The Gideon Affair Page 8

  He put his hands on the counter to either side of her as he leaned heavily and ground his pelvis on her softness. At first, she stayed motionless, but he could hear her breathing getting rapid and shaky.

  Goddamn, what a view. The short, nearly transparent top she wore exposed her lower back and the super-sensitive spot at the base of her spine that his fingers itched to caress.

  Bet I could make her moan by kissing and then licking her there.

  “What are you doing, Edward?”

  Stupid question, please meet a direct answer. “I’m admiring your beautiful ass, babe.” He emphasized this admiration with a gentle thrust of his hips. “And imagining what it looks like naked.”

  That was all it took, some dick-to-ass-grinding and a couple of simple words, and she was his.

  She whimpered softly. Her arms reached across the counter, palms down with nothing to hold on to after she’d flattened against the cold marble. Edward wondered if the coolness made her nipples harden and surged against her bottom, this time with growing need.

  Some part of him that he barely knew, the essence of primal man that must live in every guy’s core, took over.

  Stretched out under him with legs trembling against his, her bottom pushed back as he teased her with his body—she gave off a certain virgin sacrifice vibe that turned his already raging cock to stone. Painful, throbbing stone.

  A deep grunt rumbled up from his chest right before the animal inside bent down, sinking his teeth into her neck and shoulder. Her cry as he bit the soft flesh signaled a surrender that filled him with unspeakable pleasure.

  After giving her neck a thorough mauling, he nipped at her earlobe and growled next to her ear. “Do you want me inside you, Paige?” He pressed against her rather forcefully and gave three quick thrusts—a taste of what he had in store. “Want me to fill you up and take away the ache with my hard cock?”

  Her hands moved, fingers wide, but there was nothing but smooth stone beneath her. She was helpless. Whimpering and panting softly. Shaking all over.

  His reaction? Animalistic.

  Time for the shorts to go.

  Wrapping a hand into her long mass of hair, he gathered a good handful and sharply yanked her head up. She gasped and tried to look back at him, but he was having none of that. The moment would come soon enough when he’d demand she look at him, but till then, they would play by his rules. Caveman rules said he took and she surrendered.

  Putting his other hand flat on her back, he ordered her to do as he said.

  “You’re not to move.” A sharp tug on her hair made her gasp. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Pushing her flat again, he gently moved her hair away from the side of her face and pushed it aside, baring her neck.

  He knew damn well the power of a simple touch, and he had gentled his after the rough reminder of who was in charge. Her eyes briefly drifted closed when his fingers softly stroked her neck, and he’d gritted his teeth from the effort of expressing any sort of tenderness. With the thunderous lust racing through him, he was struggling not to ravish the holy fuck out of her ass.

  Edward reached under her and found the snap and zipper to her shorts, making fast work of the mechanics so he could get her naked as quickly as possible. But not too quickly. The masterpiece of her tight ass with the beautifully curved cheeks and the way her back arched was so damn perfect he wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible.

  “Fuck.” He groaned when the shorts were gone, and all she had on from the waist down was a sexy scrap of white silk. There was something so fucking cool about the way she spread out on the damn counter in his kitchen. Talk about a feast.

  He stepped back and Paige objected with a displeased, “Oh.”

  “Be still,” he drawled.

  Edward taunted her by putting his fingers inside the elastic of her panties as if he was set to pull them off but never did. It was more fun watching her squirm and seeing the way her skin prickled from his teasing touches.

  Had she said something? He leaned close, keeping one of his big hands on her ass. He slowly rubbed while he asked, “Have something to say?”

  This time, she shifted slightly and looked back at him, her eyes smoky and hooded.

  “Please …”

  He smiled. So polite … but was she wet? Hmm.

  This time when he straightened and stepped back, she widened her stance, begging with her body and not just her words.

  Running a hand over the enormous erection straining the front of his tailored slacks, he enjoyed the tantalizing view she made. Breathing heavily, he gripped and squeezed his cock.

  Giving his sex one final tug, he immediately moved his hand to the space between her legs and cupped her silk covered mound from behind. The heat that rushed into his hand was like waving a red flag before a raging bull.

  The scrap of silk was also damp. Pretty Paige and her sexy badass had a dripping pussy begging him to enjoy thoroughly.

  He laughed when she shimmied against the fingers rubbing her covered slit.

  “Someone can’t wait,” he smirked. Grabbing hold of her mound, he ground his hand against her, adding silkily, “Or did you start without me, hmm?”

  It’d be so easy to make her come but ramping her level of arousal higher with a bit of denial would make her climax, when he allowed it, even sweeter.

  “Edward,” she muttered rather sternly when he changed course completely and dropped to his knees behind her.

  Ah-hahahaha. Yeah, right!

  He enjoyed that straight-laced, almost prudish thing she had going, but that shit wasn’t going to fly once his blood started pumping.

  “No, babe. We do things my way. Besides,” he murmured right before he kissed the flesh on her ass, “you want me to lick your lovely pussy, don’t you?”

  He should have kept score of her whimpers. Letting her know he intended to feast on her sweet clit and lap the flood of arousal making her deliciously wet was like lighting a fire and then adding kerosene after the blaze was already almost out of control. She couldn’t help the sounds she made any more than he could.

  Growling, he put his hands around each of her ankles, forced her legs apart, and inhaled sharply when her scent invaded his senses.

  Running his hands slowly upward—exploring, caressing, and tantalizing every inch of skin—was exquisite torture. For both of them. Her breathing got erratic when his touch reached the back of her knees. Discovering all of Paige’s sweet spots, the ones that made her purr and cry out, was an endless delight.

  Lightly tonguing the delicate skin made her shiver and him groan. The groaning and quivering continued as his mouth joined his hands on the sides, back, and inside of her beautiful legs. By the time his hands framed the masterpiece of all asses, they were both hanging by a thread.

  First, he kissed both ass cheeks. When she whimpered and squirmed, he changed it up and licked the exposed skin, blowing on the wet trails until her flesh prickled with goosebumps. When he was sure she was in the zone, the animal took over again and bit down hard, neatly marking her.

  She cried out, and that, as they say, was it for him.

  Swiftly rising, his feral growl filled the silence. With one brutish tug, he ripped her panties in two, giving him full access to the part of her that was driving him mad.

  He didn’t know how his pants ended up around his ankles, and he didn’t care. Using his feet to kick her legs further apart, he grunted like a wild beast and ran his fingers through her wet heat, telling her in the most vulgar of terms how much he wanted her pussy.

  Jesus. They weren’t even naked; it was broad daylight, and they were in the kitchen without a soft surface, much less a bed, anywhere in sight. The desire that gripped him by the balls had him lining up his thick cock so he could drive home and bury his entire manhood in her succulent body.

  As he pushed forward, watching the fat head of his hungry cock stretch her body’s entrance to accommodate his size, he groaned.


  “Edward,” she growled.

  He couldn’t hold back. Couldn’t stop from pushing deeper until her heat enveloped his sex and his balls rubbed against her ass so he could lose himself in the enjoyment of the slick evidence of her pleasure coating his flesh. She was amazing. Her body, a heaven of pleasure. There was only one thing left to do … fuck her until she came all over his cock and then he’d empty inside her and …

  “Edward! Earth to Edward—come in!”

  Paige was punching his arm and snapping her fingers an inch from his face.

  What the hell?

  Edward shook his head and looked around. Yeah, he was in the kitchen. With Paige. But they weren’t mid-fuck, and she was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “You’ve got to kidding,” she snapped into the phone. Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose as if that would help this train wreck, Paige considered screaming at the top of her lungs. It was so much worse than Edward knew, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to tell him that.

  “Mickey, take a breath before you drop from lack of oxygen, okay?”

  Listening while the enraged agent went on and on about liars and payoffs and what he kept referring to as dick-riders, she kept an eye on Edward. He was wandering in and out of the study where she’d settled to work the phones and check the social media sites on her iPad.

  Watching his restless pacing kept her thinking about the downright weird thing that had happened earlier. One minute, she’d been thinking out loud about Joann’s part in all this, and the next, she’d been on the receiving end of a covetous look and what must have been one hell of an erotic fantasy. Bringing him back from wherever he’d gone in his mind had taken real effort … and a smack on the arm.

  And she wasn’t making shit up by assuming he’d been thinking naughty thoughts about her. From the second she stood next to him on the beach, there had been this unsettling sexual energy swirling around and through them. It was as though some paradigm shifted in the makeup of their personal relationship, like a ten point five on the Richter scale was shaking everything up.

  When he came back from wherever his mind had wandered, he’d made that face. The one she knew was a mixture of self-deprecation and embarrassment—and earnestly confessed, “I should apologize now for what I was just thinking.”

  “That bad, was it?” she’d asked with a sly smirk.

  He’d made the funniest face and had replied, “Depends on whose point of view we’re talking.”

  She sure as hell hoped she was on the receiving end of whatever debauchery had him in thrall. The librarian fell off her book stool laughing when Paige shivered slightly.

  With the tension between them eased, she chose to compartmentalize the sexual attraction and get down to business. She was in full damage control mode by the time she’d gotten organized and reached Mickey on the phone.

  Just as she had feared from the scattered details Edward had provided, they were passengers on a lumbering caboose that was far behind the engine of a speeding train. She couldn’t believe how much fuckery had gone down in just one afternoon.

  It ended up that the shit was already hitting the fan before Edward had exited the interview earlier in the day. Dave had been right with the brow-raising insinuation that the cowgirl getting her yeehaw on in the video being called Shaw Me the Way was supposedly none other than Gideon’s leading lady, Joann Jones.

  Mickey was on fire and taking names. Swearing in Russian, he pretty much left Paige speechless with his display of outraged anger. Despite his reputation as a shark, Mikhail Demetri Klein was an old-school gentleman at heart who viewed the trend of public vulgarity with disdain.

  He was furious that his mishpocheh was being dragged through the mud. It had taken almost a year for Paige to figure out what the expression meant, and she still wasn’t sure of the origin or correct spelling, but the intent was clear enough.

  Family. It fit in some bizarro-world way. They were a family, an unusual trio for sure, but Edward, Mickey, and she had been a tight unit from the start. And over the years, they had developed an extraordinary friendship.

  Mishpocheh, indeed.

  Paige shoved back into the cushiony loveseat and put her feet up on the coffee table. Her brain was frying from the overload. Popping a mint into her mouth, she absently sucked, moving the small circle around her mouth as she concentrated.

  Edward sharked into the room and made a circuit, pretending to dump an armload of dog-eared scripts in a basket near his favorite recliner. Didn’t he realize how obvious he was being?

  He looked around for a second without ever making eye contact then swam away. Wouldn’t take long for him to reappear.

  Maybe I should make him sit the heck down, she thought. All this back and forth was making her mental and really did feel like he was circling in the water—either waiting to strike or better yet, eat her up.

  Ooooh. That didn’t sound so bad. The eat me part.

  Before the lewd thought burst into full bloom in her mind, Mickey said something that cut through her distracted reverie like a hot knife through butter. Wiggling frantically, she sat up and slammed her feet on the floor.

  “… and-seriously-who-the-hell-is-that-old-tart-trying-to-fool? I-can’t-believe-Harvey’s-team-or-that-busted-weave-blogger-didn’t-balls-to-the-wall-that-bitch-and-point-out-that-in-no-world-that-didn’t-involve-a-megafuckton-of-Photoshopping-could-the-derrière-riding-the-carousel-pony-be-mistaken-for-a-sixty-year-old-ass. I-mean-come-the-fuck-on-you’ve-seen-that-ass-and-it-all-but-was-branded-Grade-A-Prime-aged-for-twenty-something-years-not-a-half-a-goddamn-century …”

  Paige snickered at the thought of the blustering agent quite literally sucking all the oxygen out of a room when his mouth got going. He was exhausting.

  But he’d also just made a brilliant point—one she hadn’t considered. It was one thing to question the identity of the partially obscured man. But it was impossible not to see an up close and personal view of some woman’s ass and not have a sense of how old she might be. Ballparking it, of course, but on this point Mickey was right. There was no way that a surgically enhanced butt-ass naked body, a menopausal one at that, could pass for a woman barely in her twenties.

  “Listen-dollface-our-takeout-Thai-just-got-delivered-and-you-know-how-the-wife-is. Sheesh-all-this-mishegas-about-my-health-and-slowing-down. You-know-me-though-I-only-have-one-gear-turbo-and-if-that-makes-this-old-ass-of-mine-a-Type-A-that-just-means-I’m-the-bomb …”

  His good-natured chuckle brought a smile to Paige’s lips. The little man might operate at Mach 1 on a bad day, but he was in tiptop shape due in no small part to the firm hand of his wife. Shirley Klein was a foul-mouthed, hilariously funny, sarcastically challenged Hollywood housewife who worshiped the quirky agent’s self-styled moldy ass and had stood as a bulwark at his side for more than forty years. She was one of those ballsy veterans of the L.A. social scene who held a dim view of what she’d termed the ‘manner-less hordes’ turning the already unconventional town into a three-ring circus.

  She cut him off because, really, there was no other way to squeeze a word in with him … especially on the phone.

  “Love her face and you should be thanking your lucky stars that she puts up with you! Go and eat your dinner and relax, Mr. Klein. I need you to help me navigate this storm of perfect bullshit so count me on Team Shirley.”

  The gleefully loud, “Bah!” that echoed through the phone broke their serious mood. “Did-you-just-tell-me-to-fuck-off-young-lady? Imma-have-to-wash-your-mouth-out-with …”

  “Bye, Mickey.”

  Disconnecting the call, she dropped the phone at her side just as Edward circled around again. Only this time, he’d changed. The destroyed by sand and surf slacks he’d taken off had been replaced by a familiar sight. An old pair of jeans that made the most of his, uh … assets.

  Swallowing the thickness forming in her throat, Paige didn’t try to hide her appreciation for the sight he made.

 
; Gideon Shaw was one hot piece of ass. Edward Banning, however, was a thousand times hotter.

  A thrill slithered through her. Nobody but she and, occasionally, Mickey ever saw him like this. It was hard to explain what the difference was because, after all, Gideon and Edward were the same man. But there was a distinction—no matter how subtle. In some ways, it was about being in his natural habitat rather than the manufactured and artificial magnifying glass of his professional persona.

  The jeans molded to his perfect physique didn’t hold her attention, though. What held her attention was the perfectly fitted white t-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and impressively muscled chest that he’d halfway tucked into his waistband. Dammit, if the simple cotton tee didn’t accentuate the masculine V of his shape… but the impossible wingspan fingertip to fingertip, the tapered torso, lean hips, and sturdy legs also tickled her hormones.

  Oh, and his feet were bare.

  She swallowed hard, again.

  Pushing the refrigerator door shut with a shove of his hip, Edward juggled an armload of items he’d pulled from the cooler and prayed he didn’t drop half before making it to the island counter.

  Next, he grabbed the impressive walnut cutting board that he’d picked up from an artisan in Canada a few years back. A small perk of location shoots was the opportunity to explore many different environments, cultures, and out-of-the-way gems he wouldn’t normally visit.

  Spreading everything out across the black marble, he surveyed and made a mental list of what else he needed.

  Like something to boil the water in. Yanking a cookware organizer out from a bottom cabinet, he took a tall pot and twirled it by the handles with a flourish worthy of the Top Chefs then plunked it onto the massive professional cooktop.

  After he’d set the water to boil, he washed his hands then tucked a large kitchen towel into his waistband for an apron and got started.

  It was mindless busywork—cooking. Stalking Paige while she did what she did made him feel a bit pathetic, so he’d made a snap decision, changed into something comfortable, and headed for the kitchen.