by Suzanne Rock
“Put your finger inside of me.” Ari widened her eyes when he moved to obey. This was working. It was really working. Sweet friction heated her core and she nibbled her lower lip as she tried to think of what to say next.
“Yes,” she said as pleasure spiraled through her body. Ari moved her hips in time to his thrusts, meeting him halfway. “Just like that.”
“See how easy it is, Ari?” he said as he pushed his finger deep into her center and withdrew. “For far too long you’ve waited around for others to figure out what you want. Stop waiting, princess. Tell them. Tell me.”
“Use your tongue,” she commanded.
She gasped as his tongue slid around her opening and then rubbed her clit in that back-and-forth motion that drove her wild.
“Yes,” she said. “Use another finger.”
He exchanged one finger for two, pressing deep inside her core and spreading it apart, stretching her inner walls.
“Yes.” She straightened away from the couch and slid her hands under her shirt. Cupping her breasts, she tugged her nipples as she performed shallow thrusts toward Jason’s mouth. “Go faster.”
Jason quickened the pace, thrusting hard into her core. Ari tugged harder on her nipples as the pressure in her body grew. She tightened her core muscles, and Jason groaned as he slid his tongue down from her clit and ran it over her damp skin.
“No, not yet.”
He slid his tongue back up over her clit, nipping hard, then soothing the blast of pain with his tongue.
Ari made soft, feminine noises with each thrust and closed her eyes as the need continued to build. Once, twice, the third time he nipped her clit, pleasure burst through her center and spread out over her body. Ari leaned her head back and screamed his name as her orgasm hit her hard, bathing her body in pleasure.
Jason curled his fingers into her flesh and drank her orgasm, performing shallow thrusts with his tongue. The added stimulation made her dizzy with desire, and Ari let go of her breasts and clung to the sofa in an effort to remain upright. Never before had she felt anything so wonderful, or so complete. Jason was relentless, milking every last drop of ecstasy from her body. By the time she was done, she was shaking and spent, her entire body bathed in bliss.
Jason eased her away from his face and back down onto the couch. Adjusting his position, he curled himself around her and brought the blanket up around them.
“That was amazing,” he whispered in her ear as he gently pushed the hair from her face. “You need to do that more often.”
“Take control?” she asked, her eyes still closed.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. “None of us are mind readers, Ari. If you want something, if you need something, then you have to let us know.”
He was right, she realized. Leo controlled her life because she had let him. While she had confronted him dozens of times in her mind, she had never told him in person how his micromanaging of her life bothered her. Nothing was ever going to change if she never took charge and demanded what she wanted.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For making me realize why I’ve been miserable all of these years. I’ve never told Leo what I wanted.”
He tightened his hold around her torso. “I’m sure if you just spoke with him and told him the truth, things would change.”
Ari buried her head in Jason’s neck, enjoying how good his warm body felt against hers. In this brief, wonderful moment, she felt connected and loved. Nothing stood between them, and she felt that nothing could ever get in their way.
As they lay in each other’s arms, Ari was struck by how right it felt to be wrapped in Jason’s warmth. It was almost as if they were made to fit together. As she snuggled closer, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else in that moment. It was then that she realized something very important.
Jason hated the postcoital afterglow. Ever since she had known him, he had been finding an excuse to hurry through the after-sex snuggling or avoid it altogether. This time, however, things were different. He wasn’t running away. Why?
“Did you like it?” she asked.
“It was amazing,” he admitted. “I never would have thought to try something like that.” He grabbed her fingers and kissed them. “I’m glad you suggested it.” He turned her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m just relieved that you’re all right. When I think of what could have happened…”
“Shh.” She twisted her hand so that she covered his mouth. “Don’t think about it. I’m fine.”
“I could have done more. I should have done more.” He nuzzled his face in her hair. “I’m so sorry, Ari.”
“There’s nothing you could have done about it. It was a random attack, made by a random person.”
“I wish that were true.”
“What?” She turned her head so she could see his face. “What are you talking about?”
He steeled his jaw as something dark passed through his eyes.
“Jason.” She tried to push away, but he held her tightly against him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
After a long moment, he relaxed his jaw and closed his eyes. “What happened to you wasn’t a random attack.”
“Someone targeted me?” She pushed away from him again. This time he let her go. Ari sat up and stared at him, unbelieving. “Who on earth would target me, and why?”
Slowly he opened his eyes. The guilt and pain she saw there tore at her heart. “It was a message.”
“A message?”
“For me.” He pushed his hair from his face and adjusted the pillow beneath his head. “A few days ago, I got a package from a courier. The package contained a note saying that I was delinquent on some gambling debts in Las Vegas.”
“I didn’t know you gambled.”
“I don’t.” He let out a long breath and toyed with the end of her hair. “But this loan shark thinks I do. He says I owe him ten million dollars and if I don’t pay it, that he’ll hurt not only me, but those I care about.”
“Can you just explain to this guy that you aren’t who he thinks you are?”
“For a while I couldn’t locate him. Then when I did…” Jason shrugged. “I sent someone to try to explain it to him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” He dropped his hand from her hair and rubbed his face. “I guess I’m not the first person who has used the same excuse. He thinks I’m lying to try to get out of paying him the money.”
“But you can prove that you didn’t rack up those debts.”
“I wish it were that simple. Someone stole my identity.”
“Who?”
“I wish I knew. At one point Deacon thought he had the name of the thief, but the lead was a dead end.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry, Jason.”
“Me too, but that’s not all. This loan shark … he’s known for using unusual tactics to get people to pay him. He took pictures of us, Ari.”
“What? When?”
“In the laundry room when you first arrived, then again at that restaurant where we got chicken wings. He said that if I didn’t pay my debts, then our relationship will be made public. And if I tried to go public…” He waved his hand at the bump on her head. “Then he’d hurt you.”
She widened her eyes. “And then that tabloid reporter talked about us…”
He nodded. “He thought I was trying to get out of paying him by taking our relationship to the media.”
“And that’s why he came after me.” Ari fisted her hands. “That bastard.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She forced herself to relax her hands. “I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t get hurt, not too badly anyway. And now not only have we taken away his hold over you, but you’ve told me what is going on.” She took his hand. “All of our secrets are out in the open, Jason. He has no more control over us.” She squeezed his fingers. “So you’re in the clear. It’s over.”
He ti
ghtened his jaw and let go of her hand. “I wish that you were right.” He eased away from her and sat up on the couch beside her.
“What are you talking about? Of course it’s over.”
“Not all of my secrets are out in the open.”
“What do you mean?”
He ran his hand over his face and leaned back against the couch. “You’ve met my brother, Deacon.”
“Yes.”
“He … he’s a lot like me.”
“How do you mean?”
“We both thrive on taking chances. We like to live life on the edge. While I get my fix by taking risks in the boardroom and with my race cars, Deacon does other things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Gambling, mostly, but he also races motorcycles and fights a little.”
“Fights, like a boxer?”
“Underground fighting.”
She sat back in her chair. “That’s illegal.”
“That’s part of the reason why he does it. Skirting around the law gives him a thrill.”
“I see.” She nibbled her lip and tried to digest this information. Jason’s brother beat people up for money. It was hard to wrap her head around. “But you’re not like that.”
Jason averted his gaze. “At one time, yes, I was like that, Ari. I was very much like Deacon.”
“You beat people up for money, too?”
“No.” He sighed and shifted in his seat. “I told you that Deacon and I were raised in a series of foster homes.”
“Yes.”
“We were passed around like popcorn in a movie theater. When people thought that they’d had enough of us, they’d hand us off to someone else.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“That family you are trying so hard to break away from? I wish I had that.” He shook his head. “You claim that Leo is suffocating you. Well, I wish I had someone who’s as interested in my life as he is in yours. No one cared about what happened to us, Ari. Not one person. All that mattered were those damn checks.”
Meeting his gaze, she took his hand and thought about their first meeting. Back then she had thought he was an arrogant playboy. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Jason was so much more complex than people realized. More human. She couldn’t imagine the loneliness he had gone through as a child.
“It’s okay,” he said.
Perhaps, but the loneliness she saw in his eyes hinted that it wasn’t. Jason was a man who didn’t typically let people get close to him. She felt honored that he was trusting her with his secrets, and knew that she’d never do anything to betray that trust. The more he opened up to her, the more she was drawn to him. Her heart ached not only for that little boy, but for the man he ultimately became.
“What happened when you got older? Did you eventually find a family?”
“Not really. As soon as Deacon turned eighteen, he pulled me from the system. We ran away and found odd jobs to make ends meet. It was just us against the world.” He looked down at his hands in his lap. “We were so young.”
“What kind of work did you do?”
“Waitstaff mostly. Later Deacon learned how to tend bar, which paid more in tips. By the time I was twenty, we both worked for a catering company out of New York doing high society events.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It wasn’t, until one night when we were working one of these events … an older woman approached me, thinking that I was someone else. Deacon and I were waiting tables at a fancy cocktail party, and when she approached me, I was hanging out by the bar with Deacon, waiting for my drink order. I guess the tux made her think that I was a guest, not a waiter. I think … I think it was just easier to lead her on than to tell her the truth. One lie covered another until I was no longer her friend, but a friend of a friend, and had recently moved to the States. Things snowballed after that.”
“What do you mean?”
Jason returned his gaze to his lap. “Deacon and I realized that night that we could make more money being friends with lonely women than waiting tables.”
“So you stopped working?”
“It depends on how you look at it. We provided a service. The women were lonely and needed company. We provided that company for them. We just never told them who we really were.”
“What did you do with these women?”
“We attended luncheons where they could show us off to their friends. We also went to family reunions, charity functions, boating trips…” He shrugged. “Whatever they wanted.”
“So you just provided company for them?”
“Sometimes.” He shifted in his seat and averted his gaze. “Sometimes, we provided a little more.”
She widened her eyes as his meaning hit home. “You had sex with them for money?”
“We never specifically set a fee. The women were just very … grateful for our services. We were gifted with cars and clothes and trinkets. Sometimes, if they needed our services for a specific period of time, we’d stay at their house with them.”
“In their room?”
“If the situation called for it.” When she didn’t respond, he inched closer. “It was just a job, Ari. None of those women meant anything to me.”
“But you meant something to them. They thought it was a real relationship.”
“We gave them confidence and reassurance to overcome whatever difficulties they were having in their lives. Is that so bad?”
Pain sliced through Ari’s chest. Jason was a professional con artist. He manipulated poor, lonely women into giving him trinkets and money. People like her.
Was he conning her, too? She thought back over their relationship and couldn’t remember a time when she had given him cash or gifts. At least, nothing expensive and significant that he couldn’t get himself. He had never let her pay for gas or dinner, never let her buy him mementoes when they traveled together. In fact, whenever she had tried to pay for something, he had looked damn uncomfortable.
Then again, perhaps he wasn’t after her money. Ari had other things someone like Jason would find valuable. Connections, information … oh shit.
Sabrina was right. Jason was pursuing her for information on her family, and she’d been all too eager to talk about how her brother was spending his money and his business deal with Landon. Ari closed her eyes as the full impact of what she had done hit home.
When did the con begin? Was their entire relationship a lie? Ari thought back through their time together, picking out the things that were said, and more importantly, things that were not said between them.
“That charity race was planned, wasn’t it?”
“What?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”
“LAPS4KIDS. The race we met at a year ago. You planned to go to that charity to seduce me.”
“Of course not.” He looked appalled, but she noticed that he couldn’t quite look her in the eye.
“I’m such an idiot.” She stood up from the couch, desperate to put some distance between them. “I trusted you, Jason.”
“You can still trust me.” He reached for her, but she walked a few steps away.
“You asked me out on a date because you knew I was a Perconti and had a reputation of being a stupid party girl. You thought you could say a few compliments, take me to bed a few times, and then have enough information to run my family into the ground.”
“Ari—”
“Admit it. The only reason why you dated me was to get information about my family.”
He hesitated then stood and tried to close the distance between them. “It might have started out that way—”
“Oh my God, you admit it!” She retreated around the couch, putting the large piece of furniture between them.
“Initially, yes, but Ari—Ari!”
She covered her ears. “Get out.”
“This is my apartment.”
God damn foul man. He always had to be right, didn’t he? “I said get out!” Tears stung her eyes
, and she blinked them back. First Leo, then her CFO, and now Jason. When was she going to stop letting people manipulate her?
He grabbed her wrists and wrenched her hands away from her ears. “Listen to me, damn it. Okay, yes, it might have started out that way, but it isn’t like that anymore.”
“I don’t believe you. Once a gigolo, always a gigolo.”
He let go of her and stepped back, as if stung. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” God, her head hurt. She needed air.
He swallowed and took a step away from her. “This … this is why that loan shark’s blackmail is so effective. It’s because of people like you.” He waved his hand at the windows behind her. “If my past ever got out into the media, then the public will think just like you.”
“Damn right they will. I bet Deacon came here because you already got all of the information you needed from me to run my family into the ground. The two of you were probably going to have some grand champagne and toast to my family’s failure.”
He shook his head. “Come on, Ari. You know me. I’d never do something so cruel.”
“You’re probably already doing it behind my back.” She grabbed a pillow.
“Ari—”
“Get out.” She threw the pillow at him. “Get out!”
He dodged the pillow and pointed at her. “I don’t deny what I once was, but people change, Ari.” He pointed to himself. “I’ve changed.” He grabbed the handle on the door. “I thought you, above all people, would understand that.”
Ari stared at him in shock as he opened the door. Yes, she was a different person now than when she was younger, but the situation wasn’t the same. She’d just stolen a few items from a few department stores. She didn’t use people, and would never sleep with anyone for money under any circumstances.
“I see that you’ve already judged me, despite everything I’ve done for you,” he said.
Ari made a very unladylike sound. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’ve done nothing for me but scratch an itch.” As soon as the words left her mouth she recognized them for the lie they were. Judging by the expression on Jason’s face, it seemed as if he didn’t believe her, either.
