WhereDangerHides

by Desiree Holt

  Yet nothing could make her get up and walk away. From the responsibility Josiah handed her. Or from the man who was more dangerous than the threats against her life.

  Right now she wanted a long hot shower. Tomorrow night was the party at the country club. With Noah as her escort. She couldn’t help the tiny shiver of excitement that raced through her.

  She fell into bed, wearing her old sleepshirt rather than one of her new designer nighties and was hovering just on the edge of sleep when she heard the soft click of the door in the sitting room. Her heartbeat picked up its tempo. Noah!

  She lay there immobile, waiting for his approach, feeling her body ready itself for him.

  Footsteps were like whispers on the carpet and then he was in the doorway, his big, solid figure outlined by the moonlight sifting in through the window above her head. His hair was loose about his shoulders, his chest bare and the moonlight limned the sculptured lines of his big, lean body. He had the look of a fierce warrior stalking his prey. In an instant he was beside the bed shedding his jeans, the only garment he wore.

  Taylor wet her lips. “I thought you said…”

  “I did. More fool me. You destroy me, Taylor. I have no common sense where you’re concerned.” Silently he lifted the covers to look at her, shaking his head at her sleeping attire. “Well, it’s obvious you weren’t expecting company. Take it off.” His voice was heavy with desire.

  Taylor gave no thought to refusing him, simply sat up, pulled off the sleepshirt and tossed it to the floor. She lay back on the pillows, pulse racing, cunt throbbing, nipples aching, waiting. Just waiting. Just as he had no power to stay away from her, she had none to refuse him, whatever he wanted from her.

  He clicked on the bedside lamp, the circle of pale yellow light bathing her body. She resisted her still automatic reaction to cover herself, forcing herself to lie still under his heated scrutiny. One hand cupped his shaft, aroused to enormous size, a tiny drop of fluid glistening at the tip of its broad purple head.

  “Spread your legs for me and bend your knees,” he commanded, eyes glittering, magnificent cock jutting from its sheltering nest of curls at the root.

  She knew what he wanted. Breath hitching, she opened her legs as wide as she could, feet planted on the mattress, knees bent. The faint current from the air conditioning vent brushed her skin like teasing fingers.

  “Open yourself for me.” He stroked himself as he watched her. “Pull your lips apart so I can see how wet your cunt is.”

  Her heart rate picked up again, as it always did when he ordered her to display herself to him this way. There was something so deliciously wicked about it. Shyness and embarrassment had long since left her.

  Noah leaned down and slid one long, lean finger along the length of her slit, causing shivers to run through her. When he lifted it, the skin was glistening with her juices. Slowly he slid the finger into his mouth and sucked it clean.

  “You taste like honey and spice. Better than the finest wine or the best aged cognac.”

  She couldn’t help herself. She reached out and slid her fingertip over the head of his cock, capturing the moisture beaded there and licked her finger as he’d done with his.

  “Salty,” she told him. “And sweet.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and was rewarded with the flash of heat in his eyes and the tightening of the muscles in his face.

  He knelt on the bed in front of her, hooked his arms under her knees and pulled her tender heated flesh to his mouth. His fingers held her open as he plunged his tongue inside, licking her vaginal walls with a steady sweep. His thumbs began massaging her clit, gentle touches that made her want to beg for more. She bit her lip to keep from screaming in need and frustration.

  The rough surface of his tongue stroked her sensitive walls in a steady rhythm, never varying. In, out, in, out. The tip reaching that spot that sent shards of lightning through her. She tried to move her hips toward him, force his mouth harder on her but he held her so tightly in his grasp she could barely move. And as his tongue continued its pendulum movement his talented thumbs teased at her clit, so swollen from his attentions that the pleasure was almost a pain.

  The orgasm began building inside her as it always did, low in her belly, radiating out, gripping her, shaking her like the strongest wind. She tried desperately to close her legs together and squeeze against his tongue but he would have none of it. He held her there just on the edge until she was sure she’d lose her mind, his tongue as much an instrument of torture as it was of arousal. Her body was in desperate need of release, every nerve strung tight.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Please what?” His eyes were like hot black coals.

  “Please make me come. Please fuck me.”

  “Remember this,” he told her, pulling his head back. “I decide when and how you come. And how often. Are we clear on that?”

  She bobbed her head, willing to agree to anything if only he’d take her over the edge. “Yes.” She continued to thrust her hips at him, seeking fulfillment.

  “This is just the beginning.” His voice was thick with his own need, rough with the need to control her. He spread her legs wider as he leaned toward her. “This is just the beginning, Taylor. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, yes, yes. But please, I need you inside me.” Her belly and her thighs cramped with repressed release, her body straining to reach the precipice.

  “I’ll let you come. But my way.” He sat back on his knees. “As much as I want my cock inside that hot, tight sheath, I want to watch that beautiful petal-smooth center convulse for me even more. See those glistening pink tissues and watch your cream flood into the crack of your ass.”

  His words were making her hotter and hotter. “One of these times I’m going to watch you make yourself come for me. Watch those graceful fingers stimulate your clit. See you finger-fuck yourself for my pleasure. And giving me that pleasure will increase yours. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, by now barely coherent. All the while he talked to her in that low, deep voice, his thumb continued to tease the tip of her clit, back and forth with the even sway of a pendulum. She could feel the fluttering deep inside her channel, the spasms building in her womb but he held her just at the edge. His eyes watched her as her face flushed and her breath came in gasps. “But tonight when I finally let you come, I’m going to hold that beautiful cunt wide open so I can see every spasm, every convulsion, every stream of fluid. Tonight is for me.”

  He pinched her clit hard between his thumbs and her orgasm broke over her like a wild thing. The more she spasmed the more open he held her. Her body twisted and her head thrashed as she tried to find relief from a climax that was no relief at all. And all the time his eyes watched her with the hungry look of a predator devouring its prey.

  At last he pulled a condom from the foil he’d dropped beside him on the bed, sheathed himself and plunged into her. He was enormous, so totally aroused by watching her that he stretched her channel to its utmost. Her aftershocks pulsed around his cock, milking it. He leaned forward on his forearms, his gaze still capturing hers, thrusting in and out of her pussy with hard, heavy strokes, the tip of his cock striking her womb each time, the force of it driving her into another orgasm.

  When the last spasm died away, she lay sweaty and quivering, her arms wrapped around his solid body, her breath coming in short gasps.

  She had no idea how long they lay there, entwined. He was heavy on her, his weight crushing her but she wouldn’t have moved for anything. The heat of his skin was like a soft blanket covering her, his breath a warm breeze against her cheek, his hair like a fall of black silk on her shoulders. She smoothed her hands over the strong muscles of his back, loving the feel of their strength beneath her fingers. What would she do when this was over and he was out of her life?

  At length he lifted himself from her body, his softened cock sliding out of her wet pussy with a satisfied sound. He braced himself on his forearms and fr
amed her face with his hands, eyes pinning her in the penetrating look that had become so familiar.

  “Sometimes I wonder if Josiah would kill me or applaud.” He leaned down and kissed each of her breasts before levering himself off the bed. “Either way I’m not sure he’d be giving me any medals.”

  Taylor pushed herself back up on the pillows. “Noah…”

  He shook his head. “Don’t say anything. We have what we have. That’s it.” He pulled on his jeans. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a long day.”

  And then he was gone. Leaving her feeling like nothing more than one of his disposable women.

  * * * * *

  Noah lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. As physically spent as he was, sleep still would not come to him. He just kept getting himself in deeper and deeper. What on earth possessed him to think of taking Taylor on a sexual journey to places she’d probably never even thought of? And what business did he have getting involved in this relationship to begin with? He had a responsibility to Josiah that didn’t include fucking the life out of his daughter.

  But even as he thought it, he knew he was just kidding himself. He’d been having this conversation with himself since the night in the hotel with Taylor. He could deal with it only by relegating it to pure sex. If he allowed his emotions to leak into it he’d be destroying himself. Maybe both of them.

  Ten years and he still couldn’t forget the last time he’d allowed himself the luxury of indulging his feelings. Had he not learned a thing in ten years? The darkness that gripped him then had never fully relinquished its grip on him. It lay festering in his soul, waiting for the tiniest opening to leap on him again.

  Hadn’t he learned anything? The past is always with you, Josiah had told him. Now he knew more clearly what the old man had meant. No wonder he’d known the anguish Noah was suffering. He given him the chance to rebuild his life and until now, Noah believed he repaid Josiah with loyalty and trust. Then Taylor showed up.

  He could still remember the first taste of her mouth, the first touch of her body, the hot glove of her cunt as he slipped his cock inside. He tried, God only knew. He’d used anger as a weapon, trying his best to turn her against him, even as he took her body at every opportunity.

  Damn her anyway. No, damn himself. He should have walked away from her that first night nearly two months ago. He should have handed in his resignation to Josiah and walked away from everything. But here he was, chained to the St. Andrew’s Cross of duty and desire, his restraints pulling in opposite directions and threatening to tear him apart.

  The one thing he could not lose sight of was the very real danger to Taylor. If any harm came to her, whether he fucked her or not would be the least of his problems.

  * * * * *

  “Today I’m going to take the reports of each part of that division apart item by item. Check suppliers and customers,” John Martino told them the next morning.

  They were eating breakfast on the private patio next to Taylor’s sitting room, a place where they could speak freely without the danger of eavesdroppers. She had requested the outdoor setting so they could enjoy the air of the clear Texas morning.

  Noah raised an eyebrow. “You’ve found something already?”

  “Not really but my fingers are itching, my own personal indicator that something stinks.”

  Taylor refilled her coffee cup. “Will you be all right by yourself here, John? I have to go into the office and I’m told I have to put in an appearance at some sort of charity farce tonight.” She made a face of distaste.

  John laughed. “When have I ever needed handholding?” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You do what you have to, kitten, and I’ll do my thing. Mrs. Hart already stopped by to tell me whatever I needed just ask her and she’d get it for me.”

  Taylor didn’t dare look at Noah, simmering silently beside her. She smothered a tiny smile. On some subliminal level she was aware of the high level of testosterone in the air Despite Noah’s deliberate air of detachment, his insistence that what they had amounted to little more than two animals in heat, he gave every sign of the panther defending his area of the jungle. And John, with his peculiarly playful sense of humor, was yanking the panther’s tail.

  She began to slide folders into her briefcase. “All right. I need to be on my way. I’ll be back briefly to change for tonight’s shindig so if you need to touch base with me then you can.”

  “Don’t worry. If I have something for you I’ll find you wherever you are.”

  He shook hands with Noah and left the room.

  Taylor busied herself closing her briefcase and gathering her things, acutely aware of the thickness of the silence in the room. Finally she blew out a breath and looked up at Noah. “Is there a problem?”

  “Problem?” Not a muscle moved on his face but his eyes were like hot coals. “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe this macho silence you wear like a suit of armor, disseminating your displeasure to all within its circle. So if something’s bothering you spit it out.”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Kitten?”

  Taylor burst out laughing, probably the first real laugh she’d enjoyed in weeks.

  “I see nothing funny about this,” Noah said through gritted teeth.

  Taylor swallowed the last of her laughing jag and patted her eyes with a tissue. “Surely you can’t be jealous, Noah. You’ve very diligent about reminding me that what we have is not personal.”

  “I’m just trying to get a handle on your relationship with John Martino.” His voice was stiff. “People don’t usually use terms of affection in a strictly business relationship.”

  Taylor almost laughed again but she bit down hard on her lip. “John calls me kitten because we sat in a meeting with the CEO and CFO of a corporation he was thinking of investing in. I didn’t like their attitude and afterward he told me they didn’t even know they’d been raked with my claws. Kitten is kind of a joke between us.” She tilted her hard. “Are we going to have some kind of problem here, Noah?”

  She saw his jaw work as he ground his teeth. “None it all,” he said at last.

  “Good. Because the relationships between John and me is strictly business.” She slid a look at him. “Just like ours.”

  “Not quite,” he said in a tight voice, grabbing her arm and leading her out the door. “Not quite at all, little girl.”

  The helicopter deposited them at the Arroyo helipad and they went through the same routine as the previous day. Carmen was waiting for them with the information Taylor would need for the day as well as a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Bless you,” she told the woman, pouring herself a cup at once.

  The day seemed endless. Taylor had decided to meet with Kate Belden and Paul Hunter again, this time prodding for additional information. How was the corporate structure set up? Who made decisions about what? How often did they each interact with Josiah? She was really poking and prodding to see what nuggets they might accidentally reveal but they were sharp and close-mouthed. Whatever she found out would have to come from someplace else. Well, that was what John was here for.

  Noah has been a looming presence on the couch against the wall, sitting with one ankle resting on the opposite leg, still as a marble statue. Again she had that odd sensation that he was undressing her with his eyes, imagining her nude at her desk conducting corporate business. The vision made her instantly wet, her suddenly sensitized nipples pushing against the fabric of her blouse. She heard his words whispering across her mind as if he’d said them out loud.

  Would you like to know how I really like my sex, Taylor? You might run screaming into the night.

  That ribbon of dark temptation was curling within her again. It took every ounce of self-discipline to concentrate on the work at hand.

  She barely tasted the sandwich Carmen ordered for her for lunch, trying to sort through myriad impressions in her mind. Then they addressed the telephone calls which couldn’t be
put off any longer.

  Throughout the afternoon as they worked Noah paced, as if his body was rebelling against the morning of enforced stillness. Periodically he would stop and although she forced herself not to look up at him, Taylor was acutely aware of his eyes on her like twin lasers, burning his brand into her.

  What do you want from me? she cried silently. You take my body and shut out my soul. You guide me through a maze filled with dragons then retreat behind those invisible walls. Is emotion so dangerous for you?

  If Carmen sensed any of the drama silently playing out in the room she gave no indication. She was all business, taking notes, stacking papers, offering comments where appropriate.

  By mid-afternoon Taylor was nursing the mother of all headaches and wishing she had nothing to do but soak in a hot tub and crawl into bed. She’d been bombarded by questions from everyone she met with, questions she wasn’t yet prepared to answer. The number of phone calls she had to return was staggering and her appointment calendar was rapidly filling with people she needed to be briefed on before she met them face to face. When they finished reviewing the key people she’d be meeting at the benefit, she held up her hand.

  “Enough. I’m done for the day. Carmen, thank you very much. I could never do this without you.” She raised her eyes to Noah’s. “I think I’d like to go home, if that’s all right. Maybe get a little rest before I’m put on display tonight.”

  He nodded. “You’re the boss. I’ll tell Tomas we’re ready and have Greg fire up the copter.”

  “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than be put on parade,” she told him as they rode down in the elevator.

  “You’ll do fine.” The doors opened and they exited into the garage where Tomas waited. “My tux is at my house, so I’ll need to go home and change.”