Seducing Cinderella (14 page)

“Then you have the kind of woman who won’t put up with the life. They might at first, and they’ll tell themselves that it’ll get better and the relationship is worth the sacrifices. But eventually they realize they deserve better than what we can give ‘em, and then they’re gone, too.”

Reid stood up and pushed the chair out of his way. “Look, just because your wife left you, doesn’t mean the rest of the world is doomed to the same fate. Lucie isn’t like that.”

Stan slapped his hands on the disk as he rose, stormed around, and got right in Reid’s face. “That’s what you think! You
think
you know someone. Love them with everything you have and then they decide they’re better off without you and they leave. That’s reality, kid! So don’t go thinking you’re fucking special and the rules don’t apply to you.”

Reid’s temper flared and he raised his voice to match. “Think I’m
special
? Where the hell would I ever get a stupid idea like that? Sure as fuck wouldn’t be from you. You never let me forget I was only as good as my next win.”

“That’s because it’s the truth! We’re fighters, Reid! It’s who we are, what defines us.”

Reid lost the battle with controlling himself and let his emotions run. Yelling back, just like in his younger years, he said, “I love fighting, but being a fighter is
not
the only thing I am! It’s
not
all I’m good at!”

“Oh really?” Stan’s voice finally leveled out, but just because he wasn’t yelling didn’t make his response any less acrimonious. “I suppose you’re referring to your silly sketches and sculpting now. That’s just what every woman wants is a grown man who plays with clay all fucking day. Gimme a break.”

Old feelings of inadequacy bubbled to the surface, threatening to choke the breath from his body. Reid knew he’d gotten past all of his dad’s bullshit years ago, but for whatever reason, when it came to dealing with his old man, Reid felt like that insecure kid all over again.

His dad cursed, sank into the vinyl desk chair again, and dragged both hands down his tired looking face. “You do what you want. It’s your life. But if you came to get my advice, here it is: You’ve got life by the balls, kid. You’ve got fame, fortune, and you can get laid all you want without any attachments. Keep it that way…and spare yourself the heartache.”

Reid scoffed and opened the office door, shaking his head. He’d known this visit wouldn’t go well, but his conscience wouldn’t let him blow off his old man regardless. Sometimes he wished his conscience was like the grasshopper from Pinocchio. That way when it caused him to do stupid shit like this, he could squash it under his heel.

“Thanks for the pep talk, Pop,” he tossed over his shoulder on his way out. “As always, it’s been a pleasure.”

Chapter Sixteen

Reid strode into the apartment and made a beeline to the fridge. He grabbed two bottles of beer, downed the first in seconds, and then cracked the second one open as he headed onto the balcony.

Since the place was dark, he figured Lucie was still at the bar with Vanessa, which was perfect because his mind was a jumble of things and he needed time to straighten it all out. He took a giant swig of the cold liquid and wished it could cool his emotions from the inside. Maybe he’d break his diet for one night and get stone drunk. Numb himself for a few hours so he didn’t have to think about his upcoming fight or the fact that he had to leave Lucie in a few short days.

Hell, he hadn’t even told her yet. Every time he tried his gut tightened and he ended up kissing her instead. And that sure as shit never led to a conversation. Not one of words anyway.

Lucie.

What the hell was he going to do about her? He’d never felt for any woman even a fraction of what he felt for her. He loved being
with
her, and he certainly loved her as a person…then again he could say the same for Butch, but what he felt for her was a hell of a lot stronger than that of his trainer. But as far as being
in
love with her? Reid had no idea how he was supposed to know that.

He frowned and took another drink of his beer. Stone drunk was definitely starting to sound better and better.

“You look way too serious for a beautiful night like this.”

Startled, he spun around, ready to berate her for sneaking up on him…when he got a look at the sexiest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

She stood in the open doorway to the balcony, hands braced on either side of the doorjamb, and one leg cocked up on the ball of her foot. Until that moment, if asked what he thought the sexiest thing a woman could wear would be, he would’ve said see-through lingerie.

But Lucie in nothing but one of his dress shirts that covered her from shoulders to midthigh blew away anything she could’ve picked from Victoria’s Secret. Her hair was loose and full like he’d already plowed his fingers through it and she had a sparkle in those silvery eyes that spoke volumes.

“Speaking of beautiful,” he rasped.

She began to back away slowly, but beckoned him to follow with a crook of her finger. Draining the last of his beer he reentered the apartment and closed the sliding glass door without taking his eyes from her. When she disappeared around the corner toward the bedrooms he set his empty bottle on the table, kicked his sport sandals off, and strode down the hall until he found her standing in front of her bed.

Just before he crossed the threshold she held out her palm and said, “Wait,” effectively stopping him in his tracks. “You can come in here on one condition.”

He flexed and fisted his hands, trying to control his instinct to pounce. “And what’s that?”

“You do as I say. The minute you break my rules, everything stops.”

A slow smile stretched across his face. She was trying her hand at seduction. He inclined his head. “I agree.”
For now
, he added mentally.

“Then come here and kiss me.”

One slow, deliberate step at a time he stalked her, trying to see if he could get the upper hand right away with intimidation. He had no intentions on making her first attempt at control a cakewalk. He was going to test her. Push her. See if she could keep him in line. Oh yeah, he thought as he reached her, this was going to be fun.

He slid a hand to her nape and wrapped his other arm around her middle just before he took her mouth. And man did he take it. Fisting her hair he angled her head and thrust his tongue inside and consumed her. Her body melted into his and he wondered if her foray into the land of seduction wasn’t already over.

No sooner had the thought taken wing when she pushed on his chest enough to break his hold on her. They stared at each other, chests heaving with shallow breaths. Her ruby lips, properly swollen from his kiss, beckoned. She was mere inches away and he wanted her so damn bad. The fighter in him yanked on the chains of restraint he’d agreed to, wanting to take back the upper hand, take back the control.

And yet he waited.

Waited until those bee-stung lips spread into the sexiest wicked smile. One that promised him rewards of the most lascivious kind, which just so happened to be his favorite. Maybe patience was a virtue after all.

She walked him around until his back was to the bed. Grabbing the hem of his T-shirt, she slowly pulled it up his body. Her knuckles barely grazed his skin and yet it felt like they shot bolts of electricity straight to his balls. Once she divested him of his shirt she laid her hands on his shoulders and moved them over every inch of his torso, her fingers undulating over the ridges of his muscles as if committing them to memory.

Next they worked on his belt and the fly of his jeans. He’d been halfway hard just from seeing her in his shirt and kissing her senseless, but with her hands so close and the anticipation of events to come, it was now fully on board and straining to get out.

As she dragged his jeans down his legs she knelt on the floor sending erotic snapshots to his brain of all sorts of possibilities with her in that position. Once his jeans were gone her hands ran back up his thighs and her gaze raised to his. Her mouth was so close to his cock he could feel the warmth of her breath seep through the cotton of his boxer briefs, making him harder than he ever thought possible.

Her eyes never left his as she dragged her lower lip up the length of him and then used her teeth to lightly graze over the head. He growled in the back of his throat and his dick jerked in response. “Ah, fuck. You’re killing me,” he ground out.

She smiled up at him, clearly proud of herself, as well she should be. Either she was a natural who’d come out of her shell, or he was a better teacher than he thought.

Her fingers hooked his underwear and a second later he was standing before her, completely naked, his hard-on jutting out from his body to point directly at what it wanted. Her normally soft gray eyes were like molten silver, burning him as they visually groped his erection.

Lightly she used the tips of her fingers to explore its contours from root to tip. The glide of her skin and soft graze of her nails as they trailed across the swollen head of his cock drove him to near insanity. Instinctually Reid’s hands wrapped themselves in her hair, ready to guide her sweet mouth over him.

“No,” she said firmly. “Grab the bedposts.”

He gave her a wry smile as he followed her orders. He’d forgotten who was supposed to be in charge. Force of habit.

“Keep your hands there. If you move them, I stop whatever I’m doing and back away.”

When she raised her eyebrows as though to ask if he understood the consequence of disobeying, he nodded. Then added a silent prayer that he not explode the moment her lips finally touched him for the first time.

Settling back on her feet, she wrapped one delicate hand around the base of his cock, angling it down to her mouth. A drop of precum seeped from the tip. If he’d thought she’d be hesitant or shy about something so visceral, he’d have been wrong. Instead, a hunger gleamed in her storm-gray eyes as she lapped up the bead in one long lick. He hissed in a breath, the feel of her silken tongue combined with seeing her—not just any woman, but
his
woman—on her knees in front of him rating as the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced.

At last she opened that sweet mouth of hers and encased him as far as she could go, her tongue swirling and massaging, her cheeks hollowing from the suction she made with her ruby lips with every retreat before sinking over him again.

The next minutes shattered into fragments of eternity as she worked him over with the sweetest kind of torture. Her hot mouth and sinful tongue had all six hundred and forty of his muscles strung tight as a bow. At one point he feared snapping her bedposts in half, but was unable to relinquish his white-knuckle hold for fear she’d stop and he’d lose what little sanity he had left.

The ecstasy she gave him was like someone dropping a match into a room full of fireworks. It started with only one or two little flares, but those in turn set off the ones next to them, and so on and so on, until his entire body felt like a fucking Fourth of July finale.

His climax hit him so fast and hard that he had no chance of warning her. He tried to do the gentlemanly thing and pull back, but she grabbed his ass and dug her fingers in as she swallowed him deep. Any polite inclinations he’d had went up in smoke with the bite of her nails in his flesh and, throwing his head back and his hips forward, he roared as he came until she’d taken every little bit he had to give.

As the stars disappeared from his vision, Lucie stood and backed away slowly, running her fingers over the open throat of the shirt she wore.

“What are up to now, woman?”

“I took care of you.” She sat demurely on the upholstered bench for the vanity that sat directly across from her bed. “Now I’m going to take care of me.”

“I believe that’s my privilege,” he said, releasing the posts.

Before he could advance she ticked a finger back and forth. “Ah-ah-ah. Be a good boy and stay right where you are.”

“Boy?” he scoffed. “Let me come over there and I’ll show you just how much of a man I really am, sweetheart.”

She undid fingers the lowest button on the shirt. Then the next, revealing her blue silk panties. She gave him a wicked smile and said, “If you want to prove to me just how much of a man you are, then you’ll fight the instincts gnawing at you and stay right. Where. You. Are.”

Fucking smart. Now if he moved he was branding himself a pussy. And all because he wanted
hers
more than he wanted to breathe in that moment. When this was over he was telling her in no uncertain terms that he’d be the one doing the seducing from now on. As hot as it was to watch her in this role, he was too much of a control freak when it came to sex. After this, he’d be calling the shots during their hot interludes. He could hardly wait.

Then it hit him. There wasn’t much time left to make love to her. Depending on their schedules they’d have a few more times together, tops. The realization hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, damn near knocking the wind right out of him.

Don’t think of that right now.
He didn’t want anything to taint what precious time he did have with her. He was going to make every second count until the final bell rang.

“As you wish, princess.”

Another button was released, as was a warm laugh. “I love that movie. So now you’re my farm boy, is that it?” He waggled a brow in answer making her chuckle again, but then she cocked her head to the side and sobered again. “You know, as cute and heroic as Wesley is, I can’t bring myself to pretend you’re anyone else.” The last button holding the shirt together slipped through its hole and the sides fell open to reveal her perfect breasts. “You, Reid Andrews, are exactly who I want.”

Although his brain tried to tell him she only meant here and now—because it wasn’t a secret who she truly wanted for the long haul—he couldn’t stop his heart from leaping in his chest.

“That’s good, Luce. ‘Cause you’re exactly who I want, too.”
Now, and every day after that.

Shit, he had to stop thinking like that. He had to stop thinking period and give himself over to the moment. To the woman he had
in
this moment.

“Mmm,” she moaned as she tweaked her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. “How much?”

His eyes were glued to her breasts as she continued to stroke and fondle them. “How much what?” he croaked.

She leaned back against the wall. One hand slid down her flat stomach to her pussy and rubbed over the thin, blue material. “How much do you want me?”

Reid’s entire body vibrated with the effort it took to keep himself locked in place. His hands fisted with the itch to touch her satiny skin. His mouth watered at the thought of sucking on the taut peaks of her breasts and lapping at the cream between her legs.

Pulling the panties to the side she used her other hand to massage the supple lips of her pussy, slipping a finger between them to delve into the wetness. She looked like something out of his wet dreams. Ass perched on the edge of the seat and leaning back with her shoulders pressed to the wall. His shirt open and barely clinging to her shoulders with her hair spilling on either side of her neck. And her slender legs were spread wide, raised on the balls of her feet, while her fingers explored his promised land.

“Bad.” His voice was pitched lower than usual and he noticed it sounded more than a little growly. The woman brought out his animalistic side like no other.

Her middle finger slid deep inside, her eyes closed and back arched as it swirled around. When she removed it her body relaxed once more and her eyelids fluttered open. Then she pinned him with a sultry stare as she brought that finger up to her mouth and painted her lower lip with her juices.

He heard a loud groan and it took him a second to realize it had come from him.

“How bad?” she asked before licking her lip with the tip of her raspberry tongue.

“So goddamn bad it hurts.” Reid glanced down at his cock already strained to its limits so soon after she’d made him come with her mouth, then looked back up at her. “Literally.”