Taming Eric

by J. a Melville

  Eric had had enough of this conversation. He wasn’t comfortable revealing too much of his past to her because she might start to ask more questions and he couldn’t risk her finding out what his real past was like.

  “Ok, enough of this. Lets get out of here, we’ll take your car then, but I’m driving.”

  “I don’t let anyone drive my car.” She protested.

  “I’m not going to damage your car Natasha, trust me, if I do something to it, I’ll buy you a new one.” He tried not to smile as he waited to see what her reaction was going to be and he didn’t have to wait long.

  “You are not going to buy me a damned car Eric.” She snapped and he couldn’t help grinning at her.

  “Well then trust me when I tell you, I’ll look after your car, ok?” He realised he’d won that round when she sighed and stormed off to get her car keys. He watched her walk off and he chuckled quietly. She was so damned adorable when she was angry.

  When she came back with her keys, she slammed them down into his hand, obviously still annoyed with him that he’d got his way and he dragged her into his arms, cupping her gorgeous ass and dropped a hard kiss on her lips.

  “Come on baby, don’t sulk.” He flicked her hair. “I promise to take good care of your car.” He released her and Natasha grabbed her bag with the things they needed for their afternoon at the beach.

  He took her hand in his and they left their suite to head downstairs in the elevator. Once they got down to the foyer, he still held her hand as they left the hotel and handed the keys to the valet so he could bring her car around.

  While they waited, he slipped on his sunglasses. They were the ones with the really dark lenses. He’d told Natasha he was ok with them going out, but he honestly didn’t want to be recognised. Not so much because of her, but he was still well known enough that he didn’t want to be bailed up by anyone while he was with her. He didn’t want anyone or anything interfering with the time he spent with his PA.

  When the valet pulled up in Natasha’s silver BMW he climbed into the driver’s side, adjusting the seat to accommodate his long legs. Once she was in and her seat belt buckled up, he pulled away from the hotel with a squeal of the tyres. Grinning at her when she scolded him for burning up some rubber.

  He drove quickly and confidently through Sydney. It was nice to actually drive himself again as he usually got the limo to take him everywhere around the city. He had a few expensive cars but with work being so busy, he rarely got to enjoy them and hit the road for the sake of just driving.

  When they pulled up at Bondi Beach, he found them parking not too far from the main walkway that led down to the vast expanse of sand. He waited while Natasha gathered up her bag and he locked her car, handing her back the keys since she had a bag to keep them in.

  There were people everywhere, but that wasn’t surprising for Bondi Beach and this time of the year. After working their way through people sprawled out on towels on the sand, they found an area for themselves.

  Natasha spread out her towel and as Eric watched, she removed her sarong. When he saw what she was wearing underneath he felt desire roll over him like a tsunami. Fucking hell, she was sexy. She was wearing some barely there bikini. Black and all that held the damned thing together were silver chains at her hips and between her breasts. If one of those chains failed, she was going to be on display for all to see. She was already on display more than he liked anyway. No one was allowed to admire her beautiful body but him. He scowled as his eyes travelled down every gorgeous inch of her. She needed to cover up and she needed to do it now. No fucking way was he going to tolerate other men looking at her.

  She finally glanced at him as she sat down on her towel. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why are you dressed like that?” His desire to cover her up was threatening to consume him.

  She smirked at him which only increased his growing frustration. “Well, this is a beach, I intend going in the water and I’m wearing my swimsuit for SWIMMING!” Her voice was laced with sarcasm.

  Her response wasn’t helping his mood. “Don’t get smart with me. I don’t like the fact that everyone can see you dressed like that.” He growled and a tide of anger rolled over him when she laughed.

  “Look around Eric, everyone is dressed like this and some have even less on, like them.” He turned to look at the women Natasha pointed to.

  Ok, he had to concede they were more skimpily dressed than she was but he didn’t give a damn because they weren’t her.

  One of the ladies smiled at him, her interest in him evident in her eyes and although he smiled back at her, he had absolutely no interest in either woman. The only one he wanted was right next to him, testing his patience by having far too much of that delectable body of hers on display.

  “So how come you don’t have a problem with the way they’re dressed?” Her voice cut through his thoughts. She was standing by his side watching the scantily clad women. He stepped closer, his hands coming up to cup her face.

  “Because they aren’t you.” He dropped a kiss on her parted lips before releasing her again. His cock was stirring in his jeans and the beach wasn’t exactly the place for him to be battling a hard on.

  He watched her face, realising he’d probably revealed more about his feelings for her with that comment but apart from staring at him for a while, a look in her eyes he couldn’t fathom, she bent down, pulling sunscreen out of her bag. The view he got of her rear, barely covered by her bikini was enough to wake his cock fully and it stood to attention. Fuck, fuck and triple fuck!

  Just to add to his discomfort she shoved the sunscreen bottle at him. “Can you put some on me please?” One little innocent question and his thoughts were far from it. She was trying to kill him he was sure.

  Reluctantly he took the bottle from her. “Dammit Natasha, you’re going to kill me aren’t you?” His voice was harsh before he squeezed some lotion onto his palm and began to spread it over her shoulders and back. He took his time, making sure he’d covered her smooth skin well but it had been an exercise in torture for him, touching her, but not being able to do more. Once he was done, he handed the sunscreen back to her and fought to get his arousal under control.

  “I want to go for a swim. Are you coming?”

  Eric groaned to himself. He wanted to go with her, but thanks to that sexy body of hers, he fucking well couldn’t. No way in hell was he embarrassing himself walking down to the water with his cock hard as an iron bar in his swimmers. He dropped down on her towel to try and conceal his aroused state from other people that were nearby.

  “Not yet, I can’t.” His tone was rueful.

  “Why not?” She looked surprised.

  “Lets just say, seeing you dressed like that isn’t helping much and I can do without the embarrassment of being seen with a raging hard on.” He tried to make a joke of his situation, but the pain in his groin wasn’t funny.

  Her eyes dropped to his crutch, a hint of laughter showing in her eyes. “Oh.” Was all she said.

  “Yes, oh.” He repeated. Damn her, but she was enjoying his discomfort. She was going to pay later, that’s for sure.

  “Well, I’m going to get my feet wet at least.” Natasha said and Eric couldn’t do anything more than watch her walk off down to the water’s edge, his eyes following every sweet curve as her body swayed with that beautiful sexy walk of hers.

  “Fuck you, go down.” He hissed impatiently at his cock. He wanted to get down to the water with her before any of the numerous men on the beach thought she was alone and made a move on her. Sometimes he believed Natasha had no idea just how stunning she really was but he knew other men would have no such problem recognising her beauty. If his damned cock wasn’t so hard, he wouldn’t be sitting on her towel, helplessly watching her and being unable to go to her.

  As Eric watched from his position on the towel, he saw her step int
o the water and she squealed when the waves crashed around her legs. She stepped in deeper and suddenly appeared to lose her balance. Fuck, but he had to get to her, hard on or no damned hard on but a young man, surfer type obviously, going by the look of him, jumped forward and grabbed Natasha around the waist, pulling her against him.

  Immediately a tide of rage swept over Eric. What the fuck? While he watched them together, it became apparent that this was no chance meeting, Natasha appeared to know the bronzed idiot who had his hands on her. She was smiling up at him like she was delighted to see him and Eric felt a sharp pain through his heart and the sick feeling in his stomach was a feeling he wasn’t familiar with, but he wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t figure out that the strong emotion flooding his system was jealousy.

  After a few more minutes of watching Natasha and the man who was talking to her, watching them laugh, his hand touch her sometimes, Eric had reached the end of his control. Thankfully he didn’t have an erection to worry about anymore. Seeing his gorgeous PA with a strange man had killed his desire as effectively as dousing him in ice water.

  He leapt to his feet, tearing his jeans off as quickly as possible and tugged his t-shirt off before heading down to the water to find out what the hell the bronzed idiot thought he was doing moving in on his woman. As he walked towards them he was aware that he was behaving in a way that was totally uncharacteristic for him. If he could beat his chest and grab Natasha by the hair and haul her off to his cave, he damned well would.

  As he stepped up behind her, he caught the last comments from the young man who was standing far too close to her for Eric’s liking. He was asking her what she was doing at Bondi again and was it his charm that had brought her back. So she had met him yesterday then and if he was after Natasha, he could fuck off because she was his and no young surfer type was going to take her from him.

  “I’m actually…” He heard her start to say when he interrupted, trying to keep the anger out of his voice as he glared over her head at the younger man.

  “Natasha, what are you doing? Who the hell are you?” He turned the full force of his fury on the young man who still had a hand on her waist. It took all of Eric’s self control not to plant his fist in the bronzed idiot’s face.

  He stepped up to her, not breaking eye contact with the man. He was aware of her eyes moving from him to the other man but he didn’t look at her. He was too busy making it perfectly clear through his stance and his eyes that the younger man needed to back off.

  Eric slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his body, wanting to make it clear that she was his. He had to give the younger man some credit. He hadn’t broken eye contact with him although it had to be quite obvious to him that he was being given a clear signal to stay away.

  He felt Natasha tense. She must have been aware of the anger radiating off him despite his efforts to keep it from showing. “Eric, this is Brodie, I met him here yesterday. He kindly woke me after I’d fallen asleep before I could get sunburned. He was my knight.” She smiled over at Brodie and Eric ground his teeth together at the way her face lit up at him. Jealousy speared through him, twisting his stomach into a huge knot. He suddenly realised she was introducing him to Brodie and he made a conscious effort to mask his inner turmoil.

  “Well, I’m a bit more than Natasha’s friend aren’t I baby?” He turned his attention back on the younger man as he tightened his grip on her waist. He wanted to make it perfectly clear she was off limits to everyone but him. He also wanted Brodie to know that they were far more than friends too. “Weren’t we going for a swim?” He asked, brushing his lips against Natasha’s neck and he smiled when he felt the shiver of awareness go through her body.

  “Well I was.” She turned back to Brodie but Eric sensed she was angry. “Well I guess that means we’re going for a swim. Again, thank you for coming to my rescue not once but twice.” She smiled at the younger man. Suddenly she pulled free of Eric’s arms and reached up to kiss Brodie on the cheek. He pulled back with a surprised look before looking across at Eric and his expression was wary. So it fucking well should be he thought, his teeth snapping together with frustration.

  Eric was furious that Natasha had kissed that bronzed idiot. What the hell did she do that for? His jealousy was eating him up and he needed to get her away from Brodie before he did something stupid and hit the younger man. He wasn’t used to feeling like this. Hell, he’d never felt like this over a woman before and he didn’t like it at all.

  He grabbed her arm and hauled her away, not even noticing that he was being rough with her. He just wanted as much space as possible between his PA and the other man. He’d just dragged her to the water’s edge further up the beach when Natasha pulled away from him and when he turned to face her, she was bristling with anger. “For fuck sakes Eric, what the hell was that stupid display of your macho crap all about?”

  He pulled her close to him again. “I don’t like him. I don’t like that he had his hands on you, you two barely know each other. He had no right to touch you. You… are… mine and don’t you forget it.” He ground out. He knew he was acting like a possessive fool, but he couldn’t stop himself. Natasha just brought out his inner caveman. He wanted to lock her up in a tower and not let any other man go near her.

  “Are you jealous?” Her voice snapped him out of the images flashing through his mind.

  Dammit, yes he was, but no way in hell was he going to admit it to her. That would be making himself too vulnerable to her. “No I’m not.” He lied through his teeth. “I don’t do the whole pointless jealousy thing. I just don’t like him putting his hands on you, while we are here, on this time away, together, you are mine.” He repeated and she was. He hoped for longer than the week, but if she wanted to leave him when their time at the hotel was over, he would reluctantly let her go, but for now at least, she was his and he was going to make sure no other man had the opportunity to get near her again.

  He turned away from her and waded out into the water until it was deep enough for him to dive in and start swimming. He swam with strong strokes until he was in deep water, diving through the waves, burning off his frustration and anger with every stroke.

  Eric didn’t realise how far out he’d swum until he stopped, treading water and turned back to see whether Natasha had been able to keep up with him. She wasn’t around. In fact she wasn’t anywhere nearby. Feeling his anxiety start to rise, he looked towards the shore and his heart thumped painfully in his chest. Not only was she not following him, she was making her way back up the beach towards the stairs that led back to the car park and if that wasn’t bad enough, Brodie was running after her.

  Fuck! She was leaving him. No, she couldn’t leave, she couldn’t be like everyone else. Suddenly his head was filled with flashbacks to his childhood. His father leaning over him, the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. “Things were so much better before you came along you little shit!”

  His Mother’s voice as she stared into his eyes. “If you were a good boy they’d want you too.” Another moment when she stood over him, anger in her eyes. “Why Eric, why? If it wasn’t for you he’d have stayed. He wanted me, but not you.”

  As Eric began to swim back to shore, the voices kept playing in his head. “It’s all your fault boy. You’re bad, just bad. You ruin everything boy. You’ve fucked up my life boy…” On and on the voices played through his mind and he hated that even all these years later, tears pricked at his eyes from the pain their words inflicted on him. He struggled to shut them out as he swam, desperate to get back to Natasha, to try and stop her leaving him and yet dreading seeing that same look in her eyes, to hear her telling him she didn’t want him.

  Finally he hit the shallows and he stood up, breaking into a run. He stopped to quickly pick up the towel and his clothes before sprinting back across the sand until he got to the stairs. Barely slowing down, he took the stairs two at a time and m
ade it to the car park just in time to watch Natasha’s BMW driving off.

  Eric’s shoulders slumped and his heart hit his stomach as overwhelming despair flooded his body. She was gone. As he stood there, pain searing its way through every part of him, he suddenly noticed that Brodie was standing in the car park watching him.

  Rage swept through him as he stared at the younger man. He stormed over to him, his eyes flashing as his anger threatened to consume him. “What the fuck did you say to her?” He snapped.

  Brodie didn’t back down despite the fury coming off Eric in waves. “I didn’t say anything to her other than to ask what she was doing and to make sure she was ok. The question should be, what the fuck did you do to her?”

  Eric advanced on Brodie until he was right in his face. “She’s with me, she is mine and you had no fucking right to go anywhere near her. If you think you can muscle your way in on her, then think again arsehole, because you don’t stand a fucking chance.”

  Brodie held his own, not stepping away. “Seems she doesn’t want you either or else why did she leave? You upset her, I didn’t. It’s you she was running away from so don’t you get in my fucking face and try to make this all my fault. I wasn’t trying to muscle in on her, I was being friendly. She’s a beautiful woman. If you can’t look after her, don’t be surprised if another man takes her from you because from what I’ve seen so far, you don’t damned well deserve her.”

  Eric raised his hand, his fist clenched. He just wanted to beat the crap out of the young man in front of him. Brodie looked at the fist in his face and took a step back. “Don’t you dare tell me how I should be treating her you bastard.” Eric fumed. “You have no idea how I treat her, how I feel about her. I should fucking well beat your head in, but you’re just not fucking well worth it.” He ground out before spinning away from the younger man.