by Lauren Smith
Blair lifted the shirt up and inhaled. It still smelled like him but also had a hint of the sea and storm in the cloth, which brought back every memory of the last few hours. She slipped the shirt over her naked body and buttoned it up. Denver was tall, so his shirt came down to midthigh on her. Satisfied with being somewhat covered, she explored the rest of his living quarters. He had more of those captivating portraits of the sea on his walls, some of them painted so lifelike that she was tempted to reach out and touch the waves to see if they were wet. These canvases were much bigger, some dominating the walls they hung on. It was as though Denver needed to be surrounded fully by the sea.
The walls of his bedroom were a pale-blue grasscloth, and the master bathroom was a study of whites and pale grays, while the living room was a more welcoming blend of blues and tan. Sailboat paintings filled the living room. Denver was a man who liked his themes.
She moved on to the kitchen, which included a little eating area that opened onto a deck overlooking the sea. She leaned against the closed glass doors, watching the waves roll endlessly. She never got tired of watching the water move. The sound of the front door beeping and unlocking had her turning in time to see Denver step inside. He had a white plastic bag slung over one arm and a pair of insulated drink cups and some wrapped pastries in a small clear bag balanced on a molded drink carrier in the other. He set everything down on the counter before he looked up and noticed her.
His body went still, while his eyes rolled slowly over her body, but the predatory gleam in his gaze was anything but lazy. He walked toward her, each step making her heart pound harder against her ribs. He stopped in front of her, and she pressed herself back against the glass as he trailed a hand up her arm, touching the fabric of his shirt before he moved his hand to the collar, curving his fingers in it as he opened it slightly. Her breasts rose and fell as her breath quickened.
“Just when I think I’ve had my fill of you,” he murmured to himself. Then he leaned in and kissed her hard. Blair groaned as he pinned her between himself and the glass. His mouth moved harshly against her own, each flick of his tongue against hers a teasing challenge that she met with her own frantic need. The insane lust from a few hours ago came rushing back as though it were the first time they had laid hands on each other.
He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her back to his bedroom. He dropped her on the bed and came down on top of her, his mouth moving over her neck and collarbone before coming back to her lips. They kissed long and hot, until she was wet and moaning beneath him.
Without a word, she reached for the buckle of his pants, and he paused his kisses to sit up and undo his trousers. He shoved them down to his knees, and then he was pushing her legs wide open, baring her sex to his gaze as he notched himself at her entrance.
He thrust home and she cried out, still sore from a few hours ago. He didn’t stop, didn’t apologize, and she didn’t want him to. He gripped her wrists in one of his hands and pinned them above her head, then braced the other on the wood headboard as he fucked her. The bed quaked as his powerful bucking rhythm strained the sturdy wood to its limits.
Throughout every single second of their lovemaking, Blair felt Denver’s power, his hunger, his obsession to own her, to destroy her with pleasure, driving straight into the valley of her thighs. He growled, the harsh sound animalistic as their gazes locked.
Yes, I’m yours . . . yours only.
The silent words drifted between them, and she couldn’t stop the climax that collided with her. A scream tore from her lips so hard that it scraped her throat. He followed a second later, bellowing a sound of lust and rage, yet he didn’t slow down. He kept pumping into her madly, like a stud stallion deep into the pleasure and unable to stop even if he wanted to. Blair whimpered as wave after wave of new pleasure rolled through her.
When he finally slowed, his hips jerking slightly as he rocked against her, she couldn’t move. He had fucked her to within an inch of her life. That was how it was supposed to be. That was what she had longed for, not just for a spark of passion, but an uncontrollable blaze. Yet she had found it with the one man who would never truly want her in his life. The melancholy realization pierced the usually pleasant aftermath of sexual congress.
Denver collapsed on the bed beside her, his face turned up to the ceiling. Then, after he seemed to catch his breath, he rolled to face her, leaning over her as he played with the buttons of his shirt over her breasts.
“I like seeing you in nothing but my clothes.” He nuzzled her cheek before stealing a kiss. This one was soft. Its lingering sweetness made her heart clench.
“I like being in nothing but your clothes.” She grinned up at him. “How is the resort? Did everyone make it through okay?” she asked.
Denver nodded as he tiptoed his fingers down her chest to below her waist. A pulsing started up in her clit, and she tried to remind herself that she couldn’t possibly come again so soon. But Denver seemed determined to prove that her body was his to command. He parted the ends of his shirt and palmed her mound. She slid her legs open and arched her back as he gave her a light little spank between her thighs. The sting of it woke up every drowsy nerve between her legs. Sliding two fingers inside her, he stroked gently for a heartbeat before he began to pump them in and out of her vigorously.
“You know what it felt like to watch you take my cock in your mouth?” His voice was dark, harsh, but also soft, and each of his wicked words made her tremble. She gasped as her arousal kicked up another notch.
“I love the idea of bending you over my bed and riding you hard enough to make you scream. You make a monster out of me, Blair. Do you like knowing that?” he asked, his tone still dangerously soft, so at odds with the almost violent pumping of his fingers inside her. She clamped her inner walls down around him.
“I keep thinking about dragging you into my office, leaving you naked except for a pair of heels, and shoving you under my desk to make you suck me off all day while no one knows you’re there. Would you like that? Would you like being my dirty little secret?”
There was no stopping it. She came on a scream, but he leaned over her and silenced her with a kiss. He kept up their punishing pace until she was wrung out and begging him to stop, then never stop. She had no strength left to do anything except experience him. She was a shaky mess, overwhelmed and overpowered by his dark sexual enchantment. When the mini-climaxes finally stopped, he pulled his hand from between her legs.
Denver then pressed his fingers, soaked with her desire, between her lips. She sucked on them, tasting herself and trembling all the harder at the ferocious look in his eyes. Then, finally, the fires in his eyes cooled to a softer warmth, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Come and drink your tea before it gets cold. Then you can shower and dress. I brought some of your clothes.”
And just like that he was up and off the bed, leaving her there, thoroughly fucked and confused. He seemed to be able to turn his desire on and off, but she couldn’t. Her passion for him was blurring wildly with affection and something stronger she didn’t dare name.
Blair dragged herself out of his downy-soft bed and hastily ran her hands through her hair to tame the wild waves before she snuck into his bathroom to clean herself up. Then she followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He presented her with a ginger tea and a plate with a blueberry scone that had been warmed up and buttered.
“We have dinner in an hour, so I didn’t want you to get too full,” Denver explained as he sipped on his own coffee, watching her.
The activities of the last few hours had left Blair starved, and she ate the scone fast enough that it gave her hiccups.
“How long was I asleep?”
“About two hours.” He reached into a small bag on the counter and tossed a velvet box to her. She caught it, and when she opened it, her lips parted in shock. Inside was a pearl with a faint blue tint resting in a bed of diamonds.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Your engagement ring. Thankfully, the town didn’t lose power. I was able to stop by one of the jewelers and have them put the pearl in a setting. You’ll wear it tonight and regale Jack and his wife with some romantic tale of how I proposed to you during the storm today.”
“I . . .” Blair was afraid to remove the ring from the box.
With an exasperated sigh, Denver came over and plucked the ring from the box, and then with more gentleness, he slid it on her finger.
“There.”
“It fits.” Blair stared at the elegant ring in surprise.
Denver smiled. “Of course it does.” Then he collected her dishes and took them back into the kitchen.
Blair took her cue to grab the bag of clothes and change in the bathroom. She decided she would shower at her own bungalow. She wasn’t entirely sure that stripping down in his bathroom wouldn’t end with her and Denver having sex in the shower. For a long moment, she held up her hand and stared at the ring. The soft, gleaming pearl looked like a frozen drop of dew delicately resting amid a sea of diamonds.
“Do I need to dress up for dinner tonight?” she asked as she changed into the clothing he’d brought.
“Yes, wear that red-and-black lace cocktail dress I saw in the closet at your bungalow. We’re going to a nice place in town.”
“Okay.” Blair pictured him in her bedroom, touching her clothes the way she had his. The intimacy of it made her shiver. When she was done, she left the bathroom and found him reading something on his tablet at the kitchen table. While he was distracted, she took a moment again to stare at the gorgeous ring. None of this was real—not Denver, not the ring, not the engagement or their relationship—yet she desperately wanted it to be.
“Shall I meet you at the lobby in an hour?”
“Yes.” His one-word answer was an obvious dismissal. She twisted the pearl ring on her finger nervously.
“It’s a beautiful ring. Thank you,” she murmured and ducked out the front door and left before he could say anything else.
Denver was speaking to Jack and Anne as his car was pulled around in front of the lobby. Right on cue, Blair strode into the lobby wearing the knee-length red-and-black lace dress. It had a modest cut, yet the style gave Blair a sophisticated sensuality that was irresistible. Her dark hair was curled in soft waves and pulled back from her face with a few artfully placed hairpins. Her makeup was perfect, with a hint of a smokey eye and glossy lips, but the rest was natural. She looked every inch the siren he was convinced she was. She came toward him with a soft smile that made something in his chest tighten.
After that afternoon, he had thought he had made it clear she was only a warm body that he desired. Yet when she looked at him, those deep-brown eyes so full of emotion, he couldn’t shut her out. It was like she was carving a tunnel below the walls around his heart. He had treated her like a toy and nothing more, yet she had responded with such innocent sensual perfection. He wanted her to hate him back, yet he could see and feel in her every look and touch that she didn’t.
“Goodness, you look beautiful, Blair,” Anne gushed as the two women embraced.
“Thank you.” Blair blushed as though unused to compliments. Surely someone told her every day that she was beyond gorgeous. Denver couldn’t imagine the men in Blair’s life not commenting on that.
“Did you both make it through the storm okay?” Blair asked. “I was worried about you.”
“Oh, yes. We hung out here and saw a movie in the theater and played card games. What about you?” Jack asked.
Blair’s blush deepened as she shot Denver a look. “Well, Denver and I had an eventful afternoon.” She shyly raised up her hand to show them the pearl engagement ring. A primal surge of male pride filled Denver as he saw the ring on her finger. Even though he had put it there himself an hour ago, seeing it now, like this, made it different.
“My God, look at that ring. Honey, look.” Anne nudged her husband.
Jack turned to Denver. “You proposed in the middle of a tropical storm? Rather romantic.”
Denver smiled softly at Blair. “I felt the universe was giving me a sign. I had planned dinner for two and a glass-bottom boat tour over the reef, but somehow it seemed more fitting today. She came crashing into my life just like a tropical storm named after her.”
Blair’s smile was tender, and the way her eyes settled on the ring, then lifted slowly to him, it rattled the walls around his heart in a way that worried the hell out of him.
“Well, congratulations. Like I said, I feel marriage to a good woman, one who is a man’s equal, is the best thing a businessman can have.” Jack held out his hand, and Denver shook it.
When Jack and Anne started toward the car ahead of them, Denver met Blair’s eye and gave her a nod of approval. She smiled, but there was a flash of something sharp and painful in her gaze before she hid it with a delightfulness that was entirely too natural looking. When their guests weren’t looking, she twisted the ring anxiously, and her face belied a flicker of guilt. He recognized it all too well because he felt the same. They were lying to two very nice people, all for the sake of a business deal. Maybe he really was the shark that Jack had worried he would be? Denver wanted to focus on the dinner, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had truly hurt Blair today—he just didn’t understand how.
9
The next few days passed in a blur for Denver as he and the Hudsons worked up an investment agreement for the Fawkes Group to be forty percent owners in the Atlantis Rising hotel. In between business meetings, Blair made her scheduled appearances, entertaining the married couple and slowly lulling Denver into a strange fantasy where he felt perhaps he was engaged to Blair.
Despite her apparent joy each day, he hadn’t been able to forget the look of hurt in her eyes, and he wanted to do something to erase it. He frequently found himself wandering down the beach paths toward her bungalow, hoping just to see her, speak to her. Every time, he paused just as he reached her door, and then the irresistible siren call of Blair and a bed had him raising his hand to knock.
She always opened the door, her brown eyes soft and almost innocent as she gazed up into his face, which he knew was carved with the wild need to possess her. He would always find her wearing her tiny cotton pajamas, her hair down in waves around her shoulders, ready for bed. He would step inside and crowd her against the door, kissing her senseless and dragging his hands through her hair until she was properly mussed. Then he would carry her to the nearest flat surface and give her what she needed, what he needed too.
Somewhere along the way, it had ceased being simply sex and had become something more. A less jaded version of Denver might have tried to label it making love. He now knew Blair almost as well as he knew himself in some ways. He’d grown addicted not just to the way she felt beneath him when she moaned as he took her roughly but also to the way she sighed in exquisite pleasure as he claimed her gently, lovingly. He’d also grown addicted to listening to her, to speaking with her, to sharing himself with her. But he didn’t love Blair. He couldn’t love her.
He didn’t love the sparkle in her eyes as she watched the fish in the aquarium. He didn’t love it when she enthusiastically followed him into each adventure on the islands. He didn’t love how she’d listen to everything he said and remember it. He didn’t love the way she curled up in his arms and gave a kittenish sigh of contentment after they had made love. He especially didn’t love the way he felt seeing the stormy pearl glowing on her finger and how it marked her as his.
Yes, there was nothing at all he loved about Blair Ashworth.
“Denver, it’s been a real pleasure spending the week with you,” Jack said, pulling Denver from his thoughts. He stood in the lobby with Jack as they waited for Blair and Anne to arrive so they could say goodbye.
Denver managed a smile, even though his mind was burdened with fresh worries over Blair and how soon she would be leaving his life forever. “Same,
Jack. I’m glad to be working with you and Anne.”
“You’ll invite us to the wedding, won’t you?” Jack asked. “We wouldn’t want to miss it. Blair is one of the most delightful people we’ve met in forever. We would like to be there for such an important day.”
“Thank you, I’ll be sure to tell her,” Denver hedged. “We haven’t quite figured out when or even where it will be. I admit, with Blair, I just live in the moment and don’t think about tomorrow.” That wasn’t a lie. They were only planning all of these fabricated romantic moments a piece at a time.
“Send us the final contract when you have it ready,” Anne added as she and Blair joined them in the lobby.
“I will,” Denver promised and put his arm around Blair’s waist as they watched Jack and Anne board the private hotel shuttle to the airport. Before the shuttle pulled away, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Only when the vehicle was out of sight did he relax. The charade was over.
Blair stepped away, clearing her throat. “So, do you think it went well?” she asked. He turned to face her, taking in her contemplative expression as she continued to stare in the direction where the hotel shuttle had gone. Something about the moment felt both wonderful and terrible at the same time. He didn’t want to step away from her, to end the charade, but he had no more reason to continue to hold on to her waist or lean in and nuzzle the crown of her hair.
“I do think it went well,” Denver admitted. “You did a fantastic job, Blair.”
Her slightly downcast expression turned into one of joy at his praise, yet all too soon that light faded, to be replaced by a businesslike formality that he’d expected from himself, not her. Her gaze angled slightly away from him, as though she was avoiding looking at him. He wanted to spin her back into his arms, capture her chin, and slant his mouth down over hers, reminding her who she belonged to, who owned her, body and soul.