Adam groaned, digging his heels into the carpet as he resisted every urge to reach out and take.
“Having that dress on would have made it so difficult to do this,” Tess said, dropping to her knees in front of him, shifting onto all fours as she slowly crawled across the floor toward him.
Adam moaned, ending on what suspiciously sounded like a whimper, the dirty twist of her lips making his heart thunder in his chest and his ears. He stared at her as she covered the short distance between them, back arched like a cat and eyes locked on his own. He held his breath when she was right in front of him, releasing it on a shudder when her hands slowly slid up both of his calves to his thighs, finally ending on the swollen bulge making his pants very tight.
“Remember. My rules,” Tess warned him again, her fingers hovering over his zipper until he gave a terse nod of agreement.
She undid his belt, then the button, sliding down the zipper with a metallic sound that was as loud as thunder rumbling in this office, the whole world vectored down to just the two of them. Tess’s hand wrapped around him and his eyes shut hard, his groan of pleasure reverberating behind his clenched teeth, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. He willed himself to not break the rules and risk Tess stopping.
Up and down her hand glided along his length, her voice a deeper, huskier version of her typical tone. “Adam, I want this in my mouth. Can I?”
“Oh my God, yes. Please.”
Adam stared down as she leaned back in and took his erection deep into her mouth. Lips clamped tight around his flesh, Tess bobbed her head up and down, the rhythm leading to a slow burn in his groin, his belly. Unable to resist the urge to touch, to thrust into her wet heat, his fingers slid into the auburn silk of her hair, his body throbbing at the sound of her whimper.
“Damn, Tess, you’re so beautiful.” His words cut off but the lust in her eyes, the electricity of their attraction, snapped across the distance between their bodies. And like the images burned on the back of his eyelids after a lightning strike, he knew this sight would be branded on his brain. The burn of her touch intensified until he was almost there, way too soon for how he needed this to end. “Stop. Stop, baby, I need to be inside you.”
Tess moved up and over his body, kissing him hard and fierce. “All you had to do was ask.”
* * *
There was nothing better than Adam Redhawk wanting her.
Tess had known enough men in her life, spent enough time in their beds to know who would forget her the minute the sheets cooled, but Adam was different. The rules were that this was going to be temporary, and she wouldn’t contemplate a change to that, but she knew that he would remember this time together long after they were over. And that...that was really sexy.
And Adam was letting her push his buttons. He was known to be a control freak in the bedroom but this game of give and take between them was hot, intriguing—it kept her running hot all the time.
Adam dragged her down to part her lips with a brutal kiss before pulling her onto his lap, her legs straddling each side of his thighs. Tess gave as good as she got, digging her nails into his shoulders as he broke off the kiss, his lips wet and red and pulled back in a grin.
“I want to taste you now, Tess. My turn.” He growled as he tugged down the straps of her bra, exposing her breasts to his gaze and his touch. He wasted no time, cupping them both in his palms, dragging his thumbs across the tips.
Tess let her head fall back, body thrusting forward to offer them up to him, wordlessly begging Adam to taste them. He was taking too long, teasing her nipples into hard, tight points that ached under his attention. She wasn’t above begging. Not when she knew how good he could make her feel.
“Adam, please. Put them in your mouth.”
He rubbed his lips against her skin, just above where she really wanted him to be. He skimmed the curve of her breast, leaving a trail of hot, moist breath as he made his way to her neck. She felt a long lick along the column of her neck, tantalizing nibbles over the places that made her jump in his arms, writhe against his body in a desperate search for more of him, more pleasure.
But even Tess had her breaking point. She growled, weaving her fingers in his hair and leading his face down to her breasts. It should have been relief, getting what she wanted, but Adam was overwhelming, licking, teasing, sucking the hard nubs of flesh into his mouth. Lightning. Fire. An ache threaded its way under her skin, running along every nerve ending in her body and setting her mind on a whirling spiral of pleasure that rose higher and higher.
Adam ran his hands down her body as the cool air of the office washed across her thighs and goose bumps added that tingle of sensation to everything else she was feeling. It was almost too much and it wasn’t enough. She needed him. Needed him inside her; the lazy circles his fingertips were tracing over the sex-slick core of her body were not enough. Tess ground her body down on his touch, legs shaking, muscles flexing, seeking the orgasm she knew he could give her.
She keened, leaning heavily on him as the pleasure made her weak. “Adam, I’m going to come.”
As if those weren’t the magic words that would open the door to all of her desires, Adam pulled away, releasing her flesh and removing his hands from between her legs. Tess gasped, thumping against his chest with her palms in protest.
“Damn you. I was so close.”
“I want you to be all around me when you come, Tess,” Adams growled against her lips, his kisses soft and tender, designed to soothe and tempt. “Don’t you dare come right now. It’s mine and that’s how I want it.”
She wouldn’t deny that it was his. Hell, when they were together like this, she was his. Body and soul. But not her heart. She wouldn’t go that far.
Tess was ready to risk the great sex and the fun they had together, the connection that always kept them tethered to each other. But she couldn’t risk her heart. Her father had broken her heart. Life had shattered it over and over. She never wanted to feel that kind of helplessness ever again. Her heart was hers and it would never belong to another ever again.
But she could give Adam her pleasure.
“Then take it. Don’t make me wait.”
Adam shifted under her, maneuvering their bodies until she was facing the back of the sofa, legs spread with her body open to him. Tess leaned forward, resting the weight of her body on the sofa back, her ass up in invitation.
Adam leaned over body, his fingers snagging in the sides of her panties and sliding them down her legs, tossing them to the floor behind them. He trailed kisses over her skin, sweet presses of his mouth raising goose bumps all along her spine.
“You’re beautiful, Tess. Can I have you? Anything I want?”
“Anything you want,” Tess said, spreading her legs wider, smiling at the groan that erupted from Adam behind her.
She looked over her shoulder, taking in Adam leaning in behind her, his large hands spreading her wider. And then his tongue was on her, stroking over her core. She jumped, the first lick electric and the second causing her to push back against him, begging him for more. She closed her eyes, knowing that if she kept watching, she would come apart. Too soon. Much too soon.
Adam found her clit, his tongue executing a rhythm that was calculated to bring her to the edge. And just when she was almost there, hips mimicking his movements, he pulled back and brought her down again. Only to do it all over a few seconds later. He had her on the edge so many times that she was only need and desire and incapable of thinking of anything beyond what he was doing to her.
And just when she thought she would have to kill him for denying her what she needed so desperately, his mouth was back on her clit and she was rising and then falling down and down into a spiral of pleasure that spun out like a car spinning out of control. Tess’s body went rigid, every muscle taut with her orgasm. As the pleasure released her, she went boneless, her heart racing in
a body that couldn’t have moved for love nor money.
Adam made it easy on her, turning her over and laying her out on the couch. The chill of the room threatened to make her shiver but he was over her, his body keeping her warm and raising her desire again, along with her temperature.
“So beautiful,” Adam whispered, his words tracing along the damp skin of her neck. His kisses covered her skin, claiming every inch of her and then taking her mouth in a tangle of tongues so sweet that it made her bones ache. “Can I still have you?”
His question was so sincere. Adam was always so intent on making sure that this was what she wanted, she could never deny him. She wanted nothing more than to give him what he asked for because he made it so good for her. Every single time.
“Yes. Adam. Please.”
Adam nodded, leaning back and pulling a condom out of his pocket before pushing his pants down to his thighs. He shivered a little, the office air also raising goose bumps on his skin. Tess reached out, tugging on the hem of his shirt, unbuttoning the shirt buttons she could reach, relieved when he unfastened the rest. She sighed, raking her nails across his chest, trailing them over the hard, taut muscles, the flat brown nipples. Adam sucked in a breath and she smiled, relishing the sight of the usually quiet and collected Adam Redhawk flushed and debauched, half-dressed and fully aroused.
“I need you Adam. Hurry.”
Adam ripped open the packet and slid the condom over his length, leaning in until his tip pressed against her core.
“You ready?” he asked, waiting the moment necessary for her to nod, and then sliding inside her, her slickness making it an easy glide forward.
Tess wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him as deep as he could go, indulging in the feel of him inside her and his weight on top of her. She loved this part, the time when she was surrounded by him, filled by him. It was as if there was no way to know where she ended and he began. Perfection. For one brief second.
And then Adam pulled out of her body, almost all the way, and then slid back inside. Tess clung to his back, her nails digging in, anchoring herself to him with every hard thrust. She lifted her hips, angling her body so that he could be deeper inside her, hitting all the best spots.
And then the tingle forming at the base of her spine, in the space deep inside her belly, grew with each slide of his body inside her own and suddenly she didn’t want to try to control this ride. She wanted to surrender to it. She wanted it to make her come apart with no hope of being put back together.
Tess let go of her grip on Adam, raising her arms over her head and hanging onto the sofa arm behind her. Her position was deliberately submissive, offering up all of her body to Adam. She trusted him to take her where she needed to go and to be there to catch her when she came down from the high. It was in his nature to protect. Tess would be risking nothing to let this happen between them.
“Yes. Adam. Yes.”
“Jesus, Tess,” Adam ground out, leaning down to take her lips in a hard, wet kiss. “You make me want. I can’t get enough of you.”
“Good,” Tess panted out, reaching back now, her fingers digging into his hip. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“Good. Glad I’m not alone...in this.”
Tess couldn’t process the meaning of his words, not now when he was filling her body and scrambling her mind.
“I need to come,” she panted, her words slurred with lust and desire. “I need...”
“I know what you need,” Adam growled as he wedged his hand between them, stroking her clit with every thrust. “Come on, Tess. You know what I need.”
“What?”
“You,” he groaned against her lips. “You.”
His words flipped all her switches and she fell over the edge, her orgasm causing her entire body to shudder and buck beneath him. The pleasure was white-hot, searingly intense, and imprinted on every cell of her body.
Adam cried out above her, his body, all sleek muscle and rigid bone, going taut with his own pleasure. He collapsed against her and Tess wrapped her arms around him, ignoring the cooling of the sweat on their bodies and the knowledge that they really weren’t alone in this building. She just wanted to indulge in this moment, knowing that it would end soon enough.
That was the deal they had agreed to, after all.
But maybe some of the rules could be broken.
“So...” she ventured, trailing her nails lightly up and down his back.
“Yeah?”
“About that dinner out...”
Adam lifted his head, propped himself up on an elbow to gaze down and her, and raised an eyebrow in humor. “What? All it took was a mind-blowing orgasm to get a meal out of you?”
“A girl has got to have her standards.”
Ten
Tess was probably going to kill him.
Adam pulled up in front of the small bungalow tucked into the end of a small street in the solidly middle-class neighborhood. Nearby yards and driveways were littered with abandoned bikes and skateboards, anchored with basketball nets, and dotted with “Please slow down—children at play” signs. It wasn’t anything like the one he’d grown up in, with locked gates and housekeepers answering the door. This was a neighborhood where the streets filled with costumed kids on Halloween and wagon parades on the Fourth of July. Adam didn’t remember ever having that.
He shook off the dark cloud that always accompanied his dwelling on the ghosts of shitty childhoods past and cut the engine of his car, pausing to consider just how weird this was. Adam hadn’t heard from Tess in almost two days; no response to his texts and voicemails and she’d failed to show at Redhawk/Ling. None of that sounded at all like the Tess he knew. They’d spent every waking moment together or in constant contact in the past few weeks, either searching for the mole or finding chances to work off steam in a way that left him aching for more. So, he was down to two schools of thought about what he was currently doing: it was restraining order level of stalker activity or the action of a normal, noncreepy friend/fuckbuddy.
The jury was still out on which way the “Jury of Tess” would fall on the issue.
But he kept coming back to the fact that failing to show up for work or answer his inquiries was nothing like Tess Lynch. If she didn’t want to talk to you, she’d tell you to your face in unequivocal language and then freeze you out like a blizzard at the North Pole.
Screw it. If she murdered him, so be it.
Adam opened the door on his Audi R8 Spyder and glanced around the neighborhood as he shut the door. Three doors down a young woman was pretending to pull weeds as she watched him and her toddler out of the corner of her eye. She paused when she got the full look of him and her wide-eyed reaction was either because he was a stranger in her neighborhood, he was a brown stranger in her neighborhood or she was ogling his car. He nodded, giving her his best “I’m a billionaire business owner so please don’t call the cops” smile and walked up the short concrete walk lined with pretty flowers to the teal-painted front door and raised his hand to push the doorbell. He hesitated a brief moment, giving himself one more chance to back out before pressing the button.
He could hear the perky tone of the bell chime behind the closed door but that was it. Not the sound of footsteps, no voice yelling at him to hang on. Nothing. He waited a few moments longer, shifting to try to peek through the large bay window in the front of the house but noting that the privacy blinds were shut tight. He reached out to the doorbell again, pressing on it an extra few seconds. It was irritating enough to wake the dead.
It worked because within a couple of seconds he heard the distinctive sound of Tess Lynch cursing whoever was at her door to one of the seven layers of hell. Relief loosened the knot that had settled in the bottom of his belly, only to be replaced by confusion about why Tess had decided to drop off the earth and out of his life. And out of his bed...well, his couc
h.
“Who is it?” Tess asked through the door and even with the solid wood barrier between them, Adam could tell that her voice was rough and scratchy.
“It’s Adam. Are you all right?”
There was a brief pause and then the sound of the locks releasing followed by the door sliding open. He was greeted by a disheveled Tess, eyes red rimmed and cheeks flushed, glaring at him across the threshold. Her hair was a tangled mass of red curls and her pajamas looked like she’d been wearing them a few days. Of course, the absolute wrong thing fell out of his mouth.
“Tess, you look terrible.”
The door slammed in his face with a ferocity that rattled the glass in the side lights.
“Tess, wait.” He twisted the knob, grateful when it gave way and the door swung open. She hadn’t locked him out. He stepped inside and spotted her retreating back as she shuffled down a hallway, rushing forward when she swayed and reached for the wall in a move to steady herself. He slid his hands around her waist, murmuring against her temple, “I’ve got you.”
Tess was burning up, her skin hot and clammy to the touch. She leaned on him, accepting his support as he guided her around the corner into an open plan kitchen and family room. Adam picked up Tess and carried her over to the sofa, ignoring her indignant protest and attempts to wriggle out of his arms before he lowered her onto the bright yellow cushions.
“Stay there. I’ll go get you some water.” He strode over to the refrigerator, noting the sleek lines and warm colors of her home as he searched the cabinets until he located a glass and filled it with cold water. He moved back toward the sofa, relieved to see that Tess hadn’t wandered off. He eased down next to her and placed the glass in her hands. “Take a drink. You need to stay hydrated with a fever.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, taking a few large swallows before handing the glass back to him. She was pale, and her voice was scratchy when she gave him as much hell as she could muster. “What are you doing here, Adam?”
Taking on the Billionaire Page 8
