Hostile Takeover by Hill, W (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📕

He didn’t want to dwell in those dark spaces, so he thought back to that phone call. In truth, he’d been surprised she’d waited that late, given that most teens these days lost their virginity in high school. She’d stumbled around a bit, but she’d wanted to talk about it. The guy had been an okay sort who’d done a decent job, not completely screwed up. She didn’t say so baldly, but he could tell she hadn’t had an orgasm, not unusual for a girl’s first time, but she’d felt those stirrings that suggested it could go that way sometime down the road. He’d confirmed her experience was normal. Without endorsing her going out on a Debbie-Does-Dallas pilgrimage to find the ultimate orgasm, he’d told her it would get better.

He’d cautioned her to be careful, told her what to watch out for. She’d gotten a little teary. After he made sure the tears were just typical female catharsis over an important turning point, and not because Bill What’s-His-Name needed to have his dick twisted off, he’d reassured her they were normal too.

Not too long after that, the letters and calls stopped coming so regularly. Cass had said she didn’t have a steady boyfriend, so Bill hadn’t lasted. However, dinner tonight clearly suggested she’d figured a lot of things out, and not just about sex.

Was the brat smart enough to realize the importance of that break in contact with him, setting a clear demarcation line between the relationship that had existed between man and teenager then, and man and woman now? Plotting it out so she could show up in his life as a sexy, grown-up young woman, homing in on him like a sleek barracuda? That kind of calculation was a bit scary, but she’d always been precocious.

She had self-confidence, determination, and the Dom in him who recognized it, recognized what she was, hungered for it. He wanted to hurt her, give her pain, and she acted like she’d welcome it. She was off limits, but a big portion of him—entendre intended—was just not giving a rat’s ass. The combination of innocence and sexual drive made her damn near irresistible.

So if that was all there was to it, why wasn’t he going to a club to blow off steam? Or calling up his preferred reputable escort service to take care of his more functional and dangerous cravings?

Because she was in his head. Hell, her scent was still on his clothes, where she’d rubbed up against him during the dancing. He’d smiled at her during the Cajun two-step, and kept smiling. It was hard not to appreciate her, especially when she was utterly serious and yet had that dancing light in her eyes.

It had reminded him of something he couldn’t deny. While he may have helped the teenage Marcie let loose and laugh again, her dry wit and self-deprecation, unexpected for her years, coupled with the occasional dose of teenage omniscience on every subject, had kept him grinning and impressed back then. Plus, as the others had found their “one” and gotten married, affecting him in ways he hadn’t expected, she’d seemed to understand when it was getting to him. She’d loosened up things inside him about that.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? His relationships with women were about the physical, and the pure psychology of D/s. Marcie had an emotional connection to him he couldn’t deny, something no other woman—other than the K&A wives who had more clear boundaries—had with him.

He imagined her eating that dessert at home, alone, the chocolate melting in her mouth. The tines of the fork imprinting on her lips, her moist tongue coming out to catch a bit of sweet. He could see her brown eyes, thinking over the evening, analyzing, planning her next attack. Hell, Marcie had started studying for her SATs when she was eleven. Superhuman focus and drive was a family trait. Except in her older brother Jeremy, unless you counted a superhuman determination to self-destruct.

He drew on the cigarette again, a shadow passing through his mind at the thought. It had been awhile since he’d asked Lucas how that was going. For the past few years, Cass went to Thailand monthly to visit Jeremy. She took one of the kids with her each time. Sometimes Lucas went. Through him, Ben knew Marcie had made the trip a few times as well. But the last report Lucas had given the group said Jeremy’s time was running out.

Of course, if Jon hadn’t found that clinic trying an alternative treatment, and mixed it up with some Eastern hocus pocus by having Jeremy stay in a Buddhist temple near the clinic, the kid would have been dead over six years ago. With full-blown AIDS, he’d been living every day on borrowed time, a fucking miracle. Of course, all of them were living on borrowed time, weren’t they?

Lately it felt like he wasn’t doing shit with his.

Jesus, he wasn’t even fit company for himself. He was beating himself up for sending her off in that cab. He thought of the way she’d sneaked in those little brushes of her body, her wandering hands during their dance. He’d had her turned against him once, her backside soft against his groin. It would have been so easy to cup her breasts, hold her tighter against him, bury his nose in her hair.

He was going to go home, stand naked under a cold shower, wrap his fingers around his dick and jack off until his legs buckled. He already knew he’d be imagining her on her knees, working him in her mouth, that blonde hair slick on her skull. He’d probably have to spurt three or four times tonight. When he was finally drained, he’d lie in bed, stare at the blinking light of a mute television, make his way through a bottle of whiskey, and try not to think about the fact he was starting to backslide into a person he’d