“Indulge me,” he said, and brushed his lips along the side of her neck.
He’d infused just enough of a challenge in his tone to get the reaction he wanted from her. It was subtle, but enough to assure him that she wouldn’t look away from what he was about to do. He started with her bare breasts. Cupping the weight in his palms, he kneaded the firm, soft flesh, then scraped his thumbs across her nipples. They instantly grew tight, hardening beneath his touch, just as his erection lengthened and thickened against the confinement of his jeans with a burn he could feel to the tips of his toes.
A light pinch on the buds drew a small scream from her.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he skimmed his other hand down her stomach and beneath the black scrap of fabric covering her mound. His fingers stroked her intimately, deeply, where she was all velvet softness and heat. “So fucking wet.”
Her head fell back against his chest and a low moan escaped her throat as he continued to stroke and caress and tease.
The view of the two of them in the mirror was highly erotic, with one of his tanned hands splayed on her belly and his other concealed beneath black silk.
He watched the flutter of her thick lashes, the rise and fall of her breasts, and the flush sweeping across her cheeks. Even his own eyes were hot and hungry, his features taut with carnal need. He lowered his head and nuzzled her neck, then gave her a gentle love bite on her shoulder that made her gasp.
“God, I want you.” His voice rumbled with intensity and raw emotion. “I want to lick you until you go hoarse from screaming. I want to pass out in your arms completely exhausted from fucking you as thoroughly as you deserve. And I want to wake up in the morning next to you. For as long as you’ll have me.”
“You have me,” she whispered. His hold on her had loosened just enough for her to slip from his embrace, and she did so before he could stop her. “I couldn’t be more yours.”
“I want to fucking drown myself in you,” Markus rasped against her ear. His breathing was suddenly ragged, which sent a fresh surge of want through Hannah as her sex started throbbing to the rhythm of her rapid heartbeat.
She pulled his sweater off and shoved his jeans down, taking him in her hand and stroking. “Then have me.”
“Not so fast,” he whispered, steadying her hand.
“Slow and tender can be good,” she assured him with a squeeze that drew a tortured groan from his throat. “But there is a time for fast and hard.”
His heavily-lidded eyes wandered over her face. “And this is the time for...”
“Us.”
Emotions smoldered in the depths of his eyes and he rubbed an unsteady hand over his mouth, looking like a man in agony.
His body thrummed with tension when she took her panties off, placed her hands on the armrest of a sofa, with her back to him, showing off the sexy slope of her spine and her bare, heart-shaped bottom.
There was something to the confidence of her movement which set off a white-hot, all-consuming pleasure that bypassed his brain and sent his body up in flames. Seizing her hips, he shoved his own forward, sending his rock-hard penis deep inside her in a smooth thrust.
They groaned in unison, Hannah’s eyes squeezing shut at the feel of him buried deep inside her.
“I might have to fuck you forever,” he breathed.
Then began a swift, steady rhythm that bordered on the right side of rough and sent her senses into overload.
She distantly heard the slam of the sofa hitting the wall, but her concentration was focused solely on the delectable man and the urgent pace that was spiraling toward a blissful completion. The sound of their slapping skin. The sharp sway of her breasts. His fingers strumming her clit with each buck of his hips. It was raw and needy and exactly what she desired.
Her arms gave out and she was face down on the sofa, her hips held up by its armrest, helpless to do anything more than receive his merciless plunges. She barely heard her own gasps of pleasure over his rash breathing and groans.
The idea of him using her body like this hurtled her closer to the edge. Half-afraid of the strength of her coming release, she breathed, “Markus.”
“Now, Hannah,” he hissed with the savage excitement that flooded through her.
The pressure escalated and escalated to a simmer and she convulsed around his girth, spasms racking her. In a rush of pleasure so sweet, so hot, so sudden that she was stunned by it, Hannah came apart and his name left her mouth in a scream.
The heat coursed through Markus’s body, his hips whipping against Hannah’s for a final draining thrust. He came hard, feeling it from head to toe, every last jerk of pleasure overwhelming him.
With the last of his energy, he pulled her body from the sofa and sat on the floor, holding her tightly against him.
They stayed there for several minutes until their breathing slowed down and the flashing intensity of their lovemaking began to dim.
“I love you,” Markus whispered into her hair, his voice naked, his shields stripped to nothing.
She sucked in a breath and felt as if she were drowning, overwhelmed by him. His manly handsomeness, his deep voice, his passion, his love. “Oh, Markus.”
She didn’t reply with the same words. But that was okay with him.
All he knew was that Hannah had him. And he would wait until she was comfortable enough to say it back to him.
CHAPTER 28
Senator Blackthorn’s apartment
Thursday, October 16, 2014
6:30 p.m.
Elijah held his head in his hands. Though darkness had fallen already, he didn’t bother switching on the lamp beside him. The luxury apartment Judith’s parents had bought for them when they married forty-eight years ago gave him no sense of satisfaction. The comfortable—and very expensive—leather armchair Judith had bought him for his last birthday offered no respite for his weary body.
His heart was ravaged. His son—his only son—had turned his back on him. Because of a woman, a woman who had grown under his roof, eaten his food, been treated with the utmost respect. If it were not for him, she would be a no one.
Elijah sighed when Judith turned on the lights, dressed to go out.
“You’re an admirable man in many ways, Elijah, but you’ve always been a lamentably poor father.”
“Christ,” he swore. “The damned wedding again?”
“Your only son’s wedding.”
Frustrated, he heaved a breath. “She is the daughter of the helper. What will people say?”
“Well, you know what your trouble is?” A sad smile twisted Judith’s lips. “You take far too much notice of what other people say and you never really cared to notice the ones who love you.”
He leaned back on the chair, lit a cigar, and narrowed his eyes at her. “I dedicated all my life to my family, Judith.”
“He is in love with her.”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “That feeling is awfully overrated, you know?”
Judith flinched but she forged on. “It’s love, Elijah. You can’t even bring yourself to utter the word.”
Absently toying with the heavy gold ring he wore upon his little finger, totally unfazed by her tone, he said, “Bullshit.”
“He’s changed,” Judith said.
Elijah frowned. “How?”
“He’s laughing,” Judith answered. “He even teased me when I stopped by yesterday morning.”
He dragged on his cigar and puffed. “You say that like it’s extraordinary.”
“It is. And it is all her doing.” Judith brushed her fingers over his hand. “Come on, Elijah. What is a simple apology?”
“Don’t be silly, Judith,” he said, pulling his hand away. “I’m not apologizing and I am not going.”
Then something in her snapped and her face hardened. All her life, Judith had been an exemplary wife, a tower of strength and unfailing support to her husband. But Markus was her son and she was not allowing him to be hurt anymore—not by her, or by his
impervious father. “Elijah, I have never questioned your judgement before, but I’m doing it now. If you don’t go with me, if you don’t apologize, I’m leaving you.”
Elijah paled. Raising his finger, he touched it almost delicately to her cheekbone. “You have been my wife for almost fifty years.”
“Perhaps it’s time I forget your needs and start to think about mine.” She stepped back. “I ordered the helicopter to be ready in one hour. I am going to be by Markus’s side. You need to make your choice.”
His jaw clenched as he heard his own threat to Markus being used on him now. “You don’t want to say that to me.”
“No, Elijah, I didn’t want to.” Judith shook her head slowly at her husband. “But I have to.”
Senator Blackthorn had been warned his entire life that his sense of superiority would eventually bite him in the ass. And his entire life he’d laughed at the warning.
He wasn’t laughing anymore.
Sagaponack
Markus Blackthorn’s beach house
8:30 p.m.
Even more impressive than the magnificence of the architecture and the surrounding landscaping of Markus’s beach house—or rather, sprawling mansion—was the quiet.
Hannah heard no city noises here. No traffic snarls, no pedestrian chaos. Even the sky overhead was subtly different than the one she was accustomed to looking at. Here, she could actually see stars rather than the glint and gleam of transports.
“You’re quiet,” Markus remarked.
Hannah stared back at him. “Just thinking.”
Markus had said he wouldn’t miss his father standing by him at the wedding. But when Judith called this morning, she had asked Hannah to talk to the Senator. She was not very confident that a fight with Markus’s father was a good start to a relationship.
Though she wouldn’t miss seeing Elijah again, she didn’t want Markus having regrets afterwards. She knew how important family was, even if his parents were not as affectionate as her mother had been. A pang of sadness and pain accompanied thoughts of her mother.
“You’re pensive.” He drummed his fingers on the sofa armrest. “I’ve never seen you so.”
“Guess I have a lot on my mind. The wedding, you know…”
He frowned. “Are you…having doubts?”
“No.” She put a finger on his lips. “None.”
“Good,” he said, framing her face in his hands and pulling her closer. “Otherwise, I’d have to show you again how well we fit together.”
She smiled at that. Her body hurt in all the good places from the many times they had made love. “Don’t you think about anything else besides sex?”
“All I can think of right now are the things I want to do with your body,” he said on her lips. “Things that will make you wonder how you’ve lived without me for so long.”
She laughed. “Promises, promises.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t we go up—”
A knock interrupted him.
“Come in,” she called, waiting for one of the ceremonial attendants to enter the room.
But she could not mask her surprise when Judith, with a triumphant look on her face, pushed open the door and crossed the carpet toward them with Elijah trailing a few feet behind her.
They both stood up from the sofa, stunned at his parents’ entrance.
“My dear girl.” Judith kissed Hannah’s cheeks and embraced Markus. “Markus.”
“Mother.” Markus bent his head and dutifully kissed Judith’s cheek. Then he turned to Elijah and asked in a clipped tone, “What are you doing here?”
“I wish to make amends.”
Hannah couldn’t prevent her startled blink. She would have thought the sun would tumble from the sky before Elijah would apologize to her. She glanced at Markus and he shrugged, an easy, graceful gesture that caused the strong muscles of his arms and chest to shift subtly. I am not missing the opportunity, Senator. “Yes?”
Elijah couldn’t stop his feet from fidgeting. “I—I…”
Markus smiled, dryly amused to see his father squirming. “You seem a bit touchy tonight, Senator.”
“Only because I’m being jerked around,” he muttered, just to have Judith pinch him. “I apologize for my undue words, Ms. Kristensen.”
“It’s not only to me you need to apologize, Senator.” She placed her fingers lightly on Markus’s chest. “Perhaps you should start with your son.”
His face grew red with anger. “I thought I was doing what was best for him!”
“But you knew nothing about Markus and I,” she smoothly parried.
The way she purred the sentence made Markus think of sex. Of course, just having her in the same room was enough to make him think of sex.
“Seems I didn’t,” Elijah conceded, vexed.
“For one of the most dangerous and powerful Senators in the United States, you can be rather obtuse,” she murmured.
He stiffened briefly at the insult, then a grudging smile curved his thick lips. “Such harshness from such beauty.”
“Now that the apologies have been accepted,” Judith intervened, pulling Hannah by the hand, “how about you give me a tour of the weddings preparations, Hannah?”
9:15 p.m.
Judith towed Hannah all the way from the house to the beach where a thatched roof structure made of straw, bamboo, and coconut leaves was already up, and under which florists arranged garlands of delicate orange blossoms with rust orange cymbidium orchids.
“Oh, but it’s gorgeous,” gushed Judith.
All around there were people bustling up and down, testing lighting devices and musical instruments under Alicia’s command.
Judith stopped by Alicia and asked a million questions—and gave millions of suggestions—while Hannah distractedly watched the buzz around her until she caught a voluptuous blonde woman staring fixedly at Markus, who was talking to his father at the beginning of the makeshift aisle. There was something familiar about her but Hannah couldn’t recall where she had seen the woman before.
“Get used to it,” said Judith with a chuckle, and pulled her by the hand, talking non-stop.
Markus smiled as he watched Hannah patiently listening to Judith and dodging what he knew must be intimate questions. She looked like a goddess with her flaming red hair falling like a veil around her and standing out starkly against the creamy-white of her turtleneck long dress.
It wasn’t the thought of making love to her—repeatedly—that most caught his fancy. It was the thought that for the first time, he really felt he couldn’t live without someone in his life.
With her, he had discovered he could relax, tone down his insane work, and enjoy life more instead of poring himself over his companies’ problems. And Victoria would have a kind-hearted and attentive stepmother.
“You look happy,” said Elijah grudgingly.
“I am,” he agreed, turning to his father. “She really cares about me.”
“You say that as if it’s some kind of miracle.” Elijah snorted. “Give yourself some credit. You’re handsome and wealthy, and she’s—”
Markus’s stare scathed in its intensity. “She is what?”
Elijah cleared his throat. “A lovely woman.”
“She is my future,” Markus corrected. She is the one.
10:30 p.m.
“I’m so glad Markus and Elijah made their peace,” said Judith.
“It’ll take a bit more than a casual apology.” Hannah sighed. “Markus is not a child anymore.”
“I know, my dear.” She nodded. “But one has to start somewhere.”
“Why don’t we join them?” Hannah suggested, making her way to the man who filled her heart with joy and her body with longing.
The hubbub was already calming and there were just a dozen people milling around. And that blonde woman, who was all alone by the altar on the other side of the structure.
Hannah narrowed her eyes, focusing on the woman as she crouched and rummaged throug
h a large bag at her feet.
Carmen. Carmen Muller. What the hell is she—
And her heart stopped when she saw Carmen take out a pistol from the bag and point it at Markus.
No! An eternity passed in every heartbeat before she made a decision. In the end, it wasn’t so difficult after all, because when it came to Markus, she had no sense of self-preservation.
“Markus!” Her arm shot to the side, shoving a stunned Judith down, and she sprinted toward Markus, throwing herself over him. “Markus!”
Blasts filled the air and echoed across the empty beach.
Markus turned just in time to catch Hannah in his arms. Her mouth opened and then shut, her face going white. She gasped, “Markus.”
For a moment he didn’t know what had occurred, but then she sagged in his arms. “Hannah!”
Around them the world went mad. There were shouts and screams, chairs and flower vases toppled, and people running.
Yet all he could hear was Hannah’s pain-stricken breath as he held her in his arms.
He ran his hand across her back, and it came away warm and sticky and red. His knees buckled and he sank to the ground holding her against his chest.
“Hannah, no!” It came out as a sob but he didn’t care. Fear gripped him with unrelenting force as blood flowed down and stained the straw-carpeted aisle. “Call an ambulance!”
She gave him a weak smile, her face creased with pain. “I guess we’ll have to eternally postpone the wedding after all.”
“Shut up!” He pressed her against his chest with his palms over her back. “We’re marrying, do you understand?”
“It’s ‘kay. I didn’t want to marry on the beach after—” She broke off and a sob left her mouth.
“Hannah! Stay with me.”
There was a strange quietness all around. “I…”—Her vision blurred.—“Markus?”
He stared into her eyes, at the shadows that grew with each stuttered breath. “I forbid you to leave me!” Please, don’t leave me.
“I…” She thought of all the unsaid things, unstated desires, undeclared love. And the life they had so briefly considered sharing together. The man she wanted more than she ever wanted anything in her life. But a wave of tiredness overwhelmed her and she closed her eyes before she could say anything else.
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