CONNOR COBALT
I check my watch. 4 a.m. The stationary cameras in the kitchen rafters film me, but there’s no possibility anyone would want to watch me, alone, right now. I just take pleasure in the idea that Scott will have to sift through hours of footage of me doing monotonous tasks, like studying. I find time to give the cameras the finger too, even if it’s childish.
Ryke would definitely do it.
And if I can tell Scott to fuck off at four in the morning, then I’ll gladly take the opportunity. The benefit is just too fucking good.
I pour black coffee into a larger mug and fit the pot back. As soon as I turn around, I flinch and almost spill the hot liquid on my button-down and slacks. “Dammit, Rose.”
She wears her black silk robe, but I focus on her hands that fix firmly on her hips. “You never came to bed.”
I take a sip of my coffee and pass her easily, heading to the kitchen table, papers spread around my open laptop. “I have business reports due
tomorrow. I don’t have time to sleep.” She follows me, and just as I near my chair, she kicks the legs, and it overturns and clatters to the floor.
My brows jump as I look from Rose, her arms crossed, and the chair on the floor. “Are you trying to start something?” I would smile if my eyes didn’t feel like lead. My temples pound as though someone repeatedly swung a bat at my face. She has more leverage on me when I’m this exhausted.
“Let me help you with the report,” she says.
“No.” I set my mug down on the table so I don’t burn her or me. Her vexed stance and piercing yellow-green eyes tell me what she may do next. And it’s not going to be delicate.
“Richard, you can’t live off two hours of sleep a day. So either I help you or you’re going to turn your report in late and try to get an extension.”
The latter is not an option, and while I think Rose is fully capable of helping me, she needs the sleep as much as I do. There’s no point in both of us suffering while I try to get my MBA.
“Go back to bed,” I say flatly. “You’re stubborn.”
“I’m determined,” I refute. I layer on a complacent smile, which causes her chest to rise in irritation.
She shoves me hard, and I sway at the force, already predicting it enough to brace myself. But she catches me off guard, darting to the table and gathering my papers. She scans the words quickly.
“Rose,” I warn. “You’re not helping me.” I try to collect the papers from her, but she holds them above her head, as though that’ll work. I easily snatch a couple, having the height advantage.
“I can calculate these numbers,” she says, glancing at the computer screen.
“I have no doubt that you can. But you’re not going to.” She tries to reach for my laptop, but there’s no way I’m letting her touch it—tired or not, I block her with my body and shove her back with enough force that she stumbles into the wall.
She gapes and then her lips tighten. “You always talk about how I need to accept help once in a while. You’re becoming a—”
“Think hard before you finish that sentence, darling.” Her eyes brighten at the challenge. “A hypocrite.”
That’s it. I grab her around the waist, and she starts hitting my chest with closed fists. “Set me down right now, Richard!”
I carry her towards the kitchen sink, my hand gripping her ass, while she thrashes against me. When she bites my arm, I grimace into a laugh. “You want to play rough?” I set her feet on the ground, and before she can orient herself, I push her hard against the kitchen island.
I lose my hand in her hair and yank forcefully. She gasps, but she blinks quickly. “Let me help you.”
“No.”
Her nose flares. And she slams the heels of her palms into my chest, forcing me back. “I’m doing half of your report.” She’s about to storm over to the kitchen table, but I seize her again. My lips find her ear as I draw her ass towards my cock.
“No,” I force, “the only thing you’re going to do is sleep.” My hot breath hits her skin as I lower my head. Her perfume smells like white roses and ivy—a scent that dizzies me in an intoxicating lull. I love every inhale. My lips skim her neck before I suck deeply.
She lets out an audible noise of pleasure before spinning on me again, her gaze flickering to my laptop.
“No,” I tell her. “Yes.”
When we disagree, we usually don’t speak for a couple days until one of us concedes. I don’t want that to happen tonight, not with Scott upstairs trying to encroach on my territory. I watch her shift in anger, her black robe stopping mid-thigh. Adrenaline pumps into my veins as her blazing eyes
dance over me.
I rub my sensitive lips, and I make a calculated decision. I shove her into the island again, and she lets out a sharp noise. She tries to fight me at
first, but I pin her to this place with my pelvis, her spine curving against the counter.
I squeeze her chin and glare as though she’s been a bad fucking girl, a look she rarely sees from me. Her whole body shudders. I feel every quake against my chest, my legs, my arms and groin. Her lips part and a high- pitched moan staggers upon release. The noise grips my cock so tightly that I choke on a groan. I want to be so far inside of her. I want to pound between her legs until her eyes flutter, until her limbs slacken in exhausted defeat.
She breathes heavily, as do I, and I trace her lips, her flushed cheeks, her narrowed eyes.
“I’m helping you,” she says with a raspy voice.
“No,” I say before I bite her lip. She moans again, and I slip my tongue into her mouth, kissing her forcefully. She returns it with just as much power, her hands clenching my hair with a desperation that I haven’t seen from her in a while.
I lift her up onto the counter and pull her legs towards me. I wrap them around my waist, not giving her time to be uncertain. My hands drift underneath her robe, relaxing on the bareness of her thighs. I kiss her while guiding her shoulders onto the cool counter. My lips break from hers, sucking a line from her collar towards her breasts. With one hand, I slowly untie her robe, and then her eyes meet the cameras overhead.
She shoots up and places two hands on my chest. “Wait…” Her eyes flicker to the rafters again. I don’t want Scott to see Rose naked any more than she does, but I knew this would be the easiest way to get her to forfeit.
I’m not really a winner in this scenario. My cock hates me, dying to slip between her legs and thrust for as long as we both can last.
“Let me help.”
“I’m either fucking you right now. Or you’re going to bed.”
She realizes there’s no alternative. Really, I wouldn’t deflower her in the middle of the kitchen with cameras pointed on us. I may be horny, but I
have an idea of how I want to take her virginity. And this isn’t it.
“Fine,” she concedes. “I’ll go to bed this once, but if I catch you up again like this, I’m helping. Or you’re going to wake up with bruises.”
“Such threats.” I kiss her cheek, my lips lingering.
She holds my arms and swallows hard. I put a little space between us, but I keep my hand on her knee as she stays seated on the counter. A sudden thought sweeps my brain. It’s one I’ve meant to ask before. “Where do I rank in your life?”
She frowns and shakes her head in confusion. “You want me to rank you?”
I nod. I want to know how far I have to climb to be her first importance. I’m willing to work hard to get there, but I need to know who fills her heart before me and if I’ll ever be able to surpass them.
“I have siblings,” she says.
Her sisters outrank me. All three of them. That’s what I thought. “I almost had brothers,” I tell her honestly.
Her face falls. “What?”
“Twins. They would have been fourteen by now.” I skim her knee with my finger.
“How can you say it like that?” she asks. “Like what?”
“Detached.”
“I’m not the one who carried them for nine months.”
She slaps my arm. “Stop being an ass. This is serious.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you. I’m not sure if having brothers would have made me a different person.” I’ve often thought about this event and how it could have reshaped my life, but it’s too foggy to see a clear outcome. They would have been ten years younger than me. They would have gone to boarding school, been distanced from my life at Penn. Would I have been as fiercely protective of them as Rose is to her sisters? I don’t know. I was never given the chance to see. “My mother had
complications during their birth. They both passed, and I have no idea how she coped afterwards. She seemed…fine. She could have been as cold as
she appeared to be, or she could have just hid her grief. I wouldn’t know.” “Didn’t your parents separate two years later?”
I nod. “But I think their marriage was already strained when she was pregnant. I rarely saw them together.”
“Do you think…?” She trails off, not able to say the words. “That she cheated on him? That those weren’t his kids?” I shrug.
“Maybe. But all of it is neither here nor there. It’s all just…gone.” She exhales loudly. “That’s a lot to take in, Richard.”
“No one knows that except Frederick. I didn’t think it was important.” “It is,” she says.
I still don’t see how, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I must have believed it was significant too or else I wouldn’t have shared it. “So you love your sisters the most?”
She runs her fingers through her shiny brown hair. “I can’t imagine loving anyone more than them.”
“You do realize that Lily loves Loren more than anyone else on the
planet? If they were both given the ultimatum of oxygen or each other, I’m fairly certain they’d choose to suffocate.”
She contemplates this for a second, her brows scrunching in thought.
“I’m not asking you to love me,” I tell her. “I think we’re both smart enough to choose oxygen.” I don’t see how love could benefit me.
Her eyes fall and her lips downturn. After a full minute of silence, she says, “I’d choose to die if it meant my sisters could live. You think it’s stupid, but sometimes love is worth every foolish choice you make.” She hops off the counter. “Oh, and you’re my number three.”
“I beat Poppy already?” I fight a burgeoning smile. “I see her less than I do you.”
I fit my arms around her waist. “Don’t ruin it,” I breathe, kissing her neck lightly. My hand lowers to the small of her back, and I leave her with one last kiss to the forehead that feels more genuine than all the others.
“You’ve bewitched me, body and soul.”
She glares. “And you ruined it with a quote from Pride and Prejudice.” I grin. “What? I thought we were purposefully being cliché.”
“Maybe next time, quote the book and not the film.”
My eyebrow arches and I recite theatrically, “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” I shake my head. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it, darling.”
A laugh escapes her lips. “Go back to work. I’ll see you in the morning. Oh wait,” she feigns surprise, “it is the morning. I’ll see you when we cross paths again.” I watch her walk to the staircase, her lovely round ass bouncing against her silk robe.
“How can you be sure we will?” I ask before I return to my computer.
She hypnotizes me, gluing me to this very spot.
She glances over her shoulder, her silky hair molding her beautiful face. “Because,” she says, “we always do.”
