Cade didn’t waste one second pulling her into his arms the minute the doors closed behind them and they were alone in the elevator.
“Jessie,” he said huskily, as he reached down to kiss her. “You’re sure you want to stay, right?” He braced himself for any answer, ready to turn right around and get in a cab if he had to.
“I want to stay.”
At the simple declaration, he kissed her again, and again as they reached the hall, and again at the apartment door, and again as they stepped into the entryway.
Easing her against the wall, he fully invaded her mouth with his tongue. She sucked on him, her hands traveling under his jacket, pushing it back, as hungry to touch him as he was to explore her.
He began to unbraid her hair. It fell in thick sections against his fingers and he let out a soft groan of pleasure when he finally got his hands into her mane.
“Your hair is amazing,” he whispered, peppering her throat with kisses. “You are amazing.”
When the braid was free, he pulled the locks forward, over her shoulders, and let it tumble down to her chest. He stroked the strands, and his palms covered her breasts.
Under her sweater, he could feel her nipples bud, her breath coming through her parted lips in tight, ragged bursts.
“Time to unzip Jessie,” he said into a kiss, finally hooking his finger into the zipper hoop that some designer had added to the sweater just to torment men. “I haven’t thought about anything but this all day.”
The first few zipper teeth scraped open. She arched into him, riding his erection and offering him her breasts. A strip of a black bra appeared under the sweater.
His throat went bone-dry at the sight.
“Courtesy of The Closet,” she said with a little laugh.
He trailed a kiss down the flesh of her throat, dipping into the rise of her breasts, sliding his tongue over the silky, feminine flesh. “Remind me to thank Scarlet.”
“Don’t you dare,” she gasped.
He chuckled, easing the zipper lower with one hand, then spreading the sweater back.
He traced the black lace with his tongue and she rose on her tiptoes to offer him more. His thumb grazed her nipple, sliding against the satin of the bra.
“Cade.” Her voice was raw with tension and desire. “Please. I can barely stand.”
She didn’t need to say more. Wordlessly, he picked her up in his arms, kissing her mouth as he carried her across the living room to the bedroom. As he laid her on the bed, she pulled him down on top of her.
In a tangle of wild, wet kisses and hungry hands, he took off her sweater and pants, and she lay on the bed in the sexiest black bra he’d ever seen, and black lace panties, her hair spread like fiery silk over his bed.
“I can’t believe this,” he said, the awe and ache making his voice hoarse. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”
Her smile was dubious as she started to unbutton his shirt. “You never imagined.”
He snorted. “Wanna bet?”
Her fingers froze and she looked up at him. “You imagined this? I mean, before tonight? Or last night?”
Cade closed his eyes and let her finish the job of unbuttoning his shirt, then he shimmied out of it. Sliding down next to her, he lined up their bodies, easing his hand over her tiny waist to turn her toward him. He took a deep breath and willed his aching arousal to resist her for just a few more minutes.
He would be inside her. He knew that. But first, she had to know that this was not just a convenient office affair.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I want you to know this before we make love.”
In the dark, she looked at him, her eyes wide, her lips parted. He could feel her heartbeat hammer through her whole slender body.
“I noticed you the minute you walked into Charisma,” he said, thinking back on the first time the auburn-haired beauty walked in his office. The first time he smelled that hint of spring and saw the grass-green eyes of Jessie Clayton. “I remember the first word I thought of when I looked at you.”
“What was it?”
“Fresh.” He tipped her chin toward him, so he could look into her eyes as he shared the memory. “Not like other New York women. You’re so…well, there’s always been something different about you—”
She backed up and laughed a little self-consciously. “Different? Like odd?”
“I mean that in a good way,” he said quickly. He stroked her skin, gliding one finger over her lovely breast and into the cleavage he’d been thinking about since he saw her on the street that morning. “You’re unaffected and real. And there’s something about you that’s…”
He felt her stiffen. He wanted to say familiar. But would she take that wrong? Like she reminded him of one of his sisters or something?
It wasn’t that. It was just that she was…comfortable. “You make me comfortable,” he admitted.
“Yeah? Well, that’s funny because you have just the opposite effect on me.”
“Really?” He tightened his grasp a little. “I make you uncomfortable?”
“Completely,” she said, her lips quirking in a smile. “When I walked into your office for that interview I was totally and completely uncomfortable.”
“Why?” He’d been friendly, easy to talk to. Hadn’t he?
“Because I thought that you were—are—the sexiest guy I ever met.”
He almost choked. “You did?”
“And, let me tell you, it’s very uncomfortable to be so…” She pressed her hips against him and slid one leg around his waist. “Hot. And tingly. During an interview.”
“Oh, man,” he murmured a helpless groan and dropped his head into that irresistible cleavage, gently leaning her on her back. “If I had known that, I would have…”
“What?”
“Well, I would have…” He licked her flesh and with one hand, unclasped the front of the bra.
“You would have what?”
He eased the satin over her breasts, the rosy tips of her nipples jutting out for his mouth. “I would have never let you be uncomfortable. I would have just done…this.”
She started to laugh, but drew in a sharp breath as he closed his mouth over one of her breasts and began to suckle her, his hand caressing the other.
She moaned under his ministrations, her hips writhing against him. Licking the hardened bud, he trailed his fingertips over her stomach, down to where her hips moved to the natural rhythm of sex.
“Are you still uncomfortable, honey?” He inched his fingers into the lace of her underpants.
She nodded. “Terribly.”
He dipped further, touching the tuft of hair, then the moist and swollen bud of her womanhood. “Still?”
“I might die of it,” she said breathlessly.
He eased one finger into her, eliciting a low rumble of pleasure from the throat he kissed. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he whispered into her ear, taking the tender lobe in his teeth as he stroked and caressed her slick flesh with his finger.
She shook her head, unable to talk, her breath ragged and trapped.
He started to kiss his way down to where he touched, anxious and hungry to taste her, dying to make her wildly, insanely and hopelessly uncomfortable.
As he eased her panties down, her fingers dug into his hair, guiding his head. She quivered as his tongue curled against her.
She whispered his name as he blew a soft breath over her. She murmured a plea for more and he tasted her again. Her thighs tightened around his head as he licked her, loving how she trembled and rocked and finally shuddered helplessly with a long, sweet climax.
Kissing the delicate skin of her inner thighs, and nibbling at the dip of her stomach, the underside of her breasts, the heated column of her throat, they finally managed to get him undressed.
“Still uncomfortable?” he asked teasingly.
She half sighed, half laughed. “Not as uncomfortable as I’m about to make you.”
She closed her hands over his shaft and stroked him, making him swell with a surge of blood. He dropped back on the bed, as pain and pleasure and raw need shot up his back, down his legs, blinding him. She feathered his body with kisses and caressed his erection, her soft woman’s hair tickling his chest and stomach as she took him into her mouth.
He groaned in ecstasy, his whole body on fire. Her lips were like satin gloves, her hands steady and relentless as she suckled and stroked and cupped him until he thought he’d scream.
“C’mere, Jessie.” He gently brought her up, as she covered him in more kisses.
The room smelled like sex and flowers, and her lips were salty and smooth. He managed to slide over to the nightstand, retrieve a condom and sheath himself without really ending one long, juicy kiss.
He positioned himself over her, his erection seeking the heat of her. When she lifted her hips to him, he slid in slowly, watching the pleasure unfold over her features, seeing the flush darken her skin and harden her nipples.
She said his name and pulled him down for a kiss, arching sharply to drive him into the warm, wet envelope of her body. As her legs wrapped around his hips, he sucked in a breath, unable to believe the burn, the hot, wicked ache she caused in every cell in his body.
With each thrust, she whispered his name, begged for all of him, dug her nails in his back. Mind-numbing pleasure licked over him as he thrust into her, lost in her sweet, womanly body. Lost in the pretty, fresh sex of Jessie.
She quaked furiously, her muscles spasming around him.
And then he was just so deep and far gone and so utterly lost inside her that he let go until he’d released everything he had inside her.
They didn’t speak or separate or move for a long, long time, until their breathing became normal, and their mixed perspiration chilled their skin. Then he eased himself off her to look at the woman he’d just made love to.
Her hair was everywhere, and her eyes were wide pools of the prettiest color green he’d ever seen.
He’d known she was pretty. Known she was sexy and charming and attractive. But he’d never realized that Jessie Clayton was stunning. He’d never realized she was beautiful.
He broke their peaceful silence. “If I ask you a personal question, will you tell me the truth?”
That made her smile. “If you can’t get the truth out of me now, when we’re naked and basking in the proverbial afterglow, then we’re sunk.”
“You’re right.” He leaned up on one elbow and fluttered some strands of hair through his fingers. “But I really need to know this. To know something about you.”
“What is it, Cade?”
“Why do you hide your eyes and your hair?”
The way she looked at him made him think, We’re sunk.
Five
Cade’s question yanked Jessie from a state of pure rapture to one of stark terror.
“Excuse me?” Her response was a time-buying ploy, accompanied by a not-so-subtle shift in her body that could distract him.
But he wasn’t diverted. “What are you hiding?”
“Cade.” She tried to laugh as though the question were simply ridiculous. Then she leaned up on her elbow to show him her bare, flushed body. “Do I look like I’m hiding something?”
He shook his head, sliding his hands over her waist and backside. “At work, I mean.”
“We’re not talking about work, remember?”
“I just think a woman as beautiful as you would show it off a little.”
She made a face. “I’m not beautiful, but thank you. And, hey, I like my look. If you don’t like it—”
“I like you,” he countered, kissing the tip of her nose for emphasis, then inching down to her mouth. “Can’t you tell?”
She sighed and rubbed her legs over his, their bodies all lined up perfectly again. “I can tell. The question is…”
“Will everyone else be able to tell, too?” He finished her thought perfectly, his eyes glimmering like burned coals.
“We have to be discreet,” she said. “No sex in your office.”
“What about the conference room?”
She narrowed her eyes, but couldn’t help laughing. “Maybe in The Closet.”
His chuckle was just a low and sexy rumble that tickled her insides. As they cuddled into each other, Jessie let the newness of the sensation wash over her. Cade was her lover. Cade McMann was her very own amazing, fabulous lover.
“What about Fin?”
His question jerked her back to reality and she cursed herself for the little gasp she gave in response. “Fin? What about her?”
“She’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t want to shadow her, Cade.” Jessie pulled back enough to look in his eyes. “And you don’t need to tell her about this.”
“I won’t have to. She’s smart. She knows everything.”
Not everything. She doesn’t know her own daughter. “Let’s just try to keep this quiet. It might not—”
“Yes it will,” he said with a tiny squeeze. “It will last.”
Slowly, she raised her face to his. Did he mean that? He answered her with one long, sensual kiss that made her head spin and her body ache for him all over again.
Then he showed her that it could last, at least another hour.
Saturday morning slipped into Saturday afternoon with the same ease that Jessie moved around Cade’s hardwood floors and his comfortably elegant apartment in an oversize Chicago Cubs T-shirt that he lent to her. She called Lainie and told her she’d be home…sometime. He went out for coffee and brought her a toothbrush, then they took a shower in a sparkling marble stall with glass block that poured sunlight over their naked bodies and two shower heads that thoroughly soaked them. They made omelets and made love all afternoon.
In the evening they ordered Chinese and watched Top Gun on a movie channel and afterward, Jessie found a photo album in one of the wall-to-wall mahogany bookshelves, and she “met” his family in Chicago.
His four sisters were as attractive as he, and his mother looked like a modern version of Donna Reed. He walked her through the album, which his mother had lovingly made him when he moved from Chicago to New York. The only sadness in his voice was when they’d come to a picture of his dad, a strapping man who seemed to radiate happiness from every picture, his love for his wife and five children obvious even in the two-dimensional snapshots. Jessie could only imagine how palpable that love must have been in real life.
“Your family is like a storybook of midwestern perfection,” she said, closing the album. “Did you ever argue?”
He chuckled and put the album back on the bookshelf, returning quickly to snuggle with her on the burgundy leather couch. “The girls fought plenty. Over everything. Boys, clothes, who stole whose hairbrush. And, God, don’t even start on how much time they wasted in the bathroom.”
“It must have been fun with all those kids,” Jessie mused. “My siblings were horses and ranch hands. No one ever fought over a hairbrush. Well, maybe a horse’s hairbrush.”
“But you got the bathroom and all your parents’ attention. I had to achieve perfection—in grades and sports and life—to compete with all those girls.” He pulled her into a horizontal lounge, lining their bodies exactly like they’d been most of the past twenty-four hours.
“I had plenty of attention, that’s true,” Jessie agreed. “God knows they wanted me.”
“Then why didn’t they have more kids?”
Jessie swallowed hard. She’d never, ever lied about being adopted. Why would she start now? Why would she keep that secret from her lover?
“I’m adopted,” she said, glancing up for his reaction. “My parents couldn’t have children.”
His eyes flashed at the news. “Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Well, why would you?”
“I don’t know.” He pulled her more securely against him. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you yet. But I’m glad they adopted you. God, just thi
nk about it. I’m so glad…” His voice trailed off, as people often did when they thought about the choice some young unwed mother had to make.
Except that, in this case, that young unwed mother was his boss.
He had to feel the quickening of her heart as she waited for the next question. The one every friend asked: Have you ever tried to find your birth mother?
Before he asked, she slid her hand under his T-shirt and caressed his chest. His low, satisfied groan told her how much he liked her touch. Easily, effortlessly, she trailed her fingers over his skin, dipping into the waistband of his jeans and gliding over the tip of an erection he always seemed to have.
Cade rocked into her fingertips, starting the dance that was already becoming as familiar as it was thrilling. Thank God he was easy to distract. She nibbled his jaw and then his mouth with a long, soulful, openmouthed kiss.
In a matter of minutes, they were shedding clothes and giving in to the temptation to taste and touch each other again.
Naked and ready, Jessie rubbed herself against the muscular planes of his broad chest, the coarse golden hairs tickling her breasts. Cade steadied her hips with his powerful hands and guided her over his erection.
As he entered her, she closed her eyes, dropping her head back as the force of his thrust touched her in the deepest part of her body.
“You didn’t let me finish my thought,” he said softly.
Her eyes popped open, unable to believe he’d go back there now, when they were…
“I know what you were going to say,” she whispered, dipping down to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad she did, too.”
And that, she hoped, would be the last discussion they would have about her birth mother.
But the lie of omission made her heart heavy and when Cade climaxed into her, rasping endearments and words of sweet, honest affection, she closed her eyes and realized that if they got any closer, she’d have to tell him the truth.
And that would change everything.
When they were done, she clung to him, inhaled his scent and selfishly, foolishly, put off the inevitable.
“What are you doing?” Cade tapped on the partially opened bathroom door and it creaked inward. “You’re dressed?”
Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12 Page 35