The Client

“Could we please address the elephant in the room?”

I shouldn"t have been so p.i.s.sed off when Reed continued to ignore me. The bas.e.m.e.nt was so freaking arctic today yet he wore a paint-spattered T-s.h.i.+rt and board shorts. We were matching, actually, though my shorts were cargo pants and my T-s.h.i.+rt was still sparkling white.

But there was the fact that I would probably be getting my CCW permit revoked when I inevitably shot and killed my client for giving me the silent treatment.

I tried to be a little polite in my approach. “It"s been over a day now, Mr. Lancaster. While I"m grateful that you haven"t told your brother – or, worse, my father – about what happened, I think we should discuss it like adults.” I waited a beat, growing more annoyed by the second. “I discovered that you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e to lesbian p.o.r.n and have a big penís.”

Reed was behind an easel, his large frame only partially hidden by it. Releasing a groan of frustration, he suddenly knocked the whole thing over, sending it flying to the ground. He snapped his head in my direction.

“You"re distracting me,” he bit out, running a hand through his permanently messy hair.

Yeah, well, so are you, I thought, because my mind had taken up permanent residence in the gutter where Reed was concerned. Seriously, my mind had more bacteria on it than Hef"s bed in the Playboy Mansion.

I cleared my throat and tried to clear my mind in the process. “Sorry. Need any help?” Before he could protest, I was wending my way through his other work and heading towards him. He straightened, retreating. “G.o.d, Reed, for one fúcking second, don"t look at me like I"m gonna jump your fúcking bones,” I snapped.

Silence stretched and I mentally cursed my verbal diarrhea as I watched a blush slow ascent of a blush up Reed"s neck. I was close enough to see a tiny spot of what looked like green paint on his chin and because I had nothing else to lose, I reached out and wiped it away with the pads of my fingers. He flinched, his green eyes wary. They were speckled with gold, those eyes. The bright light down here made sure I saw that and suddenly, I was a lot closer to those eyes because one of us had closed the s.p.a.ce between us and it was kind of hard to breathe when I was craning my neck and sinking in a green sea…

d.a.m.n it, I"m hot for this guy.

I hadn"t realised that my fingers were still on Reed"s chin until his moved over mine and burned them. That was how hot his skin was.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I said on an exhale. My eyes drifted down to the tiny s.p.a.ce between us, to the impressive bulge in his shorts, before travelling back up to meet his penetrating gaze. “Oh. Oh. That"s for me, huh?”

Reed blushed, trying to retract his hand. I wrapped my fingers around his, holding him there, before I stepped forward and into the heat his body radiated. G.o.d, this was weird and so unprofessional but Reed and I had long crossed that line and I just…couldn"t…help it.

His closeness was doing things to me; things to my pússy, to my nipples, to my G.o.dd.a.m.n toes. I was aching all over and it had started the moment I saw this man naked and covered in his own c.u.m. His erection was pressed against my abdomen, hard and I was two seconds away from getting on the tips of my toes and rubbing against him and purring.

“Lena,” Reed breathed, “m-maybe you should –”

“Go?” I cut in, pus.h.i.+ng my hands into his soft, soft hair. He winced when that exposed his scarred cheek but didn"t stop me. “No, you want me, Mr. Lancaster, and I want you.”

My mother taught me that beating around the bush was a complete waste of time if you weren"t immortal or Donald Trump. So, hands on the back of his head, I dragged his head down and claimed his mouth in a fierce kiss. Reed"s eyes became hooded and then he was kissing me back, placing a hand at the back of my head to hold me there. I opened my mouth for him, allowing his tongue to meet mine, allowing him to taste me. I moaned, unconsciously rubbing myself against him, and he groaned in response. My eyes slammed shut but my hands were working between us, fumbling with the zipper of his shorts.
“Lena,” Reed said breathlessly, raising his head. His hands strayed down my back and cupped my a.s.s, pulling me to him and making it increasingly difficult for me to free his c.0.c.k. “Please.”

My hands stilled and my heart thumped in my chest. Please? If it was possible, my cúnt was weeping in earnest now, soaking my satin panties. I made myself finish the task of unzipping him and then w.i.l.l.y was free and I came to the conclusion that it was illegal for him to have ever been in captivity in the first place.

Get a d.a.m.n grip, Len.

Grip. Yeah. I needed to grip something, all right. I gripped Reed – well, tried to – and he jerked in my hand, murmuring something. He was almost as thick as my wrist and harder than concrete. He let out a low moan, the moan I had been fantasising about all through last night, and it was all I could do not to f.uck him right then and there.

“Please,” he repeated, his voice hoa.r.s.e.

“I"m going to suck you now, Reed,” I told him, hardly able to keep from licking my lips. I was satisfied by the way his hips rocked and his c.0.c.k moved in my hand but I had never wanted to deep-throat a guy like I wanted to deep-throat Reed Lancaster. “I might not get all of you inside me but I need to taste you. I promise you can come inside my mouth. Ever come inside someone"s mouth before?”

He shook his head, biting down on his already-swollen lower lip. “N-never d-done this.”

“What, had a handjob? b.l.o.w.j.o.b?” What sane woman would not want to handle his díck? The women I knew would take d.a.m.n pictures just to have solid proof they"d ever seen more than eight inches.

“s.e.x.”

That one word hung in the air like a planet and Reed pulled away from me.

“Just fúcking go,” he grunted, not meeting my eye.

I shook myself out of my brief stupor. “Reed, come here. I kind of had my suspicions about that.”

His head jerked up. “Gee, thanks,” he snarled. “What gave it away? The way I stutter my a.s.s off whenever I"m less than two feet away from you? Or the way I jerked off last night because you wore a fúcking turtleneck and when I look at you for even a nanosecond, it"s all I can do not to come in my pants?”

“Do you realise that you don"t stammer when you"re yelling at me?” I took a step towards him. He didn"t step back. “I like your stutter, Reed. I think it"s cute.”

“C-cute?”

“Yes.” I fell to my knees before him, reaching for his shorts. “I really want to suck you off. Will you let me?”

His eyes were dark with arousal as he took in the image of me on my knees. I, for one, liked my view. I reached for him and grasped his shaft in both hands, running my thumb along the slippery tip and eliciting a low, pained groan from Reed when I began to stroke him.

“That feels… Shít, it feels –” He let out a gasp when I made my first attempt at putting him in my mouth. Hips pistoning, he placed his hands on my head, sinking his fingers into my loose hair.

I sucked at the tip, relis.h.i.+ng the bittersweet taste of his skin, of his c.u.m. It wasn"t enough. I wanted to feel the throb of his shaft on my tongue, feel his c.0.c.k hit the back of my throat. I shuffled closer on my knees, taking him in as deep as I could, exploring his veins with my tongue as he pulsed in my hands.
Reed made a low noise in his throat, his fingertips digging into my scalp. I moaned when I felt him hit the back of my throat and he began to thrust into my mouth in earnest. He cursed, he moaned, he said my name.

“Need to…” he groaned, tugging at my hair. “Come.”

I cupped his b.a.l.l.s, ran my fingers over them. He jerked once, twice and came in my mouth. It happened so quickly I didn"t have time to brace myself. Spurt after spurt of thick white fluid hit the back of my throat and forced me to release him. My hands were sticky with it and the little I hadn"t managed to swallow dribbled down my chin and onto my front.

We were both breathing heavily by the time I got myself to my feet and removed all traces of Reed from my body. Only the taste of him in my mouth remained and I sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want to get rid of that anytime soon. I was pretty much past the point of no return with this man. Caution had been thrown to the wind and it wasn"t a freaking boomerang.

“Sorry,” Reed mumbled, zipping himself back up.

“Seriously? I should be sorry. This wasn"t part of the training course I took to do this job.” I fingered my holstered gun at my hip, staring up at the man who was apologising for coming in my mouth. “But it was worth it. To be your first.” I felt a warped sense of pride about that. “So…am I fired?”

Heat bloomed in his cheeks. “No.”

I placed my hands on his chest, feeling his erratic heartbeat against my palms. His eyes locked with mine. “I"m not stupid, Reed,” I said slowly. “Tell me why your brother wanted a female bodyguard when we"re overlooked for most jobs?”

Reed looked everywhere but at me. “Nathan"s an idiot. I don"t…need a bodyguard.” He huffed out a breath. “He only wants me to sleep with you.”

“Awesome to know,” I muttered, pus.h.i.+ng my hands off Reed"s chest. I wondered what my father and Ivan would say if they found out that they had essentially prost.i.tuted me. G.o.ddammit.

“Lena.” Reed astonished me by tipping my chin toward him. “I don"t want that from you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, really?” We both glanced at the front of his shorts.

“Fine,” he bit out, letting me go. “I"m a man. Sue me.”

“I think I will, you s.e.xist sack of horses.h.i.+t,” I spat, shoving him. He barely moved. “Is that the only reason you"ve been keeping me around? For the day you finally grow a pair and stammer out a request to fúck me?”

“Low blow, Lena,” he growled. A hand shot out to seize me and he effortlessly yanked me against his front.

I let out an embarra.s.sing squeal. A shard of unwelcome desire pierced my gut at Reed"s act of force and intensified to liquid arousal when his lips smashed against mine in a hard, unforgiving kiss. One hand fisted the back of my T-s.h.i.+rt and the other curled around a handful of my dark hair. I keened against him, rubbing my chest against his.

“G.o.d, Lena,” Reed groaned, tugging my lower lip into his mouth. “You make me so hard.”

His hand on my back dipped lower and lower, until he was between my thighs. I parted them, aching – aching so desperately – and his middle finger, hesitant at first, pushed against my pússy.

“Oh, shít,” I whispered, fisting his T-s.h.i.+rt. Maybe because of the fabric of my combats, that one finger was giving me just the right amount of pressure to make the ache dissipate just a little. “Reed.”
“You"re so beautiful, Lena.” His words were m.u.f.fled in the crook of my neck and when his tongue ran along my skin, I jerked against him, b.u.mping against his erection. “So, so beautiful. I want you.”

“Want you, too,” I moaned, throwing a leg around him, wanting him to grind against me. “Not enough, not enough,” I chanted, hoping and praying that he"d understand what I wanted, what he could give me.

He did.

In a flash, his hands were beneath my a.s.s and he was lifting me, my legs winding around him. With no effort whatsoever, he walked me to a wall and pressed me against it, angling our groins. We let out a simultaneous groan of pleasure when the head of his c.0.c.k hit my swollen clít, our pants the only barrier between us. Our mouths came together and my eyes fluttered shut as he held me to him and pushed against me. My pússy fluttered, my nipples became hard nubs. Each thrust pushed me that much closer to orgásm and I bucked against Reed, tightening my legs around him, wanting more yet immensely content with this teenage desperation.

“Fúck, Lena.” His thrusts became harder and faster and I couldn"t escape the wave of my orgásm even if I wanted to. “Coming,” Reed growled, and he did.

I was solely responsible for a guy coming in his pants and I had to admit, it definitely boosted the old ego. Of course, I was still p.i.s.sed off about this whole situation and a spot of dry-humping – no matter how gratifying – was not going to change that fact.

“I think it"s time I looked for another job,” I said once Reed had put me down and we"d adjusted ourselves. “A job where someone actually needs me. I"m positive no one would mind if I broke this contract.”

Reed"s brow furrowed. He ran a hand through his hair and, very stiffly, twisted on his heel and limped away.

***

I was dreading the call to my father, which is why I"d decided to sleep on my decision. One more night at Casa de I-Paid-to-Sleep-with-You wasn"t going to kill me. I even slept in the next day and didn"t get up until the loud banging at my door became impossible to ignore.

Once I"d rolled myself out of the admittedly comfy bed and realised I hadn"t changed out of the clothes I"d worn the previous day, I pulled open the door.

“You don"t need to break the d.a.m.n thing,” I muttered, stifling a yawn. I looked up and saw that Alfred was standing there, looking stoically Lurch-like.

“There has been a break-in, Miss Anosova, and while you were sleeping like the dead, the perpetrator is surely miles away,” he announced in a creepy monotone.

Shock hit me square in the gut and all thoughts of the s.e.xy dream I"d been dragged from disappeared. “Is Reed OK?” Guilt seeped into my voice.

“Come with me.”

“Yes. Right. OK.” I went for my gun, my faithful Beretta M9 this time.

My father"s voice was in my head as I followed Alfred to the front door. Secure the perimeter… Ensure that the client is secure at all times… Observe the little things… Relations with a client will make you sloppy…

The front door was completely damaged. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it to get inside and I had to wonder how Reed and I – the only two that stayed in the house at night – hadn"t heard a thing.

“Alfred –”

“Samuel,” he corrected, giving me a withering look.

“Yeah. That. Did you call the cops?”

“No. Mr. Lancaster didn"t see the need. Besides, you"re here.”

I stepped over the broken gla.s.s and wood splinters and began a sweep of the estate. It took me exactly fourteen minutes to walk the entire grounds to establish that there was no one else on the property. The electric gate was still intact and, short of grabbing a ladder, there was no way anyone could have gotten over the high brick walls.

By the time I made my way back into the house, the remains of the door were gone and Reed was standing in the doorway, looking like he"d just stepped out of the shower. A knot of arousal twisted in my gut at the image of him totally naked and wet.

“Were you hurt?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Was anything taken?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

I followed him to the bas.e.m.e.nt and found it completely empty, except for the bed. All his paintings, even the half-finished ones, were gone.

“So someone broke in to steal your paintings,” I said to myself, pacing the room.

“They were s.h.i.+tty, anyway.”

“I need to call my superior.”

Reed looked uncomfortable. “N-no cops though, right?”

“No, I"ll handle this myself.” I eyed him suspiciously. “You don"t seem too worried.”

He shrugged. “I wasn"t happy with them. Not my best work. I"m only concerned about someone being in my house while we were sleeping.” He turned a bright red. “In separate rooms.”

My eyes darted to the wall he"d pushed me up against and my mouth went dry. I cleared my throat. “If this person – or these people – did indeed steal your finished work, they"re probably going to try to sell them on the black market,” I said in a rush. “Won"t be too hard to catch an original Reed Lancaster being sold out the trunk of a car. Only problem is they could be back before then, for whatever reason.”

“Does this mean that…you"re staying?”

I looked at him then; at the dark blonde hair that was still damp from his shower, at the clean white T-s.h.i.+rt that clung to him in a good way, at the black jeans that hung low on his narrow hips, at his big feet with their surprisingly well-manicured toenails…

His electric green eyes were asking me the question he"d voiced about a minute ago.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I guess I am.”

My job was to keep Reed Lancaster safe, more so now that he"d received a definite threat. It was just a pity that I wasn"t professional enough to do that until I got him out my system.

***

A/N (Decided to put this here and not in a message): If you"re going to comment with an “update”, I would rather you not comment at all. I appreciate that you like the book enough to desperately want an update but it only feels like you"re putting pressure on me and doesn"t make me want to update in the slightest. As I"ve said in a previous message, updates will not be fast at all because I"m still in college and have recently gotten a job, etc. I don"t have an update schedule either and usually just write when I can"t sleep. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love, Kim.