Greed (Seven Vices Series Book 1) Read online

  I hated to admit it, but there was something extraordinarily sexy about doing it here, in my cellar, knowing full well that the rest of the dinner guests were upstairs eating their meals. Something about the fact that Oliver clearly couldn’t wait any longer for this either . . . That, in itself, could have pushed me over the edge.

  “I have to warn you, Sophia. This isn’t going to be the warm and tender first time you might be used to. I need to fuck you hard. I don’t know any other way to get you out of my system,” he breathed.

  He used his feet to push my legs apart, opening me up for him. Oliver pushed down on the small of my back and brought my behind up to meet his hips. I heard him unbuckle his belt hastily. I heard a wrapper being torn open and tossed to the floor. Finally, I felt him press his cock up against my entrance, only the very tip slipping inside. I gasped. “Please,” I begged, needing to feel him fully seated inside of me, a throbbing heat in my core.

  Oliver leaned forward and kissed my shoulder blade, slowly sliding into me.

  “Fuck. You’re so tight,” he groaned out.

  I braced myself against the wine rack with both hands as he began to thrust into me. The movement of his hips wasn’t the fast, bruising, demanding pace that I had expected. Instead, he was unhurried, giving me time to fully appreciate how well he fit inside me before he dragged himself all the way out, until just the head remained, and pushed back in again.

  Eventually, he began to move at a faster tempo, his hips slamming into mine, sharp and forceful—but there was something intimate about it still, in the way that he held me back towards him, in the way that his lips pressed against my neck.

  I cried out and shifted my legs further apart as his fingers found their way to my clit, fluttering strokes playing across that sensitive bundle of nerves.

  “Mmm. . . that’s it sweetheart, just let go for me,” he panted.

  Just as he had commanded, my whole body drew tight, my toes curling inside my shoes until—

  Release. It happened suddenly, swiftly, all at once—as though all the heat in my body coalesced, a million fires turning into one, long burst of heat. I shivered at the force of it, my knuckles gone white where I was still gripping the edge of the wine rack. I sobbed out Oliver’s name. My knees gave out—but he was there to catch me, holding my hips, keeping me upright even as he spilled inside of me. He let out a quiet groan into my neck, his breath warm and heavy when he finally exhaled.

  After a moment, I took a deep breath, prying my eyes open and staring blankly at the wine rack in front of me, wondering how we had gotten to this point.

  Oliver turned me around so that I was facing him and gave me one last, sweet kiss on the lips, holding me close against his body. I became aware that I was still shaking slightly in the after-effects, the overstimulation from an incredible orgasm.

  “Sophia?” someone—Rachel Harcourt, if I wasn’t mistaken—called down the stairs.

  I suddenly became aware of just where we were: in my downstairs cellar, while I had dinner guests just above us. I wondered if they had been able to hear my moaning. They must at least be wondering what was taking me so long, when all I’d gone to do was get a bottle of wine.

  “There’s someone on the stairs,” I hissed, glancing at Oliver as he started to buckle up his belt.

  I looked down at myself, realizing that I must look an absolute mess. I quickly pulled up my panties and tugged down my skirt. I dragged the hair tie out of my hair, hoping that loose, just-fucked curls suited me well enough.

  “Sophia, something has happened on the news,” Rachel continued. “You have to see this!”

  “Coming!” I called back, looking uncertainly at Oliver. I didn’t want to just walk out on him after what had just transpired, but I couldn’t risk us being exposed.

  Oliver and I stared at each other for a long moment. We both knew that what had just happened had been completely reckless, but absolutely unavoidable. My cheeks grew red as I thought about how undone we had both become in the heat of the moment. How twice in one night, we found ourselves in each other’s arms. That undeniable chemistry I had felt between us had finally culminated in something that had felt so unbelievably good.

  “After you,” Oliver nodded towards the door. But there was also promise in his voice —and a dark lust in his eyes—that made me shiver.

  I gave him one last look before snatching a bottle of wine and heading up the stairs two at a time, to where Rachel was waiting. I could only hope that Oliver had the sense to wait a few minutes before he reemerged as well, from the bathroom or wherever it was that he was supposed to be.

  “I hope you don’t mind that we turned on the TV,” Rachel said fretfully as she led me back into the main room. “Katherine got a message that she needed to watch, and we were all curious . . .”

  On the screen, there were a dozen clips of flooded rivers and landslides. “Turn up the volume,” I said to David, who wordlessly complied. I put my hand over my mouth, hardly noticing Oliver’s presence as he rejoined the party.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Argentina is, of course, prone to a number of natural disasters, from earthquakes to floods, but the flooding from this storm is without a doubt the worst that this country has seen in recent years. We have yet to receive even a preliminary death toll, but it’s sure to be well into the hundreds, if not thousands . . .”

  The pictures and cellphone videos that kept playing on repeat were truly dreadful. I shuddered to think of all these poor villagers who hadn’t even known that a big storm was coming, or the people in the cities and towns who had chosen to stay because they had nowhere else to go—or because by the time they knew that the storm was going to be a big one (the biggest one on record) the roads were already closed and it was too late.

  No one could even predict how long it would be before running water and other services were available in the more remote areas. Infrastructure had been lacking even before this storm had blown through most of the power lines and buried the roads. At the moment, the only way to bring aid to the area was through helicopters, but with the storm still raging, even that was proving difficult.

  “Medical supplies, water, food,” I muttered under my breath. “Tents and blankets.” I started compiling a mental list of what we could contribute. Given the donations that we’d brought in at the benefit, we were able to offer a lot—even if it meant dipping into the funds that we had earmarked for later in the year . . . Well, those funds had been earmarked for something just like this.

  “Cancel that trip to Nepal,” I realized suddenly. That was no longer our top priority. I had medical training as well as training in aid distribution and shelter construction. They could use me on the ground there, and I had to be ready to go on the next available flight.

  Already, I headed for my home office, pulling my phone out of my pocket, hardly remembering that I had guests over. I was sure they knew exactly what I was doing, and none of them would be offended. This was the important work that their donations had been made for, after all.

  I sat at my desk, flicking on the news radio and listening with half an ear as I booted up my computer and started making calls to everyone I knew who could help get me down to Argentina post-haste.

  Just as I started talking to Tanner—a guy I knew who frequently flew aid flights down to various places in Latin America for the airline he worked for—Oliver came up behind me and kissed my ear lightly, putting his arms around me.

  I shrugged him off, inwardly fuming. Didn’t he see that this wasn’t the time for that? Sure, not too long ago, my body had been begging him for more, but that was before all of this. This was a time of tragedy; there were bigger things to think about. I didn’t need his distractions.

  “What the hell?” I said after leaving a message for Tanner.

  Oliver held up both hands. “Hey, chill out, would you? Everyone else has left. I volunteered to stay behind and clean up a little.”

  “This isn’t cleaning up,” I s
napped.

  “I know,” Oliver said. He moved behind me and began to knead at my shoulders. “You’re so tense,” he said, surprised.

  “Oliver,” I said warningly.

  Oliver leaned down and started kissing my neck again. “I know you’re busy, but can’t you take a little break?” he asked. “Nothing’s going to happen overnight anyway.”

  “The first few days after any tragedy are the most critical,” I told him, my tone short.

  “And you’re the only person who’s jumping to action to help the good people of Argentina?” Oliver asked sarcastically.

  I craned my neck so that I could look at him. “Given that it’s mostly your money that we’ll be using to help out with this, I would have thought you’d be more understanding of their plight,” I told him. “Or are you only worried about the poor orphans? You realize how many young children were probably affected by this? How many parents lost their kids as well? How many people still have no drinking water, or lights, or blankets, or anything else?”

  “I know, I know,” Oliver said, giving a long-suffering sigh. “And they’ve lost everything, they have no futures without your help, and they need your medical supplies too, I’m sure.”

  “They do!” I said, wondering how I could have had him so wrong. I’d somehow, mistakenly thought that the playboy attitude was something that he just put on for the press. I’d thought I’d started to see a caring side of him. But apparently I’d only seen the person that he’d wanted me to see. He wasn’t kind at all. He couldn’t be more different from me, in fundamental ways.

  “You know what, I think it would be best if you just leave,” I told Oliver. “I have a lot of work to do, and I don’t need any distractions.”

  “Oh, is that all I am?” Oliver asked. For the first time, I could hear anger in his voice as well. “I’m just a distraction. You know, I thought you were playing hard to get, but now I realize what kind of game this really is. You think you’re the cat and I’m the mouse. That you can just bat me around whenever you’re bored. Well, I’m not interested in playing that game.”

  “You’re the one who seems to think that all relationships are about playing,” I snarled. “Are you ever serious? But of course you’re not, because in order to be serious, you would have to find something you cared about enough to be serious.”

  “And if it’s not the health of a hundred random locals in a city you’ve never been to, then what could a person possibly be serious about?” Oliver asked mockingly.

  I stared at him, shocked to hear those words even come out of his mouth. I shook my head. “I’ve heard people say some horrible things, but that . . .” I swallowed around the lump in my throat, wondering wildly if I was starting to cry because I felt sorry for him or because I felt sorry for myself for having fallen for such an obvious ass.

  “I think you should leave,” I said again, quietly this time. I could feel tears stinging my eyes.

  Oliver sighed. “Sophia, you know I don’t mean—“

  “I think you should leave,” I repeated, firmer now. “It’s clear that the two of us have completely different viewpoints, and this just isn’t going to work out.” I gave a bitter laugh. “Anyway, you’ve already had sex with me. Isn’t it time for you to move on to the next girl now? We all know that all you care about is the chase.”

  Oliver paused, looking as though there was something else that he wanted to say. Actually, if I looked too closely at his face, I’d swear he looked as though I’d strode across the room and slapped him. But finally, he shook his head and left, closing the door behind him.

  As soon as he was gone, I collapsed back in my seat, trying my hardest not to cry. I wasn’t going to cry over him. He didn’t care at all about other people, clearly. Didn’t he see that it didn’t matter if you knew who those people were or not?

  But I sensed there was something deeper to it, something that he had been saying without saying. I just couldn’t seem to puzzle out what it was. I didn’t have time to fall to pieces, thinking about what he might have meant.

  I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. There was a lot of work to do, and it was going to be a long enough night without thinking about him. I turned to the app on my phone that let me deal with first responders who were already in the area and got to work as a dispatcher, directing aid workers towards people who called in the most dreadful situations. If I couldn’t be on the ground there yet, at least I could do some good.

  I’d be on the ground soon enough, I promised myself.

  Chapter Twelve

  The flight over to Argentina wasn’t long, but it definitely gave me too much time to think. Some of the other aid workers chatted quietly around me, but I had been on one too many of these trips by now, and I knew that the likelihood that I would be placed near any of these people was pretty low. They’d spread us out in the affected areas, putting us together with the guys who were already on the ground there. I’d rather save my small-talk for the team I would actually be working with.

  I tried to sleep, but my mind felt curiously wired. All I could think about was my final afternoon at work. I’d received the call from Tanner, letting me know about the aid flights and giving me a briefing on the work I’d be assigned to down in Argentina. Then, as I’d been leaving the office . . .

  I pulled open the door to my office, a stack of papers in my hand for Jeri—instructions for while I was gone, among other things—and nearly bumped headlong into another of those couriers. I froze, surprised to see him standing there. He held up a single rose, with the standard envelope.

  I shook my head. “I don’t have time for this right now,” I muttered under my breath. I grabbed the flower and envelope from the bewildered guy’s hand, quickly scrawling my signature on the courier’s clipboard just so I could get the guy out of there.

  Then, without even looking at what was in the envelope, I dropped the whole thing in the trashcan by Jeri’s desk. The flower would have wilted by the time I got back, anyway.

  I thrust the paperwork at Jeri as I made my way out. “You know what to do,” I told her.

  She glanced towards her trashcan for a moment, looking like she wanted to say something. But finally, she just nodded. “Good luck,” she said.

  I felt a faint regret at the fact that I hadn’t even read Oliver’s note. I hadn’t even messaged him to let him know that I was going to be out of the country.

  But why should I do that? We weren’t in a relationship; I had made it clear that I wanted nothing more to do with him. Besides, I was sure Jeri would be all too happy to tell his messengers that I wouldn’t be able to receive his silly roses and poems for the foreseeable future.

  In fact, this trip couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. I welcomed the chance to get away from the city and Oliver. I would have no choice but to focus on the work that I was doing in Argentina, without allowing myself to be distracted by silly thoughts about potential romance. (As though Oliver might ever be capable of romance—romance involved caring about another person, and after all, he’d shown that he wasn’t capable of that!)

  Sure enough, from the moment we landed, I had no more time to think about him. As I’d suspected, we were all split up into different transports which took us deep into the countryside.

  “Peoria—as you might guess from its name—has never been a particularly wealthy town,” our driver, Peter, told us as he navigated potholes and patches of slippery, dark mud along the road. “One of the landslides hit the town’s school head-on, and a number of the houses were destroyed as well. There’s no vehicular access into the town—we’ll get as close as we can—about an hour’s drive away—and get in a helicopter to airlift the two of you in.”

  “Great, more flying,” Anne, one of the other volunteers in my transport muttered. She’d already complained about feeling airsick from the flight in, which had been pretty bumpy towards the end, as we’d circled through clouds looking for a break in the weather so that we could land.
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br />   I gave her a sympathetic smile and turned back to Peter. “So we’ll be working on rebuilding homes first?” I asked.

  He nodded at me. “The region is important to the Argentinian economy, because although the towns themselves have never been particularly wealthy, there are a lot of resources—mainly different types of ores—that come from the area, in addition to a certain amount of farming and cattle-herding.” He paused as he navigated a particularly washed-out section. “The truth is, most of the mines have probably collapsed or flooded as well, but the people are hopeful . . .”

  I grimaced. “Could we pump the excess water out of the flooded mines?” I asked.

  “A good suggestion, but unfortunately, it would take a lot of aid money to do that,” Peter said. He glanced over at me, giving a wry smile. “I can practically see you filling out the funding paperwork in your mind. But to be honest, I’m sure the people of Argentina as a whole are better served with the things that Le Monde Ensemble has already signed off on: water, food, et cetera.”

  “Right,” I sighed. There was a limit to what we could do—it was impossible to fix everything using our aid dollars, not when there were other disasters happening every day. Pumping water out of mines might be within our financial capabilities at the moment, but if we put all our aid money towards that, it would be impossible to help out the next victims of disaster, whoever they might be. We had to draw the line somewhere.

  We finally reached Peoria and were split further into separate teams, each paired with one of the guys who had been there since the beginning.

  “Javier, was it?” I asked my partner, reaching out to shake his hand. He had a firm, if slightly dirty grip, and he used his other hand to wipe sweat off his brow.

  “Javier,” he confirmed. “And you must be Ms. Sophia Boutelle. It’s an honor to work with you.”