Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (5 page)

“Last night was good for both of us,” he said in a voice
still gritty from sleep. “Spend the morning with me. I’ll make you breakfast
and introduce you to my horses.” A smile touched the corner of his mouth.

At the mention of horses, Sasha flinched. Thinking once
again about the shaky position of her career as a jockey with Taylor Stables or
anywhere else if word ever came about her spending the night in Damien Taylor’s
bed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have
done this. Coming here with you last night was a mistake." Sasha shook her
head, sending her loose hair flying around her face and shoulders. "This
can't happen again."

Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Sasha—”

Before he could say anything else, she quickly turned and
left, dashing from the bedroom and down the stairs. She almost ran into a woman
in a maid's uniform, stopping her headlong dash at the last minute to avoid
knocking her down.

"Excuse me!" She ran for the exit by instinct,
not quite sure where it was.

"Miss! Miss!"

She heard the voice but ignored it as she walked quickly
toward what she assumed was the front door. A man in a black and white uniform
appeared in the front hallway, blocking her toward the door. She gave him a
narrow-eyed glance, kept walking, determined to push past him if he tried to
stop her.

"Mr. Taylor advised me to give these to you,
miss." He held up a set of keys. Her keys. "He had your car brought
back from the party last. It's waiting in the driveway in the driveway for
you."

Sasha stammered her thanks, grateful that she wouldn't
have to waste money on getting a cab. She ran from the house and found her car
waiting for her in the wide circular driveway. She threw her heels in the
passenger seat, jumped behind the wheel, and started the car with fingers that
still trembled.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

How could she have been so incredibly stupid? Getting
drunk and sleeping with her boss was the worse things she could have possibly
done to herself and her career. The other jockeys would laugh at her, would
scorn her for being so weak, if they ever found out what happened between her
and Damien.

That’s why they’re never going to find out.
Her hands tightened even more about the steering wheel as the car shot
down the tree-lined road.
And it’s never going to happen again.

Sasha drove, not caring where she was going as her mind
careened from one thought, one memory, to the next. Memories of being in
Damien’s arms. The party last night when he had been so solicitous, bringing
her glass after glass of champagne.

It was
his
fault. He had intentionally set out to
seduce her, getting her drunk so he could have a young piece of tail to keep
him from being too bored at the party. Fuck him!

But even as the poisonous though shot through her, she
remembered the feel of his body from the night before, his incredible power and
control over her, the way he had made her body explode with pleasure again and
again. She shifted against the seat, and winced at the tenderness between her
legs. It had felt too incredible to have him inside her, over her. But that
didn’t matter, she swore. It didn’t matter at all.

Damien’s bed had been warm. Sasha could not get that
thought out of her head as she made her way from the parking lot of her
apartment to her little studio with her own bed. Her
cold
bed. With each
step away from the car, away from him, she remembered the look on his face as
she had run away from him. Disappointment. Resignation.

At her apartment door, Sasha fumbled at the lock with her
keys while clutching her shoes against her chest with one hand. But her hands
were still trembling in reaction to her morning encounter with Damien Taylor,
even after what should have been a calming drive home. The keys fell to the
ground, playing across the welcome mat the previous tenant had left behind. She
cursed softly and bent to retrieve them. Her shoulder bumped into the door. It
creaked open.

What the hell?

She grabbed her keys and straightened in a sudden panic,
her mouth going dry as she thought of all the possibilities of what could have
happened in her apartment. A burglar. Someone waiting inside to kill or rape
her. A rabid raccoon. Staring inside the sunlit studio through the door left
slightly ajar, she reached across her body for the strap of the purse normally
there. She blinked and looked down.

Dammit!

No purse. No phone. No one to call for help. She must
have left her purse at Damien's house, probably on his bedroom floor along with
her damn pride. She tightened her hands around her keys, looking left and then
right. It was early. Barely seven in the morning. Her apartment complex was a
ghost-town this early on a Sunday, the walkways between the one-story bungalows
empty of life except for a few feral cats prowling the lawns for food and each
other. Everything was probably all right anyway. She was just worrying too much.
Sasha swallowed.

I probably forgot to lock the door in the excitement
of winning the Derby and being invited to Damien's party.

She slowly pushed open the door and crept in, excepting
the worst. But everything was just as she left it. Her small jewelry case on
top of the dresser where she kept the few valuable pieces she owned. The small
flat screen she'd splurged on a few years ago was still attached to the wall.
Nothing was ransacked. Everything was as she had left it the night before.

Yeah, I probably just forgot to lock it last night.

She closed the door behind her, leaning against it in
relief. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, a picture of Damien flashed
across her mind. In his bed, naked, his mouth and cock ready for her kisses.
Her eyes snapped open. No. No. No. Annoyed with herself, she turned and locked
the door, dropped the keys on the hook, put her shoes neatly side-by-side to
the right of the door on the small mat with the house slippers she sometimes
wore at home.

She straightened and took a deep breath. Glad that her
home was still hers and that nothing had happened to it while she had been out
making the biggest mistake of her life.

After last night's...adventures, it felt good to be
enclosed within her own four walls again. The posh penthouse party with its
thousands of square feet and jaw-dropping view of the city had made her feel
outside her own skin. But with a couple more hours of sleep in her own bed,
she'd be back to her old self again. She started toward the bathroom to wash
her face when she heard a hush of sound. Her shower. There was someone using
the shower in her bathroom.

Suddenly frantic, she spun toward the kitchen and grabbed
one of the knives from the butcher block. It glinted wickedly in the morning
sunlight as she gripped the handle. But it didn't give her much confidence in
the outcome if her burglar came at her with a gun.

Shit!

For the first time ever she suddenly wished she had a
land line. But wishes couldn't help her now. She gripped the knife tighter and
crept toward the bathroom, her palms damp, the pulse knocking wildly in her
throat.

Don't be stupid, Cormick. If that's a burglar with a
gun, what the hell are you going to do with that little knife but piss him off?

She stopped her advance, torn about what to do. Just
then, the shower stopped. She heard the sound of the shower curtain being
pulled back, then, incredibly, someone humming.

Humming?

She swung to look at the front door. Maybe she should
just leave. Run like hell to a neighbor's and call the cops. But it was too
late. Moments later, she heard heavy footsteps move across the bathroom floor.
The door swung open, exhaling a cloud of steam, the smell of her soap and her
shampoo. Then a man stood in the middle of her apartment, looking from her face
to the knife with amusement. His shaggy black hair was wet from the shower and
dripping onto the shoulders of an old t-shirt hanging from his lean frame.
Ratty jeans sagged on him, the cuffs dragging along the floor as he walked. He
ambled past Sasha to grab an apple from the fruit basket on the kitchen
counter. He bit into the fruit, squirting juice everywhere.

"Is that a knife in your hand or are you just happy
to see me?"

She stared at the man in shock, unable to believe her
eyes. "James?"

"Hello, sister."

Sasha stared at her brother with her mouth hanging open. Her hand
spasmed around the knife handle clenched in her first as she watched him walk
around her apartment as if he was the one who paid the rent. The corner of her
eye twitched. Eating one of the apples from her kitchen, he strolled across the
living room to plop down into her couch, throwing his feet up on the coffee
table and knocking the remote control to the floor. He didn’t pick it up.

The last time she’d seen James, she was still in middle school and
getting even more involved in the volunteer program teaching her to care for
and to ride horses. In the last conversation she and her brother had, he’d
mocked her for wasting her time riding the horses instead of betting on their
odds to win. That day, like so many others, he stank of cheap booze, his wiry
body tense and nearly trembling with aggression. With the need to fight. But
instead of getting into a fist fight with James, she’d crossed her arms over
her chest, tucked her fingers into her armpits. She’d vowed to be better than
what he thought she was; better than what people in the group home had said she
was. And that meant she didn’t roll around in the dirt, fighting like a common
street thug.

James had called her every filthy name she’d ever heard of that day,
even some new ones she’d been shocked by. But she didn’t rise to his bait so he
stalked off, still seething with anger. Not long after that he’d been busted
for drugs and landed himself in jail.

Jail.
Sasha dropped the knife on the kitchen counter where it
clattered amid the sound of her brother’s nearly manic laughter. The blade
glinted in the stream of early morning sun filtering in through the blinds.

“I guess you weren’t expecting me.” He reached into a duffle bag on the
floor by his feet, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Don’t smoke that in here!”

Staring at her, he leisurely pulled a cigarette out from the pack. He
lit it with a sharp “snick” of the lighter. His hazel eyes challenged her
though the smoke rising up around his face. Her hands tightened in impotent
anger. She wanted to snatch the cigarette from his hands and stamp it out, kick
him out of her apartment. But she knew from painful experience what a bad idea
it was to get into any sort of physical confrontation with her brother.
Although he was only a few inches taller than her, just above five and a half
feet, he was strong. And he fought dirty. Very dirty.

She abruptly turned away from him to lift the blinds and open the
kitchen window, allowing in some fresh air and forcing some of that rancid
smoke out.

This can’t be happening
, she thought.
I left all this behind
me. I cut all my ties. I hid. This shouldn’t be happening.

With the blinds open, Sasha forced herself to stand behind the kitchen
counter, her hands clenched into even tighter fists. She stared at her brother,
feeling helpless and afraid. This wasn’t a social call; he wanted something
from her. The dread pooled in her stomach, slick and oily, slowly spreading
into the rest of her body. Sasha felt nausea rise at the back of her throat.

Then anger, her trusted friend from her days living at home with her
violent and erratic alcoholic parents, rose up, hot and fast.
Fucking
asshole! How dare he barge into her life now that everything was on track and
going so well?
Her eyes narrowed.
And how long had he been here?
She
kept her eyes on him, watching her snake brother for any sudden and dangerous
movements.

From across the room, his teeth flashed at her, brilliant white and
straight through the drifting smoke. He looked even better coming out of jail
than he had going in. Leave it to her rapacious brother to make the very best
out of what would have been a bad situation for anyone else.