Breathless

by HELEN HARDT

  A soak in the hot tub would relax me.

  Over an hour had passed since I contacted Bryce, and he hadn’t responded to my more recent text. Had he decided not to come? Probably. I’d take a long, soothing soak. He wasn’t going to show up anyway, and if he did? Well, he wouldn’t see anything he hadn’t seen before.

  I poured myself another glass of water—had to keep hydrated in the hot tub—and walked back out onto the deck. In the distance, soft lights shone from the main house. Thanks to the redwood enclosure around the tub, I wouldn’t be seen, though frankly I didn’t much care at the moment. In the midst of another looming crisis, I deserved a little relaxation. Sure, I could have drawn a hot bath in my own room or used our much larger hot tub at the main house. But I was here now, waiting for Bryce.

  And if he showed up, I kind of liked the fact that he’d find me naked.

  I stepped into the water, letting it encase me in its soothing warmth. The steam rose like night fog around me. I sat, and the water covered my breasts. I closed my eyes and inhaled a relaxing deep breath.

  Then I giggled. What if I started playing with myself, a la a romance novel? Then the hero would certainly catch me in the middle of my self-service and take over. I’d read it a thousand times. I cupped my breasts and thumbed my nipples, making them harden even within the heat of the water.

  I giggled again.

  Couldn’t do it. Just too damned cliché.

  I drained my glass of water and checked my phone, which was sitting on the ledge. I’d been soaking for nearly fifteen minutes, and my body temperature was on fire. Time to get out.

  I stepped out of the tub, the cool air chilling me slightly, and wrapped the fluffy robe around my shoulders.

  Then I turned—

  I held back a gasp. Bryce stood in the doorway leading into the house. I’d locked the front door, but he no doubt already had a key. I’d expected a text if he actually showed up, which I’d pretty much given up on…until this moment.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey back. I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell Joe where I was going.”

  “Why not?”

  “I…” He paused a few seconds. “I don’t know. I just didn’t feel like I could. He’d ask a lot of questions, want to know why you wanted to see me.”

  “Do you know why I want to see you?”

  “The same reason I want to see you, I hope.” He grabbed me and pulled me to him.

  “Bryce…”

  “God, don’t talk. Just kiss me. Please.” His lips came down on mine.

  This honestly hadn’t been my plan. Kissing Bryce was always in the back of my mind, but I’d truly needed to talk to him about… About…

  My thoughts melded together until they were an incoherent blob. Didn’t matter. None of it mattered. All that mattered was Bryce and this kiss.

  Our lips slid together, and desire welled inside me, beginning in my core and shooting outward until my clit was pulsing with need. Every part of my body quickened under the fluffy robe, my nipples hardening.

  Bryce deepened the kiss, exploring every inch of my mouth with his tongue. With one swift movement, he could brush the robe from my body. I wanted him to, was silently begging him to as I returned his kiss. Instead, he pulled me through the doorway and into the house.

  He grabbed one of my hands and led it to his crotch. “Feel what you do to me.”

  I squeezed gently, and he sucked in a breath. Before I could speak, he swept me into his arms and carried me down the hallway to the spare bedroom, where we’d made love previously.

  Finally, he ripped the robe from my body and pushed me down onto the bed. “You’re so beautiful, Marjorie. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman.”

  I sighed softly. I hadn’t expected this, but I wasn’t about to stop. We could talk afterward, though I’d forgotten my intended subject.

  The end of my ponytail was wet from the hot tub, and the rest of my body was covered in shiny perspiration left over from the heat. I wasn’t looking my best, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” I said.

  “I told you I would.”

  “But it’s been nearly two hours.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Joe and I…”

  Questions tugged at me. A lot of them. But not now. Not while I was naked on a bed with Bryce Simpson staring down at me like I was tonight’s main course.

  Everything else could wait.

  “It’s okay. Come to me. Please. Make love to me, Bryce.”

  His blue eyes were on fire. “Damn. You make me insane. I want you so much. In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”

  “I’m right here,” I said. “I’m right here, and I’m yours.”

  Chapter Forty–Eight

  Bryce

  Such breathtaking beauty. Marjorie Steel was long legs with curves in all the right places. Her dark eyes were deep and smoky, her breasts swollen, her nipples hard and taut. Her flesh glistened and was tinted pink from the heat of the tub.

  Luscious. Delicious. A temptress.

  She was all those things and so much more.

  Emotions coiled through me, feelings I wasn’t ready to face yet. This woman meant so much to me, and I wasn’t even close to worthy.

  I banished those thoughts from my mind. She was here. I was here. And she was offering herself to me. No strings—at least none that I knew of.

  I couldn’t offer her strings of any kind. Not now, and maybe not ever. I’d vowed to stay away, but I could offer her the next few hours.

  I was so hard right now that I had to get inside her. After I took the edge off, I’d love her until morning. I’d force every ounce of pleasure I could out of her.

  But now…

  I undressed as quickly as I could and lay down next to her, spooning her. I kissed the soft silk of her shoulder and pushed my cock against the crack of her ass.

  “Please,” she said softly.

  I thrust into her wet heat.

  “God, yes,” she said, her voice a sweet, soothing breeze in my ears.

  She wrapped around me in a perfect sexual hug, a glove for my cock in the most intimate way. For a moment, everything else—the past, the lies, the situation Joe and I needed to deal with—disappeared, and I escaped into her embracing warmth.

  If I could only stay here, encased within her welcoming body forever, I could be complete. Complete and happy.

  I let those warm thoughts float around the mess inside my mind as I pumped into her quickly. In. Out. In. Out. Her moans were my reward.

  “Can’t last long,” I panted into her ear.

  “S’okay,” she said. “Feel good. I want you to feel good.”

  Her unselfishness unmanned me, and I pushed once more into her and released into an exploding star. The pulses spread through me like torpedoes, and I gripped her hips, trying to push farther and farther into her, trying to make it last, make it last, make it last…

  “Mmm,” she said in her angelic voice.

  “I’ll make this up to you,” I said against her earlobe.

  “S’okay,” she said again.

  “No, it’s not. Give me a minute, and I swear to God I’ll make you come like you never have before.”

  She smiled into the pillow. I couldn’t see her lips, but just the slight movement of her facial muscles clued me in. That was how well I knew her already, knew the responses of her body. Man, how could I ever give this woman up?

  Not going to think about that now.

  Instead, I inhaled, breathing in the coconut scent of Marj’s still-damp hair. I eased the holder from her ponytail, letting her hair flow down her back. So beautiful.

  I trailed my lips along the side of her face and then over her neck and shoulder, my cock finally sliding out of her. I was still semi-hard, and already my dick was showing signs of new life. Just being next to this woman, kissing her smooth flesh, inhaling the
fragrance of her hair mixed with the raw scent of our sex that hung in the air…

  As much as I wanted to take her to another plane of passion, part of me wanted to lie here, just be next to her, and pretend, if only for a moment, that this was normal.

  My normal life.

  If only I were worthy of such a thing.

  As much as I was not worthy, she was. She deserved so much more than just me getting my rocks off inside her.

  Time to show her what true pleasure was.

  I moved slightly, placing her supine on the bed, and then I positioned myself between her legs, lifted her hips so her knees were snug against my shoulders, and dived into her sweet center.

  She was wet, and my semen drizzled out of her. Her clit was swollen into a hard pink knob, begging for attention, attention I was happy to bestow. I massaged it with my fingers.

  “Oh!” She jerked against me.

  I rubbed it tenderly again and then with more force, and finally I closed my lips around it and sucked.

  “Bryce!”

  Yes, she was more than ready. Just a few swipes of my tongue and lips and she was nearly at a climax.

  It would be the first of many tonight.

  Chapter Forty–Nine

  Marjorie

  His lips were so warm on my pussy, and then—

  “I’m coming!” I flew into the orgasm so quickly I surprised myself. Just a suck on my clit, and then, when he forced two fingers into me, my entire body quivered with unbridled passion.

  Bryce, Bryce, Bryce. I love you, Bryce. I love you.

  But I could only say those words inside my head, as much as I longed to utter them to the man with his head between my legs. I knew I was falling for him, and perhaps realizing I was in love during an orgasm wasn’t true love.

  But damn, I felt like it was.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  Higher and higher I flew, into another and yet another climax. Bryce trailed his hands over my abdomen, up to my breasts, and circled his fingers around my hard nipples. More jolts shattered me, as if his fingers were electric nipple clamps sending buzzing tingles into my already blazing body.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  “Damn, Marjorie. You’re so hot,” Bryce said against my vulva, pushing his fingers into me once more. “Come for me. Come for me again and again.”

  As if in response to his command, I soared once more, bolts shooting from my breasts to my pussy and then outward, as if I were on fire with desire.

  Which I was. I so was.

  My silent declarations of love continued as my head spun, and I came again. Then again.

  My body shuddered, and my mind whirled. And finally…finally…

  He moved his fingers out of my channel, moved his head back.

  And gazed at me.

  “So pink and beautiful. You’re amazing.” He buried his head again, pulling my labia into his mouth and tugging.

  I had no more climaxes to give… No more…but still he licked me, ate me, tugged at me, and it all felt so good, as if every corner of emptiness I’d ever felt in my body had been miraculously filled. I closed my eyes, basking in the afterglow and loving the touch of his mouth on my most sensitive place. He moved his tongue downward then, licking my ass.

  “Mmm. Beautiful,” he said again against my forbidden hole. “Beautiful and delicious.”

  Desire swept through me, desire so profound that needed sating now. Right now.

  “Please,” I said, not sure what I was asking for. “Please, Bryce.”

  “Easy, baby. Let out a breath.”

  I obeyed, and a new feeling sucked me in. His finger. His finger, wet with my juices, had breached the tight rim of my ass.

  “God, if you could see this,” he said. “Fucking gorgeous.”

  He moved his finger in and out slowly at first, and then more quickly, the invasion morphing from a slight pain to an unbelievable pleasure. And then…when his lips touched my clit once more…

  A climax so profound hit me like a thunder crash.

  “That’s it, baby. I knew you had one more. Give it to me. Give me your orgasm. It’s mine. All mine.”

  All his.

  It surely was.

  As was I.

  I was still coming when he removed his finger and climbed up my body, crushed his lips to mine in a searing kiss, and pushed his giant cock back into my pussy.

  He pumped into me, mimicking with his tongue what his cock was doing inside me.

  I was all out of orgasms, but that didn’t matter. The feel of him, the completeness of us together, overwhelmed me in the best way.

  He kept kissing me as he released a second time. Kept kissing me as he held himself inside me for several timeless moments, kept kissing me… Kept kissing me.

  And I knew my orgasmic declarations of love had been real.

  I was in love with Bryce Simpson.

  Completely and hopelessly in love.

  Chapter Fifty

  Bryce

  After staring at her for as long as I could and choking back a tear that threatened, I covered Marjorie’s sleeping body.

  I love you.

  Had she meant to say the words aloud? They’d come out on a soft sigh during one of her many climaxes, and though I’d yearned to return them, I hadn’t.

  I couldn’t go there. Not yet. Not until…

  Not until I’d dealt with the demons that plagued me…including the long-buried secret from Joe’s and my past that threatened us now.

  I had to move on, make her understand that we couldn’t ever be. I dressed quietly and then walked out to the desk in the kitchen. After finding a notepad and pen, I scribbled down some words.

  Noxious words that I didn’t mean but had to say. She needed to move on, and I needed to help her. I walked back into the bedroom where my perfect angel still slept. I kissed her cheek lightly. She moved slightly but didn’t awaken.

  I wanted to remember her like this—soft and innocent and beautiful. So fucking beautiful.

  I’m sorry, I said silently. I’m sorry I can’t be what you deserve.

  One more light kiss to her silky forehead.

  Then I laid the note on the nightstand next to her.

  I walked out of the bedroom.

  Out of the guesthouse.

  Out of Marjorie Steel’s life.

  Chapter Fifty–One

  Marjorie

  The note was callous.

  The words were cruel.

  Even the sheet of paper was crisp and unsympathetic.

  Bryce Simpson was heartless.

  I’d fallen in love with a heartless man.

  My purse sat on a chair on the other side of the room. Still naked from our night of passion, I rose and grabbed it. Inside the hidden pocket was something I kept, even though I’d promised Mel I’d trashed it.

  It was a reminder.

  It was a security blanket.

  Right now I needed it.

  Stop.

  I could walk to the kitchen. Open the refrigerator. Let the blast of cold air ease the unpleasantness from my mind.

  Yes, it would be easier.

  Much easier than…

  I unzipped the pocket slowly and withdrew the sharp razor blade. I sat back down on the bed and regarded the scar on my upper thigh. It was still red, but it had healed. If I left it alone, it would eventually turn white and then gradually fade over the years.

  Slowly, I lowered the blade to my flesh.

  Epilogue

  I shine my knife. I polish my gun. Always keeping one eye on you.

  And I remember.

  You will pay.

  You will all pay.

  * * *

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  Also Available from Helen Hardt

  Keep reading for an excerpt!

  Excerpt from Misadventures with a Rock Star


  Why was I here again?

  I stifled a yawn. Watching a couple of women do each other while others undressed, clamoring for a minute of the band’s attention, wasn’t my idea of a good time. The two women were gorgeous, of course, with tight bodies and big boobs. The contrasts in their skin and hair color made their show even more exotic. They were interesting to watch, but they didn’t do much for me sexually. Maybe if I weren’t so exhausted. I’d pulled the morning and noon shifts, and my legs were aching.

  Even so, I was glad Susie had dragged me to the concert, if only to see and hear Jett Draconis live. His deep bass-baritone was rich enough to fill an opera house but had just enough of a rasp to make him the ultimate rock vocalist. And when he slid into falsetto and then back down to bass notes? Panty-melting. No other words could describe the effect. Watching him had mesmerized me. He lived his music as he sang and played, not as if it were coming from his mouth but emanating from his entire body and soul. The man had been born to perform.

  A true artist.

  Which only made me feel like more of a loser.

  Jett Draconis was my age, had hit the LA scene around the same time I had, and he’d made it big in no time. Me? I was still a struggling screenwriter working a dead-end job waiting tables at a local diner where B-list actors and directors hung out. Not only was I not an A-lister, I wasn’t even serving them. When I couldn’t sell a movie to second-rate producer Rod Hanson? I hadn’t yet said the words out loud, but the time had come to give up.

  “What are you doing hanging out here all by yourself?”

  Susie’s words knocked me out of my barrage of self-pity. For a minute anyway.

  “Just bored. Can we leave soon?”

  “Are you kidding me? The party’s just getting started.” She pointed to the two women on the floor. “That’s Janet and Lindy. Works every time. They always go home with someone in the band.”