The Secrets He Keeps: A Peril & Persuasion Novella

by Amy Sandas

  His growl at her ear made her tremble from head to toe, her body weakened by the sound of his possession. Bringing a hand up to rest around her throat, he deepened his thrusts and whispered darkly against her skin, “Come for me, Callista. Now.”

  And she did. The pulsing pleasure overwhelming her like a tidal wave, washing through her, obliterating thought or resistance of any kind.

  She’d never been with someone who so effortlessly took command of her body and her pleasure. Anyone who’d tried in the past had been efficiently and subtly redirected. No one had ever seemed to know exactly what she needed before she did herself. No one had ever touched her with such confident and focused intention.

  But Erik did it effortlessly.

  He was utterly attuned to her shifting needs as she was to his, she realized as they once again changed positions without having to speak. And as she looked down at him stretched out on the black silk while she straddled his lean hips and took him into her still throbbing body, she realized something else. Something that touched deep inside her.

  Connection.

  The acknowledgement was startling.

  As she should have expected, he seemed to sense her sudden disquiet. While his stiff member throbbed inside her, he gently slid his hands up her spread thighs. Then he reached up with one hand to curl his fingers around her nape and pull her down to him. His gray eyes were dark and focused as he brought her mouth to his.

  But he didn’t kiss her. He just held her there like that as she stretched atop his solid form, her lips hovering a breath from his, his cock buried in her pleasure-swollen heat.

  And something pulled taut in her chest. It was a painful, breath-stealing force.

  Her first instinct was to become angry at the intrusive emotion and her body tensed. But he wouldn’t let her retreat. Instead, he tickled his fingertips across her nape in a soothing caress while his other hand grasped firmly to her rear.

  When he spoke, it was in a ragged whisper, words that soaked through her skin and snaked through her blood. “You know what this is, Callista. The truth is evident in your gorgeous eyes.”

  A hard thread woven deeply into her being would have had her pulling away or scoffing some denial, but the rest of her trembled on the verge of accepting something impossible.

  His eyes darkened even more. “Embrace it. Revel in it.”

  Before she could reply, he pulled her mouth to his. The taste of him ignited red-hot flames in her belly. The swirl of his tongue erased any further thought. The power of his kiss claimed her as his.

  Astonishingly, she allowed it.

  She sunk into it and surrendered to it. But only for a moment. The feeling quickly grew too heavy, too consuming. The pull in her chest ached. She could not succumb completely, could not give herself over to whatever magic he’d conjured between them.

  This was simple lust. An act of physical desire manifested. This was fucking and she knew fucking.

  Pushing against his chest, she sat upright astride him and shook her hair out behind her as she rolled her hips to initiate a deeper, more intent rhythm. Sensation sparked and spread out to her fingers and toes. Closing her eyes, she focused on the pleasure, ignoring all else. There was nothing different about this experience than any other before. The man beneath her might be exceptionally—phenomenally!—skilled as a lover, but that was all this was.

  Yet when he smoothed his hands up and down her thighs before kneading her hips with his strong fingers as a rough sound of pleasure sounded in his throat, she couldn’t keep herself from glancing down at him again.

  His body was drawn taut and his head was thrown back. The cords of muscles in his throat stood out and his arms bulged with strain as he held her hips in his large splayed hands. Pleasure had nearly consumed him. He was perilously close to the edge. A few quick snaps of her hips, a squeeze of her inner muscles, perhaps a teasing pinch of his nipples or a bite on his shoulder and he would fall apart.

  As she braced herself to finish him off, a dull regret spread through her chest. She wasn’t ready for it to end.

  In her brief moment of hesitation, he opened his eyes. A fiercely lit gaze met hers and she suddenly felt as though he could see straight through to the darkest pit inside her. He saw it and claimed it in an instant as he sat up and rolled them both over.

  In a breath, she was on her back. His cock remained deep inside her as he settled between her thighs. Reaching for her hands, he held them to the mattress beside her head. She lifted her knees, expecting him to start a fast, punishing rhythm to claim his release. Instead, he stilled completely.

  The only movement was their chests expanding and contracting with their deep and even breaths.

  “You think this is over?” he asked, circling his pelvis in a subtle motion that sent tingling sparks through her core. She bit her lip to hold back the gasp rising in her throat. He smiled. Wicked. Knowing.

  Too knowing.

  She felt exposed and vulnerable in a way she had never known. And she’d experienced helplessness a hundred ways in her life. It was a feeling she abhorred and spent a great deal of effort avoiding at all costs. Yet this man managed to invoke this unprecedented emotion with a smile.

  She might have hated him a little bit in that moment.

  “I think you’ve proven your abilities, Mr. Maxwell,” she stated as evenly as she could considering how favorably her body was responding to his physical dominance.

  His eyes narrowed at her reply. The light in their depths flickered with something dangerous that stalled her breath even though his expression remained calm. And frustratingly patient. “You speak of sexual gratification, madam. Pleasure is easy to come by and fleeting.”

  As if to prove his point, he circled his hips again—a deeper, lusher movement that ground his pelvic bone against her clitoris and touched on all her pleasure points.

  She arched her spine and tried to roll her hips, seeking more. But he held her too securely, his body pinning hers. Only he had freedom of movement.

  “This,” he continued in a gravelly voice as he gave a short, shallow thrust inside her, “is something far more precious.”

  Though her heart lurched and her belly twisted, she stared boldly up at him and forced a flippant reply. “This...is fucking.”

  There was a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, there and gone in a flash. But she saw it—felt it. Her next breath was tight as his lips widened slowly into that smile again. The one that said he knew what she was doing and confidently declared her ploy wouldn’t work. The one that promised to give her exactly what she wanted even if she couldn’t admit what that was.

  Lowering his head, he took her mouth in a kiss with that smile still spreading his lips. She felt it, tasted its dark and lovely sweetness, took the promise of it into herself before he murmured heavily against her lips. “If that’s what you believe, then fine. Let’s fuck.”

  He shifted his hold on her hands, interlocking his fingers with hers as he straightened his arms to hold himself above her. Bending his knees, he brought them under her thighs, lifting her hips to accept the deep, full strokes of his cock.

  Her body ignited with sensation.

  Planting her feet on the mattress, she rolled her hips to meet and accept every thrust.

  Yes. This was what she wanted. The power of primal mating. The mindless physical hunger. The reckless, personal striving for sexual satisfaction. She arched and writhed. She tensed and bucked and moaned while he brought her higher and higher with every plunge of his body into hers.

  Finally, when she neared the peak, felt the crest beginning to break, sensed the imminent approach of an orgasm that promised to destroy her, she met his gaze again.

  And knew in an instant—he was right.

  Pleasure exploded like a star throughout her being. Reaching every corner, brightening every dark secret she’d ever possessed, bringing the truth into stark, undeniable view.

  And through it all—the gasping, trembling, pulsing release�
��she couldn’t look away from him. She was bound by his gaze. Bound by his pleasure when he finally gave himself over to his own climax with a harsh growl that satisfied a deep animalistic craving she hadn’t known existed within her.

  She saw the spark of power in his eyes. The possession. The truth.

  For those long moments while their bodies communicated in a far more succinct and powerful way than words could ever achieve, she did indeed revel in the beauty of it all.

  But feelings so intense and powerful cannot last forever.

  Eventually, the trembling slowed, sweat dried, heart rates returned to normal, and Callista’s chest tightened with the press of undeniable reality.

  She might have experienced something that far surpassed every expectation or understanding of what was possible, but now it was over. The man who’d been so generous and perfect might still be pressing soft kisses to her eyelids, the corners of her mouth, the pulse at the base of her throat, while his member remained hot inside her. But soon, he’d roll from the bed, perhaps mutter a quick thank you, and then leave.

  Though she’d been pleasured beyond prior experience and had gotten exactly what she’d wanted out of her one night with the man, she wanted more. A hell of a lot more.

  But she was no fool. She allowed herself just one more moment. One moment to acknowledge the loss filling her heart. One moment to remind herself who she was and how she’d gotten where she was now.

  Men were a distraction at best, a liability and a source of destruction at worst. And Erik Maxwell had just proven himself to be the most dangerous of all.

  His hands gently framed her face while his thumb brushed across her lower lip.

  “Callista.”

  Her name was spoken softly but intently in his rich, gravelly voice. She barely noticed his accent anymore, but she heard it then in the way he formed the vowels of her name.

  With her belly swirling, she opened her eyes and forced a gentle smirk to her lips. “Well done, Mr. Maxwell.”

  His gaze narrowed as one brow arched in question. “You cannot bring yourself to call me Erik?”

  She lifted a hand to pat the side of his face where black and gray stubble roughened his skin. It took all of her willpower not to caress the hard line of his jaw or drift her fingertips across his frowning mouth. “Of course...Erik.” His name felt too perfect in her mouth—succinct, formed with a smooth roll of the tongue that ended with a short kick in the back of the throat. “I suppose I shall have to offer my concession.”

  “I don’t want a damned concession,” he said slowly. Heavily.

  She tensed beneath him. “Then what do you want? You never did name your prize should the seduction succeed.”

  Eyes that had been dark and mysterious in the aftermath of his pleasure suddenly hardened. “I want you, Callista. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”

  Though a fist clenched tight around her heart, Callista kept a smile on her lips. Sliding out from underneath him, she rose from the bed. “You just had me, darling.”

  She walked across the room to the washstand. Though she tried to avoid his reflection in the mirror above it, the image of him sitting strong and proud at the edge of the bed, his hair delightfully mussed, his feet planted wide and firm on the floor, his gaze burning a hole in her back, would forever be imprinted in her mind.

  She took her time wetting the cloth before smoothing it over her body, wiping away the lovely smell of him. Of her. Of the two of them together.

  “Callista, I...”

  She really couldn’t allow him to go on. The tone of his voice already suggested what he might say, and if she heard him say the words, she might actually want to believe it. And then she’d be doomed for certain.

  “I must get back to my guests. You can dress in the other room if you’d like. I imagine you can find your way out.”

  The silence that followed her words was as cold as any winter she’d endured in her poverty-stricken youth.

  It was best if he decided to hate her.

  They could go on in their prospective business endeavors, never having to cross paths again. If he happened to see her in the street or at the theater, he could avoid her with a scowl of disgust and eventually she wouldn’t even be bothered by it.

  “That’s it, then?” he asked thickly.

  Lifting her hands to twist her hair up into something resembling a proper coiffure, she replied, “What else could there possibly be?”

  He didn’t reply. And after a while, she risked glancing in the reflection at the room behind her.

  It was empty. He’d left.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hiya, Lissy.” Mason sauntered into Callista’s personal study. It was a rare occasion her brother visited Pendragon’s these days now that he had a family to care for and protect. But when he did, it was always unexpected and usually at the worst possible time.

  Today was no exception. It was the morning after her grandest party of the year...the morning after her night with Erik Maxwell...

  Though she’d changed into a slightly more comfortable day gown, she hadn’t slept yet and her mood was growing more atrocious by the minute.

  “What the hell do you want, Mace?”

  Her brother’s expression was one of false shock and insult. “Can’t a man visit his only sister for no reason?”

  “Not you,” she snapped.

  He grinned. Settling his overly large, muscled frame into one of the chairs facing her desk, he tilted his head and arched his brows. “What’s the matter? You’re particularly prickly today.”

  “It was a long night.”

  “Right! The event of the year. Not the success you’d hoped?”

  “It was a crush,” she replied flatly. “Early estimates suggest it was the most profitable night in Pendragon’s history.”

  “Hmm.”

  She didn’t like it when Mason made that sound. It meant he was thinking. And that was never a good thing. Whenever he used that clever brain of his, he ended up saying something she didn’t want to hear.

  “It’s that Maxwell bloke, isn’t it?”

  Dammit.

  Something in her expression must have confirmed his assumption since Mason burst into laughter. It was a rich and hearty sound that warmed her despite herself.

  He’d had too little cause for laughter as a boy. She’d been born twelve years before her little half brother, and though she’d tried to shield him from the worst of their shared father, she hadn’t always succeeded. And then she’d been forced to leave. Eventually, she managed to get Mason out of the hovel they’d come from, but she’d always wished she could have done more in his youngest years.

  But now he had Katherine. And Claire and Freddie. Her brother was doing all right.

  Some might suggest he was doing even better than she was herself.

  Rising from her seat behind the desk, she wandered across the room. It was a foolish attempt at avoiding the conversation looming ahead of her. Foolish because Mason was not likely to let the topic die.

  And because a part of her actually wanted to talk about the man who’d been haunting her thoughts since he’d risen from her bed.

  “Talk to me.”

  Looking over her shoulder, she noted her brother’s stern countenance and the shadow of concern in his green eyes, just a couple shades darker than her own.

  For so long, he’d been the only person she’d truly cared about.

  Of course, she cared for the women who came under her protection, but in the way of benefactor, guardian, and mentor. Her feelings for Mason were different. He was her only family. Her blood. Looking at him now and seeing his protective, supportive demeanor, she had to admit that although she’d helped him in a myriad of ways, she had never been very good at showing him what he meant to her.

  Her chest ached with the acknowledgement. Damn, but she was terrible at this emotional shite.

  Mason rose to his feet and rolled his head atop his broad shoulders. “Do I need to go ha
ve a talk with the arsehole?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No.” The next breath she took caused the ache in her chest to tighten rather painfully. “But I might be long overdue for one.”

  He appeared startled for a moment before he stepped forward, his hands rising as if to offer an embrace. But then he recalled himself and lowered his hands to his sides. “What’s this about, Lissy?”

  Meeting her brother’s intent gaze, she felt a prickling pressure behind her eyes she hadn’t known in decades. “I fucked up, Mace.”

  It was almost comical how Mason looked at her, as though she’d suddenly become a different person. And in a way...she had. “What’d you do?” he asked, his tone slightly incredulous, slightly wary.

  “I chased him away.”

  “So, get him back.”

  She scoffed. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure, it is,” he argued. “You want the man?”

  Want him? Yes.

  And more.

  With a rough sound of frustration, she whipped her skirts aside and crossed the room. “What’s the blasted point? It cannot last. Nothing like that ever does. It’s a fool’s illusion.”

  “So, be a fool. Take the bloody risk. It’s fucking worth it, Lissy.”

  Keeping her back to her brother, she shook her head. She’d avoided that kind of risk all her life. Starting with her own mother, Callista had seen far too many times what a woman’s love got her—beaten, sold, degraded, lost to the desires and demons of men.

  Of course, she’d also encountered men who were noble and honorable. But as a whole, they were rare creatures. Despite his rough edges and crude demeanor, Mason was one.

  And Erik. He was one.

  But that didn’t guarantee a thing.

  “Listen,” Mason said behind her, setting a hand on her shoulder to turn her back to face him. His brows were furrowed and his gaze met hers with surprising compassion. “Whatever this is, you’ve gotta play it through to the end. And if he turns out to be an arsehole...or if you end up being the arsehole, you deal with that when it comes. Sometimes it doesn’t work out.” His eyes darkened and she suspected he was thinking of Claire’s mother. But then his mouth tilted in an irreverent grin. “But when it does, Lissy, it’s pretty fucking amazing. Don’t cheat yourself out of that possibility just because you’re a little scared.”