by Lana Sky
“We talk,” Jason interjected. I jumped at the subtle clink of silverware striking the table.
“About what?”
“Tell me something about you that no one else knows. No one.”
I seized my bottom lip between my teeth in a rare display of nerves. “There isn’t much I could tell you that you wouldn’t be able to find out from Google.”
“I know there’s something.” His conviction shook me right down to the core. “I want to hear it.”
So he wanted to learn my dirty, little secrets, did he?
I was torn between spouting off some ballsy remark and a glimmer of truth. The novelty of simple conversation was harder to resist than I would have thought. Most men weren’t very interested in the words that came out of my mouth as much as they were in what appendage they might have been able to shove into it.
“Okay…well you’re the first person in the world who’s ever turned me down for a roll in the hay,” I admitted in a surprisingly bitter tone. “Ever.”
“Well,” Jason countered, “you’re the only woman to bring me in danger of breaking my own personal rules. Twice. That’s not a feat that even alcohol can achieve these days, Ms. Newman.”
A burst of heat erupted over my skin at the blunt honesty, while a nosy desire to press him about his past rose up like an itch I couldn’t scratch. I had never met anyone who spoke about themselves so openly—apart from Bret who was more than happy to describe, in detail, all of the STDS he had contracted in his day.
“So, you were really an alcoholic?” Curiosity brought the question to the surface before I could squash it.
“Really.”
“How long have you been sober?”
“Three years.”
It was a surprisingly short time frame. I leaned forward with another question poised on my lips, but before I could voice it, Jason threw me off with one of his own.
“Why is sex so important to you?”
I choked on a laugh. The man certainly put his own twist on small talk. “What?”
“Sex.” He enunciated the word, but there wasn’t a hint of innuendo in his voice. “You jump at an invitation to dinner, and yet you didn’t hesitate to suggest a hotel room—”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I interjected, feeling my cheeks heat up. “I’d prefer not to waste my time is all.”
“What scares you about this?” He rested his upturned hand on the table between us, and the simple gesture seemed more threatening than a robber displaying a gun.
“Nothing,” I lied, even as my own fingers, hidden from his view underneath the table, clenched into fists. “I just don’t understand the point in beating around the bush. Why ‘talk’ or ‘eat’ or play games when there’s only one thing that you want?”
Jason raised a single eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
I casually undid the topmost button of his flannel shirt. Whether he intended for them to, or not, his eyes instantly honed in on the sliver of bared flesh below my clavicle.
Case and point.
“What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you look at me?”
The dangerous, brief smile that flashed across his mouth was a shock. “You don’t want to know.”
“I can guess,” I confidently replied. “The same thing that crosses every guy’s mind when confronted with a perky pair of—”
“Guarded.”
Alarm surged through me as Jason sat forward and caught the bottom of my chin in his palm before I could think to move out of reach. A calloused thumb lingered at the corner of my mouth, gently silencing any protest.
“That’s what I think when I look at you,” he said, his gaze boring into my own. “A woman so guarded that she can’t even fathom why a man might be interested in her beyond the confines of a bedroom.”
“Or a copy room.” Something about his touch kept me from pulling away. Maybe how gentle it was? He slightly brushed his fingertips without the least bit of restraint.
“Copy room,” Jason echoed. His expression shifted, making him harder to read than ever before. “You drive me crazy, Ms. Newman. Do you know that?”
“Of course I do,” I boasted with a bravado that I didn’t feel.
Jason smiled but withdrew his hand, and I found myself mourning the loss of his touch. “Tell me…what would have happened if I’d given in and we had gotten that hotel room?” he demanded next.
It was a fantasy that had haunted me all day. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I sure as hell did—but he didn’t laugh. Once again, he seemed to want an honest answer. “I…I don’t know—”
“I do,” Jason said. “We would have fucked—fucked, because it would have been impersonal and meaningless. Then you would have walked away, and it would’ve been easy for you.”
It took a full minute for the intensity of his words to sink in. Once they did, I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or stunned by their accuracy.
“And so what if we had? We don’t even know each other.” I managed to croak. “What do you think will happen after tonight? I’m not a one-man woman, Jason—”
“What’s going to happen is that I’m going to take you to a hotel room, and then I’m going to strip away every inch of your guarded exterior that I can,” he vowed. “I’m not going to let you walk away without getting inside you in some way other than sex. There’s more to you than that.”
More to me.
I snorted. My first instinct was to storm out—maybe throw my glass of water in his face while I was at it—but I bit back the defensive response. “That sounds like a challenge,” I heard myself croak, instead.
“It’s a promise.”
“And if I left right now?” I placed both hands on the edge of the table as if I meant to do just that. The muscles in my legs tensed. My gaze darted over to the door of the pizza parlor.
“You won’t,” Jason said simply. “Another woman would, but not you. You can’t resist a challenge.”
The bastard was right, and that intimate knowledge of my personality made my heartbeat quicken. In three days, Jason Daniels had managed to understand me better than lovers who’d lasted months.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
But I was done playing this game by his rules.
“Well, like you said, it was a promise not a challenge,” and with that I stood.
His gaze flickered up, watching my every movement as I headed to the door.
Was he surprised? I wondered, fighting the urge to look back, though I couldn’t resist one final glance over my shoulder once I reached the door. He was still sitting, and I tossed my next words casually in his direction.
“I’ve never been one for small talk.” Then I strolled out into the night and headed straight for his truck, knowing without even having to look that he was right behind me.
Jason surprised me by driving straight to his hotel, rather than a seedy motel where he could have his sleazy lay without worrying about the paparazzi snapping any evidence.
It was strange. For years, I had been with men who’d lived in some fancy suites, and those homes still didn’t hold the same aura as the one Jason had been living in for mere weeks.
His scent was entrenched within the halls of the chic penthouse. Loose papers had been strewn across a glass coffee table in the center of the main room, and I could easily picture him lounging on a chair—in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling windows—and writing music into the early hours.
“Want a drink?”
It never ceased to amaze me how he could sound so calm. Gone was the harsh grit of impatience that had strangled his voice at the pizza parlor. Hell, it was almost as if inviting me over for drinks had been his goal all along.
But I wasn’t fooled.
He had shed his jacket, revealing arms that rippled with barely concealed tension. Rather than take a seat, he paced the main room of the luxury suite like a caged animal—and I felt like the sacrificial lamb tethered to a post and r
eady for the slaughter.
Lust weighed on the air, more intense than anything I’d ever felt in my life. I had almost considered leaving…
Almost.
Would he have tried to stop me? Perhaps the bigger question was why the thought of him doing the opposite tormented me so much?
God, I needed to get him out of my system.
Without bothering to reply, I crossed over to a leather chaise in the center of the room. Aware of him watching, I fingered the buttons of my borrowed shirt before undoing them, one by one.
Jason’s gaze followed every inch of the way, over the cleavage straining from the top of my bra, down to my abdomen, and finally somewhere over my navel. At the conclusion of the peep show, I slid the flannel from my shoulders. I could practically taste the breath that caught in his throat.
Feeding off the slip in his control, I licked my lower lip—but then made the mistake of looking up and into eyes so dark they bordered on black.
“Don’t.” In two strides, he crossed the room and seized the material pooled at my elbows. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and then yanked the shirt back into place. Confusion left my mind reeling, and I shoved him off before he could reach for the buttons next.
“What the hell?”
I couldn’t even begin to hide the hurt that leached into my voice. Rejected for the second time in one day—that had to be a fucking record.
“Abigail,” he started. “I can’t—”
“Shut up,” I hissed before he could turn the tables again.
I was in control now. I had to be.
Chest heaving, I took two steps back and shrugged off the shirt all together. Balling the material into a fist, I threw it at him, unconcerned as it bounced off his chest and landed on the floor. I held his gaze for a full minute, daring him to react.
When he didn’t, I sank back onto the couch.
“I’m done beating around the bush,” I declared, dragging my heels apart as wide as I dared—which wasn’t very wide at all. “You and I both know that this has gone far enough.”
Something was happening. Abby Newman was losing her nerve, and Jason Daniels seemed to be faring no better. Sooner or later, we would both combust into a million pieces or tear each other apart.
God, I prayed for the latter.
Silently, Jason stooped for the discarded shirt and held it out to me. “Put this back on…please.”
I hissed at the response, but the near slip in his oh-so polished charm was like a drop of blood to a shark.
“We could do this in the bedroom, if you want,” I continued, surprisingly breathless, as I traced the lace of my strapless bra with my index finger and hooked the thumb of my other hand around the lacy rim of my thong. Blue eyes watched me unwaveringly, growing darker with every passing second.
“Abby, stop.”
“Or we could do this right here—”
“Damn it, stop.” I jumped as his voice echoed off the walls, distracting me from the moment he lunged.
I had no chance to react before he seized my wrist and jerked me up from the couch. In a fluid motion, he twisted and sat down, forcing me to straddle his waist. His free hand curled within my hair, holding me captive, but the pain was inconsequential compared to the sensation of his body burning hot against mine.
I couldn’t breathe without feeling the delicious scrape of denim against my inner thigh. His grip was iron, preventing me from pulling away, and with every inhale, his scent flooded my lungs.
This was more like it.
“Tease.” His mouth brushed my cheeks in a frustrated burst of heat. “If we do this…it’ll be by my rules, Ms. Newman. Understand?”
I chewed on my lower lip and desperately tried to formulate a coherent response. “I’m not really into BDSM—”
“Relax.” Using his grip on my hair, he maneuvered my face closer to his, allowing his breath to fan the underside of my neck. “I…I just want one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
One of his hands went to my hip. In whisper-soft motions, he walked his fingers down some invisible trail, skirting my belly button before continuing lower.
Lower…
“I just want you to talk to me.”
“A-About what?” I managed to croak, though only God knew how. Each brush of his thumb sparked what felt like a thousand watts of electricity beneath my skin, disrupting every nerve.
“You.”
I barely heard his reply above my own harsh intake of air as he fingered the hem of my panties.
“I want to know more about you, Abigail.” With a boldness I would have never expected from him, he pulled the hem of my thong about an inch from my waist.
I laughed—I couldn’t help it—but the sound was desperate and unsteady, heralding my fraying control. “This is a funny way of initiating naughty pillow talk…”
The words ended in a gasp when he yanked, and lace slid dangerously down my hip.
God yes.
My hips arched instinctively, urging him to drag the fabric all the way down…
But he stilled again.
When I shifted, greedy for more, he released the fabric—thwack!—allowing the elastic to smack against my hip. I jerked in response to the pain, straining against his ruthless grip on my hair.
“In this game, we take turns,” Jason scolded, breath teasing my lower lip. “I went first…”
Before I could take offense, his fingers were back. What felt like the pad of his thumb gingerly rubbed against the flesh of my hip, soothing the bitter sting.
“So humor me.”
A smartass comeback disintegrated on my lips when I looked into his eyes and saw the naked plea in them. Give me this one thing. Please.
“Where did you grow up?” he asked.
I flinched at the question. “I’ve already told you—”
His fingers stopped stroking, and I reluctantly rushed to remember my role in the game.
“…Syracuse.”
“No.” Two fingers began to inch beneath the waistband of my thong. “Where you really grew up. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
I could feel my lips stubbornly clench around the answer…but then his hand slid down between my thighs, and the truth sprung free on a gasp.
“Kentucky!”
He already knew that, but regardless, he made an appreciative sound at the back of his throat.
“How long?”
“Until I was nine.”
“Why did you leave?”
A rush of fear came to displace the lust, and the words faltered on my tongue. With barely any effort, he had managed to draw more from me than anyone else ever had. I didn’t willingly divulge these things to anyone.
Fight, Abby…
I tried to pull away, testing the grip on my hair until my scalp throbbed. When he gave me no leverage, I gritted my teeth and seized a handful of his shirt.
In retaliation, his hand crept higher, ghosting skin so sensitive, I jerked. My nails dug into his flesh, and an answering moan slipped free, directed at the ceiling. “Foster care…”
I could feel my cheeks heat with shame at the admission. How in the hell had he managed to drag that out of me?
I struggled for clarity, trying to ignore the rhythm of his breath against my throat and the pulsing ache between my thighs. God, he was searing. My thin, lacy bra wasn’t a match for the rough cotton of his shirt, raising my nipples to sharp, raw points. Before he could spout off another pressing question, I reached down between us with single-minded determination and yanked at the clasp of his jeans.
“My turn.”
Without bothering to tease, I plunged my fingers beneath the denim and was rewarded with a handful of hot arousal, harder than steel.
Jason’s body erupted with an explosive reaction. “Fuck…” The curse was guttural, rippling with pleasure, and I felt a rush of triumph displace some of the shame at having given in.
I curled my fingers around as much of him as
I could reach. I stroked, squeezed, and then pulled back hard, until he grunted as his fingers flew from my hair to curl against the armrest of the couch.
“Damn.” The words tore from his throat, hoarse and throaty. “Abigail…fuck.”
The primal response spurred me on. I was ruthless, trapping him in a fist so tight my knuckles popped. I couldn’t see his face clearly from my position…and a part of me didn’t want to. I was no shrinking violet, but Jason, once again, had thrown my expectations out of the window; I could scarcely get my fingers around to meet him.
For the first time in my life, the thought of a hasty lay left me hesitant.
Could I handle all of him?
The way my core clenched as he eagerly bucked into my grip made me more than willing to try.
I held him in the palm of my hand—literally. Power and control surged through my body, and I was desperate to hold onto it…
Because, of course, it was just an illusion.
Suddenly, Jason shifted, and I found myself knocked off his lap and onto the surface of the couch.
In a matter of seconds, he had me pinned with the weight of his body resting between my legs. Somehow, he had managed to seize both of my hands in a single grip and held them down above my head.
“My turn.” The telltale hitch in his voice betrayed the arousal I could feel straining against the front of his jeans.
I opened my mouth to protest, and he grinded against me with one sinful flick of his hips. The breath caught in my chest, allowing him to take advantage of the silence by posing another damn question.
“Your mother…tell me about her.”
There was an apology in his expression—he knew it was the wrong thing to ask—and that made the topic even harder to bear.
“Why?” It was a plaintive child’s whine, but I was too busy trapped within a whirlwind of lust to really give a damn how I sounded.
Why was he doing this?
Why was he so determined to dredge up old memories?
Why couldn’t he just be like any sane, normal, testosterone-driven male and just fuck me already?
In that moment, I hated him. Hated the way he could make me feel. Hated the concern in his gaze. Hated the way the thumb of his free hand caught the corner of my mouth, trailing down to my throat in a simple show of reassurance.