Concede (The Diamond Empire Book 1) by Kathy Coopmans (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📕

her into my arms, but then she tilts her head back, opens her mouth, and laughs.

To someone that didn’t know Victoria, they’d think she’s nuts. I’m not just someone. I’m a man who knows her better than she thinks.

She’s hurting, and if crying and then bursting into laughter is the damage control she needs toward healing, then she can have at it.

Despite everything rambling around in her head, she’s laughed without the tears many times in the past few days. It’s a beautiful thing to hear.

“I’m okay, Seth. Thanks to you, I’m going to be okay. So, answer my question, why are you standing there staring at me?” she asks, going right back to scrubbing—all that black hair curtaining around her. My hands itch to tangle it in my fists. To wrap it around my hand and lose myself in the well of her body.

“Hmm,” I consider. It’s the only thing I can get past the lump of emotions lodged at the base of my throat. Here she is, thanking me, and I’m standing here thinking about tapping her ass.

Among other things, of course.

That’s how it is between us, though. Uncontrollable pleasure. Indulging in one another, exploring. A seed planted years ago only to root itself through Victoria’s personal hell.

That guilt I didn’t feel a minute ago hits me upside the head. It wavers for a second before I shove it down. Victoria might be vulnerable, might have given in to me, to what is meant to be whether the devastation that dragged her to the depths of hell happened or not. But she can’t stop herself from wanting that pleasure any more than I can.

“You have no idea the fantasies I’ve had about your ass only to come walking in here and find you like that. So, excuse me if I felt the need to stare at what belongs to me. You are the sweetest, sexiest addiction I’ve ever had.”

It feels like a lifetime before she comments.

“What kind of fantasies?” Curious eyes peer up at me when she turns around. That look alone has my cock pointing to the ceiling.

Hard as stone.

Fuck. I can picture it now. The unsurmountable pleasure it will bring when I take her ass.

She’d go off like a bundle of fireworks.

“Every kind you can imagine. I want to stake a claim over every part of you. But not tonight. Tonight, I want to watch your face when you fall apart, especially after you teased me all night in that dress. Giving me peeks of those thighs, I love. I could hardly contain myself.”

Long legs, high heeled black boots, and stares. From both men and women. Even our waiter stumbled over his words when he approached us. I wanted to wring his scrawny neck. But being she knew him, and he couldn’t have been over twenty, I stayed in my seat.

Tonight, we went to dinner at Diesel’s ex-girlfriend’s restaurant. While Victoria talked, staring out the window at the Manhattan skyline, telling me about different places she loves to go, and how she loves working at Buttercup Bakery, I stared at her—getting lost in her words, seeing sparks of life lighting up her eyes.

“I wore it for you. You said blue is the hottest color of fire. That’s what I want you to see when you look at me.”

Fuck me, she remembered.

In an instant, the room fills with the intensity of seriousness—a tether pulling me toward her.

A groan rumbles from my mouth when her eyes hood as they roam up and down my body, tongue flitting out and swiping across her lips. Victoria’s green gaze fixes on my cock, straining through my boxers before moving across my bare chest and abs.

About lose my shit when she stands, walks my direction, and strips out of her dress. It’s impossible not to drink her in.

Intoxicating.

Exquisite.

Fucking beauty.

Rushing through, ridding myself of my boxers, my cock like granite, I grab the rag she’s still holding out of her hand and drop it to the floor. Cleaning time is over.

Warm hands hit my chest. Cock pressing against her soft stomach.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me? How you’re everything I was looking for. How your laugh is the best thing I’ve heard. I see my future when I look at you. I see someone who deserves a better man than me. I’m just the lucky son of a bitch who caught you. The man who will help you fight everything that tries standing in the way of giving you a happily ever after. You deserve nothing less. You’re my weakness, my salvation. My everything.”

Tremors jolt through her body—eyes lighting with a hundred small fires.

“I feel the same,” she whimpers and runs her tongue along my jaw and down my throat. Leaving a hot blazing trail, her teeth nipping at my flesh. Her words, touch, honesty drive me straight out of my mind.

Need.

It licks a trail up my dick.

Reaching up, I skim my fingers along her collarbones. Goose bumps scatter across her flesh. A sharp gasp falls from that mouth I want on mine when I drop to my knees, place my hands on the back of her thighs and skim up those legs that drive me mad. “Gorgeous,” I whisper, squeezing her ass and hooking a couple of fingers under the band of her panties, slowly dragging them her legs.

Perfect pink pussy on display.

Wet and glistening with desire.

I nearly come on the spot.

Standing, I unclasp her bra, letting her breasts fall free, and hook an arm around her, lifting slightly, taking a few steps, and positioning us on the bed. My back against the headboard. Victoria straddling my lap. Her arms grasp my shoulders as I kiss a path up her neck, nip her jaw and follow the lines of her lips with my tongue, drawing them between mine and bite.

Softly.

Gently.

Seductively.

She tastes so good I couldn’t do anything but kiss her and press my cock against her pussy as I swallow down the soft moans coming out of her.

Stunned.

“Seth.”

Pure