Between Commitment and Betrayal: An Arranged Marriage Romance (Hardy Billionaires)

“AND HOW IS it that I make you feel?” she whispered.

Everly Belafonte. My business partner’s only biological daughter. Although they were estranged, he looked at her like she was a treasure, something so precious that he even thought he could taint her in some way. He’d told me the first time I’d met her that he’d stayed away from her and her mother after he’d realized he could do them no good.

It was a twisted way to parent, yet I couldn’t disagree with him.

Everly was pure and unmarred by the world in a way I couldn’t really articulate. She had waves of curls that framed her face with a braid or two mixed in with the brown and black and blonde that flowed all around in ringlets so wild you wanted to tame them, but then you caught her gaze and saw how calm and focused it was. Sapphire blue and piercing while completely steady like she couldn’t be knocked down no matter how anyone would try. And then she spoke, and the rasp in her voice soothed even though her words grated on my every nerve because they made total sense.

She held my gaze now with a mix of determination and what I think mirrored my lust. I was hooked. Trapped. Captured by the way she bit her bottom lip waiting for my answer.

“How do you make me feel?” I repeated her question back to her, trying to get ahold of myself but knew the fight was futile. I’d danced around her for two damn months and still couldn’t avoid wanting her to myself. “It feels like I have my business partner’s daughter sitting in front of me, riling me up, driving me near madness, and still my adrenaline is pumping, my cock is rock solid, and I’m scrambling to find any reason I shouldn’t be tasting those lips. Why I shouldn’t demand that you come sit on my lap for a minute.”

Her reaction to my words was instant. She looked at my cock and then licked her lips. “Demand? You forget that I’m one person you don’t control, Mr. Hardy.”

I leaned in a fraction more, so my mouth was at her ear, and murmured, “I’m starting to think you’d like me taking control, Everly. There’s a reason I’m the boss, right? A reason you got in the car willingly?”

She wiggled in her seat as we stared at one another like she was considering it, like she needed a release as bad as I did. “And that’s the reason why this can’t happen.” She pointed between us. “Boss and employee. Partner’s daughter. Lavish lifestyle … and mine not so much.”

“You underestimate how easy it is for me to plow through obstacles.” I leaned close to her neck now, mesmerized at the thought of what her skin would feel like against my lips as I gripped her bare thigh. Smooth, soft, and willing as she spread her legs for me to massage further and further up.  “I think we could both enjoy me controlling you for a night.”

She whimpered but rolled her hips when my hand cupped her pussy. She pulled my head closer to her neck and moaned out, “This is wrong, Declan.”

“Not Mr. Hardy anymore? She finally says my name … But the question is whether you’re using it to get me to stop or keep going.”

Her hands found their way into my hair, like she needed to hold me close as I grazed kisses over her collarbone. “I don’t even like you,” she breathed.

I chuckled. “Oh, but your pussy loves me.” She gasped at my words, but I kept going. “It’s begging for me, babe. And you don’t really know me. I could make you like me.”

She scoffed at my confidence like I was ridiculous, but when my thumb brushed over her clit, she clawed at my shoulders. “You’re a hothead when I’m not at all like that. I think you enjoy a game and an adrenaline rush, Mr. Hardy. I don’t enjoy either of those things.”

I sat back to watch her as I did it again and threaded my other hand through her hair, yanking it so I could tilt her face to be lit perfectly under the city lights. They shined through the window, illuminating the change of her expression as I worked her up toward an orgasm that would unravel the composure she always asserted around me. “I could make you enjoy the game and an adrenaline rush too, Everly.” I didn’t prepare her for my mouth, descending without further warning.

I wanted to catalog how her body responded. How she met me taking what I wanted without apology with her own vigor. How she hung onto my shirt like she relished the moment as much as I was and wasn’t worried about the repercussions for once.

I wanted her lost in what I was doing to her and only stopped long enough to grab her hips and move her onto my lap. With her back against my chest, I wrapped my arm around her waist and went back to working her pussy at the perfect angle. I thrust my cock up, not being able to control feeling her ass against it, and she moaned in pleasure like the outline of it would be enough for her.

Her hips rolled as she grabbed the front seat, but then she immediately froze, and I saw her staring up front. She’d been too lost in what we were doing to remember Peter.

He was on the phone, completely ignoring us. It was his job to do so, but it was a goddamn wake-up call.

This was a woman I didn’t want to fuck and duck nor would it be a good business decision. My mind swirled with the consequences. I needed to make it right. I barked out for Peter to take a walk. He immediately left, but she glanced back at me, her ass shifting on my dick enough that I had to mash my teeth together.

“The moment’s ruined,” she pointed out, pushing her hair to the side, and I caught a whiff of the sweet coconut shampoo she must have used. Her ass wiggled again as she bit her bottom lip and my dick wasn’t giving up after that.

My hard length rubbed right where I wanted it to as I shifted and desire flared in her eyes. “So, let’s make a new moment, Everly. Let the last one go. Let me help.” My hand was still cupping her, but I took that second to slide my fingers under her skirt and panties.

“I don’t let things go,” she breathed out as my fingers explored how wet she was.

“You should, babe,” I hummed close to her ear. “Why worry about a past you can’t change? Just listen to me instead, huh?”

I was asking her to hand over control. Asking for permission before I took.

She hesitated, mulled it over, took her time, all while rolling those hips into my hand before acquiescing. “I’m listening this one time, and if someone sees—”

I didn’t even wait for her to finish. My finger dipped in her fast, and she gasped. “Let me worry about that. You just focus on this.” I rubbed my thumb over her clit hard, creating a friction she couldn’t ignore. “That’s what’s important now.”

The fear of being seen wasn’t going to guide her orgasm. I was going to make sure of that. I wanted her every worry to be chased away by me this time. She was too composed all the goddamn time; too fucking perfect and pure, and she needed an outlet.

I was the best fucking one.

Not a party.

Not Wes.

Me.

“I want that damn jersey off you now. It shouldn’t ever be his name on your back,” I growled in her ear. “Take. It. Off.”

I indulged her wet pussy so good that she didn’t even hesitate. She whipped it over her head and threw it on the ground while I took in the zip-up tank she’d worn from work underneath.

“I’m doing this one time.” She said it like we needed a damn reminder. “Take over, Declan. And don’t make me regret it.”

“She commands before she hands over control.” I nipped at her sensitive skin near her collarbone, and a smile spread across my face before I said, “I think I’m going to have a hard time only wanting you this once, Everly.”

I grabbed a fistful of her hair then, making her arch against my chest as I devoured her neck and worked her pussy at the same pace my tongue slid against her skin. “Unzip your shirt.”

Her damn HEAT sports bras and tanks always zipped in front, driving me fucking insane.

She hesitated.

“Listen, Everly,” I ground out, “or I’ll make you work a lot harder for this orgasm you want so badly.”

She whimpered as I circled her clit much more slowly this time, bucked into my hand like she couldn’t wait, and then did as she was told.

“That’s it. Such a good girl already. Look at those pretty tits.” I stared over her shoulder at them as the one hand I’d had on her hip slid up to work her nipples, pinching and rubbing them back and forth, back and forth just like I did her pussy. Her own hands went into her hair as she arched while I picked up the pace. Then I sucked on her neck while thrusting my fingers to her G–spot over and over, faster and faster until she screamed my name.

Loud, uninhibited, and out of control.

She crumbled back into my chest, her sex spasming again and again around my fingers.

Her losing control for me the way I’d been fantasizing about since the first time I met her had me murmuring my next command, “Come back to my place.”

Her thighs clenched closed on my hand as she whipped around, her eyes still cloudy blue from her first orgasm with me. “There’s no way.”

“Why?” I knew why even as she scooted off me and rearranged her clothing.

“Because this is it.” She waved between us and then reached for my waistband, but I grabbed her wrist.

“We’re not just doing this,” I said. “I’m not fucking you in the back of an SUV, Everly.”

“You got me off back here. What’s the difference?” Her eyes widened and her voice raised one octave. Wrenching her wrist from my grip, she zipped her top back up hurriedly and reached for the jersey on the floor.

“Yeah, foreplay.” I decided this wasn’t going to be the end for us. I needed more of her. “Before you come home with me.”

She chuckled, slipping the jersey I hated back over her head, and then sobered when she realized I was actually serious. “I can’t … we can’t do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I’m me. You’re you. You’re a freaking celebrity. I don’t want anything to do with you outside of this car.”

But she’d just had my hand so far up her pussy, she’d screamed my name?

She laughed at what must have been my look of confusion. “Mr. Hardy, not all of us want to be in the spotlight. Not all of us are turned on by the fact that you own this weird HEAT community and are plastered on the front of every magazine in town.”

“And yet here I am with the arousal of your pussy still on my fingertips, babe.”

“Jesus. I can’t with you.” She pulled the handle on the door. “I don’t like the press, Declan. And I hate being seen as less of a human than someone else. I had that in my last relationship—”

I cut her off because that was never going to be her and me. “You dwelling on someone before me?”

She glanced away as a gust of wind whipped by, hiding what she wanted to but not before I saw it, the ghost of a past still haunting her.

“Now I see pain in your eyes and that hesitation. You’re pushing me away because you’re stuck in a past.”

“You have no idea.” She shook her hair back over her shoulders like she could use it as a shield to hide from me.

“I don’t dwell, Drop, and I’m going to make sure you don’t one day either.”

“Stop calling me that.” She slid out of the car and shut the door on what she didn’t want to be.

Yet, I rolled down her window. “Get rid of that fucking jersey, Everly.”

“Let’s not get carried away. It’s a jersey.”

“I had to stare at his name on your back right before you ground your ass against my cock and moaned my name. I won’t let that happen again.”

“Oh, well, it won’t be happening again. So, that solves that,” she said over her shoulder, and I had half a mind to get out of the car and follow her to her apartment. “Good night, Mr. Hardy.”

“Everly,” I yelled after her but she didn’t turn around. “Don’t jog to work. I’m sending a car for you on Monday.”

“Please don’t. I’ll just ignore it.” She waved it away like she was waving us away too.

I swore ten times before I yelled at Peter to get back into the vehicle.

She was already inside by the time I finished cursing out our whole situation. We shouldn’t have indulged. I was quick to temper, and it looked like Everly maintained her composure even after I’d unraveled her.

Still, I was already figuring out a way I could do it again come the very next day.