Surprise Seduction

by Jana Mercy

  Wedding march. Her knees turned to sand. Heavy and offering little support. But, she forced them on.

  Chase might be just the other side of that checkpoint. He’d have no trouble singling her out. Not with her hot pink suit.

  Immediately upon crossing through the security checkpoint, she spotted him. Leaning against a large railing, he stood away from the crowd of people anxiously awaiting their loved ones. His sharp green eyes met hers.

  He’d come for her.

  Her heart fell to her stomach. Or maybe her stomach had leapt into her chest. Either way, her insides shook.

  He straightened, his tailored khaki slacks and white oxford hugging his body as he walked toward her with purpose shining in his eyes. Her feet quit working. The black luggage she pulled bumped against her leg painfully. She scarcely noticed.

  Love for Chase overflowed. How could she have missed him so much in the short space of a day?

  Her eyes never left him, but she didn’t miss several women’s heads turning for a second look at the tall, handsome man crossing the baggage claims area. She didn’t blame them. He was gorgeous.

  She loved him.

  When he reached her, he didn’t say a word, just pulled her into his arms and covered her lips with his. His mouth awkward and demanding. As if he hadn’t seen her in weeks.

  As if he’d missed her.

  She opened her mouth and her heart. He kissed her thoroughly. Like a man should kiss a woman.

  “I missed you,” she breathed when his lips lifted.

  He didn’t answer, but pressed another kiss to her mouth. A gentle, soul-searching kiss that melted her insides and required every cell in her body pay utmost attention.

  “Welcome home,” he greeted, his mouth only millimeters above hers.

  Home. Home is where the heart is. Yes, she was home. Home with Chase. Her heart constricted.

  “Do you have more luggage?”

  She shook her head, not trusting her vocal cords. She’d only brought the suitcase in case of an unforeseen delay.

  “My car is out front.” He took the handle of her bag from her and kept his other hand at her waist. Possessively.

  Hope soared.

  Her trip to Chicago had gone well. Within forty-eight hours, everything would come to a head. Chase would know the truth before sunrise.

  Tonight, she would put everything on the line for love.

  Chase allowed the bellhop standing guard next to his car to store Adrienne’s suitcase in the flashy red car. He tipped the man generously for preventing his car from being towed. Opening the passenger door, he helped Adrienne into the low-slung Ferrari.

  When he sat in the driver’s seat, he turned to her. Would she think him a jerk if he told her he couldn’t get her clothes off her fast enough?

  Lord, he was a jerk.

  Every womanizing slur that had ever been tossed his way must have been true. He wanted Adrienne bad. More than he’d ever wanted any woman. He needed to be inside her, to feel her body clamped around his, to look into her eyes and see her desire for him, her pleasure at his touch.

  “Where to?” he asked, praying she’d say ‘bed’. His bed. Jerk.

  “My place? Your place? Does it matter?” Her eyes echoed the message she wanted the same thing he did. He loved her eyes. So beautiful. So responsive. So should never be hidden behind a pair of thick framed glasses.

  He grinned. A happy jerk grin. A thank-God-she-wants-me-too grin. “I like how you think.”

  He planned to spend the rest of this long Monday tasting every last inch of her addictive body.

  Then, he planned to strangle her for not telling him about her trip out of town and causing his heart to stop when George told him she’d gone.

  Adrienne looked at her luggage Chase had sat by his apartment door, and she gave a nervous laugh. “You didn’t have to bring that up.”

  He shrugged, the movement stretching the crisp dress shirt he wore over his broad shoulders. “Thought you might need something later. Or in the morning.”

  He’d seemed in a hurry to get back to his apartment, but instead of immediately taking her into his arms as she’d expected, he lingered by the door as if he were unsure about something.

  Her gaze lifted to his. “Just you.”

  The soft words seemed to catch him off guard, although why she couldn’t fathom. They both knew why she was here, and it wasn’t for the grand tour. She’d had that on Saturday morning. After they’d satisfied more pressing needs.

  Why weren’t they satisfying more pressing needs right now?

  His lips curled in the sexiest smile she’d ever seen, but he didn’t strip her naked like she wanted. Maybe she should strip herself? Should take her clothes off and wrap her body around his until he was spreading her thighs and pumping his hard cock inside her, making her come over and over again?

  Heat suffused her body. And dampness. She was so wet between her legs. How did he do that? How did just the thought of him there, inside her, make her dripping wet?

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  Huh? She shook her head. No beverage could quench her thirst. But he could and she was dying for a drink.

  “Something to eat?”

  She frowned. She’d told him what she wanted, the only means to satisfy her hunger. What hadn’t he understood?

  “Just you,” she repeated her earlier answer, moving closer to him. She began unbuttoning the hot pink suit.

  His throat bobbed once as he watched her finger’s movements in apparent fascination. She hadn’t planned to really strip but she wanted him and was tired of waiting for him to make a move. What was wrong with him anyway? He’d gone from hot and heavy in the car to hesitant?

  Of course, they’d been inside his apartment less than a minute so maybe she was just being impatient. Still, that was a minute without touching too long.

  She wanted him. Desperately.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” she whispered as she undid the last button of her top.

  “Come to any conclusions?” He stood perfectly still watching her every move with hawk-like eyes. Every muscle in his body coiled with tension. Easily, she saw the control he exerted to keep from touching her. She liked it, liked it a lot that she was having such an affect on him. She licked her lower lip in a manner meant to break his control, meant to have him touching her, kissing her, pushing her up against the wall and delving inside her with his powerful body.

  “Hundreds,” she admitted, pulling the suit top from her shoulders. The hot pink material dropped to the floor. The bright puddle of color contrasting sharply with the muted shade of the carpet.

  “And?” His gaze rested on the visible swell of her breasts above her matching hot pink satin bra.

  “I want you,” she paused, her hand playing provocatively with her bra strap. “Inside me. Now.”

  He swallowed again. Muscles in his neck flexed, the tendons pulling as tight as a string on a bow.

  “What a coincidence,” he mumbled. “I want the same thing.”

  Bright pink shoes kicked from her feet landed near the sofa. She slid her pants down her hips, tugging slowly, seductively at the material as it glided over her skin.

  When she stood in front of him in only her skimpy pink undies, she put her hands on her hips, giving him a pointed look, “Your turn.”

  His eyes narrowed to pin points, then dilated. His hand went to his collar and unbuttoned his shirt.

  One button at a time, the sliver of exposed chest spread longer and wider. Her excitement grew in proportion. When he tossed his shirt onto the floor next to hers, she raised her eyebrows in challenging demand.

  “Off with your pants,” she ordered, enjoying her teasing command and his immediate compliance. If only he’d follow all her instructions so readily.

  The buckle of his belt gave way in record time. He quickly shucked out of his slacks. His underwear, if he’d been wearing any, had disappeared at the same time as his pants. Now, she wa
s the one gulping down nervous anticipation.

  His hard length stood proud, preening at her wide-eyed gaze. She’d forgotten how beautiful, how big, he was.

  They stood in his living room with the fading light of the almost set sun coming in through the large windows as their backdrop. Where they were made no difference. Here, Sinbad, her apartment, anywhere as long as Chase entered her body soon.

  “Chase.” She didn’t even try to stop staring at his amazing body.

  “Adrienne,” his husky tone teased, but his eyes told her he barely restrained himself.

  “Touch me.”

  On cue his hands skimmed lightly over her body. Starting at the tips of her fingers and sailing across her hands, elbows, shoulders. When they reached where her neck and shoulders met, his touch deepened, massaging the feminine muscles knotted there.

  “Tough day?”

  “Hmmm, you’ve no idea,” she murmured. His hands magical kneading stirred deeper longings, building the quickening of her inner thighs.

  His touch lightened and his skimming over her flesh resumed. At times his skin didn’t even meet hers, but his heat burned trails of fire in whatever direction his hands took.

  When he’d thoroughly sensitized her entire upper body, his hands took her buttocks and molded them sensuously. As if they were the finest things he’d ever palmed.

  “How can you stand it? If it were up to me, you’d have been buried inside me the second your apartment door shut.”

  “Patience, lil one,” he teased, his hands moving lower, bordering along the edges of the elastic of her panties. Lower still, down her thighs, ticking over the backs of her knees, then encircling her ankles and rubbing briskly up the long smooth expanse of her legs. “Damn shame you used to hide these from me.”

  “Never again,” she assured.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’d mind your hiding them from the world, Adrienne.” From his knelt position, his intense gaze met hers. He leaned into her waist and kissed the flat planes of her abdomen. “Just not from me.”

  “I am so ready for you.” Her finger’s threaded into his rich hair.

  His eyes sparkled with desire and something more when he grinned. “I’d better check.”

  His teeth clamped down on the edges of hot pink satin and removed the material from her body. Her eyes bugged out. How had he done that? And just how many times had he practiced the maneuver?

  No, she didn’t want to know. The past didn’t matter. Only the future. A future she hoped included this wonderful man.

  And if not?

  Well, she’d have the memories of the past week to sustain her as she grew old as Mrs. Roger Hillington.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A shudder rippled across Adrienne’s body.

  “Cold?” Chase asked, his hands back on the sexiest rear-end he’d ever held.

  “No. Horny.”

  His eyebrow rose at her crude term. Never in a million years had he expected to hear that word cross her lips.

  “Where did you hear that word?”

  Adrienne smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Well, I have lived with Sheila for the past two-and-a-half months.”

  “Enough said.” He chuckled deep in his throat. He kissed her navel, letting his tongue snake into the crevice in a mimic of thrusting he planned to do elsewhere. When he had her so hot for him, she’d explode.

  And never leave again without telling him first.

  His chest tightened, and he forgot to breath.

  Discovering she’d left for Chicago had rattled him way too much. He shook the memory from his head. Now wasn’t the time for such memories.

  His hand moved to her pubic area, thumb tracing tiny, slow circles over her most sensitive flesh. Moisture and heat greeted him.

  “You’re killing me,” she moaned. “Please.”

  “Killing you?” The erotic movements of his thumb paused. “You want me to stop?”

  “That would kill me,” she hissed, wiggling her hips against his motionless hand. “I need you. Oh, please, Chase. Love me. Now!”

  Unable to restrain himself, he dipped his fingers into her hot moisture. Steamy dampness surrounded him. A strangled sound rumbled in his chest as he grabbed a condom packet from his wallet with his free hand. He lifted her against him.

  Adrienne’s legs wrapped around his waist as she showered kisses over his mouth and face. He carried her the few steps to the wall separating the living area from his bedroom. He pressed her back against the wall. With an unsteady hand and his teeth, he opened the condom while still supporting her with his other hand and the force of his body pressing her to the wall.

  “I can’t wait, Adrienne,” he warned the second he donned the condom under her eager eyes. He filled her in one swift, sure thrust. Her wet swollen lips welcoming him, her body melting around him.

  “Chase!” Her legs contracted around his waist clasping tighter with each powerful stroke of his body into hers.

  Her sweet purring of desire incensed the need to drive deeper, harder.

  He’d meant to go slow, to take her to the edge over and over. But, somewhere along the time of when he’d felt her wet heat, he’d lost all ability to rein in his need to pummel her.

  He felt wild, out of control, like a raging beast, all man to her woman. Swirling emotion escalated in the pit of his gut, pressure building until explosion was imminent.

  Then her orgasm hit, rocked his world. The look of total bliss crossing Adrienne’s face detonated a volcanic explosion. Hot lava erupted as he bombarded her in a frenzy of feral thrusts.

  His lungs drug air into his gasping body. Her legs hugged his hips still. Her arms wrapped around his chest, holding him close.

  Never in his life had he experienced such an overwhelming, earth-shattering release. Never had he felt so at one with another person.

  Never had he felt more in need to run as fast as his feet would carry him, before he made Adrienne promises he was genetically incapable of keeping.

  Chase held Adrienne close to him, not wanting to let her go even now that his body’s physical need for her had been temporarily satisfied a second time. At least, he’d had the decency to carry her to bed for that second trip to ecstasy.

  Trip.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Chicago?”

  She wiggled in his arms, twisting to look at him. “I didn’t want to explain until I had a few things settled.”

  “Like what?”

  He felt more than heard her sigh.

  “There are so many things about me you don’t know.”

  “Then tell me,” he encouraged, hoping she’d open up.

  “I need to tell you. If only I knew where to begin.” A nervous laugh bubbled from her.

  “Once upon a time?” He attempted to ease her stress.

  “That’ll work.” She laughed softly, then took a deep breath. Still, she didn’t say anything.

  He absently stroked a strand of her silky hair. “Or you could start by telling me exactly what happened to send you to Chicago. And why you failed to mention your trip when you knew all weekend you would be leaving.”

  The muscles in her body tensed. Her breathing became uneven. Her face flushed. “I couldn’t tell you because you might have insisted on going with me, or asking for explanations I wasn’t ready to give. It wasn’t as if I ever planned on not returning.”

  Refusing to question why her words tugged at his insides, he kissed her upturned nose, ignoring that voice reminding him to run like hell. He had a sneaking suspicion it was too late to run.

  “I would’ve flown to Chicago if you hadn’t come back. I nearly went insane when I learned you’d gone.” He hadn’t meant to admit that. Shouldn’t have admitted how much she affected him. What he needed to do was put distance between them before he hurt her without meaning to.

  Her body sagged against his.

  “Oh, Chase, I’m so glad to hear you say that. It makes what I’m going to ask so much easier.” Big eyes sear
ched his. “Everything changed today. I learned things that are forcing my hand. I have responsibilities I can’t ignore any longer. I have to take charge of my life, go after the things I want.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.” As long as she wanted him. At least, until he could stand the thought of being without her.

  She rose on her elbow, the palm of her other hand cupped his face with tenderness. “Will you marry me?”