Redeemed by Passion

by Joss Wood

  A sharp knock on the door and Duncan walking into the room dissolved that fantasy. Duncan placed a tray holding a carafe of coffee, cups and cream and sugar on the coffee table in front of Teresa and lifted his eyebrows at Liam. After a beat, Duncan nodded briskly. “Enjoy your coffee. I’ll make sure that you aren’t disturbed.”

  Liam squirmed, thinking that the younger man might be able to read his mind. When Duncan left the room, he took his seat opposite Teresa, linked his hands and waited until her eyes met his. There was one way to get her under his wing, to put a message out there that she was off-limits, that she was under his protection.

  “I think we should get married. As soon as possible.”

  * * *

  Teresa thought she heard Liam asking her to marry him. Which wasn’t possible. Was it?

  Before she could force her tongue to form words—not that she had the vaguest idea of what she should say, apart from “are you nuts?”—Liam stood up and loomed over her, one hand on the arm of the sofa, the other behind her head, caging her in. She stared into his beautiful eyes, fringed with those dark, thick lashes, and lifted her fingers to the scruff on his square jaw.

  She’d go back to harsh reality in a minute—a freakin’ marriage proposal?—she just needed to touch him, inhale his sexy scent, lose herself in his forest-green eyes.

  Teresa watched as his mouth descend toward hers and she pushed away the thought that they should be talking about business, that she needed to respond to his crazy suggestion. She didn’t want to be sensible or businesslike or strategic; she just needed to feel.

  Kissing Liam, touching his wonderful, masculine body, made sense; nothing else did.

  Confusion and lust warred for dominance in Liam’s eyes. “I shouldn’t be kissing you—” he said.

  Screw that.

  “The only thing you should be doing right now is kissing me.” Teresa whispered the words against his lips.

  Liam released a harsh swear before his mouth covered hers and as his tongue swept into her mouth, Teresa, for the first time in days, relaxed. Here, in Liam’s arms, was where she felt safe, protected, totally at ease.

  Teresa wound her arms around Liam’s neck and stumbled to her feet, needing to be closer to him, wanting, if possible, to crawl inside his skin and stay there. She pushed her breasts into his hard chest, mentally cursing the fabric barriers between them.

  As Liam’s hand moved from her head, over her back and down her ass, Teresa gripped the fabric of his shirt at his hips and pulled it out from the waistband of his suit pants. Pushing her hands up and under the fabric, she finally found hot, male skin covering long, sleek muscles. Heat and need and warmth soaked her panties as she pushed his shirt up his chest, wrenching her mouth away from his to place hot kisses on his right pec, flicking her tongue across his flat nipple.

  Above her head, Liam cursed and she felt his hands pulling at his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt. Then he lifted his shirt up and over his head and she had easy access to his wide chest and ridged stomach.

  “You’re so hot and it’s been so long and I want you so much,” Teresa told him as she dropped her hands to his belt buckle and pulled it apart, her fingers struggling to undo the clasp of his suit pants.

  If she didn’t get him inside her, filling her and all those empty, bleak places, she might just cry...

  “Hold on a sec,” Liam muttered.

  Teresa ignored him and when he pushed her hands away, using one hand to loosely clasp her wrists behind her back, he used his other hand to tip her chin up. His eyes met hers and his sweet smile liquefied her knees. “Slow down a sec, honey. I need to get you caught up.”

  Teresa stared at him as he dropped his hand to flick open the buttons of her silk shirt and when he spread the fabric apart and stared down at her barely there bra, passion flashed, hot and bright, in his eyes. “You are so beautiful.”

  In that moment, watching Liam as he looked at her, Teresa felt beautiful. Thoughts of marriage and mergers and machinations fell away and she knew that he wanted her. Liam’s long finger traced her breasts above midnight-colored lace and when his thumb drifted over her nipple, she sucked in her breath and wobbled on her heels.

  Liam released her hands, hoisted her skirt up her hips and spun around, dropping to sit on the sofa behind him. Her skirt, now up around her hips, was no longer a barrier to movement so he spread her knees across his thighs and positioned her so that her hot core was directly positioned over his rock-hard erection. Teresa felt her eyes cross and her breathing became shallower as she rocked against him.

  It wouldn’t take much for her to come...

  Pleasure spiked when Liam pulled the cup of her bra down and sucked her into his mouth, his tongue winding around her tight nipple. Teresa held the back of his head and whimpered, the hurricane of pleasure whirling and swirling around and within her.

  Liam pulled away from her and looked up, his eyes slamming into hers. “This is truth, Teresa. This is the only truth. The way you make me feel...this is where truth lies.”

  Unable to take in his words, to discern what he was trying to say, Teresa arched her back, only concerned that he give her other breast the same attention. When he did, she ground down on his cock, needing to feel him, every hard inch of him.

  “Tell me you want me,” Liam muttered, pushing his hand between them to pull down his zipper, his knuckles brushing against her clit. Teresa gasped, demanding more.

  Between her legs, Liam’s hand stilled. “Tell me.”

  Teresa forced her eyes open. “I want you, Liam.” She pushed against his hand. “Can’t you tell?”

  Liam kept his eyes on hers as he lifted his hips, pulling his suit pants and his underwear down his hips. Teresa sighed when she felt his heat and hardness, stroking her core up and down his long, lovely length.

  Liam did a half sit-up and reached for the clasp of her bra, flicking it open. He pulled it off and, still arched, bent down to suckle one breast, then the other.

  Teresa pushed her hand between them and gripped his cock, moving so that his tip was positioned at her entrance, delaying the pleasure of feeling him slide into her for as long as possible.

  “Condom, Teresa.”

  She couldn’t wait and what was the point? “I’m on the pill.”

  Relief flashed across Liam’s face and, two seconds later, he lifted his hips and surged into her in one hard, soul-touching stroke. Teresa sighed, sank deeper onto him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, conscious of his face in her neck, his breath against her skin. This was a curiously intimate position. She wasn’t sure who was cradling whom but it didn’t matter... Liam was inside her, where she needed him to be.

  “You feel amazing,” Liam muttered, rocking his hips with small movements and sending bursts of pleasure coursing through her. But she needed more; she needed everything. She needed hard and long and intense...she needed him.

  This.

  Teresa pulled back, held his face in her hands and met his foggy-with-pleasure eyes. “I need you, Liam. I need hard and hot and long and rough. I need you to make me forget everything but how you make me feel.”

  Liam dropped another curse. “I’m holding on with everything I have, honey. If I take you hard, I’m not going to last a minute.”

  “I’ll be with you every step along the way,” Teresa assured him.

  He looked at her for a moment, silently questioning her, and something in her face must’ve convinced him because he surged to his feet, easily picking her up. Ignoring the pants around his hips, he put her on her feet and turned her back to him and placed a hand between her shoulder blades, forcing her to bend over the arm of the sofa. He stepped out of one trouser leg and used his knee to nudge her legs apart. His hands kneaded the bare flesh of her ass, and Teresa heard the snap of the thin cords of her thong breaking and, out of the corner of her eye, saw the
dark blue fabric flutter to the floor.

  Liam crowded her, his erection resting between her butt cheeks as his hand traveled across her flat stomach and his fingers brushed the thin strip of hair. Expertly, knowingly, his fingers found her clit and Teresa gasped and instinctively lifted her ass. Taking her massive hint, Liam slid into her from behind and Teresa placed her forearms on the sofa arm and buried her face into the crook of her arm.

  “No, I need you close,” Liam muttered, wrapping his arm diagonally across her chest and pulling her into him, her back to his front. His other arm wrapped around her waist and she felt his mouth on her shoulder, in the crook of her neck.

  Needing more, Teresa turned her head and his mouth met hers, his tongue echoing the smooth slides of his cock as he pushed into her and pulled back.

  Pleasure, hot and white, shot with silver and white, started at her toes and sprinted up her calves, her thighs, and lodged itself in her womb. It grew brighter and bigger and bolder and when Liam pulled back and placed his hands on her hips and slammed into her, that ball of brilliance shattered and a million sparks danced across her skin. Liam groaned and shuddered, his forehead on her spine.

  Teresa closed her eyes, wanting to hold on to the dream for as long as possible. But when Liam kissed her shoulder blade, when he pulled out of her, she knew that reality, and her life, was about to smack her in the face again.

  Liam bent down and picked up his suit pants and her bra and shirt. As she took her clothes from him, Teresa flushed when she realized that her skirt was still up around her hips and her heels were still on her feet.

  “My private bathroom is through there,” Liam said, his voice low as she held her garments with a shaking hand. “And when you come back, we can discuss getting married.”

  * * *

  Teresa stared at herself in the mirror above the sink and shook her head. Judging by her foggy eyes and her swollen mouth, it was obvious to see that she’d just been thoroughly ravished.

  Ravished...

  It was such an old-fashioned word but it really captured the essence of the moment.

  Teresa gripped the edges of the basin and stared down at the white porcelain. As wonderful as making love with Liam was, she had to concentrate. Liam wanted them to get married...

  She’d rather stab herself between the eyebrows with a rusty fork.

  Oh, she couldn’t imagine spending her life with anyone but him, but she was damned if she’d use marriage, even marriage to Liam Christopher, as a business solution, as a logical solution to a sticky situation!

  Who did that?

  Apparently, good-looking billionaires who wanted to save their jobs and their company. While she didn’t want Liam to get ousted as CEO of Christopher Corporation—he was the company and it needed him, no matter what those dinosaurs said earlier—she wouldn’t sacrifice herself to the cause. She respected herself too much to settle for less than true love and can’t-live-without-you. And she needed trust.

  He didn’t believe in her. And he still didn’t trust her.

  And, to be honest, did she fully trust him? Could she ever fully trust anyone again, to trust that he’d stick by her through thick and thin, sickness and health, all that richer and poorer stuff? She didn’t know, she didn’t think so...people simply didn’t do that anymore but she more than wanted that sort of commitment. Having grown up without any support system, she needed it.

  And then her thoughts started to spiral. Why did he want to marry her, why now? What was driving him? Liam wanting to marry her might also be an easy way for him to get his hands on her shares...without paying for them.

  And if he did that then she wouldn’t have a way to bulletproof her business and, more important, to pay Joshua’s debts so that he would forever be free of those cretins in Vegas.

  There were a million reasons why she couldn’t marry Liam but at the heart of it was the fact that he didn’t love her, didn’t trust her and never would. She was already mostly miserable without being married to him; getting the legal system involved would make her feel a hundred times worse.

  Through the thick wooden door Teresa heard him clearing his throat. “Teresa, we need to talk.”

  She really didn’t want to. She’d far prefer it if she could walk out of the bathroom and keep moving until she left his office, his building, Seattle and her life. Until she reached the white sands of Bali...

  Teresa opened the door and slowly walked back to his sofa, trying not to remember how amazing she felt not ten minutes before. She picked her tote bag up from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. She looked at him, now fully dressed, his tie loosely slung around his neck and his hair messy from her fingers. For a minute he didn’t look like the calm and always-in-control Liam Christopher she knew and fought with. He looked like a man waiting on a woman’s answer, uncertain and a little worried.

  A small part of her wanted to say yes, to give him the answer he needed. Then she remembered that he didn’t love her and he didn’t trust her or believe anything she said.

  No, as great as the sex was—and it was fan-freaking-tastic—she couldn’t give him the answer he wanted. She wanted love. Was that too much to ask for?

  “No, Liam.”

  It took a moment for her words to make sense and when they did, shock passed across his face and lodged in his eyes. “What?”

  He’d heard her; he just didn’t want to accept what she’d said. “No, I won’t marry you.”

  Not for a business. Her self-respect, her happiness, her soul, wasn’t for sale.

  Seven

  Nicolette flashed a smile at Brooks’s driver as he opened the back door to his limousine. She slid inside and surreptitiously pinched herself. Taking her seat, she looked past Brooks’s broad shoulders as he followed her inside the vehicle and caught a glimpse of the elegant, discreet sign to the left of the red door. Paul’s was, if not the best restaurant in Seattle, within the top three. Sitting down for a meal in the twelve-seater restaurant was more difficult than booking a flight to space, but when Brooks asked her where she wanted to eat, she’d tossed out the name of the restaurant as a joke. He’d made it happen.

  Brooks. Made. Stuff. Happen.

  Brooks settled in beside her, looking utterly masculine in a charcoal suit and an open-neck, white button-down shirt. She looked at his big hand resting on his thigh and wished that it was on her leg, that he was turning to face her, about to lean in for a kiss. Nic swallowed once, then twice. She really, really wanted to kiss Brooks, had from the first moment they met.

  How was she going to live with him, in his house, share his life and not jump him on a regular-to-often basis? She was a red-blooded woman in her late twenties and she liked sex; she needed sex. And she desperately wanted to get naked with her soon-to-be husband.

  Nic sighed and flicked the diamond-and-emerald engagement ring Brooks placed on her finger earlier that evening. It was ridiculously big and stupidly expensive and she couldn’t help wishing that the ring came with a heartfelt “I adore you” or “I’m so glad that you are mine.”

  Gah!

  The limo pulled away and Nic turned her head to stare out the window, annoyed at the burning sensation in her eyes.

  This is a business arrangement. Why are you allowing yourself to feel all gooey? Stop it right now.

  She had to remember why she was doing this, what she was trying to achieve. If she could save one girl...

  “My sister and I were close as kids but when she hit her teens, things started to go wrong.”

  She felt Brooks’s eyes on her, could feel his gaze tracing her features. She didn’t need to see his face to know that his entire focus was on her. She needed to tell him why her documentary was important, imperative, partly so that he would understand why she’d agreed to marry him and also to keep her feet firmly on the ground. This wasn’t about love, it wasn’t about money...she
was doing this to tell Jane’s story.

  Nic felt Brooks’s hand on her thigh, his touch comforting and not sexual, and she sucked in a deep breath. She could trust this man with her secrets; she was sure she could.

  “My older sister and I were raised by my grandmother. My mom...” God, how could she say this?

  Brooks squeezed her bare thigh in silent support. Nic forced the words through her teeth. “My mom liked booze a little too much and men even more.”

  “Your dad?”

  Nic lifted one shoulder. “Jane and I had different fathers. She met hers once, I think. Mine was long gone before I was born.”

  Brooks lifted his hand from her thigh and pushed his hand between the seat and her back, sliding his arm around her waist. He pulled her into him so that her back was against his chest, her head against his shoulder. She felt him kiss her hair, so softly, so...kindly.

  Kindness was, she decided, so very underrated.

  “Jane, like my mom, liked alcohol and men. She started using both when she was about fourteen. My grandmother put her into rehab a few times but it never took.”

  Behind her, Brooks tensed but then his hand came up to stroke her hair, his silent support tangible. “At sixteen she met a guy, someone a lot older, and she ran away from home to be with him.”

  “Oh, honey.”

  “When I was eighteen and she twenty, we were informed that she’d died of a drug overdose. The investigator from the Medical Examiner’s office told us that she’d been working the streets to feed her addictions. When I asked about the guy she ran away with, she told us that Jane lived with her pimp and, by his description, I knew it was the same guy she left with years before.”

  “Why didn’t she make contact?”

  It was a fair question. “Embarrassment? Fear of rejection? Coming home would also mean failure and she would’ve known that Gran and I would’ve made her face her demons.”