I give her a few seconds to knee me in my already blue balls. Several more to be certain. Then every possessive instinct in me is unleashed.
She’s mine to please, for now.
“Lift your skirt.”
She hesitates. “But the window… Anybody could see…”
“Uh huh. Have you got knickers on, or is your sweet little pussy going to be exposed to all of London?”
We’re far too high up for anyone to see, but the hitch in her breathing suggests that’s not a barrier to her enjoying the game.
There’s a rustle of fabric as she drags up the silk. It rucks around my hand and I glide my palm to the naked skin of her thighs, exploring until I touch cotton. I almost laugh. Of course my girl has cotton knickers on. I bet they’re white too.
“So sweet…” I push the waistband of her knickers aside and slide my fingers in. She’s so wet it’s seeping out of her slit, soaking before I’ve even touched her. I can’t hold back a groan. “And yet so needy. Spread your legs, angel. Bare yourself to me.”
I nudge her inner thigh with my knee and she shifts her legs further apart. And that’s what I want. Her willing compliance after her spirited fight.
I reach further into that silk. Her folds are plump, swollen with need. I push through until I find her pearl and stroke it.
She makes a little keening sound and my cock, if possible, gets even harder. I circle her clit with two fingers and she leans back into me. The scent of her is part roses and part pure arousal. She fills my senses, too delicious.
“No one else has done this, have they? Touched you here,” I demand.
She shakes her head.
A lion in my chest roars, yes.
I want to be her first everything. I don’t know how I’m going to let her go tomorrow, or how I’ll survive the rest of my life without her. This day I’ve bargained for will have to feed years of desire. A memory to sustain me like dwindling rations eked out by an apocalypse survivor.
My other hand creeps around to the slinky front of her dress, pushing it off her shoulders and to the swell of her breasts. She’s not wearing a bra, and hell but I like that. Small but perfectly formed, her tits are perfect. I cup one and brush my thumb over her nipple. It perks under my ministrations, and I love how responsive she is, like her body is attuned to mine.
She’s tucked into me now, her back pressed to my chest and trapped on the other side by the glass.
I make rhythmic circles over her clit, listening to her soft moans as I give her exactly the escalation of pressure she needs, pinching her nipple too.
That squirm of her bottom into the top of my thighs is tantalising. Much as my cock insists on attention, and it’s tempting to rub myself into the small of her back, I don’t. Her pleasure is all that matters. I could wrap my hand around my cock on my own later and think of her—though I won’t do that either—but I only have this one opportunity to give her this. For the first time, too. There will only be once that she has never before come with a man. I want it to be with me, and it has to be spectacular.
I’m succeeding. She’s disintegrating in my arms, shaking with the intensity, slumped back against me, her honey waterfall of hair over my chest. But she’s not there yet, and though rubbing her this way is a simple but effective way to bring her to orgasm, I can do more. One advantage of big hands.
I shift my fingers down so the heel of my thumb covers all of her clit and I slip my forefinger deep into her heated wet folds, and then… There. I push into her tight passage as I press onto her clit.
That does it. She breaks, clenching around my finger and writhing as pulse after pulse of her orgasm overtakes her. Her soft moans fill up my soul as I ease her through it, thrusting my finger in and out. I hold her and whisper that she’s doing well and I’m proud of her, like she’s bearing a trial. But she comes so intensely, I suspect it might feel like an ordeal. It’s minutes until she begins to hold her own weight again.
I let her inch away, even as every one of my limbs clamours that she remain with me, and that we do that repeatedly. At very least, I wish she’d turn and kiss me.
She doesn’t. Her cheeks flush and she drops her skirt. I remove my hand from her knickers, but smooth my palm over her mound as I release her. A promise. I’ll be back for more, as soon as I can.
“Sorry,” she mutters, and looks away.
“No.” I grab her chin and make her look at me. “None of that.” My voice is stony, even to my own ears. “You don’t apologise to me for what I did.”
“But I didn’t… You’re—”
“I don’t know who told you that you had to say sorry, or be ashamed for wanting something for yourself.” Though I could guess. Her father. “You accepted what was offered. You don’t have to give back to deserve what should be yours by rights. Not with me. Never again, you hear?”
As she nods there’s a fight of emotions on her face. Relief, embarrassment, disbelief and happiness are the ones I see, but she’s a kaleidoscope. Everything, this girl. But there is one emotion I don’t see, and that makes my heart glad.
She’s not afraid.
“Should we resume our lesson?” she asks.
It’s so late it’ll be dawn in only a few hours. We only have one day together, and though I want to savour it, I should let her rest.
“That’s enough for one night.” I step back from her before I decide to do something truly misguided, like lie her onto the sofa and push into that soft pink slit, fucking her until she moans my name and comes on my cock. “Take the first room on the right in the hall.” It’s the mirror room of mine.
She hesitates and smooths her hand down her silk-covered thigh. “I don’t have anything to wear to bed.”
Sweet girl. It doesn’t even occur to her that she could sleep naked, as she would if she were with me. Or even that she could just keep on those cute little knickers.
I catch her small hand in mine and walk to my bedroom. Though it’s tempting to invite her in, I leave her in the hallway, grab a shirt from the wardrobe and bring it to her.
“G’night.” She clutches the shirt to her chest and smiles wistfully.
“Sleep well, angel.”
Then there’s a door between us and I have never wished as fervently as I do now that I lived in a tiny cabin with only one bed.
But that’s not happening.
Neither is sleep, for me. I grab a bottle of Scotch and pour myself a generous measure. The likelihood of my sinking into dreams is about five per cent higher after a nightcap, so I figure it’s worth a try. Maybe it’ll get the sunshine and roses smell of Jeanette’s hair out of my nose.
I sit with my laptop, sip my drink and wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this torture of having Jeanette in my home, without being able to claim her.
It’s all the fault of my overactive conscience. A bloody bind for a mafia kingpin. Any other man would take what she doesn’t even realise she is offering.
I check up on my investments, who of my people have paid, and what the status of my territory’s peace is. But apart from some goons at the safe house, it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Fletcher and Carter know I took Jeanette, and I’m expecting there to be fallout. But so far, no one is acknowledging she’s anything other than a pretty eighteen-year-old.
Suits me.
Linda—my second-in-command—drops off some clothes for Jeanette. I don’t examine too carefully why I brush off her assertion that Jeanette should have some female company her own age. Instead I snap that if she wants to argue with me, she can return to working for Fletcher.
Obviously she shuts up then. And I feel bad, because whatever happened I wouldn’t send her back to them after the way Fletcher treated her. But not bad enough to allow her to intrude on my time with Jeanette.
The lights are so low it’s almost completely dark and I’m into my second whisky—one was never going to get me close to sleep with my mind constantly gravitating to Jeanette—when there are soft footsteps in the hallway to the bedrooms.
Jeanette.
Will she try to escape? I’m curious about whether she’ll head for the elevator despite our bargain, and what she’ll do when she finds it pin locked. I almost want her to attempt it, for the excuse to touch her again when I catch her. The air is steam, burning my throat as I wait to see what she’ll do.
She pushes the door into the main living space open, and the air cools.
I’d prefer if she didn’t notice me so I would get to enjoy the sight of her long legs and possessive glee that she’s wearing nothing but my shirt. Her hair is in a loose plait over her shoulder and she looks sweet enough to make my teeth ache.
But instead her gaze finds me like she can sense my presence.
“Oh! Sorry!” She shrinks back.
“It’s alright.”
“I didn’t mean to disturb you. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought…” she trails off. “Couldn’t you sleep either?”
“Why can’t you sleep, angel?” I don’t answer her question, partly because it’s obvious. Partly because I can’t explain to this innocent girl that the reason I can’t sleep is her.
“I can never sleep in a new place on my own.”
That’s an arrow to my heart. How many new places has she been, alone, since I saw her five years ago? Too many. How many nights has she been unable to sleep? One would be more than I would accept.
I imagined getting her out was enough. It never occurred to me that the posh boarding school would leave her as lonely as I’ve been all these years. Guilt sticks in my throat.
“I thought I’d get something to drink,” she adds.
“Of course.” I’m up in a second. This is easy to fix. “I have hot chocolate.”
That’s the right thing to suggest, as she gives me a shy smile of thanks.
She looks slight and vulnerable in the oversized shirt, and a little rumpled from tossing and turning in bed. She fiddles with the turned cuffs—still too long—as we stand in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle.
I should tell her about the clothes I’ve acquired for her, but I kid myself that it’s the middle of the night and it would be better to do that in the morning. In actual fact, the reason is I love seeing her in my shirt too much to suggest she change.
“Are you going to bed now?” she asks when the mug is in her hands. She takes a cautious sip and those massive violet eyes pin me.
I promised her the truth, but I nod. I should go to bed. Any more of her this evening will cement her in my heart so firmly I’ll be chiselling her out until the end of time after she leaves tomorrow. But if we stay up all night together I’ll be tempted to take her, and so I can’t let her think it’s an option to sit with me.
She grips the mug harder.
“Can I sleep in your room?” she asks with a rush.
My chest tightens like I’ve been punched.
“Why?”
Her white upper teeth capture her pink lower lip and she looks at her hot chocolate as though the answer is there. “I sleep better with someone else.”
My expression must darken to thunder as she hastens to add, “Not like that. Just I always shared a room at school. I have my own place now, but only for a few months and I’m not used to it yet. I usually leave the television on so I don’t feel… But there isn’t one in that bedroom here. And I’m… I… I don’t want to be alone tonight. The first of my adult life.”
Will this ache in my chest ever cease? I suspect not.
“I only have one bed.”
“Then can I…” She looks at me from under those excessively long dark lashes. “Sleep in your bed?”
This is going to kill me. But I will never deny Jeanette anything.
“Yes.”
Her face brightens.
It’s not like I’ll sleep anyway. One of us might as well.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
Wordlessly, I lead her there.
“Oh! It’s gorgeous!”
It’s painted a deep violet blue, the colour of her eyes, and lined with bookshelves. I suppose it is beautiful, if you like books and blue.
“Get in, I’ll join you,” I direct.
She obeys and well, there goes my cock again, pulsing as she pulls back the covers and slips under the duvet of my bed. I am the worst. Lusting after a girl half my age. Yes, one who came on my fingers earlier, but seriously? I need to get a grip. And not a grip around my cock, which is what I’m tempted to go to the shower and do. Take the edge off.
Instead I strip down to my boxers, throw on a T-shirt so there’s another layer of buffer between us, and flick out the light. But not before I’ve seen her watching me, taking in my momentarily bare chest with wide eyes.
She shifts as soon as I’ve laid down, and yep, she snuggles into me. I’m a scary mafia kingpin and she’s unafraid. I cautiously wrap my arms around her, and she sighs with contentment and I swear within a minute her breathing has evened out and she’s asleep.
Brat.
She’s left me with a hard-on and a heart so full of her it might burst at any moment.
And tomorrow? My heart will definitely explode into tiny broken shards. Because much as she’s comfortable, soft and sleepy in my arms now, she wants her freedom. For that, she needs to be far from London. And from me.
I have to let her go.
