by Ciara Cole
She was transfixed by the sight of him naked, reinforcing her belief of how beautiful he was. The angles of his face, his gorgeous eyes and lips—it felt like she was really seeing him for the first time. Then she looked down at the rest of him and had to bite hard on her lip. Sweet Christ.
“Tia.”
Her name was a ragged growl on his lips, as if the feeling of her eyes on him pushed him to the edge. Tia couldn’t help the way she stared in awe or the way she felt compelled to lift her hands and lay them across his body. She felt her way over every rippling muscle, shocked by how satiny smooth his skin was and yet so extremely male.
She couldn’t remember it feeling this good to simply touch a man’s skin.
A shockwave of desire slammed her in the spine, and Tia gasped, snatching her hands away. But he took her wrist and rested her palm against his body and whispered, “Keep touching me.”
It was unfathomable how just the rough gravel of his voice had her sizzling to her core and her toes curling. They were both naked now, his body flattening atop hers and his face buried in the curve of her neck. Moaning with pleasure, Tia raked her nails up his muscled arms, then slid them down his back. She heard his breath catch as she moved her hips against his while her hands moved down to his lean, defined hips and then his perfect ass. Every inch of him her touch encountered was pure muscle.
Much as she was so engrossed with her present foray of his sexy body, Tia couldn’t stay unaware of him also touching her, moving his hands up her thighs and spreading her wider as he settled more demandingly between her legs. Dipping his head from her neck to her breast and tasting her nipple with his tongue, there was no way to ignore the way he grazed the sensitive bud with his teeth and then sucked on her hard. At the same time, he pressed his very hard shaft against her creamy center.
“Johnathan. Oh, my God.”
Her hips rode beneath him, sliding her sex against his impossibly hard erection. The whole world seemed to fade away except for the feel of Johnathan and the sound of his hiked breathing in the air.
His mouth feasted from breast to breast, and Tia sank her fingers in his hair and around the bulky ridge of his shoulders, drawing him even closer. The bliss was uncontainable. Her body constricted tighter in and out, and she wished he would speedily fill the vacuum inside her being.
Just as it fell on the tip of her tongue to beg him to take her, Johnathan’s hands and mouth ceased from manipulating her breasts. She tore her eyes open to find him gazing down at her body. “Breathtaking,” he said thickly. “Now watch.”
Cocoa and vanilla. Tia and Johnathan, their bodies tense with need and molten passion, slowly becoming merged. She watched, mesmerized as his member began its plunge into her warmth. She stared as it thrust in, then out, each stroke becoming more addictive by the moment.
Tia couldn’t breathe. She felt transported past her own consciousness just with having Johnathan fill her inch by inch with his commanding claim of her body. She stared at their bodies fusing until her sight grew hazy. But she didn’t close her eyes or look away, ever aware of the fact that her watching him take her seemed to drive him crazy.
It was impossible to stay passive with everything that was happening. Johnathan made her want to claw at him, be engulfed by him, savaged by him. He filled her and filled her, and it almost seemed possible she could feel the impact of each thrust in her tonsils from deep within. That was how potently he took her.
“Johnathan, my goodness. This feels . . . you feel . . .”
“So do you, baby,” he said on a raspy chuckle, as if he could read exactly what she needed to say. Her walls rippled tightly around him and a shudder racked through him. “Fuck.”
Oh, she knew exactly what he meant. And she knew it was a new high to know she pushed his buttons like that. She stared straight in his face as he took her faster, deeper.
“More. Please, more, Johnathan,” she panted. “Take me so hard I forget where I am or who I am.”
He swore again, harshly. He gathered his hands beneath her ass and ramped her hips up higher to meet his steadily punishing thrusts. Tia’s mind went blank, her senses centered on that meeting point where his body thundered through hers. She loved the scents of him and her that filled the air, and those, too, merged to create the perfect bouquet of lust. She was so dripping wet, and he was so raging hard, and they couldn’t get enough. Not this first time.
He kissed her lips and nibbled her breasts. He drew back slightly and planted his thumb over her clit and zipped on it while he banged her. For the first time, Tia knew what it was her body was for, and oh, Johnathan showed her well. So well, she wasn’t even mad that this had to be just a slaking of desire for him. Because she was right there with him, taking what she wanted too.
“You’re so tight, Tia,” he groaned. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t hold back.”
Oh fuck, she thought as he suddenly stormed an excess of thrusts into her. Tia heard her scream of pleasure-pain ring out, and she loved it. He was making her feel, and it was nothing like she used to feel before. Bedding her past lovers had been a chore, going through the motions for just a moment’s release. But something about her time with Johnathan told her that nothing was going to be momentary. She was going to feel all of this for a long time afterward.
Sex had never been so sexy. So carnal. Dirty. Wrong and right at the same time. God, what was this man doing to her?
This first time, face to face, thighs and groins slapping, hard chest crushing full, soft breasts, was intensely intimate. There was nowhere to hide. Tia didn’t understand the chemical formation that made all of this so compelling. Was it the way their hues contrasted? Or the way her juices coated his thick shaft in gleaming cream or the way every part of him took every part of her? It was there on his face and in every one of the muscles that stood out in his torso, arms, and even his member. Maybe it was that single thick vein pulsing along the top of his shaft as he painstakingly drew out to the very tip and then lunged again, balls deep, into her womb.
Tia came, without warning, without structure. From the moment Johnathan had first slid through her entrance, she’d become an explosive device, fused to erupt under specific conditions, and that was now, with Johnathan’s strokes hitting fast and deep and continuously.
Even when he felt her vaginal walls spasm and her hips dance erratically beneath him, he didn’t slow that blinding piston pace. Smack. Smack, smack. Endlessly, she unraveled, her arms thrown above her head and her spine arching impossibly off the bed. Her eyes were wide with shock as they met Johnathan’s, which watched her with an almost fearsome fixation. That intense gaze took her sailing off yet another precipice, and only when he felt her orgasm hit its voltage peak did he snap that fragile thread of control he had left.
The euphoria of Johnathan filling her to the brim with his thick, warm seed lifted Tia to a higher place, her walls milking him for every last drop. Until the very last moment, when she realized—oh, fuck, they didn’t use a condom!
Had he realized the same thought at just the same moment? wondered Tia as she heard Johnathan groan, his face buried in her neck. Then he dislodged their bodies, rolled on his back, and let out an exultant laugh. Well okay, Tia figured he hadn’t figured out the enormity of what just happened.
“That was . . .” he began, staring up at the ceiling, then promptly rolled over again to cover her body with his. Tia was still torn between dazed and dismayed.
Well, it was apparent that neither of them had planned on sex when he walked in her door earlier. But Tia had never been this careless, and she was slowly losing her equilibrium.
“I’m at a loss for words, but you, babe, have gone completely silent on me,” teased Johnathan, propped on both hands and viewing her face with that same heat that made her stomach clench. This man and the way he wanted her, and the way she let him have her . . . Tia stared into his dancing eyes and knew tonight was all worth it, even having her go crazy.
“Tia, are you oka
y?” Johnathan asked with a furrowed brow, finally noting her mood.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the little problem with protection. We didn’t use any!”
She shoved against his chest and tumbled off the bed before he could react. She grabbed her dress and threw it on with fumbling movements. She didn’t expect to have Johnathan on his feet and by her side, gathering her shoulders and turning her to face him.
“Tia, relax. I’m clean. I’m sorry about not thinking of protection, and it’s definitely not a habit of mine.”
“Not for me either. I never do that,” she said feelingly. “Thankfully, I’m on the pill.”
“So, we’re good?” he asked, rubbing on her shoulders—or more like, slowly peeling her dress off her upper arms. Tia could just see where this was headed.
“No, we’re not good. Johnathan, can you please stop trying to get me naked again?”
“But I like you naked,” he growled, grabbing hold of her hips and tugging her against his very naked, very hard-muscled body. “You’re one irresistible woman, Tia.”
And he was glorious. Tia could not deny that. She couldn’t deny the way he made her melt with his shameless seductions as he kissed her eyelids, her nose, and each corner of her lips.
“I should kick you out right now,” she grumbled, sliding her arms around his neck. “You get things your way too often.”
He straightened to look soberly into her eyes. “I don’t take a moment of this for granted. I honestly feel like Christmas came early.”
Tia almost rolled her eyes skyward for fortitude. What was even worse than seductive Johnathan was bone-melting, magnetic Johnathan who knew just what to say and when.
While she was still trying to figure out what the hell next, Johnathan wasn’t giving her much time to ruminate. He crowded her backward till she encountered the solid, ungiving wall. He gathered her dress up over her ass and hooked her right leg high around his waist. His other hand guided his thick, hard member to her slit and he thrust in hard.
“Oh! Oooh!” She hadn’t expected that at all. But then she loved the spontaneity of their sex so far. It made it feel more natural and raw, like between long-lost lovers or even long-time ones. She tangled her hands in his hair for more leverage and wrapped her second leg around his waist. His powerful hands cupping her ass hitched her even higher, causing the angle of his thrusts to take on an ovaries-juggling pressure. Tia’s eyes rolled back in ecstasy.
Harder, faster, deeper, tighter, wetter. He felt incredible. Her hands moved from his hair to his shoulders, and once she braced her weight on his hips, she began to move up and down on his shaft. Driven by instinct and need, she pleasured herself on his magically shaped member that seemed to hit all the right spots all at once. Every part of her vagina tightened on him and he growled, seizing her lips in a wide, open-mouthed, face-eating kiss.
With Johnathan, even the simplest of acts was so erotic and pleasurable. Sucking on her neck, or licking her breasts, or squeezing her ass while pounding her hard against the wall, was consummate rapture. Coupled with her thrilling reaction to everything about him, the fact that he was so skilled in giving and taking pleasure, was mind-blowing.
“Mmm, baby,” she moaned mindlessly when one thrust hit the button particularly good. Johnathan took that as a signal to go faster, and Tia’s moans grew louder, her fingers tugging his hair. He pulled her into oblivion with his rugged passion, making Tia feel things that couldn’t be legal. Plummeting into orgasm moments later, she arched and cried out his name.
His stamina was incredible, and how he could hold back for as long as it took to have her reach climax before thinking of himself. Tia blocked her mind from thoughts of how many lovers he’d honed his expertise on. She just knew that with them, it was different. It had to be.
***
Johnathan had never thought about what would be his idea of a perfect woman. He’d had the textbook beauties, females with every inch buffed and streamlined for maximum effect with men. The way they looked, talked, and moved was with conscious effort to enthrall their target into pursuit of them, which made some of them seem shallow, but then Johnathan hadn’t minded that since all he wanted was a good time. And that made him just as shallow, something he could see right through for the first time.
A lot of things were making sense ever since his night with Tia. Just like that, it happened when he wasn’t even looking. He’d already given up on any chance of anything personal between them, only professional, hence the idea for the meeting. The meeting that didn’t get to take off . . . but damn, their night together certainly had. Now, he just wanted to see where this could go.
Whoa, that was one more first for him. Hit it and beat it was his routine because he wasn’t trying to get tied down. He turned thirty that year and was far from slowing down with his partying, womanizing ways. But what if life had something better in store for now?
For now, that sounded good. He wasn’t going to put any crazy labels to the way he connected so well with Tia. She was literally dropped into his life, and then she proceeded to turn everything he ever thought he wanted on its head. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. They were like oil and water thrown together in a hot pan, but he just might be ready for something real with her for as long as it felt right.
Then to his amazement, when he woke up in Tia’s bedroom, silent, empty walls greeted him. Her suitcases were gone, and just a little note lay on the bedside table. He read the brief words of farewell and thought, wow. Gone, just like that. Obviously, she’d given up on them when they’d barely even started. Maybe it was for the best and would have Johnathan coming back to his senses. Tia may well have made the decision for both of them, and if it were the old Johnathan, he might have even felt relieved.
So how was he going to deal with the foreign sensation of disappointment that suddenly clouded everything around him?
Chapter Six
Ten minutes. Tia stopped her nervous pacing to again check the wall clock. Her heart pounded, her breath thinned, and her emotions nagged at her. She was proud of how far she’d come, not just in her career but as a person. She felt like she’d grown so much, earned so much wisdom and experience.
She just wished she had more to show for herself in this moment. All she had was a sense of being conked out—and having a big smear on her track record.
Sighing deeply, Tia pushed away those negative thoughts and made her way out of her office. She headed straight for the corporate suite where her boss, Theo, would be expecting her for their meeting. The fact that she was back was enough to give him an idea of how her “assignment” went, just as Tia knew how the conversation with Theo was about to go.
Finally, she stood at his door and knocked. With her best smile and a slight tug on the hemline of her most conservative dress, she swung the door open.
“Mr. Fox, I—” Tia began and stopped short when she saw the two men standing at the tall windows of the massive office.
It was Theo who first turned in her direction with a big grin. “Tia, there you are. You should have notified me earlier of your success, which has far exceeded expectation.”
Tia could barely tear her eyes from the other male, who stood impassively with his profile to her, while Theo advanced to where she stood like a frozen pillar.
“My . . . success?” Tia managed as she slowly swung her eyes to her beaming boss.
“Why of course. Johnathan’s here, isn’t he? He’s ready to take on more responsibility, and it’s all thanks to you.”
Tia was doing her best to keep a straight face while wondering what was going on. She kept glancing Johnathan’s way, but he gave her nothing. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he seemed more interested in the skyline outside the penthouse office than anything going on right then.
“Which is why I have very good news for you,” said Theo, who seemed to enjoy the expressions playing over Tia’s features. “You will continue on as a personal consultant for the Fox Company.”
/> “You mean I’m not fired?” Tia asked, blinking rapidly for a moment.
“Fired? Nah,” Theo huffed with a careless wave of his hand. He turned and moved behind his desk. “You’ve got a bright future ahead with our firm, and I’d like to see the places you can go, given the opportunity.”
“Thank you, Theo,” Tia said on a heaved breath, a bright smile curving her lips and tilting up the corners of her eyes. “I’ll be honored working with you, and I’ll make sure you won’t regret giving me this chance.”
“Oh, you won’t be working with me. Johnathan insisted that you consult for him for the first few months as he acclimates to his new position.”
It was a lot to take in at once, and Tia kept looking from Theo to Johnathan while she tried to figure out how to react.
“You don’t have to look so reluctant.” Johnathan finally decided to join the conversation, facing Tia with a slightly taunting smirk. “Like my brother said, it’ll only be a few months. He must think if one person can get me shipshape, it’s you. Or he wouldn’t have agreed to it.”
“That’s right,” Theo said on a chuckle. “There’s no time to waste, Tia, as I’m planning the final move to the London office by early next year. Is that enough time to get things rolling with Johnathan at the helm?”
Tia heard the slight edge in Theo’s voice even with his mild question. She glanced Johnathan’s way, and that smirk seemed to challenge her to say no.
Tia wasn’t stupid though. And even if she knew she was possibly setting herself up for more stress and heartache than she could handle, she had to take this chance.
***
“So why did you say yes?”
Johnathan closed the door after Tia as she preceded him into his new office. It was minutes after they’d finished with Theo, and now that they were finally alone, he took the time to run his eyes over her with barely concealed appreciation.
