The Hook Page 7

  “I’m fucking lost in you.” Jerking softly into her now, Milo held her face, tasted her lips. “You’re so beautiful.”

  That word.

  Beautiful.

  As in compliant. As in available. As in pleasing.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” Peeling off her dress, she rose. Between them was a wet popping sound of his cock springing free of her tight channel. She pressed the expensive lace between her thighs to catch the drip of his semen from her pussy. “You might want to do the same.”

  He called her name, but she was already running to the staircase, running away, running so he wouldn’t see her tears.

  ***

  Dress soiled and tossed in a wastebasket, shower water cold, Izzie emerged from the en suite bathroom to light a fragrant oil and go to sleep.

  She’d scrubbed herself clean, physically and emotionally, and could use a few hours of nothingness.

  Abundant rain-spotted windows revealed a slightly tempestuous ocean shore and a sky that held an answerless darkness.

  She’d come to the Seychelles for anonymity and escape, so how had she ended up having raw sex with Milo Tarantino, of all men—the one man on Cora Island who knew her sordid history?

  Attraction. Greedy, destructive, inconvenient attraction.

  Another weakness. Another flaw.

  What could she do?

  Izzie shoved open window after window. Tangy, almost masculine oceanic scents of salty air and sand burst into the bedroom.

  Defying the rain-misted breeze, she raised her arms, closed her eyes and turned, twirled, spun. Reaching a point of dizziness where the bad shit didn’t exist, she laughed, sank down, and knew what she would do.

  Get over it. She wouldn’t let this mistake cancel her plans to better herself. She’d survive this misstep for no other reason than to make herself worthy of her love.

  Finger-combing her damp hair, she threw on undies and her favorite comic book hero T-shirt and meandered out to the hall to test her eavesdropping ears. There was no angry piano music, but she detected noise from the billboard-size television downstairs.

  Asleep, probably. Orgasms like the one he’d fired off could sap any man’s energy, and he, more than most, needed the release. He’d flooded her with his come.

  How did he sleep? she wondered. Bare-chested? On his side? With an arm flung over his eyes?

  Each question brought her a footstep closer to the staircase.

  “Forgot something?”

  Izzie froze, as stirring arousal melted her insides. Wet from the shower, Milo jogged up the stairs. In pants. Just pants. Great-fitting pants.

  The horny half of her brain instantly began devising strategies to remove those pants with her teeth. The other half prodded her to speak.

  “I thought you’d be asleep.”

  “Considered it, but my mind kept trying to imagine you naked.” Tugging something from his pocket, he said, “This didn’t exactly help.”

  A thong.

  Her thong.

  “It’s fucking me up, not knowing what your tits and your cunt look like,” he said, tracing the thong over the design on her shirt.

  Was she supposed to feel sorry for him? At least he’d come. She hadn’t.

  “Take this off.” Venturing forward, he cased her in. “Let me have something to remember, not imagine.”

  And let you call me “beautiful” again, when I’m anything but?

  “A look,” he coaxed. “Just let me have a look.”

  Izzie felt infused with…power. It intoxicated her, had her leading him to her suite. On her direction, he stood at the foot of her lavish bed.

  She climbed onto the white-linen topped mattress, pranced to the headboard, faced the trio of framed coral reef prints.

  Wind sighed against her skin as she drew the T-shirt over her head. “Just a look, you said.”

  “That’s one smokin’ ass.”

  She bent to remove her undies.

  “Your ass is red. Damn, it looks like this.”

  Peering over her shoulder, she saw him reach for the ravaged wine-and-chocolate basket and take the heart-shaped top off an empty champagne truffles box.

  “A Valentine’s heart?” A blurt of laughter gave way to a snort, and she winced. Decades of psychological reprogramming to modify her behavior and corral her less-than-appealing quirks hadn’t caught everything. On occasion she snorted “like a slaughterhouse animal” and let her “grotesque” double-jointed legs bow backward.

  “I hurt you?”

  “No,” she assured, slightly startled that he actually seemed to give a fuck that he might’ve hurt her. “I’m good. As good as champagne truffles.”

  An enticed groan. “Come here.”

  Straightening, she swung around slowly. Her body naked of clothes, her face naked of makeup, she was completely exposed. “Uh-uh.”

  He swaggered to one side of the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Izzie skipped out of his reach, giggling. “A look, remember?”

  “Now I want a kiss.” He crossed to the other side fast—faster than she might’ve predicted possible. She dashed, barely avoided his grasp.

  “Can’t catch me? Can’t kiss me,” she taunted. Only when he returned to the end of the bed did she prance her way back to the center of the headboard. “Mmm-mmm-mmm. I taste victory. It’s delicious.”

  A heartbeat of silence, then he lunged, clasped her ankles and yanked hard. Her squeak dissolved in a peal of laughter as her backside hit perfumed linen with an impact that made the mattress quiver.

  The laughter faded in their kiss. It demanded, threatened. Would their lives, their agendas, be intact when they left this bed?

  Get over it.

  Right. She’d be crazy to let the playful risk of this moment mean more than it should. Worse—let Milo mean more to her than he ever, ever should.

  But the craziest thing she could do right now was deny herself pleasure. Evidently Milo wasn’t denying himself—the scratch of his beard grazing her tits was proof of that.

  He wasn’t waiting for her to give him a kiss; he was taking it.

  Milo’s mouth tantalized her breasts, sucked at their tips. “What’s that you said about victory?”

  “I—I—” A moan escaped. She was a moaner and had absolutely no chance of hiding it from this man. “I said…?”

  “Mm-hmm. Think.”

  With his teeth scraping her nipples? Not likely. “Can’t.”

  “Yeah, you can.”

  Breathe now. Nothing to fake here. Nothing to rush.

  “Oh … Victory’s delicious.”

  Bringing her to the end of the bed, he spread her legs then parted her folds with his tongue. “Your pussy’s my victory,” he said, so serious, as he slid two large-knuckled fingers in deep.

  The graphic, naked words, combined with the authority of his touch and the thoroughness of his mouth, pinned her still and baited her to recognize what turned her on…turned her inside out.

  Her reaction to him was instinctual, as involuntary as a heartbeat. She clutched his head, but could neither push him away nor urge him closer. She wanted to watch him fuck her with his mouth, wanted to understand why a man who’d had so much taken away would be so giving.

  But when she raised herself up onto her elbows, he reached forward and pushed her down onto her back.

  Lie back.

  Close your eyes.

  Take.

  Goose bumps rose on her arms and her nipples tightened as a breath of wind brushed her. “Oh, shit, the windows. Shut the windows.”

  “Rain’s stopped.”

  So it had. When, she had no clue. “Shut them anyway. I told you before, I don’t perform for audiences.” She’d already played a risky game, wrapping her legs around him on the veranda.

  “No one is watching me eat your incredible pussy,” he reasoned, his words muffled against her clit.

  �
�Someone might hear me.”

  “Hear you?” Only then did he take his mouth away. “Hear you scream, maybe? You’re going to scream for me?”

  “Not if all these windows stay open. It’s up to you.”

  Milo’s response was to kiss the inside of her thigh, abrade her skin with his beard and nip her to draw a sharp gasp. “Hot, Izzie, but that wasn’t a scream. I’m going to get you to scream out these windows so the entire motherfucking island knows you’re being fucked right.”

  “That isn’t gonna happen.”

  “No?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  Then his hands were holding hers and her feet were pressing into his shoulders. She was shaking with need, but stuck in a battle of wills. Fighting him, she fought herself, too. Control or be controlled—she didn’t know which to choose.

  “I want the windows shut.” I think…

  He answered her demand with, “I want my tongue in you when you come, but nod if you want me to stop. Nod for me, all right, and I’ll stop right here and shut those windows. I’ll take my time about it, make sure they’re locked and everything’s nice and secure and private.”

  What if this intensity couldn’t be recaptured? Would he make her wait on purpose to punish her?

  “Or shake your head no if you don’t want me to stop. Shake your head and ride out every fucking moment of this.” He softly bit down on her clit, and she might’ve hit the damn floor if he wasn’t anchoring her to the bed. “Up to you.”

  When she shook her head, growled out the word no maybe a dozen times for good measure, he grunted a laugh then shattered her with the harshest orgasm she could remember.

  Breaking for him, screaming because she couldn’t resist, she let him hold her down as she let go.

  After her slow writhing and quieting moans revealed the last of the sensations were coasting through her, she felt herself being freed.

  Releasing her, striding across the room to the large windows, Milo said, “You want these closed, right?”

  “Before I screamed myself hoarse, yes,” she said, flipping onto her belly. The tingle on her thighs and pussy predicted whisker burn in her future.

  “Got a wet floor. Not as wet as you made those sheets, but still wet.”

  “Hey, Milo? Go fuck yourself.”

  “I’d rather fuck you.”

  Toeing a cashmere throw blanket off the end of the bed, she watched him mop it across the spray of rainwater. “You ignored me. Again.”

  “Sorry, Phillips. This one’s not on me. I gave you options. You got too caught up to give a damn about open windows and audiences.”

  “So is this how things work between us now? If I don’t immediately bend to your will, you’ll just fuck me until I do? You’ll control and manipulate me using sex?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “Yeah? Then how is this any different from my choice to withhold sex from Luca to get what I wanted?”

  “Izzie, don’t speak his goddamn name when you’re naked for me and I’ve got the taste of your cunt on my tongue.”

  She stiffened, alarmed by the harsh snap of fury in his voice. “How should I apologize—spread my legs for you again and let you fuck me to repentance?”

  “Are you suggesting that I angry-fuck you?”

  “I might be.”

  “Don’t see it happening. I’m going back to Vegas and you’re not.”

  “All the more reason for you to get yourself over here pronto.”

  Securing the last window, he returned to the bed, stretching out beside her. “I’m not exactly up to the challenge now.”

  Guys needed time to recharge. Guys with ED who resisted medical intervention and probably had too many demons keeping him up at night needed plenty of time. But those realities did nothing to disguise the manipulation she sensed. “Oh, so to get me to join you in the States, you’re bribing me with the promise of sex?”

  “I might be,” he said, throwing her words back at her with double the force.

  “My decision stands. I’m not getting on a plane with you. Can’t give up another week in paradise for fantastic sex.”

  “Fantastic sex is paradise. To some.”

  “To you?”

  “Tabitha was paradise.”

  More like a mirage, but Izzie wasn’t going to dwell on technicalities. “She’s back in your head. I’m not mad about it.”

  “You don’t have the right to be mad, after speaking my father’s name so soon after moaning mine.”

  “Don’t turn this on me.”

  Tabitha’s footprints were all over this man—not that it came as much of a shock. According to Izzie’s mother, who’d strived to be a perfect Christian wife to her perfectly imperfect husband, from Eve to Delilah to Jezebel, a woman’s betrayal could leave some nasty damage.

  She imagined love—the odd, complicated accessory it seemed to be—gave betrayal that extra something to make it slice deeper and hurt longer. Love, same as fidelity and loyalty, were risks the men in her reality refused to let weaken their journeys to glittering success and enviable power.

  “A person shouldn’t be your paradise,” she said.

  “What we had going—ah, damn, it was so good. My life was good when we were solid. When she left, the good went with her.”

  “I think she left hot on the heels of all that good you’re talking about. You were still in the NFL, the Villains was still a Tarantino-owned team, and your father was still someone you respected. When the tide turned, Tabitha turned.” Not willing to continue a discussion about a woman whose ambitions had once mirrored her own, Izzie sighed deeply into the covers. “I ate an illegal amount of chocolate, did naughty things with you on a piano bench, let you do very naughty things to me on this bed, and screamed sex noises out the windows. All that’s left is for you to roll me up in these super-fancy covers like a burrito and let me sleep through tomorrow.”

  Or hold me. Be different.

  The others had never held her. They’d called her beautiful and sent a car for her. Or they’d passed out, spent, and left her to shower and book it before they awoke or their wives found her.

  Milo’s arm came around her, her back was to his front, and she thought she might either cry because she so wanted to be held or freak out because this felt suspiciously like snuggling and she wasn’t supposed to be the kind to let her almost-stepson snuggle her after a night of total-mistake sex.

  She was the kind who ran like mad away from her mistakes.

  “I-I’m not a…a, uh, cuddler.” Stuttering, really? “What I mean is, we can stay like this for a few, but it’s not something I do regularly.” At least the words were out there. Awkward, but out there.

  “And I don’t stay the night,” he said, biting then kissing her shoulder. “But…”

  But he’d spent the night with her.

  What were they doing? What were they thinking? What was wrong with them?

  “I have a question,” he said.

  Add it to the pile, man. “Yeah?”

  “Why the Marvel shirt?”

  She giggled. “Oh, that. My daddy went off the deep end for that sort of thing before I was born. Graphic novels. Comic books. He took me to Comic-Con once, and we had the best time.” She liked to pretend he’d been her father—just Daddy, and not a monster—then. “He bought me the shirt. Much too large, but who cares?”

  “You got a thing for red capes or bat signals or webs?”

  “Okay, I did find Batman pretty damn intriguing. When I decided to dress up as him for Halloween, my mom suggested I be Batgirl or, even more appropriate, ‘Mrs.’ Batman.”

  “Not even Wonder Woman?”

  “God, no. She wasn’t enough of a lady, according to my mother. Utter bullshit.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Put on a Batman costume three Halloweens in a row.”

  His easy chuckle mingled with her giggles, and the blended sound
was strange. They didn’t laugh together. Tension and resentment and, yes, hatred, had taken up all the space between them.

  “Anyway,” she said after a while, “I was more into supernatural abilities than any specific superhero or supervillain. Not the standard flying ability or abnormal strength.”

  “I wouldn’t be against telekinesis,” he said. “What’d you want?”

  “Invisibility. I wanted to be invisible.” Her eyes slid closed. “Before I matured and learned to be comfy in front of the camera—too comfy, if you want to count how many times I’ve ended up on somebody’s gossip page—I dreamed about disappearing.”

  “From what?”

  “My looks.”

  “You’re beautiful. That beauty probably made your ride through life smoother than it could’ve been.”

  Wrong!

  Though few would cop to it, wealthy men, influential men, men with discriminating tastes saw her “beauty” as merchandise. She knew, because she’d cashed in on it far too many times.

  Feeling dirty, she lifted his arm, rolled away from him, and sat up. “You should get downstairs, give the sofa a chance. I’m going to shower—”

  “Again?”

  “Yes.” Relieved when he went to the door without another word, she added, “First one awake fixes coffee.”

  “Izzie—”

  “Good night, Milo.”

  “Good night.”

  She locked the door behind him. It had been one hell of a good night. Now she needed to figure out how to move on from her hottest mistake ever.

  But first, a shower. And another cleansing cry.

  Chapter Five

  Did forty minutes of drifting, skulking on the rickety edges of awareness, count as sleep? Lying on a sofa that was a few inches too short to be accommodating, his eyes closed, Milo had remained vigilantly connected to his surroundings during that time and in the quiet, sluggish hours that followed.

  He didn’t know what he waited for, didn’t legitimately expect his father to come banging on the door to do business with his ex. Had there been opportunities for Izzie to sneak a call to Luca and warn him off? Damn straight. It was entirely possible for her to be spread open for Milo one minute, then on the phone with his father the next.