by Melody Anne
“Mmm, are you feeling weak, McKenzie?” he asked with a husky chuckle. Before she could reply, he began removing his own clothes, and her throat tightened at the male beauty before her.
Perfection.
He was pure, unadulterated perfection, and she found herself wanting to trail her tongue along his skin like he had done with her. “You’re taking too long,” she gasped, making his fingers stall as he looked at her with such fire, she didn’t know how she wasn’t burned.
He quickly shed the rest of his clothes, grabbing several condoms from his pocket before tossing his pants aside. He climbed onto the bed with her and immediately drew her into his arms.
Skin to skin had never felt so right. She arched into him, loving the feel of his hard planes against her soft curves. They were a perfect fit. She knew they’d fit in every way possible. She knew this was right.
“Pure silk,” he murmured as his lips glided across her collar bone before moving down to caress the tops of her breasts. She gasped as his tongue circled her peaked nipple before he sucked it into his mouth, making her arch off the mattress and grab his head to hold him right where he was. “And greedy,” he murmured, pulling away from her just long enough to speak, then diving right back in and sucking her aching body.
When he crawled back up her body and turned her on her side to face him, she finally had the chance to explore him. Her hands seemed so small as she splayed them on his tanned skin. She pushed him onto his back and took her time kissing the salty muskiness of his neck before moving down and flicking her tongue across his exquisite pecs.
“So hard,” she murmured as she reached his stomach, her hands preceding her to his thighs, and the beauty that lay between them. “So solid…” Her words were a reverent whisper as her hand circled his throbbing manhood.
Not hesitating in the slightest, she leaned down and tasted his satin head, its salty flavor exploding in her mouth.
“McKenzie… I’m too close to embarrassing myself for you to do that,” he groaned, and he reached hands into her hair and tugged.
She ignored him and let her mouth sink down deeper onto his thickness while her fingers gripped him tightly. “Mmmm…” she moaned, the sound muted by his flesh filling her mouth.
“Enough!” He sat up and pulled her head off him, and then flipped her onto her back and covered her body with his. The pure heaven of feeling his manhood resting along the seam of her core made her whimper. He slid his hands beneath her and tugged her hips upward while he rubbed along the outside of her heat, soaking his erection with her arousal.
She reached for him, needing to guide him inside her, but he gave her a look of victory as he pulled his hands from beneath her and grasped her wrists, then pinned them above her head, trapping her beneath him.
“Take me now, Byron,” she begged, but he just leaned down and kissed her again, silencing her in the most efficient way.
Spreading her thighs wider, she bent her knees and pushed against him, wriggling beneath his solid form as she tried to force him to enter her.
“You are enough to test a saint,” he groaned as the tip of his erection slid a couple of inches inside her heat.
“Then take me, damn you,” she told him. “We’ve both suffered enough.” She, pushed upward again, desperate to have all of him.
He pulled back and she whimpered in protest. This game of his wasn’t to her liking. She was ready to feel pleasure, and he was holding back. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to pull her hands free.
He released his hold and she immediately wound her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth back to hers. She devoured his lips, slipping her tongue inside his mouth and capturing his hungry groan.
But before she could pull him inside her, he pulled those precious couple of inches out of her then released her mouth, and trailed his lips down her body again, this time making a beeline to the part of her that ached the most.
When his mouth circled her core and he swiped his tongue across her painfully swollen bud, she felt her release coming. Within seconds he had her crying out as her body shook in ecstasy. And then the room darkened as her body clenched repeatedly in what seemed a never-ending paroxysm of bliss. So, this was what sex was all about. Now, she understood how she’d made so much money over the years.
“Now you’re ready, McKenzie.”
She opened her eyes to find him poised above her, and then with one solid push, he thrust inside her wet heat, making her cry out.
The air whooshed out of her lungs as he paused, his entire length buried within in, her walls still pulsing with the pleasure of her orgasm. She’d never felt anything like this before.
“How are you so tight?” he groaned. But she didn’t want to talk. She wanted to feel more pleasure.
She moved her hips upward, needing him to plunge in and out of her. He placed a hand on her hip and held her in place. “Wait,” he groaned as his eyes closed and his head leaned back, a look of utter pleasure filling his face.
Finally, he began moving, pulling his hardness almost completely from her before he pushed back hard inside, rocking her entire body. This time, they both groaned together at the pure pleasure of the movement.
Barely before her first orgasm ended, she felt an immediate pressure build again, and her eyes widened as she looked into Byron’s eyes, his narrowed as he began moving faster, filling her over and over again.
Then he leaned down and captured her lips as he grabbed her hip and drove hard and fast within her needy body. A cry was wrenched from her and he took it greedily as she began convulsing around him, an orgasm even more intense than her first.
He thrust inside her again, and then once more, before his body tensed and he buried his mouth into the curve of her neck, his loud groans vibrating against her skin as she felt him pulse inside her.
After an endless amount of time, Byron’s body sank against her, their skin hot and slick, their breathing shallow, their initial hunger sated.
“I’ve never…,” she began to say before letting her words trail off. She couldn’t tell him that.
“You’ve never what, McKenzie?” he asked against her ear, his tongue tracing the outline and making her shiver.
“Nothing,” she murmured. She couldn’t believe the way her body was responding to his tongue.
“I have ways of making you talk,” he said. His mouth returned to her neck and started sucking on the tender skin there.
“And I have ways of making you forget to question me,” she warned, her hands sliding down his back and over the firm muscles of his buttocks.
“Witch,” he said so quietly she wondered if she’d heard him right.
But she felt a twitch from his still buried erection, and then she felt him begin to move again. All talking was forgotten as he began making love to her once more.
She was terrified. This was something she could get all too used to.
Chapter Twenty
Two nights and one full day of pretty much nothing except for making love. In the bed, in the shower, on the small kitchen table, the couch, in front of the fire and more… Byron was pretty certain they had christened every square inch of the cabin.
Yet still he stood on the front porch, watching the soft morning sunrise, and he wasn’t sated. He wanted more. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d spent so much time with one woman, made love so many times, and still felt unsatisfied.
Not that he wasn’t pleasured beyond his wildest imagination each and every time. But as soon as they were finished, he could take her again, and again, and again… He was beginning to wonder whether he’d ever get enough of this small but surprisingly strong woman.
If he didn’t get himself under control soon, he would be no better than his pathetic father. Is this what had happened to his dad? Had the man been so infatuated with Byron’s mother that, after she had control over his body, she had been able to destroy him? It seemed a very likely conclusion to make from the way things had ended with his parents.
Okay, the thought of making love with any woman other than McKenzie turned his stomach. But that was something he would have to change. Maybe he needed to just cut this off, to push her out of his life, at least if he wanted to keep his sanity intact. He didn’t need answers to who she was. Screw all the mystery.
It was settled, then. He was going to fly McKenzie back home, release her from her contract with him, and never see her again.
Even though she was friends with his sister-in-law, he could easily avoid her. But just the thought of acting that way infuriated him. Since when did he, Byron Knight, ever need to hide from anything or anyone? He hadn’t done it since he was a child and witnessed the gruesome murder of his parents. That day had hardened him, and he was determined to stay hard.
As he shifted uncomfortably on the front porch, he realized he was already hard in other ways. They had last made love only a few hours before, and it was taking every ounce of strength within him not to march into the cabin and wake her by sinking deep within her tight body. And how could a madam be so tight? He’d barely fit inside her the first time.
There was so much that didn’t fit when it came to McKenzie. And the entire point of this weekend had been to exorcise her from his system, not find more questions he feared he would not ever receive answers to. He’d planned on satisfying his body’s needs first, and then interrogating her.
He’d never gotten around to the interrogation part.
He had to stay focused, to remember who and what she was. She had messed in the life of his brother. And if a person messed with one of the brothers, then they messed with all of them.
Tyler and Blake were the only blood he had, the only true friends he had, the only two people on the planet he would take a bullet for. Oh, wait. There was also Justin, so Byron guessed it wasn’t only the three of them anymore. He now had a nephew, and soon another niece or nephew.
No matter how hard he tried to resist opening his heart, he was being forced against his will to do so. He hadn’t wanted to like Justin, not at all. He was an interloper. But how could he not adore the small boy with so much strength? The kid reminded him a lot of his brother, even though his brother hadn’t known of the boy’s existence until last year.
Why did everything have to change? Why couldn’t they have just gone through their lives with no bumps in the road? His eyes narrowed. Because Blake had met McKenzie Beaumont.
The creaking of the door alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone, but even without it, he would have known. Though he sure as hell didn’t want to, Byron had a sense of when McKenzie was around. He felt her presence.
But it didn’t fill him with anger. Instead, the feel of her satin-encased arms wrapping around his back brought peace to his thoughts. Her open hands slid beneath his shirt and caressed the skin of his stomach as she leaned into his back.
“Morning,” she mumbled.
The raspy sound of her sleepy voice sent lust surging through him. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath as he tried to tamp down his desire.
“You’re up a lot earlier than I thought you’d be,” he said. Almost against his will, his hands lifted to settle over hers, and his fingers caressed her soft skin.
“I woke up cold without you lying there,” she whispered.
Her words should again have sent terror through him, or anger, or anything other than an odd sense of joy. He didn’t want her to get used to him being there. This was all temporary, and though she’d said she knew the score here, she was getting too familiar already.
So why wasn’t he pushing her away?
“I have an obligatory party I’m attending next Friday. You will come with me,” he found himself saying. Huh? Yep, he’d called it right. Insanity.
Her hands stilled on his skin and her body tensed the slightest bit, before he felt her take a breath and relax. She resumed caressing his skin, but he could feel the tension inside her.
“I would rather not.” He waited, but she didn’t elaborate.
Turning, he leaned against the rail of the porch and tugged her into his arms, needing to look in her eyes, to see what she was trying to hide.
“I want you to be there.” If he wanted it, then she should know that’s exactly what he would get.
“No, you don’t. I’m not good with parties, and I’m sure you have a list of people willing to go with you.”
Anger flashed through him again. She was right. That was far too much like a date, and they weren’t dating. They weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. They weren’t anything to each other. He should be grateful she was refusing him.
So why wasn’t he?
“I know what I want. If I said I want you there, then I want you there,” he said, a dangerous edge to his voice.
She was quiet for a moment as she looked at him. “We both know what we’re doing, Byron. Don’t try to make it something it’s not.” She spoke with a smile, but he knew she wasn’t kidding.
Before he could make a response, a wicked gleam lit her eyes, and she pulled from his grasp, then dropped to her knees, and reached inside the sweats he wore. She pulled him free, and the cool air didn’t affect his hardness at all. No shrinkage.
“What are you doing, McKenzie? People could be walking by,” he said, turning to look out at the trail, which was only a few hundred yards from their cabin.
“Then you’d better shield me,” she said before taking him in her mouth and making him forget everything they’d been talking about.
Within minutes, Byron felt his release coming. “Stop now,” he groaned, but his fingers were tangled in her hair.
His words only served to spur her on and speed her up, and he barely managed to muffle his cry as he spilled his seed inside the warm recesses of her mouth. After he stopped shaking, he pulled her back up into his arms, covering himself as he again tried to figure out what the hell she was doing to him.
“Your turn,” he said, and he lifted her into his arms and carried her inside the cabin. But before he stopped speaking altogether, he delivered this warning: “You’ve only managed to delay this conversation, McKenzie. You will agree to go to the party with me.”
Maybe later, when he wasn’t in a sexual haze, he might realize what a dangerous road he was taking while he explored his infatuation with one McKenzie Beaumont.
Chapter Twenty-One
It’s a good thing I don’t spend every weekend like that one,” McKenzie said as they approached her house, a yawn slipping from her before she was able to stop it.
“I thought it was a pretty great weekend,” Byron said. He seemed offended somehow.
This was how he’d been behaving since they’d left the cabin in Idaho, though — grumpy and more like the man she had first met than the man who’d let down his guard for a couple of blissful days.
“It’s not that I didn’t have an amazing time. It’s just that I need sleep. Most humans do, you know,” she said with a false laugh. The closer they got to her house, the more downcast she felt. Their time was just about up.
She had managed to distract him from his discussion of next Friday’s party, but only because she knew he would regret inviting her the minute they separated. He was on a sex high right now, but McKenzie had no illusions about where she stood with Byron Knight.
They were consenting adults, they’d had great sex, and now it was done. They weren’t a couple, never would be a couple, and it was something she needed to keep reminding herself of. Yes, they’d managed to spend a couple of days together without the walls caving in around them, but that didn’t in any way mean that they were compatible.
Anyone could have sex. It was how the species survived. But men like Byron Knight didn’t settle down, and if they did, it certainly wa
sn’t with women like McKenzie. He would never look past the fact that she’d owned an escort service. He was an important businessman, and she was just dipping her toes in the waters of what she considered the legitimate business world.
She needed to appreciate the good weekend, finish her time at Knight Construction, and then get on with her life. The last thing she needed to do was go on a real date with Byron. That would put ideas in her head — ideas she shouldn’t be considering if she cared for her mental health.
After pulling into her driveway, Byron shut off his car and turned to face her. “Invite me in, McKenzie.” The intensity in his voice nearly made her issue that invitation.
At the last minute she managed to keep her mouth shut as she tried to form the right words. “We both know that’s not a good idea. I invite you in, we head straight to my bedroom. We had our weekend, Byron. It’s now time for us to go back to our real lives,” she said as she undid her seat belt.
She had to get away from this man — the sooner, the better.
“You know that you aren’t ready for this weekend to end,” he said, reaching over and cupping her neck before she could exit the car. “Your body knows what I can give it, so stop fighting me every step of the way.” That sounded like a command.
“My body — along with every other part of me, including my muddled brain — is exhausted,” she replied, only partially joking.
He paused before a beautiful smile filled his sensuous mouth. “Then we will just have dinner — no sex,” he said, looking at her as innocently as he possibly could.
Though she knew she should say no to him, she found herself nodding. He was right. She wasn’t ready for their weekend to end. It didn’t count as a date when it was still Sunday and they hadn’t parted yet.
Even she had to scoff inwardly at that absurd rationalization for spending more time with him now that they were back home. She knew that the more she prolonged this, the more it was going to batter her fragile heart. But knowing what was best and acting accordingly were two entirely different things.
