One Night: Sensual Bargains: Nine Months to Redeem Him / A Deal with Benefits / After Hours with Her Ex

“You were magnificent,” he said softly, brushing hair from my face.

“Magnificent?” I gave a harsh laugh. “I was so determined to list all her faults. But what I’ve done is worse.”

“What’s that?”

“I told her I’d always take care of her,” I whispered. “Then I hurt her like this....”

“Seems like she had it coming,” he said softly, caressing my cheek.

I shuddered at his touch, longing for his comfort, fighting the desire to turn my cheek into his caress. “All these years I’ve blamed her for taking the role that might have made me a star. But it was never mine in the first place. She was right. I had the chance to audition. I went home.”

“To be with your mother...”

“Whatever the reason. It was a choice I made.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “After losing my parents, and the role of Moxie, I never wanted to have my heart crushed again. It’s not Madison’s fault I spent the next ten years hiding, not letting myself feel or want too much....”

“Until you fell for Jason,” he said.

But was Jason the exception? Or had he just been one more example of me taking the safe path? The thought was new and troubling.

Swallowing, I looked up at Edward through shimmering tears.

“It wasn’t Madison’s fault,” I whispered. “I did it to myself. I chose to be a coward.” My voice caught as I turned away. “Playing it safe has ruined my life.”

Edward said quietly, “Your life isn’t over yet.”

Our eyes locked in the shadowy great hall. An almost palpable electricity crackled between us.

“I have a private island in the Caribbean,” he said huskily. “That’s where I’d go if I needed to escape a broken heart. I stayed there after my accident. I needed to be alone.” He gave a grim smile. “Well, alone with a doctor and two round-the-clock nurses.” Reaching out, he gently twisted a long tendril of my hair. “No one can get at you there, Diana. There’s no internet, no phones, no way to even get on the island except by my plane.” He gave me a smile. “Want to go?”

Looking up at him, I tried to smile back, but couldn’t quite manage. “Thanks, but it wouldn’t help.” I looked down at my hands. “Not when the person I want to escape from is myself.”

Reaching out, Edward tilted up my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His dark blue eyes gleamed with silver and sapphire light, like the half-bright sky at dawn. “I understand,” he said quietly. “Better than you might think.”

“You do?” I whispered. Of its own will, my hand reached up to stroke his tousled black hair. It was so thick, and soft, just as I’d thought it would be. Five o’clock shadow traced the sharp edges of his jaw. Everything about him was masculine and foreign to me. I didn’t understand him at all. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

He gave a sudden crooked smile. “Maybe it’s just to lure you in my bed.” His hand moved gently from my hair to my cheek. “Did you ever think of that?”

I gave a tearful, hiccupping laugh. “You don’t have to try this hard for me.”

“I don’t?”

I looked up at him.

“No,” I whispered.

His hand froze on my cheek. His expression changed as he looked down at me.

Cupping my face in his large, strong hands, Edward lowered his mouth to mine, slowly, deliberately. I could have pulled back from his embrace at any time. But I didn’t move. I held my breath in anticipation as time suspended.

Then his lips finally touched mine, and I exhaled with a sigh. My breath comingled and joined with his. His lips were tantalizingly soft at first, sweet and warm. He lured me in, made me lean forward against his chest, reaching up to wrap my arms around his shoulders. Then he shifted me in his grip. As he held me more tightly, the world started to whirl around us.

He’d seen me at my worst, but he still wanted me....

His kiss deepened, became hungrier, more demanding. I clutched his hard, powerful body to my own, like a woman seeking shelter in a storm. Edward was solid, like a fortress in my arms. And if somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice shouted at me to stop, telling me this would destroy me, I pushed it away. I clutched Edward to me, kissing him with every cell in my body, my skin hot with need.

I was tired of being safe.

With a low growl, Edward lifted me up into his arms. Leaving the great hall, he carried me up the sweeping stairs.

Held against his chest, I looked up at him, dazed, lost in desire. I watched the play of shadows against his hard, handsome face as he carried me up the stairs. He carried my weight like a feather.

Edward St. Cyr was taking me to his bed. In just moments, my virginity would irrevocably be taken by this cold playboy, this breaker of hearts.

But he was so much more than that.

Lifting my hand to his cheek in wonder, I felt the roughness of his skin, the dark bristles along the hard edge of his jaw. He was so powerful. So masculine. So different from me in every way.

And yet somehow, tonight, I felt we were not so different. Out of anyone on earth, Edward understood me. He’d seen the scared girl I’d been, and the bold woman I wanted to be. He knew me....

Using his shoulder, Edward pushed open his bedroom door. I’d never been inside it before. The room was dark with shadows. Dark, Spartan furniture lined the edges of the walls.

A large white bed was at the center of the black-lacquered floor, illuminated by a pool of moonlight from the window like a spotlight.

Kicking the door closed behind us, Edward gently set me down on the moonswept, king-size bed. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the great hall. I looked up at him, shivering in my headband and simple skirt and blouse. I was twenty-eight years old, but felt as innocent as a schoolgirl.

Never taking his eyes off me, Edward slowly pulled off his tie. He dropped it to the lacquered floor. He moved toward the bed.

And I started to shake.

Moonlight glazed the bed around me as his strong hands tangled in my hair. “This is the first thing to go,” he murmured, and he pulled my headband aside. Bracing his arms on the mattress around me, he leaned forward. Gently, he kissed me. His mouth seared mine, pushing my lips apart as he pushed me back against the bed.

My head fell back against the soft pillows, and he gave my cheeks little feather-soft kisses before returning to my mouth. His tongue flicked possessively between my lips before he trailed kisses down my throat. My head tilted back as I gave a soft gasp. Feeling lost. Feeling new.

“I don’t love you,” I breathed—speaking to him? Or myself?

“No.” His dark blue eyes gleamed. “You want me. Say it.”

My voice was almost too quiet to hear. “I want you.”

“Louder.”

I lifted my gaze. “I want you.”

My voice had turned strong. Dangerous. Reckless.

He looked at me with such intensity I forgot to breathe.

“And I want you.”

Lowering his mouth hard against my own, Edward pushed me deeper into the soft white pillows. His hands stroked slowly down my body, light as a whisper, hot as a desert wind. His kiss deepened. Reaching down, he cupped my breasts that were aching beneath my prim white shirt.

I barely felt his fingertips move against my blouse. The buttons were just suddenly undone, and the unwilling thought crossed my mind that he’d had a lot of experience. He pulled my body up, and my blouse vanished into thin air, revealing my flimsy bra of blue silk.

What had made me wear my only truly pretty bra today, underneath my blouse? A coincidence? Or had I known, even before I came downstairs for dinner, that I intended to end my night this way?

“So beautiful,” he whispered, his hands touching everywhere, sliding over my bare skin. “You’ve been driving me mad....”

“Me too...” I breathed. We’d been both alone, I realized, both wounded deep inside, in injuries we’d caused ourselves. But in this moment, it felt like loneliness no longer existed. My heart and my arms were both overflowing. We were together. We were the same....

I pulled him down hard against my body, wanting to feel his weight over mine. I heard the appreciative murmur from the back of his throat as I kissed him, hard, and tried to unbutton his shirt. My hands were trembling and clumsy.

“Stop,” he said huskily, putting his hands over mine. For a moment, I was afraid he’d changed his mind. Then I realized he was unbuttoning his shirt for me, his expert fingers doing it three times as fast. Rising from the bed, he unbuttoned his cuffs and dropped his expensive tailored shirt to the dark floor. I gasped when I saw the muscles and planes of his naked chest, lit by the slanted moonlight. I’d seen his body before, during massage and occasionally when I’d taken him to swim at the local center. But never like this. Never with the full knowledge that I could run my hands over his skin, that I’d soon feel his naked body roughly take my own.

Edward’s eyes never left mine as he deliberately undid his trousers and pulled them with his silk boxers down his thickly chiseled thighs. A choked noise came from the back of my throat as he stood naked in front of me. He’d been naked in the gym that morning, but I’d been afraid to look. I was still a little afraid now. Blushing, I started to look away.

His gaze locked with mine, challenging me. With a deep breath, I lifted my chin, and looked, really looked, at his naked body.

He was not ashamed, standing there with quiet pride and giving me time to look, to accept. His shoulders were broad, and a dusting of dark hair trailed like a V from his nipples and hard-muscled chest down to a taut, flat waist. His legs were powerful as a warrior’s, and as he shifted his weight in front of me, he moved with an athlete’s grace. His thighs were hard and huge. Which could also describe what I saw if I dared to look between his thighs... But there my nerve failed me.

He was powerful. He’d been healed. But the injuries had left scars that couldn’t be denied. The raised scars across his torso, where his ribs had been broken, left white lines across perfect olive-toned skin. Similar lines slashed brutally across his right shoulder and arm, and his left leg, like cobwebs of his body’s memory, forgiven but not forgotten.

Men prey on the tender weakness of the feminine heart, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley had warned. He will lure you into bed by using your own heart against you.

Turning away, I squeezed my eyes shut. The mattress moved beneath me. I felt Edward come closer, felt the warmth of his body as he said in a low voice, “What is it?”

“This is wrong,” I whispered. “You are my patient.”

“It’s wrong,” he agreed.

My eyes flew open.

He was looking down at me with a glint in his eye. “You’re sacked, Miss Maywood. Effective immediately.”

I gave an indignant squeak. “You’re firing me?”

“You said it yourself.” He quirked a dark eyebrow. “I don’t need a physio anymore. What I need...” Reaching out, he slowly stroked down the valley of my breasts, “is a lover.”

Lover. I shivered at the word. So erotic. So suggestive. Not just of sensual delights, but emotional ones.

“You want me to be your girlfriend?” I breathed.

“No.” He gave a low laugh. “Not a girlfriend. Just my friend. And my lover. For as long as we enjoy it.” Lowering his head, he kissed my naked belly, making me shiver at the sensation of his lips and rough chin and tiny flick of his tongue against my belly button. He looked up. “This isn’t a commitment. I won’t be asking you to the movies with a box of chocolates, asking to meet your family.” His eyes narrowed. “I am not nice, Diana. I look out for myself. I expect you to do the same.” His lips lifted at the edges. “For all I know, you’ll soon go back to Jason Black.”

“I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he cut me off. “I don’t expect you to stay with me forever. It’s fine,” he said lightly, searching my face. “I wouldn’t want to get too accustomed to you.”

I am not nice, Diana. I look out for myself. I expect you to do the same. When a man tells you something bad about himself, that is the time to listen. I stared up at him in the shadows of the bed, hearing only my own ragged breath, my own heartbeat, as I tried to focus on his words. But I was distracted, burning hot with his naked body over mine.

Don’t lie to yourself about what the end will be, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley had warned. If you forget yourself and let him lure you into his sensual designs—

But I didn’t want to think about her anymore. The woman had written the book in 1910, I thought irritably. What did she know? I shut the book in my mind, locking it away forever.

And I smiled up at Edward. “Good to know,” I said, matching his light tone. “I wouldn’t want to get too accustomed to you either. I have things to do in life.”

“Do you?” he said, sounding amused. Then, moving closer, he looked at me. My heart pounded as his breathtakingly beautiful face, just inches from mine, was illuminated in moonlight, making him look like a dark angel. “Yes,” he murmured. “I think you do. You’re meant for great things in life, Diana.”

My lips parted, and I felt suddenly tearful for no good reason, other than that no one had ever said such a thing to me. No one, not since my mother had died—

“Great things,” Edward whispered again, lowering his head to mine. His lips curved wickedly. “Starting with tonight...”

He kissed me, his hands stroking down the length of my body, slowly removing the last of my clothes, my skirt, my cotton stockings. He ran his hand appreciatively along my hips, my thighs. My breasts. He unclasped my bra so easily, he practically just looked at it to make it spring open. Dropping the flimsy blue silk off my body, he cupped one of my breasts with both hands. I sucked in my breath, my whole body taut.

He pulled away with a low curse.

“I forgot you’re a virgin.” He shook his head with an irritated growl. “So let me make this really clear for you. One more time. For the sake of my own conscience.”

“I thought you didn’t have one,” I said weakly.

“This is all I can give you.” His eyes met mine. “No marriage. No children. All I can offer is—this.” He kissed me, feather-light, running down my bare, trembling throat, to my clavicle. I felt his hands cup my naked breasts, felt his fingers lightly squeeze the full, heavy flesh. He lowered his mouth with agonizing slowness to an aching nipple, then stopped at the last moment. He looked up at me. “Do you agree?”

As he spoke, his lips and breath brushed my taut nipple, and I shook beneath him, lost in desire, lost in pleasure, lost.

He was offering cheap, no-strings sex. No marriage. No children. Not even love.

So? I thought suddenly. What had love ever done for me? Only broken my heart.

This was better than love.

“Yes.” I whispered, reaching for him. “Yes...”

Then his lips came down on my skin, his tongue swirling my nipple as he suckled me, and I gasped, gripping the sheets.

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS TONGUE SWIRLED hot and tight against my nipple, and I shivered beneath him. He nibbled with his teeth, drawing me more deeply into his mouth. My breast felt full and heavy and taut beneath his hands. I felt his hips grind against me.

Moving to my other breast, he squeezed the aching nipple, tasting the exquisitely sensitive nub with a flick of his tongue. He took it fully into his mouth, suckling me. And all the while, I felt the hard ridge of him between my legs.

Drawing back, he ran his hands down the sides of my body. I felt his heat and weight pressing me into the comforter and soft white pillows of the king-size bed. Unlike the soft stroke of his hands, his lips were hard, searing mine as he gave me a kiss that had no tenderness, only fierce demand.

His fingers tangled and twisted in my hair, tilting my head so he could plunder my mouth more deeply. All my memories, all my regrets, faded into the past as I dissolved into lust—so purely alive, so purely desired. I kissed him back with all the trembling pent-up desire of my whole life.

The bristles of dark hair that covered his chest and forearms and his legs—and everywhere between—brushed roughly against my naked skin. He held me with ruthless, raw masculine power.

I felt his enormous hardness between my legs, brushing against my lower belly as he moved against me. His tongue twirled around mine as he kissed me, flicking the edges of my bruised mouth before he moved lower, kissing along my throat, working his way downward. Pressing my breasts together with his hands, he thrust his tongue into the crevasse between them, and I gasped. His breath was hot against my skin as he continued to kiss downward...down my belly and then...

Abruptly, he moved up to suckle an earlobe. My nipples felt taut almost to the point of pain as I felt the brush of his muscled chest. He moved to the other earlobe, still moving his hips sensuously against mine.

“You’re—teasing me,” I panted accusingly. I felt his smile against my neck.

“Yes,” he murmured against my skin. “I intend to make you weep.”

Slowly, delicately, he lifted my palm. He kissed the hollow, then moved his head to suck each fingertip, one by one.

I’d never thought of fingers as erogenous zones but feeling the warmth of his mouth on each fingertip, the hot wet swirl of his tongue, the hard pull of his teeth, I shook beneath him. He repeated it on my other hand, delicately sucking on each finger until I was dizzy and gasping for breath.

Slowly, he moved down my body. I felt his hot lips and wet tongue against each taut, aching nipple. His tongue swirled, his hands cupping each full, heavy breast. With a gasp, I closed my eyes, gripping the comforter.

With deliberate, agonizing slowness, he again began to move down my naked body in a trail of hot kisses. My eyes flew open in the semidarkness of the bedroom when I felt his hands move low, over my hips, running lightly over my thighs. When he brushed feather-light over the hair between my legs, I audibly choked out a gasp.

He lifted his head up lazily. “Just wait.”

Lowering his head to my belly button, he flicked it with his tongue, inside it, inside me. But even as I shivered, his mouth moved down farther.

And farther.

Running his hands over the swell of my hips, he lowered his head between my legs. I felt the warmth of his breath right there and gave a sharp gasp, gripping his shoulders as my head tossed back.

But he made me wait. Made me want. He just kept moving down my legs, all the way, down to my feet. Parting my knees, he stroked the hollow of each foot, gently massaging it, causing a different kind of pleasure to spiral up my body. He pushed my legs farther apart. Stroking up my calves, he kissed the hollow beneath my knee. I gripped his shoulders, my eyes squeezed shut.

Using his shoulders, he roughly spread my thighs all the way apart.

My breathing was ragged as I gripped the comforter, trembling beneath him. I felt the heat of his breath on the tender skin of my inner thighs. Shivering, I tried to scoot away, though I wanted it so badly. He held me down firmly. His hands pressed my legs wide. He lowered his head with agonizing slowness, making me hold my breath until I thought I might faint—

I felt the hot, wet stroke of his tongue against my slick core, and gave a muffled cry. He paused, then licked me again, this time lapping me with the full width of his tongue. As my hips twisted helplessly beneath him, he held me down, forcing me to accept the pleasure as I nearly writhed with agonized need.

“Please,” I whimpered, hardly knowing what I was saying. Barely realizing that I was speaking at all. “Please.”

He gave a low laugh.

Pushing me wider, he worked me with his tongue, lapping me with the full width one moment, then using the tip to swirl tighter, ever tighter, against the hard aching center.

He slowly pushed a fingertip inside me. Then two. As I held my breath with pleasure, he stretched me wide with his thick fingers, while licking and suckling me with his tongue.

My body was on fire, my back arching from the bed. I’d lost the ability to take a full breath. I twisted beneath him, no longer trying to get away, merely to end the sweet torment. I’d never imagined it could be like this—pleasure to the point of pain— Higher—tighter—

I heard a building scream from a voice I’d never heard before, a voice I would only later realize was mine. My eyelids half closed as I left the earth and exploded past the sun.

As I gasped for breath, Edward moved quickly, bracing himself with his hands on either side of my hips. Positioning himself between my legs, he thrust himself inside me. His full length. All at once, thick and hard, ripping through me with jarring pain.

With a choked gasp, I pushed on his hips, wanting the pain to stop. He held still inside me. Then, as my grip on his hips loosened, he slowly began to move again. He pulled back, then slowly filled me again, giving me time to grow accustomed to the size of him. He filled me, stretching me inch by inch, slowly, sensuously; and the red haze of pain turned orange, then pink, then began to bubble and fizz like champagne. My body, which had been briefly limp on the bed, began to quicken again, to grow taut and tense with new desire.

Gripping my hips with his large hands tight enough to bruise, he thrust harder, until he was riding me rough and fast. My back again began to arch off the bed as he filled me deep and hard, stretching me to my limit, and beyond....

With a curse, he abruptly pulled out. I opened my eyes, nearly hyperventilating with need.

Looking at him in the slanted moonlight on his enormous bed, I saw he’d opened a condom and was peeling it over his huge length.

“I forgot,” he said grimly. “I never forget.”

My mouth suddenly went dry. “Then is it possible—”

“It’s fine,” he growled. Leaning forward, he kissed me passionately, until I forgot to worry about anything, until I forgot my own name. “Look at me.”

I did. Our eyes met as he pushed back inside me, inch by throbbing inch. I gasped. As the pleasure built, I started to close my eyes, to turn away.

“Look at me,” he repeated harshly.

Against my will, I obeyed. Our eyes locked as he thrust inside me. I felt every inch of him as he filled me, then increased the rhythm, shoving harder and faster as he gripped my hips. Tension coiled low and deep inside me, building tighter and tighter.

It was shockingly intimate to watch his face. Almost more intimate, even, than having him inside me. I felt the muscles of his backside grow tense beneath my hands, tense with the strain of holding himself back so tightly. Why did he hold back? Why?

Then I knew.

For me.

He thrust roughly into me, swaying my breasts as our sweaty naked bodies slid and clung together. He thrust again, so deep he impaled me. And something inside me suddenly spiraled out of control, rising from ash like a burst of fire. I was consumed by it, then exploded like a phoenix. I screamed, and heard his answering growl, as he clutched my hips tight enough to bruise. With a hoarse cry, he filled me with one last brutal, savage thrust, then collapsed over me with a groan.

I held him in the moonlight on the bed, this powerful giant of a man who’d overwhelmed me with the sweet torment of pleasure, now weak as a kitten. Closing my eyes, I cuddled him to my body, my heart in my throat.

I’d never imagined sex was like this, never.

“See?” Still panting, Edward nuzzled my neck. His voice was filled with masculine self-satisfaction as he traced his fingertips down my cheek. “I told you.”

“What?” I choked out, holding him closer, never wanting to let him go.

His dark blue eyes smiled sleepily into mine. “That I would make you weep.”

Astonished, I touched my face and found he was right. He’d made me weep. It was the first time.