by Serena Grey
He groans loudly, his hands fisting in my hair. I tighten my mouth around him, sucking deeply as I rock my head. He lets out a tortured moan, and one hand leaves my hair to support his weight on the door behind me. His hips are rocking into my mouth. The powerful motions almost too much for me, but I take it, his carnal enjoyment arousing me too.
“Oh God!” he groans, jerking his hips. “Oh, fuck Rachel. I’m going to come.”
I respond by cupping his balls, letting my fingers skim the soft skin, and he lets out a labored sound, his body stiffening, as he spurts his warm seed into my mouth.
I swallow quickly, licking every remaining drop from the tip of his cock. He groans and pulls me up, pulling my dress over my head and dispensing with my bra with lightning speed. He removes the rest of his clothes with the same urgency before carrying me over to the bed. We barely make it to the huge king poster bed. He sets me down at one of the posts and pulls my hips back towards him, sliding into me from behind.
I hold on to the post, my whole body sweet and liquid as he thrusts into me with an intensity verging on feral. His hands cover my breasts, his fingers teasing my swollen nipples even as his thick cock strokes every sweet spot inside me. Pleasure suffuses me, my climax seizing my whole body. He continues to fuck me even as my shudders subside, his grunts joining with my soft cries. I feel another climax building, and I clutch at the post, my whole body tightening as an orgasm ripples through me. At the same moment, Landon thrusts fiercely inside me, burying himself completely as he groans his release.
Afterward, we lie in a tangle on the bed, sexually sated. He’s stroking my hair, and my face is against his chest, where I can hear his heart beating. It feels so natural, to be so close to him. It always has, even from the first time.
I look up at his face, wondering if he feels it too.
His hand stills on my hair. “What are you thinking?”
I shrug. “How good this feels, just lying here with you.”
He pulls me closer. “I know what you mean. There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.”
I close my eyes, letting the words wash over me. I burrow as close to him as possible, and I hear him laugh, his chest vibrating.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
I nod. “Starving.”
“It’s eight,” he observes. “Dinner’s probably waiting for us.” Nudging me to sit up, he gets up from the bed, going to an adjoining dressing room and returning with two robes, he shrugs one on his perfect frame and hands the other to me, before opening the door to the sitting room.
He’s right. There’s a dinner tray with covered dishes, and an ice bucket with a bottle of wine chilling in the ice.
I watch as Landon uncovers the dishes. “Wilson seems to know what you want when you have guests over,” I comment. “Does he have a lot of practice?”
Landon turns a grin in my direction. “You can ask if I’ve brought a lot of women here. Your jealousy flatters me, actually.”
I return his smile. “So? Have you?”
“No, never.”
“Not one?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not the playboy the gossip magazines make me out to be. I’ve had a few relationships, all with women who knew what the terms were.”
“Like me?”
He hands me a glass of wine. “There has never been anyone like you.”
I search his eyes, wondering if I can dare to hope, but he turns away and busies himself with setting plates on the table.
“What exactly were the terms?” I ask.
“Exclusivity, but no commitment in the long-term.”
Just like I’d asked for. “And you never felt tempted to make an exception with any of the women you’ve been with?”
He shakes his head. “No, never. I’ve felt pressured, but usually as soon as a woman starts to demand more than I can give, I walk away.”
“Oh!” I take the seat and the plate he offers me, trying not to let my feelings show on my face. If he always walks away when a woman shows signs of wanting more from him, then it’s only a matter of time, very little time, before we’re done.
“Lucky for me I never asked you for a long term commitment,” I say with a lightness I don’t feel.
His eyes burn into mine. “This is just sex and I don’t want to pretend that it’s anything more,” he says. “Those were your exact words.”
Back when I had no idea that I was going to fall in love with him. “Yes,” I say in a small voice. “I remember.”
He refills my wine. “Do you like the food?”
I nod, and we start to talk about other things. After we eat, he finally shows me around the house. It feels almost decadent, walking around the beautiful rooms in just our dressing robes, but there’s no one else in the house. Wilson has retired to the apartment he shares with his wife on the property, and the maid has gone back to her home in town.
We end up on one of the upper floor balconies, watching the stars while seated on a long divan with a blanket covering us both. The silence is peaceful, with only the sound of the insects in the garden and the distant sound of the surf. In the distance, the lights of the city look like fireflies in a fog. I mention it to Landon and he laughs. “Very descriptive,” he teases. “I think there might be a poet inside you somewhere.”
We talk late into the night, and finally, with his arms around me, and the steady rhythm of his heart against my ear, I fall asleep.
I WAKE up alone, lying in the big bed with the covers around me. Landon is sitting at the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. I don’t need to ask to know that he’s been dreaming again.
I reach for him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
He gets up, moving away from my touch. “Yes, I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
I frown. “No. Not when you’re going to stay awake the rest of the night.” I get up too, pulling the covers with me. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Why?” he asks testily, “Because you’re curious?”
“Because I care!”
His throat works as he swallows. “Forget about it, Rachel. You’ve already helped more than you know. These past two weeks with you, have been the most peaceful I’ve been in a very long time.”
I cup his cheek with one hand, aching to comfort him. “Come back to bed,” I whisper.
Later, when he’s lying in my arms, his head on my chest, I listen to his breathing as he sleeps, praying that whatever demons he faces in his dreams, they wouldn’t come back before morning.
WHEN I wake up in the morning, I’m alone again. I find a note in Landon’s handwriting on a sheet of Swanson Court stationary, telling me that my clothes are in the attached dressing room.
I take a quick shower and brush my teeth with a new toothbrush that’s been thoughtfully placed in a toothbrush holder on the sink. In the dressing room, my dress from yesterday is hanging, freshly laundered, while my undies are folded in a shelf next to it. After putting on my clothes, I find my way downstairs where the smell of breakfast leads me to the kitchen.
I’m disappointed when I don’t find Landon there. Instead, a plump woman with a rosy face is making toast and frying strips of bacon.
“Good morning,” she greets me with a cheerful smile. “You must be Rachel. I’m Betsy. Mrs. Hayes. Did you have a nice rest?”
“Yes thank you.”
“Why don’t you sit,” she suggests, going back to her cooking. “Landon is outside looking around the gardens. I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment.”
At that moment, Landon steps into the kitchen through the back door. He looks freshly showered, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts that show off his broad shoulders, sculpted chest and long muscular legs.
“You’re finally awake,” he comments, coming to the table to drop a kiss on my lips. “I thought I was going to have to transport you unconscious back to Manhattan.”
My eyes drink in his features. How is it possible to love him now even more than I d
id yesterday? “I was tired,” I reply to his question.
“Understandably.” He grins and I try to hide my blush from Betsy, who is smiling.
“Take a seat,” she tells Landon. “It’s been a while I had young people around to feed. So eat up.”
“Yes ma’am,” Landon says, grinning fondly as he does as she says.
Wilson joins us, and we all have breakfast together. The older couple are obviously fond of Landon and proud of both his and Aidan’s accomplishments. They’re the closest Landon has to real parents, I realize, feeling grateful towards them.
The house has a long stretch of beach attached to it, along with a tennis court, a swimming pool, and unending gardens. So after breakfast, Landon takes me for a walk along the beach. We find a secluded area, where he takes my clothes off and makes slow, sweet love to me against the sound of the surf breaking on the sand. My toes are tingling as we walk back to the house, but when we wash the sand off our bodies, we make love again, and this time, I ride him, dictating our movements as I take him deep inside me. By the time we finally start the drive back to the city, I’m drowsy, and pleasantly sore.
I spend the first few minutes on the phone with Laurie, while Landon drives. She’s back home, after spending the night at her parents’ place. Afterward, I scroll through Landon’s playlists, wrinkling my nose at the hard rock songs before finally settling on a playlist with classical music.
I sigh with contentment as the car fills with the sound of the Blue Danube. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Landon watching me. “What?”
“Nothing,” he turns back to the road, smiling.
I swat him on the arm playfully. “Tell me what you were thinking.”
“That I love to look at you.” His eyes are on the road. “I enjoy the way you enjoy little things.”
I’m about to respond when my phone rings. I look at the screen and I’m surprised to see Jack’s name. Landon’s eyes are on the road, and I frown at the phone. If I don’t take the call, Jack will keep calling, and it’ll just look weird if I don’t answer.
I answer the call. “Hello.”
“Hi Rachel. What’s up?”
“Nothing much? What’s up with you?”
“I’m great now, but I caught a bug before. Which you would know if you hadn’t abandoned me. Not even a call for an old friend.”
I sigh. “How’re you now?”
“Perfect. Though I had to come back early.”
“So you’re in New York?”
“Yes.” There’s a short pause. “I want to see you. How about we hang out tonight?”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not? Have pity on someone who’s dying to see you.” When I don’t answer, he sighs. “Tomorrow then, after work, we can go get a drink just like old times.”
I steal a glance at Landon. “Yeah,” I tell Jack. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow?”
“Great, Rachel. See you then.”
After the call, both Landon and I stay silent for the rest of the drive. His face is impassive, even as he navigates the traffic going into the city. I toy with the phone on my lap, my mind on Jack. It’s hard even to remember the feelings I used to have for him. It’s almost as if, in my head, I’ve let go of everything I ever felt before I fell in love with Landon.
I stare at his fingers on the wheel, feeling helpless. I want to tell him that I’m in love with him, but I know that will only make him push me away.
He glances at me and sees me looking at him, after a second, he turns back to the road. “That was Jack Weyland on the phone.”
It’s not a question. “Yes it was.”
“And you’re going to see him tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say anything else. At my building, he parks on the street and turns to me. “We’re here,” he says.
I nod. “I had a great time.”
“I’m glad I could be of service,” he says drily.
The change in attitude has to be because of my conversation with Jack. I recall Landon’s reaction to Jack back in San Francisco. He admitted then that he’d been jealous. Does he still feel the same way? Deep down inside me, I accept that maybe I agreed to go out with Jack because I wanted to see a reaction, a sign that Landon would care if he thought he might lose me.
“I’m just going to have a drink with him,” I say softly.
His fingers flex on the wheel. “It’s fine. You said yourself that you can’t just get over someone you’ve loved for years.”
“I was talking about Laurie.”
“So it doesn’t apply to you and Jack? You’re completely over him?”
“Yes.”
He exhales and taps his fingers on the wheel. “So why do you need to go out with him?”
I fold my arms. “Because he’s also been a friend. Not every relationship is built completely on sex.”
He shrugs. “You were the one who demanded that this thing we have had to be based on sex alone.”
“Maybe now I want more.”
“Do you?”
I want to say yes, but there’s that fear niggling at the back of my mind.
As soon as a woman starts to demand more than I can give, I walk away.
I don’t know how I’ll be able to bear it if he walks away from me.
But one day, he will. It’s inevitable, and the longer I hold on, the harder it will be to finally let go.
He’s still waiting for me to say something. I draw in a deep breath. “You can’t give me what I want,” I say softly.
His jaw tightens, and for a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. “I find it very enlightening that we’re having this conversation right after you spoke to him.” He spits out the word. “If you’d rather be with your ex, you don’t have to conjure vague reasons why we shouldn’t be together, just let me know and I won’t stop you.”
“This has absolutely nothing to do with Jack.”
He is silent, then suddenly without any warning, he reaches for me, pulling me towards him and covering my lips in a kiss that’s hard, hungry and demanding. Despite the riot of emotions I’m feeling, my body responds immediately, my tongue meeting his, taking and giving.
It feels as if I’m melting into him, as if I’ll never know again where he ends and I begin, by the time he releases me, we’re both panting. He pulls back and closes his eyes, his chest rising and falling as he tries to get his breathing under control. My thoughts are all jumbled in my head, and I feel as if I’m going to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he says roughly.
At that moment, I know I’ve made a huge mistake. I want to tell him that I’m willing to take whatever he has to give. I want to beg him not to leave, but the words fail me.
He starts the engine, his eyes straight ahead. “I had a great weekend too,” he says, his voice dismissive. “Goodbye Rachel.”
“Yeah,” I say miserably, before I stumble out of the car. He waits until I’m at the door before he starts to drive away. By the time I climb the stairs to my apartment, my cheeks are wet with tears, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to be happy again.
Release date for the next book in this series ADDICTED TO YOU, will be announced soon.
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A Dangerous Man Series
Awakening: A Dangerous Man #1
Rebellion: A Dangerous Man #2
Claim: A Dangerous Man #3
Surrender: A Dangerous Man #4
Undeniable
Find at www.serenagrey.com/books
erena Grey, Drawn to You