One Night with Sole Regret 03 Take Me (15 page)

He lost his rhythm and then went entirely still, staring down at her with a wide-eyed shell-shocked expression. “Why did you do that?”

“I want to look into your eyes.”

“Why?”

Because I still prefer the man over the rock star, but she couldn’t say that.
“Because they’re such a gorgeous blue.”

He lowered his body over hers, his thrusts slower. He rotated his hips to grind deeper and then buried his face in her throat as he continued.

So even without the sunglasses he wouldn’t look her in the eye while he had sex with her
on his bed
.
H
is
stage
.
Did he ever let anyone connect with his heart? Amanda’s throat squeezed, robbing her of air. She wrapped both arms around Jacob to hold him as close as possible. After a moment, she opened her eyes and watched the monitor
that
was focused on his tight, pumping ass as he thrust and
churned
his hips. The song ended, the lights
died
.

He collapsed on top of her.

His body, so heavy.

His ragged breathing, so loud
.

“I usually time my orgasm with that final drumbeat,” he said.

She wondered how many performances he’d had in this bed. “I don’t mind you taking as long as
you need,” she said
.
Nope, she didn’t mind one bit.

“You’re going to regret saying that.” He pulled out and rose up to reach for the sex swing above him. “Let’s get you up off that bed.”

Amanda didn’t resist being hooked into the straps and harnesses. She didn’t have the strength or the desire to protest.

When he’d finished, she found herself suspended facedown above the bed. Amanda extended her arms in front of her. “I’m like
S
uperman
.”

He chuckled. “I guarantee you’ll be flying soon. Do you want the cameras on?”

She craned her neck to look up at the monitor. Gravity was not kind to her boobs in this position. “Um, maybe we should turn those off for now.”

“They do tend to break my concentration after a while,” he said. “Music helps it though.”

“I like the music.”

He used his remote control to turn the cameras and TVs off. The dim lights above the canopy scarcely provided any light. If she hadn’t been tethered to the ceiling by something resembling a crazy piece of exercise equipment, she might have thought the mood
was romantic. When music flooded the
room
with sound and the melody registered in her addled mind,
Amanda
could scarcely believe her ears.

“
Classical
?”

“You don’t like classical music?” he asked.

“I do. I’m just surprised that you
like it
.”

“It has great build and crescendos. Just like good sex.”

She chuckled. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Anyone ever
tell
you that you talk too much?” he asked. At her back, he grabbed the strap that was wrapped around her midsection and hoisted her up into a forty-five degree angle. Her knees were still several inches off the bed. She was surprised at how weightless she felt.

“Yeah,” she said.
“All the time.”

“I’d kiss you quiet, but I’m going to be back here for a while. Hold your questions until the end.”

She laughed. “I’ll try.”

He
positioned
himself to kneel behind her, lifted her by the hips and slowly lowered her until his cockhead was probing her opening.
Shifting
his hips to find a better angle
, h
e
placed both large
hands to her breasts
and pulled
her down onto his shaft.
He
used
the momentum of her weight and the recoil of the
swing
’s
springs to find a rhythm. The angle of his penetration felt amazing. The ease of movement kept her muscles from tiring. And the damned thing was just a lot of fun. In fact, she didn’t know if she should moan in pleasure or giggle in glee as her body bounced with the action of the spring. It took her less than a minute to decide that moaning was the best response. Once Shade had his rhythm in tune with the music, he continued to use one hand to pull their bodies together. The other began to roam her heated flesh—breasts, belly, thighs, hips. Suspended as she was, she had no choice but to give herself over to the pleasure. There was no fighting Shade’s experienced delivery. When the music built toward the crescendo
,
his fingertips sought her clit and sent her flying. Her body strained to find grounding as she soar
ed into nirvana. The only thing solid
she felt connected to was him.

“Oh!”

When she’d recovered her breath, he shifted her position so that she was still suspended, but now on her side. Startled by the loss of her center of gravity, she clutched at him for balance.

“Easy, baby,” he said. “Trust the swing to hold you. Trust me to guide you. You won’t fall.”

Her breathing
slowed,
and she removed her death grip from Shade’s forearm. She did trust him. She wasn’t so sure about the collections of straps wrapped around her body.

He took her from the side in a position that would have been impossible to maintain for more than a few seconds without the assistance of the swing. She loved this position because she could see some of him. See the blend of concentration and pleasure on his strong, handsome face. See the sweat dripping from his brow. See the flexion of his bulging biceps as he tugged her body toward him and thrust in time with the music. She was floating on air. She wondered how long he could keep this up. While it was easy on her body, he had to be getting tired.

Amanda soon learned that a man with a sex swing, stamina, and fantastic upper body strength could fuck a woman into a state of delirium. Especially a man who knew at least forty-five positions. She lost count of how many times he brought her to orgasm. When he claimed his own release at last, she strained against him as he brought her to the pinnacle once again. “Jacob.”

After his shaky breathing quieted, he released her from the swing and gently lowered her to the bed. She tried to lift her
trembling
arms to hold him. She wanted so much to hold him. “I can’t move,” she whispered.

He cradled her body against his
sweat-slick body
, her head resting on one of his arms, and then folded the bed sheet over their entangled bodies. “Sleep now,” he whispered.

Her eyelids were minutes ahead of him.

Chapter 10

Someone cuddled up against Shade’s side
,
and his eyes flipped open. Sunlight streamed
from between the window blinds
and
across the tangled black and red sheets of his bed. Okay, he was going to look down at the warm
,
soft body pressed against his side and it wasn’t going to be Amanda. Because if it was her, if last night had really happened and not just
been
the most amazing wet dream of his life, he’d fucked things up big time.

He tilted his chin, praying it was some random groupie using his shoulder as a pillow.

No such luck. His heart skipped a beat as Amanda’s beautiful
face
,
peaceful
in
sleep
,
graced his vision. It
skipped a second beat when the enormity of their situation settled in his thoughts.

Shit. Shit. Shit. What had they done? What had
he
done? He’d touched the untouchable.
Touched?
Hell, he’d fucked her to the point of unconsciousness. And
now
he felt how much he’d relished their physical contact in every aching, weary muscle of his body. But just because he’d enjoyed it, just because being with her had surpassed all expectations, didn’t make it right. What was it about sunlight that brought him back to his senses? And made one of the most wonderful nights of his life seem like a mistake.

He lay there for a long while, staring at the ceiling and stroking Amanda’s arm absently, trying to sort through the mess he’d made. He knew they had to keep this from everyone, especially Tina. The woman would use his indiscretion with her sister against him. He knew that. She’d use it as an excuse to keep him from Julie and as much as he adored Amanda, he couldn’t do anything to jeopardize his already limited relationship with his daughter.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Why hadn’t he thought of these things last night before he’d acted on impulse?

Amanda murmured in her sleep, “Dogs don’t have money for rent.”

He smiled, wondering what she was dreaming about. Not him, apparently.
Which was for the best.
As much as he hated the idea of never spending another night engulfed by her heat and her heart, this couldn’t go any farther. And they couldn’t do this again.
Ever.
He had to make that clear to her. God, he hoped she didn’t cry when he made his lack of intentions clear. He wasn’t sure if he could handle her tears. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and took a deep breath.

If he stayed in bed with her any longer, his resolve would crumble. He’d have her on her back and his hands filled with her soft curves
before
she could blink. Shade carefully slid from beneath her body, settling her head on a pillow,
and climbed
from the bed.

“Don’t give that schnauzer a flea bath in cottage cheese,” she said and hugged her pillow.

Shade bit his lip to stifle a laugh. Even in her sleep, she made him smile.
And warmed his heart.
And made part of him wish he could wake up beside her every morning.

Not good.

He watched her for a
long
moment,
her
looking all tousled and sexy and unattainable. Even after they’d spent the night together, he still thought of her as
beyond his reach. And she should have stayed out of reach. God, he really was an idiot. What in the fuck had he been thinking? He hadn’t. He’d been feeling.
Shit, w
hen would he learn to stop doing that? When would he figure out that
feelings,
any feelings
,
always led to complications he wasn’t prepared to deal with?

He
put on a pair of swim trunks and headed for the pool. There was nothing like an hour of vigorous exercise to get a woman out from under his skin.
But h
e wasn’t even a half a lap down
the pool’s
length when he realized that
busying
his body
had
freed his mind to churn over images of Amanda’s body as he took her
,
Amanda’s face as he made her come
,
Amanda’s
eyes as she gazed into his soul.

Shit. Shit.
Shit
.

What was he going to do? He could handle being used for sex
—w
oman used bedding him as some sort of ego trip on a regular basis
—
but this was Amanda.
Amanda.
Even though she’d said that she was good with sex for the sake of sex, he didn’t really believe it because for once,
he
wasn’t okay with it. He
couldn’t push her away
and forget she existed, because she was already too close. She’d been too close even before her soft lips had brushed his throat and every bit of
common
sense between them had spontaneously combusted.

After several laps
,
he stopped at the shallow end of the pool and stared blankly at the blue water. Maybe they could pretend last night had never happened and go back to just being friends. Maybe he could pretend that all they’d shared was physical intimacy
.

No,
he knew better. It hadn’t been just-sex. Not for him. For him, his time with her had been more. He wasn’t afraid of
her
getting hurt by a night of unrestrained passion. He was concerned for himself.

H
e’d
just have to deal with these feelings in private
.
H
e had to be careful not to hurt her. He didn’t like to hurt the women he cared about, and yeah, he cared about her.
He wouldn’t deny it, not to himself.
He
’
d
cared
for a while now. Even before he’d started to lust after her, he’d known she was special. He liked her as a person first and a woman second. And that was the entire problem.