Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume III Page 16

  He reached a familiar round, waist-high boulder. His perch last night. After going crazy with Jordan, he’d run. Like a total sissy. The first time in his life he’d had something he wanted, so much he’d almost gone mad wanting, and he’d had to walk away.

  As he had the night before, Sebastian vaulted himself to the rock and sat, staring out over the lake and wondering. Did walking away make him a loser? Or the strongest man on earth? A guy who obsessively guarded his secrets to success, he’d just handed over a half dozen prime ideas to the woman who readily declared herself his competition.

  He briefly considered contacting some editors at a few other magazines he knew. Olliver’s influence was strong, but so was Sebastian’s. He could call in a few favors, maybe find one or two publications that’d be willing to risk the old man’s ire and give Jordan the shot she rightfully deserved.

  Not quite the same as giving her the incredible sexual adventure he’d dreamed of for so long, but it was apparently all he had to offer.

  Sebastian sat, a feeling of righteous nobility wrapping around him like a cloak. Hey, even if he wasn’t getting what he wanted, at least he was doing the right thing.

  Then he reached down and picked up a fat rock. And with an animal growl of fury, he heaved the rock into the lake with all the pent-up frustration and hurt ripping through his gut.

  JORDAN PACED THE LENGTH of the deck. Back, forth and back again. The French doors stood open, a four-foot frame set up on the worktable and a couple dozen tins of broken china on the counter.

  But she couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t create. Hell, she couldn’t even stay still.All she could do was replay Sebastian’s words. Over and over and over. He was right. She never pushed for what she wanted. Sure, she set goals and worked toward them. But the first hard wall? She gave up and settled right there, at the base of the wall, like it was her new home.

  Hell, even while Sebastian gave her that peek into his past, into his heart, she’d wanted to push. To empathize and tell him what an amazing man he’d made of himself. But he’d slammed up a boundary and she’d clamped her mouth shut, then took the easy route by changing the subject to his damned freckles. Freckles, for crying out loud!

  All these years, she’d accepted the very simple principle that she couldn’t have everything she wanted. She’d never be tall, she couldn’t pull off blond and her father’s respect came with a price tag.

  And while she’d gotten used to wearing heels, and come to appreciate her own natural auburn hue, she’d never been able to wrap her mind around the concept of giving up the fight for Daddy’s respect.

  But what if Sebastian was right? What if she could have a little piece of her own dream and prove herself to her father?

  Wasn’t it worth a shot?

  Before she could stop herself, Jordan strode into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. She punched zero and waited.

  “Daddy? I need a minute.”

  “A minute is all I can spare.”

  She didn’t waste a second wishing for anything more. Instead, she dove into her pitch. Her words, fast and excited, tumbled out. “I want the column. I want you to back me on it, too. I’ve got a great idea to not only make it sing, but to bring in a whole new advertising sector.”

  “Oh, please, Jordan Marie. Do we have to waste time with this?”

  “It’s not a waste.” She took a deep breath, then risked it all. “You saw my column suggestion. It’s good. It shows a solid feel for the readership, the advertisers. But it still has an edge. It doesn’t cater, it engages. Give me a chance.”

  She hadn’t finished uttering the last syllable when he snorted. Deflated before he even started talking, Jordan sank to the stool and tried to keep the tears at bay.

  “Ridiculous,” he dismissed. “This has gone on long enough, young lady. Quit playing at the magazine. Get a suitable job. It was bad enough you wasted your years at college getting a degree in journalism. You’re a girl, Jordan. Start acting like one.”

  “My being female has nothing to do with my job qualifications,” she insisted as her stomach churned. “I’m a damned good reporter. Or I would be if you’d stop stonewalling me.”

  “Quit making as if you’re one of the big boys. You’re way out of your league.”

  Unable to even find the words through the anger pounding in her head, Jordan gave a low, strangled scream.

  Too furious to even hang it up, she threw the phone across the room. The loud clatter as it and its battery separated gave her no satisfaction.

  Frantic, clueless what to do next, her gaze landed on her computer bag there on the breakfast bar. Tears blurred her vision as she stared at her laptop, the urge to e-mail her resignation overwhelming.

  Knowing she had to do it, Jordan flipped the laptop open, booted up a blank document and started typing.

  As if the discussion with Sebastian had opened a painfully guarded floodgate, she couldn’t stop the words from flying over the screen. Everything she was, everything she’d been so long denied, came pouring out.

  Thirty minutes later, she hit send.

  And stared, empty of all emotion, as the confirmation flashed across the screen.

  Her mind blank, she pushed away from the counter and went into the workroom. She looked at the colors she’d chosen, all bright and pretty. Then she turned around and headed for the china cabinet in the formal dining room.

  With an evil grin, she pulled out the padded china cases holding the black porcelain plates her father loved so much and lugged them to the workroom and waiting hammer.

  She’d just started on the gravy boat—who the hell wanted gravy out of a tacky black vessel with gold swirls anyway—when she heard the door close.

  Hammer resting on her shoulder, she stormed into the kitchen to lay into Sebastian for his idiotic idea.

  And damn near dropped the hammer on her foot.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, staring.

  He looked as if someone had tried to drown him. Other than his bare feet, he was still fully clothed in the same T-shirt and jeans he’d worn at breakfast.

  Except now his clothes were dripping dank lake water all over the tile floor. His hair, usually so sexily tousled, hung in streaming strings down his neck and across one eye. And even from ten feet away, she could see the goose bumps coating his arms.

  “Did you fall in?” she asked, rushing over to the laundry room to grab a stack of clean towels.

  Hurrying back to him, she grabbed one and dropped the rest on the chair. With a flick of her wrists, she had it unfolded and wrapped around his shoulders. Then, standing on tiptoe, she started rubbing it over his sopping hair.

  “I went for a swim,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

  “Swim?” She dropped the ends of the towel and stepped back. “It’s January. The lake is like ice.”

  “No shit.”

  “So you just, what? Jumped in? Are you crazy?”

  Now his eyes were on hers, hot anger flaming in the golden depths. “I wanted to swim,” he bit off.

  “I guess this is what you mean about not letting anything, even intelligence, get in the way of doing what you want,” she snapped, furious that he’d take such a risk with his health. At least, that was part of her fury. The rest, she hated to admit, was because of his stupid damned advice. He’d pushed her. Encouraged her. Nagged her into confronting her father.

  Now everything had changed. And there was no way it’d ever go back to what it’d been. Even if what it’d been had totally sucked.

  Terror clutching her belly at the prospect propelled her two steps forward. She stood so close he dripped water on her floral blouse. She glared up into his face and demanded, “You’re so good at pleasing yourself, aren’t you, Sebastian? Because you’re the only person you care about. All by yourself there, you don’t have to give two good damns about anyone else in your world, do you?”

  His face was a study in frustration. Anger, helplessness and mourning flashed through his
eyes, then his expression settled into those superior lines of disdain she hated so much.

  Jordan would give anything to be able to pull off such a supremely arrogant look.

  “If you want to succeed, you don’t wait for things to fall into your lap. You go out and grab them.”

  Obviously arrogance was overrated.

  But the attitude behind his words did do one thing. It blew to pieces any hesitation or timidity she had left.

  “You think you’re so smart? You think I should just grab what I want and by grabbing, I’ll get it? Get to have it? To use it? To, what? Even keep it?”

  His just stared.

  “You’re wrong.”

  And to prove it, Jordan did the one thing she’d been wanting to do since last night. For the past two years, even. She stepped away from him, just a few inches so she had room to maneuver. She unsnapped her low-cut jeans and with a quick shove, she dropped them to the floor. He backed away, shaking his head in denial.

  But the look in his eyes didn’t say no. That look said “Oh, yeah, baby. Please and fast.”

  It was for that look that she stripped off her frothy top and stood there, clad in only her purple lace bra and panties and slapped her hands on her hips.

  “Go for what I want? Not give up?” she mocked. “Fine, then. What I want right now is for you to quit dripping all over my floor. Strip.”

  “Look, Jordan,” he protested, a layer of panic coating his words. “I can’t make love with you.”

  Her heart spasmed, the pain sharp and intense. God, what was it with the men in her life?

  “Just ask, hmm,” she said, her sarcasm bouncing off his chest. “Sure, that works just fine. If people already want you. But when you’re always rebuffed? The one who isn’t good enough? The one who isn’t wanted enough? Asking just adds that fun layer of humiliation to the rejection. Yep, that’s great advice.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  She threw up her arms and growled at him. “Understand? What’s to understand? You’re great at the pithy advice, but you don’t want me. Simple enough.”

  Her words were clipped, dismissive. She knew they didn’t show the pain and humiliation churning in her gut. That she could glare at him made her proud, since all she felt like doing was curling up in the corner and bawling.

  But she was already naked enough.

  “Jordan…”

  “Isn’t that princess?”

  “Jordan, listen…”

  For five long, breathless seconds, she waited. She didn’t want to. She wanted to storm from the room in a fit of righteous indignation. But she couldn’t. Dammit, she was so idiotically in love with the guy, all she could do was stand there and wait.

  And stew in the terror that sudden realization evoked. It was all Jordan could do to keep breathing. In love. Oh, God, she was insane.

  Then, slowly, reluctantly, like he was being forced at gunpoint, he reached down and tugged the hem of his shirt, lifting the sodden fabric over his head.

  “What—”

  “Look,” he interrupted, his words slow and forced, as if he was about to confess that he’d gotten soaked burying his last lover at the bottom of the lake. “You need to know something. You deserve the truth.”

  His hands went to the snap of his jeans, tugging hard on the wet, uncooperative fabric. Her eyes huge, she tried to hide her lusty reaction. But, man oh man, he was just one delicious specimen of male perfection.

  “What truth?” she asked, pretending she cared what he said. But given the choice between words and action, all her body wanted was to see his, naked.

  “I…can’t.”

  His jeans hit the floor with a loud, wet thud. His dick strained impressively against his blue pinstriped boxers. Jordan licked her lips, her heart beating fast enough to drown out half his words.

  “Can’t, what?”

  He hesitated, pain etched on his face. He closed his eyes, as if gathering strength, then confessed.

  “Can’t make love to you.”

  8

  TORN BETWEEN HIS WORDS and the sight of his now naked and very turned on body, Jordan didn’t know whether to throw something at him or jump him.

  “Right, because that—” she gestured to his very hard, impressively large dick, standing at attention against the light dusting of fur on his belly “—is what? Off limits?”“It won’t work,” he said, moving toward her slowly, surely. For a guy who claimed he couldn’t use his rock-hard tool, he was sure stalking her as if he could. The look of intent passion on his face made Jordan swallow to wet her suddenly dry throat. Maybe she really was out of her league.

  “It worked fine last night,” she argued, forcing herself not to back away as he loomed over her.

  “Did it?” he asked, reaching out and sliding his fingers through her hair. He cupped the back of her head, pulling her inexorably closer. Then he moved, his icy-cold body pressing against hers. Jordan wanted to protest. To tell him to wait until she’d figured out what he was talking about. Or to at least come upstairs with her.

  But the look on his face. Passion mingled with intense anger, held her mute. She stared up into his golden green eyes and, even though she felt completely safe, admitted to herself that he scared the hell out of her.

  “You felt good last night?” he asked, bending down to brush his lips, so soft and tempting, over hers.

  “I did,” she whispered, risking her third rejection of the day by slipping her tongue along the soft cushion of his lower lip.

  No rejection here, though. Instead, Sebastian groaned and took her hand, placing it on the velvety-hard length of his shaft.

  Mmm. Jordan stroked her hand up, down, letting the rhythm build in layers. Like the ones inside her, flaming, heating, intensifying. Apparently unable to help himself, Sebastian pulled her mouth to his with a sexy little growl and kissed her as if he was a desperate man and she his only salvation.

  The kiss, like the slide of her hand, built in layers. Sweet at first, with just a hint of sexual intention. Then it got hotter. His tongue moved over hers faster. Swirls became thrusts. Movements sped up, wilder, harder.

  Jordan’s breath came in pants now, her body tingling with awareness and need. A warm, aching dampness throbbed between her thighs. Whether he sensed it or whether it was the almost-begging movements of her hips against his thigh that got his attention, Sebastian reached down and cupped his hand over her damp panties.

  Jordan’s heart shuddered at his touch. His fingers pressed through the cloth, working her swollen nub into a state of high-pressured delight.

  “You felt good last night,” he repeated when she’d started climbing that delicious ladder of delight, making it a statement this time. “But me?”

  Jordan didn’t have to shake the sexual fog off her brain, it dropped away by itself at his question.

  But him. She’d known it. Damn, he hadn’t been Sir Gallant out of some unselfish gentlemanly focus on her pleasure. Jordan’s body, so hot just seconds ago, went ice cold.

  “You don’t want me,” she stated. Pain slashed through her. Even though she’d expected it, the rejection still ripped at her heart. She tried to step back, but he wouldn’t release her. Before she could pull her hand away, he covered it, pressing her fingers tighter to the broad hardness of his quite impressive cock.

  “Want is such an easy thing,” Sebastian mused softly as his fingers slid under the elastic of her panties to slide over damp flesh, whisper soft and wildly enticing.

  “Wants can be ignored,” he continued, his other hand sliding up her side, tracing a heated path over her waist to the swell of her breast encased in purple lace. “Set aside.”

  His finger traced her aching nipple through the fabric, then flicked it once. Twice. Jordan barely stopped herself from mewling out a begging entreaty that he quit teasing and take her.

  “You’re right,” he said as his mouth skimmed over her jaw, then down her throat, making her melt. “I don’t want you.”

 
As the words echoed in her head, he scraped his teeth over the rigid tip of her breast through the lace. Her hand still wrapped around the rigid steel of his erection, Jordan felt the passion radiating off his flesh. Like a screaming alarm, his body cried out unquestionably just how much he wanted her.

  “Liar,” she said as she gasped for air, barely able to hold on to the thread of conversation. Her mind spun, her heart raced.

  “No,” he insisted, lifting his head from her breast to look into her eyes. His gaze was like a laser, intense, fixed and deadly. “I don’t want you, Jordan.”

  Even as he said the words, his fingers slid into her, one, then two. Gliding in, then out. Twisting to tease, to torment, to take her higher.

  Before she could cuss at him for driving her crazy while he spewed lying words of rejection, he lowered his mouth to hers. Tongues tangled and danced, each of them vying for control. Lips meshed, a perfect fit. Her heart sped, her pulse pounded as she tilted there, just on the edge of an orgasm.

  He slipped away, just his mouth and just a hairsbreadth back. Enough so he could look into her eyes as his fingers wove their magic.

  “I don’t just want you, Jordan. I need you. Need you like I’ve never needed anyone, anything in my life.”

  Jordan fell over orgasm’s edge into wicked, mind-bending delight. Her body arched, her breath shuddered as she gave a keening cry of satisfaction. Her heart pounded in her ears, but she still heard, maybe felt, Sebastian’s groan of delighted male ego. The sound sent an after-tremor through her, as if knowing he was glad he’d made her come made her want to do it all over again.

  Jordan took her time, letting her breath steady, her heart settle. Sebastian needed her. Her. A grin, part satisfaction, part confidence, spread across her face.

  “Sweetheart, does that feel like I don’t want you?” he asked as he buried his face in the damp curve of her neck.