by Calista Fox
Much to her dismay, Tague’s parents were not partaking in the waltz that just started, but were still seated at their table.
“We’ll make this brief,” Tague quietly said as he guided her in that direction. He shook his father’s hand and told him, “Lively party, as always. I’ll see you in the office on Monday. I look forward to hearing the decision you’ve made.”
“It could certainly change things for you,” his father said in a tight voice. L.L. found that a bit ominous. “And I expect you to maintain the winning track record either way.”
“That’s my intention.” To his mother, Tague conspiratorially warned, “Missy Hartnett is headed your way.”
June glanced over her shoulder, then made a soft tsking sound. “That woman never lets anyone get a word in edgewise.”
“Enjoy the rest of the evening.” He kissed his mother on the cheek before returning to L.L.’s side and offering his arm.
Thanks to Missy Hartnett’s beautiful timing, they made a clean escape.
Previously, Tague had made arrangements with his driver to have the overnight bags delivered to his suite. His assistant had checked him in earlier and provided the electronic card key. They stepped into the foyer of a well-appointed presidential suite.
“Do we really need all this space for one evening?” L.L. asked.
“At least the neighbors won’t hear us.” He winked.
With a soft laugh, she said, “You are wicked.”
“And you like it.”
He hung their coats in the closet. L.L. wandered through the opulent rooms as he slipped out of his jacket and loosened his tie. The apartment was wood-paneled with burgundy and gold accents and boasted, among many attributes and amenities, fireplaces and formal dining and living rooms. Tague met up with L.L. in the study.
“This is gorgeous,” she said. “I’ve been to a couple of events in the Empire Room and the Starlight Roof, but I’ve never stayed here.”
“Fully stocked bar,” he informed her as he removed his cufflinks and put them into his pocket before rolling his sleeves to his elbows. “Would you like a drink?”
“I’ll pass, thanks. I’m a little more interested in what’s standing in front of me.”
“Just a little?”
She smiled, revealing the dimple that drove him wild. Yet despite the sight of it and the fire it sparked in his groin, he frowned.
“Having second thoughts?”
“Hell, no,” he vehemently said.
She eyed him curiously. “Then what’s wrong?”
“I didn’t see much of that dimple this evening. Taking you to a dinner where you didn’t do much smiling is not my idea of a successful date.”
“Oh. Well. I did an awful lot of smiling before the dinner. Didn’t you notice?” She closed the gap between them and reached for his tie, unraveling it. “And when I came in a quiet corner of the Empire Room. Not to mention when I was in your very territorial embrace on the dance floor.”
He stared down at her, watching her fingers deftly slip the buttons on his shirt through their holes.
“Something tells me,” she continued, “that you’re going to leave a huge smile on my face by the end of the night. Dimple and all.”
“It is damn sexy,” he said.
“You’re damn sexy.” Her palms splayed over his chest.
Tague pulled her to him. His lips brushed over hers.
“Thank you for enduring the party,” he whispered.
“Regardless of what you might think, I did enjoy myself. I was with you, after all.” Her emerald eyes sparkled.
“We do seem to be in our own world when we want to be.”
“I find nothing wrong with that.”
“Neither do I.” He kissed her, his tongue sweeping over hers, twisting and tangling.
The glittery material of her gown lightly scraped his skin, but Tague didn’t mind. In fact, it heightened his arousal. His flesh was sensitive to every touch when he was with her. His muscles bunched. His cock throbbed.
They were both breathing hard when he broke the kiss.
She said, “That should pretty much be illegal.”
“Just my warm-up act.”
“I’m on fire.”
“Then we should get you out of this dress.”
29
His fingers twined with the thin straps on her shoulders and he eased them downward, the front peeling away to her waist once more. Then he gave the material a gentle shove at her hips and caught the garment before it dropped to the floor. He knelt before L.L. and helped her out of the sparkly silver dress and sandals.
He straightened and draped the gown over a wingback chair. Returning, he took L.L. in from head to toe in a long, slow gaze, memorizing every gorgeous inch of her and marveling at the little imperfections that made her less pedestal-goddess and more tangible female.
“You really are quite stunning,” he told her, incapable of not worshipping her at least a tiny bit.
“Stop staring and start touching.”
He led her to the desk against the wall. Clasping her waist, he lifted her up so she was perched on the edge. He spread her legs wide, propping her feet on the desk. Tague’s head dipped and he drew her nipple deep into his mouth. Sucked hard.
“Oh!” she cried out. Her back bowed, pressing the plump mound against his face. His tongue flitted over the pebbled bead before he suckled again, causing her to dig her nails into his shoulders. “That makes me so wet.”
He peered up at her. “I want you dripping. For me.”
L.L.’s breath hitched.
He paid the same attention to her other breast, curling his tongue around her nipple then sucking. While his fingers glided along her slick folds, slowly caressing.
“I love feeling your hands and mouth on my body,” she murmured.
He rubbed the pearls against her clit and she let out a sexy whimper.
Everything within Tague pulled tight, stretching to the max. His cock throbbed in erratic beats.
He needed her. Bad.
But pleasuring this woman was currently his sole focus.
His mouth left her breast and skimmed over her quivering stomach, lower to her pussy as he knelt between her legs. His palms pressed along the insides of her thighs. His breath blew against her small, pink lips, glistening with the desire he elicited.
“You could make me orgasm without even touching me.”
He glanced up at her, finding the striking face he’d already come to crave seeing even more mesmeric now, while she was in the throes of passion.
“The way you look at me really is stirring,” she told him.
“As though I’ve never seen anything like you?”
She nodded.
“I haven’t. I told you…everything about you is different.” His tongue whisked over her dewy folds. Tasting her. Toying with her.
“Oh, God.” She bit her bottom lip, stifling a moan.
“No need to hold back, baby,” he reminded her.
She released her lip. “Right. It’s just that I already know how wonderfully insane you’re about to make me.”
Her hand moved from his shoulder to tangle in his hair. The other flattened on the desk to steady her.
He continued gazing up at her, riveted. But also gauging whether she was ready for him.
She pulled in a harsh breath, let it out slowly. Then said, “Do it. Lick my pussy. Make me come.”
His jaw clenched briefly. This would not be like anything she’d ever experienced before. He’d make damn certain of it.
“Tague,” she prompted in a strained voice. “The anticipation is killing me.”
“Trust me, it’s mutual.”
He massaged her clit again with the pearls as an aid and she writhed as more whimpers escaped her.
“You can’t even imagine how amazing that feels,” she told him.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and her head fell back on her shoulders.
Tague spread her slick folds and l
eaned in. His tongue swept along the grooves on either side of the satiny beads, then over the pearls, applying pressure to that swollen knot of nerves. Her hips jerked.
“So incredibly amazing,” she amended on a sigh.
He inhaled the arousing scent of her, the subtle aroma of lilacs mixed with her heat and juices. Excitement tore through him. The taste of her on his tongue only served to stoke the internal flames.
His lips tugged gently at hers and she was instantly wetter.
“Tague…that’s so good.”
His tongue flicked over her clit again, with more pressure, a faster pace.
“Yes,” she said in her sultry voice. “Like that. Just like that.”
She leveraged the hand on the desk to raise up and press herself against his mouth. Her hips rolled with his rhythm.
Tague’s hands slid under her to palm her ass. He alternated between the flittering and the deeper suckling of her folds and clit.
“Tague,” she said on a heavy pant. “I’m going to come.”
His tongue swirled around her opening, rimming it, then pressing in.
She gasped.
“Tague… I’m so close.”
He whisked aside the pearl strand and he tongued her clit as he eased two fingers into her pussy and pumped quickly. He felt the ripples of orgasm build within her.
“Oh, God. Oh, fuck, yes.”
His fingers twisted inside her.
She cried out his name and came against his mouth, hard. Her inner walls clutched his fingers and her hips kept up the rapid, undulating cadence.
“Oh, God!” She quaked from the climax. “That is so fantastic. Oh, goddamn.”
She moaned, dark and throaty. Took several drawn-out moments to savor the release.
Then in her sultry tone, she said, “You make me come so quick, so fucking hard. And I still just want more of you…”
“You can’t imagine how turned on I get watching you, touching you.” He kissed her, his body tightening to an unbearable degree.
Tague ripped his mouth from hers and dragged her panties down her legs, tossing the thong aside. With his gaze locked on her, he hastily unfastened his pants and pushed them and his boxer-briefs over his hips.
“Loralai, I need to be inside you,” he said in a strained tone.
“Yes.”
30
L.L.’s palms were still planted on the desk, her feet on the edge again, her legs opened wide.
Tague slipped a strong arm around her waist and then, skipping the gentle entry this time, he thrust into her, penetrating deep. So very deep.
L.L. cried out. Tague growled.
“Jesus,” she breathed. “That’s exactly what I want. And you just…know it.”
His eyes smoldered as he pulled almost all the way out of her, then plunged back in. Forcefully enough to push the air from her lungs. And send her pulse through the roof.
He repeated the move several times. L.L.’s eyes squeezed shut. Her head fell back. She gave herself over to every sizzling sensation, every wild thrust.
He filled her completely, made her hypersensitive to his steel shaft gliding along her slick walls. Driving into her, fucking her possessively as sharp moans tumbled from her lips.
Her heart hammered and her breath was scarce. She met every thrust with the rising of her hips. Tague’s mouth was on her breast again, making her even more crazed for him. His pace kicked up a notch, so that he was deep inside her, pumping quickly. And she was on the verge of coming.
“So good,” she said in a raspy voice. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
“I need you to come, Loralai.”
She heard the urgency in his tone, his own need for release dark and raw.
His hand at the small of her back slipped lower, his fingers brushing along her cleft as her hips lifted again. He kept up his insistent tempo, the head of his cock hitting her G-spot. Just as his finger dipped into the small hole between her cheeks.
The sensations ignited and she screamed his name. The orgasm tore through her and little white orbs burst behind her closed lids.
“Christ,” Tague groaned. “You squeeze me so damn tight. Loralai. Baby. Fuck!”
She felt his cock surge and pulse. His body convulsed. And then his hot cum flooded her pussy and she came again.
A small eternity must have passed while she tried to bring herself back to reality.
“Loralai.” Tague’s lips were next to her ear and he spoke softly. “Baby. Are you okay?”
“No,” she said, her voice dreamy. “I will never be okay.”
“Loralai.” He started to move away.
“Don’t!” she demanded. “Don’t move. Not an inch.” She could barely breathe, but she could certainly revel in every glorious sensation coursing through her. “I just want to feel you a while longer. Feel you inside me.”
He let out a sexy sound. His mouth skated along her throat, his tongue teasing.
L.L. smiled as he sparked her lust all over again. So damn quickly.
“Give me a few minutes and I could easily fuck you again.” His face nestled in the crook of her neck and his low, rich voice rumbled against her skin.
“You wouldn’t hear me complaining.”
He gently bit her flesh. “This time, I want you fully beneath me.”
“I’m all yours,” she swore. “Whatever you want.”
He unraveled from her. Helped her sit up.
Tague reached for the box of tissues on the corner of the desk and handed her a few.
Then told her, “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the master suite, presumably heading into the bathroom. She tidied up and tossed the tissues.
The volcanically hot release she’d experienced did not keep L.L. from brimming with excitement. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get enough of Tague.
Needing a little something to hopefully calm her too-radiant enthusiasm for what else he might have in store for her, she crossed to the wet bar and poured a snifter of brandy. She inhaled the sensual, oaky scent before she sipped.
Her brain was a jumbled mess, a passion-induced haze clouding it. Her body was hardly her own. It tingled and trembled like never before. Her nipples were still puckered tight, as though Tague’s tongue was fluttering over them. Suckling them.
And the sparks between her legs and deep in her core... Christ, shouldn’t some of that have abated? But no. She was wholly in-tuned to the way he affected her, the way he quickened her arousal and sent it to atmospheric heights.
When he returned, strutting confidently, so magnificently naked, she understood why a woman could bow down to such a divinely created being—even when said woman had sworn she’d never lose herself in a man, because work was her singular focus.
Yet… Tague was a god.
She offered him the snifter as he approached. He took a long sip, then set the glass aside.
Without saying a word, he swept her into her arms and carried her into the bathroom. As he stepped across the threshold, L.L. gaped.
The enormous room was filled with luscious bouquets of velvety red and white roses and verdant leaves in the most gorgeous, crystal-cut vases that caught the dim lighting of the chandeliers and cast dancing prisms throughout the creamy marbled space. Dozens of candles in similarly designed holders were lit. The huge tub was filling with water, rose petals floating on top of the bubbles. There were also petals artistically arranged along the double vanity and scattered on the floor, on the end tables, the armless chairs.
L.L. took it all in, emotion swelling in her throat.
“You did this for me?” she barely managed to ask as tears prickled the backs of her eyes.
“I requested it,” he clarified. “Hotel staff took care of everything.”
“But…you planned this. For me. For us.”
“Yes.”
She’d not ventured into this room when she’d done her quick tour of the suite. All of this was a surprise to her.
“Is there a pro
blem?” he quietly asked.
“No.” She tried to swallow down the lump of emotion. “It’s just that… It’s so beautiful.”
Her gaze flitted from one end of the room to the other. The sensual scent of jasmine and the sultry classical jazz music added to the arousing ambience. “And incredibly romantic.” Her eyes fell on him. “You’re romantic?”
Tague shrugged. “I don’t know, Loralai. I just want to take your breath away.”
31
He set her on the ledge of the tub. He knelt alongside her and stared up at her, something indiscernible and hauntingly evocative glowing in his dark eyes.
She said, “You do, Tague. So easily.”
“Loralai.” He gently grasped her hands. “I didn’t like subjecting you to my mother this evening. She wasn’t nice to you and there’s no real calling her out on it, aside from just continuing to be whom you are and keeping your head held high. Which you did. Fantastically. The converse side is that I wanted you at that dinner, regardless of how she’d behave. It wasn’t fair to you, and yet…” He gave her a serious, earnest look. “I wanted you there. I want you here. I just…want you.” He kissed her forehead, then added, “And I want you to know it.”
“Tague.” Fat drops welled in her eyes, cresting the rims and spilling down her cheeks. He was quick to whisk them away.
“Don’t cry. Please. I don’t want you upset. I want you happy.”
“I am happy,” she insisted. And sniffled.
“We’re both coming from different and yet such similar places,” he said. “We’re our own people. We’re charting our own paths. But we’ve both been hurt. Worse than hurt.” His gaze held hers. “Worse than hurt, right?”
She nodded.
“And that makes us so much more conscientious about what we’re doing, Loralai.” Tague swept away more tears. With conviction in his eyes as they glimmered from the flickering candlelight, he told her, “I won’t hurt you, ever. Not intentionally.”