Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle

by Amy Andrews, Aimee Carson, Avril Tremayne

  Claudia could feel his hurt and betrayal, could tell it was still a gaping wound for him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, dropping a kiss on his chest because what else could she say?

  The angel nodded sagely and reminded her it was none of her business. The devil wanted to demand Philippa’s address so they could go and scratch the unfaithful bitch’s eyes out.

  ‘Oh, it gets worse,’ he said. ‘Philippa and I were setting up a business on our own. It was all legally binding and set to go. When I dared to express my outrage at her infidelity, when I deigned to separate from her and back out of the partnership, she stole my biggest client, the firm’s biggest client, right out from under me. Not only could I not go out on my own but the company lost money and took a blow to its reputation. I’ve spent the last three years trying to repair the mess.’

  Claudia thought back to all the uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Luke the last few years and felt ashamed. No wonder he hadn’t had any time for her and the Tropicana. No wonder he was looking to hightail it back to London as soon as possible.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Luke.’

  Luke saw the compassion in her eyes; it glittered in the red light that played in her baby blues. ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But I’ll always blame myself to a certain degree.’

  Claudia couldn’t bear the thought of it. ‘Why?’ she demanded quietly, cupping both of his cheeks in her hands. ‘Because you loved someone and trusted them?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, looking directly into her eyes. ‘And I’ll never be so foolish again.’

  Claudia wanted to weep then. Not only had Philippa destroyed his faith in himself and his reputation at work but she’d also ruined him for love.

  Ruined him for her.

  She didn’t know what to do or say to make it better or convince him that one stupid woman did not represent all women. That people did love and it was true and deep and honest. That it could be abiding and faithful. Because he knew that anyway.

  He only had to look at his parents, or hers, to truly know that.

  But one look at him now, his brown eyes practically glowing with indignation in the red light, she knew he didn’t think it applied to him. That he’d shut himself off from the possibility altogether.

  And her heart broke into a thousand pieces. Because she wanted to be the one to show him what kind of a woman he needed. Show him what love could be.

  Because, God help her, she loved him.

  She loved a man who could never love or trust again.

  The words trembled on her lips but she lacked the courage to say them. Their relationship had taken a huge U-turn tonight and she didn’t know where it was going to go from here—nowhere, she suspected—but it certainly wasn’t the time to declare her love.

  Especially to a man who had just told her he wasn’t going there again.

  Maybe it had even been a warning.

  So she did the only thing she could think of—she rolled up on top of him, straddled his hips and kissed him. Long and deep and slow. He groaned as she pushed her tongue inside his mouth and she moaned back when he grabbed her naked butt and held her firm against his burgeoning erection.

  Her pulse sped up, her breathing roughened.

  So did his.

  Then she kissed his face and his neck and his chest. She swirled her tongue around his nipples before drifting it down to his abs and then his belly button. His hardness pressed into her breasts and she rubbed them against him as she swirled her tongue lower.

  The gasp he gasped when she fitted her mouth around him went straight to the hot tingle between her legs. He was as big and thick in her mouth as he had felt inside her and she took as much of him as she could.

  ‘Claude!’ he cried out as he buried his hands in her hair.

  She let her tongue move all over him, up and down, round and round, finding his sensitive spots and then torturing them ruthlessly with the kind of tongue lashing he’d given her breasts earlier.

  He groaned again, his hands leaving her hair to fist in the sheets. ‘If you keep doing that,’ he panted, ‘it’s going to end real soon.’

  Claudia could feel the tension in his thighs, his buttocks, see the whites of his knuckles. A sense of power washed through her as the tingling between her legs intensified to an excruciating level and she knew there was only one way to relieve it.

  Her mouth released him and he groaned. Whether it was in protest or relief she wasn’t sure. She just knew she had to feel all that wonderful hardness deep inside her, to the hilt, right up where that damn tingle had a stranglehold.

  She dragged her way back up his body, grabbing handfuls of his flesh to assist her. When she reached her destination she straddled him again then leaned over, reaching for a condom from the bedside table. He tried to curl up, take a nipple into his mouth but she swatted him back down.

  ‘No,’ she said, because she knew how that went and before she knew it she’d be a drooling, boneless starfish all over again when what she needed was to dominate.

  Not be passive.

  Relieve the unbearable tension and show him with her body, if not with her words, that she was his.

  ‘Keep your hands exactly where they are, mister.’

  ‘Ooh, bossy.’ He grinned, planting his hands firmly on her hips.

  Claudia didn’t bother to answer, she just tore the foil wrapper with her teeth, reached for him and rolled it on as if she’d worked in a condom factory all her life. And then she was positioning herself over him and then, slowly, sinking down.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Luke’s groan matched her own as his fingers dug into her hips.

  Claudia shut her eyes and threw her head back as she seated herself on him, completely impaled, the tingles obliterated. She was right—it did hurt so damned good.

  When she opened her eyes again he was watching her, his hands still firmly planted on her hips. ‘What now?’ he murmured.

  ‘This,’ she said, circling her hips, once, twice, three times, panting with the stretch and fullness of it. ‘And this,’ she said, leaning forward, placing her hands on his shoulders and slowly, very slowly easing herself off him all the way then sinking back down again.

  Luke groaned as his groin leapt and his mouth watered. Her breasts were glorious, pert and swaying enticingly before him. ‘Again,’ he said, their gazes locking.

  She did it again. And again. And again. He groaned all three times but his eyes didn’t leave her face.

  ‘You know,’ she said as she lifted off all the way for the fourth time, ‘not all women are like...’ she pushed back onto him again, sinking to the hilt again ‘...her.’

  Claudia almost said her name but she didn’t want the ugliness of what she’d done to intrude on this moment.

  She didn’t want Philippa in their moment.

  Luke nodded. ‘I know,’ he panted as his body fought to contain the gathering storm seething in his groin.

  ‘Do you?’ she whispered as she slid up again, fighting to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head. To keep them open. To keep them on him.

  ‘Yes,’ he hissed as he thrust up hard to meet her this time, holding her hips tight. The violent jiggle of her breasts and her gasp, deeply satisfying.

  Claudia shut her eyes briefly as the friction turned to something else, something pulsatile. She opened them and looked straight at him as she lifted her hips one more time. ‘I would never do that to you.’

  Even though they could never be, she needed to know that he knew that.

  Luke thrust. ‘I know.’

  She lifted. ‘Do you?’

  He thrust. ‘Yes.’

  Claudia groaned as the tingling returned and the pulses grew and expanded, spreading from her belly button to her hips, her thighs, her buttocks, and she moved quicker, more urgently, tr
ying to ease the glorious burn, not able to talk any more, only able to move up and down, up and down, up and down.

  If she talked she might just say too much in this state of sexual insanity.

  Luke sensed her urgency, felt it echo deep inside himself. He met her stroke for stroke, her lovely breasts taunting him with each one, giving her what she didn’t even know she wanted, as his own orgasm pulled at his self-control, pulsing up from the root of his erection, fraying the world around him and when he couldn’t take it any more he curled up, sliding his hands to the small of her back and sucking a nipple deep into his mouth.

  ‘Luke!’ she cried out, spearing her fingers into his hair, adjusting to their new position easily, riding him without missing a beat.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

  And then they both shattered together.

  SIXTEEN

  The telephone jangled right near her ear the next morning dragging Claudia out of the deepest depth of slumber with all the finesse of a jackhammer. She reached for it automatically.

  ‘Hello?’ she mumbled, her heart racing.

  ‘Claude?’

  Avery? ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you doing in Luke’s room at six in the morning?’

  Claudia’s heart raced a little more as her surroundings filtered in. Same-looking hotel room as hers but this one had the addition of a large naked man spooned around her, his hand low down on her belly, his mouth pressed to her shoulder blade.

  Last night. Luke’s apology. A bottle of wine.

  The Love Boat.

  The lovemaking.

  Crap.

  ‘Oh...er...we were just...having another...planning meeting...’ Claudia winced at the obvious lie.

  ‘You sound like I’ve just woken you up,’ Avery said, her voice laced with scepticism.

  ‘No, just tired,’ Claudia assured and faked a yawn. ‘Didn’t really sleep much last night.’

  And that was the truth. They’d been awake long enough to use the third condom before falling into an exhausted heap together.

  ‘Well, you’re supposed to be down here with us having breakfast, remember? We have to leave at seven-thirty.’

  Claudia stifled a groan. She remembered. She’d only agreed to come away if they got back as early as possible on Sunday morning so they could have everything shipshape for the reopening of their doors on Monday.

  But that was before her and Luke’s wild, three-condom sexual spree. ‘Sorry. Give us ten minutes. We’ll be straight down.’

  Claudia hung up. ‘Let me guess,’ Luke said in his deep voice, all sexy and rumbly from sleep. ‘Avery.’

  ‘Yes.’ His hand moved from her belly to her breast, his lips buzzed her neck and Claudia shut her eyes briefly as her body flowered beneath his touch. His thumb grazed a nipple and it felt so damn good.

  But they didn’t have time for this.

  ‘No, stop,’ Claudia said, scrambling out of bed, far away from his magical mouth and his sinful hands. ‘We have ten minutes to get down to the dining room,’ she said, hunting around for her clothes.

  Luke watched the view as she bent over to pluck her discarded clothes off the floor. Predictably, his body stirred.

  ‘Don’t just lie there,’ she said as she threw her dress over her head, not bothering with her underwear, and his stirrings turned to a full-blown erection at the thought of her being completely commando. ‘We have eight minutes to get to the dining room and I need to go and get changed.’

  ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Not yet. I have this swelling problem.’ He peeled back the sheet to show her.

  Claudia swallowed as her gaze zeroed in on him. Dear God. He was magnificent. Thick and large. His erection dominated the flatness of his belly with its potency.

  Luke hardened further at her frank appreciation. ‘Maybe you could help me with it?’

  Claudia almost groaned out loud. If only she hadn’t been so bloody gung-ho about getting back to Crescent Cove, Avery wouldn’t have rung trying to find her and she could have all that magnificent male hardness inside her right now.

  Claudia shut her eyes to block out both the mental and actual picture. ‘I doubt it’s terminal,’ she said as she turned her back on him, stuffing her feet into her shoes. ‘Seven minutes.’ She grabbed her key off the nearby bench. ‘See you down there.’

  And she didn’t look back no matter how tempted she was. And she was very, very tempted.

  * * *

  How she got through the remainder of the day, Claudia didn’t know. She felt as if she had a huge, flashing, neon sign above her head saying ‘look at me, look at me, I had hot dirty sex last night with someone I shouldn’t have’. So she was brighter, chirpier, she worked harder, she walked faster, she knocked herself out playing the best, brightest version of herself she could muster after a night of head-banging sex and only two hours’ sleep.

  In fact she might have overdone it slightly if people’s concerned faces were anything to go by. ‘Are you okay?’ Avery had finally asked her around mid-afternoon. ‘You seem kind of...wired.’

  Claudia had nodded vigorously. ‘Fine and dandy,’ she’d chirped, ‘Just excited about tomorrow,’ and she had buzzed off to attend to something else.

  But by the time night rocked around again and she finally retired to her room about nine o’clock she was utterly exhausted and ready to drop. She collapsed back on her bed and lay there for a few moments like a starfish.

  But then that got her thinking about Luke. About lying passively, while he turned her into a drooling mess, bringing her to orgasm with his hand and his mouth. A familiar tingle started up again and she rolled on her side, stuffing a fist between her legs to ease the ache.

  Maybe her body knew somehow, could sense that he was just in the next room, or maybe it was the delicious waft of Luke, of their sex, washing over her. With no time to shower this morning she’d been smelling Luke on her all day—earthy and male and very hard to ignore.

  She’d been semi turned on all day.

  Of course she could have had a shower when she’d ducked up to her room to change into her uniform when they’d first arrived back but, perversely, she hadn’t wanted to wash him away.

  She’d wanted to savour it, savour him, for a bit longer.

  The way she’d savoured the smiles he gave her whenever she caught him looking at her. Those dirty smiles. The kind of smile that said, I know what you look like naked and screaming my name.

  She wanted to savour every moment because if getting the Tropicana opening-ready today while he spent half the day talking into his Bluetooth had taught her anything, it was that she belonged here and his life was on the other side of the world.

  Whatever had happened between them she couldn’t forget that.

  So, she loved him. That was both a revelation and not. She’d always loved him. It was just the first time she’d admitted it to herself. But it didn’t change things. She wasn’t going to go halfway around the world for a guy who didn’t love her back. A workaholic divorcee whose career was his number one priority. A guy who was determined to never be so foolish again.

  And if he loved her back, if he asked her to go with him...?

  Best not to build those kinds of castles in the sky. They hadn’t yet talked about what had happened or said anything, for that matter, of a personal nature to each other all day. It would have to come, she knew, but for now she was just going to savour the memory.

  The knock on the interconnecting door a minute later surprised the hell out of her and she sprang off the mattress, her heart racing. The last thing she needed was to be horizontal around Luke again.

  ‘Come in,’ she called as she stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, self-consciously checking her hair was still up in its ponytail.

  The do
or opened and she smiled at Luke, who entered very hesitantly. ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hey.’

  They both smiled as they remembered the last time they’d done this routine—naked and plastered together in a Cairns hotel room. Then, as if they’d both realised it wasn’t an appropriate thought to have, their smiles faded simultaneously.

  ‘I thought we should probably talk,’ Luke said.

  Claudia nodded. ‘Yes...I guess.’

  ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

  She shrugged. ‘At the moment denial is looking pretty good.’

  Luke chuckled. ‘That’s an option.’

  Claudia laughed too, grateful for the easing of tension. ‘You want a beer?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Luke said. ‘Thanks.’

  Claudia was grateful for something to do with her hands other than option A, which was to put them all over him. He was wearing boardies and a T-shirt again and Claudia couldn’t help but be aware of what easy access that was. She reached into the mini-bar and pulled out a frosty bottle and handed it to him, then poured herself a glass of wine from the half-empty bottle sitting in the door of the fridge.

  One of the advantages to being the boss—free mini-bar.

  Normally she’d have clinked her glass to his bottle but keeping a distance between them seemed wise. Taking a sip, she leaned back against the bench, the fridge door cool on her calves.

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ she asked.

  Luke shrugged. ‘A part of me wants to suggest that we accept it happened and move on. Never mention it again. Never...go there again.’

  Claudia swallowed as his words cut her to the quick. His eagerness to move on hurt. Despite telling herself not to she had been spinning castles in the air. Fantasising about him saying, ‘I’m giving up London for you.’ But she knew it was the only thing that made sense for two people with very different life goals.