Make Me Tremble

by BETH KERY

  Titles by Beth Kery

  MAKE ME PART 1: MAKE ME FORGET

  MAKE ME PART 2: MAKE ME TREMBLE

  WICKED BURN

  DARING TIME

  SWEET RESTRAINT

  PARADISE RULES

  RELEASE

  EXPLOSIVE

  THE AFFAIR (ALSO AVAILABLE IN SERIAL FORMAT)

  GLIMMER

  Because You Are Mine Series

  BECAUSE YOU ARE MINE (ALSO AVAILABLE IN SERIAL FORMAT)

  WHEN I’M WITH YOU (ALSO AVAILABLE IN SERIAL FORMAT)

  BECAUSE WE BELONG

  SINCE I SAW YOU

  One Night of Passion Series

  ADDICTED TO YOU (WRITING AS BETHANY KANE)

  EXPOSED TO YOU

  ONLY FOR YOU

  One Night of Passion Specials

  BOUND TO YOU

  CAPTURED BY YOU

  Make Me

  Part 2

  Make Me Tremble

  Beth Kery

  InterMix Books, New York

  AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC

  375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014

  MAKE ME PART 2: MAKE ME TREMBLE

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2016 by Beth Kery.

  Excerpt from Glow copyright © 2015 by Beth Kery.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about The Berkley Publishing Group, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-98822-0

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / April 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Titles by Beth Kery

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Excerpt from Glow

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Harper stood there naked, panting, and completely undone. Her nerves still zinged following an intense climax wrought by Jacob Latimer’s magical hand. But that wasn’t what had her so overwhelmed and shockingly rearoused.

  What had her so awestruck was witnessing his savage abandon as he’d found his own pleasure.

  It’d really happened. All of it. Tension still seemed to roll off his body in waves. He’d jerked off, even as he’d nursed her through a powerful orgasm. Her stomach was wet with his semen. His cock was still clutched in his hand. She looked from his glistening sex to his shadowed face, stunned by how powerful the moment had been for her.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered between uneven breaths.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice hollow with amazement.

  “For the rush.”

  “Oh,” she managed, bewildered. Her impression of him from earlier that evening was that he was typically in consummate control. Unhurried. She didn’t know him well enough to tell him that she’d found his raw, unchecked need arousing. You don’t know him at all, and yet you’re wet with his come and his hand is pressed against your pussy and his finger is inside you. The thought made her tighten around him. His head jerked up. He moved his hand subtly. Much to her horror, she moaned in reanimated pleasure.

  She clearly had lost her mind.

  “I guess it was all kind of . . . unexpected,” she said, reconsidering the strange turn of events of the past half hour. Of the whole evening, for that matter.

  “You showing up here might have been unexpected. This wasn’t,” he said, again circling his hand on her sex for emphasis. She shivered.

  “It wasn’t?” she whispered.

  “No. I thought I made it clear I wanted you,” he replied quietly. “It was you I was thinking about, when you walked up. I had a head start on you.”

  Harper suppressed an urge to laugh. He sounded so calm, talking about something as intimate as being caught masturbating.

  He released his cock. The crown brushed across her belly. Then he was turning her in his arms to face the showerhead. Harper started to question him, but then he stepped closer and reached around her. He used his hands to rinse his semen from her skin. It was a surprisingly gentle gesture, especially when she considered how raw and forceful he’d been as he’d brought himself to orgasm. It distracted her, the feeling of his hands and the flowing hot water, the sensation of his still-formidable cock pressing against her lower back, his balls next to the base of her spine. His last words repeated in her head.

  “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you,” she said, watching his dark hands glide across her stomach and ribs.

  “Hmm?” He’d lowered his head. A shiver coursed through her at the low, rough rumble of his voice near her ear.

  “I didn’t even do anything.”

  “You exist. That’s enough, trust me.” Her cheeks heated at the warm amusement she heard in his tone. It’d been a potent compliment, genuine or not.

  “I really did come to get my purse.”

  “If you say so.” He reached around her and turned the tap, shutting off the shower.

  “I couldn’t have known I’d find you out here,” she defended, turning because she’d sensed he’d moved away from her. Her mouth fell open at the moonlit vision of his gleaming, muscular back, powerful, long legs, and a mouthwatering ass. God, he was beautiful. Was it any wonder she’d been so uncharacteristically impulsive? He opened a cupboard, his actions once again unhurried and controlled. He turned toward her and she saw he held two towels in his hand.

  “You could have come back in the morning,” he said, handing her a towel.

  “My press pass is in my purse. I have a conference in the morning. I needed it first thing,” she replied, covering her body. He, on the other hand, didn’t bother to hide his nakedness. He used the towel to briskly dry himself with one hand.

  “What would you like to do now?” he asked after a moment, dropping the hand that held the bunched-up towel to his side.

  “Do?” she repeated. To hide her confusion, she busied herself with fastening the towel above her breasts.

  “Do you want to go? Or do you want to stay the night?”

  She looked up slowly.

  “Surely you’ll give me another chance at this,” he said when she didn’t reply immediately. “You’re not going to let that stand as my record.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the shower.

  This time she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. He really was something. So cool and intimidating one moment and yet so self-deprecating the next. She warmed even more when his low chuckle twined with her own.

  “You don’t have anything to prove. I’m . . . quite satisfied,” she said after a pause, a smile lingering on her lips. Very satisfied, in fact. Very curious about what other secrets you hold, what other mysteries you might unlock in my body with the ease of a
master thief. She pushed the incendiary thought aside. A cool breeze rippled over her damp skin. The rush of humor and warmth had suddenly abandoned her.

  “But . . . I really should be going. It’s an early morning for me.”

  He nodded and quickly wrapped the towel around his lean hips. “I’ll just go and get your purse, then.”

  Disappointment flooded her when he didn’t persist in his invitation to stay. In his absence, she scurried to find her clothing. By the time he’d returned, she’d donned her socks, underwear, and pants, and was fastening her bra. It was as if with every garment of clothing she put on, the unreality of what’d just happened grew greater. She glanced up self-consciously when he returned, her clutch purse looking tiny in his big hand. She was glad for the cloak of semidarkness. He bent down and retrieved her shirt.

  “Thanks,” she murmured when he handed it to her. She shoved it over her head.

  “I meant what I said. Before.”

  “What?” she asked, jerking her shirt down over her abdomen. He stepped closer, and she froze.

  “I can make you forget some of your sorrows,” he said. “For a little while, anyway. If you let me. What’s the harm in that?”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “What?” he asked, obviously sensing her unease.

  “This is weird,” she replied in a rush.

  She saw his brow furrow. “That I want you? That you want me?”

  “No, not that,” she said, flustered. She jammed her foot into one of her shoes. “I mean . . . I was told by someone that you usually don’t . . . date local women,” she explained, flushing at the word date. She hid her eye roll by looking down while she put on her other shoe. He didn’t want to take her to dinner and a movie, for Christ’s sake. He wanted her for the purpose of exchanging single-minded pleasure. Which sounded pretty damn exciting at the moment. The thought of his rigid face and bulging arms as he’d made both of them come a moment ago flashed into her mind’s eye, stealing her breath.

  “I don’t.” She looked up sharply. He’d stepped closer. “I don’t like complications.”

  “And you don’t think I’ll give you any?” she wondered in amazement.

  “I think in your case, the complications are unavoidable,” he replied, his voice deep and rich and weighty in the still night air.

  She realized he’d calmly extended his arm, handing her the clutch. She swallowed thickly and reached for it.

  “What do you say, Harper?”

  “I’ll think about it,” she muttered, head bowed.

  His voice just now had sounded beguiling. Close. She didn’t want him to kiss her again. She didn’t want to give in to a powerful urge to kiss him. This whole situation was already murky and confusing enough without adding more of the intoxication of his mouth and touch into a serious decision. “Good night, Jacob.”

  She moved past him.

  “Let me see you home, at least—”

  “No,” she said, biting her bottom lip when she realized how abrupt she’d sounded. She glanced back at him. His face looked shadowed from this angle. Had she offended him? “The beach is well lit all the way to my place. Good night,” she repeated, feeling foolish. He didn’t reply.

  She flew down the stairs to the moonlit beach, highly aware of his stare on her back. Maybe it was her imagination—because she refused to look back to confirm it—but she had the distinct impression he watched her for her entire trip home.

  * * *

  The complications are unavoidable.

  The thought kept reoccurring in his head as he lay in his bed later, moonlight spilling into his suite and onto his naked body. He’d already masturbated again, a fact that didn’t surprise him at all.

  He’d screwed up out there. That was a simple, unavoidable reality. The wise choice would be to avoid Harper altogether. If he couldn’t see fit to be wise and restrain himself—which apparently, he couldn’t—then his other choice would be to possess her completely . . . to get her out of his system once and for all.

  Instead, he’d acted like an impulsive, clumsy teenager, getting so turned on by the feeling of her wet, supple body and the taste of her sweet mouth beneath his, he’d jerked off on her.

  He grimaced at the exciting, embarrassing memory.

  He’d given her the wrong impression of him.

  Or had he?

  Was that yearning, desperate kid really still alive in him?

  Jacob didn’t think so. But still . . . even though Jake Tharp was dead to him, he was having an effect on Jacob’s present reality. Somehow . . .

  It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d thought Harper McFadden was worth the complication. It probably wouldn’t be the last. In the case of himself—Jacob—the complication was risking his exposure. His shame. His weakness.

  For Jake Tharp, the stakes of getting involved with Harper had been even greater. In helping that girl so many years ago, Jake had risked nothing less than his own life.

  Chapter Two

  Twenty Years Ago

  Jake woke up to the sound of the dogs barking furiously. His uncle, Emmitt Tharp, ran one of the largest dogfighting and gambling operations in the Appalachians. Emmitt’s run-down house, barns, dog cages, and fighting rings were well hidden in the mountains and forest from the police.

  There was no fight scheduled tonight, though; no dozens or hundreds of loud, drunk men arriving in their pickups or with the boat service Emmitt provided, which dropped off gamblers at nearby Shaker’s Landing. The dogs had been alerted to something—or someone—on the property, though. Jake sat up on the thin mattress when he heard Jarvis, one of their more aggressive dogs, bawl extra loud.

  Maybe the mountain lion that had prowled around the dog pens last summer had returned? If so, it’d be best to leave dealing with it up to Emmitt. Jake hated his uncle, and feared him more than anything he could imagine, but one thing was certain: Emmitt could handle a mountain lion. Emmitt Tharp was as lean, mean, and strong as the bred killers bawling right now out in the pens.

  Word had it that Jake’s father, Emmitt’s older brother Marcus, had been even taller and stronger than Emmitt, a rumor that fascinated Jake. He still doubted it, though. Emmitt was brutal, but he was still the most physically intimidating, fastest, and fearless man Jake had ever known. His uncle was probably already shaking off his nightly whiskey drunk and reaching for his shotgun at this very moment.

  But Jake heard no sounds emanating from the direction of the living room, where Emmitt usually passed out every night in front of the television. His uncle must have really overdone it this time. Jake usually made himself scarce once the bottle left the cabinet at around four o’clock every afternoon. Hell, he made himself as invisible as possible from Emmitt all the time.

  Earlier that afternoon, he’d tried to make an escape to the cave to avoid his yelling and his heavy hand for a few blessed hours. Emmitt had been unusually aware today, however, grabbing Jake by the too-long hair at his nape when he’d tried to slink silently out the back door.

  “You’re not sneaking off anywhere to play whatever games you play all alone. I’m starting to think you’re a little faggot. Probably dolls you’re playing with out in them woods,” his uncle had said around a wet, sagging cigar.

  This was a new bullying theme Emmitt had taken a liking to since Jake turned thirteen: insinuating he was gay because he was five foot two and skinny as a rail.

  Using his hold on Jake’s hair, Emmitt shoved all eighty-three pounds of him. Jake flew across the worn wood floor of the living room, landing with a thud against the wall. He scrambled to his feet quickly, ignoring his pain, so that Emmitt wouldn’t find him in that vulnerable position. Jake prayed daily for a bigger, stronger body so that he could start to defend himself against his uncle . . . but was starting to worry it’d never happen. He’d be weak and helpless forever.

&
nbsp; “You get on back to your room and don’t come out until tomorrow. If you do, I’ll make you sorry. You know I will.”

  “But I gotta see to Mrs. Roundabout.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that born cold bitch. She’s done for. Only use she has is to train the other dogs on her.”

  Terror had shot through Jake’s veins at that. Mrs. Roundabout had suffered multiple puncture wounds, severe bruising, and a shattered thighbone in a recent fight. A pit bull’s jaws were lethal, horrible weapons. Dogfights were brutal, and not primarily because of the dogs’ savagery. In Jake’s unvoiced opinion, the true offenders were the men who got off on the violence.

  He’d been terrified when Emmitt had declared two weeks ago that Mrs. Roundabout would go in the ring. It’d been nearly two years since the frisky brown and white puppy had been unfortunate enough to be brought onto Emmitt’s property. Jake had hid his bond with the dog as best he could but his efforts were useless—just like most things were when it came to caring about something in the vicinity of Emmitt Tharp.

  After the fight, Emmitt had left Mrs. Roundabout to heal, suffer, or die. Each was the same to him. But Jake had silently set up a bed of sorts for her in one of the barns and was tending her as best as he could with limited supplies. At the edge of his awareness loomed the idea that he was just prolonging the dog’s agony, but he refused to give up hope. Emmitt hadn’t interfered with Jake’s doctoring of Mrs. Roundabout until now, mostly because the situation had been beneath his notice. But he’d just called Mrs. Roundabout cold, which meant Emmitt believed she was born not to fight. Emmitt had no use for a cold dog . . . except to use her as a patsy for the other dogs to sic on, to nurture their killer instinct for the ring.

  “She’s not cold,” Jake insisted, knowing the only way he could try and save Mrs. Roundabout’s life was to defend her as a worthy contestant for the ring. “You saw her fight—”

  “I saw her cower and whimper, just like you. No wonder you like that bitch so much. Two of a kind,” Emmitt had bellowed, shoving Jake toward the hall. “Get back in your room and stay put. Don’t you come out, even for food, until I say so. Hear?”