Take Me - A Bad Boy Steals a Bride Romance

by Layla Valentine

  For a long moment, when their hips pressed together, Jack held himself absolutely still, and Cassandra swallowed as her breathing slowed, her heart still racing at the delicious feeling of him inside of her.

  “Just think,” Jack murmured against her ear, his hot breath drenching her neck. “Think what it would be like…pressed up against your wall…or bent over that little table in your dining room…” He pulled out a few inches, and then thrust deeper inside of her, making Cassandra moan. “I’d love to throw you down on that bed of yours and fuck you senseless.”

  “Fuck,” Cassandra said, her back arching up off of the seat. She pushed her hips down to meet Jack’s thrusts as he slid in and out of her with aching slowness. “Fuck—God, Jack… Would you—would you really have…”

  “If I’d given into temptation,” he murmured lowly, picking up the pace of his thrusts, “I would have ripped your clothes off right there and then.” He groaned, rocking his hips against hers, buried so deeply in her body that Cassandra’s nerves twitched at the overload of sensation. “Fuck, Cass—you feel so good I could spend the next week just screwing you over and over again. Feeling you…feeling you like this.”

  Cassandra gasped and cried out as the tip of Jack’s cock brushed up against her G-spot, sending a mind-shocking jolt of pleasure through her. She fell into his rhythm, moving in counterpoint to his thrusts, her hands wandering over his body to explore the topography of his spine, his rippling muscles, the rough patches of scar tissue from all he had been through in his violent life.

  Jack’s mouth shifted from her lips to her breasts and back up again, as if he wanted to devour her whole. Their limbs slipped and slid against each other as sweat drenched both of their bodies in the close, hot confines of Cassandra’s backseat.

  As she came closer and closer to orgasm, Cassandra completely forgot that they were in a public place. She was a million miles away, where nothing mattered but the tension mounting in her body, the tightening muscles that flexed around Jack’s thick, hard cock, the orgasm so close that she could almost taste it on her tongue as they both moved faster and faster.

  All at once, the tension inside of Cassandra’s body reached an almost unbearable level and she cried out, throwing her head back against the door. A moment later, the tension dissolved and wave after wave of pleasure washed through her. She lost herself in the sensations coursing through her body, driving out all thought except for the pleasure that Jack was giving her.

  As erratic spasms racked her—so intense they might have been pain—she barely heard Jack’s long, low groan of pleasure, nor felt his cock twitching inside of her, rubbing against her inner walls. Feeling the first sticky-slick gush of his orgasm deep inside of her body, Cassandra’s climax intensified and she fell into the warm, soft darkness, clutching at Jack’s body as if for life itself as they continued to move together through his final hard thrusts until they both collapsed.

  Cassandra came back to herself bit by bit, aware of the dull protests of her neck, her back where the seatbelt buckle had been digging in, her hips aching from the awkward position. Aftershocks of pleasure danced along her nerves, and her heart had just begun to slow when Jack lifted himself up off of her, looking down into her face. Cassandra smiled shyly, blushing as she thought of what Jack had told her—about the way he’d wanted to take her from the moment he’d had her pinned to the wall—and how turned on his words had made her.

  She pushed the strands of hair that were sticking to her face off of her forehead, twisting her neck out of the uncomfortable position she’d fallen into. She shivered, remembering the dream she’d had of Jack—the fantasy she’d pasted him into. If she hadn’t known better, she would have suspected the fugitive had read her mind. She couldn’t lie to herself about how much she would have enjoyed him bending her over her kitchen table and taking her in the impulse of the moment.

  “You okay, Cass?”

  Cassandra opened her eyes and took a deep breath, meeting Jack’s gaze. She saw the concern in his eyes as he watched her intently.

  “We’ve got a long night ahead of us,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her throat.

  He nodded. “That was a good break though,” he said with a little grin. “And maybe we’ll have some more free time later… I can’t go back to prison without having you at least one more time.”

  Cassandra smiled, blushing, but more than a little thrilled at the idea of doing one or two of the things that Jack had murmured in her ear.

  “In the meantime, let’s get dressed,” Jack said. “You’re right—we need to get back on the road.”

  Chapter Twenty

  As Cassandra followed the highway into the city for what she hoped would be the last time that night, she played through the possibilities in her mind. It was very late, but she expected that Max would be in the office for the graveyard shift. She had regularly seen him leaving the office only a few hours before her on occasions when she found herself working through to the early hours of the morning.

  Her body still tingled all over, and Cassandra thought that beyond all the other things that the tryst had done for her, the way it had pushed back her bone-deep fatigue was what she was most grateful for in that moment.

  “We’re going to have to go in fast,” Jack said from the backseat. “They’re going to be looking for me outside of the city by now, but any whisper that I’m somewhere in Manhattan and they’ll be on us in a flash.”

  “This late at night, security will be next to nothing,” Cassandra said, remembering the night before. “They’re down to maybe four, five guys for the whole building after midnight.”

  She went around a slow car in the center lane and glanced at each of her mirrors, keeping track of the traffic around her. The most important thing was to not draw attention to herself. By this point, if someone at work had reported her missing, the policy would be looking for her almost as intently as they would be Jack himself. While they might be able to escape notice by blending into the general traffic, any cop pulling them over might run her tags, might look at her ID and get an alert. The close call they’d had earlier in the day had left her rattled.

  Cassandra picked up her phone, keeping one eye on the road in front of her as she opened up her music library and scrolled through to the band Heatmiser. She selected one of her favorite tracks, “Plainclothes Man,” and exhaled slowly as the old, analog-recorded song came on over the speakers.

  “Do you really think you can get him to admit to anything?” Hardy asked.

  Cassandra shrugged. “I think so,” she said. “I mean, we’ve got something on him.” She pressed her lips together and reached into her purse. Her fingers touched each familiar item, and she nodded to herself, confirming the beginning of a thought she hadn’t quite fully formed yet. “I think we’ll get him talking.”

  She half-smiled to herself, thinking of all the times Max had ever-so-subtly come onto her—so subtly she could never quite call him on it, never overtly reject his advances, because they weren’t actual propositions.

  Until he’d gotten her involved in the Laura Granger case, Cassandra had barely existed to Max Adelman. Remembering the way that Max had encouraged her once she’d gotten the initial tip, the way he’d pushed her to work with the police, asking her constantly about her research, Cassandra couldn’t believe she’d actually thought his interest in the case was nothing more than journalistic commitment.

  They wound their way off of the Interstate and Cassandra navigated the city streets, taking a slightly out-of-the-way path to get to the office. She needed to work out a final few details before they got to the building and wanted to make her route as difficult to follow as possible. Cassandra had never quite shaken the suspicion that she and Jack might be being followed by someone undercover—maybe even another bounty hunter. Her heart started to beat faster as she turned onto Park Row and followed it up, barely even glancing around her at the buildings that passed by her windows. She had taken so many different
routes to work, attempting to avoid the inevitable traffic snarls that New York City boasted as a feature rather than a bug, that Cassandra thought she could navigate to her office like a homing pigeon from anywhere in the state.

  As she passed the New York Times Building, Cassandra glanced into the back seat of her car. In a few more blocks, she would be turning into the garage at the Daily Inquisitor. She was sure she had everything that she would need to get into the building and up to the editorial offices where Max would hopefully be working. Cassandra hoped she hadn’t overplayed her hand; it would be harder to track down and handle Max Adelman in his own home, if he wasn’t in the office working on the next print run.

  Working from muscle memory, Cassandra turned into the parking garage and reached into her purse, retrieving her employee ID. She swiped it through the reader at the gate and it chirped its acceptance. Well, at least if people have noticed I’m missing, it hasn’t occurred to anyone to shut off my access credentials just yet, she thought. Had that been the case, she didn’t think Jack would have had any qualms about directing her to drive right through the gate—but it meant much less damage to her car to go about things the official way.

  There was a guard making the rounds of the parking garage, moving through the floors of the enormous structure attached to the office in his golf cart. Cassandra lifted a hand in a quick wave, recognizing it was Alex, one of the regular nightshift staff. He had seen Cassandra coming and going so many times that he wouldn’t consider it strange that she was entering the building after midnight, though her companion might trigger more than a little curiosity. We should have come up with some kind of disguise, while we were driving up here, Cassandra thought.

  A few minutes later, she found her assigned parking spot—a benefit she had been granted after the Inquisitor made record sales on her exposé about Laura Granger’s sordid second life as a drug dealer. Cassandra chuckled lowly to herself, shaking her head in amusement at the irony of it. She turned the key in the ignition, shutting the car off, and twisted around in the driver’s seat, looking at Jack.

  “We need to do something to disguise you,” she said, looking him up and down.

  “Probably something we should have thought of earlier,” Jack said, with a faintly rueful smile.

  “It didn’t occur to me until a couple of minutes ago that they might have your picture plastered all over the security desks,” Cassandra admitted. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment, considering. “I’ve got a company baseball cap and a hoodie,” she suggested. “The hoodie probably won’t fit very well, but it’ll be enough to distract from who you are, won’t it?”

  “Maybe.” Jack looked around the car as he thought about the problem. “Simple disguises tend to be the most effective.”

  Cassandra nodded. “I’ll get myself cleaned up a bit, too. It’s been a long day—two days—and being screwed in the backseat of my car hasn’t helped.”

  “But no one else knows that,” Jack pointed out. “If you look as close to normal as you possibly can, people won’t pay as much attention to me.” He smirked. “I mean, why look at a random guy in a sweat shirt and a baseball cap if there’s a hot-as-hell woman to check out?”

  Cassandra blushed and turned around in her seat, opening the center console where she kept a few emergency primping supplies; her job demanded that she be able to present herself professionally at a moment’s notice—even while on the run, it seemed.

  She went to work quickly, wiping her face clean with a pre-moistened towel before applying a little powder, a touch of blush, and some mascara. She reached into her purse and her fingers connected with the screwdriver she had stolen. Shaking her head softly at that moment of remembered fear, she rummaged around until she came up with a tube of lip stain and turned back to the mirror in her visor to apply it.

  Smoothing her hair back, she twisted and coiled it into a smart, low bun. In a matter of five minutes, she looked as though she had been doing nothing more strenuous than sleeping at her desk for the last two days. Cassandra took a quick steadying breath as she looked in the back to confirm that Jack’s disguise—such as it was—was in place, and then they both got out of the car.

  Cassandra walked quickly towards the door that led from the garage and into the main building, suppressing the urge to look around; if she were there on a normal errand, she would keep her gaze in front of her, not be checking to make sure that she wasn’t being watched or pursued. Behind and off to her left, she heard Jack following, his footfalls heavier than hers in the echoing concrete garage.

  Her ID card passed muster at the scanner that controlled the lock on the door, and in moments she and Jack were in the building, striding through the deserted lobby towards the elevators. Cassandra pushed the elevator recall button, her palms clammy and her heart beating faster in her chest. It would all be over soon, she told herself. Soon, she would know the truth about Laura Granger’s murder, and she would do everything in her power to use that knowledge to help Jack overturn his conviction and gain his freedom.

  The elevator chimed and Cassandra glanced at Jack. “Ready for this?”

  Jack grinned. “You’re asking me if I’m ready? You’ve never busted someone before.”

  Cassandra smiled in spite of herself. “Good point,” she said quietly. The doors opened and Cassandra stepped into the car, Jack hot on her heels. “I could get to enjoy this.”

  Jack chuckled. “Are you considering a career change or something? I’m not being funny, but can you even fire a gun?”

  Cassandra shrugged. “I’ve only done it a couple of times at a range, but I could learn.” She considered the surprise that they were about to launch on Max and her lips twisted into a grin. “Besides, I might not be such a hot commodity in the world of journalism once this gets out.”

  “I’d think that something like this would make you even hotter,” Jack pointed out, as the doors closed.

  Cassandra considered it, but decided abruptly that she would rather not speculate. She was committed to what they were about to do; if she overthought it, no good could possibly come from it.

  Cassandra pressed the button for the top floor—editorial, where with any luck, Max Adelman would be working away, completely unaware of their presence in the building. The elevator chirped, and a recorded female voice came on over a speaker, asking for credentials. Cassandra swiped her card again and the elevator started to rise from the fifth floor level where she’d parked, carrying them smoothly upward.

  Cassandra had been up to the editorial level so many times that it was easy to remember the layout of the floor. Max’s office dominated, surrounded by a few auxiliary offices which belonged to the man’s subordinates in advertising and PR, as well as a lobby for his personal assistant to check people in. At such a late hour, the desk would be abandoned, but Cassandra had stayed sufficiently late often enough to know the codes she would need to get into the office.

  “Ready for this?” Jack asked, holding her gaze for a moment as the elevator slowed.

  Cassandra nodded, just as the elevator came to a stop and chimed, announcing their arrival. The doors opened with a silky mechanical whisper and Cassandra stepped through them, striding towards the reception desk in the lobby. She pulled the keyboard tray out and unlocked the computer. Taking a quick breath, she typed in the code that would unlock the security system, giving herself and Jack access to the all-important editorial offices.

  Jack followed closely behind her as Cassandra hurried towards the now unlocked door. She opened it as quietly as possible, glancing behind her to make sure that Jack was still with her. He nodded, and Cassandra stepped through the door, holding it long enough for Jack to catch hold of the edge, before closing it silently behind them. The element of surprise was their biggest advantage in this confrontation. If Max heard the door slamming closed, he would know there was someone on the level. Cassandra didn’t want to give him the opportunity to plan a reaction, to collect himself. />
  She made a beeline for Max’s door, fully focused on the mission that brought her there. She patted her pocket, feeling the outline of her metaphorical trump card.

  As they neared the door, Cassandra’s steps slowed as she heard muffled noises: the sound of something hitting the floor, a groan, shaking-rocking noises. She paused for just a moment, turning to look at Jack, bewildered, then Cassandra heard Max’s hoarse voice grunting something incoherent. Her mouth fell open as she realized what was happening in the office. Cassandra stifled a giggle and took a breath to gain control of the impulse.

  Cassandra gathered up her composure and reached out, wrapping her fingers around the handle on Max’s door. Normally, he kept it locked, and Cassandra was surprised to find that it turned easily. She looked up at Jack and nodded: once, twice, a third time. At the third nod, as they’d planned in the car, Cassandra turned the knob quickly and pushed the door open, plunging through it. Jack hung back, waiting for his cue to come in behind her.

  For a fraction of an instant, Max and the woman with him didn’t realize that they’d been interrupted. Cassandra took in the sight of her boss, naked from the waist down, his blazer on the floor and his shirt unbuttoned. Sprawled over his desk was a fully naked woman, her surgically enhanced breasts pressed to the wood, her ass in the air, her hands tied behind her back with what looked to be Max’s necktie. Her tight dress and heavily painted face implied that she might be an escort.

  It was the woman who spotted Cassandra first. She let out a startled yelp that transformed into a shriek.

  “You told me we would be alone!”

  Max’s frenzied thrusts came to a stop and he looked up to see Cassandra standing in his doorway.