by Cynthia Eden
To stop pretending she was perfect. To ditch that fake smile. She’d never belonged, and she shouldn’t be in his arms then.
Yet it was the only place she wanted to be.
His fingers brushed over the lace of her panties. She lifted up her hips. That light touch wasn’t enough. A sensual ache grew between her legs. She wanted to feel him inside. Deep and hard. She wanted to push past the fear that still clung to her.
Then her panties were gone. His fingers, long and strong, slid into her.
“You’re already wet,” he growled out the words against her lips.
In the back of his limo…but no one can see us. The windows are too dark. It’s just me…me and Jason.
“You make me insane,” he said as his fingers slid into her, then out. “So tight…”
He made her feel insane, too. Wild, when she’d spent a lifetime being controlled.
I took her.
His cold words whispered through her mind. Pain threatened to break through her pleasure.
No, don’t go there. Stop.
“Cat? Love, what is it?”
Her eyes opened. The back of the limo was too dark for her to see the gold of his eyes. “I’m going to take you.”
His fingers were still inside her. Moving deliciously but…
I’m not a prize.
She pushed against his shoulders. He pulled away, slowly, a glide of his fingers inside of her that had her sex clenching.
“Cat…”
She straddled him. Put her hands on his shoulders and let her knees sink into the smooth leather of the seat. “You don’t get to control everything.” Her sex slid over the obvious bulge of his arousal. “You think you do, but you won’t always control me.”
His hands locked around her hips. “I don’t want to control you.”
She leaned forward. Licked his lower lip. “Liar.”
Then her right hand slid between them. Moved down, down…until she could undo the button of his pants and slide down his zipper. His arousal sprang out, heavy and full, and she caught him in her hands. “I want to hear the truth from you.”
Actually, she wanted him.
I want everything.
Her hands stroked him. “Cat…” Her name was a warning. “Be careful…what game you play with me.”
She wasn’t the one playing a game. She never had been. She guided his cock toward her body, let her sex slide over him, but she didn’t take him inside. “What do you want from me?”
His fingers dug into her hips. “Cat.” Not a warning now. A snarl.
“Control?” She was taking it then. He’d see what it was like to—
“I want to fucking possess you—body, soul, everything,” his words ripped from him.
They stole her breath.
He pulled her down, but his cock still didn’t enter her. She was slick and her folds slid slowly over him. But she didn’t take him in.
“I want to make you scream. I want to make you want only me.”
Her breath rushed out because now his hand was between her legs and he was stroking her clit. Making her ache.
Keep the control.
Her hand locked around his wrist, stilling him. But his fingers had frozen against her most sensitive spot and she wanted—so badly—to move just a bit more.
“What about what I want?” Her words were husky, her breath still heaving in little gasps.
“I’ll give you anything.”
Promises, promises… “I want you. No restraint. No control. No lies. I want…” His hand was still pressed to her clit and she was using all of her power not to move. “I want all of you.”
“You have me.” His hand moved, his fingers stroked her and the orgasm slammed into Cat before she could even suck in another breath.
And as she shuddered above him, Cat saw Jason’s control shatter. He gave a low growl in his throat. His fingers stroked her again—again—
The pleasure was so intense that it almost hurt.
Then he was shifting beneath her. Her hands slammed back down on his shoulders as she rose a few inches. The pleasure was hitting her in waves, the release not ending, and she took Jason inside of her. Finally.
He pushed into her. She was swollen from her release and Cat took him slowly. One inch. Two. He was thick and full and inch by slow inch…she sank onto him. She sank down until she was sure that she couldn’t take more of him.
“All,” Jason’s whisper. “Everything.”
And he went in deeper. More of him. So much more.
When he was fully inside of her, Cat didn’t move. Her sex quivered around him, but she didn’t let him ease out—she kept him there. Waited, waited for his control to break…
“Too much…Cat…”
She squeezed her inner muscles around him, clamping even tighter and then—
His growl was animalistic. The hands that held her, lifted her up and yanked her back down were rough. Wild.
Again and again, he thrust, filling her.
It wasn’t enough. He pushed her back, spinning them, and the leather was beneath her. He was in her, driving with a fury that was a perfect storm of desire. This wasn’t about appearances. About a game. This was passion. This was need.
This…this was everything she needed.
I’m going to possess you, too, Jason.
Every single inch of him. Body and battered soul. The sensual pace was frantic and her nails dug into him as they fought for their pleasure. When the release hit, it rocked through Cat first, hitting her with a staggering fury that took her breath, then she felt Jason surge deep within her once more before he erupted.
His hold was painful. So tight. Unbreakable.
His mouth took hers. She kissed him back, her body shaking.
They were still kissing when the pleasure finally ebbed. Aftershocks rippled through her.
Jason lifted his head. There was still no seeing his eyes, not clearly. And she wanted to see them. Wanted to know what he was thinking. She—
“You know I can’t let you go.” His voice was a rumble in the dark as he slowly slid out of her. She gasped at the sensation and fought the urge to clamp down. To hold him.
His fingers slid over her body. Carefully straightened her dress. Then those fingers rose to curl around her jaw.
She should speak. She should say something sophisticated and sexy. She shouldn’t say, “I love you.”
Cat gasped when she realized that she had just blurted those words. Oh, shit.
Jason had gone ominously still beside her. “What?”
“Why do you think I stayed?” Not just the business, never that. Not for her.
The limo was slowing.
I just had sex in the back of the limo. Her eyes squeezed closed. There was something about Jason that just pushed her.
Tempted her.
“Say that again. Now.”
“Always so demanding.” She grabbed her panties. Put them on. Oh, but they were wet. Her nose wrinkled.
“Catherine…”
“I like it when you say my name. I mean, my full name. It always sounds sexy when you say it.”
The limo had stopped. She reached for the door. Pushed it open.
He closed his hand around her wrist. “Are you trying to drive me mad? Did you just say that you loved me?”
She looked down at his hand. “That is crazy, isn’t it? For me to love you, after everything…I shouldn’t. I know it, but…” Her gaze lifted to his. “I think I fell in love with you the night we first met. Even though you were lying to me. In spite of it…” Fallen hard, fallen hopelessly. She gave him a smile. “Jason, why do you think I went back into your bed? Why do you think I gave myself to you? No matter what others may say, I’m not a whore.” You were mine…and I wanted to be with you.
His grip went slack around her. “You-you—”
Ah, now that was interesting. She’d managed to make him speechless. But that was pretty much what she’d anticipated. “It’s all right. I know yo
u don’t love me.” She wasn’t even sure he could love. Her heels pressed down on the pavement. She rose from the car, squeezing her thighs together a bit because she could still feel him there, between her legs.
Jason followed right behind her. When she glanced back at him, his face was a hard, stone mask. He towered over her there, right at the edge of the limo. “Cat…”
She put her hands on his chest. Leaned up. Kissed him.
“Get away from that bastard!” Cat turned at the grating shout. A shout that came from…her brother?
The doormen at Jason’s building rushed forward when they heard the shout—and so did Jason’s driver, Tim.
Cameron stormed toward her and Jason and—
She hurried to Cameron. “What happened to you?” A giant gash bled on his forehead and his clothes were torn. The lights from Jason’s building poured onto him so it was easy to see the bruises on Cameron’s jaw and the deep scratches on his cheek.
“He happened.” Cameron’s hands were fisted. His glare was burning as it leveled on Jason. “I caught the slimy SOB you sent to run me over August. What the hell was he supposed to do? Make me feel scared? Intimidated? Newsflash…he just pissed me off.”
She reached out to Cameron. He flinched back, avoiding her touch.
The doormen—very large doormen—were edging closer. “Is there a problem, Mr. August?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” was Jason’s instant reply.
Cameron laughed, the sound low, cutting. “It’s been you all along, August. Why the hell did you have to do this to her? I mean, yeah, you wanted your pound of flesh from Nathaniel, and I’ve been working at the company-at his side—for years, so I can even get your fury at me…but her? What did Cat ever do to you?”
Cat reached out to Cameron again, lightly touching his arm. “Cameron, you’re bleeding.” A lot of blood covered his shirt. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
He shrugged. “It’s not all my blood.”
That had the doormen surging forward.
Cameron kept glaring at Jason. “Your hired thug slammed into a pole in the garage when he was trying to hit me with his damn car. I pulled him out of that car, I made him tell me who the hell he was—”
Cat’s heart was about to slam right out of her chest. “Someone tried to hit you?” The same way that motorcycle had come charging at her?
“Cat’s right,” Jason said as he slowly approached Cameron. “You need medical attention.”
“I need you to stay away from me and my sister! I called the cops on that dick you sent after me! They’re gonna get him…I left him tied up in that garage—you’re done, August. Done!”
Jason’s approach remained steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cameron’s shouts were attracting a crowd.
“Let’s go inside,” Jason suggested with a nod toward his building.
“I’m going nowhere with you. But you…you’re heading to jail.” Then Cameron’s bright stare turned on Cat. “He’s the one…he’s the one who did it all.” His eyes widened as he stared at her. Then he touched her lips.
Were they swollen from Jason’s mouth?
Cameron’s fingers slid over her hair.
Hair that had to look like a wreck because of what she’d just done in that car.
His hand fell away.
Ice slid over her skin. “Cameron…”
His jaw locked. “He recorded the video of you. That same piece of shit who tried to hit me in that garage—he told me that August had hired him to plant the camera last year. August got you out of the hotel room while the guy snuck in. Dammit, it was him. All along.”
Her heart stuttered. “That’s not true.” It couldn’t be.
“It is! He’s the one who’s been doing all of this. The guy got screwed over by our father—hell, in the same situation, I’d want payback.” He pulled Cat closer to him. Glared at a silent Jason. “But you pulled her into this mess. You hurt her. Why?”
“You’re causing a scene, Cameron.” Jason’s voice was low, mild. This was the Bad Boy of Britain? She expected him to rage at her brother. To tell Cameron how very wrong he was.
Because Cameron has to be wrong.
And Jason wasn’t raging. He was calm. Too controlled. What is going on?
“He’s been doing it all, Cat. Every move, like a freaking chess player. He hacked into my account and he’s the one who leaked the photos online.”
She tried to pull free of her brother.
“Catherine.” Jason’s voice was still low but now heavy with intensity. “Look at me, Catherine.”
She couldn’t look anywhere else.
“Do you trust me?”
“I—”
Cameron whirled toward her. “He didn’t save you.”
“What?”
“The motorcycle attack…he paid that guy to come at you. So that August could play the hero. He wanted you to be grateful to him, to feel like you owed him. It was the same SOB who’s been doing all of his dirty work. The guy was August’s puppet—and, Cat, dammit, you were his prey.”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that.” It couldn’t be like that. Because Jason—I love him. He couldn’t have just been playing with her, manipulating her. Jason wouldn’t do that to her.
She glanced back at Jason. He was close to her now. So close. “Tell him that it’s not true.”
“It’s not true,” Jason said instantly.
“He’s a liar!” Cameron snarled. “He’s using you, Cat! Manipulating you! He’s going to destroy Donnelly Dining, and he doesn’t care if he takes you down while he—”
A police siren cut through his words. Cat’s head jerked to the right, and she saw the swirl of blue police lights reflecting off nearby buildings as not one, but two patrol cars raced toward them.
“Now you’re gonna see…” Cameron sounded so satisfied. “They picked up August’s thug from the garage, just where I left him. The cops are coming here because they know what he’s done.”
Her whole body seemed to be turning to ice.
Jason stared at her brother. “Let Catherine go.”
But Cameron’s hold was unbreakable. “You aren’t touching my sister again. Stay away from her!”
“I can’t do that.”
One of the patrol cars came to a screeching halt about ten feet away. The other followed closely, and the scent of burning rubber filled her nose as the tires squealed.
Then the cops were rushing from those cars, closing in and saying—
“Cameron Donnelly, step away from the woman and put your hands up!”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cameron shouted back as he pulled her closer. “I’m not the one you’re after! It’s him! Jason August!”
Had the doorman called the cops? “It’s—it’s just a misunderstanding,” Cat told them, trying to keep her voice steady.
“No, ma’am,” one of the cops told her and he had his gun up. And aimed at Cameron. “This isn’t a misunderstanding. It’s murder.”
The breath she sucked in seemed to burn her icy lungs. “Wh-what?”
“We have the security footage,” the cop continued. “We saw what you did in that garage.”
“The garage? I-I—” Cameron’s words stuttered to a stop. Then, a moment later, he murmured, “He came at me…”
“Let the woman go,” this came from a blond-haired cop who was sidling closer.
“I tied him up,” Cameron continued, his voice growing a bit stronger once more. “Then I called you—I’m the one who called you and told you that Jason August would be here!”
“But August isn’t the one who we saw on that security footage,” a dark-haired cop said—a guy who seemed to be in charge because the other cops were looking to him for guidance. “He’s not the one who went back…”
Went back?
“He’s not the one who went back,” the dark-haired cop said again, “and put a bullet in the head of a man who was tied up…Tha
t was you.”
“No,” Cat whispered.
“Fuck, no!” Cameron yelled. “I wanted to kill him—that asshole tried to run me over! But I left him there. I didn’t touch him—I left him there!”
The dark-haired cop never lowered his gun. “The same way you left your father in his office?”
“C-Cameron?” His name trembled on her lips.
“Yes,” Cameron gritted out. “I left the bastard there. I’m done with him.”
The cop nodded. “It’s easy to be done with the dead, isn’t it?”
Cameron dropped his hold on Cat. “What?”
Jason surged forward then. He grabbed Cat and yanked her away from her brother. He pulled Cat tightly against him even as the cops swarmed on her brother and slammed him into the pavement.
It’s easy to be done with the dead.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and pushing against Jason. “They’re wrong!”
Cat glanced back. The cops had Cameron down, face-first, on the sidewalk. They’d yanked his hands behind his back and they were slapping handcuffs on him.
“You’re under arrest for the murders of Nathaniel Donnelly and Ken Ross—”
“My father isn’t dead!” Catherine shouted. She tried to rush toward the cops.
Jason caught her. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist as he hauled her back against him. “Easy, love, easy.”
Screw easy. “My father isn’t dead!”
Cameron was on his feet. Being pushed by the blond cop toward the back of a patrol car. “Cat!” Cameron shouted, frantic. “What’s happening?” The blood was pouring down his head again. He looked confused. Lost.
Scared?
“I’ll protect you,” Cameron promised her. “Always…that’s what I do.” His eyes blazed for a moment as he stared at Cat. “I… protect you.” The blond cop pushed him into the backseat.
The door slammed, sealing him inside.
“No!” Cat cried out. “This isn’t right! This isn’t—”
“You’re Catherine Donnelly?” The dark-haired cop stepped into her path. “I’m Officer Nick Shaun. You…you look just like the picture your father had on his desk.”
Her muscles locked. “My father isn’t dead.”
Sympathy flashed over his face. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but he is. He…he went fast. One gunshot to the head. Just like the other victim.”