by BETH KERY
She felt his heart beating beneath her hands. “I know that,” she whispered. Did she ever.
“But that core of the fantasy remains. Now, in the act of sex, I want—no, I need to know that nothing in the world can take you from me. Not the state or some other faceless bureaucracy, not your parents, not Emmitt Tharp or any other evil thing or person . . . not even your doubts. Not mine. None of it can take you from me. I won’t let it.”
She reached up and cradled his jaw with her hands. She went up on her tiptoes and brushed her mouth against his in a kiss of cherishment. Benediction.
“I understood, Jacob. I do,” she whispered. “Nothing will come between us. Show me it’s true.”
For few breathless seconds, he just looked down at her. Then she felt it: the chains breaking loose, and he was kissing her forcefully, his hands at her back pulling her against him. They groaned in unison, their tongues dueling, desperate for each other’s taste, wild to partake of sexual communion. Harper strained toward him. She couldn’t seem to get close enough. As if he sensed her struggle—as if he shared in it—he slid his hands to her bottom and lifted her against him. She hung on to his shoulders, her legs encircling his hips. Their kiss continued, hungry, hot, and wild. How could she have thought he didn’t want her? He was like a volcano of erupting need.
She recognized they were moving and suddenly, he was spilling her back on the bed and coming down over her, unbuttoning her shirt even as he plucked and bit at her mouth. Somehow, they managed to get their clothes off—something that would seemingly have been impossible since they couldn’t keep their mouths and hands off each other.
His tongue plunged between her lips at the same time that he pushed a finger into her sex. She moaned into his mouth, writhing beneath his solid, naked body while he penetrated her forcefully. Then he was pushing her hands above her head and pressing them down into the mattress.
He stared down at her, fearsome and beautiful.
“Tie me up,” she whispered.
“I don’t need rope at the moment,” he replied grimly, rearing up over her. He pressed her hands harder into the mattress. “You’re not going anywhere. Are you?”
“No, Jacob.”
He pressed the head of his cock against her damp outer sex, finding her slit.
“You’re mine, aren’t you?”
“Yes. All of me. Forever, if you want me for it.”
“Oh, I want,” he ground out.
He thrust. She cried out at the impact of him. His face tightened in a rictus of pleasure . . . of feeling.
“Harper,” he ground out, sounding wild. “I’m gonna have to fuck you so hard . . . hold you down and fuck you . . .”
“Yes, yes. I’m yours to take. Prove to me it’s true. Prove to yourself. Fuck me,” she goaded mindlessly.
Then he was pounding into her, slaking a need that might never be extinguished, only temporarily quenched. Harper knew she’d be there for him, whenever he needed it. Always. He had so much need, and he’d been left hungry so many times.
He rocked her, the bed . . . her whole world. He took her as hard as he’d promised, his sexual hunger rabid at being held in abeyance for a period of time and sharpened by exposed need.
By love.
At one point, he halted his forceful strokes into her and kept his cock plunged deep. He shifted his grip, holding her wrists down with one hand and freeing his other. Rearing over her, he reached between their bodies. He rubbed her clit while she moaned shakily, holding her stare the whole time. He continued to stimulate her while he shifted his hips ever so slightly back and forth, fucking her with the tiniest, most electrical strokes. She gasped and burned beneath his fingertip, the pressure from his swollen, embedded cock making her eyes cross in cresting pleasure. Her eyelids flickered closed as she rose over the edge.
“Open your eyes,” he said harshly. “Look at me.”
She forced her eyelids open. She watched him as the first shudder of orgasm shook her. A convulsion tightened his big, rigid body. A roar ripped at his throat. She felt his warm semen spill into her while she shook in a seizure of bliss.
He fell down over her, panting. He separated her arms, pressing her wrists down firmly into the mattress with both of his hands. He thrust his cock in and out of her, still ejaculating powerfully.
A final shudder coursed through him. He winced, looking pained.
“I want to fuck you forever,” he grated out, and she sensed his frustration that the peak of intimacy had passed, when he still felt so much inside. She shared in that longing. It was a kind of agony, to know she’d never be able to express fully in word or deed how much she felt for this man.
He opened his eyelids and pinned her with his stare. “I’m going to tie you up in a minute and have you again.”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.
Something crossed his face then, something wild and vast and beautiful. He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers.
“I’ve waited so long to have you. I’m never going to let you go,” he grated out next to her lips.
“I’m counting on that,” she said with a smile.
He lifted his head slightly, and she saw the shiny, fiery quality of his eyes.
“I love you. Jake. Jacob. All of you,” she whispered.
His nostrils flared slightly.
“If you do, I suppose I should try harder to love all of me, too.”
“You better.”
He gave a small smile. She smiled back, but he quickly became serious again.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her grin evaporated. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am,” he said impatiently, his brows slanted. She laughed.
“You’re laughing, at a moment like this?” he asked disbelievingly.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never been proposed to before. It took me off guard,” she tried to explain as euphoria dawned inside her, a golden, pure, sweet feeling.
“I’ve never proposed to anyone before, either.”
“Really?” she asked. He shook his head. “I’m speechless.”
“Not too speechless to give me an answer, I hope. Do you want me to tell you the right answer?” he asked drolly when she just stared up at him in awe. A smile tickled her lips at hearing the same question he’d asked her twenty years ago when she’d hesitated about stalactites and stalagmites.
“No.”
“What?” he asked sharply, frowning.
“That’s not my answer. I meant that I can answer for myself. And the answer is yes.”
His slow smile caused something to curl tight deep in her belly. God, she loved him so hard it hurt. He was such a living miracle to her.
He leaned down, kissing her softly on the mouth.
“That was definitely the right answer,” he told her, before his kiss deepened, and his heat warmed her whole world.
The New York Times bestselling author who brought you Glow, Glimmer, and The Affair is back with a new novel that will have you leaving the curtains open.
Are you just going to stand there and watch?
Keep reading for a preview of LOOKING INSIDE, available from Berkley in November 2016.
Eleanor Briggs thought it fitting that she’d chosen a reading event to make her debut as a sexually confident “I-take-what-I-want-when-I-want-it” female. Her entire job revolved around books, after all. Well . . . the part that didn’t involve conserving historical documents, costumes and artifacts, or doing research that would bore most people out of their mind.
In books, whole new worlds were born and new identities created, all through the power of the imagination. What better venue for her to transform herself into a sexual force of nature and worthy bedmate for her obsession, Trey Riordan? If it weren’t for her imagination, the fuel of distilled longing, and perhaps the cruel e
ye-opening she’d had after the abrupt loss of her sister, she’d never have the nerve to go after an unobtainable dream like him.
Tonight, she moved out of the shadows and officially into the spotlight.
“Are you here for the reading event?” Stacy Moffitt asked her in a bored tone as she slipped an iPad and phone in a manila envelope and wound a number around the enclosure.
Eleanor took heart from Stacy’s lack of attention. Maybe Stacy wouldn’t notice who she was. Stacy worked under Jimmy Garcia. Jimmy was the Director of Special Events at the Illinois Historical Museum, and Eleanor’s longtime friend. Eleanor worked for the museum too, as the Conservation and Preservation Librarian. Jimmy had been called out of town unexpectedly yesterday, which was a good thing for Eleanor. Jimmy was the only other person on earth who knew about her obsession with Trey Riordan. He didn’t, however, know about her aggressive plan for finally getting his attention.
“That’s what I’m here for,” Eleanor told Stacy.
“There’s a strictly enforced ‘no talking’ policy during reading hours. I need you to turn in all cell phones, tablets and computers. This is a technology free zone. We only want you focusing on your book for the next two hours,” Stacy said in a preachy voice.
“Ah, I get it now. Thus the name of the event—Leave Everything Behind But a Book. Clever,” Eleanor said under her breath as she dug in the Italian designer bag that used to belong to her sister, Caddy. Stacy glanced up at her sarcastic tone. The way Jimmy’s assistant gaped at her disbelievingly was not flattering.
“Eleanor. Is that you?”
“None other,” Eleanor replied grimly, placing her cell phone down on the counter. With a furious effort, she held the young woman’s stare. She would not be cowed a mere minute into her performance.
Stacy’s gaze dropped down over her snug suede bodice and the fitted, conservative blazer paired with it. As far as Eleanor knew, her sister Caddy had only worn the outfit once. Eleanor had practically achieved photosynthesis, she’d been so green with envy when she’d watched her sister leave her condo in it. The occasion had been an ODESZA concert given by Chicago socialite Sasha Allen Severnsen exclusively for his closest friends in honor of Caddy’s thirty-third birthday. Caddy was always having awesome, glamorous parties thrown for her. Along with the short skirt, dark brown tights and the soft, fitted beige thigh-high Rocker chick boots, the outfit screamed money, good times, boldness and sex. In other words, it had Caddy stamped all over it.
Stacy’s stare lingered on the tops of Eleanor’s breasts. The suede bodice had cupped them softly in a seduction that was somehow both tasteful and flagrant at once. It wasn’t just a sensual invitation to Trey Riordan, either. Eleanor herself was being seduced by the feeling of the suede against her bare breasts.
“That’s quite an outfit,” Stacy finally said disbelievingly as she held out a claim ticket for Eleanor’s phone. “Not your typical work wardrobe, that’s for sure. What’s the occasion?”
Eleanor shrugged, reached into her bag and withdrew her reading choice for the evening. “I’m reading a very sexy book.”
Normally, she wouldn’t have the nerve. It was Caddy’s outfit that made her say it. Ignoring Stacy’s openmouthed shock at her book choice for what was supposed to be a serious, highbrow literary event, Eleanor plucked the claim ticket out of Stacy’s hand and strode into the quickly filling Historic Grounds Coffee Shop. The thigh-high boots she wore were the equivalent of sexual jet fuel. They weren’t fuck-me-boots, necessarily. They only had a half-inch flat heel, but they hugged her legs tightly, showing off their shape. Eleanor would more describe them as fuck-you-boots . . . and maybe me, if you’ve got some major balls.
Trey Riordan did. Her fingers were crossed.
It was surprising how easy it was to play the part while wearing Caddy’s clothing. Eleanor supposed this was how all understudies felt when they first donned the star’s wardrobe and felt the rush of an enraptured audience.
Not that she was interested in the audience in general, Eleanor acknowledged as she scanned the crowd and several men’s stares landed on her and stuck. It was flattering, of course. A month ago, she would have grown giddy at the idea of men going glassy-eyed when they looked at her. That was before she’d sampled a couple of the outfits she’d inherited from Caddy and noticed their effect on people.
She should skip ordering coffee, knowing it wasn’t a good idea to add caffeine to her nervous excitement. Her jitters only amplified when she couldn’t locate her target audience. Jimmy had told her Trey Riordan’s name had been the second on the list when he’d signed up for the Historical Society reading event a month ago. Surely such eagerness implied he wasn’t likely to change his mind? Just as her heart began to sink in disappointment, she saw the back of his golden-brown hair and those edible shoulders beneath a light blue shirt.
How could she have missed him? He was only ten feet away from her. She was used to seeing him from the distance between the two adjacent buildings, that was the problem. Plus, he’d grown even leaner in the past month. His waist appeared especially narrow in comparison to his powerful back and shoulders. Even though he probably had lost negligible weight, his muscles were even more pronounced than they’d been in the past. Eleanor wondered what had him appearing so wiry and fighting lean.
He bent and withdrew a leather-bound book from his briefcase. His close proximity struck her as surreal.
Her heartbeat started to drum in her ears, but whether the rhythm was a death march or a sexual tattoo, Eleanor couldn’t say. I’m going to make a hot mess of this. For a charged few seconds, she experienced a strong urge to run. Sure, she’d dressed in Caddy’s clothes a few times, but only Jimmy and her parents had ever really seen her in them. And with them, it was impossible to thoroughly disguise bookish, distracted Eleanor, whom they knew all too well.
There was still time to run home, cuddle up on her couch with a bag of Cheetos, and watch the latest episode of The Librarians.
But as a surreal, dazed state of fear descended upon her, she found her vision narrowing on Trey’s riot of burnished brown waves of hair. It wasn’t long, but it wasn’t close-clipped, either. It symbolized his irreverent, carelessly sexy style: the hallmark of a corporate rebel. It looked so soft, especially in comparison to those wide, very solid shoulders. What she wouldn’t dare to sink her fingers into that thick, tousled hair and dig her nails into that muscular, rippling back, urging him on while he drove his cock into her body.
God, I hope this works.
She had good reason to worry. For more than a month now, he’d typically been alone when he’d entered the penthouse late at night. He watched television alone, ate alone and slept alone. He pleasured himself alone. That memory would burn her until her dying day it’d been scorched so deep in her brain.
Still, Trey Riordan wasn’t the type of man to stay solitary for long. He was the brilliant bad-boy entrepreneur. He’d been at the center of the Scarpetti twin controversy after being photographed with the heiress sisters in flagrante behind the curtain of an upscale club in Rome. Trey wasn’t anywhere near as famous as the Scarpetti twins. Yet a recent survey had calculated that the semi-nude, viral photo of him and the gorgeous twin sisters was unique, because it was prized equally among men and women across the globe.
No, a man like Trey didn’t stay partnerless for long. Her entire performance tonight was solely to encourage him to abandon his flirtation with celibacy and indulge in the delights of the flesh once again.
With her.
She hoped she was one of those rare females who made it to Trey Riordan’s bed more than once, but she wasn’t holding her breath. Surely one ride on that man-coaster would be enough to silence this uncustomary, uncontrollable hunger of hers. One thing was for certain: he’d never have a more appreciative lover.
For over a year now, Eleanor’s obsession with him had taken root and flourished. Bu
t to this day, she’d never looked into his eyes. That simple fact festered.
She inhaled, breathing in determination.
The boots seemed to strut her versus her strutting in them. She jogged up two stairs and slid into a window seat at a small table just eight or so feet in front of Riordan. Unfortunately, all of the lounging chairs were taken, but maybe that was for the best. A puffy armchair might block her performance from her target audience in a way that an armless wooden one wouldn’t.
She swung her bag onto the back of the chair, her heart fluttering uncomfortably in her chest. As if she had all the time in the world, she smoothed her long, loose curls over her shoulder in seeming distraction, pausing over the sensation of the strands’ texture. It’d been part of her act, but she was surprised to feel just how soft and sexy her hair felt sliding against her fingertips.
She knew the precise moment when Trey’s stare landed on her. It was the moment her cheek tickled in awareness and her breasts suddenly felt obvious and swollen in the suede cradle of the bodice. She suppressed a strong urge to finally look point blank into his eyes. Don’t blow it, Eleanor. Trey Riordan cut his teeth on some of the boldest femme fatales in the world. You’ve only got one first time.
Slowly, she crossed her legs, feeling her skirt ride higher on her thigh. When she felt air brush against the strip of skin at the top of her thigh-high tights, she ran her fingertips across it in a seemingly distracted gesture. Her bare skin felt smooth and warm. Her clit prickled. She instinctively clamped her thighs tight to alleviate that pinch of excitement. Perhaps it was that she knew Trey’s stare was on her at that moment, or maybe it was because for the first time in her life, she wasn’t wearing any underwear in public, but the sexual charge she experienced was shockingly strong.
Keeping her stare demurely lowered, she reached into her bag and pulled out the coup d’état: her newly purchased copy of the hugest source of derisive jokes, critical outrage, and horniness in recent history, the cultural phenomenon Born to Submit. Due to her voyeurism, she knew firsthand the topic might capture Trey’s attention. Again, she ran her fingertips over the strip of silky skin between the hem of her skirt and the top of her thigh-highs.