“We aren’t telling people like that,” he said. “Not with a big fucking headline calling you a slut. Christ, I’ve tried to get you into bed since the day I hired your damn company. If you’re a slut, you’re the slowest score I’ve ever had.”
“Isn’t that sweet.”
He set the beer on the bar and walked to me—long, confident strides that trapped me before I could position the couch between us. “Look, Kiss. I’m a little…protective of you.”
“Since when?”
“Since some asshole photographer with a blog decided to flash a camera in your face!” Jack bit his words. I pretended not to flinch, but he saw. Apologized. “You aren’t some random girl with me. Even if this wasn’t fake, even if we were a legit…you’re not like the other girls. You’re…Kiss. You’re Leah.”
I swallowed. It didn’t help. It was the first time in a year he actually called me by my real name.
I had no idea he was so protective, so valiant to defend my honor.
Craziest part of all? I don’t think he realized it either.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He stood so close, close enough to shield me with his muscular body from any threat to my virtue in this world—except for him. I looked up, meeting the stunning gaze of his eyes, the striking blue pinning me in place.
“Did I ruin the night?” he asked.
“It won’t be a good morning when the story breaks…” I didn’t move as he reached for me. “And now I’m expecting a call from Jolene or the league or the police…but I don’t think you ruined anything.”
His hands fit over my waist, tugging me closer to him. His words rumbled deep inside me, shuddering my core, my heart, my mind. Nothing made sense this close to Jack Carson.
I had no idea he could even touch someone so gently.
“I lost a chance at my dance.” His voice melted me again.
“You were trying to seduce me.”
“Was it working?”
Like he couldn’t tell by how eagerly I’d parted my lips and accepted his kiss. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not dating.”
His hand trailed over my side, twisting in my dress, edging the hem into his curling fingers. “What’s the problem?”
“It’ll get too complicated.”
“Like faking a relationship isn’t complicated…” He leaned down, skipping my lips and aiming for my neck. “We can still be professional.”
I held my breath, capturing his spicy cedar scent. “There’s nothing professional about sex.”
“Sex is just sex, Kiss.”
“Not to me.”
His lips traced along my neck, nipping where my pulse beat and delighting me with every shiver he could force through my body. “That’s no fun. Sometimes you just gotta fuck. Ever felt like that before?”
No, but I was starting to.
Still, that didn’t make it right. Or good. Or anything I should have wanted from playboy Jack Carson and his conquests.
“I won’t be just another girl you take home,” I said.
“Afraid of being the one I keep here?”
Yes, because it would never happen. A man like Jack was trouble, especially when my life was already in shambles. The only plan I had anymore was to slink home and soak in the tub. I often pretended I hadn’t received the engagement announcement from Wyatt and my former best friend. Jennifer was pregnant.
She had conceived while I still wore the ring Wyatt gave me.
Jack wanted sex for sex.
I looked for stability. A relationship. The promise of romance, marriage, world-wide travels. Kids.
We couldn’t have been more wrong for each other. No one would believe we were dating.
But my head fell back. I offered him another taste of my neck. The shiver was distressing.
Amazing.
His kiss fluttered my eyes closed, and, for a long moment, I imagined what it might be like to be swept in Jack’s embrace. To let myself go. To take that desire and have sex for…fun. For pleasure. For myself.
I twisted, meeting his lips. The kiss was as sensual as the one in the restaurant, as powerful and confusing and absolutely necessary. His tongue flicked once, twice against mine, and every stroke shocked me completely, buzzing deep into places I wasn’t prepared to admit.
He loomed until the back of my knees struck the couch. Jack pinned me with the promise of something so frighteningly sexy I might’ve crashed into the leather from the sheer anticipation of where else he might’ve touched, kissed, explored.
“Such a bad idea…” I whispered. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can.” Jack’s fingers tangled in the hem of my dress. “What would it hurt?”
“It’d ruin everything. We have a professional relationship…”
“Come on, Kiss.” The material tickled as he drew it over my thighs. He exposed the sheer, red panties I wore only because I didn’t think anyone would see that I matched my underwear to my wrap. “I drove you crazy every time I came to the office. We didn’t have a professional relationship to ruin.”
“We have one now.” The dress slipped too high. My flat tummy revealed to him, and the underside of my bare breasts peeked from the bound silk. A bad night to not wear a bra. “Don’t you think this will make pretending to be dating hard?”
“I’m used to things being hard around you.”
“I’m not.”
He smirked. “That’s because I behaved myself, Kiss.”
“And now?”
“What’s my nickname in your office?”
“…Trouble-Maker.”
“You’re the one in trouble now.”
I sucked in a breath as the dress slipped off. Jack surveyed my body, nude save for a pair of sheer panties that left none of my cocoa skin to the imagination.
Jack tossed me onto the couch, falling over me only once he tossed away the sport coat and ripped through the buttons of an expensive shirt. The bright, ragged ink on his chest peeked through, swirls of dark and expressive tattoos that seared through the façade of respectability he wove for the dinner we enjoyed.
Jack wasn’t appetizers and cocktails and fancy French restaurants.
He wasn’t gentle dances and soft whispers.
He was fierce—raw and passionate. Sex for sex and enjoying every last second of debauchery.
His lips feasted on mine, his tongue stealing my overwhelmed murmurs and creating a wild moan in their place. My skin chilled in the air conditioned house and cool leather, but every swipe of his tongue heated me until the warmth consumed me and I begged for a moment of air, of peace, of anything that would alleviate the intensity.
Jack delivered. He grinned and seized my nipple within his greedy lips, nibbling against the mocha nub just hard enough to make me squirm.
“A little chocolate kiss.” He murmured with his mouth full and indecent and stuffed with my breast.
I loved the sight.
I savored the shivers, the absolute decadence of letting a man touch where my fingers hardly ever satisfied. He suckled and twisted, pulled and nipped, and the enthusiastic pop from around the seal he created on my tip only excited me more.
This was wrong. I knew it. Every instinct in my body told me so. God only knew how many others he had teased this same way, and how many more he almost had if his car hadn’t crashed and his intended foursome scattered.
But Christ, I wanted this. So badly.
For as often as I fought him and chastised him and dealt with his every terrible scandal, Jack was just what I needed after avoiding everything romance, everything sexual, everything pleasurable since losing a man I thought would help me begin the life I planned.
Jack would give me nothing, but he could show me what I had missed. Just once, I wanted that freedom, that irresponsibility, that danger of giving a part of me to a man I knew wouldn’t cherish it.
And I didn’t care because I knew what I’d get out of it. I’d have a night to help me forget a man who already forgot me. I’d receive hours of pleasure and a moment to experience the excitement of spending the night with a man who had a reputation so depraved it’d make a girl like me horrified.
Jack’s hands were huge. So was his body. His shoulders. His chest. His legs.
The part of him dragging against my leg as he teased my nipples with a knowing tongue.
“Just this once, Jack,” I said. “Just once.”
“Once?” He grinned, tugging on my nipple until it popped from his mouth. “Kiss, you’re gonna want it more than once tonight.”
“T—tonight?”
He moved lower, kissing a trail over my tummy, my belly button, and finally to the little bow on the front of my panties. He gripped that in his teeth, threatening so much more to the delicate slit beneath.
“Kiss, if you think I won’t fuck you all night, you haven’t been paying attention to all those scandals you cover up.”
“And now I get to become one.”
“You’re no scandal.” The panties slipped over my hips. His breath caught as the hint of my slit peeked between my legs. “I’ll never apologize for what I’m about to do to you.”
I would. I’d be sorry for it later. For now, I wouldn’t regret a second while his breath tickled hot against my legs. He kissed my thighs and spread me open. I trembled. Jack stared at a part of me I once vowed he would never, ever see, touch, taste, or take.