What A Girl Wants (Harlequin Blaze)

by Jamie Sobrato

  “Yes, try all of those things. First though, if an attacker grabs you like this, try to stay calm. If you can, move your head so that your chin is pointing toward the crook of his arm. That will give you a little more air supply.”

  Jane did as he’d instructed. “Okay.”

  “The most vulnerable bones you have access to on your attacker are the bones in the top of his foot, and the bones of his fingers. So I’ll teach you a technique for breaking the foot bones with a sharp stomp kick and another for breaking the bones of one or more fingers….”

  Luke went over the self-defense techniques with Jane until she seemed confident with the information, and then they practiced a few mock attack scenarios, but by the third one, all the close contact was getting to him—and her too, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  When he had her pinned to the floor for the second time, his cock went hard, and he could no longer focus on self-defense.

  Luke pressed her against the mat with his body, and his erection found its home between her legs. He resisted the urge to grind into her, to simulate what he’d been dreaming of doing every day since she’d declared sex off-limits.

  “Now that your attacker has you pinned to the ground, what are you going to do?”

  “Kick him for real this time.”

  “But I’ve got your legs spread. You’re wearing a pair of baggy gym shorts. All I have to do is tug aside some fabric, undo my zipper, and—”

  “I could bite you.”

  “Good idea. But what happens when I shove a piece of your clothes inside your mouth?”

  “I guess I’m in trouble.”

  “You stay on alert. You look for any and every opportunity to fight back and escape. You don’t give up until you’re out of his control and safe again.”

  Jane closed her eyes and exhaled. “I think I’ve got it. You can get off of me now, can’t you?”

  “I could, yeah.”

  “But you’ve got me right where you want me?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  He loosened his grip on her wrists a bit, but she didn’t try to squirm out of his grasp. Instead, she wrapped her legs around his hips and moistened her lower lip with her tongue.

  She wanted to be here as badly as he did, and maybe she was finally ready to give in to that desire again.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “I’ll bet. Is that why you just wrapped your legs around my hips?”

  “My mind and body aren’t exactly in synch where you’re concerned. My body has one agenda, and my brain has another.”

  “Which agenda’s going to win out, do you think?” He pressed himself a little harder between her legs then, letting his erection strain against the soft fabric of her shorts.

  “I think you know the answer to that better than I do.”

  Luke kissed her then. Slowly, tentatively. He wanted to see her respond with a little enthusiasm of her own, and she didn’t disappoint. She deepened the kiss, tasting him hungrily, all the while grinding her hips against him and pulling him closer with her legs.

  “Have I unleashed wild Jungle Jane again?” he asked when they came up for air.

  “I’m afraid so,” she whispered.

  A snippet of something she’d said the first time they’d made love popped into his head. She’d told him she wouldn’t mind a little restraint in the bedroom, and he figured now was as good a time as any to find out. It was a pretty safe bet that once he had her tied up, at his mercy, and unable to resist his seduction, she’d be a lot more hard-pressed to change her mind in the middle of things. Changing their minds this time wasn’t an option—he needed her too fiercely to stop once they got started.

  And so he let go of her wrists and peeled himself off her, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. She rested her head on his shoulder and went along without protest.

  “I noticed some scarves in your closet. Mind if I borrow them?”

  Jane gave him a strange look as he placed her on the bed. “Scarves?”

  “We could use handcuffs, but I thought that might be going overboard. I just want to make sure you stay put—not arrest you and take you in for custody.”

  A look of understanding dawned in her eyes. “You’re going to tie me up?”

  “That’s the best way I know to deal with wild jungle women. They have a tendency to get out of hand, otherwise.”

  She rose up on one elbow, smiling as though she knew a good secret. “What if I don’t let you tie me up?”

  “You want to try out your new self-defense skills on me?” Luke had never gotten especially turned on by domination and submission, but the idea of subduing Jane and having her at his mercy for an hour or so had definite appeal.

  “What good is a lesson learned without an opportunity to practice the subject taught?”

  “You don’t stand a chance against me. You’ve lost the element of surprise.”

  She tugged off her sweatshirt and unsnapped her bra. Luke stared at her with all the blood in his body racing toward his crotch as she sat on the bed topless, her full round breasts an impossible temptation. “Surprised yet?”

  “Yeah.”

  She stood up from her bed and slipped her shorts and panties down over her hips and legs, then stepped out of them. Luke’s gaze fell to the triangle of dark hair at the apex of her legs, and he forgot for a moment why he’d been opening the closet.

  Jane walked over to him, her gaze locked on his, then she brushed past. She reached into the closet herself and pulled out a couple of brightly colored silk scarves.

  “Maybe I’ll tie you up,” she said.

  Sounded like fun, but he wasn’t about to back down now. “Not likely.”

  “Okay, if you can get the scarves away from me, you can tie me up.”

  Luke reached out to grab her, but she slipped from his grasp and darted to the other side of the bed.

  “You’ll have to be faster than that.”

  He surveyed his options and made a move for the far side of the bed, but Jane started to climb over the bed, so he dove after her and caught her by the waist. She screeched and laughed as he pinned her beneath him and tried to grab the scarves, which she hid behind her back until he began to tickle her.

  “Okay, okay!” she squealed, breathless and laughing. “Here!” She thrust the scarves at him and he grabbed them before she had the chance to hide them again.

  When he’d gotten her arms pinned above her head, he gave her a warning look. “Behave while I get you tied up. Otherwise I’ll make this pure torture.”

  “Torture?”

  “Believe me, I’ve got methods.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Dare me. You can either have an afternoon of pleasure, or one of frustration—you choose.”

  She must have remembered his skill at bringing her just to the edge of orgasm and then pulling back, because she let him tie her to the bedposts without a fight. Once he had her at his mercy, Luke sat back to survey her nude body at his leisure. This was his reward for weeks of desiring what he couldn’t have, and he intended to savor every moment.

  And he’d make damn sure she’d never be able to resist him again, even if it took all night.

  Luke undressed and then climbed back onto the bed, his erection at full mast. Jane watched him with a half-lidded gaze.

  “I’ve never been tied up before,” she finally said when he was sitting on his knees only a few inches away.

  “How does it feel to have no control?”

  She wet her lips. “It’s very arousing.”

  Luke slid his hand across her belly, then down through her pubic hair and between her legs. She was slick and hot. “You’ve been wanting me these past few weeks, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Practicing your self-control?”

  “Yes.”

  “So being tied up when we have sex sort of makes it okay, right? Like you’re doing it against your will?” He slid one finger inside her as h
e spoke, and she closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Maybe.”

  “Aren’t you glad one of us isn’t interested in self-control?” He found her clit with his thumb and began to massage.

  She moaned in reply, arching herself toward his touch, and after a few moments, Luke withdrew his hand from between her legs and positioned himself over her.

  “Not so fast,” he whispered. “There’s plenty of time for fun.”

  He trailed kisses up her belly, on her breasts, over her collarbone to her neck. As he tasted her neck, he cupped her breasts in his hands and let his erection strain at her entrance. Now that he was so close to the prize, he could wow her with his self-control, let her feel a bit of the suffering he’d endured lately.

  But when he tried to kiss her on the mouth, she turned her head away.

  “You want to do this the hard way, hmm?”

  “Maybe,” she whispered.

  “Would you feel scandalized if I tasted between your legs now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He lingered over her breasts, sucking and teasing her nipples, then moved back down.

  When he licked her clit, she gasped and writhed around, but he gripped her hips to still her. He tasted and massaged her with his tongue until he knew she was about to come, and then he withdrew. She emitted a frustrated growl.

  “Remember, tonight is a night for punishment, not reward.”

  Jane’s eyes shot open, and she looked at him as if he were the last man on earth. “Please…”

  “Doesn’t take much to make you beg, does it?”

  “You know what I want.”

  Luke ran his hands along the smooth length of her legs. “I wonder what it would take to make you admit this is a lot more than a sexual fling we’re having here.”

  He hadn’t planned to say that. And judging by the sober expression on Jane’s face, she hadn’t expected it. But he had to admit it—he wasn’t just falling for Jane. He was in love with her.

  Somewhere between having the greatest sex of his life and deciding Jane was his most frustrating client ever, he’d let himself fall in love. It had been as natural as breathing, letting those emotions develop, but the problem was that Jane—he could almost guarantee—didn’t feel the same.

  At least not yet.

  Something kept her from letting herself get close enough to get hurt, probably all the losers she’d fielded questions from in her magazine column over the years. She had no idea how much those guys had skewed her outlook and kept her from having normal, healthy relationships, so much that she didn’t have a clue what she really wanted in a man.

  Luke intended to show her that he knew what she wanted and what she needed even better than she did. Starting tonight.

  “I’ll admit,” she said, “that the attraction between us is too powerful for me to resist at times. If that equals more than a sexual fling, then okay.”

  He decided not to comment. Getting into an argument in the middle of foreplay wasn’t going to help him win the battle. Instead, he positioned himself between her legs and spread her thighs open wide. She didn’t bother to put up a pretend fight, and when he dipped his fingers inside her again, she expelled a sigh of pleasure.

  “You want me?”

  “Yes, right now.”

  “You’re not in the position to be demanding. Maybe you should try begging a little more.”

  “Please,” she nearly purred.

  He pressed his cock against her and rubbed it back and forth on her clit. She was so ready, no way could he wait another minute. So much for a long, drawn-out punishment. He was feeling a little too punished himself. Grabbing a condom from his wallet, he slid it on and covered her with his body, easing into her slowly.

  They began to rock together, and Luke cupped the back of her head in his palm, watching pleasure soften her features as they moved toward climax.

  This woman… This woman he made love to, this woman he’d tried to protect, this woman who’d resisted his every attempt to win her heart… She’d captured his, and he knew he was in trouble.

  Big, big trouble.

  12

  I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

  —Jane Langston, a deleted line from her work-in-progress, Sex and Sensibility

  LUKE AWOKE while it was still dark and glanced at the clock. 3:46 a.m. He looked around the room, staring into the darkness, trying to determine what, exactly, had woken him. He was wide awake, and his senses were on alert. It was the feeling he got when danger was near. He sat up in bed and strained to listen for a sound—anything—but all he could hear was Jane’s slow, steady breathing as she slept.

  He slipped silently out of bed and felt around on the back of a chair for his jeans, then pulled them on. That’s when he heard it—a slight rustling outside the window. Luke froze in place and held his breath, wondering if he’d just imagined the sound. And after half a minute had passed without any other noise, he admitted that maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

  He crept over to the window and peered out through a small gap between the curtains and the wall, expecting to see nothing, so his stomach dropped to his feet for a few seconds when he saw a man standing at the window, staring in.

  Luke recognized him immediately—Jane’s lawn guy. He felt like kicking himself for not checking the guy out more closely, for just assuming that since his record was clean, he probably wasn’t a serious threat.

  The creep must have just begun looking in and hadn’t seen Luke yet, wasn’t aware that he was being watched just as he watched Jane sleep. Luke followed the man’s line of vision and saw what he saw—Jane lying in bed with the covers at her waist, her arms up over her head, her lush breasts totally exposed.

  He looked back to the guy outside the window and took in all the details he could in the span of a few seconds—memorized everything—and then the guy began fumbling with the front of his pants, and right there in the bushes, he started jacking off.

  A wave of anger overtook Luke as he shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed a pair of handcuffs and a gun from his jacket, and crept along the wall to the door, then slipped down the hallway silently. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he got outside, but he damn well wasn’t going to let the guy get off while staring at his woman.

  His woman.

  He had no idea when she’d become that in his mind, but he knew he’d allowed himself to feel a sense of possessiveness for her that was unwarranted.

  Luke’s fury built with each step. As he carefully unlocked the front door, stepped outside, and crept silently around the side of the house, his anger solidified into the resolve to kick the peeping lawn boy’s ass from here to Abilene.

  When he was close enough to reach out and grab the jerk by the neck, that’s exactly what he did. He had the guy on the ground in a matter of seconds and planted a knee in the middle of his back, then slipped the handcuffs around one of his wrists. Glancing around for a place to secure the scumbag until the police arrived, he spotted a utility pole.

  “Get up,” he said, tugging the guy off the ground as he spoke.

  “Hey man, I didn’t mean no harm. I was just—”

  “Just doing a little yard work at four in the morning?”

  Luke dragged him to the pole and cuffed him to it, then stood back and took in the sight of the guy facing the pole with his fly open and his schlong still hanging out. He let out a disgusted laugh.

  “You’re not gonna leave me like this, are you? I mean, I got customers around here. They ain’t gonna want me doing their yards….”

  Luke turned and walked back to the house, resisting the urge to slam the door. With any luck, Jane would have slept through the commotion and he could spare her a little fear by waking her up to explain why the police were coming.

  After he’d put in the call to the police, Luke went into the bedroom, where Jane was leaning on one elbow, blinking at the clock.

  “What’s going on?”

  He
explained everything to her as she got dressed. She listened silently, her expression grim and her shoulders tense.

  “You think he’s the one?”

  “I don’t know. I think we should wait and see what he tells the police before we draw any conclusions. Maybe his fingerprints will match up with the ones they found on the box of porn.”

  “I didn’t think it would be someone I knew,” she said, standing in the middle of the room hugging herself.

  Luke went to her and took her into his arms. She stiffened for a moment but then melted into him, and he wanted very badly to tell her how he felt, to tell her that she never had to worry about being alone, because he wanted to be there with her for good. But then she pushed away and said she needed coffee, leaving him standing there empty-handed as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  After the police had come and picked up the peeping lawn boy, they spent a tense morning in silence, waiting for news. Jane was in her office, and Luke was going back over his files on her case, trying to figure out how he’d missed the lawn-care guy as a culprit, when the phone rang. Luke listened to her conversation, not really getting any information until the end when she said, “Thank you, Officer. It’s such a relief to know that creep is caught.”

  He went to her office and stood in the doorway. When she hung up the phone, he raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “He confessed to making phone calls, sending a few letters, and trespassing outside my house on at least three occasions.”

  “What about running you off the road, breaking into your car, sending you a box of porn?”

  “He hasn’t owned up to any of that yet, but the police are fairly certain they’ve got their man.” She smiled, leaned back in her chair, and expelled a sigh of relief.

  “That’s great if they do, but I think we should consider the possibility that there’s another stalker out there who’s responsible for the other acts.”

  “Isn’t that a little extreme? I mean, I know a lot of men hate me, but two simultaneous stalkers?”

  “Why’d he confess to some of the crimes but not all, and what’s his connection to your sisters?”