The Magnate's Manifesto(59)

“That’s because I’m in charge.”

Ruddy color dusted his cheekbones. “Go ahead, convince yourself of that.”

“No hands,” she repeated, swaying closer. “Lips, however, are allowed.”

He dipped his head and took her engorged nipple in his mouth. The hot warmth of his lips around her sent a bolt of heat to her core. She arched her back on a low moan and gave herself to him, wholly, sinfully, rocking against him.

He transferred his attention to the other hard peak and took her higher. She felt herself unraveling under his touch, losing the control she’d once so desperately craved. But this was Jared, and she was mad about him.

“Goddammit, Bailey.” He lifted his head, eyes glittering. “I’m waving the white flag, whatever you need.”

She stood up and slid her skirt off. Her panties. His gaze tracked her every movement, hot, hungry. She came back to him, moved her fingers to the button of his trousers and slid it out of the material. Then she eased his zipper down.

“Please,” he was begging now. “Hands are good. I do good things with them.”

She freed him from his boxers. Lowered herself to brush against the hard, hot length of him. “No hands.”

She was slick and fully aroused, but he was a lot to handle. It took all her concentration to take him inside her, ease herself down on the potent length of him. She hadn’t taken half of him when a low groan escaped her lips. “Jared—”

“Oh yes you can,” he rasped, reading the look. “But you need to let me use my hands.”

She nodded. Closed her eyes as his palms took the weight of her hips and held her over him, sliding farther inside her. He held her there while her body adjusted to him, his superior strength sending a surge of lust through her.

“More,” she groaned.

He gave it to her, slowly, inch by inch, whispering in her ear how much he wanted her, how good she felt. His sexy voice excited her, inflamed her, softening her body until she took him all. It was all she could do to breathe with him buried inside her, but his hands supported her hips, controlling the rhythm, easing her into it.

The feeling of intense fullness morphed into a slow, hot burn every time he took her. The angle, the spot he was reaching deep inside her, promised extreme pleasure. Higher and higher he led her until it wasn’t enough anymore—until she wanted to scream. She buried her hands in his hair and pleaded in a husky tone she didn’t recognize as her own.

He slid his hand between them and pressed his thumb against the throbbing center of her. She looked down, watched him, the erotic sight of the rough passes of his thumb over her throbbing center summoning a wild, shattering release within seconds, her love for him escaping her lips as the white-hot intensity tore her apart.

He heard her, she knew, from the way he froze beneath her. Then the tight convulsions of her body around him pushed him over the edge, an animalistic groan tearing itself from his throat. And then there was no room for thought. Only pleasure.

The fact that he didn’t repeat her words as he settled her against his chest and put his lips to her hair, his breathing hard and uneven, didn’t completely throw her. This was Jared, after all, who’d just taken a huge step in telling her how he felt. She was going to focus on that and nothing else. Not on the very real possibility he would never get there.



She woke by the light of the moon, by herself in the bed. A glance at the clock told her it was almost eleven, another couple of hours before they would land. She sat up, looking for water, figuring Jared had left her to work. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw him sitting in a chair by the windows, dressed only in jeans. He looked lost, distant, in his own world.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

He lifted his head. Blinked. “No.” He didn’t invite her over but she went anyway, setting her hand on his shoulder. His stiffness beneath her fingers made her hand still. The utter remoteness on his face made her consider retreating, until he reached up and pulled her down on his lap. Her heart squeezed at the near rejection. He was such a complex, multifaceted man. She was sure she only knew pieces of him.

She stayed there, curled against his chest, until the restlessness emanating from him made her draw back. She traced the hard line of his jaw, the unyielding curve of his mouth, the jagged white scar that bisected his upper lip. “How did you get this?”

He frowned, as if he had to pull the memory from the deep recesses of his mind. “The son of one of our friends my father embezzled the money from went to Stanford with me. After my father was sent to jail, he confronted me in one of the campus bars. He was angry, said some things about my father I couldn’t let pass, and we got into a fight.” His mouth twisted. “I thought it was a fistfight, but when Taylor started to lose, he added a beer bottle to the mix.”