The Billionaire's Fight For Redemption novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Three Rules

Ansel takes Anneliese on her shop's back workbench and then sets three rules: never at his place, never say her name, gone before five; a camera flashes from a van across the street.

I unlocked the door and he came in with the rain.

Water ran off his hair and down his jaw. His white shirt was stuck to his chest.

"You can't be here," I said.

"I know."

"You said it was a mistake."

"I know what I said."

He shut the door behind him and the bell above it jingled.

The shop was dark except for the cooler lights.

"I sat in a board meeting for four hours today," Ansel said. "I couldn't tell you one word of it."

"That's not my problem."

"I kept seeing you pay her in cash."

His voice cracked on the last word.

"You counted it out on the table like a bet," he said. "I wanted to put my fist through the glass."

"Then why didn't you say something?"

"Because she's Rosalind's mother."

He said the name and flinched.

"And you're the last person alive who gets to ask me for anything," he said.

I should have told him to leave.

I had a knife in my hand and stem-cuttings on the counter and a notice to quit in my bag.

Instead I put the knife down.

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

He crossed the floor in three steps.

His hands closed on my face, cold and wet, and he kissed me hard.

There was nothing gentle in it.

I kissed him back anyway. I bit his lip, and he made a sound low in his throat that I felt in my knees.

"Say it was nothing," I said against his mouth. "Say it again."

"It wasn't nothing."

"Say it."

"I hated that it wasn't."

He lifted me onto the back workbench and swept the stems onto the floor.

Petals scattered across the concrete.

I dragged his wet shirt open, and buttons skittered away under the cooler.

His chest was hot under my palms. His heart was going hard enough to feel.

He pushed my skirt up my thighs and stopped.

"Tell me to stop," he said, rough.

"No."

"Anneliese."

"I said no. Don't you dare."

He hooked his fingers in my underwear and pulled it down my legs.

Then he dropped to his knees on the wet floor and put his mouth on me.

I grabbed the edge of the bench.

He licked me slowly, deep, and I forgot where I was. I heard myself saying his name over and over.

He found my clit with his tongue and sucked, and my hips came off the wood.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked down.

His eyes were black, and his mouth was wet, and he watched my face the whole time.

I came with a cry that echoed off the cooler glass, my hand fisted in his hair.

He stood, breathing hard, and undid his belt.

I took his cock in my hand, thick and heavy and hot, and he shut his eyes.

"Do it," I said. "Now."

He pushed into me in one long stroke.

I gasped. He held there, buried to the root, shaking.

"God, Anneliese," he said, and his voice broke.

Then he moved.

He fucked me against the workbench, hard and fast, the legs scraping on the concrete. I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him in deeper.

"Harder," I said.

He gave it to me. Every thrust hit deep and my head fell back against the shelf.

Vases rattled above us.

He bit my neck, and his hand went between us and rubbed my clit in tight circles.

"Come for me again," he said.

"Ansel."

"Come on my cock."

I broke apart around him. My pussy clenched and pulsed, and I heard him groan my name, thick and wrecked.

He drove in twice more and came with his forehead against my shoulder.

For a minute neither of us moved.

The rain beat on the awning.

He lifted his head. His face was wet, and I couldn't tell how much of it was the rain.

He pulled out and stepped back, and his face shut.

He tucked himself in and started setting rules.

"This doesn't happen at my place. Not ever."

"Fine."

"Nobody says her name in bed."

I stared at him, my skirt around my waist.

"And I'm gone before five a.m.," he said. "Every time."

"Every time?" I said. "You already plan on a next one."

"I'm not asking you."

"No," I said. "You're not. You're telling me. Do I get a vote?"

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, and it vanished.

"Tomorrow," he said, and wiped the rain off his face with his torn sleeve. "Here."

He went to the door.

The streetlight caught his bare shoulder through the torn shirt.

Across Hale Street, a white van sat in the dark with its engine off.

A camera flash went off behind its windshield, twice.

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