Sutton’s gaze faltered and his mouth seamed tighter as if trying to keep back what wanted to fall from his lips.
Was it more hurtful words or was he holding back something deeper, something more human?
“I never promised fidelity,” he said quietly, as if that absolved him because let’s face it, Buchanans didn’t have to answer to anyone and he’d made that abundantly clear the night at the restaurant.
“Neither did I,” she returned boldly, as if she had someone waiting for her to say the word and they’d come running.
But even as preposterous as it sounded, Sutton didn’t seem to like it at all. His nostrils flared and his grip on her arms tightened.
She tried not to cry out but she could feel her flesh bruising beneath his grip. “You’re hurting me!”
“You belong to me,” he told her, his voice like silken steel. “This body belongs to me. Your sweetness is for me alone. Do you understand? The only man between your thighs will be me.”
“But the same doesn’t apply to you?” she shot back, hating that her belly trembled with unbidden desire, that need coiled deep inside her at the feel of his body pressing down upon hers. “I don’t operate that way.”
Sutton, for all his cold bluster, seemed torn, almost broken in half.
Was it possible that Sutton felt remorse?
Could it be that he felt something he wasn’t ready for?
Before she could press him for answers, his mouth descended on hers and that ravenous hunger that seemed to bloom only for him, raged out of control for them both.
Within moments, he was tugging her yoga pants down to sink between her thighs like a man searching for heaven and when his tongue found her clitoris, she lost the ability to push him away.
He was a man possessed, driving her mercilessly to that brink of inescapable pleasure and then pulling back only to drive her again until she tumbled with a strangled cry straight into oblivion, blanking out with extreme pleasure as carnal bliss temporarily erased all else.
Nothing existed but Sutton and his touch.
He plunged into her, impatient, desperate. His thrusts were manic, and frenzied and it was all she could do but hang on and ride with him.
It was wild and dangerous, passionate and unbridled. This was a side of Sutton she’d only ever caught a glimpse of and it frightened her how much she was drawn to him.
She clung to him, her hands clutching at his back, the sweat beneath her fingertips mirroring the sweat dripping down her sides.
This was madness, this was debilitating in its total annihilation and she couldn’t get enough.
“Holy fuck,” Sutton gasped, his climax wringing him out like a wet dishcloth in the hands of a barmaid. “Holy…gonna have a heart attack…”
He rolled away from her, flopping onto the floor and remaining there, one hand flung over his eyes, trying to catch his breath.
Tiny pulses rocked her body as she soaked in the bliss of an epic orgasm. For a long moment, they both basked in the uncomplicated nature of pleasure but soon enough the pulses faded and reality intruded.
Sutton slowly rolled to a sitting position, sighing as he pushed his hand through his hair.
There seemed a heaviness between them, something bigger than either were willing to admit and Elizabeth sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first.
She didn’t know much about love but she knew it changed a person.
And she felt different.
There was something so…enigmatic about Sutton that she couldn’t exactly explain why she couldn’t refuse him.
Not even when her morals had been on the line.
Hadn’t she signed on the dotted line, knowing full well the consequence?
Sure, there was Gretchen to consider but the fact was, she would’ve found a way.
A part of her had been stubbornly intrigued by Sutton Buchanan, the way he commanded a room, the way he took what he wanted without apology.
She yearned for qualities such as that.
Qualities that had always eluded her in her life.
And now, she was falling for the man who would most certainly break her heart into a million tiny pieces and then feed them to her, one bite at a time, knowing full well, it would kill her.
Was this what a future with a Buchanan looked like? Always wondering who he was fucking when he didn’t come home at night?
Cringing when she smelled another woman’s perfume clinging to his neck, or worse, his cock?
Stuffing down an ignoble sob, she struggled to her feet and ran to the bedroom, slamming the door shut and leaving Sutton on the other side.
She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t follow.
But she was devastated when she heard the front door open and close as his footsteps receded down the hallway.
Tears snaked down her cheeks.
What had you expected, Elizabeth? A declaration of undying love?
Buchanan’s weren’t capable of love.
And you’d known it from the start.
***
Sutton couldn’t stay there a moment longer. Elizabeth’s pain cut at him in ways that were unfathomable.
How had this woman wormed her way into his psyche so quickly, so completely?
It was frightening and it threw him off his game. He needed time to regroup. To collect his thoughts and put his head back on straight.
He made his way to the Buchanan mansion and showered in the guest room he’d formerly occupied.
As soon as he’d showered and dressed in fresh clothing, he started to feel somewhat more like himself but a residual sense of loss continued to shadow his steps.
His sister Whitney found him at the bar and he wanted to groan. The house was the size of Manhattan and yet, he still managed to run into one of his family members.
“What are you up to, big brother?” she asked, sliding into the sofa with the languid grace of a ballerina. “I heard you and Reece are stirring things up a bit in the boardroom. You know there are less painful ways of making things interesting.”
“I should ask the same, little sister. What mischief has kept you away from the business of making more Buchanan money?”
She waved away his question. “You know I was never one for such things. I don’t have the head for it, as father would say.”
He frowned. “Father was a misogynist prick and I never took you for one who ever listened to whatever shit fell from his mouth. You’re plenty smart enough and you know it.”
But Whitney had changed in the past year, turning into a shadow of her former self and he’d yet cracked that code.
Truly, he hadn’t tried all that hard but it seemed Whitney was definitely hiding something behind that faint, beautiful smile that never quite reached her eyes.
He poured her a drink and brought it to her, sitting opposite her. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She sipped her brandy.
“I don’t know. Frankly, I was surprised you were willing to come and spend some time with the west coast cousins. You were never truly one for the things we used to do. At least not with us.”
Sutton wasn’t ignorant of the things his wild-child little sister had been rumored to have done but he wasn’t one to cast stones either.
Besides, he loved his little sister, even if she drove him crazy and cost the family a bundle with her shopping sprees.
“Well, I thought to spend some time with Laird but it seems he went and found himself a wife.” She shrugged. “And maybe I wanted to stick around and see just how attached he was to his new arrangement.”
It was no secret he and Laird Teichert weren’t friends but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t shocked by that recent turn of events.
It was as if there were something in the water, brainwashing formerly virile, aggressively pleasure-seeking males into docile purse-holders for the women in their lives.
Disgusting, really.
“I wouldn’t hang your hopes too high on that,” he said, finishing his drink. “Teichert has guzzled the same Kool-Aid as the rest. He’s hopelessly pussy-whipped. I never thought I’d see the day…”
Whitney’s smile seemed forced, pained even, but she finished her drink with a negligent roll of her shoulder. “His loss. In the meantime, why don’t you stop needling the cousins? Two against one is hardly fair.”
Sutton gingerly touched his lip. “If Reece hadn’t simply watched, it might’ve been a more evenly matched event,” he said dryly.
“Well, Reece has never been much of a fighter. You were foolish to think he might feel compelled to jump in.”
“He was the one who’d started it,” he grumbled, knowing he sounded like a pansy baby. “Anyway, it’s over. I no longer give a shit whether or not Vince and Nolan want to sell or keep the club. As soon as this quarter is over, I’m heading back to New York. Maybe it’s time to break off and separate.”
“You’ve been talking about doing that forever but you never pull the trigger.”
He scowled. Leave it up to his sister to point out his lack of action. True, he’d been chaffing for some time working with the west coast cousins but there were advantages to it, too.
The connections, the relative ease of business transactions thanks to a ruthless reputation, and the money flowed like a running faucet.
Breaking off would mean dividing holdings, weakening the name, and courting the potential for failure.
It was a risk his father had been loathe to take and now that the reins had been passed onto his siblings, he just didn’t know if they were all ready to make it happen.