For a moment, he didn’t hold back. He thrust into her forcefully and rapidly. Harper strained toward him with each pass, keeping pace, but barely. She lost herself, bobbing her head back and forth as he pounded into her mouth. Even though she was eager, he controlled the rhythm and pressure with his hips and hold on her hair. He was demanding—to say the least—but he never caused her any acute discomfort.

He pulled the fat, flaring crown of his cock out of her mouth, bouncing tantalizingly just inches from her lips.

“Relax. Close your mouth for a few seconds,” he commanded.

She moaned as she followed his instructions, watching fixedly as he fisted and stroked his slick erection.

“Your mouth is so pretty. Better to fuck than I imagined. You’re so hungry, aren’t you?” He lifted his hand and caressed her jaw with damp, warm fingertips. “But you’re very small, too. You are sore, aren’t you?”

She’d groaned from the pain of intense arousal, not physical discomfort. But her mouth did ache dully. So did her lips. Even that turned her on. Her pussy was wet. Hot.

“Yes. Let me suck it more,” she said hoarsely.

It was like another woman uttered those words: a woman who craved it tense and rough and lewd. A woman who got off on having her hands tied behind her back and being forced to suck cock hard and deep in the bathroom of her workplace . . .

His caressing fingers paused at her words. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Harper.” The next thing she knew, he thrust his cock into her mouth again while forcing her head forward.

“Is that what you want?” she heard him rasp darkly from above her as he pumped aggressively. Just when the tip of his cock was a whisper away from tickling the back of her throat, he slid out of her and thrust again. His low, restrained grunts rained down on her, sending her into a frenzy. She ground her hips down on the hard toilet seat as she took him. She could come from this, just from being the recipient of his unchecked, greedy hunger.

“Hold still,” he ordered a moment later in a voice that sounded muted, but hard. Angry, even.

He began to fuck her mouth in a manner that would have caused her shame if she wasn’t nearly as mindless with lust as he was. He pumped the base of his cock with his hand while he thrust into her mouth. She pressed down with her hips, getting pressure on her sex. God, she was a whore. He was using her for his pleasure, and she loved it. She moaned shakily around his cock. He paused.

“Open your eyes.”

Her eyelids blinked open at his tense command. She stared up at him with his cock spreading her lips wide. Helpless. Hungry.

He mumbled a harsh curse. His cock popped out of her mouth. He jerked her up from her seated position.

“What—” she squeaked in confusion when he abruptly turned her in front of his body. He’d been on the verge of coming. She’d sensed it. He wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her against him. She whimpered.

“Be quiet,” he grated out as he dragged her skirt up to her belly. He shoved his hand beneath her panties and pressed against the back of her. “You’re soaking wet,” he said as he rubbed her outer sex forcefully. She whimpered. “Shhh,” he hissed, his mouth just above her right ear. “You don’t want anyone to hear you come, do you? Did you cry out when you masturbated here before?”

But Harper was too lost in the clutches of hot, blinding lust to reply. She circled her hips, grinding her ass against his balls, getting more pressure on her pussy. Suddenly, he lifted his pleasure-giving hand and gave the side of her ass a muted slap. A startled cry popped out of her throat.

“Answer me. Were you silent when you brought yourself off in the bathroom before?” he said tensely right next to her ear. His front teeth fastened on the shell of her ear, giving her a rough, arousing caress. She moaned.

“Harper,” he growled.

“I . . .” She struggled to think. The only thing she could focus on was her craving for him to put his hand back between her legs. She hadn’t realized it was so hard to think when she was this aroused. Maybe she’d never been this turned on before? That must be the reason she was writhing against him like a horny slut in the bathroom of her workplace.

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “It happened more than once.”

“What?”

“You’re making me crazy too, Jacob,” she bit out bitterly in a muted tone. She was so aroused, it was like every nerve in her body burned. “What do you want from me?”

There was a tense pause.

“I want you to answer my question. Were you able to keep quiet before? The other times, when you came in here?”

“I kept quiet,” she panted, clamping her eyelids shut.

“Can you this time?”

“I don’t . . . know,” she admitted brokenly. Her body shook in barely restrained arousal. “I don’t think so.”

His encircling arm rose to her mouth. He pressed his forearm against her lips. His deft fingertips resumed rubbing her lubricated, sizzling clit. “Come,” he whispered hoarsely near her ear.

She climaxed thunderously, her cries muffled by his sleeve-covered forearm crushed against her mouth.

“Sit down, Harper. Now.”

She blinked in disorientation. She’d lost herself to flooding pleasure and heat there for a moment. Jacob had turned her again, and was urging her back down on the toilet seat. The feeling of hitting the hard seat jolted through her dazed state. She opened her mouth to ask a question. He stepped closer and thrust his cock between her lips. She made a surprised sound. He began to thrust, his hand at the back of her head.

She immediately came back to herself at the sensation and began bobbing her head, taking him eagerly. He halted her by grasping the hair at her nape.

“Stay still. I’m going to come,” he ground out. He fucked her mouth tautly for several seconds, the incipient power in him making her eyes spring wide. He jacked the base of the staff with his hand even as he pierced her mouth forcefully. She felt his cock swell.

He withdrew almost entirely from her suckling mouth and began to come. Did he think she didn’t want him to come in her mouth? Harper leaned forward, thirsty for the first thick, white ejaculate that began to shoot from the slit. He suppressed a throat-burning groan. He gripped his fingers tighter in her hair, stilling her. He squeezed the base of his cock.

“All right. Open,” he said in a choked voice.

She did what he asked. He angled his cock into her mouth and finished coming on her tongue. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, undone as the taste of his semen entered her awareness. His big body tensed and shuddered several times.

After a moment, he exhaled raggedly and withdrew. He lowered his hand to her cheek and caressed her jaw. “Close, Harper,” he said thickly.

He held his glistening cock just inches from her face. She looked up and saw him watching her with that feral focus of his as she closed her lips and swallowed.

It aroused him unbearably, even in his sated state, to see the convulsion of her throat, to witness her taking him into her body while she looked up at him, her beautiful eyes glazed with lust . . . and trust.

Discomfort trickled into his awareness. Her lips were reddened and puffy. He’d been hard on her. As usual. He gently stroked her bee-stung lower lip with the pad of his thumb. Her lips parted. She continued to stare up at him, something in her expression amplifying his guilt.

His need swelled yet again, unexpected and harsh, despite the fact that he’d just come explosively. Made even more uncomfortable by the realization, he took a step back and jerked up his briefs before he reached around her, unfastening the wrist restraint he’d brought with him. He shoved the thin, padded cuff into his pants pocket.

“Are you going to make a habit of this?” he heard her ask quietly.

He glanced up from zipping his pants. Was he behaving coldly again, in the aftermath? His gaze flickered downward to her breasts. They were still exposed, poking out from the lowered cups of her bra. Regret sliced through him. Selfish regret. He wanted to haul her out of the Gazette’s office and take her home. He wanted to lay her on his bed and put his mouth on every inch of her.

“Coming to this bathroom, you mean?” he asked warily.

She nodded. Relief swept through him. She wasn’t referring to him being distant. “Given this time, I just might,” he said, holding her stare as he tucked in his shirt.

Her lush mouth tightened, and he sensed her volatile state. Well, what could he expect, given what he’d just done to her?

Out in the hallway, he heard heels clicking briskly on the tile floor. From the sudden frozen expression on Harper’s face, she’d noticed, too. The footsteps paused outside the door. He leaned and turned up the water pressure on the tap, making a louder white noise. There was a slight pause, and then he heard the steps going down the hall again.

“Maybe you’d like to see me fired from my job?” Harper asked.

“Why would I want that?” he wondered, stepping toward her again. He took her hands and lifted her to a standing position, drawing her against his body.

“So you wouldn’t have to worry about me being a reporter anymore,” she said soberly, looking up at him.

“The only motive I had in coming here,” he said softly, brushing his fingertips over her cheek. “Was seeing you.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to call me and ask me to dinner?”

A smile pulled at his lips at her droll tone. Again, he caressed her slightly swollen lower lip.

“You’re right. I didn’t come here to see you. I came here because I had to.”

“Like a compulsion?” she murmured, moving her lips beneath his stroking finger.

“Maybe,” he said, dipping his head. He brushed his mouth over her lips, all too aware of how he’d been so forceful with her earlier. Regretting it.

Wanting to do it all over again.

“Yes,” he amended. “A compulsion.”

“When did you return to Tahoe Shores?” she whispered next to his lips.

“Just now,” he murmured. He plucked at her mouth and drew her closer with his hands at the top of her buttocks. Despite his desire to bring her nearer, she started back and met his stare.

“Just now?”

Undeterred, he leaned down and nipped at her lips again. He didn’t reply until she reciprocated.

“Yes. My driver is in the parking lot, waiting. We came directly here.”

Again, she pulled her head back. He saw the question in her eyes.

“I’m sorry about having to cancel our dinner the other night,” he said, guessing what was behind her unease—or part of it, anyway. “I wouldn’t have done it, unless it was completely necessary.”

She nodded, and pulled out of his embrace. With her back turned to him, she straightened her bunched bra and buttoned her blouse. She smoothed her hands down her hips and thighs, straightening the narrow skirt she wore. “I understand that things come up, Jacob. Honestly. I do.” She turned and faced him. “But you might have called yourself, instead of having Elizabeth do it. It felt very impersonal.”

He blinked at her bluntness. For a few seconds, irritation flared in him. He’d grown unused to having someone call him out.

“I thought it’d be easier to have Elizabeth do it.”

“Easier for whom?”

His mouth slanted. They just looked at each other for a strained few seconds.

“I should get back to work,” she said.

“Harper, don’t be mad at me.”

He grated his teeth together in irritation at himself. He didn’t say things like that to women. Jesus. It was something he would have said to her when he was thirteen years old—he had said it to her years ago.

“You come into my workplace, pull . . .” She waved impatiently at the toilet, where he’d just fallen on her like a hungry wolf. “Whatever that just was, and then tell me not to be mad?” She stepped toward him aggressively.

“Are you mad because I did it? Or because you liked it?”

She gave him a fulminating glance. He shut his eyes in mounting frustration.

“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly after a moment, meaning it. He didn’t know where he stood with her. He didn’t know where he stood with himself in regard to her. The need to touch her, to possess her, was overriding everything else, including his doubts about her. He reached up and cradled her jaw with both his hands, lowering his head until it hovered over her upturned face.

“Just . . . just tell me this obsession . . . this compulsion you’re referring to, doesn’t have anything to do with that woman from your past, the one I remind you of,” she said softly.

He blinked and lifted his head, taken off guard. Is this what was bothering her?

“It has to do with you, Harper. Only you. I meant what I said before. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You’re the first thing I thought of seeing when I got back.”

“I’m the first thing you thought of doing,” she murmured, and he was glad to see the hint of a smile on her lips.

“Is that so bad?”

Her gaze skittered off him.

“I can’t believe I let you do it.”

His finger traced the trail of her blush.

“I’m glad you did. It was amazing.”

She looked up at him warily. His heart went out to her. He knew how bewildered she was. Who better?

“I’m being an idiot, letting you into my life,” she stated bluntly.

He went very still to contain the sharp pain that went through him, hearing her say that.

“You’re being unwise, maybe. So am I. Not everything in life is logical. Have dinner with me tonight. I’ll have someone pick you up at six at your place?”

He sensed her hesitation. She’d told him that she had a history of getting involved with narcissistic jerks, and he’d responded by ordering her into the newsroom’s bathroom, cuffing her hands behind her back, and shoving his cock in her mouth.

No wonder she hesitated.

Fuck it. He couldn’t help who he was. He was always dominant with women. Your need to have her is a bit beyond the ordinary, though, wouldn’t you say?

He ignored the sarcastic voice in his head.

“If I have to cancel any of our meetings in the future, I’ll call myself,” he found himself saying before she could deny him.

Her pretty, reddened lips—the ones he’d just debauched mercilessly—parted.

“Say yes, Harper.”

“I can say ‘yes’ on my own,” she told him with a flash of irritation, but her fixed stare on his mouth was an invitation.

He kissed her gently, coaxing away her impatience with him. Harper’s mouth. It had driven him to distraction when he’d been a boy. Clearly, it had the power to make him crazy as a man.

“Are you, then? Saying yes,” he asked against her mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered. She swallowed thickly. “I . . . can’t seem to help myself.”

“I know the feeling.”

He lowered his head again, drawn by her scent. Her taste. A moment later, he released his hold on her reluctantly.

“I should go,” she repeated.

“You go first. I’ll wait here for a bit, and then leave when the coast is clear.”

She took a moment to splash some water on her face and wash her hands. He noticed her anxious expression in the mirror as she smoothed her tousled hair.

“You look beautiful,” he said sincerely.

Her startled gaze flew to his. Their stare held in the mirror for a few seconds before she ducked her head, turned, and left the bathroom.

Why had he done it? Why had he wanted her to risk something big, like her job, in order to be with him? It was wrong, clearly, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

His expression looked grim and cold in the mirror.

It was his childhood longing—it was Jake Tharp—that was controlling him again, Jacob acknowledged as he washed his hands and splashed some water on his face. After that day at the courthouse, Harper had gone with her parents—the perfect, beautiful reunited little family—and left him alone.

Of course he’d known it was the only logical thing a twelve-year-old girl could do. She couldn’t do whatever she wanted. She was subject to the will and whim of her parents.

But had she at least wanted to keep their connection, like she’d claimed she had?

During Regina’s latest crisis in Napa, he’d spent some time with Dr. Fielding, her psychiatrist. Jacob had asked Fielding in a casual manner about hypnosis.

“Could a hypnotist make a patient completely forget their trauma?”

Dr. Fielding’s answer had been that a skilled hypnotist could distance a patient from memories of the trauma, make them feel less distinct and emotionally overwhelming, thereby lessening the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Could a hypnotist make someone completely forget a positive relationship? A friend, for instance?”

Dr. Fielding’s answer: “Very unlikely. A hypnotist can’t make a patient do something that the patient isn’t otherwise inclined to do.”

Jacob wiped off his face with a towel and faced the door, mentally donning the cold strength of his public armor.

Something that the patient isn’t otherwise inclined to do.

There stood the crux of the issue. If Harper had forgotten him under the influence of treatment from her father, then she’d done so because part of her wanted to.

Maybe she’d needed to, to free herself from memories of Emmitt Tharp, she had to forget Jake Tharp, as well. It pained him, thinking of all the memories being swept away, the ugly ones along with the sweet.