British Big Shot: A Hero Club Novel

by J. H. Croix

  “The doctor said you can’t drink with the painkiller she prescribed,” he said kind of sternly.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered. “I don’t want wine. I was just making a point. I’ll take some water, please.”

  With that, I turned and actually flounced over to the couch. I was irritable and annoyed. Now, I had to deal with this hand thing. I didn’t have time. Speaking of things I didn’t have, I recalled that I didn’t have health insurance again. I really didn’t want Jasper covering my medical bill.

  When he crossed the room with a glass of water and set it beside me on the table, he sat down at an angle on the opposite end of the sectional, giving me a considering look. I took a swallow of water before looking over at him. “You’re not covering my medical bill,” I announced, trying to inject a firm tone into my words.

  “I already did,” he replied with a dispassionate and definitely firm tone.

  What was I doing thinking about firm things? I knew what I wanted. Jasper firm in my hands, and Jasper firm over me. He was firm in many places.

  I suddenly got hot and realized I was starting to feel a little loopy. “Fine, but only this time.” I aimed for casual nonchalance.

  “The health care situation in this country is barbaric,” he added.

  “Tell me something I don’t know as someone who has no health insurance because it’s too expensive.” I rolled my eyes and reached for the glass of water again. This time, I almost dropped it.

  He was over there so fast, I didn’t even notice him until he was right beside me lifting the water glass from my hand. “Pain meds kicking in?” he asked.

  I finished a swallow of water, and he returned the glass to the table. “I guess so.” I leaned back in the couch.

  “I’m going to add health insurance to the business budget tomorrow.” Moving the water glass out of my reach, he sat down again, this time only about a foot away from me.

  The last thing I remembered was looking over at Jasper and telling him, “You’re too handsome. It’s annoying.”

  An indeterminate amount of time later, I woke up in my bed. For a moment, I was confused because I didn’t remember getting in bed. Then I rolled over and realized my hand was really sore.

  Most of the night came rushing back—dropping the bottle, trying to clean up in a rush, and cutting myself. Then Jasper being all worried and bossy and grumpy. The pain meds must’ve knocked me out because I didn’t remember getting from the couch to my bed.

  I gently lifted my hand. It was sore, but I could deal with it. When I sat up in bed, I realized I smelled Jasper. Looking down, I discovered I was wearing one of his T-shirts. There was nothing distinctive about it, and it swallowed me whole and smelled like him. I shamelessly curled my good hand in the fabric and lifted it for a nice long breath in. God. Even his shirt smelled so good it turned me on. I didn’t know what kind of laundry soap he used, but his shirt carried a crisp, clean scent with a hint of him—whatever him was—underneath.

  The wooden floor was cool under my feet when I rested them on it to stand. The T-shirt fell to my knees, so I decided it was safe to venture out into the main area. Because I needed to pee. A girl’s got to take care of her needs first.

  There was no sign of Jasper when I tiptoed out and slipped into the bathroom. After taking care of matters and gently washing my hands, being careful not to get any water on the bandage right along the edge of my palm, I brushed my teeth and then ventured back to the living room.

  Jasper was at the kitchen counter wearing a pair of sweatpants and no shirt. My hormones stood up and did a little cheer inside my body. My God, he had a great ass. The way the sweatpants curved over that muscular surface had me itching to reach over and stroke a palm over it.

  He turned, and my mouth practically watered at the sight of his chest—all muscled planes, with that smattering of dark hair that narrowed to a very well-defined happy trail. He reached behind him without even turning and tapped the button to turn on the coffee maker.

  “How do you feel?” he asked as he crossed over to me, oblivious to the fact he was sending my hormones into overdrive. It had nothing to do with anything other than wanting to jump him. The sexy kind of jump, that is.

  “Fine,” I squeaked. “Did you help me get in bed last night?” I fingered the hem of his T-shirt.

  He studied me quietly before nodding slowly. “Yes. If carrying you to your bed and getting you changed after you told me you refused to sleep in your clothes counts as help.”

  “I think it counts as help,” I managed in return, uncomfortable with how close he was. I took a step back and crossed over to look out the windows.

  The sun was just cresting the horizon. Rays of gold stretched into the sky, mingling with the fading oranges and reds of the sunrise. Dew glimmered on the flowers and the fields in the distance. The landscape sparkled.

  “How do you feel?” Jasper repeated as he came to stand beside me.

  “Fine,” I said. “I don’t need any more painkillers. Ibuprofen should do the trick.”

  “I’ll get you some.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jasper

  I handed Anna two ibuprofen. She popped them in her mouth, and I passed over a glass of water, taking it from her the moment she lowered it from her lips.

  When she swiped her pink tongue across her bottom lip, catching a drop of water, it felt as if a bolt of lightning struck my body. Bloody hell. She was injured, so I did not need to be lusting after her now.

  I turned away abruptly and crossed the room to set the glass of water by the sink. When I turned back, Anna was walking to meet me. I didn’t know what to think of how fucking sexy I thought she was in my T-shirt. I’d only put it on her out of desperate self-preservation last night.

  She’d fallen asleep on the couch, so I carried her to bed. She’d tested every ounce of discipline I had when she came awake. When I lowered her to bed, she tried to pull me in with her. Then it got even worse.

  She sat up. “I can’t sleep with this on.” She’d yanked at her shirt. “Men don’t understand how uncomfortable it is to fall asleep in a bra,” she’d then offered up as a deep philosophical point. “This is serious.”

  I’d literally had to grit my teeth to help her out of her shirt and bra. While I’d turned away to drape them on a chair near her bed, she’d started shimmying out of her jeans. Considering she got one leg out and the other stuck, I had no choice but to help her, but then she was practically naked. Out of sheer desperation, I’d yanked off my own T-shirt and put it on her before tucking her under the covers.

  Needing to get my mind off that vision, I said, “I’ve already fed the goats and the chickens.”

  “Without your shirt on?” she countered, her cheeks flushing slightly at that.

  “I had a shirt on, but I got some chicken shit on it, so I put it in the hamper and showered,” I explained.

  Anna caught the corner of her lip in her teeth, worrying it a little and making me want to kiss her. I shouldn’t have known exactly how many days had passed since I had her sweet lips underneath mine. If you were wondering, it was six. Six days too many.

  “Thank you for helping out,” she said quietly.

  “You’re welcome. I really don’t mind. Jasper is growing on me,” I offered with a chuckle, thinking of how the little goat had greeted me with a head butt in the calves this morning.

  Anna smiled and walked back toward the counter. Like the fool I was for her, I followed, stopping a few feet away from her. I wasn’t feeling rational, not in the slightest. In fact, I’d been a little bit crazy since I found her last night with her bloodied hand.

  Continuing my tendency not to think, I took one stride, closing the distance between us. Lifting a hand, I brushed a wayward lock of hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.

  She shivered slightly, and her cheeks went pink again. “You’re not allowed to work too much until that’s better,” I heard myself saying.

  �
��Jasper,” she began.

  I shook my head. “Don’t boss me, Anna.”

  Her pretty brown eyes narrowed, and her teeth released her bottom lip. “How about you don’t boss me?” she countered.

  When she took a breath, her breasts brushed against my chest, and I could feel the tight points of her nipples through the cotton of my T-shirt. It didn’t help matters for the state of my body that I knew she only had on a pair of panties under there, if that.

  She felt almost dangerous to me. She was certainly dangerous to my sanity and shredded my control with no effort whatsoever. I rested my hands on either side of her hips on the counter behind her as if somehow that would help me get a grip.

  “Have you decided what you want to do?” she asked, her voice falling into the weighted space surrounding us.

  The air felt as if it had been lit with a charge, but I answered her with the truth. “I don’t want to sell.”

  Her eyes searched mine, almost as if she couldn’t believe it. I shrugged. “I think my grandfather would’ve liked me to choose not to do that.”

  While that was true, that wasn’t why I’d come to my conclusion. Oh no. That was all Anna. I knew how much this place meant to her, and I knew that if she took what little money she had after she bought me out, she would still be scrambling to get back onto solid footing. Not changing the arrangement would make it possible for her to truly recoup the losses her grandmother had incurred.

  “Oh,” she finally said. “Really?”

  I nodded slowly, trying to think over the echoing beat of my heart and the need twisting like flames through my veins. “I have one request.”

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  Her breath hitched in the back of her throat, and the sound shot like fire through my body. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until she spoke again, and I finally let it out.

  “If I don’t kiss you, will you change your mind and want to sell?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t going to lie to her, even if I wanted the leverage it might give me.

  Her eyes widened, and her nostrils flared. “I don’t know if I can stop at a kiss,” she said, and I almost groaned at the raw honesty in her words and in her eyes.

  “That’s up to you.”

  She bit her lip and shifted her legs. I knew she was rubbing her thighs together, and I knew what that meant.

  I forced myself, by scrambling together what little discipline I had, to wait. I needed to know she really wanted this.

  “Okay,” she finally whispered.

  My body sent up a silent hallelujah, but I still waited, curling my fingers around the edge of the counter as if the counter itself could keep me sane in the force of desire roaring through my body like wind across a flat landscape with nothing to slow it down.

  “Okay, what?” I said carefully.

  “Okay, kiss me.”

  “Just a kiss?” I pressed, my fingers tightening even further on the counter.

  She bit her lip and shifted her thighs again. “No. Don’t stop there. That would be mean.”

  Then she inched closer, placing one hand on my chest. My heart lurched toward her palm as she slid her other hand up around the back of my neck and pulled me down to kiss her.

  In a hot second, I was delving into the warm sweetness of Anna’s mouth. She tasted minty. When she sighed and flexed into me, I slid my hand down to cup her sweet bottom, savoring the little whimper she made in my mouth. I rocked my arousal into the cradle of her hips.

  I abruptly recalled she had an injured hand and tore my lips from hers as I took in a gulp of air. “Be careful,” I managed to say.

  “Of you?” she countered, looking a little surprised.

  “Of your hand,” I murmured as I glanced down at where it rested on my chest.

  “My hand is fine. I promise, this won’t hurt it,” she said with a sly, saucy grin. I was distracted a little by that, but I made a mental note not to forget about her hand.

  “Here,” I said. I lifted her and slipped her hips onto the counter, promptly discovering it was the perfect height.

  My T-shirt slid up on her thighs, revealing those purple cotton panties I’d had to blank out of my mind last night. They were cute with a little cotton bow right in the front.

  Dipping my head into the side of her neck, I breathed in her sweet, musky scent before I pressed hot open kisses along there, letting out a growl of satisfaction on her skin. She shivered and arched toward me.

  I tugged her hips a little closer to the edge of the counter, savoring the feel of her hot core against my swollen arousal. We didn’t have much between us, what with my thin cotton sweatpants and her panties, yet I felt all too much.

  With a yank, I sent my T-shirt flying off her and caught one breast with my palm, savoring its silky weight right before I dipped my head and swirled my tongue around her dusky pink nipple.

  Fuck me. I loved how responsive Anna was. She let out something between a sigh and whimper before her fingers slid into my hair—her good hand, mind you—and she murmured my name in a breathy gasp.

  She arched into my mouth as I slid a palm down over the curve of her belly, teasing into her trimmed curls as I pushed her panties out of the way. My fingers were slick with her arousal when I delved into her folds. She let out a sharp cry when I sank two fingers into her, knuckle deep.

  I needed to taste her. After a light nip on her nipple, I leaned down and pushed her knees apart. Her pussy was so wet the cotton was drenched.

  “These are in the way,” I muttered as I hooked a hand over the elastic and lifted her hips to yank them down quickly. “There we go.” I pushed her knees apart and glanced down. Her pussy was swollen and glistening. I teased my fingers over her again, watching as her eyes fell closed and her breasts rose and fell as she took sharp pants.

  I blew lightly on her sex, satisfaction rolling through me when her hips arched, and she trembled slightly. I wanted to slow this down, but nothing was ever slow with Anna. I felt as if something had caught me in its current, a riptide of need and a fierce desire to claim her.

  I looked just as I buried my fingers inside her again. She shuddered, her channel convulsing around my fingers. I dragged my tongue through her slick arousal. She tasted salty and sweet. The sound of her gasping my name between ragged breaths only made my cock swell to the point of pain.

  Keeping in tune with our tendency to rush through everything, she was climaxing in a noisy burst in a matter of seconds. “Jasper,” she gasped as I straightened.

  “Yes?” I reached for my cock, shoving my sweatpants down and kicking them free so fast it was a miracle I didn’t fall over.

  “I need you,” she murmured.

  I had my cock in my fist and was just about to sink inside her when I realized I needed a condom. I started to draw back, but she was strong, injured hand notwithstanding. She curled her legs around me and held tight. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “Condom,” I bit out.

  “I have an IUD, and I promise I’m clean. I actually don’t remember the last time I had sex before you.” She cocked her head to the side then as if she were going to try to figure this out now.

  “I’ve never had sex without a condom.”

  “Never?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve always been careful.”

  “Well, in that case, if you insist,” she said, loosening her legs.

  The thing was, I trusted her completely. Now that I knew I could be inside her without a single thing between us, well, I didn’t think I could resist.

  “No need to insist.”

  When I felt the first kiss of her arousal on my thick crown, I groaned. My forehead fell to hers, and I sank home inside her slowly. Inch by intoxicating inch, she sheathed me in her silky clench.

  When I was buried deep, I held still, scrambling to gain some control. “Sweetheart,” I murmured against her lips. “You feel so fucking good.” My words wer
e slurred, and I felt drugged and dragged into the most intense pleasure I’d ever experienced.

  She let out this whispered gasp, saying something unintelligible. When I felt her hand fall to my chest and the subtle brush of her bandage on me, I reminded myself I could only fuck her so hard.

  But Anna had this way of making me forget everything. When she rocked her hips into me as I gripped her with my palm, right at the base of her spine with my fingers splayed over one of her sweet ass cheeks, I was gone. I sank into her satiny heat again and again. She slowly dropped her legs, and that movement created the friction she was after. The moment her legs fell, she was crying out, and I felt her rippling around me. Electricity sizzled through me, and my balls tightened. She cried out, her fingers pressing against my chest when she threw her head back and gasped my name.

  My own release slammed into me, that riptide dragging me under before it curled and threw me back on the shore. I came in rough shudders as I held on tight to her.

  Awareness came in fragments—the feel of her breasts against my chest, her palm sliding over my shoulder, the subtle brush of her bandage on my skin, my breath gradually slowing, and the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears with every thundering beat of my heart.

  I eventually lifted my head, almost afraid to look in her eyes, but I managed. Wide and brown, they searched my face.

  I startled myself with what I said next. “Are you going to tell me we can’t do that again? Because you’ve ruined me.”

  She watched me quietly before shaking her head just barely. “No. It might not be smart, but it feels too good.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Anna

  Following Jasper’s orders that night, I didn’t really work. We had our weekly wine tasting, and we had quite a crowd. It appeared that word had traveled that a sexy British man was now co-owner of the winery. He was quite the draw.