Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) (13 page)

When I’d emerged from the locker room with Karen that afternoon and had slid into the pool next to him, I’d wanted to stare. It was easy to forget, after a couple weeks, exactly how spectacular that body was. The slabs of pectorals, the bulk of shoulders and arms, and, best of all, that wonderful V-shape as shoulders tapered into broad chest and then on down to his trim waist.

It wasn’t all visible right then, of course. You couldn’t, for example, see the thin, dark line of hair running from his navel into the top of his swim trunks or the strength of his thighs. But you could imagine them. And the sight of those muscles, that skin, that blue-black tattoo, and the close-cropped dark head, all of it glistening with water? It was pretty special. In fact, there was a group of older ladies doing some kind of water aerobics in the next lane who I could swear weren’t exercising nearly as much as they ought to have been.

I’d ignored him then, too. I’d been sassy, and he’d loved it. I’d left him wanting more. He might act like he had all the power, but we both knew it wasn’t true.

Now, with Karen gone, I sat back down in front of my computer, but he slid it out from under my hands, closed it, and said, “Oh, no.”

“Excuse me?” I tossed my head and frowned at him. “Do you get to say that?’

“Yeh. I do.” He closed his own, then, and set them both on a low table near the front door. “How hungry are you? Need me to fix you a snack?”

“Um . . .” I did a little more nibbling on my bottom lip, because he liked to watch it. “Not too bad. I’m good for another hour. Are we going out?”

“Now, Hope,” he said, coming toward me, picking me bodily up out of my chair and setting me on my feet. “You know I’m making you snapper tonight. But not yet. Seems I’ve got some feet to hold to the fire first.”

I expected him to take me into the bedroom, but he didn’t. He flipped a switch at the wall so the only illumination came from a table lamp, pulled blinds closed all around the room, then picked up his phone and pushed buttons until the room was filled with music. Low and dark, soft and sweet, but with an urgent, sensual edge. A male voice, singing about desire and longing and getting what you needed most from a woman.

“That’s better,” Hemi said. “You’ve been teasing me all afternoon. Time for me to tease you.”

Hemi

When Hope had disappeared into the bedroom after our outing with a saucy glance back at me, I’d had all I could do not to follow her in there.

Karen had still been with us, though, so I couldn’t. The two hours that passed until she left were some of the longest I’d ever spent. Especially with all Hope’s little sighs, the wriggles and readjustments, her index finger tracing her lower lip as she stared at her screen in a fascination I’d known she was pretending.

Now, Karen was gone, the music and the lights were both low, and Hope was on the couch, her hair tumbled around her shoulders, one edge of that stretchy shirt slipping over to one side, showing a thin pink ribbon of bra strap. All she had to do was lie back and look at me with those eyes, her pretty mouth a little parted, and I was halfway gone.

“Hope,” I said, and this time, it was
my
finger tracing her lips, forcing her mouth to open more for me, “do you want me to take off your clothes?”

Her eyes widened even more, and I could swear she was breathing harder already. “Yes.”

I smiled and felt the dark satisfaction of it all the way down my body. “But they’re so pretty, and you wore them just for me. So I think I’m going to have to explore a little first. Besides—I need to kiss you, and you need to be kissed.”

I had weeks to make up for, so I took my time. I started out by sucking that passionate, plump lower lip into my mouth as I stroked my thumb down the side of her neck, trailed the backs of my fingers over her bare shoulder, and shoved her shirt a little farther to one side. I traced the pretty pink strap of her bra down, then followed the low V-neck around and down, touching the delicate skin between her breasts with a thumbnail, letting it rasp down into my favorite valley as I took her gasp into my mouth. I did all of that, until I needed more, until I was laying her back against the cushions and getting my arm around her, my hand holding the back of her neck firmly enough that she’d know she was mine.

I was going to be careful, but I was going to be possessive. She might not like that in all aspects of our life together, but she liked it here, and she needed it. And so did I.

I was right, because just like that, she was shuddering and saying, “Hemi.”

I smiled inside, but I didn’t answer her. Instead, I held the back of her neck a little harder, then trailed my lips across her cheek to her ear and felt her start to tremble. I took my time nibbling on the lobe, then moved to her throat. When I began to kiss her there, she was already moaning, and we’d barely started. And when I did it better, when I took a gentle bite at the spot where her neck met her shoulder and then kissed and bit my slow way back up, she started to squirm.

I couldn’t feel the silky skin of her legs under my hands, though, and I needed to. I needed to wind her up, to make it good for her, to make it last, and to do that? I needed her legs. I sat up, got both hands under her stretchy white top, and pulled the leggings down, taking her socks with them.

“Oh, yeh,” I said when my hands were running up her calves, pushing her knees gently apart. “That’s better.” My hands drifted over her thighs, and she sucked in a breath and held it.

“How badly do you need an orgasm, sweetheart?” I asked her. My thumbs were moving higher, then higher still. They were nearly there, and she was whimpering.

“So . . .” she managed to say. “So badly. Hemi. Please.”

“Open your eyes,” I told her. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her mouth open. I watched her lids fluttering open, and I smiled.

“Normally,” I said, “I’d tease you more first. Normally, I’d make you wait. I’d make you beg. But I think, tonight . . . you’ve missed me too much.”

When I shoved her top up to her waist and exposed the pink thong with the black lace overlay, the one I’d bought her in Paris, I thought I was the one who’d missed her too much. I got my hands under the straps and pulled the tiny scrap of material down her legs, and she said, “Ah . . .” and started to close her eyes again.

“No,” I said. “Watch me.” And she did. She watched while I pulled her hips to the edge of the couch, and while I sank to my knees in front of her. And she watched while I did what I’d promised. I had a hand on each knee, and I was positioning her for me, and then I was opening her with one hand while I explored her with the other. Not one bit quickly. She might be embarrassed, but I didn’t care. She was mine, and I needed to see her, and touch her, and taste her, and feel her. Absolutely everywhere.

She’d changed here, too. She was pinker, softer, fuller. More delicious, more swollen, and if I’d thought Hope was responsive before? Now, I could hardly hold her down. I’d barely begun to kiss her, to suck her into my mouth, and she was already writhing, calling out. I could feel her back arching, and her hands were in my hair, hanging on desperately. And when I slipped a careful finger inside her, then another one, and found the spot? I thought she was going to explode.

It felt like seconds. I knew it wasn’t nearly long enough before she was bucking, moaning, and calling my name. She was coming into my mouth, then climbing again, over and over. And all I could do was keep going. All I could give her was more.

Hope

He’d promised me he wouldn’t be rough, and he wasn’t. He wasn’t one bit rough, and he didn’t make me work for it. He just gave it to me again and again like he didn’t know what “done” was, like all he wanted was to take my pleasure into his mouth, and then to give me more. He showed me exactly why he was the only man who could ever satisfy me. And when I was limp and shaking, wrung out and used up, he stood, picked me up, carried me into the bedroom, laid me down on the bed, turned on the light beside it, and stood over me like the conquering warrior he was.

“I’m going to fuck you so carefully tonight,” he told me, and I shuddered again. I was so satisfied, but I wasn’t one bit done. I was still so aroused, in fact, that my entire body felt like one aching need. “I’m going to get you where I want you, and then I’m going to make you come over and over for me. You need it, and I need to do it to you.”

He was drawing my shirt over my head, unfastening the clasp of my bra. I was sprawled across his bed, my legs parted, all of me exposed for him, wearing only that tiny golden heart and his ring. And he still had all his clothes on.

“I should . . .” I said. I rose on my elbows, and he pushed me back down with a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“No,” he said. “There’s no ‘should’ tonight. You don’t have to do anything. I’m going to do it all.”

His hand was on my lower belly, tracing gently over the little bit of swelling there, and he said, “This is nice. This is so pretty.”

“That’s your baby,” I said, and smiled at him.

He kissed me there, and the tenderness in it tried to bring tears to my eyes even through my excitement. Then he stroked over my belly, up my side, until he finally reached my breast. I jumped, and he asked, “Are they sore?”

“Yes. Tender. Feels good,” I managed as his hand traced carefully over the swell of my breast and grazed a peak that had been hard for what felt like hours. “Just . . . tender.”

“Mm.” He got onto a knee on the bed, and then he was over me, kissing his way from my neck to my breast, exploring me with so much gentleness, reading my sighs, taking it slow, taking it easy.

I said, “I need to feel you. I need to see you.” My hands went to the buttons of his shirt, and I began to unfasten them, to stroke my way over his broad chest, and felt his instant reaction.

How could a man have as much self-control as Hemi? How could he do all this without needing anything for himself? So I told him so. “You’re the most amazing lover,” I said. “You make me feel so good. But right now, I need to feel you inside me. I need to feel you taking your own pleasure. I want you to do everything that feels good to you. Everything you want. I want you to tell me what that is, and to show me what you need. I’ll do whatever you say, because obeying you excites me. Please, Hemi—let me please you now.”

I shoved his shirt off his shoulders, and he finished taking it off, then stood and got rid of the rest of his clothes. After that, he stood there, and I drank him in. My Maori god, all muscle and sinew, controlled strength and powerful intent. And all of it was for me.

After that, he did just what he’d said he would, and he did what I’d asked. He took his pleasure, and he did everything he wanted. He told me what to do, and I did it. And whether I was on my knees, taking him deep in my mouth, obeying every gasped command, or lying on my back with his hands on the backs of my thighs, feeling him stroking deep, or on my elbows and knees, his hand at the back of my neck holding me down, my forehead on my hands, my entire body jerking hard at every thrust . . . wherever I was, and through everything he did to me—he was heartbreaking careful, he was breathtakingly thorough, and he let me know that I was absolutely and completely his.

And just for now, just for tonight . . . I let myself be that and nothing more. Sometimes, your will truly isn’t your own, because giving it up is such exquisite pleasure.

Independence matters, and autonomy is a wonderful thing. But sometimes . . . sometimes, surrender feels so good.