by Marie Force
While I blink back tears, Jasper nods. “I appreciate your support, Max,” he says gruffly. “It means the world.”
Mom goes up on tiptoes to kiss Jasper’s cheek. “We love you, and I’m thrilled to know that you and that yummy accent will be available to read The Night Before Christmas to us every year from now on.”
Jasper barks out a laugh. “It would be my honor, Stella.”
Mom turns to me, smiling widely, and hugs me tight. “Someone has been keeping secrets from her mama.”
“I was going to tell you soon. I promise.”
“How do I go to Vegas six months a year when there may be a new baby coming?”
“That was one reason why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to influence your decision.”
“Why in the world would you do something foolish like that? Max, this is the sign I’ve been waiting for.”
“She has been waiting for a sign,” Dad confirms.
“It’s not the time for Vegas. There’ll be time for that when the grandkids are awful teenagers and we need a break from them.”
We share a laugh and more hugs before they leave me alone with Jasper. He puts his arms around me and gathers me into his embrace. I breathe in the intoxicating scent of his cologne as we take comfort from each other.
“That went well, don’t you think, darling?”
“It went very well. They already loved you as our friend and Flynn’s business partner.”
“It’s quite something else when a man is telling his lady’s parents that he intends to marry their daughter.”
“About that…”
His laughter makes me smile. “Did I catch you by surprise?”
“You could say that.”
“How can you be surprised that I want it all with you, Estelle Godfrey Junior?”
I playfully scowl at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“How about just Junior, then?”
“How about just Ellie?”
“How about love of my life, mother of my children, every beat of my heart?”
“Jasper,” I whisper, “is this really happening? Do you really feel those things for me?”
“I love you desperately, Ellie. I suspect that I have for quite some time, long before I knew what it was like to hold you and kiss you and make love to you. And now that I’ve held you in my arms, I can’t imagine a time that I’ll ever want anything other than more of you.”
I raise my hands to his face and draw him into a kiss that’s all about the overwhelming love I feel for this man, who’s risking everything to be with me. Unlike every man who came before him, I haven’t a single doubt about his sincerity. This one is as real as it gets, and I know that my heart will be safe in his hands and my life with him will be filled with love and family and friends and excitement.
He withdraws slowly from the kiss, but keeps his lips close to mine. “I feel guilty for talking about the future before I’ve taken care of the present. If I ever had to disappoint you—”
I cover his lips with my fingers. “The only way you could disappoint me is if you stopped loving me.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“No matter where you are, I’ll be there with you, whether it’s here or in London or Cornwall or whatever. I’m with you, mate.”
His eyes dance with love and amusement as he looks down at me. “Spoken by a Los Angeles-born-and-bred woman who’s never been to Cornwall.”
“Spoken by the woman who loves you no matter where in the world you are.”
“Thank you, darling,” he whispers, his lips brushing against my neck and setting off a reaction I feel everywhere. “Do you suppose we’d be missed if we take a few more minutes alone?”
“I’m sure we’ll be missed and razzed upon our return, but I’m willing to put up with that if you are.”
“I’m very, very willing.” He grabs hold of my hand and tugs me along behind him into the bathroom that adjoins Kristian’s office, kicking the door closed behind us and locking it.
Oh my…
My emotions are all over the place—soaring highs, crushing lows and everything in between. The overwhelming support of my partners and Ellie’s parents has cemented my resolve to fight my father with every tool in our considerable arsenal. Flynn’s idea to do the interview, to steal my father’s thunder, is brilliant.
If there’s anything Henry hates more than negative publicity, I don’t know what it is. Well, he probably hates me most of all right about now, but I can live with that if it means freeing myself from the shackles he’s had me in my whole life.
But with my lovely Ellie in my arms, the last thing I want to think about is my father, his threats or those bloody shackles. I’d much prefer to think of shackles of a different kind, the sort in which Ellie is bound to my bed and submitting to me. Since that’s not possible right now, I turn her to face the mirror and hold her from behind, running my hands over her sexy body while watching her reactions play out on her expressive face.
I cup her breasts and drag my thumbs over her nipples, watching as her mouth falls open and her eyes widen with desire. I fucking love her sweet face and how it gives away every thought and emotion she experiences. She hides nothing from me, which only makes me love her more than I already do. Lifting her top up and over her head, I fixate on the sight of her breasts contained by the sheer, sexy bra that leaves very little to my fertile imagination.
I release the front clasp and slide the straps down her arms, leaving her bare from the waist up. Her nipples tighten before my eyes, making J.T. so hard he could pound nails.
“Put your hands on the vanity and lean forward.”
As she follows my command, she meets my gaze in the mirror, and the slight hint of apprehension I see in her eyes only makes me harder. She knows I would never, ever hurt her, but she’s uncertain about what’s about to happen. Judging from the glow in her cheeks and the tight buds of her nipples, the apprehension is feeding her arousal.
I drop to my knees behind her and run my hands up the backs of her legs, raising her skirt up and over her bottom. Ah, God, look at that sweet arse with the thong disappearing between her supple cheeks. I could die right now and I’d go happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I touch my lips to cheeks that are still pink from the spanking on the plane and revel in her gasp.
“Does it hurt?” I ask her.
“No. Just very sensitive.”
“I like very sensitive.” My fingers continue their journey to the front of her, which is hot and wet and swollen. I press against her clit through silk panties that are soaked from her desire. “How about here?”
“Also aching in a good way,” she says breathlessly.
Suddenly ravenous for a taste of her, I roughly remove the strings she calls panties and bury my face between her legs. I spread her arse cheeks and leave no part of her unexplored with my tongue. She goes crazy, bucking up against me and crying out every time my tongue circles around her clit.
“Oh God,” she says, “I need to come. Please, Jasper…”
Because torturing her is so fun, I don’t give in. Not yet. By the time I’m ready to burst myself, her legs are trembling madly and sweat is rolling down her back. I love how real and raw it is with her. I never have a single doubt that she’s as into me as I am with her.
It’s time to give her what she wants so I can have what I want—my cock, balls-deep in her. I press the flat of my tongue against her clit and drive two fingers into her from behind. Letting my tongue vibrate against her throbbing flesh, I tell her to come.
She explodes, screaming so loud I wonder if they’ll hear her up on the roof. Hopefully, the kids are making too much of a racket, and hopefully, no one chose that moment to come looking for us. I bring her down softly, gently, calming her until she sags against the vanity, her legs still shaking violently.
“Jesus, Jasper,” she says, gasping for air.
Smiling at her in the mirror, I grab a towel off the counter and wip
e my face, tossing it aside in my haste to free J.T., to drive deep into her, to start her climbing all over again.
I reach around to fill my hands with her breasts, pinching her nipples between my fingers. Her inner muscles clamp down upon my cock, and I have to bite my lip—hard—to keep from coming too soon. God, it’s never been like this before. I’ve never had to fight so hard to maintain control with any other woman.
Later we’ll have time to spend hours in bed, but right now we’re on a schedule. That’s the only reason I give in to the powerful need to let go, to join with her in another combustible moment of unity. Our eyes meet in the mirror in the second before we hit the peak simultaneously. I’ve never felt closer or more in tune with another human being than I do with her right here and now.
I keep my arms wrapped around her and my face pressed to her back while her muscles continue to contract around my cock. Christ have mercy… I’m never going to survive her. What I’d consider “vanilla” sex with anyone else is almost too hot to handle with her. I love that it’s as exciting to bend her over a bathroom vanity as it is to tie her to a bed. It doesn’t matter what we do or how we do it, as long as we do it together.
“They’ll be relentless,” she says after a long period of silence.
“I’m not finding the will to care.”
“Me either, but now I’ve got a heck of a job to do to put myself back together for TV.”
“You could go out there starkers and be the most beautiful woman she’s ever had on that show.”
“Starkers?”
“Naked.”
“That’s not happening.” She nudges me with her elbow. “Let me up, you sex-crazed beast.”
I stand upright and zip my pants. “Ouch. That hurts my feelings.”
“No, it doesn’t. You can’t fool me.”
With her hair disheveled and her face flushed from two orgasms, she turns to face me. I’ve never seen anything more stunning than she is after we make love. I caress her face with my thumb.
“Is there a dictionary I can get my hands on?” she asks.
“Pardon?”
“Of all these British terms you toss around. I need a translator.”
“I’ll be your translator.” I kiss her nose and then her lips. “How about we borrow Kris’s shower and make ourselves presentable for this interview?”
“I need my bag to be presentable.”
I kiss her again. “I’ll go find it. Be right back.” At the door, I look back to see her shimmying out of her skirt, and I have to remind myself that I was supposed to be doing something. Now that I’m allowed to touch her any time I want, that’s all I want to do.
I leave the bathroom and cut through Kris’s office to the hallway that leads to the foyer where Gordon left our bags. I’m on my way back with both bags when Flynn waylays me in the hallway. He stares at me but doesn’t say anything, which puts me on edge.
“Everything all right, mate?”
“You tell me. You talked to my parents?”
“We did. They were very supportive.” I pause and try to interpret his unreadable expression. “Flynn, I’m sorry if my relationship with Ellie has upset you—”
“It’s not that. I actually think you two will be great together.”
“Then what is it?”
“The rest of it. Did you think we would tell anyone?”
I exhale a long sigh when I realize his feelings are hurt by the secrets I kept from him and the others. “It wasn’t that.”
“Then what? I want to understand how I could work side by side with you for all this time and not know the first thing about who you really are.”
“That’s not true.” The words come out far more sharply than I intended. “The Jasper you know is exactly who I really am. The man I’ve been here, with all of you, is the only person I’ve ever wanted to be. I’m sorry if you’re hurt by the secrets I kept, but I kept them out of self-preservation, not because I didn’t want you to know. It was never that.”
“Fair enough.” He looks up at me, and asks, “Does she know? About me? And the club…”
“No. I’d never tell her that. It’s not my place, and I doubt she’d want that info anyway.”
“You… You’re being careful with her, right?”
“I love her, Flynn. I’ll always be careful with her.”
That seems to satisfy him. “Good enough, I suppose.”
“I need to get ready for Carolyn.”
He moves to step aside to let me pass. “You’ll take care of her, right?”
I know he’s not talking about Carolyn. “Always.”
With a curt nod, he turns and walks away, leaving me to feel like I’ve just passed a huge test I wasn’t expecting to take right then, but I suppose that conversation was inevitable from the moment I set my sights on his sister. When I open the door to join Ellie in the bathroom, I’m greeted with a cloud of steam.
I shed my clothes and step in to join her, wrapping an arm around her waist and propping my chin on her shoulder.
“I wondered if you were coming back.”
“Flynn found me.”
“Oh jeez. I hope he didn’t say anything ridiculous.”
“Not at all. We had a good chat.”
“You’d tell me if he was an arse, as you would say, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d take great pleasure in telling you that, but he wasn’t.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything is better than okay, and once we get this interview out of the way, I’ll feel a thousand times better.”
“Then let’s get it out of the way.”
Chapter 22
Carolyn Justice is lovely and gracious and down to earth. After a few minutes in her presence, I see why Flynn chose her for the one interview he did when Natalie’s painful past was made public. She puts Ellie and me at ease by first speaking to us off camera about what we’d like to say and what we won’t talk about. Not surprisingly, she has a lot of questions about how a British aristocrat became one of Hollywood’s most successful cinematographers.
I realize as I tell her the quick version of my story that it’s a huge relief not to have to keep it secret anymore. My father did me a favor by spilling the beans, not that I’ll ever let him know that.
And then it’s show time. Ellie and I are seated next to each other with cameras pointed at us, and I discover how much I prefer being on the other side of the cameras. Being interviewed doesn’t come naturally to me, not like it does to Flynn, Marlowe and Hayden.
As if she knows I need the reinforcement, Ellie reaches for my hand and holds on tight. After we pass the welcome-thanks-for-having-us pleasantries, Carolyn begins with my father’s bombshell announcement.
“What can you tell us about why you chose to keep your title a secret for all these years?”
“At first it was about wanting to separate myself from the Kingsley name and everything it stands for. I was eighteen, venturing out on my own for the first time, and I was interested in a career that had nothing at all to do with my title, my legacy, my inheritance. I just wanted to make films, and that’s what I’ve done for the last fifteen years.”
“Very successfully, I might add,” Carolyn says, launching into a list of the awards I’ve won over the years, culminating with the recent Oscar for Camouflage. “Why do you suppose your father decided now was the time to go public with the truth?”
“I don’t pretend to understand much of what my father says or does, but I suspect the timing had to do with my recent visit to London during which I let him know that I won’t be available to take over Kingsley Enterprises, as he’s always planned for me to do.”
“How did he take that?”
I glance at Ellie, who’s watching me closely. “Not well. In the time it took me to fly home from London, he told the world who I really am, and here we are.”
“What I don’t understand is how it was possible to keep such a secret for all this time, especially in the dig
ital age when everything is on the Internet.”
“At home, Jasper Kingsley is known as an eccentric inventor, squirreled away in his Cornwall workshop. Here, I’m a lowly cinematographer, made famous by osmosis thanks to the company I keep. I was extremely fortunate that no one ever dug into my background. I guess I’m just not that interesting.”
“I’d argue with that,” Ellie says, drawing smiles from Carolyn and me.
“As I understand, you went to see your father because you’ve decided to get married and have a family here in LA.”
“That’s right.” I squeeze Ellie’s hand as I look over at her. “Ellie and I are making plans that don’t jibe with the plans my father has made for me all my life. I figured it was time to let him know that I won’t be joining him at Kingsley Enterprises. I felt it was only fair to give him time to make other plans for his business.”
“Ellie, how did you feel when you learned the truth about Jasper’s background?”
“First of all,” she says, “I already knew when it went public. I respect and admire Jasper’s family history, but I don’t believe that he or anyone should be forced to live any life but the one they choose for themselves. In this day and age, he can certainly uphold his responsibilities to his title while continuing to pursue a career that means the world to him at the same time. Not to mention, he’s insanely talented, and the world of film would be lesser without his contributions.”
“You sound like a woman in love, Ellie,” Carolyn says.
Though my heart is full to overflowing, I say, “I paid her to say all that.”
Both women laugh at my comment.
“What does your brother think of your relationship with his business partner?” Carolyn asks Ellie.
“He’s been very supportive of us both, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. Jasper has been our close friend for many years, so it’s not like he’s a stranger.”
“And your parents?”