by JC Harroway
She wouldn’t carry the burden any longer, refused to be like Hal, refused to be his accomplice through her silence. Jack deserved the whole story.
But finding the right moment...
Jack looked at her expectantly. As birthday presents went, what he offered was up there with the best. She forced a smile, shelving her confession like a coward, and quickly spoke to her driver before joining Jack in the back of his car.
He’d chosen her favourite restaurant, a chic, intimate establishment in Soho. They sat side by side in a booth with mellow lighting that lulled her into embracing the moment.
He touched her often, a hand on her knee, a clasp of her fingers, frequently brushing hair back from her face while he told her about his trip home and asked about her ideas for renovating the Morris Building.
Over dessert—her favourite, a classic chocolate mousse—he pulled a gift from his breast pocket. Harley licked a smear of the rich chocolate from her lip, finding it hard to swallow.
He handed her the exquisitely wrapped gift, a small, rectangular box. ‘This designer, a Parisian, reminded me of you. You share a vision, I think.’ He smiled, his hand on her knee under the table.
Harley tore into the paper, anything more than a hoarse ‘thank you’ beyond her.
Eyes alight, he watched as she opened the box. ‘She uses reclaimed precious metals and ethically sourced stones in her designs.’
Harley fingered the delicate gold bracelet, her burning stare lifting to his. That he’d put so much thought and effort into her gift choked her. She urged him to help her fasten the fine strand of gold around her wrist, laughing as they both fumbled with the tiny clasp.
He could have bought her diamonds. He could have spent enough to feed a family for a year. But he understood her. Saw her. Eschewed flashy ostentation for the simplicity of a gift that, like her range of fashion and accessories, carried a message and a social conscience.
She kissed him, a surge of emotions welling up to paralyse her vocal cords. She snuggled into his side and focussed on the simple bracelet that sparkled on her arm while she breathed through her feelings.
That was how they left the restaurant, arm in arm, her close to his side. The flashes startled her from her dreamy state. Two or three paparazzi crowded the sidewalk outside the restaurant, their cameras popping as they fired questions and called Harley’s name.
Jack gripped her waist, guiding her to the car, which idled at the kerb. His other arm shielded them from the most insistent pap as they hurried inside the vehicle.
‘Drive,’ he barked at Will, looking over his shoulder at the photographers they’d left behind. He gripped her hand.
‘Are you okay? Does that happen often?’ He looked ready to break something, nostrils flared, jaw clenched.
Harley shrugged, the adrenaline dissipating and leaving her limbs heavy and her head fuzzy. Way to kill her birthday buzz.
‘Only if there’s no one more gossip-worthy to pester.’
Jack pulled her into his lap, his nose nuzzling below her ear as his own breathing slowed to normal.
‘You look tired.’ A soft, undemanding kiss. ‘The birthday fucking can wait.’
She pouted, wriggling on his lap until he groaned and dropped his head back on the leather. She rose up onto her knees astride him, leaning above him to swipe her mouth over his, coaxing.
‘But I want my birthday fucking and you promised. Better and better, remember?’ She’d missed him, whether or not she could say it aloud. Four days without their searing physical connection seemed like a year. She rubbed herself over his lap, her mouth parted as the tingles between her legs snaked along her belly.
Jack held her face between his palms, his gaze flicking over her face. ‘Fuck, woman, what are you doing to me?’
She laughed, swooping to kiss a trail along his jaw until she arrived at his earlobe and sucked. He gripped her waist, fingers flexing. And then he pushed her away to pass his hot, mischievous stare over her.
‘Take your panties off.’ A gruff order, one that she hurried to obey.
She slid to the seat beside him and shimmied her underwear down her thighs. She dangled them from one finger, her breath catching at the look of unbridled lust on his starkly handsome face.
He took them from her, holding them to his nose and inhaling deeply before tucking them inside his pants pocket.
‘Touch yourself.’ He leaned back in the seat, relaxed, unhurried, confident of her compliance.
Harley glanced at Will through the privacy glass, her body temperature rocketing into dangerous territory. The driver couldn’t see or hear, but with the thrill of the illicit—her pleasuring herself as they travelled the darkened streets of Manhattan—she couldn’t act quickly enough.
Jack stroked his chin as if waiting for a conference call, face blank, seemingly bored. As Harley trailed her fingers up her thigh, he grasped her wrist, his voice low and rough.
‘Slow. Don’t come.’ And then he settled back to watch, a stare so hot, so intense burning on his face as he traced the progress of her hand along her thigh, she feared she’d have to disappoint him.
How did he do this to her? Turn her into an exhibitionist? But as she located her clit, her eyes fixed on his, all thoughts other than Jack fled.
It was the longest and the shortest journey home. By the time they made it inside her apartment, Jack barking, ‘bedroom’, in between stripping her, stripping himself and kissing her senseless, she was already so worked up, she doubted he’d have time to get inside her before she went off.
When he had her naked but for the hold-up stockings, he slowed things down, stepping behind her to cup her breasts from behind as he pressed himself between her buttocks.
‘Do you trust me?’ His breath lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.
She sagged against him, desire turning her blood to thick syrup.
‘Yes.’ No hesitation.
His expert fingers worked her nipples into peaks—firm, insistent, enough pressure to send licks of flame down to her clit. She clung, desperate to stay aware of every touch, every caress, even as she slipped into the fog of arousal.
He palmed one cheek of her ass, his large hand kneading and stroking, warming her flesh.
‘I want to see this gorgeous ass while I fuck you.’
Her knees buckled, and he wrapped one strong arm around her waist. With a nudge, he urged her towards the bed where she climbed onto all fours. She sucked air in through her nose, anticipation setting her belly aflutter. The crinkle of foil pushed her heart rate higher, and then the bed dipped as he leaned over her, his chest to her back.
His hands found her nipples again, and she arched back into him like a cat.
He groaned.
‘Soon...soon.’ His voice hypnotic.
He pulled her up to a kneeling position, her back to his front as he continued torturing her breasts and scraped his teeth over the skin where her neck met her shoulder.
She swayed into him, her head spinning and limbs languid. How would she survive what he did to her without blurting her feelings or her confession? She bit her lip, holding the words inside.
One of his hands covered hers and he guided their linked fingers down her belly, through her strip of hair into the wet folds of her sex.
‘Touch yourself.’ His fingers moved beside hers as, together, they set up a rhythm that had her crying out his name while she clung to him with her free arm. Her anchor.
‘Keep going.’ He positioned her on all fours again, and she balanced her weight on one arm to carry out his husky instructions, once more locating her clit and stroking herself as he’d commanded.
‘Jack, hurry.’ She was already so close and she wanted him inside her, too empty without him.
Gripping her hips with both hands, he pushed inside, slowly, one inch at a time. Harley’s back ar
ched as he filled her up, her fingers strumming faster to counter the stretch with a thrill of fiery heat burning beneath her clit.
‘Slow, Harley. Not yet,’ he warned as his hips moved, steady, sure and so deep she gasped.
‘Fuck, I love your ass.’ He gripped her hip again with one hand, caressing the opposite cheek with the other as he rocked into her over and over. ‘So fucking perfect. Just watching you walk, these gorgeous hips swaying, is enough to make me hard.’ All the while he spoke, he slammed into her, filling her up with his cock and his words of admiration.
He loosened his grip on her hip to stroke the length of her spine, from between her shoulder blades to the small of her back, the flat of his hand splayed over her in an act close to possession. She closed her eyes, slipping deeper. In that moment, his.
The lightest pressure from one fingertip hovered at the top of her crease. Harley’s eyes slammed open.
‘Ever played here?’ His finger delved between her buttocks with feather-light touch over her rosette.
She whimpered, the foreign sensations so good she struggled to utter a single word. She shook her head, too turned on to speak. Too full of him, her mind, her body, her senses crammed full with Jack and the way he strummed her body alive.
He growled what she assumed could only be a French expletive, his finger lingering over her sensitive flesh.
‘Want to try it? I won’t hurt you.’ The pressure of his fingertip increased slightly, and she pushed back, her own fingers circling wildly between her legs.
‘Yes. Oh, please...yes.’ Harley closed her eyes again, strung out on sensory overload. Every nerve in her body sang. Jack pummelling her from behind, her slick clit throbbing between her fingers and his husky voice, tempting her to push boundaries, safe in his hands.
‘Tell me when you’re close,’ he gritted out, his hips rocking the entire bed and his fingertip skating over her rear entrance with every pound, thrilling.
When words began to spill from him, French, broken English, garbled sounds of how good she felt and how good he wanted to make her feel, she lost it.
‘Jack!’ As the climax hit, bombarding her from all sides, his fingertip pushed inside, and she cried out until her throat burned. Wave after wave struck, the orgasm so intense, she broke the sublime contact with her clit to brace both arms on the bed, the covers clenched in her grasping fists.
‘Perfect. You’re perfect,’ Jack muttered just before he yelled out himself and went rigid behind her, his steely thighs pressed against hers and his hands pulling her hips back with almost bruising force.
They collapsed together, side by side. Limbs tangled and breaths harsh in the quiet.
‘Better?’ He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead.
Speech impossible, words lost apart from the ones trying to escape her wildly thundering, but terrified heart, she nodded.
CHAPTER TEN
THE WEAK LIGHT of dawn bounced off her, turning her flying hair to silver as she rocked above him. He took a second to enjoy the sight of her riding him, the intense bite of pleasure from her tight warmth gripping him.
Then he rolled her without slipping from the warm clasp of her body, linking his fingers with hers as he pressed her hands into the mattress beside her head. She glowed. Her green eyes hypnotic, boring into his until he was forced to bite his tongue from fear of spilling his guts, confessing feelings—too much, too soon.
Fuck if he even knew where they came from, but they arrived, undeniably insistent. This was no longer a game for him, his motives way beyond revenge sex. But labelling this scared the shit out of him. And if he was to confess anything, shouldn’t it be that he’d used her attraction to him, at least in the beginning?
Damn, he wasn’t ready to go there. He focussed on her body under his, covering her bobbing nipple with his mouth, drawing the flesh inside until she clenched around him. So tight he growled. So close. Two more thrusts and she flew, milking him, calling his name and breaking the intense eye contact she gave him as the pleasure overwhelmed her.
He followed, pumping all he had into her while he clamped his lips against her shoulder to stop the feelings he was too terrified to name aloud spilling free.
After a quick trip to her en-suite bathroom, he returned to the bed, drawing her onto him until her body covered his, the sprawl of her hair over his face, the strands clinging to his morning scruff. Her scent cloaked his skin. He never wanted to move.
She snuggled closer. ‘I need to get up.’
He nodded. He had an eight a.m. meeting, himself. Fortunately, he’d gone straight from JFK to her store last night after returning from Paris, so his luggage had been in the trunk. Right now, he couldn’t think of leaving this bed, her nakedness pressed to him, ever again.
Harley’s heartbeat slowed against his. She lifted sleepy eyes to his, hair wild around her face. Breathtaking. He cupped her cheeks. Pushing the curtains of silk behind her ears.
Her eyes flicked between his and then dipped.
‘Can I ask you a favour?’
Fuck, he’d give her anything. Couldn’t she see that? He nodded. Too unsure of what would come out of his mouth to speak.
She smiled, the almost giddy, girlish smile he remembered, climbed from the bed and padded out of the room naked, her glorious ass swaying. Jack groaned inwardly, his cock twitching anew.
He stretched out his hands behind his head, sated but his skin tight with new realisations. She returned moments later with a folder tucked under one arm and two steaming mugs of coffee.
Jack shelved his restlessness for now, content with her hesitant smile and her request for help. And naked coffee deliveries? A man could get used to that kind of wake-up.
Used to it...? There was a permanency to that that squeezed his lungs.
‘I wondered if you’d show these to Isabel.’ She handed him the folder and perched on the edge of the bed, sipping her coffee. ‘Since our shopping spree the other day, I’ve been thinking about a maternity and infant range. There are so many gorgeous fabrics out there.’ She fingered some swatches next to the designs.
He studied the drawings, respect for her swelling inside, choking him. She looked away, her teeth gnawing at her lip. He wanted to kiss her and never stop until she saw the talented and beautiful woman he saw.
She still struggled with her dyslexia—her self-esteem seemed thin at best despite the accomplished and poised exterior she presented. She’d hinted at her social isolation growing up, how difficult things had been at home with her parental expectations and comparing herself to her siblings. What he wouldn’t give to see her fully embrace her authenticity. Believe in herself.
But the trust issue, still a barrier between them, made him likely the last person she’d believe. And did he have any right to suggest improvements when he himself battled substantial transformations he wasn’t ready to admit?
He kept his eyes down, his voice soft. ‘Do you want my opinion?’
She shrugged, her eyes heartbreakingly wary. Then offered a small nod.
‘These are really good.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘They’re just drawings.’ She snorted. ‘I remember the first time I told Hal I wanted to be a designer. I was fifteen. He called my sketches scribbles. I think that was the last time I actively sought his advice.’
He gripped her free hand, his blood boiling. ‘Hal’s an asshole.’ He smiled, coaxing a reluctant giggle from her. ‘These are more than drawings. They’re your passion, your talent, your heart on a page.’ His voice almost cracked. ‘I...love...that you would show me these.’
Jack forced his muscles to relax. If he ever got his hands on Hal Jacob, he’d punch him. He swallowed bile, forcing a smile for her sake. She placed her coffee next to his on the nightstand and curled her arms around his neck, kissing him so vigorously he had to scramble the drawings aside so she didn’t crush them.
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She pulled back, eyes glowing.
‘I thought we could use organic cotton for the baby wear, merino wool from New Zealand, and we can link the profits to a charity that provides infant vaccines in Africa.’
He couldn’t resist her, a no doubt goofy, indulgent grin splitting his face.
Her phone pinged and she leaned over him to retrieve it. Her breasts hung before his face. Just one taste; rude not to.
He’d just formed his lips around one tasty bud when her body turned rigid above him. ‘Bastards.’
He sobered, releasing her and sitting up. ‘What is it?’
She held out the phone, showing him the headline.
Real Estate Heiress finds New Beau.
Harley stood abruptly and slipped on a white silk robe, a garment designed for modesty that did nothing to douse his hard need for her as it draped over every contour and his photographic memory of her body filled in the blanks. She paced the room, fingers tapping her thigh.
He didn’t enjoy seeing his own face on the gossip column, but her reaction seemed out of sync with what was essentially a photo of them leaving the restaurant last night and a few lines speculating on their relationship status.
‘Don’t worry about it. Who cares?’ He tossed the phone, capturing her hand on her next pass.
She gnawed at her lip. ‘Everything I do. It’s never enough. If I support a charity I’m a spoiled brat.’ She made air quotes. ‘If I go out with friends I’m squandering my trust fund. If I—’
He squeezed her hand, bringing her back to him.
‘Harley. What’s the real issue here?’ He tugged her down to sit beside him on the bed. ‘Are you worried about your family’s reaction?’ His insides shrivelled.
She evaded his eyes, toying with a loose thread. ‘Aren’t you? I’m a Jacob, remember. Don’t tell me you need the hassle this will bring.’ She pointed at the phone.
