Criminal Love: A Billionaire Romance (3 page)

She felt his
hand reaching behind her, resting just above her rear, and he pulled her
closer. She could smell his aftershave. She wanted to bury her face into his
neck and breathe him in deeply.

Hadley felt him
pick up her phone and she felt the world she made for herself inside her head
shatter.

“You don’t plan
on going anywhere soon?” he asked, setting it on a nearby nightstand, face down.
Hadley was relieved.

I can keep
him here,
she thought. And then,
he can keep me in bed!

“I just want to
stay with you tonight,” she replied.

Jackson half
smiled, half smirked, and then pushed Hadley back toward the bed. The back of
her knees met the edge, and then her legs bucked, causing her to fall back onto
the cover. His body was flush against hers, and she didn’t worry about him
finding her weapon. All she could think about was getting even closer. Of him
finding every part of her, and she every part of him.

“I’ve never done
this before,” Hadley said, afraid that he might not like hearing that she was a
virgin, or that he had been her first kiss. Could he tell? It was all
ridiculous, she knew, but she somehow felt it was significant that a series of
firsts would be now.

“You never
what?” Jackson asked, dipping his head closer to hers. She could feel the
warmth of his breath on her lips. She never answered him, because he pressed
his own lips tenderly on hers and Hadley forgot that she was at sea, that she
was supposed to be seducing him, or even who she was.

His hands
smoothed along her sides, hooking the hem of her blouse and pulling it over her
shoulders.

“You’ve got
scars,” Jackson said, his blue eyes piercing Hadley’s entire past. He couldn’t
have seen what they were for, but there was no hiding that fact she had them.
His thumb traced the trail from a knife fight a few years back, the one that
had caused her to question her entire future with her family. She frowned, and
then fell into a kiss to forget. But he pressed for an answer.

“I don’t even
remember right now,” she replied. It was weak, but it seemed to assuage
Jackson’s inquiry because she felt his thumb dip into the curve of her bra. It
circled her nipples, teasing them into peaks, and Hadley moaned.

She didn’t want
him to stop. She wanted this to go on forever, for the boat to never dock, to
never see her family again. She wanted to fall in love with him, and for him to
fall in love with her. That, she reasoned, would be freedom.

Hadley reached
behind her and unhooked her bra. Jackson pulled it away from her, and her
breasts were open to him. She had never felt so exposed. It usually meant
danger, but this was the kind of danger, the kind of thrill, Hadley had waited
her entire life for.

He dropped his
head and she felt his lips on her right breast. They found her nipple, and he
began to kiss and suckle her. Hadley felt that part of her in the bottom of her
stomach clench, she felt her cunt getting wet. Her breathing was ragged.

Her phone began
vibrating on the nightstand, pulling Hadley and Jackson from the moment. She
saw his face sour and he reached over and hit it off so it fell to the floor,
the carpeting muffling the vibration.

My family
will just think I got sidetracked or scared,
Hadley reasoned, relaxing into
Jackson’s trail of kisses down her chest. Her toes began to curl up in her
sneakers. Her thoughts changed to worry over how much clothes she was wearing.

Hadley raked her
hands through Jackson’s hair, pulling his face closer to her body. He blew air
into her belly button, and she screamed a little, unaware of how sensitive she
was.

She needed him.
Now. She was impatient by his slow, steady movements. She started to reach for
his suit coat when he pushed her hand away.

“I’m not
finished with you,” Jackson said, pushing her further up onto the bed and then
placing his legs on both sides of her body, straddling her. She felt captured.
As if she were a hostage. The intensity of his stare seemed almost animalistic.

But that’s
silly, right?
Hadley thought. She was the one seducing
him
.

She felt Jackson
pull of her sneakers and throw them away from the bed. Then his hands rested on
the waist of her denim shorts, hooking his fingers in the hem and tugging them
down. Hadley had never felt more vulnerable in her life. She was wearing a
patterned pair of panties with a childish strawberry print.

Hadley hid her
face into the pillow, and moved her hands to pull her panties down, hoping to
get them out of sight as soon as possible. But as soon as Jackson threw her
shorts aside he grasped her wrists and held them above her head.

“Not finished,”
he said again.

Hadley had never
been so out of control before, but she let that control slip away from her,
enjoying the commanding Texas accent from Jackson. At the back of her mind she
wondered what her family would think – not just sleeping with Jackson Ward,
their target, but of letting go. It could get you killed.

She watched,
entranced, as Jackson started unbuckling his belt from the waistband of his
pants and then looped it wrapped her wrists. He tugged it, securing her wrists
tightly, and looped it around a bed post.

Now Hadley
really felt exposed.

She blushed when
Jackson looked down at her body. He was still fully clothed, though there was
still some slack in his pants. She could see his erection straining the
material, but he did not free himself. Not yet.

He wasn’t
finished with her.

Jackson leaned
back into Hadley, and then she felt his thumb trail along her thighs. He was
gentle, but demanding. She had never been touched this intimately by a man. It
unsettled her in the best way.

She felt two
fingers push into her folds under her panties, teasing the nub inside her core.
She called out his name. She felt him startle beneath her, but the pleasure in
her body was so intense that every part of her kept aching for him. He was
flushed against her, warm, and she felt his lips on her again as his fingers
kept rubbing and teasing her.

Hadley felt
something building inside of her.

“How did you
know my name?” Jackson asked between Hadley’s stifled moans.

And then, just
as quickly, she felt him leave her. He continued to loom over her, his
delectable frown staring down at her.

Predatory.

Something
isn’t right,
Hadley thought. But she didn’t know what it was.

“Everyone knows
you,” she said quietly. “I’m Hadley…”

It was almost
preposterous that Hadley found herself in this position: underneath a man, all
but naked, and they hadn’t even exchanged names. She would have never thought
to find herself in such a position before, but here she was.

She heard her
phone’s muffled vibrations on the floor below them. Her family never tried to
reach her so adamantly before.

But Hadley
looked away. She had work to do, or well, the opposite of the kind of work she
normally did.

And she enjoyed
it!

“Hadley isn’t
what I expected,” Jackson said, seemingly calm. As if he had been anxious over
who she was. He leaned over her. “But you’re not either.”

His whisper
tickled her eat and sent a shiver down the length of her body. His thumb rested
on the hem of her panties, and then pulled it away from her body. With a
thought quickly dimming into the shadows, Hadley realized she wasn’t quite sure
where it landed, but she couldn’t be bothered to think about it too clearly
when she felt his finger dive into her.

“Oh!” she
moaned, taken by surprise. Slowly in, slowly out, but building speed. Her wet
walls clenching him. If Hadley’s hands were free she knew she would be digging
her fingernails into his back in pleasure. She pulled at her restraints, now
upset she couldn’t hold him to her.

The pressure
inside of Hadley again. She wanted it, but at the same time she wanted to break
free and pull off all of Jackson’s clothes. She bucked her hips upward, trying
to have more of him inside of her.

“I thought you’d
be in more control than this,” Jackson purred, pulling out just as she felt
herself on the verge of an orgasm. He began to fumble with his pants, and she
watched through glazed eyes as he pulled out his hard cock. He started to work
himself, the cum on his fingers from her cunt making him slick.

He reached into
the nightstand and pulled out a condom, slipping it onto him before positioning
himself over her, lining his cock with her pussy. He rubbed her clit with the
head, causing Hadley to pull at her tied hands.

“Please…” she
begged. Had she ever wanted something as much as she wanted Jackson at that
moment?

He pushed into
her, filling her up entirely. She felt like splitting, and she bit her lip from
the momentary pain. Jackson looked into her eyes, surprised.

“You’re not…” he
began, but stopped. Hadley could tell that he looked conflicted. But why?

“Keep going,”
she told him, sneaking her legs over his body and pulling him closer. The belt
around her wrists was beginning to get in the way.

But instead of
continuing, Jackson reached up and loosened the belt, freeing her wrists. He
then pressed his lips on her wrists, and she realized they were sore and red
from how tightly he bound them. The kiss was cool, and somehow more erotic than
everything he had done so far.

Jackson’s kisses
trailed down her arm, resting in the crook of her elbow and began sucking on
the skin. There was some part of him that was desperately hungry for her,
Hadley realized.

She didn’t know
what happened, but something had changed.

Jackson began to
divest himself of his clothing, piece by piece, and wrapping himself around
Hadley to pull her into a tender embrace. His lips made their way up to her
shoulder, then into curve of her neck and settling at her throat. He bit into
the skin, but not roughly, and when he finally was free from all his clothes he
pushed himself into her even deeper, and then out, building the momentum Hadley
had so desperately craved.

She wrapped her
arms around him, letting herself believe for this moment they were something
more than they really were. She wondered what he would think when she left the
next morning. She wanted to believe he would try to find her, but she knew she
could never let them happen.

“Hadley,” he
breathed into her neck, joining her own moans of his name on her lips.

Jackson lifted
her knees and put them over his shoulders, allowing him to push himself deeper
into her as his pacing became frantic and rough. Uncontrolled. Whatever control
either of them had was lost.

Hadley felt
every part of her being curl and unfurl like a spring. She felt as if she were
about to shatter into little pieces. When had her fantasy become a reality? She
wondered if she was dreaming. Her fingers dug into the skin of his back, her
nails leaving marks.

She felt that
she had changed; not physically, but that some part of her life would never be
the same.

Jackson’s orgasmed,
and they both collapsed. He breathed heavily on top of Hadley, and then rolled
over onto the bed, laying on his back. Hadley took a moment to catch her
breath.

“I can’t believe
that happened,” she said, meaning to only think it. She felt Jackson reach for
her hand and he squeezed it. It was so sweet, and so unlike what she expected,
that Hadley was brought out of the moment.

She remembered
what had happened, who she was before, and who she would be tomorrow morning.
She moved to get up and go to the bathroom, but Jackson’s hold on her hand kept
her in place.

Hadley was
suddenly very conscious of their afterglow, and that she had left a small pink
stain on the sheets. She covered it with her thigh.

“I already
know,” Jackson said, speaking into her neck. “It was kind of obvious.”

Hadley covered
her face, but Jackson smiled and pressed his lips on her forehead. She sighed
and settled into him, even as she heard her phone going off beside them. She
found herself drifting off to sleep.

Tomorrow was
tomorrow. She wanted to have at least this one night.

What happens the
morning after between Hadley and Jackson? What if she didn’t imagine his
suspicions? Will Hadley leave her criminal life behind? Find out next time!
Stay in the know, and follow the author’s blog at
www.moniquehodge.com
to learn of the newest releases in the
Criminal Love
series and other
books!

Wanted: Nude
model. Artist: Totally Hot.

Famous painter
Asher Ross needs a nude model for his latest project. College student Elise
Moore needs some extra cash to help pay for college. What she didn’t expect was
for Asher to be the kind of guy she always wanted. But there’s more to Asher’s
work than Elise expected…

Asher will make
her body the painting, and the touch of paint can be, as he says, “almost
erotic.”

Will the job
remain a job, or will it turn into an intimate rendezvous for Elise and Asher?

Monique Hodge is
a not so quiet dreamer who writes new adult romance. Her default thought is an
exclamation point. A lot of exclamation points!!! She lives in West Virginia
with her family, and when she isn’t writing she is reading too many books or
watching an unreasonable amount of Korean dramas.

To read
Monique’s blog and learn about the latest news on her books, visit her online
at
www.moniquehodge.com
.