Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (32 page)

She stroked his five-o’clock shadow. “Someone really hurt you, didn’t they?”

“Not just
someone
.”

When he didn’t say any more, she heaved a frustrated breath. “That’s it? Don’t you think I’m entitled to a little more explanation?”

He spun his back to her as if ignoring her, but then he spoke in a faltering whisper. “Everyone who....” He sucked in a breath, and his shoulders shuddered. “I’ve lost practically everyone I’ve ever cared for, Hannah. First my mother left when I was eleven. Then the year I turned fifteen, my best friend died. He was Robert and Elaine’s only child.”

She’d forgotten he’d once mentioned his grandfather’s man Friday and housekeeper were married and lived in the caretaker’s cottage.

“Bobby and I were raised like brothers, so it tore my grandparents up that, despite their controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company, they couldn’t save him. It was almost as hard for them as if I’d died.”

She pictured him as a motherless boy losing his closest pal, and tears stung her eyes. She gently rubbed Jordan’s back. “You must’ve been devastated.”

“The saddest part is, if he’d had the chemo drugs we’ve developed to treat leukemia since then, Bobby might have lived.”

Loving his friend the way Jordan obviously had, it was no doubt hard for him to find comfort in knowing Bobby’s death had prompted research that saved a lot of other kids’ lives. “Four months later, my father fell asleep at the wheel and ran his car into an overpass abutment. At least, that’s what the police report said—probably for my grandmother’s sake.”

“But you don’t believe it?”

“I overheard the officer explain to my grandfather that most victims wake up and slam on the brakes after their vehicles leave the road surface. Or at the very least, their foot eases up on the gas pedal. In my dad’s case, there was evidence of acceleration.”

“Oh, Jordan.” she swallowed hard. “Was there any way to know for sure?”

He shook his head. “My grandmother died a year later. The doctors caught her breast cancer fairly early, so once again, the treatment advancements made in the last two decades probably could’ve saved her, too. But I think the stress and grief of losing my dad and Bobby so close together compromised her immune system to the point—”

“Everyone loses people they love.”

He spun around to face her. “Not every freaking one of them!”

“You still have
Edw
—”

“For now. But wait.” He held his hand up. “I’m just getting to the really good part.”

Oh, Lord, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest.

“During my last year of college, I was involved with someone I thought loved me. Marcy also came from an affluent family and was one of the few girls who didn’t care what I could buy for her. So I asked her to marry me.”

“You were engaged?” Apparently he hadn’t always been anti-marriage.

“Not for long. A couple who Marcy and I were both friends with asked us to be in their wedding. The bachelor party was a few weeks after I proposed—the same evening as the bride’s last fling. After spending four hours at a strip club, I had a hard-on that could’ve doubled as a battering ram. So when I got home that night, I was pretty drunk and really glad to find Marcy there waiting for me.”

“
Pretty
drunk?”

“Yeah. Hangovers were never my thing. I wasn’t totally smashed, but I was a long way from sober. Marcy, on the other hand, was wasted. She and her friends had really tied one on. Anyway, I was just drunk and horny enough that I played along when she met me at the door naked and blindfolded me.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“You would think. She practically tore my clothes off, and after she led me into the bedroom, she knelt down and began kissing my, uh—

“Right. I get the picture.”

“A few seconds later, she suddenly pulled off my blindfold. I was confused and couldn’t figure out how she could reach my head since she was on her knees in front of me. When I opened my eyes, I discovered one of her friends was sucking on me

“Oh,
my gosh
.” Hannah clapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s why you were so disgusted by the idea of a threesome.”

 
“She and Marcy were both buck naked and pickled to the gills, giggling like—” He closed his eyes, and the muscles in his throat visibly convulsed.

 
“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I-I’ve just never told anyone about this before.”

She squeezed his arm. “If you don’t want to talk—”

“No. It’s the only way you’ll understand why I can’t handle a permanent relationship.”

“All right. So what possessed your fiancée to share you with her friend?”

He drew in a deep breath. “While she was partying with her pals that evening, she blabbed about my little problem in bed.”

“What problem?” Hannah creased her forehead in confusion.

“You wouldn’t know it, considering how fast I blast off with you, but I normally take a bit longer to come.”

Kevin had once told her the average
man
did well to last more than five or ten minutes after penetration. The soonest Jordan had come with her was maybe fifteen. “So what you’re telling me is that Calder Love Machine cartoon wasn’t really an exaggeration.”

“Not back then it wasn’t. When I was younger,” he explained, “I took a lot longer.”

“Wait a second. I thought, as guys get older, their control typically
increases
.”

“Usually. But I—
uh
....I had an abnormal condition called delayed ejaculation.”

She vaguely remembered reading about it once. What she recalled was men with his unique problem could be super aroused and no matter how much they were physically stimulated they couldn’t find release. The deep flush in his face testified to how uncomfortable he was discussing his unusual stamina. Yet morbid curiosity compelled her to ask, “About how long are you talking? Hours?”

“Do we really have to go into this?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what sex is like for men, so this is sort of interesting.”

He turned his face away and sucked in a deep breath. “When I first started college, I took an hour or more, and sometimes I couldn’t get off at all, no matter how turned on I became. I
lived
under a cold shower my freshman year.”

The frustration was bad enough for a woman who couldn’t climax. She couldn’t imagine how agonizing it must have been for him to have so much pressure build up and be unable to release it. “Did you see a doctor about it?”

He nodded. “He concluded my problem was psychological. He attributed it to guilt and shame from my mother catching me....
you know
.”

Hannah frowned. “Just a second. You said your mom left when you were only eleven. You were having sex already?”

His smirk told her she was being naïve. “Yes, sweetheart.” He held his hand up, waggling his fingers. “With
Rosey
DePalma
and her five sisters.”

Duh
. Talk about dense.

He shrugged one shoulder. “You weren’t the only early bloomer.”

She sank into the chair in front of his desk. “So why on earth didn’t you lock the door?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped, clearly impatient with her game of twenty questions. “I guess I forgot. I was only
eleven
.”

“I don’t mean to interrogate you. I’m simply trying to understand how it happened.”

“I’m sorry.” He tossed his hands up. “It had been years since anyone tucked me in. And everyone in the house knocked. I guess protecting my privacy wasn’t an issue. That night, my mother must have come to my room to say goodbye and thought I might already be asleep. When she opened my door to check, I was oblivious to my surroundings.”

“Please tell me she left as soon as she saw what you were doing?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea how long she was there. About twenty seconds after I came, I opened my eyes and saw her reflection in the mirror. She just stood in the doorway, staring.”

After discovering Kevin and Gina together, Hannah could understand his mother’s stunned paralysis. It was a miracle Jordan ever climaxed again after his mother watched him.

“I grabbed the comforter off the bed and hid under it. She smacked me and accused me of being a filthy pervert like my father who, by the way, was the very last person I ever wanted to be compared to.”

How could that bitch make him feel like a deviant for doing something so natural and normal?

“That was the last time I ever saw my mother. The next morning, my father told me she’d left us.”

She reached out and squeezed his arm. “You blamed yourself for that, didn’t you?”

“For a long time. Over the years, my problem mostly resolved itself, but I still take longer to finish than most men. Except not with you,” he added. “For some reason, when we make love,”—he sucked in a deep breath—“sex feels right. Almost pure. Even today when I lost control.”

Hearing this only made his rejection hurt worse.

“So go on,” she encouraged. “I didn’t mean to pull you so far off track. What happened that night with your fiancée?”

He sank into the chair next to her. “When Marcy told everyone about my size and stamina, her friend, Lily, joked that if she had a stud
who
screwed like the battery bunny, she’d give up girls. She told them the only way she ever got enough was with more than one lover at a time.”

“That’s just.....” Hannah shook her head and shuddered. “
Ugh
.”

“Marcy and her friends were just as shocked. Especially since Lily was only a freshman and they were seniors. But they also couldn’t wait to hear what it was like to be with another female.”

“Who told you all of this?”

“Marcy did—the next day, after she realized how pissed off I was. She apologized and said the whole thing got out of hand after she admitted I sometimes made her sore. She told them she wouldn’t mind having another woman in our bed to take over some of the work.”

Hannah released a soft cynical snort. “I’m sure
that
made you feel a lot better about the whole thing.”

“Oh, yeah. I loved hearing the girl I planned to marry considered having sex with me a chore.” He paused to swallow. “Nympho-Lily told Marcy she didn’t know how lucky she was to have a guy who could keep it up all night.”

“What’d your fiancée say to that?”

“She agreed it had been great at first, but after a while it became a drag. The next thing she knew, Lily was badgering her into letting her help treat me to a, quote-unquote,
unforgettable bang
.”

Obviously, it was something he would’ve liked to forget. “Wait a second. Is this Lily the same woman from the governor’s office who you didn’t want to talk to last week?”

“Yes. So now you understand why. That night, when Marcy pulled off my blindfold, I couldn’t budge. As I mentioned, I had a significant hard-on, so I felt as if I’d been transported into a porn film—as the star.”

“So you didn’t stop it?”

“That question shows how little you know about men and their relationship with their Willies. A twenty-one-year-old guy doesn’t pull out of woman’s mouth for anything less than a death threat.” He stared off into the distance as if he was reliving the depraved experience. “Anyway, the two of them seduced me and took turns screwing me in between making out with each other.”

“Oh, Jordan. You didn’t
ask
to be part of it.”

“No, but I didn’t stop it, either.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t you understand how ashamed I am that I couldn’t summon up enough willpower to resist them? How much it sickened me to see Marcy suck on Lily’s breasts and to hear how much she enjoyed her friend touching her?”

Hannah hadn’t considered the agony he must have felt witnessing the woman he loved in bed with someone else, much less another female. Was there any wonder he’d shoved Hannah away when she’d been tipsy after the charity dance? It also explained why, despite his unflagging desire for her, it scared him to see her lose her inhibitions.

“Fool that I was
,
I thought I still loved her. I kept telling myself she never would’ve agreed to do something like that if she hadn’t been totally plastered.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“The week after it happened, Lily confessed she’d slipped amphetamines into Marcy’s drink, which probably lowered her inhibitions even more.”

It amazed her he’d never told a soul and kept his ordeal bottled up so long. She gently rubbed his back. “I know it was tough to talk about. I promise, I’ll never tell anyone about this.”

He drew in a ragged breath. “The next day, when Marcy told me what led up to that night, she didn’t understand why I was upset. She’d bought into the whole myth that all men dream about dozens of women getting it on together with them.”

Hannah’s cheeks flared with heat at recalling how she’d accused the male gender of the same thing.

Jordan shook his head. “I know a lot of guys would’ve been boasting about it. But I felt filthy and ashamed.”

Obviously, he still did. As he had once said, fantasies weren’t necessarily something one wanted to become reality.

“Afterward, I had nightmares that I’d gotten them both pregnant, and Lily had given me some sort of STD. Then when Marcy told me Lily was late—”

“Oh,
my gosh
. Was she
preg
—
”

“No, thank God. But I spent a week worrying before Lily finally got her period. As much as it terrified me that a psycho like her could be carrying my baby, I hated that she might abort my child.”

And no amount of his family’s money could’ve bought him the right to stop her.

“The worst part was, after experimenting with the whole girl-on-girl thing, Marcy couldn’t wait to do it again—without being drunk or drugged. She didn’t understand why I didn’t want anyone else, female or otherwise, in bed with us. I told her she had to pick. So she did. And it wasn’t me.”

Hannah tipped her head and studied him. “So, are you hurt or bitter? I’m not quite sure how you feel about what happened?”

“I guess a little of both. Mostly, I felt betrayed.”