Summer Heat: A Steamy Romance Boxed Set

by Carly Phillips

  He eyes the chess set with something like regret. “I’ll leave you to your reading, then. I have some work to finish.”

  “Great,” I manage, my voice tight.

  I’m a little freaked out by Gabriel’s uncanny knowledge of me. Justin got me a tennis bracelet for our last anniversary, shiny and bland. This is officially the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. From the man I hate the most.

  Freaked out, but not enough to leave the room. I sit down and start to read.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  For the rest of the morning I manage to distract myself in the brutal poetry of the Iliad. There’s war and famine, but it feels so far removed. I can get lost in the alien lands. When I stand up again, my back is stiff. I find a clear space on a rug in the corner, near the spiral staircase, and practice my yoga poses from memory. I’m wearing my favorite comfy jeans, soft but still restrictive in my movements. I manage the simple poses, though, to center my mind.

  I’m feeling almost calm, considering the circumstances. Mrs. Burchett brings me lunch on a silvery tray. A wide slice of the chicken pot pie, pleasantly flaky on the outside, still bubbling on the inside.

  It’s only during the restless afternoon hours that I look up the Minotaur.

  Every myth has some basis in fact, which is why the study of ancient history is so important. Archeology can uncover some of the secrets. Myths whisper the rest of what we know. In that way myths provide more room for error and more room for discovery.

  Ancient debts. War. Even human sacrifice. All of these have their roots in fact.

  The Labyrinth was most likely the palace at Knosses, an elaborate architectural triumph that spanned six acres and climbed five stories. One thousand rooms probably accounted for the sense of a maze.

  There are numerous pieces of evidence of human sacrifice on Crete, a morbid side of ancient mythology where I prefer not to dwell. Especially in light of my current situation.

  It’s the Minotaur himself who holds my fascination.

  The child of Pasiphae, Minos’s wife, who fell in love with a beautiful white bull. From their union came a child. A monster in every sense of the word, the Minotaur was banished to the Labyrinth and fed on sacrifice alone. Was the Minotaur some wild historical figure, distorted by the lens of superstition and poetry? Or was he the dark side of King Minos himself, the bastard child born of jealousy and greed?

  These are the questions that plague me while I curl up in the giant armchair, the fire growing dim. There’s a slam from behind me—a door? A whoosh of wind sucks the air from the room. The faint flames from the log vanish, leaving me in darkness.

  The book slides from my lap, hitting the rug with a thump.

  I stand and whirl, facing the door. “Who’s there?”

  “Good evening,” Gabriel says, strolling close.

  I’m not sure when he became so familiar to me, but I can recognize his low voice without seeing him. I can make out his broad shoulders in the shadows. He tosses his jacket on the chair where I sat, and I catch a whiff of his masculine spice.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What I should have done last night. Tasting that…what was it he called you? The ripe peach?”

  I take another step back, but there’s a fireplace. The last dying embers. “Now?”

  “I think a cherry would have been a better analogy, don’t you?”

  Having reached the end of the room, I walk sideways, circling, trying to keep the same distance away. He doesn’t seem perturbed by my retreat. He doesn’t slow at all.

  “Wait,” I say because I need to plan for this. I know he didn’t have to give me last night. That was a reprieve I haven’t earned, a night I already owe. I’m in his debt, but that doesn’t mean I’m able to pay. “Just wait.”

  He laughs. “Almost twenty-four hours and I haven’t touched you.”

  “You want to keep me a virgin,” I say desperately, searching for anything to hold him back. I’m almost to the corner of the room now, on the soft rug with deep orange tones where I did yoga earlier.

  “I didn’t say I’d fuck you,” he says, voice dark with promise. “I want to taste you.”

  Then it’s too late to run. Too late to beg. He’s standing right in front of me, and my back is to the stairs, wooden step digging into my calf. I can see him, scent him, but even stronger is the otherworldly sense of him, the presence that holds me frozen in front of him, thicker than chains.

  “Taste me…where?”

  One blunt finger lands on my lips. “I’ll start here.”

  Then his lips are on mine, hot and soft and persistent. I’m helpless to his demands, opening to him, a sigh of acceptance drifting from my mouth to his. I know that everything happening here is inevitable, almost fated, but this part doesn’t hurt. It feels almost like pleasure, his tongue swiping across mine, his teeth grasping my lower lip in carnal warning.

  His hands cup my face, my neck. My breasts.

  “Here,” he says, his voice rougher.

  Oh God, my breasts. I scramble back, but the stairs catch my feet. His hands grasp my shirt and yank, revealing me. My bra is pushed out of the way. There’s no ceremony to the way he undresses me. It’s not a striptease, it’s a possession. He palms my breasts, feeling their weight.

  “Smaller than they looked,” he says, and I feel the flush creep over my chest.

  I want to forget standing on that platform, being watched by so many men, but I know I never will. It’s etched into my brain—the judgment and the lust, the shame and the control. “You bid on me.” I know I sound defensive.

  “It’s not a complaint,” he murmurs, pressing my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re fucking glorious.”

  The unexpected compliment makes me blink. Then his mouth is covering my nipple, soothing away the burn, hot and eternal. He flicks me with his tongue, back and forth, back and forth, and I whimper with shock. My hand reaches out to grasp anything—and what I find is the carving of flames, of a hand reaching up out of the depths of hell. I’m burning.

  He marks a path of openmouthed kisses over my chest, and I feel conquered. As if he’s mapping every part of my body, owning me. What if he covers every inch? What part will be left for me?

  His hot mouth closes around my other nipple, and my eyes fall shut. “Oh God,” I whisper.

  “That’s right,” he murmurs against me, the tease of his lips as he speaks unbearable. “Let yourself feel good.”

  There’s a though in there—something about sacrifice. About pleasure. Why does he think I wouldn’t let myself feel good? But then arousal arcs from nipples to my sex, and I forget about anything but his body over mine, his rough words promising so much more.

  “Elbows on the steps,” he says.

  I can obey him without thinking. There’s relief and shame, equal parts.

  This position makes my breasts push out. I’m vulnerable like this, made into a living statue for him to touch and lick and suck. For him to bite, clasping my nipple between his teeth with a threatening growl.

  “No,” I moan. “Please.”

  His demonic laugh floats around me, as wild and effervescent as the moonshine from last night. I’m drunk on whatever he’s doing to me, held captive by his desire.

  Then his hand cups between my legs.

  He squeezes. “And here.”

  I shake my head, because that’s different. Kissing my mouth, my breasts. Those are one thing. What he’s demanding is too intimate, and I fight him. He pulls at my jeans, and I twist away. His legs settle around me, locking my body against the stairs.

  My hands clench the front of my jeans. “No, no. Not there.”

  “Elbows,” he says. “Steps.”

  I cover myself for two breathless moments, shivering in doubt. Except I’m trapped against carved mahogany and muscled flesh. What choice do I have? I move my elbows back to the step behind me, pushing my breasts into his face. My cheeks flush in humiliation.

  “Yes,
sir,” he says, his voice gentle.

  “Yes, sir,” I whisper.

  His hands are clinical as they unbutton my jeans and pull down the zipper. He tugs off the jeans with a few rough pulls and tosses them aside. The panties go next. Maybe this part doesn’t matter. He’s seen it all before, and it’s dark in the room. So dark with only the embers to wink at me from the fireplace.

  Except I can’t stop shaking, made so vulnerable by this position, by his command. Made naked by his very will. This is what it means to be owned by someone.

  He pushes my legs apart. Not only a little, for him to touch me, for him to see. He pushes until the outsides of my legs touch the lip of the step. I’m completely exposed to him, spread open for him.

  Blunt fingers nudge that slit—the one worth paying a million dollars for. Nothing’s ever been inside there. Not a man. Not fingers. Not even a toy. He doesn’t linger there but moves higher.

  “Did you touch yourself?” he mutters.

  I turn my face, looking at the black flames. “Yes.”

  “Like this?” he asks, pinching my clit between his thumb and forefinger. The same way he touched my nipple. It feels too rough at first, almost painful, until the heat turns to pleasure.

  It’s hard to talk when he’s doing that. “Not like—more circles.”

  He draws a circle around my clit, and I buck into his hand. “Gabriel,” I whisper.

  “Right here,” he says, voice as dark as the room. “I’m going to taste you right here, feeling your clit against my tongue, fucking you with my mouth until you cry. Do you want that, little virgin?”

  I know the right answer, not only because he wants me to say it. Because I want him to do those things. I want to live. “Yes, sir.”

  He bends his head.

  The first touch of his lips to my clit makes me jump. Only his large hands holding my hips keep me steady as he nibbles his way around my clit. He dips lower, a few large licks over my sex that have my toes curling against the wood.

  “You don’t taste sweet,” he says, pausing. “You taste like I’m fucking dying and you’re the only water around. You taste like goddamn air.”

  He puts his lips back on my sex, and I can’t help the shrill scream that escapes me. God, what is he doing to me? I thought he might want me tonight—maybe we’d have dinner, some semblance of a date. Maybe he would come to my bedroom. I never expected to be caught in the library, to be spread open on the steps of a hand-carved staircase.

  Every stroke of his tongue brings me higher, winds me tighter, until I’m rocking imperceptibly into his mouth. Little grunts escape me, matching the animalistic need in the air. I’m pushing against some cliff, held back by a barrier I don’t understand, I can’t name. I had an orgasm before, by my own hand, but this feels entirely different—a strange and uncontrollable beast.

  I get close with a sharp whimper, and he slows his tongue, sliding down to my lips and back up again. My hand grasps his hair, pulling him where I need him. “Please.”

  “Do I need to tie you down?” he says, his voice thick. “I’d love to do that, little virgin. Remember what I said about fighting me.”

  “You’d enjoy it too much,” I whisper, moving my elbows back to the stairs.

  “Mhmm, and for that you’ll have to wait. You’ll have to wait until I’m done.”

  I groan because I’m right there, standing on the precipice, something sharp pressed into the breach. All I need is a few more glorious touches of his tongue. I’ll burst. I know I will.

  He pushes up from his kneeling position and pulls off his clothes. He’s just as efficient, as unceremonial, as he was for mine. They’re only fabric in the way of what he wants, shed quickly. Then he’s standing there like some magnificent statue, like David, completely unselfconscious. Unlike David, though, his private part juts out from his body.

  He puts his fist around it. “Have you ever sucked a cock?”

  I shake my head. “No, sir.”

  “Ever touched one?”

  “No.”

  With his other hand, he grasps my hair and tilts my face up. “Have you ever seen a cock, little virgin?”

  My eyes grow wide as I fight his hold on me. He tightens his fist in my hair until I squeak. “No, sir. I haven’t.”

  “You’re going to taste mine tonight, understand?”

  One of his knees drops to the stairs near my elbow. He leans close, the tip of his cock an inch away from my lips. He pauses there, waiting. For what? I realize he wants me to meet him that final inch. He wants me to take control in this way—and I do, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to the slick tip of his cock.

  I hear his breath catch. “More, little virgin.”

  My tongue swipes the tip, the same way I felt his mouth on my clit.

  He lets out a rough groan. “You’re going to kill me.”

  There’s wetness inside my mouth that came from him. It’s thick and salty. “You taste like the sea.”

  “Fuck,” he mutters, grasping my hair. This time he doesn’t wait for me to meet him. Instead he holds me steady as his hips cant forward, pressing his cock into my mouth. He pushes past my lips, past the tip of my tongue, until my mouth feels unbearably full of him.

  “You okay?” he says on a rough breath.

  I look up at him and nod, my mouth still full.

  Then he pushes forward, more than I thought was possible. The blunt end of his cock fills my throat, and my eyes water. My body fights him, trying to push him out of where he doesn’t belong. He pulls back all on his own before thrusting in again.

  His mouth on me felt invasive, but it’s nothing like this. I’m pinned to the stairs by the thick length of him, made to taste him, breathe him. As he pulls back, the ridge of him swipes over my tongue, and a small spurt lands in my mouth. I roll it around my tongue like it’s fine wine, as if I can sense what he’s made of by the flavor of his sex. It’s as complex as he is, as impenetrable and sharp.

  He shoves back inside before I can fully drink it down, and I swallow almost around him. He gives a hard sound of pleasure. “I want to be all the way inside,” he mutters, sounding conflicted.

  He isn’t all the way inside? God, he would spear me to my core. I make a mumbling sound of panic, trying to shake my head with his hard length holding me still.

  His laugh is unsteady. “I’ll go easy on you.”

  If this is easy, I can’t imagine what hard would be.

  His hips find a pattern, the same one he teased me with on my clit. He pushes inside me, deep enough to feel my throat, before pulling out again. I get lost in the steadiness of it, like a ship being moved by the waves. There’s no controlling it, no fighting. The only thing left to do is ride them. I let myself be tossed forward and back, pushed and pulled. Used.

  He moves faster, his breath coming ragged. The sound of his need does something inside me, and I feel my inner muscles clench. It’s strange that he can still touch my sex by fucking my mouth.

  His roar begins low, almost a rumble. It ends with a sound of ferocity that reverberates through the library. I’m half-drunk on him, my mouth held open for his invasion. I wait for something that must come next—more of that salty flavor.

  Instead he pulls back. I only have a moment to register the emptiness of my mouth, the ache in my jaw, before I feel the hot spray on my breasts. He paints my chest, my nipple. One high arc crosses my neck.

  Blunt fingers push the come into my skin, rubbing it around. I feel impossibly marked. His. My skin tightens as he moves his seed over it. His, his, his.

  His other hand reaches down to my clit, pinching hard. Fire overtakes me, flames licking my skin. I buck against his hand, making incoherent sounds, pleading. It’s too much, too hard. Too good. He doesn’t show any mercy, rubbing my clit with an intensity that wrings me out. My orgasm twists and twists, pulling tighter, until my muscles ache and my mouth is open in a silent scream.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  He carries me upstairs, cradled
in his arms like I’m something special. I know that I’m only here because he bid one million dollars. I know that he didn’t come inside me only so that I would remain a virgin. Somehow I still feel safe in his arms, as if the pure force of his will can keep reality at bay. We’re wrapped in something soft and pale, hidden from the world as he draws a bath and helps me inside. When I reach for the soap, he puts my hands on the curved edge of the tub. It’s his square-tipped fingers and calloused palms that cover my body with soap. He cleans every part of me, soothing the abraded skin of my nipples, slipping between the slick folds of my sex. My eyes are only half-open. I’m still lost in that place he sent me when I climaxed, a place of pleasure, of peace.

  When he’s done, he helps me step out of the tub. A thick white towel dries me off while I stare at myself in the mirror. How many times have I showered before? How many times have the damp ends of my hair curled against my wet skin? Hundreds, thousands, and yet I look different. Still a virgin—by his definition. Different, though. A woman.

  When he places me on the cool lavender sheets, I turn my face into the pillow and close my eyes. I’m expecting him to leave like he did last night.

  The bed dips. He comes behind me, his arm slung over my waist, his legs tangling with mine. The heavy down comforter covers us both, and I can’t help the sigh of gratitude.

  “Go to sleep,” he says, his voice low.

  Something about the way he says it, I know he isn’t going to sleep. So what is he doing here? Holding me? This isn’t part of paid-for sex. It isn’t revenge. Something else has his arm tightening around me, his face pressed into my half-damp hair.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  He stiffens behind me. “Why would you say that?”

  “It didn’t hurt.” More than that, it felt amazing. Soul restoring. After months of watching my life crumble around me, he built me back up. If only for a few minutes.