“Where are you going?” she asked, flipping over until I saw her breasts. If I didn’t turn around now, I’d slide into her hot, wet pussy again.
“Right back, I swear.” I bent over and placed a kiss on her cheek before turning around and making my way to the spiral staircase that led up to a large master bath. I knew it was odd to have the bath so separated, but I wanted a view of the ocean when I stepped into the shower, so I designed the best damn bathroom anyone had ever seen. I padded my way up the cold marble steps, white, black, and gold swirling through the stone.
I came to the loft and took a left and then flipped on the light. The floors were black, and the oversized soaking tub sat in cattycorner where two glass walls met, looking out onto the beautiful ocean, black sky, and stars. A walk-in shower was to the left with a built-in sauna, and the toilet sat to the right in another room by the double vanity. There would be plenty of space for Quinn and all her girly shit that women used. I made sure of that. She had her own makeup spot to do her hair and whatever else.
I didn’t care what she did with the space. I just wanted her there. The floor was warm beneath my feet since I spent the extra thousand dollars to get the floors heated. The gold handles of the tub shined as I turned the knobs equally so the water wouldn’t be too hot. Next, I poured lavender oil and bubble bath because I didn’t give a shit about what anyone said, bubble baths were fucking great. Any guy that said otherwise was a liar.
I lit a few candles and sat them on the edge. I could be romantic, but only for the woman I loved. Other than that, I was a cold-blooded killer, for the most part. “Candles lit, bubbles bubbling, lavender— smelling great, and now all I need is champagne.” I clapped my hands together and walked over to the wine chiller I had. I liked to drink and soak in a bath. It was relaxing.
I grabbed a bottle of champagne, took of the gold aluminum foil, and popped the cork until chilled smoke danced out of the bottle. We didn’t need champagne flutes. We could drink out of the bottle. We kissed and fucked without a condom, so it didn’t get much closer than that. Germs were the last thing on my mind. I wanted to get as close to her as possible. Being inside her bare wasn’t enough; I needed more. I wanted to be closer. I just didn’t know how.
I had to make mine.
“What are you doing, Jaxon Steel?”
I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see her standing naked in the doorway. She looked absolutely ravished. Quinn had sex hair, red marks over her tits, and finger-shaped bruises along her thighs. I didn’t remember getting that rough with her, but damn it, seeing her debauched made me want to fuck her all over again.
I held out my hand, hoping she’s put hers in mine and her hips sashayed back and forth as she came toward me, hand outstretched as she reached for mine. A flame ignited when our palms touched; my heart pumped faster and harder just from the quick, simple touch. “I don’t want to fall asleep yet, and I thought a nice hot bath with champagne would be good. Interested?”
“My, my, I didn’t know you had a sweet side.”
“When it comes to you, Quinn, I’m starting to think it’s my only side.” I tugged her to me, and her palms landed on each pec. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. I have a brutal image to maintain.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” she smiled, tracing the tattoo on my chest.
I placed a quick kiss on her lips. “Well, it’s never been a secret how I feel about you, and it never will be. The guys know. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you over anyone else any day of the damn week.” I stepped in the tub, the how water wrapped around my legs, instantly relaxing. Quinn followed, and as I sat down, her ass filled my vision, and I couldn’t help but kiss each cheek.
They were too beautiful to pass up.
She sat between my legs, her flawless back against my chest, and the tub continued to fill. It had a long way to go since it was so large.
“Wow, I could get used to this,” she said, staring out the window to the see dark blue ocean standing so still, it looked like a sheet of glass. No ripples, no waves, just a silky surface. “It’s gorgeous. What made you build your house in a cliff?”
“I wanted something different, something safe, a place that was pretty off-grid. I wanted to be able to disappear after a job, surrounded by beauty, so I bought this plot of land, the guys all chipped in to build it, and here we are.” I sat my chin on her shoulder and looked out onto the sea like she was. The stars glimmered and twinkled so bright and clear that I could count them if I wanted to.
I didn’t. I’d lose count. I was just saying how remarkable they were.
“Well, it’s a beautiful place. I’m assuming you designed it?”
“I did. You know how I love to create things,” I told her, cupping water and bringing it up to her shoulders, bathing her in bubbles and lavender. Then, I started kneading her shoulders, massaging the small knots stressing her.
She groaned and tilted her chin down to give me better access. “That feels amazing.”
“Good, you deserve it,” I said and dug my thumbs in on either side of her spine, careful not to press too hard. We stayed silent for a few minutes, enjoying her massage. My cock was pressed against her back, and every time she wiggled, I started to come to life.
Two orgasms and I was still ready to have her.
“So you and Brian? Are you going to tell me why you never had sex with that two-timing, murdering, asshole?” That was probably too harsh, but I couldn’t help how I despised the guy. “Sorry, I could have left the last part out.”
She sighed and then leaned her head against my shoulder. I never heard a breath sound so heavy before. It was filled with regret, sadness, and exhaustion. “I’m so sorry,” she hiccupped, and I knew she was on the edge of tears. “I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about him. He is in your basement, chained up—”
“Handcuffed. Hardly chained,” I corrected, hoping it made her feel better.
“Like I’d care. I hate him. I don’t know if he killed Tracy, I’m not there yet, but I believe you didn’t do it,” she said, reassuring a worry that twisted my stomach when she spoke those words.
That was fine. I just needed her to believe it wasn’t mean. If she thought a fucking ghost killed her, I wouldn’t care, but I’d bring Tracy justice, I’d get my truth, and Brian would fucking rot in prison. If I didn’t kill him first.
“Believe me; I tried to have sex with him.”
Now, I wanted to kill him. “Mhmm,” I said simply and did my best not to take my anger out on her shoulders as I rubbed. I took my hands off her and flexed my fingers. I reached for the champagne and gulped it. I didn’t stop. My throat froze, and my stomach bubbled, but the thought of Brian touching her made me see red. He could have killed her, would have in time.
“But he said he wanted to wait until marriage.”
The champagne flew from my mouth before I could stop it. It spewed all over the back of her head, and she sat up, shivering when the champagne ran down her back. I started laughing, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. It took me by surprise since he got Tracy pregnant.” No matter how many times I said it, the pain of never seeing her again never went away, it never dulled. I never would know my niece or nephew, and it was just another item to add to the list of reasons why Brian was a worthless human being.
I should kill him now. I had Quinn’s belief, what else did I need?
I took another swig of the champagne and considered my options.
“It’s okay,” she laughed and sank back into the warm water. “I understand. I was such an idiot to believe him. I thought he said that after Tracy and his baby died he wanted to be safe. He wanted to wait because he was healing.”
Yeah, we shouldn’t talk about this. I changed my mind.
“So stupid,” she uttered and then dipped her head under the water.
“Did…” I gulped, too nervous to ask if she loved him. She had to have loved him to be with him for so many years. “Did you love him?”
&nb
sp; “No. I wasn’t in love with him. I loved him as a friend, but I knew that I would never love someone the way I loved you. He and I were best friends, helped each other through Tracy and you, and he really manipulated me. I want to kill him myself. I can’t believe I took his word over my love for you. It was so wrong of me.” She spun around in my arms and straddled my waist. Her breasts floated above the water, and her nipples weren’t hard, about the size of a quarter, since the water was so warm, and we weren’t doing anything sexual. We were just being, just us, and she was perfect. “How can you forgive me?”
My arms settled naturally in the curve of her waist; I leaned my forehead against hers. “Nothing to forgive baby. I understand. It upset me for a long time, and then I just never heard from you again, but I knew one day I’d see you again.” I pushed her wet hair over her shoulders, and my throat thrummed appreciatively when I saw the slenderness of her neck and the defined ridges of her collarbone.
“I wrote you every day,” she whispered, looking down from my eyes when she saw the shock on my face. Her hands found my pecs, and she started tracing the tattoos again. I wondered if that was something she did because she was nervous.
“I never got any letters,” I said, lifting her chin with my thumb and index finger. “What letters, Quinn?” I searched her eyes for answers, but I didn’t find any. Her brows bowed in the middle, wrinkling her forehead, and she tried to look away again, but I wouldn’t let her. “What letters?”
“I wrote to you every day, but I never had the courage to send them. They were stamped. They were ready. And every day I told myself, ‘this is it; this is the day.’ More time kept passing by, and then I figured, why bother? You probably hated me, anyway, so getting a letter from me would just make you miserable.”
“I could never hate you,” I said, keeping my tone gentle. “Where are the letters?”
“Why?”
“I want them.”
“There are ten years-worth of letters,” she stated, placing her arms on my shoulders.
“I want to read them all. Every day of every year. I want to know what you’re thinking, what you were wanting, everything. Where are they?” I asked. I wanted them right now. If I could, I’d get up and fly back to our hometown and steal them. I wanted to know how she felt during that time. I knew she hated me, and I wondered if those letters conveyed that, or if they held any amount of love.
She worried her bottom lip. “They are in the apartment back home. I still have them. Some are awful. Some have tear stains on them running the ink. Some are spilling my love. Some are telling you about Brian. And none of them matter because Brian is the liar. Ten years of my life wasted because I was a coward.”
“No, you can’t be a coward and be with a man like Brian. You were just afraid, and you had every reason to be. I didn’t get accused of shoplifting or stealing a car, Quinn. It was murder.”
“So? I should have stood by you. If I could turn back time—”
I laid my finger over her mouth to silence her. “Stop. Just stop. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here. I’m here. We are together. You’re all I ever need.”
She sucked my finger into her mouth, and I held my breath as her tongue wrapped around me, teasing me, and my cock stood at attention, poking out of the water. She raised her body and then lowered herself onto me. My sack cradled her ass, and my cock filled her to the hilt. We moaned at the same time as she started to rock.
Quinn let go of my finger with a pop and tossed her head back, the ends of her hair skimming the water. “We are all each other need,” she moaned into the room.
My palm pressed against her stomach to apply more pressure in hopes I’d hit her G-spot. She cried out, and her hands gripped the side of the tub as she rode me.
Yeah, if all I had was this for the rest of my life.
I’d die a happy man.
Chapter Eighteen
Quinn
“Wake up, baby.”
“No,” I groaned, flipping over in the other direction so Jaxon wouldn’t bother me.
“Quinn,” he said my name with humor.
I didn’t find it funny to wake me up at the ass crack of dawn when the roosters crowed. No. That was one thing that had not and would not change about me. I was not a morning person. Sure, I had my sleepless nights, and sometimes I woke up early, but not because I freaking wanted to. My body hated me in those days. There was a difference between waking up early because you had to versus waking up early because someone made you.
And Jaxon was making me.
Did he care about his life at all?
“Come on; I have the entire day planned for us. You must get up now. I brought coffee.” He must have placed the mug in front of my face because I got a strong whiff of delicious coffee. I pried one eyelid open, much to my dismay, the only way to get me up calmly was with coffee.
“That’s it. Come on,” he laughed at his own tone of voice because it sounded like he was trying to coax an animal out of a corner.
I slowly sat up, not opening my other eye yet because I wasn’t ready to let go of the sleep yet.
His chuckle annoyed me when it sounded again. “Still not a morning person, I see.”
“And never will be,” I yawned, debating if the coffee was worth it. I could go back to sleep for a few hours and then warm up the java. That was a good plan.
“I brought your favorite food. Loaded hashbrowns.”
That had me lifting my other eyelid.
“Uh-huh. That got your attention, didn’t it?” He shook his head but kept the smirk on his handsome face. He lifted the lid off the tray, and my stomach grumbled when I smelled the biscuits and gravy.
“Did you bring A-1?” I gave him a chin lift and lifted one brow as high as it could go to see if he passed the ultimate test of knowing me. Anyone that had ever been close to me knew how much I loved A-1 on nearly everything. If he forgot…well, maybe we weren’t meant to be after all.
Kidding.
Kind of.
“Did I forget the A-1?” he mocked me and blew a raspberry. “Did I, me, Jaxon Steel, forget the A-1? What kind of dumbass do you take me for, baby?” He bent over for a moment, and I stole a glance at his perfect ass. Jaxon looked over his shoulder and caught me. “Perv,” he poked fun at me.
I shrugged a sleepy shoulder. “Well, when you put it out there like that, you’re asking for the attention.”
He straightened and sat the biggest damn A-1 bottle I had ever seen in my entire life on the table. “I should make you wait for this, for staring at me like I’m a piece of meat.”
“Whatever, you like being my piece of meat.”
He marched toward me, gnarred playfully as he swung me into his arms, and lifted me off the bed. “Damn, fucking right I do.” He pressed our lips together, and I tried to pull away because morning breath, but he wasn’t having it. He cupped the back of my head and pulled me closer.
When he pulled away, I was breathless, a bit turned on, and hungry all at the same time. Hungry for him and hungry for my food.
If I could find a way to do both…
“Good morning, sleepy,” he said, eyes darting all over my face as he brought the coffee to my face.
“Mmm, good morning, handsome. You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.” I tilted the mug against my lips, and my body warmed and came alive when the warmth of the vanilla coffee slid down my throat. “That’s good.”
“I’m glad. Now, you have an hour to get ready. We are finally going to go shopping for some clothes, and I want to take you ziplining through the redwoods.”
I nearly choked mid-swallow. “Ziplining? In the air? High…in…the…air?” I repeated and wanted to crawl back into bed. “You know how I am with heights. I can’t. It’s sweet that you want to do that for me, but I can’t, Jaxon.”
“You’re in a house, built in a cliff, above the water, Quinn. How is that not just as scary?”
“I’m inside! I’m safe inside. I can appreciate the beau
ty from a safe space, but I don’t want to be flying through it. You know, zeeeermmm,” I made my go-to flying noise and whizzed my hand through the air, showing him what would happen if I did what he wanted me to do. And then, I made myself crash and burn. I made an explosion sound, bringing my hand back and spreading my fingers. “And then, I’d be dead, Jaxon. Dead.”
I hesitated when I looked up from the comforter, afraid to see the look of disappointment on his face, but the asshole was fucking recording a video of me on his phone. I reached behind me and tossed a pillow in his direction, and his cheeks were so red from laughing at me, that it kind of hurt my feeling. “Don’t laugh, Jaxon. It is not funny. You know heights scare the hell out of me.” There was no doubt in my mind that he knew I was mad at him. My face heated, and I pressed the heel of my palms against my eyes to stop the burn.
“Aw, baby, you know it isn’t like that. I loved the sounds you were making; that was all. I don’t discredit your fear,” he kneeled down in front of me on the floor, and he didn’t even have to tilt his head up to meet my eyes, we were level now. “I’m sorry if it came off that way. I had no idea your fear was still so serious. Can you do me a favor though?”
“What?” I huffed, blowing a piece of hair out of my face.
“Conquer it with me.”
I gnawed my lip, and internally I winced because I had been chewing on the flesh too much lately because of the anxiety over the last few days. Without me even voicing it, Jaxon tugged my lip free and brushed his thumb over the raw spot.
“Stop eating yourself. That’s my job.”
I blushed, remembering just how good he was at said job four times last night. He was deadly in every sense of the word, violent, and crass. He was not the kind of man to be fucked with, but the way he fucked me.
Like I was the last person he’d ever have sex with again, every time he slid inside me. He was so good at it; he never once made me feel used. Jaxon always went out of his way to tell me how he felt about me, so that was probably why. I was never just another woman to him.
Cruel Temptation Page 13