Elias had no intentions of stopping and placed a hand atop each of her thighs. He opened her wider to him, increasing his penetration.
Again, Clarissa lost the strength in her hands. The only part of her still graced with the power of movement were her hips. They matched the rhythm he summoned through his shocking exploration of her body.
Elias tightened his hold on her thighs that flexed when she came hard. Moisture flooded his tongue and he groaned. The act of pleasuring her had seemed to arouse him to no end. He was rigid for her, but knew that he wouldn’t take her then. This was what she should have been given that night. Slow attentiveness, not a quick slaking of lust.
Eli’s heart pounded as his mind filled with ideas and images of all the things he wanted her to know with him...and only him.
“Elias...” Clarissa gasped his name and found herself overcome by the need to tremble. She gave herself to the mastery of his skills and the results they created.
* * *
Earlier, the bedroom had been doused in a golden light but when Clarissa woke from the nap she’d drifted into, once Elias had finished with her, everything was drenched in black.
She could just make out a wide door across the room. It appeared to be open and she thought she could see a thin ribbon of light there. Gingerly, she pushed up from the bed.
A search for her clothes proved fruitless once she found a lamp to assist in the looking. She didn’t even see her shoes. The top sheet was practically on the floor, so she finished ripping it off the bed, wrapped it about her body and left the room.
Following the light seemed to be her best move. The long hallway outside the room was black but for the room at one end which seemed to be the source. She curled her fingers into the top of the sheet where it bunched at her breasts and headed toward an open door.
There she found Elias in what appeared to be a study. He was reclining in a worn and monstrously huge green suede armchair. Dressed in sleep pants and an ankle-length robe that was open to reveal his broad chest, he appeared quite comfortable. He rested his feet on an ottoman while studying the folder that was open across his lap.
Clarissa watched him for several moments and then she cleared her throat, bracing herself for the effect of his crystal-blue gaze meeting hers.
“My clothes?” she asked, thinking she saw the hint of a smile touch his mouth.
“They’re around. Have a seat.”
Clarissa selected the armchair flanking the one he occupied. It was equally worn and of a gray and burgundy plaid fabric. In spite of its hideousness, it was comfortable nonetheless.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He closed the folder, but kept his eyes downcast. When Clarissa mulled over the question a smidge longer than he felt was necessary, he fixed her with a pointed look.
“Would you have stopped?” she countered with a question of her own.
“I damn well wouldn’t have had sex with you on a sofa.”
“So would we have had sex at all? Or would you have just freaked out and left?”
“I don’t freak out.” His voice was low, monotone. “I can’t say what would’ve happened, Clarissa, but what wouldn’t have happened was me taking your virginity on some damn sofa.”
He leaned back on the chair and rubbed at his jaw for a while. “You’re better than that.” His voice was low again but carried on a bit more emotion. “Your first time should have been better than that.”
“Well, we can’t do anything to change it now and I enjoyed it. Why can’t you believe that?”
“Because you don’t have anything to compare it to.”
“Would you prefer that I did? That I had a hundred other guys to compare you to, Eli?”
He wouldn’t answer that question. “I plan on changing that,” he said instead.
“How?” She leaned forward. “By not having sex with me?”
He laughed. “What the hell do you think we just did?”
Clarissa felt her cheeks burning yet she refused to be cowed. “Is that all I can expect until you ease your guilt?”
“Guilt?” He leaned forward then, as well.
“Yes. Guilt. Because you think you treated me like I’m easy—something most people thought Jazmina Beaumont was.”
“Jesus, you don’t mince your words, do you?” He left his chair suddenly.
Clarissa had no response. She was too busy being surprised by her words, as well. She’d often made a point of mincing her words, figuring it was more important to listen. It was more important to accommodate others, she thought. When had she changed? Along the way, as Jaz gave her more responsibility? Or more recently when her body was awakened by the touch of Elias Joss?
“This isn’t exactly about your aunt,” he declared, still walking the study in a frustrated state.
“Then what?” She snuggled deeper into the chair and waited.
“Clarissa, I come from a long line of men who act first and consider the ramifications later—or never.”
“Your dad,” she guessed after silence had hovered for a long while.
“Father and grandfather.” He leaned against the mantelpiece and smiled sourly.
“I’ve got scores of cousins to prove it. You’re too good to tie yourself to a man that comes from a line like that.”
She blinked owlishly and then turned on the chair in order to face him better. “Is that what we’re doing, Eli? And is that what you think I expect from the man who’d been my first?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Maybe that’s what the man expects.”
Chapter 11
A phone’s ring punctuated Elias’s words. Judging by the look on his face, he was content to let it ring.
“You should get that.”
“It’ll keep.”
“Take your call.” She moved from the chair. “I’m freezing in this sheet. Take your call and I’ll see you in bed.”
It was a pretense, of course. His words had stunned her, yes, but more than that, they had set her upon a cloud of elation. It felt unlike anything Clarissa had ever known.
She warned herself against growing too giddy over it. But by the time she’d returned to the bedroom and snuggled into the covers, her heartbeat vibrated completely through her.
* * *
“Not a good time, Bar.”
“I seem to recall you being the one who stood me up,” Barker retorted none too softly. “I think I left at least six ugly messages on that damn phone of yours because of it.” He laughed ill humoredly. “And why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Didn’t think about it.”
Barker ripped out another ill-humored laugh. “Is this Elias Evan Joss I’m speaking to? ’Cause that fool never met a cell he didn’t want attached to his ear.”
“Clarissa’s here.”
“Aah...’nuff said.”
“So will you accept my apology about missing our lunch date at Hemming’s?”
“Not without a lot of pleading, but since you answered your home phone, do you mind taking a few minutes away from the lovely Miss David to tell me what was so important earlier?”
“Do you know who Cleve Echols’s investors are?”
The unexpected question did render Barker speechless for a time.
“Do I take that as a yes or a no?” Eli sat on the edge of his desk and looked down at the page next to him. “If it’s a ‘no’ then I’ve got a list of names here if you’d like to see them?”
“How?” Barker’s voice came through the line at last.
“Des. Never underestimate the power of a prime executive assistant,” Eli mused.
“I got a list of my own.”
“Right. So do you want to get together and compare notes or are your notes off-limits?”
“What else did Des find?” Barker asked instead.
“Just the names.” Eli looked down at the list again. “But he did recognize two of them—one he was sure you’d know. Liesel Hertz? She’s an anchor at WPXI, right?” Eli referenced the name of Barker’s employer. “What’s goin’ on, Bar?” he continued when silence met his question.
“Hell, Eli, I don’t know.”
“Well, what do you think you know?”
“At first it looked like nothing,” Barker finally shared. “There’s nothing wrong with folks going in to invest money.”
“Except?” Elias prompted.
“Except...the money invested was substantial. Liesel and her husband don’t make anywhere near the amounts I knew were being funneled into the Echols’s project.”
Eli turned his back on the list and frowned. “How do you know how much was being invested?”
“Never underestimate the power of a prime executive assistant, right?” Barker returned Eli’s earlier remark.
“That doesn’t mean your coworker and her hubby couldn’t afford to invest that money. You don’t know what they could have stashed away.”
“Yeah...”
“Des said the names he recognized from Philadelphia were real movers and shakers around the city. Like Melanie Shales, she—”
“Who?”
“Shales, Melanie. Surely a woman like that and the rest would have that kind of money.”
“Maybe...” Barker’s tone was unquestionably distracted.
“What is it, Bar?”
“Not sure...something...listen, are you gonna stand me up again if I ask to meet and discuss this list of yours?”
* * *
“No. And will you tell me what’s on your mind?”
Barker didn’t try to hide his groan. “I only pray I’m wrong.”
The men ended their conversation and then Eli shut down the lights on his way out of the study and back to the bedroom to Clarissa. He stopped just short of clearing the door when he felt his heart take a weird beat as he recalled the last thing he’d said to her.
No words that even hinted at commitment had ever entered a conversation between him and any woman. However, Clarissa David in a very short span of time had proven that she was more than any woman. She had given him pause from the moment she had glided into Stanford Crothers’s shop. She could mystify him without doing a damn thing, he thought. How was that possible? Women had done all manner of things to grab his attention. The attempts had worn thin in short order. Eli had come to recognize all the ploys—all but the act of doing absolutely nothing.
So now what? he asked himself while making his way down the hall. Again, he considered what he’d said to Clarissa about “tying” himself to her. God help him, he meant it and it terrified him. It was not because he wasn’t ready and that was a shock in and of itself. No, tying himself to her meant she was tying herself to him, as well.
Could he do right by her? Would he? She was too special a woman to have anything less than the best kind of man.
Elias opened the bedroom door slowly so as not to awaken her if she was already sleeping. He didn’t call her name but took off his robe and slipped between the covers next to her.
She had dozed off, but not very deeply and snuggled back into him when she felt his body behind hers. Eli could just hear her voice, whisper soft as she spoke his name amid her light slumber.
He hid his face in the crook of her neck and breathed in her scent. Clarissa woke slowly, blinking until her eyes had adjusted to the dark.
“Eli?”
“Shh...back to sleep.”
She refused and turned on her side toward him. Boldly, she instigated a kiss that grew progressively hot until Elias stopped her.
“You should rest.” He spoke the advice with great effort.
Clarissa was in no mood to oblige. “It’s your turn,” she said against his mouth before her tongue outlined its shape. She shivered at the feel of his goatee whiskers beneath her nails.
Eli didn’t need much coaxing to see her side of things. A sound loomed deep in his throat and he grabbed her tight, lifting her over him. Never breaking the kiss, he kneaded and squeezed her derriere. The generous mound of flesh that filled his hands was indeed a sharp stimulator.
Keeping his hold intact, Elias manipulated Clarissa’s moves, driving her into the ever-stiffening erection beneath his sleep pants. One leg raised at the knee provided a deeper cradle for her nude body. She virtually melted into him.
Tentatively, her hand smoothed the flawless wall of his muscular chest. Her hips moved in a timeless erotic manner which required no manipulation from Elias.
Clarissa broke their kiss in order to trail her mouth down his neck. She was fascinated and tingly anew as her lips brushed the powerful cords beneath his caramel-colored skin. Lower, they ventured across the pectorals that flexed in response to her mouth’s caress.
She moved onward, tasting him when her tongue flicked across his nipples and then down to outline the array of muscles that somehow seemed carved into his abdomen.
Elias grunted when he felt her tongue encircling his navel, but the gesture wasn’t out of arousal. Well...not entirely. He squeezed Clarissa’s upper arms and managed to draw her away only slightly. “No.” His voice was hushed.
“Why?” Her tone was equally hushed in the darkness. “I only want to repay your attentiveness,” she teased sweetly.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” She let her words relay the smile on her face, but gasped suddenly when his hold on her arms tightened to an almost painful state.
“No,” he insisted.
“Eli—” She didn’t have the time for further arguments. He assumed control then, flipping her on her back and kissing her harshly.
Clarissa welcomed it; almost instantly she forgot her arguments as pleasure stabbed her from all angles. Her moans and whispers of delight threw Elias’s hormones into overdrive. His mouth was at work over her body while he freed himself. The fine material of the sleep pants was nothing but an irritant next to his rigid arousal. Blindly, he groped in and around the night table until he had located a condom.
Clarissa felt tears pressuring her eyes as a result of the exquisite sensations he stirred. Eli rose above, plundering her with his index and middle fingers while his thumb stimulated her clit with slow mind-numbing rotations. As Clarissa tumbled into an erotic abyss, he used his perfect teeth to rip into the condom packet he’d located. Clarissa let her eyes drift shut, biting her lip as faint orgasmic waves began to crest from his actions. Her lashes fluttered when he suddenly withdrew his fingers.
Clarissa didn’t have the chance for questions. His fingers were replaced by the incomparable fullness of his erection delving long and breathtakingly deep inside her. She pressed her head into the pillows and opened her mouth while satisfaction circulated in her veins.
No sound emerged from her lips. She would have wrapped her legs around his back, but he kept a wide hand across her thigh and prevented movement on her part.
Clarissa clutched his powerful forearms and pleaded without knowing what she pleaded for. Seconds passed and then she was peaking again, coming hard as the climax overtook her.
Eli covered her and gave into the thunderous waves of need that demanded that he take her fiercely and selfishly. His thrusts took on a rapacious intensity that brought him to eruption almost in tandem to Clarissa’s orgasm.
The lovers drifted into a satiated lounge. Their mingled breathing filled the room with sound for long moments.
“Would I scare you if I told you that I wanted to keep you here—right here—just like this?” he asked while his handsome face was still hidden in her neck.
“Hmm—” she included a chuckle “—that’d make for some pretty awkward meetin
gs with Linus and Tigo.”
“In that case—” Eli groaned after they’d laughed a while “—I better take what I can get while I have you.”
“And how long will that be?”
He raised his head. “You tell me.”
Clarissa was opening her mouth to try, but only released a cry when she felt him stiffen inside her.
Elias shook his head. “Tell me later.”
* * *
Clarissa arrived, lovely yet slightly disheveled, for her 11:00 a.m. meeting at the club.
“Mmm...someone’s glowing,” Monesha Baker teased.
“Nothing like a good night’s sleep.” Clarissa pulled her tote strap from her shoulder.
“Oh, I doubt that.” Monesha’s meaning was clear.
“Don’t give me a hard time, all right,” Clarissa playfully begged. Guessing what the suggestive follow-up would be to that response, she raised a warning finger. “Save it, Mo. Has my eleven o’clock been waiting long?”
“Not so long that you’ll look bad for being ten minutes late.”
“Thanks, Mo,” Clarissa sang while hurrying down the short corridor to the office.
“I’m so sorry for being late,” Clarissa was saying after introducing herself to Leta Fields of the Breck Humanitarian Committee.
“No apology needed.” Leta’s broad welcoming smile was mirrored in her voice. “I had the chance to take a look at the club and chat with a few of the girls.”
“Well, then.” Clarissa set down her tote while smoothing a hand across her rust-colored, split-front skirt. “Are you here to tell me that my aunt’s out of the running for the award?”
“Heavens no!” Leta’s laughter was genuine. “Not at all. Those young women out there made it clear that Jazmina Beaumont offered a place for them that was a beginning instead of the end of the line.”
Clarissa pushed her hands into the skirt’s pockets and studied Leta with greater interest.
“They couldn’t stop talking about how much they owed her for caring.” Leta propped a hand to her dented chin and considered. “I’d love to have a few of them speak at the awards dinner.”
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