by Gemma James
“Jesus,” he groans. “The way you say my name makes me harder than hell. The things I’m dying to do to you.” Using the perfect amount of pressure, he rubs my clit with purpose until an orgasm almost busts me wide open. But something holds me back.
Don’t come.
I don’t know why I’m not taking what I so desperately want. Maybe it’s the command in his words, or the desperate way he said them.
Like he needs me to pass this test.
“Tell me when to stop,” he demands, holding me in the storm of his gaze.
“I don’t want you to stop.” His fingers are slipping in and out at just the right pace, and I wonder how I’m going to find the strength to hold back.
“Are you getting close?”
“Yes.” My breath is a hot blast across his tempting lips, and I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on not going over the edge.
“Does your orgasm belong to me?”
“Only you.” It’s what he wants to hear, and it’s the absolute truth, because he’s mastering me with every stroke of his fingers. Desperate to block out the steady rhythm of his thumb against my clit, I squirm, but the pressure reaches zenith. “Stop!” I gasp. “Can’t hold back.”
“Fuck, Jules. Look at these flushed cheeks.” He cradles them between his hands and kisses me deep, infusing everything he’s feeling into the licks of his tongue against mine. We kiss for a lifetime.
We don’t kiss long enough.
Leaving me dizzy and disoriented, he steps back and zips up his pants, all the while pinning me to the wall with the liquid fire of his stare. “You don’t know how bad I want you right now.”
“Why are you holding back?”
“I need you to be as sure about us as I am.”
“I am sure.”
He rakes a hand through hair left disheveled from my fingers, and there’s no mistaking the indecision in his expression. “Soon, Jules.”
My heart thumps an uneven beat. “What do you mean by soon?”
“When there’s nothing standing between us,” he says, buckling his belt, “that’s when nothing will ever hold me back from you again.”
He kisses me on the cheek, and I can’t speak as he slips through the front door, closing it quietly upon his exit. But my frustration is loud in my ears, screaming my disagreement. I can’t imagine dealing with this relentless throb between the legs until tomorrow, but there’s no getting around it.
He’s got me exactly where he wants me.
13. On the Edge
Jules
Sexual frustration festered all night long, making sleep an elusive bitch. I finally fell into a restless slumber three hours before I had to get up for work, so I’m a hot, emotional mess when I barge into Cash’s office the next morning. I’m also steaming mad. I shut the door, resisting the urge to slam it, and launch my anger at the brooding suit sitting behind the desk. It’s barely 8 a.m., but he’s already shed his jacket and rolled up his cuffs. I grit my teeth against my too-female response to him, because he doesn’t have a right to look that gorgeous when I’m this pissed at him.
“What was that last night?” I demand, dropping my bag into the chair in front of his desk.
He shifts in his seat, leaning back as his gaze roams over my curve-revealing ensemble. It’s still warm enough outside to get away with spaghetti straps. Between the fitted creme top dipping low in the front, and the flirty pink skirt begging for his fingers to lift the hem and discover what’s underneath, I dressed to kill this morning, and the appreciation in his eyes tells me he knows it.
“I didn’t think it was possible for you to be more gorgeous, but you are.” The corners of his mouth turn up as he gestures at me. “When you’re fired up like this.”
“Well that’s the problem. You lit the fire and didn’t put it out. I don’t like mind games.”
“I don’t like them either.”
I cross my arms, and his gaze drops to my cleavage. “You can’t deny you were angry, Cash.”
“Yes, and now I’ve cooled down.”
I almost scoff at that. He appears far from cool—if anything, he seems as edgy and aroused as I am. “Well that makes one of us. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”
He rises from behind the desk. “What’s there to explain? I have eyes. I didn’t just see you kissing him, but I saw the hurt on your face when you pulled away.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not. I’m aware that we both have baggage. I knew it going in. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.”
“So you get hurt and tuck your tail and run? I thought we were in this together.”
“God, Jules.” He levels me with the intensity in his eyes. “I want nothing more than you and me in a sentence that includes the word together, but let’s face some facts here. You’ve still got feelings for your ex, and I’m still as married today as I was yesterday. No matter how much we want this, we can’t ignore reality.”
His words physically hurt, and I fight the urge to claw at my chest, as if I can yank out the knife he just buried there. “You said you were willing to fight for us.”
“I am.”
“I sense a but.”
“But fighting for you means fighting for your happiness too. I remember how heartbroken you were on that plane. How can I ask you to walk away from your second chance if that’s what you want?”
“What makes you think I want that?”
He rakes a hand through his hair, the motion a jerky, frustrated one. “The two of you have a history together. If you need to find closure, or…whatever it is you’re looking for with him, I…I won’t stand in your way.”
“Stop being so pig-headed! I want you.”
“If that were one-hundred percent true, you wouldn’t have freaked out when he proposed. You sure as hell wouldn’t have kissed him back last night.”
Did I kiss Chris back? I can’t remember, but the fact that Cash is using it to put a wall between us is digging at the facade of calm I’m clinging to.
“You’re a fucking coward.”
A tick goes off in his jaw, and I fight the urge to retreat. “Ask yourself why you were kissing him knowing I could show up any second.”
“Ask me why I was wearing lingerie I bought just for you,” I fire back, tone brimming with challenge. “Ask me if I’m wearing it today.”
Grabbing at his tie, he clears his throat. “You’re fighting dirty.”
“Get used to it.”
“Christ.” The vulnerability in his expression is a weapon. Slowly rounding the desk, he drags a hand down his haggard face. “I’ll go fucking crazy if I have to watch you go back to your ex because you changed your mind.”
“I won’t change my mind,” I say, tugging him closer by the deep blue tie around his neck. “I want you. Only you.”
Resting his forehead against mine, his eyes shutter as he expels a breath. “I’m so in love with you, Jules.”
His declaration sends my heart soaring, and I shutter my eyes against the sting of tears. “I feel the same way,” I whisper before pressing my lips to his. He slides a hand along my cheek and tilts my head back, deepening the kiss.
I clutch at his shirt, going weak in the knees. His kiss touches me to the center of my soul, sucks the last of the anger from my bones, makes any remaining feelings I have for Chris obsolete. When Cash kisses me like this—like he’ll die if our mouths and tongues don’t meet—I’m powerless to resist. Someone could barge into the office, and I wouldn’t notice.
Eventually, he inches back. “Are you really wearing lingerie for me?”
“Yes. I went shopping yesterday after work.”
His fingers creep beneath the hem of my skirt, caressing my thigh. Slowly, he trails a fiery path up to the edge of soft lace, but he stops before touching me there. “What color?”
“Pink,” I say on a stuttered sigh.
“You’ve caught on to my weakness. Cotton, or something sexier?”
He finishes the journey to my sex, sliding beneath lace to burrow between my thighs, and I whimper.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Jules?”
Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I nod. “Is it working?”
“Hell yeah, it’s working. You seduced me the second you walked through the door, all riled up and letting me have it.” He trails his lips to my ear. “Does it make me an ass for admitting how much I want to fuck you right now?”
“The only ass move you’ve made is assuming I’m not completely in love with you.”
He sucks in a breath. An instant later, his mouth is on mine, tongue devouring as he yanks my head back for a better angle. I can do nothing but submit and whimper and let him claim me with every demanding lick of his tongue against mine.
“These sexy panties you’re wearing for me,” he says, breaths hitting my damp lips in rapid bursts of desire. “Show them to me.” Ownership pulls at the corners of his mouth, hinting at a seductive smile. He whirls me around, and I gasp as he bends me over the desk.
With the exception of last night, the dominance inside him is subtle, maybe even in full-blown hibernation, but now it’s running rampant, and I’m having trouble reconciling my first impression of Cash on that plane with the absolute alpha standing behind me, shoving me onto his desk as he kicks my feet apart with a curt order to spread them.
I palm the surface, and my golden locks cascade around my face in waves, obscuring my vision, heightening the crackling awareness between us until there’s only the hard desk underneath me and the warmth of Cash between my legs, his fingers trailing down the small of my back, sending shivers down my spine. Biting back a needy moan, I arch into him as he slips a hand under the hem of my skirt and lifts the material until my thong-clad ass is bared.
“Jesus, there’s something so damn innocent about you, but this right here,” he breathes, dipping a finger beneath the back of my thong and snapping the scant material against my ass, “is hot as hell, knowing you’re wearing this just for me.”
“You like it?” My voice is practically gone, held hostage by the desire thickening my throat.
“I love it,” he says, and my head spins again as he pulls me upright and turns me to face him. “And I love you. So damn much it terrifies me. You’re under my skin, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I feel the same way. You have to believe that.”
“If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I have a mean, jealous streak, and I won’t apologize for it. Not with you, Jules.”
“He caught me by surprise—”
“I don’t need an explanation. I only need to know it won’t happen again.”
“It won’t.”
“What about us?” he asks, gripping me by the ass. He sets me onto the desk and wedges his torso between my thighs. “Are we happening again?” Leaning down, he nips my lips, then softens his tone. “And again.” Another kiss, another whisper. “And again?”
I inch back, meeting his challenging stare head-on. “You’ve got me on the edge. What the hell are you waiting for?”
14. Timing Is Everything
Cash
It’s a good thing I had the foresight to buy condoms yesterday when I grabbed the tulips and dinner. The flowers are on their way to a sad death in my penthouse—a place of ghosts and lost hope and dreams—and the food is beyond saving, but the condoms…
Maybe part of me hoped I’d get one out of three, because I’ve got two tucked away in my wallet.
And I’ve got Jules waiting and willing on my desk, her brown eyes dark with lust, glinting with undiluted want. It still blows my mind that this incredible woman wants me, despite the heavy baggage chained to my feet, sinking me a few more meters each day.
“What’s the schedule look like this morning?” I follow the question with a teasing bite to her collarbone.
“No meetings until ten. We were supposed to work on the proposal for the Phoenix project until then.”
“I’d rather work on you.”
“I’d rather you work on me too, boss.”
I laugh at that, but then she obliterates all thought by unzipping my pants and wrapping her fingers around my cock. With long, steady strokes of her hand, she sends me out of my fucking mind. I’m held captive by the seduction in her warm, sable eyes. She plants a hand on the desk to support her weight, then she arches her spine and spreads her knees for me. I reach for the buttons of her blouse and undo them all the way to her navel, exposing her lace-covered tits.
Pink see-through lace to match the scant panties I know are soaked.
Fighting dirty, indeed. Two slits run vertical down the cup seams, allowing her nipples to poke through the lace. The cut of her lingerie is an erotic temptation my mouth can’t resist, and I dip my head and tease a nipple through the gap, tugging it between my teeth. She whimpers, and that throaty plea tempts me to bite and lick all her intimate places, marking them as mine.
“I need you inside me. Don’t make me beg.” She flexes her fingers around my erection, and with every desperate pant escaping her lips, her strokes quicken.
I’m tempted to make her beg, except we don’t have time. It would take hours to make her writhe and plead for my cock in a way that would satisfy me, and the things I want to do to her are far from your average office fuck.
I want to own her, body and soul.
“Maybe I should make you work for it,” I say, brushing my lips over the swell of her cleavage before leaving her other nipple damp and puckered in my wake.
“Please,” she whimpers.
“I let you come yesterday.”
“But you left me a hot mess last night.”
“Mmm,” I murmur against her throat. “I could do it again, and you’d have no choice but to go through the workday with this ache between your legs.” I leave that dangling in the air just to taunt her.
“Jesus, Cash. You are mean.”
“Don’t forget the jealous part. The two are exclusive.”
“Mmm, exclusive. I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
I remember how she clenched around my fingers yesterday as she came, and I know I won’t be able to drag this out much longer. I need to get inside her and find home again in the snugness of her pussy. It’s only been a few days, but it feels like forever.
My only regret is that there will be a latex barrier between us this time.
“I owe you an apology,” I breathe the words against her neck, trying to think straight despite the tight, warm friction of her fingers on me. She swipes her thumb over the wet crown of my cock, and I smother a groan in the crook of her shoulder.
“An apology for what?”
“I didn’t use a condom before.”
“You weren’t the only one in that bed. What’s done is done.”
“I realize that, but I need you to know that if something does come of it, I’ll be there, no matter what.”
She slides her palm along my cheek, and I can’t help but close my eyes at the warmth of her touch. “I already know that. You’re not the type to run from an unplanned pregnancy.” She pauses for a few seconds, nibbling on her lip. “I guess neither of us think straight when we’re together.”
“Not from the waist down, no.” I reach for my wallet and pull out one of the rubbers I stashed there last night. She commandeers the condom, tearing open the foil wrapper.
“I’ll get back on birth control.”
As she rolls the latex up my shaft, I suck in a breath. “I like how permanent that sounds.”
She smiles. “Me too.” With slow movements, she unknots the tie from around my neck, then unbuttons my shirt before roaming her hands over my chest. I’m sure she can feel how fast and hard my heart is pounding, and I want to find out if hers is a perfect match. It must be.
Because she’s the other half of me. The center of my
soul. The north star in my sky. I think we both recognized it at first glance on that plane. It’s the reason I tossed my morals out the window to be with her—why I’ll continue to ignore what’s right and what’s wrong if it means one more touch.
One more glance.
One more chance to hear her voice, taste her kiss, experience the comforting blanket of her love.
Closing my eyes, I rest my head against hers and breathe her in. “I could spend the rest of my life loving you.”
“I could let you,” she whispers, and I let out a sigh as her fingers rake through my hair.
“Where the hell have you been hiding all my life?”
“In a tiny dot-on-the-map town in rural Oklahoma,” she deadpans.
I laugh. “God, the way you make me feel.” As I take her by the mouth, I sweep her panties to the side and position my cock, on the cusp of sliding home, and that’s when the phone on my desk shrills.
“Fuck,” I mutter, cursing the heavens.
Or hell.
I break away, my pulse thrumming in my ears, cock throbbing more than is bearable. “I’m sorry. I have to get that.”
“Ignore it.” She’s breathing hard, and we haven’t even started yet. I’m not going to lie—the fact that she’s so worked up is a stroke to my ego.
“I wish like hell I could, but I forwarded my calls and told Beth to ring me if it’s important.”
The reminder of reality is a chilly splash over the heat between us. With a sigh, she straightens and begins buttoning up her clothing.
I dispose of the condom then do the same.
And I know we’re both considering the possibility. The probability. There’s only one thing that’s important enough for Beth to interrupt the CEO of MontBlake during a do-not-disturb order.
Eyes locked on Jules, I lean past her and pick up the phone. “What is it, Beth?”
“It’s your wife, sir. They found her.”
15. Escape
Cash
It takes forty-five minutes to get across the city to the hospital where Monica was brought in after someone found her unconscious in her car. The company driver pulls into the emergency entrance, and I hop out and rush through the automatic doors, attention zeroing in on the woman behind the circular counter.