Lora Leigh - Shameless

His hands itched. They fucking itched to feel the soft, sweet flesh of her well-rounded ass burning beneath them. Damn her, he had never, ever wanted to possess anything as desperately as he wanted to possess Courtney now.

“You know what this club is, Courtney.” He crossed his arms over his chest, fighting to instill derision, censure in his voice. “How would your father feel if he saw you here?”

“How many times has he visited?” She smiled knowingly. “I know my parent’s lifestyle, Ian. Just as I know my father is indeed a member of your very elite establishment. As I have already explained to you, I am not a child.”

“You are not a member of this club,” he snapped then. “Members only, Courtney, for a reason. Now get your ass out of here.”

“So, how does one go about receiving membership?” She seemed to ignore the harshness of his voice. Even her eyes hadn’t dimmed, nor sparkled with pain or anger. As though the cruel words hadn’t even registered. “I will assume some of your women are allowed in here?”

“Our women.” He smiled tightly. “You do not belong to any man here. You are exempt.”

Her eyes narrowed, though the smile that tipped her lips was almost frightening. Knowing. As old and as knowledgeable as Eve herself. She licked her lips slowly, her gaze flickering around the room.

“Then I need a patron of sorts?” she asked softly. “I think that could be arranged.”

Like hell.

Touching her was the worst mistake possible, but every damned man in the room was ready to stand up and offer their services. His gaze hardened as he followed her look, warning them all. It didn’t sit well with any of them.

“Such force,” she murmured in amusement, aptly deciphering his look. “Very well, Ian. I’ll leave your very lovely club and return to the main portion of the house. It’s obvious I’ll find no entertainment here…” She paused before staring back at him, her look direct, determined. “But there are other places I’m certain I’ll be welcome.”

She moved around him slowly, obviously not in the least intimidated by either his anger or the tension pulsing between them. Sexual tension, so fucking hot his skin prickled with it.

He turned, watching her leave, the swish of her skirt just beneath the rounded globes of her ass, her luscious legs moving with an inborn, natural grace. She passed through the doorway, looking neither right nor left, nor glancing behind her. She knew every man in the room was watching her, she didn’t have to check to be certain. Finally, blessedly, Matthew closed the doors, leaving him to face the condemning stares of the men now watching him.

“Virgins are off-limits,” he snapped, reinforcing his past rule. “Especially this one. Most especially this one.”

“And what makes you so certain she’s a virgin?” The argument came from the one person he hadn’t expected to speak up.

Cole Andrews lounged lazily on the barstool, a drink cradled in his hand as he watched Ian closely.

“Does it matter?” he snapped.

Cole shrugged. “Not to me, but it might to the others.” He indicated the men now watching with single-minded focus. “The rules don’t give you a right to select the women they choose to share. Just because she’s the daughter of a friend doesn’t make her exempt.”

Ian clenched his fists, fighting the need pounding through him. Damn Cole to hell and back, he had no idea just how much Ian wished he could make her exempt.

“Her virginity makes her exempt,” he snarled, hating it, despising that veil of innocence that held him from her. If he were a lesser man, he would allow one of the others to have her, to bring her in, then take her. It would ease the lust, but not his conscience. He had known her too long, helped Dane protect her too many times. He wouldn’t be party to seeing that light inside her extinguished. Not him, and not those within this room.

“She’s not a virgin.” Cole’s confident conclusion had heat swirling through Ian’s body, pooling in his dick and torturing him with the demand that he go to her, fuck her, pound the hunger out of his system.

“And you know this how?” he snarled. “Should Tessa be making an appointment with her lawyer?”

Cole laughed. A low, amused sound that grated on Ian’s nerves.

“You’re a fool, Ian.” He shook his head slowly. “That girl is no more a virgin than Tess is. But you do what you want to. I’m sure, that as she said, she’ll find entertainment elsewhere. Beautiful women like that have no hardship finding what they need.”

He lifted his glass, tossing back the last of his drink as he rose from his stool and moved to leave the room.

“Too bad she only got aroused when you walked in the room,” he said as he passed Ian. “That’s one woman who shouldn’t be wasted on a cynical prick such as yourself. Maybe Tess can try her hand at matchmaking…”

Maybe Tess could try her hand at matchmaking…

He didn’t bloody well think so, Ian snarled silently as he stalked up the main staircase, turning down the hall to Courtney’s bedroom. The little vixen was pushing him, and she knew it, she was doing it deliberately. He wasn’t a fool. He had watched the subtle signs she had put off for the past week, the heat in her dark, sexy eyes, the way her body seemed to soften, and arousal flushed her face.

He could feel that same heat growing in his body, a hard, steady simmer that he feared would boil out of control with the least provocation. She had no idea what she was tempting. She couldn’t understand the sexuality that drove him, the need he had to dominate—sexually—any female he bedded. It wasn’t just a need, it was a hunger, a driving, lascivious greed he had no intention of denying himself.

He clenched his teeth at the thought of her, so small and rounded, screaming in pleasure and pain as he spread the perfect curves of her ass and watched his cock invade that sweet, tiny hole. Or holding her thighs wide, her mouth filled with his dick as he watched another take her, fill her. Sharing her, seeing pleasure suffuse her body as she was driven past any limits she could have imagined.

Damn her. He wouldn’t take her. Not him.

He deliberately chose women who knew well the games they were facing. Women with experience, who knew the trick to taking two men at once, or accepting the more depraved hungers that drove the men who inhabited the club he ran. Courtney couldn’t know, she couldn’t understand. The sweet innocence that glowed from some inner core and lit every cell of her body couldn’t have survived such wicked knowledge.

As he reached her door, he curled his lip at the thought of knocking. The hunger rushing through him fueling the anger of self-denial had him opening the panel forcibly and stepping into the room.

“Your entrances leave something to be desired, Ian.” She faced him, as pretty as an angel, all that beautiful dark hair flowing around her back and shoulders as she turned from the closet, a soft white jacket trailing from her fingers as she faced him in that siren’s outfit she wore.

Dear God, could anything be more tempting than all the bare, perfect flesh she was displaying?

Ian crossed his arms over his chest, fighting for control as he frowned down at her, using his most intimidating scowl as he fought to regulate his breathing. His cock was already a lost cause. It was fully engorged and throbbing in demand.

Her gaze flickered down, heated, glowed with hunger.

Son of a bitch.

“Stop tempting me, Courtney,” he snapped furiously, surprised at the roughness of his voice as he fought to keep from shaking her. “You don’t want what you’ll get.”

She propped a slender, graceful hand on her cocked hip, her eyes languorous, her cheeks flushed.