by Evelyn Adams
They’d done it so many times before. They easily fell into a push pull rhythm, driving the woman and each other on until the orgasm crashed over them. He couldn’t do it with Claire. He couldn’t share her.
Reaching out, he gripped Eric’s arm in desperation. At least some of his torment must have shown on his face because when his friend turned to look at him, he simply gave him a resigned smile and climbed off the bed. Picking up his shoes and shirt, he left without saying a word. Luke took Eric’s place on the bed and he watched as Claire sucked in a breath. He couldn’t stand the idea that she might be thinking of Eric.
“Look at me, Claire,” he said, pulling the silk from her eyes. “Just me.”
She blinked up at him, her eyes shining, and he brought his mouth crashing down on hers.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” he growled when he finally broke the kiss.
He knew his anger was misplaced. This whole situation was his fault. He was punishing her for something he’d told her he wanted. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t stand the idea of her closing her eyes and picturing Eric while he was touching her.
Popping the front clasp on her bra, he bared her breasts to his hungry gaze. Cupping the gentle swell with his hand he devoured her, drawing the tight peak of her nipple into his mouth and sucking hard enough to bow her back and have her whimpering in pleasure. He was rough, demanding, and insatiable, and he intended to make her come so many times the only name she could remember was his.
Alternating between her breasts, he suckled her nipples, pulling on her tender skin with his lips and teeth and tongue until they were red, swollen and straining toward him. When she was panting and struggling against the pearl bindings, he kissed his way down her body, slipping off her panties before settling between her legs. With his face inches above her sex, he breathed in her musky scent and his cock throbbed with wanting her. It would be a long time before he let himself take the sweet pleasure of sinking into her tight heat.
Parting her folds with his thumbs, he licked into her, dragging his tongue from her opening to her clit. He heard her breath go out on a sigh and he looked up in time to see her eyes go heavy lidded with pleasure.
“With me, Claire,” he said, biting the flesh above her mound hard enough to mark her and make her eyes fly open.
He slid two long fingers inside her, curving them to stroke her while he wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked. Without relenting or giving her a chance to catch her breath he licked and sucked and flicked the bundle of nerves over and over and over again until she was thrashing on the bed. He felt her pussy tighten, pulsing around his fingers as the first orgasm rolled over her, but he didn’t stop.
He kept up the relentless torture of her swollen clit, licking and sucking while she gasped for breath and begged, the please, please, please falling from her lips in an endless stream. Circling the tight bud of her ass with his finger, he pressed the tip into her, making shallow thrusts as he sucked her clit. He felt the moment her second orgasm started. Her body clamped down against the invasion and she whimpered as he held her clit gently between his teeth and flicked it back and forth with his tongue. Her body trembled and still he refused to give up as the tremors ripped through her.
“Please, Luke. Please, God, it’s too much.”
“Not yet, sweetheart. It’s not nearly enough yet.”
She let out a whimper, and he gave her abused clit a momentary reprieve, focusing his attention back on her nipples, rolling and pinching the tight peaks with his fingers until she was panting with the pleasure pain of it.
“Please, Luke, please.”
“Please what, sweetheart?” he asked bending to draw a swollen nipple into his mouth, suckling her until her back bowed and her head thrashed.
“Enough, please, it’s enough,” she gasped, straining against the pearls.
“One more time. Come for me one more time.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he said, settling between her legs.
This time when he licked into her it was with slow, gentle strokes. He kept his touch even and light as he wound her tighter and tighter until he felt the trembling start in her legs. With aching slowness, he wrapped his lips around her clit sucking the tender bundle of nerves, gently at first then harder as her breath hitched and her legs wrapped around him. Sliding first two fingers then three into her, her started to fuck her with his hand. She was so slick from her arousal and his mouth; it was easy for him to curve a finger deep inside her and stroke gentle arcs until she was crying out in release as another orgasm rolled over her.
“Let me touch you, please,” she begged, her eyes glassy and her hair a sexy tangle from tossing around on the bed.
“No. I want you like this.” He saw her blink fast, but he ignored the part of his heart that was telling him to give her anything she wanted in favor of the louder part that told him to give her another orgasm.
He climbed off the bed just long enough to strip off his clothes and then he was back, kneeling between her legs, his iron hard cock seeking her heat. Palming her ass, he angled her hips and plunged inside her. Her breath went out in a rush, her mouth a soft round O, and he grappled for control. She was so tight, so hot, so wet, and he was never going to stop fucking her.
With punishing strokes, he thrust over and over until he felt her body start to tighten around him. When she came this time, it was with a flood. Her sweet cunt gushed for him and it took everything he had to keep from going over the edge with her.
“Look at me,” he said when her eyes started to drift closed.
“Luke, please,” she begged straining against the pearls. “Please. I’m yours. I only want to be yours.”
He kept thrusting, his focus on keeping an iron hard control over his body. He wasn’t going to let himself surrender to the pleasure. He hadn’t earned it. He might never earn it.
“Just say it, please,” she gasped as he drove them both higher and higher, spiraling like Icarus toward the sun. “You can have all of me. I’m right here, loving you. Just say it. I know you do. Stop punishing us and tell me that you love me, too.”
He looked into her green eyes and everything he felt, everything he wanted to say hung in the air between them, and he still couldn’t do it. Tears streamed down Claire’s face as she gave her wrists a good hard yank, breaking the strands and sending pearls scattering everywhere. She wrapped her arms around his back, pulling him to her and his pace turned from desperate to frantic.
Resting his elbows on either side of her head, he cupped her face and touched her forehead with his. This time when her body tightened, he went over the edge with her, emptying himself inside her and when they collapsed in each other’s arms, his face was wet with tears but he didn’t know if they were hers or his.
LUKE WOKE IN the dark room just before dawn and knew immediately Claire was gone. He was afraid for good this time. When he turned on the light, he saw the scattered pearls from the strands that would never be whole again and his heart clutched. He sat in bed, running a hand through his hair and wondering how he’d managed to fuck things up so badly and if he’d ever be able to fix them.
CLAIRE STOOD IN THE PANTRY in the house on Chestnut Street for a minute, reminding herself to breathe. Her heart squeezed so tight that if she didn’t concentrate, it didn’t feel like there was enough room for air in her chest. She couldn’t think clearly about anything. All she could do was go through the motions. Thank God she could count on her crew to keep things moving because she was in no shape to lead.
She’d left the penthouse that morning with nothing but the clothes on her back and the twenty dollars she’d taken from Luke’s wallet while he slept. She hated taking anything from him, but it was either that or hike the fourteen blocks across town to her apartment in the dark wearing her fuck me heels. She was proud, but not stupid. Wearing her walk of shame clothes, she’d had to wake up poor Mrs. Andrews to get her spare key so she could let herself in. Thank God she had
an extra truck key at the apartment. There was never going to be another time in her life when she let herself be that dependent on a man again. Never.
She hadn’t even been able to get organized enough to move her crew back to the Ashton Court job. Sparks called her that morning to tell her the job had been reopened, and she’d just muttered okay and hung up. He must think she’d lost her mind.
The truth was she had, and her heart as well, and she had no idea when or if she’d get either back again. Luke had hurt her in a way she hadn’t thought possible.
She wasn’t going to lie to herself and pretend she hadn’t been curious watching the trio at the club, but she couldn’t imagine sharing him. That he could not only imagine sharing her but would set the whole thing up made her truly and finally sure the thing between them was never going to be more than physical. Every time they got close to something real he pushed her away, using her passion as a shield against his feelings.
Obviously what he and Eric did with her was some kind of well-rehearsed routine and even though she had no doubt it would have felt extraordinary, it broke her heart. If Luke was willing to share her like he had so many other women then she couldn’t be more to him than an exceptional fuck.
That would have been bad enough but what he’d done was so much worse. He used her pleasure against her, turning her passion and the intimacy they shared into a weapon to punish her. She didn’t know how she’d ever forgive that.
“Hey, boss, the guys are finishing up in the bedrooms. Do you want to move them to touch up in the dining room?” asked Mike, interrupting her thoughts.
She looked up and when her gaze met his, his eyes went wide and he took a step closer.
“Are you okay, Claire?”
She nodded, blinking furiously against the tears she refused to let fall. She wasn’t going to let Luke take that from her too. She’d worked too hard to earn her crew’s respect to lose it by crying over some emotionally damaged, arrogant, overgrown boy on her job site.
Real men knew how to love. Her father had, so had Pete and Mike. She was pretty sure that given the right woman, Eric would too. But not Luke Masters, billionaire playboy asshole. She’d recognized what he was the first time she met him. She’d just made the classic mistake of countless women before her and been fool enough to convince herself he could change. That her love would be enough to change him. It never was. It never would be.
She turned her back to Mike, pretending to look at something on the counter so he wouldn’t see how hard she was working to hold it together. They both knew it was a lie, but at least they didn’t have to face it.
“That would be good. Can you tell them?” she said when she was sure she could talk without her voice breaking.
“Sure thing,” he said, letting his hand rest on her shoulder for a moment before leaving her alone with her thoughts again.
WEARING HIS CLOTHES from the previous day, Luke drove straight from the penthouse where he and Claire spent their disastrous night to the Ashton Court job. When he turned on his phone he’d had a text from Sparks saying Matthews had been given the all clear to go ahead with construction. He didn’t want to waste a minute getting to Claire and he knew she’d be at the jobsite.
God, he’d been such a fucking animal, punishing her for his mistakes. It was the same thing his father had done to him and just because Luke’s version came with multiple orgasms, it didn’t make it any less sickening. He needed to find her, apologize and then beg her to give him another chance. He couldn’t see anything past getting Claire back.
He pulled into the lot at the jobsite sending gravel flying with his tires. There was no sign of her truck and ice flooded his veins. What if something happened to her because he was a stupid asshole? She’d left his wallet open on the dresser so he’d see she’d taken the twenty dollar bill out of the hundreds of dollars it held. He’d have given her all of it gladly. The city in the middle of the night was no place for Claire to be walking dressed like she was. What if something happened before she could catch a cab?
He burst into the construction trailer without knocking, startling Sparks who spilled his coffee in his hurry to stand. Brown liquid seeped onto the papers on the desk, but neither man made a move to stop it.
“Where are the electricians? Where is she? Claire?” he asked, fighting the urge to shake the older man. “Where’s Claire?”
“I don’t know,” said Sparks. “I thought she was with you.”
Luke’s fist crashed into the wall, denting the fake wood paneling. His whole world was spiraling out of control and he didn’t do out of control.
The construction manager flinched but he didn’t back up. Drawing himself up to his full height, he squared his shoulders and looked Luke in the eye. “What happened? Is she okay?”
In that moment Luke knew without a doubt the construction manager would willingly fight Luke if he knew how badly he’d hurt Claire, and the thought made him ashamed. More ashamed than he’d ever been in his life.
“She sounded strange when I talked to her this morning but okay,” said Sparks. “Has something happened since then?”
“You talked to her this morning?”
“I called her to let her know we’d been cleared to start up here again. When she didn’t show up, I assumed she was going to keep her crew on that house she’s flipping for one more day. That way they won’t be nipping at the framers’ heels.”
Luke was out the door before the older man finished talking. He threw the car into drive, spun out of the parking lot and sped across town as fast as he could. When he got to the house on Chestnut Street and saw her truck he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. She was okay. They might be fucked, but Claire was okay. He parked across the street and made his way through the beehive of men going in and out of the house. Some of them gave him a second glance but no one tried to stop him until he came to Mike, hanging the pendant over the peninsula.
“Mr. Masters,” he said squaring his shoulders and not looking nearly as friendly as he had the last time they met. “What can we do for you?”
Luke arched a brow. The young electrician was playing watchdog for Claire. He wondered if she’d told him to or if he’d taken it upon himself. Oh, who the fuck was he kidding? It didn’t matter why Mike was doing it; his instincts were right. It seemed like all the men in Claire’s life were looking out for her. All of them but him. Meeting genuine concern with arrogance just made him a prick and wouldn’t get him any closer to what he wanted. Claire back in his arms. Back in his life.
“Call me Luke, please,” he said, deliberately softening his stance to avoid any perception of antler rubbing. “I need to see Ms. English, Mike. Is she here?”
The electrician climbed down from the ladder and led Luke through the dining room to a room at the back of the house. The house looked amazing. He was blown away by how much she’d gotten accomplished in such a short time. It looked like it was almost ready to go on the market and with the way it looked he didn’t imagine she’d have any trouble getting multiple offers for it.
Mike knocked on a closed door and Luke heard Claire’s muffled voice say “Come in.”
His heart thudded in his ears as he followed Mike into the room where Claire was applying a final coat of shellac to the intricately carved trim work. Her eyes flashed green when she saw him. Removing her mask, she set down her brush and turned to face him.
“Could you give us a minute, Mike?” Luke asked, but the electrician looked to Claire before he moved.
“It’s okay,” she said and Mike nodded and left the room.
Claire took a step toward him and his heart leapt into his throat thinking she was reaching out to him. Instead she pulled a twenty dollar bill from her jeans, tucking it in his breast pocket when he wouldn’t take it from her.
“Claire,” he said, the ice around his heart cracking into a million pieces and letting in all the pain. “Please.” He took a step toward her.
“No.” She held her
hand up in front of her and he froze where he stood. “I need my laptop, bag and any of the other things I left at your place. It shouldn’t be much,” she said with a rueful smile. “Drop them off with Sparks or send Colin over with them. Whatever’s easier. But you, I don’t ever want to see you again. Now get out of my house, and don’t come back.”
His head dropped in defeat. She was right about everything and he deserved the way she was treating him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, forcing himself to look up and meet her gaze. To give her this one last truth between them. “I’m so very sorry.”
“I know you are,” she said, softening enough to let him see the pain in her eyes. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Almost everything he’d ever done had been in an attempt not to end up like his father and instead, that’s who he’d become. He destroyed things as completely as his old man had, hurting Claire because her couldn’t be man enough to admit his feelings. Just because he hadn’t used his fist didn’t mean he hadn’t hurt her on purpose. She’d survive. He knew she would. She was strong and resilient, and he’d ruined everything.
“Please, Luke,” she said, her voice cracking. “Please, if you feel anything for me at all, please leave and let me pick up the pieces of what I have left. Give me that much.”
Seeing her so close to breaking gutted him. God, he hadn’t meant to hurt her – at least the human part of him hadn’t, but he could stop hurting her now. He hadn’t listened to her pleas the night before, but he couldn’t ignore them now. Searching her face, he burned her image into his brain to take out later as a reminder of all he’d lost, and then he nodded and walked away.
CLAIRE REARRANGED THE FLOWERS ONE more time before grabbing a paper towel to polish an invisible smudge from the soapstone counter top. She couldn’t believe the house was finally finished, and it was beautiful. And if the open house went well she might have some offers by the end of the day. She was so proud of it. It was the one bright thing in the two weeks that had passed since Luke walked out her door.