Final Surrender (20 page)

“You’ve been through a lot, and I…”

She gripped and pulled at his cock until he fell forward on his palms as he lost himself in her skin caressing him.

“Please, don’t make me beg…again. I’m on birth control so we’re protected and I want to feel you, skin on skin, moving against me. Please?” she asked again with a cat-ate-the-cream grin and her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she turned herself in the bed, legs open in front of him.

She continued to stroke him as she ran her free hand up his closest tense biceps. “Just tell me you don’t want me and I’ll stop. Tell me you don’t want to be here right now and I’ll go to sleep.”

“I can’t,” he answered through gritted teeth, trying not to let his dick make his decisions for him again. He’d never had this problem with anyone else. He could always ignore the needs of the flesh, until Angela Meyers lay in front of him flushed and needy, and all he wanted to do was bury his needs into her clenching channel until they were both lost in a cloud of satisfied lust.

“Can’t tell me you don’t want me, or can’t get over the fact that I was hurt and I still need your body against mine?”

A growl rumbled in his chest as he reached over and grabbed one of her pillows and positioned it under her hips so he was at just the right height to take her.

He pulled her hips to the edge of the bed and he grabbed the base of his cock and rubbed his dick against her very wet pussy. Clay watched as his dick disappeared into her suckling pussy, one torturously good inch at a time. She burned him alive.

Slowly, he pushed inside, and he could already feel the tingling in his spine, indicating his impending release. He kept a slow and steady pace and pushed against the top of her vagina, triggering her to open her mouth in silent bliss each time.

He groaned and went stiff as the first blast of semen shot inside her.

Coming inside her sent her over the cliff she had been so perfectly balanced on for so long. Her second orgasm clamped down on his cock still shuttling inside her. Pushing her higher. To some state of bliss only heaven could match.

No other thought was possible in his head when he saw stars behind his closed eyelids. She squeezed her muscles so tightly together, he—

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned as he continued filling her with his release, he bent down and nipped at her lips. Feeling her pussy muscles clenching his dick and pulling every ounce of resolve from his body.

Her mouth opened and he swept his tongue inside and possessed her body and mind.

“Mine,” he finally said as he pulled his mouth away and bent his forehead to rest against hers.

Angela reached up and held his face, kissed his damp forehead. As he lay down on top of her, finally not able to stand any longer he heard her agree, “Yours. Always yours.”

A half an hour later, Clay lay next to her, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathe and remembering the last time he lay next to her with the taste of her sweet pussy still on his lips.

The most amazing feeling washed over him. After he could feel his legs again, he had gone into the bathroom and gotten a warm washrag to wash her.

She was barely awake for any of it, but she had smiled and said his name several times.

Innocence radiated from her. He didn’t doubt that she hadn’t had a lover since him. She was a wonder to him. Refreshing and so damn hot his dick got hard just remembering how tight her pussy was. Damn, the thought of her ass…

He hadn’t gotten to pump inside her enough yet, but it was coming. He could feel the ache inside him rising to the surface to have her again.

As he drifted off to sleep the phone rang. Before Angela barely stirred he had picked it up and said, “What?” into the receiver.

An all too familiar altered voice stated, “It’s very late and you’re still there. You’re the one in the photos and on the news, right? Is she fucking the help now? How nice.”

“Listen here, you piece of shit—”

A grating laugh echoed through his head as he was cut off. “Though I have no doubts a conversation with a redneck such as yourself would be exhilarating, I’m sure you’re trying to trace the call by now, so I’ll be brief. Tell Angela to stay out of Lincoln Center or she’ll regret it. Catch me if you can, Clay.”

And with that the line was disconnected. Clay knew it had been too short to track.

Clay. He had said Clay.
How in the hell did he know who I am?
he wondered. He wanted to slam the phone down on the receiver, but he replaced it gently so as not to wake Angela.

Clay glanced at the clock to note the time of the call that he would have to report to Detective Wyatt and tell Angela about tomorrow.

Then he snuggled closer to Angela and pulled her against his chest. He exhaled into her hair and heard her whisper, “Clay,” as she pulled his hand to her chest.

What am I going to do without you?

Chapter Twenty

Clay awoke the next morning, alone and, if he was being honest with himself, a bit freaked out.

Questions filled his mind.

How had she gotten out of bed without him knowing it?

Where was she now?

He looked at the clock and saw that it was eight thirty in the morning and he had the best night’s sleep he’d had in more than a decade.

Okay, it scared the hell out of him, frankly.

He heard noises downstairs, rustling and voices, so he rushed to throw jeans and a black T-shirt on with some utility boots and headed downstairs.

Following the voices wasn’t difficult because the voice he heard was Angela’s and to his surprise she sounded confident and assured.

“As I’m sure you’ve all heard now, I was in a bit of an incident on Saturday night. But I’m not going down that easy.”

Someone yelled, “Hell no!” and another, “No little bomb is going to take us down, biznitches!”

He stepped silently to the open door just in time to catch a love-filled smile grace Angela’s lips.

“Exactly,” she replied. “I’m going to have to take it a bit easy for a few weeks to clear all the cobwebs out of my head. I know I look like something the cat dragged in, so I’ll need all of you to get through everything before Fashion Week in February.

“Maddy, I’ll need a lot of help, and, Vanessa, unfortunately, you’re going to have your hands full with reporters and basically a publicity nightmare. Direct everyone over to Mr. Cate’s office. They’ll put their spin on it so we can get our clothes made.”

“We’re only worried about you, Ang. We’ll do anything to get this all to end,” a small woman with a shy smile said from one of the closest chairs at the conference table they all gathered around.

A murmur of agreement filled the room and Clay was taken aback with the concern he saw on everyone’s face. And there were a lot of faces.

“I’ll be fine,” Angela reiterated as she caught sight of Clay at the back.

“Talking about getting things taken care of, not many of you know that I have recently hired a security team for protection. C&C Security will be with me twenty-four/seven until this matter is put to rest. Mr. Waters will specifically be protecting me, and then closer to the show I’ll have a secondary detail.”

“I heard he’s hot,” one person chimed in.

“I heard he’s an ex-mercenary soldier who only takes on
special clients
,” another added while waggling her eyebrows.

“I saw him on the news hovering over you and he was more than hot.”

Angela’s cheeks flushed a bit rosier, he noticed, hearing all the gossip. “Well, he’ll want to speak to each of you individually to see if we can piece anything together about who could be behind all of this.”

“Oh, he can interrogate me anytime,” a tanned guy quipped a few seats away.

Angela laughed. “Jose, I can just imagine you both trapped in a room together. One would leave and the other would be a pile of mush at the end and I don’t know which I would put my money on.”

“There’s only one acceptable answer to that scenario.”

Every head in the room whipped around to stare as Clay stepped into the room, and stood to his more than ample height. A few mouths hung open and others seemed a little scared. Yeah, he was used to that.

“And this, everyone, is Clay Waters from C&C Security. Clay, this is everyone.”

The element of surprise was always good to get a feel for people in a tense situation. There were whispers in the room as he looked at each person. No one screamed
guilty
on first perusal, but time would tell what they were really like.

Angela was giving him a once-over as he stared at her employees. Her eyes raked his body like a lover, and he crossed his arms over his chest to keep from going to her and staking his claim.

Where in the world had that come from?

Clay had never claimed anyone in his entire adult life. Sex he was good at…relationships he actually didn’t know since he was oh for oh on those. He caught Angela casually staring at his crotch and he grinned.

Her eyes darted up to his and then away just as quickly as heat stained her cheeks again. She cleared her throat to get the attention back on her. She needed some male attention in the worst of ways and he was going to give her some as soon as he could get her alone.

“Okay, that’s it for right now. Everybody get to work and Mr. Waters will call each of you in one at a time to answer questions. Thanks for dealing with the insanity, and we only have a few more months ’til Fashion Week, so we’ll all have to bust some heads to get everything done in time and still fill orders as needed. Well, hopefully not my head, ’cause I don’t know how many more bumps it can take.”

Clay moved farther into the room and stood beside the door to take everyone in as they exited

Most eyed him up and down, some whispered to others amidst giggles as soon as they left the room.

The little mousy girl gave him a mini smile before hurrying past. He caught a whiff of her perfume when she walked by and thought it reminded him of something from the Marines of all things.

When they were all gone he turned to face Angela, who was standing at the head of the table straightening papers.

He noticed she wore a simple blue knit top and black slacks with a pair of flip-flops that showed off her perfect toes.

Good Lord, he was even infatuated with her feet. What in the world had he gotten himself into?

“Morning,” he greeted low and full of seduction.

“Good morning,” Angela replied, weary and alarmingly receptive.

“You snuck out on me.”

“You were sleeping.”

“You should have woken me.”

“You’re being pushy.”

Clay sat on the side of the table and crossed his arms over his chest as he glared over at her.

“My job is to be pushy.”

She finished straightening her papers and stood to look Clay in the face. Putting her hands on her hips and doing her best to look intimidating. It was cute.

“No, your job is to be pushy with the bad guys and to be nice to me.”

“I remember being very nice to you last night,” he added as he looked her body over with his eagle eyes, she swayed a bit as he took her all in, and he wanted to know how far down that blush went.

“Not exactly what I meant,” she finally admitted.

“No, but at least it made you nervous.”

“And what good is it that I’m nervous now?”

“I like you off-guard. You seem normal now instead of Super Angela.”

“I’m not a super hero.”

Clay reached out to take her hand, but she held it back.

“Clay, we need to set some ground rules.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Do any of the rules allow me to lay you out on this table and lick every inch of you?”

His eyes held her gaze until she looked away.

She drew in an unsteady breath and answered, “No,” and he was sincerely disappointed that they couldn’t do just that.

“Well damn, what are the rules then?”

“At work we have to be one-hundred-percent professional. No one in my staff should know that you are anything other than my security detail. I’m sure it won’t be hard for them to believe since I haven’t dated in the years they’ve been with me. They probably think I’m a lesbian or dead from the waist down.”

“Oh, if they only knew the truth,” Clay countered roughly, sounding like liquid sex even to his own ears.

Angela continued undeterred, and he had to admire her for keeping her cool. “Second, I know you have to talk to my staff, but I need you to be discreet and nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

“Sure you are,” she agreed sarcastically. “Some of them are just as scared as I am since all of this is hitting so close to home. They need reassurance, not the third degree, got it?”

After a moment’s deliberation, Clay agreed. “I’ll be nice and discreet. Scout’s honor,” he added as he stood to his full height next to her. “Any more rules,
Ms
. Fashion Designer?”

“No, I think that’s it.” She turned to grab her papers and leave, but Clay caught her arm gently. Her skin was so soft, he couldn’t help but run his thumb over the silky flesh on the inside of her biceps.

“Don’t you want to hear my rules?” he purred in her ear as he drew her closer.

She stared up into his dark blue eyes. “What rules?” she asked. He felt her pulse beating like a jackrabbit. Unable to stop himself he bent and nibbled on her pulse point before straightening.

“The one about you not leaving anywhere without me. We will sleep in the same room, we will eat together and we will stay together at all times. It is the only way for me to keep you safe. So no more coffee trips on your own, or sneaking down here to work, morning or night,” he added before her little mind could find a loophole. “Agreed?” he asked when she said nothing.

“Okay,” she finally acquiesced, but she didn’t look happy about it.

“Second rule, I’ll leave you alone with your staff and anybody in the outside world that you want to keep us a secret from, but when we’re alone, you…are…mine.”

He didn’t state it in the form of a question. He knew it came out sounding more like an edict than a rule. Follow or be punished. He’d never punished anyone in his life, but the thought of punishing Angela…

Good Lord, the thought of her stretched out before him, crying out as he heated her backside with his hand. Damn, he’d never been kinky with any female before, but the mere glimpse of heat in Angela’s eyes gave him some things to think about for later.

“You sure we can’t test out the table?” he added as he put his palms against it and pushed on it a little.

Angela laughed. “Not right now.” Then shot him a seductive look before preparing to walk from the room cool as a cucumber.

“Aren’t you full of surprises this morning?”

“Don’t worry it’s just the concussion.” She smirked before one of her people came back around the corner.

“Ang, do you have the sketches ready for the new A-line lounge set you were working on?”

She reached into her portfolio and pulled something out and handed them over.

“I’m not certain on the pleating on the side so we might have to play with it a little bit for final production but I think the silhouette is nice. See what magic you can work.”

“Will do. Nice to have you back in one piece.” She walked away while studying the drawings. “Hey, what color palette are we using for the fall show?” she called over her shoulder.

“Don’t know yet, I’ll get back to you. Try it in a gray-and-white pinstripe to start with and we’ll go from there.”

“’Kay.” And she was gone.

“Who was that?” Clay asked as they continued walking to her office.

“Nikki. She’s one of my pattern makers. I lured her away from Diane several years ago and she is worth her weight in gold.” Angela set her case down when they finally made it to her desk. Several other people had to question her about something he knew nothing about while they were on the way.

“You love it, don’t you? The clothes, and the space, what you’ve built here…”

She was quiet for a minute, peering around her office. “It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do. It’s not just a job or a building. Each collection gets a piece of my soul, or my heart. I adore it. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

After a moment she looked up and took his hand, which he didn’t remember holding out to her. She snuggled against his chest and held on tight as he stroked her back, kneading her tight muscles.

“I’m proud of you, you know? What you’ve created. It’s awesome, but I always knew you would conquer your own section of the world.”

Her eyes were liquid when she leaned back to look up into his face. His thumbs and lips brushed them away.

“So…” She backed away from him, but with a smile that lit up his corner of the world. “Who would you like to talk to first?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve already reviewed the dossiers I had prepared several days before I arrived. Just one at a time and I’ll call them in.”

“I guess Jose then, he’s my main cutter,” Angela added, trying not real hard to hide her amusement. “Oh, and can you use the conference room? The area is bigger, so hopefully they won’t feel as…intimidated as they might in a smaller space.”

“Do you need anything before I get started?” he asked as he moved to stand in front of her, dying to put his hands on her again, but being good he kept them tucked back in his pockets.

“No, I’m fine, I’ll just be working in here or on the main floor if you need me, and if you can’t find me, just grab Vanessa up front and she’ll page me.”

“Was she the little wisp of a thing that was sitting at the front of the table with you?”

“No, that’s Maddy. Vanessa is the tall blond that looks like a
Sports Illustrated
model.”

He thought for a moment and then said, “What is Maddy, exactly?”

“Kind of my second-in-command. Any time I have to leave she always fills in for me. I’m lucky to have her, too. She went to NYU the same time I did, but we didn’t meet until after we graduated and I’d started ANG.”

“What about Vanessa? She looks more like a model, obviously, than a secretary.”

“When I was still small and lucky enough to do Lincoln Center for the first time, she was one of my models. She was looking for a part-time job to fill in when the modeling gigs weren’t plentiful, and I was looking for a secretary. It has worked really great. She’s been with me for a couple years now.”

“Well, after Jose, why don’t we move onto Vanessa then?” he suggested, already getting his head in work more.

“Sure,” replied Angela with a knowing smile. “She’s gay too, so it should be perfect to interview them back to back.”

Angela paged Jose to the conference room as she heard Clay say, “When in Rome.” He headed back toward the conference room, determined to start piecing the mystery together.

Lunchtime crept up on them before Angela and Clay had a few minutes together to see each other. They sat together in her office, eating a bite of lunch, as he filled her in on the interviews he’d had so far.

“I had background checks done on all of your people and I’m sure you already know they passed with flying colors. Well, except Jose. You know he owes quite a bit of child support, right?”