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by Melody Anne

  “You’ve been taunting me for too long. ”

  “I want you, Shane. I’m not afraid to admit that. Now, shut up and take me,” she demanded as she reached for his shirt. With no patience to work the buttons, she grabbed the material and yanked, satisfaction filling her as the buttons flew off, the fabric tore and his chest was laid bare before her.

  Lia bent forward, running her tongue along his breastbone, tasting his salty skin and kissing every inch of him he allowed. She kissed her way to his pecs, biting down on his nipple, making him yell.

  “Mmm, I can play rough, too,” he said as his hand fisted in her hair and he pulled her head back, once again taking her mouth. His fingers wrapped around the dainty lace of her panties and tore them apart, the wisp of material dropping to the ground, leaving her nearly bare to him, only her high heels left.

  With a quick movement, he lifted her in the air, using the wall to brace her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Taking only a second, he grasped a condom out of his pocket before sliding his pants out of the way and sheathing himself.

  “Thank you,” she whispered when he moved his lips to her neck. She hadn’t even considered protection in her state of arousal.

  “It’s been too long — I can’t wait,” he apologized as the head of his thick arousal pressed against her opening, demanding entrance.

  “Then take me now!”

  Shane needed no more encouragement. With a hard thrust of his hips, he buried himself inside her, making Lia cry out as he stretched the swollen walls of her core.

  She’d had nothing to worry about. This was everything she’d dreamed of and so much more. Gripping her h*ps tightly in his hands, Shane thrust deep inside her, bringing her excruciating pleasure by slamming his h*ps against her.

  Throwing her head back against the wall, he rocked against her before slowing so he could bend his head and attend to her swollen nipple. As he sucked the pink bud deeply into his mouth while rocking against her, her body tightened.

  Lia felt the buildup of pressure, felt her orgasm nearing. Her hands tangled in his hair and she pulled him up to join his lips with hers as she enjoyed the friction of his dusting of chest hair against her sensitive br**sts.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged him as he picked up speed, groans emerging from low in his throat. Opening her eyes, Lia was elated and enthralled by the look of pure pleasure on Shane’s face. He was so incredible — so gloriously beautiful.

  With one more thrust, he drove Lia’s thoughts away; she flew over the edge, her body convulsing around him, gripping his manhood tightly within the warmth of her core.

  “Lia,” he cried out, and his staff began pulsing as he achieved his release. Lia’s legs trembled, and drowsiness overtook her.

  Shane’s grip on her h*ps loosened; he pulled out and set her on her feet, his body still pressed against hers as he held her securely against the wall. Fear suddenly crept into Lia’s heart. What would happen next? Would he stay? She wouldn’t, couldn’t beg, but…

  “That was ridiculously fast,” Shane said as he began moving toward the bedroom with her cradled in his arms.

  “It doesn’t matter, because the result was explosive,” Lia sleepily replied, her body completely relaxed now as he held her close. He hadn’t just run away.

  “Well, now that I’ve taken the edge off, let me show you what real pleasure is like,” he promised as he laid her down.

  “I can’t…” she whimpered; he picked up her foot and kissed the sole, sending a shiver down her body.

  “Oh yes, you can, Lia. You can come again and again and again…” With that, his lips traveled up her legs and he began showing her exactly what he meant.

  “Shane…” she cried as his hands caressed her legs, his fingers skimming her skin, causing her flesh to tremble.

  “I’ve pictured sinking into you a thousand different times. I’ve imagined the two of us entwined together in my bed…your bed…hell, on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. I love your soft curves, the way your h*ps flare and your waste narrows. I love the rise of your br**sts, and the expressive look in your eyes. There isn’t anything about you I don’t idolize,” he said as he kissed the small swell of her stomach, then ran his tongue up to her belly button and gently nipped the skin there.

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  “I feel the same way, Shane. I’ve wanted you for so long,” she groaned.

  Her breathing deepened as he lifted her arm and ran wet kisses from her palm to her shoulder, touching erogenous zones she’d never known she had. Never had a man worshipped her so fully, made her feel so womanly.

  “I’ve fought against taking you — what a fool I’ve been. If I had known how good it would be, I would have burned in a glorious blaze with you that night we were at the hotel together. ”

  “Yes…”

  His hands ran through her hair while he turned her neck and sucked on the skin at the base of her throat. He was touching her everywhere, kissing every pulse point, building up her desire slowly and surely to the point of explosion.

  Lia twisted around, desperate for her turn to taste Shane. He’d denied her the privilege earlier, and now she refused to heed his protests. Thrusting him onto his back, she trailed her fingers down his chest as she bent forward and tasted the hard muscles, then inched lower and lower.

  Shane groaned when she reached his stomach, her fingers trailing across his h*ps as she licked the skin at his pelvis bones. He was so defined, with his six-pack abs and sharp hips. She squeezed the top of his bu**ocks as she moved even lower, the dim light allowing her to see his spectacular erection.

  “You’re so beautiful, Shane, so solid and thick. I’ve wanted to taste you on my tongue for as long as I can remember,” she whispered, smiling as a shudder passed through him.

  “Lia…” he groaned as her fingers encircled his thick flesh and ran up and down the length of him in slow, steady strokes, her thumb brushing across the head of his arousal.

  “Please…” he begged, and she knew what he wanted.

  Bending down she ran her tongue across the red skin of his moist head, tasting his preliminary drops of pleasure on her tongue before encircling him with her mouth and greedily sucking him as deeply inside as she could. As she tasted him, she grew hungrier, unable to get enough as her movements quickened and she pressed her head swiftly down and then up again.

  His breathing quickened; his stomach quivered. She was making this big, strong man weak, and she couldn’t get enough of him. Grasping him tightly in her fingers, she lubricated his staff with her tongue as she sucked him deep into her mouth.

  “Enough…” he cried out and his hands gripped her head to stop her. As much as she wanted to keep tasting him, she wanted him buried deep inside her more. Obeying his command, she rose up and positioned her body over his, easily sliding onto his wet staff.

  “Protection…” he groaned as she slid down him. With a groan, she pulled off and allowed him to sheath himself before she quickly surrounded his strength again.

  Shane grabbed her by the back and pulled her forward, kissing her with raging hunger while she moved up and down his powerful staff. Her own body was on fire from the stunning sensual feast of their lovemaking.

  As he grabbed her h*ps and started controlling their movements, she felt herself sliding out of control. It wasn’t long before she was ready to explode again.

  As Shane pushed up hard inside her, Lia splintered, colors spraying behind her closed eyelids. He gasped and groaned as he, too, found release for himself. With not an ounce of energy left inside of her, Lia collapsed against his damp chest, then practically purred as he rubbed up and down her spine with his comforting hands.

  “Thank you for that, Lia. It was so much more than I could have ever imagined,” he said as he kissed her temple.

  Feeling completely indulged, Lia curled up against Shane and seemed to drift through time and space.

It was more than she’d imagined as well. Now, they wouldn’t have to fight these feelings. Now, they could be together all the time, maybe for all time.

  With those thoughts, Lia let exhaustion carry her away. She fell into a blissful slumber, still connected with Shane through fairy-tale dreams of happily ever after.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Time to wake up. We have a full day ahead of us. ”

  Ari grumbled and rolled over as she tried to tune out the sound of Rafe’s voice. It had to be some ridiculous hour of the morning, and she refused to get out of bed. Didn’t he have work to do?

  “Rise and shine. Come on, Ari — you can do it. ” The obvious smile in his voice made her want to throttle him. She wasn’t a morning person on the best of days, but when she’d had only a few hours of sleep, she was especially grumpy.

  She’d received only a little sleep the night before last, and then spent yesterday recovering from her adventure with Rafe’s sisters. As she thought about yesterday, Rafe’s kiss with the slutty girl at the pool came flooding back, and she pulled the pillow over her head. She had no desire whatsoever even to speak to him.

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  He hadn’t come back to their room last night, so he’d most likely spent it with the blonde bimbo. Well, Ari didn’t care. He could do whatever he wanted. It wasn’t as if she liked him or anything, she thought angrily.

  When the covers on the bottom of the bed moved, she seriously thought about kicking him as he exposed her feet. The room was a bit chilly and she just wanted a couple of hours of additional shut-eye; she certainly didn’t want to think about him.

  “If you leave me alone, I promise to not kill you. ”

  “Ah, Ari, you can’t stay mad at me forever. I have a lot planned today. I don’t normally apologize, but I may have been out of line yesterday. I wasn’t into that woman at all. I was just pissed off about you and the bachelor party. ”

  Ari was shocked to hear him admit to jealousy. Was he telling her the truth? Could he truly have been acting out of some weird need for revenge, and not from lust for someone else? Did it matter? He was still slime.

  “Come on. I promise if you let it go, I’ll make it up to you. I have a full day and night planned. ” Ari felt herself starting to thaw, though she didn’t want to. She kept silent as she tried to hold on to her grudge against him.

  When she felt him sit on the bed and lift her foot onto his lap, she knew he wasn’t giving up. Just when she was about to snap at him, he applied pressure to the ball of her foot and a groan emerged from her mouth instead of the snarling words hanging on the tip of her tongue.

  His strong fingers massaged her foot, rubbing from the heels to her toes and back again. Thoughts of sleep evaporated as he soothed her sore ankles. As gorgeous as high heels made her legs, the pain at the end of the night rendered such shoes almost not worth wearing.

  When Rafe set her foot down, she whimpered, not wanting him to stop his soothing ministrations. He chuckled, and she was tempted to throw her pillow at him until he picked up her other foot and gave it equal attention.

  “OK, I forgive you. But only if you do that every single morning,” she said as he kneaded her foot, and then moved up her calf.

  “Ari, I have no problem touching you every minute of the day,” he replied, making her heart skip a couple beats.

  Several more minutes passed before she felt him rise from the bed. That had gone by far too quickly and she was now wide awake.

  Still, if she rolled over, and put a pillow over her head, she might be able to fall back to sleep. She was more than willing to give it a try.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Rafe said and ripped the blankets off her. Sitting up with a pout, Ari pushed her tangled hair from her face.

  “What’s the hurry to get me out of bed? Don’t you have meetings all day?” she grumbled.

  “No. I canceled all of them. I told you that I have planned the whole day to make up for yesterday. It will be fun; you’ll see. ”

  The look on Rafe’s face and the surprise of his words washed the last of Ari’s cobwebs from her sleep-deprived brain. He looked…excited. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him look quite so upbeat before.

  “OK,” she agreed without any further arguments. She wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to spend a day with him when he was acting so pleasantly out of character. Maybe the Vegas sun had fried some of his brain. Whatever it was, she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

  Ari jumped from the bed, and before she could take a step, he swatted her lightly on the butt, making her turn and glare at him.

  “Get a move on, woman,” he said as he walked from the room whistling.

  Ari watched him leave with her mouth hanging open. Who the heck was this guy? And what had he done with her Rafe? She’d expected the rest of their trip to be awkward and miserable, but instead, Rafe was acting almost cheerful and carefree. She didn’t know if she should be worried about the other side of the coin flipping over and jinxing her.

  Confusion leading the way, Ari stepped into the bathroom and turned on the faucets. A hot shower, followed by a steaming cup of tea, and she’d be ready to face the day.

  She hurried through the shower, then wrapped herself in the hotel’s soft robe before she made her way to the small table by the large windows overlooking the Las Vegas Strip. In the early morning hours, she enjoyed sipping on her tea as she watched the city begin to wake up.

  “What are the plans for today?” she asked him as the caffeine kicked in. She finished her first cup and poured a second before picking up a croissant and taking a bite.

  “That is to remain a surprise,” he answered as he browsed through the paper.

  “I need a clue, at least, so I know what to wear,” she replied. It was a good excuse to get some kind of answer.

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  “A pair of jeans and a T-shirt will be fine. ”

  That didn’t tell her anything. They could just be strolling the Strip for all she knew. But watching Rafe while he read the paper, Ari realized she didn’t care what they did. This wouldn’t be a business function or some event where she was commanded to be the perfect mistress — it would be a real date, where they spent actual time together having fun.

  “Give me ten minutes,” she said as she leaped up and practically ran off to dress. She didn’t want to give him any chance to change his mind. His phone could ring at any moment with an emergency, and then their day would be over.

  She emerged in nine minutes, feeling quite proud of herself. She’d simply tossed her hair back in a ponytail and thrown a baseball cap on her head. It was bright out, so she didn’t bother with much makeup, and her jeans and shirt were the first in the pile she came to.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman get ready so quickly. ”

  “Then you’re hanging out with the wrong women. ”

  “I grew up with two sisters. I’m used to waiting on the opposite sex. ”

  Rafe’s referring to his sisters and not former mistresses put Ari in an even better mood. She was up for their mysterious adventures to begin.

  “I can’t do this. No way!” Ari said in a near panic as a man assisted her into a suit and tightly strapped her in.

  “You can do it, Ari. Trust me, this will be a thrill you will never forget,” Rafe answered with laughter.

  “What if the cable breaks?”

  “It won’t break; I’ll bet my entire fortune on it. ”

  “That’s an easy bet for you to make, considering I’ll be nothing but a splash of blood on the cement below and unable to collect!”

  “You can back out now, but I promise you will regret it if you do. I thought you weren’t such a chicken,” he said. Ari narrowed her eyes and closed her mouth. There was no way she was going to let him hold it over her head that she was too afraid to go on his thrill-seeking adventure, even if she did feel dangerously queasy.

  “I swear that if I die, I’ll haunt you the rest of your life. You won’t know a moment’s peace,” she warned him.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he said as they stepped into the elevator for the short ride to the platform atop the Stratosphere tower.

  “This is the highest controlled free-fall jump in the world. You need to follow the safety instructions to the letter. It is a thrill, but you have to use caution,” the instructor said when the doors opened and another man began strapping cables to Ari’s suit.

  Was she really going to do this? Danger was not her middle name. Heck, she was even afraid of roller coasters. How could she have let Rafe goad her into jumping from a tall building and plummeting 855 feet to the ground below — the equivalent of 108 stories? She had to be crazy.

  “Just take a small step and you’ll have the thrill of your life,” said the man next to her. It was easy for him to tell her to leap; he wasn’t the one about to plunge to his death.

  But it wasn’t going to get any easier. Ari closed her eyes and walked off the little platform. Ooof! Whoa! As the wind was knocked from her lungs, and she began plummeting toward the hard cement far below, she said a quick prayer.

  She must have got her breath back because she heard screaming, and the screaming was coming from her own throat. Blood was rushing through her veins and her heart was pounding so hard, she worried that it might rip right through her chest, but as she flew toward the ground, she forgot most of her fear.

  She slowed as the ground rose to meet her, and allowing her eyes to take in the Las Vegas Strip, she felt an odd sense of freedom. For one small instant she was jealous of the birds.

  Before she knew it, she was landing — on her feet, thankfully — and a man rushed up to assist her out of her straps.

  “Did you have a good fall?”

  “No. I’m afraid I’m happier that it’s over than I am excited to have done it. Please don’t tell the man who’s coming down behind me, though,” she said with a relieved laugh.

  “This is something you either love or hate. There’s not a lot of in between for this ride. ”

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