Earl Power: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Endowed Book 2) Page 14

  “Yes.” His fingers trace a path along the folds where he’s going to put his cock. He tortures me, cupping me with his whole hand, filling his palm with my wetness, rubbing ever so gently so that my hips tilt back, raising my ass shamelessly to give him better access.

  Then just when I’m trembling, feeling I can’t hold it together anymore, his cock presses against my entrance. I’m more than ready for him. I moan as his cock stretches and fills me from this new angle. I wriggle down until he’s buried deep inside. His thrusts are gentle, my g-spot being pleasurably pounded with every thrust.

  “Skype can go to hell,” he says with a grunt.

  “Skype can go fuck itself,” I agree, panting.

  Then the rhythm changes and I know he’s getting closer, too, as he grasps my hips and my butt jiggles in time with his thrusting. I want to wait for him. But it’s too much for me. My body tightens with a glorious prelude to ecstasy, then I let out a half sob as the orgasm slashes through me.

  Seb lets go and I lower myself down to my elbows. Within seconds he goes completely rigid and I feel his orgasm shudder through him. “Mara,” he grunts and leans over me, his hands on the table beside mine.

  We stay like that for a full minute or two then he pulls himself out and gently supports me back up to standing. His pulse is pumping madly still as I press my back and my ass into his front. I feel so open, so beautiful that I raise my arms, reaching up to clasp around his neck, exposing my full front to him.

  “You look so beautiful,” he says, tracing a finger slowly down from my collarbone, down my ribs and belly. Somehow he knows how to do this without tickling. If his touches go any further, I’ll be ready to orgasm within seconds.

  “Seb,” I breathe.

  But he continues downwards, rubbing in tiny circles with two fingertips against my clit. And in seconds I’m writhing, sweating, bucking again. I squeeze out another orgasm that seems like a continuation of the first one, so relieving I want to sob.

  I’m never going to get enough of this. Of him.

  “Let’s go to my place,” I say.

  ◊◊◊

  “It’s not exactly Belgrave castle.” I hand Seb his mug of tea. On a lucky whim, I bought Earl Grey teabags yesterday. I never drink the stuff and I’ve probably prepared it wrong.

  We’re in my kitchen, in my dingy two-room apartment. But Seb takes in the gloomy décor in one sweeping glance as if it’s all irrelevant. He spends the rest of the time staring at me—clothed or unclothed, he’s not complaining.

  It’s past midnight and my orgasm-numbed mind is struggling to grasp what he’s talking about. He’s explaining his change of plan. He wants the bigger house for Rachel and Orla, whom he’s met. And, most alarmingly, he himself wants to move out of Belgrave Castle and into the Millhouse. It’s enough to make my head spin.

  I have so many questions. I want to ask him about Rachel and how he really felt meeting her and Orla; I know those old wounds cut deep, no matter how hard he tries to cover them up. But even more pressing is this insane idea of blowing the Millhouse all out of proportion in an effort to create a Belgrave Castle II in which he intends to live.

  “But you already have a family. And a home.”

  “No, I’ve two families.” His expression is grim. “I’ve always had two. That’s the whole problem. And—” He fixes me with an intense gaze. “Maybe soon… three?”

  My stomach does a somersault. Is he…?

  What?

  But it’s all too fast, too soon, and it’s not love of family that seems to be driving him. It’s something darker, something I can’t quite put my finger on. My spidey-sense tells me this can only end in tears.

  “Seb.” I reach out and smooth my fingers over his cheek, tracing the precise lines of his sideburn. “Take it a step back, okay? You haven’t even discussed it with anyone at home, have you? Think about your family and how they feel. I mean, your mother, for starters. She’ll be devastated if you leave her for this woman who’s never even been in your life. And what about Alex and Hayley, Ken, Letty? You can’t just up and leave them. They still need your guidance. You have to transition.”

  “Or else?” His tone is cold.

  “That wasn’t an ultimatum, Seb,” I say gently. “I’m only asking you to consider their feelings.”

  Seb’s frown seems permanent as he presses down on the back of the chair. Just when I think he’s going to stand like that silently forever, he says, “I’ve been considering their feelings for twenty-eight years.”

  I hear the quiet fury in his voice and I have no good answer.

  I know what it’s like to have my feelings trampled on, but the difference is, his family loves him—and that includes my best friend, Hayley. They’re all wonderful people who adore him. Even if I could just drop everything to fall in with his plans, I wouldn’t, because he’s on a path to destruction.

  21

  SEB

  DAWN. I SLIDE OUT of bed at five a.m. I couldn’t sleep. Wrong time zone. Wrong thoughts.

  Mara is fast asleep on her side, the cover tucked around her waist, one breast exposed, shimmering in the blueish light coming through her bedroom curtains.

  I gaze at her chest, rising and falling with every untroubled breath. Those curves are going to stay with me for a very long time. The temptation to press my mouth to her delicate pink nipple gets stronger with every passing second. I’m hard as a rock in my briefs.

  Goddamn anyway.

  My three-day spell here has run out. And I’m leaving with nothing. God only knows what I expected, coming here. Can I really say I expected a different outcome? No, it was my dick doing the thinking. My dick, which is still rock hard.

  I understand she feels she needs to be loyal to Hayley and Alex. But Ken and Letty, and even my mother? Why does she care? If she’s not going to be on my side, then what is the point?

  My small backpack is packed. I’ll head out and call a taxi.

  She looks beautiful lying there, her mouth slack and red. I remember where those lips were just five hours ago. But with those same lips, she kept trying to tone down my ideas for the Millhouse, citing “architectural integrity.” And after three days, her reasoning nearly had me convinced.

  But in the cold light of day, it seems to me she’s saying my dreams are not worth the hassle of disrupting things. She can only take one side. I’d rather do this with her, but if it has to be without her…

  And then she’s stirring. Her eyes flutter, dreamily, like someone’s pleasuring her. I fall to my knees and slide my hand down her shoulder, cupping the fullness of her breast. I tease the nipple with a feather light touch. I want her to dream it’s me doing that. Her mouth slackens more and she lets out a little high-pitched moan that makes my cock pay attention.

  “Seb.” She sits up suddenly, whacking my hand away. Even half asleep, she looks alert, her gaze assessing me. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Her gaze trails up my arm, my chest, to my face. “Oh no, it’s Sunday. Are you really leaving?”

  “Come with me,” I beg. “Live with me. We can find an intern for Mike. The experience will count towards your own internship. Money’s not an issue. My connections will make it work. Don’t… don’t leave me. Not again.” I hear the pathetic plea in my own voice.

  She groans. “It’s not that easy.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re making it impossible, Seb.”

  Her firm tone leaves me no reason for hope. “That’s a no, then.”

  “See? It’s all black and white with you. All or nothing.”

  “I can’t water down my goals, Mara.”

  “But you can slow down their execution.”

  Slow down to zero is what she means. I lift my backpack from the floor. “I’m going now. But you know where to find me if you ever change your mind.”

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” she asks, anger entering her voice. “But it’s okay for you to throw out ultimatums, move people around like pawns, create a monstrosity
out of something beautiful.”

  I nod. When it’s about my life, my family, then yes. I know we’re going to go around in pointless circles on this. Forever. As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is over. I never wanted this to destroy what we have together.

  But it looks like it already has.

  ◊◊◊

  I’m thirty thousand feet in the air, London-bound, flight personnel being far too attentive when I don’t want their iced waters or mini-bottles of what they call champagne. In my mind, I’m still on the ground with Mara, in her quirky little apartment, still debating what actually happened back there. It’s like that old U2 song: I can’t live with her or without her.

  She’s right—at some level. I am expecting too much of her. Why should she give up everything for me after such a short time? What made me think for a moment that she’d want that? I think I bought too much into the fairytale romance that happened with my brother.

  But I’m not Alex.

  And Mara’s not Hayley.

  And it’s clear that love is something I just can’t afford right now if I’m to do the job of keeping two families happy, prosperous and healthy.

  Looks like she can’t afford love either.

  Maybe the timing was wrong.

  Or maybe I’m just a monster.

  22

  MARA

  “AND THEN… I LET him go,” I tell my rapt audience of two, then slap the arms of the armchair and rise quickly so they don’t see the tears threatening to fall.

  We’re sitting in Hayley’s porch, the all-glass room overlooking the Colorado River and the reason Dave will never move from this house. Dave himself is out fishing. Alex flew in last night from London and Hayley told me to haul my ass over there. Hayley’s dashing new husband is sprawled beside her on the wickerwork two-seater, looking model-worthy in his gleaming white t-shirt and faded blue jeans.

  For Alex, it’s the first time hearing the story. He can’t understand why Seb returned to Fernborough in a black mood and immediately started “banging on about the Millhouse.” The manic construction work going on, and Seb’s frequent absences from the office, have been a complete mystery to him.

  “Seb’s asking me to take sides between your family and his birth mother’s family,” I say. “And I can’t do that.”

  I expect Alex to reassure me that his older brother is wrong, deluded, loony, but his handsome face is twisted in doubt. He swipes his fringe off his forehead and heaves out a breath, looking at Hayley.

  “Seb needs to find his own way,” he says finally.

  I cross my arms in irritation. “Yeah, that’s helpful, Alex.”

  “I know. But you have to understand, Seb is… well, I feel this is all my fault, in a way.”

  “No,” Hayley says, leaning into his shoulder. “None of it is your fault, okay?”

  “Nonetheless,” Alex holds up his hand. “Poor old Seb doesn’t have a whole lot going on for him in Belgrave Castle. I mean, if Hayley and I… when Hayley and I decide to start a family, well, it’s all going to go to our offspring.”

  “Unless we only have girls, of course,” Hayley adds.

  They look at each other in that meaning-laden way that couples have when they’ve discussed a topic to death between themselves and are now airing it for others to hear.

  “I’m not pregnant,” Hayley says, watching my face.

  “Okay,” I grin. “Just checking.”

  “My point being,” Alex continues in his smooth, cut-glass, aristocratic accent, “you need to follow your own heart on this one. There is no wrong or right. On either side.”

  “So, you don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing?” I ask, not quite believing my ears.

  Alex shrugs. “I dare say it’s his choice.”

  “Abandoning you all? Going to live with a stranger? In a monstrosity of a house?” My voice is quite loud now.

  Alex shakes his head in obvious puzzlement.

  “What do Ken and Letty say?” I ask, my exasperation complete.

  “I hardly know, Mara,” he says. He cocks his head back a little and gazes at me coolly, suddenly looking an awful lot like Seb. The signal is crystal clear: Stop talking about this.

  Hayley flashes me a sympathetic look. She knows what I’m thinking. Geez, these people.

  ◊◊◊

  When I get a moment alone with Hayley later, I ask her grumpily, “What’s he doing?”

  “Seb? Oh, pretty much moping around, just like you. Throwing himself into work and pretending everything is okay. Why don’t you call him, Mara?”

  “No,” I say through gritted teeth. “That would be enabling this madness. He’s not going to change his mind, you know.”

  “No,” she says sadly. “Probably not. Same as you, really.”

  “There’s only so much I can do from a distance anyway. I mean, what’s the point? How often can either of us fly over? It’s better this way.”

  “Maybe you’re right. What a pity. I really wanted to see it—the two of you together. Not that I will ever regret going on that honeymoon, but I did totally miss out on that important part of your life.” Hayley sighs. “It’s hard for me to believe it actually happened.”

  “Yeah, well, you and me both.”

  23

  SEB

  STANDING KNEE DEEP IN mud, the October breeze whipping my face, I direct the construction workers to drive around the fountain to get to the back. A laborer knocked a stone off the edge of the fountain last week with a forklift and, after a temper tantrum on my part, I had a pep talk with the construction company managers about the fact that certain monuments are listed, of special historical value.

  My phone buzzes. I head for a quiet part of the house so I can hear. “Sebastian Belgrave.”

  It’s Andrew Beeson, a surveyor from Birmingham, the country’s most respected surveyor of historical buildings. I felt obliged to get him on site after the chief engineer from Jarrod’s Architects reported that they’d miscalculated the load balancing and that the upper storey construction may not be feasible after all. I ordered them to stop immediately and focus on the ground floors until I got another opinion—one that cost ten times the fee.

  “Lord Belgrave,” Mr. Beeson says, and I don’t correct him. “I’ve gone over the details and compiled a report which I’d be glad to discuss—”

  “Please, the essentials. Do I continue or not?”

  There’s a pause. It tells me everything.

  “I wouldn’t advise that course of action,” comes Beeson’s academically hesitant voice. “It’s a drastic reconstruction and I have my doubts that the walls will hold in the long term. But my recommendation is not only on account of structural safety concerns.” Beeson trails off.

  “No?”

  “I also feel—and my colleagues agree with me—that it may destroy the character of the house. I wonder if you’ve had any remarks from the local residents? Any complaints been filed with the local authority or anything like that?”

  “They’re mostly my tenants and not in the habit of complaining.” Liv’s family haven’t complained either.

  “Yes, I see. Well, unless you have further questions, I’ll send the report down so you’ll have it in your inbox in a few minutes. I’ll courier on a hardcopy too.”

  He sounds eager to get off the phone. Maybe it’s because I’ve paid him eighteen thousand pounds to tell me exactly what I don’t want to hear. I let him off the hook because my heart’s too heavy for talking anymore.

  Someone, if she were here now, would be smiling with a glint in her intelligent brown eyes, telling me I told you so without having to actually say it. Someone whom I kissed in that room they’re noisily sandpapering right now. Someone whom I cannot possibly get out of my mind because her determined little face, her sweet breasts, and perfect pink pussy crowd up my thoughts, both asleep and awake.

  Over the years I’ve cultivated an ability to keep my urges under control and under the radar. A blind date here, a so
ciety event there, where the attention from ladies is always forthcoming if I make any effort at all to be sociable. Never any mess. It helped that I always made it clear I didn’t want to get involved. It helped to blow off steam. But now, I’m horny all the time. And I don’t want to socialize, go anywhere, meet anyone, touch anyone.

  I only want her.

  But she left me. I’m not interested in the excuses, the obstacles—work, plans, distance; God knows I’ve used these, too, on women who tried to get intimate with me before. I’m getting a taste of my own medicine here. No, I’m interested in why she really left me. I’m interested in what she’s really afraid of when she looks at me.

  Alex told me he’d bumped into Mara when he was over there. A wave of irrational jealousy overcame me when he said she seemed to be “getting on with life.” Could it be true? When I quizzed him on the exact meaning of that he just laughed and told me to ask Hayley. Alex is a born politician, impossible to get information from.

  There is no point in asking Hayley either. She’s protecting Mara at every turn because I’m now apparently someone against whom Mara needs protecting.

  But I know the truth: The person Mara most needs protecting from is herself.

  24

  MARA

  I'M NOT USUALLY AN indulger in schadenfreude, but when I read the Fernborough Post online and discover that Seb’s Rocky Horror project is stalled, I have to admit I’m feeling kind of smug.

  That’s what he gets for hiring a firm that was only ever going to slavishly follow his ideas. I kept track of the story and discovered that he contracted a Birmingham firm to get a second opinion. Out of sheer professional curiosity, I called that same firm yesterday and got to talk to their chief consultant. The discussion went on for two hours. Mr. Beeson told me he’d love to see me if I’m ever in England in the near future.