The Dare Collection: June 2018. Lauren Hawkeye

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ released her grip on his shoulders long enough to unbutton the top few buttons of her dress and yank both it and her bra down, exposing one pale, creamy shoulder and a perfect, pink-tipped breast.

      Fuck.

      He groaned.

      Perfection.

      He dived to get his mouth on her. Just one more taste. Then he’d stop this madness.

      But Essie was having none of that. One hand returned to his hair, her grip punishing and directive while the other drove him wild by rubbing his erection through his clothes. Her pert flesh filled his mouth and he sucked hard, drawing her in deeper and guided by her continued twisting and tugging on his hair and her repeated ‘yes’es. Her hips shunted against his hand, as if she was as desperate for her release as he was.

      Just one more time. Until he worked this baffling urge from his off-kilter system. This time he’d walk away sated, equilibrium restored. Cured.

      Pinning her to the furniture with his hips, he pushed two fingers inside her and feathered his thumb over her clit. His mouth returned to hers while his fingers strummed the damp nipple his mouth left behind.

      True to the Essie of last night, she clawed his shoulders, her moans growing in frequency and volume.

      ‘Tell me when you’re close,’ he mumbled against her lips, reluctant to break away from her breathy and frantic kisses.

      She nodded, her eyes heavy and her hair a wild tumble around her flushed face. His clothing was practically cutting off his blood supply to his groin. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t have stopped now if he’d had a gun to his head.

      He left her breast long enough to scoop one arm around her hips and shunt her ass to the edge of the dresser, changing the angle of her hips.

      She cried out and tore her mouth from his. ‘Yes, now... I’m...’

      He dived on her exposed nipple once more, laving and lapping like a starving man as his fingers plundered her slickness and his thumb circled her swollen clit.

      She detonated, her whole body taut as her orgasm jolted her forward. If he hadn’t been there to block her fall the force of it would have tumbled her from the edge of the furniture. Ash kept up the sucking and circling until he’d wrung every spasm from her magnificent, trembling body. Until she pushed at his shoulders instead of clawing at them.

      Her head fell forward, resting on his chest. ‘Oh, wow...’

      The scent of her hair made his eyes roll back. Thank fuck she couldn’t see. He recited the most boring legal jargon he could think of to stop himself from burying his nose there and taking a deep, decadent inhalation. He’d fall asleep surrounded by her honeyed scent, just as he had last night...

      Fuck.

      His blood turned to liquid nitrogen.

      What the hell was he doing?

      He couldn’t trust this woman.

      He couldn’t trust anyone.

      His body turned rigid as reality dawned.

      This had disaster written all over it. This business venture was his fresh start—a place no one knew him or his fucked-up family. A place of anonymity to regroup and wrestle back control. Why was he so fascinated in her? Why couldn’t he stay away?

      He stepped back, tugging his hand from Essie’s underwear and avoiding her confused stare. He lowered her to the floor, steadying her by the elbows while she found her balance and righted her debauched clothing.

      Too late for gentlemanly heroics now. Not that he claimed to be either. Not any more. That was a fool’s game.

      He sucked back a swallow that reminded him of all the reasons his head had been right about this ill-advised encounter after all. He’d tasted betrayal—a different kind, but it sucked all the same. He was done with trusting the wrong person.

      The humiliating scene at the Jacob Holdings offices flashed into his head. On discovering his father had been cheating on his mother, he’d lashed out at the man he’d worked alongside for ten years. He’d expected his old man to bristle, maybe tell him to mind his own business, but he hadn’t expected the vile mouthful of home truths he’d received in return.

      Fire snaked along his frozen blood vessels, reminding him of the subsequent damage he’d inflicted, especially on the mother he’d been trying to protect.

      He turned away, adjusting his rapidly diminishing hard-on, which recoiled at both the bitter memories of his fight with Hal and the reality that he barely knew this woman he couldn’t seem to leave alone.

      ‘What? We’re done?’

      He turned back and offered a single, decisive nod. End it now. With his sanity and dignity intact, his fresh start still tenable and his principles only slightly grubby.

      For the longest beat she stared, her expression neutral but her eyes stormy. Wordlessly she skirted him as if he were a shark and walked to his bed. She collected the file he’d tossed there earlier and returned to stand in front of him.

      ‘So, counsellor—’ she blatantly eyed the bulge in his jeans ‘—the defence rests?’

      His fingers curled into fists to stop himself from kissing her sassy mouth once more. Pissed at him and flushed from her orgasm, she was even more breathtaking.

      He ground his jaw clenched. ‘I think it’s best.’ He’d never needed his attorney poker face more.

      She barked a humourless snort. ‘Don’t worry. I may not be an expert at casual sex, but I am an expert at surviving rejection.’

       What the fuck...?

      She pressed the file to his chest, holding it there until his hand replaced hers.

      ‘This needs to be scanned by six.’ She slid one last look down his torso to his still-hard dick. ‘Have a good evening.’

      And she left.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘EVERYTHING’S FINE,’ Essie said to Ben. His partner wanted to replace her as if she were...an inconvenience. She’d thrown herself at a man who’d had the sense to resist. And she had no idea where Ben’s head stood and was too scared to ask. Sure, everything was fine.

      Essie hunched over the desk and rubbed at a non-existent scratch. Perhaps that was why her joy at his call was diluted. Fear that Ben, too, would agree with Ash and fire her, then disappear from her life as quickly as he’d appeared.

      ‘Are you sure?’ said Ben.

      She pressed the phone to her face and hoped her brother couldn’t hear the blood pounding through her head. She shouldn’t be wallowing—she had work to do. ‘Of course. The decorators finished up today and I’m meeting your head barman soon.’ Ben trusted her with his club, and she wouldn’t allow her frenzied attraction to Ash to make waves or damage his business СКАЧАТЬ