Blush

by Cherry Adair

  Cruz had never had sex with a mark. Impersonal was a given in his line of work. But he had no qualms about fucking Miss CEO before he killed her tonight.

  In one, quick, fluid motion, he wrapped his hands around her waist, lifted her, and planted her naked ass on the cold Formica countertop. She gasped, her expression indicating that the sound wasn’t due to the change of temperature on her ass but from the change of control.

  Without giving her time to protest, he nudged her knees apart with his hips, then stood in the juncture of her thighs, pulling her forward so that she was unbalanced and had to grab his shoulders to maintain her precarious perch. Her lips parted as her lashes fluttered up and she stared at his mouth.

  “Put your hands on the counter.”

  She gave him a slightly dazed, questioning look.

  “Now,” he snapped out like a lash, and waited, stone-faced, as she cautiously let go of him to place her hands beside her hips. The angle canted her shoulders forward. An awkward tilt of her body with a cabinet directly behind her head. Good. He wanted her off balance physically as well as emotionally.

  He knew how to detach mentally. But it had never been this hard to do so. If he had the time or inclination, he’d tell her not to be fooled by any illusions that he was safe in any way.

  He didn’t act like a badass. He was one.

  The fingers of one hand curled, white-knuckled, over the metal edge of the countertop, the other she slapped against his chest as she said with authority, “Just a min—”

  The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered, then started beating faster beneath her pale skin as he slowly untied the sash at her waist. “You’re the one who made the no-talking rule.” Cruz slowly slid the sash free from the loops, fascinated by how her nipples hardened beneath the thin layer of fabric as silk slid against silk. He wanted to put his mouth there, suck those peaks through the material. She’d said three minutes of nipple stimulation—he could probably make her come in less time with his mouth.

  “Actually, I was telling you not to talk.” Sounding stiff and formal, she looked a little shell-shocked by the turn of events. “Before we get started, I’d like to establish those ground rules—”

  Yeah, he bet she would. He gave her a thin smile. “I’ll let you know what those are when I’m done here,” he told her dryly, plucking her hand off his shirt and firmly placing it at her side. Gripping her hips, he tugged her even closer to the edge.

  Spread open to him like a juicy feast, she offered him an up-close-and-personal view of her delicate pink folds as she listed forward. Cruz maintained eye contact as he let her ass teeter on the edge. “Stay still and you won’t fall.”

  He stood between her legs; she wasn’t going to fall. Not anywhere except onto his dick.

  When he was ready.

  His cock hardened. Pretty fucking ready right now.

  Down, boy.

  “Good girl.” Without touching, he let his heated gaze meander over her body. Her skin flushed a soft shell-pink. His dick pressed painfully hard against his jeans. Jesus, he’d never seen skin like hers. Creamy pale, flawless. He checked for the three small identifying freckles near her left clavicle. There.

  Slipping his hands beneath the thin satin lapels of the burgundy robe, he skimmed his fingertips over the cluster of freckles, holding her somewhat dazed gaze. She opened her mouth to protest.

  Giving her a hard look, Cruz shook his head in warning. In response she shut her gorgeous mouth, but dangerously narrowed her eyes. She’d be hell to deal with in the boardroom. Cruz imagined her saying, with icy calm, “Off with his dick,” blue eyes glacial and unsympathetic.

  Lips tight, she watched him a little like a mongoose watching a snake. So far, so good. She was used to being in charge. Had any man mastered her? Cruz doubted it. The lady was a ball-buster, but even at the close proximity, she didn’t kick him in the nuts, inches from her knee, and she didn’t jump off the counter.

  The heady scent of tuberoses blended with the musky scent of her arousal was permission enough. He inhaled the complex mix of fragrances, fascinated by the way her intense blue eyes held his in challenge.

  The material of her robe felt like warm wine against the back of his hands as Cruz slid the skimpy garment off her shoulders, leaving the rich burgundy-colored fabric to pool on the bend of her elbows.

  A sheen of perspiration made her skin luminescent. “There’s a bed upstairs,” she suggested, voice thick and husky, the muscles in her slender arms taut as she gripped the edge of the counter with fingers turned white from the pressure.

  The kitchen lights were bright and unforgiving. He didn’t need a soft bed or mood lighting to do the trick. “I don’t need a bed to fuck you.”

  Eyes gleaming she murmured, “I do.”

  “Then you should’ve gotten me upstairs a hell of a lot faster.” Her pale skin was the texture of warm satin, her body long and lean, breasts small, plump, and high, her nipples a deep puckered rose. Cruz’s mouth watered as he trailed just his fingertips along the upper curve of one breast, watching her pupils dilate as she arched her back unconsciously to get closer. Her fingers flexed on the counter’s edge.

  “Keep your hands right where they are,” he ordered as she shifted restlessly. When he brushed one tight nipple with his thumb, she clutched the countertop on either side of her hips with a death grip.

  Her body was flawless except for the fairly fresh six-inch red scar on her upper right arm, and the trio of beauty marks on her collarbone. The scar hadn’t been part of her file. But it wasn’t relevant. Not now, and not later. Cruz let his gaze travel leisurely over her body, feeling her muscles tense as he drew out the anticipation. For both of them.

  Now completely open to him, her pulses throbbed at her throat, at her wrists, and in the plump pink folds not quite hidden by silky dark hair gleaming with moisture. His dick, already hard, jerked in response to the open invitation.

  The taut muscles of her inner thighs flexed on the sides of his hips so that he felt the heat of her open body against his belly. Her baby blues went huge as he rubbed himself against her wet heat.

  “Pleasure before business,” he murmured, covering her mouth with his before she had a chance to respond. So close he saw his own need mirrored there, her eyes went wider, and her body tensed for a second, then her lashes fluttered down and she gave him her tongue, accompanied by a throaty hum of desire as she pressed her breasts to his chest. The hard points of her nipples activated such a powerful lust response in him that Cruz jerked back mentally in surprise. Whoa. Sex was sex. It was scratching an itch. A biological function.

  Usually a cockstand was handled in minutes. He didn’t do much foreplay, and, like her, he didn’t enjoy kissing. Cruz never allowed himself to be overcome with hunger. This ravenous beast inside him had appeared out of left field.

  By now, if he were the customer, he would’ve fucked her, paid her, and been on his way. Lingering was killing him, but the anticipation was, in itself, an aphrodisiac.

  He forced his heartbeat to slow. Mentally told his dick to chill. Reminded himself who and what she was. This was all about Miss CEO.

  Control. Domination.

  Creamy flesh, wet with desire, breasts pressed against his chest to plump perfection, mouth avid and juicy, pulse pounding in response to the lightest touch.

  Cruz ran his fingers through her thick, silky hair, then cupped her head and angled her mouth the way he wanted it and kissed her. Hot and deep.

  One sharp twist and he’d break her neck. Then, strategically positioning her near the ladder—

  Fuckit. She tasted minty. Toothpaste. He slid his tongue over her teeth, felt hers come out to play in a heated glide that had his blood roaring through his veins like a supernova. All caution evaporated, replaced with a buzz of euphoria.

  She made a low sound of need, leaning into him as she slid her hands around his neck in response to the kiss, her fingers fisting in his hair. Her mouth was made to fit his like two pie
ces of a jigsaw puzzle.

  Gripping her hair in his fist, he sank into the kiss, although kissing wasn’t his thing either. He liked to fuck. He didn’t like to cuddle or kiss. But kissing her felt . . . good. Which was bullshit. Kissing her felt like the prelude to fucking her. That was all.

  She drew back slightly, opening her mouth to say something, and he quickly laid a hand on her cheek, positioning his thumb so it fit perfectly into her mouth. Her lips closed around it delicately; then, holding his gaze, she sucked on it with deliberate implication.

  After several moments of pulsating energy buildup, when his cock pulsed with every pull of her mouth, she delicately spat out his digit. Cheeks pink, mouth set, she said tightly, “Either fuck me now, or leave.”

  “What’s your hurry? I’m not on a time clock, are you?”

  The elegant arches of her dark eyebrows lifted while displeasure tightened lips lush and damp. “I’m ready, and clearly so are you. Just do it and get it over with. There’s a bonus if you can make me come more than twice.”

  Cruz’s own brows lifted at the queen-to-serf tone. “Here’s the thing, lady. I didn’t give you permission to speak, and I didn’t give you permission to move. And I’m not giving you permission to come.” Cruz had no idea why he was toying with her like a panther batting a hummingbird from the air. Maybe because he knew he was going to kill her, and fucking her now, in some twisted way, seemed wrong.

  Maybe to test himself? To see if he—what? What the fuck?

  He was reaching the outer edge of his self-control, which was not aided by the rush of sex-induced adrenaline the smell and sight of her evoked.

  Easy solution.

  Kill her.

  Now.

  Chapter Two

  Body rigid, Mia Hayward gave the man tormenting her a cold look warning him to do his damn job or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, mixed with her annoyance, she also felt a fluttery surge of excitement. “Then I have absolutely no use for you—”

  In response he used both hands to shove her knees farther apart. Her thigh muscles flexed as she attempted to close her legs, but his hips were already wedged between them. The hard bulge behind his jeans zipper, and the coiled tension in his muscular body, indicated he was as ready as she was.

  He knew exactly what his tone and actions were doing to her, and he was enjoying his mastery. His dark eyes were hot but also impersonal. And why wouldn’t he be? He was doing his job.

  “Wider,” he murmured, looking between her legs as he clasped her hips to propel her forward the few inches separating them. Straight black lashes lifted, and he gave her a look so provocative, she expected to go up in flames any minute. “I want to see all of you—every wet pink inch.”

  God. God. God. When the hell had she lost control? This wasn’t how she liked things done. Her body was acting independently of her mind and her usual common sense. A first. She was learning how powerful and primitive pure lust could be, and how quickly scruples and conscience went out the window.

  “It’s good to want things, but wanting isn’t getting, and since I’m not getting, you might as well take that impressive erection out of here and leave me to finish the job my—”

  The brightly lit kitchen swirled in a dizzying arc as he lifted her with both powerful hands under her bare ass and swung her around. Her back hit the center island with a thud. Vaguely she heard the crystal vase crash to the floor and the clatter of the cookie sheets as they bounced. He’d swept everything off the counter.

  Mia found herself flat on her back, squinting up at the underside of the hideous light fixture hanging from the ceiling.

  Face burning, she struggled to sit up. The counter was cold. The lights too bright. She felt exposed and dangerously vulnerable spread-eagled on the counter with a strange, albeit gorgeous man, fully clothed, between her dangling legs. He wore jeans, a T-shirt stretched over an impressive, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped, rock-hard physique that she’d only been allowed to touch briefly.

  Black eyes looked like obsidian glass as he leaned over her to stretch her arms over her head, clamping both wrists in the manacle of one large hand. The soft fabric of his black T-shirt brushed her breasts, and the zipper of his jeans, and his impressive erection behind it, pressed exactly where she wanted his naked, rampant damn penis inserted.

  She shifted her butt, trying to leverage herself upright. Again he anticipated the movement, canting his hips so that all of him ground against all of her. When she gasped and froze, he swiveled his hips. Grinding, rocking. Pushing. All the while watching her with those dark fathomless eyes. Pleasure so intense it was close to pain sizzled through her, from her toes to her already tight nipples.

  Toes curled, thigh muscles quivering, Mia was so turned on she could barely drag a real breath into her constricted lungs. She fought to get her hands free. Her shackles tightened. Her skin was on fire as her blood rushed to the surface. It was a shock when he moved his hips away from hers. Automatically Mia lifted her hips to regain that contact.

  Face inches from hers, he murmured silkily, “You want to be fucked?”

  “I might have mentioned it—” Horrified that her voice wobbled, she clamped her mouth shut, shuddering with the power of her need. Shit. He was a piece of work. Who the hell did he think he was? A paid “escort,” that’s who. Mia had no idea why, with all his tightly leashed menace, she wasn’t terrified out of her mind. Intellectually, she knew she should be. But her body urged her to ignore any rational caution and just go for it.

  She was so primed, so freaking ready, that if he touched her between her legs, she’d go off like a rocket. And so far, he’d done not much more than give her orders and look at her.

  She should’ve specified the rules before—oh, yeah. She’d tried that.

  His face was inches from hers, taut with the same tension that suffused her entire body. He needed a shave. “Would you like me to suck on your pretty tits?” he whispered, shifting so his hard chest massaged her breasts. It was too much and not nearly damn well enough.

  Even the suggestion of him having his mouth, and that rough beard, anywhere near her breasts made all her girl parts clench. Mia gritted her teeth, wanting desperately for him to touch her for real. Only inches separated their mouths. Unbearable tension coiled deep inside her. Tighter and tighter, the tension torqued and spiraled, causing her head to thrash and her hips to jerk to try to get closer.

  Anticipation was one thing, but this was torture. Another matter entirely.

  She was starting to hate the son of a bitch. The frigid look she gave him had zero effect. His dark gaze was hot. Smoldering, in fact.

  “That window of opportunity,” she said hoarsely, “is closed.”

  His smile was feral. “Is that a fact?”

  Hard as hell to do haughty when she was naked under the unflattering glare of the bright light, only his shadow covering her. He was still fully dressed.

  He shook his dark hair out of his eyes. It was too long. Longer than hers, for God’s sake, and tickled her cheeks, a curtain of shiny dark silk as he leaned over her supine body.

  The heat, her helplessness, his deliberate withholding of something so damned easy to give her—something she was paying for, damn it—made Mia crazy. This was all a matter of control, she knew.

  Except the wrong person was exerting the control and he was taunting her.

  “You don’t like being the one taking orders, do you?” He sounded mildly amused. “You like to be boss. But here’s a revelation. Your skin’s flushed. Your eyes are shining, and your pussy’s swollen and wet. For me. You’re angry because you’re enjoying this. Which pisses you off even more.”

  The fact that he was amused when she was about to go nova, and the fact that he’d read her mind, infuriated her. “If I didn’t want to be here, you’d be on the floor clutching your package.” Mia rarely lost her temper. The more pissed she was, the icier she got. But she was teetering on losing her temper now. She was a sexual pressure cooker ready
to blow.

  His coffee-scented breath was hot on her face; she’d tasted it earlier. “So that makes me in charge, doesn’t it?”

  Mia snarled. “Let me up. I didn’t hire you for your charming conversational skills or your pretty hair. I’ve got better things to do with my evening. Besides, I’m cold.” The very opposite of true. Sweat beaded at her hairline, and her skin felt prickly hot.

  No foreplay, no penetration, no damn anything, and her skin was on fire, and so sensitive to the touch that the mere brush of his shirt made her nipples painfully hard. She felt her juices hot and wet on her inner thighs.

  A moan, so low it trembled—a mere vibration between them—came from her throat. The pleasure was so fierce that she almost came with the anticipation. Her body screamed for her to beg for him to do her. She might be pretending to be someone else, but even as deep as she was into the pretense, she was still Amelia to the core, and Amelia never begged for anything.

  She struggled to leverage herself up on her elbows, but he merely pressed his hand between her breasts and gently pushed her back down. “Let me up,” she said, hating him because her voice sounded desperate. She had BOB upstairs. In two minutes or less, with her eyes closed and imagining what this man must have been, she’d have relief. “I’ll pay you, and you can be on your way.”

  She didn’t even notice that he’d freed his impressive length from his jeans with his free hand until he rammed himself to the hilt deep inside her, filling her, impossibly thick and deep.

  Mia climaxed instantly.

  • • •

  She woke at six the next morning—bare-ass naked on the kitchen island. Throwing an arm over her eyes, she groaned. “Oh. My. God.”

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have amnesia. Last night played in Technicolor in her brain, and her body ached deliciously. Casually she lifted her elbow to look around to confirm that she was alone and the man of her well-lived fantasy was not there.