Blood Price (The Blankenships Book 5) (2 page)

It was a quiet, reassuring feeling, probably because she was choosing it. Without that important element, she suspected it would feel much more sinister.

The bedroom felt like coming home.

He set her delicately down on her feet. She stepped out of her heels as he closed the bedroom door, but when she reached behind her for the zipper of the dress, he brushed her hands away. “Let me help,” he said.

Never in the history of the world had a zipper been undone so slowly. He went one tooth at a time, as far as Zoey could tell, and he kissed every centimeter of skin as it appeared. Her shoulder blades, her mid-back, the curve of her hips. She shivered each time the zipper descended, and his lips found a new space to baptize with his heat. Her knees were weak with the sensations, and she locked them hard to keep from sinking to the floor and demanding he take her there.

He worked the hooks of her bra, before slipping both bra and dress off her shoulders in one smooth motion. They puddled at her feet, and he came around to stand before her, taking her hand in his, guiding her a step forward so that she stepped out of the clothes. “Claire will kill me if I don’t hang that up,” she whispered, pulling back slightly.

He chuckled. “Go ahead.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the footboard, watching her.

She raised an eyebrow at him, then deliberately stepped back into her heels and shot him another look before turning her back to him and bending over, her knees still straight, to pick the dress and the bra up off the floor.

He moaned softly behind her. “Oh, that is nice,” he said, quiet and careful. “That is very very nice.”

She glanced back to see him, stroking the length of himself through his pants. She didn’t say anything, just put an extra sway in her walk as she went to his closet, pulled out a hanger, and threaded the dress over it. Her cunt felt swollen and heavy from his attention, and she tried to remember the last time she’d walked around nude while someone watched. College,  maybe, but even then, she’d always been the girl who grabbed a t-shirt off the floor or wrapped herself in a sheet. But she’d always liked the extra sway heels put in her walk, and the way Alex made a small sound with every shift of her hips, that was a benefit she wasn’t going to throw away any time soon.

He was still standing there, still in his suit pants, his erection jutting out like a demand and an offering. It swirled through her then, how much she could control him. How very much she could demand. Her nipples hardened to vicious sharp points, and she let out her own little sound. He started toward her, but stopped when she raised one eyebrow. “I want you to lick me,” she said, carefully keeping her tone conversational. “What do you think?”

“I think I love you on my tongue,” he said. “I think there’s nothing I love more than feeling the surges as you try not to come, as you try to wait just one minute longer.”

His words were like a prelude to his cock, driving into her and pushing her open, giving her something to straddle and ride. She loved it, she loved every word of it. She went to the edge of the bed, then gratefully let herself sink down on the edge. Her clit was throbbing in time with her pulse, and she was slick, hyper aware of her pussy as she watched him walk towards her. “Strip,” she said.

He raised one eyebrow at her tone, and she acted on total instinct, nudging him hard in the thigh with the pointy toe of the shoes she still wore. It didn’t hurt, but it caught his attention. “My apologies, mistress,” he said, his tone humble and small. Oh, god, the word mistress went directly to her cunt, making her hips edge up a little bit, eager for something to press against, something to fuck.

Alex’s fingers went to his buttons, moving efficiently down his shirt.
Too fast, way too fast.
“Slow down,” she said. She found the side rails of the bed, down by the boxspring, and hooked her heels in them, spreading her thighs wide so that her cunt glistened wide open. “I want to watch you.”

His eyes locked on her sex as his hands moved more slowly over his buttons, working one at a time, gently edging his shirt open as he moved lower. She watched his mouth, the rapid rise and fall of his breath as she ran a hand over her breasts, tweaking each nipple, and then down her belly to the swollen curves of her lips. She was so wet and eager that the first stroke over her clit made her cry out, and she realized just how quickly she could drive herself to orgasm—if she wanted to. But no, that wasn’t what she had in mind. His eyes widened as she stroked her pussy with her fore and middle fingers, tracing her inner lips, her palm brushing against her clit while he finished unbuttoning his shirt, shrugged it off his shoulders, and with a bit of a lifted eyebrow, neatly folded it over a nearby chair.

When his fingers went to the button of his pants, she sank two fingers into her cunt, holding onto her control with an iron fist. She almost never came from penetration when she was masturbating, but right now, she was so close that she didn’t know what would push her over the edge. The smooth motion he used to push down his pants and his boxer briefs revealed his lean hips and strong thighs, and then he was standing in front of her, his erection weeping arousal and need, his hands placed carefully behind his back.

“Oh, that’s very nice,” she said, mimicking his tone. “On your knees.”

He knelt before her, his glorious tongue just a few inches from her cunt. She still had her fingers buried deep inside of herself, and she slowed down even further, forcing her breath into a calm and easy rhythm. She wanted him to work for this, not just get her orgasm the second he laid his mouth on her.

“Do you want me?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Yes,” he replied, and he looked up at her, the first time he’d looked up since she’d opened her thighs, and she saw so much in his eyes. Need, and worship, and love, and trust.

“I want your mouth,” she said, quietly. “I want you to keep your hands behind your back. And if you make me come hard enough, I may let you fuck me.” It was an empty threat, she suspected that he knew that, but it made him shiver, and she felt the soft chuff of breath as he groaned against her thigh.

That was where he started. She kept her fingers working gently in her depth as he bit at her inner thigh. Her pussy clenched around her fingers and she cried out. Her free hand went behind her back, supporting herself as her stomach clenched viciously. “Oh God, yes,” she cried out, and then he went directly for her clit, pulling it into his mouth savagely, teasing at the little nubbin of flesh with teeth and suction, and she was so close, so incredibly close, but she didn’t want to come yet, she wasn’t ready yet. She pulled her hand free, and pushed at his chest with her hand. He came free from her, his expression confused, until she brushed her fingers, thick with the juices of her cunt, over his mouth. His expression was instantly greedy, and he turned his mouth to her fingers, suckling them ferociously, groaning and grunting with the pleasure of it. She’d meant to give herself a second to calm down, but every needy sound of him shot straight to her eager, swollen body, and she found herself crying out in time with him, her hips fucking the air as he cleaned her.

She took her fingers away and wound them around his short hair as best as she could, and he took the signal for what it was. He dove back to her pussy, devouring her with eager thrusts, sliding down just a little to fuck her with his tongue. She was wild, her body moving in instinctive ways that she was only controlling in the most vague sense of the word. Behind his back, his hands were so tightly woven together that his knuckles grew pale. The sight overwhelmed her, and her body started to pulse and throb against his mouth. He abandoned the core of her and pulled her clit into his mouth again, suckling her in a way that drove the incipient orgasm to a higher level, pulling the scream from her mouth and leaving nothing but a series of airy gasps as she came and came and came. When it finally broke over her, the arm supporting her gave out, leaving her to sprawl across the bed, boneless and still wanting. “Fuck me,” she whispered. “Oh please, fuck me.”

“I can’t with my hands behind my back,” he murmured, “at least, not like this.”

“You can use your hands,” she said, distracted by the aftershocks burning through her, and wanting him buried in her to feel what he’d done to her.

He stood, positioning himself between her thighs, and then paused. “My tests came back,” he said. “All good.”

“Mine too,” she said. She met his eyes, and saw warmth there. She smiled, and found the energy to press herself against him, where his wet and eager tip was pressed against her. “We’re good.”

He didn’t ask again. He ran his hands down her sides, tilting her hips to the angle he liked best, and carefully, slowly, drove into her.

The thickness of him made her arch and groan. It was different, somehow. She’d expected it to be different, and had always heard stories about how much better it was without condoms. She’d always figured that it was a bunch of bullshit fed to girls by guys who wanted to bareback without responsibility—after all, if she got knocked up or something, it was her fault, she wanted it. But there was something—not better, but so much more. He felt like satin wrapped around velvet as he split her open. She was much more aware of the thickness of him, the sheer volume of cock that was buried in her.

She forced her eyes open to look for the first time at the man she loved—and found him with his forehead beaded with sweat, and his lips moving fast, muttering—numbers? “Are you—are you seriously doing baseball statistics right now?”

“Pi,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “I’ve got to fifty places—but—Christ on a crutch you feel amazing, and you were screaming before, and my control is shot and—I didn’t know it would feel like this—”

The only possible solution was to unhook her heels, wrap her legs around him to get a little leverage, and drive him into her. He groaned, and she thought he would come unwound in that moment—but he put one finger on her sternum, and she paused. “Mistress,”  he whispered. “May I ask for something?”

“You may.”

“I want to come with you riding me. I want your tits in my face and your ass in my hands. Please?”

How did one man fit so much naked need in such a buttoned up frame? How had no one realized how very much he contained and been willing to help him open it up? “Yes,” she whispered back.

He pulled free of her, and took her spot, sitting on the bed, leaning back on his hands. She organized her body enough that she could sit up and straddle him. Seating him inside of her a second time almost undid him again.

This close she could hear him muttering, “Three point one four one five nine two six five oh my aching god please fuck me Zoey please…” and she leaned back just a little, bracing herself on his thighs. She shifted against him just a little and he groaned, his back shaking under her hands as he filled his hands with her ass.

She moved again, taking his entire length and settling him more firmly inside of her, and whatever thin leash he’d used on his control snapped. He dragged her viciously up and down his cock, slamming her into him as he cried out with each incredible, deep motion, spreading her so wide and strong that she thought she might tear apart.

Another orgasm seemed unlikely after she’d just come so thoroughly, but his lips latched onto her nipple, his teeth and tongue moving like demons, and—it wasn’t quite an orgasm, but as he burst within her, and she could feel the surge of heat for the first time, the primal completion of the act, her body spasmed around him urging him on, begging him for just a little bit more.

They collapsed together on the bed, both of them gasping and clutching at each other, afraid to lose this intensity, this swirling excitement that had bound them together. After a bit of time passed, he pulled himself up off the bed, went to the bathroom, and came back with two damp wash cloths. Zoey reached for one, but he smiled at her. “I’d like to, if that’s okay.”

She nodded and leaned back. His cock was soft and resting in its nest of dark curls as he carefully wiped his seed from her sex, then leaned over and placed a soft, chaste kiss at the top of her mound. He cleaned himself more roughly, then lay down beside her again, stroking her hair. “You are something else,” he murmured.

“You’re not half bad yourself,” she replied, leaning in to press a light kiss against the corner of his mouth.

It was a long time however, before they got any sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

The next few days passed quietly enough. According to Alex, the board meeting had been a complete disaster. Olivia had stymied him at every turn, and had gotten more members in her corner than he
’d been able to collect for himself. Zoey asked him what he was going to do about it, and he just shrugged.

Claire went back to her life, cautioned to call him immediately if anything seemed off or strange, but she seemed completely unconcerned about why her brother was suddenly paranoid. Both he and Zoey had given her pieces of the story, but somehow they couldn’t bring themselves to share everything. She didn’t need to know, it wasn’t going to keep her safer, and it was just an ugly thing to share. Zoey found herself, more than once, wishing she didn’t know it.

Alex’s lawyers did keep them from needing to actually answer questions at the office of the police commissioner, or anyone else down at 1 Police Plaza, which Zoey found to be a great relief. Unfortunately, it also meant that she couldn’t get hold of the information about the how to contact the twins, or their guardians.

After Alonso had confirmed that they wouldn’t be needed for interviews that morning, and that he would be dropping by that afternoon to draft a witness statement with Zoey, Alex finally asked her, point blank, what had been on the drive.

“Cindy told me that it was information, everything she and Thalia had collected to fight their case for the will, if necessary, but also the methods they’d used to track down the twins. Their names, where they were, and how to get in touch with their guardians.

“Not their parents?” Alex asked.

Zoey shrugged. “Cindy said guardians.”

He sighed, leaning back on the couch, rubbing his hands against his forehead. “I’m sorry you’ve been pulled into this mess.”

Zoey snuggled into his side, and made a happy little sound as his arms wrapped around her. “I’m sorry that things aren’t going the way you wanted with your company. But I’m not sorry I’m here. I’m not sorry that I’m with you.”

“Are you with me?” he asked. He’d asked the question a lot, since the night of Claire’s birthday, always with the same casual tone. Each time, she nodded and smiled.

“I’m with you,” she said, and then she leaned up and gave him a small kiss. Sometimes he kissed her back, and sometimes he just pulled her close, his nose pressed to the nape of her neck as if he wanted to breathe her in.

They spent the weekend more or less in bed. Well, there was the bath. The shower. The dungeon, eventually, but this time it was him bound, and her pegging his ass while he whimpered and begged for her. The gradual reversal fascinated her. She’d never been interested in being a Domme before, but the way he studied her, the way he said the word mistress, it cut through all the pretense she’d ever imagined and made her purr. Especially because outside of the bedroom, he was so thoroughly in control, so powerful without question. The fact that he chose to let her do these depraved things to him, the way he murmured that there was so much more he wanted to try with her—it made her skin shiver.

He sent a car over for her things, and she found that there wasn’t much worth packing. She’d barely bothered to unpack her duffel bag after fleeing the apartment previously. She added a few more changes of clothes, her make-up, and her favorite pillow and coffee cup. It was interesting, watching her things slowly filter into Alex’s house. She liked it, but it was also an intimidating feeling. As if her things were committing before she was. Strange. But also tempting. It was tempting to just give in, to accept this as the place that she was meant to be. And Sunday night, as the three of them sat down to a dinner Sophia had made of lasagna and tossed salad, she felt like this was as much home as any place she could ever be.

“What are you grinning about?” Claire asked between bites, and Zoey had to laugh.

“Just thinking that I really like it here.” It was a dorkish thing to say, but from the way Claire glowed and Alex smiled, she got the sense it had been the right thing, too.

These people could be her family. That made her mind panic and delight at the same time. Delight, because she hadn’t really had a family, a place to belong, since she’d come to New York, and panic, because if things didn’t work out, walking away would be that much harder.

Alex’s phone rang, and he glanced at the screen while Claire clucked her tongue. “What’s the rule,” she sing-songed as Alex rolled his eyes. A furrow appeared between his brows, and he swiped to answer the call. “Hey,” Claire said, indignantly—but quietly enough that she wouldn’t be heard on the other end of the phone. “No cell phones at dinner. It’s your rule!”

Alex waved a hand at her as he stepped out of the room. Zoey heard him answer the call with a terse “Yes? Peter?” As he walked through the apartment. After a moment, she heard a door shut. She assumed he’d gone into his office.

“Peter?” She glanced at Claire, who shrugged.

“I don’t keep track,” the girl said. “I know Luke, the cop, and Leo, the huge Russian who used to get Alex into all kinds of trouble, and then there’s a billion people at AEGIS that he deals with. There’s probably a hundred Peters.” She took another bite of lasagna.

“How many do you think would call him on a cell phone on a Sunday night?” Zoey asked.

Claire shrugged and kept eating, turning the conversation to the shopping trip she’d taken with a friend that day, and a sweater she’d found that she thought Zoey might like. Zoey listened and finished eating; Alex still hadn’t come back by the time Sophia slid out of the woodwork and started to clear things away.

That had taken a lot of getting used to. Sophia had all but had a heart attack Saturday afternoon, when she’d found Zoey in the kitchen washing out a coffee mug; Zoey still hadn’t gotten used to the way the woman had a sixth sense about knowing when she was needed. She imagined it was going to take both of them a while to get used to each other. It was a dizzy kind of cool, though, to think that the time might happen.

Before Sophia could take it to the kitchen, Zoey picked up the plate Alex had hardly touched and carried it to the office. She tapped lightly at the door, then opened it a few inches, just enough to see him sitting at his desk. “Come in,” he said. “I just got off the phone.”

“I brought your dinner,” Zoey said, “but we can go back to the table if you want.”

Alex shook his head. He had a supremely focused look on, and Zoey recognized it. Mr. CEO had made his return. She fought back a sigh. It wasn’t fair to be irritated with him for doing his job. She’d acknowledged more than once that loving this man was going to mean putting up with some seriously irritating hours.

Everything in her head slammed to a halt. Had she just thought about loving him? It was too soon. It was way too soon to say that. He hadn’t said it again, not since Friday night, and she was fine with that.

Yes
, whispered a little voice in her head,
because saying that you love a man when you’ve had sex with him a dozen times in a few days, whose home you’ve moved into, and whose kid sister feels like yours is completely an overreaction.

She did her best to muzzle the little voice until some later time when she could afford to listen to it.

“Is everything all right?”

“No,” he said, his voice—not exactly short. Terse. Concerned about something else entirely. “There’s trouble at the London branch of AEGIS. Peter wasn’t very specific over the phone. He asked me to come out and see what I can do to check things out.” Alex’s eyes focused on her, and he grinned then, the lover peeking back through. “Ever been to London?”

She managed not to laugh. “No,” she said.

“You do have a passport, though.” He said it the same way she might have asked someone back home if they’d ever bought alcohol at a drug store.

“Yes. I’ve kept it up since high school, when I missed out on a trip to Paris with a friend because it was happening too soon to get the passport filed.”

“You’ve never been to Paris?”

She met his eyes for a long moment before answering him again. “I’ve been to Montreal, and Mexico City. That is the extent of my travel outside of the U.S.”

He leaned back in his chair for a moment, watching her with a weighted expression. “Oh, this is excellent,” he said.

“What is?”

He grinned again, and she had the oddest feeling that he was imagining bending her over the desk and fucking her right there. Like that first delicious afternoon in his office, when she’d nearly ruined everything. “I get to show you all the best places, and you get to go into them completely fresh. This is like a dream come true.” He reached across the desk and took her hand. “Zoey Gardener,” he said, his voice deep and serious enough to make her heart flutter. “Will you…go to London with me?”

She laughed at him, pulled her hand back, and shoved his plate towards him. “Eat your lasagna.”

He took a bite, still laughing. “So I’ll book two tickets, then?”

“Don’t you have someone who does that for you?”

His expression chilled down, and she regretted saying anything. “Normally, yes,” he said. “But I gave her the week off after someone intimidated her at the office, so I’ll just have to click the buttons all by myself.”

“What happened at the office?”

He shook his head, the coldness washing away in a heartbeat. “Nothing to worry about right now. She’s safe. It’ll keep until we’re back. Ask Sophia to grab my spare luggage, would you, and get your things packed? I want to leave tonight if we can.”

“What about Claire?”

He blinked at her. “What about her?”

“Is she okay to stay here by herself?”

He nodded. “The building’s secure and she’s smart. I over reacted before. She’ll be fine.”