Blood Price (The Blankenships Book 5) (6 page)

There was a huskiness, a thick wash of desire that she couldn’t have faked. It turned him inside out to hear, and his cock was suddenly a lot more attentive.

“You see,” he said, suddenly knowing exactly how to start, how to tell this story. “There was a sad little trust fund kid who was too spoiled for his own good. We’ll call him—Alan. And there was a big bear of a Russian who was good friends with Alan. His name was—shit, I don’t know—”

“Neo,” she breathed.

“Like the Matrix? Really?”

“You got something better?”

“Fine. Neo.” He laughed. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t remember how it happened, really. We weren’t drunk, it wasn’t a bet, it wasn’t any of the stereotypical things. He was the son of a diplomat, and I was the heir to the AEGIS throne, even though my skin was too dark for my father to fucking care what I did. And we were both tired of performing for the paparazzi, and one night, we were in my penthouse, and I decided to kiss him.”

She exhaled, slowly, and he felt a gentle shiver over her back. “What was it like? Kissing him?”

“He wears a beard, did back then, too. Not a little artistic scruff, either, but a proper beard. That was the strangest part.”

“Getting used to the beard?”

He shook his head. “No, the fact that I loved it, instantly. The feeling of his mouth under mine, the scratchiness of it. There was no closing my eyes and pretending that this was some girl I was kissing. He was…Leo.”

She made a sound, half a whimper and half something more. He brushed one finger tip inside her soft lips—she was damp now, not wet, not like he hoped, but more. “What else?” Her voice was breathy and soft. “Did you two just kiss, or was there more?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, letting his lips brush over the thin skin of her spine as he spoke. “Just the things boys do when they decide to experiment.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I want to know.”

“Leo has these massive hands,” he murmured, and this time, when he brushed his finger over the opening of her, she was wet enough that he could slip a finger into her, letting the palm of his hand do double duty against her clit as his finger slowly and smoothly buried in her. “And so once he got me naked, he could take both our cocks together, and stroke them both, more or less.” He chuckled, and she whimpered and shifted, against his hand this time. “I don’t think I lasted more than a few minutes.”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” he said, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like some kind of horrible admission of guilt, of wrong doing.

“Did you ever do it again?”

“The opportunity never came up. I found that while I liked him, I didn’t have an overriding attraction to men, exactly, so I didn’t find anyone else to pursue. He’s more bi than I am, I think, though. He’s had boyfriends and girlfriends, over the years. I think it’s why he stayed here, instead of following his father home. Russia is—not kind to men who like men, no matter how rich you are.”

She stilled under his hand, and he read the signal in her mood. He’d gotten too serious, but it was also true, and it seemed important information for her. The only important person in his life she hadn’t met was Leo, and the man only looked impervious. She turned towards him, then, and leaned forward to kiss him softly. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said.

“Are we done?” It was a dumb question to ask, but the words escaped without asking his permission.

“You’re tired,” she hedged. “And while the first part of that story was very very hot, the end of it was—well, it wasn’t. And we should get some sleep.”

There was that word again. Someone had attached weights to his eyelids, and he could feel the bed pulling him down deep into its embrace. He rolled onto his back and opened his arms; she snuggled in on his shoulder. “Later,” he said. “You wake me up if you’re all horny and need some relief.”

She laughed and said something, but the words vanished as he tumbled into sleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Zoey woke up when the sky was still a pale shade of gray, before the sun had really started to rise. Alex
’s breath was slow and heavy behind her, his arms soft around her body. She luxuriated for a moment; it was rare for her to wake up next to someone, rarer still for them to still be holding her, still caring for her even as she slept. She’d thought about this moment before, about how people woke up like this in movies. She’d thought it would feel smothering, overwhelming. Too much pressure. Instead, it was a comfortable sensation, and she breathed it in for a moment before slipping carefully out of his arms and heading towards the door in the room that she assumed led to the master bathroom.

The room was smaller than she’d anticipated. The finishings were nice, clearly high quality, but less extravagant than anything else she’d seen in the flat, or even in Alex’s penthouse. It took her a minute to figure out the hot and cold taps—they were backwards from what she expected—but when she stepped into the shower, there was that same delicious sense of luxury as the water washed away the sweat and grit of travel. She closed her eyes and just relaxed into the spray.

She jumped when the shower curtain pulled back, a little squeak escaping her throat, even though she saw that Alex was standing there, his eyes still sleepy, but a smile curving his lips. “I woke up and you were gone,” he said simply, as she moved over so that he could step into the narrow stall with her.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s okay to wake me.” His hands were light on her hips, but his eyes were heavy with sleep and hunger. “I don’t know if I can manage to fuck you in this shower. It’s a lot smaller than I was anticipating.”

Desire washed through her, unresolved want from their brief talk last night, from cuddling with him for hours. “I’m sure we could figure something out. If you really want to.”

“I want to,” he said. He turned her quickly, so that she was facing the wall of the shower. He wasn’t quite forceful, but she would have needed to work to resist him. He nudged her legs apart with his feet, and then his hands were wrapping around her body, finding her nipples and her clit with a kind of efficiency that—she could see how some people would view it as routine, but at least for now, it was wonderful that he could read her pitch like a natural musician, play her body like a virtuoso. She sighed into him as he stroked her body to a fever pitch, nudged her up onto her tiptoes, and eased himself into her with a delicate sigh.

There was something slow and sensual about his movements within her. His breath on her neck was heated and fast, and her body thrilled at the touch of him, but she had this odd sense that this was enough right now. That what she was craving had more to do with the quiet pull of his flesh against hers, and less to do with the driving need of orgasm. He pressed into her, softly, his fingers running over her body. She could feel him drawing closer and then pulling back, his words a rapid whisper in her ear. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need something different? Something more?”

She reached behind them, got her hand on his hip, and pulled him just a little harder against her. “I’m good,” she said. She couldn’t help the fear that chilled her down. They’d had this conversation before, and he’d seemed to understand, but this was the moment where things fell apart.

“Is it okay if I keep going?” It was such a loaded question. It could be asked in a way that was so—rude, so cruel—but coming from him it was respectful, a quiet request. She had the sense that if she told him to stop, that there would be none of the drama from the other night. Part of her wanted to say no, just to see what happened. But, no. Because it did feel delightful to have her body stretched around him, open and full.

“Yes,” she murmured. He made a quiet and soft sound, and something subtle changed in the rhythm of his body. He wasn’t moving for her benefit now, he was driving into her, pursuing his own ecstasy.

He came within a few moments, and the hot wash of him within her made her gasp. It was such a strange sensation, but it tipped her soft pleasure into something more heated. “Oh, god,” she whispered, as he sagged against her, bracing himself against the wall.

He pressed kisses up and down her neck, his hands brushing over the skin on her arms and torso, somehow completing what they’d begun. He reached past her, surveying a few different bottles on the rack in the corner. “Do you want to smell earthy or flowery?”

“I prefer earthy, I think.”

He nodded, and squirted something into his hands, then working up a lather. He ran his hands over her skin in a motion that was incredibly intimate, and barely sexual. It was as if, for the first time, he was becoming acquainted with her dips and curves in a quiet way, gently caring for her as he had the night before.

This is love
, she thought.
This sensation. This, right here.

“I don’t think we have the right stuff for your hair,” he said. “You do that no-poo thing, don’t you?”

She cocked her head to the side. No guy in the world had ever cared about how she washed her hair before. “I do, yeah. I’m surprised you know what works and what doesn’t though.”

The look he cast her way was somewhere between wry and irritated. He pointed a finger at his own hair—close cropped, sure, but intensely curly, all the same. “White girls did not invent the idea that silicone can be horrible for curls.”

She was moderately sure that this was the first time she’d ever flushed because of actual embarrassment with him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s not something a lot of people realize.” But his tone was just a little bit tight. It took a few moments for his shoulders to relax. She turned into the spray to wash off the suds he’d left behind. But when she turned back to him, he kissed her gently. “I mean it,” he said. “I don’t blame you for not knowing. And thank you for caring that you didn’t know.”

She kissed him back, because she felt very sure that any words she spoke right then would just make it worse.

After she toweled off, she went into the bedroom to survey the clothes that Claire or Sophia or Christopher or someone had decided would suit her. Alex had said that they would be having lunch with two important people from AEGIS UK, and then he’d likely set her free on the city while he went into the office to see what needed to be done. She thought something comfortable and light would be the best option, but she was scared to death of what she’d find in the bags and boxes.

She was pleasantly surprised. There were a couple pairs of pants in a loose, gaucho style, and in navy blue and charcoal brown. There was a maxi skirt in black. They were all ideal for dressing up or down. There were a few tailored blouses, and a couple of lightweight shells and sweaters in slightly more jewel tone shades. Three luxurious bra and panties sets in different weights and levels of cleavage creation. And, somehow, someone had bought her three T-shirts from the various bands she’d played for Claire during their dance party. They looked vintage, too. Wow.

“Everything to your satisfaction?” Alex asked. He looked amazing just out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist. It struck her, not for the first time, how nice his body was. He didn’t have that zero-body fat look of a movie star, but he looked strong, wiry, capable. Gorgeous.

“Actually, yes,” she said. “If we break up, can I keep your sister?”

She wanted to take the words back as soon as she said them. It rocked him all the way down, from what she could see. He stumbled a pace forward before his face settled back into that calm mask he pulled out when things weren’t quite right. “I wish you would, actually,” he said, carefully. “I think I said this before—I can’t remember—but she likes you. I’ve never really brought people home, even when things were a little serious, because Claire—she’s been jerked around enough in her life. Even if things don’t work out with us, knowing that you want to stay friends with her. That means a lot to me.”

She stepped into his arms. He was distant for a moment, and then he clung to her as if he were drowning. “I’m here,” she said, quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” he said. It was Alex who stepped back. “It’s cool today, but definitely not cold. I think the gray pants and the—is that a vintage T? That must be Claire’s doing.”

“I’m fairly sure,” Zoey said, letting him change the subject, as if she hadn’t seen the gleam on his lower lashes before he surreptitiously wiped it away. “I adore it, but it doesn’t scream business lunch to me.”

“No, this is perfect,” he said, holding the prog rock shirt up to her as if she were a model. “This is exactly what I need to set Peter at ease.”

She narrowed her eyes, half joking. “Are you using me as your token lower-class friend in order to lubricate your business luncheon?”

He narrowed his eyes right back at her. “Am I going to be in trouble if I say yes?”

She laughed, then, unable to stop herself. “It’s entirely possible.”

But she put on the concert tee, and covered it with a lightweight cardigan in a deep wine color, the fronts of it those swoopy asymmetrical designs that she’d always loved and never convinced herself to buy. They had coffee and a quick breakfast in a little nook, rather than the imposing dining room, and she watched the leaves ripple softly in the wind in the park across the way.

Everything about this city was different than New York. There was a gravitas everywhere she looked, from the black cabs to the stately Victorian and Edwardian buildings. The parks were fenced in, and Alex told her that you had to have a key to go into some of them.

They ended up taking a cab to the other side of the city, to the restaurant where Alex had set up the lunch meeting. The hostess seated them on a balcony overlooking the Thames, and within a few minutes, they were joined by two men. Peter Wells was tall and gnarled looking, pale, with hair that might have once been blond, but was now shot through with white. Joseph Crane was younger, with skin tanned by the weather, creases near his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. They both shook hands with her pleasantly enough, neither giving her fish hands nor trying to squash her fingers with their death grips. She had an instantaneous sense that they wanted something from Alex. She’d done enough interviews to note the way their eyes locked on him, the way every single word seemed to be carefully noticed and evaluated.

She found herself going into reporter mode as she ordered a a chicken salad. She listened more to the rhythm of the conversation than the actual words. It was all fairly nonsensical to her anyway; stock prices and over/under’s and, god help her, a discussion of cricket. At least with soccer she more or less understood the rules.

The men seemed more or less happy to ignore her, and she found she didn’t mind all that much. Until, of course, she had a mouth full of chicken salad. Crane turned his pleasant blue eyes towards her, and she was shocked by the cold she saw in them as he looked directly at her. She hadn’t felt it before. “I love the shirt,” he said, pointing off-handedly at the band shirt that Alex had talked her into wearing. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen them live?”

Her skin bristled at the comment. “I have, actually. They actually started up about twenty miles from my home town while I was in college, so my friends and I used to see them play at the local bars.”

It was funny, how some people could smile so well without actually looking at all friendly. Wells looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t do anything to actually stop Crane from talking. “I see. I saw them in London when they were on tour in Europe, about ten years ago. Did you see them then?”

Zoey opened her mouth to answer, but before she said a word, Crane turned his eyes towards Alex.

“Their lead singer was actually British,” Crane said. “Moved to America with his parents. Did you know that?”

Alex shook his head, wearing the same fake, businessman smile that she was hating more each time she saw it. “No, I didn’t actually. Zoey’s the fan, not me.”

“He came from the North, just like me,” Crane continued. “We were friends, back in the day. Then he went off and made himself famous, and I worked my way up from your factory to your head of UK operations. And now we both give back to the community that supported us when we were poor and broken. But I don’t suppose you know much about that.”

Alex’s expression chilled down until Zoey was nervous for the glass of water in his hand. “I know more than you might think,” he said. Zoey heard the calm warning in his voice, but he wasn’t entirely sure the older man did.