Page 24 of Bride on the Dotted Line (Blackstone Center #1)

“Sienna.” Oh my God. His voice is in tatters. It’s the vocal equivalent of the look he gave me after the kiss at our wedding: barely controlled lust, a cavernous want eating him from the inside. “Tell me to stop.”

My whole body is on fire. “No. I won’t.”

“You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Fucking ever, Sienna.” He makes a ragged sound. “Tell me to stop.”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to need you to touch yourself, sweetheart. I need to hear it, or I’m going to go over there and do it myself.”

It’s a command. It’s a threat. The space between my legs heavies, my muscles clenching around nothing. Tense with desire. I don’t have to consider it.

“Okay. Yes.” My fingers ease beneath the elastic of my panties, teasing the spot Nick’s fingers only grazed after the charity gala, the spot that’s been screaming for his touch ever since. “I will if you will.”

I hear his covers shift on the other end, his exhale. He gives me a shaky laugh. “I’ve been wanting you for so long. I’m going to lose it if I’m not careful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

My heartbeat quickens, every part of me straining with a deep anticipation I’ve never felt before. I glide my fingers up the outside of my slit, shivering at the pleasure already building inside. I don’t give a second thought to whether he and I should be doing this. It feels right.

Through my phone speaker, Nick makes a husky noise, so quiet I almost don’t hear it. “Those little sounds you’re making are killing me, Sienna.”

“Tell me—tell me more of what you’ve been picturing,” I say. “Since I came here.”

“You want more?” He lets go of an uneven breath.

“Okay. When we got to Fiji, and I told you where your room was, all I could think about was coming in with you. Pressing you up against that door before you could close it.” His voice drops even deeper.

“I wanted to pin you there. Slide my hands into your skirt, find out if you were already wet for me.”

I squeeze the muscles of my thighs, biting my lip to keep from whimpering as I slide a finger inside me, then two. I wish they were his. “I was ready for you,” I tell him. “Every night, Nick. I can barely look at you without getting wet.”

“Fuck, Sienna.”

The truth falls from my mouth faster than my brain can keep up.

“When I first moved in, I saw you by accident, getting out of the shower. I was looking for my room and I saw you. Shirtless, with a towel around your waist.” I grind the heel of my hand into my clit, scooping my fingers up inside me, and it feels so good my voice falters.

“That— oh my God —that was the first night I touched myself thinking about you.”

His groan shakes through me like an earthquake. “Are you touching yourself now?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Despite the longing ache in his voice, I can hear his smile. “I can’t believe little miss follow the contract was spying on me.”

“I …”

“Yes or no, Sienna.”

I gulp. “Yes.”

Nick makes a sound in the back of his throat that has me squirming. I picture him in his bed, chest bare, hand working up and down.

Nick. My Nick.

“Keep talking,” he says. “You’re only a few steps away. I won’t be able to stop myself from going over there if you don’t keep talking.”

A shudder rolls through me. My orgasm is close enough to make me reckless, the craving flooding my body and taking over my voice. I know I’m pushing the boundaries. I’m past caring. I need Nick on top of me, finally taking me, moving inside me, stretching me …

“What if I want you to come here?” I say.

He growls—actually growls . “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I do mean it.” I move my hand between my thighs, panting. “I want you here with me.”

“The contract.”

“I know. I need the money. You need control of the company.”

Nick huffs a strained laugh. It sounds almost bitter. “I don’t care about the company.”

My hand stills, eyes flying open to the darkness of my room. “You don’t?”

There’s a silence, like he’s holding back, afraid to say more. But then he says, “I—I did care about my legacy, before. About what’s expected of me. But things have changed. I don’t care about the company, Sienna. I don’t give a fuck about the company.”

“Nick—”

“I care about you.”

I’m speechless. My eyes roam the ceiling, the weight of his words hitting me. “Nick …”

“You’re everything, Sienna.” He’s talking quickly, like he can’t stop himself.

“I shouldn’t—but I—I told myself I’d wait.

I’ve spent weeks preparing to be a CEO, and all I can think about is you.

Giving you what you need to be okay. The contract— my contract—isn’t about the company anymore.

It’s about making sure you’re good, baby. ”

My cheeks are scorching, my airway too small to form words.

“And if I do what I’ve wanted to do for weeks …

if I come to your room …” Nick’s voice falters.

“You don’t get the money. You don’t get your chance at a new life.

So … I won’t. Even though— God —I’m barely holding on, and I don’t think I’m strong enough, I won’t.

” He sounds like he’s reassuring himself, rather than me.

“Nick,” I whisper. The fingers between my legs are in motion again.

If I focus on the ribbons of pleasure growing taut inside me, I don’t have to think about the implications of what he just said.

He cares about me. Everything we’ve done together; it’s not about him being CEO, anymore. It’s about me.

I need to tell him. I want to tell him. But I can’t—I can’t.

I’m pleading. “Come here.”

“I won’t.”

“Please. No one has to know. It can be our little secret.”

The noise that escapes him is nuclear. “ No. ”

“Please.”

There’s a sound on his end, his covers rustling. My thoughts stutter—is he getting off his bed? Is he walking down the hall?

He isn’t. He whispers something too low for me to catch, but he doesn’t appear at my door. He doesn’t leave his room. He doesn’t compromise our agreement, putting me back in the place I was when we first met. He just says my name in my ear. Pants. Wants.

I love him.

And for the first time, I think he might have feelings for me, too.

My chest contracts, the pleasure in my center doubling under my hand. Tripling, like my body knew this was going to happen long before my mind. I don’t know how I let this go so far. I don’t know when he slipped past my defenses and carved out a space inside me.

Probably around the time he sat down with me at that bar, made me laugh, made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

“Do you still have my panties?” I ask him.

“Of course I do,” he grits out.

“Pick them up. Wrap them around your hand. Use them.”

His laugh is surrender. “Yeah?”

“Do it for me.”

There’s a swishing sound, something soft sliding against skin, and then a low, guttural groan. “I remember how it felt to touch you,” he rasps. “Jesus, I …”

“Don’t think.” I grind against my hand, my own climax threatening as I circle myself harder, chasing the feeling he’s giving me. “Just feel. I want to hear you.”

Whimpers through the phone, muttered curses, my name breathed on a whisper, a prayer. I tell him how wet I am, how desperate. How I’m close, so close, and all it takes is picturing him above me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth crushed against mine.

“I’d hold you down,” Nick tells me. “Kiss you slow. Make you come again and again until you were shaking, begging …”

It’s happening before I can stop it. A strangled sound escapes me, pleasure slicing through my center like lightning. My fingers tense, my body clenches, and then I’m falling, unraveling, the release so intense I nearly sob.

Nick curses sharply. “Fuck, I?—”

The rest of his sentence is lost to the sound of him breaking apart, following me over the edge. His deep, shuddering moan makes me tremble. My pussy quivers under my hand. My eyes are wet.

Moments later, we come back to earth. Neither of us speak. I lay bonelessly against my pillows, turning my head to look at the window. The rain has let up, leaving me in silence, in moonlight, the hollow feeling of my phone in my hand.

Then Nick murmurs, “Sienna.”

“Yeah?”

“I overheard what you said to your mom. That last night in Fiji.”

Oh. He knows.

I’m quiet for a moment, waiting for the embarrassment, the shock to the system, the humiliation. It doesn’t come. Instead, I feel relief. I don’t have a secret anymore.

“I wanted to tell you,” I say, “but I didn’t know how you felt, and the contract?—”

“I know,” he says. “Say it now.”

I smile softly into the darkness. “You know I can’t.” I scrub my hand over my cheeks—why am I crying? “Will you stay on the phone?”

“Of course I will.”

I drift off to the sound of Nick’s slow breathing, and when I wake up hours later, sunlight is shining through the curtains. I check my phone and see he’s sent me a good morning text. And beneath it, there’s another message—one that douses me in cold water.

Unknown, 6:09 AM

This is a message for Sienna Hayes from the office of Victor Harwood. Call this number at your earliest convenience. There is something we need to discuss.