If I Were You

by Lisa Renee Jones

  A slow smile slides onto his lips and he disposes of his plate and motions to the box. “More?”

  I set my plate on the table. “Not yet. You didn’t answer my question.”

  He turns to face me, his leg on the couch as well, and scrubs his jaw, looking busted. “Yes. I’ve been known to slip in his photo here or there.” He winks. “Fooled you, didn’t I?”

  “Your father looks like he’s in his forties in the photo. I assumed you’d aged poorly.”

  “In other words, I fooled you.”

  I purse my lips and concede. “You fooled me.”

  We stare at each other and our lighthearted mood shifts, the air thickening with the mutual attraction our hot window encounter has done nothing but sate and everything to expand.

  Sitting here, studying him, I’ve officially confirmed in my mind what I’d thought earlier. While I don’t doubt Chris really is lighthearted and fun, it’s not effortless either. He buries whatever he doesn’t want me to know about. This man is far more than he appears to be on the surface and the glimpses beneath intrigue me.

  My gaze drops to his arm, to the red, blue, and yellow of the dragon tattoo. I scoot closer to him, and my leg presses to his, sending an instant charge over my skin.

  I swallow hard, and I reach out, letting my fingers caress the dragon design. His muscles flex under my touch and it is incredibly powerful to think I might be affecting him.

  Slowly, my gaze lifts to his, and his is hot coals with simmering embers. “It’s very…sexy.” I’m surprised at how easily I say the words. I suck at flirting but there is something different about me with this man.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  My palm glides down his forearm and he catches my hand in his, as if he doesn’t want to break the connection. “Why a dragon?”

  “It represents power and wealth, two things as a very young man I knew I wanted.”

  “And you wanted money and power at such a young age?”

  “Yes.”

  I want to ask why, but it feels too probing. “And now?”

  “I have those things and with them comes security.”

  I think of how he’d used that power with Mark, about the darker side I’ve seen of him tonight. He does like power, not in the abstract way Mark does, but he owns it in his own right.

  “My first paintings were dragons. They’re in my personal collection. I never sold any of them, or even tried.”

  “Here?” I ask eagerly. “I’d love to see them.”

  “Paris.”

  “Oh.” Of course. Paris is his true home. I glance at his arm again. “The artist is quite talented.”

  “She is.”

  My chest tightens. A woman who he let create art on his body, who seems to have inspired him to create some of his own.

  Gently, he brushes hair behind my ear, and I barely contain a shiver. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

  About her. I want to know about here. “You’ll tell me what you want me to know.”

  Surprise flickers in his eyes. “You are never quite what I expect, Sara McMillan.”

  “Neither are you.”

  His voice softens. “The tattoo artist was someone who got me through a hard time.”

  I’m holding my breath, and I don’t know why.

  “She’s the past,” he adds. “You’re right now.”

  Air trickles slowly from my lips. I think he means this as a good thing but the words ‘right now’ don’t sit well. I have no clue why they bother me or why my stomach has knotted up. Right now is all that matters. I’m thinking too much. I don’t want to think. I climb onto his lap and he shifts to sit with his back against the couch. Boldly, I straddle him, my hands on his shoulders.

  “I’m here now. What are you going to do with me?”

  For several seconds he sits there. He doesn’t touch me. Tension radiates off of him, seeps into me. He doesn’t react and I begin to feel self-conscious for the first time all night.

  Suddenly, the fingers of one of his hands curl around my neck and he pulls my mouth near his. “Do you know what happens when you push a Dragon? They burn you alive, baby. You’re playing with fire.”

  My fingers curl on his cheek and all self-consciousness is gone, forgotten. “I’m not afraid of whatever you’re talking about. I think you keep warning me away because you’re the one who’s afraid.”

  His fingers knot in my hair and I gasp at the unexpected bite of his grip, holding me steady. “Is that all you got?” I demand, shocked at how much I want more. How much I want whatever is beneath his surface. I’m not scared. I’m aroused. I’m ready.

  His eyes probe mine, his expression hard, intense. “I thought you were a good little school teacher.”

  “You’re corrupting me,” I declare, “and I seem to like it.” I barely issue the challenge before he’s pulling my mouth to his, and he is kissing me with unrestrained, burning passion. I taste the part of him I want to know, the part he’s afraid of, and I burn to know more. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am playing with fire, but I cannot stop myself. Beyond reason, I will push him until he reveals everything.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I sink into his kiss, moaning at the wicked way his tongue is licking against mine, driving me wild. His palms skim my back and the shirt is lifted, I gladly raise my hands and let him pull it off of me. He’s filled his hands with my breasts before I can even lower my arms. And Lord help me his mouth is on my nipple, suckling and licking. My hands tunnel into his hair and his gaze lifts to mine. He watches me as he licks a circle around my nipple. I bite my lip from the pleasure and he leans in to lick where my teeth have just worried, melding my naked breasts to his chest.

  His hand slides behind my neck again. He likes holding me captive. I think he likes it a lot. I think I do, too. “You don’t know what you’re doing with me, Sara,” he growls.

  “But I want to,” I whisper and I haven’t meant anything quite so much in a very long time. My hands slide down his sides, his skin hot, over hard, taut muscle.

  His mouth claims mine again, full of demands, and… warning? Maybe. Probably. It only makes me hotter, hungrier. I fight the urge to pull his hair. His hands travel my body, possessing me, and oh yes, I want to be possessed by this man.

  “Lean back,” he orders, his hand on my waist, pressing me backwards until my hands are on the table behind me.

  My breasts are high, thrust into the air, and his eyes are ravenous as they take me in. I gasp as he slides his fingers between my thighs, stroking me.

  “So wet.” There is a rasp to his voice, a husky desire. “So hot.” He’s exploring me, teasing me, and oh yes, his finger slides inside me and I can barely breathe. This isn’t like before when I couldn’t see him. He’s staring at me, and I see the man, the passion, the glint of sexual prowess in his eyes that tells me I am out of my league, but I don’t want to be.

  He leans forward and scrapes my nipple with his teeth and I realize this is more like before than I’d realized. I am once again captive. I cannot reach for him or I’ll fall. He slides another finger inside me and suckles my nipples to the point of near pain, erotic, wonderful pain. “Chris,” I pant, and I don’t know what I am asking.

  “Do you remember when I said I was going to lick you all over, Sara?” he asks, nibbling a path between my breasts, leaving my wet, aching nipples throbbing with the need for his mouth.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”

  He flicks my clit with his thumb, spreads the wetness over my ultra-sensitive flesh. “You want me to lick you here?” he asks, one hand sliding down to my stomach, the other working my body, pumping in and out of me.

  My lashes flutter and I let my head fall back. “Look at me, Sara,” he demands, and there is a sharpness to the words that snaps my head up.

  “Do you want me to lick you here?”

  I’m too close. The edge of orgasm is on me. “Yes, but…I don’t…think I can take it. Not now.” I gasp as his fingers
are suddenly gone and he’s lifting me. Before I can begin to clear the cobwebs I am on the couch and my legs are over his shoulders. His mouth closes down on me and warm pressure overtakes me. There is only sensation after sensation and I am already lost, spinning into orgasm. I try to stop myself but it’s impossible. This man, this glorious sexy, dark, intense man has his mouth on me in the most intimate of ways after telling me he was going to lick me all over. I cannot breathe and my entire body goes stiff before I jerk from the intensity of my body clenching. His fingers slide inside me, answering the need of my body, filling me.

  A chill rushes over my body the instant I can catch my breath, cooling the fire on my skin. Chris follows it, enclosing me with his big body, and then he is kissing me. I can taste myself on him, salty and sweet, and I know this is his intent. And I know I’m not pushing him at all. I’m only going where he lets me. As if validating my thoughts, he moves, then is gone, leaving me wanting more. Controlling everything, controlling me.

  He’s standing above me, taking off his boots, and my heart thunders in my chest to realize he is undressing. I sit up straight, watching him, my mouth dry with anticipation. His jeans are gone in a flash, and his underwear with them, or else he was commando. I don’t care. He is naked and hard and hot, his cock jutting forward, thick and heavily veined with arousal. For me. I want to touch him but before I can move, he turns and snatches his jeans, searching in his pocket and I hear the crinkle of paper, but it barely registers. I am spellbound by the man’s backside and I am still staring when he drops his pants and sits down next to me.

  He hands me the condom, a silent challenge in his eyes. “Now I’m here. What are you going to do with me?”

  Shifting to my knees, I wrap my fingers around the condom and blink at him. I am confused by the way he commands me when it comes to my pleasure, but he isn’t commanding me to do anything to him. I have been commanded, ordered to my knees, ordered to do things I didn’t want to do. I despised those moments in time and I wasn’t turned on. But Chris could order me to do just about anything and I believe I’d melt with pleasure. I want to do many things to this man, and I am wet and ache with the fantasies I’m wickedly conjuring in my mind.

  I feel empowered, sexy. I like this feeling. My gaze lowers to his cock and then lifts. “Do you want me to put this on you now or do you want me to lick you there first?”

  His eyes darken. “Ah, my pretty little school teacher. I’m beginning to wonder, who’s corrupting who?”

  I am no more corrupting him than he is truly at my mercy, while I most definitely am at his. In fact, I’m not sure he ever could be at my mercy and there’s a part of me that feels I will never know this man until he is. The desire to show him I can handle whatever he throws at me is a seed taking root.

  I let the condom drop to the couch, and one of my hands settles on his thigh, the springy hair there tickling my palm in a surprisingly erotic way, but then I am ultra-sensitive, my body tingling all over. I wrap my free hand around the base of his erection, and his flesh is softness covering solid steel. I lean over him and lick the salty sweet drop of arousal there. It explodes on my taste buds and he moans. The sound of him turned on ignites my desire. I lick a circle around him, and suckle him between my lips.

  I can feel his thigh tense beneath my palm, and I am enthralled with my ability to please him, but I want him to touch my head, to need this so badly he can’t bear the idea of me stopping. Driven by this goal, I begin a slow glide up and down his length and his hips lift with me. I can almost feel his need to hold me in place, but still he does not. I increase the pressure, and scoot closer, intentionally nestling my breast to his leg.

  A low moan slips from his mouth. “Enough,” he orders, reaching for me.

  No, I scream in my head, determined to take him all the way, but it’s too late. He’s too strong for me to fight. I am already flush against his chest, his hands in my hair, his mouth over mine. He was lethal, a drug…in some part of my lusty fog-laden mind, I remember the words of that first journal entry I’d read. Chris is quickly becoming my addiction, a drug I will never get enough of.

  I can feel his erection press against my backside and I reach behind me to stroke him. He caresses my breasts, teases my nipple. “Get the condom, baby.”

  “We don’t need it,” I whisper, so ready for him I hurt with need. “I’m on the pill.”

  He stops kissing me and goes utterly still. My palms flatten on his chest and I’m not sure whose heart is beating faster, his or mine. Dread forms inside me with his reaction and I instinctively know what he is thinking. I push back and stare at him.

  Anger and hurt collide inside me. “You think I’m on the pill to sleep around. I don’t believe you. Well, for your information I haven’t slept with anyone in...a long time...and I won’t be tonight again either.” I try to get off of him and he holds me. ”Let me go, Chris.”

  “Not a chance.” He slides a hand up my back and neck, forcing me into submission and this time I resent it. “I told you I wasn’t ready to let you run away and I meant it.”

  “Let go,” I demand. I’m hot and it’s not all about anger and that makes me furious with myself now, too.

  “I’m not that complicated, Sara. I wear a condom and I protect myself. I fuck and I get fucked, Sara. That is who I am and what I am. I told you that.”

  His words are hard and they wash over me with icy clarity. I drop my gaze and I feel like I’m going to crack into pieces. He’s right. I’m being emotional and no condom is stupid. How did I let myself drift into this territory? This is an escape, it’s sex.

  His fingers lace into my hair, palms framing my face, as he forces his gaze to mine. The stormy, hot turbulence in his eyes, a total contradiction to the ice of his words, steals my breath. “Damn it, woman,” he hisses. “What are you doing to me?” He presses his forehead to mine, and his voice rasps with eternal struggle. “I didn’t think about safe sex when you said you were on the pill. I wanted to know who the guy was who had you and lost you when I have no right to care. I don’t want to care. I don’t want to want to know.”

  But he does care, that’s what he is telling me, and suddenly, I can breathe again. “He’s the past,” I answer, as he had told me about the tattoo artist.

  “How past Sara? How long since you were last with a man.”

  “Are you sure you really want to know?” My heart thunders in my chest. “Because if I tell you, I think you’re going to-”

  “How long?”

  My throat restricts. “Five years. I stayed on the pill because...I just did.”

  He pulls back to study me. “No one for five years?”

  I cut my gaze. “I don’t want to talk about this.” I repeat what I’ve already said. “That’s my past and you’re now.”

  His hand slides to my face and he studies me, and seconds feel like hours. I fear he’s going to think I can’t handle this no strings relationship. “That’s right, baby,” he finally whispers. “I’m now.” He kisses me, his tongue sliding against mine, stroking me into a softer, needier place, where thinking thankfully isn’t an option.

  His hands are low on my back and his touch on my body affect me in a way I have never experienced. Every inch of my skin, every nerve ending, is tingling and alive.

  “I need to be inside you,” he growls near my ear, his breath warm on my neck, before his lips brush the sensitive area.

  My body clenches with the words. As impossible as it seems considering how hot this man has made me several times over, I have never been as aroused as I am in this moment. “Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”

  He shifts my weight, and presses into me. I gasp at the sensation of him entering me, stretching me, pressing all the way to the deepest depths of me in ways beyond the physical. Chris affects me deeply, intensely, completely.

  “Damn, you feel good, baby.” His voice is rough, intoxicatingly aroused. Again I think, because of me, this idea is immensely pleasing.

  One of
his hands glides lower on my back, a possessiveness to his touch that brands me, as he presses me down against him. I arch into the movement, the stroke of his cock inside me a sultry play on my nerve endings.

  He nips my bottom lip and licks the same spot. “You taste like honey and sunshine,” he murmurs, and then surprises me in such an intense moment by smiling and adding, “And pizza.”

  I laugh and lick his bottom lip. “You taste like-”

  “You,” he finishes for me, and my stomach clenches in reaction as he softens his voice, “I taste like you, Sara.”

  The air seems to thicken around us, and the connection I’ve felt with Chris from the moment we met shifts and evolves into a living, breathing thing. It’s controlling us now. It’s claiming us. We are no longer ourselves, no longer the damaged, thinking creatures who can hold back and control what we say and do. We are simply two people who have lost the world around us, and found this powerful, passionate moment.

  Our mouths come together in unison, our tongues tangling in a wicked, emotionally charged kiss that is like nothing we’ve shared until now. I feel this kiss in every part of my body and beyond, and there is an unfamiliar emotion in my chest; on some level I know this is dangerous with this man. Falling for him is a mistake I don’t intend to make and I don’t want to make, but I can’t fight the feelings overwhelming me. I can’t escape the way he overwhelms me with sensations though I have no real perception of really trying.

  We are moving together, a sultry dance of passion, touching each other with hot, needy caresses and I want to crawl under this man’s skin. There is a desperateness growing inside me, in the way I touch him, the way I kiss him. The way I press against him. Sensations build within my sex, spread through my nerve endings. I crave the place they are taking me with bittersweet desire as I yearn to savor this experience, not end it.

  Release comes over me too soon, and without warning, and I cling to Chris, burying my face in his neck. He moans as my body clamps down on his shaft and pushes me hard against his thrust. His arms are wrapped around me, holding me tightly when he shakes with his release.