Page 42

Jab. Swish. Jab.

I parry and dodge the foil aiming for my neck and torso from what seems to be multiple directions as Ryland and I move on the piste, the mat in the fencing club next to the boxing gym within The Orchid.

Sweat drips down my hair within my mask.

My body, encased in the classic white fencing uniform, is burning with residual energy from last night at Trésor with Grace.

She fucking ran away from me again after she came so sweetly on my lap, leaving me with a hard on to end all hard ons even after I came in my pants.

Why won’t she let me help her? Grunting, I block an attack from Ryland, my mind in a convoluted mess.

Then there was the blistering phone call I received from Mother this morning.

“I couldn’t believe it when Linda Winstead told me. You bought out a strip club for the entire night at The Orchid for a dancer? How could you? You’re a Kingsley. This is appalling.”

“It’s none of your business, Mother. I’m not like Emily or Jess, and I won’t listen to you.”

She shrieks in my ear, her voice sounding more desperate, because she knows it’s true.

“Listen to me, Steven. You can’t cavort with Grace Peyton.

And yes, before you ask, I know all about her, about how she was an intern and now a dancer,” she spits out the word like it’s a curse, “and her background in the slums. You aren’t allowed to be with her, Steven Kingsley, or I’ll—”

I cut her off and hang up. No time for her bullshit when my life is literally in tatters.

Then, to add fuel to a roaring fire, my sources told me Hancock met with Voss early this morning and Hancock subsequently stormed out of the meeting in a fit of anger, his face purple as he sped away in his town car.

I’m livid, pulling my hair out in trying to figure out what Voss is doing to get the board members of TransAmerica to dance to his tune.

I should be working, concocting my counterattack, getting on a plane to fly to LA to talk to Hancock and ask him what the hell he’s thinking.

But instead, I’m here, restless, unease swirling my insides, permeating every cell, every atom of my body.

My mind is filled with fragments of her, twisting, resurfacing, coming together and falling apart again.

Everything is her.

Her smell. Her taste. Her touch.

The way she sauntered toward me, her tight body swaying in a sensual rhythm only innate to the opposite sex. The way those little pearls did the bare minimum to hide her smooth flesh from onlookers, each movement from her earning us a perverse peekaboo of those full tits and curvy hips.

How she felt against me, soft and silky, her scent of jasmine driving me crazy as my lungs clamored to draw in deeper inhales, to commit this sweet fragrance in memory, in case I didn’t get to smell it at the source again.

The clang of our foils draws me back into the match as the heated blood circulates in my veins, carrying traces of her inside me, a high that has never waned with time or distance, an addiction that has only gotten worse with time.

My arm and wrist work in unison, my body lunging forward as I flick the sharp foil toward Ryland, my aim missing, and he easily parries away before counterattacking, a series of moves hitting me in the torso, the neck, the back.

Each attack adds to the frenzied circus of my mind and my focus temporarily shatters into fragments as memories from last night force their way back into the forefront .

How my cock was as hard as a steel pipe when she unlatched the top of her dress, letting it pool around her hips and I got my first view of those heavy, tear-drop breasts, the outlines of her nipples beading into tight buds protruding from the sparkling stickers she had on.

The spicy smokiness of her arousal and the wet mess she made on my pants when she rubbed that hot little pussy on my dick like it was her favorite toy. How I nearly died on the chair from the need to pin her down and fuck her until we were both delirious from pleasure.

The way I came in my pants like an untried teenager after watching her eyes glazed over, her head tossed back in passion, her body spasming and melting against mine as she came with the sound of my name on her lips.

Then there was the glint of hurt and sadness in her eyes. The heartache in my chest when she said we were never friends.

And I recognize she’s right.

How can we be friends when all I want to do is kiss her, taste her, sheath myself inside her until the end of time?

How could we be friends when I want to see her fall into pieces beneath me, coming apart at the seams from pleasure?

How could we be friends when my heart, this organ I thought was long charred and dead, reawakens in her presence, the thumping, fluttering, beating, rendering me into an incoherent mess, slicing the chain mail of my armor into pieces and scattering them onto the ground in her presence?

No. I want her. All of her. I want her to be mine .

Spotting an opening, Ryland lunges forward and jabs his foil in a series of moves, variations of high and low outsides, high and low insides, and before I knew it, the referee calls the match.

We perform a salute as a sign of respect before I rip off my mask and hoist it under my arm even though I want more than anything to fling it across the room, but that would be bad form in the sport.

“Fuck!” I mutter under my breath .

I should’ve taken up boxing like Adrian, Parker, or James.

I used to make fun of them for how barbaric they were, wanting to use their fists to inflict bodily pain like savages, but now I see the wisdom, because this restrained sport with all the fucking rules and manners don’t even make a dent in obliterating the swirling chaos inside me.

Ryland walks alongside me toward the locker room and showers. “What’s going on with you? And don’t tell me you’re fine because whatever that performance was just now, that spoke volumes. Is it Genevieve?”

“Grace, her fucking name is Grace,” I growl as I hurl a blistering stare at him.

He raises his hands and mimes backing off. “Fine, fine. Grace. That’s the same girl from your company, right? The one you did the impromptu serenading for?”

At my silence, his brow arches. “Why is she working here, then? As a dancer? And why do you care?”

“I don’t know why she’s here. She didn’t fucking get the offer from us because of some internal BS and then she disappeared without a trace. I bumped into her a few weeks ago at Jack’s promotion celebration, and this whole fucking mystery has been haunting me ever since.”

“And yet, you still deny having feelings for her.”

Feelings don’t even begin to describe the rabid obsession I have toward her, the craving to have her by my side again, as my woman, my partner at work, my…everything.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I glare at him and head toward the locker, my mouth spewing curses as I miss the combination and have to try again. Even the fucking locker is conspiring against me today.

“Shit. You’re in the deep end. I don’t even hear a denial anymore,” Ryland murmurs as he sheds his soiled uniform and drops it off in the hamper for housekeeping to clean.

He wraps a towel around his waist and crosses his arms, his bare torso glistening with sweat, not giving me any personal space .

I wrap a towel around my waist and toss my hands into the air.

“What the fuck do you want from me? To admit I’m a mess and I can’t eat, sleep, think, or even focus on work?

To tell you I’m feeling like a fucking failure because TransAmerica is getting stolen right under my nose and there’s nothing I do can stop it?

To tell you this maddening woman has driven me insane with need for most of this year and I fucking miss her so much my mind is filled with nothing but images of her, and now that I’ve found her, she won’t tell me why she left me and why she’s working for you instead of being with me? ”

Ryland’s mouth drops open, his slate eyes widening at my outburst. My pulse hammers like a drill in my ears and a sharp pain pierces my head. Headache. Just what I need at this moment.

He steps back and holds his hands up in surrender. “Technically, she works for Elias Kent since he provides us with the security and personnel for the Rose floors, but that’s beside the point.”

He swallows, his eyes dimming as he looks away. “Women are complicated. That’s why you and I don’t do relationships. But they have a way of sneaking past the gaps in our armor, attacking us when we least expect it.”

He rakes his hand over his soot-colored hair and stares at a spot behind me, like he’s in his own world, swimming in his own set of problems. “And you’re helpless to stop them.

But I know this. Sometimes they don’t want us to be strong and to be assholes.

They want us to be vulnerable and tell them our feelings.

Just because I can’t be that man doesn’t mean you can’t be. ”

His eyes sharpen as his gaze falls on mine again. “From what I can see, you’re all in already. Why don’t you try telling her how you feel? Maybe if you open up, she will as well.”

With that parting thought, he disappears toward the showers, his head dipped low, his bearing rigid.

My lungs heave in a deep breath as I step into one of the private shower rooms and lock the door. I turn the faucet knob clockwise precisely five times, my body flinching at the icy rain washing over my sore muscles .

Father’s warning from years past echoes inside me once again.

A useless warning because he never told me how quickly it could happen to you.

How, despite my so-called self-perceived brokenness, the moat and high walls of my castle, an unsuspecting storm from nowhere could come barreling in, toppling everything in seconds.

Emotions are liabilities, but it’s too late for me. They escaped before I even noticed. She ensnared me without a single weapon.

Vulnerability.

It’s something I’ve never done before because a Kingsley doesn’t show weakness. A Kingsley doesn’t flop belly up and hopes the other person pets you instead of stabbing you with a knife. Ryland’s parting words filter in, digging their way into the quagmire of my mind, refusing to leave.

Would spilling my heart out make a difference?

Would telling her how I couldn’t sleep the last nine months, not knowing where she was or how she was doing, how everything was tasteless on my tongue, how my world became dull and heavy again, make her come back to me?

Would telling her how the best time of my life was when we were sharing a bagel in the dark or when she curled against me as we watched a movie soften her stance?

As the frigid water cools my body temperature from the outside, a strange heat tingles at the base of my spine and travels to my newly beating organ.

My Grace is still in there…in that sexy vixen. The hurt in her eyes and the fierceness in her frame when we argued prove she still cares for me.

I’ve tried it my way—barging in and commanding, tackling the problem like any I’ve encountered at work, and it hasn’t worked.

Of course it wouldn’t work. She’s not a project or a corporate target.

She’s a fierce warrior with a soft heart, and there are no words in the world to describe everything that is Grace Peyton.

Could Ryland be right? What’s the harm in trying ?

Resolve permeates me as I scrub the sweat off my body, eager to find her and heal myself from this sickness once and for all.

I’m Steven Kingsley and I never lose.

Not now, not ever.