Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance) (42 page)

I know this. It’s common sense. But it’s
his
throat I want to grab and strangle until he dies, as impossible as that sounds. I’m just so mad at him. I might have put on a nonchalant show in his office earlier, but it was to hide my true emotion of finding Sienna there. I really,
really
hate that woman.

Even though he just cautioned me, I charge, lips curled in a snarl, vision blurred by a thin, red sheet of anger as I aim for his throat again.

The shake of his head is almost imperceptible as I do this, but he stands steady, times me, and just when I think I’m in reach of him, he effortlessly blocks me, shifts, and watch me crash to the floor.

Wasting no time, he strides to me, reach down, and grabs my unraveling ponytail. I do nothing to stop this, and that makes him livid.

“Why did you let this happen?” he barks at me.

When I attempt to reply, he loops my ponytail around his wrist and yanks my head back. Hard. A cry of pain rips from me. “You see that,” he continues to bark, “I own you now. You’ve officially lost the fight.” He tugs my head back painfully hard again, so our gazes are connected, eliciting another cry of pain from me. “Lotty, you never, ever, let your opponent get a hold of your hair. Your hair is your strength and your biggest weakness. There’s very little you can do once your opponent gets you by the hair. You’re a woman, it’s the first thing they’ll go for. You do
not
let that happen. You
prevent
it. You understand?”

I attempt to nod, but his grip on my hair hinders me.

Releasing his grip, he moves back, and as I start to get up, he rushes me again, grabs my hair, and yanks my head back. “Christ, Lotty. Focus. Think back on all I’ve taught you. What can you do to prevent this from happening?” Before I can answer, he releases his grip again, moves back. “Stay down.
FOCUS
. And try to stop me from getting a hold of your hair.”

Except I can’t remember anything he’s taught me right now. All I can think about is him and Sienna. How he had her in his office less than a day after we’ve— “Aargghhhh!”

Uh-huh, he’s got me again. My scalp splitting from the pain.

I’m not focused. I
can’t
focus. And he’s not letting this go.

Three times over he repeats this, and three times over I do nothing but scream. But after the fourth time, when my head starts to feel as if I’ve been dunked upside-down in a pot of burning coals, I’ve no choice but to focus, thinking back on all the moves he’s taught me.

For the next nine times, with every blocking move I employ, I fail, beginning to feel as frustrated as he looks. He wants to bark some more at me, I can see it, but he’s obviously clinging to his patience.

He releases his grip and moves back for the umpteenth time, but this time he’s not quick to rush me, and instead cranes his head back, exposing his throat. At once, I’m reminded of that night he dove into the back of my cab, how magnificent his throat had looked in the rearview mirror, how turned on I—wait, this is a hint. He’s giving me a hint of what to do, how to stop him. He’s cheating himself?

Cricking his neck from side to side, he refocuses his attention on me, and in a quarter of a second, he rushes me again. But I’m prepared now, got his hint. When he reaches me and attempts to grab my hair, I make my move, swift, focused. The side of my palms whip out like a knife, straight for his throat.

He’s expecting it—obviously because he gave me the hint—and dodges his upper body to the side. My palm narrowly misses his throat and slashes the air instead.

At this miss, I howl in frustration.

But Noah quickly ameliorates, “Cool it, Lotty. That was perfect. That’s the move. I just couldn’t let it connect or I wouldn’t be able to speak for at least an hour. That’s a lethal hit.”

“Precisely why I wanted it to connect,” I grumble to myself as I get up from the floor.

Ignoring this bit, Noah says, “Now, let’s go back to what we were working on before.
Do not
try to grab my throat. I’m taller than you by four inches. This move is thoughtless, ridiculous, and will be ineffective.”

Regardless of his warning, I do exactly the exact same thing when we start up again. And this frustrates him times ten. Yes, yes, I’m doing it on purpose. If I can’t hurt him physically, I might as rattle him some other way.

On my fourth attempt, I rush at him like a bull in a pen. I see the near imperceptible shake of his, and hear the exasperated sigh just before he squats, timing me. When I am almost there, he moves toward me, shifts a little to the left, grabs me around my middle, twists with me, and then body slams me down on the rubber flooring, his forearm pressed on my chest, pinning me down.

“What is wrong with you?” he growls in a deathly quiet voice. “You show up here for training, and then you refuse to use
anything
I’ve taught you over the weeks. You’re thinking before you move—or not thinking at all. You have zero focus, even though I’ve told you repeatedly that focus is
key
if you want to master this. You just keep attacking me for the sake of attacking me. If you knew your head wasn’t in it today, why did you come?”

“Why—” I try to catch my breath. He eases the pressure of his forearm a bit, but keeps me pinned still. “Why is she still in your life?”

He doesn’t falter, not thrown or surprised at the question, bastard that he is. “Did we not discuss this before?”

“So, you’re telling me,” I breathe out, chest rising and falling, “that if I had said yes to your offer, nothing would’ve changed?”

He brings his face ever closer to mine, noses brushing, his breath hot, minty on my lips. “Here’s the thing, Lotty: you
didn’t
say yes. Therefore, we have nothing to discuss. And seeing as you’ve done nothing but waste forty-five minutes of my day, I think its best you go now.”

He eases up off me, removes his forearm from my chest, and sits back on his heels.

Keeping my anger in check, I brace up on my elbows. “If I hadn’t walked in earlier, would you have had sex with her?”

“What does it matter to you?” is his non-answer. “You proposed ‘just-sex.’ We had ‘just-sex.’ Whatever else I do or don’t do is none of your concern.”

His words roll around my chest like a tangled ball of sharp razors, slicing, blistering, obliterating. Pushing up to my knees, I sit back on my heels, mimicking his position. Rage representing the hurt I feel. “I’m glad I didn’t say yes. I’m glad I didn’t fall for your bullshit. I’m
glad
I’m leaving.”

He’s unrepentant. “I’m glad you’re leaving, too.
Overjoyed
.”

“I hate you. So much.”

Lips crooking in a lopsided smile, he replies, “I hate you just as much.”

Chest heaving, I glare at him. He glares right back.

Something forceful and intense and all-consuming passes between us, and just as I’m about to surge at him, he preemptively shoots forward and tackles me to the floor again.

I part my legs.

He settles between them.

Our lips meet, our tongues collide, our anger melds and creates something beautifully wild, immense, and sublime.

On purpose, I bite his lip, and he roughly grabs my breasts. Squeezing. Yanking the top of my racer-tank and sports-bra down, revealing one of my breasts, he rips his mouth from mine and transfers it to my nipple, sucking, swirling, teasing. Arching my back, I moan to the ceiling, my body on fire.

Drawing back, he makes quick work of getting off my sneakers. Such an annoying hindrance. In record time, my lower half is completely bare, legs spread wide for him.

“Take your shirt off,” I beg him. “I want to touch your chest.”

Despite the hunger in his eyes, his anger is also still there, as well as I know mine is showing, so I know it’s a concession if he gives me this. After about half a second of hesitation, he obliges.

He then pushes his sweats down his hips, and grasps himself. Strokes once, twice, and then he’s inside me. An earsplitting cry escapes me as his blunt head bucks inside. So good. The pain is
so
good.

Reaching up, I rub my palms all over his abs, up his chest. He feels so damn good to touch. Both hard and smooth under the soft flesh my palms.

Pressing one big, strong hand down flat on my pelvis to keep my lower half still, he starts moving, hips flexing back and forth, mixing this up with a circular plunge every now and again, slowing down and speeding up again. His other hand dips into my slick folds, skillful fingers flicking and gliding, massaging and pressing. Hips pumping in and out.

In no time, my legs begin to tremble as my orgasm rolls in sky-high waves toward me, threatening to submerge me, drown me. “I’m not gonna talk to you,” I spit out. “Not gonna tell you how much of an ugly, filthy bastard you are.”

“Didn’t ask you to,” he grunts back.

“Because you’re scum and dung and vomit and I
hate
you.”

“Good.”

He picks up momentum, hand pressing down harder on my pelvis when I start writhing, my orgasm barreling forward. “You don’t even know what you’re doing. You should be…ashamed of yourself. You’re terrible at sex. Freaking…
awful
.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunts. “Is that why you’re about to come?”

“I’m about to…ohgod…
Ohhhh
…about to come because I’m picturing Henry Cavill.”

Relocating his hands to my hips, he grips tight, buries himself
deep
, and begins grinding into me, creating a rhythm, restricting me from moving my hips at all as he dominates it. “Hmm. With your eyes wide open?” With his steady grip, he jerks my hips upward, off the floor, and then he slams into me with a punishing force.

And that’s it. I’m
blown
to smithereens. My back arches up off the ground, incomprehensible noises tear from my throat and slap into the walls, filling the room. “Noah!
Ohhhhhhhgod
!!!! Yes! Noah!
Noah
!”

Vaguely, through the haze and seizure of my orgasm, I hear him chuckle. “Huh. That’s my name I hear. Not Henry Cavill’s?”

I’m not even close to coming down from my cosmic high yet when he pulls out of me and gets to his feet, dragging me up with him and whipping me around, my back to his chest.

One big paw clasps my hip to hold me in place, while the other applies pressure in the center of my back, urging me over. “Bend,” he orders. “Hold onto your ankles for support.”

‘
Sweet baby Jesus, he’s going to kill us
,’ breathes Reckless Lotty.

Rational Lotty cackles, loving every minute of it. ‘
Never thought I’d see the day when you cower from sex, Reckless
.’ Cupping her hands around her mouth, she hoots,
‘Bring it on, suit!’

Complying with Noah’s order, I bend over, grabbing my ankles to keep balance.

He enters me. I was expecting him to slam inside, but he surprises me with this slow and controlled ease in. His strokes neat, measured, and unhurried. He bends over me and smooths his palm up and down my spine, worshiping, groaning in his throat. From upside-down, between my legs, I can see his sweats bunched around his ankles, his knees slightly bent as he pushes in and out of me.

A shiver tingles through me when I feel his lips on my back, pressing kisses along my spine.
Oh wow
. “You have no idea, Cooley. No idea.” He begins rotating his hips now, a sexy, sexy sound rumbling from him. “I could give you everything…
everything
.”

I say nothing, loving the cool and deadly grinding from this position, but also missing his stallion, body-domination style. Also, being in this position is a challenge, although it does wonders for the depth and intensity of how I feel him.

It’s as if he’s heard my thoughts, because he stops moving, but remains buried inside me. One hands bands around my middle, and I’m suddenly up off the ground. The unexpected move has me grappling for a second or two, until he tells me lock my legs backward around him. Locking my legs behind him, I arch my upper half, throwing my arms around me to lock around his neck. Some serious gymnastic-type stuff this is.

Pressing his face to the back of my neck, he nips and kisses me there while he walks with me over to one of the leg machines, all the while buried inside me.

He sets me to me feet, instructing me to hold on to the bars and hike my left foot upon on bench. I don’t question, I don’t argue, I don’t hesitate, I just
do
. Because there’s something ovary-explosive about the way he commands and orders me what to do and then
takes
me. Something completely new for me because I’m normally the pushy one in bed. With Noah, the roles are totally different. I’m the bossy, mouthy one outside the bedroom, but inside the bedroom, he rules. And I
love
it.

Once I’m steadily positioned around the complicated equipment, he slides out of me, then slams in.
Yes! Here we go!

Done with the slow grinding, he
gives it to me
, hard and fast, deep and penetrating, body-ripping good. In less than five minutes, I’m screaming out as I come all over his shaft that relentlessly, sweet-achingly rips pleasure from me.

He reaches around and kneads my breasts, his breathing harsh and jagged in my ear. “Lotty, please…you feel so…shit…I want...”

I don’t get to hear what he wants, because he’s abruptly out of me, his growls condensing as I feel warm liquid on my ass, his knuckles hitting against my butt-cheek as he milks himself on me.

With a long-winded throat growl, he collapses onto me, kisses the side of my neck, nuzzles me. “How was that, little screamer?” he hustles out.

“On a scale of one to ten?” I breathe, “I’d say, eh, about three. Much better than last night, which was a one point five.”

He grunts. “Too bad you’re leaving. Won’t have enough time to wrack it up to a ten.”

“You said you’re glad I’m leaving.”

“You said you’re glad you’re leaving.”

“You offered to help me leave.”

“You accepted the offer.”

Okay, I’m not doing this again. Round and round we go like a goddamn Ferris wheel. There’s nothing for us to argue about, there’s nothing to be complicated. He knows what I want, I know what he wants, but neither of us are willing to bend for the other. As a result, we can’t be with each other the way we really want to be with each other. Instead of wasting the limited time we have together arguing, we might as make the most of it with some good sex, good food, good workouts, and good television series.