One Night Only / No Strings. JC Harroway

Ben that my services are no longer required, I’m staying, so you’d better get used to the idea.’

      She jutted her chin forward, bringing her mouth only centimetres from his, her breath fanning his face. She looked halfway to orgasm already—panting, flushed, her mouth saying one thing while her body strained in his direction.

       Don’t touch her.

       Back away.

       Too late...

      In less than a heartbeat she’d pushed her hands into his still-damp hair and dragged his face down. But he’d been on the move himself. He scooped her around the waist and hauled her from the floor. Their mouths clashed and she gave a cry close to a victory wail as she parted her lips under the surge and slide of his ferocious kiss.

      All reason fled. Their tongues touched, the thrust and parry of wildness a perfectly matched duel. Her body moulded to his as if they’d been forged side by side. Her passion seemed to enflame the lust that had been simmering in him since she’d swanned into his office this morning—his knees almost buckled. He wasn’t alone.

      Who was this woman he couldn’t resist? Her wilful determination turned him on as much as it pissed him off and her demanding sexuality was...magnificent. His first impressions about her had been dead wrong. Essie fully embraced her sexuality—another fascinating aspect to her complex personality.

      Like electricity and water, they sparked off each other. Her hands twisted his hair until he growled. Her greedy mouth sucked on his lips as if she wanted to consume him whole and her thighs clung to his waist as he hoisted her higher to press his steely length against her warm, wet centre, delivering the friction they both seemed to crave.

      If he hadn’t been staring her down, eye-to-eye, while they consumed each other, his eyes would have rolled back in his head. Her fantastic body aligned with his, her wet heat seeped through the denim covering his thigh as she ground herself there and her nipples poked through the two layers of clothing separating her chest from his.

      A fresh surge of blood turned his dick to granite.

      Yes.

      One more time to banish this tigress masquerading as a pussycat from his system and restore his control over the explosive situation. He didn’t need to trust her. He just had to fuck her. Just sex. Great sex. One last astounding time.

      With one arm now curled around his neck like a vice, her free hand snaked between their bodies to rub him through his jeans before fumbling for the buttons of his fly. She writhed in his arms, all sexy little whimpers and catches of her breath. Fuck, she was a hellcat. Challenging, uninhibited, eager. He’d been doomed from the minute he’d opened his eyes to the sight of her yesterday in the sun-dappled park.

      He spread his feet, cementing his balance so he could do a little exploring of his own. Cupping her ass in one hand, Ash delved beneath the hem of her dress with the other. His fingers skimmed her thigh, zeroing in on her to find the source of the warm patch on his jeans—her soaked panties. With their working mouths and challenging stares still locked, he slipped his fingers beyond the cotton and lace.

      She was fiery hot and slick against his fingers, and when he swiped forward and located her clit she broke free from the kiss with a moan. Her sultry glare—half fuck you, half fuck me—dared him. Spurred him on. Not that he required the encouragement.

      In two strides, he’d deposited her ass on the edge of his dresser, which, like the rest of his home, was sleek, minimal and uncluttered. She spread her thighs, welcoming him into the cradle of space she created with a tug of his shirt.

      While his fingers resumed the slip and slide against her, his other hand sought her pebbled nipple, strumming through the layers of fabric. But that wasn’t enough for her. She released her grip on his shoulders long enough to unbutton the top few buttons of her dress and yank both it and her bra down, exposing one pale, creamy shoulder and a perfect, pink-tipped breast.

      Fuck.

      He groaned.

      Perfection.

      He dived to get his mouth on her. Just one more taste. Then he’d stop this madness.

      But Essie was having none of that. One hand returned to his hair, her grip punishing and directive while the other drove him wild by rubbing his erection through his clothes. Her pert flesh filled his mouth and he sucked hard, drawing her in deeper and guided by her continued twisting and tugging on his hair and her repeated ‘yes’es. Her hips shunted against his hand, as if she was as desperate for her release as he was.

      Just one more time. Until he worked this baffling urge from his off-kilter system. This time he’d walk away sated, equilibrium restored. Cured.

      Pinning her to the furniture with his hips, he pushed two fingers inside her and feathered his thumb over her clit. His mouth returned to hers while his fingers strummed the damp nipple his mouth left behind.

      True to the Essie of last night, she clawed his shoulders, her moans growing in frequency and volume.

      ‘Tell me when you’re close,’ he mumbled against her lips, reluctant to break away from her breathy and frantic kisses.

      She nodded, her eyes heavy and her hair a wild tumble around her flushed face. His clothing was practically cutting off his blood supply to his groin. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t have stopped now if he’d had a gun to his head.

      He left her breast long enough to scoop one arm around her hips and shunt her ass to the edge of the dresser, changing the angle of her hips.

      She cried out and tore her mouth from his. ‘Yes, now... I’m...’

      He dived on her exposed nipple once more, laving and lapping like a starving man as his fingers plundered her slickness and his thumb circled her swollen clit.

      She detonated, her whole body taut as her orgasm jolted her forward. If he hadn’t been there to block her fall the force of it would have tumbled her from the edge of the furniture. Ash kept up the sucking and circling until he’d wrung every spasm from her magnificent, trembling body. Until she pushed at his shoulders instead of clawing at them.

      Her head fell forward, resting on his chest. ‘Oh, wow...’

      The scent of her hair made his eyes roll back. Thank fuck she couldn’t see. He recited the most boring legal jargon he could think of to stop himself from burying his nose there and taking a deep, decadent inhalation. He’d fall asleep surrounded by her honeyed scent, just as he had last night...

      Fuck.

      His blood turned to liquid nitrogen.

      What the hell was he doing?

      He couldn’t trust this woman.

      He couldn’t trust anyone.

      His body turned rigid as reality dawned.

      This had disaster written all over it. This business venture was his fresh start—a place no one knew him or his fucked-up family. A place of anonymity to regroup and wrestle back control. Why was he so fascinated in her? Why couldn’t he stay away?

      He stepped back, tugging his hand from Essie’s underwear and avoiding her confused stare. He lowered her to the floor, steadying her by the elbows while she found her balance and righted her debauched clothing.

      Too late for gentlemanly heroics now. Not that he claimed to be either. Not any more. That was a fool’s game.

      He sucked back a swallow that reminded him of all the reasons his head had been right about this ill-advised encounter after all. He’d tasted betrayal—a different kind, but it sucked all the same. He was done with trusting the wrong person.

      The humiliating scene at the Jacob Holdings offices flashed into his head. On discovering his father had been cheating on his mother, he’d lashed out at the man he’d worked alongside for ten years. He’d expected his old man to bristle, maybe tell him to mind his own business,