Beckett didn’t cut out of work early. Knowing Samara might be in his condo, waiting for him, made staying a herculean effort. He managed. He walked through his front door at five fifty-five to the scent of something spicy cooking.
He closed the door and leaned against it and, just for a moment, imagined this was what his life was like. Coming home to Samara every night. A traitorous thought, maybe, but they matched up more than physically. He liked her determination and the way she handled business. Her ambition and ruthless business sense were balanced out by the softness that shone through when he least expected it. He wanted to know everything about her.
He wanted her to want to tell him.
“Beckett?”
“I’m here.” He pushed off the door, paused to make sure it was locked, and then walked down the short hallway to the kitchen and living room. Samara stood at the stove, her hair piled on top of her head in a haphazard bun, wearing a pair of black leggings and a tank top that showed peeks of a bright red bra beneath it.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind. I was going to order takeout, but today was stressful so I’m taking a page from Journey’s playbook and trying to cook some of that irritation out.”
He shrugged out of his suit jacket and crossed to look at the covered pot on the stove. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the mix of spices. Beckett inhaled and closed his eyes. “That smells divine.”
“It’s biryani. My mother’s recipe.” She smiled, but the expression didn’t meet her troubled dark eyes. “You look tired.”
“It’s been a long week.”
Samara shook her head. “It’s Monday.”
“I stand by my statement.” He leaned against the counter. “Do you want to talk about what stressed you out?”
“You know, when I called you I thought I did.” She glanced down at the pan on the stove. “I’m so conflicted right now. I don’t know which way is up, and the more time goes on, the murkier it gets.”
He knew the feeling well. He moved closer to her and cupped her face in his hands. “We can talk when you’re ready.”
She reached over and flipped off the burner. “Dinner will hold for a little bit.” Samara pressed her hands to his chest. “I don’t want to think for a little while, Beckett.”
He kissed her in response. He dug his fingers into her thick hair, enjoying the feel of her as he explored her mouth. She met him stroke for stroke, her wicked tongue flicking against his. Beckett broke the kiss and dragged his mouth along her jawline. “We’ll talk later.”
“Yes, later.” Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt. She undid them at record speed and shoved the offending piece of clothing off his shoulders.
Her gaze landed on the scar that puckered the skin on his shoulder. “This looks bad.”
“It was.” In the middle of a fight with Nathaniel when he was a teenager, he’d fallen down the stairs and almost destroyed his shoulder in the process. His father had been remorseful and felt guilty, but he’d retreated behind his veil of stony silence right around the time Beckett got out of the hospital.
She traced the crooked edges, and he felt the light touch all the way to his toes. Finally, she met his gaze. Her inky eyes gave nothing away, the soft expression gone as if it’d never been there to begin with. “I’m glad you’re here.”
This fragile almost-peace wouldn’t last. There were still too many obstacles in their path for them to truly make things work. He couldn’t even be sure whether she was there because she wanted to be—or if his aunt had ordered her to call him. Beckett cupped her jaw with one hand and dragged his thumb over her full bottom lip. “No business tonight. No fighting or manipulating or bullshit. Just us.”
Her breath hitched. “I’m not going to make a promise I can’t keep.”
He shifted his hold to grip the back of her neck lightly. “No business for the next couple hours, then.”
“Deal.”
A few flicks of his fingers had the straps of her shirt sliding down her arms and revealing the red bra that had caught his attention earlier. Her full breasts looked like they were straining to get free, so he obliged them, inching down the lace to bunch around the underwire, framing her breasts the way they were meant to be framed. Samara’s dark nipples puckered beneath his gaze, an invitation he couldn’t ignore.
“I’m fucking you tonight.”
She laughed, the sound hoarse and needy. “Or maybe I’m the one who’s going to fuck you.”
He managed to drag his gaze back to her face. “Do the semantics matter?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something.” He cupped one of her breasts and circled her nipple with his thumb. “Is everything a power game with you? Has everything up to this point been part of it?”
Samara arched her back, thrusting herself more firmly into his hand. Her breaths were coming just as fast as his, even though he’d barely touched her. The chemistry between them was a truth he silently dared her to deny. Finally she shook her head as much as his grip would allow. “Power is important. You have it all and I have none.”
“Don’t know how you’re keeping score, but that sounds all sorts of wrong.” He let go of her long enough to pull her shirt over her head and push off her leggings, leaving her in only her underwear. The lace of her panties matched the red of her bra and hid absolutely nothing—if anything, it framed her.
A blatant invitation…if he ignored the threat her thorns presented.
I like the thorns. They made it that much sweeter when she stopped thinking so damn hard and gave herself over to the pleasure.
He took two careful steps back. The picture she presented was almost enough to have him closing the distance between them again, but he managed to hold on to control. Barely. “My bedroom. Go.”
Samara blinked, and then shook her head, her hair sliding over her shoulders with the move. “Wait—”
“I’m not going to repeat myself. You want games, we’ll play games. Now, get your fine ass into my bedroom and wait for me.” Trust me, Samara. Let me help you turn off that formidable brain of yours for a little while.
She licked her lips and he knew he had her. There were other reasons she’d come to him tonight, but she’d come for what he could give her, too. She needed this the same way he did, no matter how bad they might be for each other.
Finally, she nodded. “Don’t make me wait long, or I’ll take care of myself.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen, completely at ease with her near-nakedness—her soft laugh floating over her shoulder. “Then what use would I have for you?”
Samara considered her options as she came through the bedroom door. She wanted to be in a position to really make an impression when Beckett walked in. He’d won the first round in the kitchen through the sole fact that he’d surprised the hell out of her. She’d expected…She wasn’t sure. To maintain control. To not be affected by the gentle understanding in his dark eyes when he’d asked about her day.
None of that reasoning held up past the moment when he’d commanded her into the room and her entire body clenched in anticipation. His rough tone and blunt words didn’t promise her sex—they promised animal-like fucking on the basest of levels.
Exactly what I need—to get out of my head for a little while.
She climbed onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard. The bed was positioned so that Beckett would walk through the door and see her in profile, so she wanted to make that first look one for the record books. Stripping completely was what he’d expect, so she went in a different direction. Samara let her bra straps fall from her shoulders, but kept it on. She slid her panties down to just past her knees.
She ran her fingers through her hair, and checked her reflection in the mirror across from the bed. She looked like she’d just been fucked within an inch of her life, as if they were so hot for each other they hadn’t bothered to strip completely. Perfect. Then there was no time left.
Beckett stood in the doorway, his dark eyes drinking her in. She held her breath as his gaze dragged over her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and back again. He gave her legs the same amount of time he gave her breasts, and he paused on her face the longest of all. “I could get used to this.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I didn’t come here to make promises to you and nothing’s really changed as far as you and I are concerned.” So many other things have changed, though. She gulped in a breath and focused on him. “I need this, Beckett. I need you. If you’re going to demand things I can’t give you, then maybe I should leave.”
“Not fucking likely.” He circled the bed, taking her in from every angle. “Grab the headboard.”
Samara liked sex as much as the next person, but she had a clear set of rules—mainly that she was in control at all times. She didn’t need to be blatant about the requirement because most men weren’t paying enough attention to realize that they had never even been allowed in the driver’s seat.
Not Beckett.
He never asked for her submission—he demanded it. More dangerously, right now he was demanding that she trust him. It’s just sex. It doesn’t have to apply to any other aspect of life.
She didn’t believe it for a second.
But Samara still raised her hands over her head and gripped the thick wood of the headboard. With her back bowed, every part of her was on display, and Beckett could do whatever he wanted to her as long as she kept her hands where they were. The knowledge made her shake. She pressed her lips together, torn between closing her legs and…She didn’t know.
Beckett didn’t give her the opportunity to think too much. He undid his slacks and stepped out of them in a smooth move. She’d seen him naked before, but it was either through a haze of tequila or in the midst of their frantic fucking on his desk. Not like this, where she could look her fill even as he did. Muscles corded his legs the same way they did the rest of his body, a deceptive strength that his jeans or slacks always masked. So much about Beckett was deceptive strength.
If Lydia had her way, he’d lose everything.
“Beckett—”
“No.” He crawled onto the bed. “You were right—we’re not going there. Not yet. Not like this. Right now, I’m going to taste you until you beg for my cock in every way that I’m willing to give it to you. When we’re too exhausted to move, you’re going to curl up against my side and sleep with me. In the morning, we’ll sit down over breakfast and have a conversation.”
He was asking for a whole lot more than sex. Panic beat frantic wings against the inside of her throat. It took two tries to speak past the feeling. “I’m not sleeping with you.” She’d thought maybe they’d have sex, talk, and she’d—what? Do the walk of shame back to her place in the middle of the night?
That’s exactly what I thought was going to happen.
“Yes, you are. This is a full package experience.” He knelt between her feet and traced the lace of her panties where they were taut between her shins. “You need this, Samara. Let me give it to you.”
She stared at him, this tortured god of a man who had no business making her feel things after all this time. She met his gaze, her stomach taking a dive at the conflicting emotions tangled up and on display for her. Beckett wanted her as much as she wanted him, but he carried his past around like Atlas carried the world. That truth was there in the lines bracketing his mouth, in the faint circles beneath his eyes, in the creases at the edges of his eyes.
In that moment, they weren’t Samara Mallick and Beckett King.
They were just a woman and a man who needed each other.
It matters who we are. It has to matter.
It didn’t.
Her true purpose for being there sifted through her fingers like smoke, insubstantial and gone in an instant. Reality faded, narrowing down to a pinpoint—this room, this bed, this man. The entire world ceased to exist in that moment, could be held at bay for the entirety of the night if she’d allow it.
Here, in this place, she didn’t have to be stronger, colder, hungrier than anyone else in the room. She could fall asleep in Beckett’s strong arms. With him holding her she could believe, if only for the night, that no matter how bad things got, it would all be okay in the end.
Samara dug her fingers into the headboard, the faint pain bringing her back to herself. No matter how tempting the lie, it was a lie. She couldn’t allow herself to fall prey to the intoxicating fiction Beckett wove around her. He might not be the enemy right now, but there was an enemy out there who obviously had no qualms about putting people in danger. Pretending there wasn’t was a mistake.
It’s only a single night.
“What do you say, Samara?”
Really, there was only one answer. “Okay.”
“Good. Then we can begin.” He gave her a downright wolfish grin.
What had she just agreed to? Samara couldn’t quite catch her breath. “It’s only tonight. Tomorrow we go back to…all that.”
“I don’t give a fuck about tomorrow.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to one knee and then the other, just above where her panties were drawn tight by her spread legs. Beckett stroked his hand up her inner thighs, stopping just short of where she desperately needed to be touched, and then back up again. “Don’t move your hands. Don’t speak unless it’s to scream my name.”
She laughed, though the sound was more choked than mocking. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s just a harmless game.”
It didn’t feel harmless. It felt downright dangerous to give Beckett so much as an inch. It’s just sex. It didn’t matter how many times she repeated the mantra to herself. It wasn’t any truer now than it had been the first time she thought it.
He shifted down to his stomach and dipped his head between her legs. She might have been having a hard time breathing before, but the image he presented—his mouth hovering over her pussy, her panties a bright banner above his dark hair, the hungry look in his eye reserved for her alone—sucked all the air out of the room.
And then his mouth was on her.
It had been good in the office—better than good—but it took her all of three seconds to realize that Beckett had been rushing then, as frantic for a taste of her as she’d been for his touch.
Now, he was taking his goddamn time.
Samara kept her grip on the headboard and forced her eyes to remain open so she didn’t miss a single second of this. He growled against her skin and pushed her legs wider yet so he could dip down and tongue her. Beckett fucked her with his tongue the way she wished he’d fuck her with his cock.
“You’re thinking so loud, it’s practically written in neon above your head.”
She pressed her lips together to prevent the reply demanding to be vocalized. Beckett, damn him, knew it. He grinned. “Almost had you.” And then his mouth was on her again, sucking her clit hard enough to make her cry out. She shifted, trying to get closer to him—if that were even possible—but he pinned her in place easily. Through it all, he never once stopped the onslaught.
She writhed. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. She didn’t know what it was because her entire world narrowed down to Beckett’s mouth on her pussy. “Beckett!”
Samara calling his name was the cue he’d been waiting for, but Beckett was enjoying her taste too much to stop. He wanted inside her so badly he was shaking.
But he wanted to taste her orgasm more.
He flicked her clit just like he knew she liked it. Even if he had unlimited access to her, he’d never get enough of going down on her. He craved her like an addict. Sex was fucking fantastic, but having her on his tongue and her thighs creating a vise against his head? Perfection.
He picked up his pace, responding to her cues, and then she was coming, crying out his name again. As tempting as it was to bring her again and again, Beckett had no illusions—Samara would make him pay for teasing her, with interest. It’d be fun to play with that kind of torture in the future, but that wasn’t what tonight was for.
Might not be a future.
Shut the fuck up. You have right now. Make it count.
Beckett sat back and yanked Samara’s panties off. Her dark eyes were hazy with passion, but she reached for him immediately. “Now. No more waiting.”
He couldn’t have said it better himself. He snagged a condom from the nightstand and put it on with quick, concise movements. Ensuring that it was on correctly was the only thing keeping him in check. Tonight was important. If he screwed this up, this would be the last time he and Samara would be together.
He grabbed her hips and pulled her down the bed to meet him. She was so fucking soft it drove him crazy. The woman beneath the skin was as hard-ass as they came, but her body welcomed him even if she didn’t always. He pushed two fingers into her, ensuring that she was ready, but the time for foreplay had passed.
He needed to be inside her. Now.
Beckett hitched her leg over one of his arms and positioned his cock at her entrance. “Ready?”
“Yes.” She arched up to meet him as he thrust forward. The move sheathed him to the hilt and he froze even as she moaned. “Fuck, Beckett.”
“You feel so good.” He settled his weight on top of her, bracing himself on his forearms so he could get the angle right. It felt good to be this close to her—as physically connected as two people could be. He kissed her because he craved being closer yet. It was too good. Too fucking perfect.
“You do, too.” She wrapped her legs around his waist. “I never want this to end.”
It doesn’t have to.
He kissed her to keep the words inside. He might want Samara, but that didn’t mean she felt the same way. All he’d offered her was one night of escape, and he’d give her exactly that. Trying to talk about the future, even while she clenched around his cock, would violate the terms of their agreement, and he’d be damned before he did something to make her leave.
Needing to feel her coming again, he reached between them to stroke her clit. “This is what you need.”
“Yes.” Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Yes, oh my God, yes. Beckett, don’t stop.”
“I’m not going to stop. I’m never going to fucking stop.”
She came with a sob, her body arching beautifully. Beckett tried to hold on, to hold out, but the truth was he needed this as much as she did. He buried his face in her neck and pounded into her, holding her close as he sought his own release. Pressure sparked through him, the pleasure too intense. He cursed as his strokes went jerky and he orgasmed hard enough to send black spots dancing across his vision. “Fuck.”
Samara squeezed him with her entire body and kissed his temple. “You’re right, Beckett. I think we both needed that.”
He turned and captured her mouth. “I’m nowhere near done with you yet.”