Taking Control

by Jen Frederick

  PRAISE FOR TAKING CONTROL

  “This story is so well put together. Every part of it seamlessly done. It has passion, tenderness, obsession, love, revenge, a strong Hero AND heroine, and the ending was everything you could ask for. It’s so easy to fall short with a second book and sometimes I tend to get bored with the plot. But in this case...there was one! And it was awesome!”

  —Christie from SHBB Blogger

  “This isn’t a typical billionaire story. Tiny is an extremely strong woman…Really though what made this book for me was Ian, he is freaking smoking hot and a total alpha. I have a major book crush on him.”

  —Julia’s Book Haven

  “Watch out for the HOTTEST SHOWER SCENE EVER!!! I’d totally give this book as many stars as I can anywhere that I can!”

  —Jammie at 2 Bookaholics

  “Taking Control was extremely well written with a captivating story line and in depth characters. The whole book was very believable.”

  —Kim from Goodreads

  PRAISE FOR LOSING CONTROL

  “This book was so hot I thought I might spontaneously combust!”

  —Chelsea (Starbucks & Books Obsession)

  “...very fast paced—fantastic main characters...”

  —Book Angel Emma

  “Frederick weaves a strong tale about love, loss, hope and letting go of the past in order to build a future. She brings two lost souls together who have more in common than either of them realized and it will have your heart in flutters. The sincerity in this book is genuine; your heart will break for these characters; you will cry for them, love them and hope for them.”

  —JC at All Is Read

  “Losing Control is one HUGE SURPRISE! I absolutely loved it!”

  —Lorie Economos at The To Be Read List

  “Losing Control has one of MY favorite things... a nice slow burn. These two didn’t just jump into bed together, nope they let that chemistry build and build and build until they came together in flames of glory! The only thing I wish that Losing Control had was... MORE! I need more!!!”

  —Nicole from Goodreads

  PRAISE FOR LAST HIT

  “This was a great start to a new series and is without a doubt going on my favorites list and my re-read shelf…Ican’t wait to read the next book in the series because I’m already on edge about it.”

  —Melissa at SM Book Obsessions

  “Last Hit by Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick will forever hold a special place in my heart because quite honestly, I can’t remember the last time I gave a book a perfect 5 star rating. While I was sad to see Daisy and Nikolai’s story come to an end, I walked away feeling satisfied.”

  —Mia at The Muses Circle

  “More than a page-turner... I was enthralled!”

  —Jona from Goodreads

  To Michelle Kannan, Lisa Schilling Hintz, and Cece Carroll.

  Thank you for holding my hand over and over and over.

  Come ti vidi

  M‘innamorai,

  E tu sorridi

  Perchè lo sai.

  When I first saw you I fell in love and you smiled because you knew.

  ——Arrigo Boito, Falstaff, II, ii

  ONE

  IAN

  LOVE WEAKENS YOU. THAT’S THE conclusion I’ve come to as I gaze down at the woman slumbering next to me. Victoria Corielli is a slip of a thing. My hands span her slender waist. In her stocking feet, the top of her head brushes my chin. While she has muscular legs due to her previous occupation as a bike courier, the rest of her is on the slim side—more due to poverty and illness than the intense dieting socialites engage in.

  Despite her size and diminutive nickname, she’s powerful. With a word, a look, a gesture, she can bring me to my knees.

  As if sensing my scrutiny, her body shifts under the sheet, a heady susurration forms as luxurious cotton brushes against equally luxurious flesh.

  Ian.

  My name on her lips is hardly more than a whisper, but it’s enough to send me from contemplative to alert in a heartbeat. It was only hours ago that we fell asleep, and yet I find cannot leave her alone.

  I lift one of her legs over my hip and ease into her. She greets me with a murmur that is half gasp, half pleasure.

  “If this is a dream, don’t wake me,” she moans.

  A small chuckle escapes. “Surely reality with me is better than your dreams.”

  Her lids flutter open, and in the moonlit bedroom, her eyes look wide and endless. “I don’t know. I was having a pretty good dream.”

  “What were you doing?” My movements are slow, almost careless. There’s no hurry and that, in and of itself, is an aphrodisiac. I can have her as many times as I need, for as long as I need, but I know I won’t ever be sated.

  “I was with this guy. He was tall, dark-haired. Wore a big cape.” She smiles sleepily. “He pinned me down and held my wrists together and told me that I was going to have to suffer endlessly for my sins.”

  “And what was your response?” I roll her onto her back and gather her wrists together, pulling her body roughly beneath mine. In the recent weeks, Tiny had been too sorrowful to play with me like this.

  “That his endless punishment couldn’t start soon enough.”

  Dropping my head to her neck, I breathe in the scent of her warm, aroused body. We’re both drunk on each other, and I inhale, wanting to take her inside me and finding it nearly impossible to get close enough. Beneath me, her body tightens like a bow string, quivering and taut.

  “Now,” she growls, digging her nails into my hips. “Come with me. Now. Now. Now.”

  Her command is my undoing. Whatever idea I had about slow and tender goes out the window. I take her then, hard and fast, pounding her until we both explode—her release is screamed out and mine is expelled through gritted teeth.

  Collapsing to the side so I don’t crush her, I pull her limp body close.

  “Sorry,” I murmur into her hair, pushing the sweaty strands to one side to expose her temple for a kiss. Her head tucks itself under my chin.

  “For what? Waking me with an orgasm?” she asks sleepily. “Please be sorry every morning.”

  “It’s not morning yet, bunny.”

  She cuddles closer, and I stroke my hands through her dampened hair and down her back, this time to soothe her. Soon her even breathing tells me she is asleep again. Carefully tucking a sheet around her, I rise.

  In the bathroom, I dispose of the condom and return with a warm washcloth. She flinches when I press the cloth against her but doesn’t wake. With a frown, I realize this is the third time tonight we’ve made love. I need to be more careful with her.

  Returning to the bathroom, I toss the cloth in the hamper and then stare into the mirror. Waking her for a third time like some randy teenager with no self-control is not like me, but then I haven’t been normal since I met her.

  When I first saw Victoria—or Tiny as her mother called her—on the street delivering a package, I wanted her. I liked the way she carried herself—self-assured and comfortable. I thought her long, blonde hair would look tempting spread out on my pillow. I imagined her thighs would be steel-hard from the biking. She made me laugh when she kicked the doorframe of the store after realizing the shop owner, who needed to sign for the delivery, was missing.

  She made me hard when she stared at my lips like she wanted to taste me.

  In those few minutes of interaction between us, I saw a panoply of emotions—vulnerability when she considered my request to play hooky and enjoy a day in the park followed by a night in my bed; frustration when her customer was absent; and iron discipline when her sense of responsibility overrode all else. Her unfettered emotionalism was refreshing. But it was when she ran from me and my di
rect offer of pleasure that my appetite was whetted.

  I was well and truly caught.

  I hadn’t actively avoided love, but I hadn’t sought it out. Why should I? I’d spent most of my thirty-two years fixated on making money. And there were few bedroom doors closed to me. Reasonable attractiveness—made infinitely more so by the thickness of my wallet—ensured that bachelorhood in New York City was easy and entertaining.

  Maybe too easy, because her refusal unwittingly transformed her into an irresistible challenge. The more she denied me the more I wanted her. Her mother was ill with cancer, and Victoria believed she couldn’t juggle both my interest and her concern for her mother’s wellbeing.

  My arrogant belief was that money would solve her problems, making it easy for her to slip into my bed. After all, money had solved most of my issues, except one. But the more cash I threw at her, the more barriers she erected.

  Even now, I’m not sure how many walls I’ve managed to tear down, how far inside the citadel of her heart I stand which is why I probably woke her for a third time. Why I can’t keep my hands off her. I’m afraid that all I have binding her to me is the response I can generate in bed.

  The world I live in is inhabited by people whose lust for more—whether it’s power or money or influence—drives them to the basest of actions. Show a weakness and someone will attempt to leverage it for their own benefit.

  Tiny had only one thought in her life—to save her mother. It was a story I understood all too well, and the ending was as tragic as I’d suspected it might be. Tiny’s mother lost her battle with cancer.

  In slumber, she seeks my touch, the one thing that has given her pleasure in the weeks after her mother’s death.

  Some might say that I was a lucky son of a bitch—in the right place at the right time—because she needed someone, anyone, after her mom passed. But I make my own luck. Tiny’s special, and I’ll do anything to keep her.

  There’s a danger that she’ll wake up from her grief-induced fog and realize that I’m a manipulative asshole who is more trouble than he’s worth, but I have time and proximity on my side. I’ve bought my way into her heart and life. I’ll lie, steal, and cheat to stay there because nothing is worth more than her.

  She might not want my money, but she wants me. And I’m completely devoted to seeing that she is replete with satisfaction during every waking moment. I simply don’t know if that is enough—for both of us.

  She finds me there in the pre-dawn hours, still staring blindly in the mirror.

  “What’s wrong, Ian?” she asks, wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her face into the valley of my spine. “And don’t say nothing because someone who’s perfectly at peace doesn’t stand in his bathroom looking into the mirror for hours. Is it Richard Howe?”

  A sharp, bitter laugh escapes me. “I hate that you even know his name. His existence should be unfamiliar to you. He shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air, walk the same streets, eat at the same tables as you.”

  Her hand squeezes my shoulder in reassurance. I need to pull it together. It is Tiny’s mother who passed and she is in need of comfort, yet here she is trying to saturate me with the warmth and solace of her body.

  “Is it me? Am I preventing you from taking action?”

  Pulling her arm around my waist, I struggle for the right answer. “It’s not you. It’s never been you.”

  “Why have you waited so long to pull the trigger on him? Metaphorically speaking,” she rushes to add. “I’m not suggesting you should have murdered him or something, but why the kid gloves? The man embezzled money and blamed it on your father. He…hurt your mother, and because of him you had to grow up on your own. You’ve had the power to ruin him for years.”

  Her explanation of the horror my life turned into after my father’s death is laughably euphemistic. My father had a heart attack after being blamed for a seven figure embezzlement orchestrated by Richard Howe, my father’s protégé. My mother killed herself in an Atlantic City jail after prostituting herself to Howe. I’d left that jail with her few effects, vowing revenge…and then I met Tiny.

  Somehow the need to have her in my life has superseded my desire for retribution. At least momentarily.

  Tiny is correct. Richard Howe is the scum of the earth. The ironic thing is that he is also the one that brought us together.

  Until I met Tiny, I’d been good at compartmentalization, putting each person or activity in its own separate mental file drawer. Trying to ignore the strength of my developing feelings for her, I thought to use her against Richard. But she wouldn’t remain in one area; instead, her influence crept into every aspect of my life.

  I was wholly unprepared for the depth of my feelings for Tiny. Or, more likely, I had been denying them. I wanted her but hadn’t realized until the moment I saw them together, not even touching, that I’d rather burn the whole world down than have another man lay a finger on her.

  I tried to swallow down the rage and allow Tiny to lure him in, but as each minute ticked by and he stood close enough to touch her, my anger was stoked hotter and hotter. And when he took her on the dance floor and placed his fucking hands on her, my restraint was ripped to shreds. There would be no joy in my life without her. I wish I had realized it earlier.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Kaga, one of my few friends, had asked me at the time. “If you walk out there, he’s going to know what she means to you.”

  “If I watch him try to touch her ass one more time, you’ll be visiting me in prison,” I’d said.

  That he even knows her name is my own goddamn fault.

  I rub my forehead. “When I first returned to the city, I had these grand ideas that I’d storm his townhome and wrench a confession out of him. It didn’t take long to realize that he’d never confess. I kept making money, and in the meantime, I started to buy up his debt. About eight years ago, I had enough of his debt that I could have made it difficult for him but then at a party, his wife approached me. I don’t think she remembered me or knew who I was. She just came up out of the blue and started telling me about how she volunteered at a women’s crisis hotline and how life changing it was. She asked if I would be interested in donating.”

  “So she stayed your hand?”

  “Yes. Every time I was in a position to do something to Howe, I’d see her at an event. She’d share her latest charitable activities with me. She was doing things that could have helped my mother. She would mention how much she missed my mother.” I clenched my fists in frustration. “Could I be the instrument of her ruin as Howe was for my mother? I found I couldn’t. And I felt sorry for her because Richard cheated on her regularly. She had to know about his infidelity. Discretion wasn’t important to him, although he rarely hunted in their social circles. He preferred the working class, like waitresses, models—which are often one and the same in the city. Women he viewed as disposable. Possibly worse, she loves him. Even now, after all these years, her eyes follow him across a room. Now that I have you, I recognize her longing even more acutely. How deeply devoted she is to him.”

  “You thought that a scandal would separate her from him.”

  “Yes, even if it would be painful, if I could decouple her from him before I struck, then I wouldn’t have her wounds on my conscience.” I shake my head. “I’ll think of something else.” She presses her face close to my chest. I feel her trembling. “What is it?” I ask urgently.

  “You’re amazing, Ian Kerr. Your compassion is inspiring. I don’t know if I could be that generous in the same situation.” She rains kisses on my shoulders and at the base of my neck.

  “If you were another woman, I’d say you were buttering me up for something. But since you won’t even take what I’m willing to give you without argument, I’m going to have to ask: Are you on drugs? Because I distinctly remember you calling me an arrogant asshole more than once.”

  “That was before I realized that you needed me help to correct your character
flaws. I’m here now.”

  “You’re like a missionary then, to save me from myself?” I’m only half joking.

  “That’s right and from all the other women in New York City. I’m sacrificing myself on the altar of Ian Kerr’s pleasure in order to prevent heartbreak and sorrow across the city.”

  “You deserve sainthood.” I pull her tight against me and kiss her in gratitude for driving away my moodiness.

  “In honor of my impending deification, will you take me to bed and make me see heaven again?”

  “Mmmm,” I murmur against her lips. “I’m sorry but no. You’re too swollen and tender.”

  She draws away from me, although the circle of my arms doesn’t allow her to get far. “Are you sick? Because I swear I heard you turn me down.”

  “I’m not turning you down. I’m…delaying our gratification until later.”

  “Delayed gratification is for suckers. I want you now.” She looks determined, but I get my way. Always.

  Picking her up, I carry her back to the bed and slide down her body until I’m kneeling between her legs. “I’ll take care of you, bunny.”

  Softly, tenderly, as if she were a virgin, I stroke her delicate lips. Her clit slowly emerges, as if jealous of the attention given to her other body parts. I lick my thumb and rub it lightly across the tip.

  “Ian,” she moans. My name on her lips in that breathy tone has the same effect as mainlining aphrodisiacs. My already-erect cock throbs in response. I’m starting to believe in soul mates and life in the hereafter, because one lifetime won’t be enough with Victoria Corielli.

  Sliding my palms under her ass, I lift her to my mouth.

  There is so much for me to learn about her body, about what she wants and where she wants it. We haven’t even started talking about fantasies. I’ll do her any way that turns her on, in every place, and in every position. I know she likes my mouth between her legs, but her enthusiasm at giving me pleasure is unexpected.

  When she has me in her mouth, her eyes become heavy-lidded with desire and her juices drip down to coat her thighs. She sucks me as if my cock is the only thing she’s ever wanted and she’s afraid it will be the last time she can pleasure me.