“I’ll take good care of you,” he promised.
“Only good?” she teased.
His pants hit the floor and he kicked them aside. “I don’t like to brag.”
Di laughed. “Since when?”
“I let my work speak for itself.” He sank his fingers into her hair and kissed her, then with an arm around her waist, lifted her onto the bead and crawled in with her. Di tangled her legs with his and scraped her nails down his back. His need went off the charts. He needed to taste all of her—to touch every inch of her gorgeous body. He needed to know which spots were nice when he caressed them and which made her crazy.
First, he worked his way from her lips to her chin to the spot behind her ear. She squirmed and moaned. Nice. Next he scraped his teeth down her throat, and she got more agitated. Noted. He licked the indentation at the base of her throat and continued in a line, down between her breasts. She grabbed the comforter and arched, offering him her breasts, but he waited, instead exploring the dips and valleys of her abdomen, then slowly traced the line between her hip and thigh with his tongue. She held her breath as he neared the juncture of her thighs.
He dragged her panties down her legs. She had waxed bare, probably because of the costumes she wore for dancing. Or had she done it before dancing at his club on Friday? For him? The idea of her thinking of him when she’d had it done made him crazy with wanting her. He dipped his fingers into her folds, so hot and wet and ready for him. “So sexy,” he murmured, looking up at her. Pleasure softened her features and her dark hair framed her face in stark contrast to the white bedding. At his words, she opened her eyes halfway to look at him. In response, she opened her legs in invitation.
He shifted slightly, their gazes still locked, and tasted her. She opened her legs wider and lifted her hips. He grinned and said, “Vixen,” then opened her with his thumbs and sucked her clit into his mouth, working it with his tongue. She bucked hard, so he put a hand low on her stomach and held her down. Then he eased her leg over his shoulder and got serious.
He nipped at her clit then worked his way down to push his tongue inside her. When he set a slow, deliberate rhythm, he circled her clit with his thumb, not letting up the pressure that had to be building. He put his mouth back on her clit and let his fingers take over what his tongue had started. After he’d gotten the third finger inside her, he hit her G-spot. “Come. Now,” he growled. Her thighs clenched. He felt her tighten on his fingers, and the spasms began. He licked her clit and massaged her belly as she rode the waves.
After she relaxed, he crawled up her body, holding himself over her as he pressed his mouth to her flushed throat. “You’re perfect.” He lifted his head and added, “Keep count, now.”
Di’s eyes fluttered open. Van looked about as satisfied as she felt. Unwilling to give him all the control, she put her hands on his chest and reversed their positions. The surprise on his face had her smiling. “Now that I have your attention . . .”
She moved down his body as he had hers, beginning with a bite on his neck. She licked the indention at the base of his throat and continued south to taste the line between his pecs. The short, dark hair on his chest teased her tongue. She loved a man who didn’t wax his chest smooth. Growling her satisfaction, she followed the line the hair made down the center of his chest to his belly button. She circled the dip with her tongue then bit him hard at the line just above his low-cut boxer briefs. She sat up and looked at them—black and sexy as hell with his erection clearly outlined beneath.
Di straddled his hips, hooked her thumbs in his waistband, and dragged them down. She swallowed hard, trying to maintain her composure when she saw him. God, he was huge—long and hard and thick. She squeezed his ass while she looked her fill then worked the briefs down his long legs. Impatient with her pace, Van grabbed Di’s waist and kicked them off. She took his wrists and pulled his hands off her. When she had his hands at either side of his head, she smiled and went south again.
She traced the line from the top of his hips to the juncture of his thighs. Yeah. Those lines were definitely about to make her stupid. She put her mouth where her fingers had just been, tracing that line with her tongue and nipping as she went from north to south.
“Jesus,” Van murmured.
Di looked up at him, smiled, then licked him from base to tip. He tipped towards her mouth and she kissed him, twirling her tongue around the tip before taking him into her mouth. She squeezed his balls then wrapped both hands around him and set a rhythm. He was so big, she couldn’t get much of him into her mouth, but she did her best. His moans and restless movements made her feel powerful and sexy and in control. She did so love being in control. The hands in her hair turned rough as Van pulled her up off him.
He had a fierce look and held a condom. “On me. Now,” he commanded.
She smiled, took the condom, and tore it open with her teeth. After she positioned it on his tip, she took her time rolling it down onto him, loving his impatient movements as he tried to surge up into her hands. Di laughed, evading him. “Easy. We have all night,” she reminded him.
“You’re playing with fire,” he warned.
She positioned him at her entrance. When she had the tip inside, she laced her fingers with his and dipped so her nipples brushed his chest. “I like it hot,” she said against his ear.
Van flipped her onto her back and pushed in to the hilt. Di gasped, and Van froze. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, widening her legs to better accommodate him. “So good.”
With their fingers still laced together, Van pulled her hands up over her head and started to move in a slow, deliberate rhythm that drove Di right out of her mind. She lifted her hips to take him in deeper. “Wicked,” he said and kissed her, his tongue mimicking the moves he made inside her.
“Is that a complaint?” she asked when she could.
His tempo increased a bit. “Only that you learned that move with someone else.”
Di rotated her hips as he slid in this time. “You didn’t expect me to be inexperienced, did you?”
“Damn it, Di,” he put his hand at the small of her back and picked up the tempo. She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched, loving the friction of her hardened nipples against his chest. He cupped her breast and squeezed her nipple. With just that, she exploded on him. He stopped moving while she came apart. When the spasms stopped, he began moving again. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she felt the tension build inside her again.
Van smiled when she looked at him and hooked her leg over his shoulder. “Pleased with yourself, aren’t you,” she said when he found a new angle that had him grinding against her G-spot.
“You haven’t screamed my name yet.”
Di moaned. “You’re going to kill me.”
He reached between them and rolled her clit. “I know CPR.” He pushed into her hard, once, twice and she came again, this time saying, but not quite shouting, his name. She pulled both legs up and pressed her shins against his chest as she rode this one. He stopped moving again and just held her while her world tilted on its axis. She collapsed back against the pillows. “Shit. This is getting embarrassing.”
Van just smiled and started to move again.
“Oh, hell no,” she said, and using what little strength she had left, pushed him until she was on top and could control the rhythm. Van put his hands beneath his head and watched her, so she gave him a show. She shook her long hair out behind her so that it brushed his thighs. With her hands braced behind her on his thighs, she set a faster pace than he had, hoping to make him wild. The pain in her knee stung, but she ignored it and kept moving. She touched her breasts and stroked her nipples until they were hard and painful.
That got his attention. He slid his hands up her thighs to her hips and helped her move faster on him. He tried to touch her clit, but she leaned forward and backed way, which only made it hit his shaft. She squeezed her thighs and went wild on him. Somew
here in the frenzy, she must have grabbed his pec and may have pulled out a few chest hairs, but he came. And she did, too. Again.
He reversed their positions again, and Di braced her hands on the headboard as he pounded into her. They were both sated and drenched in sweat when Van dropped to the bed, rolling to pull her close. She felt his breath, hot and quick, on her temple. Di smiled and said, “Keep count, now.”
She felt his chuckle rumble deep in his chest. “That’s one for me, and how many for you?” He lifted his head so he could look at her, and she smiled. “Four, five?” he teased and got out of the bed. She turned onto her stomach and watched his fine ass as he walked across her bedroom to the bathroom. He flipped on the light, and she heard the shower come on. Smiling, she stretched, feeling muscles she hadn’t used in some time. She’d be sore tomorrow. She pressed her face into the pillow and inhaled his scent. Totally worth it.
Big hands grabbed her ankles, rotating and pulling her out of the bed. Before she could protest, Van had thrown her over his shoulder. Rather than protest, she squeezed his ass and said, “Nice view.”
He slapped her butt. Di yelped, but laughed. In the bathroom, he bent and let her slide slowly down him until she stood on the floor in front of him. “I hope you’re up for this,” he said and nudged her back into the shower. “I’ve got a year of pent up lust to work out.”
Di shivered when the hot water hit her back.
“Cold?”
She shook her head, watching as the water sluiced over him. “Hot shower sex. This just gets better and better.”
Van pulled her in. “You have no idea.”
8
Di quietly moved into the room on weakened legs and picked up the nap blanket that had fallen off her bed. She draped it around her shoulders and curled into the chair in the corner of the room. Van lay sprawled across her bed—naked of course. He’d collapsed after their shower despite his invitation to more decadence after.
She’d come a few more times—once on his talented tongue, again with her hands braced on the slick tile of the shower, and once more against the wall while she held on tight with her legs wrapped around him. So three times, maybe more. She’d completely lost count. Good Lord, she would never have imagined a night like this could be possible. Women must line up to be with Van. The thought sent a stab of hot jealousy through her. She pushed her hair back. Ridiculous. This was one night. Tomorrow, she’d have to come back to reality—the reality that Van was someone she couldn’t respect because of what he did.
A voice in the back of her head reminded her that he was trying to change, that he was trying to make Vanz into something more than a strip club. He’d even said he wanted her to work there so she could change her opinion of him.
“Come here.” Van’s voice was a soft rumble.
“I’m not sure I can move.”
He propped himself up on his forearms, thick brown curls falling across his forehead. “Want me to come get you?”
Di slid her feet to the floor and stood. When she was relatively certain her legs would support her, she went to the bed. Van grabbed the edge of her blanket and unwrapped her, tugging her forward onto the bed with him. He fitted her against his chest and settled the comforter around them. And then he kissed her—a long, deep, sensual kiss that had her toes curling. A kiss that went on and on, like he couldn’t get enough of her, but she wasn’t buying into the fantasy. Couldn’t. When tonight ended, theirs would be purely a business relationship—if she decided to accept the job at the club.
He broke the kiss and brushed her hair back, then traced the lines and angles of her face. “What was that?” he asked softly. “I felt you pull away.”
Di focused on her hand resting on his chest instead of his face, soft and relaxed from their lovemaking. No. Not lovemaking. Sex.
“You did it again, just now.” He tipped her face up with a finger beneath her chin until her gaze locked with his.
She smiled, trying to brush off how unnerved she was right now. “This ability you have to read me is not okay. Get out of my head.”
He kissed the corner of one eye, then the other. Next, his lips touched her cheek, her mouth. He brushed the curve of her lip with his thumb and pressed his lips to hers again. “Don’t overthink it.”
“I overthink everything.”
“Stop,” he said against her mouth and kissed her again, kissed her until she couldn’t think about anything else but his lips on hers. When he finally broke the contact, he gave her such a direct and unwavering look she felt like he could see all the way to her soul. “I’m going to tell you something, and I’d like for you to try and believe me.”
“Okay . . .” she managed to say, her mind still pleasantly lethargic from his kiss.
“This is not casual for me. What just happened—what is happening between us, it’s real. Something I’ve wanted for a long time. This could be our time, if you’d allow it.”
Di propped herself up against the pillows. “Van, we discussed this. We’re wrong for each other. There can’t be anything beyond tonight.”
“Because of who you think I am.”
“Van—”
“Let’s start there.” He sat up, too, so that they were on the same eye level. “My name is William Edward Vanzant. Van is a nickname that stuck when I was in school.”
Fascinated, she propped her head in her hand and looked at him. “What does your family call you?”
He chuckled. “My mom called me Billy.” He put his hand behind his head and continued. “My father and his family called me William.”
“Were they divorced?”
“Never married.” He rolled his head to the side. The intensity in his brown eyes when he spoke took her breath. “But I lived with him a few years when I was a teenager—after my mom died.”
“I’m sorry. Losing your mother must have been hard.”
“Yeah, but going to live with my father was worse. He was not a good man.” Van laced his fingers with hers and focused on the ceiling fan above them. “The man you think I am? That was him, not me.”
Di felt her resolve crack a bit, not from his words, but from his intensity as he spoke. “I’m surprised you care what people think,” Di said honestly. He’d always struck her as a confident man who lived his life on his terms, not caring what people thought of his choices.
He aligned her face with his and said, “I don’t care what most people think about me, but what you think matters.”
“Van . . .” She touched his cheek, wanting to believe his words.
“I meant what I told you earlier. After tonight, I won’t touch you again unless you ask me to, but I’m hoping I won’t have long to wait.”
“For what?”
“For you to come back to me.”
He kissed her then. His lovemaking this time was sweet, tender, and filled with a feeling Di was afraid to explore further.
As the weak sunlight of dawn filtered into her room, she turned and reached for Van. The place where he’d slept next to her was warm, but he was gone. She got up and put on the shirt she’d worn the night before and walked through her apartment, looking for him. But both her bed and her apartment were empty, much like the feeling growing inside her.
* * *
A few hours later, Di sat curled into the corner of her couch, staring out the window with a cup of coffee that had gone cold in her hands. Two things registered: her knee was killing her, and she couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around what had happened between her and Van last night. So much for sex helping the knees.
When her phone rang, she answered it even though she didn’t recognize the number on the display. “Hello?”
“Ms. Jenson?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Jeff Richards. Mr. Vanzant has hired me to be your driver for the duration of your contract with The Vanzant Corporation. Just call this number, and I’ll take you wherever you need to go. I’m also available to run errands for you.”
Di set
her cup down on a side table and stood. When her knee buckled, she sat back down hard. “I don’t need a driver,” she managed. “But thank you.”
“Mr. Vanzant was clear in his instructions. He wants your work with the company to be as convenient as possible. He asks that you please accept this courtesy.”
“Thank you—um, I’m sorry, Mr.—”
“Just Richards.”
“Richards. I’ll contact Mr. Vanzant to discuss this.”
“I’m happy to put you through to him.”
“Oh,” Di sputtered, cleared her throat and said, “Okay.”
“One moment.”
She heard a few clicks, and Van’s voice came through the line to caress her ear. “Good morning.”
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry I left without speaking to you, but I had an early appointment in Chicago and hated to wake you. You were sleeping so peacefully.”
She rubbed her knee absently. “You’re in Chicago?”
“Yes. It’s cold and snowy.” His voice dropped an octave as he added, “I’d much rather still be in a warm, soft bed with you.”
“About that—”
“You spoke to Richards?”
“Yes, and thank you, but I don’t need a driver.”
“It’s part of the contract.”
And there he was—the old Van. In control, in charge. Infuriating and sexy at the same time.
“We don’t have a contract.”
“It’s on the table by the front door. I think you’ll find the terms generous.”
She stood and limped over to the door where she found a manila envelope. He’d brought a contract with him last night? “You brought a contract last night, and just left it on your way out?” she said, good and angry now.
“Are you in the habit of working without a contract?” He said it like he slept with women and dropped their contracts on his way out the door all the time.
“Of course not, but as I said last night, I need to work this out with my production company.”
Dared: Scandalous Moves Series Page 5