Revenge for Hire (The Get Even Agency) (27 page)

Which didn’t explain why she agreed to his terms for revenge. Why
had she? When he’d made the claim she owed him a night of retribution, he’d
expected her to slap his face. Certainly, he hadn’t expected her to agree.

Snap
.

Jude glanced toward the door.

Oh hell. He was in deep.

Avery stood there looking like every man’s S and M fantasy. She
wore a studded black leather collar, a leather one-piece that’s intricate
webbing showed more than it covered with its low-cut cleavage and its high-cut
vee
narrowing to her apex, black thigh-high garters and heels
that towered so high she’d probably look him directly in the eyes. In her hands
was a long, black leather whip that looked dangerous.

She flexed her wrist and the whip curled out.
Snap
.

She teetered to him with the sweetest shake of a rear-end he’d ever
had the privilege of seeing on display. She stepped directly in front of where
he sat, soaring above him.

“Do you need spanked?” she asked.

Not hardly. “You do.”

Her eyes widened, and he realized she’d taken the time to put
on make-up. Charcoal lined her eyes and made them resemble cat eyes, dark and
mysterious. Mesmerizing.

“I don’t let men spank me.” Her lips pursed in challenge.

“Under normal circumstances. These aren’t normal circumstances,
are they?”

“I gave you the opportunity to hit me.”

“I don’t hit women with my fists, not even women who deserve it.
But I am going to give your bottom the spanking you’ve earned.

She struggled with his comeback, then shrugged. “If that’s what
you want.”

“It is.”

She dropped the whip at his feet, shot him a challenging look,
then bent over the coffee table.

Jude stared at the round cheeks on proud display beneath the
thong back of the leather one piece and finished off his second drink. When he
made no move to touch her, Avery twisted her head to look at him.

“Well,” she asked impatiently. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m the one calling the shots. Turn around. I’m enjoying the
view.”

She frowned, but did as he asked.

She deserved a whooping. A hard one. He raised his hand to
smack her cheek and instead found himself tracing over the curve of her bottom.
She twitched, her buttocks tightening responsively.

Jude grinned, placed both hands on her bottom, and squeezed her
cheeks.

He ran his palms over all exposed areas then traced the edge of
the leather, dipping his fingers toward the barely covered center of her
desire, pausing when he felt the snap.

Taking his time he stroked and played with her bottom, feeling
her moist heat radiate from her apex, knowing that bending over taking his
caresses had to be driving her insane when she was forbidden to move.

“Jude,” she whimpered proving him right.

“Hmm?”

“It might be easier to take if you spanked me.”

He laughed and playfully swatted her bottom. Then again. Harder.
Her inner thighs clenched. He stood behind her, pulling her bottom to cradle
his groin. He reached around and cupped her breasts through their leather
webbing.

“I’m going to do you like this,” he warned.

She nodded, her back arching as she rubbed her butt against his
pants. “Do it. Now.”

Which meant he didn’t pop her snap and slide home. “I’m the one
giving the orders,” he reminded.

She moaned, grinding against him. “I forgot.”

“You like to be in charge, don’t you, Angel?”

“Yes.”

“You like controlling the people around you.”

“Yes.”

“You want to control me?”

“Not anymore.”

He wasn’t sure whether he liked that answer. Did that mean she
no longer cared what he was doing or that she’d learned her lesson?

He let go of her breasts and she moaned in protest. She cared. A
great deal at the moment.

Sexually, he held power over her. Just as she held a power over
him.

He needed her. Whether he wanted to or not. He needed what only
she gave him. Completeness.

She deserved to be punished.

He pulled her to a standing position and walked her to the
thick glass window overlooking Central Park. He spun her around to face him.

Running his gaze over her, he wished he could hold on to the
image of her lust filled eyes, her parted lips, her slightly spread legs. She
wanted him and didn’t hide it.

With his fingers he pushed the webbing aside to reveal a
nipple, then bent to suckle. He teased her peaks until they strained and she
writhed against him with need.

He could only imagine the view her backside made pressed
against the window. Could only imagine the image they’d make when he entered
her from behind. And it would have to be from behind because if he had to look
into her eyes there was no way he could hold back the emotions dammed within
him. Already they threatened to spill forth and flood his every rational thought.

He kissed her and she kissed him back with a fervor that
promised she was with him every step of the way, that she wanted him.

“Jude, please. It’s been so long.”

Forever. It felt like it had been forever since he’d been
inside her. Too long.

He reached into his back pocket, removed his wallet, a condom,
then unzipped his pants. Seeming unable to stop herself, she grabbed the condom
and rolled it onto him, her fingers wrapping around his protected length with
greed.

She began to stroke him, making his thoughts cloud. No. He
wouldn’t lose control, wouldn’t let her have control.

He spun her to where she faced the window, jerked on the snap,
and thrust hard into her.

Black heat washed over his body, threatening to rob him of his
consciousness. He stilled, praying his heart didn’t burst free from his chest
from the torrent of emotions welling.

“Jude,” she cried, lurching. She stretched her legs, pressing
her body tight against his. “Love me.”

He groaned and gave in to the need within him. He took her
hands and placed them above her head on the glass, spread her thighs further
apart, began a punishing rhythm that bolstered his need. He kissed her neck,
nuzzled her ear, all the while driving deeper and deeper, closer and closer to
the point of no return.

She quivered. Small little shivers of pleasure to begin with,
then her entire body clenched around him. A cry of pleasure tore loose from her
lips.

He drove deeper, determined to keep her orgasm going,
determined to take her beyond any point she’d ever been. She whimpered,
clutched at the glass, sagged as if she’d lost the strength to stand.

He turned her, grinned at her sated expression, knowing she
wouldn’t complain about his first performance this go around.

“You really are into putting on a show.” He lifted her hips enough
to plunge inside.

Her startled eyes blinked. “It’s after midnight. No one looking
could be for sure what we’re doing.”

“Really?”

She didn’t answer, just moaned as he found the right rhythm to
make her writhe.

He
pistoned
so hard he half expected
the thick glass to crack and them to go pummeling to the streets far below.

He placed his hands beneath her sweet bottom and held her with
him buried deep between her thighs, wrapped around his waist. “Which room is
yours?”

Pointing toward a hallway, she kissed his mouth, his chin, his
neck.

Following her finger motions, Jude carried her to her room,
paused long enough to flip on the light, and lowered her to the bed. Her hair
fanned out and she stared up at him with hot emotion in her eyes. That’s when
it hit him, why he’d paused at the window.

He didn’t want her like this. As part of some revenge. He
wanted her because she wanted to be with him. Because she needed him as much as
he needed her.

That’s why she was here.

Because she did need as much as he did.

She didn’t have to give him a revenge. There wasn’t anything he
could have done. She’d come to him, bared the truth to him, not because of
guilt over what she’d done, although perhaps there had been some of that, too.

Avery came to him because she loved him.

“Take off the leather.” He didn’t want her submissive. He
wanted her as his equal. In every way.

She flashed confusion, but did as he asked, lying back against
her bed in only thigh-highs and high heels.

With reverent touches, Jude took off one shoe then the other,
massaging her feet, her calves. He looped his fingers around the elastic band
and pulled off her hose in slow caresses of each leg.

She lay watching him as if trying to figure out why he’d gone
from frantically pounding her to this slow touching. But she didn’t ask
questions, just watched in silence.

When she was naked, he admired her body then kissed her belly. A
belly he wanted to someday watch grow plump with his babies.

He glanced up and met her gaze.

She smiled and touched his face.

Need to finish what they’d started swept over him. He covered
her, plunging so deep inside he lost where he ended and she began. Lost where
they were separated and became totally at one.

She met his pace, thrilled in his need when he came so hard it
felt as if his insides were ripping out.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and she cried with pleasure.
Jude kissed her panting mouth, then collapsed onto her.

“I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Jude’s body tensed above her and Avery wondered if she’d messed
up telling him the truth. Perhaps he didn’t care for her anymore and this
really was just about sex and revenge.

Sure, the looks he’d given her made her think he cared, but
perhaps she’d been wrong. After all, what did she really know about love? About
men?

“What did you say?” he asked.

She bit the inside of her lower lip, sucked in her pride’s
demand to protect her heart, and told the truth. “I love you, Jude. With all my
heart.”

He pressed his forehead to hers and smiled down at her with a
look of pure arrogance. “I know.”

Not what she was expecting him to say, although his words
shouldn’t have surprised her. “You know?”

“Didn’t I tell you as much on the night we first made love and
you kept insisting it was just sex?”

“Yes, but—”

“It can’t ever be just sex between us, Angel. If I had any
doubts, tonight erased them.”

“Because you didn’t want to make love to me?”

“Because I wanted to make love to you,” he clarified. “I have
since the moment you walked into my office and put me in my place. You’re the
only woman I want. I didn’t have sex with Mandy, Avery. I let you keep think
that because I wanted you to hurt the way you’d hurt me, was afraid you’d laugh
that even after everything you’d done, you were still the only woman I wanted.”

She closed her eyes. He hadn’t slept with Mandy. Or anyone
else. Why did that thought fill her with joy? Make her feel even guiltier at
what she’d done to him? Could he ever forgive her? How could he?

“I’m sorry, Jude. I wish I could undo everything I did to you.”

“I’m glad you can’t.”

She opened her eyes.
He had to be kidding
.

“What are you talking about?”

“You.” He placed a tender kiss on her mouth, the kind of kiss
you know you have to be dreaming and hope you never wake up from.

“Me?”

“You weren’t ready to love me until you got all that revenge
stuff out of your system.”

She pushed against his chest. “That’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged, apparently not willing to argue. “If you say so,
but I think you were testing my feelings, to see if I’d pass this impossible
test of loving you no matter what you did.”

“Testing—feelings—you’re insane,” she sputtered, pulling on the
sheets to cover her nakedness.

“Tell me, Avery, did you believe me when I told you I loved you
on that first night?”

She bit the inside of her lip, not meeting his eyes, but unable
to ignore the tenderness in his voice. “I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t.”

She glanced at him and frowned. “How could I? We’d just met
and...”

“You’d been hurt in the past, right?”

She nodded, looking away.

“Whoever he was, he was a damned fool.” Jude lifted her chin. “And
now? Do you believe me when I say I love you?”

“Are you saying that?” she asked, hopeful. He hadn’t said the
words, not specifically. She needed to hear them, needed to know she was
lovable. Her heart told her it was true, that he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,
but old doubts lingered obstinately.

“That I love you?” He grinned.

“Yes. You’re sure?”

“I love you and want you in my life.” He looked so confident in
his words that all her old doubts began popping like bubbles in her mind. There
one minute and gone the next, leaving only a giddy happiness.

This couldn’t be happening. Jude loved her, wanted her to be
with him, understood the crazy force that drove her need to revenge him to such
an unforgivable extreme. It was too good to be true.

“What about my job?”

“What about it?”

“Someone has to protect women, provide justice to womankind.” She
gave him a stubborn look. “I won’t quit.”

He just smiled. “I didn’t expect you would.”

What? “You’re okay with that?”

“One of us has to work, and since I’m currently between jobs…”

“I know you’ve had offers.”

“I’m holding out to weigh all my options.”

Avery stroked her finger across his cheek. “This isn’t real. You’re
not real.”

“I’ve got hard evidence that says you’re wrong about that.” He
waggled his brows.

She giggled and felt lighter than she could ever remember
feeling. Giving control of her heart to Jude came with risks. What good thing
didn’t? But the rewards, heavenly.

“You really love me, don’t you?”

“Lady, after the things you did to me, do you think I’d be here
if my heart didn’t belong to you?”

“For revenge. Sexual retribution,” she teased. “It’s what you
said you wanted.”

“I do want sexual retribution.” He gave her a lazy look that
melted her insides to goop. “But not just for one night.”

She gasped, knowing what he was saying, thrilling at how much
he wanted, how much he cared. Jude loved her. She cupped his jaw, nodding her
agreement.

He took her hand in his, pulled it to his mouth, and placed a
lingering kiss. “I want retribution that lasts a lifetime.”

“A lifetime?”

“Our lifetime.”

It was much later before Avery answered him with words that
giving him sexual retribution for the rest of her life sounded just about
perfect.