Since I Saw You (4 page)

He lifted his head, his breath sounding ragged as he stimulated her and met her gaze. A primitive pulse pounded in his swollen cock, demanding he act. She was going to squeeze him until he didn’t know his own name. She was going to wring him until he was an ecstatic, rutting savage.

Something hit him like a dull thud to the gut.

“I don’t have a condom,” he ground out, the harsh reality penetrating his rabid lust. He always brought condoms when he planned to be with a woman, but it wasn’t part of his normal routine to carry one around. He was used to living in isolation in the country.

None of this—from the glittering city to these new clothes to this stunning woman beneath him who had been both what he expected and drastically different—remotely resembled his typical life.

She lifted her head slightly and glanced at the bedside table where he’d tossed the hairpins. “There,” she said.

Caught between the choice of continuing to bind her wrists or remove his hand from her slippery, tight pussy, he let go of her wrists and strained toward the table, whipping open the small drawer. His hand moved over items in blind desperation.

“Merde,”
he muttered under his breath, forced to remove his hand from paradise in order to eventually achieve even more sublime raptures. He scooted up on the bed, peering into the drawer. He shoved aside a small bottle of lotion, a jar of lip emollient, a couple of elastic headbands, some pens, and what appeared to be several carefully dried and pressed purple lotus flowers inserted into a plastic sleeve. He finally spied an unopened box of condoms.

Her palm cupped his cock from below. She slid it along the shaft, as though testing his weight. He hissed and clamped his eyes closed as she closed her fingers around him, her touch even through his clothing thundering through him. He felt huge in her small, stroking hand, heavy . . . hurting.

He snarled and reached for the offending hand. The sweet one.

“I’m going to come in my pants if you keep that up,” he uttered harshly. He focused on her face with effort. “Put your hand back above your head and keep it there,
mon petit chaton
. I’m not going to be exploding anywhere but deep inside you.”

•   •   •

Lin tried to control her ragged breathing as she followed his instructions and placed her hands above her head, resting them on the pillow. She failed. Panting, she watched him as he impatiently shucked off his jacket and shirt. There was a good amount of dark hair on his chest, but it didn’t hide smooth skin and flexing muscle. He came down on his hip on the bed and unfastened his jeans. She’d held his cock in her hand, felt his weight and heat throbbing against her sex.

Her heart began to race in her breast as adrenaline poured into her veins.

He unceremoniously jerked the jeans down his hips and over long, muscled hair-sprinkled thighs, his taut abdomen and powerful biceps flexing hard. His fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxer briefs and pulled them forward over his bulging genitals. He yanked downward.

His naked cock flipped onto his belly—desire-swollen, flagrant . . .

. . . indescribably beautiful.

Her lips parted. Her breath froze.

He ripped open the condom package and began to roll it down over his erection. She leaned up slightly to better see him, using her elbows to brace her, curious . . . hungry. The head was a succulence from which she couldn’t unglue her gaze, a firm, flushed, and noticeably delineated crown to the long, thick staff. He cursed when the condom ran out with several inches to go to his testicles, covered by dark hair.

The prophylactic wasn’t long enough.

“Is it okay?” he asked roughly, glancing up in her direction.

She nodded, unable to speak. It was like some pagan god of virility had landed in her bed, when before she’d witnessed only mortals.

He grunted softly at her permission. “Put your hands back,” he prodded gently. While she followed his instructions, he lifted her skirt all the way to her waist. He rolled between her legs, and she opened her thighs to accommodate him. She bit her lip, anticipation cutting at her from the inside out, when he came down over her, bracing his body with a hand on the mattress. His other hand captured his suspended cock.

She exhaled the air she’d been holding in her lungs when he used the bulging head of his cock to rub between her labia, wetting the tip with her juices, stimulating her clit. She moaned and watched him as he stared between her thighs, moving his cock, finding her slit unerringly.

“Oh,” she mumbled, shock and arousal flavoring her tone when he flexed firmly, working the fleshy cockhead into her. He paused, looking up at her, his jaw tight.

“You’re tight. Try to relax,” he said in a gravelly tone. “Spread your thighs apart farther and bend your knees a bit.”

She moaned after she’d followed his instructions and his muscles contracted, pushing his cock farther into her. He stared at her face fixedly as he began to flex his hips, gently sawing the end of his cock back and forth in her slit.

“That’s right,” he muttered through a rigid jaw, his low, hoarse tone coaxing her . . . arousing. “You’ve got a tight little pussy, but you’re going to let me in, aren’t you?”

“Yes,”
she hissed at the same moment she flexed her hips upward determinedly. Her pussy stretched around his girth, her softness submitting to his pulsing, hard shaft.

He made a stifled sound like
archg
as his flesh slowly fused with hers.

It was both uncomfortable and headily arousing to hold him inside her. She clenched her teeth and flexed her hips up and down, stroking him, desperate to be filled. Completely. Kam made a harsh sound in his throat and used his hand to still her.

He met her stare, his teeth bared in a snarl as he held her steady and sunk in her to the balls. Her mouth fell open, and a shaky, disbelieving cry escaped her throat. He pressed closer still, smashing his balls against her outer sex, grinding. She’d never been so inundated, so full. The indirect pressure on her clit was wicked.

A light coating of sweat shone on his ridged, naked torso as he remained still with obvious effort. His gaze bore down into her.

“Is it too much?” he grated out.

“I’m going to come,” she said, the shaky words spilling out of her a shock even to herself.

“Then do it,” he rasped as he lifted slightly, exposing her outer flesh. He reached between her thighs and slid his finger between the smooth, slippery folds of her labia. He rubbed his fingertip against her clit with matter-of-fact mastery. She cried out and arched her back as orgasm shuddered through her, the ecstasy exponentially powerful with Kam planted deep in her flesh.

She heard his deep, primal growl as if from a distance. He continued to rub her for a moment. She was still coming—harsh shudders of bliss slashing through her—when he removed his hand. He folded her knees toward her shoulders and leaned down over her, using his body to fix her bent legs in place flush against her torso. He began to fuck while she still keened in climax.

For a few seconds, his demanding possession interrupted her bliss. It was too much, really, having him pound so high and hard inside her. It took her breath away. But then the friction caused by the swollen, defined cockhead rubbing previously untouched flesh began to mount. It was like he was building a fire in her.

She moaned and stared up at him helplessly. He looked down at her, his handsome face so rigid, his eyes so wild it was almost frightening, like truly being taken by a force of nature. His strokes became longer, even more forceful. She bared her teeth in the face of the intense pressure and mounting pleasure, groaning, and lifted her head off the pillow, glancing downward. The staff of his cock glistened with her juices as it moved like a piston in and out of her, his pelvis smacking against her briskly in an arousing, erotic rhythm that quickened by the second.

She fell back, gasping against the pillows. “Oh God, the condom.” He was taking her so forcefully, so thoroughly, that the bottom rim of the rubber was coming down off his thick cock.

“I know it,” he ground out in a strangled voice, never pausing his powerful thrusts. “It’ll hold for as long as it takes. I won’t last. Not in this sweet little pussy, I won’t. I’m going to come.”

She squeezed her eyelids tight at his harsh, erotic words. He slammed into her and circled his hips, once again overfilling her, grinding their sexes together. She screamed in excitement and felt his cock swell and jerk inside her. His shout was blistering. Raw. She lay back on the pillows, panting in sharp excitement and vague discomfort, watching him as he began to come. Every muscle in his lean, ripped body was contracted tight, rippling and jerking. Spellbound, she realized she’d been willingly depriving herself of his beauty. She reached for him, suddenly wild to caress and stroke what seemed like miles of smooth skin and delineated muscle. But he made a ragged sound and pushed down on her shins, stilling her action.

He rode her while he ejaculated. The intense friction made her eyes cross. She joined him in climax, too overwhelmed by his stark possession to stand outside the flames.

“Fuck. I can feel you coming,” he groaned, sounding beyond miserable.

“No,” she yelped when he withdrew.

It was like abruptly having ice water poured on her steaming skin, the deprivation of his flesh was so severe. He fell down on the mattress, panting, his pelvis cradling her hip, his damp cock throbbing on her thigh.

“I had to. The damn condom isn’t going to stay put. I don’t want to spill in you,” he said at the same time that he slid his hand between her thighs. She cried out as her climax ramped up to its original potent blast as he rubbed her slick clit rapidly. Her eyes closed as she shook in pleasure.

“No, open them,” he ordered roughly.

She lifted her heavy eyelids. Both of his hands resumed moving, and she realized he stimulated both of them at once.

It struck her as overwhelmingly intimate, to stare into his fierce gaze while they both shuddered in mutual pleasure . . .

. . . to stare into the familiar face of a virtual stranger.

H
e sagged onto the bed next to her, his head falling into the pillow. As she lay there and felt his harsh breathing near her ear, slow and even, her body seemed to liquefy, melting into the mattress. He was warm and solid. Her drowsiness paradoxically alarmed her somehow.

She’d just had wild, impulsive sex with someone she’d just met. She could count using one finger the number of times she’d done that in her life—and that time on spring break during grad school didn’t really count, given the uncustomary amount of tequila involved and the completely forgettable sexual encounter itself. She’d despised herself afterward for putting herself in that unsavory situation, vowing to never allow herself to lose control in that arena of her life again.

But tonight hadn’t been some drunken encounter with a cocky yet fumbling college kid. This had been a lightning strike of desire with none other than Ian Noble’s brother, the very man she was supposed to guide and soften for a potentially lucrative business deal. A deal that was certainly important to her boss, because Kam was family.

Ian.

A vision of Ian’s laserlike, blue-eyed gaze and impenetrable expression flashed into her mind’s eye. It set off a prickly feeling of anxiety that broke through her delicious lassitude. Realizing her hands were still above her head, she cautiously lowered them, glancing sideways at Kam all the while. Was he sleeping? His breathing had certainly become slow and even.

He reached up and grabbed one of her lowering hands. She started at his touch.

“I thought you were sleeping,” she said softly, her voice thick with relaxation.

“I’m awake.”

She turned her head fully and saw his stare on her. He certainly was. His facial muscles looked relaxed in comparison to how rigid they’d been when he’d been inside her—pounding, pulsing, demanding—but his gaze was sharp and alert. He kept her hand in his grasp and moved it to her waist, his arm draping her.

“You may have fried half my brain cells just now, but I don’t want to sleep. Not yet,” he muttered thickly in his rough, French-accented voice. Her heart throbbed back to life. Had there been a thread of suggestiveness in his tone? He moved the pad of his thumb over her wrist in a gentle quest. “I wanted you so much, I never got a chance to appreciate you. I was too busy combusting.”

She swallowed, feeling the weight of her pearls on her Adam’s apple.

“I certainly felt appreciated,” she assured.

A smile flickered across his lips as he continued to touch her wrist. “Still, it was hardly a savoring experience. More like a gorge-fest.”

She returned his grin, warmed by the laughter in his eyes. The pad of his thumb moved subtly on her wrist.

“Are you feeling my pulse? When you touch me there?” she murmured. Their faces were only inches apart. She could clearly see the black ring that surrounded his irises and flecks of midnight in the silvery-gray of his eyes. His eyelashes were surprisingly thick for a man, further highlighting his magnetic gaze.

“Yes.”

“You’re using your knowledge of biology, the same knowledge you used to make your biofeedback mechanisms, in order to read me?”

“The human body has a language all its own,” he said, still feathering her pulse with his thumb. “It’s usually more honest than the kind that comes out of a person’s mouth.”

“What’s my body telling you right now?” she whispered, unable to stop herself from asking.

His gaze moved slowly down over her chest. She felt his stare on her breasts like a touch. She shifted restlessly an inch or two, increasing her contact with his body. Her shoulder pressed against a dense pectoral muscle. She inhaled deeply, making her breasts rise. Her nipples tightened beneath his weighty stare.

“The leap in your pulse along with the increase in your muscle tension could mean anxiety. Or it could mean you’re heating again.” He glanced up into her face and caught the burn in her cheeks. His gaze had grown heavy-lidded, somehow both satiated and aroused at once.
Heating again
. How aptly put. “In combination with the rest of the signs,” he said with a quick glance at her erect nipples, “I’d opt for the latter, though. Am I right?”

She licked at her lower lip nervously. “I think it might mean both anxiety and . . . the other thing.”

He released her wrist and cupped her waist, his large, warm hand and long fingers stretching from back to belly.

“What are you anxious about?” he growled softly.

“I don’t think Ian would approve of this, for one.”

His nostrils flared slightly. “He sent you to me, didn’t he? What right has he got to complain if we like each other? What’s it got to do with him?”

“You know it’s not that simple,” she chastised.

A frown pulled at his mouth. “Right. Let’s consider what Ian would want in this situation, by all means.”

He released her suddenly and rolled off the bed. She started at his abruptness—not to mention his simmering sarcasm—but then immediately became distracted by the image of him almost entirely naked, save for his jeans and underwear bunched around thighs that were long and solid as young oaks. Hadn’t Ian told her that Kam had built a sophisticated workout area in his underground home that took into account his intuitive understanding of the subtle mechanisms and physics of the human body? Ian was supremely in shape, but had wryly told Lin after he’d joined Kam in one of his workouts that he practically hadn’t been able to move for three days afterward.

Kam’s back was beautiful—all lean, defined muscle, a narrow waist that angled up to broad shoulders. He had more color in his skin than Ian, a swarthy gilt. There didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat anywhere. Lin supposed he wouldn’t have had much of a chance to acquire any, living a solitary, meager existence for so many years in the country. Arousal flickered in her sex at the vision of him carelessly jerking his underwear over his ass. The skin there was as smooth as his back, the buttocks powerful, round, very . . .

. . . grab-worthy.

She’d been
mad
to follow his demand and keep her hands out of the action.

“Bathroom?” he asked gruffly, breaking the settling spell of lust . . . and disappointment.

“Oh, there,” she pointed at a door to the right.

He came around the foot of her bed. He hadn’t buttoned his fly. As he walked, his hand cupped his exposed cock from below, sliding off the condom. He wasn’t as rock hard as he had been earlier, but his penis was still beautiful—shapely and slightly distended from his body.

Heat rushed through her, as powerful and stunning as it had been the first time. When he disappeared behind the bathroom door, she blinked and looked around her bedroom as if seeing her surroundings for the first time that night. She glanced anxiously at the closed bathroom door. Was he pulling himself together in there? Washing and fastening his clothing? She didn’t want to be sprawled on the bed with her skirt shoved up around her waist, her thighs spread, vulnerable and exposed when he returned. She sat up and dove for her sweater. When the door to the bathroom abruptly opened again, she hastily pressed the silk knit over her breasts, feeling like she’d been caught red-handed.

He stepped across the threshold, pausing when he saw her. A shadow of disgust—or was it disappointment?—crossed his bold features. He readjusted his jeans and fleetly fastened his pants, his ridged abdomen flexing. He
hadn’t
been pulling himself together in there. She watched helplessly as he stalked across the room and grabbed his wadded shirt and jacket off the floor.

“Are you . . . are you going?” she asked.

“Looks as if,” he said shortly, untangling his clothing.

“I didn’t mean you . . . that is . . . I’m sorry,” she fumbled. Why didn’t she know what she wanted in this situation? It was as if she couldn’t interpret her own desires anymore. Maybe it was best if he did go. Surely she’d regret her impulsive behavior. She rarely went to bed with men and
never
at the first meeting, which was no great shock. No one had worse luck with men than Lin; she must hold a world record for her number of abysmal first and only dates. But her judgment was especially lacking in Kam’s case. First of all, he
wasn’t
a date. He’d been a work assignment. Secondly, he was Ian’s brother, for God’s sake. Lin was always fastidious about keeping the boundaries intact between her work and her personal life. Not that she
had
much of a personal life outside of work and Ian, but . . .

Surely she’d also regret seeing Kam Reardon walk away in that moment as well.

You were right before. I was
heating up
. I shouldn’t have brought up Ian. That’s not for us to think about now.

“What I don’t get,” Kam said as he drew on his shirt, taut muscles flexing in a jerky, impatient motion, “is the limit.”

“The limit?” Lin asked slowly, his words interrupting the flow of her mental rehearsal for talking him into staying. His flashing, furious gaze made her pull the sweater tighter over her naked torso.

“Yeah. Weren’t you up for working overtime?”

It took a moment for his meaning to settle in. When it did, hurt and fury flooded her.

“How dare you say something like that to me! This,” she glanced back at the mussed bed, “had nothing to do with work.”

“Really? Nothing to do with Ian?” he bit out, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his jacket so forcefully she heard the seam protest with a ripping sound. “Everyone is always saying you’d do anything for him.”

“No,” she exclaimed, standing. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that. But then a thought occurred to her, and she paused in her heated defense. Her uncharacteristic behavior tonight
did
relate to Ian, didn’t it? To her secret, buried feelings for him? Too late, she realized Kam had noticed her sudden distraction.

“Did Ian ask you sleep with me? Soften me up a little? Make the stubborn country relation a bit more malleable? Palatable?” he demanded quietly, taking a step toward her.

“No! Of course not. You realize you’re practically calling me a
prostitute
, don’t you?” she almost shouted, anger and disbelief and confusion twining and beginning to roar in her blood. “Is that what you think? That Ian sends me out to sleep with his business associates? His
family members
?”

His features darkened. “Of course I don’t think you’re a prostitute. What I do think is that you’re a woman who would do just about anything for her job. For her boss. Everyone in the family is always going on about how loyal you are to him.”

Her mouth fell open in shock.
Oh my God
. She’d been so idiotic. How could she have
ever
thought this rough, savage jerk was attractive? He didn’t even vaguely resemble the men she usually favored, but her libido just
had
to be appeased, didn’t it? This was the stupidest mistake she’d ever made.

She drew herself up to her full height, refusing to be cowed by the fact that she was standing half-dressed in front of such a complete, astronomical son of a bitch. He’d just burned her to her very core, and then had the nerve to call her a whore and Ian’s bowing minion in one fell swoop. She’d
let
him burn her.

“Get the hell out of my house,” she said quietly.

A strange expression broke over his face, as if her response had been disappointing, but also precisely what he’d expected of her.

She was almost as furious with herself as she was at Kam Reardon for giving a good goddamn one way or another
what
the bastard thought. He stalked out of the room without a backward glance, his backbone as stiff as hers. She still stood in the exact same position when she heard the front door close with a brisk click.

It slowly settled on her like a creeping chill that Kam wasn’t the only person who was disappointed in her behavior tonight. She’d let herself down. She’d never before backed down or failed at an assignment Ian had given her. There was a first time for everything, though. She’d have to break the truth to Ian.

There was no way in hell she was going to work with his insolent brother.

•   •   •

Morning sunlight poured into Ian’s corner office when she entered it three days later. She was jumpy from nerves, but knew she looked calm on the surface. It had taken a lot of energy to stifle her anxiety over what had occurred with Kam, but she’d had several days focusing on business in New York to do it. She’d carefully constructed a lie for why she couldn’t work with Kam, but her story seemed full of holes. Surely Ian, of all people, would never believe it.

Maybe she wouldn’t have to convince him after all, she reasoned as she approached Ian’s desk. She’d spoken to Ian last evening before her flight back to Chicago. Their discussion had been a practical rundown of her meetings in New York. Ian had only mentioned Kam in regard to his personal visits with family. Nevertheless, Kam might have told Ian in the interim what had happened between them Monday night. Perhaps Kam had already suggested he was the one who didn’t want to work with Lin?

Not knowing the lay of the land only amplified her barely restrained anxiety.

As usual, Ian sat behind his massive carved hardwood desk, talking to someone on his earpiece, his fingers moving fleetly over a keyboard placed in front of him. Despite his multitasking, his blue eyes met hers as she handed him the latest numbers from Tyake, one of his subsidiaries. She immediately recognized the glance of significance at a chair before his desk, her heart sinking a little. He wanted her to wait.

Residual anger, hurt, and humiliation crowded her consciousness when she considered the possibility of Kam spilling the dirty details to Ian. How could she have been so stupid? Her impulsivity shocked her to the core. She sunk into one of the upholstered chairs before his desk, a nauseating feeling of dread rising in her belly.

“We’ll wait and see how the Nikkei opens tonight and go from there,” Ian was saying, glancing over the contents of the file she’d handed him. Lin had known who was on the other end of line almost immediately by their topic. His typing fingers paused as he signed off from his conversation with Alexandra Horowitz, one of his vice presidents.