The Insiders (The Insiders Trilogy #1) - Tijan Page 0,71

mine. There. We paused. Both hissing from the touch. Molten desire speared in me.

I needed him now.

Not yesterday. Not an hour from now. Now.

“Kash,” I moaned.

“Bailey.”

All rational thought fled me.

Impatience and urgency were two very prominent themes happening inside of me now. I slid my hand to my stomach. He was shirtless. So much the better. I rolled my body against him, salivating at the feel of his muscles. They were tight and taut and pulsating with the control he was using. He was holding back.

I suddenly didn’t want him to hold back. Ever. Most certainly not now, not when I was aching, throbbing. I moved against him, grinding, and he hissed, his hand clamping on my thigh.

“Fuck, Bailey.” He gasped, his forehead going to mine, his eyes searching for me. “I want to…”

I heard his hesitation. I shook my head. No hesitation. There was no place for that, not in this bed. I started to tell him that, my voice completely wrecked, when he shifted our positions. He rolled me swiftly to my back and rose above me. Pushing my legs apart, he settled between me, and then rocked against me. Once more. Deliciously. Agonizingly. So. Fucking. Slow. I whimpered, biting my lip. My hands formed into fists, and I pushed them against his shoulder.

“Kash, please.”

He swooped down, his mouth catching my whimper.

He caught it and answered back with his own growl, but he didn’t move faster or harder. He held himself up, his arms braced on the bed beside me, and gazing down at me, holding my eyes, looking deep in me, he pushed against me.

He was wearing boxer shorts.

I was wearing sleeping shorts.

Why the hell were they both on?

I wanted to push at them, rip them off, but he chuckled, his mouth opening over mine again. “Not here.” A soft kiss. “Not when there’s two guards who can hear us.” A hard kiss. “This weekend.” A harder kiss. “At my place downtown.” The hardest kiss, and I caught the back of his head before he could lift up again.

“Fuck yes.” I lifted up, holding him in place, and kissing him. I was claiming him.

All those girls at that house last night. Hell no. All those orgies happening. Fuck no. They wanted him. Victoria. Her friends. Whatever was going on there. No, no, no. Just no. A primal thirst had opened inside me, and I wasn’t shutting it up. I was letting it out and I was reveling in it.

Kash was mine. I didn’t care who tried to take him from me, or who would take him from me. He was mine right now.

Mine. Just mine.

And for the next hour, he showed me how much I was his, too.

THIRTY-SIX

The whole reveal never happened.

Kash was supposed to tell me everything. He didn’t.

I woke late the next morning and Kash was gone. He left a text on my phone.

Emergency. I’ll be back when I can.

I didn’t know what the emergency was. No one shared, and no one else acted like they knew. And over the next few days, Kash was gone. Matt left, too, so it was me, Marie, Theresa, and the kids. Quinn was at her charity meetings/functions. My father was around. I heard his voice one day when I was on my computer, set up in Marie’s office. After Kash left, I asked to be let back on, and Marie was okay with it. The fact that it was her who gave me the okay wasn’t lost on me. Ironic. Or karma. Either of those, but I was eternally grateful to her.

Working on that computer saved me, because those few days turned into weeks.

Kash was able to return, but only at night, and he’d be gone the next morning. I knew this because he’d wake me up while sliding into bed. If he didn’t wake me that way, he woke me with his mouth on me. He would roll on top of me and take me to new heights, night after night. Or it was night after night, until it became every other night. Then every third night.

I missed him.

I loved spending time with Cyclone and Seraphina. I loved being able to work on my security program, and a small part of me was even enjoying the brief moments when my dad would enter Marie’s office to talk to her. I knew she let him know I was behind the wall partition, because he’d get quiet right away and leave. But after a week of this, she stopped