Plus she was right. And if I hadn’t been so distracted lately, I would’ve done exactly what she’d suggested. Delaine had this way of making me forget who I was. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the connections to find out more about her, possibly even the reason she’d agreed to that contract in the first place. Maybe part of me only wanted to live in the fantasy world I’d created with her.
I mean, it didn’t change anything. I’d bought her fair and square. But if she was in trouble, maybe I could help her out. After all, a large part of what I did at Scarlet Lotus was managing our charitable donations. My mother would’ve helped her. She wouldn’t have purchased her or taken her virginity, and she probably would’ve killed me if she’d known I had, but nonetheless …
“So?” Polly asked, obviously waiting on a response from me.
I sighed. “I’ll do some digging,” I relented. “Now will you please go away and stop bothering me, you little pissant?”
“Sure thing,” she said, back to her normal cheerful tone as she practically skipped toward the door. “I was about to go over and visit with Lanie anyway. I’m sure she can use the girl time.”
“Don’t bring this up with her, Polly. I mean it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said with her hands raised in surrender.
“And you’re fucking fired, by the way.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing it was a lie, and said, “Mmm, okay. I dropped your laundry off at the dry cleaner’s. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
As soon as she was gone, I picked up the container of my uneaten lunch and chucked it in the trash. I slammed my fist down on the desk in frustration, mostly aimed at myself. I should’ve been smarter about this. I should’ve been a little less selfish, a little less perverted—a little less hard up.
I opened the contacts list on my computer and found the number I was looking for. Brett Sherman was a ruthless private investigator who I’d hired when things turned sour with Julie. I thought for sure she’d try to pull some stunt and blackmail me or something, so I’d commissioned him to do some digging to get the dirt on her before she could even try. I’d used him on occasion since then. The fucker charged an arm and a leg, but the work he did was worth every inflated penny.
I dialed the number and was pleasantly surprised when he answered on the first ring.
“Brett Sherman.”
“Brett, Noah Crawford,” I greeted him.
“Mr. Crawford! What can I do ya for?” He was obviously happy to hear from me.
“I need you to find out everything you can on a lady by the name of Delaine Talbot from Hillsboro, Illinois,” I said. “Do you need anything else?”
“An age would be nice.”
I felt even more disgusted with myself because I’d violated her in so many ways, with plans to violate her in even more ways in the future, and I didn’t even know the answer to that simple little question.
“Early twenties,” I guessed.
“That should be enough to go on. I’ll call you by the end of the week,” he said, and hung up the phone abruptly.
Sherman didn’t have the manners for pleasantries, but I was fine with that because I knew he’d go right to work the second the call ended.
“Noah!” David barged into my office, un-fucking-announced and un-motherfucking-invited.
“What do you want?” I said in a voice that conveyed that I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his shit.
“Do I have to want something to come have a chitty-chat with my friend?” he asked with an arrogant grin as he sat down in a chair and propped his feet on my desk.
“You and I haven’t been friends for a long time, David. And I doubt we ever really were.” I leaned across the desk and knocked his feet down. And I was none too nice about it, either.
“Oh, don’t be that way, Noah,” he said with a mock pout. “You don’t still have your panties in a twist over that Janet girl, do you?”
“Julie, and fuck you.”
“No, fuck you,” he said as if he was insulted. “I can’t believe you let a chick come between us, man. Whatever happened to bros before hos?”
“Chitty-chat time is over, Stone. Get out or I’ll throw you out,” I said between clenched teeth.
David stood and started for the door. “I swear, I don’t know why you’re still so bent out of shape over that slut. I told you, man. Or at least I
tried
to tell you. They’re all gold-diggin’ whores. Hit it and quit it, love ’em and leave ’em … whatever,” he said with a shrug. “Just don’t get emotionally attached, and never
ever
let them see you sweat, my brother.”
I scoffed. “Like I’d take relationship advice from you.”
“Say what you want about me, but the ladies are clawing at each other to get all up on my jock.” He grinned and then grabbed his junk. “Just wait until you see my date for the ball. Whew! She is one hell of a looker,” he said with a wink.
“Hooker is probably more like it,” I mumbled as he walked out.
I could hear the smug bastard boisterously greet Mason like they were old college buddies, and it made my eye twitch in aggravation. I really hated him. Our whole lives, he’d just had to have anything I had. I’d thought it was one of those things that best friends did, but David took that to a whole other level. My friends, my girl, even my company—he wanted it all.
Well, I had something he could never have. I had Delaine. And I’d be damned if I’d ever let him anywhere near her.
I’d had enough for the day, so I picked up the phone and told Samuel to bring the car around. It wasn’t like I was getting anything done anyway. I packed up and told Mason to call me if anything needed my immediate attention. I couldn’t wait to see Delaine for a bit of stress management, and I was pacing like a madman by the time Samuel arrived.
He opened the door of the limousine for me to step inside and asked, “Where to, sir?”
“Home, and when we get there, make sure the staff take the rest of the day off,” I told him. “I’d like a little bit of alone time with Delaine.”
“Mr. Crawford, sir, Lanie left with Polly. They went shopping for a gown for the ball, I believe.”
“Samuel, have you forgotten your place?” I asked in a calm voice, because he’d just called her Lanie and that wasn’t at all like him. “Her name is Delaine.”
“My apologies, sir, but she asked me to call her Lanie.”
My jaw clenched and I reached out and slammed the door shut myself. I shouldn’t have been upset with him, because it wasn’t his fault. He was just doing what he’d been asked to do, as usual. But damn it all to hell if I wasn’t royally pissed the fuck off that it seemed everyone else on the damned planet was calling her by such an informal name, yet she’d never asked me to do the same. You’d think the guy that was getting balls-deep in her would be awarded that privilege.
It was around five o’clock that afternoon when Polly finally dropped her off and she strolled through the door. I hadn’t bothered to call and tell her that I would be home early, so she was surprised when she opened the door to find me sitting on one of the benches in the foyer. My knee was bouncing like crazy and my hair was mussed from my having practically pulled it out by the roots in my impatience.
“Oh! Noah,” she said with a look of shock. “I wasn’t expecting you home so early.”
“Obviously,” I said with a bit of resentment to my voice. “Where the fuck have you been, Delaine?”
“I went shopping with Polly. She said there’s some sort of company function this weekend and insisted I have a new dress tailored,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“I told you that I wanted to know where you are at all times. Why didn’t you call me?” I realized that I sounded like a madman, but damn it, I was pissed.
Silence fell around us as she continued to stare at me like she expected my head to explode. “Bad day?” she asked after what seemed like an eternity.
I dropped my head and looked at the floor. “Yeah, you could say that,” I mumbled.
Delaine set her bags down and walked over to where I sat. When I wouldn’t look up at her, she knelt down in front of me and searched my face. Without a word, she cupped it in her hands and pressed her lips to mine. What started out as a sweet kiss that was meant to calm me down quickly spiraled into a heated exchange of desperation.
“God, I missed you, too,” she mumbled between kisses. I let pass without comment the fact that she hadn’t said my name in place of “God,” because I couldn’t really make myself care about that shit when she was rubbing all up on me and pressing her tits as close as she could get them to my chest.
She shoved my jacket off my shoulders, and as I shrugged out of it, she went straight for my belt buckle. Then she made quick work of my pants and pulled the waistband of my boxer briefs away to reveal my cock. Of course I was already hard for her because that was what she did to me.
A tiny mewl escaped her luscious pink lips when she looked me over. Then, without even pulling my underwear down, she
grabbed me by the base of my dick and plunged it into the hot, deliciously wet cavern of her mouth. I hissed when I felt her teeth barely scrape my length. She was looking up at me and her plump lips were wrapped around my cock, moving back and forth like she was starving to death. Then she closed her eyes and hummed like my dick was the best damn thing she’d ever tasted. It was a divine sight.
“Delaine,” I said on a breath, caressing her cheek with the back of my hand.
Saying her name like that reminded me of how I was apparently the only motherfucker who called her that. But again, I let that shit go, because I could feel the head of my dick hitting the back of her throat with each pass she made. Plus her moans, intermingled with the wet sucking sounds coming from her efforts, echoed through the empty space that surrounded us. The foyer had really great acoustics.
“Harder, baby. Suck me harder.”
She moaned around my dick and then met the challenge. She repositioned herself so that she had a better angle and went to fucking work on my cock. Faster, harder—and, son of a bitch, she was even going deeper. I could’ve put my hands on her head to help her, but it was all her. I wanted her to do it on her own.
She abruptly slowed and sank as far down on my dick as she could go. Then I felt her swallow around my cock, taking it even further into her throat. My baby could deep-throat like a motherfucker.
“Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn,” I chanted as an orgasm came out of nowhere and commenced to kick my ass.
My release was fierce and forceful as it shot out of my cock and down the back of her throat. She hummed and closed her eyes, swallowing my come and still taking my cock in further with each gulp.
“Fucking … shit … Delaine!” I gasped between pulses of my release. My heart was pounding in my chest, hard and furious.
With one long, last suck, she released me. She kissed the head of my dick, and that made it twitch, which apparently amused her because she giggled and then did it again.
“Where the fuck did you learn to deep-throat like that?” Maybe I should’ve waited until I could actually breathe again before talking, but I wanted an answer to that question immediately. “I didn’t teach you that.”
She shrugged and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Polly told me how to do it, and I thought I’d try it out. Why? You didn’t like it? Did I do it wrong?”
Polly may have redeemed herself just a little bit.
She looked so worried that it was cute. I grabbed her and kissed her hard before putting my forehead to hers. “You were perfect, Lanie. I fucking loved it.”
Yes, I called her Lanie. I wanted to see what she would say.
Her eyes went wide and she backed out of my embrace. “Delaine,” she said curtly, and then she stood, grabbed her bags, and started to walk away.
I quickly shoved my dick back in my underwear and took off after her. “Oh, so Samuel and Polly get to call you Lanie, but I can’t? What the fuck is that shit about?”
“They didn’t pay millions of dollars to own me for two
years. They are not my boss. They are my equals, just lowly servants paid to cater to your every need.”
“That’s fucked up.” I put my hands on my hips. The action drew her attention to my crotch, and her eyes lingered on the spot, my pants and belt not yet secured back in place.
“It is what it is, Noah. It is what it is.” She turned and continued up the stairs, effectively ending the conversation.
That bastard had some nerve. Using my name like that? What the hell?
I heard him taking the stairs two at a time as he ran after me, so I walked faster.
“Delaine!” he yelled, but I just kept walking. Well, I was sort of jogging by that time because I really wanted to get away from him. All of this, everything I’d been dealing with and continued to deal with, was hard enough without him making it harder. I had to get away before I totally lost it in front of him.
“Wait, goddamnit!” he yelled as I dropped my bags and took off at a full sprint.
I opened the door to a random room and slammed it shut behind me. It was pitch black in there and I had no clue where I was, but I knew that I was throwing up a blockade between me and Noah and that was all that mattered. I fumbled in the dark until I found the locking mechanism on the doorknob, and I secured it in place before turning my back and leaning against the door.
He was already there, pounding on the other side with his fists. I heard him growl in frustration, the sound almost frightening me. “If you don’t open this door, I swear by all that is holy I
will
break it down!”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now! Go away!” I said as loud as I could so that maybe he could hear me over the beating he was putting on the poor, defenseless door.
“Fine. Have it your way.”
The pounding stopped, and I sighed in relief that he had given up. I had begun to sink down to the floor when I heard what sounded like a strained battle cry from the other side, followed by a loud crash against the door that sent me tumbling forward. I managed to catch myself on my hands and knees and whipped my head around as light from the hallway spilled into the room.
Noah stood in the center of the doorway, his arms hanging at his sides, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. A shadow fell across the front of him, but I could still see the menacing look on his face. He looked almost lethal.