A very small part of Hannah’s mind was still functioning, and it told her she had to say no, had to put a stop to the madness, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She wanted to indulge, just a little. She needed some pleasure in her life for a change. But not too much. Not like this.
His hips pressed onto her, his erection hot and heavy against her lower belly.
Her breath caught.
Markus stilled as he prepared for her to pull back in rejection. Her body was soft and eager, but he knew women well enough to know that they often denied themselves what they most desired.
His heady, so earthy scent overwhelmed her and she melted into him as his tongue stroked hers and his hands caressed her body. He tasted so unbelievably good, like sin, and she wanted more. Much more. All.
Her arms circled his back, trying to bring him closer. She couldn’t stop. She wanted him everywhere.
She’d spent so long dreaming about him, imagining the scent of his skin, the pressure of his hands. Tongue, lips, mouth, fingers, but most of all she wanted him inside her. She ached with a deep throbbing desire that had to be quenched. She managed to somehow separate her lips from his greedy ones that wanted to devour her.
“Markus,” she breathed out in a voice that was feather-thin.
He didn’t want to talk right now, but he raised his head. Don’t tell me to stop. “Yes?”
And those dark, dark eyes looked into hers. Her lips parted but no words came out. She was barely able to form thoughts, much less words.
For just a moment, he was distracted by the sheer beauty of her face. The softly flushed features. Those haunting green eyes darkened and half closed. The lips parted in passion. It was a sight he wanted branded into his mind for all eternity.
“God…” he whispered, his hand shifting to cup her face, his thumb brushing her mouth. “If you knew how much I want you, you would be running from me.”
Hannah thought she might have been doing just that if her own body hadn’t been playing traitor. She had been sleeping on dreams and living on nightmares. So she decided to give herself to him, perhaps she would be able to invert things. She pulled his head down and kissed him.
Before she knew what he was doing, she was swept up in his sturdy arms. Without breaking the kiss, with two strides and a shove of his shoulder, they were in his bedroom. In his bed. With him kneeling between her legs.
His hands impatiently tugged off her shirt and bra, tossing them onto the floor and his thumbs brushed over her peaked rosy nipples. “So beautiful.”
She gasped, arching her back, wanting more. “Markus.”
“I’m going to kiss every single inch of your pale skin,” he whispered, cupping her lush breasts in his hand, his mouth closing on a nipple, sucking lazily, and then moving to the other and discovering her tantalizing birthmark. “I’m going to discover every single freckle.”
“Are you?” She shivered at the promise of pleasure. A pain, sweet and sharp, clenching and throbbing, ran through her veins, tightening her muscles when he kissed her navel and then her hipbone. She writhed on the bed, grasping his hair and threading her fingers through the abundant silk, to root herself as the need soared through her.
He wanted to go slow and savor every moment.
Markus pushed down her Yoga pants and his hands trailed over the curve of her belly to the softness of her inner thighs, his tongue rimming the silver lace of her panties. His hand ran down the back of her calf, to her knee, and then to the juncture between her legs where desire for him had pooled in a warm moistening.
And savor.
He pulled her panties down, settled his open mouth on her center, and tasted her. He feasted on her—luxuriated in the taste of her—with his lips and teeth and tongue.
“Ah,” she moaned in pleasure, tugging at his hair. The feel of his tongue flickering over her clitoris made her undulate and tilt her pelvis up. The pleasure spiked and tightened all her muscles, hot sensations sweeping through her veins. “Ah, yes.”
And savor.
Until he could not wait anymore. And that was right now. Getting out of the bed, he shoved down his sweatpants, and taking a condom from his bedside table drawer, rolled it over himself.
If Markus was gorgeous when clothed, he was absolutely stunning naked. She took that moment before he crawled back over her to admire his hard, masculine body. The solid, lean muscles of his shoulders and arms. The dark hair on his broad chest thinning to a soft down over his defined abdomen and shooting into an arrow that led to the large erection jutting between his strong legs.
Then he settled between her thighs, his hard length sliding along her most intimate flesh, and finally stretched out against her fully, skin to skin. His body was so on fire that it had to be burning her.
He looked at her, with those dark eyes blazing in an erotic combination of danger and desire, and rocked his hips on hers. In that instant, he wasn’t the skilled lover who offered pleasure with emotional detachment. He was just a man who needed desperately to be inside a woman who was making him frantic with desire. “Now, I’m going to fuck you so hard.”
He captured her mouth again, fierce and demanding, stealing her breath, and in a single thrust, plunged deep inside her. Nothing had ever felt so good as being inside her, her tightness squeezing him until he feared he might not last another stroke. “God!”
“Markus,” she gasped. Her head arched back as her fingernails dug into his shoulders. He was stretching her, filling her, possessing her. And it felt glorious.
Markus paused to give her a moment to adjust and a moment to gather his own control.
Her body melted on his. She melted on him.
His eyes closed as the pleasure surged through his body. The heat, the scent, the feel of her was cloaking him in a spiral of bliss and he couldn’t be still anymore.
She gripped his shoulders fiercely as he moved deep, fast, hard. Her legs gripped his waist to propel him deeper; her hips met his, thrust for thrust.
“Markus,” she whispered, her breath coming in rapid pants as he plunged into her with brutal abandon. Her fingers yanked at his hair, the small pain only increasing his fevered passions.
Markus quickened his pace. He could sense her hovering climax. It was near. So near. “Let go.”
Each pulse of his intense thrusting jolted up her spine, sparking through her whole being as though she were struck repeatedly by lightning. Lightheadedness swept over her, she moaned and closed her eyes. A thousand fiery starbursts exploded under the dark of her eyelids, colors and heat filling her. She gave a small scream—his name—as the orgasm overwhelmed her.
Her continuous clenching around his erection tumbled him sharply over the edge. With a rasping groan, he plunged into her and sank as deep within her as he could go.
The release hit him with shocking force. He shuddered, seized by the tempest of sensation, helpless to do anything but surrender to its force. It seemed as though literal flames rushed through his body. Spent, he fell from the cliff, fell against the soft, willowy feminine body beneath him, gasping for breath and inhaling sex and sweat, spiced with Hannah’s sweet, flowery-fruit scent. And nothing had ever smelled so good.
Nuzzling his lips down the curve of her cheek, Markus tugged her boneless body tight against his chest, placing a tender kiss on her lips.
Hannah struggled to breathe. She’d always known sex with him would be fantastic but it had surpassed her expectations. What they had just shared was mind-blowing, I’ll-never-walk-again sex.
She glanced at him. God…he is just so gorgeous. Lying on the fine Egyptian sheets with one hand under his head, his magnificent chest displayed for her eyes only, he looked like Lucifer might have when he had been dropped from heaven.
Untangling herself from his arms she propped herself against the headboard and tugged the sheets up to her chin. It wasn’t so much modesty that made her cover her body, but more the fear that the least touch from Markus and she might not be able to control herself.
&n
bsp; To her shame, she had willingly let Markus have her—and she had loved every moment.
As if sensing her tangled thoughts, Markus slipped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head to meet his searching gaze. “You’re quiet. Are you okay?”
The jury is still out on that. Certainly she was sweaty, sated, and stunned. But okay? She didn’t know the answer to that. The look of his muscular chest did not help her inner struggle. Every nerve ending jumped, and her body was more than ready to begin anew what they had just finished.
Keeping her expression guarded, she took a little too much time studying the Pollock on the wall, without seeing it.
“Hey,” he said. “Anybody home?”
She swallowed, forcing herself to meet his glittering black gaze.
She still didn’t speak, so he did, “I’m beginning to wonder what it is I have to do to earn your trust, Hannah.”
She shrugged, too involved with her own confused emotions to pay full attention to the tension humming in the air. “What does it matter? You’re paying me.”
In the space of time it took her to blink, he was off the bed. He seemed utterly indifferent to the fact that he was stark naked. Hannah was not nearly so indifferent. Her gaze traveled helplessly over his golden perfection.
“Paying?” The edge in his voice brought her gaze back to his furious expression. “Is that why you’re in my bed? Because I am paying you?”
“I…no, uh…of course not. Besides, it doesn’t signify—”
“There is no, of course not, about it.” His hands were fisted and his dark eyes remained hard and unyielding.
Hannah shivered beneath the sheet. She didn’t like this uncontrolled Markus. “Why are you so mad?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. “Perhaps because you’ve done what no other woman has ever done since I began to fuck.”
Oh. So we have fucked? Her eyes widened. “What’s that?”
“Implied that I raped her.”
Her breath caught in shock. “I never implied—”
“No? You lay in my arms speaking of being my paid whore, you’d rather believe that I forced myself upon you than to admit that it was your own passions that led to this moment. You are pitiable.” His harsh voice rasped over her body in a near tangible punishment. “I’m going to sleep in the guest bedroom.”
Before she could say anything, he had exited the room, banging the door for good measure.
Hannah let out a whooshing breath. “How could I?”
CHAPTER 16
Markus’s forehead struck the guestroom door repeatedly, after he slammed it louder than he had his bedroom door.
He needed to hit somebody, and the most logical—and available—target at the moment was himself. The pain was a relief from the stew in his mind. “You fucking idiot.”
He stepped back from the door and sank onto a stool in the corner. There he sat for a time, clutching his head, confused and unsure about why he continued sitting there, punishing himself.
What does she want from me? He was not an easy man. He knew that. He was closed and callous. Sometimes, cold. Always intense. Nicola accused him of being emotionless and uncaring while dealing with women.
After his divorce, he blamed himself for a while, wondering if he had been too focused on Blackthorn Corporation, and spent too much time working, and didn’t lavish Nicola with enough attention. But when she entangled him in a judicial fight for custody of Victoria and demanded an absurd amount of money to give her up—which she didn’t—he convinced himself it was not entirely his fault their marriage had crumbled. But with Hannah, everything was different. With her, he didn’t know how to temper or control his emotions.
Was I so blinded with my desire for her that I missed something? He went over her words and then over his, but still he couldn’t understand what had just happened.
He took a deep breath and Hannah’s fruity-flowery scent, which hung in the room, entered his lungs.
“Goddammit.” He jumped up, ran his hands through his hair, then looked around. The light-blue room was filled with a few soft, girly things. In the few days she’d been there, she had brought an aura that was pretty and delicate to the once beautifully decorated but sterile room.
Her frilly white lace nightie was folded over her pillow. There was a picture of her mother in a frame over the desk. Along with a very old and battered pale rose notebook and an even older pink iPod.
He made a mental note to buy new ones for her as he wandered into the guest bedroom dressing closet—Hannah’s now, he reminded himself.
It was all crazily neat. Each pile of feminine, soft clothes was folded and stacked with fashion-shop precision; the ones hanging were arranged according to color. There wasn’t as much as he would have expected. Not even half of the things Bergdorf had sent.
Opening the first drawer, he found her lingerie also neatly stacked and folded. Nothing was overly erotic. Everything was stylish and elegant, romantic even.
So fucking sexy. He ran his hand over silk, satin, and lace, and raised a silver embroidered white corselet, more an outerwear garment than underwear. He could see himself unfastening the hooks and liberating her breasts from it and his body reacted immediately.
“Fuck it,” he bit out.
Naked, he went to his laundry and dressed himself with whatever clothes he could find. Picking up his wallet from his office desk, he went down to the garage.
Markus did not handle emotional problems well. And so he locked himself in a frigid rage, knowing he was safe there, impervious to hurt.
His Mercedes AMG motor roared to life and he was off. To where, he didn’t know. He only knew he had to get away, far away from Hannah.
2:30 p.m.
“How could I?”
Hannah had repeated the question to herself since she had woken and discovered Markus was gone. How could I get in bed with him? How could I let him think I was there because he is paying me? How?
She shook her head as she stood in the middle of Markus’s home office, feeling the silence which surrounded his apartment like a tomb when he was not there. Silent and sterile. She’d had no idea that silence had a feel to it, but it did now. It was heavy, stifling, making it hard to breathe.
She’d felt so sure of herself: no question she could stand up to him, no doubt in her mind of how she’d deal with his charming obnoxiousness and his infuriating sexy ways. She would ignore him when he was acting the conquering male. She would show him she could resist his advances.
She had only resisted for less than a week.
And then the tenderness of him waiting for her took her all unawares and made her heart ache. And then his kiss had made her body melt. How couldn’t I?
With Markus, her mouth watered for a taste of him and her skin prickled with white-hot awareness, desperate for his touch. Even now, simply looking at his photo and imagining his hands over her body, she had to rub her arms to rid herself of goose bumps.
Guile. It was nothing but the guile of an experienced sensuous man. And she’d succumbed. Instantly. Oh, but for a moment, a lifetime of a moment, it had been more than steamy sex. It had been sweet. Unbearably so.
“Ms. Kristensen?”
Hannah jumped in fright as Markus’s driver pushed open the door. “Oh.”
He fidgeted by the door. “May I come in?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Tom…er, Mr. Blackthorn’s assistant, I mean, he called earlier,” the driver said. “He couldn’t get through to your cell phone and left a message for you.”
Oh. Her heart heaved and fluttered in her chest. “Okay.”
“Seems there are some problems in Sagaponack that need Mr. Blackthorn’s immediate attention. He won’t be coming home tonight.”
Why not? She smiled at Donovan. “I’m sure he wants everything perfect for our wedding. I’m going to call him.”
Donovan looked as though he wanted to add something more, but then just said, “
If you need me, miss, just call.”
3:00 p.m.
Hannah couldn’t believe her bad luck when Donovan opened the door again to let Senator Blackthorn inside Markus’s office.
She put down the book she was reading and rose from her curled position on the sofa. “Senator, good afternoon.”
“Ms. Kristensen.”
“Markus is not home,” she said as she watched him go to the wet bar to serve himself Hennessy cognac. “He will be returning from Sagaponack—”
“I know.” He sipped the cognac and did not even pretend to be polite. “Cut the innocent act. If you’re smart enough to hold Markus’s interest, you’re smart enough to know what I’m doing here. I know you’re only after money, so I’ll give you one million dollars to walk away right now.”
Great, just great. Hannah suspected that everything he would say from there on out would only get worse. She crossed her arms and stared at him.
“Well?” he asked, after an interminable moment. “I can’t wait forever.”
If he wants to play, I can come along for the ride. “You probably can’t. Five minutes of your—or Markus’s—time is worth a fortune.” While mine is worth nothing, isn’t it? So if I keep you waiting, I’ll win. Eventually.
He leaned against the bookshelf, swirling the amber liquid in the crystal glass. “You should consider this.”
“One million dollars? Is that what you’re offering?” Hannah sat on the sofa and crossed her legs, doubting the Senator would actually pay her whatever amount he offered. He would simply use that to reveal her money-grubbing status to his son. Not that it would make any difference if he did pay her or not. Markus had already won her loyalty.
“Before I decide, I have a question for you, Senator. Why did you suddenly fire my mother? And not even give her a reference?”
Elijah seemed caught by surprise for a moment but then he unemotionally replied, “Because of the same reason I am offering you one million dollars now. Markus showed interested in you, the daughter of the help.”
Her mouth opened in shock. It was a petty reason. An inconsequent act of an ungenerous, self-centered man, which had in the long haul killed her mother and transformed her life into a living hell.