by Jennie Lucas
Laney—frigid! He still marveled at the ridiculous idea. He could hardly believe that any man had convinced her of that. But he was almost glad. Now she was his, and his alone. She’d been trembling and warm, a goddess of desire.
He’d never wanted any woman more.
And he wasn’t interested in a one-night stand. He didn’t want a simple love affair. He didn’t want to spend weeks, months, years pursuing her, convincing her of his love.
Kassius was ready to settle down. He wanted a real home, with the pride of a wife and family in addition to the success of his business empire.
But not just any woman would do. He needed a wife he could trust. An old-fashioned woman who would be devoted to their family and home—and obey his every command. All that, and she had to be so delicious in bed that he’d want no other.
He’d found her.
He could have just seduced her, without playing the game or extracting her promise. But he’d wanted Laney Henry to know exactly what he intended to take from her—and what he intended to give. He wanted their relationship sealed without question, starting as he meant to go on. With her full and complete surrender.
She would be his wife. He’d get her pregnant as soon as possible.
A low groan came from him at the thought of Laney, heavily pregnant, buxom and round. As he’d first pushed inside her, filling her deeply with one rough thrust, it was lucky he hadn’t immediately exploded inside her like a damned volcano.
Now, so deeply inside her, he held himself very still, holding his breath until he could regain control. Then he looked down at her beautiful face, glorying in the moment of his possession as he said huskily, “You’re mine now.”
She opened her big brown eyes, and he saw her pain. The ecstasy had disappeared. Instead, her teeth were clenched. Virgin. Damn it. He cursed himself silently. He’d been so focused on his previous goal of giving her pleasure, then his desperation to satisfy his own pent-up desire, that he’d forgotten it would be painful for her.
He lowered his head. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I forgot it can hurt the first time. I’ve never been with a virgin before.”
“Me neither,” she whispered and tried to smile.
Cupping her cheek, he lowered his head and kissed her lips gently. He tasted the salt of her tears. He kissed them away. At first, she didn’t respond. For long moments, he did not move his hips, just giving her body time to adjust to the feel of him, hard and deep inside her.
Then he heard a sound from her like a sigh, and in his soft, slow embrace, her shoulders started to relax. Tentatively, she reached up and stroked his chest, which was heavily muscled from his years training as a boxer and martial arts fighter.
He shuddered beneath her soft touch. Pressing his body against hers, he gloried in the sensation of her bare skin against his, the fullness of her breasts crushed against his chest.
She was soft, so soft. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a woman with a shape like this, so petite and sensual. Had he ever? He doubted it. His taste in lovers had always been conformist—he’d chosen the same tall, super-slender supermodels as every other billionaire, just as he chose the same type of sports car and expensive yacht and palatial ski lodge. In his business empire, he was an innovator. In his personal life, he’d been depressingly unoriginal.
Until now.
Until her.
He didn’t know how much longer he could keep still. Even after all this time without moving inside her, he was so hard and aching he thought he might burst. Feeling her softly curved body beneath his, so pliable and desirable in every way, he wanted to ride her, hard and fast, until he exploded with joy.
But even that wasn’t enough. Part of what had made him so crazy was watching her face as he gave her pleasure for the first time. Ten million dollars had been hanging in the balance, truly an immense fortune to someone with her background, and yet Laney still hadn’t been able to hide her own passionate nature, or resist her desire.
Kassius wanted more of that. He wanted to make her writhe and gasp all over again. To make her reach a level of ecstasy greater than the one before. To hear her cry out his name. Only that would satisfy him now.
He deepened the kiss, and when she kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, only then did he start to move inside her, inch by inch, with agonizing slowness that tortured him, when all he wanted to do was slam himself into her.
Instead, he swayed his hips back and forth, gritting his teeth as he held himself on the razor’s edge of self-control. Again. Slower. He stroked her.
She gave a soft gasp. He looked down at her beautiful face. Her eyes were squeezed shut with new rapture; her cheeks were rosy and flushed with heat. Her red, bruised lips parted, and he couldn’t resist the invitation. Lowering his mouth to hers, he nibbled her lower lip, flicking her with his tongue. As he kissed her, he finally started to increase the pace he thrust inside her, riding her harder, faster.
He felt the quick rise and fall of her breath beneath him, her lusciously full breasts moving against his chest. She writhed and swayed, and her fingernails dug into the flesh of his shoulders. Her whole body clenched beneath him as she held her breath, then suddenly she started to shake; suddenly she was screaming his name. His name...
It was too much. With a low cry, he thrust inside her one last time, so deep, deep, deep, he lost track of where he ended and she began, filling her to the core, and he felt such mind-blowing pleasure that his own low, hoarse shout joined hers as he exploded.
When he opened his eyes again, the moonlight had shifted slightly across the bed. He looked down, and saw that he was holding Laney’s petite body tightly in his arms. Odd. He’d never fallen asleep in a lover’s arms.
But he’d never had a night like this. Or a woman like this.
Laney’s long dark eyelashes fluttered across her creamy skin, her cheeks still flushed pink from the intensity of their lovemaking as she slept. Kassius felt a strange sense of tenderness as looked down at her, this woman who had fallen in front of his car, the employee of his father’s employee, who somehow already wielded such power over him. She didn’t realize how much.
And he’d make sure she never would.
She smiled in her dreams, her small body naked and warm in his arms, her long dark hair tumbling over the pillow they shared.
Marveling, Kassius took a deep breath. He was the only man who’d ever had her, and the only one who ever would. He would get her pregnant as soon as possible and make her his bride.
She’d be in his bed every night. The thought made him shiver inside. He intended to take long, hard use of her. She almost made him feel like he, too, was a virgin. As if, even with all his sexual experience, he’d never had the full measure of pleasure. Until her.
He had her now. And he never intended to let her go.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING, Laney sighed in satisfaction as she rinsed shampoo from her hair. She yawned, stretching in the hot, steamy shower. She felt like she’d barely slept, but her whole body ached with happiness, every muscle, every sinew, especially the secret places Kassius had explored last night. She’d woken up glowing with happiness after a night in his bed, sleeping in his arms. She’d only woken when he’d stirred beside her when his phone rang. Some business call from a distant place. She’d felt grimy, so as he took the call, she’d stumbled into the shower.
Now, standing in the enormous white marble bathroom of the penthouse, it was hard not to linger over the memory of the lovemaking that had caused all that sweat on her skin. As she washed away the traces of his many kisses, the sweet ache of her well-used body remained. She shivered, no longer just warmed by the steamy water but by the memory of how ruthlessly he’d taken her virginity.
Then she straightened beneath the hot water, as everything she’d done last night reasserted itself in her memory. Including the fact that they’d made love with no protection whatsoever.
What the hell h
ad she been thinking?
“Oh, no,” Laney whispered. Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against the cool tile.
She was a good girl who’d always followed the rules. She knew the potential ramifications of getting pregnant—how could she not? Her parents, high school sweethearts, had already broken up before her mother discovered she was pregnant. Her father had done the dutiful thing and married her, only to discover that they couldn’t live together without loud arguments. He’d promptly found work on an oil rig that required long months away in the Gulf of Mexico—it paid well, plus he got time away from his wife. The marriage had bumbled along until Laney was ten, when her father was in a horrific accident on the rig, which caused him to lose his sight and the ability to walk. When his broken body was returned to New Orleans, it was the last straw for her mother.
Rhonda Henry had announced she’d had enough of sacrificing herself for other people. Dumping her husband and child on her mother-in-law’s doorstep, Rhonda had hitched a ride with her musician boyfriend, heading west for love, fame and fortune in California. But love swiftly disappeared, and fame and fortune never came. Her mother had comforted her disappointment at first with alcohol, then worse things, until years later she’d died of an overdose on a beach near the Santa Monica Pier.
It had all started with Rhonda accidentally getting pregnant. If not for that, maybe her mother would be alive now, and her father strong and unhurt. If not for Laney being born.
Now she’d taken such a risk!
Stupid. So stupid. She covered her face with her hands. How could she have done it?
Especially knowing that she was certainly going to get fired today?
Turning off the water abruptly, Laney got out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel.
She wiped the steam off the mirror. Her chin lifted as she looked at the reflection of her own dark, haunted eyes, at her wet hair that looked black cascading down her shoulders.
Whatever Kassius had said last night in the heat of the moment, fairy tales didn’t come true. Princes didn’t marry housemaids. Handsome billionaires didn’t marry ordinary-looking personal assistants.
She would just have to go home and figure it out.
Home. A lump rose in Laney’s throat as she thought of her father and grandmother. It had been two years since she’d seen them. She’d been away for too long, trying to earn enough money to support them all. But without her job here in Monaco, how would they all survive?
Taking a deep breath, she started to comb her wet hair. She’d just have to be strong, that was all. Maybe she’d get lucky. Maybe she could talk to Mimi. Convince her to forgive.
Yeah, right.
She reached for the oversize white robe on the back of the door. Kassius’s robe? It hung huge on her, dragging on the floor, making her feel like a child dressed up in grown-up clothes. The sleeves hung well over her hands. She rolled them up, then pulled the belt as tightly around her as she could before she went to the kitchen.
“Good morning.” Kassius looked at her appreciatively. “I like you in that.”
Her cheeks colored. “Thanks. Is that coffee?”
He gave her a sudden grin. “Made it myself.”
“Really?” she said, musing how the comtesse wouldn’t have known how to pour water from the tap. “Yourself?”
“It’s New Year’s. My housekeeper has the day off. I’m not totally incompetent. I can make coffee, eggs and toast.”
“Wow.”
“No sarcasm, please. Not until you taste this.” Pouring her a cup, he said, “Cream or sugar?”
“Both, please.”
He added two lumps of sugar and a good amount of cream then watched her as she drank it.
“Good?”
Her whole body relaxed with a sigh. She said honestly, “The best coffee I’ve ever had.”
“I thought so,” he said smugly. “Now go sit down.”
A moment later, he brought out two plates with buttered toast and scrambled eggs. Sliding a plate in front of her, placed his own across from her at the dining table.
She took a bite of the food and was astonished.
“This is delicious.”
“Of course it is. I’m good at everything.”
“Modest, too.”
He took a bite of toast. “You’re pretty good yourself.” Their eyes met across the table. “I’ve never met a sexier woman in my life.”
That reminded her. She bit her lip unhappily. “Last night, we had sex...without protection.”
“Yes,” he agreed, taking a bite of scrambled eggs. He didn’t look at all sorry about it.
“Was I drunk? Were you?” She put down her fork. “To risk getting pregnant by someone I barely know...”
“If you feel you’d like to know me a little better—” his gaze fell to her breasts, then he gave her a smoldering smile “—we could go back to bed.”
Her cheeks went hot as she looked down and saw the top of the oversize robe was gaping widely, showing far more of her chest than was decent. She yanked the robe up higher. “How can you joke?”
His expression changed. “Joke?”
“I can’t believe I risked getting pregnant when I’m about to be unemployed!” She clawed back her wet dark hair, blinking back tears as she raged, “How could I have been so stupid!”
He looked at her skeptically. “Are you seriously worried about losing your job? You can’t tell me you’ll miss Mimi.”
“No, but—”
“You have nothing to worry about.” His voice was distinctly chilly as he abruptly rose from the table. “I’ll go with you to Mimi’s.”
“You will?” Hope suddenly rose in her. “You’ll talk to her? Try to convince her to keep me on?”
“No. It’s better to end this quickly.”
Better to end this quickly. Her hope faded, and she felt a little sick inside. Bad enough that she’d slept with him without protection. But would she now discover he’d just been slumming with a one-night stand and had taken her virginity as a momentary amusement? Had all his talk about marriage and children been a lie, or a whim, already forgotten?
Kassius being who he was, and Laney being—well, who she was—how could it be otherwise?
Hiding her deep hurt and regret, she looked down at the white robe. “What should I wear? This?” She lifted her arm, with the oversize sleeve hanging past her hand, to point at the gold ball gown still crumpled on the floor from the night before. “Or that?”
His sensual lips quirked. “You pick.”
She sighed, then grumbled, “Robe, I guess.” Finishing the coffee and food, she said sullenly, “Thanks for breakfast.”
“My pleasure.”
As she rose to leave, he followed her. She turned to him, desperate for the awkwardness to end. “You don’t need to walk me down. There’s really no need.”
“Oh, but there is.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I need to talk to Mimi.”
Now he was done taking her virginity, did he want to make romantic plans with her soon-to-be-former boss? Laney’s scowl deepened. “Fine.”
Silence fell as they got in the elevator and pressed the button for her boss’s floor. She couldn’t help comparing this ghastly morning-after situation to last night, when they’d steamed up the mirrors, unable to keep their hands off each other.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Even now, when she was horrified and furious at herself, she could understand why, after being sensible and quiet her whole life, she hadn’t been able to resist him. Kassius had made her feel beautiful. Desired. She’d been swallowed up by ecstasy, devoured by the pleasure of the moment.
But now the moment was over. As soon as she was fired and had packed her things, she’d return to New Orleans. Soon, this night—the most amazing night of her life—would be nothing more than a distant memory.
Unless she was pregnant.
The elevator doors opened with a ding.
“After you,” Kassius said, holdin
g the door.
As she walked down the hall toward the comtesse’s suite, she heard his cell phone ring, and his footsteps slowed behind her. She kept walking.
Could she be pregnant?
What if she was?
Her lips curved softly at the idea of having a baby of her own to love, to hold in her arms...a child with Kassius’s dark eyes...
No. She couldn’t let herself think that way. She was unlikely to be pregnant, and that was a good thing. It would be a disaster right now. A baby was a serious responsibility, and she had nothing to offer. She didn’t have money, a proper career, a husband. She didn’t even have a real relationship with the baby’s father.
All she really knew about Kassius Black was that he was a dangerously sexy billionaire who, for one magical night, had turned her from a servant into a fairy-tale princess in a golden gown. Remembering the way he’d made her feel last night, when she’d nearly wept with ecstasy in his arms, she couldn’t even regret losing her chance at ten million dollars. Because in an important way, he’d changed her life. By seducing her, he’d proven she was desirable, and could feel desire. He’d opened her eyes.
For years, she’d felt invisible, unworthy of love. Now she’d never think of herself as a frigid little virgin again.
But would she soon be a single mother?
Laney could still hear the husky echo of his voice: I am tired of the bachelor life. I want a family. I want a wife.
But whatever fantasy he’d been indulging in last night, he’d obviously come to his senses this morning. It’s better to end this quickly. When Kassius actually took a bride, she would be a beautiful, elegant, sophisticated woman of his own class. A woman like Mimi du Plessis.
Opening the door of the suite, Laney took a deep breath, bracing herself, and walked inside.
Her boss rose from the dining table with a tranquil smile. She murmured, “Have a good time last night?”
