Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4) (24 page)

“Did you have a good time?” he asked.

“They’re . . . nice.” Tucking my hair behind my ear, I added quietly, “We talked about you. He’s quite a fan, that big brother of yours.”

Niall’s smile curled one side of his mouth and he pushed back from his desk and stood, walking around to face me. I expected him to ask what we’d said, but he didn’t. He simply let his attention move over my face. I’m sure it was obvious that we’d talked about my feelings, about Niall and me together; I could feel how warm my cheeks were.

“How was your meeting earlier?” I asked, out of breath. I’d taken the elevator; it wasn’t from exertion. It was the nearness of him, the way he was looking at me as if he was reeling through every touch from last night. This morning he’d been so brusque, and with the intensity of his stare now, I was able to acknowledge without triggering an internal panic that Niall had seemed to be freaking out—as if fleeing the scene of a crime.

But had I misread him entirely?

Had he simply wanted it to feel familiar? Or had he needed to know that I was okay, that
this
was okay?

“It was good,” he said. “We’re very nearly done with our proposal.” His eyes barely strayed from my mouth.

“That’s good,” I agreed.

“Quite.”

I bit my lip, pulling in a nervous smile before saying, “You seem a bit distracted.”

Niall nodded, reaching up to carefully touch my bottom lip. “I’ve never seen you wear this color.”

“Is it too red?” I asked.

He blinked, shaking his head in two tiny movements. “No. Not too red.”

Was this how I chipped away at the outside? By reminding him again and again that I wasn’t Portia, that I wanted him, and that it was okay to want
me
, too?

My heart hammering, I turned to the door and locked it as quietly as possible before turning back to him. Pulling my purse up, I dug inside it for my lipstick. I still had no real idea what I was doing, only that he was transfixed by the color of my mouth and I felt physically unwilling to redirect his attention.

While he watched, rapt, I uncapped it, rolled it up, and reapplied it.

“You can’t be real,” he whispered.

My pulse pounded so powerfully beneath my breastbone that I still couldn’t catch my breath. I set the lipstick behind him on the desk and then reached up, undoing his
tie, releasing the top two buttons of his shirt. He stood completely still as I bent, pressing my mouth to the warm skin just over his heart.

I lifted my head to look up at him, catching his expression of wonder.

“Again,” he rasped.

I leaned forward, kissing lower, releasing another button, and then another. I kissed over his rib, bending to kiss again where chest turned into stomach.

He remained silent, breaths coming out in sharp exhales that jerked his abdomen beneath my mouth.

I looked over the red marks along his chest and stomach, starting to relish the idea of Niall walking around the rest of the day wearing me beneath his clothes. But I didn’t want to be done with this, and he didn’t seem to want it, either.

“I can keep going,” I told him.

He wants my kiss there. I can see it in his eyes
.

My fingers toyed with his belt, eyes studying his expression. If it tightened, if I saw even an inch of retreat there, I would back off.

Instead, I saw relief, acquiescence, something just shy of desperation.

His belt came free with a tiny clang of metal on metal. His zipper ticked down in the silent room. And then I waited, my fingers holding the open fabric of his dress pants. The straining tip of his cock pressed up against the
elastic waistband of his boxers. The quiet was sliced apart every time he exhaled in a gust.

I saw his eyes flicker to the door and then return to my face.

I shook my head. “I can st—”

His “
no
” was sharply hissed.

With a little nod, I kissed the soft trail of hair on his abdomen, licked it.

“Dear God,” he gasped.

I slid my hand into his boxers, nearly undone by the dip of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, let his head fall back. I was struck all over again by the weight of him, the heavy length I pulled free as I kneeled in front of him.

“I probably need more lipstick,” I whispered.

With effort, he raised his head, looking down at me, and then blinked into awareness. “Of course.” His fingers fumbled behind him on the desk, knocking pens and papers to the floor before finding the silver tube.

The cap came free with a tiny pop and Niall blinked away, to his own hands shaking in front of him as he twisted the lipstick to reveal the brilliant red.

With one hand cupping my chin, he reached down and pressed the lipstick to my bottom lip, carefully sliding it from middle to left, middle to right, before even more gently repeating the action on my top lip. “Ruby.”

I smiled, holding his gaze as I bent to kiss the underside of his shaft, just in the middle.

Niall’s grunt was rough, hands grappling behind him to grip the desk. “
Christ
.”

“Okay?”

He nodded.

I kissed lower, leaving perfect red prints down to the base.

I studied him in a way I hadn’t bothered to last night, looking at how he strained forward, filling my hands. “You’re so perfect I’m not sure what to do with you.”

Tell me
, I meant.
Direct me
.

“L-lick,” he rasped.
He understood
. “Please, darling.”

I smiled, darting my tongue out and sweeping it along his shaft. Niall groaned, low and broken.

“There?” I asked.

“No. No, please.”

I smiled into another kiss in the middle of his cock. “Where?”

His eyes closed for a second as he swallowed, and then said, “The head.” His eyes met mine again. “Lick the head.”

I felt nearly liquid, chest thrumming with need, desire a wild pulse between my legs. When I slid my tongue over the wide crown of him, I tasted sweet and salt, earth and man, and felt more than heard his relieved moan vibrate through him.

Long fingers ran over my jaw and into my hair, turned into a fist when I opened my mouth and took the entire tip inside, sucking down a few inches and back, surrendering
the game in favor of giving him what I suspected was his first blow job in years.

And what a tragedy. He was thick, intimidatingly long, but where his cock felt nearly savage in its size and need, his hands were gentle in my hair, shaking as he sweetly encouraged me.

Down and up, sucking, wet. I didn’t care about the sounds I made or the way I lost my breath when I took him deep, coming back with watery eyes and a gasping, wet mouth. He stared at me as if I was a glowing star in the middle of this room, and it made me want to give him every drop of pleasure a man could possibly feel.

My hand cupped him lower, the other gripped his hip, silently telling him
take take take
. I urged him to flex forward and he did, first a shallow thrust of relief, and then deeper and deeper with careful precision, helping me work him in and out of my mouth, across my tongue, between my lips.

I wondered if he loved the crude sound of it as much as I did, my unintentional gasps and moans when he went deep, when he jerked forward in a small loss of control, when he pulled my hair in tiny flashes of frenzy. It sounded wet, and good, and the tiny pop of him in and out of my mouth seemed to make us both frantic.

He let himself enjoy it—slowing down, speeding up, slowing down again—until he grew determined: knees bent, hips rolling easily. I watched his face as, against my tongue, he grew tighter somehow, his brow tight with
what almost looked like pain, his fingers finding handfuls of my hair.

“Oh,” he gasped, and I remembered his words, could see in his eyes that he did, too:
I
want
it. For you to suck my cock, and suck it so hungrily that you beg me with your eyes to let you swallow
.

I held his eyes with mine, and begged.

“Oh, darling, I—oh.
Oh, God
.”

Yes

Yes

“Oh. Oh, God, here I—oh I’m—”

His eyes rolled closed, cock swelling hugely against my tongue before he spilled with a helpless groan, warm and deep inside.

Niall’s hands went limp before falling to my shoulders. I pulled away, swallowing as I kissed the head before kissing his hip and sitting back on my heels.

He opened his eyes, taking a deep breath as he stared down at me. “Well. Right. That was . . .”

I stared up at the still-hard cock lying free of his pants, the bright spots of lipstick down his torso, the look of bewildered bliss curving across his perfect mouth.

Looking up at him, I said, “I feel like a criminal with a very obvious trail of evidence here.”

He laughed, staring down the length of his body. “I certainly do not feel like the victim of a crime.” His broad hands came down, maneuvering himself back into
his boxers and fastening his pants. “I’m quite at a loss for words.”

“Good.” I ran a fingertip along the side of my mouth, grinning proudly up at him.

He reached down for my elbow, helped me up. “Your knees . . . ?”

“Are fine.”

In silence, we worked together to button his shirt, and then I smoothed my hands across his shoulders while he carefully reknotted his tie. I wanted him to pull me into his arms, kiss me, taste his pleasure on my lips.

“Ruby?”

I looked up at his face. “Hmm?”

“Thank—”

I reached for his lips, my heart drooping. “Don’t.”

“Don’t say thank you?” he asked from behind my fingers.

“No.”

Niall looked momentarily at a loss, before reaching up and gently pulling away my hand. “But it was astounding.”

“For me, too.”

His gaze flickered back and forth between my eyes. “Truly?”

“When you want someone as much as I want you, giving pleasure is almost better than getting it.”

He fell silent; his thumb coming up to stroke a
bottom lip that I’m sure no longer had a hint of lipstick remaining.

“Am I a mess?” I asked.

“Mmm,” he hummed, bending and kissing me once. “Quite. I rather like it.”

He returned, kissing me deeper, lips parting and sucking, and, finally, tongue sliding along mine.

When he pulled back, he watched where his index finger drew small circles at the hollow of my throat.

“I’m still a bit amazed at the . . .” he began, and then shook his head a little before pressing his lips together.

“Intensity?” I asked.

“Yes. The intensity. But then I’m never sure . . .”

I waited for him to finish, but he simply nodded and said a quiet “
Well
.”

I suddenly knew what Max meant about chipping away at the outside. It wasn’t about seducing Niall in the first place. It was about keeping him from turning back inward immediately afterward.

“Let me go clean up.” I stretched, kissing his cheek and then turning for the door. Opening it, I took a peek in the hallway before making a dash to the restroom.

Inside, I stared at my reflection: at the swollen pink mouth, the hint of red in a halo all around it, the mascara blurred from my watery eyes while I sucked him.

I didn’t really need Niall to finish that thought. I knew what he would say even if he didn’t
know it himself:
I’m a bit amazed at the intensity . . . But then I’m never sure what to do with you afterward
.

If Niall was as distracted as I was that afternoon, he didn’t show it. His attention barely wandered from the speaker as she unveiled one plan after another. He took meticulous notes, and barely spared a glance in my direction. I could still remember the shape of him against my lips, could hear the choppy, gasping breath he took just before he came. But I could
not
believe I’d done that in our office. My recklessness was escalating.

I’d be damned if I ever apologized for wanting something sexual, but I didn’t want to let it make me irresponsible.

Still . . . after this morning, then the blow job, then his retreat back into his own thoughts, I felt insecure. And I
hated
feeling insecure.

Beneath the table, I slid my foot closer until it touched his. Startling, he looked over at me and I could see in his expression when he understood that
I need to know that what I did was okay with you
.

And in the same way my kisses were hidden under his expensive clothes, his ankle wrapped around mine beneath the table. A secret only the two of us shared.

I’d never considered how many nerves might exist in the human foot before, but for
the next two hours I grew aware of every single one. I noticed every shift of his leg and every brush of fabric. I could feel the heat of his body so close and yet I couldn’t
do
anything. It was maddening. When he stood to take the floor himself, my eyes bore into the places I knew were marked with red. I kept my face impassive, but inside, I burned.