From Fake to Forever (11 page)

He craved the connection they’d once had, the one that made him feel as if she understood him in a way no one else could. Why didn’t he deserve to have some heat in his otherwise cold life? Why didn’t she deserve the same?

Answering awareness sprang into her gaze and her lashes lowered as she focused on his mouth. An instant later, she swayed toward him and their lips fused.

Meredith’s essence swept through his senses like a bright white light, clearing away everything but her. She opened under his mouth, her tongue slick against his, so hot and wet and tasting of erotic pleasures. She kissed like she did everything else—with abandon, purpose and raw sensuality. He could not get enough.

Her fingers danced along his spine and threaded through his hair, electrifying his skin wherever she touched.
Meredith.
She made him feel like nothing else ever had or would, as if only he could sate her carnal thirst, as if no other man existed for her.

It was powerful to know a woman like Meredith wanted him. So hot and exciting. Always had been.

Deeper.
He plunged his tongue harder, mating with hers, bodies aligned tight. Those magnificent breasts brushed him and he wanted more. He snaked both hands to the small of her back and smashed her breasts against his chest, rubbing against the hardened tips he could feel through their clothes.

He dipped a hand in her skirt, desperate to feel her heated flesh. As he palmed her smooth, taut rear, the elevator doors opened.

Cursing, he tore his mouth from hers and guided her out of the elevator. “Hurry. We’re picking up right where we left off.”

The faster they reached the car, the less he could question himself about what he was doing. Hell, he already knew where this was going, but he lacked the incentive to stop it. His body screamed for her touch and he wasn’t going to say no. Not this time.

He’d worry about angles and leverage and Meredith’s odd hold over him tomorrow. Tonight, he wanted to live in the moment and forget about everything else.

Seven

J
ason’s hand never left Meredith’s waist, burning through her clothes with delicious heat. She shivered, nearly stumbling over the curb as he ushered her into the car.

What in the world had gotten into him? If she’d have known a few stolen sketches would bring out his inner Vegas, she’d have scrounged up some long ago.

That kiss had been hot. Like she remembered. Dare she hope this was the start of Amazing, Part II?

“Don’t tease me, Jason.” She scooted across the backseat of the black town car. “If we’re on our way to eat and not my hotel, I’m going to push you out of the car at a very high speed.”

The moment he took his seat next to her, he hit the button to raise the panel between the driver and the backseat. The panel whirred, but before it fully nested into place, Jason’s mouth was on hers again.

Tipping her head back, he drank from her, tongue tasting her again with the same heat and fervor as he had in the elevator. Well, then. Hotel it was.

She moaned as his mouth rediscovered hers, waves and waves of hot pleasure soaking her with need. Never one to let a man lead, she hiked her skirt up so she could climb into his lap, her lips never leaving his.

Their hips aligned and his hard length rubbed against her core. A long spike of desire tore through her.
Oh, yes, exactly.
She needed this man right now. She rolled her hips, grinding faster, and they groaned in unison.

“Jason,” she breathed and nearly came apart at the simple taste of his name on her tongue. A sob rose in her throat and he caught it with another long kiss.

“Right here, baby,” he murmured and two fingers slid past the barrier of her panties to explore her damp heat.

Forcefully, he twisted into her, letting her ride his hand as a frisson of white-hot heat flushed over her. Rocking against him faster and faster, she writhed and sparks gathered at the pressure point.

More.
Popping the button on her shirt, she palmed her breast and yanked her bra’s cup down, offering her nipple to his already-questing mouth. As he sucked it between his teeth and laved the tip with his firm tongue, his thumb circled her nub and that was it.

She came on a thick flood of release, moaning his name and riding the ripples to a finale the likes of which she hadn’t experienced in two long years. Slumping against him, she locked her lips against his neck as he stroked two more echoes from her core long past the time she’d expected the climax to end.

“We’re here,” Jason murmured and withdrew his fingers so sensuously and slowly, her muscles involuntarily clamped down again. “We have to get out.”

“Then...stop making me...come.”

His wicked laugh put a smile on her face as she reset her clothes. Which didn’t take long; Jason was very skilled at finding her sweet spots. Was it any wonder she couldn’t move on from a man who made her climax prior to the end of a seven-minute car trip?

He held her hand as he hustled her to the elevator bank. Once in the elevator, he nuzzled her neck, murmuring a few choice phrases about what else he planned to do to her when they got to her room.

Delicious. She just wished she knew what had burst his dam.

It took way too long to reach her floor. They flew from the elevator the moment the doors slid open.

Card key already in hand, he backed her against the door and kissed her thoroughly. She fell into it and into the sensations of the hard planes of his body pressing hers, the wood at her back, the urgency in his hands. All of it stoked a hot flame inside her.

And yet, she hesitated.

She wanted him so badly, but a little worm of doubt wouldn’t let her continue until she got some answers, especially the most important one—was all this going to disappear if she blinked?

Pulling back, she put a finger to his beautiful mouth.

“I have to know,” she murmured. “What’s tonight all about? You’ve been resistant to this since the moment I walked into your office.”

Her hands ached to touch his sculpted abs and her mouth salivated to taste the hard flesh she’d felt pressing into her abdomen. But she didn’t move, waiting for his response with bated breath. If he claimed to be acting on the heat of the moment, she’d bid him good-night in a heartbeat. They weren’t drunk, and neither of them had a life crisis to blame this on.

This was nothing but two adults coming together because they desperately wanted to be with each other. She needed to know he was choosing this.

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “But not because I didn’t want you.”

“Then why?”

He swayed backward a fraction, but it was enough to alert her she’d hit a nerve. Running a hand through his spiky hair, he released her waist, letting his arm hang at his side. “You’ve got our experience in Vegas built up in your head as something legendary. I can’t maintain that myth for you. I’m just me and you’ve already expressed disappointment over that.”

“Oh, honey.” She bit her lip before she spilled too hasty a denial. Because she had said that. “The only reason I have that experience built up in my head is because you’re the man who made it legendary. Are you worried it’ll only be mediocre?”

Patently ridiculous, if so.

He shook his head. “I’m saying I’m not like I was in Vegas in real life. I don’t want to be wild and crazy on a regular basis. I can’t. It leads to poor judgment.”

As her heart twisted with disappointment, he shifted and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her so that all the good parts of their bodies aligned. “But you seem to drag my wild side into the light whether I like it or not. I decided to let you, just for tonight.”

Had
that
been the golden ticket all along? If she’d seduced him from the get-go, they could have avoided all this drama.

She smiled as her body relaxed in the knowledge that he wasn’t about to deny himself what he clearly wanted. Which meant she won, as well. “I see. This is a relationship with an expiration date.”

Guess that made it easier for him to let his guard down, as long as he could put it back up in the morning. Or at least that was what he was telling himself. She’d let him think that all he wanted, but that wasn’t how it was going to happen.

She stepped aside so he could open the door. Then he picked her up in his strong arms to carry her to the bed, where he laid her out carefully and began unbuckling one stiletto while treating her ankle to butterfly kisses.

She sighed a little. “I thought you didn’t believe in romance.”

The shoe hit the floor. Eyes half-shut, he rubbed his stubbly jaw over the arch of her foot and murmured, “I said romance was for losers who couldn’t get a woman into bed. I didn’t need it to get you here. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you deserve it.”

The back of her throat burned with sudden, unshed tears and she couldn’t speak. This was the Jason of two years ago and yet not. He was still gorgeous and pushed all the right buttons, but she didn’t remember him being sweet. She couldn’t quite get a grip on him.

“Meredith,” he said, almost reverently. With extreme care, he took off her other shoe. “You’re the most exquisite woman I’ve ever seen. Bar none. I want to taste you. All over.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she choked out.

“Hope you don’t mind if I start here.” He slid a hand up her thigh and hooked her panties, drawing them off. Then he parted her skirt at the slit and let his gaze travel over her flesh. He murmured near poetic words of appreciation.

Fevered desire swept along her skin.

He knelt on the bed, gripped her thighs and lowered his head. And then his tongue touched her intimately. Pressing harder, he explored her with the tip and then the broad, rough part laved her. Her eyelids fluttered closed as he pleasured her thoroughly, yanking another climax out of her almost immediately.

She let it wash over her, murmuring his name.

When she recovered, she popped one eye open. “Are you planning to join me at some point? Never mind. You don’t have a choice.”

While he was busy trying to romance her, she just wanted to put her hands on his naked chest, straddle him and ride into oblivion until they were both spent.

Before he could think of another way to prolong the agony, she jackknifed up from the bed and drew off his suit jacket, tossing it to the floor. Their gazes met and held as she unbuttoned his shirt. A powerful unspoken sense of awareness and electricity passed between them, darkening his expression.

She let the shirt fall from her fingers as his hands tangled in her hair, drawing her head backward so he could nibble at her throat. After what was surely an eternity, she spread her hands on his bare chest, fingertips memorizing the hard muscles.

“I want all of you,” she murmured and quickly divested him of the remainder of his clothes, while he peeled her out of the outfit he’d given her.

When he was gloriously bare, she indulged herself in a good, long perusal. Mouth slightly quirked up, he stood still as she soaked in the perfection of Jason’s body, especially the jutting arousal that signified how much he wanted her.

It was a thing of beauty.

And she wanted to make him feel as good as he’d made her feel. Kneeling before him, she ran her tongue along his hard shaft until she felt his fingers grip the back of her head. Instantly, she remembered that meant he was ready for more. So she drew him into her mouth and sucked until he pulsed against her tongue.

Harder and harder she sucked until he groaned and locked his knees, then came in a rush that left her feeling wickedly powerful.

“And now for the main course,” she announced and backed him up to the bed where he collapsed in a heap, groaning her name. “Wait here.”

She dashed to the bathroom to clean up and retrieve a dozen condoms—because if history was any indication, they’d need them all.

When she returned to the bed, he hadn’t moved, as instructed. He lay there, arm over his eyes, clearly recovering from the massive orgasm she’d given him.

Shamelessly, she climbed up the length of his body to kiss him soundly. “Miss me?”

The arm moved and his dark gaze fastened on hers. “Much more than I should have. You weren’t gone that long.”

Oh, my. There he went being sweet again. She’d mostly been kidding. What was he trying to do to her? “Here I am.”

She squealed when he flipped her under him, and then his tongue was in her mouth, so she wisely let him kiss her senseless. All vestiges of humor drained away as his hands caressed her, taking her deep under his spell. The world fell away and became nothing more than a sea of sensation. When he lifted his head, breaking the long kiss, she whimpered.

“Just a sec,” he whispered and sheathed himself one-handed, then parted her thighs.

Yes, oh, yes.
She thrust upward as he entered her and they joined completely, inch by delicious inch.

Wrapping her legs around him so he couldn’t move, she cupped his jaw and just looked at him for a moment. His heated gaze locked with hers. The moment stretched, filling her with the strangest sense of awe.

Jason was here. He was with her, inside her, surrounding her. Her heart shifted and resettled and finally felt as if it was in the right place. She almost cried out with the perfection of it. Only at that moment did she realize the sharp pieces of her fractured soul had been digging into her for two years. And in one instant, Jason had healed her.

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

Oh, no. She’d said that out loud.

They’d never made love before. They’d had plenty of hot, dirty sex. But that had been before she went without him for two years.

She liked hot, dirty sex, like the fully clothed orgasm she’d had in the car while throngs of people raced around them, oblivious to the couple getting it on inside. Sex was part of her due as a human being, and she’d always made sure to get plenty of it. All at once, she wanted something more.

And it scared her. Making love wasn’t what she and Jason did. He wanted wild and crazy, like they’d had in Vegas, for one night. He liked that she brought out that side of him, which wouldn’t happen if she got all maudlin.