Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (10 page)

Twelve

S
he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be letting Marc do this. But as his lips took hers, his tongue stroking, slowly, languidly, luxuriously against her own, Isa didn't care about shouldn't. She didn't care about the past and she didn't care about the future, didn't care about how much this would hurt when the plane landed and she was once again alone. All she cared about—all that mattered—was the way Marc felt. The way he made her feel, as if her whole body was electrified. As if she could do anything, everything.

Her arms crept up of their own volition, wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer, closer, closer, until every inch of her was pressed up against some part of him. Mouth to mouth, chest to chest, sex to sex.

It felt so good.

He
felt so good.

“Isa, baby,” he murmured against her lips. “I want—”

“Yes.” She ripped her mouth from his, pressed hot kisses against his jaw, his throat, the sensitive spot behind his ear. “Whatever you want, yes.”

It must have been the affirmation he was waiting for, because with one last kiss, he pulled away from her. She made a low, confused sound in the back of her throat, but he just grinned wickedly as he wrapped his hands around her hips, cupped her bottom in his palms and lifted her against him.

“Marc.” It was a moan, a plea, a desperate cry for more even as she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her sex firmly against his own.

He took her mouth again, his lips hot and firm and desperate. Then he was shifting her weight a little, turning, walking through a door toward the back of the plane. When she'd first come aboard, she'd wondered what was back here. Now she knew—it was a small bedroom, complete with a large bed with a black comforter and gray silk sheets.

He never faltered as he walked her backward across the room, never so much as shifted what she considered her pretty substantial weight. Instead, he kept kissing her, skimming his mouth over every part of her he could reach—every inch of exposed skin—and she marveled at his strength, at the feel of all those hard muscles against her own softness.

And then they were at the bed and he was dropping her into the center of it with no warning and a wicked, wicked grin. She gasped at the short fall—and at the sudden lack of contact with this man she should know better than to fall for again.

She did know better, she told herself as she reached for him, her fingers tangling in the soft cotton of his T-shirt. She just didn't care, not now when Marc was here, hot and hard and as desperate for her as she was for him.

She pulled him down on top of her, then rolled the both of them until she was the one on top, her thighs straddling his hips as she looked down at him. “It's my turn,” she told him a little breathlessly.

He just smiled, lifting that damn eyebrow of his that was responsible for so much of the trouble she'd found herself in. “You look like you expect me to protest.”

“Aren't you?”

He smirked then, a small twist of his lips that sent heat streaking through her. “I have you on top of me, warm and willing and—” his fingers skimmed between her legs, rubbed at her sex “—wet. What in the hell is there for me to protest about?”

He looked as though he wanted to say more, but she leaned forward, stopped him with a kiss that had her hands trembling and her brain melting within seconds. Then she was pulling, tugging, yanking at his shirt, desperate to get it off so that she could touch the warmth of his skin, the hard press of his muscles.

He laughed darkly, even as he half sat up in an effort to help her divest him of the garment. And then she was touching him everywhere—his shoulders, his heavily muscled pecs, his too-perfect abs—licking her way across and down his beautiful, glorious body.

He gasped when she got to his belt, arched against her, shuddering, as her fingers—and her tongue—dipped below the waistband of his jeans.

“Isa, baby—”

“I've got you,” she said, mimicking his words from earlier as she unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his jeans. She slid to the floor beside the bed, tugging at his shoes, his pants, his boxer briefs, until Marc was spread out before her, gloriously, perfectly naked.

He muttered a curse, reached for her, but she shook her head, pushed his hands away. “It's my turn,” she said again, right before she took him in her mouth.

He groaned, low and long and tortured, his hands tangling in her hair as she pulled off in order to press long, lingering kisses along his length. He shifted, arched his hips, tangled his fingers in her hair. She knew what he wanted, what his body was all but begging for, but she wasn't ready to give it to him, not yet. Not when he'd spent so much of their last night together tormenting her.

But then he cupped her jaw in his big, calloused hand, tilting his head so he could look down at her with his dark, dazed eyes and she lost the last of her willpower. Leaning forward, she took him deep.

Her name was a hoarse cry on his lips as he arched and moved and shuddered against her. It had been a long time since she'd done this to a man—over six years, to be exact—but she still remembered what Marc liked and how he liked it. Still remembered the taste of him as he spilled on her tongue.

She wanted that again.

He was close, so close, and she stroked her fingers across his taut stomach as she prepared to take him over the edge. But Marc was having no part of it. Grabbing her hand in one of his, he held it tight as he used his other hand to coax her mouth back up to his.

“I want to feel you,” she protested against his lips. It was a halfhearted protest, though, because he was stroking her breast, pinching her nipple between his thumb and middle finger even as his index finger stroked back and forth against the hardened tip.

She gasped, arching against him. It was all the encouragement he needed. Dropping to his knees beside her, he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, passionately. For long seconds she couldn't move, couldn't think, could barely breathe. She was completely enthralled, completely under his spell and she wanted this moment to go on forever.

Then he was lifting her, spreading her out on the bed before him like a feast. “Marc,” she gasped, her fingers clutching at his shoulders as she tried desperately to pull him over her.

Pleasuring him had driven her own need to the breaking point and she wanted—needed—to feel him inside her. But Marc had other ideas. Leaning forward, he pressed hot, wet, openmouthed kisses against her sex.

She lost it then, her fingers twisting in his hair as she arched against his mouth. His wicked, wonderful mouth. He slipped his hands beneath her, cupped her bottom and lifted her hips so there was no escape, no surcease, no moment to catch her breath. There was only him, only Marc, and the crazy pleasure he gave her.

Again and again, he brought her right to the edge of madness, of desire. Again and again, he refused to let her go over. By the time he pulled away to slip on a condom, she was an incoherent mess. Begging, pleading, promising him anything and everything if only he would—

He slid inside her then, his mouth pressed to hers even as he moved a hand between them and stroked her. That was all it took. She went off like a rocket, her body exploding with pleasure that went on and on and on.

Marc rode her through it, his hand and mouth and body taking her higher and higher until she was lost. Lost in pleasure, lost in him, lost in what could be between them if they let it. She gasped out his name, pulled him closer, closer, closer. When he thrust against her one final time, when he took her mouth in a kiss so deep, so passionate, so all-consuming that she could do nothing but surrender to it—to him—she went over the edge again. This time she took him with her, and nothing had ever felt so good.

Thirteen

“J
ust an FYI, Marc,” the pilot's voice came over the loudspeaker in the plane's small bedroom. “We'll be landing in half an hour.”

Beside him, Isa stirred, but didn't wake. Pushing up on an elbow, he stared at her, mesmerized, for long seconds that turned into longer minutes. She was beautiful like this.

Actually, she was always beautiful, with her pale skin, dark eyes, luscious hair and even more luscious body. But there was something about her when she was sleeping that made her even more appealing. Maybe it was the fact that this was the only time he'd seen her truly relaxed since he'd walked into her classroom the other day. The only time she'd allowed him to see the real Isa behind Isabella, the woman with the tight braid, quiet demeanor and impressive credentials.

Or maybe it was the vulnerable curve of her full lower lip that made her so enticing. Or the soft pink flush to her normally ivory cheeks. Or the way her hand curled around his biceps, as if, even in sleep, she was trying to hold him. God knew, he hadn't slept for that very same reason. He'd been afraid of falling asleep while holding her only to wake up and find out that the tenderness and the passion had been a dream. Or that somehow, when he loosed his grip, she would slip through his fingers like kimberlite silt.

He didn't want that to happen this time. He didn't know what he
did
want to happen—didn't know, really, how he felt for her outside the need that continued to claw at him. No matter how many times he had her, he continued to want her. Wanted her still, right now. He wasn't ready to let her go.

Maybe that made him a fool. Hell, it probably did considering everything she'd put him through—and everything he'd put her through in return. But as he lay there, watching her, touching her, the past didn't seem to matter nearly as much as it once had. Nothing mattered but Isa and the way she made him feel.

“Fifteen minutes until landing, Marc. You guys need to take your seats if you haven't already.”

He leaned over, pressed the button on the nightstand that allowed him to talk to the cockpit. “We'll be out in five, Justin.”

Then he woke Isa, forcing himself to gently shake her shoulder until her chocolate-brown eyes looked up at him in confusion. “I'm sorry, baby. We've got to get dressed. We're about to land and we need to take our seats.”

She blinked, rubbed her eyes. Then shoved her thick mass of red hair away from her face as she sat up slowly. He froze, watching as the sheet slipped down her torso to pool around her hips.

She looked like a goddess.

Like a vision.

Like the sexiest wet dream he'd ever had.

Eyes sleepy, lips swollen, cheeks warm and flushed. Yes, she looked like every fantasy he'd ever had—
would
ever have. Her hair was long and wild out of its braid, tumbling down around her shoulders and over her soft, full breasts. But he could still see the strawberry pink of her nipples, the pale curves of her breasts. He wanted to taste, wanted to bend his head and pull her nipple between his lips just to hear her make those broken, breathless sounds one more time.

He was actually leaning forward, mouth parted and eyes focused on the prize, when she slapped a hand on the center of his chest. “How long until we land?”

Her voice was low, husky. He grinned and grew hard yet again. The sound of her voice reminded him of what it had felt like to be in her mouth, in her throat. Of what it had felt like to slide between her wet, swollen lips as she took him deep.

“Oh, no,” she continued, scrambling out the other side of the bed. “Judging by the time, I'm pretty sure we can't go another round.”

She was right, they didn't have time. But that didn't seem to matter to his insistent hard-on. If he was being honest, it didn't matter much to the rest of him, either. Not when he ached to once again feel her skin, her softness—her sweetness—against every part of himself.

But there was something incredibly sexy about watching a well-satisfied woman shimmy into her clothes, her movements slow and languid as she stepped into her jeans or pulled her sweater over her head. He loved how pale her skin was, loved that her breasts and stomach and thighs bore small love bites and patches of whisker burn. Loved that she looked like she'd spent the past several hours being made love to by him. Loved even more that she looked like she belonged to him.

The thought pulled him up short, had him reaching for his own jeans and yanking them on a little harder than necessary. Because wanting Isa, enjoying making love to her, was one thing. Hell, he'd probably still want her when he was dead. But thinking about her belonging to him again—that was dangerous. Really dangerous, considering how much he liked the sound, the look, the feel of it.

“Here.” Isa's voice pulled him back from his minor freak-out, and he realized she was holding his shirt out to him. She was also looking at him a little strangely, but he refused to let himself dwell on it. Not when his head was already filled with so many conflicting thoughts.

They finished dressing in silence, but when Isa opened the door and started back to their seats, he grabbed onto her waist, pulling her back to him. He didn't know what to say—he couldn't tell her that he loved her, but he didn't want to leave her with a “wow, that was fun,” either. And so he let his actions speak for him, nuzzling his way up her neck and along her jaw.

She relaxed then, a tension he hadn't even recognized leeching slowly out as she melted against him. The moment was broken when Justin's voice came over the intercom, reminding them to take their seats.

They did just that, and this time when Isa reached for his hand it wasn't because of turbulence. And for now, for this moment, that was enough.

* * *

An hour later, Isa waved as Marc pulled out of her driveway. She watched him go, hands shaky and with a lump in her throat as big as the entire Ekaori diamond mine.

What had she done? she asked herself as she closed her front door. What was she
doing
? More, what was she
thinking
?—if you could even call the choices she'd made the past few hours “thinking.” Which she wasn't sure she could. Committing emotional suicide, probably. Being stupid, absolutely. But thinking? No, she hadn't been thinking—was desperately afraid, in fact, that she'd left her brain somewhere over Northern Canada.

What else could it be? She'd left her house a little more than twenty-four hours ago, determined that Marc would never touch her again. Yet here she was, back home in the early hours of the morning, what was left of her mind preoccupied with Marc and her body pleasantly sore and well used.

So
well used. She closed her eyes as images of Marc bombarded her. On top of her, beneath her, on his knees at her feet. His hands on her hips, on her breasts. His mouth skimming over her stomach, over her sex. Kissing her, taking her, loving her... No!

She slammed a mental door on those thoughts. Whatever crazy chemistry was between her and Marc, whatever disaster she was courting by being with him, she wouldn't go that far. She wouldn't call it love, not on his side and definitely not on hers. She didn't know yet what she would call it, but she would not call it that.

Love was too painful—she'd learned that six years ago. She'd loved him then and all it had gotten her was heartbreak. This time she would be smarter. This time she wouldn't let herself care, not like that. Not like her whole heart, her whole soul, depended on him.

Deep inside, a little voice whispered that it was too late. That she was already in way over her head. But she shut it down, refusing to listen. Not right now when she could still feel Marc moving over her, inside her. Not right now when she was too exhausted, too vulnerable, to know what the truth was, let alone face it.

Deciding to let it go for now so that she could maintain some semblance of sanity, Isa carried her overnight bag into her bedroom. She dropped it next to her dresser and then flopped face-first onto the bed.

She could barely breathe with her face buried in the mountain of pillows, but she didn't have the energy to so much as turn her head. It was five thirty in the morning and she had an early lecture at eight—the first of two back-to-back classes that she normally loved since it meant getting done early on Mondays and Wednesdays. At the moment, though, it seemed like torture to expect her to be showered, dressed and out of the house by seven. Not when she had barely slept in the past three days.

She could lay that at Marc's door, too, she told herself. Along with the soreness that came with using muscles long neglected and the love bites that kept popping up in new places, he was also responsible for Saturday's sleepless night, staring at the cracked and stained hotel ceiling. And God knew, Friday and Sunday nights were definitely his fault. The forty-five minute nap she'd gotten after he'd made love to her for hours didn't count as a good night's sleep.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket and, against her better judgment and the protests of her screaming muscles, she reached for it. Glanced at the text that had just come in. It was from him. Of course it was—who else would be texting her at five thirty on a Monday morning? On this very particular Monday morning.

Marc: Just wanted to say thank you again for making the trip to Canada.

That was it? Thank you for coming to Canada? She waited a few seconds, staring at the screen expectantly, hoping for another text to come in. Because surely that couldn't be it, right? Surely, he hadn't spent the better part of a six-hour plane trip taking her apart, orgasm by orgasm, only to send such a ridiculous text as follow-up?

Seriously, why even bother?

She waited another minute, her stomach clenching despite the fact that she told herself that it didn't matter. Over and over again. Until she almost believed it.

After all, what was he supposed to say? If she'd tried to text him, she wouldn't have a clue what to say—or how to refer to what had happened between them.

Not when there were no established parameters.

Not when the closest thing they had to a relationship had ended six years before.

She'd just put the phone down on the bed next to her—and reburied her face in the pillows—when the damn thing buzzed three more times in quick succession.

Marc: I'll see you at Bijoux headquarters at noon today.

Marc: That is, if we're still on?

Marc: Also, I had a really nice time. Hope you did, too.

A nice time
? He'd had
a nice time
? What the hell was that supposed to mean? A trip to the park was a nice time. Going to a movie with a friend was
a nice time
. Totally fabulous, completely toe-curling, absolutely mind-blowing sex was
not
a nice time. It wasn't close to being a nice time. And while she'd already established that she didn't know what it
was
, she definitely knew what it wasn't. And it simply was not a nice time.

Shouldn't Marc know better than to call it that? Especially if he wanted more fabulous, toe-curling, mind-blowing sex in the near future. Which, judging by the way he'd kissed her goodbye, he absolutely did. Although why he'd want sex with her when it was merely “nice,” Isa didn't know.

She debated answering him, debated sending him a text that was as innocuous and insipid and soul-crushing as the ones he'd just sent her. She could tell him what a “nice time” she'd had, as well. Might even mention how much she'd enjoyed the seven orgasms—not that she'd been counting—that he'd given her. She could even say that she looked forward to running into him sometime at GIA. That would certainly get her point across.

But in the end, she did none of those things, because the truth was, she didn't have it in her to play games with him. She never had—she just wasn't the kind of person who enjoyed dangling a guy on a line simply to watch him squirm. It was why she and Marc had done so well together in the time they'd been a couple. He'd never been interested in artifice, either, had always been a straight shooter. Or at least until now. Until he'd sent her a text that said he hoped she'd had a nice time.

As if.

Though she'd originally flopped into bed with the hopes of catching an hour of sleep before going to work, she was now way too wound up to even think about sleeping. Her brain whirred at a hundred miles a minute as she tried to figure out just how big a mistake she'd made in sleeping with Marc, not just for one night, but two.

So instead of taking a nap, or sending him a return text, or relaxing after what had been a mentally and physically grueling thirty-six hours, she forced herself to get up and go into the bathroom for a quick shower.

After drying her hair and putting on a quick swipe of mascara and lipstick, which was all the fuss and muss she had the energy for today, Isa settled herself at her kitchen table with her laptop and a cup of coffee. Once there, she pulled up all the known data she had on the diamonds coming out of Canada—including the composition of impurities from the different mines. And then she got to work.

Besides serial number and mine symbol, the impurities were the best way for a gemologist to determine where a diamond actually came from. For example, African diamonds had impurities that were made of certain kinds of sulfides while Russian diamonds had impurities made largely of nitrogen. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you looked at it, Canadian diamonds had neither—and very few impurities in general when compared to other diamonds in the world. This was good for the Canadian mine owners, because while the diamonds coming out of Canada only accounted for about three percent of the bulk sales of diamonds worldwide, they also accounted for over eleven percent of the revenue. This was due to their exceptionally high quality and low level of inclusions.

Which was very nice for Bijoux and all of the other companies with mines in Canada, but it certainly was a pain for gemologists trying to prove definitively that a diamond came from any of those mines. Which wasn't to say that it couldn't be done. It could. Just not in the normal way used to identify most diamonds.