by BETH KERY
Breaking her.
She shattered in orgasm.
“Fuck,” she heard him mutter. Climax spiked through her flesh, shaking her, and he was lifting her to an almost upright position, her back still slightly tilted forward, his cock lodged high in her. He filled his hands with her breasts and bent his knees. He drove his cock into her in short, powerful jabs. He growled, deep and harsh. Alice’s world quaked. She was a single vibrating nerve of pleasure, her sole purpose to burn. Another wave of climax tore through her as he took his fill of her in that position, pushing her down on his thrusting cock with his hold on her even as he bucked his hips, plunging into her.
He grunted in what sounded like pure frustration.
“I can’t last. You’re too hot, Alice. Hands back on the desk.”
She reached for the edge of the desk blindly, bending over. Her breasts still held fast in his hands, he pumped forcefully. He sank into her and stayed, pressing his testicles tightly against her outer sex. His cock swelled and jerked in her channel. She cried out, anguished by the sensation. His groan started out low. He gripped her breasts tighter, and the groan grew louder, rougher, the harsh, tearing sound filling her ears.
He was coming. His cock filled her so completely that she felt the spasms in his flesh as he emptied himself, the sensation powerful, fierce, and yet somehow sweet. Poignant.
Their ragged breathing twined in the still room. Alice’s head had fallen forward. Her short sweat-dampened hair was plastered against her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She lifted her head, and his hand moved on one of her breasts, his taut hold gentling. A fingertip feathered her nipple. She stifled a cry of dawning misery.
Of renewed arousal.
What did you just do?
“Quiet,” he breathed out, gently touching her nipple again, circling the crown with his fingertip. Had he heard the trapped cry in her throat? “It’s going to be okay,” he said. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but his touch felt so good. She wasn’t ready to come to terms yet with what she’d just done.
You jumped on Durand’s biggest boss, all because you got as freaked out as a child by a distant figure in the woods. You’re not a little girl. You’re a grown woman in excellent physical condition. You’ve been known to occasionally make your worthless uncles and their loser friends squeal in desperate pain.
Had there really been someone behind her? Suddenly, the whole memory seemed surreal, like she’d been pursued by a nightmare.
A phantom.
Dylan opened his hands at the stretch of skin above her breasts, just below her shoulders, and lifted her several inches, pushing her against him. Her back was plastered to the front of him, his cock still skewering her. His hand slid back down over her breasts. He lifted them, cradling them with his palms. He gently pinched her sensitive nipples. She moaned softly, her clit twinging with arousal. One big hand skimmed down her bare belly, lightly caressing her damp skin, making her shiver. He touched her outer sex.
“Dylan …” she protested shakily. She quivered when he slid his forefinger between her labia. He rubbed her lubricated clit. How had he known tension still lingered in her flesh? Here again, he knew precisely what he was doing. “Oh,” she ground out, her body tightening. Christ, it feels good.
“It’s okay,” he rasped from behind her. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me, Alice.”
She moaned. What the hell was she doing here? Not just in Dylan’s arms with his cock embedded in her and his hand working its magic between her thighs … here at Camp Durand. Did she actually think she could ever be accepted?
He’d asked her to trust him, but Alice didn’t trust easily … if at all. It didn’t matter. Dylan was trumping everything, including fear and doubt. Isn’t that why she’d so uncharacteristically, brazenly seduced him?
She was shaking again in climax beneath his sure hand in under a minute, compounding her sins …
Unable to do anything in the moment but submit to the glory of it.
SHE realized with a sinking sensation that while she was nude, save for her socks and shoes, Dylan was almost fully dressed. It seemed to symbolize their whole encounter, Alice realized as she scuttled for her discarded clothing a few minutes later. Alice had been caught red-handed in the midst of her naked vulnerability, while Dylan had exposed only what was required to silence her panicked frenzy.
He’d wrapped up the condom and disposed of it, then tucked himself back into his jeans before she even had a chance to untwist her shorts and panties. She kept her face lowered to hide her red cheeks—to prevent him from seeing her shame—but after a moment, she felt his stare on her like a brand on her skin nevertheless. She started to step into her panties, but her vulnerability overwhelmed her.
“Turn away,” she said angrily.
“What?”
His slightly stunned tone made her grit her teeth. Her eyelids stung with humiliation.
“Turn away while I dress. Please,” she grated out, barely tamped down emotion constricting her throat.
His hissed curse made her heart jump, but then she heard the subtle sound of his boots on the wood floor. She glanced up hopefully. He’d turned, although something about the stiffness of his back told her loud and clear he wasn’t happy with her request and might change his mind at any moment. She dressed like she thought it was a race event in a Camp Durand competition. By the time she was finished, her breath was coming in jagged pants just like it was after she’d climaxed so thunderously just moments ago.
Twice.
“Are you done?” he asked, and she could tell by the heavy sarcasm in his tone he was pissed.
She straightened and lifted her chin. You flew across the forest suspended by a skinny little wire, certain you were going to die at any second. You can look Dylan Fall in the face.
“Yes.”
He turned around.
In that moment, she would have gladly chosen to zip line straight off the Sears Tower and plunge to the earth instead of meeting his lancing stare.
“I don’t know why I did”—she swallowed thickly, finding it hard to name what she’d just done with Dylan—“that,” she said, waving lamely at the desk.
“I know.” He paused, and then nodded once as if he’d come to some decision. “I want you to come to my house tonight.”
She made an incredulous sound of disbelief and laughed. “Why?”
He met her stare and shrugged slightly, his bland expression saying, Isn’t it obvious?
“Are you crazy?” she sputtered.
“No,” he said grimly, turning toward her. “Are you?”
“No!”
“So this is all par for the course for you?” he asked, arching a dark brow inquisitively and glancing at the desk, where Alice had just been screwing him like her life depended on it moments ago. A wave of humiliation swept through her, fury hot on its heel.
“What if it is par for the course for me? What business of it is yours? Just because I fucked you once doesn’t mean I want to make it a habit. Screw this,” she mumbled hotly, stalking toward the door. She jammed back the dead bolt forcefully. She hoped her chaser was still out there, because she’d kick his ass for getting her into this situation.
Ghost pursuer or not.
“Alice.”
She paused in her flight, hating her automatic reaction to Dylan saying her name. Still, she remained with her back to him. Defiant, but …
Listening.
“I know that you’re feeling out of sorts. Overwhelmed, being here at Camp Durand.”
Her heartbeat started to throb in her ears. “Because I don’t belong here, you mean?” she snapped.
“No. Because you’re afraid you don’t belong here. But you do. Alice, look at me.”
He spoke very quietly, but there was steel in his tone. She found herself turning and looking over her shoulder, unable to continue looking away, just like that first time during her interview. He hadn’t moved, but meeting his stare made him seem to zoom closer in her consci
ousness, like a weird camera lens effect.
“Do you remember how I told you about that man on the Durand board? The one who grew up in the Austin neighborhood in Chicago?”
She nodded warily. He made a subtle gesture with his hand in the direction of his abdomen.
She spun around fully.
“You were talking about yourself?” she asked numbly.
He nodded.
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. “You. You came here as a camper when you were twelve years old?”
“It saved my life,” he said with absolute certainty. “If it weren’t for Camp Durand, I’d be dead or rotting in a prison cell right now.”
She just stared. Her brain couldn’t seem to absorb the news. Smooth, intimidating, supremely confident Dylan Fall had once been described in a camper packet like the one she’d received last night? Her imaginings about that piratical, ruthless edge to him had a basis. What had that long-ago assessment said? Teachers have noted flashes of pure brilliance interspersed with belligerence and uncooperativeness, frequent school absences and tardiness, aggression and frequent fighting.
She imagined the words, of course. Still, the description somehow fit his independence and that blade hinted at just beneath the polished sophistication, that vague, but ever-present idea that if you didn’t give him exactly what he wanted, you just might end up pinned against the wall, staring helplessly into Fall’s shining dark eyes and feeling the carefully concealed razor edge of his personality firsthand.
Alice certainly understood that edge all too well now, although not in the aggressive sense. The sexual one.
“So you see, I have more than a glimmer of understanding of what you’re experiencing here,” he said. “You feel like an outsider. Part of you is sure that at any moment, someone is going to discover the truth about you, and kick you out on your ass.”
“You think we’re alike?” she asked with sarcastic incredulity. “You think you know me because you were a little kid at Camp Durand? I’m not a twelve-year-old child.”
“I’m not either,” he bit out, the sizzling thread of anger in his tone making the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. For a moment, neither of them spoke while Dylan seemed to master his flash of anger.
“I’m a thirty-four-year-old man who is the leader of one of the most successful, profitable companies in the world. My everyday decisions affect thousands of Durand employees and their families across the globe. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have some distant thought—no matter how brief—that someone isn’t going to expose me for what I am, and kick me straight back to the gutter where I belong.”
The silence throbbed in her ears. She couldn’t draw breath.
After a tense few seconds, he exhaled and shook his head as if to clear it.
“Leave your cabin at exactly nine thirty tonight and head toward the stables. Your duties will be finished by nine, and the night staff will take over supervision of the kids. The counselors are free to do what they want after that. Make up a story to your roommate and leave your cabin.”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said honestly. “Why should I?”
“Because you need something to ground you while you’re here. You’re overwhelmed. You’re second-guessing yourself constantly. I see it on your face.”
She made a sound of self-disgust. Was she that transparent? “Nobody else seems to think so,” she said in her defense, thinking of Thad saying he’d never guessed she was sick following the zip-line challenge.
“Nobody else probably can read you like I can,” he said with a silky calmness that infuriated her. “I told you. We have something in common. Are you really going to try to convince me that you haven’t been overwhelmed being here?”
She clenched her teeth and raised her chin.
“That’s what I thought,” he said when she refused to confirm or deny it. “You’ll come to the house. I want you there.”
“For sex,” she stated more than asked, her voice flat with amazement at his gargantuan presumption.
“You could come to study the Durand reports, like I asked you to last night. Or you could come to talk. Or you could come and get what you just got in this office. Many times over, if I have my say about it,” he added with a hard glance that sent a thrill through her. He paused. “Are you scared right now, Alice?”
“No,” she bit out honestly.
“Right. You’re pissed. You’re worked up,” he emphasized, taking a step toward her. “But you’re not scared.” He shrugged slightly in a “well, then?” gesture. “I’ll leave what we do during the night up to you.”
“I’m not traipsing around in these woods at night by myself after what happened out there,” she said, pointing in the general direction of the woods.
“Good. I don’t want you wandering around by yourself until I get a handle on what happened. Stick with your friends, staff, and the kids in the meantime. Don’t wander off.” He noticed her expression and guessed at her amazement. “I’ll be waiting for you when you leave your cabin tonight. I’ll make sure no one sees us. This is between you and me, and I expect you to keep it that way,” he said with a hard, pointed glance. “But I’ll be there. In the woods. Head toward the stables. I’ll join you just as soon as you’re out of anyone’s vision. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She swallowed thickly at his forceful repetition of what he’d said earlier.
“So … you … you saw him, too?” she asked hoarsely, pointing toward the woods. Her flash of hope mortified her. She dropped her stare furtively, worried he’d notice it. “You believe me about the man chasing me?”
“Of course I do.”
Her gaze shot to his at his utter confidence.
“You did see him?”
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t have to see him. Maybe you don’t think we’re alike, but I can guess at one thing we probably have in common, given our backgrounds. We don’t spook easily. One look at your face out there just now,” he said, nodding in the direction of the stable entrance, “and I knew for sure you were convinced the devil was on your heels.”
The ensuing silence was deafening.
“I’m not agreeing to come,” she said.
“You’ll come. Head toward the stables, and I’ll meet up with you on the path.”
He stepped toward her, impervious to her dazed state, and finished unlocking the door.
THE whole experience—the person chasing her through the woods, the scorching sexual escapade with Fall, and his subsequent outrageous proposal that she continue carrying on with him—left her in a strange state indeed.
She’d heard people who were in a state of shock could operate on automatic mode, going through the motions of survival without really being aware of what they were doing or how they were doing it. As Alice waited for the arrival of the buses filled with campers that brilliant summer day, she figured that’s what was happening to her. True, this morning had been earth shattering and totally unbelievable. But with her mind and spirit focused elsewhere, it was also kind of hard to work herself into the feverish anxiety she’d been in when she’d awakened this morning, before she’d jogged on the beach …
Before Fall.
She couldn’t stop replaying those taut, intensely erotic moments with him. She’d grow hot and restless at the most inopportune times. It all seemed dreamlike in the vivid bright light of day. Then she’d feel the tenderness between her thighs, the slight, strangely pleasant ache that was her constant reminder. Her sex still felt primed, like the desire she’d experienced had been so great, it needed hours or days to fully dissipate.
It’d been real. He had. Their mutual desire was tangible still.
She blinked, coming out of her torrid memories when she noticed Thad watching her. They were standing next to each other, awaiting the arrival of the busloads of campers.
“You certainly are calm about all this,” Thad observed. “As usual.”
�
�Is that how I look?” she asked with a small laugh. “If that’s the impression I’m giving, I really am a much better actress than I thought.”
Or I’m a hell of a lot more shell-shocked.
“I think it’s more than acting,” Thad said very quietly, as if he didn’t want his voice to carry to anyone else in the crowd of people waiting. The Camp Durand staff was all there, waiting at the edge of the forest: counselors, the Durand managers, and various other employees hired every year for camp: a cook, a nurse, a tennis instructor, two lifeguards, night supervisors, a janitor, a man who worked in the small boat marina, and even Gordon Schneider, the stables manager. A flash of heated embarrassment had gone through her when someone had introduced her to Schneider a few minutes ago, and she recalled what she’d been doing against the man’s desk early this morning.
The counselors wore their team flag like a scarf in various conspicuous places so that the arriving campers could identify them easily—Alice, like most of the other counselors, had her red flag tied around her neck, but Thad wore his orange one around a golden muscular biceps. Kuvi jauntily displayed her diamond flag on her head, tied like a pirate’s scarf, and was pulling off the look adorably.
Alice glanced at Thad sideways. “What do you mean?” she asked him in a hushed tone.
“Don’t you ever get ruffled?” Thad murmured, his voice barely audible above the chattering, excited crowd surrounding them. “You’re like Patton heading into battle.”
She shook her head. “Like I’ve told you before, I’m an actress and didn’t know it, then. Shame they don’t have theater as one of the activities around here. I’m scared stiff about being a miserable failure with these kids. With Camp Durand in general.”
“You told me while we were in the woods the other day that you came from a similar background as a lot of the campers,” Thad said. A wave of regret swept through Alice. She shouldn’t have told him about her childhood during their amiable interlude in the forest. She’d revealed too much. What if he mentioned it to Tory or Brooke, and the news somehow reached the Durand managers or Kehoe? Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Look at where Dylan Fall had come from, after all? She still couldn’t believe that revelation.