The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (17 page)

Anxious to shed the remnants of her clothes
as quickly as she felt the restrictive teaching of her past
dissolving around her, Tashi reached behind her and unsnapped the
clasp of her bra. Keeping her eyes locked with Adam’s, she slid the
straps off her shoulders and let the lacy garment fall noiselessly
to the ground on top of her shirt. Her nipples hardened and tingled
when Adam’s gaze and the cool breeze seemed to simultaneously brush
them in an invisible kiss.

“Your home is beautiful, Tashi. More lovely
than any I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice husky with
emotion.

Tashi thought it strange that he hadn’t said
she was beautiful, but then she remembered that he was a yogi. He
would regard the human body as a house for the human spirit—the
true
you
. He hadn’t really met her yet.
She
hadn’t
met her.

“Your home is beautiful too, Adam.” There,
she’d said them, spoken the words that had been echoing inside her
since she first collided with him in the café. He’d been naked in
her presence before when he’d first brought her to his home.
Although she’d been faintly aware of his strength and virility,
she’d been in no condition to evaluate and appreciate him. She was
well now, and definitely appreciating him.

Tashi felt a rush of wickedness as her gaze
slid from his face to his neck where his pulse seemed to beat in
time with hers. She admired the way his broad and muscular chest
and shoulders tapered off into a flat, corded stomach, narrow
waist, and slim hips. She’d often admired his physique under his
clothes, but she was salivating now as her eyes drew lower to where
his engorged penis protruded like a pillar of bronze muscle from
the thatch of dark hair at his groin. It was far more intimidating,
yet captivating up close. She wondered about the texture of the
thin skin that ran the length and girth of him—from the root to the
glittering tip with a wide opening that looked like a small
mouth.

Tashi licked her lips as muscles pulsed deep
inside her body.

“Go on, Tashi. Take it all off,” Adam coaxed,
reminding her of his promise not to touch her until she was
completely naked.

Incited by his words and impatience, Tashi
toed off her sneakers and heeled them behind her. She then
unsnapped the clasp of her jeans and pulled the zipper down. When
her fingers slid beneath the waist of her jeans and her panties,
Adam groaned. Capturing his gaze again, she began to push them off
her hips, slowly and provocatively, wiggling her hips and buttocks
to fight the restriction. Down, down, she eased until she felt the
breeze ripple through the auburn carpet covering her Venus
mound.

Adam groaned again. The sound knocked her off
balance and finding herself pitching forward, she put her hand out
to break her fall. Of all the places her hand could have landed on
Adam’s anatomy, it chose to land on the area of his groin. A shot
of adrenaline, mixed with fear and excitement coursed through
Tashi’s system. The naked hardness of his body excited her.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she
moved her hand just an inch to the right and fisted her fingers
around the column of flesh—not completely circling it. It felt like
smooth velvet, hot and hard, and it pulsed in her palm as if it had
a life of its own. The inner walls of her vagina began to respond
to the stimulus, contracting and throbbing and spewing hot juices
from between her thighs.

She felt Adam’s hands on her arms steadying
her, applying slight pressure as he seemed to combat his rising
desires, but her eyes remained glued to her hand that was full of
him. Of its own volition, her hand began to move up and down,
pushing the thin smooth skin back and forth, watching the red
glittering tip appear and disappear within the folds. She was
fascinated by the way the muscles of his stomach convulsed like a
wave rolling across the ocean, and the harsh sounds of his breath
rumbling through the garden.

So this was what it was like to caress a man.
Liking the power it afforded her, she continued to arouse Adam’s
passion, stroking him harder and faster as he grew hotter and
stronger, until a slippery, clear liquid oozed out of the opening
and crowned the tip.

Adam released her, and fisted his hands at
his sides. His body began to spasm as if sporadic bolts of current
were passing through him. She knew what happened during sex, what
went into what. What baffled her now was how the deed would be
accomplished. How could this enormous column of flesh enter her
body without causing her excruciating pain? Could a woman’s body
really stretch that wide?

“Tashi.”

Tashi stopped in mid-stroke to gaze up at
him. His eyes were a deep, deep blue, like the ocean after a quick
storm, his lips moist and swollen as if they’d been beaten by
passion. She wanted to please him, show him that she wasn’t shy or
afraid. Tashi had no idea what kind of lascivious imp had inhabited
her body, infected her blood, but as she stood there in the shade
of the willow tree, half-naked with her jeans and panties halfway
down her thighs, and her hand clasped around Adam’s private part,
she felt bold and empowered.

“Tashi, stop,” he commanded in a choked
voice, jerking his body backward and away from her. “Release
me.”

Tashi released him and frowned in confusion
as she straightened up to her full five-foot four-inch frame. “I’m
not afraid, Adam. I want to be with you.”

“And I with you, but you’re not ready for
that,
cara
,” he said, even as his head began a lazy descent
toward hers.

Her heart began to thump at the anticipation
of introducing her lips to his. For the two weeks they’d been
sharing a roof, neither one of them had made any sexual advances
toward the other—except for that brief moment in her apartment when
he’d trailed his fingertip along her cheek to show her why she
couldn’t work for him. Yet every day since they’d met, they’d been
exchanging the mutual essence of their passion through bathing,
dining, and gazing—preludes to their first kiss.

His lips inched so close to her forehead, she
could feel the blood pulsing through them, the tension and the
electricity in the small space between them. Lower he edged, across
her temples, her cheeks, to the sides of her trembling mouth,
sniffing, heating her skin with his breath—so close, teasing
without touching.

Tashi had never smelled passion, didn’t even
know that it had an odor, but she was certain that that’s what she
smelled pouring out of Adam. It was heady, raunchy, musky,
intoxicating and she wanted to bathe in it. She leaned closer
seeking contact with him, but he drew back.

“Finish undressing,” he whispered, his hot
breath searing the sides of her mouth.

Anxious to be free, Tashi resumed her task
and pushed her jeans and panties down her thighs and legs while
Adam stood there and watched her. When her clothes were a tangled
mess around her ankles, he dropped to his knees in front of her.
His long hair tumbled over his shoulders and brushed her legs,
tickling her. His face was in perfect alignment with the junction
of her thighs. She could feel his breath stirring the hairs on her
Venus mound and the heat from his gaze warming the flesh
beneath.

“Finish,” he coaxed again.

His words seemed to strike a physical blow to
Tashi’s womanhood, and as they reverberated deep inside her, she
swooned. Adam’s hand on her hips kept her from falling right onto
his face. She imagined his lips kissing her, his tongue parting
her, seeking entrance. Unable to control the spark of excitement at
the prospect of Adam feasting on her, Tashi opened her mouth and
expelled the moan that had been choking her.

Adam lifted his head and gazed up at her.
“You’re almost there. Use me.”

Understanding his offer, Tashi braced her
hands against his shoulders. She tried to ignore the silky feel of
his mane and the rippling muscles of his shoulders under her palms
as she raised one leg at a time and pulled off her jeans, panties,
and socks. She kicked them behind her and dropped her hands to her
sides. There, she’d done the unthinkable—stripped herself naked in
the presence of a man.

“Stand still,” Adam said. Starting from her
toes, he took his time inspecting every inch of her body. Tashi’s
skin tingled as he moved up her legs, her thighs, her groin area
where he lingered as if he were trying to decipher the secrets to
her femininity.

She let out a long harsh breath as he
continued his languid scrutiny, unfolding his body in slow motion
in the same way he’d done from his yoga pose. Her belly rippled,
her breasts grew full and heavy, and her nipples tightened as he
caressed them with his eyes. The pulse at her neck throbbed, her
mouth quivered, and her eyelids fluttered under his watchful
gaze.

Moving behind her, he gave her backside the
same leisurely survey before coming to stand in front of her again.
Their gazes met and held and in those breathless moments, Tashi
found a deeper significance to their visual exchange than any words
she’d ever heard uttered.

“Come.” He turned and began walking toward
the structure.

Leaving everything she’d brought behind her,
Tashi followed him.

He stopped at the steps leading up to the
podium and turned to catch her gaze. “How are you, Tashi?” he
asked.

“Excited, tingly, flushed—”

“No.” He shook his head. “Those are physical
reactions to the fact that we are both standing here in our
birthday suits. You’re filled with anticipation about making love
with me. I want to know how
you
are. Inside.”

“Free,” Tashi said without hesitation. “I’m
free, Adam.”

“No shame at baring yourself in front of a
man, in front of me? No guilt for going against what you’ve been
taught? No resentment toward me for daring you to challenge your
upbringing?”

“No, none of the above. I feel—” She stopped
and searched her mind for a word to describe what was happening
inside her. “Natural. Looking at you naked, and then taking off my
clothes felt natural.” And strangely, all the anxiety and sexual
tension she’d felt just a few moments ago had evaporated. “I feel
like the person I thought I was all these years has become a
stranger to me,” she continued. “The moment I began taking off my
clothes was the moment I really saw me for the first time.”

“You’ve found
you
, Tashi—the goddess,
the little girl who’d been buried alive.”

“Little Eve.” The words slipped out even
before they materialized in Tashi’s mind.

Adam’s forehead crinkled into a frown.
“Little Eve?”

“My middle name is Evelyn, after my mother.
She was Eve for short. I look so much like her, down to my red hair
and green eyes, that when I was a child people called me Little
Eve. She died when I was four, then my uncle started calling me
Tashi.” Tashi provided the information as if it were the most
natural thing in the world to do. And he hadn’t even asked.

He stared at her for a long moment as if he
were digesting what she’d told him—that her name was Eve, and that
her mother had died when she was four. She’d told him more about
herself in those few seconds than she’d revealed in the two weeks
they’d been together.

“Fate was unkind to you, Tashi,” he said.
“You were robbed of the most important person in your life way too
early.”

Tashi shrugged. “I hardly remember her, but I
remember her smell,” she said, her heart quickening on the
memories.

“It is said that when it comes to memory,
smell is the most faithful of all the senses. So I’m not surprised.
Your mother’s smell was the most significant to you as a child. You
still carry it inside you. What did she smell like?” he asked.

“A combination of ginger—”

“Jasmine and vanilla,” Adam finished her
sentence. “I love those fragrances on you, Tashi. They’re very
natural, subtle, and appealing.”

Tashi smiled as heat generated under her
skin. “When I was old enough, I began using her line of hair and
skin products. It was my way of honoring her, keeping her memory
alive in my mind and my heart.”

She glanced off to where a bird chirped in
one of the nearby trees. She was quickly losing the image of her
mom’s face. Most of the pictures of her mother were in a storage
unit in Sebring, Ohio where her uncle had stored them before he
died. She’d taken a few to New York, but only God knew where those
were now. She might never see them again. “I wish I could remember
what she looked like,” she said, bringing her gaze back to
Adam’s.

“All you have to do is look in the
mirror.”

She’d never thought of that. She didn’t need
pictures of her mother. She was a living image of her. She was
certain she’d inherited her wild, curious, carefree spirit, too—the
spirit she’d just exposed, the one her uncle and her educators had
“buried alive” according to Adam.

“Are you ready to learn more about Little
Eve, Tashi?” Adam’s deep mellow voice drew her back to the
present.

“Yes. I want to get to know her.”

“Well, this is the perfect place for new
discoveries. This is where I come for deeper connection to my inner
universe, and for healing, and inspiration. I leave everything
behind when I come here, even my clothes. So I want you to forget
everything you’ve been taught, everything you think you know about
yourself, and begin with a clean canvas where Little Eve can begin
painting her own story.”

He took her hand and led her up the black
marble steps. On the second to the last step that was much wider
than the others and seemed more like a small foyer, Tashi noticed a
chrome basket containing the clothes Adam had worn at breakfast
that morning. He wasn’t kidding when he said he left everything
outside of his sanctuary.

One more step and a soft white floor gave way
under her feet. Tashi gazed out the other side of the platform to
the blue pool bubbling with white foam from the force of the
waterfalls feeding it. “It’s a lovely place, Adam. Serene and
magical.” She had no doubt that the ambiance played a huge role in
emboldening her. “How long has it been here?”