Masked Read online

  And sometimes, fortune favored the idiots. Thank fuck.

  Despite the aches I’d felt in my cock afterward, I was glad we’d put the brakes on our bodies when the car had. Though horizontal and naked were still very much parts of my plan for Claire Montgomery today, it felt important to make things right. Had I forgotten she’d be returning to the other side of the country in less than ten weeks? Not for a second. Maybe that was the core of my reasoning. This wasn’t going to be forever. So damn it, it had to be perfect.

  I smiled at the conclusion, lips curling higher when remembering Alfred’s knowing smirk as I instructed him to direct the housekeeping staff on making the changes to my bedroom. Egyptian cotton on the bed. White roses in the vases. Temecula Valley wine in the cooler. And yes, a few candles too. Pillars, not tapers. I wasn’t the goddamn Phantom of the Opera.

  My next instructions had gleaned Alfred’s biggest smirk. After they finished with the bedroom, everyone could take the night off. He was included in the directive, though I doubted he’d collect. The only full day the man ever took off was Christmas, forced by my threats to look up his real name if he didn’t. There was a time that I think he really expected me to believe his name was Alfred. I’d explained how I grew up in a North Shore mansion, not under a rock. We had a mutually sarcastic understanding about it all, unless it was Christmas Day. On the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, the man took great delight in mother-henning me to the point of reading my damn mind, a fact that irked the shit out of me on most occasions.

  Today wasn’t one of those times.

  Today, the banks of the river could turn into a tsunami down Michigan Avenue and irked wouldn’t enter my vocabulary.

  It was Christmas. And my special present was just a few steps away.

  “Good morning, Britta.” I slapped a palm to her desk after stepping off the elevator. “Fine day, hmm?”

  The woman scrutinized me over the top of her sleek reading glasses, now dipped to the bridge of her aquiline nose. “It’s twenty and looks like Mother Nature belted ‘Let It Go’ on the way to the L.”

  I glanced out of the window with a chuckle. “It’s brisk. Refreshing.”

  She peered harder at me. “Is your hair still wet?”

  I pawed my damp nape. “Maybe. A little.”

  She uttered something in Swedish and shook her head. “Somebody had a good evening. Maybe even a good morning.”

  I ignored her innuendo in favor of a glance toward the conference room. Just a glance. I’d thought about Claire’s actions from last night on my way home—then in the shower, and again in bed—concluding that the discretion part of this thing was just as key for her as me. Of course, I didn’t know the reasons why yet. That would change. I wanted to know all her secrets. And keep them all safe. Keep her safe.

  “Who’s in from Asher’s team so far?”

  I observed shadows through the conference room’s frosted glass but couldn’t discern their owners. The team usually arrived together in the company’s service town car, so shadows were a good sign, though Claire was known to escape to the cafeteria for chats with our own media team. It felt good to think of my people rendering their stamp of approval on her. While the asshole in me decreed that their feedback shouldn’t matter, the man in me took precedence for a moment. I’d hired those people because I valued their viewpoints. Observing their camaraderie with her imparted a fantastic high.

  “They’re not here yet,” Britta supplied. “That’s just the catering team. Ms. Asher told me they’d be working through the day spinning Trey’s appearances from yesterday, so I took the liberty of ordering them some snacks.”

  I smiled through my disappointment. “Perfect. Good work.”

  After heading to my office, I closed the door and booted up my computer. An audible groan escaped when my email loaded, seeing the demand from SGC’s Beijing office that I make an appearance to personally triage Trey’s damage. Before I could even hit Send on my acquiescing reply, the door opened. Margaux Asher damn near flew into the room, leaving a fuming Britta behind in the hallway. She looked like a game show contestant who’d just won the big package with the car and the boat.

  “Mr. Stone! I arrived to find brilliant-ness in my inbox this morning! I had to tell you personally, before anyone else!”

  “Of course,” I grumbled.

  If I had an explanation, which I didn’t, Margaux cut it short anyway—by trying a move that was half hug, half long jump. As she plastered onto me, she gushed, “Oprah’s agreed to the interview—and People wants to do a four-page spread during the same week! Isn’t it exc—” Her hold slackened a little.

  Somebody cleared their throat in the doorway. I raised my head, readying a pleading stare for Britta.

  “Shit,” I blurted.

  It wasn’t Britta.

  The shock in Claire’s eyes stabbed me like a hundred shards of glass. But it was the pain she added after that, when recognizing Margaux as the human barnacle on me, that hurt worse. Fuck. Much worse.

  “I—I have the demographic feedback from yesterday.” She rasped it while throwing her gaze to the floor.

  My chest imploded on top of my ribs. “Claire.”

  During the two seconds it took for her to throw the report on the table, she didn’t look at me. Ditto for the two seconds it took for her to whirl and start to leave the room.

  Margaux wrapped her arms around my neck and stared up into my face. “Leave her be. She’s a little…socially awkward. I, on the other hand, am not.” She added a grind of her hips.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Although Claire mumbled the words, her reaction stunned Margaux enough to loosen her hold. I didn’t need another moment to seize the opportunity. After grabbing her wrists and shoving her away, I left the office at a run.

  “Claire!”

  I easily caught her in the hallway. The verb was appropriate. I had to snatch her elbow to halt her frantic retreat from my door.

  “Let go.” She issued the order from tight teeth.

  “Sure thing. I’d be happy to keep you here through other means.”

  The way I smashed the emphasis on other made her stop, whirl, and slam her arms over her chest. “I’m not your anything, Killian. I think that’s been made clear enough now.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I guided her over so the wall cushioned us on one side. “There was nothing going on in there to whisper about.”

  Her gaze swirled over my face before she spurted a laugh. “Okay. If that’s what you believe.”

  An unfamiliar sensation tugged at my gut. It hurt. Recollections came to mind of Trey and Lance pulling pranks during our lunch breaks at Triton. Every time, they found a way to make it look like my fault. Mr. Nayed, a fan of medieval torture methods, was Triton Academy’s detention master.

  I was not taking the fall for this.

  “Okay, I know what it looked like—”

  “What it looked like was none of my business.” She followed it with a tired sigh. I looked down into her face, noticing she looked exhausted too. It was eight in the morning, and those shadows under her eyes were my fault. Now the tightness around her lips was as well.

  “But now you feel like you’re on the Tilt-A-Whirl again.”

  She rolled back until both shoulders hit the wall, lifting her face as if asking for divine guidance. “Why are you bringing that back up?”

  “Back up?” I leaned closer. “I never dropped it.”

  “Killian—Mr. Stone—” She averted her eyes. “Please, can we just—”

  “No. We can’t. Listen to me. Look at me.” I had to pause when Brett from the mail room strode by. I abhorred doing this here, exposed in the hallway. “Everything I said last night? I meant it.”

  “I’m sure you did. At the time.” One side of her mouth kicked up, another clear battle for self-composure. “We were both jacked on adrenaline and wine, and—”

  “Damn it.” I flattened a palm to the wall next to her head. C
oming from any other woman, I would have felt played by her words, strung out in a game. But this was Claire Montgomery, who couldn’t hide anything from her delicate face, especially her fear and insecurity—and the cavalier act she tried to cover both with. “Yes, I meant it then,” I said, locking her stare back into mine. “But only half as much as I do now.”

  Holy God, did I mean it. With her perfume tickling my nose and her stature damn near pinned by mine, my blood spiked with new awareness and my body stirred with fresh need. And this morning, I had jacked off in the gym shower. I’d wanted to last for her tonight.

  Tonight—when I’d be on a plane to Beijing.

  Fuck.

  My human reminder note, a sickeningly cheerful Britta, appeared in the hallway as if the power of my frustration had summoned her there. “Asia on the horn, boss.”

  “Tell them I’ll call them right back.”

  The five seconds of our exchange were all Claire needed to duck beneath my arm. When I tried to claim her shoulder again, she didn’t try to shrug me away. She hauled out heavier ammunition.

  Her tears.

  Her eyes pooled with liquid as she gazed back up to me. “Please. Just let it go, Killian. It’s all right. I’m all right. Let’s get off the roller coaster…before we both puke.”

  I watched her walk down the hall behind Britta. She’d worn an ivory pantsuit today, a contrast to Britta’s professional black silhouette. Clashing against them both was the figure waiting for me in the doorway of my office in a figure-hugging crimson sweater dress—Margaux Asher, who bared everything to me except her claws and her breasts.

  Perfect. All I needed was a stock-market crash or a report of Trey hopping in the sack with another virgin to top off my Christmas stocking with coal. Ho fucking ho.

  * * *

  “Miss Montgomery has arrived, sir.”

  Five simple words hadn’t shaken my nerves this much since Congratulations, MIT has accepted you.

  I took a full breath as clouds swirled past the window of my condo and pushed my steepled fingers harder against my chin. “Thank you, Alfred. Show her—”

  She burst into the room before I finished. Eyes blazing gold. Hair falling in fiery torrents. Cheeks and nose smudged in beautiful bursts of pink from the cold. In short, more gorgeous than she’d ever been.

  “Forget it, Fred,” she snapped. “Mr. Stone summoned me so Mr. Stone can show me in.”

  Alfred’s gaze met mine. His salt-and-pepper brows kicked up, but amusement glimmered in his eyes. “Very well.” He backed out of my home office and closed the door.

  As I expected, she didn’t let a second of downtime expire. “I’m here.” Her voice was ice, her posture frostier. “You happy now, Your Highness? Show me your ‘issue’ with the press release this time—which could have been handled via email, by the way.”

  I stepped forward, leaving the desk behind. I’d removed my coat and tie too. The moment was balanced on a damn precarious precipice. After six hours, I’d resorted to issuing a professional command for her presence, without a single professional thought in my body. Blurred lines…one of my biggest anathemas. Steps were missed when you fogged up the path. Mistakes sneaked through open doors. Secrets got exposed.

  At the moment, I didn’t give a fuck.

  Finally, finally, she was here. Alone. Mine.

  We just had to clear the damn air.

  “I’m having trouble with my emails today.” It wasn’t wholly a lie. Between pre-adjusting my brain to Beijing time and forcing my body to wait for her, focusing on correspondence had been impossible for the last six hours.

  She answered my assertion with a thin laugh. I ignored her derision. “Let me take your coat.”

  She tightened the cream-colored trench. “I’m fine.”

  Not acceptable. I moved forward again, taking steady steps until I braced both feet in front of her. When I spoke, the growl was regulated solely for the air between us. “Take off your coat, Claire.”

  She swallowed, pulled the tie free, and began to shrug out of the coat. I stepped behind her to help.

  She shivered as I peeled the whole thing from her body. And forced myself to stop there. God help me, I didn’t want to.

  With the coat still in my hands, I pressed closer to her. I hovered above her hair and took a deep breath of her rich lavender shampoo. “Why didn’t you answer my texts?”

  She snickered. “Right. Those. Emails weren’t working for you but texts were, huh?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  She moved away until the desk stopped her. “Couldn’t pick the one I liked best. You gave me a choice of five hundred, after all.”

  “At least one of us had choices. You didn’t leave me with much of one this morning, after jumping to every conclusion in the book.”

  She whirled back at me, eyes blazing. “Margaux was climbing you like a tree frog.”

  “Yes, she was.” I draped her coat over a chair, moving in on her again. “She was climbing me. Funny thing about trees and frogs, Claire. The tree doesn’t get much of a say, does it? She was excited about Oprah agreeing to interview Trey and broke in, uninvited, to my private office—”

  “Of course.” She snorted.

  “What the hell is going on here, Claire? Drama isn’t your style. What’s really happening?”

  She averted her eyes. “You have no clue about my style, Mr. Stone.”

  “Like hell I don’t.” I’d studied every thread of her style for nearly twenty-one days. I knew it well enough to detect that despite her tight jaw and pursed lips, she liked my nearness. A lot. I took another step closer.

  She squirmed and closed her eyes. “I—I don’t know what—”

  “Nice try.” I went for it. Dared to tug on her a little, drawing her trembling body closer to mine. To my shock, she didn’t resist. Fuck, she smelled good. And felt even better. “But you’re also pretty shitty at lying. So let’s start over. All this bluster about the scene in my office…it’s absurd. You know that, don’t you?”

  A long swallow moved down her throat. “Killian. Mr. Stone. Please—”

  “A pretty word for table manners and sex requests. But not effective at the moment, Miss Montgomery.”

  Her gaze flew wide. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can certainly have my pardon. But I’m still calling your bullshit.” I trailed the words down her face—while backing her against my desk again. “This has nothing to do with Margaux. It has everything to do with your insecurity again, doesn’t it?”

  Beautiful little huffs came out of her nose. “I’m not insecure.”

  “The fuck you aren’t. I know fear when I see it, Claire. I’ve experienced enough of the shit to be an expert, especially now.” I returned her stunned stare with a jerking nod. “Yeah. It all terrifies me too. But to make up roadblocks just because you’re scared, to keep protesting that we don’t fit…”

  I interrupted myself with a tight moan as I pressed my lower body to hers. Christ, she was perfect. Even through the layers of our clothes, the heat of her sex welcomed me. The tight juncture of her thighs tempted me.

  In a feverish sweep, I shoved all the shit off the desk. And flattened her to it. My head fell against her neck. I scraped at her carotid with my teeth. She tasted so fucking good.

  “Oh…”

  Her desperate cry filled my ears, spiked my blood, engorged my cock to painful intensity. I drove a hand against her scalp, meshing her hair between my fingers in furious satisfaction. I’d waited so long for this. So goddamn long.

  “Ohhhh,” she sighed again.

  “You want to tell me again how we don’t fit?” I growled into her ear.

  “Killian,” she gasped. “I’m— I’m here to— to work on the press rel—”

  I stole the rest of the words from her lips by smashing mine against them.

  Chapter 8

  Claire

  I’d heard kisses described as crashes before but always laughed at the metaphor. Fate
knew how to teach me a hell of a lesson, didn’t it?

  I was midsentence when he rammed me at full force, inundating me with his taste, surrounding me with his strength, a deluge of one hundred percent Killian Stone. Was there any other way with this man? He stopped my breath with the force of a storm wind, taking what he wanted, when he wanted. And heaven help me, he wanted me.

  Or maybe it was better if heaven took the night off.

  His smooth lips covered mine with skill I’d never experienced. He knew every curve to explore, every crevice to lick, every moment to press in until I opened for him, letting him sweep inside with confidence that was both thrilling and infuriating. A moan escaped me, flowing into his open mouth. He pushed the kiss deeper, stroking his tongue to mine, blatantly testing my resistance.

  Oh, damn…

  He stole my breath and my sanity in one swift move, laying me out on his desk until his lithe, hard body hovered inches over mine. I didn’t dare gaze up. I couldn’t help myself. He was everywhere, his body hot and strong, eyes alluring as sin. Everything about him beckoned me over to the dark side. His dark side.

  I attempted a feeble protest. “K-Killian. W-We can’t…”

  “We can.” He lowered himself, flattening his broad chest against mine. If I’d been capable of breathing—and that was a big if—his weight obliterated the option. I didn’t care. If I had any dilemma at all, it was how to keep my hands from roaming over every inch of his long, muscled body.

  “Claire.” He cupped a hand to my cheek. “My beautiful fairy queen.” The words I’d blasted him for yesterday became an honor he’d earned now, an ambrosia that tumbled from his lips into my thirsty senses. “I’ve been waiting for this…for you.”

  I laughed softly while pressing my cheek into his palm. “I get that one.”