Going Down Read online

  I scroll up to silence those final nagging voices of doubt. The first email in the thread of discussion is from months ago.

  “Seems to check out,” I say with a tinge of caution. But a smidgeon of resignation that maybe he’s not all that bad is there, too.

  As I hand the cellphone back to him, a layer of relief mellows my features.

  “My company,” he continues with a subtle smile, “Will bring a lot of jobs to the community. These employees, and their families will benefit from it. I run a business, and I have to make profits. But my company is committed to giving back too.”

  I remain silent, but my eyes stay connected to him. Connected in a truer sense than I’ve ever felt before. I’m not going to deny that I can sense several unfamiliar emotions wash over me, and they feel a lot like the first tingles of love.

  No… this can’t be.

  I press my palms to my flushed face. Once a dreamer, always a dreamer, my brother would tease me. Maybe I’m just dreaming now, too. This feels bizarre, too good to be true. Both, the positive turn of events, and the positive twist to his persona. Is he really this person or just this person to get more?

  The emails glare as evidence, and during a discussion a few weeks ago, my brother had made an offhand remark that the owner of the new coffee shop wasn’t as bad as I was making him out to be. I do tend to be a little more jump-to-conclusions than my brother and father. To my logical side, the details all add up. My emotional side, however, is holding onto the walls and shields that linger from believing that I could do life alone. I could be that woman who didn’t need the man.

  I itch to let my guard down and placing my faith in an unpredictable 38-year-old CEO who plays hardball, but at what cost? After all, I’ve lived most of my life protecting the invisible crown that my family wears. Our crazy-huge reputation to uphold in town demands I remain a veritable people-pleaser throughout. But what about me? When have I ever done anything to please myself? It’s all been in the name of the family.

  And being overcautious has got me little in the way of adventure, with nothing wild nor whacky to show for the past twenty-five years of my life. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine that.

  As my thoughts veer into a few darker, more sin-filled paths, I lick my lips parching up from a feverish excitement that bubbles inside of me. My gaze climbs up his body, over those long legs, across his crotch that I’d swear has been at half-staff the last hour, over that hard torso, to his face.

  “I…I’m not sure I should, but for some reason, I trust you, Cash.

  “Trust?” His eyes narrow in on me, bouncing around my face and holding me frozen. “I know you trust me. It’s not just your trust I want. It’s you I want, baby.”

  8

  Cash

  Casting aside the thin mask of decency I’d kept up for the sake of civility, my gaze combs over her features, glinting with a raw lust that only a virgin offers. It’s wanton and it’s heady as fuck to me.

  I figure she’s read my intent and after her gaze settled on my crotch for more than a few seconds, she’s seen the evidence of my attraction. And it all sets off a torrid red flush across her cheeks. Her chest rises in fast shallow breaths as my palm goes up to cup her face, her lips wettened by a flick of her tiny pink tongue. Threading my fingers through her thick dark blonde locks, I grab a generous fistful, before pulling her close.

  Before she can utter her first groan, I claim her lips, brushing them softly at first and then planting to bind our bodies. Their pulpy moistness sweeter than strawberry lemonade for my parched mouth. I tip her head gently and grind her lips under mine, making it clear that I’m thirsting for more. For it all.

  She parts open her mouth, her fingers lacing into my hair. I seize the invitation, escalating the intensity. Our mouths lock in an impassioned rhythm while my tongue flicks against hers.

  For the briefest second, I hold off on my urges so I can her check her out. Her lashes remain partly closed, but she can tell I’m enjoying the sight of her quivering lips and their need to be made love to. Allowing her just enough time to surface for some breath, I return to feast on her lips once more, muffling her throaty gasps.

  The edge of my fingers trail down to the top of her zipper, and I can feel the little hairs on her back stand on end. Tugging the zipper down, I push the dress off her shoulders with the urgency of a man who hasn’t felt woman’s skin in a while.

  I angle back, admiring the sight of silk fabric cascading against silkier flesh, while she whimpers softly. “I… I’ve never done this before.” Her nervous palms wander from my shoulders to cover her exposed skin, confirming what I already knew.

  I clench down on a looming Cheshire cat grin. This woman is going to be mine and I will be hers only.

  Mine.

  I sink my lips hungrily onto her bare shoulder, nudging aside the salmon-colored bra strap. My feverish foreplay marks her skin with a faint red spot, and I pause to admire my handiwork. Fuck yes, I’m a possessive man, and I’m making no apologies for enjoying the fact that I’m the first man to have done that to her.

  I’ll be the last, too.

  “Cash…” my name rolls off her tongue like icy mint every time my teeth graze against her skin, driving my heartbeat wilder, faster, more sure.

  Tightening my grip around her waist, I drag her to my lap and trail my mouth down to nibble at the base of her neck. I pull the clothes off her and unhook the back-strap of her bra. As her clothes come off, I find myself staring at a pair of soft, generous, round breasts and the sexiest undulating womanly curves I’ve ever laid my eyes upon. Sexier than anything my imaginative mind envisioned she’d be.

  “Mine,” a low growl rumbles behind my chest as I say the word.

  No offense to the size zero supermodels, but I’ve always liked my women with plentiful curves. Maybe because I like how my hands feel against them. My hard and aggressive moves an opposite to the gentle softness and pliant nature. They mold to my will.

  My hands crawl over every inch of her like a pair of eager explorers, uncovering soft spots that she doesn’t know exist on her own body. My cock throbs furiously, pushing through the split of my boxers. Charting an erotic path through the insides of her thighs, I meander upwards to toy with the lines beneath her navel, before moving further up. Drawing a circle around her breasts, I hold them, reveling at how delicate they look in my palms. As I begin brushing her pink nipples with my thumb, she slowly drops her head back, sighing heavily. Placing a hand over her spine to prop her up, I take my mouth to her those pretty peaks, sucking and nibbling them. Instinctively aware of what she likes, and how she likes it, I set the pace, and she responds by squirming against my body from the ripples of ecstasy rolling through her.

  When she leans her forehead to my shoulder, her cheeks deeply flushed, I whisper a husky reassurance into her ear. “Stella… you’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” She blushes. Emboldened by my words, she snakes her hands from my shoulders to my collar, unbuttoning my shirt. I help her out, to speed it up. In a few seconds, I jerk the fabric down free. Wide with awe, her eyes frisk the contours of my body, before her fingers follow suit. She likes what she sees, I unbuckle my belt and pop open my trousers. I pick up her palm firmly and steer it towards on my cock, encouraging her to explore and learn as I’m doing with her.

  “Yes…” I suck a sharp breath as bombard my senses, guiding her hand over my shaft, up and down. A few strokes later, she catches onto the rhythm, pleasuring me.

  The blood in my veins burns so hot, thin sheaths of sweat envelope my skin. I tug at the waistband of her panties, a pretty salmon matching her bra, and pull it off her. “Bloody hell,” my heart halts, as I take a second to reel from the sight of her dripping and puffy pussy lips, betraying the extent of her arousal.

  My eyes hover over her rosy pink cleft, and then flit up to watch her as my fingers brush that hard nub at the apex. She gasps and then bites her bottom lip hard. She shutters her eyes closed, aware of what’s
coming her way. Pushing a finger in, I find my way to her clit and round the stiff peak in gentle circles. As her moans grow louder, I push another finger deeper in, until glistening beads of her sweetness drip down my hand. I lift her to stand until that beautiful mound is in my face.

  “Press your arms into the wall, baby.” She does as I demand and I know she always will.

  Holding her shiny petals apart, I lift my mouth up to her pussy, repeating those deft strokes with my tongue, delving deep. She grinds on my tongue. I keep one hand around her thighs and one on her bare ass, kneading the fleshy hill.

  Just as her thighs tense up, I pause, and then restart again. I make her suffer—only for moments—but I do it because she clings onto me like a scared kitten. The manicured fingernails at the tips of her fingers dig into my hair. Whimpering, begging me to release her from the torment, and shatter her in a blinding orgasm, I fight the urge to end our time. Yeah, I’m a cruel tease, and I’m enjoying it—but she’s taking the bait, willingly as well. She grinds her clit against the tip of my nose, trying to induce her orgasm and when she finally reaches her peak, she quakes in the torrential whirlwind of her body’s storm. I allow her to fall to my lap, holding her close, and kissing her, allowing her to taste the flavor of her honey on me.

  My cock stiffens to rock, craving for its thick shaft to be wrapped by her softness. But when I observe her, the speckles in her pupils flicker with hesitation. I peer into her eyes with a stern look that tells her to trust me. By the next second, those flickers disappear, and she nods with a smile of anticipation.

  The moment she does that - placing her implicit trust in me, knowing I’d care for her – is my moment of awakening. I realize she’s the one. Forever one. And mine is only the start.

  9

  Stella

  My heart beats deafeningly in my ears as I hold him tight, realizing I’m giving consent for this brute of a man to take the one thing I’ve held secret all these years. Yet, I know to my depths that I could not have asked for a better man to have experienced this wild ride with. Right from the very first moment when his whiskers brushed against my heated cheeks, it was clear we weren’t going down, we were going to ride this moment out…together.

  I’d been longing for a glimpse of the fit body hiding behind his formal suit. And my, he didn’t disappoint. I’m unable to stop my fingertips from dragging gentle patterns on the ridges of his wide shoulders and chest, down to those abs that pop like firm pillows.

  Especially, to hear those low growls when I reach the thin trail of hair running down from his beltline into his boxers. After he’s had his fill of titillation from me, he leads me by the hand, literally, towards his thick erection, and my womanly admiration for his hotness shoots up many scales. I pleasure him, yet somehow, I’m the one getting wetter.

  But what pushes me over the edge is his deadliest onslaught on my body. His tongue toys with my nipples and my clit. The man’s bought me a one-way ticket to paradise. The briefest flash of those moments in my memory is enough is enough to make my quiver all over again.

  Fuck. I had no idea I’d be in for such a treat when he casually mentioned, he ‘likes going down’. And the amount of talent in that tongue. I shiver remembering.

  “Baby, I need to be inside of you.”

  And now, as his cock desirously bulges against my entrance, I wait for a gesture, a glint, needing reassurance that it’d be ok. He responds with a look, demanding my trust - and I surrender to him, completely.

  He lifts my hips and guides the tip of his long and thick cock inside of my body, holding it there. “Relax, baby…” he kisses my forehead.

  A sharp shudder zips through me at the sound of that term. I’ve never been anyone’s baby and the way he says it reverently has me believing him. My lips stay pinched between my teeth as the feeling of him entering me leaves my clit trembling with lingering spasms. Once I relax, he moves further in.

  I quietly wince at the pressure and fullness his progress incites, but Cash takes his time, thrusting gently, bit by bit, till I’m used to the thickness of him. Finally, when he can sense my moist core is ready to take all of him, he fills me up with his manhood with one long, deep thrust.

  “Holy hell… you’re tight…” he moans into my ear.

  “Cash…” I exclaim at the sudden sensation of being filled. My hands clench his back, as he begins moving faster inside me. His hand grabs the side of my face, moving down every now and again to tease my nipples. As our lovemaking intensifies, he carries me by my hips and moves me closer to him, to fuck me deep, rubbing my clit in between his body and his cock. My skin burns from his ragged scorching breaths.

  As I sense another orgasm coming on, my pussy tightens around his cock.

  “Yes…that’s it, milk that cock. Make me come inside that wet pussy. I want to seed you and create our future, Stella.”

  I should be scared, but I’m not. I want the same things. I want to be freed from expectations. I want to live.

  He slaps his palm on the elevator wall to support us, his handprint showing through the layer of mist steaming-up the metal.

  Another wave of pleasure explodes in me and I moan loudly, pushing him over the peak. He grunts, as he bursts simultaneously. Euphoria melts through our burning veins and spreads to the rest of our torsos as we grip each other tightly.

  Eventually, he buckles, dropping his face into the crook of my neck and shoulder while his body breaks out into waves of quivers from the release of all that pent-up desire. Both of us breathlessly heave against one another, our bodies glistening with perspiration.

  He smiles through a kiss. “That was nice.”

  I smile back dreamily. “It was.”

  He picks up my clothes and hands them over to me.

  “Thank you,” I slip into my dress, while he fastens his trousers, buttons up his shirt and puts on his coat. He adjusts the cuffs, watching me trying to fiddle with my back zip with a bemused smirk. Drawing me closer, he then wraps his arms around me in an embrace and pulls up my back zipper, stealing one last long kiss of my lips while completing the task.

  As if by fate’s call, the elevator pings.

  The doors open.

  I’m about to step into the corridors, but my feet freeze to their spot. Like one of those surreal dreams that come to an abrupt stop with a strange ending, I’m peering at the face of my brother, who’s been waiting in the corridors for the lift doors to open. I hear the fantasy-bubbles pop, and reality descends like a cold shower. Following a very awkward exchange of frowns and hellos between my brother and me, Cash steps forward to usher him towards his office.

  I rush out, making my way from the building, my heels click-clacking a frantic pace on the cement outside. Not one goodbye kiss. Not one promise to see me later. Not one lingering look. Just gone. All business. And now, I’m feeling only like a transaction in his ledger. Another conquest.

  The murmured promises of how we would be together are left in the elevator.

  Later that evening, with pent up disappointment boiling through me, I stroll into the park. The events from a few hours earlier still run through my mind in a relentless loop.

  It needs a new playground installed – am I right? I remember his words, but now they seem hollow, only a wish to fulfill his basal needs.

  I fell for it.

  But a quick sweeping survey of the playground is enough to tell me that the slide needs a paintjob, one swing is out of order, and that the merry-go-round creaks a metal on metal sound that overshadows the laughter and happiness that should resound.

  I hadn’t been here in a while, and I had no idea how far some of its facilities had disintegrated. I overhear a few parents chatting amongst themselves, and a common gripe amongst them is about the state of the playground.

  “I knew you’d be here.” A husky voice caresses my ears from behind.

  A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, even before I spin around. “Cash? And how did you know I’d be here?” I cross my ar
ms on my chest and try to raise that protective shield, but it seems like it’s cheesecloth now and the holes are getting bigger.

  “Baby, I know you.” A smooth smile sweeps across his lips.

  I swallow softly. Baby. Damn, I love the way he makes that word sound. “I’m upset with you.”

  “I know. I…I didn’t know what to do with your brother there.” His fingers thread in between mine. “I should have just wrapped you in my arms and told him that you are the smartest, sweetest, sexiest woman I’ve ever met, because it’s all true, Stella.”

  “I’m so scared.”

  “You don’t have to be. I’ve got you.” He holds my cheek with a hand, and I lean against the mound of his palm. The warmth is everything I need. He pulls me in for a deep kiss. The kind that tells me what we shared wasn’t just a fling but an actual connection. Something tangible when it comes to the intangible of love and relationships.

  The shadows lift for good. The walls drop and I feel released from expectations.

  A few kids who’d been running by stop when they spot us locking lips and pull funny faces. “Ewwww” they wail in a chorus and scoot off.

  I lace my fingers in his, as we walk off from the park, sharing a silent laugh.

  “We’re going to keep your family business going, Stella.”

  “Really?”

  “What your parents have done is more than create a community, it’s created a family. And I can’t wait to be part of that family, too.”

  “One condition?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You listen to me and my ideas.”

  “Baby, you have my ear…” He bends, his lips brushing the delicate drop of my lobe. “And every other part of me. I love you, Stella.”