by Fran Lee
His mouth sought hers, slanting across her lips with a hunger that sank into her bones as his hips moved perfectly to thrust himself deep into her with every wonderful movement. Her hands clamped over his taut buttocks as he buried himself inside her again and again, until both of them were completely delirious with the sheer pleasure of their mingled bodies.
“Oh David,” she whimpered as she felt the most marvelous orgasm rip along every nerve and through every inch of her trembling body as her senses were shredded.
He lifted her hips and moved like a wild thing, needing to be inside her more than he needed breath itself. As his own climax erupted to fill her, he gave a muffled shout against the curve of her throat and nipped her sweetly scented flesh gently, praying that he wasn’t being too rough with her.
He couldn’t believe her, couldn’t believe how delicious and sexy she was in his arms, under his trembling body. His own dream.
He couldn’t move for a long moment as he lay on her, his legs entangled with hers, his massive weight resting on his elbows to keep from crushing her. He heard her soft little moan of satisfaction as he dragged his tongue along the curve of her throat and reclaimed her mouth for a long, searing kiss, before withdrawing from her to roll onto his side.
He felt her small palms on his perspiring flesh as he drew deep, calming breaths and he pulled her into the curve of his body, burying his face against her fragrant hair. “That was amazing,” he rasped against her damp hair.
He could get too damn used to this really fast, if he wasn’t very careful.
They lay in a sated heap of tangled arms and legs, with her body lying half across his chest. He lay against the pile of pillows in the center of the bed, grinning wickedly as she ran one slim hand over his chest to toy with his nipple. “You trying to get me hot again?”
“Not necessarily. I’m just enjoying touching you.” Liar. Make love to me again.
“Touching me like that will get you another hour of hot and heavy fooling around, so watch your step,” he growled against her copper hair.
“I like hot and heavy.” She snuggled down against his side and ran her fingertips slowly over his chest and the livid bruise left by the sumo’s elbow. “But I don’t like seeing this, and this.” Her fingers trailed over the puffy swelling on his face, below the butterfly bandage on his eyebrow ridge.
“Hazards of the job.” He shifted his body to a more comfortable position and pulled her tighter against him.
His calm statement made her rise up and point to the black and blue marks on her own ribs, below her breasts, and she frowned. “Well, I’m not in the business, so I don’t enjoy these. And there are lots more than just these.”
David gently pushed her down against the pillows and bent to caress the bruises on her ribs with his mouth and tongue, causing her to bite her lip and close her eyes. “That’s much better.”
His mouth moved over the bruise on her shoulder and brushed the one on her hip. “I gave you this one,” he breathed as he kissed a livid bruise on her side, under the swell of her right breast. “I caught you off balance. Your side hit my shoulder.”
“Serves me right for overreacting. I forgot that it was just a show when that behemoth was about to launch himself onto you from the ropes. I didn’t relish the idea of having to scrape you up with a sponge.”
“You were worried about me?” he asked, grinning down into her flushed face.
“Yeah. Why else would I have attacked a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound monster and knocked his ass off the ropes and into the announcers’ table?” She frowned up at him irritably. “You sure missed a lot of the action while you were down there rolling around the mat with sumo-boy.”
“You knocked him off the ropes? What do you weigh? A hundred five?” His eyes were alight with laughter.
She shoved him back and sat up. “I weigh a hundred and fifteen. And if you wanna know what happened, just watch the tapes. I’m sure you’ll be royally entertained.”
“You sure have one nasty temper.” His grin was enough to start her breathing heavily again. “But I would have loved seeing you dump that fathead on his ass. Unfortunately, I was trying to keep Kuruko from grinding me through the mat at that moment. Now I can see why ’Ruko was trying to throw you over the ropes. When I saw him pick you up, I figured you were toast. He loses his mind when he gets mad.”
“What made him turn around and throw me at you?” she frowned.
“I shouted at him and told him if he hurt you, he was a dead man.” He shrugged.
“Well, then, I have you to thank for my continued existence. I suppose that will cost me a few thousand extra when you get finished taking me to the cleaners.” She bit the corner of her lip at the change in his expression when those words left her mouth and she winced inside.
David tilted his head slightly and breathed, “You think all I want is money?”
She flushed. No. But she couldn’t find any way to back down now. “You threatened to sue Phyllis.”
“So you only flew here to save your friend’s ass from financial ruin?” His eyes were quietly thoughtful. There was no amusement in his expression.
Oops. She was treading on thin ice here. Keep your mouth shut, why dontcha?
“Partly.” She shrugged, hoping he would just forget her thoughtless statement. He didn’t.
“And what part of you, if any, wanted to come to be with me again?” His voice was dangerously soft. She noted the tenseness in those broad shoulders.
Sam pulled the sheet up around her body, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have come at all if it hadn’t been for your threat.” It was getting so easy to lie. Every damn part of her had screamed to see him again!
He drew a deep breath and nodded. “So, you falling into the sack with me tonight is just to help out your business manager?”
She was getting in deeper with every word. Her defense mechanisms kicked in, hard. “David, you’re being ridiculous. I didn’t come here to fall into the sack with anyone. I came expecting to negotiate some sort of financial agreement.” Anyway, that’s what she’d told herself.
“So what you’re basically telling me is if I’m willing to let you pay me off with great sex, you’d be willing to stick around for a while?”
She frowned in frustration and shook her head, then started to scoot off the bed but he dragged her backward and she found herself flat on her back again, staring up at him as he easily pinned her to the mattress. Her mouth went dry at the look in his eyes. “You aren’t gonna go all crazy on me, are you?”
“No. I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“What offer?” Her breath was ragged as his powerful body gently pressed hers into the mattress.
“If money is all that concerns you, let’s get a deal on the table, shall we?”
“Deal?” Her eyes widened in worry. This was deteriorating fast.
“I will agree not to sue you and your good friend, on one condition.”
Sam bit her lower lip, feeling breathless and hot. “And what is that?”
“I own you for the next six months.”
Chapter Seven
Sam stared up into his face, waiting for him to grin and tell her he was just joking. He did neither. She swallowed hard but the knot in her throat didn’t budge. “What exactly do you mean, you’ll ‘own’ me?” She held her breath.
“I mean that you’ll be completely mine for the next six months. You travel with me. You keep me company. You do anything I want you to do, no questions asked. And your pal gets off scot-free.” He didn’t move or blink. A small tic in his jaw was the only sign that he was alive and not some stone statue.
“You expect me to be your…plaything…for six months?” she squeaked.
“If that’s what you want to call yourself, that’s okay by me. I would prefer to call you a close, intimate companion.”
Sam felt dizzy and faint from the inability to draw a good breath of air. “That’s friggin’ extortio
n!”
“Yep. You might even call it blackmail. But that’s what it’s gonna cost you to keep both you and your pal out of court and off the soup line. Unless you didn’t really mean what you said about paying off whatever I thought you owed me.”
Her heart was pounding. Had the man actually just dropped a six-month offer on the table without even blinking? Six months of hot, lusty, mouth-watering sex? Oh. My. God. And if he had, was she up to it?
Oh yeah. She was so up to it, it scared her. She drew a deep breath and frowned at him thoughtfully.
“And if I agree, what assurance do I have that you will keep your end of the bargain?”
David drew a slow breath. “Are you agreeing?”
Sam closed her eyes and savored the way his hard body molded hers to the mattress. Staying with this man would be no hardship at all. Leaving him afterward would be the real problem. She wriggled to get some blood into her legs and felt the instant reaction in his body.
“Don’t do that unless you want what will come next,” he whispered huskily against her temple.
“Does it matter what I want? If I agree to stay, all that will matter is what you want, I would think.” She frowned. The deal was on the table. Now they were down to haggling.
David stared down at her. “Is that a yes?”
“No.”
“It didn’t sound like a ‘go to hell’ to me.”
“I need to think about it.”
“Fine. You think. I’ll enjoy myself.” He lowered his mouth to taste hers again and her thighs drifted open for him without the slightest hesitation. This man was too good to be true. She bit her lip as she watched him strip off the used condom and reach for another. God, even that looked sexy.
As he found her hot, wet center and slid into her body with a soft growl of delight, she knew that her answer would be yes. She’d already planned on taking a few months off to rest. As for the six-month offer, she would give anything to have more time with this man. But she hardly believed it would last any longer than three. He would lose interest. He would let her off the hook. But did she want to be let off the hook?
He was sprawled across the bed, his heavy arm and one massive leg draped across her body, preventing her from slipping out of the bed to go to the bathroom. She shoved at his leg until he roused slightly and said gruffly, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the bathroom, unless you prefer a wet bed.” She made a wry face.
“Go ahead.” He rolled onto his other side and, despite her need to exit the bed, she felt suddenly bereft at the loss of his body wrapped around hers.
She slid from the bed and padded into the smaller bedroom, where Snowball yawned and uncoiled from a furry white ball on top of the bed and welcomed her. “Hello, love. I promise I’ll play with you and pet you in the morning, sweetie.” She used the bathroom and scratched his ears, before washing her hands and brushing her teeth.
She stood and gazed at her slim body in the makeup lights and winced at the sight of the huge, nasty bruises that had blossomed on her skin.
It hurt to move. It brought back long-buried memories of the pain she had suffered after the accident.
What on earth did he see in her? Her body was hardly what she would have called sexy. She was trim and had good muscle tone but that was about it. And yet when he looked at her and touched her, his eyes were filled with a dark fire that took her breath away. She splashed cold water on her flushed face. There was no accounting for what some people thought was attractive.
Her eyes moved over the faded white scars that marred the smooth skin of her abdomen and right hip. She reached for a towel and pulled it around her naked body, tucking the ends over to hold the towel securely about her. She frowned into the mirror. The scars were so faint now, she could barely see them. Plastic surgery had worked wonders with the ones across her face. But there was still a fairly visible one on her jawline and another one across her left shoulder. She had thought that no man would find her attractive with those scars.
Her fears had kept her a virgin all these years. And the man who had moved so amazingly through her dreams since she was fourteen didn’t seem to notice the lack of perfection at all. Maybe he just wasn’t very perceptive.
Yes, she wanted to stay with him, even if he tossed her out in a few months and never looked at her again. But she had the feeling that if she acted too damn needy, she would quickly lose her appeal. How could she agree to his demands without making it seem that she was desperate to be around him? Even if she was?
She brushed her hair absently, head down. It was only when she felt his mouth on her shoulder that she jerked back to reality and stared at him in the mirror.
“Would it be an invasion of your privacy to ask how you got this?” he murmured softly, as his hands and arms slipped about her and drew her back against his body. His lips traced the thin white scar.
She swallowed. “There are a lot more of them. You just didn’t notice them before. Do they bother you?” she asked, afraid of what his answer would be.
“You don’t seem to be bothered by mine.” His smile was slow and sexy. He turned his head to show her the scars that marred the side of his neck and shoulder. “And there are a lot more of them.”
Sam bit her lower lip. “Men tend to look rougher and sexier with visible scars. I haven’t ever heard some guy say, ‘Wow, that scar on your jaw makes you look real sexy, honey’.” Her cheeks turned pink.
David traced the line of her throat slowly with his mouth and watched her face in the mirror. She closed her eyes and gasped softly.
“I got mine from being hit with several chairs, a couple of tables, a prop ladder-and this one was from a seven-inch blade that some asshole tried to carve me up with.” He took her slim hand and lifted it to the side of his jaw, where a fine white scar trailed roughly three inches along the beard-roughened skin. Her eyes opened as she frowned at it for a moment, before turning to kiss it gently. “We sort of match.” His eyes met hers in the mirror.
”Gonna tell me how you got yours?”
Sam turned slowly in his arms and trailed her fingertips over the scars on his face and neck as she drew a long breath. “Nothing quite as impressive as yours. I was in a car accident about twelve years back.” Her eyes did not meet his.
Strong fingers lifted her chin and he breathed quietly, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it if you prefer not to.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind. Sometimes it seems to bottle up inside me and I end up crying. Talking about it helps a little, I think.”
He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “What happened to you?”
She just let him hold her close for a long moment before speaking. “I was caught in my seat belt when the passenger side of the car was crushed under a semi. I was the passenger.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“So were my doctors. They had me under the knife over a dozen times in two years. I would barely heal from one surgery and they were doing another. I sort of resemble a patchwork quilt on an x-ray,” she smiled and sighed against his shoulder. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to walk. They didn’t expect me to recover. But I don’t like to back away from challenges.”
“Was I a challenge?” His question caught her off guard.
She lifted her cheek from his body and gazed at him thoughtfully. “No. You were incredibly easy.”
He grinned at her and dragged her back into his embrace to kiss her quite satisfyingly. “I was pretty shocked at how easy I was myself. What the hell is it about you that turns me to mush?”
Sam swallowed and enjoyed the way his hands moved over her body. “I guess I could ask you the same thing. Usually I keep my head screwed on straight but when you touch me, I go berserk.” She ran her palms over his naked chest, her breath catching at the sheer beauty of him.
“Then your answer is yes?”
“What are you going to do with me, David? Keep
me tied to the bed for the next few months?” Her eyes were incredibly green and vulnerable.
He swallowed hard. “I hadn’t thought about that, until you just mentioned it. Sounds sexy as hell. But I think I would prefer having to seduce you every time. It’s one hell of a lot more fun.”
She ran her palms down the sides of his knotted shoulder muscles. “You seem to think I’m sort of special now, David, but a few months will change your mind. By then, you’ll realize that I’m just a very plain, extremely ordinary female with no figure and no personality and you’ll regret having forced this situation. Can’t we simply settle for an obscene sum of money and go our separate ways? You’ll be far happier in the long run. And you won’t have to deal with a nasty-tempered, violent, shrewish woman who tests your patience at every turn and makes you wish you could simply strangle her instead of putting up with her.”
David stared at her intently. “You and your friend don’t have the kind of money it would take if you don’t agree to do this.”
Sam’s face was hot. “Then I guess I have no choice. But don’t expect me to just roll over any time the mood strikes you. I will stay with you but I won’t make it easy for you.” She knew she was lying to herself, because there was no way on earth she would be able to resist the way he made her feel. She would be a complete doormat. A willing, wimpy slave to his every need and desire. She hated herself for her weakness but she was not foolish enough to believe her own bravado. And from the flare of dark fire in his eyes, neither was he.
David drew a deep, calming breath. He had just hit her in her most vulnerable spot. He felt like a bastard, but nothing mattered except keeping her. Deep inside his conscience railed at him. But he couldn’t stop now. He wanted desperately to tell her he would never harm her. But if he did, she might change her mind.
She was going to do it. But she wanted him to believe she wasn’t willing. In a pig’s eye. He could feel the trembling of her body as she tried so valiantly to face him down. He knew that she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her but she would try to make herself and him believe she didn’t.
