Mine to Hold

  His mouth claimed hers.

  Her lips had been parted when he kissed her. His tongue slipped inside her mouth. There was nothing hesitant about the way Noah kissed her. He just…took.

  And ignited her.

  Her hands rose. Curled around his shoulders. She should push him back. She should do something, anything but—

  Pull him closer.

  Kiss him back.

  Fear and shame knotted within her, fighting with a tide of hot desire that caught her by surprise.

  Noah’s hands were on her hips. Holding her so tightly and he was—

  Pushing her into the elevator. Still kissing her, but guiding her movements.

  She heard the elevator ding, and Claire pulled away from Noah. For a moment, she stared up at him, lost.

  “Will that be all, sir?” The question came from the man standing near the elevator doors. He had his hand up and was holding the elevator open. Chuck Collins. Claire had met the hotel manager earlier. As she stared at him, Chuck cleared his throat and asked again, “Will that be all?”

  Noah glanced over at him. “Not quite.” His words were low and lethal. “That asshole never comes into the hotel again.”

  Chuck nodded. “Understood.” Then he dropped his hand and the elevator doors slid closed.

  Claire was still in Noah’s arms. Still shocked and lost and aching in a way she shouldn’t be.

  “You can…you can let me go,” Claire managed to say.

  Noah shook his head. His eyes were on her mouth. “I knew one taste wouldn’t be enough.”

  It wasn’t enough for her, either. Noah tasted good. Very good. Good like the kind of wine Claire had when she saved her money and splurged. Not that she’d done any splurging, not in the last year. Like the wine, he also made her a little drunk.

  “Ask me to kiss you again, Claire.”

  He wanted to keep kissing her? After what had just happened in that lobby?

  “Let me go.” She pushed against his chest. The elevator was rising, and she didn’t even remember Noah hitting the button on the control panel. But she knew where they were headed.

  The top floor, of course. What she was thinking of as his floor.

  The faint lines around his eyes deepened, but Noah let her go.

  Claire rubbed her arms, chilled without him. “He shouldn’t have been here. I’m so sorry—”

  “Apologize again, and I swear, Claire, you’ll push me too far.”

  Her breath caught.

  He nodded. “Good. Here’s the deal. Colby Harrison is your past, got it? He doesn’t matter. What he says…doesn’t matter.”

  “But all of those people…they saw. They heard.” They’d all been staring at her. When she’d lived in Alabama, she hadn’t even been able to walk down the aisle at the grocery store without people stopping to stare and whisper.

  Did you hear…that’s the girl…she seduced that poor boy…made him crazy…

  Got him to kill her folks…

  Claire shook her head as she tried to make those voices vanish. They’d haunted her for too long.

  “I don’t care about those people.”

  “It’s your business. Your hotel. You should care.” She’d been so worried about doing something to tarnish his image. And now…

  “Scandal sells, baby, or haven’t you realized that?”

  Claire flinched. She hated scandal. She wanted…secrecy.

  The elevator doors opened.

  “So much for dinner,” she muttered.

  He caught her hand. Brushed his fingers over the ribbon on her right wrist. She’d learned to be creative over the years. When people saw the scars there, well, there was no mistaking them. You got scars on your wrist-those long, thin scars—from one act.

  Claire had wanted to die when she was sixteen. When she stood at her parents’ graves, when it seemed that the whole world hated her, she’d wanted to escape.

  To be with my mom and dad again.

  People had spray painted her home. Written words like “whore” and “killer” on her windows. Senator Harrison had done a massive job on the local media. He’d worked so hard to convince everyone that his son was just the poor, misled boy.

  And Claire was the evil seductress.

  He’d told her, time and again, that she should be the one to suffer. The one to be punished.

  I just wanted to escape.

  The scars would always be there. She covered them so she didn’t have to see the curiosity, the pity, in the eyes of strangers.

  “Come back to me.”

  Claire blinked and focused on Noah.

  He had lifted a dark eyebrow. “I told you, the past is over.” Anger pumped in his words. He pulled her toward his room. Not just a room. A suite. One as big as the place he had in New York.

  He opened the door. Kept his hold on her and pulled her over the threshold. When the door closed behind them, Claire exhaled slowly as relief hit her.

  Safe.

  “He’s the reason, isn’t he?” Noah asked her. “The reason you lose your other jobs. The reason you move around the country so much.”

  Claire nodded. Her gaze was on the D.C. skyline. She’d wanted to walk through the city at night.

  But Harrison is out there.

  “He…I think he hires someone, a detective maybe, to watch me. Each time when I feel like I might have a life, Colby Harrison comes in. Reveals my past. Gets me fired.” An endless cycle.

  “He won’t be a problem any longer.” Noah’s voice was grim.

  Claire glanced over her shoulder at him.

  “He’s done, Claire. Done. He won’t ever get near you again.” He yanked a hand through his hair. “Nine years? Jesus, you put up with this for nine years? Why didn’t you get a restraining order against him? Why didn’t you—”

  “He’s never physically hurt me.” There were so many other ways to hurt. Like when she’d been nineteen and her grandfather had been struck down by a heart attack. She’d flown back home to bury him. And at the funeral, Colby Harrison had been there…telling everyone that the whore was back in town.

  “Never again,” Noah vowed.

  She wished it could be that simple. “Noah, he’s not going to stop. Not until I’m dead or-or he is.”

  Noah held her gaze. Nodded. “He’s done,” he said again, simply.

  A chill skated over Claire’s spine.

  His stare drifted over her face. Down her body. Lingered on her legs. “I was supposed to wine and dine you tonight.”

  She’d never been wined and dined.

  His golden eyes lifted. Locked on her mouth. “I knew one taste would do it for me. Claire, sweet Claire, you taste like candy.”

  She could still taste him.

  “No lover? Not in nine years?” He stood about five feet away from her.

  Claire shook her head. “The people in the lobby—”

  “I told you, what they saw doesn’t matter.”

  “They saw you kiss me. The other—the other York Towers employees. They’ll all think—”

  He took a step toward her. “That I’m fucking you.”

  “Yes.”

  He took another stop. “I told you, I don’t fuck my employees.”

  He had said that but… “You kissed me.”

  Another step. “Nothing would have stopped me from kissing you then.”

  He hadn’t turned from her in shock or disgust. Hadn’t been embarrassed. After everything, he’d…wanted her. “You don’t think I did it? You don’t think I seduced Ethan Harrison into killing for me?”

  “No.”

  Her lips trembled. They’d crossed a line downstairs. She knew that. She also knew exactly what she had to do.

  They saw us kiss. I can’t keep working for him now. Coming to Noah…taking the job…it was a mistake. One desperation had led her to make.

  And perhaps she was about to make another mistake. But Claire found she didn’t care.

  “I want to kiss you again,” Noah told her
.

  He took another step toward her.

  So little space separated them. Claire shook her head.

  Noah’s face hardened.

  “I want more,” she told him, then Claire pulled in a deep breath, grabbed tight to her courage and asked, “Will you fuck me?”

  ***

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the hotel,” Vincent murmured. “Th-that was a mistake, sir.”

  “The mistake was made years ago,” Colby snapped back at him. “When that girl wasn’t charged along with my son.” Sure, Ethan had been troubled. He’d been a little wild, but he’d never killed.

  Not until he’d gotten involved with Claire Kramer. A little cheap piece of ass who’d destroyed Colby’s world.

  Vincent shifted uncomfortably beside Colby. They were in the back of a cab, heading to their hotel. Once, Colby had only ridden in limos. He’d had the D.C. folks jumping to do his bidding.

  But he’d lost his congressional seat after the trial.

  Nearly lost his fortune in the legal battles over the years.

  He would have lost it all, if it hadn’t been for his other son. Austin has saved him.

  Austin was the only good thing he had left.

  Because Claire took my life away.

  “Uh, sir, I read the newspaper articles. Ethan tried to kill Claire—”

  The bastard dared to say that to him? “Because he couldn’t live with what she’d made him do! Ethan told me the truth. He couldn’t stand what she’d done, how she’d used him, and he was just trying to stop her from hurting anyone else.”

  Claire Kramer. Not some sweet innocent girl. She was a lying, manipulative whore who’d destroyed his boy.

  It was a good thing Colby’s wife hadn’t lived to see the tragedy that hit his son. But Lily had died when Ethan was just three years old. She’d slipped from Colby’s life too soon. His perfect Lily—gone.

  Lily was in the ground, but Claire Kramer was still walking around, living the high life. That was so unfair.

  His hands were shaking. His gut twisting. He yanked out his phone. Vincent was a damn idiot. He didn’t understand anything.

  Colby’s call was answered on the second ring. “You were right,” Colby said, the words heaving out of him. “She was here. York brought her here. The bastard is probably screwing her.”

  Because Claire always used her body to get just what she wanted.

  The tremor in his hands got worse as his rage swelled. “It can’t go on any longer,” Colby said. “I’m going to make sure she suffers.”

  As his boy suffered, every damn day in that prison cell.

  Ethan had nothing.

  Claire deserved the same fate.

  ***

  Noah’s hand lifted and curved around Claire’s chin. “You need to be very sure. There will be no going back.”

  There wasn’t any place for her to go back to.

  “I want to be with you.” Her words were the truth. She wanted him for tonight because tomorrow, well, then she’d begin running again.

  A new city.

  A new job.

  Maybe this time, it would take Colby Harrison longer to find her.

  Maybe.

  He leaned toward her. “I’m going to make you scream for me.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t the screaming type. Ethan had fumbled with her in the dark, and it had hurt, but she knew there had to be more to sex than rough touches. Others found pleasure in the act. She would, too.

  I want the pleasure.

  But Claire didn’t think she’d scream. Not even for a lover like Noah.

  “Yes, I will.” His lips pressed to hers.

  Her eyes closed. She leaned into him.

  His tongue glided over her lips. Into her mouth. Noah knew how to use his tongue so well. He wasn’t wet or rough. He was…savoring her.

  She wanted to devour him.

  His hands slid over her shoulders. Touched the straps of her dress.

  Then the dress was sliding down to pool at her feet.

  And he was kissing his way along the line of her jaw. Down her throat. Over the pulse that raced so frantically. His tongue licked over her skin. She felt the light score of his teeth on her.

  Claire gasped.

  “Like that?”

  She liked everything that he was doing.

  “What I like…” Noah muttered, desire heavy in his voice. “I like the fact that you didn’t wear a bra. Claire, I like that a lot.”

  A bra wouldn’t have fit under the bodice of that dress and—

  He eased away from her. Stared down at her. The lights in the suite were on, shining all around them. There was no darkness.

  There was only Noah.

  “So perfect.” He lifted his hand. Caressed her right breast. Her nipples were hard. Aching. And his touch sent a surge of arousal straight to her sex.

  I’m wet for him. Already.

  She reached out to Noah. “I need you now.” Her fingers fumbled with his belt. “Noah, we can—”

  “No.” He caught her hands. “Not yet.” He pushed her hands back to her sides. “I’m just getting started with you.”

  Sex with Ethan had been fast. So quick. In the back of a car or—

  “Claire.”

  Her lashes lifted.

  “Claire, I’m going to give you so much pleasure you won’t ever think of anyone else.” Then he lifted her into his arms. The move surprised her and she grabbed tightly to him.

  But he didn’t carry her far. Just a few steps. Closer to the window. To the big, leather couch that waited right beside that glass.

  He spread her out on the couch. She started to cover her breasts, but he caught her wrists. Lifted them above her head. “Don’t move them.” He swallowed. His gaze burned her. “You look sexy that way.”

  She’d been hurt badly in Chicago, and she bore the scar from that attack, but Noah didn’t seem to see it at all as he gazed at her. Noah didn’t seem to pay much attention to any of her scars.

  I’m the one who can’t see past them.

  But Claire shoved her doubts away right then. She was going to have this moment with him. No matter what…I’ll have this.

  She still had on her black panties. Panties that she’d picked up back in New York before their flight had left. And she wore her heels. Heels that were higher than anything she’d worn before.

  Noah bent his head. His lips closed around her breast. He licked. Sucked.

  Claire arched against him. She wanted to grab onto him and hold tightly, but she didn’t move her hands. She kept them above her head, fisted.

  His fingers worked her other breast. Lightly tugging at the nipple. Stroking her. Her hips arched again, helplessly. She felt so empty, and she wanted Noah to fill her. She wanted him to thrust deep inside of her.

  Then she could pretend that she was just like every other woman. Having sex with her lover. Enjoying pleasure.

  “With me, Claire.”

  His hand slid over the plane of her stomach. Down, down his fingers went until he was at the edge of her panties.

  Her eyes were on his hand.

  “If I pull these off, they’ll just get stuck on your shoes,” he murmured. “So…”

  He ripped her panties. Tore them in two and tossed the scraps away.

  “That’s what I wanted.” His fingers slid between her folds. “Ah, baby, you’re so ready for me.”

  He positioned his body between her legs. He’d thrust into her soon, she was sure of it. He’d—

  He slid a finger into her.

  Claire jerked toward him.

  “So tight. You’re going to drive me out of my mind.”

  He was already driving her out of hers.

  “But you have to be burning up. You have to need me more than breath.” He withdrew his finger. Moved her legs farther apart. The couch was massive, so there was easily room for them both on it and he was—he was—

  Noah put his mouth on her.

  Claire flinched.
She hadn’t expected that move. Her hands flew down to his shoulders.

  “No, Claire,” the words growled against the most sensitive part of her body. “Hands up.”

  Then his tongue, that wonderful, wicked tongue of his, stroked her. Slid over her. Slid into her.

  Her hands flew back up and locked around one of the pillows on the couch. Her hips were arching, so he grabbed them and held them tightly. And he kept tasting her. Licking her. Kissing her. Taking her breath away as she gasped.

  Every muscle in her body seemed to tense. Claire heard herself crying out Noah’s name.

  Her release was close. She could feel it. No roughness. No fast groping.

  This was sex. This was what it should be like. Hot. Consuming.

  His tongue thrust into her.

  Claire screamed when the climax hit her. Her eyes squeezed shut, and her body bucked beneath him. The pleasure rolled through her, seeming to crest again and