Christian (The Casanova Club Book 11) Read online

  Her smile remained perfectly intact. “I have been. Thank you. Take care of yourself, Piper. Enjoy your next two months, too.”

  That was a jab. I let it go.

  Christian walked her and Dwayne to the door. As soon as he closed it behind him, he locked the door, turned around, and rested his back against it. “I thought they’d never leave.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Should we clean?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t wait any longer.”

  He grinned. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. You grab the bathing suits. I’ll grab the wine.”

  I reached behind my back and started undoing the zipper of my dress as I stepped out of my heels. “Bathing suits? Who needs bathing suits?”

  He took a few hurried strides across the foyer, snatched up an unopened bottle of wine and two glasses, and rushed ahead of me to pull open his sliding glass door.

  I left my dress on the floor inside, stepped over the threshold, and tiptoed across the freezing cold cement stones from the door to the hot tub, where Christian set everything down and flipped open the lid.

  With fingers trembling from the cold, I undid my bra and shimmied out of my panties.

  I climbed in first, and he handed me the wine and glasses. I poured us each a glass while he stripped naked. His cock was already hard. My eyes went right to it. My mouth started to water. My face burned, and my blood rushed, and all resentful thoughts about Heather just fluttered away.

  He was mine.

  Christian joined me in the hot tub.

  “Finally,” I breathed before pushing away from my corner to join him on his bench. He reached for me and pulled me up onto his lap. I straddled him, feeling the swell of his cock between my thighs.

  I reached between my legs and stroked him.

  “Did you have a good night?” he asked, running his wet hands over my shoulders and down to caress my breasts. He crushed them together and squeezed hard.

  I whimpered and nodded.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Yes. But this? This is all I wanted. All I could think about. I need you to fuck me.”

  His fingers snaked into my hair. He tightened one hand into a fist at the nape of my neck, holding my head in place with my hair coiled around his fingers. I fell still for him, except for the gentle rocking of my hips. His cock grew and pressed against my pussy.

  Christian’s smile was wickedly sexy. “I’m going to ruin you, Piper.”

  “Please.”

  He pulled me down on his cock.

  A cry escaped me that he didn’t silence like he had in his study. He let it ring out, and I gripped his shoulders as he filled me up. Stars exploded behind my eyelids, and I rocked forward, pushing him in deeper, taking as much of him as I could.

  He pushed down on my ass, forcing himself in deeper.

  Then he reached around, spread my ass cheeks, and eased a finger into my ass.

  I cried out again.

  “You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?” he growled against my cheek.

  I nodded.

  He stretched me. It hurt, but in the best way. I rocked again, and he groaned. The water bubbled around us, and the wine made my head buzz.

  “More,” I begged.

  He gave me what I wanted. The pressure was divine, and as I sat in his lap, I was quite sure I’d never shared a moment like this with anyone.

  Christian fucked like a bad boy but loved like a gentleman.

  The combination was almost cruel. My body ached for him to use me while my heart yearned for him to love me. And here in this hot tub, I had everything I wanted. The closeness. The pleasure. The pain.

  Ecstasy.

  Christian lifted me off his cock. I pouted as he turned me around and bent me over the side of the hot tub. I wasn’t empty for long. Soon, he was sliding two fingers into my pussy and one into my ass. I moaned. So did he. When he started fucking me with his fingers, I gripped the edge of the tub for dear life. He wasn’t holding back.

  “Yes,” I whimpered. “Fuck me.”

  He pushed down against my pussy, stretching me. I strained to the tips of my toes against the pressure, and then he shoved his cock inside me and started pounding me for all I was worth.

  He slapped my ass. The water sloshed between us. My pussy tightened around his cock.

  “That’s it, baby,” he growled behind me. “That’s it.”

  I bounced on his dick. Christian grabbed my hips and pulled me hard against him, burying himself deep inside me. I screamed as I came. He didn’t stop until I was a breathless heap beneath him, incapable of anything but moaning.

  Then he pulled out and left me there.

  Slowly, almost impossibly, I slid into the water and retook my seat. He was watching me, a cocky smirk playing on his lips as he sat out of the water working himself over. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Piper. Truly.”

  I went to him, gripped his thighs, slid myself between his knees, and opened my mouth.

  Christian’s eyes flared with desire.

  He moved forward and slid his cock between my lips. I closed my eyes as his shaft ran along my tongue and inched to the back of my throat. He was too big to get a breath, but I held him, hellbent on worshipping him like he deserved. Hellbent on making him feel as good as he’d made me feel.

  My lungs ached as he fucked my mouth and throat. The hot water and the wine made me dizzy, but I relished the feeling of powerlessness. The feeling of closeness and trust between us was intense, and I knew he wouldn’t push me further than I could go, and I knew I wanted to go that far with him. For him.

  When he pulled out, I gasped for breath. He held my jaw, slicked my hair off my face, and gave me about fifteen seconds to regroup before he fucked my throat again. As he did, I spread my legs and rubbed my clit.

  I moaned around his cock in my mouth until he pushed in so deep, I couldn’t make a sound. I eased my fingers into my pussy. In all my life, I’d never been so turned on and so desperate for a man to fuck me.

  I never wanted it to end.

  Christian wrenched me off his cock. “You’re going to make me blow.”

  “I want to taste you.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not through with you yet. Turn back around. On your knees.”

  I did as I was told. He stepped in close and ran his cock along my slit, dragging my juices all over the place and teasing me mercilessly. I hung my head and begged him to fuck me.

  He pressed down on my lower back and forced me to arch my spine. Then he pressed his cock against my ass.

  I flinched.

  “Stay where you are,” he said.

  I bit down on my bottom lip. He applied more pressure. I moaned. Then he was in. The pressure gave way to a brief moment of sharp pain, but it slid away fast as he eased himself slowly and gently inside me.

  “That’s it,” he breathed. “Just relax.”

  “Oh fuck,” I sighed, practically going limp against the side of the hot tub.

  “Oh fuck is right.”

  He took his time with me. At least, he did at first. Then, when I started to press back against him, eager for more, he rose to the occasion and fucked me hard and deep and fast. He rubbed my pussy under water until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I came hard.

  He bent over and wrapped an arm around my chest, holding me firmly against his back.

  His cock flexed inside me. He was about to come. I gripped his forearm and cried out as my body gave in to another orgasm. He broke at the same time, filling my ass with silky warmth. I whimpered and moaned and writhed in his arms, but he didn’t let go. He kept pumping.

  “We’re only getting started,” Christian growled.

  And then he really got started.

  Chapter 24

  Christian

  The street was lined with jack-o’-lanterns and faux cobwebs stretched from tree branch to tree branch when Piper and I left the house for the last time together.


  Our limo driver put up the divider between us, giving me and her privacy, but neither of us seemed to have anything to say.

  Or we both had everything to say, and we just didn’t know where to start.

  My month had gone completely differently than I’d expected it to, which was funny because I had high expectations coming into this that I would meet my future wife. And I could certainly see myself getting down on one knee and proposing to Piper in two months.

  I looked over at her in the seat beside me.

  She was facing the window, but I could see her reflection in the glass. She looked lost and sad, exactly how my heart felt, and her eyes lingered on pumpkins on front porches as we drew to the end of the residential area.

  She sighed.

  At least I wasn’t the only one struggling with the idea of saying goodbye in half an hour.

  I cleared my throat. “You’ll be back home before the trick-or-treaters start making their rounds. Do you give out candy?”

  Piper wrapped her arms around herself and shrugged weakly. “I live in an apartment. My roommate and I don’t get many kids. Maybe ten, tops. So we buy full-sized candy bars and hand them out to the ones still bothering to knock on doors.”

  I hated to see her this sad. “Full-sized candy bars, huh? Lucky kids.”

  She smiled, but the warmth of it didn’t touch her eyes. “Yeah. Maybe we’ll see some cool costumes this year. There’s always one or two kids who go all out.”

  “What was your favorite costume you ever had as a kid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, shaking my head at her. “You can do better than that. Think about it. Which one made you the most excited?”

  She licked her lips.

  “I’ll start,” I said. I had to do something to cheer her up. “When I was eight, my parents dressed me up like a lawyer. Put me in a little suit, found me a little leather briefcase, made me wear glasses and slick my hair back, the whole shtick.”

  “When you were eight?” she asked dubiously.

  I chuckled. “Yep. Mom and Dad kind of had a warped sense of maturity, you see. They figured it would entertain all the adults who opened their doors and saw me. And for the most part, it did. But that’s not what Halloween is about for a kid, is it?”

  Piper shook her head.

  “So, when I was twelve—and a bit of a shithead, I might add—I decided to get back at them by dressing up as a lawyer again. Only this time, I dressed like a total douchebag. Anyone who asked what I was thought it was hilarious. Except my folks, of course. But it was worth it.”

  “Bad boy at twelve, huh?”

  “You know it. Had to get it out of my system early.”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “Your turn.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, running her hands down her thighs. “It’s pretty lame by comparison. I never had a ‘get back at them’ costume. But I did dress up like my favorite character from a book once. Nobody knew who or what I was. But I didn’t care. Just for a little while, I got to be someone else.”

  “What was she?”

  “He,” Piper corrected.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Nice.”

  “He was a private detective. I found a trench coat at a thrift store and a pair of suspenders. It was great.” She chuckled softly at the memory. “My mother told me I was going to scare all the boys away.”

  “And did you?”

  She shrugged. “Only the losers.”

  We laughed, and for a moment, everything felt normal again.

  I didn’t want to lose the momentum. “So, kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “Yeah, kids,” I said. “Do you want some of your own one day?”

  Piper gave me a crooked smile. “Saving the hard-hitting questions until the last minute, are we?”

  “It didn’t come up.”

  She nodded and gazed back out the window. “I’ve always wanted to be a mom, yeah. Two at least. Four at the most.”

  “Four?” I asked incredulously.

  She laughed and swatted playfully at me. “Yes. Four.”

  “Boys or girls?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Fair.”

  “What about you?” she asked curiously.

  “Honestly? I never thought too much about it. I mean, I think I always had this idea in my head that my life would follow this natural progression and the whole having kids thing would just happen. Like it does for most people. But now that I’m thirty-five and still single, I don’t know. A guy starts to wonder if that’s in his future anymore.”

  “Thirty-five is still crazy young enough to have kids.”

  “Yeah. But it’s the finding someone you want to have them with that’s the real struggle.”

  She didn’t say anything. She just stared at me.

  I looked down at the leather seat between us. “Piper. I need to tell you something.”

  “Christian. Please. I can’t—”

  “I need to.”

  She blinked. Then she drew a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”

  I sighed and met her eyes. It took real effort not to look away. “I know that it’s not fair of me, but I need you to know how I feel. I need you to know that I want you at the end of all this.”

  Her lips parted.

  “I’m not done,” I said. “I can’t throw in the towel now just because we have to say goodbye. There’s still more time. More opportunities. And I will chase you to the end. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do,” she whispered. “But—”

  “Then you need to hear me say that I’m ready for what comes next. After the Casanova Club. After the end of the year. If you’ll have me, I’ll be the man who gets down on one knee for you. You walked into my life and showed me what was missing, Piper. You brought joy with you. And warmth. And you filled something in me that I didn’t even know was empty until now.”

  She reached out to me and put her hand on my thigh. “You did the same for me, Christian. You know that, don’t you?”

  No, I didn’t. But I did now.

  I slid across the seat to her, cupped her cheek in my hand, and kissed her deeply. I kissed her like I might never see her again. Like when this was all said and done, she wouldn’t take the money and she’d choose one of the other men.

  Like I was losing her.

  She kissed me back fiercely. The pain of saying goodbye slipped away.

  When we parted, she pressed her forehead to mine and looked down at her hands as she wrung them together. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Christian.”

  “You’ll see me soon. In December. At the wrap-up party.”

  “It’s too far away.”

  I stroked her cheek. “It’s two times longer than the time we had together. We can do that, can’t we?”

  Her bottom lip trembled.

  I pressed my fingers to her chin and lifted her face. “Can’t we, Piper?”

  Piper sniffled. “Yes.”

  Chapter 25

  Piper

  Janie drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as we sat in bumper-to-bumper New York City traffic. Being that it was Halloween and all, there were even more people out and about getting to their evening events.

  I could feel her looking at me.

  “What, Janie?” I asked.

  “You’re sure you want to go right to your parents’ house? You don’t want to stop for food first? Regroup?”

  “Nope. I don’t want to get cold feet. I know what I have to do.”

  “Right. Confront them.” Janie gave her head a single shake, expressing her doubts. “You know I’m always in your corner, babe, but this has me nervous.”

  “Don’t be.”

  She frowned, and we moved forward a few car lengths. “Where did this all come from, anyway?”

  “Christian.”

  “Oh?”

  “He shared a story with me from when he was y
ounger and in a similar situation as I’m in. His parents wanted him to be a lawyer. He had other ideas. And he stood his ground, and eventually, they came around. With Phillip managing to shut the restaurant down, I think this is my best chance to get in there and clear the air.”

  “The dust is still settling from the last time you tried to do that.”

  “Yeah, but things have changed since then. I’ve changed. And Dad nearly died. The longer I wait, the worse it’s going to get, and I’m terrified we’ll all just stop talking altogether and I’ll lose everything. I can’t let that happen, Janie. Family comes first for me. You know that.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Okay. I hear you.”

  I took a deep breath.

  Janie gnawed at her bottom lip. “So, what was he like?”

  “Christian?”

  “No. Santa Claus.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “He was wonderful.”

  Janie grinned.

  I leaned against the door panel and rested my cheek in my hand. “He was dreamy. And kind. And compassionate. And gentle. And rough.”

  “Rough?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “In what way?” Janie asked.

  “The best way.”

  “Oh, girl.” She snickered. “Did he do you dirty?”

  “So dirty.”

  Janie roared with laugher. “Wow. He must have. Because the Piper I know would never come out with it like that. He must have been a freak in the sheets.”

  “You have no idea. I’ve never had a man make me feel like that before. Ever. It was like he could read my mind. Like he knew exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it and—”

  “Okay, slow your roll there. You’ve been getting laid by studs all year, and I’ve been on six collective dates, okay? Six. I’m happy for you, but I’m also sexually deprived, and hearing about your sexcapades is not making my lady bits feel any better.”

  I grimaced. “Sorry.”

  We made our way away from the heavy congestion toward my parents’ neighborhood. The closer we got, the more nervous I became. But I had to be strong. I had to stand my ground. I refused to let this thing ruin my relationship with my family. I’d had the entire flight to reflect on my month with Christian, and I came off the plane knowing what I had to do.