“Could I ask you a question now?”
“I suppose,” he uttered under his breath.
My hands twisted at my sides and I lowered my legs, leaning across the table just close enough to catch a small hint of Jackson’s damp sweaty body. “You’re a sadist. Why would you care if you hurt me? Isn’t that what you do?”
My heart pounding, he glared at me for what seemed like an eternity. “This idiocy fucking ends today.” He pushed up out of the chair, taking long strides toward the French doors. “We’re done here. If I’d wanted an unexperienced virgin, do you honestly believe I’d spend this kind of money? I don’t do beginners Layla,” he hissed. “Yes, I found you very beautiful. And no, I didn’t think for one minute you sought pain in a relationship. But a virgin? I was weak to bid on you. I want you gone tomorrow. You can have all the personal belongings and the fucking money. I’ll make sure you have a suitcase and your share of the cash deposited in your account in the morning.”
My stomach twisted. Gone wasn’t where I wanted to be.
The game wasn’t over yet. It had only just begun.
I hadn’t convinced him to love me. I hadn’t hurt him yet. The money wasn’t even the biggest issue. Revenge was what mattered. And my dad’s last words.
And one more time together.
“Please. I don’t want to go, Jackson. Give me a chance to show you how much I can care for you. I can make you happy. I can learn. I can do all those things you said.” I opened my thighs and eased my dress up, the obvious wetness of my arousal fragrant and shiny against my legs and panties. Every nerve ending in my body bellowed for his touch as the thought of leaving tore straight through my heart. I wanted him pushing inside me again. Clipping my most sensitive hidden spot that made me want to scream. Sending me to that same place he had a few short hours ago.
More than anything, I wanted Jackson Shipman.
His hands closed into fists, his face contorted in anger. “Care for me? Is that what you’re chasing, princess? Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?”
“Maybe,” I blurted out, quickly wishing I could change my answer.
“Maybe?” His face was hard, his voice clipped, both emotions something I could hardly blame him for feeling. “Who’s made you think you can do that? Joslyn? Is she in this with you?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Silent, I cringed at the mention of her name, his eyes angry and clearly aware of the answer to his question.
“I know people, too, Layla. And you aren’t what I need and I’m most definitely not the man for you. The entire contract was nothing but a farce. A fucking scam. What you did was dishonest and unethical.”
“Jackson,” I breathed, my eyes turning moist. “Please sit back down so I can explain.”
My heart pounded as he sat back down. I opened my legs, brushing a hand down the inside of my thighs. Desperate. Willing. Determined. The peaks of his fingertips reached for the inside of my thigh, running slowly across the dampened material of my panties and pushing just the smallest bit against my wet crease. He raised his hand, licking my arousal from his finger, my cheeks heating. My sex aching.
“Please, I’m begging. Don’t stop touching me. I want this, Jackson. I can learn. You could…” He pushed my panties to the side, forcing me back onto the sectional and plunging through my sex, my words forgotten at the first curl of his long finger, filling me with shameless heated fury.
“Do you know who you’re dealing with, Ms. Richardson? Did Joslyn tell you what kind of man I really am?” He pushed a second and third finger inside me. “If you had any idea what I want to do to you right now, you’d be running as fast and far away as those long legs would take you if you were in your right mind.”
My pulse was racing, the moisture between my legs impossible to contain. His actions were anger-filled, yet they only triggered my emotions. So turned on, I couldn’t fight it any longer. I lowered my hand, brushing a thumb over my aching clit while he pushed his fingers in and out of me in rough punishing thrusts. He grabbed my hand and pushed it behind me on the sofa, sliding his fingers out.
“I say when you get to touch yourself.” The authority in his tone was daunting. Our stares collided as I winced at the slight discomfort from the awkward position of my arm, the look in his eyes beaming satisfaction and power. I tried to shift and lessen the unpleasantness, but he only tightened his grip, pushing a knee underneath my leg to lift me just enough to have access to my butt. He slapped it with a firm palm, my body tensing from the unusual, stinging sensation.
“Nothing about this is a farce,” I whispered, almost wishing for another slap on my ass. “I wanted you the first time I saw you in the courtroom, even though I couldn’t admit to it because I knew it was wrong. The auction was the only way I knew how to get close to you. Through Joslyn. And Venture. Please…”
“Please what, Layla? Give you another taste of my hard cock? Perhaps another smack across your ass?” He lowered his hand against the front of his Nike shorts, palming his erection. “Maybe you’d like to know how I gave it to your good friend. Would that turn you on? Did she tell you how she likes it, princess?”
I was chewing on my bottom lip like a starving dog with a fresh bone. Where was all the air? I couldn’t breathe normally. Not watching him touch himself. He was so hot and sexual. His threat to slap my butt again only tripled the desperation I felt. I was dying to feel that sensation again. I hoisted my hips, begging him to keep doing what he started, any left-over pain in my core be damned. The sting still prominent on my butt cheek welcome.
The heartfelt, sickening fact that my best friend had been with him in the most intimate of ways hit me unusually hard. I didn’t want him with other women. I couldn’t stand the thought.
My eyes filled with unwanted sentiment. “Do what you need with my body. Whatever pleasures you. Just please … make love to me, Jackson.”
Abruptly, he glared at me like I had two heads and sucked in a sharp breath, while I regretted my choice of words again. A cold, stone-hearted scowl crossed his face and he rolled off of me like he’d seen a ghost.
His jaw tightened. “Make love?” he hissed, tugging at the sides of his mussed hair. “Fucking is what I do, Layla. Fucking. Love has nothing do with it. Don’t think you can change me, sweetheart. You’d be wasting precious time.”
Chapter Fifteen
Layla
You’d be wasting precious time.
Why did those words bother me so much? Why did I feel so vulnerable? Why did I feel like curling up in a ball and crying myself to sleep? Giving up wasn’t an option. I still had a plan to carry out. But more than any plan, I needed to forget the way his touch made me shudder. The way his eyes made me want to fall deep and stay forever.
I needed Jackson Shipman out of my … heart.
After thirty minutes of sitting outside thinking of what I would or could do to have him touch me again, my ideas were next to none. I walked inside to see Jackson standing in the kitchen with a water bottle to his lips, gazing out the windows. Neither of us spoke as I opened my own bottle of Ozarka, both trying to avoid the elephant consuming the tension-filled room.
“Jackson, I’m sorry,” I said in my softest sweetest tone. “I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”
His voice gruff, he disregarded my apology. “Give me your phone, Layla.” Surprised by his order, I handed him my cellphone and he saved both his numbers on my contact list.
“Now. You have two choices.” He stepped closer and lifted my chin. “You’ve lied. Betrayed me. Deceived Venture.” His forefinger brushed over my bottom lip before taking both sides of my jaw between his large hands and squeezing. “You can either pack your things so we can both move on and forget…” My stomach bolted as I cut him off in mid-sentence.
“My second option?”
His brows shot up and he pulled me against him, my pulse running a marathon against the strum of his hard bulge through his thin jogging shorts. Totally ridiculous t
houghts of ripping off my clothing and brazenly throwing myself on him filled my head, knowing I’d never do something so pathetic and desperate.
Or knowing I already had.
“The second option is to stay with me the full eight weeks and learn what it feels like to be so turned on when there’s a touch of pain involved, that the discomfort evolves into the most incredible pleasure your body will ever experience. Become familiar with having your ass burn so severely that it turns to ecstasy and you plead for more.” A rush of pleasure twisted through me from the way he was looking at me with lust behind his eyes. Everything between my legs pulsed with need.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
I didn’t need hours, or even minutes. I already knew I’d take him any way he offered.
The beautiful bastard.
“I don’t need hours, Jackson. I don’t want to go.”
“I expect you to always answer when I call your cell. Is that clear?” In any other situation, I would have popped back with a bitter response, but with Jackson I could barely manage an okay as I swallowed the lump in my throat.
He raised his water bottle, draining the contents, the flexing of his biceps and his Adam’s apple bulging with each swallow only a few of the things making every spot on my body boil. The insane craving to have his hand slap my ass again sent a shiver through me. I didn’t understand that.
I’d dated hot guys in the past, but Jackson was… God, I didn’t know what Jackson was anymore. Honestly, I didn’t understand what any of this meant, but one thing I knew perfectly was that the game I’d spent so much time planning was falling to pieces.
Still in running shorts and shoes, his legs were long and toned, full of strength and so perfectly capable of holding me down and preventing me from moving even an inch. His arms were strong, decisively cut on top, while his forearms flowed with sexy thick veins. All those things made me shudder with desire. Thoughts of him restraining my movement as he violated my body sent a hot lust coiling through my body. So turned on again as my gaze froze against his striking full chest, he only frowned.
I ran my fingers down his toned abdomen, stopping at his waistband and thinking of nothing but his large erection pounding away inside me seconds before he lost himself to orgasm. His fingers brushed against mine, sending a wave of shivers down my spine. Slowly, he continued trailing up my arm, rising over the swelling of my nipples.
“Jackson,” I whimpered, his gaze cutting through mine. We locked eyes for a long minute.
“I need a shower, Layla,” he whispered in my neck.
Words were suddenly unspeakable. My head was a mix of foggy emotion, making it hard to remember what I was doing all this for. This game that had suddenly become desire—conceivably, it had evolved into something much, much bigger. I was a woman playing with fire.
“Don’t go, Jackson,” I whispered.
“Christ, as much as I know I shouldn’t, I want you, Layla.” There was a sensuality to his voice that I felt all the way through my spine. He tightened his grip around my waist and walked us toward the stairs. Once we reached the library, he stopped, pulling me inside and sealing his mouth over mine with a lingering passionate kiss, the stroke of his tongue still cool and moist from his water. Every lick of his tongue made the earth stop. There was nothing but his thick mouth on mine, his body against me. No contract. No eight weeks. No game. Dear God, I wanted him more than ever.
“I can’t wait to be inside you.” He was yanking at my clothes, tugging the long maxi dress over my head, along with my panties and bra, tossing them hurriedly to the floor before I could catch my next breath. And then my breast was in his mouth.
“Your breasts are so beautiful.” His voice was deep and needy as he sucked a nipple deep between his lips, biting just the corner. My core stiffened as I felt the press of his growing erection against my thigh. I slid my hands over his narrow hips, lowering the running shorts, his eyes dark and burning. Concentrating on the sexy curve that met his thigh, instantly I was grinding against his erection, thinking of him inside me pushing, thrusting, clipping my tender velvety spot. There was a raging fire inside me, almost to the point of an aching throb.
He eased me against a long, wide shelf of old-looking books, my back scratching the rough edges as I caught just the smallest whiff of aged novels. He slid down the front of me, his tongue covering my cleft that was wet with desire, the feeling so intense that I pulled against his bare shoulders while my nails ferociously dug into his skin.
“Candy … fucking candy,” he muttered, looking up at me as my sex throbbed more and more with every slide of his tongue. My vision blurred as I watched him lick and kiss every inch of my slick sex, twirling and fluttering his tongue over my clit. My hips vigilantly jolted and rocked shamelessly into his face.
“God, yes. Yes, Jackson,” I whimpered as he blew a long breath against me, the pleasure nearly painful. Again and again, he devoured me, my hands tugging insanely through his hair and into his scalp, forcing his lips against me even tighter as my entire body lifted off into forgetfulness while he pleasured me with his tongue.
“Layla,” he breathed. “That’s it. Let it go.” Deeper and deeper he plunged into me, skillfully smoothing his tongue over and inside me, continuing the persistent licking and suctioning like a man trained to know every single nerve ending on the female anatomy.
“Yes,” I whimpered, my body straining and trembling, on the very edge.
Stroking me with long deep laps of his tongue, he sealed his lips around me and grazed the edge of my clit with his tooth. Every muscle in my body tightened, then abruptly broke out into a stupefying climax, my hands squeezing and jerking at his head as my torso arched, twisting and thrashing against his mouth as I felt nothing but beautiful pleasure.
“Christ, that was beautiful,” he murmured against my inner thigh, slowly trailing up my body with sticky kisses and easing me onto the chaise lounge section of the dark brown leather sofa. “I love watching your body react to me, Layla.” He stretched his legs and spread my knees apart, leaning his lips into mine and ravishing me with his tongue that was slick with my taste. My hands pressed at his hips as he pushed his entire swollen length inside me in one quick, unbending motion. Any lingering pain I’d had was long gone. I hoisted my hips upward, only to stop for a quick second to somewhat calibrate my body to the welcome stretch of his length and wide girth.
No games right now, I was exactly where I wanted to be. Pleasuring Jackson. Giving him every inch of my body. Offering the one thing he understood, yet everything I didn’t. My full submission.
His eyes darkened with pleasure as I eased my feet up, widening myself even further, welcoming him to every spot on my body that he desired. I wanted him absolutely everywhere. Deeper. Harder. This moment… I wanted it never-ending.
His dark heated gaze stared into mine while his fingers buried deeper into the tops of my thighs as he took me in deep fierce drives, using me with a complete grinding energy. Controlling me.
Taking just a little more of my innocence.
Stealing just a fraction more of my strength.
Freefalling deep into a place he shouldn’t be—my heart.
Making my plan seem like nothing but a long, lost, ridiculous thought.
My cries grew louder with every strong thrust of his heavy erection. Guilt a long-gone afterthought, this was way more than that now. This was need. Greater than any longing or urgency my body had ever experienced. If he stopped what he was doing, I knew I may very well crack.
“Jackson,” I whimpered, pulling his hips against me, feeling ever muscle tightening in his abs. Every vein flexing in his hard cock. “You feel so good.” I whispered the four words I knew threw him off his game just a little, slipping from my tongue for the first time, without a hidden agenda.
“Open your legs, baby. Let me all the way in.”
I did as he said, spreading even wider as my legs wrapped around his waist, meeting him with each heavy thrus
t.
“Jackson, I love how you feel inside me.” Stroking his ego, I was still trying with everything I had to make him care for me. Why was it so easy to do? How did the words slip out so effortlessly? Why was thought no longer necessary?
“Stop fucking saying that,” he groaned, his eyes full of troubling agitation. He looked flustered. Unsettled. Just the way I intended.
His thrusts hardened as he fucked into me with pounding deep strokes, a groan building in his chest. Seconds later, I was flying into a beautiful place, digging my fingers into his back and pulsing deep in my core, having no earthly inclination how a man I once loathed on this level had me trembling through another intense orgasm that went on and on. He was simply fucking me. Using my body for his own selfish desires. Getting what he paid for. Impaling into me as far as my body permitted.
Pulling me under his spell just a little more.
I hoisted into him and he plunged hard one final time before slowing his frantic thrusts into an unhurried, smooth, deep pulse.
“Layla,” he groaned, his body tightening, his eyes closing. He dropped his head against my throat while I felt the warm sensation of him emptying inside me.
“Christ.” His body fell limp against me.
Tears settled on my cheeks, leaving me a gasping, emotional wreck as a bead of sweat from his temple dripped between my breasts. Reaching for just the smallest touch, the least bit of closeness, I sighed into his chest, stroking his back and over his incredible ass. He ignored my touch, sliding out of me and immediately reaching for his shorts to pull over his semi-erect length.
Still just a nothing, I was simply his newest purchase. It was still merely sex. No cuddling afterward. No kissing. No intimacy of any kind. Simply a woman he’d purchased on an auction stage.
“You felt nice, Jackson,” I whispered in my sweetest voice, licking my lips and rubbing my hand across my still sensitive breasts. He watched, the bulge behind his running shorts venting yet again. I didn’t care that he told me to stop saying he felt good.
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