The Bastard Read online

  “I’m not suggesting that you have nothing to offer. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter to him. I thought it did, too, way back when. I thought if I was better than Isaac, I’d have a place. It didn’t. I won’t.”

  “Then why are you even here?”

  “Apparently to kiss you.” My fingers tangle in her hair and I lower my mouth to hers.

  “This is a bad idea,” she whispers, but her voice is raspy, affected, the taste of her hunger damn near on my tongue.

  I kiss her, a quick brush of lips, and a lick that has the heat between us damn near explosive. “Still think it’s a bad idea?”

  Her hands flatten on my chest but they flex rather than push. “We both know this is wrong.”

  “And yet you followed me here.”

  “You said that already,”

  “You knew what would happen,” I accuse.

  “I was angry.”

  I certainly know where anger and family collide, in ways I won’t explain to anyone. My jaw sets hard and I release her, putting a wide step between us. “Stay or go, but if you stay, you’re going to end up naked.”

  “I know your father’s an asshole, but my mother loves him and my father’s company is now a part of this one.”

  “The part where I said that if you stayed, you’d end up naked.” I reach for her and pull her to me. “You did understand that, correct?”

  “I don’t scare off that easily. If I did, I wouldn’t be working for your father and under your brother.”

  “It’s me I want you under,” I say, molding her close, my hands sliding up her back.

  “I’m too young and stupid for business, but I’m just right to fuck?” she challenges.

  “I’m warning you, Harper, not talking down to you. And if you’re young and stupid, so was I.”

  “You wanted to be here,” she says, and it’s not a question or the accusation I’d get from Isaac.

  “Yes,” I say, tangling my fingers into her hair. “I wanted to be here, just like I want to be right here, right now, with you.” My mouth closes down on hers once more, a deep thrust of tongue that’s as unforgiving as my father would be if it came down to choosing her or Isaac. It’s all about demand and I expect her to push back, to give me the rejection that sends her to the door and me to the fucking airport. That’s not what I get.

  Her hand on my chest doesn’t push me away. She moans and her elbow softens, those perfect curves I’d admired from a distance now pressed nice and close, right up to the moment she jerks back. “My God. What are we doing? You’re my brother.”

  I walk her back against the wall, my hands caressing up her ribcage to cup her breasts. “I told you,” I say, stroking my thumbs over her nipples. “I’m not your fucking brother. Not now. Not ever.” I cup her face, lean in and my mouth finds her mouth, and if she thought my tongue unforgiving before now, she was wrong. This is unforgiving. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am, who I was born to be. A bastard who wants her.

  I have this sudden need that consumes me. I shove my hand into the top of her dress, fingering her nipple. She makes this soft, sexy sound that has my cock twitching, expanding beneath my zipper. As if she knows, she presses her hand to my crotch and holy fuck, I need inside this woman. I push off the wall and shrug out of my jacket, my gaze raking over the tops of her breasts. Her teeth scrape her bottom lip, and I want that mouth on my body. I want my mouth on her body.

  I toss the jacket, rip away my tie, and she doesn’t run away as I half expect she will. She closes the space between us, her fingers on my buttons, working them down my shirt, but when one hand slides down to my crotch, I react. I slow things down before I fuck her and this is over, and when it is, I’m gone. Suddenly I’m not ready to leave, which is why I turn her to the wall, and force her hands to its surface, yanking down her zipper before I pull my shirt over my head. I step into her, my erection at her backside, my lips at her ear.

  “You saw me watching you across the pool,” I say, my fingers catching the straps at her shoulders.

  “Of course I saw you. You wanted me to see you.”

  “Yes. I did. I wanted you to know I wanted to fuck you.” I shove the straps of her dress down her arms. “I wanted you to know I wanted you naked.” I pull the dress down, and with no bra to contend with I have it down her hips and to her feet. I lift her and kick it away, taking a moment to appreciate just how perfect her heart-shaped ass is before I turn her to face me.

  My fingers tangle in her hair and I pull her to me. “And since you’re here,” I add, “I will assume you got that message loud and clear.”

  “I’m still angry and you’re still an arrogant asshole, but apparently it doesn’t matter, so fuck me before I come to my senses.”

  I press my cheek to hers, my hand on her cheek, lips by her ear. “I promise to use my tongue in all the right places to make sure you have no regrets.”

  She pants out a breath that tells me my words affect her and I’m right there when she does, kissing her again, drinking her in, and damn she tastes good; one part innocence, one part a drug that knows how good it feels. And she does feel so fucking good.

  I scoop her up and carry her through the living area to the bedroom, because hell, I don’t know, it just feels like I should fuck her on the bed, though I could have easily kept her right there by the door. I want this woman. I want her in a bad way and I wanted her from the moment I saw her by that pool. I set her on her feet and I pull her close. “This is where I lick and you come on my tongue.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Eric

  I’m about to go down on my knee and make good on that promise to lick Harper to orgasm when she suddenly rejects that idea and me. “No,” she whispers, flattening her hands on my chest. “No. This is a mistake. I need to leave.”

  She tries to pull away but I catch her waist and pull her to me. “What just happened?”

  “I don’t do this kind of thing, ever. I don’t know why I’m half naked with you right now.”

  “This is why,” I say, cupping her head and kissing her, my tongue stroking deep and long, the tension in her body easing almost instantly, a tiny moan sliding from her mouth. “That’s why,” I repeat, when she’s all soft and yielding in my arms. “Because you want me and I want you.”

  “You want something,” she accuses as if she’s decided I have an agenda I don’t have.

  “I want you or I’d be gone already,” I say, pulling back to let her see the truth in my face. “You’re the only reason I’m not driving away right now.”

  “Because I fit your agenda?”

  “My only agenda right now is you on my tongue.” I kiss her again. “And what does me between your legs do for me besides turn us both on?”

  “I won’t be a weapon against them or you.”

  “I’m fighting a war. I don’t need a weapon. Don’t make this complicated. Don’t make me complicated. I’m here, I’m gone. I want to fuck you before I leave. You want to fuck me, too, and right now, I’m going to kiss you again unless you—”

  “Stop talking,” she orders fiercely. “Stop and give me time to think. Stop—”

  My mouth slants over hers, and the instant my tongue touches hers, she moans and kisses me back, a wild hungry kiss, my hand on her breast, her nipple.

  She moans, and God, I love this woman’s moans. My cock throbs against my zipper and I need her on my tongue and everywhere I can get her. I lower myself to one knee, my hands on her hips, slipping her panties off. As I look up at her, there’s a hint of trepidation in her eyes that I don’t want to exist, and I know comes from family, that war that she wrongly believes I’m fighting.

  “I’m going to make you forget about everything but fucking,” I promise, my lips pressing to her belly, my tongue flicking against the soft skin there. She trembles in response, and fuck, I’m so damn hard that it hurts.

  Her hand goes to my shoulder and I caress her hip and cup her ass. My g
aze lifts and her teeth scrape her bottom lip. My teeth go to her hip, where I nip, and then soothe the tiny bite with my tongue. Her lips part and I slide two fingers inside her. She arches her hips and makes a barely there, but fucking sexy as hell, sound. And when I lick her clit, she pants out another little sound that drives me out of my mind.

  I rotate her and sit her down on the bed, my hands settling on her knees, my lips finding her inner thigh while my hand works a path up the opposite leg, but I’m done waiting. I slip my shoulders between her legs and my mouth closes down on her sex. When she moans, I pull her forward and force her to her back, lifting her legs to my shoulders, while I start licking and suckling, hungry for more of this woman, and yes, she’s right. We’re wrong. We’re so fucking wrong that we are right in every possible way. That I can sense she isn’t one of them is everything. Every fucking thing, and I slide two fingers inside her again, reveling in the way she arches her hips, lifting into the thrust of my fingers. I lick her everywhere, the taste of her shifting from salty to sweet when she suddenly quakes into orgasm, her body spasming around my fingers. It’s then that I realize I don’t have a condom.

  I use my fingers and mouth to stroke her to completion, and when she’s done, really done, I slide up her body to kiss her, and damn it, the taste of her on both our lips about undoes me. “I don’t have a condom,” I whisper.

  “Oh god,” she whispers. “Please tell me no.”

  “I wish I could,” I say kissing her and rolling us to our sides. “No sex.”

  “I owe you then,” she says, her hand on my chest when I want it on my cock. I want it all over my body, but I don’t move. I don’t touch her. “You owe me nothing.”

  “I do,” she says, “because that was—I um, don’t even have words for what that was.”

  “You don’t owe me,” I repeat. “I’m not them.”

  She glances down. “Well then,” she says, pulling back to look at me. “If I don’t owe you, you owe me. I want to taste you coming on my tongue.” Her hand slides down my tattoo sleeve. “Because just looking at your ink has me needing more.” Suddenly her hand is just where I want it, on my cock, and I’m too busy reveling in how damn good it feels to care when she shoves me to my back and crawls on top of me. Especially since she’s naked and gorgeous, and I now have a perfect view of her breasts.

  “What are you doing, Harper?” I ask. “We don’t have a condom.”

  She moves to the side of me, her knees at my hip as she runs her hand over my zipper, stroking the hard length of my now throbbing cock. “But we have my mouth.” She leans in and kisses my stomach the way I’d kissed hers.

  I don’t even consider resisting where this is going. Her mouth, my cock. Yes-fucking-please. Now. I want her too damn badly to say no and already my hand is on her head, her mouth kissing me through my pants, and there’s no real preamble before she has my cock out of my pants and in her hand, but instead of sucking me, she shoves at my pants; as if they’re a distraction we can’t afford. I’m all about getting rid of the distractions. I sit up, kiss her, and then stand.

  I’m fully undressed in thirty seconds, facing her with my cock thick and jutted out, the heat of her eyes on my body, on my erection, driving my urgency. I settle on a knee in front of her, at the same moment she rises to her knees to meet me there. Those beautiful full lips of hers part and lift, and I can’t resist another taste. I kiss her, a deep slide of tongue, the taste of her so damn sweet that I want to get lost in her. I take us down to the mattress, side by side and fuck, I know we don’t have a condom, but I just want to feel the wet heat of her body pressed against me for a moment.

  I press into the V of her body and deepen the kiss, my hands all over her body, her body molded close, both of us desperate in a way I don’t ever remember being desperate. I reach between us and stroke my cock along her sex. “Eric,” she whispers, her fingers curling on my chest. “We don’t have a condom.”

  “I know that. I just want to feel you for one moment. Just one.” I press inside her, sinking deep but I don’t let myself move. “Holy fuck,” I murmur, and I know I have to stop now but I slide back and thrust once more.

  She gasps. “We have to stop,” she whispers urgently but then we’re kissing, and it’s so damn good, too good. I’m going to fucking come if I don’t stop now.

  I pull out and we both pant with the impact. “Holy hell, woman,” I say rolling to my back in pain with just how close I was to coming inside her, all that wet, tight heat enveloping me.

  Harper rolls to my side, her soft, perfect curves pressed to my side, and she leans in and kisses me. “I really wish you were still inside me,” she whispers against my lips, her voice so damn sweet and sexy, her hand sliding down my chest and over my stomach to grip my cock. “What do you need right now?” she asks.

  “To be fucking you,” I say. “In about ten different ways our lack of a condom says I can’t.”

  “We can still do this,” she says. “I can still do this.” She doesn’t use words to explain what “this” is. She slides down my body, her hand still wrapped around my shaft, as she settles on her knees beside me. Her eyes meeting mine, her tongue licking away the liquid pooling at the tip of my shaft, which I’m pretty sure is more than simple arousal. I don’t even want to think about how close I was to coming inside her. She takes care of that mental rabbit hole though. She closes her mouth around me, sucking me long and deep, her tongue sliding around me as she does, and I tell myself to stop, I tell myself that I was so close to coming inside her, that it won’t take much for me to come in her mouth. I try to stop. I try damn hard to pull her back. “Stop, Harper, or I’m going to—”

  She sucks me deeper and it’s all over. I can’t hold back. I thrust into her mouth and I’m done. One more thrust and I’m shuddering with release and I can’t pull back. She sucks me deeper, longer, and then slower until she’s taken me all the fucking way. God, I think I’m in love with this woman, which of course, isn’t possible. I don’t do love, but if I did, I’d already be halfway there with all her vulnerable sexiness.

  When she releases me and kisses my stomach, I drag her to me, kissing her and rolling her to her back. “I really hate that I don’t have a condom.”

  “I don’t,” she says. “It means you’re not a manwhore who’s always prepared to fuck anyone, but I know it’s just this. You’re leaving. You don’t want this. I feel that.”

  “I want you,” I say, shocked at how completely I mean those words.

  “I don’t mean me. I mean this place.”

  “Why do you want this place?” I ask. “What makes you need this?”

  “What made you need it?” she counters, avoiding a direct answer.

  “Family. I needed the connection.”

  “And now?”

  “No,” I say easily, the answer that wasn’t clear when I arrived is clear now. “Not now.”

  “I wish I didn’t need this.” She rolls off of me and onto her back. “Why do you call me princess?”

  I glance over at her. “You’re the heir to a business that Kingston absorbed. You’re royal blood in these parts, just not the right royal blood.”

  “I can’t accept that. I can’t just let my father’s work be absorbed and forgotten. My mother—she made a mistake. My father worked too hard to have everything he created be forgotten with this merger.”

  I roll over and settle on top of her, my elbow by her head. “It’s done. It’s too late and Isaac will always be number one. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t accept that. Not at all. Isaac—he’s the bastard. And worthless. He’s about him, not about the company, not about the legacy or the future or—anything that matters.”

  “He’s the heir, the first blood, the golden child.”

  “I want you to be wrong.”

  I search her eyes and find the truth. “But you know I’m not,” I say.

  “Then why are you here? If you really believ
e that, if you believe we can’t make a difference, why are you here?”

  She hits a nerve and I roll to my back. “I needed to know I wasn’t wrong.”

  “About your father?”

  “About me,” I say and I can feel her looking at me but I don’t look at her.

  “What does that mean?” she asks.

  “I needed to know that I knew who I was, who I am.”

  “Which is who?” she presses.

  “The bastard.” Now I look at her, now I let her see the real me in my eyes. I let her see who she just half fucked. “I’m him. I will always be him.”

  “I have much I could say about that,” she comments, more thoughtfully than anything.

  “I’m listening,” I say, certain this is going to be the moment she convinces me we’re of two different worlds, when right here, in this bed, we feel like we’re of one. I want her to convince me. I want her to give me every reason to get the hell out of this place, her included.

  “You’re different than anyone I’ve ever met,” she says, running her hand down my ink and tracing one of the many rows of numbers on my forearm.

  “Meaning what?”

  Her eyes shift from my ink to my face. “You’re brave. It takes someone brave to be different and embrace it. I like that you’re the bastard but not for the reasons you might think.”

  I’m remarkably on edge waiting for her to continue but she doesn’t make me wait long. She seems to know where she’s going and gets there quickly. “Because you embrace it. Because you don’t do what they expect. Because you do you, and most of us don’t even know what that means.”

  “Meaning you?”

  “Definitely me, but maybe I’ll get there. I’m trying. I don’t know why I just told you that. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  I reach up and twine strands of her silky hair in my fingers. “Why?”

  Her cellphone rings, a muffled sound in the distance that has her eyes going wide. “Oh God,” she whispers, jerking away from my hand to sit up. “Oh God. I’m giving a speech. I’m late.” She scrambles off the bed and rushes to locate her clothes, dashing for the living room to dress.