Imminent Conquest (25 page)

"You got to open your legs,” Bryan said from between gritted teeth.

"Why?"

"Because I have to see your pussy and rub oil onto your clit."

She murmured something unintelligible but edged her thighs apart before she lifted her feet onto the edge of the table. And man, but did she give him a view of her pussy and her clit. Amazingly, her clitoris stretched towards him.

He tried to lift his hand to touch her but he froze as she poured oil over her slit, then with her index and middle fingers, she spread apart the folds of her labia and ran more amber liquid between them. “Oooh,” she moaned as she rocked her hips.

Bryan watched her orgasm. Juice seeped from her vagina. Man, but she was powerful stuff. He wasn't able to wait any longer. Stripping out of his coveralls and his briefs, he couldn't help thinking she had made him crazy with craving. Placing both hands on her waist, he scooted her slippery body towards him, closer to his engorged penis, which he stroked against her moist and slick opening.

He slid into her lubricated sheath easily and thrust, feeling his balls rock against her ass. She wrapped her legs around his hips, forcing him to bear down deeper. Moaning and writhing, she wiggled against him and pumped her hips in time with his fevered beat. He shut his eyes and threw his head back and growled as his climax overtook his tense nerve endings. His cum burst into her and she screamed his name as her vaginal muscles clenched around his shaft. The world stood still, hushed, paying homage to the afterglow of their delicious, satisfying lovemaking.

Batting his eyes open one by one, he gazed at the spot where they were joined, where his cock disappeared into her vagina.

"Oh,” she groaned. “This always happens. I'd do anything when I need a good fucking. I get carried away and then I have to clean up the mess."

He grinned. “If you roll over and tuck your knees against your chest so I can fuck you from behind, I'll help you clean up the mess."

"Like a medical exam, when the doctor sticks a speculum in your ass? Is that how you want me to bend my knees?"

"Perfect, Catty, perfect."

She turned over on her right side away from him. He smiled as he saw her ass with its peach-like roundness, but it was the treasure within he wanted and when he lifted her knee into the air, he exposed her clit, moist with their come. Placing his palm over her pussy, he stuck a finger in her, making her whimper.

"Move your finger faster,” she pleaded.

He felt her muscles tighten around his finger as he slid one out and replaced it with three. “Like this?"

"Hmm,” was all she said, moving her hips up and down over his hand. When her orgasm gripped her, he slipped his swelling cock into her. She screamed with delight as she thrust faster and her muscles tensed around him.

He stood observing her closed eyes feathered by silky lashes on flushed cheeks. “Do you know I've never quite had any woman like you before?"

She flashed her eyes open and gave him a slow smile. “I hope not. How many women have poured oil over their naked body and pussy while you watched?"

"Hell, not even the stripper went that far."

"You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because she would end up with a whole room of men fucking her brains out."

Bryan laughed. “That's very likely why the stripper didn't pour cooking oil on her breasts and her opening. That, and she would have to clean up the mess."

They both burst into laughter at the same time.

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Michael hit the send button on his cell phone and waited for Colin to answer in his usual gruff tone. The phone rang several times before his brother responded.

"I wanted to tell you where things stand,” Michael said without preamble.

"Go ahead,” Colin responded.

"Nicole's here with me. She needs a safe place until this thing with Brad is solved."

There was a slight hesitation on the other end. “You're going to save her hide when she sent your ass to prison?"

"Yes."

"You need to stick a knife in her chest for all the pain she caused you. Not treat her like some goddamn princess."

Michael didn't care for the petty words his brother used. He could no more kill Nicole than he could have murdered his father. “I don't care for the way you're talking, Nickie. I'm giving her some options. I'm letting her know she'll be safe until the cops find out who really killed Brad."

"Why not just give her up like you should?” Colin's voice was as hard as steel and as callous.

"If you do one thing to jeopardise Nicole's well-being, Colin, I won't ever forgive you."

"After all I've done for you."

Michael could picture his brother shaking his head. “You know we've been through a lot but why don't you take the plane and travel somewhere you've never been?” Michael kept a plane on standby in case he needed to travel for business purposes but rarely travelled for pleasure. He had wanted to stay close to Nicole.

"I'm already planning on going somewhere I've never been but it's nothing I want to share right now."

Nodding, Michael said, “That's fine. But I want you to understand how important Nicole is to me. If you interfere or compromise her in any way—"

Colin burst into raucous laughter that left the short hairs on the back of Michael's neck standing up.

He ignored the laugh. Colin usually didn't have much finesse. It was as if he had lost the manners he had been raised with. “I can't live without Nicole. Without her, there's not much point in holding on to this life."

"She shouldn't be your driving force, little brother, but if that's the way you want it, then why fight it?"

Michael's eyebrows notched up. His brother and he seemed to be talking at cross-purposes. “Just this morning you were shouting you didn't want her back in my life. What made you change your mind?” He gambled Colin would say Brad's death had changed the way he thought about his future sister-in-law.

"If you can't beat ‘em, bro, then join them.” Colin hung up, leaving graveyard silence on the other end.

Michael disconnected. What had happened to change his brother's mind? Whatever it was, it couldn't be pleasant. Colin didn't respond kindly to threats or intimidation and seemed disturbed over something this evening.

Shaking his head in consternation, Michael made a cup of chamomile tea for Nicole and opened a bottle of red wine for himself. When he got upstairs to his suite, the first thing he saw was Nicole lying unmoving on the floor. An unfamiliar face chattered away on the TV screen. He immediately suspected Nicole had turned on the TV to catch the late night news and she had probably seen she was on the cops’ most wanted list.

Hurriedly setting the tea and wine on an end table, he hurried to shut off the TV, before he knelt down beside her.

She looked up at him with frightened, doe-like eyes. “I couldn't feel my legs when I saw my face on the news."

"I don't want you turning the TV on. This whole affair is deeply upsetting to me, so I can only imagine what it's doing to you.” He lifted her in his arms, carried her to the bed and laid her down over the comforter.

"I didn't know what to think,” she whispered, astounded he had told her the truth, that he was willing to put his own freedom at risk to protect her innocence. She wouldn't allow him to do that.

He stroked her forehead with a gentle back and forth caress. The tension began to drain away. There was nothing to fear. He was with her, once again protecting her, taking care of her. Her breasts ached and swelled with desire for him. If she could have turned back the clocks to earlier this afternoon when she had caused him pain and trashed his car, she would have. But she couldn't. The knowledge saddened her. He hadn't deserved her spiteful behaviour.

"I'm sorry,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears.

"It's forgotten, sweetheart. There's no need to rehash or live through the past."

"But that was only this afternoon,” she objected. “And Brad, I can't get his face out of my mind. That he was in the trunk, that he was burning because of something I did.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “He didn't deserve that."

"I know he didn't but it wasn't your fault."

"He might have been alive. I could have done something different. Like not drive your car up there at all."

"Shh. Let's not talk about that right now."

She shook her head. “I want to talk about him. He's dead. He shouldn't be. I don't think he had any enemies. He wasn't much for going out. I wonder if his wife had something to do with his death?"

"I don't think so. She wouldn't have put him in my car."

"Who could do something like that? Why? Even after all the nasty words he said last night."

"He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who loses his cool. What happened?"

Nicole told him. “He couldn't believe you had sent those presents to the house. He hit the roof."

His fingers paused over her forehead. “I never sent them."

"Who would? I don't understand.” None of the facts in Brad's murder added up. “None of this makes any sense."

"I know it doesn't.” He resumed caressing her forehead as if he could erase the turmoil seething through her.

With his softly spoken words, Nicole came to the belated realisation that the hatred she had fed off for the last ten years was gone. She had apologised but what kind of words could possibly obliterate what she had done to Michael? Not all the words in the world, nor all the actions. She tried again. “I'm sorry for not believing in you, for not trusting you enough to know you couldn't have killed your father. I'm sorry for ruining your life."

Michael took her into his arms.

She didn't belong there. The dreams of wasted years gone by were nothing more than that. Only dreams that would never come to fruition.

"I'm sorry too,” he murmured near her ear. “That the past has eaten you from the inside out. But you must forgive yourself because, without that, my forgiveness is useless and you won't be able to heal."

She didn't want to heal. She wanted to bury herself away in a dark corner where the sun could never cast its bright rays on her again.

"Whoever killed Brad will also answer to me, first because whoever it was used my car, and second because he put the one I hold most precious in my life at risk of her freedom."

"You used ‘he'. Do you know who did it?” She felt more at peace resting her head against Michael's shoulder than she had felt in a very long time.

"I have no idea other than I may have made an enemy here in Eastwynd and he wants to get back at me for something."

"I can't imagine you could have enemies.” She remembered how his employees treated him with deference.

"Everyone makes enemies. But I'm also rich and I exercise a great deal of power. Someone just has it in for me."

"I can't believe that. You've done so much good for the community.” Just after Brad had been hired at Anessa, he had shared with her that Michael's secretary, Libby Tanner, had a son who had brain cancer. Brad had told her Michael had paid all the medical bills and also given Libby two months off to be with her son while he had chemo and recovered. Not only that, but Michael had acted as Anessa's secretary while she had been away. How many employers in this day and age would go to such lengths to care for their employees? Nicole couldn't think of any.

"Maybe it's someone who knows you were in prison,” she said, knowing how futile her suggestion was.

"Maybe. Sweetheart, until this mess is cleared up, I want you to stay with me."

"I can't.” How could she if she put him at risk? “If the cops are going to arrest me for driving your car, won't they arrest you for owning the car?” She pressed her fingers to the base of her throat. How could she spend even one minute in a jail cell if she was innocent?

She felt him shrug.

"You could go back to prison, simply for aiding and abetting a fugitive."

"I'm willing to take that risk. You need my help and I won't let them put you in jail for a murder you didn't commit."

She looked into his sapphire blue eyes. “How are you sure I didn't do it?"

"I am. You couldn't have taken another being's life. It's just not in you."

Nicole cringed inwardly as she placed her hand on his chest. His heart beat underneath her flesh. “Maybe it's payback time."

"I don't understand."

"You were innocent of the crime you were found guilty of and imprisoned for. I seem to be travelling down that same path, but I'd rather face going to prison for something I didn't do rather than get you arrested for trying to help me. You might go back to prison. I can't, I won't, allow it."

He tipped her chin up. Their eyes met. “I won't ever allow you to do that. This is not payback time."

"Maybe in God's eyes, it is."

He shook his head, even as he leant forward and touched her lips with his, and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, yearning to merge her body with his, if only this once. After she turned herself in, she might never again have a chance to please him. She wanted this last time with him since she wasn't deserving of his kindness, not when he faced the unpleasant possibility of going to prison again. For her sake.

The kiss was slow and passionate—everything she could have wished for. And more. His heart beat faster under her palm.

"Make love to me?” she whispered, hoping he wouldn't reject her.

His hands slid under her blouse and around her waist, trailing fire along her heated flesh. She didn't want to wait for him to undress her. She hastily unbuttoned her blouse and unfastened her bra. The scent of his musky, male arousal excited her, made her nipples turn into nubs. She heard him gulp.

"You're so beautiful."

She unbuttoned his shirt, running her fingers along the warm flannel as he unbuckled his belt. He grunted something and tore at her pants and panties. Warm air breezed over her naked flesh, but she no longer cared she was bared to his eyes. She felt all female and powerful as he scooted back and surveyed her breasts.