WORTHY, Part 3 (The Worthy Series) Read online

  When he withdrew his fingers and replaced them with his cock, sliding in seamlessly, I gave a moan that was as much relief as it was pleasure. This. This was what I wanted. To feel this human connection was to feel human again. It didn’t matter what my name was or who I was pretending to be. That stroke, then the next, then the next one mattered much more than anything else. This was life. This was living, and I could never give up on this.

  I seized the fingers Milo had pushed inside of me earlier and suckled them, earning a groan of appreciation from the lawyer. I licked and licked, fascinated by the taste of my own juices on his digits. I tasted salty and wholesome and sexy all at once.

  “You keep that kinky shit up and I’m not going to be able to keep from coming,” he warned me. Kinky shit? I’d just been curious. The gesture had been more of an affirmation than anything, a toast to show me that I was still alive when I’d given myself up for lost.

  Milo pumped in and out of me, dragging my hands above my head and pinning them there so I couldn’t have at his fingers anymore, taking away all my options and thrusting this one truth at me: I was going to come.

  And this other truth: I was going to come screaming.

  It had been so long. It had been so goddamn long that it should’ve been a sin.

  I shouted myself even more hoarse than my new usual as Milo slammed home, sending me kicking and screaming over the edge of orgasm and beyond. My fingers scrabbled uselessly against his hands, which held me still even through ecstasy.

  “So damn sexy,” Milo grunted, and I knew he was coming inside of that latex sleeve, that I was safe from his climax, that there was still enough separation between us to do what needed to be done — use this man’s skills and his devotion to me to get what I really wanted.

  Wharton Group’s figurative head on a platter. After everything, I didn’t think it was too much to ask for.

  And after that orgasm, with the knowledge that I would have climaxes for the rest of my life no matter who I was with — there had been a terrifying moment when I’d wondered if my ability to orgasm during intercourse had fled when I’d run away from Jonathan Wharton and the life I’d once had — I felt like nothing could stop me.

  Milo pulled out of me, drawing me back into the moment, and tugged the spent condom from his cock.

  “Safe and sound,” he said, grinning at me before throwing it into the wastebasket beside the bed. “I’m beat.”

  “Is that really the time?” I asked, glaring at the clock. It was already 6:30 in the morning. I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had happened — or how long we’d spent pleasuring each other.

  “You have quite the stamina,” Milo said, settling down in the bed and drawing me into his arms. “I couldn’t hold out for very much longer.”

  “Everything felt so good,” I said wonderingly.

  “We’re good together,” the lawyer said. “Now, time to get some rest. We’ll have to be up in a couple of hours, if you feel like going to work. Wouldn’t blame you if you called in sick tomorrow. I might.”

  “You better not,” I said sharply. “We’re starting work on the Wharton Group investigation tomorrow.”

  “Already?” he asked, looking at me strangely. “Don’t you want a little more time to get settled in at the firm? Observe and take notes? See how everything works?”

  “I don’t want to waste any more time,” I said. “Wharton Group is all I’m thinking about from now on, until the job is done.”

  “Well, sleep is the only thing on my mind right now, if you’re so gung ho about starting the investigation.”

  “You’re still my point man, aren’t you?” I demanded. I was pretty sure I had my hooks in the lawyer, and I didn’t want to lose him now, not when everything was hopeful and ready and so promising.

  “Of course,” Milo said. “But right now, I’m your tired man. You can’t expect great things from me unless I get some rest.”

  I brooded for a few moments before smiling. Things were going to get better. Things were already getting better. It was so good to have something to focus on beyond my own pain. I was about to do some serious ass kicking, and all of the Whartons were going to be sorry I’d ever stumbled into their lives by the time it was through.

  “Milo?”

  “Hm?”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  He opened one sleepy eye and looked at me, a cute, exhausted smile pulling up at the corners of his mouth. “Go for it.”

  I smiled in the graying dawn. “I’m going to really enjoy having you by my side when we take down Wharton Group.”

  The lawyer opened his other eye and gave me a little scowl. I didn’t understand why he’d picked that expression.

  “Go to bed, April. It’s late.”

  “You can sleep if you want,” I said, settling down and grinning, ignoring his odd little frown. Maybe he was just grumpy when he was tired. “I’m too excited. Wharton Group will never know what hit them.”

  Milo stared at me for a long time before he finally rolled over and went to sleep. I was too busy looking forward to seeing the mighty fall.

  Chapter Four

  With Milo in the lead investigator spot and me being the driving force behind him, the Wharton Group case got off to an excellent start. We started going through everything that was a matter of public record with a fine tooth comb. Any time there was any sort of blip on the radar, the person who discovered it reported directly to me.

  Most of my time was occupied with only tiny clues, only whispers of hints that could lead to something big, and it was as tantalizing as it was frustrating. I knew that the right information would bring the pharmaceutical conglomerate down. I knew that something had to be there. The Whartons were just too fucked up for there not to be one thing I could use against them.

  I spent less and less time with Milo, always careful to keep him wanting more. He’d given me an incredible orgasm. There was no way I’d lie about that. But I didn’t need that all the time, especially not when my focus was the Whartons, and I felt like I hadn’t quite caught them in my crosshairs yet.

  Besides. Exacting my revenge would be sweeter than any orgasm any person could ever give me.

  “You’re going to burn out at this pace, April,” Milo told me as we both poured over phone records from the CEO’s office at the Wharton Group office building. They were all numbers Jonathan — or whoever was sitting at his desk — was dialing on a daily basis, and looking at them was sort of surreal. It was like trying to decipher a strange language. Who was he calling? Why was he calling that number?

  My heart must’ve stopped for a full minute when I realized that one number that repeated and repeated and repeated was mine. My old cell phone number — Jonathan called it as recently as three weeks ago. The phone had been all but destroyed in the car wreck, and in the ensuing drama, I’d had the account closed and a new number issued.

  What did he want? What could he possibly have to say to me? I had nothing that I wanted to share with him. When I was finished taking Wharton Group apart, then I might have a little message for him. But until then, I wasn’t interested one bit in what he had to say.

  Except that I was. Except that I was dying to know why he’d called my old number seventeen times in one day. That was treading awfully close to stalker territory. If a girl didn’t pick up after three calls, that was the time to call it quits. Jonathan had moved well past the point of politeness or good social grace.

  “April, did you hear me?”

  Milo leaned forward, and I quickly scooped up the papers I’d been looking at. I didn’t need anyone figuring out that I was that repeated number. That wasn’t the kind of dirt I was looking to dig up.

  “If you’re feeling burned out, you can leave the rest of this to me,” I said, taking the phone records away from him.

  “I’m not talking about me getting burned out, I’m talking about you getting burned out,” Milo protested, surrendering the phone records. “Seriously, April,
you’ve been at it for weeks. Why don’t you take a break? Let us take care of it. I’m your lead investigator, for Christ’s sake, and you’re micromanaging me to hell.”

  I scowled across the boardroom table at Milo.

  “I think you’re forgetting who the boss is,” I said, my tone clipped and formal. “Right now is not the time to take issue with my management style, and certainly not with that tone. There are proper channels to go through for something like this.”

  Milo stared at me for several long seconds. I was seeing that stare more and more lately, like he wasn’t sure who he was really looking at when he was looking at me. I hated it.

  “April, I’m not questioning your leadership,” he said. “I’m telling you as a friend and lover that I’m concerned about the level of devotion you’re pouring into this case. Don’t you have other things to work on?”

  “I won’t be questioned by the people I employ,” I stated coldly. “I thought I was very clear to you and to everyone else just how much this investigation means to me. I want it done right. I want it to be successful. And this noise right now is a huge distraction.”

  I waved my hand in between Milo and me to make sure he understood my point. He was distracting me, and worse, he was distracting himself. I needed every person I had at my disposal to be the best they could be.

  Milo was still giving me his very best hurt and confused stare, so I tried a different tack.

  “If you think that being intimate is a distraction to this task, I think it would be better to end things between us,” I told him. I could find other men eager to get close to me. I could get anything I needed as long as I had someone willing to be loyal to me. Milo was perhaps too close. He was too nice and too concerned, a bucketful of superlatives that I couldn’t deal with right now.

  I wished he were too cutthroat. Then maybe the Wharton Group would be on the chopping block, and I’d be ready to move forward emotionally and fully with my life, revenge exacted and happy again.

  “I don’t want that,” Milo said finally.

  “Don’t want what?”

  “I don’t want for us not to make love anymore,” he said. “Seeing you outside this firm — though that has become rarer and rarer — is my greatest joy.”

  He was so sensitive that it made my heart melt a little bit.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I should take a little break. It’s easy to get obsessed over this case, I think. I’m just really passionate about it.”

  Milo toyed with a pen on the boardroom table for a full minute before looking up.

  “Why do you think you’re so passionate about it?” he asked.

  That hadn’t been what I’d expected him to say at all. I’d expected him to say how happy he was that I’d realized the fact that I was becoming a little too involved. I thought he might have even suggested we go to Ganesh or some other restaurant of his he liked tonight instead of going through all the boxes and boxes of Wharton Group records we’d obtained.

  “I’m passionate about anything that involves bringing criminals to justice,” I said. “You know. The tenets of what this entire firm was built upon. My parents’ values. I share them, too, you know, even if that’s so hard for people around here to believe.”

  “I’m not trying to attack you,” Milo said, lifting his hands up in a way I was sure he hoped was placating. “It’s just that no one has ever heard even a whisper of wrongdoing from the Wharton Group until you came aboard and started redirecting our assets to pursue the investigation.”

  “Are you saying that I’m making shit up?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.

  “April. Stop.” Milo put his hands over mine. “What reason would I have to attack you? I have none. I care deeply for you. I want the best for you. If investigating the Wharton Group brings you joy, then that’s what I want to help you do.”

  “Don’t you patronize me,” I whispered, furious. “Don’t.”

  Milo gave me that stare again, the one that made me want to slap him or tear out my own eyeballs or something. I hated him looking at me like that, like he couldn’t believe what I was doing or saying.

  “Don’t you understand that I would do anything to please you?” he asked. “Didn’t I tell you from the start that pleasing you is my greatest pleasure?”

  “I thought that was just for the bedroom,” I muttered, aware that we were in the boardroom of the company I helmed.

  “No, April,” the lawyer said. “That is in all arenas of the existence we’re sharing right now. I want to please you in bed, of course, but I want to please you in our professional realm, as well. I want to please you in everything.”

  “You can please me by not questioning my judgment on the Wharton Group investigation,” I said. “How’s that? Is that pleasing, Milo?”

  “You know, I think I’m done for the evening,” he said. “I’d invite you to dinner or drinks, but I somehow doubt you’d take me up on it.”

  “I have a lot of things to do here,” I said, sweeping my hand over all the stacks of papers and boxes currently occupying the boardroom. We couldn’t even fit meetings in here anymore.

  “I can see that,” he said. I could tell that Milo was fighting himself, trying to keep himself from saying something he’d regret. Half of me wished he’d go on and say it so I could just flush him from my life. The other half of me wanted to leave the firm for the night, go out to dinner with Milo, and make sweet love with him until I fell asleep.

  It was classic April and Michelle, at war as usual. I could rarely get my two personas to reconcile with each other. I always had to be one of the other, but I spent the majority of my time stuck somewhere in the middle, between them.

  Milo got up from the boardroom table, and the Michelle side of me wanted to snag his hand, bring it to my lips, and kiss it before begging him to take me away from all of this. April wanted to sneer at him to fuck off.

  Instead, it was Milo who spoke.

  “Let me take your mind off of all of this,” he said, “if only for a little while. What do you say, April? You’d come back rested and with fresh eyes, ready to find that flaw that will bring the whole thing tumbling down.”

  That was good enough, then. I let myself be hoisted to my feet and propelled out the door.

  Escape, if only for tonight.

  -----

  There were some days when the Michelle part of me won out. When she asserted herself, I left work like a normal person at five o’clock. Milo and I usually had a nice dinner together or did some other date activity. He sometimes got me to go to plays or movies or concerts. We always made love.

  I sometimes felt like I should tell Milo to call me Michelle on those days, but I didn’t want him to freak out or worry. It was just a persona, a role I slipped into as a means to an end. Milo seemed to recognize when I was different, though he may have not known the particulars of it. I liked to think that he at least told himself to try to enjoy me on my Michelle days.

  We even went to an art gallery, finally, on one of those carefree days, and I purchased my first painting. I loved the way it looked on my wall in the loft, and I looked forward to filling the rest of my space with the pieces I loved.

  But when April won out over Michelle, I would sometimes stay all night at the firm. Milo would, at times, stay with me. He fell asleep some nights, too exhausted with all of the work. But I would stay driven, poring over correspondence and emails and notes and observations, sure that the next page would give me the information I needed to take Jonathan down, or the next page, or the next.

  It was never enough. I could recognize that. It wouldn’t be enough until I found that match so I could burn the whole operation down. But I was never worried. That was the beautiful thing about having goals. I felt that once I reached my focus point, which was the dismantling of Wharton Group, I’d stop and move forward again, stepping into a new life.

  Sometimes, I even fantasized about where I’d go when this nasty business was all said and done w
ith. Maybe I’d travel somewhere exotic, start a new life on an island in the middle of a warm sea or something. Those fantasies were strange. Part of them would be just me on the island, me enjoying my own company, away from everyone else, even if I didn’t have anything to hide from anymore. Others would have me on the island with Milo. What good was paradise if you didn’t have someone to share it with? We’d make love beneath the palms and take so much joy in each other that we wouldn’t know what to do. We’d be sick of the richness of the coconuts and the bananas and the pineapples.

  The worst fantasies of all — and they were my fantasies, which was why they were so confounding — were the ones that saw Jonathan on my island. In those fantasies, the weather wasn’t sunny or warm. Storms raged in the ocean around us, and waves pounded the shore. We were the only ones there, and all we could do was hold on to each other and try to remain upright in the face of the tempest.

  I hated the fantasies. They dragged me away from reality far too often. I much preferred focusing on the tasks at hand, the endless boxes, the tips and clues and anonymous hints we occasionally received via secure email. Nobody could figure those out.

  Time passed, and I grew more impatient. Anxiety began to consume me, and I allocated more and more resources and manpower to the Wharton Group investigation. I was so terrified of getting stuck in this like quicksand that I ended other cases for the sole purpose of having more assets to punt at the Wharton conundrum.

  Morale had spiraled down so far that even I was starting to hear about it.

  Finally, everything reached a fever point. I closed the last non-Wharton Group-related case and realized everything was being directed at my pet investigation. There was a twisted sort of victory at that. I felt like I was doing everything in my power to make a difference. At the same time, I felt like I was drowning in a stormy sea. Why couldn’t I stop this? Why didn’t I want to live a normal life?

  I walked in to my office one day to find Felix sitting there, waiting for me.