Saturday, September 14th, 10:47 pm

My back slammed against the hotel door before I even had the chance to turn. Natalie’s lips crushed against mine. Her scent filled my head as her tongue delved deep before I could even process what she was doing. My skull rang from the blow against the dark paneling.

“Mmmhh,” she groaned against me.

Natalie’s hands slid up my shoulders and clamped to either side of my face, holding me in a vise as she tried to devour me.

Not one to be outdone, I threw myself into the fray. My fingers found the silk keeping her dress in place, fumbling at the knot until it came loose. She murmured incoherently into my mouth as her fingers knotted in my hair, pulling hard.

The sash slipped free, silk unraveling in my hand. One tug sent the fabric spilling aside, and I cupped her breast. Warm and full, firm but yielding, it filled my palm.

I’d seen them before—once. Not long after I inherited the money, Natalie and I had made out in her office. Things had just started to get interesting when Phoebe called, telling me my apartment had been broken into. I’d never gotten further with her. She started dating Tyler soon after.

I never thought I’d be here now.

I pressed on her chest just enough to break the kiss, my hand sliding along the curve of her waist. The other side of her dress shifted loose, barring almost everything she had to offer. I took a long, hungry look at my prize.

The dress hung from her shoulders like a robe, falling down her curves, pooling around her heels. Beneath it, she wore a lacy lingerie set… champagne silk and delicate straps. It lifted her breasts, pushed them together, teased just enough with lace to hint at the dark centers beneath. Her panties matched—wet, darkened fabric marking just how well the date had gone. The outfit was finished with a garter belt and stockings.

Goddamn, Erin. You fucking outdid yourself.

She stood there looking up at me, dark eyes wide, chest heaving, lips parted. Her pink tongue grazed her lower lip as though she could still taste me.

“Marcus…” That was all she said. My name.

I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it aside. Then I crashed into her, ripping the dress from her arms and throwing it to the floor. My arms circled her waist, hauling her off the ground.

A desperate whimper broke from her as she wrapped her legs around my waist and clung to my neck. She kissed me again, hungrier than before, inhaling my breath as though it were hers. I returned it, tongues dueling, as I staggered toward the bed.

My knees hit the side of the bed, and I dropped her onto the down comforter. Our lips tore apart as she squealed, her legs still clamped around my waist. She flung her arms above her head, dark hair spilling like a chaotic halo.

Her eyes traveled down my chest, my stomach, to my belt buckle—then back up to meet mine.

“Fuck, Marcus. I didn’t know you were so fit.”

I glanced down at myself. I’d never thought of my body that way, but I had changed over the last six weeks. The soft edges were gone; the love handles had melted. I wasn’t where I wanted to be yet, but the definition was coming along nicely.

For once, I felt like it was my turn to blush.

Natalie grinned, wrapping her legs tighter around my waist, grinding her damp crotch against my groin.

“Marcus?” she whispered.

She didn’t need to say more.

Her legs slid from my waist as I unbuckled my belt and shoved my pants down in one motion, kicking off socks with them.

Now I stood before her, naked. Her gaze raked me up and down, lingering on the rigid length already pulsing with need. The head throbbed, slick with pre-cum. My heartbeat drummed in my cock.

Her eyes climbed to mine, and she bit her lip as her hand wrapped around me. With the other, she hooked the soaked crotch of her panties and pulled it aside.

For the first time, I saw her bare. A neat patch of hair above smooth lips, glistening with arousal. She slipped her middle finger inside herself with a soft, wet sound.

Her eyes fluttered shut as her head rolled back, throat arched.

“Nnnnghh…”

A low moan spilled as her finger slid in and out, her breasts straining against the lingerie I’d chosen for her. She looked at me through half-lidded eyes and gave my cock a teasing tug.

Message received.

I placed my hands gently on the insides of her thighs. The silk stockings under my palms were smooth and decadent, but not what I wanted. My fingers drifted lower, drawn toward the treasure waiting between them.

The tips of my fingers brushed the edge of her stockings, then found her bare skin—soft, hot, better than any fabric. Heat radiated from her core, enough to melt ice in seconds. Dampness clung to the spots where thigh met groin, a slick testament to her need.

She tugged on me again, more insistent this time.

“We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

I leaned forward, bracing my hands on either side of her. Slowly, deliberately, I pressed my hips forward until the head of my cock nudged against something impossibly hot and wet.

“Can I have a taste?” I murmured.

Natalie grinned, lifting the finger she’d just had inside herself and holding it out to me.

I studied it, glistening with her juices. The scent was intoxicating—clean, sharp… hers. My mouth watered.

She pressed her finger to my lips, and I opened them just enough to let her in. My tongue rolled over her skin, savoring her taste, already regretting that I hadn’t done this sooner. I sucked her finger clean, every drop of nectar, while my cock mirrored the act—sliding between her soaked lips.

She was so wet I sank into her in one thrust.

Natalie gasped, her lips parting, her eyes going wide as I buried myself to the hilt.

“Oh, fuck, Marcus!”

I spat Natalie’s finger out and reached for one of her bra cups, pulling it down to capture a dark brown nipple in my mouth. She squealed, her hands wrapping behind my head, fingers digging into my scalp.

I moved to the other breast, peeling the cup down before teasing that nipple with my tongue and teeth. Her back arched into me, her hips grinding against mine as I stayed buried deep inside her.

And then I started to truly make love to her. To Natalie. The woman I’d spent a year longing for.

I worked myself in and out of her, slow and deliberate, kissing my way down the center of her chest. My lips explored the deep ravine between her tits—the spot I’d stolen glances at for hours when I thought she wasn’t looking.

I traced upward, between her collarbones, across the hollow of her throat, up the smooth caramel skin of her neck. I mapped her jawline with lips and teeth, my tongue tasting, sampling, indulging in all the things I’d once only fantasized about—things that would have sent me to HR if I’d dared back then.

And she gave it all back. Her legs stayed locked around my waist, keeping me buried inside her, but she devoured me as hungrily as I did her. Her lips wandered over my cheeks, my neck, my shoulders, until they found mine again. We ate each other alive, kissing, gasping, panting as I thrust into her dripping heat. Her juices ran down my cock, coating my thighs. Her scent filled the air—thick, intoxicating, as overwhelming as the smell of bacon curling off a skillet in the morning, only far dirtier, far more primal.

There’s no way to make it sound prettier than it was: our first fuck was raw… intense… hungry.

We rode the knife-edge between making love and animal frenzy. She couldn’t keep her lips off me. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Her eyes gleamed with overdue desire, her shallow breaths shuddering in the thick haze of our lust.

Natalie came hard. Her nails clawed into my back, scoring fire down my spine as she clung to me. She buried her face against my neck, murmuring things I couldn’t understand. Moisture traced my jawline—I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears.

Her hips kept pumping against me, chasing every aftershock of the climax I’d given her. And before the tremors even ended, another ripped through her.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Marcus! Marcus! Oh God!”

She clung like she was afraid to lose me. When her lips found mine again, I tasted salt—tears mixed with sweat.

I propped myself up on my elbows, thrusting feverishly as I kissed her face—her lips, her nose, her eyes. I brushed hair back from her forehead and laid a trail of kisses across it.

“Oh, god,” she whispered as she lifted her face, trying to kiss my lips but getting my chin instead. “You’re so much…”

I lowered my lips to hers again, reveling in what I’d longed to feel for so long. The speed of my thrusts increased as I lost myself in her…

And blew my load deep inside her just in time to feel another orgasm rip through her.

We both cried out as release washed over us—her tearing my back to ribbons while I carved out her insides with a cock that wouldn’t go soft.

It was a long fucking night.

The next day was even longer.

***

Monday, September 16th, 11:45 am

I slapped the thick manila folder on the table. Thick enough to qualify as a small-town phone book, it landed with a thud that startled everyone else in the room.

Accounts receivable. Accounts Payable. Depreciation. Discretionary budgets. Equity. Quarterly returns. If I had to look at another goddamn accounting statistic, I was going to slit my wrists and give myself a blood deficit. It was all I could do to keep my eyes from crossing.

“You okay?” Vikram asked, peering at me from over his laptop.

I’d asked Chandler and Erin to gather as much information as possible on Sunday so we could take a look at the books first thing Monday morning and see if we could get some answers. Two very prominent people had threatened to go public with the information they had on the Gerrard estate, and I’d been foolish to go this long without fully understanding what was in my portfolio.

Not that I could simply pull up a spreadsheet and see it all. I’d been warned that Colin Gerrard Sr. had a complex, highly compartmentalized company structure, but now that I was getting a good look at it all, I was starting to see just how intricate the web really was.

There were so many accounts! Money would flow into one, transfer to another, then that money would split and go into two more. Follow one trail only to find out that it was a shell corporation in Ireland. Who was the executive there? Some guy I had never heard of with a phone number that didn’t work.

Rinse and repeat.

It was the largest metaphorical cluster of tangled Christmas lights I’d ever seen.

We’d set up in one of VistaVision’s largest conference rooms. The massive table was littered with file folders and the boxes they came in. Laptops rested along the edges so we could verify some of the old data while examining the new data for the companies that had since gone fully digital. They were all manned by lawyers provided by YPV and forensic accountants recommended by Erin and Psalter.

“Nope,” I responded to Vikram’s question, leaning back in my chair. We’d been doing this for over three and a half hours without a break, and as someone who hadn’t looked at financials for well over two months, I was getting rusty. “This is frustrating as hell.”

“Colin had to have people managing all this,” Erin said without looking up from her laptop. “But all I could find were in-house money-crunchers who didn’t know anything outside their lanes. Even the ones here…”

 Chandler swatted away a folder and sat down on one of the corners of the conference room, a cup of hot tea in his hand like the walking stereotype of a Brit he was. “While I don’t doubt Erin’s capabilities, Marcus, I daresay I’ve done almost everything humanly possible to account for every penny associated with VistaVision. I’ve gone much further than what is typical for the sake of thoroughness.”

“Same on our end,” Vikram said. “There’s a lot of money that we can’t account for that we’ve put into what’s become known as the ‘Roger VanCamp bucket.’” He made air quotes with his fingers as he said it. “Every time we have an unanswered question, it all goes there. Apparently, he’s been at this for a while. We’re finding big question marks that go back years.”

“How do they get away with shady shit equaling billions of dollars?” I asked.

“Companies like VistaVision and Gerrard Holdings are siloed,” Chandler said.