Chapter Five - Leah
Jack was pissed.
More than pissed. Furious. The kind of rage that made my job as his publicist exceedingly difficult.
Usually his worst scandals were sexual in nature. Occasionally he had a minor issue on the field. Fortunately, he had only one physical altercation since signing with the Rivets, and even that was settled quickly and quietly.
Lucky for anyone who crossed him.
Jack was a huge, imposing, utterly dominating beast of pure animalistic strength. Had he wanted to hurt that tabloid journalist, Jack would have reduced that bastard to a pile of broken bones.
It was the sort of problem the league expected, and exactly the type of crisis he hired me to handle.
Unfortunately, his reaction to the journalist would get us both fired. I waited for the call that’d summon us to the police station.
My heart thudded in my chest. That was good. I thought I left it at dinner, puddling on the ground at Jack’s feet while he delivered the single greatest kiss of my life. Jack slammed his car door. The Porsche was too expensive to mistreat, but we were damn lucky he kept the vehicle on the road and under one hundred miles an hour as we launched from the restaurant.
“What are you doing?” I reached for his arm, but I didn’t have the courage to touch him. “Jack, please calm down.”
Rage strained his voice. “I’m getting you out of there.”
“Why?”
“So that cocksucker can’t harass you anymore.”
I couldn’t take a deep breath, and Jack stared at the road only to jerk the wheel and pass the other motorists. Apparently, normal traffic laws no longer applied to a man who single-handedly led the city to their first championship game in twenty-five years.
I had no idea what to say. “I’m fine, Jack.”
“What he said wasn’t.”
“You broke his camera.”
“He’s lucky that’s all I broke.”
He jammed the car in a higher gear and headed for the highway. I thought he would settle down, but every agonizing mile only pumped him more. I knew he had a temper, but he white-knuckle gripped the wheel. Was he really that upset on my behalf?
I didn’t ask where we were going. He drove me out of the city and took the exit for Teagan Heights.
This was a section of town where I didn’t belong. There, the houses were worth millions, and the men inside worth ten times that.
Jack took me to his house.
The mansion wasn’t the gaudy palace I expected, but it was gated, huge, and wrapped with a pool, hot tub, and evergreen trees to offer privacy. He pulled into a ten car garage. Only four of the bays were filled. A Mercedes, one motorcycle he was restoring, a totaled classic car, and an old Toyota. Jack stormed past it, but I pointed. He didn’t look.
“My dad’s old car.”
He waited for me at the door to the house. I remembered his file. “Your dad passed away?”
“Day of the league draft.” He toughened, intentionally, hiding the pain. “He didn’t live to see the Rivets take me. Come in.”
Jack’s extravagant living room was too classy for both of us. The parlor was a fancy, untouched slice of what a millionaire was supposed to like, complete with chandeliers and paisley patterns. He showed me the kitchen and dining room with a wave of his hand, but he steered clear of the sitting room that had probably gone unused since he purchased the home.
His den was downstairs, and it was a true man cave. He installed a wet bar and leather seats, a fireplace and every game system imaginable for the wall sized TV. It was dim, cozy, and served as an award room. He didn’t hang trophies and accolades, but jerseys and photographs. I lingered near the newspaper articles from his high school and the letters from old teachers and friends who congratulated him on everything from his college bowl games to getting drafted by the one of the most prestigious teams in the league.
This was the real Jack, but even in his familiar setting, he hadn’t recovered his temper. He poured a drink and downed it immediately. He had another before offering me anything with a grunt.
“Jack, it’s okay,” I said.
“He called you a slut.” He abandoned the hard liquor and opened a beer instead. The bottle shook in his hand. “I’ve been with a lot of girls. Most of them are easy, but you aren’t like them. I won’t let anyone talk about you like that.”
I wished my heart hadn’t fluttered a little harder. “I can handle my own PR.”
“That wasn’t good PR. He just wanted to snap a picture of me getting in trouble with a new girl.”
I raised an eyebrow. “But that’s exactly what we want. People have to see us together. Those pictures will sell the story. It’ll be proof that we’re a real couple.”
And the kiss the reporter captured on camera was evidence enough, damning or otherwise. Every part of my body still buzzed with the intoxication of Jack’s lips. My skin heated. My tummy flipped. Parts of me that should never have pulsed for a man like Jack suddenly came alive.
“We aren’t telling people like that,” he said. “Not with a big fucking headline calling you a slut. Christ, I’ve tried to get you into bed since the day I hired your damn company. If you’re a slut, you’re the slowest score I’ve ever had.”
“Isn’t that sweet.”
He set the beer on the bar and walked to me—long, confident strides that trapped me before I could position the couch between us. “Look, Kiss. I’m a little…protective of you.”
“Since when?”
“Since some asshole photographer with a blog decided to flash a camera in your face!” Jack bit his words. I pretended not to flinch, but he saw. Apologized. “You aren’t some random girl with me. Even if this wasn’t fake, even if we were a legit…you’re not like the other girls. You’re…Kiss. You’re Leah.”
I swallowed. It didn’t help. It was the first time in a year he actually called me by my real name.
I had no idea he was so protective, so valiant to defend my honor.
Craziest part of all? I don’t think he realized it either.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He stood so close, close enough to shield me with his muscular body from any threat to my virtue in this world—except for him. I looked up, meeting the stunning gaze of his eyes, the striking blue pinning me in place.
“Did I ruin the night?” he asked.
“It won’t be a good morning when the story breaks…” I didn’t move as he reached for me. “And now I’m expecting a call from Jolene or the league or the police…but I don’t think you ruined anything.”
His hands fit over my waist, tugging me closer to him. His words rumbled deep inside me, shuddering my core, my heart, my mind. Nothing made sense this close to Jack Carson.
I had no idea he could even touch someone so gently.
“I lost a chance at my dance.” His voice melted me again.
“You were trying to seduce me.”
“Was it working?”
Like he couldn’t tell by how eagerly I’d parted my lips and accepted his kiss. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“We’re not dating.”
His hand trailed over my side, twisting in my dress, edging the hem into his curling fingers. “What’s the problem?”
“It’ll get too complicated.”
“Like faking a relationship isn’t complicated…” He leaned down, skipping my lips and aiming for my neck. “We can still be professional.”
I held my breath, capturing his spicy cedar scent. “There’s nothing professional about sex.”
“Sex is just sex, Kiss.”
“Not to me.”
His lips traced along my neck, nipping where my pulse beat and delighting me with every shiver he could force through my body. “That’s no fun. Sometimes you just gotta fuck. Ever felt like that before?”
No, but I was starting to.
Still, that didn’t make it right. Or good. Or anything I should have wanted from playboy Jack Carson and his conquests.
“I won’t be just another girl you take home,” I said.
“Afraid of being the one I keep here?”
Yes, because it would never happen. A man like Jack was trouble, especially when my life was already in shambles. The only plan I had anymore was to slink home and soak in the tub. I often pretended I hadn’t received the engagement announcement from Wyatt and my former best friend. Jennifer was pregnant.
She had conceived while I still wore the ring Wyatt gave me.
Jack wanted sex for sex.
I looked for stability. A relationship. The promise of romance, marriage, world-wide travels. Kids.
We couldn’t have been more wrong for each other. No one would believe we were dating.
But my head fell back. I offered him another taste of my neck. The shiver was distressing.
Amazing.
His kiss fluttered my eyes closed, and, for a long moment, I imagined what it might be like to be swept in Jack’s embrace. To let myself go. To take that desire and have sex for…fun. For pleasure. For myself.
I twisted, meeting his lips. The kiss was as sensual as the one in the restaurant, as powerful and confusing and absolutely necessary. His tongue flicked once, twice against mine, and every stroke shocked me completely, buzzing deep into places I wasn’t prepared to admit.
He loomed until the back of my knees struck the couch. Jack pinned me with the promise of something so frighteningly sexy I might’ve crashed into the leather from the sheer anticipation of where else he might’ve touched, kissed, explored.
“Such a bad idea…” I whispered. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can.” Jack’s fingers tangled in the hem of my dress. “What would it hurt?”
“It’d ruin everything. We have a professional relationship…”
“Come on, Kiss.” The material tickled as he drew it over my thighs. He exposed the sheer, red panties I wore only because I didn’t think anyone would see that I matched my underwear to my wrap. “I drove you crazy every time I came to the office. We didn’t have a professional relationship to ruin.”
“We have one now.” The dress slipped too high. My flat tummy revealed to him, and the underside of my bare breasts peeked from the bound silk. A bad night to not wear a bra. “Don’t you think this will make pretending to be dating hard?”
“I’m used to things being hard around you.”
“I’m not.”
He smirked. “That’s because I behaved myself, Kiss.”
“And now?”
“What’s my nickname in your office?”
“…Trouble-Maker.”
“You’re the one in trouble now.”
I sucked in a breath as the dress slipped off. Jack surveyed my body, nude save for a pair of sheer panties that left none of my cocoa skin to the imagination.
Jack tossed me onto the couch, falling over me only once he tossed away the sport coat and ripped through the buttons of an expensive shirt. The bright, ragged ink on his chest peeked through, swirls of dark and expressive tattoos that seared through the façade of respectability he wove for the dinner we enjoyed.
Jack wasn’t appetizers and cocktails and fancy French restaurants.
He wasn’t gentle dances and soft whispers.
He was fierce—raw and passionate. Sex for sex and enjoying every last second of debauchery.
His lips feasted on mine, his tongue stealing my overwhelmed murmurs and creating a wild moan in their place. My skin chilled in the air conditioned house and cool leather, but every swipe of his tongue heated me until the warmth consumed me and I begged for a moment of air, of peace, of anything that would alleviate the intensity.
Jack delivered. He grinned and seized my nipple within his greedy lips, nibbling against the mocha nub just hard enough to make me squirm.
“A little chocolate kiss.” He murmured with his mouth full and indecent and stuffed with my breast.
I loved the sight.
I savored the shivers, the absolute decadence of letting a man touch where my fingers hardly ever satisfied. He suckled and twisted, pulled and nipped, and the enthusiastic pop from around the seal he created on my tip only excited me more.
This was wrong. I knew it. Every instinct in my body told me so. God only knew how many others he had teased this same way, and how many more he almost had if his car hadn’t crashed and his intended foursome scattered.
But Christ, I wanted this. So badly.
For as often as I fought him and chastised him and dealt with his every terrible scandal, Jack was just what I needed after avoiding everything romance, everything sexual, everything pleasurable since losing a man I thought would help me begin the life I planned.
Jack would give me nothing, but he could show me what I had missed. Just once, I wanted that freedom, that irresponsibility, that danger of giving a part of me to a man I knew wouldn’t cherish it.
And I didn’t care because I knew what I’d get out of it. I’d have a night to help me forget a man who already forgot me. I’d receive hours of pleasure and a moment to experience the excitement of spending the night with a man who had a reputation so depraved it’d make a girl like me horrified.
Jack’s hands were huge. So was his body. His shoulders. His chest. His legs.
The part of him dragging against my leg as he teased my nipples with a knowing tongue.
“Just this once, Jack,” I said. “Just once.”
“Once?” He grinned, tugging on my nipple until it popped from his mouth. “Kiss, you’re gonna want it more than once tonight.”
“T—tonight?”
He moved lower, kissing a trail over my tummy, my belly button, and finally to the little bow on the front of my panties. He gripped that in his teeth, threatening so much more to the delicate slit beneath.
“Kiss, if you think I won’t fuck you all night, you haven’t been paying attention to all those scandals you cover up.”
“And now I get to become one.”
“You’re no scandal.” The panties slipped over my hips. His breath caught as the hint of my slit peeked between my legs. “I’ll never apologize for what I’m about to do to you.”
I would. I’d be sorry for it later. For now, I wouldn’t regret a second while his breath tickled hot against my legs. He kissed my thighs and spread me open. I trembled. Jack stared at a part of me I once vowed he would never, ever see, touch, taste, or take.
He broke that vow in one swipe of his tongue against my slit, tickling my clit, tasting my slickness, and then completely imbedding within my tight pussy.
“Oh, my God, Jack!”
I gripped his shoulders, fearing I’d rip the shirt from his chest. His lips sealed around me, nibbling and feasting, and I collapsed against the leather as his prodded touch drew more desperation from my voice.
Shivers upon shivers.
I arched, offering more to him. Jack grinned, his lips wet with my own desire.
“Kiss, you’re sweeter than chocolate.”
I should’ve been embarrassed. Mortified. Fighting my need to wrestle my panties from his hands and cover the parts of me that should’ve been hidden from a playboy, trouble-maker like him.
Instead I offered myself, gasping his name and begging to feel more of his wide tongue spreading my slit and tempting the silken wetness within.
And Jack knew exactly how to play me. He wasn’t just a skilled athlete; he was a sinful lover. He knew how to make me groan, when to tease my gasp, and what little trick of his tongue would whisper an undignified plea for more of his attention. No woman was safe in his arms. He left no innocence unconquered.
His pants unzipped. A thrill tickled through me. He didn’t leave the pulsing slit between my legs, still feasting, licking, driving my body to the absolute peak.
But Jack needed his own relief. I drove him insane with a lick of my pussy, so much that he had to pump himself as he gobbled me whole. My eyes fluttered closed, but I tried to stare, to see just what made Jack Carson so goddamned arrogant.
He wasn’t cocky.
He was all cock.
A pulsing, thickening, insanely large cock.
Even with his quarterback hands, he couldn’t hold the entire length in his fist. The head of that delicious looking weapon glistened with pre-cum, hardened with desire, and throbbed with the tease of my pussy so near his body.
Jack growled against my petals. The hum of his words and the heat of his breath melded into an absolute warning against the threat of what he wanted to do.
Why didn’t I heed that warning?
I should’ve pushed him away, gathered my things, and scampered off to safety like the good little girl that I was.
I meant to refuse the man who prayed on innocence, stole inhibitions, and corrupted the virtuous into crazed vixens.
Instead I came.
My body arched in a ripple of cascading agony, a perfect pain that exploded, sizzled, and rent through my every muscle. It punished me for surrendering and prepared me for what else I’d give up in exchange for the moment my breath whispered his name and my fingers gripped his hardened shoulders.
Jack didn’t let me breathe. He forced himself up, cast off his shirt, and kicked his pants low enough to free the entirety of his monster cock and heavy balls from the material. He tugged a packet from his pocket and ripped through the foil with a growl. His cock twitched in need.
I didn’t have the strength to consider how quickly, how dangerously he moved. He sheathed his cock in protection and moved over me for a kiss, letting me taste how much I had desired his lips on my other delicate places. Jack shifted my legs and coiled me around him.
He was so big. Too big. Huge.
I stared at him with wide-eyes and found my voice in a soft admission.
“I…haven’t done this in a while.”
Jack laughed. “Can’t say the same, but I’ve never left a girl unsatisfied.”
“Yeah, but with a cock like that…do you leave any alive?”
“Alive, satisfied, and spent from orgasm after orgasm.”
“Promise?”
Jack grinned. “Trust me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And that’s why you’re still a good girl.”
He spread my legs and fell over me, his weight supported by a thick arm bulging with muscle and tensed with a need to take and rut and seize me.
I leaned up to kiss him, sucking along his lip, baiting him with my tongue. Jack growled. The head of his cock pressed against my slit.
And that was the moment my phone rang.
“Let it go—” Jack pulled away as I twisted, lunging for my phone. “Kiss, what are you doing? Get that perfect ass back on the couch.”
“It’s Jolene.” I recognized the ringtone, more obtrusive than ever. I wiggled away from Jack only to plop off the couch on my apparently perfect butt. “It could be about that journalist.”
“Fuck that sleezeball.”
“I’m afraid he’s going to fuck you.”
“At least someone will.”
I answered the call, realizing all too late I was completely naked, slick with desire, and sweating in anticipation. My curves were on display for Jack, and his cock bobbed obscenely hard, waiting for me to return.
Jolene talked fast, but I kept up, eying Jack as he was sure to get the news too. I ended the call.
He shrugged. “What?”
I didn’t know how to cover my nudity, but folded arms offered me a bit of protection.
“Were you supposed to go out with Bryon tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“He was just arrested for sexual assault.”
I pulled my dress from the floor and did my best to shimmy into it. Jack still had my panties. He could keep them. A memento of the mistake that might have been.
“What do you mean arrested?”
“You need new friends, Jack,” I said. “I am so glad you weren’t out with him.”
“Wait…they’re wrong. He wouldn’t do that.”
I arched my eyebrow. Jack broke my gaze first. Bryon was exactly the type of man to do something so heinous.
“He’s in custody now. Jolene got a call from his agent. They want to hire us before it gets bad. I gotta go in to work.” I held my hand out. “Panties, please.”
Jack reluctantly handed me the crimson silk. “What about…?”
“Sorry.” I covered my face. “Sorry, this got out of control. We never should have—”
“Yes, we should have.”
“No, Jack. We can’t. We just…” I wished I had a glass of water, something to ease whatever flames burned through me. “You are so lucky you weren’t with him tonight. Half of the damn offense is at the police station with him. If you had been there…”
“I wasn’t.”
“And that’s why we need to be careful,” I said. “This. What we’re doing? This fake relationship is for our protection. We can’t jeopardize it. No matter what happens. We can’t let ourselves…”
“I get it.” Jack didn’t look like he wanted to understand. “Fine. Need a ride?”
“No, I’ll call a taxi. I want you to stay here, okay? That journalist was bad enough. I don’t want anyone to even start a rumor you were with Bryon.”
He tossed his shirt over his shoulders. It couldn’t button. His cock still raged hard in his pants. I tried not to look at what might have been.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said. “I…uh, I won’t bill you for it.”
Jack scowled, returning to his beer on the bar. “Bill me, Kiss. If this is our professional relationship now, I don’t want anything to ruin my reputation. At least my credit is impeccable.”
“Jack—”
“This is how you want it?” He held his arms out. “This is how you get it. No fooling around. Nothing more than sheer respectability. I possess some self-restraint, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did. I’m not your type. I’m your one wild moment. The one man you could’ve looked back on while your future husband lays over you for thirty seconds to finally give you that baby you want so much.” He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll spare you the guilt of having sex and using me to feel good about yourself.”
“I’m sorry!”
“I’m not some mistake to be made,” he said. “If I get you, I want all of you. Not just your curiosity. Not because I’m your one bad thing you do. I want to fuck you, and I want you to like it because you wanted me.”
I couldn’t answer. Jack didn’t expect one.
Well I didn’t have a choice. If I was protecting myself and my career and Jack’s reputation, we had to be responsible.
Even if it meant denying something we both wanted.
Even if it meant denying each other the only thing we both needed.