Say My Name (19 page)

When I’m almost done with the buttons, he pulls back, remov ing his mouth from my breast and forcing me to bite back a whimper of protest.

“Don’t fight it, princess,” he says. “I see it on your face, in the flush of your skin. Even in your eyes, that you’re trying to keep so cool and hard. Don’t you know that I see what you want? That I feel what you need?”

My traitorous body aches with the desire for him to touch me, and I can only stand there frozen, unable and unwilling to give in to his games.

“Go ahead,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “Touch yourself. Show me how you like it. Show me exactly how to put my hands on you.”

I shake my head. “Jackson. No.”

“My rules, princess, remember?” He reaches for the dress and eases me out of it. He tosses it backward so that it lands on the couch. And there I stand, clad only in the sexy underwear and fuck-me red heels.

“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he says, and there’s such honest arousal in his voice that I’m overcome with a sense of déjà vu. I’ve stood like this before. Dressed like this—or, rather, undressed like this. Hot and wet and wanting, and Jackson’s eyes on me, so full of desire that I could drown in them.

But that night I’d wanted everything he had to give—and I hadn’t been afraid. Not then. The fear had come later.

Tonight—god help me—I want it, too. And that scares me to death.

“Go ahead, princess,” he says, lifting my hand and placing my palm against my stomach. “I want to watch you melt.”

I meet his eyes, expecting to see heat. But all I see is the mask of a man holding tight to his emotions.

Fuck that—if he’s going to force me to play, then I’m going to play to win.

“Is this what you want?” I ask, sliding my hand up to my breast and finding the nipple that he just abandoned. I close my hand over my breast, squeezing and teasing, then so slowly it is almost painful I trace my fingertip over my tight areola. “Or maybe this?” I ask as I roll my nipple between my thumb and forefinger. I suck in air, more turned on by my performance than I’d intended to be, but I see the flicker of heat in his eyes.

Touchdown.

“Do you like to watch, Jackson?” I slide my other hand down my belly, all the way to the elastic band of the tiny thong panties and the little triangle of lace that barely covers my sex. Then lower and lower still. “Or do you want more? Is that it, Jackson? Do you want to touch me? Do you want to fuck me?”

I see the way the muscle in his jaw clenches. I watch his throat move as he swallows. And I wallow in the pleasure of my victory.

“Do you know how wet I am? How good I feel?” My words are not a lie. Despite the situation—hell, maybe because of it—my body is traitorously aroused, and as I stroke my clit, I can’t deny the simple reality that I am all the more turned on because I know that he is watching me.

I tell myself that’s okay. The only goal here is to keep the upper hand. If I can manage an orgasm in the process, well, I’ll just call that a perk.

I keep my eyes on him, watching his face and relishing the tightness in his jaw that signals he is fighting for control.
Good
, I think as I shamelessly stroke my sex.
I want him on edge. I want him off kilter.

I close my eyes, telling myself to go with it. To push the envelope. To push
him.

But then his hand closes around my wrist. And when I open my eyes, he is right there—right in front of me.

“No,” he says, and there is steel in his voice. “That orgasm belongs to me, baby.”

And just like that, he’s turned the tables on me again.

Fine.
I’ll turn them back. “Does it?” I say, then reach over and cup his cock. “Then this belongs to me.”

He laughs as he takes a step back, breaking contact. “You think you’re the one in control? Think again, princess.”

I meet his eyes and see that he has known all along what I have just fully figured out. That I do not have the upper hand. That I never did. And that so long as we are playing this game, Jackson is setting the rules.

“No touching,” he says. “Not unless it’s me touching you. But don’t worry,” he adds as he strokes a finger up my bare belly and over the curve of my breast. “I intend to do a lot of touching.”

His hands are like a live wire sending sparks of electricity to crackle over my tender skin, and despite myself I let my head tilt back and close my eyes to this onslaught of pleasure.

“So damn beautiful,” he murmurs as his hands touch and stroke and tease and caress. “I wonder,” he says, as he cups my sex. “Do you still taste as good as you look?” He drops to his knees, his hands on my hips, then very gently kisses the juncture of my thigh. I whimper, expecting his mouth on my sex, but he teases me by sliding a fingertip under the thong to find me hot and wet and so very ready. “Oh, yes,” he says. “I think you like this.”

He torments me with his finger, sliding it over my sensitive flesh, then thrusting inside me while my body clenches tight around him, wanting so much more than that simple, complicated, wonderful touch.

When he withdraws, he stands, then traces the finger he’d penetrated me with over my lips. “Suck,” he demands, and I do eagerly, tasting my own arousal and watching the reflection of his in his eyes.

After a moment, he withdraws his finger, then takes my hand. He leads me toward the couch, only to pause by the coffee table. I’m confused at first, and then I realize that he has seen the photographs that litter the tabletop.

I wince, because those are a secret that I am not ready to share.

He releases my hand, then goes to the table. He looks down at the spray of photos that I’d left lying there, then reaches down to pick up several. “Who took this?” he asks, holding up a photograph of the Union Bank building in Las Vegas.

I consider lying, but the photo is important to me, and I do not want to deny it.

“I did.” I meet his eyes, mine defiant.

“When?”

I don’t bother to answer; the picture says it all.

“You were at the grand opening?”

“I was in Vegas for work.” That was a lie. I was in Vegas for the grand opening.

His eyes linger on me long enough that I think he has seen the lie. Then he holds up the photo of the Winn Building. “This one?”

“I go to New York with Damien all the time. And photography is a hobby. I think I mentioned that back in Atlanta. Or had you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten a thing about Atlanta.” His voice is low and steady and his eyes never stray from mine. “Not a single moment.”

I say nothing, but my mouth has gone strangely dry.

“Why?” he asks. “There must be more than a dozen pictures of my buildings on that table. I want to know why.”

“I told you why in Atlanta. I like architecture.”

“I want the truth, Sylvia.”

My name sounds soft on his lips, and I sag a bit, losing some of my defiance. “Maybe I misstated reality a little when I said I didn’t follow your career.”

He cocks his head. “You took all these pictures? Of dozens of my buildings?”

“I like architecture,” I say again.

He returns to the table and pulls out a few of the photos that sit inside the open box. The first are additional shots of Jackson Steele buildings. But under that, he finds my house photos.

He pulls out one, two, eight, a dozen. After he’s spread them on the table, he turns to me again. “I know you like architecture,” he says with more than a little irony in his voice. “But I never saw you as going fangirl over residential buildings.”

“I like to look at houses.” I shrug, because there really is no more to say.

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” I snap. I go to the coffee table and gather them up—small cottages, large mansions, log cabins, adobe pueblos. Some in fancy neighborhoods, some in gangland. Some in places like Brentwood where I grew up.

I toss them all back inside the box.

“Why?” he asks again, this time more gently.

“I don’t know.” It’s only half a lie. I have done this for years—even back when I was a child I would walk the neighborhood with a disposable camera—and I can sit for hours staring at a house, making up stories about the people who live behind the walls. In college, I took photography classes and spent almost all my time shooting houses. Now, it is both an obsession and a passion.

But I tell none of that to Jackson, and I still don’t answer his question. But the truth is, I don’t know why. Because I’m not sure what I expect to find when I look through the lens. All I know is that I haven’t found it yet.

For a moment Jackson says nothing, he simply looks at me. Then he picks my dress up off the couch and hands it to me. “Put it on.”

“But—” I’m not sure why I’m protesting, I only know that I’m confused.

“It’s well after eight,” he says, though his voice sounds tired enough that it could be after midnight. “I think it’s time I take you to dinner.”

Jackson has my skirt unbuttoned and his hand on my thigh when the waitress pushes open the sliding paper partition to enter the small, private booth.

As she does, Jackson leans over and kisses my ear, at the same time whispering, “Quiet.”

At first I don’t understand what he means, but then his hand slides north and his fingers find my thong. I freeze, terrified that he is going to do exactly what I know he’s going to do. And yet even as I’m fervently wishing that I could slide over to the next colored cushion, some tiny treacherous part of me wants what he is offering. A forbidden touch. A secret pleasure.

Good god, what the hell am I thinking?

I start to squirm away in protest, but he catches my eye and shakes his head just slightly as the kimono-clad waitress bows, then kneels carefully on the far side of the table from us. As she places the decorative tray of sushi and sashimi in front of us, Jackson’s finger slides under the lace to tease and play with me.

We are sitting on a backless bench of cushions that is directly on the floor, our feet descending into the sunken area which holds the table in this high-end, Beverly Hills sushi restaurant.

It is the kind of place where executives broker million-dollar deals. It is not the kind of place that hides lust and passion in dark corners while the rest of the world looks away.

And yet there is Jackson, gently stroking my clit as the waitress refills our sake.

And there is me, biting my lower lip, my cheeks surely burning, as I try to sit completely still as tremors of pleasure burst through my body.

Whether I should be or not, I cannot deny that I am wet—so desperately wet. And that right then I am craving more.

Jackson does not disappoint, and as he slides his finger inside me, I swallow a small sound of surprise and pleasure, then close my hands tight around the edges of the table.

The waitress’s smile never wavers as she takes our empty soup bowls, stands, and leaves silently with another small bow at the door.

“Jackson!” There is something like panic in my voice as I whisper his name.

“Tell me more,” he says. “What did Galway say when you told him Stark wanted to buy the island?”

When we’d arrived at the restaurant, I hadn’t known what to expect. Jackson’s mood had shifted in the apartment, going from heated demand to practiced politeness, as if we were a couple out on a first date, each being slightly careful around the other.

His choice of restaurant had surprised me as well. We’d never gone out for sushi in Atlanta, but I’d mentioned once that it’s my favorite food. I considered asking if he’d come here on purpose, but the truth is I wanted to believe it had been intentional, and didn’t want to know if coming here had been little more than a coincidence.

He’d insisted that we sit next to each other, and so we’d both taken a colored cushion on the side of the table facing the sliding door. I kept anticipating his touch, and yet there was none. Instead, he was practiced politeness, asking me about where I’d traveled with the company, what I did as Stark’s assistant, even how I came to be the project manager for The Resort at Cortez.

And the entire time I was going a little bit nuts. He wasn’t touching me at all. He was a perfect gentleman. This was, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly lovely date.

It was what I’d told myself I wanted—to have Jackson back off from his ridiculous game. To simply work with him and not get my head and my emotions all twisted up.

And yet …

And yet there I was, my body primed, my heart skittering with every movement and casual brush of his hand as I wondered if, maybe, he was finally going to touch me.

Nor did it help that I was certain that Jackson was intentionally tormenting me. And yet I had no proof whatsoever. His conversation was smooth, his manner polite.

And even so, he was slowly and methodically driving me crazy.

“So you got the idea for the resort from nothing more than a newspaper article?” he asked.

I don’t remember answering, but I must have, because I remember distinctly that he put his hand on my thigh and started unbuttoning my dress while I was telling him about how Damien blew off his tax-planning meeting.

I froze, the words stumbling over my tongue. I had the ridiculous urge to scoot away, but damn me, hadn’t I been craving this very thing, despite all my good sense and judgment?

So I stayed, and I talked, and I was talking still when the waitress came in, and I realized that was what Jackson had planned all along. Not simply the touch, but a forbidden one.

Not simply desire, but the need to fight it. To hide it.

And goddamn him, I couldn’t deny the fact that the secret pleasure made the sensation of his finger playing with me, fucking me, that much more incredible.

“Galway,” Jackson urges now as his finger strokes small circles on my clit, making my head spin and my thoughts scatter.

“Jackson, I—”

“Tell me,” he repeats, and so I do. I tell him about the phone call and Galway’s laughter when he thinks that Damien is joking, then his surprise when he learns that Damien really does want to acquire the island.

“Stark sounds like a man who gets what he wants,” Jackson says.