Cherish Hard (Hard Play #1)

by Nalini Singh

  She shivered, and he swore.

  Her bra was on the floor a second later, quickly followed by her panties—though Sailor slipped her heels back on. “These make you just the right height.” Spinning her around on those harshly uttered words, he said, “Brace your hands on the door” at the same time that he circled the pad of his finger around her entrance before pushing in for a teasing stroke. “Hands on the door, spitfire. Don’t make me get the handcuffs.”

  A little shocked—and so aroused that she felt combustible—Ísa did as he’d asked. He removed his hand from between her thighs with erotic slowness. She heard the metallic jangle of a belt, the soft crush of clothes being shoved aside, the crackle of a wrapper being torn.

  Sailor ran his hand down her back and over her lower curves. “This skin,” he murmured, his voice thick.

  Then he was gripping her hip with one hand, his other coming around to hold her breast with firm possessiveness, and he was pushing into her and he felt so rigid and so long in this position that Ísa bit down hard on her lower lip at the sheer, raw pleasure of it. It only took her two strokes to come, the evening of watching Sailor working shirtless, his little kisses and touches, having aroused her to nymphomaniac status.

  He didn’t last much longer, thrusting deep into her body and sinking his fingers into the flesh of her hips as he grunted and came. Falling slightly forward onto her back in the aftermath, he pulled her hair back so he could nuzzle a kiss to her neck. “Now we’re both dirty.” He sounded highly pleased by that fact.

  Ísa was turning into goo as a result of the affectionate contact. “How big is your shower?”

  The answer was not very… and just big enough.

  Ísa ended up pinned to the wall a second time around while Sailor stroked out of her slow and deep, with all the patience in the world. Her legs were jelly by the time they finally stumbled out of the steamy cubicle. Sailor threw her one of his T-shirts to wear while he pulled on an old pair of jeans that hugged his butt just right.

  Sitting themselves at the kitchen table, they both got to work.

  At some point they took that work and stretched out in bed and ended up falling asleep. Dawn the next morning and Ísa scowled at Sailor as she went to pull on her clothes from yesterday. “I can’t believe I’m going to be doing the walk of shame. Pack a change of clothing. You’re coming to my place tonight.”

  Not looking the least bit sorry, he drew her mouth down to his. And since he was warm and naked and in a playful mood, she soon found herself tumbled back into bed. It was fast and deliciously hard this time since Sailor had to get ready for work.

  Ísa should’ve felt used, but how could she when he snuggled a kiss into her neck afterward and said, “See you at dinner?”

  But deep inside, a part of her worried.

  And even deeper inside, it hurt.

  Because what Ísa needed was the one thing she couldn’t ask from Sailor. To do so would destroy them both.

  36

  The Photo Creepster Strikes Again

  ÍSA DIDN’T HAVE ANY TIME to look at the security footage before work; Harlow had managed to fall off his bicycle during a morning ride and injure his leg. After receiving a call from him just after she reached the office, she rushed to the hospital where she spent long minutes calming him down.

  “Jacqueline won’t fire you for being a couple of hours late,” she said. “Even the Dragon understands physical injury. She fractured her ribs six months ago, remember?”

  Ísa didn’t waste her breath on asking him to take the day off.

  Harlow was tough enough to work through the pain of the cuts and abrasions, and he wouldn’t have agreed to any such demand anyway.

  “I swear you’re part dragon,” she said after driving him in to work, with a stopover at home so he could change.

  A delighted grin. “Thanks!”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  Harlow laughed at her stern response, his eyes bright behind his spectacles.

  As a result of the late start, she was still scrambling to catch up at eleven when her mother stalked in and threw a newspaper on her desk. It was open to the business section. Ísa’s eyes went straight to the image of her walking out of a restaurant holding a large bag emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo; the dinner she’d picked up for her and Sailor last night.

  The headline was: No Faith in the Fast Organic Product?

  “Fast Organic isn’t live yet!” Ísa threw up her hands. “What am I supposed to eat? Air?”

  “It’s the asshole I won’t sleep with,” her mother said, icy fury contained in a custom skirt suit of deepest plum. “He’s out to smear us, but you aren’t exactly helping. Be a little discreet for goodness sake.”

  Ísa glared at her mother. “You realize this means some creep is following me around?”

  “Or maybe it’s someone who knew you were going to be picking up the takeout.” Jacqueline raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t go there, Mother.” It was a hard rebuke, Ísa holding the green of Jacqueline’s eyes. Ísa might be furious at herself for her inability to deny Sailor her heart, but she would not permit her mother to throw dirt on his name.

  Her mother threw up her hands. “Get to the bottom of this, Ísa. This tiny-penised asshole’s vendetta could sink our entire launch plan—we need to cut off his mole.”

  Calling in Ginny after Jacqueline left, Ísa said, “Wipe my schedule for the day. Push anything urgent to Mother.” It was time Jacqueline got a taste of her own medicine. “I’m going to be focusing on another matter.”

  Ginny was wide-eyed but nodded. “What shall I do if she yells at me?”

  “Tell her I’m working on the project she assigned priority.” Ísa was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what it took.

  * * *

  SAILOR SCOWLED AT THE PHOTO of Ísa in the newspaper. “This is bullshit.” He turned his phone screen toward Gabe, who’d turned up to help him for a couple of hours before he had to attend a team meeting.

  His brother’s scowl was just as dark. “Total BS,” he agreed. “Anything you can do?”

  “If someone’s stalking her to get photos, then the black sedan I saw parked across the street yesterday might have something to do with it.” It had been there when he and Ísa came around from the back of the site. “Keep an eye out for it.”

  Gabe nodded as he began to pound in a border piece Sailor had already finished. “Sail, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why are you so hell-bent on proving you’re not like the piece of shit who fathered us?” It was a potent question.

  Sailor clenched his teeth and continued to work on the next part of the border. His brother didn’t push him, the two of them working quietly together until Sailor said, “It’s not rational. I’m just a little bit fucked up in the head.”

  Gabe’s steely eyes met his across the garden bed before his older brother blew out a breath. “Yeah, so am I.” Gabe didn’t speak again for a while. “Your Ísa know all this?”

  “I’m easing her into the crazy slowly. Don’t want to scare her away.” Light words, but he was deadly serious.

  Gabriel’s lips kicked up, those incisive gray eyes intent. “You’re nuts about her, aren’t you?”

  Sailor thought back to how damn good it had felt to wake up with her today; he could still feel the warm softness of her in his arms. “I’m fucking terrified that I’ll lose her.” He sat back on his haunches. “What woman is going to stick with me while I drive myself to the edge to finish what I’ve begun?” Especially a woman who’d already been let down so many times.

  His brother didn’t have any answers for him, and when Ísa called to say she couldn’t make dinner because she had to drive Harlow home and make sure he’d be okay, Sailor felt another droplet of fear. It was already beginning, the distance. On the heels of the fear came harsh determination.

  Fuck that.

  Ísa had met her match in Sailor �
�Bullheaded” Bishop.

  * * *

  ÍSA HAD TAKEN HARLOW OUT to dinner; she’d known no other adult in his life would bother—and he’d needed to talk, to release all his excitement about this summer, and honestly, to just be with an adult who cared enough to be interested in his life.

  “Some people shouldn’t have kids,” she muttered as she shoved through the door of her apartment. It horrified her to think what would’ve happened to sweet, smart, sensitive Harlow if Jacqueline hadn’t married his father for a split second. Her poor brother would be stuck in the no-man’s-land between his mother’s and his father’s new families.

  Both seemed to have forgotten the seventeen-year-old son they already had.

  Expression dark, Ísa kicked off her shoes, dumped her satchel on the kitchen counter, then collapsed onto the sofa. She was intellectually tired from the hunt to find the traitor, emotionally exhausted from worrying about Harlow, and angry at Sailor Bishop for enticing her with an impossible, beautiful dream.

  Buzz.

  Ísa groaned at the loud sound. One of her neighbors probably had a guest who’d pressed the wrong apartment number.

  “Apartment 7A,” she said after dragging herself to the intercom.

  “Hello, Apartment 7A,” replied a male voice that could seduce her into breaking all her rules. “You gonna let me in?”

  An ache in her chest, she cleared him to come up and was waiting with the door open when he exited the elevator. She wanted to run down the hall to him, held back because showing him that much of herself was beyond frightening, but she’d made a promise. And Ísa Rain was no quitter.

  She ran.

  Dropping his duffel, Sailor grabbed her up into his arms and spun her around. “God, I missed you.” Rough heat in his touch, his arms almost crushingly tight.

  Ísa’s bruised heart expanded. “Me too,” she said, taking another risk, another chance.

  Door shut and locked behind them a minute later, Sailor grabbed her hips and pulled her back against his chest. “First things first.” His mouth on her neck, his erection pressing so urgently against her that she shivered.

  His scent was raw, all sweat and heat and man.

  Turning in his arms, Ísa sought his mouth with raw desperation.

  He kissed her, lashing his tongue across hers as he walked her backward into her living room and tumbled her onto the armless sofa she could convert into a bed. She landed with a soft “oomph,” then watched as Sailor pulled off his boots.

  “Shit, I got dirt on your carpet.”

  “Like I care right now.”

  He didn’t laugh as he tore off his socks before rising to pull off his T-shirt. The man was built like a female fantasy; it was unfair what he could do to her with just his body. Knowing that body had been sculpted by stubborn hard work just made it all the hotter. “I want to touch and kiss and taste.”

  A motionless instant followed by a shake of his head… and an unsteady breath. “Nope.”

  When he shoved up her dress and tugged down her panties until they hung off one ankle, she was more than ready to have him inside her.

  Where she could hold him. Where he’d be hers first, before the world took its bite.

  But that wasn’t Sailor’s intent: kneeling without warning, he hauled her over the end of the sofa and put his mouth on the most sensitive place on her body, the flesh there delicate petals.

  Ísa’s brain exploded into tiny pieces of honeyed pleasure.

  Pulling her legs over his shoulders, Sailor shoved his hands under her rear to hold her in place while he lapped her up; Ísa just gave in, riding the rippling waves until it felt as if she had no bones in her body and pleasure hazed her vision. By the time Sailor finally rose, stripped off the rest of his clothing and put on protection, she was liquid honey.

  “Look at me, Ísalind.”

  Ísa opened her eyes at his guttural growl. It was erotic beyond compare to have him slide into her while their eyes remained locked in stark intimacy. And yet Ísa felt the biting edge of the loneliness that awaited. Somehow finding the strength to place her hands over his shoulders, she drew him closer. Eyes glittering, he lowered his body until his chest crushed her breasts… and then she watched as Sailor Bishop lost himself in her.

  All the while trying not to feel the desperation in both their bodies as they fought to hold on to a dream that threatened to crumple under the weight of harsh reality.

  37

  Weasels, Rats, and Other Assorted Rodents

  ÍSA ROSE TO THE SOUNDS of someone moving around. “Sailor?” she mumbled.

  “Hey, spitfire.” Already dressed, he crouched down to kiss her. “I have to head out.” A big hand cupping her face. “I’m driving to the nursery this evening. I’ll get back too late to come over. Tomorrow?”

  Ísa nodded and, despite his urgings that she stay in bed, got up to kiss him goodbye at the door. As she watched him walk away, his duffel in one hand, her heart squeezed. It only got worse when he waved at her from the elevator.

  She was madly, passionately, terribly in love with Sailor Bishop.

  And no matter how hard he tried, he could only give her short moments of his time.

  “Story of my life,” she whispered with a mocking smile aimed solely at herself. Because she was the one who’d put herself in this situation; she was the one who’d fallen for those demon-blue eyes; she was the one who’d traded in her dream to support his.

  Ísa had to laugh or she’d curl up in a ball and cry until her eyes looked like they were made of spaghetti sauce.

  Since she was awake anyway, she decided to put in some work on the last hours of security footage. That it was Saturday mattered little; she wouldn’t stop until she’d hunted down the leaker. And if she needed to talk to Jacqueline, she knew exactly where to find her—the Crafty Corners HQ.

  Her mother considered Saturdays a workday. Sundays too, though she was more subtle about that since even Oliver wasn’t tolerant enough to accept a spouse who worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. So she worked on her gadgets at home. Oliver seemed happy enough with that.

  Twenty-five minutes into the security footage, Ísa saw it. Frowning, she pulled up another file, cross-referenced. “Shit.”

  Her phone rang right then, Sailor’s number flashing up. And her foolish heart went boom, boom. “Sailor? Is something the matter?”

  “I scared off some guy who was taking pictures of the Fast Organic site when I arrived.” He sounded a touch breathless. “I chased him, but the slimy weasel had a head start and his car was already running. He jumped in and took off.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s blond and looks like he should be in a toothpaste commercial?”

  “I swear, his teeth glinted in the sunlight.”

  Well, that was the nail in the coffin. “I know who it was. I don’t think my mother will be pleased.”

  * * *

  That was an understatement.

  “Ísalind,” Jacqueline said very precisely when Ísa showed her the evidence of Trevor’s sneaking about, “never trust good-looking and charming men.”

  Ísa snorted. “I don’t think Trevor is either.” He was too smarmy for it. “What I do think is that he’s the leak—this recording shows him getting into the elevator after your meeting with him, only to come right back up.”

  She tapped a piece of paper on Jacqueline’s desk. “And this shows your keycard being used to scan back into your office area.” For such a security-conscious woman, Jacqueline had a habit of leaving her keycard on her desk. “You’ve already confirmed that you and Annalisa were gone at that time.”

  Jacqueline looked pained. “I may have mentioned to Trevor that I was taking Annalisa out for a well-earned brunch.”

  “And you used Annalisa’s card to get back in.” It was on the list of swipe-ins. “I bet your card was back on your desk when you returned.”

  “I don’t recall—but since I never missed it, it must’ve been.”

  “Tr
evor gets back in the elevator ten minutes later. Plenty of time for him to snoop around.” The good news was that the concept plan would’ve been the only piece of juicy information to which he had access—the computers were password protected, and Jacqueline kept all her sensitive documents in a wall safe.

  “Is there any way it wasn’t Trevor?” Jacqueline asked hopefully. “He’s poor, sweet Oliver’s only son.”

  Ísa nodded in sympathy. Oliver really didn’t deserve a disloyal toad for a son. “Suspicious as this all is,” she said, “Trevor might somehow be able to explain it away. But he can’t explain this.” Ísa pushed across a photo of a car speeding away from the Fast Organic site; the location was identifiable because of the distinctive building on the other side.

  Sailor had also managed to catch the license plate. “Taken about forty-five minutes ago by Sailor Bishop. Trevor was sneaking around snapping photos on his phone. He probably didn’t expect Sailor to be there on a Saturday—or to start work so early.”

  “That fucking rat.” Jacqueline’s tone was ice as she tapped her pen on the desk. “If he took them less than an hour ago, they’re probably still on his phone. Do you think he’d come in if you invited him in for coffee?”

  “Nope. He knows I think he’s a rodent.” Ísa shrugged. “But you… I think you could sell it.” Frowning, she leaned back in the visitor chair. “What I don’t get though is why he’d jeopardize Crafty Corners in any way? Isn’t he trying to get an executive position here?”

  Jacqueline stared at her. “I never told you this,” she finally said with a sigh, “because it was never an option, but the position Trevor has been angling for is yours. And”—Jacqueline winced—“I’m fairly sure I let it drop that I was planning to put you in charge of the concept megastore project.”