Their tongues twisted together, slick and hot, and he moaned at the scorching pleasure of it. No wonder none of the other women he’d been with had been able to keep his interest. All these years, he’d been waiting to feel THIS again.
Joy. Excitement. Ecstasy, just from the feel of her mouth under his. Panting. Fiery. Needy.
His heart roared in his chest, thudding frantically.
“Carter...” She moaned and twisted against him, soft and scented from her bath and whatever lotion she’d smoothed into her oh-so-soft skin. “I missed you,” she moaned. “I missed you so much.”
Her desperate words obliterated the last of his doubts. Before he knew it, he had her backed against the curtained window. Even through the thin cloth, he could feel the coolness of the window glass seeping into his flattened palms on either side of her hips. Her thighs moved restlessly against his.
With a groan, he yanked up her dress and slid his fingers between her suddenly parted thighs.
“Jade...” She wasn’t wearing anything under that thin white dress. His knees nearly buckled. “Can I have you again?” He gasped the question into her mouth, his fingers already sliding into her wetness. “God, I’d do anything.”
Her thighs opening wider, the breath stuttering in her throat like she’d run around Miami and back. “Anything?” Her hips snaked, sucking his fingers deeper inside her.
“Yes!” Carter growled. He barely felt coherent. His body was overheated, ready and so damn hard. He dropped his head forward, trying to get himself back under control. Trying to stop any more pleas from falling out of his mouth.
But she wasn’t making it easy for him. “Show me how much you want me,” she rasped. “Show me now.” Jade rode his fingers, moving her hips sinuously, eagerly.
Carter had never been so jealous of his own fingers in his entire life.
Obviously, he still wasn’t thinking clearly. It felt good to tell her what happened years ago. But now his desire for Jade felt like a river that had broken beyond its banks, threatening to wash away everything else in this life. He pulsed with it. His heart, his mind, his...
He pressed the heel of his hand in his lap and drew a breath. Then her hand was there too, unzipping him and pulling out the long club of his sex through the opening in his pants. The lust flashed through him like his own personal lightning bolt. Sudden, hot and uncontrollable.
“Do you have—” Jade squeezed him with her soft hand and Carter’s eyes crossed.
What? Oh. Right. He fumbled in his wallet for a condom, ripped it open and quickly put it on.
She was so open, so beautiful, her smooth legs and entire body spread out against the curtained window glass like a feast for him to devour. Carter had been starving for ten years. With a hoarse shout, he pierced his sex deep into the heart of her.
“Carter!” Jade gasped, clinging to him. “More!” Her legs locked around his hips. Her center clenched around him, and he was lost.
Whatever civilized and cool conversation he’d thought of having with her before was long gone. All that mattered were the desperate movements of her hips against his, the tight heaven of her around him, the bite of her nails in the back of his neck, urging him on.
Gasping, he pulled back and thrust deep into her. Perfection. They both groaned. Desire buzzed down his spine and gathered low between his legs, rocketing him on. Jade trembled against him, breaths and screams knocked from her open mouth with each window-rattling thrust of hips.
“More!” She gripped him tight. Her nails shredded the back of his neck and raked over his scalp.
It hurt but Carter wouldn’t have it any other way. He gave her everything he had, tapping again and again on that place inside her that made Jade shudder and wail. The storm gathered hard and fast in him. It was coming, and coming fast. But he didn’t want to leave her behind. “Jade, baby...?”
“Yes, Carter, yes!” She threw her head back and screamed even louder than before, her sex a clenching, wet fist around him.
That was the permission he needed to let go. His rhythm faltered, his smooth strokes becoming ragged as he lost himself to the rising orgasm, shouting her name and slamming into her again and again while she and the glass shuddered under him. A white heat blazed through him. His eyes squeezed tightly shut. Then everything went quiet.
It all came back to him in a savage rush. Her pleased sighs. The sound of his gasping breaths. A humming from the room’s AC.
Carter’s knees trembled. The sweat ran hot under his shirt, down his haunches and thighs. He sagged into the hot line of her throat, hands still braced on the glass and his sex still buried inside her. Slowly, her legs dropped from around his waist.
He could feel her already withdrawing from him in more ways than one. “Jade?”
She shook her head, the regret clouding her eyes. Disappointment fisted in Carter’s stomach. Just once, he wished he could get something he wanted without it being tainted by conditions and circumstances he had no control over.
“We can’t do this again.” She jerked her dress back down and brushed a trembling hand over her face, wiping away the sweat there. “We... I work for your family. This would be... This is a bad idea. A very bad idea.” Jade licked her lips and darted her eyes away, like she was trying to convince herself too.
“Okay.” Still reeling from his orgasm, Carter barely stopped himself from firing her on the spot. No, that was unprofessional. He didn’t do crap like that. Not ever.
He disposed of the full condom and zipped himself up. The sweat now felt cool again on his skin, and his heartbeat was finally slowing down.
“You should—” Jade began.
“Go,” he finished.
“Yes,” they said together. That was obviously what she wanted.
Carter backed away from her, his whole body still tingling with the aftermath of his orgasm, but still hungry for hers again.
“We should talk tomorrow,” he said, fighting to keep his voice neutral and controlled.
“Or maybe the day after that,” Jade countered.
No. He wouldn’t let her run away. “Tomorrow,” he said firmly.
But Jade only slid him a look from the corners of her eyes and swept toward the door to pull it open. “I’ll talk with you soon, Carter,” she said, cool and no-nonsense like he just hadn’t been buried deep inside her wetness while she begged for him not to stop.
A breeze winged through one of the open windows to flutter the dress around her body and bring the scent of her once again to his nose. His mouth watered. His nostrils flared. But he walked toward the open door to give her the space she demanded.
For now.
Chapter 5
The ground under Jade’s feet was so very unsteady when she was with Carter. Everything was uncertain, including how she was supposed to handle this new turn in their relationship, this formerly latent desire that had flared between them last night as if it had never waned.
But she couldn’t afford to let it become a thing. They worked together. His family hired her to do a job and no part of that job description included climbing Carter Diallo like a tree.
Now nothing was as simple as it should have been.
It had all started to feel so good, so normal, to be there in the club with him and his brothers, talking about nothing important. As an only child, she’d never had that. The unconditional support of a sibling, the way they sometimes seemed to read each other’s minds, the teasing that came naturally and the way they instantly absorbed her into their circle.
Years ago, during one of the times she and Carter really talked, he said something she didn’t quite understand.
I miss my family, he’d said so matter-of-factly that she’d overlooked it at first.
But then she caught up and couldn’t imagine feeling that, much less saying it out loud. Her parents were her only family. They came
to see her nearly every month and they went out to dinner at whatever place her father wanted to try. Jade never got the chance to miss them. But, more important, she wanted to miss them. She wanted that ache of homesickness that many of her new friends talked about.
For her, though, college had only been a chance to escape from her family’s rigid control and the ignorance they’d imprisoned her with. Because of them, she’d known nothing about the real world. Nothing about sex, independence or even normal interpersonal relationships.
What man named his wife’s child after his mistress?
No, Jade had never missed her parents after they let her go. She never longed for her so-called family.
But Carter had been unhappy without his. And now she could see why.
If she had a family like the Diallos, she’d miss them too.
* * *
With her most businesslike face on, she opened the door to her parents’ house.
“Come in, gentlemen.”
Jaxon and Carter Diallo took up the space in front of the door. Carter in his usual suit, a gray one this time that looked like it matched her car, and the young boy genius in designer dark wash jeans and a pale yellow dress shirt rolled up at the elbows.
They were identically handsome, she tried to tell herself objectively. But the boy Jaxon didn’t hold a candle to the magnetic and masculine strength of his brother, a grown man. Jade only allowed herself one quick and guilt-free look before stepping back to allow them inside the house. She had to be professional.
She had to pretend Carter hadn’t been in her hotel room last night, hadn’t made love to her, hadn’t made her doubt...everything.
Despite promising herself to not do any work before seven a.m., she’d sent emails to the Diallo lawyer and then to Jaxon Diallo himself, requesting a meeting on neutral ground to discuss what they needed to do. She didn’t feel like exposing herself to those ridiculous feelings again by going back to the Diallo building, but she also needed to make them know she was the one making the plays here.
So she set up a meeting for eleven in the morning at her parents’ house. A local catering service arranged late-morning coffee and an early lunch in the empty second floor of the house. The small dining room table and chairs, sofa and a coffee table Jade had brought upstairs took up only the smallest amount of room in the otherwise empty space. But she needed it to be workable, not pretty.
“Head on upstairs and to your right. You’ll see the table set up as soon as you get there.”
“What the hell is this?” Jaxon started up as he looked around, his steps slow through the foyer despite the incentive of Carter’s intimidating form crowding him from behind. “We couldn’t meet at the office?”
“This is an office,” Jade said with an eyebrow pointedly raised. “Mine.”
She didn’t stay to watch them walk up. In the kitchen, she took a few sips of fortifying breath before heading after them.
When she got upstairs, she found Jaxon looking over the railing and down to the covered pool while Carter prowled around the vast space with a frown between his brows. He looked up as soon as she came in, eyes fastened completely on her. She couldn’t help but shiver from the way he raked her entire body with his eyes and although she wore a simple sheath dress and medium-height heels, his look made her feel as if she was wearing something much more revealing. Not just of her body, but of her heart and soul too.
This was ridiculous, she thought. And none of this fanciful thinking was going to get her anywhere good. With a click of her heels against the tile floors, she turned sharply away from him.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” she said.
“As if I had a choice,” Jaxon muttered.
God, was this boy going to be pouting all day?
He strolled in from the balcony, looking between her and Carter with an eerily perceptive look on his face. “What’s up with you two? You look guilty, like you’re hiding secrets.”
* * *
While the caterers, two women who came quietly in, settled the carafes of coffee and small pastries in the middle of the table, Jaxon roamed the large room. He looked bored.
“This is a nice place. A little empty. The owners could put some money into fixing it up, though.”
He looked at Jade like he was being a smart-ass, convinced she was the owner.
“They’re dead,” she said.
Technically, she was the owner but she was getting rid of it as soon as humanly possible. Why mention the intermediate step?
“Sit down and stop being an ass, Jaxon.” Carter appeared in Jade’s line of sight again, sleek and gorgeous in a designer suit.
As if she could ever stop being aware of him.
She threw him a sour look. “Thanks, Carter. But I think Jaxon and I are doing just fine.”
“This is your definition of fine, huh?” Jaxon made a scornful noise. “I’d hate to see what you think is a disaster.”
She shrugged and settled down at the head of the table, letting the young man know in no uncertain terms who was in charge of this meeting. He didn’t sit down but continued to hover in the room, going from blank space to blank space like he was searching for something when it was obvious he was only doing it to piss Jade off. Or bide his time for something she had no idea about.
“The disaster is this mess that you landed your family in.”
He flashed a look filled with fury and contempt. “My family? No, this is just my own mess. And it isn’t even that much of a mess. Nessa is pissed at me, and she’s trying to set the world against me because of it. But it’ll all blow over. It’s nothing.”
“If only that were true.” She opened her folder and slid a piece of paper to where she’d invited Jaxon to sit, ignoring the fact that he was nowhere near the chair. “The world at large is eating up Nessa’s story. Everyone with an opinion thinks you stole her app and stole her chance for a better life. You’re the villain here, along with your family for supporting you.”
“That’s stupid,” Jaxon hissed, all defiance.
He was very young, Jade thought. And remembered what she had been like at that age. A fool. Alone.
She hid the sudden tremor behind an impatient-sounding breath. “I’m not sure whether or not your family let you know what’s going on, but because the Diallo Corporation is going public, it can’t afford any scandal. Nothing. And the fact that you messed this girl up enough for her to want to ruin you—”
“Any idiot can just look at our profiles and résumés and see what the hell is really going on. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
“Unfortunately, the only idiots who’ll react strongly are the ones who want to nail you to the wall.” And just a few minutes in Jaxon’s company and Jade wanted to slap him.
He was arrogant, unrepentant and street-smart. It wasn’t just the way he dressed and the air of entitlement he carried around with him, it was the frightening intelligence in his eyes, the obviously muscular and fit body, the way he stripped you down with his eyes, not caring that he was making a person feel like a commodity to be used and discarded instead of a human being. None of that would get him any sympathy in any court of public opinion.
“Carter, what do you think?” Jade asked.
She looked at Carter who she suddenly realized had been watching her the whole time. He stood nearly in the center of the room, his arms crossed over his powerful chest. She cleared her throat to loosen the frog that had suddenly taken up residence there.
She deliberately turned her back on Jaxon who had wandered over to the desk to look with disdain through the papers—photos of the girl he’d had sex with and then abandoned, screenshots of the tweets she’d sent out accusing Jaxon of stealing her app, a selection of the supportive responses she’d gotten on social media, including a tweet from a major local paper.
“You don’t care
what I think,” Carter said with a careless shrug that told Jade it didn’t bother him. And about this, he was so very right.
If he’d known what to do, she wouldn’t be here.
“Do what you need to do,” he finished up in his growling voice.
“You two couldn’t be more obvious if you tried.” Jaxon interrupted their staring contest. Seated now at the table, he rolled his eyes.
His phone chimed once, then a moment later, Carter’s did too. Carter ignored his but Jaxon took his phone and unlocked the screen.
“Nice.” For a second, his face was more than just the petulance of a spoiled child. “Kingsley and Adah will finally finish up the longest engagement in history next month.”
“We already have the wedding on the family calendar,” Carter said.
Jaxon grinned down at this phone as he tapped out a text. “Yeah, but it felt like it was taking forever to get here.”
Why did Jade feel like she’d lost control of the entire meeting?
“This is the reminder about the engagement party,” Jaxon said.
“Again, we know all that.”
“Do you know it’s next week?” Jaxon challenged his older brother with a smirk.
Carter’s face didn’t change, but Jade got the feeling that he had forgotten. Maybe his assistant didn’t send him a reminder memo with the rest of his morning messages.
“Anyway, I’m pumped,” Jaxon said with a surprisingly sweet grin. “I’m glad Kingsley has a woman he can love almost as much as he loves the company. Adah is nice.”
“Yes, she is,” Carter quietly agreed.
Jaxon turned to Jade with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “You should come to the engagement party, as Carter’s date. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Again, Carter’s face didn’t so much as twitch, but Jade was willing to bet he felt far from brotherly toward Jaxon in that moment.
“All right, let’s finish up here then so you can go back to your family business.”
Her Perfect Pleasure Page 8
