by Lora Leigh
The sheet was pulled to her hips, revealing the delicate lines of her back. Her dark blonde hair fell over her neck and shoulders and framed her profile like a silken cloud.
Her unique looks could never be described as beautiful, they were too strong, too stubborn for such a term. His lips quirked in a grin as he considered the stubborn part.
Her expression often reflected the inner part of her, willful and determined, but it was subtle. A quality many people often missed because they were unaware of what they were looking at.
But Sax knew. He had seen it in her the first time he met her, just before her divorce.
He had seen the misery in her eyes, but her determination to hide it from her friends.
When she thought no one was looking, weariness and resignation would draw her shoulders down before she would resolutely straighten them.
For years after the divorce, despite the hell he knew her ex-husband had put her through, she had maintained a dignity that he could do nothing but admire. And a body that drove him crazy to possess.
He loved her. Despite the fact that she had run from him, that she had denied him at every turn, the need for her wouldn’t ease. It only grew stronger, deeper. He had her, for now, but he was smart enough to know that keeping her wouldn’t be as easy and getting her into his bed had been. He would have to keep her off balance, keep her body humming, her mind immersed in her sensuality until she knew she couldn’t survive without him.
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He knew what she hid from herself. He saw it in her eyes, in her voice, in the hunger in her expression. He had her heart, she just had to realize it. And getting Marey to realize what she didn’t want to see would be his hardest battle.
He drew the blanket further over her back before rising from the bed and heading for the shower. He had waited, watched, knowing the day would come when Marey would drop her shields and allow him the chance he needed to break into her heart. He was in there now, though he was certain she would deny it to herself as long as she could.
He also knew something else about Marey, something she had revealed hours before. She loved the sensual dominance he could give her. She liked the fiery pleasure-pain and walking that fine line of carnal intensity. He would push her, he couldn’t give her time to think, to consider the evolving relationship he could see coming. If he did, she would run. And he couldn’t allow her to run. He wouldn’t allow her to run.
“When you get ready, I need to run in to the office for a few hours,” Sax announced as Marey sat silently after breakfast, fortifying herself with caffeine, wondering how she was going to manage to escape this new situation.
Sex with Sax was incredible. Too incredible.
“Go ahead.” She took the final sip of her coffee. “I’ll get ready and you can drop me off at a hotel.”
The tension that filled the room was like a punch in the gut. She raised her eyes, staring back at him as he watched her silently, his eyes narrowed on her.
“Stay a few days,” he finally suggested casually, as though it didn’t matter either way, as though there was no risk in such an action. “At least until they’ve picked Vince up, Marey. You aren’t safe in a hotel. You’re safe with me.” She breathed out wearily, pushing her fingers through her still damp hair as she sat back in her chair and watched him directly.
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“And if Vince decides to blame you for the fact that I’m here, rather than where he can get to me?” she asked him defensively. “What then, Sax? He’s not sane. He won’t go after you with his fists as he does me. He could come after you with a gun.” A savage smile tightened his lips.
“I would look forward to it, Marey,” he snarled. “Unlike you, I know how to deal with bastards like that. He won’t get to me easily, I promise you that.” Were all men insane? Or just the ones she knew?
She closed her eyes as she clenched her teeth and held back a furious growl.
“And what makes you think you’re invincible all of a sudden?” she snapped, coming to her feet, ignoring the glint in his eyes as they dropped to her bare legs beneath the long hem of one of his T-shirts.
“I don’t think I’m invincible, Marey,” he assured her, his voice deepening, thickening with lust as he watched her. “But I know the type of man Vince is. A bullet isn’t personal enough, it doesn’t prove his strength, and that’s what’s important to him, proving his superiority.”
In that, he was right. Vince couldn’t tolerate believing an opponent could be physically superior to him. He didn’t own guns, he owned fists and knives.
“And I’m supposed to just accept the fact that you’re placing yourself in his path,” she snapped belligerently. “I don’t think so, Sax. I don’t need these problems.”
“Do you think he can beat me, Marey?” Genuine amusement reflected in his expression then. “Are you afraid your man can’t protect you?”
“You aren’t my man,” she muttered, using the only defense she could come up with. “And right now, you’re acting like a little boy playing one-upmanship.”
“One-upmanship is not a child’s game,” he informed her with a slow, sexy smile.
“It’s a man’s game. Want me to show you?”
Oh man, the sound of his voice, the look in those dark eyes. Her pussy was suddenly humming in need, creaming furiously to the pure sexuality there.
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“That’s okay.” She scuttled quickly out of his way, watching him warily now. He could turn her knees to mush and her resistance to no more than a passing thought.
There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let him touch her. “You go on to the office. I can just lounge around here. Use the hot tub.” Call a cab and find a good hotel.
He tilted his head questioningly. “If you walk out of here now, we’ll never know what could have been, Marey. Is that what you really want?” Was it? No, she didn’t want that, but neither did she want to see Sax pay for her mistakes.
She drew in a harsh breath. “After they catch Vince—” He was shaking his head before the words were out of her mouth.
“I don’t want a woman who can’t trust me to protect her.” He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her somberly. There was no anger, no fury, just pure male stubbornness.
Marey stared back at him, bemused. He should be furious, not calm. In hindsight, she realized she had more or less given the impression she didn’t trust him to protect her. She hadn’t meant to. She had never felt that way. But his male pride should have at least been pricked. There should have been anger, a snarl, snapping sarcasm. Something besides somber intensity, steadiness.
Her hands clenched in the material of the T-shirt as she fought to come to grips with this new brand of male species. Who knew they could be so damned hard to figure out?
“I trust you to protect me,” she finally answered, clearing her throat nervously. “It has nothing to do with that. I’m used to protecting myself, Sax.” She had been doing it for a long time. She might have messed up a time or two, but for the most part, she thought she’d done a fairly good job.
“And Vince is determined to hurt you, no matter the cost to himself,” he told her quietly. “You know you can’t fight him, Marey, you’ve seen that. He tried to kill you.” 63
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“I don’t need you to stand in front of me.” She turned away from him, furious herself now as she paced to the sliding glass doors that led to the deck. “Dammit, Sax, why do you think I’ve stayed away from you? Why do you think I’ve lived like a nun in that damned fortress Father built, and forgot I was woman all these years? He’s crazy.
He could try to kill someone.”
“Yes, he could,” he snapped, but not in anger, more in frustration. “And that someone could be you. Because he knows you’re not strong enough to fight back. Until the sheriff apprehends him and the courts put him awa
y for good, you need to stay safe. I can keep you safe.”
He said the last sentence as he moved behind her, pulling her against his much taller body, his strong, warm body, as she fought the weakness that filled hers. He made her weak, made her want to lean on him, trust him. How insane was that? She knew better than to trust anyone.
“If you walk away now, Marey, it’s forever.” He lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her hair as his eyes met hers in the glass. “Now, are you going to the office with me, or do you want me to take you to that hotel?” She stared back at him, their gazes locked in the glass of the sliding doors, and frowned fiercely.
“You are going to piss me off,” she finally snapped.
Surprise flared in his eyes. Surprise and arousal.
“Baby, that’s a given,” he chuckled. “Now, make up your mind and let’s get out of here. I have work waiting.”
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Chapter Eight
Sax watched from beneath his lashes as Marey lounged on the couch on the other side of the room, calmly flipping through a magazine as he worked on the reports he needed to finish up for the day.
She was driving him crazy. She was as calm and placid as a mountain lake right now, waiting on him, as though it was nothing unusual to have little or nothing to fill her day. He knew she was an editor for a small publishing company, one that published extremely erotic content. She hadn’t been the one to reveal the information though, it had been Ella who had dropped that little bomb months before.
Was that how she had learned to sit so silently, immersing herself in whatever she was reading? Or had she learned patience and silence while caring for her ill parents so many years ago?
There was so much about her that he needed to know. So many ways he wanted to learn everything possible about this intriguing woman.
“Bored?” he asked curiously.
She glanced up, her gaze a bit distant as it met his.
“No.” She shook her head. “I have company.”
She lifted the edge of the magazine before returning her attention to the article she was reading. It wasn’t fluff. The news magazine was one of his favorites actually.
He shifted in his chair, attempting to ease the uncomfortable weight of his throbbing erection.
“Do you need to run by your house before we head back to mine?” he asked her then. “Pick anything up?”
She glanced up again. “No. I should have enough for a few days.” 65
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Her attention went back to the magazine. It made him crazy. Made him horny. She was as calm and relaxed as a summer’s day, and just as damned hot. He knew how hot she could get, how wet and sweet.
“How long has it been since you’ve had a lover?” he asked her then, shifting to relieve the discomfort of his hard-on.
He watched her tense before she looked back at him, narrow-eyed and suspicious, but hot.
She glanced at her watch mockingly.
“Eight hours maybe?” She went back to the magazine.
Sax observed her for long moments. She looked cool as hell, but he could see the altered breathing, the heavy rise and fall of her breasts. She was aroused. Just that fast.
Her nipples were pressing tight against her shirt, her face flushed just enough to testify to her heat.
“Before that,” he bit out between clenched teeth, waiting, his erection throbbing in agony.
She flipped the magazine closed and turned to him defensively, her gray eyes sparkling in defiance.
“Exactly what do you want to know, Sax?” she asked him. “And why all the questions?”
God he loved it when her eyes went hot like that. Anger and passion and complete female stubbornness mixed with arousal. It was invigorating, energizing. It was making him so fucking horny he couldn’t breathe.
“Does everything have to be a test?” he growled back, coming out of his chair and stalking across the room. “Maybe there are just things I want to know about you.”
“You should pretty much know everything by now,” she shot back, staring up at him as he towered over her. She didn’t jump to her feet to even out the distance or to assert her own control. She kept her seat, though she leaned back against the couch to 66
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keep the arch of her neck at a more comfortable angle. “It’s not as though we’ve just met.”
“And the more I think about it, the less I know,” he told her, frustration rising within him.
“And how many lovers I may or may not have had is important?” She arched her brow mockingly. “Fine, Sax, until you, there’s been no one since my divorce. Before my marriage there were two. I’m sexually inexperienced but not stupid. Anything else?”
“What the hell do you do all day besides flip through magazines and edit romances?” His cock was steel-hard and driving him crazy with the need to fuck.
She smiled slowly, her eyelids drifting lower, giving her a mysterious, sensual look.
“Play with my favorite toys and fantasize about you,” she drawled. “What do you do when you’re home alone?”
The little liar. He could see the devilry in her gaze, the deliberate teasing in the way her tongue stroked slowly over her full, lower lip.
“Jack off and imagine your ass burning red,” he snarled, reaching down and pulling her to her feet. “I won’t let you hide from me forever, Marey.”
“But I’m not hiding anymore, Sax,” she reminded him, her hands moving up his chest, over his shoulders. “I’m right here where you can see me.” God, she was a temptation. A sweet, beautiful little keg of dynamite standing placidly in his arms. For now.
She shifted against him then, her lower stomach pressing against the hard ridge of his cock as a light flush of arousal stained her cheeks.
“Are you finished working?”
His fingers burrowed in the soft weight of her hair as he held her still, watching the heat flame in her eyes.
“I’m finished,” he growled as he pulled at the silk he held, watching her eyelids drift lower as sensual weakness consumed her.
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“We could go back to the house.” Her hands moved from his shoulders to his waist, gripping the flesh there as his head lowered to her cheek.
“I won’t make it to the house,” he told her roughly. “I want you here. Now.” A low, aroused laugh came from her throat as she tilted her head back, allowing his lips to caress her neck.
“Trojans and their office sex. I’ve heard about that.”
“You hear too damned much. Those women have loose lips.” He nipped at her neck, imagining her stretched out on the leather sofa, naked and filled with his dick.
She gasped as his hands moved to her breasts, cupping the delicate weight, his thumb and forefinger testing the hardness of her nipple through the soft silk blouse she wore. He was dying to get it in his mouth, to feel the sensitive nub growing harder as he sucked at it.
“You know too much about things you shouldn’t.” He nipped at her neck, feeling her shudder from the erotic little pain he delivered.
“Hmm, have to get my jollies somewhere,” she moaned as he licked at the soft flesh he had nipped.
Oh, he could give her jollies, he thought with a grimace of building lust, more jollies than she could have imagined.
As his lips moved to hers, taking her in a kiss that had them both moaning at the heated pleasure of it, his hands went to the small buttons of her shirt. He wanted her naked, wanted her wet, wild and screaming out her pleasure.
“You need to lock the door,” she gasped as the sides of her blouse fell apart and his lips wandered down her neck.
Her breasts were swollen, flushed, her hard little nipples poking against the lace of her bra as his lips drew closer.
“Hmm. Live dangerously,” he murmured as he licked over the delicate curves.
“Consider it a jolly.”
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Chapter Nine
Consider it a jolly? She was fucking going to go through the roof as it was.
“You’re crazy.” She could feel the fires building in her body, the heat attacking her pussy like an inferno gone wild.
“Am I?” He drew the shirt from her shoulders, dropping it to the floor as his fingers moved to the clasp of her silk slacks. “It’s closing time, but anyone could still walk in. A lot of the Club’s members come in to my office, Marey. They wouldn’t touch you, but they would watch, see your little pussy flared around my cock, hear your cries as I go in hard, deep, and push you over the edge.”
She trembled, her eyes closing at the insidious images he was provoking.
“Have you ever been watched, baby?” Her pants dropped to her ankles, revealing the white lace thong she wore beneath them. “Seen the arousal in another man’s face as your lover pumps into you? And I would. I would give them a show. I would show them how sweet and tight your cunt grips me, draw out and let them see the slick, syrupy juices that flow from you before I’d push back in, and let them hear your screams.”
Oh God. This was just nasty. Depraved. It was killing her. She had never, ever done anything like that. But she had to admit, Terrie and Ella had piqued her curiosity, made her wonder if it could truly be as good as they claimed it was to be part of Sax’s sexual lifestyle.
“How…” She fought the moan that would have been more a scream as his hands gripped the cheeks of her ass and he pulled her closer to him. “How can you share like that? Why aren’t you jealous?”
“Because I want your pleasure. All of it. I want to see the surprise and the sensual agony twisting your features, and know I’m a part of it. I want to see you screaming, 69