A Second Chance at Love: A Hometown Hero Series Novel (6 page)

“We can’t do this,” she murmured, but her hands were lifting to his chest, clutching at the fine fabric of his shirt.

His laugh was hoarse; the intention in his eyes was unmistakable. “Can’t we?”

CHAPTER FOUR

He lowered his head, so that his mouth was just inches away. If she stood on tiptoes, she’d be kissing him, tasting him. He brushed his lips over hers, then nipped her lower lip with his teeth. Her breath fanned his neck, as he moved to her earlobe. He took it in his mouth and teased it with his tongue. She gasped as pleasure, sharp and furious, began to spiral in her gut.

“No!” She cried, pushing at the hard wall of his chest. He didn’t move, though. “You have a family, Harrison. I am not going to ruin that.”

“I have a daughter, Madeline. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had a lover.”

Her heart turned over in her chest. “You… what are you talking about?”

His hands were at the bottom of her sweater, touching the material, feeling for skin. She grabbed his hips and groaned at the intimate contact. He pushed his hips further forward, grinding his pelvis against her as his arousal grew. “It’s just me and Ivy.”

“But… what?”

“Do you want to talk about this now?”

She didn’t. God, she didn’t. She wanted him. Her marriage to Dean had always been based on the mutual understanding that it was pure pretence, but she was still married. In name, if no other way. And yet, she didn’t care. After all, Dean had relationships on the side. That was the whole point of their union – to provide him cover. He would be the last person in the world to judge her for what she wanted to do with Harrison.

But it was wrong. It was complicated. It made no sense.

“I want you, Maddie,” he whispered, lifting her sweater over her head and throwing it onto a nearby chair. Her bra was exquisite French lace. His thumb padded over her nipple, and she arched her back as the sensations flew down her body.

“Harrison,” she said quietly, her breathing ragged, her heart running away from her. “This is so wrong.” But so right. Right in every way that mattered.

“I know,” he agreed calmly, lifting her and carrying her through the lounge, to his office. It had a rarely used sofa in the corner, and he placed her onto it. Before they could rethink the wisdom of what they were doing, he came to lie on top of her, his mouth seeking hers.

“You came here tonight. You must have known this would happen.”

“I thought you were married,” she responded, shaking her head. “I just wanted to talk.”

Something punctured the wall of need in Harrison. He tried to ignore it, but his conscience was a finely honed tool. As if sensing a shift in his mood, Madeline shifted, rolling on top of him. She rotated her hips, pressing herself onto his erection, and running her hands over his chest. Her fingers reached for his button and opened his pants desperately. How long had it been since she’d been with a man?

Eight years.

Since she’d left him. She shook her head.

No wonder she was almost crawling up the walls with desire.

“If we don’t do this, Harrison, I’m going to kill you.” She was smiling, but inside, she felt fires licking at her being. She had forgotten what a sexual person she was. In Harrison’s arms, her body was like a flame that had been doused in petrol.

“Damn it, Maddie, what game are you playing at?” He demanded, shifting so that he could wriggle out of his jeans. She pushed at her own, sliding them down her long legs, so that she was in just her underwear.

“I’d forgotten how good you are at this,” she said simply, grabbing his arousal with both hands and exclaiming as she felt its warmth and firmness. “Please, Harrison,” she moaned.

He hesitated. The rock on her finger kept catching his eye. He was torn between his complete need for her, and his black and white view of how the world should be. His hands were on her breasts, his head pushed back, his chest rising and falling as temptation warred with righteousness.

Madeline pushed aside the scrap of underwear and lowered herself onto his length, her eyes on his, daring him to challenge her. Daring him to object. He didn’t. His firm, calloused hands gripped her hips and held her tight and low, screwing her down, until he felt himself be absorbed completely by her body.

Madeline cried out softly and swivelled her hips, remembering the sense of him fulfilling her completely. “Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.” She threw her head back, and finally, she looked like the woman he had once known and loved. Filled with passion and lust and desire and pleasure.

Harrison lifted his body, thrusting further into her, and as pleasure filled him, so did anger. Anger at what she’d taken away, and the shallow reasons she’d had for leaving him. He lifted his legs and bucked her sideways, rolling them both to the ground in a none too gentle manner. Madeline glared at him as they fell, a tangle of limbs, to the timber floorboards.

But Harrison was on top of her, where he loved to be, thrusting into her, driving her crazy, before she could even formulate a complaint. He watched as she came beneath him, her body thrashing, her head whipped from side to side, as her nails dug into his back. He laughed, for the sheer thrill of feeling her again, then, he stretched as far as he could, to reach his bottom desk drawer. He felt in the darkness for the cold metal he sought, and smiled when his fingers grasped it.

Madeline had barely recovered from her intense orgasm when he clipped his spare set of handcuffs around her slender wrists, and tethered them to the leg of the sofa.

Her blue eyes flew wide in surprise. “What are you doing?” She demanded through gritted teeth.

“Making you wish you’d never left me,” he said evenly, his eyes rich with desire, his erection heavy inside her. Her arms were stretched above her head, and he removed himself, just so that he could pull her across the floor, stretching her body away from the sofa. She watched, her pulse raging through her body, as he donned protection and slipped inside her once more. With her arms constrained, she couldn’t grab his shoulders as she wanted to, she could only kick her legs as pleasure tore through her. And it did. It ripped through her body in a way that threatened to pull her apart.

Harrison smiled as she came again, holding her close, kissing her neck, her cheek, and then, her lips.

He lowered his mouth to her breasts, and tormented her over-sensitive flesh, all the while, her arms remained above her head, held in place by the cuffs he’d never used in such a way before. She shuddered beneath him, her whole body quivering from an overload of sensations.

“You looked so prim the other day. So untouchable. All I wanted to do was make you feel like this. To remind you that you have a humanity beneath that ice lady act.”

She closed her eyes. “It’s not an act,” she said desperately. “That’s who I am now.”

“Like hell it is,” he contradicted fiercely. To prove his point, he pulled out of her once more, with utter regret, as his own release was so close he was shaking. But he lowered his mouth to her core and lashed her heat with his tongue, pressing his hands into her legs to keep them hard against the floor, when she would have lifted them in response to his ministrations.

She cried out as feelings began to tremble through her. “Harrison, stop!” She moaned, pulling hard at her arms, trying to move her legs. He smiled against her flesh, and kissed her again, driving her wild with his tongue alone. She bucked her hips as her body was wracked with the unfamiliar sensation.

“I don’t ever want to stop,” he responded darkly, lifting his mouth back to her breasts and driving himself into her hard, fast, with punishing intensity. She was so wet, and so ready for him. Her whole body seemed to cling to him, to beg him never to leave.

“I want to touch you,” she moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist and holding him deep inside her.

“No. You don’t get to touch me. You left me. Now you’re back. And I get to take what I want.”

His words had a menacing coldness to them. But she ignored it. In that moment, she would have agreed to follow him to the ends of the earth.

He paused, his body tense, as he reached for her handcuffed hands. He pulled at her finger, dislodging the enormous ring she wore. “And don’t wear the damned thing around me. I don’t want to see it.”

Madeline was completely lost in the moment, but his anger was enough to make her stare at him, in complete confusion. There was so much more to him than she understood. So much more to them. He tossed the ring across the floorboards, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewellery into the corner of his study. Madeline looked away from it. She didn’t care. Dean and she knew what their marriage was.

“Do you love him?” He demanded, pulling himself away from her so that his arousal teased her entrance.

She stared at him. “What?”

“Dean. Do you love him?”

She lifted her hips, her internal emptiness an actual pain.

“What are you doing?” She demanded, lifting her knees, trying to pull him closer.

His smile was cruel. “I’m not going to do this any more, Madeline. Not until I hear the words that you don’t love him. That you don’t want him like you want me.”

She groaned, her whole body shaking with desire and anger. The secret she and Dean protected was too important to compromise. Even Harrison couldn’t know the truth of her marriage. “He’s my husband,” she said weakly. For their façade needed to continue at least until Kenneth had passed away. And beyond that, for as long as Dean felt the image suited his office. “I haven’t seen you in eight years.”

He nodded, a strange expression in his eyes. He stood, completely naked, over her.

“Where are you going?” She squeaked, as he moved towards the door. He didn’t respond, but a few minutes later, he returned with a white ceramic jar in his hands.

“What’s that?” She asked, curious, but strangely completely trusting.

His smile was loaded with emotion.

“A new interrogation technique,” he said throatily, unscrewing the lid with his eyes on hers. He slowly tipped the jar upside down, so that a stream of amber liquid trickled onto her naked chest. She gasped as it landed, and the unmistakable scent of honey assailed her nostrils.

He lowered himself back on top of her, and traced the honey with his tongue, drizzling it over her breasts, and tasting them until she thought she was going to pass out from the extreme rush of pleasure. He ran the honey lower, over her flat stomach, and then lower still, to her womanhood. But he didn’t taste her. He slipped a finger inside her and drove her almost to the edge, his eyes sparking as she began to tumble down the cliff without him.

He laughed quietly as he removed his finger, and reached for the cuffs.

“You’re tormenting me,” she accused raggedly.

“I’m giving you a hint of the pain I felt when you left me,” he retorted, his eyes shining with intent. “But don’t worry, honey. Pleasure is inevitable for you, in a way it wasn’t for me.”

He undid the lock and watched as she rubbed her wrists. They were chafed from where she’d pulled at them. Compunction assailed him, but he ignored it. “Are you still with me?” He demanded. “Or do you want to go back to the ranch and the husband your daddy picked for you?”

She pushed him back onto the ground angrily. “Fuck you,” she responded, but tears were collecting in her eyes. She reached for the honey, and before he could guess her intentions, she pulled the condom loose and tossed it aside, then upended the honey on his hard, tight arousal. He gasped as she followed it with her mouth, as he had done to her. He swore, and ran his fingers through her hair, gripping her blonde head as his body began to shake with the complete desire she had unlocked.

Her tongue was both heaven and hell, a weapon that was making his body ache and throb. She was sobbing as she brought him right to the edge of climax. When he was just about to lose all control, she shifted position, and slipped on top of him, groaning as he filled her feminine core completely. She thrust downwards, taking him inside of her, wanting and needing him.

He exploded with a guttural cry of longing, his whole body slamming against hers as they met the field of desire together. His fingers sought hers, lacing with them, tangling them to their sides, as her breasts were soft against his hard chest, her legs wrapped around his waste.

Their breathing was tortured in just the same way, loud snatches of air humming through the room. But as desire subsided, sanity threatened to return.

Harrison wouldn’t let it. He had her where he wanted her, he just need to convince her that it made sense.

But she was married. His eyes flew to the ring, discarded in the corner of the room. God, she had a husband. A husband she probably felt this pleasure with. A husband who
had
been good enough for her. Had there been other men during her marriage? Did she cheat often?

He closed his eyes and squeezed those thoughts out. This wasn’t cheating. Madeline had been his first. She would always be his. Despite the eight years that had passed between them, theirs was a connection that no one could compete with.

He lowered his mouth to her shoulder, and licked a patch of honey from her skin. “You need a shower.”

Her expression was strained. The shock of what had just happened was obviously getting through to her. He couldn’t let it.