T is for Temptation

by Jianne Carlo

This time he allowed her to turn around. Their lips met in an explosive yet lazy exchange.

  “You’re naked.” He sighed against her mouth.

  “I couldn’t decide what to wear,” she confessed. “I wanted to put on something you’d like, but they all felt too trampy.”

  “Naked is perfect. You can model all the stuff for me later, and we’ll decide which ones to keep.”

  Jake slipped his tongue into her mouth and cupped her rump. “Wrap your arms around me, Tee. Let me know you want this as much as I do.”

  Her fingers fluttered at the base of his neck. She tangled the other hand in his hair. “I do.”

  Tee nibbled along the line of his jaw.

  “Hmmm? You smell so good, my wonderful witch.”

  She stiffened in his arms.

  “What?” Jake drew back and met her eyes. He waited.

  Tee traced the outline of his lips with a finger. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ve bewitched me.” His voice cracked on the truth inherent in the words.

  She tugged his head down.

  Jake let her lead for a few minutes. He remained passive, relishing her tentative explorations. Tee’s fingers flickered down his chest, stroking light butterfly touches, as if uncertain of his reaction. Her lips followed in their path, dry kisses turning into hot, wet licks of his flesh. Before her mouth firmed around his turgid nipple, she glanced up at him, pupils so wide her eyes appeared black.

  “In Barbados, you wanted me to bite.” Tee’s voice wavered on the last word.

  “Do it.” Jake barely got out the last word, staring at her red, swollen, mouth.

  Uncertainty dogged Tee’s slow-motion descent to his burning skin. The slight grazing of her teeth sawing his nipple gently while her tongue laved it razed what little was left of Jake’s control. He teetered, on the brink of ravishment. When her fingers curled around the head of his penis, volatile desire sparked and ignited.

  “Witchy woman,” he croaked.

  Jake flipped her onto her stomach. He kissed his way down her spine, his hands kneading every inch of exposed, naked, heated Tee skin. He blew a breath over her bottom and licked his way down the center of her cheeks. Her muscles contracted. Jake moved lower and inhaled, the spicy aroma of her excitement unmistakable.

  His balls tightened. The faint light in the room showed the film of pearly moistness beading her pink lips. He laid his tongue flat against the rim of her folds and sucked. Tee arched up.

  “Jake.”

  She tried to turn around. He laid his hand on the small of her back and pressed her down. Jake flicked back and forth between her cheeks, all the way up to his hand, and the return journey took a southern diversion as her hips lifted and wriggled following his tongue.

  “I thought of this all the way here, of imprinting your taste on my tongue, your smell on my nose.” He slid a finger in, and she ground against his palm, slick, fiery folds burning. He found the nubbin, that precious spot, and laved it with his thumb and tongue and earned a long moaned, “Oh my.”

  “More, a few more oh mys,” he coaxed, transported by her passionate response, approaching heady delirium. “Babe, more, just for me.”

  All the while, he stroked and nibbled, his fingers glossy with her desire, his mouth coated with honey. He toothed her lustrous button, gnawing lightly, and she mewled, “Oh my, oh my.”

  His hold slipped, and her bottom rose higher, saucy rump suspended above the sheets, her glory displayed in the soft lighting, glistening swollen folds, polished dewy pink with desire.

  “Come inside of me,” she pleaded and whimpered when his fingers discovered a new pressure point, which drove her into a taut bow.

  “Up.”

  Jake’s growled command came out harsher than he intended. Her head whipped up, and she stared at him over her shoulder, bafflement clouding her golden eyes.

  “Pardon me?”

  “On your knees, babe.” Jake’s hoarse voice echoed around the room. Tee stiffened as he lifted her into position. “Hold onto the rails of the headboard.”

  She obeyed, her fingers curling around the round bars.

  He positioned her, his hands shaking with the effort of maintaining a gentle hold on her sweat-slickened flesh. Jake circled the base of her thighs, his thumbs sliding up into hot folds, and he widened her stance and pressed forward. Tee’s grip slipped, and she grabbed the cotton sheets in her hands.

  “I need to be inside you.” He rubbed the crown of his cock up and down the center of her folds. “I can’t wait, babe. I’m not going to last long. I’ll make it up the second time. Promise.”

  A guttural snarl broke from his lips, and he went up in rocket ship flames, reached for her hips, and pulled her back against him. He bucked into Tee’s moist tightness, thrusting deep. His finger rubbed against her folds, found the tiny hood, and pinched it lightly.

  She convulsed against him.

  “Oh Jesus,” Jake groaned. A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead onto her back, and he froze, battling the orgasmic race, desperate to prolong the poignant agony.

  “Again.” Tee’s soft command shattered all pretense of civilization.

  He drove long, hard thrusts into her heat. His thumb grazed against her nubbin with each pulsating, hammering penetration, stroking back on his withdrawal and forward on reentry, biting his lip to keep the rhythm slow, even.

  “Jake, please.”

  She buried her face in the sheets and his angle of penetration deepened. Her legs slipped further apart, he looked down at the juncture of their bodies, the blood rushed to his engorged cock, his balls tightening as his control fried and vanished. He slammed into her, and she met him thrust for thrust, her sexy, throaty cries muffled by the sheets.

  His world narrowed, his eyes shackled to cock and swollen folds, the delicious friction surged higher with each plunge and retreat until Tee spasmed, milking him. He exploded into paradise.

  When his brain returned from its journey to his cock and his breathing slowed to labored pants, Jake noticed her all-over flush, her skin a rosy, bewitching hue. He ordered his hands to loosen their hold on her hips, but they only tightened, fingers caressing her delectable belly.

  Their reflection in the dresser’s mirror made him want to roar with savage pride. He’d put that glazed look in her eyes. On her elbows, face turned to the dresser, different shades of pink danced across Tee’s features. Their eyes met in the mirror, and she groaned before breaking their gaze and shading her face with one hand.

  “What’s wrong?” He stroked the length of her spine, knuckling each vertebra. “You’re blushing all over, Tee. Your white lines are a deep pink.” Jake outlined the pale triangle on her firm bottom. “Tell me, witchy woman, why are you blushing?”

  She buried her face into the sheets, and her skin tone turned a shade darker as she mumbled into the cotton.

  He pulled her up against him, caressed the soft swelling of her breasts, and tongued the side of her neck. “Tell me.”

  Her eyelids drooped closed, and Jake stared at her reflection and willed an answer.

  “No woman wants a man staring at her rear.”

  “I’ve never seen anything more erotic in my life.” Jake feathered a hand down her back.

  “Oh.”

  Jake fastened his gaze on her doubtful, surprised eyes. “What’s the Trinidadian word for bum again?”

  “You mean bumsey?”

  “You have the sweetest, most delectable bumsey I’ve ever seen. Come here, babe, I need to kiss you.” Jake cupped Tee’s chin and turned her face to his. He tugged her lower lip down and sucked it in between his.

  Nibbling along the strong line of Tee’s jaw, sprinkling open, wet kisses at the crook of her neck, a sharp aftershock shook her slender frame, and Jake’s breath caught in his throat as her muscles clenched around his shaft. Impossibly, he stiffened to half-mast.

  “My little witch.” Jake guided her hand to position it at the base of his cock. “I’m read
y again. Are you sore?”

  A draft from the ceiling fan swept over his flesh.

  Tee shivered, bit her lip, and ducked her head.

  He covered her bare shoulders with his palms. Using every ounce of willpower he possessed, Jake eased himself out of her still-spasming heat. He sat back on his heels and slid his arm under Tee’s thighs, curling her naked body against his chest.

  “Speak to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I know it’s ridiculous after what we just did,” she muttered. “I’m, um, feeling a little shy.”

  A delightful cherry hue stained her tanned cheeks. Jake flicked his tongue around the whorls of Tee’s earlobe, savoring the breathy whimpers he earned by tasting her honeyed skin, the soft velvet texture. He rose, walked over to an enormous armchair, sat, and shifted her into a comfortable position in his lap.

  Tee covered her shoulders with her hands.

  “Cold?” Jake searched the immediate area for a blanket or cover.

  “No, not really.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I feel naked.”

  He laughed and chucked her chin. “Babe, you are naked.”

  “I’ve never done this before,” Tee whispered. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Whatever you want to. These two weeks are for both of us. If you’re not sure about something, talk to me. There is no right and wrong in bed. It comes down to what you’re comfortable with, what makes you feel good.”

  “You’ve done this a lot.” She stared at a spot on the far wall.

  “Not as often as you think,” he said, sliding his hand over the curve of her cheek so she had to meet his gaze.

  The shocked expression on her face prompted his grimace. “I’ve been too busy working to put time into relationships. I don’t like my space invaded, so I rarely take anyone home with me. Hell, when you make a million in your mid-twenties, you don’t have to work at sex. It comes to you, and you can dictate your terms. ”

  Jake stifled a groan, what a stupid, crappy thing to say.

  Tee’s legs shifted with his movements. Her thighs cocooned his erection.

  “You had terms?”

  “My way or the highway,” he muttered. “Either I put my energy into a relationship or focus it into the business.”

  “I’ve seen the shots of you with actresses.”

  “Goes with the territory. I made the mistake of pissing off the National Enquirer in my early career. Ever since then, they hound me, and people love to watch someone taken down. I attend the social events essential to the business. It’s easier to have a date, allows me to target the individuals I need to contact. If you’re by yourself at one of those events, women swarm.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I’m thirty-four, Tee. I have a past.”

  Her mouth curved into a rueful purse. “And I’m twenty-seven, and I have none, sexually, that is. But, this is a start, right?”

  The thought of anyone else being inside her proved so abhorrent, he ditched it in seconds. It started and ended here, with him.

  She yawned and cupped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s get you back to bed.”

  He shot a sympathetic dart at his erection, and she noticed.

  “Can you sleep like that?”

  “I’ve been doing it for the last four months.”

  She ducked her chin and peeped at him. “Because of me?”

  “Dead right because of you.” He stood, cradling her in his arms, and kissed her while walking to the bed.

  Settling her in the center, Jake retrieved the pillows from where they’d ended up on the floor.

  Tee plumped the downy white bolsters in the middle against the burnished headboard and patted the spot next to her.

  “Want anything? Glass of wine?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Jake chuckled, remembering her ‘pardon me’, when he’d ordered her on her knees. He lowered her onto the mattress. “You are so polite, even at the strangest times.”

  “Try living with Tricia and being rude. It doesn’t pay,” she retorted, her color high, her chin angled.

  “Believe me, I understand. Let’s make a pact—no discussing your mother in bed.”

  “A good idea.”

  Snagging his arm around a warm shoulder and fitting her against his chest, he flipped the covers up and tucked the ends of the material over her curved form.

  Tee tangled her fingers in his curls.

  “Are you okay?”

  She tugged on his hair. “Jake.”

  He looked into her sparkling eyes.

  “I’ve never felt better in my life.” She brushed her lips against his.

  He turned the slight caress into a long, tender moment. “Good.”

  “Comfy?” Jake trailed a finger over the underside of her breast. “Do you realize no gladiators or Vikings appeared the last few times we kissed?”

  “Or cupcakes. I hadn’t thought about it.” She glanced away. “Do you think this means we’re safe? Maybe I’m getting used to it.”

  “I can’t decide whether to be reassured or affronted by that remark. On the one hand, I’d prefer not to see any more warriors, but on the other, I like the idea I send you out of control.”

  Trying to distract her, Jake ran a finger over her nipple. His brown hand, her pale skin, he swallowed. “I’ll give you this—some very strange things have happened to us.”

  “Like Vikings, gladiators, and rose petals?”

  His biceps tightened under her stroking fingers.

  “Like hard clumps of cold ice.” Jake tugged on a tawny curl. “You could have damaged my vital parts.”

  “Your vital parts seem to be working perfectly.” Tee smiled at him. “I have something for you.”

  “A present? I know the kind I want.”

  His suggestive leer tickled her funny bone. She grinned and poked him in the chest. “Douglas Graham sent you something. It’s the cutest little pirate’s chest. I’m dying to open it. It’s very heavy.”

  After-sex languor and cozy camaraderie vanished the minute she mentioned the man’s name. He worked his jaw.

  “Why would your warlock mentor send me something?”

  “Oh please. He’s not trying to put you under a spell or something. You don’t have to stiffen up and get angry. Damn, you don’t even have to accept it, even though it’s your great uncle’s.”

  He blinked. “Your Douglas Graham knew my uncle?”

  “Yes, they’re both Scottish, and they both came from the same area. Douglas said the Grahams and the Fergusons have been allies for centuries. Before your uncle died, he gave Douglas a trinket that had been in your family for generations. That’s what Douglas sent.”

  Instinctive apprehension gripped him, waging war with a curiosity about his roots so insatiable, he knew in an instant the temptation to examine this trinket would prove irresistible. However, the remarkable coincidences didn’t sit well in his stomach.

  What were the odds of all this happening? A sudden inheritance, his relationship with Tee, her mentor knowing his great uncle? A flash of irritation rocked him, and he ground his teeth. Since meeting her, his world had turned upside down, and he abhorred the uncertainty of it all.

  Her stomach rumbled, a loud growling noise in the silence, and the sound invaded his thoughts. He hadn’t eaten dinner on the plane ride, just munched a few of those tiny sandwiches, which served only to increase the appetite. Food appealed, a big bacon-and-eggs breakfast.

  “We need to feed you first. Do you want to go downstairs or order room service?”

  “Downstairs, please. What time does the hotel restaurant open? It’s probably too early.”

  “It’s seven already.” He smirked. “It is true—time flies when you’re having fun.”

  The muted sounds of police alarms caught their attention.

  “Wow, something is happening outside. Do you hear all those sirens? They sound like they’re right b
elow us.” Tee rolled off the bed, stood up, and shivered. “I’m going to have a quick shower.”

  The doorbell to the suite sounded.

  Jake’s cell phone rang.

  “You go ahead. I’ll take care of the door and the phone.”

  “Mr. Mathews, Mr. Mathews.” The voice rattled in time to rapid, hard knocks. Someone sat on the doorbell, and the sudden noise echoed in the dawn’s quiet.

  “Brown, is it you? Hang on a minute.” Jake searched the floor and remembered he’d unpacked in the other room. He heard the water running in the shower, slipped out of the bedroom, found his jeans, and dragged them on. He pulled a sweater over his head and opened the door.

  “Mr. Mathews, I think you need to turn on the television.” George Brown’s features appeared somber.

  “Bad news, Brown?” he asked, hiding a smile at his alliteration.

  “The authorities are on their way up, two men from Scotland Yard. Mrs. Trent’s face is all over the news.”

  “They’ve stepped up the APB?”

  “Apparently, two men tried to detain her at Heathrow. The BBC is running a video of Mrs. Trent disappearing from a holding cell. Quite remarkable, really. One minute she’s there, the next gone.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Brown.”

  “Can I be of further assistance, Mr. Mathews?”

  Jake’s gut clenched. He heard Tee’s footsteps behind and rotated. The blasted witch thing popped up every time he relaxed his control. It reminded him of the reasons behind his preferred isolated status, no woman worth the associated emotional dilemma.

  Roadrunner Antics

  The grim expression on Jake’s face sent creepy-crawlies snaking up Tee’s spine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “A couple of Scotland Yard inspectors want to talk to you.” Jake turned back to Brown. “Can you escort them to the living room? Mrs. Trent and I will be there in a minute.”

  She tugged at his sleeve. “There’s something you need to know.”

  “From the expression on your face, I’m not going to like it, am I?”

  “Probably not,” she answered, her newfound feminine self-confidence skidding off the map. Anticipating rejection, she gritted out, “When I reached immigration this morning, two men from Scotland Yard took my passport and put me into a tiny room. They were very rude, nasty men. When they weren’t watching, I sort of, um, disappeared.”