“Before going to med school, Dr. Hain was leader of The Gods—a New York City gang,” Cade informs me. “He was recruited when he was only thirteen years old by his older brother. As his initiation, he was expected to murder the principal of the local high school or be killed in front of the rest of the initiates as an example. He shot the principal, but it wasn’t fatal, so he ran. The Gods murdered his sister in retaliation.”
For a few moments, no one says a word or even makes a sound.
Quinn’s soft voice breaks the silence. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Hain.”
“So how’d you get to be leader?” Ryder, a thug covered in homemade tats and piercings asks, as if he doesn’t believe the sob story.
“My brother and I exacted revenge for our sister,” Dr. Hain says ominously. “We got a reputation for being brutal, and it equated to respect. Soon we were kings of the gods.”
Suddenly the sweater vest and khaki pants he’s wearing seem out of place.
“After I buried my sister, I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care what I did or what happened to me or anybody else. I became known as The Interrogator, and I cut other kids up bad to prove myself ruthless. And for a while I was.”
Quinn shoots Ryder a scalding look.
“But the life caught up with me. I spent almost a decade in prison. It’s no one’s destiny to be in trouble, but when we get in it, it’s our responsibility to get ourselves out of it, no matter what we have to do.”
“How did you get caught?” Talon asks.
“I turned myself in,” Dr. Hain admits. “Racketeering is business as usual for gangs, but when a girl the same age as my sister died from a bad cut in the drugs we were peddling … it opened my eyes.”
“So you became a counselor to help kids like us,” Quinn deduces.
There’s a shift in the room. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know about everyone else, but this does not make me want to share what lies deepest within me with the class, instead it makes me want to beat the shit out of someone. And get pounded in return.
“Fuck this shit.” Ryder stands up and shakes his head. “I’m sorry about your sister and all, but this group session shit isn’t for me. I’m going to my room.” He stalks away even though he’ll face consequences for leaving. Cade generously doles out the punishments that we earn, and group is mandatory. Ryder is an asshole anyway.
I find myself staring at Dr. Hain.
He found redemption.
*****
Josh
Present
I take extra care to make sure that at no point from the dance floor to the hotel, do I lose physical contact with her. I have a feeling that if I do, I’ll lose her.
Something else is happening too … fear. I’m an expert at hiding it, burying it and disguising it, but right now I’m just holding it at bay.
I focus on the curve of her breasts, as the dress can barely contain them. They’re so perfectly round, I can’t wait to get one in my mouth. In fact, I’m dying in the back of the limousine. I want to slide off her shoes and sensually massage each of her soft feet, but we’re too close to the hotel. Instead, I let my fingertips play up her ankles to her knees as I wonder if the silk covering her legs are pantyhose I’ll get to rip off or thigh highs I’ll need to peel down. I’m at her knee as I consider going higher. I want her thighs … spread apart, in my hands, around my face. And after she’s soaked from my lips and tongue all over her sweetness, I want those thighs wrapped around my hips. The vision makes me forget myself, and before I know it, I realize my fingertips are now grazing against her soft skin.
Thigh highs. I’m in fucking heaven. If I slide my finger up another inch higher I’ll know what kind of panties she’s wearing, if she’s wearing any at all, and how wet she is.
I bring my other hand under her dress until both are massaging her thighs, squeezing them and pressing them until they fall open. Her gorgeous eyes close as her head tilts back. My dick is throbbing.
The limo stops and she lets out a sigh of disappointment.
I fix the fabric so it’s back down over her knees and we head out. Through the lobby of the hotel, I keep hold of her hand. The elevator can’t go fast enough, and I keep wondering the entire time if she’s going to come to her senses and leave me standing there, wanting her more than life itself.
That powerful, maybe careless, maybe very calculated thought—wanting her more than life itself—brings a primal force, an energy and action that I’ve only tasted before a serious fight, to the surface. But this, this is different. It squares me off against myself as Sophie’s greatest defender and most violent threat.
Out of the elevator and into my room.
What the fuck am I doing??
When I close the door behind us, I’m in awe she made it this far without slapping my face. I take a step toward her, and Sophie’s back is against the door while her eyes welcome me closer.
She knows me; she knows my reputation as a man-whore, that’s why she didn’t want to get involved with me in the first place. But like the snake in the garden, I’ve seduced her. I’ve lured her here and I’m a selfish bastard for it. I want her all to myself. I need the rush I get every time she gets close to me. I have to have her in my arms, in my mouth, underneath me. I need to have my lips and tongue over every inch of her. I need to bury myself so deep inside of her I forget my own name. I’m jonesing like a druggy who got a little sample of the dealer’s “best stuff” and desperately has to have a true fix.
And it means I’m a first rate prick and I’m going to fuck everything up, because Sophie won’t be able to look at me the same when I’m finished. Things won’t be able to go back to the way they were before. That means the consequence of me doing this to her tonight will be that I lose her.
“Josh …” Sophie’s needful voice stops my mind and ignites my body.
I feel absolutely crazy—wanting to make love to her slowly, deliberately, savoring her, and at the same time wanting to rip this dress like a wrapper from her sweet candy body and fuck her raw.
What the hell is happening to me? My heartbeat is out of control.
I cup her beautiful face with both my hands—hands that can crush her. I can’t deny that her very presence heals me, moves me, I can’t say why or how. I have no words to define it, but touching her face like this … and the fact that she lets me … I’m mesmerized.
My fingers soak up her heat like every living thing soaks up the sun for its very survival.
I gaze over her features in awe. I feel the crack; a fault line begins to tear through the walls I’ve built up around myself. “Do you know?” I whisper. I want her to understand what I don’t understand myself. I want her to make sense of it.
Her eyes search mine for answers. I find in them the reflection of everything I feel—want, desire, fear, hope.
But in her eyes I also see timidity, and it makes me feel all the more predatory. I shake it off and remember she wants this as much as I do. She’s the one who broke the rules to get it.
I work my fingers under her long brown hair until I’m cradling the nape of her neck. “Sophie, I have to know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling. You have to tell me. Are you happy? Are you scared?”
Seriously, she answers, “Yes … and … hell yes.”
There are too many emotions coursing through us both. I know she feels them.
Our deal was that if she made the first move, she would stay with me for one night of unbridled passion.
“What if I never want to let you go?” I ask.
“I’d say you better hold on tight.”
Sophie’s response brings a confident grin to my lips.
My hands leave her neck, trail across her bare shoulders down her arms, and onto her legs. I kneel in front of her.
First I pull off her shoes. Then my hands go on a journey up her sheer stocking-clad leg—ankle to calf, knee to inner thigh. Sophie sighs and leans her head against the door, surrendering to my touch. Sl
owly, one at a time, I peel the stockings down her leg and off her toes.
As I rise back to standing, I keep my hands on her perfect body. Enjoying the satin fabric of the dress against my palms and fingers, I stop only when I get to the top of the zipper at the back of her dress.
“You found that quick.”
“I figured out where it was when we were on the dance floor,” I say smoothly.
Sophie’s unzipped gown falls haphazardly down her chest, around her hips and to the floor, where it gathers around her feet.
Oh Christ! She’s wearing a sheer nude corset and panties that become gasoline to my already active imagination, setting me ablaze. She’s so much more exquisite than I ever imagined. The real life Sophie is perfect and mesmerizing, soft and warm and …
“Do you know what I’ve wanted to do since you came to my hotel room tonight to get me?” Her eyes betray her emotion—half shy and half animal.
“What?” Jesus I have to know!
She unknots my tie, unbuttons my jacket and then gathers my shirt in both of her hands and rips it down the seam of buttons.
“Oh fuck!” I breathe out.
She pushes the fabric of my jacket and shirt down over my shoulders by running her palms over the muscles of my arms, finally pulling the cuffs over each wrist until both the jacket and the shirt drop to the floor without care.
Sophie gazes up into my eyes. I hold that gaze, and let the intense electricity crackle and charge between us.
She sets her hand over the center of my chest. I cover it with my own right hand. Together our hands rest over the top of my heart—the heart she is claiming, the heart she’s healing.
I realize we haven’t kissed yet, despite all of the touching. I’m dressed only in my pants and shoes, and damn, she’s barely dressed at all. I smile and take a step closer, bringing my left hand under her jaw. I can’t wait to taste her mouth—her sassy, bossy, gorgeous mouth.
Something makes me pause. She appears totally sexy, self-confident and ready to take me on, but at the same time she trembles beneath me, her body betraying her nervousness. She’s like a hologram—there’s a flash of vulnerability, but then she tilts her head back demurely as her lips part to take mine, and I feel the heat of her thigh as she strokes it up my leg, coaxing me on.
I lean my forehead against hers while my fingertips play over the exposed skin of her chest and the plane of her collarbone. I watch and smile in satisfaction as her skin ripples with goose bumps at the sensation.
“I’m going to savor you,” I tell her. “You know every ridge and contour of my body … it’s my turn to learn yours. And as I do, Sophie, I’m going to claim you, every part of you, as mine.”
“I’m yours … tonight.” Her words breeze over my lips.
Tonight? She thinks I only want her for tonight. No wonder the vulnerability, no wonder the over-confidence. I hate myself for it; I hate that this is her opinion of me. I hate what I was before … before her.
Do I know what I want? I know I’d do anything and everything to change her opinion of me.
In this moment, all the fear I’ve been fighting, all of the old me I’ve been warring with, all the self-pity and loathing, is put down like a mad dog.
I know what I can be, and I know what I want.
“More than tonight, Sophie. More than tomorrow.”
Sophie
Josh’s words wash over me. It’s okay that he doesn’t mean it. It’s okay that I don’t have tomorrow to give him. I can pretend. Oh yeah, I can pretend tonight that he’s mine. All mine.
Dear God, no one man should look as incredible as he does. It’s just not fair.
I love his waist. Sounds silly maybe, but it’s thick and strong, and I love to sink my fingers into it and then count up his ribs.
“You look happy.” He smiles down at me. He stands almost an entire foot taller than me.
“Yeah.” I catch my bottom lip between my teeth.
“I want to know everything you’re thinking.” He searches my eyes. His deep brown irises are speckled with gold flecks. I’ve never looked into them this closely or for this long before. They’re beautiful, like Tiger’s Eye stones.
“I have to keep some of my secrets so I can keep intriguing you with my mystery,” I tease. I caress up his chest. Oh, I love the ripples of muscles and ink.
“Dear Christ! You shouldn’t have this kind of power over me.” He closes his eyes for a moment and sighs.
I like having this effect on him, but before I can really enjoy it, he catches himself. His eyes open and there is a stern determination in them—I’ve seen this expression plenty of times now—when he’s sparring with an opponent and he’s had enough of playing games.
“After the first round, you can call the nanny and let her know you won’t be coming back for a while.”
My eyes open wide.
“Sophie, I’m going to kiss you now, and you’re going to feel it in your soul. And you’ll know without a doubt that I’m yours and no one else’s from now on.” Josh’s strong hands envelope my face, his thumbs brush over my cheeks. I marvel at how rough he is and looks and how gentle his hands can be. “I’m going to own your body, so you’ll never have a need or desire for another man ever again. You’ll feel it and you’ll know that you’re mine too.”
With that, his mouth covers mine. Finally I taste him and it seems like I’ve waited for forever. He’s heat and power, demanding and forceful. His tongue plunges into my mouth without ceremony, pushing in between my lips and wrapping around my tongue like it knows it belongs there.
And. Oh. My. God. He knows how to move it.
Josh swipes his tongue over the roof of my mouth, sending tingles shooting into my sex. As he does this, his steel body crashes into mine. He spreads my legs with his knee, positions himself between them and rubs his beautiful, hard cock full-on against me. It presses into my belly with the most delicious sensation.
Oh fuck! It’s huge—thick, and long.
His tongue tangles with mine before he pulls it from my mouth and catches my bottom lip between his teeth. He pulls on it and I moan.
“All mine.” He throws me over his shoulder and takes long strides across the room to the bed. “You’re fucking perfect,” he growls and sinks his teeth into the flesh of my ass.
“JOSH!”
“I love this thong you’re wearing. I really love that I’m going to take it off you now.” He peels it down with one hand.
I bend my knees and he tosses it across the room. “Don’t worry, baby. You won’t need it again. I’m going to keep you naked all night and tomorrow too.”
One of his hands holds my ass, while the other investigates the corset. “Where are the eyelets?” he growls impatiently.
“On the other side,” I tell him. “Looks like you’ll have to put me down.”
“And lose the advantage? Not a chance.” Deftly, he swings me down and sets me so I’m straddling his knee, naked. “Oh, baby, your pussy is so hot.”
“You made it that way,” I pant.
His hands squeeze the sides of the corset together as he unhooks the eyelets several at a time until he’s undone me completely. My breasts spill out from the confines. Josh drops the corset to the floor and drinks me in with his eyes.
“Beautiful tits.” He wastes no time as he bends his head, lifts his knee and sucks the closest one into his mouth.
I get my footing on the bed and rub against his leg, welcoming the much needed friction.
“No, no, no,” he scolds. He gets his hands under my arms and lifts me from his leg, up until my breasts are in front of his face and I have no control. “That’s better.” He looks between them like they’re an offering. “Mmm …” He uses his tongue to pull the second, neglected nipple between his lips.
I forget how strong he is. He’s standing a few steps away from the foot of the bed. My feet are dangling far from the floor, but I figure out a way to get some leverage. I wrap my legs around him and lock my ankles
.
“Oh, Sophie, don’t you know what I do for a living?” Josh’s words send a thrill through me. It’s a warning and a promise. He’s a sexy MMA fighter, with a rock hard body that he knows how to use. He could pin me to the bed or floor or couch or wall, in more ways than I can imagine.
But I have my own weapons.
I untangle my legs and instead gently but firmly scratch my nails against his scalp just above the base of his neck. “Josh,” I whisper.
His grip weakens. He lowers me enough so we’re face to face again, our eyes searing. Slowly, deliberately, I nibble at his lips, the bottom one first, then the top. I dart my tongue over them, tasting, feeling, probing.
I need him inside me, badly. I’m all for foreplay, but we’ve been engaging in foreplay since we met. I want this belt off! I want these pants gone! I reach down and tug at the leather of his belt.
He smiles under my tongue before he eats my mouth with his lips—kissing me with small, intentional movements that are driving me crazy.
“I’m not even close to letting these pants come off,” he guarantees as he pulls down the bedspread and lays me over the satin sheets.
He climbs his gorgeous, still half-clothed body over the top of me and begins massaging me down my arms. So slowly, his fingers tickle my skin, press into the grooves of my muscles, squeeze down until his fingers wrap around my wrists, holding them to the mattress.
“Now I know your arms.” My heart pounds, realizing that he has me pinned. Not only my arms, but his body holds my legs immobile as well.
Josh stares down at my body, which is now obviously at his mercy. He bows his head and licks at the pink tips of my breasts, which harden beneath his gaze.
“I’m most defiantly a tit man—and yours have driven me crazy in everything from those boring, sheet-like scrubs you used to wear at the hospital to those pretty, baby-doll t-shirts you’re always wearing at the gym. So round, so perfect—one for my hand and the other for my mouth.” As he talks, he lets my wrists go and covers my left breast in his palm and squeezes while he licks and sucks at the right. “I’ve been dying every time you’ve leaned over me, or when they’ve brushed up against me. Bet that wasn’t on accident.” He’s playfully accusatory.
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