‘Please,’ I beg him.
‘Shh.’
I almost want to cry—hell, my eyes are pricking. It’s punishing, cruel to keep me in this heightened state. To keep his touch so steady, so measured, so fucking controlled.
He keeps doing it, slipping in and out, in and out, in and out. He doesn’t change the tempo, just keeps going as his eyes stare down into mine, almost daring me to move, to plead.
‘Such a good girl, such a pleasingly, good girl,’ he teases into my eyes. ‘What is it? Are you desperate? Am I driving you crazy?’
I let my eyes do all the talking because, I swear to God, I’m going to come any moment. It doesn’t matter that his rhythm doesn’t alter, that his pressure doesn’t vary; every muscle in my body is drawn up tight as it savours as much as it can, using it to feed the spiralling warmth, the delicious tension.
‘That’s it, baby, can you feel it?’
In. Out. In. Out. Oh, yes.
‘Bet you wish it was my tongue flicking over your clit. My cock buried deep inside your pussy. My teeth tight around your nipple.’
A whimper escapes, a moan, a cry of pleading.
‘Let me come.’ It rushes out of me and he chuckles low in his throat, the sound broken by the heavy doors to the castle swinging shut. I hear voices. A man and a woman’s laugh. I start to lower my arms and Jackson steps forward swiftly, one hand taking hold of my wrists above my head, his other staying buried within me as his body covers me head to toe and the tree shields us from view.
‘Who is it?’ I whisper as footsteps approach, the steady crunch of gravel ringing through the night feeling so much louder than it truly is with the fear of being caught like this.
‘No idea.’ He is so close his mouth brushes against my forehead, his cologne assails my senses, his fingers flex between my thighs, calling me to their presence, the immediacy of what had been my climax. He resumes his intimate caress and my eyes shoot to his in question: Are we doing this? Still?
His answer is a grin so full of daring and I resume my obedience; I do not move against his fingers, I do not speak. I listen to the couple talk, the man’s soft murmur and the woman’s flirtatious laugh. I let the risk rise with the ebb and flow of my own pleasure.
He releases my wrists to cup my chin and drags his thumb over my lips. I want to take it inside my mouth but I daren’t. My arms ache above my head, urging me to lower them, but I daren’t. My body wants me to whimper, wants me to beg, but I daren’t.
My eyes sting more—the denied climax, the crazed battle of wills...it’s too much, all too much.
He slips his thumb inside my open mouth, over my tongue, and drags it out, spreading my saliva over my lips as he watches. And then I feel it, the pressure, the ache, coiling up through my toes, my calves, my thighs, my arse, my pussy and I’m going to come. My eyes widen, I give a tiny shake of my head; I hear a twig snap, so close, too close, the guy’s chuckle—Fuck.
I shake my head more, my eyes pleading into Jackson’s warning him, telling him I can’t stop this.
He shakes his head back at me. No.
I nod and pant, my nails clawing into my hands as I grip them tighter above my head, and I can’t hold on, I can’t—fuck! The explosion inside me is fierce, unrelenting, my body thrashes against his. His mouth crushes mine and I realise I’ve cursed aloud, but hell, I don’t care, I’m delirious on this. On us. It’s still within me, pulsing hot, every wave, sharp, incessant, rolling.
His tongue is fierce as he delves inside my mouth, his head slanting over me as he goes in deep, punishingly deep. I hear the woman smother a giggle, hear their footsteps retreat, but they might as well be as far away as England for all I care.
‘I told you not to come,’ he rasps against my lips. I can hear his displeasure, feel it in the roughness of his kiss. ‘They could have heard you.’
I look up into his blazing gaze. ‘If you were so worried about that you should have stopped.’
His throat bobs, the crease between his brows severe. ‘Hell, I couldn’t stop.’
He couldn’t stop and it bothers him. Really bothers him. Power floods my veins. I did that to him. And now I want nothing more than to see him lose it so completely at my hand, my mouth.
‘Lucky I like to live on the edge; let’s see if you can keep quiet while I do the same to you...’
I go to lift his kilt and he moves lightning-fast, crushing me to him as he forks one hand through my knotted hair and tugs my head back.
‘I told you, that’s not how this works.’
‘Ah, yes,’ I say softly, the tug of his hand shooting pleasure straight to my clit. ‘Your bedroom rules.’
‘Don’t test me, Caitlin.’
He thinks I’m making light of them...
‘What if I like testing you? What if I want to see the stoic Jackson crack?’
I think about all he has said—don’t push me, don’t test me, I want you to be safe. The thrill of what it can all mean pulses through my body.
He heaves in a breath. ‘No, you don’t.’
I wet my lips slowly, surely. ‘Oh, yes, I do.’
He yanks my head back further, his kiss rough, controlling, and when he pulls away this time my legs are like jelly, my head’s dizzy, my pussy’s aching with reawakened need.
‘Go back inside.’
My stomach plummets. ‘But—’
‘Go to your room.’
‘Like hell—’
He presses a finger to my lips and I frown against it.
‘When I come to you, I want you naked and standing before your bed.’
My eyes widen as my frown lifts and I pull his finger from my lips. ‘What if someone else walks in?’
‘Are you expecting someone?’
My heart gives an excited little squeeze. ‘No.’
‘Good.’
He steps back and my body instantly pines for the heat of his. I concentrate on righting my dress and he comes to my aid, his hands gentle and contradicting everything else about him.
‘Now go.’
He breaks away, turns his back to me, but not before I catch a glimpse of his very real need still thrusting beneath his kilt and I smile as I walk away. I smooth out my dress, my hair—I’m sure I look truly ravaged, but the excited buzz in my veins stops me from caring.
I’m already fantasising about what’s to come. Tonight, tomorrow, the day after. What fun we can have in three days...
So much fun that maybe he’ll realise we could have so much more.
If he’ll give us a chance, a real chance at a future.
No feelings, Cait, remember. This is nothing more than sex. A finite arrangement.
Unless, of course, we both decide otherwise...
CHAPTER FIVE
I DIDN’T TELL her how long I’d be and as I glance at my watch for the umpteenth time I know it’s been half an hour, but walking back into a wedding reception teeming with people didn’t appeal. Not when I’m in this torrid state of limbo. Between running and staying.
And hell, if I’m honest, the idea of her standing as I commanded, naked and waiting...
I’m the master of building anticipation; my lovers come back to me for just that. But, with Caitlin, she’s not just another lover, and I’m also not naive enough to put this entirely down to building her sexual thrill. It’s my own too, wrapped up in fear.
Fear of crossing a line we can’t come back from.
I try to bury the thought as I scan the landing outside her room. It’s deserted save for the eyes that follow me from the antique portraits lining the walls—I run a finger through the inside of my shirt collar. People from years gone by, all seeming to add to my own threatening judgement, telling me that this is a bad idea, that I should keep on walking. That I should get to my own room, lock the door and stay there until this fire inside m
e subsides.
I blow out a breath and rake my fingers through my hair. There’s no calming this fire though, not now I’ve let her in, seen her, felt her come around my fingers, witnessed her all doe-eyed and languid in my arms.
Caitlin. Fun and flirty Caitlin. All mine.
I conjure her up, naked and waiting. I plan out what will happen. It’s part of my control: no surprises.
I live my life to the full—I’ve been told, recklessly. But, when it comes to sex, I’m careful. I keep a close leash on everything: my need, what I’ll permit, what I’ll do, and what I’ll let them do in return.
That way it never blurs into something more.
Something that can’t be contained. Something that has the power to hurt. I’ve been there, done that, and I’ll never be that weak again.
Yet my hand still trembles as I reach out for the door handle to her room. Trembles. Fucking trembles. I don’t shake, I don’t get edgy, I don’t let anything bother me that deeply. But this...
The power of anticipation isn’t over her, it’s over me right now, a thrill that far surpasses anything I’ve ever known. I take a second to calm the fuck down and strain to listen through her door.
Nothing.
Will she even be there? Or will she have taken the opportunity to run while she still can? As she should. As I should want her to.
Only I don’t.
Footsteps down the hall, voices approaching, spur me into moving and I swing open the door, step straight in and—
I freeze. Hell, the whole world freezes.
I’m barely aware of flicking my wrist to swing the door closed again. Barely aware of the noise of the party still underway downstairs, barely aware of anything but her. My ears fill with the rapid beat of my pulse as it pounds in my head, the words stupid and naive pounding with it. What the hell am I doing? How did I ever think I could keep this under my control?
I try to take in air; I try to steady the vibration that runs through my rigid body and do what I can to ease the strange stuttering in my chest, the instant punch of heat, desire and a far more emotional response that would have me running for the hills if I was capable of it.
She’s naked. Just as I instructed. All brazen and coy at once, her arm hooked around a footpost of the four-poster bed behind her, her body entwined with it as she stares at me. And then she moves, a smile lifting her lips as she raises one hand to her mouth and hooks her French-tipped thumbnail in the gap between her teeth.
Is it a nervous gesture on her part or a seductive one? Damned if I know, but the effect it’s having below the waist tells me how I see it and I wonder if she knows it too. Knows that for six years I’ve fantasised about that gap, of probing it while I fuck her and go wild with her, and only her.
My breath shudders out of me as I do my utmost to regain control but, hell, I can’t stop drinking her in. The soft light cast by the bedside lamps plays over her skin, creating a captivating contrast of dancing shadows and gold.
She’s freed her hair from its knot and it’s wild once more, blazing like a true fire. Her breasts are teasingly concealed beneath her arms as she keeps herself attached to the post, one foot crossing in front of the other, enhancing the slender curve to her waist, the pop of her hip and partially concealing the teasing strip of hair I glimpsed outside.
She’s like a painting. A truly magnificent, emotive painting. Pure temptation, all seductive and warm, and the sense of something tender, something alien, grips me. I snap my eyes away, to the bed behind her, but it’s no less evocative. The sheets are all ruffled, as though she’s lain in it already and writhed, her hands fisted in the deep-red satin, pulling at them as her pleasure builds.
‘You took your time,’ she says, tugging my eyes back to her.
‘Miss me?’
I throw the question back at her, the same teasing line she delivered on the dance floor, and her smile is answer enough.
Fuck this. I throw off the conflicting sense of right and wrong, what’s good and bad. What I should want for her, from her, and what I actually do. Six years of keeping this caged only to lose it now, in her bed, at Ash and Coco’s wedding of all places.
And I know Coco will crucify me, Ash too, if they think I’ve fucked with her, dragged her into my twisted world.
But hell, they’ve found their happiness; they have it all. Surely I can have one night of insanity.
She asked for three though...
I move before the point registers, before my debate can take hold further, and shuck my jacket. I head for the grand mahogany dressing table that’s likely as old as the bed, as old as the castle even, and focus on the mundane, the antiquated beauty of the room. Not her. Anything but her.
I keep every movement slow and steady. I hang my jacket over the back of the dressing table chair, test its sturdiness, assess its anchor points... Yes, many a play routine could be satisfied here. But then I look to the four-poster; it’s the real deal.
It’s perfect.
The posts have an intricate pattern carved into the wood, weaving in and out progressively, providing sections slender enough for what I have in mind. Especially with her wrapped around it like she is now, all resplendent and waiting. Anticipating.
I pop open the buttons of my waistcoat and watch her tongue brush the back of her thumb as she keeps that nail hooked teasingly between her teeth, her eyes fixed on me.
‘Saving me a job?’ she murmurs against it.
‘You could say that.’
Though the truth goes much deeper and she doesn’t need to know it. No one does. Save for the woman who instilled the need in the first place and I dismiss her as readily as I strip the waistcoat from my shirt. I feel my eyes go to the mirror before me, wanting to see what she sees, what puts that glint of need there, but I don’t dare.
I don’t want to see my reflection looking back at me.
I don’t want to see the judgement, telling me to leave.
I don’t want to see the carnal longing that exists either, driving me to do this.
I’m twenty-six, Jackson, I think I can decide that for myself.
Her words, not mine. And I know she said it to reassure me, to draw attention to the fact that she’s a woman, not some child who doesn’t know her own mind. But I feel so much older—jaded, more like. Ten years and it might as well be an eternity. And she’d laugh if she knew how I feel, I know she would.
In the club I’m Jackson. The easy-going, easy smiling, easy teasing, hell, even easy listening Jackson. Everything is as light and as fun as you need it to be. Me included.
But we’re not in the club now; we’re in the real world and my façade, if you can call it that, is gone. This is me.
And I know this is Cait. She’s always been real, open, honest—my total opposite. Perhaps that’s why I’m so drawn to her, why I’m so vulnerable around her...and why I don’t deserve her.
I lay the waistcoat over the top of my jacket as the wave of doubt takes over. Doubt I don’t want to listen to, and as though she can sense my hesitancy she moves towards me.
‘Jackson?’
I drag my eyes to her...and become ensnared by her wide, captivating blues, and the gentle smile that is all the more captivating for the soft hesitation I can read there. I turn my body to face her completely and the sight of her unveiled, no longer half hidden by her stance, makes me drag in air that is filled with her floral scent and I’m almost lost to it, to her.
I shake my head and go for a last-ditch attempt. ‘You’re playing with fire, Cait.’
Her smile lifts to one side. ‘Glad to hear it. I’ve been getting kind of cold waiting for you.’
I shake my head even more. ‘I’m serious.’
‘So am I.’ She pouts, her eyes raking over me as she stops walking.
‘Not everything’s a joke, a tease, a bit of fun...’
Please understand me, please run the other way...
‘No?’ Her eyes flick to mine, her frown as seductive as it is serious. ‘I thought sex was fun. Isn’t that the point of it? To enjoy it, to go wild...to let go.’
My eyes sweep over her—the delicate breadth of her shoulders, the gentle swell of her breasts, her slender waist curving out to her hips, the smallest strip of hair that protects her modesty and that tender force is back, deep inside, spreading.
‘Am I wrong?’ she whispers.
‘No.’ Hell, she’s not. It’s just sex. Forget the guilt, the worry. I dredge the confidence I need from the darkest depths of my soul and hold her eyes as I remove one cufflink then the other, tossing them on the table. ‘You’re not wrong.’
I dare to look in the mirror and my stare is hard, determined. It’s just sex. A fuck. Nothing more.
I fold one sleeve back then the other, feeling her eyes on me, watching, and when I turn to her I’m in control. I’m ready for this. She’d better be too. I move towards her, untying my cravat as I approach and watch the pulse dance in her throat.
Oh, Cait, you have no idea...
‘Hold out your hand.’
I pull the strip of tartan from my collar as she does as I ask, the plump flesh of her bottom lip caught once more in her teeth. I twist the fabric in my hands, fashioning it into a rope, and all the while she watches and waits—obedient, subservient...perfect.
I slip it around one wrist and she sucks in a breath, her eyes flaring into mine. I use it to pull her towards me and she presses her soft, pliant body up against me.
‘You sure you want this?’
Her nod is quick, certain. I want to kiss her parted lips but, the moment I do, this becomes something else, something I’ve not planned...
‘You’re happy for me to tie you up?’
Another nod.
‘I’m not gentle.’
Unwrapping the Best Man Page 5
