid his middle finger inside me. ‘And just as bloody tight.’ He buried his digit to the hilt, then flicked it upward.

‘Oh, God.’ My thighs shook as pleasure rained through me.

Slowly, he finger-fucked me, his breaths harsher the louder I moaned. ‘Is that the spot?’ His voice was thick and hoarse.

‘Yes!’

He gave a low, masculine laugh, then proceeded to pile up the torturous pleasure. One finger became two, but, although the pressure was deeply satisfying, it wasn’t enough.

‘More,’ I demanded. ‘Put your mouth on me.’

He shifted again, dropping his head between my legs. My fingers immediately buried themselves in his hair, a part of me terrified he would stop.

He didn’t. And at the first glide of Bryce’s tongue over my clit, I screamed. By the third glide I was pleasure blind. But not deaf to the decadent sounds of his fingers inside me or his pained groans as I grew wetter, screamed my way to the edge and flung myself over it as he sucked my clit into his mouth.

Reality returned in a cascade of harsh breathing. When I opened my eyes, Bryce was standing at the window, his back to me, his shoulders rising and falling in a rapid movement that attested to his scramble for control.

Tension screamed in the distance between us as I hastily fixed my clothes.

When I was reasonably decent, I exhaled. Now what? I’d dared him and he’d gone for it. But from his rigid stance, nothing much had changed, except maybe for the worse.

I went for the direct approach. ‘Bryce?’

He turned without answering, his gaze heated but hooded.

‘Is our friendship worth salvaging or am I wasting my time trying?’

His shoulders stiffened harder. ‘You just exploded back into my life, rosebud. I’ll need a minute to consider that.’

My shoulders slumped. ‘I guess that’s that, then. I sent you a save-the-date for the launch. It’s going ahead whether I get a lease in your building or not. So I guess I’ll either see you there or I won’t?’

He shoved his fingers through hair I’d gloriously dishevelled, his eyes still a touch wild as they roved over me. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. You can sleep soundly tonight knowing you’ve proved whatever point you wanted to prove. Let that be enough for now.’

‘And if it’s not? What if I want my friend back?’

He stared at me in that unique way that always made my skin feel tight and raw and exposed. That way that said he saw and knew much more than he should. But while in the past I would’ve dropped my gaze, mumbled something along the lines of never mind or whatever, this time I met his gaze full on.

Dared him to say the words I knew in my heart would flay and wound. He didn’t disappoint me.

‘The guy you knew is gone. You’re doing us both a disservice by clinging to the past. It’s time to move on.’

I didn’t speak as he slowly strolled back to where I stood, praying my eyes wouldn’t mist with the tears prickling wildly.

‘My executive assistant will let you know if I can make it. If I can’t, have a great opening. I’m sure you’ll blow their socks off.’

‘Bryce—’

‘I have a meeting to get to. I’m sure you can find your own way out.’

And then, just as he’d done on my wedding day, he calmly walked out of the living room, the deafening silence left by his departure confirming what I already knew.

We’d crossed a line that night three years ago when I was forced to face the fact that the dream I was secretly chasing would never come true. That Bryce would never belong to me the way I fully and desperately wanted him to. That walking away instead of clinging to false hope had been the right thing to do then, and probably was now.

That really, when it came down to it, he didn’t want or need me. I was the girl who’d made him laugh when he was bored, who’d challenged his intellect and dug him out of his funk when the family drama he’d always been so tight-lipped about drove him into deep, scary silences.

Basically, I’d been useful as a crutch until he hadn’t needed me any more. Then when I’d needed him the most, he’d simply…walked away.

I’d seen the signs long before Bryce had left for good. The anguish of that distance, of being thrust farther and farther into the fringes of his life was what had made me give in that night, then made me deliver a promise I hadn’t been able to keep in the long run, my need to belong sending me down the wrong path.

And as much as I wanted to blame him, the one thing Bryce had never misled me on was that he would never become something more to me than a friend. No, that layer of torment was all down to me and my foolish yearning.

With a thick swallow, I crossed his stunning living room to retrieve my clutch. I paused for a beat, toying with the idea to confront him wherever he’d disappeared to, then dismissed it.

The best way to tackle an intransigent Bryce was to let him cool off. But if nothing else, this particular dare had proved one thing.

Bryce was still hot for me. I could either test the boundaries of this strange new world we found ourselves in, or heed his warning and back off.

In the lift, I leaned back and let a small smile slip free while the after-effects of the incredible orgasm trailed through my bloodstream as I contemplated my next move.

Twenty minutes later, I was back in the apartment I’d rented for the duration of my stay in Singapore. Padding on bare feet to the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of wine and sipped, my mind whirling with possibilities.

He was right. We weren’t the same people we were three years ago.

But he was very much a man. And I was a woman with needs who was done relying on the cosmos to dictate my destiny.

Friendship or sex?

Friendship and sex. I’d settled for one over the other once upon a time.

This time…

My heart lurched wildly as it accepted my truth.

This time I wanted both.

CHAPTER THREE

Bryce

‘MR MORTIMER, I have Miss Knight on the line for you again?’

I smothered a groan and raked a hand across my face. A small, non-disgruntled part of me was thankful she hadn’t kept that bastard’s name. I wasn’t sure how I would’ve handled hearing her addressed as Mrs Wallis.

Nevertheless, her persistence had grown beyond just a pain in my arse. If I weren’t frustrated and in danger of dying from blue balls, I’d admire her tenacity. She’d called every hour during business hours for the last couple of days. I was running out of excuses and my EA was using that put-upon voice that said come Christmas she would be expecting a hefty bonus.

I didn’t want to lose Tandy. As an executive assistant she was second to none. And normally, she was good at dispatching unwanted calls. So why not now? What the hell was stopping me from instructing her to bar all calls from Savannah?

Because she was under strict instructions to pay special attention to all clients with a stake in The Sylph. And since my commercial team, without any involvement from me whatsoever, had all but fallen over themselves to fast-track her lease, she now fell firmly under that purview. And, as my commercial director had also informed me, having Savannah Knight open her flagship store in my building would garner the kind of publicity I’d be a fool to reject. So whether I liked it or not, she was now a top Mortimer Group client with access to me whenever she chose.

Access she was fully capitalising on.

‘Sir?’

With a grimace, I hit the intercom button. ‘Put her through.’

Soft breathing flowed from the phone a second later. ‘Bryce, how wonderful of you to take my call,’ she murmured in that sultry voice that came second in the instant-hard-on-achieving status only next to those sexy little whimpers she made when she was fully turned on.

Fucking hell.

I gritted my teeth and thumped my head against the leather headrest. I’d jacked off to the sound of that breathy voice fifteen minutes after I’d heard her leave my apartment after our doomed lunch ten days ago.

Since then, I’d masturbated a hell of a lot more times than I could recall in recent memory. Each time I reassured myself I had finally got her out of my system, I’d hear that voice in my head, demanding, ‘Put your mouth on me.’ And I’d be rock hard all over again.

‘Seriously? You’re giving me the silent treatment? When you said you’d changed, I thought you meant in the direction of evolution, not a regression to adolescence.’

‘What do you want, rosebud?’

It was disconcerting how the nickname I’d coined for her rosebud lips fell so easily from mine. How calling her name while I jacked off in the shower felt so bloody right and hellishly wrong at the same time.

‘Besides your overdue response to my invitation? We’ll leave that for now. I have a more urgent problem.’

My back stiffened as a fierce urge to demand what it was so I could fix it scrambled up my spine. Had she missed me? Was she calling to demand a repeat of what happened on my sofa? The sofa I hadn’t been able to sit on without recalling her stretched out on it in all her dark golden glory, her beautiful back arched and her juicy lips parted in delicious pants?

‘Shoot,’ I answered with more vim than I’d intended.

‘I put in a request for a Venetian chandelier for the main showroom a week ago and I haven’t heard back from your people yet as to whether it’s arrived or when it’ll be installed. It’s the centrepiece of the store. Everything else revolves around it,’ she stated crisply.

I struggled to change lanes from lurid to business, unwillingly admitting that Business Savvie turned me on just as much as Sexy Savvie. ‘I employ an excellent team. It’s on their radar. I’m sure they’ll get around to it—’

‘I’m afraid that’s just not good enough. I’m paying extra for an expedited service and I was assured things would be handled smoothly and in a timely manner. I don’t feel efficiently or smoothly handled, Bryce,’ she murmured, evoking another bout of racy images that made me bite back a groan. ‘In fact I’m feeling the opposite. And not in a good way.’

I wanted to handle her in a great many ways, all guaranteed to leave her with that rosy afterglow and breathlessness I couldn’t get out of my damned head.

‘I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of your lease. I’ll get Jerry to personally give you a call with an update. Will that suffice?’

‘I called your site director this afternoon. His son is having his tonsils taken out today. The poor man was distraught. I didn’t think it was fair to bother him.’

Damn it, I’d forgotten about Jerry’s email telling me exactly that this morning. The man had done a stellar job managing a team of over three thousand workers getting my building ready and within a whisker of the projected schedule. It wasn’t his fault his son had fallen ill. And none of the contractors would be around at this time on a Friday evening to confirm her request.

Even if they were, I couldn’t very well pass her off to anyone but Jerry. The Mortimer Group was renowned for its top-notch reputation. I’d met every single one of my long-and short-term investors, taken a personal interest in their wants and desires.

Like my building, my singular attention to detail was what had made me a success. There were several rungs in the hierarchy before a client would normally request my personal input but, once they did, it went against my principles to pass them back down the chain or fob them off simply because the client at the end of the phone happened to make my cock react as if I were fifteen instead of thirty-one.

Yeah, time to stop hiding and man up, Bryce.

‘I can be there in half an hour. Can you make it there by then?’

‘I’m already here, Bryce. I’ll be waiting.’

She rang off before I could reply. I dropped the phone back into its cradle, my bloodstream already humming as the pressure behind my fly grew.

Jesus.

Where the hell was my common sense? You’d think I’d learned my lesson after the one person I’d trusted had let me down so spectacularly. I might not have given her the unsavoury details about my family life and especially my parents—simply because I never discussed that…ever—but she’d known enough about dysfunctional Mortimers. Enough that I’d thought I could trust her with what our safe space meant. But the moment some idiot had clicked his fingers, she’d trotted off without so much as a Goodbye, Bryce.

When that same idiot had shown all the signs of being a complete and utter bastard much like my father, I’d tried to warn her. She’d lied to my face, demonstrating that the woman I’d thought I knew and trusted was just a figment of my imagination.