His corded arms bracketed her head, and he held his large frame suspended above her, a very fine tremor running through him and belying the gentleness of his voice. And his words. God, they seeped into her, heating her, relaxing her tense muscles, dulling the edges of pain until only the pleasure of his dominance, his possession remained.
She released her grip on his upper arms and, sliding her hands up and over his shoulders, wound her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a slow, raw kiss.
“I’m going to take you. I’m going to wreck us,” she whispered against his lips.
Hunger, dark and fierce, flashed in his gaze, but also delight flared bright and quick. Claiming control of the kiss, he pulled free from her body, then sank back inside, dragging a soft cry from her. Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist, and he hissed, surging deeper. Filling her more. Thrust for thrust, she met him, taking him just as she promised. Wrecking them with each roll of her hips, each wet, voracious kiss, each scratch of her nails and whispered demand for “more, harder.”
Carnal. Wild. Hot.
Joshua rode her hard, granting her no mercy. He buried himself inside her over and over, setting off sizzling currents with each drag of his cock through her channel. She cried out with the intensity of the pleasure, from the onslaught of it. Twisting and writhing beneath him, she chased the orgasm that loomed so close.
“Josh,” she pleaded, desperate, greedy.
“Give it to me, Sophie,” he ground out. “Come for me.”
He palmed one of her thighs, spreading her wider, lifting her into his thrusting body. Sliding the other hand down between her breasts, he didn’t stop until he circled the nerve-packed nub nestled between her folds. Thrust. Circle. Thrust. Circle.
The scream ripped from her throat as she exploded. For a moment, she fought against the release, afraid of the sheer ferocity and wildness of it. But it swelled stronger, swamping her, threatening to break her. Then reshape her into someone she was afraid she’d no longer recognize.
Closing her eyes, she surrendered.
Seven
Joshua stared at his computer monitor, but just like the previous hour, the report from his chief financial officer remained a blurred jumble of numbers.
“Dammit.” Disgusted, he threw his pen down on his desk and shot to his feet. His chair rolled back, bumping against the bookcase behind it.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, then wrapped it around the back of his neck. Massaging the tense muscles there, he strode to the floor-to-ceiling window and stared out. Usually, the sight of the parking lot full of his employees’ cars sent a surge of satisfaction spiraling through him. There’d been a time after he’d taken over Black Crescent when the lot had been almost empty. Only he, Haley and a few other loyal staff members had remained when the company fell apart. Those days had been...grim. Though he’d kept up a stalwart front for everyone, he’d been terrified. Of failing to rebuild the company and paying back the families his father had devastated. Of letting down those few who’d still believed in and trusted him when his father hadn’t given them a reason to.
Of proving those who’d condemned him with “like father, like son” right.
His father. It always came back to him.
But it wasn’t Vernon who had him distracted and unable to concentrate this Monday morning. How easy it would be to place the blame on him instead of her.
Sophie.
As if just the thought of her name jammed open a door he’d padlocked shut, images from Saturday night rushed through his head, a ceaseless stream of erotic snapshots.
Sophie, hips rolling and bucking to meet his devouring mouth as he held her thighs spread wide for him.
Sophie, twisting and undulating beneath him, voice cracking as she begged him to possess her harder.
Sophie, body arched tight, beautiful breasts pointed toward the ceiling, eyes glazed with pleasure as she came so hard it required every bit of his tattered control to prevent immediately following her.
Sophie, curled up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, her soft, even breath caressing his damp skin. Her small, delicate hand splayed wide on his chest.
If the mental flashes of her uninhibited passion had his body hardening and arousal clenching his gut, then it was the memory of her cuddled into his body, sleeping so trustingly, that had a vise grip squeezing his heart.
And that grip unnerved him.
One night. No strings. That had been their agreement. The reasons for it—for him, at least—hadn’t changed come the morning when they dressed in silence and he drove her home.
She was a reporter who had just done a story on him and his family. How he’d let his guard down Saturday night and confessed his unhappiness about his life and the jacked-up state of his family even before the scandal still astonished him. That—his penchant to reveal things he’d never told another soul—was her superpower. And his downfall. He’d basically handed her information for her follow-up on him, and if she did write it, he had no one to blame but himself.
What was it about this woman that made him so vulnerable? That had him ignoring every self-protective instinct?
He couldn’t do that again. Couldn’t afford to. Couldn’t afford to open Black Crescent up to any more controversy and couldn’t afford to let her in. To open his heart.
Everyone he’d ever loved had abandoned him. His father with going on the lam. His mother by mentally leaving him. His brothers by withdrawing from him, then icing him out of their
