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  His hooded gaze is primal and ravenous, his face taut with barely contained control as his hands move roughly to remove the shirt I’ve already unbuttoned. He tosses it aside, revealing bronzed broad shoulders and a muscular chest that tapers to an equally mouth-watering abdomen.

  It’s all I can do not to drool as I watch him undress for me.

  His jeans and shoes go next, followed by the dark boxer briefs that barely contain his impressive cock. When he’s naked, I simply stare at the perfection of him. Not a flaw or a blemish on his sculpted body, no hideous scars like the one that mars the side of me.

  Subconscious now, I glance away from him, knowing he can have his pick of any woman in this entire city. Probably any woman in the world. Why he chose me—not only for his painting, but here and now—I can’t begin to imagine.

  “Hey.” His low voice cuts into the doubts spiraling through my mind. He lifts my face on the edge of his hand, staring down at me with solemn, smoldering eyes. “Wherever you went just now, don’t. There’s only you and me in this room. I want your full attention, Ms. Laurent.”

  “You have it.” I let go of a breathless laugh. “After what you just did to my body, I’m not going to be thinking about anything else for days.”

  “Days.” He smirks. “That’s all? Darlin’, you’re not leaving this bed until I’m sure you’ll be thinking about me seventy years from now.”

  Pushing me down onto my back on the bed, he prowls on top of me, taking my mouth in a blazing hot kiss as he covers me with the delicious weight of his body. He feels so good, and I’m so filled with yearning to have him inside me, I can’t resist moving beneath him.

  “Now, Jared,” I pant against his mouth. “Please.”

  He chuckles, deep in his throat, breaking away only long enough to reach for one of the condoms and tear it open with his teeth. He shifts to the side and rolls the protection on with one hand while I delight myself in stroking the hard contours of his back and firm ass.

  After suiting up, he reaches between my legs and torments me some more, teasing my clit and sinking two fingers inside me while he scorches my mouth with another deep, soul-melting kiss.

  I moan in complaint when he releases me, but my protest only lasts for a moment. He moves his hips, aligning the broad head of his erection with the opening of my body. Then he pushes inside, inch by glorious inch, a measured thrust that seems to cleave me in two, stretching my tender walls to their limits.

  “Ah, fuck,” he rasps, his voice strangled against my ear. “You’re so tight, sweetheart. You feel so fucking good. Tell me I’m not hurting you.”

  I shake my head, incapable of words. The fullness of him inside me twines with the soaring sensation in my chest as he begins to move, invading then drawing back, his strokes building with each motion.

  I writhe beneath him shamelessly, arching to take the full measure of every thrust of his body within mine. I’m molten for him, and unable to contain the pleasure ratcheting through me.

  “Jared.” His name boils out of me on a low moan as I bring my legs up around his hips to take him even deeper. “Jared, please . . . fuck me harder.”

  He growls a wordless sound of agreement and the careful control he showed me a moment ago burns away. I hold on to his shoulders as he drives home, impaling me with long, urgent strokes. Our tempo is fierce, frenzied.

  I close my eyes as I start to splinter around him. My breath is galloping, my panting moans building into another wild scream I can hardly bite back.

  “Look at me,” he commands me hoarsely.

  I lift my lids and find him watching me, his breathing ragged as he crashes into me, pushing me toward the crest of an impossibly steep wave.

  “Look at me,” he says again, more forcefully now. “I want you to see me when you come. I want to hear you say my name.”

  “Jared,” I gasp, consumed by the feel of him. My climax twists ever tighter, driven by the fierce look in his dark eyes as he watches pleasure break over me.

  The scream I can no longer contain claws its way out of my throat, and yes, it’s his name I call out.

  He is all I see, all I feel, everything I never dared to want.

  “Jared.” I shudder beneath him as the pleasure rocks me. “Oh God, Jared.”

  His gaze is wild now, matched by the ferocity of his desire. I can feel it pounding through him. His heartbeat is like thunder. His cock surging, battering me, as if he can’t get close enough, can’t bury himself deep enough.

  On a taut snarl, he shifts his position, caging my head between his bent forearms, his fists tangling in my hair. I am riveted to his heated eyes, and to the intensity of his expression as he fucks me.

  We are joined intimately, but the connection of our gazes is profoundly deeper. It sears me, branding into me the truth of what I sensed the moment I stepped into Jared Rush’s study and everything else crumbled away. He’s owned me from the instant our eyes met that night.

  He knows it, and in a stunned corner of my own consciousness, I know that I’ve owned him since that moment, too.

  “Melanie.” He says my name through gritted teeth like a curse, all his focus locked on me. His strokes grow more untamed, his tempo relentless. I reach down between us to feel the power of him as he thrusts into me. He groans my name again, and this time it sounds like a prayer.

  He lowers his mouth to mine and plunders my lips, his tongue echoing the rhythm of his driving hips. It’s too much for me to withstand when I’m still lit up like a live wire. I move against him, greedily chasing another climax.

  “That’s it,” he rasps into my mouth. “Give it all to me, baby.”

  I have no choice but to surrender to the pleasure erupting within me. And Jared gives me no mercy. Holding onto him is like holding onto a storm. He is powerful and overwhelming, electric and unstoppable.

  And all the while, he’s looking at me as if I’m the one pulling him under, consuming him.

  Maybe we’re both falling too much, too fast. God knows, I’ve felt the terror of losing myself to him every time we’ve been together. Being with Jared like this, feeling him buried so deep inside me I can no longer tell where he leaves off and I begin, there is no room for fear.

  If that makes me a naive fool, I can’t even summon the will to regret it.

  Jared growls my name and I come on a jagged cry, tumbling helplessly into oblivion. He follows me an instant later, his harsh shout gusting hot against the curve of my neck and shoulder as his big body convulses with the force of his release.

  25

  MELANIE

  For a long while afterward, neither of us moves.

  Jared kisses me again and again, his hands rough in my hair, infinitely gentle when he caresses the side of my face. I encircle my arms around his shoulders, not yet ready for our connection to end. Maybe he feels the same way, because instead of pulling out of me, he rolls onto his back, taking me with him until I’m settled over the top of him.

  His heart thuds heavily beneath my cheek as he strokes my bare shoulder. We lie in contented silence, suspended in a moment neither one of us seems eager to break. His erection is still firm inside me, still pulsing with aftershocks. I don’t want him to withdraw, but eventually Jared kisses the top of my head and moves to get rid of the spent condom in the adjacent bathroom.

  I hear the water run in the sink for a moment, followed by the soft hiss of the shower turning on. He strides back out to the bedroom like a big cat on the prowl, all gorgeous muscles and athletic motion. His mussed, golden-brown hair completes the effect, grazing his broad shoulders like a wind-tossed mane.

  He meets my appreciative gaze and gives me a slow, lopsided smirk. “That looks says you’ll be thinking about me for more than a few days.”

  He’s right, and I don’t even try to contain my satisfied smile. “So arrogant, Mr. Rush.”

  “Confident,” he counters, grinning now. “Big difference.”

  “Mm, so I see.” My eyes travel to the jutting, b
are length of him as he approaches me on the edge of the bed. His erection grows even harder in the few steps it takes for him to reach me. I want to lick him so badly, I practically groan. “Jared, I should go.”

  “Go?” Frowning down at me, he palms the back of my skull, his strong fingers playing in my loose hair. “Darlin’, I’m not even close to finished with you yet. Besides, if you were on your way to work, you’re already late.”

  God, I’m tempted. I look up at his devilish gaze and shake my head. “A coworker picked up my shift. It’s my mom I’m worried about. I should be with her.”

  “She’s got someone with her,” he reminds me. “I reviewed the nurse’s credentials myself before the agency sent her over. They assure me Rosa’s the best they have on staff.”

  “Jared, about that . . .” I slide off the mattress to stand with him. “I appreciate the gesture, but what just happened between us doesn’t change my mind. I can’t accept your help with my mom’s care. I’m going to pay you back.”

  “I won’t take your money. Not before I was inside you, and sure as fuck not after.” He kisses me as if the matter is settled. “Come on. You can argue with me some more in the shower.”

  I follow him into the bathroom, then into the glass-walled shower that’s already filled with billowing steam. We don’t continue our argument under the warm spray overhead, but instead take our time soaping each other. We kiss and stroke every inch of each other’s bodies until the water runs cold and we’ve both come multiple times.

  It wouldn’t have taken much convincing at all for him to get inside me again, but the fact that he didn’t even try without the benefit of protection only makes me want him more now that we’re out of the shower.

  With a towel fastened around his trim hips, Jared wraps me in another one, then draws me against him. I am blissfully caged within the circle of his strong arms as he brushes his lips over mine in a tender, yet hungry kiss. He groans as he pulls back, both of us breathing heavily. I feel boneless and loose, but he’s a coil of tension against me, the ridge of his cock nudging into my hip.

  “I knew you were going to be a problem for me,” he murmurs as he stares down into my heavy-lidded eyes. “I just didn’t realize how much. I can’t get enough of you, Ms. Laurent.”

  My smile is slow, seeming to curl up from the very center of my being. “That’s only going to be a problem if you think I’ll be able to get enough of you.”

  He arches a brow. “You will, eventually. I’m still the same insufferable prick I was when we met. The only difference is, now I know how to make you come.”

  “Yes, you do.” I want to keep the moment playful and light, but I’ve never been more serious in my life. “You’ve ruined me for anyone else, Jared. I knew it that first night I came here with Daniel. I wanted to despise you, but instead I just . . . wanted you.”

  He makes a low, approving sound in the back of his throat, his gaze burning with desire and a fierce tenderness that astonishes me. “You are unlike any woman I’ve ever met. So genuine and honest. Tenacious and loyal. Stubborn as hell, too.”

  “So I’ve heard, once or twice,” I admit, smiling.

  “And you’re beautiful,” he adds, reaching up to caress the side of my cheek in his palm. “You’re more than beautiful, Melanie. Your goodness glows from inside. You take my fucking breath away.”

  A soaring kind of warmth opens up in my chest at his words, and at the earnest way he says them. His name is a sigh, my breast too full with emotion to form any true sound. I turn my face into his gentle hand, pressing my lips to the center of his palm. I can feel the throb of his pulse there, beating strong and heavy.

  But I feel something else, too.

  His fingers tremble against my cheek. More than tremble, they’re shaking.

  He draws his hand away from me, letting it fall slowly down at his side.

  “Jared.” I look at him in alarm, realizing the tremors I noticed in his hand when we were making love and that I dismissed in the heat of the moment were something more than I thought as well.

  I reach for his hand, but he moves it behind him.

  “Don’t, Melanie.” His deep voice is clipped, toneless. “It’s nothing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I reply, cautiously because I can see how ready he is to deny it. To shut me out completely.

  I can’t let him do that. Not now, when I’ve let him into my body, into my heart.

  “What’s wrong with your hand, Jared? Please, let me see.”

  His eyes hold me in an inscrutable stare, bleak and unblinking. I can see him wrestling with the decision to let me in, debating whether he can trust me. Like a wild animal caught in a snare, he watches me, coiled and ready to lash out.

  “It’s okay,” I assure him. “Let me see.”

  He stands so still I don’t even hear him breathing as I reach down and take his strong hand in my grasp. The spasm has worsened, affecting not only his fingers and hand but vibrating up the muscled length of his forearm.

  “It’ll pass in a few minutes,” he murmurs, his eyes still trained on me. Searching for cracks in my reaction, I have no doubt. The way he stares at me, it’s as if he’s waiting for me to shrink back and turn away. Or daring me to. “Early onset Parkinson’s disease, in case you’re curious. A little DNA parting gift from my old man.”

  The explanation hits me like a physical blow. Not because I consider it a death sentence, but because it’s immediately, painfully, obvious to me what that kind of diagnosis means to someone like Jared.

  “My father’s tremors came on around the same age as mine, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.” He shrugs. “I had my first noticeable symptom a couple of years ago. Blew the shaking off as a consequence of too many bad habits and a few too many long nights in places I shouldn’t have been. But it wasn’t just one time. It kept coming back. Kept getting worse and more frequent, until I couldn’t ignore reality anymore.”

  I’m amazed he’s still allowing me to hold his hand while it shakes in my light grasp. That edge of wariness hasn’t left his sober gaze, though, and I wonder what it must cost a strong, larger than life man like Jared Rush to be forced to confront this kind of mortal vulnerability.

  I want to apologize for what he’s going through, but I know he doesn’t want my sympathy. I’m not even sure he’d accept it.

  What’s more, every time I’ve looked into his haunted brown eyes I could tell that he’s been through far worse than any physical challenge could ever pose. I bear my scars on the outside of my body. Jared’s are buried deep.

  And now, this.

  “Two years ago,” I whisper, glancing away from his gaze to look at the elegant fingers that are normally so in control, so brilliantly gifted. The tremors are small, but bad enough to make holding a pencil difficult, never mind a paintbrush. “That’s why you stopped painting. I accused you of letting alcohol interfere with your art, but that wasn’t the problem, was it?”

  “No,” he says. “I had myself convinced the drinking helped smooth out the shaking. Sometimes, it did. But drinking’s only given me an excuse to ignore the truth.”

  “Can you paint at all?”

  “On good days I can. Those are becoming fewer and fewer all the time.”

  “But you were willing to pay me to pose for you.”

  He nods, and I’m not sure if the regret I see in his eyes is because of his declining ability to pursue his art or something else.

  “I thought I could give it up.” He reaches up with his other hand, the one that’s steady and infinitely gentle as he sweeps his thumb across my lips. “I likely would have walked away from my art for good, but then I saw you.”

  I can’t pretend it doesn’t move me to hear him say that. Yet it confuses me, too. “Today you said you weren’t interested in painting me anymore.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was a mistake to drag you into my problems.”

  I shake m
y head. “You don’t hear me complaining, do you? After all, it brought us here.”

  A growl rumbles in the back of his throat as I lift his afflicted hand up to my lips and kiss his clenched fingers. He doesn’t pull away, but I can see him retreating emotionally. He wants to say more, but something holds him back. His gaze is shadowing over like a door being slowly closed.

  As much as I want to coax all his secrets out of him, I know him enough to understand that if I push too hard, he’ll only close that door even tighter.

  “Maybe you were right,” he says gruffly. “You should go home now.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.” I let go of his hand and reach for his handsome face instead, framing his whiskered jaw in my hands. My gaze implores him to see me, to let me in. “Please don’t act like you want me gone. Don’t act like you want to be alone when it seems to me you’ve been alone for most of your life.”

  “Alone?” He chuckles humorlessly as he lowers my hands. “Look around you, darlin’. I’m surrounded by people.”

  “How many of them know about your tremors? Does your lawyer know? Seems like you and Nathan Whitmore are good friends, but I’ll bet he’s got no idea. What about Gibson?”

  Jared nods now, a wry twist to his mouth. “He’s the only one. I used to send the old man out for my prescriptions, back when I was still taking them. But I think he knew even before then. He notices too much, rather like someone else I know.”

  “He cares about you,” I tell him gently. “Like someone else you know.”

  His gaze searches mine for a long moment. He wets his lips, then leans forward and gives me a heartbreakingly tender kiss. “Finish drying off and get dressed. I’m going to take you home.”

  He turns away from me and grabs another towel from the rack. I watch as he runs it roughly over his damp hair. His movements are tight and aggressive, not only due to the tremors that still have a hold on him. He’s retreating from something more than just me. I can practically see the talons of his past sinking into him.

  “You said your father came down with early onset Parkinson’s, too. Was that how he—”