by Bella Rose
He broke contact, pulling away and gazing at her with such intensity that she felt her insides tremble. “If you wish to change your mind, now is the time. Beyond now there is no turning back.”
Maggie gathered every bit of bravery she could scrape together. When Courtney had first proposed this one-night stand nonsense, Maggie hadn’t believed she could go through with it. Now she knew she could never walk away. She wanted this man far too much.
“Who says I want to turn back?” she asked boldly. Standing up, she reached for the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. Shaking out the silky pink fabric, she laid it over the back of a barstool. “Personally I’m beginning to wonder what the hold up is.”
Jacob had once stared down a man pointing a gun at close range to his face. That experience could not hold a candle to the intense adrenaline surge he was experiencing at this moment. Maggie’s slim hipped body was a delightful surprise. Her dress had shown off her long legs, but it hadn’t allowed him to appreciate her perfectly round butt cheeks or those pert breasts.
The creamy flesh rising from the cups of her pale-pink satin bra was so tempting, he could not resist. Jacob walked around the bar and stopped right in front of Maggie. He caught her gaze with his and held it while he reached out to run a finger across her chest.
Her skin was perfection. She was soft and warm, and when he dipped his finger into her cleavage he heard her breath hitch in anticipation. There was nothing as arousing as a woman’s honest response, and this one was proving she would be as candid in the bedroom as she had been in the club.
“Take it off,” he ordered roughly.
She didn’t seem to mind his tone. In fact, the way her pupils dilated suggested she liked it. Then Maggie reached up behind her back and unfastened her bra. Her breasts spilled free and Jacob cupped them in his hands.
“So beautiful,” he murmured appreciatively. “A perfect handful.”
He kneaded the soft flesh, squeezing until her nipples grew hard against his palms. Then he lowered his head and used his tongue to trace the edge of her areolae. She tasted sweet with a hint of salt. He puckered his lips around her right nipple and gave a light pull.
Maggie stabbed her fingers through his hair and dragged his head closer. “More, please? It feels so good when you suck them.”
Pulling her whole nipple into his mouth, Jacob sucked hard on the taut bud. She writhed against him, thrusting herself at him again and again as he took as much of her breast into his mouth as he could. He felt the tremors in her muscles and knew she was getting close.
He let go of her breast and took a step back to take in every inch of this beautiful woman. She was smart and sexy, and she looked every inch of it in her black kitten heels and pink satin panties.
Jacob swept her into his arms. She was light as a feather. In fact he could have toted her around like a tiny doll. Yet the way she snuggled close nearly undid his composure. People did not typically indulge in this sort of familiarity with him. It was shockingly pleasant.
“Take me to bed, Jacob,” she whispered. “I need you.”
He crossed the suite’s living room and kicked the bedroom door open. Laying Maggie on the soft duvet, he made sure she was watching him. She propped herself on her elbows, her eyes glued to what he was doing.
His dress shirt came off first. He unfastened the first two buttons and then pulled it off. Before it had dropped to the floor he was unfastening his belt. He could feel Maggie’s gaze roving over his body. For once he wanted someone to really look at him.
“What do the tattoos mean?” she asked softly.
He brushed the black tiger on his right shoulder and the cross on his left. There were words too, in Russian. But he wasn’t in a hurry to explain it all. So he pushed his pants down over his hips instead.
“Oh my,” she said breathlessly. “I mean, just—just wow. Can I touch?”
Jacob couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out this time. Then her fingers brushed his abdomen and he forgot how to breathe. The feather light touch was nearly his undoing. She pushed his boxer briefs down over his hips and sent them to the floor with his pants. He kicked out of his shoes and socks and stepped free of the clothing.
Her fingers skimmed the surface of his erection. Jacob hissed a response. He felt as if he were about to burst. He wanted to be inside Maggie so badly his cock was throbbing its demands.
When she leaned over and brushed a kiss over the head of his cock he gently touched her hair. She tongued the hole at the tip of him and then gave him a little suck. That was enough to shred what was left of his self-control.
“Lay back, Maggie. I need to be inside you,” he told her raggedly.
She didn’t need to be told twice. She got on her back and spread her legs to welcome him. Jacob settled between her knees and braced his weight on his hands. To his delight, it was Maggie who reached between their bodies to palm his cock into position. He felt how wet she was and experienced a jolt of pure male satisfaction.
The first few inches were agony. Maggie was tight and he was desperate. The friction was almost more than he could handle. He gained depth an inch at a time until he was fully sheathed inside her heat. He paused to stare down at her, memorizing the sight of her beneath him. With her dark hair spread across the bed and cheeks flushed from excitement, she was a beautiful sight.
Jacob began surging into Maggie’s soft pussy. The only noises in the room were her soft cries of need and the sound of his body slapping against hers with each thrust. He felt completion coming fast. She wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him even deeper into her body. He arched into the contact and impaled her as hard as he dared.
Maggie screamed and convulsed around him as her orgasm hit fast and hard. Her inner muscles clenched hard on his cock and Jacob felt the threads of his control slipping away. Heat pooled at the base of his spine and trickled down into his thighs. His sac drew up tight beneath his body.
“I’m going to come again, Jacob,” Maggie said with a moan. “Please make me come. Please!”
He felt her sex spread open against his pelvis as he ground against her. Then his climax hit and he knew no more. Maggie cried out again and dug her nails into his shoulders. Jacob wrapped his arms around her and molded his mouth to hers. He kissed her deeply as he poured his seed into her welcoming body.
Chapter Three
Maggie curled up beside Jacob in the enormous bed and gazed out the big windows at the city lights outside. “A girl could really get used to this sort of living.”
“What sort would you be referring to?” He was tracing circles on her back with his fingertips.
“The sort that includes five star hotels, fancy clubs, dinner in the best restaurants, and probably shopping.” She glanced up at him. “Although I’m really just guessing here.”
“You like the lifestyle? Then stay with me.”
She couldn’t decide if he was kidding or serious. He looked utterly sincere, but nobody invited a woman to stay with him after spending less than one evening in her company. It was preposterous.
“You’re kidding,” she decided.
“Am I?”
“Well I’m going to say you are, because if you aren’t there’s a good chance you’re crazy and I’m just too tired to deal with that crap right now.” She gave a lusty yawn. “It would totally ruin the mellow feeling I’ve got going on.”
Jacob wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his side. The position was strangely intimate. Their faces were only inches apart. In the darkness she couldn’t make out the details of his expression, but she had the oddest urge to memorize his features somehow.
Pulling her hand up between their bodies, she traced his eyebrows and the line of his nose with her index finger. He didn’t move. She drifted toward his lips next, remembering how soft they were.
“You’re a really good kisser,” she whispered. “I think you melt me from the lips down with that action.”
“Is that right?” He le
aned forward just an inch or so more and pressed those lips to her forehead. The tender gesture seemed out of place for a one-night stand.
What was really going on here? “I always told my friend, Courtney, that I wasn’t cut out for a one-night stand.”
“And now that you’ve had one?”
His words put her off balance. What if this was the way he acted with all of his one-nighters? She struggled to find her sense of objectivity once more. It was a difficult task considering she was curled up naked against the person she was trying to be objective about.
“What are you thinking?” Jacob asked.
“I was trying to find the energy to get out of bed.” Of course that was a lie, but it made her sound unconcerned so she went with it.
“You could always spend the night.”
He sounded flippant. That wasn’t encouraging. “You know, maybe that’s something else about one-night stands that I haven’t got figured out yet.”
“What’s that?”
“How do you know when it’s time to leave?” She swallowed away the cottony feeling in her mouth. “I mean, if I’m going to be doing this regularly I think I might need a set of rules or something.”
“So this is going to become a habit for you then?”
There was no hint of what he might be feeling in his voice. Dammit. What had been a really comfortable moment had just turned on her. She began edging away from him on the bed. Then his arms locked and he hauled her back to his side.
Maggie sighed. “You’re not making this easy.”
“So just give in and spend the night.” He yawned. “It’s too late to go home.”
“Yes, but I sleep better in my own bed.”
“Perhaps we don’t need to sleep?” The rumble in his voice made her belly knot with desire.
“No. I most definitely need to sleep.” She deliberately pulled away from him and rolled to the edge of the mattress.
The air was cool against her naked skin. Maggie realized her dress was still out in the main room of the suite draped over a barstool. That was a bit of bad planning. She made a mental note to put that on her list of appropriate precautions to take when having a one-night stand. KEEP CLOTHING HANDY.
“It’s been fun,” Maggie called over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you around the club.”
Jacob sat up, bracing his broad shoulders against the headboard. “Oh you will most definitely be seeing me.”
Maggie turned, surprised by the certainty in his voice. How could he know that? Obviously the guy was loaded. He was in the freaking penthouse suite. She cocked her head, trying to decipher something—anything in his expression. “Are you threatening me?”
“Not a threat. A promise.”
“Who are you?” Maggie demanded. “What kind of guy doesn’t want no strings attached sex?”
“What kind of woman pretends she wants to have a one-night stand?” he shot back.
Okay, that was fair. “The kind who doesn’t want some psycho stalker for a boyfriend,” she told him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. It’s been fun, but I’m out of here.”
Jacob counted to ten after the front doors of the suite had slammed shut. That was about the time Sasha appeared inside the bedroom with a scowl on his face that would have terrified a lesser man. Jacob was not a lesser man. He was Sasha’s boss. Not that the distinction prevented Sasha from giving Jacob an earful when it suited him.
“Are you insane?” Sasha snarled. He loomed beside the bed, glaring down at Jacob as though he were about dress down a schoolboy. “Do you have any idea what sort of agenda that woman might have? You’re the highest ranking man in the Dolohov syndicate. You cannot take chances with your life the way you did tonight.”
“If I cannot handle myself with one woman I think I probably deserve whatever I get,” Jacob reasoned.
“She could have had other men waiting outside the club.” Sasha threw up his hands in frustration. “Getting you outside the club at a certain time and place could have been her entire purpose! What if there had been an assassin waiting?”
“Then I would be dead and we would not be having this conversation.” Jacob didn’t add that he was very tired of having this and similar conversations on a daily basis. “Between you overreacting to every single thing that happens and the almost constant complaining and nagging from everyone else, death by assassin is looking rather pleasant.”
“You don’t mean that and you know it,” Sasha grumbled.
Jacob gestured to his state of undress. “You’re in here bitching at me and ruining the afterglow of the best sex I’ve ever had. So yes. I mean it.”
“Maybe its time to think with your brain and not your dick.” Sasha began pacing energetically in front of the bed.
“Because I’m in such a habit of putting my cock before my responsibilities to the organization.” Jacob was beginning to feel more than a little irritated. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed for the good of the syndicate?”
“Sacrificed,” Sasha scoffed. “Yes, because these posh surroundings are such a burden.”
“I’m here at this hotel for one night, and only because we’ve set up a meeting with the Luciettos to talk about the split for the coming year.” Jacob thought about the meeting and how badly he did not want to deal with that bullshit. “It’s on me to make sure we don’t get screwed. Yet if I stand firm and refuse to yield a percentage point to that Italian bastard, we run the risk of setting off a war that will end with my men dead on the streets.”
“They are Dolohovs,” Sasha said arrogantly. “They know their duty and are proud to perform it.”
“Because their duty should be to die for me?” Jacob knew he and Sasha would never agree on this point. “But this is not about the meeting.”
“No. It’s about you chasing some whore without allowing us to screen her first,” Sasha said derisively.
The open disdain in his tone for a woman he hadn’t even met made Jacob unspeakably angry. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. He pointed to the tattoo on his right arm. “Do you remember what this means? Or have you become so Americanized that you’ve forgotten how to read Russian?”
“I remember,” Sasha said, his expression sulky.
Jacob raised his eyebrows. “Then what does it say?” He pointed again to the words scrawled down the right side of his ribs below the rendering of a tiger on his shoulder.
“Draw not your bow before your arrow is fixed.” Sasha did not look as if he were truly appreciative of what that meant to Jacob.
“And the other?” Jacob prodded, pointing to the words on his left side. “Read it, Sasha.”
“Little thieves are hanged, but great ones escape.”
Jacob gave Sasha a narrow eyed glare. “Remember why I chose those proverbs. Never forget what they mean to me. I know I don’t.”
Sasha dipped his head in acknowledgement, but his attitude was not at all improved.
“Our meeting starts in two hours,” Jacob reminded his second in command. I suggest you occupy yourself with getting ready for that. I’m sure there is plenty of screening to do before the Italians show up and make a mess of things.”
Sasha started to exit, but hesitated at the last moment. “Can I ask you one thing?”
“Obviously.” Jacob was in no mood to be magnanimous about anything.
“Why her?”
Jacob felt a smile tug at his lips. “You didn’t see it, did you?”
“Obviously not. What was I supposed to see?” Sasha demanded.
“She’s different from any other woman I’ve ever come across.” Jacob thought of her witty conversation and her uncertainty about the concept of a one-night stand. “She was honest, about everything. That’s a rare trait these days. Especially in my life.”
“So her charm is that she tells you the truth about herself?”
“I suppose that’s the simple answer. Yes.” Jacob couldn’t seem to stop himself from smiling. “But truthfully I know th
at I would never be bored with that woman. And that is more valuable than anything else I can conceive of.”
“Do you want us to check her out?” Sasha asked, a note of hesitation in his manner.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say no, but Jacob thought better of it. “Yes. I would like you to find out more about her. Perhaps where she lives and what she does for a living. I would prefer to run across her again on accident, but at this point I don’t believe I want to leave things to chance.”
“Then you’re determined to see her again?” Sasha looked mildly annoyed, but also resigned. It was an improvement.
“Yes. Though I think it will have to wait until these negotiations are complete.” Even the thought of the bastard Luciettos was enough to make Jacob curse. He didn’t want to inadvertently put Maggie in harm’s way. He would never forgive himself if she was hurt because of him.
Chapter Four
One month later…
Maggie swallowed and took deep breaths, trying to control the urge to gag. Lately she’d had this feeling every time she walked into the break room at work. The mingled scents of her coworkers’ lunches, the baked goods usually sitting around on the countertops, and the general lemon smell of ammonia based cleaner made her want to vomit.
The law offices of Peters & Kirk boasted nearly twenty paralegals, four associates, and the two managing partners. They occupied the top two floors of an office building. Their address might not have been Manhattan, but Williamsburg was respectable enough. And it wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of people getting divorced in and about the Williamsburg area. That meant there was plenty of work and good pay.
Maggie yawned. Someone had left the break room television on. The news was playing. Maggie didn’t bother to shut it off. She decided even the news would be a welcome distraction while she grabbed a snack. She’d been so hungry lately that she had taken to spending her breaks in there munching away.
