Page 7

Chapter seven

His fingers trailed down my arm, light and teasing, before grasping my hand. As he led me to his car, the warmth of his palm met the sweat on mine.

He deposited me in the back seat. My head swam as I thought about this, about the danger and the risk of what we were about to do in broad daylight, with people milling around.

The second the door closed shut behind him, Storm’s lips were on mine.

He kissed me like he had spent the entire day on the edge, barely holding himself together. His hands roamed beneath my clothes, mapping my body, his fingers pressing into my flesh just hard enough to hurt, but not enough to bruise.

Our tongues danced. Our limbs intertwined. His fingertips brushed my nipples. Mine skimmed over his dick. The sounds of our moans mingled, needy and desperate.

His lips traveled down my jaw, my throat, my neck, his breath warm against my skin.

“You know what drives me crazy?” he murmured between kisses.

“Tell me.”

His teeth grazed the curve of my neck, making me shiver. “I can spend a million dollars adorning you, but the sexiest thing you’ll ever wear is your own power. You’re so fucking fine , Princess.” He sucked the skin on my neck. “You own me.”

I shuddered at his touch and his words.

Men were usually so…nonchalant with me. Very much in their 50/50 energy, which, to be fair, I appreciated.

I didn't work this hard and become an independent woman just to weaken as soon as I found myself in a man's orbit.

But there was something about this that felt so powerful …

receiving one-hundred pe rcent from Storm while giving him close to nothing. And he liked it, because he liked me.

“I exist to please you,” he whispered, his lips grazing my ear. “Tell me what you want.”

I melted against him, feeling myself weakening.

Maybe, with the right man, you're supposed to be weak. Maybe the right man takes your weaknesses and turns them into strengths. Maybe the right man makes you feel safe enough to surrender to your inner power.

“Touch me.”

He slid his fingers past the band of my black lace panties, groaning when he found my pussy soaked. His fingers quickly found my clit, rubbing it softly, teasing, curling, coaxing more moans out of me.

“Like this?” he mumbled.

“Yessss…”

He sucked my bottom lip as his fingers made me melt. My hips moved involuntarily, grinding against his hand, desperate to increase the delicious pressure. He read my mind, or maybe my body, and did exactly what I wanted, bringing me to the brink before I pushed his hand away.

“Wait.”

He trapped my bottom lip between his teeth, pulling slightly before he set it free.

“Whatever you want,” he said.

“I wanna cum with you inside me.”

He smiled slyly. “It sounds to me like you have a scarcity mindset.”

“What do you mean?”

He kissed me softly. “You seem to believe you can only cum once or twice. I don’t think you realize there’s no limit to how much pleasure I can bring you.”

His lips brushed mine again. “I ain’t one them weak niggas you messed around with in the past ,” he said. “I know what I’m doing, and I love doing it.”

His eyes searched mine before he added, “However long it takes.”

That was the sticking point for me. The second orgasm always took forever, and men had lost patience with me in the past because of it.

But Storm was right.

He wasn’t them .

“Okay,” I said softly. “Please me. Without limits.”

He exhaled sharply like he’d been waiting all his life to hear that.

Without warning, he wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me, pulling me on top of him, bunching my dress up around my waist. With his tongue, he tasted my lips, my neck, my collarbone…

with his fingers, he worked me open. His thumb strummed my clit until I exploded with a keening cry, my head falling forward, my eyes rolling back.

“There you go,” he coaxed, his voice rough, his lips hot against my neck. “Cum for me, Princess. Just like that." He pressed a kiss to my cheek. "First of many."

The deep tenor of his voice intensified the pleasure as I spasmed uncontrollably around his fingers. And just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, he curled them, pressing a spot that made me yell out, “Fuck!”

I was trembling when he slid inside me. His hands gripped my hips. His lips brushed my nipples, hot and wet and whisper soft. He didn’t move at first, he just held me, savoring every second of my climax.

“San…” His voice was hoarse. “You’re so perfect. Jesus. I can’t even…” he trailed off, gripping me tighter. “I need you. I need all of you.”

When I could finally speak, I grabbed his face in my hands. “You already have me.”

He blinked slowly.

“For now.”

Then he snapped.

His hips pistoned upwards, driving him deeper and deeper until he hit a spot that made my whole body tingle. I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming, but my moans were loud enough to bring the attention of nosy bystanders. I needed him to hurry, but I didn’t want it to end.

Decisions, decisions.

He stilled himself and used his hands to move me, sliding me up and down, an easy task given how wet I was.

“Look at you,” he gritted. “So fucking beautiful. And you feel so good .”

I couldn’t believe how fast I was unraveling. Over and over again, I moved, rolling my hips as I dug my nails into his flesh. The second climax hit me hard and fast, and he came right behind me, groaning into my neck.

We stayed that way, locked in emotionally, intertwined physically, our hurried breaths fogging the windows.

" Shit ," he whispered. "Give me a couple of minutes and we'll go again."

I chuckled at that. "Why do I feel like I just got myself in some serious trouble?"

His grin was wicked and teasing. "I'd classify it as good trouble. And yeah, you did."

I pulled back to stare into his dark eyes, finding mischief there, along with lust.

"I've always been a goody-goody," I said, stroking his jaw with my thumb. "This was a long time coming."

He smiled. "Pun intended?"

I gave him a playful eyeroll, settling back in his arms like I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do. Like we couldn't get caught by a nosy passerby, or worse, a police officer.

"I tracked you here," he said against my skin.

"Mmm," I moaned at the warm touch of his lips. "What do you mean? "

"I know where you are at all times, Princess."

If it was anybody else, I'd have enough red flags waving in my mind to host a running of the bulls. But it was Storm . He would never do me harm. Ever.

I pressed a soft kiss against his lips. "How did you manage to accomplish that?

"I put a tracker on your car."

His strong hands went to my ass, squeezing possessively.

"What do you get out of that?" I asked, my interest piqued.

"Torture," he said matter-of-factly. "When you're not in my arms…when my eyes aren't on you…" he trailed off, squeezing harder. "I have to sit with the fact that the rest of the world has access to you and I don't. Which is my fucking nightmare ."

I nodded slowly, my eyes locked on his. "But knowing you like I do…"

A slow grin spread across his handsome face. "You already know, Princess. That shit turns me on."

Hearing about it was having the same effect on me .

Our mouths met again, but hungrier this time.

Our tongues touched, sending heat through my veins.

We lingered there, not hurried, not urgent, just a quiet, lazy exploration of our longing and need.

He hardened beneath me. I grinded against him.

It was the kind of careless making out that teenagers do, when that's all you can do, full of passion and desperation and pleasure.

Storm made me feel like I was sixteen again.

I pulled away to come up for air, giving myself a much-needed break from the danger that was this man. I was falling. Fast.

"Do you remember the night I took you to Entra?" he said.

I frowned, confused by the randomness, but not the least bit surprised.

"Which part?"

He blew out a breath. "You asked me if I ever fucked a student."

I sat straight up, putting a few inches of distance between us. The tightness in his jaw and lips told me I needed to pay very close attention now.

“She wasn’t my student. Not anymore,” he explained. “I've had plenty of offers, but I never crossed that line. It was after she graduated.”

“Then why are you tell—”

“I need you to understand something.” His gaze softened while his grip on me tightened. “I trusted her. We’d built a rapport. I thought there was a mutual understanding between us, so I let her in. I shared a part of myself with her that I hold real close.”

I nodded my understanding.

“We were together, if you can call it that, for a few months. After a while, I could tell she wasn’t in it because she enjoyed the power dynamic. She didn’t care about me. She just liked being fucking rude.” He shook his head, his voice going sharp when he said, “Me being me, I cut that shit off.”

“What did she do?” I asked, anger simmering in my veins. “What’s her name? Is she still in Miami?”

He chuckled, moving a hand down to squeeze my ass. “Calm down, Princess.”

His smile quickly faded. “You know Score My Professor?”

I nodded .

“She wrote a review there. Anonymous, of course. She gave me four stars for teaching and one star for ethics. In her comment, she went in on me. She was very detailed about my…preferences. She said I liked being tied up and degraded. That I was a pathetic loser behind closed doors.”

My breath hitched. “Fuck her,” was all I could manage to mumble.

“I was pissed,” he continued. “Mostly because of how reductive it was. You can’t describe what gets me off in a little ass paragraph. You gotta write a ten-page essay for my shit, know what I mean?”

I laughed at that. “Stop.”

“I’m just saying.” He huffed out a dry laugh, but there was no humor in it. “It went viral. I’m lowkey surprised you never heard about it. Students gossiped. Colleagues talked about it. Shit was on TikTok. I finally had to hire an attorney just to get that shit taken down.”

I put a hand on his cheek and gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry that happened.”

He shrugged. “It’s whatever. The worst part was having to sit in front of a panel of deans and provosts, explaining my sexual preferences like I was defending a dissertation. That shit was humiliating.”

I shook my head. He’d never admit it, but it was more than humiliation. He was hurt by the whole thing, and who could blame him?

My anger surged again.

“I felt…exposed,” he said softly. “My job is one place I need to have control at all times, and it was stripped away from me in an instant.”

His eyes searched mine. “I’ve been careful ever since. Holding women at arm’s length. I felt like I had to. Until you.”

I leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips, amused when his dick hardened again.

“You didn’t deserve that,” I murmured against his mouth.

He shrugged again. “It is what it is. But it’s like…ever since then, every time I start feeling something real, I hear a voice in the back of my mind telling me to keep my shit close. Telling me I’m stupid for putting myself out there like that.”

I leaned closer, pressing my forehead against his. “You’re not stupid.”

He closed his eyes .

“And I’m not her.”

He exhaled. It sounded like relief and surrender. “I know. You’re about as far from her as it gets.”

I was relieved, too. Relieved that he knew that. It was a deep knowing, a soul knowing, something I’d communicated to him with more than words.

The image of him, buttoned up and brilliant, being dragged into a conference room and dissected by the very people whose respect he’d had to earn was devastating.

I’d seen him in a few different moods by now, but this was different. This was more of a wound he’d uncovered for me, something that he’d given me to hold, trusting that I wouldn’t pour salt in it.

And I wouldn’t.

I would protect his heart. I would protect his desires. I would make him feel safe with me, unlike…

I closed my eyes.

God help that bitch if I ever found out her name. No telling what I would do .

I smiled, thinking about how different this Santari was. I supposed Storm had uncovered something in me, too.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

It was strange. He looked like a little boy staring up at me. That must have been the vulnerable part of him. The part of him I was starting to care deeply about. The part of him I would protect with my entire being.

If I was gonna do this right, I had some research to do.