Kept

by Jami Alden

“Chill out. It’s just a little glass shard, but it slid in deep.”

  He probed again, and she gripped the seat of her chair at the needlelike pain. On the plus side, the sharp sting in her foot distracted her from her headache.

  “There. It’s out.” He held up the glass for her inspection, a tiny shard no wider than a needle. He went back to the first-aid kit and pulled out a white foil packet and a Band-Aid. He ripped open the packet, and the sharp smell of alcohol filled the air. She hissed as he pressed the damp pad against the sole of her foot. “You really expect anyone with two brain cells to rub together to believe you’re being drugged?”

  “I don’t care what you believe. I didn’t knowingly take any drugs.” It scared the shit out of her to know someone could get close enough to her to dose her without her knowledge.

  “You know it’s impossible for anyone to believe you.” He peeled the backing off the Band-Aid and stuck it to her foot. But he didn’t release her ankle. His other hand rested on the top of her foot, his thumb stroking absently over the smooth skin.

  The brush of his calloused thumb was so arousing he could have been touching her breast instead of her foot. But even her arousal wasn’t enough to ward off the hurt. “What is that supposed to mean? Because the press likes to bring up problems I had in the past? Because making me look like a mess helps them sell magazines?” She looked at him, her stare unwavering as she willed him to believe her.

  He stared right back, disbelief evident in the hardness of his dark eyes, in the arch of his thick brows. “Everything the press writes about you is false?” The skepticism was so thick she could have cut it with a knife.

  “Was everything the press wrote about your mother true?”

  His thumb stilled on her foot, and his fingers tightened around her ankle hard enough to make her wince.

  It was a low blow, and she knew it. After weeks of resisting, she’d finally given into curiosity and Googled Derek Taggart shortly after she’d arrived at Raj’s house yesterday. She hadn’t known what to expect, but certainly not what she’d found. His bio from the Gemini Securities Web site had popped up first. He was ex-military, graduated from West Point before becoming an Army Ranger. That hadn’t surprised her. With his hard edges and serious take-no-prisoners attitude, his military background was like an extra layer of skin.

  But she’d been shocked to learn he’d been involved in one of the most notorious missing persons cases to ever hit the San Francisco Bay area. She’d been young—only seven at the time—but she vaguely remembered the story of a wealthy housewife gone missing penetrating the celebrity-heavy news in Los Angeles where she’d lived with her mother.

  Plagued by morbid curiosity, Alyssa had spent several hours yesterday following the links that led to stories of a beautiful but troubled woman who had apparently decided to pick up and leave her husband and teenage sons without a backward glance. Many of the articles speculated on her motives, ranging from struggles with drugs and alcohol to extramarital affairs.

  Something flashed in Derek’s eyes, a nanosecond glimpse of vulnerability, and Alyssa felt about an inch tall for lashing out. Then his face closed up like a door had slammed, and his eyes went dark and expressionless.

  He dropped her foot and began packing up the first-aid kit.

  Alyssa watched him, her mind flashing to one of the few photos that had accompanied the stories. It showed Derek and his brothers, Ethan and Danny, along with their father, Joe, as Joe spoke to a reporter. Danny stood beside his father, arms folded, face hard, a teenager trying to be a man. Ethan smiled for the camera, charming, sunny, all-American. Derek had been off to the side, half of his body cut off from the frame, his face in profile as he stood apart from the rest of his family.

  She wanted to sink into her chair and disappear.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No big deal,” he said as he zipped closed the nylon case containing the first-aid supplies. “It happened a long time ago. I’m over it.”

  She doubted that. She got up and limped after him as he retreated down the hall. “Still, it was a shitty thing to say, and I’m sorry.” She laid her hand on his arm, her fingers closing over the tight cords of muscle.

  “It’s okay,” he said with a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But you’re right. Not all of it was true. At least, not that we know of.”

  “So you know how things can be exaggerated, even made up.” He nodded, studying her, and she could see his conviction crack. She could feel him giving her the tiniest benefit of the doubt.

  It wasn’t a declaration of faith, but, hey, she’d take what she could get.

  She was standing so close, she could feel the heat radiating off his bare skin and could smell his woodsy, musky scent. Her fingers tightened around his forearm as desire hit her like a physical force. She knew the second he felt it, too, could sense it in the subtle tightening of his muscles, the slight hitch in his breath.

  Derek bent his head, and Alyssa stood on tiptoe to meet him, her lips parting eagerly to accept the invasion of his tongue. She whimpered into his mouth and pressed against him, wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to climb up his body. He lifted her, backing her up against the wall and pinning her there with his hips.

  He was rock hard, his cock nudging at her stomach through his pajama bottoms, and an answering heat bloomed and pulsed between her legs. All he had to do was kiss her, and she wanted him, slick and wet with a need so fierce it scared her. She’d never felt anything like this, the desperation to have a man—this man—on her, inside her, making her come until she couldn’t see straight.

  With a groan, Derek ripped his mouth from hers and backed away so quickly she slid down the wall and landed with a thump.

  “I can’t do this,” he muttered almost to himself. “Not with you.”

  “Why not?” she asked, not sure if she should be insulted. “I want you,” she said, knowing she sounded needy and desperate but not caring right now. Why couldn’t she stop throwing herself at him? What was it about him that made her lose every shred of self-preservation?

  She reached out and boldly stroked him through the soft flannel of his pants. He sucked in a breath, quivering under her touch like a barely tamed animal. “And I know you want me.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” he said and inhaled on a hiss as she flattened her palm against his shaft and shamelessly stroked him. “You’re a client—”

  “I’m not your client,” she whispered and leaned close enough to flick her tongue across his flat, copper-colored nipple. His cock jerked in her hand.

  “You know what I mean,” he huffed, sounding like he was having trouble remembering what he was talking about.

  Alyssa opened her mouth against his chest, sucking and licking his salty skin with teasing swipes of her tongue. “Do you remember the night we met? The first time you took me home?”

  “Christ, yes.” His breath was coming in harsh pants now, his hands fisting at his sides as though he wasn’t sure whether to hold her close or shove her away.

  She was more than happy to help him decide. She dipped her hand inside his waistband and closed her fingers around his rigid erection. He was so thick her fingers barely met as she slid her hand up and down, stroking, sliding, squeezing as her sex throbbed in anticipation of having his whole thick length shoved deep inside.

  “You had no idea who I was,” she reminded him as her thumb swirled around the plump head, wet and slick with thick beads of precome. She skimmed his chest with openmouthed kisses, bent her head to trace the ridges of his abs with her tongue. “All you saw was a woman. A woman you wanted to be with.”

  He gave a low groan as he thrust his hips against her grip. “It’s different now, now that I know.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” she whispered, tilting her head back so she could look into his face. She saw a man at war with himself, his mouth tight, strained, his eyes stormy as need threatened his rigid contr
ol. “Pretend I’m nobody. Like any other woman you’ve ever been with. Like I was that night.”

  “Trouble is, the real world’s always waiting for us,” he said as his hands came up to close over her shoulders.

  “Not for another two days,” she said with another swirl of her thumb around his cock. “No one knows we’re here. No one knows what we’re doing. For the next two days, I’m a nobody. I’m just like any other girl you’ve ever met.”

  CHAPTER 10

  JUST ANOTHER WOMAN? Was she fucking kidding? There was no way Derek could act like Alyssa was like any other woman he’d ever been with.

  No other woman made him feel like this, insane with lust from the slightest touch of her hand. Rock hard and ready to go from the sweet smell of her skin.

  And absolutely, completely incapable of turning her down.

  He bent to kiss her, moaning as her grip tightened around his cock. What he felt for her went beyond want, beyond desire. Dark and primitive, going against every instinct that demanded rationality and self-preservation, leaving him needing, wanting, powerless to control it. He knew he should push her away but couldn’t make himself stop touching her, kissing her, licking her.

  Just one more taste. One more touch. Memories of their one night roared through his head until he knew he couldn’t stop himself from indulging one more time.

  He tugged her stretchy tank top up over her head and slid his hands over the silky skin of her back. Warmth radiated off her like rays of the sun, bathing him in her heat. Her hand slid up and down his dick, stroking him into oblivion. He reached down and grabbed her wrist, knowing if he didn’t stop her he was going to blow in her hand.

  “I knew the minute I laid eyes on you, you were going to be nothing but trouble,” he muttered, sinking to his knees in front of her. Tight, pink nipples stared him dead in the face, and he sucked one into his mouth. Salty, sweet, she tasted even better than he remembered. “God, you have the sweetest tits,” he murmured, taking each into his mouth in turn, sucking and licking the bullet-hard tips.

  “Thanks.” She laughed breathlessly. “My mom was always trying to convince me to get implants because they’re so small.”

  “Crazy,” he said, his hand closing over the giving softness. “You’re perfect, sweet, soft.” He didn’t know where the words were coming from. He didn’t say stuff like this, didn’t talk during sex or compliment his lovers’ bodies. He made sure they got off before he did, made sure they were happy, but he didn’t lose control or get all swept up in the moment. He sucked her nipple between his lips. Maybe with his mouth full he’d shut the fuck up.

  She cried out and arched against him, and the sound made his balls tighten and his cock harden another inch. His hand slid down the curve of her waist and closed over her hip. His mouth released her nipple and skimmed the soft plane of her belly. He dipped his tongue into her navel, smiling a little at the way her muscles jumped and twitched. She was like a live wire under his mouth and hands, switched on.

  He shoved her pajama bottoms off her hips and down her legs to pool around her ankles. His mouth watered at the sight of her pussy, sleek and bare except for that damp patch of curls at the top. All he’d done was suck her tits, and she was already dripping wet, her clit a moist little berry poking through, begging for attention.

  He pressed his mouth to her in an openmouthed kiss, his tongue delving into her folds, sliding up and down her clit as he lapped up every last drop of juice. His name exploded from her lips as her hands fisted in his hair. She was silky hot and salty sweet, the taste and scent of her flooding his senses, pushing him to the brink.

  Her body tightened; pain pricked his scalp as her fingers pulled his hair. Her hips arched against his face. She shifted her legs, trying to part them wider, only to be hampered by the pajama bottoms tangled around her ankles.

  Derek didn’t help her. He liked her like this. Vibrating like a tuning fork as her orgasm hovered just out of her reach. Wanting him so much she shook with it.

  Like any other woman. Christ, it couldn’t be further from the truth. He didn’t tease women, stroke them to see how high he could take them before he made them come. Didn’t ease up and tease their pussies with featherlight strokes of his tongue until they arched and moaned and begged him pleasepleaseplease don’t stop. Didn’t hold his lovers on that razor-sharp edge for as long as he could just because it made him feel like king of the fucking world that he could bring a woman to such a state.

  Another surge of wetness bathed his tongue as her clit pulsed under his lips. One more suck, one more stroke.

  Derek’s cock pulsed, insistent, greedy. Selfish. He wanted to be inside her the first time she came, feel the ripple of sleek, tight muscles around his aching cock. He backed off and stood up, ignoring her cry of protest as he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  He left her long enough to get a condom from the giant box under the bathroom sink. He wondered in passing what the hell Raj had going on up here that necessitated that many rubbers. The sight of Alyssa naked, on her back, knees parted to reveal the shiny wet folds of her sex, rendered him incapable of wondering anything other than how fast he could get inside her and how fast he could make her come so he could follow her headlong into oblivion.

  As Derek approached the bed, he reminded Alyssa of a battle-hardened jungle cat. With his big, heavily muscled body and tracing of scars, he was all barely leashed strength, barely controlled fury. A shiver ran through her, and she remembered the first time they’d had sex. The same fascination tinged with fear had swept through her then. He was so powerful, so big. He could so easily overpower her if he wanted, do anything he wanted to her, and she would be powerless to stop him.

  Call her sick, but that made her even hotter for him because she knew, with every fiber of her being, that he would never hurt her. Not physically anyway.

  Her gaze caught on the huge erection jutting between his thighs. He was big everywhere, she thought with a small smile. And as gorgeous there as he was everywhere else. Long and thick with a tracery of bulging veins, the plump head so engorged it looked as if it were going to burst from his skin.

  “Oh, yeah, nothing but trouble.” She looked up. He was watching her look at him, a long dimple creasing his cheek as his mouth crooked into a smile. She heard the rip of foil and watched him smooth the latex down the length of his cock. Her legs shifted, her hips arching off the bed as her body pulsed in anticipation. He knelt between her legs and hooked her knees in his hands, spreading her wide.

  Alyssa grabbed him with shaking fingers and guided him in, her back arching as he slid home. He lifted her knees, pressing them back against her chest as his cock stretched and squeezed its way inside her body. She was so keyed up that was all it took to send her over the edge, her orgasm hitting her with stunning speed and intensity.

  She pulsed and shook around him, clutching his hips as he thrust hard and fast, riding her through her peak until she didn’t know if she was having multiple orgasms or one long, endless wave.

  She didn’t really care as long as Derek kept the thrusting, swirling rhythm, pounding into her with his granite-hard cock until she was shuddering and shaking, molten at her center like a chocolate lava cake. She loved looking at him braced above her. Every muscle stood out in sharp relief against his sweat-slick skin.

  She’d never been with anyone like him. So quiet and controlled but like a barely tamed animal in bed. But still he held something back, kept his lust in check as he measured his thrusts, controlled the motion, didn’t quite let himself go at her with total abandon. His dark eyes glittered through his thick lashes as he watched her, taking in every detail of her response, adjusting the pressure, the depth, the angle accordingly until she felt like every nerve ending was on fire. His thumb flicked her clit, and her body convulsed again, the pleasure so keen tears stung her eyes.

  She rocked her hips against him, wanting to pull him even deeper, helpless to fight this thing building and
building inside her that made her want to grab on to Derek and cling tight. His hips jerked against her, and his thrusts picked up speed. His face pulled tight with pleasure, and harsh groans pulsed from his throat. She loved watching him come, knowing she had, even for a second, broken through his ironclad control.

  Derek collapsed beside her, breathing hard, and she wound her arms and legs around him. Through the haze of pleasure she felt a niggle of fear. What had she gotten herself into? She’d meant for this to be playful, fun, to steal a few days of pleasure with a man she found insanely attractive. This was dangerous, the pull he had on her. She’d been a complete idiot for a hell of a lot less.

  Derek stretched as he padded into the living room the following morning at a little after nine. He paused in the kitchen to pour himself some coffee, frowning when he looked around and didn’t see Alyssa. The door to her bedroom had been open when he’d passed it, and he’d poked his head in to find the bed empty.

  A suspicious thought tightened his stomach. Had she fucked him into complacency so she could sneak off again? He took a sip of coffee to wash away the bitterness of the thought. Surely he wasn’t that stupid.

  He moved into the living room and started to call out for her when he caught a glimpse of pink outside the sliding glass doors that led to the house’s massive redwood deck. He moved in for a closer look, his mouth going bone-dry at the sight that greeted him.

  Alyssa’s lusciously rounded ass was pointed up at the sky as she executed a downward dog position worthy of a professional yogi. Her legs, clad in stretchy pink pants, were slightly parted, her palms flat on the damp wood of the deck in front of her so her body formed a perfect vee. The rain had finally stopped. The sky was bullet gray, the air swirling with fog off the Pacific, but she didn’t seem to notice the cold as she jumped her feet forward, straightened halfway, and then lowered herself into a half push-up, arched her chest forward, and then pushed back into the inverted vee.