Page 85 of The Heiress

All this time they were a theoretical. Pictures and paperwork. Stories. Sure, they sent a crew to Key West to “identify” me, or scare me, or kidnap me, but it was still one degree removed. And at the time it seemed so surreal. I was in a mansion with a panic room and scary people with guns came to attack. How was any of it really real?

But now it was. I looked the men in the eyes and saw the cold inside them. They were men who only cared about money and their own desires. There was a calculated way men like that spoke. It was the complete opposite of say, David, with his warm eyes and tender smile. He was always quick to offer assistance and happy to let someone else speak first. When you were around David you felt special.

Meeting Hiten and Tristram today was cold. Very, very cold. And clearly designed. They intended to force meeting me, and came prepared to do harm if necessary. Maybe they hoped to catch us off guard and assassinate me. Get me off the playing field early.

And that...was scary shit. I probably would have dismissed that as exaggeration if I hadn’t seen Jace’s reaction for myself. He knew this stuff better than I ever would, and he was upset.

“Whatever you just started thinking about, Miss Stroman, you should stop. You’re tensing up. Take a cleansing breath.”

“Sorry,” I muttered through the padded hole for my face.

She chuckled. “Just doing my job.”

Today everyone called me Miss Stroman. I thought it would take some getting used to or simply feel weird, but instead it felt right. I took it on like a new jacket. A new life called for a new role, a new name. It made everything easier to compartmentalize. My old life at Excel Research, in Gainesville and Calusa Key, was Samantha Rossi’s. My new life with executives and security details belonged to Samantha Stroman.

The other reason I liked the name change was because it allowed me to keep my memories of my parents safe. Whatever led to me becoming their daughter, it didn’t affect my childhood or my bond with them. It was from a totally separate part of me that could no longer be touched or changed.

Sometime after I flipped over on the table, my champagne high started to dissipate and the warm fuzzies of a good massage took over. Heidi left me on the table, saying something about housekeeping bringing it back when I was done. I was contemplating sleeping there all night when my door opened.

“Well, well, well,” Jace murmured. “I’ve just added something to my fantasy list.”

I smiled while keeping my eyes closed. “Dirty massages?”

“Naw.” He moved around the room emptying his pockets and shucking his shoes. “More along the lines of you naked and happy.”

“Ah, well. I am that.”

“Oh, I can see.”

I cracked open an eye and found Jace stripped down to his dress pants. “Everything squared away, Chief of Security Malone?”

“You’re the safest woman in the world, Heiress.” He came up to the table and ran his fingers through my hair.

“Is that so?” I sighed. Heidi was good, but there was nothing quite like Jace’s hands.

“It is. In fact, I could give you a screaming orgasm right now and no one would bat an eye. Those doors are impenetrable steel.”

I almost made a joke about Jace penetrating me with his steel but he ran his hands down the sheet covering my body and every thought in my head disappeared. He began to massage my thighs. “Seriously though, I brought four more guys up for the weekend. They’ll be covert. I’ll have them acting like hotel guests or pedestrians or whatever the fuck they need to be. They’ll be our eyes on the ground. They’re really good at this.”

His hands massaged up and then between my legs. Light, teasing,pleasing.My nipples began to tingle.

“I have Riddick digging into the Feyereisens some more. I want to know what they eat, where they stick their dicks, how often they shit. I’m at my best when I know my enemy better than they know themselves.”

I heard what he was saying—got a bit turned on by his fierce determination to keep me safe—but it sounded like it was coming from a tunnel. Far away and indistinct. Instead all I heard was the whooshing in my ears and the pants of my own breath. Whether Jace was paying attention or not, he had me completely turned on.

“If they even so much as breathe in your direction, I will end them.”

I moaned. Jace froze.

“Ah. You like this, huh?” His hands moved more deliberately now, teasing my clit with light strokes. “You know...I like this height quite a lot.” He pulled the sheet down slowly. Deliberately. Letting the rough fabric pull at my nipple until it was exposed. “Makes it quite easy to touch you here.” He circled my clit. “And taste you here.” With a pointed tongue he licked me, circled my nipple with the tip, then sucked just the nub into his mouth, pulling until it sprang free.

I moaned again, arching.

He made a noise of approval and did it again. Flick, circle, suck, pop. He moved his fingers to the outside of my folds and lightly pinched them around my clit. “You know the best way to unwind from a day of threats of violence?”

I had no experience, but I had a very good guess. “Tell me.”

He kept teasing my lips and tonguing my nipple. “A very slow, long round of foreplay. What do you say? You up for it?”

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