Chapter Twenty

It’s three a.m. and I’m wide-awake. Not by choice, I might add.

I woke up screaming about my father again, and now I can’t get back to sleep.

Kicking off the white bed sheet, I flip my pillow over in a fit of irritation. The humidity in the room is dense and overpowering, my face is prickly with sweat, and the air conditioning unit above the bathroom door is threatening to pack up any minute. There’s a telltale drip, drip, ping as the condensation leaks out of a crack in the gray plastic cover and torpedoes the terracotta tiles below.

Tick tock…ping

The droplets are getting bigger.

Symphony a la insomniac.

A car rumbles past outside, and I watch strips of headlight slither across the ceiling like angular orange snakes. This night is dragging on and on like some endless marathon.

Twenty-four hours have passed since we arrived back in Erizo. Twenty-four hours of craving Jake Dalton far more than I should, and tying myself in knots over the sheer improbability of us. I’m still waiting for him to screw his apology into me. There was some major PR catastrophe waiting for him on set, and as such I’ve barely seen him, let alone touched him.

If anything, it’s made me want him even more, and boy, do I want him tonight. The relentless heat and the thought of his smoking-hot body lying naked in the Presidential Suite just one floor above is doing crazy things to my lust levels. In his arms is the only place I want to be, the only place where my past can’t reach me.

By some telepathic witchcraft my cell phone on the nightstand starts chiming.

Jake: Is it just classic literature you read or have you a voracious appetite for everything?

Me: Define everything.

Jake: I don’t need to define anything with you. You’re one of the only women I know who doesn’t have to look up big words like voracious.

Me: Maybe you should concentrate on IQ size rather than bra size in future?

Jake: Maybe I should. What are you reading right now?

Me: Porn.

Jake: You can’t read porn. I hear it’s more a visual thing.

Me: Maybe Global should consider expanding into the adult entertainment business.

Jake: Maybe you should stop talking about sex unless you want me banging down your door.

Me: Is this heading toward a three-night thing now? If so, I might have to check my diary.

Jake: Fuck your diary. What are you wearing?

Me: Nothing

Jake: On my way.

Me: Wait!

Jake: Too late. Your megalomaniac boss’s boss needs some urgent…assistance.

Holy shit.

I sit up and hit the lights. Our sexting has just triggered a blast of warmth to my core.

Another text pings into my inbox.

Jake: Be ready. In no mood for foreplay.

His last words are like a trigger to a smoking gun. I’m already out of bed and brushing my teeth when I hear a knock at the door. The handle turns and Jake barges into my room wearing designer black jeans and a black shirt, and looking menacing as hell.

“Liar,” he says, glaring at my cream silk negligee. “Take it off.”

I pause, halfway between the bathroom and the sex machine in front of me. He’s asking me to relinquish control again. Yesterday it seemed easy, but I’ve swung back around into self-preservation mode since then.

“Please,” he adds, sensing my reluctance.

“Please?” My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word before.”

His lips twist in protest at a burgeoning smile. “Don’t make me beg for it, Books.”

“Oh, and what a pretty sight that would be.” I reach for the hem of my negligee but I can’t get my arms free, and then the spaghetti straps get stuck under my ears. Some stripper I’d make.

“Here, allow me.”

A moment later it’s being whipped over my head and his dark gaze is devouring my naked body. “That’s better,” he says, tossing it away. Desire has thickened his voice to that low drawl, the one that turns my resolve to mush. “There may be hope for you yet.”

Without warning he powers into me, taking my face between his hands and locking our mouths together with a groan. My lips part intuitively and his tongue delves into my mouth with all of that persuasive skill I love. We tumble backward onto my bed, bound together.

“You really do need assistance,” I say, gasping as a warm palm moves up and over my stomach, seeking out my breasts. I part my legs and he slides between them.

“You bet I do, Books,” he growls into my ear, “and I get the feeling it’s reciprocated.”

Suddenly his hands are everywhere. There’s a hunger to his touch, and I respond to it like I’m starving, too. A crazy beat, a relentless insistence, is hammering between my legs, and I grind my clit into his erection over and over to find some relief.

“Fuck, woman. I have the press ringing my phone off the hook, my movie’s two mil in the red, and all I can think of is being inside you.” He rears up, dragging me with him and wrenches his black T-shirt over his head. “You are very bad for business, young lady.”

He pushes me down again and imprisons my hands above my head. We’re both grinding frantically against each other. “I’m going to climb inside your fucking soul tonight,” he says, his voice as rough as hell. “I hope your pussy’s ready for this.”

I can’t answer him. I’ve temporarily lost the power of speech. Right now all his pent-up frustration about the shoot and whatever the hell is going on with Global Studios is being firmly directed at me.

His hand slides downward. Two fingers push inside me. “So wet. Were you dreaming about me?” He’s trailing kisses all the way from my eyebrow down to my jawline, keeping up that steady rhythm with his fingers.

“No, Max, actually,” I whisper, my customary flippancy asserting itself. Just. The truth is, this man is all I dream about these days. My nightmares belong solely to my father.

With an angry howl, he rears backward and flips me over onto my hands and knees.

“Wait. Jake—”

“Hush your mouth.” He’s unzipping his jeans now. His other hand is gripping my hip like a vise. “I’m going to enjoy punishing you for that.”

My stomach lurches. “Jake, no!” I buck against him with all my strength and he lets go straightaway.

“What the fuck?”

Rolling sideways, I clamber into bed in a flurry of white sheets and hug my knees to my chest, with my back turned away from him.

Silence fills the room, a void that is rich in confusion.

“What’s going on, Charlie?”

I don’t answer, so he yanks the sheet away and lies down next to me. He’s still shirtless, his bare skin searing into mine. The top button of his jeans is pressing into the small of my back.

“Talk to me, Books.”

“It’s nothing,” I mutter into the pillow. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I pushed you too far.”

“I’m not some naive little virgin!” I whip back around, bristling with indignation. “Don’t go thinking you’ve found a chink in my armor, Jake Dalton.”

“Then quit shutting me out. It’s starting to piss me off.” His eyes flicker over my face, seeking out my truth again. My ever-changing moods are putting him on edge. Join the club. I’m not one-dimensional, not like the women he’s used to having in his bed. Oh no, I’m way more interesting than that.

I watch his gaze dip to my naked breasts. I know he’s still hard for me. I can feel his erection pushing against my thigh.

“Should I go?” He inclines his head toward the door.

There’s a pause. “I’d rather you made good on your message.”

“Would you, now?” That gleam re-emerges like a ray of light. “You don’t get to boss me around, Books. That’s my job.”

“Yes or no?” I prop myself up on my elbow. “It’s a simple enough question.”

He curses and sprawls out on his back, his large frame taking up most of the mattress. “How many times, Charlie? You plus me doesn’t equal simple. You’re some dark-haired, blue-eyed enigma that my HR department has sent to totally fuck me up.”

“You talk too much.” Leaning over, I press my lips to his jawbone, breathing in his vitality and relishing the contrast between soft skin and coarse stubble.

His mouth curves beneath my lips. And just like that, I’m being pinned to the bed by his body. But there’s temperance to his touch now. He’s holding himself back.

“Don’t,” I whisper. I want him to lose his cool. I want my body to push him over the edge as his does mine. “Just leave out the threats about punishment, okay?”

He nods, and I watch his expression heating up all over again. He lets go of me and rocks back on his heels. “Turn over.”

I scramble to do as he says, knees and palms to the mattress, ass bared to him, inhibitions left on the floor by my negligee. I hear the sound of his zipper once more as he releases himself from his jeans. A delicious shiver hits my spine, and I brace myself for what’s coming.

“Is this what you want?” he says harshly, positioning the head of his cock at my entrance.

“Yes!” I need to feel him inside me. I need to have that release.

Instead of complying, he leans over me, bringing his face level with mine, a dark-eyed devil so gleeful in his triumph. “Looks like I brought you to your knees first, Charlie,” he whispers. A split second later, he’s driving all the way into me.

“Shit!”

There’s a delicious bite to my core. Still, I need to feel more of him, so I drop my hips and he slides in even deeper.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he says with a groan. “Exactly how I remembered.”

He starts to thrust and I’m jolted forward, over and over. At the same time, his fingers move between my legs to massage my clit, and shocks of electricity follow. My palms slide across the sheet as my orgasm comes out of nowhere, ripping through my body like a destructive twister, making me scream out from the sheer relief of it. A few moments later, I can feel him coming just as violently.

Afterward, he folds his body over mine, resting the warmth of his forehead against the nape of my neck. Our labored breathing slows in unison. He’s still hard inside me. Completing me.

I never want to let him go.

“You made me lose control.” His mild reproach laces the skin between my shoulder blades. He pulls out and I flop down on my front, exhausted. He follows me down and tucks his right leg over mine. “I wish we were back in Ourika. Nothing seemed to touch us there.”

He’s alluding to something, I can tell, but I’m too shattered to figure it out.

“Me, too.” I sigh, drifting in and out of consciousness.

“I’ve never told anyone my reasons for taking on Global before.”

My eyes spring open at this. “Not even Cassie?”

There’s a beat. “Why the hell would I tell her anything?” Green claws start slashing at my insides as he sits up and hunts around for his T-shirt. “Pillow talk was never Cassie’s strongpoint. She was sex, nothing more.”

Like all the others?

Like me?

“Did you promise her three movie contracts for the privilege?” I say drily

Why am I acting like such a bitch again?

“My business and my movies are not dictated to me by who’s between my sheets.” He rises from the bed as if to prove the point, and refastens his jeans with a savage jerk of his belt. “Anyway, let’s talk about you for a change. How many lovers have you had? And book boyfriends don’t count.”

“Why? Are you jealous?”

“Damn right, I’m jealous,” he snarls. “I don’t like it. It’s not an emotion I’m familiar with.”

“Two,” I whisper, shocked by his admission.

His expression changes. “Two?”

I turn my head away, embarrassed. I’m practically a virgin in his eyes. “I need to brush my teeth,” I tell him, vaulting out of bed.

“But you just brushed them.” He tries and fails to grab my arm again as I shoot past. “I can still taste the mint.”

“I don’t care, I’m brushing them again.” I slam the bathroom door and stand there scowling at the white porcelain sink. Damn that man. He’s too good at eliciting secrets from me, while all I get in return is the fine art of deflection.