by BETH KERY
“Since we’re being honest, I want you to know that I’ll use protection when we’re together,” he said. “But I’m healthy. I just had a physical a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been with anyone else since then.”
She gave him a grateful smile, appreciating him bringing up the topic. His straightforward candor. “Yeah. I’m healthy too. My physical was more like months ago, but I haven’t been with anyone since then, either,” she admitted, hating the rush of color in her cheeks at the admission. She cleared her throat. “Plus, I’m on the pill.” He remained unmoving. Unsmiling. “Don’t look so serious, Seth,” she chided lightly, even though deep down, she was a little intimidated by her agreement to his proposal . . . by the laying out of the rules and boundaries. She started to peel the wig off, wincing. “It doesn’t match a sexy, no-strings-attached situation, you know.”
“That’s what you keep calling it, not me,” he said, picking up four large bags at once.
“What do you call it?” she demanded, freezing in her task.
He cast an amused, resigned glance her way as he straightened. “Trouble worth risking.”
She stood there, speechless, watching him saunter away.
Ten
He put away the supplies and re-familiarized himself with the property. Afterward, he made several calls, including one to Charles to update him on their arrival. While he did so, he closely studied the entrance to the property and the surrounding woods. He’d been certain no one had followed them from St. Louis. He was alone in these woods.
Alone with Gia.
When he’d spoken to John Corcoran, the owner of the residence, while they were stopped on the road earlier, John had encouraged them to choose any suite they liked, including the master. Seth had put their things in a large guest suite, however, not wanting to infringe too greatly on John and Jennifer’s hospitality and privacy. The suite was nearly as large as the master, and equally as comfortable. Plus, it possessed one feature he found extremely appealing . . .
Gia was showering when he finished his call. The thought of joining her in the shower tempted him—a lot. But she would be clean and sweet by now, while he still felt grubby and stiff from the long drive. Instead, he grabbed some clothes and showered in the bathroom of a second, smaller guest room.
Gia was standing in the well-appointed, modern kitchen when he entered it a while later. She pulled her hand back hastily from a teakettle when she saw him, as if she’d been caught red-handed at something. He came to a standstill several feet into the kitchen when he took in her appearance. She stared at him with huge eyes, her self-consciousness obvious.
Endearing.
Yet, she was Hollywood’s sweetheart, a woman who could expertly transform into someone else at a second’s notice. He’d come to learn that actors were an odd lot. Many of the best gave too much of themselves to roles, sacrificed themselves to the flames of a brilliant performance. They won accolades, but lost a bit of themselves with each role.
But as he examined Gia standing there, looking nervous and excited at the same time, Seth suspected there was something different about her. When she wasn’t acting, Gia possessed one of the most candid, pure spirits he’d ever witnessed. It’d been what had drawn him to her from the start, even though he hadn’t fully understood it at the time. Was that why she could absorb a role so utterly? He wasn’t saying she was a blank slate, far from it. If anything, her strength was the one clear, steady note of her character. Maybe that’s why she could transform at a moment’s notice, and then bounce back so quickly to being the hardworking, practical girl with a plan?
Thinking about her career aspirations to become the biggest and the best struck a bad chord, creating friction in him. Maybe he was kidding himself by imagining her as an exception.
It was so damn hard to say with Gia, because she was so exceptional.
There was one thing that was certain, and that was that he wanted her like hell.
She wore a white belted robe and her hair was down, falling around her back and shoulders in loose waves. Her feet were pinkish-hued from the hot shower, the vision of their nakedness surprisingly sexy. It looked like she’d taken a blow-dryer to get most of the wetness out of her hair, but some strands were still damp. Her full breasts looked soft and inviting beneath the terry-cloth robe. Seeing her lush, natural feminine beauty exposed after it had been under wraps for so long sent a jolt of lust through him. His cock twitched. He took a step toward her, his nostrils flaring slightly when he caught the fresh, citrusy scent from her washed hair.
“Uh . . . tea,” she said awkwardly. “I found some tea bags in the supplies you brought. I just put on the kettle. Do you want some?”
“No. Not tea,” he said. Her eyes sprang wide when he placed his hands on her waist and lifted her. She made a startled sound as he plopped her down on the granite countertop across from the stove. He immediately reached for the belt of her robe and unknotted it. He had a sharp urge to see her exposed. Undone. When he glanced up at her, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw her stunned expression.
“No time like the present,” he told her before he deliberately parted her robe, still holding her stare. He glanced down. His smile evaporated in a second. She was naked. “You are such a good girl, Gia,” he murmured, arousal pounding through him when he saw her smooth, glistening skin and svelte curves. It was like opening the most erotic, beautiful gift in the world. She might have been startled by his actions just now, but she’d known what was going to happen after they both showered.
“No time like the present,” she whispered. He glanced swiftly into her clear, shining green eyes, seeing the reflection of his own need there. Parting her legs with his hands, he stepped between them. He nuzzled her neck.
“Your hair is so beautiful,” he said distractedly, surrounded by her scent. He delved his fingers into the thick, soft waves, gathering it at her nape with one hand. He tugged gently. Her head fell back, bringing her ripe, pink lips within striking distance. His cock stiffened with amazing haste.
Jesus. Gia’s mouth. For the past two years, every dream and fantasy lover’s mouth always took the shape of it.
“I can’t believe some jerk actually encouraged you to cut this,” he added thickly, squeezing her hair in his fist, his stare glued to the target of her mouth. His cock throbbed when he saw her small smile.
“He’s not really a jerk. He was just acting like one at the time,” she said throatily.
“He was probably struck stupid because he was in the presence of an amazing, gorgeous woman,” he muttered before he seized her mouth forcefully. She whimpered when he penetrated her depths, suddenly voracious for the sensation and taste of her . . . abruptly starved to experience full possession when it had been denied to him for excruciating hours.
For years.
Her fingers delved into his hair and clutched at one of his shoulders. Gia’s mouth was not a thing a man could take in half measure. Kissing her was a pleasure akin to much more flagrant sexual acts.
Kissing Gia was as serious as it gets.
Realizing he was getting drunk on her, he leaned back, his gaze latched on to her parted lips. He let go of her hair and grabbed the collar of her robe. Slowly, he eased it off her shoulders and arms, hearing his heartbeat in his ears, feeling it throb in his cock. He dropped the robe in a pool of cloth around her ass.
Anticipation building in him, cutting at him from the inside, he opened his hands along her firm thighs and skimmed them over her supple hips. He molded his palms around her taut curves.
“I forgot how well you fit me,” he said, spellbound. His hands glided up to her narrow waist and delicate rib cage.
“I forgot how well you touch me,” she whispered. He glanced up into her face, snarling slightly when he saw her dazed eyes shiny with arousal. Jesus. She was real and she was right here and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever se
en. Lust lanced through him, too powerful to contain. He cupped her breasts from below. The globes were round, but extremely firm and thrusting. Her nipples were large and pink, the vision of them like a distilled sexual stimulant.
“You use a body double for your sex scenes.”
“Yes, for the full-on nudity,” she admitted shakily. He shaped her breasts to his palm, his sexual focus intense . . . rabid. She cried out softly when he lightly pinched both nipples at once, loving watching the delicate crests tighten and feeling the sensation of them hardening beneath his fingertips. He’d never seen nipples this large that were so sensitive.
“I knew it,” he said starkly. “I knew that wasn’t you I saw up on that screen.”
She made a soughing sound when he circled her nipples teasingly with his fingertips. “I didn’t realize you’d ever seen me in a movie.”
He glanced up and met her stare. He’d seen her all right. Only because he hadn’t been able to stay away, despite his self-lectures to do precisely that. His restraint had worked at times.
Other times, he had succumbed.
“Not all of them,” he said honestly. “A few. It wasn’t easy, seeing you so close when you were so far away. It was weird, but it gave me some measure of peace that you didn’t share everything with the whole world . . . some measure of satisfaction,” he growled softly, molding her breasts to his hands for emphasis, making the nipples protrude between his fingers. He barely noticed her lips falling open in amazement at his fierce declaration before he leaned down and inserted a crest into his mouth. He closed his eyes and drew on her.
A ripple of pleasure went through him when her fingernails scraped against his scalp. God, she was sweet. His tongue laved and pressed, hungry for the sensation of her beading flesh. She clutched his hair and moaned when he drew on her, suckling her greedily, then pausing to soothe her with his tongue. His hand lowered and caressed a smooth thigh. He reached, his fingertips seeking glory. He groaned, deep and primal, when he dipped his fingers between her labia and found her sweet and warm, her arousal wetting his fingertips.
A storm seemed to settle on his brain, an uncompromising need to mate, hard and fast. It wasn’t logical. It was the direct opposite of making sense. It was a primal directive. He slid his fingers lower between her thighs, palming her entire outer sex possessively. She said his name and clutched at his hair, hurting him a little. The evidence of her returned desperation only fueled his rampaging lust. He moved his hand in a tight, small circle, stimulating her clit. When she started to gyrate her hips in a subtle, erotic movement, pressing against him frantically, he saw red.
The next thing he knew, he was extricating a condom from his wallet and panting while Gia ripped at his button fly. She scooted forward on the cabinet, the tiny twitching of her hips and the slight sway of her breasts killing him.
She reached between his opened fly and found the outline of his erection straining against his boxer briefs.
“Christ,” he grated out when she flicked her fingernails against the stretched fabric, erotically scraping his aching cock. Shivers rippled through him, tightening every muscle in his body. He grabbed her wrists, pushing her hands down to her thighs. He shot her a fiery glance when she started to reach for him the second he let go. Her hands moved anxiously on her thighs, but she stayed put. Their stares held as he jerked down his jeans and underwear and extricated his cock. He winced as he rolled on the condom, his gaze straying like a bee to honey to the vision of Gia’s pussy. She was spread for him, but not as wide as he wanted her.
He looked up at her as he took his sheathed cock in one hand and cupped her hip with the other.
“I’m going to have you again and again in the next few weeks,” he told her as he guided his cock to her pussy, pushing her closer to the edge of the counter with his hand. “Sometimes it’s going to be slow,” he grated out when he felt the tip press against her clasping warmth, “and sometimes it’s going to be fast, but right now, it’s going to be furious. I’ve waited for too long to get back inside you, Gia.”
She cried out when he flexed his hips and her softness parted for him. The counter’s height was perfect for the maneuver. His cock entered her at a horizontal angle from his body, and she was so damn wet and warm and tight. He clenched his teeth. She was so sweet, and she was squeezing him mercilessly.
He grabbed both her hips and sank into her. Their stares held as he bumped his pelvis against her outer sex and ground his hips lightly against hers. Her beautiful face tightened. She looked anguished. Wild. He stroked her cheek soothingly.
“There, you can take that, can’t you?” he muttered thickly, pulling lightly on her long hair. Her head fell back, and he bit gently at her pink mouth and fragrant neck. It was delicious, staying still while the ache in him mounted. A siren was starting to wail in his brain, a distant claxon approaching. “You have to take it, sweet girl,” he said between ravishing her mouth. “Because I’m about to lose it. You feel so fucking good.”
“Yes,” she hissed. Her fingers flexed into his ass, begging him, taunting him. “Give it to me hard.”
He drew his cock out of her and rocketed back inside, using his hold on her to keep her still for his possession. It was madness. It was fantastic. He groaned gutturally at the brutality of the pleasure. He held her tighter, grimacing, powering his hips. She shook every time he crashed their flesh together, but he brought her closer, holding her tight, absorbing the blow.
It took him a moment to realize that wailing alarm of excitement wasn’t just coming from inside his head. The hissing teapot on the stove had escalated to a shrill whistle, the sound of it blending with Gia’s high-pitched keening as they crashed together. He straightened slightly, never ceasing his ruthless plunging into her body. She stared at him, and it all came rushing back to him, that wild, helpless expression she got on her face when he took her.
“You always liked it hard, didn’t you?” he rasped, holding her hips and driving into her.
Her breasts trembled with each forceful thrust. He spread her pale thighs wider and pushed her closer to the edge. He caught sight of her slick, swollen clitoris. A madness struck him at the flagrantly erotic vision, and he was charging at full steam. The teapot was screaming, that claxon now upon him, blaring, insistent.
Stupid, to believe this rabid, feral need for Gia was something he could control.
He reached with his thumb, rubbing her slick clit. He powered into her with short, forceful thrusts, watching her intently. Their gazes held as cruel pleasure sank its talons deep. The pressure in her taut muscles broke, and her nails dug into his hip and buttocks. She began to shudder, her helpless whimpers barely audible against the screech of the steaming kettle. Her climactic convulsions pushed him over the edge. He thrust high in her.
He roared as the climax hit him, blistering. Scalding. He locked gazes with her again as he came. Grinding his teeth, he used both thumbs to part her labia wider. Instinctively, he pushed closer, circling his straining body subtly against her exposed clit, demanding she join him full force in his pleasure. Her whimpers escalated to a scream. They shook together in the kind of tense, mindless bliss that for better or worse, was bound to incinerate everything in its path.
Eleven
She stretched luxuriously next to him on the bed, feeling wonderful and liberated in their nakedness, her body still chafed and tingling from their frantic lovemaking. And why shouldn’t she feel free? True, they’d both struggled over the wisdom of giving in to lust and need, but that fight was over now. Who could struggle for long against the type of attraction that throbbed between her and Seth?
“You must be exhausted,” she murmured, seeing his eyelids growing heavy as he languorously stroked the curve of her hip. They were lying on their sides, facing each other, the duvet and sheets drawn down around their ankles. “You’ve only slept for an hour since the night before last.”
“I’m okay,” he assured shortly. She loved the sound of his gruff baritone. She loved exploring his beautiful, hard body. He so often restrained her hands during sex, something she adored and hated in equal measure. But he wasn’t restraining her now. Her stroking hands on him mimicked his movements on her. She caressed a lean hip. When he cupped an entire buttock in his large hand, she grinned and leaned forward, reaching around to do the same to him. She grasped a hard, smooth ass cheek and squeezed.
“God, you feel good,” she whispered, awe spicing her tone. She nipped at his mouth, massaging his ass. In her closer position, she felt his cock flick up against her pelvis. Excitement tingled through her as she shaped the dense muscle lasciviously. “How do you keep so hard?”
“I work out, like most people,” he said, kissing her back with a strange paradox of idleness and focus that made her think of a big cat lazily playing before it pounced.
“You’d have to do more than just ‘work out’ to have this butt,” she remonstrated lightly, squeezing him. “How will we exercise here?”
“There’s a nice workout facility in the basement.”
“There is? Can we . . . go jogging . . . in the woods, as well?” she asked distractedly, plucking at his mouth, most of her attention held by his spicy, clean scent, delicious ass and his firm lips.
“We can. If you’re in disguise.”
She pulled back at that. As he looked at her face, his slow smile caused a sensation in her sex like a flame flickering up to a steady glow.
“What?” she demanded.
“That look on your face. No one does outrage better than you, Gia.” He leaned up and captured her protest with his coaxing lips. Her flash of irritation evaporated like steam, next to his kiss. She struggled not to forget it.
“I wasn’t doing outrage. I’m pissed. No one will see us around here!” she insisted, backing away from his logic-evaporating mouth. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of the woods, Seth.”
