Black Ties and Lullabyes (4 page)

He was
kissing
her?

She’d expected verbal sparring, but not this. Never this. Her brain, stil disoriented, refused to react, which gave him the opportunity to slide his other hand up her back and clamp it around the nape of her neck.

He kissed her long and hard, consuming her mouth with his until she couldn’t catch a breath. She cursed herself for downing those shots of Crown. Her brain felt so hazy that it was several seconds before she final y wrenched her lips away from his.

“What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” she said.

“Nothing you haven’t been asking me to do.”

“Asking you to do? Are you out of your freakin’

mind
?”

“If I am,” he said breathlessly, “then stop me.” He smothered her lips with another kiss. He moved forward, one step, then another, until he’d backed her against the wal . She made a halfhearted move to shudder away, but he held on, kissing her until the room spun around her.

Stop him, stop him, stop him…

The words swirled around in her mind but never took hold. She’d always imagined Jeremy to be cool and calculating with women, but something had bubbled to the surface she’d never anticipated, something wild and scorching and out of control.

And it was making her hotter by the second.

He was right. She could have smacked her knee right to the place that would shut him down in an instant. But now that the dark, hidden fantasy she’d denied for so long was final y coming to life, al she wanted to do was melt into his kiss, to feel like the woman he had never believed she was.

But he wasn’t on the same page. Not even close.

She knew he felt nothing for her. His kiss was intimidation. Proof he could control her whether she liked it or not. A power play designed to ultimately humiliate her. If she didn’t put a stop to it right now, she’d regret it forever.

She jerked her head to one side, dislodging her lips from his, only to feel his hot breath skate along her cheek. “I’l have you
arrested
for this, you son of a bitch.”

“It’s only a crime when a woman isn’t wil ing.”

“Wil ing? What the hel makes you think I’m
willing
?” He pressed his forearm against her shoulder, trapping her against the wal as he cradled her chin between his thumb and forefinger. With his other hand, he clutched the hem of her dress, pul ing it upward until his palm rested against her bare thigh.

She jumped as if he’d touched her with a lit match. He inched his palm upward, staring at her with an expression of lust so primitive and powerful it paralyzed her. She had the sudden irrational thought that a surge of superhuman strength might be waiting beneath that lust, and if she so much as blinked, it would come roaring out. But worse than that, she discovered something truly insidious about that irrational fear.

It made her even hotter than she already was.

She fought to hold on to her anger, but it seemed to melt into the wal behind her, leaving her more vulnerable to him than she’d ever felt before. He moved his knee between hers, pressing them apart at the same time his hand burned a path upward along her leg. He reached the apex of her thighs and cupped the crotch of her panties, teasing one finger lightly back and forth. Just one smal touch, and she shuddered with pleasure. Knowing her expression was giving her away, she tried to turn her head, but he grasped her chin more tightly and turned it back, tormenting her with those unrelenting green eyes. She held her breath, desperate for his touch even as she cursed herself for it. Then he curled his finger around the edge of her panties and slid it beneath them, discovering the truth she couldn’t hide.

She was hot and slick with desire.

When a smile of satisfaction crossed his lips, it was as if he’d shaken her awake from a rapturous dream to the harsh reality of day. Humiliation surged through her.

“You bastard,” she said. “Let
go
of me!”

“Come on, Bernie,” he said, his voice low and raspy. “We both know that if you real y wanted me to stop, you wouldn’t be talking at al . I’d be on my back on the floor before I knew what hit me.” In that moment, something shifted inside her. Yes, she wanted him. She wanted him like a woman crawling through the desert wanted a drink of water, and denying it any longer would only make her look like a fool. But suddenly she didn’t feel the least bit vulnerable to the games he played. Jeremy lived to control everyone and everything in his midst, but he sure as hel didn’t control her.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bridges.

She took him by the shoulders, spun him around ninety degrees, drove her hip into his, and flipped him onto his ten-thousand-dol ar Persian rug. Before he could recover, she was on her knees beside him, her hand wrapped around his throat. She saw the shock on his face, but to his credit, it took him only a few seconds to erase that expression and replace it with one that was considerably more unconcerned.

“What a disappointment,” he said, his voice a little breathless. “Does this mean sex is off the table?”

“Oh, no. It’s very much on the table. But from here on out,
I’m
running this show.”

Jeremy had never felt so flabbergasted in his life. Not that he objected. In the last five minutes, he’d been reevaluating every assumption he’d ever had about Bernie. He’d taken it for granted that if he hit her with a little sexual intimidation, it would just piss her off.

She’d snap back at him, and that would be that. In reality, the woman he’d believed to be stone cold was hot as a river of lava, and he’d been standing on the rim of the volcano when it exploded.

Her gaze traveled leisurely from his chest to his abdomen, and then to the area below his belt, where it lingered for several seconds on the monumental hard-on he couldn’t have hidden if he’d wanted to.

She met his eyes again, giving him a wicked smile.

“Take off your pants,” she said.

Jeremy blinked with surprise.
Take off your pants?

Had those words actual y come out of Bernie’s mouth?

She removed her hand from his throat and slowly stood up, towering over him. Under normal circumstances, his first inclination would have been to give her a smug smile. Turn on the sarcasm. Find a way to get back on top, figuratively speaking. But since any of those things might short-circuit what was getting ready to happen here, he kept his mouth shut.

He’d never had even a passing thought of having sex with this woman, but right now he wanted it as much as he wanted his next breath.

He came to his feet, kicking off his shoes. He unbuckled and unzipped, dropping everything from the waist down, only to catch one foot in the leg of his pants as he tried to pul them off. He lost his balance and hopped on the other foot to his oversized leather sofa, letting out a string of curse words al the way there. He fel onto the sofa and final y jerked off his pants, pausing only to retrieve the condom from his pocket and put it in place. Breathing hard, he turned to see Bernie glaring down at him like an Amazon woman hel -bent on revenge. She stil wore her dress, but she’d kicked off her shoes.

And her panties dangled from one fingertip.

With a flick of her wrist, she tossed them aside.

She took three hip-swiveling steps forward, smacked her palm against his chest and shoved him to his back on the sofa. In the next breath, she was straddling him, gripping his shoulders as she slid herself along the length of him. Once. Twice.

Then again.

And again.

He sucked in a breath, astonished at the sheer carnality of it, at the unbelievable sensations she was creating. On the next stroke, she shifted her hips and took him inside.

Holy shit.

He closed his eyes with a heavy groan. She rose, almost sliding away from him, only to slam her hips down again. She began a steady rise and fal , slowly picking up the pace until her strokes were hard, fast, and punishing. At the same time her dark-eyed gaze bored into him so completely that she could have pinned him to the sofa with that alone. His entire adult life, the instant he had felt another human being reaching for control over him, he had cut that person off at the knees and done everything in his power to ensure that he or she never tried to run over him again. But right now, with his head swimming in a sea of alcohol and lust, al he wanted was her next ferocious stroke. He remembered earlier in the evening when he’d wondered if there was a woman inside her somewhere.

He wasn’t wondering now.

Then her gaze seemed to lose focus. A crimson flush spread across her chest, then rose to suffuse her cheeks. Stil riding him relentlessly, she squeezed her eyes closed and ducked her head, as if she’d forgotten al about him and was lost in sensation. The raw sexuality of her expression, the pressure she was creating, the heat, the friction, the astonishment that it was Bernie on top of him right now, bringing both of them to a place he’d never counted on—al of it was pushing him to the edge so fast it shocked him.

Seconds later, a wave of indescribable pleasure hit him with the force of a battering ram. He gripped her thighs and thrust his hips up off the sofa, driving up into her as she drove down onto him, jerking convulsively as searing pulsations tore through him.

Seconds later, Bernie threw her head back, clasping his shoulders with savage force. He knew he’d have bruises in the morning, but he didn’t feel the pain. Al he knew was that the woman who usual y control ed every move she made was suddenly shuddering like a leaf in a violent wind, a groan of satisfaction ripping from her throat.

Then little by little, the shuddering stopped. She dropped her chin to her chest, her hair clinging to her sweaty temples, her breath coming in short, shal ow gasps. Then she raised her head and opened her eyes to look down at him.

For a moment, she seemed lost. Disoriented.

Those eyes that spent al day every day narrowed sarcastical y slowly widened with bewilderment. Her mouth dropped open slightly, as if she wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if a window had opened just enough for him to catch a fleeting glimpse of the woman inside, and she was as stunned as he was at what had just happened.

And then the telephone rang.

She jerked around to look at the phone, then turned back to him. In the blink of an eye, her expression became hard and impenetrable again. She moved away from him and rose from the sofa, giving her skirt a couple of quick tugs to put it back in place as she walked over to pick up the phone.

He sat up slowly, making out just enough of what she said to know that the danger was over. After she hung up, she turned and walked back across the room, grabbed her shoes, and put them on. She scooped up her panties, stuffed them into her purse, and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“But you’l need to talk to the police.”

“I no longer work for you.”

“The hel you don’t.”

“I’d have to be wil ing to take a bul et for you. As of right now, I’d step aside and let the bul ets fly.”

“But—”

“I told you I’m done with you. Once and for al .” Jeremy felt the strangest trickle of desperation. But why did he care if she walked out? He wasn’t completely sure. He only knew that women didn’t walk away from him. He walked away from
them
.

“So you’re done, are you?” he said.

She unlocked the door. “Completely.”

“I notice you didn’t mind screwing me on your way out the door.”

Bernie froze, then slowly turned back, her expression cold as ice. “You started it, Bridges. I just finished it.”

God,
how she’d finished it. He felt as if he’d been hit by a freight train.

“And by the way,” Bernie said, “if you ever get the urge to tel
anyone
what happened here, I’l deny it to my dying breath.”

With that, she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Jeremy just sat there, furious that she’d had the nerve to leave. Most of the women he’d been with barely climbed out of bed before they were on the phone to tel their friends they’d screwed a multimil ionaire, so Bernie’s reaction stunned him.

Then again, in the past half hour, pretty much everything about Bernie had stunned him.

He went to the bathroom. Cleaned up. Yanked on his pants. He knew the cops were out there waiting to talk to him, but he couldn’t seem to focus on that.

Instead he went to the bar, anger and irritation stil eating away at him. He picked up the bottle of Crown, but instead of pouring a drink, he slammed down the bottle, grabbed the glass, and hurled it across the room. It hit the wal and shattered into a thousand pieces, which did not one blessed thing to make him feel better.

Damn it.
Why should he even care what she thought of him? There were dozens of bodyguards in this town who could do everything she could, and without the endless barrage of insults she fired at him.

But for some reason, when he imagined a big, nameless guy shadowing him saying, “Yes, sir,” and,

“No, sir,” he felt sick inside.

He shouldn’t have pushed her, but he hadn’t been able to stop. From one second to the next, he’d gone from lobbing his usual sarcastic remarks at her to wanting her so badly he’d do anything to have her.

What the
hell
had gotten into him? Whatever it was, it had made him feel helpless and exposed and out of control, which meant he needed to bury it thoroughly and completely so it never saw the light of day again.

When she came back—and she
would
come back, because money talked—he’d be cal ing the shots again, and everything would be back to normal.