My breath left me.
And then he reached the apex of my thighs but he kept going, his thumbs meeting in the middle over the seam of my jeans. I gasped as he pressed his thumbs down and rubbed the seam against my clit. My hand reached for his, wanting to take control. Vaughn brushed it aside with a, “Stop it or I’ll stop.”
That, even more than his touch, caused a rush of wetness between my legs, and my hips arched off the bed.
His eyes flew to mine. Understanding, surprise, desire, and satisfaction moved through his expression one after the other. Vaughn’s lips parted as we stared at one another like two people who were starving.
I’d never felt a rush like it.
Patience gone, Vaughn unbuttoned my jeans and then yanked down the zip with barely leashed control. He grabbed the looser denim at the back of my thighs and then dragged them down my legs, stopping to peel off my flats, before throwing them and the jeans behind him.
Before relieving me of my underwear, he hooked his fingers into his own and pushed them down to his ankles, kicking them away.
I wet my dry lips with my tongue as he stood before me with his swollen, purple-red erection jutting out between muscular thighs. Every inch of him was beautiful.
My sex swelled and a little huff of excitement escaped me.
Hearing it, Vaughn’s cock jerked and he blew out a “fuck” as he was moved to action. He put a knee to the bed and then moved his other into position, and he stared into my eyes as he smoothed his hand up my naked thigh. I trembled.
His eyes flared in satisfaction.
Then he brushed his fingers over my underwear, my very damp underwear, and his free hand curled into the sheets in reaction. “Jesus,” he groaned, watching me as he rubbed the fabric against my clit.
Electric tingles moved through me and I lifted my hips into his touch.
“You are so fucking beautiful.” His fingers slipped under my panties and slid into me. My inner muscles clamped around him in desperate need. Vaughn groaned even harder. “You feel beautiful, too.”
“Fuck me, Vaughn.” The raw plea fell easily, naturally from my lips.
He gave me an arrogant grin. “In my own time.”
His fingers slid out of me, only to curl around my underwear. Slowly, torturously slowly, he pulled them down my legs. And then for an even longer, torturously slow moment he just looked at me.
“You want the truth, princess?” His voice was deep, gruff. “I’ve wanted you from the moment we met.”
Exultation pulsed through me and I shifted restlessly on the bed.
“I’ve wanted you just like this. That smart mouth of yours sweet. That sexy body of yours mine to do with as I please. And I don’t like wanting something I can’t have.”
But you can have me! I wanted to yell in frustration. Take me already!
But I’d promised him control.
“Be prepared to get a taste of what I’ve had to endure watching your fine ass walk up and down my boardwalk.”
“Your boardwalk?”
Damn.
He got me.
Vaughn grinned. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Not your boardwalk, Tremaine,” I whispered, itching to pull him toward me. “But in here, right now, this fine ass is yours for the taking.”
His mood seemed to change, and I waited breathlessly as he straddled me, gently taking each of my wrists in his hands and pinning them to the mattress at either side of my head. I felt overwhelmed by him, and I had to relax against the urge to push up against him. He bent his head to mine, and that spicy, earthy scent of his rushed over me, sending a new set of tingles straight to my nipples.
“Never change, Bailey Hartwell,” he murmured, and then he kissed me. His tongue pushed between my lips and slid over mine, dancing with it in a dirty, deep, wet kiss. My hips pulsed toward him at the feel of his hard cock rubbing against my belly.
And then he was gone, taking his mouth from mine as his grip on my wrists loosened. His fingers trailed teasingly down the soft skin of my inner arm, under my arms, and down the sides of my breasts as he stopped to pay attention to them.
“I’ve fantasized about what your tits looked like.” He smiled up at me from under those long dark lashes of his. “Reality beats fantasy any day.”
“What else have you fantasized about?”
His eyes narrowed, that smile turning to a sexy smirk. “Many things. Involving your gorgeous tits? Sucking them, licking those pretty nipples of yours.” A dark heat entered his expression. “Coming on them.”
A pulse of lust slammed through me and my lower belly rippled. “Vaughn,” I gasped, my cheeks flushed with need.
He positioned his erection between my legs and pressed. His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, his teeth clenching. “You like that thought,” he gritted out.
When I didn’t answer he opened his eyes and thrust against me, sending a streak of want through me. “You like that?” he demanded. “You want it?”
“Yes, I want it,” I huffed, frustrated, tortured!
He grinned. “My dirty little princess. Who knew?”
This time I laughed at his teasing. “Not me.”
I felt the rumble of his own laughter and then I felt nothing but the heat of his mouth as he wrapped it around my left nipple and sucked.
Hard.
My body writhed, bucking off the bed, and I gripped the sheets in my hands to stop myself from reaching for him, from taking back control.
“You can touch me,” he whispered across my nipple. “I want you to. Just remember I’m in charge.”
As he turned his attention to my other breast I moved my hands to his shoulders, stroking his hot, smooth skin, and then I curled my fingers tightly into his soft dark hair as he tormented my nipples until they were swollen, almost painful buds. Until I was so ready to come it wasn’t even funny.
“Vaughn,” I begged, tugging hard on his hair.
He reached for my hands, gripped my wrists, and slammed them back above my head. “If you can’t play nice . . .” he warned.
And then his lips were moving down my stomach, his tongue licking my belly button, before moving south. My lower belly rippled in a mini-orgasm as his mouth neared closer to where I wanted it the most.
My legs fell open, inviting him in, and I heard his grunt of satisfaction seconds before his tongue touched my clit.
Need slammed through me and my hips pushed into his mouth. He gripped them, pressing them back to the mattress, and then he truly began his torture.
He suckled my clit, pulling on it hard, and he listened to my body. He listened to my harsh, shallow breaths; he studied the undulations of my hips; and just when I was about to come, he stopped.
I cried out in frustration. “Please.”
His grip on my hips became almost bruising.
And then his tongue was back, this time licking inside me. I writhed because it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
Hearing my whimpers, Vaughn returned to my clit, let go of my left hip, and gently pushed two fingers inside of me.
“Oh, God!” I bucked against him as he finger- and mouth-fucked me. “Vaughn.”
And then the bastard did it again. Just as I was about to explode over the edge, he stopped.
“No!” I felt tears prick my eyes.
But that was only the beginning.
Vaughn tortured me with longing, just as promised, drawing his seduction to a halt every time I was about to orgasm.
I lay beneath him, staring up at him balefully. No man had ever made my body feel like this.
Made me feel like this.
I almost hated him for it.
As if Vaughn saw that in my eyes, he smiled in dark satisfaction.
“Is this what you want?” My mouth trembled with the urge to cry. I ha
d no idea sex could do that to me.
Or unfulfilled desire, rather.
That hardness in his expression softened and he moved back up my body to cup my cheek in his hand. With a tenderness I never knew he had in him, he kissed me softly, sweetly. And when he pulled back, staring deep into my eyes he whispered, “Trust me.”
Cool air blew over me as he got up off the bed. I glanced up in confusion, wondering if he was leaving me. My body relaxed when I saw he was pulling a condom out of the wallet in his pants.
Finally.
But he even made rolling on the condom an act of torture, taking his time, stroking his cock as he did so, his pleasure-filled eyes narrowed on me.
I had a sudden image of him straddling me, stroking himself, and coming all over my breasts.
I couldn’t believe that idea turned me on so much, but with Vaughn it did.
“Vaughn. Please.”
He moved back up onto the bed, moving over me almost predatorily, graceful, strong; so very, very masculine. “Beg me again, Bailey.”
“What?”
His lips brushed mine, his teeth catching on my bottom lip, nibbling it. “Beg. Me.” The words were guttural. Demanding.
And my overly heated body burst into flames.
Because I realized something that turned me on even more than being controlled by Vaughn in the bedroom. He may have been in control of my orgasms . . . but I was in control of him. He needed me.
I wanted to give him what he needed. “Fuck me, Vaughn,” I whispered. “Please.”
He pushed up onto one hand and curled his other around my thigh, opening me . . . and he thrust inside me. Rough. Fierce.
I gasped his name in pleasure. Our eyes held as my breath scattered, and as he moved inside me, thick, overwhelming, hot, hard, deep, I felt like he could see into my soul and that I finally could see into his.
And I saw something that lit my world up.
Vaughn Tremaine cared about me.
Just like that, the tension inside of me splintered, shattered apart, throwing me over a cliff edge higher than I’d ever been thrown. And the fall . . . the fall was exquisite.
“Vaughn!” I cried, my eyes fluttering closed as pure, undiluted bliss rushed through my entire body; its focus in my center. My inner muscles clamped around Vaughn’s cock, the sensation so sexy, so raw, my fingernails dug into the muscles of his back as I held on for dear life.
I felt like it was never going to end, the ripples of my climax pulsing and pulsing around him. I was barely cognizant of the fact that Vaughn’s hips had slammed hard against mine. Stilled. And then they were jerking, his cock throbbing inside me as he came.
He came hard but nowhere near as long as I did. That would have been impossible.
I lay stunned, limp, jellylike as Vaughn made a growling noise and then buried his face in my neck.
Our chests rose and fell against one another as we tried to catch our breaths.
And that’s when I got it.
“Trust me,” he’d said.
He hadn’t tortured me to be cruel. He’d strung out foreplay to give me the longest, most devastating orgasm of my life.
Somehow I managed to move my languid arms and wrap them around him. I delighted in the feel of his heavy body over mine, and I remembered the look on his face as he came. His gritted teeth, his flushed skin, the dazed lust in his stunning pale eyes.
I pulsed around him, a little aftershock, and he groaned, lifting his head.
I didn’t give him a moment to overanalyze what we’d done, to pull out of me and disappear. Instead I kissed him, sweet, deep, wet. He kissed me back, and I rolled until I was on top of him and he let me. His hands caressed my back, my hair, my ass as we kissed and I writhed against him, needing more, wanting him hard again, ready.
I touched and tasted every inch of him until he was ready, until we were replacing the used condom with a new one.
This time I explored his beauty, the hard planes of his muscles, the heat of his skin, the salt of his sweat, the taste of his pre-come.
This time I rode him. I rode him slow, the desperation of our need eased by our first time together.
Now I could take my time enjoying him.
And enjoy Vaughn I did.
Because even as I straddled him, rising up and down on his cock, the look in his eye told me he was still the one in control here, and I felt that. But I also felt my power over him.
And there was no headier aphrodisiac.
Vaughn climaxed first, and as his hips bucked beneath mine he tipped me over the edge, and we came together.
Exhausted, stunningly exhausted, I slumped over him, and buried my face in his neck.
“I never dreamed it could be like this between us,” I whispered.
Never had I felt more relaxed, more connected, more at peace, more alive than I did in that moment, and for the first time in a long time I fell asleep without thinking about chores or work or anything . . . nothing but the man who was still inside me.
The man I thought I might have been waiting for my whole life.
All this time he’d been standing right in front of me, wearing a suit and a sexy-ass smirk.
ELEVEN
Vaughn
He could blame it on nature, say he was just a man, and no man would have been able to resist Bailey Hartwell when she got it in her head to seduce him.
But that kind of reasoning would make him more of an asshole than he already was.
She’d fallen asleep with his dick still inside of her.
He muffled the curse of arousal that hovered on his lips as he stared at her, his overeager erection straining toward her body for more. When he realized she’d dropped off into sleep he’d gently eased out of her and rolled her onto her side. She’d snuggled into him before he could get away, and damn but he wanted just a little more time to enjoy the fact that finally the redhead in his arms was the one he’d wanted there all along.
Her beautiful auburn curls spilled out on his arm, tickling his skin. So soft.
Everything about her was. Her skin, her eyes, even her heart.
He recognized the moment she’d decided to save him. The moment he became another Jessica, another Dahlia.
Sure, he went beyond that since she wanted to fuck him, too, but more than that she wanted to soothe his wounded soul.
And she thought sex would lower his defenses.
She was right.
It had.
Vaughn couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so lost in a woman. He felt this unsettling hum beneath his skin. This urgency. This desperation to claim Bailey Hartwell as his own like he really was a prehistoric caveman.
He could blame her.
He could blame the moment she’d said, “I bet you’ve thought about it. Fucking the hostile Princess of the Boardwalk into submission.”
Perceptive of her. Hot as fuck.
Bailey Hartwell liked a little dirt in bed.
No lily-white princess.
Loyal. Fierce. Protective. Kind. Strong. Funny. Sassy. Sexy. And goddamn perfect for him in bed.
Vaughn stared at her beautiful face, at her swollen lips, flushed cheeks, and he wished she would open her eyes. He wanted to see those stunning green eyes look up at him, soft, loving, full of desire.
He wanted it because he knew he’d never again see that look in her eyes after this moment. Because now he knew for a fact that he was in love with Bailey.
And he was going to break her heart.
“I never dreamed it could be like this between us.”
He had to stop this now.
As if she heard his thoughts, Bailey’s eyes fluttered open. At first she seemed confused and then those gems drifted up his shoulders and over his face.
They softened.
They grew tender. br />
They filled with desire.
Vaughn memorized her expression, imprinting the most beautiful image he’d ever seen in his life on his brain, and he cursed himself for being a fucking swine whose heart was big enough to fall in love but too small to stay in love.
Relationships just weren’t for him. He knew that. And he didn’t want to lose the way he felt for her.
Not Bailey.
She’d hurt him and he’d hurt her. The last time that happened he nearly destroyed a woman. Relationships were just too fucked up, and he was thirty-six years old. He’d lived the bachelor life too long to change it now.
That’s why giving in to temptation made him such a prick.
“Hey,” she whispered. “How long did I drift off?”
“Not long.”
At the flatness of his words, Bailey tensed beside him.
Vaughn rolled away from her and off the bed, striding into the bathroom to dispose of the condom. When he walked back into the room he kept his gaze toward his clothes strewn across the floor. He could feel Bailey watching his every move.
“Is this the part where you tell me this was a mistake?” she teased, though the words were tinged with bitterness.
“Believe me, it was.” He glanced up at her and wished he hadn’t.
She was sitting up, holding the sheet protectively to cover her naked breasts. All that glorious hair of hers, the color of the horizon at sunset, spilled around her shoulders.
Jesus.
Now she was turning him into a fucking poet caveman.
“You weren’t drunk,” she argued.
“No, not on alcohol.” He flicked her a glance as he pulled on his underwear and pants. “It was a rough night. We got carried away on adrenaline.”
“So now you’re saying you were never attracted to me?”
“No. I am attracted to you. And now I’ve had you.”
She sucked in a breath at what he didn’t say. “So now you’ve had me, you don’t want me again.”
That ache, that horrible ache that had disappeared during their time together, returned with a vengeance. He stopped what he was doing and met her gaze. “I don’t do relationships, Bailey. And you and me . . .” He gave her a sardonic grin, one he had to force out. “You know we wouldn’t work. We don’t even like each other.”