by Lana Sky
The fun was over, and I should have reinforced the boundaries between us…right?
Not yet, a part of me whispered. I didn’t have to leave just yet.
Emboldened by the thought, I ran a hand down the front of his chest, feeling his muscles ripple beneath my fingertips. His heart was pounding. The frantic rhythm surged beneath my palm, matching my own.
“And since we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, there’s nothing stopping us from having a little more fun…” I let my eyes do the talking for me as they darted down between us.
Before he could reply, I sank to my knees and reached for his discarded jeans. My fingers plunged into the pocket but, even before I withdrew my hand, empty, Jason grunted, “There’s no condom in there.”
I glanced up at him with an eyebrow raised. Forgetting to use protection in the heat of the moment I could understand, but not being prepared at all?
“I hope that’s not the line you use on all the girls,” I joked.
It had been the wrong thing to say. In an instant, his expression hardened, and his drawl lost the husky edge.
“There are no other girls.”
“All right,” I swallowed hard and stood. “Fine. I get it. You don’t sleep around—but let’s not play stupid here. I’m not the first woman you’ve had sex with.”
“No,” he admitted, and I felt something that could have been jealousy pierce my chest as I tried to picture these “not other” women he’d fucked. It was surprisingly easy to—wholesome gals with oodles of down-home charm a la his assistant, Dixie.
In other words, women not like me.
“Even a teenager knows to carry around a condom,” I snapped, irritated by the thought that I didn’t measure up to my own mental image. “So you’ll understand if I don’t believe that you don’t have one. This isn’t the Country Music Awards. You can drop the perfect act—”
“This isn’t an act.” Jason’s voice was stonier than I’d ever heard it. Cold, it sank into my veins, smothering the heat that still smoldered from his touch. “I don’t know what misconceptions you have about me, but I’m not some rock-star stud. And unlike some people, I don’t go around fucking anyone for the hell of it.”
“And I do?” The hitch in my voice betrayed the unexpected hurt that rose up and caught me off guard, swifter than a kick to the stomach. “That’s what you’re insinuating, isn’t it?”
My entire professional adult life, I had been Abby Newman, self-professed slut and unashamed tamer of men. The fact that he had finally admitted that he thought as much shouldn’t have hurt so damn much.
“Leave it to a man to lie and con to get what he wants and then throw the reason he wanted you back in your face…fuck you, Jason.”
I turned and blindly headed for the couch to snatch up my panties from the cushions. I struggled to pull them on while simultaneously hunting for my bra, which I found underneath the coffee table. With it in tow, I marched for the door of the suite.
I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care that there were no eager footsteps following me across the foyer. No “Abigail wait, I’m an idiot”—but when my fingers finally seized the doorknob, his voice reached me from across the room.
“The first time I saw you, you were on one of those daytime television shows doing damage control for one of your clients.”
I froze.
“You were wearing this sexy little black number,” he continued before I could get a word in edgewise. “And some insanely high heels. I think if you had bent over the wrong way, the show would’ve been fined for indecency.”
I remembered that outfit. I remembered the client—some asshole bassist who’d beaten up his girlfriend in a seedy club. I could even remember squeezing myself into the teeny black top and fighting the urge to break my client’s hand when it kept creeping up my thigh.
The thought that he had watched me from some television screen made my pulse quicken.
Focus, Abby.
I twisted the doorknob fiercely enough so that he could hear the cylinders click. “What the hell does that have to do with anything—”
“It struck me, then,” he said over me. “Here you were, this beautiful woman, wearing this incredibly sexy outfit, but it just didn’t fit.”
I scoffed. “Nice one, Jason. Not only do you imply that a woman is a whore, but you insinuate that she’s fat as well.” I wrenched open the door, too furious to care that my bra wasn’t fastened or that my heels were somewhere underneath the couch.
“No,” he said before I could take a step over the threshold. “You didn’t seem to give a damn as to how many jaws dropped when you walked into a room. You weren’t preening. You weren’t looking for attention. As…sexy as you looked in those clothes, the attention meant nothing. Because that wasn’t you.”
“Oh, like you know me so well,” I spat while my eyes scanned the empty hallway beyond his suite.
“I know the mask you wear so well.”
My hand fell from door. I turned and caught sight of him near the chaise, still utterly naked, gaze hooded in shadow.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He observed me for a second that felt more like an eternity. “We’ve both found it easier to pretend,” he said finally. “I don’t think you could let your guard down, even if you wanted to. You’re scared, Abigail. You’re afraid of me and what might happen if you even fantasize about letting me in.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” I hissed, hands clenched into fists. In three strides, I crossed the room and stood toe to toe with him. “A little bit of carefree sex doesn’t give you the right to psychoanalyze. You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“You may think you’re so closed up and mysterious,” Jason countered, “but I can read you like an open book.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh, really?”
“Really,” he replied quietly. “You use sex as a weapon to keep people from getting too close so that they can’t hurt you the same way your mother did.”
I reacted purely out of reflex.
Thwack!
My palm stung as it connected with the side of his face, and shock rose up to combat the anger.
I had caught boyfriends with groupies, and even the average bellboy or two. I had been spit on and treated like shit—and had my dirty laundry aired on the front page of every relevant tabloid to boot—but no one had ever reduced me to this.
Stunned, I could only glare at Jason who didn’t even seem surprised by my outburst. When I finally managed to speak, the words came out in a stranger’s broken whisper.
“Don’t…ever mention her. Ever.”
I couldn’t get air into my lugs, no matter how hard I tried. The sting of his words bit into my skin, ripping open old wounds that I had spent every damn day making sure no one could ever touch again.
“Just hear me out—”
“No.”
I turned on my heel. Nothing else registered above the overwhelming need to escape. Run.
I don’t know how in the hell I managed to keep my head held high as I crossed the foyer and staggered through the still open door. The silence of the hallway enveloped me, creating a muted backdrop to my own racing thoughts.
Get a hold of yourself, Abby!
My bra wasn’t fastened. No cab would stop for me, dressed like I was. I didn’t even have the heart to go traipsing into the parking garage in order to fish Perry’s dress from the back bed of Jason’s truck.
The bastard’s words haunted me as I raced for the elevator at the end of the hall and smashed my fist against the call button.
You’re scared, Abigail.
You couldn’t let me in if you tried.
I struggled to ignore him as I watched the elevator’s snail-like ascent from the lower floors.
Twenty-fifth.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-ninth…
“Abigail.” When the elevator cab was only three floors away, a breathless Jason, wearing only
a pair of jeans, spun me around.
I lashed out, clawing at his forearm before he could pull me back toward the suite. “Fuck off!”
“Hear me out, damn it,” he growled over my protests. Using his body as a barrier, he easily maneuvered me against the wall. “I haven’t—fuck—I haven’t had sex with anyone in nearly seven damn years.”
He might as well have struck me over the head. My breath caught and, for a second, I was grateful for the unyielding surface at my back to keep me upright.
“Bullshit,” I managed to croak once I could breathe again.
“It’s the truth. I’ve never had trouble turning down anyone. Until you.”
“Well, lucky me,” I hissed, forcing as much scorn as I could into my voice. “Deflower the celibate country boy and earn a barrage of insults—”
“Stop!” One of his hands slammed into the wall near my head. “I don’t do this, so excuse me for not knowing what the hell to say. I don’t know what to fucking say.”
“‘I’m a dick,’ would be a good start,” I countered.
His jaw tightened. “I’m a dick. A bigger dick than you even know, but don’t think for a second that I regret any of this. I can’t.”
I wanted to ignore him. I wanted to be the big, strong woman who kicked him where the sun didn’t shine and made her glorious exit.
I had done it before—so many damn times…
Maybe I was just tired.
“What the hell do you want from me, Jason?” I demanded instead of running, forcing myself to meet his gaze.
For a long moment, he didn’t respond. I could almost sense him searching deep within himself for an answer.
“I…I’m drawn to you, Abigail Newman,” he said finally.
“The fuck you are.” I tried to push him away as the elevator dinged, signaling its arrival, but he shifted his weight to block my escape.
“I don’t know why,” he growled over me. “But…something tells me that you feel it, too.”
“I don’t feel a damn thing for you—”
“You don’t want to,” Jason agreed. “But you do. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”
“Let go!” I squirmed, desperate to escape from his heat. The contours of his body clashed with mine. My breasts chafed against the thin material of my bra, aching to be touched by him again.
No!
I reared back. Thick muscle flexed against my palms as I braced both hands on his chest and pushed.
“Get off!”
He didn’t even budge. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
“Easy!” I formed a fist and slammed it into his shoulder. “I don’t want…”
One of his hands caught the swell of my hip and eventually slid between my thighs, despite how tightly I clenched them.
“I don’t.” I sucked in air, desperate to deny him even as my belly quaked with every devious inch of headway his fingers made between my legs. “I don’t want…I don’t want—”
“I’ve wanted you since the first night I saw you in person at my concert,” Jason admitted into the crook of my shoulder. “Tenth seat, first row, wearing that damn red dress.”
All at once, I ceased fighting, and he took advantage of the break in my composure to pry my legs apart and wedge his knee in between. Two of his fingers reached their destination, and I could only dig my nails into his forearm as heat swept through my core, erasing every thought of resistance.
“I’d never seen anyone so perfect,” he swore against my neck. “So damn beautiful. So fucking untouchable. I knew right then that you’d bring me to my knees.”
Don’t listen, I thought, biting my lip so hard, I tasted blood.
“You’re still standing,” I hissed, struggling to maintain my resolve.
I don’t want him, I insisted to myself as his thumb grazed a throbbing bundle of nerves. I don’t want him. I refuse to want him.
“On my knees.” He pulled away and deliberately sank down to the floor, all the while holding my gaze.
“Get up.” I tugged on a handful of his hair, not caring if I hurt him. “Stop it—”
“No.”
He surged forward instead, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against my hip. My navel. The top of my left thigh. After every brush of his lips, he’d glance up. His eyes were indigo, peering deep, as my body betrayed me once again. My legs fell apart, and the bastard didn’t hesitate to take control.
“Look at me.” Defiantly, I tore my gaze away to the ceiling as what felt like the pad of his thumb slid beneath my panties and grazed the outline of my core.
God, I was already needy again. Empty—as if the loss of him for ten damn minutes outweighed even a multi-month-long dry spell.
Don’t give in. You can’t give in.
“Tell me you feel it. Say it.”
I moaned uninhibitedly as he slid a second finger beside the first, flicking them apart with just enough space to stretch my body to the brink.
“Stop…”
“I knew the moment you had that ‘package’ delivered that you were exactly how I’d pictured you. Bold. Fearless.” The guttural drawl thickened over every word.
“Pissed,” I added in a hiss, struggling to pin my legs closed, as they twitched further apart. “Because some asshole told her that she wasn’t ladylike—”
“Oh darlin’, you’re no angel,” Jason insisted, unashamedly. One of his hands slid beneath my scalp, forcing my head down to meet his gaze. “You’re feral. But were you any other woman, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Is masochism a side effect of your seven-year celibacy?” I spat.
To my utter shock, he laughed. The sound was nothing but a low rumble of thunder that shook me to the core. “No other woman would have hunted me down like a hellcat and then claimed that she didn’t want me. Tell me you want me.”
“You have a twisted version of sweet talk…” My breath slipped away as his fingers curved, striking all of the right spots at once. I felt pleasure so raw, it hurt. In an instant, I lost sight of my anger. Of everything else but him. Nothing mattered but chasing the release he promised with every stroke of his fingers. Nothing.
Within seconds, I was bucking and mewing into his hand without a damn care about how I sounded.
I flung my leg out to the side, opening myself to him fully, but he withdrew and stood. Searing breath fanning my throat as his fingers continued their slow, maddening strokes while he pressed his body against mine, chest for chest, thigh for thigh.
“This is more than just sex,” he told me. Anticipating my protest, he pressed his mouth against mine, cutting off every thought. The kiss was bruising and hungry, and in the end, I couldn’t tell who managed to get the upper hand by the time we finally broke apart. “I’m going to keep you just like this,” Jason grated against my lips. “Listen to the sound of my voice, Abby. You’re going to come just…like…this.”
A part of me bristled at being commanded. Abby Newman didn’t take orders from anyone—even a gorgeous man telling her just how he was going to make her climax.
But then his tongue teased the shell of my ear, filling me with heat and madness as he whispered things that made my entire body ripple.
You want me.
I crave you.
Fuck, I need you.
Abby…
My climax tore through me with the intensity of a freight train, knocking me backwards and breathless against the wall. I could only pant as Jason continued to draw it out with evil, steady strokes that had me croaking out nonsense to the ceiling.
Any poor hotel patron could have wandered out of his or her suite at that very moment and seen us—not to mention that the security cameras were probably capturing every second.
As kinky as my sex life had been, I had never been much into exhibitionism. But with him, I wouldn’t give a damn if the whole world was watching. Pressed against Jason, the universe had narrowed to a sliver of space within a deserted corridor. His scent drowned me in lust, spurring the erotic fire that
swallowed me whole.
When I finally went still after the last punishing quake, he brushed his tongue appreciatively against my earlobe.
“Like that,” he panted, as his hand cradled my spine, easing me away from the wall. Together we collapsed to the floor of the hall, and I was boneless in his arms, too languid to move. “Just like that.”
I tiptoed into the apartment I shared with Perry.
I had never given much fanfare to the “walk of shame” motif, but now—with my hair hanging loose around my shoulders—I could only imagine how my dramatic cousin would react were he to see me like this.
I wasn’t hung over. My eyes weren’t bloodshot, and I didn’t reek of shame and the aftermath of sloppy, regretful sex—that was the terrifying part.
For the first time in my adult life, I felt no driving need to rush into the shower and erase the memories of the previous night from my skin.
Given how clear I had been about the conditions of casual sex, I would have expected to have woken up sprawled over the couch. Instead, someone had tucked me beneath the sheets of a luxurious bed that I had apparently spent the night in alone. A single note had been waiting for me on the bedside stand.
Help yourself to room service.—Jason.
It had been just like I’d wanted.
I had expected nothing from him, and he had delivered.
The business integrity of our relationship was still intact, and we had both rubbed out the sexual tension between us.
It was a win-win—just so long as steamy surveillance footage from the hotel never surfaced on the nightly news.
So why did a part of me feel gypped by his absence?
I tried to ignore it by putting all of my energy into avoiding Perry—and the inevitable questions about his borrowed dress. It was only after ten minutes of creeping around the apartment that I realized my cousin wasn’t there.
My phone revealed why. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Perry had sent me a text message that simply read: Fuck you for ditching me. I hope you’re getting fucked—in the best way possible. BTW, please drop off the dress at La Rouge.
Leave it to Perry to snap me back to reality without even trying.
I had forgotten all about that damn dress. All I wore now was my underwear beneath Jason’s flannel shirt. He had been gone when I’d awoken and I’d taken a cab home, rather than sit around and wait for him like some delusional fool.