BREACH

Chapter 2

I spent the following weeks trying to work out the enigma that was Nathan Thorne, but to no avail. After his mood-altering comments, he had escaped, returning sometime later as the man I’d known up to that point. With careful glances, I watched the way he interacted with others, but there was no hint of the pain I’d seen in his beautiful features.

Whatever plagued him was hidden well under his charismatic personality and good looks. The one glimpse I’d been privy to kept me up at night. What an odd thing for a man like him to say.

I should’ve been more concerned with the fact that I was losing sleep over a man I couldn’t get along with—something I couldn’t afford as I already didn’t sleep much—and he’d become the star in all of my fantasies.

“Morning,” I said with a yawn as I trudged in on Friday, the end of Nathan’s third week with Holloway and Holloway.

Not that I was counting.

“Coffee?” he asked, holding a cup toward me.

I eyed the cup before glaring at him. “Is it poisonous?”

He chuckled, the sound making wetness pool between my thighs. Stupid body, reacting to a man I couldn’t stand.

“No, Delilah. Fresh brewed.”

“Are you buttering me up for something?” I inquired before taking the cup from him.

“No. I saw you walking in when I was heading to get a cup of my own. With as much as you drink, I figured you’d need one.”

“Oh.” I was stunned he would do something nice for me. “Sorry… Thank you.”

I smiled at him, half-genuine and half-rehearsed. His face lit up for a fraction of a second before turning to a grimace.

“Don’t mention it.” His gaze returned to his desk and the papers that adorned it.

There it was: that faint glimpse. He stopped himself from what could’ve been a real smile, for reasons only known to him. What was it that had me so curious about him that, with each new insight revealed, left me breathless and wanting to know more?

I called it quits about six that evening, ready for the weekend. It’d been a long, frustrating week, and I was in desperate need of a drink to unwind. There was a bar within walking distance of my condo, one I’d been frequenting every weekend over the last few months.

“Hey, Lila!” John, the bartender, greeted as I entered.

“Hey, John!”

“Usual to start?”

I nodded, and he got to work on my shot and Long Island Iced Tea.

Not only did I need it to unwind, but it would also help me get some sleep.

“Tough week?” He handed me the shot before making my other drink. “Insomnia still got you?”

I tipped back the rum, cringing against the strength. “Yup. I feel like my brain should’ve melted at this point.”

“Holloway got you any help yet?”

“Yeah, he started a few weeks back, but he’s kind of a jackass.”

He gave me a sympathetic frown. “That sucks. He at least good looking?”

I eyed John for a moment, wondering if I was in some sort of setup. “Yes, he is. f**k-hot and has every woman in the office chasing him around, hoping he’ll break and, I don’t know, just drop trou right there and plow into them.”

He snickered, handing me the Long Island. “Every woman but you?”

“What’s the point?” I shrugged. “First, he’s an ass. Second, he wouldn’t have any interest in me anyway, so why bother making an i***t of myself?”

“Honey, you are beautiful and sexy. I wish you could see that for yourself. You get my regulars all riled up when you come in here.”

“Yeah, well…” I trailed off. There was no response to give.

John left to tend to some other customers, leaving me sipping on my drink and contemplating a game on the TV screen in front of me. The sound of the door opening wasn’t uncommon, but the shiver that ran down my spine was not normal.

“Can I get a Dos Equis?” the newcomer asked.

I didn’t need to turn to know who it was, nor to know he was looking at me. I was too tired and too tipsy to care.

“Palmer?” I knew he was smirking by only the tone he used. Jesus, I couldn’t deal with him tonight.

Could I not think about him for five minutes? He had to be a drunken illusion, even though I had little to drink. There was no reason why he would be at my local dive bar.

I tilted my head toward him, his reliable smirk the first thing to greet me. Okay, not an illusion. “Thorne.”

He brushed off my attitude. “What brings you here?”

“I’m here every Friday. Why are you here?”

“I needed a drink. I just spent the last hour trying to lose Kelly. I think she was trying to find out where I live.”

“And of course you had to land in my bar.” I huffed.

“Does it have your name on it?”

“Here you go,” John interrupted, setting a bottle down in front of Nathan. “Wanna start a tab?”

“Sounds good.”

John smiled at me. “Lila, you good?”

Crap. He was going to give me s**t about Nathan the next time I was in.

“One more.”

John nodded and went to make my second Long Island, leaving me once again with the asshole.

“Lila?” Nathan leaned his arm against the bar.

“Short for Delilah.” My tone was clipped.

“I’ve never heard anyone call you that nickname.”

“Only Caroline at the office does. Delilah is more professional, so only my friends call me Lila.” I hoped that would be enough to sate his curiosity.

It seemed to, because that was where the conversation stopped. I was not in the mood to talk. All I wanted to do was drink, then crash. I was exhausted and tired to the point of tears.

Sleep called to me. I needed to shut out the world and turn off my brain. He made no move to speak as we sat next to one another. The feeling that we were in the same boat came over me as we stared at the screen in front of us. There seemed to be a weird tingling, an almost buzzing sensation, crossing between us. I wondered if he felt it too, or if my tipsy brain was imagining it.

An hour later—after I downed my second Long Island—I was ready to go home. I paid my tab, said goodnight to John, and told Nathan I’d see him on Monday before I stepped out into the cold early-March air.

After I had walked a couple of blocks, I noticed the sound of footsteps following me. I turned to find Nathan about thirty feet behind me.

“Are you stalking me now, Thorne?” I turned back around before I became dizzy, fell down, and embarrassed myself.

“You wish, Palmer. I’m headed home myself, and making sure you get home all right in your drunken state. Last thing I need is to be implicated because your drunk ass was last seen with me before you disappeared or wound up dead.”

“I can take care of myself. Don’t worry your pretty little head.” I walked up to the door of the fifteen-story luxury condo building I lived in. “Well, I’m home, so off you go.”

He followed me in anyway, and I lucked out that an elevator was waiting in the lobby. I waved hello to Mike, the night guard, and walked in. When I turned to press the button, Nathan was entering as well.

“Seriously, Thorne, you can go home now.”

He chuckled before leaning in to whisper in my ear. “I am going home.”

His statement hit my brain at the same time his scent did, and I staggered back. The man was the most powerful walking aphrodisiac I’d ever encountered.

His hand shot out to grab my arm, steadying me. I gasped at the contact. Electric tingles coursed through me where his hand was and turned to fire between my legs when his grip tightened. I groaned to cover up my slip, but it might have come out as a moan instead.

“Do you really live here?” I whined, pleading to God that it wouldn’t be true.

“Fourteenth floor.”

The floor just below the top penthouse held not two, like most floors, but one large condo—four bedrooms, four baths, much larger wrap-around veranda, and way out of my price range.

“You’re telling me I can never get away from you?”

“What, you think because we live in the same building that I’m going to come find you? Dream on, Palmer. You’re not that pretty.”

I flinched at his words, an involuntary reaction I’d never gotten over. I tried to keep the words from repeating, from drawing up others like it, but it was futile.

“I know that, asshole.”

He chuckled, and then stopped once the words processed, his eyes wide. “Wait… What? You’re agreeing with me?”

“Of course I am. I’m not stupid,” I said, the words screaming in my mind. “I know I’m plain, boring and a workaholic…useless.”

I slapped my hand over my mouth. My drunken brain was revealing things I never wanted anyone to know, least of all him.

But the words remained, repeating over and over like a broken record until it was taking everything I had to keep them down. I was stronger than them.

“Lila?” he questioned.

I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t notice the use of my nickname.

“Sorry, I’m a depressed drunk.” I plastered a fake smile on my face. The elevator pinged, alerting me we’d arrived on the eleventh floor. “Have a good weekend.”

I waved, but didn’t give him time to respond or talk about my rant. I made my way down the hall and into my condo, flicking lights on as I moved through to my bedroom and to the bathroom. Standing at the mirror, I stared into a copy of the unique grey-green eyes that haunted me and repeated my mantra, the one that always brought me back. It calmed me, but the memories started trickling through the cracks Nathan had unknowingly created.

I sank down to my knees, my fingers gripping the sink as I tried to glue the fissures back in place.

It was apparent then that Nathan could be my undoing.

It was midway through the next week, and it had been a long day. I was exhausted since I hadn’t slept much the last few nights, and we were still in the office working, even though it was almost ten in the evening. I struggled to keep hold of my verbal filter since my patience was almost non-existent at that point.

My eyes shifted over to him, and he was still reading the same document he’d been studying for the last half hour. My blood boiled, pumping through my body like a freight train.

“Jesus-f*****g-Christ, Nathan!” I yelled in frustration at his slowed pace. “I would like to leave sometime this century.”

His gaze snapped up and met mine, his eyes in slits. “Well, I do believe this is your f*****g fault for telling Jack we could have all of these contracts done by Friday morning!”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t a f*****g problem until you told Jennifer we would have her contracts for the Sampson takeover ready by Thursday!”

Jennifer Akins, aka Boob Squad member number one, was president of the Nathan Thorne fan club. She came around, flaunting her chest in front of him every single day, at any opportunity she could find. There were now twelve official members of his fan club, so Jennifer wasn’t the only distraction during the day as each one of them filed in at some point.

“If you had informed me of your agreement with Jack, we wouldn’t still be here.”

“If you read your f*****g email, you would have known.”

“You’re saying f**k a lot tonight, Delilah. Something on your mind?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Get your mind out of the fu—just get moving so we can leave, okay?”

He smirked at my slip, a look I’d become accustomed to because he loved to taunt me at every opportunity. I was surprised to watch his lips morph into a lazy smile, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip. My gaze zeroed in as it glided over those perfect lips. The man was s*x on a stick, and he knew it.

I eyed him sideways, trying not to give myself away. Sometime earlier in the evening, he’d taken his suit jacket off, loosened his tie, popped open the top buttons of his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves. Why did he have to look that f*****g good while sitting a few feet from me?

“With all the times you’ve said ‘f**k’ tonight, I think I know what you really want. What you need, Lila.”

“What is it that you think I need?” I was getting more pissed off, and, to my annoyance, aroused at the same time.

“c**k. You need a f*****g hard c**k in your tight little pussy.” He let out a ragged breath, eyes dilated.

My jaw dropped as I looked at him in disbelief. He was just playing with me. He had to be.

I quirked a brow at him, trying to appear calm and aloof, when inside I was tugging at my hair and fanning my face. “You’re an expert on what my p***y needs?”

His eyes darkened as they looked me over, his fingers flexing in what appeared to be agitation on his desk. “Yes, and it needs a c**k to f**k it.”

“What makes you think this?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it wasn’t working. He was right, and his words were turning me on as much as the growing look of lust in his eyes.

“I can tell.”

“Well, f*****g finish so I can go home and get off with my B.O.B. He might not be flesh and blood, but he gets the job done.”

His eyes darkened, and I knew the vision of me pushing a vibrator in and out of my p***y was playing in his mind.

A moment later, there was no desk between us. In a split second, we’d gone from arguing to his body pushing mine against the wall. His hands pinned my arms to the hard surface, a shuddered breath leaving his chest.

I licked my lips, my body lighting up at his aggressive display. My body was on fire. I couldn’t think or speak. How was he doing it to me?

He leaned in, his face next to mine, lips tracing the shell of my ear as he whispered, “Does that turn you on?”

I resisted the urge to turn my head and find his lips. I wanted to feel them against mine, to taste him. There were many ways I wanted to taste him, but that was the first. My body betrayed my need, bowing into his.

“My, aren’t you a naughty girl, panting for it. Tell me, Delilah, are you a dirty w***e that likes to be f****d?”

He was a dirty-talker—I was screwed. I’d always fantasized about being with a dirty-talking man, and now I had one pressed up against me.

His voice was deeper, somewhat rough, making my desire for him grow. It was useless resisting—I wanted him. By his display, I had a feeling he could bring me the pleasure I’d never found with anyone else.

His hips rocked forward, pushing his hard c**k into my stomach. My breath caught in my throat, cutting off my words, as my entire body ached for him.

“Answer me.” He pulled my arms above my head. “Are you a dirty w***e that likes to be f****d?”

I sucked in a ragged breath before whispering, “Yes.”

A victorious smile broke out on his face before his lips crashed to mine, his hands releasing me then and wrapping around my body. It wasn’t gentle or sweet. It was passionate, needy, and full of bite. His teeth grabbed my bottom lip, pulling it then diving back in for another bruising kiss. My hands moved into his hair, tugging at his light brown locks. He growled, and I almost came from the sound.

Fulfilling my unspoken words, Nathan’s hand moved down to my waist, his fingers kneading the flesh beneath. They relaxed a bit, almost unsure.

“Harder.”

His eyes widened at my request, and I realized the word had escaped my lips, revealing my secret need. I didn’t have time to blush or attempt to backpedal. He gripped tighter, lifting me from the ground, pressing my back against the wall he’d pinned me to. My legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him close to the apex of my thighs, where I needed him most. His hand moved up, pushing the material of my skirt with it, opening my legs further.

Hard strokes of his hands worked their way up my torso before ripping open my button-up blouse. I was oblivious to the pinging sound of the buttons bouncing off the furniture, due to my own ragged, erratic breath, pounding in my ears, until one of them hit my leg. With a rough hand, he grabbed onto my breasts. He pulled the fabric aside and twisted my n*****s between his fingers. I moaned at the feeling, my hips pushing into his.

“You have beautiful breasts. f*****g perfect, perky tits.”

Leaning down, he took one of my n*****s between his teeth and pulled. His tongue flicked out to tease, his hand mimicking on the other side. I cried out, my body on fire with need for him, shaking with desire.

“Please, Nathan.” I needed him inside me, f*****g me, taking me.

“Please what, Delilah? I don’t know what you want if you don’t say it.”

He smirked, and I glared at him in return. I didn’t want to play his game. I wanted him inside me. My mind screamed out at him, calling him every nasty name I could conjure. His movements ceased, hands no longer moving but resting against my skin.

I gritted my teeth and growled. “Please, take out that big hard c**k that I can feel you hiding, and f**k my p***y with it.”

“That was f*****g sexy,” he replied, before tearing his shirt open. His hand moved between us, shredding the fabric that had been my panties away. He undid his belt and pants.

Once his c**k was free, he rocked his hips, running his hard, silky length against my wet folds, teasing my clit. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes.” I whimpered, pushing against him.

His hands returned to my waist as he lined himself up with my entrance. “Then f*****g take it.”

I cried out as he drove his c**k into me. The force of his thrust was hard enough to rattle the painting that hung a few feet away from where we were. There was a brief second of a pause before he pulled out and pushed back in with the same intensity. In two strokes, he had me on the edge, my eyes rolling back as he filled me. I was so drenched for him that he slid in and out with ease.

“So deep!” I managed to cry out between pants. My eyes screwed tight as I soaked up the pleasure, my head lolling against the wall. I was no longer able to do anything other than feel his c**k pumping into me.

In with a slam, and then out. Slam! Out. Slam.

His movements were relentless, making me feel him almost to the point that I could take no more. He grabbed onto my jaw, tilting my face down and bringing us almost eye-to-eye.

“Open your eyes. Don’t you dare look away,” he warned, driving harder.

I cried out softly. “Can’t…too much.”

“You will. Even when I make you come and you’re screaming my name. Or I won’t let you.”

I whimpered again, and he knew why—there was no denying his words were pushing me closer to orgasm. My muscles tightened and my eyes threatened to close, my body giving in to his assault, shaking as I tipped over the edge. I complied and screamed out his name as I came hard, my eyes never leaving his. The feeling of him continuing to thrust so hard while my walls clenched around him was severe.

“Good girl. f**k, that was so f*****g hot. You feel so good when you come around my cock.” His lips found mine again for another hard kiss.

I couldn’t believe he was still going, his hips moving hard and fast. It was heaven and hell wrapped into one. His lips moved down my jaw to my neck, nipping and scraping at the flesh beneath as he went.

He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his mouth continuing its attack. It felt so good when his teeth dug deeper, marking my skin but not breaking it. Each nip sent a wave of fire pulsing through me, making me wetter for him. The rumble in his chest grew as his hands tightened around my hips, making it pretty obvious he could tell.

I was in sensory overload from his c**k, grip, and teeth, not to mention from his body pinning me to the wall. Everything he did made me his. With every thrust of his hips, every dirty word, and every bite, he claimed me.

He bit down on the meat of my shoulder, and I screamed as a second orgasm ripped through me. My hands searched for something to grab hold of, and they found his neck, pulling him ever closer as my body shook. A groan escaped him, and the rhythm of his hips became erratic as my walls milked him.

I was still coming when his teeth clamped down harder and his hips slammed flush with mine. I could feel his c**k pulsating as he spilled inside me, pushing further into me with each spurt.

We were both breathing hard as we came down from our s*x-induced high. His knees buckled and we slid down the wall, his forehead resting on mine. After a moment he removed himself from me. Every cell in my body mourned the loss.

Standing up, he straightened out his clothing as he began pacing. I stayed where I was on the floor, watching him. My muscles resembled Jell-O too much to move. He gathered up his suit jacket and threw it on, never stopping his pacing. His hands moved through his hair, pulling at his neck, while he whispered “s**t” over and over again, so low I almost couldn’t hear him.

He was regretting the greatest s*x of my life. Fantastic.

He stopped and turned toward me, and my eyes widened at the look of absolute hatred and disgust that met me. His hand grasped the coffee cup on my desk and hurled it into the wall, making me jump. The ceramic shattered into pieces before landing on the floor.

“f**k!” he screamed, then flung the door open and stormed out.

I was left sitting on the floor, stunned, staring at an empty doorway. After a few minutes, I knew he wasn’t returning, and I picked my tired, sore ass up off the ground. I collected my torn and tattered clothing, trying to redress myself as best I could with what I had remaining. With wobbling legs, I gathered my purse and walked out to my car, leaving the office in a state of disarray.