Page 14 of Sinister Devotion

But the minute I'm ready to leave the office, I spot Fiona on her way to the elevator. I walk in right behind her, ensuring we're alone before I hit the emergency stop button. She's on her phone talking to someone with a smile on her face that annoys me. I snatch the device out of her hand, ending the call.

"Julian, what the fuck?!" she shouts and looks at the elevator's panel of buttons. "Why did you stop the elevator? What the hell? That call was about business, business you told me to do."

"Does this business include you telling the sellers you think your boss is an idiot who is stupid enough to throw money at them?” I ask her with anger simmering under the surface.

"Wait, how did you know? I mean, I didn't say those exact words. I have to tell them what a great deal they're getting?—"

I cut her off, slamming my hand against the wall beside her face. It startles her, causing her to flinch away from me as my words come out with anger lacing through every syllable. "You do what the fuck I tell you to do. Don't sprinkle anything else on it. You have no idea what the fuck you're fucking with. These deals aren't just run of the mill transactions. There's a reason I hired you. You're supposed to be discreet. Somewhere along the way, you've forgotten how hungry you used to be."

"That doesn't make sense, Julian," she whimpers.

"When you're hungry, you do as you're fucking told. When you're complacent," I move my hand up and down like a wand over her torso, "you think you're above your position, like you're indispensable. This is your last warning, Douglas. Do what the fuck I tell you to do or find another fucking job."

I press the button for the elevator to start moving again. Fiona sniffles and holds back her tears. She doesn't understand I've probably just saved her life. Her getting rattled in an elevator is a lot less traumatic, a lot less permanent, than ending up in one of Armande Marzano's meat lockers.

I head home, where Blackwell Manor is a welcome sight. It pains me to know what this day has cost Claire. From my behavior last night, to whatever exchange she had with my mother that sent her scurrying home, she doesn't deserve my silence and avoidance.

After a shower and change of clothes, I head into the kitchen to make her one of our favorite snacks. Its simplicity is criminal and my parents despise it as low brow, what the kids call a ‘struggle meal’.

When I knock on her door, I hear the voice of her dear mother, Sue-Ellen, telling her bedtime stories. "Can I come in, Claire?"

"It's your house," she mumbles and I hear the sniffle of her tears.

I push the door open, entering the room I remember Sue and Derek drove me crazy to decorate. I smile at the memories of finding out my best friends were going to have a baby. God, we were babies.

I put the plate on the nightstand beside her massive canopy bed. Claire looks so small inside of it. Her eyes are puffy from tears, but they light up when they see what's on the plate.

She giggles as she pulls herself up the bed. "Cinnamon toast? Really?"

"With an extra helping of sugar and butter," I tell her. "I need to apologize to you, Claire."

"For what?" She sighs and takes a bite. The way she licks her lips has my mind spinning away from my original reason for coming in here.

"My mother told me a little of what she said to you and she had no right?—"

"She's right, you know?" Claire says.

"About what exactly? If you think your father used me in any way, shape or form, you're wrong and my mother has no idea what she's talking about. Your father saved my life once. We were kids, teenagers and I was in a bad place after my parents' divorce. There was so much shit going on with them."

She puts the plate down to stroke the side of my face. "No, not about my father. About you having to stop your life because you had to take care of me. You don't date. You don't go out. All you do is work. Don't you miss the perks of a relationship, being with a woman?"

Claire moves her hand to my jaw, stroking the side of my chin until her thumb grazes my lips. I can taste the cinnamon sugar as she pulls my lips apart for me to suck on her thumb.

The sounds coming from her throat change the direction of the conversation. She pulls me close to her, looking me in the eyes before dropping her gaze to my lips. When she runs her tongue over her mouth, I can't stop myself from kissing her.

Once again, I'm giving into my lust, my need to consume her and to protect are overwhelming. I hate how this feels, to be a man who can't control himself when the woman of his dreams strokes his face.

Our mouths pressing against one another in her bedroom ignite a passion between us that shouldn't be. The way she understands exactly what to do to get me to ignore all sense of reason has me ready to do her bidding. She doesn't reach for my dick.

Claire reaches around to run her fingernails against my scalp, holding me close as she tugs my hair while spreading her legs for me in nothing but a long t-shirt. I can smell her sweet pussy calling me, beckoning me to show her what a true apology from me feels like. I have to do that if I'm to stop what I truly want to do to her.

I pull away from our kiss, and push Claire back, gripping her legs to yank them apart and lying between them on my stomach. The pain of my erection fighting against the mattress keeps me focused on what's in front of me. The soft mound of flesh is as sweet as I imagine when I swipe my tongue between her folds.

To feel her fingers dragging through my strands makes me close my eyes, whispering against her pussy. "I'm sorry, Claire. I need you. I'm so sorry."

I doubt she can hear me over her own moans of satisfaction as my tongue delivers her an orgasm that arches her shoulders back while grinding her hips against my face. She moves as if my tongue can fuck her, but I can only do so much.

My lips capture her clit, sucking on it, kissing it, using my tongue to caress it as I slip one finger and then another inside of her clenching walls. Her breathing quickens as she gasps with short breaths that are soon followed by the trembling of her thighs.

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