A Gentleman in the Street (29 page)

“Really.” She drew her leg up, sliding it over his muscular thigh. “Would you like to do it again?”

Small white lines formed around his mouth. “Yes.”

She craned up, touching her nose to his. “How many times have you jerked off, thinking of spanking my ass?”

A shudder ran through him. “Too many.”

“Was I a bad little slut in these fantasies?”

He closed his eyes and inhaled, deep and slow. “I don’t like that word.”

“What word?”

He licked his lips, his shoulders tensing. “Slut.”

“You seem to. In this context.”

He opened his eyes, confusion darkening them. “I do.”

She could tease him, but there wasn’t a single bone in her body eager to send him into a shame spiral. “Doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You like it because it makes me horny.” She rubbed her nose against his. “There’s no shame in being turned on by what turns your partner on.”

He didn’t respond for a long moment, during which she wondered if she’d made a critical misstep. Finally, his muscles relaxed, enough for her to feel safe about slipping back into the eroticism of the moment. “You didn’t answer me. Was I a bad little slut in those fantasies?”

His smile was tight, but genuine. “You’re always a bad little slut in my fantasies.”

A dark thrill shot through her. She wanted those lips to form every dirty word in every language.

Can he do that in a night?

She shook off the depressing reminder of their fleeting engagement. “And in reality?”

“In reality…” He ran his hand down her side, tucked it under her back, and easily flipped her over, onto her stomach. “You’re more than I could have ever imagined.”

She arched her bottom so it was high in the air and stretched her arms out like a lazy cat. His hands coasted down her spine and over the curve of her buttocks. He hesitated there, his palms weighing her flesh. She pressed back against him, eager. “You’ve already fucked my ass. Don’t be shy about spanking it.”

“Not shy,” he murmured, his full attention on her bottom. “Savoring.”

The first blow made her rock forward and cry out, her head swimming with the heat of his touch. She glanced over her shoulder and found him staring at his hand, as if he didn’t know whose it was.

“Again,” she said, low.

His gaze met hers, and it was filled with such fierce exultation, she wanted to cry. Yes. This. This was what had hummed below his quiet facade all those years. He landed another, harder blow, and her head jerked forward and dipped, her breath catching in her throat.

Again and again, he slapped her, until her bottom was surely cherry red, and then his hand smoothed over her ass, easing below to find her pussy wet and inviting. He growled at the feel of her, grasped her legs, and pushed her onto her back.

His cock drove inside her, and she gasped. He paused, droplets of sweat making their way down his tense face. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah.” He started to ease out, but stopped when she continued speaking. “I like it when it hurts a little.”

Dark excitement flared in his eyes as he slipped into their fluid give and take of power, his tone turning his next words into a tease instead of concern. “Is your ass sore?”

She arched her hips, eager for him to continue thrusting. He complied, albeit slowly. Far too slowly. “Inside and out. Thanks to you.”

His lips opened, a rush of air escaping. His cock grew harder, the muscles in his arms flexing as his hips picked up speed. She spread her legs wider so she could take him deeper. He angled his body so he could see more of her face and body, alternating between her eyes, her lips, the jiggle of her breasts as he fucked her, the place where they were joined.

“You love to observe everything, don’t you,” she purred.

“I want to make sure none of this ever leaves my memory.”

She ignored the shot of exultation those words brought and palmed his ass. He pulled back farther, made his thrusts slower, more explicit, allowing her to savor the sight of his thick cock, the condom wet from her juices, the tangle of his pubic hair scraping her shaved mound when he went balls
-
deep
.

His hand slipped between them, his fingers unerringly finding her clit. “That first time, in your office,” he spoke, his words almost soundless. “Do you remember when my mouth was between your legs?”

Like she could ever forget. But she couldn’t lose a prime opportunity for pushing him. “Where between my legs? Be specific.”

His cock hit a spot that made her whole body clench. Ridiculously attuned to her reactions, he dragged his hips back and forth in short strokes. “When I was eating this sweet pussy, licking every inch. Tongue fucking it. Sucking on your clit.”

Oh. Yes. He had the makings of an excellent dirty talker.

His strokes shortened even more, so he was barely moving, simply agitating that bundle of nerves deep inside her. “Do you remember?”

She bit her lip and whimpered. “Yeah.”

“I thought there couldn’t be anything better than tasting you right here.” He punctuated every word with a thrust.

“And now?”

He gave her a fierce, half-crazed smile. “There’s nothing better than fucking you.”

“Am I the best you’ve ever had?”

His thrusts grew faster, less coordinated. “You know you are.”

“Have I ruined you for all women?” Her greatest fear. Her greatest desire.

His eyes were unfocused as he slammed into her, his slippery fingers rubbing her clit so hard she couldn’t make sense of anything. She was concentrating so intensely on her rushing orgasm she barely made out his response, hissed through set teeth as he fucked her.

“Yes.”

When Jacob rolled off her body, Akira wanted to protest, but she bit her lip, keeping the weak words inside. Muscles too lax to move, she lay there, eyes closed, and listened to him stagger away to the bathroom. A jolt of satisfaction ran through her at his unsteady steps.

He was only gone for a few minutes before returning, his large, competent hands shifting her so he could pull the comforter over them both. She smiled sleepily when he cursed at the number of pillows on her bed, shoving most of them to the floor before wrapping himself around her. His heat seeped through her skin, and she gravitated toward it.

He pressed a chaste kiss against her temple and sighed, his chest moving up and down under her cheek. “Akira…”

Her toes curled at the deep tone, the way he dragged out the syllables, caressing every one with intimate knowledge.

His palm lifted her wet hair and fanned it out on his chest to dry. “Akira,” he repeated, this time with a wondering air.

Perhaps it was the curious bubble of privacy they were in, in a house with revelers barely a floor away, but when she opened her mouth, the unguarded admission spilled out. “I love the way you say my name.”

“I love your name.” He kissed her shoulder, tightening his hold on her. The wiry hairs on his legs scraped her skin as he tangled them together. “I always thought it was the prettiest thing I’d ever heard.”

“I hate it.” She stiffened, waiting for him to pounce with a demand for further clarification.

He nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “Why?”

She shut her eyes. His voice was curious but not badgering. That was his trick, wasn’t it? That patient stoicism. Never overtly demanding she reveal her secrets, but making it clear he would be there if she wanted to.

So damn seductive.

Her inner struggle didn’t last long. Sighing, she gave him the shortened version. “My father—or really, my father’s father—wanted two offspring, a boy and a girl. Allegedly, the story goes, after I was born my mother handed me to him and said, ‘You better be satisfied with this one, because you aren’t getting another one out of me.’ All she had to do was win her father-in-law over to naming me ‘Akira’, and she turned me into a tidy little inside joke.”

“I don’t get the joke.”

“Akira is traditionally a boy’s name. Considered fairly unisex now, luckily for me.” She smiled without mirth. “I think my mom knew when I was born I wouldn’t satisfy him as a daughter, let alone a daughter and a son. Like, oh, you made me have a kid? Here. Have a useless one.”

A fine thread of tension had invaded his limbs, but his voice was measured when he spoke. “Mei should never have told you that.”

As it always did, her soul soaked up his disapproval of her mother like grass soaking up rain after a drought. “It was the truth, I have no doubt.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Akira tugged the blanket higher. “Eh. It’s not like I had some crazy illusion about how much either of them wanted me for me.”

“How come you never changed it? If you hate it?”

Because I wanted to make it mine.
Aware this was a frighteningly serious post-coital conversation but unable to shut it down, Akira lifted a bare shoulder. “I should have. My father’s turned my last name into a joke too. But…I don’t know. I wanted it to mean something more than what they intended for me.”

She felt rather than saw him nod. His chest vibrated as he spoke. “I understand wanting to rise above your parents.” Low and soft, the respect and validation in his words twined around her.

People respected her, but she didn’t crave it from most. Not the way she craved it from Jacob. The way she had always secretly craved it from Jacob.

Never let people see what you want.
Fear made her pull away, her hair leaving a damp trail on his chest. “That’s right. Your parental baggage.”

“Yeah. My parental baggage.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, edging farther away so they were no longer touching. “Never would have pegged Harvey for being a little neglectful.”

He rolled to his side and propped his head on his hand, watching her far too closely. “More than a little. Why do you keep moving away from me, Akira?”

She froze. “I’m not.” Lies.

“You are.” Deliberately, he placed his hand on her belly. She flinched. “How many people know that story about your name?”

“My parents. Me.” She forced herself to meet his eyes, hating every second of this vulnerable experience. Stupid, but in relating that anecdote, she’d felt like she’d cut herself open and laid herself bare. “You.”

He stared at her, unblinking, for so long she was about to roll over and feign sleep. Then he opened his mouth, and she knew sleep wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. “Until she was nine years old, I thought Kati was my daughter.”

Akira stilled, her mouth half open. Jacob’s eyes had darkened until they were almost black.

Was he even aware he had spoken? His gaze was unfocused. “What?”

A muscle clenched in his granite-hard jaw. His words were pulled from him as if against his will. “When I was nineteen, I slept with my dad’s girlfriend.” He flicked a glance at her. “I didn’t use a condom.”

Akira drew in a deep breath. “How could your dad’s girlfriend…”

“Don’t blame her. She wasn’t much older than me. Twenty-two or twenty-three, maybe. And she hadn’t had the easiest of lives.” His smile was harsh. “I told you, my dad didn’t think much. Just acted. She came in for an appointment, and the next week he was introducing us to the love of his life and moving her in.”

Akira shook her head, flabbergasted. “How did you…how did it happen?” Because there were few things in life she was certain about, but Jacob’s belief in honor and decency was one of them. Sleeping with anyone’s girlfriend would be an anathema to him.

“I don’t really remember how. I was on break from college, we were home alone, we started drinking…” He was the one who cut physical contact with her now, sitting up and tucking the sheet around himself, as if to cover up his sins. “I fucked my father’s girlfriend.”

Her eyes widened. Dear Lord. Knowing how decent he was, she was certain the guilt from that single act of betrayal must have nearly destroyed him. She could still hear it, dripping from every disgusted word.

“To her credit, Jane broke it off with my dad that night, moved out of the house. But then a month later…” Jacob shook his head, a haunted look in his eyes. “She told my dad she was pregnant.

“I called her right away, as soon as I heard, and asked if it could be mine. She started crying. Said she didn’t know, she didn’t want a baby anyway. I told her she didn’t have to worry, I would take care of my kid.”

Akira’s fingers tightened around his, imagining the overwhelmed nineteen-year-old boy Jacob had been. Hurting for him.

“She said my father had given her the same speech. And then begged me not to tell the man anything.” Jacob’s chest rose and fell with his deep breath. “She said she was considering giving up her parental rights and letting my dad raise the baby. That we could have a paternity test, but she would rather have a respectable middle-aged doctor raising her child than a nineteen-year-old kid.”

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice hushed, matching his.

His eyes were filled with remembered pain when they met hers. “I went to him. I told him I had slept with his girlfriend and the kid might be mine.”

“He was angry,” she guessed.

“No.” Jacob’s laugh was short. “No. He chuckled. Said he would have done the same. Boys will be boys. How could I have been expected to resist a girl who looked like that?” He shook his head in disbelief. “How could anyone think that what I had done was right? I was wrong. We were wrong.”

Akira’s heart twisted. Fucking asshole. Jacob might have betrayed his father, but the man had betrayed him right back by showing his son that he was a shallow, pleasure-seeking jerk.

“My dad told me he didn’t care who the biological father was, he had always wanted more kids. He was better equipped to take care of a child than I was. I should forget about my little slip. I was dumb. Young. So I played along. Thought I really could forget.”

“But you couldn’t, could you?” Akira possessed a healthy amount of heartlessness, but even she would have had trouble cheerfully burying the knowledge of her child’s parentage when she saw the kid every day.

“How could I? Every time I looked at her, from the moment she was born…I made sure I lived close by, so I could be there for my brothers, yes, but mostly so I could be there for her.” He shook his head. “When my dad divorced Mei, I’d about had it. I was somewhat financially stable. I was going to demand a paternity test. Take him to court if I had to. Anything to bring some stability to her life.”