“Really? Because I looked for you and saw you leaving.”
“I was there just long enough to see who you are.”
“You didn’t see me at all. You saw what you wanted to see and for a really smart person, that was a shallow way of thinking. You barely knew me. I barely knew you.”
“Do you want to know me, Harper?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You’re leaving again. You won’t help. You won’t—”
“Do you want to know me, Harper?”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve already shown me the parts I need to see and they don’t work for me.”
“I was pissed when I saw you up there.”
“I was pissed when you were gone.”
His hand goes to my jaw and he tilts my face to his. “And yet here we are,” he says, his mouth lowering, lips just above mine, his warm breath teasing me with the promise of a kiss that I shouldn’t want. He’s the bastard by his own admission and we both know he revels in living up to that title. He’s trouble, but my God, I have long hungered for another taste of that trouble.
CHAPTER NINE
Harper
Eric’s mouth closes down on mine and it’s like I’m six years in the past. I’m aware of the divide between us and try to resist, but I can’t. The taste of him is like a drug on my tongue, addictive, sweet, and impossible not to crave. I know this whole “princess” label is all about conquest and division—his conquest, our division. I tell myself this isn’t good. I know it’s not good. I don’t want to be with a man who ultimately hates me and that thought is a dash of cold water on the heat burning between me and this man.
I shove on his chest. “Stop.”
“Are we doing this again?” he asks, his voice husky, rough. “Because I really don’t think either of us wanted to stop then or now.”
“How many times did you stand on a stage or just by their side, Eric? How many times in the years you were part of that family?”
“That family?” he challenges. “You mean your family?”
“We both inherited them. I didn’t ask for them, but you judged me for standing on that stage when we both know you did it, too.”
“I’m not on that stage with them anymore.”
“You were. For years, you were. We both know you were.”
“And you still are.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not. Me being here isn’t about them. I swear to you, Eric. It’s not.”
His fingers slide back under my hair at my neck and he drags my mouth to his. “Tell me later.” I barely have time to inhale the warm breath on my lips and he’s kissing me again, a long stroke of his tongue against mine undoes me, weakens my knees, makes every part of me tingle and ache.
“I need to tell you now,” I whisper when his teeth scrape my lip. “I need you to hear me.”
“Later,” he repeats softly, stroking the dampness from my lips. “I’ll listen.”
“You will?” I pull back to look at him. “Promise me you will because—”
“I will,” he says, his mouth closing down on mine and it’s pure heat and fire. He’s pure heat and fire and I feel the shift in us, the need that pushes us past family and divide. There is no divide right here, right now. There is just me and him and a night that was never finished but needs completion. Every part of me is alive in a way it hasn’t been since I was last with this man. We are wild, hands touching and tongues tangling, but then suddenly there’s a shift between us again and his hand settles between my shoulder blades, molding my chest to his chest.
His lips part from mine and our foreheads come together, both of us breathing heavily, the past between us again, so many questions and unspoken words between us with it, but neither of us wants those things to matter. That feeling is here with us, too. The silent understanding that later is, in fact, better. That word complicates our already complicated connection, but there is nothing complicated about the fire between us now or the sense of understanding. We’re alike and yet we’re different. Both pulled into a world we didn’t ask to join, a world that is why we’re here now.
“Eric,” I whisper, and not because I want to break the silence. Because I have this sense he’s waiting on me, needing something I don’t understand.
His answer is instant, not in words, but actions. His mouth closes down on mine, and I feel the snap of tension in him; whatever hesitation was in him moments before is gone, and I welcome the deep thrust of his tongue, the press of his hand under my shirt, his touch caressing over my ribcage. My breasts are heavy, heat pooling low in my belly with anticipation of what comes next, and then his hand is on my naked breasts, fingers plucking my nipple.
He pulls back to look at me, the deep blue of his stare flecked with amber heat scorching me inside and out. He drags my tee over my head, tosses it away, and then that smoldering stare of his is raking over my breasts, devouring me in ways that inexplicably no other man ever has. Just him. My sex clenches and when I grab his sleeve, tugging him toward me, he doesn’t make me wait.
His gaze collides with mine, and the punch of awareness and attraction between us steals my breath even as his hand returns to my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “God, woman,” he says, his voice low, rough, almost guttural, “what the hell are you doing to me?” And this time when he kisses me, I sense the barely caged control, the edge of hunger clawing at him, and me with him.
I reach for the buttons of his shirt and he responds by backing me up until I’m against some wall. I don’t even know what wall, and then he releases me just long enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it. I don’t play shy. I’ve waited too long for this to hold back. My hands go to his hard, really perfect chest, my fingers twining in the light brown hair there. Hair I happen to know forms a line of hair that trails beneath his waistband. I want to lick my way down that path, but there is so much with this man to explore, to experience, even as I contemplate that journey, I’m distracted by his tattoos and my hands move to his new ink, the right shoulder that is now a giant jaguar.
“I love your ink,” I dare.
Shadows flicker in his eyes, an edge to his mood now that isn’t about sex, but that talk we haven’t had. “Do you now?”
“Yes,” I say, looking him in the eyes. “Why is that a problem? What just happened? Because I do love it. Very much, and I want to—”
I never finish that sentence, I never get to tell him how much I want my mouth on his ink and his body before his cheek is pressed to mine, his lips at my ear, breath warm on my neck as he declares, “I want you naked” his teeth scrape my earlobe, “in every way, Harper.”
My lips part on those words that I don’t fully understand and once again, just like six years before, he turns me to the wall and forces me to catch it with my hands. It’s a power thing, I know, and it should perhaps bother me. He wants to control me, he needs control. It’s about him ruling over the royalty, and to him, I’m that royalty and there’s nothing I can do about it. He feels like I’m the girl on the throne who’s fucking beneath herself.
He yanks my pants down and in seconds they’re over my bare feet and I’m completely naked. His hands are all over me, and when he leans in, his lips at my ear, his hands on my breasts, my breath hitches in my throat. “You’re mine now, princess. All mine. You get that, right? There’s no turning back now.”
“I don’t want to turn back.”
“But will you regret this and me?”
“I regret you leaving. That was a bastard move.”
I feel him stiffen, and I don’t care. It was a bastard move. “Is that right?” He pinches my nipples as if punishing me for the truth, and I try to move my hands, but I’m trapped between that wall and his big body, the thick ridge of his erection at my backside.
He folds himself around me, one hand on my hip, the other on my breast. “You have me now, but you might regret it, because this bastard is going to own you before tonight is over, Harper.�
��
CHAPTER TEN
Harper
This bastard is going to own you before tonight is over, Harper.
Those words, Eric’s words, are in the air between us, the implications of me against the wall and him at my back leaving no room to question his intent. He wants control. He has control. His hands go to my shoulders. “How do you feel about being owned?” he demands, and it’s clear we’re talking about a whole lot more than us, naked, tonight.
“They don’t own me,” I say. “They’ve never owned me.”
“You seem pretty damn owned to me, princess,” he says, squeezing my backside and then giving it a hard smack. I yelp at the unexpected sting that he squeezes away even as he steps to my side, caging my legs and cupping my sex. “But right now, you’re mine.”
“Because it turns you on to be the bastard that owns me?” I challenge, hating the way my hands are stuck to this wall, wanting to touch him, wanting to hit him and kiss him and ten more things I haven’t even considered yet.
“I do believe it does,” he says. “Does it turn you on?” He slides fingers against the wet, slick heat of my body. “I do believe it does.” His lips go to my ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it hurt really good. But don’t worry, I’ll only punish you if you ignore my orders.”
“Punish me?” I demand. “What does that even mean?” His finger slides inside me and I bite back a moan as he pulls back that finger.
“I can give,” he says, “and I can take away.”
My gaze meets his. “Two can play at that game, you do know that, right?”
He laughs, this low, sexy laugh that I feel in the clenching of my sex and the empty ache he’s created there. “We’ll see.” He rotates to stand behind me again. “Don’t move,” he orders, “or the next time I put my tongue on you, I won’t finish you.” With that threat, he steps away from me and I can feel the heat of his stare on my naked body, and the ache between my thighs has me clenching them together. There’s a shuffle of clothing and the tear of the condom wrapper, and that’s it. I can’t take it. I’m all for playing a sexy game with this man, but his reasons for all of this get to me. They really do.
I turn around and my mouth goes dry as I find him naked, rippling, long, lean muscle from head to toe, his cock jutted forward, and the condom is in place. He drags me to him, his erection pressing to my hip. “I told you not to move.”
“I’ve already had your mouth,” I say, not even sure where this daring in me is coming from, but it’s alive and well with this man.
His eyes spark with amber flecks but there is something more in his gaze, a knife of emotion that I feel like a cut. “Is that right?” he asks, his voice low, raspy.
“Yes,” I say, and I feel myself shifting with that shift in him, with that emotion he’s bottling up, with something unspoken that I may never understand. Now my voice softens and I react not to the vulnerability I feel with this man, but what I feel, what I need and what I think he needs: every word of truth I can speak. “I hate that you left that night. I’m glad you’re here now.”
His lashes lower and I have this sense that he doesn’t want me to read some emotion in his eyes before he looks at me again and says, “Me too, princess. Me too.”
Those words, a few small words, hold so much implication and they expand between us, stealing my breath. We stare at each other and what passes between us is almost too much, it confuses me. It calls to me. He calls to me and I want to know him. I want to understand him. In some ways, I already do and I believe he knows this. Which is exactly why my hand settles on top of the stunningly created jaguar on his arm, and I don’t miss the very Kingston-like blue eyes, or the fact that his animal is a symbol of the competing car brand. “Is it a fuck you to Kingston Motors?”
“I’m pretty sure my father considers me a fuck you to the Kingston name.” He leans in to kiss me, his mouth lingering just above mine. “I’d have already fucked them if Grayson hadn’t held me back. You need to know that.”
“I know you don’t believe me, but that you could, and you haven’t—I like that about you.”
He doesn’t reply, but seconds tick by before his mouth is on my mouth, and this time, there’s no holding back. He’s not about control this time. He’s about consuming me. He’s about drinking me in and touching me and I don’t hold back. I have wanted him for so very long. I’ve compared everyone to him for no justifiable reason except he was a fantasy bigger than life. A man with a common bond and more of an understanding of who and what I am than he ever knew. We are both wild, burning alive, touching each other, but suddenly, he pulls back, staring down at me, searching my face for something, I don’t know what.
My fingers find his face, the rasp of stubble on my skin as I trace the strong line of his jaw. His hand covers mine and suddenly he kisses me again, a hard, punishing kiss, as if he’s angry. I taste it. I feel it as he smacks my backside again. I yelp and I have no idea why I’m so incredibly aroused by him doing this, but everything with this man is well, everything. And that’s it. That’s why I’m so damn aroused. This is him. He’s more exposed than not. His anger—and he is angry—is a piece of him.
“You want to punish me for who I am,” I accuse, my fingers curling on his chest. “You want to own me because of who I am.”
“I want a lot of things where you’re concerned, Harper,” he says, tangling rough fingers in my hair. “Too many fucking things.”
“The bastard doesn’t get to fuck me. Whatever you do, you own. Whatever I do, it’s with you, Eric.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
His jaw sets hard, his eyes burning a mix of hot fire and anger, I think. He turns me to the bed and before I know his intent, I’m on my knees in front of him. It’s then that I realize just how deep his need to own me is. It’s not about sex. It’s about who I am and who he is. It really is about him owning me and them with me. It’s about this moment. It’s about now. No matter what I do, I can’t change this need in him. I’m not sure I want to change it. Let him own me. In some ways, he has for six long years. I want freedom. I want to know where this leads. I want to know that this man is more than an empty space I can never fill. I want him to occupy it, and me, or set me free.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Harper
I might not like where Eric’s head is right now, but I know until he owns me, until he feels like he has real control, we’ll never have a real conversation. I’ll never know where this is going. I’ll never know why I can’t move on from a night six years ago. And I need to know. I need a lot of things right now with this man.
His fingers slide into my sex and sensations rock my body. I arch into the touch, and his cock slides along the seam of my body, back and forth, back and forth, until—oh God—he’s pressing inside me. He’s stretching me, filling me in a long, slow slide until he’s buried deep. And then he pulls back and thrusts hard.
I gasp and his hands shackle my hips, he’s driving into me, pumping hard and fast, and I want more, so much more, that I forget what that even means—just more of this man, of this night, of everything where he’s concerned. Yes, everything. I forget everything but the pleasure of him inside me until suddenly he stops and leans into me, his face buried against my back, his cock still throbbing inside me. “Eric,” I breathe out, confused, and aching for more.
He shifts and pulls out of me, and before I can recover the shock to my body, we’re on the bed, and he’s pulling me to face him, lifting my leg and pressing back inside me; filling me again, and when he’s buried deep once more, he strokes my hair from my face and tilts my gaze to his. “I decided I wanted you to know who’s fucking you.”
“Because you want me to know the bastard son fucked me?”
“No, Harper. Because I want you to know, that I, Eric, came here for you, not them. Just you.”
My hand goes to his face. “I didn’t come for them. I swear to you, this isn�
�t for them. It’s for me and my father’s legacy. I need your help and—”
He brushes his lips over mine. “Just be here with me right now. This is just us. I’m leaving them out of it. I wasn’t, but I am now. You leave them out of it, too.” He strokes the dampness from my lips. “Just me and you and years of regret, because I do regret leaving.”
“You do?”
“You, not them.” His lips curve. “I should have gotten a box of condoms and then taken you someplace far away and used every damn one of them.”
I laugh and smile, too. “Yes. Yes, you should have.”
His mouth comes down on mine, and the energy shift between us is sharp and yet rich with passion and emotion. It’s gentler. It’s deeper. The press of tongue to tongue a caress, not a demand. The soft sway of his body against mine, seductive and slow. His kisses drink me in, seem to savor the taste of me as I do him, but at some point, I don’t know when we snap. His hand cups my backside and he pulls me hard against him, his fingers stroking my sex from behind even as he pumps into me. We need now. We need so much and yet the feeling is there—the sense that we can’t have more, yet we have to have it. We have to have each other. I have never felt anything like it. I have never wanted anything like this. I have never kissed anyone like I would die without the next lick of his tongue, but I do Eric.
We sway and grind and pump until that rise to pleasure is to the level of no return. I can’t stop the tumble into release and my sex clenches around him, his low, guttural groan my reward, the shudder of his body following. We ride the rush of release together and when we collapse, we hold onto each other, but as seconds tick by, reality seeps into the room, and I can almost feel it trying to pull us apart. He hates the Kingstons and he won’t help me. I know what’s coming. We both know what’s coming and that’s another goodbye, but it won’t come with any more closure than we had six years ago.
The Bastard Page 5
