"Yes, sir," I say, as my body tingles and I feel an intense pressure in my core. The need to be taken. Penetrated.
He steps toward me, closing the distance between us. It"s dark in this corner of the lot, and his face is hardened by shadows. But his eyes blaze. "You want to be f.u.c.ked?"
I swear I almost whimper. "Yes."
"You want it rough?"
"Yes."
He strokes my cheek, sliding his hand back until he has taken a handful of hair. "Yes what?"
"Yes, sir." I"m breathing hard, both excited and apprehensive. This is different than what we"ve done before. He"s different. And though I trust himthough I will always trust himI do not know what to expect.
And oh, dear G.o.d, that excites me.
"You want me to spread you wide and f.u.c.k you hard?"
"Yes, please, sir."
"Then you need to be a good girl."
As he speaks, he"s pushing me to my knees, his fist in my hair guiding me. I descend willingly. Enthusiastically. I can think of nothing but this moment; everything before is gone. Ethan. My dad. My fears.
This is just me and Jackson and pleasure and submission. Letting him take me there. And letting him take control. Jackson, who needs this as much as I do.
"Go ahead," he says, and I reach out and press my hand flat over his erection, now struggling behind the pressed cotton of his slacks.
I am eager, but I force myself to slowly draw down his zipper. I slip my hand in and free his c.o.c.k, so hard that I imagine he must be close to exploding.
His fingers are still twined in my hair, and when I tease the tip of his c.o.c.k with my tongue he tightens his grip. "No."
I can"t tilt my head up, so I can see him only by lifting my eyes skyward, making me feel like even more of a supplicant. "I want that pretty mouth of yours," he says, and then, instead of me sucking him off, he holds my head in place and actually f.u.c.ks my mouth.
It isn"t easyhe"s thrusting hard and hitting the back of my throat, and I"m trying to find a rhythm and fight a gag reflex. But at the same time, I like it. For the first time, he"s using metruly using mejust as I"ve wanted him to do every time he was gunning for a fight. And I know that"s part of it. Because he needs this as much as I do. Needs to take control hard and fast and completely.
This is about his pleasure, not mine, and that simple fact excites me, twisting it around and making it about me, too, because there is pleasure in knowing that we satisfy each other. That like a lock and a key, we fit and make each other whole.
Though we are in the dark, hidden by the shadows and the cars, I think for a moment that anyone could see us, me on my knees on the asphalt and Jackson f.u.c.king my mouth hard.
The thought makes me moan, and I"m so d.a.m.n wet now, the evidence of my excitement creaming my thighs. As Jackson had ordered, I"m not wearing underwear, and I"m tempted, so tempted, to slip my hand under my skirt. But that, I think, is against the rules.
"Christ, Syl, that mouth of yours." The tightness in his voice tells me how close he is, but just when I think that he is going to explode, he pulls out and hauls me to my feet. He yanks up my blouse, then unfastens the front clasp of my bra before bending me over the hood of my car.
The metal is cool against my skin, and my nipples tighten almost painfully.
"Tell me you liked that," he says as one hand strokes my back and the other one slides up my thigh. "Tell me you liked my c.o.c.k in your mouth."
"Yes," I say. "Oh, G.o.d, yes."
He slides his hand between my legs and groans softly. "Oh, yes, baby. That"s how I like you. Wet and ready for me." He hikes my skirt up around my waist so that I am completely bare from the waist down, with the exception of my shoes.
"Spread your legs, baby. I"m going to f.u.c.k you hard." I do, and true to his word, he spreads me wide and shoves his c.o.c.k hard inside me, his powerful thrusts making me slide across the top of the car, giving me small friction burns on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly.
I feel the buildup to his o.r.g.a.s.m, and my body responds, claiming him, clenching hard against him, until finally, he explodes inside me, his low groan of pleasure echoing in the dark.
He doesn"t pull out, though. Instead, he holds my hip with one hand and uses the other to reach around our joined bodies and find my c.l.i.t. I"m so turned on already that it takes very little, and soon the wild tremors of my release cut through me and my c.u.n.t clenches tight around him as he continues to tease and play me, not relenting until my knees are weak and it is only his hand and the car that are keeping me from collapsing.
When he has cleaned me up and fixed my clothes, he takes my hand and eases us both to the ground on the darker side of the car. I am limp with satisfaction as I curl up against him by the tires. His arm is around me, and I snuggle close, wanting there to be no distance between us at all. "Thank you," I whisper. "Sir."
He chuckles, but then says seriously, "I needed it, too," revealing what I already knew. He presses a kiss to my forehead, and I feel a low buzz of pleasure from that simple touch. "I was so G.o.dd.a.m.n angry at your father." He meets my eyes. "And at myself."
I look away. I was furious when he told my father flat out what Reed had done to me. When he revealed that Reed was still tormenting me, this time by blackmailing me. And he made it d.a.m.n clear that Jackson and I both know that my father knew all along that Reed wasn"t just taking innocent advertising shots of me.
I"ve gotten over the fury, but that doesn"t mean I want to relive the moment. But it does mean that I understand what Jackson is talking about when he says he needed it, too. He was angry. At my father. At himself.
He was angry and he needed a release.
I was angry and needed to be claimed.
I smile a little thinking about it, but my smile fades soon enough. "It scares me a little," I admit.
"What does?"
"This. With you." I tilt my head so that I can look at his eyes, and I see the confusion and the worry in them. "The way I let go completely. The way I want to be used. I get the root of itI do. It"s about the pleasure that comes from giving up control. It"s fighting back against Reed, who stole that control from me over and over. And, honestly, the wilder it is the more I like it. The intensityit keeps me grounded. It makes me feel alive.
"So I understand," I continue. "I do. But I want to be stronger, Jackson. And this need to surrender to you is so powerful, that sometimes I"m afraid that I won"t be able to cope without you beside me."
"You think giving yourself to me makes you weak?" He brushes his hand over my cheek. "The h.e.l.l it does. Weak is closing yourself off. Weak is being too afraid to ask for what you want. Do you think being strong means not needing anybody else? It doesn"t. It means knowing yourself. Knowing your desires. And not being scared to demand what you truly want."
"I want you," I whisper.
"I know. But that doesn"t mean you can"t stand on your own. If you need towhen you need toyou will do just fine."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know you." He kisses me gently. "And sweetheart, I need to tell you something."
I nod, fighting back a fresh wave of fear.
"I didn"t kill him."
"What?" I"m not sure if my response is surprise at his statement, or bafflement that he"s brought the subject up now.
"I didn"t kill Reed. You"ve stuck by me, believing you knew what happened. It"s only fair I tell you the real truth."
"Oh." Relief overwhelms me, and yet there remains an undercurrent of some odd disappointment. Because the truth is that I liked the thought of Jackson being the one who erased the man who tormented me.
"So you don"t need to worry. The truth will win out, and I won"t go to prison. I"ll always be beside you."
I nod, because I know that he is saying it to soothe me. But at the same time, it"s cold comfort. Because innocent or not, that is one promise that it"s no longer in Jackson"s power to keep.
fourteen.
I wake up naked and alone in my bed, and I immediately sit up, afraid that Jackson changed his mind and decided to go back to the boat after all.
He"d taken me home because I had told him I needed my own bed, and in that moment, I"d been wrecked enough that he hadn"t argued. But the disagreement or fight or whatever-the-h.e.l.l-it-was that we"d had about the paparazzi and the boat had still lingered between us.
I know that we will have to deal with that, especially since we will need the boat to get to the island today. Granted, we could take one of the Stark International boats. Or even, G.o.d forbid, a helicopter. But Jackson"s office is on his boat, and if he wants to make the most of the trip, then he needs to have his computers, software, and other various gadgets and gizmos with him. But surely he didn"t already leave me to go there. Did he?
My body is stiff as I toss the sheet aside and then sit up in bed. I hug my knees to my chest, my attention drawn to the tattooed star on my ankle. Idly, I trace its design, as if by doing so I"m claiming it all over again. I want to claim it, because this star represents strength. It marks an escapemy flight from the home I"d grown to hate to boarding school in my soph.o.m.ore year of high school.
I draw a breath, then get slowly out of bed, this time brushing my fingers over the ribbon inked at the juncture of my thigh, a ribbon covered with initials of men I cared nothing for, but needed in order to prove to myself that I was in control. Not Reed, who"d so greedily stolen control from me. Not those men whose initials now mark my legs.
Just me.
Me taking. Me holding. Me keeping so tight a grip on my world that there was no way it could spin out of control.
Slowly, I ease my hand around to my back and the intricately inked "J" entwined with an "S." Ca.s.s had inked that tattoo five years ago, after I"d so brutally broken up with Jackson in Atlanta, shredding both our hearts in the process. At the time, I"d thought I could never have him back, and yet I couldn"t bear the thought of surviving without him. And so I"d kept a piece of him on me, a quiet reminder that he would always have my backwould always give me strengtheven if he didn"t know it.
I close my eyes and sigh as I continue to move my hands over my body, this time coming to rest on the newest tattooa flame on my breast. Ca.s.s inked this one less than a month ago, when I"d pulled Jackson back into my life despite my better judgment. Out of the frying pan, she"d said, because I was leaping headfirst into the fire.
Hadn"t I learned the hard way that my nightmares were too close to the surface with Jackson? That the pa.s.sion that pulsed between us wiped away all my control, leaving me soft and vulnerableand too d.a.m.n close to the nightmares and memories of Reed?
But I was desperate to save my resort and so I"d taken a deep breath, clothed myself in battle armor, and walked through the door into my own personal h.e.l.l.
Jackson, of course, stripped all my defenses away. More than that, he"d turned everything around. And the man who had once conjured my demons now slays them. He keeps me sane. He keeps me safe.
He makes me feel loved and cherished and beautiful.
With Jackson, I can surrender control without opening the door to fear. To self-loathing.
With Jackson, I can lose myself to submission. To pa.s.sion. To love.
We"ve come so far, he and I, but now I fear that we are about to hit a wall. That we"ve taunted the G.o.ds, and the G.o.ds are p.i.s.sed.
I"m scared to death that he"s going to be arrested for murder. That he"s going to be yanked from me forever, and I hate that it is not just him that I am scared for, but myself, too. Because while I used to rely on my tats to give me strength, now I rely on Jackson.
I do not want to be a woman without the strength to stand on her own. But at the same time, I know that I am stronger with him than without him.
And oh, dear G.o.d, what will I do if I lose him?
I shiver, suddenly cold, and put on the T-shirt he"d left hanging over the back of a chair the last time we stayed here. It"s for Dominion Gate, a heavy metal band that he likes, and the hem hangs down almost to my knees and the whole shirt seems to swallow me.
My phone is on a table beside the chair and when I glance down and see that it is past four in the morning, my self-a.n.a.lysis turns into worry.
The door to my bedroom is shut, but now that my eyes have adjusted, I see that there is the faintest glow of light creeping in from the gap below the door. I open it, then step into the tiny area between my bedroom and my living room, moving quietly so that I don"t wake him if he"s fallen asleep out here.
As soon as I pa.s.s the utility closet and can see into the living room, I see him. Not inside, but out on my patio. He is perched on the side of the chaise, bent forward so that he is using the fold-up chair that Ca.s.s usually sits in as a make-shift desk. He"s got his tablet propped up and he"s sketching furiously on a pad of paper in his lap. His dark hair is tousled, as if he has been running his fingers through it, and I can hear the gentle sc.r.a.pe of lead against paper.
I want to go to him. I want to step behind him, put my arms around him, and hold him close.
But that"s only my own selfish desire.
What Jackson wantsno, what Jackson needsis to get lost in his work. I can practically feel the concentration and pleasure rolling off him, and I don"t want to be the one to take him from that. Not now. Not tonight.
I"m about to turn around and return below when a woman"s voice stops me. "I"m back. Sorry. This early, coffee is a necessity."
"Thanks for this, Amy," Jackson says. "I didn"t actually expect you to answer my email until later."
For a moment, I"m confused, then I see that he"s on a video call. I shift to the left so I can see the tablet screen, and realize that he"s talking to Amy Brantley, his estate and family law attorney in Santa Fe.
"It"s almost six here, and I"ve started getting up before dawn to go to the gym. I figured I"d rather talk to you. Are you hanging in there? Ms. Frederick doing all right by you?"
"She"s doing as good a job as she can, but we both know there are no guarantees."
"No," Amy says. "There aren"t."
"I spoke with Stella yesterday. Betty won"t say a word, but her health is deteriorating fast."
"I know," Amy says. "I was actually going to give you a call later today. Right now, if anything happens to Betty while she"s caring for Ronnie, custody shifts to you pending establishment of your paternal rights. But if you"re incarcerated, then the next in line is still Megan, at least on paper. Are you okay with that?"
He hesitates, and though I know that it pains him to admit it, he says very simply, "No."
It"s the right choice, of course. Megan may be Ronnie"s biological aunt, but she"s checked herself into a clinic as she battles mental health issues, and though I know it breaks Jackson"s heart, she"s in no position to take care of his daughter.
"I didn"t think so," Amy says. "And frankly, with Megan having admitted herself to a clinic, the court might refuse to put Ronnie with her. She"d end up in foster care unless Arvin takes her," she adds, referring to Megan"s father. He"s the man who hired Jackson to build the Santa Fe house that is now the focus of the movie that Reed was determined to make. And although Arvin Fletcher is Ronnie"s grandfather, he has distanced himself far, far away from the child.
"That would be worse," Jackson says dryly. "And we both know Arvin would never accept custody. But the truth is, I"ve been thinking about all of that; it"s one of the reasons I"m calling. That, and to make some financial arrangements." He drags his fingers through his hair. "I"ve been up all night thinking about it. I know Ronnie inherited money from Amelia," he says, "but that"s in trust and it shouldn"t be used for her day-to-day care."
Amelia is Ronnie"s birth mother. More than that, she"s the reason the movie is even on Hollywood"s radar. Though no script has been officially released, it"s no secret that the movie centers around tragedy at the Fletcher Residence, an amazing Santa Fe house designed and built by Jackson. The project, actually, that put Jackson Steele on the map and turned him from a simple architect into a starchitecta celebrity architect with all the baggage that goes with the t.i.tle.
Back when Jackson was building the Fletcher Residence for Arvinone of the country"s wealthiest menJackson began dating Amelia"s identical twin sister, Carolyn. Amelia wanted Jackson for her own, and was crazy enough to impersonate her sister in bed, a single night that left her pregnant with Jackson"s childRonnie. After the house was built and Jackson had moved on, the little girl was bornand that"s when Amelia went completely off the rails. She killed her sister and then she killed herself, leaving Ronnie to be raised by the twins" older sister, Meganand attracting the attention of Hollywood"s scandal hounds.
Since Amelia had quite the lineup of men going through her bedroom, the Hollywood people don"t know that Ronnie is Jackson"s daughter, and they probably won"t make that connection until the court confirms paternity or Jackson"s pet.i.tion finds its way to the press. They see only a murder-suicide that centers around the amazing house that made Jackson"s career and the love triangle that destroyed two young women, both of whom wanted the same man.
When Jackson learned that Ronnie was truly his daughter, he considered pet.i.tioning for custody right away, but he also knew that the scandal surrounding the house and the buzz about a possible movie would thrust the little girl into a media feeding frenzy. She was safe and loved with her aunt Megan and her uncle Tony, with her great-grandmother Betty helping from the sidelines. Jackson took on the role of uncle, visiting her and supporting her financially.
Now, though, things have changed. Tony pa.s.sed away, and Megan"s mounting bipolar issues mean that she is no longer a good choice for guardian. Neither is Betty, in light of her failing health.
More than that, though, Jackson simply wants his daughter back. And until this d.a.m.n murder trial reached out and slapped us in the face, that was what he was in the process of handling.