by Kaily Hart
“So what was earlier? An exorcism?”
Sam winced at the look of hurt on her beautiful features and the sound of her voice. He got the disgust and the anger and accepted them, yet it was the hurt and the sound of unshed tears in her words that tore through him.
“Look, Jillian, I’m captivated by you. Yeah, captivated, and if you knew me better you’d know that’s not a word normally found in my vocabulary.”
“The painting—”
“It’s not that. It’s you. I think that’s maybe why I was drawn to it, because it was you.”
“Yeah? Except you didn’t know me then.”
How did he explain it when he couldn’t, not even to himself?
“Sell it to me.”
He frowned. “What? Do you have any idea how much I paid for it?”
“I know to the dollar.”
“Then you know you can’t afford it. Besides, it’s not for sale. Ever.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
It’s mine and I need it.
He’d bought the house because of the view of the ocean from this room. He wasn’t about to admit he’d rearranged all of his furniture in here so that he could look at the painting of her while he was lying in bed, and to hell with the incredible view. That should have given him some clue.
“So, you were just working some fixation you’ve developed out of your system?”
For weeks Sam hadn’t been able to get off without picturing the painting, fantasizing about sinking into the woman who seemed to taunt him from its depths, visualizing himself fucking her wildly out of control. Now that he had for real? It hadn’t done a thing to lessen the lust, the need that ate at him. He just wanted her all the more. Her. Not the painting. It didn’t have a thing to do with the fucking painting. He hadn’t thought about the damn thing like that once since he’d seen Jillian yesterday. So, where did that leave him and what the hell did he do now?
She turned away from him. It gave him some respite from seeing the pain in her eyes, but he hated that she was already distancing herself from him.
The sex had been out of this world, just like he’d known it would be, even for someone of his experience.
So, how the fuck had it all gone to hell so fast? And how did he fix it?
Sam’s silence was more telling than anything else. Jillian felt the pressure in her chest and the stinging sensation in the back of her throat that she absolutely refused to give into. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
Even now her body felt the echo of what it’d felt like to have him inside her, holding her, kissing her. It’d been incredible, she’d really felt a connection with him. And him? It had been what? A chance for him to fuck his fantasy in the flesh? An added bonus for the fortune he’d shelled out for it? A chance to see if she delivered on the promise explicit in her gaze in the painting?
“Outstanding,” she drawled, knowing she sounded bitter, but what the hell? “I hope I lived up to your expectations.”
She needed to get away from him. She had such lousy taste in men. She went for the hot guys and they always turned out to be selfish assholes. Why couldn’t she fall for a boring guy who’d treat her like a queen? Jeez, she’d settle for one not stomping on her heart as he screwed her over. It’d make a nice change.
It was why she hadn’t allowed herself to go this far with a guy in almost two years. But she’d thought what? That he’d felt the same tug she had, the same magnetic pull that had her acting totally out of character and agreeing to a one-night stand, just to be with him? That Mr. Playboy Extraordinaire would suddenly change his ways and fall madly for her? Shit. She knew better than to tell herself that drivel. It just didn’t happen and she’d do well to remember it.
She walked out of the room. He didn’t have the guts to admit it and she didn’t even want to look at him anymore. She was going to grab her stuff and get out of here. Hopefully, he’d do the decent thing and just stay out of her way. She’d known what it was, he’d been more than clear and she’d accepted it. So why did she feel like she could shatter into a million tiny pieces anyway?
Chapter Four
Jillian started when the doorbell rang. All her visitors were supposed to be screened downstairs and announced before being allowed up. She groaned. She just wanted to stay holed up in her apartment for the weekend. She looked down at the loose sweats and frayed tank top. Any way you looked at it, she wasn’t up for visitors.
Peering through the peephole, she frowned.
“I’m not expecting anything,” she called through the door.
She watched the delivery man look down. “It’s addressed to you, Miss. No mistake.”
Jillian sighed and opened the door. The brown paper-wrapped package was large. The guy had to have struggled carrying it up here all by himself. By the shape of it, it looked just like, wait—
“What is it?”
“I just deliver them, Miss.”
She frowned. “Who’s it from?”
“Ah…”
“Me.” Sam stepped into her line of sight.
“Sam.” Jillian felt her heart jump at the sight of him and everything inside her roared to life. All week she’d hoped and prayed she wouldn’t run into him at the office. Thankfully, she hadn’t even caught so much as a glimpse of him. She hadn’t had to pretend an indifference she’d practiced, because she knew now she never would have been able to pull it off.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. She’d never seen him dressed so casually before, not unless you counted a towel as casual dress. It wasn’t fair. What the guy could do for a pair of worn jeans and a simple blue shirt. “What are you doing here?”
He motioned absently to the package, but his eyes didn’t move from her. “I brought you a present.”
“Sam,” she sighed.
“Ask me in, Jillian.”
After a brief hesitation she stepped aside, careful to make sure he didn’t touch her as he strode past. Once she’d closed the door she didn’t have anything to do with her hands, but clasp them together. She knew it telegraphed her unease but the way he was looking at her made her downright nervous. He’d propped the package against the wall of her entry and simply stood looking at her. She’d always loved her condo and considered it spacious, but his presence seemed to make the whole place just seem small and cramped.
She choked back what she’d been about to say to break the awkward silence when he stepped in front of her, ignoring any personal space conventions, and looked directly into her eyes.
“Jillian,” he began, stopped and took a deep breath. “You make me tremble, you know that? No woman has ever been able to do that to me before.”
She tried to ignore the hammering of her heart and the fluttering in her stomach at his nearness. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s yours.”
“What?”
“The painting. It’s yours. No strings.”
“Mine?” Jillian gasped.
“Yeah. Do whatever you want with it. Burn the fucking thing if you want. Slash it to ribbons. I don’t care.”
“You’re giving me a painting worth—”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a piss-poor substitute,” he ground out. “Because I want you. Just you. Even if I never see you again, never get the chance to touch you, be with you, I still wouldn’t want it. Not anymore.”
Jillian frowned. What did that mean exactly?
He rubbed a hand over his lower face. “Look, I’ve never had any problem getting women. I get turned down, sure, but I just move on to the next available, willing woman. No big deal, it doesn’t mean anything. This is not going to do me any favors, but with every other woman since I got that painting I’ve tried to, I don’t know, recreate you. I knew it’d gone too far once I realized I was choosing women because of their resemblance to you and I’ve never really gone for brunettes before. And when I was fucking them, in my bed, in front of the
painting? I was positioning them so that I could look at you.”
Jillian turned away. Just what she needed to hear—him and other women. Was he really that dense?
He grabbed her arm and swung her back to face him.
“Jillian, I’m just trying to make you understand, make you see that you’re different. It’s not just that you’re a woman I’m hot for at the moment, it’s you. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want anyone else. I want you. You.”
He swore when she just continued to look at him. “Christ, do you realize how sexually compatible we are? We just fit.”
“So, we’re matched sexually,” Jillian agreed dryly. “We satisfy each other, so what? You want to keep sleeping together on the side, in secret? Is that it? Because we’ve already established you have a strict rule about that in the workplace, but I’m some anomaly.”
“No. Fuck no. Everyone will know you’re mine. Look, I get bored easily. I don’t even like it missionary, in fact I avoid it like the plague. But with you… Goddamn it.” He waved his arm in the direction of the package. “I don’t want her. It. I want you and not just for a night.”
When she still didn’t say anything he turned away, put his hands on his hips, and bowed his head. His posture screamed dejection. She’d never imagined he could look like that. He was always so arrogant, vital, commanding of everything around him.
“Fuck,” he muttered, as if to himself. “I’ve negotiated some of the most complex, sensitive acquisition deals. I’ve convinced, cajoled, sold myself out of tight spot after tight spot, yet I can’t tell you how I feel.”
“Feel? You’re talking about feelings?”
He turned around and pinned her with a look so filled with heat it made her shiver.
“I didn’t just fuck you with my body, Jillian. I made love to you with my mind too.” He laughed. It was harsh and self-mocking. “A first for me.” He ran the flat of his hand around the back of his neck. “Cut me some slack, okay? It took me awhile to figure it out. Hell, I never even knew sex could be like that.”
Jillian swallowed. “I…I made love to you too, it wasn’t just sex for me. I tried to tell myself it was but I guess I’m just not built that way. That’s why it hurt so much to think you just saw me as this object.”
He framed her face in his big hands and she felt the slight tremor that rippled through him.
“Shh. Jillian, I’m sorry, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I swear it. I was thinking with my dick and I’m probably too used to getting whatever I want where women are concerned. I mean it. I don’t care if I never see that damn painting again. In fact, I’d prefer it. And I can’t bear the thought of anyone else seeing you like that either. Ever since I saw it, it’s like you were looking out at me, like you wanted me, that you were calling to me and me alone. I don’t want for that to be for anyone else.”
Jillian felt the sting of tears at the sincerity of his words and the expression of open longing on his face as he looked down at her. Together they were a lot more than she’d had from any other guy. She stepped into him, welcoming his heat and the shudder that rippled through him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again as his big hands rested lightly on her hips, the touch almost tentative, as he eased her forward until their bodies brushed together.
She placed a finger to his mouth and traced the fullness of his lower lip slowly. He touched her fingertip with a hesitant flick of his tongue, and just like that heat seared through her and she gasped. She saw his eyes darken, his jaw clench. She watched, mesmerized, as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. He nibbled and licked at her lips in slow deliberate movements and she grasped his shoulders when it made her so lightheaded she thought she might fall. She opened her mouth and his tongue immediately plunged inside, thrusting against hers in a familiar rhythm that had her body trembling, on fire, wet and aching in an instant.
Sam ran his mouth in a trail of wet, open kisses up the sensitive cord of her throat. He smiled to himself savagely when he heard the catch in her breath.
“You have any condoms here? I wasn’t expecting to get lucky. I mean, I was hopeful. I was going to be happy if you would just talk to me, but damn, Jillian, I need you. Now.”
“Yeah, somewhere,” she gasped when he tugged on her earlobe with his teeth.
It roared through him. The intensity of it was shocking, the reality of it even more so. He was jealous. The thought of her with another man was like broken glass thrusting and turning in his insides. He’d never been possessive over a woman before but he wanted Jillian all to himself.
“They’re old,” she added. “Very old. Do those things go out of date?”
It placated the beast. Some. “If they are, there’s other stuff we can do. I’ve regretted all week not letting you finish, for selfishly wanting you under me that first time. Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about you coming against my mouth and how often I’ve thought about coming in yours?”
* * * * *
Jillian was lying on her side facing the mirror with Sam behind her, pressed up against her length and buried so deep in her that she could barely breathe. Well the inability to breathe probably had more to do with what he’d been doing to her clit with his tongue for the last twenty minutes, but she didn’t think she’d ever get used to the feeling of his fullness inside her. Her leg was up and back over his thigh giving them a clear view of where he was buried up to his balls inside her.
She groaned. God, the guy was inventive. He’d eagerly explored her condo while she’d tracked down the box of condoms, and had her mattress off the bed and onto the floor right in front of her full-length mirrored closet doors by the time she’d returned. The wicked look he’d sported was something she wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
He flexed his hips and she gasped, fascinated by the sight of his heavy testicles swaying and brushing her sensitive skin as he moved. Jillian hesitated when she realized her hand was moving, drawn to where they were joined.
“Go on,” he groaned. “Touch us.”
Jillian reached down between her legs, feeling her own slickness and cupped his balls, kneading them gently as he began to thrust slowly and deeply in a rhythm that was sure to drive her out of her mind. She felt them tighten in her palm and he groaned hotly against her neck again.
“That feels good, sweetheart. Yeah, so fucking good.”
He slid his hand down her abdomen, brushing the quivering curve until he reached the stretched, swollen flesh between her legs. He rubbed with his rough fingertips, spreading her moisture over and around her already sensitized clit. Jillian whimpered.
She shivered at the image in front of her. She’d never seen anything so graphic before. She couldn’t keep her eyes from where they were joined, her gaze locked on his cock as it moved in and out of her in a slow, powerful rhythm. The condoms hadn’t been old and she could just make out the edge of it each time he withdrew, glistening with her moisture.
And Sam was watching her. He wasn’t looking at their reflection; he was looking down at her face. She raised a trembling hand up and back to touch his cheek and he finally raised his eyes to hers in the mirror. They were dark with lust, dazed with need, filled with awe. The thrusts of his body into hers didn’t falter.
“Jillian,” he breathed. “Look at you. You’re so beautiful. I can’t hold out much longer.”
Jillian felt emotion clog her throat. One firm touch from those strong, blunt fingers and she was there, could only close her eyes, lean back into him and give herself over to him and the pleasure he wrought from her.
She barreled into the intense orgasm, aware of Sam’s hoarse shout against her throat, his hot breath on her skin, the tightening of his arms around her. She gave herself to him with a certainty they shared more than their bodies. They shared a powerful need, a need for each other that transcended convention, a need neither had imagined existed before fate had brought them together.
The End
About the Author
Kaily Hart, seemingly straight-laced mother of four, left corporate America and a high-powered, lucrative career to be a stay-at-home mom. That lasted about four weeks, during which time she realized she had a deeply repressed dream to write—and romance at that! Who knew?
By day, Kaily plays conservative wife and soccer mom, but at night crafts hot and steamy tales of romance and love with gorgeous heroes who wouldn’t dream of leaving the toilet seat up. Ever. She’s smart and sassy, at least in her own mind, and is trying her best to bring the alpha male solidly back to contemporary romance, one hot story at a time.
Kaily bought her first book from Ellora’s Cave in 2003. Never in her wildest dreams did she think one day she’d join their ranks as an author or that she’d be writing erotic romance. But now that she is, it just feels so right.
Kaily welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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