“Eh, matter of time.  I’m his business partner and I know that Cal’s used to being in control.  But he’s got none of that around you.  He doesn’t want to give it up so he’s just taking it slow and you should take that as a good sign.  He values his time.  He’s not the type to stand and stare and wait around for fun.  The Cal I know usually sees her, fucks her and carries on the next morning.”  Oz wagged a long finger at me.  “But not with you, lassie.”

“Charming.  But as flattered as I am, I’m not sure I can wait any longer.”  I really couldn’t.  The time preceding my return to New York had been, in an understatement, hell on earth.  I’d had the occasional fling or one-night stand in my six years away from Callum but the past year had seen nothing.  I hadn’t planned it that way.  I barely even noticed while I was at Sunstone because sex was the last thing on my mind.  I was just trying to keep myself positive enough to keep fighting – to keep battling that quicksand so I could stay above just enough to breathe, to keep myself from drowning completely in the misery.  Pleasure was a foreign concept when my daily goal was to survive long enough to get away.  It wasn’t till the flight into LaGuardia that I tallied up the months of my dry spell.  Thirteen.

Six years away from Callum, thirteen months since I’d had sex and a world of torture as I finally let myself think about how badly I needed it.

“Christ, woman.”  I must’ve been wearing the need on my face because Oz’s green eyes were suddenly staring in awe.  “He’s lucky he’s my best mate or I’d already have your dress on the floor and you naked on that wall.”

My eyebrows flashed.  “Wow.  Oz.”

“Just a man of truth,” he laughed – and apparently loud enough to get Callum’s attention because suddenly, he looked up at us with narrowed eyes.  Oz looked.  “Aw, look at the poor man.  He thinks I’m telling you things I shouldn’t be.”

“You are.”

“That is true.”

I smirked down at Callum, taking too much pleasure in his sheer discomfort.  I liked that he shook his head at me, looking pissed off when we locked eyes.  It was twisted but that familiar expression got my blood rushing to all the right spots.  Suddenly, I’d decided that I was going to get exactly what I wanted from him tonight.  I needed it.  I really did.  Soon, deep and hard, and I was willing to be a little ruthless to swing things in my favor.  Callum was the one I’d picked up that trait from.

“Keep going, Oz.  Tell me things he doesn’t want me to know.”

“Uh, I’d love to but…”

“Just pretend.  I want to get him a little angry.”

“Oh, you’re a sick little puppy, aren’t you?” Oz wet his lips with wicked fascination.  When I shrugged, he laughed.  “That’s okay, I’m good at this game.  Let’s start with a little whispering to get him nice and worked up,” he murmured, leaning in so close his long hair spilled over my arm.  He grinned when I whispered gibberish in his ear.  “Aw, you don’t like that do you?” he called down to Callum.  “I bet you like this even less.”  He draped a long arm around my shoulder, his forearm resting heavy on my breast.  My mouth dropped and I looked at Oz, who let his tongue loll visibly behind his parted lips as his fingers stroked the side of my ribs.  Callum’s stare followed Oz’s graze on my skin, looking a second from doing something.

But then he sneered and laughed.

“Fuck.  He’s trying to be good in front of the reporter lady,” Oz muttered to me before leaning into my neck.  He pushed my hair back and inhaled with deep exaggeration.  “Like roses she smells!”

Across the room, Logan paused in the middle of cleaning.  “I feel like you should stop.”

“Aw, shut it, ya bawbag!” With that utterly romantic phrase, Oz grabbed me, smashed a hot kiss on my lips and pulled me clean out of view.  I gasped, pressed to his massive chest, our whisky breath mixing as I heard table legs skidding violently downstairs.  Then came the footsteps.  My heart beat fast.  They belonged to Callum.  “Oh, I’m gonna get it,” Oz whispered giddily into my mouth.  Once we heard Callum reach the top step, Oz squeezed a handful of my hair.

And just like that, it was on.

Oz cackled the entire time as he dodged and swung with true force.  They were fighting the way I’d seen Callum do with Logan over the years – both kidding and serious at the same time.  I had no idea how it worked.  I just chalked it up to boy behavior and tonight, it had my hand shoved over my mouth, stifling laughter and the semi-real fear that turned to excitement when Callum finally cast his hot, angry stare on me.  Panting against the wall, I felt our eyes lock like magnets.  I felt the words I wanted to hear at the tip of his tongue and I waited what felt like ages for him to speak them.

“We’re going home.”

Thank.  God.

He pulled me away as Oz laughed and shook the Tarzan hair out of his face.  “Fucking right.  Now quit being a cunt and give that poor girl what you both want!”

Chapter Nine

Callum

I didn’t touch her on the way out.  I didn’t touch her during the ride back or in the elevator up to the penthouse.  I barely looked at her.  Wouldn’t let her come near me either.  I had every intention of claiming her.

She was just going to wait for it.

It wasn’t entirely out of my need to punish her for what she had me watch at The Pike.  It was partly to give her a chance to breathe – take in all the air her lungs possibly could.  Because once I sunk into her, there’d be no stopping till that body had come twice and sweated out every man’s touch beside mine.

“Go on.”

I had Lake walk ahead of me into the apartment when the elevator doors opened.  She didn’t hesitate but I could see her body tightening with every neat step across the marble foyer.  At the lounge, she’d had a clear idea of what was going to happen when we got home but I could tell now that she’d lost grasp of the situation.  I’d reclaimed her comfort, taken back the controls.  She got us to this point but now her body would wait for my prompt, respond only to me.  It had always been a decadent back and forth with us.

Watching her, I thought of where I wanted her¸ which part of the penthouse best suited the way I needed to claim her tonight.  When she paused and looked over her shoulder at me, her flushed lips parted and her hair spilling down her back, I knew.  “Where to?”

“Upstairs.”

My stare raked up her smooth thighs as she walked ahead of me.  She was walking sex.  I suppressed a groan because just when I thought my arousal had pulsed to its ceiling, it found a second wind.  I undid my belt, having swelled an inch for every one her skirt hiked up before my eyes.  For Christ’s sake, I had never felt bigger in my life.  I slid the poor condom out of my wallet.  The steel between my legs was about to put it to work.

“Where now?”

“Left.”

A grin tugged my lips when I saw her hesitate.  She hadn’t seen this room before.  It was the only one in the apartment to which I kept the door shut.  Before tonight, it was because it was a shame to the rest of my home.  It was big, empty, undecorated.  A blank slate despite the fact that I’d moved in more than a year ago.  I just hadn’t had the vision for it.  Save for two pieces, it was bare – no tables, no chairs, no paintings or shelves.  But tonight, it was the room I needed Lake in.

She gave the sexiest laugh I’d ever heard upon stepping into it.

“Let me just guess where you want me.”  There was an irresistible mix of surprise and arousal in her voice as she took in the room’s twin pieces of décor – two antiqued-glass mirrors the size and shape of my enormous windows.  Lake chose one and walked up to it, hitting me with those bedroom eyes through the reflection.  Once she was in front of the mirror, she looked at its counterpart to our left.  Her tongue ran over her lip when she realized my intention: to drink in her beauty from head to toe, and at every angle because anything less was a shame and a waste.  If I had a view of her gorgeous back, her spectacular front and her perfect side, I had everything I wanted.