Could I make him that desperate?
Not likely, but it was a fantasy that made my breath catch.
“What are you thinking, Your Highness?” he rasped. “You’ve got this look in your pretty eyes, and it’s driving me quite mad.”
I flicked a glance up at him, saw the burn of desire there. He couldn’t fake that, could he?
Slowly, I curled my hand around his cock, stroking him through his underwear. “You always use dirty words and say outrageous things and tease me and drive me insane. I want to do the same thing to you…” I trailed off.
“Then do it.” He gave me a challenging smile.
“I don’t think I’ve got what it takes to drive you insane.”
“Well, it’s a short drive, love … but trust me.” His breath grew raspy, and I tensed as he covered my hand with his own and began to drag it up and down, guiding my caresses. At the same time, he moved into my touch. “You could drive me to distraction quite easily. See, you’re doing it now. Biting your lip that way as you watch the way I’m fucking your hand.”
Sucking in a breath, I jerked my attention from the intimate way I touched him to his gaze And that felt far more intimate, his eyes on mine as he thrust into my hand.
“That was a dirty thing to say, wasn’t it?” Grooves that had probably been a charming pair of dimples flashed as he smiled at me. “I’m fucking your hand, Ella. Say it back to me.”
Mouth dry, I whispered it.
He crooked a finger at me, and I swayed closer. He pushed his fingers into my hair, while the other hand continued to squeeze mine. “There are other things I could fuck. Would you like to know?”?”
An involuntary whimper escaped from me, and I had to clench my thighs together.
His gaze slid to my mouth. “It’s a beautiful thing, having a woman take a man’s cock in her mouth. I enjoy that just as much as I enjoy lying between your thighs and licking your pussy until you come apart for me.”
My knees were getting weaker and weaker, and I sagged on the bed, letting it take some of my weight. “I think…” I looked down at his cock and swallowed. “I want to do that.”
“Say it,” he chided.
“I want to take your cock in my mouth.”
A groan rumbled out of him.
Then he eased away from me, leaving me half leaning over the bed while my breath shuddered in and out of my lungs and my heart hammered against my ribs.
I heard foil rip and looked over.
“What’s that…?” But even as I asked, I felt stupid. It wasn’t like sexual diseases could only be spread one way.
His jaw went tight for a moment, and I looked away. Something snapped, and then his hands cupped my face. “I’m not going to pretend to be anything more than what I am, Ella. I’m a whore. But even if I was just some man who picked you up at the pub, you should make me glove up … always. Be safe.”
His fingers drilled into my hair, and he dragged my head back, pressing a quick, hard kiss to my lips. “Promise me that. Promise me you’ll be safe and smart with … well, whoever you choose to be with when this is all done.”
Mutely, I nodded.
I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to hear the tremor in my voice. After just a few weeks, the idea of being with anybody else left me feeling miserable.
His cock had softened slightly, but when he pulled me against him, I felt him pulse and begin to thicken again, and he eased away, eyes glinting once more with that wicked light.
The mask, I realized.
He wore a mask.
I think I’d just seen the real Sean for the first time a few seconds ago.
It made me ache even more.
Leaning forward, I brushed a kiss against his jaw and then guided him back to where he had been.
He went, and if I was slow or awkward or unpracticed, he didn’t seem to mind.
When I went to my knees, my lips skimming across his navel, he tangled one hand in my hair, while the other gripped his cock and steadied it. “Show me, Ella … show me how you want to have my cock in your mouth,” he said, when I hesitantly kissed the crown.
I couldn’t taste him, and I didn’t like it.
But I could feel him. That, I did like.
He didn’t move, and I found myself missing it. It was like he was muting the rhythm of his hunger, caging it. But I was fumbling with everything as I tried to figure out how to suck on him and learn the way to best move my head.
I figured out fast that when I pressed my tongue along the underside of his cock, he stiffened.
When I sucked on him, he groaned.
He even liked the scrape of my teeth over the head of his cock. I discovered that by accident.
He began to move, both of his hands cradling my head now and steadying me. I quivered, burning up from the inside while my clit pulsed. Unconsciously, I slid my hand between my thighs and began to stroke.
Sean groaned. “Now you’re playing dirty, Your Highness. Are you … fuck, you’re touching yourself, aren’t you?”
Lost in the rhythm, I didn’t answer him.
He tugged me back, using his grip on my hair.
Eyes locked on mine, he went to his knees in front of me and caught my hand. The one still between my thighs.
He brought my fingers to his lips and sucked two of them inside.
“Do it again,” he said gruffly.
I just panted and stared.
He pushed my hand back between my thighs and said, “Do it again. I want to watch.”
Whimpering, I did just that, sliding my hand between my thighs and stroking the hard, pulsating knot of my clitoris. It was a blend of pleasure and torture, the edge so fine, they blurred together.
Sean’s mouth crushed to mine, the tenderness he normally showed me gone.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said, breaking the kiss long enough to tell me. “I want to feel you under me. Can I feel you under me, Ella?”
Lost in the storm of his eyes, I nodded, terror and need mingling inside me.
He stretched me out there, right there, on the floor in front of my pretty, princess bed, guiding my hands to his shoulders before settling between my thighs.
He kept his weight on his hands, save for where his pelvis and mine met.
The brush of his cock against my cleft was a shock, still.
He passed over me, once, and then again.
The muscles in his left arm bulged as he shifted all his weight to the side, reaching down with his right hand to steady and guide his cock.
“You watch me with those big, scared hungry eyes and it drives me half-mad,” he said, voice like raw silk, rough and smooth at the same time. “I want to cuddle and protect you even as I want to pound myself inside you and make you see that there’s nothing you need to fear … not with me.”
The words drifted down, deep, deep, deep inside me, but I couldn’t process them right now.
I could only stare at him as he began to fill me, slowly stretching me anew.
It didn’t hurt the way it had the first time.
It felt weird and wonderful and wicked, and I lifted my hips to deepen the connection. Except he was already pulling out.
I cried out in denial, but then he surged back in. Deeper. Harder.
He did it again. Again. Again.
And he watched me.
He talked to me.
He told me how hot I felt to him, like wet velvet, and he thought maybe I was the best thing he’d ever had wrapped around his cock. Each word, each thrust of his cock inside me pushed me higher, and I curled my legs around him, lifting myself to grind against him, harder and harder.
His words faded away to rasps, then growls and groans, and he moved with an increased urgency.
Abruptly, his weight came down on top of me and his mouth caught mine. A hungry, demanding kiss stole the air out of me—and the scream that had been building.
He pounded into me, just as he’d said he wanted to do.
&nb
sp; I thrust upward and tried to take him deeper, tried to get more, more, more …
His fingers caught my ass cheek and squeezed.
I came.
So hard and fast, his name a choked sob on my lips.
* * *
I woke up in his arms. It was strange and wonderful, and for a while, I kept my eyes tightly closed. My face was pressed against his chest, and I would have pretended to be asleep for as long as possible if he hadn’t stroked a hand down my back and murmured, “I’ve been waiting forever for you to wake.”
“Do you have to leave?” I asked, refusing to let myself tense up.
“No.”
Easing back, I peered up at him.
His eyes were heavy-lidded and warm, soft on my face. Slowly, I reached up and rested a hand on his cheek for a moment before pushing my fingers into his hair. It was soft, and his lids drooped low as I let the curls try to twine around my fingers while I lay there.
Perhaps it was my sleep-fogged brain, but my thoughts wandered easily, and I found myself trying to picture how he’d look if he let his hair grow out, if the curls would be as thick and heavy and wonderful as I imagined they’d be.
I guess that was why I asked. I couldn’t help but think about it. I could see him as a child, buttery gold curls falling to his shoulders as he ran amok in some Scottish village. Maybe his mom and dad ran a pub, then fell on hard times.
“Did you have curls in your hair when you were a boy?”
Sean tensed.
I did, too, realizing I’d tread on ground I wasn’t supposed to. He’d asked me about my past and I’d talked some, about inconsequential, silly things, although he was probing for more. He was a therapist of sorts for me, and I imagined he saw himself as trying to help. But nobody could undo the damage that had been done to me, and I didn’t want pity from him.
But I’d just wanted to know more. I shot him a quick look, going to scoot off the bed. “I’m sorry,” I said, my tone casual. “I shouldn’t have asked anything so personal. This is all business—”
I found myself hauled back up against his chest, his arms wrapped around me in a loose cage. “I’m about to the point where I might scream if you keep throwing the b word in every time you get uncomfortable, Ella,” he said in my ear. “Yes, love. I had curly hair when I was little. It curls like mad now if I don’t keep it short. I’m due for a trim—overdue, really.”
He rubbed his cheek against mine and then looked down at me. “Happy?”
“I like the curls,” I said.
He cocked his head. “Well, now. I think you’re getting better at that. Now … why don’t you just ask?”
I blinked, confused.
“Ask for what you want, Ella. It’s okay. Even if I say no, it’s okay to ask.”
Hesitantly, I asked, “Can you hold off cutting it? For a while?”
“A while.” He rubbed his lips against mine. “If you play a game with me.”
I groaned. Sean and his games.
They usually ended up with me naked. “I’m already naked.”
“True. But I was thinking about breakfast … naked.”
“Breakfast. Naked.” With a nervous laugh, I tried to tug away. “There’s no way I can do breakfast naked.”
“Sure you can. Play a game with me, Ella. If you win, you can have your clothes.”
“I never win.”
* * *
Maybe I never wanted to.
I had to admit it as we ended up cooking breakfast together stark naked.
I made pancakes while he did eggs over easy and bacon—his idea of bacon, which wasn’t exactly the same as the American variety but was still so tasty I didn’t argue. Apparently, he’d brought some groceries of his own with him, because I knew that Paul wouldn’t have bought some of the stuff Sean was whipping up.
He seemed to know his way around the kitchen. Once, as I paused to get some water, he moved to deal with the pancakes, flipping them with an easy grace—flipping them up in the air without bothering to touch the spatula. Half the time, I ended up knocking things out of the skillet, and he made them fly out and caught them, easy as can be.
As long as he didn’t want me eating the black pudding, I was fine with the idea of a traditional Scottish breakfast. He made a face at the pancakes and sighed over the fact that I didn’t want the “pudding stuff” as I’d called it.
“I know what’s in it,” I said.
“Americans have no sense of adventure.” He grinned as he dug into the black pudding.
“If that’s your idea of trying to dare me, you’re losing your touch.” I looked down at my naked self and then back at him.
“That wasn’t a dare, love. That was a game. You lost.”
It was easy and fun, and when I nervously ventured more questions about his past after we’d eaten, he offered short answers—they were truthful, I suspected, but he gave nothing more than what I asked.
He’d grown up in a town, Aviemore. Not quite the small village I’d expected. “It’s a tourist town,” he told me, toying with my hair. “Skiing and the like. A small place, at the foot of the Cairngorm Mountains.”
His eyes went distant, and I caught his hand. “Do you miss it? Home? Scotland?”
“No.” Then he closed his eyes and said, “And yes.”
I waited, quiet, unsure what to say or do, but after a moment, he pulled me on top of him and then rolled, tucking me up against him. We lay on a fat, wide lounge that was nearly big enough to serve as a bed. It was situated under a large window. More than once, I’d whiled away a few quiet hours here, reading and pretending that I was … normal. Just normal.
“Home wasn’t the kind of place anybody would ever miss, Ella.” His mouth was tight. “Not for me. You probably gathered I don’t much care to talk about personal things, and I don’t. It’s not because of you, so don’t think it is. I don’t—and won’t—talk about it except to say no. I don’t miss home. But…” He sighed now, a wistful sort of look entering his eyes. “I do miss Scotland. There’s nothing like the Highlands of a morning, watching the sun come up over the mountains, the way the lochs would reflect the sky back so clear and blue. I miss that.”
My heart ached for him, because although he didn’t show it, there was a pain trapped inside him. I eased up and kissed his chin.
He tugged me against him, and we lay there in silence.
Chapter 7
Sean stole a hairpin as I fought to twist my hair up.
I couldn’t say anything to him because I was on the phone. Rolling my eyes at him in the mirror, I focused on smoothing the heavy, dark strands down. My hair didn’t want to cooperate this morning any more than the bastard I was supposed to be meeting at lunch.
How Mr. Stone’s personal assistant had gotten my personal phone number, I don’t know, but if I found out, heads would roll.
“I don’t care,” I said into the brief silence when she paused to take a break.
“Pardon?” She had a bright, quick laugh, and she used it to good effect, the noise echoing across the speakerphone for a few seconds. “I’m sorry. You’ve got me on speaker, haven’t you? I guess the information isn’t coming out very clear. It’s just that we need to change the venue—”
“I don’t care,” I said again, interrupting her this time. “I heard you just fine … Bree. It was Bree, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Mr. Stone is very eager to accommodate you, El—”
Another fat lock of hair slipped from my fingers. Frustrated, I slapped my brush down on the counter. At the same time, I said, “Bree, you will tell Mr. Stone that Ms. Cruise is willing to discuss his proposal with him, provided he is willing to keep to the appointed time and place we’d initially agreed upon.”
There was silence from the phone.
“Now … I understand that Mr. Stone is a busy man, but I’m a busy woman, and I suspect he’s trying to talk me into approaching the board about a possible merger”—more like a buyout, the man’s mismanaged his company
into the ground—“so he will accommodate me and not drag me halfway across Chicago in the middle of an already busy day.”
I disconnected the phone and stood there staring at my reflection.
My hair was now hanging heavy and straight down my back. I’d have to start over.
Sean came up behind me and caught my hips. “That’s completely fucking sexy, the way you take charge, Ella.”
“I am in charge,” I muttered, making a face at him.
Or mostly.
I controlled the majority shares in the company but left the day-to-day running to others. I didn’t have the head for it and I didn’t want it, period. It was enough that I had to attend the meetings and events and fund-raisers.
“Yeah, and it’s sexy as hell.” He stood behind me, his lips on my neck.
We were on night seventeen. Or we’d just finished it. I tried hard not to count the nights, but at the same time, I couldn’t stop.
We were a month into our … arrangement. I couldn’t call it a deal, and it wasn’t a relationship. Although it felt like one. I found myself thinking of him all the time.
People complimented me more and more these days. You’re looking good, Ms. Cruise. New haircut? Have you been working out?
Men had started asking me out. I told Sean and he’d cocked a brow, stroked a finger across my lips. “I told you that you didn’t need to pay for what you needed, Your Highness.”
But I needed him.
And he wouldn’t have come to me otherwise.
I didn’t tell him that. Nor did I tell him that he’d helped me. Made me stronger. Made me better.
I was slowly finding myself, finding a core of strength I didn’t know I’d had, and it was because of him. Not because of some magical sexual revelation, although the sex was magical.
It was in the way we talked, in the way he talked to me, the way he pushed me, like he wanted me to see something he’d always seen. Maybe it was that core of strength I’d found. Maybe he’d seen it from the beginning.
Whatever it was, even when this was done and I never saw him again, I’d still have that part of me, and I knew I’d be better for the time with him. Even as I was crushed by the pain that already lay in wait.
Thirty Nights with a Dirty Boy: Part 2: A Heroes and Heartbreakers Serial Page 5
