Tempted by a Dangerous Man (12 page)

Apparently, he was done with his speech, and I was a bit sad because I wanted to hear more about how addicted he was to my pussy. That was the one thing he could have talked about for as long as he wanted and I never would have complained.

But then he began fucking me, riding higher on me, the thick base of his shaft stroking over my clit with each thrust, and I didn’t care about anything except the little explosions of pleasure that grew in intensity with his movements. He felt so amazing. I thought I might pass out.

But I didn’t. Instead I writhed under him, my muffled moans and screams growing in volume. Corbin ripped the panties out of my mouth, then fitted his lips over mine. He held my face in his hands, and I was pinned under him, nearly bent double, helpless to move in any way he didn’t want me to.

Even my hips, which vibrated with tension, couldn’t undulate the way instinct wanted. I felt my pussy jerking tighter around him, milking his cock, begging for him to fill me up.

The rumbling groan that erupted from his chest and throat was primal, and it extended my own orgasm, or maybe I had another one.

Didn’t matter what it was called. Corbin. He was everything I’d ever wanted. Everything I needed.
 

He finally sighed, pulled away from my mouth, and eased my legs down.

“Don’t go,” I pleaded, sliding my hands over his ass. And what an ass, hard muscles that flexed as he made himself comfortable. “I want to fall asleep with you inside of me,” I said.

That got a raised eyebrow, and I expected him to tease me for being insatiable or to make me beg for something I already knew I couldn’t articulate.
 

 
Instead I felt his cock twitch inside me, and he kissed me gently. He pulled his upper body back, electric blue-green eyes probing mine. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

~~~

Sometime in the night, I got up to use the bathroom and to clean myself off. When I returned, Corbin sleepily pulled me close. Just before I drifted off again, I thought that I should have used my safe word to save the dress. Apparently I wasn’t quite as much of a tomboy as I’d thought.
 

The next morning, I woke to the smell of coffee, scrambled eggs, french toast. Corbin’s dark hair was mussed, sticking out at random angles. He wore no shirt, and his black silky pajama bottoms hung low and loose on his hips.

“No more flannel pajamas?”

He looked up from the coffee he was pouring out of a silver pot. “Good morning,” he said, sitting. His grin illuminated his face. “Didn’t realize you paid such close attention to my sleepwear.”
 

He nodded at a platter of assorted pastries that sat before him on the table. “Hungry?”

I rolled over, sat up. At the end of the room, I could see the view out the window by the tub. “Jesus. There’s a lake, too.” It was like something out of a movie.

Corbin followed my gaze. “Spectacular, isn’t it?”

Nodding, I slid out of the bed. I slipped into one of the inn’s complimentary bathrobes. Not as sexy as silk pajamas, but better than being naked with daylight streaming in.

As I passed him, Corbin snaked an arm around my hips, pulled me close. I leaned down and brushed my lips over his.

“You’re sexy with your makeup all messed up,” he said. The blue-green of his eyes was oddly startling.

“Crap.” I tried to walk away, but Corbin anchored me to him.
 

“I mean it. I like you a little imperfect, a little messy.” He released me, and I sat in a fancy chair across from him and reached for a small croissant.

“This better not be a segue to asking me to brush my hair again,” I mumbled around a mouthful of flaky, buttery goodness.
 

Corbin smirked, picked up his coffee. When he set it down, I took a sip, preferring to help myself to his rather than pour my own. He stood, kissed my lips softly, then indulged in a leisurely stretch that got my pulse thrumming.
 

I pushed my curls out of my face so that I could study Corbin. The light played over his perfect body, turning the ridges between his muscles into mountains and valleys.
 

He went into the bathroom. The shower started up. So much for a bubble bath together.

I only waited a few seconds before deciding that I might as well check in with Rob. I licked my fingers clean and crouched beside Corbin’s backpack.
 

There were two front pockets. I poked them both, then I chose one at random.

Five phones. No wonder he was so casual about giving me one.

I hadn’t wanted to look at my phone since that fateful night in the office. But I couldn’t hide from everyone forever. I placed it on the floor next to me and zipped up the backpack.

The screen illuminated, and I glanced down. It was Martha. She never called me except when she was throwing a surprise party for Dad. Since his birthday wasn’t coming up, I knew that Dad had put her up to calling. Too cowardly to reach out to me himself.

But I had to admit that a tiny thrill of relief went through me. Despite my protests to the contrary, and no matter how much I told myself it was a matter of fairness and had nothing to do with my feelings, it had hurt me when he decided to bring Henry into the company instead of trusting it to me and Rob as he had promised.
 

That didn’t mean I planned to answer Martha’s call, though.

Curious to see how many times Dad had made her call, I flicked through my missed messages. One from my mom, a handful from Rob, another handful from Henry. Nothing else from Martha, and of course, nothing from Dad. “Bastard,” I hissed. He’d waited all this time to ask her to call?
 

Since I had quite a few texts, I scrolled through them. Mom wanted to know how I was. Henry wanted me to call. So did Rob, and he seemed worried.
 

Frowning, I dialed.
 

Rob picked up immediately. “Where are you?” He sounded… unsettled.

“Hi, Rob. How are you? That’s a standard greeting, by the way.”

“You disappeared.”

Keeping things from Rob was never easy, but there was no way in hell I could tell him about what had happened since we’d last talked.
 

I swallowed. “Had to get away,” I said truthfully. “Put myself back together and figure out my next move.” I frowned, realizing that with all the things that had happened, Rob’s concern might be a sign that there was trouble. But I believed Corbin had taken care of Zachary. And that left… “Please don’t tell me that Smile suspects I broke into his house.”

“Not that I know of,” Rob said quickly, distracted. “When I was leaving work for the day, Henry took me aside and said he thinks you’ve been kidnapped.”

“What? Why would he think that?” My mind immediately went to the worst possible scenario, even though I knew it was unlikely—that Henry had somehow discovered I was with Corbin and thought I was being held against my will.

“You and some buddy of his disappeared at the same time.”

Blood drained from my face. No,
this
was the worst possible scenario. When I didn’t say anything, Rob must have assumed I was waiting for more. He cleared his throat. “Ridiculous, I know, but he started to make me paranoid. First he asked if I’d heard from you. When I said no, he started ranting that his friend who went to check out the security system call hasn’t been in touch.” Rob’s voice became angry. “Zak something or other. Seems he has a reputation for getting rough with women, though usually only after a few drinks. Henry was worried that you being you, things had gotten out of hand.”

“Me being me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
 

“Nothing, Audrey. Sorry, it’s been a long few days. Dad’s been out sick, and Henry has been working me like crazy, though he did give me a raise.”

A tremor of envy rippled through me. “How much?”

“Enough that I haven’t quit yet. So where are you, exactly?”

I sensed that he really wanted to know if I was with Corbin. After all, he knew who and what Corbin was. “Bed and breakfast,” I said. “It’s pretty romantic.”

Rob laughed. “Not my thing. Wouldn’t have thought it was yours, either.”

“Well, you know. Don’t want to get boring and predictable in my old age.”

“I’m old. You’re just a sapling.”
 

I smiled. Rob was so damned proud of the six minutes he’d beaten me into the world. My thoughts circled back to Henry. Had I thought that my life got complicated when I met Corbin? Well, I was wrong. It was Henry who had screwed things up. “You think Henry is actually worried, or do you think he’s…”
 

“Being stalkerish and digging for info?” Rob suggested. “I did think that… until I didn’t hear from you. Hold up—Martha’s calling.” He sighed. “I’d better see what she wants. I’ll call you back.” He hung up before I got a chance to tell him not to bother.
 

I sighed and tossed my phone at the bed, watched it sink into the rumpled sheets. Great. So now Henry was suspicious again. Truly the last thing I needed.

The shower turned off, and a moment later Corbin came out of the bathroom, a large towel wrapped around his waist. He rubbed his head with a small towel.
 

“You want me to order more food?” he asked.

“No,” I said weakly.
 

His hand lowered, and concern furrowed his brow.

I swallowed. “Talked to Rob. Henry got him a little worked up, saying he thought Zachary kidnapped me or something. Does that seem weird to you? That he would think that?”
 

“Where’s the phone?”
 

I retrieved it from the bed and handed it over. Corbin’s face was somber, and I wondered how he could possibly think I didn’t trust him. He had been allowed access to every corner of my life. I knew he was capable of spying on me, but I hadn’t gone running in the opposite direction.
 

If anything, he should have worried that I trusted him too much
.
That the boundaries between us were dissolving too fast to be healthy. But then… it hadn’t always been a choice. The alternative to trusting Corbin would have been disaster.
 

“That’s a problem,” Corbin said finally. “Looking at the texts Henry sent, he knows that something is wrong.” He shook his head. “It’s a little worrisome because he only texted Zachary once, and the second one was more threatening than worried.”

“Aren’t you worried the police will trace his cell?”

“I’m on top of it.”
 

I wondered what exactly that meant. “Should I call him?” Of course, I didn’t want to. The less Henry in my life, the better.

“Absolutely not.”

I frowned. “You didn’t even think about it.”
 

Corbin stared neutrally at me for several long seconds. “I just thought about it. And it’s still no. Let him find out from Rob. I don’t want you talking to him. The best thing you can do is to keep away from him, not give him anything to interpret or obsess over.”

I stood, crossing my arms.
 

“No,” Corbin said before I could open my mouth.
 

I couldn’t say for sure that it was the first time Corbin had told me
no
outside of sex, but it was definitely the most vehement he’d ever been. I knew I wouldn’t be able to argue him over to my point of view.
 

He came over, took my hands and forced me to uncross my arms. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense to you.”

I raised an eyebrow, and he sighed. “It’s just a feeling,” he said. “Once is chance, twice is a coincidence, but three times? That’s a pattern. Henry’s been in the business for too long to wait for something to happen three times before acting on it. You were there during the Florida fiasco.”

“But you cleared things with him!”

“Audrey. Think! Didn’t Zachary say that he’d been telling Henry that you were leading him on? He has to be suspicious of you on some level.”

“But I can tell him—”

“Suppose you get caught in a lie? Or if someone looked out the window and saw me going into your apartment at five in the morning? Hell, Henry has access to the office now. He might get ambitious with a bottle of Luminol. I was in a hurry, and I wasn’t prepared to do that kind of cleanup.”

“But you’ve done this a million times,” I said.
 

“Yet I make mistakes. Like the night you first saw me. I decided, against my better judgement, to meet up with that woman. She was that crucial to my project. It was last minute, there was a blizzard blowing through the city, and I was meeting her in a greeting card gift shop in a second-rate strip mall. I put on a cowboy hat but no other disguise. Think about it: I was undisguised on official business for two minutes. Next thing I know, there’s a bounty hunter after me.”

“I get what you’re saying, but—”

“The best policy is to say nothing.” Frowning, he tilted his head. “To be honest, I don’t quite understand why you’re fighting me on this.”

“You don’t know Henry, but I do. He thinks I’ve got a temper, and he’ll think it’s weird that I’m avoiding him.
That
will make him suspicious. What he expects is for me to curse him out. Second, who knows what Rob didn’t tell me? It’s secondhand information from someone who thinks there’s no story to tell.”

Corbin’s frown deepened. “And third? I sense there’s more.”

“I want to help fix the mess I made.” It was one thing to have Corbin save me when I was helpless, but quite another when I was thinking clearly and perfectly capable of action.

He walked me backward until I was sitting on the bed. “Fine. How about if you text him? Play up that you’re pissed at him and your father.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Sure you don’t want to type the text yourself?”

Corbin didn’t react to that. Probably just as well. I wrote the message.

A moment after I sent it, Henry texted back:
Haven’t heard from Zak. He say anything to you about where he was going?

“Can I tell him that Zak didn’t say anything? I mean, why would he?” I bit my lip. “Should I ask why he’s asking?”