The Rake (Boston Belles #4) by L.J. Shen

I pried the lips of her pussy open with my thumbs from behind, and licked her slit, using the tip of my tongue to drive her mad.

“Arghhhhhhhh,” she drowsed, letting her head drop as her arms began to shake.

Plastering a hand over the small of her back to lower her upper body, I pushed her open even wider, licking in long, deep strokes. I drank her sweetness, watching as she thrashed her head, stifling her little grunts of pleasure just to spite me. Her knees were shaking. She was liquid fire, every inch of her body scorching with arousal.

“Oh. Oh. Shit. Shit. Fuck,” she murmured. The future mother of my child, ladies and gentlemen.

“My lady,” I drawled sarcastically, my fingers wrapping around the flesh of her arse tighter, licking her more fervently. She came so violently she fell flat on her stomach across the desk.

“Damn.” She plastered her sweaty forehead to the desk. “That’s never happened to me before. That was fast.”

“Better you than me.” I gave her rear a patronizing little pat.

“Holy crap, dude. Did you use some kind of trick? That was intense.”

Rather than answer her observation, I flipped her on her back and grabbed the back of her knees, dragging her across the desk until her bum was perched on its edge, wrapping her bare legs around my waist.

She unbuckled me. The glee in which her hands moved told me she was more than glad I was back on American soil.

“Are you ever going to be fully naked when we have sex?” she teased, her tongue circling patterns along my neck.

“You’re the one who wants to keep it detached.” My bored tone did not match the monstrous erection the woman in front of me had just freed out of my trousers. Or the rush of erotic excitement coursing through me.

“Fair point,” she laughed.

I tormented her a few minutes before pressing home.

She ohhhhhed.

Being with her again felt better than the last time, and all the times before it. That was the issue with Emmabelle Penrose. She tasted like the greatest sin, and I was a well-known transgressor whenever temptation came knocking on my door.

She came again before I spilled my seed inside her. I collapsed on top of her, spent, the jet lag catching up with me all at once.

“Bro,” Belle said after a few seconds of my panting atop of her. “Heavy much? Get off of me.”

I peeled away and took a seat on the chair in front of her desk, this time refusing to evacuate myself like a common prostitute. I had to establish some sort of authority with this wild child.

I made a show of propping my legs on her messy desk and lighting myself a rollie, sinking idly in my seat.

“Aren’t you going to ask how my England trip went?” I sent a plume of smoke skyward, watching as it ribboned around itself.

She hopped off the table and got dressed under the lamp, unbothered by the stark, unflattering light. “No. I don’t give two shits what or who you do when I’m not around.”

“My father died.” I ignored her sheer vulgarity.

That made her stop. She made a show of pressing a fist against her lips, as if stuffing her words back inside. “That was a foot-in-mouth moment for me. I’m really sorry, Dev.”

“I’m not,” I said flatly. “But thank you.”

“How’re you … er, handling things?” She shoved a leg into her leather pants.

“Quite well, considering I loathed him with every atom in my body.”

“I’m surprised Cillian and Sam didn’t say anything.” Belle watched me carefully for a reaction. Smart lass. We both knew I hadn’t shared anything about my personal life with my mates. She must’ve wondered what business I had confiding in her of all people. I happened to wonder the same bloody thing. As far as sympathetic audiences went, she was a tad cooler than Antarctica.

“I keep my private life private.” I exhaled rings of smoke, sending arrows into them.

“Still…” Belle flipped her hair out of the back of her top and swaggered over to me, slinging herself against the desk “…losing a parent is always hard. Even if—and sometimes especially—you don’t get along with them. It reminds you of your own mortality. Living is a messy business.”

“So is your desk,” I commented, ready to change the topic. “Why does it look like an Office Depot branch exploded all over it?”

She let out a laugh. “I’m a messy person, Devon. Welcome to my life.”

“That’s not true.” I swung forward, removing my loafers from her desk and sifting through the wrinkled and stained envelopes on it. “You are highly calculated and driven. You have a fourteen-foot-high billboard of yourself bathing in a massive champagne glass and a business you could sell tomorrow and live comfortably. Yet there are piles upon piles of unopened letters here. Walk me through your logic.”

To reinforce my statement, I lifted a batch of a dozen or so envelopes in the air. They all looked handwritten and addressed to her personally. Sweven snatched them from my hand and dropped them into the bin beneath us. A witchy smile marred her face. I knew I’d hit a nerve.

“Why should I? They’re not bills; unlike some fax-using dinosaurs, I pay mine online. And they’re not from friends, because they would pick up the phone and call me. Ninety-nine percent of these letters are written by ultra-conservative lunatics who want to inform me that I’m going to burn in hell for running a burlesque club. Now why would I put myself through that?”