The Empire

by Lisa Renee Jones

  His eyes narrow on me, those damn intelligent eyes that see everything. He knows I didn’t say yes. He knows I just avoided a direct answer. Damn it, I want to tell him what I found, what I saw, what I know about him, but now more than ever, I fear it will only make things worse. “I really do want that kind of trust with you, Eric.”

  “Does that mean you’re staying?”

  Staying. “What does staying mean?”

  He closes the small space between us, stopping toe-to-toe in front of me, so close he could reach out and touch me but still, he doesn’t. “It means I want you to move in with me.”

  “I have a place in Denver.”

  “Make this your place, Harper. If you don’t like the apartment—”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask incredulously. “I love the apartment, but we’re moving fast.”

  “Six years is not fast and you need away from that family. You need to be here with me.”

  “Because I can’t go back, can I?” I ask, the realization hitting me. “That life I know is over.”

  His eyes narrow, a glint in their depths that might be anger but there’s a stab of more. Pain? Did I hurt him? Surely I didn’t, but—

  “Of course you can go back,” he says. “There many ways I can make that happen for you. If that’s what you want, we’ll sit down and find the best way to get you back to Denver. I’m going to pour a drink.” He tries to turn away and I grab his arm. He hesitates as if he doesn’t want to fully face me again but slowly he does.

  “I need a drink, Harper.” His voice is hard, cold. I did hurt him.

  “I just made a mess of this. I just sent you the wrong message. I don’t want to go back, but what happens when my life revolves around you and us and then you—”

  He drags me to him, finally touching me, his hard body absorbing mine. “I what, Harper? Burn you? Use you? Lie to you? Turn out to be just another Kingston?”

  Emotion wells in my chest. “Walk away again. Leave. I don’t have a family. They aren’t my family. If I come here and you—”

  “I won’t. I won’t leave. I won’t push you away. That was one night six years ago.”

  “That you were ready to repeat because of Isaac.”

  “But I didn’t. This is now. This is about us, not them. I want you here. I have never wanted anyone in my life the way I do you.”

  “It is about them. They’re all over our lives. How do we get rid of them? How do we make this end?”

  His fingers tangle into my hair and suddenly I’m back in that alcove against the wall. “Together,” he says. “We do it together.” His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue licking against my tongue, the taste of him demanding, possessive. “Say it,” he whispers, his breath a warm fan on my lips. “Together. You’re staying with me.”

  I obey willingly. “Together. I’m staying.” And then he’s kissing me again, and that demand of moments before is not less. It’s more. This is not a kiss. It’s a claiming.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Harper

  In life, there are people who touch our lives and leave lasting marks. There are people who cut us and do so in a way that we feel as if we might never heal. If we’re lucky, we find that one person who can soothe the ache of our wounds, if not heal them. That one person who sees our flaws as perfection. That one person who can make us whole again.

  Eric shoves me against the wall of that alcove, and with that window beside us, overlooking the city, his big body pressed to mine, his kiss not only devours me—it speaks to me. He’s my one person and I’m his. I feel that in his touch. I feel that in the way we connect. I taste it in his kiss. I don’t know where this leads us. I don’t know if it means we can overcome the Kingston family, but I know we can overcome his demons. He doesn’t, though. I taste that in his kiss as well. There is torment, a feeling like he’s bad for me. That he shouldn’t want me and the only comfort I find in this and where we’re headed is that he isn’t pushing me away—he’s pulling me closer. And I will hold him tighter.

  I sink into the hard lines of his body, slide my hands under his shirt, hard muscle flexing beneath my palms, the thick ridge of his erection pressed to my belly. God, how I want him, how I ache for more, and the next lick of his tongue just about undoes me. I tug on his shirt. “Take it off,” I order, wanting to feel him closer.

  He reaches over his head and tugs it free and then fixes me in one of those scorching blue-eyed stares, the way he had the first night we met, and I’m melting right here in this office for him. He tugs my shirt over my head and unhooks the front of my bra, his gaze raking over my naked breasts, my nipples puckering beneath his inspection, and my sex clenching, empty, so very empty without him. “Better?” he challenges, his attention settling on my face.

  My hands come down on his upper arms, the jaguar on his right shoulder, reminding me just how much he wants to deny his heritage. It reminds me just how much this family burns him alive. “A little.” I slide my hands down his hips and boldly stroke the line of his zipper, the thick ridge of his erection.

  He groans, one of his hands covering my hand, the other hand catching my hair, a rough pull as his mouth closes down on mine again. And then he’s devouring me again and I love it. I love that I’ve drawn this deep, guttural reaction from him. I love that he’s all here with me, not in his own head, not doubting how good he is for me. Not swimming in the ocean of numbers in his head. Not in the hell of the Kingston family.

  This drives me. I want to push him. I want to keep him here, with me. I squeeze his erection through his pants and whisper, “Why aren’t you inside me already?”

  He turns me, pressing me to the wall like he had in the cottage, his big body wrapping my body, his hands on my breasts, fingers teasing my nipples, lips at my ear. “You were always sweeter than revenge,” he promises. “Always more addictive.” He plucks at my nipples. “So fucking addictive and I hated you for that.”

  He reaches for my zipper and I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t have to ask what he means. I understand. From the moment we met, he was in my head, in my heart, his touch imprinted on my body. The man I compared all others to, and they came up short. “I hated you, too.”

  His hands press under the denim at my hips. He caresses them down my legs and then his arm is wrapping my waist and he’s lifting me. In a few quick moves, I’m naked and he’s standing at my hips, one palm possessively on my backside. The other on my belly. “Do you hate me now?” His fingers walk down to my sex and he cups me.

  “Yes.” I look at him. “I still hate you for having this much control over me.” He slides his fingers along the seam of my sex, sending sensations darting through my body.

  “Is that a bad thing?” he challenges, his palm squeezing my backside, his fingers slipping inside me.

  “Yes,” I say, panting my way through that one word and somehow adding, “Because when I look in your eyes, like I am now, I see expectations. The wrong ones.”

  He scowls and suddenly he’s turning me, pressing my back to the wall, his legs caging mine. “What does that mean?” he demands.

  “It means as long as you expect to hurt me, as long as you expect you being a savant, you being different from me, to make us less, we will be. It means, you expect us to fail and so we will.” I swallow hard, my hand planting on his chest, his heart thundering beneath my palm, pounding out an emotional beat. “You think I can’t handle who and what you are. You still think I’m the princess and you’re the bastard.”

  He tangles his fingers into my hair, his touch rough, erotic, as he drags my lips to his. “We are the bastard and the princess, but I don’t care anymore. I want you. I fucking need you. Do you understand me?”

  Heat rushes over me, through my body, over my skin and settles in my heart and my sex. “I fucking need you, too.”

  “Good, because I might have asked you to stay, but I never intended to let you go. I’m not going to let you go. I’m not going to let us go.” His mouth closes down on mine and I
can almost feel the moment he goes from trying to control his emotions, his need, to being out of control. He caves to the need to claim and possess, rather than talk or declare.

  He settles on his knees and then his mouth is on me; he’s licking and suckling my clit, and I gasp with the pleasure, giving in to the moment, to the man. His lips close on my clit and he suckles and licks some more. I pant and I don’t even try to hold back. How can I? His fingers are inside me and his tongue is doing a tantalizing dance along my sex in all the perfect places. The build of erotic pleasure is fast and hard, and I shatter with a quick rush of heat and sensation that declares the power he has over me, that I’d admitted he owns. The ways he owns me.

  There’s no going back.

  I don’t want to go back.

  I’m his, but even as he stands and kisses me, the taste of me on his lips, the press of his cock into my sex, filling me, stretching me, I’m not sure I own him. I’m not sure I will ever own him, but that’s okay. If I can own his pain, that’s enough, but I know in some deep part of me that if I don’t own it, this time the Kingston family will, and that will end in disaster.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Harper

  I don’t know how it happens, but we end up in a big brown oversized chair in the corner of Eric’s office, me on top of him. His cock still buried deep inside me, filling me, stretching me, but there is so much more that I need from this man than this. I want all of him, even those parts he hates, and then maybe he won’t hate them anymore. Maybe he won’t be locked into a prison created by his past.

  My fingers spike into his hair and he cups my head, his tongue licking into my mouth, him starting to steal what control being on top has given me. But I need control. The same control that I’ve given to this family. They took my father’s legacy. They took my best friend and mother. They took my trust fund, and now, when I don’t even care about it anymore, they want to take what does matter: Eric. They want to take him. They will if I let them, but I won’t.

  “I love that you’re a savant,” I pant out, my hands pressing to his shoulders.

  His eyes darken, a flicker of torment in his eyes. “You don’t know everything there is to know or you wouldn’t.”

  “You’re wrong. I know. I know you’re different. I love who and what you are and if you don’t, I’ll do it for you. You’re brilliant. You’re sexy. You’re—”

  He folds me closer, aligns our lips. “Rock hard and buried inside you right now.” He pulls me down and thrusts. I gasp as he adds, “And fucked up in ways you don’t begin to understand.”

  I grip his shoulders. “Are you going to trust me enough to let me see what that means?”

  He inhales and looks at the ceiling, but that moment is gone when he tangles his fingers into my hair and drags my mouth back to his. “Yes,” he says, his voice low, gravelly. “Or you wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be asking you to live with me.” He kisses me, his tongue licking into my mouth, a silky, sizzling caress that tingles through every part of my body. Just as the taste of him, hot passion and desire, consumes me.

  We sway, our hips moving, a soft moan sliding from his throat, his hand caressing up and down my back to cup my backside and squeeze, arching me forward, our bodies pressed intimately together. “God, you feel good, woman,” he murmurs, and his breath is a warm, wicked tease against my mouth.

  “Feel free to moan like you just did again,” I whisper. “I liked it.”

  “I’m going to do a whole lot more than moan, sweetheart,” he promises, his lips covering my lips again, his tongue once again licking into my mouth, pressing past my lips, and I feel the lick between my thighs, in the deep throb of my sex that clenches his cock.

  My reward is his moan again, and I whisper, “Yes. Just like that.”

  He smiles against my lips, and God, how I love that he smiles. My hand slides to the jaguar on his arm. “I even love this damn rebellious tattoo.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, a wave of heat between us that all but reaches inside me and steals my breath. “I do.”

  “Show me, Harper. Show me everything. And I’ll show you everything.”

  Show me everything. And I’ll show you everything.

  Those words are everything and now, I can breathe because I’m breathing with him. Now, he’s kissing me and we’re swaying together, our bodies moving and grinding. The passion is explosive. His lips are on my jaw. On my neck, trailing down my shoulder. His fingers on my nipple. I’m on fire with sensations. “What do you feel right now?” he demands, thrusting into me and then pressing his cheek to mine, lips at my ear. “Right now.”

  I pull back and look at him, his gaze raking over my breasts, hot and hungry before they lift to my face. “Tell me,” he demands.

  “Alive,” I whisper, and it’s true. Every part of me feels something right now. Every part of me feels him. “Alive,” I say again.

  Surprise flickers in his eyes and then warmth floods his expression. “Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.” His hands slide under my hair to my neck. “You’re never leaving me.”

  “You’re never leaving me.”

  And then we’re kissing again, a craving between us, seduction between us—love between us, even if we haven’t actually said those words. I all but did, and I don’t even care. He needs to be loved. He needs to be accepted. I hold onto him, and I silently vow to never let go. We sway again, slow, sensual, kissing just as slow and sensual. We savor every moment together. Every thrust, pump, touch, even every breath we share. I scrape my nails down his spine. He arches into me and offers me the chance to kiss his neck. To kiss his shoulder. But there is a moment when our eyes collide, and we explode. Passion burns deep and wild, and there is no coming back. We fall into the eruption of sensations together and collapse with exhaustion when it’s over.

  Eric rolls me to my side, pulls me close, his leg entwined with mine and his hand on my face. “The savant in me—”

  I press my fingers to his lips. “Is you. And that’s everything to me.”

  He cups my hand and pulls it between us. “That’s what you need to understand, Harper. Sometimes it consumes me. It changes me. I have to deal with it and—”

  “We have to deal with it. You have to think like that or I can’t be here and share a life with you, Eric. A life. Our life. We—”

  “Will deal with it,” he says. “We.” He presses his forehead to mine and holds me close, but I can feel the torment radiating off of him. He doesn’t want me to see that part of him. He hates it that much and I just remind myself that I have to love him that much more.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Harper

  I don’t know how long Eric and I lay there on that chair, naked, intimate, together—just us. But there is a world outside his office that wants to own us, and that means we have to get up and face it. We have to fight. Eric’s the first one to speak. “We need to get up.”

  I sigh, giving in to the inevitability of that statement. There’s a war raging around us. We have to return to battle. “You don’t suppose Grayson is out there waiting on us, do you?”

  “No. He knew we needed time.” He kisses my temple. “And we did and do. Everything and everyone around us has owned us for the past twenty-four hours.”

  Owned.

  The same word I’d thought in my head.

  He’s right. We’ve been owned. I think it’s time we take the control back.

  Reluctantly, and in silence, we ease out of the chair and start dressing. Eric has just pulled on his pants and glanced at his watch when my stomach growls loudly. He laughs. “Me, too,” he says. “I’m starving, which is why I was checking my watch. It’s six. We can still get takeout from about anywhere.”

  I finish dressing and hug myself, craving the day when we are free from this hell we’re living inside, free to leave this apartment and feel safe. “Because staying in is the best way to avoid being killed while eating dinner. We’re targets and there’s an assassin o
n the lose. Welcome to the world of the wicked Kingston family.”

  “We have layers of protection,” he says, tugging his shirt over his head. “And we aren’t hiding. We need to go out and take you shopping sooner or later, but more than anything right now, I need to think and so do you. That man at the hospital told you to look in front of you, to see what is there, but that message was for me.”

  “Was he talking about you? Was he trying to turn me against you?”

  Eric’s hands come down on his hips. “If he had been, why give you a message he knew I’d figure out? A message clearly meant for me?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s something pinging the back on my mind. Let’s order food and start talking this through.”

  Any opportunity to solve this puzzle and watch his mind work is welcomed. “Yes,” I approve. “Good. I’d like that.”

  Thirty minutes later, we’re in the living room, on the couch, a bottle of wine between us, our glasses full and plates ready, waiting on our Chinese takeout to be delivered. We also have the two coded messages we’ve been given, and not one, not two, but three Rubik’s cubes in front us. I grab one of them and eye Eric. “I thought you didn’t need to solve these to focus anymore?”

  “I don’t have to use them,” he explains. “I can focus without them, but I’ve trained my mind to turn off the outside noise the minute I pick one up.”

  Remembering tidbits I’ve picked up before now, I ask, “That’s something you learned in the military?”

  “Yes. When I went into the Navy, I was just another enlisted soldier to the government, but as they discovered my ‘gifts’ as they called them, they called in several specialists to work with me. One, a woman actually, named Karen Montgomery, a grumpy old lady is a more precise description, honed my thinking process. She was a bitch, but she was a good bitch. Good at heart. Good intentions. To her, being the bitch that she was to me, was about protecting me. She was saving my life and teaching me how to save other people’s lives.”