by Sophia Lynn
Chapter Eight
Victoria Logan, thought Cord, was absolutely beautiful, absolutely rich, and absolutely a pain in the ass.
He had gone to the club looking for something expensive, and he had certainly found it in Victoria. She was there with a few of her old sorority friends, and she stood out from all of them. With a tumble of black hair and green eyes that he suspected were colored contacts, she was a beauty, and she had been drawn to him as well. He hadn't had to flash his credit card or his car keys for her to end up draped over his shoulder, and by the time he’d had a second drink, she was already nibbling on his ear.
Funny, but though he would have said that without a doubt, she was exactly what he was looking for, there was something missing. Her laugh was just a touch grating, her body felt somehow uncomfortable when he dragged her close, and she really loved taking pictures of them together and posting them for all of her friends on social media to see.
"Do they really need another picture of us getting seafood?" he had asked, and she simply giggled in that increasingly irritating way of hers.
"I think it's dreadfully important to show people where we've been and what we did there," she said with a laugh. "Otherwise, what's the point?"
My God, I hope that she's joking, he thought with a wince.
For what felt like the hundredth time just that day, his mind drifted back to Jordan. Jordan's entire net worth might be less than two dresses that Victoria owned. Jordan had certainly not been to any of the fancy finishing schools that Victoria had gone to. Why, then, did Jordan keep coming out on top whenever he compared them?
As they finished dinner and walked out into the cool night air, Cord suddenly had an image of how the rest of the night was going to go.
Victoria had been coy about wanting to do very much beyond the odd kiss, but she had been hinting more and more strongly that she wouldn't mind. She kept pressing against him and moving away, something he guessed that she picked up from friends or some magazine. She kept joking about 'the things that men liked' before laughing hard, and the more Cord thought about it, the more depressed he felt.
Soon enough, Victoria turned toward him.
"So what do you want to do now?" she asked, and Cord came to his decision.
"I think I'm taking you home," he said with an easy smile. "I've got an early business call tomorrow, and I need to be up sooner than I’d like."
Her look of disappointment was almost hilarious. She did not seem to be a girl who did all that well when life went off-script, and for a moment, she only stared at him, her mouth opening and closing. She had been spending the night pressing against him and granting him glimpses down her cleavage. She must be shocked that it hadn't worked.
"But . . . but . . ."
He started walking, and Victoria had no choice but to follow. He maintained a steady stream of chatter as he took her home, and when he walked her to the door, she looked no better off than she had on the street.
"But I really like you," she blurted out, and he shook his head.
"Good night, Victoria."
As he sat in his black Saab afterward, Cord thought of how different it was from his last breakup with Brianna. He had been impatient and a little curt, but he hadn't left the girl in tears at least. How strange that he was thinking of that. He knew that it was due to Jordan's influence, and he flinched again.
He knew that he was running from her and what had happened in the study. If Cord was quiet too long, left himself without distractions for too extensive a period, he would find himself thinking of that day again. He would think of her tear-stained face and her sobs as she had rested against him, and he would have to face all over again the fact that at some point, he had become a monster.
Just like . . .
He pushed the thought away.
More disturbing was the way his body stirred at what had come before that. Jordan was different from the other women he’d had. There was something vivid and fiery about her, something that captivated him. The women he usually ended up pursuing, the Briannas and Victorias, threw themselves at him. Jordan seemed surprised every time they touched, and oh, how he wanted to touch her . . .
He shook his head, trying to clear it of thoughts of her. He couldn't stay away forever, after all. He thought of another night at the hotel and his mind rebelled.
Cord sighed. He tried to tell himself that he was just sick of another night on the hotel bed, but the truth was that he wanted a day where there was a chance of seeing Jordan, even if it was just a glimpse.
It was late, past midnight, when he drove up to Waverly Manor. The house was silent, and that was just fine. He made his way to his bedroom and switched on the dimmer lights. He didn't need a lot of illumination to see his way around his own bedroom. He was ready to start stripping and to fall into bed when he realized that there was a . . . a lump of some kind in the middle of his bed.
Cord was too confused to do much more than grab it, turning it over to see, and when he did, he felt his heart stop.
It was as if his thoughts had conjured her, because tangled in his blankets, her blonde hair flying around her face and her black eyes defiant, was Jordan.
***
It had seemed like the perfect plan. Jordan knew that Cord was in town, apparently seeing some girl named Victoria Logan. That was fine. She told herself that she certainly didn't care at all. She didn't care what he did, and if he were away from home, all the better.
In the dead of night, dressed in her most innocuous pajamas, she padded her way to Cord's bedroom. As she remembered, there was a cabinet of books there, and she felt hope rise up in her chest. Perhaps this was the information that would vindicate her father.
However, the locks on this cabinet turned out to be made of sterner stuff than the cabinets in the library. She fiddled with the tiny mechanism for what felt like hours, changing out one lock pick for the next in hopes that one would do the trick. It might have worked better if she could have turned on the light, but she didn't dare. Turning on the light would have attracted attention, and that was most certainly something that she could not afford right at that moment.
She worked with grim determination, feeling the tumblers roll and click without ever catching the way they should have. She knew that the longer she worked, the greater the chances were that she would jam the lock, and that would be the end of these explorations.
Jordan was just beginning to give up hope when she heard a heavy step in the hallway. Somehow, even though it should have been impossible, she recognized that step. It was Cord. He had returned.
She had less than half a minute before he got there. Every place that she could run and hide would cause too much noise, there was no space under the bed, and she simply panicked.
Jordan dashed for the bed and rolled under the covers, and she had just managed to hide herself there when the door opened and the master of the house entered.
Maybe he'll go to the bathroom first, and I can run out, she thought. There was enough silence to make her hope, but then suddenly, he grabbed her through the covers, turning her over, and she was looking up at him.
"Jordan," he said, his voice a deep rumble. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I . . . I–I couldn't sleep," she said miserably.
When he stared at her, she shrugged angrily and looked away. It might have been a dumb lie, but it was the one she had committed to.
"You couldn't sleep . . . so you came here?"
"Yeah. I can't always sleep in my room, and I thought . . ."
Abruptly, she became aware that she was being held to the mattress of an enormous bed by a man who made her heart race. Suddenly, whatever she was going to say got stuck in her throat, and she had to swallow hard a few times before she could speak again.
"I thought I might sleep better here," she confessed.
Jordan watched as a dozen emotions flickered across Cord's face. She saw a battle being fought there, and somehow, deep in her heart, she knew that
it had not reached any conclusion at all when Cord bent to kiss her. A part of her told her to kick and to fight, to shout. He couldn't do this to her whenever he pleased, it wasn't right, he had no right . . .
Then his mouth descended over hers, and Jordan was lost in the vivid desire of their kiss, in the warmth and the wetness and the need that ran through her like wildfire.
"You are too good to resist," Cord murmured, lifting his head a fraction from hers. She could still feel his warm breath on her lips and his lips moving against hers. "A man could fall to his own ruin through your sweet mouth . . ."
Jordan didn't know how she felt about that, but before she could lodge any kind of protest, he was kissing her again. His kiss was wild, but there was a restraint to it, as if he was desperately trying to prevent himself from going too far, from unleashing some beast that lived inside him.
He kissed her mouth, and then he was trailing kisses down to her throat, where he pressed his tongue gently against her pulse. There was something different about this kiss from the way he had kissed her before. Before, he had been teasing her, playing with her, and even if it had felt good, he had not released something savage, something integral to his own satisfaction. Now, that barrier was gone, and Jordan shivered.
Get up, she told herself. He's not going to stop this time. If you want to get out of this unscathed, if you want to make sure that this doesn't all get ruined, you need to push him away.
Her hands came up to do just that, but instead of pushing him away, she clung to him. Her body seemed to have its own opinions of what Cord was doing, and it cried for him. Sense and vengeance and safety didn't mean anything, not when he was running his hands down her flanks, not when he was trailing fire down her throat.
"I am going to take you," Cord growled deep in his throat, and all she could do was make a noise of assent.
He pulled back, making her whine in protest, but he didn't go far. Instead, he took a handful of her camisole, and with a single movement, he tore it from her body. Her pajama bottoms,, along with her underwear, received the same treatment, and then she was lying in the shreds of her clothes, utterly naked.
With a yelp, Jordan tried to cover herself, but Cord only pinned her hands over her head, looking down at her rounded pale body with an intensity that made her shiver.
"Never hide yourself from me," he ordered. "You are beautiful, and I want to see you."
In another situation, if a man had called her beautiful, she would have laughed, brushed him off, and told him that he must be blind. However, in this moment and with a man who wielded utter command the way that Cord did, all she could do was whimper. He was so strong and so authoritative. If he said she was beautiful, then she was.
Jordan was surrendering to him in a way that she had never surrendered to anyone before. In another time and place, she would have been terrified, but right now, it only felt right.
"Twice now," he continued, "I've worked you over, and I've made you feel good. Twice now, I have left our meetings so hard that I ached for you. That is not how it’s going to end tonight. Do you understand, Jordan?"
When she was a little slow in answering, he gently tweaked one nipple. There was no pain, but it sent a sensual shock through her that made her eyes widen.
"I said, do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered, and to her relief, it was enough.
He started to touch her again. He aroused her with his hands, his lips, and the weight of his body pressed against hers. The rough fabric of his trousers rubbed against the tender skin of her bare thighs, exciting her in a way she couldn't describe. The fact that she was naked and that he was clothed made her feel almost faint with arousal, but Jordan knew that it wouldn't be enough for long. Sooner rather than later, she would need to feel his skin against hers. She didn't know what would happen if she was denied . . .
Jordan's eyes snapped open when he chuckled. She stared up at him, dreadfully frightened that she would see that he was laughing at her, but instead, there was only kindness in his eyes.
"Look at how beautifully you open for me," he murmured. "Look at how much you want me."
Somehow, without her being aware of it, she had spread her legs for him, her heels digging into the mattress beneath her to press up to his hand. She could smell her own arousal and feel it slick between her thighs. She should have been humiliated at her wanton display, but somehow, it only made her want more.
"Please," she said, looking up at him. She felt like some mad and wild thing, open and bare and begging for the satisfaction that she knew he could give.
A deep shudder ran through Cord's frame, and he pulled away. She started to keen with panic, but then she saw that he was only standing to strip off his own clothes. She watched with wide eyes as he stripped, every piece of clothing revealing a frame that was strong and muscular, the epitome of male strength and grace.
When he was entirely naked, she could feel the heat rise in her face as she glanced between his legs. His manhood jutted out proudly from his body, thick and powerful. She had never understood some of the longing whispers she had heard from other women before, but now she thought she did. She wanted to stroke it, to touch it, to make him quiver with desire just as she had.
Cord allowed her to look for a moment, but then he was back in bed with her, his strength overpowering her and pressing her down to the mattress as he kissed and nibbled at her shoulders and her throat. She reveled in the differences between them, at what a strange but consuming pleasure it was to have her breasts pressed against his chest, to feel his hairy legs dragging up her smooth ones.
With a quick motion, she had parted her legs enough for him to lie between them. His body felt incredibly good between the soft skin of her thighs, and when she felt his cock brush against the soft heat of her entrance, she groaned out loud.
The sound she made affected Cord in some deep way. She was not altogether sure that it was her imagination when she felt something break inside him. He froze, and then he pressed his forehead to hers.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "Next time . . . next time, I will be more gentle with you. Only now, I need you too much."
She started to ask what he meant by that, but then he was taking her hips in his hands, holding her still. For a bare moment, the tip of his cock pressed deliciously against her entrance, and then with one powerful lightning stroke, he pressed all the way inside her.
The rush of sensation that flooded her body was shocking, and it finally resolved itself into a stinging pain that made Jordan cry out.
"Oh! Cord, Cord, it hurts . . ."
For a moment, she wasn't sure if her voice would reach him at all. He seemed lost in his own pleasure, but then his blue eyes opened again and he was looking down at her.
"Relax," he said, kissing her. "Relax. I will make it feel good for you, I promise."
The pain was already dwindling, but as he started to move, there was an ache there, an ache of a body new to all the sensations it was being given and nearly overloading as it tried to understand what was happening.
Jordan was on the verge of telling him to stop, telling him it hurt too much, but then another wave of pleasure broke over her, full and more intense than anything she had ever felt.
"Oh . . . oh, please don't stop," she whimpered, and his growl in her ear made her writhe with pleasure and with need.
He set a hard and punishing tempo, his body slamming into hers, but Jordan simply clung to him. She learned to roll with the sensations, and soon enough, she was rising on the wings of a pleasure that she could barely believe.
He was saying something to her, swearing, telling her she was beautiful, telling her how good she felt, but she could only focus on the swell of emotion that was ripping through her. The sensations that tore through her had no more mercy than Cord did, and soon enough, she was shaking, her body tensed like a violin string.
Then . . .
The string snapped.
Pleasure exploded through her like fi
reworks, lighting up the darkness behind her tightly-closed eyes, making every muscle in her body stiffen before releasing. She felt as if she was bathed in fire, as if the shocking sensations she was feeling were transforming her into something entirely new.
Distantly, she was aware that Cord had reached his own climax, shaking and growling against her skin as he spilled deep inside her. The liquid heat of his climax served to make her own more intense, and it felt like an eternity before she had stopped shaking.
Chapter Nine
The silence after they both stilled was absolute. Jordan felt as if she had been marooned somewhere in time and space. She felt weightless and open to the world. A single breath could determine her direction for the next million years.
She groaned when Cord disrupted the silence. With a soft growl of completion, he pulled away from her. Now that the pleasure had ebbed, she was aware of a faint intimate soreness. Perhaps it was pain, but there was something so delicious about it that it made Jordan sigh instead of flinch.
Instinctively, she reached for him, but to her shock, he turned away, standing and walking to the bathroom instead. The sensual fog that had rested over everything was torn away, and she felt inexplicably cold.
Oh, God, what have I done? Jordan thought.
She realized with painful acuity that at least as far as the world was concerned, she was a maid who had slept with the master of the house. More importantly to her, however, she had slept with the son of the man who had torn her family apart, and the betrayal sank into her belly like acid. She had escaped the immediate consequences of being caught in Cord's bedroom, but at what cost?
She could hear him moving around in the bathroom, and she tried to fight the panic that fell over her.
What do sophisticated women do after this? They certainly don't wait for a payoff, right? They leave? Maybe they leave?
Perhaps that would be for the best after all. If she left, perhaps she and Cord would never have to think about this again, even if the thought inexplicably brought her close to tears.
