Bachelor Unleashed. Brenda Jackson

hold on her tightened as she locked him between her thighs. And then came the Xavier Kane growl that pierced the air and only made her want him even more.

      “Xavier, please. More.”

      And he continued to give her more, giving in to her shameless plea. Heat built as he stroked her while pushing her thighs apart with his knee to go even deeper. His thrusts were the strokes of rapture, and the skill with which he was delivering them was the pinnacle of pure sensual delight. They were what continued to spark that foolishness in her head that whispered what they were sharing was more than just great sex. It was about a man and woman so in tune to each other’s wants and needs, so in harmony to each other’s desires that practically anything—a touch, a lick, a breathless groan—nipped at their nerve endings and pushed them to this.

      As she continued to tumble over the edge, she didn’t want to be reminded that he’d become her weakness, nor that she’d made a decision as to how she would handle it. As much as she preferred not taking such drastic actions, her decision was one that couldn’t be helped. Not if she wanted to retain her sanity and peace of mind. And she couldn’t put it off any longer.

      Tonight she would end things between them.

      She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to dwell on all the pleasurable lovemaking hours she would be giving up. She would just have to learn to deal with it.

      For now she wanted nothing more than to keep falling into the most sensuous waters a woman’s body could plunge.

      Xavier reluctantly eased out of Farrah’s body, sighed deeply and then slid out of bed. The first thing he noticed was that it was no longer storming outside. Calm had settled over the earth.

      The second thing he noticed was the absence of Farrah’s even breathing, which meant even after all those powerful orgasms she was still awake. Usually she would have fallen into an exhausted sleep.

      He glanced over his shoulder and met her hazy gaze and thought he saw two things in the dark depths of her eyes—regret and resolve.

      “We need to talk, Xavier,” she said softly.

      For some reason he didn’t like the sound of that. Usually when a woman informed a man they needed to talk right after they’d made love it meant she had a bomb to drop. The first crazy notion that ran through his mind was that she was going to tell him that somehow, although she was on the pill and he always wore a condom, she’d gotten pregnant. The chances of that happening were probably less than one percent, but it was the one percent that had him feeling kind of nervous right now.

      He studied her features and thought, as he always had, that she was an utterly beautiful woman who wore that “just made love to” look well. And just the thought that he’d given her that look, dressed her in it real good, sent primitive shivers of male pride and possessiveness down his spine. Hell, if he was a cave man, he would be beating on his damn chest about now.

      “Let me take care of things in the bathroom first and then I’ll be right back,” he said. And with every step toward the bathroom he couldn’t help wondering what this discussion would be about.

      If she was going to inform him that he was going to be a daddy, the thought didn’t send him into panic for some reason. He was thirty-two, closer to thirty-three if you wanted to be more specific, and he was pretty well-off, so he could handle child support payments without breaking a sweat, just as long as a woman didn’t try taking him to the cleaners. He knew, after being Farrah’s lover for almost a year, that she was not the greedy type.

      Except for when they were in bed. Between the sheets, her sexual appetite could just about rival his. But he had no complaints. And he knew that, like him, she had this thing about commitments. They’d both gotten burned once, he with an ex-girlfriend and she an ex-husband, so a no-strings affair was all they’d ever wanted from each other.

      They hadn’t meant for things to last as long as they had. He’d been with her longer than any other woman … except Dionne Witherspoon. However, he refused to go there tonight. He would not think about the woman he’d fallen in love with while attending law school at Harvard. Dionne had only sought out his affections so he could provide the help she needed for her law exams. Once she aced them all, she had dropped him like a hot potato.

      Xavier returned from the bathroom a short while later accepting there was a strong possibility that, regardless of whether he and Farrah wanted to play the commitment game or not, they would be forced to do so if she was pregnant. After all, he much preferred being a real father to his child rather than just a child support check. He wanted to be the type of parent to his child that his father had been to him. Benjamin Kane had been a top-notch dad. He still was.

      Instead of getting back in bed, Xavier picked up his jeans and slid into them, then he eased down in the wingback chair across the room from the bed. He had followed Farrah’s lead. She was no longer naked but was wearing a robe. It was short and showed a lot of thigh. He thought she had luscious thighs, the kind a man loved to hold on to and ride. Farrah Langley made any man with red hot testosterone appreciate being a man. Hell, he was getting another hard-on just looking at her.

      “Tonight was it for us, Xavier.”

      He pulled his gaze from her thighs to her face, not sure he had heard her correctly. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, and when he saw the regret and resolve he’d caught a glimpse of earlier, he asked, “What did you say?”

      She sat down on the side of her bed to face him. “I said, tonight was it.”

      He fought to keep back the shock from his face. “It?”

      “Yes. We started this thing between us almost a year ago, longer than either of us intended. It was never meant to last more than a couple of months, if even that.”

      He nodded, knowing that much was true. For him the practice of self-preservation was a way of life. He abhorred emotional involvements of any kind. He and Farrah had established the boundaries up front, basically on that first night.

      And he could recall that first night well …

      They had met at the Racetrack Café, a popular hangout here in Charlotte. He’d been there with a close friend by the name of Donovan Steele, and Farrah had been with her best friend, Natalie Ford. Before the night was over, Donovan and Natalie had paired off and so had he and Farrah. He’d thought she was ultrabeautiful, hot. There had been something about her that had immediately made his mouth water, his tongue tingle, and he’d known from the jump that he wanted some of her. And he had been able to tell from her body language that the feeling was mutual.

      A few nights later he had shown up at her front door with a bottle of wine in his hand and a hard-on in his pants. She had opened the door and let him in, fully aware of the nature of his visit. And things had been that way between them since. No commitment, just great sex.

      And now she wanted to end things.

      Before he could fix his mouth to ask why, she said in a teasing voice that he really didn’t find amusing, “I wouldn’t want to threaten your standing as a member of that club.”

      He knew exactly what club she was referring to. It was one he and his five godbrothers had formed a few years ago—the Bachelors in Demand Club. They were men who enjoyed their single lives with no plans of settling down. All six of them had their own issues with commitment and were basically guarding their hearts. Now there were only five of them left, since one of his godbrothers, Uriel Lassiter, had gotten married last year.

      “Donovan and Natalie’s wedding reminded me of all the reasons why I don’t want to be seriously involved with anyone again,” she went on to add.

      He drew in a deep breath. As much as he preferred things continuing between them for a little while longer, the decision to split now was hers to make, and he respected that. And then maybe she was right. Things had lasted longer than either of them had planned, and things were beginning to get too complacent between them. Hell, he could recall speeding away from Uriel’s wedding reception like a mad man trying to make it to her place. And wasn’t