Take Me

by Caitlin Crews

  “For the record, this is the most unsexy and grossly disturbing conversation I’ve ever had when someone wants to get me naked.”

  “I find that hard to believe, given the wanker contingent you’ve allowed in your bed.”

  “I get tested once a year as a part of my annual physical,” she said loftily. “But then again, I don’t throw it about like some.”

  “I’m never unsafe,” he told her. “In terms of protection, that is. But I get tested every couple of months, because I like to be both promiscuous and sure.”

  “Am I supposed to be turned on now?” she asked, aware that her hands were in fists at her sides, and not willing to ask herself why. She was supposed to long for open discussions like this. It was supposed to herald her maturity. And she already knew he slept around, or he wouldn’t have been the perfect person for her purposes. There was no reason this should all make her feel a bit like crying. “Because I’m whatever the opposite of that is. And I feel absolutely no trace of anything resembling impending giddiness. In case you were wondering.”

  “I know these practicalities are so confronting,” he said, and he did bend his head then. But only to put his face...near hers. As if he was contemplating sinking his teeth into her neck like some kind of vampire.

  Jenny had no idea what it said about her that the very idea made her break out goose bumps. And not because the notion disgusted or scared her.

  “Are you sure you’re the opposite of turned on?” he asked.

  And she could feel his breath in the crook of her neck. He was so close. He surrounded her, and there was something dominating in the way he stood there, holding her in place without touching her at all. She should have hated that, but it was Dylan.

  And the fact it was Dylan made it worse. Wrong, and strange, somehow so much better.

  Her pussy began to pulse, in time with that same restless beating thing inside her. And her nipples were so hard she couldn’t quite tell if the sensation that washed through her from the tight points was pleasure or pain. Only that it didn’t stop.

  “I can’t decide if you’re trying to scare me off or if this is your seduction technique,” she managed to say, aware that she was panting a bit as she spoke. “But I’m beginning to think that the reason all those girls look so giddy is because of some kind of head trauma. Is that your secret?”

  She felt the brush of his lips. Or she thought it was his lips, there for a moment where her pulse went wild. Then gone, and it was like being walloped with another storm system.

  He was wrecking her. Remaking her.

  “Fucking someone through the headboard sounds fun in theory, but no one likes a concussion when all they want is to come,” he rumbled against her neck. She could feel it when he spoke. It danced in her. “Don’t you agree?”

  But she was lost in a cascade of too-hot, too-bright images of him and her and that bed of his with all its wrought iron, and all Jenny could do was gape at him when he lifted his head.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said, and even his smile was dangerous.

  Then Dylan bent that last little bit and slammed his mouth down on hers.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE WERE VERY few things in life that exceeded expectations.

  And it turned out, Jenny was one of them.

  Dylan didn’t waste time on niceties. He claimed her mouth with his, finally.

  He’d been building up this particular hunger since the moment he’d met her, and he’d long since given up hope it would ever happen with them, so he didn’t hold back. It didn’t occur to him to hold back.

  He’d warned her. He’d given her every chance to back out or change her mind. And despite all that, he knew full well he was the one who was going to have trouble closing this bloody door now it was opened.

  But he couldn’t care about that now. He couldn’t tie himself up into knots over the future when there was still now. When there was still this.

  Her mouth beneath his. The touch of her tongue. And her taste, better than he’d imagined—and sweet Lord, had he imagined it. Over and over again.

  Dylan didn’t kiss her sweetly. This wasn’t a fairy tale. He ate at her mouth, holding her face where he wanted it and indulging himself.

  At last.

  She fit him. He’d imagined she would, year after year, but this... The taste of her surpassed every last fantasy he’d ever had.

  Particularly when she kissed him back, hesitant at first, but then meeting him fully. Hot and greedy, just the way he liked it.

  Deep and wet and long and perfect, and he had to fight to remember that they weren’t in private. That he had to control himself when that was the last thing he wanted to do. Because it was so good. Because it was Jenny.

  Dylan wrenched his mouth away, aware that he was breathing too hard as he dropped his forehead to hers.

  “I told you,” he growled at her, and he didn’t even know what he meant. Only that he’d warned her. And there was a madness in him, bright and hot and tangled up deep, and it had her name written all over it.

  She was panting and her eyes were closed, and he angled himself back a bit, dimly remembering once again that they were in public. That his cock was so hard already that he was likely in danger of scaring off the tourists, and a chat with the local police was not part of his plans for the night.

  Not when he’d finally gotten his hands on Jenny. This was Jenny. He had her taste in his mouth, still. She was in his veins now, the fire in his blood. And God knew she’d been in his bones for years.

  She was the ruin of him. But Dylan didn’t feel ruined just then. Or he liked the ruin, maybe.

  But her eyes were still closed. And he found himself tensing as he watched her struggle to control her breath. As he waited to see if she’d set him back on his heels the way he’d always imagined she would. That was the way it went between the lady of the manor and an upstart chancer.

  It felt like an age or two before Jenny’s lashes fluttered, and she opened up her eyes to look straight at him. The brown of her eyes that he knew so well was shot through with gold. There was a flush on her cheeks that made his cock feel heavy. The look on her face made his fingers itch to tear off her clothes and see where else that flush touched.

  “You kissed me,” she said, there was a scratchy sort of awe in her voice. “We kissed. You and me, Dylan.”

  “We did.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, that mouth he’d studied, dreamed about, fantasized over. And could now taste against his own. He wasn’t sure he could believe it. “I did.”

  She lifted a hand to touch her lips and he couldn’t tell if her fingers were shaking, or if she was simply hesitant.

  And he was Dylan Kilburn. He was renowned for his confidence, though his detractors used other words to describe it. Whatever it was, he had it in spades. He could walk into any room, talk to anyone, raise up empires on the strength of his handshake. And yet this slender creature with soft eyes and an elegant neck made him forget that he was one of the youngest billionaires in Australia—and the world. She made him forget that he was normally treated like a man a good ten or twenty years his senior, such was the power he exuded and the ruthless competency he brought to any given situation.

  Jenny looked at him and just like that he was once again nothing more than a poor wee lad from the worst neighborhood in Dublin, out of his element at Oxford, and terrified that at any moment he’d cock the whole thing up. Absolutely certain every moment of every day that he was about to be found out and summarily sent down, because the smartest kid in a neighborhood like the one he’d grown up in didn’t mean smart enough for the pampered toffs who swanned about the dreaming spires.

  And in the middle of those years of anxiety and ambition, there had been Jenny, who’d been his friend.

  It wasn’t lost on him that lusting after her for all these years was a bi
t of a betrayal of that friendship. Nor was it lost on him that in kissing her the way he had, carnal and raw, he’d made absolutely certain there would be no going back. No matter what she’d said.

  But then, she was marrying a man she didn’t love. The way he’d always known she would. The way she’d always said she would. It shouldn’t eat at him the way it did that everything was going along according to plan.

  And she might think that a man like Conrad Vanderburg wouldn’t care if she stayed friends with her old pal from her university days, but Dylan knew better. No husband in his right mind would be all right with Dylan hanging about—because a husband would see Dylan for who he really was. He was friendly, understanding, patient, endlessly supportive and undemanding only for one person on this earth. Her marriage was the end of things.

  Dylan couldn’t regret kissing her the way he had, no matter what she was about to say next.

  But the thing about Jenny was that he could know her inside and out, and she still surprised him.

  She did now. Because she smiled. That wide, faintly wicked, fully joyous smile of hers that made him feel as if it was the middle of summer, not winter. As if it was bright daylight, instead of night.

  “We kissed,” she said again. “Can you believe it?”

  She leaned forward and braced herself on his chest again, tipping back her head with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times before. When she hadn’t. Because there had always been barriers. There had always been distance.

  Because Dylan had needed to maintain some level of sanity.

  But he knew how she tasted now, and the hunger in him felt new. Wilder and sharper than before.

  Jenny’s eyes looked more gold than brown. “Would you say that kiss was a proper kiss?”

  Dylan felt nearly grim with want, drunk with desire, but he laughed anyway. “It would be hard to find a kiss more proper, in my opinion.”

  Her smile widened. “And do you think that was representative of your work?”

  There was a teasing note in her voice, and he found himself grinning in return. But not that happy, friendly, toothless grin he’d always given her in the past. Because the door was open, and he had already shouldered his way through it. That was who he was and always had been, in every scenario but this one. And now it was too late. There was no going back to pretending he was her lovable old buddy, Dylan.

  Not when she was plastered against him and her lips were still damp from his. Not now.

  “A proper kiss is an excellent advertisement for proper fuck, yes,” he assured her, doing nothing to rein himself in. “At least when I do it. What do you reckon, Jenny? Have I scared you off?”

  And her smile faded a bit as she gazed up at him, making his heart kick at him again.

  Because he honestly didn’t know what he would do if she said that yes, he had succeeded at last in scaring her away from this course of action.

  Cry like a bitch, mate, a voice in him said. Caustically. You’ll cry like a little bitch, and who could blame you?

  “You haven’t scared me off,” Jenny said, her hands still pressed against his chest and her eyes solemn. “And I appreciate your attempts, but you’re not going to. The only thing that’s going to stop this from happening is if you don’t want to. If you’ve changed your mind. Or scared yourself off.”

  Dylan laughed again, but not because anything was funny. “Impossible.”

  He jerked her to him and took her mouth again, indulging himself all over again. He sank his hands into her hair, finding it silky and thick, and warm there at her scalp. He tugged her head back, giving himself the angle he wanted, and then it was on. A little rough, a little intense.

  All magic.

  Because this was Jenny, his Jenny, and he was never going to recover from this. And if she was going to go ahead and marry herself off, he was going to make sure she had something to remember him by.

  He was going to imprint himself on her, the way she’d imprinted herself on him at first sight.

  Dylan didn’t think that he could ruin her the way she’d done to him, but he could ruin this. Because they fit together like a dream, and this kiss was already better than whole nights he’d spent with other women, none of whom he could ever remember too clearly. Not when there was Jenny. And he’d done his best all these years to get by without her, but he didn’t have to now. Not now. Not tonight. Not for as long as she stayed here in Australia, hiding from her real life.

  He could ruin her this way. He could teach her what proper was, and the truth was, he felt as if he’d been practicing his whole life for this opportunity. To worship this woman in every last way he knew, turn her inside out as many times as possible, and let her spend the rest of her life fantasizing about this. The same way he would be doing.

  He pulled away again and liked it when she moaned out a protest.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’m going to feed you.”

  Her eyes were a bit fuzzy, which made his cock pulse. “Feed me? Is that a code for something debaucherous? Please say yes.”

  His hands were still in her hair, and he kept them there, because it felt good to have control of her. To hold her like this. To have her right where he wanted her.

  Another subject they were going to have to cover, but he’d get there.

  “That depends how you eat.” He tilted his head a bit as he gazed down at her. “Are you feeling gluttonous?”

  Her gaze sharpened at last, but she was looking at his mouth. “Yes. I believe that’s the perfect word.”

  “We need to make sure you can keep up your strength,” he said. Then he reached down and helped himself to her hand, threading her fingers through his.

  She stared down at their hands, clasped together like that.

  “You’re holding my hand,” she said, with a certain reverence. Or more of that awe, or wonder, that was one more way she was going to kill him. “Dylan Kilburn is holding my hand.”

  He opened his mouth to say something wicked, or offhanded. Something to dispel the tension a bit. But she gazed up at him and the words died on his tongue, unsaid.

  Because even their hands fit together perfectly, and her taste was still flooding through him, and she wasn’t being silly. If anything, he would have said that look on her face was sacred.

  And for once, he didn’t have to pretend.

  For once, he could meet that gaze of hers with his own, and acknowledge this thing that was between them. This thing that had been in him, and a part of him, and a defining characteristic of his, for so long now he didn’t know who he was without it.

  And it was only holding her hand. But it felt like the world. It felt right. A key into a lock.

  Coming home at last.

  Dylan could have stood there for another lifetime, but she wasn’t here for his feelings. She was here to fuck. And he had every intention of living up to his promises.

  So he made himself look away, gripped her hand harder and led her away from that dark railing and the bright crowd at the Opera Bar.

  He led her around the quay, climbing up into the narrow, cobbled laneways that rose up opposite the opera house, and comprised the oldest part of Sydney.

  “Are we really stopping for food?” she asked as they climbed a set of stairs between two buildings. “Do I get a vote?”

  He slanted to gaze down at her. “No.”

  “Just...no. No explanation. Just straight up, no debate, no.”

  “I don’t think I stuttered, did I?”

  Jenny was laughing as he escorted her toward a deceptively old-looking building that was only accessible down a long, cobbled alleyway. The door was painted a bright red, and that was its only distinguishing facet. That and the keypad next to the door. Dylan punched in the code, and the door clicked open, instantly giving away the fact that the building had been gutted and refurbished inside, t
hough it looked quietly historic from without.

  “What is this place?” Jenny breathed. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, her fingers still wrapped up tight in his. “Is this some kind of secret club? For sex?”

  “I don’t need a secret club for sex.” He shook his head at her. “Sex is a group sport for some, sure. More power to them. I’m more of a singles player, myself.”

  He ushered her inside. Then he led her down a set of stairs, lit up with a buttery golden light. At the bottom was a discreet welcome desk staffed by a smiling attendant.

  “Good evening, Mr. Kilburn,” the man said in a plummy British accent. “Will you be dining with us tonight?”

  “A table with a view,” Dylan replied. “And we’ll make our own way up.”

  “Very good, sir,” the man said, and typed something into the tablet in front of him.

  Dylan led Jenny farther into the building, making his way through the various lounges, bars and nooks and crannies alike that made up this particular club.

  “It is a club,” Jenny said, as if she’d caught him out. “I’ve always wanted to spend time in an illicit sex club, populated entirely by deviance.”

  “I hate to ruin the fantasy, but this club is more for business connections, entrepreneurial fantasies and high profile meetings that need to remain strictly private. There are deviant sex clubs out there, and there’s sex here, too, but not of the public variety. The club provides rooms for weary travelers, and doesn’t much care who fills them.”

  “That’s a lot less fun.”

  “The truth about highflyers is that most of them are boring,” Dylan said. “Because the reason they’re highflyers is that they work themselves half to death.”

  “And here I thought the point of making shedloads of cash was to fling it about indiscriminately, laughing all the while.”

  And years ago, Dylan would have let that go. This morning, even. But everything was different now.