He growls approvingly. “Then let’s fuck the fiction out of both of us. One night only. I can’t offer you more than that.”
“Fine by me.”
I’ll agree to anything to keep his hands on my body.
I kiss him again as final confirmation, grabbing fistfuls of black, sweet-smelling hair. It feels like I imagined it would—like the softest of silks. He moans long and deep as his hands start to explore, running his knuckles up the inside of my leg until he reaches the apex of my thighs. He skims his fingers across the fabric of my soaking panties, teasing and testing, taunting me with the heat of his touch, and then yanking them to one side.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he states, palming my sex roughly.
Panting, I grind my hips into his hand, my self-control in tatters. He had to be dirty as hell, as well.
He releases me and takes a step back. “Turn.”
The delicate zipper on my dress disintegrates and the material pools around my feet like a shimmering silver lake. I kick it away and spin back around. His eyes are blazing into mine as he drags his jacket from his shoulders. His bow tie falls to the floor, followed by his white dress shirt. I risk a glance downward and my breath hitches. He’s all carved, sun-kissed muscle, with just a smattering of dark hair covering his chest and lower torso.
“I don’t go easy on women,” he says, bunching a fist around my hair and angling my face toward his. “Don’t expect me to be gentle.”
“Good,” I gasp out, feeling the pinch of his touch at my scalp. “No one likes a movie that fails to live up to the hype.”
The corners of his lips twist. “You and that fucking mouth of yours. Are you scared?”
“No,” I lie, swallowing hard. “Should I be?”
His gaze dips to the nervous slide in my throat. He chuckles but doesn’t answer. I’m vaguely aware that he’s inching us toward the antique sideboard, and I allow myself to be led, dancing slowly across the monochrome tiles with him in our very own lovemaking waltz, until I feel the chill of polished wood against the base of my spine. He lifts me easily, settling me down on the edge, parting my legs and positioning himself between them.
“Lift your hips.”
I do so without hesitation, leaning back to rest my weight on my hands, my fingertips clenching around the lip of the wood. With renewed urgency, he rips my panties away, leaving me naked except for my heels. There’s a crazy pulse beating between my legs and the tops of my thighs are damp with desire. He wraps them around his waist and presses his naked torso against my wet heat, groaning appreciatively.
“I knew you wanted me, Books. Max never had a look-in, did he?” Jake is the provocative victor now, and his smirk shoots fireworks of indignation through my veins.
“Why, you arrogant piece-of—”
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. All that snapping and snarling gives you away. You, my lady, protest far too fucking much.”
I try to wriggle backward, but heavy hands clamp down on my waist.
“I’m not a sure thing yet, Jake.” I wrench my mouth to the side as he tries to kiss my anger away. “I can stop this anytime I want to!”
“True, but you should know how much I like a challenge, and your insubordination is like a hotline to my dick. I’ve been walking around with a hard-on ever since you stormed into my office last week.” He yanks me off the sideboard by my wrists and turns me around, trapping me in his strong embrace. I’m bent double at the waist, his erection now pressing into the small of my back. I’ve never felt so exposed, so unequal…
So desired.
“What a compromising position you find yourself in,” he drawls. “I bet all the romance novels in the world haven’t prepared you for this. Are you going to behave, or do I have to restrain you?”
“I’d like to see you try,” I hiss, bucking against him, but he only starts laughing again. Furious, I drive the pointy end of my stiletto heel right into his foot.
“Shit. Cut it out.”
“Never!” I redouble my efforts, but his body is like a dead weight. I can’t shift him no matter what.
“Trust me,” he murmurs, warm lips pressing between my shoulder blades. “Fight me all the way to hell and back if you must, but not in this room. Not in my arms.”
His words are like a drug. My treacherous body goes limp.
He seizes on my hesitation, scooping me up before I have another chance to protest. After placing me back on the sideboard, he yanks my thighs apart and hauls me to the edge.
“Stop!” My thoughts turn to something faintly adult-like and responsible. “I don’t have a—”
“No need, I’m clean. I never fuck without one.”
But you are now, I think hazily.
“What about you?” He pulls back for a moment. His grip on my body is unforgiving, but I savor it like it’s the sweetest of touches.
I shake my head. Not that I have much of a repertoire to compare this with. I hate to think how many women Jake’s been with.
His gaze flickers down to my lips, so swollen from his crushing kisses. “Birth control?”
“Yes.”
“Then put your legs back around my waist.” He shoots me that sexy curve of his lips and I feel the smooth head of his cock slip between my folds. “Last chance,” he croons, pausing to mock me with possibilities, as if I’m the tipping point of a roller coaster at the pinnacle of its climb.
As if I was ever in control of this situation.
His expression is primal, hammering through my final resistance, and it seals my lust for him.
“Let me hear you say it,” he demands, whetting my appetite with another delicious inch of his cock. “I won’t start fucking you until you tell me how much you want this.”
“I want this!” I scream, gripping his shoulders, my nails digging mini crescents into his skin. I’m a hot mess of contradiction. “I want you so much!”
“Just as I thought.” And with that, he slams all the way into me, giving me everything and more.
I cry out in pain and surprise. God, he feels glorious. Decadent. Agony. Like heaven and hell, and justice and sin.
“Do you feel me, Books?” he hisses into my hair. “Do you feel how hard my dick is for you? I want to screw every last belligerent word out of your mouth until you can’t walk straight, let alone speak that shit to me again.”
“Yes! Oh, my God, yes!”
He thrusts over and over, slow, measured, and brutal, crushing his groin against my clit. All the while, he’s gripping my hips and urging me to meet his every assault. I can feel my inner muscles clenching around his cock already, and I know he feels it, too.
“Wait.” He shifts his hips to angle himself deeper.
“I can’t!” My body is like a mindless animal and I’m right on the edge.
He responds by picking up the pace and driving into me with everything he’s got, his brutal assaults stealing the air from my lungs.
“Now!” he roars. “Come hard for me, Charlie.”
His words are fruitless. My body is already shuddering as wave after wave of pure pleasure drags me under. I hear him curse, and then we’re climaxing together in one heady, decadent rush, with me calling out his name until he’s silencing my mouth with his own.
Chapter Fourteen
“It’s your turn, Charlotte bird.”
I can tell he’s grinning at me, but I keep my eyes fixed on the dirty floor. I want to run away, but I can’t. He’s locked all the doors and hidden the key. He calls me his “bird,” but he’s broken my wings.
I listen to the sick sound of metal grinding as he spins the chamber. Always ten times. Sometimes he makes me count them out loud.
I’m only six, but I know there’s something wrong with him. He smells the same but he acts funny. It’s as if he doesn’t see me, even when he’s looking s
traight at my face.
It’s been four days. Four days since he took me away from her. I haven’t eaten. I’ve barely had any water, but always this game. Every night.
Spinning that barrel for the both of us.
Chapter Fifteen
I wake with a cry, my eyes desperately searching to make sense of the darkness.
Not another nightmare. Not now. Not when I’m lying naked in Jake’s king-sized, four-poster bed.
He’s still asleep beside me, stretched out on his back, his lower torso cocooned in a crumpled white sheet, like the demigod that he is. The dawning light has softened his features and the frown lines have all but disappeared. Artists make sculptures from visions such as this; writers proclaim sonnets. Women like me are in serious danger of losing all sense and reason.
If this is just a one-night thing like he said, I want to savor this image for as long as possible. One problem. My thoughts are all over the place. I’ve never given a man control over my body before, not after what happened to me as a child. In truth, I’ve never cared enough to be this intimate with anyone.
And now?
I feel stripped. Exposed. He flayed me with his words, only to bleach my bones with the hottest, filthiest sex of my life.
He stirs and rolls onto his side, reaching out for me with one arm. When he encounters an expanse of empty sheets, his eyelids flicker and then open. He clocks me on the far side of the bed and his lips start to twitch. “Stop staring at me.”
The way his words rumble with sleep should be illegal.
“I know your manners are questionable, Books, but surely, that one’s elementary?”
“Not this time, I’m afraid.” Somehow, I force a smile. “Looking at one’s boss’s boss is an occupational hazard, despite your stipulation to the contrary. Would you like me to apologize?”
The corners of his mouth start twitching again. “Why bother? You’re not sorry in the slightest. And are you answering in your capacity as my brother’s assistant or as my lover?”
“Are they mutually exclusive?” I find myself holding my breath as I ask it.
Jake doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches out and pulls me back into his arms, and my body acquiesces just like that. It’s all too simple for him.
“Rule number three,” he mutters into my hair. “Don’t fuck your producer.”
“Damn.” I sigh, feeling him grow hard against my ass. “Am I breaking all the rules again?”
“You have from the beginning. I told you that already.”
Shimmying out of his embrace, I turn to face him, taking in his sleepy, sexy eyes and the black stubble shadowing his jaw. He looks majestic and unobtainable, a true Hollywood prince. “Are things going to get awkward now?” I rest my head on my hand, ignoring the slight tremor in my voice.
He smirks and mimics my stance. “Not after that performance.”
“Oh?” I like this lighter side of Jake. It’s making all the right body parts tingle. “What happens if the next time we make love it’s below par? Will Max slip me a written warning during one of our daily debriefs? Mr. Dalton, this is a highly pressurized working environment.”
Jake raises an eyebrow at me. “Next time? This is a one night only deal, Books. I thought I made that clear.”
“But it’s only four a.m.,” I say glancing at the clock on his nightstand. “Technically it’s not morning yet, so technically—”
“I can still fuck the shit out of you,” he finishes, lunging for me and pulling me into his embrace.
Before I can stop him, he’s rolling me over, imprisoning me against the full length of his body and enticing me into some lazy, protracted tongue sparring.
“Look at me,” he orders, breaking away.
I open my eyes and my heart jerks sharply. Jake Dalton up-close and personal is fast becoming my favorite sight.
“Good. Now keep them open. Eyes on me, always.”
He starts to trail kisses down my body, starting with the glide of my throat and then to my breasts, teasing each nipple between his teeth in a way that has my back arching as spikes of wildfire pierce my core.
“Aphrodite,” I hear him murmur, flicking his tongue expertly back and forth as I continue to writhe helplessly beneath him. “You have the most beautiful body I’ve ever had the pleasure of debasing.”
I freeze.
Empty bed talk.
He doesn’t mean it.
He can’t.
Sensing the change in mood, he looks up with a quizzical expression on his face. “Oh, don’t you dare,” he snarls, trapping my chin with his thumb and forefinger and forcing me to look at him. “Never, ever compare yourself to them.”
To whom?
His legion of ex-lovers?
To Cassie?
Before I can ask, he’s climbing back up the bed and grinding his hips into mine. I follow his lead as a flood of desire smashes into me like a tidal wave.
“That’s better,” he says, cradling my head between his hands, his elbows depressing the mattress either side of me. “You insult me by constantly questioning yourself. I’m here because I want to be. It’s as simple as that. And when I give you a compliment, I mean it. They’re almost as rare as my apologies.” He shifts his weight so that he’s lying on his side next to me, the palm of his hand lightly skating across my stomach, inching lower and lower. “I want all this fiery passion for myself. For the next two hours, at least.”
I moan softly as his fingers reach their destination and slide inside me with ease. At the same time, his thumb starts toying with me, stroking my clit from side to side and then in ever-demanding circles.
“I want to lose myself in here again.” He scissors his fingers and I respond with another moan, flexing my hips, craving more. My body can’t get enough of his touch. He opens my mouth with his own to kiss me again, his tongue mimicking the action of his fingers. He takes his time, and soon my desire is a never-ending surge of ecstasy as we chase down my orgasm together.
“Second time’s a charm, Charlie,” he murmurs. “I want you milking my fingers like you milked my dick, and then I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be walking straight for a week.”
His words are too much. I wrench my mouth away, crying out his name as I spiral out of control. When I open my eyes again, he’s gazing down at me with that oh-so-familiar smirk on his lips.
“My turn.”
Rearing up on elbows, he powers into me with one hard thrust.
“Shit!”
“On the contrary, this is pretty fucking perfect,” he says, shifting his weight and demanding more of my body. “Take it,” he adds huskily, tilting my pelvis to accommodate all of him. “I want you so full of me, your eyes are rolling back in their sockets.”
Holy shit.
Without waiting for my reply, he starts to move. I match him thrust for thrust, lifting my hips in time and forcing him to keep up his vicious rhythm.
“Oh God, Jake!”
It’s more a plea than a scream, but the effect is just the same, and we come together in one intoxicating rush.
My eyes are stinging as he slows, moving his hips in measured, circular motions to eek out the last remnants of our pleasure. He’s too good at this. My experience is limited, but I know when I’m in the hands of an expert. He eases out of me, and collapses onto the bed with a groan, his right arm thrown carelessly across his face.
“I still think I deserve a raise,” I gasp out, watching his magnificent chest rise and fall as he works to catch his breath.
Trust me to be flippant at a time like this.
He laughs. It’s a deep pool of a sound, and one I could drown in forever. “After a week? Not a chance. Even Max wouldn’t sanction that. Still, I could always give you a bonus for tonight.”
And there it is. The stinging backhander I’ve been waiting for.
I’m out of bed in a flash, scooping up the discarded white bed sheet from the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growls, sitting up with a jerk.
How can he be so damn insensitive?
“How dare you! How bloody dare you! Is that why you think I slept with you? Because I want your money?” I shoot him a murderous look. “I’m not like those other women, Jake. I’m not like my mother!”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” I’ve never seen him this mad before. Face drawn. Eyes glinting. The works. “Christ, you can’t even let ten seconds pass before reverting back to type.”
I’m on a roll now and all my insecurities are flooding to the surface. “Don’t you think I’m good enough to make a career for myself? Do you think I have to screw the producer for credibility, too?”
“Don’t be stupid, of course you’re good enough. And you were the one who brought up money, by the way.”
“Go to hell, Dalton. I don’t need your billions, and I sure as hell didn’t sleep with you for a bonus.”
At this, he throws himself out of bed and stands there glaring at me in all his naked glory. “Stop acting like a teenager. You’re nothing like your mother, except possibly for that force of nature personality that drives me up the wall every day. You definitely inherited that from her.”
Of all the—
Any comparison to my mother is like an atomic bomb going off in my head. I grab the pillow from the floor and hurl it straight at his chest. He swerves easily, pissing me off even more.
“Since we’re talking about messed-up inherited personality traits, what about you?” I scream at him. “Did Dalton senior share the same dictatorial tendencies, or shall I thank your own over-inflated ego for that?”
Jake goes very still, and I regret my words instantly. Whatever fragile intimacy we shared tonight just shattered into a million pieces. I watch in mounting horror as he disappears into his walk-in closet, slamming the door behind him. He reappears, dressed to kill in a pair of jeans and a light blue button-down.
“Get some clothes on.” I watch him roll up his sleeves in rough, jerky movements. “I want you to call the airline. My business in L.A. is done and I need to get back to Morocco as soon as possible. Max hemorrhages money when I’m not there to oversee. No doubt he’s already blown my budget on some stupid special effect.”
Hot Nights in Morocco Page 8
