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  Lachlan’s was the only opinion I cared about, but that didn’t mean appearances needn’t be kept up. Growing up around executive chefs and respected restaurateurs, I was, as Mom liked to say, “appallingly well-bread.” Bad behavior was the yeast of my problems, I usually shot back. Thank goodness she wasn’t a pastry chef. The puns would have been unbearable.

  For fifteen years, my mother was the center of my world, the most important person in my life. My father was a name on a birth certificate—some playboy she’d met and broken up with before I was born—and even with a career as executive chef and owner of one of London’s most famous fusion bistros, she’d made raising me a priority. She wrote cookbooks, hosted a TV show and fielded offers to open her own place, all while making sure I had an education and more affection than I knew what to do with. Sometimes I wondered if she’d married Ranulf Christie to try and give me a “real” family instead of the assortment of sous chefs and assistants I’d grown up around. It certainly hadn’t been for love—at least not until Lachlan came home from culinary school. We’d both loved him at first sight. We both loved him still. But my feelings were far from sisterly....and I planned to act on them as soon as possible.

  We were taking private cars to Green-Wood Cemetery—the better to ditch any tails with, and the better to escape early with. When I stepped out onto the stoop and locked up the brownstone’s front door, a sleek, black limousine was already waiting on the quiet, tree-lined street. Of course Lachlan would have everything handled, every detail down to the letter. Sure, he had a reputation for showing his temper and his tongue, but he wasn’t reckless. Never irresponsible.

  Even when I wanted him to be. Especially when I wanted him to be.

  I could still feel how he’d looked at me last night and hear that warning note in his voice. The way he said my name like a curse and a blessing all at once.

  “Naya...”

  Wait. What? I blinked. I hadn’t just imagined that. It wasn’t a replay of the night before. He was here, half out of the car and holding the door open. “Are you going to stand there all day or get in?”

  Yes, I was of half a mind to respond. I was going to stand here all day if it meant being able to drink in the gorgeous sight of him. He wore a deep blue suit—no funereal black for Lachlan Christie, no sir—and matching shirt and striped tie. His hair was bright and wild, like the sun, and his eyes were the gray of thunderclouds. I’d never seen someone as handsome in my entire life—and I’d worked on a German soap opera for years. None of the sloe-eyed, slender, pretty boys from Ich Liebe, Du Liebst could compare to this.

  I set a hand to my hip, trying to marshal my breathing and pretend I wasn’t stunned into stupidity. “Maybe I’m just waiting for your permission?” I offered. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally disobey you again.”

  “Oh, you’d deliberately disobey me again, you dirty, beautiful girl.” He threw his head back and laughed, the sound so husky and lewd that heat pooled between my legs. By the time he finished saying, “Get your ass in the fucking car now” my panties were damp.

  Maybe we were burying someone today, but we were unearthing something, too: this thing between us. New and not new. Young and yet adult. We’d known each other for years, but not like this.

  I hurried down the brownstone steps and across the sidewalk. He stepped out all the way to help me in. Like he was a gentleman and I was a lady. But no gentleman would stroke an elbow and arm with such devious intent. And no lady would splay her legs while scooting into the back of a limo, affording him a view of her sheer black undies.

  Lachlan bit back a choked noise before getting in beside me and pulling the door shut. The back of the luxury car was huge, practically as big as the average New York City studio apartment, and he seemed to fill all of it. Big and blond and powerful. “Minx,” he chuckled, before rapping on the shaded glass divider to let the driver know we were ready to go. God forbid he use the intercom like a normal person. Apparently his only words today were for me. Brat. Minx. Darling. I didn’t mind. He could call me anything as long as he called me his.

  We sat next to each other on the wide bench seat facing backward. His thigh was pressed to mine, and it may as well have been bare for all the barrier his tailored suit pants provided. It was like he was gasoline and I was a match. One scrape of cloth against skin and I was up in flames. “Lock...” I didn’t mean to plead again. I didn’t mean to sound needy and whiny. But all I wanted was to feel more of him. The entirety of him. Couldn’t we just skip the farce at Green-Wood and stay in this car, shut away from the prying eyes of the world? “Tomorrow,” he’d promised so many hours ago. Well, tomorrow was here and now, and he was so close. Too close. My chest felt tight and my inner thighs were slick and I couldn’t describe the wild, sudden, need.

  I didn’t have to.

  Lachlan twisted on the seat, pinning me with those stormy blue eyes. He knew. Even when it was wrong and forbidden, he’d known. How I felt. What I wanted. And just like then, he reached out and ran his knuckles along my cheek. Just like then, they were white from the effort of holding back. Don’t, I wanted to beg him, don’t hold back anymore, but the words wouldn’t make it past my throat. They caught there, choked and hot, like the rest of me.

  “Darling,” he whispered. A cliché endearment from anyone but him. From him, it was truth. I’d been his darling for a decade...most of it spent apart. “You’re in a bad way, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” I could barely say it. I leaned into his touch, seeking it like a flower following the sun. “Please.” What was I asking for? His fingers, his mouth, his entire body? Anything and everything he had to give. I would gladly rub up on his calves, lick the crook of his elbow, die if I could just grasp his shoulders.

  “You need me. You want me. And yet you couldn’t wait for me,” he pointed out, his disappointment perfect and sharp and so very arousing. “You came without me last night.”

  Was he going to hold that against me? Oh, God, I wanted him to hold something against me. Like the hard rod of his cock, rising for me and ruining the clean line of his trousers. “I...” I swallowed, trying to work the words through. “I want to come with you always. I want you to come with me. In me. Always.”

  “Fucking hell.” He swore like other men gave speeches: eloquently. But I couldn’t mistake the ragged sigh, and the groan that followed. Or the way he gripped my chin with his finger and his thumb. He was in a bad way, too. “What am I going to do with you, Naya?”

  My answer now was the same as it would’ve been at sixteen and seventeen. Anything you want. But I kept silent and let him arrive at his own conclusions. He could torture us both, or he could give in. It was all in his court now. Minutes ticked by. Miles, too. I had no idea what traffic was like, but I prayed for a jam. I prayed for time to stop. What was more important to Lachlan right now? Maintaining his control or losing it? Lock, please. Please do this for us both.

  “You’re that hungry for a kiss, are you? That desperate for it?” It was a low, dark, growl that didn’t need an answer. He was furious with me, but more incensed with himself. If I was hungry, then he was starving. I only stared at him. Waiting. He cursed again and dragged a hand through his fair hair. “Goddammit. I can’t...I can’t say no to you.”

  And then he sank to his knees on the limo’s carpeted floor, shoved up my dress and set his mouth between my legs. “Here,” he said, viciously, before he tugged aside the gusset of my panties with his teeth. “Take this. Take it all, darling.”

  I fell back against the leather seat and did as he commanded. This time, I was more than ready to obey.

  Chapter Six

  At the first taste of her, Lachlan knew it would never be enough. It was a mistake doing this now, doing this here, but his body overrode his sense and his need stamped out reason. Naya was aching for it, so wet and soft and pliant. The crotch of her practically nonexistent underwear had ripped easily, and now all of her was his for the taking. Her hips undulated on the seat and sh
e clutched at the leather with restless fingers until he deliberately moved one of her hands into his hair. Let her grip him, let her tug and pull as he licked into her, inhaled her sex scent and the salty taste of her quim. He spread her thighs as far as her tight black dress would allow, burying his face in the valley of damp, tight, curls and swollen flesh.

  That this should be their first kiss was fitting. The most intimate touch of his mouth. Her most private and secret response. “Oh,” she murmured, threading her fingers through his hair and cradling his skull. “Oh, Lock, yes.” Each gasp was like music, each surge of her against his lips like a wave hitting the shore. He could create the most exquisite and pleasing dishes, but nothing compared to feasting on her arousal, swallowing it down as she spiraled higher and higher, nearly insensate with desire.

  Damn right she’d always come with him. For him. Beneath him. He was barely aware of the limo floor under his knees, of the motion of the car. Everything was narrowed to her and to him. His mouth. Her sex. His cock chafing against his shorts and his zipper. He’d brought himself off a thousand times to this fantasy, and the reality was a million times better. He could eat her for days and never be sated. The sounds she made were wild. The stroke of her hand sublime. Her mark would be all over him, his all over her, and only they would know.

  Incoherent noises, divorced from any language but passion, spilled from Naya’s throat. She’d long since stopped pulling his hair, instead writhing and once again grasping the seat for purchase. He hiked her knees over his shoulders and focused on the tight knot of her clit. Her keening wail probably echoed all the way to Queens. It wouldn’t take much longer. She was so ready. So ripe. They’d left this on the vine for too long. Minutes, seconds, were all he needed to make her fall apart on his tongue.

  He felt it when her body went taut. Tasted it, drank it, when wet heat drowned them both. “Lachlan!” she cried out, nearly bowing off the seat and tipping them both over.

  He held her, grounded her, pressed soothing kisses to her inner lips, her sensitive hood and the silken skin of her inner thighs—already red from the scrape of his beard stubble. “Shh, Love. I’ve got you,” he assured, quietly. “I’m here.” And then, as she came back to reality, to now and to Earth, he tugged down her dress and gently set her to rights.

  His dirty, beautiful girl. One orgasm had washed him clean. She watched him with dazed, dark eyes as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. It would smell of her. He would smell like her, no matter the damp he wiped away. His engorged cock throbbed with the knowledge, with the painful urge to follow her over the edge. Instead, he smoothed his fancy trousers and rejoined her in sitting. Proper. Unruffled. Un-fucking-done.

  Maybe now he could put Ran in the ground with a clear conscience. Or perhaps he’d never had a conscience at all. That was certainly what his father had tried to drill into his head. “You may have talent, son, but you have no soul. You’re nothing but what we made you.” No. He was everything that Naya had made him.

  “Lock?” She spoke as she dug through her clutch purse with shaking hands, pulling out a lipstick and giant, black sunglasses. For a moment he thought she would slip them on, hide herself from him, but she set them in her lap.

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, squeezing lightly to still her tremors. There was no need for nerves. There would never be need for nerves. “Yes, darling?”

  “What we...what you...just did?” Her smile was half-shy and half-rueful. He had no illusions about being her first, but he had utter confidence that he’d be her best and her last. “Thank you,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind the shell of her ear.

  Were the men back in Europe complete idiots or what? Lachlan shook his head, feeling affronted and fiercely protective on her behalf. “No. Don’t ever thank me for something that belongs to you. I should thank you for letting me share it.” Her cheeks flushed, like they had the first time he praised how she julienned carrots and daikon under his careful direction. But that had been innocent. This...this was purely carnal. Fuck, she was lovely. “I have so much to give you. So much to teach you. Just give me time.”

  “I’ll give you all the time in the world,” Naya promised. “I just needed...” She broke off with a laugh, still breathless from coming her brains out. “I just needed a preview.”

  And he’d needed a reminder of what was good and true in the world, of what mattered. Not who they were saying goodbye to, but what they were welcoming home.

  The remainder of the drive went by quickly, with Naya making unnecessary touch-ups to her perfect makeup and then tackling his unkempt hair with a tiny comb. “Don’t make it too neat,” he cautioned. “It’ll look suspicious. People will know I’ve had my head between your legs.”

  “You’re impossible, Lock.” She sputtered and giggled, and it was almost like they were young again, cloud-counting on a blanket in Central Park and sharing hopes and dreams. Only then he couldn’t have touched her, would never have made her moan his name. He would’ve cut off his hand, torn out his tongue, before taking what she would’ve offered freely and guilelessly. She’d pleaded for kisses, for the flat of his palm against her bottom. He’d denied her again and again...and denied his own nature, his own heart, in the process.

  Fuck you, he thought as the limousine wended its way through the Green-Wood gates and along the narrow, paved, roads. Fuck you, Father, for ten years of hell. And bless you for this new beginning.

  Chapter Seven

  I almost stumbled getting out of the limo, teetering in my sensible pumps even with Lachlan’s hand on my arm. Despite the few minutes I’d taken to compose myself, my legs felt like jelly, and my body was so sensitive, so achy and warm and open, that I felt like a walking vulva. Like anyone on the quiet, stone-dotted hillside would take one look at me and understand that I’d just got my rocks off.

  And I didn’t care. Damn right I got mine. I was twenty-seven years old, a grown woman free to be fucked wherever and whenever I wanted and on my own terms. I wanted to hold onto that glorious feeling, to how Lock had wrecked me with his mouth and then helped put me back together. As kind and patient as he was demanding and firm. The family plot awaited us, though, and I knew that it was better, or at least wiser, to slip on my shades and feign that it was too much blusher that reddened my cheeks.

  A crowd of about thirty had gathered for Ranulf’s burial. I recognized a few business associates and elderly cousins, and Lachlan’s great-aunt Tillie. Mom was, as I’d suspected, a no-show. There was, however, a woman playing widow in a black hat and sheer veil. I had no idea who she was.

  “An almost-stepmother,” Lachlan said, bending close to my ear even though I hadn’t asked the question aloud. “Candy. Mandy. Something-y. He met her in the Hamptons last summer,” he confided, his voice delicious and his breath warm and teasing. “They weren’t married, though she tried her hardest to snare the old devil before he kicked it.”

  I shuddered, both at the implication and at the vehemence in his tone. If anyone else heard the hatred, there would be no escaping accusations of grave dancing. Forget the merry would-be widow, he’d be the merry heir. “Behave,” I hissed, elbowing him gently as we neared the austere, wreath-draped black coffin and the gathering of mourners.

  He clicked his tongue, chiding me like we were bumping up in the kitchen. “Look who’s giving orders.”

  “We’ll negotiate kink contracts later, Sir.”

  His pale eyebrows rose. “And what do you know about—”

  The question, and whatever answer I would’ve given, were cut off by the approach of two men in dark suits and dour expressions. I didn’t recognize the younger of the two except in oily and discomfiting essence. The elder was Elliott Northridge, who’d long been the Christie family attorney.

  “Lachlan,” he greeted, with a tight nod and a grim mouth.

  “Elliott.” The men sized each other up in that typical firm-handshake sort of way.

  When I’d first move
d to Christie House in Westchester, I’d thought Elliott some sort of uncle, because he was there so often. It turned out that a hefty retainer hinged upon his beck-and-call availability. He was a nice enough man, salt-and-pepper haired and in his early sixties, but he’d always been Ranulf’s man. Was he still?

  “And who’s this?” The stranger with him cut his gaze to me, as if he hadn’t had his beady dark eyes on my chest all along. Ugh.

  Lachlan’s hand went from my elbow to my waist, drawing me subtly close. “Naya Christie,” he said, without elaborating. I could’ve been a sister or cousin. I could’ve been a wife—the thought sent a shiver down my spine, accompanying the burn of his possessive touch. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Kyle Attwood, Esquire. I’m the executor of Ranulf Christie’s estate.”

  “Since bloody when?!”

  I flinched. Twice. So much for keeping Lachlan’s reputation at status quo. His outraged bellow had whipped twenty-eight heads around like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist. But I couldn’t blame him one bit. Who was this creep to come out of nowhere and claim executorship? We’d all assumed Elliott had things well in hand. What else had that giant retainer been for?

  Attwood looked unbearably smug, his grin so wide that I half expected to see shark’s teeth poking from his maw. “Your father appointed me six months ago,” he informed, patting the leather briefcase that hung from his shoulder. “It’s all in order.”

  The fine hairs at the nape of my neck prickled. I was a soap opera breakdown writer. Before that, I’d worked on scripts for years. I knew how this story went, no matter what language it played out in. In fact, two years ago we’d done a whole fake will-and-testament arc on Ich Liebe, Du Liebst.