by J. S. Scott
His cock pulsated in her mouth, and Jason let go of her hair so she could escape his impending orgasm. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to feel it, taste it on her tongue, experience it with him just like he’d experienced her climax with her. His hot release exploded into the back of her throat, and she swallowed, licked at the head and the shaft of his cock. She wanted every drop she could get from Jason.
He dropped to his knees, his chest heaving. Jason looked into her eyes and Hope felt herself drown in a brooding sea of emotion.
“Jesus, woman. You nearly killed me,” Jason grumbled, his breathing still laborious.
She lifted her hand to his jaw and stroked over his whiskered cheek. “You look like you lived through it.”
“Just barely,” he grunted. “I knew that beautiful mouth was dangerous.”
She laughed as he took her down to the carpet. His body loomed over hers as he kissed her.
His mouth moved from her lips to her neck, his face buried in her hair. “Hope,” he muttered gutturally. His strong hands wrapped around her wrists and restrained them over her head.
She pulled at her wrists, unable to get free of his grip.
This is Jason. Don’t panic.
Her heart raced, and the feeling of being under Jason’s control aroused her body, but her brain rebelled. Foggy images took over her mind, and she was suddenly in another place:
Her wrists restrained, her body helpless to fight against someone much bigger, stronger.
Invaded, and so much pain: a sharp, excruciating lance between her thighs that burned and burned and burned.
Her own screams echoing through the room, but nobody coming to help her.
Please, let it be over. Let it be over.
Terror consumed her, and Hope felt a scream rise in her throat. Frantically, she jerked at her wrists until Jason finally let go, and she pushed against his shoulders, desperate to get free.
I can’t do it, no matter how badly I want Jason. I can’t do it.
Jason rose to his knees, took his weight from her body and looked down at her with a puzzled expression. “Are you okay?”
No. I’m not okay. I’m broken. I want you so desperately, but I’m not capable of taking the final step.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs, her heart raced frantically, and her body shook with fright. Her mind cleared slowly, and she looked up at the man she wanted so desperately. Jason. He’d given her the most intense pleasure she’d ever known, and she knew she’d pleasured his body, but she couldn’t give herself to him completely. She couldn’t give herself totally to anyone.
“I’m not ready, Jason,” she told him nervously. Disappointment hit her in pummeling waves, and she wrapped her arms around her waist. The emotional agony consumed her.
He pulled her quivering, nude body into his lap. “Too soon after your ex-boyfriend?” He sounded concerned and irritated at the same time.
He wrapped his arms around her and she laid her head on his shoulder. “Yes.” The excuse was as good as any, even if it wasn’t true. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she closed them, her heart full of pain.
She’d hoped.
She’d wanted.
She’d tried because it was Jason, and she wanted him so damn badly.
So far…she had come so far, so close…
“Hey.” He pulled back and took her head between his hands to force her to look at him. “It’s okay.” Gently, he swiped at her tears. “I can wait.”
Don’t wait. I’ll never be whole again. I thought I would, but obviously I can’t. I can never give you what you want. If I can’t experience this with you, I can’t do it with anyone.
“It will be a long wait,” she tried to dissuade him.
He picked her up and stood, cradled her naked body in his arms. Hope wrapped her arms around his neck and savored the feel of his heated skin against hers as he carried her up the stairs and to her bedroom. He turned the covers back, dropped her gently on the bed and crawled in beside her. “Just sleep with me then.” He pulled the sheet and blanket over them and enveloped them in a cocoon where only the two of them existed. His arms tightened around her and pulled her half on top of him.
“Yes.” All the tension drained out of Hope’s body as she inhaled his distinctive scent. She was safe with Jason. “Just for tonight.” She wanted this intimate connection with Jason. He felt so good. Smelled so good. The comforting stroke of his hands in her hair, up and down the bare skin of her back, lulled her into a sense of well-being she’d never known.
“For now,” he corrected huskily, gently.
Hope sighed and threaded her fingers through his hair. They fell asleep just like that, molded together, wrapped up in the comfort of each other’s touch.
She’d just left. No note, no goodbye. She was just gone like she’d never been there.
Jason sat down in a comfortable leather seat on his private jet and pulled out his laptop, pissed off and angry because he’d woken up this morning and Hope had already left. He hadn’t heard a word from any of her brothers, who would have been irate if they’d seen his rental car at her house. Obviously, she hadn’t allowed them to see it, had probably walked to the end of her driveway when they had picked her up this morning just to avoid it.
Evan’s jet had already departed a few hours before Jason had woken up at noon, and he’d known the minute he saw the time and the empty space beside him that Hope was gone. Evan had mentioned that he was leaving by ten, and Jason had known that Hope would be on that plane.
Fuck! She could have at least said goodbye.
Jason held the key he’d found on the kitchen table between his thumb and index finger, staring at it intently before dropping it into the pocket of his buttoned-down shirt. Whether or not she’d intentionally left the key to her house there for him or not he didn’t know. But he’d used it to lock up before he left, and he was keeping it.
He’d give her time, but he and Hope weren’t finished. He wouldn’t allow it. She could run…for now.
I’m not ready.
Her words echoed in his brain, over and over. It hadn’t mattered that he hadn’t actually fucked her. Just the feel of her lips on his bare skin, her beautiful mouth on his cock had been enough to completely turn him upside down. Just being with Hope had temporarily soothed his loneliness, cured the restlessness that had plagued him for a very long time. Last night had been a revelation for him. Thinking back on all the meaningless relationships he’d had over the last eight years, since the moment he’d seen her again at her high school graduation, he now knew one thing for certain:
I’ve always been biding my time, waiting for Hope.
His anger fled, replaced by concern as he thought about the night before, the broken look on her face when she’d told him she wasn’t ready. He could have sworn he saw a flash of worry, a moment of fear in her eyes. Had he imagined things, or had she really been afraid? Most likely, he was imagining it. Hope had had boyfriends before, the most recent one for several years, a deadbeat who had no job, and was obviously a selfish bastard judging by Hope’s lack of sensual experience.
He just fucked her and sponged off her.
That thought made Jason insane. Hope had a huge heart, and he didn’t like the thought of anyone taking advantage of her.
His fingers flew over the keyboard of his laptop and accessed his private email. Searching, he finally found the email Grady had sent to everyone when he’d become engaged. He found her name among the group and he started a new email with her address:
I need to know you made it home safe and that you’re okay. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll find you.
J.
He pressed the Send button harder than necessary.
Her response came that evening, when Jason was home in his New York penthouse:
I’m back in Aspen, and I’m okay.
H.
Leaning back in the desk chair of his home office, he closed his eyes. Dammit. He’d wanted further inf
ormation. Yes, he wanted to know she was safe, but he’d wanted her to say more, tell him more, let him know how she felt.
Holy shit! He started to sound like a woman, wanting to pry Hope’s emotions from her until she talked. Usually, he avoided emotional confrontations at all costs. He was an only child, so he didn’t have sisters who tried to strangle him with emotional bullshit. And if a woman started to even begin to show an emotional attachment, he was done with the relationship. Most times, he didn’t have to worry about it. He was careful, stuck to women who just wanted or needed sex with no strings, and that had worked out well for him most of the time.
I’m losing it.
Hope Sinclair would come with all kinds of strings attached, and she’d already tied some of the knots to secure them to him. Strangely, he didn’t give a shit. Casual sex was going to be a thing of the past. She’d ruined him. And if he had to wait…he’d wait. Hell, he’d already waited eight years for her to grow up. Now, he wished he hadn’t waited so damn long.
She’s mine. She’s always been mine.
Eventually, he’d snare Hope Sinclair, and keep her until they had both fucked each other out of their systems. It was the only way he could think of to get his sanity back again.
Maybe then I’ll be able to concentrate. Maybe the restlessness and loneliness will go away if I have Hope as many times as we both want it.
He deleted her email and brought up his work documents, with a fervent hope he didn’t have to wait too damn long.
For the next several months, Jason tried to give Hope a chance to recover from her relationship with her loser boyfriend, tried to be patient.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to stop emailing her at least once a week. He wanted to know whether she was doing okay, and some secret part of him did it for completely selfish reasons: to remind her that he was waiting. The emails he sent were always the same:
I just want to know that you’re doing okay.
J.
Her answers were always two words:
I’m fine.
H.
In January when he emailed, she was fine.
For the rest of the winter when he wrote, she was fine.
In the spring, she answered his query the same way: she was fine.
Then, in the early summer, she was getting married.
What. The. Fuck.
Jason was in Rocky Springs, Colorado, at a charity benefit function when he found out that Hope planned to marry the same loser who Jason was waiting for her to get over. He’d talked to her brother, Grady, and had gotten the news from him. Hope had never mentioned it. She was just fine, according to her weekly, two-word email responses.
She’d never let him know that she was back with her ex-boyfriend, much less that they were getting married.
Unfortunately, Jason wasn’t so fine with the news. He was fucking livid, and he’d had enough of waiting.
He was finally going to get Hope in his bed and oust the asshole in her life when he did; he wasn’t opposed to playing dirty if that’s what it took to achieve his goal. Jason didn’t know what kind of number this guy was doing on Hope to get her to marry him, but the game was about to end.
Unfortunately, even though she had plans to marry another man, a guy who didn’t give a rat’s ass about her, Jason still wanted her for himself. And he wasn’t giving her up until he was damn good and ready to do so, and the asshole in her life was completely out of the picture. For some reason, she was running away from what had happened between them, but he’d catch her, make her admit she wanted him and didn’t love the man she was marrying. If she had loved another man, she never would have been intimate with him at the holidays.
Maybe Hope thought Jason was only an asshole on the surface, but she was about to find out just how big of an asshole he could really be. When it came to Hope, he was perfectly capable of being a ruthless bastard to have her, keep her away from someone who would hurt her, and she was about to see a different side of him. So, she could end up hating him. It was better than her ending up married and miserable, tied to a bloodsucker.
He and Tate Colter, a half-crazy, very wealthy ex-Special Forces guy, put together a plan in Rocky Springs, right after Jason found out that Hope was getting married. It was a selfish, greedy scheme that would change his life and Hope’s irrevocably. Jason didn’t think twice about implementing it with Tate’s help. His reason clouded with anger and disbelief, he plowed ahead with Tate, his only objective to separate Hope from any other man except him. Any other outcome was unacceptable, unthinkable.
Jason ignored the niggling voice that told him that ending her marriage plans wasn’t the only reason he was taking this particular strategy. Instead, he set the plan in motion, eventually slamming a barrier between himself and any of his emotions after he’d made the decision to act out Tate’s proposed solution, just like he’d always done in business. He and Hope did have unfinished business, and he was about to wrap it up—permanently and completely.
Rocky Springs, Colorado – The Present
“Is she still out cold?” Tate Colter asked curiously as Jason walked back into the living room of one of the guesthouses in Tate’s Rocky Springs, Colorado resort.
Jason had met the obscenely wealthy Tate Colter at a charity event here in Rocky Springs, and he’d been here at the charity event Colter had hosted when he’d heard that Hope was getting married. Tate had been the one to come up with this whole crazy plan in the first place, and helped coordinate everything. As an ex-Special Forces guy, Colter was more precise at executing a plan and more calculating than Jason when it came to deception.
Jason looked over at Tate. He frowned as he noticed that Tate was on Hope’s laptop, his ass planted in a comfortable recliner. “What are you doing?”
“Getting all the dirt on your woman,” Tate replied unremorsefully. “It’s amazing how much a person can learn about someone by looking at their computer.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “You hacked into her computer?”
Tate shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult. She needs better security. But that still wouldn’t have prevented me from getting in.” He grinned shamelessly at Jason.
Jason felt a twinge of guilt, but he shrugged it off. “Get out of her personal stuff,” he growled at Tate. It annoyed the hell out of him that Tate saw anything personal about Hope.
“Nothing’s personal if it’s on a computer. You gotta see some of this stuff.” Tate’s gaze went back to the computer screen. “Did you know she was a photographer? And not just any photographer. She does radical stuff.” His voice was slightly awed. “She might be crazier than I am.”
Jason doubted that, although he was pretty sure he needed his own head examined because of what had happened over the last twenty-four hours.
When Grady had told him that Hope was getting married and she was currently in Vegas for a bachelorette party, Jason had flown to Vegas to intentionally track her down, like some kind of mad stalker. She hadn’t been difficult to find, and after he’d gotten her room number in the hotel she was staying in, he’d followed her, pretended he was there on business. But the meeting had been far from accidental. He’d gritted his teeth as he congratulated her on her upcoming marriage—the words nearly killed him as he said them—and dragged her out for celebratory drinks. She’d fell right into his plan, became pretty damn intoxicated very quickly, and threw caution to the wind by the time she’d had just a couple of drinks. She’d just gotten more and more toasted with every subsequent drink. Obviously Hope didn’t hold her liquor well. She had passed out somewhere over Colorado on the flight back, and Jason had carried her into the bedroom of the guesthouse here in Rocky Springs. It was the same guesthouse he’d stayed in when he’d left for Vegas. It had been Colter’s idea to bring her here, to make it more difficult for her to leave. She was a good five-hour drive from Aspen, and she didn’t have a car. It was unlikely they’d encounter another person considering they were on private Colter land; the town of Rocky Sp
rings was several miles away.
Tate’s whistle of appreciation drew Jason from his thoughts.
“Let me see that.” Jason grabbed the laptop from Tate and planted his butt in another recliner, determined to see what had Tate Colter so damn impressed. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to prevent Colter from looking at any more of Hope’s private life.
He looked through the photo gallery at some of the pictures Tate had ogled, stunned by what he saw. The pictures were raw and beautiful in a frightening kind of way. Quite a few of them were of large tornados, taken from close proximity. The rest were all of some kind of extreme forces of nature, everything from twisters to gale force winds that nearly bent trees in half, probably hurricanes. “These can’t be hers,” Jason denied. He shuddered at the thought of Hope being close enough to take photos of something so damn dangerous.
“They’re hers,” Tate said in a cocky voice. “If you check her email, she has travel confirmations that coincide with the pictures. And she has an entire portfolio with her luggage that we got at the hotel. The photos have her marking in the bottom right corner. I’m assuming she’s H.L. Sinclair. I did a search on the name. She’s idolized in the photography world as an extreme weather photographer. Hell, she sounds more like my kind of woman than yours.” Tate grinned at Jason. “She must have some balls to be traveling to every corner of the world for that kind of shit.”
“She doesn’t have balls,” Jason snarled as he looked through all of the pictures that Hope had apparently taken. “Jesus Christ. What in the hell has she been doing?”
“Taking photos, apparently. She got a degree in fine arts with an emphasis on photography. I saw it in her biography.”
Jason scowled at the computer screen. He’d known she’d gotten a degree in fine arts, but he hadn’t known she was a photographer, and now it pissed him off that Tate knew more about Hope than he did. Why hadn’t he known? Maybe it was because he’d spent years trying to control himself around her, used every ounce of willpower he had not to toss her over his shoulder and take her away somewhere, anywhere with him. “I guarantee her brothers don’t know. They would have locked her up and thrown away the key if they’d known she was doing this shit.”
