A Wish Upon Jasmine

by Laura Florand

  What she’d believed, the next day, was that he was ruthless and focused on money and power, that he couldn’t possibly be a safe place for her wounded heart. And yet…when he’d learned her heart had been wounded, he had pulled her into his arms and held her hard. He’d taken her to harvest jasmine. He’d wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she spoke about the loss to his family. He’d tried his best to take care of her, all the ways he knew how.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Yes, I know.” His fingers grazed, barely touching, over the slope of her breasts to the other nipple and hovered, his touch so light it might have been her imagination. “I’m sorry, too. But you haven’t forgotten what I’m sorry for, just because I’ve said it, have you?” His fingers trailed down her belly, teasing with that almost-touch against her navel. His voice dropped into infinite darkness in her ear, some demonic creature who had come out of a bottle to consume the whole daylight world. “You haven’t forgotten that I said I wanted to fuck you.”

  She shivered, on a little gasp, her head pressing back against his hand.

  “You haven’t forgotten that I said I wanted to slip my fingers here.” His fingers grazed, almost-touching, down over the zip of her capris, hovering with this hint of heat where her thighs tightened instinctively. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what I said I wanted to do with my fingers. Even though I’ve apologized.”

  She squeezed her eyes tight, just to make sure she didn’t accidentally wake up. Little shimmery trembles of excitement weakened her bones. She could feel her own sex softening, and no amount of tightening her thighs to control it helped at all.

  “What did I say, Jess? That no amount of apologies can erase?”

  She couldn’t answer, throat dry.

  A tiny sting as his hold tightened on her hair. His palm shaped the space of her sex, as if he would cup her fully, but he held it just a millimeter off, all heat and no pressure. “Tell me. What did I say?”

  Thank God she could keep her eyes closed. And just feel. His heat against her back, his grip of her hair, the sound of water and cicadas, the dappling of light and shadow over her face, the sand under her toes, the milk-sweet scent of figs, and the dry, summer green of the forest. The heat and promise of his not-quite-touching hand. “You said you—you—wanted to…do things to me with your fingers.”

  His fingers teased against the seam of her pants and withdrew. “So you do get over insult faster than I do. You’ve already started to forget. I told you that you were the sweet one.”

  She shook her head slowly, against the hold of her hair.

  “But that’s not exactly what I said, Jess.”

  She swallowed. “I—I remember exactly what you said.”

  “But you’ve released it. It’s not important to you. You don’t brood over it and let it affect you.” His hand gave pressure at last—rubbing slowly down her thigh, pushing her back against his body, so that she could feel the pressure of his own arousal and the hardness of his muscles everywhere. “Because you’re too sweet.”

  She closed her eyes very tightly. Her sex felt abandoned, jealous of his choice of her thigh. She tried to squeeze those secret lips together, but the act only brought more dampness. “Damien—”

  “What did I tell you, Jess? What exactly did I apologize for, that you’ve found so easy to let go?”

  Her voice sounded as rough as a fig leaf. “You said—you said—you said you wanted to slide your fingers straight up into me.” Moisture released in her body, dampening her panties. “You said you wanted to”—her voice went almost inaudible—“fuck me with them until I had lost my mind.” Her body sank back against his, powerless, except for those inner muscles that kept trying to clench on emptiness.

  “How rude. What inexcusable language.” His hand rubbed back up her thigh. “The kind of thing I could apologize for over and over, and you still wouldn’t get over it.”

  “I—” She tried to turn her head into his chest. His hand tightened on her hair, so that she couldn’t seek refuge in him and she couldn’t escape. She couldn’t see him, but he could do whatever he wanted.

  “Straight up into you?” He stroked a delicate finger over the seam of her pants. “With no preliminaries at all? What a bastard.”

  He must be able to feel her dampness through two layers of cloth. He could definitely feel the way her hips arched for more pressure from that finger and her butt pressed back hard against his body when he drew that finger away.

  “You—you didn’t specify. About the preliminaries,” she managed.

  “No? Well, you know the male mind. We always fantasize straight to the damn point.” His sarcastic fingers grazed away again to draw little circles over exactly where soft curls lay, on the other side of the cloth. This incredibly sensitive area of her skin that was so close and yet so far away from the…damn point. “You don’t, though, right? Because you’re female. You fantasize long, soft caresses that go on forever.”

  Right this minute, she was fantasizing something a lot less frustrating, more immediate and more intense. She swallowed, even her mouth craving texture. I want to kiss you so deep it’s like I’m fucking your mouth. Insidious words. They made her want both—the kisses and the actual fucking of her mouth. Her body twisted against his again before she could stop it.

  “That’s it?” He petted her zip. “That’s all I said? I didn’t make matters any worse? There’s nothing else I should apologize for?”

  “Damien—”

  “You’d better tell me, Jess. So I can get it all out of your system.”

  “You said you wanted to spread my legs.” She whimpered a little as his hand cupped her sex fully, in reward. The heel of his palm rested just over her clitoris. She tried to press into it. He almost let her. Almost—maybe—he moved that heel of his palm side to side in a lazy, taunting rub. “So that—so that I couldn’t squeeze them back together again. While you did whatever the hell you wanted to me.” Oh, God, please. Please do whatever the hell you want to me. Please do something. And do it over and over and over.

  And—hard.

  And long.

  And…just do it!

  “Ah, yes.” Three fingers rubbed leisurely up and down the seam of her pants. “You know, maybe you weren’t so wrong in deciding I must be a bastard, six months ago. Because I’m starting not to feel sorry for what I said at all.”

  “Jesus, Damien, please.” She bucked against his hand and back against his erection, twisting her butt against it.

  “Did I say something rude about making you beg, too? That’s turned into something of an obsession of mine.”

  She grabbed his hand in both of hers and pressed it hard against her. Oh, God, she could feel her own moisture, where their fingers interlocked. “You said you wanted to fuck my mouth,” she managed, and it sounded like a moan.

  His hips jerked once against hers, his hand grinding down involuntarily as he pressed her back against him. “I said I wanted to kiss you like I was fucking your mouth,” he corrected.

  She risked opening her eyes, and yes, it was still daylight, they were still out in the open air, and his cheeks were dark, his head turned down to her as he watched her every expression like a cruel sultan watching Scheherazade spread for his pleasure.

  “But I like your re-interpretation.”

  She’d take about anything at this point. Anything. Any kind of pressure or intrusion into her body, any way he wanted to touch her or take her, as long as he actually did it.

  “See, you hold a grudge, too,” he said. “You’re the sweet one, and I’m the mean one, but even though I’ve apologized, you haven’t forgotten or forgiven a word I said.”

  “You bastard,” Jess said weakly.

  “Darling,” he replied. In French, of course. Ma chérie. It brushed all over her, different, less trusting, more charged, than that night in New York, when he’d said it with such intensity and wonder. Of course, she hadn’t called him a bastard that night, either. She’
d felt aroused and fascinated and seduced, but she hadn’t felt like she was going to climb out of her own skin and claw him out of his. “Take off your clothes.”

  Heat and heat and heat everywhere, the August afternoon, his body, hers.

  “You see that fresh fallen tree just up the bank?”

  What?

  “It’s not lavender-scented sheets. But I want you to take off everything but your panties. And go lie back on it. Do it with me watching you, without me touching you, without me making you—and if you do, then from now on this afternoon is mine. This is as real as it gets. I will do whatever I want to you, and you…all I want to hear out of you is yes and please.”

  He released her hair and stepped back. She almost slid to the sand at the sudden removal of his heat and support. She turned slowly to stare at him.

  His eyes glittered as he folded his arms. And waited. Hard. Predatory.

  She swallowed, curling her toes into the sand. And then she dropped her hand to the button of her capris.

  His chin came up sharply.

  She unbuttoned them. He drew a hard breath, his mouth sensual and sullen and dangerous.

  She unzipped them, so aroused it was all she could do not to press her own fingers against herself even as he watched.

  He looked like—he looked like a man who was going to fuck her any and every way he wanted to, if she made one more gesture. She licked her lips. And pushed her capris down her hips. Nakedness washed over her, this sudden and utter nakedness, her butt in flimsy panties as she bent to push the pants off her feet, her bare thighs. She closed her eyes as she straightened and pulled her shirt over her head in the same movement, so she could just do it. Be naked. Get him to actually do all those crude, sexual things he had threatened.

  He didn’t move. His cheeks were darkly flushed.

  She turned toward the trunk.

  “Your bra,” Damien said, clipped.

  She stopped a second. And then turned back to face him, lifted her chin, and unclasped her bra, dropping it on the sand.

  Damien’s arms unfolded. He breathed as if he had run a race.

  Jess climbed over the tree trunk and lay back on it. Bark pressed against her bare skin, this faint, rough underlining of how real and gritty and out in the open air this was.

  “Jess.” Damien’s voice had gone guttural, gravel on a dark night. “Spread your legs.”

  Chapter 16

  She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She couldn’t believe she would do it anywhere, follow his orders like this, let alone do it out in the open air. This was nothing like that night in New York. It was impossibly, dirtily real. And yet there was something there that was the same—this passionate hunger and…trust. She didn’t trust him enough to reach for him herself and count on him being there, but she trusted him enough to let him do whatever he wanted to her.

  Do things to me. The tree bark pressed against her back and butt, through the fragile cloth of her panties. Do a lot of things to me.

  Shadow and light played over her eyes, through the thick green leaves. Her thighs kept wanting to clench closed, but her knees ran into the tree trunk, keeping her wide open. Only her toes touched the ground, so that she barely had any purchase at all.

  She could hear Damien approaching, and she closed her eyes.

  Silence.

  The brush of warm skin as his hand pressed into the bark beside her body. She opened her eyes to meet the dark intensity of his. The flush on his cheeks. The face honed by arousal and hunger until his expression could be mistaken for cruelty. A willingness to eat her up to satisfy his own needs.

  An idea that shouldn’t arouse her, but God, it did. This flooding, relentless arousal that made her butt cheeks clench against the tree trunk, made her fight not to squirm.

  His gaze ran over her body. With a very faint, cruel smile on his mouth, he pinched her wet panties between his thumb and forefinger, pulling them a centimeter or two away from her skin.

  Instead of pushing those panties against her. Rubbing her. Doing anything. She bucked. “Damien. Jesus.”

  He slid his fingers under the panties, playing with her lush fullness. Arousing, maddening to stare at his face and realize how much he liked tormenting her. He was really getting off on it. “Tell me again what I said I wanted to do to you here, Jess?”

  “You bastard.” She bucked against his hand.

  “Ma chérie,” he replied sweetly.

  “You said you—wanted to—slide your fingers straight up into me and fuck me until I lost my mind.”

  “I guess that shows the value of an apology, because”—his arm flexed against the trunk, lowering his face right to her ear—“I still want to do that, Jess. And I’m going to do it right now.” Two fingers slid into her.

  Oh, thank God. She clutched around them with all her inner muscles, her knees tightening against the bark, her hands reaching for him.

  He caught her wrists and bore them back against the tree trunk over her head. His fingers thrust and thrust again. She whimpered. They were so forceful, those fingers, and her body was so wet, and she liked it so much.

  “My God, you’re about to come already, aren’t you?” he said. Ruthless. Merciless.

  She tried to twist her wrists free to reach for him, but he tightened his hold. “Please, Damien.” All he had to do was slide his thumb just a centimeter over…

  “No,” he said harshly, and removed his fingers, bringing them slick with her own moisture to her breasts. “I want to play with you some more.” He squeezed her breast in his hand, rubbing her nipple between a slick thumb and forefinger. “Give you somebody you can believe in.”

  She whimpered a little, her bare toes digging into leaves and dirt as she tried to press her hips up.

  “You could beg me. I’ve fantasized about you doing that for six damn months. You’re so sorry you threw me away and you beg so damn hard.”

  “Damien.” She was going to go out of her mind.

  “You get exactly what you ask for, in my fantasies,” he said cruelly. “Me. Ruthless. Superficial. Heartless. You get exactly what you want.”

  Damn him. “Damien, please.”

  “Yeah. That’s a start.” His hand slid damp down her stomach, and he paused at her navel just to torment her, playing with it. She writhed and tried to jerk her wrists free, but he held them hard, her forearms rubbing against the bark. His voice so rough and dark in that bright, shadowed day: “Say please again.”

  “Anything,” she whispered, trying to compel him with her eyes, since she couldn’t control him with anything else. “Anything you want.”

  He bent his head low until his mouth brushed her ear. “I told you.” Warm breath against her skin, voice like gravel. “I want you to say please.”

  She was saying it. She twisted her head until her lips brushed his ear in turn. And bit his lobe. “Is that all? Please?”

  His hand tightened on her wrists. His hand came down between her legs and hovered there, cruelly just out of reach.

  “Nothing else?” she whispered desperately. “Nothing at all? Not fuck maybe?” She flinched a little to say it. But after the flinch came excitement, a great hungry rush of it. That world held power.

  He went very still. A hard breath shuddered through his body.

  She cast around for more, pushing aside the silky French for the rude, crude, blunt Anglo-Saxon. “Or cock?” She had never said that word out loud in her life. But it jerked right through him.

  His fingers thrust straight into her again. She whimpered, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more. Harder and faster, and she needed his damn pressure just a little bit higher, and—

  “Not please, Damien, fuck me with your cock?”

  God, the power of those words together. The taste of them. Dirty and rich, like sinking her hands down into the black dirt from which flowers grew, after a lifetime of playing only with those flowers’ elusive scents.

  His breathing was ragged, his face still buried in her hair
. His body vibrated like something strained to snapping. “You can’t talk like that. You’re too…sweet.” He pulled back enough to stare at her mouth. His hand came to hold her chin, his thumb dragging the scent and moisture of her own sex across her lips. “Your mouth is too sweet for…those…words.”

  She caught his sex-drenched thumb in her lips and sucked it in hard, sucking and licking and biting just a little. “Are you sure?” she whispered as she released it. “Absolutely sure my mouth is…too…sweet?”

  “Damn you.” He was shaking. He brought his hand back to her sex again.

  Oh, God, she was so close to coming. “Fuck,” she whispered. “Cock.” The words were addictive. They worked on him so hard.

  “Shut up.” He thrust two fingers into her, then opened them, pressure against her walls. She squeezed back, as hard as she could.

  “Fuck me with your cock.”

  “You’re too easy,” he said harshly. “Damn you, Jess. I swear to God that if you come already, I’m going to make you do it again. And again.”

  But he was easy, when she went to work on him. She could see it, his decimated self-control, the way each word she spoke broke him on his own savage hunger. “Fuck me hard,” she breathed.

  He twisted one hand between them and pressed the heel straight over her clitoris, pressing down, down, until her hips were driven back against the tree trunk by that pressure. “I’ll make you shut up, Jasmin.”

  “You can try,” she taunted, and slowly licked her lips. “Fuck.”

  He thrust his fingers under her panties, thumb going unerringly to her clitoris. “I can make you shut up in five seconds.”

  “I wonder if your cock tastes good?”

  He jerked all over, thumb driving against her clitoris.

  She whimpered. Her head tossed to the right, as she lost control of her taunts. “Oh, God, Damien, please.”

  “Just shut up.” He rubbed his thumb over that swollen, begging little nub, slick with the moisture on his fingers.

  “Fuck,” she whispered valiantly, as her body jerked and jerked again. Waves of pleasure were crashing down on her at last. Cresting, coming, almost there, if only he didn’t pull his thumb away just at that moment. “Damien, please.”