“He’s been harassing my parents, and this morning, I found a nasty note in my truck. I don’t have proof that it was him, but who else would bother me?”
“It’s him,” Conn agreed grimly. It sounded like he’d get his chance to teach the bastard a lesson in how to treat a woman after all. “Did you date anyone else after you divorced him?”
“No.”
He smiled at the adamant refusal in her voice and face. He’d read her letters; he knew who she’d been thinking and dreaming about all those years, which eased some of the vicious ache he’d carried in his heart. “That’s why he’s back. Don’t worry about Rae, Mr. Jackson. I’ll take care of the little p—”
He hesitated out of respect for her family.
Fortunately, Daddy knew exactly what to say. “Pussy.”
Conn choked back a laugh. “Well, I was going to say prick, but that’ll do.”
25
Dear Dr. Connagher:
My divorce was final today. It’s four years to the date since I was supposed to meet you. Ironic, isn’t it?
Four years since I took your class, since I studied so hard for you. I can’t read poetry without remembering you. Four years since I tempted you to break that sacred student-professor relationship. But you didn’t, did you? Not you. You had too much self control to succumb to a twenty-one-year-old silly girl with a crush.
Four years since I took your final. Four years since that last day in your office. What would my life be like now if we’d met the next week like you planned? Would I be happy, knowing what kind of man you are, knowing what I know now? Would I sip coffee with you in the morning, smiling and kissing you goodbye, reading poetry to you at night—only to let you hurt and humiliate me in your bed?
Fearing you’d turn me into a happy little mindless slave, I escaped you, only to end up bitter and angry, trapped in marriage to someone as controlling as you. He hurt me, too, Conn, both physically and mentally. But he didn’t hurt me nearly as good as you.
Nobody has ever made me feel like you did that day. God help me, I still want you. I still need you.
Do you even remember me? I wish I could remember me. The blushing girl who came into your office that last day of the semester to flirt with you in a white mini-skirt. I’m going to try and find that girl again, but deep down in my heart, I know the truth. Richard killed her, and that Rae is long gone.
Grieve for her, Conn, because she died loving you. The biggest regret of her life was leaving you.
~ Rae
Stirring, Rae stretched, wincing at the kink in her side from lying over the console. It was worth it, though, to get her face on his chest.
“We’re almost there.”
She turned into his embrace, rubbing her face back and forth across his shirt. “You made quite an impression on my family, Dr. Connagher. Kari took one look at you at dinner and leaned over to ask me if you really were a professor. I think she’ll be searching for her very own hunky English professor very soon.”
His chest rumbled beneath her ear. “Hunky?”
“You’re far from the normal everyday sort of English professor. No tweed jacket. No pipe.”
“I do burst into poetry at the most inopportune moments.”
Yeah. Like when he was licking up the side of her thigh. “Otherwise, I’d never know you were an English professor.”
“No? Maybe you should see me sitting for hours wading through terrible Freshmen papers slaughtering poor Mr. Shakespeare.”
“I’d love to.” She tried to keep her voice light, but her heart felt swollen, filling her chest with longing.
“Well, Miss Jackson, I just happen to have some composition books stacked up on my desk. After I spank you for hitting me with that damned parasol, you can watch me torture myself to your heart’s content.”
He made the final turn toward Beulah Land, slowing the car.
“Keep going,” she whispered.
“Rae—”
“Take me home, Conn.”
He stopped in the middle of the narrow road, idling the Mustang before the iron gates. Turning toward her, he cupped her face in both hands, staring into her eyes. “If you come home with me, I’m taking you to bed, and if I take you to bed, you’re staying with me. Miss Belle will have to find someone else to sleep in her guestroom because you’ll be sleeping with me every night.”
“Promise?”
His fingers tightened on her face, his eyes shadowed and dark. “Are you sure? Because if you’re sleeping with me, I’m going to want you to marry me, too.”
“I’ll have to think about that.” The narrowing of his eyes, the grim slant of his mouth made her laugh. “I don’t want to have to meet your mother.”
“Ah, darlin’, you just mention how many of my babies you want to have and Mama will turn to putty in your hands.”
“Miss Belle said something about a dozen last night, and that’d be a deal breaker for me.”
“We can get Mama and Miss Belle off my back later. Right now, darlin’, all I want is you. I want years of waking up with you beside me, beneath me, on top of me, wrapped around me.”
Her heart kicked harder in her chest. “Sounds good.”
He kissed her, a hard, quick claiming that left her breathless. Then he stepped on the gas and tore off toward the guesthouse. Silent, vibrating with tension, he drove through the night. A heavy, restless ache settled between her thighs. The closer they got to his house, the more frantic her pulse jumped.
She started to put her hand on his thigh, but he growled at her.
“Don’t touch me, darlin’, or I won’t make it to my bed. This first time, I’m coming inside of you if it kills me.”
He slammed the gear into park and was out of the car, jerking her door open, hauling her out into his arms. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, kissing his neck, licking his ear, as he threw open the front door and strode toward the back of the house.
She heard the dogs barking, but they must have been outside.
Pulling her free of him, he tossed her on the bed. “Don’t move.” She started to sit up so she could take her shirt off, but he hissed a warning. “I mean it. Don’t. Move. A muscle. Not one.”
She could hear his breathing, deep and ragged in the room. He clicked on a lamp and continued to pace, running his right hand repeatedly through his hair.
It suddenly occurred to her how close he was to losing control. While she wanted him so badly she could cry, every instinct screaming at her to deliberately draw him close, she couldn’t break him like that. He’d never forget that the first time he’d made love to her, he’d lost control. For a man like him…
If you love me, I could use a distraction.
Now she knew why he made her quote poetry so often.
“‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night/ What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’”
Halted in the middle of the room, his head fell back, eyes closed, and his breathing steadied. His hands were still clenched into fists, but she thought it was working. As long as she could remember more of the poem…
“‘In what distant deeps or skies/ Burnt the fire of thine eyes?’ You know I’ve always loved the fire burning in your eyes.”
“Do you, now.” His voice was low, calmer, not vibrating to the point of shattering. “‘On what wings dare he aspire?/ What the hand dare seize the fire?’ Do you dare seize my fire, darlin’?”
“‘And what shoulder, and what art,/ Could twist the sinews of thy heart?’” Her voice broke, shaking a moment. “You’ve twisted the sinews of my heart, Conn. I’ve loved you since that first day I saw you in the hall, saw the fire in your eyes, and I immediately ran to the Registrar’s Office and enrolled in your class. I loved you in class, your voice so sure, full of passion as you quoted Byron, Shelley, Blake. I’d never heard anything lovelier.”
“And in my office, darlin’.” Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt, his gaze locked on her. “What did you think about me in my
office?”
“I loved you there, too, so much I was terrified. Terrified that I’d let you tie me up on your desk and spank me to your heart’s content. Terrified I’d strip my clothes off in class just to see the fire blazing in your eyes. I’d do anything you asked of me, or die trying. Even if that meant memorizing poem after poem so I could torment you tonight.”
Shrugging his shirt off, he tackled his jeans. “Torment me some more.”
“‘And when thy heart began to beat,/ What dread hand? and what dread feet?’”
He laughed roughly. “You certainly don’t dread my hands.”
He bent over to untie his boots and kicked them off. She could hardly breathe for waiting to see him naked.
Finally, he eased his jeans and boxers down his thighs. Everything in her froze, locked down hard in a wave of raw lust. He was incredibly thick, and long, so long. Her fingers convulsed on the quilt covering his bed, aching to try and measure the girth and width of him. Taking him in her mouth would make her jaws ache, and oh, to feel him sliding inside her, filling her up, tight and hard and thick—
Her heart exploded into frantic pounding, aching need pulsing through her. He made Richard look like a weenie. Literally. An odd little sound escaped her throat.
“Rae?”
She dragged her gaze up to his face, blinking to focus on his expression. Poor Conn. He actually looked worried. She choked again, trying not to laugh.
The canyon between his eyes deepened. “A man doesn’t like to hear a woman laughing the first time she sees him naked, darlin’.”
“Oh. Well. I was just—” She finally just let the laughter out. The more she laughed, the harder he frowned, which just made the giggles worse.
Growling, he stalked toward the bed, his eyes as cold as a winter sky.
It took all her will to remain still on the bed. Not because she was scared of him. No, she wanted to sit up, wrap her hand around him, and drag him down to her.
He seized her foot and jerked at the laces of her work boots. “Well? Do you care to explain your unexpected case of the giggles?”
“Is it impolite to compare you to an ex-lover?”
He gave her a rather cocky grin, which made her giggle again. “Not when I’m bigger.”
“Let’s just say seeing you made me think of Richard as a weenie.”
Conn laughed and moved to her other boot. “So I get to call him pencil dick now.”
“Pencil is too generous.”
Taking both of her ankles, he rolled her over, spread her legs wide, and jerked her down closer to him.
Staring up at him rising up over her, his thighs between hers, she made a low, ragged sound and clenched her hands into fists to keep from touching him.
“Good, darlin’. Don’t give me a reason to tie you up. As soon as I’m inside you all the way, you can touch me. I want you to, I need you to. Just not yet.” He reached down and undid the button on her jeans. “Quote me some more Blake while you take that sweatshirt off.”
Her stomach fluttered, her breathing coming faster as she squirmed to get the sweatshirt up over her shoulders and head. “‘When the stars threw down their spears/ And water’d heaven with their tears/, Did he smile his work to see?’”
“I’ll smile if I get these jeans off and find you ready for me. Are you wet and hot, aching to feel me deep inside you? Cause if Dick was a pencil, you’re going to be tight for me. I need you slick and open.”
His words sank into her as surely as his fingers had tormented her. As surely as his tongue had stroked her. She raised her knees, lifted her butt, helping him all she could to get the denim off. She felt swollen and hot, restless and crazed. Every breath sounded loud in her head, echoing with a ragged moan.
He dragged her panties off with the jeans. “Get that bra off, darlin’. I don’t want anything between you and me but skin.”
With her thighs gripped in his hands, his body hard and muscled between her legs, she couldn’t get raised up enough to get both hands behind her back. Desperate little moans escaped her throat, her fingers frantic. Finally, she rolled over as far as she could and let him undo the hook for her.
Dragging her closer to the edge, he bent her knees back toward the bed, spreading her open wide. His jaws clenched tight, sweat beading on his chest, he let go of her thigh with one hand to guide himself to her.
“‘Swift as a spirit hastening to his task,’” he whispered, his voice thick. He pressed into her, inch by inch. Her back bowed, her hands clawing at the sheet. Thick and wide, he stretched her impossibly, nearly painfully, but so damned good her breath sobbed out. He slipped his fingers down to help spread her outer lips apart better, his palm pressing against her to keep her flat on the bed. “Almost there, darlin’. I need to know your limit, whether you can take me all or not. How does that feel?”
She made a sound, strangled and desperate.
“That good.” He laughed roughly, shifting more of his weight onto the bed. “You are so tight. Shit. Don’t you dare come yet.”
Rae sucked in a breath, another, trying to ease the fullness straining through her. He hadn’t touched her at all, but climax did hover within her. Which shocked her. She’d never managed to climax with intercourse only. He hadn’t even moved within her yet. When he did—
Slipping a palm beneath her buttock, he lifted her hips, sliding to the hilt with a low groan. “Put your arms around me and hang on for dear life.”
She held on to his shoulders, wrapping her legs about his waist as he shifted them further into his bed. Every flex and pull of his body against hers was agony, delicious torture.
Easing them both back to the mattress, he simply lay with his full weight stretched out on top of her. She ran her hands up and down his back, his shoulders, burying her face against his chest to breathe in his scent. Leather mixed with musk and sweat. Heaven. “What are you waiting for?”
“For you to adjust to having something bigger than a pencil shoved inside you. I’ve nearly finished the first stanza of Shelley’s ‘The Triumph of Life’.”
“Trust me, I’ve adjusted.” Opening her mouth, she closed her teeth around a hunk of his pectoral, bit down until he growled and thudded deep inside her. Quivering, she released him. “You’re not going to quote the whole thing, are you? If I remember correctly, it’s hundreds of lines long.”
“I’ve waited five years to be right here, darlin’. I’m not rushing it.” He cupped her face in both hands, tilting her mouth up toward his. “I’m not going to last long this first time. If you hadn’t helped me earlier, we’d be done already.” His thumbs stroked over her skin, his eyes swallowed in darkness. “Rae, I love you. I know I can be an insufferable bastard on occasion. I know I’ll irritate you, scare you, infuriate you. You’re going to want to run again, darlin’. As long as you run to me, I’ll meet you right here and fix whatever I’ve screwed up every single time. For you, I’ll make it right. Whatever it takes.”
Smiling, she trailed her fingers down his sides, stroking the delicate skin at the crook of his hips. “I thought I was the Fix-It Lady.”
“I’ll be Dr. Fix-It then.” He gave a little swirl with his hips that rubbed his full length inside her. Digging her fingers into his back, she shuddered, her breath catching on a moan. His mouth came down to nibble at hers, and he slid his hands down her face, neck, shoulders, his grip firm as he pushed her arms up over her head.
Pinned flat, crushed beneath his weight, she felt the switch flip in her again. The switch that loved his control and welcomed his commands, every muscle melting in surrender. Clenched tight, she ached with need. “Please, please—”
“Not yet.” From the dark rumble of satisfaction in his voice, he knew very well why she begged. Maybe it was her imagination, but he felt harder and longer inside her at her words. He ground his hips against her, thrusting a bit deeper to brush up against something inside her that nearly made her shriek with surprise.
Gasping, she arched her back, not sure if
she liked that sensation or not.
“Ah, bet you’ve never had that sweet spot touched, huh?”
He slid his tongue into her mouth, light and shallow, teasing as he ground his hips in that slow swirl again. Electric shocks sparked through her core, tightening her down on him even more.
She jerked her arms, shivering and squirming beneath him. She needed more: harder, faster, deeper solid thrusts impaling her to the bed. Instead, she got that agonizing stroke. Extreme sensation shot through her.
Using his own strength pinning her arms for leverage, she bucked harder beneath him. She really couldn’t move more than an inch or two, not with his weight flattened against her. But her little struggles excited him. He kissed her harder, his tongue plunging deeper, his breath panting into her mouth.
Shoulders rising above her, he shifted to his knees, a slow withdrawal that had her whimpering and babbling as inch after inch slid out of her. “Are you ready, darlin’?” His voice was guttural, sweat glistening on his chest. “I’m going to let go of you. When you come, I want either your teeth in me or you screaming my name, whichever you prefer. Don’t take too long to choose, though.”
He let go of her hands and buried his fingers in her hair on either side of her face. Thumbs beneath her chin, he tilted her head back and pressed his mouth to her neck, his tongue wet, his teeth scraping.
Frantic, she slid her palms down his neck, his shoulders, reveling in his sheer power. Muscles bunching, he thrust deeply.
“Conn,” she cried raggedly.
He filled her up, slammed deep, over and over, splitting her apart, devastating her, remaking her with every stroke. He threw his head back, muscles straining in his neck and shoulders. A shudder wracked his body against her. “Teeth. Now.”
Arching up, she gripped his throat in her teeth. She intended to be gentle, but he slammed home again and the dam broke. She bit harder, moaning around his skin, her fingers convulsing in his back as he pumped into her.
Five years. Five years of longing and lust. Five years of regrets and heartache. Five years of love. Shuddering, he collapsed against her. She wrapped her arms around his head and cried.
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