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  “Hold still.”

  Holding her breasts, he bent his knees and flexed his hips. He pushed the rigid column of his cock up her spine, then down, then back up it again. He ground his balls against her. Through the fabric of his swim trunks, he felt heavy and swollen and delicious. Then he was gone.

  “Pussy-tease,” she mumbled in a beleaguered fashion.

  He laughed, the smooth, rich sound washing over her sensitized skin. Where had he gone? She couldn’t feel him anymore, straddling her, but she sensed he was still behind her. Then he spoke.

  “I’m going to move the apparatus some. You’ll still be very secure.”

  There was a metallic sound. He was turning a rotor of some kind, causing the apparatus to spread her legs even wider. She could feel her sex and even her buttocks parting, the air tickling at her wet, aroused tissues. A moment later, the entire apparatus began to tilt downward. Her head dipped and her bottom rose. Soon, she was staring wide-eyed not at the sunset waters of Lake Tahoe, but the bottom of the wrought iron fence and the edge of the tigerwood flooring. She held her breath. It was a little humiliating, being mechanically manipulated in order to expose her most private areas. It was also embarrassingly arousing.

  The metallic whirring stopped. She was suspended in midair on her belly at a downward slant, her ass higher than her head, her legs spread wide. Her clit twanged in sharp arousal, despite her vulnerability. She felt movement at her pelvis. The seat where her pelvis had rested, which had been weight bearing before he’d tilted her downward, jiggled slightly. It slipped away, leaving her entire sex exposed.

  “Jacob?” she asked shakily.

  He placed his hand on the back of her thigh. “I’m here.”

  With no further warning, he plunged a finger in her sheath and cupped her outer sex, grinding the hard edge of his palm against her clit. Keeping his finger inserted, he circled his hand.

  “Oh . . . oh God, Jacob,” popped out of her throat.

  “If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a tease. I’ll always come through, Harper.”

  She bit her lip, too swept up in hot lust to respond. Through a haze of pleasure, she faintly heard the click of a bottle opening, and then the sensation of warm liquid streaming onto her ass. She lay there, gasping and moaning in pleasure, as he rubbed the oil into her ass with one squeezing, shaping hand and continued to grind his other hand against her sex in the most demanding, eye-crossing manner.

  “No need for any of the oil in your pussy,” she heard him say gruffly. “You’re so creamy.” He withdrew his finger and plunged it back into her, demonstrating his point with a fluid glide. He circled his hand demandingly, the pressure on her clit divine. Heat rushed into her cheeks. Her feet began to burn in sympathy with her clit. He squeezed an ass cheek tautly, lifting it, and slid his finger out of her channel. He pressed the ridge of his forefinger between her labia, rubbing her clit hard. She cried out raggedly.

  “You look gorgeous right now,” she heard him say gruffly through the roar in her ears. “Your skin is gleaming, and your hair is like shining copper in the sun. You can’t escape, can you Harper?”

  “No,” she mumbled, nearly mindless with arousal. “I don’t want to, Jacob.”

  “You want to come, don’t you? You want to lie there and come, and then have my cock in you. You want to be fucked hard. Say it.”

  “Yes. Oh God, I want your cock in me.”

  “I brought out a towel,” he said, his voice sounding very grim. “I’m going to have you and then come on your beautiful body. If I can’t leave myself in you, then I’ll leave myself on you. It’s all going to be for me, Harper.”

  His tense proclamation sent her hurtling over the edge. She choked as she broke in climax. Her entire body shuddered.

  His cockhead was suddenly pushing at her entrance. He drove into her to the balls. Her brain seemed to overload at the sensation. Her climax racked her. It hurt a little, coming so hard against his big, pounding cock. It also felt sinfully hot. So good. She came back to herself at the sound of screaming. It took her a moment to realize it was her making the frantic sound. She cut herself off, only to inhale choppily, and let out another groan.

  His hands were on her hips, his thumbs digging into her buttocks. He was fucking her hard and fast from tip to balls, his pelvis smacking against her wet, open sex. Slowly, her vision cleared. He continued without pause and with thorough, ruthless precision, rattling her body. Her world. This was his show, all right. He rocked her in a harsh, taut rhythm and she made a chuffing sound every time he pounded his cock into her. He was fucking her for his pleasure, and his alone.

  The thought aroused her. She stopped struggling to return a counterstroke to his thrusts. The restraining apparatus made it nearly impossible, anyway. Her sex tightened instinctively around him, craving every stroke. She longed to see him as he dominated her, losing himself as he took full possession.

  “That’s right,” she heard him say darkly from behind her. “Just give in to it. There’s nothing for you to do but take me, is there?”

  “No,” she admitted. There was nothing else she wanted to do, but even so . . . the blatant knowledge of her helplessness aroused. She was too wound up in the intense eroticism of the moment to decode why that was.

  A moment later, he groaned and drew his cock out of her. She whimpered shakily at the unpleasant feeling of aching emptiness. She lay there panting, her eyes wide-open, strung tight on a rack of anticipation.

  A low growl reached her ears.

  “Jacob,” she mouthed, unbearably excited.

  Then she felt it, the sensation of his warm semen dripping on her lower back. She bit off a sharp cry, her sex clenching tight. She pictured him in her mind, pumping his cock as fiercely and ruthlessly as he had that night in the pool shower, his beautiful body coiled tight, his expression hard and determined.

  More warm liquid pooled at her lower back, the amount of it exciting her, like everything else. Then she felt the firm, succulent head of his dripping cock press against her left buttock, and more of his semen wetted her.

  He gave one last throat-tearing groan.

  His cock slipped off her ass. She moaned shakily, arousal cutting at her. Her cheeks were scalding and tension coiled tight in her sex. She’d loved having him use her for his pleasure. Why, she couldn’t put into words exactly. Strangely, despite his opulent wealth and power and sex appeal, she felt deep inside that he deserved this indulgence. She wanted to give it to him. She might as well start to accept that fact.

  He didn’t speak as he dried her skin with the towel. Nor did he say a word when he reached between her thighs again. He must have known that his seemingly selfish taking of her had aroused her unbearably.

  He brought her off twice more while she was restrained to the apparatus.

  One thing about Jacob. He demanded a lot of her.

  But he always returned exponentially.

  twenty

  He led her into his bedroom suite after he’d removed her from the apparatus, his arm taking most of her weight. She’d grown light-headed, her legs wobbly, after lying there suspended in the air and experiencing multiple, intense climaxes.

  He guided her to a luxurious bathroom. The glass shower enclosure was enormous, and included a teak bench. At Jacob’s urging, Harper sat down on it heavily, her head bowed. She felt exhausted . . . completely wrung out by the sharp lash of sexual bliss.

  A moment later, she felt warm water running over her skin, and even better, Jacob’s soap-covered hand. He was cleaning her with a handheld showerhead. It felt divine. Decadent. She wanted to look at him, but her head felt so heavy. He put one hand on her knee, opening her thighs. Warm water rushed over her sex. She whimpered. It soothed the slight sting in her tissues. For whatever reason, his gentle, patient bathing of her, his implicit understanding of what she was experiencing following his demanding p
ossession, struck her as one of the most intimate, beautiful moments of her life.

  He was eclipsing her grief and her existential crisis . . . but he was confusing her, too. She couldn’t comprehend why she was so trusting of him when she knew with a man like him, hurt was an inevitability.

  When he’d finished, Harper found the wherewithal to lift her head and watch in silent wonder as he quickly cleaned his own body. No sane woman would want to miss that, she told herself wryly. He seemed completely unaware of her admiration as he quickly ran his soapy hand over broad expanses of ridged, taut muscle, glistening bronzed skin . . . cock and balls. He was growing erect again. Harper realized with a dazed sense of longing. He fisted and pumped the length of his wet cock, then massaged his balls briskly. Her grew harder and longer in front of her eyes.

  Maybe he wasn’t as unaware of her watching him as he seemed.

  A moment later, he reattached the showerhead. She stared fixedly at the image of him turned in profile, his glistening cock protruding between powerful thighs. It took her a moment to realize he was looking at her with a question in his eyes.

  “I’m okay,” she said, reading his concern for her wrung-out state. “I didn’t know there was such an extreme difference between good sex and mind-blowing sex,” she managed through numb lips. “It really saps you.”

  He smiled that smile. He walked over to her and reached for her hand. Fortunately, her legs held her when he pulled her up. His hand went to the back of her head, where he tugged gently at her damp hair. Her head fell back.

  “You come hard, Harper McFadden,” he said next to her lips.

  “With you I do.”

  His kiss melted her even more, if that was possible. After he sealed it, he looked down at her searchingly.

  “I know what you need,” he said with the air of someone who had just made a decision.

  “A bed?”

  “No. Food,” he said, taking her hand and opening the shower door.

  • • •

  She had nothing to wear since she’d left her clothing down at the pool house, so Jacob supplied her with a dark blue microfiber robe that was decadently soft and enormous on her. Jacob himself dressed in a pair of gray workout shorts and a plain black T-shirt. They stole through the now-darkened house, hand in hand, to Jacob’s enormous kitchens.

  He opened the fridge, and she examined the well-stocked shelves hungrily. She lifted a damp cloth on a large container.

  “Oysters,” she groaned longingly. Her stomach growled loudly. Jacob gave her an amused glance.

  “Oysters it is, apparently.” He pulled the container of oysters out along with a fresh loaf of French bread and a bottle of champagne.

  He’d been right about what she needed, as usual. Harper reanimated during the kitchen raid. They sat on two stools next to the cook’s wood-block prep table and proceeded to devour their simple meal. The oysters had a clean, briny flavor. The champagne was dry, crisp, and divine. Jacob entertained her by telling a story about the first time he tried a raw oyster at age sixteen while at a fancy cocktail party, where he’d been a fish out of water. He’d nearly thrown up on the immaculate party hostess and had to make a hasty retreat for the bathroom. The party hostess, who was the wife of the man he was working for, saved him further disgrace by halting him when he initially mistook the cloak closet for the powder room.

  “I came this close”—he signified a fraction of an inch with his thumb and forefinger—“to losing my job along with the contents of my stomach all over dozens of rich people’s coats and furs.”

  Harper laughed, shaking her head, holding a half shell in hand. “It’s amazing how they grow on you, isn’t it?” she said, nodding at the oyster. “My father first introduced them to me on a trip to Baltimore when I was fifteen.” She tipped an oyster into her mouth, savoring the flavor fully before swallowing. “I thought they were disgusting at first, too, but now . . .” She closed her eyes at the sublime taste. “I crave them. And these are especially delicious. What are you smiling at?” she wondered, grinning.

  “Your carnality,” he replied levelly, ripping off a hunk of bread with those deft, powerful hands she loved. “You’re very sensual. I like it. A lot.”

  She blinked and straightened on the stool at the heavy-lidded look he gave her before he bit into the bread with even white teeth and chewed. Recognizing her temporary enthrallment, she cleared her throat. He cast a spell effortlessly.

  “So, did the infamous oyster incident happen at the house of the man who hired you to take care of his boats? The nice neighbor?”

  He paused in the action of lifting his champagne flute to his mouth. “When did I ever say he was nice?”

  Harper blinked at his sudden coolness. “I guess you didn’t,” she replied lightly. She regretting saying something that had dampened one of the most carefree moments she’d ever shared with him. But her curiosity was nudged by his sudden change of mood at the mention of the “nice neighbor,” as well. “I said it when you told me how he let you and his friends take out his boats. Was it Clint Jefferies? The neighbor?” she asked with a sudden burst of intuition, recalling what Ruth had told her about his former mentor and a big financial scandal.

  He set down his crystal goblet on the table with a brisk thud, and she had her answer. She damned her curiosity, but merely looked at him calmly, refusing to back down.

  “Where the hell did you learn about Clint Jefferies?” he demanded.

  “I’m a reporter. I overhear a lot of things, even if I’m not directly involved in a story.”

  His mouth went hard. He picked up a napkin and wiped off his hands. “So this is your reporter’s curiosity rearing its head again.”

  He didn’t say ugly head, but she had the impression that’s what he was thinking, given his frown.

  “I’m interested as a human being. I’m making conversation, Jacob.”

  “I don’t talk about my past. Is that a problem for you?” he asked quietly. “For this?” he gestured between them.

  He was asking her if it was necessary for him to share himself on a deeper level, given the temporary nature of their sexual relationship. She set down her champagne flute and wiped off her mouth.

  “Is it because it’s painful? Talking about your past?” she asked.

  “No. It’s because it’s not important to me anymore. I don’t want to emphasize it. I refuse to.”

  Her gaze swung to his. His mouth slanted in anger. He scared her a little bit, in that moment.

  “I told you once that I remake myself every day.” He waved down at himself with his bunched napkin and tossed it heedlessly on the butcher-block table. “This is it. This is who I am. This is what I can offer.”

  “The moment,” she whispered.

  “The moment,” he agreed.

  Harper got up from the stool slowly. Their former lightheartedness might never have existed. The oppressive silence in the big, sleek kitchen seemed to press down on her.

  “I think I should be going,” she said.

  “Wait.” He grabbed her hand and stood, stepping into her. She glanced up at him, seeing his sharp frustration. For a few seconds, she wasn’t sure what he’d say. It struck her that he didn’t know, either, whether he wanted her to go or to stay.

  “I’ll make the moments special, Harper.” He touched her jaw. There was a fire in his eyes, but she saw irritation and . . . concern there, too. “You agreed that you needed something to make you forget your grief, for a while, anyway. I told you I can do that. This is our time now. Don’t walk away when it’s just begun.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “I know. I don’t understand me, either, half the time. It’s just that my past . . . Clint Jefferies . . . the work I do. None of it is relevant to this.”

  She nodded, recognizing he was right. Why had it hurt so much when he’d refused
to open up to her about his past? His past wasn’t what counted. She touched his hard midriff through the T-shirt he wore. The moment felt very fragile. Then he dipped his head, and their mouths met, and she felt the frayed threads of their connection touch. Reweave.

  Coil tight.

  A minute later, he led her back to his bedroom suite and secured the door. She didn’t say anything when he guided her to his bed and removed her robe.

  There was something tenuous and temporary about their association with each other. But when they touched, something ignited. It was a chemistry so powerful, it obliterated all common sense. It reconnected them, even after an awkward, severing exchange.

  Maybe the moment was enough . . . as long as the minutes and hours continued, anyway. Because he took her places in those moments, places that temporarily obliterated the realization of how alone she felt in the world.

  • • •

  “Stay the night,” he rasped near her ear after they’d made love again, and she lay awash with warmth and satiation in the circle of his arms. “I’ll have a surprise for you in the morning.”

  “I have to work in the morning,” she whispered at the same time she ran her lips over his whiskered jaw.

  “I’ll get you up early. One of my drivers will get you home in plenty of time to get ready for work.” He leaned over her, taking her deeper into his embrace, pressing his lips to her hairline. She shivered in pleasure. “Trust me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  And there it was again. It didn’t feel like his words were smoke and shadows. It didn’t feel like her agreement to them was.

  She really did trust him, no matter how guarded and elusive he was.

  • • •

  When he wakened her, it was still dark. She squinted when he turned on a bedside lamp. He was sitting at the edge of the bed, dressed in workout clothes—different ones than he’d worn last night. His hair was mussed and he looked a little sweaty . . . not to mention extremely sexy. She glanced around, disoriented.