A Gentleman in the Street (3 page)

“No, not the bequest.” Most of her mother’s estate had gone to charity, with the remainder to Akira.

Akira had wanted only one thing. “We finished cataloging her possessions this week, and there’s one item missing. It was last seen seven months before her death. Six months before her death, she started refusing to see everyone except her household staff and a few select friends.” She paused for a beat. “You and your siblings were part of that small group.”

It took a few seconds for realization to dawn. He straightened, and suddenly the kitchen felt even tinier. “Are you asking if I took something from a dying woman?”

“No, of course not.” Please, Jacob would never steal. The man didn’t know how to deviate from the straight-and-narrow path. He was physically incapable of sin.

What a miserable existence.

“I was there in the capacity of friendship,” he said coldly. “She was lonely at the end. Not to manipulate her into…what, handing over her jewels?”

Lonely because her own daughter didn’t visit her.
No, she refused to feel guilty about that. Her presence would have only made Mei more miserable. “I’m not implying there was a single element of coercion.” She raised her hands. “Look. I didn’t come here to fight or ogle your ass—”

Jacob’s head snapped back. “Ogle my…”

“Oh, shut up,” she retorted, out of patience. “You know very well it’s a first-class ass. What do you do, do squats all day? Never mind, don’t answer.”

“Trust me,” he said grimly, “I wasn’t planning to.”

“I came because the item looks like nothing more than a wood box. Well crafted, about a foot square. A design on the sides. No one would steal it, and it’s probably the only gift she could give you that you would take because it doesn’t look expensive.”

“You think she gave me a box?”

Akira sighed. Her feet hurt. Her head ached. She was sleep deprived and tired, and his wide, steady shoulders were right there.

It took every ounce of energy for her to continue speaking. She was unable to think anymore, perilously close to dropping her shields. “It was my grandmother’s. There is no price I wouldn’t pay to get it back.” There. She’d handed him every single ounce of bargaining power.

Jacob had stilled, and he watched her far too carefully for her peace of mind. His tone was quiet when he spoke. “Mei didn’t give me anything.”

“What about your siblings?”

“I would know. They would tell me. We’re close.”

Akira flinched from the last two words, though she knew he didn’t intend it as a dig about her lack of closeness with her own family.

She had developed a sense to recognize when people were lying to her, a skill that served her well when negotiating with men who assumed she was an empty-headed doll. Truth. It rang in every syllable of those sentences.

Defeat tasted like ashes in her mouth.

The rage she had managed to control for too many years rose inside of her. Her damned mother. Holding Hana’s box over her head like a carrot since her grandmother had died unexpectedly.
Behave
,
and I’ll give you the box. Behave, and I’ll give you your legacy.

You should have behaved.

Well, she hadn’t. And the hope she’d had, that finally, finally she could recover it, was dashed, because there was no place left to look.

It was gone.

If she opened her mouth, she would cry or wail, and Akira Mori did not break down. Not ever.

She inclined her head and carefully placed her half-full coffee mug on the counter. She managed to make it to the exit, barely registering Jacob’s presence behind her until a heavy palm shut the door she had opened a crack. “Akira. Are you okay?”

He was so big and warm behind her. All she had to do was lean back, and she could absorb his heat into her. She craved it.

That’s why you can’t have it.
It was dangerous to lust after someone so fruitlessly. Hadn’t she learned all about wanting the unattainable with her family? Constant rejection took its toll. It chipped away at your soul, made you doubt yourself. It hurt. “Yes, I’m fine.”

He had to lean down to catch her breathy answer. His beard scraped her temple. “You don’t look well. I don’t know if you should drive.”

She suppressed a shudder. Brother Jacob. So good. So honorable to everyone, even a woman he found repugnant.

She could snap her fingers and have anything she wanted in the world. But she couldn’t have her legacy. She couldn’t have her mother, eager to forgive her and love her. And she couldn’t have him.

Funny how they were the things she wanted the most.

Dangerous. This was far too dangerous.

So get rid of him.

That she was adept at. And if she stole a little something for herself in the process, he would never know.

She placed her hand on the arm he had extended in front of her, trapping her in the cabin with him. Coarse dark hair sprinkled his forearm, scraping her knuckles, which were raw from the tree bark earlier. “So eager to keep me here?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

Pure, perfect Jacob. “I wouldn’t mind staying.” Her fingers smoothed over the curve of his massive biceps. She tended to gravitate toward slender, elegantly lean men. In comparison, Jacob was a brute who could snap her in two. “Especially if you promise to entertain me.”

He had stiffened behind her. “Akira—”

The warning in his voice only made her bolder, desperate to gain control. “We could go back outside, and you can take off your shirt. I liked watching you chop wood.” She leaned back until she was cradled against his chest. His thick thighs surrounded hers.

She couldn’t quell the shudder that went through her. In all the long years they had been acquaintances, this was the most physical contact they had ever shared. Immediately, she knew she had made a terrible miscalculation.

Because this was delicious.

She wanted to stay like this forever. But he would shove her away. Any second now. So she would enjoy it for the few short moments she was going to get.

Jacob exhaled, long and low, shifting behind her so his cock nestled directly against her ass, sending a thrill up her spine. Was it possible Jacob was semihard for her? Unable to help herself, she moved her hips, rocking back against that tantalizingly thick bulge.

He started to curse but cut himself off. She wanted him to curse. She wanted him to be bad, as bad as her. She wanted to corrupt him, stain his pure soul, stamp the imprint of her nastiness on him.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Let’s go outside. It would be nice, wouldn’t it? I could show you all the things I was thinking about doing to you when I was watching you. All the ways I would touch and lick every part of you.” Akira squeezed his biceps. Her other hand went behind her and grasped his hip, which gave an imperceptible jerk, grinding his semihard cock into her ass. “You like that?” She slid her hand down his big thigh. “I could start at the top and work my way down. Or maybe…maybe you’d prefer I started at the bottom.”

His chest expanded behind her, and she gave a grim smile of victory, stroking his thigh down and then up again. Letting him imagine how it would feel if it were his cock.
“I think you would. Maybe I should get on my knees so I can be thorough.”

They stood in silence for a charged minute, during which Akira thought maybe…maybe…

“Stop it.” His voice was harsh, furious. Though she had been prepared for it, the rejection sliced through her, leaving a bloody wound. Jacob’s hand fell away from the door. There was a tug on her scalp as he jerked away, her hair caught in the bristle of his beard.

Her lips twisted, and she spoke through the haze of lust, fatigue and anger clouding her brain as she opened the door. “See you around, Brother Jacob.”

There were seven hundred and forty-eight atrocious pink roses on the wallpaper spanning Jacob’s home office.

He cocked his head and contemplated the north wall. The rest of his family’s home had been slowly renovated during the five years they had lived here, but since he was the only one who used this attic room, it had been shoved to the back burner.

Maybe this weekend he could tackle it. He mentally reviewed his calendar and scratched that thought. Kati had a soccer game on Saturday, which would monopolize most of his day. Since he had fallen behind in his word-count goals, he would have to spend Sunday confronting the blinking cursor on his half-finished manuscript. He was already dreading it.

The trip to the cabin should have revitalized him, but after two days he’d returned to his home exhausted, unable to think of anything but
her
and the clawing sexual need inside of him.

She had felt so good.

His eyes slitted, the roses blurring. Over all the years Akira had flitted around him, he’d always been so careful to avoid touching her, fearful a single brush would be like a match dropped on dry kindling.

His suspicions had been right. Simply verbally sparring with her left him hot and bothered. The instant she’d plastered her body against his, a wildfire had exploded. No amount of taking himself in his hand could douse it.

His cock stirred.
Think of something else. Think of anyone else.

Impossible.

That slim, angular body had fit against his perfectly, her toned bottom resting in the cradle of his hips. He could have cupped her breasts, peeled off the semi-sheer shell she wore to reveal the darker bra beneath. Stripped her of the narrow gray skirt and her underwear, until she stood facing his doorway in nothing but those completely impractical blue high heels.

Impractical for roughing it. Completely practical if they were hooked over his shoulders as he drove into her.

Jacob swallowed, his mouth dry.

In his fantasies, after he got Akira naked, his imagination traveled two smutty paths. One in which he tenderly laid her down on a soft surface and made love to her, as he had made love to other women in the past.

One in which he did bad, bad things to her.

Unable to stand the pressure of his cock against his jeans, he squeezed the thickness, wincing at the rough fabric rubbing his sensitive flesh. What deviant scenario could he conjure up this time?

Slipping his cock into her mouth while another man fucked her? Holding her still as a woman licked her between her legs? All while she sobbed in pleasure…

Now you’ve done it.

His teeth sank into his lower lip, and he squeezed his cock harder through his jeans. He’d made the mistake of reading an article a couple of years ago filled with heavy insinuations regarding the secretive house parties she regularly threw. Orgies. Since then, the thought of multiple hands running over her silken flesh had taken over his dreams.

Not this time. They’d been alone at his cabin, isolated. There would be no audience in this fantasy, no other participants, just the two of them.

I could show you all the things I was thinking about doing to you when I was watching you.

She’d been taunting him, but those words had struck him mute and frozen, unable to react when she’d pressed herself against him.

Because he knew she was only spouting nonsense, but that hadn’t quelled his erection. She didn’t know—couldn’t know—what visions had danced through
his
mind when he’d caught her standing against the tree, watching him with that hot black gaze.

Stripped to the waist, her bare breasts exposed to the sun, nipples tight from the cool air and her arousal.

He squeezed his penis again, but it wasn’t enough. After a quick guilty glance around his empty office, he unfastened his jeans, silently groaning at the relief of pressure.

The instant his palm closed around his cock, his spine tingled, his balls drawing up tight. He was raw from fucking his own fist over the last couple days, but that was what he expected whenever he saw Akira. She made him insatiable, his fantasies spinning out of control, the recovery time between the orgasms he gave himself to work her out of his system abnormally short.

Disgust and lust swirled through him as he followed the perverted path of his desires.

No words were exchanged between them. Her slender wrists were bound with rope and tied to the tree branch above her, her back arched, as if she were presenting her breasts for his perusal. He came closer, and she licked her lips. His hand stroked down her flank, the skin smooth and delicate. So flawless. He pressed his fingers hard against her skin, raising red marks to decorate the pale expanse of her belly.

The zipper of her skirt magically parted, loosening the material so it could fall to the dirty ground. No panties underneath. Just a hot, wet, lickable pussy waiting for him.

Jacob had seen Akira’s breasts before, when she had been drunk and flashed him at his father’s wedding. Though it was years ago, he had an indelible image of those round, firm mounds burned into his brain. Her pussy, he had to use his imagination.

He had a really good imagination. He swallowed, wishing he could wet his dry throat with her juices. Drops of precome seeped from the head of his cock, and he used it to lubricate his palm, so it could slip easier over the steel-hard surface, twisting upward at the sensitive tip.

His hands went to her waist and turned her around, the rope encircling her wrists having enough give to let her face the tree. He brushed her long black hair aside, the silky strands clinging to his fingers, and placed a hot kiss on the side of her neck. When he bit the spot he had just licked, her hips bucked in his hands, grinding back against him. He bit her harder, using his teeth to hold her steady as he undid his jeans and drove into her tight, wet heat, her firm ass cushioning his body as he thrust again and again…

Jacob’s abs tightened and he crunched up, grabbing a handful of tissues from the box on his desk in the nick of time to capture the messy evidence of his filthy fuck-toy fantasy.

His chest worked as if he had run a marathon, each breath bringing with it a healthy dose of guilt and self-disgust. Hands fumbling, he cleaned up and tucked himself back inside his jeans. Like he could hide what he had just done.