A Gentleman in the Street (34 page)

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Yes, what?” Another tight circle, his cock bumping high inside her.

She struggled to marshal whatever brain cells she had left so she could drive him as crazy as he made her.
Share the power.
“Yes, you can be my first.”

He stilled.

“You can fill me up with your come,” she breathed. “Until it’s dripping out of me. Until you’ve marked every inch of me. You can spend days coming on me. In me.”

His moan was helpless in her ear. He pulled out almost all the way before slamming back in. His fingers interlocked with hers, and he finally, finally gave her exactly what she wanted, until they were both groaning, their bodies straining together in the forest, the filthiest of animals.

He yanked her blouse aside, the bristle of his light beard scratching her skin a second before his teeth sank into her shoulder. Her body bucked, and her climax roared through her, the sharp bite of pain mixing with the unbearable pleasure of his cock.

His shout was unrestrained and wild as he strained against her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hipbone, his cock jerking. The condom muted the heat of his semen, and she was annoyed he wasn’t naked inside her, filling her up the way she had described.

Soon. They would be smart, and careful, of course, because she couldn’t be anything less. Yet…soon. There was no one else she trusted to pluck that particular cherry of hers.

The truth rushed over her, making her dizzier than her orgasm could have. There was no one else she trusted like Jacob.

When he withdrew from her, she gave a cry in protest. His fingers skimmed over her back in a soothing gesture. “I’ll be back inside you soon.” The words were a threat and a promise all rolled into one.

She heard a rustle and a zipper before his arms came around her and he sank to the ground, arranging her on his lap so they could catch their breaths—a good thing, since her legs wouldn’t hold her. She buried her head against him, inhaling the scent of sex and Jacob, combined with the rich loaminess of the soil and the fresh scent of the grass.

Suddenly, being one with nature wasn’t quite so terrible. She would trade glamping for camping if it meant she got fucked like this. By this man.

She closed her eyes, attempting to regain some semblance of rational thought.

His chest rumbled. “Are you okay?”

Okay? What a tepid word. She might never be okay, thanks to him.

At her silence, his fingers trailed over her shoulder, over the tender spot where he’d nipped her. “I bit you.”

“It’s fine.” It was perfect.

“You’re scraped up. I’ve been shaving every day, in the hopes you might show up. Of course you pick the day I don’t.”

“I like your beard,” she said, too bemused to utter anything else.

His rough palm slid lower over her arm, moving her ruined shirt. In a flash, he stiffened against her. “Akira.”

She sighed, resigned to not having the opportunity to quietly contemplate the momentous fact her entire world had shifted. “What?”

“Did I do this to you?”

She leaned into his touch, somewhat hating her instinctive need to absorb his warmth but loving the fact he was there for her to leach it off. He’d always been a part of her life, but now he had twined himself through her soul.

“Akira. Answer me.”

Already conditioned to respond to the stern demand in that sexy voice, she blinked at him, some of her orgasm-induced dreaminess fading. Too sated to move, Akira barely managed to glance at her upper arm, where Jacob’s fingers were delicately tracing the skin. A dark bruise had formed there, in the shape of a man’s hand.

Her father, when he had grabbed her. It didn’t hurt much. She always had been prone to bruising easily. “Not a big deal.”

But he wasn’t listening, having discovered her hands, which were scraped from the bark of the tree, some of her nails broken and ragged. His lips pinched together, and he launched to his feet, gathering her up in his arms.

Startled, she stiffened. “What are you doing? Put me down,” she demanded.

That only garnered her a severe frown.

“My hands are scraped, not my legs,” Akira said dryly.

“Shut. Up.”

She was about to argue further when she realized she was cradled against a more than fine, naked, muscular chest, and why the fuck was she protesting that?

She’d never been carried like this. She was too tall, too sharp, too intimidating for any man to ever attempt it. She supposed she could have ordered one to do it, but that wouldn’t be the same.

So she shut up. She laid her head against his shoulder, pressing her cheek to his skin. She twined her arms around his neck and scratched her fingernail through the fine hairs there, appreciating the slight shudder he gave.

He glanced at her, eyes narrowed, as he shouldered through the front door of his cabin. “Quit that. You’ll hurt your hands more.”

Always eager to misbehave, Akira traced a lazy pattern over his neck.

Jacob didn’t bother to close the door behind them. He placed her gently in one of the mismatched chairs in the kitchen and leaned over her, bracing one hand on the table. Her shirt was in pieces, her breasts still exposed, but he was far more concerned with the hands he held in his, with frequent worried glances at her upper arm and shoulder.

She would be insulted on behalf of her breasts, but she was too busy melting into a puddle of tenderness over the fierce, protective frown he was bestowing upon her.

“Stay here.” He paced to the sink and removed an old first-aid kit, coming back to crouch in front of her a second later. As abrupt as his manner was, his touch was infinitely gentle as he cleaned her palms with antiseptic. She winced from the sting, and his lips turned white at the corners. “There are a couple of splinters. Hang on.”

His dark head bent over her as he worked patiently with a pair of tiny tweezers which should have been too small for his hands.

When he was finished, he brushed his thumb lightly over the mark his teeth had left. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been so rough.”

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “It doesn’t even hurt. Neither do my hands, actually. I wanted you to be as rough with me as you were. It felt good. Felt right.”

Despite her words, his frown remained as he grabbed a roll of gauze from the kit. After dabbing a bit of ointment on her palms, he began to wrap it around her hand. “That bruise on your arm…”

She gave a rough sigh. “That’s from my dad.”

He didn’t explode or rail or scream, but merely paused for a second. When he spoke, the lack of emotion in his voice was chilling. “I’m going to kill him.”

She peered down at him, a wee bit alarmed. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”

“He doesn’t get to put his hands on you. No one does.”

“You do. I mean, you can,” she assured him, so hastily she might find it comical if her potentially stupendous future sex life wasn’t on the line. God forbid Jacob regressed into his shyness over enjoying the rough and tumble treatment they both needed. She was already thoroughly addicted to his gentleman-in-the-streets-freak-in-the-sheets vibe.

Akira had a feeling they’d barely scratched the surface of his freakiness. She suppressed a shudder.

He didn’t acknowledge her words, his gaze hard. “Do you want to kill him? I can help you plan it out. That’s kind of my thing.”

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but it’s turning me on a little,” she admitted.

A glimpse of humor flitted across his face, but he sobered quickly. “I’m dead serious.”

“I don’t want to kill him.” She paused. “Unless he crosses me again. Then I will destroy him. Financially, at least. Which is probably worse, in his eyes, than actually killing him.”

“Good.”

“You think I can do it?”

“I know you can. He’s no match for you.” His quiet confidence in her made her chest hurt. “But if you need me…I’m still happy to kill him.”

Her smile was wobbly.

“Akira, I—”

“I’m sorry I left you that morning.”

He huffed out a breath and looked down, securing the gauze on one hand, then the other. The old cuckoo clock on the wall ticked. “That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have.”

His lips softened. “Really. It’s okay.”

She flexed her bandaged hand, all her thoughts swirling in her brain. Their past, their present, their future. If they had a future. They had to have one, right?

That was what the signs were pointing to, but she was a business woman first, and she trusted nothing until the deal was formally closed, every single potential vulnerability addressed. “The note you left… Could you really love me?”

He froze. His hands went to the arms of her chair, as if to steady himself.

When he didn’t speak for a long moment, butterflies danced in her belly. “Are you going to make me beg?”

His mouth worked. “You would beg?”

“Yeah. I’d really be pissed off about it.” She scowled, her ire already building at the thought of compromising her pride. This was a small price to pay, though. “But I’d do it.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yes.”

Oh. Well. She took a deep breath, unaccustomed to pleading with anyone for anything. “Please—”

“No.” His fingertips covered her mouth, silencing her. His eyes had warmed. “I didn’t tell you to come find me because I wanted to see you humbled, but because I wanted us both to be certain of your decision. I don’t want you to beg. You should never beg. Yes. Yes, I could love you.”

“Ah.” Some women might appreciate a lengthy declaration, but not her. Not now, when she’d waited so long. Relief made her lightheaded. “I— Why?”

“Why would I love you?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of question is that?” His thumb brushed under her eye, collecting moisture she hadn’t wanted to escape.

She sniffed, mildly horrified at how pitiful she probably appeared. More pitiful when she bleated out her next words. “People don’t love me.”

“Bullshit,” came his instantaneous, mild response. Another pass beneath her eye to catch a stray tear. “All those people at that party? Your employees? What about them?”

“They’re friends.”

“They’re friends who would jump off a cliff if you asked it of them.”

“It’s not the same.” Unable to meet his gaze, she looked down at her hands, which were bandaged far more extensively than a couple of scrapes warranted. “It’s not the way you love your family completely, entirely. No one’s ever loved me like that, except my grandma.”

“Because your parents were sociopaths,” he stated. “Not your fault.”

Happiness threatened to explode within her, but she couldn’t let his blind defense of her stand. “My father might be a sociopath, but my mother wasn’t. She loved people. She was capable of it. She loved you and your father and your siblings.” She bit her lip. “A couple of years ago, she told me my dad manipulated her into having me, that she didn’t want me at all.”

His hands framed her face, cradling it. “Then you understand that it was nothing you did.”

“No!” Akira shook her head, no longer able to stop the tears from actively coursing down her face. She brushed them aside impatiently. “She’d tried to feel something for me, and it was impossible. I could have tried harder. Don’t you understand? I could have behaved, and she would have given me—” She hiccupped, completing her utterly pathetic image. “And now she’s dead. She won’t ever love me.”

“She would never have loved you. No matter what you did.” His words were brutal, making her lurch forward in pain. “Let me tell you about your mother. Yes, she could love people, and yes, she could be kind. She could be overwhelmingly kind. But she was also the most stubborn, inflexible, and occasionally cruel person I have ever met in my life. I don’t know what sick game she was playing with you—maybe she really did convince herself that you were at fault—but I guarantee you that it was just that, a game. You could have worn the right clothes and said the right things and done everything she ever wanted you to do, and if she decided from the moment you were conceived she despised you, then there was nothing that would change her mind.” Jacob took a deep breath. “She was wrong. I’m ashamed I didn’t realize before how wrong she was. I’m sorry I made it worse. I will spend the rest of my life telling you that. She was wrong. And ultimately…” His lips pressed against hers in a featherlight kiss. “You know what?”

“What?”

“It’s her fucking loss.”

Maybe it was her watery vision, but in that moment, with the setting sun casting a halo around him and his stern expression, he looked like an avenging warrior. Or an angel. Or a warrior angel.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered. “I’m not the type of woman you should have.”

His laugh was low and deep. “Ah, Akira. You really need to stop separating women into types.”

“I’m serious. You should have someone sweet and kind and gentle.”

“Whereas you’re mean and abrasive and sarcastic.”

“I am.”

“Yeah, you are,” he agreed, slightly offending her with the quickness of his reply. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be sweet and kind and gentle. One quality doesn’t cancel out the rest.” He settled his forehead against hers. “I want you, not some faceless ideal. I want you in my family.”

The words both thrilled and terrified her. “I don’t know how to be a part of a family.”

“Yeah, and all I have is my family.” His eyes were patient. “I’d say we’re pretty perfect for each other, then, don’t you think? Lots of things we could teach each other.”

Her limbs were shaking. She had come this far with the intention of reclaiming what she had thrown away, but she hadn’t really been convinced it would happen. Now that it was…

“I’m tired of being a father and a brother, Akira. Help me be a man.”

Her mind calmed, everything sharpening into crystal-clear focus. Silly man. Didn’t he get it? He didn’t need to plead. He’d titillated her from the second he’d frowned at her, ruined her the moment he’d wrapped his arms around her, and devastated her by handing her a perfectly formed rose.

She was already his.

And maybe…he was already hers.

Her bandaged hands found their way to his face, and then her lips met his. The kiss was long and slow and sweet, her mouth clinging to his even as he rose to his feet and helped her to stand.